050214 Chicago Maroon

FRIDAY • MAY 2, 2014

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

ISSUE 43 • VOLUME 125

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

A progressive path for Student Government Ankit Jain & Sarah Manhardt News Editor & Deputy News Editor

Architect Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects led the 2013 renovation of the Shoreland into a luxury apartment complex. The Shoreland was originally a hotel built in 1926 and a UChicago dormitory from the 1970s to the early 2000s. It reopened Wednesday; see page 3 for details.

FRANK YAN | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Uncommon Interview: Jeanne Gang, Campus North architect and her career as an architect.

Sindhu Gnanasambandan Associate News Editor Jeanne Gang, MacArthur Fellow and founder of Studio Gang Architects, was in Hyde Park this weekend to give a talk at Logan and to celebrate the grand opening of the newly renovated Shoreland building. Studio Gang redesigned the interior of the Shoreland, as well as Max Palevsky Residential Commons and the soon-to-come Campus North dormitory. Gang spoke with the Maroon about these projects

Chicago Maroon: You recently gave a talk about “what mammals want.” Any chance you have figured out what students want, from your experience?

Jeanne Gang: Having social spaces, having spaces to hang out, a lot of variety of different kinds of spaces. So that was one thing that we were aware of when we were going to design… also, just making it possible for people to have sight lines in the dining commons, to be able to

see other students…to have a lot of open space for people watching but also for meeting up with your own group from your house to have lunch. Another thing was that the students wanted space where they could really customize it and make it their own, so we are trying to incorporate those desires and those finishes in the house [lounges], so that they could make it more individual and robust and that it will be able to be transformed by the students that live there.

GANG continued on page 2

Only two slates are running to lead Student Government (SG) this year: United Progress (UP) and Delta Upsilon’s satirical Moose Party. UP is the strong favorite, and their agenda is one of the most ambitious in recent history. It reflects and expands upon many of the goals of this year’s slate, Impact.

UP’s platform and its relation to Impact highlight the evolving nature of SG and its role in the University.

Before last year, SG was not seen as a means for pursuing the progressive goals that Impact has initiated and that UP hopes to accomplish. UP consists of second-year Tyler Kissinger running

for president, third-year Arlin Hill running for vice president of administration, and third-year Aseal Tineh running for vice president of student affairs.

According to Yusef al-Jarani, vice president for student affairs during the 2011–12 academic year and unsuccessful candidate for president in last year’s Ignite slate, SG has existed primarily as a funding body. Impact has changed the rules of the game, orienting SG toward political issues in a major departure from previous slates.

“What Impact did is relatively new—at least from what I know— which is this focus on a very specific… it’s almost like they’re running for loSG continued on page 2

Confucius Insitute protested by faculty Harini Jaganathan & Alice Xiao News Editor & News Staff A petition has been signed by 108 University of Chicago faculty members asking the Council of the Faculty Senate to discontinue the Confucius Institute at the University of Chicago (CIUC), a Chinese government–affiliated organization on campus that provides Chinese language and culture education and funds related research. “[CIUC] grants much too much influence to an outside entity over academic matters. I think the integrity of the academy depends on preserving its autonomy and its

ability to reach disinterested decisions about what’s worth teaching, what’s worth researching, [and] what counts as knowledge,” Divinity School professor Bruce Lincoln, an organizer of the petition said.

CIUC was inaugurated in June 2010 after the University signed an agreement in September 2009 with Hanban, the office that heads the Confucius Institute. At that time, the Council of the Faculty Senate was not involved in the decision to bring the Confucius Institute to the University, according to the petition. The Council of the Faculty Senate is a body of professors that CONFUCIUS continued on page 4

Aramark employee launches lawsuit Moose Party makes tracks Natalie Friedberg News Staff A pending lawsuit against Aramark could mean that current Aramark employees, including those that work for UChicago Dining, may claim up to $1,000 each for a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Last Monday, April 21, Darren Lomax, an ex-employee of Aramark at Soldier Field, a Chicago football stadium, filed the latest version of a complaint against Aramark for failing to comply with regulations of the FCRA, which require that background check consent forms for new employees be clear and con-

spicuous.

Lomax worked for Soldier Field’s concessions services, which is operated by Aramark, from late June to early September. One day in early September, Lomax showed up for work and was told he had been fired due to the results of his background check. Lomax had signed a consent form allowing Aramark to run a background check, but the form violated the “stand alone” disclosure clause.

This section of the law requires the consent form to alert the employee that a background check will be performed (which is referred to as disclosure) and allow the employee to authorize

that check, without anything else listed on the same document. Aramark had added a section in attempt to release itself from responsibility, or liability, for any potential damages that could arise from the authorized background investigations, violating the stand-alone clause.

“What Aramark did was attempt to include a liability release for itself in a document that purports to be a disclosure. The problem with that is not only that it is not a stand-alone disclosure, but it is no longer clear and conspicuous because there’s all this other stuff on the document,” said Michelle Drake, one LAWSUIT continued on page 2

Alec Goodwin News Staff Moose Party returns this year with a humorous platform, but this time members said they are attempting to make a genuine statement through their campaign style.

Moose Party is a satirical campaign for the Student Government (SG) Executive Slate. Moose Party draws its members from the Delta Upsilon (DU) fraternity.

Highlights of this year’s platform include bringing UIC and UIUC students

to campus to liven up weekend parties, basing student house placements on AlcoholEdu results, and expanding Mansueto library to cover the entire campus.

“We honestly sat in a room and tried to think of the dumbest possible things we could possibly say. We try to be a little witty, a little clever, but sometimes a little fratty as well,” said secondyear Kent Bischoff, Moose Party candidate for SG President. Bischoff said that the Party this year spent “under five hours” preparing their platform.

Moose Party has lost 20

years in a row, but their vote tallies have fluctuated over the years. Last year, they carried approximately 13 percent of the vote, and 22 percent the year before.

The name “Moose Party” is derived from a fixture in the fraternity. One of the common rooms in DU’s house features an enormous moose head mounted on a wall.

“The moose was given to us a really long time ago by [Paul] Shorey—the guy who Shorey house is named after,” Bennet said. The moose, nicknamed MorMOOSE continued on page 4

IN VIEWPOINTS

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

SG 2014 Endorsements

Obvious Child » Page 8

Maroons look for more offense in final six games » Back Page

» Page 5

Knowing not telling » Page 6

Platonic Love » Page 9

Why basketball is the best sport » Page 11

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | May 2, 2014

2

Gang discusses campus & community designs GANG continued from front

CM: What spurred your wanting to be an architect?

Did growing up in Illinois and going to college near Chicago impact your decision?

JG: I think I wanted to be an architect because I really like how it combines both an interpretation of sculpture, but also has this technical side to it, and so it combines both art and science. Also, it’s a profession that can potentially have a strong impact on cities and neighborhoods —on bigger urban plans.

How cities impact people’s lives…that was appealing to me. I felt like it is a profession where the projects are big enough that they can really have an impact.

CM: What do you find the most satisfying within the whole process of completing a project and building a space for people?

JG: I think it is the opportunity to step into someone else’s shoes and really try to understand what they need and [to understand] what their life is like. It is a little bit like being a journalist in that sense, since you are trying to understand other people’s livelihoods, lifestyles, [and] professions.

70

CM: I know a lot of attention was given to Aqua, your building in downtown Chicago, for being the tallest building built by a woman. How do you feel about that attention, and do you think there are any special challenges you face as a female architect?

JG: Luckily, I think things are starting to change, making it easier for people from all different countries and of all different genders possible to practice architecture. I think it is also worthy of mentioning that about 50 percent or more of the architecture students in the country are women. I don’t feel like I have had a lot of barriers, but I do recognize that those barriers do exist.

CM: The Shoreland is a landmark residence with a long history. How did you go about bringing in modern elements while retaining its essence?

JG: As you know, it was originally a hotel, and hotels have, especially the ones built in that era, have very grand public spaces like lobbies, ballrooms, etc. We found the older furniture that was all different styles, colors and finishes. Instead of throwing it into the dumpster, we refurbished it with new

th

cushions, and we upholstered the furniture. For color combinations, we used a lot of black and a few bright colors to make it work together, but [we] also feel it is really contemporary and like, while it is recycled and really great for the environment, it also looks really hip and cool.

CM: Did the fact that students will likely live there influence the space and the design at all?

JG: Yeah, we thought about the social spaces, what people would be doing there and that there would be more community activities than if it were just a market-rate building in downtown Chicago.

That is why we have made use of the lobby. We have business areas and lounge areas that you guys can use to socialize and study.

CM: Any other Studio Gang projects that we should look out for in Hyde Park or in the South Side?

JG: We are doing an apartment complex in a mixed-use building at City Hyde Park on Lake Park and Hyde Park Boulevard.

The corner there will be a building with shops and a Whole Foods in it.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESENTS

SEASON

FRIDAY, MAY 2 / 7:30 PM

Shanghai Quartet 6:30 PM pre-concert lecture with Professor Emeritus Philip Gossett Haydn: String Quartet in D Major, Op. 76, No. 2 “Quinten” Krzysztof Penderecki: String Quartet No. 3: Leaves from an unwritten diary Zhou Long: Song of the Ch’in Verdi: String Quartet in E minor Capping a season of celebrations, including Chicago Presents’ 70th, Giuseppe Verdi’s 200th and its own 30th, the Shanghai Quartet closes an elegant program with Verdi’s one and only string quartet.

MANDEL HALL, 1131 East 57th Street

$5

ETS

$35/$5 students with valid ID For tickets call 773.702.ARTS or visit chicagopresents.uchicago.edu

T TICK

STUDEN

This concert is part of the Envisioning China festival.

A limited number of FREE student tickets are available through the Arts Pass program; visit chicagopresents.uchicago.edu for details.

UP looks to build on Impact’s work next year SG continued from front

cal government or state government. You’re talking about these very broad policy issues as opposed to, ‘we want to reform the way funding is done on campus,’” Al-Jarani said.

Impact slate ran on a platform that sought to introduce UCPD reform, push for a level one trauma center, reform the sexual assault policy, and substantially improve access for disabled students, among other initiatives. The slate, consisting of fourth-year Michael McCown as president, third-year Sofia Flores as vice president for administration, and secondyear Jane Huber as vice president for student affairs, won with approximately 45 percent of the vote, with 3,126 votes cast in total.

While expressing his support for many of UP’s goals, Al-Jarani questioned how representative Impact has been of the student body as large.

“There are people who care about these goals, but there are also a lot of students who just care about getting a job and being able to pay off their student loans. There are students who just care about having a good time on campus because academics are stressful. So I think that Student Government, if it is going to be a true representative of students, needs to hit on all those areas,” he said.

McCown defended his slate’s outlook with their electoral victory.

“I’m not a walking survey, I do not have unmediated insight into the minds of all fifteen thousand students; however, we won the election, we were honest about what we cared about in the election. That is democracy, that is representation, [and] that is what we have to deal with,” he said.

Kissinger, the likely future president, echoed McCown’s convictions.

