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VOICE the georgetown

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w April 3 , 2014 w Volume 46, Issue 27 w georgetownvoice.com

2 the georgetown voice

april 3, 2014

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Voice Crossword “April Fools Day” by Allison Galezo45. Midianite king

ACROSS 1. Merriment 4. “___ of a Took” 8. Foolish 12. Swindle 13. Zoological taxonomic suffix 14. Rainy month 16. El Niño and La Niña 17. Laughing matter 18. Make fun of 19. Hydrocarbon suffix

20. What you breathe 21. Topping at Kintaro 23. Definite article 24. Greek legends 26. Strange 28. Calder Cup org.

30. 1 Coulomb/second 32. Joke (verb) 36. Terror 39. Something to play 41. Opposite of sweet 42. Inc., in London 43. Chortle

46. Concludes 47. Immediately, abbrev.

48. Trick, sham 49. Soothe 50. Previously mentioned woman 51. Compete 53. Nasty cold 55. Deceive 59. Flop, bust 62. Plural “is” 64. IQ record-holder Marilyn ___ Savant 66. Totally thought this was the same thing as Sig Ep for a while 67. Practical joke 68. Huge smile 70. Guzzle beer 71. Legolas and company 72. Jeer at 73. Cheekiness 74. Sonic video game developer 75. Rushed 76. Cockney’s residence DOWN 1. Humorous 2. Sad or angry 3. New beginning?

4. South Pacific island nation

5. Stench 6. Acorn tree 7. Lascivious look 8. Had a relationship with 9. Tailless primates 10. 66-across or 59-down 11. Addams family nickname 12. Decree 15. Gettysburg general 20. Ketchum; wants to catch ‘em all 22. Alley ___ 25. Half of an awkward laugh 27. They control iTunes at parties 29. Paper size, abbrev.

30. Entertain 31. Super 33. European Organ Exchange Organization 34. Capital of 4-down 35. Please give the Silly Rabbit some of this cereal 36. Run from 37. Sicilian volcano 38. Sums 40. Exclamation when being pranked 44. Gardasil vaccinates against this 48. That woman 50. South of Spain?

52. A thing’s

54. Malaysian curried rice noodle dish 56. “It Had to Be You” composer Jones 57. Give rise to 58. Frequently found at Brown House 59. Frat often found behind Brown House 60. WWW addresses 61. Host Letterman 63. Like 20-across 64. Unspoken feeling about an environment 65.”What Makes You Beautiful” 69. Tear 70. U.S.N. rank

Last Week’s Answers:

editorial

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VOICE the georgetown

Volume 46.27 April 3, 2014 Editor-in-Chief: Connor Jones Managing Editor: Julia Tanaka General Manager: Mary Bailey-Frank Blog Editor: Isabel Echarte News Editor: Claire Zeng

Sports Editor: Chris Almeida Feature Editor: Lucia He Cover Editors: Noah Buyon, Christina Libre Leisure Editor: Dayana Morales-Gomez Voices Editor: Steven Criss Photo Editor: Ambika Ahuja Design Editors: Pam Shu, Sophia Super Page 13 Editor: Dylan Cutler Creative Directors: Amanda Dominiguez, Kathleen Soriano-Taylor, Madhuri Vairapandi Editors-at-Large: Caitriona Pagni, Ana Smith Assistant Blog Editors: Ryan Greene, Marisa Hawley, Kenneth Lee, Laura Kurek Assistant News Editors: Shalina Chatlani, Lara Fishbane, Manuela Tobias Assistant Sports Editors: Chris Castano, Brendan Crowley, Jeffrey Lin, Joe Pollicino Assistant Leisure Editors: Emilia Brahm, Daniel Varghese, Joshua Ward Assistant Voices Editor: Grace May Assistant Photo Editors: Gavin Myers, Joshua Raftis Assistant Design Editors: Leila Lebreton, Andie Pine

Staff Writers:

Sourabh Bhat, Max Borowitz, Grace Brennan, John Connor Buckley, James Constant, Alissa Fernandez, Kevin Huggard, Julia LloydGeorge, Jared Kimler, Sam Kleinman, Lucius Lee, Claire McDaniel, Dan Paradis, Kate Riga, Max Roberts, Jackson Sinnenberg, Deborah Sparks

Staff Photographers:

Marla Abdilla, Katherine Landau, Freddy Rosas

Copy Chief: Grace Funsten Copy Editors:

Judy Choi, Lauren Chung, Eleanor Fanto, Allison Galezo, Juan Daniel Gonçalves, Rachel Greene, Sabrina Kayser, Morgan Manger, Ryan Miller, Samantha Mladen, Nicole Steinberg, Dana Suekoff, Suzanne Trivette

Editorial Board Chair: Julia Jester Editorial Board:

Chris Almeida, Gavin Bade, Emilia Brahm, Patricia Cipollitti, Steven Criss, Isabel Echarte, Lara Fishbane, Juan Daniel Gonçalves, Ryan Greene, Lucia He, Connor Jones, Jeffrey Lin, Ian Philbrick, Ryan Shymansky, Ana Smith, Julia Tanaka

HOUSE OF BLUES

Mandatory housing unfair solution for juniors Though the 2010 Campus Plan poses serious concerns for student living, the University should not mandate on-campus housing for juniors. Instead, it should increase incentives for upperclassmen to choose on campus housing themselves. At a focus group with GUSA members, administrators from Residential Living proposed the mandate as an option to help the University comply with the campus plan’s requirement of placing 385 additional beds on campus by 2015. GUSA President Trevor Tezel (SFS ‘15) and Vice President Omika Jikaria (SFS ‘15) oppose the third-year requirement—and with good reason.

The Office of Residential Living recently released housing proposals that focus on policies that impact on-campus student life, renovations of existing facilities, and potential changes to housing guarantees or requirements.

Expanding the current “small gathering” policy is a step in the right direction. Lifting of the keg limit and the trial open container policy in the outdoor grill areas of Village A and Henle are

The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.

Mailing Address: Georgetown University The Georgetown Voice Box 571066 Washington, D.C. 20057

Office: Leavey Center Room 424 Georgetown University Washington, D.C. 20057

Email: editor@georgetownvoice.com Advertising: business@georgetownvoice.com Website: georgetownvoice.com Vox Populi: blog.georgetownvoice.com Halftime: halftime.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. The Georgetown Voice is produced in the Georgetown Voice office and composed on Macintosh computers using the Adobe InDesign publishing system and is printed by Gannett Publishing Services.

All materials copyright the Georgetown Voice. All rights reserved.

On this week’s cover: Starved for Art Cover Design: Christina Libre

examples of this idea. Housing policies alone, however, cannot fully placate students when the quality of housing options is subpar.

The renovated former Jesuit Residence will house 160 students, while the Northeast Triangle is projected to house 225 students in suite-style housing. While ongoing and future residential projects will include new outdoor, study, and lounge space, the bottom line is that they are indeed dorms—and upperclassmen will not want to live in dorms, no matter how fancy they are. Though Georgetown’s renovations of current facilities will make on-campus apartments like Henle more attractive, those apartment-style options will become harder to win in the housing selection process as new dorm-style facilities are constructed.

Georgetown’s on-campus housing currently includes 1,816 apartment beds and 3,237 residence hall beds. With the addition of the two new dorm facilities bringing the total to 5,438 beds, the ratio of dorm-style versus apartment housing will increasingly diminish, and with it,

the autonomy and privacy of students closer to graduation than orientation. With more juniors living in on-campus housing, sophomores will get pushed out of apartment opportunities. So long as dorm facilities are of high quality, this change will not be an issue. What is an issue, however, is that for many upperclassmen, offcampus housing options are less expensive and higher quality—a seven-person Nevils costs $5,121 per semester, while a Burleith townhouse can cost as low as $900 per month.

Within the past ten years, all upperclassmen who applied for eligibility and were placed on the waitlist received a housing assignment.

Nonetheless, a third-year housing guarantee would be a proper transition into complying with the campus plan as opposed to a third-year housing requirement that limits independent living opportunities during residential restructuring. However, it is up to the University to provide adequate apartment-style housing for its upperclassmen students if it hopes to remotely come close to its campus plan compliance goal.

IMMIGREATION

Students should support immigrant rights

When he began to advocate for immigration reform in mid-2010, President Barack Obama reminded the American people that “we’ve always defined ourselves as a nation of immigrants.” Four years and more than 1.72 million deportations later, it seems Obama has forgotten his own message. The White House’s only significant step in a reformative direction has been an anemic call last month for a “review” of current immigration enforcement policies. Meanwhile, much-needed overhauls to the nation’s broken immigration system remain stalled in an incompetent Congress.

There is still reason to hold out hope on immigration reform before the 2016 elections, however. Pope Francis has taken up advocacy on this issue. Last Thursday, as part of his European tour, Obama met with Pope Francis in the Apostolic Palace, and immigration policy featured prominently in the conversation. This week, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, one of the Pope’s

Managing Director: Tim Annick The Georgetown Voice

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right-hand men, led a delegation of Catholic bishops to the Mexican-American border to “raise … consciousness about the need for our president and congress to pass immigration policy and reform to address a broken system.”

The church under Pope Francis has already done much to advance the Jesuit commitment to immigrant rights—and so has Georgetown. In June of 2013, University President John DeGioia signed onto a letter from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities that exhorted members of the House of Representatives to respect “the human dignity and worth of all immigrants, regardless of legal status.” In the previous month, over 200 students affiliated with the Georgetown University Immigration Coalition marched on the Capitol to demand a legal path to citizenship for undocumented aliens living in the U.S. This coming Saturday, GUIC and MEChA de Georgetown will be at it again as part of a

nationwide “not one more deportation” protest.

The Voice encourages students to join the marchers as they descend on Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Additionally, students can, and should, show support for the cause via the hashtags #not1more or #2million2many.

Immigrants are the lifeblood of the United States. To this day, people the world over flock to American soil in pursuit of new lives and livelihoods, and, in the process, give so much to their adopted country. How does the government repay this kindness? Not with open arms, but with watchful eyes.

The importance of immigrants to America’s continued vitality is surely not lost on Obama, whose father was a migrant scholar from Kenya. The obstacles he faces in his push to ameliorate immigration policy are enormous, but what he and the nation as a whole stand to gain from reform is even greater—if Obama can uphold his own campaign promises.

AND THE WINNER I$...

SCOTUS ruling further jeopardizes fair elections

The Supreme Court struck down limits on individual campaign donations in a 5-4 decision in the case McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. While donors may still only give up to $5,200 to individual candidates in a two year election cycle, there is now no limit on how many candidates a donor can support during a single election cycle, or on the total monetary value of multiple campaign contributions from the same donor.

This ruling will allow for more private money to enter political campaigns and is a continuation of a general judicial trend to loosen financial regulation of political campaigns. For example, in 2010, the Court ruled that the right of corporations, associations, and labor unions to make unrestricted donations to political action committees falls under the First Amendment as an act of free speech in the case Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.

Supporters of yesterday’s ruling argue that political campaign donations are a form

of free speech and therefore should not be regulated by the government. “[Limits on contributions] instead intrude without justification on a citizen’s ability to exercise the most fundamental First Amendment activities,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

Monetary donations, however, do not fall under the scope of the First Amendment when speech is determined not by the size of one’s voice, but rather, one’s wallet. Even though relatively few private donors can make enough donations to affect elections on a national scale, those that can are now at a distinct advantage over voters who cannot make lavish donations to support their political party.

The $5,200 cap per candidate is barely a consolation prize for those who oppose the ruling because it does not affect the total sum a single private donor can contribute to his or her party of choice. The cap is nothing more than a mask for the blatant corruption of fair elections through extravagant private donations to

individual candidates large enough to decide election outcomes. The new ruling means that high-dollar political party donations can be made to joint fundraising committees and then distributed among numerous party candidates and local or state committees.

