Chicago-Maroon-11-02-08

CHICAGO

MAROON The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2011 • VOLUME 122, ISSUE 27 • CHICAGOMAROON.COM

Third time as charming Wrestling tops NYU, Case for third-straight UAA championship

Sports, back page

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

STUDENT LIFE

UCMC

Network for Uncommon Fund links entrepreneurs

MUNUC draws record turnout despite storm

Provident diverts ambulances to UCMC

By Haru Coryne News Staff

By Sam Levine News Staff

Student Government (SG) is expanding its Uncommon Fund initiative, taking its efforts beyond the onetime grant to provide recipients with a wide variety of resources and human capital. SG is hoping it can harness the power of social networking, the best friend to anyone wanting to get a date, land a job, or start a revolution, for more uncommon pursuits.

The Fund, which is entering its fourth year, allocates its annual $40,000 budget to student projects SG sees as promisingly unique and impactful, but also realistic.

The Fund’s new website, JoinStart, is the brainchild of third-year David Chen, SG’s vice president of administration and the chair of the Fund’s board. Chen created JoinStart.com with first-year Jesse Silliman and thirdyear Teng Bao in November to fix a competitive grant system that they felt was inefficient and unnecessarily burdensome for applicants. “In previous years, the Uncommon Fund has been very similar to the SGFC [Student Government Finance Committee],� said board member and first-year Forrest Scofield. Students would present their ideas before a board of review, who would then decide at once who would receive funding.

Now, the Fund’s board will evaluate the first round of applicants based on what students lay out in their online project profiles. Each page includes a field for information on the problem

Provident Hospital will start redirecting ambulances to other hospitals on the South Side, including the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC), beginning February 15. The UCMC, which already has one of the highest emergency room bypass rates in Cook County, is the closest hospital to Provident and will be the most deeply affected by the move.

Provident, which sits on the northwest side of Washington Park, will save between $20 and $25 million by closing its doors to ambulance runs. The hospital, managed by Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS), has long been saddled with tremendous debt resulting from infrastructural problems and service to uninsured patients.

Lucio Guerrero, a CCHHS spokesperson, said that despite Cook Country Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s effort to curtail the county’s $487 million debt by 21 percent, the hospital had already planned to transition into an outpatient-only care facility. A 2010 CCHHS study estimated it would cost between $38 and $52 million to keep Provident open as a full service facility.

Each year, approximately 3,800 patients arrive at Provident’s emergency room by ambulance, adding up to roughly 10 percent of the total number of patients the hospital sees annually.

In a January 29 article in The Chicago Crusader titled “Provident Hospital Shifts Medical Focus,� Guerrero noted that because 90 percent of patients did not arrive at the emergency room by ambu-

UNCOMMON continued on page 2

Former American ambassador to the Central African Republic Daniel H. Simpson speaks Thursday during the MUNUC conference at the Palmer Hotel.

DARREN LEOW/MAROON

By Madalyn Frigo News Staff Despite the blizzard, The Model United Nations of the University of Chicago (MUNUC) had its largest turnout to date at their 23rd conference this weekend, hosting over 2,400 high school delegates at the Palmer House in the South Loop.

As weather conditions shut down much of the city, MUNUC leaders were surprised to find that they broke previous attendance records anyway. “We were concerned for a while that we would have to take drastic action, but we didn’t need to.

We had 80 percent of all attendees checked in on time, and only five schools out of 120 had to drop,� said MUNUC Secretary General and fourth-year Reece Trevor.

MUNUC is one of the largest RSOs on campus, with about 190 undergraduates involved. It organizes and holds national and international conferences for high school students meant to simulate those run by the United Nations.

M U N U C members say marketing efforts helped boost their numbers. “This year’s leadership has made an extreme push to move MUNUC out of the ’90s,� said Chief Administrative Officer of MUNUC and fourth-year Shirley Sierra.

They restructured the organization’s website, and hired a professional graphic designer to make the packets, folders, and papers distributed among students. “We did a lot to make sure the image was as professional as the conduct of our conference,� Trevor said.

While many colleges in the U.S. host similar conferences, Trevor said MUNUC prides itself on providing a different approach to simulating the United Nations. “A lot of high school conferences do it in a very instrumental sense: You come to the conference to win awards and put it on your college application.� Trevor said. “We are first and foremost a pedagogical conference, which sets us apart and makes MUNUC a more rewarding experience than a lot of other conferences. “We like to see M U N U C as something that gives students really essential leadership training. Unlike a trophy you win at other conferences and put on your shelf, the skills you get at MUNUC will stay with you forever,� Pramik said.

PROVIDENT continued on page 2

HYDE PARK

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“I think that we should all follow the rules‌. I’m trying to make sure that my campaign staff does follow all the rules,â€? she said. “The only contact we’ve really had come from her office was when I had my first office on 71st Street. Within 48 hours after opening up... she called the landlord and said, ‘If you don’t get this campaign office out of here, I will send the building inspectors upon you,’â€?

Miles said. “So because I didn’t want everybody to get in trouble, I moved my office to what was Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s old office.�

Last week, Parks said that Miles’s campaign was focusing on the wrong issues and that her campaign should be more positively focused. “She’s a novice, and all these little things she’s talking about are just little things that if you’re going to run for office, [will come up],� Parks said. “Stand on your issues. We’re not having a campaign over here about stuffing boxes. It’s about ‘Here’s what I stand for.’�

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With the aldermanic elections only two weeks away, two campaigns in the fifth ward are facing off in an effort to follow laws to the letter.

A few weeks ago, candidate Ann Marie Miles said incumbent Leslie Hairston’s office had called the landlord of Miles’s office to say she would report Miles to the building inspectors for not meeting zoning codes. She moved to a new space. Now, a fifth ward resident has reported that Hairston’s campaign materials were illegally put in mailboxes.

Residents at 1700 East 56th Street, a high-rise apartment, said they received campaign materials from Hairston’s office in their mailboxes on January 28.

According to federal law, only postal workers may place objects in mailboxes, and all items must have paid postage.

According to Carole Parks, a spokesperson for Hairston, the materials were “walk cards,� professionally produced

materials designed for distribution by hand. “With volunteers, they’re very eager.

A lot of them don’t know [the rules], and they do stuff you would never dream of doing,� Parks said.

Parks, herself a resident of the building, said that she had talked to other residents, who confirmed that they received the cards, but she could find no explanation regarding their origins.

According to building resident Richard Gill, who posted about the cards on the Hyde Park Progress blog, the management of the building was notified, and the weekly bulletin included a notice about placing materials in mailboxes that week.

Miles spoke out against the alleged federal crime. “I just don’t like [that Leslie’s] campaign has not been run‌ according to the highest ethical standards, [so] I was disappointed,â€? Miles said.

Miles said that after hearing about the cards, she reiterated the rules to her staff.