“I’m going to do what I think is right; at the end of the day I can’t do something that I don’t think is right. I have enough faith in the people who vote that if they elect me, they think I will do a good job representing their interests,” he said.

Unlike Impact, however, Kissinger is running without a serious competitor to challenge his vision of what SG should be.

Fourth-year PhD student Graduate Council Vice President Anthony Martinez, a member of Al-Jarani’s unsuccessful Ignite slate from last year, said that he thought last year’s contentious election played a large part in dissuading more traditional challengers to UP this year.

“I don’t want to call [them] career SGers, but people who have always been putting their efforts into SG since they first started here, maybe have shirked away from that based on the election that happened last year,” he said. Martinez said he considered running, but decided against it after last year’s contentious elections.

McCown explained that events in the activist community last year inspired him to run.

“A lot happened last year that built a coalition…[and] really made people think about their issues and their activism in relation to other people,” he said.

Once elected, Impact quickly ran into the reality of Student Government responsibilities. “I think initially in the beginning of the year it was really frustrating coming into SG and getting committees thrown at you that you have to appoint people to and all these administrative duties and navigating those,” Flores said.

During their term, Impact slate has been able to establish their RSO Disabilities Accessibility Pilot Program, produced a report on the UCPD’s Independent Review Committee, and will launch a sexual assault awareness week later this month. However, it did not attain a voting student on the Board of Trustees, achieve a graduate student union, make significant progress on University divestment from fossil fuel companies, or convince the University to open a level one trauma center, among other campaign goals.

Impact’s efforts to reform sexual assault policies exemplify how their ambitious electoral goals often had to be scaled back to smaller, more achiev-

able results. “For sexual assault, our platform idea was to have an informal complaint process, but logistically that’s really hard because University officials are sort of mandated reporters. But I think the sexual assault awareness week has sort of been an adjustment,” Flores said.

Many of Impact’s difficulties come with dealing with an administration that they claim was not interested in listening to SG on certain issues. McCown emphasized SG’s ability to affect change outside of the University administration in certain cases, pointing to the disabilites accessibility program, which provides funding and administrative support to RSOs that participate in accessibility training. “That’s a point of intervention you don’t need administration necessarily to be on board with. We can do this fully within Student Government, we have the capacity to do this program to see if it works, [and] it doesn’t require wrangling with any unwilling administrators,” he said.

UP slate’s platform echoes many of Impact’s goals, such as advocating for graduate student rights, a trauma center, and UCPD reform. However, their platform also includes concrete measures such as restructuring Student Government, conducting a campus climate report, and streamlining funding for RSOs. If UP is elected as next year’s executive slate, the progressive turn of SG will continue for at least one more year. But after that, the institutional stature of SG and the politics of the students who run that institution remain to be seen.

“It’s sort of hard because SG is never going to be taken as legitimate until we have a higher [voter] turnout rate than we’ll have this year…. But at the same time, we’re never going to have that SG that inspires people to turn out until people take it seriously,” Kissinger said. So it’s this…bad feedback loop. I think it bodes very poorly for the institution unless people put a lot of time and a lot of energy and hold their representatives to a very high standard.”

Aramark employees can claim up to $1,000 LAWSUIT continued from front

of the lawyers for the plaintiff.

The plaintiff lawyers are suing Aramark for adding this section, releasing themselves from liability, on the same page as the disclosure. However, according to Drake, even if Aramark had attempted to put the extra liability clause on a different document, it would still violate employee FCRA rights.

Aramark is scheduled to submit a response to the complaint on May 15, and has the option to confirm or deny the allegations, or to file a motion to dismiss, claiming that the plaintiff has not sufficiently laid the foundation for the complaint.

“Aramark is committed to

following the laws and regulations in our operations wherever we do business. Due to pending litigation, it would not be appropriate to comment any further,” Karen Cutler, spokesperson for Aramark, said in an e-mail.

At this point, there is only a single plaintiff against Aramark, but Lomax and his lawyers intend to apply to classify their case as a class action lawsuit.

They have not filed the motion to do so yet, but intend to at an unspecified time. If the plaintiff wins this case and succeeds in classifying it as a class action lawsuit, Aramark will have to pay somewhere between $100 and $1,000 for each FCRA violation, meaning that each person

who has signed one of the employment forms in question has a claim to the money if they sign onto the lawsuit. This includes a number of University of Chicago Aramark employees who were hired after 2012.

Many University Aramark employees are, as of now, unaware of the lawsuit. Rosario Coronado, a Cathey Dining Commons employee, had seen an advertisement in the Maroon about the lawsuit, but never followed up on it and was unaware of the facts of the case. According to Coronado, when she first started working for Aramark twenty years ago, background checks were not required for new employees.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | May 2, 2014

3

First-year saves puppy on Lake Shore Drive The Shoreland reopens Natalie Friedberg News Staff

One tramp just met his lady on Lake Shore Drive.

On April 7, Cassidy Heaton, a first-year student in the College, was riding her bike along Lake Shore Drive when she noticed the dog in the middle of the road.

“I came over a hill and suddenly saw what looked like a little brown lump of fur get knocked by a car and my heart—I’m a dog over—plummeted,” Heaton said. “So I dropped my bike and ran onto Lake Shore to get this dog.”

Heaton dismounted her bike and ran across the road into oncoming traffic. Seconds afterwards, a car stopped just short of Heaton and the dog, and the dog scrambled underneath the car. Heaton then crawled underneath the car and lay down on her back to retrieve the dog as cars drove by on either side.

The dog attempted to bite her.

At one point, when Heaton was standing next to the stopped car, another car failed to stop in time before hitting her on the side. She did not sustain any injuries. The driver of the car that hit her stopped and gave her a pair of gardening gloves and a towel to help get the dog out from under the car without injuring it.

“I got the towel over him

and just picked him up and ran to the side of the road and was holding him wrapped in this towel so he wouldn’t bite me. So I was just standing by the side of the road wondering ‘what was I going to do?’” Heaton said.

The two cars left as soon as the puppy was taken out from under the car, leaving Heaton alone with the dog on the side of the road. After about a minute, an off-duty police officer drove up to Heaton and offered to take her and the dog to an animal clinic on the South Side.

The dog, a brown and black Beagle–Chihuahua–German Sheperd mix, was revealed to have no injuries, but was very malnourished and, according to the veterinarian, had likely never interacted with humans before.

Heaton lives in on-campus housing where animals are not allowed, so she called a friend who lives in an apartment nearby who agreed to keep the dog for a few days. The dog took some time to warm up to Heaton, but once she started to give him food, his aggression faded.

“When we were feeding him, he started eating out of my hand. I sat down on the floor beside him to do my reading, and when I wasn’t looking, he would start sniffing my shoes or licking my hand, and

Andrew Ahn News Staff

While riding her bike on the path along Lake Shore Drive last month, first-year Cassidy Heaton discovered and rescued an abandoned puppy, later named Roger.

COURTESY OF CASSIDY HEATON

he would let us pet him slowly and by the end of the night, he was in our laps,” Heaton said.

The next day, as Heaton was walking the dog to the pet store to pick up supplies, she met Asya Magazinnik a second-year Harris School student, who was interested in

Weekly Crime Report

adopting him. The puppy, now named Roger, has been living with the Magazinnik ever since.

“That’s where he lives now and he’s so happy, It’s just such a series of lucky events to make this dog find his home,” Heaton said.

On Wednesday night, The Shoreland hosted its grand reopening after nearly five years of renovation. Previously serving as a dormitory for the University from the 1970s to 2004, The Shoreland was acquired by Antheus Capital, which owns MAC properties, for $16 million in 2009.

Historically, The Shoreland served Hyde Park as a hotel and event space since 1925.

Its 13 floors, banquet hall, and ballroom have hosted the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earheart, Elvis Presley, and Al Capone.

“This is a building which, when it was built, was among the most honored and fully amenitized buildings in the community,” Eli Ungar, founder of Antheus Capital, said during the event.

Maintaining a balance between the old and new features of the building was important to the renovations. Ungar said the same company that made the terra cotta trimming in the old building made the terra cotta trimming for the renovated building.

“The hallways are the original width, and we kept the

ballroom and lobby,” said Peter Cassel, director of community development for the Silliman Group, an arm of Antheus Capital.

In addition to maintaining The Shoreland’s historic identity, Antheus Capital wanted to reinvent The Shoreland as one of the most modern buildings in Chicago.

“When we reopened this building, it was the first building in Chicago to have 1GB [high-speed Internet] service,,” Cassel said. “Because the building was stripped to the gut, this is one of the only apartment buildings in Hyde Park with a contemporary heating and cooling system,” he said.

Modern updates toted modern pricetags. Although Antheus would not comment on the total cost of the renovations, Ungar said, “The original construction cost of the Shoreland was $5.5 million. Last August, we spent $5.5 million in the first week.”

Cassel said that Mac has been updating other apartments in addition to the Shoreland.

“Part of what we’ve been able to do in the past 10 years is to go through and update many of the existing apartment buildings to serve the 21st century,” he said.

By Alex Hays

Here are a few of this week’s incidents:

Since Mar. 31

Apr. 24 Apr. 30

12

1

Arrest (except traffic violation)

0

0

Assault (multiple types)

Type of Crime

» April 24, 1548 East 53rd Street (Metra Station), 2:00 p.m.—An unknown male, armed with a handgun, took property from a victim in the stairway of the Metra Station. This is now a CPD case.

1

0

Attempted burglary

0

0

Attempted robbery

0

0

Battery (multiple types)

0

0

Criminal sexual assault

7

1

Burglary

0

0

Criminal trespass to vehicle

9

1

Damage to property (including vehicle)

37

6

Other report

1

0

Robbery (multiple types)

0

0

Traffic violation

14

3

Theft (including from motor vehicle)

1

0

Trespass to property (including residence)

51st S. Hyde Park

55th

Blackstone

53rd

S. Lake Shore

Ellis

Cottage Grove

47th

» April 26, 5639 South University Avenue (Fraternity House)—Between 10:00 p.m. and 11:50 p.m., a Blue Cross Blue Shield ID and University ID cards were taken from a wallet in an unsecured room during a party. » April 27, South University Avenue between 61st and 62nd Streets—Between 10:00 p.m. and midnight, an unknown person or persons entered a private apartment off campus via an unsecured door, taking a laptop computer, car keys, and electronics. » April 28, 5815 South Maryland Avenue (Mitchell Hospital)—Between 8:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., a credit card was taken from the pocket of a jacket hanging in an unsecured office. Subsequent unauthorized use of the stolen credit card was reported.

Arrest Assault

Criminal sexual assault

T H E L E W I S P. A N D L I N D A L . G E YSE R U NIVE RSIT Y P R O F E S S O R AT H A R VA R D UNIVERSITY PHOTOGR APHY BY MARTHA STEWART

PUBLIC LECTURE , PANE L CONVE RSATION , AND Q&A

THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2014 | 3–5 P.M. IDA NOYES HALL , MAX PALEVSK Y CINEMA 1212 EAST 59TH STREET

ADMISSION IS FREE , BUT REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Visit reply.uchicago.edu/milgrom.

