Chicago-Maroon-10-01-26

MONDAY

IN VOICES

IN SPORTS

Extraordinary Measures

Four-for-four

» Page 7

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Film tries to tug at heartstrings, but grasps at straws.

Men’s and women’s basketball return from weekend road trip with two wins apiece.

JANUARY 26, 2010

CHICAGO

AROON

VOLUME 121 ISSUE 22

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892

STUDENT LIFE

Sexual assault reformers to put policy to a vote Working Group referendum first on SG ballot in three years

By Christina Pillsbury Senior News Staff A student group frustrated with current sexual assault policy will seek wide -ranging support in a campus-wide referendum this spring, the first such referendum in three years.

The Working Group on Sexual Assault Policy (WGSAP) approached Student Government (SG) President and fourth-year Jarrod Wolf last week about adding a referendum to the spring SG election. WGSAP members said the motion will likely advocate forming a single, independent body to hear disciplinary procedures, and providing equal access to testimony and appeals for accuser and accused.

“We want this [referendum] to be as simple and easy to understand as possible,” WGSAP member and second-year SSA student Ursula Wagner said.

Under current sexual assault policy, faculty from the division in which the accused student is enrolled—Physical Sciences, College, etc.—determine whether assault has taken place, and

what an appropriate punishment should be.

“Whether you’re an accused or accuser you really don’t want this to go in front of your faculty,” Wagner said, because professors could form biases against students they know, and students may not want future professors knowing personal details about them. WGSAP received a major complaint that the process was traumatic for a student claiming she was sexually assaulted.

The last time a referendum was brought to vote was in the 2007 slate elections, when students voted by a slim majority to support U of C participation in U-Pass, a CTA program that gives unlimited rides to full-time University students.

But SG referendums are nonbinding for both SG and University administration, and because the majority was not overwhelming, the administration did not implement U-Pass.

“It’s really important to understand the power that [SG’s] influence has in decision-making within the University.” Wolf said, “If the overwhelming [majority] supports one position, 70/30 or 80/20, then SG will have a lot of influence in

REFORM continued on page 3

Mathematician who solved fundamental proof to be University professor Ngô Bao Châu, who helped unite two fields of mathematics, accepted a position at the University Monday, and will start next September.

Ngô’s proof of the famous Langlands’ lemma earned praise from TIME magazine, which called the achievement one of the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.

“He has made transformational achievements,” said Peter Constantin, chair of the Mathematics Department, referring to the lemma.

“His work was not just a curiosity of a small, singular difficult problem, but a bridge between two fields.”

Langlands’s theories drew connections between algebra and analysis, which deal with equations and curves respectively. “Often in math, you have two ways of expressing the same thing,” Constantin said.

“It creates a set of correspondences, like a dictionary.” This relationship allows information to be transported from one set of mathematical objects to another, but is hinged on what Langlands called “the fundamental lemma.”

L emmas are usually smaller theorems mathematicians use as

A

customer browses the CD selection at Dr. Wax, a Hyde Park record store. Dr. Wax, which has been on 52nd Street and Harper Avenue for 30 years, will close February 15, after decreased foot traffic in Harper Court caused sales to drop. The store is organizing a farewell concert featuring hiphop and soul performers February 28 at McCormick Auditorium.

DARREN LEOW/MAROON

ADMINISTRATION

Teamsters discuss University overtures in contract talks

By Asher Klein News Editor

ACADEMICS

By Michael Lipkin News Editor

Broken records

intermediate steps in their overall proof, but the Langlands lemma stumped mathematicians for 30 years. “In this case, the lemma turned out to be one of the hardest parts,” said mathematics professor Robert Kottwitz, who also worked on the problem.

The lemma was a core piece of mathematician Robert Langlands’s work, and many thought it could be solved relatively easily. “I thought at the time I should be able to prove it: It was an elementary-sounding lemma, so it should have an elementary proof,” said Langlands, a former professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Langlands, Kottwitz, and others proved some specific cases of the lemma, but Ngô’s “beautiful” proof solved the general problem.

“You have to prove two things are equal without ever knowing explicitly what they are,” Kottwitz said. “Professor Ngô found the right point of view that only looks natural with hindsight.”

Ngô, 37, was born in Hanoi, Vietnam, received his doctorate from the Université Paris-Sud, and currently teaches at the Institute for Advanced Study. Ngô said he con-

MATH continued on page 2

Campus Teamsters met to discuss ongoing negotiations with the University Monday, a month before their three-year contact is set to expire.

Joe Sexauer, the Local 743 representative who ran the meeting, told the 40 or so members that the University was willing to give specific deadlines for when grievance hearings can be heard; currently, grievance hearings can last for months or years.

Sexauer said there have been no changes to the contract’s language on bumping, a process by which senior union members, if fired, can stay employed by taking the spot of a more junior member in another department. Sexauer said bump-

ing offers job security to long-term employees. He also said the salary and benefit portion of the contract, which is being still negotiated, would be a major point of the talks.

Last week, University repre sentatives said they were hoping negotiations would take a more cooperative tone than they have in the past—negotiations once dragged on for over a year—but members of the negotiating committee said the University had yet to demonstrate a commitment to that proposal at the bargaining table.

“I think bargaining is going the way it usually does. The University so far is not any more intransigent than they’ve been in the past, but we’ve detected no gestures on their part” to follow through with last week’s proposal, Teamsters negotiator and

Regenstein acquisition assistant Gary Mamlin said at the meeting.

Melanie A. Cloghessy, a clerical worker in the Humanities Department, echoed a sentiment expressed by other union members and negotiators—that negotiations haven’t gone on long enough for a new attitude to show itself—but suggested the gesture was an important step forward.

“I don’t think there’s been enough time for them to act in better faith yet, but the fact that they’ve been making public statements to that effect is hopeful, and we’ll have to take them seriously,” Cloghessy said in an interview. “Not because we believe them, but because that would be the proper thing for them to do. It’s what the law requires, and

Responsibility,” was organized by the Chicago Justice Initiative and funded by Student Government.

In the past few years, neuroscience has shown up more in legal proceedings, due in part to the rise of the neuroscience field in the 1990s, or “the decade of the brain,” moderator Brent Garland said.

“Neuroscience is going so far, so

fast, you just can’t keep up,” said Dr. Stephen Dinwiddie, director of the University’s Law and Psychiatry program.

Dinwiddie summarized why neuroscience might be relevant to criminal proceedings: If the reasons behind a criminal’s activities lie in the way his or her brain works,

UNION continued on page 3

DISCOURSE

“Neurolaw” conference questions role of science in criminal trials

By Alicia Sanchez-Ramirez News Contributor Four experts on law and neuroscience discussed how advances in the study of the brain can be applied in the legal system Thursday in Harper Memorial Library.

The panel, “Neurolaw: How Brain Research Affects Criminal

NEURO LAW continued on page 2

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CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | January 26, 2010

Brother, can you spare AC? Econ prof tests altruism with energy-saving appliances UNDER

THE

MICROSCOPE

By Stacey Kirkpatrick

Breaking out of the lab for the first time, Erez Yoeli is bringing his experiments in altruism and the environmental conscience of communities to Southern California.

Yoeli, a University of Chicago economist, studies the willingness of a California community’s residents to implement environmentally friendly measures in their homes for the good of their neighbors.

He also examines whether residents are influenced by others’ decisions to act similarly. “Why are people giving up the time? [Giving up air conditioning at peak times] is a bit of a hassle,” Yoeli said.

Yoeli asked residents to enroll in California’s SmartAC program, which automatically turns down the air conditioning in a house when local power consumption is dangerously high in order

CORRECTIONS In the January 22 article “From doctors to space cowboys, Ford still kicks ass,” some interview questions were mistakenly attributed to the MAROON. The questions were posed by several different reporters, including Michelle Welch for the MAROON. In the January 22 article “Admin seeks to end contract posturing, union skeptical,” the membership of Teamsters Local 743 was misstated. Campus maintenance work is performed by members of SEIU Local 73, while Teamsters perform clerical work and staff the dining halls, the Medical Center, Quad Club, and Barnes & Noble.

CHICAGO MAROON .COM

Maybe people will be more willing to participate “if you don’t dress it up too much.”

While none of the trends in his preliminary findings was statistically significant, Yoeli said he planned to structure the next experiment differently by performing it in San Jose, where a higher concentration of residents would intensify the effects of social influence. “Generally speaking, it worked well in apartment buildings with the revealing sign-up condition and the butterfly message. That increase is really strong,” he said.

Yoeli decided to do his research in real-life situations rather than a lab setting, trading hypothetical communities for California residents to gauge their reactions. A lot of research findings “don’t generalize well once they get out of the lab,” he said.

