FRIDAY • NOVEMBER 30, 2012
ISSUE 16 • VOLUME 124
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892
CHICAGOMAROON.COM
Cathey fails health inspection, closes Part V: Statistics belie the scope of the crime INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
Joy Crane Associate News Editor & Hannah Nyhart Special Contributor
Fourth-year Gabriel Jacobs considers other dining options after the Cathey Dining Commons closed for repeated health code violations. JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON
Rebecca Guterman News Editor & Madhu Srikantha Associate News Editor Conditions at Cathey Dining Commons went South yesterday afternoon.
The dining hall was closed at 2 p.m. Thursday in order to address repeated health code violations. According to the Chicago Department of Public Health Web site, Cathey Dining Commons failed an inspection on November 20 because of “noted evidence of insects and ro-
dents on site. Noted approximately 40-45 live small flies scattered in dishwashing areas, in prep areas, in basement storage areas and in mop sink closet. Also noted approximately 75-100 mice droppings scattered in all prep areas…” CATHEY continued on page 3
Doc files police report for missing cash Mara McCollom News Contributor Doc Films filed a police report with the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) after discovering petty cash missing
from their change lockers in Ida Noyes last Sunday. This is the third such incident at Doc this quarter. According to UCPD spokesperson Robert Mason, the incident was identified as a theft and took place
during Thanksgiving break. Doc Films reported roughly $150 missing on Sunday, November 25 though Doc’s General Chair, fourth-year Michaeljit Sandhu, was “hesitant to ‘officially’ label” DOC continued on page 2
This is the fifth installment of a quarterlong series on sexual assault, the fourth of which was published on November 20. It can be found at chicagomaroon.com. Every fall, the University, in its “Common Sense” guide, publishes crime statistics from the three previous calendar years, including sexual assaults. This information, along with Daily Crime Logs, is published in accordance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act). A combination of factors, from the underreported nature of sexual offenses, to the Act’s exclusion of student apartment incidents, means that the Clery count represents only a fraction of the sexual assaults at UChicago. Local violent crime statistics supplement the University’s federal reporting requirements. Even with this addition, the picture of sexual assault at UChicago remains incomplete. The Clery Act is over 20 years old, and covers policy and statistical disclosures
The University has fully leased the former Borders building in the continuing development of 53rd Street, which has begun to earn praise for environmental sustainability. CorePower Yoga, which has nine other locations in Chicago, will open in 2013 and rent 4,347 square feet of space in the former Borders building at 1539 East 53rd Street
between South Lake Park and South Harper Avenues. CorePower offers a free week of yoga for new members, and reduced student memberships for $99 per month in Illinois, according to its Web site. The studio will share the building with the music venue and restaurant Promontory and the fashion boutique Akira, which opened its 8,000 square foot flagship store on the ground floor on November 21.
The three new businesses are part of an effort by the University and developers to increase retail options along 53rd Street. The University purchased the Borders building in July 2011 and, according to a New York Times article published last month, has spent nearly $250 million on the project. Harper Court, the 1.1 million square foot centerpiece of the 53rd Street development that will HARPER continued on page 4
ASSAULT continued on page 5
Admin. opens up about Student Life Fee at forum 2012-2013 STUDENT LIFE FEE BREAKDOWN UNDERGRADUATE 4%
GRADUATE
Graduate Schools and Divisions
10% 3%
Campus Activities
25%
11% 71%
Yoga, sustainability come to 53rd St. Sam Levine Senior Editor
as well as treatment of victims. Amendments over the past two decades have expanded reporting requirements and added a Campus Sexual Assault Victims’ Bill of Rights. The Department of Education manages enforcement of the Clery Act, and peer institutions like Pennsylvania State University and Washington State University are among those who have been saddled with hefty fines for noncompliance. The Act is designed to allow for flexibility across highly varied university models. Marlon Lynch, associate vice president for Safety & Security, Chief of Police, is also the former president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. He reflected on the varied interpretations of Clery Act compliance. “It’s not a cookie cutter process, because all institutions are different. You go from a large institution with 50,000 students to a small liberal arts school in the northeast, obviously the structure is going to be a little different,” said Lynch. UChicago has never been in violation of the Clery Act, according to Department of Education records.
75% Student Activities
Health and Wellness BELLA WU
Marina Fang Associate News Editor University administrators fielded student questions about the Student Life Fee with the intention of providing more transparency regarding its allocation at a Student Government Assembly meeting Thursday night. They also announced the eventual creation of a
Web site to publicly inform students of the breakdown of Student Life Fee allocation and addressed student complaints about the Student Health Service (SHS), which is funded by the Student Life Fee. Assistant Vice President for Student Life and Associate Dean of the College Eleanor Daugherty explained that the impetus for the
| THE CHICAGO MAROON
meeting emerged from initial conversations last year with former SG president Youssef Kalad (A.B. ’12), who had expressed concern over a lack of transparency and inquired whether students could have more input in the allocation of the fee. This year, the Student Life Fee for students in the College is $331 per quarter LIFE FEE continued on page 3
IN VIEWPOINTS
IN ARTS
IN SPORTS
Moving on to a new chapter » Page 6
Hot off the University of Chicago Press » Page 8
Thunderstruck: Maroons wrap up five-game homestand with loss to Wheaton » Back Page
Concert preview: Caravan of Thieves discusses fiery reputation » Page 8
Ten Chicago hoop-stars named to UAA Silver Anniversary Teams » Page 11
Looking for context clues » Page 6
THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | November 30, 2012
2
NEWS IN BRIEF GSU discusses unionizing Graduate Students United (GSU) hosted a presentation and discussion yesterday entitled “Building Power From the Bottom Up: Grassroots Democracy and Union Power at UChicago after the CTU Strike” as the first part of their discussion series, “The University of Chicago Deserves.” In attendance were members of GSU, National Nurses United, and the two panelists, Al Ramirez, a co-founder of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), the organization that spearheaded the Chicago Teachers Union strike this past September, and Kim Bowsky, an active member of CORE, who led the discussion on building effective organizations. Graduate Students United is currently waiting on a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board regarding the status of graduate unions. Kahle said they expect to know the outcome by this upcoming January or February. The discussion series will continue next quarter at their January meeting with the intent of bringing together graduate students who wish to unionize by discussing methods of organization and communication. —Madhu Srikantha
UCMC gets highest safety rating The University of Chicago Medical Center received an A grade as its Hospital Safety Score, released on Wednesday for Illinois hospitals. The Leapfrog Group Hospital Safety Scores grade acute care hospitals using a combination of “performance measures” from a variety of national organizations, including those of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. These scores take into consideration what happens to patients once they enter the hospital, such as accidental cuts or tears from medical treatment and wounds that break open after surgery. Several other regional hospitals received exemplary scores, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Loyola Gottlieb Memorial Hospital. However, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, received a C. —Ben Pokross
UchiNOMgo: Where my food trucks @? Linda Qiu News Editor Avi Schwab (A.B. ’03) follows and “follows” food trucks. His Twitter page, @uchiNOMgo, has faithfully tracked the locations of restaurants on wheels around campus with more than 3,000 real-time tweets to an audience of over 1,500 followers since its creation last October. In the early summer of 2011, Schwab began noticing four or five food trucks appearing around the University every week. As a veteran Tweeter and self-described foodie who considers food trucks the “pinnacle of foodie experience,” his impulse was to find and follow them on Twitter, but in lieu of using a personal account, he created @uchiNOMgo. “It started both as a way for me to figure out what was going on but also to evangelize food trucks and get them to come to UChicago. The South Side is a location that gets left out of a lot of good things in the city, and so I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss out on this awesome new thing,” Schwab said. A year later, the results of @uchiNOMgo’s mission are visible every day on the 5800 block of South Ellis Avenue: a maximum of 20 trucks that come to Hyde Park at different times, parked in rows and serving everything from wraps to doughnuts to sliders, all of which Schwab has sampled. Schwab emphasizes that his mission is straightforward: track and attract. Spending no more than 10 minutes around lunchtime every day to scroll through his Twitter feed and eyeball the areas where the trucks coalesce (the 5800 block of South Ellis Avenue and in front of the Reg), Schwab simply tweets and retweets the truck names on campus and occasionally posts a picture of a new menu item. He draws the line at reviews, keeping criticism to himself or “DMs” (direct Twitter messages). In addition, @uchiNOMgo also functions as a method of recruitment, encouraging new trucks to drive by campus through following, tweeting, and “DM-ing.”
The uchiNOMgo Twitter monitors food trucks on campus. COURTESY OF TWITTER
The marriage between social media and food trucks is hardly unique to @uchiNOMgo, as evidenced by the usage of Twitter as a means of communication for many food mobiles. There are about 65 food trucks running around Chicago, with the great majority of them tweeting. “It’s actually a perfect relationship. Especially in Chicago, when it’s so hard to know what’s going on and the trucks are written tickets in the Loop and neighborhoods with aldermen who aren’t supportive. But it’s the perfect relationship because [Twitter] has become the goto medium to communicate. It’s exactly what they need,” Schwab said. Between the food truck owners and devotees like @uchiNOMgo, as well as the app Chicago Food Trucks Map, the Web site Food Truck Freak, and the blog Food Truck 50, a “sub-culture” and community of mobile foodies has emerged. Schwab points at this community as indicative of the modern phenomenon of relationships based on online correspondence. “And it’s not creepy anymore somehow. These totally spontaneous conversations on Twitter lead to real world interactions,” he said.
Since creating @uchiNOMgo, Schwab has attended gatherings and parties celebrating food trucks, using food trucks, and discussing food trucks. Recently, he met with other webmasters and bloggers just to talk food trucks, debating the difference between gourmet trucks and the original iterations of low-cost fast food. On a personal level, Schwab has forged a relationship with many of the truck owners and drivers who come to campus. After a Twitter conversation, he’ll try out the food as a regular customer and introduce himself as the man behind @uchiNOMgo. Sometimes, the trucks will offer him free samples but he prefers to avoid taking advantage of his Twitter fame because, after all, “they’re often small businesses making a living.” Ultimately, operating @uchiNOMgo is “just a hobby” for Schwab, who works for the University’s Information Technology Services as his day job. “The satisfaction that I get is getting more food trucks and sampling more food trucks. It started off as a selfish thing but I guess now I view it as a service for other people. I grew up with comic book heroes and I like the idea of having an alter ego that finds great food.”