CAN’T ATTEND? View the webcast at uchic.ag/live.

For more information about Successful Pathways from School to Work, please visit successfulpathways.uchicago.edu.

Cornell

Burglary

Stony Island

University

60th

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON

Attempted burglary

Battery

59th

F E AT U R I N G K E Y N O T E ADDRE SS BY

Source: UCPD Incident Reports

Attempted robbery

57th

SUCCESSFUL PATHWAYS FROM SCHOOL TO WORK ACADEMIC CONFERENCE

62nd *Locations of reports approximate

Criminal trespass to vehicle

Persons with disabilities may request assistance in advance by contacting

Damage to property

the Office of Strategic Events at 773.834.0883.

Other report Robbery Traffic violation Theft

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | May 2, 2014

4

Petition asserts Council of the Faculty Senate should decide on contract with Confucius Institute at UChicago CONFUCIUS continued from front

presides over academic matters.

CIUC’s contract with the University is currently up for renewal, and the protesting faculty members believe that the decision to terminate the contract should rest with the Council.

The petition takes issue with the CIUC’s connection to the Chinese government and states that the CIUC falls under Chinese law, which “subjects the University’s academic program to the political constraints on free speech and belief that are specific to the People’s Republic of China,” according to the petition.

Currently, Confucius Institute instructors teach in the East Asian languages and civilizations program. According to Dali Yang, director of the Confucius Institute and a political science professor, Chinese instructors apply to work

with Hanban, which then chooses who it wants to nominate to work at the University. The nominees are then interviewed and selected

by University faculty and teach the same curriculum as other instructors.

“The institute is an entity that enables faculty to do more research and allows students to acquire the skills to better understand China,” Yang said. “I find it disappointing that those teachers are not being recognized for their contributions.”

Yang said that University faculty have the right to reject nominated Confucius Institute instructors and prevent them from being hired, but the petition states that that right has not been exercised.

A Hanban teacher working at McMaster University in Canada, who was dismissed after it was discovered that she follows Falun

Gong, was cited as an example of how the Confucius Institute can limit freedom of speech. When the case was brought to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, McMaster University had to defend a decision that was not in line with Canadian law, and thereafter did not renew its contract with the Confucius Institute.

The petition also brings up concerns that the Hanban teachers may prevent discussion on sensitive political topics in China, and states, “Hanban teachers are trained to ignore or divert questions on issues that are politically taboo in China, or indeed criminalized, such as the status of Taiwan, Tiananmen, the pro-Democracy movement, etc.”

According to history professor Bruce Cumings, who signed the petition, in recent months China has fired prominent professors at Beijing University and elsewhere

for their political views.

“I think to justify the academic freedom that we have and the tenured jobs that we have, scholars have to be above both the reality and the suspicion of undue influence,” Cumings explained. “American universities should not be taking money or institute funds from governments that are jailing professors and that do not provide academic freedom in their own country,” he said.

Professor John Mark Hansen, Chair of the Board of Directors of CIUC, said in a statement that CIUC’s role at the University is primarily to fund the research of University faculty and that academic freedoms remains for CIUC instructors.

“Academic freedom has always been a paramount value at the University of Chicago, and faculty members here are deeply commit-

ted to free inquiry,” he said. “That’s as true of faculty members who participate in the work of the Confucius Institute at the University of Chicago as it is of colleagues who are critical of it.”

Hansen said that a committee of three faculty members has been formed to review the CIUC’s actions. The committee will consult with the CIUC board and other deans involved with the renewal of CIUC’s contract.

Anthropology professor and organizer of the petition Marshall Sahlins has written extensively on the Confucius Institute.

“We’re not in this because of anti-communist sentiments,” he said “We’re not people who are motivated by crazy anti-Chinese positions—on the contrary. Our interest is strictly academic integrity, academic freedom, and the wellbeing of the University of Chicago.”

Moose Party returns in its 21st year with critical campaign of SG NEWS IN BRIEF MOOSE continued from front

timer, serves as DU’s official mascot. “Naturally, [Moose Party] was named after the mascot of the house.”

Bennett cited a few reasons for the Party running in the past few years. At one point, Bennett said DU used the Party as a way to promote their Friday party, DU’s last open party of the year. The party had been under-attended, so the fraternity decided to rebrand the party “Moose Party” and link it to the political campaign for SG. According to Bennett, the fraternity used the printing budget, 200–300 dollars allocated to each slate for advertising by the University, to print

party posters from 2006 to 2012.

This year’s Moose Party returns to its satirical roots, however. The Party this year seems to be more directly critical of SG than it has been in prior years. “In the past, Moose Party was used to promote our fraternity party. This year we definitely tried to make a statement,” he said.

Bischoff said the the Moose Party platform is silly and unachievable, mirroring what they think of SG’s goals currently.

“You can say ridiculous stuff, like, ‘we’re going to cover campus in a bubble and make it heated so we’re not cold in the winter,’ and

that’s not going to happen, but with United Progress saying, ‘the trauma center is on our to-do list’—that’s not going to happen either,” he said.

Despite the satirical nature of Moose Party’s campaign, the candidates and DU have received serious criticism.

College Council Chair second-year Mike Viola, said that he would like to rewrite E&R bylaws to allow for the removal of disruptive guests at the events like the SG debate. Currently only disruptive candidates can be removed from events.

“This was prompted by absolutely ridiculous behavior from supporters of

Moose Party at the debate this week, which hampered discussion of serious issues facing this campus,” he said in an e-mail.

However, Bennett said that Moose Party positively impacts SG elections overall. “I think that [Moose Party] makes light of some serious issues; however I think it brings some good publicity that wouldn’t exist otherwise.”

Bennett said that Moose Party helps reach a different demographic, one “that maybe wouldn’t care about SG at all…. I think that, at the end of the day, there’d be almost zero focus on SG if there wasn’t a Moose Party,” he said.

Chicago City Council votes to ban plastic bags The Chicago City Council voted to ban plastic bags in large retail stores on Wednesday in a 30–16 vote. Mayor Rahm Emanuel expressed support for the ban, which goes into effect on August 1, 2015.

This ban will only affect stores that are 10,000 square feet or larger, and will also apply to smaller chain stores starting August 2016. There are currently no plans for smaller restaurants and non-franchise stores to be affected by the ban.

Supporters of the ban argued that it would have a positive environmental impact. Rahm Emanuel said to DNAinfo, “you can’t be the

‘city in a garden’ and have a set of policies that hurts the environment.”

Will Burns, alderman for Chicago’s Fourth Ward, voted in favor of the ban, while Leslie Hairston, alderman for the Fifth Ward, voted against tit Hairston said to DNAinfo that the ban would “widen and deepen the gap between the haves and the have-nots,” and discourage the expansion of supermarkets to South Shore, a neighborhood that she said supermarkets are already deterred from.

The ordinance was proposed

by Joe Moreno, alderman for the First Ward, who proposed a similar ban in 2007.

- Harini Jaganathan

Corrections • “Slate and liaison candidates face off in SG candidates debate:” This article originally misstated Lim’s degree of support for the establishment of a trauma center on the South Side and his plan for student interaction with the Board of Trustees. A typographical error also resulted in Dadoo being misquoted on his position on voting powers for the Undergraduate Liaison to the Board of Trustees.

Dadoo actually said: “One person’s unique opinion does not effectively represent the student body as a whole.”

• “Student Housing, Part II: A historical look”: An earlier version of this article misattributed a quote on the state of Woodward Court. The comment was made by Steven Cicala (A.B. ’04).

VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed MAY 02, 2014

SG 2014: Undergraduate Liaison to the Board of Trustees endorsement The MAROON Editorial Board endorses Alex DiLalla for Undergraduate Liaison to the Board of Trustees Below, the Editorial Board outlines the platforms of the three candidates before giving its endorsement.

Clemente Dadoo Third-year write-in candidate Clemente Dadoo uniquely focuses his campaign on issues that have their greatest effects on practical student concerns.

Dadoo’s status as an upperclassman and his accompanying sense of the University community’s needs is one of his major appeals as a candidate. Due to his experiences with other students, improving post-graduation opportunities is at the top of Dadoo’s priority list.

While he does not think the University should invest in an engineering school of its own, Dadoo says he would begin a conversation with the Board of Trustees toward enacting a 3–2 engineering program, which would allow students to complete three years of liberal arts education at UChicago followed by two years of engineering education at another school. As a chemistry major who has spent years in classes with other science majors, Dadoo is familiar with student complaints that certain postgraduate fields are closed off to them because the

College doesn’t give students the option of pursuing engineering. Dadoo also aims to increase contact between undergraduates and recent alumni in order to give current undergraduates better guidance in moving into the post-collegiate world, especially in fields outside the more traditional UChicago career routes in finance and medicine.

It should also be noted that Dadoo does not support changing the nature of his position to allow him a vote on the Board of Trustees, stating that the voice of the student body should not be placed in the hands of one individual.

Instead Dadoo pushes for all students to vote via referendum on every item the board votes on, and for the majority decision to count as one vote on the Board of Trustees.

Alex DiLalla Much of first-year write-in candidate Alex DiLalla’s platform is dedicated to creating a stronger dialogue between students and the Board of Trustees.

One of DiLalla’s principle goals is for the Board to adopt a model similar to that of Duke University, including one elected fourth-year liaison with vot-

ing power and the right to sit in on full board meetings. To assist in this process, DiLalla has enlisted the support and advice of members of the Duke Student Government. DiLalla also plans to end a gag rule which blocks the Undergraduate Liaison from disclosing all of the information to which she is privy, or at the very least reducing the rule’s jurisdiction to situations involving only the most confidential agreements. Finally, DiLalla aims to engage the Board of Trustees with the general student body through town hall–style meetings, which would expand on the luncheon program instated this year, but be more inclusive and accessible while also creating a space in which students can, in person and as a body, express their concerns to and demand responses from the Board. Speaking to this commitment to discussion, DiLalla has made it clear that, regarding the lack of a trauma center on the South Side, his responsibility as Liaison to the Board of Trustees means opening the largely closed dialogue on the issue between student organizers and the University. In alignment with his aggressive and far-reaching platform, DiLalla also supports both responsible policing and

student desires for divestment—citing the UChicago Climate Action Network’s ballot initiative in 2013, which found that 70 percent of the voting student body supported divestment from fossil fuels. He pledges to work toward making these movements realities if elected, and is prepared to take progress in doses as large as they come.

Leeho Lim First-year Leeho Lim is a Class of 2017 Student Representative on College Council. Campaigning under the phrase “unity in voice,” he seeks to work with the Board of Trustees to bring together students around events such as Café Careers, which would introduce undergraduates to graduate students in their future fields of interest. Leeho has the most experience with Student Government (SG) out of the candidates for Liaison to the Board of Trustees, and his commitment to SG is apparent, along with his belief that SG should strive to communicate the desires of the student body. To this end, he seeks to organize larger-scale events for the Board of Trustees to interact with the student body and to advocate for the in-

stating of three voting student members on the board to ensure the diversity of undergraduate student opinion is properly represented. Like DiLalla, Lim advocates for divestment from fossil fuels and the presence of a trauma center on the South Side, and believes these major campaigns necessitate two active voices: the external voice of students, and the Liaison’s own in conversing with the Board of Trustees.

