Chicago-Maroon-11-03-08

CHICAGO

MAROON The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892

Too sweet!

Women's basketball moves on to Sweet 16 with wins over Hanover, Calvin

TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011 • VOLUME 122, ISSUE 34 • CHICAGOMAROON.COM

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

Sports, back page

DISCOURSE

Uncommon Funds awarded to 25 projects

By Christina Pillsbury Associate News Editor Barista Championships, puppies and kittens on the quads, and Intramural Quidditch will soon grace U of C’s campus, the Uncommon Fund board announced last night.

These three projects and 22 others will receive allotments of the $40,000 grant. The 25 selected projects, a record high number of winners, were chosen from 146 submissions, another record.

Last year, 13 projects were chosen out of a pool of 54.

Chairman of the Uncommon Fund board and third-year David Chen said

Burger kings surprise CAPS The chain's CEO and CFO stop by Ida Noyes to recruit

that the number of recipients was higher not just because the submission rate was higher, but because the proposals had greater variety.

“We saw a lot of diversity, so we funded 25 projects this year, which means we gave out less money to each,” Chen said. “We didn’t sacrifice in terms of project quality though.”

Some of the projects funded were playful: puppies and kittens during finals week ($850), Harper laser-rave ($2,850), and a gigantic water balloon fight ($895.4). Others hold the U of C’s quirk in their name: IM Quidditch ($2,165), the Joy of Science ($950), and a

UNCOMMON continued on page 2

STUDENT LIFE

Red light for Vita no more Student sex magazine gets the go-ahead from ORCSA

Burger King CEO Bernardo Hees discusses the company's operations in Ida Noyes Monday night. The CEO and CFO made a surprise visit to the University and an email blast was sent to the student body by CAPS an hour prior to the event.

CAMILLE VAN HORNE/MAROON

By Julia Greenberg News Staff Vita Excolatur has received the goahead from ORCSA to print its upcoming issue in its current form this spring.

The decision was made after concerns about the issue’s content and use of consent forms delayed the process.

ORCSA announced their decision to the erotic art and sex magazine this past

weekend, according to Vita. Though ORCSA had expressed reservations about graphic images, including photographs of male-female penetration and penetration using a vegetable, they have since stated that Vita is free to publish what it wishes so long as it respects the law, according to the magazine’s executive director and third-year Kelsey Gee. “[ORCSA staff] aren’t interested in

VITA continued on page 3

By Jessica Sheft-Ason & Mahmoud Bahrani MAROON Staff The heads of Burger King told U of C students yesterday to have it their way.

At a visit announced to students less than an hour in advance, Burger King CEO Bernardo Hees and CFO Ben Wells spoke at Ida Noyes about the

opportunities and the changes they have made since the company was purchased by 3G Capital Group in September for $3.3 billion.

The young professionals—Hees is 41 and Wells is 30—came to campus to recruit both undergraduates and MBA students to their recently-acquired company.

Hees told the approximately 50 stu-

dents in attendance that spending life searching for a job is the wrong attitude.

“The only thing I recommend to you is, don’t look for a job. Don’t worry about finding a job. You’re studying at one of the best universities in the world. Work at finding a product, something that you believe in,” Hees said. “If you look for a job, then it makes no difference [that

BURGER KING continued on page 2

CAMPUS LIFE

STUDENT LIFE

Pub may switch from Medici to dining services

Fourth years see spike in job offers ScheduleSpy keeps an eye on CAPS increases programming to meet a rise in undergraduate interest cMore openings

ACADEMICS

By Jonathan Lai Senior News Staff

By Adam Janofsky MAROON Staff Th e c a m p u s w a t e r i n g h o l e may come under new manage ment as part of the Global Dining Initiative (G DI), an ongoing, holistic evaluation of the campus dining services.

Four food service providers Aramark, SugarPlum Catering, Bon Apétit, and Sodexo have b een asked by campus dining administrators to make recommendations on how they would operate the Pub, the University’s bar in the basement of Ida Noyes.

Although the University owns

PUB continued on page 3

CAPS has seen a

3X

increase in job offers for fourth years in the past year

Almost three times as many job offers have been made to fourth-years compared to last year, according to Career Advising and Planning Services (CAPS) data from the end of January. The career support center has increased its programming for graduating students—both with and without jobs—and has expanded offerings for underclassmen, who are utilizing CAPS more than in the past.

Undergraduate student use of CAPS has increased 36 percent overall, while graduate student use has increased 43 percent, according to Senior Associate Director for Student Preparation at CAPS Joni Krapec. In response to student demand, CAPS

Inside: GREY CITY

has announced new programs and is making plans to expand to students who haven’t found a niche within CAPS yet.

For fourth-years, CAPS is offering new “job circles,” where students who have not yet determined post-graduation employment can meet weekly in groups of three to six.

The approximately 25 students who applied to be in circles were all able to be placed. The groups will begin this week and last through spring quarter, and are focused on grouping students interested in specific areas to share their experiences and search for jobs under the guidance of CAPS advisers.

The six circles focus on industryspecific career development, and aim to give support to those who aren’t

• Greg Nance: More than SG president • What happened to open forums?

• Hyde Park, then and now • How not to choke, with psych professor Sian Beilock Pull-out section inside

CAPS continued on page 3

By Amy Myers Associate News Editor Trying to grab that last spot in that visual language class you need to graduate? Thanks to two second-year web developers, there’s an app for that.

ScheduleSpy.com, a website created

by South Campus Residence Hall roommates Paul Kaplan and Sean Clemmer, aims to change the adddrop system.

The website allows students to receive an email update when a spot becomes available in a previously full class on cMore. According to Clemmer, users receive an email 30

SCHEDULESPY continued on page 3

2

CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | March 8, 2011

SPIRITUALITY

STUDENT LIFE

Purr-fect office hours

Websites offer U of C romance

By Harunobu Coryne News Staff

M

odo, short for Quasimodo, was adopted by the Spiritual Life Office when he was a six-week-old kitten. Now six months old, Modo has made a home out of Rockefeller Chapel, where he regularly plays with student visitors.

COURTESY OF DEAN OF ROCKEFELLER CHAPEL AND DIRECTOR OF SPIRITUAL LIFE ELIZABETH DAVENPORT

Uncommonly interactive presentations win funds UNCOMMON continued from front page Conference on Jersey Shore Studies ($2,580).

But one, according to Chen, best defined “uncommon.”

Oscillation, a week-long augmented reality game, received $7,400, more than any other project and twice as much as the second-highest rewarded.

“We all [the board] agreed that that game could create the next trend,” Chen said. “That could really determine the future of gaming.”

A number of projects were entrepreneurshipbased, including the Barista Championships ($387.6), web start-up Schedulespy.com ($480), and Start Up Weekend ($3,700).

Third-year Morgan Hartley’s Start Up Weekend was another project that Chen singled out as being a trend setter for bringing speakers to campus. The 54-hour long conference will bring together ideas from entrepreneurs and creative types, and will be “an incubator for uncommon ideas,” Hartley said.

Chen was impressed not only in the breadth of submissions, but the creativity behind the project presentations. Saturday, each project team was given 15 minutes to make sure the board completely understood the potential of their project.

Some gave Power Point presentations, but others were more unusual. Second-year and Vice President for Student Affairs Patrick Ip, who received funding

for his Barista Championships, brought his cuttingedge syphon coffee brewing system in and made coffee for the board members.

The Soundwave Collective team, according to Chen, brought in musical equipment and used their time to surprise the board with a performance within two minutes. For their performance they received $2,177.9.

Ip will use the money for coffee tasting and education, and also as a way to bring attention to Hyde Park talent. He said he was surprised his project went forward because of the quality of the entrepreneurial projects submitted.

“A lot of people have been talking about this cultural shift with entrepreneurial ventures and now you’re seeing it with the Uncommon Fund,” Ip said. “Students and the administration need to look at creating more opportunities like the Uncommon Fund.”

Other winning projects include Art & Science Collaborative ($2000), Bus Buddy ($804), Chalkboards on the Quads ($1,300), Insect Tasting Buffet ($600), Exploring the Leather Library ($3,198), MadShelfer on campus ($800), Mission Nutrition ($830), Off-Off Campus ($1,000), On the Edge ($2,050), Phoenix Feed ($1,150), Piecemeatal ($325.69), Street Yoga ($2,000), Sustainable Water ($3,300), and Tandem Bikes ($1,206).

CORRECTIONS » The March 4 News article "Image Controversy Forces Vita Publishing Delay" misstated former Assistant Vice President for Student Life Bill Michel's role in Vita's review process and the nature of the review. Michel explained Vita's historical context to reviewers, who looked into Vita's use of consent forms in addition to the legality of Vita's images. Also, the article misstated the name of Vita Text Editor Alexa DeTogne.

The MAROON is committed to correcting mistakes for the record. If you suspect the MAROON has made an error, please alert the newspaper by e-mailing Editor@ChicagoMaroon.com.

Two new websites seek college-aged, attractive men and women for meet-ups in the Reg, on the quads, and at the Pub. Must be at least 18 years old and a student at the U of C. At a university where students wear t-shirts lamenting everything from the scarcity of oral sex on campus to the student body’s aesthetic inferiority to the squirrels on the quad, a website boasting personal ads may seem unlikely.

But both UChicagoHookups and UChicagoLove aim to help students overcome the hurdle of making the first advance by replacing it with a few keystrokes and a double-click.

“I’m sure many students have heard of the stereotype that we don’t have any fun, that this is where fun comes to die, that the guys are desperate,” said Thiskid2000, the creator and sole programmer of UChicagoHookups. An undergraduate in the college, he wished to be identified by his online moniker for privacy reasons.

The website, which launched February 8, connects University students looking for casual sexual encounters on campus, from quick trysts in the Regenstein bookstacks to a ménage-à-trois with a “really, really adventurous” partner.

“Chastity is curable, if detected early,” declares a banner at the top of the site, which launched February 8 and operates like a gated and more closely moderated version of the Craigslist’s personals section. Once registered, users post advertisements for themselves and what they’re seeking. A personal message system allows for more private interactions, like arranging a meeting place between two interested parties.

On the other hand, UChicagoLove mirrors more conventional dating website models: Its objective is setting users up on blind dates using responses to a boilerplate survey, which asks for preferences in movies, books, and dates.

More than anything, the site’s administrators want to give overworked students a fighting chance on the dating scene.

“Maybe you’re not always on your best game when you’re going to class, you’re sleep-deprived,” said one UChicagoLove admin who just goes

by Jackie. She preferred to remain anonymous

because she said that if her identity were public, students would be less comfortable using the site.

Once enough applications are submitted, UChicagoLove administrators will meet one-onone with applicants to get further information and present them with potential matches. While they can’t keep outsiders from using the website, site administrators will ask for UCID during these sessions. Since only 10 applications have been submitted so far, no meetings have yet to be scheduled.

With the exception of sexual preference and gender, no personal details are required for UChicagoHookups; privacy is a top priority.

In each personal ad, only the poster’s username is visible, and usernames are hidden to non-registered viewers. And there are yet further restrictions, apparently aimed at protecting both the site’s patrons and its creator. Users are limited to just one account and must confirm that they are over 18.

Thiskid2000 contrasted UChicagoHookups with Craigslist, which he said is “a little too open.” A key feature of his site is that it requires users to provide a University email address in order to register, which he said helps to, among other things, keep out some of the spam that clogs up Craigslist.

He said the website is getting between 500 and 1500 unique visitors a day and boasts more than 1,000 registered users. But currently, a “Testimonials” page, potentially home to future tales of sexual escapades, remains blank.

Regardless, Thiskid2000 is confident that the web site has begun to meet its purpose. “I’m not going to disclose anything too specific,” he said, “but I can say that we’ve already had users who have had success.”

An FAQ page also addresses matters of personal safety, replete with links to safe-sex guides and advice on picking a “safe, well-lit” rendezvous.

Though Thiskid2000 isn’t worried about getting in trouble with the law, he is concerned about how University administrators might react and makes sure the site treads carefully around issues of safety and privacy.

“Legally, we’re not doing anything wrong, and we’re not affiliated with the University,” he said. “We’re not hosted on University computers, we’re totally independent, we’re independently financed.”

Burger King executives scout students for management training program BURGER KING continued from front page you came to the U of C]. You need to believe in what you’re doing.”

Hees was also critical of students who went straight into finance or consulting after college in order to bide their time before moving on to the next project. “I have no respect for this kind of decision,” Hees said. “Say you want to be a partner, that is something I have respect for.”

“When I graduated in 1998, 40 percent went into the dot-com industry, 30 percent went into banking and consulting,” said Hees, who went to Brazil to work as a logistics analyst with America Latina Logistica (ALL), a firm that was struggling at the time. “Six years later I was CEO of a sevenbillion dollar company, and [my classmates] were looking for jobs.”

The executives encouraged students to focus on mastering the basics. “If you are good, but the fundamentals are bad, then the best you can be is average,” Hees said.

Hees and Wells stressed growth and the infusion of new talent as key success for Burger King. “Who is important? Who is in charge? This country is all about ownership. People think that hiring a CFO of a four billion dollar company who is 30 is either irresponsible or don’t know what he’s doing.

Maybe I’m both,” Hees said.

Hees added that the hard work he put into his MBA at the University of Warwick in England was easy because there were few distractions.

“The food is terrible and the women are not very attractive [in England]. Here in Chicago the food is good, and you are known for good-looking

women,” he said.

Burger King is heavily invested in bolstering their international appeal, and Hees elaborated an international strategy of capturing market share, especially in China and Southeast Asia. Citing a 25 million-person increase in the size of the upper class, Hess said that more Chinese people had started eating beef because it is considered an upper-class good in China.

Burger King has dramatically altered the menu in places where beef was not regularly consumed, such as India, by replacing beef menu options with lamb and emphasizing chicken options, according to Hees.

When Burger King was acquired by 3G in September, Reuter’s reported that Moody’s, a credit rating agency, had given the fast-food giant a corporate family rating of Ba2, the second-highest junk level.

