042514 Chicago Maroon

FRIDAY • APRIL 25, 2014

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

ISSUE 41 • VOLUME 125

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

Student Housing, Part II: A historical look Sarah Manhardt Deputy News Editor This is the second installment of a series on student housing, the third of which will be published May 6.

Only slightly more than 50 percent of undergraduates live in University housing, lagging behind most peer institutions. This relatively low percentage is both a reflection and product of the history of on-campus housing. The University’s current push to increase the percentage of students in housing, led by Dean of the College John Boyer, is intertwined with the historical lack of housing for undergraduates.

Kentucky Senator (R) Rand Paul discusses his political views with David Axelrod at an IOP event in Ida Noyes on Tuesday afternoon.

SYDNEY COMBS | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Senator Rand Paul decried NSA data collection at IOP event Alice Xiao News Staff Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, aspiring 2016 presidential candidate, attacked NSA data collection and spoke about several other issues at an event on campus last night sponsored by the Institute of Politics (IOP). The event was moderated by IOP Director David Axelrod.

The Republican senator said he disap-

proved of the cell phone data-collection program run by the National Security Agency that collects Americans’ phone metadata with a warrant. The Obama administration has been operating the program for the past several years.

“We have traded liberty for security.

We’ve let FBI write warrants, search houses, and we now allow a single warrant to apply to all Americans,” Paul said. “The first African American president signed this, and when he did, he

knew he did a terrible thing, and he said, ‘But I am a good man, and I will never use this power.’ That’s not good enough for me. I don’t denounce the current president—I worry about the next president, and the one thereafter; I worry about giving that much power to any president of any party.”

Paul filed a class-action lawsuit in February against the Obama Administration and the NSA, claiming that PAUL continued on page 2

A past perspective According to Boyer’s 2009 paper,“‘The Kind of University That We Desire to Become’: Student Housing and the Educational Mission of the University of Chicago,” throughout much of its history the University existed as a commuter school. It was only in the 1950s that the College began to seriously recruit students from across the country, and for many years the University bought old buildings and refurbished them rather than build new residence halls.

Boyer cited a 1927 plan for an undergraduate campus south of the Midway, HOUSING continued on page 2

Harvard administrator to replace Dean Art Christine Schmidt Associate News Editor The appointments of a new dean of students in the College and a new dean of the Graham School bring two new faces to University administration.

The University announced that Harvard administrator John “Jay” Ellison has been appointed dean of students in the College.

He will replace Susan Art, who announced her retirement last month. Mark Nemec, a political

scientist with a background in data analysis for higher education, will succeed Dan Shannon as dean of the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.

Currently an associate dean and the secretary of the Administrative Board at Harvard College, Ellison will officially take over as dean of students following Art’s retirement at the end of the 2013-2014 academic year.

Ellison was appointed as the DEAN continued on page 3

SG transit survey Uncommon:Matthew Gentzkow shows favor for U-Pass Victoria Rael maroon Contributor

Felicia Woron maroon Contributor Sixty-nine percent of students expressed support for U-Pass, with 17 percent undecided and 13 percent opposed, in a recently closed transportation survey held by Student Government (SG). Despite the strong support, it is unlikely that UChicago will implement U-Pass for the 2014–2015 school year since the deadline for adding a referendum to the SG elections has passed.

U-Pass provides unlimited transportation on CTA buses and trains for $7.50 per week. If passed, the University of Chicago would enter into a contract with the CTA by division, requiring students in each division that opts in to purchase UPasses. The School of Social Service Administration signed a U-Pass con-

tract in March following a referendum, making U-Pass available to that division this quarter. U-Pass systems are already in place at most universities in Chicago, including Columbia College, DePaul University, Loyola University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Student Government’s Community & Government Liaison Tyler Kissinger was unsure about where funding would come from. He said the University may pay for U-Pass, but that it was possible that students would have to pay the entirety of the cost.

Kissinger is running for Student Government president, and he said that if elected, he would continue conversations with Transportation, Financial Aid, and Campus and Student Life to hold a referendum in the U-PASS continued on page 3

Professor Matthew Gentzkow at the Booth School of Business is the recent recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to the American economist under age 40 who has “made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge,” due in part to his study on measuring media slant in newspapers. The Maroon interviewed him about this award and his research.

Chicago Maroon: What was the most interesting outcome of your research?

Matthew Gentzkow: The idea with that paper was basically to say, if we look at media firms and the way they choose their political content, to what extent can we understand that as an economic decision, just the way we would understand firms

that sell ice cream, choosing what flavors of ice cream to sell? Or do we need to understand it as something fundamentally different because this is political content…. [Newspaper owners and] reporters have political agendas...so the answer was the economic incentives seem to explain quite a lot of what we see.

methods to these kinds of questions and that might inspire other people to do similar work.

CM: What do you want readers to take away from your study?

MG: I think from that paper, the first message is that just thinking carefully about the economic incentives involved is valuable in understanding media just the way it is understanding in other markets. That paper also had something else – we were also using some methods from text mining and automated content analysis to try to study the content of newspapers on a large scale. So another thing that we were hoping that paper would do was show people the potential of applying those kinds of

CM: What would you predict?

Do you think there would be any slant?

MG: So one thing that’s important to clarify, when we talk about slant in that paper, it’s a way of lining up newspapers from left to right and saying, “This newspaper is to the left of that other newspaper”…So it’s not like slant is a bad thing, and good newspapers don’t do it and bad newspapers do. We’re looking at decisions that every newspaper has to make or every journalist has to make, like are you going to call these

CM: Have you ever looked at any slant in media that covers the University of Chicago?

MG: [Laughing] We have not done that.

ECON continued on page 2

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | April 25, 2014

2

Panelists discussed impacts of mass surveillance Isaac Stein Associate News Editor In the wake of Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosure on National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs, panelists at a discussion yesterday entitled “The Global Impact of Mass Surveillance� discussed the history, legality, and future of U.S. government surveillance programs. The panel was held at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and included law school professor Geoffrey Stone.

The lecture was hosted by the Chicago chapter of Human Rights Watch (HRW). In addition to Stone, the panel included Laura Pitter, the senior national security researcher for HRW’s U.S. program, and Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney in the American Civil Liberties Union National Security project.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act and Section 702

of the 2008 FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) served as the NSA’s justification for the its surveillance programs. Section 215 grants federal authorities access to the metadata of all U.S. citizens held by third parties. Pitter defined metadata as “data of data, such as the timestamps of cell phone calls.�

Section 702 permits federal authorities to access data including the actual content of e-mails or phone calls of foreign nationals, in addition to metadata, for national security purposes, Pitter said. It also includes foreign data related to U.S. citizens. Pitter suggested that Section 702 may be readily used by the government for purposes irrelevant to national security. “[Section 702] could be interpreted to mean that me talking over the phone with a human rights activist in India about issues of dissidence is of national security interest. We just don’t know what [the NSA] is covering,� Pitter said.

Toomey suggested that the structure of Internet storage effectively allows the government to access both data and metadata of US citizens. “As a U.S. citizen, you may think that your communications are relatively protected. But what if you use Gmail to send your e-mails? Google has servers in the United Kingdom; if Google stores your e-mails there, the U.S. government can access them,� Toomey said.

After Pitter and Toomey spoke regarding their concerns of potential government abuse, Stone presented the NSA’s original rationale for instituting its surveillance programs. “In the fight against international terrorism, the U.S. government is like a soccer goalie. The opposing players—the terrorists—are invisible, because they do not wear uniforms. The ball, a terrorist attack, is also invisible. If the ball hits the net, 3,000 people die. As a result, the government is trying to do everything it can given all of these disadvantag-

es. The search for any signs of movement, any bend in the grass on the field; this is what surveillance seeks to accomplish,� Stone said.

Stone discussed the historical context of search and seizure, explaining that in the 1920s the FBI used wiretaps with the justification that “physical space� was not searched. The Supreme Court later rejected this idea. In the ’70s, the government attempted to obtain information on U.S. citizens from third parties with a similar justification; this was again rejected by the Supreme Court. “The question is whether [NSA surveillance] violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. But what is a search?� he asked. “Now, will the Supreme Court include metadata in its definition of a search? I think that it will.�

This article has been condensed. For the full version see the Maroon website.

Gentzkow was honored by his heroes in the field Paul talked education, climate change, abortion PAUL continued from front of economics erarchical system we currently kind of stuff really detracts from ECON continued from front

people illegal aliens, or are you going to call them undocumented workers? Or are you going put on the front page a story about poor people in the inner city, or are you going to put on the front page a story about innovation by pharmaceutical companies?

These are all decisions you have to make that impact the political meaning, resonance, slant of the paper, but there’s no right or wrong choice‌So it’s not really a question of “Is there slant or is there not?â€? I

think we would expect, based on our work, that the press at the University of Chicago is choosing both what stories to cover and how to cover them in a way that appeals to the population of students who are your readers. And I’m sure that that’s true for your paper just like for newspapers all around.

CM: What’s been the best or most rewarding or most exciting part of this whole experience for you?

