CHICAGO
MAROON The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892
Blizzard 2011 Photo spread, pages 6–7
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2011 • VOLUME 122, ISSUE 26 • CHICAGOMAROON.COM
CAMPUS
STUDY ABROAD
Historic blizzard buries campus
Egypt evacuation encounters troubles with travel, security By Jonathan Lai Senior News Staff
Pedestrians cross the quads as the storm begins Tuesday night. The blizzard brought high winds and 20.2 inches of snow. DARREN LEOW/MAROON
By Adam Janofsky News Editor Even as buildings reopen and classes resume, unplowed side streets have suspended SafeRide service until Monday. The University shuttle system will operate on a temporary, single route over the weekend. University administrators decided to cancel all classes Wednesday, and again
on Thursday, after the campus shuttle service ceased operation at 9 p.m. on Tuesday night. At least four buses were not able to complete their routes, and at least two were involved in accidents. Vice President for Safety and Security Marlon Lynch sent out a campus-wide e-mail at 11 p.m. Tuesday night warning students to seek shelter and call the police if stranded. “High winds, blinding snow and cold make walking dan-
gerous,” Lynch wrote, asking people not to go outside. Around 100 students were stuck in campus buildings after the shuttles had been cancelled, according to University spokesperson Steve Kloehn. University of Chicago Police Department patrol SUVs were used to transport students home, and campus buildings were cleared by around 1 a.m.
BLIZZARD continued on page 3
Students participating in the College’s first-ever study abroad program in Cairo, Egypt were evacuated to Paris the weekend of January 29 as widespread protests broke out in the country’s capital. Sixteen undergraduate students, along with faculty member Sooyong Kim and graduate student and program assistant Tanya Treptow, are currently at the University’s Center in Paris, where they will finish their quarter abroad. To get to Paris, however, required a carefully orchestrated plan between Director of the Study Abroad program Martha Merritt, study abroad staff in Cairo, the Center in Paris, other University administrators, and the State Department’s Egypt Task Force.
Choosing to evacuate Merritt and Dean of the College John Boyer were in Cairo just before protests began and visited students on the night of Sunday, January 23. The next day, Boyer flew back to the United States and Merritt flew to Paris, where she conducted business at the University’s center in Paris through Thursday.
On Tuesday, January 25, the first protests began. Though Merritt and her staff monitored the situation, the relatively orderly nature of the protests led them to believe that they would compliment the students’ experience abroad without raising safety concerns. Classes were held inside the student apartments beginning on Tuesday because of the protests, and continued until Thursday. As the situation in Cairo continued to deteriorate, Merritt, by now back in Chicago, convened a meeting Friday of the Study Abroad Risk and Safety Assessment Committee. That committee, made up of representatives from the Office of Risk Management, Audit, and Safety, the Legal Office, the Office of the Dean of Students, and the Study Abroad Office, began outlining scenarios. Evacuation was considered fifty percent likely at the time, and the team began to make the required preparations. Merritt opened communication with Academic Director of the Center in Paris Philippe Desan as part of these preparations, telling Desan that students in Cairo might need to be evacuated, and that they would ideally
CAIRO continued on page 2
STUDENT LIFE
DISCOURSE
Free New York Times expected in spring
Daley talks education policy
By Hans Glick News Staff Free copies of The New York Times will likely be making a return to campus next quarter after the fall’s newspaper pilot program garnered a positive response from students. Student Government (SG) officers are trying to get the estimated $15,000 needed to offer free copies of The New York Times during spring quarter. The
eventual goal, SG says, is to establish free publications as a permanent student service at the U of C. “It’s SG’s top priority,” said SG president and fourth-year Greg Nance. “We’re confident that we can make it happen.” During a four-week trial period in October and November, free copies of the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and The New York Times were available on weekdays at six locations around
campus. The newspapers were offered through the Collegiate Readership Program, a national print distribution program which is run by USA Today owner Gannett. The New York Times was the most popular on campus with all 600 copies being taken daily, compared to the 75 percent of the 300 copies of USA Today and Chicago Tribune, according to SG.
NEWSPAPER continued on page 3
ACADEMICS Mayor Daley spoke Tuesday at the U of C's Future of the City Symposium.
Modified AP curriculum meshes with AP 5 Bio sequence By Rebecca Guterman MAROON Staff The Advanced Placement (AP) Biology curriculum is shifting from memorization to more inquiry-based learning in order to better prepare students for modern science, which the University biology division expects will better coincide with the goals of the AP 5 Biology sequence. Currently, students entering the University with a 5 on the AP Biology exam can take an accelerated three-quarter sequence that assumes students have solid understanding of basic concepts and know how to approach more challenging inquiry-
based work. The University’s biology department believes the changes will better prepare students for the AP 5 sequence, according to Master of the Biological Sciences Collegiate Division José Quintáns. “Those changes are going to very helpful and increase the number of students excited by biology by doing away with memorization,” he said. “Science should be exciting and hands-on, not painful.” Professor Rosemary Zaragoza, who is teaching the AP 5 Bio sequence this year, found some incoming students overwhelmed by the pace. “We go through the fundamentals quickly and then focus on one particular area,”
she said. She has also found some students unprepared for the lab work required in the sequence. “I had a handful of students who’d never touched [a pipette, an instrument for dropping liquids] before,” she said. The changes to the AP curriculum will allow high school teachers to focus on broader concepts and let students have more of a role in designing experiments, according to AP Communications Director Jennifer Topiel. “Based on colleges’ recent review of the revised AP Biology curriculum, the [new] course [will prepare] students to develop inquiry-based strategies,
AP BIO continued on page 3
ADAM JANOFSKY/MAROON
By Adam Janofsky News Editor Mayor Richard Daley had kind words for the University of Chicago at the Future of the City Symposium Tuesday, but said without federal funding, Chicago Public Schools will remain unable to give students the education they deserve. Daley spoke on education policy, funding from the federal government, and the need for cultural diversity at the symposium, which was organized by the Harris School of Public Policy Studies and the Office of Civic Engagement. “We must provide a high-quality education for every student in any school,”
said Daley to over 100 business leaders, public service workers, and academics at the Chicago Cultural Center downtown. “It is the most important service we provide in government.” But as the city tries to revive its education system with programs like charter schools, government deficits are halting progress. Chicago Public Schools had to cut charter school funding by six percent per pupil in August. Daley said the only solution to this is help by the federal government, which isn’t constrained by a balanced budget. “Local taxes cannot be moved higher and higher every year because of tax caps,” he said. Last month, Illinois lawmakers
DALEY continued on page 3
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CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | February 4, 2011
INTERVIEW
Uncommon Interview In the same week, Tim Haaf found out he was accepted to both the Booth School of Business and as a contestant on Wheel of Fortune. A lifelong fan, Haaf’s Octobertaped episode appeared on national TV on January 27. The MAROON spoke with Haaf to discuss fishing for cash, visiting the local watering hole, and Vanna White. CHICAGO MAROON: I heard you were you were more excited about getting on to Wheel of Fortune than being admitted to Booth. Tim Haaf: Yes, I was. I found out about both in the same week. I was very excited to find out that I was going to be on the show. Well, maybe not, I would say equal. They were both very exciting times in my life. But this was way more random… It was more funny to tell people about. CM: Why did you decide to apply to be on the show? TH: Because I had left work to apply to business school, I had finished all of my applications, I was sitting around at home, and I had free time.
with Tim Haaf
CM: Did you apply to other game shows? TH: I applied to Jeopardy!... but I’m not as good at that. CM: What do you like about Wheel of Fortune? TH: It’s challenging and it’s with words. It’s kind of like a puzzle with words. CM: The theme of your episode was “Gone Fishin’.” How did you fare? TH: I was very disappointed with the theme. A lot of fishing related words. Fish, meals you can make with fish, things about fishing that I did not know the answer to. ...I finished dead last. I got really bitter watching it because I remembered how tough it was to lose. I really wanted to win and I was really close to winning. I knew the last puzzle, but I didn’t get a chance to solve it. During the last game, I realized what it was right after my turn and I had to wait for the next two people to go. The person before me figured it out right before I had a chance to. ...I solved one puzzle and got a free trip to St. Martin. …I have a year to take it. I honestly don’t know [how much money I won]. It was like $9,000 something.
