01 29 15

VOICE the georgetown

THE OTHER GEORGETOWN BUBBLE Forging a Jesuit identity in Doha, Qatar

By Ian Philbrick Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w January 29, 2015 w Volume 47, Issue 18 w georgetownvoice.com

the

Voice

Jan. 29, 2014 Letter to the Editor I find troubling the Voice editorial supporting pending D.C. legislation on “death with dignity.”

Feature

The Voice supports this legislation because “the proposed mechanisms will show greater respect for the lives of terminally ill patients by granting them the free choice to die with dignity.”

The Voice investigates Georgetown’s identity on its Qatar campus.

Editorial ... Partial divestment proposal: a good first step, pg. 3 News ... Admissions to web undocumented student policy, pg. 4 Sports ... Mixed week for men’s basketball, pg. 6 Feature ... Georgetown maintains dedication to Qatar, pg. 8 Leisure ... Oribe Ware is odd, but in a good way, pg. 10 Page 13 ... Death with dignity, pg. 13 Voices ... Revenge of a nerd: in defense of fandom, pg. 15 Mixed Doubles

– Kathleen Couglin

Mixed doubles similar to a regular crossword puzzle, but each word corresponds with two clues. For example, ECLIPSE could be “New Moon sequel” and “Astronomical event.” Once you determine which clues match up, add up their numbers, and that corresponds to their spot in the puzzle.

Across 1. Type of scarf 2. 1986 David Bowie movie 3. Shoe that’s “made for walkin’” 4. Concept describing the limitless 5. This publication 6. Singing reality show 7. French study-abroad city 8. Candy bar (singular) 9. Head of a committee 10. GU internship provider 11. Kick 12. Magical 13. Maze 14. Spotify’s cousin 15. Religiously transformative 16. Piece of furniture 17. Guided sightseeing excursions

18. Trash 19. Campus coffee haunt 20. Act of coming together 21. A smothered laugh 22. Cup 23. First Greek woman 24. Say no Down 1. Female pig 2. Hobbes’ bestie 3. Author Alice, of The Color Purple 4. Reflective surface 5. Zombie 6. Simple 7. Nemo’s dad 8. Pumpkin spice drinker 9. Premonition 10. Draw attention to

11. Padfoot 12. Humanoid robot 13. Go over with a marker 14. Not an iPhone 15. Mimic 16. Loud, musically 17. Predict 18. Strong suit 19. Plant 20. Florida baseball player 21. 1980 alternative band 22. Satellite radio provider 23. Part of the sleep cycle 24. Surprised 25. Sight 26. Task 27. Electrocuted 28. Designer Klein

To be clear, “persons” may show respect for other persons, but “mechanisms” cannot. Nor is it clear how we would show greater respect for someone who is dying by authorizing self-killing than by prohibiting it.

Moreover, the editorial argues “leaving patients to wait out their illnesses alone on a hospital bed, waiting for death to come at any moment, seems to be the more dehumanizing option.” However, why is this the only alternative to taking a lethal dose? Why is legalizing the lethal does a more humane option? And why should we think medical professionals, families, and friends leave patients alone in this way?

Modern Medicine and Hospice Palliative Care are able to assist persons in undergoing what Hospice practitioners define as a “good death,” through pain and fear management, and ensuring as much dignity and comfort as possible, including being in one’s own home. Moreover patients already have agency over withdrawal of treatment and nutrition. Those who work closely persons undergoing the process of dying have learned what an important time it can be for the person who recalls life and memories and ensures close relationships are in good order, especially if previously ruptured. For those whom I have been with while dying, there was often lots of love and laughter—mixed with the strain of waiting, worrying, and watching.

In other words, dying can be part of living.

Part of being human is knowing we are all terminal. We are all “waiting for death,” though the blessing of knowing neither the day nor the hour keeps this reality obscure most of the time. Perhaps some would prefer death to be sudden, with no time to live through inner preparation of passing over?

However, my own perspective—in contrast to that of the Voice—is there can be gift in being able to live one’s dying with intentionality—nor do I do consider that dehumanizing. From a faith perspective, I also do not think I do not own my life to dispose of as I please. I was brought into life through none of my own doing; I have my life, in trust, for a while; and I will have to return it at a time and in a way I know not.

The metaphor that guides me in thinking about all this is the act of breathing: receiving by inhaling, the air I need; having breath for a brief time; and then exhaling it. Since breathing is the essential activity—and sign—of one who lives, each breath can teach me how to live and how to die. To live this pattern with every breath of one’s life is utterly human, not dehumanizing.

Trying to legalize another pattern (and require doctors to cooperate with a patient in ending life rather than in healing illness) strikes me as what is really dehumanizing.

Professor Marilyn McMorrow, RSCJ, Government Department 202-687-4433 | mcmorrow@georgetown.edu Submit responses, questions, and opinions to editor@georgetownvoice.com. Please include your name, year, and school. Bear in mind that letters may be edited for length and clarity and may be published and used in any medium.

Last week’s key:

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Physics & Philosophy Students and Professors Physics and/or philosophy students and professors needed as beta readers for a book on the philosophical implications of quantum theory. You will be provided a list of review questions. Compensation varies based on experience.

Please email me with your academic background and interests at skourangi9@gmail.com

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VOICE the georgetown

Volume 47.18 January 29, 2015 Editor-in-Chief: Dayana Morales Gomez Managing Editor: Caitriona Pagni General Manager: Mary-Bailey Frank Webmaster: Maya McCoy Editors-at-Large: James Constant, Julia Lloyd-George, Ian Philbrick Contributing Editor: Chris Castano Blog Editor: Marisa Hawley Halftime Leisure Editors: Erika Bullock, Graham Piro Halftime Sports Editors: Alex Boyd, Rob Ponce News Editor: Lara Fishbane Sports Editor: Joe Pollicino Feature Editor: Ryan Greene Leisure Editor: Daniel Varghese Page 13 Editor: Dylan Cutler Voices Editor: Noah Buyon Photo Editor: Joshua Raftis Cover Editor: Christina Libre Design Editor: Eleanor Sugrue Spread Editors: Pam Shu, Sophie Super Assistant Blog Editors: Grace Brennan, Morgan Hines, Carley Tucker Assistant Halftime Leisure Editor: Michael Bergin Assistant News Editors: Courtnie Baek, Ryan Miller Assistant Sports Editors: Isabel Echarte, Kevin Huggard, Max Roberts Assistant Feature Editor: Shalina Chatlani Assistant Leisure Editors: Elizabeth Baker, Dinah Farrell, Sabrina Kayser Assistant Voices Editor: Leila Lebreton Assistant Photo Editors: Vicki Lam, Carolyn Zaccaro Assistant Cover Editor: Megan Howell Assistant Design Editor: Ellie Yaeger

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Chris Almeida, Sourabh Bhat, Emmy Buck, Brendan Crowley, Joe Laposata, Manuela Tobias

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Shalina Chatlani, James Constant, Isabel Echarte, Lara Fishbane, Dayana Morales Gomez, Ryan Greene, Caitriona Pagni, Ian Philbrick, Daniel Varghese

Managing Director of Finance: Allison Manning The Georgetown Voice The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.

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editorial

The georgetown voice | 3 stay green, save green

Partial divestment a welcome compromise for all

On Tuesday, the Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility rejected GU Fossil Free’s proposal to divest from the 200 largest fossil fuel companies from its endowment. Instead, it recommended that the university’s Board of Directors should target coal companies for divestment and become an activist shareholder as it continues to invest in other fossil fuels. GUFF was quick to express its disappointment in response to CISR’s decision on its website on Tuesday night, insisting that complete divestment from fossil fuel is a moral imperative.

The Editorial Board has, on multiple occasions, fully supported GUFF’s divestment proposal, and we maintain that Georgetown cannot claim to commit to sustainability while continuing to invest in fossil fuels. However, GUFF should welcome CISR’s compromise and settle for partial divestment as a first step forward when it meets with the Board of Directors in February. Fully divesting from fossil fuel companies may send a strong message, but it might

come at the expense of negative financial effects on students, faculty, and administrators. Instead of outright rejecting GUFF’s proposal, CISR made the right choice to balance the university’s financial needs and to recognize its obligation to support environmental sustainability.

Many residential projects have emerged since GUFF first announced its proposal in May 2013.

In its rush to fulfill the 2010 Campus Plan’s many legal requirements, the university has diverted crucial funds away from other areas of campus life such as Henle Village renovations and Kehoe Field repairs to the Old Jesuit Residence. Tight finances have also affected academics. This semester, the registrar cancelled almost twenty undergraduate classes that did not meet minimum enrollment requirements in order to cut costs. The university is also committed to growing its endowment so that it can improve financial aid and increase socioeconomic diversity on campus.

If full divestment is truly a sustainable financial option for the university in the future, GUFF

should let the success that comes from a partial divestment from coal companies support their case for further divestment from more fossil fuels.

At the same time, ambiguities lie in CISR’s recommendations. CISR failed to offer a timeframe by which the university should identify and divest itself from the endowment’s coal companies. Moreover, there is no guarantee that Georgetown’s stakeholder activism can exert any substantive pressure for energy companies to change their policies and practices, especially if the endowment’s stake in these companies are small compared to other, less environmentallyconscious shareholders.

Moving forward, GUFF should continue to collaborate with the university to fill in the gaps in CISR’s proposal. With sustained efforts on both sides that build upon what they have achieved thus far, the university can back its commitments to sustainability with environmentally and financially sound investment decisions.

extraordinary students

Undocumented Hoyas deserve more resources The admissions office has taken a step forward in its outreach to undocumented students across the nation. After collaborating with UndocuHoyas, a student group that advocates for undocumented students, it has agreed to add a specialized section on its website that clarifies the application and financial aid processes for undocumented students. The university hopes that this move will help make the Hilltop a more attractive place to apply to.

However, Georgetown must continue to pursue proactive measures to better address the needs of current and prospective undocumented students, who often have little to no guidance when navigating the college admissions process.

Undocumented students looking to apply to college have already overcome significant obstacles in their education. Almost half of all undocumented high schoolers drop out. Of those who do graduate high school, only 2.5 percent of them make it to college.

This is likely linked to the fact that the annual income of undocumented families is about 30 percent less than that of other U.S. families. With no access to work-study programs and federal or state aid, undocumented students are unable to rely on government programs to supplement their education. Many universities also refuse to accept applications from undocumented students altogether.

Fortunately, Georgetown welcomes students regardless of citizenship status and provides generous aid packages, such as the 1789 Scholarship. President John J. DeGioia even explicitly expressed support for the DREAM Act, which would have provided undocumented youth with a path to citizenship, when the bill made its way through Congress in Dec. 2010.

Once undocumented students matriculate, however, they find few resources on campus. Staff in the Division of Student Affairs do not receive training about the issues faced by undocumented students. In

fact, only one administrator in the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access knows enough about the topic to offer assistance to undocumented students, a population that may increase after the admissions office updates its website.

The Division of Student Affairs should recognize the critical importance of training more administrators to assist undocumented students. It should also consider a separate office or hiring a full-time staff member that specializes in undocumented students’ affairs.

This would remedy the lack of support that undocumented students face when they are trying to find internships or jobs and could become a vehicle for advocacy for undocumented students as immigration issues return to the national political agenda.

With or without citizenship, undocumented students are Hoyas too, and they deserve the same support network and opportunities that other Hoyas have access to on campus.

the door knockers are coming

GUSA candidates must fight for student voice

With this year’s Georgetown University Student Association executive election campaigns gearing up to officially begin on Feb. 5, it is time for voters and presidential hopefuls to consider the issues that will form the crux of the next administration.

Building upon the positive legacies of GUSA President Trevor Tezel (SFS ’15) and Vice President Omika Jikaria (SFS ’15), next year’s executive team should break new ground in advocacy for student workers, redefine the role of the Multicultural Council, and, most importantly, rally concern and attention towards the university’s next Campus Plan.

