The Heights November 4, 2019

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Meet the New Faces of MCAS Student Indicted for Manslaughter

Inyoung You told her boyfriend to ‘go die’ hundreds of times.

By Jack Miller

News Editor

and Abby Hunt

Assoc. News Editor

If you or someone you know is in crisis, contact University Counseling Services at 617-552-3310 or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins announced at a Monday morning press conference the indictment of Inyoung You, MCAS ’20, for involuntary manslaughter. You is being charged in connection with the suicide of her boyfriend Alexander Urtula, BC ’19.

You was tracking Urtula’s location on her phone on the day of his suicide, and she was present when he jumped to his death in Roxbury. He died on May 20, hours before he was set to cross the stage

at Commencement. His family came from his hometown of Cedar Grove, N.J., to attend the ceremony, Rollins said.

Rollins said that You engaged in a pattern of physical, verbal, and psychological abuse throughout their 18-month relationship. The abuse worsened in the days and hours leading up to Urtula’s death.

“Students come to Boston from around the world to attend our renowned colleges and universities, eager to learn and experience our vibrant city,” Rollins said. “Their families and loved ones certainly do not expect them to face unending physical and mental abuse.”

Associate Vice President of University Communications Jack Dunn told The Heights in an email on Monday that You withdrew from classes last August.

You, who is currently residing in her home country of South Korea, is still listed in the University directory as a member of the Class of 2020.

In the two months before his death, Urtula and You exchanged over 75,000 text messages, more than 47,000 of which were from You, according to an investiga-

tion by the Massachusetts Bay Transit Police and Suffolk County prosecutors.

Rollins said that hundreds, if not thousands, of You’s messages encouraged his suicide. She repeatedly told him to “go kill himself ” and “go die,” and she said that she, his family, and the world would be better off if he did so, according to a press release from Rollins’ office.

“Many of the messages clearly display the power dynamic in the relationship, wherein Ms. You made demands and threats with the understanding that she had complete and total control over Mr. Urtula both mentally and emotionally,” Rollins said.

The investigation revealed that You used manipulative threats and attempts of self-harm to control Urtula, Rollins said. It also found that she was aware of the spiraling depression and suicidal thoughts her abuse had brought on, but she persisted in encouraging Urtula to take his own life.

“The indictment alleges Ms. You’s behavior was wanton and reckless and

See Indictment, A3

Court Allows Doe’s Lawyer to Appear

A previous order said that her involvement would cause a recusal.

By Jack Miller News Editor The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled on Friday that the Boston College student who had been suspended after the University had found him responsible for sexual assault will be represented by his attorney of choice at Tuesday’s oral arguements.

First Circuit Judge David J. Barron had originally blocked Jeannie Suk Gersen, a Harvard law professor who has written about due process violations in Title IX investigations and represented students in similar cases, from representing the student, “John Doe,” at the oral arguments. Barron’s Oct. 24 order came with a note that the motion for Gersen to appear was denied “because it would create a recusal.” The members of the threejudge panel had not been announced

at that time.

Barron was a Harvard law professor from 1999 to 2009 and again from 2010 to 2014, when he was appointed to the First Circuit. He remains the Honorable S. William Green Visiting Professor of Public Law. Barron is the only judge on the First Circuit to have worked at Harvard.

Gersen has taught at Har vard since 2006.

The University suspended Doe in June after finding him responsible for the sexual assault of another BC student, “Jane Roe.” After the University denied Doe’s appeal in late July, the two parties quickly went to court. On Aug. 20, District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock ordered BC to allow Doe, a student-athlete, to register for classes and participate in all University activities.

Woodlock’s decision to send Doe back to campus largely rested on his ruling that BC’s investigatory model— in which two investigators interview the claimant, the accused student, and any witnesses separately—failed to adequately address questions of

credibility and potentially violated Doe’s right to a fair process.

Doe had hired Gersen on Oct. 8 because Stuart Brenstein, his attorney who had led the case through district court, left work after his brother suddenly died on Sept. 23. Bernstein, who was very close to his brother, was unable to work as appellate counsel as he grieved with his brother’s children, according to the motion to reconsider Doe filed on Oct. 28.

Bernstein also observed several Jewish traditions, including Shiva, a week-long mourning period; Sheloshim, which lasts a month; and the twice-a-day recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish, according to the motion to reconsider. As he did not return to work until mid-October, after the Jewish High Holy Days, Bernstein was unable to continue his work for Doe in the weeks leading up to the appeal, the motion to reconsider said.

Tara Davis, another attorney who had worked on the lawsuit in both the District Court and the appeal, began

See First Circuit, A3

nick lisi / ap photo

Rushing Attack Powers BC Past Syracuse AJ Dillon ran for 242 yards and three scores, as the Eagles beat the Orange, 58-27.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

METRO: America’s Test Kitchen METRO: Vape Sales Restricted

Photo courtesy of peter julian

Colleagues Honor Alberto Godenzi’s Legacy, Memory Close friends said he lived with virtue and integrity.

By Isabella Cavazzoni Copy Editor and Maeve Reilly

Asst. Magazine Editor He was the kind of worker who could routinely be found in his office on weekends. He led by example. He wanted his students and faculty to succeed. Throughout the 18 years he spent on BC’s campus, Alberto Godenzi left an unforgettable mark on both students and colleagues as the dean for the Boston College School of Social Work (SSW) and the vice provost for Global Engagement.

Godenzi died on Oct. 20 at the age of 66 after a three-month battle with leukemia. He served as the dean of SSW beginning in 2001 until he was appointed to his vice provost position in 2016.

During his time at BC, Godenzi

touched the lives of countless students and colleagues. One of these colleagues was social work professor Paul Kline, who described Godenzi as a mentor and a close friend.

“Alberto was a man of virtue and integrity,” Kline said. “And you had every confidence that your conversations with him were being handled with the care and respect that they deserved, and you had every confidence that he had your best interest at heart.”

Thomas Walsh, the associate dean of SSW and the Master of Social Work Program director, had worked with Godenzi since he came to BC in 2001.

Godenzi, he said, left behind a legacy of a man who made fair decisions, communicated effectively, and, above all, ensured that the people he interacted with were cared for. At a faculty meeting shortly after Godenzi’s passing, a number of faculty members attested to Godenzi’s character. If it weren’t for Godenzi, they said, they wouldn’t be where they’re at today.

See Godenzi, A3

Environmental Studies Adds New Concentrations The expansion is a response to students’ requests for variety.

By Megan Kelly For The Heights Boston College’s environmental studies program has introduced four new concentrations this year: environmental health, environmental justice and policy, environmental entrepreneurship, and biodiversity conservation.

The concentrations were created in an effort to respond to popular student interests and expand academic flexibility within the program, according to the program’s director, professor Tara Pisani Gareau.

Since the environmental studies major was introduced in 2014, students have been able to pick from either two “themes” or four “disciplines” to focus on. The two thematic concentrations were food and water sustainability, and climate change and societal adaptation—while the four disciplinary ones were sociology, history, political science, and economics.

“They didn’t represent all of the different topics that people are interested in,” Gareau said. “So sometimes we were losing students who are interested maybe in other areas.”

Compared to the disciplines, the themes have tended to be more popular with students because they are more interdisciplinary in nature and focus more on the issues

The Boston-based company publishes Newton now prohibits vape products from recipes and produces a television show...A12 being sold outside of two adult-only stores..A12

INDEX

that people are really concerned about, Gareau said.

“Students see themselves, for example, working in food policy perhaps in the future, or being part of climate change solutions,” Gareau said.

Because of where students’ interest had typically been, when deciding which areas it would make the most sense to offer environmental studies students, the program decided to move in the direction of thematic concentrations.

A subcommittee of the environmental studies steering committee devised the new concentrations, Gareau said. The subcommittee then had them reviewed by the curriculum review board of the Education Policy Committee, as it wanted to make sure it got feedback before it launched them.

The four new concentrations are, in a way, an environmental studies 2.0, Gareau explained.

The environmental health concentration stemmed from a group of students who were independently developing the concentration themselves, Gareau said. The program then worked with the students to create an official concentration within the program that would focus on the interactions between environmental health and human health, Gareau said.

Gareau said that the program created the environmental entrepreneurship concentration because it had seen a strong

See Environmental Studies, A3

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things to do on campus this week

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There will be an aromatherapy session in the Murray Function Room on Wednesday at 12 p.m. Participants will have the opportunity to create and keep their own aromatherapy unit.

Monday, November 4, 2019

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The Lowell Humanities Series continues this week with the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Michael Witmore, who will be speaking on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Gasson 100.

The Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center is celebrating Native American Heritage Month on Thursday at 12 p.m. in Maloney 455.

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NEWS Public Interest Law Foundation Hosts Service Days BRIEFS Law Dean to Lead AALS

Dean of Boston College Law School Vincent D. Rougeau has been nominated as the president-elect of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). He has recently completed a three-year stint on the AALS Executive Committee in 2018. Rougeau will be the third BC Law Dean to serve as AALS president, after Richard Huber and John Garvey. “[Dean Rougeau] is well positioned to lead the Executive Committee through the challenges facing law schools today,” AALS Executive Director Judith Areen said in a recent email to the AALS membership, according to a University release.

The AALS contains 179 law schools across the country and hosts an annual conference on developments in higher education and the legal world. The organization also performs a number of professional development and networking functions.

Rougeau took the lead at BC Law in 2011, after working as a law professor at Notre Dame. He authored a book on Catholic social thought, “Christians in the American Empire: Faith and Citizenship in the New World Order,” which was published by the Oxford University Press.

Rougeau holds bar certifications in Maryland and the District of Columbia. He practiced law for four years in Washington D.C., after receiving his undergraduate education at Brown University and his juris doctorate from Harvard University.

Rougeau’s nomination will be voted on by the AALS House of Representatives at the annual meeting on Jan. 4. The AALS looks to improve the quality of both legal education and the professionals it produces through professional development and educational programs. The society also conducts research and is a member of broader educational societies.

New Additions to Board of Regents Inaugural Chair John Fish has concluded his term on the Board of Regents and will be succeeded

by Marc Seidner, BC ’88 and Susan Martinelli Shea, BC ’76. All three are current members on the Board of Trustees.

Seidner is the managing director and CIO of non-traditional strategies for PIMCO, a global investment management firm based in Newport Beach, Calif. He has worked in the industry for more than 30 years.

Seidner has committed to endowing the director’s chair for the incoming Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society.

Shea is currently the president of a non-profit ballroom dance organization that she founded called Dancing with Students. The organization provides fifth through ninth graders in the Greater Philadelphia area with ballroom dance classes. Shea has donated to BC in order to help establish the Lynch School of Education’s Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Deanship.

Fish is the CEO of Suffolk Construction. He is the father of two BC graduates and has donated to the University, most notably for the creation of the Fish Fieldhouse, an indoor athletic facility.

The Board of Regents was created in 2017 to serve in an advisory role to both University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., and the Board of Trustees. There are currently 98 Regents, who connect the University to external organizations and businesses, according to BC’s website. The Board will hold its annual meeting on Nov. 14 and 15.

By Megan Kelly For The Heights And Abby Hunt Assoc. News Editor

The Boston College Law School’s Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF) hosted a Day of Service on Sept. 7 that brought together faculty, staff, and students to celebrate the new school year.

The event was a recent programming addition held in response to increased interest in the foundation’s work.

As they did in PILF’s spring day of service, volunteers went to Friday Cafe, Cradles to Crayons, Allston Brighton Food Pantry, and Y2Y, and around 20 volunteers partook in a Charles River cleanup.

Alyssa Rao, BC Law and GSSW ’21, who is the community events director of the student-run organization, explained that PILF tries to make it possible for students to take public interest internships over the summer.

“Most internships with a nonprofit or a judge or with the government are unpaid, so by doing different fundraising events and community events, we’re able to sort of facilitate the vast majority of those internships with stipends,” she said.

PILF also tries to foster public service and public interest values throughout the BC Law community, Rao said.

The organization hosts networking events, speakers, and volunteer days.

While PILF usually hosts one Day of

Service per year, it hosted the event in both the fall and spring last year. This year, PILF added a beginning-of-theyear Day of Service, in addition to the fall Day of Service that it will host on Nov. 8 and 9 and the spring event that it will host in March.

While PILF’s days of service have traditionally consisted of about 30 volunteers, there was a massive influx of volunteers last year, with 89 people signing up for the fall Day of Service.

“To give that perspective, one class is about 240, so it’s a pretty significant number of people,” Rao said. “And then we did this follow-up Day of Service [in the spring], which we didn’t anticipate to be huge, but we thought would get around 30, and we had 50 people sign up for that.”

The days of service were previously reserved for law students only, but PILF opened them up to faculty and staff at its beginning-of-the-year event. The 65 volunteers were distributed across five different service placements in the Greater Boston area and included Dean of BC Law Vincent Rougeau, who volunteered at Y2Y, a youth homeless shelter.

“The people that were at that event said it was really cool because the dean was down on his knees, scrubbing away on the floors,” Rao said. “So [we] were trying to sort of engage not just the law students but also the law community by opening it up to faculty.”

Rao explained how this enthusiasm

Courtesy of Alyssa Rao

BC Law students volunteer at Women’s Lunch Place during a PILF Day of Service. demonstrates the BC Law community’s dedication to volunteer work in general, even if it’s not related to their lawschool work. This growing interest reflects, according to Rao, the commitment to helping others in the wider BC community.

“It’s something that sets the University as a whole apart, but I think it also sets the law school apart in that the students are really, really happy and enjoy the people that they’re working with and want, if they have the time, to take time for others,” she said. “And I think that’s something that you might not see it other law schools, and I think it makes BC really unique.”

As for the influx of interest, Rao explained that PILF, in the last two years, has shifted from a primary focus on funding to a more holistic view

of the organization. She cites various programming events, such as the days of ser vice, that have strengthened publicity efforts and encouraged a wider array of student, faculty, and staff involvement.

“I do think it’s really cool that so many people at BC, are so willing to do this for like nothing in return—they genuinely want to spend time getting to know the community that BC is part of,” Rao said.

“Law school can be really busy, and it can be really stressful, and it can make you feel like school is the only thing that matters,” she said. “By putting these events on, by giving people a couple of hours a day when they can go and do something for someone else, I think, has been really cool to see people be interested in." n

Poli. Sci. Event Provides Lessons on Impeachment

By Scott Baker Copy Editor Robert Doar, president and Morgridge Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, came to Boston College on Thursday to speak on impeachment and that of former president Richard Nixon. The talk, hosted by the political science department and titled “The Successful Impeachment Inquiry,” could not have been more timely—the U.S. House of Representatives voted to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump earlier the same morning.

Doar’s career experience has focused on anti-poverty programs, having worked as commissioner of both New York State’s and New York City’s social services departments and is currently president of a think tank. Doar’s expertise in the subject of impeachment is not evident—he has no law degree, and he is no constitutional scholar. His background instead comes from a familial source—his father, John Doar, was Special Counsel for the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary during the impeachment of Nixon.

Doar began with a short retelling of the origins of the inquiry into Nixon.

After Nixon won the 1972 election in a landslide, reports of Republican operatives spying on Democrats in the Watergate Hotel began to break out,

shortly followed by rumors of Nixon’s involvement.

Doar listed seven crucial factors that led to the success of the Nixon impeachment inquiry: unified staff, authorization from the House, closed-door executive sessions, the presence of the president’s lawyer, a memo on its understanding of the grounds for impeachment, and bipartisan effort.

In contrast to standard practice, Peter Rodino, Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time, appointed a bipartisan team of investigators. Committee staff are generally divided between the majority and minority parties, but Rodino didn’t tolerate leaks or public opposition to the president.

“When they announced the appointment of [my] dad, they did it with the minority leader of the committee—ranking member J. Edward Hutchison,” Doar said. “And he said specifically the special counsel should be viewed not as the majority counsel or the minority, but as the counsel to the whole committee.”

Doar also highlighted the importance of the official authorization of the inquiry, which he said provided a sense of legitimacy. To exemplify what he saw as the importance of this authorization, he provided a quotation by Rodino just a day after the vote for a formal inquiry.

“Whatever the result, whatever we learn or conclude, let us now proceed

with such care and decency and thoroughness and honor that the vast majority of the American people and their children after them will say: ‘That was the right course. There was no other way,’” Rodino said.

The third crucial decision was the existence of executive sessions in the House, where members were presented with evidence by staff without analysis to discuss. Doar argued that this showed an absence of bias on the part of House members and staff, allowing members to come to conclusions based only on the evidence, much like a jury trial.

Decision four was the role of the president’s lawyer in the proceedings.

Although those subject to investigation are not legally entitled to representation under House rules, Doar said, this decision was done for political reasons, so as to allow Nixon the opportunity to defend himself.

The memo on the grounds for impeachment, Doar argued, was the fifth pivotal decision. The memo provided an understanding of what qualifies an impeachable defense, which is an unconstitutional act “that subvert[s] the structure of government.” The document made it clear that impeachment was a response to an egregious abuse of power, rather than behavior tied to the standard duties of the presidency, Doar said.

The sixth decision, Doar posited, was

POLICE BLOTTER: 10/27/19 – 10/28/19

Monday, Oct. 28

Sunday, Oct. 27

12:44 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding an underage intoxicated person at Newton Lots.

1:16 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding an underage intoxicated person at Upper Dorms Roadways.

the five articles of impeachment themselves. The House seriously considered tax offenses and Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia, but they were overwhelmingly voted down. What was effective, though, were the articles on obstruction of justice and abuse of power. The importance of these articles, Doar said, was that they demonstrated continuous patterns of wrongdoing over a period of time, instead of individual acts, providing a stronger basis for the decision.

Bipartisan support for the inquiry was the seventh and final decision. Numerous Republicans joined Democrats in supporting impeachment, thanks in part to Rodino’s efforts to receive support from the Judiciary Committee’s Republican members.

Doar finished with a shift to contemporary events, stressing the need for legitimacy of process.

“If the object is to remove the president and to successfully impeach him, have it go to the Senate, and then have him be impeached by two-thirds vote in the Senate,” Doar said. “The process the House Judiciary Committee put in place to make that possible in the Nixon inquiry would be useful now as well.

You have to focus on persuading those who are loyal to the president to come to your side. The process does matter—taking your time, getting it right, does matter.” n

1:50 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding an underage intoxicated person at Stayer Hall.

3:43 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding an underage intoxicated person at Xavier Hall.

1:36 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident at Roncalli Hall.

2:24 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a fire alarm activation at Connolly Carriage House.

4:01 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding an underage intoxicated person at Xavier Hall.

3:55 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident at 66 Priscilla Road.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

CORRECTIONS Do you have a favorite podcast or one you are currently listening to?

“Up First by NPR and Comments by Celebs.”

— Cat Hoff, MCAS ’22

“The Daily.”

— Abby White, MCAS ’21

Please send corrections to president@bcheights.com with ‘correction’ in the subject line.

“Pardon My Take.”

—Rob Finn, CSOM ’22

“Wine and Crime.”

— Stephanie Meyer, CSOM ’22

The Heights

Monday, November 4, 2019

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Remembering Alberto Godenzi: ‘An Inspirational Leader, a Visionary’ Godenzi, from A1 “So people really felt that he was a wonderful mentor, that he cared about them … He would literally go out of his way to advocate for you in any way he could,” Walsh said.

University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., described Godenzi as “a man of action and relentless energy who was just and caring, and had a deep sense of mission and a commitment to education” at an Oct. 25 memorial Mass, according to a University release.

Godenzi had not only his colleagues’ best interests at heart, but also the entire student body’s, Kline said.

After the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013, Godenzi sprung into action and reached out to students and faculty to offer support. Godenzi provided opportunities for students to come together and offer support during a time of sorrow.

“His immediate concern was for the students and faculty for all those impacted,” Kline said.

Godenzi had an impact on his colleagues, the student body, and the legacy of the School of Social Work and BC as a whole.

Throughout his tenure as dean, Godenzi transformed the School of Social Work, according to Walsh.

When he was interviewed for the position in 2000, Godenzi had a mission to make SSW a top-10 ranked school, intending to move it upward from its then-No. 24 ranking, according to US News. Godenzi’s goals were ambitious, but what he sought to achieve, he did.

BC is currently tied with Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania as the 10th best school for social work in the country, according to U.S. News—a ranking that can be attributed to Godenzi’s hard work and dedication.

As BC moved up in the rankings, applications to the school and its enrollment began to increase unwaveringly.

Kline said that Godenzi’s desire to prepare social workers to serve the entire world was at the core of his “brightly colored” goals. He strived to help his students navigate the diverse environment of social work.

To achieve that mission, Godenzi created the global practice concentration within SSW, a program that places students throughout the world

to work for NGOs in places that need social workers. With this program, Godenzi formed a structural office that has been essential to SSW, Walsh said.

