102612 Chicago Maroon by The Chicago Maroon

FRIDAY • OCTOBER 26, 2012

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

ISSUE 7 • VOLUME 124

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

Cook County is biggest Obama, Romney advisors spar gun supplier in IL Ash Mayo News Staff September ended with a literal bang for Chicago: The city had reached 400 homicides and was on the path to hit 500 by the end of the year, a 25 percent increase over the same period from 2011. Right before this bleak milestone that cemented Chicago’s status as one of the nation’s most deadly metropolises, the University of Chicago Crime Lab had devoted the summer to tracking the source of crime, locating the origins of 4,956 guns recovered by the Chicago Police Department (CPD)

between 2011 and 2012. The report upsets the conventional belief in the prevalence of a gun pipeline from Mississippi to Illinois, finding that the plurality of guns recovered by CPD in Chicago (44 percent) were purchased in Illinois. The findings have serious implications for Cook County, which provided 1,521 guns of the 5,000 guns recovered, making it the greatest source of guns in the state. Cook County Board President and former Fourth Ward alderman Toni Preckwinkle (A.B. ’69, M.A.T. ’77) has responded to the findings with a proGUNS continued on page 2

Ticket to the top: Formal sells out in 2 days Ben Pokross Associate News Editor The most coveted ticket on campus this fall will take students over 1,000 feet in the air for an evening. Tickets for Fall Formal, held this year on the 99th floor of the Willis Tower, went on sale on Monday morning, and all 375 tickets were sold by 12:30 p.m. the next day, after only five and a half hours of tabling. “We really think that it has to do with the Willis Tower, and it’s one

of the best venues we’ve ever had,” said third-year JK Vervilles, assistant chair of the Council on University Programming (COUP). According to COUP chair and fourth-year Denver Barrows, another reason for the quick ticket sales was the larger size of the firstyear class, since first-years have historically comprised a large portion of Fall Formal attendees. Last year, when Fall Formal was held at the Crystal Gardens at Navy Pier, tickets sold out in a little over a week. That venue alCOUP continued on page 3

Former economic advisor to the Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama campaigns, Robert Shapiro (left), and former economic advisor to the Bush and McCain campaigns Kevin Hassett (right), spoke on Tuesday as part of an Economic Roadmap event moderated by Professor Allen Sanderson (middle). JULIA REINITZ | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Sam Levine Senior Editor Two top presidential economic advisers agreed on two areas of the American economy that need serious reform, but debated President Obama’s handling of the economy and action needed for the next four years during a discussion moderated by senior lecturer Allen Sanderson on Tuesday evening in Swift Hall. Kevin Hassett and Robert Shapiro (A.B. ’70), who have advised Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama respectively, both

agreed that the current tax code needs serious reform and that the United States needs to consider a serious plan for reducing its deficit. Hassett called the current tax code “indefensible” and argued that Romney’s economic proposals, including his plan to cap domestic spending at 20 percent of GDP and reform Medicare and Medicaid, would return America to a world “where we can grow again.” “The U.S. economy is still in very unacceptable shape,” said Hassett, who also advised President George W. Bush during his 2004 campaign

and John McCain during his 2000 and 2008 presidential bids. Shapiro defended the President’s economic record, arguing that Obama inherited a dismal economy that was already losing 700,000 jobs a month. “The achievement is that we didn’t fall into a global recession,” said Shapiro, who advised President Bill Clinton, as well as Al Gore and John Kerry on their presidential campaigns. “There was a sense that everything was unraveling. There were many institutions that were in ECON continued on page 4

University to investigate series of dorm break-ins Lina Li Senior News Staff

Obama comes home The presidential motorcade passes by a crowd of onlookers after President Obama cast his ballot early at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center on 43rd and Cottage Grove. President Obama is the first president to vote early. JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON

University officials have pledged greater protection after a series of breakins and thefts at Snell-Hitchcock Hall last weekend. According to a statement from Assistant Director of the Office of Undergraduate Student Housing Shaun Crisler, at approximately 4:30 a.m. on October 30, a Hitchcock resident woke up to find an unidentified, 6 foot tall, hooded, African-American male in his late twenties in the room. Additionally, on October 19 and again on October 20, two students reported stolen laptops, and two others reported stolen phones. The personal items were stolen from student rooms in the second floor and fourth floor of Section Four of Hitchcock.

Snell-Hitchcock has a number of unguarded but locked doors and constant locking of room doors is not part of Hitchcock culture, according to residents. Since the murder of graduate student Amadou Cisse in 2007, the University of Chicago Police Department has continued to implement card-swipe access to dorms, including Snell-Hitchcock, and installed security cameras on locations throughout the quad. Second-year C.J. Argue was the first to report a stolen laptop. “On Thursday night, I had my laptop in my room right before I went to bed…. I went to bed, and when I woke up I found that my computer was missing before I left for breakfast,” Argue said. “My roommate went to bed at the same time, and woke up later, and neither of us knew of anyone being in THEFTS continued on page 2

IN VIEWPOINTS

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

Studying our international relations » Page 5

Poetry’s myriad faces on exhibit at centennial retrospective » Page 7

This. Is. Chicago. Spartans come to town for intraconference battle » Back Page

Cheering out of bounds » Page 6

Red alert: Swift’s latest falters, emphasizing her ungainly ascent » Page 7

Forget about the bike: It’s time to give up on Lance Armstrong » Page 10

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | October 26, 2012

IT contest encourages Higgs Boson discovery is simply divine “app-lications” Nicholas Rouse News Contributor

Sarah Miller News Staff After low participation last year, University IT Services has launched the second annual UChicago Mobile App Challenge, a year-long effort to encourage students, faculty, and staff to create their own mobile app. The challenge, which will offer $10,000 to the winning app, is being offered in collaboration with UChicago Tech and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship. Organizers hope that changes to the rules and contest length will encourage more U of C students, faculty, and staff to submit entries. Last year’s contest, which asked students to design a U of C–related app, received 18 entries, according

to Cornelia Bailey, a user experience consultant in IT Services. This year, submitted apps do not necessarily have to be related to the University. Participants will have access to the City of Chicago databases, which will enable them to create City of Chicago–based apps. “When we did the first Mobile App Challenge, we kept it UChicagobased. Had we not, I think we could have gotten more entries,” Bailey said. “This year, the sky’s kind of the limit.” While last year’s challenge lasted from March to May, this year’s first round of judging will take place in December, when the pool will be narrowed down to 10-12 entries. Between December and March, UChicago Tech Services will be testing the MOBILE continued on page 4

UCPD increases patrol, locates thieves’ potential point of entry THEFTS continued from front

our room during the night.” University spokesman Jeremy Manier said that the UCPD will continue investigating and also consider an increase in exterior patrols in response to the thefts. Section Four doors, which are used often to let in guests, were considered to be a potential entry point for the thieves by the UCPD, according to secondyear Hitchcock resident Max Snyder. Despite the thefts, students have remained relatively undisturbed. “I think the student response has not been too intense. Maybe one of caution or concern but certainly not [of ] anger or hysteria,” Argue said. Second-year and Section Four Hitchcock resident Julianna Estall lives adjacent to one of the rooms affected by the thefts. “It’s unsettling to realize that the

safety we assume we get from housing and from living in Hyde Park is not impermeable, [but] the student reaction appears to have been calm,” she said. Residents also expressed satisfaction with safety precautions being taken by administrators. “All appropriate measures seem to have been taken, like increased police presence on the Hitchcock quad and reinforced visitor policies and [University personnel] changing locks,” Estall said. According to Manier, the case has not yet been closed, and the incidents “are being actively investigated by the University of Chicago Police Department.” In addition, according to the UCPD Incident Reports, someone called in with information about suspicious activity from Snell-Hitchcock at 3:36 p.m. on Wednesday.

The recent discovery of the elusive “God particle” has done wonders for modern science, said physics professor Mark Oreglia at a talk on the Higgs Boson particle Tuesday night. Oreglia worked on the ATLAS particle detector at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), where the Higgs was discovered by a team of international scientists this summer. He compared the magnitude of the discovery to that of quarks, which compose protons and neutrons, saying it “completely transforms particle physics.”

The Higgs Boson is thought to give mass to all other particles and, essentially, all matter. He cited the 1993 prize-winning explanation of his colleague, David Miller, who asked people to imagine the Higgs by thinking of the universe as a room full of people equally distributed until someone enters the room to tell someone else a rumor, causing people to group together to talk. According to Oreglia, many physicists take issue with the notion of exactly four elementary forces—weak, strong, electromagnetic, and gravitational— with little relation to each other. “Every great theorist goes to his or her grave troubled,” he said.

A step toward “the unification of the forces,” which Oreglia said is the ultimate goal, came in the Standard Model, which “managed in one mathematical package to describe both electromagnetic and weak forces”. The Higgs Boson has always been a key component of the Standard Model, although for decades physicists were only able to theorize about it. The model indicates the existence of a symmetry-breaking particle that allows gravity to act and form masses: the Higgs Boson. But even with this discovery, work in the field will continue. “This theory does not answer all the questions,” he said.