MG: It’s just that this

award is something decided on by my colleagues in the field of economics, and so having them vote to honor me with an award like this is just a tremendous honor; knowing that the people you work with, the people who are your heroes, the people you’ve been trying to emulate, look at your work and judge it to be valuable, really means a lot.

This interview has been condensed. For the full version see the Maroon website.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Concerto Showcase Saturday, April 26 8 PM in Mandel Hall

the program violates the Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

The Kentucky senator also expressed his opinions on issues such as education, climate change, and abortion.

Paul criticized the state of the current public education system in the country, advocating for more charter schools. “Competition would make our schools better,� Paul explained. “We need empowerment of teachers, parents, and students through giving them choices, and this innovation is only possible without the rigid, hi-

Concerto Competition Winners! Flutist Caroline Wong presents Jacques Ibert’s virtuosic Flute Concerto and trumpeter Matthew Bloomfield performs a spectacular arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture opens this special program, showcasing the extraordinary talents of our UChicago students. Barbara Schubert conducts.

Donations requested: $10/$5 students

PLUS: Celebrate the charismatic and exuberant works of Leonard Bernstein, including his Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Suite No. 2 from the ballet Dybbuk, and Chichester Psalms for orchestra and choir.

2YHU PXVLFLDQV oOO WKH 0DQGHO +DOO VWDJH Bernstein Bash! on Saturday, May 31 at 8 PM and Sunday, June 1 at 3 PM with the University Symphony Orchestra and Combined Choirs 0DQGHO +DOO 'RQDWLRQV 6WXGHQWV music.uchicago.edu I 773.702.8069

the case of whether we should or should not pollute. We should limit pollution, but if we don’t have cars, we can just live in the Stone Age.�

When asked by Axelrod on his views on abortion, Paul said that there are two extremes of either “All life and no abortion, or all abortion and no life.� “Where the law is right now, we have abortion with no real exceptions for life, while it is my personal religious belief that life begins at the very beginning,�

Paul said. “I think where the country is, is somewhere in the middle.�

Boyer’s goal : 70 percent of students in housing HOUSING continued from front

which would have housed 2,000 students, as his inspiration. Of this plan, which included office and classroom space as well as dormitories, Burton-Judson Courts was the only building constructed.

1131 E. 57th Street, Hyde Park Hear the triumphant performances of two First Place 2014

have,� he said. “Nobody in Washington has any clue; they’re too far removed from the educational sector—I want to empower teachers to make local decisions,� Paul said.

On the topic of global climate change, Paul expressed skepticism about its existence. “The earth is 4.6 billion years old.‌ We have real data for about 100 years. My guess is that the conclusions you can make from that are inconclusive,â€? he said.

On theories about the Statue of Liberty going underwater and polar bears becoming endangered, Paul said, “That alarmist

Residence halls, past & present Alumnae living in dorms both decommissioned and still in use shared experiences of the community that developed in different houses despite a lack of emphasis on housing by the University.

Abe Amidor (A.B. ’69) lived in Pierce Tower, which was built quickly to house more students.

He described it as “noisy, crowded, and too small.�

Keith Weissman (A.B. ’76, A.M. ’78, Ph.D. ’90) described a more close-knit house system that he experienced through his girlfriend whom he later married, a Resident Assistant (RA) in Woodward Court, located at 58th Street & Woodlawn Avenue. His girlfriend’s Resident Masters insisted on meeting him to see if he was worthy of dating one of their RAs, and her residents had a keen interest in their relationship.

Hugo Ahn (A.B. ’82) who lived in Vincent House in Burton-Judson (BJ) and then the Shoreland for two years, described his time in BJ as a “fraternity experience� because it was an

all-male dorm then. He stayed in University housing all four years for “convenience, security, and reliability.�

Experiences of recent alumnae Alumnae from more recent years also discussed the strength of their house cultures amid often-shoddy dorms.

William Baude (A.B. ’04) lived in Woodward Court when it was slated for demolition. “The facilities were terrible, people were a lot of fun, but it was the one year I was in undergraduate housing,� he said.

Renee Gerber (A.B. ’04) who also lived in Woodward Court, explained that when she was an undergraduate the housing lottery set quotas on how many upperclassmen could live in specific dorms to reserve them for underclassmen. This was part of the University’s historical policy of tailoring housing for underclassmen, often at the expense of upperclassmen. After moving to Max Palevsky her second year, she received a low lottery number and could not stay in Palevsky, so she moved off-campus. “The House culture was definitely the best part and certainly a big deal‌. It backfired a little; if you instill a good house culture people don’t want to leave,â€? she said in reference to the quota on upperclassmen.

The push for more under-

graduates in housing In his 2009 paper Boyer outlined three goals for University housing: 70 percent of students on-campus, construction of two to three new residence halls, and the retention of more upperclassmen.

One of those residence halls is in the process of being built, but plans for others are up in the air. “Right now there are no other concrete plans to build any other residence halls. I do hope we’ll be able to sooner rather than later be able to build one large hall that will have the same design quality and similar amenities for students‌. that would get us pretty close to 70 percent if some of the students want to move back voluntarily,â€? he said.

Boyer believes building dormitories is crucial to attracting more students, particularly upperclassmen, to housing. “The way to fight a party is to throw a better party, not to cancel it. I’ll bet you that the day [North Campus dormitory] opens we’re gonna have thirdand fourth-year kids lined up around the block‌. I’m pretty confident that if we can build it, they will come,â€? he said.

The Maroon is committed to understanding all aspects of onand off-campus housing. If you or someone you know has interesting experiences relating to housing, please contact smanhardt@uchicago.edu.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | April 25, 2014

3

Students reported riding CTA Two new deans will commence their roles in July an average of three times a week DEAN continued from front roughly 70 students sus- cision to bring Ellison on U-PASS continued from front

fall for the student body to vote on U-Pass.

“The U-Pass is an issue that cycles in and out,” said Kissinger. “For me, [these results are] encouraging. Past referendums on this issue have only shown a 50 to 60 percent vote in favor.”

According to Kissinger, the last time U-Pass was seriously considered was in 2009. He believes that the lack of data regarding student interest and the program’s benefits is what kept it from passing in the past, and the need for that data was the impetus for the current survey.

500 students responded to the survey, 175 of whom were from the College. The only graduate school divisions to have enough participation to be considered a significant sample size, according to a blog post written by Kissinger on the SG website, were the Biological Sciences Division, the Law School, and the Booth School of Business.

Kissinger pointed out other limitations to the survey.

“Out of the gate, I think it is important to note that there is very probably a selection bias in the people who took the survey. People who are interested in transportation are

probably predisposed to supporting the U-Pass,” he said.

According to Kissinger, graduate students were most polarized on the issue. He said that some commented in the survey that the U-Pass would save them $1,000 a year because they live outside of Hyde Park, while others, many of whom already own a car, were opposed.

Students reported currently riding the CTA an average of three times a week ($6.75/ week) and a median of twice a week ($4.50/week). Kissinger acknowledged confusion over whether the rides students reported were on the free 170s or on other CTA buses and trains. Students would have to use the U-Pass approximately four times a week to surpass the weekly cost of $7.50. According to the survey, with the U-Pass system in place, students claim that they would ride the CTA at an average of five times a week ($11.25/ week) and a median of four times a week ($9.00/week).

Second-year Sachin Modak reports that he currently travels downtown about six times per month, but favors the UPass.

“The U-Pass would entice me to go downtown a bit more,” Modak said.

secretary to Harvard’s Administrative Board in 2005 and also became an associate dean in 2008, according to The Crimson. The board deals with the application and enforcement of standards of social conduct and academic regulations for undergraduate students, from advising students academically to addressing petitions for changes to rules and regulations. During his 12-year-long tenure on the Board, Ellison oversaw reforms to the board’s structure, including the implementation of an honor code for the College.

This board also oversaw the adjudication of Harvard’s recent cheating scandal, which at its height saw

NEWS IN BRIEF Campus South Athletic Field to host intramurals, club sports Campus South Athletic Field, the replacement for North Field, is set for completion this summer and will be located at 61st Street and Woodlawn Avenue, behind the Mott Building.

pended because of academic dishonesty in one course.

Ellison received flak for an e-mail in which it appeared he gave preferential treatment to student athletes involved in the scandal, recommending that they take a leave of absence to maintain NCAA eligibility.

Ellison said he expressed interest in the job first, reaching out directly to the firm hired by the University charged with conducting the job search. Art informed Dean of the College John Boyer that she intended to retire last fall.

A listing for the position was placed in December, and a nationwide search for a successor ensued, culminating in last week’s de-

board.

“Dean Art has done a really amazing job of making the dean of students in the College respected among the students and within the University,” he said. “I would like to take that legacy and make sure I’m well plugged into the faculty and staff so that you can feel like you can talk to me.

My goals are always to be as in touch as I can be and approachable with students.”

In the Graham School, Nemec seeks to share a new perspective as a political scientist and as the current CEO of Eduventures, a company that provides research and consulting to the higher education community. He previously

The field is a part of the ongoing Campus North Residence Hall development. The new Campus North dorm will be located on the old Pierce Hall and North Field lots; as a result, North Field will be destroyed and replaced by the Campus South Athletic Field.

