The Hoya: February 16, 2018

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD SINCE 1920 thehoya.com

Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 99, No. 19, © 2018

friday, February 16, 2018

Chapel of love

Dahlgren Chapel hosts the weddings of 50 to 70 Georgetown-affiliated couples every year.

EDITORIAL For a GUSA that effectively advocates for all students, vote Sirois and Doherty.

FOR FAIRER ELECTIONS In a move to increase transparency, the D.C. Council authorized publicly financed campaigns.

OPINION, A2

NEWS, A5

B2-B3

GUSA Executive Candidates Race to the Finish

Estes, Howell Emphasize Culture of Service

Arkema, Compo Satirize GUSA Race Jeff Cirillo

Jeff Cirillo

Hoya Staff Writer

Hoya Staff Writer

Logan Arkema (COL ’20) and Jonathan Compo (COL ’20) are not like the other candidates running for president and vice president of the Georgetown University Student Association. They go by the names of fictional comic book figures Batman and Robin, wear costumes of those characters and admit they are hoping they will not win.

With their campaign, Arkema and Compo, a former cartoonist for The Hoya, join a list of past joke candidates who have launched campaigns focused on satirizing rather than winning. In a Saturday interview with The Hoya, Arkema, wearing a full Batman suit and adopting a raspy voice, said the primary goal of his campaign is “comic relief.”

“A lot of students get annoyed with GUSA campaigns,” Arkema said. “It’s nice to provide some-

In Hunter Estes (SFS ’19) and Richard Howell’s (SFS ’19) campaign pitch for the Georgetown University Student Association’s executive offices, the candidates promise they will be the student body’s “bulldog” against the rising costs of tuition and mandatory textbooks.

Estes and Howell are running for GUSA president and vice president, respectively, on promises to reduce Georgetown education costs, as well as efforts to instill a sense of community and a culture of service on campus.

In a Saturday interview with The Hoya, the pair emphasized their extensive student leadership experience, but acknowledged their conservative views may alienate some voters. They insisted they would “fight for every student” if elected, and said they hope students will

ANNA KOVACEVICH/THE HOYA

The satirical ticket of Logan Arkema (COL ’20) and Jonathan Compo (COL ’20) seeks to provide comic relief to the race. thing that’s a little bit different, that kind of pokes fun at the general campus culture.”

According to Arkema, this year’s candidates bear the same qualities that have frustrated students in

the past: They take themselves and their campaigns too seriously and promise too much.

“Not everything needs to be See ARKEMA, A6

evaluate them on their policy platform.

Estes and Howell are running against satirical ticket Logan Arkema (COL ’20) and Jonathan Compo (COL ’20), Sahil Nair (SFS ’19) and

Naba Rahman (SFS ’19), and Josh Sirois (SFS ’20) and Casey Doherty (COL ’20). The election is set for Feb. 22.

See ESTES, A6

Nair, Rahman Tout Inclusivity Initiatives

Sirois, Doherty Bring GUSA Experience Elizabeth Ash

Yasmine Salam

Hoya Staff Writer

Hoya Staff Writer

Emphasizing their campaign motto “Moving Forward,” Josh Sirois (SFS ’20) and Casey Doherty (COL ’20) are running for president and vice president, respectively, of the Georgetown University Student Association to both champion existing projects and advance new ideas.

Sirois and Doherty are running on a detailed policy platform and a combined four years of student government experience, while attempting to shake the stigma of an establishment “GUSA insider” ticket.

Hailing from Salem, Mo., Sirois is a GUSA senator who previously served on the senate’s Finance and Appropriations Committee, which allocates over $1 million to student groups each year. He is also a member of acapella group Superfood and the tour guide group Blue and

When Sahil Nair (SFS ’19) and Naba Rahman (SFS ’19) first met on a national debate circuit their senior year of high school, they never would have anticipated that four years later they would run in the Georgetown University Student Association’s 2018 executive election.

The pair promises to amplify student voices, running on the campaign slogan “Because Every Voice Matters.” Nair and Rahman have defined the executive’s primary role as facilitating students’ efforts and ideas. With little GUSA experience and a less detailed policy platform compared to their opponents’, they are seeking to sell voters on their outside leadership roles and relationship-building skills.

“We are not here to be the face of every diversity group. We are here

ANNA KOVACEVICH/THE HOYA

Josh Sirois (SFS ’20) and Casey Doherty (COL ’20) are focusing their campaign on student empowerment and outreach.

Gray.

Doherty is co-secretary of congressional relations on GUSA’s Federal and D.C. Relations Committee, where she led recent efforts to advocate U.S. Congress to

ANNA KOVACEVICH/THE HOYA

Richard Howell (SFS ’19) and Hunter Estes (SFS ’19) are prioritizing financial accountability and cost reduction.

pass the Dream Act of 2017, an immigration bill protecting students without documentation. She also serves on the College Academic See SIROIS, A6

ANNA KOVACEVICH/THE HOYA

Naba Rahman (SFS ’19) and Sahil Nair (SFS ’19) bring an outside perspective to the GUSA executive race. though to help those voices finally get a platform,” Rahman said in an interview with The Hoya. “Our job is to get them a seat at the table.”

Nair is running for president with Rahman as vice president.

They face satirical ticket Logan Arkema (COL ’20) and Jonathan Compo (COL ’20), Hunter Estes (SFS ’19) and Richard Howell (SFS See NAIR, A6

See OUR COVERAGE OF THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE, A7

Receiving Award, Albright Warns Against Threats to Democracy Joe Egler

Hoya Staff Writer

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY CHINESE STUDENTS AND SCHOLARS ASSOCIATION

The Georgetown University Chinese Students and Scholars Association’s funding relationship with the Chinese government has drawn attention to the group following a Foreign Policy article.

Club’s China Funds Scrutinized hANNAH URTZ AND ERIN DOHERTY Hoya Staff Writers

The Georgetown University graduate student group GU Chinese Students and Scholars Association, has received substantial funding from the Chinese government in years

featured

past, though the group has not broken any university funding rules, a recent report from Foreign Policy alleges.

The documentation of the funding points to Chinese government involvement with student groups on U.S. college campuses, a link that is often suspected though difficult to prove, Foreign Policy reports.

While not illegal, these relationships have been under scrutiny from U.S. security organizations, which have attempted for years to ascertain what, if any, threat the Chinese government and students pose to the United States.

The outlet wrote that they

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a distinguished professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University, received the 2018 Raymond “Jit” Trainor Award for Excellence in the Conduct of Diplomacy at a Gaston Hall ceremony Monday afternoon.

The Jit Trainor Award, named after former registrar of the School of Foreign Service Raymond “Jit” Trainor, is presented annually by Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy since 1978. Past recipients of the award include United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein last year and former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz in 2016.

See CHINA, A8

See ALBRIGHT, A8

KEENAN SAMWAY FOR THE HOYA

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright cautioned against isolationist policies in a lecture Monday afternoon.

NEWS

OPINION

SPORTS

Georgetown’s Camelot The house where President John F. Kennedy met Jacqueline Bouvier is being sold.

A9

Fighting Slacktivism Shameless self-promotion has taken the place of true activism on social media.

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Late Push Staves Off Butler The men’s basketball team defeated Butler 87-83 on the strength of Marcus Derrickson’s 27 points Tuesday.

A12

NEWS An Aging World

opinion From Dresden to Today

SPORTS GU Victorious in Season Opener

Georgetown is establishing an interdisciplinary graduate program to study aging.

A7 Printed Fridays

Seventy-three years after Dresden was bombed, modern governments continue to allow mass civilian casualties.

A3

The men’s lacrosse team dominated High Point 15-5 on Tuesday. Sophomore Jake Carraway scored five goals.

A10 Send story ideas and tips to news@thehoya.com

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OPINION

THE HOYA

friday, February 16, 2018

THE VERDICT

Vote Sirois and Doherty In a campaign season marked by mediocrity and similarity, only one ticket rises above the pack with a demonstrated grasp of the issues facing Georgetown students and an ability to include minority voices.

All four tickets competing for executive positions in the Georgetown University Student Association are running on platforms that have flaws that must be addressed if they are to effectively serve the student body. Still, only one ticket has shown the competence to truly address its shortcomings. This ability, combined with their detailed policy platform and a willingness to work with students from every corner of Georgetown, make Josh Sirois (SFS ’20) and Casey Doherty (COL ’20) students’ best choice on the ballot Feb. 22.

In a field of mediocre opponents, Sirois and Doherty stand out. They have proposed policies that will benefit often-ignored communities at Georgetown. Sirois’ plan to put a wheelchair-accessible entrance on the first floor of Lauinger Library is an actionable, commonsense idea that would measurably improve accessibility on campus.

Sirois and Doherty have already proposed realistic ways to make Georgetown more affordable. Their proposal to create an online textbook hub for students to buy and sell textbooks with their peers has potential, if the candidates are able to mobilize the student body behind their cause.

Sirois and Doherty have faced numerous criticisms for running as sophomores. However, they have proven to be more qualified and prepared than their opponents. Their track record — Sirois has been a senator since his first term at Georgetown, while Doherty has served on GUSA’s Federal and D.C. Relations committee — shows they are able to effectively represent the entire student body.

The principle of empowering the voices of marginalized students strengthens Sirois and Doherty in comparison to the only other ticket with a detail- and policy-oriented campaign: Hunter Estes (SFS ’19) and Richard Howell (SFS ’19).

Estes and Howell have distinguished themselves from the pack by emphasizing a schoolwide commitment to service. Many of their community-driven policies, such as a mandatory service day for all groups recognized by the Student Activities Commission, should be seriously considered by the eventual winners, whomever they may be. Other ideas, such as a tuition freeze policy, in which a student’s tuition would remain the same throughout their years at Georgetown, demonstrate a genuine, but naive, desire to make Georgetown affordable.

However, the GUSA executive’s most important role is to represent and work with all students. While Estes and Howell claim they will cultivate a welcoming Georgetown community, Estes’ actions as a GUSA senator indicate his inability and seeming unwillingness to include all students.

While serving as a GUSA senator in January, Estes was the only senator to vote against Resolution Number 1-29-17-3, according to GUSA senate voting records and three then-senators.

The resolution condemned President Donald Trump’s travel ban against seven Muslim-majority countries and urged the university to provide resources to community members “affected adversely by this Order.”

When asked in an interview with The Hoya how he would reconcile his voting record with his professed desire to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for all Hoyas, Estes claimed he did not recall the bill regarding the travel ban. In a subsequent email to The Hoya, Estes clarified that his problem with the resolution “was not its support for community members, but [Estes] found that the wording of part of the resolution mischaracterized the nature of American defense policy.”

Estes was also the sole vote in opposition to an April 2017 GUSA senate resolution supporting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and students affected by its termination, according to GUSA senate voting records. DACA is an administrative program established by former President Barack Obama that provided work authorization and legal protection to about 800,000 immigrants without documentation who were brought to the United States as children.

Estes’ advocacy for Georgetown’s LGBTQ community is also dubious, as represented by his support of Love Saxa, a pro-traditional marriage group that rejects LGBTQ relationships. Last semester, he served as the group’s vice president and advocated on its behalf in front of a Student Activities Commission hearing prompted by questions of Love Saxa’s intolerant views.

The detail-oriented and only nominally inclusive campaign run by Estes and Howell has found its polar opposite in the ticket of Sahil Nair (SFS ’19) and Naba Rahman (SFS ’19).

Nair and Rahman are strong, intelligent campus leaders whose campaign centers on a vision for a more approachable and inclusive GUSA. However, that sentiment seems to be the extent of their platform’s specificity.

Holding this year’s truest claim to the coveted moniker of “outsider ticket,” Nair and Rahman have adamantly advocated for a GUSA that works with various campus stakeholders. In stark contrast to Estes and Howell, they could effectively incorporate the desires of underrepresented groups.

Conversely, Sirois has two years of concrete policy experience within GUSA, and Doherty demonstrated a complete understanding of a comprehensive platform that addresses accessibility, sexual health and affordability in an interview with The Hoya.

By contrast, Nair and Rahman have only a surface-level understanding of university policy processes and lack meaningful relationships with any relevant university administrators — facts raised by the candidates in an interview with The Hoya. Past administrations have proven that these two qualities are crucial to the success of an executive’s policy agenda.

This critique is not delivered strictly due to the candidates’ status as GUSA outsiders — outsiders can deliver new, creative perspectives.

However, Nair and Rahman’s platform promotes a continuation of status quo accountability and inclusion policies, devoid of fresh proposals. Under their website heading “This is Our Vision,” they write, “everyone has their own definition of what it means to achieve.” However, their platform hardly indicates how they plan to catalyze the achievement of others.

Sirois and Doherty have been far more clear on their priorities; they have also demonstrated a commitment to approach their work with purpose and sincerity.

The ticket of Logan Arkema (COL ’20) and Jonathan Compo (COL ’20), on the other hand, is best known for its commitment to carrying out GUSA duties as Batman and Robin.

Arkema currently serves as an elected GUSA senator, representing West Campus as the Dark Knight. In this capacity, he has worked effectively with his colleagues on several policy priorities, most notably workers’ rights. His platform, which he presented to The Hoya as a “Victory Contingency Plan,” also addresses affordability, specifically calling for reform in the area of textbook costs.

Yet, Arkema noted his goal was not to win, but rather to “highlight common shortcomings among the more ‘serious’ campaigns, and push them to address those shortcomings.”

Arkema and Compo’s intentions are largely good, though their satirical approach to campaigning is a legitimate reason for concern.

GUSA is a necessary tool for advancing the interests of students; it requires leaders who are prepared to seriously consider those interests upon entering the office. Arkema is not fully prepared to recognize the necessary limits of well-executed satire – when asked if he would use the Batman voice to address the community regarding issues like hate crime against students, he was indecisive. While Arkema has demonstrated some capacity to govern, he does not take the job of GUSA executive seriously enough to merit votes.

If Sirois and Doherty incorporate some of Estes and Howell’s ideas while organizing around Nair and Rahman’s driving force of inclusivity, they have an opportunity to bring substantial, positive change to Georgetown.

For their sufficient preparation for the job, their forward-looking solutions and their sincere desire to represent all communities at Georgetown, this editorial board endorses Sirois and Doherty for the positions of GUSA president and vice president. They are the best choice students have.

Ian Scoville, Editor-in-Chief Maya Gandhi, Executive Editor Christian Paz, Executive Editor Emma Wenzinger, Managing Editor Jeff Cirillo, News Editor Hannah Urtz, News Editor Dan Crosson, Sports Editor Mitchell Taylor, Sports Editor Kathryn Baker, Guide Editor Mac Dressman, Guide Editor Will Simon, Opinion Editor Lisa Burgoa, Features Editor Anna Kovacevich, Photography Editor Saavan Chintalacheruvu, Design Editor Janine Karo, Copy Chief Katie Schluth, Social Media Editor Charlie Fritz, Blog Editor Anne-Isabelle de Bokay, Multimedia Editor

Editorial Board

Will Simon, Chair

Alexandre Kleitman, Grace Laria, Tanner Larkin, Emma Lux, Daniel Wassim, Alexandra Williams

Will Cassou Madeline Charbonneau Erin Doherty Yasmine Salam Yasmeen El-Hasan Allie Babyak Ben Goodman Josh Rosson Noah Hawke Will Leo Noah Levesque Julia Yaeger John Crawford Yumna Naqvi Adam Semprevivo Will Cromarty Amber Gillette Subul Malik Caroline Pappas Grace Chung Anna Kooken Mina Lee Susanna Blount Anna Dezenzo Catriona Kendall Juliette Leader Joshua Levy Laura Bell

Academics Desk Editor City Desk Editor Events Desk Editor Student Life Desk Editor Deputy Features Editor Deputy Sports Editor Deputy Sports Editor Deputy Sports Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Opinion Editor Deputy Opinion Editor Cartoonist Deputy Photography Editor Deputy Photography Editor Deputy Photography Editor Deputy Photography Editor Deputy Design Editor Deputy Design Editor Deputy Design Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Blog Editor

Contributing Editors

Dean Hampers, Meena Raman, Lauren Seibel, Alyssa Volivar, Sarah Wright

Olympic Rip Off — U.S. figure skater Adam Rippon complained on Twitter about the condoms at the Olympic village. Rippon commented, “I thought they’d have like Olympic rings on them or they’d be all different colors, but no. It’s all a myth.”

C

The Greatest Thing Since … — Missouri House Rep. Rusty Black (R) proposed a bill to the state legislature that would declare July 7 as the state’s “Sliced Bread Day.” Black says he thinks the bill stands “a pretty good chance” of becoming law.

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EDITORIAL

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Founded January 14, 1920

Just Keep Tweeting — Twitter turned a profit for the first time in its history, according to its most recent earnings report. However, the company continues to face problems with fake accounts that spread misinformation.

