050112 Chicago Maroon

FRIDAY • MAY 1, 2012

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

ISSUE 42 • VOLUME 123

Senior gift boycott targets U of C investments Ludacris, Neon Indian, Cults to bring variety to Summer Breeze Linda Qiu Deputy News Editor

Fourth-year Michelle Elizabeth Boyd pledges not to donate to the senior gift until the University establishes a socially responsible investment policy.

COURTESY OF JIM DUEHR

Rebecca Guterman News Editor Students for a Socially Responsible Investment Committee (Students for SRIC) made their campaign public yesterday to boycott the senior class gift in protest of the University’s

investment decisions.

The group gathered in Reynolds Club around 1 p.m. to kick off their campaign, making the “Senior Class Gift Withholding Pledge” live online for students to sign. They had 179 signatures by late Monday evening, 71 of

Students win $10K and change Raghav Verma News Staff A student company that will give customers a chance to donate to charity in ordinary business transactions took home over $10,000 in prize money last night, after winning a University competition that challenged students to create a viable and socially conscious business plan that incorporated technology.

CrowdCoin, which was selected from five finalists in the UChicago Social Innovation Competition, plans to install buttons at cash registers that will allow patrons making a purchase to automatically donate to charity.

Once they press the button, their bill will round up to the nearest quarter with one click and nearest dollar with two, donating the difference to charity.

Fourth-year C.J. Martino, who studied financial modeling for CrowdCoin, said that the company would begin to implement the button in local businesses in Hyde Park and have them fully operational by the end

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of the summer.

“We project that we could raise millions of dollars for charity by 2015,” Martino said, adding that data from Hyde Park businesses would be used to show national brands the feasibility of the button. CrowdCoin has also tested the button at charity bake sales and at student-run cafés.

Second-year Matthew Krisiloff said that the idea for the company came out of a desire to eliminate spare change. To study the distribution of change in businesses, Martino said that CrowdCoin had studied a statistical model using data from Starbucks. In addition to Martino and Krisiloff, CrowdCoin is also composed of second-year Achith Murali and third-years Chelsey Rice-Davis, Charles Cary, and Linxi Chang.

The four other finalists, selected from a total of 25 teams, each received $1,000 and will work with alumni to develop their ideas. These projects included developing eco-friendly housing abroad, connecting

Temperatures in Fahrenheit - Courtesy of The Weather Channel

INNOVATE continued on page 3

which are from seniors. This is the campaign’s next step after a referendum for SRIC last year gained student support but did not lead to a policy change.

The pledge begins, "The University of Chicago has provided INVESTMENT continued on page 3

Ludacris, Neon Indian, and Cults will headline this year’s Summer Breeze on May 19 in Hutch Courtyard, the Major Activities Board (MAB) announced this morning.

In contrast to last year’s “dancey” lineup, MAB sought a hip-hop artist as the headliner this year with Ludacris as the first choice, according to fourth-year MAB president Sam Abbott.

“We were lucky we were able to pin him down early. That gave us time to focus on the other two slots,” he said.

“We got to bide our time.”

After securing Ludacris, MAB was also able to procure Neon Indian, their electronica first choice, resulting in an “atypical” year for the board.

Though MAB initially wanted a rock group for the third slot, Abbott is confident that indie pop band Cults will give a good show.

Ludacris will constitute a good chunk of MAB’s budget, but his fame answers a persisting student demand for prominent musical acts, according to Abbott.

“Everyone wants a big name,” he said, “[Ludacris] is the man, and the other bands are gaining more and more name recognition.”

Neon Indian was named one of

Rolling Stone Magazine’s hottest new bands of 2010 and its first album, Psychic Chasms, found a place on Pitchfork’s 2009 Top 20. Cults’ selftitled debut album earned an 8.5 rating on Pitchfork. Both bands played shows at the Metro in Chicago in April and will return for Pitchfork Music Festival and Lollapalooza respectively this summer.

Tickets to this year’s Summer Breeze will be $20, a $5 markup from previous years. However, MAB feels that the cost difference is worth it for the bigger names.

Last year, heavy rain moved Summer Breeze into Mandel Hall and forced MAB to refund 1,000 of 2,200 tickets.

MAB is prepared to make the move indoors again if weather patterns repeat and, as with last year, only the first 1,000 tickets sold will guarantee a seat.

Due to the costs sustained from the 1,200 ticket refunds, MAB inherited a budget that was smaller than usual.

Since Summer Breeze is MAB’s biggest event annually and their top priority, the Fall Show and Winter Comedy Show featured smaller, less expensive acts, Abbott said.

Summer Breeze will also coincide with the NATO summit, which might cause complications such as traffic jams that could result in delays. But, according to Abbott, “the show must go on.”

Earth Week focuses on local sustainability

From left to right, second-years Hannah Loftus, Ben Heller, and Caitlin Grey wait for a free bike tune–up during Earth Fest on Friday afternoon.

LUCIE FAMA | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Lingyi Peng News Contributor Earth Week spruced up University sustainability efforts last week through a number of student activities both on and off campus.

Using Frankenstein, who is made “100% from recycled content,”

for inspiration, the University’s Office of Sustainability made “recreate” the theme of this year’s Earth Week.

“Environmentalists have a reputation of being pretty serious and dour,” said Ilsa Flanagan, director of the Office of Sustainability. “We like to poke a bit of fun at ourselves and use a

horror movie theme every year.”

But beyond simply giving Earth Week a little levity, the horror film theme reflects a serious truth. “What is happening to our planet is a horror story of sorts,” Flanagan said.

On Wednesday, Sustainable Actions for a Green Environment EARTH continued on page 3

IN VIEWPOINTS

IN ARTS

Back to health care basics

Graphic artist’s new exhibit is something to watch out for » Page 6

Taking the road less traveled

When trouble calls, The Receptionist picks up » Page 8

» Page 4 » Page 4

THE THECHICAGO CHICAGOMAROON MAROON| |NEWS NEWS| |April May 27, 1, 2012 2012

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UChicago TED talks find ‘x’ ways to have a revolution Marina Fang Associate News Editor One year after its inaugural conference, the U of C iteration of the prominent TED Talks geared up for “Revolutions” Sunday in Mandel Hall.

TEDxUChicago 2012, the independently organized installation of the worldwide series, centered on the broad theme of “revolutions” with a more eclectic lineup ranging from a nanotech innovator to the CEO of Clif Bar & Company. The conference retained the previous format of four segments of speakers, with each speaker allotted 18 minutes. “[Last year], we received feedback that the diversity in our speakers was lacking,” co-director Tiffany Sommadossi said. “We wanted to make sure they fit the wants and needs of our campus.”

While the organizers were inspired by the recent Arab Spring revolts, the event’s overall message emphasized the role of revolution in all fields.

Mohamed El-Dahshan, a speaker who was personally involved in the Egyptian revolution, noted how the act of revolution transforms the societies which it affects.

“There’s this climate of ‘I have something to share, and I can do it.’ People are expressing themselves really, really loudly,” he said.

Design for America founder Elizabeth Gerber, on the other hand, spoke about revolution in the technological world. “Do it-yourself is over. Design-it-together is the future,” she said.

Business strategist and author Andrea Kates, who emceed the event, echoed how revolution connects almost every aspect of today’s society and drives change. “The new word to have is revolution. The theme

Neuroscience behind Eternal Sunshine has become a reality Jennifer Standish Associate News Editor Neuroscientist and McGill University psycholog y professor Karim Nader guided the audience through the mechanisms behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in his talk about memory modification.

In the late ’90s, Nader hypothesized that memories were unstable and could be modified. His hypothesis was confirmed after laboratory experience, and his work reignited previously tested but forgotten proposals.

Nader went on to show clips from the film, in which the characters undergo the clinical process of “memory modification” in order to forget painful memories associated with their romantic relationships.

When he asked if the audience would do the same—“If you could erase certain memories, would you?”—no one raised their hand.

The lack of enthusiasm didn’t surprise Nader, who acknowledged that memories shape our identity, and instead proposed a

new type of memory reconsolidation. Instead of completely erasing the memory, he “rewires” it, a process that eliminates only the emotional stress associated with a traumatizing memory.

He tested this method on patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 2008 by giving them propranolol, a drug that inhibits the neurotransmitters associated with fear. By having patients recount the traumatic event as vividly as possible, they effectively reignited the strong emotions causing their disorder.

The drug was then able to “rewire” the brain’s response to the memory and block the protein synthesis creating the emotional response.

For one patient who had been raped as a child by her doctor and could not comfortably undress in front of her husband, Nader’s rewiring treatment led her to feel no symptoms of PTSD associated with the rape.

Nader was twice published in the science journal Nature and was named one of Cadwell Partners International’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2006.

of TED is ideas worth spreading, and the theme today is that ideas lead to revolutions,” she said.

The most prominent new addition to the conference was the Tangible Ideas Showcase in McCormick Tribune Lounge, featuring an array of innovative technolog y, ranging from a 3-D printer to a solar powered book.

TEDxUChicago’s organizers even revolutionized their marketing strategy. Inspired by similar TED events, they constructed a large wooden “X” displayed in major campus locations. Marketing co-chair Maria Sol Bernardez Sarria said that they sought a form of publicity more visual than flyers or chalk.

“We wanted something eye-catching on the quad that people would be talking about,” she said.

Last year’s TEDxUChicago featured sev-

eral alumni and University professors and focused on a theme closer to home: “Reinventing the Life of the Mind.”

Attendees observed the efficiency of the event, which its organizers attributed to knowing what to expect the second time around.

“It seemed well organized. We always knew where to go,” said fourth-year Kathy Wroblewska.

Aside from U of C students, TEDxUChicago also attracted Chicago area residents like Jennifer Lien, who learned of the U of C’s conference through attending other TED events. Lien appreciated the program of speakers.

“I liked the categories, the way [the talks] were broken down. They covered a diverse set of topics related to revolution, things that you wouldn’t necessarily think of, like design,” she said.

In biking and business, the journey is the destination Jon Catlin & Stephanie Xiao News Staff “I’m about to become a very rich man,” thought Gary Erickson, the founder and co-CEO of Clif Bar & Company, in the moment before he had to decide whether to sell his company to Quaker Oats.