The idea of social approval, the idea that behavior is influenced by what others think, has only been researched in a laboratory setting. “It turns out we don’t have good evidence of it in the field. So basically I set out to do what we had done in the lab already,” Yoeli said.

to prevent blackouts. But the system also has a positive environmental impact in streamlining energy-usage and lowering peak consumption.

Yoeli’s study involved two components: how the request’s tone, and the neighbor’s responses, affected adoption rates.

Yoeli first divided residents into two random groups, and sent each group one of two letters asking if they were willing to have the system installed in their homes. The first letter simply explained the SmartAC program and requested their participation. The second included a paragraph describing energy use as a privilege, a “public good” that should be shared among community members. “A public good is anything that everybody enjoys but nobody really owns it,” Yoeli said.

The additional paragraph also used the metaphor of the butterfly effect, in which a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can affect winds in another. Yoeli said those who received the butterfly letter were more likely to agree to the program than those who didn’t.

For the second part of the experiment, Yoeli

divided the same residents into two new random groups, butterfly-recipients divided equally between them. In one of these groups, Yoeli made public the list of who was and was not adopting the SmartAC program, and in the other he did not. These were labeled revealing and anonymous conditions, respectively.

In the revealing condition, “I had folks sign up on a sign-up sheet, that I would post publicly in the lobby of an apartment,” Yoeli said, predicting that the revealing condition would encourage residents to adopt the system, similarly to public philanthropy. “If people know you give to charity, they are more likely to give to charity.”

While Yoeli found that people were more likely to adopt SmartAC in the revealing condition if a butterfly message was included, butterflyrecipients in the anonymous condition were less likely to use SmartAC. “I found the message was backfiring on the anonymous sheets,” he said.

Yoeli hypothesized that people in this “backfire” group reacted with questions like, “What’s the catch?” or “What’s in it for me?”

Neurology panel cautions against lawyers’ and judges’ misuse of science

Ngô eager to collaborate with U of C mathematicians who supported his efforts to solve lemma

NEURO LAW continued from front page “does that mean we should not hold them accountable? Or does it give us more reason to lock them up?” he said.

The other panelists were Carol A. Brook, executive director of the Federal Defender Program for the Northern District of Illinois and Dr. Don Nelson, professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Cincinnati.

The panel called for constant dialogue between scientists, public policy makers, politicians, and the general public.

Garland, who edited the volume Neuroscience and Law: Brain, Mind, and the Scales of Justice, expressed confidence in the courts and legal system. “They have seen other scientific revolutions. The law will eventually get it right. The issue is do we want to wait?” he asked.

Brook added that science canhave farreaching legal effect. “Those are real people in the courtroom”, she said.

The panelists agreed that scientists’ understanding of the brain is still developing, and Garland warned against the “brutal ends” that can arise from the misuse and misinterpretation of scientific findings, especially as a basis for judging criminals.

“Is the science developed enough to be of use to the law? I think the answer is not yet.

When will it be developed enough? Not this week,” Dinwiddle said.

MATH continued from front page sidered it “a big privilege” to discuss his projects with Kottwitz and others at the University whose work he admired. “I’m still amazed by how generous [Kottwitz] was in sharing his knowledge with me,” Ngô said in an e-mail interview.

Since 2003, Ngô has visited Hyde Park frequently, giving seminar talks on his work and visiting Kottwitz. “What I like most in Hyde Park,” he said, “is the wonderful blend

of people, totally dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and scholarship.”

Langlands praised Ngô, and said he was excited about the math Ngô and Kottwitz would produce together. Ngô said he would talk to Kottwitz about a branch of analysis called the automorphic spectrum. “Despite the progress accomplished in the field recently, the automorphic spectrum somehow knows how to hide its ultimate truth very well,” he said.

The Free & Equal Elections Foundation to host its second

Illinois Gubernatorial Debate 7 p.m.

Wednesday Jan. 27 at the

University of Chicago Booth School of Business Free admission Co-sponsored by the University of Chicago ...

Students For A Free Society Students For A Democratic Society College Republicans American Civil Liberties Union

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CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | January 26, 2010

ORCSA director says referenda often last-ditch effort, but reform group plans for long-term strategy

CULTURE

Sliced Bread toasts team-up: Mag to share content with four colleges worldwide

REFORM continued from front page

By Nahid Gardezi News Staff A new intercollegiate literary consortium, formed by the U of C’s Sliced Bread Magazine, will debut this spring. The consortium hopes to provide students a broader audience for their creative work and to encourage intellectual exchange between participating schools.

Conceived by fourth-year Eliot Bessette, the consortium will be a collaboration of literary and arts magazines from Columbia, Cambridge, and Johns Hopkins Universities, and the Universities of Chicago and Texas.

“I’m not sure why [the consortium] wasn’t realized before. It provides a nice counterpoint to our work—seeing what other literary or artistically-minded students at other top universities are doing.” Bessette said.

Editors at each magazine will send a selection of their poetry and prose to the others, who will put as much work as space permits into their own publications; Sliced Bread will dedicate six to eight pages to this work out of its total of around 130.

Bessette, a senior editor at Sliced Bread, hopes the consortium will provide a way for University students to see their work circulated and published.

“As a direct benefit for our contributors, it gives them another outlet and audience that would otherwise be extremely difficult to access. It gives them an incentive to polish their work and submit, as it does for all the other universities,” Bessette said. “It just encourages everyone to work harder and hone their craft even more.”

this issue.”

Wolf said SG will support the proposal if it passes with a strong enough majority. “If the referendum passes in one particular way,” he said, “it would provide the impetus for SG to talk to administration; it really allows us to do our jobs.”

In order for the referendum to be added to the SG ballot this spring, WGSAP must collect signatures from at least five percent of University students, Wolf said, or 758 students.

Last spring, WGSAP collected over 1,000 signatures for a petition urging the administration to review sexual assault policy. Though all of their requests weren’t met, Wagner said she’s encouraged by that level of support.

“We’re pretty confident about that part

of it,” said Wagner, referring to the required signatures. “People were saying, ‘Oh, well, that shouldn’t be a problem, we did that last time.’”

Wolf suggested in December that WGSAP bring their concerns to a student vote after administration officials said they would mandate sensitivity training for all disciplinary panels, but did not address WGSAP’s other concerns.

“I’m excited when students attempt to bring a referendum to the table, I think it’s a very powerful way to bring issues to the administration,” Wolf said. “It’s also a powerful way to educate students on an issue.”

Sharlene Holly, director of the Office of the Reynolds Club and Student Activities and an advisor to SG, said the referendum can be a last-ditch effort for students. “It’s something that requires a lot of work, and there’s a lot

of other avenues that students take to affect change, so they haven’t always felt like they need to go that route.”

WGSAP, which has been in deliberation with the administration since 2008, is prepared for another long-haul to address their concerns.

“You can’t just pass a referendum and then it happens,” said WGSAP member and fourthyear Megan Carlson. “It’s going to have to be a discussion because nothing moves fast in the University.”

Scott Duncombe (A.B. ’08), who was College Council chairman at the time of the U-Pass referendum, was glad to hear this process was being used again.

“They’re definitely underused,” he said. “It’s a great way to get the campus talking, not just the College, but all the grad students get involved too.”

Union will demand less wasteful spending, not just salary increases, in future rallies UNION continued from front page so we need to require it of them.”

E. Gwynne Dilday, associate vice president of human resources and a negotiator for the University, said in a phone interview that the University is following through with its promise: “We have certainly been communicating with employees about where we are. We’ve only sent one letter out to union members, and I know we will be sending out more letters.

That’s what we are trying to achieve when we are talking about transparency.”

The union has shown its strength in previous negotiations, Cloghessy told the audience, and hoped Teamsters could show their resolve sooner in the process than they’ve done in the past.

“The University, until the last contract campaign, expected us to be indifferent and quiet. I think they were shocked when we voted down the contract [three years ago], and really shocked when we voted it down twice,” she said at the meeting. “We can all be very sure the administration knows how many people are in the room, and that changes how they negotiate.”

The Teamsters discussed holding a rally in February, but members were concerned that their message would not come across properly and insisted they make realistic demands, “for the health of the [entire] University,” one woman said.

Members agreed a rally should be more

creative than others had been in the past, and that they should demand things other than preserving their salaries, like cutting wasteful spending. Examples brought up were plans for heat and electricity expenditures, new SUVs purchased by the UCPD, and President Robert Zimmer’s salary.

Joe Pellettiere, a faculty assistant at the Law School, said he came to the meeting to make sure the union got a good contract “before the economy collapses.” He said he was worried the University might make use of ambiguous wording in the contract to find ways to save money, at union members’ expense.

“This is a real crucial one this time,” he told Sexauer, who agreed.