Missing cash is third incident since start of quarter, Doc unsure if cases are related
Due to a recent series of thefts at Doc Films, volunteers will now be required to sign in during shifts. KRISTIN LIN | THE CHICAGO MAROON DOC continued from front
the incident as theft as police investigations are still ongoing. According to Sandhu, the cash went missing from both the “change” and “extra change” lockers. Sandhu estimates that about 40 people know the combination to the “change” locker, which normally holds
$75 and is used to provide change for customers buying tickets. Roughly 10 know the combination to the “extra change” locker, which holds $80 in small bills for emergencies as well as $200 kept separately, exclusively for board member usage. The $200 reserved for board members was not stolen. Although this is the third instance at Doc
Films this quarter, Sandhu emphasized that Doc Films has no information to suggest that the three incidents are linked. This past occurrence of missing cash is the first that Doc has reported to UCPD. Sandhu estimates that in total roughly $250 has gone missing. The first instance involved cash going
missing from the “change” locker. The second involved both money missing from the unlocked Doc Office and a wallet going missing from the backpack of a Doc affiliate, who declined to file a police report. Instead, Doc Films sent an e-mail reminding show captains and board members not to leave valuables in the office. Doc Films did not report the first two instances in which cash went missing because they anticipate that cash will go missing at some point during the quarter. “At least once a quarter someone will misplace the change. Since Doc is such a big organization and it’s made up of volunteers, we usually assume that it’s going to happen once a quarter,” Sandhu said in an e-mail. “There’s too many people handling money for it not to happen once.” However, after the third incident, Doc Films decided to take action and involve the police. “We just figured that at this point we should start a paper trail and tell the police,” Sandhu said. While the UCPD investigation is still underway, Doc Films is looking into tightening their security practices to prevent future incidents. One of the group’s new policies requires volunteers to sign into the Ida Noyes office, so that they can track who has access to the lockers. Additionally, they are requesting that the staff at Ida Noyes help monitor the lockers, according to Sadhu. “We’re in the beginning of a conversation with our adviser and other ORCSA staff about whether it makes sense to store change in an alternate location or to use a different system altogether,” Sandhu said in an e-mail.
THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | November 30, 2012
3
U of C leads nation in PhD dissertation Fulbright awards Lauren Gurley News Contributor The U.S. Department of Education awarded $448,899 in Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research grants to 10 University graduate students for this academic year. The Fulbright-Hays grant gives graduate students funding to work on their dissertation in a foreign country where a language not generally taught in standard American curricula is spoken. Nine out of 10 of this year’s winners are advanced or fluent in their language of study. The University received the most Fulbright-Hays grants this year, and has received the most Fulbright funding every year over the last two decades with the exception of one year. “Our tradition of interdisciplinarity provides students with very complex platforms from which to begin their fieldwork and to make highly original interventions in their fields,” said Professor Deborah Nelson, deputy provost for Graduate Education. Peer institutions Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton received $146,030, $87,112, $32,476, and $41,880 respectively. Applications that focus on the hard-
ships of people in African, Asian, Latin American, and Eastern European countries in social, economic, and political crisis are of particular interest to the Department of Education, according to a University statement announcing the winners earlier this month. Only 84 out of 380 total eligible applicants received fellowships this year. Fulbright winner and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures student Christopher Markiewicz (A.B. ’04, A.M. ’08) is currently in Istanbul studying the role of statesmen and scholars in the creation of the Ottoman Empire. He attributes the University’s impressive results to its strong graduate departments in regional and social studies. Over the next 12 months, Markiewicz, who also received his undergraduate degree from the University, plans to explore Istanbul’s manuscript collections for Islamic and Ottoman history, particularly those at the Süleymaniye Library and the Topkapı Palace Archives. “I’m interested in the Ottomans after they conquered Constantinople, and in thinking about what it meant to rule Istanbul with changing notions of rule,” said Markiewicz. Michelle Maydanchik, another Fulbright winner, is researching perfor-
NAME
FIELD
Adrian Anagnost
Art History
“Art and Participation in the Brazilian Republic of ‘46”
Natalja Czarnecki
Anthropology
“Food-Consumer Encounters: Trust, Uncertainty, and Transition in Post-Socialist Georgia”
Erin Glade
History
“We Are Not Enemies of Culture”: Literature, Modernization and the Expansion of American Soft Power in Nasser’s Egypt, 1952-1967
Patrick Kelly
History
“Transnational Human Rights Advocacy in the Southern Cone in the Long 1970s”
Christopher Markiewicz
History
“Statesmen and Scholars in the Creation of Empire: Concepts of Ottoman Rulership, 1453-1520”
Michelle Maydanchik
Art History
“Creative Disruption: Performance Art in Post-Soviet Moscow”
Covell Meyskens
History
“Preparing for a War That Never Happened: Political Economy and Cold War Social Life”
Michal Ran-Rubin
Anthropology
“The Nature of Citizenship: Cultivating Political Subjects in Israel-Palestine”
Travis Warner
Political Science
“The Electoral Connection in the Chinese Countryside: Top-Down Accountability and Rural Governance”
Jake Werner
History
“Making Mass Society in Shanghai: Cultural and Economic Transformation among ‘The People,’ 1949-1957
mance art in Moscow in the 1990s. She has already spent a year in Moscow and plans to spend nine more months in the city and one in Berlin during her Fulbright. “I’m studying how artists tried to
present their art to the public after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was very violent and very spectacular,” she said. Both Markiewicz and Maydanchik attribute their success in receiving the grant to the support of the Graduate Students
UCMC pediatrician to streamline clinical trials Emma Dries News Contributor Sam Volchenboum thinks he’s found the cure to the inefficiencies of clinical trials. Volchenboum, an assistant professor of pediatrics and the director of the informatics program at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s hospital, was awarded $40,000 by the Innovation Fund to develop a pilot program that will help streamline and automate the clinical trial process in June. “From our survey of the field, his vision seems the most holistic,” said Eric Ginsburg, assistant director
at the University of Chicago Office of Technology and Intellectual Property, in an e-mail. The Innovation Fund, run out of University of Chicago Tech, awards grants to product ideas developed at the University that would not otherwise be supported by traditional funding sources because they are too early in development. “[Volchenboum’s] system starts by capturing the necessary elements of a clinical trial through a guided process which helps automate the downstream processes,” Ginsburg said, likening the process to the tax preparation software TurboTax, which helps taxpayers fill
out tax forms usually filled out by hand, and puts the right pieces of data in the appropriate place. According to Volchenboum, the overarching problem with clinical trials is how manual the process continues to be. Currently, the greater consortium running the trial will first put a static PDF protocol on its Web site for participating sites to download, look through, and develop patient criteria and eligibility on their own terms. Each hospital has an independent Institutional Review Board (IRB) that reviews the trial and ensures it is safe for its patients according to its unique rules and
regulations. “You can imagine that the opportunities for automation are tremendous and the possibilities for mistakes are huge,” Volchenboum said. “This was the frustration that I started with and I knew there had to be a better way to do this. The main problem is that [the protocol is] living as a static document. You can’t ask this document ‘What are the drugs?’ and ‘What are the doses?’ because it’s just a PDF file.” Instead, Volchenboum said, having a database with a list of drugs, doses, timings, side-effects, labs, and so forth, would allow hosTRIALS continued on page 4
Lickerman: admin. considering Saturday health clinic LIFE FEE continued from front
for fall, winter, and spring, while the fee for graduate students is $310 per quarter. Daugherty’s presentation broke down the Student Life Fee into three major categories: Health and Wellness, which includes the Student Health and Counseling Services and the Health Promotion and Wellness Team; Student Activities, which includes RSO funding, Student Government, and campus programming; and Campus Activities, which includes 24/7 campus resources like the DeanOn-Call, Sexual Assault Dean-On-Call, and the Bias Response Team. For undergraduates, 71 percent of the fee is apportioned to Health and Wellness, 25 percent to Student Activities, and 4 percent
to Campus Activities. For graduates, 75 percent goes to Health and Wellness, 11 percent to Student Activities, 3 percent to Campus Activities, and 10 percent is given back to the individual graduate schools and divisions. ORCSA interim director Jen Kennedy stressed the importance of the Central Fund for Student Activities, which is administered by ORCSA, as a vast majority of the fund directly benefits student organizations. For the 2012-13 academic year, 82 percent of the Central Fund goes directly to student organizations, 6 percent goes to “student organization training and support,” which includes the services provided by the Student Activities Center in the Reynolds Club, 10 percent goes to campus-wide program-
ming and initiatives, such as the New York Times Collegiate Readership Program, and 2 percent goes to SG. In addition, Kennedy noted that student-run funding bodies, such as the Annual Allocations Committee, the SG Finance Committee, and the Uncommon Fund, are responsible for administering 90 percent of the money contained in the Central Fund. In the Q & A following the presentation, SG representatives voiced concerns about the availability of care at the SHS. First-year College Council Rep Timi Koyejo asked whether the SHS would consider opening up the clinic for walk-ins or expanded hours to better serve students needing prompt care.
DISSERTATION TITLE
Assistant Vice President for Student Health and Counseling Services Alex Lickerman said that allowing walk-ins would disrupt the regular appointments. However, he announced that a Saturday clinic is in the works and would likely be implemented later this academic year. Daugherty hopes students will contribute more to addressing areas which may require more funding. “One of the things that I like a lot is that it’s enormously student-informed. I don’t want to just sit in a room with ORCSA and say, ‘Look, this would be fun.’ I see an opportunity to directly ask student leaders what we should be working on. I appreciate student input because you know it. You are it. ‘I serve it.’”
Affairs Office throughout the application process. Due to the uncertainty of funding, applicants only had one month to pull together their applications. The recipients of the fellowship were announced in October.
