021916

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

VOL. 127, ISSUE 29

THE DINING ISSUE Welcome to The Maroon’s first Dining Issue, in which we bring into focus a central part of all of our lives here: food.

Inside you will find coverage both illuminating and entertaining. The University’s current contract with Aramark is set to expire in June, and three companies, including Aramark, are bidding on the next contract. Before the companies - Aramark, Bon Appétit,and Sodexo - come to campus next week, read up on the history of the University’s contracts with Aramark and how all three companies stack up. You’ll also find many of your fellow students’ takes on dining, both on and off campus. In Viewpoints, columnists discuss nutrition in the dining halls, the best ways to sneak into Bartlett, and whether or not the dining halls are that bad. Check out reviews of the restaurants and trucks of Hyde Park in Arts, and, if you’ve ever wondered what your fellow student athletes eat before the big game, you should flip back to Sports. On this campus we’re often tasked with considering big questions—social, philosophical, scientifi c, economic. In comparison, dining can seem small. But what we eat, and where we come together to eat, are essential parts of our community. To be frank, dining matters. And if that’s not evident in of itself, then the amount that students pay for it every year makes this undeniable.

Enjoy the food for thought.

Eleanor Hyun, Editor-in-Chief Sarah Manhardt, Deputy Editor-in-Chief

Looking Back: Aramark’s History on Campus

BY CHRISTINE SCHMIDT NEWS STAFF

The University of Chicago and Aramark have somewhat of a love-hate dynamic. It began with the admission of Joseph Neubauer (M.B.A. ’65; see sidebar) to the business school and continues today, with a contracted relationship between the company and UChicago Dining that has spanned more than 25 years of meal plans, dining halls, and health inspections.

This year, however, the relationship could come to an end with the expiration of the contract in June 2016.

Aramark is a worldwide company, with operations in 21 countries and more than 270,000

employees. It focuses on food service, facilities management, and uniforms, though their primary service is refreshments— including 1 billion cups of coffee each year. Its clients range from 2,200 educational institutions to 500 correctional facilities to 160 oil rigs, mines, and other remote locations, including 16 underground cafeterias in the world’s largest underground copper mine.

UChicago Dining, the office that manages the dining halls, campus cafes, and meal plans throughout the University, has been one of these clients since 1989. This official relationship between Aramark and the University of Chicago began when the University decided to switch

from internally-run dining operations, typically called self-operation, to a contracted private firm. This decision meant the University would no longer be in charge of hiring or training employees, nor procuring or preparing food.

“What makes a quality meal?”

Richard Mason, the executive director of UChicago Dining since 2005 said, in a recent interview. “The type of food you buy, the skill and dedication of the person preparing the meal, the equipment they have. We can provide really good equipment.

The other areas are not areas of strength [for us] and it’s important we provide a really quality program.”

Continued on page 4

A Student’s Guide to Sneaking into Bartlett

Page 9 “This commitment to free and open debate is not only consistent with a university setting, but also with a healthy, functioning democracy.”

BY CAIRO LEWIS ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

On Febr ua r y 12 , UChicago Dining’s Campus Advisory Board (CDA B) v isited Northwestern University and Wheaton College undercover as part of their consideration of alternative food service providers. This visit followed food providers Sodexo and Bon Appetit, which serve Northwestern and Wheaton respectively, submitting proposals to the University.

Even before these proposals were considered, many students on campus had stated their hope that the University would either sign with a company other than Aramark or

Unwrapped: The Eating Habits of Student-Athletes Back page

Page 12

Letter to the Editor: IOP Director Responds to Protests at Alvarex Events

Looking Forward: New Contract, New Possibilities

Student athletes share theirpregame and postgame snacks.

Liam Leddy on the four best ways to sneak into Bartlett.

The Promontory, Hyde Park’s Only Serious Dining Experience Page 14 Alex’s Food Journal, a new dining column, kicks off.

would consider an independent dining contract.

Among these students is second-year Emma Gardner, who found a screw lodged in a piece of grilled chicken while dining at Bartlett Commons on January 11. After posting a photo of the ordeal on Overheard at UChicago, she found that many students also shared similar experiences. Her collection of photos—which she presented to Assistant Director of UChicago Dining Stacey Brown—includes images of insects in bits of salad, smoothies being served in containers labeled “Food Waste Only,” and even a bolt found in a slice of pizza.

Continued on page 5

Contributing to the Maroon

If you want to get involved in T HE M AROON in any way, please email apply@ chicagomaroon. com or visit chicagomaroon.com

Excerpts from articles and comments published in T he Chicago Maroon may be duplicated and redistributed in other media and non-commercial publications without the prior consent of The Chicago Maroon so long as the redistributed article is not altered from the original without the consent of the Editorial Team. Commercial republication of material in The Chicago Maroon is prohibited without the consent of the Editorial Team or, in the case of reader comments, the author.

All rights reserved. © The Chicago Maroon 2016

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

Law School Panel Considers Supreme Court After Scalia

Speaker Driven from IOP by Black Lives Matter Protesters

BY JAEHOON AHN & KATHERINE VEGA NEWS CONTRIBUTOR & SENIOR REPORTER

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez left 20 minutes into an Institute of Politics (IOP) event Wednesday after members from several student and non-student organizations interrupted with protests.

The protests were organized by a number of organizations not affi liated with the Univer-

sity. Approximately 35 people participated in the action, including 15 students who did not organize but participated in solidarity, according to fi rst-year protester Mary Blair.

The protesters alleged that Alvarez had been responsible for “state violence against Black and brown people in the City of Chicago,” and failing to charge police offi cers, according to a press release from Black Lives Matter (BLM) Chicago.

All three candidates run-

ning in the State’s Attorney democratic primary had been invited to speak at the IOP. Alvarez’s event was last in the three-part series.

In the video, available on the Facebook page of the Arab American Action Network, the protesters can be heard chanting, “This kind of dialogue is not about growth. It’s not about healing. It is about covering up confl ict and avoiding accountability. U of C claims to support Continued on page 5

University Announces $100 Million Investment in Initiatives for Low-Income Students Zoe Kaiser

After the event, professors Gerald Rosenberg and Geoffrey Stone share a few words.

BY ANNE NAZZARO DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR

A panel discussed the legacy of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the future of the court at the Law School on Thursday.

“There was never any doubt in Scalia’s mind about whether he was right about anything,” said Law School Professor Geoffrey Stone, who was friends with Justice Scalia. “I once asked him at dinner a couple years ago, what the hardest decision was he had to make as a Supreme Court Justice.

He said, ‘Jeff, there are no hard cases. I just follow the law.’”

The panel members were Stone, William Baude, and Gerald Rosenberg, all professors at the Law School, and University of Kansas School of Law Professor Stephen Ware. The event was moderated

by Law School third-year Krista Perry, who serves as the President of the University’s Federalist Society.

Perry first asked the panelists how they would personally remember Justice Scalia.

Rosenberg, who once taught a class with Scalia, said he was a “blast.” “I walked away with a lot of respect from that,” he said. “He is the only justice whose opinions can make me burst out laughing.”

“And then, often cry,” he added.

Stone knew Justice Scalia well; he was part of the faculty that voted for his appointment at the Law School. “We disagreed about everything, but we almost always had a civil, spirited debate,” he said.

Perry asked how the panelists thought history would remember Justice Scalia in the next fifty to one hundred years.

Much of that discussion focused on Scalia’s passion for originalism, a way of interpreting the Constitution with the understanding that its meaning was fixed at the time of its writing.

The panelists agreed that it would be difficult to say how he would be remembered by constitutional scholars, especially because he wrote few important majority opinions. However, he did write his opinions, many of them dissents, in

BY PETE GRIEVE NEWS STAFF

On Tuesday, the University ways that captured public attention. announced a $100 million inAfter the panel was opened to vestment in initiatives to supquestions from the audience, one port low-income students. law student asked how an appointThe University received a ment to the court could be made $50 million donation from bilwhen neither party has trust in lionaire Silicon Valley venture the other. capitalist Sir Michael Moritz “One of the problems I think and his wife, writer Harriet we’re all having is we’re thinking Heyman (A.M. ’72). Moritz and very short term,” Rosenberg said Heyman challenged the Uniin response. “There will be a new versity to raise an additional president. Justice Ginsberg ain’t gonna live forever. Justices Kennedy and Thomas are older. The next president is likely to have two or three appointments. One of the things is getting elected officials to take a longer-term view.”

Another asked if they thought the public would remember Justice Scalia for his “garrulous” writing

BY EMILY FEIGENBAUM style.

NEWS STAFF Stone said that Scalia had told him that this was a strategy he Scientists from the Univeremployed deliberately. Scalia had sity of Chicago, Argonne Narealized that if he wanted his opin- tional Laboratory, and Fermiions to be remembered, he needed lab have collaborated on a new to write in a flashier style. “He said ultra-sensitive camera for the to me…now when I write opinions, South Pole Telescope (SPT) to and now when I write speeches, I better understand the physics am very aware of the fact that I of the early universe by meawant it to get public attention, so suring photons, radiation, and that casebook authors will take my neutrino mass. dissent and put it in the casebook, A c cord i ng t o Hend r i k because it’s really cool,” Stone said. “Harry” Weerts, Associate Lab “Because it’s funny and sexy and Director for physical sciences annoying.” and engineering at A rgonne Baude supported this, saying National Laboratory, the SPT that Scalia’s opinions are more camera is like a sophisticated often published in casebooks than thermometer that can measure the temperature of the those of other justices.

In the end, panelists questioned un iverse. T he temperatu re whether or not Scalia’s time on the variations across the sky procourt would have a lasting impact. vide insight on the millimeter “If you have an approach to con- (mm) wave photons that were stitutional interpretation that you created approximately 300,000 believe to be right and principled, years after the creation of the and if you want it to carry the day, universe.

Weerts compares the SPT you have to follow it in a principled way, and I don’t believe that’s what to a police dog; because of the Justice Scalia did. There are too dog’s extremely sensitive sense many decisions that he made that of smell, it has the ability to one may agree with or disagree retrace scents. The SPT temwith, but quite honestly cannot be perature sensitivity enables reconciled with originalism,” Stone scientists to better understand what the universe was like at said.

Rosenberg agreed, and went a that time.

The SPT will be upgraded step further. “If you want to make a difference, you have to be more from 1,600 to 16,000 detectors politically sensitive than Justice in order to count more photons and achieve greater temperaScalia was,” he said. ture sensitivity. An increase

$50 million over the next five years.

T he g i f t a nd ch a l lenge come as part of a $350 million investment by the University in its Odyssey S chola rship Program, which aims to reduce the burden of student loans and work-study requirements for under-resourced enrolled students, according to the University’s News Office.

T he prog ram also prov ides Odyssey students with career advancement and study abroad

support.

The donation will also go toward expanding the Office of Civic Engagement’s Collegiate Scholars Program to 40 percent more students. T he pr og ra m prepa res Ch icago Public School (CPS) students i n g rades 10 -1 2 , predom in a nt ly f r om lower -i nc ome backgrounds, to attend top colleges and universities across the country by allowing them to enroll in summer classes at Continued on page 6

University, Argonne, and Fermilab Collaborate on South Pole Telescope in collected light yields a more precise measurement.

Argonne physicist Dr. Clarence Chang, who leads a team of scientists at Argonne in the development of sensors for the upcoming upgrade, says that the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), or the radiation created after the Big Bang, is best detected where there is little moisture in the air. CMB data can provide a glimpse of the physics of the early universe.

“The South Pole is one of the premier sites for observing the CMB because of its atmosphere.

The CMB radiation is brightest at millimeter wavelengths.

These wavelengths are heavily absorbed by water in the air.

Water in the air also emits at these wavelengths. So, the best sites for CMB studies are sites where there is very little water in the air. The South Pole is one such site. Another well developed site is the Atacama plateau in Chile,” Chang said.

The photons captured can be pola r ized , accord i ng t o Weerts. This polarization can only be produced by certain processes of the early universe; therefore, the detection of polarization can shows which processes played a role. The type of polarization the team is specifically looking for is that created by small f luctuations in the gravitational field and

would be a unique discovery.

The new camera will also aid in the determination of neutrino mass. Neutrinos are neutral subatomic particles that were created in the early universe. The amount of energy within a neutrino population is proportional to its mass. “ Now, the light from the C M B t r avel s th r ough the entire universe to get to us.

During its travels, the light interacts in a very subtle way with the rest of the universe allowing the CMB to give us a picture not only of the very early universe, but also what the universe looks like in more recent times. By measuring what the universe looks like more recently, we can work out how it evolved and measure the role of the neutrinos and their mass,” Chang said.

Both scientists agree that there is still work to be done.

“A fter we build the camera with 16,000 detectors, we want to collaborate with all of our cur rent competitors and build a camera that [has about] 500,000 detectors. That would be the ultimate CMB experiment from the ground. To achieve higher precision after that (if needed) one would have to go to space (no obstruction by air). We are planning this and making the case and assembling the team,” Weerts wrote in an e-mail.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

Senator Klobuchar Returns to the Law School to Talk About New Memoir

BY GARRETT WILLIAMS MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

U.S. Senator Amy K lobuchar, J.D. ’85, visited the University on Tuesday to discuss her experiences in the Senate as documented in her memoir, The Senator Next Door.

T he event, sponsored by the Institute of Politics, allowed attendees insight into the life of a prominent Senator from Minnesota and her experience transitioning from the Law School into the national political stage. The meeting was moderated by former University provost and current Law School Professor Geoffrey Stone.

Senator Klobuchar, a Yale undergraduate and University of Chicago Law School alumna, began the talk by discussing her time in Chicago. K lobuchar spoke fondly of her time as a student, praising the Law School for pushing her to be more proactive in discussions

and attributing her bipartisanship to the conservative views that she encountered there.

When asked to give advice to students who are contemplating a career in politics, Senator Klobuchar noted the importance of always being involved in the political process.

“I just kept doing politics on the side,” she said.

Throughout her 14 years in the private sector, Klobuchar always kept politics in the back of her mind; she made sure to work on campaigns and stay politically active throughout this time. The Senator pulled from her personal experience to show how continual involvement, along with proper mentorship, is essential to pursuing a career in politics.

Next, Stone led the conversation towards the impact of big money in Washington; the Senator answered with a commentary on the dangers of outside spending and Super PACs. “If you’re someone who

Where We Eat

wants to work in the middle, the real problem is you get attacked from your own side—because the outside money has so much power,” she said.

T he Senator emphasized the need for limits on outside spending, in addition to transparency in the candidate funding process. “We would [all be] best if we could ban this outside money.”

She used the recent death of Justice Antonin Scalia as an example. “ Within a few hours, the words were coming out—’No, we shouldn’t have a hearing at all’,” she said.

T he Senator showed her disapproval for biased political agenda-setting, especially so soon after the loss of a revered Supreme Court Justice, and expressed her hope for a bipartisan movement to fill the Supreme Court vacancy as soon as possible. “ The sentiment is—‘No, go to your own corners.’ That really, really bothers me.”

Forrest Sill

Calendar for the Week of 2/19/2016 Friday, February 19 Roots, Diversity, Imagery: The Driving Force Behind Sign Language Identity Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, 5701 South Woodlawn Avenue, 1–3 p.m.

The Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language at the University of Chicago is hosting a discussion between three panelists on sign language identity. Drawing from literature, linguistics, and psychology, the forum aims to go beyond the limits of traditional disciplinary boundaries in its analysis to better understand sign language identity.

Brazil 2016: The Politics of an Olympian Crisis Saieh Hall 203, 3–5 p.m.

Four analysts of Brazilian politics will discuss the various issues that Brazil faces in the months prior to Rio’s Summer Olympic Games— Brazil’s economic depression, allegations of political corruption, and backlash against several urban reform projects that were supposed to accompany the Olympic Games.

Panelists include professors from UChicago, MIT, Harvard, and the University of Texas at Austin. This panel is part of the Latin American Briefing Series presented by the Center for Latin American Studies at the University.

vative writer William F. Buckley, Jr., and liberal writer Gore Vidal.

Refreshments will be provided.

