The Georgetown Voice 27 February 2019

VOICE The Georgetown

Georgetown Appeases, Frustrates Students Seeking Revocation of Honorary Degrees page 8

Black Theater Ensemble Reflects on 40 Years page 10

February 27, 2019

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FEBRUARY 27, 2019

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE —Celebrating 50 Years—

staff editor-in-chief Margaret Gach Managing editor Sienna Brancato news

Volume 51 • Issue 12

executive editor Jake Maher Features editor Jack Townsend news editor Noah Telerski assistant news editors Damian Garcia, Caroline Hamilton, Roman Peregrino

culture

executive editor Santul Nerkar Leisure editor Dajour Evans assistant leisure editors Emily Jaster, Nicole Lai, Ryan Mazalatis Sports editor Aaron Wolf Assistant sports editor Tristan Lee, Will Shanahan

“BTE ON FILM: 2K19 COLORIZED” by EGAN BARNITT

opinion

contents Editorials Carrying On: She’s Beauty, She’s Grace, She’s Worried about Race Natalie Chaudhuri Friendship Knows No Age Clara Chiu Home for the Weekend Laura Rockefeller Cardinals Sin: Georgetown Appeases, Frustrates Students Seeking Revocation of Honorary Degrees Margaret Gach Right on Cue: Black Theater Ensemble Reflects on 40 Years Katherine Randolph Students Adapt to Life in Hotel After Repairs Force Them from Vil B Jack Townsend GU Fossil Free Petitions University to End Investment in Fossil Fuels Damian Garcia The Heiress Dissects the Psyche of a Woman on the Verge Amy Guay Critical Voices: Quinn XCII, From Michigan, With Love Anna Pogrebivsky 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. Columns, advertisements, cartoons, and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright The Georgetown Voice, unless otherwise indicated.

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editor@georgetownvoice.com Leavey 424 Box 571066 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

Executive editor Emma Francois voices editor Julia Pinney Assistant Voices editors Natalie Chaudhuri, Leina Hsu Editorial Board Chair Claire Goldberg Editorial Board Sienna Brancato, ANNEMARIE CUCCIA, INéS DE MIRANDA, CHRIS DUNN, EMMA FRANCOIS, MARGARET GACH, Nick Gavio, Alex Lewontin, Jake Maher, JULIA PINNEY, Phillip Steuber, Noah Telerski, Jack Townsend

halftime

Leisure editor Juliana Vaccaro de Souza assistant leisure editors Skyler Coffey, Anna Pogrebivsky, John Woolley Sports editor Teddy Carey Assistant sports editor Nathan Chen, Josi Rosales

design

Executive editor Delaney Corcoran Spread editor Jake Glass Photo Editor Hannah Song cover Editor Egan Barnitt assistant design editors Camilla Aitbayev, Jacob Bilich, Josh Klein, Olivia Stevens Staff designers TIMMY ADAMI, Amy Zhou

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copy chief Cade Shore assistant Copy editors Sophie Stewart, Neha Wasil editors Mya Allen, Natalie Chaudhuri, MAX FREDELL, MAYA KNEPP, STEPHANIE LEOW, MOIRA PHAN, MADISON SCULLY, CINDY STRIZAK, MAYA TENZER, KRISTIN TURNER, RACHEL WEINMAN

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general manager Anna Gloor assistant manager of alumni outreach Beth Cunniff

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associate editors Rachel Cohen, Brynn Furey, Inès de Miranda, Lizz Pankova, Katya Schwenk

Staff writers

Kent Adams, Luis Borrero, Annemarie Cuccia, Haley D’Alessio, Jorge DeNeve, Max Fredell, Errol French, Bradley Galvin, Amy Guay, Peter Guthrie, Dominic Parente, John Picker, Zach Pulsifer, Cam Smith, KARISSA TEER

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

Page 3 An eclectic collection of jokes, puns, doodles, playlists, and news clips from the collective mind of the Voice staff.

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Playlist: Happy Birthday, Rihanna

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“Love on The Brain” - Rihanna “Kiss it Better” - Rihanna “You Da One” - Rihanna Take a Bo - Rihanna “Fire Bomb” - Rihanna

“Driving Miss Daisy alke so Green Book co l r n

SPORTS Jessie Govan (15) rises up for a dunk over Collin Gillespie (2) during Georgetown’s Wednesday matchup against Villanova. The Hoyas came out on top, 85-73, for Patrick Ewing’s first win against a ranked opponent during his tenure as head coach and Georgetown’s first win over the rival Wildcats since 2015.

Halftime Leisure Preview Popular YouTuber Shane Dawson recently gained notoriety for his conspiracy theories and tea-spilling documentaries. But has he crossed the line with his recent claims that Chuck E. Cheese recycles pizza? In his first solo article, John Szieff discusses Dawson’s theory, the evidence, and why you should always be careful with what you believe. Read more on georgetownvoice.com

Photo by JOhn Picker

“Afternoon Tea” Reports

Margaux’s Animal Doodle

ana a oose ackets ll be the uniform of the bo rgeo s e n the class war... and that’s the tea.”

Sun’s Out Buns Out

EDITORALS

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FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Take the Campus Sexual Assault and Misconduct Climate Survey Georgetown released its second campus Sexual Assault and Misconduct Climate Survey on Feb. 1. The survey, which runs through March 1, allows students to inform the university of their experiences with sexual assault and harassment during their time at Georgetown.

This survey, created by the American Association of Universities (AAU), is being offered to students at 33 colleges nationwide. Georgetown’s goal is to measure the impact of the preventative resources and programs put in place after the first survey in 2016.

This editorial board urges students to take the climate survey. The information gathered from it will help the university decide how to further address sexual assault and harassment on campus. These results will be used to assess the value of previously instituted programs and impact the allocation of future resources. We can’t expect the university to effectively address our concerns unless we do our part in providing them with the information they need to promote a safe and respectful environment on campus.

The more students who complete this survey, the more we can hold the university accountable for its shortcomings. For example, Georgetown has not had a fulltime Title IX coordinator since the previous one stepped down in June 2018, a concern which student activists have lobbied for since last year. The survey is an opportunity for the whole campus community to show that we take sexual assault and misconduct seriously.

A common misconception is that only students who have experienced sexual assault or harassment should take the survey. But it is essential that all students participate, regardless of their experiences. This way, the university can

determine the scope of the issue and obtain accurate numbers that will help identify problem areas. Only with the largest participation possible can we learn the most about the climate of sexual assault and harassment on campus.

Students have a responsibility to take this survey and to take it seriously. But it’s also important that we don’t cause ourselves unnecessary harm or stress by participating. Remember that you can pause, save your progress, and return to the survey at any time. You can also skip questions that you do not feel comfortable answering.

The 2016 survey had a response rate of 62 percent among undergraduates and 51 percent overall (including graduate students), far outpacing the average response rate of 19 percent at other colleges and universities.

Of the 2016 survey respondents, 31 percent reported experiencing non-consensual sexual contact due to physical force or incapacitation, eight percentage points higher than the 2015 AAU survey average. However, only 24.5 percent of respondents said they knew where to find on-campus sexual assault or misconduct resources. This shows the importance of measuring the university’s progress over the past three years to learn how effective sexual assault prevention tactics and programs have been and to inform students of which resources have been most successful.

After the 2016 survey, a task force offered recommendations on how to move forward, and the university developed the Sexual Assault and Misconduct Advisory Committee (SAMAC) to implement those suggestions. As such, mandatory bystander training was implemented for the first time during the 2017-2018 school year for all freshman and transfer students. Additionally, SAMAC also provided training to GUPD officers, provided language to be used on class syllabi, and hired a new Health Education Services staffer.

This survey isn’t perfect. It is mostly identical to the one offered in 2016, intended to provide a reliable basis of comparison to prior results as well as other universities. The lack of customization may impede the university’s ability to hone in on the effects of particular campus initiatives. That being said, all information is valuable information, so students should still provide as much feedback as they can.

Because of concerns about whether the university’s sexual assault response system supports them, marginalized communities on campus may be less likely to take the survey, said Jenn Wiggins, assistant director for sexual assault response and prevention services in the Office of Health Education Services, in an interview with the Voice.

Those concerns are well-founded, but we encourage marginalized students, students of color, students with disabilities, LGBTQ students, and international students to participate in the survey. It is a powerful opportunity for the voices of all students to be heard and for the Georgetown community to hold the university accountable for addressing the concerns of students in every part of campus. Georgetown still has a long way to go in combating sexual assault and harassment, but continuing this survey is a good step and an effective way for students to provide feedback on one of the most pressing issues on college campuses to date.