A winning campaign should further develop GUSA’s new Office of the Student Worker Advocate. The university has had a poor track record in the treatment of student workers. It has failed to pay Residential Hall Office workers on time and allegations of unfair hiring processes, and Title IX violations suffered by residential assistants surfaced as recently as last November.

Continuing to build upon the office’s advocacy network will provide a crucial pillar of support to student employees, who deserve high standards of accountability from the university as an employer and a Jesuit institution.

The creation of the Multicultural Council was perhaps one of the most memorable accomplishments of Tezel and Jikaria’s administration. According to its mission statement, the council seeks “to create a constant and direct line of communication between cultural groups and the GUSA executive as well as to promote cross-cultural interactions.” However, to date, its many high-profile meetings and town halls have achieved few results. A few intermittent food tastings and infrequent Facebook status updates mark the council’s most public contributions to conversations on diversity. A winning election platform should aim to push the Multicultural Council to its full potential and use it to fulfill the need for real, substantive improvements towards diversity on campus.

The university is currently working with neighborhood representatives to create the 2018-2038 campus plan through the Georgetown Community Partnership, which only has one student, the GUSA president. Considering the 2010 campus plan’s adverse effects on the daily lives of students and campus employees, it is absolutely essential for students to take on a serious role at the negotiation table for the next stage in the master planning process. The successful candidates will vow to fight for more student awareness and representation in university dealings with the neighborhood. They will promise not to allow the university and Georgetown’s neighbors to ignore students’ interests, as was the case in the creation of the 2010 plan.

GUSA and the GUSA executive serve as primary vehicles of student advocacy. When selecting the next GUSA executive, voters must decide which ticket addresses the issues that matter to students and will work tirelessly to give students a voice on campus.

news

4 | the georgetown voice

january 29, 2015

Undocumented students push for more support on campus RYAN MILLER After collaborating with UndocuHoyas, an advocacy group for undocumented students, throughout the month of December, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions has plans to include language on its website by next week that explicitly states the university’s practice of admitting undocumented applicants. “[The group’s] basic concern was verifying that in fact being an undocumented student would not impact your admission decision, which it doesn’t,” Dean of Admissions Charles Deacon said. “They were concerned if there was some way we could send a better signal to the undocumented students.”

Although this practice is not new for Georgetown, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions will clarify its policy as other universities around the country have with official statements on admitting undocumented students, according to both Deacon and the group known as UndocuHoyas, which began meeting last semester.

Citlalli Alvarez (COL ‘15), a member of UndocuHoyas, expressed her frustration that the university does not include a statement on its website about undocumented applicants before the regular admissions deadline.

“We kind of hit a wall with the admissions process,” said Alvarez after having met with Deacon last semester. “And that’s really frustrating because, as regular decision came around, that’s the most important time in which students are looking at the website or applying or trying to figure out if they can or can’t apply …

It’s a very important time.”

Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions Jamie Briseño was tasked with drafting the statement. Although he and UndocuHoyas did not discuss a desired deadline to publish the statement, the website will be updated by next week at the latest. According to Briseño, this timing is appropriate as it is when the Office of Undergraduate Admissions begins the process of recruitment for the class of 2020.

Briseño is currently in the process of guaranteeing that this statement is consistent with other university offices’ non-discrimination clauses. He also noted that the number of undocumented applicants may increase with the inclusion of this statement on the admissions’ website.

“Anything that we can do to increase the number of students who see Georgetown as an option and who fit the profile [of a Georgetown student] academically and otherwise, of personal qualities and experienc-

CITY on a HILL:

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OBAMA THE ODD DUCK: PARTISANSHIP AND THE SOTU

BY IAN PHILBRICK

ADMISSIONS RESPONDS TO UNDOCUHOYA’S CALL FOR CLARITY. es that we think would enhance the freshman class and their transfer class, that would be a benefit, I think, for everyone,” Briseño said.

Raising awareness about the issues that undocumented students already face at Georgetown, though, remains a central concern for UndocuHoyas, according to Alvarez.

“There is a need for resources that are visible and available to us,” Alvarez said. “And that being said, I think one of the ways that we wanted to do that, as well, was to increase our visibility within the GUSA campaigns. We have drafted our asks already, we have a good number of points in terms of what we want, and how we want it to be supported formally.”

Although the group has not drafted a formal petition that includes their requests, Clara Mejia (COL ‘17), another member of UndocuHoyas, said that the creation of a center for undocumented students or a hired staff member who is trained to assist undocumented students would greatly aid the undocumented population at Georgetown.

“This person or a center would serve as a centralized unit [to assist undocumented students] instead of the student independently going and trying to seek out the resources or doing the work that we have been doing and undocumented students before us have been doing,” Mejia said. “They could either go directly to a center or go to directly to this one person that is hired specifically for this ... It would end you being your own advocate.”

According to Alvarez, this type of a center is present at other universities, such as at the University of California, Los Angeles, and some form of training on how to assist undocumented students is needed here at Georgetown, especially as the population of undocumented students in institutions of higher education increases.

“I mean Harvard has a hired staff member whose job it is specifically to work with undocumented students on Harvard’s campus,” Alvarez said.

She explained that UndocuHoyas had been in conversation with the Division

AMBIKA AHUJA

of Student Affairs last semester to try to bring in an outside non-profit to train administrators on these issues, but that the Division of Student Affairs did not make it a priority of theirs to try to get that training done.

“We are working to schedule that training session later this spring,” Dr. Todd Olson, Vice President for Student Affairs, wrote in an email to the Voice. “We are working to fit it in with other important diversity and inclusion topics for our staff.”

Currently, staff members in student affairs do not receive any training in handling undocumented students’ concerns, according to both Olson and Alvarez.

Cinthya Salazar, director of the Community Scholars Program in the CMEA, is the only university staff member who works with undocumented students.

“The undocumented students’ needs are vast and complex, so it is important to not only stay up to date on this important issue, but to allocate resources that will allow more professional staff at CMEA and in the Division to learn and implement initiatives that will meet the student needs,” Salazar wrote in an email to the Voice.

According to Olson, the Division of Student Affairs will continue to work to meet undocumented students’ needs as the population grows.

As the only administrator who works with undocumented students, Salazar expressed her own concerns with the growing population of undocumented students. “I personally plan to continue to bring to light this important issue. However, the current structure of the [CMEA] and my particular responsibilities as the Director of the Community Scholars Program allow me very little time to work on this, especially as the demand grows,” Salazar said.

Salazar also expressed sentiments about Georgetown’s need to serve these students due to its Jesuit identity.

“In order to fulfill our Jesuit mission, we should make progress and try to support the undocumented student population as much as we can,” Salazar wrote.

With the twilight two years of the Obama administration well under way and the president’s sixth State of the Union address now under his belt, it’s worth remembering that, of the men who have occupied the Oval Office, Barack Obama was always a bit of a political odd duck long before he became a lame one.

The president’s singularity doesn’t just spring from being the first black man elected to the job—with all the expectations, mandates, and racial baggage that freight that proposition—or from his status as one of the youngest presidents in U.S. history at the time of his 2009 inaugural. Nor does it arise from the seeming insuperability of the tasks before him—among them an economy in recession, two Middle Eastern wars, and hard-nosed Republican opposition.

Instead, as his most recent SOTU demonstrates, the president whose days are numbered remains in deep tension with the realities of what it means to be a Washington politician in an age of partisan divide.

In a rhetorical crescendo that largely evaded pundits’ radar, Obama’s address mounted a powerful critique of the obstructionist mechanisms at work in the nation’s political establishment.

An evaluation of the peril of partisanship from the president for whom it has become a byword is, of course, hardly newsworthy. After all, past SOTUs have ardently expressed Obama’s commitment “to making Washington work better” (2014), championed bipartisanship and coveted more (2013), and asserted that both legislators and their electorates “want a smarter, more effective government” (2012).

But Tuesday’s remarks turned a corner. More candidly than ever before, the president ventured the thought that gridlock in Washington arises from more than just friction between a Democratic executive and an obstructionist GOP. Instead, he seemed to imply, Washington’s is a structural problem that demands a structural solution.

The value of the president’s comments parallels the problems they present. In a laudable first step, Obama’s rhetoric moved the discussion beyond the realm of policy. After all, if one accedes to David Frum’s assertion in The Atlantic that the president addressed himself on Tuesday at least in part to the future occupant of the White House, the implication that whoever succeeds him will face just as much Congressional road blockage merits recognition.

And the shadow of the future is just one way to acknowledge that Washington’s structural problems won’t follow Obama out the White House door. The fracturing and diminishing political base of the modern GOP, whose adherents are having as much trouble rallying around a viable 2016 presidential candidate as some of its elected representatives are having toeing the party line (see Ted Cruz), is another. Party lines, suggested a recent New Yorker review of Julian E. Zelizer’s The Fierce Urgency of Now, are another.

Democrats, for their part, have done an abysmal job marketing their successes to voters. It’s telling that a president whose most recent SOTU trumpeted the successes of his economic policies was, barely three months before, reeling from a midterm shellacking that saw Republicans achieve majorities in both chambers of Congress. And Citizens United v. FEC, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for Super PACs (for which Obama has a documented distaste) and astronomical political contributions by private citizens will surely keep elected officials looking nervously over their shoulders for the foreseeable future.

Less helpful, however, was the president’s appeal to the problem itself, which wrongly prescribed an attitudinal solution to a structural issue. It’s a bit like arguing that the impoverished have only to work harder to stop being poor—libertarian, optimistic, and spiced with a healthy dose of blame, but simply not what the numbers support. Poverty is a structural issue, as is why Congress can’t get much done these days.

Unless a concerted effort is made to better understand and disrupt the structural issues that stand in the way of compromise, effective debate, and consensus-based solutions, the pressing social issues—two free years of community college, tax credits for education and child care, and tax hikes on the wealthy—that populated the other 58 minutes of Obama’s address are unlikely to find legislative relief.

Timing is also on the president’s side. He and his party are scot-free until 2016. For a lame duck facing an opposition Congress, remarking on partisanship’s underlying structures may be more flippant than brave.

But whether he is able to do anything about it or not, the house of partisan structures that courts, Republicans, and the Obama presidency built still stands. This country may need another odd duck to begin the work of tearing it down.

news

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice | 5

CISR votes against GU Fossil Free’s proposal for full divestment CARLEY TUCKER The Committee on Investment and Social Responsibility announced in a statement on Monday that it voted against GU Fossil Free’s most recent divestment proposal, which called for complete divestment from the 200 largest fossil fuel companies over the next three years.

In the statement, CISR chair Jim Feinerman writes, “After four months of discussion and consideration, the CISR voted against the adoption of GUFF’s final proposal to divest completely from fossil fuel companies.”

When explaining the committee’s decision, Feinerman pointed to the complexity of the issue as well as the possible financial risk of divesting. He also emphasized the thoughtful and serious consideration the committee gave on the proposal.

According to a detailed memo released by CISR, “Among other

CISR ONLY WILLING TO MEET FOSSIL FREE PART WAY.

topics, CISR discussed at length the roles of fiduciary responsibility and moral voice ... and the specific role that Georgetown, as a Catholic and Jesuit institution, has in confronting the real dangers of climate change while at the same time being mindful of our need to ensure the maximum return on Georgetown’s endowment consonant with a broad range of moral concerns.”

Although CISR does not believe Georgetown should completely divest, the memo does offer alternative recommenda-

CAROLYN JAMES

tions including targeted divestment, shareholder engagement, and collaboration with other universities and nonprofits. According to CISR’s recommendations for targeted and focused divestment Georgetown “should divest from companies whose principal business is the mining of coal for use in energy production because there are energy alternatives that have less harmful environmental impact.”