In contrast to the old field, which was made of natural grass, Campus South Athletic Field will be composed of artificial turf. There will also be a small natural grass field next

to the main field to be used for warm-ups and intramural sports.

According to University of Chicago Athletic Director Erin McDermott, the field will include night lighting, bleachers that seat 50 people, a small service building with storage, an athletic training room, restrooms, and team benches. McDermott also said that the field will be permanently marked for soccer and lacrosse, with 10-yard tick

taught American politics at Davidson College and the University of Michigan, where he earned his Ph.D. “The University of Chicago has long been a model for making an outstanding education available to students who are not on a traditional path,” Nemec said in a University press release. “Changing demographics, evolving technologies, and forces such as urbanization and globalization create new needs and opportunities. In this context, complementary forms of a UChicago education will play an important role in expanding the University’s reach.”

Ellison and Nemec will both assume their roles on July 1.

marks for football.

North Field was used for varsity soccer and football.

According to McDermott, Campus South will be available for offseason varsity soccer and football practices in the spring, but its primary use is intended for club sports and intramural teams requiring a field. The Athletic Department will handle scheduling of the field.

—Alec Goodwin

Weekly Crime Report

By Alex Hays

Here are a few of this week’s incidents:

Apr. 17 Apr. 23

11

1

Arrest (except traffic violation)

0

0

Assault (multiple types)

Type of Crime

» April 19, 50th Place Between Cornell and East End Avenue between 3:00 and 4:30 p.m.—An unknown person or persons entered an off campus private apartment by way of an unsecured door. The suspects took various electronic items and a purse. This is now a CPD case.

1

0

Attempted burglary

0

0

Attempted robbery

0

0

Battery (multiple types)

0

0

Criminal sexual assault

6

2

Burglary

0

0

Criminal trespass to vehicle

8

3

Damage to property (including vehicle)

31

7

Other report

1

0

Robbery (multiple types)

0

0

Traffic violation

11

6

Theft (including from motor vehicle)

1

1

Trespass to property (including residence)

S. Lake Shore

Ellis

Cottage Grove

47th

55th

Blackstone

53rd

S. Hyde Park

51st

» April 19, Greenwood Avenue Between 54th and 55th Streets, 8:50 p.m.—An unknown male solicited a man for money. The suspect may have had a weapon in his possession, but he did not threaten the complainant. This is now a CPD case. » April 20, 5400 South Hyde Park Boulevard, 7:26 p.m.—A UCPD officer recovered a backpack dropped by a fleeing suspect, who did escape from the officer. The backpack contained four laptops, an iPod, and clothing. The items were taken from a previous off campus burglary.

This is now a CPD case.

Source: UCPD Incident Reports Arrest Assault Attempted burglary Attempted robbery Battery

57th

ISABELLE DEMERS SATURDAY APRIL 26 7:30 PM ROCKEFELLER CHAPEL 5850 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637 Isabelle Demers plays a glorious concert of her own transcriptions of music by Tchaikovsky (excerpts from The Sleeping Beauty), Praetorius, and Mendelssohn (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream), with the première of Three Short Studies

by Rachel Laurin (Monologue for Solo Pedal, The Flight of the Hummingbird, and Dialogue of the Mockingbirds), and grand classics for organ by Healey Willan, Ernest Macmillan, Alexandre Guilmant, and Marcel Dupré.

Criminal sexual assault

Cornell

Burglary

Stony Island

60th

University

59th

GERRISH ORGAN RECITAL:

62nd *Locations of reports approximate

Criminal trespass to vehicle Damage to property

This is the fifth annual recital in the Brian Gerrish Organ Performance Series, made possible by a generous endowment given to honor Divinity School professor emeritus Brian Gerrish and to promote the joy of listening to world-class organ performance!

Other report

Tickets at the door $10, free to students.

Robbery Traffic violation Theft

rockefeller.uchicago.edu For more information call us at 773.702.2100.

2013/14 SEASON

Since Mar. 31

4

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VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed APRIL 25, 2014

Things fall apart Grappling with artificial sweetener and dementia

Liam Leddy

Sprezzatura So I’ve got the diabetes, right?

I haven’t had it for too long, but it’s there. Or are my beta cells not there? Is diabetes an entity, or a lack of one? Anyway, whatever, that’s not important. I’m also a college student who’s committed to more extracurricular hours than he can probably handle, who needs a little sum’n sum’n to get through the day sometimes. I mean caffeine, guys, not cocaine. Jeez.

Anyway, given that I don’t really fancy myself a cappuccino-sipping, preppy, sissy hipster, but rather a hard-nosed, don’t-give-a-fuh, badass skater bro, I drink energy drinks instead of coffee. I like my raw energy to come in a sleek and

sexy metal can, not a prissy porcelain mug. Because I’m cool like that. Well, not that cool, since I have to drink the diet ones, with the artificial sweetener. You know, ’cause of the diabetes.

Studies have shown that drinking out of tin cans probably doesn’t cause dementia later in life, and that drinking artificial sweeteners probably doesn’t either. But that doesn’t stop my dad from telling me, and it doesn’t stop me from worrying about it. But P-sets gotta get done, am I right?

Since before I was born, my father’s parents have owned a trailer home on a lakefront lot in East Texas. Lake Limestone was a staple

of my childhood, the biggest reason I’m proud to be from Texas and not just from Austin. My sisters and I used to play in the lake all day, watch old movies my grandparents had until we fell asleep, and generally be blissfully happy.

I remember fetching my dad beers from the trailer so that he didn’t have to get out of the lake. But at a certain point I started shaking them up so they’d explode in his face when he opened them, and he didn’t like that. I used to stand on the dock, too afraid to jump in the water, until my sisters would light my imaginary jet pack, and then I’d rocket off the end of the pier.

There were good times to be had in that lake and in that trailer, and I’ll never forget those days. I hope.

All right, I promise this is all gonna come together soon, just give me a minute.

For as long as I can remember, my grandma drank diet, caffeine-

free Pepsi out of a can, with a straw sticking out. She’s a woman my father tells me I’ve never truly met, that even when I was a toddler, she wasn’t all there. Indeed, another staple of that lake and that trailer was her saying “Grandma goofed.”

“Sorry honey, I thought we had saltines and Ritz, but it looks like we only have saltines. Grandma goofed!”

Regardless of whether she was all there or not, she was there. But these days things are different. I went back to that trailer, back to that lake last summer, to see the old haunt, to see my grandparents.

The lake had been devastated by a drought and was lower than I’d ever seen it. Jumping off the dock was a guaranteed broken leg. The trailer had fallen into disrepair, the siding peeling off, the polystyrene light fixtures so brittle that tapping them would spark a shower of plastic bits. The front porch, once a

landscape filled with whatever my sisters and I thought up, had splinters poking out all over. And my grandma, once a sweet little lady prone to the occasional goof, didn’t know who I was. She thought I was my father, or my cousin, but never myself. She didn’t remember. I remember being saddened beyond words, but also inspired by her bravery, by her incredible courage to wake up every day and continue to exist knowing that she was a shell of what she once was. But I was also, and still am, selfishly and remarkably terrified.

I sip on these energy drinks to stay awake, to finish assignments, to ostensibly gain knowledge. But maybe it’s all for naught.

My grandma is doing worse now.

She has trouble eating and staying awake for more than an hour a day. And I think about the woman whom I once knew, and the trailer CAN continued on page 8

the typical entertainment factor of jokes about “brown people” and tried to educate the attendants on more complex and lesser-known aspects of South Asian culture, such as mythology, feminism, history, and cultural family relations. Accompanying the typical songs and dances were skits such as the reading of an emotional poem detailing the sorrows resulting from the India-Pakistan divide.

I was thrilled that the 878 spectators would finally see Indian culture presented in a way that goes beyond

its one-dimensional stereotypes. I myself, a member of SASA (although not involved in the planning of the show), came away with an increased knowledge of my own people as well as excitement that my friends now know that we are so much more than just bhangra routines and pressure to get straight As. But perhaps I was more excited than they were. After the show, several of my friends expressed confusion about the skits that focused on SASA continued on page 8

SASA shows all sides SASA 101 doesn’t just entertain, but showcases Indian culture Kiran Misra Maroon Staff “Mom, I had a hot dog and salad.” (Pause.) “No, Mummi, I had a haadaag and some sallaad,” clarified Paras Mehta in a thick Indian accent.

The crowd laughed at the SAS-peak, and so did the South Asians in the audience.

We Indians are no strangers to making fun of ourselves. Ever since I was a little girl, my sister and I lovingly teased our mother for getting

her Vs and Ws mixed up and imitated the side-to-side Indian head bobble around the dinner table. However, in many ways, to those not extensively educated in South Asian ways, these stereotypes are all that constitute Indian culture.

Then the SASA show came along.

This year’s show’s theme was “SASA 101,” an introductory level course for the UChicago population on the multifaceted nature of South Asian culture. This might not sound very different from the “SASA Night

Live” or “All-Nighter” themes of years past. However, for the SASA team, it marked a significant departure from the usual message of the show.