Saturday, February 20 57th Street Community Flea Market 1448 East 57th Street, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

Flea market with antique furniture and housewares, hand-made jewelry, bath and body products, accessories, clothing, art, and baked goods. Vendors include: Mikki’s Desserts, Baps Bags and Bling, and Absolutely Anything Essential Boutique.

Sunday, February 21 The Pope, the Church, and Climate Change Hyde Park Union Church, 5600 South Woodlawn Avenue, 11:45 a.m.

The Hyde Park Union Church will be holding discussions on Pope Francis’ encyclical letter “Laudato Si’,” a papal document sent to members of the Roman Catholic Church, every Sunday through Lent. Laudato Si’ calls on the world to address human-induced climate change. Discussions will be non-denominational, and refreshments will be available beforehand.

the University series which began in the fall. The AAUP aims to show their continued support for the recently-unionized non-tenure track faculty and Harper Schmidt Fellows, as well as the ongoing unionization effort by graduate students. Representatives from the University’s AAUP Chapter, Graduate Students United, Fair Budget UChicago, Trauma Care Coalition, Faculty Forward, and other groups will participate in the panel.

Why Science Needs Your Voice: Science Literacy and Outreach Biological Sciences Learning Center 205, 5:30–6:30 p.m. myCHOICE, a University of Chicago career empowerment program designed to expose bioscience Ph.D.’s to a variety of careers and work experiences, is hosting Ann Reid, the executive director at the National Center for Science Education, for a lecture and discussion.

Reid will discuss controversies in science education, including “creationism, evolution, climate change, science and religion, and the nature of science as a way of knowing.” In her recent at the National Center for Science Education, Reid has been developing programs to help science teachers cover the socially controversial issues of evolution and climate change.

Monday, February 22 Screening: Best of Enemies With Larry McEnerney Institute of Politics, 5707 South Woodlawn Avenue, 5:30–7:30 p.m.

Professor Larry McEnerney, Director of the College Writing Program, will be screening the 2015 film Best of Enemies at the IOP. Directed by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon, the film explores the 1968 convention debates between conser-

How to Have a Say: Labor and Social Movements Negotiate with the University Swift Hall Common Room, 4:30–6 p.m.

The University’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter is sponsoring a panel discussion, which is the second event in the Democratizing

Foucault and Neoliberalism by Daniel Zamora Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, 6 p.m.

Author and Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Illionis–Chicago, Daniel Zamora, will discuss his new book titled *Foucault and Neoliberalism* at the Seminary CoOp. His book focuses on the question of liberalism and its place in Foucault’s works. The event is co-

sponsored by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT).

Jon Huntsman on China and American Politics International House Assembly Hall, 6–7:15 p.m.

Former Republican presidential candidate and former ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, will sit down with the Institute of Politics (IOP) to discuss the U.S./China relationship. Huntsman will discuss his insights on how the future of the relationship between the two global powers might shape the future of the rest of the world.

Tuesday, February 23 Ethical Dining Teach-In Reynolds Club, South Lounge, 7–8 p.m.

The Coalition for Ethical Dining, which consists of the UChicago Climate Action Network, The Fight for Just Food, the Phoenix Sustainability Initiative, and the University of Chicago Animal Welfare Society, will be hosting a teach-in event on the University’s dining contract decision. The discussion will focus on the potential environmental and ethical impacts of the University’s dining contract decision. Food will be provided at this event.

U.S. Senate Candidate Andrea Zopp Institute of Politics, 3–4 p.m.

Leading up to the March 15 Illinois Primary election, the IOP is providing candidates with the opportunity to present their views to students and community members.

Andrea Zopp is running for office after working in the US Attorney’s Office, Chicago Public Schools, and as President of the Chicago Urban League. She will discuss her qual-

ifications, the issues she is most passionate about, and her vision for office.

Let the People Rule: Are Presidential Primaries Good for Democracy?

Ida Noyes Third Floor Theater, 6–7:15 p.m.

Author, professor, and non-profit executive Geoffrey Cowen and IOP Fellow Jessica Yellin will hold a conversation about Cowen’s new book Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of the Presidential Primary. Cowen will discuss the 1912 presidential primary’s effect on modern presidential politics and his own involvement in politics as both a participant and historian.

Fifth Ward Aldermanic Meeting St. Philip Neri, 2110 East 72nd Street, 6–8 p.m.

Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston is holding monthly meetings with her constituents around the Fifth Ward of Chicago. Members of the Fifth Ward are welcome to attend and talk with Hairston about their concerns. The Fifth Ward includes the part of Hyde Park south of 55th Street.

Discussion of the Selection of a Candidate to be 4th Ward Alderman 1043 East 43rd Street room 43, 7–9 p.m.

Hyde Park has a history of combative, independent aldermen; with the resignation of Will Burns, the alderman of the Fourth Ward, some residents see an opportunity to reinforce this position. This meeting will focus on a discussion of who should fill the Fourth Ward Alderman position, what qualiContinued on page 7

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

“A Really Strong Dining Program... Can Add To the Vibrancy of the Campus Community” Continued from front

Who is Joseph Neubauer?

Going Global Quality has always been a priority for Mason and his team, who coordinate meals for more than 1.3 million visitors to the dining hall every year. “A really strong dining program that speaks to the campus culture and is integrated in the campus culture can add to the vibrancy of the campus community,” he said. “The conversations, the dialogues, the ideas that are generated in the classroom don’t just stop.” However, because of the nature of college food service, UChicago Dining is always challenged to stay on its toes, he said: “You’re only as good as your last meal.”

This challenge has persisted through UChicago Dining’s 27 years of external operations.

When Aramark came on board in 1989, UChicago Dining was responsible for two dining halls: Bur ton- Judson and P ierce.

When Bartlett opened as a dining hall in 2001, it became one of a plethora of meal plan options specific to each hall. For example, in 2006 Pierce hosted an all-youcan-eat meal plan while Bartlett offered a la carte options for Flex dollars with exclusive dinner points going to students in Max Palevsky, Snell-Hitchcock, and Stony Island. Students chose to eat at certain dining halls based on their selected meal plan.

In 2009, the office unveiled an unlimited meal plan in conjunction with the opening of Cathey Dining Commons and moved Bartlett to a similar all-you-can-eat plan. With a $4,560 price tag—$550 less than the first-year meal plan at the time—this unlimited option became mandatory for all incoming and current fi rst-year students. However, UChicago Dining retained multiple pre-existing plans for upperclassmen at rates of $3,633 for the moderate meal plan and $2,523 for the minimum meal plan until the unlimited version was phased in for future classes. Both of these options experienced a five percent increase from the 2008 versions. (For the 2015-2016 school year, the unlimited and Phoenix meal plans were both offered at a rate of $5,880.)

In 2011, UChicago Dining decided to simplify the meal plan options by introducing the Global Dining Initiative, a campus-wide evaluation of dining services looking at “what dining meant on campus,” according to Mason. Focus groups, surveys, town halls, and analyses over the course of a year culminated in the rebranding of flex dollars to the current Maroon dollar system, expanding their usage to campus cafes and other locations, increasing environmental sustainability within dining, and creating four distinct meal plans. These included the Apartment with limited meal swipes and Maroon dollars, Phoenix with more meal swipes and Ma-

Photos by Zoe Kaiser

roon dollars, the off-campus option with ten meal swipes, and the original unlimited meal plan. Both the Phoenix and the unlimited plans cost $1,667 per quarter, but at the time Mason explained that the increased number of retail options for the Phoenix plan gave it an equal value to the unlimited.

The University wanted to create meal plan options that appealed to students but were also simple enough to understand—the goal is to build up the dining community rather than chasing students out because of expensive or confusing meal plans, after all. In addition, this ensures that there will be enough revenue from meal plans to finance the future operation of the dining halls.

“There needs to be a certain level of guaranteed participation,” Mason said, noting the fi xed cost of staff and food preparation despite potential changes in the timing or frequency of visits to the dining halls. “Meal plans are one of the ways you can make...some commitments to say you’re going to be open from X to X [time].”

Building without Aramark As meal plan options and dining halls changed, one thing

stayed constant: UChicago’s contract with Aramark. In 1996 the contract was renewed after what Mason called “a pretty competitive bidding process” for another seven years. However, according to Mason, several one-year extensions followed because the effects of the recession in 2008 delayed the construction and eventual opening of Arley D. Cathey Dining Commons and Renee Granville-Grossman Residential Commons in 2009. “[The contract] went to an elongated period of time than was originally intended because of unforeseen circumstances,” Mason said. “The economy was causing some delays [and there was] the desire on the University’s part to line up the expiration of different contracts so that it [dining on campus] would be looked at all as one whole.”

A r a m a rk ’s E ng i ne er i ng Solutions team was involved in the development of Cathey, meaning its opening would be even further delayed had the contract not been extended. A transition between food service providers would lead likely to a disruption during this important moment for UChicago Dining. The Engineering Solutions team’s website promises “our unique capabilities in planning, design, construction, equipment procurement, and

installation and facilities operation ensure that your next campus dining space is one students will be talking about.”

Breakdown of Responsibilities Aramark was certainly a hot topic on campus, but not in the way Engineering Solutions had intended. In 2004, the BurtonJudson dining hall closed twice because of citations from the City of Chicago’s Department of Health’s Food Protection Program.

According to a Maroon article from February 24, 2004, approximately 500 students were without access to their dining hall when Burton-Judson Dining Commons—which would be renovated and reincarnated as Cathey—was closed for a weekend because health inspectors discovered mouse feces and carcasses on glue traps in the kitchen, citing the dining hall for multiple violations.

Since the University is responsible for providing the fi rst round of equipment in the facility and Aramark is in charge of day-to-day maintenance and production, the fault technically fell on Aramark. As the Maroon article explains: “If a tool of Continued on page 6

A son to German parents who f led K r istallnacht, Jo seph Neubauer immigrated by himself to the U.S. at age 14, having learned a few English words from classic Western movies. He earned his underg raduate deg ree from T ufts University while waiting tables and running a late-night sn ack del iver y ser v ice out of his f rater n ity house. He started his relationship with the University of Chicago by ea r n i ng h is M .B . A . deg ree in 1965 on a full scholarship through the business school.

In 1979 Neubauer joined the globa l hospita l ity company A ramark as an executive v ice president and was elected president in 1981. He had ascended to CEO by 1983 and chairman of the Aramark boa rd by 19 8 4 . He reti red from his positions as the CEO and chairman of A ramark in 2012 and 2015, respectively.

With i n eight yea rs of be c om i ng ch a i r ma n of the company, he was also on the Board of Trustees for the University of Chicago. W hen he and his wife wed in 1996 they asked that gifts be donated to UChicago—and then matched those g ifts themselves. T he same year he stepped down as A rama rk ’s CEO, he was elected vice chair of the UChicago Board of T rustees and has served as full chairman since 2015. Neubauer is also currently chairing the University’s record-setting $4.5 billion fundraising campaign.

Through the Neubauer Family Foundation, he has donated more than $61 million to the University of Chicago.

In a 2011 interview at Widener University— one of the few times Neubauer has been interviewed on the record—he explained his sense of responsibility as a leader both in his company and on the UChicago board of trustees.

“I’ve been blessed that people have invested in me over a long period of time,” he said.

“I was a foreign student and I got a scholarship to the University of Chicago. They don’t know if I’m going to stay in this country, they don’t know i f I ’m going to do any thing for the country--I could have gone back the next day—but they ’re generous enough to offer me a scholarship. And I never forgot that…. I consider it personally a privilege to be able to give back and demonstrate leadership.”

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

“We think [self-operation] could really work, and then we could also decide where the money goes.”

Continued from 5

Ga rdner had f ive meetings with UChicago Dining to discuss the ongoing issue and would prefer that the University not sign with A ramark and instead consider a company that serves safer and healthier food.

Some UChicago students believe that UChicago dining services should operate on an independent contract. The University ’s F ight for Just Food group argues that UChicago Dining should consider self-operation, an option they think has not been entirely exhausted. The group formed in the fall quarter of 2015 after becoming aware of Aramark’s prison funding.

The group drafted a “Statement of Purpose” about their dissatisfactions and what they would like to see from UChicago Dining. Besides the members’ disapproval of Aramark’s link to prisons, they write that funding prisons creates a controversy between the University and the heads of Aramark.

“The University has been signing multi-million dollar dining contracts with A ramark for decades, despite an obvious confl ict of interest between the University’s board of trustees and Aramark’s [past] CEO of 30 years, Joseph Neubauer,” the statement said.

Neubauer joined the University’s Board of Trustees in 1992, three years after UChicago signed with A ramark.

According to Acting Associate Vice President of Communications, Jeremy Manier, the Board is involved in contracting University administration but is not involved in any dining decision processes.

In addition to this discrepancy, the statement read UChicago Director of Dining Richard Mason “has shown little to no

interest in seeking and incorporating student input in the contract decision process.” Lastly, the members cited that many of their questions about self-operation from a Dining Town Hall meeting on January 27 still remain unanswered.

“In our meetings with Mason, he never considers self-operation. We think it could really work, and then we could also decide where the money goes.

We should not be funding prisons,” third year Fight for Just Food member Julia Epplin-Zapf said.

UChicago Dining is now using those opinions, along with their own expertise and past experiences, to review the reputations of Aramark, Sodexo, and Bon Appétit at other campuses as well as how selfoperated universities’ dining systems function. For a local comparison, Dining and CDAB, a group of three Student Government (SG) members and th ree I nt er-House C ou nci l (IHC) members, are reviewing food served at other Illinois universities. Aramark serves food at Loyola University Chicago, Sodexo at Northwestern University, and Bon Appétit at Wheaton College.

Aramark Corporation, previously founded as Davidson Brothers in 1936, is an American food service, facilities, and clothing provider with $14.3 billion (2015) in revenue, as reported from Google Finances.

Until he retired in 2014, UChicago alumnus Joseph Neubauer served as chairman and CEO of the company, based out of Philadelphia. Sodexo, formerly Sodexho Alliance, is a French food and facility service management corporation with $22 billion (2015) in revenue, also reported from Google Finances.

Bon Appétit is an American food provider based in Palo

Alto, California. This company is a part of a larger, British food service provider called Compass Group. According to their website, Compass Group’s revenue stands at approximately $14.5 billion (2015).

Analyzing Aramark According to U.S. school ranking and student review program Niche.com, formerly known as College P rowler, Aramark currently maintains a “B-” rating from Loyola as of June 8, 2015 and and “A-” rating from UChicago. Loyola student contributors Amy Tolle and Nathan Ramin authored the most detailed rating on the site. They said that the quality of food is standard but that the students are given limited access to food. “ It could be worse. That seems to be the attitude most students have about Loyola’s on-campus dining options,” they wrote. “One of the primary complaints about Loyola’s dining is that the University has its meal plan system set up so that students can’t use it anywhere except in the [three] dining halls and the two on-campus coffee shops. Most schools will have a program set up with local fast food establishments or family-owned businesses allowing students to use their campus cards to pay for food; this is not the case at Loyola.”

L oyola students actually show greatest concern in the viability of Aramark’s custodial contracts rather than the quality of food. On November 20, four Loyola students and the University’s entire student government organization protested in solidarity with dining hall workers and Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

The controversy began in 2003 when CPS reported that

Aramark and Sodexo consistently overprice their budgets for providing food and cleaning various facilities. Most recently, CPS reported last April that the companies fi red custodians and dining hall workers as a means of saving money even after billing CPS $86 million instead of the original $64 million. In an article published from WBEZ last April, several school administrators stated t hei r d i s s at i s f ac t ion w it h Aramark’s business tactics.

“That’s pretty astonishing.

If you have a signed contract that says ‘X’ numbers of dollars, that’s what it should be and it should be up to Aramark to absorb those other costs,” principal of Hanson Park Elementary in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood Dave Belanger said.

Clarice Berry, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, hopes that schools do not sign with either of the two companies.

“A r a m a r k a n d S o d e x o should pack their bags because they need to leave town. There is no way we’re not going to continue to fight this,” she said.

A r a m a rk s p oke s wom a n Karen Cutler believes that CPS is responsible for the over budgeting, and that Aramark billed CPS after the board failed to hire 100 more custodians.