Confidential Resources Health Education Services (HES) sarp@georgetown.edu Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) (202) 687-6985 Title IX Online Reporting Form georgetown.protocall.info/incident-report

Promote Diversity and Inclusivity, End Unpaid Internship Culture As we make our way through the spring semester, the realities of summer internships become clear: For students not interested in fields like finance or consulting, paid opportunities can be few and far between.

This editorial board believes that the culture of unpaid internships must change. It both pressures students to work for free instead of finding other ways to spend the summer and disadvantages students who do not have the means to accept an unpaid position. The requirement to work without compensation favors students who already have the resources they need to cover their expenses. This limits the applicant pool for these positions and can result in low socioeconomic diversity in the eventual group of hired interns, creating a dangerous trend which excludes low-income students from professional opportunities.

Still, some feel compelled to take unpaid positions, even if doing so will be financially challenging. The idea that you need to “get your foot in the door” by working for free—or practically free—so that you can procure a paid job upon graduation is one of the strongest symptoms of today’s internship culture. The experience an intern gains, the connections they can make, and the opportunity to produce or publish “real” work is equated with monetary compensation. But for students who need to earn money to afford the costs associated with college and life, having an advantage for the future does not help in the present.

Georgetown is considered one of the best schools in the nation to study government, and our campus’ location

in the nation’s capital means students have remarkable access to the federal government, non-profits, and other political organizations. But many of these opportunities, especially within the federal government, are unpaid. Internships on Capitol Hill are some of the most egregious examples of unpaid internships, involving mostly menial work and little actual learning experience. A few offices do pay their interns, and others offer scholarships for interns with financial need, but a report in The Washington Post showed the vast majority cite their limited budgets as reasons to use “experience” as compensation.

We believe all internships on the Hill must be paid, or at least offer scholarships to those who demonstrate financial need. The U.S. government relies on a diversity of perspectives and experiences to properly function, which cannot happen when low-income individuals are not given a chance to even get their foot in the door.

Many Georgetown students will face this same possibility over the next two years as they consider interning with one of the many presidential campaigns. In the 2016 election cycle, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was the only presidential candidate who paid his interns. While this cycle is just getting started and information is not yet available on which candidates will be paying their interns, it is likely most of them will not.

Working with universities to offer academic credit is a popular option for companies hiring unpaid interns. Georgetown students can take the course “College Internship Experience” for one credit. A normal one-credit course meets once a week for an hour, whereas an internship can involve working

upwards of 20 hours a week, not including time spent commuting to and from an office.

There are scholarships available for students pursuing unpaid internships, which can help cover certain expenses such as transportation and purchasing business attire. These are especially important for summer internships because for most students on financial aid, rent and dining are included as a part of their room and board during the school year. University affiliates, such as the Career Center, as well as a number of clubs including the Corp and GU Women in Leadership, offer these scholarships. But students still have to apply for the limited number of scholarships, which takes time that many students may not have if they are juggling school and work, and the decisions are not always based on financial need.

Students with a demonstrated financial need should be first in line for these funds so that they have the opportunity to take internship positions when they may not otherwise be able to do so.

As we look for summer internships, it is important to be realistic with ourselves and the people we might work for. We should feel comfortable saying we cannot work full-time because we need to work a paying job as well. We should prioritize our self-care, self-fulfillment, and best interests: If we will be doing menial labor, unpaid, for hours each week, we should reconsider if the experience will truly be valuable in the long run, and whether this is an internship we actually need. But most importantly, the culture of unpaid internships must change, and if we speak up and demand more of our institutions and employers, we can make a difference.

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

VOICES

She’s Beauty, She’s Grace, She’s Worried About Race Carrying On: Voice Staffers Speak

y Ad ami

I can’t really explain why I took this so personally.

I think it’s because I consider myself to be hard-working. I liked the idea of working toward being the most beautiful version of myself. But no amount of work I put into my beauty routine—no amount of winged eyeliner, glittering eyeshadow, or NYX lipstick— could make me the epitome of beauty because no amount of makeup could make me white.

Maybe the reason I felt like people weren’t attracted to me wasn’t directly tied to my race. It’s nice to know that people judged me the same, with or without makeup. But even so, the unyielding truth of white beauty had been solidified for me simply because I didn’t look like my school’s ultimate standard of beauty, or anyone else at my school at all.

In my junior year, after dealing with the stress of SATs and the inauguration of a new president, my AP Language class did a segment on beauty. I was asked to bring in pictures of people I believed were beautiful. I chose photos of Matt Bomer, Ian Somerhalder, and Taylor Swift. Besides all being mediocre singers, they had one thing in common: pale skin and blue eyes.

As beautiful as they all are, I finally realized that seeing “white” as the ideal in every movie I saw, every book I read, and every musician I listened to was taking a toll that was more than skin-deep.

I think it’s important to note, however, the degree of privilege I have for the ways my appearance does correspond to Eurocentric beauty standards. My hair is soft and wavy, my skin tone just light enough to be considered “worthy” of foundation products. The journey to seeing my beauty was easier than it may be for some—but that doesn’t mean my insecurities don’t reflect a larger cultural problem.

In India, a popular cream called “Fair and Lovely” has only one purpose: lightening skin. When I first heard about that concept, I was shocked and saddened by the immense social pressures young women felt that compelled them to alter their skin. When I recognized how un-ideal my beauty was compared to global Western standards, I started to understand why. If I had lived in India, where such a practice is more widely accepted, I’m almost certain I would’ve caved.

Fixing beauty standards is not going to stop hiring discrimination or hate crimes.

Fixing beauty standards is not going to Timm

“Pick the person in the room you find the most attractive.”

Club initiations can range from truly terrifying to truly weird. After interview questions about my qualifications for joining the board of the club, I was told I had received the position. However, before I could truly celebrate, I discovered that there was one more thing I had to do and that it would be the most challenging demand of all: determining who was the fairest one of them all.

Are there any women of color in the room? Should I pick someone I know?

Why did I choose the white woman, even if her makeup really was that perfect?

When I think of beauty, my first thought goes to race. My history of associating beauty with whiteness has been complicated and negative.

The problem started with being one of exactly three non-white people in my high school, which was more Mean Girls than High School Musical.

Except there weren’t so many cliques.

There was just one: the blonde volleyball girls.

Being the 5-foot-1-inch, size 8, Indian-American girl I was, let’s just say that would have been a difficult clique for me to join. Although I couldn’t grow a few inches overnight (and blonde would clash terribly with my skin tone), I realized that there was one thing I could do: excel in makeup.

The summer before my junior year, I replaced my glasses and natural look with contacts and makeup.

My armor was long eyelashes and clear skin. To this day, I can put on liquid eyeliner with both my eyes closed. I sauntered into my first class ready to have all eyes on me, ready for my Mia Thermapolis Princess Diaries moment.

Unfortunately, though, my life isn’t a movie. No one seemed to notice the change, and no one fell to their knees in acknowledgment of my newfound beauty.

solve mass incarceration of people of color. Fixing beauty standards won’t prevent me from being stopped at TSA for the fiftieth time. But I don’t think I would be able to talk about how race has impacted my life without acknowledging how societal expectations of beauty have changed the way I see myself. They force a perception of inferiority onto me by the person whose opinion matters most: myself.

College has allowed me to change some of those toxic messages, little by little. It’s not hard to watch the student-run Diamante fashion show and be completely in awe of the models’ dark beauty. Living in the Justice & Diversity in Action Living Learning Community, which is majority women of color, it’s impossible not to recognize my floormates’ inner and outer beauty.

Being surrounded by the beauty I never seemed to see in myself showed me that beauty really could be in the eye of the beholder—and that I could be a sight to behold myself.

When I painted a portrait of myself during Shades of Saxa, a retreat for women of color, I saw that my skin color was not that of dirt and sadness. It was magic. It was chocolate and caramel, sunsets and warmth. There was no need for me to add another dash of white paint, no reason to feel like I was any less beautiful of a painting.

There is also more to being beautiful than being attractive.

I’ve realized I will never be beautiful to some, but also I’ve come to see how much the other parts of me matter: my creativity, my curiosity, my compassion. I don’t need a Western-centric ideal of beauty to tell me whether or not I am worth loving—when I am able to see it in myself, every other part of me becomes more beautiful. Maybe I’ll even take up volleyball.

