03 05 15

OICE VGAME ON the georgetown

What the new Big East has meant for Georgetown

By Joe Pollicino Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w March 5, 2015 w Volume 47, Issue 23 w georgetownvoice.com

the

Voice

March 5, 2015 This week: Editorial ... “Engaging Difference” for Gtown’s Benefit, pg. 3

News ... GU reminds Aramark of Just Employment Policy, pg. 4 Sports ... Men’s hoops beats Butler, loses to St. John’s, pg. 6 Georgetown and the big east The Voice investigates conference realignment effects on Georgetown sports.

KenKen

Feature ... Gtown sports in the age of the Big East, pg. 8 Leisure ... Blomkamp’s Chappie is definitively mediocre, pg. 10

– Kathleen Coughlin

KenKen puzzle are similar to sudoku in that you need to fill in the numbers (in this case 1-4) which appear once and only once in each row and in each column.

The darker outlined areas are “cages” which contain a mathematical operation and a target number. The numbers in the cages must be combined using the specified operation to reach the target number. For example, a cage where the target is +5 has four possible solutions, 1&4, 2&3, 3&2, and 4&1. Note that the order of numbers in the cage does not matter for subtraction or division.

Page 13 ... Signs you’re ready for spring break, pg. 13 Voices ... Trevor and Omika bid us farewell, pg. 14 The Georgetown Voice welcomes responses, questions, and opinions from its readers. Submit all e-mails 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:

georgetownvoice.com

VOICE the georgetown

Volume 47.23 March 5, 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

Staff Writers:

Chris Almeida, Sourabh Bhat, Emilia Brahm, Emmy Buck, Lilah Burke, Brendan Crowley, Patrick Drown, Emmanuel Elone, Tyler Kranawetter, Joe Laposata, Brian McMahon, Maneesha Panja, Thomas Stubna, Manuela Tobias, Colleen Zorc

Staff Photographers:

Ambika Ahuja, Saman Asdjodi, Jen Costa, Megan Howell, Gavin Myers , Freddy Rosas, Taryn Shaw, Andrew Sullivan

Staff Designers:

Erin Annick, Lizzy Blumberg, Caitlin Garrabrant, River Davis, Katie Hyland, Johnny Jung, Erin McClellan

Copy Chief: Dana Suekoff Copy Editors:

Lauren Chung, Bianca Clark, Jupiter El-Asmar, Alex Garvey, Rachel Greene, Madison Kaigh, Suzanne Trivette

Editorial Board Chair: Kenneth Lee

editorial a quarter century in the making

It’s time for a diversity requirement at Georgetown

On March 27, the Main Campus Executive Faculty will consider a proposal to include an “Engaging Difference” requirement in the undergraduate core curricula. The Last Campaign for Academic Reform and the Provost’s Committee for Diversity began circulating an online petition for the proposal on Feb. 22, after the reaction to a Voice cartoon highlighted the critical need for greater diversity awareness among students. They propose that beginning next fall semester, all undergraduates must take two “Diversity, Power, and Privilege” courses that will also count as a general education or major class.

The proposal is neither new nor groundbreaking. In fact, since 1991, students have been organizing, without success, to pressure the university to require a diversity component in its core curricula.

The last time the campus debated a similar proposal in 2010, several professors, including School of Foreign Service Dean James Reardon-Anderson, were vocal in their opposition, and the proposal never came to fruition. “I do not think the curriculum should include any required course designed

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Email: editor@georgetownvoice.com Advertising: business@georgetownvoice.com Website: georgetownvoice.com The opinions expressed in the Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Unsigned editorials represent the views of the Editorial Board. Columns, advertisements, cartoons and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of the Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright the Georgetown Voice. All rights reserved.

Cover Photo: Joshua Raftis

to convey or promote any particular social value,” Reardon-Anderson told the Voice at the time.

But a Georgetown education does promote certain social values. MCEF should recognize the pressing relevance of a diversity requirement to a Georgetown education in the 21st century.

The university’s impressive track record of placing alumni in global business, public service, and Congress shows that it holds the responsibility of educating the world’s next generation of leaders.

Yet many students graduate without ever having to engage with issues of diversity. Unless students wish to independently prioritize confronting power and privilege in the classroom over business and international relations, Georgetown’s future leaders will be far from ready to serve the country or the world when they graduate.

Implementing the requirement will hardly be a complex task. LCAR and the Provost’s Committee have already identified 80 or so courses that address race, class, sexual identity, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, and disability/ability and satisfy their proposal’s criteria. To ratify a diversity

requirement is to merely codify what many students already do: expanding their horizons in the true spirit of a liberal arts education.

Proponents of the proposal, however, must remember to focus on quality, not on quantity.

A lecture that tangentially mentions AfricanAmerican history or a professor indoctrinating students with their personal beliefs on gender norms for a semester does not enrich engagement about the challenges of diversity. Lecturing, theorizing, and reading alone will not fulfill the intentions behind the mandated diversity requirement. Professors should break down barriers of comfort and complacency and force students into honest, open dialogue.

After almost 25 years of discussions, MCEF must seize the opportunity to bring Georgetown one small but significant step closer to its ideal of “educating the whole person.” Between now and the MCEF’s vote, faculty and students should reconsider the meaning of liberal arts education at Georgetown and the immense value a diversity requirement will bring to this campus.

you better run, better run, outrun my gun

Firearms have no place in sexual assault battle

Ten state legislatures are considering legislation to permit concealed firearms on college campuses. Supporters argue that firearms, especially in the hands of women, give potential victims of sexual assault the power necessary to prevent or stop a sexual assault. “If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them,” Michele Fiore, a Republican assemblywoman in Nevada, told the New York Times.

While the Editorial Board is wholeheartedly committed to preventing sexual assault on college campuses, we believe that this proposed legislation will do more harm than good. Concealed carry on college campuses not only misses many of the main points of sexual assault advocacy, it also places campus communities in grave danger.

Guns, as tools, do not have the ability to address the root problem of sexual assault: perpetrators. Arming potential sexual assault survivors puts the onus of their protection on the potential survivors, instead of on potential perpetrators to avoid committing sexual assaults and on bystand-

Editorial Board:

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

The georgetown voice | 3

ers to intervene. Both universities and policymakers alike should foster a campus culture where potential sexual assaults are recognized and stopped before they happen, not one in which students must rely on guns to ensure their own safety.

Even if universities ultimately allow concealed carry, in reality, a potential sexual assault victim would find it impractical to carry around firearms for self-defense, especially considering who sexual assault perpetrators are. According to the National Institute of Justice, 90 percent of survivors in reported college sexual assaults knew their assailants. This indicates that many sexual assaults on college campuses occur in seemingly safe and ordinary situations, in which a gun would not be easily accessible.

Self-defense concerns aside, concealed carry is unsafe on campuses for many of the same reasons that concealed carry is unsafe in other public spaces. A Jan. 2013 Mother Jones article found that the states with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114 percent higher than those with lower ownership rates. Moreover, for

each person who used a gun for self-defense at home, seven people used it in assaults or murders, 11 committed suicide, and four people caused firearms accidents. Putting deadly weapons in the hands of college students, who live in close quarters with their peers, socialize at parties, and undergo high-stress periods of homework and extracurriculars only breeds the potential for unnecessary, heedless, and accidental violence.

Additionally, arming college students seriously calls into question whether campus police should also be armed—another unnecessarily dangerous outcome. During weekends, when intoxicants fuel much of the night life, concealed carry could easily bring deadly tragedies to college campuses. Weapons can easily escalate a noise complaint into a violent confrontation.

Sexual assaults on college campuses need major legislative attention, but putting guns into the hands of college students does nothing to address the underlying causes of sexual assaults. It only creates a greater potential for unneeded violence and death.

no success in single-sex

All-boys high school wrong solution for DCPS woes D.C. School Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced in late January her plan to create a college preparatory high school for black and Latino boys in the District. The proposed school, which would cater to boys in Wards 7 and 8, is part of a bigger D.C. Public Schools project, Empowering Males of Color, which plans to spend $20 million on programs to bring a “world-class education” to black and Latino male students. The school focuses on helping these students succeed throughout high school and continue into higher education.

However, as the American Civil Liberties Union and Councilwoman Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) contend, an all-male high school could be a Title IX violation. The proposal denies assistance to young women of color, many of whom are in similarly disadvantaged situations.

Both Henderson and Mayor Muriel Bowser have good intentions. The male students

that the proposed school targets tend to score lower on exams and are less likely to even attend school, let alone graduate. According to the Washington Post, only 48 percent of black male students and 57 percent of Latino male students graduate from high school in four years, compared to an overall graduation rate of 66 percent in D.C.’s schools. Nevertheless, the advantages hardly outweigh the costs, legal and otherwise, of a single-sex high school.

The problem is the idea of creating a separate institution to which women have no access.

Even though, statistically, men of color have lower graduation rates than women of color, female students still share many of the same struggles as their male counterparts. An allmale school would seem to dismiss these concerns and miss the larger point of addressing the issues affecting minority students.

Besides, grades and graduation rates are not the only elements that matter in one’s education; developing social and interpersonal skills matter too. High school is a formative experience for growing adolescents. An all-male school could simply propagate gender stereotypes and reduce opportunities for boys and girls to interact with each other while offering few academic advantages over a co-ed education.

Female students are just as deserving of quality education as their male peers. The District should remain keen to provide additional mentorship and grants to encourage disadvantaged black and Latino males to finish their education. But creating a single-sex education institution is the wrong solution. The funds for this school should be going to more holistic solutions for systemic issues in the D.C. public school system that will effectively reduce racial and gender disparities in education.

news

4 | the georgetown voice

MARCH 5, 2015

Georgetown reminds Aramark of its continued commitment to the Just Employment Policy MANUELA TOBIAS In the midst of a campaign for campus-wide unionization of Aramark employees, Georgetown has reaffirmed its ongoing commitment to the Just Employment Policy. The university wrote a letter to CEO Eric J. Foss last Wednesday, Feb. 25, to remind Aramark management of the addendum to their contract mandating the respect and protection of employees’ right to a fair process to organize .

The letter reads, “As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, Georgetown University is committed to justice and the common good, which includes affirming the dignity of human work and respecting the rights of workers.”

The letter is a response to the recent push to unionize Aramark employees at Einstein Bros. Bagels, Hoya Court, and the Georgetown University Hotel and Conference Center. The original union contract, signed in March of 2012 between labor union UNITE HERE Local 23 and Ar-

amark, did not extend union protections to employees of Aramark establishments that have opened since the contract was signed, according to GSC member Chris Wager (SFS ’17).

The university’s reminder echoes the letter sent to Aramark management in Feb. 2011, 14 days prior to the original settlement of a collective bargaining agreement with UNITE HERE. Cognizant of the success of the past gesture, representatives of the Georgetown Solidarity Committee in the Advisory Committee on Business Practices met with Director for Business Policy and Planning Cal Watson and Vice President for Public Affairs Eric Smulson the Monday before the letter was released to request the public statement of Georgetown’s stance.

“We collectively remembered that when the workers at Leo’s originally unionized, the university issued a similar statement, not endorsing one position over another, but just stating that the Just Employment Policy requires a fair process for everyone in-

volved,” GSC member Caleb Weaver (SFS ’16) said.

Expanded union representation would require the drafting of a separate contract between those workers who have not yet unionized and Aramark, according to Wager. UNITE HERE representatives, however, say that the decision on how to proceed has not been finalized, and will fall upon the workers to decide. “[The letter] was pretty much a relief because it feels like we’re getting closer to gaining the fair process we all want. We are now a step closer to it,” said Francisco Lopez, an employee at Elevation Burger in Hoya Court who has been active in unionization efforts.