GUFF expressed discontent with CISR’s proposal for partial divestment in a statement re-

leased shortly after CISR issued its decision. “The CISR’s decision not to support full divestment is disappointing. Partial divestment is an insufficient tactic, and, in light of the challenges at hand, is ideologically inconsistent with the CISR’s mandate to align Georgetown’s investments with its ethical standards.”

GUFF member Chloe Lazarus (COL ‘16) believes that it is flawed for CISR to think that just divesting from coal is adequate. “It really has to do with who they classify as the worst actors and who we should divest from. They operate under the assumption that coal companies are worse than natural gas or oil companies,” she said.

“They look at that based on the political views on coal and how as a country we’re moving away from coal. That doesn’t mean that coal is actually worse than other fossil fuels.”

GUFF’s statement also emphasized that because the univer-

sity is not taking this initial step towards divestment, its further efforts to create more sustainable and environmentally friendly decisions will be compromised.

The group has called for immediate, direct action.

GUFF member Annie Wang (COL ‘16) echoes this belief. “I don’t think the CISR is actually recognizing the broad range of moral concerns associated with our University’s investments in fossil fuels, nor the real dangers of climate change,” Wang wrote in GUFF’s statement.

CISR’s vote against the proposal will not prevent GUFF from moving forward. According to Lazarus, GUFF still plans to meet with President DeGioia and then present their proposal to the Board of Directors at their meeting in February. “We are not planning on editing our proposal at all,” she said. “We are still calling on the university to divest from all 200 companies outlined.”

On the record with Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia DAYANA MORALES GOMEZ The Voice sat down with University President John DeGioia on Tuesday to discuss current pertinent issues on campus.

What follows is an abridged transcript of the interview. The full interview can be found online at georgetownvoice.com.

How do you see the free speech policy evolving and where do you see it going in the future?

Well, what I would say is that [free speech] is a lived reality here on campus ... We formalized [a policy on free speech and expression] in 1989. We also established the committee on speech and expression which would be a standing body for the university that would engage questions that would emerge from time to time ... I believe the combination of both the policy and that committee have provided the strongest possible framework to support speech and expression here at Georgetown. The policy was very explicit: we would not limit speech either on the content of the view being expressed or the person expressing that point of view ... We also created a framework in which you could challenge or question some of the judge-

ments that could be made either by those who were speaking or by those who might have to, in some respects, constrain an activity or an event because of its disruption to the normal flow of life in the community ... We have language in the policy that limits speech when it is grossly obscene or grossly offensive … on very specified matters.

Well, people differ on those matters … As long as we live, there will be questions, issues, matters that require our attention related to the policy, the focus of the committee and concern to the whole university community.

Do you think Georgetown will ever be able to eliminate its loan program?

I don’t think so, at least not at the present moment. There are at least four institutions that have been able to do that— Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford... They have the financial resources to do so. And if we had the financial resources to do so, we would do the same thing they do. Among our peer group, the only one that has been able to abandon student loans has been the University of Pennsylvania ... We just don’t have the financial resources to be able to do that and I don’t think we’ll be able to.

Do you think new grading policies will be damaging for students as they enter the job market with potentially less competitive grades?

I think we’ll need to give this very careful attention as we go forward. ... I have a lot of confidence in our students and what they represent and what the Georgetown degree means. If the implication of this is that the grading is ever more rigorous, my hunch is that it will work its way into the understanding of how to make sense of a Georgetown transcript. But I think this is something that we do need to ensure we are consistent and coherent as an institution in how we bring this out ... Our undergraduates do pretty well in the job market. But it’s a pretty complicated job market—that’s worth further attention.

We recently had features on mental health and leaves of absence. How do you think we are tackling these issues as an institution?

We understand the dynamics of early adolescence in terms of its psychodynamics ... So we’re very intentional about building a safety net to catch students at risk … The most significant piece of the safety net are counseling and

The Voice has a heart to heart with president degioia. psychiatric program, CAPS. This has evolved over the years, it’s a work in progress, but it’s evolved over the years to provide some of the most powerful interventions and framework for support that I think is unique ... We recognize the dynamics of being at a place like this. The level of expectation for performance is very high …

You can use phrases like cura personalis and the Jesuit principles, but for me the most powerful idea embedded in the whole identity of this institution is grounded in Ignatius’ spirituality and the phrases he uses to introduce the spiritual exercises the presupposition. The presupposition is essentially we assume the best in one another. By doing so, by assuming the best in one another, we will find the best in ourselves.

JOSHUA RAFTIS

In the years coming, where do you want to take the university or where do you see as ultimate, feasible, or concrete goals for the University for the years to move forward?

I want to try hold on to the terms and conditions that enable us to be who we are and so that ensuring that we sustain our policies of financial aid and admissions, need blind, full need, that we’re able recruit and retain the best possible faculty. [We need to] continue to provide the infrastructure that will enable our faculty and students to do their best work ... I have no doubt that the women and men who comprise this community are going to enable to determine what’s most appropriate for us as a university as we move forward.

sports

6 | the georgetown voice

January 29, 2015

Shot down: Musketeers ruin Hoyas’ rise into top 25 KEVIN HUGGARD

It was a decidedly mixed week for the Georgetown men’s basketball team (14-6, 6-3 Big East).

On one hand, the game against Marquette (10-9, 2-5 Big East) last weekend saw the continued emergence of the freshman class in the most thrilling conference game so far this season, all of which resulted in the Hoyas climbing to the top of the Big East standings and into the national rankings for the second time this season. On the other hand, the Hoyas’ stay at No. 21 in the polls will likely be shortlived, as they fell 66-53 to Xavier (14-7, 5-4 Big East) on Tuesday in an abysmal offensive showing.

For some reason, Marquette and Georgetown always seem to need all 40 minutes of regulation—more, even—to decide the game. Saturday was no exception, as the Hoyas defeated the Golden Eagles in a 95-85 overtime shootout.

Junior guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera led the Hoyas with 19 points on the night, but his hot shooting was more than matched

by Marquette’s Matt Carlino and Duane Wilson, who combined to go 11-16 from three-point range.

“We have to do a better job,” Coach Thompson said. “We gave up key shots that if we don’t let them get it off and if we contest it, we go home in regulation.”

The game saw five Hoyas post scoring totals in double figures. The Hoyas’ big men proved crucial, with senior forward Joshua Smith submitting his most complete performance in a Georgetown uniform, scoring 18 and pulling down 15 rebounds, while senior forward Mikael Hopkins drained 11 of his 12 free throw attempts.

For a moment at the end of regulation, it seemed the Hoyas

had lost, but the officials ruled that Matt Carlino’s jumper as time expired was a two point shot—not the three pointer which would have given the Golden Eagles a one-point victory. In overtime, the Hoyas outscored their opponents 14-4, with freshman guard Tre Campbell sinking a crucial three to put the game firmly in hand. The game was a battle; it featured 16 lead changes and injuries to two Georgetown starters: senior guard Jabril Trawick and freshman guard L.J. Peak.

“Every Big East contest is going to be like that. Every one has been. Every one will be,” Coach Thompson said.

Once again the Hoyas came into a game against Xavier having just earned a national ranking, similar to their Dec. 31 meeting where the Hoyas entered the game ranked No. 25 and lost to the Musketeers 70-53. This time around, the Xavier defeated the Hoyas 6653 at the Verizon Center.

The game opened slowly for both teams, but eventually the Musketeers found their rhythm.

The Hoyas, on the other hand, could not make anything go offensively for the entire first half— the score at the halftime break was 29-16 in Xavier’s favor. In the opening frame, the Hoyas managed to score only four field goals while turning the ball over 13 times.

“As well as they were prepared, and as well as they played us, a lot of those were just plays you can’t make,” Head Coach John Thompson III said. “I don’t think it’s a question of energy. I don’t think we were lethargic out there, I just thought we made mistakes.”

A combination of factors hurt the home team during its lackluster half. D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, the Hoyas’ lead-

Freddy Rosas

layups like this by jabril trawick were hard to come by against xavier.

ing scorer, had zero points on zero shot attempts.

“They did an outstanding job.

They made it hard for [Smith-Rivera] to breathe, which happens when you’re as good as D’Vauntes is,” Thompson said.

On top of the turnovers and scoring woes, Georgetown failed to give itself many second chances, finishing the half with no offensive rebounds and no points off of the fast break.

“The turnovers, particularly in the first half, really dug a hole

Joe o’s Pollicin

for ourselves against a good team,” Coach Thompson said. “Every team in this league is a good team and the hole was just too big to climb out of.”

The Hoyas would hang around for the remainder of the game, at one point cutting the Musketeers’ lead to 7 points, but that was as close as the score would get. Smith-Rivera found his offensive touch, finishing with a team-high 13 points, all of which came in the second half.

For Xavier, Myles Davis went 3-of-5 from three point range

and finished as the game’s leading scorer with 19 points, while Matt Stainbrook scored 12 points and limited senior forward Joshua Smith to only 10 points in a battle of giants in the post.

“It was a bad loss. It’s a hard loss. Every loss is a bad loss and a hard loss,” Thompson said.

The team looks to get back on track as they travel to face Creighton (9-12, 0-8 Big East) on Saturday.

“We don’t have to go back to the drawing board, we just have to be better,” Thompson said.

SPORTS SERMON---

“I’m not squezzing the balls...that’s not part of my process...I grip it.”-New England Patriots QB Tom Brady on his ball preference Sometimes in life, you have to do things you don’t want to do. That holds true whether you’re an adolescent who greatly disdains household chores or an adult who gets frustrated by some of the responsibilities that come with age.

They are the duties that come attached with your role in life and, unfortunately, they are duties that you can’t avoid. Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, however, thinks he’s above these obligations, especially with regards to making himself available to the media.

Lynch is notorious for his recent relationship, or lack thereof, with the media. Simply put, despite his contract and NFL policy dictating that he make himself available for questions, he has avoided the media at all costs, no pun intended.

Last year, the NFL fined him $50,000 for his lack of media appearances. This season, he’s been fined another $50,000 for the same offense.

Facing the threat of an even more substantial fine north of $500,000, Lynch has reluctantly attended the last two Super Bowl media days.

But even then, he’s been recalcitrant towards those in the media. Last season, Lynch answered all of the questions posed by reporters with some variation of “I’m just ‘bout that action, Boss.” This year’s media day saw Lynch’s refrain change to differing versions of “I’m here so I won’t get fined.”

The actions of Lynch have earned him immense praise, from fellow football players and even pundits. Lynch

shouldn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to, they say.

Lynch shouldn’t have to put up with the pestering media, they proclaim, as if the media is only out to sensationalize and make headlines by trying to get him into trouble.

While I respect these claims, I find that people are agreeing more with Lynch’s stance not out of disdain for the media, but because it’s the hip, cool thing to do—it further builds up Lynch as some sort of crusader against the establishment.

Unfortunately for Lynch, to whom much is given, much is expected. Lynch is one of the most talented running backs of the last decade. He is one of the toughest players for opposing defenses; he is difficult to tackle and bring down due to his demonizing strength and will.

A five-time Pro Bowler, Lynch has used his God-given talents and staunch determination to carve out an impressive career. He’s been the league leader in rushing touchdowns twice, and has has been the featured back on a Super Bowl-winning team.

This week, he will also have the chance to join the select company of those who have won two consecutive Super Bowl.

By getting to suit up in an NFL uniform each Sunday and getting paid millions of dollars each year to play football, he lives out the dreams of millions of Americans. So is it really that much to ask of him to attend team media sessions and answer questions from reporters?

Whether or not Lynch agrees with the NFL’s media policy should not determine

whether he appears before them to answer questions.

When Lynch signed his fouryear $30 million contract three seasons ago, he also agreed to the obligations of the NFL’s media policy. He acknowledged, by signing his contract, that he had an obligation to appear before the media and make himself available.

Talking to the media is part of his job description.