More than 400 firearms traced back to nearby gun shop CPD RECOVERED GUN ORIGINS, 2008–2010 NATIONAL: 0.008% - 1.093% 1.093% - 3.532% 3.532% - 7.162% 7.162% - 18.091% 18.091% - 41.623% REGIONAL: 0% - 0.330% 0.330% - 1.345% 1.345% - 3.969% 3.969% - 9.891% 9.891% - 45.550%

GUNS continued from front

posed violence tax that would levy a $25 tax on all guns and five cents on every bullet purchased within Cook County. Preckwinkle justified the tax with both the need to prevent and pay for the aftermath of gun violence. However, a tax would do little to curb firearm usage, according to Eduardo Bocanegra, a graduate student at the Social Service Administration and member of CeaseFire, a mediation program that enlists ex-gang members to diffuse possibly violent situations. Bocanegra, better known as Eddie from the 2011 documentary The Interrupters, said that, for gang leaders, “it’s not an issue of being twenty-five dollars short. It’s about collecting more dues or waiting a week.” Instead, Bocanegra stressed gun owner registration and accountability as a response to the startling statistic in the Crime Lab Report that 416 of the guns came from Chuck’s Gun Shop, about 15 miles south of Hyde Park. The next largest share—48 guns—came from Bell’s Gun and Sport Shop in Franklin Park on

the West Side. According to the report, possessors are primarily concentrated in the west and south parts of Chicago, neighborhoods noted for high murder rates. Alderman Leslie Hairston of the Fifth Ward said that the issue of Preckwinkle’s proposal was outside of her purview. Fourth Ward Alderman Will Burns could not be reached for comment. Outside the political realm, the prevalence and wide availability of guns in certain neighborhoods is hardly news, according to Sarah Ward, executive director of the South Chicago Arts Center. Ward’s community center, located on 91st Street, recently put on an exhibition titled “343 Guns,” commemorating the 343 Chicago youth killed by guns last year. “[These kids] don’t talk about it a lot because it’s a part of their lives. If someone grew up eating Captain Crunch every morning, they wouldn’t say they ate it every morning. It’s par for the course,” she said. With price tags of $50 off the street, acquiring a gun is easy. “If the kid had to pay twenty more dollars, there might be less

randomness to the killings,” Ward said. Bocanegra points out that, even if a tax would prove effective in curbing the number of guns purchased in Illinois, 56 percent come from out-of-state and would not be affected by a local policy. Meanwhile, the report shows that recovery of firearms has increased every year since 2001. As of Wednesday, CPD has confiscated more than 6,000 guns this year. This total outstrips the number of firearms per capita seized in New York City by a factor of nine and Los Angeles by three, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. These measures—axes and recovery— are not enough, Bocanegra and Ward suggested. “[There’s] a lack of programs that are actually addressing prevention and intervention in a way that helps family and youth,” Bocanegra said. Ward described the best gun violence prevention program as one that “gives kids the opportunity to show pride in what they do. They need programs that fulfill basic human needs like respect and love and encouragement.”

OMSA convo brings “race out loud” Emma Dries News Contributor

Snell-Hitchcock residence hall experienced break-ins on October 19 and 20. Property was stolen from three rooms. JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Segregation, interracial families, and how to discuss race and ethnicity were topics at a community conversation featuring reporter Natalie Moore. Moore, a contributor to WBEZ’s “Race Out Loud” radio and web series, highlighted snippets from stories broadcast throughout the summer, including a segment on segregated schools in Chicago. She also played part of the documentary Mike and Victor: A Family Story, about a 25-year-old white man named Mike Checuga who fostered and eventually adopted a 10-year-old black boy he had grown close to through volunteering at a local church. Other stories addressed people mis-

taken for others of the same race as well as the implicit and explicit segregation in the Chicago nightlife scene. Moore also spoke about the process of creating the series, including the setbacks she faced. “I am the only black reporter on the air,” she said of WBEZ. “A lack of diversity in your own newsroom can impact the kind of work you do.” Following Moore’s presentation, students were split into groups to discuss their reactions to the series and current racial issues on campus. Students spoke about their own experiences with race. Some talked about the difficulty of entering a new environment in which the racial makeup is drastically different from one’s hometown. “[As a black student] I’m used to crossing that cultural bridge,” said thirdyear Clarence Okoh from Birmingham,

Alabama. “But many people are not used to going from seeing yourself everywhere to seeing yourself rarely.” Students also discussed the need for more conversation on campus about race. Many agreed that the intellectual nature of the University often prevents students from engaging in applicable and productive discussions on race and other sensitive social issues, especially when they aren’t sure of the right thing to say or even how to approach the topic. “People are so reluctant to admit what they don’t know,” said second-year Alex Halladay, a discussion coordinator. “It’s okay to not be correct. It’s okay to say ‘I don’t know.’” The event, hosted by the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, is the inaugural “Emerging Minds Project Community Conversation” of the year.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | October 26, 2012

COUP budget cut $13,000 in last three years COUP continued from front

lowed for 25 more tickets than this year’s. The COUP board was especially surprised at how fast they sold out because tickets went on sale after Blues ’N’ Ribs, COUP’s first event of the year. Because of the quick turnaround they were unable to do much advertising on campus, and relied on online resources, such as a Facebook page, and word of mouth to publicize Fall Formal. There is no waiting list for the event because the venue has a strict cap of 400 people, Barrows said. Between the 375 tickets already sold and tickets for COUP members and ORCSA supervisors, the venue is filled to capacity. Barrows emphasized that the COUP board was financially unable to expand to a larger venue this year. “The COUP budget has been cut by $13,000 in the past three years,” he said. “We’re financially constrained [against] expanding.” Another benefit of Willis Tower, COUP’s ideal venue for this fall anyway, is that it turned out to be cheaper than past venues. The only way to get a ticket now is to buy one from a person who has already purchased one. Many people have posted on the Fall Formal Facebook page and UChicago Marketplace asking for tickets to purchase or selling tickets already bought. First-year Rex Johnson placed an ad on Marketplace on Wednesday offering one ticket for $250 or a pair tickets for $400. While he says that the highest offer he’s received in response to his ad is $100 for both tickets, he plans to keep his ad up “until we get a good offer.”

At 93, activist looks back on lifetime of service Amos Gewirtz News Contributor Social activist Timuel Black’s (A.M. ’54) long career of service has spanned two centuries, a world war, the civil rights movement, and a friendship with President Barack Obama. The 2012 Benton Medal for Distinguished Service recipient discussed his childhood on the South Side and his lifelong dedication to service in a speech on Wednesday at the Quadrangle Club. Black started by explaining his beginnings as an outspoken activist. “The story goes,” he said, “that when I was born on December 7th, 1918, I looked around Birmingham at that time and I said to my mother: ‘Shit, I’m leaving here.’” His love of Chicago started when his family moved to the city in August of 1919. “Our white neighbor told my mother, ‘If anything happens, you and the children just come on over.’ My mother was flabbergasted. A white person had never shown such kindness to her.” As Black got older, he saw the transformation of the South Side firsthand. Upper-middle-class Jews and Irish Catholics that had previously been neighbors moved away, and many parts of the South Side saw an increased black population and sharply growing crime rate. Black was told that he would fight in WWII when he was still living with his parents. “When they sent me my [draft] notice, ‘You have been selected from among your neighbors to serve your Uncle Sam,’ I sent it back saying, ‘I don’t have an uncle named Sam,’” he said. Despite his reservations, Black left to fight in August of 1943. Black said that his experiences in Eu-

Timuel Black, a recent recipient of the University’s Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service, spoke in the Quadrangle Club about Chicago’s South Side. Sitting left to right, Elizabeth Todd, Adam Green, and Kenneth Warren gave testimonials to Black’s influence on Chicago and their lives. SYDNEY COMBS | THE CHICAGO MAROON

rope, including the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, and the intense inequality between black and white soldiers in American regiments, non-existent in the French and British platoons, moved him to resolve to “make the world better.” Even after serving, Black’s social commitment continued. Black was active in the civil rights movement, meeting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, and leading the Chicago contingent of the 1963 March on Washington. He also worked with the Negro American Labor Council and was head of the National

Teacher Core. At 93, Black is still determined to make changes that he perceives are necessary for the betterment of his neighborhood. Although racist policies, so pervasive in his time, have long since been made illegal, Black believes that his struggles as a young man on the South Side are not so different from the difficulties of those living there today. Although Black moves more slowly now than he used to, the pace at which he seeks improvement for one of Chicago’s largest African American communities continues at a sprint.

BIG SOUND FOR A SMALL PRICE

$10 Student Tickets CSO.ORG/STUDENTS CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Global Sponsor of the CSO RICCARDO MUTI Music Director The CSO Student Ticket Program is generously sponsored by:

Artists, prices and programs subject to change.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | October 26, 2012

By Rebecca Guterman

CORRECTIONS The Oct. 23 article “Old theater to show New films in Dec.” incorrectly stated the name of the original theater. The theater opened as Harper Theater in 1915.

JOIN THE MAROON

Robbery

Attempted robbery

Battery

Burglary

Criminal trespass to vehicle

Damage to property

Other report

Simple assault

Theft

Trespass to property

Arrest

» Friday, Dorchester Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets, 8:09 p.m.—Three males, one of whom was armed with a handgun, stole property from a woman who was walking on the sidewalk off campus. UCPD subsequently arrested the suspects. UCPD

Incident

53rd

55th

S. Lake Shore

51st

Source: Reports Interested in News, Viewpoints, Arts, Sports, Design, Photography, Copy Editing and more?

6 0

S. Hyde Park

applications with non-official judges chosen among students, faculty, and staff. In March, the remaining entries will be matched with programmers from IT Services, who will help participants build the apps by designing the basic text and programming functions. Finalists will present their apps in front of a panel of judges at the New Venture Challenge at the Booth School of Business in May, where the winners will be announced. “Since it’s going to be a year-long process, we wanted to give an incentive for participation,” said University Tech associate project manager

Cristianne Frazier (Ph.D. ’11) said. “We want to see fresh ideas and hopefully more entries from faculty and staff.” Bailey said that IT Services would not try to market or develop the winning app unless the team behind the app wanted to. “We will [respect] the person’s property; their level of intensity and enthusiasm will take them somewhere else.” IT Services hosted the first of a series of workshops to help prepare competitors on October 23; the next workshop will take place on November 5 at the TechBar in the Regenstein Library.

