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TUESDAY • NOVEMBER 25, 2014

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ISSUE 16 • VOLUME 126

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

Admin, student confirm fake Facebook hack Ankit Jain & Isaac Stein News Editor & Associate News Editor A University of Chicago student has admitted to posting a raciallycharged Facebook status which they had previously claimed was a hack by the UChicago Electronic Army (UEA). The University had been investigating to find who was responsible for the initial incident of hate speech.

As previously reported in the Maroon, the Facebook account of firstyear Derek Caquelin was allegedly hacked last week by the UEA and a status was posted containing a racial slur and threats of sexual assault.

However, at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Caquelin posted a Facebook status on their personal account in which they claimed responsibility for the incident.

“I am behind this, and only I.

No others were involved, so I really would like to ask you to leave them alone. There is no excuse for hate, which includes what I did,” Caquelin wrote in the post.

Caquelin declined to comment any further.

In an e-mail sent to the University on Monday morning, the administration announced that the post was not a hack. It later posted a FAQ on the Campus and Student Life website, after Caquelin’s post admitting their role. The website reads, “It became clear that nobody broke into the Facebook account in question, and that in fact the posting was not the anonymous threat against a student that it first appeared to be.”

The earlier e-mail, written by Karen Warren Coleman, vice president for Campus Life and Student Services, said that the hoax does not “HACK” continued on page 2

First snow falls in Hyde Park This home, located at East 56th Street and South Woodlawn Avenue and seen on the October 24 issue of THE CHICAGO MAROON, was covered in the season’s first snow yesterday. The temperature is forecasted to drop throughout Thanksgiving break.

PETER TANG | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Man fatally shot at 52nd & S. Cornell Avenue Student nominees to UCPD review committee rejected Eileen Li Maroon Contributor

An accidental shooting killed a man in an apartment on the corner of East 52nd Street and South Cornell Avenue late last Friday.

The police found the victim, 24-year-old David Kennedy, in the apartment with a gunshot wound to the head. Paris D. Walker-Rush, 25, Kennedy’s friend who lives at

that apartment, was arrested and charged with one felony count of involuntary manslaughter and two felony counts of unlawful use of a weapon.

According to the Chicago Tribune, police found Kennedy unresponsive at around 9:05 p.m., and he was pronounced dead on the scene at 10:45 p.m.

Walker-Rush’s attorney called the shooting a “total accident,” the Tri-

bune reported. Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Hain told the Tribune that Walker-Rush, Kennedy, and two other men were smoking marijuana and passing the gun around before it accidentally discharged, shooting Kennedy in the face.

Court records indicate that on Sunday, Walker-Rush’s bail was set at $900,000 and his next court date is, as of now, unknown.

William Rhee Associate News Editor All three student nominees for the Independent Review Committee (IRC) were rejected by administrators this fall.

The Office of Campus and Student Life (CSL) rejected the nominees

because they had previously served on the committee. Student Government (SG) had nominated Hannah Chazin, Jacqueline Newsome, and Emma LaBounty, all of whom served on the IRC from 2013–2014.

The IRC, composed of University faculty, staff, students, and commuIRC continued on page 2

IHC exploring possibility of extending dining hall hours

First-generation mentoring program to launch in January

Marta Bakula News Staff

Katherine Vega Maroon Contributor

UChicago Dining is exploring the possibility of keeping the dining halls open for dinner on Saturday evenings due to recent concerns expressed by members of Inter-House Council (IHC) and the Socioeconomic Diversity Alliance (SDA). If efforts are successful, this would be the first time that University dining halls serve Saturday dinners to students in more than 20 years.

As part of UChicago Dining’s effort to receive more student input, IHC representatives from campus houses were asked to informally determine interest in keeping dining halls open at house meetings last Sunday and reported their findings

during the regular Tuesday meeting.

The SDA has been pushing for expanded dining hall hours since its inception in spring 2013, according to fourth-year and SDA co-coordinator Danielle Wilson. “There has been concern voiced amongst low-income and first-generation students who cannot afford to eat on Saturday nights when the dining halls are closed,” she said. “With the implementation of No Barriers for the Class of 2019 and the presence of more low-SES [socioeconomic status] students on campus, the administration should anticipate this becoming a larger concern.”

She feels the addition of Saturday dinners will accommodate students

IN VIEWPOINTS

Letter: PanAsia Solidarity Coalition » Page 3 Editorial: Eyes on the prize » Page 3

DINING continued on page 2

First-year, first-generation College students will now have the opportunity to participate in a mentoring program beginning in January. The program, called the First-Generation Mentorship Program, will be run by the Office of the Dean of Students. It will match students with alumni from the past 15 years who were first-generation students themselves.

Director of College Academic Support Services Jacqueline Gaines will help run the program; this program is also a part of the College Academic Achievement Program (CAAP), a pre-orientation and supplementary program for incom-

ing first-year students. However, the First-Generation Mentorship Program is not limited to CAAP participants. Gaines says that they are currently in the pilot phase for this program, and her offices and others have been working on this project for nearly a year.

“We came up with the idea at the end of last year when we were talking to a focus group of first-generation and low-income students. They requested some sort of program like this, so it was a student idea. We worked with students and staff…to flesh out the details,” Gaines said.

The goal of the program is to create a network for students who might not necessarily have this type of support because of their socioeconomic background or the

educational background of their parents. The students will be able to rank their preferences from a pool of mentors based on career interests. “[The students] wanted an opportunity to connect with other people who have gone through the college who have had a similar experience as they did in navigating the resources here, but then also to serve as their first professional network, too,” Gaines said.

Fourth-year Danielle Wilson is co-coordinator of the Socioeconomic Diversity Alliance, an RSO that she says helped initiate the mentoring program. Given her own experience, students from lowincome or first-generation families 1ST GEN continued on page 2

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

The appeal of conspiracy theory

Youthful swimmers propel Chicago to men’s, women’s victories » Back

» Page 6

A Christmas Carol Review » Page 6

page

Men’s Basketball: After two barnburners, squad returns home » Page 11

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | November 25, 2014

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science in brief

UChicago scientists link autism to cognitive impairments in mice Isaac Easton Maroon Contributor A team of scientists, led by two UChicago researchers, has reached a new understanding of the link between autism and cognitive impairments typically associated with the condition.

A new paper published in Nature Communications by Christian Hansel, UChicago neuroscience professor, and postdoctoral fellow Claire Piochon, along with several others, points to a specific neurobiological pathway that plays a role in impaired learning and motor control that commonly accompany Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

The hope is that through this research clinicians will eventually be able to understand how best to treat people with ASD. To conduct this research the scientists bred mice to have a genetic aberration simi-

lar in effect to one that commonly occurs in people with ASD. The scientists also used a control group of mice without the aberration. The differences between the two types of mice became apparent when they were put through a series of tests for motor responsiveness. The response times of those mice with the genetic aberration were typically much slower than those without.

This led the researchers to look more deeply into the cerebellum—the part of the brain concerned with motor function—of mice with the genetic aberration, specifically the Purkinje cell. This cell, discovered and named after Czech researcher Jan Purkinje, who notably coined the term “plasma” for blood fluid, is crucial in the regulation of brain signals.

The scientists’ research points to the idea that the Purkinje cells in mice with

ASD are less functional than the Purkinje cells in normal, healthy mice. The scientists can examine this functionality by measuring the presence of climbing fibers, another crucial part of the cerebellum, in each Purkinje cell.

When a mouse’s cerebellum is working normally, a Purkinje cell only receives one climbing fiber signal, but when a mouse has the symptoms of ASD a Purkinje cell receives many. This creates an information overload in the cerebellum of the mouse and decreases its ability to function.

This information overload is similar to the information overload commonly associated with the cognitive deficiency in people with ASD. With this new information, scientists can better understand ASD and possibly lead to treatment options for those with the condition.

University spokesperson says student reps on administrative committees typically change yearly IRC continued from front

nity members, acts as a standalone and unbiased auditor of the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) and reviews all complaints brought against it, compiling its findings in an annual report.

