The Heights 09/11/2014

‘BARUP’

A TALL TASK

‘MOD OF CARDS’

METRO

SPORTS

SCENE

New app consolidates weekday bargoers, B10

The football team takes on No. 9 USC in primetime on Saturday, A8

Members of Exposure Productions talk plans to film their own BC version of ‘House of Cards,’ B1

HEIGHTS

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THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

established

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Thursday September 11, 2014

Vol. XCV, No. 28

JORDAN PENTALERI / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC

search for off-campus solutions

BY MARY ROSE FISSINGER Special Projects Editor Each year, during a three- or four-day period that bridges August and September, the Boston College campus is perhaps the busiest it is all year, with thousands of students, family members, and friends working to transform empty dorm rooms into homes for the year.

Across the street, a similar scene unfolds throughout the roads that populate the other side of Comm. Ave. Students—mostly juniors and transfer students—unload furniture, clothes, bedding, and decorations from their trunks and carry it all into their new apartment or house.

Despite the fact that this is happening off campus, there is a high probability that, like in an on-campus residence hall, these students—especially those living on streets such as Foster, South, Gerald Rd., Radnor Rd., or Kirkwood Rd.—are living with other BC students, next door to other BC students, and in rooms that have been inhabited by BC students for several years running. Neighborhoods like

this one, that have been slowly transformed into unofficial student housing for a nearby college or university, were dubbed “shadow campuses” by former Boston City Councillor Michael P. Ross. This term became the namesake for a three-part spotlight piece published by The Boston Globe this summer on the overcrowding and unsuitable conditions of many homes that house undergraduate students in the city.

The series identified BC as one of the schools whose students, because of high rent costs and occasional pressure from landlords, routinely disregard the city ordinance forbidding more than four undergraduate students to live together in one unit. Until the death of Boston University student Binland Lee in 2013 in a fire at her off-campus home, the city of Boston had traditionally disregarded the ordinance as well, rarely enforcing it.

“This city zoning code provision has been on the books for a long time, and the reality is all colleges and universi-

BC to offer ‘Superfan Zone’ to supplement Shea Field

BY CONNOR FARLEY News Editor This Saturday at the Boston College vs.

USC home football game, the BC athletic department is introducing a newly designated recreational area where students can gather prior to kickoff called the Superfan Zone.

Predicting that the game against USC will draw crowds too large for all students and pedestrians to tailgate on Shea Field, BC Athletics announced that the Superfan Zone will serve as an additional area to which students can go in the event that Shea Field reaches its capacity before the tailgating period ends. An exact number for Shea’s capacity has not been determined, but capacity is assessed by historical data and judgment from a combination

of BC police officials, event staff, and other athletic department administrators who staff the field on game days, according to Associate Athletic Director of the Flynn Fund Steve Novak.

In a proactive measure to retain students potentially denied entry to Shea, the Superfan Zone is scheduled to include a series of activities and complimentary prizes for students who purchased a Gold Pass.

“We’re trying to provide an alternative venue for those students who won’t have access to Shea Field,” said University Spokesman Jack Dunn. “[For] freshmen, sophomores, and others for whom the tailgating experience, the game experience is new … [they can] enjoy time before the

See Superfan Zone, A3

See Off-Campus Housing, A3 EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Students will now have additional on-campus space to congregate prior to kickoff.

Gold Pass uses app to offer rewards

University ranked No. 31 by ‘U.S. News’

BY JULIE ORENSTEIN Assoc. News Editor

BY CONNOR FARLEY News Editor

Concurrent with the start of the football season, the Boston College athletic department implemented new features to the Gold Pass—an athletic event ticketing mechanism available to students via their Boston College student IDs and now through a smartphone app.

At a price of $199, an increase from the 2013 price of $175, this year’s Gold Pass will include the same access to ticketed basketball, football, and hockey events, but now also incorporates rewards prizes for those who garner the most Gold Pass points.

In addition to access for high-demand games—or events with an expected turnout potentially too large to accommodate all students—Gold Pass holders who earn top spots on the Gold Pass point leaderboard will receive BC-specific prizes, such autographed memorabilia, athletic bobble-head figures, and panoramic photos.

This year’s most significant change, though, is the introduction of a smartphone app that students must use to record their

See Gold Pass, A3

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

BC retained its ranking from last year, ahead of NYU, Georgia Tech, and Univ. of Rochester.

Boston College retained its place as the No. 31 university in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual listing of top national universities, released on Tuesday.

The news magazine once again ranked Princeton as its top national university, followed by Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Stanford. Aside from Dartmouth College dropping from tied for 10th to 11th in the rankings, the entire top 10 on the best universities list remained the same from

last year.

University Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley noted that the ranking reflects BC’s continuous positive standing on the national stage.

“It is heartening to see that Boston College has been recognized once again

by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nation’s great universities,” Quigley told the Office of News and Public Affairs. “We are committed to providing a transformative education to those young men and women who chose to study at BC, and it is good to see our peers recognizing just how well we are doing.

“I congratulate our talented faculty and all members of the University community for their important contributions that have resulted in our maintaining our position in the top tier of national research universities.”

Schools ranking directly above to BC on the list include Tufts and Wake Forest tied at 27th, the University of Michigan at 29th, and the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill at 30th. New York University ranked 32nd just behind BC, as did the College of William and Mary and the University of Rochester at tied for

See University Ranking, A3

Panel rules in favor of BC in lawsuit over site name Domain name ‘bostoncollege.us’ deemed in violation of BC trademark, taken down in July

BY ANDREW SKARAS Heights Editor Over the summer, Boston College entered into arbitration over the use of the domain name bostoncollege.us.

According to the decision issued by the National Arbitration Forum (NAF)—a body that resolves disputes over the use of top-level domains—BC claimed

that the owner of the website violated BC’s trademark rights and used the name “Boston College” in bad faith.

That website, which has since been taken down, was set up to appear like a generic school in the Boston area, and it purported to offer programs such as associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees, as well as Ph.D.s. On July 3, the panel ruled in favor of BC and trans-

ferred ownership of the domain name to the University.

Although the complaint to NAF was only submitted on June 9, the General Counsel’s office was first notified of the website’s existence earlier in the year by Information Technology Services (ITS), according to Nora Field, deputy general counsel of BC. Before proceeding to arbitration, she said that BC’s external trademark counsel tried to contact the registered owner of the website, listed as a Mark Zuckerberg of Massachussetts, but that the phone number did

not function.

The University then turned to the NAF to resolve the dispute. In its June 9 filing to the NAF, BC asserted that the “bostoncollege.us” domain name was “confusingly similar to [BC’s] BOSTON COLLEGE mark,” that Zuckerberg had no “rights or legitimate interests in the domain name,” and that he “registered and used the domain name in bad faith.”

“It looked like a website that was set

See Website Arbitration, A3

MASS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 9/11 | 12 P.M. | O’NEILL PLAZA

EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

A memorial Mass of the Holy Spirit will be held in honor of longstanding University administrator Rev. William B. Neenan, S.J. today at noon in O’Neill Plaza. All classes between noon and 1:15 p.m. will be cancelled.

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things to do on campus this week

Join Campus Ministry and the Boston College community in celebrating the annual Mass of the Holy Spirit, held this year in honor of Rev. William Neenan, S.J., who passed away over the summer. The mass will be celebrated today at noon in O’Neill Plaza.

1

Thursday, September 11, 2014

A group of renowned scholars will join a Clough Center panel this evening at 6 p.m. to discuss the nature of the relationship between the arts and democracy and how both relate to human flourishing. The event will be held in Devlin 101.

2

First Year Academic Convocation will begin tonight at 6 p.m. on Linden Lane. Faculty, students, and their families will meet in Conte Forum at 7 p.m., and the ceremony will feature Dave Eggers, editor, educational activist, and author of The Circle.

The untold Panel stresses need for mental health dialogue stories

By Arielle Cedeno Heights Editor

Alex Gaynor National tragedy is a facet of the current era that seems to color the pages of every country’s story and identity with grief and pain. It goes without saying that most children of the college-aged generation remember exactly where they were on Sept. 11, 2001 and the events that followed that tragic day for the U.S. But what is often overlooked in the national discourse of memorializing are the many other acts of terrorism, war and violence, and tragedies that have occurred in the past and are continuously occurring right under our noses around the world.

Adopting a patriotic way of looking at tragedies that wrack the U.S. is integral in the healing process, but it could become detrimental if as a nation, we only choose to acknowledge the terrors that have been wrought on our own soil. On April 15, 2013, the day of the Boston Marathon bombings that undoubtedly struck a personal chord for many of us at Boston College, there were news reports of various car and suicide bombings in Iraq in a demonstration to terrorize the population and kill hundreds of innocent people, as well as destabilize the government. On that day, Boston grieved for its own wounded and deceased, and rightly so—tragedies that hit close to home illicit more attached and personal responses.

What would happen, though, if we as a nation, or at least as a BC community, took more time to honor the countless lives lost each day in some of the ongoing crises worldwide?

It’s common to read about outbreaks of violence, disease, and other global problems, but by the end of the week or month, they all seem to be old news. Are you still wondering what has been happening in the Syrian civil war that is currently in its third year?

Since it’s begun, Reuters estimates that over 150,000 people have been killed, and even more have been displaced from their homes. And what about the violence happening in Ukraine? With over 2,500 citizens dead, it hardly seems like a light affair that can be whisked away from the front-page headlines of our national mindset. There are also the countless untold stories of aggression against the Palestinians, the Afghanis, and a variety of other nations that have been torn apart by violence and oppression. Where are those memorials? Where are those headlines? Why doesn’t the U.S. give these tragedies the same type of honor that it has given to occurrences on national soil?

Patriotism and personal experience often take precedent, but isn’t there enough space in our hearts to let tragedies that have befallen our fellow nations affect us in a way that the incidents in our own nation do?

Perhaps this Sept. 11, we can take the time to honor not only the memory of our fallen fellow Americans but also our fallen brothers and sisters around the world who are continuously attacked with senseless acts of violence and aggression. By examining situations with a more cosmopolitan outlook, we could even begin to broach the idea of how to stop these types of events in the future and focus on healing as a global community.

Alex Gaynor is a senior staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at news@bcheights.com.

On Wednesday evening, the Boston College chapter of To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) hosted a panel on mental health, featuring a dialogue between students, professors, and professionals from University Counseling Services (UCS). The panel, hosted on World Suicide Prevention Day, was one of many events this week aimed at sparking conversation on campus about mental illness, as a part of National Suicide Prevention Week.

World Suicide Prevention Day was started collaboratively in 2003 by the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in an effort to gather the international community for awareness and dialogue on suicide, mental illnesses associated with suicide, and suicide prevention.

Conversation about suicide and mental illness is especially necessary, although often lacking on college campuses, said Cassidy Gallegos, TWLOHA BC president and LSOE ’16.

“To Write Love on Her Arms is a national nonprofit organization that aims to present hope and provide help for people that are struggling with addiction, depression, self-injury, and suicide,” Gallegos said. “Our mission is to spread the vision of this organization by starting a conversation about mental health on campus.”

The panel, in an effort to provoke this conversation, featured Christine Merkle, the assistant director of University Counseling Services; Joe Maimone, A&S ’16; Lauren Freise, A&S ’17; and special guest Olivia Reardon, who has spoke widely about her struggles with depression. The panelists spoke from personal experience about dealing with mental health issues or counseling others with mental health issues, and they

In a University Convocation marked by major changes at Boston College, University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., told faculty, staff, and administrators that BC will continue to meet challenges from outside and within.

The University entered this academic year with a number of changes in senior administration. David Quigley for the first time addressed the University as provost and dean of faculties, appointed by Leahy in June after serving since 2009 as dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. Rev. Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., filled Quigley’s position as interim dean of A&S.

7:16 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a traffic accident in the Comm.

Ave. Garage.

11:00 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a larceny from Stayer Hall.

Tuesday, Sept. 9 12:45 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility by ambulance.

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Emily Fahey / Heights editor

Panelists discussed their personal experiences with mental illness at Wednesday’s event, sponsored by TWLOHA BC. answered audience questions.

The panelists discussed the stigma associated with mental health and seeking mental health services on campus. “If you change the attitude, rhetoric, and perception of mental health on campus, that will help eliminate the stigma,” Reardon said. Reardon is a speaker for Families for Depression Awareness, a national nonprofit organization that seeks to help families cope with depression and bipolar disorder and prevent suicide. She uses her personal experiences with depression and mental illness to spread awareness and dispel the stigma surrounding mental illness.

“The first and most obvious way to eliminate stigma would be rhetoric—the words that you choose when discussing mental illness,” Reardon said. “Instead of saying ‘committed suicide,’ choose instead to say ‘death by suicide.’

The word ‘committed’ insinuates that the person has made a conscious decision, when often their mental state has prevented them from making a choice.”

Maimone shared part of his experience of being stigmatized on campus because of his mental illness.

“When I was struggling with

Patrick Keating addressed his colleagues for the last time as executive vice president—he announced over the summer that he would resign his post in December.

“We rely on the community, commitment, talent, and dedication of all of us,” Leahy said, according to The Boston College Chronicle. “I am confident we will meet [the challenge], renewing ourselves and our mission in the process. So, let us always strive to be beacons of faith and hope, and a light to the world.”

In the coming months, Leahy’s administration will have to fill some key top-level positions, including those of executive vice president, vice president for human resources, and director of the Church in the 21st Century.

POLICE BLOTTER Monday, Sept. 8

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depression last year, there were times when I would reach out to friends and hinted, or even directly told them, that I was depressed, Maimone said. “A lot of times the conversation would be met with pity, misunderstanding, and awkwardness.”

As a volunteer for the Trevor Project, a non-profit organization that focuses on suicide prevention among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth, Maimone has been exposed to the necessity of open dialogue between both parties.

“Giving people an open space to talk about their issues helps, in part, to diminish stigma,” he said.

“In that moment when someone reaches out to you, you are showing that you care, as opposed to avoiding the conversation.”

The statistics surrounding suicide and mental health disorders can also help destigmatize the issue. One in 10 college students has considered suicide, and suicide is the second leading cause of death among college-age students. One in four adults has dealt with a mental health disorder. Every 14 minutes someone in the U.S. dies by suicide.

“In order to help eliminate stigma, you just need to look at

the numbers, and really ingest them,” Freise said. “I think the stigma exists because people don’t realize how true it is that people deal with these issues on campus, and that people are scared to talk about it.”

The panel highlighted the numerous resources on campus available to those struggling with suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety, or any mental illness.

“If you are feeling suicidal, or if you know anyone feeling suicidal, it is important to know that there is help on this campus,” Merkle said. “When you have that gut feeling that something is wrong—whether it be with a friend, a roommate, a colleague—in many cases you are correct, and you should consult University Counseling Services.”

U CS prov ide s indiv idual counseling and psychotherapy, psychiatric services, crisis intervention, and consultation, among other services. UCS is located in the basement of Gasson and can be reached at (617) 552-3310. For psychological emergencies after office hours and on weekends, students can contact the Psychological Emergency Clinician at (617) 552-3227. n

Change, momentum at Univ. Convocation

By Nathan McGuire Asst. News Editor

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project is the first major new construction project of the University’s Institutional Master Plan. It will house 484 undergraduate students and will be the new site of Health Services.

Quigley, the University’s most senior academic administrator, discussed plans for the core curriculum renewal process. He said a task force will work with faculty and hold town-hall style events to acquire suggestions. The first event is planned for Oct. 15.

“I’m looking forward to working with our talented deans and faculty, and with colleagues from around this University, to continue our good work in 2014-2015,” Quigley said, according to The Boston College Chronicle. “I feel very lucky to have this opportunity, and I’m eager to get started." n

EDITORIAL RESOURCES News Tips Have a news tip or a good idea for a story? Call Connor Farley, News Editor, at (617) 552-0172, or email news@bcheights.com. For future events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the News Desk.

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Call Connor Mellas, Sports Editor, at (617) 552-0189, or email sports@ bcheights.com.

Arts Events For future arts events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the Arts Desk.Call John Wiley, Arts and Review Editor, at (617) 552-0515, or email arts@bcheights.com.

Clarifications / Corrections The Heights strives to provide its readers with complete, accurate, and balanced information. If you believe we have made a reporting error, have information that requires a clarification or correction, or questions about The Heights standards and practices, you may contact Eleanor Hildebrandt, Editor-inChief, at (617) 552-2223, or email eic@bcheights.com.

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9/8/14 - 9/9/14

10:01 a.m. - A report was filed regarding an incident of trespassing at Alumni Stadium.