Godenzi was also able to increase the amount of research funding the school received. And under his leadership, scholarly publications of faculty work in SSW increased twofold for senior faculty and three times over for junior faculty.

Godenzi endeavored to expand financial aid for students in SSW. Considering that social work isn’t a high-paying profession, Godenzi lifted a financial burden off students shoulders, Walsh said.

Truly an advocate for others, Godenzi championed diversity and, if the numbers are any indication, his efforts proved to be fruitful.

When he arrived at BC, 15 percent of SSW’s student body was made up of AHANA+ students, a number that he strived to double. At his initiative’s peak, SSW’s population of AHANA+ students reached 40 percent, surpassing this goal.

Accordingly, Godenzi developed the Latinx Leadership Initiative and the Immigrant Integration Lab. The Latinx Leadership Initiative prepares social workers to aid Latinx

Photo Courtesy of University Communications

Alberto Godenzi, former Dean of the School of Social Work, worked at BC for 18 years. communities. The program works to recruit Latinx students—teaching classes in Spanish and collaborating with Latinx communities in a variety of settings across the United States.

The Immigrant Integration Lab connects SSW students and faculty to immigrant inclusion with a focus on social justice. With these two programs, Godenzi worked go close a gap between SSW students and marginalized communities.

Godenzi pushed others to look beyond the confines of the U.S. and learn about the experiences of people in other

places in the world, Kline said. As vice provost for Global Engagement, he co-led an extensive study analyzing the ways BC interacts with the world and developing means for it to improve its global impact and presence.

“Alberto was an inspirational leader, a visionary,” Kline said. “And so it was both rewarding and a little intimidating because he set the bar very high [at] our school for faculty. But he never failed to provide you with what you needed to reach those high goals and to help the school achieve his ambitious dream.” n

Judges Approve Attorney First Circuit, from A1

Photo Courtesy of the Urtula Family vis Suffolk DA’s Office

You Charged After Boyfriend’s Death Indictment, from A1 resulted in overwhelming Mr. Urtula’s will to live, and that she created life-threatening conditions for him that she had a legal duty to alleviate, which we allege she failed to do,” Rollins said.

More details will be presented during the coming arraignment, Rollins said.

Urtula’s family and classmates had witnessed the abuse, which was also documented extensively in Urtula’s journal entries, Rollins said.

You has been in contact with the district attorney’s office through a representative, according to Rollins.

Rollins said her office is attempting to bring You back to the country voluntarily.

If You is not willing to voluntarily return, Rollins said her office will use its power to extradite You. “We are fully fluent in the ways we can get her back if she doesn’t want to do so voluntarily,” Rollins

said. “We are hopeful, but cautiously optimistic that she will return on her own, but we’re moving forward with this case.”

You is facing the same involuntary manslaughter charge that Michelle Carter was ultimately convicted of in 2017.

Through phone calls and text messages, Carter—a Plainville, Mass., native—committed involuntary manslaughter by encouraging her boyfriend Conrad Roy III to kill himself.

Roy ended up taking his own life in 2014.

In February of this year, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld Carter’s conviction, and Carter received a sentencing of 15 months in prison.

While there are some similarities between the two cases—both took place in Massachusetts and involved encouragement of suicide by the victim’s girlfriend—Rollins emphasized that You and Urtula’s case follows a distinct fact pattern.

In the 2017 case, Carter had very limited physical contact with Roy prior to his death—the two were in a long-distance relationship—before sending him messages in the moments leading up to his death.

“We have, quite frankly, I would say, the opposite of that,” Rollins said.

“We have a barrage of a complete and utter attack on this man’s very will and conscience and psyche by an individual— to the tune of 47,000 text messages in the two months leading up—and an awareness, we would argue, of his frail state at that point.”

“This is separate and distinct case, and we’re going to focus exclusively on Mr. Urtula and his family here,” Rollins said.

Over the summer, Massachusetts state legistlators unveiled “Conrad’s Law,” which would make the encouragement or assistance of suicide punishable by up to five years. The bill is currently before the judiciary committee in the state legislature, Rollins said. n

Former Dean Named Jesuit Provincial

By Madeleine Romance Asst. Investigative Editor Rev. Joseph M. O’Keefe, S.J., was named the first provincial of the new USA East Province of the Jesuits (UEA) earlier this week. Rev. General Arturo Sosa, S.J., appointed O’Keefe, who was the dean of Boston College’s Lynch School of Education from 2003 to 2011, to the position just a week after creating the province.

His new position will become effective on July 31, 2020—the feast day of the order’s founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola.

The UEA will combine the existing Maryland and Northeast Provinces into one East Coast Province.

This merger will make it the largest province in the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, a body that includes the seven provincial superiors of the Society of Jesus in both the United States and Canada.

“This is an exciting milestone in our move toward creating a new province,” Sosa wrote in his decree.

“We offer a heartfelt prayer of gratitude to the Lord as we progress in our journey to create a unified East Coast province that will continue to grow in service to others.”

The Jesuit Provinces work with Jesuit universities, schools, and retreat centers to establish curriculums. They also help train and staff prison and outreach centers, in addition to setting up refugee camps and humanitarian aid programs in underdeveloped countries.

Under the unification plan, O’Keefe will be responsible for taking over the duties of both provinces.

The Maryland Province has jurisdiction over the entire state, and the Northeast Province consists of the Bronx-Fairfield Region, the Manhattan Region, and the New Jersey-Long Island Region.

O’Keefe has primarily worked as an educator, according to the press release, first as a faculty member at Fordham and Georgetown and later through his decades-long career at BC.

Currently, O’Keefe is the superior of the Ciszek Hall house of First Studies and the Spellman Hall Jesuit Community at Fordham University.

O’Keefe has also previously served as a Province Consultor for younger Jesuits in First Studies.

Sosa explained in his appointment decree that O’Keefe was given the designation because of his “extensive apolistic experience and noteworthy personal gifts” that make him well prepared to serve the Society of Jesus in this position.

O’Keefe expressed gratitude for the support he has received from the Jesuits of the provinces he will be assuming responsibilities for, and is looking forward to working alongside his colleagues, fellow Jesuits and lay people alike, in the construction of this new Province.

“I am humbled and gratified by the confidence that Father General has placed in me,” O’Keefe said in the press release. “God has been so good to us in the past; God will lead us anew into a hopeful future.” n

her previously scheduled maternity leave on Oct. 28, according to the motion to reconsider.

The motion to reconsider said that Doe retained Gersen because “[she] was the only attorney that [Doe] considered prepared and ready to step in immediately for Mr. Brenstein and comply with the court’s briefing and argument schedule.”

The motion took issue with the effect of the court’s order—namely, that it would deny Doe of his chosen representation. It also noted that the federal statute on judicial recusal states the circumstances in which judges “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” but does not mention circumstances in which a judge would prevent an attorney from appearing to preserve his own impartiality.

Doe’s legal team said in the motion that they have inferred that it was Barron who felt he might have a conflict of interest if his colleague had appeared at arguments.

The motion said that the selection of Gersen was not intended to cause any ethical issues for judges.

“Appellee and counsel had no reason to question any First Circuit judge’s impartiality, including Judge Barron’s,” the motion to reconsider said. “Multiple sitting judges regularly teach courses at Harvard Law School, with ongoing and renewed appointments as visiting professors or lecturers, without creating issues of recusal when the school’s faculty members appear in their courts.

“What is truly extraordinary, however, is to prevent Appellee from having his chosen attorney appear in this Court in order to represent him.

Appellee is unable to find any case in which a judge, concerned about the necessity of his own recusal, chose instead to prevent an attorney from appearing on behalf of her client. A

judge’s recusal, rather than denial of a litigant’s choice of attorney, is the customary remedy in Courts of Appeals.”

The motion also took issue with a lack of transparency surrounding the order and argued that if Barron was the judge who would have needed a recusal, then he should have recused himself from the order barring her appearance.

On Oct. 29, the First Circuit announced that Judges Sandra L. Lynch, Michael Boudin, and Kermit V. Lipez would hear Doe’s appeal. Barron will serve on every other panel, as will Judge Norman H. Stahl.

That same day, Lynch, Boudin, and Lipez denied Doe’s motion to reconsider. A day later, the order was corrected to note that Lipez had dissented in the decision to uphold Barron’s order.

In response, Doe’s legal team asked for the full First Circuit to review the order. The petition argued that the decision to bar an attorney from appearing to prevent a recusal was both unprecedented and could have negative effects on future appeals cases.

“Doe respectfully submits that the question is of exceptional importance to litigants in the First Circuit going forward, because after the unprecedented Order in this case, litigants may reasonably wonder whether a court could simply disqualify their chosen counsel based on an unidentified would-be recusal of an unnamed judge for an unexplained reason,” the petition said. “Counsel in this jurisdiction may also reasonably wonder whether, after their zealous efforts on behalf of their clients, they could be disqualified from appearing ‘because it would cause a recusal’ of an unidentified judge whom are unaware of having any cause for recusal.”

Before the court could respond to the second petition, however, Lynch, Boudin, and Lipez reversed course in a Nov. 1 order and permitted Gersen to argue before them. n

E.S. Adds New Focuses Enviromental Studies, from A1

interest from BC students in the business aspects of sustainability. Classes like Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Carroll School of Management and Is All Commerce Capitalism? in the history department, for example, didn’t necessarily have a place in the program before it changed the concentrations.

“We called it environmental entrepreneurship because we think entrepreneurship is a really important component of sustainability and innovation,” Gareau said.

Gareau said that, with the new concentrations, the program wanted to focus on moving toward a world of environmental and social justice, with a special focus on the interdisciplinary nature of themes such as Environmental Justice and Policy.

“The Jesuit mission and the mission of Boston College is to use one’s knowledge and intellectual development, whole person development, spiritual development, to do

good on the planet,” Gareau said.

She explained that the biodiversity conservation concentration in particular focuses on a very Jesuit, Catholic goal: the preservation of creation.

“Environmental justice is social justice,” Gareau said. “We’re talking about looking at parts of society that are highly influenced or disproportionately influenced by environmental stresses and pollution. So our goals are very similar: trying to do the important work in the world to move us towards greater social justice, greater environmental health, and greater economic viability.”

So far, the response from students about the new concentrations has been really positive, Gareau said.

“It’s becoming an increasingly relevant area of study, and the problems that we face won’t be solved by one thing in particular,” Gareau said. “There’s no silver bullet necessarily. It’s going to take people working in various sectors together to solve some of our big problems.” n

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Monday, November 4, 2019

MEET THE NEW Gregory Fried, Philosophy

By Phoebe Drummond, Madison Phelps, and Chloe Pingeon For The Heights Walking into his office on the fourth floor of Stokes Hall North, lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves holding everything from yellowed philosophy texts to brandnew paperbacks, one would never guess that Gregory Fried is a newcomer to Boston College. While Fried—who was born and raised in Cambridge, Mass., and earned his B.A. from Harvard University—is no stranger to Boston, he has only just started his second year as a full-time philosophy professor at BC. Fried’s interest in philosophy traces all the way back to his years as an undergraduate. He graduated from Harvard with a double major in philosophy and government and had a particular fascination with how the different fields of study intersected. Fried was intrigued by the deeper questions that motivated politics, and ultimately decided to

pursue a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Chicago.

“I found myself really deeply involved in ethical and political questions—in international politics, in national politics,” he said. “I wanted to dig down to the routes of different positions on that and be open to change my mind and develop my views, and philosophy was the avenue with which to do this.”

Since completing his Ph.D., Fried has taught at Boston University, California State University, Los Angeles, and Suffolk University before arriving at BC in 2018.

“I’ve been at institutions where administration has been great, and I’ve been at institutions where the administration has been terrible,” he said. “It takes a lot of work to make changes and create new programming, and you want to know that your work is going to go somewhere.”

In regard to BC, however, Fried only has positive things to say. He’s inspired by the service-oriented aspect of the University, and speaks particularly highly of programs

like PULSE—and the commitment to service that PULSE’s approaching 50th anniversary emphasizes. He also values BC’s core requirements and always wants to aim to teach some classes within the core, as he believes this to be an integral part of a liberal arts education.

“The thing that’s very attractive about BC, especially as a Jesuit institution, is that I can be very confident that its principles are my principles,” Fried said. “A commitment to an outward looking sense of education.

A commitment to an education that focuses on the whole student. These are things that are not going to change.”

In his own scholarly works, these same principles of looking outward and examining humanity as a whole can be seen in the way Fried examines the modern world through a contemporary lens, as well as one that looks as far back as the works of Aristotle and Plato. He is interested in practical philosophy, particularly that surrounding law, and a large focus of his studies sur-

rounds the ideas of German philosopher Martin Heidegger.

While Fried sees a clear connection between the work he studies and the material he teaches, he is adamant about the importance of allowing students to come to their own conclusions through analysis and critical thinking. He considers the average BC student to be both engaged academically and pragmatic about the future, and he strives to teach philosophy in such a way that serves both of these study skills for students.

As both a philosopher and a professor, Fried is not opposed to discussing his own views and research with students, but he acknowledges that this process can be a delicate one.

“Students, at a certain point, want to know what you think,” he said. “You’re a professor, what do you profess? I always try to invite students into a dialogue, rather then letting them know that the only way they can succeed is to agree with me. That would be a disaster as far as I’m concerned.”

MOLLY BANKERT / FOR THE HEIGHTS

With his first year at BC under his belt, Fried has undoubtedly avoided this “disaster.” He hopes to continue increasing programming—particularly that surrounding service learning—in the upcoming years, and mentioned his involvement in the attempt to possibly expand the PULSE program to include graduate students.

And as for what he would change about his first year at BC? “The space-time continuum so I could have more time to do all the things I want,” Fried said. “More parking, maybe?”

Mark Behn, Earth and Environmental Sciences

MASON LAFERNEY / FOR THE HEIGHTS

As students count down the days until they can return home to their families for Thanksgiving, Mark Behn keeps his eye on a different date in his calendar. In mid-November, he will travel with one of his postdoctoral students and a select group of professors from universities around the country to spend four weeks at sea to study a fault in the Pacific Ocean.

Before coming to Boston College, Behn worked with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a private nonprofit research facility, for 15 years.

He said his transition from a full-time researcher to a professor at BC took away some of the stress that came with working for an organization like WHOI. “At BC, what’s nice is that I don’t have to write as many [grant proposals], so I can write just the ones I really want to do, and then spend more time on those projects,” Behn said. “That was one of the largest motivations—being able to spend more time on specific projects.”

But just because his focus is not devoted solely to his next research project does not mean that Behn doesn’t have the opportunity to conduct field work.

For his upcoming excursion, the group of professors realized that the tectonic plates in a specific ocean fault in the Pacific Ocean shift regularly every six to seven years and cause undersea earthquakes. In this context, a fault is the location of fractures in the planet’s surface due to movement of tectonic plates. Behn and his researchers will

guide instruments to the base of the fault, measure its activity, and collect rocks that form the seafloor to study their mechanical properties. Behn’s goal is to understand why the fault behaves so regularly, as these earthquakes consistently occur in this six- to seven-year timespan.

This niche interest and expertise in geology stemmed from Behn’s long-term appreciation for the outdoors and his opportunities as an undergrad student at Bates University in 1996.

He planned to major in physics and math, but the decision to take a geology class shifted his focus. Behn enjoyed the outdoors component of his labs and just continued to take more geology classes.

His newfound interest in geology paired well with his studies in physics.

Next semester, Behn will teach an upper-level geophysics class. Last year, he taught Earth Processes and Risks, a core class that explores processes of tectonic plates and their effects on humans. He

will teach the class in the spring semester as well.

“One of the great things about natural hazards is [that] there are a lot of great videos and graphics that go along with that,” Behn said. “So I would liven it up with things like that.”

This fall, Behn taught a class on quantitative methods, one of many earth systems classes offered by the environmental geosciences department.

Behn said the class focuses on analyzing complex data sets. The material and organization of the class is well suited for Behn as it only lasts half a semester, so it won’t conflict with his upcoming research.

According to Behn, BC has been very supportive of his research. After the spring semester, Behn will travel to Greenland with one of his graduate students for a research project. He wrote the grant through BC. “The goal in Greenland is to under-

stand how surface melting … which is how water gets from the surface to the bed of the ice sheet,” Behn said. “What you can see is that as the melt water gets to the bed, it starts to affect the sliding of the ice … we are trying to track the movement of the ice and the vibrations we see.”

Behn works with all levels of students from the undergraduate underclassmen in his core classes through Ph.D. students.

“I enjoy teaching the different level classes … it’s nice to be connected to all levels of the University,” Behn said. “As I teach more and start to get to know more undergraduates, I am excited to get them involved in my research as well.”

“By then, it felt really natural,” she said. “Up until then, I would have just called myself a messer, I was just messing around. … Parts felt really accidental, but it felt really good when the parts fell into place.”

Xin Jin, Mathematics The trajectory of professor Xin Jin’s career prior to her arrival at Boston College in 2018 had taken her around the globe.

But one thing that has remained constant throughout each location is her love of math as a discipline.

Jin grew up in Beijing, China, and graduated from college there when she was 22 years old. After earning her undergraduate degree in mathematics, Jin relocated to the United States, where she began graduate school at Northwestern University and completed the requirements for her M.A. degree.

Before she completed the paperwork for it, however, she ended up following an adviser to University of California Berkeley to complete her Ph.D. Prior to arriving at BC last year, Jin returned to Northwestern to teach mathematics. When she was offered a job at BC through a colleague and adviser who recommended the position to her, she

decided to move to Boston—despite never having lived there before—because she was excited about the academic and intellectual opportunities the city offered.

While Jin’s specific interests in the math realm have developed over the years, she has never had any doubts about mathematics being the field she wished to pursue as a career.

“I got interested in math very early in my life,” Jin said. “It was in the third grade, because I found I’m very good at it. And I know what I’m not good at.”

Jin’s interest in math focuses on the areas of symplectic geometry and representation theory, and, moving forward in her career at BC, she hopes to do more work using geometric techniques to investigate representation theory, which is a subset of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures. Beyond the purely technical side of mathematics, however, Jin views her career as a scholar as intrinsically connect-

ed to her career as a teacher.

“There is a famous saying in China,” Jin said. “‘You always learn when you teach again something you are already familiar with.’ And I think I always learn from teaching and reviewing. That’s very beneficial.”

In her time at BC thus far, Jin has taught at both the undergraduate and graduate level, and while she has enjoyed both experiences, she said that her style as a teacher differs vastly in each environment.

Jin emphasised her appreciation for the smaller classes at the graduate level and expressed an interest in engaging in research with graduate students in the future.

One thing that remains the same across all degrees, however, is Jin’s appreciation for the student body.

“One thing I feel is very strong about Boston College is that the students here are very self-motivated,” Jin said. “More than even at some other top schools. And that’s something I’ve been very happy

about here.”

For Jin, the teaching and study of the subject matter itself go hand in hand. Jin believes that the skills learned in math classes can benefit every student both in school and in life, and it’s one of her main goals as a professor to make her students come to this realization.

“The goal of studying math is not just to pursue a math major,” Jin said. “It’s a tool to communicate. Mathematics is a very important tool for you to pursue later goals. It could be computer science, or engineering, or developing medical imaging. Depending on your goals, math will be involved differently, but it’s necessary for almost anyone.”

Specifically, Jin advocates for the subject as being one of the best ways to learn how to problem-solve, both in and out of the classroom. She also thinks that math serves as physical proof that, with practice and dedication, abstract concepts and skills become much easier to understand.

MOLLY BANKERT / FOR THE HEIGHTS

As for her future goals, Jin simply wishes to continue instilling her love of math in as many BC students as possible.

“The reason I like math most is that it gives me a path to see the beauty of this world,” Jin said. “It might be different from other peoples’ approaches … but math is the way of seeing the world that I enjoy the most and am the most good at. And of course, I’d like to share my perspectives with students, and I want to encourage more people to see the beauty of math, too.”

Charles Murry, Economics

LEO WANG / FOR THE HEIGHTS

Picture this: You’re 19 years old sitting in your dorm room staring at a textbook for a class that’s required for your major, realizing the topic doesn’t interest you in the slightest.

Many college students have this moment of sheer panic, feeling as if they’re going through an early mid-life crisis. Though he’s now found a new home here at Boston College as an economics professor, Charles Murry can confidently say that he has been that conflicted 19-year-old.

Next semester, Murry is going to blend the athletic with the analytic in Economics of Sports, a class he plans to teach in the spring. In addition to teaching, Murry studies the organization of automarkets and the

impact of market power on consumer welfare—fields he could’ve never conceived of as a freshman at the University of Delaware.

Murry began his undergraduate career as a political science major. It was through asking his professors questions after class that he had the realization that he might want to switch his major. One professor in particular, he said, told him that the questions he asked made him think he should start taking some economics classes. So, he decided that might be a smart idea.