Commons awaits third inspection before reopening CATHEY continued from front
A second inspection was carried out on Thursday, and the Department of Public Health found that the fruit fly problem from the first inspection was not adequately addressed. According to the Department of Public Health Web site, a food service location must pass a second inspection in order to continue serving food after failing a city health inspection. Cathey Dining Commons did not pass the second inspection. Although the Department of Public Health would have had the discretion to order the closure of the facility, the agency only required that food not be prepared on site. Rather than keep the facility open during the cleaning required to address the problem, the University elected to close it to take more extensive measures to address the violations, according to University spokesperson Jeremy Manier. Yesterday evening, at a SG meeting regarding the Student Life Fee, Elly Daugherty, assistant vice president for student life and associate dean of the College, addressed the closing of the dining hall. “It will be a couple of days. We didn’t have to close it down, but we thought it would be a good idea,” she said. In an e-mail to affected students, Richard Mason, the executive director of UChicago Dining, said that the dining area was closed in order to allow for more extensive fumigation. The University expects a third inspection will occur sometime next week. The cause of multiple cases of student illness in the days before Thanksgiving break, at
one time suspected to be food poisoning, has been confirmed as a norovirus and is unrelated to the dining halls, according to a FAQ released by UChicago Dining. The approximately 1,300 students who have a house table in Cathey Dining Commons—residents of South Campus Residence Hall, Breckinridge Hall, BurtonJudson (B-J) Courts, I-House, and New Graduate Residence Hall—will be reimbursed with 100 Maroon Dollars for the inconvenience, regardless of their dining plan. The unlimited plan starts with 100 Maroon dollars, the Phoenix plan starts with 150, the Apartment plan starts with 200, and the I-House meal plan starts with 500. Students can spend Maroon Dollars at various campus dining locations, including Midway Market on the ground floor of South Campus Residence Hall. Bartlett, Pierce, and Hutchinson Commons will have extended dining hours to accommodate residents as long as Cathey remains closed. In 2004, Burton-Judson Dining Commons was closed due to health code violations. The dining hall was closed for approximately six days in order to remedy general unsanitary practices, such as broken sneeze guards, mouse feces in the kitchen, and dirty mop water. During that instance, B-J cooked prepared food in Pierce and sent it over to the dorm. About 500 students had B-J as their home dining hall at the time. —Additional reporting by Marina Fang, Raghav Verma, and Sam Levine
THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | November 30, 2012
4
U.S. Rep. Jackson resigns, South Siders to pick new rep. in special election Lina Li Senior News Staff After 17 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) resigned his seat on November 21 due to health problems. A primary election for Jackson’s replacement in Illinois’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes parts of the South Side, including a portion of Hyde Park, as well as the south suburbs of Chicago, will be held in April. On Monday Governor Pat Quinn announced that the election would be held in February but the state senate voted to postpone it yesterday. In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Jackson cited his deteriorating health as the primary reason for resignation. “My health issues and treatment regimen have become incompatible with
Leader and represents Hyde Park in the Illinois General Assembly, said that the race to replace Jackson will be “competitive and hard-fought.” “There are people who are in [and] out of politics all the time...and I suspect the voters will elect someone who stands for the same sorts of things he stood for,” Currie said. Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston echoed Currie, predicting that it would be a “very spirited campaign.” Among potential candidates for Jackson’s vacancy is 4th Ward Alderman Will Burns (A.B. ’95, A.M. ’98), who declined to comment on Jackson’s resignation. As of now, neither the UC Dems nor the College Republicans have plans to become involved in the reelection, though Dems President, fourth-year Stephen Lurie, noted that the special election “reflects some of the most characteristic, and
service in the House of Representatives,” Jackson wrote. In June, Jackson was hospitalized for a month for depression treatment and has had an ongoing struggle with bipolar disorder. Jackson also acknowledged that he was “aware of the ongoing federal investigation” concerning his possible misuse of campaign funds. Jackson has been the subject of a House ethics investigation after a 2008 alleged bribe offered by a Jackson supporter to former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to entice Blagojevich to offer Jackson President Obama’s former Senate seat. On Saturday, Jackson’s supporters, including Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), met at his family’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition in Kenwood. Barbara Flynn Currie (A.B. ’68, M.A. ’73), who is the Democratic Majority
Harper Court to provide bike sharing for employees retail and office employees. That program will complement the city’s public bike sharing program, set to launch next year. Dillion said that in addition to bringing back the farmer’s market that used to be held in the area, the open space in the development will be available for concerts, art events, and other community activities. Residents who participated in workshops to shape the development of 53rd Street expressed a desire for sustainable buildings in a “walkable urban environment,” Dillion said. “Part of the reason that we scored so highly [on the LEED rating ] is that we’re already in the middle of a great urban neighborhood,” he said.
HARPER continued from front
provide both retail and office space, is now 90.4 percent leased, the University reported last month. The sustainability of the development, which does not include the Borders building, also earned a gold LEED for Neighborhood Development rating from the U.S. Green Business Council earlier this month, making it the highest ranked project in its category in Illinois. According to Christopher Dillion, managing director of Vermillion Development which is working on the project, Harper Court will encourage alternative means of transportation, providing a bike sharing program specifically for Harper Court
Weekly Crime Report
By Rebecca Guterman
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. Here are this week’s notables:
Since Sept. 24
Nov. 15 Nov. 30
11
1
Robbery
0
0
Attempted robbery
5
0
Battery
14
4
Burglary
0
0
Criminal trespass to vehicle
11
2
Damage to property
200
39
Other report
2
0
Simple assault
103
16
Theft
» November 19, 5118 South Dorchester Avenue, various times—Between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m., an unknown person gained entry to the graduate student apartments by prying open the door to the front hallway and took a laptop. Between 10:30 a.m. and 12 p.m., an unknown person took the metal key box from the wall in the lobby of the same building. » November 25, 1401 East 55th Street, 1:50 p.m.—As he was exiting a CTA bus, an unknown male took an iPhone out of a passenger’s hands.
Type of Crime
1
1
Trespass to property
32
5
Arrest
S. Hyde Park
Blackstone
University
59th 60th
62nd
Cornell
57th
Stony Island
Cottage Grove
Source: UCPD Incident Reports
55th
S. Lake Shore
Ellis 51st 53rd
» November 28, Cobb Hall, 10:38 a.m.—An unknown person activated a fire alarm pull box on the second floor. The Chicago Fire Department responded but found no evidence of fire or smoke.
Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned from Congress due to health issues and ongoing federal investigation into possible financial misconduct. COURTESY OF US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Israeli prof. speaks to importance of literature for cultural empathy Jon Catlin Senior News Staff Just over a week after Israel agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas, Israeli author Ronit Matalon spoke on the importance of narratives from minority communities such as immigrants as a counter to Israeli nationalism. Matalon, a professor of literature at the University of Haifa, has written eight novels and received the Bernstein Prize for Hebrew literature for her 2008 novel The Sound of Our Steps, a novel about immigrants in Israel based largely on her own experience. Half Jewish and half Eg yptian, Matalon spent her childhood frequently moving with her family between Israel, Western Europe, and Cairo. Rather than disrupting her sense of identity, Matalon prized this destabilizing experience for giving her a hybrid national identity that led to her “double awareness” of marginalized groups within Israel. Matalon’s knowledge of both Hebrew and Arabic heightened her sensitivity to “the others” in Israeli society, namely immigrants. As a writer, she said that she was bound “by the limitations of the other, in whose territory imagination takes place.” In her own writing, Matalon said that she tries to keep phrases in the original foreign languages of her characters to preserve the barriers that language constitutes for immigrants. “Otherwise, it would not be honest,” she
said. “You are the language you speak.” “Imagining the other who is not me is the essence of political identity…a withdrawing, an inner emigration, is necessary to understand the familiar,” she said. She described her own writing as “Examining the ‘there’ of immigrant communities to better grasp the ‘here’ of Israel.” Particularly in light of a history of Israeli-Arab conflict, she has come to understand her identity as inherently conflicted. “Identity is never total…it always carries the potential for change. This totally contradicts the Zionist idea of ‘one national Jewish identity,’ which expels anything Arab,” she said. “I know one home of power, a fortress,” she said, referring to Israeli national identity. “But I prefer a home as a process.” Matalon regretted that the forced assimilation that has occurred under Israeli nationalism has not allowed clear immigrant identities to crystallize. She called out mistreatment of Palestinian refugees as outsiders as “a denial of Israel’s own former refugee status” as a young nation. “Israeli nationalists have erased this memory,” she said. Navigating this identity, Matalon preferred literature to politics and confrontation. “The truth lies between history and invention, between fact and non-fact,” she said. “Only literature is delicate enough to occupy the space in between.” The talk was the fourth annual Horvitz lecture and was sponsored by the Chicago Center for Jewish Studies.
Without central database, trials prone to redundancies
47th
» November 26, Henry Crown Field House, 6:30 p.m.—An unknown person took three cell phones and credit cards that were left unattended.
changing, facets of Chicago politics.” “The fact that Mel Reynolds—previously convicted of multiple felony charges—has announced his candidacy for the open spot won’t surprise cynics of Chicago politics. Yet, the fact that the majority of candidates announced are from the suburbs instead of the city marks the possibility that Chicago politics could become even less ‘Chicago,’” he said. Jackson replaced Reynolds in Congress nearly two decades ago after Reynolds was convicted of statutory rape while in office. University Vice President for Civic Engagement Derek Douglas said that the University would continue to work closely with elected officials in Washington. “We have good relationships with all of Illinois’s congressional delegation, and we will continue to work with them on issues that affect the University,” he said.
*Locations of reports approximate
TRIALS continued from 3
pitals to automatically generate a protocol for carrying out the trial. Such a database would eliminate unnecessary and redundant paperwork, as well as minimize manual data input to and extraction from the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. Unfortunately, there is no universal EMR. According to Volchenboum, there are 70 EMR companies, five of which control 80 percent of the market. One problem that Volchenboum foresees as he moves forward in developing this pilot program is finding a way to work effectively with the EMRs. “Most of the time the EMRs are basically these ivory towers,” he said. “You might be able to pull data out, but you really can’t get anything in right now. The idea of sending a set of labs and orders into an EMR and
have it read and then do something with it is something that we’re still not good at.” However, that could soon change. According to Volchenboum, due to the Affordable Care Act, the government will start requiring a certain amount of interoperability within the EMR systems. But due to the inherent differences in every hospital’s IRB and individual protocol, developing a universal generator poses another set of challenges. That being said, in building the system, “what I want to do is use those protocols that we started here but then work with these hospitals to see what is idiosyncratic about their system and try to build something that works everywhere,” Volchenboum said. “The whole point of doing it this way is to create something that’s agnostic to the institution.”
THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | November 30, 2012
5
No centralized source for sexual assault data creates imperfect picture of pervasiveness ASSAULT continued from front
An emphasis of the Clery Act is that reports be collected from campus bodies beyond the police, in part because of an acknowledged trend against official reporting of crimes like sexual assault. All reports are submitted without identifying the victim or perpetrator. Reports for the count are solicited from those designated as Campus Security Authorities (CSA), individuals with a large responsibility for the student body. UChicago designates figures including Deans-on-Call, advisers, Resident Heads, and coaches as Campus Security Authorities. According to University spokesperson Jeremy Manier, the University solicits reports from its Campus Security Authorities on, at minimum, a quarterly basis. Before inclusion in the annual Clery report, the CSA-submitted reports are crosschecked against UCPD reports by the Office of Legal Counsel to avoid duplications. The Act acknowledges the tension between obligations to the public and obligations to victims. It specifically notes that some individuals—pastoral and professional counselors—have counselor privilege, which excludes them from reporting requirements in order to protect patients. At UChicago, Student Counseling Services (SCS) has counselor privilege. However, according to Associate Director for Education and Outreach Dana Regett, SCS does keep a count of those patients that report sexual offenses, but this count does not distinguish between those who were assaulted during their time at the University or in the past. “We do keep some attempt at numbers of different
problem areas presenting problems that people come in for...but sexual violence is a huge category—it might include something that happened to a graduate student when she was an undergraduate at another place or incest. We don’t break that down.” The Clery Act sets out geographical subcategories for reporting crimes, which include residence halls and other campus property, as well as public property directly adjacent to campus. The University’s count also includes those crimes which take place in fraternity houses. The Act does not mandate inclusion of those crimes which take place on nonUniversity private property. As such, sexual assaults that take place in student apartments, which house over 50 percent of the University student body, are excluded from the official Clery tally. However, the Daily Crime Log, which is also mandated by the Clery Act, includes all crimes reported to the UCPD, including those that take place in private residences within the UCPD patrol area, which spans from East 39th to 64th Streets and South Cottage Grove Avenue to South Lake Shore Drive/Stony Island Avenue. The Violent Crime Report, which is voluntarily compiled by the UCPD, includes off-campus reports, presented as averages over the past five years. The Violent Crime Report records only those crimes reported to the UCPD or Chicago Police Department, not those reported to other campus bodies, such as Campus Security Authorities. In 2009, nine reports of sex offenses were reported in the Daily Crime Logs, while the Clery report submitted to
the Department of Education records five. In 2010, the Crime Logs record six offenses while the Clery report logs four. In 2011, the statistics are six and three, respectively. The different totals may in part be explained by the different purviews of each report. The Daily Crime Log and the annual Clery report span different areas and come from different sources. The Clery Act count includes assaults reported to bodies other than the campus police force, and omits those crimes that occurred off-campus. Asked about the effectiveness of a reportingrubricthatexcludessexualassaults that take place in off-campus residences, Lynch cited a previous employer. “At Vanderbilt, 98 percent of the undergraduates resided on campus...that information to them is relevant, because that’s where they live, that’s where they’re in all day, and that’s different. Here, it’s the exact opposite. About 47 percent reside on campus. So the very nature of it is, the impact would be more for the larger on-campus population.” There is no single report that amalgamates those crimes which occur off campus, those crimes reported to the UCPD and CPD, and those crimes reported to non-police Campus Security Authorities. Awareness is hindered by such compartmentalized statistical representations, but also hurt by a low tendency to report sexual assault crime, a weakness of which Lynch is particularly cognizant. “Based on the fact that sexual assault doesn’t always get reported, or is the least likely to be reported, it’s hard to say that we’re giving a true or accurate depiction
REPORTED SEX OFFENSES The two counts use different designations, geographical boundaries, and sources, so some overlap is possible. The majority of sexual assaults are not reported.