Hees acknowledged the challenges of bringing the fifty-plus year old company back to the level of its competitors. “We bought Burger King for four billion,” Hees said. “McDonald’s is worth 70 billion.”

After a visit to Harvard and MIT earlier in the year, the company is continuing to look for more undergraduate students for their Management Trainee Program. As part of the program, trainees will begin with a four month in-restaurant role.

Hees stressed that students of all majors are welcome to apply.

When asked what his favorite item of the Burger King menu was, Hees smiled and said, “The Whopper. I’m a traditional guy.”

3

CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | March 8, 2011

SG President: Make Pub food cheaper, serve it later PUB continued from front page the Pub and its liquor license, it is currently operated by HWM Corporation, the same company that runs the Medici restaurant and bakery.

The G DI, which began this autumn, aims to look at all campus dining services and see how to “integrate its parts, which have been very decentralized,” according to director of Campus Dining Richard Mason.

The integration initiative focuses on residential dining halls, campus cafés and student markets run by the University. It also includes the Pub, which is the only University facility that serves alcohol as central to its business and requires a $10 membership for all visitors.

When dining administrators sent a request for proposals to possible service providers in late January, it included a section asking each company to examine the Pub’s niche on campus and make recommendations for how it can better serve the student community.

“We told them about the Pub today and asked them to come to us with what they

feel is the best way that the Pub fits... We will evaluate their recommendations,” Mason said.

Tw o A r a m a r k m a n a g e r s m e t w i t h Student Government president and fourthyear Greg Nance Friday to talk about the Pub’s role on campus. “They were curious about the campus buzz and I did my best to give them the lay of the land,” Nance said.

Nance’s own recommendations: make food cheaper and serve it later. “I like going to the Pub every once in a while and I think that the grill could stay open an hour or an hour and a half later,” he said. “I’ve been hearing that from a lot of students who like eating there.”

Nance welcomes a new operator for the Pub, as long as they respect the tradition and culture of the area. “It would be a shame if they redecorated with Aramark gear, but I don’t see them doing that,” he said.

Although the process is in the “quiet period,” proposals should be coming in soon and the University will make its final agreements on July 1, Mason added.

Opaque covers and older buying age allow Vita to sell content unchanged VITA continued from front page censoring or drawing arbitrary lines, but rather offered serious recommendations,” Gee said.

According to Vita, the group discussed potential legal concerns regarding the penetration images with their ORSCA adviser Ravi Randhava. But Vita members say ORCSA did not cite specific laws, and the RSO was unsure what the particular legal issue was.

After following up on the issue this weekend, Vita said it became clear the main legal concern was the genitalia portrayed on the cover. However, they said ORCSA clarified that as long as they concealed the genitalia with an opaque cover and made sure buyers were over 18 years of age, they could publish and sell the magazine in its current form.

ORCSA also wanted to ensure that all models’ and writers’ consent form had been signed and submitted prior to publishing, Holly said.

ORCSA urged Vita to remember to balance its artistic mission when considering the racy material and to remain in compliance with Illinois State Law, according to Gee. Because of the nudity, Vita cannot be sold to anyone under the age of 18 under the Chicago Municipal Code. In the past, Vita has

been sold to anybody 17 years old and up.

Finally, Vita said ORCSA wanted to make sure Vita understood the implications of the penetration and food-play images before publishing them.

Director of ORCSA Sharlene Holly said the discussions between Vita staff and Randhava were designed to help students through the publishing process. “The discussions among students and with their advisor are an important part of ensuring a responsible and thoughtful approach to publishing, and those discussions continue,” she said.

Randhava declined to comment.

Despite its intervention, ORCSA never intended to censor the issue, according to Gee. “They never said ‘You can’t print this.’ However, some people did remark that the images were ‘unsettling,’” Gee said.

Still, Gee said the controversial nature of the images was intentional. “Part of the point though is to be unsettling,” she said.

Because ORCSA’s intervention extended their review period, Vita’s staff is still in discussion about the final proof and may adjust certain images for artistic integrity.

“Because more people got to look at it, we’re now in a better position,” Gee said.

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SCHEDULESPY continued from front page seconds after another student drops the class and a spot opens.

With the tag line, “Class full? Get in first with ScheduleSpy,” the site allows students to stop checking for for available spots on the U of C’s time schedules website. Kaplan already knows the website works—he used it to grab a spot in his Core biology class last quarter.

Next year, the pair plans to form an RSO with the aim of creating a “dialogue between the people working on the web on campus,” Clemmer said, pointing out that there is currently no centralized system for various types of data on campus.

Clemmer and Kaplan received $480 from the Uncommon Fund to support their web servers for two years, but they’re offering ScheduleSpy for free for this quarter. “This just means we get to keep doing what we like for free,” Kaplan said.

If the website became popular, students would need to race from their e-mail inbox to cMore before another student hoping to get into the class beats them to it. Students not using the program would be at a large disadvantage.

Still, the creators don’t believe the site will make the process unfair. “I don’t think

there’s going to be a thousand people trying to get into a class,” Clemmer said.

Kaplan and Clemmer hope to expand beyond the simple website, which only requires students to enter the department, course and section numbers, and an e-mail.

Using the same programming method, called Application Program Interface (API), they have already designed similar codes yet to be released which can automatically calculate the costs of books per class and search the finals week schedule, which they created to showcase their proposal’s potential to the Uncommon Fund board.

The team plans to release them for free use to other University developers who can expand on the simple apps. “There’s ways to interface them. You can combine them with YouTube, Facebook and Twitter,” Clemmer said.

Their next goal is make researching courses easier for students by combining information currently on different websites: course evaluations, course descriptions and time schedules. Currently, a student must sift through three different databases to find out the various details on just one class.

“We’re finding data that’s public,” Kaplan said.

“There is no reason you wouldn’t have access to it.”

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>S`QS\bOUS W\Q`SOaS aW\QS ZOab gSO` Undergraduate use of CAPS increased 36 percent, and graduate student use went up 43 percent.

CAPS continued from front page active in other CAPS programs. For example, the Financial Services circle explicitly excludes students in the Chicago Careers in Business program.

According to Krapec, students are expected to spend three hours per week on the circles: two hours spent on their own, in addition to the hour-long circles.

Graduating students who have jobs lined up will be able to participate in a new CAPS workshop, Backpack to Briefcase, designed to help ease the student transition from student to professional.

Krapec said the group would address practical concerns, like what to wear in a professional environment, as well as more existential ones.

“How do you translate this great intellectual curiosity that you develop at the University of Chicago in a way that is coherent and clear and appropriate in the work environment, where perhaps that challenge of being encouraged to ask a million questions throughout your courses might not transfer so well in the first half-hour on the job?” she said.

The two and a half hour workshop, to be held in Ida Noyes during Senior Week, the second week of June, will help answer these questions, according to Krapec. The opportunity is not only open to fourth-years: two other Backpack to Briefcase workshops at the end of May will focus on first-, second-, and third-year students transitioning into summer internships.

For underclassmen hoping to strengthen their résumés, CAPS is continuing to increase Metcalf opportunities and Krapec said they are on-track

to meet its goal of posting 575 positions by the end of the month, as well as having 400 students placed into them.

To help students take advantage of its new offerings, CAPS advisers are stepping out from their offices at Ida Noyes to other places on campus. CAPS advisers held open office hours during winter quarter in Harper East tower, hoping to catch students leaving their mandatory academic advisor meetings. CAPS advisors are also available at weekly sessions at the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs.

A reinstated program will place Career Peer Advisors (CPA) at the Regenstein Library. CPA, a program that CAPS stopped offering a few years ago, was restarted last fall, training undergraduate students to help other students with their internship and job searches.

According to Krapec, another program, currently in the discussion stages, will allow students to act as liaisons to provide information on CAPS resources to students in housing.

The introduction of new programs has put added stress on CAPS, said Krapec. While the center has made a small expansion of its staff— they temporarily hired a new staff worker to help with the increased demand for Chicago Careers in Law—mostly, current employees have seen an increase in their workload.

“What has resulted for many of us is we simply work longer hours, or do some of our administrative work at home.” Krapec said. “For example, if it’s a day that I do an extra walk-in shift, my appointments for that day are not dropping. It just means that I might be doing some e-mails from home. And that’s okay.”

DISCOURSE

U of C combats climate change U of C's Computation Institute will be part of the new RDCEP center

By Crystal Tsoi News Staff

ScheduleSpy creators to use Uncommon Funds to keep website running

"

Economists, mathematicians, lawyers, scientists, and even high school students will join together to fight global warming underneath the new Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy, (RDCEP) a joint effort by nine different institutions, including the U of C’s Computation Institute, founded to address energy and climate change issues.

A five-year, $6 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will fund the new Center, which will approach problems of energy and climate change policy from various disciplines, ranging from economics to computational mathematics to law.

“There is no more important problem facing humanity today than meeting rapidly expanding energy needs without damaging the environment,” Computer science professor and future director of the Center, Ian Foster, said in a February 17 press release.

The Center, a collaborative effort, will bring together individuals from nine different institutions, including Argonne National Laboratory. The research center aims to serve the government, the public sector, and private individuals.

The MacArthur Foundation contacted Foster in 2007 to develop the premise for a center that would integrate multiple disciplines.

Using the $350,000 grant from the Foundation,

the team assembled at the University spent a year developing a strong proposal for the NSF’s Decision Making Under Uncertainty program competition (DMUU).

The “open science philosophy” of the Community Integrated Model of Economic and Resource Trajectories for Humankind (CIM-EARTH) will allow scholars and policy makers outside of the Center to access the resources and information produced by the Center in an effort to encourage more collaboration.

As part of the NSF’s proposal requirement to integrate outreach programs, the Center will bring undergraduate, graduate, and even high school students into dialogue at the Center.

In a program that will launch in the summer of 2012, the Center is currently seeking undergraduate students with a strong background in teaching sciences to work with high school students as well as researchers.

According the Moyer, the University will work specifically with students from the Woodlawn Community School and the Lindblom Math and Science Academy to teach students how to “answer real world questions” as well as “get [students] comfortable with a college campus.”

“We want the Center in general to be a place both for faculty research and education, to be a place where people from disparate fields, physics, computer science, economics, geophysical sciences, and policy can come together,” Moyer said.

CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | March 8, 2011

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VIEWPOINTS

EDITORIAL & OP-ED MARCH 8, 2011

EDITORIAL

CHICAGO MAROON

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892

JORDAN HOLLIDAY, Editor-in-Chief JAKE GRUBMAN, Managing Editor ADAM JANOFSKY, Editor-in-Chief-Elect CAMILLE VAN HORNE, Managing Editor-Elect

ELLA CHRISTOPH, News Editor PETER IANAKIEV, Viewpoints Editor ALISON HOWARD, Viewpoints Editor HAYLEY LAMBERSON, Voices Editor JORDAN LARSON, Voices Editor NICK FORETEK, Sports Editor MAHMOUD BAHRANI, Sports Editor JESSICA SHEFT-ASON, Sports Editor VICTORIA KRAFT, Head Copy Editor MONIKA LAGAARD, Head Copy Editor HOLLY LAWSON, Head Copy Editor MATT BOGEN, Photo Editor DARREN LEOW, Photo Editor JACK DiMASSIMO, Head Designer ABRAHAM NEBEN, Web Editor KEVIN WANG, Web Editor AMY MYERS, Assoc. News Editor CHRISTINA PILLSBURY, Assoc. News Editor SHARAN SHETTY, Assoc. Viewpoints Editor ILIYA GUTIN, Assoc. Voices Editor VINCENT McGILL, Delivery Coordinator IVY PEREZ, Senior Designer DOUGLAS EVERSON, Designer ANDREW GREEN, Designer ALYSSA LAWTHER, Designer ALYSSA MARTIN, Designer VINCENT YU, Designer SABINA BREMNER, Artist AMISHI BAJAJ, Copy Editor JANE BARTMAN, Copy Editor ALICE BLACKWOOD, Copy Editor HUNTER BUCKWORTH, Copy Editor MARCELLO DELGADO, Copy Editor DANIELLE GLAZER, Copy Editor DON HO, Copy Editor JANE HUANG, Copy Editor ALISON HUNG, Copy Editor TARA NOOTEBOOM, Copy Editor LANE SMITH, Copy Editor GABE VALLEY, Copy Editor ALEX WARBURTON, Copy Editor BELLA WU, Copy Editor LILY YE, Copy Editor The CHICAGO MAROON is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters.

Circulation: 6,500 The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section are not necessarily those of the MAROON.

©2011 CHICAGO MAROON, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 Editor-in-Chief Phone: (773) 834-1611 Newsroom Phone: (773) 702-1403 Business Phone: (773) 702-9555 Fax: (773) 702-3032

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

Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words.

Op-ed submissions, 800 words.

CONTACT News: News@ChicagoMaroon.com Viewpoints: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com Voices: Voices@ChicagoMaroon.com Sports: Sports@ChicagoMaroon.com Photography: Photo@ChicagoMaroon.com Design: jdimassimo@ChicagoMaroon.com Copy Editing: Copy@ChicagoMaroon.com Advertising: Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com

Make it explicit

ORCSA's policies for reviewing student publications should be more clear The upcoming issue of Vita Excolatur, the campus’s student-run pornographic magazine, will be showing a little more skin but with a little more reservation. The age requirement to purchase is bumped up from 17 to 18, waiver forms will need to be signed by all participants (including people interviewed), and an opaque cover–possibly a post-it note–will shield the genitalia on the front and back sides of the magazine.

These are small, necessary steps that ensure the publication complies with Chicago municipal codes and that all people involved have their privacy respected. But the steps that occurred to reach those decisions were unprofessional and highlight flaws in ORCSA’s review process for student publications.