David and Kris Wray present The Winter 2010 Wirszup Lecture

David Biron (Ph ( P h ysi y s i cs, c s , James J a m e s Fran F r a n k In I n stitu s t i t u te) te)

“So, do worms sleep?” and other questions that may have never crossed your mind

Tuesday January 26, 7:00PM Max Palevsky East Commons 5630 S. University Ave free and open to the public dessert reception to follow

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CHICAGO MAROON

|

VIEWPOINTS | January 26, 2010

VIEWPOINTS

EDITORIAL & OP-ED JANUARY 26, 2010

EDITORIAL

Midway review CHICAGO MAROON

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892

SUPRIYA SINHABABU, Editor-in-Chief TOM TIAN, Managing Editor MICHAEL LIPKIN, News Editor ASHER KLEIN, News Editor EVAN COREN, Viewpoints Editor HAYLEY LAMBERSON, Voices Editor BEN SIGRIST, Voices Editor JAKE GRUBMAN, Sports Editor JORDAN HOLLIDAY, Sports Editor BEN ROSSI, Editorial Board Member DANI BRECHER, Head Copy Editor ERIC GUO, Photo Editor CAMILLE VAN HORNE, Photo Editor HEATHER LEWIS, Head Designer ABRAHAM NEBEN, Web Editor BURKE FRANK, Associate News Editor

Student Government’s Executive Slate has been delivering on its promises L ast spring the YouChicago executive slate ran on an ambitious platform, promising attention to issues ranging from security to TA salaries. Now that their term is almost at the halfway point, it’s worth taking a look at the extent to which they’ve accomplished their goals. While final authority rests with the Administration on many issues the Slate set out to tackle, they have succeeded in making a number of concrete changes that will continue to benefit the student body after they leave.

Some of the major accomplishments of the current Slate are simple but significant additions to student services. Working with the Transportation Department and other members of the Transportation Student Advisory Board, SG presi-

dent Jarrod Wolf has fulfilled his campaign promise to provide more off-campus transportation with the new downtown bus shuttle.

UChicagoApartments.com, launched in the fall to help students find housing off-campus, now has as many users as Marketplace’s apartments section, according to fourth-year Vice President of Student Affairs Chris Williams. The Slate has also succeeded in increasing funding to academic competition teams and community service organizations, as well as in allowing credit card payments in Cobb Coffee Shop and Hallowed Grounds.

The Slate announced this quarter that it will take a more passive support role for College Council projects. This goal is laudable, but the Slate should continue to push hard

to carry out its own agenda. Before the end of their term, the Slate plans to launch UBazaar, a Web site through which houses and RSOs can sell tickets and merchandise.

Williams said the Slate hopes to add space for storing roughly 100 more bikes when construction around campus ends. Besides these projects, the Slate should complete the transition to UchicagoApartments. com by phasing out Marketplace’s apartments section. If these goals aren’t ambitious enough, by instituting regular office hours the Slate can ensure that more student concerns make it on the agenda.

In some areas of their platform, it may be difficult for the Slate to make further headway. For example, the Slate advocated to expand Flex dollars to campus cafes, but

CHRIS BOOTS, Associate Viewpoints Editor

the decision is ultimately up to the administration. The office of housing and dining is currently doing a comprehensive study of Aramark and the dining halls, so change will likely have to wait until after the study is complete. Similarly, increasing TA salaries and extending TA jobs to upper-level graduate students is, as Williams said, “not something SG is single-handedly capable of doing.”

However, if the Slate continues their current formula of advocating big issues while making small, concrete changes, they will be one of the most successful Slates in years.

— The MAROON Editorial Board consists of the Editor-in-Chief, Viewpoints Editors, and an additional Editorial Board member.

LIAT SPIRO, Associate Viewpoints Editor RYAN TRYZBIAK, Associate Sports Editor

OP-ED

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Shared experience

Article quoted CFI President out of context

JUDY MARCINIAK, Business Manager JAY BROOKS, Business Director JACK DiMASSIMO, Designer ANDREW GREEN, Designer IVY PEREZ, Designer CHRISTINA SCHWARTZ, Designer JESSICA SHEFT-ASON, Designer

Students sometimes forget their common goal is collaboration as thinkers

a more complete picture of a class to reduce the amount of guesswork involved in bidding for classes?

What professors want to hear and what students want to know are two very different things. I want to know what the reading schedule looks like, how heavily papers are weighed and how frequently they are assigned, and how helpful the instructor is in reviewing topics and drafts. I want to know if the instructor is articulate and can clearly explain his position, and I want to know whether the class is enjoyable. The driest topic in the world can become fascinating with the

I am deeply concerned about the way in which my words were used in the article “Students to raise money for Gaza victims this month” (1/17/2010). While I understand that controversy is a sure-fire way to get people to read newspapers, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a sensitive matter for many people on campus, and causing tension through miscommunication is both irresponsible and unfortunate. I feel that my statements were taken out of context and were used in a fragmented way. Quite frankly, the statements that are attributed to me add nothing of value to the article.

Nonetheless, given the extent of the criticism elicited by my comment that “there was value to the Gaza war,” I feel obligated to clarify what I meant by this statement. The last thing I wanted to do was be flippant about the loss of human life. I, along with the rest of Chicago Friends of Israel, regret the loss of human life that came out of last year’s Operation Cast Lead. It is truly unfortunate that so many civilians got caught in the crossfire of the conflict.

But the fact that Israeli civilians had to endure eight years of rocket attacks is something that is often overlooked when discussing the Gaza war. These rocket attacks have made life in southern Israel unbearable. For instance, in Sderot, a town that lies less than three miles from the border with Gaza, there is no place that is more than a fifteen second run from a bomb shelter. The Israel Defence Force, acting within its rights to defend its citizens, had no choice but to take action.

I do not wish to stir up controversy, but from an Israeli perspective, Operation Cast L ead did

EVALUATIONS continued on page 6

LETTERS continued on page 6

NAKUL SINGH, Designer MATT TYNDALE, Designer ANNA AKERS-PECHT, Copy Editor JORDAN FRANKLIN, Copy Editor

Marshall Knudson Columnist

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The CHICAGO MAROON is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters.

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

©2010 CHICAGO MAROON, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 Editor-in-Chief Phone: (773) 834-1611 Newsroom Phone: (773) 702-1403 Business Phone: (773) 702-9555 Fax: (773) 702-3032

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

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Passing through the final months of my college “experience,” I’ve increasingly been occupied by sudden, solemn meditations on the time I’ve spent here. They spring up spont a n e o u s l y , t a k i n g m e b a ck t o moments in classrooms and at lunch tables and on apartment fire escapes. Laden with the palpable company of the people

and the conversations we’ve had, states of mind and embodied feelings suffusing the scenes with the spirit of the times, they make me ask the big, meta-questions, like “What was it all about?”

The times have changed, as have the people, and while I don’t scorn the faults and foibles shared and made, I know some of them demand correction. After all, college isn’t just an individual journey in which you plot out a personal path and carve out the principles of your cosmogony; it’s an invaluable experience to share in, and hold a stake in a community of learners. You’d think

sometimes our University is some kind of incubation tube, hearing folks contrast it with the “real world” out there, that insoluble mixture of freedom and tediousness, boundless opportunity and bottomless unscrupulousness. In our little community, we strive to maintain standards, partly by identifying with the rumored principles and reputations of the place, like its characteristic intellectual rigor, unfettered creative enterprise, and head-to-the grindstone academic mentality.

In a way—harsh winters, imposing architecture, and cool attitudes

EXPERIENCE continued on page 5

OP-ED

Student-friendly evaluations, please Online evaluations need to be more useful in course selection

Eliana Pfeffer Columnist

At the end of every quarter, when I sit down to fill out evaluations for my classes, I always pause and wonder for whom I’m writing. Am I writing an evaluation of the class, trying to communicate the weaknesses to a professor who might change the course for the next batch of students unlucky enough to have a 600-page, unnecessary, and irrelevant tome assigned over two days? Or am I warning future

students of a class that I think would be better suited for someone who prefers lecture-style seminars and has an ability to read huge swathes of texts on command?

Right now, I think the evaluations attempt to cater to both types, which is admittedly difficult and consequently fails miserably. And how else, aside from these evaluations, can students decide whether a class will suit their personalities, when neither time schedules nor the course catalog offer more than a quick paragraph detailing the course’s goals and possible reading topics? Is there a way to improve both systems to provide

CHICAGO MAROON

| VIEWPOINTS | January 26, 2010

Anti-intellectual currents, ‘that kid’ stigma detract from ideal Chicago experience

OP-ED

Foreign affairs

EXPERIENCE continued from page 4

Yearlong study abroad programs deserve more consideration

By Melissa Weihmayer Viewpoints Contributor This winter, U of C students are applying to study abroad for a summer, quarter, or for an entire year. With fourteen different Civilizations programs, four language-based programs, and seven thematic programs at the Paris Center alone, why look for anything else? In other words, why consider a yearlong program? Isn’t that what a “third year abroad� used to mean?

