The Hoya: September 5, 2014

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

Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 96, No. 3, © 2014

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

FALL SPORTS

A preview of Georgetown’s 2014 teams heading into the fall season.

COMMENTARY Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J., shares advice for your best semester yet.

SPECIAL PULLOUT TABLOID

COLLEGE RANKINGS The New York Times is releasing rankings based on socioeconomics.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson appointed to a spot.

NEWS, A4

OPINION, A3

NEWS, A8

Syrian Performers Denied Visas Molly Simio

Hoya Staff Writer

FILE PHOTO: ANDREAS JENINGA/THE HOYA

Indiana Pacers center and former Georgetown player Roy Hibbert (COL ’08) donated $1 million to the Thompson Athletics Center.

Hibbert Adds $1M To TAC Donations Sam Abrams Hoya Staff Writer

Following in the footsteps of Georgetown men’s basketball greats Patrick Ewing (CAS ’85) and Jeff Green (COL ’12), All-American Roy Hibbert (COL ’08) made a donation toward the construction of the John R. Thompson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Center, prompting fan-favorite CasualHoya to launch a giving campaign of its own.

The Indiana Pacers center’s $1 million gift came on Sept. 2, on the occasion of Thompson Jr.’s 73rd birthday.

The Thompson Athletic Center has gained a total of $5.3 million from these three donations in the past 11 days alone.

Hibbert credited Thompson Jr.’s son, current Head Coach John Thompson III, for his development as a player and a man during his time on the Hilltop.

“I am deeply indebted to Georgetown University and the basketball program for all they have done for me,” Hibbert said in a statement.

“I put in a lot of hard work to get where I am, but I was given a tremendous amount of guidance both on and off the floor from Coach Thompson III and I wouldn’t be here without him.”

A member of Georgetown’s backto-back Big East regular-season championship teams spanning 2006 to 2008, Hibbert brought the university closer to its $62 million overall funding goal with his donation.

Thompson III returned Hibbert’s gratitude with kind words of his own for his former player.

“This gift is significant but it is only one of the ways that [Hibbert]

supports those who are coming behind him at Georgetown,” Thompson III said in a statement. “He has consistently shown that he is a man of actions, not merely words.”

The construction of the center will commence Sept. 12 with a groundbreaking ceremony. Highly touted Class of 2015 recruits Dwayne Bacon and Bryant Crawford will make their official visits to Georgetown on that day, making it a crucial day for Georgetown varsity athletics, and men’s basketball in particular.

In the midst of this flurry of donations, CasualHoya.com founder Andrew Geiger (COL ’99) has launched The Casual Campaign to aid what he considers a vital fundraising process.

“I believe the timely completion of the Thompson Center is the single most important venture for the future success and sustainability of the Georgetown basketball program,” Geiger wrote in an email. “In this new era of conference realignment and with Georgetown entering its second season in a very different-looking Big East, the school needs a facility like the [Thompson Athletic Center] in order to remain competitive with other programs both in and outside of the conference that are competing for the same top recruits.”

As the founder of the popular Georgetown men’s basketball blog, Geiger has engendered a significant response from the Georgetown community through his campaign.

“Since CasualHoya.com is the biggest site on the Internet for Georgetown basketball fans, I felt compelled to do what I could in orSee HIBBERT, A5

A dozen Syrian women scheduled to perform the play “Syria: Trojan Women” on campus later this month will no longer be coming to Georgetown, after the U.S. government denied their visa applications.

The women, who are currently living as refugees in Amman, Jordan, are not permitted to enter the United States because of uncertainty about whether they will leave.

“These women so clearly have been through so much and have such a powerful story to tell. They have a chance to be one of the very few and rare humanizing voices we hear out of the Syrian conflict,” Davis Center for Performing Arts Artistic Director Derek Goldman, co-founding director of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, said. “It seems absurd that in 2014 there shouldn’t be a way to move such an extraordinary and well-documented project from one free country to another with some sense of protection and support for the work they’ve done to tell their story.”