The Editorial Board endorses DiLalla for Undergraduate Liaison to the Board of Trustees. DiLalla has concrete ideas regarding ways to initiate change, as well as an aggressive platform that addresses issues that concern not only students but also the greater South Side. However, DiLalla’s first priority is students, and he has the most concrete plan among the candidates to enact student enfranchisement on the Board of Trustees. Acknowledging the ambitious nature of this initiative, DiLalla sees the accomplishment of certain tangible steps toward this goal—presenting a plan of action to the Board that will warrant its serious consideration, setting up a meeting between the Student BOT continued on page 7

SG 2014: Community and Government Liaison endorsement The MAROON Editorial Board endorses Kenzo Esquivel for Community and Government Liaison Below, the Editorial Board outlines the platforms of the three candidates, all of whom are write-ins, before giving its endorsement.

Brendan McGuire Integral to second-year Brendan McGuire’s platform is increasing the frequency and visibility of Days of Service in order to spark interest in com-

munity involvement around campus, and in turn enhance involvement in the already-strong organizations dedicated to the surrounding community.

However, McGuire’s platform is particularly unique and valuable because of his past experience as communications and social media intern at Chicago Votes. McGuire hopes to reach out to the student body through social

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

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

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

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

media and strategic student-wide emails, tools he has utilized with success in the past. He plans to use the position of Liaison to create campaigns spanning multiple media platforms for participation in surveys concerning issues important to the University community—such as U-Pass—the results of which he hopes will precipitate collective student advocacy. McGuire admits that the practical mechanisms behind implementation of his larger goals are, as of yet, unclear, but his previous experiences with Chicago Votes and the Neighborhood Schools Program are evidence of his ability to adapt quickly to new situations and responsibilities.

Kenzo Esquivel First-year Kenzo Esquivel believes that a strong, self-sustaining, cohesive culture of community service is needed on campus. He believes that in order for this to happen, student mentalities toward the surrounding community must be changed. He intends to initiate this change through improving the quality and consistency of training for Chicago Life Meeting leaders, who as a body are currently inconsistent in the messages they send first-years about students’ relationships with the South Side. He also seeks to establish a quarterly meeting between community service RSOs (CSRSOs) and community-based RSOs like Students for Health Equity and the UChicago Climate Action Network, which are not directly involved in community service as it is commonly understood, but nevertheless serve and are deeply embedded in the community. While these changes would initially impact those already interested or involved in service—RSOs would gain from interacting with each other and sharing their already-established networks and

resources—they would eventually have a larger impact on the student body as a whole by creating a centralized space that emphasizes community service on campus, something that the University Community Service Center cannot accomplish alone. In the meantime, though, Esquivel plans to increase the visibility of his proposed initiatives by emphasizing the role of house community service positions and more formally educating the students occupying those positions on the opportunities available through the University and surrounding communities.

In addition, Esquivel will advocate for the establishment of a College U-Pass program and supports the creation of a trauma center on the South Side.

Lizzy Noble First-year Lizzy Noble also centers her platform around increasing engagement between students and the surrounding community. Noble plans to enact this change primarily through organizing events among students as well as between the University and the neighborhood. A staple of Noble’s platform is initiating quarterly community dinners between Hyde Park business owners and all members of the University who desire to come, whether they be students, faculty, administrators, or otherwise. These dinners will only be effective in achieving their goal if executed properly and meticulously, and given her experience organizing these types of dinners in New York neighborhoods, she feels she has the ability to do so. She aims for the first of these dinners to take place during fall quarter next year. Noble furthermore plans to unite campus community service organizations through both a CSRSO fair, which would increase the visibility of these groups, and a coalition, the latter

of which would allow groups that pursue community service through many different avenues to converse, learn from each other’s practices, and thus serve the neighborhood and city more effectively.

The Editorial Board endorses Kenzo Esquivel for Community and Government Liaison. Esquivel has a vision for qualitative change in University attitudes toward the surrounding community. He has delineated tangible and feasible initiatives for the coming year that will set the groundwork for this vision while also conferring benefits to current students. Although many of these benefits will be felt by students already involved with community service, the Editorial Board holds that, of the suggested initiatives in the three candidates’ platforms, the most effective way of increasing student involvement in surrounding neighborhoods and the city among students not already engaged in this kind of work is by creating a strong culture of community service on campus. With that said, the Board urges Esquivel, if elected, to recognize bettering communication between the student body and government as an important role of this position. Esquivel has voiced his plans to engage the student body through apparatuses such as house community service leaders, but visibility is a chronic weakness of student government, and one that will not go away without the focus of the Liaison.

Editor’s Note: Liam Leddy recused himself from the consideration of Brendan McGuire’s platform and from the Board’s endorsement.

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

6

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | May 2, 2014

In the present tense

Knowing not telling

General narrative of mental illness leaves little space for stories from those still struggling

The absence of conversation is not the same as the absence of a friendship

Clair Fuller

Navigating Nuance I’m what most people would call an over-sharer. I imagine that this fact is not a very surprising one, given that it comes to you via my ~special journalistic soapbox~ where I get to talk all about my thoughts/feelings/ ideas and then see them distributed alongside a picture of my face. But even though I previously thought almost none of my life was off-limits for discussion, I’m discovering that there might in fact be a limit to my openness. Despite my usual willingness to talk about anything and everything going on in my life, there’s something I’m having trouble with. And so, another fact, perhaps more surprising: I recently started seeing a therapist at Student Counseling Services about anxiety.

I’m trying to discuss this without seeming weird about it, without awk-

wardly saying “therapy” five times in each sentence in an over-enthusiastic effort to make the word sound normal. But I’m struggling. No matter how much I tell myself that lots of people go to therapy, that it’s a good thing I’m doing for myself, that the stigmatized way our society treats mental illness is complete bullshit— I still find myself either not talking about it, or frantically qualifying it when I do.

“But really, everything’s fine!” is what I always feel the need to tell people if the discussion turns to my counseling appointments. It’s not actually fine, though. That’s why I started going in the first place. So I don’t like to talk about it, because although I try to be nonchalant and although my friends have been supportive, I’m always afraid that it’s going to turn into

A Conversation—and that people will look at me differently afterward.

I want this to be something I’m able to talk about; I really do. But almost every time I hear others talk about their mental health issues and treatment processes, they do so when the events in question are in the past.

I don’t want to discourage this—aside from the fact that seeking treatment for and managing mental illness is a huge accomplishment, it’s important for people to hear that what they’re going through is survivable. And it’s inspiring: Everyone loves a success story.

But I’m not familiar with the other ways of talking about struggling when you’re not done doing so; that is, I don’t know how to broach the subject when I haven’t quite gotten to the happy ending. That’s part of the reason why it took me so long to call Student Counseling in the first place.

I was hesitant to ask for help because I thought doing so would place me in the category of “currently ill,” and that wasn’t something I knew how to SHARING continued on page 7

Kristin Lin

Particularly Nothing Studying abroad feels a lot like returning to high school. You see the same people every day, take the same classes with them, ride the same tram home, split checks after meals, spend weekends together. In short, there’s a lot of togetherness.

A side effect of this constant presence is silence. It’s not uncomfortable or awkward or even unwanted; it is simply the lack of words—new ones, at least. Silence settled in shortly after second week, after the novelty faded and we had all learned each other’s names and majors, vague life stories, and favorite movies. One day at lunch when the food arrived, I realized that, even though I was sitting with two friends, I had not said a word since ordering. The only chatter I heard was woven into white noise, veiled in French. Quickly, I scrambled for

conversation topics that could break our silence and found that I had absolutely nothing to say or ask. So I took a bite of quiche and listened to the moist cadence of my chewing instead.

On campus, so much of our conversations consist of getting on the same page. We get coffee to catch up, ask each other what’s new after sitting down for lunch together. There are the standard questions that can fill up at least an hour, sometimes even more. For acquaintances: What classes are you taking? Are you moving off next year? For closer friends: How was your day? Did your paper go all right? What are your aspirations in life? I’ve learned that I constantly have to explain myself—why I like the things that I like; why I am the way I am.

SILENCE continued on page 7

as early as middle school, but it’s only to wave hello, of course. Children are growing up without parents—who are being incarcerated for nonviolent crimes and deported for simply existing where they’re not welcome—but those who run private companies that profit from these policies only have the nation’s best interests at heart.

Are we post-racial?

The reality is that often the privileged are content pretending the civil rights movement solved all racial problems.

They believe a systemic problem like racism can be solved with good intentions, by simply not discriminating on the basis of race. Attempts at systemic solutions, like affirmative action, are thrown out because they’re supposedly not necessary and harm white or Asian people. Even though diversity has proven beneficial in social and academic settings (not just for minorities, but for everyone), no one cares to challenge the status quo. Granted, affirmative action is imperfect, particularly in its grouping Asian Americans in a way that has adverse effects on many disadvantaged and underrepresented South and Southeast Asian minorities, but right now, it is necessary.

It is necessary because this is the real America. Where black, brown, yellow, and red voices are clamoring to be heard. We are fighting for representation in politics, to see our likenesses in media, in classrooms, in the capitols.

People of color are struggling to be more than the butt of a joke, to be more than your token minority, to be more than a stereotype, to be more than a mascot.

Enter our post-racial UChicago. We are the elite and the enlightened. But it has been approximately a year since Politically Incorrect UChicago Confessions showed us what some of our classmates really think of us. Those of us who were here won’t forget the things said under the veil of anonymity.

Diversity is not a priority here. Black students make up less than five percent of the population and Hispanics less

than seven percent, numbers that lag behind those of the Ivies. We can’t major in African-American studies—or Asian-American, or Latino, or Native American. We read DuBois and Fanon, but don’t see how their words are relevant in practice. Our professors of color are rare and declining in number, and the walls of this institution give us little indication that they were ever here in the first place.

Our University has always had a “complex” relationship with race. It refuses to build a trauma center, even though (mostly black) lives hang in the balance. The integrity of our campus police is, at the very least, in question when it comes to profiling. The University is ever expanding, pushing out the families who have lived here for generations.

Affirmative action matters because race matters. Structural inequality exists, and yes, it goes beyond class. It matters because giving voice to difference enriches our culture and our thinking, because lived experiences cannot be erased or invented. It matters because increasing opportunities for the most marginalized leads us closer to a just society. We didn’t work less hard than you to get here, and often we have to work twice as hard to get half the rewards and recognition.

But affirmative action is only the beginning. We need to do more in every way. It’s not just about taking race into account in the admissions office; it’s about pursuing students of color more aggressively, it’s about making us feel welcome and safe when we get here, it’s about providing us with resources and connections that we otherwise wouldn’t have. There’s a limit to how much we can change of what our classmates think, but our University should always have our back. We are more than checked boxes and diversity statistics.

We are more than a nuisance. We make this University better.

Why we need affirmative action America is far from post-racial Jorge Cotte Maroon Contributor Welcome to post-racial America.