After taking several economics classes during his undergraduate years and recognizing his passion for this area of study, Murry went to the University of Virginia for graduate school where he got his Ph.D. in economics. He landed a job at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. There, he worked for two years as a research assistant.

Following his years in D.C., Murry worked at Penn State University for four years as an assistant professor. Once BC reached out to him saying they were interested in hiring him, he visited to give a seminar and meet the rest of the department.

After his first experience on the Heights, he started considering leaving his job at Penn State.

“One of the reasons why I moved is that I thought it’d be great to be colleagues of the other faculty in the department,” Murry said.

“There’s a professor, Julie Mortimer, who does research that’s really close to mine. I thought it’d be great to have her as a mentor.”

The commonality in research that Murry and Mortimer share concerns a subfield of economics called industrial organization, which Murry says is closely linked to business economics. In particular, Murry and Mortimer are interested in antitrust issues, specifically those surrounding government intervention in the market.

After understanding the benefits of moving, particularly in regard to his career trajectory, Murry also thought about how the switch could positively affect his family.

“I thought it might be nice for my family to live in a more urban area as opposed to Penn State, which is very rural,” Murry said.

“So, we were excited to move to Boston for family reasons.”

Murry has been captivated by BC sports

culture, especially the opportunity he has to relive his graduate school days through watching the Virginia Cavaliers on the court.

Earlier this year, he took his family to BC football games as well, which he says is one of the most memorable moments he’s had on campus thus far.

Inside the classroom, Murry has noticed the disparities between Penn State’s class size where he last taught and BC’s more intimate feeling. This downsizing has made it easier to connect with his students on a more personal level.

“One thing that I’ve enjoyed is that the classes here at BC are smaller than a Penn State,” Murry said. “I think I’ve had more student one-on-one interaction, and I think the students have gotten to participate more in my classes. For example, in one of my classes, I was able to have the students do their own presentations. The classes at Penn State would never essentially allow for for that kind of interaction.”

While Murry gets a break from teaching this semester, he will teach Economics of Sports in the spring, which he taught at Penn State as well. Not only has his experience

teaching this class given him insight on the sports world, but he appreciates such a class’ ability to engage his students in material.

“This may not come as a shock to anybody,” Murry said, “but people have this view of economics being a bit boring. The students in my sports econ classes are very excited to learn about the subject matter. I don’t have to convince these students that it’s interesting.”

In the future, Murry hopes that he can offer a new undergraduate class about antitrust in market power, exploring how firms and consumers interact in markets.

Outside of the classroom, he says, he’d like to get tenure.

Currently, the research Murry has been conducting involves a network of co-authors and co-researchers from various universities spanning the country. Connecting more with the department in this aspect of work would be something he hopes he can accomplish during his time at BC. “That would be a goal,” Murry said, “to start working on projects with people in the department here at BC. That would be a lot of fun.”

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Monday, November 4, 2019

FACES OF MCAS Kristin Peterson, Communication The creators of Instagram were undoubtedly successful in creating an app that required minimal brainpower to use.

Scrolling mindlessly through the app provides insight into the lives of others that you didn’t even know you wanted.

For Kristin Peterson, however, social media isn’t merely a convenient way to see what your friend from high school had for dinner last night. It’s a tool with the power to show us how our identity shapes our perception of the world and influences the changes we make in it. As a new professor teaching about the intersection of religion and media at Boston College, she hopes she can show students just how important that idea is.

Within her first year and now into her second, Peterson’s courses have maintained a focus on the intersection between religion and media that she has valued greatly throughout her academic career. Her very first BC class was Religious Expression in the Digital Age, which focuses on how modern media, including podcasts, Instagram and blogs, offer new opportunities for religious

connections. The following semester, she taught Mass Communication Ethics, which is structured around journalism, public relations, marketing, advertising, and entertainment media. This semester, Peterson is teaching Seeing God, Hearing Ghost: Spirituality in US Media. Like many seeking a position in academia, Peterson cast a very wide net in the sea of jobs offered for professors in her field of communication.

The values behind BC’s Jesuit Catholic education, she said, were particularly alluring in her decision to choose BC. “I really appreciated the emphasis on teaching the whole student versus just focusing on content and grades,” Peterson said.

Not only has BC allowed Peterson to focus on her academic interests through her course materials, but she has also been able to conduct research as well. She is currently working on a book project, which is allowing her to expand her research to think about the intersections between media and religious identity, as well as gender, sexuality, and political activism.

After completing her undergraduate

studies in journalism and photography at Dominican University, Peterson worked in public relations and communication for three years at her alma mater. From there, she worked at Chicago Catholic, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago, where she gained experience in journalism, interviewing, and reporting which enhanced her involvement in media. While this job allowed her to follow her interests in both religion and media, Peterson decided she needed a change.

Peterson determined that she wanted to go back to school, studying at the University of Colorado with the intention of examining the role of religion, particularly in the United States. It was here that she explored the University’s research center that focused on both religion and media. Ultimately, she got her master’s in religious studies, specifically concentrating on American religions. Although this combination of communication and religion correlated to her passion in those two fields, something was still missing.

“I found that media communication was more in my theoretical approach to things

because I’d much rather go out, talk to people, and observe, rather than sitting and doing more theory and philosophy,” she said.

Peterson’s interest in the media and communication side of religion encouraged her to apply to the Ph.D. program at the University of Colorado. Upon getting accepted and subsequently pursuing her Ph.D., Peterson understood how perfect this combination of religious studies with communication and media studies was for her. She credits her experiences at Colorado as the reason why she is where she is now.

“A lot of my work is thinking about the way that young people engage with digital media as part of their understanding of their identity, particularly in relation to religion,” she said.

Before coming to BC, Peterson conducted her dissertation research on Muslim Americans and looked at the way that they use things like photos, videos, and fashion in digital spaces. After the shooting of three Muslim students at Chapel Hill, N.C., in 2015, for example, she conducted research on the dissemination of media content

MAGGIE DIPATRI / HEIGHTS EDITOR

and the importance of the use of hashtags responding to the tragedy.

Peterson’s interest in and knowledge surrounding the crossroads of media and religion guides her through her next chapter in life at BC. She hopes to focus on the way young people of religious backgrounds use media to reform and change in political and religious institutions.

“One of my goals in the classes that I teach is to really make students aware and more literate and understanding of religious diversity, and also the influence that religion has in American political life or culture,” Peterson said.

Brian Zhou, Physics

IKRAM ALI / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Physics students and professors can b e divide d into two distinct categories. Those who hear the word “physics” and are excited by exploring how the universe behaves at a scientific level, and those who would rather walk up the Million Dollar Stairs in the dead of winter for three days straight. Brian Zhou, who was hired in 2018 by Boston College to both teach and conduct research, undeniably finds himself in

that first category.

Throughout his academic and professional career, Zhou has focused his research on quantum physics. He spent six years at Princeton University, where he worked on turning high resolution images of the surfaces of materials down to the atomic level.

At the University of Chicago, Zhou completely switched gears, studying the defect centers in diamonds for four years. These defect centers, Zhou explained, act as a quantum bit that have the ability to be manipulated by electromagnetic fields. It was in this particular area of expertise that Zhou decided to start a research program and teach in the fall of 2018.

“The reason I wanted to come to this department is because it is extremely strong in material science and condensed matter, which can form a lot

of collaborations with my line of work in quantum physics,” Zhou said.

Though Zhou’s specialty doesn’t necessarily lie in material science, he looks forward to being able to work with the materials science core. These collaborations will revolve around a new tool Zhou has utilized that can probe materials with quantum bits. Before he could do much work in the lab, however, Zhou had a new challenge on his hands: becoming a professor for the very first time.

For his first class during the 2018-19 school year, Zhou taught a graduate seminar that focused on current scientific topics and research.

While the class was filled with graduate students pursuing a career in the field of science, the 2019-20 school year brought Zhou yet another challenge that ventured beyond the complex world

of quantum systems—teaching the Foundation of Physics, an introductory physics class for students who aren’t aiming for a career in science.

G oing from from teaching a graduate level science course to an introductory course in the span of just two years has been a world of two extremes for Zhou.

“I think it’s helped me learn how to communicate science better, to try to figure out what gets people excited about science,” Zhou said.

When he’s not in the classroom, Zhou spends time in his recently opened Higgins Hall lab conducting research. Finished in early 2019, the lab is where he and his fellow colleagues have begun collecting preliminary data that will lay the groundwork for future efforts. Zhou is interested in looking at the interaction of quantum systems

with electromagnetic fields, and how different classical concepts translate into the quantum world. From there, he will determine how that can be useful for technologies, such as magnetic sensing.

Beyond his personal research in quantum physics, Zhou sees a bigger picture as a byproduct of his work both in the classroom and in the lab.

“We try to explore questions that have never been asked before and we really want to push the boundaries of knowledge and experimental control over quantum systems,” Zhou said. “In the classroom, I hope to make positive impacts on students, and hopefully, even if they don’t become physicists, they can at least support physics and have a better understanding of why it’s important and relevant to society, technology, and progress.”

Stefano Anzellotti, Psychology

From his perch on the third floor of McGuinn Hall, with a floor-to-ceiling window illuminating the room with natural light, Stefano Anzellotti works through the intricacies of why and how we recognize our roommate’s voice when they enter the room.

A Harvard University Ph.D. graduate and one of the newest members of Boston College’s psychology department, Anzellotti brings passion and purpose to his studies of person knowledge.

Person knowledge focuses on phenomena like how humans are able to identify each other and process the meaning of a facial expression. Together, they work toward a larger understanding of how humans perceive each other.

We look at how people understand each other. How people recognize each other’s voices and facial expressions,” he said

Originally from Italy, Anzellotti identified his interest in science early on.

He explained that in Italy many of the public schools guide students into a vocational track when they enter high school. By immersing himself in the science track offered by his school, Anzellotti developed his interest in psychology. He went on to study mathematics at the University of Trento in Italy.

After graduation from the University of Trento in 2008, he came to Boston to receive his M.A. in psychology later that same year. He has been living in the United States since, and he received his Ph.D. from Harvard in psychology in 2014.

Anzellotti said he is excited to be back in Boston, where so many other top universities are researching topics related to his own field of interest. More

specifically, his attraction to BC had part to do with the other professors in the psychology department who he is now able to collaborate with. He said the young and engaging environment in his department inspires aspects of his own research on person knowledge.

“He’s amazing. He’s one of the most generous people with his time and intellectual resources, and he’s an amazing mentor,” said Liane Young, a Psychology Professor who Anzellotti works with in the morality lab. They also work together on research about how people update their moral judgements of other people.

“If you’re good friends with someone, and you see them take money out a tip jar, you could update your judgment of your friend and think that they’re a thief, or you could try to resist that updating,” Young

said. “ … So we are interested to see when people update their judgement of people they know versus when they resist that kind of updating.”

This type of work plays into Anzellotti’s field of knowledge, as it has to do a lot with how people process other’s actions.

His expertise in the field translates well into his classes, Cognitive and Neural Bases of Person Knowledge, Research Practicum in Computational Methods, and Advanced Topics in Social Neuroscience.

In Cognitive and Neural Bases of Person Knowledge, Anzellotti breaks down how humans make inferences and assumptions about other peoples’ goals and emotions.

Anzellotti said the field, in general, is in its early stages, which he finds exciting. It also means his classes work with very recent

KAYLA BRANDT / HEIGHTS STAFF

data and research.

With his up-and-coming field of study, new technology is advancing the capabilities of understanding person knowledge.

Artificial intelligence can be used to see how the brain responds to different stimuli.

“We can now integrate artificial intelligence to study how the brain works,”

Anzellotti said.

Jane Cassidy, Studio Art

IKRAM ALI / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Unlike the finance student who secures their job at UBS after a summer internship, or the pre-med student who is bogged down by the collection of biology textbooks that weighs more than them, Jane Cassidy’s calling to pursue art as her career came to her while she was caught up in the festivities of a Chemical Brothers concert.

Cassidy took a very nonlinear path to be a multidisciplinary art professor at Boston College. Growing up in Galway, Ireland, Cassidy said that up until her 20s, she was unsure of what she wanted to do professionally. Now, she can trace her transition to visual art back to her initial interest in music.

She remembers MTV’s influence on

her when she was younger, and went on to study music as an undergrad at Trinity College Dublin. But she never wanted to be confined to the technical aspect of music composition—she loved music videos and when live bands played on TV. As her studies in music developed, she began to think about her work synesthetically.

“I wanted to visualize the music I was writing,” Cassidy said. “It would be like pairing colors and textures with sound. … it’s like two senses are intertwined, so I wanted to do [both] visuals and sound.”

She was surrounded by inspiration in Dublin in the early 2000s, where there was a large dance and music scene. Cassidy said that all types of music performances from large festivals to lo-fi basement shows integrated visuals and digital graphics with the music. Cassidy first moved to New York City and then New Orleans to receive her M.F.A. degree in digital art from Tulane University. She then worked as an assistant professor at the University of Alabama.

Because BC is so much smaller than Alabama, Cassidy said communication within her department is much easier.

Beyond the more profound connection with colleagues and superiors, BC’s smaller class sizes play in favor of Cassidy’s hands-on teaching technique.

Cassidy teaches Introduction to Digital Media and Animation. Both classes utilize computer programs, such as those on the Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe After Effects, to create visual art. In these digital art classes, where everyone is working at a computer, it’s much easier for her to get from student to student and answer individual questions.

But her students aren’t bound to their desktops. Cassidy applies her creativity to projects that get students out of the computer lab and apply their learning through collaboration. For example, in the Advanced Printmaking class she taught last year, her students studied the stained glass in Burns Library and used it as the basis for a project they later completed in the Carney student gallery.

“We blacked out all the windows, and [on] the ones we didn’t, students made stained glass printed onto transparent plastic. They printed them exactly to scale of

the window panes, and it looked fantastic,” Cassidy said.

It was a last-minute project with great results, which reflects Cassidy’s flexible teaching style. When inspiration strikes, Cassidy is unafraid to diverge from her syllabus given the right conditions.

“I like to be malleable, and I feel like I am very open with students about that. … If a cool opportunity for a project comes up, it is well worth it,” Cassidy said.

When she’s not teaching, Cassidy stays busy by taking on personal projects within the BC community. One example is that she’s currently taking the initiative to set up an animation studio in the art department.

In Devlin Hall, there’s a small office space that she hopes to convert to an animation and sound studio where one student can work at a time.

Her upcoming project, BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer) starts on Nov. 7 at the McMullen Art Museum. The beamer pun refers to students’ invitation to bring a projector to McMullen Art Museum and project their own work on all the walls.

Three months into her second year on

campus, she now wants to introduce more collaborative projects where students can share their work and create relationships with each other.

“A lot of my own practice and the artwork I make are on collaborative projects … bigger projects where you work with other artists and share ideas,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy said that, even after years of studying creative fields, identifying as an artist felt unnatural at first. It was not until 2011, when Cassidy immersed herself in a two-month residency with Art Farm in rural Nebraska that she completely dedicated her career to art. Creating art full-time for two months gave her the courage to define herself as an artist.

“By then, it felt really natural,” she said. “Up until then, I would have just called myself a messer, I was just messing around. … Parts felt really accidental, but it felt really good when the parts fell into place.” n

NOTE: Eight of the nine new MCAS professors were included in this story.

English professor Allison Curseen declined The Heights’ interview request.

The Heights

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Monday, November 4, 2019

Editorial

NCAA Proposal to Pay College Athletes Crafted to Buy NCAA Time, Not to Implement Significant Change

The NCAA’s top decision-makers voted unanimously on Tuesday that the association would start to consider modifying its rule that currently exempts student-athletes from profiting on the commercial use of their identity. The NCAA is starting the process of providing student-athletes “the opportunity to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness in a manner consistent with the collegiate model.”

Many speculate that the NCAA’s announcement stemmed from the passage of California’s Fair to Play Act. In late September, California Governor Gavin Newsom officially signed the act, which created a legal right for college athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness, into law. Moreover, the act makes it illegal for California colleges—which include more than 20 Division I schools in the state—to prevent their student-athletes from receiving compensation for the commercial use of their identity. The act won’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2023.

For now, the NCAA will strive to come up with what it deems a better, yet likely more restrictive option than the Fair to Play Act. While Tuesday’s announcement sounds significant, the NCAA’s vote actually changes very little for student-

athletes. Unlike the Fair to Play Act, the NCAA proposal will impose specific restrictions on the market and will likely be the more influential voice when it comes to student-athletes’ endorsement deals, Ohio State Director of Athletics Gene Smith told ESPN. Along with Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman, Smith is leading the NCAA’s working group, which was created in May to address the issue.

At surface level, the NCAA is taking a step in the right direction. But upon closer inspection, the association is really only buying itself time with vague language and generous deadlines. It’s clear that the NCAA doesn’t want to pay players, and the association has merely pushed its problem back until January of 2021— when the NCAA wants to implement the new rules. The announcement is simply a response to pressure from California and over a dozen other states that expressed interest in passing similar legislation to the Fair to Play Act. Student-athletes won’t be allowed to benefit from the proposed rule changes until the NCAA’s three boards approve changes to its bylaws. Though theoretically the board has set 2021 as a target for the bylaws to be amended, it is doubtful that this will be accomplished. Further, there is no guarantee that the bylaws will

be significantly changed.

Neither the Fair to Play Act nor the NCAA proposal allows schools to pay athletes. Instead, they both are crafted to pave the way for student-athletes to hire business agents who can secure them outside endorsements, where their name and likeness could be used for apparel, video games, and other forms of identitybased profit.

Even if the NCAA actually does implement changes regarding its policies of students taking money from outside endorsement deals, it’s unlikely that a majority of NCAA athletes will be affected. Household names from revenue sports, like Boston College football’s AJ Dillon—star running back and MCAS ’21—would probably stand to make a significant amount of money. On the flip side, the rule changes would probably have lesser influence on student-athletes participating in sports like men’s track and field or women’s crew.

Tuesday’s announcement from the NCAA has done nothing but temporarily relieved the pressure that the NCAA was facing from state legislatures. The NCAA ultimately doesn’t want players to be paid—and it will continue to dodge substantial change for as long as it possibly can.

Letter to the Editor

In Response to: “Koch Foundation Offers Funding for Political Science” I was deeply disappointed to read that the political science department (of which I am a graduate) is considering a proposal to take funding from the Koch Foundation.

I treasure the time I spent at Boston College and the intellectual development fostered by the professors of that department. They have had a profound impact on the person I am today and how I view the world; and I truly believe (perhaps conceitedly) that the education provided to me and other graduates produces the kind of informed, responsible, and introspective citizens necessary for a wellfunctioning society.

It is therefore sickening to see some of those same professors actively consider funding from the Koch Foundation.

This is a nakedly political organization, masquerading as a charity, that, for the last 30 years, has done as much or more to undermine the scientific consensus behind climate change than any private

institution on earth.

A quick visit to the Foundation’s website reveals a worryingly long list of colleges and universities that it has “supported.” (“Supported” here can be taken to mean varying levels of “exerted academic control over”). One needs to look no further than your article to see the impact this support has had on George Mason, Florida State, and Arizona State, among others.

The Foundation’s agenda is no secret.

They have been actively attempting to wield control over institutions of higher education for decades. As professor Juliet Schor wisely points out in your article, “[F]or the Kochs, investing in universities is about transforming them to conform to their mission.”

Perhaps the department will receive the funding with no troublesome strings attached this time around, but what happens in the future? Are we naive enough to believe there will be no further requests for input on behalf of the Foundation

in perpetuity? Will the department and administration then be willing shutter the proposed program or seek funds elsewhere if the Koch Foundation does make requests that impede on academic freedom? Or will small concessions start to be made?

I am not worried about a sudden, wholesale change in academic mission.

What worries me and other alumni I have spoken to is the slow, creeping evolution of the department to more closely match the ideas of its benefactors, no matter how dangerous and destructive they may be. The Koch Foundation is exhibit A of this phenomenon and has exerted it with terrifying precision at the expense of our climate’s health at other colleges and universities. I urge the political science department in the strongest possible terms to avoid the same fate and reject this proposal.

Signed, Matt Auker, BC ’14

QUOTE OF THE week

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better. It’s not.”

- The Lorax

Letter to the Editor

In Response to: “We Can All Learn from ‘The Patriot Way’”

Students often fawn about the New England Patriots in The Heights. Lord knows if I were a fan of this wildly successful franchise and not the winless Cincinnati Bengals, I would probably fanboy ad nauseam about my team’s excellence, too.

Sports often provide metaphors to clarify our understanding of our culture. This is especially useful at a school like Boston College, where athletics, ambition, and achievement are core parts of this institution.