Not a Turkish Delight — Turkish President Recep Erdogan threatened to deliver an “Ottoman slap” to U.S. troops in Syria. U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert laughed at the threat during a press conference.

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Fifty Shades of Green — “Fifty Shades Freed,” the third installment of the blockbuster “Fifty Shades” film series, earned $38.8 million in its opening weekend. The “Fifty Shades” franchise has now amassed over $1 billion worldwide.

EDITORIAL CARTOON by Adam Semprevivo

HOYA HISTORY: Feb. 13, 1949

Curfews to Be Ended for Women Residents Corresponding to a series of revisions in the policies of the Women’s Residence Council, curfew for all women residents will be lifted, on a temporary basis, from Feb. 17 to April 2. This trial period will determine the feasibility of permanently abolishing all curfews for women starting with the fall semester next year.

With hardly a revolutionary step, Georgetown is following a precedent set by many other schools, including Dumbarton and The University of Maryland, where policies of students’ maturity are replacing policies of students’ restriction. Harriet Cognetta (GUNS ’70), chairman of the Revisions Committee of the Residence Council, characterized the revisions by saying, “It’s a change that everyone has seen

coming.”

Each of Georgetown’s four undergraduate levels has its own set of hours. For freshmen, limits are midnight on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends; for sophomores curfews are set at midnight and 1:30 a.m.; for juniors hours are midnight and 2 a.m.; seniors are required to be in by midnight on weekdays and on weekends at 2 a.m. or have a friend wait to let them in while the doors are locked from 2 to 7 a.m.

Under the new system, the doors to the women’s dormitories will be locked after midnight on weekdays and after 2 a.m. on weekends, but there will be a security guard on duty to admit any girl who comes in after that time. Girls will be asked to sign out if they intend to be out af-

ter the doors are locked, and all must return by 6 a.m.

When the trial period is over, the program will be taken before the Women’s Student Personnel Policies Committee before it is approved by a vote of the Women’s Residence Council. If approved, the new regulations will go into effect beginning with the fall semester. Curfews, however, may be retained during the first semester of the freshman year, though such a move is still studied.

In summing up the new curfew policies, Miss Cognetta said, “While this is merely an experiment, we do feel that the girls are responsible and mature and should be able to decide their own curfew. Everyone concerned is confident that this will work well in every aspect.”

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OPINION

friday, February 16, 2018

THE HOYA

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VIEWPOINT • MORETTA

This week in history

Nabil Kapasi

Civilians Bear Cost of War

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either an industrial center nor a wartime hub, a defenseless Dresden, Germany, was firebombed by Allied aircraft mere months before German surrender, between Feb. 13 and 15 in 1945. A firestorm of explosives engulfed the city, consuming the very oxygen in the air. Secondary bombing of infrastructure led to a final death toll of 135,000, a number deemed by many to be inaccurately low.

This tactic, called “area bombing,” was used by both Allied and Axis forces in World War II against civilian populations. The ghastly images of Dresden, Tokyo, London and countless others remind us of the deadly power humans unleashed on one another.

World War II ushered in a new era of warfare that prevails in modern combat, one including far too many civilians. In 1900, civilian casualties comprised 5 percent of total wartime casualties. In World War II, 65 percent of deaths were civilians, and in modern warfare more than 90 percent of victims are noncombatants.

Dresden is shocking because of the “good versus bad” framing of WWII, a thematic element continually used in contemporary warfare. Japan and Germany are portrayed as lacking morality — as brutal and vicious armies that terrorized occupied territories. We cannot deny nor ignore the atrocities committed by them, but Allied propensity to retaliate and initiate such violence is appalling.

Winston Churchill ordered the first area bombing against Mönchengladbach on May 11, 1940, months before the Luftwaffe raids on London. Churchill himself called the action “terror bombing,” recognizing its intention to intimidate civilians. Breaking civilian morale became a legitimate reason for attacking urban centers.

Today, we must confront the same divide between the simple appearances of “us” versus “them” and good versus evil. We must confront a complicated reality.

In today’s war zones, civilians bear the brunt of the violence.

The United States is not the only perpetuator of this type of violence either; similar findings in Chechnya, Rwanda, Bosnia, El Salvador and many others reveal a much deeper global failure. In distant, developing nations, civilians have not been exempted from the horrors of war, instead suffering greater harm than before.

Because the strategy of using overwhelming air power to bomb cities has become acceptable, the skylines of Mosul, Iraq, Sanaa, Yemen, and Baghdad look eerily similar to those of Japanese and German cities during World War II. These technologies have led to indiscriminate bombing of cities, contributing to massive refugee crises and deaths of innocent people. When warfare kills randomly and imposes fear on civilians, it creates enemies. It creates a tragic, unwinnable situation.

Partially because of technology, war has become disconnected from individuals in powerful nations. In Syria, for example, increased American air strikes since President Donald Trump’s inauguration have led to a “staggering loss of civilian life,” according to an independent United Nations study.

The expansion of U.S. involvement has gone almost unnoticed by the American public.

That the daily targeting of civilians continues after Dresden is saddening. These senseless calamities have been experienced by too many already.

Technology was hoped to be the saving grace of humanity, a way to mitigate the unintentional effects of war. However, if the past has taught us anything, new weapons will be used with the same boundlessness of old ones. In the hopeless words of Kurt Vonnegut, survivor of the Dresden bombings, “And so it goes … ” Nabil Kapasi is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service.

This Week in History appears online every other Thursday.

Read the full piece online at thehoya.com/category/ opinion.

The hundreds of likes I received on my picture in front of the Washington Monument do absolutely nothing for the modern civil rights movement.

Selfies Are Not Social Activism

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s I stood at the Lincoln Memorial, a barrage of cameras flashed, desperate to capture the historic moment.

The presence of the cameras was no surprise: Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) speech calling for unity and respect at the intersection of feminism could stop anyone dead in their tracks.

Yet the photos taken almost compulsively by the protesters were not primarily recording the inspirational words or the woman delivering them. Instead, the pictures were selfies, capturing the marchers themselves.

The U.S. House minority leader was drowned out by roaring commands to find the best angle for a profile picture. The loudest voice was my own.

Social media’s inherent focus on self-gratification prevents substantial activism for progressive causes.

Much of progressive activism has devolved into “woke culture,” or the portrayal of a politically active persona for more likes. A modern liberal’s obsession with posting perfectly edited proof of one’s “wokeness” demonstrates a self-obsession that causes even the mourning of the murder of a innocent black teenager to center around one’s own image.

I went to the Women’s March on Jan. 20, 2018, to protest the first

year of President Donald Trump’s tumultuous administration. Yet each speaker’s message faded into the background; the focus seemed to be capturing a selfie with a sign reading “Women Just Want to Have Fundamental Human Rights.”

Proof of our attendance was uploaded to Instagram seconds after my friends and I stepped foot on campus. I changed my profile picture before I even got out of the taxi.

Social media can be an incredibly effective mechanism for political organizations to spread their messages. The explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement could not have happened without social media. #BlackLivesMatter trending on Twitter in 2013 laid the foundation for one of the biggest social movements since the civil rights movement. If the right person shares its post, the smallest organization can gain national attention. The ease of communication provides a voice to communities that were largely ignored in progressive settings, from such as LGBT women of color and sex workers.

Yet, the hundreds of likes I received on my picture in front of the Washington Monument do absolutely nothing for the modern civil rights movement.

The social media side of woke

culture has transitioned from political promotion to self-gratification. The people on my feeds want to be viewed as beacons of wokeness but serve only to blur the line between caring about self-image and truly fighting injustice.

In this way, social media has desensitized us to the preventable injustices occurring every day.

We like the posts that mourn the deaths of our fellow citizens with the same flippancy as an overedited picture of a friend’s vacation spot. The phrase “thoughts and prayers” has lost meaning; it is too often expressed with no intention of solving problems. If people were actually as frustrated as they claim to be in their digital condemnations, they would act to prevent unnecessary violence.

Our heightened exposure to the injustices of the world should incite one reaction: mobilization.

Communication is simpler than ever before, and we should use it to improve the lives of others.

Organizations like Georgetown Solidarity Committee have coupled fingers-on-keys with boots-onthe-ground activism to create tangible change. The club’s sit-in to protest Georgetown University’s deal with Nike, a company that was criticized for human rights violations committed in its factories in Vietnam, brought schoolwide and national attention to injustic-

es being perpetuated on campus, prompted by far-reaching social media posts picked up by national news. Before I even made the decision to attend Georgetown — let alone stepped foot on campus — I was learning about important campus issues through pictures of students in administrative offices and Facebook posts updating me on the situation.

GSC’s actions, along with its media exposure, pressured the administration to make substantial changes to its policies.

Its strategy worked. By using social media as a tool to draw the entire campus into the movement, GSC created change in a flawed society.

Use social media to reach people you never thought you could reach before. Motivate your friends and family to register and to vote. Canvass for your local politician. Contact your congressperson or senator. Organize a protest.

Volunteer for Planned Parenthood. Do something.

Social media should promote ongoing social change, not serve as its stand-in. We must separate looking good from doing good.

There is no definition for perfect activism, but we must start by removing self-promotion.

Maya Moretta is a freshman in the College.

VIEWPOINT • PECK

a hoya l0oks back

Develop Suicide Prevention Efforts

American Dreamin’

Content warning: This article discusses depression and suicide. Please refer to the end of the article for resources on campus.

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uicide prevention advocacy is too often conducted through giant posters with flamboyant colors. They scream at passing students: “You matter,” “You are not alone” and “Never give up.” Too often, schools wait for tragedy before they act; these signs only appear when schools are confronted with an actual suicide.

To prevent this delayed response, Georgetown University should focus on pre-emptive measures by following in the footsteps of mainstream media.

An outburst of culture-driven interest in suicide and mental health over the last year is changing norms. However, Georgetown has not yet taken sufficient action to support suicide prevention efforts.

The Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” released March 31, 2017, guided an open dialogue with young people about the previously taboo subject of suicide.

“13 Reasons” was the mosttweeted-about show of 2017, and Google-related searches on suicide increased by 19 percent after the show first aired.

The show prompted presentations in many high schools titled “13 Reasons Why Not,” including slides titled, “You Belong” and “These Storms Will Help You Grow Stronger.”

Teachers lectured students on mental health, and parents discussed the issue of suicide with their children. My own teachers talked openly about experiences with suicide. My parents expressed how much I mean to them. The show did the public a service by encouraging conversations previously relegated to families and survivors.

Less than a month after “13 Reasons” was released, Logic, an American rapper and songwriter, released “1-800-273-8255,” named for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which provides callers with people well-

equipped to give “confidential emotional support.” The day after the song’s release, the number of calls to the line increased by 27 percent, according to the NSPL. Since then, the baseline number of calls to the center has increased.

Entertainment media have created an environment for healthy, pre-emptive conversations about suicide and mental health. Georgetown is now wellpoised to pursue this necessary course of action by incorporating essential resources into daily life and preparing students to address the mental health concerns of their classmates.

Freshmen groaning about more training should be the least of our worries; their ability to stop a friend from committing suicide is worth all the complaints in the world.

In the last year, high schools and universities have taken measures to protect their students’ mental health and provided easier access to necessary resources. Several Arizona high schools have put the NSPL phone number on the back of their student identification cards. GOCards list Counseling and Psychiatric Services’ phone number, along with other important health resources, but the NSPL phone number should be added for additional expert support.

Ohio State University students are taught to recognize signs of suicide during their new student orientation, a program similar to Georgetown’s own orientation program.

However, Georgetown’s New Student Orientation does not go into enough depth—and it must. A study showed that two-thirds of students do not contact mental health professionals in times of distress, but

instead talk to their peers.

Georgetown must train students to identify signs of suicide to properly protect everyone in the community. Georgetown should immediately adopt Arizona’s and OSU’s measures as part of a more powerful movement.

This movement does not demand massive change to be successful. Since arriving on the Hilltop, I have seen very little outreach from CAPS. In addition to the few statements on its website, CAPS needs to be more proactive by promoting its various programs around campus by tabling, putting up flyers and sending out more frequent emails.

Further, students must be trained to recognize mental health problems, just as we are taught to recognize situations of potential sexual violence or misconduct. Such a program might be costly to the university, but surely a life is worth more. CAPS is a useful service but must be complemented by a training program conducted by either CAPS staff or a new student organization similar to Sexual Assault Peer Educators. Freshmen groaning about more training should be the least of our worries; their ability to stop a friend from committing suicide is worth all the complaints in the world.

Popular culture has brought suicide into the spotlight. If we — students and teachers alike — build on this new fascination, important measures can be implemented to prevent suicide and raise awareness for mental health.

To access mental health resources, reach out to Counseling and Psychiatric Services at 202-687-6985, or for after-hours emergencies, call 202-444-7243 and ask to speak to the on-call clinician. You can also reach out to Health Education Services at 202-687-8949. Both of these resources are confidential.

Jordan Peck is a freshman in the McDonough School of Business. Read the full piece online at thehoya.com/ category/opinion.

E

arlier this week, I awoke from a nightmare. I dreamed the police arrested my daughter. Her crime was failure to produce adequate documentation of her legal presence in this country; like most Americans, she doesn’t regularly carry her proof of citizenship.

I am sure my horrific vision was provoked by recent reports of U.S. Border Patrol personnel sweeping buses and trains, demanding that passengers demonstrate they are in the country legally.

This scenario can easily become my family’s reality. We adopted our daughter when I was posted to a U.S. embassy in a former Soviet bloc country; she became a naturalized American citizen on our return home. Although she has only known life in the United States, I worry that her dark hair and brown eyes make her a target.

The specter of American law enforcement accosting people — absent any evidence of wrongdoing other than looking “foreign” — and demanding to see their “papers” is troubling, but it is also deeply ironic.

As part of the assignment during which we adopted my daughter, I assisted the host government transition from a totalitarian regime to one that practiced democratic norms. The police state tactic of compelling people to produce identification without probable cause was absolutely contrary to the principles we wanted to instill in that newly freed country. It is incomprehensible that this is now considered acceptable in the United States.

Like many of my Georgetown classmates of the 1970s, I was the culmination of the immigrant dreams of my ancestors from the British Isles and Germany.

Our families had fled the oppression and hardships of their native lands and forged a better life here in the New World.

Many of my classmates and I are descended from Irish refugees, subjugated by the English, scorned for their Catholic faith and driven by starvation during the infamous Irish Potato Famine to emigrate.

Our successes were predicated

on theirs.

The diversity of our Hoya backgrounds was something to be celebrated, not a source of suspicion or shame. It was not unusual to talk of how someone’s mother was Italian and father was Irish. This multiculturalism made us Americans.

I am not so naive as to ignore

Raymond Dillon

Rather than learning from mistakes of the past, some appear to be reinvigorating these evils. We need to recognize that our lives are based on the United States “opening its doors” to our families. the dark side of the American immigrant experience. The manner in which we have treated and continue to treat those who followed our ancestors here is not without blemishes.

Signs proclaiming “No Irish Need Apply” confronted one branch of my family when seeking employment. As recently as World War II, one of my grandfathers would have his car tires slashed because of his German surname. Hate crimes against Hispanics and Muslims continue this tradition.

During my many years as a U.S. foreign service officer, I carried a Consular Commission: a government-issued document asserting my nomination as an honorary consul in a foreign country. I carried out my official duties in accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, providing

me a deep understanding of the statute, as well as its sordid background. The title of a predecessor statute, the “Chinese Exclusion Act,” speaks for itself.

The current statute is based on the principle of “family reunification,” meaning priority is given to the relatives of those already living here. This policy tends to encourage immigration primarily from white, European nations and discourage those seeking to come from other regions. For instance, as African slaves were transported here as property, there are no documents to support petitions for immigration.

To those of us who served in Eastern Europe after that wall came down, the notion that we would build a similar structure on our borders is bewildering. The stated rationale of the communist dictatorships who erected that barrier was exactly the same as that heard today: to keep out the “undesirables” who threatened the majority’s way of life. The government called it the “anti-fascist protection rampart” intended to defend against “fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people in building a socialist state in East Germany.” One wonders how President Ronald Reagan, who once admonished his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, to “tear down this wall!” would react if he were alive today.

Rhetoric excoriating those fleeing the violence and poverty of their homelands is an explicitly anti-American repudiation of this nation’s founding principles. Rather than learning from mistakes of the past, some appear to be reinvigorating these evils. We need to recognize that our lives are based on the United States “opening its doors” to our families. We should do no less for those who wish to come today.

Raymond W. Dillon Jr. graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences in 1977.

A Hoya Looks Back appears online every other Tuesday.

Read the full piece online at thehoya.com/category/opinion.