“We wanted to try something new where we tried to educate people who came to our show about what it means to be a South Asian and show them that it’s more than the humorous stereotypes of spicy food, loud and flashy dances, and funny accents,” explained Show Team Board member and fourth-year Nur Kara. So this year’s SASA show went beyond

Reconsidering eurocentrism The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892 Emma Broder, Editor-in-Chief Joy Crane, Editor-in-Chief Jonah Rabb, Managing Editor Daniel Rivera, Grey City Editor Harini Jaganathan, News Editor Ankit Jain, News Editor Eleanor Hyun, Viewpoints Editor Liam Leddy, Viewpoints Editor Kristin Lin, Viewpoints Editor Will Dart, Arts Editor Tatiana Fields, Sports Editor Sam Zacher, Sports Editor Nicholas Rouse, Head Designer Alexander Bake, Webmaster Ajay Batra, Senior Viewpoints Editor Emma Thurber Stone, Senior Viewpoints Editor Sarah Langs, Senior Sports Editor Matthew Schaefer, Senior Sports Editor Jake Walerius, Senior Sports Editor Sarah Manhardt, Deputy News Editor Isaac Stein, Associate News Editor Christine Schmidt, Associate News Editor Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Associate News Editor Clair Fuller, Associate Viewpoints Editor Andrew Young, Associate Viewpoints Editor Robert Sorrell, Associate Arts Editor James Mackenzie, Associate Arts Editor Tori Borengässer, Associate Arts Editor Angela Qian, Associate Arts Editor Jamie Manley, Senior Photo Editor Sydney Combs, Photo Editor Peter Tang, Photo Editor Frank Yan, Photo Editor Frank Wang, Associate Photo Editor Alan Hassler, Head Copy Editor Sherry He, Head Copy Editor Katarina Mentzelopoulos, Head Copy Editor Ben Zigterman, Head Copy Editor

William Rhee, Social Media Editor Ingrid Sydenstricker, Multimedia Editor Dove Barbanel, Senior Video Editor

Krysten Bray, Copy Editor Katie Day, Copy Editor Sophie Downes, Copy Editor Joe Joseph, Copy Editor Chelsea Leu, Copy Editor Katie Leu, Copy Editor John Lotus, Copy Editor Victoria Rael, Copy Editor Hannah Rausch, Copy Editor Christine Schmidt, Copy Editor Olivia Stovicek, Copy Editor Andy Tybout, Copy Editor Amy Wang, Copy Editor Darien Ahn, Designer Annie Cantara, Designer Emilie Chen, Designer Wei Yi Ow, Designer Molly Sevcik, Designer Tyronald Jordan, Business Manager Nathan Peereboom, Chief Financial Officer Annie Zhu, Director of External Marketing Vincent McGill, Delivery Coordinator Editor-in-Chief Phone: 773.834.1611 Newsroom Phone: 773.702.1403 Business Phone: 773.702.9555 Fax: 773.702.3032 News: News@ChicagoMaroon.com Viewpoints: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com Arts: Arts@ChicagoMaroon.com Sports: Sports@ChicagoMaroon.com Photography: Photo@ChicagoMaroon.com Design: Design@ChicagoMaroon.com Copy: CopyEditors@ChicagoMaroon.com Advertising: Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com The Chicago Maroon is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters Circulation: 5,500.

The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section are not necessarily those of the Maroon. © 2014 The Chicago Maroon, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637

Editors of the Chicago Journal of History defend the history major Thomas Prendergast & Pranav Jain Maroon Contributors According to Jonathan Katz in “Revising History” (4/18/14), there is an “educational gap” between those who study “American or Western European history”—“itself,” the author graciously admits, “not a crime”— and those who, like the author, concentrate in non-Western fields. He paints a picture of the University in which the former pass through their time here in ignorant bliss, never “questioning or examining the West in a greater context,” while the latter, heroically struggling to become true “citizens of the world,” must suffer the boorish aggressions of the Americanists and Europeanists.

As editors of the Chicago Journal of History, an undergraduate historical review based at the University, and as history majors focused in European fields, we feel compelled to respond to the author’s charge of rampant Eurocentrism. With regard to the Core Curriculum, the author’s proposition to introduce a Sosc sequence in East Asian, South Asian, or Islamic

thought certainly seems like a reasonable one. His criticisms of the history department, on the other hand, are factually unfounded and conceptually flawed.

As the author noted, the program requirements for the history major are minimal: students take 12 courses, including four electives and two as part of the senior seminar sequence.

While it is true that the department does not impose a “non–North Atlantic” field requirement on majors (nor does it impose any kind of “North Atlantic” or “Western” field requirement), it does, nonetheless, actively endorse intellectual exploration. To quote the College Catalog, majors are “urged to take courses that introduce significant civilizational or chronological breadth.” Now, compare this to the distribution requirements for the undergraduate history program at Yale University, which groups Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East into a single twocourse “LAAA” requirement.

Would it make for a more stimulating academic environment if every student were literate in every field

of history? Possibly. But it hardly seems fair to demand that students do so, just as it would be unfair to mandate that students take a course in American history. For those interested in “non–North Atlantic” history, literature, culture, etc., the department and the University offer a full complement of resources: History alone offered nine undergraduate courses directly relating to Asian history in Winter 2014, six in Middle Eastern history, and seven in Western European history. A cursory glance at the Fields/Programs pages of the department’s website reveals an academic community well-balanced in its research interests (10 active faculty members in Modern Europe, nine in East Asia, for example), and several faculty members actively engaged in comparative work.

Of course, these geographic divisions are fluid (constructs), and numbers, admittedly, don’t tell the whole story. And that brings us to the conceptual flaws in the author’s argument. What, after all, is the “West”?

The author seems to know: It is, he EURO continued on page 8

6

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | April 25, 2014

Syria’s intervening years

Not fit for print

Looking at Syria three years after its time on the global stage

Koh’s piece does not deserve a place in public discourse

the advantage of hindsight, we can watch the breaking news coverage of the limited protests in mid-March, as well as the coverage in following weeks as news agencies slowly replaced the word “protest� with “uprising.�

We can browse the Facebook page The Syrian Revolution Against Bashar al-Assad 2011 and the first demonstrations they staged online and on the ground. March 15, 2011: 268 going, 125 maybe. March 25 2011: 1,200 going, 132 maybe. And yet, as disquieting as it is to see the coverage change as journalists, protestors and the Syrian government itself began to realize what the conflict was escalating into; perhaps most disturbing is that any resolution seems much further now than it did then, “with the glittering hope of peace fading with each passing day,� to borrow from Yasmeen Hussain’s (A.B. ’13) “Syria 15 Months Later.�

The well-intentioned desire to bring a quick resolution to this conflict and save thousands of civilian lives in the process has led many to advocate for military intervention by the U.S. and by others.

Particularly after the indiscriminate and heinous chemical weapons attack by Assad’s government last August,

Hamid Bendaas Maroon Contributor This month marks three years since political revolt in Syria escalated from a surprising instance of mass demonstrations into the civil war that has resulted in more than 150,000 casualties and over two million refugees. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has come under intense scrutiny for his excessive and indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations, most of all when his regime launched a chemical weapons attack in August 2013, killing hundreds of civilians. Any discussion of the political aspects of the war, as this will be, must be prefaced by consideration of the millions of lives affected for the worse by this war, the cities of orphans and widows, and the earnest wish on their behalf for a resolution, soon and just, to prefigure a land of lasting peace that properly serves its own people.

As witnesses to the first great humanitarian crisis of the 21st century and the internet age, we have been provided the novel ability to reach out and back in time to see the evolution of the crisis as it was perceived by the outside world and by those at its epicenter. With ease and with

world leaders in the U.S, U.K, and France began to promote the idea of retaliation of some sort, with proposals ranging from limited airstrikes to greater commitment of enforcing regime change as had been done in Libya. Much of the public, fatigued by Western intervention in the Middle East and, in the U.S.’s case, unilateral military actions, recoiled at such proposals.

That debate forced many of us, firmly confused about Syria’s consequences and solutions, to take a side. I chose then and have maintained a position against military intervention, though admittedly not without self-doubt.

What used to be a clear-cut position to defend smaller nations’ sovereignty against possible exploitation—the principle that superpowers should not use their military might to topple regimes of weaker nations, regardless of whether that regime be dictatorial or antagonistic to the West— has become complicated if not rendered obsolete by the new reality that such dictators can now kill hundreds of thousands with “small� supplies of outdated weapons. “Mass killing is mass killing.

Sometimes you may kill tens of thousands or hundreds of SYRIA continued on page 8

Spencer McAvoy Maroon Contributor Despite her claims, it’s clear to me that Grace Koh, author of “Faith and Fear�

(4/18/14), isn’t as afraid of her words as she should be, or at least she doesn’t accord them the respect they deserve.

This is a serious fault, especially for a writer. But it’s a much more serious fault for her editors, whose job it is to decide, for this community, what is and isn’t news, and what should and shouldn’t be admitted to the public discourse.