9
FORCIBLE SEX OFFENSES AS REPORTED UNDER THE CLERY ACT
SEX CRIMES REPORTED TO UCPD 9 8
8 7
7
6
6
5
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
0
0
2009
2010
2011
2009
2010
2011
Forcible Sex Offenses are defined as “any sexual act directed against another person, forcibly and/or against that person’s will; or not forcibly or against the person’s will where the victim is incapable of giving consent.” The Clery Act count includes attempted and completed crimes committed in those areas owned by the University, or public property adjacent to the University. The count includes reports from all Campus Security Authorities.
Many types of sex crimes, including criminal sexual abuse and assault are reported in the Daily Crime Log under a variety of designations, all reporting to University of Chicago Police Department, whose patrol area includes the area between East 39th and 64th Streets and South Cottage Grove Avenue to Lake Shore Drive/Stony Island Avenue.
of what is actually going on around sexual assault on campus,” Lynch said. At the same time, Lynch affirmed the goal of awareness that drives statistics publication. “As a member of this community, you have the right to know what’s going on.”
as thorough knowledge as possible of all aspects of this issue. If you have information on the history of the University of Chicago’s policies in regard to sexual assault, or if you or someone you know has experiences relating to sexual assault and/or subsequent hearings, please contact us at hannah. nyhart@gmail.com or joycrane7@gmail. com.
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VIEWPOINTS
Editorial & Op-Ed NOVEMBER 30, 2012
Moving on to a new chapter The Seminary Co-op’s relocation is a chance to build new community spaces
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 BELLA WU Head Designer KEVIN WANG Online Editor ALICE BLACKWOOD Head Copy Editor DON HO Head Copy Editor BEN ZIGTERMAN Head Copy Editor
Last week, the Seminary Co-op Bookstore officially opened in its new location, at 5751 South Woodlawn Avenue. The move from the former Chicago Theological Seminary—slated to reopen as the University’s Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics—brings to an end a half-century of prominence for one of the most beloved and storied basements in America. Picking up books for classes, sadly, will never be quite the same. Yet, even as we mourn for the labyrinth of yesteryear, we hope for a bright future for both the Co-op and the building it once called home. Most readers of this paper don’t need to be told why the Sem Co-op holds such a special place in the collective imagination of this University and this neighborhood. Its maze-like stacks were legendary for encouraging wandering and serendipitous discovery; its front table was always a good bet for finding a new and exciting volume. With over 120,000 titles in the humanities and social sciences alone,
it’s hard to question its reputation as one of the best academic bookstores in the world. And between its helpful staff and cooperative ownership, which over the years has included thousands of students, faculty, and staff, it has engendered a sense of community that few shops can match. Many of the faces at the new store, of course, will be the same. More than 50,000 people worldwide will continue to be proud stockholders. Yet, nice as the Woodlawn space is, with its ample natural light and warm wooden shelving, much of the magic, inevitably, has been lost. We’ll never have our favorite literary cave back. But that doesn’t mean the new Co-op has to be just another bookstore. The new location has almost 10,000 square feet of floor space, more than double the old location’s 4,000. We hope the managers utilize this advantage, as well as the store’s inviting ground-level spot on a bustling street, to enhance the store’s already considerable pres-
tige. We like the fact that the new location will have reading areas and a café; these should be used as a means to engage the neighborhood. The management has already announced plans to host author talks, but it should consider holding social events, such as open mic nights, book clubs, and other community gatherings, to help ensure that the Co-op continues to be a cornerstone of Hyde Park. The former Theological Seminary building likewise presents a chance to open a space to a wider audience. Although most UChicago students knew its basement well, fewer have explored the spectacular rooms, cloisters, and corridors of the rest of the building. It would be a shame if only econ students and Becker Friedman staff got to enjoy them. Along these lines, we urge the University to create common spaces, such as reading rooms, so that all may benefit from the newest addition to campus. It would also be particularly un-
fortunate if the building lost its original splendor. Preservation Chicago put the building on its “7 Most Threatened” list in 2011 thanks largely to the removal of several priceless stained-glass windows. While doing renovations, the University should diligently protect the Seminary’s aesthetic and historic heritage. If possible, it should restore the windows; this community is mature enough to contextualize the religious iconography that prompted their removal. Change, as per usual, is not easy. This move, in particular, is a difficult loss; a piece of our shared history is gone. That being said, we hope that all involved—the Seminary Co-op, the University, and all those who call this place home—work to make these new and renovated spaces just as valuable to future generations as the old Co-op was to us.
The Editorial Board consists of the Editors-in-Chief and the Viewpoints Editors.
JAMIE MANLEY Photo Editor
BEN POKROSS Assoc. News Editor
Looking for context clues
MADHU SRIKANTHA Assoc. News Editor
In tutoring and elsewhere, an explanation—no matter how difficult—is necessary despite easier ways out
SYDNEY COMBS Photo Editor JOY CRANE Assoc. News Editor MARINA FANG Assoc. News Editor
JENNIFER STANDISH Assoc. News Editor ALICE BUCKNELL Assoc. Arts Editor SARAH LANGS Assoc. Sports Editor JAKE WALERIUS Assoc. Sports Editor JULIA REINITZ Assoc. Photo Editor
TYRONALD JORDAN Business Manager VIVIAN HUA Undergraduate Business Executive TAMER BARSBAY Director of Business Research QUERIDA Y. QIU External Director of Marketing IVY ZHANG Internal Director of Marketing VINCENT MCGILL Delivery Coordinator HYEONG-SUN CHO Designer CHELSEA FINE Designer ANDREW GREEN Designer SNEHA KASUGANTI Designer JANEY LEE Designer NICHOLAS ROUSE Designer CATIE ARBONA Copy Editor KEN ARMSTRONG Copy Editor AMISHI BAJAJ Copy Editor MARTIA BRADLEY Copy Editor SHANICE CASIMIRO Copy Editor CONNOR CUNNINGHAM Copy Editor
By Ajay Batra Viewpoints Editor “Read that word right there again for me,” I said, pointing to the page before us. “Skill? No, scale.” “Scale. OK, cool. Can you tell me what that means?” “Scale... ohhh, I know. A scale is that thing where it tells you how much you weigh.” The first grader whose science homework I
was helping her with sprang that one on me out of nowhere. “Ha! Well, you are right,” I said. “Good job! But scale can mean a few different things. Can you tell me what it means in this context?” (The blankest stare.) “What in what? Why?” “Uh, what I mean is, like, the words here—like around here... around scale, the words around it—they make it mean something else. So, uh... uh, yeah, like, because, there are other words and—you know ?—around scale, there are other words on the page, here, and they make it mean another thing, but what you said is right, but, like, here, the stuff around it is context... and that
makes it... another one. Another meaning, I mean.”
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When she returned, Mott’s in hand, I took a different approach to the problem.
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(An impossibly blanker stare.) “So, uh... if you look at the context, which is here (*waving hand in every direction at once several inches above the page*) can you tell me what scale means here?”
“...I’ll be right back. I’m getting applesauce.” I know it was painful for you to read that. But, brave reader, you will never fully appreciate how awful it was to hear myself stumble through that “explanation” of the concept of context— not to mention how awful it must’ve been for my student, who just wanted a little help with her reading. When she returned, Mott’s in hand, I took a different approach to the problem. Namely, I opted not to stupidly soldier on through what would undoubtedly have been a sweat and stutter–filled pragmatics lecture just to teach her that a scale is a glorified numCONTEXT continued on page 7
LISA FAN Copy Editor ALAN HASSLER Copy Editor SHERRY HE Copy Editor NISHANTH IYENGAR Copy Editor CECILIA JIANG Copy Editor MICHELLE LEE Copy Editor
A more just dialogue Op-ed by Students for Justice in Palestine perpetuates radicalization of Israel-Palestine debate
JONAH RABB Copy Editor LINDSEY SIMON 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 Stephen Lurie Viewpoints Contributor In a November 27 Viewpoints contribution (“Students must work for justice in Palestine), three of my peers put forth a moving argument for student activism in support of Gaza and in opposition to what they call “Israeli Occupation.” I commend them for contributing to campus discourse on an issue that is important to many of us. Yet, just like past submissions from both “sides” of the debate, the piece is more likely to be counterproductive to efforts to change the status quo rather than inspirational to efforts for justice. As both a Jew who supports Israel, and a liberal who demands respect for human rights, I write from a po-
sition that is often at odds with Israeli policy—particularly as it relates to Gaza. Yet, despite my personal alienation from the substance of statements provided by the op-ed’s authors (as well as their pro-Israel counterparts), I am not ambivalent to the manner in which they present their claims. In short, the type of case presented by Tineh, Haseeb, and Kishawi is not sympathetic to the notion of fair representation for both sides of the conflict and thus displays a tendency that lessens the likelihood of justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. While the authors rail against the “entrenched system of oppression and injustice that is perpetuated by skewed information and unyielding material support” as it relates to U.S.-
Israel relations, we ought to consider this claim in the context of the debate itself. How often are accounts backed by “skewed information?” This piece, like so many accounts, chooses its facts selectively and skews perception accordingly. To give a face and context to the 13-year old boy killed by Israelis but leaving dead Israelis as nothing more than a number; to speak of “indiscriminate attacks” as an Israeli creation but never once mention the word Hamas; to speak of Israeli society and American support as unwaveringly unitary and to disregard those who stand against Netanyahu and Neo-Con control: None of these presentations give just credence to the intricacies of the Middle East. Even as the authors criticize those
“refusing to mention” essential facts, they too refuse to recognize the very legitimate concerns of Israelis, as well as any counterevidence suggesting there is no existential threat posed to Palestine and Israel that will no doubt be presented in an equally one-sided op-ed in another newspaper. Just as those “few in number” at the University “who have experienced firsthand the destructive humanitarian impact of Israel’s siege” deserve consideration, so too do other minority (and moderate) views merit inclusion in a discourse that the authors seem to radicalize. My peers have called for student action that supports a weaker voice (Gazans), but their one-sided presentation of this case will simply JUSTICE continued on page 7
THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | November 30, 2012
7
Putting an end to the madness Avoiding self-inflicted finals-week stress is as easy as following these few simple pieces of advice is crucial. The exams and papers we write will ultimately determine what kinds of opportunities are available to us, and this is a stressful, even frightening concept. But seeing that girl have a small, immensely powerful breakdown triggered only one question in my mind: Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we subject ourselves to this kind of agony 12 times over the By Taylor Schwimmer Viewpoints Columnist As the quarter draws to a close, University of Chicago students almost uniformly scramble to complete papers, cobble together solutions to problem sets, and madly cram for exams. Our collective anxiety starts to manifest itself, and things start to get weird. Yesterday, I nearly tripped over a girl who abruptly halted in the middle of the sidewalk. As I dodged her and kept walking, she buried her face in her hands. Had she forgotten to submit some critical assignment? Was she suffering from a stress-induced migraine? Perhaps she was simply having a pre-reading period existential crisis. Whatever the cause of her behavior, it was clear that she was in distress. In fact, much of our student body appears distressed; I have observed a trend of discontent and general malaise. But, to be honest, this is neither unexpected nor unusual. Such a collective sentiment is found at college campuses around the country and is in no way unique. Nor is it unjustified. Many of us want to go on to graduate or professional school or the private sector, and in all cases GPA
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We put ourselves in an extreme position in which we only have two options: Complete an assignment or fail to submit it at all.