11:08 a.m. - A report was filed regarding larceny from Lyons Hall.

10:34 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility from the Cushing Hall clinic.

Keating and Leahy both touched on the University’s financial situation. As of last month, Leahy said the Light the World campaign had raised $1.28 billion in donations and pledges. Keating said the University received a 13.4 percent return on its endowment for Fiscal Year 2014 and that it has benefited from a record fundraising year.

The Light the World campaign has supported $250 million for student financial aid and 26 endowed professorships.

Keating spoke about the University’s ongoing construction projects, including the renovation of St. Mary’s Hall, expected to be completed by the end of the semester, and construction of a new student residence hall at 2150 Commonwealth Ave., the site of what used to be More Hall. That

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—Source: The Boston College Police Department

arefavorite your topBC3 Dining most used emojis?

WhoWhat is your employee?

“Super smiley, kissy face, and the awkward face.”

—Mattie MautonJohnston, CSON ’18 “Kissy face, the tongue, and the blushing face.”

—Molly Anderson, A&S ’18

“Side smile, kissy face, and winky face.”

—Conor Powers, A&S ’18

“Winky face, praise hands, and the red heart.”

—Amanda Bieler, CSOM ’18

The Heights

Thursday, September 11, 2014

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University addresses city-wide concerns for off-campus students Off-Campus Housing, from A1

ties in Boston have tended to address it, but with the understanding that it may not always be adhered to because of the reality of the Boston student housing market,” said University Spokesman Jack Dunn.

That reality is a complex one, involving high rents, occasionally adversarial neighborhood-university relationships, students who have never rented a home before rushing to secure a coveted house, and a city that has historically failed to enforce its “No More Than Four” law.

Approximately 85 percent of each BC class receives three years of guaranteed oncampus housing. BC is unique among most other American universities in that nearly all of its seniors choose to live on campus.

As a result, students almost always elect to live off campus their junior year. Because several hundred juniors study abroad each semester, the final number of BC students living off campus at any given time usually falls between 1,200 and 1,300, according to George Arey, associate vice president of Student Affairs for Residential Life. These students can choose to go to the Office of Residential Life for assistance in the process of finding an off -ampus house or apartment, but many opt to contact realtors and look for locations on their own. Those who go through Residential Life are warned about the “No More Than Four” ordinance and strongly urged to comply. When students begin to talk with landlords, however, many realize that landlords are often indifferent to the law and willing to skirt it by having only four names on the lease.

“Landlords, we’re told by students, would encourage them to ignore the ordinance,” Dunn said. “That situation worsened in recent years as the cost of renting an apartment

in Boston raised dramatically, primarily because absentee landlords and investors were spending a million dollars to purchase a home in Brighton, and therefore to meet their mortgage obligation, they had to increase the rent. For students to afford the rent, they had to bring in more than four.”

Andrew Babbitt, A&S ’15, who lived off campus last year in a house on Gerald Rd., cited finances and an indifferent landlord as the reasons that he and his five housemates disregarded the law. “We ignored the four to a house rule simply because housing would have been too expensive had we obeyed it,” he said. “Also, our landlord was comfortable having up to six guys in the house, so there was no reason to abide by the policy.”

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09—who was inaugurated in January, succeeding Thomas Menino after 20 years in office—has vowed to reverse this trend of overcrowded and sometimes unsafe offcampus housing for students. Over the summer, the city amended a request it had made of colleges and universities months earlier to release the names and addresses of all students living off campus. BC, along with most other Boston schools, had declined, with BC citing privacy violations. A few months ago, however, the city adjusted its stance, and requested only the addresses and number of students living in each location, not the names. BC and all other Boston universities then complied, according to Vice President for Governmental and Community Affairs Thomas Keady.

This fall, when students were moving into off-campus residences, there was more evidence of the city’s concern for student housing, as City Hall officials were available on Comm. Ave. for residents who had concerns about their living conditions. City Hall’s Inspectional Services Department also

held a series of meetings over the summer with college and university representatives, as well as meetings with landlords, in order to identify problems and explore how to get students to comply with the “No More Than Four” rule. These meetings were evidence of a higher level of cooperation among universities and city officials than existed with the previous city administration, according to Keady.

This cooperation will also aid BC in accomplishing its long-term solution to the off-campus housing problem: meeting 100 percent of undergraduate housing demands on campus. The Globe’s spotlight piece faulted Boston colleges in general for admitting many more students than can be housed on their campuses. The city itself, however, has proved the largest obstacle to BC’s efforts to build more residence halls on campus. In the Master Plan that the city approved in 2009, BC pledged to be the first Boston college or university to house all of its undergraduates on campus. As BC moved forward on its plan and sought city approval for the individual projects, as is required, it was met with resistance by the previous mayoral administration on many of the plan’s elements, including the new residence hall that is currently under construction on the site of the recently demolished St. Thomas More Hall.

“While the BRA [Boston Redevelopment Authority] approved our Master Plan in 2009, we were not able to secure the permit for 2150 Commonwealth Ave. until this year,” Dunn said. “It showed how slow City Hall moved during the Menino administration.”

Since Walsh became mayor, the University has begun construction on 2150 Comm.

Ave., and is now in the process of securing a permit to convert 2000 Comm. Ave., cur-

rently an apartment building and the temporary residence of BC’s Jesuit community, into a residence hall as well.

“There’s a new spirit of cooperation not only at BC but amongst the new administration and colleges and universities throughout the city, because I think the mayor recognizes—and his administration recognizes—that higher ed is an economic engine for the city,” Keady said.

After the openings of 2150 and 2000 Comm. Ave., which are planned for fall 2016, Edmond’s Hall will be demolished.

There will be a net gain of about 240 beds, which is still not nearly enough to end the issue of overcrowded houses off campus. In the future, BC plans to construct additional residence halls on Shea Field, but those will not be completed for several years.

In the meantime, the Office of Residential Life has added staff and resources in order to help students looking to live off campus

emily fahey / Heights editor

Many Boston-area students living off campus reside in illegally overcrowded houses.

BC maintains ranking University Ranking, from A1 33rd, and Brandeis and Georgia Tech at tied for 35th.

U.S. News calculates its rankings based on 16 measures of academic excellence, each given a specific weight in the final score tabulation.

The two most heavily weighted measures are retention and undergraduate academic reputation, each factoring for 22.5 percent of an institution’s score.

Retention includes both freshmen retention rate and six-year graduation rates, while the undergraduate academic reputation is measured through surveys of top administrators at peer institutions and high school college counselors.

BC’s data, according to U.S. News, includes a 95 percent average freshman retention rate and a 91 percent six-year graduation rate.

Faculty resources are grouped into the next most important factor, weighing 20 percent of the score. This category includes class size, average faculty pay, student-faculty ratio, proportion of faculty who are full time, and the proportion of professors with the highest degrees in their field.

At BC, the student-faculty ratio is 13:1, while 51 percent of classes have fewer than 20 students and only seven

percent have 50 or more students.

Student selectivity, including admissions test scores, the percentage of the incoming class that was in the top 10 percent of their high school class, and acceptance rate accounts for 12.5 percent of the ranking. BC’s acceptance rate for the fall of 2013—the data used for the ranking—was 32.2 percent.

Ten percent of an institution’s score is based on financial resources, which embodies the average spending per student on “instruction, research, student services, and related educational expenditures,” according to U.S. News.

The final factors are graduation rate performance, which gauges the added value of a school’s policies and programs on its graduation rate, at 7.5 percent of the score, and the alumni giving rate at 5 percent.

In addition to its ranking on the list of national universities, BC was also recognized as the 37th best value school, which takes into account academic quality based on the university’s overall ranking and the net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of need-based financial aid.

For the 2013-14 academic year, 37.2 percent of BC students received grants based on financial need, and the average cost of attendance became $28,248 after receiving those grants. n

Website dispute settled Website Arbitration, from A1 up to defraud people because it was pretending to be a real school,” Field said.

“It had a phone number. It was pretending to offer online education.”

According to the NAF decision, Zuckerberg did not respond for the proceeding. The panel, composed of a single arbitrator, thus decided the proceeding “on the basis of [BC’s] undisputed representations.” The panel found in BC’s favor in all three accounts, first establishing that the “BOSTON COLLEGE” mark on “bostoncollege. us” was identical with that of BC’s. The panel also found that Zuckerberg had no legitimate interest in the domain name, as shown by the fact that he owned no trademarks similar to the website name, is not known by that name, and is not making a legitimate offering of goods and services. Lastly, the panel established that Zuckerberg was using the name in bad faith, by creating “the impression of endorsement by, or affiliation with, [BC],” and by attempting to collect personal information and payment without providing services.

Now, the bostoncollege.us redirects to the University’s website, bc.edu.

Field said that this was not the first instance of BC having a problem with its name on the Internet. It was the first time, however, that BC had to register a formal complaint for arbitration.

She cited a recent example of a man in Oregon who registered the site “bostoncollege.education” in an attempt to “cyber-squat,” but that he desisted when the General Counsel’s office informed him that it was illegal to do so.

She attributed part of the difficulty that BC encounters to the nature of the University’s name.

“We have a very challenging name to police because trademarks in general are supposed to be unique and novel and not descriptive or generic,” Field said. “We have a name that is a geographic place and a generic name, ‘college,’ and it is very difficult to prevent people—particularly people in other countries—from using our name.”

In the past, the University only learned of sites like these when ITS or alumni came across them, according to Field. Now, the University has signed up through The Trademark Clearinghouse to be notified any time that someone tries to register a website with a trademark owned by BC. n

make more informed decisions about where they live and from whom they rent.

“Due to a recent reorganization within the Division of Student Affairs, the off-campus housing program has been moved fully to Residential Life, and with that I think is a huge piece of an opportunity for us to address not only this issue, but the safety, the security, the good neighbor piece,” Arey said.

He hopes to formalize the Eagle Ambassador program, which designates off-campus students as leaders of their communities, as well as introduce technology that will allow students to see pictures and assess the quality of available spaces online. The goal is to make students informed consumers, capable of asking the right questions of realtors and landlords and signing a lease with full knowledge of what is in it—in short, to make BC students living off campus safe and smart inhabitants of the “shadow campus,” while it still exists. n

‘Superfan Zone’ slated for gameday emily fahey / Heights editor

BC Athletics is offering a new rewards system through its newly updated Gold Pass app.

Gold Pass introduces app Gold Pass App, from A1 attendance at Gold Pass events.

The app uses an electronic geo-fence that locates a user’s smartphone to determine his or her location. Once a student swipes in for a Gold Pass event, he or she must check in on their smartphone, which then uses the geofence technology to verify their presence at the event. Students who stay for the entire event are rewarded with additional points.

The app’s locating ability tracks a user’s time spent at the game by determining his or her positioning. If the geo-fence is broken, or when a venue is exited, the app will automatically record that user as having checked out of the game.

The development of the app comes as part of a revamped marketing strategy for the Gold Pass and a heightened focus on student ease and accessibility of attending BC athletic events. While students are now asked to check in via their smartphone for Gold Pass games, the app also allows users to see a continually updated event calendar, check their award eligibility, post directly to local social media via the app’s “Fan Cam” feature, and view rosters at any time. The app also uses push notifications to alert students of upcoming events and send check-in reminders when attending a game.

According to Laurel Carter, an assistant coach for the BC ski team and member of the marketing team responsible for structuring the Gold Pass system, attendance for basketball games has increased by 157 percent and hockey by 18 percent since the inception of the Gold Pass in 2013.

Carter also noted that—excluding Montserrat Coalition students, band members, spirit program students, and student athletes—84 percent of the available undergraduate student body has purchased a Gold Pass, more than 4,500 of whom had downloaded the app as of Sept. 9. The BC athletic department has also officially partnered with the Montserrat Coalition, and allots students within the program free Gold Passes for normal-demand games, while high-demand games are distributed through a lottery system.

Jamie DiLoreto, associate athletic director of External Operations, noted that the Gold Pass has not only increased attendance among students, but also how early those students arrive.

“Culturally, it’s just a change that’s happening, which is really good,” DiLoreto said.

DiLoreto also noted that most of the price increase was attributable to the incorporation

of a rewards system this year, along with an additional number of home games.

“Last year, we dropped [the price] dramatically because our big sensitivity was if people are only going to buy football in a transition year, how would they feel if all of a sudden [they] had to spend additional dollars—so that’s why they dropped it down to $175 for that year,” he said.

“We wanted to keep that price attractive, but also take some dollars and invest,” DiLoreto said. “The app costs dollars and the reward prizes cost dollars, the amount of marketing and support we’ve put behind this and manpower costs us dollars. So, I think what we want to do is take some of those dollars and invest, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Non-smartphone Gold Pass holders are still able to check in by using an iPad at a designated ticketing table at each event.

According to Carter, the app’s developer, SuperFanU, speculates that only about 1 to 5 percent of Gold Pass holders do not own a smartphone.

Another major change to the Gold Pass includes an increase in points awarded per game—a method of creating greater variation within the leaderboard. Whereas last year students earned single-digit point values per game, Gold Pass events now have an inflated point value at a minimum of 10 points.

“When we had the 1-2-3 system, it kind of locked it down where you couldn’t really go below one point, and now in this system we want to keep it so that’s it’s specifically attendance to athletic events,” Carter said.

While the app has seen success among students in recent weeks, DiLoreto said that the app still faces potential kinks when used under heavy electronic traffic, and must be kept open during the entirety of a user’s attendance at the game. If logged off or closed out of, the app will record a user as having checked out of an event, which may pose issues for those who stay for an entire event.

Carter and DiLoreto said that despite minor setbacks, the app has boosted attendance across events and that the athletic department will continue to examine and address the needs of Gold Pass users.

“I think what we want from the student body is what [students think] is working well and what do we need to continue to improve upon, because we’re still in a trial period with a new technology, with such a large audience—in a short, short window, coming through that game,” DiLoreto said. “Making sure that it’s working really, really well.” n

Superfan Zone, from A1 game with fellow students.”

The Superfan Zone is also slated to include free food, beverages, live music, tailgating games, photo opportunities with men’s hockey head coach Jerry York, and several gift giveaways for the first 500 students that arrive. Pending BC Athletics’ ability to update the Gold Pass app in time, Superfan Zones will also reward attendees with Gold Pass points. While an exact time is yet to be determined, the location of the Superfan Zone will occur in the concourse area of Gate A, likely between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m., according to Dunn.

The decision to introduce a new area for students was prompted back in 2012 during the home football game against Notre Dame, when students were turned away from Shea Field early during the designated tailgating period without advance warning, leaving them with few other areas to go. “[In 2012] we had the same problem with Notre Dame,” said Director of Athletics Brad Bates. “We had to shut it down very early, and that was my first year here, and we had a lot of angry students. We weren’t proactive in our communication.

This year, we’re trying to be proactive as well as implement the wristband rule so that we can get more students in if they have a relationship with the parkers.”

This year will also incorporate the use of wristbands as a screening mechanism for entering Shea once the field has reached its capacity.

In years past, any ticket holder—student or non-student—could enter Shea, but during unusually crowded games, additional tailgaters would be turned away once the field was determined to be at capacity.

Wristbands have now been distributed as an added-value measurement to those with a stake in tailgating spots on Shea, with 10 distributed per spot, as a way to ensure that a minimum number of tailgaters are reserved entry onto the field.

During the tailgating period, there will be two lanes open, adjacent to the third-base line of the baseball diamond on Shea Field on the paved-access road next to the Beacon St. garage—one for those with wristbands and one for those without, according to Novak.

“We have to forever be mindful of our obligation to protect the well-being of our students,” Dunn said. “So, limiting accessibility to Shea Field is part of our obligation to maintain student safety.” n

The Heights

A4

Editorials

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Gold Pass enters its sophomore year strong Boston College Athletics has instituted a number of changes to make the gameday experience better for students during the 2014-15 academic year, especially at home football games.

At the beginning of the summer, BC announced a new smartphone app for the Gold Pass, the ticketing program introduced last year that gives students access to every BC home game. The price increased in its second year from $175 to $199, but the package comes with an additional home football game, making the increase understandable.

The new app has been a success so far. As of Sept. 8, the app has been downloaded approximately 4,700 times.

Everything ran smoothly at the home opener against Pittsburgh last Friday.

The swiping issues from last year’s opener appear to be resolved, which is a major improvement for BC. Extra staffing at the gates helped forestall and resolve issues that cropped up at games last season. The athletic department has also accommodated students without smartphones by setting up iPad check-in tables near the gates.

