The Georgetown Voice 2_1_2019

VOICE The Georgetown

Getting Candid with the Candidates: GUSA Executive Tickets, On the Record page 10

February 1, 2019

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FEBRUARY 1, 2019

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

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

—Celebrating 50 Years— Volume 51 • Issue 10

news

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 editors Tristan Lee, Will Shanahan

“The Student Bodies” Egan Barnitt

opinion

contents Carrying On: Learning to Speak My Family’s Language Hannah Song

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Just For the Joy of It Joy Kim

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Ten Pounds of Paper and Ink Julia Pinney

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Editorials

Jojo Ruf Takes the Stage at Theater J Katherine Randolph

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Getting Candid with the Candidates: GUSA Executive Tickets, On the Record Voice News Staff

10-11

University Survey to Measure Progress in Campus Sexual Assault Prevention Julia Pinney

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Finding His Voice: Alan Di Sciullo on Straying From the Status Quo, Starting the Voice Harshini Velraj Matthew McConaughey Flounders in Steve Knight’s Serenity Katherine Randolph Kleptocracy Engages the Unknown Emily Jaster 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.

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, Inès de Miranda, Chris Dunn, 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 editors 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 Adoni, Amy Zhou

copy

copy chief Cade Shore assistant Copy editors Sophie Stewart, Neha Wasil editors Mya Allen, Natalie Chaudhuri, Maya Knepp, Stephanie Leow, Moira Phan, Madison Scully, Maya Tenzer, Kristin Turner, Rachel Weinman

online

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

Podcast editor Kayla Hewitt assistant podcast editor Panna Gattyan social media editor Katherine Randolph MULTIMEDIA editor Isabel Lord Content manager Margaux Fontaine

business

general manager Anna Gloor assistant manager of alumni outreach Beth Cunniff

support

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

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

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

I Just Want A Quesadilla EPI

Margaux’s Animal Doodle

Overheard at Georgetown

ore Six m terms! f mid o s k ee

(FINISH )

You gave someone a hickey on a Wednesday?!

w

LEAV EY

Halftime Leisure Preview

( START )

Time to Get a Watch

by J A CK T O W NS E ND

“Which clock?” “There was a clock in Red Square?”

No one seems to have noticed, but the clock in Red Square has disappeared. Where there used to be a large clock, there are now some metal barricades and a traffic barrel surrounding a scar in the square’s eponymous bricks.

Drew Selipsky (COL ’22), interviewed while eating Chick-Fil-A in Hoya Court on a chilly Wednesday evening, said, with no apparent basis, that he thought there might be a cover up, or that it might be an improv group’s doing. Selipsky also said that the clock’s absence would be a real drag on campus life.

Isabella Denny (COL ’22), eating a Royal Jacket sandwich, questioned whether the clock had ever existed in the first place. “Time isn’t real here,” she said.

The facilities department had no answers for this mystery. After a receptionist went to find someone who could answer the Voice’s questions, a man—unnamed because he asked not to be quoted—emerged from the offices underneath New South. But the man avoided questions and suggested that GUSA might be able to help.

Jonathon Marek (SFS ’21), the GUSA Executive’s press secretary, said in an email to the Voice that he would ask around. At press time, his efforts had been unsuccessful.

Regardless, one thing is clear: No one seems to know where the time went.

“Mark Hoppus of blink-182 announced via Twitter last weekend that he and Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low are forming a new band called Simple Creatures. His shocking announcement caught the punk world completely by surprise and revealed almost no information, simply linking to their debut single, ‘Drug.’ But the duo might make more sense than they do at first glance.” Check out the rest of Bryn Furey’s Halftime analysis on georgetownvoice.com. ­

Come to Office Hours!

In the newest installment of “Office Hours,” the video series in which Voice staffers have insanely talented student musicians come to our office and serenade us, the gifted Elizabeth Gleyzer (COL ’20) plays the keyboard, guitar, and ukulele as she sings a range of original compositions. Check out georgetownvoice.com for its premiere on Sunday, Feb. 3!

The Voice’s Playlist of the Week

by C LAIRE G OLDBE RG

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Dogwalk

02

Your Dog

03

Me & My Dog

04

If I Had a Dog

Pity Sex

Soccer Mommy

boygenius

Frankie Cosmos

05 I Love My Dog Cat Stevens

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Dog Years

Maggie Rogers

EDITORIALS

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Don’t Deny D.C. Statehood

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

The 35-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, threw D.C. residents into the national spotlight but also brought an unintended consequence for statehood advocates. Washington City Paper argued that local and national news coverage of the shutdown inaccurately portrayed D.C. as solely a government town, populated entirely by transient federal employees, which promoted an incomplete narrative about the lives of D.C. residents. In reality, 700,000 people living in D.C. were impacted by the shutdown and are consistently denied the rights of statehood.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) is the District’s non-voting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, whose powers are vastly limited compared to state congresspeople. On Jan. 3, she introduced a new bill for D.C. statehood (H.R.51), which currently has 189 co-sponsors, the most ever on a legislative proposal for D.C. statehood. This editorial board strongly supports this bill.

The District faces numerous challenges due to its lack of statehood. D.C. already exceeds the populations of both Wyoming and Vermont and will soon exceed the populations of Arkansas and North Dakota. Yet, unlike people living in these four states, D.C. residents are denied voting representation in Congress.

This disenfranchisement means that D.C. residents pay

federal taxes without any real say within the bodies that make decisions that will directly affect them, leading to the phrase “Taxation Without Representation” on many license plates in the District. For years, the D.C. Metro has suffered from poor service and safety issues, one major reason being that it is the only subway system in the country without a tax or dedicated funding source. While Virginia and Maryland can both rely on state transportation funds to support their share of the subway, D.C. cannot. Finally, local laws should be controlled by people from D.C., rather than politicians who mostly lack any connection to or experience with the area. This injustice is compounded by the fact that 75.8 percent of registered voters in D.C. are Democrats, yet that percentage is not reflected in the Congressional subcommittees that oversee their budget and laws, leading to undue Republican influence on the District.

But the issue of statehood is not confined to D.C. alone.

The U.S. currently controls five permanently inhabited territories: Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Many of these territories have high concentrations of military veterans, yet receive some of the lowest rates of Veterans Affairs funding per capita due to the territories’ secondary status to states. Without representation in Congress, there is little political incentive for voting politicians in Congress to advocate for these territories. In 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, resulting in a widespread humanitarian crisis largely caused by

the U.S.’s apathetic response. This tragedy highlights the need for the federal government to take the concerns and safety of people living in the U.S. territories seriously. On the day before the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to allow Puerto Rico to become the 51st state. The president refused. As lives and safety are at stake, the U.S. needs to give its territories the opportunity to have robust representation in Congress and engage with issues of statehood or separation.

As Georgetown University students, and therefore as members of the D.C. community, we have a responsibility to engage with these pertinent local issues. This editorial board encourages students to become informed advocates for statehood in the District; for example, students can attend events such as Statehood Lobby Day on Feb. 27, which is an opportunity to meet with elected officials and discuss the impacts of inequality on D.C. residents.

Beyond voter disenfranchisement and representation, the U.S. system of statehood and territorial possessions remains a reflection of our country’s colonialist history and refusal to move past these outdated, harmful systems. This country needs to respect the rights and wills of all its citizens and provide statehood status to any territory that is calling for it. Debates over statehood and territorialism raise crucial issues about equal rights and representation that should not be ignored.

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine proposed legislation last week that would make clergy members mandatory reporters of physical and sexual abuse of children. This would add priests, rabbis, imams, and other religious leaders to the list of mandatory reporters which already includes teachers, doctors, social workers, and others who work with children. Similar laws where clergy are explicitly named as mandatory reporters exist in 29 states as well as Guam.

This proposal comes in the wake of revelations that the two most recent Archbishops of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Rev. Theodore McCarrick, who resigned from the College of Cardinals in July 2018, were involved in either covering up or perpetrating sexual abuse. Wuerl was named in a Pennsylvania Grand Jury report on clerical sexual abuse in the state for his role in protecting priests who had been accused of sexual abuse.