“This year Student Government recommended reappointing all three student committee members from last year, which would have been inconsistent with the practice of selecting new student members each year,” University spokesperson Jeremy Manier said. “The rotation of student members allows more students to learn about and participate on the committee."

CSL solicits recommendations for student members from SG and the deans of students of the University’s divisions. SG chooses its nominees from students who apply online. CSL sends recommendations to the Office of the Provost, which makes the final

decision on the appointments of all committee members.

Manier did not specify which administrators made the decision.

Chazin said she was unaware of the policy: “[It] only appeared this fall when SG submitted our names for their nominations.”

She disagreed with it because it prevents student members from fully understanding how the IRC functions. “It’s helpful to have a broader sense of what committee work is, what complaints are like, what the process is. I feel I only understood that by the spring quarter,” Chazin said.

Third-year SG President Tyler Kissinger said he was unaware of CSL’s policy before learning of the rejection.

“It’s unclear to me when that became the case that students wouldn’t be allowed to serve multiple terms,” Kissinger said.

He contacted Douglas Everson (A.B. ’13), former

vice president for Administration and 2012–13 IRC member, who confirmed that SG was unaware of this policy in 2012. At least one student has served on the IRC for both the 2011–2012 and 2012– 2013 terms, according to annual committee reports.

Kissinger said SG should be able to directly appoint people to committees, referencing last year, when administrators rejected Toussaint Losier’s bid for a seat on the IRC. Losier had been arrested by the UCPD while participating in a trauma center protest in January 2013.

“I still stand by all the determinations, including a vote by the assembly supporting a statement that we should have direct appointment,” Kissinger said.

Austin Blum, Josh Cannon, and Veronica Portillo Heap are the student members of the IRC for the 2014–2015 term, nominated by SG after the initial nominees’ rejection.

“From the very beginning, our movement was never about particular incidents” “HACK” continued from front

affect the University’s interest in promoting diversity and inclusion.

“Whatever its purpose, the language used in this incident does not constitute discourse and will not be tolerated. Its use underlines questions about campus climate already raised in other contexts,” Coleman wrote. “These emerging facts do not in any way diminish the University’s commitment to a diverse campus, free from harassment and discrimination.”

A statement which was allegedly written by the UEA last Wednesday and posted to an anonymous online forum denied involvement in the hack and accused Caquelin of fabricating the accusation.

Vincente Perez, a third-year who is currently leading a campus movement against racial bias, suggested on Monday that Caquelin, who has also been involved in the movement, resorted to a dramatic

measure due to the lack of dialogue on race relations on campus. Caquelin’s original post named Perez as a target for a future attack.

“Someone felt they had to show something extreme to get people to care. Think about that. This is not a justification. But think about what the weight of apathy can force people to do,” Perez wrote in an e-mail.

Third-year Nina Katemauswa, a founding member of Students Against On-Campus Racial and Ethnic Discrimination (SACRED), a group formed after the Halloween incident that launched the movement and includes both Perez and Caquelin, said that the original post’s threats of sexual assault made her especially upset. Katemauswa is a sexual assault survivor. “[The post] made me feel very unsafe and violated initially, and then coming to find out about it made me feel ex-

ploited,” she said. “I feel like he turned a serious issue into something that can now be mocked alongside everything else about that post.”

Fourth-year Jaime Sanchez, who co-led the recent protests, said that he does not think that the revelations concerning Caquelin’s Facebook status will affect the work of the students’ movements.

“From the very beginning, our movement was never about particular incidents; it was about addressing the structural problem of everyday micro-aggressive racism on campus,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that this betrayal happened, but it was never even about the Facebook incident to begin with. It was always about the larger culture of intolerance that we should continue to focus on.”

Editor’s Notes: “they/them/ theirs” are Caquelin’s preferred pronouns. Katemauswa is a Viewpoints contributor.

Socioeconomic Diversity Alliance has lobbied for Saturday dinners in dining halls since 2013 DINING continued from front

of all socioeconomic backgrounds.

However, third-year Student Government (SG) representative Mike Viola, who serves on the Campus Dining Advisory Board (CDAB), believes that there would drawbacks to keeping dining halls open.

“I personally do not think that making such a change would be a net positive for the student body,” he said. “I think it is often overlooked that adding Saturday dinners would require cutting another aspect of dining services—perhaps we would lose one Fourth Meal per week, or lose hours at campus cafes or Hutchinson Commons. I also think that there are more efficient ways by which lowincome College Housing residents could be accommo-

dated.”

This quarter, the SDA reached out to Director of Dining Operations Stacey Brown with multiple proposals of ways to accommodate low-income students. Some of the changes suggested included an increase of Maroon Dollars, meal exchanges, or the extension of Saturday dining hall hours.

“It has been a long-standing part of the dining program…for the dining halls to be closed for Saturday evenings,” Richard Mason, executive director of UChicago Dining, wrote in a statement.

“That was due to lower levels of usage and the desire for many of the College houses to plan meals in the residence halls and to sponsor activities on Saturday evenings.”

During a CDAB meeting last Friday, SG and IHC

representatives spoke with UChicago Dining regarding other alternatives to accommodating low-income students who cannot afford to eat out on Saturday evenings.

Proposals included an expansion of the meal exchange program during dinnertime on Saturdays and the continued effort to encourage College houses to provide residents with dinner options through house events.

While there have been many proposed changes to the dining plan, UChicago Dining and College Housing have not finalized plans yet on the outcome of this issue.

“We will continue to work with CDAB as we review the data and look at our options to continue to make sure that the dining program responds to the needs of our students,” Mason said.

Program will match first-generation first years with alumni counterparts 1ST GEN continued from front

often need support after they have matriculated, she wrote in an e-mail.

“Many who are the first in their families to go to college find institutions like UChicago to be intimidating places for more reasons than one.

Being able to ask a mentor— someone who comes from a similar background and

has potentially faced similar challenges—about how to go about navigating a university would [be] an invaluable opportunity,” Wilson said.

The application for both mentors and mentees is due December 12, with the official program kickoff occurring a month later. Then, mentors and mentees will meet once a month until

June. However, Gaines hopes that the connections they form zwill last much longer.

“Hopefully these connections can start here but will continue and turn into informational interviews, or internships, or whatever professional networks turn into in the long run. Creating that basis in their first year is really important,” she said.

Arley D. Cathey Dining Commons, along with all dining halls on campus, is under consideration by the University to be kept open on Saturdays for dinner.

FRANK WANG | THE CHICAGO MAROON

VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed NOVEMBER 25, 2014

Eyes on the prize Controversy on Facebook should not distract from students’ legitimate grievances On Monday, November 24, the administration announced in an e-mail that, after investigating an incident of hate speech posted on Facebook, it is “confident that the Facebook posting was not created by a hacker.” The news is understandably upsetting or troubling to those who were misled. However, fixating on accusations surrounding recent events distracts from the fact that steps still need to be taken

to improve the racial climate on campus. The sentiments that existed before the Facebook post still ring true, and should be treated accordingly.

The conversations surrounding diversity and inclusion on campus must continue in light of recent developments.

The recent development in the administration’s investigation of the Facebook status should not delegitimize the issues of racism that have been

raised, or mitigate the seriousness with which they should be addressed. Acts of racism have been committed on this campus prior to and following the petition. Much of the discourse surrounding recent events has taken place on virtual forums like Facebook, Twitter, and Yik Yak, and anonymity has incited some bold, even blatantly racist, comments about the situation.

This recent chain of events

has sparked conversation, as well as some notable progress.

In addition to the recent student written petition, Student Government, as well as faculty members from the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, have issued public statements suggesting ways in which the school should actively cultivate a more inclusive campus. These steps of progress and constructive criticism should be the main takeaway

from these past few weeks.

On a FAQ page posted on the University’s Campus and Student Life website, the administration reaffirmed that it would “consult with students, faculty, and staff members to address those issues and provide venues for continued discussion and action steps.”