CM: What were the other contestants like? TH: Two mothers, women with children. They wanted to win so that they could provide for their family. I just wanted to win so I could go to the bar and pay for college debt. CM: What was the most interesting part of being on Wheel? TH: Probably backstage with Pat Sajak and Vanna White talking to the audience during the commercial. They’re very funny people. They were going around talking to the audience and making jokes. [Pat Sajak] wasn’t cracking jokes. He was making funny comments between takes. CM: Did your family watch it? TH: I had a lot of family watch it, where I’m from in central Pennsylvania, and extended family in New York. They were very excited for me to be on TV. I’m from a small town so it was a big deal for them. Everyone taped it and it was very happy. ...They were very happy that I got on TV and they said I looked good on TV. They didn’t care that I lost. —Jingwen Hu
Tim Haaf, a student at the Booth School of Business, competes in the Wheel of Fortune. COURTESY OF CALIFON PRODUCTIONS, INC
Evacuation plans tangled by lost passport, cancelled buses, missed flights U of C in Egypt A timeline of events for the Cairo study abroad program in late January.
"Cairo Nine" miss flight, leave on U.S. evacuation flights.
"Cairo Nine" (seven students and two instructors) remain in Cairo.
Boyer and Merritt visit Cairo.
"Sharm Nine" leave for Sinai region.
Protests begin; classes held inside student apartments.
st
nine students had successfully checked in at Sharm el-Sheikh, the first and only indication that the passport issues had been resolved. The group left at 1:35 p.m., bound for Vienna, since no direct flights to Paris were available. Merritt’s team contacted the American Embassy in Vienna, along with an on-site administrator in Vienna, in case the two students without passports had trouble leaving Vienna for Paris. The students from Sharm el-Sheikh arrived in Paris at around 10 p.m. Sunday, and were met by staff from the Center in Paris. Meanwhile, Merritt’s team lost communication with the group of students in Cairo as they travelled to the airport. This time, University Travel notified Merritt that no one had checked in from Cairo. The commercial flight that the students booked was scheduled to leave without the students. Merritt placed students on commercial flights for the next day, but without a guarantee that the flights would take off. With no guarantee, Merritt contacted the State Department and received confirmation Sunday night that the students were on the list for U.S. evacuation flights. As the Cairo Nine were added to the list for evacuation flights, another complication arose: One student in the program is a Canadian citizen, and was potentially ineligible for U.S. evacuation flights. Merritt’s team placed calls to the American Embassy and the Egypt Task Force. Merritt was told the student would not be able to take a U.S. flight with the rest of the group, and the student was placed on the Canadian list instead. Despite the complications, all seven students, Kim, and Treptow made it onto flights. By Sunday evening, the Cairo group was in Athens, except for the one Canadian student in Frankfurt, Germany. Unable to find connecting flights, the eight people in Athens and the one
“Cairo Nine” arrive in Paris.
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which he had entered Egypt. Both students had left early for Sharm el-Sheikh. Merritt’s team began contacting the State Department Egypt Task Force and the American Embassy in Cairo in order to place all students on flights, as well as to determine whether the two students without passports would be able to evacuate with the rest of the group. The Study Abroad team also contacted the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC) faculty and members in Jerusalem for assistance in finding housing and support for any students who stayed behind, in the event that they were not allowed to leave the country. Saturday afternoon, on-site administrator Sara Abu Bakr received word that the bus she had arranged to take the remaining students in Cairo to the airport could no longer be guaranteed. With buses being commandeered and no taxi company guaranteeing the next day’s travel, program assistant Tanya Treptow contacted a taxi driver she knew personally. The driver agreed to transport the students with the help of two other drivers. Merritt had also contacted a university affiliate that provides evacuation protection. That group also made some support available, but Treptow’s contact with the taxi driver and the responses from NELC faculty with local resources made it unnecessary. By Saturday evening in Egypt, University Travel had secured 18 plane tickets on commercial flights: nine out of Cairo and nine out of Sharm el-Sheikh.Sunday morning, Treptow arrived at the student apartments in Cairo and the students, carrying the Sharm Nine student’s luggage in addition to their own, loaded onto taxis and began travelling to the airport. University Travel confirmed with Merritt that
“Sharm All nine Nine” arrive in Paris at leave at 10 p.m. 1:35 p.m.
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Two students had passport issues. One student had lost her passport, and was expecting to pick it up at the American Embassy in Cairo Sunday. Another student, a dual-citizen of the United States and another country, had with him his other passport, not the American passport with
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The Evacuation
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be sent to Paris. In Egypt, students continued with earlier plans. A program trip had originally been planned for the South Sinai region of Egypt, where Mount Sinai and Sharm el-Sheikh are located. A group of nine students left Thursday after class for the region, expecting the remaining seven students, their professor Sooyong Kim, and their program assistant Tanya Treptow to join them Saturday. Later, when it became clear the two groups would be evacuated separately, the students dubbed the groups “The Sharm Nine” and “The Cairo Nine.” At three in the morning Chicago time Saturday, Merritt received a phone call from Sara Abou Bakr, the on-site administrator for the Cairo study abroad program. Bakr felt that protests were becoming too unruly, and that the situation had become more urgent. Merritt, feeling that evacuation was now seventy percent likely, began creating contact sheets listing the exact locations of each student. With nine students in Sharm el-Sheikh and Internet access cut throughout Egypt, there was pressure to account for all students before they might lose all communication. Merritt called Assistant Director for Finance and Administration Juliana Gaither and Assistant Dean for International Education Sarah Walter at 7:30 a.m. During this conversation, they decided to evacuate the Cairo program.
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Passport issues: Two Merritt contacts State students Dept. and NELC faculty don’t have to clear up housing and passports. passport issues.
Student flies to Frankfurt. JAKE GRUBMAN/MAROON
3 a.m. call from onsite admin prompts evacuation.
Canadian student isn’t allowed to board.
Students land in Athens.
student in Frankfurt spent the night in hotels, with flights scheduled the next morning.
Restarting in Paris All the Cairo Nine arrived in Paris on Monday. After checking into hotels, students on the program were taken shopping in waves for coldweather clothing, which they did not bring to Egypt. At 5 p.m. Monday, all sixteen students, Treptow, and Kim met with Center in Paris administrators to discuss various needs and arrangements. Tuesday, Merritt and chair of NELC Theo van den Hout held a group video conference with all eighteen people evacuated from Egypt. At the meeting, Merritt told students they would have the option of studying either French or Arabic for the remainder of the program. The students met again that evening for another meeting to continue the discussion of needs and living arrangements. The students met on Wednesday for their first class since the evacuation, in an informal twohour session that integrated their experience with their current course, which is focused on Islamic traditions of journies as the way to knowledge. When the students showed interest in learning about contemporary politics to contextualize their experience, graduate student and lecturer Rohit Goel agreed to teach a course on contemporary Middle-Eastern politics. The students are currently housed in hotel rooms; rooms in the Center in Paris are being made available to them, and should be available in a few days. Those students from the Sharm Nine who paid for a night of housing in Sharm el-Sheikh out of pocket will be reimbursed by the University, according to Merritt. All other evacuation-related expenses were paid for by the University.
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CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | February 4, 2011
Daley says U of C "has given more than any institution" to Chicago DALEY continued from front page passed a bill to increase the personal income tax to five percent, a 67-percent jump. “We need support from the federal government for school infrastructure and modernization,� said Daley, adding that he has asked Washington to earmark more for federal education programs. But he also conceded that there are roadblocks for federal funding. “It can be a challenge to hold the federal government’s attention for more than 10 minutes,� he said to laughter from the crowd. “We’ll change that.� The symposium brought together Chicago leaders and renowned city researchers to discuss the challenges and plans for Chicago’s future. President Robert Zimmer opened the symposium and Vice President for Civic Engagement Ann Marie Lipinski introduced the mayor.
“The city’s challenges are not simple, and the analysis and discourse that today’s work embodies represent an essential component that the work of scholars, policymakers, government officials, and business leaders need to do together for our city,� Zimmer said. Speakers included Director of the Urban Education Institute Timothy Knowles, Groupon cofounder Brad Keywell, and Chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago Cheryl Hyman. Daley’s comments on the U of C were more congratulatory than his comments on public schools. “This institution has given more than any institution in the history of our city,� Daley said, commenting that other universities should try to emulate the U of C’s relationship with the surrounding city.