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By Jonathan Lai Senior News Staff

The Department of Transportation announced it will continue with the single shuttle route, citing poor street conditions that have made certain streets unsafe for shuttles. It has not yet determined when it will be returning to the standard four shuttle routes.

2

CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | February 8, 2011

WOODLAWN

JoinStart plans to make Uncommon projects more visible, accessible

Big issues await 20th ward hopefuls

By Crystal Tsoi News Staff The 20th ward boasts an alarming 30,000 vacant lots, but these lots aren’t its only problem. Among the issues that have stirred up debate among the four candidates vying for the alderman position in the run-up to the February 22 election are a struggling education system, retail development, unemployment, and high crime rates.

The candidates in the upcoming election include George Davis, Andre Smith, Che “Rhymefest” Smith, and incumbent Willie B. Cochran. The Maroon was unable to reach Andre Smith.

Willie B. Cochran highlighted accomplishments that his administration has achieved in office at Saturday’s State of the Ward Address given at the New Beginnings Church at East 66th Street and South King Drive.

Cochran was upbeat about the improvements made in the ward. “We’ve developed and made the community healthy again. The social fabric of our community is made up of the populations, organizations, the resources that we have in this community, the businesses, and the investment that goes into this community, and more than anything, how you as a public ask us to respond,” he said.

Saturday’s address focused on the state of the education system in the 20th ward. Cochran highlighted the $3 million that has been invested in the public schools and 3,000 books donated to children as a result of TIF funds. He also mentioned his efforts with the company Kaboom to put a playground in Washington Park and his future plans to put 20 more playgrounds in the 20th ward.

“When I took office in May of 2007, the 20th ward was suffering from years of poor administration. We have provided that access and we support that access by ensuring that service,” said Cochran.

But those challenging Cochran disagree, citing crime and a lack of business development as major problems yet to be addressed.

According to both Rhymefest and Davis, a lack of transparency with the current aldermanic administration is problematic. Davis said, “No one can tell you now what the current alderman’s plan to address crime is.”

Rhymefest, who won a Grammy in 2005 for cowriting “Jesus Walks” with Kanye West, has brought publicity to the race. Rhymefest’s high profile has drawn big names like Lupe Fiasco and George

Clinton to hold fundraisers for the campaign.

In an interview in November with the Maroon, Rhymefest said that his decision to run stemmed from his discontent with the current alderman and the state of the 20th ward. “There are a lot of services that people aren’t receiving. My priority is to connect the legislature of the aldermanic office and the community back together. There’s no reason that [citizens] don’t know the resources before them,” he said.

Rhymefest hopes to “connect the village to the ivory tower and the ivory tower to the village,” outlining his efforts to connect resources at the University of Chicago to students in the 20th ward.

He also cited economic development as a major concern. He said he hopes “to market [his] community in a way that lets people know that businesses do exist there [and] that these businesses have services that we need, that we can use.”

Businessman George Davis also pointed to crime, education, and economic health as “critical issues for the 20th ward.”

Davis said his administrative experience makes him a candidate who will get things done. “What I’ve been seeing is that a lot of people I talk to that are regular voters, particularly in the Woodlawn neighborhood, they see a big distinction between someone like myself and someone like Rhymefest.

They are a little wary of putting someone in the office that doesn’t have any administrative experience,” he said.

Davis said cleaning up the ward would be a first priority, and then he’d look at how to reduce crime rates. “Let’s make sure that trash isn’t on our street and then let’s really figure out what we are going to do to attack crime and lower our crime rates… by three percent every year while I am in office,” said Davis.

Davis said the issue of economic development is a multifaceted one that needs to be addressed from multiple perspectives. Using his background in business, Davis hopes to “form a public-private partnership with some green technology firms.”

In Andre Smith’s response to the Chicago Tribune’s editorial questionnaire, he mentions “crime and joblessness” as his main concerns.

Smith hopes to work with public schools and the city council to “address conceal and carry laws” and “work with the communnity [sic] to find new employment oppurtunities [sic] and I will work with the public schools to improve education.”

UNCOMMON continued from front page or opportunity and where they are in the project.

Anyone with an account can “follow” a project before choosing to join it.

Described by Scofield as an “entrepreneurial Facebook,” JoinStart allows students to post their projects, exchange information, and seek out talent for their team, all presented through the now-familiar format of personal profiles and pithy self-identifiers (to sign up, members are required to encapsulate themselves in one sentence).

Already, JoinStart is alive with proposals from its 78 members, including an insect-tasting buffet and a model for providing relief to flood victims in Pakistan. Last year, the Fund received 54 submissions.

The board will then choose second-round teams to connect with a mentor and convey their needs to student entrepreneurs in relevant fields.

The intention is to create a relationship between board members and project leaders that persists far beyond the allocation of funding.

“We want the whole process to be a community effort,” Chen said.

Beneficiaries of the Fund—who in the past have included gardeners, bakers, and circus-performers—will be able to tap into a talent pool of busi-

ness mentors, computer programmers, marketers, and a variety of other specialists whose counsel might be of use to a student-run start-up.

“The initial thought was to connect the human resources and the capital resources with the people who want to take initiative,” Chen said.

From there, Chen and his team looked for ways to apply the new platform and discovered an untapped demand for entrepreneurial projects among students here in the University and at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).

To connect qualifying teams with the services they need, SG will be relying mostly on the Booth School of Business’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship, which has its own application process for students interested in working with the Fund. Also providing support will be the University’s computer science department and IIT, whose students can create accounts and peruse the site’s contents.

The result, Chen said, is a largely “self-selective” process, through which anyone with an idea can put their skills to work. Eventually, Chen hopes to connect project teams with professionals and mentors from a range of backgrounds, such as the Harris School of Public Policy and local community service organizations.

UCMC still considering deal with Provident to fund inpatient services PROVIDENT continued from front page lance, the hospital could afford to eliminate ambulance services, as long as the hospital’s emergency room remained open. Guerrero said he could not estimate how many more ambulance runs the UCMC emergency room can expect.

UCMC was close to finalizing a $20 million partnership with Provident through the University’s Urban Health Initiative in 2009 that would allow them to send some of its own patients to Provident in order to free up beds in its emergency room.

UCMC spokesperson John Easton said that

UCMC is still considering a partnership with Provident, but did not comment on what the details of the partnership might look like. Guerrero also confirmed that discussions with UCMC were ongoing.

Other hospitals in addition to the UCMC that will see an increase in ambulance runs are St. Bernard, Jackson Park, Mercy, and South Shore.

UCMC spokesperson Cara Birch wrote in an e-mail message that the UCMC and other affected hospitals would be meeting this week to develop a divergence plan before the cuts begin next week.