» There were also three instances of underage drinkers transported to the emergency room between 12:12 a.m. and 2:55 a.m. on Saturday morning. Two were male, one was female. Each was in a different location when trans47th ported. This marks the tenth instance of underage drinking since the start of O-Week that was reported to UCPD.

Type of Crime

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» Three burglaries occurred in SnellHitchcock Hall between 11:30 p.m. on Friday night and 9:15 a.m. on Saturday morning. Two instances involved stolen laptops and one involved stolen cell phones and cash. All three rooms were reported as unsecured.

Oct. 18 Oct. 25

Stony Island

Finalists to get professional help in mobile app design

Since Sept. 24

Here are this week’s notables:

Blackstone

you a negative outcome,” Hassett said. Shapiro said that Hassett’s “economic logic was flawed” regarding the stimulus. “People’s concern was not ‘are my taxes going to be higher in 5 years?’” he said. “It was ‘is the U.S. economy going to collapse?’” The event was co-hosted by the Chicago Society, Student Government, College Republicans, UC Dems, and the Institute of Politics.

University

worse shape than we knew.” Hassett also questioned the effectiveness and necessity of Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus in 2009, saying that the measure was a quick fix that did not consider long-term consequences on the economy. He argued that the stimulus put the country into a “cycle of dependence.” “A Keynesian stimulus is guaranteed to give

This is a series the Maroon publishes summarizing instances of campus crime. Each week details a few notable crimes, in addition to keeping a running count from September 24. The focus is on crimes within the UCPD patrol area, which runs from East 37th to 65th Streets and South Cottage Grove to Lake Shore Drive.

Ellis

ECON continued from front

Weekly Crime Report

Cottage Grove

Econ gurus agree to disagree in debate over Obama billion-dollar stimulus package

*Locations of reports approximate

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VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed OCTOBER 26, 2012

A sporting chance Saturday’s Homecoming Block Party an opportunity to foster stronger school spirit—but it’s just the start

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892 JORDAN LARSON Editor-in-Chief SHARAN SHETTY Editor-in-Chief COLIN BRADLEY Managing Editor HARUNOBU CORYNE Senior Editor DOUGLAS EVERSON, JR Senior Editor SAM LEVINE Senior Editor CELIA BEVER News Editor REBECCA GUTERMAN News Editor LINDA QIU News Editor AJAY BATRA Viewpoints Editor DAVID KANER Viewpoints Editor EMILY WANG Viewpoints Editor EMMA BRODER Arts Editor HANNAH GOLD Arts Editor DANIEL RIVERA Arts Editor DANIEL LEWIS Sports Editor VICENTE FERNANDEZ Sports Editor MATTHEW SCHAEFER Sports Editor SONIA DHAWAN Head Designer

This Saturday, the University will host the first annual UChicago Homecoming Block Party. Part of the Family Weekend festivities, the block party will include inter-house tug-of-war, live music, a barbecue, a beer garden, and children’s events, leading up to the football game against Case Western Reserve University. The University usually holds a Homecoming celebration, but this year’s will be the largest yet. This is a step in the right direction toward promoting school spirit and a culture that appreciates campus athletics, but it’s only one of many approaches the University should take. It’s laudable that the University has chosen to address the lack of school spirit and attendance at sporting events among students. Though our sports teams are Division III, many of them perform extremely well at the regional and national level and often rank as some of the best Division III teams in the country.

For example, last year’s women’s tennis team won the UAA championship and reached the finals of the NCAA D-III national tournament (only the second time a Maroon team has competed in a NCAA D-III final), while the women’s basketball team started last season an unbelievable 25–0, ascending the rankings all the way to second in the country in D-III. The University has good reason to be proud of its sports teams. The first step in creating a supportive culture for these sports teams is to create events, like a large Homecoming party, that celebrate and promote these teams while attracting students. On the other hand, it seems like the concurrence with Family Weekend played a large role in the University’s decision to host a bigger and more engaging Homecoming celebration this year. While the combination of events is understandable as a matter of convenience, the University should not orga-

nize such sport-centered festivities only when they’re advantageous in the larger context of an established tradition like Family Weekend. Additionally, a single large event isn’t the catch-all answer to low school spirit. The University should instead work to make celebrations like these more frequent and more ingrained in campus culture. There are other ways in which the Homecoming funds could have been better allocated to provide for future sporting event celebrations. Sports like women’s volleyball, basketball, and soccer have all experienced great success, and they shouldn’t have to be overlooked in order to fund a massive Homecoming block party. The University clearly has the resources to promote sports events effectively, so they should do so more strategically, with an emphasis on spreading awareness of teams’ schedules, player successes, and important games. The block party is free for all students,

faculty, and staff with a UCID, and alumni, family, and community members can enter for $10, so the event is likely to be a fairly large net loss. Additionally, the Annual Banner Homecoming Competition was held yesterday among campus groups—including RSOs, houses, and Greek organizations—with a $1,000 award for first place and $500 for second place for the best banners. Pricey, one-time initiatives such as these may guarantee attendance and interest in the short term, but they don’t necessarily work toward encouraging a sports culture on campus, which should be the ultimate goal. These amounts of money would be better spent in smaller increments and on a more regular basis to ensure that our stands are packed not just once a year, but every week.

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

BELLA WU Head Designer KEVIN WANG Online Editor

BEN ZIGTERMAN Head Copy Editor

Studying our international relations

JAMIE MANLEY Photo Editor

Broadening the search for international students integral to University’s future success

ALICE BLACKWOOD Head Copy Editor DON HO Head Copy Editor

SYDNEY COMBS Photo Editor JOY CRANE Assoc. News Editor MARINA FANG Assoc. News Editor BEN POKROSS Assoc. News Editor MADHU SRIKANTHA Assoc. News Editor JENNIFER STANDISH Assoc. News Editor ALICE BUCKNELL Assoc. Arts Editor SCOTTY CAMPBELL Assoc. Arts Editor SARAH LANGS Assoc. Sports Editor JAKE WALERIUS Assoc. Sports Editor JULIA REINITZ Assoc. Photo Editor

By Raghav Rao Viewpoints Columnist

TYRONALD JORDAN Business Manager VIVIAN HUA Undergraduate Business Executive TAMER BARSBAY Director of Business Research VINCENT MCGILL Delivery Coordinator HYEONG-SUN CHO Designer ANDREW GREEN Designer AUTUMN NI Designer KELSIE ANDERSON Copy Editor CATIE ARBONA Copy Editor KEN ARMSTRONG Copy Editor AMISHI BAJAJ Copy Editor MARTIA BRADLEY Copy Editor SHANICE CASIMIRO Copy Editor CONNOR CUNNINGHAM Copy Editor LISA FAN Copy Editor MAYA HANDA Copy Editor ALAN HASSLER Copy Editor SHERRY HE Copy Editor

In 1936, when my grandfather applied to universities, he seriously considered Rangoon College, now known as the University of Yangon. He did not end up going and, in 1937, Burma (now Myanmar) ceased to be a province of British India and began to be administered by a separate Burma Office. Then World War II raised a hefty fist and we all know how everything turned out after that. And so my grandfather’s international aspirations ended without glory. Now that I am here in Chicago, I wonder: Where is my Burmese

counterpart? American universities can hardly be faulted for failing to recruit international students from Myanmar. It is a country that has had in place more barriers to free movement than almost any other. However, if we want a “truly” international student body, we have to look beyond the six or seven feeder nations that provide almost all our international students. Nine percent of the Class of 2015 is international, with over 70 different countries represented (the Class of 2016 is represented by 40 countries). Other elite universities have slightly better but similar numbers (Harvard and Yale’s new classes are 11 percent from over 80 different countries, and 13 percent from 90 different countries, respectively). However, in all probability, the bulk of that percentage is made up of students from China, India, Singapore, Brazil, and a few others. The large showing from China, India, and Brazil makes sense, since they have large populations. Applicants from Singapore of-

ten have their financial needs taken care of by their government. So while a school might tout that its students hail from “70 different countries,” the implication of diversity is misleading, since the bulk of the pool comes from a limited number of regions.

“

A serious investment in the talent of untapped regions of the world would be in the best interest of the American university system

”

The true diversity of international students is also distorted in socioeconomic terms. While we are need-blind domestically, this policy does not yet extend to international students. Consequently, international admitted students tend to come from wealthy backgrounds. There’s a bias on the demand

side as well, since only students from such backgrounds can afford American levels of expenditure. Then there’s pressure on schools from the domestic markets: Universities cannot admit too many internationals without leaving themselves open to criticism. That said, I think that a serious investment in the talent of untapped regions of the world would be in the best interest of the American university system. Fourteen percent of Oxford’s current undergraduate program is international, representing 138 different countries. 63 percent of its full-time postgraduates are international. Naturally, Oxbridge attracts more applicants than American universities largely because of England’s colonial past. Graduates from prestigious English universities often exert an inordinate influence on their home nations’ futures. For instance, M.K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, studied in England. DIVERSITY continued on page 5

NISHANTH IYENGAR Copy Editor CECILIA JIANG Copy Editor MICHELLE LEE Copy Editor JONAH RABB Copy Editor LINDSEY SIMON Copy Editor ZSOFI VALYI-NAGY Copy Editor

Minding the gap The media’s characterization of the gender wage disparity as a “myth” is harmful to necessary progress

KAYLEIGH VOSS Copy Editor ESTHER YU Copy Editor

The Chicago Maroon is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters Circulation: 5,500. The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section are not necessarily those of the Maroon. © 2012 The Chicago Maroon, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Editor-in-Chief Phone: 773.834.1611 Newsroom Phone: 773.702.1403 Business Phone: 773.702.9555 Fax: 773.702.3032 CONTACT News: News@ChicagoMaroon.com Viewpoints: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com Arts: Arts@ChicagoMaroon.com Sports: Sports@ChicagoMaroon.com Photography: Photo@ChicagoMaroon.com Design: Design@ChicagoMaroon.com Copy: CopyEditors@ChicagoMaroon.com Advertising: Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com

By Jane Huang Viewpoints Columnist A well-known philosophy joke goes something like this: For the final exam, a philosophy professor puts a chair on a table and writes on the board, “Prove that this chair does not exist.” Though most students spend the full two-hour peri-

od writing out multi-page treatises, one student merely writes, “What chair?” His essay is awarded the only A in the class. His answer may be all well and good in the joke, but that kind of flippancy tends not to work out as well in other contexts. Last week’s presidential debate might have been most notable in pop culture for launching the phrase “binders full of women,” but I wasn’t satisfied with the depth of the discussion that yielded it—the one about pay disparity between men and women. As you may know, a woman in the audience asked President Obama and Mitt Romney what plans they had to close the wage gap. Obama

cited the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (which loosened time restrictions on filing lawsuits over pay discrimination), and Romney went off on a tangent about how he would improve the economy so that employers would be so “anxious to get good workers” that they’d hire women. All snark about the responses aside, I was pleased to hear that both candidates seemed to accept the premise that the wage gap is a problem. Alas, I cannot say the same about all of the media coverage that followed. For the National Review Online, Diana Furchtgott-Roth wrote, “The myth of the wage gap is pervasive, but demonstrably false.