The quarter programs are growing by the year, and not without good reason: they are special and worthwhile opportunities that all U of C students should take advantage of. But as their support grows, the list of students going abroad for their entire third year stays the same. The idea has lost its allure next to quick, ten-week programs with Chicago professors and straightforward credit transfers, so that students leaving for all three quarters are now few and far between.

In the 2003-2004 academic year, only one out of eight students opted for a yearlong U of C accredited program. In the 2008-2009 academic year, this ratio changed to one out of every twelve students, with 459 students spending a quarter abroad in contrast to 38 students attending a yearlong program. By comparison, in 2003-2004, about the same number of students left for a year (36) but only 309 students left for a quarter. This shows that while the interest in the quarter program has increased significantly over the past five years, the interest in the yearlong programs has stagnated. There are a variety of reasons for this increase, namely the addition of new quarter programs in Jerusalem and in Paris. The overall enthusiasm for study abroad is unquestionably an asset to

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the University, but I believe that the yearlong programs deserve as much of the spotlight as the U of C-run quarter programs.

Equipped with a FLAG grant and high expectations, I left Chicago at the end of my second year to go to Germany. I went in July of 2008 for two months of language preparation before joining with the Berlin Consortium for German Studies (BCGS), based at the Free University (Freie Universität) in Berlin. There I took five courses a semester, three of which were with German students, one with students in my program, and one advanced language course with international students also spending a year abroad.

A year abroad is incredibly rewarding, but it requires patience. The challenges I am most proud of overcoming involved making a new home for myself in a foreign country.

It is possible to experience this during a tenweek stay; however, ten weeks into my year in Berlin, I was nowhere near fully settled. It was not until the dreary winter gave way to beautiful spring weather that I realized that it had become my home. I was responsible for that transition. By finding my way in a university of 31,000 students, immersing myself in the language, and finding a community of German friends, I really achieved something on my own.

A quarter program eases the transition to a foreign country, supporting students both by providing housing and a community, if small, of fellow U of C students with which to explore a new place. In that sense, perhaps ten weeks is just enough; a lot of the harder parts have already been taken care of. But accounts from friends who have gone on wonderful and mindaltering quarter programs all share the following two critiques: they regret that it was so

FOREIGN AFFAIRS continued on page 6

aside—it’s a remarkably cozy environment, nurturing those rare qualities that wouldn’t flourish in the “real world,� or might just get weeded out. Think of all the bizarre idiosyncrasies, good and bad, and of the feverish passions and impressive accomplishments of the people around you.

There are things to be preserved here, true, but there are things to be changed too. And we shouldn’t be stumped by those preachers of either/or, those bores who pose the old clichĂŠ “You can’t have your cake and eat it too,â€? or cynics who tell us our aspirations betray an undue sense of “entitlement.â€? After all, we are entitled, even summoned, to participate as stewards of the commons and the common good. So once we’ve forked over our family fortunes to pay one of the highest tuition bills in the known world, we still must protect our investment, and the crown jewels of the place are, after all, its intangibles.

The work we share is the time we share, in and out of the classroom, whenever we execute the ritual customs of respectful, highly interested intellectual exchange.

We’ve all got our own intellectual baggage and different ways of expressing ourselves, but we share some common sensibilities, and these are the brick-and-mortar of our community edifice.

If we’re sincere and attentive, we can usually tell when someone is expanding the horizons of a conversation, or enriching its depth, and we can equally discern the patterns of a bad argument or a selfindulgent claim. But the whole problem amounts to honesty and the willingness to speak the truth, to deal in darts and laurels, to issue praise where praise is due, and to state our disagreement when it’s called for. It’s not rocket science, and we don’t have the scales of justice in hand, but there’s a common sensibility we come to share here, which helps us transcend our particularities and render reasonable judgments. The less we use it in a good-faith,

candid way, the more untenable becomes the conversation, the more forced and dull it feels, the more frayed its members’ spirits. So let’s call a spade a spade. Let’s have respect for one another, but argue.

Behind our community’s exalted reputation for intellectual rigor, there sometimes are surprising anti-intellectual currents, as if we all harbored little Sarah Palins inside of us, nursing sins of personal insecurity, envy, and ignorance. There’s that part of us that wants it to be easy, that looks for shortcuts, that takes things at face value; another part keeps us in our seats, ready to implode with terror at the suggestion we might have it wrong; then there’s that sinister part that turns another’s eloquent words into barbed imprecations. Whatever the nature of the pathos, it’s redolent enough to show up with some frequency from one classroom to the next.

The “that guy� phenomenon might serve as an example. After all, it’s an attribution that’s dealt with the temerity and frequency with which Joe McCarthy unleashed the “communist� label on, well, anyone he didn’t like at the time. And that might be precisely the problem for us. “That guy� might be the one who made a coherent argument, who used apt and pithy words, or drew a pertinent allusion—whatever it took to set us off, to tickle our ego. As a friend once said, “that guy� goes to grad school. The simple fact that muted whispers and pent-up dislike should be more prominent than clear, forceful disagreement is indeed a grave symptom of a common problem.

What’s needed these days is to remind ourselves of our common purpose, of our collaborative work as inquisitive minds.

The college draws its strength from its diversity, but its majesty comes from an unwillingness to accept mediocrity. — Marshall Knudson is a fourthyear in the College majoring in anthropology.

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CHICAGO MAROON

|

VIEWPOINTS | January 26, 2010

Trying to accommodate professors and students shortchanges both parties EVALUATIONS continued from page 4 right professor, and even if you have the syllabus in hand before the course begins (which you often don’t, making bidding and shopping for classes especially tricky), you have no idea how the instructor will present the material. Is he passionate? Enthralling? Does he lecture from the top of a trashcan? While these questions are ostensibly addressed in the first question of the course evaluation survey (“What are the instructor’s strengths?

Weaknesses?”), I am always seeking a more detailed picture of who the instructor is, and how he teaches. On the other hand, I’m sure professors are looking for more of an evaluation of their achievements in terms of moderating class discussions, keeping the class interested and alert (especially for those 9:30 AM Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes), and giving feedback on the usefulness of specific texts and sections of study, information that is just not useful to the average student looking for next quarter’s classes.

Most of the questions on the survey seem to be attempting to satisfy both students and

teachers, which I think is a mistake. Professors who want student evaluations should feel free to leave copies of evaluation papers with their students, and one individual could collect them and seal them in an envelope. These envelopes will be left with a department head who will ensure that no one opens them until grades have been submitted. This way, professors will receive honest feedback and answers to the specific questions they have asked in regards to their classes, and students will be able to focus on writing the online evaluations for future students interested in the course.

There are, after all, instructors who seem to never even look at the reviews of their classes online and never change anything about their courses at all, and these professors would not need to burden their students with any sort of “pretend evaluation” anyway. These questions could then be modified to be more helpful to the student looking for courses during bidding week; questions regarding the helpfulness of teaching assistants could be removed, as well as the usefulness of various texts, and how the course has contributed to your education (as

that question usually garners sarcastic answers ranging from “greatly” to “on some level, yes” or “gave me a new world view” which are completely unhelpful). Furthermore, the section devoted to “rating” the class could be completely omitted—those numbers are not useful to a student looking for a complete picture of what the class is like. If the evaluation form were trimmed down to just a few pointed paragraphs and summary sections, more students might be encouraged to spend the ten minutes necessary to describe the class for future bidders.

Of course, these evaluations alone can’t describe a class in its entirety—questions asking about the reading schedule, for example, might promote the copying and pasting of syllabi that may be updated every time the class is taught. The most effective way of communicating information such as the average amount of reading per week—given that how many hours are spent on the course a week depend on one’s reading pace—would be to imitate Princeton’s format for displaying classes. If you go to Princeton’s registrar’s website and

Full-year programs offer better chance to meet locals, learn language ABROAD continued from page 5 short, and say that they would have liked more opportunities to meet “locals” while abroad.

There are some common arguments for not going abroad for a year: some say simply that there will be time for that after graduation.

I struggled with this, among other counterarguments, like the repercussions of having to stay in touch with friends at the U of C via e-mail for an entire year. Transferring credit to one’s major also takes a bit of extra foresight and paperwork. There’s also the consideration of attending a relatively expansive public uni-

versity while paying University of Chicago tuition, something I grappled with while there.

But the benefits of engaging in a world-class foreign city for a year clearly outweigh these points of contention. There are two ways one can plan ahead to make things easier: first, finish core requirements before your third year.

Secondly, speak with the department head in your major before leaving to clarify credit transfer questions.

Yes, going on a year abroad is not a decision to be taken lightly. But for the seemingly daunting disadvantages, the benefits of living outside

click on Course Offerings, you can search the corpus of classes based on meeting time, distribution area, subject, course level, catalog number, course title, or instructor—unlike our incredibly incomprehensible timeschedules website. Furthermore, upon selecting a class, you can read that “Literature of the Fin de Siècle,” taught by Meredith A. Martin, will have 100 to 250 pages of reading a week, two 5-6 page papers, one 8-10 page paper in lieu of a final, and one in-class presentation. If you like, you can even note the precise grade breakdown and a sample reading list. This would completely redefine the Sunday before bidding week, during which all of my friends post helpless questions about professors on their Facebook pages hoping that someone will give them a coherent picture of what the class is actually like.

After all, we can’t all shop for every single class we want to take. There is only one 10:3011:50 slot on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

— Eliana Pfeffer is a second-year in the College.

Letters to the editor, continued the country are multi-faceted and vary for each person. Going abroad for a year allows you to create foundations for a future in that place. The programs in Bologna, St. Petersburg, Kyoto, Berlin, Paris, Ireland, England and Scotland not only introduce you to new cultures and people, but they also expose you to a different understanding of university study that adds value to your time at the U of C when you return.

— Melissa Weihmayer is a fourth-year in the College majoring in anthropology and Germanic studies.

LETTERS continued from page 4 restore some tranquility to Southern Israel.

In 2008, (prior to Operation Cast Lead), 1750 rockets and 1528 mortar bombs were fired against Israel. Since the war, this number has fallen dramatically. Moreover, given Israel’s history in the Middle East— we’ll take any period of peace we can get, no matter how brief.

Hayley Ossip Class of 2012 President, Chicago Friends of Israel

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CHICAGO CHICAGO MAROON MAROON| VOICES | VOICES| November | January 26, 20,2010 2009

VOICES

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT JANUARY 26, 2010

ART

FILM

Time stands still in Fischer's Ghost Town

By Sharan Shetty Voices 49er Almost 200 years ago, an embattled segment of the American population voyaged west. Ravaged by the road and compelled by a dream, they sought hope in a single, shining commodity: gold. Ghost Town, by Andreas Fischer, is a collection of paintings that resurrects their faded memory.

GHOST TOWN Hyde Park Art Center Through April 18

Recently discovered tintype portrait photographs from the Gold Rush era serve as Fischer’s primary inspiration. From the objective cultural archive, he has crafted paintings of spontaneity and vigor. The photos, and, subsequently, Fischer’s paintings, all depict ordinary people.

Though unidentified, they are fathers and mothers, businessmen and soldiers, workers and politicians—the fabric of American society conveyed through its disparate fibers. The works consist entirely of faces, rendered either straight-on or in profile.

The presentation of the exhibit is immediately striking in its simplicity.

Twenty-five miniature portraits line a long, bare corridor. They vary little in size, with the smallest clocking in at 10 by 8 inches and the largest at 13 by 10 inches.

There are no frames, there are no labels, and they all share the same name: “Sunday Best.” At the root of this stark, austere arrangement is the critical motif of the exhibit: the prominence of emotion over identity.

The works are mostly composed of old men and women, with “old” signifying perhaps not so much age as experience. They are grizzled, weary, and worn. Many of the faces are stretched and distended, distorted by harsh swabs of color. It is as though Fischer imagines skin to be clay: He pushes and pulls it as he pleases, and we are left with the exposed visage of an entire American generation.

Confining himself to only these faces, Fisher utilizes vibrant color and subtle shadow to resurrect the ghosts of a forgotten era. He imbues each feature with its own palette and each furrow with its own character.

An old, regal man sports a beard that looks as though the sun has exploded in its hirsute depths, its color a frothing mess of orange and red. A hooded woman’s cheeks, so set in their countenance, become a bruised landscape of blues and greens. Eyes, the conventional outlet of emotion, are black hollows in every painting, rendering each face an abstract, conceptual entity.

Fischer, who received a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an M.F.A. and M.A. in Art History from UIC, has garnered recognition for his inno-

There's nothing Extraordinary about saccharine optimism

By Michelle Welch Voices, M.D. A humanizing drama that draws attention to the inadequacies of pharmaceutical companies and a little-known, tragic disease besetting children, Extraordinary Measures walks a very fine line between deft drama and soapbox-y, Lifetime movie -of-the -week melodrama.

Every scene of the film featuring a sick, wheelchair-bound child, a crying or desperate parent, or an apologetic doctor is poised to slip into Angela Lansbury-hosted infomercial hell, pleading “Help me” eyes and all. The film wavers on

EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES Directed by Tom Vaughan Wide Release

she might get pulled into the “vortex” and lose Quintana forever. Grief makes her at once pragmatic and fanciful, and it is this dichotomy that spurs the action of the play.

As Joan, Mary Beth Fisher brings human insight and honesty to the source material, at once strong and vulnerable as she recounts the episodes of irrationality after John’s death. She is a woman who is both deeply aware of the illogical rituals of her mourning and unable to stop them. Fisher’s performance shines with this very ability to convey Joan’s fallibility without compromising her intellect and wit. The self-awareness of Joan’s grief comes through as both comic and sad, as when she recounts her eagerness to fill in the crossword puzzle clue “Sometimes you feel like ___” as “a motherless child” when the answer is, in fact, “a nut.”

The spare stage, comprised of a table, a single chair, and a cup of coffee, adds to the narrative’s confessional and unceremonious tone. Fisher sits, stands, sips, and rewraps her scarf about her neck easily, as if recounting the story to a close friend. She talks about dinner parties and summers past as casually as if we had been there as well.

this line like a gymnast on a balance beam, going through the motions cleanly in the early stages, but often swinging its arms to catch itself when things get difficult, and then eventually falling off the edge. It’s an achievement that Extraordinary Measures does not completely choke on its own sentiment.

As CBS Films’ first venture into features, Extraordinary Measures i s a H a r r i s o n Fo r d - p r o d u c e d vehicle (though he took second billing) that feels very much like a C B S product “made for TV.” The film stars Brendan Fraser as real-life father and pharmaceutical executive John Crowley, whose two young children suffer from a debilitating disorder called Pompe disease. The disorder makes them incapable of metabolizing sugar and typically results in death before the age of nine. Heartbreaking stuff.

And the film wastes no time trying to break your heart and prey upon your compassion.

We quickly get to around-theclock nurses, $40,000-per-month medical bills, birthdays that bring fear rather than joy, and the intense stress of parents Fraser and Keri Russell as they watch their children deteriorate before their eyes. The film paces itself well and intriguingly explores the complex process of creating a therapeutic drug, made available through Crowley’s heroic efforts. Crowley essentially left his job in order to raise venture capital and find a therapy for his children, and the film explores the mounting tension between how much time the children have left to live and the experimental drug's potential failure.

Ford, who helped develop the project from its inception as executive producer, also sought a role from the film, and thus Dr. Robert Stonehill emerged. A composite character molded from various academic researchers Ford met,

MAGIC continued on page 8

MEASURES continued on page 8

The man in Fischer's "Sunday Best (11)" is dubious about the highlights and lowlights recommended by his stylist.

COURTESY OF CRYSTAL PERNELL

vative work. He was awarded an Artadia artist grant in 2004 and is now a Chicago-based painter and assistant professor of painting and drawing at Illinois State University.

Ghost Town, which is on display

at the Hyde Park Art Center until April 18, has a second component on display at the McAninch Arts Center. Whereas the former focuses on

FISCHER continued on page 8

THEATER

One actress captures Didion's private suffering

By Blair Thornburgh Voices New Journalist “You sit down to dinner, and life as you know it ends.” So says Joan Didion in the Chicago premiere of The Year of Magical Thinking, a onewoman play performed by Mary Beth Fisher at the Court Theatre.

Adapted by Didion from her memoir of the same name, the play explores the nature of loss and what Didion calls “the question of self-pity” as it recounts the year after the sudden

death of her husband, John.

Didion’s journey of grief begins in 2003, two years before the play is set, when her husband John collapses at the dinner table of their home in New York City. Life as Joan knows it ends. Counting the minutes one by one, she accompanies him to the hospital, where he is proclaimed dead. Yet Joan is strangely unfazed, a “cool customer” as she is so blithely called by the social worker assigned to help her. She proceeds to make arrangements for a funeral, all the

Joan Didion (Mary Beth Fisher) is left exasperated by the poor quality of her tea.

COURTESY OF MICHAEL BROSILOW

while feeling as if she is just playing along with the notion that her husband is dead. At the same time,

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING Court Theatre Through February 14

Joan’s daughter, Quintana, lies comatose in septic shock in another hospital. As Quintana’s health improves and then deteriorates once again, Joan finds herself bargaining and measuring to stay in control of a burgeoning life of grief.

The play is exemplary of the author’s style. Frank, intelligent, and humorous by turns, it examines through personal narrative what it is to mourn the “indefinite void” of a loved one’s death. Anecdotes about the everyday stuff of family life— quarrels, vacations, crayoned notes from a child—are intermingled with deeper ruminations on the rituals of mourning and the titular “magical thinking” that Joan employs. If she gives away her dead husband’s shoes, she reasons, he might not come back. If she turns down a familiar street in Malibu on the way to see her daughter in the hospital,

8

CHICAGO MAROON | VOICES | January 26, 2010

Style

Powerful stage imagery overshoots Didion's grief

Chicago Manual of

MAGIC continued from page 7

by Jessica Hester

Fashion fix, at the click of a mouse With advertisers still running for the hills and publishers continuing to fold, it seems that textbook-sized fashion magazines are a thing of the past. Although you can no longer lug around a backbreaking Vogue, new media makes it easier than ever to get your daily dose of fashion. Here are some of my favorite places to log on and get connected to the fashion world.

Go Fug Yourself This blog is penned by Heather and Jessica, a dynamic duo with a keen eye and sharp wit.

Responsible for introducing a new variation of the “F word” to the cultural lexicon, the girls lampoon starlets and celebutantes who go about town looking “fantastically ugly,” or some more explicit variant thereof. The writers, who also contribute to New York Magazine, take devilish delight in pointing out can’tlook-away disasters where celebrity stylists clearly fell asleep at the wheel. The blog is part celebration, part censure of sartorial calamities. My favorite features include the imagined dialogues between celebrities, especially the incoherent mutterings of designer Karl Lagerfeld (“Kaiser Karl”), who reminds readers that “Humor is the crutch of the plain, pet. BE GORGEOUS.” Fugly regular Aubrey O’Day, who skyrocketed to C-list celebrity after appearing on a season of P. Diddy’s Making the Band, also never fails to disappoint with retinascarring selections that look like a stew of neon colors and couch-cushion patterns, seasoned with a splash of saloon.

The Sartorialist Scott Schuman is a globetrotting photographer on the style prowl. Schuman, a regular contributor to GQ, snaps great shots of stylish people all over the world, from suntanned surfers on Australian shores, to heavy-lidded hipsters in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and petite Parisian women in diaphanous dresses and sky-high heels. All of the photographs are beautifully composed, saturated with color and sunlight, featuring men and women for whom style is a sixth sense. The best images are ones of elegant, aging Italian men in Milan, who pair perfectly tailored trousers with slightly scuffed shoes and look effortlessly bello. Schuman alternates between profiling fashion insiders, like models, editors, and designers, and sharing snapshots of creatively-coiffed students, accountants, and entrepreneurs. Though most of Schuman’s subjects, especially the female ones, adhere to a very conventional definition of beauty, the images do attest to the fact that one doesn’t have to splurge on the season’s hottest handbag in order to be staggeringly stylish.

Style Rookie This blog, penned by precocious 13-year-old Tavi Gevinson, makes me feel a little embarrassed about the years I spent watching Keenan and Kel and Clarissa Explains It All. At an age when I was sprawled out on the couch watching Nickeloden, Gevinson has befriended the Rodarte designers and scored a deal to endorse their collection for Target, sat front row at some

Ford's disgruntled doctor falls short in unrestrained melodrama

Portraits revive and recreate faces from the past FISCHER continued from page 7 the people of the Gold Rush, the latter takes the landscapes of the period as its subject.

Ultimately, the narrative Fischer unfolds in the depictions of these pioneers is one of intangible hardship. Though the works are sometimes detached due to their repetition and simplicity, there is an unnerving familiarity to these faces. They are not of our generation, not of our time, not even of our world, but they endure. They do not share our sensibilities or conveniences, but they exude humanity. From the grumpy grandma to the solemn young lady, we know these people. And that makes them worth rediscovering.

REVELS 2010

MEASURES continued from page 7 Stonehill is a cranky, twice-married and twicedivorced genetics researcher now married to his work. Preferring to listen to deafeningly loud music, including John Denver’s “The Weight,” Stonehill’s tantrums and aversion to authority play like a childish and generic idea of an eccentric genius. Ford’s character is a distracting cliché that feels noticeably fashioned and inserted for conflict, rather than for a natural advancing of the story. Formulaic role notwithstanding, his delivery of the line “I can’t cure your kids…but I think I can save their lives” packs such weight that it is justification enough for his presence in the film. Those are the kind of words that any parent in such a hopeless situation as Crowley would seize upon. Ford’s character, though conspicuously fabricated, is the motivation that jumpstarts the plot.

The film doesn’t attempt to downplay the misfortune of the disease, and relies heavily on the sympathy card. Crowley’s daughter Megan (Meredith Droeger) is the poster girl

seriously prestigous fashion shows, and even wrote a piece for Harper’s Bazaar. While her commentary sometimes borders on breathless idolatry, she’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of fashion and an infectious enthusiasm for an industry in which so many people seem jaded and apathetic. Elle editor Anne Slowey dismissed Gevinson as a novelty and wondered whether the “tween savant” actually writes her own freelance work, but I think she should get some rousing high-fives for her initiative and work ethic. She’ll grow into more sophisticated prose, but her blog is smart, interesting, and full of great observations and news about designers, campaigns, and shows. As a bonus, I can try to relive my teen years vicariously through Gevinson, who is far more self-assured, passionate, and eloquent than I was at her age.

When it comes to blogs, I’m a bit of a dilettante. For a while I penned People Without Pants, a chronicle of my daily misadventures on the New York City public transportation system, where flashers and urinators strike without warning. Then, I wrote Shabulous, an ode to everything “Shabby and Fabulous,” where I waxed poetic about salvaging furniture from the garbage heap and cleaning it up with a little sweat and sandpaper. I stopped writing when I realized I had neither the ideas nor the stamina to keep it up. Thankfully, these writers have a seemingly neverending supply of insight, ideas, commentary, and criticism that illuminate the fashion world. So if you’re fed up with Facebook or need to get off of Gmail, browse some fashion blogs and download some style savvy.

When she addresses the audience directly, her remarks are not distracting, but natural and intimate. Her performance rings true to the introspective tone of Didion’s script, while it extends and shares the experience with the viewer at the same time. The combined intellectual power of the two women, of the writer and of the actress, presents a character never reduced to a mere grieving widow.

The nuanced and subtle performance is only occasionally overshadowed by bits of heavyhanded visual metaphor: Lights spiral over the stage as we hear Joan talk of the “vortex” in which she fears losing control. The words are powerful enough on their own, and the imagery is jarring and superfluous.

“It will happen to you,” Joan warns us matter-of-factly. Indeed, if this play has a message, it is that grief is universal, inevitable, and deeply personal.

for winning sympathy. She’s on a ventilator and bound to her wheelchair, but she loves life and everything it has to offer her. But what does it have to offer her? This is not to say that she should give up, but it is simply bewildering how the film chooses to present her as a perpetually happy and smiling child with so much boundless optimism in spite of her incredibly dire situation. The film’s glass is half full, its grass is greener on the other side, and there’s always sunshine instead of rain. What makes this film’s hopefulness so fake, despite a colossally happy ending that can be reduced to a disingenuous sugar high, is the joylessness in knowing other families are not so lucky, are not so financially fortunate, and do not cope with the disease with the glossy survivalist attitude seen here.

The film is a neatly packaged public service announcement that shies away from its subject matter just enough so as to not get its hands too dirty.

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CHICAGO MAROON | VOICES | January 26, 2010

HardCore

By Chris Chavez Two people in my house started dating, and now I rarely see either of them. What should I do to hang out with them more?

Should I try getting them separately?

Should I just leave it alone and hope that my friends eventually come back to me?

Anna: Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s winter. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cold. Typically, we think that only bears hibernate in the winter, but we forget that couples (especially new ones) have that same ability. We all know the type: They used to be around all the time, but once they began doing the nasty, we only hear them. It might actually be best to separate them if you want to see them some time in the immediate future. Your first foray should be in a text or e-mail. A simple â&#x20AC;&#x153;I never see you anymoreâ&#x20AC;? (with appropriate emoticons, of course) will suffice. If they are both so far gone that they wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t respond to normal forms of communication, it is time for an intervention. Get your mutual friends together, and remind the couple that people exist outside of their coupleâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;bubble, and you would love to see them.

Sometimes you just have to tell your friends

that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve become hermitsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;happy hermits, but hermits nonetheless.

Chris: While you may not be see ing your friend as much as you used to, you are not a guest star on Intervention.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure your friends are great company, but theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re preoccupied right now. Not only do relationships require a lot of energy, but most of us take a long time to find that delicate balance between too little and too much. Yes, it sucks a lot, but you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let that bog you down. Just remember that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re building a relationship between just the two of them, and there may not be room for anybody else at the moment. That doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t love you; they just need time. Unfortunately, there is a distinct possibility that they might not emerge from hibernation anytime soon, and a time may come where itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too late to recover the same friendship you used to have. This may actually be a great time for you to make new friends, make deeper connections with those you already have, and maybe even find a beau of your own.

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Curriculum and Anna Boyle My situation right now kind of sucks. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sort of seeing this girl in a quasi-official kind of way, the sex is good, and we both seem to be taking things pretty seriously. The thing isâ&#x20AC;Śshe has a boyfriend.

She says that sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to leave him to be with me, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to believe her.

Should I just count my losses and leave?

Anna: How sweet of your special someone to feed you a pile of crap (or hopes and dreams, I guess). In these situations, actions speak louder than words. If she makes you happy, continue seeing her, but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expect anything from her until she actually cuts the other one loose.

I can guarantee you that what your sweetie is doing with that other guy is not platonic.

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t buy their game. You canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be in a real, committed relationship if you think she will sleep around, even if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only with one other person. If your special someone really wants you, she will show it in what she does. (Or as Cher would say, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s there in her kiss.)

Chris: Not to be too blunt, but, damn boy (or girl), YOUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE BEING PLAYED! Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pretty obvious that the girl that you're seeing is getting everything she wants at the moment. She has a stable, if deceitful, relationship with her boyfriend, and a fairly steady supply of outside sex from you. You have to ask yourself: Are you happy getting only what sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s willing to give? If you want something more substantial down the road and are willing to play her games, then more power to you. Go ahead and wait. She might actually leave him for you. More than likely though, that relationship wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t end until she gets caught. On the other hand, you have to ask yourself why she gets everything (a boyfriend and casual sex) when all you get is an emotionally flaky lay. Wait until you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait anymore, then leave her and start looking for what you really want. Until that point, try to avoid the sneaking around as much as possible. No one really wants his life to look like another installment of R. Kellyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Trapped In the Closet.

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Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet

Tchaikovsky Tapestry

Barbara Schubert, Conductor PathĂŠtique Symphony and Swan Lake excerpts

Saturday, January 30 â&#x20AC;˘ 8 pm Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th Street Donations requested: $10 general /$5 students event hotline: 773.702.8069 â&#x20AC;˘ music.uchicago.edu Persons with a disability who need assistance should call 773.702.8484.

Friday, January 29, 2010 7:30 PM ´$UJXDEO\ WKH EHVW HQVHPEOH RI LWV NLQG LQ WKH ZRUOG ¾

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The Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet, a titan among chamber ensembles, will perform works by Farkas, GyÂ&#x161;rgy OrbÂ&#x2021;n, Ligeti, Elliott Carter, and Nielsen.

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10

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CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | January 26, 2010

Herrick, Halfhill star in pair of road wins while Hackney becomes ninth player to reach 1000 points W. BASKETBALL continued from back page

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tied for the game-high in points with 15 each. â&#x20AC;&#x153;She thrives in that sort of pace,â&#x20AC;? Roussell said of Herrick, who has led Chicago in scoring (11.4 per game) and is second on the team in rebounding (6.3 per game) and steals (22). â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an aggressive player, and when we let her be aggressive, sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll kind of flourish.â&#x20AC;?

Sundayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s game at Case was a much more demanding challenge. The Maroons had a five-point advantage at the break but were unable to pull away from the Spartans.

Chicago led by as many as 13 in the second half, but Case came back and matched the Maroons shot-for-shot until Chicago finally went ahead for good with 2:19 remaining on a three by second-year guard Bryanne Halfhill. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When Case came back in the second half, they scored every way that our coaches told us they would,â&#x20AC;? Halfhill said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We left girls that could shoot wide open and girls that could drive have easy driving lanes to their right.

As soon as we got back on track and started getting stops on defense, our offense just came natural.â&#x20AC;?

Last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s UAA Rookie of the Year came up with several big plays for Chicago down the stretch, picking up a steal on Caseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s end for an easy layup to break a 51â&#x20AC;&#x201C;51 tie and giving Chicago its last lead of the game on the corner three. It was a breakout performance for Halfhill, who scored 18 points to go with nine rebounds and four assists. â&#x20AC;&#x153;She was very, very good [Sunday],â&#x20AC;? Roussell said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;She had a breakout game Sunday, and that kind of takes the pressure off. She had been pressing, trying to do too much, but she kind of relaxed a little bit and just played.â&#x20AC;?

Chicago was able to get stops on Caseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s next two possessions, allowing the Maroons to pull away. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the last five minutes, we did a great job of collecting ourselves on offense and getting great shots. We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t panic, and that made a big difference,â&#x20AC;? fourth-year guard Jamie Stinson said.

While Halfhill led Chicago in points, rebounds, and assists in the contest, Hackneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 17-point display allowed her to reach an

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MATT BOGEN/MAROON

impressive individual milestone. Hackney became the ninth player in program history to score 1,000 points, now sitting at eighth among the Maroonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; all-time scorers.

Hackney downplayed the importance of the individual milestone.

Williams collects 27 points, 24 rebounds over weekend M. BASKETBALL continued from back page

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2-of-11 shooting.

Meanwhile, against Case, the Maroons showed that they can hang tough for 40 minutes and execute down the stretch, though they had some trouble shooting the ball. Chicago led for almost the entire time, but was not able to pull away like they did against Carnegie, and the game entered halftime knotted at 30.

In the second stanza, however, the Maroons were able to sustain a run capped off by a jumper from Pancratz that gave them a 57â&#x20AC;&#x201C;47 edge at the 8:27 mark. Case was able to cut the lead down to four with 3:22 to go, but the Maroons preserved the game by attacking the basket, connecting on 8 of 9 free-throws in the closing minutes.

The final score makes the game seem closer than it was, as Chicago had a comfortable 67â&#x20AC;&#x201C;59 lead with only one minute left.

The Maroons launched a balanced attack led

by Williams with 16 points. Second-year forward Steve Stefanou and fourth-year forward John Kinsella contributed 14 apiece, while secondyear forward Paul Riskus added 12. Forward Alex Hildebrandt (16 points, 10 rebounds) and Reid Anderson (15 points, 3-for-3 on three pointers) led the way for Case, which trotted out a short, seven-player rotation.

From these two commanding wins, it seems like the Maroons are clicking at just the right time. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We came to play with mental and physical sharpness,â&#x20AC;? McGrath said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When we play like that, we can beat a lot of teams.â&#x20AC;?

The Maroons next play against tough UAA competition at Emory on Friday and at Rochester on Sunday.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was fun, but Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m more focused on our team continuing this winning streak,â&#x20AC;? she said.

While the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention now turns to next weekendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s road trips to Emory (9â&#x20AC;&#x201C;7, 2â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3) and Rochester (13â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3, 3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2), the Maroons did savor these wins while they had the chance.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;This weekendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wins were big for us in terms of both team morale and UAA standings,â&#x20AC;? Stinson said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Everyone on the team has been working really hard, so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a great feeling when all that work starts to show in our record.â&#x20AC;?

D-I opponents provide tune-up before Chicago begins D-III schedule

Training fatigue slowed Maroons in water

M. TENNIS continued from back page ture two-set wins at the two and five spots, respectively, and Dayton took the fourth spot cleanly. At three singles, first-year Dillon Klincke, who was playing up from six, won the first set before letting the second twoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and his matchâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;slip away.

After that, it came down to Zhang, who was playing in the top spot, and first-year Harrison Abrams at six. Abrams won his first set 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3 and appeared in control in the second, meaning that a win for Zhang would give Chicago the overall victory.

Zhang gave up a lead and lost the first set, then bounced back to knot the affair at one set apiece. In the first game of the third set, Zhang started experiencing cramps, but he won anyway. The 2009 All-American tried to play a couple more points, then went down on the court with cramps in his legs and back, ending the Maroonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; shot at the upset.

The young Maroons (the team had just one upperclassman in its singles lineup Saturday) will continue to season up for D-III play when UIC, yet another D-I opponent, comes to Hyde Park at 7 p.m. this Friday. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll start to see how we truly match up against other D-III schools when we play Wash U [on February 14], and then when we travel to Kalamazoo the following weekend,â&#x20AC;? Garrett Brinker said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hopefully, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be able to carry over the tone that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve set in our D-I matches to those crucial early season D-III matches.â&#x20AC;?

SWIMMING continued from back page Milwaukee is comparable to the top D-III teams, like Emory, and facing them provides important preparation for the UAAs. The loss to the Panthers was the Maroonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; first and, although it was disappointing for the team, both Stewart and Yu agree that the loss was important for the future. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This meet helped the team understand the kind of mindset we will need when swimming against other fast swimmers in the future,â&#x20AC;? Stewart said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Having our egos deflated a bit really helps going into the championship season, as the underdog mentality never fails,â&#x20AC;? Yu said.

The benefits of this loss could be two-fold: A lopsided loss not only keeps the team humble, but it also accustoms the swimmers to competing against top-notch programs. â&#x20AC;&#x153;While I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like losing, I like swimming the best competition we can,â&#x20AC;? Weber said.

The coach also pointed out that the past weekendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meet came immediately on the heels of three weeks of intensive training, such that his teams were undoubtedly not in peak condition for the Panthers, which tempers the sting of the losses.

This weekend, the Maroons have another home meet against DePauw, which is ranked seventh in menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and 25th in womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, but then have two-and-a-half weeks away from competition before UAAs start at Emory February 17. The extended break will give Chicago time enough for both training and recuperative rest, and the fatigue should no longer be a factor when the teams travel to Atlanta.

IN QUOTES

SPORTS

“I’m going through changes. I’m in a cocoon and I’m coming out a different player, a different person. Basically, the new person is growth. I’m shedding that ‘Big Baby’ and you can see something else, not the past.”

—Glen Davis of the Boston Celtics, explaining why he is dropping his old nickname, “Big Baby,” in favor of the just-coined “Uno Uno” (a reference to his jersey number).

BASKETBALL

SWIMMING & DIVING

SWEEPS WEEKEND

After rough stretch, men bounce back with road wins at Carnegie, Case to keep UAA title hopes alive

Women’s offense rolls as Maroons take two, keep pace with Wash U in race for conference championship

D-I Milwaukee delivers first dual-meet losses

By Kate Marsden Sports Contributor

By Jefferson Mao Sports Staff

By Ryan Tryzbiak Sports Editor

After an inconsistent first half of the season, men’s basketball is quickly building steam as they enter into UAA play.

The Maroons (9–7, 3–2) dominated Carnegie Mellon University (4–12, 0–5) from beginning to end in a 71-57 victory last Friday, and followed that up with a strong 72–69 win at Case Western University (9–7, 1–4) on Sunday.

“Carnegie Mellon and Case are both very competitive teams, but we controlled both games,” head coach Mike McGrath said. “I think we’ve been playing quite well recently, and we’re very capable of making a run at the UAA.” The two wins are vindicating for the Maroons, who have shown signs of being better than what their record indicates. Chicago suffered a string of losses over winter break, but recently displayed flashes of promise in hard-fought matches against fourth-ranked Wash U and 15th-ranked Brandeis, and in a big win against NYU at Beach Night.

“I think that one bad stretch was mainly due to the emotional and physical tolls of the end of the quarter,” McGrath said. “But our leadership has been great throughout, and we didn’t get down just because things weren’t going our way.”

Against Carnegie Mellon, the Maroons jumped right out of the gates and never looked back.

After storming to a 12–0 lead four minutes into the game, Chicago cruised to a commanding 41–25 advantage at the break. Chicago

paced Chicago with 13 points and 5 assists, while second-year forward Tom Williams added 11 points and a Maroons season-high 16 rebounds for his fifth doubledouble of the season. Chicago played especially admirable defense on guard Jack Anderson, the third-leading scorer in the UAA at 16.1 points per game, and limited him to just six points on

The plan is simple: Win them all at home and steal some on the road, and you’re in contention for the UAA title. Right now, women’s basketball is playing like they need to win them all, period.

The Maroons earned two crucial conference road wins this weekend to extend their winning streak to four games and solidify their status as UAA title contenders. Chicago (12–4, 4–1 UAA) routed Carnegie (8–7, 1–3) 76–51 Friday night and pulled out a hard-fought 72–67 victory over Case (11–5, 2–3) Sunday afternoon.

Suddenly, the sting of losing 63–34 at nationally third-ranked Wash U (15–1, 5–0) on January 9 is a distant memory replaced by optimism and determination to continue this winning streak.

“I feel like our team is finally playing together and people are stepping up at the right times,” fourth-year post Molly Hackney said. “Everyone is extremely positive and excited about our upcoming games.”

In Friday’s game against the Tartans, Chicago got out to a hot start and never looked back. The Maroons began the game with an 11–1 run and led by 19 at the break.

Chicago shot 61.5 percent from the field in the opening period, while Carnegie only made 20.7 percent of their attempts.

The Maroons never led by less than 13 in the second half and cruised to a relatively comfortable 25-point margin of victory.

Third-year guard Dana Kaplan and second-year guard Meghan Herrick

Th e r a w n u m b e r s f r o m t h e swimming and diving teams’ meet with UW–Milwaukee this w e e k e n d w e r e n ’ t p r e t t y. A n d while the teams weren’t happy with their results, neither were they as upset as the scores might suggest.

Th e m e n a n d w o m e n b o t h fell to visiting Milwaukee on S a t u r d a y. Th e D - I P a n t h e r s topped the men 206–94, and the women 208–92. For each of Chicago’s squads, the loss was the first in dual-meet competition this season, but in the long term, the meet could turn into a net gain.

Much as head coach Jason Weber predicted before the meet, Milwaukee was able to best the Maroons in nearly all of the day’s events. Among Chicago’s handful of winners was Becky Schmidt, who continued her outstanding first-year campaign with wins in one-meter and three-meter diving. Also on the women’s side, third-year Ellie Elgamal won the 200 butterfly, and first-year Tatum Stewart took first in the 100 butterfly.

Fo r t h e m e n , s e c o n d - y e a r s Marius Aleska and Nicolas Santoro teamed up with thirdyear James Schlabach and firstyear Alan Chen for a first-place finish in the 400 freestyle. The men’s other winner was first-year Justin Yu, who got top honors in the 200 individual medley.

Although Chicago lost to the Panthers, the team took several lessons away from the defeat. Yu acknowledged that the defeat was disappointing and said that “the results show that as a team, we need to work harder.”

M. BASKETBALL continued on page 11

W. BASKETBALL continued on page 11

SWIMMING continued on page 11

Second-year Tom Williams, shown in action against NYU last week, recorded his fifth double-double of the season against Carnegie Friday.

CAMILLE VAN HORNE/MAROON

held comfortably for the rest of the contest, going up by as many as 25 points.

The Maroons shot an impressive 50 percent from the field in the decisive first half, and enjoyed a 24–10 rebounding edge, including seven offensive boards for 10 second-chance points.

“We were just quicker to the ball than they were,” McGrath said.

Fourth-year guard Jake Pancratz

MEN’S TENNIS

Injury to Zhang leaves second D-I upset just out of Maroons’ reach Singles star’s cramp lets Dayton sneak away with victory

By Jake Grubman Sports Editor After toppling Northern Illinois last week, men’s tennis could have won a second straight match against D-I competition on Saturday, were it not for one very large cramp.

With D-I Dayton nursing a close 3–2 lead and Chicago leading in first and sixth singles, leg and back cramps forced third-year Will Zhang to retire early from the first singles match, gifting the Flyers a 4–2 win.

Scholarship competition or not,

the Maroons left their home court (at Bally’s Fitness on 47th Street) with a bitter taste, having given away a potentially momentumbuilding match.

“We b elieve that we have a chance to win coming into every match,” fourth-year Garrett Brinker said. “We believe that we have the skill to beat every one of these teams; it just depends on if we decide to show up that day.”

Coming into Saturday with two wins against D-I opponents under their belts this season, Brinker and fellow fourth-year Steve Saltarelli came within two games of winning the doubles point for Chicago.

But errors at the start pushed the senior captains down two games, and Dayton was able to gain an

8–6 win and the early advantage.

“The doubles match was somewhat of a disappointment for Steve and me,” Brinker said. “We’ve had a great opportunity to play together for the past two years, so this year we believe that we have a great chance to really make an impact at number one doubles.

The match on Saturday was definitely our worst performance so far. We came out flat and went down early, making it difficult to come back.”

Coming off the tough luck in doubles, a handful of missed opportunities in singles matches ultimately cursed the Maroons.

Second-years Jan Stefanski and Troy Brinker were able to cap-

M. TENNIS continued on page 11

Fourth-years Steve Saltarelli (left)and Garrett Brinker wait for a return during their doubles match Saturday, the top pair’s first loss of the season.

LLOYD LEE/MAROON