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2018

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE After heavy rainfall, accumulating water leaked into Yates Field House from Kehoe Field forced Yates to close temporarily. Story on A5.

Your news — from every corner of The Hoya.

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IN FOCUS ZUMA RESIGNS

“

What we’re trying to do is make students aware and also make elected officials aware that students do care.”

GUSA Federal and D.C. Relations Committee Co-Secretary Casey Doherty on GUHeretoStay Campaign.

Story on A7.

from our blog

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Jacob Zuma, former president of South Africa, resigned this week after being repudiated by his party amid countless scandals and allegations of corruption. Jacob Zuma, who was imprisoned with Nelson Mandela, will be succeeded by Cyril Ramaphosa.

WHO HAS YOUR HEART THIS VALENTINE’S DAY? Your eyes meet. You smile sheepishly and flirt without words. Good morning beautiful, you whisper into the mirror. Whether you’re single or happily cuffed, we’ve all experienced a Georgetown crush. blog.thehoya.com

Reflection on Pope Francis Touts Value of Interfaith Dialogue ALEX MOONEY Hoya Staff Writer

Reflection on Pope Francis’ role in facilitating interfaith dialogue is necessary to understand the Catholic Church and Jesuits more broadly, University President John J. DeGioia said in an event titled “The Francis Factor at Five Years: Reflection and Dialogue” on Tuesday evening.

Hosted by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, which was founded to promote dialogue on Catholicism and national and global issues, the event was led by a key adviser to Francis and the editorin-chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J. It featured a reflection on Francis’ first five years as the bishop of Rome and leader of

the Catholic Church.

The conversation included Greg Erlandson, the director and editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service; Sr. Norma Pimentel, the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley; and Kirsten Powers, a CNN political commentator.

In his opening remarks, DeGioia touted the role that the initiative has played in helping the community understand Francis’ role over the past five years.

“The initiative has helped to foster a rich context for us to understand the leadership of Pope Francis, his call for dialogue, his challenge to care for creation and his commitment to the poor and vulnerable,” DeGioia said.

DeGioia also highlighted the event as an opportunity for Georgetown to examine its role

as a modern Jesuit institution.

“This moment provides for us a time of reflection and conversation,” DeGioia said. “We seek to deepen our understanding of the tradition that animates our community and strengthen our enduring commitment to our mission as a Catholic and Jesuit institution at this challenging time in our world.”

In his reflection of the pope’s first five years, Spadaro spoke about the vision for the church moving forward, specifically emphasizing the pope’s encouragement of interreligious understanding in world politics.

“Francis seeks to dispel the narrative of a toxic final clash of religions that nourishes the fear of chaos,” Spadaro said. “This is why Francis is carrying forward a systematic counternarrative

to the narrative of fear. There is a need to fight against the manipulation of this era of anxiety and insecurity.”

Spadaro also outlined the pope’s thoughts on the Catholic Church’s involvement in public life. He said that Catholics must be actively involved in society, not removed from it, if they hope to help forge peace in the world.

“Faithful Christians should not opt for considering the church as a counter-society … but a church that is in the world society and endowed with it,” Spadaro said. “A church that extends their relationships in order to gather synergy for the constitution of peace.”

Cooperation, particularly with those who have different ideological views, is also needed

in a divided world, Spadaro said.

“The pope rejects the mixing of politics, morals and religion that leads to the use of language that divides reality between the absolute good and the absolute evil,” Spadaro said. “This is why Pope Francis wants to meet the major players in the action, to create an encounter in which all sides can think together, seeking the greater good.”

In the dialogue following Spadaro’s speech, panelists Erlandson, Pimentel and Powers reflected on the pope’s role throughout his papacy.

Erlandson stressed the importance of Francis as a modernizing and revitalizing figure for the Catholic Church today.

“At a time when the church was maybe a bit moribund — and certainly in the United

States — he became this completely new voice,” Erlandson said. “I think one of the great contributions [of Francis] was just reinserting the church into the national and international dialogues on the concerns and issues of the day.”

Powers also emphasized the role Pope Francis has played in bringing the Catholic Church back to mainstream society as well as to former Catholics.

“He has made the church relevant in a way that maybe it wasn’t to secular culture before,” Powers said. “And I think for people who were Catholics, who felt rejected by the church for various reasons, they now were feeling … well, maybe there is something there. Maybe I can come back. Maybe I’ll be welcomed.”

GEORGETOWN INITIATIVE ON CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT AND PUBLIC LIFE

Fr. Anthony Spadaro, S.J., spoke of the merit of interfaith dialogue and communication in understanding the Catholic Church and Pope Francis’ work at an event entitled “The Francis Factor at Five Years: Reflection and Dialogue” on Tuesday evening. The event was hosted by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.

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Multiple False Fire Alarms Sounded in Southwest Quad Deepika jonnalagadda Hoya Staff Writer

Five fire alarms in the Southwest Quad have been accidentally set off since Jan. 19, causing buildingwide evacuations in the dormitories at various points in the middle of the night and afternoon, and prompting repairs by Facilities Management and criticism of the university’s handling of the alarms.

Three of the alarms occurred in the middle of the night, between the hours of 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., and two in the afternoon. Students living in Reynolds, Kennedy and McCarthy Halls evacuated each time the alarm sounded.

The cause of the alarms has been identified and repairs are underway, according to a Feb. 9 email from the Office of Planning and Facilities Management and the Office of Residential Living sent to Southwest Quad residents.

“While work is in-progress, precautions have been taken to prevent future fire alarms related to the issue,” the email read. “We are confident any future fire alarms will not be related to this ongoing issue.”

The Office of Facilities Management did not specify what is-

sue had caused the fire alarms.

The email followed an alarm that went off at approximately 3 a.m. on Feb. 9, which caused many residents to feel the university was failing to address the root of the problem.

Southwest Quad resident Nabil Kapasi (SFS ’20) said the frequency of the alarms should have been cause for greater concern.

“The inability to control fire alarms showed a serious lack of urgency by the administration. It went off multiple times before the night alarm, so it wasn’t a random occurrence,” Kapasi said. “The fact that they hadn’t dealt with it before throwing hundreds of students into the cold at 3 a.m. is appalling and almost unbelievable; how can such an important thing, something that impacts our homes, be left untreated?”

Southwest Quad resident Ana Madero (SFS ’20) expressed a similar sentiment regarding the lack of action on the university’s part.

“I’d say the worst part is the lack of accountability from the university,” Madero said.

“All we would get is an email saying, ‘sorry for the inconvenience’ with no logical reasoning behind them.”

The university stressed the importance of building occupants evacuating immediately after the fire alarm sounds in the Feb. 9 email.

“Moving forward, should the fire alarm activate in your building, it remains extremely important that you continue to treat these alarms seriously,” the email said. “Your safety remains our highest priority.”

However, the repeated alarms over the last few weeks have caused the significance of each to diminish, according to Southwest Quad resident Youngho Yun (MSB ’20).

“The biggest problem I see is people taking fire alarms lightly now,” Yun said. “I’ve seen some people go back into their rooms and wait it out, instead of walking out of the building.”

Madero noticed a similar trend of students ignoring the fire alarms.

“I’m just worried that this has caused a ‘boy who cried wolf’ type of situation,” Madero said.

The university will notify all Southwest Quad residents via email of the reason for future fire alarm activations within 12 hours of each alarm, according to the Feb 9. email.

file photo: Spencer Cook/The hoya

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) spoke on the merits of D.C. as a potential location for new and expanding technology businesses in Silicon Valley, Calif., last week.

Bowser Travels to Silicon Valley, Pitches DC as New Tech Hub Emma Kotfica Hoya Staff Writer

Amanda Van Orden For the hoya

Five fire alarms have gone off in the past three weeks in Southwest Quad, requiring residents to evacuate. The cause of the fire alarms has been identified and is being addressed by Planning and Facilities Management.

DC Council Passes Public Campaign Funding Bill Emily leng

Hoya Staff Writer

The Washington, D.C. Council passed legislation last week authorizing publicly financed campaigns, a move that comes in the middle of the 2018 D.C. mayoral campaign season.

Dubbed the Fair Elections Act, the bill would allow candidates to receive 5-to-1 matching funds from the city if they restrict their fundraising to only city residents, with individual donations not to exceed $50. The legislation would also only apply to mayoral, attorney general, D.C. council and school board candidates.

Councilmember David Grosso (I-At Large) and Councilmember Charles Allen (DWard 6), introduced the most recent iteration of the bill, after multiple previous attempts to pass the bill in earlier council periods.

Erik Salmi, the communications director for Allen said this bill has the potential to change the way candidates campaign and interact with their constituents.

“It’s going to change the incentives for candidates for office to spend more of their time with D.C. residents rather than dialing for dollars with the more typical older, whiter, wealthier audiences who can afford to make a maximum donation,” Saimi said.

Supporters of the bill, such as James Butler, a candidate in the 2018 D.C. mayoral race, also believe that it will give

more power to smaller donors and local candidates, helping to level the playing field against wealthier and more established candidates.

“Fair Elections would give a voice and a chance to candidates like myself by the city matching contributions of those small donors,” Butler said.

However, the bill has also garnered some opposition, most notably from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. A spokeswoman for Bowser said she believes the funds necessary to finance the bill are a waste of taxpayer money.

“With so many pressing needs for residents, it is not prudent to divert tax dollars from hiring more police, investing in housing or fixing our roads to paying for robocalls, negative attack ads and donor receptions,” LaToya Foster, a spokeswoman for Bowser, wrote in an email to The Hoya.

In response to the criticism, Salmi said the impact that the allocation of funds would have on the budget is small in comparison to the lasting benefits the bill would bring to D.C. voters.

“D.C. already spends quite a bit of money on our election system,” Salmi said. “To say it’s a waste of taxpayer money, I just don’t think it’s a fair criticism of investing in the health of our democracy, and opening it up to more people, and really ensuring that D.C. voters trust that this is a process they can get behind.”

The legislation likely will

not take effect until the 2020 elections, but its recent passing in council comes ahead of the 2018 D.C. mayoral election, for which Bowser has already announced her bid for re-election.

The District’s Democratic primary race is often a good indicator of the outcome of the general election, due to D.C.’s strong Democratic leanings. Aside from Bowser, there are a number of declared candidates, including James Butler, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for Ward 5, Manley Collins, an AmeriCorps service member and Michael Christian Woods, a 19-year-old student at The George Washington University.

Apart from the Democratic challengers, independent candidate Dustin Canter has also declared. As an independent, he highlighted some of the difficulties in running a serious campaign.

Running against an incumbent mayor poses a series of challenges, one of the largest being fundraising, according to Butler. Bowser has already raised close to $2 million for her 2018 campaign, and is on track to match or exceed her 2014 sum. Butler said it was difficult competing against someone so established with the ability to raise large sums of money.

“Money is the big challenge,” Butler said. “A lot of people know that these records become public, so they’re a little bit reticent to give because they don’t want their name placed on the public campaign roll.”

Touting Washington, D.C. as an up-and-coming hotspot for various technology companies, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) led a city economic planning team to Silicon Valley to pitch the District as a prime location for new businesses.

Bowsers team met with a wide array of tech companies, including the Kapor Center for Social Impact, Apple, Uber, Lyft, Cisco, Yelp, sap.io and Mapbox on Feb. 9.

Bowser and Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Brian Kenner’s visit to Silicon Valley follows Amazon’s announcement that both Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia had made the short list of 20 finalists for the location of its new headquarters.

Chanda Washington, director of communications in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, said the information included in the city’s Amazon bid was also used in the presentations with tech companies in Silicon Valley.

“We were planning for the West Coast Mission during the summer of 2017,” Washington wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“Initially we had hoped to travel in October but postponed the trip when Amazon released its RFP [Request for Proposals]. As we were preparing our Amazon bid in October, we saw an opportunity to use the same information to showcase

what makes D.C. a great place to grow a business.”

Washington said that the overall response to the presentation from companies was positive, citing people with connections to the District working in Silicon Valley as a positive influence.

“The response was positive,” Washington wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Tech companies and organizations see the strength of DC’s tech scene and welcomed our discussions regarding how to build upon it. Interestingly, with each group, we met someone with a D.C. connection which demonstrates the vitality of our tech community.”

The Office of the Deputy Mayor has been working to make D.C. a more entrepreneurial city through a number of projects that aim to increase racial and economic diversity and foster a more inclusive environment for entrepreneurs. “[We are] invested in organizations like IN3 and Beacon to ensure there is a diverse and inclusive tech scene in the District [and] in the creation of the Director of Tech Sector Engagement position at the Washington DC Economic Partnership,” Washington wrote. “Within the office of the Deputy Mayor, we also have a team devoted to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the District.”

The Office of the Mayor put in a Request for Information regarding the implementation of a new program called the Inclusive Innovation Fund. on Feb. 6. The goal of the RFI is to

obtain feedback from investment professionals and entrepreneurs in D.C. about potential partnerships, investment capital needs and program design.

“The project seeks to increase access to capital for DC entrepreneurs, and particularly for underrepresented entrepreneurs, such as people of color and women by creating an investment fund focused on early stage ventures,” according to a Feb. 6 news release from the Office of the Mayor.

According to Washington, though the visit to Silicon Valley was not directly related to the Inclusive Innovation Fund, it provided a platform for potential investors to respond to the RFI. “We used the trip to share information about our effort to create an Inclusive Innovation Fund. It gave us an opportunity to put the Request for Information in front of potential investors who might have insight about how to create the fund,” Washington said.

Kenner said the Inclusive Innovation Fund is an important step forward for the future of D.C.’s entrepreneurial community.

“Washington continues to rank No. 1 as a place for entrepreneurs who are women or people of color to thrive, but there are barriers that still need to break down, including access to capital,” Kenner said in a statement to radio station WTOP. The Office of the Mayor could not be reached for comment.

Heaviest Rainfall of Year Causes Flooding in Yates Field House Will cassou Hoya Staff Writer

Facilities at Yates Field House flooded on Sunday as a result of the heavy rain Washington, D.C., experienced over the weekend.

Yates was closed all of Sunday for repairs, but reopened Monday.

Between two and three inches of rain fell this weekend, according to The Washington Post. Rainfall accumulated on Kehoe Field, which sits atop Yates’ roof, and overflowed into the facilities through one of the areaways on the field. More rain has fallen in the first two weeks of February this year than fell in November, December and January combined, The Washington Post reported.

Meghan Dimsa (GRD ’13), director of Yates, said the building was closed to make repairs necessary for its operation.

“To ensure the safety of students, faculty, and staff it was necessary to close the facility to extract the water, clean the affected areas and inspect the safety of equipment and electrical outlets. We appreciate the swift and thorough responses that allowed us to reopen Monday,” Dimsa wrote

in an email to The Hoya.

Yates is currently operational, though adjustments were made to be ready for Monday operation. According to an email sent to Yates staff members from Dimsa, the weights and squat racks had to be moved from the areas where they are continuing to extract water. Dimsa also wrote that a risk management agent came to ensure Yates was ready to resume normal operations before the gym opened on Monday.

Kehoe Field has had drainage problems in the past, due to structural issues the university is currently in the process of addressing.

Yates’ lightweight concrete roof does not properly drain rainwater, which has caused the field and the roof itself to deteriorate from the accumulating water, as The Hoya reported in October (“University to Reconstruct Kehoe Field following Board Approval,” The Hoya, Oct. 6m 2017, A1). Since 1979, the field has been significantly repaired twice, costing $1.8 million in 1987 and an additional $7 million in 2002.

Rachel Pugh, Georgetown University’s senior director for strate-

gic communications, confirmed there is ongoing work to repair Kehoe in an email to The Hoya.

The university has also explored plans for the long-term future of Yates in conjunction with long-term master planning and future capital campaigns, which will ultimately culminate in the demolition of Yates by 2036.

After the university conducted a feasibility study on short-term replacements for Kehoe Field last year, the board of directors committed to invest $500,000 in October in an engineering plan that will include construction documents, schedules and estimated costs for the temporary repair of the field, according to an Oct. 5 news release from the university.

“This is an important project for our community,” Todd Olson, vice president for student affairs, said in the news release.

“After studying options to replace the field surface, we are pleased to be moving forward with plans for a replacement that will restore three acres of recreational space for our community and allow numerous club and intramural sports to practice and compete on campus.”

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Arkema, Compo Poke Fun Estes, Howell Tackle Costs ARKEMA, from A1 done super seriously. We are college students and if there’s one time to have fun and take life back a little bit, it’s right now,” Arkema said.

Arkema and Compo are running against Hunter Estes (SFS ’19) and Richard Howell (SFS ’19), Sahil Nair (SFS ’19) and Naba Rahman (SFS ’19), and Josh Siriois (SFS ’20) and Casey Doherty (COL ’20). Election day is set for Feb. 22.