Every indication has been given that the Gold Pass point system should work better this year with the new app and tweaks made from student feedback after the pilot year. Access to high demand hockey and basketball games, which is determined by Gold Pass points, will work through the app. Students now not only have the incentive to attend games, arrive early, and stay late so that they can get into the higher-profile events, but also an enticing list of rewards available at certain point totals.

Last year, student attendance tended to diminish as games progressed, as students would come to the event, swipe in to receive their Gold Pass points, and eventually leave before game’s end. In order to entice students to remain at the games for the duration, there are

Thursday, September 11, 2014

I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

-T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965), poet, essayist, publisher, and Nobel laureate in literature

now bonus points for students who stay until it is over. Students must check in via the app, which utilizes an electronic geo-fence that tracks when they are in the stadium. Leaving the stadium will cause the app to check the user out.

Although it is still too early to see the ramifications of this change, it will be interesting to watch what happens to attendance as the year progresses.

Outside of student-specific upgrades, BC has also done an admirable job improving the gameday experience as a whole. The new video boards in Alumni Stadium have been a long time coming.

This Saturday’s red bandanna-inspired uniforms, with special designs on the helmets, socks, cleats, and gloves, are a touching and appropriate tribute to BC hero Welles Crowther. Welles, the live bald eagle mascot, will also return for four home games this season, starting with the USC game on Saturday.

Additionally, the athletic department announced yesterday that, in anticipation of large crowds at Saturday’s game versus USC and the Oct. 18 game against Clemson, BC will be setting up a “Superfan Zone” that will offer entertainment and prize giveaways to student Gold Pass holders who may not be able to gain access to Shea Field after it reaches capacity. Considering the popularity of tailgating and other gameday celebrations, this is a smart move on BC’s part—hopefully the Superfan Zone will prove an effective way to enhance student spirit before high-demand games.

In fact, the real challenges that BC faces will come about when these high-demand games crop up, as well as special events like the Beanpot and postseason contests. The athletic department under director Brad Bates’ leadership has steadily improved how it accommodates students, and it has set itself on a path to continue those improvements this year.

Emily Devlin / Heights Illustration

Repairing the off-campus housing condition As the academic year wound down last May, The Boston Globe published a three-part investigative report on the condition of off-campus student housing in Boston. The investigation was sparked by the death in 2013 of Binland Lee, a student at Boston University living in the Allston neighborhood of Boston. Since the series’ publication, the city has made a concerted effort to force landlords to improve the living conditions in rental units across the city, so that renters have, at minimum, a safe and sanitary place to live.

The administration of Mayor Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09, has found that there is a particularly severe problem with overcrowding in these off-campus houses. In 2008, the city passed an ordinance—known as the “No More Than Four” rule—that limits the number of undergraduate students permitted to live in a single housing unit to four.

In order to enforce the rule more effectively, the city requested that all of the universities within its boundaries submit the information for all students living off campus. Boston College initially declined, citing federal student privacy laws which forbid the University from revealing where its off-campus students live. Although the city is working to protect student safety and trying to help students, it is reassuring that the University is also working to protect student privacy when trying to meet those goals. One’s home address is personal information, and it is understandable that some students might not want that

information to be made public.

The city did not, however, reach an impasse with BC and other schools over the issue—rather, the city modified its request, asking only for the addresses of all of the University’s off-campus students and the number of students in each residence, not their names as well.

BC complied with this more reasonable request—and hopefully the student body will benefit, as the city will be able to enforce safety and sanitation codes more effectively in the places where BC students live.

This year, the administration is also taking strides on its own to improve the off-campus housing experience for BC students. The Office of Residential Life has increased resources and staffing for off-campus housing programs this year to educate students who will be living off campus more thoroughly about their rights and responsibilities, according to George Arey, associate vice president of Student Affairs for Residential Life. The office is also creating an online forum that will host photographs of the available housing units, so that students can get a realistic picture of what they are leasing. With approximately 14 percent of the undergraduate student body living off campus, these are important and welcome efforts from the University. For both the University and the city, however, these minor fixes represent only the first steps to fix a multi-faceted problem that affects many different people—the students, the universities of the city, and the other residents of these neighborhoods.

The views expressed in the above editorials represent the official position of The Heights, as discussed and written by the

Editorial Board. A list of the members of the Editorial Board can be found at BCHeights. com/opinions.

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THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, September 11, 2014

A5

Global perspectives on national days Being prepared WILLIAM FLAUTT NUTELLA AND COFFEE CAKE - We had a coffee cake lying around our kitchen for the last few days.

It was unloved and uneaten. Then, one of our roommates had the brilliant idea to pull the Nutella out of the cabinet, and oh boy, did we go to town on that augmented coffee cake. It might be bad for your heart, but it sure is good for your soul.

WOULD YOU RATHER? - This has to be our new favorite game. It is possibly one of the easiest games to play—there’s no equipment required. It goes like this: would you rather have leg-sized fingers or finger-sized legs? Would you rather go the rest of your life without Internet or always have Nicholas Cage five feet away from you? The possibilities are endless and believe us, you learn quite a bit about the inner depths of your friends’ minds through this game.

SOBER GUIDELINES - Sometimes, it’s a good idea to set some parameters ahead of times. You know, for safety’s sake.

It has never been a terrible idea to approach kings of any variety with an air of caution. The Puritans knew this. Our founding fathers knew this. Those familiar with Budweiser’s advertising campaigns know this.

Developed countries in the 21st century that have maintained ancient lines of royal blood in their political system should be no exception to this public malaise. This first reaction is useful insofar as it produces a healthy and honest dialogue about the country in question that extends beyond the bygone threat of a totalitarian, divinely anointed leader usurping a democratic state and exploiting the peasants. This extension is a valid way to entertain the current political strife of Spain and address its place in American politics and government. If I may, I would like to de-capitalize “The Spanish Inquisition” and transform it into a friendlier, lower-case version, “the new spanish inquisition.” Let this new term refer to the current political question posed to the autonomous community of Catalonia and the federal government of Spain with regards to the independence of the former from the latter. Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition. The new spanish inquisition of Catalan succession, however, has been a long time coming.

Some background on the new spanish inquisition: Catalonia is a region of Spain nestled in the northeast, touching both the Pyrenees mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. It is home to one of the most well-known soccer clubs around the globe, FC Barcelona, famous characters such as Salvador Dali and Antoni Gaudi, and even its own Romance language, Catalan (not a dialect of Spanish, guys). Three hundred years ago, this semi-autonomous commune was

at the frontline of one of the many dynastic struggles that have swept across Europe over the years—The War of Spanish Succession, pitting the Habsburgs vs. the Bourbons.

What made this struggle even messier was the internal division of Catalonia itself—both monarchies had their fair share of patrons and enemies among the Catalan people.

On Sept. 11, 1714, that struggle ended in a Bourbon victory and resulted in the rapid repression of the Catalan people, their language, and their society under King Philip V’s decree, the Nueva Planta. Today, Sept. 11, 2014, 300 years later, in a mix of continued national pride and the somber remembrance of their decisive defeat and subsequent subjugation, over 400,000 residents of Catalonia have registered for and are planning to participate in an organized display of public dissidence by creating an impressive elevenkilometer human “V” along the contours of Barcelona’s two marque avenues: Diagonal and the Gran Via. The public discourse of the defeat, tyranny, and injustice experienced by the Catalan people has been revamped and rebranded in modern times of peace in support of the re-vindication of the Catalan state. Today’s planned demonstration is one of the new spanish inquisition’s many manifestations. Its history, often abbreviated and paraphrased by politicians to be more readily accessible to its people, has been used to further galvanize a democratic referendum to be held on this coming Nov. 9. Aye, there’s the rub. For in that vote of succession, what dreams may come are technically illegal under the current Spanish Constitution, a point that the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy made quite clear in recent public statements. “Doncs,” you might say, “com m’afecta?” That is a great question. People asking that question, however, tend to be Catalan and speak Catalan, so a better phrasing might be, “Why does this matter to me, a United States Citizen?”

That is still a great question, because besides occasional mention in study abroad stories, the dark, scary parts of Euro-zone economic

developments, and high school Spanish class, Spain tends not to make it into the American public discourse. The new spanish inquisition, however, has every right to be.

Sept. 11 will unquestionably remain a day of national reflection for Americans for quite some time. It remembers a day on which our nation was brought into a violent reckoning at the hands of passionate, destructive people. It was, in this sense, a type of inquisition. How does a nation react to violence and vulnerability? Does the extremity of dissent harbor at its center the grains of truth? The arms, branches, and leaves of questioning that stemmed from that seedy September day will only continue to grow.

Catalonia and the new spanish inquisition’s coincidence with our own national day of reckoning makes an empathetic leap between nations and people all the shorter of a distance. Nonetheless, a vibrant desire for Catalan independence will never be of utmost importance to the American people, just as American passions on this day will always fail to translate perfectly to the Catalan people. Our shared day offers the opportunity for solidarity between people who hold honest opinions, people who have been affected by forces greater than themselves, and people who believe in coming together as a nation to answer their own inquisitions. While days with profound national character such as these hold a valuable place within their respective countries, even these days can have another story. Sept. 11 in both Catalonia and the U.S. is just one example. It is easy to descend into patriotic fervor, because it is honest and heartfelt. To look past one’s own nation’s affairs to those of another—particularly on such an emotionally charged day—is difficult, because it requires initiative, a global vision, and empathy. This is the task, and it is a struggle. We may be one nation, but we are not the only one.

William Flautt is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

Where our education system fails BURNT PIZZA - Sometimes those parameters are ignored.

SCOOP-NECKS FOR MEN - Because we love seeing all that extra chest hair.

IPHONE PASSCODES - Come on, we get that you don’t want other people prying into your life, but we’re all trying to play songs at this party.

CALORIE COUNTING APPS - One of our roommates recently started using a calorie counting app. We learned this when we returned to our room the other day to find him scanning the barcode on his power bars. Come on, dude, Spring Break isn’t until March.

CELEBRIT Y DIVORCES - #MariahCarey #NickCannon #BrokenDreams FLOODING - The number of emails we receive on a given day is overwhelming. It is a deluge comparable to a combination of the flood unleashed by God to destroy the world and the downpour of Nemo.

Yeah, we get it—the scheduling conveniences that come with email cannot be denied. We can’t imagine tying to get everything we get done via email through the phone. You can’t call seven people at once, after all. But come on, give us a break. We want to sleep at some point.

THAT ONE RANDOM DUDE WHO PUT ON INTENSE DUBSTEP - We don’t want that here.

NO FLEX ZONE - We don’t want this either. Just let us flex if we want to.

CENSORSHIP - You wouldn’t believe the kinds of things that we would print here, if we were allowed to....

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SEAN MCGOWAN With every assessment of the world’s education programs, it seems that the U.S. falls further from its once-revered position as the intellectual center of the universe and into mediocrity. One such study, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), ranked the U.S. 17th out of 50 participating countries, behind Finland, South Korea, and Canada, among others.

The EIU conducted the study over the better part of a decade, taking into account a combination of international test scores, literacy rates, and graduation rates between 2006 and 2010. It did not, however, include the area in which the U.S has annihilated all competition—confidence.

From birth, recipients of an American education are acclimated into a climate of obdurate denial, taught to repudiate the metric system and to view the acquisition of a second language as a superfluous and menial task to be taken on later in life. As this attitude of passive superiority has come to pervade American classrooms, large blocks of legislation have been passed in order to sustain the illusion that our system is not broken.

Educational institutions are faced with more restrictions each year, both in the form of state-mandated standardized testing and various consequential accountability statutes, most famously the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind” legislation. Under such laws, states must set a universal standard to be met by all students and administer yearly tests in order to receive federal funding.

Students and teachers are left scrambling to get students a passing grade by any means necessary, often just barely succeeding.

Aside from the glaring fact that the system put in place by these laws has left millions of children behind, it sets dangerous precedents for the way we view the overall

goal of American education. By withholding federal funding for schools on the basis of state-created standardized assessments, the government has created an educational culture of the test. Whether a child is able to reach high school graduation as an educated and well-rounded individual has become secondary, at best (and forgotten, at worst), so long as he or she looks like one on paper.

In no area is this flaw more evident than in the various special education programs around the country, which have undergone their own processes of standardization over the course of the past decade. In a wave of what has been referred to by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center as “mainstreaming,” students with various disabilities spend a greater amount of time in the same classroom as their peers than ever before, engaging in the same low-grade clerical work and preparing for the same standardized assessments. All children are made to meet the same standards in math, science, and language, and they are placed on the same track for doing so, the only logical end to which seems to be a post as a college professor.

At no point in our history has the range of talent, interest, and learning ability in any particular classroom been more diverse.

More children attend school than ever before, and the tools for providing them with a comprehensive and individualized education have become exponentially more accessible with the advent of various technologies. And yet, our methods for educating students have grown broader, more regulated, and further streamlined.

Rather than modifying or supplementing the material taught to students with disabilities, teachers must prepare them for mandatory testing in subjects that have remained unchanged since the inception of public education in 19th-century industrial society.

While the means for doing so have improved, the question remains as to whether these tests have any benefit on the overall education of a student diagnosed with “special needs”—a term that has itself become more general over the years.

What was once an exclusive and relatively misunderstood group comprised of severely disabled children has become a much larger body of students at all levels of functionality. According to data collected by the EIU, the number of students diagnosed with disabilities and enrolled in special education programs increased by nearly 700,000 between 1993 and 2009—a jump of about 55 percent.

In that time, a standard group of modifications and accommodations has come about to aid these students in passing the federally mandated standardized tests that have become increasingly popular. Students are given extra time and access to computers in order to complete the tests, as well as readers and scribes to provide a more effective means of interacting with them. Rather than facing the problems with the material, we have found a way to cheat the system, moving children through material they have not internalized by way of an arbitrary passing grade.

Every hour a student with special needs spends preparing for and taking these standardized tests is one that he or she might have put to good use mastering the very skills that this system has absolved them of any obligation to acquire. Critical thinking, professional writing, and the expression of one’s own ideas are among the most important qualities in a potential employee for any position—yet, they are abandoned in favor of rote mechanics and test preparation. Thus, the current special educational system does a terrible disservice to its students, especially the 80 percent who enter directly into the workforce upon graduation.

Reforming our educational system must come with the realization that many children have neither the desire nor the ability to spend a life in academia. Rather than attempting to make it appear as if they do, administrators must strive for accomplishment through effectiveness and practicality, leaving behind statistical illusions of success.

Sean McGowan is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

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THE HEIGHTS

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The opinions and commentaries of the staff columnists and cartoonists appearing on this page represent the views of the author or artist of that particular piece, and not necessarily the views of The Heights. Any of the columnists and artists for the Opinions section of The Heights can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

VICTORIA MARICONTI Perhaps this is a symptom of being a senior—I have been preoccupied with the tension between the rhetoric of a liberal education and the impending realities of the working world. My orientation toward either pole has shifted in three distinct phases, the final of which presently holds me suspended in the middle. Throughout my first year, I was preoccupied with thoughts of the common success denominator(s). By that, I mean that I was at times distracted by what everyone else was doing, rather than wholeheartedly trusting my choices. In spite of the well-known statistics concerning pre-meds, it was difficult responding to “What’s your major?” after everyone else in the given group had identified as future doctors, lawyers, and researchers (it’s music, if you’re curious). These feelings were initially acceptable because I came to college—whether I knew it then or not—to learn a more loving self-regulation of my insecurities. That is why first-year students experience the thoughts and doubts of first-year students.

As a sophomore, I discovered that the bracing rhetoric of a liberal education could displace my anxieties over the future. Those of us in the humanities can fall too easily on the false pedestal of self-righteousness for refusing to take the soul-selling way out into corporate or scientific life. We, the faithful preservers of the English language, the last guard against the onslaught of STEM, are the tragically fated humanists of our day ... no thanks. This (albeit melodramatic) paradigm doesn’t serve.

It denies that any modern profession within ethical and legal reason can be the foundation of a fulfilling life.

Now, my late undergraduate self stands in the midst of the pressures to retain authentic morals while reading and reacting to the unstable playing field of the professional world. It is good for us to chart our lives based on doing what we love. At Boston College, however, I have learned that it is insufficient to do what we love without considering it in the context of the world’s needs. There is one word that captures the combination of authenticity and awareness: preparedness.

There are two types of preparedness that correspond to the realms of rhetoric and reality. The media prefers to comment upon professional preparedness, and there is lively debate over the ability of American universities to ready students for the current working world. The latest installment I have read comes from the Op-Ed page of The New York Times.

The author, Ben Carpenter, concludes that universities do not adequately prepare students, but his writing is based only on the statistics of graduates and employment ratings (a very important measurement of preparedness, I acknowledge). Carpenter proposes that the answer to unemployment is more rigorous—and mandatory—training for all undergraduates through their campus career services. Perhaps.