We will hold the administration accountable to these words, and expect to see the issue treated with the same

urgency as was demonstrated before the hack was revealed to be contrived. Addressing concerns with campus racial climate—and any issue that might compromise a student’s perception of their place on campus—should be a priority regardless of the level of visibility of specific threats against students.

—The Maroon Editorial Board

Letter: Asian Americans must stand in solidarity with fellow students of color Yesterday’s announcement that the UChicago Electronic Army did not hack a student’s Facebook account only serves as a distraction from the real stories of other students who live in fear of being targeted by racist threats. Until now, Asians have remained on the sidelines while black and Latin@ minorities have been expected to carry the burden of pressuring the administration to enact racially equitable policies. However, as part of our mission to promote dialogue on issues involving Asian Americans, PanAsia Solidarity Coalition would like to encourage all Asian-American students as well as Asian organizations on campus to stand in solidarity with those who have been victims of racism. When it comes to racial injustices that center upon non-Asian people of color, Asian Americans tend to see events such as those happening in Ferguson and the anti-discrimination petition

as isolated incidents that do not concern them. This apathy overlooks the experiences of many Asian immigrants, especially Southeast Asians, who are just as likely to experience poverty and police brutality. The reality is that Asian Americans, even those who may feel that they are better off than other minorities, are still affected by a greater systemic trend that hinders them in subtler, though no less harmful, ways.

Despite the belief that Asians are a “model minority,” Asians still face a bamboo ceiling that perpetuates a wage gap, among other injustices.

Despite having higher education levels than their white peers, Asians are still prevented from reaching executive positions relative to whites. Despite the fact that Asians comprise a sizable portion of the U.S. population, Asians still have far lower representation in mainstream TV shows and movies than other races.

Despite the notion that Asian may be “the new white,” Asians still experience discrimination such as disproportionate bullying at schools and a widespread fetish, also known as yellow fever, that reduces Asians to an exotic other. As minorities, Asians cannot remain neutral in the fight against racism—neutrality only strengthens the oppressors, placing Asians on the losing side by default.

Unity among people of color is an ideal that is often dismissed due to horizontal aggressions: acts of racism between minorities. About a month ago, various Asian-American social media platforms circulated a YouTube video where a black tour guide used expletives against the residents of San Francisco’s Chinatown. The myth that Asians are pitted against other people of color is further propagated through the fabrication of controversial stories, such as the false headline claiming that

Asians were supposedly suing Harvard for its affirmative action admissions procedures. This trend drives a wedge between Asians and other people of color, and redirects the blame from those who are benefiting from systemized oppression to those who are presented as the “model minority,” forever foreign and forever apart. If Asians remain complacent and detach themselves from racial issues, they will keep on being used as a shield by those who have the privilege of being white in a society where skin is a marker of status.

We cannot allow ourselves to implicitly perpetuate the idea that Asian-Americans serve as an example minority that black people and Latin@s should strive to imitate.

We should also take care that discussions about race among minorities never devolve into an Oppression Olympics where people endlessly argue how their oppression is greater

than that of others. Cooperation among all minorities is the key to overthrowing the status quo, which will become all the more important as American society becomes more diverse.

Asians are often stereotyped as meek and submissive, which creates the illusion that it is part of their culture to remain silent in political issues. However, history shows that Asian Americans are far from quiet and instead have used their voices to partner up with black, Chican@, and Native American activist groups to liberate themselves from the effects of racism. Although those interracial relations have frayed over time, it is still possible to forge those alliances once again and build a unified coalition that stands in true solidarity against all forms of oppression.

--PanAsia Solidarity Coalition

Sounds of silence The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892 Emma Broder, Editor-in-Chief Joy Crane, Editor-in-Chief Jonah Rabb, Managing Editor The Maroon Editorial Board consists of Eleanor Hyun, Harini Jaganathan, Kristin Lin, Kiran Misra, and Jake Walerius.

Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Grey City Editor Kristin Lin, Grey City Editor Ankit Jain, News Editor Sarah Manhardt, News Editor Christine Schmidt, News Editor Eleanor Hyun, Viewpoints Editor Will Dart, Arts Editor James Mackenzie, Arts Editor Tatiana Fields, Sports Editor Sam Zacher, Sports Editor Marina Fang, Senior News Editor Liam Leddy, Senior Viewpoints Editor Kristin Lin, Senior Viewpoints Editor Sarah Langs, Senior Sports Editor Jake Walerius, Senior Sports Editor Natalie Friedberg, Associate News Editor Alec Goodwin, Associate News Editor William Rhee, Associate News Editor Isaac Stein, Associate News Editor Kiran Misra, Associate Viewpoints Editor Andrew McVea, Associate Arts Editor Evangeline Reid, Associate Arts Editor Ellen Rodnianski, Associate Arts Editor Helen Petersen, Associate Sports Editor Zachary Themer, Associate Sports Editor Peter Tang, Photo Editor Sydney Combs, Senior Photo Editor Frank Yan, Senior Photo Editor Frank Wang, Associate Photo Editor Nicholas Rouse, Head Designer Sophie Downes, Head Copy Editor Alan Hassler, Head Copy Editor Sherry He, Head Copy Editor Katarina Mentzelopoulos, Head Copy Editor Mara McCollom, Social Media and Multimedia Editor

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Circulation: 6,800. © 2014 The Chicago Maroon, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637

The next steps of activism should encourage participation by the student body at large Eric Singerman Maroon Contributor The student body has divided itself along a spectrum concerning issues of race and tolerance. The poles of the spectrum are very visible: On one side are those who wear the mask of online anonymity on Yik Yak and elsewhere, the provocateurs of campus. Further along the spectrum are those who feel that none of this is “a big deal”—those who are here to study, not listen to people’s complaints. On the opposite side of the spectrum is the more progressive faction of campus—activists and those who vocally support them. They are pursuing justice and fighting a fight that I believe is morally right. Even in light of recent events on Facebook, the ideals of the fight still stand.

However, between these two poles lies what I think is most of our campus—those who feel generally uncomfortable, not so much with these issues, but with the lack of reasoned dialogue. And, because of this, they are silent. I am not saying that the ac-

tivists’ actions are unreasonable—far from it—and what happened yesterday were the actions of one man.

But what we have now is hardly dialogue likely to engage the campus as a whole.

Liam Leddy, in a Viewpoints article last week (“(Over)hearing the Other Side” 11/18/14), did a good job articulating what a reasoned dialogue would look like. Suffice to say, it would resemble something like a Hum class. The phrase, “I see your point, but…” would be used to start a lot of sentences. People would listen more.

So the question becomes: Why is there not reasoned campus-encompassing dialogue? Maybe it’s because of apathy—people not wanting to engage because they simply don’t care—but I think the cause is more nuanced. It seems we lack dialogue because of fear, a fear that leads to silence. There is the fear that stems from discrimination and forces people into silence, but I am not qualified to write about this type of fear because I have not experienced it.

Instead, it has been experienced by POC, both on this campus and historically. So I will write about what I know: the type of fear that makes the majority a silent one. It is the fear of being wrong, but not just factually wrong. Rather, much of the silence stems from a fear of being seen as morally wrong.

You might object that the silent majority is morally equivalent to those who think this “isn’t a big deal.”

And you’d be right. Those who haven’t spoken up may think the issue is a big deal, but clearly not big enough of a deal to say anything. They might claim that they don’t totally agree with the petition. Or maybe they aren’t fans of the people leading the movement. And you could respond that this is pedantic and wrong.

Which it is. It’s focusing on small issues at the expense of a larger cause.

I will readily admit that I did this and was wrong to do so. I would not sign the petition because of its last two clauses (refining the core and new standards for the hiring of faculty). I FEAR continued on page 5

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | November 25, 2014

Letter: Admin pay in perspective Dear Maroon, As the author of work cited as background to data analyses of a November 2 Maroon article (“Univ. Admin Pay Not Outlier, Maroon Finds”), I would like to offer both compliments and clarifications.

First off, numbers-driven investigative reporting on higher education is much needed both here and across the country.