“Pick the person in the room you find most attractive.” Even if I have lots of conditioning to undo, even though my type of beauty may never be conventional, I know that, at least someday, I’ll pick myself.

Natalie Chaudhuri is a freshman in the SFS who is always willing to share her NYX “Copenhagen” lipstick with you. She is an assistant Voices editor.

February 27, 2019

VOICES

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Friendship Knows No Age Josh Klein

Let me tell you about my friend. Just like the start of many friendships at Georgetown, we met in class. We got to know each other and started scheduling lunch dates. Now, she is one of the people in my life who I can call whenever I have exciting (or even completely mundane) news to share. She has become one of my show-up-at-her-front-door-without-question-because-I-needhelp kind of friends. I’m guessing that many Georgetown students have a go-to friend like this, but I’m also guessing that none of these friends are 74 years old like Trudie.

College students tend to discount the elderly, with the possible exception of our grandparents. Since we don’t normally interact with the elderly in our day-to-day lives, it’s easy to stereotype them as cranky, unrelatable, technologically-challenged, old-fashioned, and “out of it.” We feel like we have to put up a more traditional front when we’re with them because they are conservative and wouldn’t approve of who we are or what we do.

I think the main reason that people are surprised by my friendship with Trudie is because society has created the expectation that friendships with the elderly should be restricted to community service projects. However, limiting ourselves to this only hurts us; by judging older people solely on a number, we’re neglecting their rich history and missing a potential treasure trove of stories, experiences, and ideas.

By luck, I met Trudie and realized how cool the elderly can be. She may enjoy my company, but I like talking to her and learning from her perspective just as much. While it’s true that Trudie somewhat fits the grandmother stereotype—looking out for my health and safety by calling me when it’s snowing to make sure that I’m warm—she also has a great sense of humor

and an adventurous spirit. She’s not just a sweet and thoughtful old lady; she’s also a multifaceted person who has travelled places and had experiences I have only dreamt of while sitting in a Lau cubicle.

One day, I stopped by Trudie’s house to pick up a coat she had generously offered to lend to me for a black-tie event.

“You know, this belonged to the ambassador’s wife,” she said as she handed me the Christian Dior cloak. Turns out, Trudie worked for Sen. John Sherman Cooper, who was later appointed the first ambassador of East Germany (the German Democratic Republic). Trudie joined him abroad as his secretary, living in East Berlin for almost two years from 1975-1976 when she was 30 years old. During the height of Cold War tensions, she constantly heard barking and gunshots and saw Soviet tanks from her balcony. I remember learning about the Cold War through books and movies in high school history classes, but hearing a firsthand account made those events seem hauntingly real in a way I had never felt.

When I looked through some of her old photographs, I was struck by her youthful beauty and wondered what her early years were like. After a bit of prodding, she finally told me that she was chosen as the Kentucky Derby Queen in 1964 and actually got to be on stage with Johnny Cash.

Beyond telling me about the incredible moments in history she has witnessed, Trudie also shares my academic interests in journalism and political science and asks about my hobbies, family, and hopes for the future.

I’m so happy Trudie and I met, and I realize it might not have happened if I had been a typical undergraduate at George-

town. I am a transfer student and hadn’t known many of the other students in my Biblical literature class. Otherwise, it may not have crossed my mind to introduce myself to the woman quietly sitting next to me. I easily could have never met Trudie and wouldn’t now have her in my life.

I hope that next time you see an elderly person, whether they’re a senior auditor in your class or just someone next to you in line at Starbucks, you don’t jump to conclusions based on stereotypes. Start up a conversation and you may be pleasantly surprised what comes of it. Making the initial introduction might feel uncomfortable, but try and remember how much harder it could be for a senior auditor, who already feels like the odd one out, to approach you first.

A good friend checks in on you, challenges you, and supports you. There’s no reason why age has to get in the way of that.

Clara Chiu is a junior in the College studying government and journalism. She selfidentifies as a liberal, half-Asian, vegetarian, Buddhist hippie.

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

VOICES

OLIVIA STEVENS

Home for the Weekend From kindergarten through 12th grade, I walked three-quarters of a mile to school almost every single day. Even when it was raining and passing cars soaked me. Even once I could drive. With every curve in the road and crack in the sidewalk, I was reminded of how fond I am of my home. Now that I am in college, I have fewer chances to take this walk than before, so every trip home for the weekend is a trip through my childhood memories.

My childhood best friends grew up in the house across the street from ours. It has a big yard and a dogwood tree that spreads low and wide above the ground. The Smith girls were part of a family of four children. Jane Smith was my age, and Carolyn was my sister’s. Jane was clever, athletic, and very cool.

She took no shit. She could play soccer and lacrosse, and she taught me how to paint my nails. Carolyn was mischievous, wild, and skinny like a twig. On boring summer days, she would sprint around the block, ringing the doors of all our other neighbors, jumping out of bushes, asking for chocolate Tootsie Rolls from Ms. Rangle, or offering to walk somebody’s dog for five minutes if they paid her $30. The four of us would set up lemonade stands and lure benevolent passersby, or on winter snow days, go sledding on the hill behind the old dinner club.

While I admired Carolyn and Jane’s older brothers, Caden and Graham, for years, they were utterly uninterested in me.

The oldest, Caden, was five years older than I was. He could drive, he lifeguarded at our pool, and his girlfriend came over a lot. To an 11-year-old girl, he seemed somehow older than even my parents. Graham played squash, skateboarded, and mowed lawns in our neighborhood. His room was directly across from mine, with the street lying below. I got embarrassed when he came down to the basement to do laundry while Jane and I watched TV. Once, Jane told me she and her whole family knew I’d liked him for years. I didn’t come over for a while after that.

The Smiths’ next door neighbors were the Miecks. Outside their house is a shallow stretch of sidewalk which becomes an ankle-deep puddle on rainy days. Raking the Miecks’ yard one autumn, I accidentally stepped in the puddle. Mrs. Mieck hurried me inside through the back door, into their warm, yellow kitchen.

It smelled old and was decorated with wicker baskets and painted

clocks. She dried my sneakers on the radiator and lent me her husband’s old rain boots. When I finished the raking job, she handed me a $5 bill and some candy.

Mr. Mieck was one of the friendliest people I’d ever met.

He pronounced my name with a funny lilt, stressing the first syllable. Every Fourth of July, he would take his grandchildren, my siblings, and me to the neighborhood parade—the annual Strawberry Festival. Mr. Mieck had an old, light blue convertible—something old fashioned, maybe a Cadillac. He kept it in the garage, and we only ever saw it for this special day. He would roll the roof down and fly an American flag out of the back as we inched down Loland Avenue through the crowds.

The Rangles—the ones with the Tootsie Rolls—had an enchanted tree in their yard. Well, two trees—twin saplings that meshed and grew together, forming a pocket in the earth. Fairies lived there. Jane from next door and I would leave them gifts— rocks, blades of grass woven together, flower petals.

Years passed. The Smith family moved 15 minutes away.

The Smith girls, my sister, and I went to different high schools, Caden went to college, and Graham prepared to. When I was a sophomore, though, Graham and I reconnected. He drove me around in their Suburban, the same one that always sat outside our house. He listened to really good music—grunge, new-wave rock stuff that I’d never heard before, but that I listen to now. He had, after all, been a skateboarder.

I told him that I had a crush on him for the majority of our childhoods. He laughed and said he was flattered. What would I have thought, at 11 years old, if I knew that one day, Graham would drive me past our houses and tell me about his upcoming senior prom. Would I have known, at 11, that it would be bittersweet? That it would make me wish we weren’t older now?

Mr. and Mrs. Mieck moved to Florida last year, the same year I started school at Georgetown. Then, Mrs. Mieck got sick.

She died recently, and I wrote a letter to Mr. Mieck. I told him that I have strong memories of him and his wife and that I would always remember their neighborliness. Apparently, Americans don’t “know their neighbors anymore” because of political polarization, technology, millennials, or something. When I grow up, though, and have a house of my own, I will know how to

treat my neighbors. I will know to offer the neighborhood kids jobs that I could do myself. I will always buy their cookies and their lemonade. I will chat with them in the street, and I will invite their parents to my holiday parties.

The Rangles’ twin trees grew old and dangerous, and a service came to cut them down last year. Ms. Rangle might still keep chocolate Tootsie Rolls, but I’m too old to ask for them now.