Too bad neither presidential candidate had the guts to say so.” On Fox News, Doug McKelway introduced a segment on the debate question about the wage gap by calling it a “question that moderator Candy Crowley permitted,” with the last word disdainfully drawn out. Silly women, thinking they can ask legitimate questions about wage disparities and whatnot. Whenever the issue of the pay gap gets brought up, it’s always easy to find pundits and journalists who think they can simply end the debate by asking the equivalent of “what chair?”—that is, “what wage gap?” But, unfortunately, you can’t make a problem go GAP continued on page 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | October 26, 2012

Cheering out of bounds First Amendment invoked, misused in suit involving Texas cheerleaders’ Bible verse banner

By Maya Fraser Viewpoints Columnist You don’t have the right not to be offended. That was the upshot of the “Innocence of Muslims” controversy: Though there are many things that should not be said, the price to silence them is far too high. Doing so would take away the protection of minority opinions that are so important for a functioning democracy. We must defend the freedom of speech because we never know when our voices might be the ones that others want to silence. In public schools, however, the rules change. Complete freedom of speech is among the many rights that students check at the door. Because they are both run by the government and charged with an educational mission, there are limits upon what both the students and the school itself are allowed to say. Schools must allow students to speak within reason and make sure that their speech does not threaten the educational aims of the school. The recent First Amendment dispute involving Texas cheerleaders challenges where the line should be drawn between these two goals. If you haven’t heard about the case, here’s a brief syn-

opsis: Cheerleaders in a small Texas town called Kountze were ordered by their superintendent to stop using banners with Bible quotes at football games. They subsequently sued the school board for infringing their right to free speech. The controversy hinges upon whether the cheerleaders were acting as individuals, or as representatives of the school. If they are individuals, then their speech is protected. If they are representatives of the school—if their speech is deemed “public”— then it cannot have a religious message. To me, the verdict is clear: As symbols who are supposed to represent the school at games, the cheerleaders’ use of Bible quotes is inappropriate. Though this example is on the border of what should be prohibited (if students held the same banners in the stands, they would be perfectly within their rights), they are participating in school-sponsored speech. The precedent upon which the school board based its decision, Santa Fe Independent School v. Doe, established that student-led prayers before football games violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” In that case, school-run elections determined who would give the prayer and, after complaints were filed, whether a prayer would be held. The school played an active role in setting up the prayer. As a litmus test for whether the speech was public or private, the court asks “whether an objective observer, acquainted with the text, legislative history, and implementation of the statute, would perceive it as a state endorsement of prayer in public schools.” Applying the same logic to this case, an outside observer seeing the cheerleaders on the field bedecked in school

colors would surely come to the conclusion that their actions had the approval of the school. But what I find to be most problematic about this debate is neither the desire for free speech nor the desire to maintain a welcoming school environment, but that both sides, under the guise of freedom of speech or separation of church and state, want to force others to stand in line with their opinions. Governor Rick Perry of Texas (well-known as a flavor of the month during the Republican primaries) came out in support of the cheerleaders, saying, “We’re a nation that’s built on the concept of free expression of ideas. We’re also a culture built upon the concept that the original law is God’s law, outlined in the Ten Commandments.” To pretend that Perry only wants to protect students’ freedom of speech is laughable. His rhetoric clearly implies that American culture is synonymous with a culture based upon the Bible, and so to believe in anything else is to not take part in that culture—to not be American. The Establishment Clause exists to protect us from the Rick Perrys of the nation, people who think that the state is an appropriate venue through which to show people the error of their religious ways. At the same time, opponents of the cheerleaders should stop to figure out exactly where the line should be. Feeling uncomfortable or not wanting to hear something are not reasons to try to abolish it. After all, for those of minority religions or those without religious affiliation, it is impossible to live in a predominantly Christian nation and avoid ever feeling alienated. Religious minorities—here I include myself as an atheist—must tread carefully to make sure that our reasons are the right ones; that they spring

from the desire to create a country where no religions are favored over others, not from the desire to forget that we are in the minority. Maya Fraser is a third-year in the College majoring in sociology.

BENJAMIN LANGE

THE CHICAGO MAROON

Brand expansion may be key to attracting international talent DIVERSITY continued from page 4 During the Soviet Union’s heyday, its universities were bristling with students from Vietnam, China, Korea, Cuba, and a plethora of other communist nations. The grand plan was to create a space for ideological interface that would lead to the dissemination of communism. It worked, and in places like Vietnam and Korea the impact of that ideological commitment was immense. Furthermore, in the 1950s, it can be argued that the Soviet Union was a far more attractive destination for international students than America. The U.S. still had segregation, while communism, with its emphasis on egalitarianism, had made the urban centers of the Soviet Union far more racially progressive. Picture yourself an intelligent and ambitious Indian student. You’re from a non-

aligned nation. Do you choose a nation that treats you in a sub-human fashion or one that’s more enlightened on the racial front? It’s a no-brainer. Right now, the United States is at its most racially progressive state in history. It has a president of mixed race. American universities are now proud of their plurality and commitment to all manner of freedoms. The next Gandhi, Lee Kuan Yew and Aung San Suu Kyi (all British educated) are waiting in the wings. And yet, we may have priced them out. There’s no doubt that the elite institutions in America are cognizant of the need to attract top international talent. MIT, Harvard, Yale, and three other top schools have already become need-blind to international candidates. The U of C is moving in that direction as well. Though we

are not yet need-blind, we do meet full demonstrated need for all admitted candidates. However, we’re still fishing in the same regional pools. If we want to broaden the range of countries that we receive applications from, we are going to have to spread the outreach net. The Internet is the obvious tool here, since it’s both cost-effective and far-reaching. Sadly, as commercial and cynical as it sounds, brand expansion is essential to catching the world’s brightest sparks. Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard carry a prestige factor that is undeniable. These recruitment tactics are decided in offices, with charts, by people who know the demographics. What’s left for the average student on campus? How do we create that intellectual interface that powered so much of

Cause of wage gap is still in question—but its existence is not GAP continued from page 4 away by declaring it non-existent. To be fair, important factors such as occupation and level of qualifications are not accounted for when people cite the Bureau of Labor Statistics figure that the median full-time, year-round female worker’s salary was 81 percent of the corresponding salary for a male worker in 2010. Nevertheless, after controlling for such differences in male and female workers, a 2009 Department of Labor report concluded that there was an “adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent.” Though being a girl means I get confused when I see too many numbers, I am fairly certain that the findings indicate that women aren’t simply suffering from a mass delusion that they’re being paid less than men. You may be thinking to yourself, “Well, I can go to a search engine and find studies that disagree with what you said. What’s your point?” Yes, there may very well be reasons other than bias that account for the adjusted wage gap. But calling the wage gap a “myth”

is unnecessarily dismissive. It immediately ends the possibility of having a reasonable dialogue about whether the government has any appropriate role to play in regulating pay

“

Zeus is a myth. Thor is a myth. The obstacles that women face in the workplace are not myths.

”

discrimination. It’s insulting because it seems to assume that women haven’t already considered factors such as their tendency to enter lower-paying fields or to spend more time managing their households. Zeus is a myth. Thor is a myth. The obstacles that women face in being treated equally in the workplace are not myths. Chances are that if you can think of five alternate explana-

tions off the top of your head that may explain the wage gap, then other people can too. And they’ve found those explanations to be insufficient. The disparity in wages between men and women is still an actively studied topic, presumably because there are a lot of questions that social scientists still want to answer. I once had a classmate here patronizingly “explain” to me that the wage gap would be erased if women simply told their employers that they would like a higher salary. Along similar lines, women are often told that they could close the wage gap if only they were more willing to advocate for themselves in the workplace, speak out during meetings, selfpromote aggressively, etc. Yet, when women do collectively advocate for themselves, as in the case of workplace inequality, they’re told that they are complaining about a problem that does not exist. At the very least, I think women are getting mixed messages about how assertive they actually ought to be. Jane Huang is a third-year in the College.

the history of the past century? We have to accept that America has surpassed the former Soviet Union and England as the premier destination for education—a reality that should drastically alter our character. We’re not just a degree-granting institution, but one with a project of bringing in and molding the leaders of the future. All of this means that we, as current students, are part of a project much larger and more important than the average Hum discussion: that of transferring possibly world-changing ideas to one another on a global level. In the end, it’s not about degrees; it’s about confluence. Raghav Rao is a fourth-year in the College majoring in English.