During eighth week, Vita editors submitted the magazine’s content to ORCSA as part of the magazine’s regular review process. The publication’s adviser expressed worry over

some graphic content, as well as release-waivers that had yet to be signed. The adviser passed it along to University administrators for further review. From that point on, students who had been intimately involved in the production of the magazine were cut off from its review process. Administrators from the Office of Campus and Student Life and ORCSA would not answer general questions from Vita’s staff, and repeatedly declined to comment to the Maroon.

Rather than being engaged in the review process, senior editors expressed concern that they weren’t allowed to defend their case to the examining administrators. The lack of transparency led to rumors throughout the RSO that administrators were reviewing the legality of the publication, which quickly turned to suspicions of University censorship. Although administrators decided over the weekend that the

magazine will be allowed to run all of the delayed content spring quarter, most writers and editors were never informed how or why the decision was made. Had ORCSA made a greater effort to address concerns more directly with Vita’s editors and writers, the situation would not have become such a controversy.

Campus publications, at their hearts, are collections of student voices and viewpoints. If the University makes the decision to step in with the publishing process, all students involved in the organization should be adequately informed.

Instead, during Vita’s review process, ORCSA communicated only with the publication’s “primary contact,” its executive editor, while other Vita affiliates who made an effort to be included in discussions were turned away. However, the executive editor isn’t the only student involved in the publication’s production, and therefore shouldn’t be the only one

included in its review process. The publication as a whole should be able to defend its decisions before the University administrators that decide what can and cannot be published.

It goes without saying that ORCSA supports student organizations. Their main intentions behind reviews and advising are defending RSOs from any legal issues that may arise and looking out for the best interests of students involved. But even a well-intended review process can go astray when the requirements for a publication are not made explicit to its staff.

As long as student publications are subject to review, the review process should be codified and transparent.

As it stands, ORCSA’s review process doesn’t make the cut.

The Editorial Board consists of the Editor-in-Chief, Editor-inChief-Elect, and the Viewpoints Editors.

COLD SNAP

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Pushing the boundaries

"Uncommon bias" misrepresents Uncommon Fund Board

Recent sex-centered controversies at the U of C and Northwestern reveal a divide between student and administrative opinion

By Emily Wang Viewpoints Columnist Recently, UChicago and Northwestern have both had to deal with minor controversies regarding the relationship between free speech and sex on college campuses. At Northwestern, the administration is looking into a live sex demonstration that took place during a Human Sexuality class; on our own campus,

two images in Vita’s most recent issue were reviewed in order to determine whether or not they violate Chicago municipal codes.

Northwestern’s sex demonstration has generated extensive national coverage that has refused to go away despite the fact that the actual event occurred over two weeks ago. The demonstration, which featured a nude woman penetrated by a sex toy, has been defended by some and, of course, denounced by others. Naturally, the heat has mostly been placed on Professor J. Michael Bailey, who consented to the demonstration. While Bailey eventually issued an apology, the apology itself seemed to me cursory and halfhearted, as if squeezed out of him by public pressure. A few details stand

out to me:

or acne.

Yet there is one word that is really starting to peeve me. At this point, I’m convinced it no longer really means anything, but instead just hides our own ridiculous shyness and collective lack of social skills.

Awkward. Awkward! Awkward.

What does this word mean? When I think back to my childhood, I might have used it to describe feeling uncomfortable physically

As a member of the Uncommon Fund Board, I will discuss the procedures of the funding decision process, though I cannot claim to represent the opinions of each member. This response, through illumination of facts and revision of some reported details, should clear up doubts about an intentional desire to manipulate the results of the first (or second) round decisions and show the Boards’ progress toward a fairer procedure.

This letter is particularly a response to “Uncommon Bias,” a viewpoints piece commenting that “uncommon fund board members should not have connections to proposals.” The article cites one instance in particular—a members’ work with Students Against Bottled Water. It should be noted that he, as a student body representative, connected SABW with resources such as school deans, Student Government, and graduate departments, and even passed a Reduction of Bottled Water Resolution for Student Government. Specifically, this viewpoint asserts that though the Board member was unable to vote for the project, they were able to speak (supposedly passionately) in support of it, thus influencing the general consensus, and inciting issues of conflict of interest.

Though it may be reasonable to assume b oth that involved Board members cannot judge proposals from a reasonably unbiased point-of-view and that

AWKWARD continued on page 6

LETTER continued on page 6

• The demonstration was an optional after-class event • The demonstration was unplanned • The students were warned prior to the actual act So it’s clear, at least, that the students were fully aware of what they were about to witness; they voluntarily stayed to watch the demonstration. The students believed it would be, in some way, valuable, whether genuinely eye opening or simply story-to-tell-your-friends-worthy, for their compendium of college experiences. Even so, Northwestern’s administration, which initially

SEXUALITY continued on page 5

OP-ED

Awkward hurdle The misuse of the word "awkward" says more about the speaker than the subject

By Peter Morfe Viewpoints Contributor Generally I can accept the fact that part of going to college is leaving the sheltered world you once lived in and being bombarded by popular culture and campus quirks. Language is one of the first victims of this barrage, with generational, regional, local, and even clique-al colloquialisms and idioms finding their ways into the mouths of freshmen and

lingering there until graduation.

Since coming to college, “dude” has become a nervous habit of mine, I’m actively purging “I feel like” from my memory banks, and due to the prevalence of “oof ” in my social circle, the derivative “ug” has become a part of my lexicon of interjections. Like I said, I’m usually OK with this, and even when it does irk me I try to remember that, with any luck, all of the bro-isms in my vocabulary will disappear like growing pains

CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | March 8, 2011

DAY IN THE LIFE

5

Sex will always be a polarizing issue, but students should have freedom to explore SEXUALITY continued from page 4

SABINA BREMNER/MAROON

defended Bailey’s right, succumbed to external criticism by launching an investigation.

It’s no surprise to see such an action engender so much controversy—sex has been, and likely always will be, a complicated and polarizing issue. This is especially the case in universities, where pushing boundaries is often considered a defining feature of the college experience, often blurring the line between what’s considered an acceptable expression of academic freedom and what’s considered obscene. Certainly, this line falls at different places for each individual. As a result, decisionmaking that purports to be for the benefit of the community as a whole becomes a tricky balancing act between free speech and public expectations.

Such is the fundamental question at the heart of Vita’s second issue as well, though this one is far less likely to spawn intense media attention. Vita’s two images in review, which both feature penetration, were included precisely to “push some boundaries” (as stated

by Vita’s head designer Anne Quaranto). The publication’s fall quarter issue, while stylistically well done, seemed to provoke brief amusement rather than sustained discussion.

With their new issue, Vita is admirably chasing something more important than a superficial, grandparent-approved examination of sex as art. It may or may not be successful in engendering the kind of discourse the magazine hopes for, but the fact that it’s even trying for it is a powerful justification for its existence. Too often experimentation—intellectual, sexual, and otherwise—in college is not genuine exploration but rather safe improvisation within the bounds of what is considered socially acceptable.

It’s easy to see a connection between the

two occurrences, as both issues involve a judgment call and the pursuit of a conception of what it really means to foster an environment of intellectual freedom. Both universities, in response, are simply acting in the manner expected of them, and this is precisely the problem. In the study released earlier in the year on the state of free speech on the nation’s campuses, the University of Chicago received a “Red Light,” the worst designation possible.

If the University had decided that the images were illegal according to Illinois’ obscenity laws, so be it; after all, the law is the law. But such a decision, if made in the future, should not be based on fears of parent backlash or decreased funds from upset donors. If college can’t be the place for students to explore and discuss these complex and often uncomfortable topics, where else? We could very quickly find ourselves mired in a staid, uninspired atmosphere that limits rather than liberates, an environment that actually contradicts the essential goal of the university to teach us how to think critically.

A final point: students must be over 17 (it has changed to 18 now) to purchase the magazine, and even more importantly, they have to, once again, voluntarily decide to purchase it in the first place. Buy, and look, at your own peril. The implicit message of the outraged in both these situations is that college-aged students can’t be trusted to make their own mature, informed decisions. Yet I’m guessing no one would try to make that particular argument in either case. If we’re to believe the university has our best interests at heart, our judgment, and our intellectual freedom, should be respected.

Emily Wang is a first-year in the College majoring in English.

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CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | March 8, 2011

6

The pervasive use of "awkward" defies its dictionary definition

Uncommon Fund Board members ly, many of them appeared to be enjoying strive to maintain neutrality

AWKWARD continued from page 4 rather than socially. “My legs were situated awkwardly” or “That’s a pretty awkward place to put the bike.” Of course, I shouldn’t forget the most classic usage of awkward: English essays. I’m sure you remember when the teacher used to write “awk.” on your papers or you would tell a peer, “This sentence is awkward.”

But now? It’s all about “so-and-so is awkward,” “that was awkward,” or just “awkwaaaaaaaaard!”

It will be shown that this word is being misused by the majority of UChicagoans and that it has not even one ounce of meaning left to shake a stick at. I present to the court exhibit A: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) definition of the word itself. First, we have the classic of my childhood: “In the wrong direction, in the wrong way.” Included in this description is “hindside foremost,” which is itself a bit awkward out of context, and “asquint,” which sounds a bit like the name of a tiny, awkward rodent to me.

There’s “Untoward or unfavourable for one’s purpose; ill-adapted for use; clumsy in operation,” which is fairly standard as well, but then we get the final definition “Not at one’s ease; embarrassed” or even “Dangerous to meddle with.” So when you call that kid in your math class awkward you’re actually saying he’s embarrassed? Or dangerous? Really?

A Google search of awkward pulled up sites devoted to awkward family photos, awkward school pictures, a comic called “Awkward Zombie,” and a blog titled “Awkward Things I Say To Girls.” Looking through these links, I was struck by how far we have strayed from the OED’s definition of the word. I saw no poorly oriented zombies and fewer embarrassed people—actual-

themselves.

Finally, I came to the conclusion that what all of these uses of the word awkward have in common is their projection of their own feelings onto images, situations, and people. Looking through photos of odd families and reading odes to failed pickup lines, I was less struck by the people in these photos or the lameness of the pick-up attempts than I was by my own feelings toward them. I felt embarrassed, ill at ease, a little out of place… Well, awkward.

I have to be fair: Language changes with the seasons and I agree that words should be used the way people choose to use them.

That’s not really the point. No, instead I just want to point out that whether we’re short, tall, loquacious, or extremely introverted, we’re all students trying to find our way at UChicago, and when you use the word awkward you’re saying less about the person in question than you are about yourself.

It takes all types, as they say, and the fact of the matter is that awkward kid probably thinks you’re awkward, too. Yeah, you.

In fact, he probably spends much less of his time thinking about you than he does working on the next Facebook or writing the next bestseller. So why not take a hint from him? Rather than sitting around giving people dirty looks or avoiding eye contact, try smiling, saying hi, cracking a joke—you might be surprised by what you find. Maybe that awkward girl will make you the VP of her new IT firm or that “that kid” will turn out to be the love of your life. Worst comes to worst, you might just realize that you’re the awkward one after all.

LETTER continued from page 4 listening members can be easily swayed by a member they know is involved, it is unreasonable to ask that Uncommon Fund Board members “should be chosen so that…affiliations are minimized, if not avoided altogether.” Since we do prefer to have a diverse Board, it is expected that chosen members will be resourceful and dedicated to their areas, making it difficult to find members that are both engaged in campus life, but not (even indirectly) involved with projects. Board applicants were asked at the application meeting not to apply if they were applying on a project group—many board applicants, at the time of application, did not realize that their project would be applying for the fund (as it is a rather uncommon source of money), while the case specifically mentioned in the article referred to the actions of a dedicated SG member, rather than a team member.

It is also important to note that many proposals had at least one Board member speaking on its behalf, due to the Board members’ active involvement on campus and the availability of 21-30 office hours per week where applicants could come in for advice. Board members often found out about projects through friends, or discussed ideas thoroughly with project lead-

ers who came to go over their applications.

All project applicants had this opportunity—this was made clear at every application meeting and with every email sent. In addition to possible face-to-face meetings, the Uncommon Fund Board was thoroughly involved in asking questions on Joinstart. com, and following up on changes. This contradicts the viewpoints’ assumption that other projects were evaluated “based solely on their applications.”

The article also commented briefly on the decisions’ transparency. Because there were 146 projects done in 5 hours, notes about each project were taken, though not as in much detail as normal secretary notes.

These notes, along with Board comments and known resources were made available to any groups (rejected or not) that asked for them, and this offer was also made explicit in our several decision emails.

We know that the Uncommon Fund has faced conflict of interest issues in years past, and we are working to make progress each year. We seek to maintain the passionate debates between Board members as a method of fairness, choosing to keep also a resourceful and diverse Board, even if this does require much mutual trust.

Angela Wang Class of 2014

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Peter Morfe is a second-year in the College majoring in physics.

2011 Student Leader Awards Help the University recognize the amazing contributions made by students on our campus this year.

Nominate students for Student Leader Awards.

Howell Murray Alumni Association Award Campus Life and Leadership Award Jane Morton and Henry C. Murphy Award Maroon Key Society College Outstanding New Leader Award President’s Volunteer Service Award Perry Herst Prize Humanitarian Award Bridge Builder Award Unsung Hero Award

To find more information about award qualifications and to nominate students visit

https://studentleaderawards.uchicago.edu Nominations are due by Wednesday, March 9th at 5:00 pm

The CHICAGO MAROON's quarterly magazine.

March 8, 2011

G REY CITY Man on a mission

SG President.

Truman Scholar.

Gates Scholar.

Marathon runner.

Boxer.

Entrepreneur.

Community servant.

Greg Nance.

Page 6 DARREN LEOW/GREY CITY

IN THIS ISSUE

A funny thing happened to the open forum It used to be that you would see students debating President Zimmer on how to run the school.

You don't now, because you don't go to open forums anymore.

Keep calm and carry on: a Q&A with Sian Beilock This associate psychology professor knows how to keep cool under pressure—she's been studying it for over a decade. Learn how not to choke.