Eleanor Grondin’s Oct. 28 column, however, dials up the enthusiasm a few clicks too far, arguing that “The Patriot Way” is something more than it really is. It’s not just an effective path to success; it’s a transcendent practical philosophy to guide one’s life on par with the credo of “men and women for others.”

This extolling of “The Patriot Way” is problematic when it metastasizes into a brand of exceptionalism devoid of any introspection. Grondin’s paean to the Patriots cherry picks the good and willfully ignores the bad to benefit no one outside of Foxboro.

Her analysis emphasizes the virtues of accountability, humility, and dignified leadership of quarterback Tom Brady. Let’s examine that more closely.

Humility is hard to come by for any team as successful as the Patriots, who once hung a banner for a non-championship regular season alongside their other championship banners.

Of course all teams hang banners, but few demonstrate the same level of disdain for the media as Coach Bill Belichick.

Ask him a relevant question about whether his publicly disclosed fondness for Donald Trump has created distractions for the team with a “focus on football” culture, and you get

smug verbal deflections. Not exactly the model of transparency.

Team owner Robert Kraft offers the most salacious example of the Patriots’ lack of humility and accountability after he was charged with soliciting prostitution last winter and has proceeded to assemble a defense team to destory the case rather than admit to any wrongdoing—a legal recourse only afforded to the obscenely wealthy. The Patriots might tame the egos of former Bengals like Corey Dillon and Chad Johnson, but not the egos of its coach and owner.

Or even Brady. His on-field accomplishments are superlative, but his off-field record is more dubious, including selfenriching relationships with charities, advancing medical pseudoscience in the locker room, below-board profiting from said pseudoscience, and even a Donald Trump endorsement—because why focus only on football?

Grondin recommends the broader culture co-opt the hyper-focused, do-your-job, we’reonto-Cincinnati, outcome-driven mentality known as “The Patriot Way,” overlooking its existing place in our culture.

The “winning is everything” notion is already firmly rooted in America, and it is a problem. It deifies footballers and whitewashes their misconduct, often at the expense of anyone perceived as an obstacle in the pursuit of athletic glory: victims of domestic abuse, the media, and more.

Let’s admire the Patriots for their spectacular on-field performance, but BC students can find better examples for how to be a man or woman for others in the world.

Signed, William Mooney Sloneker, BC ’12

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The Heights

Monday, November 4, 2019

Respect Those Who Don’t Drink condescending-disguised-as-concerned suggestion that they “should have more fun” has not opted against partying because they have a deep-seated and undying hatred for having fun. I’m not Ebenezer Scrooge.

I respect people’s choice to do what they please.

If one wishes to start their weekend off with Thirsty Thursday and then proceed to have two days living up their youth, then more power to them. That said, I hope this same attitude is reciprocated to me when others find out that my idea of fun is largely congruous with my grandmother’s (which is to say playing Scrabble, watching Jeopardy!, and bowling) and that my priorities are simply different. I, too, prioritize the enjoyment of my life—it simply manifests differently.

In fact, the degree to which the idea of being a fun person is conflated with the excessive intake of drugs and alcohol is rather chilling. It is one thing to enjoy partying, but to suggest that one’s ability to have and be fun is dependent entirely on their willing to consume mind-altering drugs speaks volumes about the attitude we have as a generation about alcohol and drug consumption, as well as party culture.

The concept that a person must be under some sort of intoxication to have fun is, quite frankly, incredibly depressing. It is sad to see that some people can find little enjoyment in life unless injected with an artificial dose of euphoria. Events like sports games, concerts, weddings, birthday parties and so forth have been altered so that those events act mostly as vehicles to justify alcohol consumption.

This is not to say that one can’t look forward to drinking, but rather than an insistence on drinking for anything to be enjoyable is extremely concerning. It’s backwards to suggest that, when this view is so pervasive, that those who choose not to consume alcohol (which, by the way, is not healthy in any quantity) are considered the problem.

People have fun in different ways, people enjoy dif69

Louis Gleason In what shouldn’t be news to anybody, Boston College students party, typically in the presence of drugs and alcohol. Partying is not just a byproduct of college, but rather an integral aspect of attending such an institution. It is an axiom that your college years are especially designed to expel your inner party-animal through indulging in freeing recklessness.

This isn’t necessarily bad. If anything, I personally find the occasional superiority complex related to the rejection of drugs and alcohol to be arrogant and annoying. However, equally as annoying (but even more damaging) is the notion that college is equal parts study and light-hearted debauchery.

I don’t concern myself with how everybody else decides to spend their time. I trust that anybody capable of making it to BC is also capable of making decisions on their own behalf. Except I wish others would extend the same courtesy to students like me—who aren’t particularly inclined to party.

In my few months at BC, I haven’t seen anybody talk about, in a serious manner, the hazards of alcohol. But I have had a person come into the study room and take my homework from me as I was doing it. I understood this was just a drunk college student at the time, but frequent interruptions by students who “remind” me I should be out partying has gotten old, particularly because it’s all I have been hearing since I was 15.

I’m sure everybody else who has received the

ferent things. While some may enjoy the party scene, there are a number of reasons why others may not. Some may have a history of substance abuse in their family and do not wish to welcome in highly addictive drugs to their lives.

Others may have religious objections to alcohol.

In my case, I have always felt that consuming alcohol invites bad decisions and produces regrettable situations, and an excessive proclivity to party is a distraction from the larger goals I have in life—so I have opted against such activities.

I have my own reasons to not partake in the typical party scene, as does everybody else who prefers to stay in, and they should be respected, even if that reason simply boils down to “I don’t want to.” The entire purpose of a party is for enjoyment, and if one does not enjoy partying, there really doesn’t seem to be any reason why one should go.

So to those who don’t drink, or drink very rarely, enjoy what you find fun. Don’t feel pressured to do something you don’t want to do just to be “fun.” You can enjoy yourself in whatever way you want, even if that means doing things others may find boring. At the end of the day, enjoyment is about what makes you happy, not about appeasing others. In fact, I can’t think of a more bizarre notion than personal enjoyment being rooted in conformity.

And to those who do enjoy frequent partying: do so to your heart’s content, but extend the same courtesy that we home-bodied introverts extend to you.

Louis Gleason is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: Building Alignment Chart

The American Column

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Bianca Tjoeng Surprisingly, the scariest moment of my life wasn’t when I watched Hereditary for the first time two summers ago at a midnight showing (“Not even when her head fell off, Bianca?”

No, not even then). It didn’t occur when I moved to the United States in May 2018 and, for the first time, was left in a foreign place without any family members.

Before last week, the closest I had ever been to feeling actual fear was a night when I was 5 years old, after kicking my sister in the face and giving her a nosebleed that refused to stop running throughout the entirety of the night. My late mother, patient and loving as she was, took one look at the situation before her, glared at me with pure fury and genuine disappointment in her eyes (which rarely conveyed any emotion other than joy, might I add), and yelled at me. Every other encounter I have ever had with any sort of relatively terrifying situation pales in comparison to what I felt that stuffy October night in Jakarta.

That was, until last week, when I found out that my a cappella group, The Sharps, was set to sing the U.S. national anthem at the annual Red Bandana Run, which honors Welles Crowther, BC ’99, who lost his life while saving others during 9/11. When my music director walked into the room with a smile on her face and asked if we were ready to start learning the four-part harmonies to this song, I felt my knees go weak and genuinely thought that I was going to regurgitate whatever I had for dinner that night.

All week, all I did was attempt to learn the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner” as though it was the only thing that mattered to me in life. For some reason unbeknownst to me, however, I couldn’t get these lyrics right. Every single time we arrived at the point where we were supposed to sing about the ramparts we watched, I messed up. Whenever we reached the very end of the anthem, I failed to sing the note that was clearly written on my music sheet. The problem was, the more I failed—and trust me, this happened plenty—the more nervous I felt. Time was against me, the clock was ticking, and all I could think about was how I would not only fall short of honoring Welles Crowther, but America as a whole.

EVIL NEUTRAL GOOD

LAWFUL Stokes South

NEUTRAL

CHAOTIC

I was so anxious for what was to come that the night before the race, I dreamt that every single Founding Father visited me, threatening to ruin me if I were to accidentally sing the incorrect lyrics. George Washington himself sat down at my desk,

Gasson

looked me straight in the eyes and said, “You have one chance

St. Mary’s Hall

and one chance only, so you better get this right.”

Saturday morning found me standing on the steps of Lyons with the rest of The Sharps. An overwhelming number of individuals attended the run—almost 1000—and as expected, every single person went quiet when we began singing the anthem.

Bapst

Devlin

O’Neill Library

I thought I was going to puke, but alas, I did not. What I did do, however, was stumble over the final sentences of the song.

I believed right then and there that John Adams was going to smite me—this obviously didn’t happen. My greatest fears were simultaneously realized and averted: I did mess up “The StarSpangled Banner,” but I somehow survived the experience.

Fulton

McElroy

Looking back, all I can tell you is that what I felt was an ir-

Carney

rational fear for something that most, if not all, would consider ridiculous. The members of my a cappella group gave me a number of comforting remarks, telling me that it wouldn’t matter if I sang the lyrics wrong. My roommates were kind enough IKRAM ALI / HEIGHTS EDITOR

For Reflection, Focus on Establishing Habits Alicia Kang This column is a byproduct of my lack of motivation to complete a reflection assignment. Last week, I recorded a podcast for a group project in one of my classes and, sure enough, this week I was hit with the realization that, on top of the assignment itself, which required group coordination and several scheduled meetings, I would also have to write a reflection about my experience working on the project.

I might be writing from a place of unjustified bitterness here, given the fact that I’ve been swamped by other assignments, but the project prompted me to wonder how effective it is to ask people for reflections. And I don’t just mean the short essays professors assign at the end of projects. I’m also referring to the greater introspection Boston College demands from its students.

Is reflection something that can be prompted externally?

Don’t get me wrong, I think reflective habits are important and, with ample time, can be diligently practiced. Just taking five minutes before bed to assess how your day went, or how you’ve been acting toward the people you care about, can help you better understand yourself. The problem here is that we don’t always have those five minutes.

I for one know that I’ve been trading my five minutes of reflection for five extra minutes of sleep (nevertheless, I still wake up not-at-all refreshed

and aching for coffee each morning). And during the time I would originally be sleeping, I’m reading an entire book for my next class or revising my essay for the fifth time. BC’s curriculum and its encouragement for constant improvement produces a plethora of high-achieving students. And these students hardly have the time to be reflective.

On BC’s website page that explains Jesuit Catholic values, the school claims that it “urges students to reflect deeply on who they are and how they want to live their lives.” The page goes on to say that BC “encourages members of its community to be attentive to their own experiences, [and] to reflect on them.”

While these Jesuit values all sound good on paper (or recited into our parents’ ears as they fork over more tuition money), in all honesty I have no idea how they come into play on a daily basis.

I know I’m not the only one here who has no idea what I want out of my life, and as much as I try to solve the issue through good ol’ reflection, I’m still at a loss.

BC is not the only institution that tells us to be reflective. As young adults, many of us are applying for internships and jobs. Some of us suffered the horror of college applications a little less than a year ago.

Just about every application, every interview, asks the same questions: “tell us something interesting about yourself,” or “reflect on a time when you collaborated in a group setting.” All of these questions force us to either recite a practiced script that shows a moment of reflection, or to cram some sort of meditative experience into the two minutes of time we have before the long silence makes the interview awkward.

Of course, every employer wants a thoughtful, reflective employee, but the truth of the matter is that not everyone has a reflective moment they can recall on the spot. Even if they did, there’s a significant chance that the moment is contrived because of the

pressure.

I believe that true reflective habits often have to be solitary. I don’t mean to say that you can’t learn about yourself by talking to other people, but rather that building reflective habits starts with small things like enjoying a quiet cup of tea or contemplating the events of your long day instead of simply sleeping them off all the time.

Acts like these might help us achieve that ideal of the reflective student, but little more than this can be forced. Reflection isn’t reflection, after all, if it’s simply for a material purpose like bolstering an application. In order to actually cultivate self-awareness, we need to take a step back from the constant external stressors that tell us to reflect without showing us how. We have to make conscious efforts, little by little, that center on what reflection means to us.

I find that these constant calls for reflection ultimately diminishes the effectiveness of the practice.

Reflection has become an elusive concept that I don’t really understand in full.

It’s difficult to gauge how authentic reflection is nowadays, and yet, more and more, the concept is thrown at us. We’re told to “make time for self-care” or to “take care of our mental health” so often that these words lose meaning.

We shouldn’t be striving for some sort of greater ideal of reflection. This word is too broad and overused to mean anything anymore. Rather, we should focus on establishing specific reflective habits.

Reflection starts small and should consist of daily acts that can help us become more thoughtful and caring individuals.

to repeatedly remind me that even some Americans struggle to remember the words to their own national anthem. Despite their assurances and support, I couldn’t reconcile the idea that I would be forgiven if I messed up “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

I had witnessed so many of my best friends sing this anthem passionately at countless football games with looks of earnest jubilation on their faces. The prospect of not doing it justice was far more terrifying than the possibility of being hunted down by the ghosts of the Founding Fathers who appeared in my dreams.

The idea of insulting this nation in any way, be it through something as small as accidentally replacing the word “fight” with “night” or as minor as messing up a certain chord progression in its beloved national anthem was enough to keep me up every night for a whole week.

The thought of disappointing America, a country that’s become a second home to me, scared me more than anything else I had ever experienced before. And the reason behind all this I have managed to identify is because of the love that I have for this nation, one that’s not even my own. The sleepless nights, the irrational fear of being hunted down by men from a time long past, and the waves of fear and anxiety that I felt whenever I even thought about having to sing the anthem in front of myriads of people were all rooted in what I can only identify as adoration.

I never expected to find myself in this position. In this land of strangers, I have managed to acquire a plethora of things that I never thought were possible. I am incapable of listing all of them here, but I can provide you with a few: a good education; a sort of half-baked immunity to the cold; a love for sugar; a newfound respect for football (which, I should add, I never understood the beauty of before I came to BC); an irreplaceable group of friends who I, in all honesty, cannot imagine living without; a lifetime of unforgettable memories; and most importantly, hope. When I really think about it, I cannot help but ask, where else in the world could I have obtained all of this, if not in the United States?

In my head, I told myself that after everything that America has done for me, the least I could do was memorize its national anthem perfectly—and even this I could not manage to do. And yet, as it has done many times before, America did not turn me

Alicia Kang is an op-ed columnist for The away, but instead accepted me as though I were one of its own.

Heights. She can be reached at opinions@ America is not perfect, and, like every other country that bcheights.com. exists in the world, it will never be. But what it has given me is a type of forever—a home of sorts—and for that, I remain

The opinions and commentaries of the op-ed columnists appearing on this page represent the views of the infinitely grateful. author of that particular piece, and not necessarily the views of The Heights. Any of the columnists for the Bianca Tjoeng is an op-ed columnist for The Heights.

Opinions section of The Heights can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

The Heights

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Monday, November 4, 2019

Newton Restricts Vapes to Adult-Only Stores Right to Vote

By Gavin Zhang For The Heights

Vape sales in Newton are being limited to the two adult-only vape shops in the city: Vape Daddy’s and Garden City Vape.

The Health and Human Services Department of the City of Newton passed a regulation on Oct. 16, limiting the sale of e-cigarettes to two adult-only retail tobacco stores or retail nicotine delivery product stores. After Governor Charlie Baker’s Sept. 24 statewide ban on vaping products expires on Jan. 25, 2020, only these two stores will be permitted to distribute said products.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—which was cited in the statement of the regulation—18.1 percent of current smokers aged younger than 18 years reported that they usually directly purchased their cigarettes from stores or gas stations, and among 11th grade males this rate was nearly 30 percent.

The Department of Health and Human Services can pass regulations on its own under the circumstances that the regulations address important public health issues, which was the case for

this regulation, according to Deborah Youngblood, the commissioner of the department.

The department did not pass the regulation “in isolation,” as it spoke extensively with both tobacco control personnel on the state level, as well as the law department and the executive office of the city, she said.

Youngblood said that the department also spoke with the sellers, who will be directly affected by the regulation.

“We did a public listening session so that we could hear from the community and get feedback, and [we] sent a lot of information out to retailers specifically.”

Youngblood said. “So that they could share their thoughts with us.”

Baker’s ban had no bearing on the city’s decision, said Youngblood.

According to her, the city worked on the regulation long before the statewide ban, intending to give sellers a two-month window to adapt, as the regulation will go into effect on Dec. 16, 2019. The governor’s order, however, led to a ban that was earlier than the city originally planned.

“We were expecting that all of our stores would be currently selling when

we passed the new regulations,” Youngblood said.

“Therefore we wanted to give them two months to sell down their products and stop any future ordering to try to minimize the financial impact on them.

But obviously, the governor’s emergency orders sort of superseded us, and we weren’t able to help our retailers out that way. ” When asked about how the city weighed between public health risks and the possible negative effects on local businesses, Youngblood said that the decision was difficult and that the city also considered more rigid regulations than the ones that were passed.

She said that the city eventually passed the regulations because of the public health issues caused by e-cigarettes.

“We felt like we were already playing catch up that all across the country got caught a bit off guard by this e-cigarette rise, and we really needed to make some significant changes,” Youngblood said. “I certainly felt that was that outweighed, what, [as] I understood, was going to be a hardship for some of our small retailers.”

David Bershad, an owner of Vape

Daddy’s, is in favor of the restriction.

He had to close his store since the Massachusetts vape ban took effect in September. Two of his locations, Braintree and Norwood, have been permanently shut down.

The original location was in Newton, and he plans to reopen it next month to sell everything except vape products until the vape ban is lifted in January.

When it reopens and the restriction is in effect in Newton, his store will be one of two in the city permitted to sell vape products.

His store, which he said is very strict with minors and doesn’t push adults to buy products if they don’t need them, has the expertise to guide people in the right direction unlike convenience stores.

Convenience stores sell thousands of other products, and employees aren’t trained in the same way as vape store employees, he said.

“There’s no real cessation to it,” Bershad said. “They just sell it to you, and if you have questions, good luck.”

Newton convenience store owners who will now be prohibited from selling vape products could not be reached for comment. n

‘Admissions’ of White Guilt and Saviorship Come Into Play at SpeakEasy Stage Company

By Ally Lardner For The Heights

In a town like Boston, the politics of college admissions are impossible to ignore. Perhaps SpeakEasy Stage Company was seeking to ruffle feathers when they chose to produce Joshua Harmon’s Admissions at the Calderwood Pavilion.

Over one hour and 45 minutes, the play examines the politics of racial privilege in the context of Ivy League applications, preparatory schools, and admissions brochures. The play, published even before the 2016 elections, fits uncannily with the recent college admissions scandals, from Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin to Harvard’s affirmative action lawsuit.

Sheri Rosen-Mason (Maureen Keiller) appears to be the perfect progressive, and she knows it.

The head of admissions at a prestigious college prep school, Sheri has dedicated her career to increasing the number of students of color enrolled.

Near the beginning of the show, she touts her impressive track record: Under her leadership, enrollment of students of color is close to hitting the 20 percent mark. And she is determined to keep improving those numbers.

Her key is to craft the perfect admissions brochure, featuring the right students of color in the right proportions.

Unlike old-school administrator Roberta, Sheri would never claim that she “doesn’t see color.” She uses the color of her students’ skin, for their pursuit of higher education and, of course, for her own status in the school.

Things start to fall apart when a family friend’s half-black son gets into

Yale University, while Sheri’s own son Charlie is deferred. And while Sheri and her husband Bill can comfortably lecture Charlie about the value of having a female editor of the school paper, they show their truer, uglier beliefs when faced with the fear that their son’s future is compromised.

Admissions is a play written by a white man, with an all-white cast of characters. It seems impossible that such a piece could have anything of real importance to add to the pressing, intricate topic of college admissions.

But the play and each of its characters serve as fascinating case studies of whiteness. After all, if a person of color was portrayed in the world of this play, the white characters would not speak as freely as they do.

People of color are talked about in this play. They are discussed, they are held up on pedestals. They are dissected for their accolades, for their grades, for their ability to photograph well for the front page of the Hillcrest brochure.

They are not granted the autonomy to appear onstage, but exist only through the lens of the white characters. Implicit in this theatrical choice is the understanding that, for much of history, decisions were made without people of color at the table. For much of history, people of color were talked about—if they were talked about all—by white people. If things have changed, this play suggests that the biggest change is that white people are more aware of their privilege.

Privilege is a conversation that’s wider than race, yet the play, like Sheri, focuses on the visuals of diversity.

Roberta, the indomitable elderly administrator, points out that diver-

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAGGIE HALL PHOTOGRAPHY

Maureen Keiller plays the head of admissions at a prestigious college prep school. sity extends to sexual orientation and religion, but Sheri waves it off with the confidence of a straight, Christian woman.