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course of our education here? The obvious answer is what I’ve already said: We want to get into good law schools, graduate departments, investment banks and what have you. After some reflection, however, this isn’t really the answer to the question I’m asking. We want to get into these programs, so we chose to attend a top academic institution, filled our resumes with extra-curricular activities, and worked diligently. But the anxiety, stress, and fear we feel do not further our goals at all. In fact, they often stand in the way of our goals by causing us to lose hope or feel helpless. The question still stands: What good does it do us to stress about our exams and
Leaving questions unanswered lets history repeat itself CONTEXT continued from page 6 ber line. Instead, I just made sure she understood what the hell the Mohs hardness scale is. And in doing so, I did manage to get across a simpler, more effective version of my point about context affecting our understanding (of one word, at least). Most of the time, I’m a decent tutor (honest!), but I have more than once run into the problem typified here—that of explaining outwardly simple things to children. That said, it’s a problem that I can always get around. It’s one of those difficulties in life that seem to arise just frequently enough and with an express purpose to remind us that it is, in fact, one of life’s funny little mysteries. But once that’s out of the way, there’s an obvious means of resolving the issues made plain by the inverse proportionality of intuitiveness and explicability. That solution is to try. This could entail employing a different approach, starting with a different concept, or just making more of an effort, but regardless of the form, in my experience, trying always works. Really, the only way you can really do wrong in such a situation, one that everyone—from other students to working adults to parents to Housing administrators—faces at one point is to not try; to not offer any explanation when one (or at least a wholehearted attempt at one) is clearly owed. It’s a particularly disappointing blunder. For an illustration of why it’s so disappointing, consider a few possible responses to our first-grader’s confusion at my initial word vomit. I could very well have said: “Well, I’m sorry if you feel that way. I don’t have an explanation, but anyway, why don’t I just finish your homework for you?” Or: “Well, I’m sorry if you feel that way. I don’t have an explanation, but anyway, since I know this isn’t ideal, I’m planning on moving you to another, much nicer after-school program nearby where you can finish your homework just the same as you do here. It was built for older kids!” Or even: “Well, I’m sorry if you feel that
way. I don’t have an explanation, but anyway, I can offer you $500 redeemable for Mott’s applesauce or Snyder’s pretzels, or at the Seminary Co-op.” In all of these cases, our student seems to get a pretty sweet deal: a new place to go after school; a ton of money to spend on books or on other, more fun things; and, at last, some closure over the whole homework situation. There’s no arguing that, and her homework has to get done somehow anyway. However, the lack of any kind of explanation from me regarding what’s really going on in the homework has to be concerning. After all, does it reflect well on me as a tutor—as a leader, and as a person to be trusted—when I neglect to try as hard as I can to explain “context” to my student? After all, if I can’t even illustrate context— the background which gives rise to a certain situation—it’ll make the student wonder if I understand it myself. At the very least, I’d appear disinterested, like the kind of impersonal and interchangeable tutor who could go off and start volunteering at another after-school program the following week—like I’m not accountable. Moreover, and most importantly, if context remains unexplained, what’s to say the same problem won’t arise again later? The after-school program is bigger than me and will continue beyond me. If I can’t make clear to everyone involved in it that I understand the “context” which gave rise to the issue to begin with and that we mustn’t forget it, then I am giving no thought to the program’s future, and no indication that I really care about it or feel that the students are a part of it. In that sense, quite frankly, I’d be unworthy of my position. But like I said: All that anybody, in any position, must do to avoid all this is try to explain everything in his or her capacity to anyone owed an explanation, no matter how difficult or revealing it is to do so, and no matter how piercing the question. Ajay Batra is a second-year in the College majoring in English.
grades so much? I believe there is no satisfactory answer. It’s clear that fretting about things outside our control is a pointless exercise. It’s like planning your next chess move after you’ve been checkmated. However, I’d say that worrying about things under our control is equally pointless. Clearly, I am in the minority; if more students felt the same way the phenomenon I am discussing would not exist. I take this contrarian viewpoint for the reasons I mentioned above: In almost no case does worrying increase your chance of success or allow you to feel better. It simply doesn’t add anything to your life. With this in mind, here are a few suggestions I want to extend to my readers as we mentally prepare ourselves for the final sprint: Move on from past mistakes. We’ve all been in situations where we realize that we could have reviewed the reading more closely and done much better on a test or an essay. We often feel guilt or shame that we didn’t do something that seems so obvious in hindsight. These kinds of feelings may very well be true, but my #1 piece of advice is to ignore them for the time being. This is a clear example of worrying that won’t do anything for you in the short term. Accepting that it is impossible to change your past actions can only make you better off when that next midterm rolls around. Realize that grades mean different things to different people. You know that each professor has his or her own style of grading, but it’s also important to be cognizant of the fact that professors have very different conceptions
of what those grades mean. Some professors believe that a “good” performance in a class is represented by a B+, whereas others believe that same level of performance to merit an A. Very few (if any) professors think about the importance of their student’s grade in the larger context of their student’s goals. This can be frustrating, but ultimately it’s a good thing; it ensures that your grade is based on a true assessment of your performance in the class. Be motivated by accomplishment, not fear. Often, we budget only the bare minimum of time required for projects. We put ourselves in an extreme position in which we only have two options: Complete a whole assignment or fail to submit it at all. We’re motivated to work purely because if we don’t, we fail. Creating situations in which you rely on pressure to succeed is counterproductive: To treat the mere completion of an assignment as the ultimate goal of an undertaking it is to forget that achieving quality should be your foremost goal. Being motivated by fear and the pressures of time is therefore doubly stressful, as it also increases the likelihood that you’ll dwell on the low quality of your past work. Perhaps these thoughts and suggestions are a little trite but I think they’re worth considering. They can, after all, only make your life better. And I’m sorry if I’ve come off a little preachy, but if the pervasive discontent of our campus is anything to go by, I know I’m not preaching to the choir. Taylor Schwimmer is a third-year in the College majoring in public policy studies.
Campus should embrace balanced political discussion JUSTICE continued from page 6 embolden the strongest voices, left and right, toward their respective ends. My strongest proIsrael friends will have read their editorial and cast it aside as just another case of anti-Israeli
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Affecting the way our future thought leaders engage on Israel and Palestine could have a real impact on political agreement down the line.
”
vitriol, and move farther from engaging in the discourse. Friends who most ardently support the Palestinians will hear, yet again, the case they already support and will be reenergized against a campaign viewed as “beating the Palestinian people into submission.” Just like professional partisans read on a much wider scale, the work of Tineh, Haseeb, and Kishawi will not provide for the collaboration essential for “justice”—it will foster more discord. If we are to truly “engage our campuses and communities” in a way that authentically “raise[s] awareness,” our own pundits must consider it their responsibility to provide for a constructive and balanced discourse. Unfortunately, the submission made earlier this week did not do so. Part of the authors’ argument is that we have a unique opportunity as students at the University of Chicago to pressure our institution to the end of “a resolute and just end to the occupation of Palestine.” Instead, I suggest, as students at an institution uniquely committed to rigorous and just intellectual debate there is a larger opportunity at stake as well. On this campus we need to be committed to justice in dialogue if we want justice in politics, and we have a greater opportunity than the cynics and alienators outside our realm to make that commitment. Changing our stance to include, instead of exclude, the possibility of a moderate and compromise-ready environment is possible on this campus. Who knows? Perhaps affecting the way our future thought-
leaders engage on Israel and Palestine could have a real impact on political agreement down the line. If nothing else, though, those like me, who support Israel’s existence and human rights for the Palestinian people, will find our own contribution to the discourse met by open ears and minds, rather than left in a middle vacated by a more and more polarized campus. Particularly on the heels of a UN vote bound to further entrench ideologues, the need to build a collaborative discourse is both pressing and accessible to many on campus. For those here that are largely in charge of our Middle Eastern debate, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, Chicago Friends of Israel, and the relatively new J-Street chapter, the onus is on you to work for justice in dialogue as an essential component to justice in Palestine and Israel. Stephen Lurie is a fourth-year in the College majoring in political science.