Our president is half-black and our last remaining racists, Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling, have seen their uppance come. Finally, we have outstripped our nation’s dark history. Hiring processes have been automated and are now objective and bias-free. Obamacare and the Internet have eliminated discrepancies in access to health care and education. Any remnants of segregation are due to mere preference, not barriers to entry or historical factors.

Incidentally, schools that serve primarily black, brown, or Native American youth in our post-racial society are more likely to have high concentrations of first-year teachers, and it’s four times

more likely for black students and twice as likely for Hispanic students that over 20 percent of their faculty do not meet state certification requirements. These schools often don’t offer the full range of math and science basics; in fact, one in four of these schools does not offer algebra II, and one in three doesn’t offer chemistry…but I’m sure that’s not important.

We continue to use standardized evaluations to assess students, even though there are racial biases in content, implementation, and evaluation.

But at least we know that preparation for these tests definitely yields no advantages, and we have other objective measures like GPA and recommendation letters. We use these measures to decide who’s gifted and who’s worthy of investment—good thing they’re fair

and standardized.

And if we want to talk about fair practices, the discipline of students is nothing but that—especially at their most impressionable ages. According to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, black students account for only 18 percent of the country’s pre-K enrollment, but 48 percent of preschoolers with multiple out-of-school suspensions. Surely those toddlers deserve it. Black students are expelled three times as often as white students, but school administrators assure us there’s no unequal treatment.

At schools with gifted programs, blacks and Latinos make up 40 percent of students, but only 26 percent in the elite programs—if only they tried harder.

Police officers still slow down as they pass black and brown bodies starting

Happy 21st Birthday Noah Tuchow!

Jorge Cotte is a fourth-year in the College majoring in economics.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | May 2, 2014

7

Letter: Alum Geffen does disservice to Alpha Delta Phi, WHPK, and the larger community A Saturday ago, WHPK and the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity hosted a free show at Alpha Delt that featured rising pop musician Frankie Cosmos’s band, supported by local bands The Lemons and Richard Album and the Singles. At this show, one of the members of the Chicago band Twin Peaks took the microphone and heckled the crowd. He was asked to stop by one of the brothers and, shortly after, threw the first punch—which was returned to him. He fell to the ground and there was a bloody nose. A few brothers took him to the kitchen, cleaned his face up—“You should see the other guy,” our perpetrator muttered indignantly as he was being tended to.

He was allowed to stay till the end of the night because of his connection to the bands playing, which seems fairly kind of the brothers, all things considered.

A day later, an article ran on the music blog Consequence of Sound written by UChicago graduate Sasha Geffen. It has since been reprinted in the Maroon and has prompted many strong reactions. However, I, a DJ with WHPK and occasional performer at Alpha Delt, strongly feel that Geffen’s piece, “Throwing Punches at Frankie Cosmos” (4/25), does a great disservice to the current members of Alpha Delta Phi, WHPK, all of the students attending the show, and the bands that have been hosted at Alpha

Delt over the last two quarters.

What makes me most uncomfortable about Geffen’s piece is, in part, that the underlying questions which she poses are as vital and needing of discourse as ever, at a time when rape is endemic to college campuses (and particularly fraternity houses) all over the United States. Her concerns with racism, sexism, systems of privilege, and an absence of “queer meeting spaces and progressive community groups” are the reason she has taken aim at Alpha Delt. However, at the given moment, the name of Alpha Delt has been dragged through the mud because Sasha Geffen found it to be the most comfortable way to weave a narrative.

After recounting the heckling and the fight, Geffen tells us about her housemate who was allegedly raped at the fraternity in her first year and has since graduated. While I am not trivializing or making excuses for rape in absolutely any way, I take issue with what she has done here in making her point. First, I don’t believe that the current brothers can be indicted for what has occurred in the past. Second, the ways in which Geffen makes her point are elegant and convenient, but also problematically conjectural. She speaks about how college is a place where the rules of “real life” don’t always apply (and where “sleep deprivation” and “intoxication” are the

DiLalla’s political experience gives credence to his platform BOT continued from page 5 Life Committee and Duke officials— as success. DiLalla’s previous political experiences—albeit outside SG—lend some feasibility to the process behind his declared goals; that he has a plan to leave the progress of these arguments at

a markedly further point at the end of his time as Liaison is particularly valuable to students.

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

Celebrity breakdowns are the most visible model of mental struggle SHARING continued from page 6 deal with. It still isn’t. The closest thing we have to a cultural narrative about the “present tense” part of personal struggles and mental illness is the sick fascination with which we follow and find humor in celebrity breakdowns—not the most encouraging model.

If this is how we treat people who are forced to struggle with mental illness in a very public way, the impulse to struggle in private whenever possible is not a surprising one. I understand that not everyone wants to talk about every single thing all the time, and I understand that mental health is a very fraught topic indeed. But our cultural silence about what it looks like to be currently having a

rough time—to not yet be better but instead still working on it— only serves to increase the feeling of isolation and shame that make starting on the path to recovery that much harder.

So even though I haven’t figured out how to not be weird when I talk about the fact that yes, I’m currently in the process of sorting out my mental health, and no, I’m not 100 percent “better” yet— whatever that means—I’m going to keep trying to find one. In the meantime, I figure talking about it in a weird way is better than not talking about it all.

Clair Fuller is a second-year in the College majoring in gender and sexuality studies.

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ways that students “find themselves”).

In the full version of this piece, published in Consequence of Sound, she posits that this type of culture can also be found at music festivals like SXSW (South by Southwest). She follows by reminding us that this year, a drunk driver killed four and injured many at SXSW. Thus, festivals like SXSW feed the mindset “that allows for drunk driving.” However, we are reminded that UChicago’s death record over the last few decades exceeds that of SXSW, which has been around since 1987.

She approaches Alpha Delt through the lens of her question, which is the one of how space informs meaning.

If that is her mode of inquiry, then a fraternity is an easy culprit. There are many notions surrounding those spaces, and so it is comfortable to make her next point, which is about the kind of atmosphere a DIY show / frat party must entail. In her depiction, it is a place that apparently implies a tacit consent to “showing off your racism and sexism onstage,” rooted firmly in a tradition of white male privilege and domination. And on this last little part of her point, I cannot disagree.

The beautiful ivy-covered buildings that dominate our campus stand as the physical legacy of some of the most powerful and privileged white males that this country has known. But to take this fact and make a broader

statement about the current students here seems a little unfair. And while the problems she identifies with DIY venues in Chicagoland—that they are owned by white males and foster insular socialization—might be entirely valid, her assumptions about Alpha Delt as a show space are not.

What happened at Alpha Delt on Saturday was an isolated incident, and the cause of conflict was an entirely external one. This year, it seems that a burgeoning music scene has been emerging on campus—bands from Hyde Park and the rest of the city have been coming to play shows, and the reaction from students here has been quite positive. The day that Geffen’s article ran online, there was an assembly of a number of people from Alpha Delt, WHPK, and campus bands spurred by the events of Saturday— but not in response to Geffen’s piece.

The topic at hand was remedying the types of issues that both we and Sasha find to be problematic and deserving of concern.

It should be said that while people might have impressions about what the fraternity as a space implies—perhaps that is why the heckler, inebriated or not, might have found it appropriate to inquire, “Who’s a Bulls fan, bitch?”—it is the responsibility of community members and active bystanders to remedy the social ills that they identify around themselves.

A number of DIY spaces, like SUNY Purchase’s The Stood, have adopted statements of purpose and safer-space policies like the one below: “Be mindful of your speech and actions and the effect they may have on others.

“Do not make assumptions about people’s identities in terms of gender, race, sexuality, abilities, class, or background.

“Respect people’s boundaries and always interact with others’ consent, be it physically, emotionally, or verbally.

“Carry these guidelines through all forms of communication, physical and non-physical: in person, by telephone, and on the Internet.”

The group of people assembled on the day Geffen’s piece ran sought to figure out how to best implement policies like these and how to mitigate the potential problems that DIY shows create. But Sasha Geffen’s article takes liberties in pursuing a narrative that is inflammatory and plays on emotional triggers, and has thus antagonized an effort for inclusive communitybuilding. I can only hope that you, the reader, will recognize the importance of what we are hoping to do and join us in helping give the spaces we occupy the positive meanings for which we wish them to stand.

—James Kogan, Class of 2017

“What keeps people together, and makes them drift apart?”

SILENCE continued from page 6 But even these questions dry up, and people don’t constantly generate new thoughts about the big things— politics, love, life. Even the most interesting conversations can only happen once or twice before everyone is basically on the same page. So when you spend most of your day with other people, the only thing that really changes from day to day is just that— the passing of the day.

This realization brought up some existential questions about friendship and companionship for me, questions that I’ve been thinking about since high school: What is friendship if it’s not having things to talk about?

Is good conversation a symptom of friendship, or is it the cause? And if friends don’t have things to talk about all the time, what is companionship?

These were all pressing questions for me after graduation, after the pomp and the circumstance, when we all retreated to our own homes for the start of summer break. One morning, perhaps a week after break started, I sat at my desk and realized that, after repeating my litany of sentimental graduation spiels and acknowledging the commencement of “the rest of our lives,” I had absolutely nothing new to say. And repeating the old stuff to my friends just seemed trite. Everything I knew about everyone was old, and silence settled on my summer.

Since then, I have been painfully aware of silence—how it functions between me and my friends at home, the acquaintances I made during my first month at school, the housemates I got to know much better after a few quarters, my professors, strangers. Sometimes, it is a little awkward; sometimes, acquaintances are quick to fill it with words and laughter; but most of the time, I just let it settle.

And when I do, I wonder whether the silence between me and this other person is indicative of a greater boredom with each other.

It’s not. Probably not, at least. Admittedly, in writing this article, I am being one-dimensional about friendship; I feel strange even trying to break down friendship into some formula or a set of qualities. It goes without saying that no two friendships are the same. In fact, finding the answer to any of these questions is probably not going to do much. Regardless, I think about this—at lunch, in the library, sitting in my room while my friend finishes her paper. Silence in friendship is prevalent, inconsistent, jarring. Perhaps my concerns about it just have to do with my stage in life now—in transit between two homes—my hometown and college; one I feel I’ve outgrown, and the other I feel I’ve barely grown into.

No matter my motivations, for the past few years I have been struggling

to find an answer: What keeps people together, and makes them drift apart?

But perhaps the answer (or, at least, an answer) isn’t as elusive as I have made it out to be. Taking a break from writing this article, I decided to start a video chat with my friend from home.

I logged on, and after the usual “How’s life?” spiels, the same silence settled between our screens. In conjunction with writing this article, I was just so painfully aware of it. I panicked— were we drifting apart?—but only for a moment. We have been friends for six years. I may not be learning much more about who she is at this point, but that’s because I know. I’ve known for years and, despite all the changes we’ve both experienced in college, she’s the same with me as she has been since freshman year of high school.

What makes our friendship strong is not our personality or interests or interesting conversations—it’s the passage of time and the fact that, despite being thousands of miles away from each other, we are still sitting in front of a screen with each other, not talking at all, but just seeing each other.