At the time of the $120 million offer, Clif Bar was a regular on Forbes Magazine’s annual list of the 500 fastest growing companies. Under pressure to sell as other energy bar companies were being absorbed by bigger brands, Erickson initially agreed to the deal.

Uncomfortable with his decision, Erickson remembered a 1986 biking trip he took in the Alps. “I could either take the ‘red roads,’ which were ugly highways, and get to my destination quicker, or take the ‘white roads,’ which were rustic, scenic paths,” Erickson said. “In the end, I chose the white roads and saw some of the most beautiful sights on earth.”

So he decided not to sell. “We could have put Clif Bar on the red road, but I didn’t want to,” Erickson said. “Everyone thought I was crazy. And I really was.”

Clif Bar & Company emerged with a focus on innovation and has since launched 12 new product lines. Employees have logged over 40,000 hours of community service on company time, and are paid to work out in the company gym.

Clif Bar founder Gary Erickson talks about the history of his company and how he decided to keep it in his posession to maintain happiness, instead of only striving for money by selling it.

JOHNNY HUNG | THE CHICAGO MAROON

“Twelve years ago, people said, ‘But you could have done so many things with that money.’ But we can do so much more with the power of our company, our brands, our people,” Erickson said.

In hindsight, Erickson said, keeping his company private made him happy and he

encouraged his listeners to follow suit.

“I didn’t start the journey to end the journey. I started the journey to stay on the journey. So if you ever find yourself being drawn toward a red road and something doesn’t feel right, take a walk around the block. Or a hike. Or a long bike ride.”

International law expert foresees mixed results in Arab Spring’s future Lina Li News Staff

Noah Feldman, Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard University, speaks about the future of Arab Spring countries during the TEDxUChicago conference this past Sunday.

JOHNNY HUNG | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Noah Feldman opened his 18 minutes on stage with an anecdote about the time someone shot at him. He was in Baghdad, accompanied by U.S. occupying forces.

Given the conditions, Feldman defended the aggression of his shooters as “justified.”

The Harvard law professor and New York Times Magazine contributing editor broke down the process of revolution, emphasizing the Arab Spring and the question: “How does a revolution become a reality?”

According to Feldman, a revolution has two stages. First, “disrupt the existing order.” The second part “requires putting in place a new, functional order that is meaningfully and significantly different” from the pre-revolution order. The most common way to ensure the second stage of the revolution is to “shape a new constitutional order to memorialize and institutionalize” what had been accomplished through

stage one, he said.

Feldman emphasized the necessity of bottom-up approaches to stage two, as top-down impositions often fail as a mechanism to introduce enduring change.

Additionally, if only one of the two stages is completed, as observed in U.S. intervention in Iraq, the process either does not qualify as a revolution or only qualifies as a “failed revolution.”

Of the Arab Spring participant countries, Feldman identified Tunisia as the country that had most meaningfully passed through the revolution process.

But he cautioned against optimism in the Arab Spring, saying that many countries have yet to engage citizens in the second stage. It is “much too soon to say that [Arab Spring movements] will succeed,” he said.

Feldman, who studies the juncture between Islam and Western democracy, is a TED veteran. Almost a decade ago, he spoke on the role of politics and religion as technologies to connect and manage people at TED 2003 in Monterey, California.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | May 1, 2012

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Weekend shootings bombard Woodlawn Some say pledge campaign will not affect investments Ben Pokross Associate News Editor One man was killed last weekend in a rash of shootings adjacent to campus in the West Woodlawn neighborhood, though none were within U of C police department (UCPD) jurisdiction.

At 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night, Marlon Monroe, a 21-year-old male, was shot on the 6300 block of South St. Lawrence Avenue, according to Chicago Police Department spokesperson Darryl Baety. He was taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 10:14 p.m, according to the Chicago Tribune.

This is the seventh homicide in the Woodlawn area this year, according to the Chicago Tribune, but none of the shootings occurred in the Hyde Park–South Kenwood neighborhood immediately surrounding the University.

Only 30 minutes after the earlier fatal incident, another shooting occurred on the 6700 block of

South Langley Avenue. The victim, a 16-year-old male, was wounded in the leg and taken to University Medical Center (UCMC), where he is in good condition, according to Baety.

Earlier that evening, at 7:30 p.m, a 22-year-old male was shot after having heard guns go off on the 6500 block of South Langley Avenue. The victim was taken to the UCMC and released later that night, according to Baety.

All three investigations are still ongoing and there is no apparent connection between them.

In the event of a homicide in their territory, UCPD usually defers to the citywide police department because they have more resources to deal with such investigations, according to UCPD spokesperson Robert Mason. However, the shootings this weekend occurred outside of the UCPD patrol area, which runs north–south from 34th Street to 64th Street and east–west from Lake Park Boulevard to Cottage Grove Avenue.

Students innovate to turn change into donations

CrowdCoin members Charles Cary, Linxi Chang, C.J. Martino, Archith Murali, Matthew Krisiloff, and Chelsey Rice-Davis receive $10,000 for winning the UChicago Social Innovation Competition.

JOHNNY HUNG | THE CHICAGO MAROON INNOVATE continued from front

Chinese students with resources to help them learn English so they can study in the U.S., providing a reliable feedback service to measure effectiveness of NGOs, and creating community restaurant partnerships to provide fresh food.

The purpose of the competition was to encourage students to create either a forprofit or non-profit venture. Dillan Siegler, director of Chicago Careers in Public and Social Service and one of the three CAPS organizers of the competition, explained that she was looking for diversity of ideas by involving students from multiple majors

and backgrounds to work together in teams.

“We wanted to see what ideas the best minds could come up with that have positive social impact,” she said.

Addressing all of the finalists before the results were announced, Dean of the College John Boyer said that the competition embodied the values of the University.

“The people who founded the University were innovators, and the people who made this place were innovators,” he said. “It is in the DNA of our university to not only do things differently, but to do things better.”

Students sow the seeds for a sustainable future EARTH continued from front

(SAGE) screened the award-winning documentary Bag It, which examines the hidden dangers that come from our overuse of plastic bags that can harm marine animals and reduce male fertility.

Thursday’s tour of The Plant, an old meatpacking factory shut down in 2007 that is being repurposed as a vertical farm and food-business incubator, gave participants a firsthand look inside a huge re-creation project: the transformation of a rundown factory into a hub of sustainable production and community involvement.

Tour guide Shelby Phillips explained that The Plant was being transformed through aquaponic and hydroponic systems, a shared kitchen for small businesses to rent, and an education center for entrepreneurs.

“We are taking a building in total disrepair and turning it into something very useful,” Phillips said.

The aquaponic system, which mimics the symbiotic relationship of a riverbed to

farm vegetation and fish, and hydroponic system, which grows plants in water, would use a fraction of the water and energ y that normal agricultural techniques would.

“We want to essentially unplug ourselves from the city,” Phillips said.

Back on campus, Earth Week concluded on Friday with Earth Fest, where students took pictures in photo booths while pledging to “avoid bottled water” or “use travel mugs.” Other students planted herbs and took home reusable totes for their groceries.

“We wanted to give students in particular a chance to see that being good to the planet can be as simple as swapping clothes, using bikes and scooters instead of a car, and buying local food,” Flanagan said. “It just takes an awareness of the waste we generate and the intention to live a bit differently.”

Other activities during Earth Week included a workshop focusing on reusing scrap materials and a bike tour of Chicago’s South Side arts scene.

would exceed the Class of 2010’s record high 81 percent participation rate.

“The goal is participation, not a monetary amount,” she said. “Seniors can give anywhere from a dollar to lots, lots, lots more than that, and they have.”

Even though the gift does not affect the endowment, Kearney said the point is to show that students want to be proud of where their money goes, now and in the future. “[The Senior Class Gift] encourages a culture of giving in young alumni,” she said.

“It matters to us as students and it matters to us as future alumni.”

The campaign is not in support of a particular divestment, though the pledge itself cites investments in Arch Coal and HEI Hotels and Resorts, which the pledge says have respectively violated environmental regulations and workers’ rights. The letter also mentions the University historically refusing to divest from companies connected to apartheid in South Africa and the more recent genocide in Darfur.

The Kalven Report, which guides the University’s neutrality on political issues, has often been used to explain these decisions and preclude the University from using its investments to take a political stance.

However, students for SRIC maintain that the campaign is important.

Fourth-year Louis Smith signed the pledge though he is not usually involved in activism on campus. “I find the idea that I indirectly invested in [Arch Coal, HEI, and other companies] offensive,” he said.

Fourth-year Grace Evans added that the prestige of the University should help students when they graduate, but the investment decisions could hurt them in competition with peer institutions. “Our degree from the University gives us a place in society,” she said. “It degrades the value of our degree.”

INVESTMENT continued from front

me the opportunity to grow into the thinker and person I am today...but I also know my University is better than its current investment policy.” Signs and buttons at the event echoed that sentiment, displaying slogans like “I love UChicago too much to give.”

Fourth-year Caitlin Kearney, a primary organizer of the campaign, said that the goal is not to hurt the University—according to Kearney, the Senior Class Gift makes up less than .01 percent of the operating budget, not the endowment—but to send a message. “[Last year], the administration wasn’t as receptive as we hoped they would be,” she said. “Actions speak louder than words. We had to take action that speaks a little bit louder.”

Kearney said the group will continue collecting pledges through graduation and show them to the administration in the hopes that the University will re-evaluate its investment policy.

Because the Senior Class Gift does not affect the money that is actually invested, fourth-year and Senior Gift Committee co-chair Shola Farber pointed out that students can support socially responsible investing while still contributing to the senior class gift.

“These things are not mutually exclusive and in fact, not related,” she said. “It’s possible that people intimately related with SRIC gave to the senior class gift for their own reasons and also take issue with the University’s investment policy.”