Pretty much every institution out there depends on large amounts of taxpayer money received via student loans and research grants, yet many are beginning to produce CEO–level salaries and even crony contracts to purported guardians and benefactors.

Most everyone can agree that money should maximally benefit

the larger mission of education and research, and when staff with the right values prioritize institutions over themselves great places like the University of Chicago can become even better.

Second, The Maroon’s analysis of the University’s compensation packages and budget allocations at three peer institutions is a welcome addition to the ongoing conversation but does not seem to fundamentally alter the larger dynamics underlying the perception that the University of Chicago is “the American university that perhaps most exemplifies higher education’s current crisis of mission,” as formulated in my most recent Jacobin article [“Higher Education’s Aristocrats,” 9/27/2014].

To clarify, original data analysis in my two Jacobin articles indicated: 1) President Zimmer’s three

years of $115,000 to $320,000 pay raises were 3 to 7.5 percent higher than normal and his 110-percent, $1.76-million pay spike attributable to deferred compensation constituted an outlier, compared with changes at the other top 20 private universities by endowment.

2) Over five years, eight highlevel administrators received $7.6 million via 40- to 135- percent pay increases, each receiving a total of $450,000 to $3.3 million from raises alone even as the UChicago moved toward and received a credit downgrade.

Additionally, consolidation of previous reporting from The Maroon and elsewhere outlined larger areas of concern mostly unmentioned in the most recent Maroon article: 1) The large amount of money

diverted ($2.5 million in increased staffing costs per year, for just eight people); 2) The large amount of debt simultaneously acquired (equal to half the endowment, and the largest relative debt among peer institutions); 3) Administrative competency and accountability (for example, secrecy around who originated the restrictive Admin Building elevator policy and why); 4) Transparency (also involving further diversion of funds, through misuse of the news office as an inhouse P.R. firm for those whose actions are harming the University); and 5) Ethically inappropriate contracts to trustee-associated companies (Aramark and Hyatt, and attempts to benefit White Lodgings).

Sadly, parallels to most of these

can be found elsewhere, although their concurrence at UChicago is striking and the credit downgrade is an exacerbating circumstance that likely contributes to judgments such as that of former Harvard Dean Harry Lewis, who termed the admin pay raises an “amazing run-up in compensation.”

Overall, UChicago is a wonderful, wonderful place for education and research—and thus this diversion of money and the values responsible should strongly worry every taxpayer and especially every true Maroon.

I very much look forward to more such numbers-driven investigative reporting from your newspaper in the future.

—David Mihalyfy (Ph.D. candidate in the History of Christianity at the Divinity School)

Letter: Katz talks about discrimination too narrowly, zionism too broadly I am sympathetic to Katz’s complaints of discrimination in “That Wasn’t Funny” (11/18/14), having been at the receiving end of racism myself. I was thus disappointed to learn that Katz chose to highlight anti-Semitism over other types of discrimination.

Katz alleges that fabrications about Jews have somehow gone unnoticed on campus while “other awful minority stereotypes” have not. This is a patently false, if not puzzling claim to make, given that a front-page article in the same paper reported that some students on campus have felt strongly enough about unaddressed racism on the same campus to petition for institutional change.

There seems to be no reason to single out Jews as a target of discrimination on campus, in the United States, and much less the world today.

Anti-Semitism is not exceptional in its prevalence these days. Katz cites a “strange little pattern in Europe and

beyond” of anti-Jewish incidents whenever renewed clashes take place between Israel and the occupied territories. How about the other “strange little pattern” around the world of Islamophobia that increases in intensity, well, pretty much all the time? Remember the Koran that almost burned? How about the violent attacks on mosques, madrassas, and women wearing Islamic dress in England? Or the arson committed last week at the Grand Mosque of Strasbourg, France?

The “race” in “racism” is not an actual one in which different minorities must compete to win the prize of world’s most persecuted. If Katz is genuinely interested in fighting this issue and finding allies, she would do well to expand her definition of what discrimination means. It is quite possible to acknowledge the suffering of others without diminishing one’s own experience. For example, what does Katz feel about black

people who are stopped by police on campus for no apparent reason? How about the persecution of Rohingyas, Uighurs, and Yazidis? Or gay people, transgender people, and persons with disabilities at that? Indeed, how does Katz feel about Palestinians in the occupied territories who are, on a daily basis, denied rights to land access, political participation, and education, to name a few?

Moreover, I am surprised that Katz has made a common but fatal mistake: She confuses the Zionist movement with the Jewish religion. She complains about Steven Salaita’s remarks about “West Bank settlers” and “Zionists” but does not quote anything he says about “Jews.” This is because, in fact, Salaita’s outrage is directed at the Israeli state and Zionists rather than the Jewish people as a whole—a position that the professor has publicly and consistently expressed. Indeed it is more often than

not Jews themselves who conflate the Jewish religion with the Zionist movement, thus conflating Jewish people with the Israeli state and Israelis. For instance, some Zionist organizations, such as the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, use the word “Jewish” or “Jews” in their titles, misleadingly suggesting that their motivations are more pious than political.

In fact, many Jewish communities in the world do not identify with Israel or the Israeli state. They include Jewish communities still living in Iran and parts of the Arab world, as well as those in the U.S. that are actively campaigning against illegal Israeli policies. Prominent figures in this category include Noam Chomsky of MIT and Judith Butler of U.C. Berkeley. Similarly, many of the staunchest Zionists are not Jews. Consider for instance Christians United for Israel, which is said to be the largest pro-

Israel group in the U.S. Katz is right to point out the dangers of “baseless hatred” toward Jews, especially when the antagonism is really intended for Zionists rather than all Jewish people. To protect Jews who disavow the State of Israel’s behavior, it is therefore incumbent upon Zionists— especially the Jewish among them—to make a clear and careful distinction between Judaism and Zionism (as one might do for Islam and Islamism too).

In this vein, they should stop accusing figures like Salaita and Bruce Shipman at Yale University of anti-Semitism and forcing their resignation (or simply firing them) when the only thing they are guilty of is speaking up against Zionism.

Anti-Semitism definitely isn’t funny, but aren’t all forms of discrimination equally so?

—Xin Tian Yong (MA Candidate in the Division of Social Sciences)

Baa baa black sheep, have you any Core?

Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep is alarmist but not unfounded when applied to our own University Jon Catlin Maroon Contributor When I told my uncle I was going to the University of Chicago nearly four years ago, he gave me a worried look. “I went there once for work,” he told me. “I ran into a student on the street and asked if he knew what time it was. He stopped, looked me in the eyes and responded, ‘yes’ before walking on.”

When I was a first-year, the pages of The Maroon were littered with impassioned cries to “Keep UChicago weird,” a slogan from an old Max P Scav team t-shirt. In what seemed like weekly laments, the then third- and fourth-years decried the supposed “normalization” of the incoming student body and hearkened back to the Uncommon years before the College switched to the Common Application in 2008.

Years earlier, writers pleaded, “Save the U of C’s Soul: Save the Uncommon App!” (11/17/06)to no avail.

The Common Application, their story goes, brought with it the dreaded Common Applicant. You may know her. She really wanted to go to Princeton, but didn’t get off

the waitlist. She knew little about UChicago before she got in, but her college counselor—no doubt pointing to the latest U.S. News rankings—assured her it was now “basically an Ivy.” She boasts a perfect GPA and a dozen extracurriculars—but why does she belong here in particular?

This narrative has by now just about died out among College students. This is because we are all that once-dreaded generation of Common Applicants. We are thus in need of some perspective. With the current acceptance rate at 8.4 percent, it probably sounds scandalous to us that 77 percent of applicants were admitted the year I was born. UChicago is now more selective than half of the Ivy League. This drastic shift has undoubtedly led to others.

In his talk on November 13, the higher ed critic William Deresiewicz evoked this normalization narrative, suggesting that UChicago was going the way of the Ivy League.

And you would know that that’s not a compliment if you saw the cover photo of the New Republic piece he wrote this summer: a Harvard pennant in flames.

“Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League,” Deresiewicz’s controversial article, is an excerpt from his new book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. A former Yale English professor, Deresiewicz argues that elite students are “smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose.” He thinks, “what people are feeling is that nobody has ever talked to them about what their education might be for” beyond credentials or a narrow conception of success.

Deresiewicz noted UChicago’s “historical reputation as a bastion of intellectualism,” but harbored doubts as to whether it will last. “I hear that the University of Chicago may not be remaining the University of Chicago,” he said. “And that concerns me.”

This concern is not new. In a 2010 Maroon article, D. D. Ryan rightly noted that even if Common Applicants aren’t tangibly different, they have a different attitude: “These new students, although perfectly intellectually capable of doing so, do

not tend to care deeply about ‘the life of the mind’ or about learning for the sake of learning.” This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it entails the danger “that we are moving away from what has historically made this university distinct.”

I’m a proud UChicago intellectual in Deresiewicz’s sense. I’m a fundamentals major and was a That Kid in my Hum class. When I applied to college, it was to places like Reed, which Deresiewicz singled out as more intellectual than any Ivy. When researching colleges, I looked at a less common metric for something like intellectualism: the percentage of undergraduates that go on to earn a Ph.D. The National Science Foundation reported in 2013 that, adjusted for size, graduates of the College had the eighth highest rate of going on to earn a Ph.D.: 15 percent. This put us ahead of all the Ivies and behind only engineering schools like Cal Tech and MIT, and hyper-intellectual liberal arts colleges like Reed, Swarthmore, Carleton, and Grinnell.

I’d suggest this metric as the one to put speculation about the College’s changing ethos to rest. The

above data tracked Ph.D. recipients 2002–2011, and thus College alums from even earlier. However, when the data comes out for our classes, I doubt we will maintain our current position. I am one of the few fourthyears I know who plans to pursue an academic career, and UChicago Careers in Higher Education, of which I was once a member, went under in 2012 (it was rolled into UChicago Careers in Education Professions in name only). The academic job market is bad, yes, but not worse than ever. Now is actually one of the best times ever to be a Ph.D. student, with most top programs now offering full fellowships to all admitted students.

In addition the number of students in the College receiving humanities degrees, one crude metric of pursuing “learning for learning’s sake,” increased only 5 percent from 2006-2007 to 2013-2014, while the total number of degrees increased 26–, with economics degrees increasing 39– and physical sciences degrees increasing 64 percent. Who knows what else isn’t the College advertising.

SHEEP continued on page 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | November 25, 2014

“Education won’t happen if we label all ignorance immoral” FEAR continued from page 3 have since seen that I was wrong and signed it.

But this change happened only because I participated in a reasoned dialogue. I put my views on the chopping block and saw they were wrong. I can’t take the credit for this. It happened because someone calmly told me how I was incorrect, and why. It is possible that someone might change their mind if they silently continue to observe the debate, but it’s much more likely that they’ll only come to understand it once they’ve actively participated. But, given the current environment, they won’t.

Social currency carries a lot of weight at our school. As a result, people do not want to be publicly shamed for being prejudiced, whether or not they actually are. Most of the silent majority is probably unsure what even constitutes prejudice. So they’ll keep their mouths shut on Facebook, in class, and in their own apartments.

People fear this hostile atmosphere. We’ve all seen it. Someone makes a comment on Facebook or an off-handed remark about Halloween costumes, and suddenly three people are yelling in their face. I am not claiming that the Halloween costumes were OK— they perpetuated and trivialized harmful stereotypes—instead I am claiming that yelling in someone’s face isn’t helping the situation. At least it’s not helping anymore, but more on that later.

If they stay silent, they can’t be educated— hopefully the goals of the petition will solve that. I urge other people who have stayed silent to take a risk and take part. But education won’t happen if we label all ignorance immoral.

In fact, I believe that a certain degree of the silent majority’s pedantry can actually service the cause. Recall the Mill you might have read first year: Dissent is important because it helps refine a view. It makes the cause stronger. Our opinions must be “fully, frequently, and fear-

lessly discussed” lest they be “held as a dead dogma, not living truth.”

Yelling in someone’s face isn’t a constructive way to promote dialogue. The administration talks a big game about open dialogue but they promote it as an end, not as a means. Instead, open dialogue is important because it has the potential to get us to what’s right, what’s moral, and what’s in accordance with the truth. But when open dialogue is stifled, so is the pursuit of what’s right. And I think most people in the silent majority see the anger and the yelling, or rather, the rampant use of Caps Lock, as stifling. You would be correct to object that activists deserve to be angry. It’s understandable. They have been silenced now and in the past. Screaming might be the only way to be heard—maybe the only way to open a dialogue is to rattle the institutional cage.

But screaming can be just another form of silence, especially as a conversation wears on. You may be heard, but, unfortunately, many won’t listen. Once the dialogue has been started, the best way to end the silence of the silent majority is to stop screaming and listen to them. That said, the activists are the first people we should listen to; they are the most informed and the first reason we are having this debate. But if we are to understand the anger of the activists, we must also try to understand the silence of a large part of our campus. We should even try to understand why people think that the costumes were “just a joke” or “not a big deal.” This will open dialogue. More importantly, it will lead to education and tolerance, namely what is right.

People have asked me if I really want to publish this—“won’t people jump down your throat?” Some people probably will. I’m not pretending to be brave, though. I’m just trying to further the conversation.

Eric Singerman is a fourth- year in the College majoring in philosophy.

5

UChicago is changing, but we need not despair SHEEP continued from page 4 Deresiewicz’s critique might help us explain these changes. As Anthony Grafton glosses Excellent Sheep in the New York Times, “Many students at elite universities amble like sheep through four years of parties and extracurriculars, and then head down the ramp to the hedge funds without stopping to think.” We are told that we can do anything, yet we tend to choose curiously few fields: More than a third of graduates at some Ivies go into finance or consulting. Academia is just one field, alongside the military, the clergy, and running for electoral office, that has been displaced from the horizons of most elite students.

But in his talk on campus, Deresiewicz clarified, “I’m not criticizing any particular choice: There are possibly legitimate reasons for going to Wall Street or consulting. I’m criticizing the way people tend to make their choices nowadays.”

Deresiewicz said that attending college should allow one “to learn to think,” yes, but more so “to build a self,” to become a whole individual. The problem is that elite students’ “sense of self has been built around their ability to succeed”—by measures not their own.

Students are asking him, “Why do I seem to be living out a script I didn’t write?”

His answer is that our horizons have narrowed. “Work within the system,” is the ethos of the day, he said. (It is also the ethos of Career Advancement.) “The world, like a test, consists of a series of discrete problems, and all we need to do is go out there and solve them.”

With our start-up approach, we think innovation is making hailing a taxi easier. “How many in today’s young generation even think of altering the structure of society?” he asked.

Parts of this narrative are true of my experience in the College. We all do things just to put them on our résumés. We are all needlessly

TH

THE 68 ANNUAL LATKE-HAMANTASH

DEBATE

Tuesday November 25, 2014 7:30 pm Mandel Hall

busy. We are in many respects too “successful” for our own good. But this does not mean we are doomed to join the Ivy League.

Excellent Sheep calls for little more than the Socratic self-examination the Core is designed to promote. In this regard, Deresiewicz unfairly lumps “elite schools” together, neglecting the unique traditions that protect against sheepishness. Debating the Aims of Education address during O-Week is another such invaluable tradition. As for UChicago staying UChicago, these intellectual traditions are not going anywhere.

Even if we accept the conclusion that the College is changing, however, it would not simply be an occasion for despair, as previous generations seemed to think. Ask any middleaged alum of the College about their experience here (David Axelrod, for example), and they will invariably tell you a dozen ways it is better now than decades ago.

In a 2010 column protesting the Common App laments, then-fourth-year Marshall Knudson wrote, “U of C students are not born but made, formed in thought and habit through a four-year, love-hate relationship that elates as often as it oppresses.” Who is admitted is not the whole story; it is still we students who define the UChicago experience.