The Supreme Court rules based on constitutionality, but the Voice doubts the authors of the Constitution could have predicted the influence of the few rich players who have a large hand in electoral politics today. This ruling indicates that the Court accepts the idea that the best representations of the interests of the American people are not the candidates who advocate for the majority, but those who have the financial support of the wealthy. With this decision, free speech has been drowned by cash flow from the wealthiest Americans. The numbers will soon be indistinguishable: the number of votes will count almost as much as the number of zeroes on a campaign check, and that is, in and of itself, a threat to the First Amendment.

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News Hits

UIS will lock out students who do not change their passwords University Information Services is mandating that students change their Georgetown account login passwords every six months within a two week notification period, a policy first announced February 19. Students who do not comply within the timeframe will be denied access to University systems including SaxaNet, Google Apps, and Blackboard.

The policy, according to UIS Communications Manager Laura Horton, is a response to an increase in the volume and sophistication of virtual attacks on higher education institutions. According to Horton, Georgetown receives about 2.4 million attempts against its network each month.

“This policy was implemented after some of our faculty were targeted in a phishing scheme, their passwords stolen, and used to access our financial systems to re-route their paychecks to foreign accounts,” she wrote in an email to the Voice.

UIS will send emails informing Georgetown account owners of the mandate and continue to send reminders throughout the two week period.

—Shalina Chatlani

Milzman to be detained in jail until trial

Chief Judge Richard W. Roberts, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, on Monday, reversed last week’s ruling that would have released Daniel Milzman (COL ’16) to a psychiatric inpatient program under his parents’ custody. Roberts overruled the initial decision following an appeal made last Wednesday by the prosecution.

Milzman faces allegations of possessing the biological toxin ricin. He is to remain in jail as he awaits his later court date and will not be admitted to the two week psychiatric program at Sibley Memorial Hospital, as Roberts previously ruled.

Roberts ruled that evidence that Milzman could be a threat outweighed Milzman’s lack of criminal record and a history of depression. He also said Milzman’s text message threats made to another student and his conversation with RA Thomas Lloyd (SFS ‘15), in which Milzman claimed he was “definitely a threat to someone,” hurt Milzman’s credibility.

According to Roberts, Milzman is to be “detained but placed on rigorous suicide watch” and will be provided with psychiatric support.

—Jared Kimler

news

april 3, 2014

GU mulls housing requirement for juniors, sophomores limited to dorms by 2016

by James Constant The completion of the Northeast Triangle Residence Hall in February 2016 will mean that sophomores will, by default, no longer be able to live in on-campus apartments, according to Executive Director of Student Housing Patrick Killilee.

“It will be by de facto because more juniors will get housing eligibility,” said Killilee. “They will select apartments over traditional residence halls.” The University expects the Northeast Triangle to be a residence primarily for sophomore students.

Georgetown University Student Association President Trevor Tezel (SFS ‘15) agreed with Killilee’s prediction. “The reality is that in a number of years virtually all sophomores will be living in dorms or suite style living accommodations,” Tezel said.

When asked about Killilee’s statement, Director of Residential Life Stephanie Lynch expressed doubts about whether or not any sort of restriction on sophomores will be brought forth. “At this point, it’s too early to say,” she said.

Whether or not third-year students will face an on-campus housing requirement also remains to be decided. The University announced that they are considering either a housing requirement or guarantee for third-year students in a post on the Master Planning blog on March 4.

Both a third-year requirement or guarantee would automatically grant housing eligibility to all juniors. Tezel and GUSA Vice President Omika Jikaria (SFS ‘15) said that they support a guarantee but oppose a requirement.

Tezel also said that it is possible that the University is considering instituting a third-year housing requirement by mandating six semesters of on-campus housing.

“A six-semester requirement is something that has been brought up in conversation in the past,” Tezel said. “It was brought up in a conversation [on Tuesday] between our deputy chief of staff Megan Murday [SFS ‘15] and Stephanie Lynch.”

By Tezel and Jikaria’s understanding of the six-semester requirement, there is a possibility that transfer students or students who study abroad for a full year would not be

Marla Abadilla

Administrators may be considering a six-semester housing requirement. eligible to live off-campus for either their junior or senior years. “We feel like this is a policy that would be unfair,” Tezel said.

Tezel was also critical of the manner in which the administration is handling discussions with students on the third-year housing requirement. The University has, up until now, presented the proposal exclusively in small focus group forums.

Tezel believes that the discussion should include the entire campus community, not just focus groups.

Lynch responded by saying that specific details on a third-year housing policy will be determined after

administrators make a decision on whether or not to implement a policy. According to Lynch, this decision will be made before the end of the academic year.

“Study abroad would certainly be factored into the policy and we are actively exploring how study abroad students and transfer students might fall under this policy,” she wrote in an email to the Voice.

“The details of a requirement or a guarantee are by no means final.

Once a final decision is made on the question of guarantee or requirement, we will talk with students about how implementation occurs.”

Admissions rate falls to SFS development chair chosen 16.6% for class of 2018

by Shalina Chatlani

by Lara Fishbane Georgetown’s Admissions Committee accepted 3,232 students for the incoming class of 2018, out of 19,501 total applicants. The overall admission rate was 16.6 percent, which represents a slight decrease from last year’s 17 percent.

“We offered 150 fewer [places] than we did last year grand total,” Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Charles Deacon said. “We have offered fewer this year because last year we bumped right up against the enrollment cap.”

The accepted students from the class of 2018 come from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 64 other countries across the world. International students make up 8.5 percent of the incoming class, which shows a slight drop from 9.2 percent of the class of 2017.

According to Deacon, nonU.S. applications dropped approximately 5 percent, from 2,542 in 2013 to 2,148 in 2014. “International students make up 12 percent of our applicant pool, so that’s a

significant drop,” he said. “The decline is almost entirely from Asia and significantly from China, where the economy isn’t growing as fast as it was.”

The ethnic diversity of the accepted students remains fairly consistent with the previous year. 10.4 percent identify as African American, a 0.1 percent increase from 2013, 17.3 percent identify as Asian American, an increase of 0.2 percent, and 11.9 percent identify as Hispanic, an increase of 0.2 percent.

The average accepted student was in the top 2.8 percent of his or her class. The middle-50 percent range for the critical reading section of the SAT was 680-770 and the math middle-50 percent range was 680-770. According to Deacon, 12 percent of the accepted applicants are first-generation college students.

“It’s no question that we’re attracting better students,” Deacon said. “It’s not about the numbers. I think focusing on the quality of the people who come here is the most important thing going forward.”

Because of a $4 million grant from the Coca-Cola Foundation, the School of Foreign Service will establish its first endowed chair for the Master’s of Global Human Development program. Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Development Steven Radelet was chosen as the new chair.

According to SFS Director of Outreach Gail Griffith, the SFS solicited funding from the Coca-Cola Foundation specifically for the purpose of funding a department chair for the program. “The application for the grant was the work of Dean Carol Lancaster, who, in conversations with the senior leadership of Coca-Cola and the Coca-Cola Foundation … negotiated the grant to its successful conclusion,” Griffith wrote in an email to the Voice.

The GHD program was created in 2012 to educate and train development practitioners for the twenty-first century. The program, which currently only has visiting and adjunct faculty, is one of the main priorities for the For the Generations to Come Campaign.

The funds will be used to seek resources for faculty, financial aid, and program-related activities, such as the program’s summer internships, skills clinics, and capstone project.

“This generous gift is the first step in building permanent faculty to lead and guide the program,” wrote GHD Director Ann Van Dusen in an email to the Voice.

According to Griffith, the SFS and the Coca-Cola Foundation have a history of working together, which is why the school reached out to it and has worked with it on developing GHD. “In addition to the generous gift endowing a Chair, we have students who intern with the company during their summer work program … [it] was one of the first organizations to join us as a partner in the Global Human Development program,” wrote Van Dusen.

Radelet has been distinguished professor in the GHD since December 2012 and previously served as Chief Economist for the U.S. Agency for International Development. He could not be reached for comment.

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New GUSA lecture series scheduled to begin April 14

by Dan Paradis

The new cabinet was confirmed by the Senate on Sunday.

GAVIN MYERS

GUSA cabinet appointed

by Grace Brennan The new cabinet of Georgetown University Student Association President and Vice President Trevor Tezel (SFS ‘15) and Omika Jikara (SFS ‘15) was approved on Sunday by the GUSA Senate. In changes from the previous year’s cabinet, Tezel and Jikaria added a new Student Advocate position, a Multicultural Council, and a Committee for Disability Affairs to the executive.

According to Tezel and Jikaria, who solicited applications for the cabinet through Facebook, cabinet members were chosen based on their relationships with administrators and the time commitment they would be able to dedicate to GUSA.

The executive has not finalized the members of the Multicultural Council. Its creation was a key component of their election platform. According to Tezel and Jikaria, however, it has already begun “advocating [to] the University administration … [for] issues such as our lack of ethnic studies offerings.”

Julia Hubbell (COL ‘15), member of Georgetown Solidarity Committee, was appointed as Student Advocate.

Hubbell is currently organizing a publicity campaign for GUSA office hours, which she hopes to use to answer individuals’ questions on employment and internship practices.

The executive has also not solidified the Committee for Disability Affairs and stated they are still discuss-

“Between Two Ferns” insufficient

On March 12, 1933, a president addressed a nation in the first of many radio chats. For the next decade, Franklin D. Roosevelt would speak to American citizens in his fireside chats thirty times, explaining what was going on in the economy, giving updates on the war, and assuaging fears. Widely known as a president that controlled the press’s message more than any of his predecessors, Roosevelt had unprecedented involvement in the coverage of national politics. His fireside chats were radical in that they took advantage of changes in technology and completely subverted national press by taking the message directly to the people.

Over 80 years later, it seems that President Obama is following in his footsteps. His 2008 campaign was heralded as a campaign for the 21st century because of his use of social media, largely seen as a move to draw youth support. His incumbent campaign in 2012 set

new standards for the use of data in harnessing support. His communications staff have attempted to keep in touch with popular culture, tweeting about House of Cards spoilers and releasing his NCAA March Madness bracket. Without mentioning the pop culture icon that he has become, it’s obvious that Obama is involved with youth culture in a way that outpaces any other president.

His forays into popular culture came to a zenith in March with his interview with Ellen DeGeneres on “Ellen” and his skit with Zach Galifianakis on “Between Two Ferns.” In each interview, Obama’s primary concern was getting young people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act insurance program. Clearly the tactic worked, at least in terms of grabbing people’s attention. Both videos went viral, with the “Between Two Ferns” video reaching over 20 million views and the “Ellen” interview reaching over 4 million online

The Lecture Fund has committed to organize a new professor lecture series with the Georgetown University Student Association. The first lecture, featuring assistant professor of government Fr. Matthew Carnes, S. J., is scheduled for April 14.

The initiative, which will be named the Professor Spotlight Series, is designed to engage students with a variety of subjects and professors and to help students with registration and pre-registration.

“I think it’s an exciting initiative. Students are surrounded here at Georgetown by a fantastic set of faculty members and often they get a limited view because they only get to take so ing its creation with administrators.

They chose to remove the Secretary of D.C. Relations position and decided it would be “appropriate” for its responsibilities to be served by an undersecretary to the Secretary of Neighborhood Relations. views. The real results in terms of enrollment, however, won’t be known for at least another week.

These interviews brought the ACA to a sector of the populace that is sorely lacking in both health insurance and knowledge about the new law. In a sea of jargon and information overload, these interviews stood out in their frankness and humor.