Farber also said that since anyone, from first-years to graduate students, can sign the pledge, she suspects the campaign will not have a huge effect on participation. The committee’s goal this year is for 85 percent of seniors to contribute to the class gift, which

Weymouth Kirkland Courtroom University of Chicago Law School 1111 East 60th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637

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The Popular Press and the Law in Pre-Industrial England James C. Oldham St. Thomas More Professor of Law and Legal History, Georgetown University

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VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed MAY 1, 2012

A more perfect union Increased grad presence and participation in SG should encourage undergrads to reach out

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892 JORDAN LARSON Editor-in-Chief SHARAN SHETTY Ediotr-in-Chief COLIN BRADLEY Managing Editor DOUGLAS EVERSON, JR Senior Editor SAM LEVINE Senior Editor HARUNOBU CORYNE News Editor REBECCA GUTERMAN News Editor GIOVANNI WROBEL News Editor EMILY WANG Viewpoints Editor AJAY BATRA Viewpoints Editor CHARNA ALBERT Arts Editor HANNAH GOLD Arts Editor TOMI OBARO Arts Editor DANIEL LEWIS Sports Editor VICENTE FERNANDEZ Sports Editor MATTHEW SCHAEFER Sports Editor BELLA WU Head Designer KEVIN WANG Online Editor ALICE BLACKWOOD Head Copy Editor DON HO Head Copy Editor JEN XIA Head Copy Editor

The Maroon reported last Friday that graduate student participation in Student Government elections rose by 211 percent this year, with graduate students casting 30 percent of the vote. This was also the first time in recent years that more than one candidate ran for the position of graduate student liaison to the Board of Trustees.

This stands in stark contrast to the circumstances two years ago, which saw four different people hold the position during 2010 alone due to high turnover. Given this revitalized interest, graduate students have demonstrated their right to be part of Student Government, and their increased involvement should be embraced, as it can only benefit the University and its students.

Granted, graduate students have some interests that simply do not pertain to undergradu-

ates. Childcare and health benefits, for example, are core concerns for graduates that largely do not involve undergraduates.

However, the prevalence of these unique issues should not deter undergraduates from working in concert with grads on shared causes like transportation and safety. Each graduate school has a representative committee to deal with graduate-specific problems.

Undergraduate concerns that they may have to compete with these unshared goals in SG are thus largely unfounded; rather, they should cooperate with SG’s Graduate Council and the larger graduate community on common initiatives.

Further, Student Government was designed to serve the needs of all University students, not just undergraduates, and is therefore one of the best tools for connecting graduate and undergraduate

students. In addition to being students of the University, graduate students pay a student life fee and are thus financially entitled to have their say in SG affairs.

Moreover, they greatly outnumber undergraduates; there are 10,000 graduate students and only 5,000 undergraduate students. The power of graduates’ sheer numbers gives them the right to voice their concerns in SG, but can also be used to help undergraduates in a number of ways. For one, many graduate students have specialized knowledge in certain areas that are pertinent to some of SG’s current policy concerns. Another reality of SG initiatives and events is that their success is predicated largely on the scale of involvement and interest underpinning them. So even a relatively small amount of support coming from graduates could prove to be the difference

in many cases.

Undergraduates also have a lot to learn from graduate students outside of SG. Many graduates are at vastly different places in their lives than undergraduates; many have families and past careers. Heightened interaction between the two groups could create fruitful relationships, both professional and personal in nature. However, venues for such interaction must first be created through both official and unofficial means. In light of these unprecedented SG elections, there has never been more incentive for undergraduates to do all they can to bridge the divide and reach out to their busy, yet interested, counterparts. The potential benefits are too great to ignore.

The Editorial Board consists of the Editors-in-Chief and the Viewpoints Editors.

JAMIE MANLEY Photo Editor LINDA QIU Deputy News Editor CELIA BEVER Assoc. News Editor MARINA FANG Assoc. News Editor BEN POKROSS Assoc. News Editor MADHU SRIKANTHA Assoc. News Editor

Taking the roads less traveled Undergraduate careerism should not impede personal exploration

JENNIFER STANDISH Assoc. News Editor DAVID KANER Assoc. Viewpoints Editor EMMA BRODER Assoc. Arts Editor ALICE BUCKNELL Assoc. Arts Editor SCOTTY CAMPBELL Assoc. Arts Editor DANIEL RIVERA Assoc. Arts Editor SARAH LANGS Assoc. Sports Editor DEREK TSANG Assoc. Sports Editor JAKE WALERIUS Assoc. Sports Editor SYDNEY COMBS Assoc. Photo Editor TIFFANY TAN Assoc. Photo Editor

By Christopher Ivan Viewpoints Columnist

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The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section are not necessarily those of the Maroon. © 2011 The Chicago Maroon, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Editor-in-Chief Phone: 773.834.1611 Newsroom Phone: 773.702.1403 Business Phone: 773.702.9555 Fax: 773.702.3032 CONTACT News: News@ChicagoMaroon.com Viewpoints: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com Arts: Arts@ChicagoMaroon.com Sports: Sports@ChicagoMaroon.com Photography: Photo@ChicagoMaroon.com Design: Douglas@ChicagoMaroon.com Copy: CopyEditors@ChicagoMaroon.com Advertising: Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com

Four years are not so long as you may think. By now this realization must be hitting the third- and fourth-years with particular force, they whose lives have become moving mosaics of indistinct activity, rushing from fire to fire with a leaky pail, all of it a retrospective blur.

I am a bit older than the average Masters student, weighing in at 27 years young, and the story of my life since my undergraduate days can be summed up as an uninterrupted state of furious liminality. Life is short, says the 27-year-old, without a hint of irony. We have, since old enough to envy, had dangled before us all the great diversity of activities just waiting to be attempted. Music, sports, performance, science, art, fiction, travel, hundreds of distinct cultures and languages, academic disciplines galore—we are in theory offered a palette of options to while away our hours, ideally for pay.

But the steadily mounting pressure to “get serious” and join the grand competition is like a tourniquet on creativity and exploration. Naturally, a question arises: “Well, whose hand is winding that tourniquet?” And in most instances that carry any sort of adult valence, that hand increasingly belongs to you. At any rate, we are taught that we

need to have it all: the meaningful career, the active social life, the accomplishments and sundry skills of the fit and focused, and ample time to practice the pursuits that give us pleasure. Yet we seem to be given a choice between nearmyopic pursuit of the being-ascareer, and sacrificing meaningful careers and social capital to lead better balanced, ostensibly healthier lives.

I tell you true: Unless you plan to take a gap year (or three), you will never again have the time for or access to the breadth and volume of possible pursuits and avenues of academic inquiry you have as an undergraduate.

Rigorous as this school is, careers have an even greater tendency to take the driver’s seat in a person’s life, and resisting that pull often comes at the cost of advancement, or of even landing that job to begin with. Granted, a respected job and a fancy suit are all some people know to expect from their lives, and there are those who have fixed on a delineated conception of what matters to them earlier than most.

For others, though, the gap year is where we live permanently, and worrying about a “career path” is a major cause of anxiety, suggestive of what we are told is our failure to get with the program, our potential “failure to launch.” The logic of career-seeking confines all one’s energies to an illusory single track, and tangential or unrelated pursuits are seen as diversions— certainly not as ends in themselves.

For the person who hasn’t defined for herself a path, the journey itself can become the ongoing and dynamic destination. And, as even the most ardent chasers of prestige and position in the contemporary economy seem to be finding out,

life is never a straight path, and careers are often insecure.

Take, for instance, my own track to the University of Chicago: 4.5 years as an undergraduate at Urbana-Champaign; majors in chemistry and history, with a minor in East Asian language and culture; two years either teaching English abroad or doing various organic agriculture and sustainability internships; two years working as a machinist using outdated industrial equipment, breathing in carbon graphite by the bucketful; and now, an M.A. program at the U of C in the Social Sciences, of all divisions. My CV, as I am forced to conceal from prospective employers, is a litany of personal exploration, the unifying theme being my obsession to find the “right track,” the perfect fit—not just a career but a raison d’être, all while grappling with total disbelief in the possibility of finding real self-worth, of constructing lasting individual meaning with which to motivate a career.

This endless quest to continually reinvent myself in search of the “best possible life” was, of course, an impossible exercise from its inception. It encapsulates a host of logics that work to separate the pursuer from the pursuit, and abstracts goals well out into the firmament, prompting teleological indecisiveness for fear of making the wrong choice and wasting precious years.

Conceiving of success in life as traveling down a very narrow river on the one hand stems from a somewhat fair assessment; for all the talk to the contrary by academic salespeople, it’s a hard, competitive world out there, and we well-rounded types have to compete with people seemingly HAPPINESS continued on page 5

Back to health care basics A trauma center wouldn’t fill pressing South Side health needs

By Maya Fraser Viewpoints Columnist There is no doubt that our health care system is in crisis. Health care is far from efficiently organized, and many are left uninsured or without access to care. This is especially visible on the South Side, where residents have consistently poorer health outcomes and access to health care than those in other parts of the city.

Such health disparities have been the driving force behind many community-organized campaigns by groups such as STOP (Southside Together Organizing for Power) and its youth wing FLY (Fearless Leading by the Youth). These campaigns aim to improve access to care by trying to get the government or the University of Chicago to open new facilities and prevent the closing of pre-existing ones.

The most prominent of these has been the ongoing campaign to get the University to reopen its Level 1 trauma center. The next protest by FLY, a march scheduled for May 12, bears the name “They Don’t Really Care About Us: March Toward a Trauma Center.”

Though we could argue extensively about how much the UniTRAUMA continued on page 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | May 1, 2012

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The prospect of proliferation Iran’s irrational leadership cannot be trusted to maintain a stable, isolated nuclear program in a volatile region Chase Mechanick Viewpoints Contributor Last Friday, the Maroon ran a convincing and insightful op-ed

by Ajay Ravichandran regarding the dangers of war with Iran. One especially persuasive point, among others, was this: If Iran’s leaders are rational enough to be deterred by a conventional strike on its nuclear program, then they ought to be deterred from using nuclear weapons in the first place. I do not wish to take up any argument with Ravichandran’s points, but rather to extend the conversation.

Much of the debate over Iran’s nuclear program centers on whether its leaders can be characterized as “irrational.” But of course Iran’s leaders are irrational! They are responsible for an undeclared proxy war against Israel, have sponsored international terrorism from Argentina to Thailand, and have savagely oppressed their own people. However, insanity comes in degrees, and it is unlikely that

the Iranian regime would be able to survive the wrath of the international community—or even its own generals—if it did something as foolish as use nuclear weapons against another state.

The danger of a nuclear Iran is not that Iran would actually use nuclear weapons, but rather that it would further proliferation in the region.

To Iran’s west, rival powers such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the potentially soon-to-be antiIranian government of Syria may seek their own nuclear deterrent, unsure of Iran’s future intentions.