Lopez said that management has not openly reacted to the workers’ announcement of organization efforts since the rally on Feb. 18, where they presented a petition to Aramark management alongside approximately 100 students. Reminding Aramark of the workers’ “freedom of association without intimidation, interference or retaliation,” the statement

SAXA POLITICA: HOYAS NEED TO SET ASIDE MORAL SUPERIORITY

BY: CLAIRE ZENG

a tri-weekly column about CAMPUS NEWS AND POLITICS

No doubt everyone is relieved this year’s Georgetown University Student Association elections are over. Out of the four GUSA executive elections I have witnessed, these were probably the most dramatic and controversial. As a soon-to-be-alumna, I enjoyed the drama with a figurative bag of popcorn (it helped that there was a “joke” campaign to bring on the humor).

But there were some moments that were not as amusing as they were concerning. One was the presidential debate at which Chris Wadibia (COL’16) accused the other candidates of running for self-interested intentions and called them all elitist, and Tim Rosenberger (COL‘16) called Wadibia an endangerment to the campus.

Another concerning moment was the publication of an opinion piece in The Hoya titled “Sexual Assault Platform Lacks Dignity,” where the co-authors wrote that the Wadibia and Meredith Cheney (COL’16) campaign “suggests a lack of effort or desire to even learn about

the issues [of sexual assault] at all.” Following was a response piece in The Hoya titled “In Defense of Dignity” which charged the authors critiquing the Chris-Meredith campaign with “political motives in hindering a campaign’s progress.”

Elitism. Sexism. Racism. Even apparently homophobia. These are the themes I heard from the dialogue, both online and around campus, around the campaigns.

This culminated dramatically in the outraged response to the publication of the Page 13 comic on Feb. 26 depicting the Joe Luther (COL’16) and Connor Rohan (COL’16) team, two white men, beating the “dead horse” of Chris-Meredith, where Chris, a black man, was drawn in the horse costume.

After publication, the Black Leadership Forum posted a Facebook statement writing that “we are deeply repulsed that a student paper would insult underrepresented students of color and women on campus.” A commenter wrote that the Voice “thrive[s] on attention and will

use freedom of speech to support their ignorance.” Finally, at the “Time to Speak Up: Voice Cartoon Town Hall,” a student said although offended, he had chosen to give the Voice “benefit of the doubt” that the Voice did not have racist intentions.

I believe much of the discussion evoked by Page 13 and forums like the town hall has been valuable. For instance, I had not realized how easily the comic could be seen as a reflection of Ferguson and other incidents of unjustified police killings and how much pain and fear the image invoked in some students.

Perhaps this is because I have luckily never experienced serious racial discrimination.

But the “benefit of the doubt” phrase peeved me. I had initially interpreted the Page 13 to be a critique of Joe-Connor and a defense of Chris-Meredith, and friends who believed the comic was offensive agreed what I saw was a reasonable interpretation.

More importantly, however, Dylan Cutler, the illustrator of the Page 13 comic, is

serves as a “safeguard” for workers, according to Wager.

Aramark spokeswoman Karen Cutler reiterated the company’s compliance with the university’s Just Employment Policy and commitment to a good faith bargaining agreement with UNITE HERE in response to the letter.

Although the university’s reaffirmation of the Just Employment Policy marks a strong step towards the realization UNITE HERE’S goals, it does not go as far as to make any concrete demands about full time employment at Georgetown.

“GSC and the workers on campus as well, would love to

see the JEP go farther in making a more concrete demand about full time employment at Georgetown,” Weaver said.

While GSC hopes for reforms to the JEP, this remains a longterm goal for the group. For now, the group is focusing its efforts on student organization to further workers’ demands to unionize Aramark employees without representation and to establish better working conditions for campus workers in general. These efforts will culminate in a rally on March 20 in the hopes of bringing Aramark-union contract negotiations to a close.

TARYN SHAW

UNIVERSITY just sent letter to show its support of just negotiations, my friend. He is kind-hearted, thoughtful and smart. As far as I know, Dylan does not have a reputation for being racist or misogynistic. So, why did Dylan need to receive the “benefit of the doubt”?

The point is that Dylan is not the only kind-hearted, thoughtful and smart person I know. I would wager that most Georgetown students, in fact, are kind-hearted, thoughtful and smart. Why is there, then, a propensity within the campus community to jump to the worst conclusions about fellow students’ intentions?

There are severe inequities and injustices in our society, and there are many institutions that block change and allow these ills to continue. There are people who advocate horrible, offensive beliefs (oh, Rush Limbaugh), and some who indeed do it for public attention. Within Georgetown, I know many student activists are frustrated by institutional inertia and disregard from some administrators towards improving awareness of and appreciation for diversity and social justice.

But Georgetown students should live, talk, and grow together. To conflate the ills of society with the intentions of

fellow students is disrespectful and counterproductive. Student activists rightly argue that fighting for justice embodies Jesuit values of men and women for others. But, on the other hand, instinctively perceiving others in the worst light does not.

Opinion pieces like “Sexual Assault Platform Lacks Dignity” are also representative of how this problem manifests itself on campus. The authors had the right to critique Chris-Meredith’s platform. The authors, and other commenters, were also fair in arguing a campaign cannot win on good intentions or the possibility of educating the candidates, but must be held accountable for the policies advocated. Making an ad hominem attack on Chris and Meredith’s intentions, however, was unnecessary, unsupported, and disrespectful.

I agree that the Voice’s comic did harm regardless of intentions and was indicative of a systemic lack of awareness, which projects like the Diversity Initiative for a diversity course requirement aim to address.

Nevertheless, I’m left with this question in the back of my mind—why do we continually jump to the worst conclusions about our fellow students?

news

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice | 5

Last Campaign for Academic Reform advocates for diversity core requirement DANIELLE HEWITT On Mar. 27, Main Campus Executive Faculty will vote on a proposal that would require all undergraduate students to take two classes that relate to multiple diversity-related issues as part of their academic course requirements. In a joint effort, the Last Campaign for Academic Reform and the Provost’s Committee for Diversity put forth the proposed diversity requirement.

According to LCAR’s facebook page, the proposed reform, called “Engaging Difference,” would require students to choose from a list of 80 pre-existing courses that that “engage with issues such as race, class, sexual identity, immigration, status, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, and disability/ability.”

The requirement would go into effect for the incoming class of 2019. Although the proposal would create two new requirements for students across all schools, it would not add to the total number of classes a student must take, according to LCAR’s press representative, Dan Zager (COL ‘18).

“These classes already exist on the course catalog and can double-count towards any requirement, whether it be in the shared core (philosophy, theology, or writing) or within a student’s major or minor,” Zager wrote in an email to the Voice.

Students will be able to choose from pre-existing courses that have already been identified as fulfilling the cross-listed proposed requirement. According to Zager, these courses include “Ethics and Morality,” “Intro to African-American Studies,” and “Struggle and Transcendence.”

Part of the reason why LCAR has urged for the adoption of the requirement is because courses included in the diversity crosslist would “provide a formal academic setting where students can study, analyze, and question the concepts of identity and diversity and the ways in which they contribute to advantages and disadvantages,” Zager wrote.

Zager discussed why students need to be aware of diversity issues.

He said, “It’s important to study the ways in which certain demograph-

ics are systemically disadvantaged and excluded in our society.”

Although many resources such as the Center for Multicultural Equity & Access and the LGBTQ resource center are already available to students, according to Zager, these centers don’t necessarily reach everyone.

“The purpose of the new requirement is to reach all students with these necessary dialogues,” he wrote.

Other student groups have engaged the topic of diversity through events such as a town hall hosted by Georgetown Leaders in Education About Diversity and the Philodemic Society on Tuesday. Students discussed why they believed the requirement was important for the wider Georgetown community.

According to LCAR member Cassidy Jensen (COL ‘18), some students’ recent treatment of their fellow Hoyas illustrates the need for a university-wide diversity requirement. “There are a lot of wonderful conversations on campus about diversity already— but the people who participate in these conversations tend to be already aware of issues surrounding different identities and their

LCAR campaigns for lasting change on campus. experiences, and we need to reach everyone, especially students who wouldn’t enter these conversations by themselves,” she wrote in an email to the Voice.

The LCAR and the Multicultural Council will host a larger town hall on Mar. 5 to promote more discussion.

The call for a diversity core requirement began in 1991. According to LCAR’s Facebook page, a renewed effort picked up in February of last year when students and administrators began working together to draft the current proposal. In early December the group met with the MCEF to present the proposal, which will be further discussed by the steering committe on Mar. 20, according to MCEF chair

KENNETH LEE

Ian Gale. This spring, the LCAR put out a petition calling for the MCEF to vote yes on the proposal.

The petition has acquired approximately 1,000 signatures so far.

The “Engaging Difference” proposal is only a stepping stone to a more concrete diversity requirement. According to Zager, ultimately, students pushing for reform want to see a change in Georgetown’s culture.

Jensen echoes this the sentiment. “All of us can be more empathetic,” she said. “And I think this requirement has the capacity to create a more conscious and compassionate Georgetown culture, and prepare Georgetown students to make the world better.”

Brown’s proposal for establishment of Disability Cultural Center gains momentum DOMINIQUE ROUGE GUSA Undersecretary for Disability Affairs Lydia Brown (COL ‘15) hosted a panel on Monday, Mar. 2, to discuss her proposal to create a Disability Cultural Center at Georgetown and the general philosophy of disability studies. Brown has been trying to promote the creation of this center for two and a half years, but her movement has recently gained momentum after GUSA announced its support of the proposal on Feb. 23.

“Only three universities in the world have Disability Cultural Centers, and Georgetown is not one of them,” Brown wrote in an email to the Voice.

“We claim to be a leader in innovation and ‘designing the future,’ yet we have not seized a clear opportunity for leadership.”

The proposal’s website emphasizes the Center as a hub for social, educational, and academic programs as well as a locus of support for the disabled community. A transition toward understanding disability as a feature of diversity rather than as a maladaptation underlies the movement.

PROPOSAL FOR DCC SEEKS ENGAGEMENT WITH ADMINISTRATORS, According to Brown, the university has at least recognized the need for other safe spaces on campus for students of color, women, and LGBTQ students, even if these centers are underfunded and understaffed. “Students with disabilities are as much a part of this campus as other underrepresented and marginalized groups, and we deserve at least the same recognition,” she wrote.

Stephanie Kerschbaum, a guest speaker at the panel and English Professor at the University of Delaware, noted that an emphasis on discussing accommodations for students with

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disabilities has hampered appreciation of some students’ more nuanced needs.

“Because disabled people aren’t already imagined or assumed to be present until they explicitly announce themselves, and because disability accommodations are so often treated as individual problems requiring one-time solutions, issues of disability and access are often defered,” Kerschbaum said.

Fellow guest speaker and English professor at Spelman college Margaret Price spoke out at the panel about subtle ways academic methods ignore disability. She discussed digi-

tally oriented presentations in the classroom. “The prevailing assumption is that all audience members are able to access information through those modalities and are able to make the rapid shifts required in order to understand the larger point being made about the way they come together,” she said.

Price also explained the cultural shifts that are needed to liberate students with disabilities on campus. “I know there is a proposal for a Disability Cultural Center on campus right now, and I think that is a wonderful solution,” she said. “If you came to this presentation alone you might think disability studies were about accommodation, but in reality they’re about art and expression too.”