Joyce DiDonato

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 18 7:30 PM

CORRECTION » The February 4 News article “Egypt Evacuation Encounters Trouble With Travel, Security,” did not specify that the decision to evacuate the program was made by Director of the Study Abroad Program Martha Merritt in consultation with Dean of the College John Boyer.

Additionally, students will be living at the Cité Universitaire, an international student village in Paris where other U of C students are housed, not at the U of C Center in Paris (which consists of classrooms and offices). A point of clarification: The decision to let students choose between taking French or Arabic was made by chair of NELC Theo van den Hout.

Merritt informed students during a Skype meeting that van den Hout had decided they would have the option of studying either French or Arabic for the remainder of the program.

About half of the students chose to continue with Arabic; the other half have started French.

The stunning mezzo-soprano makes her Chicago recital debut!

The MAROON is committed to correcting mistakes for the record. If you suspect the MAROON has made an error, please alert the newspaper by e-mailing Editor@ChicagoMaroon.com.

Peace Corps 50 Years of Promoting Global Peace & Friendship

Information Session & Diversity Panel Tuesday, Feb. 9th 6:00 p.m.

Cloister Club, Ida Noyes Hall University of Chicago 1212 E. 59th Street

Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano David Zobel, piano Works by Haydn, Rossini, Chaminade, Hahn, Peccia, Leoncavallo, and Chiara 6:30 pm Pre-concert lecture by Philip Gossett, Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor Buy your tickets today!

773.702.8068

Mandel Hall, 1131 East 57th Street chicagopresents.uchicago.edu

$35 / $5 students with valid ID A limited number of FREE student tickets are available through the Arts Pass program; visit chicagopresents.uchicago.edu for details

Life is calling. How far will you go?

800.424.8580 l peacecorps.gov/50

Be part of the next Peace Corps generation.

CHICAGO MAROON

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VIEWPOINTS | February 8, 2011

VIEWPOINTS

EDITORIAL & OP-ED FEBRUARY 8, 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 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.

Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words.

Op-ed submissions, 800 words.

CONTACT 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

Bottle racket

Current efforts to reduce bottled water on campus should go even further Tomorrow, Student Government’s College Council will vote on a resolution advocating the gradual elimination of bottled water from campus.

The motion, which is the result of continued protest on the part of UChicago Students Against Bottled Water, a sub-group of Green Campus Initiative (GCI), will be one more step in an ongoing and widespread effort to brand bottled water as an excessive, inefficient, and unnecessary luxury.

Most of those charges are accurate, and it’s commendable that such an issue has appeared on the Student Government (SG) agenda, but efforts to decrease the campus’s reliance on bottled water should extend far beyond SG. Specifically, a policy should be instituted that bans the distribution of bottled water at University and department events. Especially on campus,

coolers of tap water could easily replace pallets of Aquafina. Filtered water fountains are present in every building. It’s grotesquely wasteful to hand out thousands of bottles of water when water is already abundantly available elsewhere, and when it can be provided in cheaper and more environmentally conscious ways.

This issue won’t be resolved with a few preliminary restrictions. Studentrun shops like Hallowed Grounds and Cobb Coffee Shop sell thousands of bottles each year. Aramark, while running dining halls, Hutch, Bart Mart, and Midway Market, sells even more.

All for a product that has been proven to be largely the same as the filtered tap water that comes out of most campus water fountains. To convince campus vendors to clear bottled water from their shelves, displays of broad

student opposition will likely be necessary. A student referendum, similar to last spring’s referendum on the sexual assault policy, would be one way to demonstrate how many of us object to the continued sale of bottled water.

There certainly isn’t a dearth of reasons to object: The petition circulated

by UChicago Students Against Bottled Water offers a number of reasons for the campaign, among them that, “40 percent of bottled water in the U.S. is sourced from public tap water…bottle water is expensive and tap water is free on the University of Chicago campus... [and] the University of Chicago could be more economically and environmentally responsible in its water use.”

All these facts emphasize just how inefficient purchasing and consuming bottled water is, and students should take note. The main characteristic that

separates it from other wasteful products, such as cans and bottles of soda, is that with water there is a cheap and readily available alternative. The various “tap water challenges” at campus wellness fairs and GCI events regularly prove that the average UChicago student can’t tell the difference between water from the fountain and water imported from Fiji.

To really promote a more efficient, environmentally-conscious campus, SG and GCI cannot be the only ones making an effort. Students across the board should be more assertive in endorsing their beliefs, and joining the push against bottled water is one way to start.

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

COLD SNAP

SHARING THE LOOT

Future tense

Admitting the truth

Rising levels of stress among undergraduates stem from a lack of job security

The Office of College Admissions should emphasize what's special about the U of C

By Emily Wang Viewpoints Columnist It’s been the word—or to be more accurate, acronym—on everyone’s lips this quarter.

That’s right: CAPS. We’re midway through winter quarter and though temperatures outside are still frigid as ever, students are already deep into exploring summer opportunities, hoping there’s experience to be gained here or money to be made there.

Recent numbers show that firstyears are more career-oriented than ever. CAPS director Meredith Daw was quoted as stating that “Students are coming in with a stronger sense of what they want to do after graduation and what they can do while they’re here,” and that the excitement over career services has risen with the new class of students. But are students really more ambitious and driven than before? What exactly has changed?

Lately the topic of discussion amongst my friends often turns to résumés, internships, and interviews.

Whether it’s about our prospects or obstacles, successes or failures, there’s a sense of anxious solidarity here.

We’re all nervous about getting our feet wet, since collectively we believe that we’re somehow falling behind if we don’t immediately dive into whatever it is that we’ve deemed our “true calling.” Openness and flexibility

for one’s future pursuits, which were once what college seemed to offer, no longer seem viable. And it’s not just my third-year friends feeling the pressure, but also their first- and secondyear counterparts. Thus, the meetings with CAPS, the endless tweaking of the résumés, the planning and replanning of hopefully productive-ascan-be summers all give us a sense of control, a sense we need when there’s so little of it in this socially and economically turbulent time.

The numbers, then, can say what colleges want them to say, but this new trend isn’t necessarily reflective of a more decisive, motivated student body; instead, they’re indicative of higher pressures faced in an increasingly uncertain economic climate.

According to the CIRP Freshman Survey, UCLA’s annual survey of the nation’s students entering four-year colleges and universities, first-year college students’ ratings of their emotional health dropped to record lows last year. Yet the survey indicated that students are more driven to achieve than ever. It’s likely, then, that the desire for success is propelling a stressful struggle to stand out from their peers, which is now necessary to secure a job. The survey additionally revealed that an increasing number of students are focused on the value that a college degree confers—more students than ever believe “the chief benefit of college is that it increases one’s earning power.”