EDITORS

Jake Grubman

MANAGING EDITOR

Hunter Buckworth Monika Lagaard Holly Lawson Tara Nooteboom Douglas Everson

Page 2

Page 4

GREY CITY

Jordan Holliday Asher Klein Michael Lipkin

1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 phone: (773) 834-1611 Editor@ChicagoMaroon.com www.chicagomaroon.com/grey-city

COPY EDITORS The GREY CITY JOURNAL ran as a weekly supplement to the CHICAGO MAROON from 1968 to 1993.

In its new incarnation, GREY CITY seeks to delve

DESIGN

into larger issues affecting the University of Chicago campus and its community. The magazine is produced by CHICAGO MAROON staff members and runs every academic quarter.

2

CHICAGO MAROON | GREY CITY | March 8, 2011

Student Government and the University’s administration are considering whether and how to replace open forums with “social media,” because students don't show.

But will it revolutionize how students get involved with their school?

by Asher Klein

S

afeRide, amirite? Damn buses can never get it together.

I mean, it takes half an hour to show up after you call, so you get smart and call 30 minutes before you want to go. Naturally it comes in 15 and there’s no call, and you end up in the street waiting like a sucker for that squat little bus. Yes, you think, you could walk the two-and-a-half blocks to the East Route and pick that up but who knows if you’ll catch it and it’s cooold and anyway you’ve been waiting so long and you’re paying for this thing.

It’s just a broken system, you think to yourself, when the bus arrives, the door opens, and the driver gives you a look that says, “this guy....” Mussolini would never have allowed service this shoddy, you think, the foul analogy matching your mood.

But what are you gonna do about it?

Sign a Facebook petition? Yeah, probably.

Last November about 500 people joined a Facebook event critical of the service, calling it unreliable at a time when students were being assaulted close to campus. “The more of us who participate, the more likely we are to see a favorable change,” the Facebook page said, and many sent e-mails to administrators further expressing their dissatisfaction. (Over 2,200 people were invited to join.)

Th i s w a s n ’ t u n w e l c o m e f e e d b a c k .

Transportation chief Rodney Morris, like many other administrators, wants to hear from students so he knows how to improve service. In fact, he had appeared at an open forum on security and transportation about a week before the Facebook petition was started and answered a couple of students’ questions on SafeRide, according to secondyear Frank Alarcon, the undergraduate liaison to the Board of Trustees who helped organize that forum.

But would you actually show up to a meeting on SafeRide and air your grievances? Student Government (SG) thought

MATT BOGEN/GREY CITY

so. Those 500 people really seemed to indicate a groundswell of support; it was one of the largest online gatherings in school history up to that point, if not the largest. SG and Transportation organized another open forum, this one specifically about SafeRide, then found a large room in anticipation of a big, outspoken audience, like the group on Facebook had been.

Ten people showed up to the second forum: three administrators, three SG members, three people who’d formed the facebook group, and a Maroon reporter. “There are deeper issues, and we can’t just do it with seven people in the room,” Morris said at the time. (He didn’t respond to requests for comment.) “Getting things changed takes a little time, but we are working on the process. I need your help, I need your input, I need your honesty.”

Getting University of Chicago students more involved in the day-to-day aspects of student life is a growing problem, as fewer students show up to open forums, where any student can confront a high level administrator with whatever is on his mind, and fewer substantial questions are getting asked. “You want to have constant communication. You don’t just want to have communication when there’s a problem,” Vice President for Campus Life Kim Goff-Crews said.

Getting students to do more than just complain about a few things that bother them is a harder nut to crack. With the SafeRide petition, students demonstrated a clear preference for engaging the administration online. “Our sense that attendance [at the open forums] is equal to interest and engagement in the institution may not be the best measurement for this particular student body,” said Goff-Crews. But how should the University gauge student interests, and what is the best format for U of C students to share their concerns?

Those are questions the University has looked into for some time. Goff-Crews organized a working group on student engage-

ment a couple of years ago. The meeting inspired one of its members, sociology graduate student and former graduate liaison to the Board of Trustees Brian Cody, to undertake a study, on what students want out of campus communication “because everyone seems to think it’s not going well,” he said in a phone interview.

No open forum has been close to full since one held last March, after the arrest of a student in the A-level of Regenstein Library; four years ago the first forum with President Robert Zimmer overflowed. The University’s investment in Sudan and Zimmer’s commitment to transparency were in question then.

Today, it is students’ commitment to anything that’s in question. In May of last year, just three students showed up to an open forum with Goff-Crews, Alarcon, and outgoing SG President Jarrod Wolf (A.B. ‘10).

This quarter’s three open forums averaged fewer than 40 attendees, including administrators—far fewer than the 100 or 200 who show up when people are passionate about an issue. Over 1,000 people will be invited to an open forum on Facebook, but often 25 will show up. Many have axes to grind at the University of Chicago, but few seem interested in talking to the president or other administrators about what bothers them. Many of those who do are SG members or administrators themselves, people who are already working on the University’s problems. This turns the forums into awkward exercises in administrative obligation.

Fifteen minutes before this quarter’s first open forum, I ran into a friend buying a sandwich at Hallowed Grounds. I asked if he ever considered going to an open forum, like the one about to start downstairs in the McCormick Tribune Lounge. He laughed like it was a stupid question. Why would he go to an open forum?

Well. Cheaper meal plans, better working conditions for housing and dining workers, healthier food, making sure the University

recycles, bringing a Chipotle to campus.

Those are just a few issues he might have brought up at that day’s open forum on housing and dining, where administrators were eager to take questions and suggestions from the 12 or so students who did show up.

Before the January 20 dining forum began, a young female student with red hair popped her head in the door to ask if she could have a sandwich. When second-year and liaison to the Board of Trustees Frank Alarcon said sure, but would she stay for the forum? “Um, I have a thing,” she said, grabbing a sandwich and strolling toward Hutch Courtyard.

Another typically empty forum—two students gawked at computer screens, and an elderly couple left halfway through. Despite the red-letter items discussed, like bids for a new dining contract and the possibility of using Flex Dollars off campus, Associate Vice President for Campus Life Karen Warren Coleman was faced with extended pauses, filling them by asking, “Other thoughts?”

A few more students attended the February 24 “A-Level Study Break” forum on student health and off-campus housing, though attendance was still around 25. Representatives from MAC Property Management used the opportunity to pitch their services to students. The last forum of the quarter, with Zimmer, brought out around 75 students, but the longest exchange between students and the president was around how great the renovation to Harper Library was, and when Zimmer used to study late at night. Zimmer answered each question in his usual terse but well-reasoned way, and was never seriously asked to defend his thinking.

Goff-Crews said she expects members of the University community to be good “institutional citizens”—up to speed on campus policies, and motivated enough to come to administrators with their concerns. The many e-mails she gets, and the University students who fill focus groups and other

CHICAGO MAROON | GREY CITY | March 8, 2011

small groups to solicit feedback, all fill that role, she said. But she knows most students won’t seek her out themselves—she also relies on SG and the Maroon to spread the word about what was discussed at open forums.

Whether students read the Maroon or talk to SG members is another matter entirely.

Besides being uninformed, students often don’t know whom to approach with complaints or concerns, or even what is at the heart of a problem. “If we disagree because we have different stances, great. But if we disagree because one group doesn’t have the facts…that’s bad communication,” Cody explained. And without high attendance at open forums, Cody says poor attendance is a self-fulfilling problem. “Why do you go to an event? It’s not like you personally have a dream about it,” Cody said. “You get an interest from a flyer, and you tell your friends. People go to events in clusters, and open forums are terrible at bringing in clusters.” He is recommending in his report, being sent to ORCSA and Goff- Crews’ office this quarter, that SG make open forums mandatory for SG members. (Technically, that is already SG policy, but attendance among members remains moderate at best.)

Fourth-year and S G president Greg Nance said in a phone interview that open forums can be great for administrators to trot out new ideas and get feedback, but it helps when there’s an audience. He said the sparsely-attended housing forum was frustrating, “a missed opportunity in some respects.” Alarcon and Phillips agreed, though none of the three blamed students, who are likely too busy to attend, they said. Instead, Alarcon and Nance blamed location, advertising, and branding for the low turnout at the first forum. Zimmer’s open forum, newly branded as “Coffee & Donuts with President Zimmer,” brought more students, though a handful snuck out with donuts before the event began, and no more attended than at the same events last quarter.

Poor attendance at open forums is pushing Goff-Crews and SG and to consider new ways for students to engage with administrators. “We may have to come up with a new paradigm that works for this particular body at this particular time. We have to be open to that,” Goff-Crews said. She, Nance, and Alarcon mentioned social media as the likely alternative.

Social networking is likely on the table because, according to SG and the administration, it’s the best way to allow busy students to participate in campus-wide debate whenever they find ten or fifteen minutes, whether at 7:30 a.m. or 10 p.m. If students don’t show up to open forums, bring the forum to them, or so the thinking seems to go. And so the next time students spoke out online, administrators showed up themselves, so to speak.

With the blizzard of February 1 lurching toward Chicago and snow clouds only hours away, Goff-Crews co-wrote an e-mail informing the community that the University was unlikely to close. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s warned the night before of the “DANG E ROU S MULTIFACETED AND POTENTIALLY LIFE THREATENING WINTER STORM TAKING AIM ON REGION” (the service publishes all its warnings in caps). The stalwart Chicago Public School system had already announced it would close for the day. So too had all the graduate and professional schools at the University.

Many College students were upset by the University response. “I got tons of text messages from people I know, like, ‘Hey, what’s the administration doing?’” Alarcon said.

One made a Facebook group calling for students to take matters into their own hands and skip school the next day; in a matter of hours over 4,000 students were invited to the group, and more than 1,300 joined, more students than Mandel Hall can hold.

When the Faceb ook group came to the attention of Goff-Crews and the new

Assistant Vice President for Student Life Eleanor Daughterty (A.B. ‘97), it seemed like the right time and place to get involved. “I told [Daugherty], ‘They’re there, you might as well be there,’” Goff-Crews said, and Daugherty began posting updates on the storm, whether there would be school, and what drove the administration’s decisions.

But the presence of an administrator seemed to close down discussion, which centered first on whether there would be a snow day, and then on how to spend it, rather than how it was being dealt with and how the University could learn from any mistakes it made. Lizzy Kate Gray, a third-year, wrote this note on the Snow Day page: “Would love it if you could explain why the U of C didn’t believe the weather reports, and did not cancel classes Tuesday afternoon…You thought the school administration’s waitand-see approach was wiser? You thought the shuttles could run in a blizzard? Please, explain.”

Daugherty responded with an invitation to discuss the issue in person. When asked by grey city via Facebook message whether she and the Gray met up, Daugherty replied, “I’ve received positive feedback and have decided to keep the communication going.”

Gray said recently that she wasn’t alerted

by Facebook when Daugherty commented on her post, though she would be happy to meet with her.

Goff-Crews said part of a possible transition to social networking—which at present includes appointing someone to look after the administration’s presence on social media, including its Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts—is looking at how conversing online affects the quality of discourse. Goff-Crews also said she enjoys working with small groups of students in task forces and doesn’t mind addressing student concerns on her own, without a forumsized conversation. “I do like the group dynamics…but I also like meeting with individuals who can break down for me, what does that actually mean that this group has said X, Y, and Z. I want the [forum] numbers to improve, but even with small groups, you can get something out of it.”

Alarcon isn’t convinced that moving discussions online is as productive as open forums. He’s learned from the poorly attended but fruitful-in-discussion SafeRide forum that “spending 10 minutes articulating your concerns on a Facebook event is a different investment of time than showing up to a discussion,” and said the tone of the meeting was more collaborative than the online petition. Cody had a similar reaction.

“Online, people can be assholes in a way they’re not face-to-face,” he said. “Online tools are a great way to augment conversations. They’re a terrible way to have whole conversations.”

Neither the snow day group nor the SafeRide petition produced much in the way of answers to pressing questions—many students still don’t know why it takes SafeRide a long time to arrive or why the administration delayed the snow day announcement; Alarcon said SG still gets questions about the SafeRide buses when it tables in the Reynolds Club. Interested parties may yet find a way to use social media to stimulate conversation, rather than simply augment it.

Alarcon would indeed like to see “a stronger online relationship between students and administrators.” But until then, you can’t deny there’s a lot of work to be done.

In the interview, which took place a few days after this quarter’s first open forum, Nance was asked if his friends had known it was happening. “‘Oh my god, Kim GoffCrews sends me so many e-mails, who the hell is she?’” Nance recalled one friend asking, and Nance replied, “Hey, here’s your chance to meet this lady.”

The friend didn’t go, but did recommend that Nance tell Goff-Crews, the vicepresident for Campus Life, “to stop sending me so many e-mails.” Seriously, who reads University-wide e-mails?

Well. Maybe you should.

3

JEREMY MARTIN/GREY CITY

When the first open forum, not pictured, was held in February 2007, an audience with President Zimmer was a big draw, and for a couple of years groups used the opportunity to lobby for their causes.

DARREN LEOW/GREY CITY

The March 2, 2010 open forum on a student's arrest at the Reg drew an impassioned, capacity crowd of around 200 people to the McCormick Tribune Lounge.

ERIC GUO/GREY CITY

But two months later, only three students attended a forum with Vice President for Campus Life Kim Goff-Crews that the MAROON said resembled office hours.

CRYSTAL TSOI/GREY CITY

After a popular Facebook petition criticized SafeRide service, Student Government organized an open forum with Transportation officials. Again, only three students showed.

4

4

CHICAGO MAROON | GREY CITY | March 8, 2011

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ca. 1950

2

1961

“The City White hath fled the Earth, But where the azure waters lie A nobler city hath its birth,

The City Gray that ne’er shall die.”

1899

This verse of the University’s alma mater carried great significance when it was written in 1894. The South Side was bursting with grand, new buildings, from Cobb Hall, built in 1892, to the many great, temporary structures of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. But by 18 9 9, the area around Cobb, Gates-Blake, and Goodspeed (2) was once again a flowerstrewn field. Now, cobblestones, hospital buildings, and bookstores surround it.