Union Jack

by Sara Ainsworth

A tri-weekly column about national politics and policy There are a number of pundits that derided Obama for doing these interviews, insinuating that there were more important issues at hand. But really, are they questioning the importance of communicating with the public? Ultimately, the President’s main job is to represent the American people, but also to be their champions. It’s difficult to be someone’s champion when they have no idea what you’re championing.

many classes,” Carnes said. “The opportunity to hear more voices is a terrific one.”

According to Angela Bai (COL ‘17), Intellectual Life Committee member, the first lecture will most likely be held in Healy Hall, where Carnes will speak for about 45 minutes on a topic from his Comparative Political Systems course.

“We wanted to choose someone in high demand. [Fr. Carnes is] popular, everybody knows his name, he’s a very solid speaker and we wanted to make sure that we have a good start,” said Bai. The Lecture Fund is also currently developing a website for the series. “The website would be entirely dedicated towards this new initiative, and it would just contain the vid-

The new cabinet includes Dan Silkman (COL ‘15), Thomas Lloyd (SFS ‘15), and Ben Weiss (COL ‘15), all three of whom ran against Tezel and Jikaria for the executive. Silkman will serve as What’s a Hoya Coordinator and Roosevelt’s fireside chats were so important because it was really the first time that the president spoke to the populace in way that they could understand, using quotidian technology. Obama’s interviews were no different in that manner.

The interviews, however, were different than the fireside chats in a key way—they only concerned a policy that will directly affect Obama’s legacy.

Roosevelt’s chats covered topics from the economy to war updates to reorganizations of the judiciary. While he certainly addressed the New Deal, this was not his only focus. He kept the American public abreast of difficult issues that would have a huge impact on them.

The same cannot be said for Obama. Where was the Saturday Night Live skit to explain the deficit? Where was the Reddit AMA about what is going on Crimea? Where was the Twitter Q&A outlining what the shutdown meant and why it was happening? Obama has been our president for the last

eos that we record from each of these lectures,” said Chris Mulrooney (COL ‘14), chair of Lecture Fund.

The series will only hold one lecture this semester. GUSA and the Lecture Fund hope to have the series more developed by next fall and ideally host at least one lecture a month.

According to GUSA Intellectual Life Chair Shweta Wahal (SFS ’16), as this initiative develops further, GUSA will be responsible for professor outreach and the Lecture Fund will handle promotion, marketing, and logistics for events of the series.

“There is still a lot to be done, but both GUSA and Lecture Fund are working hard to make this idea happen. We’ve received a great deal of encouragement from faculty members including teachers and deans,” wrote Milan Chang (COL ’17), a member of the Lecture Fund working on the Professor Spotlight Series, in an email to the Voice.

Director of Programming, Lloyd as What’s a Hoya Coordinator, and Weiss as Senior Advisor. According to Tezel and Jikaria, the other election candidates “wanted to pursue other ways of giving back to Georgetown.” six years and it was only when his pet project was on the line that he pulled out all the stops to reach the American public.

As it stands, the millennials are soon to be the largest voting bloc. We are faced with a plethora of issues ranging from failing infrastructure, to a Congress mired with bickering, to civil rights for the LGBTQ community. The issues that we face are complicated and are difficult to delineate, even if you watch the news.

This is the time when we need the president to give guidance.

We may not be in a war or a depression like FDR was, but that doesn’t mean that things have gotten easier. Now is the perfect time for Obama to take his skill in reaching the youth and help establish an informed electorate, one that is ready for the upcoming challenges. The youth got Obama elected, now it’s time for him to give back.

Use social media for non-pet projects with Sara at sainsworth@ georgetownvoice.com.

sports

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april 3, 2014

Men’s lacrosse comes up short against Denver

by Joe Pollicino This past Saturday afternoon at Multi-Sport Field, the No. 6 Denver Pioneers (8-2, 2-0 Big East), in their first year as a part of the Big East, came away with the victory against the Georgetown men’s lacrosse team (3-7, 0-3 Big East), defeating the Hoyas 17-9. The pinpoint shooting of the Pioneers as well as some untimely turnovers proved too difficult for the Hoyas to overcome, as the loss now extends their losing streak to four games.

The Hoyas jumped out to a 3-2 lead early in the first quarter after a goal by senior attack Jeff Fountain at the 4:58 mark.

However, Denver, taking advantage of some costly turnovers by the Hoyas, scored six unanswered goals to give them an 8-3 lead, with 6:12 remaining in the second period. They never looked back from the lead. Overall, Georgetown had a remarkable 20 turnovers in the contest.

“That’s a very good team. If you turn the ball over on one end of the field, they’re going to come down and attack you on the other,” Georgetown Head Coach Kevin Warne said.

Denver junior attack Wesley Berg was the star of the game for the Pioneers. Wreaking havoc on the Hoyas all game with his impeccable shooting and deft dodges, Berg scored a game-high six goals, including four in the first half, and dished out three assists.

“He’s a really good player,” Warne said. “I just thought that he decided to go, ‘Hey, you know what, everything is going to go through me. I’m going to make the decisions.’ You obviously saw that today.”

Fountain led the Hoyas with a team-high three goals. Junior attack Reilly O’Connor added one goal and game-high four assists, while senior midfielder Grant Fisher and freshman midfielder Eduardo White notched two goals apiece. Yet, despite these stats, Warne expects more from his experienced players.

“We have to just reevalute some things,” Warne said.

“The thing with us is that we are young. At times, there were four or five freshmen out there.

That’s fine, but we need just some of our upperclassmen to step up.”

Not far behind Berg of Denver were his fellow attackmen, sophomore Jack Bobzien and freshman Dallas Bridle. Bobzien scored four goals and had two assists, while Bridle tallied three goals. Warne faults his defense for allowing these sharpshooters the ample scoring opportunities they had during the game.

“There were a lot of shots that I probably would have scored on, and I’m 45 pounds overweight,” Warne said. “We have to do a better job of helping [junior goalie Jake Haley] out, just really can’t hang him out to dry.

But also, those guys can shoot into a coffee can. They’re really good shooters. If they clear their hands, there’s a very good chance it’s going to go in.”

Graduate student faceoff specialist Tyler Knarr was one bright spot for the Hoyas.

Knarr, who was named to the Big East Weekly Honor Roll for his play, won 20-of-27 face-offs for the Hoyas. But unfortunately, his teammates couldn’t convert on the offensive end.

“We had the ball a lot more than they did, and we just didn’t capitalize,” Warne said.

STEVEN CRISS

Men’s lacrosse hopes to snap their losing streak against Providence this Saturday.

“It could have been a game where it could have been ‘make it, take it.’”

With the loss to the perennial national contender Denver, Warne hopes his team can learn from the experience and use it as motivation in the process of rebuilding themselves back into a national contender.

“They’re the standard.

They’re really, really good. If we want to be really good, we got to play to their level and play above their level. I think what you saw today is a team.

That’s the league standard,” he said. “We’re not there yet. We’ll get there. Without a doubt, we’ll get there. But right now, we just have to concentrate on things we need to do to get better every game. If it ends up that way, we’ll be in good shape.”

But, aside from the long term, the Hoyas have to snap their losing streak if they want to compete in the postseason’s Big East Tournament, for which only the top four teams in the final league standings quali-

fy. Every game now counts for Warne and his team, as they enter their next game this Saturday against Providence (3-7, 0-2 Big East) at Multi-Sport Field, followed by a week off until their next matchup against Lehigh (8-4, 4-2 Patriot).

“For us, our playoffs start now,” Warne said. “We’re 0-3 in the conference, that’s the reality. We have to get a win this week against Providence, who’s going to be very motivated. It will be a good test on Saturday.”

the sports sermon

“I’m a sports fan. I think sports fans have a right to express themselves anyway they want.”-NewYork Mayor Bill de Blasio’s reaction to the boos he received after throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day.

by Chris Almeida The Washington Nationals are different from all of the other professional sports franchises that call D.C. home. No, they haven’t won a title, but the simple fact that it seems likely that they might win a championship is unique among the sports teams of this city.

The Capitals looked like a championship contender in their heyday, but hit a block in the early rounds of the postseason.

Now, they are playoff bottomfeeders that will give some excitement in the postseason, but never seriously threaten to win a Stanley Cup. The Wizards and the Redskins are similar.

Though the Skins are one of the most awful messes in the NFL, two seasons ago, despite the team making the playoffs, few believed that a deep run was in the making. The Wizards have been the same. In the Gilbert Arenas years, fans knew that no success lay beyond the first round. Even today, John Wall and friends are locked into a playoff spot, but only a fool would say that they would be able to compete with Indiana or Miami over the course of a seven game series.

The Nationals have disappointed come season’s end the past two years, but the oddsmakers and fans agree that the team is a very real threat to be playing in late October.

That’s a very rare mindset in this town. Earlier this week, as I talked about Opening Day and my fears about the season

at work, a colleague approached me and said, “Oh, please. I don’t want to hear it. I’ve had to watch the Pirates lose for two thirds of my life.” I didn’t have the heart to put him in his place.

The Montreal Expos moved to Washington and became the Nationals in 2005. Until 2011, they weren’t just bad, they were horrific. A .500 season in 2005 was deceptive as the team tanked for the next five years, losing a league-worst 103 games in 2009.

In 2011, as the team started to look up, my friends and I literally went to Nats Park and cheered for the team to reach .500. They didn’t. You could say, “Oh, five bad years isn’t so horrible. Look at how Cubs fans have had to suffer. Look at how Red Sox fans used to suffer.” The difference here? Forgetting the years before my time, I bet most of those Cubs fans got quite a bit of enjoyment from seeing Jordan’s Bulls win six titles and seeing the Blackhawks win two Stanley Cups.

Boston fans had it bad? Even as Red Sox fans were in the midst of their drought, the Patriots won three Super Bowls. Poor Pittsburgh? The Steelers and Penguins have both won titles in the last ten years. The Redskins haven’t won two consecutive playoff series since 1991. The Wizards haven’t even made the Eastern Conference Finals since 1979.

The Capitals have never won a Stanley Cup. This overwhelming tradition of losing over the last two decades is what makes the Nationals such a significant force in Washington sports. The lineup

has everything you look for in a championship contender: strong role players, established veterans, young stars, and a strong rotation. With the other teams in Washington, losing trends have curtailed any optimism I would usually have. Even after the “spectacular” 2012-2013 season, (by the way, this decade-best performance was a 10-6 record) I knew that no success was in store for the next season. And, of course, the Skins stumbled to a 3-13 record, including an eight game losing streak to close the season. The Wizards have young pieces in place this year, but I am unwilling to believe that the team will ever be a serious championship contender with only their current pieces.

What do you look for in a team? Winning. If you believe that your team has a ceiling, there comes a point in the season where watching a game is a waste of time. This is the case with every Washington team, except the Nationals.

I believe that Bryce Harper can be the best player in baseball.

I believe that Stephen Strasburg and Gio Gonzalez can lead the best pitching staff in the country. I believe that Ryan Zimmerman has all the leadership that you could ask for. And I believe that all these factors will come together this year to get what all sports fans want: wins.

Hope is what keeps us watching, and it’s certainly not abundant in Washington. But, with the Nationals, despite what has happened in the past, I refuse to believe that failure is inevitable.

sports

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 7

Track and field shines in Richmond Crew team treading water

by Sourabh Bhat The outdoor season opened for the Georgetown track team last weekend, as they traveled to the University of Richmond for the Fred Hardy Invitational. The Hoyas had a strong start to their season, winning several team and individual events.