Let’s talk about that word, “should.� It appears nowhere significant in Koh’s article; her thoughts on gay marriage are instead expressed in what she or her editors seem—based on the cautious and convoluted phrasing and the surrounding cascades of qualifications—to consider more politic formulations: “Gay marriage conceptually cannot exist,� “I don’t believe in gay marriage,� “Within these arguments the idea of ‘same-sex marriage’ does not exist.�

The first thing to say about these claims is that they are nonsense, that they

signal a language tortured by misguided editing or self-censoring into conveying non-thought, untruth, and the complete absence of meaning. The intention (no matter whose) was, as I take it, to avoid saying, “I don’t believe people should engage in same-sex intercourse or marriage,� and so the thought was recast into a meaningless jumble of relativistic and pseudo-positivistic jargon.

The final result is the claim that the author does not “believe� in the “existence� of an actual fact about the world; namely, that some people are gay, and in some places they get married (calling it an “idea� doesn’t make it any less a fact). What on earth it does or could mean not to “believe� this—and not to believe it “conceptually� to boot—is an absolute mystery to me, and I mean that quite seriously. Equally mysterious is why or how anyone would or could think that telling a group of people you don’t recognize their existence is more moderate than censoring them for their sexuality. I, for one, would certainly rather be insulted than negated.

The only way I can under-

stand the strange fact that the editors published this article is by assuming the tepid relativistic notion that discourse is inherently good, and that to live up to our lofty liberal beliefs we ought to allow opinions that don’t necessarily cohere with those beliefs to be heard. Because we’re lucky enough to have a body of thinkers and texts in common, I know with reasonable certainty what books are on your shelves—what, ostensibly, you’ve read. Therefore I feel very comfortable saying that you should know better.

The purpose of public discourse, as we inherited it from the Enlightenment, was always to arrive at the truth. Discourse is a means, not an end, and public discourse is inherently and obviously not a place for private opinion. It is a place to expose opinions to criticism, to test them, and to see if they hold, or can be held, before the reading public.

What Koh’s article proves, in fact the only thing it “proves� in any sense of the word, is that certain viewpoints no longer admit of intelligent defense; that is, they cannot be defended intelligibly, that they demand TRUTH continued on page 8

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | April 25, 2014

“I’m still awed by my grandma’s bravery, but that awe is more than overwhelmed by anger...”

Eurocentrism is using a one-size-fits-all model of modernity

CAN continued from page 5 and the lake that once were, and I have a hard time thinking that everything doesn’t just go to shit. It’s fine for someone to leave if they’re ready, and maybe even if they’re not, because at least they had what came before— at least they can remember the good days, or the bad days, or whatever they were.

At least they remember. But my grandma doesn’t have that; she doesn’t have any-

EURO continued from page 5 believes, Western Europe, the U.S.—it is the “white, Christian, North Atlantic world.”

But is Mexico not Western?

What about Hungary? Israel?

Would studying Russia count toward his proposed “nonWestern” course requirement?

What about European Civilization III, a course on Venice and the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period? Who gets to decide?

In his pathbreaking study Provincializing Europe (2000), Dipesh Chakrabarty, a faculty member in the Department of History, speaks of an “imaginary” Europe—a bundle of assumptions and prejudices that have long led social scientists to impose a one-size-fits-all

thing. She remembers my grandfather, but maybe soon she won’t. I’m still awed by her bravery, but that awe is more than overwhelmed by anger, and by an overwhelming sense of futility.

I think about that every time I start to fall asleep and reach for that tin can. I think about my father and if it’s going to start happening to him soon, if the intellect I’m awed by more than any other is going to start to

slip. I think about whether and when it’s going to happen to me, and how much I’m accelerating the process by putting this can to my lips. And I think about my grandma, and injustice, and futility. And I just can’t help thinking that, no matter how it starts, everything goes to shit.

Liam Leddy is a secondyear in the College majoring in economics.

“If nothing isn’t worth saying, then nothing is.”

TRUTH continued from page 6 contradiction. Another way to say this is that they cannot be held publicly.

What’s surprising is not Koh’s article’s failure to manifest coherent thought, but the fact that it was published despite the fact that we all knew in advance, or should have known, that it would fail so. We could say that these are no longer matters of “belief,” that the question of belief or unbelief makes no sense here, that our disagreements on this topic must reduce to appeals to dogmatism or relativism.

This is as good an indica-

tor as I can imagine of the fact that here there is nothing worth saying. And in the future I would urge the editors to remember that if nothing isn’t worth saying, then nothing is. That’s not a belief, but a fact about meaning or language.

To be honest, I found Koh’s article generally offensive. Offensive because I think it’s cowardly to hide behind one’s faith or creed, to shirk responsibility for one’s “beliefs” and to fail to acknowledge their (moral) implications, because I think she’s deeply and dangerously wrong about more than just gay marriage, and

also because I find all lazy thinking, writing, and editing offensive.

But in the Viewpoints section all this is, so to speak, common. What, in this instance, makes it so maddening and particular for me is that both the writers and the curators of our public discourse seem to have forgotten the responsibility they hold to their particular positions in this community—their obligation to respect the purpose and power of words.

Spencer McAvoy is a third-year in the college majoring in English.

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(European) model of modernity on the non-European world. This is what constitutes Eurocentrism. Faculty, graduate students, and, contrary to what the author asserts, many undergraduates are fully aware of this pitfall. In fact, Europeanists themselves increasingly recognize the limits of employing terms such as “class,” “nation,” and “history” in their own field of study. Imaginary Europe is embedded not just in the orthodox historiography of the non-Western world, but, as Europeanists would readily admit, in the historiography of the West, too. By setting up a formal, curricular distinction between the “West” and the “Non-West,” we would run the risk of perpetuating and reify-

ing an artificial “West vs. Rest” dichotomy that is only beginning to be problematized.

We fully acknowledge that Eurocentrism is alive and well in the world. But it certainly doesn’t find a home in the institutional structure of the University. Students of history should read widely, should be eager to challenge their preconceptions. But there is no reason to think that a UChicago undergraduate career focused on American, European, or “North Atlantic” history is somehow inherently “incomplete.”

Thomas Prendergast is a fourth-year and Pranav Jain is a third-year in the College.

Intervention will always fulfill worst intentions SYRIA continued from page 6 thousands with very primitive armaments,” al-Assad said in his interview with Charlie Rose, a statement which I hope he made with some amount of self-awareness. But if the anti-interventionism elaborated on above has been rendered obsolete, then so too has the international community’s infatuation with weapons of mass destruction as the standard red line. I point all this out only to make clear that my position is that calls for intervention in Syria, even unilateral and extensive intervention before the August 2013 chemical weapons attack, can be well-intentioned and guided by humanitarian concerns.

I do not believe the same can be said for the calls for regime change which took place before 2011. I maintain a position against interven-

tion today because I believe military intervention, even if supported by people with good intentions, will fulfill the ugly intentions of another group of people, a group which has been requesting regime change in Syria for two decades. With a bit more searching, we can also reach back to see the machinations of this body of individuals, the neoconservative lobby in the United States. We can see, for example, undersecretary John Bolton inflating the nature of the Syrian threat despite protestations by U.S. intelligence officials. In spring 2003, against President Bush’s wishes, Congress passed the Syrian Accountability Act amidst a wave of calls by neoconservatives for the Bush administration to take a hard line on Syria and use “whatever techniques are necessary— including military force—to

effect behavior modification and/or regime change in Damascus,” in the words of neoconservative Frank Gaffney.

As conflicts drag on and more civilians are killed, the humanitarian calls for military intervention will grow, and I would be lying if I said I did not sympathize with those calls. But fear overrides my sympathy in this case. I fear my sympathy will become a tool for someone else’s malice, and I fear my support for opposition to one monster will simultaneously distract from and nourish a larger monster.

I hope the devil we know is brought to justice, but for now I will keep in mind the devil whose knack is for making us forget him.

Hamid Bendaas is a third-year in the College majoring in political science.

“Show acts as an ambassador for India at UChicago” SASA continued from page 5 less lighthearted matters and criticized that the show wasn’t all laughs and energetic dances. One of my friends said, “It’s just a show; they should stick to what people like to see.” But it’s not “just a show.” This show acts as an ambassador for India at UChicago.

Even though the “educational” skits weren’t as funny or catchy as traditional fare, they more accurately reflected the South Asian experience and led to a fuller understanding of cultures different from ours. This is an extremely important endeavor that deserves thought and appreciation as an innovative direction for the SASA show. Cultural understanding is as integral a part of the mission of multicultural shows on campus as entertainment.

Another one of my friends expressed confusion about the fact that there were so many

fusion acts, like the PhiNix insert. “I don’t see what that has to do with being South Asian,” she said. However, these fusion acts, too, represent an important part of the Indian experience: that desis, as Indians call themselves, are increasingly integrating western entertainment and culture into their society (see Facebook, jeans and T-shirts, and the prevalence of English).

To present “Indian Culture as Untainted by Western Influence” would be unrealistic and untrue.

While the SASA show has traditionally been an incredibly compelling and aesthetically amazing show, it’s on its way to becoming even more.

As a South Asian, it’s incredibly refreshing to see the whole school uniting to celebrate my culture in a society where Anglo-American culture is so implicitly celebrated in our daily lives.