Daley praised the University of Chicago Crime Lab for its research on gun violence, University students for their community service, and teachers for promoting cultural diversity. He said that immigration and education can benefit American Cities. “It’s a problem for America that we still have restrictions on bringing teachers in and not allowing students who were educated here to stay here,� Daley said. “This country is turning its back on the past.� He argued that America has historically relied on foreign academics to fuel innovation and advancements in technology. “We don’t produce men in science. How did we get the space program going? Russians and Germans,� Daley said. “America was a country of bringing in, and now we’re a country of pushing out.�
Finding long-term funding is biggest obstacle to making free newspapers permanent NEWSPAPER continued from front page Though SG would prefer to offer multiple publications, Nance said that the biggest concern is ensuring the fiscal feasibility in offering The New York Times first. “We have a two-pronged strategy,� Nance said. “One is to make funding happen for this spring, and the other funding strategy is how we can make this sustainable funding for next year and hopefully years into the future.� “Because the overwhelming favorite was The New York Times, that’s going to be the funding priority to start it,� Nance said. The ideal program would offer 600 copies of The
New York Times and 200 copies of USA Today each day, keeping with the three-to-one popularity ratio from the pilot, Nance said. Funding for the program will come from SG’s executive budget and Finance Committee. They’re also discussing partnership possibilities with the Law School and the Harris School of Public Policy, where papers could be made available to graduate students. But for the program to continue in the long run, the annual Student Life Fee would likely be raised. “We can make it sustainable for about a $6.80 increase per student,� Nance said. According to an SG survey conducted in the
final week of the pilot program, over 70 percent of students said they were willing to pay $10 for the program to continue. Nearly 80 percent said they were willing to pay $5. The logistics of spring quarter’s program will be almost identical to those of the pilot, and SG is considering using a more permanent dispenser with a card reader function to ensure the newspapers went to students. SG is hosting a petition in support of bringing the program to campus, and the blizzard has not stopped people from signing. “We’ve just topped 100 signatures, and that’s for literally about four hours at the table,� Nance said.
U of C students divided on benefits of new AP curriculum AP BIO continued from front page to engage in key science practices, and to apply quantitative skills as they interpret the results of their explorations,� she wrote in an e-mail. The new curricula and tests are developed in consultation with committees of college professors and AP teachers across the country, said Topiel. First-year Azfar Basunia explained that his high school AP biology course included only generic experiments, while the college AP sequence asked him to adapt experimental procedure. “Putting people in the mindset of creativity will be tremendously helpful [when they take the AP 5 Bio sequence],� he said. Still, fourth-year biology major Justin Demmerle believes the AP course should continue to include memorization, and balance that with a focus on broader concepts. Demmerle himself did not take AP Bio, but said he was not at a disadvantage in the AP 5 Bio sequence because it relied on different skills than the high school course. According to Topiel, educators are looking forward to the changes. “The general public has not seen the changes, but we’ve had the opportunity to share the proposed changes with a large segment of AP biology teachers and college and university biology educators, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.� But biology professors will have to wait to see the critical thinkers of the new AP Bio course in their courses. While the changes were announced this year, it will take time for high school teachers to change their curricula, and the new tests will not be given until May 2013.
"Highly unlikely event" of University closure becomes reality, twice BLIZZARD continued from front page No injuries related to the blizzard were reported in the campus community.
Class dismissed Four hours after Lynch's email, Vice President for Campus Life Kimberly Goff-Crews and Vice President for Administration Nim Chinniah sent out another e-mail informing students that Wednesday’s classes and non-essential events were cancelled. “It is extraordinarily rare for University of Chicago classes to be cancelled,� Kloehn said. The last time classes were cancelled was in 1999, when a blizzard of similar intensity hit the Midwest. The decision to cancel all classes came after Fermilab, Argonne, the Booth School of Business, the Law School, and Laboratory Schools declared their own snow days. Chicago Public Schools also closed for the first time in more than a decade. The e-mail added that key services like police, campus dining, and some library facilities would remain active. Regenstein Library ran with adjusted hours, closing at 4 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. Henry Crown and Ratner gymnasiums closed.
All three dining halls remained open for regular hours. Bart Mart and Midway Market closed at 12 a.m. on Wednesday night and remained open for regular hours on Thursday, but with Reynolds Club closed, C-Shop and Hutchinson Commons stayed closed as well. The dining halls were mostly staffed by managers that stayed in I-House overnight and by local employees, some of whom were picked up in trucks to ensure adequate operation. “I-House has a number of guest rooms and unoccupied rooms that were converted into guest rooms for the emergency,� Kloehn said. “They were used for Medical Center staff and facilities employees.� Some residential halls allowed maintenance staff to stay the night in designated common rooms and vacant dorm rooms. Though several hundred computer accounts had trouble logging into the UChicago-secure network Tuesday morning, an IT Services spokesman said the trouble was technical and not related to the blizzard. The network was fixed later that afternoon. Administrators had a large-scale conference call at 7 p.m. Tuesday and continued to plan from
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then on until the decision to cancel classes was made, Kloehn said. Another emergency management meeting was held at 4 p.m. Wednesday, and the decision to cancel Thursday classes was made two hours later. Students had actively urged the administration to cancel classes well before Tuesday’s 2 a.m. announcement. A Facebook group called “Our very own Snow Day� was made by third-year Liz Bedi after Kim Goff-Crews said a snow day would be a “highly unlikely event� in a Monday e-mail. The event has over 1,300 attendees. Second-year undergraduate liaison to the Board of Trustees Frank Alarcon said he contacted the administration once he heard they were holding meetings to decide if classes would be cancelled. “I think the safety and convenience concerns are very serious, and holding classes [would have] stoked anger among students toward the administration,� he said.
Snow days Sigma Phi Epsilon organized a “snowball fight to end all snowball fights� on the Main Quad Wednesday afternoon. Several hundred students used it as a chance to get outside and enjoy the
third-highest snowfall in Chicago's history and take a break from midterm week. “It was pretty unprecedented for UChicago. It was nice to see everyone come together and have fun,� second-year Jon Lee said. Others trekked down east to have a once-in-alifetime chance to walk along Lake Shore Drive, which was closed from 8 p.m. Tuesday night to early Thursday morning. Weather stations called for 25-foot waves, but Lake Michigan and the adjacent Lake Shore Drive was covered in heavy snow. At least 1,500 vehicles were stranded, according to Chicago media. “We walked across Lake Shore Drive and stood in the lake because it was frozen on top,� secondyear Brian Wille said, who was able to run on part of the Drive during the Chicago Marathon in October. “Everything looked like tundra, you could just see tons of people walking in the middle of the street like something crazy happened.� Wille, a member of the cross country team, said the team helped push cars out of the snow Tuesday night during an outside cool-down run after practice.
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4
CHICAGO MAROON
| VIEWPOINTS | February 4, 2011
VIEWPOINTS
EDITORIAL & OP-ED FEBRUARY 4, 2011
EDITORIAL
CHICAGO MAROON
The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892
JORDAN HOLLIDAY, Editor-in-Chief JAKE GRUBMAN, Managing Editor ELLA CHRISTOPH, News Editor ADAM JANOFSKY, News Editor PETER IANAKIEV, Viewpoints Editor ALISON HOWARD, Viewpoints Editor HAYLEY LAMBERSON, Voices Editor JORDAN LARSON, Voices Editor NICK FORETEK, Sports Editor MAHMOUD BAHRANI, Sports Editor JESSICA SHEFT-ASON, Sports Editor VICTORIA KRAFT, Head Copy Editor MONIKA LAGAARD, Head Copy Editor HOLLY LAWSON, Head Copy Editor MATT BOGEN, Photo Editor DARREN LEOW, Photo Editor CAMILLE VAN HORNE, Photo Editor JACK DiMASSIMO, Head Designer JOSH SUNG, Web Editor AMY MYERS, Assoc. News Editor CHRISTINA PILLSBURY, Assoc. News Editor SHARAN SHETTY, Assoc. Viewpoints Editor ILIYA GUTIN, Assoc. Voices Editor
VINCENT McGILL, Delivery Coordinator IVY PEREZ, Senior Designer DOUGLAS EVERSON, Designer ANDREW GREEN, Designer ALYSSA LAWTHER, Designer VINCENT YU, Designer SABINA BREMNER, Artist JANE BARTMAN, Copy Editor ALICE BLACKWOOD, Copy Editor HUNTER BUCKWORTH, Copy Editor MARCELLO DELGADO, Copy Editor DANIELLE GLAZER, Copy Editor DON HO, Copy Editor JANE HUANG, Copy Editor ALISON HUNG, Copy Editor TARA NOOTEBOOM, Copy Editor LANE SMITH, Copy Editor GABE VALLEY, Copy Editor ALEX WARBURTON, Copy Editor BELLA WU, Copy Editor LILY YE, Copy Editor The CHICAGO MAROON is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters. Circulation: 6,500 The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section are not necessarily those of the MAROON.