Head Coach Patrick Henner was pleased with his team’s times, especially for graduate student Dylan Sorenson and senior Matt Howard in the steeplechase, where he believes they did enough to punch their tickets to the NCAA East Regionals in May. Other track wins for the Hoyas included senior Chelsea Cox, who won the 1500 meter with a time of 4:30:05, graduate student Amanda Kimbers, who won the 100 meter dash in 12.0 seconds, and freshman Bobbie Burgess, who won the 3000 meter run in 10:03:89.

The field events were dominated by senior Eghosa Aghayere, who

set a meet and personal record in the triple jump with a mark of 15.30 meters. This was the best distance in the Big East this year, and the eighth best distance in the country. Another strong showing in the field came from Richard D’Ambrosio, who finished third in the men’s long jump.

The Hoyas are coming off of a strong indoor season, with 12 All-American distinctions on the men’s and women’s teams. New All-American standouts Sabrina Southerland, a freshman mid-distance runner, and distance medley runners Hannah Neczypor and Deseree King, lead a strong Hoya contingent poised for a successful outdoor campaign.

Additionally, the return of Andrew Springer this outdoor season is an exciting development for the Hoyas—the graduate student is a two-time All American and a three-time Big East Champion in various distance events. He was unable to

VOICE ARCHIVES

Track and field leaps into the spring season with high expectations.

You can’t handle the truth

The world of college athletics was turned on its head Wednesday, and it only took 24 pages of writing.

Peter Sung Ohr, of the National Labor Relations Board, issueda decision last week that gives football players at Northwestern University the power to unionize, a landmark decision for college athletics Ohr’s ruling validates the Northwestern players’ claim that they should be classified as “employees” of the university and its coaching staffs. The ruling was based on the legal definition of an employee as, “a person who performs services for another under a contract of hire, subject to the other’s control or right of control, and in return for payment.”

Ohr liberally applies this definition to the lifestyle of a Northwestern football player on scholarship.

He views an athletic scholarship as a “contract,” its monetary aid as “payment,” the players’ time spent play-

ing football as “service,” and their coaches as the “other” in control. Additionally, Ohr points to the economic benefit and reputation generated for the university by the team, arguing that they also contribute to an atypical college experience for student-athletes.

By allowing the players to form a union, Ohr is also permitting them to engage in all activities typical of a union. For example, scholarship athletes would, hypothetically, have a say in matters such as practice scheduling and scholarship negotiation.

Ohr’s ruling won’t change anything in the short term. Northwestern University and the NCAA have already publicly disapproved of the decision and a conclusion to this ongoing debate likely won’t be reached for years.

What Ohr’s ruling does do, however, is provide a tangible victory for the movement among

compete during the indoor season because of a hip injury.

Next up for the track team is a trip to Palo Alto, California, for the Cardinal Invitational at Stanford University. Henner is only sending athletes he believes are capable of qualifying for the NCAA East Regionals to the Cardinal Invitational. One of those fortunate athletes making the trip is senior Max Darrah, an All-American last year. Although his times have been subpar as of late in the steeplechase event, Henner has expressed confidence in Darrah’s ability to regain his earlier form.

Despite the importance of the Cardinal Invitational, it’s not the only meet where Hoyas will be competing on Friday. Many sprinters and jumpers will compete in the Florida Relays in Gainesville, Fl., where the warm weather may foster better performances, while others will compete in the Colonial Relays in Williamsburg, Va. As the spring progresses and the weather improves, Henner feels his team will be able to build on its solid performances from earlier this season.

Overall the team is in prime position to build off its strong indoor season and excel in the spring. With established veterans already performing well, it is up to the underclassmen to make the difference for the Hoyas at the NCAA Tournament.

college athletes to earn a seat at the table in the management of their lives during college. In their view, the ability to negotiate with their superiors would effectively level the playing field in college athletics.

Rise and Fire

by Brendan Crowley A bi-weekly column about sports

The debate gets complicated, however, due to Ohr’s definition of a “student-athlete.” He finds that the time commitment and meticulous schedule of the Northwestern players, make their relationship with the coaching staff more like that of an employer and an employee than that of a school and a student.

Northwestern, on the other hand, like all colleges, advertises a “student first, athlete second,” stance. Accord-

by Arjun Gupta

After months of winter training, the Lightweight crew team’s spring season got started with a series of difficult losses against the University of Delaware and Princeton University.

According to Head Varsity Lightweight Coach Giuseppe Lanzone, the team had a very successful winter training leading up to the season.

“Every single individual is very hard working, and everything that I have thrown at them training wise, they have accomplished,” Lanzone said.

The team’s first 2,000 meter race was against Delaware on March 22 on the Potomac. The team had a total of three boats: two varsity and one novice. In the first varsity race, Georgetown lost to Delaware in a relatively close race by a little over 10 seconds. Georgetown’s time was 6:00.29.

In the second race, the Hoyas’ second varsity boat was in race with with two other Delaware boats and finished second by a mere 0.97 seconds. The novice boat raced hard in the third race, but struggled and lost to Delaware as they finished with a time of 6:33.20.

This past weekend, the team traveled to Princeton,

ing to administrators, the privilege of attending college for free is more than enough compensation for any loss of freedom a student-athlete might experience. Any call for unionization is, to them, a cry for an advantage over non-athletes.

For Ohr, and myself, this view represents a naïve characterization of an athlete’s lifestyle. College athletes, especially those in revenue-generating sports like basketball and football, are not “students first, and athletes second.”

Take our men’s basketball team. On any given day, they may participate in a high-octane practice, a cross-country trip, a nationally televised game, or a press conference. Their primary focus is not academics, and it couldn’t be even if that’s what they wanted. Their time commitment, coupled with the revenue generated by their play, makes them de facto employees of the University.

N.J. for the Fosburgh Cup to race against the Princeton Tigers. Again, all three teams were unable to win any of the races. The first varsity boat finished with a time of 6:37.80. The second varsity boat, as well as the novice boat, both struggled in their respective races.

Despite the struggles that the team has faced at the beginning of the season, Lanzone believes they can turn it around.

“I believe that boats gain speed as the season goes on and we are making sure we are improving,” he said.

While the season hasn’t exactly started out with a bang, with five races left, there is a lot of time for improvement.

Georgetown’s biggest race of the season will come on May 18 in Worcester, Mass., where they will race in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges Sprints. If they are able to place in the top seven, they will qualify for the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships.

With a long season ahead and a team that seems to be improving, it seems to be too early to write off the Lightweight team just yet. They will look to right the ship when they travel to New Haven, Ct. to face the Yale Bulldogs this Saturday.

No matter what jargon is put forth by the administration, for most, sport will be there main focus. If they were truly students first, any basketball player should be able to quit the team tomorrow to focus on his academics. Alas, such a decision would likely lead to their scholarship being taken away, and, for many, would signal the end of their ability to pay. Just a breach of contract, I suppose.

Unless universities are willing to make the educational “privilege” they claim to provide student-athletes with fully accessible, the right to unionize is a necessary concession.

The double standard of inhibiting student-athletes’ right to be “just students,” then claiming they are abusing this same right by unionizing, is laughable. Administrations need to wise up quickly, because the façade of “privilege” they have used to marginalize student-athletes for decades is slowly lifting.

feature

8 the georgetown voice

april 3, 2014

Drawing the Line How to manage creative expression at Georgetown

By Joshua Ward

Your decision to come to Georgetown probably had something to do with its location in Washington DC. Whether compelled by the capital’s bustling political culture, its robust academic community, the richness of its two and a half century history, or even by its steadily growing arts community, this town’s energy defines all who inhabit it.

The Georgetown community is not separate from the District’s dynamic personality. The University nurtures the same degree of passion and focus as the city, and mirrors the District’s incredible diversity of fields.

Like many Washingtonians, however, Georgetown students’ individual interests often align with professional goals that come to define their Georgetown experience. This career-driven atmosphere, which runs across all four undergraduate schools, is deeply ingrained in Georgetown’s undergraduate culture and leads people to make calculated choices to arrive at their career objectives.

“The academic environment is a very pre-professional environment, so it’s easy for people to say, ‘Okay this is point A, and this is point B, and this is how I’m going to get there,’” said Shweta Wahal (SFS ‘16), the Chair of the GUSA Senate Intellectual Life Committee. “Sometimes that doesn’t leave much room for things that they enjoy doing, or things outside of their primary area of interest.”

Because of the inherent need to prioritize in the pre-professional culture, creative expression is not given the attention that Georgetown’s Jesuit mission to educate the whole person implies. Arts communities remain separate from mainstream culture, and in the rigid, career orientation of the the University, expression becomes both a struggle and a sacrifice.

Once these obstacles have been overcome, students in the arts support one another and pursue mutually beneficial outlets. The incorporation of the arts can, when these obstacles are surpassed, complement all aspects of students’ lives.

“A lot of the people here are in this very professional mindset,” said Connor Rohan (COL ‘16), a member of the GU Improv Association and a student musician. “Professionalism is not fun. You need it for progress. You need it to keep society running and to keep the joints oiled. It’s very important and I commend everyone for that … but it is dulling out creativity, and that’s an issue.”

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Nicholas Giberti (COL ‘14) is majoring in Classics. He came to Georgetown planning on staying in academia and eventually becoming a Classics professor. He didn’t, however, plan on falling in love with photography and discovering a p u r suit of the arts in his post-college life.

“When I picked up photography, I kind of was reluctant to get into it in an academic sense,” Giberti said. “I’m not sure I wanted to admit to myself that that’s where my life was heading.”

Giberti found it difficult to let go of the view, firmly held by many Hoyas, that intellectual life in college should be reserved for professional ambitions. Giberti, though intending to build his career around photography in some capacity, has only taken two photography classes to date because he felt compelled to stay devoted to Classics even after he discovered his new passion.

“At Georgetown, it’s easy to get caught up in the mentality that there’s only one kind of success, that success looks like having a consulting job or having a business career,” Giberti said. “There’s definitely a sense that if you’re deviating from that path that’s somehow wrong.”

Giberti has been lucky to have supportive people around him, who have helped him come to pursue photography as his primary passion and relinquish anxieties that the Georgetown community perpetuates about

making arts a primary objective. Success, Giberti has come to realize, is possible in the arts and he can be happy doing photography after college.

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When creative expression conflicts with the Georgetown community’s professional career ambitions, not only are individuals’ artistic and creative ambitions limited, but the valuable potential for intellectual growth and the ability to develop valuable cross-disciplinary skills is compromised.

“The arts are a great way of freeing the imagination and seeing patterns that aren’t immediately obvious,” said Dr. Robynn Stilwell, an associate professor in the Department of Performing Arts and a member of Performing Arts Advisory Council.

“Creativity is a skill transferable to every other field.”

The division that exists between the arts communities on campus and more academic pursuits inhibit the growing and learning opportunities that come with the incorporation of the arts into a college education.

“It is a real shame that creativity and intellectual life are divorced on this campus,” said Chase Meacham (COL ‘14), a member of PAAC, the associate producer of Mask & Bauble and former Georgetown University Student Association Secretary for the Arts. “They ought to be linked. They are, or should be, understood as two different reflections of the same concept.”

The integration of arts more universally into a Georgetown education, would allow Hoyas to cross-fertilize their diverse interests and passions.

Applying a creative approach to academic pursuits gives students the ability to approach academic interests through an imaginative lens that reveals patterns and complex relation-

ships as well as fosters an innovative thought process.

“It’s like one of those conversations at a party where everyone is talking over one another, not to interrupt, but to add more and extend the line of thought,” said Dr. Stilwell. This extended line of thought enriches education in all concentrations, and develops skills that carry on to students’ professional careers regardless of their field.