There’s only so much you can learn about a person before the next thing you learn comes not from them, but from the time spent with them.

Kristin Lin is a second-year in the College majoring in political science.

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CIMM City: A marriage of movies and music across Chicago Andrew McVea Arts Staff From piano accompaniment of silent films to movie musicals to Beyoncé’s recent visual album, music and film have historically built on each other to create a work experienced by both the eyes and the ears. In honor of this trend-continuing collaboration, this weekend the Chicago International Movie and Music Festival (CIMMfest) celebrates the intersection between film and music through various concerts, films, and panel discussions with artists.

CIMMfest, which is spread out across various venues and theaters around Wicker Park and Logan Square on the north side, kicked off yesterday with a concert by the band Yo La Tengo and will last throughout the weekend, highlighting a diverse group of musicians and filmmakers.

While the festival has already had its first event, there is plenty to do before closing night on Sunday. Playing tonight at the Concord Music Hall is the band Escort, who are described in the festival program as “Brooklyn’s finest

disco orchestra.” It is unclear who else, exactly, is competing with Escort for this title, but the infectious energy of the band, as well as its catchy baselines, makes this a perfect concert for those who want to dance.

Although the festival does feature some musical acts that do not have anything to do with film, and some movies that do not incorporate music in an obvious way, the majority of the fare at CIMMfest this year consists of events that encompass both art forms. One of the largest events going on throughout the festival is a series of music documentaries featuring wellknown rock bands such as Led Zeppelin and the Flaming Lips, as well as inside looks at the struggles of lesser-known bands. One film worth looking out for is The Last Kamikazis of Heavy Metal, which follows the Chicago metal band HËSSLER on tour as the band slowly unravels. The directors, sisters Marina and Biliana Grozdanova, are graduates from the College (’13) and the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (’11), respectively. The duo makes

music documentaries and began their filmmaking career while attending UChicago.

Music videos (generally only viewed via YouTube or iPhone) are also heavily featured in the festival and will be shown on the big screen.

Vincent Moon, who is known for his tour documentaries of R.E.M., Arcade Fire, and the National will be giving a talk on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Logan Square’s Logan Theater and will be showing excerpts from his series “Take Away Shows” and “Petites Planètes.”

In “Take Away Shows,” Moon filmed impromptu music videos with various musicians on a handheld camera while they were on tour, oftentimes just in the street as cars and people passed by. The sound and visual quality of these films are not the best, but when contrasted with seas of screaming fans seen at some of the band’s concerts, the shots of these rock stars being ignored as they walk through a crowded city has an oddly humanizing effect.

Technically, the festival is supposed to celebrate international music and movies, but there are also numerous

The Last Kamikazis of Heavy Metal, a rockumentary directed by UChicago alums Mariana (A.B. ’13) and Biliana (M.A. ’11) Grozdanova, follows the exploits of hard-luck metal group HËSSLER on the road.

COURTESY OF MARIANA AND BILIANA GROZDANOVA

Chicago area artists who are participating, including some who are students at the University of Chicago. The film 2/1/1986, which was directed by first-year Anna Gregg and second-year Allie Titus and written by first-years Kristin Zodrow and Gabby Davis,

Obvious Child, a pro-choice movie with no cons Russell Namalata maroon Contributor Fresh material is the key to ennobled comedy. And Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child is so fresh that the laughter was, indeed, good medicine.

Kristen Wiig, Anna Faris, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph—the effortlessly funny Comedy Queens of modern film and television—must now induct a new member into their ranks: 32-year-old Jenny Slate, whose performance was thigh-slappingly hilarious. Slate plays Donna, the titular obvious child and the honest, often indiscreet comedian. Her awkwardness, her spontaneity, her charm, the je ne sais quoi persona (a defining trait in all those aforementioned Queens), all contributed to the spasmodic, roaring laughter that swept through Max Palevsky Cinema during an advance screening of the film.

But no comedy, whether it has an outstanding leading lady or not, can succeed without the genius of the film’s screenplay. Virtuoso screenwriter and director Gillian Robespierre first released this refreshing com-

edy as a short film back in 2009 on the video-sharing website Vimeo. The diametric criticism the short received was enough to pique the viewing public’s interest, which in turn subjected the proto-film to ever greater levels of scrutiny. Unlike happily-ever-after films with similar themes, such as Katherine Heigl’s Knocked Up (2007), Ellen Page’s Juno (2007), or Vanessa Hudgens’s most recent attempt at serious acting, Gimme Shelter (2013), Obvious Child deviates from sappy, candy-coated endings. As film critic Tiffany Vazquez wrote, Obvious Child represents a “brave new frontier” on all fronts—it takes great risks not only in its lessthan-fairy-tale ending but in its daringly dark themes as well.

The ending can best be described as bittersweet: It doesn’t feel totally satisfying, but has enough clarity to make its point. “We were frustrated by the limited representations of young women onscreen and their experience with unplanned pregnancy,” said Robespierre of the film. “We were waiting to see a film in which a woman makes a different choice—and it

doesn’t define her life. But we weren’t sure how long that wait was going to be. So we decided to make the film ourselves.” The film is essentially feminist in its concerns, but is not excessively political. It’s about the reality of things: how an accidental pregnancy should be regarded as merely an accident, and not as prolonged suffering or a burden. It’s pro-choice, especially with regards to youth pregnancy, although the film makes the point that prevention is an easier course. For the film’s heroine, her actions are in defiance of the church, the conservatives, the uneducated, and all ironclad moral codes by which society would view one differently.

Obvious Child is not exactly a lighthearted movie, and shouldn’t be taken as such, but what it can (and surely does) do is lighten one’s heart and present a choice. The moral takeaway is, you have to make the decision for yourself, regardless of what others think, and that doesn’t make you a bad person.

Bittersweet is how it’s usually described when a story’s end doesn’t feel totally satisfying, but has enough sanity and motive to be so.

will be featured at the Filmlympics student filmmaking showcase at 5 p.m. on Sunday at the Gorilla Tango theater.

Their film is an homage to the films of Wes Anderson and is about a young woman who discovers a package which is not meant for her. It was

shot earlier this month during the 48-Hour Film festival, in which students were given two days to write, shoot, and edit a short film.

CIMMfest wraps up this Sunday with a performance by famed blues musician Booker T. Jones.

Th e composer is dead with MJ Chen License to trill: A chat with law student/flutist Caroline Wong Caroline Wong is a student at the University of Chicago Law School. A first-place winner of the music department’s 2014 Concerto Competition, she performed Jacques Ibert’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra with the University Symphony Orchestra as part of its Concerto Showcase. I sat down with flutist Wong after the concert for a few words on technique, competition, and antitrust law.

MJ Chen: You played the Ibert Flute Concerto last Saturday (wonderfully, I might add).

I want to ask about your interpretation of the piece.

Caroline Wong: I think a lot of French music has this unique quality of shifting very quickly into different, subtle changes of character. There’s a lot in the piece that depends on subtle harmonic shifts, or subtle textual shifts—in terms of different orchestrations from measure to measure, different voices coming out at different times. So there’s a lot of subtlety in the music. You get a lot of German music that has soaring, memorable melodies, like Beethoven. French music isn’t like that…it’s subtle. So a lot of what went into preparing the piece was getting familiar with the harmonies, the subtleties of color and figuring out what to

do with that so the piece creates a very rich palette of colors, emotions, ideas.

MC: Many people have a very narrow understanding of the flute as a sort of orchestral Hi-Liter—that it’s only good for bird calls or pastoral tunes, for example. How do you think the Ibert flute concerto changes that?

CW: Well, these stereotypes are especially true in an orchestral setting. Just having a flute in front of the orchestra as a solo instrument changes that dynamic completely. There are not a whole lot of big flute concertos before the early 20th-century. I think that has to do with the fact that the technology of the instrument evolved. In the nineteenth century, people were still playing wooden flutes; 20th-century, people are playing metal flutes.

The keys and the mechanisms are more evolved, so the flute could physically do more than it could 100 years previously.

It became a more popular instrument as well, so a tradition of technique grew; there were more flutists playing the flute seriously. So because you see all these physical, technical developments, I think that’s why you see the flute growing out of that stereotype.

MC: What’s something

about playing the flute that not many non-flutists know about?

CW: I think what people don’t realize about playing the flute is that breathing is a constant challenge. I’m very jealous of pianists and string players!

They can just play long, beautiful melodies and they don’t have to worry about being limited by the air. Another thing I thought a lot about when preparing for the Ibert [flute concerto]: How can I make this sound effortless and melodic even though I do have to physically interrupt phrases to breathe? I can’t…not breathe!

So that’s something that people maybe don’t know about the flute. Breathing is a constant challenge!

MC: So a future innovation could be to have tubes running through the flutist’s nasal passages, providing a constant supply of air.

CW: [Laughs] Probably not, but here’s a fun fact: A lot of what’s difficult about playing the flute is stuff that the audience doesn’t see. The audience sees fingers moving, but most of what’s difficult—what goes into good flute-playing—is control of air. The control of the speed of the air, the direction at which it hits the mouthpiece. And I’m talking about FLUTE continued on page 10

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | May 2, 2014

9

Meat and greet a few of the beefiest burgers in town Like any self-respecting American city, Chicago has an unhealthy obsession with its burgers. There are innumerable restaurants with treasured buns to call their own, and new hierarchies evolve every two weeks or so in the elite world of burger rankings. When I look at Chicago’s burger scene, I see the food equivalent of the stock market, with foodies buying allegiance in Acadia’s upscale burger one day and doubling down on Kuma’s shady creations the next.

It’s a topsy-turvy world for the burger aficionado, where the musttry place changes so frequently.

That might be why I’ve eaten at such a long list of Chicago burger joints—forty-plus and counting— and I still can’t find a stable pulse to talk about. But if making a list of top burgers is a futile enterprise, then maybe highlighting three radically divergent burgers isn’t. After all, it seems that the best part of a chaotic burger metropolis is just how crazy-different they all are. I’ll start with the classic.

Top Notch Beefburgers ($3.99— $8.10): 2116 West 95th Street, Chicago, IL A long sign juts out onto a Beverly thoroughfare with the word “Beefburger” written out vertically in large bold letters, and the words “Top Notch” written horizontally

atop in narrow Comic Sans. We pass through the entrance to a sterile, beige-tinted interior that dulls the eyes and heightens the smell of beef on the grill. I didn’t really notice when we sat down at the table; I was still trying to recover from the sensory overload.

I want to say Top Notch Beefburgers serves a classic American burger, but that isn’t totally fair.

Top Notch has cranked out burgers on the South Side in one form or another since 1942, which is to say, they invented the classic burger.

Their beef is ground on-site, formed into patties, and thrown on the grill. You have options for raw or grilled onions, or you can upgrade to a Super King Size 3/4 pounder.

There are a variety of cheeses to choose from, including cheddar and American, which is what I prefer here.

If there were a Platonic form for a cheeseburger, the idea we all think of when we think of what a cheeseburger is, it would be the beefburger. Each bite is meaty and fatty, with bold and sharp flavors layered on top of each other like, well, a burger. The burger also fills you up, to an almost absurd degree, but it’s nothing their homemade Oreo shakes won’t fix.