Past satirical candidates include a 2016 ticket filed on behalf of two popular sandwiches served at Wisemiller’s grocery store and deli, the Chicken Madness and the Hot Chick. The most recent winning satirical ticket, former GUSA president Joe Luther (COL ’16) and vice president Connor Rohan (COL ’16) originally ran as a satirical ticket in 2015, but developed robust policy platforms on mental health and sexual assault over the course of the campaign.

Arkema also said the other campaigns’ wide-ranging policy platforms — Sirois and Doherty’s platform consists of 24 major planks, while Nair and Rahman’s has 30 — make it difficult for students to discern their true priorities.

Arkema’s campaign declared four significant staff members to the GUSA Election Commission, including the current and former chairpersons of the Georgetown University College Democrats, Maria Cornell (SFS ’20) and Larry Huang (COL ’19). Arkema is membership director of GUCD. Arkema currently serves as a GUSA senator representing South-

west Quad in the voice and character of Batman; he was elected in the fall running on the sole promise to conduct all official senate business as Batman. Colleagues interviewed by The Hoya say Arkema has held true to his promise, but has also largely taken his work in the senate seriously.

A member of the Georgetown Solidarity Committee, a workers’ rights advocacy group, Arkema has focused on labor issues in the senate, meeting weekly with the graduate student unionization drive led by the Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees.

“It is possible to take issues that affect us seriously without necessarily taking ourselves with the same level of seriousness,” Arkema said.

While Arkema said GUSA is filled with people who want to see change, he believes many members become more concerned with putting their name on something, inflating their egos or building their resumes than on achieving results. The association also tends to be too insular, Arkema said.

“Everyone mentions these things, all the problems that I’ve listed, but no one takes concrete action to differ from that.”

Arkema clarified that he respects the “vast majority of the candidates currently running” and would be willing to work with whichever ticket wins.

“But I also think that constructive satirical criticism is something that’s worth being engaged in,” Arkema said.

Representatives of two other campaigns — Sirois and Doherty’s and Nair and Rahman’s — have

met with Arkema and said they would be open to discussing workers’ rights issues, Arkema said.

Compo, Arkema’s running mate has been with Arkema from the beginning of what they call his Batman “shenanigans.” Compo was the only person listed on Arkema’s senate campaign staff in the fall, and acts as an informal adviser to Arkema in his senate capacity, according to Arkema.

Compo was unavailable Saturday afternoon for an interview with The Hoya.

While Arkema and Compo emphasized they do not want to win, he presented a “victory contingency plan” in case they do; he said it would be “irresponsible” not to be prepared to govern in the unlikely scenario that they are elected.

The contingency plan includes assembling an administration through an “open and transparent application process” for every position. None of the members of their campaign have been promised any positions, according to a flyer summarizing the plan provided to The Hoya. The plan also includes their only serious policy proposal: encouraging professors to use open-source textbooks.

Arkema said he would still conduct most business as Batman, he said he may break character in meetings with administrators or other settings that call for seriousness. And, Arkema added, staying in the Batman voice can be a strain.

“I am very confident that I have lacerated my voice over the past five months,” Arkema said.

Sirois, Doherty Urge Unity SIROIS, from A1 Council and is a coordinator for Georgetown Opportunities for Leadership Development. She is from Glennville, New York.

Sirois and Doherty are running against three other tickets: Logan Arkema (COL ’20) and Jonathan Compo (COL ’20), Hunter Estes (SFS ’19) and Richard Howell (SFS ’19), and Sahil Nair (SFS ’19) and Naba Rahman (SFS ’19). The election is set for Feb. 22.

Sirois first considered running last year after current GUSA President Kamar Mack (COL ’19), then a sophomore, ran successfully for GUSA president alongside current GUSA Vice President Jessica Andino (COL ’18).

Sirois campaigned for one of the tickets opposing Mack, Garet Williams (COL ’18) and Habon Ali (SFS ’18).

Initially, Sirois planned to run with Precious King (SFS ’20), but King stepped down shortly after winter break. Sirois and Doherty said King resigned for “personal reasons,” which they declined to specify. King declined to comment on her resignation.

Doherty, who originally led the campaign’s policy team, replaced King as the vice presidential candidate in late January. King continues to work on the campaign as an adviser.

Sirois and Doherty are running on a wide-ranging platform addressing 24 policy areas. In a Saturday interview with The Hoya, they emphasized that their ideas — organized into three pillars of affordability and access, student health and wellness and student empowerment — will produce concrete and specific results.

Sirois said he plans to concentrate on affordability and access if elected. On the issue of accessibility, he plans to advocate for a handicapped-accessible entrance on Lauinger Library’s first floor.

Long term, Sirois said he wants meal plans to include more flex dollars, so students do not waste meal swipes on lower-priced items. Sirois and Doherty also expressed support for Hoya Hub, an on-campus food pantry that

members of GUSA are developing to counter food insecurity.

Sirois and Doherty’s affordability plan focuses on academic and cost-of-living expenses, such as restructuring meal plans and encouraging professors to upload textbooks online. They also promised to advocate increased transparency and student involvement in the tuition-setting process, but called Estes and Howell’s calls for a tuition freeze for current students “unrealistic.”

Doherty also pledged to concentrate on safety and combatting sexual assault. She proposed registration holds for students who fail to complete bystander training and a potential partnership with New Student Orientation to include sexual health and relationships programming.

Throughout their policy proposals, Sirois and Doherty stressed student empowerment, which they connected to one of their selfidentified strengths: building relationships.

“So many of these ideas and these plans didn’t just come from Casey and I’s minds. We have sat down with club leaders. I sat down with [Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Services], and the president said he doesn’t think in history, any other GUSA candidate has sat down and asked them what they think,” Sirois said.

Sirois and Doherty are the only sophomores among this year’s non-satirical candidates, a class status they acknowledge some students may perceive as a weakness. Instead, they framed it as a strength.

“It’s been described as a weakness that we are both sophomores, but I think that at Georgetown it honestly makes a lot of sense,” Sirois said.

“We’re not going to be here in the fall looking for jobs, we’re going to be living right on campus. This is our prime dedication.”

Georgetown has elected at least two all-sophomore executive teams since 1969, according to GUSA historian Ari Goldstein (COL ’18). The most recent all-sophomore ticket elected GUSA president and vice president served in 2009, according to Goldstein.

Both Sirois and Doherty also

noted that they have pledged to stay on campus for the summer, noting a contrast with Rahman, one of the other vice presidential candidates, who plans to spend most of the summer interning for Morgan Stanley in New York. GUSA bylaws require presidents to stay in Washington, D.C., during the summer months but do not impose restrictions on vice presidents.

Some students may portray them as a GUSA establishment ticket, as Sirois and Doherty acknowledged. Since the fall of their freshman year, Sirois has served in the GUSA senate and Doherty has worked in the GUSA executive. Eight of the 12 campaign staff members listed on their website are involved in GUSA. Still, the pair have sought to distance themselves from the stigma associated with “GUSA insiders,” vowing in a message on their campaign website to reform the association “made up of an often-insular Executive and the same group of Senators each year.”

Their ideas to make GUSA more inclusive include creating a GUSA general body, which would meet regularly and allow students to get involved without joining any particular policy coalition.

Doherty emphasized in Saturday’s interview that she and Sirois have “new, actionable, concrete ideas that aren’t just playing off what the current administration has done.”

Sirois said understanding the GUSA system would help them advance their policy goals.

“The ins and outs of GUSA I do know pretty well. I’d say that’s one of the most important qualifications of doing this job. There’s a drastic learning curve, and we saw that, honestly, with Kamar and Jessica,” Sirois said.

Sirois, Doherty and their campaign team encouraged students to vote based on candidates’ policy proposals rather than social media pages and publicity efforts.

“We really feel like we created the best policy — the most actionable, concrete and specific — that we can start to implement right away,” Doherty said. “We know that not everything GUSA does is sexy, but it does need to be done, and the projects really do create positive change.”

FILE PHOTO: ANNE STONECIPHER/THE HOYA

As the Feb. 22 election day approaches in the Georgeotwn University Student Association executive campaign, The Hoya interviewed each ticket on their policy priorities and qualifications.

ESTES, from A1 Estes and Howell said they have devoted much of their time on campus to giving back to the Georgetown community.

A Maryland native, Estes has led Georgetown’s chapter of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic service fraternal organization. He was also elected to the GUSA senate last year and served on the Finance and Appropriations Committee, which allocates over $1 million to student groups each year. Estes has also worked on GUSA’s free speech policy team, and he served on the board of the Georgetown University College Republicans in 2016.

Howell comes from a small rural town in southern New Jersey.

He has worked with Estes as a member of the Knights of Columbus and the GUSA free speech policy team. Howell has also served as treasurer of GUCR and sits on the associate board of the Lecture Fund, which organizes speaker events on campus.

Estes and Howell said they first met during the second lecture of their freshman year economics class after Estes accidentally flung a pen across the classroom into the back of Howell’s head. They then bonded over their similar extracurricular interests and points of view.

“We thrive off each other.

We’re energized by similar commitments and we formed bonds through similar desires in terms of what we want to do in our time here,” Estes said.

The pair only decided to run for the GUSA executive in the last three weeks after another ticket they had planned to support dropped out, Estes said.

Estes and Howell’s platform focuses on three core planks: cost, community and charity.

The pair’s plan to reduce costs includes advocating for a tuition-freeze policy, which would guarantee that each student pays the same tuition for the duration of their time at Georgetown, pushing the university to dismiss “redundant” administrators and asking professors to reduce textbook expenses by pledging to post their own textbooks and sections from other books online.

The pair said their platform on cutting cost is “ambitious,” but rightly so.

“Honestly, I don’t understand what the purpose of the student government would be if it weren’t trying to tackle this problem,” Howell said.

All three of the ticket’s major affordability proposals have been discussed at some level by Georgetown administrators, according to

Estes. He said their goals are achievable in the hands of a GUSA executive willing to “actually stand up to the administration.”

If nothing else, Estes said, they hope their campaign will pressure the administration to take the issue of tuition costs more seriously.

The candidates’ second platform plank, community, is inspired by Estes and Howell’s concern that the student body shares too few common experiences at Georgetown that make them feel welcome and united.

“We thrive off each other.

We’re energized by similar commitments.” hunter estes (sfs ’19)

Apart from a commitment to organize more community events, the second plank includes a range of policy priorities, including improving accessibility, expanding access to stipends for off-campus mental health care and increasing sexual assault awareness and training.

With their third plank, charity, Estes and Howell hope to instill a “culture of service” at Georgetown.

They plan to organize a community service day and encourage student groups and individuals to organize their own community service projects.

In their GUSA budget proposal submitted to the Election Commission on Wednesday, Estes and Howell request $17,500, a relatively lean total compared with Nair and Rahman’s $25,325 request and Sirois and Doherty’s $28,000 request.

Estes said he stands out among the other presidential candidates because of his range of GUSA expertise and his relationships with administrators and alumni, which he said would help the pair advance their policy goals. Estes has worked with administrators as a student representative on the university’s Speech and Expression Committee and last year on the executive board of the Alumni Association.

As vice president, Howell said he would bring an outsider’s perspective to GUSA that resonates with a common criticism that GUSA is small, insular and self-serving. Last year’s executive election saw a 38 percent turnout from the student body.

“A lot of people are turned off by the student government on this campus. Voter turnout is abysmally low,” Howell said. “A big part of

this is how do we get GUSA to better interact with the students?”

With their similar personal backgrounds and conservative views, the candidates said their main shortcomings as a ticket concern their ability to represent the entire student body.

“We recognize that we’re conservative students; we’re Catholic students. We know what communities we’ve been involved in on campus and which we haven’t,” Estes said.

In the GUSA senate, Estes was the only senator to vote against two resolutions expressing opposition to two of President Donald Trump’s executive orders, which affected Georgetown students, one on the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration policy and one on a travel ban against seven Muslimmajority countries, according to public voting records and various then-senators serving with Estes.

Last October, Estes publicly defended the socially conservative views of Love Saxa, a student group that promotes traditional views of marriage and sexuality, amid calls for the university to strip the group’s funding by students who claimed the group’s stance on gay marriage fostered hatred against LGBTQ students.

Estes said he does not agree with all of Love Saxa’s views, and insisted he would defend the rights of any group on campus whether he agreed with them or not. While working on GUSA’s free speech policy team, he said, he worked with the president of the proabortion rights group H*yas for Choice to defend the group’s right to promote its views on campus.

“We’re here to love every student, to fight for every student and the causes that are brought to us that need to be fought for,” Estes said.

The candidates hope to unify the student body around the issues they plan to work on, including improving campus accessibility and expanding access to mental health care. Specifically, Estes said the ticket’s focus on affordability speaks to a common Georgetown experience.

“We were brought here on financial aid. We’re both here on scholarships. I’m working two jobs just to support my time to even be here at Georgetown. And that’s an issue that a lot of students relate to. That goes beyond skin color, that goes beyond our beliefs,” Estes said. “I ask that you evaluate us based on our policies, based on our platform, for what we believe is good for the student body.”

Nair, Rahman Push Health NAIR, from A1 ’19), and Josh Sirois (SFS ’20) and Casey Doherty (COL ’20) in the Feb. 22 election.

Nair is director of external outreach at Innovo Consulting, a group that connects social entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations to Georgetown students.

He was born in India, but moved with his family to Kentucky when two years old, where he was the only person of color in his elementary school and the first student from his high school to attend Georgetown.

Rahman was the secretary general of the National Collegiate Security Conference, a model United Nations conference for college students, last semester and has been involved with the Social Innovation and Public Service Fund, a $1.5 million student-run fund that allocates grant money to student and alumni social ventures.

A Mississippi native, Rahman said her experiences growing up shaped their campaign’s main promise.

“I am Muslim, Pakistani and I’m a woman, so for me I always found myself never really part of the group,” Rahman said.

The pair began discussing a potential ticket in mid-November over lunch in O’Donovan Hall.

Rahman first approached Nair with the idea, according to him.

“It was something Naba was thinking about seriously first,” Nair said. “I then came back to her and said this is not only something I think you should just do but something we should do together.”

Nair and Rahman are running on a broad platform covering 30 policy areas. Their platform is built on three themes: inclusion, opportunity and accountability. Rahman said GUSA alienates most Georgetown students, which the pair seek to rectify by actively engaging more student clubs.

Nair emphasized the participatory nature of their platform.

Many of their points emphasize dialogue, soliciting student input on issues and connecting students to relevant campus resources.

“Naba and I are running on the

credo that every voice matters,” Nair said. “The way we want to organize this campaign and this administration is increasing the base-line quality of a Georgetown students experience here.”

In particular, the pair seek to prioritize mental and sexual health. Nair and Rahman said they plan to increase funding for the mental health stipend, which will provide off-campus mental health support for 10 to 20 students with demonstrated financial need, and offer private weekly STI screenings at the student health center.

Academic affairs are another priority for the ticket. Nair wants Georgetown to offer college minor programs to students in all undergraduate schools and to schedule more study days before final exams.

Their platform also includes increased funding for GUSA Fund — a discretionary budget that directs funds from the student activities fee — from $15,000 to $20,000. They also plan to direct the funds resources to three key areas: student wellness, innovation and diversity and inclusion.

Nair and Rahman emphasized the role they would play in facilitating other students’ ideas in addition to promoting their own priorities. Rahman said GUSA currently places the responsibility on students to seek out GUSA’s help.

“That should not be the case,” Rahman said. “The onus should not be on you as students, rather it should be on us as GUSA to reach out to you.”

The pair proposed community advisory groups in which student groups would get face-to-face time with the executive on a rotating basis. Rahman said this open-door policy would allow more students the chance to voice their opinions.

A potential weakness for the pair lies in their relatively limited GUSA experience and their lack of relationships with GUSA leadership and university administrators, as Nair and Rahman acknowledged. Rahman served on GUSA’s Federal and D.C. Relations committee, a part of the GUSA executive, for six months while Nair has no past GUSA experience.

“Sahil and I are not immune to

the fact that we do not have the GUSA experience that some other people may,” Rahman said.

Nair said the pair would use their experience as leaders in other student organizations to develop relationships with administrators. He added he is an “ideas-driven person” and “an individual that enjoys building relationships and communicating.”

Their external experiences in other student organizations provides the pair with a perspective on where GUSA’s shortcomings are, Rahman said. “We’ve both seen what GUSA looks like from the outside, and we have seen the resources that are available but are not communicated out nor are connected to the student body.”

Another potential liability for the campaign is Rahman’s plan not to stay on campus for the summer. She has accepted a summer internship with Morgan Stanley in New York.

Per GUSA bylaws, the president must stay on campus for the duration of the summer. While there is no such requirement for vice presidents, vice presidential candidates Doherty and Howell have committed to staying in Washington, D.C., if elected. Rahman pledged to commute to D.C. on weekends.