McCarrick was credibly accused of sexual abuse in June 2018 and removed from his role in the clergy. These are not isolated incidents but are rather part of the ongoing issue of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

This editorial board supports Racine’s proposal and encourages the D.C. Council and Mayor Muriel Bowser to bring the District in line with other states. This board also feels that while this is a positive development, city and church officials must continue implementing measures to eliminate abuse in all forms.

The most recent policy of the Archdiocese of Washington was written in 2013 and requires that all “clergy, religious, seminarian, employee or volunteer” report physical or sexual abuse, sexual assault, or child neglect to civil authorities. The proposed legislation would put the city on par with the Archdiocese’s standards but would also add another level of enforcement should the policy go unfollowed. Similarly, Georgetown’s Protec-

tion of Minors policy would not be affected, as any individual participating in a university-affiliated program with minors is required to report suspected child abuse or neglect to the university’s Office of Compliance and Ethics.

Georgetown has taken steps to increase transparency around the impacts recent scandals in the Church have had on our own community. For example, the university has informed the campus community when Jesuits accused of sexual assault spent time at Georgetown.

That being said, we cannot ignore the fact that McCarrick and Wuerl still possess honorary degrees from Georgetown. Georgetown’s role as the oldest Catholic university in the country and its home in the nation’s capital give it the opportunity to lead by example. The absolute least that Georgetown can do to stand against sexual assault perpetrated by Catholic clergymen is to revoke these degrees and demonstrate to its students, faculty, staff, and alumni that Georgetown does not and will not tolerate sexual abuse. But the university should also vocalize its support of Racine’s mandatory reporting proposal.

Members of Campus Ministry receive internal training, as well as training from the Offices of Title IX Compliance and the General Counsel every year to prepare them for reporting responsibilities and refresh their knowledge of sexual assault-related resources. This training also provides specific delineations between pastoral and non-pastoral roles.

Because some priests also serve as professors, lines may be blurred regarding the implications of confiding in someone when it is unclear what role they are performing. While campus clergy are performing in their roles as priests, any disclosures of sexual misconduct made to them are confidential. However, if a priest not serving in their pastoral role, or any other Campus Ministry staff member, hears such disclosures, they are semi-confidential reporters, meaning that they must relay basic information about the event to the Office of Title

IX Compliance but not identify information of any of the parties involved.

Racine’s proposal is about the reporting of child abuse, and the population of minors who come into contact with the university is small. However, we should encourage people of all ages to feel comfortable confiding in trusted figures about experiences of abuse or assault. Georgetown has an option to report incidents of sexual assault anonymously online. But it’s essential that this confidence is not hindered by a lack of clarity among students regarding the obligations of mandatory reporters under Title IX. And yet, Georgetown does not currently have a full-time Title IX coordinator.

Like Georgetown’s current policy, Racine’s proposal provides an exception for information priests learn that would fall under priest-penitent privilege. Any information learned during confession or made in confidence to a minister for a spiritual or religious purpose would be exempt. This is the policy of the Archdiocese, and similar exemptions are provided by 24 of the states which name clergy members as mandatory reporters.

While Georgetown has focused on the Catholic Church, other religious institutions are not free from these problems. For example, a Georgetown-area rabbi was convicted of voyeurism in 2015. With these instances in mind, the attorney general’s proposal universalizes the responsibility of religious leaders to protect all members of their congregations.

We support this bill as a measure to prevent sexual abuse of children, and we advocate for more tangible and actionable steps in the future to prevent all sexual assault. We acknowledge that this is an issue that expands far beyond the scope of what we have written about here. The issue of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy ties into the larger systemic problems of gender and power and the hierarchy of men within most major religious organizations. While there is much more work that needs to be done to address these issues, this proposed legislation is an important step forward.

Make Clergy Mandatory Reporters

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

VOICES

Carrying On: Learning to Speak My Family’s Language

Photo courtesy of Hannah Song

“Do you speak Korean?” asked my friend, sitting on the floor of my freshman year dorm room.

“No…” “Well, have you ever been to the country?”

“No,” I responded, “but—” “Well, then, you’re not Korean. So stop pretending to be.” *** When my dad moved to the United States at four years old, he didn’t speak a word of English. But despite the language barrier, the message from everyone was clear: You’re in America, speak English. Nowadays, when my grandparents talk to him, he responds in a different language, his Korean reduced to a mixture of Konglish and small sentences.

As a kid, I used to get so angry with my parents for not teaching me Korean when I was a baby. I’d lecture them on the benefits of multilingualism, the missed work and travel opportunities, and how awful it was that I couldn’t have a real conversation with my own grandparents.

My dad would respond, “Hannah, I don’t even speak Korean. How was I supposed to teach you?”

What I didn’t realize then was that my dad can’t have real, complex conversations with my grandparents, either. Even though they live right down the street, he can’t tell his parents about his dreams, hopes, disappointments, or regrets; there are simply no words to describe them.

Despite high levels of bilingualism in the U.S., for most immigrant families, the home language is almost completely lost by the third generation. For many, there’s an overwhelming pressure to assimilate, the first step of which is to speak English as much as possible, even if that means forgetting your first language.

As one of the first Korean families in Baltimore, this process—called first language attrition—happened even faster for us. Without a Korean community to interact with, my dad and his siblings were almost completely immersed in English-speaking environments. As they grew older, English became their dominant language and speaking Korean felt increasingly foreign. *** Ever since I was little, I’ve dreamed of learning Korean. Being biracial felt by far like one of the most interesting things about me, and I wanted to explore that part of my identity as much as possible.

When I came to Georgetown, I had my first opportunity to take Korean lessons. As I embraced more of my Asian identity,

I knew from my dad’s childhood stories that I might face some discrimination, and I was fully prepared to be made fun of for becoming “more Asian” by family back home. What I wasn’t expecting was to feel like I wasn’t Asian enough, and that I’d never, no matter what I do, be accepted as Korean.

At first I thought it was just because I was mixed. My dad is Korean, sure, but my mom is white, and I’ve always looked more like her side of the family. I thought that maybe, when the Asian culture clubs at CAB fair were ignoring me and leaving me off their listservs, they just couldn’t tell I was Korean by the way that I looked.

But then people started straight-up telling me, to my face, that I wasn’t Korean. I’d already been told by white people that I wasn’t white. Now the Asians were telling me I wasn’t Korean, too?

My dad told me that my aunts took a trip to Korea when they were teenagers to improve their language skills. When people heard their broken Korean, they didn’t just look down on them, they would actively harass them. For the second time in their lives, they were foreigners.

To other Asians, swapping Korean for English wasn’t an act of survival; it was a betrayal. I still remember being a teenager at camp, when another half-Asian boy asked me if I spoke Korean at home. I told him the truth, and he looked me in the eye, told me that he hated my family, and then walked away. *** Learning Korean has taught me a lot about my family, but not in the way that I thought it would. For starters, I learned that instead of “spicy red paste,” I’ve been saying “little boy penis” for my entire life. I learned that my name is spelled wrong on both my driver’s license and my passport, but in different ways on each document, and that the instructions on the backs of my Korean beauty products are actually in English, just spelled out in Korean characters.

In class, it’s strange to learn about common Korean foods and traditions that, in my neighborhood, were something unique to my family. It turns out that eating pears and hard boiled eggs with cold noodles is normal in Korea, not just a weird thing I liked while growing up.

But there are other things that do make us unique. We eat our kim pop with hot dog slices, and we eat our bowls of rice with bacon and Royal Farms fried chicken. And we also, of course, speak really messed up Konglish.

*** I wish that I were fluent in Korean. I wish that I grew up in a bilingual household, and that I didn’t have to learn my family’s language like an outsider. I wish that being American didn’t prevent me from being Korean, and vice versa; I wish that people could wrap their heads around the fact that it’s possible to have more than one identity.

I wish, I wish, I wish.

I’m still not sure what is the best way to reconnect with my family’s culture. With the loss of the language, I feel our customs, traditions, and even our old family recipes slipping through my fingers. I fear that by the time I have kids, I won’t know which recipe to use when making them seaweed soup for their birthdays, where to get them the right kind of hanbok, or how to give them a Korean name.