Sodexo’s Services Northwestern University has maintained a dining contract with Sodexo since 1998.

In 2012, the U.S. employer equality index Human Rights Campaign (HRC) named Sodexo one of the “Best Places to Work.” Since 2007, the company has received a 100-percent rating for creating an inclusive environment for all employees, including lesbian, gay, bisex-

ual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals.

However, fol low i ng th is previously clean record with S odexo, Nor thwest er n has faced complaints about workers’ rights within the last two years. On January 24, the Daily Northwestern reported that more than 80 students and University employees marched down Sheridan Road demanding better treatment of food service workers. Workers specifi cally negotiated for the ability to work 40 hours per week instead of 37.5 hours without the possibility of working overtime.

Students’ increasing awareness of the issue from conversing with dining hall workers created further dissatisfaction, which led to the march. This march is similar to a protest from last year, where more than 1,000 Northwestern staff and students signed a petition that criticized Sodexo supervisors’ disrespectful behavior toward workers.

Despite the rise of this issue, Northwestern has agreed to keep Sodexo as its food service provider in 2018 and will instead consolidate its three contracts, which provide food to the Student Affairs for the Evanston campus, to the athletic department, and to the Chicago campus. All students are originally given 14-week meal plans that provide three meals a day for six full days a week and dinner on Sunday. Students also receive a quarterly allocation of Wildcat Points, the Maroon Dollar equivalent at Northwestern.

According to Dining Director Ken Fields from another Daily Northwestern article, “[Consolidating] would help improve transition between different areas. We work with Athletics to allow students to Continued on page 6

“This kind of dialogue is not about growth. It’s not about healing.”

Continued from page 2

dialogue, yet banned members of this immediate community, of this neighborhood, from being heard on this campus.”

Alvarez has been the object of heated criticism centered on the recently released video of 17-year-old LaQuan McDonald being shot 16 times by a police officer. The release of the video caused protests across the city and country and reignited conversations about police brutality against black people.

Alvarez was discussing the problem of violent crimes in Cook County when protesters seated in the audience held up signs and started chanting “Anita Alvarez does not believe that Black lives matter.” Alvarez left the room through a side door, accompanied by a member of her security detail, after a group of protestors, continuing to chant, approached her at the front of the room.

IOP E xe cutive D i re ct or

Steve Edwards and security made several unsuccessful attempts to talk to protesters into letting the event continue. The protest ended after Edwards announced to the audience that Alvarez had left the premises.

Alvarez stayed at the IOP for about 10 minutes before departing in hopes that the event could continue, according to Matt Jaffe, director of communications at the IOP. The protesters invited everyone who agrees with their cause to walk out of the building with them and to join them in the police board hearing meeting on Thursday.

In the press release, BLM Chicago accused Alvarez of over a dozen offenses, including intentionally withholding the video from the public, unjustly prosecuting certain cases, and neglecting to prosecute others.

“Alvarez should be investigated for criminal negligence and dereliction of duty for the

many infractions she has taken against the people of Chicago,” BLM Chicago said in the press release posted on its Tumblr page.

Mike Carson, spokesman for the Anita Alvarez campaign, sent an email statement to T HE M AROON expressing disappointment in the outcome of the event.

“Anita Alvarez was speaking about the importance of tougher penalties for those who commit crimes with illegal guns and her record of leading important reforms to the criminal justice system, when opponents of her campaign created a disruptive spectacle that prematurely ended the appearance... Anita Alvarez would never allow our campaign to shut down our opponents in this manner. The justice system requires that all voices are heard and that’s how she has always operated.”

Blair continued on to say that a question and answer

session would not have been productive. “She’s either going to evade [the questions] or lie about them. This isn’t the fi rst action where people have called for her resignation. She is well aware of this. She’s had many opportunities to defend her case…. There’s no point in talking to her at this point. We know he’s a terrible person, a liar, a crooked politician.”

“We invite everybody who has a sign in their hands who know that Anita Alvarez has got to go, who know that anti-blackness is real, who knows that this fucking institution and its henchmen don’t give a fuck about black people, to walk out of this bitch with us,” one of the protesters said.

David Axelrod, Director of the IOP, responded to the protest in a statement to the Maroon.

“At the Institute of Politics, we understand and respect that members of our community

have passionate views that may confl ict with those of our guest speakers, so we seek to create a climate in which all these views can be expressed in a respectful manner. We are deeply disappointed that a group of protesters disrupted our event ...to such an extent that a discussion was unable to take place.”

After the event, Edwards said that although he anticipated the event would bring out people who strongly objected to Alvarez’s offi ce, the IOP received no advanced warning of the protest and had no such disruptions before.

“The University of Chicago prides itself on free and open inquiry, rigorous discussion and questions about challenging issues… they can listen even when they deeply disagree with the issue and do so really substantively. That is something we need to do with every issue including the future of the state attorney’s office,” he said.

6

THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

“With the University itself doing its own dining, there’s a number of questions that you need to ask yourself. Is it part of your core competencies?”

Continued from page 5

use meal swipes at basketball games and football games in the concessions area, but those are really two separate entities kind of working together even though they’re both Sodexo. We try to look for ways we can fi nd additional opportunities to expand,” he said.

Northwestern Dining and Sodexo also created a new Food Advisory Board this past October. The group is similar to UChicago’s Dining Advisory Board in that it strives to improve the University’s food quality and meal plans. Members of the previous student dining board at Northwestern focused on separate sections of dining like vegetarian options and sustainability but noticed that the quality of food declined and that they were not responding to students’ requests for more options.

Sodexo’s dining ser v ices have a “B+” rating on Niche at Nor thwester n. Students commented on the Niche site, mostly saying that the quality of food that Sodexo provides is average and that the company could provide more varieties of food. “ The idea behind starting [the new Food Advisory Board] was to get a wider student base of opinions about the food and how we can improve it,” thirdyear Sandeep Bharadwaj said.

The board hopes to make some changes, including more meal plan options and a larger

variety of food for vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free students. “We’re going to get all of the students in the room and see what the students want to make of it.” It’s really up to them… Food is such a source of community and to be able to have students who are actually involved in shaping their community is really powerful,” Rachel Tilghman, Sodexo’s Director of Communications and Engagement, added.

Breakdown of Bon Appétit The last company the University is considering is Bon Appétit, which replaced Sodexo at Wheaton College approximately 20 years ago. Tony Dawson, the Auxiliary Services Director, says that Wheaton has been contracted with a private food service provider for at least 30 years. Bon Appétit’s meal plan is similar to Northwestern’s but serves 18 meals a week instead of 14. “ We have been extremely happy with Bon Appétit. Our account is regularly rated in the top tier by the Princeton Review; more importantly, we consistently earn “A+” marks from our students in Niche.com surveys. The management team is proactive and responsive, the culinary team is innovative yet sensitive to student tastes, and the catering team provides excellent support to our fund raisers, summer conference groups, a nd campus depa r tments,”

Dawson said.

Dawson believes that Bon Appétit has optimal leadership and communication. “ Bon Appétit leadership, from bottom to top, takes an interest in our account… [In addition] Bon Appétit regularly polls the student body to ensure that menus and service meet with their approval. [The food provider] does many other things for us, including special events for students during finals weeks, concessions at games, special pricing for department functions, discounted pricing for faculty and staff, etc.,” he said.

Raul Delgado, Bon Appétit’s General Manager at Wheaton, says that Bon Appétit does not thinks of itself as a contract food service provider but rather as a restaurant in order to heighten its quality of food.

“Contract food service providers sometimes act as if they have this captive audience that they can count on coming through their doors every day. They can tend to fall in the complacency trap serving the same food or not putting an effort into making things different daily, adding new twists, changing presentation, etc. Bon Appétit has always looked at itself as a restaurant company fi rst and foremost, and like a restaurant company, we believe we need to earn your business with every meal we serve… It’s a delicate balance of dependability and excitement,” he said.

Delgado added that Bon Appétit does not fund prisons, which he knows has been a concern of UChicago students.

“Bon Appétit has never provided service for any prison facilities. We operate in only three business segments – educational institutions, select corporate dining locations, and museums and other cultural centers. Our parent company, the Compass Group, does not serve prisons either; it divested itself of that segment of the business several years ago,” he said.

The Future of UChicago’s Dining Contracts Based on UChicago’s experience with dining over the last 30 years, the University will most likely sign a contract with Aramark, Sodexo, or Bon Appétit. Fight for Just Food students are still pushing for a rejection of all three companies for an independent contract and will continue to hold on-campus meetings.

To get a clearer picture of what an independent contract would look like, Mason considered Cornell University’s in -house food services. The Cornell Dining meal plan enables students to access the All You Care to Eat dining rooms for a reduced price and make taxfree food purchases at campus cafes, food courts, convenience stores, and coffee shops by swiping their IDs.

Part of what makes this wide variety of options available is Dining’s work with Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration.

The School of Hotel Administration allows students to improve customer service and business skills by operating restaurants and cafes on campus. This employment saves the University from hiring workers from other food companies.

A lthough some UChicago students believe that UChicago dining services should operate on an independent contract, Mason believes that the University does not currently have the necessary resources for successfully providing food on its own. The University’s last independent food service program ended in 1989, when according Mason, many other Universities had moved from self-service to food contracts.

“Industry wide, the trend is that universities are moving to contract companies. Fairly few Universities go self-operated, then on a contract, then self operated again… With the University itself doing its own dining, there’s a number of questions that you need to ask yourself. Is it part of your core competencies?” he said.

Delgado recommends that universities view contract service food providers as restaurants if they want food that matches the caliber of their school. “Complacency is the enemy of excellence,” he said.

Pair Donated $50 Million and Challenged the University to Raise More Continued from page 2

the University and providing them with mentoring. Approximately half of the program’s 479 a lu m n i u lti mat ely at tended UChicago.

Mor itz, chairman of Sequoi a C apit a l a nd for mer board member at Google, said his background inspired his contributions to education. He grew up in Wales during the 1970s and attended a school with many other low-income ch i ld r en . He dep ended on scholarships to fur ther his education and immigrated to the United States, where he received his M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

“Growing up in Wales made you understand what being an outsider is like,” reads his biography on Sequoia’s website.

“I wouldn’t be here today if not for the generosity of strangers.”

Mor itz a n nou nc ed i n a statement on May 21, 2012 that he would step down from some of his duties at Sequoia after having been diagnosed with a rare, incurable medical condition. Since then, he and his wife have devoted their

economic resou rces to ph ilanthropy, making donations totaling hundreds of millions to the University of California at San Francisco, the Juilliard School, the University of Oxford, and now the University of Chicago.

“In the next five to 10 years the quality of my life is quite likely to decline…for me life has assumed a different meaning, and I am making some adjustments,” he said in the 2012 statement.

Since leaving her role as an editor at the New York Times, Heyman has worked with her husband to use their financial resources to make college more accessible to low-income students. Heyman, who grew up in the South Shore neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side and attended a CPS school, says she was fortunate to be able to attend the University of Chicago.

“Coming of age during the Depression, my parents didn’t go to college. It meant a lot to them that I was able to get a good education. At that time, public schools provided a great foundation. And my parents, like many middle-class fami-

lies then, could afford to send me to college. That is hardly the case for students from low-income families. We want to do what we can to reduce econom ic ba r r iers for outstanding students equipped with grit and tenacity, which will serve them well in a demanding milieu like UChicago,” Heyman said in a statement.

When planning their most recent philanthropic effort, the couple was impressed by the success of the Odyssey program, which started with a 2007 donation of $100 million from an anonymous donor who only identified himself as Homer. “ Homer ” challenged the University to raise an additional $150 million to endow the program. The University has since received more than 10,000 individual donations, ac c ord i ng the Un iversit y ’s News Office.

On February 1, weeks before the donation’s public announcement, the University invited its Odyssey Scholars to a campus-wide event, co-hosted

by President Zimmer and Dean Boyer on Wednesday, February 17 at Mandel Hall. The email

invitation described the event as a celebration of the Odyssey Scholarship program.

“A s an Odyssey Scholar, you are proof of what talented students can achieve when we work to dismantle barriers to higher education,” Dean Boyer said in the email.

T he event , att ended by Moritz, featured a conversation centered on the recent donation. Director of the Urban Education institute, Sara Stoelinga (A.B. ’95, A.M. ’01, Ph.D. ’ 0 4), moderat ed the event , which featured three panelists: former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (Lab ’96), Chief of Networks for Chicago Public Schools Elizabeth Kirby (A.M. ’00), and former principal of Kenwood Academy, a CPS school, Vincent Tinto (Ph.D. ’71).

T he panelists expressed gratitude for Moritz and Heyward’s donation and stressed the importance of supporting low-income students at both K–12 scho ols a nd col leges and Universities. They also discussed and took audience questions about the schoolto-prison pipeline, retention of low-income students, mov-

ing top faculty to low-income schools, and the ramifications of eliminating federal considerations of federal aid applicants’ criminal records. “[The Collegiate Scholars P rog ram] is the University thinking very unselfishly that we have this extraordinary talent across Chicago. They can’t all come to the University of Chicago, but they can go to good colleges and be successful. So that’s the University reaching down; it’s K–12 reaching up. Meeting in the midd le — there’s rea l power there,” former Secretar y of Education Arne Duncan said.

The Socioeconomic Diversity Alliance (SDA) said that it is happy the Un iversity has more funds to support its low-income students, but wants more in formation about its specific allocation of the funds, according to SDA leader Stephanie Diaz. Diaz also expressed disappointment that an event that was initially pitched as a celebration of Odyssey Scholars seemed to be focused instead on the new donation.

7

THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

Uncommon Interview: Working at Valois, Where You ‘See Your Food’

BY EILEEN LI ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Valois, where Hyde Parkers have ‘seen their food’ for almost 100 years, is a local landmark, most famously frequented by President Barack Obama.

Manager Gianni Colamussi started working at the restaurant 7 years ago when he married into the family of the decades-long owner, Spiros Argiris.

The Maroon sat down with Colamussi to talk about the restaurant’s history, the changing environment of 53rd Street, and Obama victory breakfasts.

THE CHICAGO M AROON: What are some of the changes you’ve noticed in years you’ve been here?

Gianni Colamussi: [The family] has owned it now for about 40 years. For myself in the past seven years I’ve seen a lot of changes in foot traffic on 53rd street here. I think the economy had something to do with it.

Hyde Park changed a lot, brought in seven or eight new restaurants…. The customer base has been a lot of the same. We’ve lost a lot of regular customers due to parking issues, but we’ve also gained some other customers from the University, the hotel, the employees at the building next door, so it basically doesn’t

quite balance out but it’s helped.

CM: Who are some of your famous customers?

GC: Obama [is], obviously, one of them. Mayors coming in way back when, Harold Washington came in, Rahm Emanuel came in, Pat Quinn used to come in.

We’ve seen some pro ball players, Bill Cartwright has been in, I’ve got a picture with him. I’ve seen somebody from American Idol that was in here. I’ve got a picture with someone from the show Sex and the City. [There’s] a wide array—actors, sports players, politicians, students, regular doctors and lawyers in the neighborhood.

CM: I know you hosted a victory breakfast for Obama both times he got elected. What was the atmosphere during that like?

GC: The fi rst term win, we actually had a free steak and egg breakfast for everybody. The atmosphere was pretty crazy, there was a line here out the door, down to Lake Park and around the corner. So we did that all day up until… we had to shut the door down probably around 12, just because there were shifts changing and, you know, we had to cut it at some point. The second time around we offered $5 steak and eggs and it was basi-

cally the same response, there was a line around Lake Park.

CM: Have you met Obama?

GC: I have met him several times, yes.

CM:Has he been here since he’s become president?

GC: Oh yes, yes he’s been here several times since then.

CM: I’m guessing he’ll come by when he’s out of office.

GC: Yeah, we hope so. He seems like a pretty down-to-earth man, he does come visit now.

It’s difficult now with his whole entourage. They have to shut down 53rd, once you’re in you’re in [and] if you’re out you’re out, there’s not much traffic after that, but it’s defi nitely historymaking.