SUBMISSIONS The Chicago Maroon welcomes opinions and responses from its readers. Send op-ed submissions and letters to:

The Chicago Maroon attn: Viewpoints 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 E-mail: Viewpoints @ChicagoMaroon.com

The editors reserve the right to edit materials for clarity and space. Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words. Op-ed submissions, 800 words.

ARTS

Trivial Pursuits OCTOBER 26, 2012

Poetry’s myriad faces on exhibit at centennial retrospective John Gamino Arts Contributor When the pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly died in 2002, she left a $200 million bequest to Poetry magazine. After a nearly centurylong struggle to get by, the magazine suddenly found itself fending off critics who felt it had been given too much and the rest of the humanities too little. Today Poetry includes the Poetry Foundation, which has its monolithic headquarters downtown.

POET PHOTOS: FROM THE ARCHIVES OF POETRY MAGAZINE The Poetry Foundation through November 29

But the real life force of the magazine has always been its contributors, not its contributions. It has given voice to poets celebrated and unknown; it has printed probing inquiries and private reflections; it has invited discourse and inspired movements. “The Open Door will be the policy of this magazine,” wrote Poetry founder Harriet Monroe in 1912. “May the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius!” As Poetry observes its centennial year, it has sought to “celebrate poetry, not Poetry.” That’s how editor Christian Wiman phrases it in his introduction to the maga-

zine’s commemorative anthology, The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of Poetry Magazine (University of Chicago Press). The book is not meant to be a “best of ” compilation, like some anthologies. Instead, Wiman and Poetry Senior Editor Don Share selected poems that, over the course of a century, have simply stood out. “Every poem in this book,” Wiman writes, “[falls on the] spectrum between life and learning, between linguistic powers…and the messy living reality out of which all language, if it would stay alive, must be rooted.” Beyond that, the poems of The Open Door find more unity in their distinctive imaginative power than anything else. The first word goes to Pound (“In a Station of the Metro”), and the last word to Yeats (“The Fisherman”), but in between we get Laura Kasischke after T.S. Eliot, and Jacob Saenz before Langston Hughes. Short quips of prose from the magazine and its letters provide a rough contextual frame, but mostly the reader is left to wander and discover, and the poems are left to speak for themselves. There is just enough surprise to expose our minds to others’ worlds, but not so much that we lose a sense of who we are. To supplement the book, the foundation has opened a gallery exhibition featuring original photographs of its contributors. Every contributor to Poetry is asked to complete a thorough questionnaire and submit a photograph. No one at

the magazine knows exactly when, or even why, this practice began (though Monroe herself was known for being thorough). But they’ve held onto the files, and over the years thousands of contributor bios have accumulated in the Poetry offices. Many capture poets at the onset of their careers, before their future successes or descents into obscurity (the file of a young Sylvia Plath, for instance, describes her summer plans for touring Europe by motorbike). The exhibit itself is rather modest, comprising only six small glass display cases. Yet the photographs themselves can be stirring in their insights. There is no guideline for what contributors can submit, and they have responded with appropriate ingenuity; there are poets posing and poets writing, but also poets drinking, exploring, and standing shirtless—not to mention a stuffed rabbit and a dog. As with the poems of the anthology, the photos resist paraphrase. Their impressions are enough. Gary Snyder squints intently into the camera, standing in the luminous outdoors; James Merrill leans back indifferently in a chair, lips parsed; Robert Frost sits in pensive silence, inside a departing train. One photo, mounted hastily on blue card stock, comes with a scrawling question: “Can you use this?” In today’s literary scene, it’s become somewhat vogue to question whether poetry itself can still be effectively used. But in placing its focus on the poems and poets that

Edited by Christian Wiman, The Open Door features poems that have “stood out” in the magazine’s history of distinguished contributors. COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

have made the magazine what it is, Poetry has proven that there is still much to be had and said. There are

lives behind this “seemingly unkillable magazine”—lives with plenty to say about our own.

Red alert: Swift’s latest falters, emphasizing her ungainly ascent Emma Broder Arts Editor It was Tuesday night, and I couldn’t focus on my homework. I was fidgeting, but I also wanted to lie down. Eyes glazed over, I kept staring at my laptop screen, glancing at a small pink box on the homepage of the iTunes Store. It had Taylor Swift’s face inside it and three sets of numbers counting down to the release of her album Red. I hadn’t felt this emotional since Speak Now dropped two years ago. Or maybe the last time I felt so churned up was when Fearless emerged two years before that.

RED Taylor Swift Big Machine Records

Taylor Swift contemplates Aristotle’s Poetics while sitting on her next boyfriend’s lawn. COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP

Swift’s fourth album, which came out October 22 after having been leaked on the Internet the week prior, is a creation that mixes classic Tay tunes with more traditional pop songs. Red marks a recognizable but entirely distinct phase in Swift’s trajectory – one that shows in the album’s unsophisticated lyricism and big, crude sounds. The differences between Speak Now and Red shouldn’t be surprising: Swift co-wrote three of the tracks on the album with Swedish-born pop heavyweights Max Martin and Johan Karl Schuster (a.k.a. Shellback). Martin and Shellback’s influence plays heavily on these tracks, which they also produced, especially in “We

Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” the album’s first smash single. The two other songs on Red that stray farthest from Swift’s previous work are also theirs: “22,” which sounds like it’s sung by Ke$ha, and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” which does violence to the ears. The partnership is creepy, like seeing Swift pull off a mask, revealing herself to be two Swedish men. However out-of-character Swift’s collaborations with Martin and Shellback are, it’s evident that her own style of writing and producing is veering toward the mainstream and away from its country origins as well. The clearest instances of this are the songs “Holy Ground,” about the thrilling begin-

nings of (what else?) a romance, and “Stay Stay Stay,” in which the singer discovers (again, shocking subject matter) how deeply she loves someone she was initially unsure about. Swift wrote both these songs on her own, but they differ from her characteristic emotional nuance and sophistication. The vacuity behind Swift’s new songs might stem from the lifestyle change she has experienced as she’s ascended to international stardom. In the two years since Speak Now, she may have discovered that it can be difficult as a celebrity to forge non-artificial bonds. The people and situations Swift encountered growing up in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, and Nashville were

more grounded in reality than those she knows today. Yet Swift has made a living off writing about her relationships. What will she do as her relationships grow more superficial? Will her songs become meaningless, too? In spite of the diluted artistic integrity behind Red, its weaknesses render its strengths all the more striking and bittersweet. If Swift continues on her current path, she won’t write songs that are reminiscent of her best ones to date. She won’t write songs of frustration, like “I Almost Do,” nor of pure melancholy, like “Sad Beautiful Tragic.” She won’t retain her charming subtlety of feeling, such as in the nostalgic “All Too Well,” nor her tentative expression of optimism found in “Begin Again.” Over the course of Red, Swift sings, “This slope is treacherous,/ and I like it.” She also sings, “I’d like to be my old self again,/ But I’m still trying to find it.” At this point, it’s hard to tell which of these statements she’ll ultimately cleave to. It would be sensible, now that I’m in college, to let Taylor Swift go. To have already let Taylor Swift go. She has changed in complicated and not straightforwardly positive ways as her role in culture has gone global and her career has taken flight. Yet when I was sitting at my computer, glad for a distraction on a weeknight, I couldn’t tear myself away from the little pink box that held her. I thought, Neither of us is living where she grew up. Taylor Swift is no Bob Dylan; she may not even be sincere. But she’s a musician whose personal changes are typical of any adolescent getting older. I’m connected to Taylor Swift emotionally, not rationally. I couldn’t stop myself from wanting Red. And I didn’t want to.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | October 26, 2012

HUNGER STRIKE

Au Revoir, Oscar Mayer Iliya Gutin Senior Arts Staff If Steven McQueen could escape from a German POW camp, if Snake Plissken could escape from a dystopian prison-fortress in New York, if Harold and Kumar could escape from Guantanamo Bay…then I should be able to escape from the West Loop, right? I know I don’t have to go here. No one is holding a spatula to my neck. There are amazing restaurants all throughout Chicago: From the aquarium smokers of the South Side to the white linens of the Gold Coast, Chicagoland was made for you to eat. Yet I find myself at the intersection of Randolph and North Halsted, my smile barely containing the boiling rage of hearing yet another cheery hostess quote a two-hour wait time.

But what is a diner without sandwiches? Even if it is the fanciest diner in all the land, Au Cheval’s sandwiches are studies in simplicity. So does that make them complex? Hmm... Consider the cheeseburger, which some call the best in the city: pre-formed, well done patties (two on a single, three on a double. The math is fuzzy); fluffy white bun; cheddar slice; pickles; mayo and other condiments. No big deal. No, it is a big deal. It’s a ballsy move to serve a well-done burger these days, what with custom meat blends and all that razzamatazz. You bite into it and are transported back to your first—or best—fast-food burger experience.

And then there is the fried bologna sandwich. This bologna not only has a first name, but also a Ph.D., and a steady, high-paying job. Years of baloney bologna have conditioned your eyes to skip over it on the menu. But this bologna is taking a stand. When all is said and done, it’s a sausage whose culinary pedigree predates any of the Oscar Mayer crap. You take it, fry it up, slather on some more mayo…eat two and call me in the morning. Au Cheval is the perfect restaurant for the food pornographer in each of us. The sepia-tinted lighting is the filter, the lens flare is the greasy glint on the food, and the food itself would bet-

ter serve your arteries if you didn’t consume it. Life imitates Instagram. Yes, Au Cheval is a little heavy-handed when it comes to adding extra fat (I mean flavor) to their food, but the food is supposed to overwhelm your sense of taste. And Au Cheval isn’t doing anything particularly complex with its food. Its success comes in the form of small, subtle changes that yield over-the-top results—for example, the tiny, single-egg skillets that the line cooks regularly use. Sometimes all it takes is a single fried egg for a dish to go from subpar to sublime. ’Cause if you liked it, why not put an egg on it?

Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence Lecture Series 2012–13

AU CHEVAL 800 West Randolph Street Average main course: $16

Then again, two hours isn’t quite two years—or however long it will take for a decent restaurant to materialize in Hyde Park. Sure, some kind of gastropub concept from the boys behind Longman and Eagle is slated for early 2013. And yes, the Yusho team is planning on a contemporary noodle shop by 2014. Until then, Au Cheval will have to do. First impressions aren’t everything. Initially, you may wonder if Au Cheval is even open for business. The wooden and windowless exterior doesn’t immediately register any signs of life. And because of proprietor Brendan Sodikoff ’s design aesthetic, the interior lighting is easily outrivaled by the steady glow of diners’ iPhones. But do yourself a favor: Step inside and become one with cool, classy vibe. The long, narrow space holds a mix of tables and booths, but the best seats are at the barcum-kitchen, which features one small convection oven, two stoves, three dudes, and six pierced ears. Oh, and a dedicated steamer for fresh, warm hand towels. But more on that later. The menu’s guiding philosophy is that it’s “not your typical greasy spoon diner,” attested to by the fact that almost a quarter of the dishes feature foie gras in one form or another. Looking for a more subtle take on fatty liver, I tried the foie gras and pork-stuffed cabbage. Imagine a slice of cabbage, foie, and pork layer cake, crisped up on the griddle. Pretty cool in theory, but the liver was indiscernible and the flavors muddled. After a few forkfuls, all the components just kind of separated and sat there getting cold. The dish began to look a lot like my feelings about it, beige and gray. Luckily there’s more to the menu than endless riffs on foie. House-made pickles are unloaded in dump-truck quantities. Fries are made even more addicting by the addition of Mornay. A plump brat arrives over some mash, bearing gravy gifts. There is even something called “simple” prep of fish. The menu is concise, but its scope is expansive, since it includes dishes like the General Jane’s fried chicken wings that the kitchen was cranking out faster than the Colonel could adjust his bowtie. The accompanying moist towels were for your sticky fingers, but the real sticking point was the $17 price tag. For dessert, the puff-pastry and cream concoction known as mille-feuille was a study in structural engineering. Watching one of the cooks assemble the tower of flour, I thought, “Surely, fine sir, the addition of a subsequent layer would be most unwise.” Alas, my internal dialogue was largely ignored.

The Future of Medical Practice:

What Will the Doctor-Patient Relationship Look Like? Jeff Goldsmith, PhD, is President of Health Futures, Inc. He is also Associate Professor of Public Health Sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia. In the 1980s, Jeff Goldsmith served as a special adviser on health policy to the Dean of Biological Sciences, was Director of Planning and Government Affairs at the Medical Center, and was a lecturer in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. Jeff Goldsmith earned his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1973.

SPEAKER

Jeff Goldsmith, PhD, President Health Futures, Inc. TI M E

Thursday, November 1, 2012

5–6:30 p.m. LO C ATI O N

Billings Auditorium P-117 Refreshments will be served Please RSVP to tiny.cc/BI-RSVP or call 773-702-3247

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uchicago.edu.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | October 26, 2012

WITH HANNAH GOLD

CALEND AR 1

9 10

11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Friday | October 26

Do What Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re Told Saturday | October 27

There is ver y little going on this weekend that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t require you to pretend to be a kitty cat, Sup erman , o r b in d er s f u l l o f women, as the case may be. But at the DuSable Museum of Art, you can just be youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or at least the version of you that drinks wine and makes witty comments about the art of Henry O. Tanner and Augusta Savage, among others. Art, Wine and Entertainment, which celebrates the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exhibit Buried Treasures: Art in African American Museums, will feature a spoken word poetr y performance, Afrobeat music, live art demonstrations, and a g uide d tour of the show. 740 East 56th Street. 7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;10 p.m., $10. Hal loweekend continues at L in c o l n Park mus i c venu e M a r t y r s â&#x20AC;&#x2122;, w h e r e a b u n c h o f cover bands are getting into the Ha l l owe en sp iri t by d re ss ing up as the bands they cover. The s h ow r uns thro ug h S at urday, but today you can check out the masked musical stylings of Dirty Pig e ons a s the Mo o dy Blues, Dolly Varden as Fleetwood Mac, and Ben Mots as Bad Company. 3 8 5 5 No r t h L i n c o l n Av e n u e . Starts at 8:30 p.m., $12, $10 in advance.

Getting hammered and performing incoherently at a karaoke bar isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a bad decision, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a privilege. If Hyde Park Art Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mischief Night has anything to say about it, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also the highest form of art. At HPACâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impressive line-up of interactive arts, tricks, and treats, you can communally shave some guyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chest hair, sĂŠance anything to your favorite deceased artists, make your own skeleton, cover someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body with whipped cream, cinnamon rolls and donuts, and, of course, watch a master artist get drunk and perform karaoke. 5020 South Cornell Avenue. 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;10 p.m., free. Sometimes you go to a classical music concert to be moved by its complex beauty and spirited humanism. Other times, you go to conjure up images of Will Smith fighting a giant mechanical spider on the American frontier. Whatever your reasons are, the University Symphony Orchestraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Annual Halloween Concert is bound to please you. This year theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going as â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Wild, Wild Westâ&#x20AC;? performing rough-and-tumble favorites such as John Williamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Cowboys Overture,â&#x20AC;? Aaran Coplandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Billy the Kidâ&#x20AC;? ballet, and music from The Magnificent Seven and Paint Your Wagon. There will also be costumed appearances by the Hyde Park School of Dance and the University of Chicago Chorus. 1131 East 57th Street. 7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;8:15 p.m., $4 student tickets.

ALICE BUCKNELL

THE CHICAGO MAROON

Sunday | October 28 Forego straggler Halloween parties or another night in the Reg for a mature discussion of foreskin that is bound to be both illuminating and uncanny. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss Doc Filmsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free screening of CUT: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision. Director Eliyahu UngarSargon, a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, interviewed

several professors from his alma mater, as well as from our own U of C (plus several mohels and rabbis for good measure) in his search for the religious, scientific, and ethical truth about circumcision. 1212 East 59th Street. Starts at 8:30 p.m., free. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really difficult to find that special someone on Halloween because everyone is trying to be someone else,

so why not go to a party that feels comfortable this year? Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Shaughnessyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Public House hosts Dating for Nerds, Freaks, and Geeks Halloween Party, an oasis of trivia, board games, and icebreakers. Halloween attire inspired by nerd culture is encouraged, so slip on your prescription grandma glasses and break out the weird Plato jokes. 4557 North Ravenswood Avenue. 5â&#x20AC;&#x201C;8 p.m., $30, 21+.

2012/2013 CONCERT SEASON

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | October 26, 2012

Forget about the bike: It’s time to give up on Lance Armstrong

By Jake Walerius Associate Sports Editor When the news broke earlier this month about the extent of Lance Armstrong’s doping regime, a few unlikely heroes emerged. You have probably never heard of Scott Mercier or Christophe Bassons, but I can assure you that they both deserve much more of your respect than Armstrong does. They have no dramatic story to tell. They did not survive cancer and go on to become the (formerly) most decorated cyclist of all time. But they did what Armstrong couldn’t. They resisted the temptation to take performance-enhancing drugs. They saw through Armstrong’s story, and they stood up to him. I hope, after reading this, that you might be able to do the same. Since winning his first Tour de France in 1999, Armstrong has been on the receiving end of near-constant accusations of doping. These accusations came to a head earlier this month when the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) released a 1000-plus-page document detailing its case against the Texan. I do not have enough room here to go into the full details of the document (which is available for free online), but suffice it to say that I, having been a longtime defender of Armstrong, am convinced of

his guilt and am writing under the assumption that he was guilty of doping throughout his career. One of the most popular defenses of Armstrong’s drug use, an argument I have used in the past, goes something like this: everyone was doping, and doing drugs was the only way to level the playing field. This argument is, more or less, true. Doping was a big part of professional cycling throughout Armstrong’s career. For a young rider, performance-enhancing drugs had a very powerful allure and seemed to many to be the only way to compete, the only way to pursue the career to which they had devoted their lives. I have a lot of sympathy for those who fell prey to this temptation and will not criticize any rider for choosing to try performance-enhancing drugs. Yes, it is a form of cheating and cheating is wrong, but the pressure placed on a young cyclist to dope is too complex for someone in my position to understand. As much as I’d like to think I could, I cannot say with any certainty that I would be able to resist the temptation to dope in the same situation and will not, therefore, condemn those who did. What Armstrong did, though, goes well beyond deciding to dope. Armstrong did not use performanceenhancing drugs because, in his innocence, he felt that it was the only way to compete. Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs because, in his ruthlessness, he realized that if he was going to win, he needed to dope, he needed his teammates to dope with him, and if they weren’t willing to do so, they weren’t going to be his teammates anymore.