My dad used to walk my sister and I to school when we were too young to go alone. Every day of third and fourth grade, he made us work on memorizing the state capitals as we walked up the long hill (Topeka, Kansas. Sounds like Tapioca, the pudding. Not to be confused with Tallahassee, Florida). When we finished those, we moved on to a disturbing John Keats poem (“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk…”). I hated these memory exercises, but I’ll never get to do them again.

Now when I walk through my neighborhood, it’s usually to get to our library, to the post office, or to our local grocery store. For as long as I can remember, one of two men—a bald guy or a guy with a mustache—has always stood at the door to open it for customers. They still work there. While my mom waited in line, I used to sneak glimpses at the grown-up women’s magazines on the racks at the checkout. Did you know that Glamour, Teen Vogue, and Self do not publish in print anymore?

They’ve moved online.

The Smiths are gone, but the new family that moved in are great neighbors. And I know Mr. Mieck loves his new home in sunny Florida. As I get older, I have a greater appreciation for walking through my neighborhood, since I do it a few times a year, not every day. Now my stride is just a little wider.

Laura Rockefeller is a freshman in the School of Foreign Service. She is from Roland Park, Baltimore.

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FEBRUARY 27, 2019

PHoto by Andy MEttler/ World Economic FOrum

CARDINALS SIN Georgetown Appeases, Frustrates Students Seeking Revocation of Honorary Degrees

By Margaret Gach

tful Farragu PHoto by

JACOB BILICH

Following months of student activism and internal discussions among top administrators, Georgetown University announced it was revoking the honorary degree it conferred on Theodore McCarrick, former cardinal and archbishop of D.C. The Feb. 19 decision comes after McCarrick’s removal from the priesthood three days prior because of sexual abuse allegations against him that became public last summer. This is the first time Georgetown has revoked an honorary degree.

Now, students and Georgetown’s Catholic community are reflecting on the revocation and looking ahead at what they believe the university and the Catholic Church still need to do to address the decades-long clerical sexual abuse crisis.

Julie Bevilacqua (COL ’19) is one of a group of students who met with university officials throughout the fall semester to advocate for the revocations of the honorary degrees given to McCarrick and Cardinal Donald Wuerl—a former archbishop of D.C. accused of covering up clerical sexual abuse. For Bevilacqua and others in the group, the Feb. 19 announcement was a welcome one, but she said their work is far from over.

“I’m feeling simultaneously happy that this degree is finally being revoked and also frustrated that this took so long,” Bevilacqua said. “It’s really important that we remember this is a beginning step and not a final one.” *** When the Archdiocese of New York released a statement on June 20, 2018 outlining an accusation that McCarrick had abused a teenage altar boy, Pope Francis ordered McCarrick out of public service and into a life of “prayer and penance” to await a trial in the

Vatican. The news set off a series of allegations in other dioceses: Seminarians training to be priests claimed McCarrick had forced them to share a bed with him while they were on retreat, and a Virginia man said that McCarrick, a “family friend,” had sexually abused him over two decades.

The accusations hit the D.C. Catholic community especially hard. McCarrick had been a well-liked archbishop during his time in Washington from 2001 to 2006. Throughout his tenure in D.C., it wasn’t unusual to see him on Georgetown’s campus. McCarrick attended university President John DeGioia’s 2001 inauguration, celebrated Mass in Dahlgren Chapel, was a guest lecturer in classes, and participated in university panels up through 2014. Georgetown conferred an honorary degree on McCarrick in 2004 for his “humanitarian efforts” and “compassionate service to others.”

McCarrick was promoted to the College of Cardinals, the highest body in the Catholic Church under the papacy, in 2001 and remained a prominent figure even after his retirement as archbishop. Yet The New York Times reported that church officials had known of persistent rumors about his sexual misconduct through his rise in the church.

McCarrick became the first to resign from the College of Cardinals due to sexual abuse allegations on July 28, 2018. Fordham University had already revoked his honorary degree on July 5, while at least eight other Catholic universities followed suit in the subsequent weeks. The Catholic University of America, where McCarrick had been a student, chancellor, and former member of the board of directors, announced its revocation on July 30, 2018.

John Garvey, president of the University of Notre Dame, released a statement on Aug. 2 explaining that his school would wait for the results of the Vatican’s trial before rescinding McCarrick’s honorary degree.

Just two weeks later, McCarrick’s successor as the archbishop of Washington, Donald Wuerl, was embroiled in another clerical sex abuse revelation. A Pennsylvania grand jury report released on Aug. 14 identified 301 priests over a 70-year period who had sexually abused minors in the state. In the thousand-page document, Wuerl was commended for notifying the Vatican of an abusive priest in the 1980s yet was also accused of concealing multiple child molesters during his time as the Archbishop of Pittsburgh. He allegedly facilitated confidential settlements to victims’ families and re-assigned known abusers to new parishes so they could return to public service.

Despite accusations, Wuerl has denied he tried to cover up any abuse and said he had not been aware of the claims against McCarrick.

Wuerl has also been a familiar figure at Georgetown. In September 2014, Georgetown celebrated the 75th anniversary of the archdiocese by awarding Wuerl an honorary degree for his “extraordinary example of faith and service.” His most recent visit was to participate in a discussion hosted by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life in June 2018, two weeks before the allegations against McCarrick became public. *** When he saw that Georgetown had not yet released a response to the news of the summer, recent graduate and current

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

Georgetown Law student Austin Rose (COL ’18, LAW ’21) wanted to put pressure on the university to take action against McCarrick and Wuerl. One of Rose’s family members had been abused by a priest identified in the Pennsylvania report. In a petition released on Aug. 29, he and other recent alumni and students called for the revocation of McCarrick and Wuerl’s degrees, as well as Wuerl’s resignation.

“Cardinal Wuerl and Cardinal McCarrick forfeited their right to Georgetown’s recognition, and their honorary degrees should be revoked,” the petition read. “As a Jesuit university, Georgetown is obligated to speak out against injustice, especially when our own leaders in D.C. neglect that duty.”

Catholic Women at Georgetown (CWAG) and Georgetown’s chapter of the Knights of Columbus, a global Catholic men’s organization, also called on the university to publicly comment on the allegations against McCarrick two days before the petition began. Lydia Franz (COL ’21), CWAG’s outreach chair, said she was disheartened by the university’s delay to take action.

“I think it was inconsistent with the values that Georgetown prides itself on: care for the whole person, especially in support for victims and survivors,” Franz said.

An email from DeGioia to the student body on Sept. 4 was the first statement from the university about the revelations of the summer. In it, DeGioia welcomed students back to campus and reflected on the “abject failure” of the Catholic Church to address the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

“We have an immediate and urgent need to engage in the work of ‘cultural change’—to create a context in which the most vulnerable among us will be safe and protected, to create a context in which the abuse of power can be identified and eliminated,” he wrote.

University spokesperson Rachel Pugh wrote in an email to the Voice on Sept. 17 that part of this “change” would include a review of the allegations against McCarrick and the Pennsylvania grand jury report. “This includes an honorary degree review process,” Pugh wrote.

Yet some students were disappointed by the fact that the president had not mentioned either McCarrick or Wuerl by name. Bevilacqua said the email was an example of a lack of transparency from the university to students about the honorary degrees.

“I remember initially upon reading this email that it took six paragraphs to mention the sexual abuse crisis, which was frustrating to me at the time,” Bevilacqua said. In the week following the email, 385 people signed Rose’s petition, and Bevilacqua and a group of students delivered it to the president’s office on Sept. 14.

After reading prayers in front of DeGioia’s Healy Hall office, the group had a discussion with Joseph Ferrara, the university president’s chief of staff, whom Rose described as responsive to the students’ concerns. On Sept. 21—the deadline the petitioners gave the administration to agree to their demands—the degrees were still in place, but the petition had gained another thousand online signatures.

Meanwhile, members of Catholic student groups on campus were figuring out for themselves how to respond to the crisis. As the semester began, CWAG and the Knights of Columbus held joint discussions on how to address the new allegations and worship hours to pray for survivors of the abuse. Ryan Anderson (NHS ’20), the head of the Knights of Columbus, said that the events were meant to help Catholic students process their reactions.

“For me and for many of the other Catholics on campus, [the allegations] made us look and get a deeper dive into our faith,” he said. Still, Anderson, who joined in on a meeting with administrators, wished the university had revoked the degrees sooner. “I would’ve hoped that we would be one of the first,” he said. “I do understand Georgetown and Notre Dame’s position to wait a little bit because it’s allegations … But it was definitely upsetting to not see us leading the charge.”