CM: Who are some of your most loyal customers?

GC: We’ve got a lot of police officers that are all regulars. The gentleman standing up right there, he’s an actor, writer, director, producer, he’s in every day….

This gentleman here has been coming here for years, probably 30 years. It’s pretty crazy, there’s a lot of regular customers we see on a daily basis.

CM: A lot of UChicago students

come to Valois, but they’re only in Hyde Park for a few years. What do they not know about Valois or the neighborhood?

GC: I don’t know what they don’t know but what I do like is that once they’re gone they come back to Chicago to visit, to Hyde Park, and Valois is actually a staple for them. It’s one of the fi rst things they want to do. We have tons of students, ex-students...who come in here with their luggage in hand before going to their hotel… we’ve got customers that come in, people who graduated, alumni from 20, 30 years ago who still come in, you know, they share stories.

CM: When these people from all over the world come here, what do they ask you?

GC: Simple questions, questions like you’re asking. A lot of these guys from out of the country want to know more about the president, what he’s like, what his favorite breakfasts are, what does he get when he’s here, how is he professionally, how is he personally, what your opinion is on his presidency, that kind of stuff.

CM: Is there anything I didn’t ask about that you think would be interesting for students to know?

GC: It’s interesting to know the current owners have been here, it’s been in the same family for a good 40, 50 years. The restaurant has been here since 1921, so it’s one of the oldest in Chicago. I would probably consider it a landmark, although I haven’t done the research on that yet to make sure, but it’s gotta be considered a landmark given its longevity and location.

Another thing a lot of the newer people don’t know, a lot of the students, is that this post right here (a column in the restaurant)…is the break point of where the restaurant used to be. From this post, Valois was on this side and we’d be sitting in a liquor store right now. This was an actual wall and in 2002 they tore the wall down and make this one big location.

Another thing a lot of people might notice, but might not know a lot about, is the actual mural we have up on the ceiling here.

It actually shows the town, the small town, where the owners are from, a mountainside village in Greece. On this side, they show the mountains they crossed over to get to the United States.

On this side they show the Chicago Skyline and here, a little Hyde Park, Promontory Point. If you notice the murals here…they are all Hyde Park landmarks.

Certainly part of the totality of the experiences we have had [with Aramark] will be incorporated into our process. It’s one of the advantages and disadvantages of being the incumbent.”

Continued from page 4

that production breaks, such as a refrigerator or desk, the University will replace it. Aramark is responsible for day-to-day production, such as keeping rodent feces swept off the floor, in the same way that students must clean the beer cans off their desks so they can study.”

Things seemed to return to normal, until Bartlett and Cathey failed back-to -back health department inspections in May 2010. Inspectors in Bartlett reported more than 50 fruit flies in the dishwashing area and near the drinks station as well as a leak under a handwashing sink at the pizza and pasta station. They also cited general unsanitary practices such as rust on the interior of the ice machine, though no evidence of rodents was discovered.

Fruit fl ies were also located in Cathey near the garbage disposal, dishwashing area, and basement dry storage room.

These incidents served as a partial impetus for the Global Dining Initiative and, though the full-length contract with Aramark was renewed for the first time in 2011, motivated UChicago Dining to look elsewhere for designers and planners for its dining hall opening

next year, Campus North Dining Commons. “We made decisions not to involve Aramark as much as we might originally because there was a question about whether or not they would be our vendor in the future,” Mason noted. “We decided we would give ourselves options in such a way that is best practices.”

Five Failed Inspections in One Year However, in 2012 Aramark came under fi re again when all three dining halls failed inspections multiple times, including two re-inspection failures. In March Bartlett was cited for violations including 40–50 small fl ies resting on walls, countertops, prep tables, and f lying throughout the area; 25 pounds of cheese refrigerated at improper temperatures; and broken wall tiles, sink tiles, and doors that were non-rodent-proof. An additional inspection in September netted violations including the dish machine in the kosher station not on or operating properly, 50–55 mice droppings, 10 live flies, food potentially contaminated by mice droppings, and missing sneeze guards.

In a November 2012 inspection of Cathey, citations included 75-100 mice droppings scat-

tered in all prep areas, 40-45 small fl ies in the dishwashing and other areas, and missing ceiling tiles. When inspectors revisited nine days later, they still noted evidence of rodents and insects, including 30 mice droppings and 70-75 small fl ies.

The dining hall was forced to close for a number of days and Aramark reimbursed students from those dining halls with a collective $130,000 extra Maroon dollars. Also in November, Pierce failed an inspection based on citations that ranged from extreme clutter in the mop sink closet to floor tiles needing new grout to 20 pounds of cooked rice, sour cream, and sliced tomatoes stored at improper temperatures.

T he nex t spr i ng — a f t er Cathey and Bartlett each failed one more inspection in April for a total of eight failures in three years—UChicago Dining announced an external review process with National Everclean Services, a third-party firm that has performed over 40,000 food safety and sanitation audits for food retailers in over 10,000 facilities since 1998. A statement on the UChicago Dining website explained that National Everclean Services would conduct a thorough examination of all dining facilities on campus to identify the sources of the recent

problems and provide training to dining employees, though UChicago Dining has not released the findings of the review.

Neither Bartlett nor Cathey have failed an inspection since the spring of that year (Pierce closed in 2013). Their most recent inspections were April 4, 2015 and June 23, 2015, respectively. Also in 2015, the University of Chicago Medical Center renewed its own food service contract with Aramark.

The Next Contract UChicago Dining’s current contract with Aramark will expire on June 30 of this year. The office is currently undergoing a substantive process to review contract proposals by three out of seven companies invited

by UChicago Dining to submit them. Sodexo, Bon Appetit, and Aramark were also the only companies who accepted the invitation.

On February 23 and 24, representatives from each of the companies will visit UChicago for interviews. Six students from the Campus Dining Advisory Board will be able to sit in during the interviews and ask questions after reviewing their entire proposals, according to Mason. Then, Mason and other

UChicago Dining officials plan to visit campuses where these providers operate, do reference checks, and speak to their counterparts at the other colleges’ dining offices.

The entire review team of 26 stakeholders in this process includes managers from cafes near campus, representatives from other UChicago departments such as Facilities Services, and other colleagues. The ultimate decision, however, is left up to Vice President of Campus and Student Life Karen Warren Coleman, who will choose a food service provider based on the recommendation made by Mason, the staff of UChicago Dining, and the rest of the review team.

As the current provider, Aramark has a lengthy history with the University already. “[Aramark] made significant strides in those areas in terms of the expectations, changing the culture—the attentiveness to [food safety] issues is part of the culture here,” Mason said. “That doesn’t take away from the fact that happened. Certainly part of the totality of the experiences we have had will be incorporated into our process. It’s one of the advantages and disadvantages of being the incumbent.”

8

THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

House Arrest for Source of Shooting Threat is Loosened

BY LORENTZ HANSEN NEWS EDITOR

A federal judge loosened the terms of house arrest for Jabari Dean on Tuesday to allow him to search for jobs, according to DNAInfo.

Dean was arrested on November 30 after threatening to kill 16 white males at the University of Chicago in comments on the web-

site WorldStarHipHop.com. The threats were a reaction to the killing of Laquan McDonald

by Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke.

Under the new terms of Dean’s home detention, he is allowed to leave his mother’s home between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Though Dean deleted the comments shortly after posting them, the FBI began an investigation of the threats, according to the criminal complaint filed by FBI Spe-

cial Agent Sean Burke. Based on the FBI investigation of the threats, the University cancelled all classes and campus activities on November 30.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Cox released Dean on December 1 to serve home detention at his mother’s home in South Shore and ordered him not to use the Internet. Judge Cox allowed Dean, a 21-year-old student at the University of Illinois at Chi-

cago, to continue his classes there while serving home detention.

Dean has yet to plead guilty or not guilty to the charge of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. He is awaiting the results of a mental health screening that occurred on the date of his first court appearance on November 30. The maximum prison sentence for transmitting a threat in interstate commerce is five years.

Calendar for the Week of 2-19-2016 Continued from page 3

ties they should have, and what issues they should focus on. The Fourth Ward includes Kenwood and parts of northern Hyde Park.

Queer Clout by Timothy Stewart-Winter Seminary Co-Op, 4:30 p.m.

The Seminary Co-Op will be hosting a lecture from Timothy Stewart-Winter, an Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University. Stewart-Winter will be discussing his new book, Queer Clout: Chicago and the Rise of Gay Politics. The book traces the role of big-city municipal politics in moving gay politics into mainstream political movements.

After the lecture, Kathleen Belew, Assistant Professor of U.S. History at the University of Chicago, will be leading a Q&A session.

The Boys by Toni Sala Seminary Co-Op, 6 p.m.

Spanish author Tony Sala will be discussing his book, The Boys, a story about how a car crash in a small Catalonian town causes the lives of four characters to intertwine in interesting and exciting ways. Afterwards, Catalan lecturer Alba Girons Masot will be leading a Q&A session with Sala.

Wednesday, February 24 Conference on US Religions and Income Inequality 2:00–6:30 p.m. in the Third Floor Lecture Hall of the Divinity School (Swift Hall) The Divinity School is hosting a multi-disciplinary symposium on the relationship between rising income inequality and religion in the United States. Presenters include professors from the Divinity School, the School of Social Science Administration, Booth School of Business, and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The event is sponsored by the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion. There will be a reception with hot appetizers and an open bar in the Swift Hall Common Room from 5:00–6:30 p.m.

Native Hubs: Culture, Community, and Belonging in Silicon Valley and Beyond 4:30–6:00 p.m. at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture will be hosting UC Santa Cruz anthropologist Renya K. Ramirez for a lecture on Ramirez’s work with Native Americans living in urban centers in the United States. Her work focuses on how Native Americans living off-reservation attempt to create a sense of belonging despite not having the full rights of a US citizen or the tribal resources provided to those living on reservations. There will be a reception afterwards.

Reading of The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol 6:00 p.m at the Logan Center, Terrace Seminar Room Author Molly Antopol will read from her debut story collection, The UnAmericans, which won the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, a “5 Under 35” Award from the National Book Foundation, and the Ribalow Prize. Antopol is the recipi-

ent of a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard and a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, where she currently teaches. The event is presented by the Fictions and Forms Series and the Committee on Creative Writing.

Knocking the Hustle by Michael Dawson 6:00 p.m. at the Seminary Co-Op Bookstore UChicago Professor of Political Science Michael Dawson will lead a discussion with Lester K. Spence, Associate Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University, about his new book Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. In his book, Spence discusses the effects of neoliberal policies on black politics and black empowerment. This event is co-sponsored by the Seminary CoOp and the University’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.

Death to the Establishment: How the GOP Divided 6:00–7:15 p.m. in the Main Dining Room of the Quadrangle Club The IOP will be hosting Erick Erickson, talk radio host and editor of The Resurgent, for a discussion about how the rise of Trump and his followers has uncovered an ideological rift in the Republican Party. The discussion will cover the rise of Trump and Cruz and the possibility that this election could irrevocably change the future of the Republican Party.

In This Moment: Liberation and Struggle After Prison Reform 6–8 p.m. Hyde Park Arts Center, 5020 South Cornell Ave Organized by the Prison + Neighborhoods Arts Project, this event will feature Oakland organizer Rachel Herzig in a discussion of the limits and possibilities of current prison and policing reform initiatives. The event will occur as an extension of the art exhibit, The Weight of Rage, which features artwork by incarcerated artists at the Stateville Correctional Center.

Julian Savulescu: Moral Enhancement 12–1:30 p.m. MacLean Center for Medical Ethics, 5841 South Maryland Avenue Julian Savulescu, an Australian philosopher and bioethicist, completed his PhD under the supervision of bioethicist Peter Singer.

In some of his publications, he has argued that parents have a responsibility to select the best children they could have, given relevant genetic information available to them, and that stem cell research is justifiable even if embryos are counted as people. He has co-authored two books: *Medical Ethics and Law: The Core Curriculum* (2008) and Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement (2012).

Screening: Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Oriental Institute 7 p.m. at the Oriental Institute The Oriental Institute will be hosting a screening of the Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, in homage to Steven Spielberg’s love of the Saturday matinee cliffhanger serials from his childhood (an early professor at the Institute is considered the

inspiration for the swashbuckling archeologist). There will be hot chocolate and pizza.

Thursday, February 25 Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conferences Schools Committee (Adam) 5:30 p.m. at the Kenwood Academy Media Center, 5015 South Blackstone Avenue.

An impasse in contract negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and the union representing its teachers—in combination with CPS’s ongoing budget crisis—have ratcheted up tensions and prompted cuts to schools in the Hyde Park and Kenwood neighborhoods.

At this meeting community members will discuss the state of local schools.

They’ve Got a Mouth on Them: Criminal Queers 7-9 p.m. at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts This event will feature a screening of Criminal Queers, a film focused on finding ways to abolish confinement of gender and sexuality. Immediately following, there will be a discussion led by filmmakers Eric A. Stanley and Chris Vargas, and University professor

Lauren Berlant. The event is part of the LGBTQ Studies Project and the Artists’ Salon at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.

GOP Debate Watch Party 7:30 p.m. at the Institute of Politics (IOP) The IOP will host watch party for the CNN/ Telemundo GOP debates, which will be the first Republican debates to take place after the New Hampshire primaries.

Friday, February 26 Nicholas Rudall on “What We Call Greek Tragedy” 5:15-7:00 p.m. in the Gleacher Center, Room 621 The Franke Institute for the Humanities will host Professor D. Nicholas Rudall, the founding director of Court Theatre, for a talk on Greek tragedy. Rudall will discuss various Greek tragedies and their link to the events occurring in Greece during the 60-year period of Athenian dominance. The event is part of a free lecture series by the Franke Institute, which will sponsor talks by renowned University scholars.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

VIEWPOINTS Letter to the Editor: IOP Director Responds to Protests at Alvarez Event Do you believe in a society in which people simply shut down and silence those with whom they disagree? Can our democracy function that way?

That’s exactly what happened Wednesday at the Institute of Politics (IOP) when the Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez was interrupted by loud and profane protesters, who brought to a halt her presentation to a group of students and community members.

Each of Alvarez’s opponents in the March 15th Democratic primary, Kim Foxx and Donna More, had previously appeared at the IOP and were afforded a respectful hearing. But protesters, many of whom were not student s , c a me t o the State’s Attorney ’s presentation Wednesday determined to deny her, and the audience

who came to hea r her, the same right.

One of the missions of the IOP is to bring people from across the political spectrum to air their ideas and make their cases. We believe our students and the larger community are thoughtful enough to evaluate what they hear, ask probing questions, and make their own judgments.

I understand that the campaign for State’s Attorney has stirred great passion. The issues of crime and police-community relations are front and center and are of huge concern, which was precisely why we felt the University community would want to hear from all the candidates.

I commend State’s Attorney Alvarez for appearing to make rema rks a nd a nswer questions, knowing there would be

pointed queries about her office’s handling of the Laquan McDonald shooting and other cases.

She came in good faith and

“I admire those who feel passionately enough about public issues to be moved to action. At the same time, I believe strongly that free and open debate should not be muzzled by government, university administrations or angry mobs.” insisted on no ground rules.

But a small group of protesters, some of whom were openly

supportive of another candidate, shouted her down. The great irony is that, through their actions, they ensured no one would get the chance to ask Ms. A lvarez challenging questions.

One of the ugly turns in the public discourse these days is coarseness and intolerance— the notion that we should not simply disagree with the people with whom we have differences, but we should deny them the right to speak. The IOP was created, in part, to be a safe place where people of differing views, parties, and backgrounds could air their ideas and make their cases, and grapple with provocative questions.

This commitment to free and open debate is not only c on si st ent w it h a u n iver sity setting, but also with a

healthy, functioning democracy.

I admire those who feel passionately enough about public issues to be moved to action.

At the same time, I believe strongly that free and open debate should not be muzzled by government, university administrations, or angry mobs.

The IOP is purely extracur r icula r. Pa r ticipation is voluntary. No one is required to come to these events. Those who object to a speaker have the absolute right to “vote with their feet” by not attending.