“I’ll be going back and forth, it’s been done before, it can be done again,” Rahman said. “It is a bit foolish to think that just because the two executives are here in D.C., the entire GUSA administration is going to be running.”

After speaking with current GUSA President Kamar Mack (COL ’19), Nair said they plan to involve their policy heads as much as possible over the summer to prepare for the academic year.

Nair emphasized GUSA’s influence on campus, particularly as a tool for agenda-setting.

“When GUSA talks about an issue, it’s what this campus talks about, it’s what our publications write about and it’s what our administrations are going to be hearing about,” Nair said. “So being participatory and soliciting those ideas from students is exactly what GUSA should be doing.”

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GUSA VP Candidates Debate University Pushes for Dream Act Sarah Mendelsohn Hoya Staff Writer

Three Georgetown University Student Association vice presidential candidates discussed their plans to make GUSA more inclusive and increase affordability for students at a debate held Wednesday evening.

Richard Howell (SFS ’19), Naba Rahman (SFS ’19) and Casey Doherty (COL ’20) discussed policy issues including mental health, affordability and inclusivity at the debate, which was organized by the GUSA Election Commission in the Intercultural Center.

Vice-presidential candidate Jonathan Compo (COL ’20) did not participate in the debate.

Campus media, including The Hoya, the Georgetown Voice, the Georgetown Review and the Georgetown Heckler along with GUSA senate’s Financial and Appropriations Committee and the audience asked the candidates questions.

The three candidates outlined their campaign platforms in their opening statements.

Doherty and Josh Sirois (SFS ’20) plan to deliver actionable policies to increase GUSA’s accessibility to students, while Rahman and Sahil Nair (SFS ’19) aim to cultivate an inclusive platform driven by students’ needs.

Howell and Hunter Estes (SFS ’19) are running on a platform of reducing tuition costs, creating a stronger sense of community at Georgetown and encouraging a culture of charity and community service projects.

The candidates discussed GUSA apathy on campus and presented their campaigns’ strategies for addressing that problem.

Nair and Rahman plan to reach out to clubs on campus in an effort to connect students to GUSA’s resources. GUSA must empower students to participate in its policy-

making process, Rahman said.

“One thing that Sahil and I are pushing for are the community voices initiatives. Basically, we recognize this is a campus run by clubs, not necessarily by students, so what we want to do is have a rotating roundtable, essentially, where each club at one point in the semester can have face time with the executive,” Rahman said.

Doherty discussed her ticket’s plan to create a GUSA general body, which would widen its student engagement on campus regarding the organization’s policy debates.

“What we want to do is have a monthly meeting where students can come in and hear from the different policy teams about what they’re working on and they can get involved with a very specific project,” Doherty said.

Howell said he and Estes would work to make GUSA more interactive with the student body.

“We’re tired of seeing an insular, closed-off GUSA that doesn’t interact with the student body, and that passes resolutions only to improve its resume,” Howell said.

The candidates all offered plans for reducing the cost of attending Georgetown. Estes and Howell’s plan calls for a leaner GUSA budget. The ticket has also pledged to push the university to implement a tuition-freeze policy, in which a student’s tuition rate would remain the same throughout their four years at Georgetown.

“I think a huge problem is the fact that every year, tuition increases,” Howell said.

Doherty and Sirois’ plan does not directly address the cost of tuition, instead focusing on cutting costs for meal plans and textbooks.

They proposed an online textbook trading hub that would give students access to cheaper class materials. Doherty also called for more transparency in the tuition-setting process.

“We also want more transparency, so we want students in with the provost discussing tuition in general,” Doherty said.

Rahman called for more flexible meal plans and a wider range of dining options to make the dining system more accessible. “[We want to] make sure we advocate for smaller meal plans with our actual contractor, making sure to advocate for an open dining plan in order to ensure that the system we have right now is more accessible and has more options,” Rahman said.

The candidates also focused on how to improve mental health initiatives on campus. Doherty said she and Sirois intend to expand the availability of mental health resources for students.

“Josh and I hope to increase resources for CAPS [Counseling and Psychiatric Services] and transparency surrounding mental health issues,” Doherty said.

Rahman called for increased resources for CAPS and more funding for the GUSA mental health stipend program, which is currently slated to provide financial aid for off-campus counseling for 10 to 20 students.

“Regarding the stipend itself, I think it’s great, [but it] doesn’t go far enough financially,” Rahman said.

Howell echoed the call for increased resources for students regarding mental health, but advocated for a focus on meditation and teaching students methods for dealing with stress.

“I would like to work first with the John Main Center and NSO [New Student Orientation] to teach reflective, meditative and coping methods with stress,” Howell said.

The debate ended with two-anda-half minute closing statements from each candidate. The presidential debate will be held Monday, Feb. 19 in the Healey Family Student Center at 7:30 p.m.

Sarah Mendelsohn Hoya Staff Writer

As debate stalls in the U.S. Senate over a replacement to the rescinded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Georgetown University administrators and students are pushing forward with efforts to lobby for permanent legal protections for students without documentation.

On Sep. 5, 2017 President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded DACA, an administrative program instituted under former President Barack Obama that provided work authorization and legal protection to about 800,000 immigrants without documentation who entered the United States as children. The rescission included a six-month delay for Congress to find a permanent replacement.

Democrats in Congress tried unsuccessfully to include a legislative DACA replacement in the 2018 budget bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that debate on an immigration bill would be limited to this week, as party leaders have struggled to reach a deal, according to Politico.

Georgetown will continue to support DACA recipients and advocate for the passage of the Dream Act, a legislative proposal that would provide permanent protection and a path to citizenship for DACA recipients. Rachel Pugh, Georgetown’s senior director for strategic communications, reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to students without documentation and advocacy for the Dream Act in an email to The Hoya.

“Georgetown is deeply disappointed that Congress has not yet passed legislation that protects DREAMERS,” Pugh wrote.

“As the Senate debates immigration legislation this week, we

will continue advocating for the DREAM Act and efforts to protect our DREAMERS. We remain committed to supporting our undocumented students and will work alongside peers, students and policymakers to protect DREAMERS.” University administrators plan to push forward with Dream Act lobbying efforts. Since the fall, University President John J. DeGioia has led a campaign to advocate for the bill, including sending letters to members of Congress and alumni. DeGioia called the Trump administration’s rescission of DACA “unconscionable” hours after it was announced.

Georgetown’s Office of Federal Relations plans to continue its advocacy for the passage of the Dream Act, which includes collaborations with other institutions. Associate Vice President for Federal Relations Scott Fleming said his office has worked with other educational institutions such as the American Council on Education, an organization of U.S. colleges and universities, and 17 other Jesuit colleges to pressure Congress to find a legislative alternative to DACA. Arelis Palacios, the university’s associate director for undocumented student services, said future assistance will be tailored to each student, but declined to detail the assistance currently provided to students without documentation because of the individualized nature of the services.

One of the resources available to Georgetown students without documentation is free legal aid through two Catholic Charities locations in Washington, D.C. The Georgetown University Student Association continued its own advocacy efforts most recently by hosting a phone bank on Feb. 1. About 150 students called their representatives in

Congress to express their support for legislation to protect DACA recipients, according to Chas Newman (MSB ’18), co-secretary of congressional relations on the GUSA Federal and D.C. Relations Committee.

Palacios said the Feb. 1 phone bank was an important effort by the Georgetown community to demonstrate collective support for protecting DACA recipients.

“This was a tremendous display of allyship from student leaders and peers in support of our undocumented student population,” Palacios wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Casey Doherty (COL ’20), also co-secretary of congressional relations for the GUSA Federal and D.C. Relations Committee, emphasized the role phone banks play in helping students voice their opinions about DACA. Doherty is currently running for vice president of GUSA. “We’ve had a couple different advocacy weeks and events regarding DACA, but we have always done a phone bank because we think that reaching out directly is effective,” Doherty said.

In December, GUSA held a weeklong GUHeretoStay campaign, an advocacy week that included letter-writing, a phone bank and a social media initiative that culminated in a demonstration on Capitol Hill. Newman said students are considering a final push for legislation to protect DACA recipients this spring.

“We want people who don’t necessarily fall within the community to care and understand that while you might not be a ‘Dreamer,’ the person sitting next to you might be, and is just as smart as you and just as engaged on campus and proud to be an American as you are,” Doherty said. “What we’re trying to do is make students aware and also make elected officials aware that students do care.”

1-Credit Language Classes in Talks Caroline Gardner Hoya Staff Writer

A student-led proposal for onecredit foreign language classes faces resistance from the Faculty of Language and Linguistics despite strong demonstrated student interest.

In a push to establish onecredit foreign language courses, members of the School of Foreign Service Academic Council have begun to survey students from across all four schools using Google Forms to gauge their interest.

Ines Oulamine (SFS ’20), a representative from the SFSAC, created and distributed the survey with the intention of taking the results to the SFS Dean’s Office and language administrators this semester.

So far, 175 students have filled out the survey; 61.7 percent of students who indicated their interest have already achieved proficiency, with 50 percent of those students having demonstrated their proficiency in Spanish.

Students from all four undergraduate schools have expressed interest, Oulamine said, though 85 percent of interested students surveyed were in the SFS. If approved, students across all four schools at Georgetown could register for the one-credit language courses, but these courses would be highly recommended only for those students who have already achieved language proficiency or completed an Advanced II-level class.

Faculty of Languages and Linguistics convener Josiah Osgood said SFS Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Affairs Daniel Byman presented the department with the idea of one-credit

language courses in October. After much discussion, the faculty collectively decided against the proposal, Osgood said.

“It is our collective view that while one-credit classes may make sense in some contexts, in general they are not a good fit for languages. We don’t think enough can be accomplished in one hour a week or the equivalent to make them worthwhile,” Osgood wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Osgood said one-credit language classes do not adequately meet the demands of language learning.

“Indeed, we think they potentially send a misleading message about what it takes to achieve or sustain true fluency. We explained this in an email to the SFS deans in October,” Osgood wrote.

Many students who responded to Oulamine’s survey expressed frustration that they could not currently fit two or more languages in their schedules.

Christine McNeill (SFS ’20) began a second language after completing her French minor last summer. McNeill said she sees the potential one-credit language courses as an opportunity to fit French classes back into her schedule.

“I miss taking a French class and I can’t do it; I literally won’t be able to graduate on time. So I feel like for people who completed their minors or don’t have room to take a language anymore, this would be a great way to supplement your courses while still continuing to study a language you care about,” McNeill said.

Oulamine began the initiative because of her own struggle to balance both Arabic and French

courses in her schedule after attaining proficiency in French during the fall of her freshman year.

“If I wanted to take a French class on top of Arabic, I’d be looking at 18 credits a semester for two or three years, and that’s just not feasible for me,” Oulamine said.

Osgood, instead, pointed to the already available “language tables” as a way for students to maintain proficiency without creating new one-credit courses.

The language tables, organized by their respective departments, meet regularly and allow students of all levels to practice their speaking outside the classroom.

Oulamine felt language tables did not provide the desired environment for maintaining proficiency.

“One credits are a lot more structured than that, and they are centered around a theme.

Like the French presidency or the crisis in Venezuela,” Oulamine said. “Because the content of these classes, I saw this as a really helpful way for students to be able to maintain their language skills and discuss some current social and political topic happening in the country of that language.”

Oulamine said she believes this structure would have a positive effect on the Georgetown education.

“This would be a really great way to ensure students graduate in full confidence that they can speak that language,” Oulamine said. “My role on the academic council is to just mobilize as much student support as possible and to really show the school that this is something that a lot of us care about.”

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The Georgetown University Student Association’s Federal and D.C. Relations Committee held a phone bank Feb. 1 for students to call their representatives and voice support for a Dream Act.

GU Announces Master’s in Aging Jessica lin

Special to The Hoya

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is set to introduce an interdisciplinary Master of Science in Aging and Health degree program next fall to confront issues facing an increasingly senior and aging population in the United States.

The new program is slated to be housed in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences but to draw from both undergraduate and graduate teaching faculty in Georgetown’s School of Nursing and Health Studies, McDonough School of Business, McCourt School of Public Policy and the Georgetown University Law Center.

The number of Americans ages 65 and older is projected to more than double from 46 million today to over 98 million by 2060, and the 65-and-older age group’s share of the total population will rise to nearly 24 percent from 15 percent, according to the Population Reference Bureau.

Norberto Grzywacz, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, developed the program in response to the increasing demand for expertise on aging issues as world demographics shift and the 65-andolder age group continues to expand.

“Aging occurs because of biological reasons, but its impact on societies where people are living longer and having fewer children are wide ranging. One sees impacts on the economy, health-administrations systems, public policy, law, and so on,” Gryzwacz wrote in an email to The Hoya. “The new Aging and Health program is the first to encompass all these dimensions and more in the training of its students.”

The creation of the program involved a two-year preparatory process, during which the

Graduate School developed the curriculum and faculty body, conducted market research and settled other logistical issues.

The proposal was approved by the Executive Committee of Graduate Studies last January, and was assented to by the university’s Board of Directors last June.

Gryzwacz says it is necessary for scholars to leave their disciplinary comfort zones to facilitate productive dialogue and address society’s issues related to aging.

“Urgent and complex social problems are often intractable within the framework of individual disciplines. Having such interdisciplinary programs offers an opportunity to turn a small portion of the university towards societal good,” Gryzwacz wrote.

Pamela Saunders, associate professor and program director, said the program will bridge a gap in knowledge on aging in the Washington, D.C. area, where no other degrees in gerontology, the study of aging, are offered.

In anticipation of the recruitment process, Saunders said the primary challenge lies in unraveling the popular misconception of aging as a depressing or dull topic to study.

The program aims to combat this negative sentiment surrounding the very idea of aging with the message that a master’s degree in aging can provide learners with skills and knowledge applicable in the marketplace.

Saunders cites the growing market for well-trained gerontologists, especially in the realm of health care, as a primary incentive to join the program.

Stressing the versatility of the programs’ offerings, Saunders said students will enter the workforce with strong problemsolving skills and a clear conceptualization of aging issues ranging from transportation lo-

gistics to health care financing.

“Aging goes with everything. You could study marketing and aging and understand how to market to an older population; you could study economics and aging and understand how to develop health care products,” Saunders said.

“So a knowledge of aging is going to enable you to do almost any career.”

Saunders said the program will attract three groups of people: new career students interested in studying aging, midcareer students wanting the specialization for job purposes and early retirees hoping to contribute their own experience.

Associate professor Robert Friedland, who will teach the “Health Care Economics” course this fall, said his class will educate policy and business-oriented people who understand that an aging population poses many contemporary policy issues.

“The primary goal of the course is to better understand how the financing of care can affect the organization and delivery of care and to fully appreciate the challenges when this structure fails to meet the needs of people,” Friedland said.

Elliott Crooke, senior associate dean of faculty and academic affairs at the Georgetown University Medical Center, said the program’s partnership with the Medical Center will allow students to better understand the challenges facing our older generations in areas extending beyond biology.

“Indeed, we often think of age-related disorders when we think of aging, and that is a critical component of well-being, but issues involving policy, economics, employment and ethics are intertwined in our master’s program so that candidates can achieve a comprehensive examination of the complex issues facing our seniors,” Crooke wrote in an email to The Hoya.

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DC Behind Other Cities With Regard to Human Rights, Report Finds Katrina Schmidt Hoya Staff Writer

The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that promotes lasting peace with justice, published its biennial report on Washington, D.C.’s progress as a “human rights city” Jan. 9, revealing that the District still lags behind other cities with regard to guaranteeing its residents’ rights.

The report, updated by the AFSC’s D.C. Human Rights Steering Committee, examines 10 factors affecting human rights in D.C., such as income inequality, public education, health status and discrimination. The report ultimately concludes that D.C. government and services fail to address human rights violations in numerous contexts. However, the report also offers recommendations for solutions to these problems.

Jean-Louis Peta Ikambana, director of the D.C. Human

Rights Learning Program; Mai Abdul Rahman, researcher at Howard University’s School of Education; Claudia Concha and Karen Hopkins, representatives of Human Rights Educators USA; Jim McCabe; and David Schwartzman, Professor Emeritus at Howard University, collectively authored the report.

“In developing these reports, we strive not to simply catalogue the failures of our limited government, but to illustrate for our fellow D.C. residents what we should be striving to achieve,” the report’s authors wrote in a Feb. 8 news release.

This is the third report on human rights in D.C. from the AFSC. The first was published in 2012 and delivered to former Mayor Vincent Gray (D) and the D.C. Council.

Although AFSC published its first report on human rights in D.C. in 2012, a D.C. Council Resolution declared the District a “human rights city” in

2008. This resolution was the first of its kind in the United States, and 10 cities have since followed in D.C.’s footsteps.