He does not acknowledge, however, the other—equally important—half of preparedness that students must cultivate.

The vast majority of career gurus, life coaches, successfully employed members of the media, and myriad other “adults” are all too eager to advise us on the right moves to develop a competitive skill set for our chosen fields. They can teach students how to do, but few can prepare students for will happen when they start to “do.” In inelegant terms, fewer students are equipped with the preparedness to socially, intellectually, and emotionally selfregulate when the cracks appear in the veneer of the professional life. To explain, I turn to words more capable than mine from David Foster Wallace: “And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let’s get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what ‘day in day out’ really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration.”

The thriving post-graduate life is not accessible simply by attending the right info sessions. I redirect you now to discover the rest of what David Foster Wallace recommends. For now, this is water, this is water, this is….

Victoria Mariconti is a staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

The Heights

A6

Even in futile situations, football can inspire hope

USC will attack on all fronts

From Column, A8

From USC, A8 think is full of great players, extremely strong in the box players, defensive linemen like Leonard Williams, who’s just one of the top defensive tackles in college football today,” Addazio said. “Other guys interiorly along with their linebackers, Hayes Pullard, just sensational players.

They were a great defense a year ago. They were in the top 20 in just about every category that existed and really formidable on defense. It will be a great, great challenge for us.”

On the other side of the ball, Javorius Allen rushed for 154 yards and averaged 6.7 yards a carry against Stanford’s defense. In two games, the junior’s amassed 287 yards and a touchdown on 45 attempts—BC struggled mightily to bring down James Conner against Pitt, and it remains to be seen how much the defense can improve in that respect in a week.

“It doesn’t matter what back you’re playing if you don’t tackle,” Addazio said.

“We didn’t tackle, and we spent a lot of time this week—that’s why we’re in full pads so much. We’re just tackling and tackling.”

BC is already well acquainted with USC quarterback Cody Kessler—he threw for 237 yards and two touchdowns in USC’s 35-7 shellacking of the Eagles last season.

Since locking down the starting job against

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Mark J. Terrill / AP Photo

Junior QB Cody Kessler torched BC with 237 yards and two passing touchdowns last year.

BC last year, Kessler’s only improved.

He’s also found a favorite target in the ultra-athletic, 6-foot-1, 190-pound junior wideout Nelson Agholor. In two games, Agholor’s recorded 148 yards and two touchdowns on 14 receptions. With BC’s secondary still struggling to defend the deep ball and big play, Agholor is a character straight out of defensive coordinator Don Brown’s nightmares, especially given his and Kessler’s propensity to link up on third down. “[Kessler’s] got a tremendous arm,” Addazio said. “He’s a tough guy. He’s been

in a lot of big games. They’re averaging 260 yards rushing, almost 280 yards passing, almost 500 yards per game in 32.5 points per game, so the quarterback is doing some great things.”

USC is going to attack BC on the ground and bombard the Eagles in the air. Looking to further their climb up the national rankings, the Trojans will try to put a nationally televised beatdown on BC. Most of the fellowship may have escaped Moria, but the Trojans are coming, and it’s unlikely BC can hold them back for long. n

Night Lights. At this point in the column, if you haven’t watched NBC’s finest drama, I suggest you put down the paper (or close the browser window) immediately, skip classes and any sort of food that can’t be found in proximity to your bed for the next few days, and watch the series in its entirety.

I’ve never had another pilot make me cry. Normally, you can’t feel nearly involved enough in a show that early on to have any sort of emotional stake in it. Every time I see Jason Street go in for that tackle, though, as that “Explosions In The Sky” song slows into its rhythm, and I know it isn’t going to end well, and the tears come before they even get a chance to show Jason lying there, unable to move his legs, his cheerleader girlfriend Lila in hysterics on the sideline.

It’s heartwrenching, and from that moment, the rational person inside of you knows that nothing good is going to come of Jason’s storyline for a very, very long time. The situation is hopeless. Jason is paralyzed, he’s going to be stuck in Dillon, and this show is just going to make you cry again if you keep watching, and everything sucks.

But for some reason—and I think for the same reason that people keep attending BC-USC football games—you keep watching.

I’ve been calling it irrationality, but another good word for the feeling is hope. So, hoping for the best, you follow Jason’s journey as he attempts to come to terms with his paralysis.

You know from the start that he’s never going to play football again, but somehow, as Explo-

sions In The Sky moves into its rhythm and Jason’s face contorts in concentration, you want so badly for him to get up that for a moment, your hope overcomes your rationality and you actually think, just for that fleeting moment, that he’ll be able to do it.

There are a lot of bad things that people can say about football. It’s violent, it creates massive egos, players get injured too often, the NCAA is too strict about this thing, the NFL is too lenient about that thing. Those things are true, and those with the means should be constantly working to overcome those flaws, but football can also inspire beautiful things on those moments of unadulterated hope and uncalculated irrationality.

As Street quivers on his hospital mattress and the team comes bursting from the tunnel, the game inspires a hope so strong that, just for a second, you let irrationality overtake you. You put aside your jadedness, your cynicism, and your doubt, and anything can happen. You know that Jason will not only walk again—he’ll play football.

But then the song fades and only a few notes trail on. Jason still can’t walk, nor will he ever, and his relationship with Lila can’t stand the test of such a trauma. Unless something absurd happens, BC will lose to USC. It’s the only rational conclusion that you can come to. At least as a fan, though, you’ll have your moment.

Marly Morgus is the Assoc. Sports Editor for The Heights. She can be reached at sports@bcheights.com

The Eagles seek a David vs. Goliath repeat against Trojans From Football, A8 case what this defense is about.”

The Eagles cannot just use a prevent defense to contain Agholor, however. Trojans starting running back Javorius Allen poses a huge threat for the Eagles on the ground as well. BC will need some big performances out of its experienced defenders to keep USC’s offense under wraps. Mehdi Abdesmad and Brian Mihalik will need to put pressure on Trojans quarterback Cody Kessler, while Josh Keyes and Steven Daniels will be called upon to keep USC from ripping off large chunks of yards on the ground. The secondary will be put to the test and has to stop the big plays, but the experienced group consists of Williams, Bryce Jones, Manny Asprilla, and Justin Simmons, none of whom will be overwhelmed by the bright lights on Saturday night.

Oftentimes in these matchups, it’s difficult to tell which team is under more pressure—after all, being a heavy favorite can be mentally exhausting, but for the underdog, the need to have a

near-perfect performance to stay close is just as weighty. The Eagles will need much-improved play from all facets of their team to give themselves a chance against the Trojans. The offensive line will need to open up running lanes that weren’t there against the Panthers, and Murphy will need to eliminate or limit his mistakes. The defensive line will need to create havoc on Trojans QB Cody Kessler, the linebackers may need to adjust to life without captain Sean Duggan, and the defensive backs will need to contain the deep ball. Special teams will need to execute to the point where head coach Steve Addazio can trust them on more than just chip-shot field goals. There was a sense of urgency in the air at Tuesday’s practice, but Williams believes the Eagles just need to execute on both sides of the ball, especially on defense.

Historically, it’s the theory of “Any Given Sunday.” But this Saturday night, when David comes out of that tunnel, slingshot in hand and facing Goliath, he’ll be hoping that the theory translates over to Saturday nights too. n

ROUND U p

BY ALEX FAIRCHILD | ASST. SPORTS EDITOR

Pandelena, Greenleaf lead men’s golf to win Nick Pandelena and Connor Greenleaf led a key weekend for the Boston College men’s golf team, as it started its fall campaign with a victory at the Central Connecticut State University Fall Invitational.

The team won the weekend by compiling a combined score of 562.

The Eagles beat out Hofstra University by 22 strokes, in addition to Iona College, and Sacred Heart University.

BC’s varsity B team finished the afternoon with a fifth-place finish with 591 strokes, missing out by one to the fourth-place Pioneers.

In the individual competition, Pandelena led the way for the Eagles along with teammate Greenleaf. The two shot a 138 at the two-day tournament, tying for the individual victory.

Despite bogeying the first hole of the tournament, Pandelena recovered with three birdies on the front nine, including ones on the par-5 fourth and eighth holes, which he also birdied in the second round.

Two birdies on the 11th and 13th holes on the back nine put the junior 2-under for the day, but he double bogeyed the par-4 14th and finished the day par for the course.

After learning from his mistakes on the first hole with a birdie on the

second day of competition, he birdied three of the same holes he did on the previous day to finish 2-under for the tournament.

Greenleaf did the opposite of Pandelena, finishing the first day 2under par. The freshman went on a tear through on the front nine, with four straight birdies. He bogeyed the seventh hole to end his impressive run, but made up for it by birdying the par-5 eighth.

Three bogeys outweighed his birdy on hole 14, though, and put him two strokes under par. Bereft of a hot streak on holes three through six, Greenleaf was consistent throughout the day, scoring even on 14 holes. A 141 turned in by freshman Patrick Hallisey, and 145 by senior John Jackopsic topped off the team’s weekend.

The team’s start to this season marks a far better start than its opener last season, in which the Eagles finished 10th out of 10 teams in the Collegiate Challenge Cup in Nashville.

BC struggled to get victories over the course of their year-long season and finished in last place at the ACC Tournament.

Jackopsic was the bright spot for the team in latter part of the season.

The senior was the Eagles’ top performer at the conference tournament, finishing in 21st place. n

Mark J. Terrill / AP Photo

Nelson Agholor (No. 15) is QB Cody Kessler’s favorite target and has racked up 14 receptions, 148 yards, and two touchdowns this season.

THE HEIGHTS

EDITORS’ EDITORS’PICKS PICKS

Thursday, September 11, 2014 The Week Ahead

Standings

The women’s soccer team continues its build-up to its ACC schedule when it plays Harvard University at Alumni Stadium on Friday afternoon. Men’s soccer takes on Clemson in its first conference clash of the year. No. 9 USC comes to town to face the football team on Saturday night, and Arsenal plays Manchester City in the Premier League.

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Game of the Week

Recap from Last Picks

CONNOR MELLAS

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ALEX FAIRCHILD

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HEIGHTS STAFF

5-3

MARLY MORGUS

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A 2-0 triumph over Quinnipiac gave men’s soccer its second victory of the season. Alison Foley’s women’s soccer team secured a fifth straight victory with a win over Illinois State. The football team was outplayed by Pittsburgh in a 30-20 defeat, and the Seattle Seahawks opened their NFL campaign by beating the Green Bay Packers.

Men’s Soccer

Boston vs.

Clemson College

Guest Editor: Michelle Tomassi Asst. Arts Editor

“Hey.” CONNOR MELLAS

This Week’s Games

Sports Editor

MARLY MORGUS Assoc. Sports Editor

ALEX FAIRCHILD Asst. Sports Editor

MICHELLE TOMASSI Asst. Arts Editor

Women’s Soccer: No. 19 BC vs. Harvard

BC

BC

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Men’s Soccer: BC vs. Clemson

BC

Clemson

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Man. City

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Football: BC vs. No. 9 USC EPL: Arsenal vs. Manchester City

Men’s soccer’s dynamic attacking trio of Zeiko Lewis, Isaac Normesinu, and Derrick Boateng will want to build on its strong run of form when it takes on Clemson Friday evening. The Eagles are coming off victories over Fordham, Quinnipiac, and Rhode Island, while the Tigers have dropped three straight matches to South Carolina, San Diego State, and UC Irvine. The Tigers’ offense has failed to produce more than a goal per game in its first four matches, and there is a battle between goalkeepers, as Andrew Tarbell and Chris Glodack have split minutes, with the latter starting the past two games.

Friday, 7 p.m.

POINT COUNTERPOINT

WILL THE FOOTBALL TEAM GET TO FIVE WINS? Five victories are in reach for BC

Pitt exposed the team’s major flaws

BY JOHN PUGH

BY LANDON KOMISHANE

For The Heights

The Eagles are facing some familiar opponents this fall in the 2014 football season.

The question is: will this be a winning season or a loss-filled blowout?

There are many tough matchups over the next few months, both within the ACC and outside of it. This year’s schedule also sees some less-than-worthy adversaries, however, and as a result, it doesn’t take an optimist to believe that this year will be another winning season for head coach Steve Addazio and the Boston College Eagles.

BC has already secured one win in its game against UMass and suffered one loss at the hands of Pitt, so, what about the rest of the season? With one win and one loss, the likelihood of a winning or losing season does not change much with the pre-recorded results, but the road will tip the scales.

The month of September sees three more games for the Eagles as they battle against the USC Trojans, the Maine Black Bears, and the Colorado State Rams. Despite their off-thefield woes in recent times, the Trojans are a major force to be reckoned with, ranked No. 9 in the country. Based on USC’s monster roster and BC’s beat-down loss last year in the Coliseum, it’s safe to say that a win for the Eagles this week is unlikely.

The next few games sing a different tune, however. With two home games against Maine and Colorado State, BC should have an easy time turning its projected 1-2 record into 3-2 by the end of the month. Of course, there is the possibility that one of those games is lost in some freak turn of events, and if that’s the case, there’s always the schedule’s next opponent: NC State.

The Wolfpack had an awful end to its season last year, finishing 3-9 (0-8 ACC), including a 21-38 loss to the Eagles. Despite BC’s massive changes both to the roster and overall strategy in the off-season, it’s a safe bet to assume another big win in Raleigh.

The second half of the season looks a bit harder, with BC facing heavily favored foes like Clemson, Louisville, and Florida State (don’t count on a two-touchdown game like last year). Intermingled in these overwhelming matchups are games against Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, and Syracuse.

BC played all three of these teams last season, beating Wake and Tech and suffering one shocking loss to Syracuse during Thanksgiving Break. Despite that loss last year, Syracuse shouldn’t be too difficult of a matchup this year—the same goes for Wake Forest and Virginia Tech.

It is within reason to assume that BC can beat all three of those teams, but the Eagles only need to win one (assuming a win against Maine, Colorado State, and NC State) in order to secure a five-win season.

It is not out of the question that the Eagles can secure six or even seven wins this year, and with wins against NC State, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, and Syracuse, the Eagles can achieve another 4-4 season in the ACC and bowl-eligibility for the second year in a row.

There is, of course, the possibility that BC loses some of these games that have been

marked up as prospective wins—it happened last year to BC, and it has happened to both better and worse teams than the Eagles. The other side of the same coin, however, shows that it’s just as likely that other teams forfeit games against BC. Last year, the Eagles had the closest point differential to the FSU Seminoles of any team they played, and any one of BC’s big opponents might have an off day, leaving just enough room for Myles Willis to wriggle through for a shocking BC win against one of the nation’s top teams like USC, Clemson, Louisville, or FSU. The projections are out, but the story is yet to be told. Another winning season is within the grasp of the Eagles if they can make it through some tough opponents and barrel their way through the easier ones. 

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EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

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After starting the season 1-1, the Boston College football team has done what’s been expected so far—it’s recorded mixed results. There is a real possibility that the team can win at least five games and even become bowl-eligible for the second year in a row, though. There are winnable games against teams like Maine, Colorado State, NC State, Wake Forest, and Syracuse. The fivewin mark is attainable, but the early struggles that were exposed in the Pitt game could lead to major struggles and a losing record that sees BC failing to reach five wins.

The first major struggle is tackling. On Friday, Pitt running back James Conner did whatever he wanted against the BC defense, erupting for 214

The Eagles are 1-1 with key, must-win games coming up before an extremely challenging back half to the season.

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yards and one touchdown. Pitt’s blocking was only part of Conner’s success—the defense just could not bring him down. The Panthers were routinely getting first downs in that win because they were giving the ball to Conner, and he was plowing through the defense. The majority of opponents facing BC are ACC foes, so the quarterbacks and running backs will be on or above Pitt’s level. If the defense cannot tackle, it will be a long season.

The tackling problem is only one concern—the offense shared some struggles, too. At first glance, a combined 50 points in the first two games would seem decent, but that is deceiving. The first game was against UMass, one of the worst FBS teams in the country, so BC should easily have scored 30 points. BC only had six points by halftime before it woke up in the second half. While BC did score 20 points against Pitt, the Eagles struggled for the majority of the game, with one of the touchdowns coming on just one big play and the other coming in garbage time.

There were plenty of opportunities for the offense to score in the Pitt game. One of the turning points in that loss was when junior Steven Daniels intercepted a pass, and the Eagles had great field position at Pitt’s 29-yard line. BC did not capitalize, though, and missed a field goal after going three and out. Three pass plays on that drive were unsuccessful. After the missed field goal, Pitt took control of the game and never looked back.