©2011 CHICAGO MAROON, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
A warm thank you Students owe University employees their thanks for the response to the blizzard In the past four days, the University has been faced with extraordinary circumstances. This week’s snowstorm presented a crisis which threatened the safety and well-being of U of C students, and which could have been greatly problematic for many of us on campus. But a concerted effort from University staff kept the dangers and disruptions stemming from the storm to a minimum, and the many people involved in ensuring student safety during the blizzard deserve the gratitude of the entire student body. Using the word “crisis” to describe this week’s weather is by no means hyperbole, particularly for the students currently in campus housing, who would have been helpless to provide
themselves basic amenities were it not for the University staff on hand. While many of us rejoiced at the prospect of a snow day, the reality was that the time away from class would have been no treat at all were it not for the efforts of hundreds of University employees who stayed on campus and worked to preserve calm and order. To give just one example of how University staff helped minimize any disruption, consider the dining hall employees. At a time when nearly all local restaurants and grocery stores were closed, the dining halls remained largely operational, serving students who had nowhere else to turn for food. Had it not been for the staff, many of whom stayed overnight at the I-House instead
Thinking clearly about Egypt
CAPS working to improve Career Connection
In the wake of recent unrest, fundamentalism in Egypt is not cause for concern
By Ajay Ravichandran Viewpoints Columnist The astonishing speed with which the crisis in Egypt has unfolded over the past 10 days has made events there very difficult to predict. However, one speculation seems to remain constant across the many stories written on the subject: the idea that the collapse of the current government will pave the way for the triumph of radical Islam. And while observers have repeatedly raised the specter of an Islamist (i.e., Islamic extremist) takeover, there have been few
efforts to think carefully about what role Islamic extremists might actually play in a post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt and their impact on the U.S.’s concerns in the region. First, we need to be clear about exactly how much power Islamists are likely to wield in a new Egyptian regime. The most powerful Islamist organization in contemporary Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood, a decades-old movement. In light of the fact that the Brotherhood is the only major organized opposition faction and in the past has participated in Egypt’s restricted parliamentary elections, it will likely have a better starting position than secular groups in any jockeying for power that occurs. However, the movement played a fairly minor public role in the early stages of the ongoing uprising and has only tried to make its presence felt more recently. This reticence will likely reduce its anti-establishment legitimacy relative to
SUBMISSIONS
Chicago's response to the blizzard raises questions about fair treatment of the South Side
News: News@ChicagoMaroon.com Viewpoints: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com Voices: Voices@ChicagoMaroon.com Sports: Sports@ChicagoMaroon.com Photography: Photo@ChicagoMaroon.com Design: jdimassimo@ChicagoMaroon.com Copy Editing: Copy@ChicagoMaroon.com Advertising: Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com
The M AROON Editorial Board consists of the Editor-in-Chief and the Viewpoints Editors.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
STATE & MADISON
CONTACT
buildings long after the shuttle services stopped running. They picked up students all over campus and assured that many were able to spend the night in their own rooms. The hard work of all these people assured that students remained safe, warm, and well-fed during the blizzard. Many of them gave up opportunities to go home, and many put themselves in harm’s way so that others would be protected. Their dedication helped lessen the severity of a crisis, and the Maroon would like to say “thank you” to all those involved in that effort.
ON THE OTHER HAND
Editor-in-Chief Phone: (773) 834-1611 Newsroom Phone: (773) 702-1403 Business Phone: (773) 702-9555 Fax: (773) 702-3032
The CHICAGO MAROON welcomes opinions and responses from its readers. Send op-ed submissions and letters to: Viewpoints CHICAGO MAROON 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 E-mail: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com The editors reserve the right to edit materials for clarity and space. Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words. Op-ed submissions, 800 words.
of going home to their families, it is not clear where students on campus would have eaten in the storm’s aftermath. The work of the residential housing staff is also noteworthy. As essential as keeping students fed was keeping them informed, and resident heads (RHs) and resident assistants (RAs) throughout the housing system worked tirelessly to provide their houses with information about the developing situation and the services available on campus. The oversight and consideration provided by RHs and RAs was of great comfort during what could have otherwise been a stressful and confusing time. Then there were the numerous UCPD officers who spent hours helping evacuate students from campus
other groups. While the Brotherhood could try to seize power by force, it formally renounced violence in the ’70s and has launched no attacks in Egypt since. Overall, it seems likely that while Islamists will certainly play a prominent role in a new Egyptian regime, they will probably not be the sole or even dominant players. The main concerns of those who fear the rise of radical Islam in Egypt are security-related. Some have suggested that an Egyptian government in which Islamists play a strong role will be friendlier to al-Qaeda, but this seems unlikely. Al-Qaeda has long condemned Brotherhood members in secular politics as heretics for their participation, so it seems doubtful that a government in which the Brotherhood participated would welcome them. The organization’s stance on Israel is a more serious concern—some members
such that Chicago would still be locked down if so many people weren’t putting in time to get the city back up and running. What we've gotten right in the aftermath of the Blizzard of 2011, however, has been shadowed by shortand long-term planning failures on the part of both Chicagoans and City Hall. When I spoke with Alderman Shirley Newsome on Thursday afternoon, it wasn’t the lack of resources that she thought was weighing down her office most—it was the unreasonable expectations of the Fourth Ward’s residents. That’s not to say the ward is unique: Every ward is facing the same complaints. That doesn’t make them
The maroon recently printed an article discussing the elements of Chicago Career Connection (CCC) that work well—and some that do not ("A depressing site," January 21). CAPS is committed to aiding students in their career searches and wanted to respond to those concerns. We were thrilled to read that students are pleased with the content in CCC. CAPS works to provide a wide range of opportunities—we offer over 10,000 job and internship opportunities to our students, via our work with employers and our partnerships with the Nationwide Internship Consortium (NIC) and the University Career Action Network (UCAN). Since making the switch to CCC three years ago, we’ve seen a 25-percent increase in the number of organizations that are recruiting our students on campus. Furthermore, there are over 800 College-sponsored opportunities available to undergraduates, including 400 Metcalf opportunities, FLAG Grants, Summer Action and International Experience Grants, PRISM Grants, Seidel Program Grants, Human Rights Internships, and SummerLinks, among others. With that said, here is what CAPS is doing to address the functionality problems raised by the maroon: • Students will now receive a notification from CAPS when they are selected as a pre-select or an alternate for on-campus interviews. • Students will also receive a confirmation from CAPS confirming the time and date of their interviews when they sign up. • Students will receive a notification if interview time slots open up for alternates. • Students will also be able to log into CCC to see if they have not been selected for an interview, so that they can move on to the next opportunity. • Students may also organize and
BLIZZARD continued on page 5
LETTER continued on page 5
EGYPT continued on page 5
Uncool runnings
By Jake Grubman MAROON Staff This week’s blizzard was much the same as any snowstorm: the best of times, and the worst of times. Snow is the one form of weather that can be so great and so terrible at the same time. You can’t build a fort out of
hail. And whoever heard of a rainman? (Wait a minute…) At the same time, the worst of Chicago’s winds will never shut down Lake Shore Drive and push the city to its absolute limits in terms of crisis response. As the sun finally appeared on Thursday and the city crawled back to normal, a tale of two blizzards emerged from the two area ward offices. On one hand, there were the stories of around-the-clock work. City workers did their jobs about as well as anyone could be expected to do them in the aftermath of an event called “The Snowpocalypse,” and volunteers chipped in when the city fell short. The magnitude of this storm was
CHICAGO MAROON
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| VIEWPOINTS | February 4, 2011
Fundamentalism in Egypt does not threaten Middle East peace EGYPT continued from page 4 have expressed support for anti-Israeli violence in the past, and the terrorist group Hamas is one of its offshoots. However, it seems fairly implausible that Hamas’s ideological origins, rather than its birth and development in Israeli-occupied Gaza, are the main cause of its hatred for Israel; that connection alone is not enough to justify fear of Egyptian Islamists. It seems unlikely that an Islamist-led Egyptian government would push for the abrogation of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the main act that could threaten Jerusalem. Egypt, unlike Gaza, is a well-established nation-state, and breaking a treaty that has held for 30 years would have political implications that all but the most radical Islamists could not ignore. Moreover, Egypt suffered preemptive attacks and loss of territory at Israeli hands during the two nations’ wars, so it has a real interest in keeping the peace. When coupled with the fact that the Brotherhood will probably not dominate a post-Mubarak government, these considerations suggest that many of the security
concerns of the past 10 days have been overblown. Those who fear that political change in Egypt will create an opening for the Brotherhood are on stronger ground when they point to the likely consequences of Islamist rule for Egyptians. Like Islamist political parties throughout the world, a Muslim Brotherhood active in democratic politics is likely to push for laws that enforce harsh religious rules at the expense of personal freedom and reduce the opportunities available to women. They may also make life worse for Egypt’s large Coptic Christian minority, whose main protection from the increased persecution in recent years has come from the aggressively secular Mubarak regime. While these are serious concerns, they must be kept in perspective. The hypothetical Islamist-led government we are considering would replace a regime that has produced so much human misery that hundreds of thousands of citizens are willing to spend days in the streets to remove it—and this regime is deploying thugs armed with Molotov cocktails against those citizens as I write.