“The Resolution noted the importance of ongoing discussions among residents and local authorities to identify the issues and inform the actions that could lead to meaningful and positive economic and social change,” according to the AFSC report.

A human rights city is a municipality that takes international human rights law and standards into consideration when drafting its laws and policies, according to the U.S. Human Rights Network.

The 2012 and 2015 reports both used a grading scale — from “A” for “excellent” to “F” for “failure” — which was not continued in the 2017 report.

The 2017 report takes a qualitative approach, describing changes in D.C. relevant to each category.

One of the key points of the report is that D.C. continues to

have higher income inequality than all 50 states, a factor that influences several other areas of concern. This fact is particularly relevant to five of the other categories of the report; poverty plays a great role in many of D.C.’s human rights violations, as enumerated by the report.

Within this severe income inequality is a further racial divide, the report states. The unemployment gap between black and white D.C. residents has only grown, according to a 2017 report by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. The income gap between black and white D.C. residents is consequently large — the median income for white households was $120,000 while the median income for black households was $41,000 in 2015, according to a 2016 article in Washington City Paper.

Rachel Bergsieker, human rights learning associate for the American Friends Service Committee, said the improve-

ments are clear.

“While we are seeing important improvements in some areas, D.C. still has a long way to go before it is truly a ‘human rights city,’” Bergsieker said in the news release.

A new category evaluating the rights of service workers at D.C. universities primarily focuses on the lack of educational benefits available to service workers, particularly in comparison with other employees. Because many service employees like custodians or food service workers are employed by third-party companies, they receive few — if any — benefits for themselves or dependents.

Georgetown University does not provide any educational benefits to its food service employees or their dependents, as they are technically employed

by Aramark and Epicurean & Company. This also applies to the university’s custodians, who are employed by P&R Janitorial Services. However, custo-

dians directly employed by the university do have access to Georgetown classes, financial support at another educational institution and corresponding benefits for dependents.

The report gained information about third-party workers’ retirement benefits through a relatively informal survey.

“Workers interviewed on campuses knew little about how much was in their retirement account and would like to know more,” the report states. “It seems that financial education has not been a priority of the vendors or the unions.”

The report’s authors noted that the goal of the report is to seek action and not merely to list D.C.’s problems.

“We hope to mobilize D.C. residents to effectively demand and secure their human rights and to hold our elected officials accountable for falling so far short of that goal,” they wrote in the news release.

Albright Condemns Trump Admin. Failure to Promote Democracy ALBRIGHT, from A1 In an accompanying lecture titled “Diplomacy in Defense of Democracy,” Albright condemned what she said were failures to promote democracy around the world on the part of the administration of President Donald Trump.

“Instead of rebutting and challenging anti-democratic forces across the globe, we now have a president who has become a source of comfort to them,” Albright said.

“His administration has also simultaneously expressed disdain for diplomacy and seems content for the United States to take a back seat in international affairs, which has worried our allies and delighted our competitors.”

Ultimately, the current administration is threatening key tenets of American democracy, Albright said.

“Just in the past year, we have seen this administration step away from America’s historic commitment to human rights, withdraw from key international agreements such as the Paris Accords and TPP and transform the U.S. from a partner to a pariah at the United Nations,” Albright said. “It also tried unsuccessfully so far to slash the State Department budget, with the latest proposal announced earlier today.”

Albright served as the 20th United States ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997 and as the first female secretary of state from 1997 to 2001 under former President Bill Clinton (SFS ’68). Since 2016, Albright has served as the Michael and Virginia Mortara distinguished professor of diplomacy at the School of Foreign Service. Her commitment

to diplomacy and policy advocacy distinguished her for the award, according to an event invitation.

Albright told the crowd of diplomats and members of the Georgetown community that a rising isolationist sentiment poses a significant threat to democracy.

“Social media has disaggregated voices and made governing more difficult.”

Madeleine albright Former Secretary of State

In the lecture, Albright said her diplomacy and policy advocacy have focused on the need to unite theory and practice, which aligns with the mission of the ISD, an institute under the School of Foreign Service.

“One of the reasons why I was really excited to come to Georgetown to teach was that I had seen that disconnect, and I really was very happy to be a part of working on some connection,” Albright said. “I knew that this university was committed to bringing the communities [of theory and practice] together, and I really am pleased to see that continue.”

According to Albright, the fragile state of international cooperation today mirrors the struggles of previous eras. She noted parallels with the Cold War and the Vietnam War. “I received my master’s degree some 50 years ago this spring, and like today, it was an era of great turbulence,”

Albright said. “Here at home, America was divided along geographic, racial and cultural lines. Overseas, people called our policies arrogant, imperialistic and doomed to fail.”

Bearing the current political situation of the United States in mind, she argued that defending democratic ideals should be a cornerstone of American foreign policy, undeterred by the proliferation of anti-democratic propaganda on social media by authoritarian states like Russia.

Top U.S. intelligence officials told members of Congress in a hearing Tuesday that Russia is attempting to sway the 2018 midterm elections, according to The New York Times.

“Social media has disaggregated voices and made governing more difficult, and in recent years, it has been co-opted by freedom’s foes, who are now adept at polluting social media platforms with rumors, disinformation and authoritarian propaganda,” Albright said. “All this led people to declare that democracy is in crisis.”

While all of these factors present unique challenges, the United States and NATO nations must not fully retreat from their duties of promoting democracy around the world, Albright said.

“It recalls the narrow-visioned naysayers who flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, the people who rejected the League of Nations, embraced protectionism, downplayed the rise of fascism, opposed help to the victims of aggression and ultimately endangered our own security, claiming all the while that all they were doing was putting America first,” Albright said.

“The isolationists were wrong in the 1930s, and they are wrong now.”

Keenan Samway for the hoya

Former Secratary of State Madeleine Albright spoke with Ambassador Barbara Bodine, top left, director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, in Gaston Hall on Monday following her address.

Funding Links Chinese Government and American Student Groups CHINA, from A1

Georgetown University chinese student and scholars association

The graduate student group Georgetown University Chinese Student and Scholars Association serves over 200 members of the graduate student body, most of whom hail from China originally.

had obtained documents and emails from “a source concerned about Chinese Communist Party influence on university campuses” that showed the group had received approximately $1,600 in funding from the Chinese government, amounting to roughly half its annual budget in 2011.

Rachel Pugh, Georgetown’s senior director for strategic communications, said the university ensures all student groups adhere to university and government policies.

“As a global university, our international student body hails from more than 125 nations and contributes valuable experiences and perspectives that enhance the diversity and scholarship of our community,” Pugh wrote in an email to The Hoya. “We ensure that all student organizations comply with applicable financial rules and regulations.”

Founded in the early 2000s, Georgetown’s chapter of the national organization boasts a membership of about 230 students, most of whom are Chinese nationals and graduate students, according to the organization’s HoyaLink description. In addition to providing an on-campus space for Chinese graduate students adjusting to life at Georgetown, the GUCSSA helps connect the Chinese community on campus with other on-campus student groups to promote Chinese culture, according to group’s page.

A graduate student group, GUCSSA operates independently from undergraduate student organizations and receives much

of its funding from the university and the Graduate Student Government through the Office of Graduate Enrichment Organizations.

The Foreign Policy report states that the documentation of the funds comes from a September 2011 budget request received by Georgetown’s Graduate Student Government, which disclosed that the group received $800 each semester that school year from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. The group requested an additional $750 each semester from the university on top of the money it received from the embassy, the request said.

While GUCSSA could not be reached for comment, members of the group said in their 2011 budget request that the Chinese funding was used to host events that year, such as the annual Chinese New Year party.

Georgetown has no rule against student groups receiving money from foreign governments, according to Kylie Navarro (COL ’20), chair of the Student Activities Commission, the funding and advisory board that allocates resources to university-recognized undergraduate groups.

“There is no university policy that prevents student groups from receiving money from any outside source, including foreign governments,” Navarro wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“Outside funding sources are not considered when SAC makes decision to allocate funding. Groups are not even required to report outside funding to SAC.” Navarro said it is unlikely that SAC will look further into whether funding has come from foreign governments at the undergradu-

ate level.

The CSSA also serves as a support network for Chinese students at nearly 150 other universities across the United States, including the University of Maryland, the University of California, San Diego and the University of Connecticut.

The groups began to spread in the 1980s, when Chinese students began to study abroad in the United States more regularly, The Washington Post reported in May 2017.

The groups often work with oversight from the Chinese government, advocating for pro-Chinese government agendas on campuses, according to The Washington Post.

This newly reported information follows a growing trend of tension between Chinese student groups and universities across the country. Students in the CSSA at other institutions have clashed with administrators at their universities over different decisions affecting Chinese culture.

The Columbia University chapter of CSSA protested a presentation on human rights violations in China a decade ago. At the University of Maryland, the CSSA responded to an address given by a Chinese student praising free speech in May 2017. The group responded by posting a video titled “Proud of China UMD,” composed of video segments responding to the student’s address.

“We are deeply concerned about some of the stereotypical comments in her speech, and we, Chinese students at UMD, decided to reply with the following videos,” the opening slide of the video read.

news

friday, February 16, 2018

THE HOYA

A9

Georgetown House Where JFK and Jackie Met Sold sophie Rosenzweig Hoya Staff Writer

Three days after being listed at $1.725 million, the Georgetown home where President John F. Kennedy met Jacqueline Bouvier is under contract.

Located at 3419 Q St. NW, the home is within walking distance of Georgetown’s busiest shopping centers.

The home was originally owned by a Mrs. Renshaw, who owned both 3419 and 3417 Q St. NW, which she later consolidated into one home between 1955 and 1956. The current owner, who has elected to remain anonymous, purchased the home in 1987. She became the sole owner in 1991.

Michael Brennan Jr. of Sotheby’s International Realty is in charge of the historic home’s listing. The house is roughly 2,000 square feet and features three bedrooms, two bathrooms, an outdoor patio and a garage. Brennan’s listing on his website offers viewers the option to take a virtual tour of the property.

Brennan anticipated a quick sale even before the house went on the market.

“I do not anticipate it being actively on the market for long,” Brennan told The Washington Post on Feb. 6. “It’ll be snapped up quickly.”

He was right. After just three days on the market, according to Brennan, the house is officially under contract. No further details of the buyer were provided.

Bouvier met Kennedy for the first time at a dinner party at the Georgetown house in 1951.

Journalist Charles Bartlett and his wife Martha were the renters of the home at the time and invited the two to dinner in the hopes that they would get along. Kennedy’s father, Joseph Kennedy, also encouraged the matchmaking, according to The Washington Post.

The two met during an intimate dinner of about eight people and the match was a resounding success. Two years later, they were married.

Kennedy was interested in

Bouvier from the moment he met her, as the story goes.

“I’ve never met anyone like her,” Kennedy reportedly told a friend after the party, according to Edward Klein’s book “All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy.”

In 1956, five years after Kennedy and Bouvier were first introduced, the house underwent a huge renovation that nearly doubled its size, according to an article in Mansion Global. The property’s size increased after merging with the townhouse next to it, according to The Washington Post.

Although it was renovated, the home retains the original hardwood floors and a wood burning fireplace in the living room.

The home is officially no longer on the market,but it remains an important part of Georgetown’s history.

“It’s obviously a pretty special house. I think the house is a great example of Georgetown’s history,” Brennan said in an interview with The Hoya.

Anne StoneCipher/The hoya

The Georgetown home where President John F. Kennedy met his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, sold this week after only three days on the market, according to real estate agent Michael Brennan Jr.

Student Group Remembers Armenian Genocide Katrina Schmidt Hoya Staff Writer

Department of Homeland Security

Nobel laureate Mario Capecchi spoke Feb. 7 in the ICC Auditorium about gene therapy research and its applications in further research on OCD and other neuropsychiatric disorders.

Nobel Laureate Advocates Gene Therapy Research Georgia Payne Hoya Staff Writer

Gene-targeting research in mice can help geneticists create therapies for human disease, Mario Capecchi, a Nobel laureate in medicine and professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine, said during an event Wednesday evening.

Hosted by the Italian Research Institute, an organization created to promote the ideas of Italian scholars involved in the fields of science, technology and art, “Applications of Gene Targeting Technology in Therapies” addressed Capecchi’s research.

Edward Healton, the executive vice president for health sciences and executive dean at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, moderated the discussion.

Capecchi’s research on gene targeting, a technique to modify genes for a specific purpose, in mice has allowed scientists to understand how to create mutations in the DNA sequence. Recently, this research has been applied to understand disease and DNA sequences in humans.

Capecchi’s research has changed the way many labs around the country approach the topic, including the Pagan Lab at Georgetown, according to Healton. Capecchi’s character and determination is just as incredible as his cutting-edge research, Healton said.

“This man truly epitomizes what it means to follow your dreams,” Healton said.

Born in Italy in 1937, Capecchi lived on the streets alone as a 4-year-old before travelling to the United States at age 9. In the United States, he received a Ph.D from Harvard University. In 2007, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering a technique for

removing genes in mice.

Cappechi said that most projects are based on past research but also include a degree of spontaneity.

“You can start a project either on purpose or serendipitously, and I think scientists do both,” Capecchi said.

This spontaneity is what happened at a lab at the University of Utah, when Capecchi and his team observed what happened when the Hox8 gene, which helps regulate the embryonic growth of an animal, was removed from mice. At first, Capecchi’s team was unable to identify any significant outward differences between the test and control mice. After a few weeks of study, Capecchi noted that the group of mice that underwent the mutation began grooming themselves.

The mutant mice spent almost twice as long grooming themselves than the normal mice did. This grooming time, which cut into the mice’s sleep schedules, initially appeared to be devoted solely to cleansing. Soon, however, Capecchi said the behavior was ingrained in their brains.

“This grooming behavior was pathological, in which the mice remove the body hair by grooming,” Capecchi said.

This behavior in mice can be apparent in humans, specifically when exploring Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in humans, Capecchi said.

The behavior of the mice is very similar to a form of OCD called trichotillomania, a compulsion to remove one’s hair that affects approximately 3 percent of the population.

Using the results from the mice research, Capecchi began to explore whether he could identify the cells affected by the mutation in the mice and use this to create a possible

treatment plan for humans who have OCD. Capecchi and his team began to search for the differences between the mutant microglia — an immune cell of the brain — and normal microglia, a task that drew skepticism from other scientists.

“The big advantage is that you don’t know which questions not to ask,” Capecchi said. “The disadvantage here is that people are generally skeptical and you must work hard to prove yourself.”

Capecchi and his team used fluorescent imaging on the mice brains and discovered that the Hox8 gene likely plays a role in pathological behaviors and OCD. Capecchi said he believes this finding has broader implications than for OCD, however.

“Having told you that microglia are responsible for trichotillomania, I don’t believe it,” Capecchi said. “This system was set up to study one particular disease, now what are we really looking at?”

All the genes found link to neuropsychiatric disorders and at least half of them relate to the immune system, Capecchi said.

Yet Capecchi believes researchers should think more broadly about the implications of gene targeting.

“In science we see what we’re looking for,” Capecchi said.

“We can’t see things we aren’t looking for, so what we’re looking at might be in a much bigger area than anxiety.”

These broader implications are only discoverable through continuous questioning, Capecchi said, quoting his mentor, James Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA. “The same amount of effort goes into answering big questions as into answering little ones, so why not answer the big ones?” Capecchi said.

The Armenian Students Association staged a silent demonstration in Red Square on Feb. 8 to raise awareness about the 1915 Armenian genocide and its global legacy.

Seven representatives of ASA, which is in the process of becoming a university-recognized student organization, distributed 400 flyers about the history of the genocide throughout the demonstration. The students wore black tape over their mouths to protest in silence.

The Armenian genocide took place in 1915, when leaders of the Ottoman Empire developed a plan to kill or forcibly push out Armenians living in the region. Nearly 1.5 million Armenians were killed during the genocide, which did not end until the early 1920s.

The genocide is widely recognized as such by many historians and governments. The United Nations defines genocide as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” combined with the use of certain destructive methods, including killing, to eliminate that group.

The event commemorated the annual national ASA “Stain of Denial” protest, where chapters at dozens of universities organized silent protests to spread awareness about the genocide, according to the Daily Bruin. The demonstration aims to condemn denial of the Armenian

genocide, particularly by the Turkish government.

Haik Voskerchian (COL ’19), president of the ASA, said the demonstration was wellreceived by the student body.

“Students have been very welcoming and active,” Voskerchian said about the demonstration. “Most people have been very interested.”

However, the Turkish Government denies the genocide, particularly its scope and extent, Voskerchian said. Turkey does not deny that deaths occurred, but refuses to refer to it as a genocide and estimates the number of Armenian deaths to be around 600,000.

“We’re trying to commemorate the genocide and condemn it,” Voskerchian said.

The United States does not consistently refer to the events as genocide, though in several capacities it has.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed resolutions acknowledging the genocide in 1975, 1984 and 1996, according to the Armenian National Committee of America.

On April 22, 1981, President Ronald Reagan lamented the Armenian genocide in a proclamation in remembrance of the Holocaust. In addition, 48 out of 50 states have officially recognized the genocide, with the only exceptions being Mississippi, Alabama. The District of Columbia also has not officially recognized the genocide.

Recent presidents, however, have refrained from using the word “genocide” when referencing the massacres. Former President Barack Obama ab-

stained from referring to the Armenian Genocide as a genocide on the 100th anniversary in 2015, according to CNN. Similarly, President Donald Trump was criticized when he did not use the term “genocide” in a statement released April 24, 2017, on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day and the 102nd anniversary of the genocide.

ASA is a national student organization with chapters at 31 colleges and universities, including Harvard University, Brown University and Stanford University, according to the ASA website. Georgetown University’s chapter has 12 active members, though there are around 30 people on the listserv, according to Voskerchian.

For Armenian students like Nareg Kuyumjian (SFS ’21), an ASA member, the demonstration had personal meaning.

Kuyumjian said his greatgrandparents on both sides of his family were the only survivors of the genocide in their families. His maternal great-grandparents were able to escape to Syria, while his paternal great-grandparents left for Lebanon. Eventually, both families made it to the United States and settled in Los Angeles.

“I’ve had the privilege to grow up as an American citizen, but I owe it to my ancestors and the struggle they went through,” Kuyumjian said. “I’ve had the opportunity to grow up in such a great nation, and I realize that it is because of their sacrifices that I have been able to do so.”

ARMENian students association

Members of the Armenian Students Association, an unofficial student group on campus, demonstrated in Red Square on Thursday, Feb. 8, in remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.

A10

sports

THE HOYA

friday, February 16, 2018

Men's Lacrosse

feature

GU Dominates in Season Opener Hoyas Host Charity Event Danny MCCOOEY

JP Harrison

Special to The Hoya

Special to The Hoya

The Georgetown men’s lacrosse team came out for its season opener on Tuesday at home with a new roster in new uniforms hoping to achieve an outcome different from last year’s season-opening loss against High Point.

The Hoyas accomplished this goal as they pieced together a 15-5 win against the Panthers (0-2) to earn their first victory of the season.

The offense struck early and often, starting with senior faceoff specialist Peter Tagliaferri, who produced nine faceoff wins to kick-start the offense. Sophomore attackman Jake Carraway finished the job by torching High Point with five goals and an assist, totaling six points.

Just as impressive as the strong offense was the spread of the stat sheet. Although Carraway led the team, many of his other teammates contributed. Junior attackmen Daniel Bucaro, Robert Clark and Austin McDonald each scored twice, while midfielders senior Craig Berge, junior Lucas Wittenberg, sophomore Massimo Bucci and senior Matt Behrens also found the back of the net.

The Hoyas (1-0) assisted each other on nine out of their 15 goals. Preseason all-Big East players Bucaro and Berge set up three goals apiece.

On the defensive side of the ball,

The Georgetown athletic department joined forces with the Women’s Sports Foundation, a charity founded by tennis legend Billie Jean King to ensure girls have access to sports, to celebrate the 32nd annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day last Tuesday, Feb. 6, in Georgetown’s McDonough Arena.

The WSF teamed up with Georgetown student-athletes to host a clinic for young girls from the Washington, D.C. area. The event featured athletes affiliated with WSF like Paralympic runner Scout Bassett, Olympic boxer Claressa Shields, auto racer Shea Holbrook and Washington Spirit soccer player Joanna Lohman.

AMANDA VAN ORDEN FOR THE HOYA

Junior attackman Daniel Bucaro scored twice in Tuesday's season opener for the Hoyas, in which Georgetown defeated High Point 15-5. senior goalkeeper Nick Marrocco proved why he came into this season as the NCAA Division I active career leader in saves. Marrocco was remarkable in the cage, allowing only three goals in over 50 minutes of play. He also recorded 12 saves and the win.

Defensemen sophomore Stephen MacLeod, senior Connor Moran and freshman defenseman Gibson Smith routinely forced High Point into bad shots.

Senior midfielder Greg Galligan also contributed from the midfield position by forcing two turnovers.

Although Georgetown committed multiple unnecessary penalties, the team fought off man-

down situations. They killed off all four of High Point’s man-up opportunities — including one when they were two men down — without allowing a goal.

Last year’s matchup between Georgetown and High Point was very different, as the Panthers won 9-3.

Yet on Tuesday, Georgetown’s dominating win came with many positive takeaways. The Hoyas’ offense was productive and efficient.

The defense was stifling and new faces meshed well with returning veterans.

The team returns to action on Saturday as they travel to Moon Township, Pa., to take on Robert Morris (1-1).

“No matter where you come from what you look like or whatever challenges you face, just keep pushing.”

Claressa Shields Olympic Boxer

The annual National Girls

and Women in Sports Day celebrates the achievements of women in sports and the important role athletics plays in empowering girls and women around the world.

The 2018 theme for the day was “Play Fair, Play IX,” a reference to Title IX, the federal law that has expanded opportunities for female students and athletes across the country since its passage in 1972.

More than 40 years later, 42 percent of high school girls participate in sports, according to the WSF website. The athletes who spoke in McDonough also took the opportunity to advocate on Capitol Hill at the Capitol Visitor Center the following day.

The NGWSD Coalition takes responsibility for educating the public about Title IX and the rights it protects, hoping that educating the public will lead to better enforcement of the law and greater opportunity for girls and women in sports.

After a brief question-andanswer session, the attendees separated into groups led by Georgetown student-athletes, focusing on basketball, volleyball, field hockey, soccer and lacrosse.

Bassett, who spent several

years in a Chinese orphanage after losing her leg in a fire at age 1, told her inspiring journey from the orphanage to the University of California, Los Angeles, focusing on perseverance.

“Whatever your purpose is, don't be driven away by people telling you girls shouldn't do it.”

Claressa shields Olympic Boxer

“No matter where you come from, what you look like or whatever challenges you face, just keep pushing,” Bassett said to GUHoyas after the event.

Shields, the first American to win two Olympic gold medals in boxing, shared her perspective as a woman in a male-dominated sport. Her message was strong but simple.

“Whatever your purpose is, don’t be driven away by people telling you girls shouldn’t do it,” Shields said to GUHoyas.

SoftBall

Kicking and Screaming

President of USSF Inconsistency Plagues Squad in Florida Plans New Path Margo Snipe Hoya Staff Writer

Drew Sewall

O

n Feb. 10, much to the dismay of many U.S. soccer supporters, Carlos Cordeiro was elected as the new president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, the official governing body of soccer in the United States.

Yet the negativity around the appointment not only is unwarranted, but it also has been handed down before Cordeiro has even begun his role as president.

Cordeiro, a 61-year-old businessman of Indian and Portuguese descent, has quite the impressive resume. After a 12-year career at Goldman Sachs, Cordeiro has worked for the USSF for over a decade, most recently serving as vice president since 2016.

However, despite his impressive resume, Cordeiro’s election leaves a lot to be desired. After the U.S. men’s team’s disastrous failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, it was imperative that the USSF take a step in the right direction. Many people viewed an outsider as the best chance to right the sinking ship of U.S. Soccer that the previous president, Sunil Gulati who decided not to run for re-election after the men’s team failed to qualify, left behind.

It was not an outsider who ended up winning the election, but rather Gulati’s vice president and right-hand man, Cordeiro.

Though Cordeiro announced his candidacy before Gulati announced he would not seek reelection, Cordeiro was part of the establishment that so many viewed as the root of the problem, after a rough 2017 that included a contract dispute with the women’s team and the firing of the men’s head coach, Jurgen Klinsmann.

Gulati’s background in business, rather than soccer, was a particular issue that plagued his tenure toward the end of his presidency. In that respect, Cordeiro’s background is quite similar to Gulati’s. Nevertheless, despite the qualms about Cordeiro’s election, he does have the opportunity to enact the change the USSF so fervently requires.

During his candidacy, Cordeiro ran on an “Aim Higher” platform that, according to his website, included three main goals: to “grow the game at all levels,” to “develop world-class national teams” and to “ensure open, inclusive and transparent leadership.”

Growing the game at all levels is integral to the growth and success of U.S. soccer in general.

Currently, the United States has a pay-to-play system whose high cost cripples the USSF’s ability to attract and retain talent. Across Europe and South America, if a kid has the talent, he will quickly be picked up by an academy and receive benefits for playing there.

In the United States, however, the only way to play organized youth soccer is to pay money to join a club. The cost to join these clubs creates a high barrier to entry for children coming from impoverished backgrounds who cannot afford to pay the club fees.

This high barrier to entry causes the USSF to miss out on significant potential talent who often decide to pursue other lucrative options, such as basketball and football, rather than soccer. However, to eliminate the pay-to-play system, Cordeiro will have to figure out a way to generate more revenue that the federation can funnel to the youth system in order to offset growing costs.

Likewise, the quality of coaching is relatively poor in the United States compared to other countries, as the USSF does not make coaching badges easily obtainable.

In the United States, coaching courses cost upwards of $4,000.

In Europe, most courses cost under $1,000. Having to spend over $4,000 to obtain a coaching license can limit the number of well-trained youth coaches in the United States.

Yet, Cordeiro’s background in business could prove to be an asset in solving both of these issues.

The time he spent in the world of finance should assist him in figuring out how to effectively generate the capital needed to enact change in the federation. Although not universally popular, his plan to build the revenue of the USSF up to the level of its European counterparts — through increased fan engagement and commercial partnerships — is a key step to reinvigorating soccer in the United States.

Currently, the USSF’s operating budget pales in comparison to those of the big European superpowers of Germany, England, France, Italy and Spain. Money is the key to building the game from the ground up, and investments made in the youth program will begin to make noticeable differences in the senior squad in the future.

However, the biggest key to Cordeiro’s success as president, and the success of the USSF as a whole, is whether or not the fans give him the opportunity to succeed. Though he is similar in some ways to his predecessor, Cordeiro deserves that chance. During his campaign, he pointed out several noticeable flaws with the establishment of the USSF, and he proposed compelling plans to help mitigate them.

Unnecessary negativity will only hinder the growth Cordeiro could potentially achieve. He may not have been the anti-establishment candidate that many people envisioned, but he deserves to be judged solely on the successes and failures of his term as president rather than the expectations people have for him going in.

Drew Sewall is a sophomore in the McDonough School of Business. KICKING AND SCREAMING appears every other Friday.

After dropping its first four games at the Florida Gulf Coast University Kickoff Classic in Fort Myers, Fla., the Georgetown softball team won its first victory of the season against LIU Brooklyn on Sunday, the last day of the tournament.

Despite the team’s apprehension about the switch from offseason indoor training to dirt field competition, Head Coach Pat Conlan felt evenly matched with the tournament competition.

“Overall, I think it was a quality schedule. It was a great group of teams to start the weekend with,” Conlan said. “The competition was fairly even across the board.”

Georgetown (1-4) opened the season against Memphis (3-1) in the Classic’s first game on Friday, recording an 8-3 loss. Senior Theresa Kane, junior Kelly Amen and freshman NeNe Campos all notched RBIs for the Blue and Gray.

Sophomore pitcher Anna Brooks Pacha started the game for the Hoyas, pitching just over two innings while striking out four Memphis batters and allowing five runs. Sophomore Katie Vannicola struck out one batter and allowed three runs and three hits in relief.

In Friday’s second game of the day, Georgetown was defeated by North Carolina State (3-2) 12-2 after the Wolfpack tallied eight hits and took seven walks in the contest.

Freshman pitcher London Diller started her fist career game for the Hoyas, but went only two innings

while allowing six earned runs.

On Saturday, Georgetown dropped games to Florida Gulf Coast (6-0) 4-2 and Ball State (3-2) 5-1. Given the Hoyas’ smaller run differential than in the previous game, Kane saw improvement in the team’s effort.

“From the first game of the weekend to the last game, there was a lot of growth and improvement,” Kane said. “It was only an upward climb and I think that is very telling of how our season will go.”

During both of Saturday’s matchups, sophomore Noelle Holiday stood out as a key player on the plate, driving in

all of Georgetown’s three runs.

The Hoyas showed versatility in the circle during the second game of the day as they faced Ball State. Sophomore pitchers Vannicola and Isabelle Ortiz as well as Diller played 4 and 1/3 innings, 2/3 innings and two innings respectively. Diller struck out three and gave up three runs.

In the final game of the FGCU Kickoff Classic, the Hoyas topped LIU Brooklyn (0-5) 8-3. The victory marked Georgetown’s first win of the season.

Both Holiday and freshman Savannah Jones hit a home

run against LIU — feats pivotal to Georgetown’s victory “There was a lot of trust on the field and a lot of cooperation and working together,” Kane said. “It was nice to see."

Conlan attributed the victory to solid play in the circle and at the plate.

“I thought we hit the ball very well. We played very good defense and had a very nice pitching effort. You put those three together and some really good things come with it,” Conlan said.

Georgetown’s next competition will be at the Gamecock Invitational in Columbia, S.C., against Michigan State (2-3) on Feb. 16.

GUHOYAS

Sophomore pitcher Katie Vannicola appeared in four games for the Hoyas during the Florida Gulf Coast University Kickoff Classic in Fort Myers, pitching 9 and 1/3 innings while allowing eight earned runs.

men's & Women's tennis

Men Secure 1st Win, Women Fall to 0-3 Evan Morgan Hoya Staff Writer

Both the men’s and women’s Georgetown tennis teams returned to action in a week that saw the men secure their first victory of the season, while the women suffered their third consecutive 4-3 loss.

Hosting Monmouth (1-5) at Yates Field House on Feb. 9, the men relied on the depth of their singles

lineup and a dominating doubles performance to collect five victory-clinching points last Friday.

The Blue and Gray (1-1) swept the No. 3 with six singles matches, highlighted by a trio of straight set wins. Junior Michael Chen defeated his Hawk counterpart 7-6, 7-5, senior Marco Lam triumphed 6-2, 7-5 and freshman Connor Lee earned his first dual match victory with a 6-1, 6-2 win.

Before the match even began,

GUHOYAS

Senior Drew Spinosa defeated Barbara Vasilkovy of Towson University 6-2, 6-2 last Tuesday at Yates Field House.

assistant coach Courtney Dolehide noticed a different attitude and mindset from the men’s squad compared to last week’s lack of focus against Penn. She credited the shift to veteran leadership.

“I could tell even in the warmup that we were more ready to go mentally. It definitely helped having our senior and captain Peter [Beatty] in the lineup. That was a significant help,” Dolehide said.

In doubles play, Georgetown earned the point with a 3-0 sweep, headlined by the No. 1 senior duo of Beatty and Mac Rechan, who won 6-3. Freshman Rohan Kamdar and Chen competed in the No. 2 position and prevailed 7-5. The combination of Lam and sophomore Ian Witmer clinched the sweep in a 6-2 victory in the No. 3 slot.

On Tuesday, the Georgetown women (0-3) hosted Towson (2-2) at Yates Field House in a hotly contested match that resulted in the Hoyas’ third straight 4-3 loss.

The Blue and Gray opened the match with an impressive performance in doubles, as a trio of upperclassmen teams swept their Towson opponents. The pair of senior Sydney Goodson and junior Sara Swift prevailed 6-3 in the No. 1 slot. Complementing this performance in the No. 2 position, junior Risa Nakagawa

and senior Casey Marx triumphed 7-5, while the combo of senior Drew Spinosa and junior Cecilia Lynham earned a 6-3 victory.

Yet the Georgetown team was unable to carry its momentum into the singles matches. Towson secured the four necessary points in singles competition at both the top and bottom of the lineup.

Swift fell in the No. 1 match 7-5, 7-6, while Goodson, senior Daphne de Chatellus and Marx were defeated in the No. 3-6 matches, respectively.

Nakagawa continued her successful day with a 6-4, 6-1 win in the No. 2 match, and Spinosa earned Georgetown’s third and final point in a 6-2, 6-2 victory at No. 3.

Over the past three seasons, Georgetown has enjoyed success against Towson, winning the last three contests. Dolehide believed the team was overconfident going into the match but found a silver lining in the defeat.

“All of us, with our strong history against Towson, underestimated them a little bit. But this is good to get these experiences this early in the season,” Dolehide said.

Next up for the Hoyas is a trip to Cincinnati, Ohio, where both squads will battle Xavier on Feb. 23.

SPORTS

friday, february 16, 2018

Offseason Reflects Changes in Free Agency CHRISTOVICH, from A12

ALLEN GICHOHI FOR THE HOYA

In her first career start, sophomore defender Noelle Peragine fielded one ground ball last Saturday against Saint Joseph’s.