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Katie Mitchell (COL ‘15) began her Georgetown career in the School of Foreign Service. She was immersed in economics and government requirements but she hadn’t found anything that particularly motivated her.

[Disclosure: Mitchell is a former contributor to the Voice.]

That changed when she discovered the Lannan Poetry Seminar, run through Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. Her experience with this course prompted her to return to her passion of creative writing. After her freshman year she switched to the College and is now an English and Philosophy double major.

“I think it’s kind of telling that I needed something that had the ‘and social practice’ to justify me switching,” Mitchell said. “It didn’t feel initially like I was just an English major.”

The pressure and rigidity of an intense curriculum, like that of the School of Foreign Service, limits the time that students can devote to creative pursuits. “Before I switched, I had a little bit of time to write but I had to carve it out for myself,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell switched out of the SFS in order to devote as much time as she wanted to her writing, and to less rigid, career-driven interests, but she felt as though she needed to justify this move because it cut across the grain of Georgetown’s pre-professional character.

“It’s ... frustrating because when you are so moved by something like writing, when you believe in it so much,” Mitchell said. “It’s … hard when the people close to you are kind of thinking of it as a novelty, like, ‘Oh! That’s cute, Katie does poetry.’”

georgetownvoice.com

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While each of the four schools share the same general education requirements, the SFS, McDonough School of Business, and Nursing and Health Studies School have supplementary requirements. These requirements create rigid degree structures that occupy a large portion of students schedules, especially in the first two years of college.

Despite these requirements, arts courses are open to students in any school and many students take advantage of the opportunity for studying creative interests outside of their degree requirements.

“We have nearly thirty percent of our students minor in a discipline in the College,” said Dean Norean Sharpe, senior associate dean of the MSB and director of the undergraduate program.

“Anything from government to political science to art to Italian.”

The NHS offers the same option to take courses and achieve minors in other schools. “Students are certainly able and are encouraged by their academic dean to pursue minors in Georgetown College that the student has expressed a desire for,” said Senior Assistant Dean Douglas in the School of Nursing and Health Studies. “If their desire is to pursue a social science or expressive arts focus, we will assist them in doing so.”

SFS students are able to take courses in other schools and many do, however, students are unable to minor across schools. “We don’t have any minors, so that’s a topic for the curriculum committee,” said Dean James Reardon-Anderson, acting dean of the School of Foreign Service.

“A student who simply wanted to do a major in the SFS would have enough free electives to do something in the arts if that was their priority,” said Dean Reardon-Anderson. “I couldn’t be more enthusiastic about students who are going into the arts.”

Even though students often feel as though their work in arts departments is fruitless when not recognized by a certificate or a major or a minor, this does not diminish the possibility of academic involvement with the arts.

“Although some of the degree programs make a recognition of creative work difficult, for instance, the recognition of a minor in music or theatre,” Stilwell said, “the opportunity is there.”

♦♦♦

feature

Celeste Chen (COL ‘14) has been drawing and painting since she was six years old. She is a visual arts and neurobiology double major and she came to Georgetown because she knew that she would have the chance to balance her passion for art with her aspirations to a career in medicine.

“Coming into Georgetown I said, ‘No matter what I study I want to also major in art because I want to give it justice,’” Chen said. “But it has been ... a dance to fit in both majors.”

The numerous requirements of these two majors have been demanding, and the price has been her inability to take any electives until this semester, the spring semester of her senior year.

The visual arts department allows for students to undertake their own, independ e n t projects.

“ E v e n though there aren’t many classes offered by the art department,” Chen said, “they allow you to do individual projects on your own time and on your own schedule.”

One obstacle that Chen has faced in her involvement with the arts is the lack of a community surrounding her work. The department is small, and there is no space to congregate and hang out with other majors.

“I wouldn’t say there’s a community just because it’s 10 or fewer majors per year in each concentration,” Chen said. “We don’t have couches or like a lounge area in Walsh the way that other departments have, so there’s no central place to chill.”

There also lacks a proper venue for students to display their work, which diminishes the visibility of the already marginalized community on campus.

“You have Midnight Mug,” Chen said, “but that’s also home to the finals wall and the photos that people take

the georgetown voice 9

when they go to Africa. It’s not just student art.”

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The visual arts’ disparate community is not representative of other arts communities on campus. The music community, for example, though small, offers an incredible amount of cross-promotion and support for other student musicians.

“Because the music scene is so small, the resources that are available go all to me and a couple of other bands,” said Mary Ellen Funke (COL ‘15), a member of The Saxatones, and lead singer of a student band, Mellen. “There are around 10 of us who are utilizing something that if we were at an arts school would be in very high demand.”

The small community not only allows those in-

volved to have access to the necessary resources, but students who are involved get to know each other and encourage each other and often even collaborate on projects.

“I think that a huge part of promoting yourself as an artist is promoting other people,” said Colin O’Connor (COL ‘13), bassist for the once on-campus band, Betsy and the Bicycles. “The worst mistake you can make as an artist is not to promote your peers also.”

GU Jam Sesh, an initiative started by Gianfranco Nuschese (COL ‘14), works with student bands to increase visibility on campus and cross-promote with one another. Though bands struggle to manage the neighborhood’s strict noise ordinance policy, and to find venues which will attract greater student turn out, initiatives like this one have demonstrated the supportive and nurturing nature of the Georgetown music community.

“I expected us to have a lot of roadblocks on the way and paved the way for kids to do it next year,” Nuschese said. “I did it for the kids in front of me, just because I love musicians.”

Even more beneficial than the support from student members of arts communities is the support from arts faculty in every department who support their students on a personal level. This support is apparent in every department, and professors seek to develop personal relationships and help guide their students in their pursuit of the arts.

“The theater program is intimate.

The professors know our names — all our names,” said Meacham. “There’s a kind of intimacy that comes from working so closely together, and the result is both an intellectual and artistic magic.”

♦♦♦

While the state of the creative culture at Georgetown may seem frail and lacking the robust attention that many of the other communities on campus have, student artists say the situation is improving.

“It’s so much better than it was when I was a freshman,” said O’Connor. “It’s like Leo’s. Everyone complains about Leo’s but it is so much better than it was when I was a freshman.”

The departments are growing, students are getting more involved, and communities are developing in all aspects of creative culture at Georgetown. Student government is working to increase awareness and support for the arts from students, faculty and administrators alike.

“I’m working on doing a certificate program in the arts with hopes that it would, you know, be a way to formalize SFS students’ engagement in the arts,” said Anna Celenza, chair of the Music Department. “My goal with this certificate is that it won’t just be theatre but it will be theatre, [musical] theatre, and visual arts.”

The administration is also very much on board with the increased emphasis on the arts and growth of the creative culture at Georgetown.

“Our new provost really believes in cross school pollination, in cross fertilization,” said Dr. Maya Roth, Chair of the Department of Performing Arts. “It seems to me that if there was going to be that kind of move, its a good moment for it.”

Additional reporting by Shalina Chatlani and Dayana Morales-Gomez

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

april 3, 2014

Mask & Bauble’s She Loves Me finds love in a hopeless place

by Manuela Tobias With its comical lyrics and endearing storyline, She Loves Me sweeps the stage of Poulton Hall with a kinetic performance that inspires smiles all around.

The musical takes place in 1937 in an inviting, polished parfumerie lined with tubes of Mona Lisa cold cream, flowery scents and a charming, suave ensemble of clerks that set the aesthetic ambiance of the play.

Beauty abounds as polka dots and layered, sheer florals flow

around the lipstick-garnished women who tend to and patronize the shop. Suspenders, bowties and dapper, albeit slightly large, suits decorate the humorous male cast.

The play centers around a cheesy-sounding plot: a man and a woman fall in love through a correspondence found in a lonely hearts club, oblivious to the fact that they in fact work together at the parfumerie and, coincidentally, loathe each other. Amalia, played

by Reagan Lawn (COL ‘16), and Georg Nowack, played by Matt

“OH MY GOD, Becky! Look at her butt... TUNECHI!”

MANUELA TOBIAS

Fine dining at the waterfront

We all harp on how much we hate Leo’s. It’s just a fact of Georgetown life. Though it is not “home-cooked,” Leo’s can offer some foods that you would otherwise not feed yourself.

Sometimes, the standard hummus-and-pita-chips or the pizza diet is lacking.

Most people already know how to use Leo’s to simply fill their bellies every week. But I want to focus on the food. No, this is not a “how to get the most bang for your buck” column.

This isn’t even an column regarding the refined art of filling up tupperware at Leo’s. Instead, our goal is to finally make you realize that if your Leo’s experience is not great, you can change it! It’s “Leo’s Self-Help 101.”

Our instincts point us to an ancestral, nomadic way of hunting and prowling through Leo’s in search of food. These are all methods that can help us find the best nutrition. The difficulty in finding ingredients is like the

struggle to find hunting weapons. This new way of eating at Leo’s requires extreme independence and self-reliance. It’s like the Hunger Games of meals.

What did our ancestors eat?

Some argue that the answer lies in the modern Paleo Diet, which proposes that human genetic makeup has hardly changed since nomadic times, and as such we are best suited to eat a diet consisting in fruit and vegetables, nuts, eggs, and some meat and seafood. However, there is a lot of debate about this assertion, with some people calling it a mere “fad diet,” and so I would not advise anyone to go cold-turkey on mashed potatoes or pasta.

Potentially more sound advice is, “Listen to your body,” as my mother has told me a thousand times over. These are not empty words. The ancient Indian science of Ayurveda proposes just that. It is based on three fundamental concepts: the

Grisier (COL ‘16), steal tidbits of time from their job selling lotion and perfume and on-the-side bickering, each adoringly admires letters the other has written. The outcome of this trope-laden story is obvious: the two must eventually meet face to face.

The protagonists and their colleagues explore entertaining takes on blind dates as the reveal of the pen pals’ identities approaches.

The topics of the lyrics range from death to marriage.

The musical shifts from the predictable and corny to the realistic and charming when Amalia and Georg do not confront their identities as each other’s blind dates. Instead, letter-writing identities still unknown, they engage in yet another argument, this time against the comical background of waiter Kyle O’Donnell’s (COL ’16) endeavor to maintain a “romantic atmosphere” (in a pseudo German or Austrian accent).

This argument, alongside the ensuing ice-cream-packed consolation over a purported no-show of Amalia’s “dear friend,” involving a comic characterization of the mystery man as old and balding, launches the two into an entirely more realistic love story character-

ized by smiles, companionship and gradual joint walks to the bus stop.

The musical does not hinge on this evolving love story alone, however, but rather is composed of a series of musical monologues, energetic chases and parallel story lines.

Amalia’s friend, played by Zoe Rosen (COL ‘17) has her own love interest: Mr. Kodaly, played by Peter Fanone (COL ’15). Their interactions offer some of the most entertaining scenes, with an irresistible sexual tension as Fanone’s sly, debonair nature seduces Ilona, only to crush her hopes with excuses to miss their dates. The seduction materializes in talented, captivating performances with great vocal projection and dynamic stepping, stomping, gliding on the stage.

She Loves Me displays a pleasing tendency to dispel the predictable, as Ilona’s life seemingly transforms after a resignation from emotional vulnerability and trip to the library.

Rather than the intimidating rows upon rows of timeless literary classics, it is another man’s “deep brown eyes” that allow Ilona to discover “the magic of books.”

Will Redmond’s (COL ’15) character, Ladislav, initially seems a supplementary, awkward clerk, but his quirky, optimistic and simulta-

first is that food is medicine, the second that disease can be prevented and eliminated through daily habits, and the third, that each individual requires a different lifestyle based on their physical, mental, and emotional composition.

The age-old adage, “You are what you eat” is not so banal after all. After all, “ayu” means life, and “veda” means knowledge, so this practice is quite literally the science of life.

this may be in our individual body compositions and genetic inheritances.