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 NOVEMBER 30, 2012
Hot off the University of Chicago Press Arts editors and staff review books that have recently been published or distributed by the UChicago Press It becomes clear on page 40, when Neil Steinberg opts for a Jay-Z-style definition of Chicago—“a state of mind”—that the payoff over the next 200 pages might not be great. Of course, that depends on what exactly we are looking for. There are certain questions, as Steinberg points out (like whether or not Chicago is truly a “second city”) that are answered by the fact that they need to be asked at all. Steinberg’s seventh book, You Were Never in Chicago, is his attempt to answer some of these questions: What is the real Chicago? What makes someone a true Chicagoan? It is also his attempt to weave his personal story with the story of the city he loves, not unlike Nelson Algren and Saul Bellow before him. The title is pulled from the paradigmatic response given to A.J. Liebling after the publication of his infamous “Second City” essay in The New Yorker in 1952. Unfortunately, Liebling had in fact been to Chicago— he’d lived here for a year while researching the essay. It’s exactly that “you-wouldn’t-say-something-like-thatif-you-were-from-these-parts” brand of provincialism that Steinberg struggles with throughout the book: Who is from here in the way that counts? Even Rahm confronted grumbles that his 18-month stay in Washington was enough to revoke his claim to being a Chicagoan. Steinberg traces the history of the city
from its strategic and serendipitous founding and early growth as a trading post and canoe-crossing, and continues on through the waves of immigrants fighting for acceptance and then turning their backs on the next wave once they got it. He seems to think he faced the same problem when he emigrated from suburban Ohio to study journalism at Northwestern. Steinberg began writing a column for the Sun-Times in 1996 after 12 years of News and Features writing for the paper, and the stories, details, and connections he has picked up along the way make up the majority of the book. Though at times we get more Steinberg than Chicago, the idea is clearly to take them together, to follow him through nights of fingerless gloves, when he would prowl Lower Wacker Drive interviewing prostitutes and narrating the births of “crack babies.” Or when he worked the night shift on the paper’s city desk, started his column, snuck onto Wrigley Field, toured the labyrinth of water tunnels under the city, became a prolific obituary writer, took lunches with Dick Durbin, and met a man who has driven just about everyone in Chicago, from the Pope to Barack Obama. We also endure the occasional peppering of witticisms that feel more like boasts. (The first time he met his future wife, a philosophy student, he asked if she’d read Sartre’s Nausea. When she said no, he replied, “Then you’re not studying philosophy.”)
Though we learn a good deal of Chicago history, and more than enough facts to float across a few shallow conversations—did you know the clustered globe lights on Michigan Avenue are technically called “Boulevard Electroliers,” in an attempt to import a little je ne sais quoi from Belle Époque Paris?—Steinberg saves his energy for the slightly forced moral crisis of the book. His brother, whose career and life events flit in and out of the book to shift its themes and color our view of the city, hits a low and needs help. Steinberg can help—he’s a successful columnist and knows a lot of influential people. But to call in favors is unethical, right? Yes. And Steinberg knows that, right? Absolutely. Does he do it? Of course. Steinberg deserves credit for owning his sins; he does so repeatedly throughout the book. But his unforgivable sin, which occupies most of the last third of the book, is that he tries to justify the culture of cronyism, favoritism, graft, and you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-buyyou-an-election attitude that prevails in Chicago. Getting his brother a job is almost not worth mentioning outside of illustrating a major leitmotif in the book: “Nobody lives in Chicago alone. It is all a web of relationships and interactions, loyalties and grudges.” We can all agree with that. So why doesn’t he stop there? Perhaps he wants so badly to walk in step with the city that he is willing to tie his PRESS continued on page 9
Steinberg’s first-hand account of the Second City is often third-rate. COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Concert preview: Caravan of Thieves discusses fiery reputation Lily Gordon Arts Staff On Tuesday, Connecticut-based swing-pop-folksters Caravan of Thieves will perform for their third time at Schubas in Lakeview. The quartet, led by Fuzz Sangiovanni and his wife Carrie Sangiovanni (guitar, vocals, percussive “instruments”), features Ben Dean on violin and Brian Anderson on double bass. The band, formed in 2008, is touring to promote its 2012 album The Funhouse. The playful CD features junk appliances played percussively, resonator guitars, banjos, and ukuleles. The Chicago Maroon caught Fuzz and Carrie while they were on the road to Cleveland for a gig. The couple discussed freakiness, Django Reinhardt, and their environmental values.
CARAVAN OF THIEVES Schubas Tavern December 4, 8 p.m.
Chicago Maroon: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn’t yet heard it? Fuzz Sangiovanni: Django Reinhardt meets The Beatles at Tim Burton’s house. It’s a combination of ’50s music, swing music, folk music, pop music, with a little classic and theatrical blended in. We try to put on a fun, entertaining show that the audience can get involved in. CM: How did you hook up with
Tarquin Recording Studios [which has worked with artists like The Swell Season, Interpol, and The National], where you recorded The Funhouse? Carrie Sangiovanni: It’s in our neighborhood [in Connecticut], first of all. But we also had a lot of recommendations from artists in the area who said, “You guys would really make a great fit together.” When we got together for the first time and described what we had envisioned for the project they seemed really excited to try to branch out and do something new and experimental with us. It seemed like a very convenient but also good fit. CM: You use the word “freak” a lot on your website. Do you think everyone is a freak? FS: We have a song called “Freaks.” That’s how it started. CS: When we started this project we were trying to create music that was new and fresh. People would at first look at us in bewilderment—like, “What… what is this? What is this music?” We felt kind of like freaks in our own right. We invite all of the people who have a little bit of freakiness inside them to have fun and let it out—we want to build a community of freaks. Even though “freak” may imply that you’re isolated and different, it’s more like we’re different and unique, but we’re all that way together so we should enjoy it and have fun with it. CM: What is a “Caravan of Thieves” to you? Where does this name come from? What do you steal? FS: When we were starting the band,
Caravan of Thieves band members, from left to right: upright bassist Brian Anderson, singer/guitarists Carrie and Fuzz Sangiovanni, and violinist Ben Dean. COURTESY OF MICHAEL BROSILOW
Carrie and I were working together as a duo. We were in the process of listening to jazz music, thinking about the music, and reading about the music. I was reading a biography on Django Reinhardt, and his early years leading up to his success as a musician were real interesting. He was just a gypsy living in a camp outside of Paris, and, like a kid, was going into the city trying to scam money out of some of the tourists. This combination of things seemed fun, and sparked the idea of the Caravan of Thieves. CS: We don’t actually steal things.
FS: Sometimes we steal some butter from the breakfast buffets in the hotel…. CM: Your band T-shirts are made of 100 percent organic cotton. Why did you choose this more expensive material? CS: The pesticides and chemicals used to produce “normal” cotton is kind of repulsive, so after reading up on it, I made a decision—using organic cotton was important to me. I thought, we’ll charge the same, make a couple dollars less on each shirt, but
I’ll feel better about selling them. It’s also a nicer material—we wanted the shirts to be something that people love to wear, and they do! CM: On your web site you are dubbed “Gypsy Swinging Serenading Firebreathing Circus Freaks.” Can we expect fire breathing at your show? CS: Definitely figurative fire breathing. I don’t think the fire codes in the building allow it. FS: Yeah…the audience members just have to close their eyes and imagine that we’ll be breathing fire.
THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | November 30, 2012
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Steinberg teaches us to love an imperfect city; Mies has lasting influence on 20th century architecture PRESS continued from page 8 own vices to it. Perhaps he’s just been writing for the Sun-Times for too long. Steinberg’s approach—bragging about one-liners that may or may not have actually been delivered by a misogynistic Medill grad, or seeking to distill life lessons from the “seemingly content” factory workers he meets while researching his columns— tends too often toward dime store platitudes or bourgeois patronizing for any real insights to emerge. It’s how earnestly he loves Chicago, his Chicago, that calls for pause. Neither you nor I will ever go to the Russian Baths on Division Street where Steinberg, like Bellow before him, learned how to side-arm water onto the burning stones while naked men were scrubbed down by masseuses with oak branches; nor will we usher in a new millennium on the Wabash Avenue Bridge, the clock atop the Wrigley Building our only companion. These were Steinberg’s Chicago moments. I know a lot of people who will soon be looking for a new town to call home. Most of them are held prisoner by their lack of imagination—a consequence, I suspect, of a college education—or, more tangibly, by their debts, chosen profession, or the dearth of job openings. The point is that many probably won’t have one hell of a great choice to make about where they’ll be living next year or the year after. So it might be worth it to learn from Neil Steinberg, among others, how to love an imperfect city. —Colin Bradley
Had you taken a walk to Hyde Park’s Promontory Point when it opened in 1937 and looked out north toward the Loop, you would have seen a much shorter and smaller Chicago. None of the modern glass skyscrapers that today seem so integral to the city would have been present. That same year, though, a 56-year-old architect immigrated to Chicago, escaping the artistic censorship of Nazi Germany. Thanks to this man, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Chicago skyline and the course of modern architecture would be forever changed. In the newly revised edition of Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography, Lake Forest professor Franz
Schulze and Chicago writer Edward Windhorst go as far as to say that every Chicago skyscraper that came after Mies’s time was a response to his work. If you aren’t familiar with Mies, his distinctive style is best described by his favorite phrases: “Less is more” and “God is in the details.” He designed a number of critical Chicago buildings, most notably the Chicago Federal Center on East Dearborn in the Loop, 860-880 North Lake Shore Drive Apartments, and the S.R. Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology. His first realized high-rise buildings were the Promontory Apartments in Hyde Park, which also happen to be the very first modern high-rise apartments in Chicago. The comprehensive 400-page portrait traces Mies, the son of a stonemason, from his birth in 1886 in Aachen, Germany, through his prolific European and American careers, to his death in Chicago in 1969. While Schulze and Windhorst do dwell on Mies’s greatest achievements—the Barcelona chair, the Seagram Building in New York, and the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, among others—they also place a critical eye on his lesser works—namely those at the end of his German career. The authors also concentrate on the less pleasant aspects of his personal life, including his abandonment of his wife and children in Germany and his often ungracious treatment of his colleagues and clients. Snippets of letters, writings, and interviews by and about Mies help explain the motivations behind much of his personal and professional life. And supplemental images and floorplans of all of his major works, and many of his earlier largely unknown works, will be particularly alluring to anyone with an interest in architecture. What is most fascinating about the biography is the story of how Mies developed his aesthetic, which would come to be known as the International style. When Mies began working in the early 20th century, the favored architectural style largely relied on references to the past, like neoclassicism, neoGothicism, and other traditional styles. Mies’s style at the end of his career is completely unrecognizable from his first realized building, a traditional country house in the Potsdam-Neubabelsberg. Throughout the book, Schulze and Windhorst provide a detailed account of how he developed a style that was largely free of historicism over the course of
hundreds of plans and designs, and alongside the developing technology of the day that would allow for the construction of high-rise buildings and eventually skyscrapers. The biography details the new architectural vocabulary Mies created during his tenure as the president of the architecture school at the Illinois Institute of Technology, which was founded on principles of order and simplicity. “We are not decorating,” Mies wrote of his style. “This is structure. We put up what has to be built, and then we accept it.” Among the most important modern architects of the 20th century, alongside Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus, Mies has had a lasting influence on Chicago, America, and the world. Wright, known for his uncompromisingly large ego and relentless criticism of other architects, once wrote in a letter to Mies, “You are the best of them all as an artist and as a man.” —Lauren Gurley
In the city of Neom, the laws of physics are different, and everyone gets high. Sound like a fun place to be? No, not really. Kathryn Born’s novel The Blue Kind, published by Northern Illinois University and distributed by the University of Chicago Press, starts out with a trippy premise and ends up all over the place. The storyline lacks clarity, structure, and order, just as the wacky laws of physics that govern this strange tale. The story opens with Alison (who goes by Alley), returning from a mysterious place called Over back to Neom and the loving arms of her drug-dealer husband, Cory. Cory sold Alley off in a complicated drug deal with the man she hates most in this world, a dealer named Atom. But maybe the drugs were worth it: In Neom, drugs are called mugs and have reached explosive heights of possibility, turning people hot and cold and giving them literal out-of-body experiences. They’re worth it to Cory and the little family he’s barely providing for. It’s clear that Alley, Cory, and their friend Ray—whose memory has been completely wiped out, and who doesn’t remember much of anything, including Alley’s name—aren’t exactly high class in Neom. They’re squatters in an
abandoned theater ranked “blue” on the hierarchy of drug dealers. And all they do is get high off the mugs. Not that it matters—it turns out that the three of them are all immortal, and don’t have anything better to do with their time. With the introduction of a new mug, an intoxicant called IDeath that gives the user the power to do anything they want on their trip, the tensions in Alley and Cory’s centuries-old relationship begin breaking more rapidly to the surface. Ultimately, The Blue Kind spirals to a dizzyingly complex ending complete with deux ex machina, innumerable plot holes and the introduction of new places, names, characters, species even—none of which ever develop into any sort of satisfying resolution. Despite being hundreds of years old, Alley and Cory spend half their time acting like the drugaddicted young adults they look like. In Alley, Born has constructed a character with a sharp tongue and thoughts like those of your run-of-the-mill sassy heroine of a vampire-slayer young adult novel. But Alley isn’t relatable, nor even that likeable. The best that can be said for her is that she’s tough and able to show she’s developed enough somewhere in the mad labyrinth of the plot to finally get away from the emotionally poisoned well that is the decaying Neom. But that character development isn’t well developed, either; at under 200 pages, The Blue Kind is short, and gives the reader no room to see Alley’s changing self underneath the layers of randomly introduced plot elements, new characters, new categories, abrupt transitions, and lack of explanation of almost anything. Born throws more and more plot elements into the mix as the story progresses, from organs shaped like eggs to moving shadows that splinter off people to an ending that springs from almost nowhere, and fails to contextualize or resolve our questions. Alley hints at what might be happening, but there’s so much and all of it is so sudden and scattered that it is, quite frankly, almost impossible for the reader to care about knowing the answers. The Blue Kind gives the reader the surrealist experience of Alice in Wonderland, only without its craft, wonder, or joy. The confusion and chaos in PRESS continued on page 10
Just look at that technique. Nobody sits in a chair like that anymore.