9

There were increasing calls for the university to comply with these students across campus. GUSA unanimously passed a resolution urging the university to revoke the honorary degrees of McCarrick and Wuerl during a meeting on Oct. 28, 2018.

The Georgetown Voice and The Hoya published editorials calling for the same.

The university began hosting a series of events discussing the church’s crisis. Franz said the discussions at the university-held panels on addressing and moving forward from the crisis were “cathartic” for many students trying to process their feelings. Anderson believes that education about the crisis—a key goal of those events—is a crucial step in addressing it. But he also said he wanted to see more concrete action from the university as well.

“When you haven’t seen anything done, and you see other colleges—Fordham revoked the degrees, Catholic revoked the degrees,” he said, “we were just kind of like, where are we in this?”

In October, the university’s board of directors convened a working group to review honorary degrees as a whole. “This group has focused on the purpose and practice of granting such degrees, the selection of recipients, and the process around reviewing and rescinding these degrees,” Pugh wrote in an email to the Voice.

I think it would have been a lot more powerful for Georgetown to show that it cared about survivors if they had done this months ago.

Student activists were able to meet with the group once, where they also asked for—but did not receive—a position for a student on the review board. Grace Laria (SFS ’19), who met with the working group with Bevilacqua, said that its members were impressed with the students’ activism but did not offer any insight into what recommendations they would make to the university about the honorary degrees. (Full disclosure: Laria is a housemate of the author.)

“Even though there was a willingness to talk to us, there wasn’t a tangible, ‘We’re taking your input and implementing it in an effective way,’” Laria said. “It still took months after that meeting for anything to happen. And there was really no contact with the rest of the Georgetown community.”

The scandal surrounding McCarrick and Wuerl continued to make the news during the months of those meetings. In October, the Vatican announced it was beginning a more in-depth investigation into McCarrick; Wuerl resigned from his position

as archbishop of D.C.; and the Archdiocese of Washington identified 31 priests accused of sexual abuse over seven decades. That report prompted D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine to start an independent investigation of the Washington Catholic Church.

Bevilacqua remembered her frustration that, through this, the university still did not publicly comment on the status of the honorary degrees.

“Catholic and Fordham both rescinded the degrees they had given to Cardinal McCarrick—then Cardinal McCarrick, now just Mr. McCarrick—back in the summer,” Bevilacqua said.

“And students have been asking the university to rescind these degrees since August, so this has been ongoing for months. The working group has existed since the fall. And we’ve received no answer in any of the communication that they’ve given us as to why this process has been so prolonged.”

In a Dec. 17 email, DeGioia informed students about four priests accused of sexual abuse in a Maryland Society of Jesuits that had spent time at Georgetown. DeGioia wrote that the university was committed to addressing sexual assault.

“Our community will continue our work to respond to this moment through dialogue, reflection, and action, building on the convenings we held this past semester, ongoing conversations with members of our community.” *** There had been no further updates until the Vatican reported on Feb. 16 that McCarrick had been found guilty of multiple accounts of sexual abuse of minors and adults and was laicized—removed from the priesthood. This was the first time a cardinal has received such a punishment for sexual abuse. That day, Notre Dame rescinded McCarrick’s honorary degree.

Three days later, DeGioia announced that Georgetown would do the same in an email to the student body, the first time that the university has revoked an honorary degree.

The students who had been working towards this result expressed relief that McCarrick no longer holds an honorary degree but also qualified that relief with caution and lingering disappointment.

“While obviously this was a really necessary step for Georgetown to take, I think that its impact is really lessened by the fact that it took months of work to get there,” Bevilacqua said. “I think it would have been a lot more powerful for Georgetown to show that it cared about survivors if they had done this months ago.”

She added that DeGioia had not mentioned the status of Wuerl’s degree, and that there are other recipients of honorary degrees, particularly Charlie Rose, a former PBS host, who have also been accused of sexual assault. How the university continues to respond from this point, Bevilacqua believes, is intrinsically linked to its broader response to all interpersonal violence on campus. Laria said she hopes the working group and its upcoming recommendations become permanent fixtures of the university.

“Honorary degrees have some sort of meaning,” Laria said.

“Georgetown is mirroring the secrecy and lack of transparency or community involvement that’s going on in the church that led to the sexual abuse crisis in the first place.”

On Feb. 21, Pope Francis opened a week-long meeting of bishops from around the world to investigate the scope of clerical sexual abuse. But in the wake of this global issue, Georgetown students are still left grappling with the university’s response to the crisis and the impact it has had on their relationship with the Catholic Church.

“It’s just a really intense feeling of disappointment and grief that these things continue to be covered up, year after year, and also just frustration in the time that it takes to resolve these problems or to discuss them,” Franz said. “As a young person growing up in this community, I want to see it be changed for the better and made into a safe, sacred place.”

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FEBRUARY 27, 2019

By Katherine Randolph After a run-through of a scene on a Tuesday evening, Samuel Oni (COL ’22) dropped his script onto the floor of the Devine theater. Next to him, Chase Hawthorne (MSB ’20), a tall, burly presence in a Georgetown Football t-shirt and sweats, sat on the edge of a newly built prop. With Oni’s slight build and Hawthorne’s booming laugh, the two appeared to be an unlikely pair, but they’ve been brought together by a shared passion. On March 21-23, they will appear in The Colored Museum, a play to commemorate the Black Theater Ensemble’s 40th anniversary.

But at that moment, they were taking a quick break before their director called them back to the stage.

Oni looked at the list of students involved in the production, noting that four of the five names listed are freshmen. He smiled broadly.

“We’ve got a bright future for the Black Theater Ensemble.”

••• Black Theater Ensemble (BTE) was founded in 1979, nearly 30 years after Georgetown accepted its first black undergraduate in 1950. The group aims to magnify the voices of black and minority artists and to encourage dialogue about diverse experiences through theater. In the 40 years since its founding, BTE has struggled with low participation and difficulty engaging the larger campus, but its goal remains the same: to create art about people of color.

Fatima Dyfan (COL ’21), the group’s current executive producer, sees BTE and its shows as an opportunity to make sense of history.

“Art in itself has always been a healing space for black people,” Dyfan said. “We can revisit that space and apply it to today, and we can use theater to rearticulate some narratives that have been spoken for us.”

BTE’s first production in 1979 was Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,

a play that addresses the intersections of race, trauma, and gender. In the fall of 2018, BTE returned to its roots and staged the show again in the Village C Theater, directed by Dyfan.

She worried that for colored girls wouldn’t attract an audience on Georgetown’s campus but was pleasantly surprised by the positive turnout.

“I was scared for a long time that I wasn’t going to have anyone show up to it at all,” Dyfan said. “The response from the theater community, the black community, had to be my favorite, most satisfying experience.”

Reproducing BTE’s first show isn’t the only way the group plans to honor its 40th anniversary. For The Colored Museum, Dyfan brought in Mar Cox (COL ’16), a BTE alumnus, to direct. Aloysia Jean (COL ’16), BTE’s former executive producer, will do dramaturgy—artistic research—and alumni relations for the show, and the group is planning an event to celebrate its anniversary with current students and alumni alike.

Jean expressed excitement among graduates at the chance to return to BTE. “We’re working 9 to 5 all the time,” Jean said. “Life gets sad after college. Everyone jumped at the opportunity to get to share this space again, to get to be with your family again. It’s time we had a reunion.”

The familial environment of BTE is one that Holley Willis (SFS ’93) remembers well. She acted in BTE’s 1991 production of Spell #7 and said she is still in touch with people who worked on the show with her. Looking back on her years on campus, Willis said she valued the opportunity to be on stage with students who shared her experience as a black woman.

“If you look at my pictures from Georgetown, it looked like a [Historically Black College or University],” Willis said.

“What I considered important and wanted to take a picture of was being surrounded by those people. We laughed together, we danced together, maybe we put on a play together.”

Willis speculated that the connection she and her peers forged in BTE in the ’90s might be different from the bonds that exist within the group today. She credits the civil

rights movement of the 1960s as a unifying force for her and her peers.

“All of our parents were involved in the civil rights movement whether they wanted to be or not,” Willis said. “You understand as a person of color that you have an obligation to help others, and you also understand that only by coming together and doing things together are you going to be protected.”