Despite Storm, GU Tops Saint Joseph’s scooping in 11 to Saint Joseph’s 16.

The Hoyas started the scoring early in the first half with an unassisted goal by Bruno.

The Hawks leveled the score just one minute later, but not for long.

Georgetown went on a quick five-goal run to solidify its lead, led by junior attacker Taylor Gebhardt, who started the run by scoring on a free-position opportunity.

Gebhardt led her team with four goals against the Hawks on Saturday. Her first goal was followed by a goal by freshman midfielder Caroline Frock, then a pair of goals by senior midfielder Rachel Rausa and another by Bruno.

When the Hawks answered with a ferocious run of their own, senior midfielder Hannah Seibel cut them off by adding a goal to the tally and tipping the scales back in favor of the Hoyas just before the half.

Gebhardt netted her second goal of the day to pull Georgetown ahead by two going into the second half.

However, Saint Joseph’s came out hot after half time, scoring the first goal of the half to bring the team back within a one-point deficit. Yet, in a repeat from the beginning of the game, the Hoyas pulled away with a five-goal sprint, this time incited

by Bruno.

Again, Saint Joseph’s answered Georgetown’s scoring spree with a 6-1 run of its own to pull the team back within one point. Georgetown pulled away

again with a goal by sophomore midfielder Natalia Lynch.

The Hawks pulled within one again, but goals from sophomore attacker Emily Ehle and Seibel ensured Georgetown’s win.

For sophomore goalkeeper Haelle Chomo, Saturday’s match marked her first collegiate win. She held firm during her 45 minutes minding the net, with six saves on the day. Despite Chomo’s strong presence in the net, Fried said the Georgetown defense should have been stiffer.

“Offensively, we executed pretty well, but I think the bottom line is that we needed more stops on defense,” Fried said.

Despite the weather and the closeness of the competition, Fried remained pleased with the success.

“At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a bad win,” Fried said.

The team will return to action Feb. 17 looking for another win and some defensive stops, as Georgetown takes on No. 11 Towson (1-0) in Maryland. Towson opened their season this weekend too, defeating then No. 4 Penn State (0-1) in a tightly contested one-point game.

Towson is coming off the heels of the program’s first win over a top-five team and the team’s first win against the Nittany Lions in nine all-time meetings, so it will look to come out strong Saturday against Georgetown.

On the other side, Georgetown will be looking to avenge last season’s loss to Towson.

Saturday’s opening draw is set for 3 p.m. The game will be available on GUHoyas’ webcast.

The statement, issued on behalf of MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark, claimed “a record number of talented free agents remain unemployed in an industry where revenues and franchise values are at record highs.”

The statement also accused a “significant number of teams” of being in “a race to the bottom,” implying — as many players and representatives later tweeted — that owners were colluding to collectively drive down the prices in the free-agent market rather than make business decisions based on the amelioration of their teams’ shortcomings.

About an hour later, the MLB shot back, writing “it is common at this point in the calendar to have large numbers of free agents unsigned,” and that “to lay responsibility on the clubs for the failure

of some agents to accurately assess the market is unfair, unwarranted, and inflammatory.”

The MLB’s statement is not completely accurate; FanGraphs, a website that aggregates statistics, explained how — in terms of both percentage of players signed through January and gross volume of signings — this offseason was, statistically, the slowest in baseball history.

Nevertheless, the MLB was right about one thing: Accusations of collusion were extremely inflammatory.

Both agents and some players called for a spring training strike in response to the slow offseason. In fact, according to Buster Olney, there was a conference call between a number of players to discuss the possibility of a strike, though such action would clearly violate the most recent collective bargaining agreement.

BULLDOGS, from A12

incredibly effective at not just scoring down low, but facilitating out of the double teams.

The attention they drew down low opened up room for cutters and passing lanes, decimating the Butler defense.

Derrickson and Govan combined for two turnovers.

Georgetown committed only two turnovers in the final 18 minutes of the first half, taking a respectable five-point lead into half time. While Derrickson and Govan’s play down low was crucial for the Hoyas,

graduate student guard Trey Dickerson was the X-factor for the team.

Dickerson finished with 18 points, shooting 7-of-8, and with three assists.

Senior guard Jonathan Mulmore picked up a quick-second foul, prompting Dickerson to enter earlier than usual. He was able to penetrate Butler’s interior, getting easy opportunities for Govan and Derrickson. His swarming on defense disrupted Butler’s rhythm. He buried both of his threes, having only made six threes prior to the contest.

ANNA KOVACEVICH/THE HOYA

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After Georgetown came out firing to start the second half, it seemed only a matter of time before Butler went on a run.

Down 14 with 14 minutes to play, Butler broke out their 1-22 press, forcing three consecutive Georgetown turnovers and cutting the lead down to eight.

Georgetown responded, collected themselves after a timeout and pushed the lead back to 13.

When Butler’s sophomore point guard Kamar Baldwin headed to the bench, Georgetown immediately went to their own press, forcing two Butler turnovers in a dozen seconds and pushing the lead to 15.

Georgetown — Derrickson in particular — did a good job defending standout senior forward Kelan Martin, even though he finished with 22 points. Martin shot a mere 35 percent from the field and hit only one of nine 3-point attempts. Baldwin also was scoreless from deep. For a team that usually hits nearly nine shots from deep at home, Butler went 5-for-22.

Although Georgetown prevented Butler from sustaining a significant run, Butler continued to chip away at Georgetown’s lead. Derrickson headed to the bench at the 13-minute mark for a quick breather and lost his offensive rhythm. A few late Georgetown turnovers cut their 15-point lead to three.

Up three with 1:15 to play and the momentum against them, Derrickson posted on the right block. After a few dribbles, Derrickson turned to the paint, where he immedi-

ately met a double-team. Without hesitation, Derrickson threaded a no-look bounce pass to a cutting Mulmore, who got fouled underneath and buried both free throws.

Three days after maybe the biggest shot of his career against Providence, Derrickson made perhaps his most important pass.

After a few free throws, Butler brought the ball up with a chance to even the game, down three with 20 seconds remaining. Mulmore defended Baldwin well off a screen, forcing a contested three from well beyond the arc, with Baldwin missing it short.

After several losses that were plagued by poor late-game rebounding, the loose ball was corralled by none other than freshman guard Jahvon Blair, the seventh-leading rebounder for the Hoyas, who averages barely two rebounds per game.

Blair iced the game with a free throw, and the Hoyas picked up a signature road win.

Georgetown has a whole week off before hosting the No. 4 Xavier Musketeers (24-3, 12-2 Big East), who currently sit atop the Big East. The Musketeers face a tough slate this week, taking on Seton Hall (17-9, 6-7 Big East) before their showdown with No. 3 Villanova (233, 10-3 Big East) this Saturday.

Having lost in overtime in their previous meeting with Xavier, Georgetown has a chance to get its first win against a ranked team all season.

Georgetown’s game against Xavier is Wednesday, Feb. 21 at 6:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena.

WOMen’s Basketball

RED STORM, from A12

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Amanda Christovich is a junior in the College. Helmet to helmet appears every other Friday.

Late-Game Push Not Enough for Hoyas

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also adopting Billy Beane’s storied sabermetric approach to structuring the teams and, as such, are less concerned with signing big names.

Additionally, many of the bad, “rebuilding” teams are wary of getting burned in overpriced contracts as most free agents — especially in the absence of performance enhancing drugs and with the current structure of prearbitration years — are past their best years by the time they are eligible for free agency.

The 2017-18 offseason is less a mark of corruption and more an illustration of not only a market shift, but also a permanent decline in the value of free agency.

In the face of so many recent major changes in baseball, it is only natural that the free agency market would follow a similar pattern.

Team Notches Best Big East Win to Date

Freshman Jamorko Pickett scored 10 points in Tuesday’s game against Butler. Pickett averages 9.4 points per game this season.

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Regardless of the upheaval, a spring training strike has yet to — and probably will not — happen. Earlier this week, free agent Yu Darvish began to thaw the freeze by signing a six-year, $126 million contract with the Chicago Cubs.

Many of these floating free agents will likely be signed between now and March.

Whatever the outcome of this season, however, one thing is clear: The 2017 offseason signifies a permanent market shift in free agency.

It is much more likely that the freeze was a result of several factors that agents failed to adequately account for, not owner collusion.

For example, as the free agency market next year is unusually loaded — with the likes of Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, to name a few — owners could simply be waiting until next year to delve into the free agent market.

Many general managers are

men’s basketball

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HAWKS, from A12

THE HOYA

The matchup was a game of runs, with the red storm jumping out to an early lead and the Hoyas playing catch-up throughout the game. St. John’s took an eightpoint lead halfway through the first period and led by six at the end of the quarter.

St. John’s expanded its lead to 11 points in the second quarter, but a three-pointer from junior guard

Dionna White at the buzzer cut the Red Storm’s lead back down to six points at the half, with a score of 26-32.

Georgetown’s momentum carried over to the second half, and free throws by White in the third quarter put the game within two points, 37-39. Still, the margin was the closest the Hoyas would get once the Red Storm went on an 8-0 run in the following two minutes. The Hoyas were behind the

rest of the game and were only to trade buckets.

Senior guard Mikayla Venson led the team in scoring with 18 points. White pitched in 17 points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals while senior forward Cynthia Petke had a double-double with 12 points and a team-high 11 rebounds.

The points off the bench were a stark differentiator in the game; Georgetown played seven players

total, and only one player off the bench, sophomore guard Morgan Smith, scored. St. John’s, on the other hand, had 19 points off the bench from three different players.

Georgetown next plays Feb. 16 against current Big East conference leader DePaul (20-6, 12-2 Big East). In the teams’ last matchup, DePaul won 78-62 and is currently on a six-game winning streak.

Tipoff is set for 8 p.m.

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ANNA KOVACEVICH/THE HOYA

Senior guard Didi Burton scored four points while tallying three assists and one steal in last Sunday’s loss to St. John’s. Burton leads the Hoyas with 99 assists, which is good for fourth in the Big East conference. The loss drops the Hoyas to 11-13 on the season.

Sports

Men’s Basketball Georgetown (15-10) vs. Xavier (24-3) Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.

Capital One Arena

friday, FEBR UARY 16, 2018

The Georgetown softball team went 1-4 at the Florida Gulf Coast Kickoff Classic in Fort Myers, Fla., last weekend.

See A10

Women’s basketball

NUMBERS GAME

talkING POINTS

SOFTBALL

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There were some things we did really well and there are clearly some things we have to work on.”

HEAD COACH RICKY FRIED

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The number of points junior forward Marcus Derrickson scored against Butler on Tuesday.

WOMEN’s lacrosse

Team Opens 2018 Season Strong Bridget McElroy Hoya Staff Writer

— and Head Coach Patrick Ewing’s (CAS ’85) — first major road win.

The Hoyas dominated from the get-go and led for the final 37 minutes of the game. On offense, their ball movement was impeccable.

Georgetown finished with 20 assists on 30 field goals. According to Sports-Reference, the Hoyas 65.7 percent assist percentage for the season ranks third in the country.

Juniors forward Marcus Derrickson and center Jessie Govan led the way for Georgetown. Derrickson tied his career-high with 27 points, going 11-for-13 from the field and making all three shots from deep.

Govan finished with 17 points, 12 boards and four assists.

For the duration of the evening, Georgetown ran their insideoutside offense through the two big-men on the block. Both were

The Georgetown women’s lacrosse team secured its first win of the season against Saint Joseph’s last Saturday, in a game played through a torrent of rain at home.

Despite convincing runs by both teams throughout the game, the Hoyas (1-0) left their home opener with an 1815 victory.

Georgetown Head Coach Ricky Fried said the team’s energy carried the team through the match.

“There were some things we did really well, and there are clearly some things we have to work on to get better, but I liked the energy that we played with throughout the game,” Fried said.

Georgetown dominated on the offensive side of the ball. The team outshot Saint Joseph’s (0-1) 32-30 and went 5-for-9 on free position chances while the Hawks only converted 2-5 attempts.

Georgetown’s goals came from eight different Hoyas, including hat tricks from both sophomore attacker Michaela Bruno and junior midfielder Francesca Whitehurst. The Blue and Gray had the chance to be so dominant in part because of its stellar possession game: Georgetown controlled 21 draws to Saint Joseph’s 15.

Defensively, on the other hand, the Hoyas faltered slightly. While the Blue and Gray did manage to force 20 turnovers, it also gave up 20 turnovers. The team trailed in ground ball pick-ups, only

See BULLDOGS, A11

See HAWKS, A11

SHEEL PATEL for the hoya

Junior forward Marcus Derrickson tied a career high with 27 points and notched seven rebounds in Tuesday’s road win against Butler.

Derrickson Leads Hoyas to Road Win George Brennan Hoya Staff Writer

Hoya fans from the days of Hoya Paranoia will always remember the famed words from legendary head coach John Thompson Jr. after ending Syracuse’s 57-game winning streak on Feb. 12, 1980: “Manley Field House is officially closed.”

In today’s Big East, closing Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse has quickly become a Georgetown tradition.

Since the Bulldogs joined the conference in 2013, the Hoyas (15-10, 5-9 Big East) have won 80 percent of their games in Butler’s home gym, Hinkle Fieldhouse, one of the toughest places to play in the country.

On Tuesday, the Georgetown men’s basketball team staved off a late Butler (17-10, 7-7 Big East) comeback to hold on for an 87-83 win. The victory was this season’s

ALLEN GICHOHI FOR THE Hoya

Junior attacker Taylor Gebhardt led the team with four goals in Saturday’s 18-15 victory against Saint Joseph’s. Gebhardt led the team last season with 39 goals on 98 shots.

helmet to helmet

women’s basketball

Amanda Christovich

Owners Not to Blame For Slow Offseason

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CAROLINE PAPPAS/the hoya

Mikayla Venson, left, scored 18 points and grabbed five rebounds in Sunday’s loss to St. John’s. The Georgetown women’s basketball team fell to seventh in the Big East with the loss, the Hoyas’ second to the Red Storm this season.

GU Falls to 7th in Conference With Loss Justin Chen

Special to The Hoya

On Sunday, the Georgetown women’s basketball team fell to the St. John’s team with a score of 63-71, pushing the Hoyas to seventh in the Big East with four games left to go before the Big East Tournament.

When the two teams last

played on Jan. 12, St. John’s (15-11, 8-7 Big East) routed Georgetown (11-13, 6-8 Big East), 64-41. While Sunday’s game was more competitive, the result was ultimately the same.

Over the course of the game, the Hoyas forced 19 turnovers and committed just six of their own, leading to 17 more shot attempts than the Red Storm

throughout the game. However, Georgetown had fewer assists and was outrebounded 39-32 on the glass. The Hoyas also failed to convert on their additional shot opportunities, shooting just 33.9 percent from the field while allowing the Red Storm to shoot 48.9 percent.

Head Coach James Howard noted that the team’s low field

goal percentage was a result of poor execution on open looks.

“We’re not capitalizing on opportunities and attempts at the rim,” Howard said in an interview with GUHoyas.

“When you’re playing a good team, you have to make your layups and open jumpers, and we didn’t today.”

See Red storm, A11

Visit us online at thehoya.com/sports

he Northeast wasn’t the only thing to freeze over this winter. Pitchers and catchers officially reported for spring training this Wednesday amid a free agency scandal, fierce accusations of collusion and the most frigid offseason market in MLB history.

While the rest of the sports world was enveloped in the Tom Brady vs. Nick Foles Super Bowl — in which a team that was not only the underdog, but also led by a backup quarterback beat the New England Patriots — one of the most shocking feuds yet was brewing in the MLB. The frigid nature of this offseason is not a result of collusion among team owners, as agents and players suggest, but rather a combination of the structure of free agency and long-term trends in the game, like the increased use of sabermetrics to evaluate talent.

By January, it was clear this baseball offseason was shaping up to be one of the quietest years in Major League history for the free agent market.

Despite an unprecedented amount of available talent, ball clubs were simply not bidding — in the words of The New York Post, the Hot Stove had frozen over.

As spring training approached, free agents became increasingly nervous and their agents increasingly confused.

Why were teams not making bids on their players? Why did

The frigid nature of the offseason is not a result of collusion among team owners, as agents and players suggest. it seem like teams were ambivalent about making offers for stars they would normally be clamoring for? The Pittsburgh Pirates traded stars Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole, for example, without making any other significant moves and have been accused of not being willing to allocate resources necessary for the betterment of the team.

On Feb. 6, while the rest of sports media was postulating about Foles’ greatness and puzzling over a disrespectful Eagles touchdown reception, a media showdown took place between the MLB Players Association and the MLB’s management.

See ChRISTOVICH, A11