The University went through another transitional period in the 1950s and 1960s, when it brought a modernist bent the its neo-gothic campus architecture and sponsored a sweeping urban renewal program.

East 55th Street (1) used to be lined with retail and entertainment storefronts: bakeries, a high-end grocery, a half-dozen restaurants, a toy store, a butcher. But

when restrictive covenants that once kept blacks from moving into Hyde Park came to an end, the University feared white flight, prompting the urban renewal projects. Older buildings were razed to make way for newer, ostensibly more attractive structures (like the Toaster Buildings seen under construction in 1961).

The University quickly looked for a new location for the artists and retailers from East 55th Street displaced by urban renewal. That project became Harper Court (4), a shopping center on East 53rd Street and South Harper Avenue, which opened packed with shops and galleries.

But over time, business has slowed, with several of the storefronts now left empty.

The University recently bought the land and is in the process of razing buildings to prepare the plot for incoming restaurants,

3

4

1959

1965

retailers, and a hotel.

Dorms designs can be hit or miss, and Woodward Court (3), on the corner of East 58th Street and South Woodlawn Avenue, was definitively in the latter category. It never had the charm of Snell-Hitchcock or the spacious luxury of the Shoreland. Built in 1958 by famed modernist architect Eero Saarinen—also responsible for the Gateway Arch in St. L ouis—Woodward is b est remembered for its dank basement corridors, bleak cinderblock walls, and rooms that were tiny even by Pierce standards.

Think South Campus Residence Hall is a bland name? Woodward was originally called “New Dorms.” Few mourned its demolition in 2001 to make room for the now-Booth School of Business.

Archival photos courtesy of Special Collections Current photos by Camille van Horne

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CHICAGO MAROON | GREY CITY | March 8, 2011

Nance works the body MATT BOGEN/GREY CITY

G

reg Nance always says hi.

Walk with him for a minute or two—across the quad, through Henry Crown, down a hallway—and he’ll wave at a half-dozen people, calling each of them by name and asking how they are.

He’ll ask about some activity he knows they’re involved in, or when they’ll be up for grabbing coffee or a beer. It’s almost impossible to tell whether he’s talking to one of his best friends or someone he met a couple days ago at a Student Government (SG) event.

Whatever he has on his plate, SG President Nance says he always tries to make time for meeting with people who are looking for his advice or want his help.

One of his close friends, third-year Shashin Chokshi, says Nance doesn’t discriminate in writing his daily to-do lists: Just as he writes down action items for expanding Rising Phoenix Debate, his nonprofit which teaches debate in high schools, he’ll add a reminder to hang out with a friend. If something doesn’t get checked off his list, he adds it to the list the next day, and the next, until it gets done.

Nance keeps four notebooks: one for daily goals, one for journaling, one for SG, and one for entrepreneurial and professional activities. He reads me a Winston Churchill quote he wrote at the front of one of the notebooks: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” As he reads these halfmemorized, inspirational quotes, his eyes light up, and he looks at me, hoping I’ll be as inspired by them as he is.

Chokshi, with whom Nance founded Moneythink, a nonprofit that teaches financial literacy and entrepreneurship to high school students, says Nance doesn’t differentiate between making connections and making friends. “He’s always semiprofessional—in a good way—even if you’re talking to him just in a friendship context.”

But like many of his friends and his family, Chokshi describes Nance as “genuine” and “down to earth.” “It’s always a pitch in many ways, but really genuine as well... It’s always like, ‘Oh I’m really passionate about this, you should be too,’” Chokshi says.

“He’ll pitch you equally on hanging out and having beers with you.”

On one typical day two Mondays ago, Nance wakes up at 7:30 a.m., sends e-mails for Moneythink and SG (he says he sends

50-100 e-mails a day), reviews readings for a take-home test in a Russian politics class he has in a couple days, runs at the gym for two hours, has lunch with former undergraduate liaison to the Board of Trustees Daniel Kimmerling (A.B. ’10) to discuss his plans for Cambridge, reads some of Managing Change, plays the computer game Galcon for 15 minutes, goes to his B.A. colloquium (Nance is writing on China’s naval development and America’s response), grabs dinner with another Moneythink leader and his girlfriend, goes to a hospital to share his goal-setting methods with kids who have sickle-cell anemia, and researches his B.A. on Twitter (his new favorite information source).

Nance concludes the day with a 10 p.m. workout at Henry Crown and has agreed to take me along. The sixteen-mile run that morning was his big workout for the day and he’s just returning for a bit of conditioning. We do some ab work, then some warm-up laps around the track, and he generously keeps pace with me until we sprint the final stretch, at which point he breaks away and cheers me on once he finishes. Then he teaches me how to shadowbox. Afterwards, he stops by Bartlett for some late-night dining before heading home to his room at Delta Upsilon (DU), where he lives in the bedroom once occupied by novelist and U of C dropout Kurt Vonnegut (A.M. ’71).

Six feet tall and 152 pounds, with wavy brown hair that’s always a bit disheveled, Nance, who usually wears slightly wrinkled khakis, boat shoes with socks, and a wrinkled polo or t-shirt, still looks a lot like the class clown, runner, and nerdy debate kid he was in high school. It’s hard to believe Nance is any good at boxing, but as a welterweight at the Chicago Boxing Club on South 35th Street and East Halsted Avenue, Nance says big guys often don’t realize he’s got the quick reflexes and determination to rapidly turn the tables in his favor. “They’re so angry, they get really distracted from the purpose. I sit back, I play defense, and when they’re totally exhausted, I go to work like it’s my day job.” Nance, who has exercise-induced asthma and is often much smaller than his competitors, says much of his athletic success is about “mental sharpening.”

Nance started b oxing when he was nine or ten, as part of his parents’ plan to channel Nance and his brother’s constant

by Ella Christoph

fighting into something more productive.

He also runs marathons. His first was the Chicago Marathon in October 2009, and he ran the Cleveland Marathon last May, coming in at 3:06.46—74th on the men’s side. Nance is currently training for the Southern Indiana Classic Marathon by running 20 to 25 miles a week, and he’s hoping his cross-training—boxing, aqua-jogging, stationary biking, and core work—will improve his time further.

I would go out and I would slam 40 beers a weekend.

Every weekend, my first and second years.

But most students know Nance not for his athletic accomplishments, but because he’s SG president, or maybe for the awards he’s won. Nance boasts a résumé that makes businesses and admissions panels drool: president of SG, founder of Moneythink, Merrill Lynch intern, Teach for America admit, winner of both the Gates-Cambridge and the Truman scholarships. He tutors chess and is developing two startups besides Moneythink: Rising Phoenix Debate and Chicago Got Game, a summer basketball camp he founded.

Despite a passion for “weird factoids” and an impressive knowledge of dinosaurs, Nance says his aspirations when he was younger were mostly in sports, and later debate. Playing baseball, soccer, basketball, and football as a kid and cross country, track, tennis, and baseball in high school, Nance was a competitor who wanted to win at sports and not much else. A middle child, he was flanked by an older sister who excelled in athletics and a brother just 14 months younger than him who Nance describes as “whip-smart.” Nance didn’t learn how to read until he was six. He lisped, was pigeon-toed and small.

“I learned determination very young, because in order to be adequate at stuff, I would have to try much harder,” he says.

“I remember not being that fast, but when lunchtime started I would grab an apple, eat it, and run around the track all recess.”

The highlight of his elementary athletic

career came during a first-grade football game: He was the quarterback and there were two minutes left during recess. The teams were tied, and a bigger kid was rushing him. He signalled a teammate to run right; Nance faked a pass to him, headed left and made, as he remembers it, a “mad waddle for the end zone.”

Nance grew up on Bainbridge Island, an island outside Seattle with one of the highest qualities of living in the U.S., and Nance’s parents often told him how lucky he was to receive a great public education— his predominantly white, wealthy hometown imposes a five percent levy on itself to support the schools. But he was held back in math in eighth grade, often brought home Cs and Ds on his math tests, and Nance says the value of academics didn’t click until he got to college. Still, his family says it was always clear that he was ambitious. “From the time he was a little kid, he’s been a guy that’s been driven to do something. I think when he was very young—this is not uncommon, particularly in boys—he wanted to do it in sports, he wanted to make it in baseball,” says his father, Mike. But Nance wasn’t big enough, and for a long time was the twelfth player on his pee wee team. “He never blossomed into the standout star I knew he wanted to be,” Mike says. Nance continued to play sports in high school, excelling in track, in which his 4x400 relay team lost the state championship by 4/10 of a second, but also funneled his energies into student government and debate.

As freshman class vice president, one of Nance’s responsibilities was to help write and perform a homecoming skit. He spent hours writing and rehearsing the skit with a group, but an older student government representative pulled the plug on the microphone. The entire student body booed Nance and the other performers, and Nance figured he had to make up for it somehow. That night, at the homecoming game, Nance, wearing a ski mask and a Speedo, streaked across the football field.

By senior year, Greg had a 3.18 G PA (he would graduate 185th out of about 385 students) but had racked up a number of major debate trophies. He had acceptance letters from the University of Washington, which gave him a large scholarship; West Point; and the University of Chicago. He visited West Point and, inspired by his grandfathers, strongly considered attend-

CHICAGO MAROON | GREY CITY | March 8, 2011

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When they're totally exhausted, I go to work like it's my day job MATT BOGEN/GREY CITY

ing. His father’s father fought in World War II and was one of the first Marines to land on Iwo Jima, while his mother’s father was a naval SeaBee who saw action throughout the Pacific theater.

But after visiting the U of C and staying with an acquaintance who was a brother at DU, Nance was confident he wanted to attend. His father had made enough money to pay for a private school education largely through investing in stocks, but knew it would be a challenge for the family and didn’t want it to go to waste on a young man who had yet to put any effort into his schoolwork. “For a week I had to sit and say, ‘Oh my god, can I do this?’” Nance recalls. “I’m coming off this really lackluster high school career where I achieved a good amount in athletics and debate, but academically I was nothing at all. So I made a commitment, I promised my dad, I’m going to do my best, I’m going to give it my all, I’m going to put in the work, and that difference—attitude is everything.”

Nance has done well at the U of C, majoring in political science with an international relations focus. He became an active member of Blue Chips and was elected external relations officer of the RSO spring of his first year. He ran track fall and winter quarters of his first year, played rugby in the spring and fall, and started rowing winter of his second year. As a first year, Nance was elected to College Council (CC). Nance says being part of CC was mostly a negative experience. He said the organization had a culture of complacency and accomplished little. Afterward he swore off SG, planning to do more through other channels.

Nance also started to explore Chicago and recognize the disparities around him.

Struck by the stark inequality and segregation, he felt compelled to do something about it. Hoping to put his own skills to use, he founded Moneythink, recruiting brothers from D U and other Blue Chips members to the organization. As Moneythink grew—the organization now claims nine chapters across the country— Nance realized successful mentors could help the program expand. Despite his promise to himself to swear off SG, Nance decided to run for undergraduate liaison to the Board of Trustees, which he saw as an opportunity to connect with powerful businesses-people who could potentially become his mentors. Through a host of

networking efforts, Moneythink’s advisory board now includes Sam Beard, who created and chaired programs developed under each of the last seven presidents of the United States, and Steven Biedermann, investment portfolio manager for the Chicago Public Schools.

In order to keep up with his schoolwork and extracurriculars and party hard, Nance had sacrificed sleep, averaging four to four-and-a-half hours a night. He drank and smoked marijuana regularly, and as a fraternity brother, Nance says, alcohol and drugs were readily available. “I would go out and I would slam 40 beers a weekend. Every weekend, my first and second

Nance believes that now his successes are for God's glory, rather than his own years,” he says. (A DU spokesman said it has a zero tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol.)

In April 2009, Nance took a pamphlet advertising Cornerstone Baptist Church from a woman on the sidewalk, currently located on East 55th Street and South University Avenue at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Curious, he attended the Easter service, where he met Pastor Courtney Lewis. Nance was familiar with evangelical Christianity—his grandmother used to give him candy for memorizing Bible passages—but he only considered himself a Sunday Christian, one who doesn’t think about religion except at church. While his parents had brought the family to various church services growing up, today his siblings don’t consider themselves Christian. Nance remembers May 10, 2009 clearly, a “sunny Saturday” a month after he had taken the Cornerstone flyer: It was the day he says he was saved. “Pastor Lewis came to DU and showed me the route to salvation, and we sat down with John in Romans,” he says. “That was the day I was like, I’m turning things around.”

Nance goes to church at Cornerstone Baptist regularly and is in a Wednesday night Bible study group where L ewis interprets a passage from the Bible and quizzes the students on facts from last

week’s passage. Nance sticks out among the half-dozen students, most of whom are older than he and all of whom are black.

The night I sit in, the group is reading the Pauline Epistles, and Lewis preaches on how, despite people hoping to convince Paul not to go to Jerusalem, where they knew he would be persecuted, Paul is driven by the word of God to go and spread the Word. Paul preaches as he travels, both to converts and gentiles, and Lewis encourages the attendees to do the same: to feed the faiths of the converted as well as those who are not yet saved. In modern terms, he says, we would call it follow-up work.

Nance says he has chosen Jesus and his Apostles, some of the most influential, successful leaders of all time, as his greatest mentors and he’s taking notes on their expansion techniques. Nance says his newfound devotion changed how he saw his successes. “I didn’t deserve the amazing gift I received and it truly put things in perspective,” he later writes in an e-mail.

Lewis, the pastor, cautions Nance and his other congregants about the evils of worldly temptations. Still, Nance doesn’t abstain completely: As SG president he’s instituted pub crawls for students 21-andup, and while he’s cut back significantly on his own drinking, he says, “I definitely find myself doing those too frequently for my pastor...if we had an honest conversation on the subject I wouldn’t be proud.”