The same may be said of Iraq, which possessed a nuclear program in the past. A nuclear Iran would also make it politically impossible for Israel to give up its own stockpile. As tensions in the Persian Gulf rise, so might oil prices, since shipping companies and oil conglomerates demand a higher risk premium for doing business in the region. Soothing words by our handsomest political

scientists about nuclear deterrence and the stability-instability paradox are unlikely to assuage these economic actors.

One could make the argument that if the U.S. provides a nuclear shield over Iran’s Arab rivals, it would no longer be necessary for those states to develop their own nuclear weapons. But even if the U.S. took such a course of action today, there is no guarantee that it would commit to it tomorrow.

When one takes into account the United States’ declining power and influence, promises of a longterm nuclear umbrella over the Gulf have little credibility.

An oft-neglected aspect of this discussion concerns the countries to Iran’s east. Pakistan would find itself surrounded on two fronts by nuclear powers, making it more difficult to convince that country (and, therefore, to convince India) to disarm. When Iran’s influence in the Muslim world expanded after the 1979 revolution, it also provoked a

murderous reaction from a slew of bigoted militias in Pakistan, such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, who continue to attack Shiite worshippers. These groups are generally sympathetic to the ideolog y of the Taliban.

Another expansion of Iranian influence today might enrage and embolden these thugs yet again.

Though the debate on Iran has raged furiously for many years now, the risk of nuclear proliferation is especially acute in the post–Arab Spring world. The intervention in Libya would not have been possible had Gaddafi retained his nation’s weapons of mass destruction, and there would not even be a debate on a humanitarian corridor or no-fly zone in Syria if that regime had nuclear weapons. In effect, possession of nuclear weapons immunizes homicidal regimes from external pressure. That is good news to those who oppose the principle of Responsibility to Protect, but bad news for the future victims of the

next state that decides to mow its people down like flowers.

So when we are talking about a nuclear Iran, we are talking about more than just one extra member in the nuclear club. One could of course enumerate even more gloomy scenarios; I do not claim to know the specific chain of events that an Iranian nuclear bomb may set in motion. But this is precisely the point: Any foreign policy that requires one to predict the future is generally an ill-advised one, especially when it comes to this region of the world.

One simply needs to consider the monumental changes that have occurred in the Middle East and South Asia over the past 40, 20, 10, or even five years to appreciate the extent to which this whole affair is a black box. The last thing we should want to add to this chaos is more nuclear weapons.

Chase Mechanick is a fourthyear in the College majoring in political science.

Funding for trauma center would be better spent on tackling health education, disease screenings TRAUMA continued from page 4 versity as an institution is actually committed to helping residents of the South Side, the issue of a trauma center is more complex than the story organizations like FLY would like to tell: that of a rich, immoral university refusing to share its resources with those who suffer around it.

Ultimately, those who campaign for the trauma center overlook the reality of its relative inefficiency in improving the overall health of South Side residents as compared to measures that would improve access to basic health care and preventative measures.

We would like to believe that no price can be put upon a human life. However, in health care this is exactly what we must do; there are limited resources and a great many people in need. In order to maximize the effect of our resources, we have to dispassionately examine how these are utilized and what they accomplish.

There is something difficult to swallow about examining issues that affect people so profoundly in utilitarian terms. After all, every person who needs medical attention is someone’s son or daughter, mother or father, spouse or best friend. Damian Turner, one of the founders of FLY who died after

being shot and taken to the Northwestern trauma center, is just one example. How is it fair for the University to tell his mother that it would have been too expensive for him to live?

This feeling of injustice is strengthened by the fact that there are so many people whose fates are not determined by how much the medical establishment is willing to pay. The University abounds with the wealthy and the well-insured. I have always been able to get the health care that I need, and that is an ability that many on the South Side go without.

Unfortunately, we are stuck within the bounds of an often unjust and dysfunctional system. There are not enough resources, and those resources are not allocated equally. Part of the problem that we see in the case of trauma centers is that private institutions (like the University) are being asked to fill the gap where our public health care system has failed. Repairing the disorganized state of the American medical system is far in the future, if it is to happen at all. At present, we must concentrate upon the resources that are available and how to best use them.

This is where community activists seem to lose track of wider health issues and be-

Balancing the “carrot” of career success with unrelated interests is a worthwhile pursuit HAPPINESS continued from page 4 at peace with pouring every iota of thought and effort into a single, distant goal. If your expectations for yourself are as high as the sky—and we would probably not be here were that not the case—then your sense of what constitutes a worthwhile way to make a living is likely the sort of thing that will take years to develop.

On the other hand, there must be some way to hold up the perpetual carrot, to lead ourselves to “career satisfaction” (how stilted is the language of careerism!) while still pursuing sundry unrelated interests and activities regardless of our age or circumstances. I may be a thoroughly confused 27-year-old with hardly any sense of direction or of what career I’d most enjoy (or least despise), but I learned how to do

come too caught up in the symbolic value of a trauma center. It is debatable what should be done from a moral standpoint; however, as a private entity concerned primarily with academics and other institutional interests, the University is only going to invest a certain amount of money in improving the health of the neighborhoods that surround it. Knowing this, community and University leaders must decide whether an expensive trauma center is really the most effective way of using this finite amount of money.

The South Side has many other pressing health issues that are cheaper to address and affect more people than those that would be affected by the presence of a Level 1 trauma center. Community leaders should be calling for smaller, publicly visible, and focused programs that are both more likely to gain University funding and improve health in the long term.

In a survey published by the Chicago Department of Public Health, Woodlawn, the neighborhood just south of the University, rated poorly in six of the nine behavioral risk measures examined, including rates of smoking, exercise, and health care coverage.

There were also higher-than-average rates of low infant birth weight, mothers receiving no prenatal care, and teen pregnancy. In

aggregate, these risk factors have a dramatic effect: Life expectancy can be as much as 15 years shorter for those who live on the South Side than for those in predominantly white, middle-class areas of the city.

What we see here is unequal access to health care on a massive scale. These systemic problems cannot be solved by the creation of an expensive trauma center that would address only a small segment of the health needs of the South Side. The closure of the Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic is an example of an alternative issue brought forth by activists that the University could have addressed in order to impact health care access within the community.

If community leaders and the University are serious about improving the health of residents of the South Side, then the millions it would cost to maintain a trauma center could be better spent on muchneeded but less dramatic measures, such as health education, disease screening, vaccinations, and care for children. The lack of a Level 1 trauma center on the South Side is deplorable, but the lack of access to basic care is a far more pressing issue.

Maya Fraser is a second-year in the College majoring in sociology.

The Viewpoints Editors

a front handspring the other day, and that makes me absurdly happy.

Given the job market for heavily indebted college graduates these days, finding a meaningful career may be a long time coming indeed, so attaining joy and meaning at every opportunity becomes less a privileged position and more a necessary condition for maintaining sanity throughout life. Though there may be no clear sense of where it’s all headed, existence is ultimately a collection of finite moments, and career paths no more than mental constructs. It behooves us to enjoy whatever we can, whenever we can—no matter which trail, no matter what length.

The Chicago Maroon welcomes opinions and responses from its readers. Send op-ed submissions and letters to: Viewpoints@chicagomaroon.com

Christopher Ivan is a graduate student in the MAPSS program.

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.

want your words.

ARTS

Trivial Pursuits MAY 1, 2012

Graphic artist’s new exhibit is something to watch out for Arman Sayani Arts Contributor Alison Bechdel, the subject of a Center for Gender and Race Studies retrospective entitled Fevered Archives: 30 Years of Comics from the Not So Mixed Up Files of Alison Bechdel, has been a cartoonist for close to thirty years.

Twenty-five of those years were spent writing and illustrating the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, a witty, sardonic examination of the daily lives of a group of lesbians that has proved influential in the cartoon genre.

FEVERED ARCHIVES Center for Gender and Race Studies Through May 18

Bechdel has also published two graphic memoirs. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic revisits Bechdel’s childhood, while the more recent Are You My Mother? is an exploration of the thorny relationship between Bechdel and her mother after Bechdel came out at age 19. Besides earning a legion of devoted fans, Bechdel’s work has received widespread recognition among the literati.

Time magazine, for example, named Fun Home the best book of 2006, while publications like Slate, McSweeney’s, Granta and The New York Times Book Review have all featured her illustrations.

In addition to writing, illustrating, and generally sallying forth as an unstoppable force in the comics industry, Bechdel is also

one of the University’s Mellon Residential Fellows for Arts Practice and Scholarship this quarter. The Center’s Fevered Archives retrospective successfully captures the intimate, almost childlike nature of her method, which pragmatically marries content, space, and organization.

The Center itself appears to have been modeled on a suburban townhouse, complete with narrow hallways, mini vestibules, and a partially carpeted set of stairs. This setting actualizes the idea of “home,” or a lack thereof, a prominent theme in the majority of Bechdel’s tragi-comics. An introductory text panel establishes that the goal of the exhibit is to “collect examples of Bechdel’s work from her early days hand-peddling cartoon postcards and drawing graphics for queer community organizations, to her more recent success as a graphic memoirist.”

This journey from casual, part-time illustrator to full-time memoirist is represented cleverly along the sides of the walls leading up the staircase. The arrangement is chronological, beginning with select pieces from the seminal Dykes to Watch Out For and leading up to more focused, personal illustrations from Fun Home. These are accompanied by archival materials, like the topographical maps and newspaper clippings that Bechdel relies on for reference.

The exhibit concludes with never-beforeseen excerpts from Are You My Mother?

While the chronology makes bold demarcations between Bechdel’s individual works, there appears to be little correlation or continuous narrative between the pieces.

The curator instead selects works aimed at

Alison Bechdel throws herself into everything she does, including this drawing.

COURTESY OF ARMAN SAYANI

highlighting either specific ideas or exemplary illustrative techniques. While this does complicate the process of understanding the themes and ideas of each work as a coherent whole, it nevertheless provides a fascinating insight into Bechdel’s sources of inspiration and provokes an appreciation for her technical pizzazz. Her influences range from Sam Cooke, whose jaunty “Wonderful World” lyrics are used by Bechdel to highlight growing political pretension among the pseudopatriotic members of the post-9/11 American public, to the English psychoanalyst Donald Winniscott, whose writings serve as the “organizing principle” for Are You My Mother?