Today, most BTE members were not raised by parents who were participants in the social movements of the 60s, but the students still value the chance to share an artistic space with other people of color.

“There’s the added complexity of a shared identity that the world sees,” Cox said. “Outside of this room all these students are still black, and that shared experience makes what we create more special.”

While BTE members praise the group for its closeness, getting students to join has proven challenging. According to Georgetown’s 2017-2018 Common Data Set, about 6 percent of undergraduates enrolled at the university in October 2017 were black.

“Take that population, and then discover the population that’s interested in performing arts, and then narrow that to theater, and then narrow that even further to people who want to dedicate their time to this kind of project,” Cox said. “You get a really small pool of individuals.”

At Georgetown, BTE is the only co-curricular theater group specifically aimed at people of color, which points to a wider lack of diversity in the theater community nationally. According to a 2018 study by the Asian American Performers Action Coalition, in the 10 years between Broadway’s 2006-2007 season and its 2015-2016 season, only 15 percent of roles went to black performers, while 76 percent went to white actors.

The discrepancies exist backstage, too. A 2017 dataset from the labor union Actors Equity Association revealed that 77 percent of stage managers on Broadway and on national tours of new productions between 2013 and 2015 were white. In those three years, only six stage managing positions went to black

11

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

artists. Among Actors Equity’s black members, there was a 10 percent gap in salary between black actors in principal play roles and white actors cast for similar parts.

Isaiah Wooden (COL ’04) remembered BTE’s recruiting woes well. He was a member of BTE during his undergraduate years at Georgetown and returned to the program to serve as artistic director from 2005 to 2008 and again from 2013 to 2015. Wooden recalled going to NAACP, gospel choir, and Black Student Association meetings to seek out potential members. He cited work-study jobs and pre-professional opportunities as other obligations that can divert students’ attention from artistic groups.

“One of the biggest challenges is that Georgetown students in general are overextended,” Wooden said. “The African-American students on campus don’t have the luxury of just participating in one thing.”

In an attempt to accommodate busy schedules, Wooden said that he often worked individually with students to plan rehearsals that worked for them and tried to encourage senior members of the group to make new participants feel more included.

“It’s not something that always happens in other places, to encourage them to take care of themselves if they’re in a situation where they feel overwhelmed,” Wooden said. “We don’t leave anybody behind.”

In 2019, Dyfan hopes to gather more participants by advertising BTE as more than just an acting group. She wants to pull in students to build sets, write original plays, and manage BTE’s business side.

“Theater is one of those avenues in which many interests and many talents can be employed,” Dyfan said. “There’s so many different ways in which your day-to-day life can be thrown into theater.”

Jean praised Dyfan’s work as executive producer, saying that Dyfan believes that BTE is a good outlet for people interested in more than just theater.

“She is the Beyoncé of Georgetown. She has such a clear vision for BTE,” Jean said. “Fatima is really pulling for those people with different skill sets, and witnessing that as an alumnus is so beautiful.”

Though BTE struggles with low participation levels, its members believe that BTE’s mission is just as important today as it was 40 years ago.

“As long as Georgetown’s diversity stays the way it is, with the majority of students being white, I think that spaces for students of color are always going to be necessary,” Cox said.

BTE offers something to Georgetown’s greater campus as well as its own members, Willis said. She believes that the ensemble’s mission of sharing cultural experiences and offer-

“

There are barriers for all black people in the world.

We had a lot of obstacles that we had to figure out on our own because there was something greater than us relying on us.

”

Holley Willis and the cast of BTE’s production of Spell #7 in 1993. ing diverse representation onstage complements Georgetown’s overarching Jesuit identity. Willis recalled her freshman year, when she had her first ever black, woman professor for Problem of God. She said the idea of a black, woman theologian was revolutionary for her and believes that BTE can uncover similar possibilities for other students.

“Georgetown is about service and sharing, and that’s what any theater group is about, service and sharing,” Willis said. “I think, for example, of the phenomenon of Hamilton. It’s just great to have a different voice. If you are not exposed to writers that are not in the majority, you’re missing out on a lot of gems.”

Though BTE does put on full-fledged plays by minority artists, such as The Colored Museum, it also takes a more experimental approach to some of its activities. Its Coffeehouses, informal events hosted in classrooms, invite students to perform songs, skits, monologues, and poetry in a relaxed setting. Jean linked the Coffeehouses to BTE’s desire to recruit students who don’t have a background in theater. BTE, she said, can be a starting point.

“If you want to explore the culture, if you wanna do something totally different, this is a place where you start because there isn’t a lot of pressure,” Jean said. “We want to offer an opportunity to everyone because everyone deserves to learn.”

As BTE tries to reach a larger population at Georgetown, its members are reflecting on what exactly it means to run a theater group by black students, for black students. In the 40 years since its founding, Cox said that the club has not yet achieved the stature of prominent campus theater groups like Mask and Bauble or Nomadic.

“Institutionally, the department and the other theater groups are set up in such a way that they’ve been running off of a model for so long,” Cox said. “I feel that BTE has not had the

PHOTO COURTESY OF HOLLEY WILLIS same opportunity to hang onto that generational flow. Space is not just given, it’s something that you have to carve out for yourself and hand on to the next generation.”

Jean also sees disadvantages in the amount that the student body engages with the group. She mentioned feeling disillusioned at times when she felt that BTE received less support from Georgetown than other co-curricular groups.

“As a person of color, it’s hard to tell if you could’ve done something better or if there are more nefarious reasons behind it. It messes with your head,” Jean said. “I know people who work with BTE to be very hardworking, but there was sometimes this feeling that we weren’t doing enough. It’s constantly having to tell yourself that we are the shit, we are doing good here, and we love doing this.”

Though Jean said that BTE has historically been seen as an underdog, she believes the group has a spirit of resilience that keeps their work going.

“How do you pull together a cast when you had no people audition? How do you make a budget when you’ve never done one before?” Jean said. “There are barriers for all black people in the world. We had a lot of obstacles that we had to figure out on our own because there was something greater than us relying on us.”

••• This “something greater” might be the new generation of BTE members. Back in rehearsal on that Tuesday night, Cox called Oni and Hawthorne to attention for another run through their scene, which they hoped to have memorized by their next rehearsal. The two took their places, Oni standing center stage and Hawthorne waiting in the wings. This time, though, Oni did not pick up his script.

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February 27, 2019

Students Adapt to Life in Hotel After Repairs Force Them from Vil B

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By Jack Townsend On the Wednesday before he had to vacate his top-floor Village B apartment, Suraag Srinivas (SFS ’20) threw a party.

He described it as a celebration soured by the knowledge that it would be his last in that apartment. Now, Srinivas lives in the hotel and conference center which makes up part of the Leavey Center.

A problem with Village B’s rafters forced administrators to relocate all 85 occupants of the top-floor apartments. Matias Burdman (COL ’21), one of the two Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners who represent Georgetown’s campus, said that administrators explained the issue at a university master planning meeting. A fire retardant material used in Village B’s supports has weakened the building’s rafters. Now, they may be unable to support the roof and precipitation which accumulates on it.

The university hired several architecture and engineering firms to inspect Village B, Burdman said. Although only some of them found a systemic problem in the roof, the university decided to move all 85 students.

Inspections of similarly constructed buildings on campus did not reveal additional problems, according to a university statement.

Former Village B residents now occupy the entire second and third floors of the hotel. Roommates have been kept together, albeit in new, double-occupancy rooms, each with two queen beds, only one desk, and no kitchen or living room.

But Srinivas was appreciative of the Georgetown administration’s efforts to compensate him. On a recent weeknight, the former Village B resident found a plastic bag with two chocolate chip cookies inside waiting for him by his door. University staff had left one in front of each student room in the hotel.

A vegetarian, Srinivas seemed most concerned about the fact that he no longer had easy access to a kitchen. The university gave him a choice between a top-tier meal plan and about $3,000 Flex dollars, which he can only spend on food at specific locations on campus. He took the Flex dollars, which he said amount to $46

per day. Even though it’s more funds than he will likely spend, vegetarian options are not abundant on Georgetown’s campus.

“I want a kitchen, not cookies,” he said. Still, he added that university administrators were “trying their hardest.” He was satisfied that the process—given the circumstances—was fair.

Srinivas also accepted the university’s offer to store some of his possessions for the remainder of the semester. He is storing some of his clothes, a minifridge, and a wooden chest that would not fit in the hotel room. He packed the things he needed for the semester in boxes for university-hired movers to bring from his apartment to the hotel. He had not yet unpacked all of the boxes, but his and his roommate’s things already filled the hotel room.