This cover, as the title suggests, actually has a bluish tinge.
COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | November 30, 2012
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Born trades mushrooms for mugs in The Blue Kind; childhood memory under Foxman’s soft lens PRESS continued from page 9 its story never dissipates, and the plot, though it begins on an interesting foot, devolves into nonsense. Its short length and breezy writing style make it a good escapist read, but ultimately Born’s novel feels more like what Alley’s experienced so many times coming down from those mugs: a let-down. —Angela Qian
Have you ever found yourself sitting at your desk, steaming cup of tea in hand, rain trickling down the windowpanes, and—in the midst of paper writing, or even in mid-sentence, if fate be so cruel—your train of thought is suddenly, swiftly whisked away from you, only to be replaced with a shocking and absolute understanding of the ephemerality of all things? No? For those of you responding with an emphatic, resounding, “Yes!” I offer you two pieces of information to abate those impending existential crises. The first is a single word; the second is a collection of many. Mono no aware is a concept found in the Japanese language that, while it has no exact equivalent in English, roughly signifies an abrupt awareness of the transient nature of all things. Like the scenario mentioned above, the feeling is typically triggered by a relatively unremarkable observation of natural phenomenon: rain falling, waves lapping, or children playing, to name a few. It is no accident that the amalgamated un-
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Like a roll of film taken during a summer of one’s childhood, the developed products—in this case, the 30some poems that make up Foxman’s collection—are, for the most part, faded and gentle. While some pieces in particular may strike you in ways you can’t predict or necessarily explain, the collection as a whole creates a contemplative, introspective mood. Distanced by the passing of time and dilation of memories, the camera’s lens nevertheless captures the details: the pearly pink bloom of lemon trees, the buzzing of instruments, the wildly gesticulating arms of jellyfish floating through tides. What is depicted on paper is not nearly as important as the flood of saturated memories, which accompany the catalyzing action of reading the poem—an intimate experience that is different for every reader. In Disposable Camera, Foxman offers her memories to the reader as a shared collective—as objects and experiences that evoke the breathless impact of their own recollection. Her hyper-detailed narratives—each presented in an airy, dreamlike voice, with unmistakable underlying unity—are objectively beautiful and soothing to read. Each poem also allows for the reader to retrieve her own, highly personal, collection of memories. Like digging through a time capsule you buried in your backyard, or an afternoon spent flipping through old scrapbooks, there is no telling what memories Foxman’s selection of poetry will unearth. — Alice Bucknell
Once you see the deer, you can’t not see the deer. COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
WITH HANNAH GOLD
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derstanding of temporality is, in and of itself, fleeting. The sensation only lasts for a few seconds before receding back into the confines of one’s mind, impossible to tease out again. Disposable Camera, Janet Foxman’s first book-length collection of poetry, is an attempt to evoke and play with this hyperconscious and temporary knowledge of how time passes. Appropriately enough, its pieces deal mostly with the minute and the remembered; the fuzzy and the ephemeral. Foxman draws upon specific memorabilia from her youth. Some are objects, like her father’s “dream book” or a postcard from her childhood hometown. Others are experiences ranging from something as mundane as a meal to a magnificent act of universal involvement whose effect is so drawn out that it passes largely unnoticed, like the change in seasons. In addition to its layering of different types of memories, Disposable Camera is as much about unveiling what slips in between the cracks of what is remembered: It is an exercise in reexamining specific emotions in addition to events. Foxman breathes life back into her own personal history of feeling by using an arsenal of pathos-inspiring verbiage and energetic, nervous descriptors like “trembling” and “explosive.” She captures that first lurch of feeling that accompanies mono no aware—a stunning blast of understanding, mixed with a tinge of disbelief. Her poetry successfully maintains an effortless fluidity despite its precise and deliberate imagery.
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Friday | November 30
Do What You’re Told
Head to Room 108 of Midway Studios to hear things that have no place at stuffy dinner parties or in your parents’ mailbox. The University of Chicago Humor Magazine’s editors are reading selections from their first issue, which run the gamut from holiday-themed memoirs to investigations to unsavory Midwestern roadside attractions. The physical copy will be available for pickup on campus—in boxes on the floors of various non-disclosed academic buildings—beginning December 3. If you would like to write for UCHM in subsequent quarters, know that they accept all things side-splitting except for satire, which is still securely the domain of The Shady Dealer. 929 East 60th Street. 4–4:30 p.m.; free.
A team of South Korean musicians sits silently in a row before their silver MacBook Pros, playing a furious game of techno Tetris. Each Tetris piece is programmed to produce bass, drum, and electric sounds depending on its height. Are your serotonin levels woefully unbalanced?— no, you’re just at a concert! Watch Tacit Group perform their algorithmic art at the MCA tonight for a very reasonable, special student price. Jin Won Lee (aka Gazaebal “Lobster Foot”) and his band members use video games, real-time personal computer interactions, dialogue, and more as the raw materials for their variable, virtual shows. 220 East Chicago Avenue. 7:30–8:30 p.m.; $10.
uR dOc FiLms dOt OrG
r doc Films (wE sTiLl ExIst tOo)
Saturday | December 1
Ready your Instagram for Pulaski Park Fieldhouse’s 7th Annual Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Market. There will be hundreds of indie artists, food (Black Dog Gelato, Jackalope Coffee, MANA Food Bar, etc.), booze, and an “interactive seating area” for those who have difficulty communicating while standing up. DJs from Reckless Records, Dusty Groove, and CHIRP Radio will make appearances; a DIY Gift Wrap Station will push your folding and taping skills to their limits. Plus, Neuro Drinks and the Chicago Public Library will team up to create, for your fringy pleasure, a make-your-own-T-shirt workshop (all proceeds go to the CPL). 1419 West Blackhawk Street. 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; free. Does your sweater have elbow patches on its shoulders? Or maybe it’s Christmas-themed, makes noise when you walk, and feels like a pile of pine needles? Please don’t burn it (yet), and for goodness’ sake, don’t wear it anywhere outside of the house unless you’re going to GiveForward’s 5th Annual Ugly Sweater Pub Crawl. At this paradise of all things consigned to the back of your closet, you can win $100 for worst sweater, and/or drink until you
no longer realize you’re wearing that sweater, and/or drink until you no longer realize you’re not wearing that sweater. Stop at all manner of Wrigleyville bars along the way including Goose Island, where the crawl begins. The proceeds will go toward covering a Chicago family’s medical expenses, making their holiday season infinitely more cozy. 3535 North Clark Street. Starts at 1 p.m.; $20. 21+ Sunday | December 2 Chicago’s Drake Hotel is training the next generation of Keebler elves with its 7th Annual Amateur/Student Gingerbread House Competition. The bake-off, brought to you by Pastry Chicago, is only open to high school and college students, and all participants are required to construct a house that satisfies the theme “A Favorite Storefront from Your Hometown.” Winners are announced at 3:30 p.m., but you can enjoy a demonstration by the French Pastry School during the interim. The three best houses will have the honor of being displayed in the Drake’s annual Gingerbread Village in the hotel’s lobby. As far as the structures themselves go, interior lighting is encouraged; smoke effects, forbidden. 140 East Walton Street. Judging at 2 p.m,; free.
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2Bedroom $1400, 3Bedroom $1720. Laundry room on site and off street parking available. 54th Woodlawn Call Annie 773-667-1568
THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | November 30, 2012
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FOOTBALL
Ten Chicago hoop-stars named to UAA Silver Anniversary Teams Basketball Janey Lee Sports Contributor Ten former University of Chicago athletes were listed on the UAA 25th Anniversary Teams for men’s and women’s basketball last week in honor of the conference’s silver anniversary. “We decided that one of the ways of marking the anniversary would be to name an All-Association team in each sport as part of our anniversary celebrations, but also to recognize the achievements of the student-athletes throughout our history,” Dick Rasmussen, executive secretary of the UAA, said. The women’s basketball anniversary team included 1990 UAA Player of the Year Kristin Maschka, 2012 Jostens Trophy winner Taylor Simpson, Nofi Mojidi, Korry Schwanz, and 2012 UAA Player of the Year Morgan Herrick, four of whom played in the last eight years. The men’s basketball honorees were four-time UAA Player of the Year Derek Reich, Aaron Horne, Rusty
Loyd, 2008 UAA Player of the Year Nate Hainje, and 1999 UAA Player of the Year Andy Strommen. The teams were comprised of studentathletes who had either been named Player of the Year or had accumulated five or more points, with two points given for recognition on the All-Association first teams, and one point for recognition on second teams. “They were some of the reasons why those teams were competitive. The program has taken off in the last eight years so that’s a credit to them, and to their ability to come in and not only impact the Chicago program but to put us on the map nationally,” women’s basketball head coach Carissa Sain Knoche said. Knoche praised many of the women’s personal and athletic attributes, including Mojidi’s athleticism which was “hard to beat in the UAA,” Schwanz’s exceptional shooting record and leadership, Herrick and Simpson’s teamwork, and Maschka’s athletic skills that led to her breaking multiple records throughout her career.