This belief is not only in accordance with policymakers’ advocacy of public investment in higher education as a means to stimulate the economy, but is also reflective of the attitude with which Americans currently view education as a whole: practicality and frugality pave the

CAREERS continued on page 4

By Tyler Lutz Viewpoints Columnist When I first visited the Maroon as a young, naive prospie, I made two promises to myself: If I attended UChicago, I would 1) become a columnist for the Maroon and 2) never write anything related to college admissions.

Even then, I noticed the Maroon’s predilection for publishing a piece on admissions trends at least two to three times a month. The articles, often enough on plummeting acceptance rates, were rarely illuminating, and seemed doomed to being overanalyzed and then dissected to utter meaninglessness by the likes of College Confidential—quite possibly the last place I would ever want anything I had written to end up.

But there’s a reason for this behavior, one that has taken me a long time to catch on to: The College is currently undergoing an identity crisis, one that has the potential to either propel U of C towards realizing its potential or, on the other hand, to more firmly cement its lamentable (and incorrect) reputation as a “wannabe.” As college students, we have a duty to care about where those elusive inhabitants of Rosenwald are taking our school.

I flew home from my visit as a prospective student wanting to attend here significantly less than when I left. If it weren’t for a deep-seated conviction that, despite the blandness I had experienced with admissions, UChicago still had something genuinely special

to offer me, I wouldn’t be writing this right now; I’d be sitting in a dorm room in New York.

What happened? In my experience, the admissions office has two primary functions: to familiarize prospective students with the University and to present the school in the best possible light. As for the former, the office does a commendable job making information on any imaginable aspect of the school available. And the tours are pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a tour.

In the end, the admissions office functions as our marketing department, one rigidly focused on smoothing out UChicago’s rough edges. As examples, here are the office’s “official” positions on a few relevant topics: On Snow: Yeah, it’s kinda cold, but you get used to it. It’s pretty awesome.

On Asocial people: Yeah, we’re sorta quirky, but in a cool way. We’re all pretty awesome.

On Workload: Yeah, it’s hard, but it’s manageable. It’s pretty awesome.

Obvious exaggerations aside, what’s really wrong with these strategies? No one wants to attend a school he or she knows nothing about, and a few encouraging words never hurt anyone, even if they bend the truth.

Nothing’s wrong with them.

In fact, that’s what practically every other admissions office in the country does. So it can’t be that bad, right?

There’s a contradiction here. We pride ourselves in attending a school that marches, if awkwardly and hesitantly at times, to the beat of its own drum. But our admissions office paints us as just another school, a place to get an education instead of a place to make one.

So here’s my program: tone down the “familiarization" and “marketing" functions and focus on “defamiliariza-

ADMISSIONS continued on page 4

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CHICAGO MAROON

| VIEWPOINTS | February 8, 2011

America's future requires more than incentivizing math and science degrees CAREERS continued from page 3 way to material success and stability. Doesn’t really seem to leave much room for innovation, but who could blame Americans who must face the harsh reality of unemployment every day? We have to face it, our parents have to face it, and our nation’s leaders have to face it. In the present, we’re falling behind as a nation but, as Obama really hammered home in last month’s State of the Union address, we can and need to “win the future.” Winning the future, apparently, consists of focusing, as students and educators, more on math, science, technology, and engineering. Easy to say,

hard to do—which, of course, Obama is aware of—but the realization of this goal will inevitably lead to a humanities backlash. What will that mean for the future of American higher education? Is that really the only solution to what’s perceived as the U.S.’s decline in global stature?

I’ve always believed that this is the greatest failure of American education. The system says, “This is the path to success. Look how beautiful and well-traveled it is. You must follow it, or risk loneliness, despair, and hardship in the tangled darkness that awaits elsewhere.”

Many of our parents have certainly bought

into this mantra. Major in economics, or go pre-med. Go into finance or be a doctor. Stick with what works—why voluntarily take a risk if the current job outlook is just one giant risk?

But then the fundamental problem remains.

We don’t become better critical thinkers if we simply choose a path that we believe will lead to a more secure future, whether for personal reasons or for the sake of playing “catch up” to other countries. The notion that America has somehow fallen off its place as the rightful ruler of the world strikes me as an outdated mode of thinking that fails to acknowledge the reality of our modern global society. What the U.S.

needs is not to “win the future” but to improve it, and this motivation should not be rooted in wanting the statistics to prove that we’re the best. Obama was right in the sense that our youth aren’t fully embracing math and science, as they must if we want to see progress. Real innovation must occur in all fields—including the humanities—and this doesn’t come from force and obligation but passion and inspiration. How that innovative spirit will be revived remains to be seen.

Emily Wang is a first-year in the College majoring in English.

Prospies can get impression that U of C is just another school ADMISSIONS continued from page 3 tion.” and “unmarketing.”

Defamiliarization: There is no single, monolithic UChicago culture. When I stroll through the quads I don’t feel myself necessarily abducted into a “theoretical.” or “intellectual.” atmosphere but rather absorbed into a conversation that is both personal and external. The campus constantly asks me: “What are you going to make out of all of this?” or “What does this school really mean to you?”

College isn’t about being comfortable, or getting the right qualifications or recommendations.

There are no limits to the number of different educational experiences a UChicago student can have, but one thing is certain: we don't want students who are willing to accept the soup du jour. If you really want to get anything out of your education, you better be willing to go into the kitchen and make it yourself. The admissions office desperately needs to do a better job showing, by example, the diversity of ways in which current students have made UChicago their own.

Unmarketing: Let’s tell the truth, not just some cutesy version of it:

On Snow: Yes, it’s bloody freezing! And we like it like that—it’s an externalization of our internal academic struggles, a tangible metaphor for what we think a challenging education should be like.

On Asocial people: Yes, most of us seem difficult or awkward to talk to at first! But so did Socrates. Students here will go far out of their way to talk, but only for intensely meaningful, challenging conversations. Don’t come here expecting small talk over cocktails.

On Workload: If it’s just “manageable,” you’re doing something wrong! When we’ve given it our all and still end up with an average grade, we know we’ve come to the right place.

As a prospie, I came here thinking UChicago was unique, and I left with nagging doubts. I can guarantee that there will be someone else who will prospie here in the next few months, who, like me, would be perfectly happy and productive here, but who will have the same disappointing experience I did. If the admissions office doesn’t sharpen its act, this student might not be as merciful as I was and just go elsewhere.

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VOICES ART

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT FEBRUARY 8, 2011 MUSIC

American Modern examines Folk Festival revives music of yesteryear

By Madalyn Frigo a country amidst change Voices Old-Timer

Berenice Abbott's “Hellgate Bridge” (1937) clearly shows the portal to the underworld.

COURTESY OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

By Will Sims Voices Okie Two of the things most remembered about the 1930s are the Great Depression and the Modernist art movement. More generally, the period is considered a time of great change.

Walking through the American Modern exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago is a journey into the heart of the 1930s, a time when both America as a nation and photography as an art form were in flux.