Quarterback Tyler Murphy is going to have to throw better in order for the Eagles to have success. His speed is not in question, as evidenced by the 51-yard run that set up the first touchdown for the Eagles, but his passing is a concern. So far, Murphy is 27-52 with 307 yards of passing, two touchdowns, and three interceptions. A 51.9 percent completion percentage is not good enough for the Eagles to have much success. Granted, it has only been two games and the wide receiver depth is not great, but Murphy will need to complete more passes in order to move the ball down the field.

The passing game becomes even more important because of the predictability of the offense. Andre Williams is not walking through that door. A Williams-type impact is not there this year, so the Eagles cannot simply depend on the run like they did last year. When BC isn’t running well, it has nowhere to turn to besides its passing game. Murphy will help with his explosiveness and the read option, but the Eagles need to be more balanced in order to have success.

Injuries are always unpredictable. Already, two starters have been lost for the short term: senior guard Harris Williams and senior middle linebacker Sean Duggan. If the offense or defense suffers more injuries, there could be some gaping holes that will lead to poor results.

The 2014 season is being dubbed as a “roller coaster” season for the Eagles. Predictions are all over the place about where the Eagles will finish in the ACC. Coach Steve Addazio surprised critics last year by leading the Eagles to their first bowl game in three years. Now, Addazio is trying to expand on that, building a program that can stay succesful for years to come. The Eagles can be competitive this year and certainly exceed expectations, but to do that, they will need to focus on these areas of concern and improve them. Those improvements can lead to them eclipsing five or more wins, but if they cannot make adjustments, this year will be viewed as a wasted season with a losing record. 

NORMAL, IL 9/7 field hockey

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FROME 1 G CARLINO 9 SVS

MCCAFFREY 2 G, 1 A LEINERT 1 G

MILWAUKEE, WI 9/5 field hockey BERNARD 1 G, 1 A LINCICUM 8 SVS

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CHESTNUT 9/5 Boston,HILL, MaMA 11/11

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PHILLIPS 78 YD, 1 TD CONNER 214 YD, 1 TD

NEW HAVEN, 9/6 Newton, MACT 11/09 CAVETE 11 DIGS CRAWFORD 23 A

SPORTS

A8

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

COAST-TO-COAST CLASH TROJANS

VS EAGLES BRECK WILLS / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC

The Eagles have fallen off the mountain and down into the the mines, and the Trojans are coming

BC looks to bounce back and put on its ‘greatest performance’ against USC on this given Saturday

BY CONNOR MELLAS

BY TOMMY MELORO

Sports Editor They have taken the bridge and the second hall. We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes, drums … drums in the deep. We cannot get out. A shadow lurks in the dark. We cannot get out … they are coming. – Gandalf, The Fellowship Of The Rings Shortly before his apparent death, Gandalf reads these desperate lines from the Book of Mazarbul to the rest of the fellowship—a weary group lost deep in the mines of Moria. Minutes later, history repeats itself when battalions of orcs and giants assault the fellowship, driving them through the darkness of the mines.

The fellowship never sought to venture through Moria, but when the initial plan—hiking over the mountain—failed, the weary group was forced to enter the darkness below.

The Boston College football team, a group that began the season with grandiose plans, has been forced into the proverbial mines by Pittsburgh. BC’s plan—pounding the rock—failed against the second team it faced, and the Eagles have descended into the darkness of a 0-1 ACC record in a critical juncture of its season. Now, a considerably more powerful foe looms, and BC is trapped.

It’s been a crazy, high-profile, scandalous season for the University of Southern California so far. USC suspended senior cornerback Josh Shaw after initially buying and spreading his story about injuring his ankles by leaping from a balcony to save his drowning nephew.

Running back Anthony Brown quit the team and accused head coach Steve Sarkisian of racism on his way out the door. The Pac-12 remanded and fined athletic director Pat Haden $25,000 for leaving the press box and engaging officials on the sideline, per Sarkisian’s request, against Stanford. On the field, though, the Trojans have taken care of business.

At this point, it’s hard to tell exactly how good No. 9 USC is compared with the other national superpowers—but looking at the immediate future, USC enters Saturday as a 20-point favorite and is capable of hosing BC by even more than that. Last Saturday, the Trojans held then-No. 13 Stanford—a bastion of offensive line dominance and power running—to 128 yards and one touchdown on the ground in a 13-10 victory. Stanford certainly shot itself in both feet with boneheaded penalties, but USC boasts one of the best defenses in the country.

“You’re talking about a defense that I

See USC, A6

Heights Staff Technically, it’s the theory of “Any Given Sunday.” The theory states that on any given Sunday, any team can beat any other team, and it’s generally used to talk about the NFL. Perhaps the best-known example of this theory occurred back on Feb. 3, 2008. The 18-0 New England Patriots rolled into Glendale, Arizona to take on the wild card New York Giants, favored by 12 points, an incredibly high line for the Super Bowl. Well, on that Sunday, the Giants took down the mighty Patriots and their quarterback Tom Brady, an upset of biblical proportions.

On Saturday night, another David vs. Goliath matchup rolls into Alumni Stadium, as the No. 9 University of Southern California Trojans visit the Boston College Eagles in the second game of their home-and-home series. The Trojans are fresh off besting their Pac-12 rivals, the Stanford Cardinal, while the Eagles are stinging from losing their Friday night home opener to the Pittsburgh Panthers, a game in which seemingly everything went wrong for the hosts.

The Eagles are not backing down from a challenge, however—BC defensive back and captain Dominique Williams said the team sees this as a chance to show it’s better than what fans saw on Friday night. “It’s a great opportunity

to show that this defense is ready to bounce back,” Williams said. “They’ll have our greatest performance.”

In order to prove that, however, the Eagles will need to improve on both sides of the ball to compete with a talented USC team. Offensively, 28 yards rushing combined from starting running backs Myles Willis and Tyler Rouse will almost certainly spell doom going against a team that allowed just 128 yards rushing to Stanford, the team many consider to be the premier power-running team in the nation. If quarterback Tyler Murphy throws two interceptions while going 10-28 for 134 yards, that will also likely spell doom for the Eagles. BC must be much more efficient with the offensive chances that it gets, and it needs to take care of the ball.

USC’s offense gained 291 yards against the Cardinal, 91 of which came via wide receiver Nelson Agholor. In BC’s matchup last year, it was Marquise Lee who gained 90 yards, but Agholor was the more consistent threat, as 80 of Lee’s yards came on a single touchdown while Agholor gained 55 yards on four catches, an average of 13.8 yards per catch. “He’s got great speed, especially in the open field,” Williams said. “[I’ve] watched a lot of film on him so far, and it’s just another great opportunity to show-

See Football, A6

Football provides a break from cynical rationality, if only for a moment

MARLY MORGUS In case you haven’t heard, USC is coming to town on Saturday to—unless something very unexpected happens—deliver BC an enormous beatdown. In honor of the Eagles’ impending matchup, let’s take a moment to delve deeper into the pessimism that’s so easy to associate with such a game.

The situation is hopeless. The Trojans are coming off a win over Stanford after

demolishing Fresno State. They held those two teams to a total of less than 300 yards rushing. Reveling in their sanction-free status, even while riding waves of bad publicity surrounding allegations of racism from the coaching staff and an over-heated athletic director, the Trojans look pretty unstoppable, at least for BC. You shouldn’t want to go to the game on Saturday. Any rationally thinking human being should know that no good can come of a visit from our friends from California. Andre Williams and Chase Rettig are gone, so there will be neither good football or good looks to enjoy, and with the way the weather’s going, it’s probably going to be about 50 degrees come 8 p.m. on Saturday and you’re going to

I NSIDE SPORTS THIS ISSUE

be cold and tired, or more likely drunk, and everything is going to suck.

That’s not even mentioning the fact that, if we’re to continue our theme of excessive pessimism, BC’s season is pretty close to dead at this point. The only thing that you can hope for—after BC already sustained one loss with a few more almost surely to come—is a spot in the Idaho Potato Bowl.

So there you’ll sit, burning your eyes out watching while the blue turf glares out from your TV screen and you desperately reach for your color settings wondering what went horribly wrong, both with the picture on your screen and with this season.

And yet for some godforsaken reason— no matter how pessimistic you’re feeling right

Point-Counterpoint: Five wins for football?

now—come Saturday, I’d bet you’ll be there.

I’ve never been that great at being a cynic, at least when it comes to football. Call me naive, but I love seeing that a fan base—even when it knows that its team is heading into the battle of Troy sans wooden horses and that the all-powerful Trojans are most likely going to smash a hammer down—can still be there and be excited.

I love that there are at least a few moments of pure irrationality—maybe in a good punt return or that first defensive stop—in which pessimism is set aside and fans are somehow able to convince themselves that, in some strange world, their team can pull the upset. People spend so much of their time focusing on the rational—gauging net

Contributors John Pugh and Landon Komishane debate whether or not Steve Addazio’s Eagles can defeat five opponents........................................A7

present values and probabilities and risk factors until the dead horse is beaten into a pulp, and there’s no room for anything but that essential truth that you must have just discovered through your excessive rationality.

Despite all of your rational thoughts heading into the weekend, though, while you’re there and watching the game, you get to let some of that slip away.

It’s that moment when you’re wishing so much that it could happen that, just for a second, your will overcomes your common sense and you believe that your upset might just be possible. You’ll find the same kind of emotional turmoil when watching Friday

See Column, A6

Scoreboard...........................................................................................................A7 Men’s Golf.........................................................................................................A6

Outside the lines

A Way to Remember

Photojournalism Provides a means to remember Sept. 11, Page B3 Wiley’s Follies

I Quit Instagram

How habitual photography is making us unhappy, Page B2

Exposure Productions

‘Mod of Cards’

An Interview with the producers planning To film a feature length drama series on bc’s campus, B3

Thursday, September 11, 2014

‘Monday Mornings’ Boston College Photographer Billy Foshay is Reimagining Your Inbox as a Platform for Artists

See Page B2 Jordan Pentaleri / Heights photo illustration

THE HEIGHTS

B2

WILEY’S FOLLIES

A recovering Insta-addict

Thursday, September 11, 2014

MONDAY MORNINGS BC junior Billy Foshay turns to email as storytelling platform

JOHN WILEY Four hundred and nineteen photos, collected over two years, five months, and four days, disappeared by way of sudden impulse last night. I permanently deactivated my Instagram account, surrendering with it 73 sunsets, 41 images of Gasson Hall, a single sunrise, two proms, one graduation, six football games, and 13 snowy mornings. It was a strange sensation, if only for how unremarkable it felt—I couldn’t tell whether I had lost anything at all.

The emergence of pervasive photography has made habit of a hobby. While apps like Instagram and Facebook appear a lot less destructive than the habit of smoking turned out to be for our grandparents, there are some significant parallels to be drawn here.

Just as smoking once played a huge role in American social life—in restaurants, workplaces, schools—smartphone photography has become commonplace in all these same situations.

In the case of non-smokers, especially those of younger generations, taking up cigarettes now strikes them as a foolish proposition. But smoking once was a fine source of immediate gratification—relatively cheap, seeming harmless, and socially beneficial.

The sharing and “liking” of photography has played a huge role in how we seek out social opportunities. Winning the approval of others on social media becomes an incentive to behave in ways we otherwise wouldn’t, leading us to go places we otherwise might not in order to take photos, and shifting our way of photographing the world so as to make our images not be anything particular to us.

The allure of smartphone photography makes a whole lot of sense. The screens around us continue to get larger, and recent innovations like Apple Watch and Google Glass give visual real estate to interfaces that 10 years ago, we could hardly imagine needing, or even wanting, to take up that space in our lives.

The experience of going to a concert in 2014 is a strange phenomenon. Spectators rush to get as close to the stage as possible, only to hold up their smartphones and videotape the entire set. What becomes of all this video, especially when hundreds of others are leaving the concert with more or less the same shot?

The answer is in how our brains are wired, largely by our interactions with social media, to chemically reward us for experiencing an event through our phones.

Analyzing how your brain rewards you for a seemingly trivial activity is the first step in understanding the addiction. Unlike smoking or alcoholism, however, the consequences of habitually photographing our lives are not so clearly self-destructive.

But then, there’s nothing trivial about a technology that transforms the way we seek gratification. It’s a soft addiction, with the same degree of seriousness as our dependency on caffeine, and like coffee, our way of consuming photographs can even be beneficial in moderation, particularly in the short term. Once it becomes a mindless habit, though, our relationship to the subjects of the photos we take begins to break down.

The good news is that there are tons of resources available for those looking to reclaim their digital identity. Instaport.me allows you to download all photos off your Instagram if you’re planning to delete an account. The Timehop app for smartphones chronicles your history on social media by year, allowing you to analyze your digital decisions in retrospect.

Rolling back and taking ownership of your digital identity has never been easier.

As is the case with most problems created by technology, technology also offers a way out.

As for the deletion of my Instagram account, it is more an experiment than anything else. Resignedly, I must admit I don’t see myself staying away for long. As for the experience of losing an identity I spent over two years building, it was painless, and actually a little exciting.

The sun will still rise, regardless of who’s there to capture it, and it’s refreshing to wake up in the morning knowing you have no one to follow.

John Wiley is the Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BILLY FOSHAY

BY JOHN WILEY Arts & Review Editor Billy Foshay, CSOM ’16, would slip off into Manhattan on lunch breaks, his camera in his briefcase.

He’d spent the summer working eight-hour workdays at Alliant Insurance, commuting two hours into New York City from Mendham, N.J., and then again, two hours out. The insurance industry is an unlikely fit for a burgeoning artist, but for Foshay, it meant time and space to photograph the city and to write.

Foshay began a newsletter in August to develop an audience for the work he was doing in New York.

The “Monday Mornings” series pairs photos with short stories, sending out an issue to subscribers via email at the beginning of every work week. The concept was inspired in part by BC Streak, a newsletter that sends out early morning news to Boston College students. Foshay saw BC Streak’s marketing service Mailchimp as ideal for artists, and adopted the platform to handle “Monday Mornings.”

“People didn’t have to be completely active,” Foshay said. “When you sign up for something like this, you don’t have to take an active role in it. If you want to read it, you can read it, and that’s really where it came from.”

Foshay’s concept for “Monday Mornings” was to embellish the mundane. In one case, Foshay happened upon a mailman on one of his daily wanderings, this time in Boston. Starting with a photo of the stranger, Foshay began stringing together a narrative—Who was this man? What did he love?

What was his life like growing up?

He imagined this mailman to have a disguised

passion for history, writing of how the mailman would dance alone in his room as a teenager, historical texts flapping in his hand. But then, life set in, and he was left spending his adulthood speculating what might be in the envelopes he delivers.

“That’s a parallel to my life—for me, I find myself in the business school,” Foshay said. “When I came in, that’s what I thought I wanted to do, and now I feel stuck in it. I’m going to finish it out, but at the same time, there’s part of me that wants to break out: that’s me being the mailman.”

Foshay received his first camera—a Canon Digital Rebel XSI—in seventh grade, but only began to take photography seriously after taking Photography I with the fine arts department. It was Issues and Approaches to Studio Art with Sheila Gallagher that ultimately led Foshay to begin assessing his hobby more conceptually, and he adopted new mediums, like short story and film, to match with his photography.

Last semester, Foshay and friend Max Prio, CSOM ’16, started Exposure Productions, a small media company dedicated to showcasing University student groups and pooling resources to create independent films at BC. The recent emergence of artists like Foshay and Prio—fueled in part by the new media technologies that make it easy to share photography and film over the web—is representative of a larger push by undergraduates in the fine arts department to elevate the role of visual art at the University.

“It’s an underutilized depart-

ment,” Foshay said. “Maybe it’s happened before, but I’m seeing people get very excited about [fine arts], and I think it’s an up-and-coming thing at BC. There are a lot of people pushing for it.”

So far, the response to “Monday Mornings” has been stronger than expected for Foshay, who expected the project might develop a passive following, but never expected how much he’d hear back on it.

The platform for his work in particular has attracted a fair deal of attention from other artists.

“Right now, it’s about creating an avenue for other artists,” Foshay said. “If I build this to, low-realm, 1,000 people, I can feature other people’s art. It’s about creating a platform for these people who would normally not be seen.”

Foshay plans to continue “Monday Mornings” for at least a year, and republish that first year of issues as a book. The next year would mark the beginning of a new series. For now, he plans to keep his work free for whoever’s interested.

So far, the series has focused particularly on architecture—doors, walls, and windows—and pairing these common architectural items stories of working-class people, their eccentricities and tics.