While my ancestors were predominantly Italian, and so most likely survived on a Mediterranean diet, hers are Welsh, who historically, due to their mountainous environment, consumed much higher levels of meat and carbohydrates.

My friend’s makeup makes it healthier for her to consume a very different diet than the one that is best suited to me. This is what Ayurveda is all about: individualization.

What does all this mean for your daily Leo’s experience?

For one thing, it means that not everyone should visit the pasta line every night, but also that not all people can be healthy foraging at the salad bar. After all, as Oscar Wilde once reminded us, “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” The best way to hunt in the dining hall is to get a little bit of everything, and not to “eat healthy” one meal by having a huge pile

Eating Out

by Sabrina Kayser A bi-weekly column about food This secret has been made clear to me many times over.

Here is one example: I am a vegetarian, and have been so my whole life. I tend to eat in the fashion of the Mediterranean diet. One of my friends, on the other hand, is a lover of meat and grains. She tried to be a vegetarian for quite a while, but it did not make her feel good physically. The reason for

neously nihilistic solo “Perspective” offers a dynamic, hilarious addition that raises him, too, to the spotlight.

Even the transitions offer a comedic refresher, as Arpad, played

by Andrew Walker (SFS ’16), points to the lights with a cheery “It’s winter!” Worry not, for Walker’s innocent, clumsy and sweet character banish the seeming corniness of the blatant transitions. Mr. Maraczek, played by Harrison Wilken (COL ’14), additionally offers a break from the romantic storyline with a dramatic plot twist.

“The fact that every character gets a chance to step out of the show and shine by themselves as well as part of the entire ensemble is just absolutely fantastic,” Grisier said.

The musical’s comical lyrics, stunning performances of unique characters and charming twists away from a predictable plot ultimately achieve director Katie Rosenberg’s (COL ’14) endeavor to provide “a breath of fresh air” from the darker, heavier themed Mask & Bauble productions.

Poulton Hall April 3-5, 9-12 at 8 p.m.

April 6 at 2 p.m. $8

of lettuce, and then gorging on fries the next.

The best Leo’s meal has balance as its main principle, in dishes like a varied quinoa salad. Variety is helpful in keeping meals healthy and exciting, and Leo’s does offer it if you look hard enough. For instance, for dinner last night I had an arugula salad with quinoa, guacamole, bean sprouts, celery, pico de gallo, artichokes, black bean hummus, and pita bread. There is variety at Leo’s after all if you look hard enough for it.

Maybe all we need to do is indulge our creativity when we make our meals, as well as our most primal instincts that encourage an enthusiastic kind of foraging. Maybe, instead of complaining about the menu at O’Donovan’s on the Waterfront, we should look at it as a challenge to employ our culinary inventiveness and problem solving skills.

Set up an Leo’s date with Sabrina at skayser@georgetownvoice.com

georgetownvoice.com

“Fuck, I sound like a gay grandma.” — Frances Ha

CONCERT CALENDAR Friday 4/04 Skaters with Team Spirit Rock & Roll Hotel, 8 p.m., $20 WEDNESDAY 4/09 All That Remains with Darkest Hour and Wilson 9:30 Club, 8 p.m., $20 The Wanted Fillmore Silver Spring, 8 p.m., $35 friday 4/11 Flight Facilities with Will Eastman 9:30 Club, 11 p.m., $20 saturday 4/12 The Sounds 9:30 Club, 6 p.m., $20 Wednesday 4/16 Cloud Nothings with Ryley Walker Black Cat, 9 p.m., $15 Thursday 4/17 We Are Scientists with Paws Black Cat, 9 p.m., $15 Sunday 4/20 Tycho with Gardens & Villa 9:30 Club, 8 p.m., $20

Watergate Italian warrants inspection

by Dayana Morales Gomez

wednesday 4/23 Tech N9ne Howard Theatre, 8 p.m., $30 thursday 4/24 Galantis 9:30 Club, 10 p.m., $30 Musiq Soulchild Howard Theatre, 8 p.m., $35 The Ripples Treehouse Lounge, 10 p.m.

SATURDAY 4/26 Perfect Pussy with Yamantaka & Sonic Titan DC9, 9:30 p.m., $14 Fanfarlo with Lillies on Mars U Street Music Hall, 7 p.m., $20 SATURDAY 5/03 Tensake with Ray Casil U Street Music Hall, 10 p.m., $10 MONDAY 5/05 Jessy Lanza Black Cat, 8 p.m., $12 TUESDAY 5/06 Wye Oak with Brides 9:30 Club, 8 p.m., $22

the georgetown voice 11

Richard Nixon brought notoriety to the Watergate complex almost half a century ago when he sent his henchmen to break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Fortunately, the building still stands today, and we’re able to march on in to buy pizza and sandwiches.

Campono is the second restaurant owned by chef Bob Kinkead, who also owns the neighboring Ancora. Both Italian restaurants are situated in the retail spaces in the lower level of the Watergate complex.

Kinkead, a self-taught chef, opened Campono in the old space of a once-cafe, Cup’a Cup’a, choosing to create a more casual space than his upscale Ancora. The only meals served are pizza, salads, and subs. In one corner of the restaurant is a coffee shop, making the usual lattes but also serving gelato.

Not even the elegant makeup of the restaurant takes away from its down-to-earth feel. Though the lamps and upscale décor suggest an expensive dine, the joint prides itself on its everyday appeal. The table spread is much like at any other pizza house, complete with cheese, salt, and pepper, and everyone is self-seated. The restaurant even looks out for its hipster audience, with a wall of mason jars filled with fruits and vegetables available for purchase.

The menu options are fairly varied, with choices in pizza, salads, cold subs, and hot subs of all sorts. The coffee shop has hot and cold espresso drinks and desserts.

I ordered a chicken and pancetta sub. The sandwich contained arugula, avocado, and pesto, along with the meat. My sub was came on a nondescript paper plate. Luckily, it was more impressive than its presentation would suggest.

The ingredients all came together quite nicely, but it was the delicate but firmly toasted bread that really stood out. It was crunchy but not hard, thick but not overwhelming, and it didn’t take away from the taste of the rest of the food.

Of course, this being an Italian restaurant, their specialty comes in the pizza—but for your own sake, branch out from a simple pepper-

oni. Campono’s selection includes the well-known flavors of margherita and napoletana, along with some other red and white pizzas—even a build-your-own option. All are available for order by the slice or the pie.

Their other speciality is certainly the gelato. Even in the traditional chocolate and vanilla, it was rich and striking. The not-too-sweet gelato is topped with a mini biscotti. The plastic, colored cups create an amusing visual experience that isn’t too bougie.

In fact, the cashier-cum-gelato artist sported a high neck tattoo—Ronald Reagan wouldn’t approve.

In its location by the Kennedy Center, and a short walk from the Waterfront, the locale is worth a visit.

With many kinds of foods and desserts, be sure to show up hungry. It’s worth the extra buck you would have saved at Domino’s or Subway.

Campono makes sure it caters to only the most impeachable politicians.

campono

Spicing up the hero film, new Captain America marvels the District

by Connor Letendre Captain America is back! The World War II hero who helped save the world in Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers has returned, once again fighting to save the world.

Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, and Scarlett Johansson all reprise their roles working for the fictional defense organization,

S.H.I.E.L.D. in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

In an exciting change of pace from every superhero movie ever, New York City is not the setting of the intense skyscraper-destroying action that has come to be expected from the genre. Instead, it is primarily set in Washington D.C. The movie begins with a scene to reassure everyone that Captain

You could probs land a plane on those pecs.

imdb

America and the Black Widow (played by Evans and Johansson, respectively) are still capable of taking out any number of enemies, with minimal assistance from the team of soldiers sent to back them up.

At this point, the movie picks up the theme of the government having a hyperactive role in ensuring the “safety” of the entire planet, as seen in 1984 or Eagle Eye. S.H.I.E.L.D. has developed a fleet of massive airborne ships to eliminate threats before they happen, a frightening prospect for the free world. When control of these weapons falls into the wrong hands it is up to Captain America to save the world, and fight the mysterious Winter Soldier.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a superhero sequel. The pacing is different from the first one—any sequel to a superhero movie has to be in order to be successful. In the first film, Captain America went through the

transformation of becoming a superhero and underwent the trial and error of saving lives. Any following movie can no longer have the buildup of a hero growing to his full potential.

In a sequel, the buildup has to come from something else. The new Captain America does this well by having the villain slowly evolve. It is not until well into the movie that the ultimate plan of the antagonists becomes clear.

In the original movie, Captain America was fighting the Nazis, so there was little for the movie to build upon that audiences weren’t already aware of.

Marvel has once again created an impressive film. Like all of the movies in the Avengers universe (Iron Man, Thor, and so on) the production quality is fantastic. The visual effects are incredible, designers added a massive tower to Rosslyn and it seemed to actually belong there (though us frequenters of the GUTS bus

know it’s no architectural marvel, pun intended). Throughout the movie there were car crashes, explosions, and all sorts of new technology which were all up to the expectations that have come to be expected of Marvel movies.

Though these stunts and gadgets seem to be getting more and more ridiculous, it is still fun to see Marvel create them on the big screen.

Ultimately, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a fun continuation of the Marvel universe. Its beloved characters return and the movie is entertaining. While it is certainly no Iron Man, it succeeds in producing shocking twists and the occasional laugh. If you’re a big fan of the Avengers, and you liked the first Captain America you should definitely see it. Still, if you want more than just a cheesy, average superhero movie you might be better off saving your money by waiting for the DVD release.

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

april 3, 2014

C r i t i c a l V o i c es

Mac DeMarco, Salad Days, Captured Tracks Beneath his dirty and bayou-esque (although incredibly sexy, if I do say so myself) persona, Mac DeMarco is the archetypal musician. He plays music because he loves to— not because he cares about the fame.

Despite the inherent challenges that come with eschewing the suffocating music industry, DeMarco has managed to put out some good work over the years, and his most recent release, Salad Days, is no exception.

I admit I’ve had a bit of an obsession with DeMarco’s work for a while now. I instantly fell in love with his second album 2 the moment it debuted. I was eager to listen to Salad Days, because I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Would DeMarco continue to utilize his characteristically

twanging guitar riffs or those jazzy undertones that evoke a sense of Lou Reed’s Transformer? Based off of the the way the album was promoted, it was difficult to tell.

In this new album, DeMarco successfully incorporates several intriguing synthesizer rhythms into his existing aesthetic in a way that isn’t played out or overdone. Instead, the album comes together in a way that is both tasteful and absolutely infatuating.

Songs like “Treat Her Better,” and “Blue Boy” are lyrically simple, but still entrancing and enjoyable. DeMarco’s voice is captivating and even more developed than it was in previous works. While there are several songs on this album that are predictable in the sense that they don’t deviate much from 2, there is also a range of songs that do offer something very new and cool.

The leading single from the album, “Passing Out Pieces,” is one song that’s difficult to stop listening to. In this oddly mysterious synthheavy track, DeMarco seems to express his dismay with the restrictive music industry. In his lyrics, he criticizes the idea that artists have to succumb to label pressure in order to get anywhere. It’s precisely this attitude, expressed through his music, which makes DeMarco so appealing.

Cleaning the artist closet

I don’t know the first thing about rap, but I know that Eminem is awesome. It’s not just his devilish delivery, his introspective lyrics, or his self-aware sense of humor that makes Eminem such a powerhouse.

Instead, like all fantastic and memorable musicians, he has the courage and creativity needed to evolve his sound.