Furthermore, policies of the sort enumerated above are already present in Saudi Arabia, a prominent U.S. ally where non-Muslim houses of worship have long been banned and women are forbidden to leave their homes without a male relative. These points are important because those who fear an Islamist takeover in Egypt often use the prospect to generate support for the current government or at least ambivalence about its overthrow. However, the preceding points show that the Muslim Brotherhood will probably not dominate a post-Mubarak Egypt. The most serious security risks observers point to are unlikely to materialize, and the consequences of Islamist rule in Egypt do not differ substantially from policies the U.S. has tolerated elsewhere when other concerns were at stake. While there may be good reasons to hope that Hosni Mubarak stays in power, concerns about Islamism are not among them. Ajay Ravichandran is a third-year in the College majoring in Philosophy.
CAPS has begun changes to CCC LETTER continued from page 4 search through jobs and internships that interest them—go to “Jobs and Internships” and click on the “Applications” tab, where you can sort by employer, position, and date submitted. • Finally, we are exploring partnerships with other technology vendors that would allow us to offer students a more comprehensive “home base,” where you can store all of your job applications, correspondence with employers, and other job and internship notes. CAPS is committed to addressing the concerns that the Editorial Board raised last month and we want to hear more from students about ways we can improve our systems and serve you better. To share your ideas with a CAPS staff member, please email Meredith Daw, CAPS Director, at daw@ uchicago.edu to set up a meeting time. Sincerely, Meredith Daw and the CAPS staff
Chicago should learn from its experiences during blizzard BLIZZARD continued from page 4 any more reasonable. Said Newsome: “They have to be patient. Everyone can remember the historical snows of ’79 and ’67, and none of that got removed overnight either. So I think we’re ahead of that game.” To put this storm in perspective, 20.2 inches of snow fell over less than 24 hours from Wednesday to Thursday, the third-largest snow storm in Chicago’s recorded history. These things don’t happen every year, and the response wouldn't be flawless if they did. There’s only one reasonable order of priorities for street-clearing crews: police and fire stations and hospitals first, then schools, bus routes, main streets, and finally side streets. Newsome expressed confidence in her crews but
also had a message for those whose streets have yet to be cleared: “Patience is golden.” And, after countless angry phone calls to her office, with residents demanding the impossible from her staff, she had one addendum: “Kindness goes a long way.” The shortfall of the city’s response effort sounded much more grim out of Hairston’s Fifth Ward office. Similar stories of dedicated workers trying to make life as normal as possible, yes. Hairston also emphasized, however, a point that the citywide media seems to be missing, but that’s obvious to South Side residents as soon as we walk out the door: There just isn’t enough equipment to handle events like this, and when resources run low, a majority is going to the North Side. “I think it’s just something that’s been done so
long in the city that they don’t even recognize that there’s anything wrong with it,” Hairston said. “It’s a constant fight, North Side versus South Side.” The issue isn’t one of regional pride, even though that’s always a fun argument to have. The real problem is that there are people who need assistance with roads locked down all over the city, on the North Side and on the South Side. A city with weather like this should have predicted the shortfall of resources and planned to reach residents in need all over the city, rather than waiting for cars to get buried on Lake Shore Drive and then implementing a seemingly regionally-biased plan. At this point, with the snow fallen and, in most cases, on its way to being cleared away, it seems like the only lessons coming out of the storm are
going to have to wait until the next major storm to be applied. This week’s mega-blizzard has demonstrated to the city the need for both patience and a proactive plan for providing service to those who most need it when Mother Nature unleashes her worst fury on the city. If the government and we, the residents, just keep in mind that these kinds of things can and do happen in Chicago, we’ll be able to put together better policies and better attitudes for responding. Then maybe we’ll get more of the snowball fights without so much of the stress. Jake Grubman is a fourth-year in the College majoring in Law, Letters, and Society.
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CHICAGO MAROON | PHOTO | February 4, 2011
CHICAGO FREEZES OVER: THE STORM
CHICAGO FREEZES OVER: THE AFTERMATH
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Blizzard 2011
The term “thundersnow” isn’t used very often, but Tuesday night was an unusual night, featuring 70 mile-per-hour winds and flashes of lighting that let students know one thing: the blizzard had arrived. With over 20 inches of snow blanketing campus, administrators decided to close the University for the first time in recent memory. The blizzard dropped the third-heaviest snowfall in Chicago history and left the area immobilized in its wake. Lake Shore Drive was closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday evening, stranding hundreds of drivers in their vehicles. The drive re-opened at 6 a.m. Thursday. The snow also shut down University transportation and left students stuck in campus buildings until 1 a.m. Students used snow days on Wednesday and Thursday as a break from midterms and organized snow ball fights and walks to the point to enjoy the snow. (Photography by Camille van Horne, Darren Leow, Matt Bogen and Jamie Manley.)
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1. Snow started blanketing the ground Tuesday afternoon and blizzard conditions soon set in, leaving students stranded on campus and snowed in at home. 2. Later that night, Vice President of Safety and Security Marlon Lynch shut down the campus shuttle service and cautioned students to stay inside. 3. Still, some students ventured into the storm to experience the third-highest snowfall in Chicago's history and found themselves lending a helping hand to stuck vehicles. 4. Students woke up Wednesday with an e-mail from Vice President for Campus Life Kimberly Goff-Crews announcing that classes were cancelled for the first time in over a decade. 5. Bundled up students trekked to the point by way of Lake Shore Drive, which was closed for a day and a half. 6. Hundreds came to the Main Quad for a snowball fight organized by Sigma Phi Epsilon. 7. Poor road conditions prompted administrators to cancel classes Thursday.
VOICES
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT FEBRUARY 4, 2011
FILM
Bardem shines a light into the gloom of Biutiful By Jordan Larson Voices Angel of Death Uxbal is an illegal immigrant trafficker, a divorced and devoted father, and can communicate with the dead. He’s also dying of cancer. Biutiful, a film that could have easily gotten lost in sentimentality and gimmicks, actually manages to create a moving and complex portrait of a man in his last days.