Pl-zeň ($15.00): 1519 West 18th Street, Chicago, IL

This food critic don’t want none unless you got buns, hon’: the M Burger, with bacon, cheese, and secret sauce.

COURTESY OF MARTHA WILLIAMS

/ TIMEOUT CHICAGO

Pl-zeň is an underground restaurant/bar that specializes in another category of burger. Situated in a dimly lit basement of sorts, Pl-zeň specializes in fusion foods, and serves dishes like mussels with tomatillo cream sauce and black tagliatelle pasta with jalapeño pesto.

But what is more memorable is the beer selection—a quirky selection on tap with alcohol contents that

average nine percent and up—and their dressed-up burger.

Dressed-up burgers are the divas of the burger world, dazzling and alluring to the eye, sometimes with disappointing results. Fortunately, the taste of Pl-zeň’s burgers fits its image. A bison patty on brioche buns covered in a melted cheddar fondue forms the basis of their standard burger. A pillow of crispy

onions sits atop the meat, and slices of bacon balance precariously atop the onion pile.

It looks excessive but delicate and, like a bird with colorful plumage, screams for your attention when it hits the table. The burger is surrounded by a mound of fries, which only adds to the look of decadence and excess. Fortunately, there BURGER continued on page 10

MAROON Crossword

By Kyle Dolan

Difficulty:

Across 1. When the French fry 4. Put down a dog, say 7. Start of a well-known palindrome 11. Parks on a bus 15. Kunis of Ted 17. Trophy, perhaps 18. Train station feature 19. Dollar competitor 20. Average 21. Power inverse 22. 2007 film ostensibly about Bob Dylan 24. Topper for a renegade pope?

25. Extinguish 27. Keeping up?

28. Swelling 30. Zaftig 32. 23-Down’s partner 33. Cousin of obsidian and pumice 35. Mail ___ 37. Chronological, say 42. Some letter writers to Dan Savage, for short 44. “Snowy” bird 46. Verb whose

homophone is its outcome 47. Dove 52. Seasonal workers?

54. Lit ___ 55. Insect named for its wing pattern 57. Change denomination, often 58. Trench, e.g.

59. Prefix with genetics 60. Wolf pack member 61. Small digit 62. Actress/model Kurylenko 63. Stiff 64. Profits 65. Make a mistake 66. Shot that may result in a smash Down 1. Command to Scotty 2. Frutería o carnicería, e.g.

3. Sends 4. Holiday song adjective 5. Company 6. Swallow 7. You can bank on it

1

2

3

8. Cooper maker 9. “Move __!”

10. Request for attention 11. Richard’s successor 12. Hot box?

13. Possible inspiration for Scarlett Johansson’s

4

5

character in Her 14. On a deck, perhaps 16. Jungian archetype 18. “I know what’s going on here!”…or literally, a hint to five answers in this puzzle 23. See 32-Across

26. “You bet” 29. The Zoo Story playwright 31. Do some knitting 34. Request to a driver, perhaps 36. Commit 38. Maker of candy wafers 39. Matriculate 40. Ingredient in four-cheese pizza, perhaps 41. Umpire’s call 43. Disney protagonist of 1994 45. Medium range?

47. Bargain 48. “Orinoco Flow” singer 49. One of the Near Islands 50. Solidify 51. Eccentric 53. One having a ball?

56. ___-Bo (exercise system)

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | May 2, 2014

10

“I think what people don’t realize about playing the flute is that breathing is a constant challenge” FLUTE continued from page 8

very fine-grain distinctions in speed and direction. So a lot of learning to become a flutist is learning how to control that speed and direction.

MC: I’d like to ask you about the Concerto Competition.

How did you feel about the experience?

CW: First, surprising—because I didn’t compete thinking that I would win. I’m a law student. I competed because I knew that having a kind of deadline would get me to practice more. And one thing that has been kind of sad about this year is that I haven’t had time to practice as much as I would have liked to. So I just wanted to do the competition to get myself playing again a little bit more, and it worked. But I also won, so that was a nice surprise.

MC: Would you consider competing again in the future?

COURTESY OF CAROLINE WONG

CW: I’d love to. Past winners aren’t allowed to compete, so I’m going to have to find myself other opportunities in the city of Chicago, because I love it.

MC: If you could change something about the way the competition is set up, what would it be?

CW: The way the competition is set up, you have all categories of musicians competing against each other.…I was a little bit surprised that they didn’t divide us into pianists, string players, wind players, and then select winners from each category. That’s something a lot of competitions usually do. But I’m sure the music department has a good reason for doing what they do, so that’s fine.

MC: Okay, last question.

It’s the nineteenth century and someone just invented the keyed flute. An industry lobby of wooden-flute makers has

filed a complaint against it. You are called to defend the keyed flute in a court of law. How would you do it?

CW: [Laughs] It would depend what the wooden-flute makers were suing for…yeah, that sounds like some sort of complaint for loss of business profits. There’s nothing that looks unfair about inventing a better flute. There’s no worries about Sherman Act violations, unfair competition—it just looks like a good, new product on a competitive market. This is UChicago, so we love a good competitive market. Do you do anything with economics?

MC: Yeah—well, I intend to.

CW: Yeah! The keyed flute is a better innovation in a competitive market; the market wants what the markets wants.

Too bad for wooden-flute makers.

“When I look at Chicago’s burger scene, I see the food equivalent of the stock market” BURGER continued from page 9

there is no explosion of salty flavors or unmanageable bites. The brioche flattens out in your hands, scrunches everything together, and produces a mild balance of tastes that plays on the gaminess of the bison. Not quite what I expected, but that’s probably a good thing.

M Burger ($4.39— $5.39): 161 East Huron, Chicago, IL Last June, I sat for my first standardized test since the SAT. Scared shitless, I took the bus to Michigan Avenue a few hours early and did the only thing I could think of to prepare myself. I ate at M Burger. And when it was all

over, I did the only sensible thing and celebrated with more M Burger.

The original location of this fast-food burger joint is literally carved out of the kitchen space of the ultrahigh-end restaurant Tru. There are only a few seats available, with most people ordering their meals to go, or

eating on the benches right outside, but the fact that there are still lines for dinner is telling.

M Burger might just be a glorified Big Mac, as one friend recently lamented, but that is exactly what’s so charming about it. The burger has few frills, amounting largely to the secret sauce

they add with the bacon and cheese. Their buns are particularly soft and fluff y, and the meat is tender and cooked adequately into the center.

But there is an aspect of love to their recipe, of thoughtfulness to the quality of their ingredients, which makes it worth going to again. And again.

M Burger stands as a living example of how great it is to live in a city that can’t make up its mind about which beef and bun it likes best. Out of the chaos rise the little guys that stand out from the crowd and make eating 40+ burgers not just an enjoyable experience, but an unpredictable one at that.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | May 2, 2014

11

Points in the paint: Why basketball is the best sport

Samuel Zacher Sports Editor There’s nothing the average sports fan enjoys more than arguing, and no argument is more enjoyable than the one that can’t be settled. So, this quarter the sports section is asking the ultimate unanswerable question: Which sport is the best? Over the next few weeks, the sports editors will make the case for their favorite sports. First up, basketball.

What does it mean to call a certain sport “the best”? In this instance, it involves discussing inherent aspects of a certain game that make it more enjoyable to any given athlete, as compared to another sport.

It’s extremely difficult to tell people why their opinion is wrong, when all claims are founded on preferences, but that’s exactly what we sports editors are setting out to do with one another. Here’s why a game that supposedly began as offseason training for football is objectively the best sport.

Basketball, which was first played in 1891 with peach baskets and no dribbling, combines the ideal amount of necessary raw physical attributes— height, strength, speed, agility, power, etc.—with the necessary skills—shooting, dribbling, passing, etc.

So many areas of the game involve utilizing strength and power, such as rebounding, scoring in the post, and protecting the paint, while others involve extreme finesse and acquired skill, such as ball handling, jump shooting, and passing. Overall, basketball has the widest range of physicality and contact level in all respects.

Let’s look at some examples. Charles Barkley, in his prime, made his living off rebounding and scoring in the paint by using his immense strength and power. Alternately, Dirk Nowitzki’s game relies on one thing: the fadeaway jumper, which requires playing in open space—he hardly needs contact with defenders at all. Magically, both of these players play the same position. Additionally, James Harden is a guard who takes lots of shots and relies on drawing contact when getting into the lane, exhibited by

his 27-point performance on 22 free throws in December. In contrast to him is Steph Curry, another high-volume shooter whose bread and butter is ball handling and pull-up threes, which require creating space. Again, here are two players who play virtually the same position with completely different uses of strength and skill.

Because of this unique combination and plethora of physical traits and skills, basketball allows for the athlete to customize, to personalize his or her unique style of play. To quote Bobby Joe Hill from Glory Road, “Having the ball in your hand[…]is like making sweet music with your game.”

Basketball allows for more creativity than baseball or football because of the range of playing styles—there are so many areas of the game to personalize, like shooting form, ball-handling moves, defensive style, court vision, and more. In baseball, the only real space to get creative is in swinging a bat, and in football, it’s even more difficult to personalize different skills. In soccer, you can’t customize much at all, and hockey only really allows for skating and shooting in different ways.

On a related note, when players get pumped up in basketball, they can release pent-up adrenaline in a way that is most conducive to climactic conclusions that also combine strength or athleticism with skill. Think of the most impressive basketball highlights—they’re mostly alley-oops that combine passing with athleticism, individual dunks that combine ball handling with athleticism, or crossovers with some impressively difficult jump shot— all combinations of raw physical ability and skill.

In football, players seem to climactically finish plays by either simply hitting someone hard or running really fast, which is far simpler than basketball plays. While simplicity is often beautiful in itself, basketball’s strength lies in its difficulty of combining different physical abilities. In baseball, strength and speed are necessary for many plays, but skill is still by far the dominant trait, exemplified by back-to-back American League MVP Miguel Cabrera, who relies on hand-eye coordination for his remarkably impressive hitting, which is clearly his most valuable quality. In soccer, skill and speed are almost always necessary for big plays, but beyond speed, there’s not a whole lot of strength or power necessary, unlike in basketball.

Another facet that makes the game on the hardwood the best is accessibility. Much like soccer, basketball is played on a worldwide scale, and for good reason: All one needs to play is a ball and a basket.

There’s no required gear, like in baseball or football.

Moreover, one can play and practice basketball by oneself for hours on end, which is not true of football. In baseball, it’s possible, but one needs many

baseballs and a pitching machine. In soccer, it’s also possible, but to shoot by oneself requires lots of retrieving the ball from the net. The amount of “wasted” motion involved is far greater than when shooting around by oneself.

A slight nuance to this argument is that pickup basketball is extremely common. Pickup soccer is also common. However, because many people go to shoot around by themselves, it’s natural to convene on teams and compete against one another, whereas soccer is much less conducive to many players going to shoot around and suddenly finding enough on one field for a pickup game.