UChicago is not yet an Ivy in Deresiewicz’s pejorative sense. But recognizing that the College is changing puts the onus on us to redefine what it will stand for in the years to come.

It prompts us to conceive of and promote an intellectualism beyond stereotypical bookishness and Harry Potter. It demands that we think hard about and rearticulate what about our experience here remains so special, and, yes, sometimes downright weird.

Jon Catlin is a fourth-year in the College majoring in fundamentals.

FEATURING

Aaron Dinner Professor of Chemistry Wendy Doniger Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions Austan Goolsbee Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics Jeffrey Harvey Enrico Fermi Distinguished Service Professor in Physics Diane Herrmann Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics Malynne Sternstein Associate Professor of Slavic Studies

5706 South University Avenue PRE-SHOW ENTERTAINMENT

Le Vorris & Vox | Rhythm & Jews SHMUEL WEINBERGER Professor and Chair of Mathematics MODERATOR

ETHAN BUENO DE MESQUITA Professor of Public Policy

Admission to the debate is first come first served (no tickets are issued)

MASTER OF CEREMONIES Reception afterwards in Hutch Commons where you decide which really tastes better: the latke or the hamantash ORGANIZED BY A COMMITTEE OF FACULTY MEMBERS WITH Campus & Student Life | Alpha Epsilon Pi | Chabad | Egalitarian Minyan Hillel | jU (JewishU) | JewSA | Rhythm & Jews | UChicago Friends of Israel

($5, tickets available on the night or via AEPi online—proceeds to AEPi Gives Back)

ARTS

Heartlandia NOVEMBER 25, 2014

That's what they want you to think, man: The appeal of conspiracy theory

ELEANOR HYUN

Will Dart Arts Editor Amid the social-media flurry of the Facebook “hacking” incident of last week, numerous students took to Facebook groups to add their voices to a growing chorus of concern over the veracity of the “hack." Due to the sensitive nature of this issue, many of these concerned students were dutifully and immediately shot down. As well they should be—nobody likes a conspiracy nut. And yet, as we’ve seen in the aftermath of this case’s upsetting conclusion, everybody seems to love a good conspiracy.

What gives?

According to Michael Shermer, writing in a recent piece on this topic for Scientific American, “The idea

that such beliefs are held only by a bunch of nerdy white guys living in their parents’ basements is a myth.”

People of all ages, classes, and creeds tend to buy into wacky theories— about a third of us believe that 9/11 was an inside job—although they do subscribe to different theories (lefties blame the media, Republicans don’t trust the intelligentsia.) Your crazy, gun-toting uncle believes that dinosaurs are a myth perpetuated by higher academia in order to discourage time travel. The guy at the health food store doesn’t trust NPR. According to Reddit, rocks aren’t actually hard; they just tense up when you touch them. Take that as you will.

Worse, “more than one in five Americans with postgraduate de-

|

THE CHICAGO MAROON

grees show a high predisposition for conspiratorial belief,” Shermer says. Our own campus is evidence of that predisposition. Some of these conspiracy theories speak to popular concerns: “Where do the Botany Pond turtles go in the winter?” (The answer: They hibernate, as turtles are wont to do). Then there are the “mysterious persons” theories: A good friend of mine earnestly believes that the editor for UChicago Crushes is none other than newly-appointed Dean of Students John “Jay” Ellison, and has some fairly compelling evidence to support this claim (“Have you ever seen them together?”). And then there are “truthers”—maybe a student’s Facebook page was hacked.

Or maybe it was an inside job—dun dun DUN! Are these people stu-

pid? Insane? Both? Or are they onto something?

Whatever they are, they’re certainly not new. The “vril conspiracy,” something about a mystical free energy source in Tibet, goes back to at least the 1870s. Freemasons have been under scrutiny for far longer.

The gold standard of the genre is either Roswell or the Kennedy assassination, depending on whom you ask, and both had legions of devotees scanning photographs for evidence long before Obama was secretly born in Kenya. Nefarious men in fitted suits play key roles in these theories, as do mysterious government agencies and the threat of world domination. And they’ve been busy: The government and their Men in Black are allegedly responsible for the Philadelphia Experiment, the Mothman Prophecies, Area 51, technology suppression, and probably the death of John Lennon and Elvis besides.

Clearly the U.S. government—all governments, really—are scary and not to be trusted.

It’s a matter of power, concludes Shermer, who goes on to quote Machiavelli as evidence: “The strong desire to rule, and the weak desire not to be ruled.” And so the weak will postulate all manner of theories as to why the strong keep winning out. We’re always suspicious, always on the alert for subterfuge and secret pacts. I confess that in my study of these cases I became a bit conspiracymad myself. My basement room now looks basically identical to the inside

of Rust Cohle’s storage locker in True Detective. Thirty photocopied pictures of world leaders and illbegotten business tycoons hang on my wall, all connected by red string and all leading back to the amicable, knowing grin of SG President Tyler Kissinger. It’s true! It’s all true!

Well, maybe not. Maybe I’m just grasping, the way we all do, for reason—looking for something in nothing, and trying to make sense of the senseless. Bad things happen to good people; the rich get richer, and there’s just nothing I can do to stop it, no big secret I can dig up that’ll make it all seem right and fair and good again. The answers aren’t so simple, or else they aren’t there at all.

I’ve fallen for the irresistible appeal of the conspiracy theory.

But sometimes these theories are true. The Gulf of Tonkin really was a false-flag operation; the CIA really did inject unwitting civilians with LSD. A student at the University really did fake a cyberattack on themself. Sometimes our worst assumptions are correct: People lie, people cheat, and people gang up on each other to get what they want. For those occasions, it’s probably for the best that we all don our tinfoil hats now and again, and ask the crazy questions. Did the North Vietnamese navy really attack our ship? What were those “vaccines” they were giving us? Would a bigot really use the term “person of color” in a racist rant?

The truth is out there. Somewhere.

Dickens's Christmas comes early at Goodman Theatre Taylor McDowell Arts Staff Goodman Theatre’s annual production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol began running last week and continues through December 28.

The production, directed by Henry Wishcamper, is in its 36th year and is a major event for the theater. The prominence of the event is accented by a bazaar-like state of affairs in the theater’s lobby, emphasizing the sale of theme-oriented paraphernalia paired with hot chocolate, eggnog and seasonal cocktails, and beneath ringing caroling music. Just as the holidays are a ritual of their own, this production is a special event for Chicago’s oldest not-for-profit theater.

For the production to succeed, it must get Ebenezer Scrooge right. It's character stands central to the story; he is in practically every moment of every scene, and it is upon his change of heart that the tale’s importance lies. It is an involved, tortuous, and exhausting role that Larry Yando embodies with panache, charm, and humor. He never fails to evoke the rumble of audience laughter every five minutes or so, and it is with Yando whom the audience comes to sympathize (the mark of a successfully rendered presentation).

To ignore the set design, however, would be to ignore a significant share of the production’s magic making.

Think of the holidays: Think of cold, crowded streets made warm by

bustling bodies, crackling logs burning slowly before the grates of the fireplace; think of whispering smoke trailing deeply into crisp air, and early evenings lengthened by sonorous multi-course meals, capped off with pies and wines and puddings and ales. Think of soft sofas, and gentle, all-too-familiar, music; think of sounds: laughter, voices, the hissing and popping of things heated or cooking, and the slow sweeping gusts of gentle snowfall.

Think of ghosts—no? Think of misers and money and bookkeeping tables and gains and losses.

Dickens made a heartwarming point when he published A Christmas Carol to immediate success 171 years ago. He also profoundly shaped the understanding of what Christmas was and what the holiday season would become.

It is a strange thing to realize, but as estranged as Dickens’s colorfully charactered and grime-besmirched London may be from our WiFi-enabled one, that world still manages to be both familiar and inviting. And Todd Rosenthal’s work on the eccentrically atmospheric set creation does well to make an outlandish and distant place feel at home. Dickens’s shadowy gas lamp–lit streets, brooding factory buildings climbing over and toppling onto each other, and hearth-warmed homes are familiar to our collective memory, and the production succeeds by playing on what is expected of a particular down-and-out Dickensian setting by adding slight quirks (asym-

Ebenezer Scrooge (Larry Yando) meets his old business parter, Jacob Marley (Anish Jethmalani), who has been dead for seven years. I forgot how scary this story was.