“It’s such a derivative of your identity—what you think lies behind a wall, and then what you choose to write about,” Foshay said. “I wrote about a woman who sits behind it painting all day, how peaceful that might be.”

A pause. “I just think that’s part of who I wish I was.” 

HEIGHTS PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/ JORDAN PENTALERI

The Heights

Thursday, September 11, 2014

B3

outside The Lines

Remembering to ‘never forget’

Michelle Tomassi

Matt Liber / For The Heights

A collaborative project between Exposure Productions and Hollywood Eagles, ‘Mod Of Cards’ is based off of the hit Netflix show and is set to premiere on YouTube later this fall.

From D.C. to BC: Filming for ‘Mod of Cards’ set to start Exposure Productions discusses its forthcoming, full-length drama series

By Michelle Tomassi Asst. Arts & Review Editor House of Cards, one of the most popular original series on Netflix, is coming to Boston College—through the creativity and innovation of Exposure Productions. Exposure, a student-run business group that offers professional media and marketing services to clubs and various organizations in the Boston area (think last year’s Showdown promotional video), has decided to take its media talents in a more creative direction, with plans to film one of the first feature-length drama series on a college campus: Mod of Cards.

The show—a collaboration between Exposure and Hollywood Eagles, BC’s film club—will recreate the highly successful political drama in a BC setting, with plans for the first of six episodes to be released on YouTube late this fall.

The Heights sat down with the show’s three producers—Ryan Reede, A&S ’16; Max Prio, owner of Exposure and CSOM ’16; and Derek Switaj, scriptwriter and CSOM ’15—to discuss the inspiration for the series, the filming process, and their hopes for the future of all those involved.

The Heights: Can you start by giving us some background on how this idea came to fruition?

Switaj: Right after Season 2 of House of Cards was released, I watched it with all of my roommates, and we were joking around, thinking: what if we made a Boston College House of Cards? At first it was a joke—I think my roommate Nick threw out the name Mod of Cards.

It kind of snowballed, but then we forgot about it. I was working in LA for the summer, and I was trying to meet with a lot of screenwriters and agents and

people working in the industry. Most people in the industry seem to say that nowadays if you want to write anything, if you want to direct anything, if you want to work in entertainment, you should just go make it. If you want to prove you’re good, don’t send me your resume—send me what you made. From talking to those people, I thought, Let’s make something at BC. Let’s make a collaborative effort, let’s get all the theater

‘BC has amazing actors and actresses here, so the quality in front and behind camera is going to be remarkable.’

-Derek Switaj producer, writer

clubs, all the film clubs, all the improv clubs—let’s get everybody behind this and make the first ever collegiate drama series. Since most things that are made on YouTube tend to be shorts or parodies, this would be a really unique, special endeavor. I started writing it, and I was working with Ryan this summer [at a BC-founded startup called Wymsee], so I gave him the first two scripts—and the rest was history.

wanting to do more creative work, aside from the ‘work work’ that we’ve been getting, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do that. Derek has written the scripts for the first four episodes, and is currently working on episodes five and six.

Reede: On the technical side, I’ve been drawing out shots that I think would be artistic and doable and hopefully engage the entire crew. Right now I have half the pilot script storyboarded. After that we can start getting shoot dates ready, locations lined up, and start making a shooting schedule.

The Heights: What was the inspiration for choosing House of Cards, as opposed to other popular TV shows at the moment?

Switaj: House of Cards is my favorite show—I personally think it’s one of the best shows on television. I think it’s got great acting, directing, style, the story is addicting, and I wanted to see that same story at BC. It’s all dramatized, but it’s kind of fun to draw on real experiences and hyperbole them to come up with a neat drama story. As a side note, hopefully in the future, I hope some students want to make Maroon Is The New Gold, or want to make Game of Gasson. I hope students see Mod of Cards, and in the future think, Okay, what’s next?

The Heights: What has been accomplished so far, in terms of scripting and planning?

The Heights: How are you planning on translating the show’s themes, style, and plot lines to fit into a BC theme?

Prio: When we came to BC, [Reede and Switaj] pitched it to me as a potential collaboration. They sent me the first two scripts, and I was pretty much blown away. At Exposure, we’ve been

Switaj: What I can say is that you can expect all your favorite characters to be in the show—Frank and Claire and Garrett Walker and Linda Vasquez. They’re similar but not necessarily the same

characters they are in the show. We may have taken some creative license with the story arcs, but you can expect some of the best parts. For example, Frank’s asides—Frank breaks the fourth wall a lot, and you can expect to see that. You can expect to see the inner workings of Garret Walker’s presidential cabinet—you can see that through the inner workings of his UGBC cabinet.

Reede: You’ll also see a lot of BC related jokes. Newton campus, Newton bus, there will be some cameos from the athletic department. A lot of puns on BC culture. It’s supposed to be funny—it’s still a drama, but we want people to come back and want more.

The Heights: What do you think is the key to the show’s success?

Switaj: This will be very well shot—these guys are experts on the camera. I’ve seen their Exposure work—it’s incredible directing, incredible cinematography.

BC has amazing actors and actresses here, so the quality in front and behind camera is going to be remarkable. We’re tackling a college drama series, which is something most people don’t do. I’m not aware of anyone that’s done it.

Prio: I think it would be a one-of-akind, never-before-done piece. No one’s being paid to do what we’re doing, so everyone is participating because they have a passion for whatever their creative contribution is to the project.

Reede: I think this campus is really close-knit, but there’s nothing to really show for that, and hopefully through Mod of Cards, BC will come off to potential applicants as a great place to work together and have relationships with a bunch of cool people. n

This weekend in arts

By: Ariana Igneri | Associate Arts & Review Editor

RiverFest (Saturday 9/13, 11 a.m.)

Boston Comedy Arts FEstival (Through Sunday, 9/14)

The sixth Boston Comedy Festival is taking place throughout the city this weekend, with shows hosted at ImprovBoston as well as at the Brattle and Oberon Theaters. Headlined by Laura Hall of Whose Line Is It Anyway, the event welcomes professional comedians from around the world. See bostoncomedyarts.com/shows for tickets and times.

Celebrate the end of summer at the seventh annual Riverfest this weekend at Assembly Row in Sommerville. The free event will include goods sold by local artisans, live music, food, and a firework display over Mystic River at 8 p.m.

‘The Lion King’ (Though Saturday, 10/11)

‘Hollywood Glamour’ (Ongoing)

The Museum of Fine Arts’ latest exhibit takes visitors behind the scenes—literally. Displaying the private wardrobe and jewelry collections of silver screen stars from the ’30s and ’40s, Hollywood Glamour zooms in on the iconic fashion styles of actresses including Gloria Swanson and Joan Crawford. Admission to the MFA is free with a BC ID.

Jason Mraz Concert (Friday & Saturday, 9/12 & 9/13, 8 p.m.)

This weekend, Boston’s Jason Mraz fans sure are “lucky.”

The acoustic guitar-playing crooner is putting on not one, but two concerts at the Wang Theatre, promoting his latest album, Yes! Tickets to both shows start at $38.50 on ticketmaster.com.

Photo courtesy of Boston Art Walking Tours

Downtown Boston Art Walking Tour (Saturday 9/13, 3:30 p.m.)

If you’ve already seen the paintings and sculptures in Boston’s museums, take the opportunity to see the art that the city has to offer on its streets. This walking tour travels through Downtown Crossing, Chinatown, the South End, and the Theatre District, highlighting murals, PaintBox projects, and other public art pieces along the way. Tickets are $25 in advance and $35 the day of. For more information, see bostonartwalkingtours.com.

A roaring Broadway sensation, The Lion King is playing at the Boston Opera House until the middle of October. The musical brings Simba and the other characters of Pride Rock vividly to life and features a thrilling score by Elton John, which includes showstoppers “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” and “Circle of Life.” For tickets and show times, visit ticketmaster.com.

Mixfest 2o14 (Saturday 9/13, 4 p.m.)

After last year’s fall concert in Conte Forum, O.A.R is making its way back to Boston. The “Shattered” rockers are joining headliner Phillip Phillips, singer-songwriter Christina Perri, and Magic!—the artist behind the summer hit “Rude.” The free show is being hosted at the DCR Memorial Hatch Shell on the Charles River, rain or shine.

As I pulled up my Google calendar to find the date that this column would be published, I had that moment that seems to occur every year: “It’s 9/11 on Thursday.” Even the phrasing of that thought seems strange when you really think about it—as if Sept. 11 is not just a date, but something that is happening on Thursday.

Technically, 9/11 “happened” in 2001, but it also “happens” every year, since we were reminded since that tragic day to “never forget.”

Even after typing that first paragraph, I considered deleting it entirely—is it too late, I thought, to write about something that happened 13 years ago? It’s not like deleting it from the page will delete it from my memory, right?

I had the same set of thoughts last semester as I sat down to write a column about the Holocaust, in light of a book that had been published, composed solely of the word “Jew” printed six million times. Hasn’t everything already been said about such a horrific period in history? Is it my place to offer commentary now, many years after the Holocaust took place?

My response then—and my response now—are one and the same: It’s never too late.

I came to this realization after a series of readings assigned for my magazine journalism course—including “The Falling Man,” published in Esquire with a new introduction by the writer Tom Junod. The piece discusses the iconic image of a man falling perfectly between the North and South towers of the World Trade Center, taken by Associated Press photojournalist Richard Drew. In the moment that the photograph was taken, the man seems to be part of an artful composition—“perfectly vertical” and “in accord with the lines of the buildings,” giving a sense of freedom or flight, as explained in the beginning of the article.

Junod’s piece seeks to explore the story behind the photograph, and the search to find exactly who the “falling man” might be—often met with resistance from the families of 9/11 victims because of its potentially exploitative and insensitive nature.

The question raised by such a photo, even many years after the event, comes down to the issue of witness, as Junod so aptly puts it in his new introduction. He even ties the 2001 photograph to the videos of ISIS beheading American journalist James Foley, as well as the still photograph used by the New York Post on its Aug. 20 cover.

Drew offered his own commentary on both of the photos, explaining that the reason why they’re so hard to look at is because they both happened. In an odd paradox, we tell ourselves to “never forget,” yet we don’t want to look at images that remind us of what “happened.”

In essence, we sometimes tend to remember the “what,” but not “why” or “how” it happened. The numbers of 9/11 will remain indelible in our memory, but the images of the atrocity, of the “jumpers” and the explosions that we once witnessed, are harder to face.

It’s okay to look away from images like these—the power of photojournalism is to provoke a reaction and make a statement, and the fact that some photos may avert the eyes proves that the events surrounding them are still worth discussing.

Today, on Sept. 11, I hope that we do more than just repeat the “never forget” mantra in our heads. We can still be active witnesses by allowing ourselves to talk about the images that we are afraid of—and remind ourselves why we are remembering in the first place.

Michelle Tomassi is the Asst. Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. She can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

THE HEIGHTS

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Thursday, September 11, 2014

Delta Spirit’s latest record captures essence of America

BY RYAN VON OHLEN For The Heights Delta Spirit is no stranger to the rock scene. Since 2005, the San Diego-bred quintet of indie rockers has carved out a name for itself due to the chaotic atmosphere of its live performances.

The band sticks with a distinct, all-American blend of soul, blues, and rock that is as much Americana as the jukebox or the pickup truck. It is only with the release of the group’s fourth LP, Into the Wide, though, that Delta Spirit manages to capture the same vigor and grit that has made the California natives recent fan favorites at festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza.

For an album with a title that evokes imagery of open skies and wilderness, it comes as a bit of a surprise that Into the Wide was conceived and written in a windowless, flood-ruined, cave-like room somewhere in Brooklyn in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

“That sense of feeling trapped in our studio and in the city definitely gave the album more of a weight than our previous records,” said multi-instrumentalist Kelly Winrich in a press

release on the record, according to Consequence of Sound. “It played a big part in this being our moodiest recording yet.” Indeed, Into the Wide immediately captures the claustrophobia and tension of the Brooklyn apartment, and orchestrates it into a moody reflection on the nature of city life, the loss of youth, and a need to escape from both.

The means by which Delta Spirit conveys this atmosphere gives Into the Wide its appeal.

What the album lacks in a polished sound, it compensates for in luscious instrumental composition and deep, straightshooting emotionalism. “Push It,” for instance, opens the album with a hazy, guitar-driven hymn that muses on the decay of America, personified as a strong but downtrodden woman, that quickly gives way to triumphant, guitar-driven ballads (“From Now On”) and octane-fueled, stadium-worthy anthems (“Live On”). Despite the bleak origins of the album—and lyrics that, at times, border on the macabre in nature—Delta Spirit displays a remarkable mastery of instrumental composition. In contrast to its simple, potent lyrics, Into

the Wide is sonically expansive and enthralling. The album as a whole sounds like a journey, which is fitting considering the record’s overarching themes of survival and endurance. It also coincides well with the surprising volume of instrumental detail put into each of Into the Wide’s 50 minutes of playtime.

All things considered, Delta Spirit’s Into the Wide is some of

the band’s finest work, demonstrating its uncanny ability to straddle the sound of soaring party rock while touching on some of the most poignant recent issues of life in America. For songs that deal with heavy subject matter such as suicide, bullying, and struggle against oppression, it comes prepackaged in an easy-to-digest format with the charisma and power to move stadiums in uni-

son. Although there are big issues just below the surface that Delta Spirit feels are worth mentioning, the record is one that always brings with it a sense of optimism as vast as the country itself. Given the year the U.S. has had in 2014, Into the Wide is more than a great rock record—it is a portrait of a country with citizens hopeful that they might endure, move forward, and ultimately thrive. 

INTO THE WIDE DELTA SPIRIT PRODUCED BY DUALTONE RECORDS RELEASED SEPT. 9, 2014 OUR RATING

CHART TOPPERS TOP SINGLES

1 All About That Bass Meghan Trainor 2 Shake It Off Taylor Swift 3 Anaconda Nicki Minaj 4 Bang Bang Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj 5 Black Widow Iggy Azalea feat. Rita Ora 6 Stay With Me Sam Smith 7 Rude Magic!

TOP ALBUMS

PHOTO COURTESY OF DUALTONE RECORDS

Indie rock band Delta Spirit combines skillful instrumentals and real-life subject matter with ‘Into the Wide.’

1V Maroon 5 2 Seen It All Jeezy 3 Guardians of the Galaxy Soundtrack Various Artists 4 My Everything Ariana Grande 5 Legend Bob Marley

Source: Billboard.com

‘Souled Out’ shows emotional side of R&B artist Jhene Aiko

BY HARRY MITCHELL Heights Staff We’ve heard her on tracks w ith Drake, Childish Gambino, Ab-Soul, and J. Cole. We know her intoxicating, breathy voice—but we’ve never seen her like this before. Jhene Aiko’s major label debut, Souled Out, delivers a surplus of beautiful beats tailored to fit her hypnotic voice seamlessly, with executive producer No I.D. on the instrumentals. This is an album

certainly not fit to blare through the speakers at Arc Nightclub, inspiring sweaty freshmen to do unspeakable things—as many of Aiko’s notable past appearances have been. Rather, it is a sentimental collection that begs for a little more of a reflective atmosphere than Arc. While the album can feel repetitive at times, it’s an overall success for Aiko as her first full-length, major label production. She may not be Beyonce, but she’s pretty damn good.

The first track, “Limbo Limbo Limbo,” produced by Dot da Genius, opens the record with a punch. Eerie, monotonous synths begin the song only to evolve into a beautiful blend of bass drum kicks, hard-hitting snares, and curious guitar riffs.

On the following track , “W.A.Y.S.,” Aiko’s voice takes a more powerful tone as she applies a somewhat choppy vocal rhythm to a hip-hop beat. The lyrics here are encouragingly human. (“Life only gets harder

SOULED OUT JHENE AIKO PRODUCED BY DEF JAM RECORDINGS RELEASED SEPT. 9, 2014 OUR RATING

PHOTO COURTESY OF DEF JAM RECORDINGS

Jhene Aiko shifts from club beats to a more sentimental sound in her debut studio album ‘Souled Out.’

/ But you gotta get stronger / this is for my brother / I do this for my daughter / That’s why I keep goin’.”)

Namiko, Aiko’s daughter, is featured on the 11th track of the album, “Promises,” a beautiful dedication from a mother to her daughter. If you have any sort of dislike for Aiko, listen to this song—it’ll likely change things.

While songs like “Promises” act as the main emotional substance of the album, “Pretty Bird” and “It’s Cool” provide listeners a window into Aiko’s exp eriences with love—and then perhaps encouragement for those going through difficult times. “It’s Cool,” the fifth song on Souled Out, describes the development of a deep love for a man who was, at first, just a physical interest. (“And I’m not even gonna front / At first I was just tryna f—k / But you have got me so in love / So deep in love, so please be love.”)