Similarly unrecognized by the play are the privileges and challenges associated with various levels of socioeconomic status. The Rosen-Masons and everyone in their circle are more than comfortably wealthy. Sheri and Bill have even been able to stockpile thousands of dollars for Charlie’s college, and they are close with many high-level administrators at Ivy League schools.

Community college is spoken about with absolute disgust and disregard for its importance in the lives of students with a low socioeconomic status and first-generation college students—unsurprisingly so, as it exists completely

out of the sphere of these well-off New Hampshire educators.

Admissions is a play about veiled, suburban, well-intentioned racism. It’s about white saviors expecting gratitude for making room at the table for students of color. It’s about why all the black students sit together at the cafeteria together—and why white people are uncomfortable about it.

It’s about white men who feel like the world is against them these days.

It’s about white people who can’t acknowledge their privilege without feeling like they’re being attacked for it.

Guilt is the heaviest price white people are willing to pay for their role in the minoritization of people of color, Admissions concludes. And until that changes, nothing else can. n

Monster Mash, It’s a Pumpkin Smash

Closures of the Week Green Line B Branch B Branch service will be replaced by shuttle buses from Boston College to Babcock Street for the next three weekends.

Usual service will resume after Nov. 24.

D Branch Shuttles will replace T service weeknights after 8:45 p.m. until Dec. 20.

JULIA KIERSZNOWSKI / FOR THE HEIGHTS

Newton residents brought their pumpkins behind City Hall on Saturday to smash them before they were composted.

in Prisons Gabrielle Frandina

Outside of the Boston Book Festival last month, a policy advocate approached me while gathering signatures for her petition. Her goal was to restore the rights of the incarcerated to vote—a topic I’ve been exposed to more often in casual debate than in national coverage. Should prisoners convicted of a felony retain the right to vote? My allegiant “yes,” has often been met with debate, but even then the conversation rarely leaves the realm of hypotheticals.

The right to vote is one of our nation’s most cherished symbols of democracy and representation. To deny this liberty is to further downgrade those who are already physically and mentally barred from society. It dehumanizes those who are nevertheless humans and demoralizes those who may be in grave need of hope.

Are we a society so thirsty for retribution that we are willing to dismiss an entire class of people as unfit? I certainly think not, but opinions that convicted felons lack good judgement undermine the multifaceted reasons that people go to prison and the backgrounds they come from.

The woman at the book festival is a member of The Emancipation Initiative (EI), an organization that strives for the full restoration of voting rights for the incarcerated. My signature would be one of 80,000 necessary to petition for a constitutional amendment. Derrick Washington founded The Emancipation Initiative while he was serving a life sentence without parole.

“I was a 21st century slave to a system that is not catering to me or to anyone from the neighborhood that I came from,” he said to The Appeal: Political Report.

In recognizing the injustice of his disenfranchisement in conjunction with a lack of political attention from officials, he established the Emancipation Initiative in 2012 while incarcerated with the goal of complete voting restoration.

Massachusetts is one of the 16 states, along with the District of Columbia, that prohibits people from voting while incarcerated in prison but automatically restores the right after release. Twenty-one states restore voting rights after a period of parole and/or probation and 11 states prohibit voting rights indefinitely.

Only in Maine and Vermont do felons never lose the right to vote, even during incarceration. Although Massachusetts is in one of the less restrictive categories, a state amendment signed in 2000 barred the incarcerated from voting in state elections while in prison. Since the act, subsequent legal attempts to reverse it have been denied.

The rising social concerns for racial justice in the United States. have additionally affected attitudes toward criminal justice reform. As the system is already racially and socioeconomically biased, disenfranchisement of those who are disadvantaged only further tips the scale.

Many have come to accept the ways in which racism rears its ugly head in the form of disproportionate incarceration rates of black and Hispanic populations. A study done by a Massachusetts task force found that individuals of these populations were incarcerated at a rate 10 percent higher than that of white individuals.

Aside from emphasizing a racial imbalance, denying citizens the right to vote in any regard can be seen as wholly undemocratic. It creates a cohort that’s subject to the governing of U.S. laws but exempt from having a say in what these laws are. Senator Harriette Chandler, who supported the disenfranchisement bill in 2000, is a living example of this attitudinal shift.

“People who are incarcerated are affected by the laws we make just as much as anyone else, and if I have learned anything over the past two decades, it is that we must empower people to have a voice and to use that voice to advocate for themselves and their community,” she said in an interview with The Appeal in February.

This view is indicative of how the issue is inching up on the political agenda of the United States. Although the change in attitude has been gradual, groups like EI who collect signatures bring us closer to the complete protection of inalienable rights.

Gabrielle Frandina is a metro columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

The Heights

Monday, November 4, 2019

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‘Harriet’ Focuses on Valiant Actions of Abolitionist

By Shannon Carmichael Heights Staff Director Kasi Lemmons takes the story of esteemed anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman to the big screen in her new film Harriet, released on the first of November. The film dissects the life of Tubman, focusing primarily on her escape from slavery and her yearning to return to the Deep South to lead her friends and family to freedom.

Her valiant actions and fearless mentality are expertly portrayed, enabling the film to tell her story with ample appreciation for the American hero.

Lemmons, primarily known for playing Ardelia Mapp in Silence of the Lambs, emphasizes themes of perseverance, womanhood, and faith successfully throughout the film.

Tubman’s initial return to the South is depicted as her attempt to bring her husband to the North, but when it is discovered that he had taken a new wife in the time of her absence, Tubman has a change of heart. Guided by the voice of God in intense scenes of prayer shown consistently throughout the film, Tubman comes to understand her purpose in life as helping to extend freedom to others by guiding them along the Underground Railroad.

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harriet kasi lemmons distributed by focus features Release november 1, 2019 Our rating

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The role of Tubman is perfectly executed by British actress Cynthia Erivo (best known for her performance as Celie in the 2015 Broadway musical The Color Purple). Erivo effortlessly captures the strong, magnanimous nature of Tubman and portrays her determination while the character discovers her sense of self.

Joining Erivo in bringing the story to life, Leslie Odom Jr. plays the role of William Still, a Northerner who aids Tubman’s plan and provides resources for her various returns to the South to lead slaves to freedom.

Though the film is serious in nature due to its portrayal of a historical topic, Lemmons tosses in moments of comic relief that work to keep the interest of the viewer throughout the film.

Tubman’s blunt, unwavering character is a source of laughs on various occasions, as many characters (primarily men of high authority) are left unsure about how to confront a figure of such high self-confidence.

The cinematography of the film is relatively consistent with that of typical biopics. Flare is added in Tubman’s recollection of memories corresponding to her scenes of prayer. Bright, monochrome scenes are f lashed across the screen in a sporadic bouts

throughout the film, nearly blinding the audience but serving as memories that are understood to be points of motivation for Tubman prior to moments that require insane courage.

Harriet serves as a vital reminder of Tubman’s heroism. After watching the film, one is left with memories of Tubman’s gritty sacrifice and strength.

Sitting in a large screening room, the audience laughed, cried, and applauded as the life of Tubman played out before them. Leaving the screening, audience members were rightfully instilled with inspiration.

Lemmons’ decision to adopt the life of Tubman to the big screen reflects the much larger discussion on the monumental impact of Tubman on American history.

The film is a conversation starter and a reflection of how a single figure can leave such a positive effect on the lives of others.

The film ends with the arrival of Tubman’s mother and father in the North. Before the credits roll, a brief conclusion of her life is summarized, only adding to Tubman’s historic contributions to America. Harriet ultimately encapsulates the life of a liberator, and further cements Tubman’s prominence in history. n

Lambert Mixes Depth, Humor with ‘Wildcard’

By Grace Mayer Heights Staff The women of country, such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, and girl group The Highwomen, are consistent in their country music industry endeavors: They deliver personal pieces and masterfully original lyrics. Industry veteran Miranda Lambert, with her seventh studio album, affirms her spot among the growing ranks.

Wildcard delivers hard-hitting elements of country rock along with soft melodies, and a tongue-and-cheek tone that sharply diverges from her previous album.

Back in 2016, Lambert released The Weight of These Wings, a double LP brimming with the emotional aftermath of Lambert’s divorce from country singer Blake Shelton. This album was a journey for Lambert and listeners. Charted within the bounds of 24 songs, she left it all on the table—her heart, her country soul, and her past.

But time heals all wounds. Maybe it’s her new beau (New York police officer Brendan McLoughlin), or maybe it’s her decision to partner with country producer Jay Jocye (who’s worked with Keith Urban, Little Big Town, and Carrie Underwood, among others), but there’s renewed energy and reinvention in Lambert’s sound on Wildcard.

Elements of rock surface and are masterfully characterized with electric guitar

riffs and drums, and her playful lyrics are sparked with slapdash humor.

Lambert’s light-hearted lyrics are best displayed in her pre-released single “It All Comes Out in the Wash,” a song that offers Tide as the solution to all life’s embarrassments, mistakes, and heartbreaks.

Singing “You take the sin and the men and you throw ’em all in / And you put that sucker on spin,” Lambert attests to second chances and starting over.

In “Mess With My Head,” a daringly dangerous electric guitar piece, Lambert sings about a late-night rendezvous soured by the relationship’s dynamic.

Lambert sings, “You treat my mind like a hotel room / And I know why I gave the keys to you / I let you mess with my, mess with my head.” It’s inventive, addicting, and hits that sweet spot between a country ballad and rock anthem.

Maren Morris joins Lambert on “Way Too Pretty for Prison,” a devious duet with a sarcastic twist.

Opening to crashing cymbals, the song passes lyrics between the two singers about how they were cheated on, wronged, and consequently in pursuit of revenge.

The thing holding them back from exacting their revenge: the “Lunch trays don’t come with Chardonnay” and “the state won’t pay for lash extensions.” In short, they’re way too pretty for prison.

“Holy Water” combines the backdrop

of a rhythm and blues church choir with country swing and sway. Lambert’s voice transforms on this song. Raspy and rugged, she begs for a “hit of that holy water.”

Rather than seeking religious redemption, though, Lambert sings “holy water’s gonna make us drown,” referencing religious corruption.

“Bluebird” is a sweet tune that talks about taking hold of the cards life throws at you and turning lemons into lemonade.

The album’s title is pulled from its refrain: “And if the house just keeps on winning / I got a wildcard up my sleeve.” Lambert’s lyrics play with these sayings, unraveling them as she sings about changing her own fate.

Although Lambert is newly married, Wildcard’s focus doesn’t lean heavily into romance, making the subtle mention of her relationship a charming rarity.

“How Dare You Love” is about the unexpected and uncontrollable feeling of falling in love.

Wildcard belongs to Lambert. There is no mistaking her humor, nor the album’s storyline for any other artist but Lambert.

For all her jokes are worth, Wildcard balances a lot of heart and introspection.

Each song taps into her deeply personal past and present, and her journey since The Weight of These Wings. No longer weighed down, Lambert soars on Wildcard. n

music

Copy Editor A coming-of-age story that stands on its own without need for excessive drama or wild plotlines, Atypical returns for a third season that, once again, effectively examines autism and growing up with thought, nuance, and humor.

A Netflix Original series, the third season of Atypical was released on Friday, bringing viewers back to the protagonist Sam (Keir Gilchrist), and his family.

Atypical Season Three follows where Season Two left off and begins with Sam heading off to college. With a whole new environment to navigate, Sam wants to reinvent himself but runs into challenges adjusting to university life. Meanwhile, his sister Casey (Brigette Lundy-Paine) balances her feelings for both her best friend Izzie (Fivel Stewart) and boyfriend Evan

(Graham Rogers) and plans her future, looking to escape from suburban Connecticut and her meddling mother.

The siblings’ mother Elsa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) tries to repair her fractured relationship with her husband Doug (Michael Rapaport) after Elsa has an affair with a bartender in Season One, but her efforts are undermined when Doug grows closer to Megan (Angel Laketa Moore), a woman from his peer support group.

Atypical continues to be an enjoyable comedy that doesn’t hesitate to explore relatable issues. As the characters grow up and start developing their own lives, the show stops focusing on Sam as much and more screen time is dedicated to the other family members. Rather than feeling disjointed, however, the show juggles different side plots skillfully, giving each one full attention and a proper resolution, creating a very complete world.

wildcard miranda lambert distributed by rca records nashville Release november 1, 2019 Our rating

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atypical robia rashid distributed by netflix Release November 1, 2019 Our rating

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Every character feels human. Not a single character is without flaws, but no one is despicable. The show doesn’t reduce anyone to just a trope, and each character feels distinctly unique and relatable—they almost come alive through the screen.

The humor of Atypical comes naturally, with no forced punchlines or laugh tracks guiding viewers. Characters are just naturally funny, and they bring humor into the show through their personalities and the little absurdities in their lives.

The plot is believable as well, with no ludicrous fits of drama but small, calculated build-ups that drive the plot forward.

Good storytelling keeps the show intriguing without major drama or hysterical antics like other shows employ to keep audiences entertained.

Atypical manages to combine easy humor with serious examinations of universally relatable problems. Whether it’s adjusting to new circumstances, communicating with loved ones, or learning to forgive, the issues that the characters work through will hit home with viewers.

With Sam’s screen time diminishing to include more side plots, the focus on Sam’s autism also lessens somewhat. In the third season, the discussion of autism shifts to an examination of how Sam’s autism affects his life when he is thrown into an entirely new environment, having to navigate college classes and making new friends.

While initially resistant to getting help because he wants to reinvent himself, Sam learns that receiving support and assistance is not shameful and finds

emily himes

‘track record’ miranda lambert

Miranda Lambert released her latest album, Wildcard, on Nov. 1, and with it came an unexpectedly smooth new single. “Track Record” is tone d dow n f rom L amb er t ’s usual over whelming twang and subtle enough to make it easier on the ears.

The single features a revolving, repetitive beat that’s catchier than it is annoying. It will have no problems spiking to the top of country radio.

Usually, Lambert is over-the-top country, with a fake sound and oftconcerning lyrics about cigarettes or guns.

“Track Record” is more of a selfaware love song, with lines such as “I’ve got a track record / A past that’s checkered … girls like me don’t mean it but we don’t know better” showing a notable amount of growth from her earlier, pettier lyrics.

“Track Record” follows lead single “It All Comes Out in the Wash,” which was still reminiscent of Lambert’s past sound. But if “Track Record” is in any way symbolic of her new sound and latest album, Lambert is set to shake up the country genre in a big way.

This new sound for L ambert comes in the wake of a recent shift toward a more traditional country.

Maybe this new wave will allow Lambert to show her more authentic self in her music, as opposed to a character-like image.

Maybe it’s the current shift in the genre to a more authentic sound, or maybe she personally needed to change her music style—but she’s certainly on the right track. n

music video nathan rhind

‘Atypical’ Gives Comedy Substance in Third Season

By Stephanie Liu

Single review

creative ways to work around his autism to adapt to the strenuous requirements of college life.

The contrast between Sam’s girlfriend Paige’s (Jenna Boyd) difficult transition to Bowdoin College and Sam’s college experience shows that change is hard for everyone. While viewers might expect Sam to struggle more, especially with a constant reminder that four out of five students with autism do not make it through college, Paige, the high school valedictorian who had no fears about college, dropped out of her dream school because she had trouble fitting in. Sam, in fact, learned to adapt and found friends.

This positive treatment of autism is really what makes the show shine. Every character is quirky and has their own strange antics, calling into question what it really means to be “normal.”

Autism is never made a big deal, and Sam is never portrayed as “other” or unnatural. The show has a nuanced way of normalizing autism while also addressing the clashes that happen as a result of poor communication between neurotypical people and people on the autism spectrum.

Atypical is wholly enjoyable, with an easy flow to the story and effective humor. But the show also examines deeper issues that make Atypical feel much more substantial than just a throwaway comedy.

The third season brings back beloved characters and develops them further, enabling the audience to follow Sam and his family further on their journey through life. n

‘east’

Earl Sweatshirt

The enigmatic rapper Earl Sweatshirt solidified his reputation as one of the industry’s most innovative talents with the release a strange, disorderly music video for the song “EAST” on Friday.

The video follows the recent arrival of Earl’s EP Feet of Clay. The EP builds on the discordant, choppy sampling techniques used on his previous project released this year, Some Rap Songs, while Earl’s lyrics reflect the despondency found on his 2015 album I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside.

The music video manifests the song’s choppy production aesthetic through a visually compelling yet bizarre piece of art that appears fractured and unrelated to the song on first viewing yet ultimately succeeds in reflecting Earl’s struggling mental state.

The video opens with Earl standing on a beach in slides, Corona in hand, smoking a cigarette and hanging out with friends.

A superimposed photograph of the moon floats about the screen, and another smaller video of a man running in a parking garage flipping off the camera pops up in the upper right-hand corner.

There is not only a lack of cohesion at this point in the video, but a clearly intentional decision by Earl to offer something utterly original and unpredictable to the viewer.

The lyrics of “EAST” deal with alcoholism and his struggles in coping with the passing of his father. He seems to be forgoing representing the plotline of the song in favor of depicting his own scattered and more abstract feelings of loss of direction and meaning. n

The Heights

A10

Monday, November 4, 2019

Cigs After Sex Ignite Emotion at House of Blues Striking the Right Note

By Chloe Pingeon

For The Heights

A thick sheet of mist hung over the House of Blues on the night of Oct. 27, but this didn’t stop a line from forming and extending multiple blocks. Fans waited in anticipation of Cigarettes After Sex, a band that was completing the North American segment of its 2019 tour for its new album Cry. The doors opened at 7 p.m., but, as early as 5 p.m., the band’s faithful fans were

waiting in pursuit of the best spots for a venue that was made up almost entirely by general admission tickets. The band did not have an opening act, but for over an hour, a gray screen set the mood for the night with black and white scratchy images of a stormy ocean to the tune of the bands more popular songs.

While murmurs about the band’s delay stirred in the crowd as time passed, the entire venue fell silent once the group came out onto the hazy stage. Lead singer Greg Gonzalez opened by quietly announcing

KAYLIE RAMIREZ / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Cigarettes After Sex entranced the House of Blues with their melancholic songs.

his love for Boston, and then singing the first ethereal notes of “Falling in Love” with the same gentle murmur of the recorded version of the song. Throughout the night, the trio that composes Cigarettes After Sex proved to be exactly like what their recordings would lead you to believe, in sound and in disposition. Like the low energy of the downtempo ballads that make up the band’s catalogue, the band hardly moved once it assumed its positions onstage.

Cigarettes After Sex formed as a band in 2008. Led by Gonzalez, the band describes its sound as “ambient pop.” Its music is striking in its use of relatively simple cords and catchy rhythms intertwined with soft, mysterious, and slow lyrics that take on a dreamlike quality. In a 2017 interview with Interview Magazine, Gonzalez described the way in which he hopes his music can be both calming and emotional, and said that, for him, music is his drug of choice to put him to sleep.

In the same interview, Gonzalez said, “It’s very touching to see someone moved to tears by a song.”

Cigarettes After Sex no doubt makes music for crying. On Sunday, while perhaps not all were visibly in tears, the purveyors did appear to be moved by the

dreamlike sounds of both Cry and the band’s older songs. The set was short, lasting less than an hour in total. Despite the late start and brief performance, the entire room seem transfixed on a live performance that set the same mood as illustrated through sound on their albums.

The lyrics of the nine new tracks featured on Cry flowed easily from one to another, with the performance of one song seemingly bleeding into the next.

On recordings, the barely noticeable transitions can feel slightly monotonous, but performed live, the flow created a reflective, sad, and bittersweet but beautiful mood that remained constant throughout the set.

Curiously, a giant disco ball illuminated the room during the last song of the band’s regular set, a melancholic iteration of “Apocalypse,” the band’s most popular song. Cigarettes After Sex opened the encore with “Young & Dumb,” a track from the band’s 2017 self-titled first full album, and finished out with the screeching outro of “Dreaming of You,” an uncharacteristically building track from the band’s 2012 debut EP I. After the song, the band quietly left the stage in the same mysterious and dreamlike manner in which it emerged. n

Guatemalan Performers Merge Art and Activism

By Julia Landwehr Heights Staff

The combination of art and activism is not a novel concept, although two Guatemalan artists in a Boston College auditorium singing and dancing about civil war is something that demands attention.

On Tuesday, Oct. 29, the Center for Human Rights and International Justice hosted Guatemalan artists Fernando López and Gabriela Alvarez Castañeda for a moving performance. López, a guitar player and singer currently based in Ireland, and Castañeda, a dancer based in New York, co-produced the performance to tell a story of Guatemalan injustices, emotions, and memories of migration.

López and Castañeda performed for a small crowd in McGuinn 121 for about an hour, utilizing both song and dance to promote social activism.

The entire performance was moderated by Lynch School of Education and Human Development professor Brinton Lykes, who assisted López and Castañeda in translating their speeches and explanations from Spanish to English so that all in attendance could understand the show.