Lynch should not be able to pick and choose aspects of his job that he wants to perform. As a college student, I didn’t like that I had to take a 23-page final exam for my accounting class. I don’t like that I’m required to submit a final presentation for my marketing class. Am I just going to ignore these obligations or just write “I’m writing this so I won’t get an incomplete grade in the class” all over my exam or presentation because I don’t particularly like the task? No, I’m going to suck it up and do them tothe best of my ability because part of my responsibility as a college student is to complete the assignments my professors give me.

I understand that everyone has their own personality. Some are more talkative than others and some are more reluctant to talk to strangers, such as the media.

But, with regards to his media obligations, Lynch needs to stop acting like a five-year old waiting in the doctor’s office for a vaccination. But that shouldn’t exempt you from performing your duty. Sometimes you have to do what’s required of you, whether you like it or not.

sports

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the georgetown voice | 7

Women’s hoops learns from defeats ROBBIE PONCE It has often been said that the fiercest competitors are those with the shortest memories.

Throughout this season, firstyear Head Coach Natasha Adair has challenged the Georgetown women’s basketball team (4-17, 2-7 in Big East) to fight through adversity and jostle for respect in one of most well-respected conferences in women’s college basketball.

On Sunday, the Hoyas fell to the No. 25 Seton Hall Pirates (19-2, 8-1 in Big East), who are first in the Big East, 85-99. The Hoyas, led by junior forward Dominique Vitalis and freshman sensation Dorothy Adomako, had the Pirates on their heels from the opening tip and carried a 40-31 advantage into the half.

The Hoyas did not fade in the second half, but Seton Hall kept within striking distance with a combination of streaky perimeter shooting and penetration from star guard Daisha Simmons.

Late in the second half as the Hoyas tried to preserve their lead, Adomako cut to the basket and was hacked by an opposing player. As the whistle blew, she controlled her body and sank a crucial layup. Hoya faithful erupted, Adomako excitedly pounded the floor, and the Hoyas were on the verge of their most crucial result of the season.

Adomako’s subsequent free throw put the Blue and Gray up by four points with less than a minute to play.

The Pirates answered with three straight baskets, including

chris almeida’s TRI-weekly column about sports

MEDIA FANNING THE FLAMES OF COURT STORMING

Women’s basketball came close to upsetting no. 25 Seton Hall on SUNDAY. a layup to tie the game with 11.9 seconds to play. After a missed three point attempt, the game headed to overtime.

In the extra period, the Hoyas were unable to get vital stops and were outscored 17-3, falling by a final of 85-99.

Though her team was just seconds away from a season-defining upset, Coach Adair has kept her focus on the positive aspects of her team’s performance.

“I was very proud of my team tonight,” Adair said. “They played with heart, they played with toughness. They played with resilience, they played with fight. We always talk about playing for forty minutes, and tonight just happened to be 45.”

Though Adair downplays the fact that her team is young and considerably less experienced than the best teams in the Big East, it’s important to remember that this team still has much to learn. Their raw talent is evident, as they have proven the ability to compete with some of the best teams in college

freddy rosas

basketball, but only time will help the Hoyas grow into a team that can win close and contentious contests.

“I walk away from this team knowing that we’re still getting better and knowing that now we get to see every team in this league again,” Adair said. “This is a team that is not going to quit, this is a team that is going to stay hungry, this is a team that is going to keep fighting.”

Halfway through their Big East campaign, the Hoyas have nine games to turn things around before the conclusion of conference play. Though the odds are stacked against them, the Blue and Gray have their sights set on a Big East Tournament run. They’ve lost many battles, but they still have time to win the war.

The Hoyas will search for their first road win of the season when they travel to Chicago to challenge DePaul University (156, 7-2 Big East) on Friday at 8 p.m.

They will then set their sights on the Marquette Golden Eagles (416, 0-9 Big East) in Wisconsin Sunday at noon.

Georgetown soccer stars go pro ALEX BOYD Women’s midfielder Daphne Corboz and men’s goalkeeper Tomas Gomez were selected in the college drafts of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and Major League Soccer (MLS) last week. Sky Blue FC selected Corboz in the fourth round, 25th selection overall, while the Columbus Crew chose Gomez in the third round, with the 60th pick overall.

Corboz, the all-time leading goal scorer in Georgetown history, possesses a résumé that warrants attention from prospective pro teams. A twotime All-American, Corboz was named the Big East Midfielder of the Year and as well as Big East Offensive Player of the Year at the conclusion of the 2014 season. It was the first time

– Backdoorcut –

in the conference’s history that a player had won both awards in the same season. Her selection did not come as a surprise to her head coach Dave Nolan.

“We are all very proud and happy for Daphne as she was drafted by her hometown team,” Nolan said. “Her decision to remain in college this spring ensured she would be still available in the later rounds, as most experts expected her to be a first round selection. But that’s what we do here at Georgetown—our student-athletes graduate and graduate on time.”

A well accomplished player as well, Gomez earned various distinctions, having been selected for the All Big-East the all-region team three times each and named Big East Goalkeeper of the Year in 2013. He is also Georgetown’s all-time leader in career shutouts.

“I think this is a terrific opportunity for Tomas and we’re really excited for him,” Georgetown men’s soccer Head Coach Brian Wiese said. “He worked hard to graduate in December and he’s got a bright future both on the pitch and beyond.”

While Gomez has already joined the Crew for the preseason workouts, Corboz will survey her options overseas as some European teams have also expressed interest. But all at Georgetown have high hopes for her future.

“Everyone at Georgetown is very excited for her as she moves to this next stage in her career and life,” Nolan said.

Gomez joins the company of 13 men who have been drafted into the MLS. If Corboz accepts Sky Blue’s offer, she and former teammate Emily Menges of the Portland Thorns will be the only Hoyas in the NWSL.

Last week after the Georgetown men’s basketball team earned their biggest win since the 2012-2013 season, beating No. 4 Villanova 78-58, the students couldn’t help themselves, flooding onto the court in celebration. This was the first time there had been a court-storming incident at Georgetown since the team ended their regular season against Syracuse two years ago. Last time, there were few reasons to be upset with the students; the game was the last assured matchup against the Hoyas’ longtime archrival. The Hoyas had clinched the Big East title and capped the most exciting Georgetown season in recent memory. Though the Hoyas were ranked fifth in the nation at the time, ahead of the No. 17 Orange, the win was history, and everybody knew it. There were few qualms from coaches or pundits about the court-storming. That wasn’t the case this time around.

Though the unranked Hoyas grabbed their season’s signature win against a top five team and jumped to the top of the Big East, the win didn’t seem like a special occasion. The victory was a Hoya team playing up to their potential in mid-January. The win was important, but far from pivotal.

That’s why when the students stormed the court, everybody else in attendance at the Verizon Center knew that pundits would be grumbling.

And they were. Even Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser managed to bash the student section on Pardon the Interruption, their show on the ESPN network that usually does its best to pretend that the Big East doesn’t exist. Everybody loves the “You’re better than that. You don’t see Duke storming the court” case. But we aren’t Duke.

The reality is that however great Georgetown basketball was during the mid-eighties, that was thirty years ago. This program has been good for many years since the turn of the millenium, but never great.

Half of the current Georgetown students haven’t even seen the Hoyas make the NCAA tournament, forget contend for a title, so it’s no surprise that they are excited when their team throttles a top five program. But Kornheiser had little sympathy.

“The people who are students there now weren’t alive, or were barely alive, when Georgetown was a preeminent power in col-

lege basketball and was a threat to win the national title every single year, certainly go to the Final Four,” he said. “But there are history lessons, and they haven’t availed themselves of any of these history lessons.”

There is a difference between knowing about something and experiencing it for yourself. The Washington Redskins are one of the more successful franchises in the NFL. During the eighties and early nineties, the Skins were perennial Super Bowl contenders, but my memory begins five or six years after their last title in 1992. In professional sports, where there is less parity, critics are more likely to take the “what have you done for me lately” approach. The Patriots and the Redskins have both won three Super Bowls, but nobody in their right mind would say that the two franchises are near the same level. Nobody would fault a Washington fan who gets excited about making the playoffs, no matter how great the team once was.

Fandom is often focused around firsthand experiences. The impact that an event has when read about or seen in hindsight is miniscule when compared to the significance of something witnessed in person.

Hoya fans can read about how great Georgetown used to be, but it means nothing in the context of today.

So what do I think about last week’s court-storming? I think it was fine. It was students being excited about one of the best things that they’ve seen Georgetown basketball do during their tenures as fans. But the people with the loudest voices are those who believe that their points of view are all-encompassing. The Wilbons of the world will always believe that there can be no greater players than those of the Bird, Magic, and Jordan eras. They will always believe that Georgetown is the program that it was 30 years ago. They will always have sticks up their asses when fans from a big-name school storm the court. I think what happened was perfectly reasonable. I probably wouldn’t have done it, but I understand the thought process.

Students want to have their fun when something important happens. But, next time, unless the Hoyas are unranked and beat No. 1 Kentucky, hold back. It’s not worth giving them something to talk about.

8 | the georgetown voice

feature

January 29, 2015

DC to Qatar A Georgetown Presence in Doha

By Ian Philbrick

Next Tuesday, Georgetown’s Qatar campus of the School of Foreign Service kicks off a two-day academic conference entitled “Scapes of Power: A Critical Appraisal” to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Mohammed Reza Pirbhai, an associate professor at SFS-Q and chairperson of the Conference Working Committee, describes “Scapes of Power” in terms that make it seem like a reification of everything SFS-Q has come to embody since its inception in 2005.

“At this particular time and in this unique setting, understanding the varied manifestations of power, past and present, its holders and those disempowered, as well as the variety of ways in which scholars define power within their disciplines, is essential to preparing for the inevitable changes in the exercise and distribution of power to come,” Pirbhai wrote in an event description for the conference posted on the website of the SFS-Q. Hosted inside the SFS-Q building in Education City, the modern campus that emerged like a mirage to cover over five square miles of desert a few miles outside Qatar’s capital city of Doha, the conference marks a fitting capstone to the school’s ten years in existence. Over that decade, the school has grown tenfold in terms of students and faculty and has become an epicenter of east-west educational cooperation in the Middle East.

Qatar’s initial overtures to Georgetown about the possibility of establishing a branch of the SFS in Doha were keen and ambitious, reflecting the small Gulf state’s meteoric rise to global prominence.

Interim Dean of the SFS James Reardon-Anderson, then-Master of Science in Foreign Service Dean, recalled meeting a delegation from Qatar Foundation comprised of members of the nonprofit’s board of directors. They arrived at Georgetown asking to meet with him in October of 2002. At the time, he knew next to nothing about Qatar.

Patrick Theros (SFS ’63), who had served as the United States’ Ambassador to Qatar between 1995 and 1998, accompanied QF delegation. According to Reardon-Anderson, Theros had recommended Georgetown as a potential university of interest to the Qatar Foundation, which was in search of a program to train Qatar’s future diplomats.

“They had only heard of the School of Foreign Service, so we spent some time explaining who we are and what Georgetown is.

And then they invited us to Qatar, so we went,” Reardon-Anderson said. He was accompanied to

Doha by then-Georgetown College Deans Robert Gallucci and Jane McAuliffe.

Reardon-Anderson described the university’s two and a half year preliminary negotiations with QF as initially wary.

“The Board of Directors was especially concerned about the financial risk,” he said. “The university had lost a great deal of money on the operations of the hospital.” Additionally, Georgetown considered the potential risk to Georgetown’s reputation if its relationship with Qatar went sour.

Paramount to concerns of finances and prestige were questions about security. “This was in the midst of the Iraq War, and we had a lot to learn about the region. It turned out to be quite safe, but no one knew it at the time,” Reardon-Anderson said.

“The two sides really had to get to know one-another,” he continued. “We had to satisfy ourselves that we wanted to undertake what was, frankly, a risk—we had never done this before— and they had to satisfy themselves that we would be good partners.”