Despite the ongoing conversations about the need for a DCC, Brown notes that Georgetown administrators have not committed to a concrete timeline for creating a DCC. “I believe we’re meeting a variety of student needs now (through dedicated staff in our Academic Resources Center, and other offices around campus), and that we

still have work to do to meet those needs as fully and effectively as we can,” Todd Olson, Vice President for Student Affairs, wrote in an email to the Voice.

As Brown has circulated a petition to rally students behind the mission, interest groups like GUSA and The Lecture Fund have voiced their support for the cause.

So far, according to Brown, the petition has 150 respondents including students, faculty, and alumni.

Of the respondents, 144 voiced their support of the proposal. Tonnian Maniscalo (COL ‘15) is one such student, listed on the DCC’s website as a student advocate. “[The DCC could host] ice cream socials, speaker symposiums and panels, movie showings, etc. to create a safer, tolerant, and supportive environment for disabled people at Georgetown University,” Maniscalo wrote in support of a DCC. “Such a center potentially can crack open the beginning of a necessary dialogue around disability justice among students, faculty, and administration, at Georgetown University; and such an earnest conversation is long overdue.”

sports

6 | the georgetown voice

march 5, 2015

Men’s basketball beats Butler after falling to St. John’s KEVIN HUGGARD

It’s hard to say how one should feel about this team heading into postseason play.

Last week, after beating DePaul (12-18, 6-11 Big East), the Hoyas (19-9, 11-6 Big East) were second in the Big East. Now, after losing badly to St. John’s (209, 9-7 Big East) and then beating Butler (21-9, 11-6 Big East) in a hostile road environment on senior night, Georgetown once again owns a partial share of the second spot in the conference standings.

“If you win it’s good. If you lose you say you had too much time off.”

That’s what Coach John Thompson III had to say about the week of rest the Hoyas had between the DePaul game and this past Saturday’s game against St. John’s. With the performance the Hoyas submitted in Madison Square Garden on the way to a 70-81 loss, it seemed as if they may have had too much time off.

Junior guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera gave a heroic effort, finishing the night with 29 points, and on a night when most of his teammates could not find their shooting touch, he received little help.

The early action looked promising for the Hoyas. D’Angelo Harrison, the Red Storm’s leading scorer, picked up two early fouls and played almost no part in the first half of the game.

But the foul trouble would go both ways, as senior forward Joshua Smith had to sit out for large portions of the game.

“You have to give St. John’s credit for that. That was their game plan [to draw fouls on Smith]. Not having him out there definitely hurt,” Thompson said.

A series of transition layups gave St. John’s a double-digit lead that they would take into the break, and although they hung around for most of the second half, the Hoyas never managed to threaten the Red Storm’s lead.

“At Georgetown they slugged us from start to finish...[This game] we slugged them from start to finish. … It was a complete reversal,” St. John’s Head Coach Steve Lavin said.

Having dropped to fourth in the Big East with the loss to St. John’s, the Hoyas travelled to Butler needing a win to stay in contention for the second seed in the Big East Tournament.

That is exactly what they got on Tuesday, defeating the Bulldogs 60-54 for their best road win of the season.

“It think that’s an outstanding win. I think that’s an outstanding team. They don’t make mistakes, they don’t hurt themselves at either end of the court,” Thompson said. “You have to come in and find a way to win.”

The biggest play of the game was not a shot, but a steal after a missed free throw. The away team led by two with 10.2 on the clock when Joshua Smith’s missed free throw attempt dropped to Butler’s Kameron Woods. Smith-Rivera, who at six foot three inches, is six inches shorter than Woods, managed to snatch the ball from him before hitting the two free throws that followed to seal the game for the Hoyas.

“He had the ball, and coach usually tells me there to sprint back on defense, but Woods exposed the ball,” Smith-Rivera said. “In my mind, it was either get it, or I would have been in trouble. I got it.”

Smith-Rivera, playing in his home state of Indiana with many

freddy rosas

Senior Forward Jabril Trawick helped lead the hoyas past Butler on tuesday.

friends and family members in attendance, scored 16 points while grabbing seven rebounds, both team-highs.

Georgetown shut down the Bulldogs’ offense in the first half, allowing them only 24 points. On the other end of the floor, senior guard Jabril Trawick scored nine points and freshman guard Tre Campbell added eight, including two three-pointers, to put the Hoyas up by six at the half.

The home team would return to the floor with renewed

Joe o’s Pollicin

energy, and leading scorer Kellen Dunham hit three straight jump-shots to give Butler a 40-39 lead. Freshman forward Isaac Copeland would then sink two free-throws to return the edge to the visitors, and while it was far from safe, the Hoyas would hold on to this lead for the rest of the game.

“We would get up, and every time we’d get up they would make a run at us and then this fabulous crowd they have here would get into it,” Thompson

said. “It was not always pretty, in fact, it was very ugly, but we responded when they came back at us.”

Now only Saturday’s game against Seton Hall (16-12, 6-10 Big East) at Verizon Center separates the Hoyas from postseason play. Georgetown needs a win against the struggling Pirates in order to give themselves a shot at the second seed in the Big East Tournament, a spot which Providence (20-9, 10-6 Big East) and Butler also hope to secure.

SPORTS SERMON---

“Both teams were feeling each other in the first half” - John Terry, captain of Chelsea F.C.

The madness has commenced.

Millions of Americans will tune in regularly over the next month or so to get their regular fix of what has quickly evolved into one of this country’s favorite events on the sports calendar. They will feel the collective ups and downs of the athletes involved, make outrageous postulations despite not having seen any of the teams or players play in the last year, begin to care about players they not heard about just a few weeks earlier, and they will root feverishly for their favorite team to reign supreme.

And no, I’m not talking about the NCAA Tournament and the way March Madness, as it’s more affectionately known, captures the country’s attention for the next few weeks. I’m talking about the craze surrounding the NFL offseason.

Nobody will argue with the fact that the NFL is the most popular watched sports league in the country. Stadiums are sold out in the thousands almost every week, while millions more watch from the comfort of their own home.

This year’s NFL playoffs were the most watched in the history of the league and the Super Bowl has been consistently the most watched program on television each year in the last decade.

This growing fanaticism for the NFL has transformed football from a predominantly fall and winter sport that takes place between September and the first week of February to a sport that now commands attention yearround from its ever increasingly devoted fans. Trades, free agent signings, and the treasured NFL Draft, accompanied beforehand by the NFL combine, has generated more interest each and every year, often times overshadowing other leagues such as the NBA,

MLB, and NHL, who all play games of consequence during this period.

Fans have become so obsessed with offseason developments that notable sports programs such as ESPN’s SportsCenter and Fox Sports 1’s Fox Sports Live! have had to make player movement stories their top stories. The NBA All-Star Game, Derrick Rose’s injury, and Alex Rodriguez’s Spring Training return to the Yankees all would have been deemed newsworthy enough to hold that spot just a few years ago.

But the increased infatuation of fans with these developments have caused the networks such as Fox Sports 1 to stoop to unprecedented measures to keep fans up to date with the latest developments. This manifested itself perfectly last night as I was watching the Georgetown men’s basketball team play against Butler on Fox Sports 1. During the middle of the game, while Georgetown was running its Princeton offense yet again, the network decided to completely block out the bottom graphic that showed the time left in the game and the score and replace it with a red “Breaking News” graphic.

It was not done to alert the public of an emergency such as incoming severe weather or a national tragedy. It was not even done to alert the viewing audience of the playing status of a player who may been injured earlier in the game. Instead, it was done to notify that Philadelphia Eagles running back LeSean McCoy had been traded to the Buffalo Bills for linebacker Kiko Alonso. Although the trade had substantial effects, as it one of the rare times in the NFL where star players are traded for another, it absolutely did not merit the attention it received, at least

in an alternative universe where people watch sports primarily to watch players compete on the court or field.

But that’s not the reality that exists in professional sports today, especially in the NFL. Due to the broad following it has, any NFL news, no matter how small or insignificant, warrants major attention. Cleveland Browns backup quarterback Johnny Manziel, a former Heisman Trophy winner, has been the subject of many news stories, as it appears that he won’t be the Browns starter next year. Yet I don’t remember anyone writing stories just a few years ago about how J.J. Redick, who was the best college basketball player of his time, wasn’t starting for the Orlando Magic in his first few seasons.

This is the new reality we live in due to our nation’s complete obsession with pro football. Off-the-field developments now overshadow those take place on the field in other sports, making the NFL the first true year-round sport, other than golf, tennis, or professional wrestling (yes I included wrestling as a sport but that’s an entirely different column).

Overall, though, the most remarkable development is not that these respective offseason developments find a way to make headlines in the sports world. The remarkable aspect of this whole thing is that NFL has found a way to make headlines year-round, whether or not games are being played, another indicator of how the league has become more established an effective hegemony over the rest of professional sports. And so, the madness continues.

sports

georgetownvoice.com

Women’s hoops preps for Big East KEVIN HUGGARD For the Georgetown women’s basketball team (4-26, 2-16 Big East), the postseason is a new season.

“It’s a great opportunity for our student athletes, because at this point there are still so many things, even in March, that I feel like we can do that we haven’t shown consistently. It’s the things we preach: consistency, effort, toughness, defense, focus,” Head Coach Natasha Adair said.

This week saw the Hoyas fall to Creighton (17-12, 10-8 Big East) and then to Providence (6-23, 3-15 Big East) as they finished out their regular season schedule at the bottom of the Big East standings. The team faces an uphill battle, heading into the tournament as the No. 10 seed. But that may turn out to be a blessing for the young squad, which has no seniors.

“At this point, what do we have to lose? Honestly, I don’t think [we’re] nervous anymore. If this was early on, maybe [we would be],” Adair said. “This is a great opportunity for all the jitters to have come and gone.”

In a season which saw them win only two games in conference play, the Hoyas are looking to the Big East Tournament as a chance to build momentum for next year, or even take a few teams by surprise with a run in this year’s tournament. The team does not lack belief, and knows it has one last chance to prove itself this season.

“We know what we can bring to the table. We know if we go in

Georgetown Softball (6 - 5, 0 - 0 Big East) took one out of three in the Citrus Classic in an odd weekend that saw half of its games canceled. Playing in rainy weather throughout the weekend, the Hoyas’ games against Fordham and Mississippi State were both canceled, and their Saturday game against Indiana was rescheduled for Monday.

The Blue and Grey opened their weekend with a tough doubleheader loss against Nebraska-Omaha and Notre Dame, losing 7-4 and 12-3 respectively. The opening loss versus the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks was the first ever contest between the two teams. It was a quieter and more pleasant affair than the following game, which saw the worsening weather truncate the game to 5 painful innings for the Hoyas.

– backdoorcut – Chris Almeida’s TRI-weekly column about sports

abracadabra: a quick fix for the wizards’ woes

Georgetown sports information

Women’s Basketball will face Xavier in their opening tournament game. there and do what we do best we’re going to get it done….Coach came in today with the mindset that we’re going to run the Big East [Tournament],” junior forward Brittany Horne said.

The Hoyas’ first round opponent will be Xavier (16-13, 8-10 Big East), a team that beat Georgetown twice this year. But with more experience and a renewed focus, the Hoyas feel they can change the outcome this time around.

“If we go up there with defense on our minds, and we focus and finish the plays that we can control, I think we’ll be just fine,” Adair said.

“You’ve got to go to Chicago with defense on your mind.”

There is plenty of hope for the future. Freshman guard Dorothy Adomako earned Big East Freshman of the Year honors this past week. She also received an honorable mention nod for the All-Big East team and was unanimously selected for the Big East All-Freshman Team.