Armstrong, as the leader of his team, abused his power. He threatened to kick riders off his team if they didn’t adhere to the doping regime he had assigned them. After witnesses began to testify against Armstrong, he threatened them, using his growing celebrity status and the power this gave him to make their lives as difficult as possible. There is an entire chapter in the USADA’s report devoted to Armstrong’s attempts to suppress the truth by obstructing the due legal processes and by intimidating witnesses. Armstrong is still arguably the most talented cyclist of his generation and his battle against cancer is an inspiration to millions of people across the world. But his credibility as a cyclist, and as a role model, has been irreparably damaged. From everything I have read—and there is too much of it to be dismissed as sour grapes—the only conclusion I can draw is that Armstrong is, to put it simply, a bad person. He has lost my respect. Of course, there is no particular reason that Armstrong should care about this. He doesn’t know who I am, I’m sure he never will, and, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter if he cares about what I think about him or not. But there are those, like me, whom Armstrong will never know or hear about, who still think that Armstrong deserves all the respect I once had for him. This, I can’t help but think, is wrong, and I would be happy if I could change a few people’s minds on the matter. Armstrong is unique among sports people in that his image is defined just as much by what he has done outside of sport as by what he has done in it. His battle with cancer has always been a footnote to his

success. Not only did he win the Tour de France, but he also did it after surviving a seemingly un-survivable disease. This fact seems to add a certain level of moral reinforcement to Armstrong’s achievements, as if his success in cycling were somehow more noteworthy because of what he went through outside of the sport. It is certainly a great story to tell; everyone loves a comeback. But the fact of the matter is that Armstrong’s battle with cancer has nothing to do with his career as a professional cyclist; yet somehow, the two have become conflated. Armstrong is well aware that his celebrity status owes much to his battle with cancer. Cycling is not a popular sport in the United States, but Armstrong put it on the map. He was able to do this because of his story. Now, Armstrong is a drug cheat, and the longer he continues to deny that fact, the longer he allows his fans to believe in a story that isn’t real. His refusal to come clean is shameful not only because it disrespects cycling as a sport, but also because it has allowed him to sustain the delusion that he is worth the reverence his story inspires in people. Not enough people in this country have adequate knowledge of Armstrong the cyclist to objectively decide whether he still deserves the seven Tour de France titles he was stripped of last week, but almost everyone in this country has adequate knowledge of Armstrong the story to give him the benefit of the doubt. This needs to change. If you learn anything from Lance Armstrong, let it be this: bad people can do good things. Just don’t be so blinded by the good they do that you can’t see them for what they really are.

As regular season comes to a close, Maroons set sights on local rivals Volleyball Madelaine Pisani Sports Contributor They’re on the road— again. This weekend’s Benedictine Tournament is Chicago’s last stop before the UAA Championship on November 2–3. While the team has had continuous away matches since October 6, third-year setter Nikki DelZenero is unfazed. “Our brains are geared for this kind of thing; we’ve been traveling for weekend club volleyball tournaments since middle school,” DelZenero said. “We’re doing fine.” The Maroons will have four regional matches this weekend and are intent on taking home four wins. They are preparing with the same method they’ve used all year. “Coach [Walby] doesn’t give us scouting reports until day-of, so most of us don’t really go out of our way to psych ourselves out,” fourth-year middle blocker Katie Trela said. “We’re expecting to come out on top this weekend.” The first match today will be against North Central. The Cardinals are coming off a 3–1 win last Tuesday against Milliken, the same team that upset

the South Siders at Elmhurst. Chicago will then face Benedictine. The Maroons already beat the Eagles earlier this season at home, 3–1. Both Benedictine and North Central are unranked. “I am sure both teams have scouting reports on us and will know what some of our weaknesses are” Trela said. “At the same time, we are very aware of those weaknesses too and have been fine tuning related skills every day. “They probably have a ‘nothing to lose’ attitude as well because we are ranked higher, and that is an effective attitude to have on the court.” Third up for the Maroons will be the North Park Vikings on Saturday at 10 a.m., followed by Concordia Chicago at 2 p.m. On October 20, the Vikings suffered a shutout at the hands of Haverford, the team the Maroons trumped without mercy in their first match at Elmhurst. While the Maroons have enjoyed a successful season, it is difficult to maintain this kind of momentum. However, Coach Walby is taking steps to ensure her players do not get burnt out with the pressure of

First-year Maren Loe spikes the ball during a home match against Benedictine on September 26. COURTESY OF NATHAN LINDQUIST

classes on top of the final push to the championship. “Right now we are trying to take days off if we can and if we can go shorter some days then we will,”

Walby said. “It is sometimes difficult to do that with labs, discussions, and meetings. For instance, we haven’t had a full team for practice one day this week.

So we make accommodations so that we are still functional and productive. School is the first priority so we work hard when we get the opportunity to be

in the gym together.” With the Championship in sight it seems the Maroons are ready to dominate this last regional tournament of the season.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | October 26, 2012

Conference calling—Maroons take on Case, Rochester

FOOTBALL UAA Standings Rank School 1 Carnegie 2 Chicago 2 Case Western 4 Washington (MO)

Women’s Soccer

Record 5–2 (0–0) 4–3 (0–0) 4–3 (0–0) 2–5 (0–0)

Win % .714 .571 ..571 .286

Passing Rank 1 2 3

Player Rob Kalkstein Erik Olson Vince Cortina

School Carnegie Case Western Chicago

Yds 1573 1344 731

4 5

Dan Burkett Eric Daginella

Washington (MO) Washington (MO)

531 513

Receiving Rank Player 1 Tim Kikta 2 Dee Brizzolara 3 Sean Lapcevic 4 Timoth Swanson 5 Drew Sexton

School Carnegie Chicago Case Western Carnegie Washington (MO)

Avg/G 92.9 73.7 61.9 58.4 52.7

Rushing Rank 1 2 3 4 5

Player Manny Sicre Patrick Blanks C. Castellucio Ian Gaines Zak Nash-Ross

School Case Western Carnegie Washington (MO) Chicago Chicago

Avg/G 77.8 71.7 63.3 62.1 59.3

MEN’S SOCCER UAA Standings Rank 1

Second-year Sara Kwan controls the ball during a home game against Indiana Wesleyan University on September 12. COURTESY OF NATHAN LINDQUIST

Tatiana Fields Sports Contributor The pressure is on for the Maroons as they head into their last few conference games. The South Siders (10–5–0, 2–2–0) have had a strong season, but the importance of these next games can’t be overstated. “I think the season’s been going well,” assistant coach Emma Gormley said. “We’ve definitely hit our stride these last couple of games, gone on a good run, and played some good teams. We’re in good shape heading into these last three.” The team has grown throughout the season and is focused on the upcoming matches.

“As the season has progressed, we have learned to move as a cohesive unit,” firstyear midfielder Anna Goddi said. “It is essential that we win these next games to progress into the NCAA tournament.” In order to advance to the NCAA tournament, the Maroons must either win the UAA or claim an at-large bid. Chicago’s next three games are all conference games that will determine whether the South Siders advance. The Maroons will be led by fourth-year captain and UAA Athlete of the Week Brigette Kragie, along with second-year forward Sara Kwan. “Kragie has always been one of our leaders on the field, and we’re going to need a good

showing from her,” Gormley said. “We need our midfielders to win balls for us and set the tone and be the pacesetters for the team.” Chicago will face Case (7– 4–4, 1–2–1) first. The Spartans have a comparable record to the Maroons and will also be looking to secure a berth in the NCAAs. Case will be headed by second-year Jessica Sabers, thirdyear Leah Levey, and third-year Rachel Bourque. The Maroons will play the Spartans at Case today at 5 p.m. EDT. On Sunday, Chicago will take on Rochester (3–10–1, 0–4–0) in another away game. The two teams will face off at Fauver Stadium on Sunday at 10 a.m. EDT.

While the Maroons will consider what the Spartans and Yellowjackets will have in their own game plans, they will mostly be focused on playing their own game. “I don’t think we’re as concerned with what they’re going to do as opposed to what we need to do,” Gormley said. “We need to be sharp in our game plan. We’ll prepare to a degree for each of them, but it will be about knowing what we want to do and getting that done.” As the season wraps up, it’s crunch time for the South Siders. Their performance against Case and Rochester will help determine whether they go on to the NCAAs or have to hang up their cleats for this year.

For five ranked UAA teams, an Empire state of mind

1 1 1 5 6 7 8

School Brandeis

Record 14–1–1 (2–1–1)

Win % .906

Carnegie NYU Emory Rochester Washington (MO) Chicago Case Western

10–2–1 (2–1–1) 10–4–1 (2–1–1) 8–5–2 (2–1–1) 8–2–3 (1–0–3) 8–4–1 (2–2) 7–3–4 (1–2–1) 3–11–1 (0–4)

.808 .700 .600 .731 .654 .643 .233

Goals Rank Player 1 Lee Russo 2 Andrew Natalino 2 Dylan Price 4 Kyle Green 4 Jorge Bilbao

The Maroons head to Rochester, New York this weekend for their biggest competition of the season: the UAA Championship. Last year, the Maroons placed third at the conference meet, losing to NYU and Wash U. This year, the team is looking to take its performance to the next level. “Our team is right in the thick of it, and our ambitions are high for the weekend,” fourth-year Isaac Dalke said. “We’re out there to fight, to run hard, to mix things up, and to see what happens.” But this will be no easy task. Five out of the eight teams that comprise the UAA rank in the top 25 in the nation. Currently, the Maroons sit tied with Rochester at 22nd. Wash U, NYU, and Carnegie Mellon all rank higher, with Wash U leading the pack at 10th in the nation. In order to prepare for the race, the Maroons rested their top eight runners last

Goals 12 11 11 9 9

School Carnegie Brandeis Emory Brandeis Emory

Assists 9 8 6 6 5

Assists Rank 1 2 3 3 5

Player Ben Bryant Sam Ocel David Gaofalo Lee Russo Andrew Jones

WOMEN’S SOCCER UAA Standings Rank School 1 Washington (MO)

Record 13–1–1 (3–0–1)

Win % .900

1 3 4 5 5 7 8

11–0–4 (3–0–1) 10–1–2 (3–1) 10–5 (2–2) 12–3–1 (1–2–1) 7–4–4 (1–2–1) 9–6 (1–3) 3–10–1 (0–4)