There’s a phenomenon called the “Indian Inferiority Complex,” born out of years of being crushed under monarchial rule. It refers to the feeling that some Indians have, especially those in India, that Western culture and institutions are the ideal and should be emulated. This mindset makes reveling in a study of and reflection on our singular history and rich cultural traditions all the more necessary.

Times are changing, and many Indian parents now drill into their children that our country is something to be incredibly proud of. Shows like this, where hundreds of Indians and non-Indians alike get together to celebrate all aspects of Indian culture, not just the flashy and entertaining ones, have a crucial role to play in this progress.

Kiran Misra is a first-year in the College.

ARTS

Heartlandia APRIL 25, 2014

In fair Ida Noyes, HPCP takes a first stab at Shakespeare Angela Qian Associate Arts Editor Romeo and Juliet is the Shakespeare play everyone remembers reading in eighth-grade English, all teenage hormones, puppy love, and swooning sighs over the gangster drawl of Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann’s movie remake. It’s probably the best-known love story in the world—boy gets dumped, boy meets new girl, star-crossed yada yada yada, true love, melodrama, testosterone, fighting, fake deaths, real deaths, etc.—and has probably not been taken seriously since Stephenie Meyer quoted it in Twilight.

And yet the Hyde Park Community Players (HPCP) were determined to try as they staged an earnest attempt at the play this past weekend at Ida Noyes. The community theater group has been active for five years, and this is its first attempt at a full play by the Bard; in the brochure, co-director Corinna Christman admits that she was not sure “if we were quite ready to put on an entire Shakespeare production,” adding optimistically, “but we rose to the occasion!”

Indeed, the enthusiasm of the cast is evident in the actors’ pleasure at the salacious Shakespearean jokes and riotous characters. The bare-bones stage setup in the middle of Ida Noyes’s Cloister Club is witness to all sorts of fits and faints, such as the death of Mercutio and

the lovelorn entreaties of Romeo at Juliet’s balcony. Some of the characters are particularly entertaining: Emily Jusino as Mercutio and Susan Harris as Juliet’s nurse both give creditably energetic performances, Harris taking particular delight in the nurse’s long-winded speeches and Jusino making the most of every hip-rolling innuendo.

The energy present in the play’s swordfights and raunchy jokes, however, doesn’t keep it from sagging in a few areas. The tender and tragic scenes in the play have a clipped feeling and are somewhat immature in their execution.

Romeo (played by Michael T. Lipphardt) still seems like a desperate classroom romantic who falls in love with any girl who encourages him, and Juliet (played by Jennifer J. Martinez) comes off as an overly earnest girl more in love with the idea of love than with Romeo.

These flaws are perhaps inherent to the play’s plot, but they are exacerbated by the lack of intimacy and chemistry between the two main love interests. The famous balcony scene, for instance, is both overwrought and rushed; Romeo, conversing in bed about the nightingale and the lark with Juliet, is not convincing in his cheesy professions of love.

And yet, despite the clipped quality of the couple’s melodramatic exchanges, the play still drags. HPCP seems intent to put on Shakespeare’s full work, no mat-

From left: Nurse (Susan Harris) and Juliet (Jennifer Martinez) cower before Lady Capulet (Lauren Miller).

COURTESY OF SAFIYYAH MAALIK

ter the length, and by the time intermission came—two hours into the play—I was already fatigued, knowing there was still much left to go through. The play suffers, too, from a lack of enunciation (it’s a struggle to fill the acoustically poor Cloister Club without mics) and efficiency in some parts, which draws out the plot even more.

Ultimately the sometimes unprofessional quality of the produc-

tion, the (pretty much unbelievable) romance and tragedy, and the occasional awkwardness of the actors gives the production a decidedly middle-school quality. Given the subject matter, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. HPCP’s Romeo and Juliet is lively and charming in its amateurism, reminiscent of after-school drama and the silly, turbulent, youthful passions adolescents so wholeheartedly believe

in. It’s a lot to ask for a part-time theater company to rescue Romeo and Juliet from its eighth grade connotations, but the Hyde Park Players certainly gave it their all. At any rate, the troop’s performance is certainly more enjoyable than eighth-grade was, and only half as long.

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet will play at Ida Noyes Hall April 26–27. Tickets are $8 with UCID.

Throwing punches at Frankie Cosmos This piece, by UChicago alumna Sasha Geffen (A.B. ’11), was originally published in Consequence of Sound. The full version of this piece can be found online at www. consequenceofsound.net.

There’s this guy who keeps stealing the mic between sets at the Frankie Cosmos show. He did it after the first opener, a band of theatrically-minded locals called Richard Album and the Singles, and he’s doing it again now after the Lemons.

He’s a white guy, shaggy black curls under a backwards snapback, drunk glaze on his eyes.

“Who’s a Bulls fan, bitch?” he asks over and over and over. Greta Kline and her band set up their gear on the makeshift stage behind him.

He stares blankly out at the crowd of people who are talking, laughing, drinking. A few pay attention to him. The air is clogged with smoke.

“Who’s a Bulls fan, bitch?”

Someone approaches to ask him to cut it out. He doesn’t move, slurs something about how the guy’s a “pussy.” He keeps on gibbering. A different dude, short and bearded and built, asks a little more forcefully. He pushes the guy away from the mic. He pushes him into a corner. They tussle and fall over, breaking up Aaron Maine’s half-assembled kit. The guy with the snapback glowers against the wall for a minute. Then he lurches forward, and you see it coming in slow motion: He sidles over to the bearded

dude and slowly, without emotion, punches him right in the face.

Beardy snaps. I mean, he snaps.

He reaches out, grabs Snapback, pulls him into the throng, hits him, hits him, throws him nose-first into the floor. Blood splashes out of him.

He lies still. A gasp rustles through everyone who’s seen it. One of his friends and a different brother rush over to drag him up—he’s awake, but not with it—and pull him toward the back of the frat. He drips blood all the way.

Frankie Cosmos get their drums back together, finish setting up, and begin to play. A group of young men behind me, who know every word to “Birthday Song” and “Buses Splash with Rain,” bounce along ecstatically. What else can you do?

Alpha Delta, like the other frats, is responsible for hosting nightlife for undergraduates too young to drink off campus, and is most known for its “Bar Night,” a weekly event that simulates a real bar, only the drinks aren’t great and you can smoke inside. It’s here that one of my housemates was raped during her first year as an undergraduate.

She had friends at Alpha Delt, and one of them sold her a beer spiked with a date rape drug. He led her upstairs to a bedroom with a few of his buddies once she started getting groggy and pliant. They stopped assaulting her when she started having seizures.

The official story from the broth-

ers was that she drank too much and blacked out. The police believed the official story from the brothers.

She was told that pressing charges would be futile. For a while, she couldn’t bear to walk around campus by herself.

My housemate is doing okay now.

I mean, she stuck with school, and she had a group of good friends who believed her and supported her in the aftermath of the assault.

She graduated. She was 19 when it happened, the same age that Greta Kline is now.

The mythology of being young in the United States includes passage through spaces where the rules of “real” life don’t apply. College works as one of the most common and reliable of these. It’s the place you’re expected to go as soon as you become an adult, a place where sex and drugs are suddenly accessible.

With this in mind, I’ve been thinking a lot about how space informs behavior. Saturday’s concert was a DIY show and a frat party in one, and the behaviors of both rituals bled into each other. The guy who ended his night with his face smashed against the floor was a friend of the second band, the Lemons. Is that what gave him the okay to show off his racism and sexism onstage? Or was it just the setting, a space where white men generally get to say and do whatever they want?

If you’re a band and you only play spaces that are owned by white men,

booked by white men, controlled by white men, are you lending to the problem that white men get the most voice even in niche cultures like DIY pop music?

The layout of UChicago makes its fraternities highly visible. A few of them line University Avenue, a street that runs up the east side of the quad, and when the weather gets nice, the bros come out on their stoops, drinking beer and grilling meat and shouting at passersby. It’s impossible to attend classes there and not be aware of the frats, even if you never party. Most alumni I know can still rattle off a list of the most notorious houses. Three years after graduating, I can’t recall the names of any sororities.

Since its foundation, UChicago has been coeducational, but it readily breeds the culture of an institution designed by and for white men—the sort of institution that aims to lend prestige and power to those who make their way through it. Its private police force, supposedly the largest in the world after the pope’s, prowl campus for “intruders” from the neighboring black communities; a black student was arrested in the main library while I was an undergraduate. Only one woman has ever served as president in the school’s 123-year history, and every president has been white.

That’s not to say that house shows as they currently operate represent any sort of ideal either. The focus on

drugs aside, DIY venues tend to feel isolating to those who aren’t friendly with the hosts and their social circle. I’ve never been to a house show where anyone has actively tried to greet outsiders or welcome them into their space. Even the most progressive punk houses I’ve been to in Chicago, which were alcohol-free and hosted bands who sang directly about how to fix rape culture, generally fostered insular socialization.

Even they were owned and operated by young, white men.