A cursory glance at Bechdel’s work makes it evident that she is a voracious reader, a habit she traces back to her father, who introduced her to the works of Fitzgerald and Proust, among others, at a young age.

In an interview with Hillary Chute, the Professor with whom Bechdel is teaching her Lines of Transmission class, the author was asked why she chose to write Fun Home and later, Are You My Mother? in comic rather than novel form. She said that illustration aided the process of shifting back and forth in time and perspective, giving the entire work a cinematic quality and making the transitions BECHDEL continued on page 8

Mediocre production can’t compensate for Teseo’s dull plot John Lisovsky Arts Contributor George Frideric Handel (16851759) was a prolific composer in an age of prolific composers, and in recent years, his works for the stage (42 altogether, though some have been lost) have enjoyed a renaissance. Teseo is already the fifth work performed around the world this season and the second in Chicago, after Rinaldo appeared in March at the Chicago Lyric Opera.

Handel’s works are almost without exception opere serie—stately, aristocratic, highly stylized operas, which, by the end of the composer’s lifetime, had fallen out of fashion. The most shocking feature of his stage works is his use of the soprano voice part for traditionally male roles. Originally portrayed by castrati (castrated men with uniquely high voices who have understandably gone out of vogue), today they are interpreted either by countertenors (males capable of singing in higher registers) or by women in men’s clothing, following the logic that “elevated” persons ought to have “elevated” voices. Although this aspect of the genre becomes less odd with time and exposure, it never manages to transcend its context within and in the service of l’ancien régime.

Teseo suffers from a poorly constructed plot, a stark contrast to the composer’s usual formal writing. Its summary requires a lengthy preface explaining the Greek

mythological origins of the characters, like the sorceress Medea, and a subplot involving two servants trying to find love proves to be of little interest. With no significant obstacle or conflict, Handel futilely asks us to sit through number after number of what is an almost ostentatiously uninteresting romance. Despite these plotbased problems, the music, though quickly composed in late 1712, deviates uncharacteristically from his typically strict style.

TESEO Chicago Opera Theater Through May 2

A bloody denouement for Handel’s stiff, unimaginative Teseo at the Chicago Opera Theater.

One large question in every production of a late Baroque opera is whether the roles originally written for castrati will be sung by counter-tenors, who generally have softer voices, or by women, who can sing parts in the soprano and alto ranges with considerably more force. Chicago Opera Theater’s production of Teseo dispensed with the composer’s lone bass role, leaving a somewhat treble-heavy cast made up of four women and two countertenors; the lowest voice part is an alto. This odd casting may help explain the work’s obscurity, since the vocal writing, though inventive, tends to blend together, the voices too similar to stand out from the group.

A French Baroque set coupled

COURTESY OF CHICAGO OPERA THEATER

with a reliance on period instruments conveys a strong sense of place, though the feature that dominates the set is a series of swiveling panels representing doors. The 22-member ensemble includes two harpsichords, a baroque guitar, and a theorbo, a type of lute.

Apart from the principal oboist’s uneven playing—an instrument that the composer, unfortunately in this case, featured prominently—the orchestra, led by harpsichordist Michael Beattie, was still strong. Despite some sloppy violin during Medea’s incantation scene, the playing was relatively tight— though any orchestra in Chicago has the misfortune of inviting com-

parison to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, considered the city’s most talented ensemble. Although a few instrumentalists appeared noticeably tired toward the end of the opera, this did not affect their effective support of the soloists.

Leon Schelhase’s harpsichord performance (which, as is the norm in Baroque opera, continued without break from downbeat to curtain) is particularly marked for its clarity and tasteful ornamentation.

Cecelia Hall, playing Teseo, the impotent king’s long-lost son, is the only cross-dressing performer; countertenors sing both the king and the valet’s parts, with good technique but small voices. Hall

and Manuela Bisceglie, who portrays Agilea, Teseo’s bride-to-be, were the strongest vocalists in the cast, handling the vocal agility that Handel demands with assured ease. Deanna Breiwick, portraying Agilea’s lady-in-waiting, had a fine voice despite moments of breathiness, achieving a clean high D in the third act, an accomplishment for any soprano.

Because Teseo is not one of Handel’s more famous or revered works, its production won’t naturally spark the acclaim one might expect from his Messiah. Given the plot’s limitations, the Chicago Opera Theater’s is a valiant if imperfect effort.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | May 1, 2012

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Singer-songwriter shares thoughts on literary namesake, musical influences England especially. Something about that audience and how they listen to music connects with the kind of songs I write, which are very narrative and lyric-oriented.

sical relationship with Bon Iver.

Chicago Maroon: What has your touring schedule been like since the release of Young Man in America?

Anaïs Mitchell: It’s been great!

The record came out at the end of February and it’s been a busy spring, mostly rolling around with my little band, The Young Man Band. There’s four of us all together, including my husband, my friend Rachel Ries (who’s also a songwriter, we made a record together at one point), and our friend Ben Davis. Right now we’re on tour with Ben’s other band, Cuddle Magic, who opens the show, and then a bunch of its members sit in with us for our set. We did the East Coast and California, and then this Midwest run is our last set of performances in the states for this tour. Then we’re going over to Germany and England.

Folk singer Anaïs Mitchell released her album Young Man in America this past February.

COURTESY OF LILY GORDON

Lily Gordon Arts Staff Anaïs Mitchell played an intimate set to a full house at the S.P.A.C.E. Theater in Evanston last Saturday night. The native Vermonter took the stage in a black miniskirt, tights, and laceup boots—but it was her lyrics and personality that shined most, not her chic style.

The singer-songwriter, who released her first album, The Song They Sang…When Rome Fell, in 2002, has released four more albums and an EP since her debut.

She released the album Young Man in America in February on her own label, Wilderland Records, after having released her three previous recordings on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. Young Man in America is Mitchell’s first

album since 2010’s Hadestown, a folk opera based on the Ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. With her recent standout endeavors, the folk singer-songwriter has been steadily gaining recognition in America.

Before the show at S.P.A.C.E., the Maroon had the chance to chat with Mitchell, discussing Young Man in America, the progression of her career, and her mu-

Love among the nuptial ruins Alexandra McInnis Arts Staff If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in the aftermath of an ugly divorce, the Salomee Speelt incarnation of author Marguerite Duras’s play La Musica, translated from the original French by Alice Austen, will be able to satisfy your morbid curiosities. Directed by Noemi Schlosser, the play pointedly conveys the complex, acute pain associated with broken vows and the disappointment of marriage.

LA MUSICA Alliance Française Through May 12

La Musica is the tale of a separated couple who meet by chance on the eve of their divorce in the lobby of the hotel where they once lived together. Here the former husband and wife, simply named Him ( John Gray) and Her (Elizabeth Laidlaw), unpack their memories, both happy and hellish, of their time together. Jealousies and infidelities are revealed as the couple realizes that no matter how deep their passion for each other once was, their individual emotional weaknesses doomed their marriage from the start.

Noemi Schlosser, the director of La Musica, understands well the palpable chemistry two actors can create onstage—it’s a phenomenon no amount of film editing could mimic. Her staging shows her grasp of her art form’s singular strength. The play is performed in the salon of the Alliance Française, with the audience seated on opposite sides of a space between a grand

piano and a cluster of velvet couches. As the actors move around, watching their pained conversation can feel awkward and intrusive, as if you’re eavesdropping on a private dispute. At times, the tension grows so heated that you feel it’s improper to even look at the couple.

The extreme intimacy of the setting may have been Schlosser’s objective, but the specific blocking is at times a serious imposition on the viewers. When a stage is directly in front of the audience, it is easy to focus your vision on the actors and become completely absorbed in a play. However, when half of the audience is directly facing you in a small setting, it is difficult to focus fully on the play. It becomes distracting to have to constantly crane your head as actors move from left to right, and it is hard to see one actor’s response to the other’s words when they are standing on opposite sides of the stage.

Elizabeth Laidlaw and John Gray give subtle performances, which could be due to the fact that there’s no need to overact when the audience is within spitting distance. Their interactions are characterized by weird juxtapositions as their exchanges oscillate from giddiness to passive aggression to near hatred, which makes the play that much more emotionally potent. Laidlaw channels sarcasm and remorse well.

Gray’s constant deadpan demeanor is also striking. At one point, he tells his ex of his former desire to kill her; at another, he tenderly strokes her arm as he tells her to va se faire foutre (a rather unsavory insult, pardon his French). Their dynamic is a strange but convincing portrayal of two people who can’t seem to get over each other, yet are clearly ill-matched. It’s a heartbreaking hour, in which you watch as a couple’s destroyed relationship crumbles even more.

CM: With the release of Young Man in America, it seems like more people than ever are really responding to your music. Can you explain the progression of your career?

AM: It’s been very steady, and slow! It feels very organic; each record reaches a few more people.

My first record came out on a little collector’s record label in Chicago called Waterbug Records. Then my next album came out with Righteous Babe, Ani DiFranco’s label, and it was great to be on that label for three records and to get to tour with Ani. I felt like I was in the “ocean” of independent artists; it was really nice to have a little raft to ride on and be a part of that family. Then I recorded the opera Hadestown. It has many different beautiful guest singers, some with a lot of fans, singing the roles of the characters. Getting to meet Justin [Vernon, of Bon Iver], touring with him, and working with him on that record was another step forward. And then Young Man in America we actually put out ourselves—started the record label, made a rubber stamp with the record label logo on it, and that’s been really cool. It seemed like the right time to do that.

CM: Has anything changed from previous tours?

AM: Having a band is definitely a new thing for me. I’ve often toured solo or toured with one accompanist but this is really like rolling around the country in a van with my friends, so that’s quite different. I’m most excited right now about the songs that we’re really fleshing out with different instruments.

CM: Are you excited for the concerts abroad?

AM: Totally. I love playing in

CM: Bon Iver has been performMITCHELL continued on page 8

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | May 1, 2012

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When trouble calls, The Receptionist picks up Anna Hill Arts Staff Illuminated by a single spotlight, a trembling woman weeps with the knowledge that painful torture looms in her future—for a performance that begins with jokes and clever parodies, The Receptionist takes a morbid turn. Friday night’s audience at Steep Theatre had award-winning playwright Adam Bock to thank as they exited the tiny auditorium feeling a bit confused as to what exactly had just taken place before them. However, despite the show’s sudden, jarring transition from amusing, over-the-top comedy to intense drama, it is nevertheless smartly written and skillfully performed.