Now Nance is what he calls an “infant Christian,” one who is slowly changing his ways to become more like Jesus. He was already working hard at school, in sports, and for Moneythink, but he says God gave him the strength to stay humble, make time for his faith, sort out his priorities, and dial back his partying. While his goals have changed—Nance says he used to want to be a hedge fund manager, and now he wants to reduce inequality and help bring justice to the world—his avenues of accomplishment have stayed the same. Nance believes that now his successes are for God’s glory, rather than his own.

Chokshi says Nance doesn’t talk about his faith much, but he’ll sometimes find his friend speaking about Moneythink in grand Biblical metaphors, as though he’s picked up Lewis’ rhetorical techniques and applied them to Moneythink. “You can’t be uncomfortable talking about your plan or your vision because that’s what leaders are supposed to do,” Nance tells me, recalling

his interview for the Truman scholarship, when he was grilled by a panel that asked him what he wanted to do.

As undergraduate liaison, Nance took on more responsibilities under the presidency of Jarrod Wolf (A.B. ’10). He managed SG’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and worked on more initiatives. He took on projects with second-year Frank Alarcon, and with third-year David Chen and second-year Patrick Ip, who later joined his executive slate. Although he hadn’t planned on running for SG president, Nance reconsidered after working with Chen and Ip, in whom he saw the potential for strong leadership. His family and Moneythink mentors encouraged him to run, pointing out that while he had a leadership role at Moneythink, he hadn’t yet learned to work within a long-standing bureaucratic institution with a culture of its own.

Next year, Nance is headed to Cambridge, where he’ll pursue a degree in manage ment. He also plans to continue running Moneythink from abroad, join the boxing team at Cambridge, which has a centurieslong tradition of matches attended by packed stadiums, and spend more time exploring his spirituality. After that, he plans to be a teacher for Teach for America (he’s deferred his acceptance) as well as run Moneythink. Beyond then, Nance isn’t sure. Sometimes, he mentions becoming a superintendent or exploring more entrepreneurial projects; other times, he’s excited about joining the Marines, or even getting into politics.

“I want to be a leader in some capacity, I’m not sure if it will be in education, in business, as an entrepreneur, or in government,” Nance says. “As I’ve looked around, the best practices in each are similar... I want to do one of those things in my life, I’m not sure which.”

Nance is a man who thinks in terms of opportunity costs, and fraught with the certainty that whatever he does, he’ll be missing out on something else, he’s hedging his bets. No matter what, he figures, the management degree will serve him well.

“People are always like ‘I don’t know what I wanna do, I don’t know what I wanna do,’ I don’t necessarily know either, but I think you can know the next footsteps for yourself.”

Go to ChicagoMaroon.com/grey-city for an online exclusive: Greg Nance, the paper doll.

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CHICAGO MAROON | GREY CITY | March 8, 2011

KEEP CALM & CARRY ON A Q&A with Sian Beilock

DARREN LEOW/

GREY CITY

F

or any of us who have ever blanked on a math test after days of studying, or wracked our minds for hours looking for the perfect final sentence for a paper, Sian Beilock has a suggestion: Don’t over think it. An associate professor in the Department of Psychology, Beilock made a name for herself investigating the impact of stress on human performance.

Beilock and her team found that skilled athletes largely run on auto-pilot, but when they over-analyze that next free throw or putt, they’re more likely to cave to pressure. Singing to themselves, among other tricks, helps athletes keep their cool, she found.

Beilock's research has shown that clutch performances and agonizing chokes aren’t limited to places like the United Center or Wrigley Field. For every Michael Jordan at Madison Square Garden or Jean Van de Velde at golf ’s Open Championship, Beilock says there are countless other, more mundane moments when people succeed or fail based on the same kind of pressure and mental presence. For a closer look at the psychology of choking and the business of helping people keep their cool, Grey City caught up with Beilock last month in her Green Hall laboratory.

G REY C ITY : You write about famous athletes like Shaquille O’Neal, Sam Snead, and Maria Sharapova throwing away big leads.

Have you talked to any of them since your book, Choke, was published?

SIAN BEILOCK : There are a few athletes in the book whose sports psychologists—the people who work one-on-one with them— have said “I really want to give your book to them, but can I cut out that page?” I can’t name names, but definitely a lot of the athletes in the book know about it. I often talk to coaches, Olympic coaches, or coaches of professional athletes and I think they’re really interested in this idea that there are simple psychological tools we can use to produce our best performances.

GC: Do you get calls or e-mails from nonathletes looking for help about choking?

SB: I’ve had some interesting ones about people who are artists or painters who feel like they get up to the canvas and can’t paint or write. [When] we talk about choking under pressure, we think of these canonical situations, like the Olympics or the job interview, but there are activities that we do on a daily basis that we can perform poorly on when under stress.

Whether it’s being a writer and not being able to write, or parallel parking in front of

your spouse, or giving a toast at a wedding, or ending up in the elevator for two minutes with your boss and trying not to look like a fool, there’s all these situations that, although they’re not for a gold medal, can really show some of the same characteristics of flubs under pressure.

GC: What’s your all-time favorite choke?

SB: I think one that always stands out for me is Sarah Palin’s Katie Couric interview. I think that is really a great example of where she just hadn’t practiced. It was rumored that she hadn’t let the handlers quiz her and get her ready. That’s just in such contrast to someone like Obama, in terms of how he handles giving speeches or questions from reporters, he spends a lot of time practicing.

I did a TV show the other day where I had to read off of a teleprompter and it’s actually really hard. It’s been reported that Obama spends lots of time reading off teleprompters and practicing such that he seems very fluent in these sorts of situations. It struck me that it was a skill that needed to be acquired.

GC: In your book you write about giving talks to business leaders. How do your psychological methods mesh with their corporate attitudes?

SB: I think a lot of what I recommend is counter-intuitive, but it’s simple, so it’s appealing. Whether it’s writing about your worries, or realizing that in putting groups of people together everyone shouldn’t have the same expertise—we know that two heads with different sorts of backgrounds are better than one—or realizing that even though you have a lot of knowledge, you may not be able to predict how a consumer who’s never seen your product will handle it.

I think that a lot of this is stuff they hadn’t thought about before, and the idea that you can give them some facts and ways to ensure better performance is enticing to them. Especially some of the techniques where it’s training under stress for an emergency situation, or getting ready for a presentation, people have told me that these techniques are really effective in terms of whatever they’re trying to accomplish.

I had an executive tell me about an anthrax scare at his company and how even though they had gone over drills and procedures, when it actually happened, no one performed the way they were supposed to. From that [I realized] they had actually practiced, [but] had just talked about it.

Actually practicing what you might do in a do-or-die situation and upping the ante a bit is an important part. Since then, they’ve

implemented those actual drills.

GC: You were a competitive lacrosse player before becoming an academic. Did you ever choke on the field or at a desk?

SB: I never took tests in the real situation as well as I did in practice tests, whether it was the SAT or the G RE. And there are definitely performances in the athletic world where I never played as well as I could have in front of Olympic coaches or college recruiters, so I think I’ve always been keenly aware that subtle environmental conditions can change your ability to show what you know or how you play.

GC: What was your impression of Christina Aguilera’s version of the “StarSpangled Banner” at the Super Bowl?

SB: I mean, it was obvious that she had messed up the words, but she kept on going very fluidly, which I think speaks to the fact that she’s a very practiced performer.

That’s an example that I’d liken to when Chief Justice Roberts swore in Obama and he messed up. This is something that’s so well practiced, and you get in front of all these people and you just pay a little too much attention to what you’re saying, and all of a sudden it seems to go out the window.

G C: With your heightened knowledge about choking, how do you deal with the phenomenon in your own classroom?

SB: I try and have multiple tests so that everything isn’t riding on one performance.

And I talk to my students about some of the tips I talk about in the book as a way to study and get ready. So this idea that if you just read over your notes, you might not have a good idea of what you’re going to be able to show on a test, but actually getting together in a study group and testing each other, getting used to some of those stressful situations, that also helps you understand what you do and don’t know. I try to get them ready in that way.

GC: How do you think the curve of standardized tests is thrown by instances of choking?

SB: We know that a lot of these tests don’t have great predictive validity, so the SAT, for example, and the GRE don’t predict performance much past first quarter grades.

And one of the reasons I think this is the case is because you don’t always get a good metric of what students know or their abilities from these tests because factors like the situation are impacting some students and not others. So in the book I talk about this idea that those students with the most gen-

eral intellectual abilities—the most cognitive horsepower, which is one of the building blocks of IQ—tend to be the most likely to choke. And what you have is a testing situation where you’re truncating the distribution such that those people who should be performing at the top are performing lower.

I think this research highlights the dangers of relying too heavily on these scores as predictors of future success. This is especially true if you think about minority groups or women in the math and sciences.

A lot of the work I talk about in the book suggests that people can perform below their potential because they’re just aware of stereotypes of how they should perform, because of their ethnic group or their gender group.

What this suggests to me is that if we have these groups systematically performing below their potential, we’re missing potential segments of the population that might be earmarked to go on and succeed in future activities.

GC: How has your research weighed in on your ideas about parenting, now that you’re expecting?

SB: Well, it’s a girl, and there’s a whole chapter in there about gender differences in performance, so I’m very acutely aware of these sorts of things. I think that one thing that the book hopefully gets across is that a lot of the differences we see later on in terms of selection into math and sciences and things like that can be traced back to exposure and experiences early on. I’m a big proponent of having Legos and puzzles for girls as well as boys. I guess I was raised pretty gender-neutral, so I’ll probably do the same.

I don’t think I have a philosophy yet; everyone asks me what my child-rearing philosophy is, and I’m sometimes stressed out that I don’t have one. [Laughs.]

G C: One of the tips in your book to improve performance is to write about your anxieties for 10-15 minutes before a big test. Have you written down your anxieties about parenting?

SB: It hasn’t gotten to that point yet! I guess I’ve become more aware of the fact that kids are really influenced by their teachers, by their parents, by the stresses around them, and a lot of academic situations in this day and age are pressure cookers, especially early on. So I would want to ensure that emphasis gets placed on learning and knowledge rather than just performance on a test.

—Christina Pillsbury

VOICES The circus comes to town

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT MARCH 8, 2011

FASHION

Ann Taylor finds U of C's model students

By Hallie Grumer Voices Next Top Model

S

econd-year Nicholas Cassleman performs an acrobatic stunt during le Vorris and Vox's circus production, Illustre,

Thursday evening.

TERENCE LEE/MAROON

It’s not every day that you hear of a casting call for fashion modeling that also teaches you about business. But on February 10, business casual giant Ann Taylor sponsored a special “Casting Call” to find young models to fit their more youthful rebranding.

This on-campus event provided an opportunity for the women of the University to learn the ins and outs of the interview process and presented them with the chance to appear in the online lookbook for Ann Taylor. “ Th e r e w e r e t w o g o a l s i n mind,” explains fourth-year Grace Lewin, one of the two Ann Taylor Campus Ambassadors. “The first goal was to educate girls about behavior during the interview process as well as behavior in the workplace, and since it’s Ann Taylor, specifically relating to business attire. The second goal was to select five models who would then take part in an online virtual lookbook, having only college students wearing business attire.”

Lewin, along with third-year Lizmarie Oliveras, were chosen

by Ann Taylor over winter break to participate in their Ambassador

program, comprised of 10 schools from all over the country, like the peer institution Columbia University. Each group is responsible for hosting a series of events at its institution. The first event was the Campus Casting Call.

Since the schools have to complete similar tasks or events, there are different incentives given for points such as the overall best event for the casting call, as well as the overall attendance.

Although the University of Chicago is one of the smaller schools to participate in the event, it had one of the best turnouts, with over 100 girls attending the event and more than 70 completing the casting call application and video speech.

The event itself addressed the various aspects of the interview and job world. Joni Krep, from CAPS, spoke with the girls, sharing funny anecdotes of interviews she had held, covering the dos and don’ts of the work environment. But it wasn’t all work and no play—the participants were able to enjoy the catered desserts provided, including Sugar Bliss cupcakes, and could enter into a raffle for a $100 gift card.

There was also an Ann Taylor team present, that brought a rack of clothes with them and offered

useful tips when choosing interview attire. In addition, there was a résumé critique station in which the girls could have their résumés reviewed from either the pre-law, pre -medicine, or pre -business categories.

“Overall, I think this was a really good event, specifically for the University of Chicago campus, because sometimes we get a little bit carried away preparing academically and forget that there are some simple things to remember when going into an interview, such as how to carry ourselves with grace and what’s appropriate attire,” explained Lewin.

While Lewin and Oliveras did not end up selecting the models themselves (all the video speeches and applications were reviewed

by Ann Taylor Corporate in New York), the applicants had to complete a casting call application as well as hold a 30-second “elevator speech.” The point of the video, as opposed to a model headshot, was so that Ann Taylor could find young women who not only looked the part but could also serve as Ann Taylor role models.

The five models selected were fourth-year Jordan Dexter, thirdyear Comfort Clinton, fourthyear Desiree Dickerson, second-

ANN TAYLOR continued on page 9

THEATER

UT shows that even fairy tales must grow up of fairy—tale characters such as Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (as in Jack and the Beanstalk), and many others, they achieve their wish. Yet they must then learn how to live with exactly what they’ve always dreamed of but never thought they would receive. The musical asks its audience what fairy tales take for granted: “You’ve just gotten everything you’ve ever wanted, so now what?”

By Emily Gerdin Voices Forever Young Nothing marks the switch from childhood to adulthood more clearly than going to college.

Discovering that bills must be paid, time must be managed, and food doesn’t magically appear every morning are all great trials we face when leaving home. But there is no other way to achieve our goals than to make this metaphorical trek “into the woods.”

This week, University Theatre presents the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods in a performance that addresses coming of age.

Musicals are not common UT productions—there is only one (maybe two) a year. Fourth-year director William Glick and his cast and crew strove to make this one as exceptional as possible. In fact, Glick hopes that I n t o t h e Wo o d s w i l l l e a d t o a greater musical presence on campus.

“This is the first mainstream musical that has been student —done,” said Glick.