Since basketball doesn’t require too much of a financial burden, it’s played on all levels of social class, which can help unite people from different communities.

In the Chatter’s Box with Sarah Langs

Annie Marsden is a third-year runner from Salt Lake City, UT. We chatted with her to get some insider info on the life of a Maroon athlete. earlier?

AM: I had hip surgery because I hurt my hip from ballet. And so I couldn’t dance for a while. And so then I started running because I couldn’t dance, and I just need activity. And then, running with [my friend] Amanda, we just started running a lot. I don’t know, there’s just a thing that happens to you when you start running a lot. You just kind of start to...fall in love with it.

COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS

Chicago Maroon: You joined the track and field team later than most others. What motivated you to join it as a second-year?

Annie Marsden: I realized that I was running a lot, and I loved running. And I was doing so much mileage anyway, so I wanted to have a support group and a team to actually run with.

And it just seemed fun.

CM: Were you ever on a track team in high school or middle school, or any time before your second year here?

AM: No. CM: Your previous sport was dancing.

What was the transition like—between being a part of a dance group, with ballet, versus now being on the track team?

AM: Well, they’re actually similar in a lot of ways. Ballet, there’s a lot of pain involved. You learn a lot of discipline, a lot of self-discipline.

It’s similar in that the amount of work that you put into it, you see a lot come out. And it is a team. With ballet, you know, you do work together, especially if you’re doing a dance together. But really a lot of the focus is individual. And it’s similar with running, that idea of working individually but also knowing how to make that a part of a team. It’s kind of hard to explain, but with a soccer team, you’re clearly working together towards this goal. The running team, you have to understand how you are racing as an individual, and yet you’re still a part of this team and supporting your team.

And that’s kind of how ballet is too.

CM: Since you weren’t on a team in high school, did you run in high school at all? Or did you pick that up when you got to college?

AM:No, I did not. I would occasionally go for runs, but I didn’t even know what a 400 was before I joined the team. So, it’s been a lot of learning.

Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki, one of the best power forwards of all time, exemplifies one of the many styles of play and levels of physicality in basketball.

COURTESY OF RONALD MARTINEZ, GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA

Lastly, the nature of the basketball court’s boundaries makes it the only major sport other than hockey that allows fans to sit directly adjacent to all boundaries, creating the closest, most intimate sort of atmosphere for fans to lose themselves in the action.

All in all, basketball is an extremely complex game physically, which allows players with all sorts of abilities to flourish. This is part of what gives basketball the most diverse scale of any sport. Also, it’s plain easy for anyone to play, either alone or with anyone else, without requiring much of a financial contribution.

From a sport once played solely as offseason training, to one that owns the entire month of March and drives fans mad, basketball has found its place as objectively the best sport.

CM: What made you pick up running, then?

What was the first time that you realized you were doing all of the mileage you mentioned

CM: What are you thinking about when you’re running a race?

AM: It depends on the race. For me, I haven’t had that much racing experience. But I ran a 5K this outdoor season. So, running the 5K, that’s a pretty long race. And you’re thinking about hitting your splits. You’re thinking about where you are. Your mind is, at least for me, focused on how it’s feeling, my breath, my legs, going faster, keeping up with someone in front of me, catching somebody, how many laps I have left, how many laps I’ve done. And kind of trying to trick yourself into thinking, “OK, last mile.” You just break it up into, “OK, I have one lap and then three laps left, that’s easy, then I’m done,” when really you have a full mile, but you try to make yourself think you’re very close to being done. But when it’s a shorter race, like when I was racing the mile, that one [is] so short that you don’t really have that much time.

You’re just going really fast, and the race is over before you know it.

CM: Do you feel like you have a different kind of competitive spirit or approach to the competition, since your background is in ballet?

AM: I don’t think so. I think everyone is very competitive; they take the sport really seriously, they work really hard, and they just want to see themselves improve. They have goals that they want to meet. They want to help the team— they want to contribute to the team. I think that that’s pretty much, for most people, the spirit. And I feel like that’s what I have, too.

CM: Do you think you’ll ever start dancing again? Have you?

AM: I’ve danced a little bit. And I definitely plan on dancing again. Right now, I just want to be able to run a full season without having any injuries. After that, I’ll start picking up dance. But I still love dance.

CM: What about after graduation? Running is good because it’s something you can do almost anywhere—do you feel like you can find a way to incorporate dancing, too?

AM:I know for a fact that I will run for the rest of my life. For dance, it’s a little harder, because you have to find a studio and take adult classes.

I will probably try to do that if I have the opportunity to do it. It’s just running is so easy.

You just put your running shoes on and go.

SPORTS

IN QUOTES “I don’t focus on almost. In high school, I never dealt with the chick that almost wanted to go out with me.”

–Nets forward Kevin Garnett responds to having almost joined the Clippers

UChicago club volleyball popularity spikes Men’s Volleyball

The UChicago Men’s Club Volleyball Team competed at the National Collegiate Club Volleyball Championships earlier this quarter.

COURTESY OF RUBY YEHOSHUA

Derek Tsang Sports Staff Men’s volleyball is one of UChicago’s fastest-growing club sports. In 2012, the club only had seven players on hand at the National Collegiate Club Volleyball Championships, the minimum needed to field a team. Now, it has 30 to 40 players come out to every practice, team president Thomas Schankler said.

“It’s too much to have for one court of playing,” Schankler, a fourth-year, said.

“It’s a good problem to have.

We’re at a much more comfortable placing in terms of looking into the future.”

The turn came two years ago, when Schankler and his teammates made a conscious effort to open the club up to newcomers. “We had a really good coach who was super intense,” Schankler said.

“The methodology was like,

‘We need the best players only practicing,’ and it turned away a lot of people from the club who weren’t used to that coaching mentality.”

While that mentality worked well at times—that seven-man team finished tied for fifth at Nationals, its best performance ever—it put the club in danger of folding, so it opened its doors.

This season, with a roster full of newcomers and some untimely injuries, Nationals

(April 3–5 in Reno) didn’t go quite as well—Schankler would only say they did “very poorly”—but he is optimistic about the future of the club.

“We work all year for Nationals, and we want to show it, because we definitely have the talent,” Schankler said. “A graduate student on the team said he was sad to be graduating, because he wasn’t going to see this team when they’re playing at their full potential, and they know it.”

The men’s volleyball club at UChicago has been around since at least 1994. The club was initially composed mostly of graduate students who had competed in varsity or club volleyball as undergraduates, but now most of the regular players are first- and second-years, many of whom had only played volleyball in high school P.E. and came out on a lark.

“The Monday night of O-Week, I met this random guy named Adonia, and we started talking,” said first-year player Ron Yehoshua, who went out for volleyball in middle school on his mother’s urging and has stuck with it every year since then. “He

said, ‘Hey, you should come out to club volleyball.’ I never would have known, so it’s very fortunate I met this guy.”

The club makes it a point to be relaxed and welcoming, both on and off the court.

“The first couple of times I came to the open gyms, I was really intimidated,” Yehoshua said. “I came into college just thinking about cliques and how you can’t really be friends with the older players, and then when they started inviting me to things, I was surprised. But I went, and I had a lot of fun.”

Volleyball is one of the few American sports more popular among women than men.

Only 50 of the 351 Division I colleges field varsity men’s volleyball teams; under Title IX, college athletics programs are required to fund the same number of men’s and women’s teams, and men’s volleyball often gets the axe for football, Schankler said.

In the Midwest, the West Coast, and Europe, though, men’s volleyball is wildly popular.

“If you watch men’s volleyball at the Olympics, it’s ridiculously impressive,”

Schankler said. “They jump real high and hit the ball real hard—you would not want to get hit by that. It would hurt.”

Volleyball’s not just about athleticism, though; communication between teammates is paramount.

“Every play, a ball’s hit really hard between two players,” Yehoshua said. “You need to communicate to figure out who’s going to hit it. In basketball, you can have a standout guy; LeBron James can carry a team. But in volleyball, you literally need to use your whole team, because you can’t touch the ball twice.”

With Nationals three weeks in its rearview mirror, the club’s season is mostly over; it spends fall and winter practicing and participating in Midwest tournaments to prepare. Schankler said the rest of the year will serve to give new players time on the court and help more experienced players keep their skills up.

“We just want to keep building,” Yehoshua said. “As a group of guys, we have fun together and want to make sure we keep an open, fun atmosphere in the club.”

Maroons look for more offense in final six games Baseball Russell Mendelson Sports Staff With only six games left following Sunday’s contest, Chicago traveled to Naperville, IL, to face a formidable North Central team.

The Maroons (9–22) fell to the Cardinals (22–11) by a score of 4–1, adding to what has been a slew of low-scoring, close games for the South Siders lately.

Fourth-year infielder Dylan Massey impressively went 3-for-5 on the day and scored Chicago’s only run.

Massey is hitting .328 and leading the team with 40 hits this season. When asked about his recent approach, Massey attributed his success to his patience at the plate.

“I’m seeing the ball well out of the pitcher’s hand, and I’m being more selective in the pitches I swing at,” said Massey.

Third-year pitcher Andrew VanWazer did not hold back praise when commenting on Massey’s recent performance.

“Dylan Massey has been red-hot lately. He was 3-for-5 on Sunday and 5-for-6 the Saturday before,” VanWazer said. “Saturday, he also hit his first career homer, showing us all that he has more than just warning-track power.”

VanWazer, playing as the team’s designated hitter, made his own contribution to the South Siders’ effort on Sunday, as he collected one of Chicago’s eight hits. He said North Central did a good job of stranding Maroon runners on the base paths.

“We were up against a good team,” VanWazer said. “We were just one big hit away from taking the lead. We had unfortunate luck on a few plays and [on] calls as well.”

With the strong pitching of third-year

starter Anthony DeRenzo, the Cardinals were kept within striking distance of the Maroons’ lineup.

“Anthony’s pitching performance impressed me,” Massey said. “He keeps his pitches low, which gets him a lot of ground balls, and he competes for each and every out.”

DeRenzo put up zeros in all of his six frames except for an unearned run in the first and three in the fourth.

Second-year pitcher Alex Athenson kept the Cardinal hitters at bay for the seventh and eighth innings, giving up only one hit with two strikeouts and a walk.

Overall, Chicago received contributions from many different players but couldn’t find a way to score. This season will not end with the ideal outcome the Maroons may have been hoping for, but this does not mean that their effort will be put into question.

VanWazer summed up the expectations he and his teammates have for the next week and a half.

“We have six games left, and at this point, we just want to play six competitive games and hopefully win the three-game series against Wash U,” VanWazer said.

Before Chicago battles Wash U on May 9 and 10, the South Siders have a doubleheader on the road against UW–Platteville (8–27) this Saturday. Like the Maroons, the Pioneers have had trouble finding their footing, with no more than two consecutive wins at any point in the season. Afterward, Chicago will gear up for its annual alumni game, which will be at home on Sunday.

The Maroons will face the Pioneers on Saturday at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Chicago’s alumni game will be at home on Sunday at 1 p.m.

Third-year Kyle Nitiss prepares to pitch during a game against Hope earlier this quarter.

COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS