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FRIDAY • FEBRUARY 27, 2015

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

ISSUE 30 • VOLUME 126

Univ. steps up security in response to death threats against guest speaker Brandon Lee Maroon Contributor

President Robert Zimmer delivers the opening remarks at the dedication of the Renee Granville-Grossman Residential Commons. Formerly South Campus, the undergraduate residence hall was renamed following a $44 million posthumous donation.

FRANK WANG | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Security around campus was severely heightened on Thursday evening as Franco-Moroccan cartoonist, journalist and human rights activist Zineb El Rhazoui discussed her work at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo at an event sponsored by the University of Chicago French Club. The talk followed the assassination of 12 people at the office of the newspaper.

Security threats in January were brought to the attention of the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD),

Chicago Police Department (CPD), and state officials following the publication of an International Business Times article detailing a massive Twitter campaign under threatening hastags against El Rhazoui in which ISIS supporters called for her assassination.

Postings about her personal life and whereabouts placed campus security on high alert.

An e-mail sent Wednesday evening from professor Robert Morrissey (Ph.D ’78) and Dean of Students in the University Michele Rasmussen to registered attendees of the event detailed that all at-

tendees would be searched and would be required to present valid identification that matching their names on a restricted RSVP list. Large bags were not allowed into the hall and a coat check was enforced. Law enforcement officers were visibly armed within the Law School premises, and the auditorium was watched by at least seven officers at all times during the talk.

The annual winter Humans vs. Zombies game, in which students chase their opponents across campus with Nerf guns, was cancelled for the day in SECURITY continued on page 3

Charlie Hebdo journalist defends Prayers Against Hate to combat satire, free speech at Univ. event anti-semitism on social media Anne Nazarro News Staff Zineb El Rhazoui, a journalist at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, discussed free speech in an event Thursday at the Law School. The event, titled Who Is Charlie?, referenced the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie that trended worldwide following the assassination of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris last month, and was organized by the University of Chicago French Club

and moderated by Robert Morrissey, a French literature professor at the university.

On January 7 two gunmen stormed the offices of the newspaper and opened fire, killing 12. The gunman claimed to be acting in revenge for satirical cartoons about Islam, including some depicting the image of the Prophet Muhammad, that the newspaper had published.

Before the attack, Charlie Hebdo had 10,000 subscribers; after, it had more than 200,000.

“All of us, we would have pre-

ferred to stay poor...instead of paying the very expensive price that we paid to have 200,000 subscribers,” El Rhazoui said.

She said that this has made them more committed than ever to following a code of ethics, keeping with the limits of free speech according to French law.

El Rhazoui mourned her coworkers’ deaths at the event.

“My colleagues have been killed because of something superfluous. My colleagues were simple CHARLIE continued on page 2

English major alum might go to Mars Sonia Schlesinger Maroon Contributor Mead McCormick (A.B. ’09) is in the running to take part in the first human mission to Mars, an operation sponsored by Mars One, a Dutch nonprofit organization. They plan to launch an unmanned orbiter to Mars as early as 2016 and to settle the first human colony by 2025. From these 100 applicants, the project’s leaders will ultimately choose 24 to make the first trip, in six separate teams of four.

McCormick first found out about the opportunity from

a friend. “She knew that I was obsessed with space and space narratives,” McCormick said.

“She basically told me it was my destiny to go to Mars.”

McCormick decided to apply just for fun, but didn’t expect to be chosen, as 200,000 people initially applied. But “after making the first cut,” she says, “your perspective shifts on everything. You start to appreciate more; you start to take into account what you’re actually doing with your life.”

Though interested in space, McCormick studied English and film studies at UChicago and like many of the project’s

applicants, was not affiliated with NASA or other spacerelated work. However, the project allow and encourage applicants from all fields. The 100 finalists include physicians, engineers, political consultants, and even current students. Each of the applicants submitted a résumé, a motivational letter, and one-minute video about why they should be one of the first people to reach Mars. They had to be at least 18 years old and the project’s leaders looked for specific qualities in each of them, including curiosity, creativity, and resiliency.

MARS continued on page 3

Adam Thorp News Staff Calvert House, the Catholic student center, hosted a prayer gathering Thursday evening in response to posts on social media that the event’s organizers characterized as hate speech against Jewish students on campus.

Last Friday, a post was put on the anonymous Facebook page UChicago Secrets about Northwestern student government’s vote to divest from several American companies that the resolution’s supporters say violate Palestinians’ human rights. A contentious series of posts on that page and Yik Yak targeted Jewish students at UChicago.

One post on UChicago Se-

crets characterized Hillel and other Jewish groups on campus as “genocide apologists,” and another called “Jews at U-Chicago” hypocrites. A post on Yik Yak Monday referenced the Holocaust and made a threat against Jewish students.

“After hearing about what was being said on social media over the weekend, and discussion with some of the religious advisers and the staff at Hillel, we wanted to do something for the community: to show that we don’t stand with hate speech, that we stand with solidarity with those who are victims of it and that we pray for an end to words of hate,” Calvert House’s associate Director, Elizabeth Weigel said.

The event, which lasted about a quarter of an hour,

was put on in collaboration with Hillel and other religious organizations on campus. A few dozen students gathered for the event in Bartlett quad, where they stood in a circle and sheltered candles from the wind. Weigel and Calvert House’s director and chaplain, Father Patrick Lagges, spoke briefly to begin the ceremony.

Candles were lit and passed around the circle of students.

Selections from Psalms, as well as poems by St. Francis and Maya Angelou, were read by attendees. Rabbi Anna Levin Rosen, director of Jewish student life at Hillel, closed the ceremony by contrasting the anonymity of the online posts with the decision by the staff of Calvert House to reach out to Hillel in person.

Government vs. private sector: Oxford-style debate at the IOP Zeke Gillman Maroon Contributor The Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. and The Weekly Standard editor William Kristol debated the level of involvement and direction of the U.S. government in an event Wednesday hosted by the Institute of Politics (IOP)

at the School of Social Service Administration.

In a change from most IOP events, the debate was conducted in Oxford style, where debaters are introduced to a given statement and pronounce their position with respect to that statement as the audience observes and determines the winner. Moderator and IOP Direc-

tor Steve Edwards introduced the statement: “Anything the government does, the private sector can do better.” He asked the 85-member audience to conduct a pre-debate vote on the motion through GoVote. at, a website that provides independent voting services. In the audience, 49 members voted in IOP continued on page 3

IN VIEWPOINTS

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

Registration frustration» Page 4

For the first time Café Logan features a student’s photo exhibition » Page 6

Men’s Basketball: Maroons seek to upset No. 20 Wash U » Back page

Let’s (not only) talk about sex » Page 5

Oscar results debateable. As usual. » Page 6

Women’s Basketball: Bears stand in the way of automatic NCAA bid » Page 7

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | February 27, 2015

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Leaping into 9th grade: Local school Pediatrician shares experience in group reviews Univ. research findings medically underserved regions Tamar Honig News Staff The Hyde Park/Kenwood Community Action Council (HPKCAC) met at Kenwood Academy to discuss trends related to student success in high school Wednesday night. The group of about 20 school and community leaders reviewed research from the University of Chicago’s Consortium of Chicago School Research (CCSR) and shared updates about school-related events in the community.

The event began with a presentation by Paul Moore of the CCSR. He discussed research on indicators for high school readiness based on middle school performance. According to the data he shared, a stark transition occurs between eighth and ninth grade in terms of many students’ attendance and grades.

“Ninth grade course performance is critical for being on track to graduation,” Moore said. “You can’t have students falling off from eighth grade to ninth grade.”

He went on to enumerate the best indicators of high school success. These include core GPA and attendance in eighth grade, and test scores in the middle grades. Only students with the best grades and attendance in middle school are likely—although not guaranteed—to earn As and Bs in ninth grade.

However, even among the highest-performing eighth graders—those with near-perfect GPAs and attendance—only

just over three-quarters earn As and Bs in ninth grade.

“These are the best students in CPS in eighth grade, and only 77 percent of them go on to earn As and Bs in ninth grade,” he said. “This needs to be 100 percent... All of them should be able to translate that eighth grade performance into success in high school. We need to understand why this is happening.”

According to Moore, another critical indicator of whether students graduate and earn the credentials needed for college is their selection of high school.

The CPS website lists four types of public schools in Chicago: neighborhood schools, which must enroll any student who lives within their boundary; selective schools, to which students must apply; magnet schools, which admit students within their boundaries based on a lottery and open leftover spots to students citywide; and charter schools, which establish their own enrollment policies.

“This is either a depressing story or a hopeful story depending on how you look at it,” Moore said while showing graphs demonstrating that students with the same academic records in middle school have very different high school outcomes depending on which high school they attend. “High schools have the ability to affect change in their students — that’s what this [is] showing. What high schools are doing makes a big difference in the likelihood of success for their students, controlling for their eighth grade characteristics.”

Looking forward, Moore elaborated upon potential pathways to improved rates of high school and college graduation.

His research indicated that strategies aimed at improving GPA or attendance in middle school would likely have more of a payoff than efforts aimed at improving test scores.

“Grades and attendance are low-hanging fruit relative to test scores,” he explained.

Overall, the research presented by Moore supported the use of middle-grade information to create indicator systems for high school graduation and college readiness.

The HPKCAC discussed the controversy over Dyett High School. The Chicago Board of Education voted to phase out Dyett in 2012 due to poor academic performance.

The school is slated to close completely in 2015 after the last senior class graduates. Its closing would leave Bronzeville without an open-enrollment neighborhood high school that is not a contracted, charter, or an Academy for Urban School Leadership turnaround school.

Members of the coalition also point to overcrowding in the nearby Kenwood Academy as further evidence of the need for an open-enrollment high school in Bronzeville. The activists have stressed that creating a highquality public high school is an attainable goal that comes down to the school district’s priorities.

The HPKCAC is celebrating one year in existence and will have its next meeting on March 25 at Ray Elementary.

“Incredible stupidity has killed brilliant intelligence” CHARLIE continued from front

people, intelligent people, nice people, humans, and they had lives,” she said. “They have been killed by stupid men…. Incredible stupidity has killed brilliant intelligence.”

Despite the attack, and the subsequent public uproar over the newspaper’s cartoons, El Rhazoui defended Charlie Hebdo’s right to publish what it did and what it continues to publish. She stated that just because it is a satirical newspaper doesn’t mean that it does or publishes whatever it likes; it remains within the bounds of French law. “The limits of freedom of expression in France are clear,” she said.

In response to anger over the publishing of the Prophet Muhammad’s image, she said that in her studies she has found that there is only one line in the Koran that states that one should not publish his image. She also pointed out that in Shiite Islam, it has become more acceptable to publish the Prophet’s image. But most importantly, she said that the law banning his depiction belongs to Islam, not to France.

“Keep in mind, we work under the French law. Not under

the Shariah law,” El Rhazoui said. “We mustn’t accept the rules of a game that are imposed to us by guns, and by crime.”

She said that if people are offended by the paper, and do not support its ideas, they are “not obliged to buy it.”

El Rhazoui also addressed the tension surrounding the “survivor’s issue” of Charlie Hebdo, which depicts the Prophet Muhammad holding a sign that says “Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie,” a phrase that people picked up in solidarity with the newspaper after the tragedy. Above the cartoon is the title “all is forgiven” in French. “I see, first of all, a message of forgiveness,” said El Rhazoui. “Why do they feel offended? We are not insulting the Prophet.”

During the question-andanswer session, Aseal Tineh, a fourth-year in the College and a First-year at Harris, heavily involved in Student Government and Students for Justice in Palestine, criticized Charlie Hebdo’s form of satire by making fun of the already marginalized population in its depictions of Islam rather than attacking the powerful. Overall, she then wanted to know how she could

both condemn the actions of the attackers but still say, “No je suis Charlie.”

“Today, being Charlie Hebdo means to die because of a drawing, because of its own ideas, and not everyone, excuse me, has the balls to die for his ideas.

And no, not everyone can be Charlie Hebdo,” El Rhazoui said in response.

Additionally, El Rhazoui found that the “ugliest caricature” of the Muslim people is not found in the pages of Charlie Hebdo, but in people like those who killed in their religion’s name. “I think the problem is that this religion must today ask itself why it produces criminals, why it produces terrorists. And not only in France, also in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, in Iran, in Syria,” she said. “I think in your religion you have other priorities than Charlie Hebdo, you have problems that are much more urgent than Charlie Hebdo.”

El Rhazoui continued to defend Charlie Hebdo’s free speech and satire, including its treatment of religion: “If we forbid blasphemy, we have to forbid religions, because each religion is blasphemy to the other religion.”

Maggie Loughran News Staff The Central African Republic (CAR) has a population of roughly five million people, yet there are fewer than 300 doctors in the entire country. Yolaine Civil has been working to address this health-care deficiency with Doctors Without Borders/Medécins Sans Frontières (MSF) since 2012. Civil spoke at the UChicago Medical Center on Thursday about her experience as a pediatric physician in the CAR. The event was cosponsored by the Department of Pediatrics and the Institute of Politics.

Civil, an adjunct clinical instructor in pediatrics for the University of Michigan Health System, has gone on four trips with MSF. She traveled to Guinea in 2012, where she oversaw a cholera vaccination program.

Shortly after, she worked as a supervisor in Chad at a hospital that cared for malnourished children.

MSF responds to medical crises in developing countries born from violence, natural disasters, and outbreaks of disease. Its presence in CAR has doubled since the outbreak of civil conflict in 2013, when a Muslim rebel group overthrew the gov-

ernment. There has since been tension and fighting between Christian and Muslim forces.

MSF faces the constant threat of violence, which is not expected to end soon. However, MSF plans to maintain its strong presence in the CAR. “The problem of pulling out is if you pull out, the people have nothing,” Civil said.

Civil’s first trip to the CAR in 2013 restarted medical activities in a hospital in Bossangoa after militants destroyed it. “This mission was my most challenging out of all of the four because we didn’t have the usual resources that we would have available for an emergency project,” Civil said. “The MSF office in Bangui had been looted and robbed three weeks earlier and they stole cars, money, and medical equipment.”

When MSF finally established its presence in the hospital, people began to emerge from villages to seek help. Civil primarily treated malnourished children and pregnant women.

She also encountered many AIDS and tuberculosis patients, another effect of political unrest.

The former government of the CAR had a program providing people with free AIDS and TB treatment, but the program disappeared with the government.

The purpose of Civil’s second trip to the CAR was to provide health care to Muslim victims of violence. However, she saw little violence and instead treated high numbers of maternity and neonatal patients. Civil reorganized an entire hospital and instituted two newborn rooms and a basic neonatal intensive care unit.

Civil recalled some of the struggles she faced working in a foreign country with high risk.

“The living conditions can be really variable when you’re in the field. When you’re on an emergency project, like CAR, or Guinea, the living conditions are pretty basic. We had a latrine, and really basic sleeping quarters. And we had an outdoor shower with a bucket.

The working conditions are also stressful. There are long hours, high patient volumes, and high mortality rates,” she said.

One of her greatest struggles was readjusting to life in the U.S. She emphasized the importance of focusing on the positive aspects of the mission, such as helping people in a very tangible way. She closed her presentation by telling an audience full of medical students: “You can make a difference in the lives of children and families in critical conditions.”

NEWS IN BRIEF Polling firm confirms support for South Side Obama library on parkland The foundation behind the planning and logistics of the Obama presidential library has commissioned a poll gauging South Side support, raising speculation that the University’s proposal may be selected.

According to the Associated Press, Brilliant Corners, a Democratic polling firm that worked for both of Obama’s presidential campaigns, polled about 600 South Side residents earlier this month. The full results of the poll have not been released, but according to individuals involved, about 90 percent of respondents support placing the library on the South Side. About 70 percent support using public land from Washington Park or Jackson Park for the library. After being told that other vacant land on the South Side might not be large enough to house

the library site, the percentage of supporters increased to 90 percent.

Although the University owns plots of vacant land on the South Side, including land located just west of Washington Park, that have been included as part of the potential library site, University officials have said that “there is not a sufficient parcel of contiguous land for the Presidential Center campus.”

The results of the poll are consistent with those of two prior polls, one by the University and one by the Chicago Tribune, which both found that most South Side residents support using parkland for the library.

As with in these two other polls, the respondents in the latest poll cited Obama’s political legacy in Chicago and the economic benefits that the library might bring

to the South Side as reasons for their support.

Meanwhile, park conservationist group Friends of the Parks has mounted strict opposition to the use of the parkland for the library, speaking out at various community meetings held over the last two months regarding the library. It is also planning a potential lawsuit against the Obamas, if they choose the University’s proposal.

On February 11, the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to transfer the parkland occupied by the two sites to city control if the University site is selected.

The measure now goes to City Council, which is expected to vote on an ordinance introduced

by Mayor Rahm Emanuel sometime next month.

—Marina Fang

NEWS IN BRIEF Incumbent aldermen reelected in the Fourth and Fifth Wards The 2015 aldermanic elections resulted in clear victors in Hyde Park, with Will Burns (A.B. ’95, A.M. ’98) and Leslie Hairston reelected as the aldermen for the Fourth and Fifth Wards, respectively. The fourth ward extends roughly from East 26th Street in Bronzeville to East 55th Street in Hyde Park, and the Fifth Ward stretches from East 47th Street to East 79th Street.

Burns ran on a platform of increased development, school financing reform, and anti-corruption measures. He won 55.4 percent of the vote.

Hairston, a Hyde Park native who was first elected in 1999, won the Fifth Ward elections with 52.5 percent of the vote.

Her platform focused on her goal of promoting economic development. She is also in favor of City Council’s initiative

to increase the minimum wage to $13 per hour by 2019. She faced five competitors in the race.

Burns’s and Hairstons’s victories were in contrast to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who only received approximately 45 percent of the vote and will face Jesús “Chuy” García, who garnered approximately 34 percent of the vote, in a runoff on April 7.

–Katherine Vega

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | February 27, 2015

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“The common realization was that canceling this event would be a defeat” SECURITY continued from front

light of the heightened security. Game organizers warned that players could face University and legal punishment if they participated on Thursday.

“I am amazed at the tremendous collaboration and support that came out from the

administration,” French Club president and fourth-year student Eve Zuckerman said. She emphasized that an extensive collaboration among UCPD, CPD, the State Department, the French embassy in Washington and the American embassy in Paris occurred in order

to make the event a reality. “It took a shared realization on both sides of the Atlantic that this collaboration would be needed if this was event was going to happen and, more importantly, that this event had to happen.”

University spokesperson

Jeremy Manier emphasized the need to keep security details private. “It was determined by UCPD and other agencies that there was a threat and we’re taking precautions that we think are appropriate,” Manier said. This was not the first time the University has heightened

security to guarantee the safety of personnel on campus; such measures were also taken during former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s visit last November.

“The common realization was that canceling this event would be a defeat,” Zuckerman

said. She further emphasized that saying security costs and risks were too high to invite El Rhazoui would be giving up on the University’s commitment to freedom of speech. “How many Charlie Hebdo journalists have been invited to speak in the U.S.? Zero.”

believes that this is the best way to make the transition, though nothing can prepare her for the change in food. “We’ll probably never have a glass of wine or a steak ever again, so I’ll really miss that,” she said.

McCormick expressed

that she is incredibly excited.

“There’s just so much to know that we don’t know yet...it’s going to lead to so many amazing discoveries, so I think every day will be a life-changing discovery and I just think that is so worth it,” she said.

“I think every day [on Mars] will be a life-changing discovery” MARS continued from front

McCormick has pursued a career in film, recently receiving her Master of Fine Arts in drafting from CalArts, and was involved in both Doc Films and Fire Escape Films when she attended the University.

McCormick plans to continue this work even after beginning the mission. Mars One intends to broadcast the mission worldwide as a reality TV show and she hopes to be a part of this.

“I think it’s a documentarian’s dream to follow people

who are involved in life and death circumstances every day of their life,” she said. “I would really like to see the interactions of humans in this situation, not as a scripted drama but more in an educational, inspirational way.”

By the end of this year, the 100 finalists will be cut to 24.

The finalists will begin training for living on Mars almost immediately, so that they will have had 10 years’ worth of preparation by the time the first team departs in 2024. McCormick

Polls showed that audience opinion changed on goverment vs. private sector following the debate IOP continued from front

favor of the proposition, while 16 voted “no.”

Kristol opened by emphasizing the need for the private sector and its significance to the everyday American. “Fellow fans of the private sector—well you must be, you’re here at the University of Chicago, a private university,” he said. “You’re going to go back from here, maybe have a bite on the way home at a private...restaurant, go to your private apartment… and many of you probably have private cars…so I just assume

that everyone here is a fan of the private sector.”

“There is a simple case for government. So the fundamental case for me is a case for liberty, a case for preventing tyranny,” Kristol added, stating that he is in favor of a strong government as the Founding Fathers stressed a “limited and energetic government” in the Federalist Papers. “[The problem] is precisely the fact that government has become so unlimited that has made [itself ] ineffective.”

Dionne argued the advan-

tages of a more involved and larger government. He gave a brief history lesson on the various programs and services that government has afforded the American people from Henry Clay’s American System to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Social Security Act to Lyndon B. Johnon’s Great Society.

“At the most basic level, without government there is no enforcement of contracts, without government there’s no protection against force and fraud,” he said. He quoted former Defense Secretary Wil-

liam Cohen, who thought, “‘Government is the enemy until you need a friend’...and we need an energetic government because it helps the private sector and helps all of us and it actually helps people when they need a friend.”

Each continued to debate the proper extent of the U.S. federal government, though both speakers completely rejected Edwards’ opening proposition. “None of us can possibly believe that proposition, but the question is our attitude towards government,” Dionne

DESIGN.

DRAW.

said. Kristol agreed, calling the sentiment “cartoonish.”

In their rebuttals, Dionne and Kristol also touched on ways the government can improve. Dionne stressed the importance of experimentation in government, citing the space that businesses in the private sector have for innovation and testing new ideas. Kristol agreed on the benefits of government experimentation, but argued that the present government structure is constricted by too many bureaucratic practices. In their closing remarks,

Dionne stressed the need for government, while Kristol continued to underline the beneficial power of markets and the private sector.

Once each concluded, Edwards asked the audience to again vote on the proposition.

The results were almost a complete reversal of the pre-debate results, and Dionne won the audience over with 42 people voting in his favor over the 22 who voted for Kristol. After the announcement Kristol congratulated “E.J. on his hardearned victory.”’

WRITE.

COPY EDIT.

SEEKING WRITERS, DESIGNERS, COPY EDITORS, CARTOONISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS Have what it takes to make the Maroon Staff? Contact us: editor@chicagomaroon.com

VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed FEBRUARY 27, 2015

Registration frustration The current registration system does not provide students with enough information to make an educated decision about classes Course registration ends today at 5 p.m., bringing an end to another cycle of uncertainty. Each quarter, time schedules are released unannounced during seventh week in preparation for bidding during eighth week. This gives students roughly two weeks to pore over their options before they choose their courses for the next quarter. But during this time, some classes do not even have any course descriptions or instructors listed, and most don’t include reading lists. The call for reforming course registration is not new.

Over the years, The Maroon has written editorials on fixing the course registration process many times. All of these editorials point to the general lack of information available to students during registration. They also highlight the fact that these concerns have remained

unaddressed for many years.

The Editorial Board suggests that the University release courses earlier in the quarter and require instructors to provide syllabi for their classes on classes.uchicago.edu. In the fast-paced quarter system, where there is little time at the beginning of the quarter to adjust your classes, students need detailed materials to make educated choices on their courses from the outset.

Often, the first class of the quarter is a student’s first opportunity to see the syllabus and the reading list and to gain an idea of the expected workload. If, in light of this information, a student decides against a course, they only have until the end of first week to find a new one. If a student is unable to find and successfully add another course, they must either drop the unwanted

course or tough it out for the rest of the quarter. The University should address this problem by making syllabi available during preregistration. Many of the courses offered each quarter have been offered for many years—meaning that their reading lists and syllabi already exist. Making them available during preregistration is a relatively small investment when compared to the potential gains for students.

When bidding for classes students also need to consider the financial investment that a class requires. This information is rarely—if ever—provided during course registration, but can be a serious burden to students. Finding out that a class requires several expensive books from which only short passages are required reading is a consistently frustrating experience. Releasing reading

lists earlier would also give students more options when it comes to buying books at more affordable prices—especially when it is not unusual for a class to assign reading for its first session.

Finally, the pressure to finalize course schedules during the first week of the quarter would be relieved if students were given more time during the previous quarter to make more informed decisions about which courses to take.

As it stands, students have roughly two weeks to decide their classes, and those two weeks come at one of the most hectic times of the quarter, when many students are still finishing midterms or beginning to prepare for finals. The easiest way for the University to improve the bidding experience for students would be to give them more time to choose

ALICE XIAO

their classes.

Over many years the conclusion has been the same: Students need both more time and more information when choosing their courses. These

|

THE CHICAGO MAROON

are not unreasonable demands.

It is about time they were met.

—The Maroon Editoral Board

Let’s (not only) talk about sex By promoting a sex-positive agenda, many feminists actually alienate those who do not or cannot find fulfillment through sex Olivia Adams Maroon Contributor Although sex-positive feminism often catalyzes and influences individual thought on identity and womanhood, I have been otherwise forced to consider my identity in regards to things people have told me or I have overheard since March 2014. Here is a list of some of those statements, musings, and pieces of advice:

“It’ll be a long road ahead.” “Just try this lidocaine cream. It should help.”

“Yeah, I just had sex with him.

It wasn’t a big deal—I don’t even remember his name.”

“Anal is only good because it’s not expected to be on the table— vaginal sex is always better.”

I have an anniversary coming up.

I don’t remember the exact date— for me, assigning an otherwise random and harmless number to every

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892 Emma Broder, Editor-in-Chief Joy Crane, Editor-in-Chief Jonah Rabb, Managing Editor The Maroon Editorial Board consists of Harini Jaganathan, Ankit Jain, Nina Katemauswa, Liam Leddy, Mara McCollom, Kiran Misra, Jake Walerius, and Sarah Zimmerman.

Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Grey City Editor Kristin Lin, Grey City Editor Sarah Manhardt, News Editor Christine Schmidt, News Editor Kiran Misra, Viewpoints Editor James Mackenzie, Arts Editor Tatiana Fields, Sports Editor Marina Fang, Senior News Editor Liam Leddy, Senior Viewpoints Editor Sarah Langs, Senior Sports Editor Jake Walerius, Senior Sports Editor Natalie Friedberg, Deputy News Editor Alec Goodwin, Deputy News Editor Marta Bakula, Associate News Editor Raymond Fang, Associate News Editor Nina Katemauswa, Associate Viewpoints Editor Sarah Zimmerman, Associate Viewpoints Editor Andrew McVea, Associate Arts Editor Evangeline Reid, Associate Arts Editor Ellen Rodnianski, Associate Arts Editor Helen Petersen, Associate Sports Editor Zachary Themer, Associate Sports Editor Peter Tang, Photo Editor Frank Yan, Senior Photo Editor Frank Wang, Associate Photo Editor Annie Cantara, Head Designer Sophie Downes, Head Copy Editor Alan Hassler, Head Copy Editor Sherry He, Head Copy Editor Hannah Rausch, Head Copy Editor Emily Harwell, Social Media Editor Amber Love, Video Editor

Megan Daknis, Copy Editor Kyra Martin, Copy Editor Katarina Mentzelopoulos, Copy Editor Rebecca Naimon, Copy Editor Morganne Ramsey, Copy Editor Erica Sun, Copy Editor Amy Wang, Copy Editor Michelle Zhao, Copy Editor Sam Zoeller, Copy Editor Katie Bart, Designer Emily Harwell, Designer Stephanie Liu, Designer Wei Yi Ow, Designer Morganne Ramsey, Designer Elle Rathbun, Designer Kaitlyn Shen, Designer Julia Xu, Designer Jen Xue, Designer Keely Zhang, Designer Andrew Koski, Illustrator Alice Xiao, Illustrator Lenise Lee, Business Manager Nathan Peereboom, Chief Financial Officer Kay Li, Director of Data Analysis Harry Backlund, Distributor Editor-in-Chief E-mail: editor@ChicagoMaroon.com Newsroom Phone: 773.702.1403 Business Phone: 773.702.9555 Fax: 773.702.3032 Public Editor: PublicEditor@ChicagoMaroon.com For advertising inquiries, please contact Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com The Chicago Maroon is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters.

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emotion associated with one of the hardest days of my life feels unnecessary. Sometime last March, I was (incorrectly) diagnosed with vulvodynia, one of the major genitopelvic penetrative pain disorders which oftentimes go undiagnosed due to inadequate sex education within both the medical community and the general population.

My diagnosis, eventually updated to levator dyspareunia, meant that, without rigorous physical therapy, both at a therapist’s office and at home for an indeterminate amount of time, I would be unable to have vaginal intercourse. A year after being diagnosed, I am close to what a doctor would define as “normal,” but I still have work to do.

Upon leaving the exam room last year, I immediately felt my entire core splinter as I attempted to make sense of my doctor’s suggestions. A thick packet of medical terminology and attempts at explanation sat in my backpack, its physical weight preventing me from ignoring the problem—but still I told myself that I would look at it some indeterminate “later.”

Alongside the packet was a prescription for lidocaine, a numbing ointment that was supposed to shorten my road to recovery, as well as save me from the burden of a full awareness of what was happening with my body. It didn’t help with either. Sex became a three-letter barbed wire fence, manifesting itself before me every time I heard anyone talk about one-night stands, condoms, or soreness after an exciting night (or morning, or afternoon—whenever people found time to casually hop over this fence, which was no barrier to them). Later, after the initial burns of embarrassment for

my invisible physical incapacities settled, deeper concerns surfaced.

I felt as if my body had rebelled against my ideals and my convictions, rendering me a shell who merely borrowed the uniform of a young, sex-positive feminist. For months, I disregarded the problem. I had been misdiagnosed by an incompetent doctor, and had little knowledge of where I could go for a second opinion. I was also afraid of facing the reality of my condition, mainly because of the repetitive and invasive pelvic floor therapy necessary to alleviate the painful physical barriers to sex. I still grappled with the unfairness of it all—why was I broken?

Eventually, I found ways to have sex with my boyfriend. Rather than allow myself to be rejected by the sex-positive feminist world to which I so desperately hoped to belong, I explored the sexual options available to me. Anal sex became a pleasurable constant in my life, similar to the unwelcome but still consistent judgment from other self-proclaimed sex-positive feminists themselves. Despite my attempts to enjoy a sex-positive existence, I felt a real alienation from my friends, who considered the sexual solutions for working around my diagnoses socially unacceptable. However, their thinly veiled offense at my choices, despite the absolute irrelevance of those choices on their own lives, didn’t matter. My endeavors to enjoy sex and my subsequent satisfaction were not dependent on a social contract that I did not sign.

The idea that my ass apparently determined my worth as a person, or as a woman, made me realize the triviality of assigning sex and sexual experiences as an undeniable marker of womanhood. Nina

Hartley, a prominent advocate for sex workers and a former porn star, has said that “a fulfilling sex life makes all things more bearable.”

I would amend the statement to read as: “A fulfilling sex life can make things more bearable, assuming that your sense of self is anchored in more than sexual pleasure.” For someone like me, and probably multitudes of undiagnosed people, the sermons from sex-positive feminists that declare sexual liberation as the most legitimate path toward realizing your power as a woman feels absolutely insulting. I’d rather live by Michel Foucault’s philosophy: “The idea that bodily pleasure should always come from sexual pleasure as the root of all our possible pleasure— I think that’s something quite wrong.”

As I have become more vocal on the issue of sexual dysfunction and the alienating doctrine of sexpositive feminism, I have realized that my previous subscription to this type of mainstream feminism was a result of herd mentality rather than an informed position.

While my condition is ostensibly invisible, its implication for an involuntarily sexless feminist question the perceived inclusivity of sex-positive feminism. That a school of thought fits superficially into one’s political or social beliefs is not a reason to exclude it from critical analysis. Traditionally oppressed groups can also oppress others, and everyone is subject to accountability.

As I attempt to express the estrangement I have felt over the past year, I will also, within a number of days, try to have sex for the first time—again. This time, I am aware that both Hollywood’s depictions SEX continued on page 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | February 27, 2015

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“I will remain a strong, independent woman...who celebrates my strength and independence” SEX continued from page 4 of intimacy as well as anecdotal do’s and don’ts I have both received from and given to other young women are not sufficient to illustrate the gravity of my experience. My

rejection of sex-positive feminism and its social construction, rather than repelling me from sex, has enabled me to regard sexuality and intimacy in a new way. In a way, it encourages me to nurture

my sexuality just as I would nurture my sense of belonging and confidence. I know, though I struggle to remind myself, that I will remain a strong, independent woman who, ultimately, doesn’t

need a significant other who celebrates my strength and independence. The elasticity of my pelvic floor does not alone define my womanhood. My anger toward sex positivity’s culture of

(unintentional?) exclusivity has not translated into a rage toward myself or my own inability to fulfil others’ expectations. Instead, it has become a desire to make myself visible, even among the

attempts to drown me out.

Olivia Adams is a second-year in the College majoring in Near Eastern languages and civilizations.

If I do not speak up, who will?

Anonymous anti-Semitic online comments not only impact Jewish individuals, but also reflects the nature of our campus Shoshanah Spurlock Maroon Contributor I grew up in an area of the United States predominantly populated by Jews. Living in Brookline, MA—affectionately known as Baruch-line— there were multiple synagogues in walking distance of my house. I went to a Jewish preschool and elementary school. My best friend was Jewish. My neighbors were Jewish. Being Jewish was something that the majority of our community had in common, and that made us all feel comfortable, like we belonged there because of our identity and not by chance.

Because of this, bigotry toward Jewish people seemed like a far-off possibility to me as I grew up.

In the past few weeks, antiSemitism on campuses has escalated exponentially. While

I consider myself lucky that I have never been personally targeted because of my ethnicity, I know many who have.

Schools set on fire and lockers painted with swastikas only prove that hatered of Jewish people is alive and well in the United States. Until recently, my time at this University had been marked by relatively harmless anti-Semitism—a friend saying “that’s so Jewish” when I found a quarter underneath a couch cushion, stupid jokes on anonymous platforms —and though these actions have the possibility to hurt people, too, they are nothing compared to now.

Last night I read through the past few days on UChicago Secrets and experienced post after post condemning Jews on campus, generalizing about their opinions and experiences, and minimizing the impact of the Holocaust.

“People are hypocrites,” one read. “This is a fact. One example? The Jews at UChicago. Why? They all have grandparents who survived the Holocaust. This doesn’t stop them from denying the Holocaust in Palestine right now.”

Another read, “I’m laughing hard at these people who are like ‘They Made Me Take Off My Star Of David, I Am So Oppressed.’ Try having soldiers come in and force you out of your home.”

These are only two examples of many. Clearly motivated by anger about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, these posts expressed vitriol not toward only Zionists but also toward everybody of the Jewish faith, toward all Jews on this campus, toward me. I am not ashamed to say that this hatred moved me to tears. How

can I continue to walk around this campus knowing that is so easy for bigots to see that I am Jewish and hate me, but that it is impossible for me to know who they are? How can I wonder, as I work on a group project for a class, as I talk to coworkers, as I share a table with someone silently at the library, if my colleagues will judge me once they notice the mezuzah hanging around my neck?

I am not the most dedicated when it comes to my Jewish faith. I do not always make it to synagogue on Fridays. I no longer keep Kosher. I never had a bat mitzvah. But I am Jewish. I am one of “the Jews.”

I am proud of that. As I watch Jewish students who I have seen occasionally at Hillel or at Chabad vigorously defend themselves against these attacks, I feel grateful for their eloquence and bravery. It is

so tempting to put my head down and ignore this behavior, but I know that if I resort to that kind of silence then this type of hatred will continue. If I do not speak up, how can I expect others to speak up for me? It feels impossible to combat this type of bigotry, especially since the response from non-Jewish people has been overwhelmingly silent.

And, in some ways, this silence hurts most of all. It is the realization that nobody on campus actually cares about anti-Semitism. Out of all of my friends who read UChicago Secrets and have seen these comments, only one of them has reached out to me with concern for my feelings. Many of my other friends have either barely given it any thought or have written off the situation as a crazy thing that’s happening now and will soon be over.

In reality this hatred is grow-

ing, and with no one trying to extinguish it, it will continue to grow. I know that this campus is capable of standing up against hate crimes and hate speech. I have seen it happen time and time again in my three years at this University.

So why not now?

To those of you with Jewish friends, take a moment to let them know that you care.

Though it may be comforting to pretend that none of this is happening, I encourage Jewish students to reach out and remind each other that they are not alone. Most of all, though it is frightening, speak up, so that the people spewing this hatred know that their words cannot diminish our identities.

Shoshanah Spurlock is a third-year in the College majoring in art history.

Teacher, I need you Institutionalized racism prevents students of color from receiving the education they deserve from an early age Isis Smalls Maroon Contributor Call me naive, call me an optimist, but I still strongly believe in the power of a dream. That something that tugs on the heart, that desire that won’t fade, that vision we all have of who we can be and what we can offer to the world—it’s what inspired me to become a teacher three years ago. It’s what keeps me teaching today.

When I boarded the plane for Houston the day after graduating from the University of Chicago, I was so excited for the chance to be a part of system that equips children with a quality education—one of the most powerful tools out there. I understood that their knowledge could serve as the key to open doors and the vehicle to new opportunities. It had done exactly that for me.

As a black girl growing up in historic Charleston, SC, the opportunity to dream was nearly stolen from me.

In third grade I moved to a new school halfway through the year and was placed in an all-black classroom. In that room there were some kids coloring instead of reading, others were talking, and yet others sleeping. All this

time, the teacher was paying no attention and sitting at her desk. I wondered, “Why aren’t we doing anything in class? Are the other kids learning? Are the other teachers teaching?”

My stay in that first classroom didn’t last long. A few days later I was pulled out and put into what I would later come to understand was the “Gifted and Talented” classroom. This was because my mother advocated for me and made a phone call that triggered the change to this more challenging and monitored atmosphere. In this new classroom, nobody looked like me. There were two other black students.

For the remainder of my public education, this would continue. Classmates with the same racial identity as me were few and far between.

To this day I am disturbed by the idea that some parents didn’t see the classroom I left behind for what it was.

They did not know that their child’s potential had been assessed by the darkness of their skin. For every child who spent the year in that classroom, there was a seed of potential not planted, a dream not watered, a talent not tilled, and a worldchanging idea not harvested.

Now, standing at the front of my own classroom, as a teacher for Teach for America, I see what’s possible. This gap between what is and what could be will fuel my passions wherever I go.

Black History Month isn’t just about institutionalized racial discrimination. It is about the power of a dream and the right every child has to receive a quality education that will allow them to live their dreams to the fullest. This month my students are delving into Langston Hughes’ “Dreams” and “Dreams Deferred” as well as dissecting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. We are discussing our hopes, we are being real about the barriers we face, and we are promising one another that we will never let go of our plans and ambitions.

It is our duty to ensure that we help our kids hold fast to their dreams and nurture them. They are, after all, our future.

Isis Smalls is a 2012 alum and an alum of Teach For America— Houston. She teaches reading and English at Project Chrysalis Middle School.

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ARTS

What is art?

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

For the first time Café Logan features a student's photo exhibition Darren Wan Arts Contributor In Café Logan, surrounded by his art, Alexander Pizzirani points out his favorite photograph to me: an engagement ceremony at the Imperial Ancestral Temple in Beijing.

The bride is wearing what would be considered a Western wedding dress, save for the fact that it is red, the color that the bride dons at traditional Chinese weddings. This synthesis of cultural practices encapsulates the spirit of Pizzirani’s photography exhibition, entitled The Past in the Present: Tradition and Modernity in Beijing, slated to end this Sunday.

A third-year economics major, Pizzirani discussed how his academic interests influence his photography. “I like to look at economic development and how that manifests in urban space. In the case of Beijing, I was interested in how such rapid economic change has affected traditions that once had strong staying power.” The photographs were primarily taken while Pizzirani was studying abroad in Beijing last quarter, though several were taken on his second trip to China in 2008. This

was incidentally the year when he got his first heavy-duty camera.

The exhibition – presented at Café Logan as part of a new FOTA initiative – is divided into three sections. The first section represents stasis, in which traditional practices are largely left unaltered. The second demonstrates transformation, through interactions between the past and the present. The final section, exhibited on the wall opposite the main space, consists of photographs of policemen patrolling and guarding Tiananmen Square, representing a key aspect of modern Chinese history.

“In essence, this exhibition is a series of snapshots that show how these elements of society interact in Beijing,” he said. “The theme organically came together.” This attests to the rapid transformations that the city has undergone and is still undergoing. In 2005, the first time Pizzirani was in Beijing, he noted that wealth was expressed through ostentation. Today, Beijing seems to be subtler in demonstrating its rapid economic development. Pizzirani suggests that Beijing imitates what are considered to be desirable as-

theSketch

This weekend University Theater will be presenting Cowboy Mouth by Sam Shepard and Patti Smith. Directed by Gwendolyn Wiegold, the play is a story written by lovers about lovers (and for lovers?) that examines the effects of the American Dream. The story follows two artists living in a grungy ’70s hotel looking for something real in a dream world built of dead French poets, vagabonds, and rock-and-roll gods but haunted by the lobster man, whom the two are finally able to confront.

Friday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, February 28 at 2 and 7 p.m., Logan Center’s Theater West, $6 in advance or $8 at the door This past week, posters advertising the 35th annual Korean Students Organization (KSO) flooded the walls of campus dining halls and dorms. This year’s

This photograph was taken by third-year Alexander Pizzirani of a engagement ceremony in Tiananmen Square.

COURTESY OF ALEXANDER PIZZIRANI

of transformation in a city where all is transient, Pizzirani artfully captures moments that will, perhaps, be lost through Beijing’s unending process of revision and renewal.

Pizzirani has submitted some portfolios to a couple of galleries in hopes of future exhibitions, and plans to continue widening the subject of his photography. “I usually focus on travel and wildlife, but I hope

to do some portraiture,” he said.

His work has enlivened Café Logan for almost a month, and will hopefully continue to be displayed in future exhibitions. “I received my first camera in third grade, and I’ve come a long way since,” he said. Pizzirani has devoted his life to creating art, and he reflects, “Photography, to me, is simply about sharing what I see.”

Oscar results debateable. As usual.

Arts, Briefly.

Tonight Ani Cordero and her band will present an intimate program based on her album Recordar: Latin American Songs of Love and Protest, which gives new life to classic Latin American songs from the 1930s–1970s in the hopes of sharing the influential music with new generations and ethnicities. This album focuses on the work of the Latin folk musicians who once inspired social change and promises to provide an evening of music that may seem fresh but has a long history.

Friday, February 27, International House, Assembly Hall, 8–9 p.m., free for students or $15 general admission

pects of other cities, and in so doing attempts to conform to the normative standard of what a world-class city should look like.

Beyond imitation, innovation is starting to occur. “China is industrially reaching that point, with brands like Huawei,” suggests Pizzirani.

“Culturally, too, this is starting to happen, with artists like Ai Weiwei operating on an international scale.”

As innovation is often set alongside tradition, these tensions manifest clearly in his photography. A photograph of a man playing the yueqin, a traditional Chinese instrument, when seen alongside another photograph of greetings for the Lunar New Year written in Czech, demonstrates the importance of these conflicts in an ever-changing city.

What is powerful about Pizzirani’s work is its verisimilitude, and how it reflects landscapes in an urban space that is never static. “I don’t like staging things. I don’t like manipulating things,” Pizzirani said, as he noted the limited nature of edits and touch-ups made to his photographs.

“It’s about documenting what’s in front of me in that moment.” Weaving his photographs into a narrative

show is an original play called Saving Sargent Lee written by Chanwool Kim and Noah Lee who are also directing the show.

It follows the story of the titular Korean student, who returns to the University of Chicago after spending two years serving in the South Korean army and quickly falls in love with a female student he meets. However, she is not interested, prompting him to lament, “Why do girls hate me?” as seen on the posters for the event.

The play is broken up by singing and dancing—ranging from traditional Korean fan dance to more modern K-pop—and includes dinner with the price of admission.

Saturday, February 28, dinner at 6:30 p.m., Hutchinson Commons, show at 8 p.m., Mandel Hall, $10 in advance or $12 at the door.

The avant-garde, by definition, needs to be at the forefront of an art form, experimenting with styles and techniques that the mainstream won’t adopt until years into the future. It is fitting then that respected avant-garde filmmaker Ernie Gehr embraced the switch from physical film to digital recording way back in 2001, when the vast majority of his peers were still in denial of the impending switch. It was a huge leap, given that he had been working with film since the 1960s, but the move has likely paid off. This evening, Gehr will be coming to showcase several short films he has shot digitally over the last few years.

Friday, February 27, Logan Center, Room 201, free

Robert Sorrell Senior Arts Writer Directors Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater have had a great year. The two are arguably the most visible independent/ art-house American directors at this moment, and released huge critical (and in Anderson’s case financial) successes this year.

However, their styles are quite different: Anderson is an illusionist, full of showy tricks and puffs of purple smoke, and Linklater an alchemist, attempts to take an “ordinary” hunk of lead and turn it into gold.

Fittingly, Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel(GBH), is a wonderfully constructed layer cake of Dickensian plot complexity, zany costumes, cartoon-like villains, old-world European decadence, and above all, His Excellency, the enigmatic and eccentric hotel manager M. Gustave, played by Ralph Fiennes. In contrast, Linklater’s Boyhood depicts a Texan boy’s adolescence and young adulthood in almost documentary-esque realism by filming over 12 years. The films are both epic in their own ways, and it appeared that even the ficklest and most frustrating critic of them all, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was also won over when they handed GBH nine nominations and Boyhood six. Three of each—best picture, best director, and best original screenplay—were for the directors themselves, neither of whom has won before.

Despite GBH’s wins for costume design, hair and makeup, production design, and original score, as well as Patricia Arquette’s

win for best supporting actress for Boyhood, neither one won any of these major awards.

While it’s easy to be cynical about the Oscars, one important issue at stake each February when the red carpet rolls out is validation for filmmakers. Validation matters, because it helps directors get funding for projects or helps catapult actresses and actors into more roles. In some way it helps to determine what is produced, who is mainstream, and what kind of films we in the mainstream see.

The Oscars are important because they are judging, and in some ways determining the future of, one of America’s most beloved popular entertainment and art forms: the movies.

So, let’s take a step back and assess.

Birdman was the toast of the night, pulling out best picture, alongside best cinematography, directing, and original screenplay (over Boyhood and GBH). Other major category winners included Whiplash, The Theory of Everything, Still Alice and Selma.

What is a bit sad about the lineup is not that it is composed of bad films, as it has been at some points in the past, but rather that, frustratingly, Boyhood, GBH, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, three of the most inventive and in some ways experimental films this year, failed to pull in wins for their directors. Many of the winners feel unsatisfactorily...small in the grand scheme of things.

Boyhood, like it, love it, or hate it, is at its essence a brash, exciting experiment. An experiment in how films can be made and in what sort of things the camera

can capture, it is unique in mainstream cinema, and who doesn’t like new things?

Similarly, Wes Anderson since releasing his indie debut Bottle Rocket with buddy Owen Wilson in 1996, has been crafting films whose style is defiantly new and unique.

In many ways, according to critics and the average moviegoer alike, Anderson reached the very perfect articulation of The Wes Anderson Film with GBH. For some this is a biting criticism, for some the ultimate praise. There is a strange weight to GBH, a strange profundity that comes about when the viewer realizes all the running about, the affectations, and the absurdity are all just a part of the characters’ attempts to deal with the world. Whether you find Anderson’s style grating and faddish or delightful and inspired, it is difficult to argue that it is not “new.” Which makes its losses in the big categories a bit disheartening even for a filmlover ambivalent about his most recent picture.

With Grand Budapest Hotel and Boyhood, Anderson and Linklater argue that cinema can still be exciting and new and experimental. They assert that cinema can find meaning outside the literal in the symbolic, figurative, and gestural. Or, it can at times question the need for meaning or narrative. Like novels or poems or paintings or sculptures, films can do so much more than tell stories.

Linklater and Anderson remind us that films aren’t about the stories they tell, but about the way in which they do so. Films can be more than entertainment. Will we let them be?

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | February 27, 2015

7

Maroons trek to IN to face field of 12 at Midwest Regionals Wrestling Eirene Kim Sports Staff The Maroons will head to Crawfordsville, IN this weekend to compete in the NCAA Midwest Regional for the chance to advance to the NCAA National Championships.

Postseason is the time when Chicago wants to be at the peak of its performance. After placing second in the UAA, the squad turns to its fundamentals and strong mentality

to help them advance to the national championships.

“Going into the NCAAs, we are really just trying to focus on applying the fundamentals we have worked on all season as well as staying positive mentally,” said fourthyear Mario Palmisano.

The Maroons have 11 other strong teams in the Midwest region with them to make for a field of 12, five of whom are nationally ranked. These teams include No. 2 UWWhitewater, No. 3 Wabash,

Bears stand in the way of automatic NCAA bid Women’s Basketball Russell Mendelson Sports Staff This weekend the Maroons head down I-55 to take on the only roadblock in front of stretching their winning streak to 13 games.

Chicago (18–6, 12–1 UAA) will have to defeat the No. 9 Bears (22–2, 11–2) in order to claim sole possession of the UAA conference title. The last time the South Siders lost was against this same Wash U team on January 10 in what was their first conference game of the season. Since that loss, however, the Maroons have won every inter-conference game, with 11 of those 12 winning margins in double digits. “[W]e are very excited to play Washington University in St. Louis this weekend and prove how much we have grown as a team since we last saw them,” said fourth-year forward Ali Shaw on the upcoming season finale. “Our focus going into this week’s game is the same as it has been these past weeks. We know we are a tough team to beat if we play our defense and control the tempo of the game.”

A large part of the Maroons’ success has been a rock-solid defense, which is one of the most likely reasons for the large point differentials between them and their opponents. Chicago has only let the competition outscore them during three game-halves of their 12game winning streak. In addition, all of those instances took place in the second half when the Maroons had already pulled ahead.

“We are very proud of our defense. It is something our coaches have put a lot of time into developing and it has become a part of our identity,” said Shaw on the team’s defensive prowess. “It is really great when we play

as a unit out on the court, not a lot of teams practice against that much pressure, so it makes it hard for them to do what they want on offense.”

Shaw also acknowledged that for the upcoming season finale, the Maroons will be sure to work on their defense during practice so as to keep up their dominant performance.

Like Shaw, fourth-year guard Claire Devaney stressed the importance of controlling the tempo of the game as well as maintaining a strong rebounding presence.

“Controlling the tempo of the game will be extremely important for us on Saturday. In order to do that, it starts with winning the rebounding battle,” explained Devaney, the only member of the team with total rebounds this year in the triple digits at 152 (104 defensive).

“If we can control the boards and control the tempo I think we will put ourselves in a great position to win.”

The UAA is the only conference in DIII that does not decide its champion via a tournament and subsequently who receives a bid for the national tournament. Generally 44 of the 64 spots are determined by the 43 conference tournament champions, plus the UAA’s best record holder, and 20 spots are left at large for a committee to decide on. In order to ensure a bid, the Maroons must defeat Wash U to be the only holder of the best record in the UAA. If they lose and share the UAA championship with the Bears, the Maroons will have to wait to learn if they receive an at-large bid.

Chicago plans to dispel any need for this uncertain determination as tipoff begins at 1 p.m. tomorrow in St. Louis.

No. 4 UW-La Crosse, No. 12 Alma, No. 26 Olivet, Elmhurst, Manchester, North Central, Trine, and Wheaton.

“Wrestlers compete individually at the regional tournament against the other wrestlers in their weight class from the aforementioned teams,” Palmisano said.

From there, the top three individuals in each weight class will move on to the national championships.

The Maroons are excited to attempt to qualify for

NCAAs, the tournament they have been training for all season. The season has been long and demanding, but Chicago is confident in its level of performance and believes it possesses the mental strength to push through this last part of its season.

Now that the team has passed UAAs, the focus shifts from team to individual performance. Some standouts at UAAs that will definitely be people to watch at regionals are first-year Devan Richter,

first-year Nick Ferraro, and Palmisano, all of whom made the All-Association team.

“To be successful this weekend, we need to wrestle at our best. We need to compete at the pinnacle of our performance. At the end of the season is where it all comes together. Most importantly, we need to stay tough mentally.

This tournament is a grueling one but it is the one we have been waiting for all season,” Palmisano said.

Chicago knows it has to

give this weekend’s tournament its all to make it to Hershey, PA for the NCAA National Championship. The Maroons hope to let their performance this weekend reflect all of their hard work this season.

“At this point, there isn’t much to do besides go in there and wrestle our hearts out,” Palmisano said.

The first match of the weekend starts Saturday at 9 a.m. at Wabash College and will be streamed online.

Four South Siders to compete in regionals at Myers-McLoraine Pool Diving Katie Anderson Sports Staff This weekend, the South Siders will compete in the NCAA Regional Diving Championship, where they hope their performances will be strong enough to qualify them for nationals.

The Maroons will also serve as hosts for the two-day meet, which will begin on Friday and continue through Saturday in the Myers-McLoraine Pool.

Chicago’s team consists of fourth-years Anthony Restaino, Matthew Staab, and Kevin Steffes, along with firstyear Dean Boures, who will compete among a field of 59

divers from around the central region. The top-scoring competitors will qualify for the NCAA Championships.

The Maroon divers had a very strong showing at the UAA Championships held in Atlanta, GA two weeks ago. On the first day of the four-day meet, the men gave the Maroons a strong start, with Staab, Restaino, Boures, and Steffes all finishing in the top six in the one-meter preliminaries. Staab and Restaino then took first and second in the finals, respectively, to earn all-UAA honors. Boures finished fifth, and Steffes was sixth. In the three-meter at UAAs, Restaino and Staab took second and third in the

finals, respectively. In the preliminaries, Staab broke the school and UAA record.

Qualifying for nationals is different for diving than it is for swimming. This is the second year with this new format where the divers now have one high-pressure meet to score well enough to qualify for Nationals. Unlike the case with swimming, the divers’ performances during the rest of the season do not count for getting to Nationals.

However, the strong showing by the divers throughout the regular season and at UAA Championships provides them with a confidence that will perform well this weekend. The Maroons also

have the benefit of being at home during this high-pressure situation.

“I would say we feel very good going into this meet, especially because it’s at home,” first-year Dean Boures said.

“We all know we’ve scored well enough to go to nationals throughout the year, so for us it’s just about putting together a nice consistent meet and just let everything else handle itself.”

Action will kick off on Friday at 4 p.m. with the women’s one-meter, followed by the men’s three-meter. On Saturday, competition will begin with the women’s threemeter at 12 p.m., followed by the men’s one-meter.

ITA National Championships next challenge for No. 12 squad Women’s Tennis Zach Themer Associate Sports Editor After two months of constant meets, matches, and earlymorning training sessions, the No. 12 Maroons (4–2) finally have a chance to demonstrate their abilities on the biggest of stages as they head to DePauw University (2–1) today to take part in the ITA Division III National Women’s Team Indoor Championship. In what will surely be a grueling, exciting, and arduous weekend, the Maroons will be one of eight teams competing for the glory that comes with a national championship.

With the scale of the tournament this weekend, the Maroons have no plans of being overwhelmed by the pressure.

They have a goal in mind and

are ready to execute.

“This weekend, our goal is to place better than third, which is where we finished the last two years,” fourth-year Megan Tang said. “Ultimately, we want to win the tournament.”

If the No. 5-seeded South Siders want to win the tournament and take home the national title, they are first going to have to take down the No. 4-seeded hosts, DePauw. In what will be a pivotal matchup that could potentially give the Maroons the inside track to the tournament title, the squad is going to have to rely on the same ladies who have led the team throughout the season.

In particular, the Maroons will turn to the likes of Tang, first-year Jasmine Lee, secondyear Tiffany Chen, and their top singles player, first-year

Ariana Iranpour, to lead the charge.

However, it’s going to take more than individual performances for the Maroons to win the weekend. The South Siders are going to have to look to their three doubles teams to bring home some critical wins in the matches, and ultimately set a tone for the rest of the match.

“We want to focus on getting an early lead after doubles, because it will give us a lot of confidence and momentum going into singles,” Tang said.

“And, as usual, we want to remember that we are playing for each other and to cheer one another on after every point.”

If the Maroons can in fact topple their mighty opponent in DePauw later tonight, they will most likely then be faced

with a matchup against the No. 1-seeded Johns Hopkins.

The Blue Jays are the strongest team in the tournament, and if the Maroons are able to knock them off tomorrow, they will be favorites heading into the national championship final on Sunday. Potential opponents for the Maroons in the tournament final include the likes of heated conference rivals Carnegie Mellon and Wash U. “This weekend, we need to keep up our energy level, as it is a lot of tennis in three days.

If we can do that, we will play well,” Tang said.

The Maroons’ first match of the national championship will be against DePauw at 3:30 p.m.

Depending on the result of that match, the Maroons could play as early as 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, or as late as 7:30 p.m.

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SPORTS

IN QUOTES “It’s like coming out of the mother’s womb. You’re in a nice, warm, cozy environment–safe. And now you are into the chaos and bright lights. It’s a happening. It’s all those things rolled into one.”

–Michigan Wolverines’ coach Jim Harbaugh on the first day of spring football training

Chicago to host UAA Championships at Henry Crown Track and FIeld Bronagh Daly Sports Staff

Two UChicago distance runners, fourth-year Hope Bretscher and secondyear Madison Hetzner, lead the race during the Margaret Bradley Invitational at Henry Crown Field House last year.

COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS

Coming off of this past weekend’s wins, men’s and women’s track hope to perform a repeat. This year, the team has a particular interest in winning, as UAAs will be hosted at home in the Henry Crown Field House.

“Well, technically given what our coach has assembled for points that are expected to be gained from each event, the girls are expected to win, as well as the men, but that’s hard to predict because it’s hard to know if athletes are definitely going to compete in all the events that they are expected to get points in,” said fourth-year thrower Kelly Wood.

The women’s team hopes to follow through with their predictions and once again take home first, as they did at last year’s championships.

The men, on the other hand, hope to improve their performance from last year’s 6th place finish.

“As always though, teams

are always PRing… but hopefully this meet that’ll be ours,” Wood said.

Wood, who earned a personal record of her own this past weekend hopes to continue to improve her performance and place higher than her pre-meet ranking would predict.

As far as the throwers, fourth-year Reecie Dern, who is currently second in the conference rankings in shot put herself, expects that Nkemdilim Nwaokolo stands to be one of the overall winners as she’s ranked first in both shot put and weight throw.

Other standouts on the women’s side include firstyear Ade Ayoola in the high jump and shot put, third-year Nelson Trotter in the high jump, third-year Brianna Hickey in the mile, thirdyear Maya Lewinsohn in the 5000m, third-year Catherine Young in the 3000m, and second-year Michelle Dobbs in the 400m and 800m.

On the men’s side, thirdyear Benjamin Clark in the 200m, second-year Gareth

Jones in the 5000m, secondyear Nicholas Nielsen in the mile, third-year Michael Frasco in the 3000m, and firstyear Patrick LeFevre in the 60H are all ranked in the first two slots in their respective events.

However, the team is not completely happy that they will be forced to compete at home for the second meet in a row.

“I think it’ll be nice to be home because it’ll be at our track and we won’t have to deal with the stress of travel but it’s hard because we’re still on campus with all the distractions we normally have,” Wood said.

Dern agreed. “It’s sometimes hard to get into competition mode in the same place you practice in, but in general, we had a past weekend at home, so maybe we can ride this into this meet,” Dern said. “It’s really just a different feeling when you’re competing at home though.”

The UAA Indoor Championships are scheduled to begin on Saturday at 12 p.m.

DI UIC, Carroll slated for Maroons seek to upset upcoming weekend No. 20 Wash U Men’s Tennis Helen Petersen Associate Sports Editor After a pair of decisive 9–0 wins on its home courts against Oberlin and Wheaton, Chicago will look to continue to defend its stomping grounds this weekend when it hosts University of IllinoisChicago and Carroll.

The No. 17 Maroons boast a 5–2 record, having fallen only to No. 8 Case Western and DI DePaul. The squad has thus far knocked off a pair of ranked teams in No. 12 Kenyon and No. 26 Denison.

Weekend play begins Saturday against UIC. The Flames are struggling in the early part of their season. They’ve dropped seven games and won just two. Chicago’s loss to DI DePaul earlier in the season was only by a slim margin, and the players will now look to prove that they can hang with the top collegiate level.

“As the team continue[s] to improve it is important that we find quality teams that will challenge us regardless of what division they are. Our mindset when playing these teams isn’t to just keep the score close or to work on improving but to win as a team,” head coach Jay Tee said.

Men’s Basketball Competing against a highly competitive DI school should prepare the team for the tough road ahead of them. However, it did not change how they prepared for the match.

“We’ve been going about practice as normally, but we are focusing on working on skills that we know we need to work on from the last few dual matches,” first-year Nicolas Chua said. “With only a few weeks before very important matches in SoCal and UAAs, now is our time to solidify our games.”

Following Saturday’s match against UIC, Chicago will take on another nonconference opponent, Carroll. The Pioneers are 2–4 on the season and have yet to get a victory on the road. The two squads have yet to play a common opponent. The Pioneers have only faced one ranked opponent in No. 25 UW-Whitewater.

They lost the match 9–0.

“This weekend is a great chance for us to try to bring out what we practiced in match situations,” Chua said.

“Obviously we want to pull out the win, but it’s also important to realize that it’s our next few matches that are really important.”

The match against Carroll is

the last time the Maroons will take on an unranked team. It will be an opportunity to fine tune the technical aspects of the game. No. 24 DePauw is next up on Chicago’s schedule followed closely by a series of matches in California. A match against DI powerhouse UCLA kicks off the trip to the West Coast.

“We just added one of the best teams in the country to our schedule in UCLA and our goal going in to that match is the same as [our goal in a match against] a Division III opponent: show up ready to compete, believe we can win, and fight as hard as we can for as long as it takes,” Tee said.

This fierce matchup will be followed by a series of competitions against No. 20 Cal Lutheran, No. 19 Whittier, and No. 11 Pomona-Pitzer.

However, no matter the competitor, Tee claims the goal is always the same.

“The goal now is to start seeing ourselves as one of the top teams in the country and to go out and show it each time we step on the court,” Tee said.

Saturday’s match against UIC kicks off at 6 p.m. at XS Tennis. Sunday’s match will be held in the same location at 11 a.m.

Michael Cheiken Sports Staff In their first UAA conference game of the season, held back in early January, the Maroons (16–8, 8–5 UAA) squared off against rival Wash U (19–5, 8–5). Motivated by the strong home crowd, the Maroons trounced the Bears 63–43 in that meeting.

Now, as the regular season comes to a close, the Maroons look to go 2–0 against the No. 17 Bears for the first time since the 2010–2011 season. A win over Wash U would provide the Maroons with a great case for inclusion in the postseason tournament while securing the Chicago squad a top-two finish in the UAA conference. A loss would put the Maroons in a sticky situation.

Looking back on the previous meeting between the two sides proves somewhat unrevealing. On January 10th, the Bears were 2–19 from beyond the arc and recorded a measly 30.3 percent field goal percentage. On the season, the team is shooting just under 40 percent from downtown. No matter how good the Maroon’s defense is come Saturday, it would be unreasonable to expect the Bears to hit only 10 percent of

their threes.

The man to watch is 6’2” third-year Luke SilvermanLloyd. The California native is shooting an impressive 48.3 percent from three. If he gets hot, the game could get out of reach. Of course, opening up the three-point opportunity comes from putting in work down low. Over the course of the season the Bears have relied on 6’7” Matt Palucki to work the paint. The big man has been averaging 16 points and eight rebounds per game. If the Maroon frontcourt can find a way to contain him, victory will surely be within reach.

The South Siders will also have to execute on the offensive end of the floor. Thus far this season, Chicago has relied on third-year guard Jordan Smith.

In addition to the 15 points he puts on the board each game, he also acts as one of the primary creators. Needless to say, come Saturday the Maroons will look to Smith to carry the load and come up big when the time comes.

There are three postseason scenarios, each dependent on the outcome of this game. 62 teams are invited to the postseason: 43 conference champions and 19 at-large bids. The simplest way to reach the tourna-

ment is to win the conference.

This is still within reach. If No. 15 Emory loses and the Maroons win, they will have a tied 9–5 conference record. The Maroons would be declared conference champions based on their superior record over thirdplace Wash U. If Emory wins, four hours prior to the tip-off between Wash U and Chicago, the conference title will be out of grasp. The Maroons would then be dependent on the selection committee to provide them with one of the 19 at-large bids.

With a 16–8 record, the Maroons lie right on the bubble.

A win over the No. 20 Bears would certainly bolster their resume. Elaborating on the postseason implications, third-year forward Alex Voss remarked, “It looks like a loss will end the season.” This mentality coupled with the fact that this provides every person on the Maroons’ roster with a chance to earn his first postseason appearance should provide plenty of motivation. For now, however, Voss and the Maroon team know that if Emory wins, “[their fate] is not in [their] hands.” All they can do now is go out and win.

The team’s final conference game of the year against Wash U will begin at 3 p.m. on Saturday on the road.