BIUTIFUL AMC River East 322 East Illinois Street
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture and Best Actor for Javier Bardem, Biutiful is the latest film from
director Alejandro González Iñárritu. The film brings focus to the humanist theme present in much of Iñárritu’s work. Unlike 2 006’s B abel, a sprawling and preachy mess that got lost in its numerous plots, Biutiful holds several elements together by focusing on a single character. Uxbal (Bardem) is a father figure for a lot of people. His two children, Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib) and Mateo (Guillermo Estrella) cling to their father's saintliness in contrast to the flakiness and irresponsibility of their estranged mother, Marambra (Maricel Álvarez). More childish than her children, Marambra makes several heartbreaking appearances as she tries to overcome her bipolar disorder and past addictions to rejoin the family. In addition to his dramatic home life, Uxbal
Uxbal teaches his daughter Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib) how not to spell "beautiful." COURTESY OF ROADSIDE PRODUCTIONS
Uxbal (Javier Bardem) hides his sadness under a leather jacket in Biutiful. COURTESY OF ROADSIDE PRODUCTIONS
makes shady deals with Chinese labor bosses and helps African immigrants adapt to the city, even letting a young Senegalese mother, Ige (Diaryatou Daff ) and her son move into his apartment. He also makes money on the side by communicating with the recently deceased and helping them on their way to heaven. When Uxbal does his work, the voices of the dead can be heard in whispers and glimpses of their souls can b e seen on the ceilings. Because of the skill of cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, these scenes, rather than seeming incredibly out of place, actually fit with the film’s raw and uncompromising view of an industrial city. Javier Bardem is what really makes this film work. He masters a variety of emotions, from feeling overwhelmingly guilty and responsible for several accidental murders, to powerfully and
angrily wrestling Mateo from the hands of Marambra after he has caught her emotionally and physically abusing his young son. However, it’s in Uxbal’s submission to prostate cancer that the skill and control with which he acts becomes most clear. Rather than dwelling on his impending death, the story continues moving forward with its relentless barrage of arrests, murders, and abuse. Uxbal’s fate is neither devoid of emotion nor dripping with it, and when he finally passes, it’s in a scene of great fatherly tenderness, lightened by the fact that his affairs are in order. However, it’s clear that without its star, the film would quickly plunge into nothingness. Uxbal brings together several disparate elements into a cohesive whole, seamlessly integrating the gritty realism of illegal immigrant traff i ck i n g w i t h h i s s u p e r n a t u r a l ability to commune with the dead
and with his overwhelming love for his children. In the hands of a lesser actor, the film would likely have gotten bogged down in the tragedy of Uxbal’s death, the horrors of modern urban life, and the hopelessness of his children's future without their father. Biutiful, despite the stark and melancholy realism of its cinematography, its depressing subject matter and haunting imagery, wants to show us that life is beautiful. Interspersed in the murk are moments of simplicity and happiness: Marambra telling her children the story of how she met Uxbal, and Ige’s care for Ana and Mateo. Even Uxbal’s integrity, maintained throughout his numerous trials, is a testament to the human capacity for compassion. Instead of merely creating a work of unbearable sadness and cynicism, Iñárritu and Bardem succeed in showing us the beauty of everyday life.
THEATER
Funk It Up suffocates Shakespeare without rhyme or reason By Ana Klimchynskaya Voices Please Stop the Music Updating Shakespeare to make him relevant and current seems to have become a new trend. Several Chicago theaters, including Filament Theatre and Court Theatre, have staged modernized versions of the playwright’s work. It’s a trend that makes some Shakespeare purists cringe, but I would point out that Shakespeare wrote in order to amuse, entertain, touch, and move—not to bore and confuse. However, adapting Shakespeare for a modern audience can be a double-edged sword: if it’s not done well, it can turn out very badly. The Q Brothers’ hip-hop adaptation at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Funk It Up About Nothin’, is somewhere between good and bad.
It’s amusing, fun, and catchy, but lacks Shakespeare’s depth and universality. Hip-hop, perhaps surprisingly, is a good medium for Shakespeare—his
FUNK IT UP ABOUT NOTHIN' Chicago Shakespeare Theater Through February 13
language is incredibly rhythmical and musical. As the directors say in the program, “if the Bard were alive today he might well be a rapper.” Yet this production doesn’t contain too much of Shakespeare’s language. Instead, it chooses to come up with its own modern dialogue. This change is not to the play’s benefit, as it takes away a lot of
Shakespeare’s depth. The jokes aren’t Shakespeare’s: They’re clearly things that the adaptors thought a modern audience would find funny. Most of the humor is firmly planted in contemporary popular culture. There’s even a joke about Enrique Iglesias. But Shakespeare’s jokes are very funny and meaningful even today, and it might have been better to just use them instead of creating a play that was so culturally and temporally specific. There are some clever parts: the characters of Beatrice (Ericka Ratcliff ) and Benedick (Jeffrey Qaiyum) try to “outrap” each other just as, in the play, they engage in a battle of wits. Unfortunately, there are not very many of these moments. The length of the play also keeps the spirit of Shakespeare from shining through. It’s really short—only about
65 minutes (with no intermission). That’s not to say that Shakespeare must always be three hours long, but this particular adaptation ends before it really gets started. It’s like a bounding leap through the play, and it feels sometimes like the adaptors just wanted to get through the play as quickly as they could without dwelling on particular scenes. The nature of hiphop is such that it’s upbeat and fast, unlike many of Shakespeare’s long monologues, but since the adaptors seem to have come up with a lot of their own text, they could have come up with more of it. Perhaps that’s why the play doesn’t feel very serious at all. Shakespeare’s plays, and even his comedies, have moments of poignancy and depth, but this play seems to be so obsessed with its originality and humour that it loses some of the dark-
ness and depth of the original. Despite these flaws, this is a unique and challenging adaptation, and the actors are more than up to the task of hip-hopping their way through the play while acting their roles. The set is well done—it’s neither distracting nor overly elaborate. The actors enter and exit through every possible door and aisle, making the play immersive and interactive. And, however it’s done, a hip-hop version of Shakespeare is a must-see. However, the point of an updated rendition of Shakespeare is not to completely smother his plot with our culture. The point is to find what is universal in Shakespeare, what we can understand, and tell it in a new way—in this case, by using hip-hop. Ultimately, Shakespeare’s universality is buried under unnecessary attempts to modernize him.
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CHICAGO MAROON | VOICES | February 4, 2011
Voices STD (Stuff to Do) Friday | February 4 Bass player Maurizio Rolli and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra will make an appearance at I-House this Friday for a big band tribute to Jaco Pastorius. Pastorius, who passed away in 1988 at the age of 35, left behind a vast repertoire including the eponymous album Jaco Pastorius, which many critics consider the finest bass album ever recorded. (International House, 7:30 p.m., $8)
Saturday | February 5 For those unable to catch Louder Than a Bomb on the Oprah Winfrey Network, the Gene Siskel Film center will be screening the film until February 10. The documentary tells the story of Chicago’s annual teen poetry slam, Louder Than a Bomb, in which six hundred teenagers from over sixty schools participate in the world’s largest youth poetry slam. (164 North State Street, 7:45 p.m., $7)
Sunday | February 6 Since the break up of Cap’n Jazz, Tim Kinsella has been changing the face of his band. Its cur-
rent incarnation, Joan of Arc, will perform as the Lightbox Orchestra this Sunday for a special performance at the Hideout. Jazz cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm conducts the improvising ensemble Lightbox Orchestra through non-idiomatic improvisations via a lightbox and by holding up various handwritten instructions. (1354 West Wabansia Avenue, 9 p.m., $10)
Monday | February 7 Learn all about the contact sport roller derby this Monday before the Windy City Rollers’ next bout at the screening of Brutal Beauty: Tales of the Rose City Rollers. The documentary provides a behind-the-scenes look at the Portland roller derby league, from team bouts and practices to the private lives of the players. (2424 North Lincoln Avenue, 8 p.m., free)
Tuesday | February 8 Because the West Coast really is the best coast, Bethany Cosentino of the surf-pop band Best Coast lists the band’s key influences as boys, California, weed, and her cat. Wavves will also be
With Christine Yang performing with Best Coast as part of the mtvU Freshmen 5 series featuring up-and-coming artists. (2424 North Lincoln Avenue, 9 p.m., $15) English Ph.D. candidate Paul Durica interviews rail riders and hobo organizers in “Hobo 101: The Return of the Hobo College” in a special Homeroom program. Durica will be lecturing with artist and writer Tony Fitzpatrick on a variety of hobo-related topics, such as “Panhandling vs. Mooching,” “The American Tramp, Then and Now,” and “Riding the Rails: Over, Under, or In,” among others. (2319 West Belmont Avenue, 9 p.m., free)
Wednesday | February 9 Catch Goodfellas, the second-most quintessential gangster film (after The Godfather), at Doc Films. The 1990 film, directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, follows the rise and fall of three gangsters over three decades. (Max Palevsky Cinema, 9:45 p.m., $5)
Thursday | February 10 Those who like their news in weekly increments can catch “Chicago Live!” every Thursday. The stage and radio show produced by the Chicago Tribune and featuring Second City gives a condensed version of Chicago news as well as various comedy sketches about life in the Windy City. (175 North State Street, 6:30 p.m., $10) For the opening reception of the Smart Museum’s latest exhibition The Tragic Muse: Art and Emotion, 1700-1900, curator Anne Leonard will be giving a lecture titled “What They Saw, What We Feel: High Emotion in Old Master Art.” The exhibition explores how art’s cathartic power changes from generation to generation. (Smart Museum, 5:30 p.m., free)
Have an event you’d like to see in STD? E-mail StuffToDo@ChicagoMaroon.com
The Fun Corner. Solution to 2/1 puzzle
"A Mixtape for Snowpocalypse 2011"
Sudoku is provided by Laura Taalman (A.B. '94) and Philip Riley (A.B. '94).