“It’s a humbling award.

I couldn’t get it without my parents,

and my coaches, of course, and my teammates. I’m just very humbled by it and I need to keep working and going into this weekend playing hard,” Adomako said.

Her coach had plenty of praise for the freshman star, who led the team with 12.9 points per game on the season.

“It’s a great award for Dorothy, but it’s a program award, it’s a university award. It feels good, to come in here and know that she accomplished such an amazing honor.

She’s a winner,” Coach Adair said.

Adomako’s teammates have also been impressed by the talent they have seen in the freshman.

“Dorothy is a phenomenal player. When she has an aggressive mentality, no one is stopping her,” Horne said.

Adair added further to Horne’s sentiment. “There’s no top to her ceiling. She can go as high as she wants.”

For now, the Hoyas will travel to Illinois to take the floor against Xavier on Saturday for their first round matchup.

Mixed results for softball in Fla. JOESEPH LAPOSATA

the georgetown voice | 7

The Fighting Irish put up a 5-run 3rd inning and a 4-run 5th to put twelve total on the board. The Hoyas were able to respond thanks to Sophomore Catcher Gabriela Elvina, who had 2 RBIs and a run in the 5th inning, but it was too little, too late, and Georgetown fell by 9.

The Fighting Irish are currently ranked 23rd in the country.

Following the next day’s rainouts, the Indiana game was postponed until Monday, which saw much better success for the Hoyas.

Georgetown was able to successfully string together singles and doubles for runs in the 1st inning to jump out to a quick 3 - 0 lead. The Hoyas continued to show a more impressive form compared to their play earlier in the weekend when they added another run in the top of the

2nd. While the Hoosiers managed to respond with a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning, the Blue and Grey continued their strong hitting and added runs in the 4th and 5th innings. Georgetown was backed by the steady arm of senior pitcher Megan Hyson, now 5 and 1 on the season.

Hyson pitched a full game and struck out eight batters.

The Hoyas will be returning to Florida this week for the Under Armour Showcase in Tampa, where they’ll play seven games. This weekend’s canceled games marked the 7th and 8th canceled games for the Hoyas, who had their entire 5-game trip to Greensboro, North Carolina, canceled due to a winter storm expected to make landfall. The upcoming trip to Orlando does not feature any ranked teams.

The Washington Wizards have lost 12 of their last 15 games.

Somehow, this makes both total sense and none at all. Over this stretch, Washington has played many of its games without the shooting threat of emerging star Bradley Beal or the veteran presence of Paul Pierce. Sure, without two of their best players, even the NBA-leading Atlanta Hawks would struggle. But the Wizards haven’t exactly been taking on the best of the best.

After this year’s All-Star Break, the Wizards played the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team that has had a season that is in many ways the complete opposite of Washington.

The Cavs have won 19 of their last 22 games, finally hitting their stride after dropping below .500 midway through the season. The teams split their early meetings, but this matchup was no contest. Washington lost by a whopping 38 points.

Expectations are low in Washington. If success is measured in the way that winning cities measure it, no team in the nation’s capital has had a successful season in over 20 years. The Wizards are certainly no exception. The team’s best years were four seasons in the mid-2000s, where the Wizards made the playoffs each year. Even during this streak, they won only one series and never finished above a five-seed.

Washington, at its worst, has nearly been ranked the worst team in the NBA. Just two years ago, the team started the season with 12 consecutive losses. The year before, in the lockout shortened season, Washington finished 20-46, only better than the “worst team ever”- that season’s 7-59 Charlotte Bobcats.

Bottom-three finishes also came in 2008-09 and 2009-10.

If you follow any Wizards fans on Twitter, chances are you’ve seen #fireRandyWittman, a nonetoo-subtle reference to the threeyear Washington head coach, at least once over the past week. It shouldn’t be surprising that public outcry is coming now. Whenever a team plays this far below its potential, its coach is going to feel the fire under his butt. But this development should have been obvious a long time ago.

Wittman reached his current position of Wizards Head Coach midway through the 2011-12 season after the firing of Flip Saunders.

And while the team continued to achieve only mediocre results over the next two seasons, little blame could be assigned to Wittman, who had little more to work with than a still-learning John Wall and a rook-

ie Beal. In the 2013-14 season, the Wizards finished 44-38, just one game shy of their best record since the 1970s. Washington won their first round playoff series against a depleted Chicago Bulls, but then fell in six games against an ailing and very beatable Indiana Pacers.

During the Wizards’ final games of last season, however, it became obvious that even Wall and Beal’s rise to All-Star-caliber status and a strong supporting cast weren’t enough to offset the fact that the team was being mismanaged. Wittman’s lineup decisions and substitutions seemed illogical, oftentimes resulting in Andre Miller and Drew Gooden playing extended minutes in playoff games while their starting counterparts watched from the bench.

Wittman’s offense has come under the microscope recently, but has long been absurd. Many plays aim to get shooters long midrange jumpers, the least efficient shots in basketball. Wittman has been lucky that his roster has improved enough to overshadow his coaching inadequacies, but now it is obvious to most that he is far from fit to coach a title-winning team.

But the problems don’t stop there. I’ve long been calling for the head of Wizards General Manager Ernie Grunfeld, who is responsible for every move Washington has made over the last decade, to be fired. Aside from drafting Beal and Wall, which were can’t-miss situations, he has whiffed every single year. My favorite examples are picking Jan Vesely (who is no longer in the league) sixth in 2011 over Klay Thompson and Kawhi Leonard, and trading away the the fifth pick in 2009 for Mike Miller and Randy Foye (both of whom left within a year), while a number of All-Star and rotation-caliber players remained.

The Washington Wizards need to decide whether or not they want to win a title; if so, they need to understand that simply making the second round of the playoffs doesn’t necessarily mean that the correct staff is in place.

Benchmarking is a dangerous thing, especially when a bar has been set low. Sure, the Wizards are doing better than they were five—or even two—years ago, but they could be doing better than they are now. It’s time for Washington to start giving themselves as much potential off the court as they have on the court and the best way to start is to show Wittman and Grunfeld the door.

8 | the georgetown voice

feature

March 5, 2015

ChartinganewCourse: The new Big East and Georgetown Athletics

On Dec. 15, 2012, the seven Catholic, non-football affiliated member universities of the Big East Conference decided that enough was enough.

The seven schools, Georgetown among them, chose to split apart an historic basketball conference which had been in operation since 1979: the Big East. While navigating the change was initially a challenge for many involved within Georgetown’s athletic program, the university has finally found a stable conference home amid the ever-changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics.

Despite having one of the most successful basketball leagues in the country for over 30 years, the Big East’s football league lacked the financial prowess necessary to thrive in the current state of college athletics. Realizing that other conferences could provide more financial benefits, the Big East’s football schools began to seek out new homes for their respective athletic programs.

Soon, the dominoes began to fall. Syracuse University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Louisville, and the University of Notre Dame all departed for the Atlantic Coast Conference, West Virginia University bolted for the Big 12, and Rutgers University joined the Big Ten. Out of fear of losing all the money associated with having a football league, especially the league’s automatic qualifying status in the lucrative Bowl Championship Series, the Big East frantically invited football schools such as the University of Memphis, Southern Methodist University, the University of Houston, and the University of Central Florida in an attempt to compensate for the mass exodus.

Feeling these new invitees did not align in terms of geography, as well as basketball and academic tradition, non-football members Georgetown, DePaul, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s, and Villanova voted to dissolve the league, bringing them to that transformative moment in Dec. 2012.

“Clearly, decisions of this magnitude do not happen because of one isolated occurrence or happening,” Georgetown Director of Athletics Lee Reed wrote in an email to the Voice. “This was something that we strategically prepared for under the excellent leadership of President DeGioia and the other presidents. We were aware of the landscape and therefore prepared for the opportunities that were available to us as a conference and institution.”

Ultimately, Reed felt that the move to abandon the football schools and establish a basketball-centric league was necessary for Georgetown and the other schools involved.

“Aligning our athletics program with institutions that shared the same philosophical approach to intercollegiate athletics and education was extremely important to us,” Reed wrote. “I think we all wanted to get back to what was most important to us.”

Over the next few months, the seven schools negotiated with the remaining football schools, the University of Connecticut, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of South Florida, to retain the Big East name and the right to have its annual postseason conference tournament at Madison Square Garden, the site of the famed March basketball congregation since 1983.

“I think you have to commend everyone involved for managing such a complex separation amicably,” Reed

wrote. “Ultimately, it came down to skilled negotiation and compromise but we were resolute in our desire to keep the name of the Conference and Madison Square Garden as the home for our men’s basketball tournament, both of which are inextricably linked.”

This was the first step in a months-long process that saw the seven schools build a league from scratch. They needed to hire a commissioner, find a location for a league office, and set up conference bylaws. The league eventually hired former WNBA President Val Ackerman as commissioner and set up the league’s headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.

“In many ways, the reformation of the Big East Conference was like the start of a new company with the benefit of a tremendous brand in the Big East name,” Reed wrote.

The seven schools also sought to replenish their ranks by expanding membership to ten schools. The new Big East sought out private schools located in urban areas that had strong basketball traditions and no major football program in an effort to maintain the strong level of competition that had defined the previous Big East for over 30 years. They also sought to make the league as attractive as possible to potential TV networks vying to broadcast the league’s games.

“In many ways the reformation of the Big East Conference was like the start of a new company.”

Butler University, located in Indianapolis, Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., and Xavier University located in Cincinnati, Ohio all accepted invites to join the league based off their strong credentials. As a result of these additions, the league now had seven schools located in the nation’s top 35 television markets, a crucial metric in an age of intercollegiate athletics when so many decisions are made with the ramifications of nationwide television marketability in mind.

All 10 schools convened for a press conference in New York on March 20, 2013 to formally announce the league’s new structure as well as a new 12-year broadcasting deal with Fox Sports and its brand new cable network, Fox Sports 1, worth roughly $600 million.

Reed declined to comment on how much money Georgetown receives annually from its television contract with Fox, but explained the significance of the network’s relationship to the schools within the Big East.

“Our partnership with Fox Sports is about more than the money,” Reed wrote. “Ultimately, it is an integrated relationship that focuses on providing each partner with the best platform possible to enhance our respective brands and organizations.”

In its first two years of existence, the new Big East so far has maintained the high level of basketball competitiveness that quickly made it one of the toughest and

By: Joe Pollicino

most distinguished leagues in the country. The inaugural 2013-14 season saw the conference ranked as the fourth-toughest conference in the country, according to the NCAA Ratings Percentage Index, a measurement used to rank teams based upon wins, losses, and strength of schedule. The league has become even more difficult in its second year.

This season, at the time of this article’s publication, the league is ranked as the second toughest in all of college basketball according to RPI, behind only the Big 12, and has seen six teams (Georgetown, Butler, Creighton, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s and Villanova) all spend at least one week ranked in the one of the national Top 25 polls. Both years, the new Big East ranked tougher than the ACC, the league many of which the Big East’s former members departed.

Although the league has remained competitive on the court, it has not maintained the same visibility off the court. While the Hoyas’ new relationship with Fox has resulted in the more nationally televised games than ever before, not as many people are watching the Hoyas’ games. During the 2013-14 season, the Hoyas had 25 of their games nationally televised, as opposed to 16 in the 2012-13 season. Those 25 games averaged 222,654 viewers per game while the 16 games in 201213 averaged 818,588 viewers per game. The Voice was unable to obtain complete television ratings figures for Georgetown’s broadcasted games this season, but the limited sample obtained did not show much deviation from last year’s downturn.