THE RECEPTIONIST Steep Theatre Through May 19

The production, directed by Steep Artistic Associate Joanie Schultz, cleverly portrays the follies of a traditional cubicle-filled office through the outlandish exploits of its receptionist, Beverly (Cheryl Roy) and her young female co-worker, Lorraine (Caroline Neff ). An incessantly ringing phone and Beverly’s warbling greeting punctuate conversations loaded with gossip about friends, pens, narcissistic lovers, and teacups. But the entrance of Mr. Dart (Peter Moore), a charming visitor from the Central Office, catalyzes a cascade of events that are at one moment flirtatious, at another sinister. Uneasiness seeps into the office scene as the audience learns that the seemingly normal workplace is in fact involved in an intelligence operation that seeks to extract information

from “dangerous” individuals in order to prevent them from committing crimes beforehand. Upon learning that Mr. Raymond (Peter Esposito), the office boss, has vanished, a state of chaos ensues that continues through the end of the performance. The final, arresting scene, a culmination of this intense chaos, is as puzzling as it is somber.

Though the story itself is clever and its development well-crafted and engaging, the most powerful aspect of the play is the performers themselves.

Cheryl Roy, the standout cast member, embodies the chirpy-chatty role of front-desk receptionist with fantastic accuracy and humor. Deftly keeping the audience in continuous fits of laughter for the first half of the production, she shifts seamlessly into the more serious mood of the second half, confidently leading everyone—both the cast and the audience—along with her. Though the rest of the four-person ensemble displays impressive skill, Roy most certainly steals the show.

Stephen Harold Carmody’s perfectly designed set is a consummate backdrop for a performance most memorable for its witty accuracy. The framed picture of Mount Rushmore, the coffee table, the inspirational quotes plastered across an almost maddening expanse of beige, and all the gossip and nit-picking within—everything perfectly evokes the stereotypical office space. The precision of the resulting tableau is hilarious for its almost unsettling reality.

The Receptionist offers a strong cast of characters and images that prove undeniably entertaining, if not particularly fluid. Though the story feels a bit disjointed, and the transition from amusing to tense a bit too abrupt, the individual talents that make up the whole are certainly laudable. And although this production’s starkness was not quite enough to make me a follower of the theater company, the Steep’s refreshingly intimate atmosphere, hard to find among the bigger, better-known theater companies, will certainly be a draw.

Mr. Raymond won’t be in today; he’s been abducted by the government.

COURTESY OF STEEP THEATRE COMPANY

Exhibit displays Mitchell finds inspiration on the road and between the pages MITCHELL continued from page 7 label. When I was signed to her la- my car on Interstate 95 on the it felt cool to be able to fold some Bechdel’s most ing one of your songs, “Coming bel, I thought, “How is this hap- East Coast and that stanza came— of those old images into these personal work Down,” on their recent tour, and pening?” I think she’s a woman “My mother gave a mighty shout songs and make them more conBECHDEL continued from page 6 appear as visual realities to her readers. The illustrations themselves are sharp, emotive, and endowed with physical and emotional verisimilitude. They highlight Bechdel’s desire to use her characters and settings as vessels of communication between herself and her readers.

The exhibition concludes on the third floor in what appears to be the nucleus of the exhibit, the Artist’s Salon. This condensed space, adorned with refreshingly out-of-place, retro-futuristic furnishings, contains the majority of Bechdel’s early preprofessional work. This includes handwritten notes, personal copies of books, and self-designed T-shirts for female-only organizations that she was part of while at college.

“Self-Portrait” is one of the more compelling pieces out of these works, and occupies a portion of one of the room’s walls.

Composed of India ink, markers, colored pencils, and “collage elements on crappy paper,” the work, divided into nine panels, charts the artist’s journey from her “selfportrait”—the environment that she constructs within her depressed subconscious—to “fantastic,” the result of her gradual and cathartic release from this depression. “SelfPortrait” is certainly the rawest and most intimate of all the works housed in the exhibit—it captures clearly and beautifully how Bechdel’s work has evolved over the course of her illustrious career.

Justin Vernon sang the part of Orpheus in Hadestown. How did all of this happen and do you like the cover they’ve been performing?

AM: Oh my god, I love it! When I heard it I was like, “I never want to sing this song again.” It was so beautiful and such an honor. The way I first met those guys was pretty rare. They had put out their first record, and they just reached out to see if I wanted to open up a tour for them in Europe. We hadn’t met before; they had just gotten a hold of one of my early records and were into the songs. It was a tremendous and random act of kindness from the universe. So when I heard him sing I thought, “This guy has to be Orpheus,” and Justin said he would do it. I feel really lucky to have gotten to know Bon Iver and witness them take off after the release of For Emma, Forever Ago.

CM: You mentioned your association with Ani DiFranco. Can you talk a little more about that?

AM: I came of musical age listening to her music, and I don’t know if I would have picked up a guitar if it weren’t for her. She performed “to us” and “for us” in such a direct way. She really opened the door for a new kind of expressiveness in women, as well as in songwriting in general. When I heard her music, I thought, “This is what I want to do.” I was playing a show in Buffalo and the promoter happened to be her childhood guitar teacher. He invited her out, and she came with others from her

of integrity and also really kind, sweet, and smart.

CM: The Philadelphia Inquirer and other publications have said that Hadestown evoked Brecht/ Weills. Your new album, Young Man in America, is also quite serious. Do you always gravitate towards darker compositions?

AM: It’s funny, a lot of my songs end up being very sad or have this darkness to them that isn’t part of my life; I am a pretty happy person! I don’t know if I’m attracted to tragic stories and themes because it’s kind of a way of exorcising those things from my life, or if it’s like a vitamin supplement that provides what I am not getting in my life—tragedy! I love to cry, I like to be moved by music and by movies, and I like the extremes of emotion that you can feel just vicariously through art. When I feel like writing, like pursuing an idea, it is because there is something uncomfortable about it, a hole that I want to explore, a dark cave. I used to set out to write a song with almost a plan, like I would think, “I would like to write a song about a certain subject.” Nowadays, I’m so fascinated by the process and feeling your way poetically and putting one foot in front of the other.

I just really like to get in there and see where it goes.

CM: Why did you write the song “Young Man in America”?

AM: Well, the first stanza came out of nowhere. I was driving in

/ Opened her legs and let me out / Hungry as a prairie dog/ Young man in America.” It was like a birth announcement—the young man had announced himself. It was inspired by feelings in my own life, people I knew and people I was close to. It reflects a feeling about this country and some of the stuff we’re facing : a feeling of abandonment, not knowing if we’re going to be taken care of by the government, by the economy, by the community. The character became kind of an avatar, expressing things I wanted to say but wouldn’t be able to if I were the speaker in the song.

CM: Was the song partly inspired by some of your own feelings? Are you a “young man in America,” or are you just describing one?

AM: Yeah, I think there’s a little “young man” in all of us. Being able to dress up in those clothes [as a male character] made me feel freer to express feelings that, if it were me, Anaïs Mitchell, expressing, maybe I would feel silly, or the songs would feel more confessional and less like stories in their own way. I also listened to a lot of British folk music during the making of this record, and I know that a lot of that language found its way into the songs. This idea in “Young Man in America” of a black and roving eye is thousands of years old, but we still know what it means today and get a really visceral feeling from that. So

temporary.

CM: I’ve read that you grew up reading Anaïs Nin? AM: Yeah, I am named after her. I probably came to her books younger than I would have otherwise, because I was so curious: “Who is this woman I am named after?” I didn’t read a lot of the novels, but I read the diaries and her erotica too. And Henry Miller, I got really into him. I read Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn; there’s nothing like it. He’s brilliant.

CM: What was your experience growing up in rural Vermont and how has it influenced your music?

AM: My parents were full-on hippies. They were part of this “back-to-the-land movement.”

They were transplants to Vermont; they both grew up elsewhere and bought this farm in the late ’70s.

It’s pretty rural: We didn’t have TV; the neighbors were a couple miles away. In Vermont, you have to be comfortable with isolation and make your own fun! My brother and I spent a lot of time running around in the woods making up games and stuff, and it was a very imaginative place to grow up. But my dad ended up teaching at Middlebury College, which was not far away, so there was always this access to traveling professors and artists. I definitely felt a sense of freedom. I feel lucky that the idea that I could make a life in songwriting was encouraged.

09

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | May 1, 2012

EUREKA! Maroons find stroke against Red Devils Baseball Sarah Langs Associate Sports Editor The South Siders had their ‘Eureka!’ moment this weekend. What discovery prompted this cry of joy? As their season wraps up, they seem to have cemented the formula for wins on the road. The Maroons (22–11) swept a Saturday doubleheader at Eureka (10–27), winning 8–1 in the first game and 16–5 in the second.

The theme of the weekend was superb pitching combined with timely hitting.

With these two strengths operating at the same time, Chicago was sure to return home victorious. “We’ve been playing well lately, and after the wins against Eureka, we’ve put ourselves in a good position to continue playing past the regular season,� first-year infielder Kyle Engel said.

But the season isn’t quite over yet. The Maroons have four games left. However, they are certain to finish with a .500 record, a fact that was not set in stone early in the year. This team has certainly gained strength as they’ve played together more.

Second-year starter Claude Lockhart (6–1) turned in a quality start in the first game for his sixth win, going 6.2 innings while surrendering only an unearned run.

He struck out nine Red Devils.

Chicago’s offense took advantage of a weak Eureka pitching staff, amassing 11 hits and eight runs. Their biggest offensive outburst of the game came in the top of the fifth. Though aided by a hit batsman and two wild pitches, the inning certainly belonged to the Maroons’ offense. Secondyear first baseman and outfielder Brett Huff provided power for the frame, blasting a three-run home run. It was his

second of the season. “Claude [Lockhart] pitched well, the defense made plays when we needed it to, and we hit well,� third-year infielder J.R. Lopez said.

The same energy carried over into the second game. The pitching was not quite as clean, as second-year starter Alex Garcia went only 3.1 innings. But he only gave up three earned runs, and fell victim to the Maroons’ sometimes-faulty defense, which led to an additional two runs during his time pitching. The bullpen backed him up though, with third-year Matt O’Connor and second-year Chris Warren both finishing off the game without yielding another run.