What would happen if the country’s most infamous universities—the ones that variously inform America’s popular culture—encouraged a dominant culture based on something other than drinking a lot and having questionably consensual sex? What would happen if, instead of frats, queer meeting spaces and progressive community groups thrived along University Avenue or Harvard Yard? What would happen if we symbolized higher education with something other than a house where people punch each other in the face?

Someone said, “The show must go on,” after Snapback was thrown down and dragged away, because of course someone did. People who hadn’t seen the altercation gawked at the blood puddle; one guy dipped his finger in it just to make sure it wasn’t some bright red spilled drink. And then Frankie Cosmos played.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | April 25, 2014

10

Reel time: 48-Hour Film Fest celebrates student shorts

First-year David Flomenbaum flips out in “Groundspring” by The Lily Chou’s Chou’s. Wooaah!!

COURTESY OF FIRE ESCAPE FILMS

Russell Namalata Maroon Contributor The night was young and so were the attendees of the annual Fire Escape 48-Hour Film Festival last Tuesday. As per the name of the event, numerous students had written, shot, and edited short films in just 48 hours to premiere at the festival. As a film aficionado, I was not completely surprised by this, as it was similar to the project Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett took on back in 2007 with a reality TV show called On the Lot. Though the show was short-lived (one season, 16 episodes, three months on the air), what kept me hooked and really drew my admiration was the fact that though the finalists were pressed for time and resources, most of them were skilled behind the camera and were able to make short, intensely creative films that subsequently impressed

the judges.

But this worldwide search for new film talent ultimately proved intractable because, unlike with inherent talents such as singing or dancing, the elegance of the art of filmmaking is strongly dependent on time and resources, and the process was stifled by the show’s necessarily rushed format. This format also saw these competing professionals seemingly return to square one, each churning out a few basic shorts—which ultimately was a good thing. Why? Because filmmaking should begin with raw creativity and improve in school. That’s the oversight that On the Lot decided to elaborate upon.

Fire Escape Films, UChicago’s student film group, celebrates this very rawness. The twelve teams participating were aware that they could only do so much in two days but knew, too, that this was just a first step, a small hurdle,

to the many opportunities and challenges that they’d be presented with in the world of filmmaking. The rawness is the attraction; the passion is the satisfaction. Neophyte director and co-writer thirdyear James Austen, or “The LotMaster,” as the big winner on Spielberg’s show would have been called, embodies this passion. His eightand-a-half-minute short film “Groundspring” is riveting, funnily sadistic, and, toward the end, is a perfect study in the fine art (and frustration) of suspense. “[We] were given a bag where pieces of paper were inside and picked one randomly. [We] picked the paper with the word ‘Groundspring’ on it,” Austen said.

One of the rules of this competition was to come up with a short film that somehow related back to this measly piece of paper, with each team’s creativity being the

limit. You’re in for a treat with Austen’s team and their take on the obscure meaning of “groundspring.”

“The film was actually inspired by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” Austen revealed with a coy look in his eyes, “since at that time it was Easter.” This film was based on a screenplay of fantastically inventive proportions, cowritten by Paul Degout, Lisa Ringdahl, and Nick Quintana (collectively The Lily Chou’s Chou’s), but it was Austen’s job to bring it to life. A feasible screenplay to shoot in one day, perhaps, but with all the scene- and sound-editing to do during the next, one wonders how much sleep they got by the end of the project.

Or did they sleep at all? Yet these talented, cinematicallyinclined zombies were so organized and so dedicated to the craft that Austen said that, at least with this project, the

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pearing at some point during the film turned out to be a reference to an alternative meaning of the word.

The important thing to remember is that when it comes to student filmmaking, it’s always worth the try. Small progress is still progress, as they say. And there’s no better opportunity than at events like the 48-Hour Film Festival; here, mistakes are an advantage, ideas are appreciated, and of course, the audience is full of friends, colleagues, those who encourage you to be creative and to take chances in a safe and supportive environment. I now know why it’s called “Fire Escape” Films: It’s where young, intrepid filmmakers experience the burning passion of cinematic expression under the necessary time and resource constraints of student-run movie production—with the promise of final, creative escape.

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By Kyle Dolan

Difficulty:

Across

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whole thing was simple and stress-free. “Everyone was just on schedule,” he said. “Although during filming I didn’t give them any lunch breaks,” Austen admitted with a guilty smile.

Second best at the fest, for me at least, was the silent short “Drive/Drive/Drive,” primarily because it stood out from the archive of comedy shorts previously shown. The team behind it, TBD, chose to be controversial yet subtle, a task which is challenging, if not nigh on impossible in cinematic storytelling. Nevertheless, the sharp silence of the audience as Max Palevsky Cinema–goers sat enthralled was a testament to its success.

“I really thought they’d win.

They showed the essence of film in their short, being able to communicate with just a video and no words,” Austen says. A movie title I’d thought would suggest a vehicle ap-

1. Cornell of Cornell University 5. Square ___ 9. Oral agreement 13. Not one to hold a door 14. Guggenheim setting 16. ___ Point (historic Ohio amusement park) 17. New England tourist destination 19. Write a letter to the editor, say 20. Birthplace of 18-Down 21. Party suffix 23. Long time 24. Midwest capital, for short 25. Spend a whole day on Netflix, perhaps 27. End of science?

30. Will Smith title role 31. Bull ___ (scene of Civil War combat) 32. Magnanimous 35. Mexican bread 39. Acerbic 40. [Feed me!], maybe 41. Tolkien tree shepherd 43. Many a video

game, nowadays 44. Article in Le Monde 45. Rugby XV, say 46. Super Mario ___ 47. Violin opening?

48. Carrier to Copenhagen 49. Common connector 50. Madison Avenue award 51. Dandy’s partner 52. Game of Thrones land 54. Ominous portent 56. Density symbol 58. Sound of relief 59. Mythical monster 60. Racecourse in 24-Across, with “the” 64. Prefix: bull 66. Poetic dusk 67. Actor Morales of NYPD Blue 68. True 71. Leader with a Van Dyke beard 73. Hit TV show represented by the circled letters 76. Obvious 77. Directed 78. It parallels the radius 79. Are in the past?

80. Old Dodge

1

2

3

model 81. Call for Down 1. Die away 2. “J’accuse” author 3. Algebraic function 4. Big shiner?

5. About to cry 6. “Enchanted” girl in a 2004 film 7. Defense grp.?

8. Relaxed

4

5

9. Energy 10. Parting word 11. Olympus rival 12. Direction 14. Tough spot 15. Lamar of the NBA 16. What power does, in a phrase 18. West with 21 Grammy awards 22. Hammer and anvil site 25. Squandered

26. Half and half 27. Thickheaded 28. Flowering vines 29. Princess Fiona in Shrek, e.g.

30. Nucleus holder 33. ___ Corner 34. Studied 36. Biblical title, with “the” 37. Confess 38. “…the right to a ___ and public trial” (Sixth Amendment) 41. Explorer called “the Red” 42. Kindle alternative 45. Capital of Uzbekistan 46. Prosaic 50. Decked out 51. Part of an emergency kit 53. Enemy of 41-Across 54. Forge product 55. Farm device 57. Sounds of distress 60. Not on deck 61. Chaucer pilgrim 62. Secret 63. Quatrain scheme, maybe 64. Old subway fare 65. Desert-like 68. Burkina ___ 69. Start of a wellknown palindrome 70. Track assignment 72. Spleen 74. Legal attachment?

75. June honoree

Answers from Tuesday’s puzzle

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | April 25, 2014

11

Pitching carries South Siders to victory in close contests Softball Charlotte Franklin Sports Staff The South Siders decisively put their losses to No. 12 Illinois Wesleyan last Saturday behind them with a pair of doubleheader sweeps at home this week.

The No. 21 Maroons improved their record to a stellar 23–5.

Chicago defeated Lake Forest twice in its doubleheader on Tuesday by scores of 5–4 and 4–3. “It was great to get two wins. Our pitchers really did fabulously against a team that has been hitting well this season,� third-year outfielder Raechel Cloud said. “Our hitters kept battling against pitchers with more movement than we have faced in the past.�

Fourth-year third baseman Maddie McManus helped get the day off to a good start by homering in the first inning of the first game. Second-year pitcher Jordan Poole struck out seven batters, walked six, and gave up five hits in a complete game victory.

Poole was modest about her performance and made note of the “great pitch-

ing� in the second game by third-year teammate Tabbetha Bohac and the “timely hitting� of her teammates in both games.

In the nightcap, Bohac allowed seven hits, one run, and five walks. First-year infielder Maggie O’Hara added an RBI, followed by RBIs from McManus and Poole.

The team came off both wins over Lake Forest hoping to rack up two more against the Wheaton Thunder on Thursday. To accomplish this, the athletes understood exactly what they had to do, mentally and physically. “We are in the middle of a 10-game stretch in a week, so we are making sure to keep our bodies fit and rested and staying focused on each game one at a time,� Cloud said.

Cloud’s preparation worked in her favor, as she went two for two and stole home for the sole run as the Maroons won their first game 1–0 over the Thunder. Poole contributed a one-hit shutout as she struck out three batters.

The second game also ended with a Maroon win

by a final score of 4–3.