After negotiations lasting two-and-a-half years, an agreement was formally signed between QF and Georgetown establishing the SFS-Q in May of 2005. Despite lacking students, faculty, and an educational facility to house them, the school enrolled its first class that August.

The original collection of six faculty members has since grown to number 50. Today, those 50 faculty members teach 250 students, split into thirds of Qatari nationals, non-citizen Qatari residents, and international students, most of whom come from the region.

SFS-Q did not develop in isolation.

As the campus was established, an entire city grew up to support it and four other academic institutions that preceded its arrival, including Virginia Commonwealth University, Weill Cornell Medical College, Texas A&M, and Carnegie Mellon University. Formally named Education City,

the campus now includes nine university buildings, two massive, multi-building dorm complexes that are shared by students enrolled at the schools, and is reachable from downtown Doha in about 30 minutes by car.

Reardon-Anderson recalls a brief moment of uncertainty on the day new students were set to arrive. “I went out in the hall wondering if anyone was going to show up because we had never done this before,” he said.

Then as now, students apply directly to and are admitted by the Doha campus. Reardon-Anderson described students on the Doha and D.C. campuses as equally high-performing.

“In the beginning, one of our biggest challenge was explaining to people, convincing them, that this was really the real deal,” Reardon-Anderson said. “That no one quite understood. I think in the beginning people had to take a risk, but eventually they learned what it was.”

Since the early days of uncertainty, SFS-Q received its own space in Education City, complete with a massive building, inaugurated in 2011, that houses classrooms, a library, dining hall, and other facilities for student and faculty use.

The expansion of Education City mirrored Qatar’s own ever-growing influence in regional and global affairs. In December 2010, Qatar won its bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup in a decision criticized by some media outlets as corrupt. But Qatar’s heightened visibility has Georgetown University Flickr

georgetownvoice.com come with increased media scrutiny and concerns from advocacy groups about the country’s potential human rights violations, especially concerning migrant laborers involved in construction projects ranging from building soccer stadiums to performing maintenance on Education City.

According to Dean Reardon-Anderson, Georgetown was immediately sensitive to protecting the rights of migrant laborers.

“When we got there, Qatar Foundation was building buildings for the other campuses,” Reardon-Anderson said. “The two buildings built prior to the Georgetown campus both had fatal accidents on site. We went to the Qatar Foundation and said, ‘If we’re going to build a building with Georgetown’s name on it, we’re not going to have dangerous activities.’”

According to Reardon-Anderson, the Qatar Foundation cooperated completely, creating a labor safety committee and conducting regular on-site labor safety checks. The safety protocols resulted in no “lost time incidents”—meaning no one lost time from work because of an accident— during the construction of the SFS-Q buildings.

“We’ve worked with QF to develop a set of guidelines which QF has been very conscientious in enforcing,” Reardon-Anderson said. “All of the people who work on the Georgetown site who are not employees of Georgetown—we have main-

“We went to the Qatar Foundation and said, ‘If we’re going to build a building with Georgetown’s name on it, we’re not going to have dangerous activities.’” tenance workers, security officers, and the like— have their living conditions carefully vetted and if they’re not up to the standards then the contract with the contractor is not renewed. We’ve taken this very seriously.”

Georgetown’s status as a top research institution has also facilitated engagement with the issue of migrant laborers by SFS-Q faculty. Mehran Kamrava has been a professor and director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at SFS-Q since 2007, and served as interim dean of the school from 2009 to 2011. “Our location in Doha has allowed us to study some of these controversies close up. The associate director for research for CIRS is an expert on migrant labor.

SFS-Q students have also grown sensitive to issues of migrant labor. According to Tamim Alnuweiri (SFS-Q ’15), much of the emphasis on migrant workers’ rights came prior to Western media scrutiny. “Prior to the media exposure, people here were already scrutinizing and working on improving and changing the system,” Alnuweiri wrote in an email to the Voice. “However, the perception seems to be that we were all living blindly.” Alnuweiri describes a student organization operated on

feature the SFS-Q building and other Education City campuses that In addition to labor rights issues, some Georgetown professors were at first hesitant to research and teach in Qatar due to uncertainty about the country’s limitations on free speech. In Qatar, individuals can be arrested for criticizing the government or the royal family in public.

Kamrava recalled his own initial trepidation that moving to Qatar would limit his ability to publish freely but explained that he was wrong to be worried. “I realized that, in fact, it was not detrimental to my career to move here, as many people had warned, and that I didn’t have any limitations in terms of academic freedom, and therefore that I had no limitations on what I could teach, and what I could write and do research on, and so that was not an issue,” Kamrava said.

Students concur that academic freedoms in the classroom are protected and discussion of potentially controversial topics is both practiced and encouraged.

“Nothing is held sacred,” Alnuweiri wrote.

“Many of these classes focus on issues that are quite controversial in the region. People discuss and criticize all of these issues as would be common on main campus.” Alnuweiri listed Gulf Politics, Global History of Revolutions, and Media in the Middle East as examples of courses being offered this semester at SFS-Q. SFS-Q Dean Nonneman concurred. “The liveliest of debates come from students. Outside the classroom, there’s lots of very sensitive issues that are discussed.”

Nevertheless, Qatar’s motivations in attracting American universities to its shores have been scrutinized, sometimes negatively. An op-ed published in the Hoya last semester by Ari Goldstein (SFS ’17) criticized Georgetown for operating an “oppressive Middle Eastern dictatorship... funded by oil money and corrupt sheikhs” that effectively condones Qatar’s human rights abuses. Xiaofel (Phil) Wang (SFS-Q ’16) said that the article sparked discussion at SFS-Q. Nonneman argues that the truth behind Qatar’s motives is more complex. While the country may not be seeking to democratize, he argues, it is pursuing a larger goal of national development. “If you look at how it’s been organized, the real reason Qatar is doing it, and the way in which they’re doing it, is because it’s tied into this bigger national development vision. And the same can be said about Education City.

Qatar’s criticisms and the scrutiny it faces are not a problem for Georgetown so much as something that must be worked with, a challenge to work cooperatively between cultures.

Despite

the georgetown voice | 9

“I had no limitations on what I could write and what I could write and do research on.” any ambiguity of Qatar’s political future, Georgetown is likely to renew its agreement and continue its relationship with Qatar for the foreseeable future, especially given what Reardon-Anderson described as the program’s success.

“Given our initial objectives, which were to establish an undergraduate degree program ensuring the standards and quality of Georgetown, I would say we’ve been very successful,” Reardon-Anderson said. “We will have graduated six classes in May, and we’ve produced scores of students with a Georgetown education. I think we can be quite proud of the students we’ve graduated.”

Education City has become something truly unique in the Middle East, and Nonneman believes its prestige will only grow.

“We expect there to be a new agreement before long,” Nonneman said. “Georgetown is valued as contributing something pretty unique.

What you hear from the corporate sector, particularly, and from the ministry of foreign affairs, is that Georgetown Qatar graduates end up bringing a multiple-skillset combined with a drive and initiative and creativity that they simply don’t find as a rule of thumb.”

The potent combination of Qatar’s political ambition and Georgetown’s desire to engage the developing world on one of its most vibrant frontiers will likely see SFS-Q through its second decade.

Ultimately, argues Dean Nonneman, “We deliver what Georgetown and the School of Foreign Service aim to deliver: young people with critical thinking skills, who are highly literate and numerate, and who have no problem engaging with the world in its broader sense and taking initiative.”

leisure

10 | the georgetown voice

JANUARY 29, 2015

Oribe Ware shatters experimental expectations at Freer Gallery MANEESHA PANJA Fully expecting a ceramic exhibition that showcased the traditional precision and symmetry of Japanese art—think delicate cherry blossoms on a silk screen—I could initially only find two words to justify the anomaly I saw at the Freer Museum’s Oribe Ware exhibit: poor craftsmanship.

Overlooking the wear from being a few centuries old, the collection of eleven ceramics, all created during the 17th century in Miro, a small province

of Japan, were simply inconsistent. The glazes were unevenly applied on the stoneware, bowls were hardly circular in shape, and composition on the utensils’ stone surfaces was fragmented and incohesive. In the end, I found that these characteristics are what makes the Oribe Ware collection a perplexing and intriguing feature in the Japanese ceramic art history timeline.

Oribe Ware’s departure from the traditional monochromatic composition was largely due to influence of Furuta Oribe, a 17th century warrior and tea cer-

wE RECOMMEND NOT PUTTING THIS BOWL IN THE MICROWAVE

MANEESHA PANJA

UNDER THE CoVERS: A bi-weekly column about literature by James Constant

In a slum surrounding Mumbai’s gleaming Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, hope springs eternal, at least when prices for a kilo of compressed plastic bags are high.

Katherine Boo’s stunning nonfiction novel, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, pulls the curtains back from the façade of the “New India” of cellphones and Hyatt hotels. The India she knows and portrays is a bare-knuckle scramble over the backs of others in Annawadi, a neighborhood where the only business around is collecting and reselling garbage.

The poor are grateful they are not the poorest—those who “trapped rats and frogs and fried them for dinner.” It’s not a catalog of despair; it’s an honest look at the complexities of life in a country that’s been roiled by the urbanization of millions of unskilled, uneducated peas-

ants from the country. There is happiness in measured quantities. But, as Boo put it, “for every two people in Annawadi inching up, there was one in a catastrophic plunge.”

I trust that Boo was meticulous in her reporting on the trials of Annawadi’s residents.

She writes that Abdul, a Muslim teenager with a knack for garbage-collecting, “had never given his future much thought, beyond vague fantasies of living in Vasai and more concrete health-related worries.” I’m confident that, even though Abdul may never have directly admitted such, Boo determined that it was true.

In creating our own narratives of the past, we falsify reasons for our decisions. We construct firm trajectories out of the series of unexpected events that constitute our lives. People can’t be counted on to recall

emony master who was highly respected in Japan. As you look through the pieces, all organized chronologically by creation dates, from 1607 to 1789, it is clear that this short movement introduced bright glazes, asymmetry, and geometric pattern to Japanese art in two cycles: one towards the beginning of the 15th century and another towards the end of it. No longer would ceramics be crafted solely for utility purposes. “Teabowl,” for example, has deliberately uneven edges on its oval rim, giving the drinker a heightened sense of awareness of the cup when choosing which of its many different sides to drink out of, as explained by the curators in its placard description.

The centerpiece of the exhibit, an early 1600s oversized serving dish, is peppered with geometric and organic patterns and interspersed with emerald and blue glazes that bleed into and around the carved geometric designs, overall contributing to a piece that contrasts natural colors with unnatural patterns, such as its repeating hexagon design. There is a sense of vibrancy, frivolousness, and energy that accompanies this revolutionary art style.

Poor craftsmanship? Perhaps true when considering that these 17th century potters were experimenting with the newly invented Motoyashiki multi-chamber climbing kiln to fire their works. However, the bright glaze blots that unevenly coat the handle of the Ewer, a type of teapot, while framing a natural painted depiction of flowers on a branch, characterizes 17th century Japanese artists as risky and flexible, combining old traditional painting style with a new, free-form one. While a short lived fad, the Oribe Ware movement made it acceptable to introduce color into ceramics and expand its aesthetic features beyond simply enhancing the utility in a teapot, a plate, or a cup. It introduced the concept of establishing mood.

The emphasis on mood and emotion in these pieces comes from the varied concentration of colors, ranging from a light application to a heavy multi-layer coating on various portions of pieces. Another small serving dish designed by Kagenori, a Japanese maker, reveals his deliberate choice to strike a sense

In the midst of harsh realities, hope springs eternal their experiences in a reliable way. They twist and shape their past actions to fit the ways they define themselves today.

I’ve denied truths and buried emotions within the fictions that I’ve written for myself.