For all of the articles I’ve read about language and culture loss in immigrant families, none of them have given me a solution that doesn’t involve packing up, leaving my family, and living in Korea for the rest of my life—that is, other than learning the language.

Will learning Korean magically reconnect me to my heritage? Will it give me an all-access pass to the inside of the Korean community? No. At least, I don’t think so. But it can open a door.

The last time I went home to Baltimore, I visited my grandma’s house for dinner. She sat me down, handing me some Korean children’s books to practice with, and I told her about my Korean class and my professor.

“What’s her name?” she asked me. I was so stunned that for a moment, I couldn’t find the words to respond. For the first time in my life, I had just understood my grandmother speaking in Korean.

Hannah Song is a sophomore in the College.

She is the photo editor of the Voice.

VOICES

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FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Just for the Joy of It Timmy Adami

A few weeks into my first semester at Georgetown, I noticed an open music room—a rare sight in the perpetually busy student center—and made a mad dash to claim it. I sat down at the piano, giddy with the excitement of securing a room and relieved to be alone for the first time in weeks.

I placed my hands over the keys and played a hesitant scale.

After a moment, I heard a classical piano piece being played back to me. Was someone playing a recording down the hall? No, I realized, it was coming from the room next door. I immediately snatched my hands away from the keys. I wasn’t alone after all.

I sat hunched over that uncomfortable piano bench for the next ten minutes, playing bits and pieces of sheet music I had pulled up on my phone. But I couldn’t distract myself from the perfect concerto coming from the other room. If I could hear whoever was playing next door, they could certainly hear me. I couldn’t shake the thought of them laughing to themselves, silently judging me for being less than amazing. I scared myself out of the room, feeling defeated and unsatisfied.

Still, for the rest of that semester, I couldn’t stop jumping at the chance to claim open practice rooms. I kept hoping that one day I would magically stop caring what other people thought and just be able to play. Instead, I shamed myself out of the room over and over again. If I saw the shadow of someone outside the door in my peripheral vision, I would switch to playing something more “advanced.” I thought I would be judged for taking up a practice room when I was far from a professional pianist. I felt the need to prove that I deserved to be in that space.

The other day, I got a text from a friend out of the blue: “Do you ever get weird urges to become super involved in something you’ve never done???” I responded without missing a beat, “Um yes like literally all the time.”

This urge was particularly strong during my first weeks at Georgetown. I walked through the student activities fair and put my email down for everything I was interested in, from newspapers and literary magazines to dance troupes and

a cappella groups. Everyone told me that college was a time to find new interests, develop new skills, and do things you would otherwise never do in your life. The thing is, Georgetown does not make this easy. Any extracurricular activity that requires showing up to an interview in business casual attire with three copies of your resumé in hand clearly isn’t interested in your lack of experience. The whole application process makes you prove your worth for a specific end-goal, whether it be pre-professional, social, or otherwise. Most clubs do not see their purpose as mere enjoyment or experimentation.

I remember my freshman fall, walking into a workshop for a dance group to learn the audition choreography and immediately wanting to leave. There were eight people scattered around the studio, each person going through a stretch routine, looking like they’d done it a thousand times before. As we learned the choreography, I could see my flailing limbs in the reflection of the floor-to-ceiling mirror, struggling to keep up. I stayed the whole hour and a half, but only because my roommate (a trained dancer) wanted me to. Needless to say, I didn’t end up auditioning.

It’s easy to feel like urges to try something new are stupid or misplaced when I’m surrounded by seemingly polished experts wherever I go. But there’s no shame in being an amateur. I shouldn’t need other people’s validation to do what I enjoy. The very notion that I have to be amazingly skilled at something to deserve to practice it is absurd. We all have to start somewhere.

Equipped with this realization, I found other ways to dance on campus through Rangila, Reventón Latino, and Vibe_. Groups like Vibe_, which practices K-pop and urban dance, give people who have an interest or passion—but not necessarily the expertise—a space to explore and learn, and above all, just do what they like to do.

My practice room fears disappeared when I found support for my “weird urges” in people who shared my love of music.

They spent hours in practice rooms with me, playing around on the piano, sharing new artists, and just jamming out. I went

there with friends to take a break from studying for finals or between classes to get a song out of my head and onto the piano. The more time I spent there, the more I saw those rooms like a hangout space for like-minded people rather than a space in which I had to prove my worth. Over time, I realized that I don’t need validation from others to do something I enjoy.

There’s freedom in enjoying something without thinking about whether I’m good enough. It allows me to go after what I want and mess up, without doubt or insecurity weighing me down. I don’t have to be better or best or amazing or talented. It’s enough just to enjoy. Practice room hangouts have shown me that if I pursue whatever it is I’m pursuing with excitement, others will follow my lead. If I’m excited, they’re excited. If I don’t judge myself, they don’t judge me.

When I sit in practice rooms today, I feel a sense of shared community with whoever’s in the room next door. Whether they’re singing a ballad at the top of their lungs, stumbling over the same few notes over and over again, or blowing through an impressive Chopin, we’re all there for the same reason.

We’re excited about what we like and we won’t let anything stop us. My hands are staying on the piano keys this time.

Joy Kim is a sophomore in the College majoring in linguistics and psychology.

Some things she likes are beaches, bad dancing, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

One journal is striped, slightly water-stained, and held together with a hair tie. Another is sturdy and black with “Carpe Fucking Diem” printed on the front. One is covered in bright orange bunnies, and another is thick, college-ruled, green, and filled with graphite threatening to disappear.

On the occasional lazy day when I’m back home in California, I’ll lug the 19 of them down from the top shelf of my closet, all 10 pounds threatening to concuss me, and flip through them. Every time a forest fire rips through the state, I think about what I would grab if a firefighter showed up at my door with an evacuation order: my baby blanket, which my mom says she regrets not taking away from me at 3 years old, my 10th grade English essays, which are covered with the scrawling red ink of my uncle’s correcting pen, and these journals.

As I sit in bed and write every night, I think about the role these journals play in a world where so much is impermanent. I send texts of the inane variety (“Sorry, just got out of the shower, be there in 15!”) and of the holy (“You are loved, you are my favorite person, and never let yourself forget that”). But with time, they disappear. No one will find old text messages while cleaning out their attic. I take photos of the sunset in Florence, Italy, and of friends making silly faces, kilobytes and gigabytes that hold incalculable significance. But one phone glitch or technology upgrade and these tokens are gone, leaving just the memories they sought to capture. Instead, I can hold these journals in my hands and reread them as I please. And, save fire or flood, they’re safe with me.

I know exactly when I first decided to put pen to paper and write about my life: May 25, 2011. A retired teacher came to impart some wisdom to my class that day, and he told us that one of his best habits is writing down a memorable moment each night.

As an anxious seventh grader, that seemed like a smart way to center myself. I wrote about walks to Starbucks with friends, silly things my teachers said, and making chicken pot pie with my dad.

One day, in the summer of 2011, I am embarrassed to say I wrote, “My new jeans! My booty looks GOOD!” I remember those jeans, and 13-year-old me felt like a million bucks in that denim.

It wasn’t until a few months later, when one line wasn’t enough to fit the emotions I was feeling, that my entries began to resemble the long, rambling paragraphs I write today.

My cabin mate at sleep-away camp was struggling for reasons I still don’t know and had to go home. At the time, I was confused and sad and wanted to know what was going on. I remember the experience of writing this entry, by the light of my headlamp, as cathartic, part conjectures and part feelings.

It was my first glimpse of the darker side of life, of mental health issues and parents dying and divorce, themes that began to show up in my journals more and more as the years passed.

Writing each night was a way for me to piece through it all.

Reading through the journals from my junior year of high school takes me back to the overwhelming and exciting feelings that defined being 17. I felt a sense of freedom I’d never felt before and an unbridled anticipation for the life ahead of me. One night, my friends and I drove down to Dockweiler Beach and roasted corn and hot dogs over a fire, and I wrote, “I love being 17 and alive with my friends around me.”