The Migratory Tour of Love and Memory performance was able to move beyond the barriers of language, however, convincingly using song and dance to convey the trials and struggles that the Guatemalan people have gone through.

López and Castañeda’s art was primarily focused on the civil war and counter-insurgency movement that occurred in Guatemala from the early 1960s to late 1990s. This is why memory was such a main focus of the performance—López told the crowd that their art attempts to “bring back the memory of people who have been lost,” honoring the roughly 45,000 Guatemalans who disappeared at the hands of the government during the period of conflict.

Reminiscent of the lore of oral storytellers and folk tradition, López and

Castañeda poured intense vulnerability into their song and movement. Making art about the past was a way for López and Castañeda to ensure that future generations will never forget the horrific tragedies that happened in Guatemala only a few decades ago. They were able to successfully translate the emotion, pain, love, fear, hope, and despair of their ancestors, creating a valuable artistic history lesson that transcended everyday speech.

López, a technically brilliant guitar player, usually played in a more traditional Hispanic style of guitar, his hands flying across the strings to create intricate and often forlorn melodies. While his speaking voice and demeanor was relatively unassuming and reserved, López came alive as he performed. Weaving through the upper registers of his voice, López commanded attention and oozed confidence as he sang.

The show was clearly a partner effort, however. Castañeda’s dancing elevated López’s guitar playing and made the performance feel even more emotionally poignant. Castañeda would enter and exit the auditorium during different times of the performance, changing from an embroidered frock to a black dress to a simple cream button down. Her dancing was equally beautiful and diverse, as she often held athletic poses with one leg extended high in the air or spun around the room, creating beautiful shapes as she swung her arms.

One of the most striking moments of the Migratory Tour of Love and Memory was when López and Castañeda performed a song called “Solo Queremos Ser Humanos,” which translates to “We Just Want to Be Human.” The song reflected the overall tone of the show—a soulful and heartbreaking remembrance of violence, while still holding an inextinguishable hope for justice and future peace.

Two people might not be able to change the world, but the Migratory Tour of Love and Memory shows just how truly powerful art can be. n

The Sharps Shine at Las Vegas-Themed Cafe

By Emily Kaderabek Heights Staff

The Sharps, Boston College’s only all-female a cappella group, took a lively trip to fabulous Las Vegas for their fall café Saturday evening. McGuinn 121 was transformed into a dazzling casino for the concert, with dice and playing cards adorning the space.

Opening up with energy, Maggie Chipman, Sharps vice president and MCAS ’21, showcased her smooth, melodic voice with the group’s rendition of BØRNS’ “Electric Love.” It was evident from the beginning that this show offered much more than just musical prowess. Throughout their performances, The Sharps playfully added theatrical flare and comedy to the songs that gave kept the audience on their toes.

The Sharps slowed it down with “Sober” by Lorde without sacrificing any of their energy. Beatboxing by Chipman provided an intense foundation for the staccato harmonies in the opening of the song.

With Queen’s “Somebody to Love,” The Sharps were in their element. The group added elements that felt casual and spontaneous—along with a lively and comical guitar solo from Harper Barbaree, MCAS ’22. The addition blended perfectly with the piercing vocals of soloist Lilly Higgins, Sharps president and MCAS ’20.

Next, The Sharps welcomed the Wil-

liams Octet, an all-male group from Williams College that kept everyone engaged between The Sharps’ two sets. Opening with a fast-paced mashup of One Direction’s “Drag Me Down” and Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble,” the performance made listeners forget there was ever tension between the hit artists.

Emerging once again, the group brought the café’s theme to life with clever costumes that embodied the vibrance of the Las Vegas Strip. With guest appearances from Marilyn Monroe (Sophia Summers, MCAS ’23), a Vegas Bride (Chipman), and Elvis Presley himself (Barbaree), the city was personified through some of its most iconic figures.

But it was Emma Fritsch, MCAS ’21, that truly brought “The King” to life with her high-flying performance of “Viva Las Vegas.” Shortly after, The Sharps took the opportunity to empower their listeners with a powerful and confident performance of Bea Miller’s “S.L.U.T.” Soloist Anabel Johnson, MCAS ’20, grinned back at her fellow singers as she captured the spirit of the song through her upbeat performance.

Closing out this year’s fall café, The Sharps invited up former members to join in on a cheerful performance of the group’s theme song, the Bee Gees’ “If I Can’t Have You.” The song served as an ideal conclusion to a fabulous night of camaraderie, casinos, and costumes. n

iEdit Arts

The Playlist “I Wanna Be Adored” The Stone Roses

Jillian Ran, Asst. Arts Editor

“Religion” Lana Del Rey

By Kaylie Ramirez Arts Editor

“Gimme Shelter” The Rolling Stones “What Kind of Man” Florence + The Machine “Friday I’m in Love” The Cure “Real Love Baby” Father John Misty “NFWMB” Hozier “Love song” Lana Del Rey “Liability” Lorde “No. 1 Party Anthem” Arctic Monkeys

JESS RIVILIS / HEIGHTS STAFF

ALLYSON MOZELIAK, IKRAM ALI / HEIGHTS EDITORS

Jillian Ran, assistant arts editor and MCAS ’22, is the type of person that you can’t imagine ever had parents. She’s not an orphan, but she was born a woman with her own agency and convictions.

And from that woman a playlist was born.

Simultaneously transcending genre and expressing a specific, cohesive mood, the playlist is a well-wrought repackaging of her avant grunge fashion sense. Ran listens to The Cure while she makes her own clothes, her needle weaving in and out of the cloth to the sound of Robert Smith’s careening vocals.

Melodrama is the theme of the playlist.

The Stone Roses’ beckoning bass opens the playlist before lead singer Ian Brown begs, “I wanna be adored.” Ran pulls the playlist’s purveyors in with the classics—

she complements the giddiness of “Friday I’m In Love” and “I Wanna Be Adored” with The Rolling Stones’ destitute “Gimme Shelter.” But Ran is above simply stringing together radio staples. She recontextualizes the inoffensive tracks by surrounding them with Lorde’s mournful “Liability” and Lana Del Rey’s deep cuts—the devoutly deviant “Religion” and the unabashed caress of the romantic violin on “Love song.” Ran was born a woman—and on the playlist she is in the company of the women that have redefined the meaning of feminity in their music.

Arctic Monkeys’ down-trodden “No. 1 Party Anthem” calls off the all-too-brief romance Ran incited with the 40-minute playlist. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Alex Turner’s Sheffield drawl pleads, leaving Ran’s listeners wishing they could follow her through her rose-colored world for another 40-minutes.

Emily Himes During my time on The Heights, I have listened to countless albums that have been released since 2017. Most of them have been for reviews, others have been after reading somebody else’s review. A select few have purely been for fun, and had no relation to The Heights whatsoever (crazy, right?). Most of these haven’t earned five stars in my book, Emily’s Comprehensive Guide to Whether This Song is Country Enough, and I don’t know if any have received one star. Most have been stamped with the three-star mark, which gives the feel of a happy medium between “this album kind of sucked” and “but I still like the artist as a whole.”

Here are the four albums from the past three years that I’m singing along to today.

Midland - Let It Roll I knew Midland’s second album would be good, but it exceeded my expectations in every way imaginable. From the sparkling, pink album cover to the unexpectedly romantic tracks that are featured throughout the entire work, Let It Roll is the project that solidifies that authentic country status that On The Rocks launched Midland to. The group didn’t change its sound at all, instead improving on it with even darker, grungier lyrics set to a country beat so true you can’t believe it was released in 2019.

This album wasn’t meant to be played through a pink bluetooth speaker in a well-lit Boston apartment. It was created for dark, smokey bars with broken, faded marquee signs out front. People are probably line dancing, and it’s about 1,000 miles south of here. Enjoy.

If you only have 10 minutes: “Lost in the Night,” “Fourteen Gears,” and “Put the Hurt on Me.” Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour It’s no secret that this album was my favorite thing about my junior year. Golden Hour has a song for every situation, but it all sounds so cohesive. It’s concerning to know that Musgraves will probably never be able to top this album, at least in my book. The entire record is so clean and sleek that it’s hard to listen to just one song before it melts into the next. I knew it then, and I know it now: Golden Hour is the most effortless album that’s been released in recent years and will resemble a major turning point in modern country music for years to come.

If you only have 10 minutes: “Golden Hour,” “Happy & Sad,” and “Butterflies.”

Eric Church - Desperate Man Longtime country favorite Eric Church has released plenty of amazing songs throughout his 13-year career. His rugged persona started to crack a bit with the release of his 2015 album, Mr. Misunderstood, and Desperate Man shattered it all together. While he still has his trademark ragged sound (and look), the content of his newer songs is deeper. This album touches on topics from political division (“The Snake”) to faith (“Monsters”) to love (“Heart Like a Wheel”). The album’s sound is eccentric and dark but ultimately leaves listeners with a more intrinsic and meaningful theme to ponder.

If you only have 10 minutes: “Heart Like a Wheel,” “Hangin’ Around,” and “Desperate Man.” Taylor Swift - Lover I didn’t review this album when it came out because, frankly, I thought it would be bad. The second I listened to Lover, I regretted this decision. The project admittedly has a couple songs that I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing again. Some are just flat-out bad. But the majority are reminiscent of Musgraves’ aforementioned ethereal quality, with silky smooth choruses that glide from one song to the next.

While Lover doesn’t signify Swift’s return to country music in any way, it does make good use of guitars and pianos rather than the heavy synthesizers that dominated her previous albums.

Storyline lyrics full of imagery and detail will remind listeners of her earlier works, ultimately re-aligning the album with her old style of writing. And I think it’s safe to say most people appreciate her return.

If you only have 10 minutes: “Death

By A Thousand Cuts,” “Lover,” and “Paper Rings.”

Emily Himes is the assoc. arts editor for The Heights. She can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

ARTS

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@BCHeightsArts

Monday, November 4, 2019

Creating Chaos

Behind the Scenes of ‘Noises Off’ IKRAM ALI / HEIGHTS EDITOR

By Jillian Ran Asst. Arts Editor

Think about producing a play within a play and convincing the audience that the play-within-a-play is a complete disaster, all while maintaining perfect control over the actual play. If that premise sounds confusing, you’re not alone.

Even the team of actors and backstage cast members hard at work on Boston College Theatre’s upcoming production of Noises Off have trouble keeping things straight. The comedy, written in 1982 by Michael Frayn and directed by theatre professor Luke Jorgensen, documents the messy relationships and myriad of mistakes that plague a theater production. The three acts of Noises Off show the “cast” of the play-within-a-play, Nothing On, perform Act I on three separate occasions. At each performance, tensions among the cast rise more and more until the performance runs completely off the rails.

The set, costume, and sound designers of Noises Off have to clearly differentiate the three layers of time within the play for the audience due to the complexity of the plot. The cast of Nothing On live in the present day, but Nothing On is set in the ’60s within a 16th century mill-turned-house.

Set designer Crystal Tiala’s work for Noises Off focuses primarily on the design of the 16th century house. Tiala, who is also an associate professor and chair of the theatre department, is responsible for the aesthetic of the stage.

She describes her role as a combination of artist and architect.

“When you create a set design, the set not only has to inform the audience about where you are and what kind of place this is, but it also helps evoke moods and ideas and moves the story along in various ways,” Tiala said.

Although Tiala is not directly involved with the construction of the set, technical knowledge is a crucial asset for a set designer. With it, Tiala knows what’s in the realm of possibility and what’s simply infeasible.

Tiala usually begins the design process six to eight months before the premiere of a play. In discussions with Jorgensen, Tiala decided to approach the design of the play-within-a-play’s sets as seriously as she would with a real production.

“It’s funnier if [Nothing On] looks like it has the possibility of succeeding but then goes completely wrong, be-

explained.

Tiala cites the image sharing platform Pinterest as one of her most valuable resources for garnering inspiration. Her account has dozens of boards dedicated to the most precise decorative styles: Chinoiserie, Biedermeier, De Stijl. For Noises Off, she’s collected images of theaters and dark, medieval interiors.

With more abstract scripts, Tiala has the freedom to create her own interpretation of how the environment might look. But Noises Off is fairly concrete; Tiala knew from the beginning that it would be set in England inside a 16th century mill. Still, Tiala isn’t limited to research on the internet.

“You can get inspiration from anywhere, it doesn’t have to be just from the web. A lot of stuff ’s out there, but you might get textures off the sidewalk after a rainy day, or, you know, a nice beautiful tree or a sunset [...] anything visual can be research,” Tiala said.

After she’s gathered ideas for the set, Tiala creates sketches or rough models of the proposed set. She collaborates with the director, props master, and the lighting, costume, and sound designers to determine how the set will look and move from one scene to another.

Once she’s settled on a final plan for the set, Tiala creates a three-dimensional model of the set. Seeing what’s essentially a miniature version of the set is crucial to understanding how the actors will move across the stage.

The model functions like a dollhouse.

comedy of Noises Off reminded him of a sketch comedy TV show that aired in the late ’60s called Rowan & Martin’s

MAGGIE DIPATRI / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Laugh-In. The show had the same loud, flashy tone as Noises Off. Rather than source vintage clothes, which are often precariously delicate, Dalley and Burgess have opted to create most of the costumes themselves.

In general, theatrical costumes are more durable than everyday clothing.

This distinction is especially important in Noises Off. “Mostly the difference is that for theater you’re usually trying to do

about the show is each production is kind of its own little puzzle.”

- George Cooke a stronger version of [the garment], particularly a show that’s so physical, where things might be more reinforced, or we might use sewing techniques that aren’t as invisible because we have the luxury of having the distance from the audience, because that might be stronger,” Dalley explained.

Dalley began her work on Noises Off by researching the fashions of the ’60s.

She turned to the internet and fashion catalogues from the period, as well as her own books on the 1960s. Once the

MEEGAN MINAHAN / HEIGHTS EDITOR

INSIDE ARTS

acter,” Dalley said. “Sometimes it’s just the look of the actor and how I see it fitting the character, and maybe I tweak the way I’m seeing the character based on who’s cast. But also then seeing and hearing about how they’re evolving the character in rehearsal [helps].”

Designing the costumes for the behind-the-scenes characters is more difficult, since the characters live in the present day.

“One of the challenges is [that]

“What the really interesting thing

Tiala also creates in-scale architectural drawings of the set that are used by the scene shop to construct it. From then on, Tiala’s job is to address issues as they arise during the set’s construction.

While Tiala is preoccupied with 16th century architecture, costume designer Jacqueline Dalley and costume shop supervisor Quinn Burgess are immersed in the wild fashions of the late ’60s. Jorgensen decided to set Nothing On in the ’60s to differentiate the “actors” from the backstage char-

acters, such as the director and stage manager. Jorgensen was also drawn to the ’60s because the slapstick style

‘Cigarettes After Sex’

For sound designer George Cooke, though, the requirements for his work on Noises Off are more straightfor-

On the stage of Robsham, the “backstage” set for ‘Noises Off’ is being constructed piece by piece by BC Theatre faculty and students.

Inside BC Theatre’s costume shop, designers Dalley and Burgess oversee the creation of show garments from start to finish.

cause if it looks like it has no chance of succeeding, it doesn’t really have anywhere to go from there,” Tiala

“Once I can visualize who’s playing the character, it helps me continue with is this the right direction for that char-

show was cast, Dalley also kept in mind how to best suit the particular appearances and performances of the actors.

‘The Sharps’

I don’t want them to just seem like Boston College students,” Dalley said.

Dalley also tries to get inside the heads of the characters to explore how they would dress themselves.

“I think about Poppy, what stores do I think she would shop in, what magazines do I think she would read, that kind of thing. So those are the places I would look for those clothes,” Dalley said.

Dalley also oversees actors’ hair and makeup. She’s adding extra ’60s style flair with exaggerated beehive hairdos and cat eyeliner.

Once Dalley has bought fabric, she hands over her designs to Burgess, who constructs the garments. Dalley and Burgess discuss whether they’ll use existing patterns or sew the costumes from scratch.

“If we’re going to create them from scratch, then I use a variety of different methods,” Burgess said. “Sometimes I create them on dress forms, sometimes I create patterns flat from measurements or from knowing what patterns look like. Sometimes I’ll use something that already exists as a starting point and tweak it on paper.”

Not only do the costumes have to be durable and allow for full range of movement, in some cases, they take center stage as the punchline for jokes.

Two different characters have their pants fall down. A character wears a comically large robe. The challenge for Dalley and Burgess is in accommodating these quirks in the script.

Cigarettes After Sex supplied the House of Blues with a health The Sharps brought the energy of the Las Vegas Strip to their dose of heartfelt ballads on Sunday............................................. A10 glitzy fall café............................................................................... A10

ward.

“Some scripts are very specific: We need a gunshot here, we need a door slam there. And then other times, you know, Shakespeare plays, there’s nothing,” Cooke said.

Besides finding sound effects for things like phone rings and breaking glass, Cooke also took the opportunity to write original music for Nothing On. Cooke and Jorgensen agreed that goofy, bongo-heavy, Austin Powers-inspired music would fit the show’s mood. Jorgensen also mentioned Elvis’ “Bossa Nova Baby,” so Cooke crafted an instrumental version of the song with the same aesthetic.

Cooke, a musician who began working in theatre at BC, uses his experience playing instruments and writing songs to compose music for productions, stretching beyond the typical role of the sound designer.

Although microphones are typically Cooke’s focus when he works on musicals, for Noises Off, Cooke is responsible for rigging microphones behind the set during Act II. “What the really interesting thing about the show is each production is kind of its own little puzzle,” Cooke said. In the first act of the show, the audience is looking at the front of the set of Nothing On. Then, in Act II, the set is turned around and the audience sees backstage while hearing the play-within-aplay on the other side of the set.

To pull off this trick, Cooke is attaching microphones to the back of the set so that the audience can hear the actors when they’re performing “onstage.”

“I think what’s going to be the big challenge of the show is not sound or lighting, but I think it’s going to be all the choreography and the physicality of the show,” Cooke said.

Although Tiala, Dalley, Burgess, and Cooke all went out of their way to commend the cast of Noises Off for the complex maneuvers the script demands of them, it’s clear that the intricate structure of the play has brought unexpected obstacles for all facets of the production.

When audiences watch Nothing On fail catastrophically onstage, it’s worth remembering the innovative methods that the set, costume, and sound designers have used to make a well-organized production appear to be a hopelessly chaotic mess. n

‘Harriett’..................................................A9 ‘Wildcard’.............................................A9 ‘Atypical’..........................................................A9

The Heights

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WELCOME TO

Monday, November 4, 2019

AMERICA’S TEST KITCHEN

Food meets family at America’s Test Kitchen, the Brookline-born culinary media company that’s publications, podcasts, and television programs have informed home cooks since 1992.

By Isabel Litterst For The Heights

Between a digital cooking school, two magazines, an 18-year-old publicly broadcasted television show, and upwards of 100 cookbooks, America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) could have exhausted the exploration of cooking innovation.

But culinary creativity has found its home on the second floor of the Boston Design Building, located in the Seaport District. In ATK’s 25,000 square feet of space, approximately 200 employees— including 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists—all collaborate to prepare fresh, alternative, and appealing ideas for home cooking.

The company’s mission is manifold: ATK sets out to generate new dishes, refine classic recipes, and understand the science behind why and how specific combinations of ingredients taste so good. Formulation is only a part of the process, though—the ATK brand is also concerned with the presentation of its work product. Through various media, including cook books, magazines, and TV shows, ATK accomplishes its ultimate goal: to deliver appetizing innovations to your kitchen.

ATK first opened up shop in 1992 with its original publication, Cook’s Illustrated, a magazine dedicated to sharing practical recipes with at-home cooks. Still in circulation, the magazine releases a new issue bimonthly, each containing approximately 10 recipes adhering to its seasonal or thematic category. The magazine focuses solely on foolproof recipes, clear-cut instructions and graphics, and equipment reviews. Notably, Cook’s Illustrated is free of advertisements, and it is printed almost entirely in black and white (save the cover designs).

The back exterior of each Cook’s Illustrated edition is embellished with illustrations by artist John Burgoyne.

The ATK office space also incorporates Burgoyne’s artwork into the interior aesthetic. Conference rooms embody the quirky and convivial character of the company, each detailed with tasteful Burgoyne designs. The room labeled “Greens” is garnished with drawings of kale, spinach, and watercress, whereas the “Cake” room is decorated with a delicious assortment of baked goods.

The “Cheese” room is where I sat down with Stephanie (Steph) Pixley, the deputy food editor of books, at ATK. The Vermont native attended The New England Culinary Institute in her home state where she earned her associates degree in culinary arts and chef training. Pixley spent six months working in the kitchen at the State Street Pavilion, fulfilling one of the two six-month “stages” that were part of her experiential training. Her second “stage” led her to ATK, where she joined the team working in an intern position and never left. She has now been working full-time at ATK for seven years.