COURTESY OF LIZ LAUREN

metrical structures, creeping fog, moving sets) for an otherworldly though intimate experience.

The season, for one hundred seventy-one years, has been colored and characterized and altogether warmed

by Dickens’s 1843 novella. A Christmas Carol has prominently shaped the evolution of the holiday season since its publication and, though dated, the

tale still holds a seminal position in seasonal tradition. Goodman Theatre’s rendition of the tale succeeds on all levels expected; but it must be understood that at heart, Dickens’s tale is a family story, albeit one whose moralizing tone and sentimentality can come off as sometimes too melodramatic for our pre-eminently self-aware and self-critical moment. Nevertheless,

Goodman’s production operates well with what is given to make a somewhat sappy mid-19th-century story retain and express a little seasonal magic.

A Christmas Carol runs through December 28 at the Goodman Theatre.

Tickets available at goodmantheatre. com/joy. Tickets start at $27 for weekday performances.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | November 25, 2014

7

After two barnburners, squad returns home At Concoria Open, Men’s Basketball three South Siders place Mary MacLeod Sports Staff

They don’t get much closer than this.

This weekend Chicago went 1–1 on the road at the Hoopsville National Invitational Classic, returning home from the nation’s capital with an impressive 3–1 overall record.

In their first game of the tournament, the Maroons suffered a heartbreaking 81–79 overtime loss against No. 12 Worcester Polytechnic Institute (3–0).

“Going into WPI, [head] coach [Mike McGrath] really stressed the fact that we needed to compete for rebounds and offensive rebounds,” said second-year forward Waller Perez.

The team did just that, outrebounding their opponents by an impressive 49–33 count. Perez led the Maroons with 11 boards.

Despite Chicago’s domination down low, the Engineers got off to a quick start, forcing 14 turnovers in the first 20 minutes of the game. After halftime, the Maroons countered and went on a 10–1 run to close the gap. The

game went back and forth all the way to the buzzer, as third-year guard Jordan Smith willed Chicago into overtime by sinking a three-pointer with just seconds remaining in regulation.

In overtime, the South Siders were unable to limit their turnovers and stop the sharpshooting Engineers, and Worcester ended up pulling out the win.

“I think our team gave them some easy baskets due to lack of focus in certain instances,” Perez said. “Also, we needed to execute more on the timing of some of our plays.”

The Maroons fared better in their second game of the tournament against the host team Stevenson, as Chicago came out on top in a 73–71 thriller.

“Our game plan was to stop their transition offense,” said second-year point guard Tyler Howard. “We knew the keys to winning would be to handle their pressure, play team defense, and win the rebounding battle.”

The team did cut down on its turnovers, but it was outrebounded for the first time this season 34–32. Additionally, the Mustangs outshot Chicago in

every category, yet couldn’t seem to overcome the Maroons’ defense in the final stretches.

After working their way back from a game-long deficit, the Mustangs were unable to seal the game. They surged ahead 61–59 late in the second half, only to be overcome by back-to-back threes from Howard and third-year forward Alex Voss. In the end, the South Siders won with a two-point bucket with seven seconds left in the game.

“We stayed composed toward the end of the game and boxed out and got stops when we needed,” Howard said.

“We stayed together as a team. I think this game proved that we can compete with any team in the country if we play together and execute our game plan.”

Perez led Chicago with 17 points, and Howard added 13 points, six assists, and five steals.

Chicago next plays on November 29 at home against the Beloit Buccaneers (2–1). Tipoff is at 3 p.m. at Ratner. This game kicks off the UChicago Tournament, which will conclude the following day.

Law: “Everybody was on their feet cheering for each other...”

SWIM&DIVE continued from back

Fourth-year diver Matt Staab continued his dominant campaign with a first-place finish in the three-meter dive. Two Maroons followed Staab— first-year Dean Boures and fourth-year Kevin Steffes finished second and

third, respectively.

The 400-yard freestyle relay was won by the Chicago squad of secondyear Mantim Lee, third-year Thomas Meek, second-year Jonathan Simoneau, and third-year Matthew Veldman. Meek went on to win the 50-yard

freestyle, while Simoneau and Veldman won the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly, respectively.

The meet marked the last meet of the quarter. The next Chicago competition is the Chicago Classic on January 9 at the Ratner Athletic Center.

The Hyde Park and Kenwood Interfaith Council invites you to

Thanksgiving Day 2014 The Gift of Each Other

Thursday November 27, 11 am at Rockefeller Chapel 5850 South Woodlawn Avenue An Interfaith Celebration Featuring music by The Chicago Children’s Choir, directed by Mollie Stone Cantor David Berger of KAM Isaiah Israel

Thanksgiving address by Dr. JoAnne Marie Terrell Associate Professor of Theology, Ethics, and the Arts at Chicago Theological Seminary

JoAnne Marie Terrell speaks to The Gift of Each Other, using as her inspiration these words from the Tao te Ching, as translated by R.B. Blakney: Between earth and sky the space is like a bellows— empty, but unspent; when moved its gift is copious!

Professor Terrell is an ordained elder in the Michigan Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. She holds a Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary in New York. She says of her teaching theology and ethics that her vocation “is to bring insight from many, many sources to bear on the way I ‘do’ theology. Thus, I appreciate other peoples’ apprehensions of God as they, too, struggle to live in just societies and in spiritual communion.”

An offering is taken to support local hunger programs Hyde Park & Kenwood Interfaith Council Founded 1911 hpkifc.org

Wrestling Katie Anderson Maroon Contributor The Maroons had a strong showing at the very competitive Concordia Open this past Saturday in Wisconsin.

Three Chicago wrestlers placed in the top eight of their weight classes, and many new faces performed well.

The Concordia Open is known to host tough competition. The Maroons’ strong showing at a competitive tournament so early in the season shows great promise for the team as they move forward.

“Concordia is one of the tougher tournaments on our schedule,” thirdyear David Gremling said. “It’s good to get it under our belt early, as it helps us gauge where we are, both as individuals and as a team, relative to top-tier competition.”

Individually, Gremling had a successful weekend, placing in the top eight of the 285-pound weight class. He went 4–2 with two pins. Steven Franke, another third-year, also placed in the top eight of his weight class, 184–pounds, by going 2–2 on the day.

Gremling is excited about the potential of the team after seeing strong performances by rookie wrestlers in the season’s first few tournaments.

“Our first years have been outstanding thus far, with several of them making strong contributions already,” Gremling said. “Nick Ferraro in particular has stepped up at 174 [pounds],

already winning his match in our dual [meet] with North Central, placing third at Trine, and going 4–2 at Concordia.”

In addition to Ferraro’s performance, second-year Michael Sepke is showing equal promise for the Maroons. Despite his inexperience as a collegiate wrestler, after being injured all of last year during his first year, he took fifth place in his collegiate debut in the 157 -pound weight class. He went 5–2 on the day and won the fifth-place match 6–4. First-year Devan Richter also performed well in the 125-pound weight class.

Gremling also recognizes that the Maroons did well despite missing some of their best wrestlers due to injury.

“We saw some good things over the weekend and have reason to feel good moving forward, as we had some solid performances. In spite of having some key absences—[second-year] Charlie Banaszak, who was an All American last year, as well as [second-year] Paul Papoutsis, [first-year] Sunny Sharma, and [fourth-year] Mario Palmisano— were unable to compete due to injury or illness,” Gremling said.

Other notable contributions came from second-year Mike McNulty (149 pounds), third-year Brennan King (165 pounds) and third-year Ryan Walsh (197 pounds).

The Maroons’ next competition is at Wheaton College in Illinois on December 3.

SPORTS 3–2 double OT defeat ends Maroons’ tourney run Women’s Soccer Michael Cheiken Maroon Contributor

Third-year Catherine Young finished in 27th place at the NCAA Championships over the weekend. This is her second-straight year as an All-American.

COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS

Young earns All-American as women finish 12th Men’s & Women’s Cross Country Russell Mendelson Senior Sports Staff The Maroon women’s cross country team, along with men’s team individual third-year Michael Frasco departed to Mason, Ohio this weekend. They returned with with more than they arrived with, as they brought home strong finishes all around, including an All-American finish by third-year Catherine Young.

The women’s team put the finishing touches on their collective season with a 12th place finish among a field of 32 teams in the NCAA DIII Championships. Meanwhile, Frasco was the 61st runner to cross the finish line in the men’s race.

Young led the program as the 27th runner to finish the 6-kilometer women’s race, crossing the line with a time of 22:21.0, earning AllAmerican honors in the process for the second year in a row.

“It feels pretty great,” Young said on her performance. “After a couple stress fractures last year took me out of running and competing, I really put in a lot of work and time in order to cross-train enough and not lose any fitness from not being able to run. It has been tough, but this weekend made it all worth it.”

Young achieved All-American status for the first time last year with a ninth place finish, with a time of 21:31.5. Fellow third-year Brianna Hickey finished second for the Maroons with a 59th place finish (22:52.5). Finally, third-year Maggie Cornelius and fourth-year Isabella Penido rounded out the top four for the South Siders.

Frasco, the only Maroon competing in the men’s 8K, was looking for his first All-American award. However, he fell short of the distinction as his 61st place finish out of 280 competitors was not enough.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t think I was able to

tap into 100 percent of my potential,” Frasco said. “I believe I was fit enough to become an All-American, so I am a little disappointed with my performance. However, I believe that worrying about results is the wrong way to approach running and division III athletics.”

Frasco stressed that, at this level of competition, he is most proud of the quality of his work ethic and the team’s ability to endure such a strenuous competitive season, both physically and mentally. He also noted that defining one’s goal as winning a race, or becoming an All-American, was the wrong way to define success.

“Being able to stay mentally focused enough to consistently push yourself to extreme physical limits is what makes cross country so difficult,” Frasco said. “I am more proud of the consistent and high-quality training that I experienced since the first days of the summer.

I am more proud of the positive attitude with which my teammates and I approached each run. And I am most proud of the quality of the friendships that developed throughout the season.”

The women’s team also benefitted from the cohesion that developed throughout their season, and they all hope to build on their successes when the season starts up again next year.

“I think the team did great this weekend and this entire season. To be the 12th best team in the nation is a huge accomplishment, especially with three freshmen racing for points in the national meet,” Young said of the team’s accomplishments. “With a year’s worth of experience under them now, I feel our team is primed for amazing success next year.”

The Maroons will spend the next few days reflecting on their outdoor season before beginning conditioning once again in the next few weeks in preparation for the indoor season during the course of the winter.

The Maroons took the pitch on Saturday morning, looking to avenge a loss from earlier this season against the Illinois Wesleyan Titans, while simultaneously claiming a spot in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division III Tournament.

Chicago absolutely dominated the time of possession in the first half. Illinois Wesleyan rarely had the ball in their attacking third. However, against the run of play, the Titans were able to send a cross into the Maroons penalty area and managed to find the back of the net on one play, giving them a 1–0 lead.

The goal motivated the Titans. They kept attacking, and in the 43rd minute, the Maroons were called for a hand ball in the box.

Illinois Wesleyan’s penalty shot ricocheted off the right post, and each side rushed to retrieve the rebound as it trickled along the goal line. A Titan got there first and was able to put the ball into the back of the net, sending Illinois Wesleyan into the half with a 2–0 lead.

The second half didn’t see too many changes—Chicago dominated possession but did not really seem too threatening.

That was until the 63rd minute, when third-year forward Julia Ozello forced the Titan’s keeper to make her first save of the game.

It was here that the Maroon attack was ignited. Just a minute

later, first-year forward Mia Calamari sent a perfectly weighted through ball to the streaking first-year forward Madori Spiker, who tucked the ball past the Titan goalkeeper to halve the lead to 2–1.

As the Titans were feeling the pressure, the Maroons kept their foot on the gas pedal and tied the game just three minutes later in the 67th minute. Calamari played a corner into the box, and a veritable scrum ensued.

With two Titan players on the ground, first-year defender Kaitlin Price found the ball at her feet and put a shot into the back of the net.

From this point on, the game was pretty choppy. In the last 10 minutes of regulation time, two Maroons and one Titan were all awarded yellow cards. No more goals occurred, sending the game into overtime.

The Maroons continued their attacking play in the first overtime period, having opportunity after opportunity to put the game away. In the final minute of the first overtime period, the Maroons won a free kick just outside the penalty area.

Third-year midfielder Naomi Pacalin stepped up to take the shot. She put the ball on frame with enough power that the Titan goalkeeper was unable to hold on to the ball. The Maroons found the short rebound at their feet but were unable to seal the game with a goal, and the teams switched sides to begin the second overtime period.

Five minutes into the second

overtime period, the Maroons won a corner kick. The goalkeeper made a save on Kaitlin Price’s header, and began the counterattack. Streaking down the left sideline, the Titans managed to put a cross into the middle. Fourth-year goalkeeper Mallory Morse came out to field the ball but couldn’t quite corral it. As if by an occult hand, the ball fell straight to the feet of a Titan, and she took advantage of the opportunity, placing the ball into the back of the net.

With the disappointing 3–2 double overtime loss, the Maroons concluded an otherwise successful 15–5–1 season. The team bids farewell to fourth-years Morse, midfielder Katie Hedlund, midfielder Sara Kwan, forward Meghan Derken, goalkeeper Jacinda Reid, and defender Katie Shivanandan.

Kwan was a key player for Chicago throughout her four years, finishing this season with three goals and five assists. She ranks second all-time in assists (28) and eighth all-time in career goals (24) at Chicago.

Third-year defender Emma Almon may have said it best.

“The six seniors have been instrumental in developing and elevating our program to the level it is [at] today. They have set a standard for what we as Maroons are capable of and can be.”

With this positive attitude the Maroons look to improve over the offseason and come back next season as an even stronger squad.

Youthful swimmers propel Chicago to men’s, women’s victories Men’s & Women’s Swimming & Diving Helen Petersen Associate Sports Editor There’s no place like home.

At home at Phoenix Fall Classic this weekend, the Maroons came out victorious with 957 points for the women and 1,085 for the men.

On the women’s side, Hillsdale came in second to Chicago with 630 points, while Lake Forest came in third with 438.

First-year Melissa Bischoff led the Maroons with what would have been an impressive day for a veteran, let alone for a rookie. She shattered both a pool and a school record in the 100-yard backstroke. The victory qualified her to NCAA Championships at the end of the season. She swam a 55.79, 0.37 seconds faster than the school record and 0.34 seconds faster than the pool record.

A series of relay victories brought home the win for the women’s squad. Bischoff was a part of the first-place 400-yard medley relay team, alongside second-year Maya Scheidl, fourth-year Jenny Hill, and second-year Abby Erdmann. The same group also won the 200-yard medley relay.

Erdmann also swam away with a victory in the 100-yard butterfly.

The 400-yard freestyle relay was captured by Scheidl, second-year Alison Wall, second-year Jen Law, and Hill.

Hill also earned first in the 200-yard breaststroke while Wall captured first in the 200-yard freestyle. Second-year Megan Wall got a victory in the 400-yard IM. “Hands down, the best part for me was the support from my teammates throughout the entire meet,” Law said. “Whether one race didn’t go as well as expected or if someone swam particularly fast, everybody was on their feet cheering and supporting one another the whole time. There’s honestly nothing better than seeing and hearing that right before you dive in for a race. And that level of support absolutely contributed to the overall success of our team this past weekend.”

On the men’s side, Lake Forest came in second with 514 points, and Iowa Lakes dove into third with 439 points. Chicago more than doubled the second-place team’s score as they walked away for the win.

SWIM&DIVE continued on page 10