Burdman said that university administrators had found that the hotel’s electrical system could not support a refrigerator and microwave in each hotel room. In a fitness room turned common room on the hotel’s second floor, staff have installed a refrigerator and two microwaves alongside a pair of single-serve coffee makers.

For Thomas Peacock (COL ’20), evacuating a Village B apartment is nothing new. He and his roommates were forced out during the fall semester because their living room ceiling was gradually caving in. After several work requests and more than one visit by university facilities employees, the students’ calls to GUPD spurred the university to act.

“That night, I slept in my sister’s Darnall room on her floor, and my other roommates scattered around,” Peacock said. “Then they put us in the Key Bridge Marriott. That weekend, we were moved into a Vil A apartment.”

Peacock said that the university had refunded both semesters’ housing costs and that university chief operating officer Geoffrey Chatas had called his parents to inform them of the situation. Peacock said he will use some of the refunded money to pay for a prep course for the MCAT, the standardized test for medical school admissions.

“Once the COO got involved, it was pretty smooth,” he said.

“It was pretty clear that he was sympathetic about the situation.”

Peacock said that Chatas called his family again before he learned he would have to move out this semester. He laughed as he recounted the phone conversation he had with his mother in which she told him that he would have to leave his apartment.

“We’ve moved once,” he told her. “We can move again. It’s not a big deal.”

Just as they did for Peacock and his roommates in the fall, the university has refunded students’ housing costs for this semester. They also waived the residency requirement and cancellation fee for students who have decided to move off campus instead of into the hotel.

The Office of Financial Services, which oversees financial aid, will make sure that the refunded fees do not cause students’ financial aid packages to decrease. University spokesperson Rachel Pugh said they would “navigate any adjustments” that may be necessary for each student and financial circumstance.

Inside the hotel, students’ bed linens are cleaned for them. A cart, like the ones available for move-in days, holds Wash Cycle laundry bags full of students’ clothes. Wash Cycle, a third-party laundry service, will wash and fold the clothes twice a week at no cost to students.

In the meantime, the university will begin work on Village B. The fixes Peacock’s apartment saw last semester will be performed across all the top-floor Village B units. All the units— including those unaffected by the roof problems—will be upgraded to match the renovations the university has performed on 30 units over the past few summers.

On Feb. 14, the university announced a $75 million fund to address deferred maintenance. Burdman said that the fund was independent of the Village B roof problems and that the work done to the roof would be financed by other means.

Peacock said he is glad the university is being proactive about moving students.

“It’s good that they’re taking care of it before something bad happens as opposed to sitting back and waiting for something bad to happen—which it almost did with us.”

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

GU Fossil Free Petitions University to End Investments in Fossil Fuel

by Damian Garcia the landscape of our natural world, endangering most species, “GUFF also believes in promoting education and transparecosystems, and environmental processes,” members wrote in ency around the endowment, as it is ultimately student’s tuition the petition. dollars, and the financial foundation of their higher education,” GUFF contends that divesting from fossil fuel compa- Buckman wrote. nies will have a positive effect on the growth of Georgetown’s In the past few weeks, GUFF flyers have appeared around endowment. Citing a 2013 Associated Press and S&P Index different parts of campus, promoting the goals of their proposstudy, GUFF wrote that an endowment without fossil fuel in- al. “Our primary objective from flyering is gaining support for vestments would be healthier in the long-run than one that was our proposal,” Buckman wrote. “That support can come in the not divested. form of petition signatures, supporting our proposal as a stu“A university endowment of $1 billion—less than that of dent group, sharing our content on social media, or a myriad Georgetown, but relatively similar in scope—without fossil fuel of other ways Georgetown students can make their opinions on investments would have performed better than one with fossil the endowment heard.” fuel investments over a 10-year period by $119 million,” the The proposal reflects an optimism that the university may proposal read. have become more receptive to full divestment from fossil fuels If Georgetown were to fully divest from fossil fuel compa- since it voted down a complete divestment in 2015. GUFF has nies, it would not be the first university to do so, and GUFF’s gathered over 3,000 signatures since 2012 in favor of divestproposal includes the financial histories of other universities ment, including 176 from faculty members. Since their delivthat have already divested. The proposal shows that in 2015 ery of the newest proposal in January, more than 400 people Syracuse University stopped investing in fossil fuel companies have added their names to the divestment petition, including and saw a 12 percent return on investments by 2017. Oregon undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, staff, and alumni, State University’s endowment has grown by 8 percent since di- according to Buckman. GUFF hopes that this mounting supvesting in 2017. port from the Georgetown community will push the university The proposal also lists universities that have taken “posi- to accede to their demands. tive actions” toward full divestment from fossil fuel companies as well as those who have already committed to full divestment. Notable examples PETITION include Stanford University, which divested from coal in 2014; Harvard, which paused investments in minerals, oil, and gas in 2017; and Johns Hopsignatures on GUFF kins, which divested from coal in 2017. Yale divested $10 million from coal and oil in 2016 petition since 2012 while revealing to their student body that the endowment now has only “minor exposure” to coal and oil, according to the Yale Daily News.

Over 1,000 institutions—including universities, governments, investment funds, and of the institutions media groups—have divested from fossil fuel companies, accounting for $7.63 trillion in that have divested assets, according to GUFF. Twenty-eight perfrom fossil fuels cent of these institutions were classified as are “faith-based” “faith-based,” and 122 Catholic institutions had divested from fossil fuels as of January 2019.

Regarding GUFF’s proposal, Hill wrote that the CISR would be inviting the organization, is the expected extra among others, to its next meeting. GUFF has return after 10 years not heard specific feedback from the university and CISR about the proposal yet, according divested from fossil Buckman. However, she wrote that GUFF always fuel companies for a $1 welcomes a response and an extended dialogue on billion endowment the topic of divesting from fossil fuels.

3,000+

28%

$119 million

$

$

Delaney Corcoran

GU Fossil Free (GUFF) is calling on the university to fully divest its endowment fund from all fossil fuel companies by 2024. The group made this demand in a Jan. 17 proposal sent to the university’s Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility (CISR) and has been maintaining pressure on Georgetown with a flyering campaign since then.

GUFF is a student-led campaign with the goal to promote a more sustainable future by ending all the university’s investments in fossil fuel companies. “It is unconscionable to pay for our education with investments that will condemn the planet to climate disaster,” read a statement on its website. “On a practical financial level, investments in these companies are becoming increasingly risky and volatile.”

Celia Buckman (SFS ’21), a GUFF member, explained that the organization is pushing the university to use its endowment responsibly and for students to pay closer attention to Georgetown’s investments. “Spreading the word about our proposal is thus more than just to galvanize student support,” she wrote in an email to the Voice. “It’s about making them aware of proposed changes to their, and Georgetown’s, financial future.”

In 2014, GUFF petitioned the university to divest from the coal industry. Georgetown agreed to stop investing its endowment in coal in September 2015. In addition to coal, the school ended its investments in tar sands in 2018. However, the CISR, which is composed of 12 faculty members, administrators, and student representatives, voted against full divestment from fossil fuels in January 2015.

“Georgetown’s Board of Directors has already demonstrated a willingness to act on climate change, including its decisions to avoid investments in coal and tar sands oil, as well as its decision to support the Paris Climate Agreement,” the proposal read.

According to GUFF, the mission of fossil fuel companies contradicts the Socially Responsible Investing (SRI). Georgetown has referred to the SRI policy for guidance in divestment in the past. Established in 2017, the SRI asserts the university’s commitment to “social justice, protection of human life and dignity, stewardship of the planet, and promotion of the common good.”

The university takes its social responsibilities and its endowment seriously, university spokesman Matt Hill wrote in an email to the Voice. The CISR considers and decides if a proposal submitted by students and faculty merits further consideration, and if so, it can make recommendations to the board of directors.

GUFF stated that divesting from fossil fuels is becoming more crucial, especially in the wake of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017. “Climate change is indelibly and, in some cases, irreversibly changing

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

LEISURE

14

The Heiress Dissects the Psyche of a Woman on the Verge

Photo by C. Stanley Photography

A still from The Heiress featuring Laura C. Harris, left, as Catherine Sloper, and James Whalen, right, as Dr. Austin Sloper.

The show runs through March 10, 2019 at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater.