.867 .846 .667 .781 .600 .600 .250

Emory Carnegie Chicago Brandeis Case Western NYU Rochester

Men’s Cross Country Isaac Stern Associate Sports Editor

School Brandeis Emory Emory NYU Chicago

Goals

week. After a long season of races, this rest is crucial to getting physically prepared for the run this weekend. “The team is currently tapering down; mileage is low and workouts are less intense,” fourth-year Billy Whitmore said. “We are just trying to get enough rest to be ready for this Saturday.” The Maroons have competed with some of the best runners in the country this year, including the defending national champions at the DIII and DI level—North Central and Wisconsin respectively. However, the South Siders have not yet found a way to come away on top against such powerhouse squads. Two weeks ago, at the UW– Oshkosh Brooks Invitational, the Maroons finished 94 points behind Wash U. While not insurmountable, the numbers are not exactly promising. In order to defeat their rivals, the team’s top five runners will have to improve their finishes. The top five runners from each team have their finishing places in the race added up. The team with

the lowest score wins. “We are asking ourselves to rise to the level of competition,” Dalke said. “This weekend will be decided by where our fifth man is, not our first.” Big things need to happen in the main pack for Chicago’s top runners. First-year Henry Blood, second-years Renat Zalov and Kevin On, and third-year Samuel Butler all need to have top races in order for the Maroons to be successful. Two weeks ago at UW–Oshkosh, their times spanned a difference of three seconds, with Zalov running the 8K the fastest of the four with a time of 26:09.01. There will be no big changes in strategy this week. The Maroons remain confident in their abilities to compete and run the way they always have. They know what they need to do. Now is the time to deliver. “We simply have to run ‘our race’,” Whitmore said. “It’s important to remain conscious of the other teams, but we can’t let them dictate the pace.”

Rank 1 2 3 3 5

Player Melissa Menta Dara Spital Cami Crawford Anna Zambricki Sara Kwan

School NYU Brandeis NYU Washington (MO) Chicago

Goals 12 10 9 9 8

Assists Rank Player 1 Charlotte Butker 2 2 4 5

Melissa Menta Sara Kwan Brigette Kragie Serra Tumay

School Emory NYU Chicago Chicago NYU

Assists 10 9 9 7 6

VOLLEYBALL UAA Standings Rank School 1 Washington (MO) 1 Emory 1 Chicago 4 Case Western 5 Rochester

Record 24–2 (6–1) 27–4 (6–1) 23–8 (6–1) 21–9 (4–3) 18–9 (2–5)

Win%

Carnegie

13–15 (2–5)

.464

Brandeis

16–11 (1–6)

.593

NYU

14–13 (1–6)

.923

.871 .742 .700 .667

IN QUOTES

SPORTS

“Pablo Sandoval... man, what a game... and all those years I fell for that whole ‘lift weights/stay in shape’ stuff..sheesh.” —Retired Atlanta Braves outfielder Dale Murphy on Game 1 of the World Series.

This. Is. Chicago. Spartans come to town for intraconference battle Football Sam Zacher Sports Contributor Coming off a solid 23–7 win over Hiram, the Maroons (4–3) look to keep their momentum going in their UAA opener against Case Western (4–3) this Saturday. Since 2010, these teams have split their head-to-head meetings, with Chicago pulling out a 24–20 victory two years ago, followed by a 6–0 Case win last year in a defensive showdown. “We’re the only UAA team to beat Case over the last five years,” head coach Dick Maloney said. “This has developed into a great little rivalry.” In the offensive struggle last year, Case running-back Manny Sicre ran for 103 yards on 17 carries. “Stopping the rush is always a focus for us. Good ol’ Manny is a good receiver, too. He’s a key to their attack,” Maloney said. Chicago’s defense will still have to be on its toes, ready for a balanced charge. “They have also shown the ability to throw the ball effectively, so we have to be wary of that, too,” thirdyear defensive tackle Mike

Cifor said. On the offensive side of the ball, third-year quarterback Vincent Cortina is hoping to avoid the goose egg in this year’s contest. “We are confident we can put up points this year,” he said. “We have most of our offensive players back from last year, and we’re hoping that experience will lead to fewer mistakes.” “They don’t change their defense much and trust their [athletic] players to make the plays. As a result, I don’t have to worry about the coverage as much,” Cortina said. “I just need to get the ball into the hands of the playmakers and let them make moves.” Chicago has been plagued by slow starts this season, and they’re hoping to turn that around this weekend. “I think we need to be more focused and have a sense of urgency to score this week,” Cortina said. Maloney is on the same page with his quarterback. Against Wittenberg two weeks ago, Maloney tried to inspire the offense by pulling a fake punt out of his bag of tricks. Instead of waiting for a lull in the offense this week, he hopes to catch

Offensive lineman Matt Gallery prepares to snap the ball during a home game against Allegheny. The Maroons won 10–0. AUMER SHUGHOURY | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Case’s defense off guard. “They’re a very, very fundamentally sound defense,” Maloney said. “They will give us all we can handle, and we’re looking to do some different things….

You’ve got to throw a few wrinkles in there.” Being homecoming weekend, the atmosphere could also play a role in the game. “I don’t think Homecoming affects the guys,”

Maloney said. “But with parents beginning to come for the weekend, we’ll have to keep the players focused on Friday. Overall, I think it’s a great atmosphere for a football game.”

Not only will the campus have its hands full with food and festivities, but the Maroons will also be busy with a solid Case team that comes to town for a 1 p.m. kickoff at Stagg Field.

Homecoming in Hyde Park, from bonfire to block party Sarah Langs Associate Sports Editor You probably had some kind of Homecoming at your high school. Whether it was a whole week filled with pep rallies, trash talk, a football game, and a dance, or just one night when everyone pretended to care about your high school’s mediocre athletic program, chances are you experienced something called “Homecoming” before you came to the University of Chicago. The word certainly carries high school connotations, but we also know that big time college sports schools (read: DI) celebrate Homecoming with a football game, typically against a conference rival. If you expected even a bit of the Homecoming pageantry when you came to Chicago, raise your hand. Anybody? Well, if you were surprised to see that this Saturday is Homecoming, if you thought that a D–III school might not have such a celebration, you’re just a few years too late. While we do now honor our Maroons with a Homecoming every year, the event is a relatively new development. Just ask football’s head coach Dick Maloney. Maloney began coaching at Chicago in 1994. At that time, there was no official Homecoming. “We had a tradition here of

having a Friday night bonfire before one of the games,” Maloney said. “We would have the bonfire between Bartlett and 56th Street, which was a vacant lot that Max East now sits on.” While Homecoming is now centered on football, the older version, bonfire included, had a lot more to do with basketball. “We also incorporated [the bonfire] at times with the first basketball practice. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, it was really popular to have the first basketball practice at midnight. We used to call it Midnight Madness,” Maloney said. “We would have a pep rally at Henry Crown—because Ratner didn’t exist yet—at about 11 p.m., and then at 12 a.m., the basketball team would come out and have a shoot around.” Given that attendance at home games for the Maroons fluctuates these days, you might be surprised to hear that crowds at that basketball pep rally were “great,” to use Maloney’s word. A bonfire, pep rally, and basketball practice at midnight were the closest events that the U of C had to Homecoming, until one day when Maloney had a conversation with then–athletic director Tom Weingartner. “In the late nineties, I said to the athletic director at the time,

‘you know, we should have a Homecoming.’…I said I would call some people together and we’ll have a cookout,” Maloney said. Maloney invited all the parents of his players and a bunch of alumni, and the first U of C Homecoming happened—“It was just a cookout before the game,” Maloney said. He estimates that first year was 1998. Now, there are tents everywhere, crowds of students and parents, and many more associated events. For example, the Hall of Fame dinner is the Friday night before the big Saturday. Alumni from all sports come back and current players who are representatives or captains attend as well. When home, the soccer team typically has an alumni and parents brunch. “All the sports tend to do something if they’re home,” Maloney said. So how did we get from a small cookout to a big event that will this year include a block party, with help from ORCSA, COUP, and numerous other committees and groups on campus? Maloney attributes some of the increased popularity to campus growth. “I think with the development of Ratner, this part of campus became developed,” he said. “Rat-

ner originally was a huge parking lot. So you left campus, you left Henry Crown and the Bartlett area—which was our headquarters until 2005—and it was a long way to get to Stagg Field, etc. When Ratner started coming into existence, they wanted to do some fundraising things of that nature and we put together a much more definitive Homecoming plan. And now, of course, there’s a whole committee.” Another significant factor in the event’s growth is its timing. “The university [has tried to] match Homecoming and Parents’ Weekend, which really works well, when we can do it…. We’ve actually had soccer here for Homecoming as well as football, and it’s just a great event, there’s something going on all the time. There may be a volleyball contest. Sometimes it’s the first swim meet of the year. So it’s a whole weekend of activities. It’s just grown leaps and bounds…. It’s fun to have so much excitement.” Head basketball coach Mike McGrath serves as the athletic representative on the committee that plans Homecoming. He’s been on the committee for eight years, over the course of which changes in the event have varied. “It hasn’t been steady growth, it kind of peaks and plateaus,” Mc-

Grath said. Whether it’s a year of significant change, or just another U of C Homecoming, more participants and bigger crowds just add to an exciting atmosphere. “It’s a lot more fun when more students show up, we all appreciate the support they give during Homecoming,” fourth-year Dee Brizzolara said. Brizzolara is heading into his final Homecoming and has seen the evolution of the event over the last four years. If the student body needs any more of a push to get excited about Homecoming this year, they should know that the game matters a lot more this year than it has in the past. Homecoming is typically a weekend or two earlier, but because the quarter started so late this year, it falls on the first UAA game of the season. This game against Case Western carries much more weight than last year’s contest against Denison did. With their conference record on the line, a bigger crowd than normal and more excitement surrounding the game should play into the Maroons’ favor. At least, that’s what Maloney is hoping. “Maybe our twelfth man—and woman—can push us over this year.”