Seventeen was the age when I first felt what it was like to be mesmerized by someone’s presence. One day in Spanish class, I absentmindedly wrote his name on my worksheet, only to be awkwardly caught by him, and told, with a teasing smile, that my subconscious must be telling me something.

A few days later I wrote, “I’m feeling super, I really think he likes me … it’s a cool feeling, a nice feeling … really nice.” And then the next, “So confused, so confused, god can’t there just be a handbook for this stuff?” Reading these pages, I am transported to a time before I knew how terrifying it is when your feelings are at the mercy of another, and that two people liking each other isn’t always enough to make a relationship work.

I often think about who I am writing these entries for. Undoubtedly, I am writing for my current self, or I would have given it up at some point in the past seven years. I think the act of sitting down each night, even for just five minutes at times, continues to be an invaluable habit. I’m at a moment where I’m starting to define my life, the kind of people I want to surround me, and how I want to spend my time. My entries make it so that I’m consistently checking in on what is going well and not so well, instead of letting my days in college blur into one another. Decisions these past few years have felt a bit more weighty, and I find myself writing out the pros and cons of whether to go home for the summer or stay in D.C. or what kind of job I want to apply for after graduation. And often I write down a few things I’m grateful for, which is sometimes the kick in the pants I need to realize that I’m doing a bit better than I think I am.

As much as I write for my current self, I’m realizing more and more how much I write for my future self, a self that is determined to remember. When reading my high school journals, it strikes me that I didn’t know at the time how much of a gift I am giving myself. It’s the gift of remembering the little moments that get lost in the consolidation of memories; that one afternoon I came home to find my best friend sitting at my kitchen table, having just shown up because she’d lost her phone but wanted to see me; or the night freshman year that a friend and I had plans to go to our first college party but ended up sitting on the Henle steps talking for two hours. But more specifically, it’s the gift of being taken back to a feeling.

When I write in my journal today, I’m leaving a record of my life’s missteps and surprises. Each time I open a fresh journal, I feel a rush of excitement, because who knows what stories the blank pages in my hands will soon hold?

Julia Pinney is the Voices editor for the Voice, and she’s aware that is quite a mouthful.

VOICES

Ten Pounds of Paper and Ink

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FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Jojo Ruf Takes The Stage at Theater J

Photo Courtesy of Jojo Ruf

by Katherine Randolph Jojo Ruf (COL ’08, MBA ’19) has been involved in the Washington, D.C., theater scene as an audience member, an artist, and a producer for most of her life. But this month, she started a new chapter in her career. On Jan. 28, Ruf became the managing director of Theater J, a professional Jewish theater in the District known for plays that highlight the Jewish and human experience. She hopes to use her vision of theater as a vehicle of understanding and peace in her new position.

Established in 1990 under the Edlavitch D.C. Jewish Community Center, Theater J has grown into one of the U.S.’s

largest Jewish theaters. In 1997, the program moved into its permanent space on 16th Street in Dupont. Throughout the years, it has shown and premiered plays from both Jewish and non-Jewish playwrights and was awarded the Mayor’s Arts Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline in 2008.

Though she is not Jewish, Ruf admires the way Theater J uses Jewish themes and artists to touch audiences across a myriad of religions and backgrounds.

“They don’t only speak to one specific audience,” Ruf said.

“I think that many of their plays are probing questions, are que-

rying or asking really tough questions of their characters or us as audience members.”

Throughout her career, Ruf has tried to promote this diversity of communities and stories in theater, a kind of fellowship through art she wants to bring into her time as director of Theater J. While some kids watched Saturday cartoons, Ruf spent her childhood in theater seats. Her father, Frederick Ruf, is a Georgetown theology professor and theater enthusiast, and the shows they attended together instilled in her a lifelong

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

love for performance. Ruf ’s career has taken her around the world in pursuit of new ways to use theater to communicate with audiences.

“I went to a handful of very odd plays with my dad,” said Ruf. “Things like that expand your worldview. They make you think outside of yourself.”

While she was at Georgetown, Ruf fell into theater unexpectedly. Though she’d performed in a few plays in high school, she didn’t enter Georgetown’s theater community until

“

For people to see versions of themselves onstage is really powerful.

”

her second semester freshman year. She joined the co-curricular Nomadic Theatre group and eventually became its executive producer. In 2008, she graduated with majors in English and Theater and Performance Studies (TPST). Though she was a part of Georgetown College’s inaugural class of TPST majors, her theater major was an accident. When the College added the major, she realized that she had already taken nearly enough classes to complete the requirements and decided to go for it.

“I wasn’t anticipating majoring in it, but it didn’t feel like a risk at all,” Ruf said. “I felt immediately at home in the theater community.”

After graduating, Ruf worked for the National New Play Network, an organization that works with more than 100 member theaters to encourage producers to stage original plays, before settling back at Georgetown in 2012. She was a part of the inaugural staff of Georgetown’s Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. The Lab works with international theater groups to stage productions in the U.S. and abroad.

“The Lab’s mission is to harness the power of performance to humanize global politics,” Ruf said. “What we’ve tried to do at the Lab is bring people into contact with each other that wouldn’t have come into contact.”

In July 2017, the Lab travelled to Segovia, Spain to premiere I Pledge Allegiance, a play written and produced by Georgetown alumni and students about growing up after 9/11 and living through the 2016 election. In September 2017, they hosted the National Theatre of Ghana in a three-day D.C. residency, during which they performed Tennessee Williams’ Ten Blocks on the Camino Real. Over the course of her time at the Lab, Ruf managed 16 full-scale productions and workshops and eight residencies. She said she was most moved by the impact their plays had on people.

“One of the most amazing things about my time at the Lab is that whether or not someone comes in thinking that they’re going to be changed, just seeing another human story onstage

opens them up in a really spectacular way,” Ruf said. “Theater has a unique capacity to engender empathy in people who are experiencing it.”

Ruf experienced one such engaging production in 2015, when she was the coordinating producer of D.C.’s inaugural Women’s Voices Theater Festival. The festival brought together theater groups from the area to highlight world premieres of plays written by women. Ruf believes this effort is significant because the theater world has not yet reached gender parity.

Maya Roth, a TPST professor, said that plays by women are often written off as special interest productions.

“People are trained to read a male narrative or a straight narrative or a white narrative as being universal and applying to everyone,” Roth said.

Ruf worries that theater also underrepresents work by people of color and transgender artists. A transgender playwright has never won a Tony award—widely considered the most prestigious honor in American theater—or been honored at the Kennedy Center. In July 2018, Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men made her the first Asian-American woman playwright to open a show on Broadway. To Ruf, audiences risk missing something when a plurality of voices fail to be represented.

“If we’re producing all straight white men, that’s highly problematic because it means that there’s an incredible pool of amazingly talented people who are not being produced,” Ruf said. “And then the more diversity there is, the stronger the conversations are. They’re bringing new perspectives to stories, they’re bringing new perspectives to characters.”

Ruf thinks that a wider breadth of stories told onstage can benefit not only theater, but audiences as well.

“Storytelling in general, and theater in particular, has a really amazing capacity to open people up to stories that they wouldn’t have heard otherwise,” Ruf said. “For people to see versions of themselves onstage is really powerful.”

In an effort to champion diverse voices in American theater, Ruf has taken various positions that support new playwrights. She spent five years working for the National New Play Network. Ruf was also the founding executive and creative producer of The Welders, a D.C. theater group composed of six playwrights. Each cohort of playwrights pens and then stages a play. Once all six plays have been produced, the organization turns over to a different group. Ruf saw her work with The Welders as a chance to open doors for new artists.

“It’s really necessary to create various pipelines, whether that’s for new voices or a diversity of ideas or a diversity of aesthetics,” Ruf said. “I think it’s incredibly important to take risks on new plays and new playwrights.”

Roth, who worked with Ruf as a Georgetown student and then at the Lab, said that Ruf had an unusual combination of skills in art and in management.

“She knows how to organize herself and others,” Roth said.

“And she has these profound creative and critical commitments, as well as a sense of how work can be important in the world, not just in the theater community.”