By Amy Guay Two women––one skittish and delicate, the other older and boisterous––contemplate the purpose of life as they lounge in a lavish 19th-century parlor. The young woman offers an answer: “It is to find someone to love.” “And someone to love you,” the elder rejoins with a smile. “That’s the same thing,” says her niece, simply and sadly.

Love is anything but straightforward for Catherine Sloper, the hesitant protagonist of The Heiress, Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s 1947 play about a woman who suffers the psychological ramifications of her father’s bitterness. Playing at Arena Stage’s in-the-round auditorium with Laura C. Harris in the titular role, the play plunges beneath well-dressed manners to unearth the fraught dynamics of gender and power that menace the Sloper home. When the arrival of a suitor signals Catherine’s first chance at romance, Victorian era politesse gives way to cruelty, and our heroine must fight for her own rebirth.

Despite the bleak premise, this production of The Heiress skirts overblown drama in favor of humanity’s most basic messiness. The cast of mostly women grounds the play in real emotion––everyone, from Kimberly Schraf as the Slopers’ long-suffering maid to the luminous Lorene Chesley as Catherine’s popular cousin, brings a warmth only possible through depth. When Dr. Sloper wants to confirm his suspicions about Catherine’s hasty courtship, he seeks the counsel of the most clear-headed characters of the play: his sister Elizabeth Almond (Janet Hayatshani) and Mrs. Montgomery (Lise Bruneau). Empathetic and firm, both are worthy allies.

Yet even Dr. Sloper’s misogyny is not so easily disavowed when embodied by the dignified James Whalen. With persuasive logic, Whalen plays Catherine’s father as a man whose condescension toward his daughter is the remnant of heartbreak and protective instinct, misplaced as they may be. There are par-

allels that can be drawn between the events of the play and the controversies of our current age, but Whalen makes Sloper into much more than a symbol to be spat on.

As Catherine, Harris is tasked with bearing the emotional journey of a woman convinced of her own dullness, yet desperate to be proven wrong. She is the heroine, but for a while, she seems to exist only on the margins, fidgeting with her hands while others more eloquent and worldly take up space. Hair pulled back into a severe chignon and drowning in a sumptuous cherry-red dress made by costume designer Ivania Stack, Catherine would rather sequester herself in the kitchen when company calls than face her father’s humiliating remarks. This meekness can be hard to stomach, but Harris, through her vulnerable performance, maintains our pity. Catherine’s turn from brokenness in Act 2 is wholly satisfying in Harris’ hands––a feminist happy ending that, if not completely triumphant, feels true.

“My favorite roles are the ones in which I get to experience the breadth and depth of the human experience in the time between lights up and curtain call, and The Heiress provides that in spades,” wrote Harris is an email to the Voice. “There’s no opportunity to blink, no chance for rest, and it is utterly exhausting, but in service of such a compelling character, that exhaustion is the height of professional satisfaction!”

Though the context is usually less than friendly, the script stays spry thanks to its looping, inventive witticisms. Whether engaged in banter or argument, the guests who pontificate in the drawing room are whip-smart and well-spoken, rendering Catherine’s awkwardness all the more conspicuous. “Help her to be clever. You are good for nothing unless you are clever,” pleads Sloper to his sister. It’s a rude request, but he has a point: In a world where entertaining guests is social capital, his daughter faces certain ruin.

The compliment, too, is an art form––one Catherine’s charismatic love interest Morris Townsend (Jonathan David Martin) has mastered to the chagrin of her father. Martin is thoroughly at home playing a lovesick admirer; his motives might be shady, but like Catherine, we are too enthralled by his unwavering attention to notice. His odd-couple rapport with Catherine’s gossipy aunt Lavinia Penniman (Nancy Robinette, who earned all of the night’s biggest laughs) is the show’s best comic relief. Lavinia delights in Morris’ charms and the future he represents for her niece; he, in turn, enjoys her company––or is it her access to Dr. Sloper’s fine cigars? Herein rests the cynicism of The Heiress: Not even our most cheerful characters can escape the quid pro quo nature of a certain pay grade.

It’s fitting that the play unfolds in-the-round within the suffocating bounds of a New York household, dressed to perfection by set designer Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams. (The Heiress’ creative team is all women, helmed by director Seema Sueko.) We are privy to every downturned mouth, every slump of the shoulder from a unique aerial view. It mimics, in some ways, the fishbowl effect that plagues New York high society. These insecurities resonate across time and status, the play’s themes as classic as a broken heart. “[The people in Catherine’s life] try so hard to demand that she be or act a certain way,” wrote Harris, “and when our audiences collectively jeer those efforts, and collectively applaud Catherine along each step of her journey of self-discovery and actualization, it’s clear that this story hits a nerve in 2019.”

Fortunately for us, The Heiress is less concerned with being unlucky in love than it is with what Catherine must sacrifice when re-constructing herself from the shattered pieces of a past life. In doing so, she emerges hard and brittle, but closer to whole than ever before.

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

15

LEISURE

Critical Voices: Quinn XCII, From Michigan, With Love

By Anna Pogrebivsky

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“Right Where You Should Be” is the definition of a first, epic romance.

The authenticity of Quinn’s music can be traced to the fact that he writes, sings, and produces all of his own songs. He is, as such, embedded into his music on a deeply personal level.

From Michigan, With Love features several collaborations that further enhance the sound and message of his music.

The third single off the album, “Tough,” features Noah Kahn, a folk-inspired pop singer. On the surface, the song seems to be about the pressure for men to maintain a hyper-masculine appearance. However, upon further listens, it transforms into a deeper message about bullying and how anyone, no matter what they look like, can be subjected to intimidation. In the song, he speaks directly to the fictional bully, with lyrics like, “And I’m sure you’d win in an altercation / But you’re still insecure to me.” “Tough” is deceivingly cheerful with its pop-infused background beats, but the lyrics present a

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Quinn XCII’s sophomore album, From Michigan, With Love, is so raw, so real, and so deeply relatable. The album boasts a wide range of music, from upbeat bops like “Werewolf ” to chiller, happy-go-lucky songs like “Right Where You Should Be” to downright sappy love songs like “U & US.” Quinn bravely incorporates his feelings on love, loneliness, and home into his music. The album, released fittingly at midnight on Valentine’s Day, is an epic compilation of bold and mellow music that pays homage to his home state of Michigan.

Listening to From Michigan, With Love, it’s hard not to start applying the songs to your own personal reality. For any big life moment, there is a Quinn XCII song that could be played in the background. “Tough” represents those difficult moments when you feel like the whole world is against you.

beautiful, sensitive piece that gives listeners the confidence and strength they need to be true to themselves and their feelings.

“Life Must Go On” features vocals from artist Jon Bellion, who also helped produce the track. Bellion’s signature beats are noticeable in this song—the bridge, for example, incorporates a background echo, which is especially reminiscent of Bellion’s style. In this sense, “Life Must Go On” is very similar to Bellion’s single, “Guillotine,” with an upbeat chorus and eclectic backing vocals.

Quinn’s collaborations are essential to the identity of From Michigan, With Love. The album is partially about Quinn sharing his home (and his struggles) with the rest of the world, and the collabs are just one medium through which Quinn is able to communicate his love for Michigan with others.

On the tracks that he does not collaborate with other artists, Quinn takes a hard look at his own life. He bravely shares his struggles with anxiety in many of his songs. Things as raw as anxiety and mental health must be very hard for Quinn to share with his millions of fans, so he uses attachment to his home as a metaphor for his struggles. For instance, in “Sad Still,” he sings, “We don’t wanna feel this bad / Rather sweep it under the mat / We take this red pill, green pill, black pill / I know deep down, we’re sad still.” Quinn calls out all the people who mask their pain with medication and gives an uncut look into his own sadness.

Between the collaborations and introspective looks into Quinn’s own life, From Michigan, With Love compels listeners to remember the communities that raised and uplifted them, while on their quests for a life beyond their hometowns. More importantly, perhaps, the album’s raw look at mental health helps to destigmatize anxiety and other mental illnesses. This, in turn, hopefully inspires fans to go forth into the world knowing that they are not alone.

In the music video for “Life Must Go On,” Quinn travels around America visiting his fans and giving them a preview of his album. Throughout these visits, he spends time getting to know fans. After listening to Quinn’s new album, many of the fans open up to Quinn and relate to his struggles with anxiety.

From Michigan, With Love encourages us not to lose our connection to our roots in the everyday chaos of life and to take time to work on our own inner struggles.