Mike McGrath, who has served as the men’s basketball head coach for 21 of the 25 years of the UAA’s existence, said of the men’s honorees, “They were constant competitors, leaders, and very, very good basketball players. It’s a pretty tough group of five guys.” Rasmussen further noted the players’ abilities to successfully balance both the academic and athletic aspects of their lives. “[They were] very dedicated to their sport. They have exceptional athletic talents, and they have a tremendous work ethic. It’s reflected in a lot of different ways. It’s reflected in their commitment to their sport but also in their commitment to their work in the classroom as their first priority.” The anniversary teams also highlight the staying power of the conference. “The fact that it has stuck around and made some priorities to keep it is a pretty big deal,” Knoche said. “That’s maybe something else the Silver Anniversary speaks to—the continued success of the league.”
UAA Standings Rank School 1 Washington (MO) 2 Case Western 3 Carmegie 4 Chicago
Record 5–5 (3–0) 6–4 (2–1) 6–4 (1–2) 4–6 (0–3)
Win % .500 .600 .600 .400
Passing Rank 1 2 3
Player Rob Kalkstein Erik Olson Vince Cortina
School Carnegie Case Western Chicago
Yds 1960 1726 1377
4 5
Eric Daginella John O’Connor
Washington (MO) Washington (MO)
1116 130
Receiving Rank Player 1 Tim Kikta 2 Dee Brizzolara 3 Drew Sexton 4 Sean Lapcevic 5 Timoth Swanson
School Carnegie Chicago Washington (MO) Case Western Carnegie
Avg/G 80.0 69.4 50.2 50.1 48.3
Rushing Rank 1 2 3 4 5
Player Manny Sicre Patrick Blanks C. Castellucio Zak Ross-Nash Ian Gaines
School Case Western Carnegie Washington (MO) Chicago Chicago
Avg/G 80.6 76.2 54.3 50.5 47.3
MEN’S BASKETBALL LEFT: Chicago forward Morgan Herrick (’12), a transfer from Drake University, drives to the basket in a game against UW–Eau Claire on March 3, 2012. In her final season, the All-American averaged 11.3 points per game, 3.9 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game. JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON
UAA Standings Rank 1 1 1 4 5 6 6 8
School Rochester
Record 6–1 (0–0)
Win % 1.000
Washington (MO) NYU Brandeis Emory Case Western Chicago Carnegie
5–0 (0–0) 4–0 (0–0) 4–1 (0–0) 4–2 (0–0) 3–2 (0–0) 3–2 (0–0) 1–5 (0–0)
1.000 1.000 .800 .667 .600 .600 .167
School Rochester Washington (MO) Emory NYU Brandeis
Avg/G 21.0 17.0 16.8 16.8 15.2
BOTTOM LEFT: Jostens Trophy winner and All-American forward Taylor Simpson (’12) takes the ball down the court in a home game last season. Simpson averaged 12.7 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game during the 2011–2012 season. JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON
Rank Player John DiBartolomeo 1 2 Chris Klimek 3 Alex Greven 3 Carl Yaffe 5 Gabe Moton
BOTTOM RIGHT: Forward Nate Hainje (’08) looks for an open man. Hainje was an All-American and four-time UAA Player of the Year.
Rank Player 1 Ryan Tana John DiBartolomeo 2 3 Jordan Smith 4 Tyler Seidman 5 John Steinberg
COURTESY OF DREW WESTFAHL
Points
3-Point FG PCT School NYU Rochester Chicago Rochester Chicago
Pct .538 .514 .500 .481 .455
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL UAA Standings Rank 1 2 3 3 5 6 7 8
School Emory
Record 5–0 (0–0)
Win % 1.000
Carnegie NYU Rochester Washington (MO) Case Western Brandeis Chicago
5–1 (0–0) 4–1 (0–0) 4–1 (0–0) 3–1(0–0) 3–3 (0–0) 2–3 (0–0) 1–3 (0–0)
.833 .800 .800 .750 .500 .400 .206
Points Rank Player School Avg/G 1 Hannah Lilly Emory 16.8 2 Megan Dawe NYU 16.3 3 Emily Peel Carnegie 15.8 4 Maddy Scheppers Washington (MO) 14.3 5 Savannah Morgan Emory 14.2
Assists Rank Player 1 Savannah Morgan 2 3 4 5
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Evy Iaccono Riley Wurtz Erica Iafelice Liza Otto
School Emory Case Western NYU Case Western Carnegie
Avg/G 5.8 5.6 5.0 4.4 4.2
VOLLEYBALL UAA Standings Rank School 1 Emory 2 Washington (MO) 3 Chicago 4 Case Western 5 Carnegie
Record 33–6 (8–1) 31–4 (8–2) 29–11 (8–2) 24–11 (5–5) 15–17 (3–6)
Win% .846
.886 .725 .686 .469
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Rochester
22–12 (3–7)
.647
7
NYU
20–14 (1–6)
.588
8
Brandeis
21–14 (1–8)
.600
IN QUOTES
SPORTS
“There would be a lot of dangerous boners on the field.” —Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs, on Bears WR Brandon Marshall’s claim that some NFL players use Viagra to “get an edge” on the turf.
Thunderstruck: Maroons wrap up five-game homestand with loss to Wheaton Men’s Basketball Alexander Sotiropoulos Senior Sports Staff Prior to Wednesday night’s contest against Wheaton, Chicago head coach Mike McGrath said that the Maroons’ success would largely depend on taking care of the basketball. After losing 64–52, third-year forward Sam Gage agreed with McGrath’s preview. Specifically, he said that after tying the game three times toward the middle of the second half, the Maroons’ offense did not control the ball well enough to win. “Coach was right,” Gage said. “We had too many times…when our offense bogged-down, became stagnant, and dribbled too much. That led to turnovers and empty possessions for us and really jumpstarted their run.” That 8–0 run began with 7:25 and ended with 3:53 left in the regional contest. “Wheaton had a good two to three minute stretch in the second half where it executed its offense while at the same time making things difficult for us with its defense,” Gage said. “That ended up really being the difference in the game. They were able to get to another gear as a team, which is why they are so tough.”
The loss puts the Maroons at 3–2 on the season while Wheaton remains undefeated (4–0). Aside from forcing 13 Chicago turnovers, Wheaton contained the Maroons to just five three-point attempts that were all missed. Gage attributes this to the Vikings’ aggressiveness behind the arc. “Wheaton likes to pressure the ball and deny the wings,” Gage said. Second-year guard Alex Pyper, the leading returning Maroon in three-point attempts from last year, scored eight points, all from the field. He shot two times from behind the arc. “They had a guy glued to my hip almost the entire night,” Pyper said. “They clearly were trying to make sure I didn’t have any space to get a shot, and they did a pretty good job of it.” Even with the defensive pressure and lack of three-point attempts, Chicago remained in the game until the final minutes in part because of Nate Brooks’ three offensive rebounds and nine points inside. Gage led the Maroons in scoring with 11 points, followed by firstyear guard Jordan Smith’s 10. On the whole, Pyper said that the Maroons played much better against Wheaton than against Au-
Third-year Sam Gage shoots a free throw after being fouled in a game against Southwestern on November 17. JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON
gustana, who handed Chicago its first loss of the season on Saturday. “I would say that we felt a little better after [Wheaton’s] loss simply because we competed better
and played much harder, and we came out ready to play at a much higher level,” he said. “But, certainly, we did not feel good after Saturday, and it’s never good when
you lose two in a row.” The Maroons look to end their two-game losing streak at Kalamazoo (2–1) this Saturday. Tip-off is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET.
Following loss to regional rival, South Siders prepare for clash with Titans Women’s Basketball
Forward Sehar Resad, a second-year, looks for an open teammate in Wednesday’s home game against Wheaton. The South Siders lost the game 77–62. IVY ZHANG | THE CHICAGO MAROON
Mary MacLeod Sports Contributor After a decisive loss to Carthage on Sunday, the Maroons hoped to return to a winning record against Wheaton. But those hopes were dashed as they fell by doubledigits, 77–62, in their first home
game of the season. “Our mindset going into the game was we needed to compete,” third-year Christiane Murray said. “Coming off of two tough losses we realized we needed to prove to ourselves that we are a tough team. We knew coming in that Wheaton had a great transition game and
that in order to win we needed to stop them. Last year’s game was very tough and we knew it would be harder this time around.” It looked early on as if Wheaton would run away with the contest, opening up a 9–1 lead in the first few minutes. Although the Maroons battled
back, the Thunder’s defense proved hard to beat, forcing 12 turnovers in the first half alone. Chicago was also plagued with poor shooting, as they were 28 percent from the field and 36 percent from the three-point line. Wheaton, on the other hand, came out with a strong first-half performance and went into halftime with a 36–22 lead. Nevertheless, Chicago rallied in the second half. Thanks to the sharp shooting of fourth-year Jenna Lillemoe and second-year Ellie Greiner, the Maroons were able to come within six points of Wheaton on two different occasions. In addition, the post play of Murray, who finished with 13 points and nine rebounds, helped the team close the gap. “Jenna [Lillemoe] showed strong senior leadership and hit some big threes to bring us back,” Murray said. “She really stepped it up in the second half and was a driving force in our attempted comeback.” “As to my performance, I was just trying my best to help put the team in a position to win. This is a new role for me compared to last year and I am just trying my best to help us as a team succeed.” Despite their best efforts, Chicago could not orchestrate a complete comeback. In the final minutes, the Thunder took advantage of transition points and free throws to put the game out of reach. Finishing 40 percent
from inside the arc, 35 percent from beyond the arc, and with 41 total rebounds, the Thunder controlled the game both offensively and defensively. “We struggled in the first half with taking and finishing good shots within our offense. We also were not getting back in transition defense. But in the second half we definitely improved on our shot selection and really left it all on the court in an attempt to recover from the deficit we left ourselves with after the first half,” Murray said. Chicago’s next game is this Saturday against Illinois Wesleyan, the defending 2012 NCAA DIII national champions. The Titans currently have a 3–2 record and are coming off of a close win over UWWhitewater. The last time Illinois Wesleyan and Chicago played, the Maroons won by three. The Maroons are itching for the chance to prove themselves again. If anything, their recent losses are fueling that fire. “Looking forward to Illinois Wesleyan we need to bring it for 40 minutes,” Murray said. “The second half of the Wheaton game showed us how hard we need to play and the intensity we need to bring in every possession. We will have a strong two practices in order to prepare us to play the defending champs.” Tip off is set for 2 p.m. this Saturday in Bloomington.