If the 11 hits and eight runs in the first game seemed like a lot, there probably aren’t words to describe the South Siders’ offensive showing in the second game.

Twenty hits led to 16 runs. Every player in the starting lineup, except the pitcher, had at least one hit.

Their two biggest innings were the top of the third and the top of the fifth. In the third, the Maroons’ power streak struck again. This time, the player feeling homerhappy was second-year outfielder Ricky Troncelliti. He blasted his third homer of the season for two runs.

In the fifth, the Maroons scored eight runs on eight hits without any home runs: timely hitting at its best. They also took advantage of two Red Devil errors.

Three members of the team had particularly impressive performances in the second game. Lopez went 4–5, Huff went 4–4, and third-year infielder Steven Schwabe went 4–5. Together, these three accounted for 12 of the Maroons’ 20 hits. “Our hitting did outstanding. Every hitter up and down the lineup had a good approach

Third-year J.R. Lopez swings at bat against Benedictine on Stagg Field earlier this season.

SYDNEY COMBS | THE CHICAGO MAROON

at the plate,� Lopez said.

For Chicago, it felt like everything was finally working together at the same time. “Our pitching has been stellar this whole year, and the games against Eureka were no exception. Our pitching has been what is keeping us in games, and against Eureka, we were also able to get our offense going, which contributed greatly to our wins,�

Engel said.

The Maroons play two of their remaining four games this week. This afternoon, they

will take on North Central (19–14). The two teams met on April 18 in Naperville, when Chicago won 12–7. On Wednesday, the squad will match up against Rockford (20–14). “We’re looking forward to continuing to play well against North Central and Rockford,� Engel said.

First pitch this afternoon is scheduled for 3 p.m. at J. Kyle Anderson Field. The game against Rockford will be in the same place at the same time tomorrow.

Mourning and Violence: The Social and Political Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS

Wednesday, May 2, 6pm-8pm HIV/AIDS has devastated low-wealth communities and people of color.

This raises thorny questions: What should anti-racist and anti-classist HIV prevention and advocacy look like? How do we expand our conceptual frameworks of risk to account for the broader psychosocial determinants of health and illness? What hope is there for an HIV/AIDS-free generation in a culture that often overlooks the systemic disparities that are at the root of much human suffering? Join us in open dialogue led by University of Chicago’s Matt Richards and Center on Halsted’s Kimberly Fisher on these and other questions.

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10

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | May 1, 2012

Second-game assault salvages split at Carthage Softball Derek Tsang Associate Sports Editor Unearned runs may be worth the same as their unqualified brethren, but they change the complexion of a game. The Maroons learned that lesson the hard way on Sunday as they allowed five unearned runs in the first game of a doubleheader.

Chicago (23–9) gave its first game away against #19 Carthage College (32–6) with a flurry of ill-timed errors. Still, it almost took it back with a dramatic seventh-inning rally, ultimately falling 5–4.

The Maroons stayed aggressive throughout the nightcap, though, to earn a 7–3 win in their third-to-last game of the year.

“Our defensive play was uncharacteristic of our team,” head coach Ruth Kmak said about the first game. “They hit the ball hard and we didn’t make the plays we needed.”

Calamity struck in the bottom of the first inning in game one, with two runners reaching on errors for two runs. Fourth-

Li: “We were very prepared for the tournament”

year Liz Payonk put the Maroons back within one with her team-leading fifth home run of the season, a solo shot in the second inning, but the Maroons couldn’t string together any offense. They left a runner stranded on base in each of the next four innings.

By the time the South Siders’ offense stirred, the Lady Reds had made the score 5–1, with an error extending the fifth inning by an extra out and allowing three runners to score. Third-year Kim Cygan (13–4) took the loss, even as she allowed no earned runs on eight hits. Catcher Zoe Oliver-Grey, Payonk, and third-year Samantha Hobson did their best to carry the offense, getting two hits each out of the Maroons’ eight.

Timely hitting and characteristically aggressive baserunning almost turned the game around, as the Maroons rattled off three straight hits and had two runners reach on fielder’s choices with one out.

However, Krystina Leazer (22–3) retired the away side’s final batter with the tying

and go-ahead runs in scoring position.

Kmak called Chicago’s rally “fantastic,” attributing the team’s more successful second game to the added momentum.

“We took the momentum from the final inning of the first game and carried it into the second game,” Kmak said, “in the aggressive, team-style hitting offense that is effective for us.”

However, the Maroons were slow to start again in the second game as Carthage knocked in two runs off of first-year Emily Ashbridge in the second inning, and the Maroons left the bases loaded in the third.

But an RBI single from second-year Maddie McManus and a hard-hit single to left field by Oliver-Grey tied the game in the fourth, as Chicago took the lead on a Payonk single to center field in the top of the fifth. Refusing to rest with the lead, its offense exploded in the sixth, as fourth-year Julia Schneider emptied the bases with a three-RBI double as part of a four-run inning.

Along with Ashbridge, first-year

Tabbetha Bohac and fourth-year Sarah Neuhaus combined to hold Carthage to three runs, two of them earned. Neuhaus (8–4) earned the win with four innings of three-hit ball.

The Maroons return home Tuesday for Senior Day against North Central with their playoff position still up in the air; they will have to wait for conference play to boil down before receiving a decision from the NCAAs selection committee on Monday.

Stagg Field will say goodbye to three fourth-years and key contributors: Neuhaus, Payonk, and Schneider.

“We will celebrate three wonderful careers, on and off the field,” said Kmak of her fourth-years. “We need to go out fighting, playing our best in hopes of a postseason bid.”

Because of scheduling conflicts, the Maroons’ doubleheader against Alma, which was planned for Sunday, was cancelled, and the Carthage fixture moved from Saturday to Sunday.

The Oriental Institute Members’ Lecture Series Presents:

W. TENNIS continued from back

defeated their opponents 9–7, fourthyear Jennifer Kung and third-year Linden Li won with a score of 8–5, and the firstyear duo of Kelsey McGillis and Megan Tang finished off doubles play with an 8–2 decision.

But the Eagles were not ready to go down without a fight.

Emory dominated its singles matches, taking four of five. Tang secured the only singles win until the third slot match, as the Eagles looked to stage a comeback; Tang won in two sets, 6–2 and 6–4, at the number five slot.

However, Higgins, Kung, Li, and McGillis all lost to their singles opponents.

Tied 4–4, the Maroons turned to VacaGuzman, and she did not disappoint.

Zahra Dawson of Emory won the first match 4–6 and lost the second 6–3 to VacaGuzman. Coming off of a strong second set, VacaGuzman continued to dominate and won the remaining set, putting the Maroons on top 5–4 and earning the UAA title for Chicago.

“The Emory girls were fighters and came back with four wins in singles,” Tang said. “It came down to our No. 3 singles, with Carmen [VacaGuzman] winning the second set after losing the first. She was always ahead in the third set, so that was crucial. We were all nervous watching her, but we knew that she would win in the end.”

“We’re really proud of what we accomplished this weekend at UAAs,” Kung said. “This victory was even sweeter because we were the only ones who believed we could win the tournament and because we compete in one of the strongest conferences in the country.”

One reason the Maroons were able to defeat their higher-ranked competition was their intensive focus on training.

“We were very prepared for the tournament physically and mentally,” Li said, “as we have been working on fitness extensively every day leading up to the UAA Championship.”

The Maroons will look to continue their dominance at the NCAAs this year.

The brackets will be announced on May 7, and the tournament will be held in Cary, North Carolina on May 10.

Ali Mousavi University of California, Los Angeles

America Digs Iran Wednesday · May 2 Breasted Hall · 7:00PM The Oriental Institute 1155 East 58th Street Free and Open to the Public Reception to Follow The Members’ Lecture Series is made possible by the generous support of Oriental Institute Members

11

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | May 1, 2012

Season-bests vault Chicago to fourth-place finish Men’s Track Jake Walerius Associate Sports Editor No team can challenge for a title every year. But that doesn’t mean they can’t put up a challenge.

The South Siders finished fourth out of seven at the UAA Championship in Pittsburgh last weekend. The Maroons finished with 113 points, behind Case Western (118), Carnegie Mellon (149.50), and Wash U (195.50), in a performance that saw 17 Maroons set season-best times in their individual events.

Annual conference challengers, the injury-riddled Maroons had lowered their standards somewhat this season. Head coach Hall was nonetheless pleased with his team’s finish, which met their pre-race target.

“I really think that we achieved, and I was proud of the kids in a situation where we weren’t fighting to win a conference title and they were still able to compete at an extraordinarily high level,” he said. “I was very, very pleased.”

However, what was most encouraging for Hall was the improvement shown by many of his athletes.

“I don’t think we could’ve performed much better than what we did,” Hall said. “We scored much better than we were seeded. I don’t know what event I would look at and say, ‘Boy, we should’ve done better here.’”

Chicago’s top point scorer over the weekend was third-year Dee Brizzolara, who finished first in the 100m (11.19) and 200m (22.01) sprints, improving on his seeds in both events.

“I just went in with a lot of confidence after seeing how I ran against the other guys in the 4x100m [relay],” Brizzolara said.

“I wasn’t as nervous as I usually am for this kind of meet.”

The Maroons’ only other event win came from third-year Brandon Meckelberg, who took first place in the discus with a distance of 45.75m. Other standout performances came

from fourth-year Daniel Heck, who finished second place in the hammer throw (52.20m) after entering the meet ranked seventh in the conference, and first-year Semi Ajibola, who produced a season’s best performance to finish second in the high jump (1.98m).

There were third-place finishes for third-year Billy Whitmore and first-year Renat Zalov in the 10,000m (31:08.76) and 1,500m (3:58.95) respectively, while fourth-year Donny Chi took home third in the long jump (6.64m). The relay teams also looked strong, with both the 4x800m and the 4x400m teams secured third-place finishes.

Chicago was still a long way away from a UAA title, but this past weekend has given it a cause for optimism. The team will point to its injury problems in particular for what has been perhaps a slightly anticlimactic season overall, but next year, with a clean bill of health, the Maroons will look to capitalize on their improvement.