AMERICAN MODERN Art Institute Through May 15

The exhibit focuses on three of the most important documentary photographers of the period: Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, and Margaret Bourke-White. The exhibit’s four galleries each center on a single theme of one photographer’s work. This makes for an interesting juxtaposition, as Abbott’s depiction of a bustling New York City is placed next to Evans’s photographic journey through a rural South decimated by the Great Depression, in turn contrasting with Bourke-White’s studies of industrial mass-production and American farm life.

Despite these differences in subject matter, there are several motifs consistent to all three photographers. All three strive to provide an accurate picture of the world around them. Abbott and Bourke-White marvel at the grandeur of the modern city and the industrial developments that fuel its growth.

Evans traveled through the American South and Cuba, using portraiture to reveal the toil etched onto the faces of the farm workers he encountered. They are individual black-and-white stills, but each tells a story of not only individual struggles with a changing world, and also America’s uncertain future.

The impact of the Great Depression is clear in each artist’s work. One of the exhibit’s most poignant pieces, “Word’s Highest Standard of Living”

by Bourke-White, shows a bread line

in front of a billboard advertisement depicting a cheery family driving a new car, accompanied by a slogan lauding the “American way.” This powerful contrast not only puts a human face on the period’s unemployment, but also shows the Depression’s inequality and uncertainty, giving Bourke-White’s work an air of social criticism. The others build on this theme with Abbott showing a shantytown in Central Park while Evans follows jobless “drifters” on their aimless journeys.

The artistic backgrounds of these works are just as significant as their socioeconomic context. The ’30s were a time when technological developments in photography allowed photodocumentarians to move through environments with unprecedented ease. All three took advantage of these advances to capture their surroundings with a candid honesty.

Photographers at the time were also engaged in a struggle for artistic relevance with more traditional media.

For Abbott, Evans, and Bourke-White, this meant incorporating classic aesthetic values into their work. Evans’s portraits are perhaps the most striking in this respect. He illuminates his subjects against nondescript backgrounds, reminiscent of a classic Rembrandt. Creative use of perspective, geometric forms, and strong black-white contrasts are also consistent in all three, and give the photos stunning beauty that complements their historical import.

The pieces in American Modern are selected not only from the artists’ photoessay assignments for major magazines, but also from advertisements and books that were published for public consumption, showing the burgeoning commercial promise of the media.

The exhibit acknowledges the original settings of these works and presents several original books and magazines on tables in the galleries, alongside the same works in traditional frames.

The photos of the American Modern exhibit provide a powerful lens for understanding not only the historical and artistic context of three prominent and influential artists, but also the individual perspectives and philosophies that informed their work.

Beginning Friday, the University of Chicago will host its 51st Annual Folk Festival in Mandel Hall and Ida Noyes for three days. This year’s festival will continue to preserve the traditional music of the past, but with modern day artists and the rebirth of old genres.

The University of Chicago Folk Festival has become a nationally renowned event, drawing in people from all around the country to play and listen to folk. The festival is carefully planned, with board members booking musicians as far as a year in advance due to the difficulty in finding performers of such an old genre of music.

“Sometimes we say...that the only [bands] that are traditional enough for us are the ones that are dead, and hiring living ones are a compromise,” said Ezra Deutsch-Feldman, a 2009 U of C graduate returning to help with this year’s festival.

In addition to folk, bluegrass, Irish, and Cajun, each year the board tries to include a different genre. This year will be gospel, a genre that hasn’t been included in the festival for some time, with the Evening Light Brothers performing.

“This year we decided to feature a gospel group, which lets us promote something that is popular locally

as a part of Chicago,” said Alexa Silverman, one of the co-presidents of this year’s Festival.

The Folk Festival serves as a place not only to hear traditional music, but also to meet the musicians who are the best in their field and who are willing to talk to Festival attendees.

51st ANNUAL FOLK FESTIVAL Mandel Hall & Ida Noyes February 11 to February 13

“I play banjo and guitar,” DeutschFeldman said. “If I can work up the courage to ask [the musicians], I try to play some music with them, or at least get some advice from them.”

Some musicians attending this year are a familiar sight to the Folk Festival. This will be the fifth year for John Williams, who will perform traditional music of Ireland on piano and concertino. Williams performed in the movie The Road to Perdition, where he was commissioned to compose and teach an Irish piece to Paul Newman and Tom Hanks.

“I feel like it’s a national venue, Mandel Hall, and the music is presented at a very high level,” Williams said.

He looks forward to performing on Mandel Hall’s Steinway piano.

“I play piano in a traditional manner

and it’s primarily for dance music. I’m looking forward to having that large piano under my fingertips and belting out some great music,” Williams said.

While Williams will be returning to Mandel Hall for the fifth time, this year will be some artists’ first. Mike Compton, a bluegrass musician, will be attending for the first time to lead the Bluegrass Workshop. Compton played mandolin on two Grammy award-winning pieces in 2001 and has traveled the globe playing music.

“I’m looking forward to meeting some new people in Chicago and to be able to play with some of my friends,” said Compton. “I’ve found that music communicates when words fail and seems to be the great common denominator.”

Even if one is not familiar with traditional folk music, the Festival is a great place to become acquainted with this timeless genre. “[Folk] is kind of like an old antique that has been lovingly cared for, and still has had its few battle scars,” said fiddler Bobby Taylor, who will lead the Fiddle Styles workshop. “It is something that is wholesome, timeless, and just wonderful, and if anyone gives it a chance and a listen, and tries to understand a little bit of the history and the soul and spirit of the musician, the welcome mat is out for them.”

THEATER

Steppenwolf stages predictable Sex

Olivia (Sally Murphy) and Ethan (Stephen Louis Grush) search for answers to their professional and romantic woes in one another's eyes.

COURTESY OF MICHAEL BROSILOW

By Katherine Stewart Voices Reads You Like a Book What do you get when you combine sex and technology? Steppenwolf ’s Sex with Strangers depicts a fledgling romance of two people caught in different stages of life and technological advancement. Playwright Laura Eason creates this strong juxtaposition with Olivia and Ethan, two writers seeking

SEX WITH STRANGERS Steppenwolf Theatre Through May 15

solutions to professional problems that the other could easily solve. However, a predictable plot leads to two very predictable characters, despite how different they are in the beginning.

The play opens with Olivia (Sally Murphy), a single woman nearing her 40s, editing her latest novel and waiting out a blizzard in an isolated inn. She is harshly interrupted by Ethan (Stephen Louis Grush), a younger man who also comes to stay at the quiet, remote inn.

Ethan is brash, frantic, impulsive, and very liberal with the wod “fuck.” Unlike Olivia, who’s resolutely anti-technology,

SEX continued on page 6

6

CHICAGO MAROON | VOICES | February 8, 2011

When a man loves a woman, he tells his Twitter SEX continued from page 5

When orange attacks!

PROLOGUE: Days ago, mere days ago, a Great White Ice fell upon Chicago and its various environs and lake ports. This ice, so merciless in its bevy, left the city beleaguered and useless, like a baby hobo, like a broken slinky floating in a bucket. And your Foodents, destined to write a food column on a reasonably timely basis, were troubled by the storm.

PICCOLO MONDO 1642 East 56th Street (773) 643-1106

FOODENTS RATING: (-8, 5)*

PART I: The Treason Begins “Yes!” said Evan, and he brushed a flake of coal from his rosy, rheumy, Roman nose. “Troubling indeed!”

“O! Where shall we go to dine? What will be open during this, the very End of Days?” replied Ben. I wish more than anything, Reader, I wish that here I could say how old Evan raised his old, magus-esque neck and said, “Nowhere. Tonight we dine at home. We’ll pull up a fire and play some Mancala alongside it. The food will be warm.”

But this is not what happened.

“I know,” said Evan. “Let’s try that restaurant—(a wind rises)—that mysterious little den overlooking the Old Fairgrounds.”

“Isn’t that the place conjoined to an orthodontist’s?” asked Ben naively.

“Yes,” said Evan. “Yes, it is.”

PART II: The Treason Began And so they walked. Foot raised, then lowered through the snow, ceasing not, slouching toward the restaurant that beckoned. Bang boom went their feet. Click click went the door of the restaurant. Flicker flacker went the lights—“Piccolo Mondo.”

Their coats racked, and their snow brushed, Ben and Evan took their table next to an old lady with a cup of coffee, underneath a faded portrait of a spoon. Menus arrived.

PART III: The Treason Begun A smiling and svelte man of autumnal years approached their table and forced them to eat some squid. Excitedly, Evan asked, “Grilled or fried?”

“Grilled,” the man said. “I like that best.” And he laughed.

The squid approached and landed at the table, the side portions swollen like four putrefying small Zeppelins, like four inflatable swim-aids for children. Striped and mottled like the tattooed finger of an ancient Cajun, like a veteran’s severed foot.

“I am not edible,” said the squid.

“Ah,” said Ben, chewing.

“Ah,” said Evan, chewing.

Black sauce oozed from the bottom parts, as lukewarm as the squid was room temperature.

Evan spat out the squid onto a napkin, and its rubbery remains were left there for the remainder of the meal: A constant reminder, but one that was by no means necessary.

“Soup or salad?” asked the man, grinning with knowledge gone dark with the stain of age.

“Freedom,” said Ben. “A new napkin,” said Evan.

PART IV: The Treason Realized Orange was the only thing that was had that night. Plates brimming with orange, oozing like Nickelodeon liposuction, like a veteran’s punctured gangrenous kidney, leaking out pain onto the Earth. As the plates made their slow decline from the heights of their mutual friend onto the table, bits of orange fled from the plate, dotting the tablecloth with hints of disgust.

“Bon appetit,” said the man, leaving, laughing.

For Evan, the orange was called Gnocchi alla Vodka. The pasta, as the squid, was balloon-framed in kind, turning with the touch of a fork on a still, bracken pool of the orange. True to its name, the vodka was just as present as it would be in any failed love scene. It had yet to be cooked off.

For Ben, the orange was called Pollo à la Gordon. The shape of this orange was the shape of a game of Stratego that both players had vomited on and then vomited on again. There were two fleshy armies of salt cleverly disguised as chicken breasts, divided by a thin band of ravioli, and sunk in a bottomless sea of orange bile. It was like the ugliest person ever if the ugliest person ever was your son.

PART V: The Treason in You And so it was. The crime had paused and then quickly fell into their stomachs, remaining entombed. For how long? Who can say? As the Foodents looked back onto the warm din of Piccolo Mondo, of Vodka alla Orange and Orange à la Lumps, they felt reduced to a primordial ooze of universal repulsion. Unless you have tongue-less friends, friends that you hate, or orange grandparents, stay away. By God, stay away.

Farewell, stay well, and eat well, Your Foodents

Eth is unsurprisingly reliant on it. Through what Ethan sounds like a painfully forced conversation, Ethan sou reveals himself as the notorious author of Sex with rev Strangers, a blog-based novel written about his Str heartless and raunchy sexcapades.

Olivia, though hea keeping her distance, gains interest in the edgy but smooth 20-something.

After realizing there is no Internet, TV, or other electronic escape, Ethan suggests that he and Olivia sleep together. Of course he wants to—the audience expects it, but we did not expect this older, wiser woman to give in to his flattery. At first she resists his advances: “I can’t do that!” she says. “We’re perfect strangers!” But when Ethan confesses that he is in love with her writing and begins to quote her last book, Olivia immediately takes up the mind-set of a giddy, naïve teenager and agrees to sleep with him.

After a couple more days alone in the inn, Ethan is eager to read more of Olivia’s work and asks to read her latest novel. Here it becomes apparent that Olivia’s new book symbolizes her relationship with sex. She doesn’t want him to read her precious new book. She’s protecting herself because of the mixed reviews she received for her last novel.

But, so far, aren’t mixed feelings all around her?

Olivia met a younger guy whom she did not know at all, and she is uncertain about his sincerity. Yes, he seemed like an asshole, but he could have a poignant inner sensitivity that he has yet to reveal.

Despite her aversion to his vulgar disposition, she lowered her guard and slept with him…again and again. She also has mixed feelings for Ethan. She can trust him enough to sleep with him, but not to show him her book.

The first act ends with Ethan leaving for L.A. with a promise to return to Olivia when she goes back to her apartment in Chicago. Contrary to my expectations, Ethan fulfills his promise. But other than that, the progression of the play becomes painfully predictable. Despite the conflict both between and inside the characters, it gets muddled in an unoriginal plot.

The couple seems to switch roles completely. As Ethan tries to crawl away from his notorious reputation and Olivia jump-starts her writing career, their impulsive sexual adventures die down. Eason leaves the final scene open-ended with the newly engaged Olivia looking out the door, contemplating whether or not she will meet up with Ethan at a nearby bar. Will she settle for her predictably boring fiancé, or will she take a chance and run after the appealing man nearly 15 years her junior?

The characters had much promise, but their progression on the stage just did not serve my expectations of a story that was described as one that would “speak acutely about the contemporary landscape of technological communication and the interpersonal relationships that construct authorial identity.” So what is the moral of the story? Maybe it’s just “keep your book shut.”

F E B R UA RY 1 0 T H R O U G H J U N E 5 , 2 0 1 1

THE T R AGIC MUSE Art and Emotion, 1700—1900

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Voices covers Off-Off Campus Look for the feature this week at ChicagoMaroon.com/Voices

M

7

CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | February 8, 2011

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Win streak reaches thirteen games

Maroons split weekend games on road

By Alexander Sotiropoulos Sports Staff The Maroons lost to Case on Friday 88–75, while they defeated Carnegie on Sunday 79–71.

Chicago remains tied for third in the UAA standings with a 5-4 record in conference and an 8–12 record overall.

The Maroons boarded a bus on Thursday ready to mirror the performance they had against Case at home one week earlier. To defeat Case, Chicago would have to aggressively take control of the game.

“We needed to control the rebounds both on offense and defense,” third-year guard Tommy Sotos said.

The Maroons were not able to control the rebounding game in the beginning of the game, but played well on defense. In the first half, Chicago had 13 rebounds, compared to Case’s 14.

Although the Maroons’ defense was not lacking, there were not as many opportunities to rebound the ball because of Case’s superb shooting. Case scored nine out of their first ten shots despite the Maroons’ defensive awareness.

“We felt like we were playing good defense but

sometimes it doesn’t matter, and guys will make shots in spite of it,” first-year forward Charlie Hughes added.

Case’s Austin Folwer scored 15 points in the first half, making three of his four attempts from behind the arc. Chicago knew that they needed a different plan to stop Fowler’s precise shooting.

“We had to body him a little,” Sotos said. “We had to get in his head a little bit.”

Even with the defensive adjustment the Maroons were unable to stop the Case attack and trailed 44–36 at the half.

The second half seemed to continue the trend of the first as the Spartans shot 65.2 percent from the field. However, not all hope was lost. With 13:25 remaining in the game, third-year guard Michael Sustarsic sunk two free throws to cut the Case lead down to three. But the Maroons never came closer and ended up falling 88–75.

Third-year guard Matt Johnson led the game in scoring with 26 points.

“The Case game was disappointing because we had just beaten them last week, but unfortunately they got the best of us this time,” Hughes said.

The Maroons were able to replicate the performance they had against Carnegie at home in

Pittsburgh. Although Chicago shot 41.4 percent from the field in the first half and 26.7 percent behind the arc, they were able to take a five-point lead going into halftime. The Maroons allowed only three turnovers in the first half.

“We did it with offensive rebounding and not turning the ball over,” he said.

The Maroons showed their toughness in the second half. While the Tartans were able to take the lead three times throughout the half, Chicago came up with big shots when the game was becoming close. With six minutes remaining in the game and the Maroons down by two, firstyear guard Derrick Davis hit a lay-up to tie the game at 61–61. Shortly after, third-year forward Steve Stefanou made a shot and followed that possession up with an assist to third-year forward Tom Williams who sunk the ball in the basket behind the arc.

The Maroons never let the Tartans back in the game and won the conference match-up 79–71.

The Maroons remain tied for third place in the UAA with Washington, holding a 5–4 conference record. They hope to improve their record next weekend as they take on Rochester and Emory, the top two teams in the UAA, away.

OZYMANDIAS IN ARARAT T HE C ITIES OF THE NEAR E AST ’S L EAST -K NOWN G REAT M ONARCH

Dr. Paul Zimansky WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2011 7 PM - ORIENTAL INSTITUTE

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC From 675 to 650 bc, the last great king of Urartu, Rusa, conducted an ambitious and unprecedented program of constructing fortresses and cities in eastern Anatolia (Turkey), northwest Iran, and Armenia. The motives behind Rusa’s great building program are obscure, and its consequences may ultimately have been disastrous: the kingdom was violently destroyed shortly after his death. Paul Zimansky will investigate the enigma of Rusa’s reign and the ramifications it may have had on the development of urban planning, through newly excavated materials f rom Ayanis and other Urartian sites.

Dr. Paul Zimansky is a professor of archaeology and ancient history at the State University of New York - Stony Brook. Dr. Zimansky specializes in ancient Near Eastern complex societies of the second and first millennia bc and has excavated extensively throughout Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

The Oriental Institute

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W. BASKETBALL continued from back page receiving end of a few of those passes was fourthyear Dana Kaplan, who scored a season-high 12 points, including two shots from behind the threepoint line.

The Maroons shot an outstanding 63 percent from beyond the arc in the second half—sharp shooting that helped the Maroons finish the game with a much-improved field goal percentage of 46 percent.

The victory over Carnegie Mellon marked the 13th consecutive win for a very hot University of Chicago women’s basketball team. With upcoming away games against the University of Rochester (16—4, 6—3) and Emory (9—11, 2—7), the Maroons know that the road tests have just begun and that to win they will need to be clicking on all cylinders.

Halfhill said, “This coming weekend is definitely very important. We have a tough game on Friday.

We need to come out and play our game and run our offense. When we play hard and play together, no one can beat us.”

Perry gets 100th win TENNIS continued from back page feated this weekend, decimating both Case and Ball State. The win against Case marked head coach Marty Perry’s 100th women’s dual match victory.

After taking Case 9—0, the Maroons defeated Ball State 4—3 on Sunday. This makes their regular season winning streak over D-III opponents 12 matches long, dating back to last season.

It’s been almost six months since the lady Maroons have been on the court, and the women were both prepared and excited to be back. “The butterflies and excitement were definitely there, especially before the first point of the doubles match,” said second-year Linden Li. Concerning improvement, Li further noted that the women’s team should “work on being more confident with ourselves, as well as trusting in others,” though she also conceded that those problems may be because “this was our first match in almost half a year.”

There were a number of exciting moments during the matches this weekend. For Ravella it was “winning the tiebreaker at number 2 doubles. It was a big match, and although we didn’t play as well as we should have, we pulled out the win in the end and that’s what counts.”

For Li, the highlight of the weekend was the “supportive and exciting” atmosphere of the joint match against Case.

Looking to the future, Zhang would like to see the team “in a position to win UAAs, and maybe ultimately the NCAA championship. Those may be lofty goals, but I think we can do it.” Ravella agreed, saying, “We have a really talented team and a great group of guys and I think we can really turn some heads if we all perform well when it counts.”

Men’s tennis will be playing again on Friday, February 11 against Kenyon College. Women’s tennis will be on the court again Saturday, February 19, at Wash U.

Third UAA title in last four years WRESTLING continued from back page contributed so much leadership and hard work to this program the last four years, finished their careers with their third UAA team championship,” Kocher concluded. “Three-year-starter fourth-year Dave Kneisel was lost to a season-ending injury, but Matt Hart, Chris Oster, Kyle Kocher, Takumi Mihama, and Ryan Hatten all earned a place on our competition squad to New York this weekend because of their talent and hard work.”

“The win is going to motivate the team to work even harder. With our up-and-down season, this really put the exclamation point on our hard work,” Hatten added. “We’ve been battling injuries all year, but when it was on the line, we showed up. That includes our first-years who started all the way up to the fourth-years. I’m glad I got to be around these guys.”

Chicago wrestlers will look to continue their success at the Great Lakes Regional in Sheboygan, WI, on February 26.

IN QUOTES

SPORTS

“First fumble of the day belongs to Christina Aguilera.”

—Sports Illustrated writer Phil Taylor, after Aguilera botched the national anthem before the Super Bowl.

WRESTLING

Maroons win third-straight UAA title

By Noah Weiland Sports Staff The University men’s wrestling team came out victorious, winning their third straight UAA league title in an exceedingly close dual. After defeating Case in the first dual of the day 4–8, the team met NYU, a group similar in experience and skill. Chicago escaped with the 20–19 victory.

“Like us, NYU had been having a tough year, and they tried to get everything together for this UAA Championship,” head coach Leo Kocher said. “I was pretty optimistic traveling there, but as I watched them wrestle, I concluded that they were a better team than I expected. After watching them wrestle Case, I knew they would be tough. They had a formidable lineup.”

The dual with NYU was defined by ups and downs. First-year Jake Schramm got Chicago off to a hot start with an 11–0 victory in the 125-lb. weight class, and first-year Ryan Hoyt followed soon after by riding out a strong NYU wrestling in the final two-minute period to secure a come-from-behind 3–2 victory.

Yet later, the Maroons took tough losses in the 141-, 165-, and 174-lb. classes. The inconsistency made the dual tension-

filled.

“The feeling before the match was that we could win it, but it wasn’t going to be easy,” first-year Jeff Tyburski, the UAA Rookie of the Year, added. “There was no guarantee. There was a degree of uncertainty, but the team really stepped it up at one point. There were a lot of guys in tight spots who pulled through.”

Ending in a 13–19, the dual came down to the final two matches in the 197- and 285-lb. weight divisions.

Tyburski pulled off an enormous upset in overtime, beating NYU 6–5 and bringing the team within three points of its opponent.

“Our backs were against the wall as we needed to win the last two bouts.

Before the dual I told Jeff Tyburski we needed to be within five points of NYU when his match was over,” Kocher continued. “I was confident Ryan Hatten could pin the overmatched NYU heavyweight if he needed to do so. However, Jeff had to beat a seasoned UAA champ in order to put Ryan within striking distance. When Jeff pulled off the upset in overtime the squad went crazy.”

With the score at 16–19, Chicago needed to win its final bout. Fourth-year Ryan Hatten came through, finishing off NYU with a 14–4 decision in the 285-lb. class. After that result, Chicago’s

Second-year Joeie Ruettiger, shown in competition early in the season, won his only match of the weekend against Case, helping the Maroons top the Spartans 40–8. The Maroons later beat NYU to capture the UAA championship.

MATT BOGEN/MAROON

third straight UAA title was a done deal.

Despite the convincing result, Hatten was not always sure of his advantage.

“Honestly, I was so stressed out the whole meet,” he said. “It was such an up and down, exciting, nerve-wracking

meet. But once I saw Jeff win, it was autopilot for me. [His match] inspired me to the point where I was not nervous. I just had to do what Jeff did. It was a storybook ending.”

The match capped off an extraordi-

nary UAA career for a strong group of fourth-years and will drive the younger wrestlers on the team to maintain a high standard for competition.

“It is nice that our seniors, who have

WRESTLING continued on page 7

TENNIS

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Chicago teams best Case, Whitewater

Two more UAA foes fall to red-hot Maroons

By Vincente Fernandez Sports Staff

By Katherine Marsden Sports Staff Chicago tennis took no prisoners this weekend: Both the men’s and women’s teams went 2–0.

On Friday the 17th-ranked Chicago men took on Case Western Reserve.

They won two of the three doubles matches and lost only two of the six singles matches, defeating Case 6—3.

They followed up this win with a 5—3 defeat against 23rd-ranked WisconsinWhitewater on Saturday, the Maroons’ third straight victory.

First-years Krishna Ravella and Zsolt Szabo won their third victory in a row and raised their record to 7—2. The unstoppable duo were pleased with their outcome, but still saw room for improvement. “This was a good weekend for us, but we have to keep bringing our best every week no matter whom we play. . . every time we step out onto the court we should be ready to go,” said Ravella Fourth-year Will Zhang, who won after eight straight singles matches this weekend, agreed with Ravella. “We did well this weekend, and won a couple big regional matches. Our performance was solid enough to get by, but it wasn’t up to our true potential,” he said. He went on to say that the team should “work on being mentally tougher throughout matches, and playing the bigger points better.”

The women’s team was also unde-

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Third-year Troy Brinker serves this weekend. Brinker won his match against UW–Whitewater 4-6, 6–2, 6–4.

MATT BOGEN/MAROON

The streaking Maroons (17–3, 9–0) defeated Case 65-55 on Friday and demolished the Carnegie Tartans 74–43 on Sunday, continuing their 13-game win streak with two more conference victories.

Heading into Friday’s game against Case Western, the Maroons knew that the following two weekends could shape the rest of their season. They were about to embark on a four game road stretch against conference opponents, a road stretch that could determine the UAA champion and be the difference between a top seed and a mediocre seed in the playoffs.

With the Maroons’ only losses coming away from their comfortable Hyde Park abode, this weekend was a true test of the progress the Maroons have made as the season has gone by.

The Maroons jumped to a quick lead from the opening tip-off on Friday. For the fifth time this season the Maroons would go an entire game without losing the lead, but not before getting a bit of a scare from an invigorated Case team that the Maroons had stomped on just one week prior.

After heading into halftime with a 30–19 Maroon lead, the Spartans battled back, bringing the game to within 6 points with 1:40 remaining.

However, behind third-year Bryanne Halfhill, who scored 13 points and collected 12 rebounds, and third-year Taylor Simpson, who scored a Maroon-

high 17, Chicago managed to hold off for a victory.

The Maroons came away with the win at Case despite shooting a mere 36 percent from the field, a statistical category that the Maroons have routinely dominated all year long. The fact that they were able to still claim the win despite the poor shooting is a testament of the team’s growth into a more wellrounded squad who can win on a night even when it seems like the ball just does not want to go in.

Regarding the Maroons’ road victories, Byranne Halfill said, “We didn’t really execute well in our offense, so really what won us both games was just our ability to out-work both teams.

We played hard and we got stops on defense.”

Head coach Aaron Roussell stated, “We need to improve our attitude and mind-set on defense. We have been winning games with our offense, but we know that down the road we won’t always be able to do that.”

It was that improved defense that allowed 11th-ranked Maroons to breeze past Carnegie Mellon on Sunday on their way to a 74–43 victory. Maroons simply overpowered Carnegie and dominated in all aspects of the game.

Chicago once again controlled the lead from the onset and led by as many as 25 points in the second half.

Leading the way for the second time was Halfhill, who scored a game high 22 points, 12 of which came from long range, and dished out five assists. On the

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