“Pretty Bird” features G.O.O.D. Music ’s Common, who adds an inspired verse toward the end. While the phrase “pretty bird” makes up 75 percent of the song’s lyrics, it’s sung so magnificently that it does not feel the least bit redundant.

Common closes it out with a smooth, spoken-word, 16-bar verse. (“Ripped apart and get

put back together / Them the ones with the most beautiful feathers.”) Common provides a welcome change of pace to the album, building up the record’s energy.

Other highlights of the album include “To Love and Die,” featuring Cocaine 80s, and “The Pressure.” “To Love and Die,” produced by No I.D., is a romantic ballad about Aiko’s fight to regain the affection of a lost lover.

Interestingly, Aiko borrows a few lyrics from 50 Cent’s 2003 hit “Many Men,” followed by the powerful statement of, “I’ll fight till the death or until your heart is won.” One of the first singles from the album, “Pressure,” couples smooth, ambient synths with simple percussion to create a relatively peaceful track that shows off Aiko’s vocal talent.

Common provides some diversity to an album admittedly filled with quite a few similar vocal performances, and the album could benefit from some similar appearances from other rappers. Songs like “W.A.Y.S.,” and “Spotless Mind” have instrumentals that would essentially be a sin not to remix with a rap verse. Otherwise, Aiko’s major label debut is wildly successful.

Smooth, seductive vocals and exceptionally well-produced tracks make for a killer listen. 

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK

BY MARIAN WYMAN

“HEART OUT” THE 1975

The 1975 has been releasing videos for tracks off its self-titled album since September 2013.

Hailing from Manchester, England—and with successful hits like the ever-popular “Chocolate”— The 1975 is becoming a more recognized indie-rock group with a growing fan base. On Monday, the band released a finale of sorts: a music video for “Heart Out,” the final single off The 1975.

The video begins in a bizarre, awkward fashion. As soon as it starts, the viewer is immediately transported to a middle school talent show. As one might expect from such an event, it all begins with a weird dance performance by three girls with little rhythm and poor posture. Then, the show really gets started.

Receiving horrified stares from parents and adults in attendance, a group of young boys, introduced as The 1975, arrives at the stage to perform “Heart Out.” The video comes to life through the excitement of a group of little kids (one of whom was the lead singer’s own brother) appearing in the show. The whole scene is put through the lens of their lofty dreams of becoming rock stars.

The kids perform the song in a cool, casual demeanor, and they don’t seem to get distracted by the out-of-place spotlights, fog machines, and falling sparklers.

Clearly unfazed by the fact that they’re performing in a middle school auditorium, this version of The 1975 is everything a good rock group should be. The band is excited about the music and does not care what the audience thinks of it.

If anything, the appeal of the “Heart Out” video comes from the great music The 1975 is producing—and the youthful, almost naive excitement with which the prepubescent representation of the band performs it. It’s unique and a little bit weird, but that makes the whole ordeal that much more refreshing. 

SINGLE REVIEWS BY LIZ HOLMAN CATEY SHAW “Human Contact”

VANCE JOY “Georgia” This upbeat song covers what every fighting couple has wanted to say to each other at some point or another. Shaw reminds us to let it all go and enjoy the love we share—essentially, skip the fighting and fast-forward to the makeup sex.

She makes it all sound so catchy, too.

SWAY CLARKE II AND TINK “Secret Garden” This song sounds like it should be playing in the background of the movie that is your life. Sweet, subtle, thought-provoking—no surprise coming from Vance Joy. With a beat that steadily rises and falls, soft acoustic, and mesmerizing lyrics, this is definitely a good one.

This mess sounds like techno music mixed with “Hot Cross Buns.” It feels like an eternity, even though it’s only three minutes. The worst part is the fact that the chorus is so catchy, it could stick around for a very long time.

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Thursday, January 17, 2014 B6

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Bennet’s Banter

Keeping safety a top priority Bennet Johnson

As the city prepares for school and the reemergence of 250,000 college students returning to the Boston area, one topic seems to be of paramount importance: Safety.

We’ve all heard countless times the cliche “safety first,” and it seems that living in or near a big city like Boston facilitates many discussions about safety— whether it is walking with a group late at night, always making sure you have a charged cellphone on your person, or even calling an Uber if you are lost.

But with the massive migration of college students over the past couple of weeks, it seems that now is the perfect time to address the topic of safety in one of America’s largest cities.

Last Friday, a boston.com story reported two robberies and one assault on Northeastern University students over a two-day span that led to an investigation of a possible pattern.

Currently, the MBTA Transit Police, State Police, Boston Police, and Northeastern University Police Department are all investigating the situation, and they are stressing that Boston area college students keep safety a top priority. Last Thursday, BPD also added a list of 12 safety tips for college students on its website to stress the severity of this situation.

The Northeastern incident is an unfortunate example of students being put in a very dangerous situation, but it also displays an idea that many college students take for granted.

Although we live nestled within safe campuses throughout the metro area, many students forget that Boston is a very large city and is subject to its own dangerous occurrences—especially to those who call this city home for the first time.

“As with any big city, it is important to always be conscious of the places and people around you,” said Danielle Antico, a student at Northeastern University. “In light of the recent incidents on campus, we are reminded as a school community and city residents to always be conscious of what is going on around us and to exercise caution, including walking from place to place in groups and keeping valuables concealed as much as possible.”

Although the Boston College campus is tucked within the private neighborhood of Chestnut Hill instead of the heart of the city, BC students are no strangers to constant messages about safety.

Last year, BC had its own menace lurking through the streets of student offcampus housing. Known as the “Kirkwood Tickler,” this man allegedly broke into the off-campus homes of BC students to watch them sleep, and in some cases to tickle their feet.

According to boston.com, BPD reported at least 10 sightings of the Tickler, whom many believed to be a myth for the past two years. At least three students reported seeing the man himself on April 7 alone last year.

Other colleges and universities are no strangers to this phenomenon. Harvard, Boston University, Emerson, and many others institutions right in or near the city have experienced similar safety problems—maybe not a man breaking into their homes to tickle their feet—but all schools are aware of the safety concerns associated with attending school in a major metropolitan area, unlike students who go to school in a miniature rural town in southern Minnesota.

Last spring, I had the opportunity to speak with the Police Commissioner of Boston, William B. Evans. Although Evans is most known for leading the force in response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, he has also taken a number of steps to make Boston a safer place for its residents.

Evans, along with Mayor Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09, have worked together to reduce violent crime by 13 percent over the past year, according to police department figures.

Walsh has also added 50 guards to help new citizens and about 15,000 high school students taking the T each day navigate the MBTA system throughout the city.

Although Evans and Walsh have made strides in improving safety for students, it is important to remember that even in a relatively safe city like Boston, many young college students should be on the lookout to remain safe.

Bennet Johnson is the Asst. Metro Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@bcheights.com

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Coakley, Baker will face off in general election

By Gus Merrell Heights Staff The Massachusetts primary elections brought the last push from candidates vying for nominations from their respective parties—in positions ranging from state representative to governor.

The votes from all 2,173 Massachusetts precincts have been tallied, and the results bring some surprises, including the upset of a nine-term congressman by an Iraq War veteran, but also some generally expected results, including the nominations of gubernatorial frontrunners, Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Charlie Baker.

Coakley narrowly beat out Democrat Steven Grossman by six percentage points, securing the Democratic nomination. Barker, meanwhile, handily beat the state’s Tea Party candidate, Mark Fisher.

It will be a tough race between Coakley and Baker, as Coakley seeks to erase any doubts about her abilities after a disastrous 2010 Senate campaign. The slim margin of victory over Grossman will undoubtedly leave members of the Democratic Party and various activists and fundraisers questioning whether Coakley has what it takes to win the general election in November. Coakley is not only seeking redemption for her failed 2010 campaign but is also now one election away from being the first female governor of Massachusetts.

Coakley and Baker will now look to swing the votes of the independents and the moderate Democrats who are often the deciding factor in Massachusetts elections. Coakley will try to do this by building on her platform, which is centered on improving early-childhood education and equality for women within the workplace.

Coakley also plans to use her failed senatorial attempt in 2010 as a stepping-stone into the governor’s seat.

“I’ve been weathered. I’m tough. I come back and fight again another day,” she said at her victory party at the Fairmont Copley Plaza, according to The Boston Globe. “I did that tonight, and I’m going to continue to stand up for people who need a voice here in Massachusetts.”

Baker, on the other hand, is branding himself as an independent who can broker a compromise between the GOP and the liberals in a state government that is

ap photo / Stephan Savoia

ap photo / steven Senne

Democrat Martha Coakley (top middle) and Republican Charlie Baker (bottom) were successful in their respective primary dominated by Democrats. Hoping to appeal to urban Democrats, Baker said that he “wants to bring a new, independent brand of bipartisan leadership,” according to The Boston Globe.

Both Coakley and Baker will look to win the support of women in order to have any chance at winning in the general election. Coakley has the advantage of potentially being the first female governor of Massachusetts and has advertised herself as part of the reform of the male-dominated Beacon Hill. Baker will lean on his wife, Lauren, and his running partner, Karyn Polito,

in order to avoid losing the female vote, which he lost by 24 points in his 2010 campaign against the current governor, Deval Patrick.

Although Coakley and Baker were both favored to win their primaries, there were plenty of surprises. In what was perhaps the biggest upset of the night, Democrat Seth Moulton surged past nine-term incumbent Democrat John Tierney in the sixth district primary for the House of Representatives, despite Tierney’s support from party insiders, including the state’s two senators. The Iraq War veteran found support from

voters who were unhappy with the indecision of congressional leaders, especially in the case of the Department of Veteran Affairs.

The Democratic nominee race for the Attorney General provided another surprise result. A political novice, Maura Healey won a landslide victory over long-time party favorite Warren Tolman, who had received the support of labor leaders as well as Mayor Marty J. Walsh, WCAS ’09, and Patrick. In November, Healey will face the Republican nominee, John Miller, who won an uncontested primary race. n

Food festival stresses benfits of buying local Local Food, from B8 its own organically grown food. The Local Food Festival aims to celebrate the idea of healthy food and show how such foods can be accessible to everyone, regardless of their background or socioeconomic status.

Affordability is a particular concern for college students on a limited budget.

Williams advises students interested in a cost-effective way to approach healthy eating to “eat seasonally, as it is more affordable and better for the environment as well”. With sample meals using local ingredients priced at $6 or less, “the food festival seeks to show people that local food can be affordable and that there are many reasonably priced options when eating seasonally,” Williams said.

The Local Food Festival brings awareness about local and sustainable businesses where people can purchase New England food, such as that day’s catch of seafood.

According to Williams, buying local food “helps the community’s economy thrive” by supporting the area’s farmers and businesses, creating more trading, and therefore on a local level, keeping money here.

By sourcing and eating locally, “we as a community put less stress on the environment,” since food has to travel a much shorter distance, Williams said.

“The exponential growth in the number of farmer’s markets in the area, even in winter, has created a diversity and vibrancy that is a local treasure,” Williams said.

Another main feature of the Local Food Festival is the launch of “A New England Food Vision,” said Williams.

“Food Solutions New England proposes changes in food production and distribution that will allow New England to supply half of its food needs by 2060,” she said.

The Massachusetts Sustainable Business Network, which puts on the Local Food Festival, is a shining example of environmental sustainability. It encourages the growth of a local, green and fair economy through sustainable businesses and practices.

The festival is a “zero waste event,” meaning it diverts over 91 percent of its waste each year and offsets 100 percent of its energy. The festival discourages the use of paper and encourages interactive activities, which minimize waste and an environmental impact and maximize learning. n

Photo Courtesy of Laury Hammel

Local Food Festival stresses sustainability and financial benefits of consuming local produce.

Photo Courtesy of Barup

On weeknights, BarUp looks to bring sparse crowds at various spots to a common bar.

BarUp founders aim to draw crowds to one central bar BarUp, from B8 to this problem. The app, which officially launched on Aug. 28, sends push notifications to users and lets them know which bar to go to on a given night.

“There’s really no special algorithm in terms of a special beer or where everyone’s going to go tonight based on a certain thing,” Chin said. “It’s really just creating a database of bars that we’ve been to and think are good and have heard have been good, and just sticking to those bars.” Chin and Aird conducted market research throughout Boston to determine the best bars and created a list of spots from there.

Additionally, Chin explained, they have an advantage in that he and Aird live in Boston, and some of the other co-founders grew up here—therefore, they have a good sense of the nightlife in the area.

Although the app is fairly new, it has had a promising start. The BarUp Launch Party, held at The Point on Hanover St. on Aug. 28, attracted over 200 attendees, and the app received over 500 downloads that night, according to Chin. The event was sponsored by Magic Hat, who stationed servers outside the bar offering patrons their new IPO beer.

Although BarUp was created with the intention of getting people physically together in a bar during the week, the creators also hope that it will promote a sense of community in Boston. BarUp includes a Twitter feature that allows users to view all tweets that are

incorporated with the hashtag #BarUp, or anything that mentions it. “The reason we included that is for when you are sitting home and you want to get a feel of where people are, or what’s going on at a bar,” Chin said. “Now, you can do that.”

Right now, the app is only available in Boston, but Chin says expansion into other cities is definitely a possibility, and something they are hoping to do. “Boston is our home,” Chin said. “We want to perfect the app here before we move to other cities.”

In the short term, however, the team at BarUp has plans to organize a pub crawl for its users, in which the only people who will know the destinations will be Chin and his fellow team members. They will move people from bar to bar, he explained, by sending push notifications that alert everyone what the next bar will be. The event will be sometime in late October, Chin said, and they will start promoting it in the next couple of weeks.

As is the case for many social media startups, the success of BarUp relies heavily on a large following and consistent loyalty to the app. If it attains numerous followers, it has the potential to grow and offer more opportunities for connections within the community. The pub crawl represents what the creators hope will be the first of many virtual events, and they also see the potential for partnerships between BarUp and bars around the city. Until then, the most immediate goal is to solve the workweek bar scene problem that they have identified in Boston. n

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, September 11, 2014

B9

Neighborhood audit to begin amidst housing issues Audit, from B10 published a series in May that revealed rampant overcrowding and countless safety violations in student off-campus housing.

The series prompted Walsh to meet with local college officials to request that they release the addresses of students living on campus, a request that turned into a requirement after a vote by the Boston City Council. The address database is part of an effort to crack down on landlords who allow more than four full-time undergraduates to live in the same unit of housing, a violation of city code.

Landlords often cram 10 or more residents into the same house so that students can work together to afford rent. In the

process, however, the landlords often end up creating illegal bedrooms in the basement or the attic that are in direct violation of fire safety codes.

While the City of Boston requires landlords to submit houses to inspections every time they have new tenants, The Boston Globe series reported that only a fraction of houses are checked and, even then, the records are so archaic that there is no effective way for the city to track repeat offenders. Last year, city officials checked only 2,304 housing inspections out of a total of 154,000 rentals, or one in every 67 houses.

Even in all the units inspected, the Globe could not find one overcrowding citation issued by the city.

Overcrowding is not the only issue fac-

ing Boston residents. Drastic health violations are also present, with many landlords neglecting to respond to mold, insect, and even rodent complaints. Residents in many of these student-dominated neighborhoods are subject to landlords who turn enormous profits while paying little to no attention to resident complaints. The Boston Globe found that the student-filled neighborhoods of Allston, Brighton, Mission Hill, and Fenway have over 50 percent more complaints than the city-wide average, totaling over 14,000 to the Inspectional Services Department in the past eight years.

NEW Boston is Walsh’s effort to curb the health and safety violations that have run rampant in recent years. The entire audit is expected to conclude by the end of

2014, but issues reported by residents will be addressed in real time using applications such as Citizens Connect and City Worker, part of Walsh’s desire to upgrade the city’s infrastructure through technology while also increasing transparency.

“Mayor Walsh has challenged each department to take a fresh look at the work that we do, and the best way to begin is to conduct a comprehensive evaluation,” said Jerome Smith, director of ONS, according to a press release. “We always want to take a long view and find ways to better serve our constituents. By combing the city’s streets and logging everything we find, we’re fulfilling the mayor’s promise to increase efficiency while supporting greater transparency.” 