In that time, Pixley has borne witness to and taken part in the rapid development and expansion of the ATK brand. In the early days of ATK, many employees were responsible for working under multiple job titles—for instance, test cooks also served as dishwashers and editors. And when Pixley started at ATK, the company was still running all of its operations out of the crowded location in Brookline.

“The Brookline location was cozy and neighborhood-like. It allowed us

ISABEL LITTERST / FOR THE HEIGHTS

The ATK family tests and writes recipes, preps publication, and films its show from the spacious Seaport studio.

to focus on what we do best, which is make recipes for at-home cooks,” Pixley said.

These close quarters eventually became a hindrance to the company’s trademark “test-kitchen” experimentation, as the space couldn’t accommodate an open kitchen while filming a show. And so, in 2017, ATK made the move to Boston’s Seaport district. In its new 15,000 square feet of impeccable kitchen space, there is enough room for the simultaneous creation of new recipes and the production of ATK’s popular TV shows, cookbooks, magazines, and recipes.

Pixley’s job as deputy food editor

of books puts her in a unique position of overlap with the other departments.

The cookbooks are comprised of recipes from the ATK archives, as well as newly tested recipes freshly approved by the Test Kitchen. Pixley’s editorial team draws inspiration from wherever it first comes: whether that be an idea for the title, content, or the target audience.

Pixley leads the brainstorming process, which is ongoing because, unlike the magazine’s pre-set circulation schedule, the books department has free reign to produce as much content as it desires. To control for the self-competition that ensues, ATK has

settled on publishing between 10 and 14 books per year.

“We try to space out the release because at some point if you are producing more and more books they will begin to compete with each other,” she said.

America’s Test Kitchen, the company’s namesake TV show, has been successfully sharing “recipes that work” with PBS viewers since it first aired in 2001. ATK’s Cook’s Country (also the name of ATK’s second magazine) followed in 2008 as a TV platform for the cooks to look at food traditions through a historical lens.

In addition to presenting enter-

taining and mouthwatering “how-to’s,” ATK cooks use their air time to provide viewers with reviews of household cookware and supermarket ingredients. America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country are both filmed in-house in the company’s kitchen filming studios. The studios are surrounded by soundproof walls that allow the rest of the office to function as usual during filming.

The ATK work space has all of the sophistication of a professional film and photography studio, the focus of a culinary think-tank, and the heart of Grandma’s kitchen. Employees of all disciplines seem to relish in the artistic freedom and organic flow of the office. Working for ATK is rewarding, especially if free gourmet food is your idea of a palatable reward.

ATK employees never go hungry on the job, as taste testing is always involved in the work day. Pixley describes the struggles of working in a kitchen and the ease of succumbing to weight gain during her first year working in the test kitchen as “a bit of a ‘freshman-fifteen’ effect.”

The temptations follow employees outside of the kitchen, too. In the heart of the office sits a large refrigerator known as the “Leftovers Fridge.” Inside is all the extra food from a day’s work in the Test Kitchen. Pixley’s advice is: “If your day is revolving around food, it should also revolve around exercise in some way.”

Luckily, the Reebok exercise facility is conveniently located next door—the perfect place for employees to take active breaks in between meals. ATK appreciates the value of maintaining a healthy work-life balance—especially when working hours require mandatory snacking.

To share the wealth of delicious food, ATK opens up the taste testing experience to the public.

“ATK maintains a network of around 40,000 home ‘tasters’ who are signed up to receive, test, and report back on new recipes,” said Madeleine Cohen, ATK’s public relations coordinator. “We rely on them for feedback, and they are an integral part of our unique and thorough recipe development process.”

By way of its food truck that travels through Boston, ATK interacts with Boston foodies on a daily basis. The company also hosted its third annual “Boston EATS” Festival from Oct. 24 to 26, which included a celebration of 20 years of production for the America’s Test Kitchen show. Local foodies attended this event featuring samplings from Boston food vendors and cooking demonstrations performed

by America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country stars.

While always looking for the nextbest recipe, ATK stays loyal to ingredients that work. Within the company and through its community outreach, ATK strives to foster new ways of bringing people together through food.

Even after the food-centric workdays, Pixley still loves to go home and cook with her husband or bake a batch of ATK’s “Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies” to bring to a family gathering.

In what seems to be an ever-increasing “eat-on-the-go” society, Pixley appreciates the communal nature of a meal—the love that is shared in breaking homemade bread.

“Cooking at home is about nurturing, about family, and about feeding the people that you love and yourself,” she said. n

Monday, November 4, 2019

SCHEDULE

The Heights

2019-20 Basketball Preview

Nov. 6

vs. Wake Forest

Nov. 10

at South Florida

Nik Popovic and Derryck Thornton will lead a new-look men’s basketball team in Jim Christian’s sixth year.

Nov. 13

vs. High Point

By Peter Kim

Nov. 16

vs. Belmont

Nov. 20

vs. EWU

Nov. 23

vs. DePaul

Nov. 27

vs. Saint Louis

Nov. 30

at Richmond

Dec. 3

vs. Northwestern

Dec. 7

at Notre Dame

Dec. 10

vs. Albany

Dec. 15

vs. Central Conn.

Dec. 21

vs. California

Dec. 31

at Duke

Jan. 7

vs. Virginia

Jan. 11

vs. Georgia Tech

Jan. 15

at Syracuse

Jan. 19

at Wake Forest

Jan. 22

at Pittsburgh

Jan. 25

vs. Va. Tech

Jan. 29

vs. Louisville

Feb. 1

at N. Carolina

Feb. 4

vs. Duke

Feb. 8

at Virginia Tech

Feb. 12

at Miami

Feb. 16

vs. NC State

Feb. 19

at Virginia

Feb. 22

vs. Clemson

Feb. 26

vs. Notre Dame

Mar. 3

vs. Syracuse

Dec. 7 at Notre Dame: In the first ACC road contest of the year, the Eagles fly to South Bend to face their rivals—who swept two meetings with them last year. The Irish had an injury-plagued 2018-19 campaign that saw them fall to the cellar of the conference, but that figures to change this year. Seniors T.J. Gibbs and John Mooney should both average doubledigits, while sophomore guard Prentiss Hubb will aim to take a step forward in an offense that has loads of returning experience.

Dec. 31 at Duke: ACC play continues with a road trip to face a reloading Blue Devils team. Gone is the vaunted trio of Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, and Cam Reddish—but in comes a pair of five-star recruits and the No. 3 recruiting class in the country, per 247Sports. The names to know: returning point guard Tre Jones and freshmen Vernon Carey, Matthew Hurt, and Wendell Moore.

Jan. 29 vs. Louisville: Jordan Nwora is easily one of the best players in the ACC, and he’ll come to Conte Forum at the end of January. T-Rank estimates have Nwora averaging 17 points and seven rebounds per game next season, and BC had a difficult time with him last year. He’s flanked by seniors Dwayne Sutton and Steven Enoch, as well as a five-star recruit in the 6-foot-8 Samuell Williamson.

Three In G Derryck Thornton: A graduate transfer who will step in at point guard, Thornton has prior stops at Duke and USC. F CJ Felder: The freshman is a three-star prospect from Sumter, S.C., and is expected to immediately join the wing rotation.

G Jay Heath: Another member of the freshman class, Heath is dynamic with the ball in his hands.

Three Out G Ky Bowman: BC’s leading scorer in 201819 signed with the Golden State Warriors.

G Jordan Chatman: The sharpshooter, who graduated, made 57 triples for BC in 2018-19.

F/C Johncarlos Reyes: The 6-foot-11 forward elected to transfer to Nevada.

Women’s basketball, which returns all its major contributors, will look to take the next step in 2019-20.

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SCHEDULE Nov. 5

vs. UMass Lowell

Nov. 10

vs. St. Francis

By Bradley Smart

Nov. 13

at Holy Cross

Assoc. Sports Editor

Sports Editor

Nov. 17

at Providence

For the better part of the decade, Boston College men’s basketball has been defined by dynamic guard play. From Reggie Jackson and Olivier Hanlan to the explosive duo of Ky Bowman and Jerome Robinson, it seems like the Eagles have always had at least one proven star or exciting young player leading the way in the backcourt. But in 2019-20, both Robinson and Bowman are now plying their trade in the NBA, while their apparent heir, Wynston Tabbs, has been declared out for the season with a knee injury.

BC will instead rely on Derryck Thornton—a former five-star recruit who is at his third college—to be its next star point guard.

Meanwhile, a mix of other players both old and new must step up if the Eagles hope to improve on a 14-17 finish in 2018-19 in a year where the ACC has no clear favorite.

WHAT THEY TRIED IN 2018-19 After Robinson was picked 13th overall by the Los Angeles Clippers, head coach Jim Christian turned to Bowman and Tabbs to run BC’s ballscreen heavy offense, which finished 2017-18 as the 52nd-best in the country, according to KenPom. Meanwhile, Christian hoped that the addition of four-star small forward Jairus Hamilton and his brother Jared, as well as Tabbs and Chris Herren Jr., would give the Eagles additional depth and quality on both ends of the court after a campaign in which BC often only went seven-deep.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2018-19 14-17 (5-13 ACC, 11th in the Conference) For a while, even without Robinson, it looked like the Eagles were poised to take a step forward in 2018-19. BC started the season 9-2, notching solid wins against Minnesota— which reached the round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament—and DePaul, but things quickly unraveled when ACC play started and Tabbs went down with an injury. The Suitland, Md., native played just three conference games, helping the Eagles upset then-No. 11 Florida State in his last appearance. In Tabbs’ absence, defenses keyed on Bowman and BC’s scoring suffered. The Eagles won just one of their last six regular season games, before falling to 14th-seeded Pittsburgh in the first round of the conference tournament.

PLAN FOR 2019-20 With Tabbs out and Bowman gone to the NBA, Christian will rely heavily on Thornton and Nik Popovic, who is coming off a breakout junior season, to step up and be leaders for the Eagles.

“He’s played so many minutes that his experience level is going to be huge for our team,” Christian said of Popovic. “And he’s a very versatile big guy, we can put him in a bunch of different spots.”

Beyond that, BC looks for several other players to contribute to fill the void left by Bowman—both his durability and his 19 points per game. Chief among the candidates to step up is Steffon Mitchell, who notably stayed in Chestnut Hill over the summer to work on his shot and his confidence. Christian also expects that Jay Heath and CJ Felder, two of the four players that make up the freshman class, will be able to serve as valuable rotation pieces right away.

As for on the floor, the focus this year for Christian is two-fold. First, he’d like to see the Eagles get out in transition.

“You have to find ways to get easier opportunities,” he remarked at Media Day. “A lot of those ways are in transition.”

“We don’t have the type of team that can bang the ball into the post or has a marquee guy that’s going to be able to create his own shot all the time,” Christian added. “We have to score in transition.”

And secondly, for BC to improve on its 14-17 record of a season ago, it’ll have to find a way to be more consistent defensively.

The Eagles allowed more than 75 points in six of their last seven games in 2018-19, and Christian and Co. are searching for a way to ensure that stretches like that don’t occur again.

POTENTIAL STARTING FIVE Note: Christian hasn’t settled on a starting five, so take this with a grain of salt.

PG: Derryck Thornton — Thornton comes to run BC’s offense with stops at Duke and USC under his belt. A capable floor general whose 2.2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio was third-best in the Pac-12, Thornton provides the Eagles with a calm hand at the tiller. He’ll likely be asked to improve upon his 2018-19 scoring average of 7.7 points per game.

SG: Jay Heath — Ranked the 32nd best shooting guard in the country for the class of 2019 by 247 Sports, Heath is expected to contribute immediately for the Eagles. Comfortable creating with the ball, he’ll bring competitiveness, energy, and a good shooting touch to a BC team that is certainly in need of scoring.

SF: Jared Hamilton — Perhaps the best defender in the backcourt, Hamilton will be entering his first full season with BC after becoming eligible in December 2018. Offensively, he’s got a capable mid-range shot, and if it’s falling he can provide the Eagles with double-digit scoring.

F: Steffon Mitchell — It’s well-known that Mitchell will always bring defensive tenacity and high energy to the floor, but the hope in year three is that the junior, who shot just 1-of-18 from deep as a sophomore, will be able to take a step forward on the other end and become a more consistent scorer and shooter.

F/C: Nik Popovic — The leading returning scorer for BC, Popovic enjoyed a stellar 2018-19 in which he averaged 14.5 points and 7.2 rebounds per game. He’s also the Eagles’ most versatile offensive option, with a soft touch around the basket and good range on his jump shot. n

It’s year two of the Joanna Bernabei-McNamee era for Boston College women’s basketball, and the Eagles are hoping to build off a season in which they rolled through non-conference play before struggling against the elite competition of the ACC. Bernabei-McNamee’s up-tempo offense and doggedness on the boards produced plenty of results on one side of the court, but BC’s defense was porous and couldn’t manufacture many stops. Now, with a transfer from Colorado and largely the same rotation, the group is looking to run it back in 2019-20 and take the next step in conference play.

WHAT THEY TRIED IN 2018-19 Under Bernabei-McNamee, the Eagles wanted to push the tempo and take a step forward offensively. In Erik Johnson’s last year as head coach, BC ranked 234th in the country in offensive rating, per HerHoopStats, and managed just 68.6 possessions per 40 minutes, which ranked 249th. Bernabei-McNamee wanted to rely on her incoming guards, Makayla Dickens—who decommitted from Albany to follow the coach—and Marnelle Garraud, to push the tempo, and also wanted a renewed focus on the glass with established paint players like Emma Guy and Georgia Pineau.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2018-19 14-16 (3-13 Atlantic Coast, 13th in the conference) BC played fast on offense—the team’s stats were almost unrecognizable from the year prior—but struggled to find results once the perils of conference play set in.

The Eagles had a high-flying scoring attack but couldn’t stop anyone in the ACC, allowing a conference-worst 83.8 points per game. BC’s non-conference push was impressive as it started the year 11-2, but it went just 3-14 the rest of the way.

“I think they really showed a big jump in improvement with just being competitive,” Bernabei-McNamee said.

“And [with] being able to play at a higher pace. Emma Guy played really well and I thought as a freshman Makayla Dickens really was able to prove herself which was really important to her.”

Emma Guy was a force down low, averaging 14.1 points and 6.6 rebounds per game, while Dickens was a breakout star. She averaged 11.8 points per game, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.9 assists in her first collegiate season. Overall, the Eagles had a top-50 offense, but were done in by a defense that ranked 328th of 351 D-I teams.

PLAN FOR 2019-20 With Konkwo out for the season with a torn ACL, the Eagles only really add one significant piece to last year’s team, which was untouched by graduation. Swartz figures to factor into the starting lineup and brings an explosive offensive presence, but the biggest thing for Bernabei-McNamee to focus on is the defense. BC needs to improve in that department or will suffer a similar fate in conference play. The Eagles have the offense to again roll through non-conference play, but the emphasis will be on crashing the boards and finding some form of defensive identity.

“We don’t have a lot of change,” BernabeiMcNamee said. “The core of the program is the exact same as last year … I think that them understanding, being a year smarter and a year more mature, that’s where I hope we can steal a few games.”

POTENTIAL STARTING FIVE Note: Bernabei-McNamee hasn’t settled on a starting five, so take this with a grain of salt.

PG: Makayla Dickens — The biggest issue for Dickens last year was turnovers, as she averaged almost five per game. If she can reduce that number while continuing to fill up the stat sheet, Dickens is poised for a long tenure as the facilitator of the offense.

SG: Taylor Ortlepp — Ortlepp has had the green light to fire away from deep for several years now, and she attempted 7.1 triples per game during conference competition last year—the fifth-most of any ACC player. A career 31.3 percent shooter from distance, Ortlepp is averaging 10.2 points per game in her 79-game career and also nearly had a 3:1 assist-toturnover ratio last year.

SF: Sydney Lowery — She started seven of the final 10 games last year, working her way back into the rotation with capable play off the bench. The junior played plenty of minutes in her first two years on the Heights but needs to improve from the field—she’s a career 36.3 percent field goal shooter.

PF: Georgia Pineau — Pineau has been nothing short of durable the last three seasons, clocking in 76 starts and almost 30 minutes per game. She’s one of the team’s most creative passers (averaged 2.6 assists last year) and is also a capable rebounder, pulling in six per game in her career.

C: Emma Guy — Guy enters her fourth year at BC with 59 starts under her belt, making her one of the team’s de facto leaders. She’s coming off a season in which she averaged career highs in points (14.1), minutes (27.2), and field goal percentage (59 percent).

KEY RESERVE F Taylor Soule — When it all comes together for Soule, she’s truly going to be a weapon for the Eagles. She stands 5-foot-11 and is an explosive athlete that has a knack for getting to the rim at will. Soule only managed four rebounds a game last season, though, which is something she’ll have to improve upon since she should be able to get second-chance points. n

Nov. 21

vs. Rhode Island

Nov. 24

vs. VCU

Nov. 27

Charlotte

Nov. 28

Tulane

Dec. 4

at Northwestern

Dec. 8

at Duke

Dec. 15

at BU

Dec. 20

vs. Delaware State

Dec. 29

vs. NC State

Jan. 5

at Pittsburgh

Jan. 9

at Notre Dame

Jan. 12

vs. Virginia

Jan. 16

vs. Louisville

Jan. 19

at Georgia Tech

Jan. 23

at Virginia Tech

Jan. 30

at Florida State

Feb. 2

vs. Wake Forest

Feb. 6

vs. Syracuse

Feb. 9

at Clemson

Feb. 13

vs. Notre Dame

Feb. 16

vs. N. Carolina

Feb. 20

vs. Pittsburgh

Feb. 23

vs. Miami

Feb. 27

at Louisville

Mar. 1

at Syracuse

Mar. 4-8

ACC Tourney

Image of Nik POpovic (Top) By Julia Hopkins / Heights Senior Staff, Image of Emma Guy (Bottom) by michaela mark / For The Heights

Dec. 8 at Duke: In its ACC opener, BC travels to Durham to face the Blue Devils. The Eagles played one of the most memorable games of the season against Duke in 2018-19. Makayla Dickens hit a buzzer-beater at the end of regulation to send the game into overtime, before sinking another shot as time expired in double overtime, this time to beat the Blue Devils, 9290.

Jan. 9 at Notre Dame: When BC travels to Notre Dame, it will certainly be an interesting benchmark of how far the Eagles have developed in Bernabei-McNamee’s second season. Star guard Arike Ogunbowale is no longer with the team, but Notre Dame still remains a top contender in the ACC, and the gap between BC and the Irish last season was considerable.

In the two games the traditional rivals played last season, Notre Dame won by 29 and 50 points.

Jan. 29 vs. Louisville: Louisville, which smacked the Eagles, 87-51, in 2018-19, represents another intriguing test for BC. Asia Durr, who poured in 23 points when the teams met last February, is now in the WNBA playing for the New York Liberty, but the Cardinals still have a host of talent, including Jazmine Jones—she scored 17 points against Notre Dame in the ACC Championship last season.

Three In G Jaelyn Batts: Batts is a three-star recruit from Virginia that will compete for time at the off guard position.

C Akunna Konkwo: A 6-foot-3 center, Konkwo won’t play in 2019-20 due to an Achilles injury.

G Cameron Swartz: A transfer from Colorado, Swartz was recently declared eligible for the 2019-20 season.

Three Out G Jenasae Bishop: Bishop transferred to Wright State after appearing in seven games in 2018-19.

G/F Lana Hollingsworth: Hollingsworth transferred to Santa Clara after 2018-19.

G Kate Klimkiewicz: The guard transferred to Richmond after one season with BC.

The Heights

A14

Monday, November 4, 2019

FOOTBALL

Eagles Rack Up Almost 700 Yards of Offense in Blowout of Orange FB at Syracuse, from A16 After settling for a 21-yard Aaron Boumerhi field goal on the first drive of the game, BC’s offense rebounded with Bailey taking an inside handoff and sprinting 29 yards for a score.

Then, after the fumbles on consecutive drives, the Eagles really took over.

Trailing, 17-10, Grosel found White on the play-action pass, kickstarting an impressive scoring stretch. Five straight runs opened the next drive, and then BC dialed up the play-fake again and Grosel connected with a wide-open Zay Flowers for a 50-yard score.

The Eagles’ defense fed off the offense, forcing a punt, and BC needed just two plays to find the end zone

again. Dillon was stood up for no gain on first down, but then sprinted through a wide-open hole for a 51yard score. Another punt followed from Syracuse, and the Eagles made the Orange pay. Bailey took the first play of the drive to the house, rumbling 74 yards for the score. Then, following the DeVito fumble, Grosel found Isaiah Miranda—the fifthstring tight end after assorted injuries and a former linebacker—for a fouryard score.