Across 1. 100-meter dasher who just can’t get a handle on his moves 5. Austin Powers verb 9. Teleporting Pokémon 13. CTRL+Z 14. Higher vocal range 16. Pulled tight 17. His brother was no keeper 18. Pension law acronym 19. How I like my milk 20. Track #1: The Go! Team (2004) 23. Ruined, as a cashmere sweater 24. Surprising addition to the iFamily 25. Joan Harris, for one 28. The Greatest 30. Sensitive figure at the U of C? 33. “You’re such ___” (harsh putdown) 34. Be a certain way? 35. Tattled 36. Track #2: Bruce Springsteen (1975) 40. Kunta Kinte’s “given” name, in Roots 41. Tour guide? 42. Couldn’t help but 43. Fashion monogram 44. Firearm 45. Eats brains, as a zombie 47. Peyton’s brother 49. Designer Versace 51. Track #3: Great White (1989) 57. Actor Lithgow
58. ___ Diabolique (keyboard’s forbidden keys, as seen on Look Around You) 59. He did Moor good, then harm 60. Latin poet 61. Bury 62. Oregon Trail commodity 63. ___ Serif 64. Puppeteer Tony 65. Actor Robert De___ Down 1. Grad sch. exam 2. Ladies’ hoops gp. 3. Partied too hard, say 4. Musical texture used by the Dirty Projectors 5. Beer order 6. Messenger 7. Ouzo ingredient 8. A cussword 9. Cruising 10. Muffins, cookies, etc. 11. Pablo ___ y Picasso 12. “Just look ___ now!” 15. Roald Dahl was once part of it 21. Kind of goal or trip 22. School in Troy, NY 25. Shabby 26. Community character 27. People who are 45-down are more likely to have one
29. My new astrological sign, apparently 31. Philosopher-king philosopher 32. Extra 34. Hooded viper 35. Refrain in Anatevka 37. Big bird 38. Thai dumplings with crab and cream cheese 39. “___ was your age...” 44. Animated image for online forums 45. See 27-down 46. Sportscaster with the catchphrase “Oh, my!” 48. Generates interest?
50. “___ boy or ...” 51. Iberian eyes 52. Bright star 53. You can get four in one swing 54. Curbside call 55. Hungarian city that hosted the 2005 World Puzzle Championship 56. Dock Ellis threw one on LSD 55. _____ Tongs, Animal Collective album 57. “And these other dudes who I wrote the paper with...” 58. Team that pulled off the signing of Miami Thrice last summer 59. Good types of cholesterol 60. Egg center 62. North by Northwest foil, briefly
CLASSIFIEDS Classified advertising in the CHICAGO MAROON is $3 for each line. Lines are 45 characters long including spaces and punctuation. Special headings are 20-character lines at $4 per line. Classifieds are not accepted over the phone, and they must be paid in advance. Submit all ads in person, by e-mail, or by mail to the CHICAGO MAROON, Ida Noyes Hall, Lower Level Rm 026, 1212 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637 attn: Classified Ads. Deadlines: Wednesdays and Fridays, 12 P.M., prior to publication. The CHICAGO MAROON accepts Mastercard & Visa. Call (773) 702-9555.
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5432 S. Harper, 2br, new rehab apt with sunroom, cab kit, dishwhr, new hrdwd flrs, A/C, on-site laundry, 1 blk Metra & shopping. $1,250. Jerry, 312-608-1234, jettinger@hallmark-johnson.com
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CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | February 4, 2011
Maroons have struggled to win on road M. BASKETBALL continued from back page home, but given how our season was going I think it was good to get our feet under us with some early home games,� McGrath said. “We really thrive off playing on our home court in front of our friends and family,� Johnson agreed. “It was great to get some of the league’s better
teams on our home floor the first time around. That being said, I think there’s a certain level of familiarity with teams the second time around, and I think we know what we need to do to be successful. It’ll be a challenge to get some important wins on the road, but I think our success at home has given us the confidence to get it done.�
Wash U, Chicago en route to end-of-season showdown W. BASKETBALL continued from back page are salivating at the thought of Chicago traveling to Wash U for their final game of the season with a still undefeated conference record. If Wash U also wins the rest of their games leading up to the season finale, then the game—like last year—would decide the UAA champion. The Maroons, however, are ignoring the hype...for the most part. “We all know in the back of our minds that Wash U is going to be one of our tougher games,� Halfhill said. “But we are definitely keeping the mentality that “the next game is the most important,� and that has really seemed to be working for us lately. We’re not taking any team lightly, and we know that we have to bust our butt every single second that we are out there on the court.�
“In the back of my mind I know that game at Wash U is sitting there, but I really have not given it any extended thought. It is a long road between here and there, and we have to be sure to keep our focus on this next game,� Roussell said. Whatever happens between now and the February 26 game against Wash U, the Maroons can take solace in the fact that they have gotten the Chicago community energized about women’s basketball. Attendance at Maroon games is almost fifty percent higher than that of their opponents. The Maroons are undaunted, however, by bigger crowds, hyped opponents, or seemingly anything at all. Said Halfhill, “It’s our goal to make sure that every team we play walks away knowing that Chicago deserved to win that game.�
Seniority, close bonds help women’s team on court and off TENNIS continued from back page year to this year, so we are starting off the season confident that we have a solid, experienced team,� third-year Tiffany Nguyen said. “We have been practicing and conditioning a lot, so we are all very excited about this coming season and expect to do well this weekend.� “We graduated one member, so [we] are returning with almost our whole team,� third-year Carmen Vaca Guzman added. “Our team has
always been very close and this year will be no different.� To take advantage of that solidarity, the team looks forward to its first official match. “I think our whole team is playing well right now,� Kung concluded. “We try to give each other advice about what to work on and what areas of our games need to be better. Everyone’s working hard, but it’s tough to be certain of how well we’re playing until we actually start playing matches.�
TRACK AND FIELD
Maroons hoping to hit national marks at Whitewater By Daniel Lewis Sports Contributor After an impressive showing at the Chicago Duals at Henry Crown Field House on Saturday, the track and field teams are gearing up for a weekend showdown at the UW–Whitewater Invitational. After the relatively easy duals, the Maroons look forward to stiff competition. “It’s going to be tough, but at the same time, we’re all really excited to be able to showcase our talents against top-level competition,� says secondyear thrower Melita Aquino. “We’re all working hard to make sure that we’re ready for this meet.� “The meet itself will be as competitive a meet we are in outside of the NCAA championships,� head coach Chris Hall said. “It’s reasonable to predict national qualifying performances in every event and in many cases multiple qualifiers. We have to truly elevate against this competition.� Second-year Henry Ginna, who competed in the winning distance medley relay team on Saturday, recognizes the unique opportunity that awaits participants at Whitewater. “I think this is an extremely important event for both myself and the team, and I hope to have a big performance, at the very least establishing myself amongst a field of some of the best milers in the region,� Ginna said. “I am very focused on competing at a high level this Friday.� Men compete at 4 p.m. on Friday while women compete on Saturday at noon. “There are some positive things about this: The coaching staff has the opportunity to fully focus on one group without trying to go back and forth between so many athletes on the same day,� Hall said. Traveling to compete in an event featuring highpowered competition such as this one can motivate athletes and heighten expectations. “I have no doubt everyone will show up men-
tally ready to compete,� says fourth-year sprinter Stephanie Omueti who won the 200-meter dash last Saturday, posting a time of 27.03 seconds. “Yes, we have a three-hour drive up to the meet, but it’s nothing we haven’t handled in the past.� The Maroons hope that the experience of competing in high-pressure situations away from home will aid them on their road to the UAA and NCAA championships. “The fact that we are traveling this weekend is nice because, while we love competing at Henry Crown, it is also positive to mix up your surroundings, competition, and facilities,� associate head coach Zebulon Sion said. “These experiences are beneficial later in the season when you travel for the big meets.� Despite the recent weather conditions and cancelled classes, the Maroons are still prepared to elevate their performances, as Hall expects for this competition. “This week has been anything but normal for us,� Sion said. “The team has been forced to do a lot of mental preparation and focus. Our hope is that everyone will feel rested and be ready to compete at a high level this weekend.�
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CHICAGO MAROON | ADVERTISEMENT | February 4, 2011
11
IN QUOTES
SPORTS
“I’m not concerned one iota. It’s normal for guys to eat dinner, believe it or not.”
—Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, addressing concerns after quarterback Ben Roethlisberger allegedly spent $1,000 at a downtown Dallas bar.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Whatever the weather, Maroons head east By Mahmoud Bahrani Sports Editor The Maroons will follow the apocalyptic blizzard east this weekend as they travel to Cleveland to play Case Western and Pittsburgh to play Carnegie Mellon. This weekend’s opponents are a repeat of last weekend, except this time the Maroons will be playing outside of the friendly confines of the Ratner Athletic Center. Playing the same teams in consecutive weekends will allow the Maroons to fix last weekend’s mistakes. “Last weekend, we were very happy with our performance on the offensive end, but we were definitely disappointed with the way we played defensively,” said third-year Taylor Simpson. “Especially since we will be on the road this time, we need to really lock down on defense and make that a main focus this upcoming weekend.” Simpson in particular should be happy with her offensive performances. The Missouri native was named to D3hoops.com national team of the week on Wednesday. The award recognizes the top player in the country at each position (Simpson is a center). Simpson has been on a tear lately, recording
Third-year Taylor Simpson scores a fast break layup against Emory. Simpson had two double-doubles last week, during games against Case and Carnegie. MATT BOGEN/MAROON
five consecutive double-doubles. She is also averaging a double double with 15.9 points and 10.6 rebounds a game. Individual success, however, means little to this team-oriented squad. “I owe all of my success lately to my team,” Simpson said. “I couldn’t score the points I have without some pretty incredible passes from my teammates. Bryanne [Halfhill] and Meghan [Herrick] especially have an amazing ability to see the floor and get me the ball even when I don’t think I’m open, so all I have to do is make layups really. Everyone on the team is so unselfish, and no one cares about who gets the credit.” Her sentiments were echoed by her teammates. Third-year Bryanne Halfill said, “The thing that’s so special about our team is that everyone is happy for each other’s successes, and we all want the girl next to us to play well. I don’t think anyone on our team is concerned with who gets the credit, just as long as we win. Honestly, I don’t believe anyone is looking at individual statistics, just as long as we end up with the W next to our names.” The Maroons have the chance to do something that they haven’t done in the
history of women’s basketball here at Chicago: Go undefeated in conference play. Chicago has gotten to the halfway mark of conference play unscathed, and they haven’t been winning by slim margins, either. The Maroons have won all of their game by at least 17 points, excluding their two-point win over Wash U and their six-point win over NYU. Winning with such dominance has had some negative repercussions, however—other teams are now well aware that they have to give their best effort against this dynamic squad. NYU and Emory in particular came out firing and had strong offensive performances against the Maroons, scoring 81 and 75 points, respectively. The girls, however, are aware that the strength of the UAA conference means that every game will be a challenge. “It’s definitely still a one-game-at-atime mentality for us. We have been so successful lately because we’ve really been focusing on each game, one game at a time, without overlooking anyone. Especially in the UAA, every game is the championship game,” Simpson said. Although it is far off, some UAA fans
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HOW DID THE BLIZZARD AFFECT YOUR GAME? “I thought [practice] was a lot of fun. You go to run around [and] throw snowballs at people.’’
“We have UAAs this Saturday, so the blizzard left us to fend for ourselves. Hopefully the lack of facilities doesn’t affect our preparation too much.”
“This is a new concept for me. We don’t have practice cancelled for the snow [in South Carolina].”
—Third-year distance runner Robert Cooper
MEN’S BASKETBALL
—Second-year softball player Samantha Hobson
—Fourth-year wrestler Chris Oster
TENNIS
Chicago travels to Competition heats up in first matches of the season Case, Carnegie By Matt Luchins Sports Staff Men’s basketball hits the road tonight looking to complete a back-to-back weekend sweep of UAA rivals Case and Carnegie Mellon. The Maroons (7–11, 4–3 UAA) open in Cleveland at 8 p.m. against a Case (7–11, 3–4) side looking for revenge after last Friday’s 71–66 overtime defeat at the Ratner Center. On Sunday in Pittsburgh, they tip off at noon against Carnegie Mellon, who took a lead into halftime last week before the Maroons came back to seal an 86–76 victory. After scoring 25 points in both victories last weekend, third-year point guard Matt Johnson raised his scoring average to 16 points and earned his second UAA Athlete of the Week award this season. Averaging 2.3 three-pointers a game, his long-range shooting will be crucial this weekend, but Johnson seemed to think the games would be won and lost closer to the basket. “Both of these teams are big and crash the boards extremely hard,” Johnson said. “We know how important it is to rebound defensively and then take care of the ball offensively. In both games, there were stretches where we
turned the ball over and gave the other team some life. If we can limit that and keep them off the glass, we should be in good shape.” The Maroons will be in great shape should third-year forward Steve Stefanou repeat his performance from last week against Case. After slowly returning to form after an eight-week layoff, last year’s leading scorer broke double digits for the first time since his injury, posting 14 points in 20 minutes of action. Against Carnegie, however, he didn’t score, after playing for only five minutes. “When you’re knocked out for eight weeks, especially as a big guy, it’s not easy to regain your feel for the game,” coach Mike McGrath said. “We’re working him back in game by game, just seeing what’s working for him and the team.” This weekend marks the beginning of the second half of conference play. Having hosted five (and won four) of the first seven games, the Maroons must now return the favor. Over the next few weeks, they will travel to compete against the UAA’s top three teams: Rochester, Emory, and Wash U. “You would always rather play at
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By Noah Weiland Sports Staff Men’s and women’s tennis are at different points in their seasons, but both have the same goal: win. After a 7–0 shutout of Chicago State on January 27th where not a single match went to three sets, the men’s team is preparing for two matches in two days starting tonight in a match against Case in Notre Dame, IN. The second match takes place tomorrow afternoon at home against Wisconsin-Whitewater. “The matches are just starting now, so you don’t know too much about the opposing teams,” head coach Marty Perry said. “Case always plays us tough on the men’s side, and we had two tough matches last year with them. This is the highest ranked team WisconsinWhitewater has had in a while.” “Case and Whitewater are our first D-III matches of the year, and I have high expectations of our team,” fourth-year Will Zhang added. “Case played us tough last year at [the UAA Championship] when we beat them, so I’m looking for them to fight hard again.” The men’s team has benefited from some early season match experience
that will likely help them going into the D-III part of the schedule. “So far the season has been good,” fourth-year Kunal Pawa said. “Our first match was very close and we could have won. Our last match was convincing. This weekend sets the tone for the rest of the season, and it’s important we get off to a good start since we have a very competitive team.” “Our matches against D-I teams have helped prepare for our tough schedule,” Zhang continued. “It’s very early in the season still, but I think we have the potential to have a great year. We need to learn to mentally stay in matches better and maintain our intensity when playing tougher teams.” The team’s youthfulness is perhaps the most crucial determinant of the early season. Four of the six singles players in the lineup against Chicago State were first- or second-years. “With the men, we have some new players,” Perry said. “They just played their first duals match, so they’re getting used to the format. It’s a deep team, and there are lots of guys fighting for the lineup. It’s a pretty competitive environment.” “The five new freshmen brought in this year could make a big differ-
ence and hopefully help us win a few matches we wouldn’t have last year,” second-year Harrison Abrams said. ”Everyone seems to be well prepared for this weekend and the rest of the season, and many of us are playing pretty well right now.” The women’s team has not played yet in 2011. Their first match is against Case tonight in Notre Dame, and their second is at home against Ball State Sunday afternoon. “I think we’re ready for the season to start. We’ve been working hard during practice, and we’ve added conditioning workouts to improve our fitness,” third-year Jennifer Kung said. “I think we’re all excited to finally start playing matches this weekend.” “We’re the higher ranked team, so we’re trying to get our D-III competition off to a strong start,” Perry added. “Our schedule is middle- and backloaded. We’ve just been competing amongst the team and practicing. We want to do well this weekend and build on that.” But what the team lacks in matches played they make up for in experience, as they only have one first-year player. “We did not lose anyone from last
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