I knew all of Eminem’s hits like “Stan” and “Without Me,” but I decided to delve into his extensive discography only a few weeks ago. Like listening to any artist with more than three full-length albums, listening to all of Eminem’s stuff takes a lot of work. It’s hard to give all of his material enough attention to remember it well, especially since most of his LPs are upwards of an hour long.

But diving into an artist’s huge back catalog is well worth the effort if that artist or group changed their musical style over the course of their career. In fact, I think that the only

artists worth paying any attention to after their first couple releases are the ones who make a clear attempt to be creative.

Take Eminem as an example. On his first two major releases, The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem’s songs are generally stripped down and have relatively simple hip-hop beats. The rap vocals, on the other hand, are anything but simple, with Eminem throwing out a stream of memorable rhymes.

There are plenty of good rap vocalists out there, but Eminem’s lyrics set him apart. Every song is either funny or profound, and Eminem’s early work addresses everything from attempts to censor his music to the emergence of other white rappers, whom Eminem calls out for copying his style and image.

Eminem’s two most recent albums, however, Recovery and The Marshall Mathers LP 2 are a major style shift for the trailblazing, “do what I want” rapper. Now his mu-

Salad Days certainly highlights DeMarco’s range—the intricacy of songs like “Chamber of Reflection,” are contrasted with the simple “Let My Baby Stay.” Audiences will appreciate his dedication to a type of sound that is—and will always be— his own. His authentic connection with the audience is not lost.

DeMarco is truly the type of artist that doesn’t sell out, and yet, he’s got all of us, especially me, buying.

Voice’s Choices: “Treat Her Better,” “Passing Out Pieces” —Shalina Chatlani

Kaiser Chiefs, Education, Education, Education & War, ATO If a haunted house with some serious political grievances put on a 46-minute rock show, you might get sic is much poppier, with Eminem bringing on the likes of Rihanna and Pink to belt out the choruses on the tracks “Love the Way You Lie” and “Won’t Back Down,” respectively.

His songs aren’t biting attacks on the world and the industry any longer; now they are catchier and more accessible a wider assortment of fans.

Deadbeats

by Ryan Greene A bi-weekly column about music I applaud artists for changing it up like that. Some people might look at Eminem’s shift and call him a “sellout,” claiming that he’s just taken the easy way out by making poppier music to sell more singles.

That’s the wrong way to look at it.

After a tremendously successful first album, the hardest thing to do is to look at that success and ask “Ok, how do I let go of that creative energy and find something else that will work?” It takes guts to be different in the music industry, but the best art-

something resembling Kaiser Chief’s latest release, Education, Education, Education & War. The record is just as bizarre as this description suggests—it’s at once upbeat and threatening; irate, yet spooky. Basically, it’s The Killers meets “The Monster Mash”—you think you’re getting a standard alternative-rock sound, but the hints of ghostly weirdness transform it into something else entirely.

Education opens with “The Factory Gates,” a rebellious anthem in which eerie synth melodies meet feverish guitar riffs. There’s an edge to Ricky Wilson’s voice as he sings about the oppression of the worker, though it’s unclear whether he realizes that Marx has beaten him to the punch by about 150 years. Some of the lyrics turn out to be less revolutionary than obvious: “You are contractually tied to the store.” (Well, yes, that’s what it means to be an employee.)

The agitated tone pushes forward into “Misery Company,” where fierce guitar hooks clash with menacing military references: “Reporting for duty / Stripes on my sleeve.” The attempt at seriousness is somewhat undermined by a maniacal repetition of “mwha ha ha!” which occurs periodically throughout the song. This laugh track was probably intended ists make it work and change it up again and again.

Artists can improve their sound even after bad reception. Seahaven, for example, got a lot of criticism after their first full-length album, Winter Forever, hit on the same themes and sounded very similar to their first EP, but without the same level of energy. Seahaven’s second fulllength came out earlier this week with a completely new style for the band. Early Seahaven is chock full of distorted power chords and other heavy rock musical styles, but their recent stuff is an extremely subdued stroll through space with droney guitars and somber vocal delivery.

Fans not only need to be more accepting of their favorite artists’ style changes, they need to embrace the changes. A new sound and new musical concepts are signs of creative energy, signs that the artist still cares about impressing someone out there with something they’ve never done before.

The worst kind of band or artist is one that does the same thing over

to sound darkly ironic, but instead brings to mind a wild-eyed Disney Ursula, convulsing in evil glee.

This distorted, sinister voice crops up again in “Cannons,” ordering the listener to “Look alive / Pick a side!”

The track then closes with a two-minute war poem, the rather sensationally titled “The Occupation (of Damnation Eternal).” Read by Bill Nighy, it depicts a sort of exaggerated world meltdown, a political doomsday of the V for Vendetta variety.

Despite the tendency towards melodrama, Kaiser Chiefs loads their album with enough solid rock melodies to keep you hooked for a few go-rounds. “My Life” and “Coming Home” emerge as standout tracks— the latter seems to hint at an unrealized artistic potential by the band.

It seems, in their hurry to whip the listener up into a revolutionary frenzy, Kaiser Chiefs forgo subtlety and genuine emotion, which emerge only in a few tracks. Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned here for the band: much as they’re like to lead the charge in overthrowing the system, revolution just isn’t quite their style.

Voice’s Choices: “My Life,” “Coming Home” —Andrea Keklak and over again. Those artists might have moderate success for the duration of their career, but they won’t be remembered for it. To impact a genre, musicians have to take risks.

Sometimes a new product isn’t as good as the old stuff, but that doesn’t matter. Artists are just people—always changing. To demand that their artistic output stay the same for the duration of their career is to deny the fundamental fact that they will grow and their ideas about what their work means will change.

All artistic works are judged in context. Nothing can be reviewed just “for what it is.” The best context to apply to a band’s new album is comparing it to what that band did before. It’s a fair benchmark because it asks bands to improve only in their own terms.

I may sound demanding when I say that nothing is impressive unless it differs from before, but that’s the only way progress is made.

Just lose it with Ryan at rgreene@ georgetownvoice.com

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the georgetown voice 13

— Dylan Cutler

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14 the georgetown voice

april 3, 2014

Cura Technologis: Online classes abandon the ‘whole person’

by Amanda Wynter “Go to class at the beach. Go to class on top of the Eiffel Tower. Go to class during your lunch break,” a March 18 email from Georgetown promised. According to the website description, Georgetown Summer School online “feature[s] the same content and objectives as on-campus courses offered in the fall, spring, and summer.” Somehow, we have found a way to translate the entire classroom experience into HTML and plan to make it available starting summer 2014.

To be specific, Georgetown plans on offering courses in Government, History, Human Science, Philosophy, and Writing. Not Computer Science or Intro to Statistics— the kinds of courses that students often find doable without lectures or even a small discussion section. Online summer classes will be the very courses that require engagement, face-to-face dialogue, and are the courses that I would argue stand at the core of Georgetown’s values. If Georgetown wishes to claim that it is unique because of its Jesuit values

and Jesuit education model, it probably should not dilute the liberal arts core that makes it what it is.

“Writing represents a rhetorical act. In other words, it depends on one’s sense of others,” the syllabus for the online writing class states.

In the Philosophy class, “you will learn how to engage in a reasoned debate about these questions.” Because, after all, “this knowledge is essential for effective citizenship and activism.” The descriptions for these classes sound similar, if not identical, to those we might receive in the classroom. However, the means by which many of these objectives are met in the classroom are stripped away. How are we to get a “sense of others” if the class is designed to avoid sitting in a classroom with others?

Though online forums and discussion boards provide meaningful dialogue and a space to pose thoughtful questions, they cannot replace the experience of looking someone who disagrees with you in the eye and debating them. Rhetoric is much more than acquiring content. The skills

required for communication and persuasion are not transferrable via a Google hangout.

In fact, the idea that the knowledge needed for “effective citizenship and activism” could be found in a textbook—or a PDF for that matter—displays a sorely misguided understanding of citizenship.

Confronting difference, recognizing pluralism, and respecting others’ opinions—these are the experiences that we gain in the liberal arts and the skills that we use as citizens in the public sphere. Even as a student with abnormal reverence for old texts and the old men who wrote them, I know that my education really happens in practice, rather than by memorization and recollection of facts and theories.

With the lack of information provided regarding the format of these courses, we are left to speculate. So, these online courses will assign readings, possibly weekly blog posts, perhaps a recorded lecture, and maybe even a coordinated videoconference.

Don’t get me wrong—these tools are not inherently bad. In-

deed, they aid classroom participation and round out our experience.

They cannot, however, replicate the experience.

Humanities courses are important for the real and uncomfortable situations that arise when students disagree, or are forced to confront one another. We bypass those situations by cutting out the classroom, ultimately a decision that may prove problematic for graduates in the workforce—many employers cite “team work,” “effective communication,” and “ability to engage with others who are different from yourself” as the most important skills with which graduates can enter the workforce. If Georgetown slowly chips away at the courses that form the foundation of these experiences, it can forget about preparing its students for the global economy and living for others.

Cura Personalis calls for care of the whole person—care for each aspect of the individual. I wonder, though, what happens when that person is not capable of communicating ideas to others offline because the social, dare I say human,

parts of their existence were left alone to degenerate.

This idea may sound a bit extreme now. After all, they are just a few courses. Large and most likely uneventful, these intro courses may be more beneficial if we could just take them without fear of landing a bad TA or sleeping through class. I imagine that Georgetown believes that it is doing students a favor, that “these are just intro classes, upper-levels will surely do the trick!”

But, while I know that intro courses are not the most important, I fear that the habit of sidestepping the classroom will only become more prevalent. With the movement towards Massive Open Online Courses, “skills-based learning” and more technology than we know what to do with, we may be looking at the decline of personal student engagement and the birth of Cura Technologis.

Amanda Wynter is a senior in the College.

She is graduating in May, but still wants to make one last stand against Skynet! ... I mean, online classes.

Transfer students not feeling the love from Georgetown housing

by James Constant It’s an open secret at Georgetown and it’s an unhappy reality for a few hundred incoming Hoyas every year. Transfer students are treated like second-class students by the University and something has to be done about it.

As the situation stands now, incoming transfer students are housed in a motley mess of leftover spots.

One wide-eyed sophomore from Rutgers might get lucky and end up somewhere like VCE 3, a floor that was almost entirely transfers this

year … or she might get thrown into an empty bed in an almost-full Henle. Nothing could sour a first-year transfer’s experience more than being the odd one out in an apartment full of best friends. Nobody wants to be that rando.

There are a few simple things that wouldn’t require much effort from the University that would better the experiences of every transfer. Most importantly, Georgetown should at least designate a few floors in the Southwest Quad, VCE or Copley as transfer floors. This step should be pretty easy if the people

Why can’t we be friends? Why can’t we be friends?

LEILA LEBRETON

in charge of housing are willing to put in a few hours of extra work. I’m not asking the University to build a brand new dorm for transfers, but since they’re already building the Northeast Triangle, why not house transfers there? I can’t think of a reason not to. It would be much more appealing to prospective transfers than the possibility of living in an LXR basement room with an unenthusiastic senior roommate.

“I think it made it harder to feel a part of a close-knit community that a hall environment sometimes offers,” said Margaret Stebbins (COL ‘15), a transfer from Davidson College, of her experience living in Henle.

“I didn’t have an easily accessible group of people at the beginning to go to Leo’s with when it was dinnertime or to just hang out with.”

The University already puts a lot of effort into helping out transfers.

I’ve never felt at a loss for resources.

There are even separate New Student Orientation (NSO) events for transfers. They had a transfer-only cruise on the Potomac last August. A cruise. But the reality is that for most transfers, NSO just isn’t meaningful.