Reed is content with the Hoya’s relationship with Fox, despite the lower viewership compared to the previous contract with ESPN. “We are only in year two of a multi-year partnership and we are happy with our progress to date and excited about the future possibilities,” he wrote. Georgetown Men’s Basketball Head Coach John Thompson III could not be reached for comment.

In order to maintain and enhance the team’s popularity, men’s basketball team has taken steps to revive the old rivalries left behind after the realignment, especially their storied rivalry with Syracuse. Last year was the first time the longtime rivals had not played each other since the 1977-78 season. But, unlike some schools, who due to the realignment process have opted to shun scheduling their historic rivals, such as Kansas-Missouri, and Texas-Texas A&M, both Georgetown and Syracuse announced a four-year agreement to play each other once annually, beginning next season at Verizon Center. Georgetown also recently announced an agreement for a two-year home-and-home series with former Big East rival Connecticut that will begin next season as well.

Reed wrote to the Voice that losing Syracuse as a league member “was one that we knew our fans would struggle with because of how meaningful the rivalry had become over the decades.” As a result, he made renewing these rivalries through non-conference scheduling a priority because he knew it would be “terrific for our fans and college basketball.”

But while most in the Georgetown community have focused on the effects of conference realignment with regards to the Hoyas’ prestigious men’s basketball program, the move from the old conference setup to the new one also affected 25 of Georgetown’s 29

feature

georgetownvoice.com Division-1 teams. Aside from women’s rowing, which joined the Patriot League due to the new conference not sponsoring the sport, all of the aforementioned sports made the transition from the old Big East to the new Big East. Only football, men’s rowing, and the sailing teams, both coed and women’s, did not see their conference affiliation shift, since they were never a part of the old Big East.

The initial effects of realignment were particularly scary to those in the non-revenue sports. Georgetown Men’s Soccer Head Coach Brian Wiese said he felt powerless during the beginning stages of the fever that caused the landscape of the Big East to shift.

“You always had the feel that you were in the ocean getting tumbled around by giant waves, because you had no control over where you were going,” Wiese said. “Until the point where we broke off and became a basketball-centered conference, we were hugely at the mercy of all these decisions that had nothing to do with anything that the schools in the Big East now were interested in.”

To some athletes, such as Georgetown men’s lacrosse senior midfielder Joe Bucci, the realignment fever has gotten out of hand.

“I think it’s a little ridiculous,” Bucci said. “It sort of takes away what conferences were meant to be, which were local established teams playing each other, trying to gain a stronghold and get into the NCAA Tournament. In the traditional sense, I don’t think it’s right. But at the same time, it allows for new things to happen.”

Other coaches, such as Georgetown Men’s and Women’s Tennis Head Coach Gordie Ernst, however, did not care about realignment, saying it does not affect the way his teams play and practice.

“I paid about as close attention to that as I pay attention to the birdwatching report, or the updates on what celebrities like the Kardashians are doing,” Ernst said.

Men’s soccer has greatly benefited under the new structure, according to Wiese. In the old league the behemoth, 16-team conference was split into two eightteam divisions, Blue and Red. Every team would play the schools within their division at least once, aside from one intradivisional home-and-home, along with one cross-over game with the other division. As a result, the Hoyas, who were part of the Blue Division, would not play nearly half of the league’s teams in a given season. When realignment condensed the league to 10 teams, every team got to play each other once, not only bringing new matchups, but also potentially creating new rivalries. “[Realignment] gives us a chance to establish new rivalries and play new teams that we would have never played against before and travel to places that we’ve never been,” senior forward/midfielder Austin Martz said. “Because it’s not just about the game, it’s about the experience, too.”

Despite being six teams lighter and losing nationally renowned programs such as Connecticut and Notre Dame, the conference is as competitive as ever. This past season saw four teams from the conference (Georgetown, Creighton, Providence, Xavier) ranked in the Top 15 of the national RPI. Two of those teams (Georgetown & Creighton) made it to the Quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament, while Providence did even better, making it all the way to the College Cup Semifinals.

The increased reputation of the conference’s soccer programs has also helped Wiese and his fellow assistants recruit prospective high school talent.

“We get kids who say ‘Hey, I want to play in the Big East.’ And that’s good,” Wiese said. “I think the Big East has a great name, and in our recruiting efforts kids are really excited about the potential of playing against Creighton and Marquette and St. John’s. These are games they’re excited about.”

the georgetown voice | 9

Although for most sports the Big East name has helped attract recruits to the Hilltop, the Georgetown name ultimately goes the longest way.

“We are Georgetown. That is the most powerful recruiting tool and our school gets us in the door with most recruits,” Georgetown Softball Head Coach Pat Conlan wrote in an e-mail to the Voice.

While sports such as soccer simply saw their league shrink from a huge conference to a simple one, sports such as men’s lacrosse had more work to do after the initial announcement of the new conference in March 2013.

With the departures of Syracuse, Notre Dame, and Rutgers, the conference was left with only five members that sponsored men’s lacrosse (Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John’s, Villanova), meaning that the conference had to add an associate member in order to meet the minimum requirement of teams necessary to hold a postseason conference tournament, the winner of which receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Georgetown Men’s Lacrosse Head Coach Kevin Warne and his fellow Big East coaches sought a team that would help elevate the league’s national profile as well as maintain the high competition level of the league. And they feel they have found all that with the addition of the University of Denver, who joined the Big East as an associate member in lacrosse last season to round out the league.

Although an unorthodox fit geographically, considering they are located 1,049 miles away from the next closest league member, Marquette, and are two time zones away from Georgetown and the rest of the league’s Northeast-based members, the Pioneers have met all the expectations Warne and the other Big East coaches had for them. They reached the Final Four last season and are currently ranked No. 4 in both national polls.

“I think our Big East lacrosse coaches, as a whole, did a really good job,” Warne said. “We got on a bunch of conference calls and decided to say ‘Hey, we need to get a team in here that fits that criteria’. I think we did a really good job of investigating what was best for our conference.”

Whereas sports such as soccer and lacrosse have been greatly affected by realignment, for some sports,

such as the Georgetown track and cross country teams, realignment has had a minimal effect on how the program operates.

“The realignment of the Big East has not been a big detriment to our program,” Georgetown Director of Men’s and Women’s Track & Field and Cross Country programs Patrick Henner said. “If anything, right now, I feel like our men’s and women’s programs are on the rise and are better than they’ve been since I’ve been here.”

Although other team sports such as basketball, lacrosse, and soccer rely on postseason conference tournaments to determine automatic qualifiers into the NCAA Tournament, cross country and track & field do not share the same qualifying method. The Big East Championships are more about pride than anything else, but due to realignment the meets are not as competitive as they used to be.

“When we had 16 teams, every single event you had to be an NCAA-caliber athlete to do well in that event,” Henner said. “Now some of the events, because we only have seven or eight schools, some of the events are watered down. There are some events where you can score substantial points and not be an NCAA-caliber athlete.”

Overall, however, Reed believes that the new Big East has been a positive development for Georgetown athletics.

“While it is relatively early in the transition, I believe that the bold decision for us to create the new Big East was absolutely the best outcome for Georgetown University,” Reed wrote.

Georgetown has come a long way since that fateful announcement and subsequent negotiations to resurrect the Big East as a conference where basketball s king. There are some at Georgetown who like to imagine that the negotiations did not amount to numerous conference calls and board meetings but, rather a simple game of basketball, and the conference has not looked back since.

“Here’s how I think the whole thing went: the presidents of these universities all got together and probably were shooting hoops,” Wiese joked. “They were probably playing pickup basketball and they had seven and they were like ‘we need three.’ Let’s do this.”

DEPARTURES

PRESENT

AAC Cincinnati Connecticut South Florida ACC Louisville Notre Dame Pittsburgh Syracuse Big 12 West Virginia Big Ten Rutgers

2011

Cincinnati Connecticut DePaul Georgetown Louisville Marquette Notre Dame Pittsburgh Providence Rutgers Seton Hall South Florida St. John’s Syracuse Villanova West Virginia

NEW ARRIVALS

Butler Creighton DePaul Georgetown Marquette Providence Seton Hall St. John’s Villanova Xavier

A10 Butler Xavier MVC Creighton

leisure

10 | the georgetown voice

March 5, 2015

Blomkamp’s Chappie short circuits on arrival, fails to come to life GRAHAM PIRO Ever since Hal 9000 uttered the immortal words “I’m sorry, Dave.

I’m afraid I can’t do that,” artificial intelligence has been a hot topic for science fiction movies. Chappie, the third film directed by Neill Blomkamp, attempts to put a fresh spin on the tired technological cautionary tales of The Terminator and The Matrix. The result is decidedly mixed, and the film’s inconsistency robs the audience of an emotional experience that’s hidden somewhere underneath the surface of Blomkamp’s subpar script.

Chappie reunites Blomkamp and District 9 star Sharlto Cop-

ley as the eponymous robot. It’s Copley’s performance that carries the film; the naivete and childlike innocence he injects into Chappie makes it easy for the audience to get involved in the character.

Chappie may lack District 9’s allegorical punch or Elysium’s ambitious worldbuilding, but it makes up for this with a protagonist that is easy to root for. The film’s best moments come when the dialogue fades away, and Blomkamp is able to show Chappie’s inexperience visually through sight gags and pop-culture references.

Unfortunately, these subtle moments are few and far between.

Blomkamp insists on hitting the

“Don’t go breakin’ my hand” “I Couldn’t if I Tri- oh. wait.”

OUT OF CoNTROL

A bi-weekly column about gaming by Christopher Castano Some of my fondest gaming memories happened at my local public library. Every so often, my brother and I would bike there to take advantage of its setup of multiple adjacent computers. We would spend hours on Saturdays playing Runescape Classic, a massive multiplayer online role playing game that was popular back in our middle school days.

Something about the simultaneous cooperation that sitting in the same area afforded us made it all the more fun, like we were an actual band of heroes tasked with bringing the mighty dragons and wizards of the world to their knees. Because we were in the room together, we increased each other’s suspension of disbelief.

Many people have similar memories. Some sat on the floor next to their friends playing coop console games. Some hauled all their hardware to a friend’s kitchen table for what was to

be the most epic of Local Area Network parties. Whatever the setup, the camaraderie always added another element to what was an already exciting gaming experience.

Sadly, multiplayer gaming has moved away from social and cooperative elements in favor of a more convenient pick-up-andplay model that has gamers connecting with strangers they can mute rather than engage.

Some say this attitude is what’s killing opportunity for games like game developer Turtle Rock Studio’s Evolve. Evolve is a game with a unique twist given today’s market. In it, four players team up to hunt down and kill a fifth player-controlled beast. If the beast-mode player (shout out to Marshawn) wants to come out on top, he’ll have to defeat other beasts in the area and evolve to gain more power. If the hunters want to win, they’ll have to work

audience over the head with the film’s messages about individualism and perseverance. The dialogue is, at times, cringeworthy, and the majority of the characters are poorly written.

Hugh Jackman’s antagonist falls into the same tired, one-dimensional trap as many of Blomkamp’s past villains, and his attempts at hunting Chappie in the latter half of the movie make little sense and feel unearned. Jackman clearly has fun with the role, but he isn’t given much substance to work with. Dev Patel’s Deon is extremely bland and doesn’t do much throughout the film besides chase after Chappie. And while

IMDB

Chappie’s innocence is endearing, Patel’s nerdiness gets old fast.