But we are going to continue to insist that speakers are afforded the courtesy of a hearing and that those who come to listen are given the chance to question them.

—David Axelrod (A.B. ’76) Director, Institute of Politics

The Taming of the Screw As Dining Hall Offences Add Up, Students Need to Speak Up Someone in Bartlett must have had a screw loose. At least, that’s what I thought when I found an actual screw in a piece of chicken I was trying to eat for dinner.

Had I not followed my patented Gardner Protocol for Inspecting A ramark Meat™, (GPIAM), I certainly would have punctured my throat or broken a tooth (which I am told no longer grow back). For those seeking to consume only the edible parts of

Aramark-served meat the next time they dine on campus, here is the GPIAM doctrine. Before consuming: 1. Cut off all fatty parts around the edges.

2. Actually, just cut off all the edges. Edges are always suspect.

3. Turn the food over to do a bottom spot-check. (It was this step of the Protocol that exposed the screw fastened to the bottom of my chicken. Never forget Step

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Three, kids; you don’t wanna get screwed).

4. You should now be left with a morsel of meat theoretically fit for human consumption.

5. Now take that morsel and throw it away.

6. Casually exit the dining hall and locate a spear. A standard-sized spear should do. You are now ready to hunt squirrels for food.

Upon executing Step Three of the GPIAM and discovering the carbon steel screw embedded in the chicken breast, I immediately brought my plate to a floor supervisor. The extraordinary chicken was not met with the shock and horror I expected, but rather with what seemed like familiarity. The woman to whom I showed the plate did not seem surprised at all. Once she ascertained that it indeed was not an organic contaminant (which maybe would’ve been okay, or at the very least, expected), she stated obviously, “ Well, this is clearly not acceptable.” She then yanked the screw out of the chicken breast’s charred exterior and threw away both components. Unfortunately, the symbolic separation of my food and its contaminant did little to quell my fears about the screw’s initial affi xation. Furthermore, I was miffed that I had not been allowed to unscrew the chicken myself. I would’ve liked to experience this—just how stuck was it? Would I have needed a screwdriver? A drill? How much force would be required to detach it, in Newtons? But the removed screw was swiftly placed into the stan-

dard Aramark evidence locker: a trash can.

I fi led an incident report, expecting that I’d earn a spot on the “Grossest Aramark Food of the Week” photo wall I assumed existed somewhere within the depths of Bartlett.

But as to the mysterious origin of the contaminant itself, it turns out the powers above may have been at play. Before the internal investigation was completed, I talked to dining

hall personnel who believed that since the screw did not come from the grill itself, it had likely fallen from the ceiling. Interestingly, the ceiling is a common scapegoat for physical contaminants in the food; this excuse has been employed for the various insects found in students’ dishes (even though at least one bug was clearly not indigenous to Illinois). The screw fell from above, of course. It must have Continued on page 12

Sarah Komanapalli

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

DINING Quit Your Bellyaching What, Oh What, do Students Have to Complain About?

Natalie Denby

Ink By the Barrel Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about campus food. Apparently, the dining hall food tastes like cardboard, the coffee is revolting in a new and unique way every day, and the restaurants in Hyde Park are situated as far away from campus as possible. One thing is for sure: this University does have a problem. But it’s not the one you might think. If you ask me, the real issue is that the food is way too good, cheap, and close to campus.

At the root of student complaints is the delusion that buying a meal plan should give you access to good food. But you’d have to be seriously out of your mind to believe that. Remember, you’re here exclusively to learn. Not to eat. And yet we are eating. It’s a serious problem. This University isn’t really a University at all—it’s more like a gigantic restaurant with a few classrooms. A nd that’s leaving students weak, pampered, and far too happy about food.

If you think about your average day, you’ll see a disturbing pattern. First, you pull yourself out of bed and drag yourself to Cathey or Bartlett for a huge mound of eggs. If you’re on the Unlimited Meal Plan, you’d better eat up. Those eggs are costing you nearly $6000 a year. Luckily, though, they’re worth every penny. Your breakfast is so fantastic, it’s a wonder you’re able to concentrate on your morning classes at all.

If you’re a normal human

being, you rely on coffee. So it’s a relief that the dining hall has amazing Starbucks-labeled coffee that sure enough tastes exactly like Starbucks. I think we can all agree that this alleged “Starbucks” is a crutch we wouldn’t trade for the world.

If you find yourself unable to focus during your afternoon lecture, it’s almost certainly because you’re ref lecting on how amazing the food is here.

And if that midterm didn’t go so well, the thought of a delicious lunch from the Euro station was definitely distracting you—the best part about the unidentifiable meat is that it’s always a surprise! By the time you’ve finished your last bite of dinner, your GPA has probably dropped. You don’t want to do schoolwork; you just want to gorge yourself on dining hall food all day. Let’s face it: you’ve been pampered.

Thank God they close the d i n i ng h a l l s on S at u r d ay nights! Perhaps you were worried that your “Unlimited Meal Plan” would actually be unlimited. That name’s a delightful misnomer; you pay an extraordinarily reasonable $5,800 a year for a meal plan that’s unlimited, except when it isn’t.

It’s clear that the meal plans here are ironically named—yet another quirky feature about this University we can all appreciate.

So, every Saturday night, we lazy students are forced to explore the many and varied culinary delights of Hyde Park—takeout, more takeout,

Kaitlyn Akin

and still more takeout. If you order as a group, one intrepid individual might have to step outside in the harsh winter weather to pick up the order.

The truly bold might wander all the way to the Med through the ice and snow—a 10-minute walk turned into a lifetime by the wind chill.

If you do choose to eat out, ref lect on how constructive the experience is. Sure, you might curse the universe while you trudge back to your dorm (you’ll have plenty of time), but remember, paying several thou-

sand dollars for food that you don’t actually get is excellent preparation for the disappointments of adult life.

Some might argue that having access to good food throughout the entire week should be a no-brainer, since students and their parents are forking over up to $68,000 a year to the University.

But that’s ridiculous—what the school needs to do is dish out some tough love. Having food is clearly spoiling us. It’s high time we got rid of the dining halls. The restaurants

should all move even farther away. The food trucks need to pack up and go. People like them too much. If the University feels obliged to keep the dining halls open, they should serve salad only. With just lettuce. Only then could you focus on what really matters— overworking yourself now for a degree that will allow you to overwork yourself at a desk job later.

Natalie Denby is a first-year in the College majoring in public policy.

Take Our Dining Halls Back Self-Operation is the Best Way to Ensure We Eat What We Want

Nick Aldridge

The Skunk at the Lawn Party UChicago is currently seeking to replace its dining contract with A ramark, which is set to expire at the end of this school year. The administration has hired a food service consulting firm and is in the process of reviewing bids from various providers. There has been some talk about the

p ot ent i a l for much-ne eded change in the dining halls, but much less about the specifics of that change. One group, the Coalition for Ethical and Sustainable Dining—composed of the UChicago Climate Action Network ( UCA N ), the Fight for Just Food, the Phoeni x Sustainability Initiative, and

the University of Chicago Ani ma l Wel fa re S o c iety — has organized to get the message out about the ethical and environmental impacts of this upcoming decision. “ We [the different groups w ithin the Coa lition] don’t all want the same thing, but we figured out a way to get everything that we want to fit together,” UCA N member Claudia Fernandez said. The F ight for Just Food is concerned about the role the prospective food service provid-

ers play in perpetuating mass incarceration across America (some prov iders prov ide t o and profit from private prisons). UCAN is advocating for a greater focus on sustainability initiatives and for a reduction in the dining hall’s reliance on animal agriculture. The Phoenix Sustainability Initiative is also a proponent of sustainable initiatives, particularly relating to the sourcing and disposal of food, and the Chicago Animal Welfare Society wishes to increase the number of veg-

etarian and vegan options in the dining hall. The coalition believes that all of these initiatives can be furthered through self-operation and local sourcing of food products.

Our current dining habits are destructive for a number of reasons. L a rge-scale ani ma l ag r icu ltu re has wel ldocumented and far-reaching consequences, including demanding massive quantities of water to raise cattle and contr ibuting extensively to Continued on page 11

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

ISSUE As Their Contract Expires, Aramark Shouldn’t Be Replaced At All ta i nabi l ity i n itiatives l i ke composting, the dining hall can mitigate its environmental footprint, irrespective of which food service provider it selects.

In closing, Fernandez said, “ These sustainable initiatives are things which we can and should be doing, regardless of which food provider we select or whether or not we self-operate.” However, self-operation would best facilitate this goal.

Self-operation means that the University would take dining into its own hands. This would eliminate the necessity

Continued from page 10

global warming through methane-production by livestock and transportation of livestock (not usually kept very close to your local grocery store). In a statement, Fernandez said, “For the University to actually go g reen, it can’t just turn off the lights in the library or use hybrid shuttles. It has to change the way sources its food and it has to allow its students to pursue more sustainable eating habits.” By purchasing local and organic products and by adopting sus-

for transporting food long dis- prov iders cu r rently on the tances, contribute to the lo- table offers local and sustaincal economy, and ensure that able options, but these are not a greater percentage of our always as good as they sound, food is organic, as opposed to and in one case included ice the perhaps cheaper but less and soda as products that were healthy and worse-tasting op- “locally sourced.” The coalition tions provided by national food stresses that these options are service companies. In addition, insufficient and that while in self-operation will make it eas- the short term it may be necier for the University to begin essary to sign a contract with sustainability initiatives and a food service provider, selfto directly respond to the de- operation would dramatically sires of the community, partic- improve our ability to provide ularly by providing additional quality food service without vegetarian and vegan options. damag ing the env ironment.

Each of the potential food As such, the group is urging

the University to sign a threeyear (as opposed to a five-year) dining contract and to initiate plans to self-operate when that contract expires.

While it may be inevitable that the University will sign with a food service provider in the short-term, with a little work, the student body can ensure that we get better, healthier food at a lower cost to the environment.

Nick Aldridge is a first-year in the College.

Mission Nutrition Common Student = Woes Can Come Down to Questions of Poor Nutrition

Brooke White

Mischief Manager Scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon, and sugary cereals are Bartlett’s breakfast staples.

Dinner has a little more variation, offering an assortment of entrées drenched in oil and coated in salt. But who cares?

We’re just busy college kids, wanting to get in and out of the dining hall, free from the burden of cooking. Some of us have class from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. multiple times a week, so there isn’t much time to pay attention to scary nutrition facts like these: one serving of Bartlett’s eggs contains 25 percent of your recommended daily sodium intake, and one cup of Cocoa Puffs, offered daily in the dining hall, contains 14 grams of sugar, which is over half of the recommended 25 grams of added sugar that women should consume in a day. Flouting nutrition facts and recommendations can lead to poor mental and physical health. Ever wonder why college kids are constantly lethargic, moody, and unmotivated?

I struggled with digestive issues my entire life until going gluten-free three years ago, which cleared up the eczema on my hands after three days. Once I kicked dairy and processed sugars from my diet, my forehead acne cleared up within two days. But when I go through the daily grind of college life, I find it really difficult to keep up a healthy diet, especially when the dining halls have such limited healthy options. I also don’t have time to do the kind of research I did in high school, which helped me figure out that the foods I was putting in my body were

the source of all of my problems.

In the Reg, I watch people drink Coca-Cola and sugary fruit drinks without thinking twice. One can of Coke isn’t going to kill you, but many of us have consistently poor diets— that’s just part of college life. It even gets to the point where we pride ourselves on how poorly we eat. Two a.m. Reg-goers consume Ba r t Ma r t staple foods, which often consist of Sour Patch Kids, Doritos, and those problematically delicious chocolate-covered peanuts. Add a Red Bull to get you through the night, and you’re looking at 72 grams of sugar in one latenight snack. As the quarter rolls on and you’re feeling a little more anxious and a little more depressed than usual, it’s not just your busy schedule or your relationship or your internship woes making you feel this way. Sugar is contributing to your unhappiness, and the school doesn’t really offer any nutritional awareness programs, posters, or workshops to highlight this.

Recent studies have shown that the consumption of refined sugar triggers chronic inflammation in your body, negatively affecting your immune system and brain. Inf lammation is linked to a greater risk of depression, along with a slew of other problems like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

As you run from class to class and rush to the dining hall, what are your options?

You can head to the on-campus vending machines and get a bag of baked Lays and a Coca-Cola, but that bottle alone has a whopping 65 grams of

Sarah Komanapalli

sugar. You drink it, get a little bit of a sugar high, and then come crashing down in your next lecture. It’s no surprise that so many of us are chronically tired, but we blame it on our never-ending schedules and lack of sleep. We cover up this fatigue with the overconsumption of caffeine, and the cycle persists. So why doesn’t

UChicago offer more resources to help students become more aware of the importance of nutrition?

On the Dining webpage, the University claims to have an on-site dietitian for nutrition consultations, but where does he or she hide? Sure, we offer vegetable dishes, but they’re either lathered in oil or packed

with sodium. We need to be more educated about how we’re harming our bodies by the food we’re putting in them, and the University should play an active role in that education.

Brooke White is a secondyear in the College majoring in political science.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

A Student’s Guide to Sneaking into Bartlett If You’re Going to Obtain Food on the Sly, Do it Like a Well-Seasoned Fourth-Year

Liam Leddy

Real Mongoose 2 We’ve all been hungry on campus a nd low on f u nds, repulsed by the University’s overpriced off-campus meal plans but tantalized by the prospect of a l l-you- can eat shrimp po’ boys. To those of us in that predicament, we turn to the church of endless delicatessen delights and Kosher pita: Ba r tlett Dining Hall.

To be clear, I cannot confirm if I’ve ever eaten at Bartlett without swiping in, and I certainly don’t condone stealing food from an organization with a track record of serving subpar food to inmates. That is certainly not okay, and all of what follows is hearsay. But for those with a certain moral f lexibility, here I prov ide a handy guide to getting into Bartlett without paying and without getting caught.

Before we begin the guide, there’s one rule that must be followed: 1. Do not fuck with Tammy.

If Tammy is working the door, don’t even try it. Just walk away. It’s not worth it.

She will find you, and she will kick you out. And you’ll feel awful about yourself when she does. If Bartlett is a church, Tammy’s the priest. She sees all, everywhere and always.

Don’t fuck with Tammy.

T her e a r e s ever a l ave nues by which one can enter Bartlett, each of which has its risks and advantages, its streng ths a nd wea k nesses.

They are:

1. The Elevator A t i me -honor ed classic , kids have been entering Bartlett through the elevator since it became a dining hall. It’s reported to be largely risk-free, as there’s hardly ever anyone at the counter on that side.

Entering this way is a largely stress-free ordeal, albeit timeconsuming, as the elevator is apparently quite slow. I have a friend who uses what’s probably my favorite Bartlett-entry method, a variation on the elevator tactic: He goes up to the third f loor, comes down in the elevator, and, if questioned, says that he went upstairs to poop. He makes sure to say “poop,” so that whoever is questioning him gets uncomfortable and ends the conversation. Seems like overkill to me, but to each their own.

Although this is probably the easiest tactic, keep in mind that it’s difficult to scope out the scene before entering; if there happens to be a worker near that entrance and you don’t have an inside contact, you might get caught. And if you can’t talk your way out of it, you might get bounced.

2. The Snag-a-plate This is something of a higher-effort tactic, as it requires you to either steal a Bartlett plate and keep it with you, or shamelessly ask someone on the third f loor for their dirty dishes. I know people who engage in both these activities.

Once you have your plate, or

Wei Yi Ow

bowl, or cup, in hand, simply walk in through whichever entrance you please. You have a plate, so how could you have snuck in? This is probably best used in tandem with the elevator, simply as a backup in case you get caught.

3. The Snag-a-Frosh Know a first-year who isn’t using their ID right now? Take it. As long as you do it with confidence and swipe your ID with it face-down, you’ll probably be okay. This is reportedly the main reason frats have pledges. It’s important to be aware that if you get caught once doing this, you may never be able to do it again, at least not on the same front-counter

“The real problem here is the lack of consistent student outrage” Continued from page 9

been divine will.