As Ruf studies for her MBA, her work managing the Lab and The Welders has given her experience in the behind-thescenes reality of theater business. In a statement, Theater J’s artistic director Adam Immerwahr praised Ruf ’s resumé, saying that he had high expectations for her work at Theater J. “Jojo is a perfect fit for Theater J,” Immerwahr wrote. “She has an extraordinary depth of experience as a leader, and her expertise in international collaboration, fiscal management, and strategic planning will help take Theater J to the next level as we prepare for our most ambitious seasons yet. With Jojo in this position, we know Theater J will continue to reach

an ever-growing audience with soul-stirring and thought-provoking art.”

Despite her years of experience working in the business side of theater, Ruf has encountered some logistical issues that make her work more and more challenging. Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, his administration has slowly tightened the requirements to obtain an O-1B visa, which grants foreign artists of “extraordinary capabilities” the ability to perform in the United States.

The government has upped the standards artists must meet in order to work in the U.S. As a result, Ruf said, artists have found it harder to travel here. Roth said that artists are caught in the same net that currently ensnares DACA recipients and Middle Eastern immigrants.

“It’s harder and harder to get visas for artists, so that communication is getting harder,” Ruf said.

“

I think theater can transcend boundaries in a really exciting kind of way.

”

Still, Ruf believes in the power of live theater to forge friendship through shared performances.

“I think theater can transcend boundaries in a really exciting kind of way,” Ruf said. “You can sit next to somebody who you’ve never sat next to before and have a communal experience in a live setting in a way that going to the movies or watching something from home doesn’t allow you to do.”

In today’s world, Ruf believes that building this understanding is more crucial than ever. She referenced deeply divisive 2018 elections in Brazil and Poland, as well as turmoil in Venezuela, as examples of where this community is lacking.

“In this time where humanity and empathy are needed more than ever, not just in the United States but internationally, the idea that a theater, any theater, is asking hard questions, is thinking critically of what our role is in a society and what our role is as humans is important,” Ruf said.

Though Ruf is bidding farewell to Georgetown’s international theater efforts for now, she’ll be back on campus soon. On March 13, Theater J will open The Jewish Queen Lear at the Davis Performing Arts Center, featuring a handful of Georgetown students in both the cast and crew.

Ruf is no longer a child attending eccentric plays in D.C. with her father, and she’s come a long way from her days as an accidental theater major with a love of storytelling. Now, at Theater J, Ruf can transform her experiences in theater into a reality for different audiences.

“We can’t produce the same plays over and over again. I think it’d be really boring,” Ruf said. “No one would want to go see it.”

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FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Getting Candid with the Candidates GUSA executive tickets, on the record With elections for GUSA Executive coming up on Feb. 8, the Voice invited all of the candidates to our office to talk about why they are running, what issues are most important to them, and to have a seat in our green chair for a picture. These are excerpts from their conversations with us. The complete interviews can be found at georgetownvoice.com.

photos by hannah song and jack townsend

Sina Nemazi (COL ’21) & Roya Wolfe (SFS ’21) Nemazi and Wolfe have a platform centered around achievable goals in mental health, sustainability, and most notably, support for survivors of sexual assault. Nemazi has served as the chair of GUSA’s dining committee, which he thinks gives him experience coordinating with administration and other GUSA members. Wolfe has no prior GUSA experience but believes her history of activism for DACA, the Women’s March, and menstrual product accessibility will help her engage with student groups. The only all-sophomore ticket, they hope to start long-term change they can see through after their term is over.

The Voice: What specifically do you think is your role as executive?

RW: To be liaisons to the administration. Our initiatives and our projects would need the help and backing of advocacy groups. We are not saying we can do it by ourselves. We want to be the type of executives that feel equal to the student body. I want someone who I don’t even know to be able to say, “Hey, I have this idea. I think you should run with it.”

The Voice: What’s your priority as a campaign?

RW: The one we are going to tackle first would be our sexual assault prevention and safety of survivors initiative. It’s a training group within the Student Advocacy Office (SAO) that would train certain SAO officers to be well-versed and proficient in Title IX. A survivor could go to the SAO and say, “I want someone to represent me.” And the SAO would provide an officer. This would serve well for a lot of students on the campus to know that survivors have a representative.

The Voice: What is GUSA’s role on campus?

RW: GUSA should be an organization where students can go when they have issues on their minds. I do not think it is at the moment. I have never been on GUSA, but I know that last year when I was a freshman, if I had an issue with something, I didn’t know where to go to.

SN: We want to instill a new age in GUSA where it provides feasible, tangible change and is held accountable and is more of a facilitator to student advocacy groups rather than relying on itself to do all the work.

Ryan Zuccala (MSB ’20) and John Dolan (MSB ’20)

Zuccala and Dolan are running a campaign focused on lowering or halting the increase of tuition, enhancing dining options in order for students to get more value for their meal swipes, and improving housing and the fulfillment of work orders. They hope their straightforward message and clear goals will help them implement their plans if elected. Both are members of the lightweight rowing team and the Student Advisory Commission. In addition, Zuccala is a part of the Georgetown University Student Investment Fund (GUSIF), and Dolan is vice president of marketing at GUASFCU. They think these experiences will help them overcome their lack of previous GUSA experience.

The Voice: How do you plan to implement the planks of your campaign?

RZ: To start with tuition, we looked through the budget that GUSA submitted last year and got approved for, and it was just north of a million dollars. A lot of those expenses we think we can trim down a bit. Not from the clubs, but from GUSA for example.

If we can start to decrease things little by little like that, we can see an overall reduction in tuition, if not a stagnation in tuition. We’ve been seeing a four percent increase consistently the last couple of years, and that’s a lot of money.

JD: We appreciate what GUSA has already done for dining options. Mainly Hoya Hub, that’s a great thing that they have put together and helped advocate for. I think it is also important to get value out of your meal swipes. One swipe at Royal Jacket shouldn’t be worth $14. One swipe at Whisk is like a coffee and pastry. Chips and guac is a whole meal swipe.

RZ: [Regarding housing,] the fact that only half of these Vil Bs are getting [renovated] right now, it shouldn’t be that difficult to get a good place to live. If you want a five-person suite, Henle is your only option. In Henle, when it rains, the roof leaks, and you call in a work order, and that can take four days for someone to come in and fix that.

The Voice: You have said you are outsiders to GUSA. Why do you think that’s a good thing, and why do you think that is going to be tough for you?

RZ: I’m not saying John and I see everyone on the campus, but I consider ourselves two pretty regular guys. I think we have a pretty good pulse about what’s going on at Georgetown and a pretty good understanding of what people want. As outsiders, we can really push that change because we haven’t really been through the bureaucracy that GUSA has, and we are just going to get in there and get things done.

The Voice: How do you envision the role of the GUSA Executive on campus?

JD: We are responsible for putting the right team together through our cabinet. We want to get people that we know can get things done, that are willing to harp on the message with the students and actually accomplish things. If we were elected, we would be very hands-on, talking to people, making sure we oversee the people that we put into our cabinet are getting things done. From our experience on the rowing team, and me on GUASFCU, and GUSIF, we are very good at being leaders and leading a team of people.

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

voice contributors: Jack Townsend, Noah Telerski, Sienna Brancato, Jake Maher, Roman Peregrino, Caroline Hamilton, Darren Jian

Nicki Gray (NHS ’20) While Nicki Gray has never served in GUSA, she feels that her time as a student and experiences as a resident assistant and a member of Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Services have prepared her to think holistically about student life on campus. After her running mate, Sam Appel (COL ’20), removed himself from the ticket, the GUSA Election Commission approved her solo bid. She hopes to bring students from diverse backgrounds to the table to be a major part of the policy process.

The Voice: How do your previous experiences prepare you for this position?

NG: I love Georgetown, but I’ll be the first to admit it’s not perfect. I think the only way we can make it better is by making a commitment to listening to our students, what they need, what they’re already doing, and pushing ourselves forward and making a consistent promise to ourselves in that sense. And pushing our administration, too. Being a student staff member of the university, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate across departments. I’ve been an RA for two Living Learning Communities, so I’ve worked in the academic and residential fields, and it’s been amazing learning how to work with the real adults in our community and work with them on making projects, programs that create amazing environments for our students to really thrive.

The Voice: What are a couple specific things that you would like to do to bring a diverse group of students to the table?

NG: One thing I want to do, if elected, is continue the tradition of having executive office hours and actively reach out to student populations, student groups that we need to hear from, who really do go underrepresented in student government. For example, international students, student activists, and students who have unique sets of interests, trans students specifically, and making sure that we actively invite them to office hours to make sure that we have the issues straight, know exactly what they want us to be pushing for in the administration, in policy, among the executive team and the senators, but also making sure that they feel as though they can work on those things themselves as well.

The Voice: In light of a change in your ticket, which removed some GUSA experience, why should students vote for you?

NG: When I originally made the decision to run with my former running mate, we decided that, in order for us to be a solid ticket, and to be solid leaders, for this university, we would both need to learn a lot about the different areas of campus where we haven’t been involved. And so since I made the decision to run early in the fall semester, I’ve been learning about the history of GUSA and its policies and the history of how it’s worked with other organizations and from my conversations with members of the senate, members of policy teams and student groups outside of student government that have worked with—or tried to work with—GUSA in the past. I really feel as though I have a lot of that institutional knowledge even though I haven’t necessarily been involved myself, just through research and communicating with people and trying to learn more.

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Norman Francis Jr. (COL ’20) and Aleida Olvera (COL ’20) Francis Jr. and Olvera are running for the underrepresented and underresourced students on campus. Their campaign platform revolves around T.R.A.P.—Transparency, Reform, Accessibility, and Progress. If they win, Olvera said she would be excited to promote increased overall accessibility, particularly as a low-income, first-generation college student who has struggled accessing campus resources, while Francis Jr. will focus on transparency and progress while emphasizing attainable goals. He wants to avoid lying to students by making promises he can’t keep. Francis Jr. prides himself on his campus involvement—he holds board positions on the Black Student Alliance, Mosaic, WGTB, and the juggling club—which he believes have prepared him to balance responsibilities and have given him a broad view of campus life. Olvera co-directs Hoya Hacks, advocates for women in technology, and speaks on panels about technology in education, specifically as it relates to the Latinx community.

The Voice: Why are you running?

AO: Norman told me we should do this because we are a voice that people need to hear. I would have never considered doing this until he made me realize our voices are important, and I think people will listen to us.

The Voice: What are your top two priorities?

AO: Making sure that accessibility—economically, academically, and physically—is going to be pushed for during my tenure. That is my favorite thing because I have personally seen the university work against some of my close friends, and it breaks my heart because they’re people just like me, and that could have easily been me. Because oftentimes, especially with mental health, the university doesn’t understand what it’s like to be in those shoes, and I know that while I’m here I want to advocate for people that I have seen go through it. My heart has been broken, but because my heart has been broken, I’m ready to fight back against the university.

NF: A lot of work has been done, and a lot of pushback has been done to highlight how the university has been really behind when it comes to Title IX and having a coordinator and director, and also the fact that the Women’s Center has not had a head for a couple months now. A lot of organizations, especially those dedicated to women and gender and sexuality resources and other organizations of those types, tend to be underserved, especially when it comes to staffing or resources.

The Voice: How will you improve the student experience at Georgetown?

NF: Some folks really don’t trust student government. Especially this new wave of freshmen where the first president that they knew was outed in a hot second. The GUSA executive positions don’t exactly have the best light right now.

I believe that by doing our job, which entails working with the students, and not only being a student but also representing them and what they need and what they want­­­—I believe that is the best way that we can start gaining their trust.

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FEBRUARY 1, 2019

University Survey to Measure Progress in Campus Sexual Assault Prevention

JAKE GLASS

By Julia Pinney Georgetown will conduct its second Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct beginning Feb. 1 and running through March 1. Like the first survey in 2016, students will once again have the chance to provide feedback on their experiences with sexual assault and harassment at Georgetown.

Georgetown is one of 33 universities participating in this national survey created by the American Association of Universities (AAU). Its aim is to judge the efficacy of the sexual assault prevention resources and programs that have been instituted since the first survey was conducted.

According to the university’s website outlining the 2016 results, the university initially intended that the next survey would be conducted in 2018. Matt Hill, a spokesperson for the university wrote in a statement to the Voice that delaying a year allows the student body to take the survey in coordination with the other AAU universities.

It will also enable the university to judge the impact of the bystander intervention education and training implemented for all first-year students in 2018.

The 2016 survey showed that 31 percent of respondents reported experiencing non-consensual sexual contact due to physical force or incapacitation, yet just 24.5 percent of respondents reported that they knew where to find help on campus after sexual assault or misconduct. The percentage of respondents who reported experiencing sexual assault or misconduct was eight percentage points higher than the average among universities who took a 2015 AAU survey.

Jenn Wiggins, assistant director for sexual assault response and prevention services in the Office of Health Education Services (HES), said one of the drawbacks of waiting the extra year was losing the opportunity to compare a larger sample size of students.

“You hear other folks saying that there’s no difference between two years and three years. I think for me I would have preferred to see two years because what happens is we’ve missed students who would have been here for the first and second survey,” Wiggins said.

“I would be interested in being able to compare the same groups versus adding another group to the mix. So for students who took it, we won’t ever know if any of those things really worked for them.”

Georgetown yielded one of the highest response rates in the country for the 2016 questionnaire. Rosemary Kilkenny, vice president of institutional diversity and equity, wrote in a statement to the Voice that there was a 62 percent response rate among undergraduate students, and a 51 percent response rate for all undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. She noted Georgetown’s response rate far outpaced the average participation rate of 19 percent from the 27 colleges and universities who administered the survey in 2018.

In the past few years, the Sexual Assault and Misconduct Advisory Committee (SAMAC) has taken steps to implement the recommendations put forth by a task force formed in response to the results of the 2016 survey. Those results showed that only half of students who reported seeing sexual assault or misconduct intervened in the situation. The 2017-2018 school year was the inaugural year of mandatory, in-person “Bringing in the Bystander” training for all firstyear undergraduate and transfer students, which yielded a 99.7 percent completion rate. SAMAC also continued ongoing training for GUPD’s Sexual Assault Response Team officers, proposed language for faculty to incorporate into their syllabi outlining sexual assault counseling and reporting resources, and hired a new staff clinician in HES, wrote Kilkenny.

But Claire Bernstein, the new staff clinician hired in February 2018, resigned in December. Wiggins said HES has started the process of setting up phone interviews to fill the vacancy. Additionally, Georgetown has yet to hire a Title IX coordinator since the previous coordinator stepped down in June of last year. The vacancy has raised concerns from students. Five students wrote an open letter to university administrators in August claiming that the university’s failure to fill the position shows it does not prioritize addressing sexual assault. Students have also questioned the vacancy at town halls on Title IX regulations.

The results of the upcoming survey should be interpreted with caution, Wiggins said. She noted that research on the prevalence of sexual assault suggests that the survey may show a more elevated rate of sexual misconduct this year than in previous years. “The more education we do, the more students will be able to define their experiences, so the chance of the numbers going up is something we have to be mindful of.”

Hill wrote in an email to the Voice that the survey contains many Georgetown-specific questions. Yet Wiggins added that financial constraints limited the university from customizing the survey. “We’re really talking a lot of money, thousands of dollars, to edit it,” Wiggins said. “We ended up not making many edits to make it any different than the cookie cutter form.”

This year’s survey will be nearly identical to the one in 2016. “The survey includes most of the same questions as the first to provide us with reliable data comparisons but also includes refinements to improve the user experience and provide insights about how we can strengthen our efforts to prevent and address sexual misconduct,” Kilkenny wrote.

Relying on the standard form will allow the university to compare data with the 32 other universities participating in the survey this year, but Wiggins said that without more customization, the university will not be able to pinpoint the effect of specific campus initiatives. Instead, the survey will only shed light on the school’s overall progress in addressing sexual misconduct.

Wiggins said that future surveys should address Georgetown’s club and party culture. She hopes the survey’s sponsors will add questions to target how students are finding resources to receive counseling or medical care and report sexual misconduct, and why they choose the resources they do.

In some cases, Georgetown’s data did not match national trends, which Wiggins believes may indicate methodological issues with the survey. She noted that, while national data shows that black women experience sexual assault at higher rates than white women, Georgetown’s 2016 results did not show that black women experience sexual assault at a higher rate than women generally.

Wiggins believes the 2016 survey had much room for improvement in recognizing the voices of minority communities. “We know there are systemic issues in why folks may not take a survey.

We know that communities on the margins are less inclined to take a survey due to different oppressive systems,” Wiggins said. “Am I going to complete this survey when I know that this system doesn’t support me? If I don’t have trust for the system why would I complete the survey?”

Wiggins hopes that students of color, those who identify as having a disability, LGBTQ students, and international students participate in this year’s survey.

As the advisor for Sexual Assault Peer Educators (SAPE), Wiggins said that SAPE plans to encourage participation of different populations within the Georgetown community. Wiggins said that one goal is to demonstrate to these groups why the survey is important for their communities and not just beneficial for the university as a whole.

The university will continue to use social media to publicize the survey, though Kilkenny hopes students will play a significant role, too. “Student leaders can talk about the importance of participation before a club meeting, post about it on social media, and encourage peers to spread the word,” Kilkenny wrote.

Hill wrote that the findings from the upcoming survey will be instrumental in the university’s ongoing work to understand how sexual misconduct affects our campus and promote a climate of safety, care, and respect.

Wiggins hopes students will engage with the survey and realize the importance of having concrete data about sexual assault in our community.

“I think a lot of people don’t realize that something like having a campus climate survey gives students the ammunition they need to hold the university accountable.”

The Voice is currently carrying a paid advertisement from the university promoting the upcoming Campus Climate Survey.

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

Finding His Voice:

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Alan Di Sciullo on Straying from the Status Quo, Starting the Voice

by Harshini Velraj

As the Voice nears our 50th anniversary in March, we are looking back at our history, alumni, and life after the Voice.

“We wanted to start something more dynamic,” Alan Di Sciullo (COL ’72, L ’77) said, reflecting on the beginnings of The Georgetown Voice. “The experience of being managing editor of a college paper, especially one that was growing the way we were, was a tremendous experience.”

The Voice’s growth was propelled by a radicalized environment of student protests on campus and nationwide in the late ’60s. That’s when Di Sciullo, who was a sports writer, Stephen Pisinski (COL ’71), and a group of editors split from The Hoya over the newspaper’s restrictive scope and conservative editorial angle. Di Sciullo co-authored the first editorial in the inaugural issue of the Voice published on March 4, 1969. The editorial articulated the new paper’s goal to expand its content to encompass off-campus news that affected students and to cover issues in a more “liberal light.”

“We promise to present and analyze national and local issues of concern to the student, whose concern should spread beyond the campus,” wrote Di Sciullo and his co-authors. “We shall attempt with all our energy to inform the community, to make the community conscious of controversial subjects by an open presentation and discussion of relevant issues, to communicate a culture, and to entertain our readers.”

They quickly realized, however, that starting a new publication from the ground up required far more work than reforming the existing one.

While it was a team effort, Di Sciullo said much of the Voice’s initial success should be credited to Pisinski, its first editor-in-chief. “Steve was a straight arrow,” Di Sciullo said of his friend and colleague. “He was down to earth, not flamboyant.

He ran a tight ship.”

Di Sciullo, who served as both the business and managing editor, said the Voice had a tangible impact on the Georgetown community during the political and social unrest of the late ’60s. The new paper created a pathway for more forums, more opinions, and more voices.

Though they were not necessarily on the same side of the political spectrum, Di Sciullo recalled that members of the Voice always promoted collaboration and cooperation. He cited his close relationship with fellow Voice member Rick Newcombe

(COL ’72), editor-in-chief from 1971 to 1972, as a good example of this.

“Rick was from a conservative family,” Di Sciullo said. “I was probably more middle of the road, slightly liberal.” However, the two successfully navigated their political differences to function as a unit on the publication. Di Sciullo said that the Voice’s ability to fairly represent a variety of political views reflected Georgetown itself, which he believes is a place where different points of view are accepted.

Di Sciullo’s favorite part of student journalism was having a voice and being able to tell a story. At the Voice, he could write about events beyond camAlan Di Sciullo and Rick Newcombe circa 1971.

Photo courtesy of Alan Di Sciullo pus and in the city. He said it was for this extended scope that people welWith the 50th anniversary of the Voice approaching in comed the Voice, despite it being a new and unfamiliar paper March, Di Sciullo is proud that the paper has been able to concompared to The Hoya’s already 50-year history. “People liked tinue. “Time has shown that there is a place for two newspapers it,” Di Sciullo said. “It was novel at the time, a little bit edgy.” at Georgetown,” he said.

Since his time with the Voice, Di Sciullo has written upAfter the Voice’s founding, The Hoya began to exwards of 50 professional articles and has co-authored a book on pand its reporting to news across the city to match the real-estate legal issues, his area of expertise. In addition to his job new publication’s reach. Di Sciullo remembered that in 1970, as a real estate attorney in New York, Di Sciullo earned the title The Hoya approached the Voice and proposed a merger. The of Super Lawyer in 2008, was elected vice chair of the American Hoya publicized their proposal in a front-page artiBar Association’s Real Property Trust and Estate, and is currently cle on Nov. 12, 1970, where Don Casper (COL ’70), the director of global real estate for Shearman & Sterling LLP. The Hoya’s editor-in-chief, claimed that the “ideoTo this day, Di Sciullo credits the Voice with giving him logical differences that lead to the founding of the various skills that he carried with him through his undergradVoice no longer exist.” Although Di Sciullo, Pisinski, uate studies, Georgetown Law, and beyond. “I learned to work Newcombe, and other Voice members discussed the idea, they with facts, which I have to do in law. I learned to be more comeventually rejected the offer because they were excited about the fortable with writing, which I had to do in briefs,” Di Sciullo direction the Voice’s coverage was moving in, compared to their f said. “I knew that if I was going to go to law school, I had to ormer paper. “We were scrapping for ourselves and our learn how to write.” He added that attending Georgetown existence and reaching an audience,” Di Sciullo said. gave him the “direction and confidence” that he needed later “They were the status quo. We had momentum on our side.” in his life.

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FEBRUARY 1, 2019

LEISURE

Photos Courtesy of IMDb

Matthew McConaughey Flounders in Steve Knight’s Serenity

By Katherine Randolph On the soporific Plymouth Island, somewhere tropical and isolated, everyone knows Baker Dill’s (Matthew McConaughey) business. Information is more likely to be passed on by bartenders and grocery clerks than newspapers or the Internet, and rumors about the protagonist of Serenity (2019) hurriedly solidify into facts. At times, it seems like Dill is the center of the island’s life, while a rotating cast of characters is inserted to move his story along. Though everything leads back to Dill, the film’s plot is still muddy. Director Steven Knight’s Serenity has traces of brilliance that often get lost in the film’s confused narrative.

Dill is a mysterious fishing captain with a violent streak who scrapes out a living by charging tourists for trips on his boat, the Serenity. His real vocation, however, is hunting a giant tuna he calls Justice. Serenity takes too long to get to the bottom of Dill’s angst, shrouding him in mystery for the first half of the film. Eventually, we work out that he’s an Iraq War veteran with a son by an ex-lover and that his past has made him jaded and brusque. However, it’s a long, frustrating ride to get there.

Dill’s character also falls short in terms of likeability—he is cruel to his only friend and first mate, Duke (Djimon Hounsou) and is too preoccupied with chasing an imaginary fish to focus on life around him. It feels impossible to be invested in the fate of a character who seems so thoroughly withdrawn from the world. The only thing that draws his attention away from Justice is his estranged son, Patrick (Rafael Sayegh), who he hasn’t seen since he returned from war. Patrick and Dill seem to have a mysteriously strong connection for a pair separated by hundreds of miles and half of a decade, but their relationship is hardly addressed until the last quarter of the film. Instead, much of the film revolves around Dill’s drinking and sexual partners. This focus leaves the father-son bond too skeletal to be interesting.