Additionally, Sigourney Weaver’s corporate head is barely given anything to do, and her performance reeks of stunt-casting on Blomkamp’s part.

If anything, these constant failings within the script prove that Blomkamp is a director first and a writer second. The film is extremely well-shot, as Blomkamp somehow manages to give the film a gritty feel without having to resort to the constant use of a shaky camera (fledgling action directors take note). The film’s setting in South Africa doesn’t differentiate it from Blomkamp’s previous work, but his use of weather and framing makes for some excellent landscape shots.

The socio-economic commentary of District 9 and Elysium is still apparent, as Blomkamp is able to skillfully contrast the dourness of the slums that the thugs live in and the sleek and shiny corporate headquarters of Patel and Jackman’s characters.

Hans Zimmer’s score heightens the tension at the dramatic moments, although the shoeing-in of Die Antwoord’s songs quickly become distracting.

Goodbye griefers, hello teamwork together to outsmart (and outshoot) their rather large and scaly competitor.

Reviews for the game don’t predict it will sell. Not because the game doesn’t have the goods, but because there doesn’t seem to be a market for truly cooperative multiplayer gaming anymore. It’s easy to understand why people think this is the case just by looking at the most popular co-op games out right now.

When you play team deathmatch in a game of Call of Duty or Halo, most players go off and do their own thing. The same can be said of other popular online titles such as Destiny, Grand Theft Auto, etc. That strategy will not fly in Evolve. The Hunters’ options are work together or get squashed under their adversary’s monstrous feet.

But despite the doom and gloom coming from the mainstream gaming media, I’m optimistic. Evolve is a killer game

concept that’s well executed and unique, and there are loads of games out there that do competitive cooperative multiplayer exceptionally well. For some reason they’re just overlooked in this particular iteration. League of Legends is just one example of a mega-popular title that almost requires players to work well in tandem if they want to win. The title is now even played as a competitive e-sport in huge arenas to sold-out crowds!

So why do the majority of online games facilitate this sort of lone-wolf style of play?

Mainly because these games are easy. It’s easy to stick someone in a random team on a random map and tell them to go shoot players wearing a different color. It’s easy to stick them in the middle of a sandbox city and tell them they can do whatever the hell they want.

Teamwork, on the other hand, is hard.

Where District 9 felt original and innovative, the majority of Chappie feels tired and familiar. The film’s predictable ending opens the door for several moral quandaries that the film conveniently brushes aside. One scene towards the end, in particular, hints at a larger debate about the role of consciousness in artificial intelligence, but the conversation simply results in the creation of a cheap plot device. These types of moments become increasingly frustrating over the course of the film, as the viewer can’t help but get the feeling that there is a classic in the vein of District 9 fighting to get out of Chappie.

The film is at its best when it’s a purely visual experience, and these moments make the experience almost worth it. The sole fact that Chappie is an attempt at original science fiction filmmaking that isn’t a sequel, prequel, or remake nearly demands that the viewer buy a ticket. Unfortunately, Blomkamp’s poor script and wooden characters undermine what could have been an insightful look into the meaning of consciousness in artificial intelligence.

I’m sorry, Neill. I’m afraid I can’t stand that.

Business, athletics, marriage, you name it. It takes teamwork.

Of course you have to put in the effort, but the rewards are far greater than if you had tried to go it alone. Evolve is a phenomenal reward, but we as gamers have to work at it. And there are tons of ways we could go about doing so.

We can phone in friends and ask them if they want to play. We can host 21st century Local Area Network (LAN) parties, complete with consoles and monitors (easier than it sounds, especially on college campuses). We can make friends online and ask them to play. We can even just log into games like Evolve knowing that we’ll have to cooperate and just try our best not to be complete jerks.

Personally, I miss the days of LAN. But games like Evolve are fresh and give us the opportunity to go back to that time. Call it whatever you like, but it’s about time our games went through some devolution.

Play co-op with Chris at cdc67@ georgetown.edu

georgetownvoice.com

“This is the f**kin’ American Dream.” — Spring Breakers

the georgetown voice | 11

Second State celebrates rustic elegance Movie Reviews Haiku’d TYLER KRANAWETTER

The new upscale eatery Second State manages to bring the taste and atmosphere of Pennsylvania to Dupont Circle, even without the presence of a single bearded Quaker. Regardless, Second State successfully delivers enjoyable food with a winning style.

The restaurant replaced former Penn State party bar, the Mighty Pint, with a classy, more mature venue that still pays tribute to the homeland of owner Reese Gardner. Every element of the eatery radiates with the charm and style of the Keystone State. The interior combines elements of industrial style with a country atmosphere.

The exposed brick walls and open ceiling contrast the wooden seats and rusty décor, giving the restaurant a rustic, yet modern chic feel.

The menu’s strongest Pennsylvania influence resides in the bar’s drink selection, heavily centered around cocktails and spirits with rye whiskey, the state’s domestically produced alcohol of choice. The drink menu as a whole is themed to replicate an upscale, pre-Prohibition Pennsylvania bar, also offering ten state-made beers with six on tap.

The eatery boasts fresh meats and produce straight from farm to table. The menu presents a variety of á la carte proteins, all

from local farms in the Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania area. It also includes starters, small bites, and sharable sides.

The small entrées and shared portions are meant to reflect the communal and familial aspects of Second State’s rural, smalltown atmosphere.

Second State’s French onion soup is served in a large portion topped with a thick layer of buttery gruyere cheese and contains caramelized onions browned to just the right consistency in a seasoned and flavorful broth of scotch ale and garlic croutons.

The Ossabaw pork chop is cooked with an acho-chilli rub. Served with an heirloom apple chutney, the piquant and tangy zest coalesce perfectly in a juicy cutlet.

The duck breast is skillfully roasted to a balance of tenderness

and smoky flavor, complimented by a small side of sweet poached pears.

The side order of smoked Gouda mashed potatoes is a creamy and smooth home-style addition to any entrée. As for dessert, the menu offers a Pennsylvania-signature shoofly pie made with real Hershey’s chocolate. Adorned with a rich cream garnish, this chocolate finale is simply divine.

Second State offers elegant, moderately priced meals made with completely fresh, local meats and produce. Its decor, mixed with home-style foods and shareable portions, inspires a warm feeling of community and hometown nostalgia, making this trendy hideaway second to none.

In the Heart of the Sea Call me Ishmael A classic nautical tale With one pissed off whale Do You Believe?

Twelve unique stories Their strong encounters with God Bring them together

Danny Collins Aging musician Faces a mid-life crisis From a lost letter Chappie Should a robot think?

Some view it as a breakthrough, Or mankind’s demise

Second State 1831 M Street N.W. secondstatedc.com

Insurgent What makes her stand out May also lead to her end Or imprisonment Cinderella Classic fairy tale More real than ever before It’s just like magic!

Practice your right to bear rye, not an iphone 5

Second state

Willem de Looper’s paintings blur lines with color at Hemphill Gallery ANDREA KEKLAK “I don’t like abstract art,” muttered one of my roommates dismissively after glancing at photos from the exhibition I had just visited. “I mean, yeah, it’s pretty, but it’s all just kind of the same to me.”

It’s easy to see why she said this. On the surface, Willem de Looper’s paintings, on display at the Hemphill Gallery, alongside a slew of other modern art, appear rather simplistic. Composed of vague, cloud-like smudges, there are few shapes or lines, and it’s pretty much just…color. And then it hits you: color. de Looper’s method derives from a school of “color field painting,” an abstract approach in which the entire surface of the canvas is saturated with thin layers of paint.

Influenced by European modernism and abstract impressionism, this technique became popularized in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. Unlike many other artistic

styles, which emphasize the content of a picture, in de Looper’s paintings color itself becomes the subject.

There’s a fascinating contradiction in these works. Despite being drowned in paint—de Looper literally poured it onto some of the canvases—there’s a simultaneous sense of airiness and delicacy. Look carefully, and you can discern the fine layers, like a time-lapse photo of waves washing over the same strip of sand over and over again.

In Untitled, 1969, de Looper rotates the canvas forty-five degrees so that the painting resembles a diamond rather than a traditional square. The image has a curiously indistinct texture—it looks like a photo of wrinkled cloth, slightly out of focus. The colors are strongest at the edges, lightening and softening as the eye travels inward. Like many of the other paintings, there are no clear transitions between the hues—the canvas subtly shifts from green, to blue, to purple, to pink, and back to green again.

Another work, Intense Green, gives the immediate impression of fresh plant life with an intense green glow that seems to radiate outward from the middle. Around the edges, however, barely discernible flecks of black seem to be soaring inward, like tiny shooting stars.

His series of numbered, untitled paintings, 11-14, depart from the general style of the exhibit both in size and form. They comprise a series of smaller prints with harder lines, eliciting a more distinct impression.

Untitled 11 is particularly striking. Much like the now-infamous white/gold/blue/black dress recently popularized over social media, it’s the sort of image in which it’s possible to perceive an infinite number of colors and shapes. At first, I see a bright red Arizona desert with a tiny silhouette of a bird soaring over a pair of black, withered cacti, and blue mountains far in the distance.

Blink and it becomes a massive cardinal, sweeping over a sea of flames.

Blink again and it’s a human heart, pulsing against a midnight-blue, lightning-streaked sky.

In some ways, that’s the beauty of abstract art: you can see anything you want to see. When the art is formless to the point of total ambiguity, it forces the mind to engage with the image through imagination, revealing the viewer’s own inclinations and fantasies. By the very process of interpretation, we project our own thoughts and un-

derstandings onto the canvas. The art becomes a mirror into ourselves.

So maybe my roommate is right. Maybe the paintings are all the same to her. After all, if art represents a window to the world, perhaps it’s one where it is possible to look out and see everything—or see nothing at all.

Hemphill 1515 14th St N.W. Now through March 10

Think these paintings aren’t loopy? lOOK AGAIN.

HEMPHILL

leisure

12 | the georgetown voice

march 5, 2015

CRITICAL VOICES

The Ripples, The Ripples, Independent Skepticism is often the response when a college band promotes their music, but that shouldn’t be the case with The Ripples. The Georgetown band just released their eponymous second album, and the band members’ artistry combine to create plenty of catchy tunes and soothing melodies.

Tyler Pierce (COL ‘15) and Zach Fore are technically astounding on guitar, while Will Heuser (COL ‘15) and Ben Suarez (COL ‘14) keep the

AJR, Living Room, Warner Brothers Records Surprise, listeners: the world is, in fact, ready for more AJR. Brothers Adam, Jack, and Ryan Met gained prominence last year with their single “I’m Ready,” using the memorable line from Spongebob Squarepants to establish one of the summer’s anthems.

While many expected AJR to vanish like many summer one-hit wonders, the brothers’s first full album Living Room proves they have no intention of going anywhere.

REELTALk

music grounded on keys and bass, respectively. Anthony Albanese (COL ‘16) is the most impressive of all, assembling drum beats that consistently impress.

The Ripples are influenced by 1960s pop, and this inspiration is clearly audible on the album. Different tracks have elements of swing, blues, and even reggae, often times combining more than one. “The Jive” starts off with a 12-bar blues form but adopts more of a reggae vibe later in the song, while “Growin’ Mold” combines a swing beat with Beatles-esque classic rock.

Pierce, Heuser, and Fore all provide phenomenal vocals. Their high pitched voices mesh well with the upbeat mood of the album. The vocals on “Going Faster (It’s A New Day)” particularly stand out and are nothing short of beautiful.