I then had a meeting to discuss my experience unearthing this artifact, and I was enlightened about Aramark’s unscrewpulous food procedures. Staff training includes topics such as “How Food Becomes Unsafe,” “Receiving and Storage,” and “How to Prep Food Safely.” Maybe a “How to Recognize Foreign Objects Embedded in Chicken Breasts” class is in order.

Having solved the mystery later that week, Director of Safety for UChicago Dining Jasmine Davenport emailed me that “one of the screws holding the scraper blade to the brush came off and landed in between the grill grates. The screw and the

grill are black, so it was cam- I could be eating Aramark’s oufl aged.” The screw stealthily prison food.” Really? This is the “camouf laged” itself onto the standard by which we’re now chicken, undetected because of measuring such a critical part of student life? We can demand their shared black color.

Here’s hoping this article better, UChicago. Head of Dindoesn’t Ara-mark me as a future ing Richard Mason hopes that target. We cannot Bart-let this “if UChicago is ranked number happen again. The quality of our four, UChicago dining should be food needs to improve, or we’re number four as well.”

No longer can we have tacit going to have a lot of toothless students on a campus rife with acceptance of such terrible food.

If you criticize the food on this squirrel carcasses.

On a more serious note: the campus, you’re often made to real problem here is the lack feel like a snob. But in this case, of consistent student outrage I was just someone who didn’t against the dining hall. When want to lose a tooth to a piece I made an offhanded complaint of chicken. about the food earlier this Emma Gardner is a secondyear, an RA responded cheerily, “Whenever I think the food year in the College majoring in is bad, I just tell myself that English and political science.

worker; they might know your face.

Also, it’s possible this loophole has been closed, but in the past, most front-counter workers reportedly didn’t scan guest swipes properly—they just scanned them as another mea l sw ipe, mea n i ng that those on unlimited meal plans had unlimited guest swipes, too. That may be worth looking into if you have a first-year to piggyback on.

4. The Back Door Maybe the riskiest of all possible methods, but a lso the most thrilling. Wait until someone walks out the exit, the one on the opposite side of the counter from the main en-

trance, and just grab the door before it closes and walk in.

When using this method, it’s essential to walk up the staircase on the same side as the exit; if you walk up the one on the same side as the entrance, the front desk worker might see you. The same goes if you linger too long on the back stairs; it’s really better to just be decisive and go for it quick.

5. Just Get a Meal Plan But who wants to do that?

Liam Leddy is a fourth-year in the College majoring in economics.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

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Answers to Tuesday’s crossword puzzle, “Shake! Shake! Shake!”

SUBMISSIONS THE CHICAGO MAROON welcomes opinions and responses from its readers. Send op-ed submissions and letters to: THE CHICAGO MAROON ATTN: Viewpoints 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 E-mail: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com The editors reserve the right to edit materials for clarity and space. Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words. Op-ed submissions, 800 words.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

ARTS Alex’s Food Journal:

The Promontory, Hyde Park’s Only Serious Dining Experience

february 12 / 5311 south lake park avenue

BY ALEX YE MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

The long bridge between no-frills grub and uppity fine dining is a loosely defined culmination of values that reconcile the two pillars of food: sustenance and artistry.

To some, this may bring to mind the popular farmto-table movements, modernized cultural fusion cuisines, or even the hip revival of barbecue culture.

Our waitress at the Promontory generously coined this term “serious dining,” emphasizing the rigor that validates food culture and culinary arts.

T his intimately lit space, subtly tucked away from Harper Court, emanates hospitality and wa rmth , emphasi z i ng food and company. The

teract with their diners.

Dress like it’s date-night and you’ll surely be met with an engaged waiting staff and an able sommelier that approach you as peers, expressing a genuine interest in making your night as enjoyable as possible.

Parsnip Soup with Huckleberry Gastrique (Complementary): The first impression of this palate starter almost resembled clam chowder.

The savory tone of roasted onions was followed by the creeping flavor of starchy, ear thy parsnips. T he tartness and sweetness of the gastrique cut right through the creamy emulsion. A thoughtful, balanced starter.

Clam Fritters ($11): Dry, bland, deep-fried balls of raw f lour and

fatty fish fi let with crackling skin. An underwhelming appetizer.

P.E.I. Mussels ($15): The broth was the star of the dish. The meatiness of the lamb sausage met with the smokiness of the black garlic oil and sweetness of the wine. This blend hit the palate in waves to leave a warm, comfortable spiciness of the pimento as a thin layer of smoky, savory oil coated the mouth.

The only problem? The broth-soaked bread stole the show from the mussels.

Kentucky Burgoo ($26): For a dish that the Promontory has kept on their menu for longer than a year, this one didn’t hit the right spots like the first time. Fibrous, thinly-sliced, almost unrecognizable turkey roulade, grainy butter beans, and

Peggy Xu

A diner tears into a house-made baguette, which accompanies the P.E.I. Mussel dish.

fully seated bar at the front of the house—humbly stashed with top-shelf whiskeys—and the open hearth kitchen remind you that the crew at the Promontory lives to in-

cornmeal with a taste of the sea you have to close your eyes to believe. The glorified tartar sauce— called gribiche—and pickled vegetables were perfect complements for a sizzling,

gritty cornbread nearly ruined this dish. Not a good evening for corn at the Promontory. Fortunately, the succulent pork belly was fork tender and the plump venison sau-

Peggy Xu

The Promontory, which also doubles as a bar and concert venue, is arguably Hyde Park’s finest eatery.

sage was snappable, working in tandem with the smoky, tart tomato broth and pickled okra to induce that fundamental balance of intoxicating smoke, fatty meat, and biting acidity.

Squash Risotto ($16): Spiced pecan? Apple? Egg? Mushrooms? Fermented Cabbage? A few moments with a spoonful of every component in the mouth left me lost, the crunchy pecan and tender, sweet apples interjecting the umami of the mushrooms and the funk of the cabbage. All while the fudgy egg yolk and creamy risotto gradually subdue the whole fiasco. I rationalized with all my might that the combination was ingenious, but in retrospect realize that it may have been just the confused mess it looked like on the menu. This dish was spread too thin in pursuit of multi-dimensional fl avors and textures. Perhaps it’s worth a second try.

Chocolate Hazelnut Pave ($9): Skip the apple fritters: this pave, a flour-

less, dense, neatly cut cake and all of its surrounding components demonstrated a caliber of craft that caught me off guard. This dish took the award-winning combination of rich dark chocolate and refreshing orange that straddled the fence of over-ambition in its elaboration, but ultimately delivered. The espresso custard accented the fragrant bitterness of the otherwise sinfully dense chocolate, both melting in the mouth to coat the crunchy hazelnut crumble.

This flavor profile was the elevated version of a bite of Ferrero-Rocher and a sip of iced coffee au lait. The warm, subdued sweetness of the moist citrus genoise added all the flavor of orange without the acidity, meeting the viscous, yet cutting bitterness of the grapefruit curd. The dream bite of all this dish’s components, with the Meyer lemon powder dancing on the tongue, may seem contrived, but is ultimately focused on the effects of a

single flavor combination.

Coherence and complexity beautifully married.

The Promontory serves a thought-provoking menu that finally attracts UChicago students with money to burn and curious Chicago diners who previously avoided Hyde Park’s desolate bubble of a food scene. The est ablished, know-it-all critics may chain the Promontory to the traditions they think the restaurant should uphold and completely miss the idea that the chef-owners, Bruce Finkelman and Jared Wentworth, aim to create an experience with creative, playful interpretations on classic dishes.

And while their menu may have its inconsistencies and flaws, the experience is markedly more interesting than the snuffy, modernized Italian cuisine at A10.

Open 11 a.m.–11 p.m.

Mond ay –T hursd ay, 11 a.m.–1 a.m. Friday, 9 a.m.– 1 a.m. Saturday, 9 a.m.–11 p.m. Sunday. $$$.

Food Trucks Serve Up Wheely Good Options

BY EVANGELINE REID GREY CITY EDITOR

Tucked away on a centralized, gothic campus in our cozy Hyde Park neighborhood, it’s easy to forget we are part of a bustling metropolis. But if there’s one thing on campus that reminds us we get the best of campus life and city life, it’s the food trucks.

Picture it: food trucks humming along the curb, friendly cashiers, lunchrush crowds clumped on sidewalks, and delicious food in minutes. It’s an economic quirk born of

high-rent prices, but still continues to be in high demand.

Luckily, the University of Chicago’s campus boasts a h igh enough demand that it’s become a popular spot for food t r u c k s ( b e t we e n t he hospital, graduate and undergraduate students, a nd ad m i n istrat ors, there are thousands of people looking for lunch every day on campus). It is not uncommon to have half a dozen food truck options lined up.

While the food trucks used to line up along Ellis Avenue, this year’s

construction encouraged the bulk of them to park along University Avenue instead, on the east side of the quad (though you’ll still find a few on Ellis or over by the Biological Sciences Learning Center). The options change each day, from cupcakes to Asian-fusion to burgers and milkshakes. The magic of the food trucks is that you never know what to expect.

T wo of the best trucks — Caponies Trattoria and Mina’s Mexican Home Cooking—offer fast, good food at reasonable pr ices. Capon ies

sells real Italian food in pretty hefty servings.

Their calzones and perfectly al dente pasta are a taste of home for anyone who grew up with Italian food. The San Pellegrino is a plus too. Mina’s has good tacos and tamales, as well as Jarritos soda and a smiling face inside the truck. But it’s the big tub of fresh guacamole they sell that really puts them on the map. Share it or don’t, but you won’t regret buying it. Mina’s always wins for value.

Paris Ouh La La, easily recognized by the two pairs of fishnet-clad legs

dangling off its roof, is another truck to look out for. Their savory crêpes a re a lways satisf y i ng, though the of t en-long wait for an order can be off-putting. The Pierogi Street truck, a common campus v isit or, of fers small but delicious pierogis plus toppings —usually better as a snack than a lunch.

There are some trucks that visit campus less often but are worth dropping any plans to go try: keep your eyes peeled for a sighting of Milt’s Barbeque for the Perplexed, which serves delicious ko-

sher barbeque and poses perplexing questions on the side of the truck.

Go check out the food tr ucks t omor row. You never know what you’ll find.

Despite the surprise being half the fun, chicagofoodtruckfinder.com offers a fairly reliable— though not entirely comprehensive — list of the fo o d t r u c k s pl annin g to stop by campus each day in a given week. Following your favorites on Twitter will give you a heads up on when to look for them.

15

THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

You’re Not Crazy: South is Better Than Bartlett

BY WALKER KING MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

T her e i s a not ion haunting University of Chicago dining. One that many people understand and express vehemently at the slightest opportunity. But the evidence is hard to put into exact terms so that the argument is irrefutable; thus the debate rages on. The idea: A rley D. Cathey Dining Commons is better than Bartlett Dining Commons.

D i n i n g aut hor it ie s w i l l ad a m a nt ly deny this, of course. When the question is put to them at Inter-House Council or Bartlett Dining Committee meetings, they dismiss it out of hand as the fiction of “grass is always greener”-minded students. Some people I talked to, and I didn’t want to believe it either, not wanting to denigrate

our “home” dining hall.

Still the idea spreads, whispered, hidden, but widely believed, nurtured by the incontrovertible evidence.

There are, of course, superf icial differences between the two dining commons that everybody seizes on immediately— the frozen yog ur t machine at Cathey strangely absent at Bartlett, or the difference in seating organization. Cathey has a couple of sepa rated sma l ler d i n i ng a reas , while Bartlett puts everyone in one giant, undivided old gym.

W hat you may not detect are the small discrepancies, things that I didn’t even realize until I started asking around.

Cathey has better carrot sticks, one person told me; and a panini press; and deep dish pizza; Chex instead of Cheerios for gluten-free cereal; more

sauce options for pasta; a better flow around the salad bar; cleaner silverware. Two people separately told me that Bartlett is dimly lit, which makes the cave-like dining experience miserable.

Some of these differences, like the layout of the building, obviously c a n’t b e a mel ior at e d w it hout ex p end it u r e s and from closing the dining commons for a period of time. But if you eat at both locations often—as I do —you notice differences that seem to boggle the mind. You are eventually faced with a stupefying conclusion: food at Cathey is just cooked better.

Bartlett seems incapable of cooking meat to anything short of the texture of bark chips — be it pork loin, chicken breasts, or pot r oast.

Chicken in particular is a misadventure at Bartlett:

not a day goes by without confronting some kind of dry chicken breast in a vague, menacing sauce.

Brussel sprouts—a staple of both dining commons— are crispy and caramelized at Cathey yet mushy and tasteless at Bartlett.

Squash is soggy at Bartlett and tender at South.

I have had so many ladles of Bartlett “ beef stew ” that turned out to be just potatoes and carrots that I’ve given up on the stew genre all together. No such problem at Cathey.

E ven employe es of UChicago Dining seem t o k now the s c or e. I asked a woman working at Bartlett which dining commons people prefer working at. W hile she herself only ever works at Bartlett, she replied f latly, “ S outh. T hat ’s j u s t wh at e v e r y b o d y says.” She pointed me toward a “temp,” who had worked at both locations.

He preferred to work at Bartlett because the “student– staff interactions are more friendly ” and South is more “organized” and “serious.” However, he pointed out that the Bartlett salad bar was deplet ed a nd d isorganized, explaining that Bartlett is more popular, so the staff is more likely to get behind schedule and rush. Nonetheless, he preferred Bartlett’s atmosphere to Cathey’s coldness.

One student had a different opinion about the atmosphere at Bartlett versus Cathey. “ I think the employees are happier at South, which makes the food better.” I, for one, agree with this assessment. I doubt that employees of both dining commons are ever thrilled to see my greasyhaired, shambling mass coming over for more beef stroganoff, but Cathey

employees certainly seem better at disguising it.

A nd that improves the dining experience for me.

I d o n’t de ny t h at there are certain things that Bartlett does better.

T he Kosher station is generally superior, and there is usually a wider selection of cookies, for instance. Still though, most of the Bartlett defenses that I heard were based in sentimentality for house tables and familiar faces rather than a particular affection for the food. This used to be my condition, when I was young and loved the camaraderie of my house.

But a fter th ree-and-ahalf years, my tolerance for Bartlett is slipping away bit by bit. I find myself neglecting my house table and looking for excuses to go to Cathey for lunch or dinner, and for reasons more substantial than just fro-yo.

Student Artist Spotlight: First-Year M.F.A. Ben Nicholson

BY AYLING DOMINGUEZ MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

L ooking at the ar twork of New Hampshire native Benjamin Nicholson, which focuses on the i nt r ic ac ies of c ont emporary communications technologies, you would never guess that Nicholson grew up on a smalltown farm with dial-up i nt e r n e t a nd m o d e m problems. But being separated from his friends by miles of rolling fields and pastures drove him toward online forms of socialization.

Now a f i r st -ye a r graduate student in the Depa r tment of Visua l Arts’ Master of Fine Arts (DOVA M.F.A.) program, Nicholson first became interested in dig itallymediated communication when he began to create “weird mixed-media things” in seventh grade.

He later saw his own computer-oriented thought process ref lected in the coding he did throughout high school. For Nicholson, art became a way to explore technologicallymediated relationships.

He makes enigmatic art th at ra nges f r om u nner v i ng t o hu mor ous , seeking to create pieces that evoke c on f l ic t ed feelings. Some of his titles include, “CONTROL ROOM ,” “ black pi xel,” “Glitch,” and “Mona Lisa Flash Drive.”