“Honestly, no one showed up to my NSO,” said Helen Sprainer (SFS ’16), who transferred from the University of Rochester last fall. “Everyone was like, ’fuck this, we’ve done college before.’ We didn’t need to

sit through an orientation that said not to drink and how to get your homework done. … I’d say living with other transfers would be much more important than an orientation no one takes seriously.”

Jamil Hashmi (COL ’16), who left Hamilton College for Georgetown, agreed. “I did NSO with these people, and then I never saw them again, because I didn’t know where they lived. I have one friend from NSO, and that’s because she was on my ESCAPE trip,” he said. “I don’t think NSO was effective because transfers weren’t a unified group.

I told a representative for Trevor and Omika that they should have transfers living together on the same floors… I think that the biggest issue with the transfer experience is that we don’t live together.”

It’s not just the housing assignment process that’s working against transfers. The roommate selection process is pretty bad as well—because there isn’t one. Transfers are the only students on campus who can’t choose their roommate. There’s absolutely no reason why CHARMS can’t be modified to accommodate incoming transfers along with freshmen. I know Georgetown isn’t so strong in computer science, but come on. The administration can do this.

“I think that if I had CHARMS available, I wouldn’t have matched

with my current roommate and I probably would have had a better time this year,” said Hashmi.

GUSA’s new Vice President Omika Jikaria agrees. She’s pushing to reconvene the GUSA Transfer Committee as an advocacy organization for first-year transfers.

“A major part of the Transfer Council is making it so that there is a way for incoming transfer students to select their roommate,” she said.

Transfers are just as special as other Georgetown students.

For 2012, the last year on record, the transfer acceptance rate was 13 percent. Transfers aren’t leftover students, and they shouldn’t be getting leftover housing. The University should acknowledge the transfer community’s place at Georgetown by making housing decisions that take into account the well-being of their students. For now, unfortunately, it looks like transfers will continue to deal with the worst housing options the University has to offer.

James Constant is a sophomore in the College. It’s hard to get feelings out of Nyoozies, but we all need a break from the dictatorial regime of News once in a while.

voices

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the georgetown voice 15

Implications of poverty reach deeper than students’ wallets

by Grace May Although middle school lunchroom politics should be far beneath Georgetown students, cafeterias can still feel like bizarre social experiments, with students segregating themselves into groups by clubs, gender, and race. Leo’s Dining Hall is no exception.

A quick glance around the room reveals some obvious divisions within our Hoya population, but there are other less visible, yet equally troubling processes of segregation occurring at Georgetown that are rarely addressed. The diversity of student experiences tied to socioeconomic status are often left unexamined and the practice of con-

fronting class issues has not yet entered the collective conscious of the Georgetown student body.

This lack of recognition perpetuates a chronic marginalization of lower-income students, who arguably need the most support during their college years.

The transition into college can be challenging and even traumatic for any student—however, it is critical to acknowledge the added difficulties that come with being an exception to the standard of wealth that exists at an elite university like Georgetown.

Kaley Palanjian (COL ‘16) serves as the mentorship coordinator for the Georgetown Scholarship Program, which is one of the few organizations on campus that is directed primarily at the needs

From Leo’s to M St., the division is everywhere.

LEILA LEBRETON

Activism across decades

My generation can be divided into two types of people: those who care about making the world a better place and those who just don’t.

Of those of us who care about civil issues and activism, many of us fawn over what it would be like to live in the 1960’s. “Man, I should have been born in that decade. I was meant to be born in that decade,” they whine. Although these comments stem from annoyance with the general Millennial, Generation Me narcissism, they miss the point entirely.

The first problem with the activism of our generation is that it glamorizes the 60’s.

I remember the first time I watched Across the Universe. My friends and I, part of the small group of students at my high school that cared about social change, drooled over it. The interplay of plot and Beatles songs gave the music a whole new aggressive interpretation.

I brought this bad ass, stickit-to-the-man film home, excited to show my parents, who both left for college in 1968 and

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of low-income and first generation college students. Palanjian considers GSP to be an important resource for low-income students who need help navigating and negotiating unfamiliar territory.

“It’s about way more than just a difference in money. There is a huge culture shock, and low-income students often have a lack of social and cultural capital,” Palanjian says.

Palanjian sees the peer mentorship program as an essential step in eliminating disadvantages for GSP students, saying, “Part of GSP is giving students a network and the other part is giving students a support system in this unfamiliar environment they are transplanted into.” This crucial cultural component of being in the socioeconomic minority at Georgetown is usually downplayed or glossed over completely. These differences sometimes manifest in seemingly small ways, but the final result is more exaggerated divisions within the student body.

Perhaps the most obvious daily point of tension along the socioeconomic divide is the rampant misuse of terms referring to social class. In general, an environment like Georgetown offers a very distorted representation of the financial realities of an average American family, so the inaccu-

rate self-identification of wealthy Georgetown students as “poor” and “broke” seem bizarre and even painful to the minority of students on campus who have experienced true financial hardship. The careless and uninformed usage of these labels by economically privileged students is a form of cultural appropriation in many ways and it is symptomatic of an insulated and socioeconomically homogeneous community.

The implications of poverty extend far beyond the contents of a student’s wallet: a low-income background can, and often does, entail systemic disadvantages like failing public schools, poor access to healthcare, and the realities of food insecurity. When I hear the word “poor” I think of my aunt choosing between purchasing her insulin for the month or paying rent, not a dilemma about whether to get a dessert with my meal at Cafe Milano.

In extreme—and in my experience, rare—cases, wealthier peers view students on heavy scholarship as parasites who run up tuition costs, but even under the most accepting circumstances, low-income students still experience a sense of profound displacement that comes with a radical shift in their cultural environment. Large income gaps themselves are not

raised me on the ideals of civic responsibility and social justice.

I was so excited for them to see the scene where Max is drafted in the army while a giant Uncle Sam poster sings “I Want You” and shifts into an image of the army carrying lady liberty across Vietnam singing “She’s

live through. Everything was uncertain, riots left many dead, rights were constrained, and families fractured over changing times. My dad was from the Kent State area. My mom was in Birmingham.

Our generation’s form of activism and social justice is extremely materialistic. We want to look like we’re doing our part and get a new profile picture of us doing it, but how many hours of work do we actually put in to real causes? And, this idea pervades every part of our generation, even our music.

My dad was confused that the only bands that seemed to have anything to say about America’s political climate during the Bush era were System of a Down, The Dixie Chicks, and Green Day. In fact, most people in our generation are turned off by the idea of music with anything other than empty lyrics, music

Carrying On

by Ana Smith A rotating column by senior Voice staffers

So Heavy.” When the film was over I turned to my parents— they weren’t entertained. I asked how they liked it, wasn’t it so cool? My dad simply said, “It isn’t ‘so cool’ when you live through it.”

And this response was generally the same each time I came home with a fascinating story about my parents’ era. The 60’s simply weren’t a fun time to

the true root of discomfort among students—it is the inability to engage honestly on the subject, as wealthy students try to deny or understate their privilege and low-income students attempt to avoid the matter by blending into the crowd.

As Palanjian pointed out, this isn’t just a money issue, and it isn’t an issue of bitter envy on one end or snobbish ignorance on the other. However, there is a significant social division here, sustained by a lack of communication and the challenges of assimilation. Lower-income students should feel empowered to create spaces for themselves on campus and to form a collective voice that will help generate a much-needed honest dialogue around class issues.

It is crucial that these conversations take place at sites of elite privilege like Georgetown, where students should be encouraged to contextualize their own experiences with class and think critically about the structures that perpetuate their own socioeconomic advantages or disadvantages.

Grace May is a sophomore in the College. The only reason she put on a skirt today was because she got out of bed at 3 p.m. that can not only be popular but do good, like U2. We simply aren’t into that. We simply aren’t interested in anything that isn’t observable by the next person.

We don’t have as many inyour-face issues like my parents generation did and there are many areas in which we have made momentous strides, like in LGBTQ rights, for example.

But, instead of wishing for the 60’s when we look around us and see unmotivated fellow youths, we should focus on being present for our current battles. If we really cared enough to want to find solutions to the world’s problems, the current culture wouldn’t matter to us, our appearances wouldn’t matter to us.

The 60s’ weren’t glamorous or fun, and I guess neither are our generation’s issues, but that shouldn’t stop us from wanting to fix them.

Georgetown UNIVERSITY Arts Week Friday, April 4:

10:00 am–3:00 pm: Tabling Activities, Red Square

Saturday, April 5:

11:00 am–2:00 pm: Tabling Activities, Red Square 2:00 pm: Insurrection: Holding History, Gonda Theatre 2:00 pm: Georgetown University Art Aficionado’s Sketch Trip, Front Gates 7:30 pm: Superfood and The Saxatones’ Spring Sing, Gaston Hall 8:00 pm: Doubt: A Parable, Gonda Theatre 8:00 pm: She Loves Me, Poulton Hall

Sunday, April 6:

2:00 pm: Doubt: A Parable, Gonda Theatre 2:00 pm: She Loves Me, Poulton Hall 4:00 pm: World Percussion Ensemble Showcase (featuring the GU Step Team and Ritmo y Sabor), McNeir Auditorium 5:00 pm: Gospel Choir Spring Concert, Lohrfink Auditorium 7:00 pm: Insurrection: Holding History, Gonda Theatre 10:00 pm: Phantoms’s Lau Performance, Lauinger Library

Monday, April 7:

10:00 am-3:00 pm: Tabling Activities, Red Square 7:00 pm: Open Mic Night, Uncommon Grounds 10:00 pm: Superfood Lau Performance, Lauinger Library

Tuesday, April 8:

10:00 am–3:00 pm: Tabling Activities, Red Square, featuring a live performance by Suzy Jivotovski at 12:00P.M. 7:00 pm: Open Mic Night, Uncommon Grounds 8:00 pm: GU Jazz Ensemble Performance, McNeir Auditorium 10:00 pm: Gracenotes and Chimes Lau Performance, Lauinger Library

Wednesday, April 9:

10:00 am–3:00 pm: Tabling Activities, Red Square, featuring live performances by:

Giant’s Causeway, 10:00 am

Ethan Beaman, 11:00 am

Pompadour, 1:00 pm

Zoe Rosen, 2:00 pm

7:00 pm: Open Mic Night, Uncommon Grounds 8:00P.M.: Insurrection: Holding History, Gonda Theatre 8:00 pm: She Loves Me, Poulton Hall 10:00 pm: The Saxatones Lau Performance, Lauinger Library

Thursday, April 10:

10:00 am–3:00 pm: Tabling Activities, Red Square, featuring creation of a group mural led by GU Art Aficionados 7:00 pm: Open Mic Night, Uncommon Grounds 8:00 pm: Doubt: A Parable, Gonda Theatre 8:00 pm: She Loves Me, Poulton Hall 10:00 pm: Capitol Gs Lau Performance, Lauinger Library

Friday, April 11:

10:00 am–3:00 pm: Tabling Activities, Red Square 1:15 pm: Friday Music Series: Trío Jarocho Guachintón, McNeir Auditorium 7:00 pm: Shannon Lynch Capstone Vocal Recital, McNeir Auditorium 8:00 pm: Insurrection: Holding History, Gonda Theatre 8:00 pm: She Loves Me, Poulton Hall

Saturday, April 12:

11:00 am–2:00 pm: Tabling Activities, Red Square 1:00 pm: Doubt: A Parable, Gonda Theatre 8:00 pm: Insurrection: Holding History, Gonda Theatre 8:00 pm: She Loves Me, Poulton Hall 9:00 pm: GU Improv Show, Bulldog Alley

Sunday, April 13:

4:00 pm: Nomadic Theatre’s Square Pegs, Red Square Events may be subject to change.