The numerous, vibrato-filled guitar solos the album are especially reminiscent of 60s classic rock and range from the more traditional in “If I Gotta

Go” to the more experimental in “Regarding The Times When I Can’t Help But Think Of You.” The band also brings in various additional instruments that, whether in solos or in the background, bring a new dimension of flair and nuance to the album.

But while the album contains endless impressive musicality, it equally lacks a sense of creativity. Much of the album is merely an amalgamation of the familiar. That isn’t to say that The Ripples are entirely unoriginal in their compositions, but that the group would benefit from using the genres that influence them in new, more innovative ways.

Even with this flaw, The Ripples remains an album full of generally outstanding music. It shows the best of what Georgetown students have to offer and certainly makes a big splash.

In the album, AJR displays their ability to produce tracks similar to “I’m Ready,” demonstrating their true artistry. While the group defines themselves as an indie-pop band, they have no trouble infusing their music with elements of other genres. AJR is also impressively DIY; the Met brothers write, arrange, and record all of their material in their Chelsea apartment. This makes Living Room almost a more impressive feat, as this production is practically seamless.

Living Room begins with “Overture,” which blends various rhythms and melodies from the album’s tracks. The track’s effortless transitions highlight the trio’s talent and sense of creativity. AJR also presents their indie-pop roots in Living Room, which serves to contrast the beats of “I’m Ready.” Singles such as “Big White Bed,” and “The Green and the Town,” are beautifully simple, relying on the trio’s harmonies and a backdrop of strings to create a calming effect, which proves a

refreshing change of pace from the more upbeat singles.

Of course, AJR has not abandoned the element of the summer anthem that launched their career; tracks such as “Thirsty Thursday,” and “Livin’ on Love,” are sure to get listeners singing along to their bubbly messages and rhythms. Later, AJR effortless combines indie acoustic with pop overtones; tracks such as “Infinity” and “My Calling,” not only are beautiful in terms of lyrics, but in the fusion of upbeat rhythms and use of modern technology.

AJR’s Living Room is a delightful surprise, demonstrating the trio’s true musical abilities while maintaining the optimistic feeling that made them last summer’s new stars. The Met brothers have certainly proven they are the farthest thing from the summer one-hit wonder.

Voice’s Choices: “Hung On,” “Growin’ Mold” —JON BlocK

Voice’s Choices: “Infinity,” “Livin’ on Love” —ELIZABETH Baker

CONCERT CALENDAR SATURDAY 3/7 Murder by Death Black Cat, 9 p.m., $17

TUESDAY 3/10 Jukebox the Ghost 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $18

FRIDAY 3/13 Speakers of the House The Hamilton, 10:30 p.m., Free

SATURDAY 3/7 Of Montreal 9:30 Club, 8 p.m., $20

WEDNESDAY 3/11 Luciano The Howard Theatre, 8 p.m., $25

SUNDAY 3/15 Lido U Street Music Hall, 10 p.m., $10

2015 brings the box office back

A bi-weekly column about film by Brian McMahon

This can be a sad, dark time of year for moviegoers. With awards season behind us and blockbuster season waiting for warmer weather, your local cinema’s fare may be looking rather sparse.

The next month does have the potential to bring some joy—with films like Cinderella and Insurgent— but we will have to wait for the year’s heaviest hitters. As spring arrives, though, we will see the beginnings of a stacked lineup of powerhouse films, one deeper and broader than any in recent memory. After a year marked by many questioning the staying power of the industry due to lackluster box office numbers, 2015 stands poised to make a strong statement about the enduring influence film holds over this country.

Netflix and its contemporaries, and the new technology that still awaits us, make many worry about the future of cinema. Some would rather stay in than spend big at the theater. This year should test those individuals. With projects begging to be seen on the big screen, and a full slate of substantive blockbusters, American moviegoing may reach unprecedented heights.

Even in the year’s opening two months, the American box office has shown signs of life. American Sniper dominated our theaters for weeks. While the film technically goes down as a 2014 release, thus striking its earnings—over $300 million to this point—from 2015 totals, its success bodes well for the rest of the year.

As for the films released this calendar year, Fifty Shades of Grey and The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water have emerged as early stars, boasting two of the best winter openings ever, each earning about $140 million by the beginning of March. Moreover, this bevy of winter successes represent a variety of genres and target demographics, which holds true for the blockbusters coming in the months ahead.

As the school year winds down, the box office should skyrocket for the rest of 2015.

With May Day comes Avengers: Age of Ultron. The Avengers’ success needs no explanation, and the goodwill surrounding its ever-expanding universe suggests that the sequel has the firepower to surpass the

original’s domestic gross of over $600 million. Pitch Perfect 2 comes two weeks later, likely in line to shoot past its predecessor’s success.

The months following present similar mixes of surefire hits and potential surprises. June brings Jurassic World and growing star Chris Pratt. The summer months also intend to make sure we get our Marvel fix, with the big-budget gamut of Ant-Man and Fantastic Four.

Besides the action-packed fare, 2015’s middle months offer alternatives for other demographics. Entourage and Ted 2 could be two of the year’s best performers, though whether or not the latter can match the original’s success remains to be seen. Regardless, the commercial success of those two films should be a fascinating mid-year barometer. For the family, Minions, The Peanuts Movie, and Goosebumps all have the potential to break out, with Minions probably the most likely to do so thanks to the success of Despicable Me. No matter what happens through the fall, 2015 should finish strong at the box office, with an overflowing winter slate. In November, we will see the epic conclusion of The Hunger Games series and the endlessly promising Spectre, armed with the cast and Skyfall-infused buzz necessary to make it the most successful Bond film of all time. December gives us Mission: Impossible 5 but most importantly the arrival of Star Wars: Episode VII. Its prime holiday release, coupled with fans’ desire for films reminiscent of the original trilogy’s glory, should propel it to weeks of commercial dominance, capping off a booming year.

Any number of arguments can be made about American movies today, and attacks on our sequel-happy, superhero-worshipping culture may have some merit.

But moving pictures have captivated us for over a century and show no signs of disappearing. To those who fear an ugly fate for Hollywood, be patient. Twelve months from now, maybe we’ll wish there were more Boyhoods and Selmas out there. But we will still be making the trek to the theater, in droves, still enamored with the flickering images before our eyes.

Break box offfice records with Brian at bcm64@georgetown.edu

georgetownvoice.com

PAGE THIRTEEN

the georgetown voice |13

– Dylan Cutler

voices

14 | the georgetown voice

march 5, 2015

Trevor and Omika connect to Georgetown one last time Trevor tezel and omika jikaria

With our tenure as GUSA President and Vice President coming to a close, we wanted to set aside some time to take stock of what’s surely been one of the most whirlwind years of our lives. When we decided to run, we vowed to “connect” students to Georgetown. As an insider-outsider ticket, we wanted to bring both experience and creative energy to an institution that needs both qualities renewed on an annual basis. Over the past year, we are proud to have produced results for the student body. What’s more, we are grateful to have learned more about ourselves, both as leaders and as students, as we have striven toward that Jesuit ideal of being a woman and man for others.

From the outset, we made a promise to take a policy-centered approach to GUSA. Sexual misconduct policies and resources for survivors were some of our top platform promises, and we made good on them. We successfully advocated for an additional staff member for Health Education Services, and pushed changes to the Code of Student Conduct

that made past sexual history inadmissible during hearings, allowed for closed-circuit testimony, and shrank hearing board sizes. In terms of social policies, we worked to expand the open container program, and instituted a policy that allows first-year students to avoid having their first alcohol violation appear on their external conduct file. In addition, we partnered with the Office of Student Conduct (OSC) in order to institute a policy allowing for student sanctions to be reduced if OSC doesn’t notify students of outstanding charges within thirty days of an incident. On behalf of student groups without Access to Benefits, we negotiated several agreements with the administration, including one that secured storage space on the mezzanine level of Regents.

Furthermore, during our tenure, the Division of Student Affairs and GUSA concluded some longterm initiatives that had been the result of past and present GUSA advocacy. Whether it was securing funds to construct a volleyball court in the Southwest Quad or working to implement the first-ever group selection process into housing selection,

our team was able to work towards tangible improvements in student life. We worked with Student Affairs to create the GUSA Access Fund for disability accommodations, launch a new centralized space booking system, and help open the Healey Family Student Center, the result of advocacy dating back many GUSA administrations.

During the campaign, we pledged to institute two councils: the Multicultural Council and the Transfer Council. The GUSA Multicultural Council (MC) was by far our most controversial initiative.

In deciding to throw GUSA directly into a conversation that it had previously avoided, we knew that we would expose GUSA to criticism stemming from the numerous divisions that exist over this issue among Georgetown’s cultural communities. As GUSA and the Multicultural Council adjusts to its role in this conversation, we will begin to see the Student Association producing tangible results for more Georgetown students. In its first year, the MC successfully hosted Georgetown’s first Multicultural Week and spurred the first conversations around the formation of a cultural group advisory

board. Even tonight, they will be co-hosting a town hall with the Last Campaign for Academic Reform regarding a proposed diversity curriculum requirement. Similarly, the GUSA Transfer Council had an outstanding inaugural year.

Among its various initiatives, the Council was able to secure the creation of an admitted transfer student day in the same vein as GAAP weekend, a new transfer Living and Learning Community, and an Admitted Transfer Student Calling Day in conjunction with the Office of Admissions.

But our biggest learning experiences came when we dealt with unexpected issues. At the beginning of our term, we were confronted with the implementation of the third-year housing requirement.

While these conversations allowed us to obtain a fourth-year housing guarantee for students with high financial need, it was painful to watch as students again suffered as a direct result of the 2010 Campus Plan and the need to house additional students on campus. This came after a student parking ban issued last summer and other measures that have greatly affected student life off-campus. It will be the job of Joe,

Connor, and their team to ensure that the negotiations over the next campus plan respect the rights of off-campus students.

In the last week and a half, we have been asked a dozen times: “How do you feel that you were replaced by a satirical ticket bashing GUSA and your outreach to students?” To that we say: You’re right. We didn’t do a good job of letting students know what we were doing. Our personal ethos is, and always has been, to quietly push for results on issues that are important to students. While much work needs to be done in student outreach, Executive-Senate relations are in a much better place than they were a year ago, and morale within the executive remains high. As student advocacy undergoes a critical transition year, we’re reassured in knowing that we have two student leaders who will build on a strong structure and make GUSA a more present force in students’ lives.

Trevor and Omika are seniors in the SFS

After hate, a new imperative to embrace the ‘other’ Salma Khamis On Wednesday, Feb. 11, I woke up to horrifying news: 23-yearold Deah Barkat, 21-year-old Yusor Abu-Salha, and 19-year-old Razan Abu-Salha—three Muslim students in the Chapel Hill area of North Carolina—had been murdered. I felt an overwhelming sense of despair and injustice. The youngest of the three victims was my age, my sex, and shared my religious affiliation. The only thing that separated us was the fabric that covered her hair. Alongside thousands of young Muslims across the country, one terrifying thought consumed me: that could have been me.

However, when I took a step back, read up on the shooting, and momentarily set aside my rage and confusion, I slowly came to realize that, whether I like it or not, it probably wouldn’t have been me.

See, chances are if I were to meet any one of you for the first time, you wouldn’t be able to tell that I grew up in a conservative Muslim family in Cairo—and I have absolutely no problem with that.

My religion, including the ways in which I choose to express and practice it, is just that: mine. I have never taken pride nor shame in the fact that people can’t tell straightaway that I am a Muslim.