CollegeFest will be held at Fenway Park this weekend CollegeFest, from B10 brands—ranging from L.L. Bean, Uber, and The New York Times to 5-Hour Energy, the Boston Celtics, FIRE+ICE, and Spotify—who will host special offers, games, prizes, and giveaways. Students have the opportunity to win spring break trips to Puerto Rico, as well as sports tickets. In addition to the exhibitors, there will be various concerts held throughout the day with performances by BoyMeetsWorld, Danielle Prou, STL GLD, and many more.

“It’s hard to get a lot of access to brands on campus,” Tedeschi said. “There are a lot of rules and policies that prevent them from getting on campus, so this provides the brands and the students an opportunity to interact and learn more about each other.”

Since its inception in 1985, the event has been mostly held at various locations on the east coast, including Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. This year, however, the event will be held at the historic Fenway Park, sponsored by Army ROTC. The day will also be free to students for the first time, thanks to SALT, a Boston-based nonprofit that gives students financial tips for college and beyond.

“We are fortunate to have so many colleges and universities in the Boston area that attract young people from across the U.S. and around the world,” Sam Kennedy, Red Sox executive vice president and COO told The Campus Agency. “We want to make sure that students find Fenway Park accessible, and CollegeFest is a great way

PHOTO COURTESY OF COLLEGEFEST

Fenway will host the free CollegeFest for the first time this weekend, featuring bands and products from various brands. for them to experience the ballpark and develop a connection with the ballpark and team.”

In addition to students gaining free access to Fenway Park for the first time, the Red Sox organization will offer discounted and free tickets to college students who hail from across the New England area.

“For those who haven’t been to Fenway, this is a perfect opportunity for students,” Tedeschi said. “We are hoping to get the mayor [Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09] there this year, and I think we are trying to build on idea that students

might want to make Boston their home someday. Hopefully CollegeFest will be a part of that. The city is involved, and we are all working together to make sure students have fun.”

Now under Tedeschi’s leadership, The Campus Agency hopes the 29-year-old CollegeFest can serve as a successful example to areas with a high concentration of college students. The organization is planning to partner with other organizations around the country.

“Markets like Philadelphia and Boston have a large concentration of stu-

dents, and we hope that other cities will see that we’ve had success here, and we believe that other schools will want to host their own version of CollegeFest,” Tedeschi said.

This Saturday from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m., CollegeFest will market products to a group of 17,000 students from the New England area.

“I’ve been a big fan of CollegeFest over years as student participant, and now as a marketing guy this is something I’m very passionate about sharing with students,” Tedeschi said. 

BOSTON FOODIE Butcher Shop offers savory South End fare Chef Michele Carter discusses restaurant’s menu, wide appeal

BY LAUREN TALIO For the Heights Nestled within a quaint side street amid Boston’s South End is The Butcher Shop, a chic FrenchItalian wine bar and butcher y created by the renowned resident restaurateur, Barbara Lynch. Perhaps one of the area’s best-kept secrets, this spot is ideal for meat lovers and their non-vegetarian friends, since slabs of muscular meats proudly hang in an open fridge, both awaiting the brave to claim on their way home and teasing the voracious patrons, as if the meaty aroma weren’t enough.

The wait staff generates a pleasant experience—they are friendly and know unerringly what the patrons need when they need it, but also make sure not to rush the diners when they linger, allowing guests time to enjoy the serene sidewalk scene alongside the casual, yet sophisticated atmosphere.

The minimalistic style cre-

ated by the omnipresent chalkboard, upon which the menu is updated on a nightly basis, gives the room an elegant atmosphere merged with a neighborhood kitchen feel. Although there are limited tables, the bar and standing space surrounding a sizable kitchen island, or “butcher block,” encourage spontaneous conversation over a glass of red wine LOCATION: and a crave-worThe Butcher Shop thy choice from the charcuterie— CUISINE: a generous array Meats of fresh antipasti, imported pates, SAMPLE DISH: and terrines, Beef Heart Pastrami which include duck liver mousse

PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSIE CUSHNER

and rillettes du jour served alongside complimenting accoutrements.

“College students in Boston present us with a great opportunity to get to know a new set of guests,” said Michele Carter, chef de cuisine at The Butcher Shop. “They bring a diverse perspective on what food and dining means to them and help us shape the way that food culture evolves in Boston.”

There is no question that the students bustling about the city would find it enjoyable to discover this unique spot in their own backyard, where they could taste a previously unheard of cheese.

The Butcher Shop might not be within a college student’s everyday budget, but the trendy ambiance is nonetheless ideal for a wine night

with some girlfriends, a date night, or a go-to spot when one’s parents come to town.

From the impressive wine list to the gourmet menu, each successive course is tastier than the last.

Carter recommends that the adventurous try the beef heart pastrami with fried oysters and arugala. Similarly, she believes that students have much to gain from the restaurant’s cuisine as well. “There’s no better way to be introduced to a city and a region than through the eyes of its chefs and restaurants, and we pride ourselves on highlighting the best that Boston has to offer,” she said.

From the farm-to-table freshness to the modest, yet haute decorations, The Butcher Shop leaves little to be desired. 

THE HEART OF THE CITY

On feminism & apologizing to my teapot

MAGGIE POWERS My morning began with an apology. To the tea kettle, specifically.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m coming!” I muttered as I bustled across my little kitchen floor to end the whistling.

Tuesday, I apologized 38 times.

I said sorry to the person I gently bumped into in the library. I said sorry to the person holding a door for me as he waited about five seconds for me to reach him. I said sorry to a professor when correcting him on the pronunciation of my own name. I said sorry to a friend when my knees cracked.

To be honest, I had to add two extra tallies in the second draft of this column because I apologized twice to my editor for not making deadline and for the first draft not making sense.

I started ticking off each one of these apologies on a little sheet of paper I carried around all Tuesday.

This little informal social experiment of mine came after the widely circulated Pantene ads brought the idea of women saying sorry too often into the limelight of pop-culture feminism.

When I apologized to my tea kettle I realized I was, first, being ridiculous, and second, despite my awareness of this issue, my “sorry”s flowed freely and regularly from my mouth. Am I really sorry that you pronounced my name wrong? Or do I just use it as a polite fluffer to seem non-threating?

In this cultural moment, it is hip to be a feminist. The Pantene ad exploded all over social media, popularizing the idea that women need to apologize less and be just as confident as the males in their lives. Other facets of feminism have ballooned into popular conscious as well. From Beyonce’s performance at the VMAs to the recent feminist praise tossed at Playboy, of all places, I have little to add to the conversation that hasn’t been said already. (Is this an apologetic sentence? If so, I’m sorry. Shoot. No, I’m NOT sorry. Still working on this no apologizing thing.) In this moment, it is cool to be a feminist. Which is fantastic. Really. But simply knowing the lyrics to “***Flawless” and watching a few ads before your YouTube videos becomes a soft feminism. How much can consumers really glean from a one-minute video?

One Boston group is unapologetically (pun intended) tackling these issues in a substantial way: New Wave–Young Boston Feminists, a Cambridge-based group founded in 2009. “This isn’t our grandmothers’ feminism–we draw on the great progress of previous generations while forging ahead and creating our own path,” the group’s mission statement reads. Knit together informally by the website Meetup, a networking site for local groups that strives to aid positive change by self organization, New Wave, has various scheduled conversations, lectures, and film screenings between anyone who has a little time and an interest in gender equality.

Posts on their Meetup page range from serious discussions defining feminism as “the process of working against large-scale oppressions including but not limited to sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, classism, and racism” to more informal testimonies saying things like “I saw a poster for New Wave Feminism in a bookstore and was absolutely delighted at the thought of finding a socially conscious community.”

Regardless of the formality or informality of each member’s discussions on the site, New Wave’s unapologetic contribution to the feminist conversation in Boston flies in the face of much of the less substantial pop-culture feminism.

Once I heard about them, I was excited by the prospect of such valuable groups in my city. But one thought popped in my mind every time I made another tally mark on my tattered piece of notebook paper: I’m sure not one of them is apologizing to her tea kettle.

Maggie Powers is an editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

METRO

B10

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

EDGE OF TOWN

A NIGHT OUT

RYAN TOWEY Sorry, Boston—you’re going to lose in this column.

Setting: New York, mid-June A friend and I were walking down MacDougal St. in Manhattan when we found ourselves walking on wires. Lost in conversation, we had not realized that we were walking behind a film set. Across the street, the lights of The Comedy Cellar—a famed New York comedy club—looked pale underneath the summer sun.

I looked at my friend, my current resident New Yorker, for an explanation. (It is part of the story of my life thus far that I never actually live in New York but always know people who do—I am always a visitor from elsewhere, and repeatedly have to relearn the city’s language.)

His eyes widened. “They’re probably shooting Louie,” he said, referencing comedian Louis C.K.’s critically acclaimed television show. We knew that if we waited there a few more moments, we might see the man himself.

All around us, though, people were continuing their walks down the street uninterrupted.

My friend and I looked at each other and shrugged—seeing Louis C.K. meander around a television set was not that big a deal in the city, it appeared. We rejoined the tide of pedestrians and forgot about it.

Setting: Boston, all summer and into the fall semester Scrolling through my Twitter feed, I saw countless references to the fact that Ted 2, a follow-up to the successful 2012 comedy, was being filmed around Boston—photo galleries of the set on various new sources, Instagrams from the city’s famous accounts, news clips about where specifically the movie was being shot at any given moment.

Everyone was running around hoping to catch a glimpse of Mark Wahlberg and a nonexistent teddy bear—or at least formal and informal media was making it look that way—but I wished for Boston to practice a bit of New York-style indifference. Some might say that this indifference is indicative of some of New York’s negative qualities, including its population’s general sense of superiority, but this indifference is actually the sign of a city that has nothing to prove.

New York news sources don’t flock to TV and movie sets, like tourists to the Statue of Liberty, because they know that their city is arguably the world’s cultural capital; celebrity sightings are typical.

Boston was largely eclipsed by other American cities in the 1800s—but it’s still not over the inferiority complex. The city’s media and population take isolated events—like the filming of Ted 2—and report them as if they are indicative of some great cultural movement, when, in reality, Boston’s biggest claims to A-list acting fame are repeatedly attributed to the same celebrities, including Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and, yes, Mark Wahlberg.

Boston is absolutely brimming with culture, though perhaps less obviously than that city to the south. Regardless, Boston makes itself look foolish by inflating that which is common elsewhere, like a kid who flaunts a piece of candy that everyone else already has. My advice to Boston is this: act like you’ve been there before.

We sometimes have movies filmed on our streets, yes, but we also have masterpieces hanging in museums, art displayed on the streets, and musicians sharing their craft with the city.

At Boston Calling last weekend, it was clear that much of Boston does not share the inflated vision of celebrity news that is demonstrated in the media. At the threeday festival headlined by The National and Lorde, people turned out and enjoyed music on City Hall Plaza as if it was no big deal for Boston to have great music acts performing in the heart of their city.

Setting: Boston, sometime in the future Mark Wahlberg, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon decide to team up for a movie set primarily in the South End. No one bats an eyelash.

Ryan Towey is the Metro Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@ bcheights.com

WITH

Inferiority complex

BarUP MAGGIE MARETZ | HEIGHTS STAFF

The workweek is long and does not provide much opportunity to deviate from a routine—a chance to go out at night sometime Sunday through Thursday is often welcome.

If people are anything like Alex Chin and Jimmy Aird, the co-founders of a new app called “BarUp,” they have probably been disappointed to find bars nearly empty—far from the fun atmosphere they were looking for on a weeknight. It was this disappointment that prompted Chin and Aird to create their new app, which is built upon a simple idea—bring all of the workweek bar-goers to the same bar.

“We really just started an app that will bring all those people who are sitting at bars nearby to one community bar that

everyone will go to,” Chin said. “We created the app to get a real weekend feel during the work week.”

Chin, a native of Canton, Mass., now lives in Boston and works downtown at an online e-commerce startup called Yottaa. He and Aird—also a resident of Boston—used to go to one of their favorite bars on a random weeknight and were always frustrated to find that there were only 10 to 15 people there. Then they would go across the street and find another scattering of people in the next bar. Why, they reasoned, wasn’t there be some way to get all these people into one packed bar?

Chin believes BarUp is the solution

See BarUp, B8

Festival to feature local food

CollegeFest will be free at Fenway

BY ADRIANA OLAYA

BY BENNET JOHNSON

Heights Staff

Asst. Metro Editor

The picturesque Rose Kennedy Greenway will be covered by a green of a different sort this Sunday—“green” and locally sourced food. The Local Food Festival will feature produce and foods from primarily Boston, as well as the surrounding New England area. The Festival boasts the title of New England’s largest one-day farmers’ market and will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m..

The Local Food Festival will feature myriad restaurants, over 100 vendors, and specialty food producers and farmers who use or grow New England produce. A chef demonstration stage will showcase the talents of a number of local chefs who will entertain their audiences and create meals that highlight seasonal and local ingredients. In addition, the festival hops on the DIY train with a “Do-It-Yourself ” booth designed to instruct its visitors on how to make their own cheese or tortillas, and even how to get kids excited about vegetables. The Festival hopes to appeal to all ages with a Family Fun Zone and children’s activities.

The centrality of the Rose Kennedy Greenway makes the festival available to many residents throughout Boston and Massachusetts. The festival encourages its visitors to forego driving for alternative methods, such as walking, public transportation, and even biking.

“Choosing the Rose Kennedy Greenway was extremely intentional,” said Nicola Williams, president of the Williams Agency, an event planning organization. Besides its downtown location, the Greenway also boasts

Paul Tedeschi attended his first CollegeFest event back in 1985 when he was a student at Boston University.

Tedeschi fell in love with marketing after he attended the first ever CollegeFest event at the BU Armory. He later organized his first youth marketing company as an undergraduate student.

“I was just having fun back in the day,” Tedeschi said. “The local rock music station was involved, and I thought it was really cool, and it got me interested in marketing in general.”

If you told Tedeschi that he would still be involved with this event nearly 30 years later, he would not have believed you.

Now, Tedeschi is the founder and CEO of The Campus Agency, the company responsible for acquiring CollegeFest this past October.

“I never seemed to be able to graduate from the college market,” Tedeschi said jokingly.

CollegeFest is celebrating its 29th year in Boston this Saturday, Sept. 13. Part festival and part trade show, CollegeFest is the longest running college festival in the country.

The event is a one-day festival designed to welcome students across Boston and the New England area back to school by allowing them to explore their city and meet new people at an event designed specifically for students.

“We want CollegeFest to be a rite of passage in Boston,” Tedeschi said. “We’re expecting over 10,000 students from all over the city to come out, as well as UNH, UMass-Amherst, and URI.” The event will have participants interact with over 70 different companies and

See Local Food, B8

I NSIDE METRO THIS ISSUE

EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Mayor Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09, has made improving troubled neighborhoods a priority.

Walsh launches audit of all Boston neighborhoods

BY GUS MERRELL Heights Staff Mayor Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09, will send officials from Boston’s Office of Neighborhood Services (ONS) to begin surveying the city’s 850 miles of city streets in an effort to assess each neighborhood in detail on Monday. Everything that they find will be catalogued in a “story map,” and shared with the public as part of Walsh’s emphasis on increased transparency and accountability in the government.

This citywide audit that Walsh calls NEW Boston—NEW stands for Neighborhood Engagement Walks–will be a cross-departmental venture. The ONS representatives will work in conjunction with branches such as the Inspectional Services Department, the Public Works Department, the Transportation Department, and the Parks Department, among others.

In a Sept. 5 press release, Walsh said that the representatives will be “evaluating infrastructure challenges, identifying constituent concerns through conversations, and cataloging issues facing each neighborhood.”

While ONS already has representatives

Massachusetts Primaries

for each neighborhood of Boston, Walsh admits that there is room for improvement. By going through each neighborhood with a fine-tooth comb, Walsh hopes that the representatives of ONS will not only catalogue every detail associated with the neighborhoods, but also build a face-to-face relationship with their constituents.

“Our ONS reps are outstanding,” said Walsh, according to the press release. “But I want them to know every inch of the area that they represent, and the best way to do that is to get on the ground and in the weeds.

By combining technology and grassroots engagement, we can—for the first time in our history—truly assess every piece of this city to better serve the people in our neighborhoods.”

Walsh’s launch of NEW Boston comes in the wake of the discovery of numerous housing and safety violations primarily in neighborhoods dominated by off-campus housing for college students.

Following a fire at 87 Linden Street that killed 22-year-old Boston University student Binland Lee in 2013, The Boston Globe

The state’s primary elections brought mostly expected results, but also a few significant surprises...........................................................................................B8

See Audit, B9

See CollegeFest, B8

Boston Foodie: The Butcher Shop ............................................................................B9 Column: Bennet’s Banter.........................................................................................B8