Breakups, unfulfilled goals, difficult choices—they all provide a blank script for writing in motivations that may or may not have existed.

Close friends, detached from my perspectives, have often pointed the most honest searchlights at the reasons why I’ve done things—reasons that I have distorted.

A rigorous observer can illuminate what we deny to ourselves. A writer of nonfiction has to get at the truth of a person’s thoughts, and that truth isn’t always what they say it is.

The writer Erik Larson, in an interview with the magazine Narrative Nonfiction, put his approach towards por-

traying his real-life characters’ thoughts this way: “I will only propose what somebody is thinking or not thinking if I have something concrete hand that makes that clear. You absolutely cannot make that stuff up out of whole cloth because then you pass into another realm entirely.”

Boo’s approach toward writing and reporting Behind the Beautiful Forevers is more compatible with delivering the fullness of the truth than other pieces of creative nonfiction that I’ve read. It’s also much more ambitious.

She spent much of 2008, 2009, and 2010 in the Mumbai slums, chronicling the days of their inhabitants, eating dinner with them or lingering while women washed laundry and groups of orphaned teenagers sniffed discarded bottles of whiteout for numbing highs.

She was searching for stories,

of imbalance in his lopsided and hesitantly crafted ceramic ware.

The darkly glazed portions resemble a deep sea and imply a feeling of distress, while lighter glazes evoke a more ephemeral and light-hearted aura.

Exploring new art forms and techniques does not guarantee that the products are perfect. For Oribe Ware, many growing artists partook in its divergent and risky style, evident in the jagged square edges on plates and uneven surfaces of pots from the era. But I’ll have to chastise myself for a second, because poor craftsmanship is indeed a cheap and shabby way to discount what came to be a radical and influential movement that modernized the future of Japanese ceramic art.

Maybe to you, the collection is just a grotesque and mismatched ancient dinnerware set, and Furuta Oribe was simply horrible at using a potter’s wheel.

Regardless, this small, yet powerful, exhibit will make you wonder if you really understand all that Japanese art has to offer.

Freer Gallery of Art 1050 Independence Ave S.W. Mon. - Sun. 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m

not chronicling something that had already happened. This meant that when something momentous went down, like the self-immolation of a disabled woman called One Leg, Boo was either in Annawadi or would be soon.

The memories she recounted from the people she interviewed were fresh.

In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s report of a quadruple murder, is often regarded as the quintessential piece of narrative nonfiction. But many of Capote’s interviews took place years after the crime, and muddling memories sullied the accuracy of the novelized version of events.

Today, In Cold Blood is generally regarded to be close to the truth. But Capote’s confident assertion that “every word is true” was probably an overstatement. I don’t think Behind the Beautiful Forevers suffers from the same problem.

Find James’ version of truth at jcc288@georgetown.edu

“Just remember, football is 80% mental, and 40% physical.” — Little Giants

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the georgetown voice | 11

Black Sea drowns in own claustrophobia Cherry Tree Massacres JULIA LLOYD-GEORGE

Claustrophobia can be a little maddening. At least, that seems to be the overarching message of Black Sea, an anxiety-inducing, modern pirate romp featuring a Scottish-accented Jude Law on a submarine. The accent might be the film’s crowning glory—watching Scots and Russians duke it out in a windowless tube over potential shares of an alleged Nazi treasure on the bottom of the ocean certainly is not.

The leading man at the center of those pillow fights is, of course, Jude Law, somewhat unbelievably playing a rough talking, bitter ex-Navyman with a considerable chip on his shoulder. His layoff has sent him spiraling into despair and self-doubt, trying to find ways he can take revenge against the system and regain his manhood over pints at the pub.

Sound familiar at all? A similar problem of mislaid masculinity has been extensively explored in The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men. Black Sea just takes the same conceit and adds pirates to the mix, though it fails to elicit the same kind of strange empathy that keeps the audiences of those shows rooting for the anti-hero.

This is mostly due to the fact that Law’s character is not nearly as skillfully fleshed out as Tony Soprano or Don Draper. His consuming desire to get back at the powers that be for their crimes against him makes seem him almost cartoonish in his blindness to all other factors.

The other characters are similarly one-dimensional, especially the Russians, who are relegated to the realm of ethnic stereotypes when the fight between crew members over shares of the gold begins.

“They call me the future Indiana Jones”

IMDB

The greatest breath of fresh air might be the soft-spoken 18-yearold that Robinson takes under his wing, their surrogate father-son relationship adding a much-needed dose of sanity to the unspooling chaos. Nevertheless, it’s not quite enough to rescue a film that turns the darker, limitlessly opportunistic side of human nature into artifice, rigidly orchestrating an implausible conflict between nations and classes.

Directed by Kevin Macdonald, a Scot with a clear affinity for his native land (his most famous work is The Last King of Scotland, but he first made his name with highly acclaimed, highstakes documentaries like Touching the Void), Black Sea is a film that lures the audience in with an apparently exciting premise (pirates! historically-related treasure! accompanying adventures!) and quickly unravels what might have been at least a reliably arresting thriller.

Macdonald seems to have squandered the cultural mandate he had gained from his past successes on a story that fails to retain its senses when its characters lose their own. The gift for realism and examining the tension that springs up between people in high-stakes situations at the center of his documentaries is not present here. Instead, we get easy answers to the far more complex question of human motivation.

DINAH FARRELL

This Friday, Jan. 30, the Cherry Tree Massacre will bring together the voices of various Hoyas for the 42nd year.

Presented by the Georgetown Chimes, Cherry Tree is known for being the largest collegiate a cappella festival on the eastern seaboard and features three fun-filled weekends of a cappella celebration for students and alumni to enjoy. Members of The Chimes, both past and present, spend months planning and rehearsing for this time-honored tradition. This year, they began preparations as early as December.

The performances will take place in Gaston Hall with appearances by a cappella groups from near and far, including Georgetown’s very own Capitol G’s, Chamber Singers, GraceNotes, Phantoms, R.E.L., Saxatones, and Superfood. They will perform alongside the George Washington Sirens, George Washington Troubadours, Boston College Heightsmen, University of North Carolina Loreleis, James Madison University BluesTones, and University of Delaware Deltones.

Georgetown a capella groups are excited for the opportunity to participate in Cherry Tree. Maggie Bolas (MSB ’18) of Georgetown Superfood said, “There is no background music to guide the groups along, so it’s an amazing experience to see the songs develop out of just our voices. I hope the audience enjoys all the different styles that the different a cappella groups from Georgetown and other universities bring to the stage.”

On the last night of the festival, Chimes from years past return for the alumni show, reminiscing about their experiences and keeping up with the current Chimes. Chimes business manager Ben Manzione (SFS ‘15) said, “Each year, the majority of alumni come to see Cherry Tree for the alumni show, and various meet-ups and celebrations among Chimes and Chime families of all ages occur throughout the weekend.”

As the popularity of a cappella on and off campus has grown throughout the years, the Cherry Tree Massacre continues to evolve.

“Music tastes, fashion trends, the popularity of a cappella in the collegiate environment—all of these things have fluctuated so much in the past 42 years, and I think the success of the Cherry Tree Massacre and the kinds of music we have performed in the past reflect that,” said president of The Chimes, Charlie Plissner (COL ’15).

Cherry Tree Massacre Jan. 30, 31 and Feb. 7, 21, 7:30 p.m.

Gaston Hall, $12

China Chilcano’s combinations prove all that glitters is (edible) gold SERGIO BETANCOURT From its fascinating décor to its agglomeratic dishes, José Andres’ newest eatery, China Chilcano, manages to find near-perfect harmony in cultural synthesis.

Chilcano combines traditional Peruvian cuisine with Chinese and Japanese flair. While the combination may surprise customers, describing China Chilcano as “fusion” would be erroneous. This union of flavors is firmly grounded in a long culinary tradition, beginning with the immigration of Chinese and Japanese to Peru in the beginning of the 19th century.

The restaurant is divided into three distinct sections. In the first, a red and blue mural by Cecilia Parades dominates the back wall. From the ceiling hang red fixtures that pay homage to the famous Nazca lines in Peru. In the second section, red-painted shipping crates hover from the ceiling, and a fishtank embedded into the wall—from which

diners can apparently pick their own lobsters—adds a unique twist. The final section features a ceviche bar that seems to double as a sushi bar.

The menu is divided into a several sections, with everything from classic Peruvian fare to dim sum. For my first foray into this cultural combination, I ordered the Sánguche de Chancho Nipón, or Japanese pork sandwich, from the dim sum menu.

The dish came in a wooden box, which revealed a small, golden bun stuffed with a slab of pork, pickled daikon, sweet potato, miso, and aji limo chiles, with a fair portion of hoisin sauce. The bun was slightly sweet, as was the rich pork belly. The sweet potato was served cool, which only drew more attention to the diverse elements of the bun. Although a little heavy on the hoisin and quite small, the dish was just the burst of flavor I was looking for.

My next dish was the California, from the causagiris section of the menu that integrates Peruvian causa and Japanese nigiri. Atop small cubes

of potato, avocado, and cucumber sat jumbo lump crab with huancaina sauce, topped with flashy orange tobiko caviar. Dipped in spicy mayo that accompanied the dish, these tiny mouthfuls were oddly delightful.

My main course was Lomo Saltado, a traditional Peruvian dish with a Chinese twist. Four slices of perfectly cooked and seasoned prime strip steak were surrounded by sliced plum tomatoes, spicy shishito peppers, onions, and a heaping pile of crunchy shoestring potatoes. The dish was bathed in soy sauce and ginger and served in a big bowl with white rice, and I couldn’t get enough of this cultural smorgasbord.

After just three small plates, I was far from full, so I ordered a fourth, which was certainly the best. The Pegao Norteño, also found in the dim sum section, was beautifully presented, and was equally beautiful on the palate. On top of tender, savory lamb pot stickers and winter squash sauce was a crispy lace crepe, topped with small orange flowers,

and edible gold (yes, gold). Each mouthful was a textural masterpiece, the smooth potstickers complemented by the crunch of the lace and the lamb’s delicate seasoning.

Aside from the time spent waiting for orders to come out—which surely with time the establishment will ameliorate—my main concern was with the portion sizes. For highend cuisine with entrées hovering around $15, one might think this reasonably priced. But be warned; do not go to Chilcano without

Where worlds collide

post-dinner plans or without having eaten something beforehand.

That being said, China Chilcano offers a fantastic dining experience. Chinese and Japanese influence are seamlessly integrated with Peruvian cuisine and culture, coming together to create a bold, exciting dining experience.

China Chilcano 418 7th Street NW Open daily for dinner at 4p.m. chinachilcano.com

China Chilcano

leisure

12 | the georgetown voice

CRITICAL VOICES

Punch Brothers, The Phosphorescent Blues, Nonesuch Records The Punch Brothers are not known for conventionality. It’s not often that you find a bluegrass band boasting a frontman with a Macarthur “genius grant.” But this is the enigma of the Punch Brothers, the progenitors of modern bluegrass led by mandolinist and lead singer Chris Thile. In their latest album The Phosphorescent Blues, the group displays genius not only in their compositions, but also in the sheer virtuosity of each member.

Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love, Sub Pop Records Band reunions are often a bitter cash grab. As a die-hard Doolittle fan, it pains me to think of the Pixies’ whitebread post-2003 releases. The same goes for the latest incarnations of Sebadoh and even Neutral Milk Hotel. The greats of the ‘90s aren’t what they used to be.

The Sleater-Kinney revival, however, strikes of a different

Take the opening track “Familiarity,” which clocks in at more than 10 minutes. The song ebbs and flows through sonic space, starting with a quick, arpeggiated mandolin line that swells as members of the band introduce new phrases until the song reaches its climax. At this point, Thile belts “God knows we mean it / God knows we feel it.” From there, the song changes direction, becoming a gentle romp that flows nicely until it fades away. The song epitomizes all that the Punch Brothers do well. As a composition, it is captivating. Each member of the group is an incredibly gifted musician and can harness their talents to play off of the others’. Thile’s voice effortlessly glides over this backdrop, creating a breathtaking piece.