Because his artistic genre isn’t necessarily a popular or a common

one, it was initially hard or museums willing to is no coherent economic although this time on a do the followers of this for Nicholson to find an display it. However, he model. The success of one more personal level. He curious cult. “Asdf ” is arts program that was a hopes to continue search- artist does not necessar- considers it an engaging believed to be a cypher good fit. Until, of course, ing for his niche. ily mean the demise of intellectual exercise to for all possible messages. he stumbled upon the N i c hol s o n’s ad v i c e another. If you’re going try and crack the com- Did you expect any less DOVA M.F. A . program for aspiring artists? Try to be in this field, love munication code between from a man explor ing here at UChicago, which things that may not work art and other people who himself and another per- d ig ital communication boasts an eclectic col- out. B e menta l ly pre - make it,” Nicholson said. son. Unsurprisingly, he’d t h r o u g h a r t? N i c h ol lection of ar tists with pared for both positive However, if Nicholson like to teach something son will surely continue finding different ways to d i f ferent backg rounds a nd c r it ic a l fe e d bac k were to pick up another related to digital arts. and interests. The only from others. Relish the job to sustain him while More su r pr isi ng is explore his interests—if digital media artist in great field of study and pursuing his art inter- the fact that Nicholson not through the originathe program, Nicholson work that is art. Form ests, he wouldn’t entirely currently serves as the tion of thought-provoking is constantly surrounded good relationships with mind becoming a teacher. Interim Coordinator and artwork, then through by people and art that he the mass of great people In fact, he’d love it.

Documentarian of T he the organization of obhad no exposure to pre- in this field.

B en’s f utu re t each- Cult of asdf. Do you ever scure cults. All hail asdf.

If you want to learn viously. “ A s p i r i n g a r t i s t s ing aspirations ref lect just get over whel med “ It is frustrating at shou ld never g ive up his deep-rooted interest while on the computer more about Nicholson, times to not be immersed hop e b e c au s e , u n l i ke i n l i ng u istic relation- and asdfjkhkjfhsd ? Well, his work, or asdf, go to: in a discourse focused for other careers, there ships between people — Nicholson does too, as http://www.brnart.com. purely on digital art, or have another coder who I can bro down with,” Nicholson said. “ But I am thankful for being able to gain feedback from people with experience in different disciplines and certain kinds of critical theory that I was never aware of before.”

T h r ough h i s i nt er actions with artists, he has learned that sometimes it’s better to make a physical object rather than present an idea on a screen, as Nicholson often does. As he continues to grow as an artist and create pieces that reveal how people use (or misuse) dig ital media, infor m at ion t e c h nolo g y systems, and software applications, Nicholson is looking toward future audiences. But with such a narrow concentration, Nicholson finds it hard Ayling Dominguez | The Chicago Maroon to find a platform for his First-year DOVA M.F.A. student Ben Nicholson is an artist for the Facebook age: His work analyzes how screens mediate— work, namely galleries and sometimes dominate—our lives.

16

THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

And the Oscar Goes To, Part II: Sitting Down with Fire Escape’s Kanisha Williams

BY KENNETH TALBOTT LA VEGA MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

T here is something peculiar about the nominees for the Academy Awards this year. This yea r ’s nominees made the awards the epicenter of heated social discourse regarding the Academy’s existence, as well as its ability to both reflect and perpetuate a certain status quo. For some, this peculiarity is a piece of the shifting jigsaw puzzle of our country’s oppressive social dynamic.

For others, it is an inconsequential coincidence.

But whether by chance or by reason, due to intentionality or incidental complicity, its presence i s i nd i s put a ble . A nd even when it is ignored, or discussed with the utmost ambiguity and indirectness, we all know what it is.

It’s #OscarsSoWhite (#andMale, while we’re at it).

T he s e i s sue s h ave reached new heights of popularity, and it is more d i f f icu lt than ever t o reconcile the necessary recognition of the year’s greatest talent with the

socially formative nature of the Academy Awards’ white male propensity.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences u ndoubt ed ly de s er ve s some culpability for not hav i ng show n enough initiative to rectify these consistent shortcomings in representation. However, it seems there is a larger dilemma playing a role here: a more insidious condition in the film industry that manifests itself every February in the prestigious, perpetually problematic Academy Awards.

Because we can only figure out so much about the Academy, our best insights toward the #OscarsSoW hite/ Male phenomenon require an exploration of this “larger dilemma,” via the industry itself and the art form behind it. I sat down with second-year Kanisha Williams, a Sociology and Cinema and Media Studies double major and an active filmmaker in the student-r u n orga n i zation Fire Escape Films, and she had plenty to say about both.

--Ch ic a go M a r o on : Can you tell me about the

project you worked on for Fire Escape last quarter?

Kanisha Williams: [ It] was a film written

by D a’ S h aw n M o s ley (A B’16) called folding.

[It] follows a student as he copes with his mother’s suicide through an art project.

CM: What was your role in this project?

K W: I directed foldi n g, wh i c h b a s i c a l ly meant assig ning positions to the crew, casting the film, and organizing when, where, and what we were going to shoot.

CM : D o you th i n k that your identity as a woman and/or a person of color inherently brought something new to forming through your direction ( positive or negative)? Or do you not think these really affected your contribution at all?

K W: [ I ’m] not sure what I would’ve brought to the film with regards to being a woman, unless some kind of “womanly touch” actually exists, but that sounds ridiculous to me. I just did what felt natural to me…. I think that identifying as a black woman has definitely shaped my values and how I view the world

generally, so I think in that sense that my identity may have influenced the film, but I don’t think there was anything intentional or specific in my experience with folding that I could point to.

I remember thinking it was cool that someone who, admittedly I can only assume, identifies as black wrote the script and that I got to direct it.

CM : D o you th i n k your assignations of gender and race for your characters/actors were intended to make the film more “accessible”? Or do you think these were not conscious and just part of the process of expressing your own vision?

KW: The assignments were def in itely just a function of me expressing my vision…. I picked who I thought fit the character and who felt believable in terms of actual performance.

CM: What do you consider to be the biggest issues in equality and representation in the film industry?

KW: I think the film industry is weird because it’s in the business of telling stories. So, they look for shortcuts. They

look for who is there, what they can do, what’s easiest to believe them doing. A nd while I understand the shortcuts, I think they’re incredibly shortsighted and undermine this faith in reality that is predicated in this form of representation… and that’s due to a whole slew of ‘-isms’ hiding in its closet.

C M : W h at do you think are the biggest obstacles preventing these issues in equality from being resolved?

KW: I think money is a big part of it, really— the money, the stats, just the numbers in general. It’s an industry; it’s looking for shortcuts in how we talk about how we experience “kinds of people” (i.e., manic pixie dream girl, the mystical Negro, the cold career woman) and also in making money.

--Indeed, the film industry tends to pigeonhole people of cer tain non-dominant identities, as if their personal experiences make them “only good enough” for involvement in work concerning these identities.

Take a look at comic

b o ok f i l m s , a r g u ably the fastest growing popular f ilm genre of the 21st century. Of all the many 21st-century films adapted from Marvel or DC comic books, on ly two were not directed by white men: the relatively unpopula r T he L osers (2010) and the even less successful Punisher: War Zone (2 0 0 8). F ur thermore, the only two comic book films slated to not be directed by white men i n the c om i ng f utu re are Wonder Woman and B l a ck P anth er — f i l ms that tie particularly into their directors’ identities.

This disproportionality can’t be ref lective of a lack of talent among women or people of color.

T hey receive plenty of Oscars attention too — but usually for films associated with their experiences (especially the Black experience: think P re c i ou s, 12 Ye ars a Slave, The Help, Selma).

On a softer note, I asked Williams if she was looking forward to watching the 2016 Oscars.

“Yes, I will be watching. I’m very curious to see who will win Best Picture; it’s been such a weird race.”

Smart Exhibit Brings Chicago’s Post-War Monsters Home

BY DAN ACKERMAN MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

Despite the wealth and range of works collected in the Smart Museum’s new show, “Monster Roster: Existentialist Art in Postwar Chicago,” a feeling of the unfi nished permeates the exhibition. The show, which opened last Thursday and runs until June, features one of the most prominent groups of postwar Chicago Imagists, also known as the Monster Roster. The curation, conducted by the Smart’s own Jessica Moss and Richard A. Born along with two independent gallery owners, excels in providing background, context, and a sense of stakes for the art.

Somehow, the section of the show that seems most complete is the one displaying the artists’ rich and various sources of aesthetic and ideological inspiration: pre-Columbian Peruvian vessels, masks from 20th-century New Guinea and West Africa, Käthe Kollwitz etchings at their most morbid and

manneristic (Death and the Woman [Tod und Frau] (1910)), equal parts sex and death in the work of Otto Dix (Shot to Pieces [Zerschossene] (1924)) and Nude [Halb Akt] (1923)).

The standout presence in this section is Jean Dubuffet, whose innovation in just a few small pen-andink pieces and a mixed media “painting” outshines several of the Roster artists apparently inspired by his work.

That said, visitors to the exhibition can expect to enjoy some of the most impressive blossoms of the postwar Monster Roster spring. Fred Berger’s Untitled (1958) and The Tribe (1959) steal the show and command even more attention than they might otherwise have received had it not been for the scattered patchwork of experimental styles that fill the show.

Some of the best possibilities for the Roster kind of experimentation come out through the repetition and honing seen in series like Cosmo Campoli’s three versions of the Birth of Death

Magnolia Editions

Leon Golub’s dreamlike Reclining Youth (1959) is currently on display at the Smart Museum.

sculpture (c. 1950, 1950– 51, 1950), cleverly displayed from several angles.

It is also found in Dominick Di Meo’s playing with repeated motifs in Female Figure / Phallus (1961– 63), Woman (1961– 63), and his “torsoscapes” (all 1962). But for the same reason that this openended artistic process on display excites, it denies the viewer an experience of these artists’ works as polished final drafts, so to speak, which one expects at these kinds of retrospec-

tives. Still, June Leaf and Evelyn Statsinger emphasize the contrast through their fully accomplished works, particularly Leaf’s The Vermeer Box (1965) and The Salon (1965) and Statsinger’s Tyranny of the Half Remembered (c. 1950).

This unfinished quality stands out most in the curious choice of exhibited works from the Monster Roster’s infamous power couple. Those familiar with the work of wife-andhusband pair Nancy Spero and Leon Golub may be

surprised to find the pieces here limited to a handful of the couple’s most significant early works. Lovers of Spero’s trippy, feminist primitivism and delicately posed figures suspended in crushing empty space may find little recognizable of the artist, even in such restlessly haunting pieces as her Nightmare Figure series. Reclining Youth (1959) may represent the apex of Golub’s mythologically-informed soft-focus style in the late ’50s, but it was produced before Golub

and Spero relocated to Europe. It came before Golub’s great works on Vietnam, Nicaragua, global terror, and state oppression. It leaves the visitor with an experience of Golub as a still-developing dabbler in vague classical themes and hazy, archetypal figures, rather than as an intensely specific and political artist engaged in contemporary conflict through sharp, visual detail.

Of course, that all came after Golub’s and Spero’s groundbreaking time in Chicago, which was arguably the only moment in time where it makes art-historical sense to speak of the Monster Roster as anything like a distinct group. But if you know the full story of these artists’ careers, you may be disappointed to find in this exhibition neither the figurative sophistication Spero made her trademark nor the full monumental grotesquerie that characterizes Golub’s most famous monsters.

Monster Roster is on display now until June 12.

17

THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

Team Looks for Revenge Against No. 22-ranked Violets WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

BY ALEC MILLER SPORTS STAFF

The season is winding down, but the Maroons are still battling. They will have to be at their best as the women’s basketball team goes on the road this weekend to play NYU and Brandeis. There are only three games rema i n i ng on thei r schedule, so they will have to make these two contests count.

Chicago is coming off an up-and-down weekend where they split a pair of games. Last Friday the South Siders lost a heart breaker to Carnegie Mellon 93–90 in overtime. Despite this loss, they were able to bounce back and beat Case Western on Sunday by a score of 59–45. It has been that type of season for the Maroons. They have had some tough breaks, but have shown a lot of resilience when their backs are against the wall.

The Maroons will need to be at their best as they play two of their last three games of the season this weekend. These are the games that will determine whether this season will be seen as successful. However, as the season winds down the team will have to over come the fatigue they are feeling from playing a full schedule. Yet secondyear guard Madison Dunbar says the team isn’t feeling the grind of their full athletic and academic schedule.

“As the season is winding down we are feeling the opposite of fatigued. We have been putting in a lot of work to fi n-

Uni ve rsi ty ofC hicago Athle tics Depa rtment

Second-year Madison Dunbar keeps an eye on the ball during a game against NYU’s basketball team on Friday, January 29.

ish the season strong,” Dunbar said.

Hopefully one of the goals is to beat NYU. The Violets are currently ranked No. 22 in the country, and defeated the Maroons earlier this season by a score of 71–55. Chicago is well aware of this result and they are fully prepared to get revenge this Friday. The squad has made defense their primary focus this week in practice.

“After our previous loss to N Y U, we are definitely looking to get back to our defensive principles. We need to deny passing lanes and have ample ball pressure to contain their offense,” Dunbar said.

Their other opponent, Brandeis, will be trying to seek the same type of revenge. Chicago beat Brandeis earlier this season 73 –59. The Maroons will need to be on their toes to make

sure this conference foe does not get the best of them on Friday.

The key for the South Siders in these last two weeks of the season will be their focus and commitment to accomplishing the goal of fi nishing strong. “We have been putting in hours outside of practice to put ourselves in the best possible position to win these last three games. We all agree we owe that to our three seniors who have done so

much for this program the past four years,” Dunbar said.

We will see if the Maroons have what it takes. They fly to New York to play NYU on Friday at 5 p.m. Then the team will travel to Brandeis on Sunday for a noon tip-off. After this weekend, Chicago will finish their season against rival Wash U at home on Saturday, February 27.

Postseason Birth or Bust for Surging Squad MEN’S BASKETBALL

BY EMMETT ROSENBAUM SPORTS STAFF

The Maroons have gotten their groove back. After losing four games in a row, the once top-ranked squad dominated their matches against Carnegie Mellon and Case Western last weekend. Now sitting at 16 – 6 on the year, Chicago is gearing up for their final three games of the season, the first of which comes on the road this Friday at NYU. Unfortunately for the South Siders, the effects of their fourgame skid are still felt, as the

team will need to win out the remainder of the season if they want to guarantee themselves a playoff spot. However, the squad is comfortable with their backs against the wall.

“We’re excited for the challenge,” said third-year point guard Tyler Howard. “I think it will cause us to be more tuned in than usual knowing we have to win out to make the playoffs and continue playing.”

The team was able to recapture thei r success from earlier in the season, where at one point they won 13 in a row, thanks to their ability to suc-

cessfully push the pace of play.

“We had a really good week of practice,” Howard noted. “[ We] tried to push the ball more in transition which really helped our offense.”

The team will look to continue this success when they travel to New York this Friday, but they will find a formidable opponent waiting for them in the Violets. Sitting just above Chicago in the UA A standings with a record of 18 – 4, N Y U lost to the Maroons earlier this year by a score of 69 –58 at the Ratner Athletic Center. However, they will have the home

court advantage this time.

The Chicago squad will simply be looking to continue their style of play, which is evocative of a team ranked No.11 in the nation earlier this year. By returning to an identity built on the basis of teamwork and communication, the team has been able to out-gun and out-muscle their opponents both on the perimeter and in the paint.

“Execution-wise we need to continue to play unselfish and make the extra pass,” a reflective Howard remarked. “Defensively, we need to continue to communicate and not let them

get any offensive rebounds.”

If the Maroons can pull out a victory this weekend, only Brandeis and Wash U, both teams that Chicago beat earlier this year, will stand between the team and a postseason bid.

Given the high-f lying success that this team experienced at the beginning of the season, anything less than a playoff berth will certainly be looked upon as a disappointment.

T ip of f aga inst N Y U is scheduled for 7 p.m. later tonight at the Coles Sports Center in New York City.

18

THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

No. 6-Ranked Maroons Set Their Sights on ITA Indoor National Championship MEN’S TENNIS

BY GARY HUANG SPORTS STAFF

This weekend, the No. 6 Maroons will travel to Pepper Pike, Ohio where they will participate in the 2016 ITA DI I I Nationa l Men’s Team I ndoor Championship, hosted by the Cleveland Racquet Club. Similar to the Maroons, the teams attending are all highly ranked nationally (with No. 14 Case Western being the lowest ranked of the participating teams), and each will provide an early test for the Maroons’ legitimate national title hopes.

The South Siders will face Trinity University (Texas) in the first match on Friday morning.