That wasn’t the case that Wednesday. Given the sorry state of interfaith dialogue in the U.S.,

Leila lebreton

For muslims in america, coverings can mean a life in someone’s crosshairs

not to mention the extent to which Islamophobia pervades life in this country, the only thing that allows for my total assimilation in the Georgetown community—or American society as a whole—is that I don’t look Muslim. I appear to fit the status quo. To Americans, I am not different. And, yet, the irony is that Deah, Yusor, and Razan were all American, whereas I am not. I was ashamed of the fact that, simply because I choose to express my beliefs differently (or to not outwardly express them at all), I inadvertently protect myself against the mortal dangers that have recently become associated with confronting America’s ingrained Islamophobia.

To think that the lives of these three young, brilliant individuals were brutally cut short because of one man’s contempt for their very existence is devastating to say the least. Doubly so because this is supposedly a nation that celebrates diversity. Unless... it isn’t?

I’ve begun to question whether the U.S. actually celebrates differences, or if it only does so in diversity’s most diluted, manageable, forms. Is the American approach to intercultural and interfaith tolerance uniform? Does it transcend the ever-changing trends prevalent in popular discourse and politics?

But for me, the most salient question is this: how is it that certain communities grate against the overarching American ideal, and thus transform into an “other” worthy of prejudice? Clearly, this isn’t a result of holding “other” beliefs because, if so, my experiences as a female, Muslim, Egyptian student in the U.S. would be marked by ostracization and marginalization— which, thankfully, it has not been.

Instead, I am living proof that what U.S. society finds problematic or worthy of ostracism isn’t believing in allegedly “un-American” ideals, but rather the outward appearance of doing so.

Now, valid as they are, I won’t indulge in the hypotheticals that posit an entirely different reaction, had the religious affiliations of the victims and the perpetrator been reversed. Frankly, there’s no need to point out the blatantly obvious.

What I will do, however, is call upon every Hoya to question what goes into their classification of one another as “other” or “different.” To think about whether whatever it is that differentiates you from your peers merits dehumanizing and reducing them to the toxic stereotypes associated with their affiliations. As a proud member of this vibrant community, I can only hope to see tragic events like these rein-

force our commitment to constantly work towards understanding one another as best as humanly possible.

I guess my point is that, technically, we all represent an “other” to one another. Our life experiences are distinctly different, and possibly even alien, to whoever’s sitting right next to us in any given class.

But it is only through a staunch commitment to bridging these gaps of distinction, and appreciating the potential that lies in an attempt to understand them, that we can truly eradicate the prevalence of such catastrophic hate-fueled crimes in the future. Now more than ever, when assertions of the “other’s” incompatibility with American society at-large seem to plague public discourse, we have to commit ourselves to the active, vocal rejection of this polarizing sentiment. By doing so, we can ensure that they have no traction in our community, and beyond. Instead of accepting, understanding, and engaging our peers in spite of their otherness, consider doing it for their otherness—consider being men and women for others.

Salma is a sophomore in the SFS

voices

georgetownvoice.com

THE GEORGETOWN VOICe | 15

I want you: Apply to serve in Joe and Connor’s cabinet HoyaLink

Not a lot of people on campus really get what it’s like to be HoyaLink. Legally speaking, I am the third-oldest website in existence, right behind SovietSingles.com and AztecSwipe.gov. Oldies like me like to take it slow, you know? We move at a pace that makes us feel comfortable. Back in the day, you could send an email to a guy 100 miles away, drive to his house, take him out to dinner, develop a deep friendship with him, and open up a small business together before he received that email. Slow and steady. That’s just how I jive.

However, this week saw a serious threat to my way of life. Despite my contract with the administration explicitly stating that I can spend my remaining days rotting away in idleness, an insurmountable surge of student activism has destroyed any and all pros-

pects of future indolence. This surge, my friends, is the opening of applications to serve in cabinet and staff positions in the Luther-Rohan GUSA administration.

Ever since Joe and Connor’s cabinet/staff application was released on me Tuesday, I’ve been racked with anxiety.

A torpid digital pariah like myself can’t withstand such a burst of energy, and when people catch wind of this application’s release, it’s gonna blow up. I fear that Joe and Connor’s promise to make GUSA more inclusive and available to students will prove to be irresistible to the masses, and that the rare opportunity to become an active part of GUSA in a capacity that allows for autonomy and personal growth is going to push me to my limits.

It’s like when a human works out vigorously for the first time in years and the chances of pulling something are really, really, really high. When you

CARRYING ON

apply that logic to a website, well, who knows what’ll happen. Probably a puff of smoke and a blue screen of death—my death. Bottom line, this application’s going to crash my servers. You overeager Madeleine Albrights are going to hunt me down and gut me like a goddamn houndshark.

I know I’m a computer program and all, but I can’t even count the number of positions that Joe and Connor are offering. There are so many ways to get involved that just thinking about it is making me overheat. Throw me on the nearest funeral pyre, because my chip’s going to be fried! But really, things have changed a lot since I began hosting GUSA on me. Up until 15 years ago, the “Director of Social Media” was just Michael Dukakis with a flare gun. In fact, back when ol’ HoyaLink was your age, there was only one student association, GUSLA: The Georgetown University Society of Lincoln

MAKING SENSE OF COMMUNITY ANGER

BY CHRIS ALMEIDA

A rotating column by senior Voice staffers

I want to put the “Page 13” incident in the past. Few things during my time at Georgetown have made me more frustrated than everything that has happened over the past two weeks, but that’s precisely why I have to weigh in on these events and their implications.

If you’re unfamiliar with the situation, let me get you up to speed.

In the Feb. 19 issue of the Voice, Page 13 was used to bring attention to the activity of The Georgetown Heckler, which is edited by Joe Luther and Connor Rohan. Both Luther and Rohan were, at the time, candidates for GUSA executive. The Heckler had posted a number of articles poking fun at the Chris Wadibia/Meredith Cheney ticket, which had not performed well in the presidential debate. The Heckler’s antics, of course, are ques-

tionable, but that’s not really what’s at stake here.

The cartoon depicted Wadibia and Cheney in a horse costume being beaten by Rohan and Luther, who held bats labeled “Satire” and “The Heckler.” The top of the page read, “Beating The Dead Horse.” The cartoon’s point wasn’t abundantly clear, especially for those not clued into campus affiliations or the GUSA race.

The illustration, taken on its own, showed two white men in suits beating a black man in a horse costume, which, to many, was insensitive at best and grossly offensive at worst.

The cartoon was a throwaway joke. In its context, it had limited comedic value, and, in my mind, the situation it looked to address could have been discussed much more tactfully in an opinion piece or editorial. Bluntly, it should have been clear before publication that there would be very

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Assassinators. But now GUSA is breaking into exciting new territory, and Joe and Connor want you all to be a part of it.

Plain and simple, Joe and Connor are changing GUSA faster than HoyaLink can keep up. For the first time since secession, they’re making students realize that they can take student government into their own hands. Average students can take charge of the decisions that affect them, wrestle with important issues, and bring about measurable change.

This Luther-Rohan administration has got everyone on campus in a real tizzy. With all this talk of “engaging” the student body and upending politics as usual over the next year, my servers are filled with dread that students from all corners of campus might line up to work in their administration. This duo’s idyllic vision for a student body invested in the future of university just doesn’t sit well

little upside in allowing the illustration to run.

But it ran, and backlash was swift. Posts on social media were quick to bring the racist undertones of the cartoon to light. Further, some members of the community read misogyny into the cartoon as well, noting that GUSA Vice Presidential candidate Cheney had been drawn in the posterior of the horse costume. Though many of these posts failed to acknowledge that the Voice in no way intended these insensitivities, I can understand the omission.

Few people can be completely composed while angry.

The online interactions that disturbed me were those that took their arguments a step further. One message to the Voice’s Facebook page, sent after the paper had publicly apologized, read, “Speaking as a white male, you disgust me. That was a forced apology and I’m embarrassed to say I’m apart of the Georgetown community after reading that racist bullshit. F*** you and everything your paper stands for.” Many others also tried to draw connections to larger biases that led to the cartoon’s publication. A protest of the

cartoon, connecting it to larger social issues, was organized in Red Square last Monday.

Part of the event’s description on Facebook read, “You have Eric Garner. You have Charlie Hebdo protests. You have #FlyingWhileMuslim,” comparing those issues to raised by the Page 13 cartoon. The parallel drawn to demonstrations against Charlie Hebdo felt particularly uncomfortable, as these protests, instigated by the satirical magazine’s decision to depict the Prophet Mohammed, left dozens dead worldwide and many more injured or propertyless.

Speaking even as a person of color, these media posts seemed off—the message because of the clear inability to accept reality. Yes, the cartoon obviously could have been construed as offensive, but to believe that it ran because of overtly racist sentiments and reflected larger bigoted intentions, especially from a paper with an editor-in-chief who is Latina and an editorial board chair who is from Hong Kong, is absurd. The event missed the mark for a different reason. Social awareness is essential, as is a willingness to

with my ramshackle hard drives. Please, Luther-Rohan, hear this old webpage’s plea: stop trying to establish a bottom-up approach to advocacy, stop encouraging every student at Georgetown to apply for a position on your staff and cabinet, and stop giving people who are passionate about specific issue areas the opportunity to represent the student body in an official capacity.

And to students, whatever you do, don’t apply to the Luther-Rohan administration before the deadline of Tuesday, March 17 at 11:59 p.m. Don’t rise to the occasion and reach your fullest potential. Don’t crash me in this zero-sum game. Just let me decompose in peace.

Joe and Connor are Juniors in the College

be loud when there is injustice at play. But the cause of justice isn’t advanced when one group seizes the moral high ground and refuses to yield even an inch of it. Changing people’s minds through persuasion and not shame is the only way to engender lasting change. A fear of being angrily called out only encourages silence and stalemate.

When one student posted on the Facebook event saying, in essence, that he agreed with the importance of combating racism and sexism—and even does so by educating children about the causes of these social ills during his free time—but disagreed with the hyperbolic nature any types of accusations being made, he came under fire from many others in the group.

The post has since been removed from the event page.

This is the essence of what upset me most about this fiasco. It seemed to me that very few responders wanted to hear anything but their own voices or the voices of those who agreed with them. Most activists involved in the protest seemed more interested in being right and feeling important than in encouraging constructive dialogue.

A town hall was also held as a forum for respectful discussion. But this event stood alone, and it stood in stark contrast to the other virtual and real-world happenings.

Events like this should be the rule, not the exception.

Spotlight on:

Alternative Breaks Program Chris Wager Kino Border Immersion Tuscan, AZ and Nogales, Mexico Iʼm JAZZED to meet and build solidarity with migrant justice activists in the Arizona border region and beyond!

Luke Brown and Eric Nevalsky LGBTQ Youth Homelessness New York, NY We will explore the complicated intersectionalities of sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic status, and ability within this marginalized community in NYC while also reflecting on the ways in which these same social identities impact our experiences as individuals and as members of the Georgetown community.

Breanna Walsh Spring Break in Appalachia Chattanooga, TN I believe that social justice is rooted in meaningful conversations, so Iʼm heading to Chattanooga to meet new people, hear local voices, and bring often-unheard stories back to the Hilltop.

Maurice McCaulley Border Awareness Experience El Paso, TX This spring break I will be chillinʼ with BAEs (participants...) while exploring immigration at the El Paso, Texas border alongside guests of Annunciation House to better understand the intricacies of migration

Kayla Corcoran Blanket New Orleans New Orleans, LA Iʼm returning to New Orleans for the fourth time with ABP this year, and Iʼm excited to introduce my participants to the vibrant communities of the city!

Drawings of faces by Ellen Yaeger, states by Kevin Gutierrez