The album also provides a compelling thematic message. The Phosphorescent Blues is a social commentary about technology and our superficial modern culture, the title referring to a sadness that accompanies our collective dependence on screens.

This plays out in “I Blew it Off,” a song that rotates between a typical indie chorus with simple repeating guitar chords and call-and-response harmonies and a more unique verse, underscored by a violin and a syncopated mandolin riff. During the chorus, Thile sings, “There’s nothing to say that couldn’t just as well be sent,” referencing the devaluation of faceto-face communication. This might prevent the song from remaining relevant as cultural trends change, but it, as well as many others throughout the album, ring frighteningly true.

Ultimately, the great strength of the album is the music that lies at its artistic core and not its critique of society. With The Phosphorescent Blues, the Punch Brothers have produced nothing less than a work of genius.

sort of rekindling. After twelve years on the job as Riot-grrrl progenitors, their breakup in 2006 was understandable. The ladies in the trio had personal ambitions—perhaps the most notable were those of frontwoman Carrie Brownstein, who became more famous through Portlandia than she’d ever been as a rock star.

No Cities To Love, Sleater-Kinney’s first album since 2006’s masterpiece The Woods, takes a good hard look at what it means to be revered in the past tense. The sing-song “Hey Darling” blares that “the only thing that comes from fame is mediocrity…sometimes the heat of the crowd feels a little too close.” The words drip with lived truth.

The title track might sound like a depressing ode to gritty, bohemian cities of the past, but it’s no “New York, I Love You

But You’re Bringing Me Down.”

It’s delivers, instead, an uplifting sentiment—it’s not the city you should love, but your friends.

There’s no sense being lonely in Los Angeles when everyone who loves you is in Albuquerque.

No Cities To Love isn’t an album that sounds dramatically different from Sleater-Kinney’s previous work, but that’s not the important part. They’re back, and they’re playing guitars that shred as finely as ever and drums that smack just like they did back in 1996.

Sleater-Kinney are still kicking dirt at the notion that three women can’t be the best rock band in the world, and thank god that’s the case.

Voice’s Choices: “Familarity,” “Between 1st and A” —Daniel Varghese

Voice’s Choices: “Hey Darling” “A New Wave” —James Constant

CONCERT CALENDAR FRIDAY 1/30 Greensky Bluegrass 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $20

SATURDAY 1/31 Oliver Heldens w/ Firebeatz Echostage, 9 p.m., $35

WEDNESDAY 2/4 Grizfolk and Coin Black Cat, 8 p.m., $12

FRIDAY 1/30 The Shack Band Gypsy Sally’s, 7p.m, $12

SATURDAY 1/31 Gigamesh w/ Slaptop, Lightwaves U Street Music Hall 10 p.m., $10

THURSDAY 2/5 Viceroy 9:30 Club, 9 p.m., $15

JANUARY 29, 2015

deadbeats :

Yes, all women can Punk Rock

A bi-weekly column about music by Ryan Greene Prior to coming to college, almost all of the influences in my life were male. My sole sibling is male. My six closest first cousins are male. 12 of the 15 kids in my elementary school class were male.

I went to an all-male high school, with all-male English and history departments. I keep in touch with maybe one or two female friends from before college. The first few chapters of my life were a total sausage fest.

That’s definitely not a good thing, and not just because it made me socially awkward and inexperienced with women. For a large part of my life, I didn’t learn to understand and value a female perspective—not by intention but just as a by-product of the kind of male-centric Catholic education I received.

Fortunately, my three years at Georgetown have gone a long way in undoing the damage. I have found that Georgetown students (for the most part) want to embrace a wide variety of experiences and opinions. I’ve learned a lot about gender equality just by experiencing the value of a co-ed education. But being a member of the Hilltop has led me to a startling realization: my favorite genre of music and some of my favorite bands are kind of sexist.

Punk music, like much of rock music, has always been male dominated. The band members are male, the songs are often about men doing men things, the guys in the mosh pits are male, etc. And even when bands do have female members, the women are often objectified and seen more as token participants than vital members of musical production and performances. Last year at a show in New York, female members of two of my favorite bands, Brianna Collins of Tigers Jaw and Britty Drake of Pity Sex, were sexually assaulted on stage when stage divers ran up and kissed them.

Behavior such as this makes it less likely for women to feel included in the genre. The biggest problem is that it limits the scope of the music and its message. In any genre of music, potential is lost when any sect of musicians and fans are locked out.

In my last Deadbeats column, I argued that hip-hop shouldn’t be reserved for black people because that arbitrarily prevents the genre

from maximizing its reach and power. The same must be argued for women in punk music. Punk music’s message is defined by its countercultural roots. Though the message has morphed across sub-genres to reach different understandings of what constitutes “counterculture,” punk music attempts to describe some value in moving away from what’s popular or what’s seen as the norm.

Women must be part of that movement. A music genre can’t claim to be an all-inclusive alternative to popular culture if it doesn’t bring 50 percent of the population into the conversation.

In general, however, most punk bands and fans can’t be blamed directly. In most cases, it’s not an intentional choice to have mostly male fans or to perform with only a male perspective.

Rather, that’s mainly a product of the fact that it’s always been easier for men than women to join bands across genres. Then, the men who get involved in music just tend to write about what they, as men, have experienced. Over time, this will get better. As I mentioned before, punk is an all-inclusive mode of expression, and I believe that most bands and fans try to honor that by drawing many people into their shows and fan bases.

But even today, some bands still don’t really understand the importance of inclusivity. One band in particular has really bothered me over the past couple years.

Hailing from California, The Story So Far and their frontman Parker Cannon are one pissed off group of guys. Their two full-length albums, Under Soil and Dirt and What You Don’t See are nasty break-up albums through-and-through, the kind that demonize women and blame them for everything that went wrong in a relationship. And I can’t get behind any album with a song like “Daughters,” which is an ad hominem, slut-shaming tirade against a girl for deciding to see other people.

That kind of thing needs to go away. As long as it remains, there will still be people trying to kiss female musicians at shows, treating the artists like nothing more than eye-pleasing outsiders at their own concerts.

Mosh with Ryan at rcg63@ georgetown.edu

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—Dylan Cutler and Connor Rohan

voices

14 | the georgetown voice

January 29, 2015

“It’s 2015. It’s time.” Why aren’t women equal already?

KATE SULLIVAN Why do we need another women’s empowerment summit?

Fewer than five percent of the CEOs at the biggest companies in the United States are women, only 1 in 5 members of Congress are women, and women still are paid less than men. President Obama, in his recent State of the Union address, urged Congress to pass a law “that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work. Really.

It’s 2015. It’s time.”

I think it’s past time.

Women now earn 59 percent of the advanced degrees awarded in the United States, but that has not translated into equality in the workplace. There is stark female under-representation in government and top-level business positions—the same goes for several STEM fields, especial-

ly computer science. That is why female Georgetown students, myself included, are holding the OWN IT Summit for the second year in a row.

I was drawn to work on the OWN IT team because of the success of last year’s summit, and was inspired by all of the trailblazing women who came to speak. Megan Smith was on a main stage panel-- she was the vice president of Google X at Google before being appointed as Chief Technology Officer by Obama. She is the first woman to hold this position at the White House and she spoke about being the only woman in most of her meetings, as well as the challenges associated with the dwindling number of women in her field. Dee Dee Myers, the first female White House Press Secretary, also came to the summit.

I was an avid West Wing watcher and idolized C.J. Cregg—the character based off of Myers—so of

course the first question I blurted out was about the show (she likes C.J., by the way, and said the show captured how fast-paced life was).

I am particularly excited about this year’s summit because of the diversity of speakers we have coming. On one panel, we have a CEO, a White House official, and an award-winning journalist ready to speak candidly about the trials and tribulations of being a woman in male-dominated workplaces. These women, like most, were paid less than their male counterparts, systematically passed up for leadership positions, and were dismissed as “bossy” when speaking up and taking control. But the stories told by the women who made it to the top are incredible because in the end, it boiled down to who had the most grit.

In addition to the panels on stage, there will be smaller breakout sessions that cover top-

ics such as women in social entrepreneurship, women activists, women in finance, women in the arts, women in military service, Latinas in America, and a session titled “Unapologetically Black.”

As the first female Secretary of State and distinguished Georgetown professor Dr. Madeleine Albright put it, “we know that societies are more stable when women are politically and economically empowered.” Women bring an invaluable perspective to the workplace and gender diversity leads to immense financial benefits and allows companies to reach their full potential. To the people who say women are too emotional or moody to hold positions of power, I’d challenge you to join the thinking of the 21st century. Look around.

Washington D.C., the most powerful city in America, has three women in the District’s

most high profile jobs—mayor, police chief, and schools chancellor. As a D.C. native I could not be happier with this matriarchy, and can’t wait for the rest of the country to follow suit.

So how do we shatter the glass ceiling? We gather women who have successfully climbed the ladder to tell younger women their stories, to give them advice, and to inspire them. If we’re expected to be the next generation of female leaders, we’re going to need a roadmap first. And as Dr. Yvonne Cagle, a U.S. astronaut, said at last year’s OWN IT Summit, “space is limitless, but so are you. It’s up to all of you to achieve the impossible.” Challenge accepted.

KATE IS A SOPHOMORE IN THE COLLEGE

Can the GOP go green? Reconnecting with Nixon’s legacy MAX ROSNER “Air and water pollution, already acute in many areas, requires vigorous state and federal action, regional planning, and maximum cooperation among neighboring cities, counties and states.” – Excerpt from 1968 Republican Party Platform.

Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma’s senior Republican senator, just received the gavel of the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works this year thanks to the GOP’s unqualified success in the 2014 midterm elections. In 2012, Senator Inhofe wrote a book titled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Will Threaten Your Future.

That same year, the GOP Platform stated the following: “Efforts to

reduce pollution, encourage recycling, educate the public, and avoid ecological degradation have been a success.” A success? This misleading opinion completely undermines the severity of climate change.

So how did the conservative movement regress their climate change views since 1968? Simple: the Tea Party. As this movement proves, the conservative movement has shed its historical pro-business attitude for a staunchly pro-small government perspective. Current legislation that combats climate change is viewed by Tea Party conservatives as top-down; they fear it could potentially allow a stronger supranational body like the United Nations to override America’s constitution. There appears to be no room for sustainable development within the conservative tent.

CHRISTINA LIBRE

WIND BENEATH YOUR WINGS GOING GREEN COULD PROPEL THE PARTY’S FORTUNES

It is unlikely that conservatives will ever applaud or adapt policies that derive from the U.N. That being said, it does not mean that conservatism will never accept sustainable development. Green can be conservative, but it will take plenty of work to change this debate’s discourse. Many conservatives denounce big programs from the international community because they not only infringe on national sovereignty, but also threaten the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution.

To allay these concerns, the environmental agenda should work within the existing boundaries of state and federal constitutions.

Conservatives also value fiscal sustainability, so why don’t they seem to value sustainable development? The case should be made that conservatism should equal conservation. Phrases such as “drill, baby, drill” impede on the belief that conservatives are responsible. If the Republican Party truly believes in family values, they would not promote the depletion of their children’s future resources. In addition, conservation and the promotion of alternative resources should be the main priority of the conservative agenda. Conservatives are not too fond of the dictators that define Middle Eastern politics, so why should a conservative continue to ride in a Saudi Arabian-fueled gas guzzler? Although hybrids may not be as much fun to drive, they do stand for energy independence.

President Nixon, a champion of environmental legislation, believed in balancing business with environ-

mentalism, and that belief still exists today. One need look no further than Whole Foods, one of the major grocery stores in the United States, which has prioritized organic foods and sustainable production.