In total, it was 34 unanswered points from the Eagles, and a gut punch that Syracuse wouldn’t recover from. BC forced a turnover on downs to start the second half and added more breathing room with a methodical nine-play, 74-yard drive

where Dillon totaled 64 yards and capped it with a five-yard score. DeVito connected with Jackson again for an 85-yard score after a defensive breakdown, but Dillon restored the comfortable lead with a two-yard run after a 10-play, 80-yard drive in the fourth quarter.

It was a dominant win and one that Addazio and BC really needed for the sake of bowl eligibility. The Eagles now have five wins and are getting a second chance at turning a big win into momentum. After the North Carolina State game, BC ran into a buzzsaw in the form of the Tigers, but now it gets to welcome in a struggling Florida State side to Alumni Stadium with a shot at reaching bowl eligibility. n

NICK LISI / AP PHOTO

Quarterback Dennis Grosel threw for 195 yards and three touchdowns in the victory.

Orange vs. Eagles Drive Chart A look at BC’s 58-27 win over Syracuse, possession by possession:

BRADLEY SMART / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Strong Defense, Rushing Attack Guide BC to Comfortable Win FB at Syracuse, from A16 yards to the house, with no Syracuse defender in sight. The very next BC possession, Bailey bounced a simple power run outside, dashing through a giant hole created by the left side of the Eagles’ offensive line and cruising into the end zone for a 74-yard score. All day long, BC’s offensive line absolutely dominated the trenches, opening gap after gap for all of the Eagles’ running backs, from Dillon to Bailey to even Andrew Strader, who saw time in the fourth quarter and gained 19 yards on yet another run to the left.

But perhaps no play greater encapsulated BC’s dominance on the ground than Dillon’s second touchdown. With the Eagles already leading, 44-20, the New London, Conn., native drove straight up the middle, pushing a crowd of Orange defenders over the goal line for a five-yard score.

Even when Syracuse got its hands to BC’s running backs, it was simply no match for the Eagles’ physicality and power.

Grosel Airs it Out Because BC was so effective running the ball all day, Dennis Grosel wasn’t asked to throw the ball many times—he finished the day with only 10 passing attempts—but when he did, the result was often pretty.

With the Eagles trailing, 17-10, early in the second quarter, the redshirt sophomore faked a handoff to Dillon and dropped back. Spotting a wide-open Kobay White, Grosel uncorked a beautiful deep ball, hitting the redshirt junior in stride for a 64-yard touchdown.

He would repeat the feat just seven minutes of game time later.

On another play-action pass, Grosel targeted a wide-open Zay Flowers streaking down the left side of the field uncovered. This time he underthrew Flowers slightly but still got the job done, connecting with the freshman for a 50-yard score that put BC up 24-20.

Grosel’s most impressive throws arguably came in the third quarter though. On a 3rd-and-8, he hung in the pocket before delivering a pinpoint throw to Kobay White on a crossing route to move the chains. Three plays later, with time running out in the third period and the Eagles once again facing 3rd-and-long, Grosel slid to his left before coming back across the field, hooking up with Ethon Williams over the middle for a 28-yard gain. All told, Grosel finished the day an efficient 8-for-10, and threw for a total of 195 yards, turning in by far his best performance as BC’s starter.

A Turbocharged Start When the game started, it appeared whoever gained the ball last would be the team that won the game. The teams combined to score on eight of the first 11 games of the drive. The other three series were two BC fumbles—both of which turned into Orange scores—and a three-and-out for Syracuse that gained just five yards. When the run of scores finished, the Eagles led, 2420, with 7:27 still to play in the second quarter.

BC’s Defense Steps Up After BC took that 24-20 lead, it scored three more times before the end of the half. The Orange? It was shut out for the remainder of the quarter and

scored just seven points the rest of the game. On all levels, the Eagles’ defense turned in one of its best performances of the year. In the trenches, BC’s defensive line plugged gaps in the run game well, limiting Syracuse to just 3.8 yards per carry on 42 attempts. Additionally, against one of the worst offensive lines in the country, the Eagles finally were able to generate some pressure on the quarterback. Brandon Barlow stepped up with a pair of sacks, and Max Richardson ran his team-leading total to 3.5 quarterback takedowns.

Even when Orange quarterback Tommy DeVito did manage to get outside the pocket, the Eagles linebackers and defensive linemen rallied to prevent big plays. DeVito had just one rush of more than 15 yards—a 33-yard gain in the third quarter—and Richardson even caused a crucial DeVito fumble with 3:47 to play in the second quarter, forcing the ball out of the sophomore’s hands as he stretched for extra yards along the sideline.

Meanwhile, the BC secondary, which was torn apart by Trevor Lawrence and Co. in Death Valley, largely looked good in coverage all day long.

Josh DeBerry got his hand to a deep shot from DeVito—who finished 25-of36 for 289 yards—to force fourth down, while the Eagles swarmed to the quick screens and short throws that the Orange attempted and, for the most part, wrapped up well. Richardson made a particularly impressive play on a wide receiver screen in the fourth quarter, knifing through an attempted block and dropping Taj Harris for no gain.

The one blemish? A 85-yard touchdown pass from DeVito to Trishton Jackson in the third quarter where the redshirt

NICK LISI / AP PHOTO

Syracuse head coach Dino Babers fired his defensive coordinator after the 31-point loss.

junior got behind Jason Maitre.

Uncharacteristic Turnovers The game could have been even more lopsided but for a pair of uncharacteristic mistakes by BC’s offense. In the first eight games of the season, the Eagles turned it over just six times—seventh-fewest in the country—but on Saturday, BC fumbled on two consecutive plays. First, Grosel fired a dart to Hunter Long, and the redshirt sophomore turned upfield looking for extra yardage, but lost the ball thanks to a big hit from Andre Cisco. That change in possession led to a Syracuse field goal.

The next Eagles turnover was more costly. On 1st-and-15, David Bailey was swarmed at the line of scrimmage and Trill Williams ripped the ball out of the sophomore’s hands. Three plays later, DeVito connected with Jackson for a 26-yard touchdown, giving the

Orange a brief 17-10 lead.

Another Snap Issue?

Make that four games this season with a botched snap for BC. In three consecutive games against Rutgers, Wake Forest, and Louisville earlier in the season, the Eagles also couldn’t get a snap down correctly on a kick attempt, and it arguably cost BC the game against the Demon Deacons.

Saturday against the Orange, the Eagles’ kick execution woes once again reared their heads.

After Bailey’s 74-yard touchdown made it 37-20 in favor of the Eagles, Grosel couldn’t get the snap down on the extra point attempt and was forced to throw incomplete to Long. The loss of the point didn’t end up harming BC against Syracuse, but the Eagles will have to be better with that down the stretch with three tough regular season games remaining. n

The Heights

Monday, November 4, 2019

A15 FIELD HOCKEY

Eagles Shut Out No. 4 Blue Devils, Secure No. 2 Seed in ACC Tournament FH vs. Duke, from A16 seemed to find its legs as well, as the Eagles’ long clearing passes found their way to forwards running down the sidelines and up the middle. But Duke’s defense didn’t budge. Instead, the Blue Devils were able to counter with tempo of their own, and so ensued a 15-minute stretch of frantic backand-forth action with neither team gaining any momentum.

The second half provided an unexpected offensive push from BC, which Duke had no answer for. The Eagles came flying out of the gates to open the half, dominating the time of possession battle and stonewalling any Duke attempt to push the ball downfield.

BC had its chances early in the third quarter but was ultimately foiled by Duke goaltender Sammi Steele, who recorded four saves in the second half.

Even though BC missed wide off a penalty corner late in the third frame, the scoreless game seemed as though it was going to fall the way the Eagles.

BC’s energy and drive carried over into the fourth quarter. With the score still tied, Jamie Natale made a nice run into the circle before being tripped up.

It was an obvious foul, but the official made no call. BC managed to drive the ball deep into the circle two minutes later, but still couldn’t find the back of the net.

Then, Margo Carlin received a beautiful cross-field pass and had a go at net, but Steele dove to make the stop.

Moments later, BC received a penalty corner, and this time the Eagles made it count. Govaert received the ball at the top of the circle and drove it through several defenders without hesitation.

The ball slammed into the back of the net, giving BC a 1-0 lead and eventually the win.

BC’s victory over Duke marks the first win against the Blue Devils for Doton.

It also signifies the culmination of the careers of four BC seniors who also had never beaten Duke in Dwyer, Wood, Kate Pianko, and Emily Buttinger.

The team as a whole showed resilience, bouncing back from a 4-5 start to the year. With an experienced core and home-field advantage, the Eagles will look to make a run at the ACC Tournament title next week. n

Aman sinha / For The Heights

A determined defensive effort helped BC beat Duke for the first time since 2012.

To Respect Crowther, Red Bandana Game Must Be Played Closer to Sept. 11 Respect Due, from A16

Program Bests Field hockey reached four ACC wins for the first time ever after beating Duke, 1-0.

Winless Months Women’s soccer lost to Clemson, 2-1, and went all of October without recording a win.

Snapping Skids Men’s hockey beat No. 7 Providence, 3-2, to end a four-game losing streak.

Uncharacteristic Mistakes After turning the ball over just six times in eight games, football gave it away twice against Syracuse.

Staying Unbeaten Thanks to 5-2 wins over New Hampshire and Providence, women’s hockey still hasn’t lost.

Tight End Depth Chris Garrison and Korab Idrizi are both injured, leaving the Eagles a little short in the tight end room.

2015 contests themselves. When the game debuted in 2014, BC played host to then-No. 9 USC and pulled off what remains the biggest upset of the Steve Addazio era, beating the Trojans, 37-31, behind 191 yards rushing from Tyler Murphy. In 2015, the Eagles lost, 14-0, to another ninthranked team in FSU but competed admirably and trailed just 7-0 in the fourth quarter and held NFL star Dalvin Cook to just 54 yards rushing.

Both of those games were successes, and since then the game has been pushed further and further back to take place when some of the biggest ACC opponents come to town. This year, the game is on Nov. 9, nearly a full two months after Sept.

11. In 2016, the game was scheduled for Oct. 7, against a Clemson team that eventually went on to beat Alabama in the National Championship. In 2017? Oct. 27. And in 2018, the contest was scheduled for Oct. 26 against Miami.

There’s no denying that those games have produced special moments. In 2017, the Eagles beat a reeling FSU team, 35-3, for their first ACC home win in three years. And last season, BC dominated a Miami team that was on the fringe of the Top 25.

The point of the Red Bandana game, however, isn’t to manufacture an atmosphere that is capable of producing those special moments.

It’s to honor the legacy of a former student who embodies selflessness and heroism in the best way possible.

Special moments on the football field should be of secondary concern to giving Welles Crowther the respect he is due.

And that means moving the game away from October and November, and scheduling it back where it belongs: As close to Sept. 11 as possible.

That way, the event would feel more significant than it does now, and it would certainly ring more true to what the game is supposed to honor, which is Crowther and his legacy.

I get it. BC’s opponents in September have historically been of lesser quality (that could be fixed with some better non-conference scheduling, but that’s a column for another time), and scheduling the game later in the year potentially increases viewership.

But like I’ve already said, viewing audience and marketing shouldn’t get in the way of what the Red Bandana game is truly supposed to celebrate.

What’s more, this year, any attempt to get the game in a prime TV spot backfired. Instead, the Eagles will be playing at noon, a time which causes the already usually late-arriving crowd in Alumni Stadium to be more tardy than usual, and a subdued atmosphere to be less energetic.

And that’s no way to properly honor Welles.

The final nail in the coffin? BC had quite literally the perfect opportunity to schedule the game in primetime just two days after Sept. 11, with a 7:30 p.m. Friday night kickoff against Kansas. Yes, the Jayhawks aren’t exactly a college football powerhouse, and certainly don’t have the national profile of the Seminoles, but the game

was still at night in front of a roughly 75 percent full stadium, and Kansas was clearly more than a match for the Eagles. The Jayhawks did end up winning, 48-24, after all.

The uniqueness of the Red Bandana Game, what it symbolizes, and the significance of the event, not just to BC but on a national level should arguably make it one of the best traditions in college football. And if the game was as close as possible to the anniversary of Sept. 11 each year, that would do it justice.

In the end, the best traditions don’t hinge on the size of the moment—they make the moment.

Virginia Tech doesn’t only play “Enter Sandman” when welcoming a nationally ranked opponent. A large part of what makes it so special is that it has been done at every home game for the last 19 years.

Likewise, if the Eagles were to move the Red Bandana Game to the second week of September every year, the contest would take on its own special meaning that has been lost year by year as the game has been shifted to different weeks. That annual event would be able to truly capture what Welles Crowther and his bandana mean to the BC community. That, rather than a sleepy noon start in front of a half-full Alumni Stadium, would be the perfect way to honor and celebrate the man in the red bandana.

Peter Kim is the assoc. sports editor for The Heights. He can be reached on Twitter @PeterKim_4

A16 Monday, November 4, 2019

SPORTS FOOTBALL

BOSTON COLLEGE 58

@HeightsSports

SYRACUSE 27

Behind Record-Breaking Day, BC Rolls Past Orange BC piled up a program-record 691 yards of offense, AJ Dillon broke the school record for touchdowns, and BC pummeled Syracuse.

By Bradley Smart Sports Editor After the first quarter of Saturday’s game at Syracuse, Boston College football seemed poised for a shootout on the road. The teams combined for 27 first quarter points and the Orange held an early one-score lead.

Then, in the span of just 15 minutes, Syracuse folded as the Eagles ran all over their hosts. On the first play of the second quarter, Dennis Grosel connected with Kobay White on a play-action pass for a 64-yard, gametying touchdown, and the Eagles went on to rack up 34 points in the quarter en route to a comfortable 58-27 win.

B C (5-4, 3-3 Atlantic Coa st) bounced back from a blowout loss to No. 4 Clemson and used a methodical, unstoppable rushing attack that the Orange (3-6, 0-6 Atlantic Coast) simply had no answers for.

AJ Dillon set the program record for career rushing touchdowns on a day in which he racked up 242 yards and three scores on 35 carries. Backfield mate David Bailey had a similarly prolific day, taking 16 carries for 172 yards and a pair of touchdowns, while quarterback Dennis Grosel was more than effective through the air, going 8-of-10 for 195 yards and three touchdowns—each of which was more than 50 yards.

Throughout the entire first half—

and up until the Eagles punted for the first time on their second drive of the second half—BC was in complete control on offense. It marched down the field at will, using Dillon and Bailey effectively and mixing Grosel in as well. The only hiccups were a pair of fumbles—tight end Hunter Long and Bailey both coughed it up—but otherwise managed points on eight of their first 10 drives. ”When you can do what we do like we did it, that’s overwhelming for a defense,” head coach Steve Addazio said. ”First of all, we move at a pretty good clip and what happens on the other side, your DBs, your safeties, they’re taking a beating, they’re tackling 250-pound backs, and if you can stay on the field, you start to wear them down. They start creeping in the box, they start abandoning their coverage and then you’re hitting them on play-actions.”

Syracuse, meanwhile, struggled after the first quarter. After quarterback Tommy DeVito found Aaron Hackett for a nine-yard touchdown and Trishton Jackson for a 26-yard score, the Orange quickly ran into troubles offensively. Back-to-back punts and a fumble by DeVito before the half saw Syracuse enter the intermission trailing by 24 points, and the game was all but over.

See FB at Syracuse, A14

NICK LISI / AP PHOTO

Five-Touchdown Second Quarter Powers Eagles to Blowout

By Peter Kim Assoc. Sports Editor One week after being blown out

by Clemson, 59-7, Boston College football bounced back in a big way at the Carrier Dome. Behind a dominant performance from the offensive line, everything seemed to work for the Eagles, who broke the program record for most yards in a game with just

under 14 minutes left in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, the defense stepped up after allowing 17 points in the first quarter, helping turn what initially looked like a shootout into a 58-27 blowout win. Here are six observations from the victory, which moved BC within one game of bowl eligibility.

Ground and Pound Two weeks ago, against a North Caro-

lina State team that, at the time, had the fifth best rushing defense in the country by yards allowed, the Eagles put together their best rushing performance of the year. Thanks to 150-plus yard games from both AJ Dillon and David Bailey, BC rumbled for 429 yards on the ground. Saturday against the Orange, albeit against a much worse defense, the Eagles eclipsed that mark in the third quarter. BC fin-

ished the day averaging 7.6 yards per carry with 496 total rushing yards.

The tone was set from the first possession of the game. Dillon—who totaled 242 yards and three touchdowns on 35 carries—shed multiple tackles and gained 11 tough yards on an inside run, before taking an outside handoff for seven more yards. That drive ended with a 21-yard Aaron Boumerhi field goal, but BC finished

off its next drive the right way. On 2nd-and-10 from the Syracuse 29, Tyler Vrabel and Zion Johnson combined to carve open a huge gap, and Bailey walked into the end zone for an easy touchdown.

Seemingly everything in the Eagles’ playbook worked. On a delayed counter handoff, Dillon sprinted 51

See FB at Syracuse, A14

Yet Again, BC Misses Mark in Timing of Red Bandana Game

Peter Kim On Monday, it was announced that Boston College football’s final home game of the season, a Nov. 9 contest against Florida State, has been scheduled to kick off at 12 p.m.

In and of itself, that’s not a problem.

Some fans and students might hate waking up early to tailgate, but that’s an issue that fanbases all across the country will face, and you know that those who are really invested in the gameday experience will certainly still find a way to fire up the grills and crack open a beer with plenty of time before kickoff.

This particular noon start time, though, feels wrong for a different reason: It’s also the sixth-annual Red Game, an event created to remember Welles Crowther, BC ‘99, and his

heroics on Sept. 11, 2001. For the first time in its existence, the game won’t have a nighttime kickoff. And the early start time brings into sharp reality a gripe that I, other Heights editors, and many BC fans, have with the event—it simply has to be scheduled better.

Full disclosure: A Heights column was written about this last year. Oh, and the year before that. But still, it bears repeating because, if anything, the date of this game has gotten worse with each passing year.

By now, everyone associated with BC knows the story of Crowther, who graduated from BC in 1999 before moving to New York and saving as many as 18 people in the South Tower of the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11 attacks. It’s a story of inspiring heroism—one that certainly deserves the recognition that the Red Bandana Game has brought.

Recognizing the actual story of Crowther’s bravery and paying tribute to him—but also to all the

other first responders who risked their lives to help save people during Sept. 11—has felt less important than attempting to ensure that the game is against a marquee opponent and in primetime in recent years.

Ift wasn’t always like this. In both 2014 and 2015, the game was held within a week of Sept. 11. Ironically, though, part of the reason that the game may no longer be held in mid-September is those 2014 and

See Respect Due, A15

FIELD HOCKEY

Govaert’s 50th-Minute Goal Lifts BC Over No. 4 Blue Devils

By Mike Fredericks For The Heights Boston College field hockey ’s group of four seniors—which includes offensive force Brigid Wood and starting goalDuke 0 tender Sarah Boston College 1 Dwyer—had never beaten Duke before in their careers. On Friday night, though,

INSIDE SPORTS

they finally bucked that trend. Dwyer posted a three-save shutout, Fusine Govaert scored a 50th-minute game winner, and the Eagles knocked off the No. 4 Blue Devils to close the regular season, 1-0.

At the outset of the game, it didn’t look like BC was fully up to the challenge of playing Duke. The Eagles repeatedly let the Blue Devils weave the ball into the attacking third with

little resistance. Within the first two minutes, Duke’s Hannah Miller managed to draw a penalty corner off a play from Sky Caron. The Blue Devils failed to convert on the penalty corner but it seemed as though the offense was only heating up. Duke continually played the ball in deep and managed to record three shots on goal in the first quarter to the Eagles’ zero.

The momentum-changing mo-

ment came with less than a minute to play in the first quarter when Dwyer recorded two outstanding saves within a matter of seconds. Off a penalty corner, Duke’s Hannah Miller played the ball straight onto the net, prompting a diving stop from Dwyer. The rebound found its way onto the stick of Blue Devils forward Lisa Krause, though, and she attempted to shove it into the cage, only to be denied

MBB: Eagles Start Season on Wednesday WBB: Year Two of Bernabei-McNamee

by Dwyer’s kick-save. After that, the horn sounded and BC regrouped.

Whatever head coach Kelly Doton said to her Eagles during the first quarter break really did the trick, as BC looked like a completely different team in the second. The defense tightened up, surrendering zero shots on goal for 15 minutes. The offense

See FH vs. Duke, A15

SCORES AND STANDINGS.................... A15 ....

A14 BC faces Wake Forest in its season opener, and will lean The Eagles start their season on Tuesday with second- FOOTBALL................................................. on experienced post man Nik Popovic...........................A13 year coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee.......................... A13 BASKETBALL............................................

A13