He explained that UT has grown rapidly over the past few years, and as a show, Into the Woods encapsulates that growth.

The cast and crew, he claims,

INTO THE WOODS First Floor Theater Thursday through Saturday

Third-years Rudy Foster (Jack), Claire Stone (Little Red Riding Hood), Markie Gray (Baker's Wife), fourth-year Andrew Rosenthal (Baker) and first-year Lizzy Lewis (Cinderella) show us the more mature side of childhood fairy tales.

DARREN LEOW/MAROON

have been willing and capable to go that extra mile to make this play a success.

“This is a big show in many ways,” said fourth-year sound designer Ren Belcher, who remarked not only on the size of the cast and crew, but also on the

addition of a sound team. Belcher considers their hardest role to be “creating” characters that cannot be seen.

“We take abstract characters and make them real with sound,” said Belcher. For example, though a giant never actually appears

on stage, his intimidating aura is created by various booms and his disembodied voice.

Into the Woods is a musical with two acts, which together tell the tale of the quest of a baker and his wife, who start the musical with a single wish. Along with the help

The musical plays with this question as its plot revolves around leaving one’s childhood world and entering adulthood.

In order to assert the theme of growing up, the set design team incorporated many things one associates with childhood— hobby horses, toy wagons—that essentially create a playground on stage. In contrast, most of the characters wear contemporary fairy tale costumes that clash with the set to provide a symbolic backdrop for all the coming-of-age stories presented on

WOODS continued on page 9

8

CHICAGO MAROON | VOICES | February 2011 CHICAGO MAROON | VOICES | March 8,18,2011

MODA's night on the town

THEATER

Strawdog Theatre masters classic Russian novel

By Ana Klimchynskaya Voices It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere M i k h a i l B u l g a k o v ’ s Th e M a s t e r a n d Margarita is not an easy novel to adapt. In Russia, it’s one of those classics of literature that everyone has read. It’s very quoatable, very funny, and utterly untranslatable. Then there’s also its fantastic and bizarre style that’s so hard to put on stage. But in the midst of all this wit and style, there is a very serious, very important story, and Strawdog Theatre Company’s adaptation captures the essence of that story with an appropriate reverence for the original.

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA Strawdog Theatre Company Through April 2

F

ourth-year Milan Neeley has her makeup prepared by a Paul Mitchell artist before the MODA Spring 2011 Fashion Show at the Chicago Cultural Center Friday night.

LLOYD LEE/MAROON

The Master and Margarita takes place in 1930s Moscow and begins with a visit by the Devil and his posse to the more-or-less atheistic Soviet Union. In the meantime, Margarita is searching for the Master, her lover and a great writer whose innovative work about Pontius Pilate and Jesus was not accepted by the “literary bureaucracy” of his time. Amid this havoc, a Ball of the Damned, and lots of magic tricks, the Devil comes to Margarita’s rescue (sort of ).

Strawdog’s story mostly remains faithful to the original. A significant alteration is choosing to begin the play with the story of how the Master and Margarita met and fell in love; in the novel, this is only a flashback, and the adaptor’s decision to flesh out this

part of the tale makes the rest of the play more real and more comprehensible. Yet the play begins with a scene between the two that rather quickly ends with them in bed, though they barely know each other, which seems a sort of blunt way of portraying the relationship between these two people. Another change that is not quite so apt is that the Master was changed from a novelist to a playwright, who is also cast as an actor in his own play. These decisions take the story away from its literary-ness.

However, that may be for the best with a stage adaptation.

Yet, Dennis Grimes was a perfect choice for the Master. Passionate, excited and disappointed, idealistic and pessimistic at various turns of the story, he feels like the Master. Margarita (Justine C. Turner) perfectly fits how I imagined her character to be—she is a faithful and kind woman who loves a great man. The two actors have excellent chemistry onstage, which adds to the story and helps carry it along.

The way in which the director created the transitions between the present and the past, Moscow and the Master’s novel, was also very clever. The Master would dream, or think, or see as he was writing, and his characters would appear before him and the audience. Some staging adaptations were very fitting. For example, the devotees of the literary bureaucracy were held by other actors as puppets when they spoke to symbolize manipulation and brainwashing.

The music during the transitions and the Ball of the Damned captures the bizarre and fantastic mood of the novel.

MASTER continued on page 9

First Prize $1500 It’s evening. It’s part-time. It’s Northwestern.

Second prize $500

PREMEDICINE & PROFESSIONAL HEALTH CAREERS The Premedicine and Professional Health Careers program is designed to prepare students interested in applying to medical school and other health-related programs. The concentrations are designed for students who have not completed the courses generally required for admission to these schools. All courses offer undergraduate credit.

Concentrations: Premedicine

Prenursing

Prephysician Assistant

Preclinical Psychology

Prephysical Therapy

Study on campus or online

APPLY TODAY The summer quarter application deadline is May 1.

www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/crerar/crerar-prize

312-503-4682 • www.scs.northwestern.edu/health

Submission deadline: April 4, 2011

ChicagoMaroon.com

9

CHICAGO MAROON| VOICES | VOICES| February | March 8,18, 2011 CHICAGO MAROON 2011

Model search mixes fun, fashion, and finding a job ANN TAYLOR continued from page 7 year Esther Yu, and second-year Maggie Zhang. Once their names were announced, the next step for Lewin and Oliveras was to stage a photo shoot.

The models were brought downtown on the Saturday following the event. “The day started early, around 8:30 a.m.,” explained Lewin, and the girls took part in an instore makeover, with clothing selected based on their proposed majors, which encompassed areas of finance, arts, technology, and medicine, among others.

“When we were dressing the models for their in-store makeover we kept in mind

Childlike set clashes with contemporary costumes to bring Woods' message home which industry they would be interviewing for and created looks with variety based on that,” Lewin said.

Afterward, the models were brought back to the University for an on-campus photo shoot that was shot by a professional photographer. The resulting pictures were sent to Ann Taylor Corporate Headquarters in New York where a number of looks will be selected and posted online.

These photos will be included in the online lookbook, which will be live later this month.

“You should check it out,” laughed Lewin.

However, not all the fantastic and funny bits made it to the stage, perhaps because they simply couldn’t be translated on stage.

The Master and Margarita is bizarre in a matter-of-fact way that’s very, very hard to adapt. For example, in the first scene of the novel, the Devil informs Berlioz, the atheistic head of a writer’s union, that his head will be cut off by a woman that very night because Anushka has purchased the sunflower oil. He storms off, only to slip on some sunflower oil, fall onto the tram tracks, and have his head cut off by a tram driven by a woman. All of this occurs in a matter-of-fact way that the narrator doesn’t really explain.

The play doesn’t start with this scene, instead opting to put on stage the relation-

stage.

“I think [the set design] highlights how the show is about growing up, loss of innocence, leaving childhood behind,” said third-year Markie Gray, who plays the Baker’s wife. Gray describes her character as half of the “non-fairy tale” duo who, along with the Baker, played by fourthyear Adam Rosenthal, goes on a journey to adulthood. But they are not the only characters to grow up.

The witch, played by third-year Amanda Jacobson, is one of the many characters

that must come to terms with their true s e l v e s . W h a t m a k e s t h e w i t ch d i f f e r ent, though, is that she is an old woman already at the start of the show. But she must still evolve and learn to cope with the trials of adulthood. Jacobson explains that the witch, and many other characters, must learn to cope with the consequences of their actions—a side effect of personal growth that college students definitely see every day.

“A lot of the characters have difficulty making choices,” said Jacobson, “Adulthood is about making choices.”

CLASSIFIEDS

Margarita successfully transforms from page to stage MASTER continued from page 8

WOODS continued from page 7

ship between the Master and Margarita, so that when this scene does occur, it doesn’t have quite the same striking affect. The novel also involves a gigantic talking cat, who is perhaps one of the more quoted characters of the story; he’s both hilarious and fantastic, and there’s just no way that a person dressed as a cat can capture that.

Nevertheless, the cast did some impressive magic and the Ball of the Damned, even if it’s not quite as bizarre as one would’ve liked, was still quite striking.

In the end, this is a story about writing, about literature, about history, truth, and creation. Bulgakov famously destroyed his first draft of the novel, but as the devil says in the story, “manuscripts don’t burn.” This one certainly didn’t, and this story is here to stay.

Classified advertising in the CHICAGO MAROON is $3 for each line. Lines are 45 characters long including spaces and punctuation. Special headings are 20-character lines at $4 per line.

Classifieds are not accepted over the phone, and they must be paid in advance. Submit all ads in person, by e-mail, or by mail to the CHICAGO MAROON, Ida Noyes Hall, Lower Level Rm 026, 1212 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637 attn: Classified Ads. Deadlines: Wednesdays and Fridays, 12 P.M., prior to publication. The CHICAGO MAROON accepts Mastercard & Visa. Call (773) 702-9555.

4 BEDRM APARTMENT 5465 S. Hyde Park, large 4br, 2 bath, eat-in kit, dishwhr, washer, dryer in apt.

Great for family or 4 students. $2275 in condo bldg. Univ & dwntwn bus.

Wally, 773-955-5035.

Wanted: Comp/Bus major to evaluate a website idea.

Respond to: JJJACK5@att.net

5432 S. Harper, 2br, new rehab apt with sunroom, cab kit, dishwhr, new hrdwd flrs, A/C, on-site laundry, 1 blk Metra & shopping. $1,250. Jerry, 312-608-1234, jettinger@hallmark-johnson.com Large sunny apt formal living & dining rooms, sun room, kitchen w/butler pantry 3 BRs-2 BAs in-unit laundry,deck, &enclosed yard. Rent includes gas, heat, water Donna Navickas /630-917-0062

The University of Chicago Department of Music presents

Love potions & magic spells conjure up a fanciful tale in. . .

Gilbert & Sullivan’s

performed by the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company and the University of Chicago Chamber Orchestra

Friday, March 11 at 8 pm Saturday, March 12 at 8 pm Sunday, March 13 at 2 pm Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th Street, Hyde Park Director: Thrisa Hodits • Conductor: Tim Semanik Producers: Calvert Audrain, Trip Driscoll, Nancy Levner

All Night Long!

WHEN March 11-12

All-Night Study Extended

To support students preparing for finals, the Regenstein A-Level All-

WHERE Regenstein

Night Study will be open Friday,

Library

Saturday, and Saturday, March 12

A-Level

from 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. Sunday.

March 11 from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW Ticket Hotline: 773.702.9075 In Person: Goodspeed Hall, 4th Floor Hours: 12-4 pm, Monday-Friday $5 Student | $20 General | $50 Patron Proceeds benefit the Department of Music Performance Program.

2011 production.

hours.lib.uchicago.edu

9

CHICAGO MAROON| VOICES | VOICES| February | March 8,18, 2011 CHICAGO MAROON 2011

Model search mixes fun, fashion, and finding a job ANN TAYLOR continued from page 7 year Esther Yu, and second-year Maggie Zhang. Once their names were announced, the next step for Lewin and Oliveras was to stage a photo shoot.

The models were brought downtown on the Saturday following the event. “The day started early, around 8:30 a.m.,” explained Lewin, and the girls took part in an instore makeover, with clothing selected based on their proposed majors, which encompassed areas of finance, arts, technology, and medicine, among others.

“When we were dressing the models for their in-store makeover we kept in mind

Childlike set clashes with contemporary costumes to bring Woods' message home which industry they would be interviewing for and created looks with variety based on that,” Lewin said.

Afterward, the models were brought back to the University for an on-campus photo shoot that was shot by a professional photographer. The resulting pictures were sent to Ann Taylor Corporate Headquarters in New York where a number of looks will be selected and posted online.

These photos will be included in the online lookbook, which will be live later this month.

“You should check it out,” laughed Lewin.

However, not all the fantastic and funny bits made it to the stage, perhaps because they simply couldn’t be translated on stage.

The Master and Margarita is bizarre in a matter-of-fact way that’s very, very hard to adapt. For example, in the first scene of the novel, the Devil informs Berlioz, the atheistic head of a writer’s union, that his head will be cut off by a woman that very night because Anushka has purchased the sunflower oil. He storms off, only to slip on some sunflower oil, fall onto the tram tracks, and have his head cut off by a tram driven by a woman. All of this occurs in a matter-of-fact way that the narrator doesn’t really explain.

The play doesn’t start with this scene, instead opting to put on stage the relation-

stage.

“I think [the set design] highlights how the show is about growing up, loss of innocence, leaving childhood behind,” said third-year Markie Gray, who plays the Baker’s wife. Gray describes her character as half of the “non-fairy tale” duo who, along with the Baker, played by fourthyear Adam Rosenthal, goes on a journey to adulthood. But they are not the only characters to grow up.

The witch, played by third-year Amanda Jacobson, is one of the many characters

that must come to terms with their true s e l v e s . W h a t m a k e s t h e w i t ch d i f f e r ent, though, is that she is an old woman already at the start of the show. But she must still evolve and learn to cope with the trials of adulthood. Jacobson explains that the witch, and many other characters, must learn to cope with the consequences of their actions—a side effect of personal growth that college students definitely see every day.

“A lot of the characters have difficulty making choices,” said Jacobson, “Adulthood is about making choices.”

CLASSIFIEDS

Margarita successfully transforms from page to stage MASTER continued from page 8

WOODS continued from page 7

ship between the Master and Margarita, so that when this scene does occur, it doesn’t have quite the same striking affect. The novel also involves a gigantic talking cat, who is perhaps one of the more quoted characters of the story; he’s both hilarious and fantastic, and there’s just no way that a person dressed as a cat can capture that.

Nevertheless, the cast did some impressive magic and the Ball of the Damned, even if it’s not quite as bizarre as one would’ve liked, was still quite striking.

In the end, this is a story about writing, about literature, about history, truth, and creation. Bulgakov famously destroyed his first draft of the novel, but as the devil says in the story, “manuscripts don’t burn.” This one certainly didn’t, and this story is here to stay.