Standing with a perfect 5 –0 record, the South Siders are coming off two straight statement wins, beating No. 10 Kenyon 6 –3 and No. 26 UW–Whitewater 8 –1. Against Kenyon, the Maroons swept the doubles side and took three out of six of the singles matches.

UW–Whitewater proved no match for UChicago as they convincingly swept singles and dropped only one doubles match. With all the momentum and con f idence the M a ro ons cu r rently have, they should def initely be the team to be feared, albeit being seeded No. 4 in the tournament.

The Trinity University Tigers possess a record of 3 – 3 with their last three results all building their win column. While their record indicates a mediocre season so far, it must be noted that all three losses came from DI opponents in exhibition matches. In DIII play, Trinity remains undefeated, coming off a hot win streak. The Tigers will be no easy contest and will pose a good battle for the Maroons.

Other teams in the tournament include: No. 1 seed, No. 3 Wash U; No. 2 seed, No. 4 Pomona-Pitzer College; No. 3 seed, No. 5 Emory University; No. 5 seed, No. 8 Trinity University (Texas); No. 6 seed, No. 10 Kenyon College; No. 7 seed, No. 11 Carnegie Mellon University; and No. 8 seed, No. 14 Case Western Reserve University.

The results of the ITA DIII National Men’s Team Indoor Championship will certainly hold some weight before the tennis season hits full stride. The winner will be a strong, early candidate to win the DIII National Championship.

When asked about the team’s expectations for this year going into the tournament, second-year David Liu confidently replied: “Our expectations are very simple: we’ve had the best recruiting class in the country for the past two years,

and we are all playing at the top of our game. Last year we reached the final four of NCA As and this year, our expectations are to win it all and bring home UChicago’s first ever NCA A title.”

When asked about how they would improve from the final four finishers to champions, he continued: “This year, we lost two fourth-years who played a major role on the team from both a tennis and leadership standpoint. It will be impossible to replace them, but it will be critical for some of us to step up as leaders, especially because we have a very young team. Of course, it helps to have such a talented freshman class coming in, because that provides us with the depth necessary to compete in a long season, and it makes every practice that much more competitive and pushes us all to get better on a daily basis.”

The Maroons will play Trinity University Friday morning at 9 a.m. If they win, they will advance to take on the winner of the Pomona-Pitzer and Carnegie Mellon match at 1 p.m. on Saturday, with the championship game to be played on Sunday at 9 a.m.

University of Chicago Athletics Department

First-year Max Liu plays in a tennis match earlier this season.

Division I Georgetown Looms for Chicago

Weekend Meets Marks End to Regular Indoor Season

WOMEN’S TENNIS

TRACK & FIELD

BY ERIK WONG SPORTS STAFF

This Friday, the No. 15 Maroons look forward to a match against DI Georgetown University. Coming off of a 6–1 defeat this past weekend against a strong University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee team, the South Siders will look to make adjustments in order to rebound from their fi rst loss of the season. Despite the outcome against the DI squad, the Maroons showed excellent effort in their singles matches.

Second-year Ariana Iranpour won the fi rst set against Labina Petrovska of UW–Milwaukee, but fell in the following two sets by very close margins. Firstyear Rachel Kim also won her fi rst set but fell in the two following sets, again, with very close scores. Fourth-year Lucy Tang pulled off the only win in her singles match against Dana Shannon, tiring her out in the fi rst two sets, and winning by a commanding score in the third set.

Coming into this next match, Chicago has high hopes to get its season back into winning shape. The team is still very confident going into the Georgetown match and for the rest of the season.

Fourth-year Stephanie Lee commented, “It’s still very early in the season and we played a good team a couple weeks ago, so our team morale is still very high despite our loss.”

With their heads held high, there is no reason why the Maroons should be intimidated by Georgetown. They also know exactly what they lacked in the last match against UW–Milwaukee. According to the squad, they have implemented changes and have continued to

practice hard throughout the week.

Lee also pointed out an important fi x the team put into practice this week as she said, “We’ve been working hard, especially on improving our doubles game going into the Georgetown match.”

The Maroons have prided themselves on their impressive doubles play, and it will be no surprise if they can tweak the inconsistencies and come out with wins in the doubles matchups this Friday.

As for their opponent, the Georgetown Hoyas visit Chicago this weekend, coming off of a win against Towson University. Led by third-year Victoire Saperstein, the Hoyas defeated Towson with the fi nal score of 5–2. The Hoyas played their most recent last match on Tuesday, February 9 though, which has given them quite some time off from competition. The Hoyas have also only played in two matches thus far in the 2016 spring season due to a cancellation in their fi rst scheduled match against Princeton. After the cancellation, the Hoyas lost in a close match against Navy, 4–3.

In their last match against Towson though, the Hoyas battled hard to fend off the Tigers with relative ease. To start it off, the fi rst doubles team of Saperstein and fi rst-year Risa Nakagawa beat Towson’s fi rst team 7–5. Saperstein was defeated in the fi rst singles spot, while Nakagawa won in second singles. Other players, Swift, Marx, and De Chatellus took the fourth through sixth singles matches.

The Georgetown women had an impressive performance last week, but the Maroons are ready to put another check in the win column. Watch all of the action Friday afternoon at XS Tennis in Hyde Park at 2 p.m.

BY MAX HAWKINS SPORTS STAFF

Ahead of the conference championships next weekend, the Maroons look to finish their regular season strong at home this weekend, which will be their last home indoor meet of the year.

Speaking from experience, fourth-year Alisha Ho sees the meet as an experiment that allows the team to make adjustments for the crucial race next week.

“Next week is the conference meet, so this weekend is great for helping the team tune up before heading to New York. With such talented teams, winning the meet is a strong possibility— even with people running events other than the primary ones they will complete in at conference,” Ho said.

Last weekend, the women’s team posted 10 first place finishes, led by third-year Eleanor Kang, first-year Emma Koether, third-year Michelle Dobbs, and fourth-year Mikaela Hammel. Hammel broke the school record for the 4x400-meter race with a time of 3:53.97 and won the race by almost 11 seconds. With performances like that, it may appear as though the women don’t have many adjustments to make, but they want to keep improving and keep their momentum going. “ We’ve had strong and consistent performances over the last few weeks, with many teammates setting new personal bests. We’ve also seen incredible national-caliber races by a couple members of the team, including fourth-year Brianna Hickey in the mile and secondyear Khia Kurtenbach in the 5K. Looking forward, we’re looking for everyone

to stay healthy and focused as the postseason meets approach,” Ho said.

On the men’s side, first-year Markus Diehl echoed similar sentiments, especially since most of the men have now recovered from an injury-riddled start to the season.

“As the season winds down, I think this invite will show us definitively where our strengths lie. So far this season, we started out well, and have only grown better as some of our top athletes have returned from injuries and posted some great times. I think we are in a great position to succeed at both this invite and at the UAA Conference Championships next week in New York,” Diehl said.

Last weekend, the men posted five top-five finishes, with third-year Nicholas Nielsen placing third in the one mile and first-year Owen Melia, fourth-year Ben Clark, third-year Jeremy Ferguson, and first-year Mitchell Booth placing third in the distance medley relay.

Third-year Gareth Jones placed fourth in the 5,0 0 0 meters. Clark, Diehl, fourth-year Ryan Manzuk, and secondyear Nathan Downey placed fourth in the 4x400-meter relay, and Downey again placed fifth in the pole vault.

“Both the men’s and women’s teams are in contention to win the conference meet, and we’re excited to see some great performances into the next few weeks,” Ho said. Both the men’s and women’s team look to send off the fourth-years with a win in their last home meet as the end of the season nears.

The Margaret Bradley Invitational will begin at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday.

The event will be held at the Henry Crown Field House.

19

THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Nicole Mullen Mullen’s Career Marked by Leadership, Audactiy, and Success

BY KATIE ANDERSON ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR

Fourth-year Nicole Mullen recently concluded her collegiate career on the soccer field, having made a lasting impact on women’s soccer at UChicago for years to come.

In her senior season, Mullen was named NSCA A Second-Team All-Region and was First Team All-UAA. As a captain alongside fellow fourth-year Bethany Robinson, she led the squad to a 13–7 overall record this past season.

Starting all 20 games in the midfield, Mullen was a key component in a strong defensive unit in her senior campaign. She contributed to the defense’s 10 shutouts on the season and an impressive 0.84 goals against average on the season. Offensively, she tallied two goals and two assists in her fourth year.

Despite these honors and impressive statistics, Mullen says what she will remember most is the relationships she formed as a student-athlete.

“For me, what I will remember most about my athletic ca-

reer at UChicago is my team,” she said. “It’s impossible to pinpoint one memory or time that was the best because, as cheesy as it sounds, they were my family. They were the ones who saw me at my best and my worst and loved me anyways. Being a part of a team is a gift, and I am so lucky to have spent the last four years fighting alongside the most inspirational women I know.”

As much as these relationships have meant to Mullen, she has had an impact on her teammates in ways that she may not even realize. In her fourthyear season, Mullen served as captain to a team with 11 fi rstyears. Similarly, in her thirdyear season, the team had 10 new first-years. As an upperclassman and leader to these younger athletes, Mullen has certainly left an impression on this program for years to come.

Yet Mullen’s drive extends far beyond the soccer pitch. She is involved in a local tutoring program called STA RS. Additionally, she is involved in Greek life as a member of Delta Gamma, in which she has held important leadership positions.

Additionally, she works in admissions as a senior interviewer, highlighting her impact on this campus as a whole.

A Dean’s List biological sciences major, the future should have a lot to hold for Mullen.

“I have not completely solidified what I am exactly doing after graduation yet, but I’m primarily looking into some sort of public service such as teaching or marine biology. Fingers crossed it all works out.”

With three months under her belt since her last game in a UChicago jersey, Mullen has had time to reflect on her experience as a student-athlete at UChicago. She leaves a piece of advice for the student-athletes she leaves behind.

“I would say to go out and support the other teams and get involved, of course, but most importantly to remember why you love your sport. Four years go by pretty quickly and spending them doing anything less than what you love or what makes you happy is a waste of your time.”

This advice seems fitting because it embodies exactly how she will be remembered on

University of Chicago Athletics Depaartment

Fourth-year Nicole Mullen pivots her sights on the hoal in a game last season.

this campus: by hard work and a passion for her sport. While Mullen is sad to say goodbye

to her life as a student-athlete, UChicago Athletics is arguably even sadder to see her go.

Conference Championship on the Line in Rochester SWIM & DIVE

BY FRANCES MCDONALD SPORTS STAFF

This past weekend, both the men’s and women’s teams placed first out of five teams at the Midwest Invitational at the Myers-McLoraine Pool.

This meet served as the final meet before the UA A Championships, which will be this weekend in Rochester, NY. The men’s team finished first with 538 points, while the women’s team took the crown with 503 points. On the men’s side, four events were won: the 10 0 -yard breaststroke (second-year Alex Lin), 400-yard IM (first-year Keenan Novis), 200-yard breaststroke (fourthyear James Taylor), and 400yard medley, which consisted of second-year Jack Rodman, fou r th-yea r T homas Meek , fourth-year Gabriel Nathan, and first-year Andrew Longwell.

On the women’s side, three wins came from the 400-yard I M (fourth-year Ciara Hu), 100-yard breaststroke (firstyear Chr istina Cheng) and the 10 0 -yard butterf ly (second-year Florina Yang).

T he fou r-day long UA A C h a mpion sh ips i s a l r e ady u n d e r w ay, h av i n g b e g u n Wed nesday a nd end i ng t o morrow. On the first day, four women d ivers competed i n the preliminaries. Two divers

placed in the top eight of the prelims and moved on to the finals at the end of the day.

Second-year Natalie DeMuro finished seventh overall with 367.85 points, while first-year Anna Girlich won first place and a UA A title with 422.05 points.

T h i r d-ye a r E m i ly Hu nt commented on the relationship between the first-place wins in the Midwest Invitational and the UA A Championships. “ Wat ch i ng the M idwest g roup swim super fast and drop best times was very motivating for the UA A swimmers.

The team energy is very high from cheering on our teammates at Midwest, and I think people are feeling confident in the training we’ve put in after seeing it pay off at Midwest. We’re going to have a super fast weekend. I’m sure there are going to be many best times for both the men and women, and lots of prelim swimmers making it back for finals. Our team is more cohesive than it has ever been, so I know that we will be very supportive of each other. I think the energy is going to be great!

I can’t wait to see how everyone’s hard work pays off this weekend,” Hunt said.

Four th-yea r Joyce Lu is very excited about the possibilities UA A offers for the Maroons.

University of Chicago Athletics Department

S e co n d ye a r M e li s s a Bi s c h of f r a ce s i n a n eve nt d u r i ng a t r i - m e e t ag ai n s t D e Pa u w a n d Tr i n ity Texas last season.

“ We’ve seen some really great performances in-season when training intensity was at its peak. This makes me even more excited to see how everyone races now that we’re rested. We got a taste of that

this past weekend at Midwest, and it was really great to see ever yone behind the blocks cheering on our swimmers. We all feed off of this positive energy in our racing and I can’t wait to see how it powers our

team in an atmosphere as electrifying and competitive as UA As,” Lu said.

The UA A Championships will last through tomorrow in Rochester, NY.

20

THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 19, 2016

SPORTS IN-QUOTES... Big Cat of Barstool Sports reacts to the Bulls’ front office moves at yesterday’s trade deadling: “The Bulls Front Office is a joke and I think they actually believe their own bullshit.”

Unwrapped: The Eating Habits of Student-Athletes Chicago’s Strongest, Fastest, and Fittest Divulge Their Favorite Pregame and Postgame Snacks Illustrations by Grace Hauck

“I have a really weak stomach when I’m nervous. I usually eat a breakfast of eggs and maybe some toast or pancakes with Nutella.

And I always eat a banana like an hour-and-a-half before we warm up.”

“I usually eat some sort of deli-meat sandwich, fruit, and drink Pedialyte and plenty of water.”

“Night-before dinners usually include some pasta and chicken, and I never shy away from the dessert if it’s available. I also always like to have French toast the morning of race day.”

–Paul Papoutsis (Wrestling ’17)

–Michelle Dobbs (Track & field ’17)

–Mia Calamari (Soccer ‘18)

“I don’t necessarily have a pre-match meal that I like to eat, but the tennis team loves to eat Jimmy John’s before matches.”

“Everything but gluten.”

–Jackson Garrey (Football ’17)

–Charlie Pei (Tennis ’19)

“I usually eat a power bar while prepping for the game, but other than that I don’t really eat anything specific beforehand!”

“Anything that fills my stomach is good because the worst thing is being hungry during a match.

Sorry I couldn’t be more specific, but any type of pasta (non-spicy) the night before seems to help the most.”

–Kelsey Moore (Soccer ’18)

“Harold’s on Fridays and Valois on Sundays.”

–Justin Jackson (Basketball ’19)

–Nicholas Chua (Tennis ’18)

“I generally have two bagels with peanut butter and a fruit/protein milkshake around four hours before my first race so I can get carbs in, yet still feel light to run.”

“I love peanut butter and jelly! It doesn’t hurt my stomach, but makes me just full enough.”

–Sydney Majors (Volleyball ’19)

“I usually get a six-inch Italian BMT on Italian herb and cheese with pepper jack cheese, baby spinach, and tomatoes—toasted of course.

I’ll eat about three inches of that after a weigh in, drink some water, and some Vitamin Water Revive, and maybe snack on a protein bar! After you’ve been watching weight for wrestling, you want to nourish your body as quickly as you can, and I feel like that gets a lot of different food groups and such at once!”

–Devan Richter (Wrestling ’18)

–Nicole VacaGuzman (Track & field ’19)

“I eat horse meat.”

–Katie LaPorte (Volleyball ’17)

“If we are on the road, nine out of 10 times it’s Subway because it’s generally all they have in small town Wisconsin or Illinois that’s not a Culver’s. Basically anything light. A sandwich. And we have sick snacks between games!

Our assistant coaches get those. Fruit snacks, actual fruit, and various crackers are fought over between games.”

–Jordan Poole (Softball ’16)