“We had many injuries throughout the season that really limited the amount of people we had to score for us,” Brizzolara said, “[but] the team really stepped up and had many people move up places and score points for us.”

It should also be noted how tight the conference was as a whole. Admittedly, the Wash U Bears were fairly comfortable winners in the end, and Carnegie Mellon was never really sweating over its second-place finish, but only nine points separated Case Western in third and Emory in fifth. Chicago was only five points off of a top-three finish.

And once again, the Maroons will point to injuries as an explanation.

Specifically, they will look at the misfortune of fourth-year Tyler Calway. Calway entered the meet ranked in the top five of the 110m and 400m hurdles, but had to withdraw from the 400m due to the recurrence of a foot injury

Third-year Avery Mainardi competes in the Chicagoland Outdoor Track Meet earlier this season.

COURTESY OF DAVE HILBERT

sustained in the preliminary round of the 110m. If Calway had been able to compete and match his seeds, the Maroons would have finished third.

“The only disappointment was that we didn’t place higher as a team,” Brizzolara said, “but there was really no area of competition where we didn’t do better than

expected.”

“The team was generally happy with its overall performance,” Zalov said, “though I think it would have been nice if the men hadn’t lost to Case Western by five points.”

The last team goal for Chicago has now been reached. The UAAs have come and gone, and

for the last few weeks of the season, the Maroons will take up more of an individual focus as several athletes look forward to qualifying for the NCAA DIII Championship meet next month.

Chicago will be back on the track again this Saturday in Madison, WI for the Wisconsin Twilight.

At UAAs, injuries keep Maroons in check Women’s Track Isaac Stern Sports Contributor As the season came to its climax this past weekend, the Maroons placed fourth at the UAA Conference Championship. They scored a total of 95 points across all events, defeating Carnegie Mellon (62), NYU (45), and Brandeis (29), and finishing behind Emory (226.5), Wash U (201.5), and Case Western (157).

In a season plagued by injuries, the South Siders were unable to perform at their best.

“In a year where we lost a number of athletes to injury, we just were not in a position to place as high as we would normally,” head coach Chris Hall said.

Despite the injury setbacks, Chicago produced 11 All-UAA

performers and eight top-three finishers across 21 events.

“Our team performed exceptionally well this weekend.

As I look through the results and where we were seeded, our team got better in everything we competed in,” Hall said.

First-year thrower Kelly Wood attributed the success of the team to the leadership of the upperclassmen and captains.

“Our captains and seniors really stepped up for this meet, their last conference meet. Not only did they perform really well, but they helped unify us as a team, which definitely contributed to the level of our competition and performance,” Wood said.

The women’s 4x800m relay team, consisting of thirdyears Elsbeth Grant and Kayla

McDonald and second-years Elise Wummer and Michaela Whitelaw, placed first with a time of 9:25.00, finishing 12.75 seconds ahead of their nearest competitor, Wash U. The performance set a new track record at Carnegie Mellon’s Gesling Stadium, surpassing the previous mark by 2.31 seconds.

McDonald also placed third individually in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:13.63.

Third-year Julia Sizek placed second in the 5,000m with a time of 17:29.26, losing out to Wash U’s Lucy Cheadle by close to three seconds. Cheadle is currently ranked 12th in the nation.

Other strong finishes included fourth-years Sonia Khan, Madison Allen, and Jalessa Akuoko and first-year Reecie Dern—all four women finished third. Khan ran

the 10,000m run in 37:09.25 while Akuoko finished the 400m in 58.72 seconds. In the triple jump, Allen jumped 11.11m. Dern also set a personal record in the discus with her throw of 39.11m.

In addition, the 4x400m relay team consisting of McDonald, Akuoko, Grant, and second-year Jennie Porter finished in third place with a time of 4:00.17.

Other top-five finishes included third-year Jane Simpson who finished with a time of 37:55.07 in the 10,000m and fourth-year Ali Klooster who clocked an 11:39.52 in the 3,000m steeplechase.

“What’s really special about how our team performed at conference is how we all came together,” Wood said. “Team support is really important because sometimes track can feel like an individual

sport, and I think that cheering each other on and showing up for events really amped up the team in general and helped us to perform as well as we did.”

The Maroons now look toward the future. There are still three more meets left before Nationals, including the Maroons’ very own Chicago Penultimate on May 12. These three meets provide more opportunities for individual members of the team to make a run at qualif ying for the DIII National Championship that will take place next month in Claremont, California. “[The UAA Conference Championship] was our last true ‘team’ competition of the season,” Hall said. “Now we focus on individual goals moving forward.”

SPORTS

IN QUOTES “Did you get those flight plans?”

—Pittsburgh Steelers draft pick David DeCastro to Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger, mistaking him for the team’s travel secretary .

Call it an upset: South Siders snag UAA crown Women’s Tennis Shayan Karbassi Sports Staff The Maroons brought home the UAA Championship title this weekend for the second time in three years. For the third straight year, the Maroons battled Emory in the UAA Championship: they beat the Eagles in 2010 and fell to them in the 2011 final. With the UAA title, Chicago has also earned an automatic berth to the 2012 NCAA DIII Women’s Tennis Championship.

“Throughout the tournament, everyone on the team improved each match and played with a lot of heart,” fourth-year co-captain Kendra Higgins said. “Our goal going into this tournament was to focus on winning all the doubles matches to have us start with a lead of 3–0 going into singles, and we succeeded in doing so each match.”

Because of their seeding, Chicago had a more difficult path to the finals than the other ranked UAA squads.

“We knew we would have a tough draw compared to other teams such as Emory and Carnegie Mellon because they were seeded higher,” Higgins said, “and we knew that our conference was tough to win because it has four of the top 10 ranked teams in the nation.”

The tournament got underway with the South Siders set to face Rochester in the first round. The Yellowjackets were no match for the Maroons, as Chicago enjoyed a 9–0 victory. Next on the chopping block was fourthranked Carnegie Mellon, who didn’t fare much better against the Maroons, going down 8–1.

After two comfortable victories, the Maroons advanced to the finals against secondranked Emory. The final was a much harder fought affair, but the Maroons came out victorious 5–4. Doubles play proved to be crucial for Chicago, as it swept the Eagles. Fourth-years Higgins and Carmen VacaGuzman W. TENNIS continued on page 10

Last Sunday the women’s tennis team claimed the University Athletic Association Championship over Emory University. First-year Megan Tang’s singles match win was crucial in securing the victory, COURTESY OF DAVE HILBERT

ROUND 1

CASE WESTERN

ROUND 2

CARNEGIE MELLON

ROUND 3

2010

EMORY

5-0

6-0 5-3

2012 ROCHESTER

9-0

CARNEGIE MELLON

8-1

EMORY

5-4

The women’s tennis team captured its first UAA conference championship since 2010 this past weekend. In the process, they defeated Rochester, Carnegie Mellon, and Emory. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of their paths to their two most recent UAA championships.

As season ends, Chicago takes fifth at conference Men’s Tennis Alexander Sotiropoulos Senior Sports Staff The Maroons stormed the consolation bracket at the UAA Championships this weekend, just as their ranking predicted they would. Chicago, the fifth seed, placed fifth this past weekend with wins over Rochester (9–0) and Brandeis (7–2), but will likely end their season without a NCAA bid.

“Even though at the beginning of the tournament we aimed for much higher, this might also be seen as a small success for the team, as our overall match ratio was two wins [to] one loss,” second-year Zsolt Szabo said.

The Maroons went into the consolation quarterfinal mentally focused even without the prospect of a UAA Championship or NCAA bid to look forward to.

“The mentality going into consolations was good under the circumstances,” Szabo said.

“Knowing that we will not by any miracle make NCAAs this year, we just wanted to get the

highest possible position in UAAs and finish the season with some victories.”

Chicago looked like a championship team against Rochester.

In doubles, fourth-years Jan Stefanski and Troy Brinker along with second-years Zsolt Szabo and Krishna Ravella allowed only two games each to their opponents in the No. 1 and No. 3 spots, respectively.

First-years Ankur Bhargava and Deepak Sabada won 8–4 at No. 2.

The surge did not stop there. Bhargava (6– 2, 6–0), Stefanski (6–1, 6–0), Sabada (6–3, 6–0), and second-year Alex Golovin (6–2, 6–2) all allowed less than four games in each of their matches. Szabo won at the No. 5 spot 6–1, 7–5 while Brinker had a similar turnout (7–5, 6–2) at No. 1.

The commanding victory gave the Maroons extra momentum going into their fifth-place match against Brandeis.

“The 9–0 win against Rochester definitely gave us some extra momentum heading into the Brandeis match,” Ravella said. “Brandeis has a tough team, but going into the match with

that extra confidence allowed us to get the win without much drama.”

Brinker and Stefanski along with Szabo and Ravella gave the Maroons the edge going into singles, each with 8–3 victories, while Bhargava and Sabada fell 8–4.

The Maroons took five out of six singles matches with the lone loss coming from a Stefanski three-set battle (2–6, 6–2, 6–0) to take fifth place.

“I believe I can speak collectively for the team to say that this season was not the most fortunate for us,” Szabo said.

However, at the same time, there were moments that showed signs of an up-andcoming team.

“There were a lot of ups—for example, we defeated UIC, a DI team we had not even come close to last year, and our spring break performance was pretty good too, particularly our match against Citadell, where the [firstyears Bhargava and Sabada] definitely deserve a lot of credit in our eventual victory,” Szabo said.

Still, the defeats outweighed the victories.

“In any case, most of the time luck was not

on our side, and we lost many matches that could have gone either way,” Szabo said. “This has sometimes broken our confidence and effort which often took long to rebuild.”

A hindrance to the Maroons next year will be the loss of fourth-years Stefanski and Brinker.

The upperclassmen have shared the top two doubles positions for the past three years and have held some of the top singles spots as well.

“I think I can speak for the team that they will be greatly missed,” Szabo said. “Good luck for the two of them and us without them in the future.”

But the Maroons have a talented first-year class coming in. Jake Crawford and Gordon Zhang currently hold the best national ranks from the incoming tennis class. Crawford is ranked 20th in New York and 192nd overall according to the latest tennisrecruiting.net high school senior class rankings, while Zhang holds the 13th ranking in Illinois and is 193rd in the national rankings.

“I am really looking forward to the next year,” Szabo said, “getting to know the new freshmen and having another great season.”