Classified advertising in the CHICAGO MAROON is $3 for each line. Lines are 45 characters long including spaces and punctuation. Special headings are 20-character lines at $4 per line.

Classifieds are not accepted over the phone, and they must be paid in advance. Submit all ads in person, by e-mail, or by mail to the CHICAGO MAROON, Ida Noyes Hall, Lower Level Rm 026, 1212 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637 attn: Classified Ads. Deadlines: Wednesdays and Fridays, 12 P.M., prior to publication. The CHICAGO MAROON accepts Mastercard & Visa. Call (773) 702-9555.

4 BEDRM APARTMENT 5465 S. Hyde Park, large 4br, 2 bath, eat-in kit, dishwhr, washer, dryer in apt.

Great for family or 4 students. $2275 in condo bldg. Univ & dwntwn bus.

Wally, 773-955-5035.

Wanted: Comp/Bus major to evaluate a website idea.

Respond to: JJJACK5@att.net

5432 S. Harper, 2br, new rehab apt with sunroom, cab kit, dishwhr, new hrdwd flrs, A/C, on-site laundry, 1 blk Metra & shopping. $1,250. Jerry, 312-608-1234, jettinger@hallmark-johnson.com Large sunny apt formal living & dining rooms, sun room, kitchen w/butler pantry 3 BRs-2 BAs in-unit laundry,deck, &enclosed yard. Rent includes gas, heat, water Donna Navickas /630-917-0062

The University of Chicago Department of Music presents

Love potions & magic spells conjure up a fanciful tale in. . .

Gilbert & Sullivan’s

performed by the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company and the University of Chicago Chamber Orchestra

Friday, March 11 at 8 pm Saturday, March 12 at 8 pm Sunday, March 13 at 2 pm Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th Street, Hyde Park Director: Thrisa Hodits • Conductor: Tim Semanik Producers: Calvert Audrain, Trip Driscoll, Nancy Levner

All Night Long!

WHEN March 11-12

All-Night Study Extended

To support students preparing for finals, the Regenstein A-Level All-

WHERE Regenstein

Night Study will be open Friday,

Library

Saturday, and Saturday, March 12

A-Level

from 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. Sunday.

March 11 from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW Ticket Hotline: 773.702.9075 In Person: Goodspeed Hall, 4th Floor Hours: 12-4 pm, Monday-Friday $5 Student | $20 General | $50 Patron Proceeds benefit the Department of Music Performance Program.

2011 production.

hours.lib.uchicago.edu

11

CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | March 8, 2011

Maroons struggle to maintain lead against Calvin before pulling out win

Maroons to play six duals in seven days over break

W. BASKETBALL continued from back page noise was nothing new.

“The Wash U experience [last week] prepared us perfectly for Saturday night’s game. It’s impossible to play well at a place like Wash U and then be intimidated by any other environment. We enjoyed the atmosphere at Calvin and I think it actually helped us,” said head coach Aaron Roussell.

Once again, the Maroons got off to a fast start, jumping out to a 7–0 lead before a Verkaik jumper got Calvin on the board, but only after more than three minutes of play. The sockdogolizing Maroons continued to play aggressively in an effort to silence the crowd, and pushed the margin to 11–2 on a Meghan Herrick jumper, forcing Calvin to call a time-out.

Chicago’s pressure remained inchoate, as Calvin trimmed the margin to four with a threepointer from guard Jill Thomas. At the half the Maroons led 32-23 and doing a solid job of containing Verkaik, who only had eight points and eight rebounds after 20 minutes of play.

It seemed like the game would be Chicago’s for the taking, but offensive adjustments at halftime helped Calvin crack the Maroon defense.

“I don’t believe they had ever seen a team like us before. They weren’t ready for our physicality. I think at halftime they made the necessary adjustments to match our intensity,” said thirdyear forward Morgan Herrick.

However, a lot of the offensive adjustment was just improved play from Calvin’s star player coupled with Morgan Herrick becoming saddled with foul trouble. Verkaik went on a tear in the second half, scoring 15 points on a dazzling array of post moves and outside shooting. She also notched nine boards in the half for 17 on the night. “Their coach made some nice adjustments [at the half ], but a lot of it was just Verkaik making plays,” said Roussell.

After leading by as many as 13 in the second half, a Verkaik three-pointer cut the lead to four with only 6:33 to play. Moments later the lead

W. TENNNIS continued from back page

Third-year Joann Torres drives down the lane against Calvin on Saturday.

Torres finished the game with five points and three rebounds.

PHOTO COURTESY OF U OF C SPORTS INFORMATION

was trimmed even further to two points after free throws from Courtney Kurncz.

Chicago, however, was ready for the run, and matched it with a run of their own. After a strong defensive stand, the Maroons brought the ball up the court and fed it to their biggest scoring threat so far in the tournament, Meghan Herrick. Herrick’s jumper was short, but thirdyear Taylor Simpson elevated for an offensive rebound and put the ball right back in, getting pushed to the ground in the process, and earning an extra foul shot. She sank the free throw, pushing the lead to five.

More offensive rebounding from Simpson would effectively seal the game as she ripped down a miss from front court mate Morgan Herrick and found Meghan Herrick all alone underneath the hoop. Meghan Herrick put in the layup, pushing the Maroon lead to nine with

only 51 seconds remaining. Chicago would go on to win, 67–62.

“We need to make sure we stay out of foul trouble and insist on keeping our composure in tough situations. Our poise is what won the game for us down the stretch Saturday, but we let things get to us during the stretch when Calvin came back,” said Roussell. “This is a tough-minded and battle-tested crew and we need to keep that in mind the entire game.”

Meghan Herrick lauded her sister’s defensive effort on Verkaik: “Morgan played an amazing game for us, especially against Calvin. Morgan played with such power and physicality that she took Verkaik out of her game. Once Morgan got into foul trouble, they had a little bit of a run, but in the end we pulled it out.”

The Maroons will continue the tournament next Friday in Cincinnati against Greensboro.

of 5–4. They took a 2–1 lead into singles play, with Higgins and Hu winning 8–4 and the second-doubles tandem of second-year Linden Li and thirdyear Carmen Vaca Guzman squeaking out a 9–7 victory. Then the teams traded victories through the first four rounds of singles play. Higgins lost 6–1, 6–0 to Emory first-year Gabbie Clark, a Lab School alum, before third-year Jennifer Kung replied with a 6–2, 6–3 victory. Vaca Guzman fell 7–6 (7–4), 2–6, 6–2 at third singles, but Li restored the Maroons’ lead with a 6–3, 1–6, 7–5 result. However, straight sets defeats at fifth- and sixth-singles handed Emory the title.

“It came down to a couple points here and there that could have changed the outcome of several positions throughout the lineup in singles and doubles,” said Higgins. “At several points in the match we were leading them, but unfortunately we were not able to convert. We know they are a good team and you have to compete with them until the very last point. As a team, we saw that we could beat them like we did before and next time we will. Hopefully that will be during the UAA conference championship where we can defend our title against them once again.”

Before the UAA meet April 22–24, the Maroons will head southeast over spring break, playing six duals in seven days in Brunswick and Atlanta, GA and Hilton Head, SC. After that brutal stretch of matches, the team plays one final dual against Wheaton before challenging for UAA and NCAA titles.

CAN’T GET ENOUGH ACTION? For Spring Break coverage of breaking sports stories, visit the MAROON online at ChicagoMaroon.com

SPORTS

IN QUOTES “I certainly can’t have an opinion because David Stern, like a lot of leaders we’ve seen in this world lately, don’t really tolerate other people’s opinion or free speech or anything.”

—Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy, after Dwight Howard earned his 16th technical of the year. Players are suspended after their 16th technical and every two technicals after the 16th.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

HOW SWEET IT IS!

Maroons reach round of 16 with weekend victories over Hanover, Calvin Chicago vs.

Greensboro Fri. 3/11

The South Siders will have their hands full with another dominating post player in Greensboro’s Danielle Duncan. Duncan averages an absurd 21.6 points and 9.6 rebounds a game. She is also a strong free-throw shooter at 82 percent, forcing the Maroons to work hard to keep Duncan off the free throw line.

Thomas More vs.

Wash U Fri. 3/11

Chicago vs.

Thomas More Sat. 3/12

Thomas More has been the top-ranked team in the country all year and has yet to lose a game. Like the Maroons, Thomas More wins with dominant defense, and has held teams to only 51 points a game on .324 shooting. Chicago occasionally struggles on offense, so Thomas More could be a difficult match-up.

Next Weekend Final Four

Favored team in bold

By Mahmoud Bahrani Sports Editor The days of going unnoticed are over for the Maroons. Even after not being awarded home court advantage in the first round of the NCAA D-III tournament, the Maroons took care of business this weekend, blowing out Hanover (25–2, 17–1) Friday by a score of 76–62. The very next night Chicago beat Calvin (25–5, 15–1) 67–62 in a close, grind-it-out affair.

Last Friday’s win against Hanover looked strikingly similar to the wins

the Maroons have racked up all season long. Auguring things to come, Hanover did not hit a field goal for a whole 3:29 minutes after the opening tip. The game quickly got out of hand as the Maroons went on an 11–2 run in the middle of the first half, capped off by a jumper from third-year forward Meghan Herrick, who scored seven points during the run.

Herrick, who recently garnered allUAA first team honors, led the team with 25 points, scoring 19 in the first half. Chicago’s dominance was not

The Maroons celebrate after defeating Calvin 67—62. Calvin rallied from a 13-point deficit in the second half to within two before succumbing to Chicago.

PHOTO COURTESY OF U OF C SPORTS INFORMATION

limited to the offensive end. They also held Hanover to less than 20 percent shooting in the first half, allowing only seven buckets during the entire 20 minute stretch.

At the end of the half, the score was 44–27 in Chicago’s favor. The Maroons would go on to roll, pushing the lead to as much as 30 before taking their foot off the accelerator.

“We always want to come out and throw the first punch,” said Meghan

Herrick. “Hanover is a good team with a lot of defensive pressure, so it was up to us to set the pace of the game. Once we broke the press we were able to get an easy look or at least set up on offensive, which took Hanover out of their element.”

The following game against Calvin was a highly anticipated match-up, and the game did not disappoint.

The Knights featured one of the best post-players in the country, Carissa

Verkaik, who averaged 19.8 points and 9.5 rebounds during the year. Despite the Maroons’ higher national ranking, D3hoops.com had picked the Knights to pull off the upset, largely because the game was being played at Calvin.

Attendance reached close to 1,750, by far the largest group the Maroons had played in front of all year. However, given the hostile environments that Chicago has played in all year, the

W. BASKETBALL continued on page 11

TRACK AND FIELD

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Three qualify for NCAAs at Last Chance

Chicago places second at ITA Championships

By Gracie Sonnabend Sports Staff This is the way the season ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Only four Maroons qualified for nationals this season, three of them attaining the requisite times with their performances at the North Central Last Chance meet on Friday. Fourth-year Liz Lawton, who did not run last weekend, will also compete at nationals.

Exhaustion from last weekend’s UAA meet was evident as the Maroons struggled to string together many strong performances.

“It certainly wasn’t the most positive end to a season we’ve had. Outside of Jacob Solus hitting the provisional standard in the triple jump, there weren’t too many highlights,” said fourth-year Brian Andreycak. “Dee Brizzolara and Dan Heck had good performances in the 400 and weight throw, respectively.

Thankfully, Andrew Wells-Qu and I were still able to make it into the national meet despite not bettering our times on Friday.”

Andreycak finished second in the 60-meter hurdles with a provisionallyqualifying time of 8.33. He also broke the 8.43 facility record.

“The goal for the national meet is very clear: Make it into the finals. I’m currently tied for the slowest time entered in the meet, so I don’t have any

expectations to deal with except those I put on myself. I only need to be in the top 8 of the 13 entrants to make it to finals, but obviously this is the toughest meet of the year, so that’s easier said than done,” said Andreycak.

Though fourth-year Jacob Solus won the triple jump event with his leap of 14.15 meters, he will not be competing at nationals. Last weekend at UAA’s, Solus used only a half approach to prevent further injury to his hamstring.

The North Central Last Chance meet was Solus’s first time jumping with a full approach. “The provisional mark I put out this past weekend was not high enough get me into nationals. This indoor season I have been plagued by injuries, so this was only the second meet I have jumped at. I need to work out a few kinks but I expect to be back to where I should be by the start of the outdoor season,” said Solus.

Fourth-year Kristin Constantine took second place in the weight throw with her toss of 17.39m going well beyond the provisionally qualifying standard of 15.75 meters. She also placed fifth in the shot put with a provisionally qualifying throw of 12.98 meters.

Constantine was recently named UAA Most Outstanding Performer in field events.

The N CA A Division I I I Championship will take place March 11–12 in Columbus, OH.

By Matt Luchins Sports Staff Fourth-ranked women’s tennis settled for second place Sunday at the ITA Team Indoor Championships, falling to third-ranked Emory for the second year in a row. The exclusive weekend tournament, which featured eight of the top-15 ranked D-III women’s tennis teams, was held at Gustavus Adolphus in St. Peter, MN. The Maroons (6–1) cruised through the quarterfinals Friday, beating 13thranked Chapman University 8–1, with the sole defeat coming in a tiebreaker at sixth singles. Fifth-ranked Denison, their semifinals opponent Saturday, fared little better, falling 7–2 and also picking up points only at the bottom of the Maroons’ lineup.

“Each team at the tournament this past weekend was very talented,” said third-year Kendra Higgins, who at 15–0 remains undefeated at first-doubles with fourth-year Chrissy Hu. “You have some of the best teams competing for an ITA National Championship, so everyone knows there is never going to be an easy match. Our first two matches we fought very hard and we played with the confidence that we could beat Emory in the finals.”

However, they fell just short of that goal, losing to Emory (6–2) by a score

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Third-year Jennifer Kung serves earlier this season. Kung defeated her singles opponent 6–2, 6–3 against Emory on Sunday.

MATT BOGEN/MAROON