The CEO of Whole Foods, Walter E. Robb IV, is a prominent conservative. He realizes that there is a demand for sustainable products, and, as a result, his company supplies them. This is in keeping with the foundation of a free market. Although conservatives have acquainted the green movement with business regulation, this view can change. They are right to note that the Environmental Protection Agency, a Nixon creation, has enforced thousands of regulations upon businesses, both big and small, and yet they should realize the agency’s potential to encourage sustainable companies by providing subsidies. In addition, green business revitalizes the American manufacturing industry. New technologies that incorporate sustainable development will not be cheap to produce, but the American labor force can rise to this challenge. Truly, conservatism can be green.

The conservative movement and environmentalism have had a shaky relationship over the past century. Theodore Roosevelt was once the face of the conservation movement, but Dwight Eisenhower plainly didn’t care. Nixon attempted to combine a pro-business platform with a pro-green platform, while the current GOP almost unanimously believes that climate change is a non-issue. This evolution-devo-

lution cycle has the potential to rebound. Not only are conservative business owners like Robb promoting sustainable development, but some Republican politicians have not shied away from the issue, like former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, although he was shunned from the Republican Party for doing so.

Clearly, there is still a lot of work to be done. That being said, there are some glimmers of hope. It’s evident that green business can thrive.

Energy independence can be promoted. Green legislation can be constitutional. The Religious Right can become good stewards of the earth once again and place the Gospel’s message before alienating politics.

For this to happen, current environmentalists must not be wary of new members. For the past few decades, environmentalism has been viewed as a left-leaning issue.

Therefore, green advocates must let more voices be heard, not less. The green movement has the potential to be a bipartisan issue, so liberal environmentalists must not be afraid to have a dialogue with their conservative counterparts. If Americans from all beliefs can put the fate of the Earth’s future as a main priority, real change can happen. If America begins to prioritize environmentalism, it can once again be the “Shining City on a Hill” for the rest of the world to follow.

MAX IS a FRESHMAN in the SFS

voices

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICe | 15

To boldly go where no fan has gone before: Geeking is OK GRAHAM PIRO Do you know Captain James T. Kirk’s middle name, Hermione Granger’s birthday, or the name of each actor who’s ever portrayed everyone’s favorite Time Lord on Doctor Who? Can you recite your favorite Lord of the Rings poem in perfect Elvish?

Do you even have a favorite Lord of the Rings poem? If you’ve answered “Duh, yeah,” to any of these questions, you are a fan.

The concept of “fans” can be described as a group of in-

dividuals who band together to celebrate something, which can range from movies and TV shows to sports teams and, if you’re really cool, some ancient alien theories. They’re not exactly quiet or moderate about their celebrations. For example, diehard Star Trek fan Steve Nighteagle spent four years of his life turning his entire house into a replica of the USS Enterprise.

While the rest of us fans—yes, I freely include myself in the ranks of fandom—may not be quite the Trekkie that Nighteagle is, we still enjoy participating in what

LIZZY BLUMBERG

NERD-VANA THERE’S NOTHING BETTER THAN A NIGHT WITH YOUR FAVORITE SERIES

CARRYING ON

author John Green describes as “unironic enthusiasm,” which is essentially the art of getting incredibly over-excited about what others would consider to be minor occurrences in the world of popular culture. For us, geeking out over our favorite cultural institutions is a blast. It builds communities, and gives us all a little something to look forward to.

Granted, most people prefer more measured and sane reactions than squealing like a little girl when the latest Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer is released. After all, calm and collected is cool, right? Expressing extreme emotion must undoubtedly be a sign of weakness, or so most people think. This misguided belief is why supposedly “reasonable” and “well-adjusted” reactions of nonfans can quickly turn cynical and elitist, as the minority of people who are openly emotive, such as fans, find themselves ostracized by the majority. While this may make that majority feel better about their own less-than-cool habits, it can wind up leaving everyone culturally and emotionally adrift.

Movies, TV shows, and sports all have one thing in common: they are all forms of escapism.

Perhaps one of the best things about events like the Super Bowl

DANCING WITH DIVISIONS

BY JULIA JESTER

A rotating column by senior Voice staffers

Last weekend, aspiring dancers flocked to New York City to audition for the twelfth season of the reality competition So You Think You Can Dance. After over a decade of nearly the same finalist format, the show’s producers decided to add a new twist: this season’s finalists will be placed into two teams, ten “street” dancers versus ten “stage” dancers. Executive Producer Nigel Lythgoe argues the new format will be “much more exciting for viewers” — I argue it will perpetuate the racial and socioeconomic divides both on the series and in the broader dance world.

It’s no secret that SYTYCD has a diversity problem. In terms of dance styles, the show unapologetically favors contemporary/jazz dancers — in every season, over half of the finalists specialize in the genre, and five of the series’ champions are female contemporary dancers (full disclosure: I adore all five of those winners, but the point still stands).

In most seasons, only four out of the 20 finalists name a branch of hip-hop dancing as their specialty.

Therefore, it’s unsurprising that the producers want to mix things up a bit by ensuring more diversity of genre within the competition. Their solution, however, leads to a different issue of diversity.

Throughout its eleven seasons, the show has featured an average of only five black dancers in each group of Top 20 finalists, reaching a series high in Season 10 with seven black performers making it to the live show round. Yet, last year’s season (the 11th) only featured two male black dancers, and zero female black dancers, in its Top 20 finalists.

Black dancers featured on the show have specialized in various styles, however, of the four black dancers that have won the title of America’s favorite dancer, three are men specializing in a form of hip-hop.

If the new format’s goal, however, is to increase the number of black dancers on the show, then producers have overlooked the fact that nearly all of the black female finalists, save for a few hip-hop dancers, have been technically trained contemporary/jazz dancers.

or season finales is that they create fake stakes and drama. The victor of a championship game, in all likelihood, won’t bring about life or death. The death of your favorite character in Game of Thrones doesn’t actually mean anything beyond the TV. As invigorating and exciting as it is, we must remember that the entertainment we love exists outside of reality, as this is where the idea of fandom is easily defamed.

Fans often get a bad rap thanks to to occurrences of drunken violence (shout out to rioting Canucks supporters) or frightening stories of overly-obsessed fanboys and fangirls. In other words, people criticize fans for overreacting to things that don’t bear on reality. Many are quick to stereotype these people as losers with little to no desire or ambition for real-world pursuits. While I’ll concede that there’s more to life than fandom, everyone needs an outlet, and there’s nothing wrong with choosing your hometown team or a cult TV show as yours.

Of course, destroying downtown Vancouver because your team lost the Stanley Cup final or sending death threats to a show’s writers is probably taking the concept of an outlet too far.

Unfortunately, even the more subdued fans are sometimes not

With the new format, the “street” dancers will be the ones skilled in hip-hop, animation, or breaking, while the “stage” dancers will be those trained in styles such as contemporary, ballet, jazz, or tap. Here’s the problem: constructing the show like this essentially turns it into a class battle reminiscent of the plot of Save the Last Dance (in which a wealthy, white ballet dancer challenges herself to break out of her comfort zone to learn the urban, ethnic style of hip-hop). The stage vs. street dichotomy pits dancers who can afford proper training and expensive fees for competitions and conventions — where they can gain exposure to renowned choreographers in the business whose tuition alone can cost as much $500 a weekend — against dancers who have supposedly trained in the “streets” for free.

Such battles have happened organically on the show — season four hip-hop dancers Joshua Allen and Stephen “tWitch” Boss surpassed two female contemporary dancers

to be the last contestants standing, season six untrained krumper Russell Ferguson usurped the technically-trained contemporary dancer Jakob Karr for the title, and season ten’s gendered co-champion structure allowed contemporary dancer Amy Yakima and hip-hop dancer Du Shaunt “Fik-Shun” Stegall to both be crowned as winners. And yet, forcing such competition until two of each type of dancer remains is actually condescending to the street dancers. While it may help ensure street dancers can remain in the competition longer than they normally would — or even advance to the finalist round to begin with — if the producers are not careful, the new structure could come across as affirmative action for an “underprivileged” group of dancers. This would be insulting to past “untrained” dancers, regardless of race, who have forged ahead of the contemporary-trained fan favorites to find success on the show.

Particularly for those in the “stage” group of dancers, dance is a space of privilege. Take the ethnic

much better. Too often, more casual observers are put off by the super fan’s numerous references or over-scrupulous fact-checking.

So how can we bridge this divide?

Being a fan isn’t about buying a couple of Klingon costumes or seeing how many times you can quote The Princess Bride in conversation—my record’s 37. It’s about the ability to get excited, to be passionate, to treasure the small things. Life is full of highs and lows, and the entertainment that we enjoy can be an excellent way of learning to adjust. Find out what you love, find out what you can be a fan of, and then find out all the ways that it can help you be a more passionate human being.

It may be politics, sports, or more leisurely activities. Regardless, what really matters is your ability to live life to its fullest by truly enjoying something. Sometimes, marathoning all three seasons of Sherlock in a single night is necessary to do just that.

Apathy is overrated. At the end of the day, the ability to care and get excited about something is what it means to be human.

GRAHAM IS A FRESHMAN IN THE COLLEGE

makeup of the Georgetown University Dance Company, or any elite university’s, which requires a high level of formal technical training in order to audition — just a few of its dancers are black. Granted, such companies can only be as diverse as the larger student body and have strict acceptance standards by necessity due to limited resources, but the example shows that television producers aren’t the only reason for a lack of diversity in highly-trained dance. In contrast, roughly half of the members of Groove Theory, Georgetown’s hip-hop team that requires no formal dance training in order to audition, are black or hispanic. While some team members have never formally trained, others, including myself, have studied styles ranging from contemporary to hip-hop (because yes, you can train in hip-hop somewhere other than the “street”).

Perhaps SYTYCD’s newest gimmick bothers me because I now identify as both a contemporary and a hip-hop dancer. Maybe it irritates me because it’s a contrived last-ditch effort to save a show that, like many others, ends up decreasing in quality with every so-called upgrade. More likely than not, it’s because the “stage vs. street” labels set off every red flag of political incorrectness.

Superbowl Bingo Grab a friend, pick a team, and watch our nation’s most important football game as you compete for a title as prestigious as Superbowl Champion: Superbowl Bingo Champion.

Cheerleader messes up

Close-up of emotional fan

Game ends in a tie

Katy Perry sings “Firework”

Tom Brady throws an interception

Blatantly drunk Richard Sher- Someone menpeople are man taunts an tions snow in shown on TV opposing player the Northeast

Patriots win

Pyrotechnic mishap

Commercial with beer and women

A safety occurs Doritos ad makes you giggle

The National Anthem lasts fewer than two minutes Close-up of Gisele

Inappropriate close-up of cheerleader

Touchdown dance

Katy Perry changes hair color

Commentator mentions “Deflategate”

Broadcasters Live footage of mention betting fans in Boston line Bill Belichick looks nasty

Go Daddy advertisement

Katy Perry nip-slip

A player looks like he’s going to cry

The power goes out

Commentator makes a dirty joke

Planes fly over Bob Costas has Broadcast Seahawks win stadium before an emotional shows a cactus the game monologue

An onside kick happens

Live footage of fans in Seattle

Bill Belichick Sentimental wears a hoodie Budweiser commercial

National Anthem singer messes up

Richard Sherman is on the sideline for no reason Band runs on the field

Marshawn Lynch grabs his crotch after scoring Kids too young to be there are shown

Cheerleader didn’t Bring It On

Player mouths curse word

Katy Perry’s boobs are disguised as food items Cris ColRussell Wilson linsworth runs for first diagrams a play down

Wining team has player kiss Lombardi trophy Commentator brings up Lynch’s best conference

Player slaps another’s ass

NBC advertises Kicker misses The Voice field goal