Notable in the win were Bohac’s six strikeouts and fourth-year outfielder Julia Covello’s single scoring second-year shortstop Kristin Lopez. The team swept Wheaton with the two onerun victories. “All season we’ve had the mentality that we just want to go out there and get two W’s, and we went out there and did that, which was great,� O’Hara said. “This was a hard week for us, with ten games in six days, and we’re really just trying to do our best to win out the season and put ourselves in a good place to hopefully make it to regionals.�

Assuming they keep up their performance, the Maroons should be able to accomplish this goal. As the regular season starts to wrap up with three games left, Chicago is focused on qualifying for the postseason.

Its next two games are on Senior Day today at 3 p.m. against Elmhurst College.

The game will honor the four seniors on the team: Kaitlyn Carpenter, Covello, McManus, and catcher Zoe Oliver-Grey.

Fourth-year infielder Maddie McManus rounds the bases in a game against North Park on April 8.

COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS

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IN QUOTES “Can’t eat that fat pie piece, whatever it’s called.”

—Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal on Giordano’s pizza

Maroons ready for UAA Championships at home Track & Field Russell Mendelson Sports Staff

past two relays for the Maroons, believes that the group doesn’t need to work on anything specific before the meet but should instead just focus on maintaining their fluidity as a unit.

“There’s a lot of trust that goes into relays. We have to trust that everyone is ready to run with everything they have, and I have no doubt that that’s what’s going to happen this weekend,” Kang said.

When asked how she deals with this weekend’s added pressures, Kang mentioned how she used the whole week to plan ahead.

“I deal with the added pressure of this meet being UAAs by taking steps earlier in the week to make sure that I’m prepared,” said Kang. “Knowing that I’m doing everything I can to make sure I’m physically and mentally prepared gives me a sense of confidence that helps take the pressure off and keep me focused.”

Both athletes were also sure to note their respective appreciation of representing their school at the upcoming championships.

“Historically, Chicago has not had a pole vaulter be able to go out and win the UAA title multiple times, and that would be a great accomplishment for our school to finally have someone who has done it,” Bennett said.

He also pointed out that the early placement of the event within the meet would make a win a great catalyst to “get our team rolling” for the rest of the meet. “[T]o be able to see all of our hard work culminate into winning UAAs would be incredible and would be a validation of the hard work we’ve put into the season and the entire year,” Kang said.

The UAA Outdoor Championships will take place tomorrow and Sunday at 10 a.m. on Stagg Field.

COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS

Although the Maroons still have four remaining outdoor meets, this weekend Chicago will have the opportunity to prove its abilities to the rest of the conference at the home UAA Championships.

Already this season, several Maroon athletes have solidified their standings in the conference, such as second-year Michael Bennett, who has gone undefeated so far this year in the pole vault.

“I have been very fortunate so far to have been very consistent in my performances from meet to meet,” Bennett said. “I haven’t had any truly spectacular performances, but I also haven’t crashed and burned yet.”

While some would feel overly anxious with the dual pressures of the conference championships and a perfect season on the line, Bennett was quick to mollify any of those concerns.

“There hasn’t been any real pressure to continue my streak. It has just sort of continued all year,” Bennett said. “I can tell during warm-ups if I’m in good shape to jump well that day, or if I’m in trouble, and that always helps get winning and losing out of my head.”

What may also contribute to his calm mental state is Bennett’s pragmatic approach to the event. “[It’s] more you versus the bar rather than you against all the other competitors,” Bennett said.

On the women’s side, Chicago has performed well in the 4x400–meter relay. So far, the women in this event have had an unblemished record in the month of April and hope to continue their streak this weekend.

First-year Eleanor Kang, who has run in the

Case ends championship hopes

Chicago tops Jays, beat by Cards

Men’s Tennis

Baseball

Third-year Kevin Vollrath clears a hurdle in the steeplechase at the Chicagolands meet in 2013.

Bronagh Daly Maroon Contributor After hoping to use the built-up momentum from their impressive season to gain a strong showing in the first day of the UAA Championships, No. 17 Chicago fell to No. 10 Case in a 7–2 finish yesterday.

As might be expected, the team found it hard to hide its disappointment.

“I am extremely disappointed from today’s match,” second-year Gordon Zhang said. “Personally, I did not come out in doubles, and I let my partner [third-year Ankur Bhargava] and team down at the third doubles position. Instead of potentially going up 2–1 after doubles, we went down 2–1.”

Fourth-year Krishna Ravella expressed similar sentiments.

“Today’s match could have gone better. We all competed hard but fell short,” Ravella said.

Even with this disappointment about the squad’s overall performance, the Maroons didn’t allow it to dampen their pride concerning the several successful matches they had.

“Overall, today was very upsetting, but there were some bright spots with [first-year] Max Hawkins winning both his singles and doubles match with Krishna Ravella. Also, [third-year] Deepak Sabada fought extremely hard but ended up losing in three sets to the number one player in the region,” Zhang said.

Chicago’s only wins came from these matches—Hawkins in No. 6 singles and Hawkins and Ravella in No. 2 doubles.

The rest of the Maroons appeared to feel the same way, even moments after the discouraging loss.

“Obviously it is very disappointing for our

team to lose our first round match again at the conference tournament, but we will bounce back like we always do and finish the tournament strong. We have two more tough matches coming up, and we want to win both our next matches,” Zhang said.

To get these wins, the team is focusing on the aspects of its game it believes it can improve the most in the short time before the second round of the UAA tournament.

“Moving forward, we are going to focus on getting quick starts,” Ravella said. “We’ve had trouble in the beginning of matches, so we need to work on being ready as soon as the first point is played.”

Zhang added his own spin on the needed improvement.

“What I learned from today is that our team continues to dig ourselves in big holes and try to fight back and win. We have to be the ones that come out firing, which will be key to our success in our next two matches,” Zhang said. “Also I learned that our team does not play with enough positive emotion, which we will continue to work on the rest of the tournament.”

The South Siders are looking forward to the remainder of the UAAs with a determined, positive attitude.

“We are focused on winning our next two matches and hopefully taking fifth place in the tournament. We’ve had a few big wins this season and are still ranked in the top 20 in the country, so we want to show that we deserve to be there,” said Ravella.

Although no longer able to win the tournament, Chicago will begin the second round of the UAA Championships with a match against No. 30 Brandeis today at 1 p.m., which will determine the Maroons’ final opponent on Saturday.

Zachary Themer Maroon Contributor With a season that hasn’t followed lofty preseason expectations, the Maroons are looking to end 2014 on a strong note and salvage a thus-far disappointing season.

“It’s been kind of a rough season,” fourth-year pitcher Alex Terry said. “We’re a decent team that has grossly underachieved starting from game one. As a team, we are certainly trying to put these rough games behind us and look ahead to a strong finish. It’s hard to stay positive at times, especially considering our losses are compounded with a lot of injuries.”

While a strong close to the season may be a couple weeks premature, the team did pull together an 8–3 victory over Elmhurst this past Tuesday. For the South Siders, the game was noted by not only an eight-run outburst but also by a solid performance on the mound by third-year pitcher Anthony DeRenzo. In seven innings of impressive work, DeRenzo surrendered only two earned runs, and he had an equally impressive defensive effort behind him that relented only one error in the afternoon.

On the offensive side of things, the Maroons jumped on the Bluejays early as they put together a two-run first inning, bolstered by the efforts of first-year pitcher Thomas Prescott, who contributed an RBI. Later on, the Maroons were able to push their lead to a five-run cushion in the fourth inning, as third-year pitcher Andrew VanWazer and fourth-year outfielders Ricky Troncelliti and Brett Huff all provided RBI singles. For the South Siders, this was enough to close the door on Elmhurst as Chicago finished the day with 14 hits.

Following their convincing victory over Elmhurst

on Tuesday, the Maroons looked to carry momentum from that victory into a matchup against North Central at home on Wednesday. However, the stars did not align for the Maroons, as they dropped a disheartening 5–2 matchup to the Cardinals.

Repeating some of the same themes from their game against Elmhurst, the Maroons were able to conjure impressive showings on the mound and field as Terry surrendered only three runs in the afternoon as pitcher while he was backed by a defense that only relented a single error. However, the team couldn’t put together a similar performance at the plate, as they tallied two runs on five hits and let several run-scoring opportunities slip away, including a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the bottom half of the fourth. Unfortunately, the South Siders weren’t able to spark any offense off this opportunity as they eventually finished the evening with five hits, two hits coming from third-year third baseman Kyle Engel, en route to a disappointing 5–2 defeat.

“In terms of game to game, we just have to remain focused on playing one pitch at a time.

The problem is, one day our pitching will be bad, and the next day we pitch great, but we can’t hit,” Terry said. “Or maybe one day we put those both together [and] we struggle to make routine plays. It really boils down to us putting all the facets of the game together and playing as a team for nine full innings.”

Looking ahead, the Maroons hope to compose an inspired end to their season, as they head into this weekend with a rematch against North Central looming over their heads on Sunday, as well as a doubleheader against Monmouth on Saturday. Last year, the South Siders routed Monmouth by a staggering score of 22–4, an outcome and performance they surely hope to repeat this year.