In Serenity, McConaughey trades his cowboy hat for a fishing rod but keeps his trademark overacting. In scenes at the climax of the film, his intensity becomes almost comical, and it’s hard to fight back a laugh at the earnest, unbridled energy that McConaughey exudes. This being said, McConaughey’s brilliance shows in the quietly high-stakes moments. There are

times when Dill doesn’t say a word, but McConaughey manages to portray his anger and pain perfectly.

At the end of the day, though, this movie belongs to Anne Hathaway, who portrays Karen, Dill’s ex-lover. She perfectly walks the line between damaged victim and fierce mother trying to protect her son. When she comes to Plymouth Island to commision Dill to kill her abusive husband, she doesn’t come as a damsel in distress. Rather, she is a parent with a steely desire to right the wrongs life has dealt her. Hathaway is calculating yet desperate, unafraid to use her body and her money to push Dill into obeying her orders. She’s also a gem in the scenes with her abusive husband, Frank (Jason Clarke).

Karen and Frank have a violent, toxic relationship that’s hard to watch on the big screen. In their scenes together, her disgust is palpable.

But an uneven, yet impressive performance from McConaughey and a strong showing by Hathaway can’t save Serenity from itself. The first and second halves of the film feel like two separate movies, only linked by the vaguely supernatural air of Plymouth Island. What starts as a nautical drama quickly warps into a sci-fi thriller as fishing shots change to long lines of code, and the twist at the end is foreshadowed too much to be a real surprise. Just like Justice pulling Dill’s line farther and farther into the sea, Serenity’s big reveal feels like it struggles to break free.

Serenity’s muddied storyline detracts from the real message of the film. The point of the movie is rather bleak: an obsession with morality doesn’t change reality, and it’s easier to vicariously live our most violent instincts through other people. But the movie also poses difficult, yet interesting questions. Is murder acceptable if the victim is truly evil? Is killing an abuser worth the irreparable injury to one’s soul? Are we in control of our own destinies, and does that even matter? Can a person who has seen nightmares become too damaged to fully return to life around them? Serenity can’t answer these queries, but it doesn’t need to.

Despite a shaky, somewhat ludicrous storyline, Serenity displays occasional technical prowess that makes it a joy to watch. Audio mixing often goes unnoticed in a movie, but Phil Lee’s sound design is pure genius. We can hear the clacking of

keys intertwined with the crashing of waves, and the voice of Plymouth Island’s rather creepy yet enthused radio DJ guides us through the film’s two hours. Through some confusing themes and storylines, Lee manages to ensure that the audio effects not only make sense, but add value to the movie. Jess Hall’s cinematography also stuns. In moments of intense violence, Hall’s camerawork is elegant, making the ugliness of these scenes aesthetically pleasing.

Serenity seems inappropriately named because nothing about the film is tranquil. As credits roll, we’re left with more questions than answers and many moral dilemmas to process.

Though the plotline is too convoluted to make it a leisurely watch, the best of Serenity is in the details.

15

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

LEISURE

Kleptocracy Engages the Unknown

By Emily Jaster

PHOTO courtesy of arena stage AND C. Stanley Photography

The District is about to devour Kleptocracy.

Arena Stage’s latest production, which runs through Feb. 24, is the world premiere of a play set in 1990s Russia that depicts the rise of Vladimir Putin (Christopher Geary) and his struggle for power against crude oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Max Woertendyke). Kleptocracy feeds the Trump-age hunger for stories of Putin and Russia but peers at them through the lens of history—yet it is artistically, analytically, and socially more clever and threatening than an appeal to popular opinion.

When Putin meets with American representatives, he throws an eerie prophecy into the pseudo-historic scene. When he says, “Your president will be my dog,” the audience erupts in a coarse burst of laughter.

“I actually think the more important line is the one that comes after it,” Kenneth Lin, Kleptocracy playwright and House of Cards screenwriter, told the Voice. “Which is, ‘Your people will scream until their voices break and tear each others’ throats out.’ Yeah, we got a laugh at that, but is that the best thing?”

Through vivid acting, striking images, and sly metaphor, Kleptocracy achieves and evokes what only theater can: a truth beyond reality. When Khodorkovsky thinks he’s made it—he’s about to be the wealthiest man in Russia—the protesting mayor, Vladimir Petukhov (Elliott Bales), enters the shared stage for a televised announcement of his hunger strike against Khodorkovsky’s treatment of workers and then, blurring the line between two settings, takes a seat at Khodorkovsky’s tea table. As Khodorkovsky and his wife Inna (Brontë England-Nelson) panic over news of the protest and fearfully discuss their options, the mayor is shot through the head, spattering the tea table—and Khodorkovsky himself— with crimson blood. The question remains: was Khodorkovsky culpable?

“The play suggests things that are suggested by history, but I think I’m very clear in the play about never making a pronounce-

ment about what people did or didn’t do,” Lin said. “I try to make scenes that are inspired by the facts, but I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to say one way or another, this is definitively what happened.”

Kleptocracy is wittily written and intensely acted. Comedic moments land amid political violence and scheming; lights rise over ironic snapshots set on the bloodstained floors of recent murder. We see Putin in every mode we could imagine: He arrives quietly in an 80s tracksuit, he reads us absurdist poetry, he appears in an apron to chop a bloody steak to feed a tiger and later lounges on a striped pelt. Geary presents a snarky, sarcastic, and deeply theatrical portrait of a ruler popularly regarded with terrified fascination. He touches the audience more intimately than any of the more sympathetic characters.

“I tried to not comment on how he’s perceived, or, I know it’s odd to hear, but I really tried not to judge,” Geary said in regards to acting Putin’s character. “Judgement is not great for creating a character because you need to embody them, and you need to understand why they make the decisions that they make.”

“It’s incredibly well written, a really delicious character,” he later added. “I liked subversion … and to see Vladimir Putin as a human being and not one of the most famous people on the planet earth was very attractive to me.”

As director, Jackson Gay has integrated a distinct female voice, challenging the standard for dry stories of men in power.

Broadway actress Candy Buckley plays an unnamed, unspecified White House official who represents the entirety of the American influence and pressure points on Putin’s government and Khodorkovsky’s business, boldly holding her ground with a thick Texan accent.

“She’s the one who kills the deer in the play. She’s the one who can outdrink the oligarch. I felt she had to match those guys in a really tough way,” Buckley said. “I’m sick of plays being about

men, I really am … She needed to be in there and she needed to hold her own.”

Buckley added, “I get a lot of auditions that are for women crying, or with dementia, or weak, weak, weak, and the chance to play a bold woman, you bet, I took it.”

Like alchemy, Kleptocracy constructs stunning images from basic elements. Set designer Misha Kachman, who previously designed for Georgetown’s Our Class, used similar design motifs for this show at Arena Stage. His industrial, geometric, grey set of angled walls and layered floors is a palette for lights and projections. Through the set’s numerous doorways, lighting designer Masha Tsimring expertly directs angled side lighting to cast long, dramatic shadows—evoking tropes of Cold War espionage. The lights and uncanny angles and designer Nicholas Hussong’s projections form a dreamlike atmosphere filled with fog, shadows, and dark corners, amplifying the characters’ calculated theatrics and secrecy.

Kleptocracy is a play in its infancy. Lin joined the cast and Gay in the rehearsal room, cutting and changing scenes until the last possible moment. It is no surprise, then, that the play is most successful in its experimental exploration of its characters, of how we understand—or fail to understand—Putin and his role in Russia’s network of corruption. As Geary breathes into Putin a glowing eccentricity that touches real-world political theatrics, Woertendyke’s characterization of Khodorkovsky visibly churns with the struggle to balance his ambitions and his image; each is a piece in a speculative puzzle.

Audiences will not find answers to their political questions in Kleptocracy. The gleaming caricatures, though brilliant, do not reveal a decisive truth. Kleptocracy instead claims the more critical feat of questioning what we think are answers, of skewing the image we think we see. Kleptocracy makes ambiguity central and reveals more shadows than we ever knew existed.

Hoyas!

Be heard.

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