The production reworks Euripides’s “Trojan Women” to include the stories of the refugees. The event at Georgetown was scheduled to be the group’s first performance outside of the Middle East. The performance at Georgetown was supposed to launch Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics’s Myriad Voices: A Cross Cultural Performance Festival, a twoyear program series that will focus on generating a deeper understanding of Muslim communities around

COURTESY LYNN ALLEVA LILLEY

The refugees who perform “Syria: Trojan Women” were denied visas to the United States, cancelling their performance at Georgetown. the world. The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics is a joint initiative between the School of Foreign Service and the Theater and Performance Studies Program.

“We really wanted to have the chance to give the women the platform to tell their stories and to tell them through this incredible production,” Ambassador Cynthia Schneider, the other co-founding director for the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, said. “This play that was written 2,500 years ago about the devastating impact of war, particularly on women suffering the impact of defeat, resonates so strongly with a situation today.”

The State Department’s decision

Hoya Staff Writer

The Metropolitan Police Department reported a significant increase in reported rapes last year, coinciding with the department changing its definition of rape to match FBIUniform Crime Reporting’s definition in January 2013.

MPD’s previous definition of rape was “the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will,” which was updated for the first time since 1927 to be more inclusive and clear by defining rape as “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

“The new definition better reflects the actual incidence of rape nationally,” Gwendolyn Crump, director of MPD’s Office of Communications, wrote in an email.

Reported rapes in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area in-

Katherine Richardson Hoya Staff Writer

scale.

“An increase in reports is not usually correlated with an increase in assaults, but the increase in survivors being aware of services and being comfortable using those services. So the increase in reports could be an indicator that things are going well and survivors are being helped,” Take Back the Night President Sarah Rabon (COL ’16) said.

Campus Project Coordinator Elizabeth Krauss from the city’s Office of Victim Services commented on the sudden growth in services for survivors and loved ones in the D.C. area.

“In the past two years, those services have become much more visible,” Krauss wrote in an email. “With the U-ASK DC, University Assault Services Knowledge, phone application and website launched in September of 2012, and the ASK DC phone application and website launched in September of 2013, more and more

The Georgetown University Student Association has purchased online subscription passes to the New York Times, providing a short-term fix to the cut of Georgetown’s Collegiate Readership Program in March.

These 24-hour passes allow up to 100 students to use The New York Times site at one time, and cost GUSA around $800 per eight-week period.

GUSA President Trevor Tezel (SFS ’15) and Vice President Omika Jikaria (SFS ’15) worked with senators on GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee to develop a costeffective short-term solution to respond to the student need for a news source.

“We got a lot of student reaction that was negative to the cutting of the Collegiate Readership Program, and we saw it as valuable,” Tezel said. “We had agreed with Fin/App that there might have been more cost-effective ways to get news to students, but we didn’t think that this program should be cut altogether.

Recognizing that students wanted the news, wanted these newspapers, we wanted to provide something in the short term that would show that GUSA is still prioritizing this as a service before we move into next year.”

Before the Collegiate Readership Program was cut from GUSA’s budget for fiscal year 2015, it provided free print copies of The Washington Post, The New York Times and USA Today in locations around campus, including Sellinger Lounge, Red Square and Lauinger Library. Last year, the program received $14,000 in funding.

The New York Times paywall blocks those without a subscription from viewing more than 10 articles per month. The Washington Post charges $9.99 a month for unlimited online access, although this fee is waived for readers with an email address ending in “.edu.”

Meredith Cheney (COL ’16), a GUSA senator on the Fin/App com-

See STATS, A5

See READERSHIP, A5

KRISTIN SKILLMAN/THE HOYA

Construction began on the tennis courts by McDonough Arena, which will be demolished for the Thompson Athletics Center.

creased by 67 percent to 393 inci- rules about how the police departdents in 2013. According to Crump, ment reports these crimes to the 27 percent of these rapes fell under FBI,” Berkowitz said.

Although the change in definithe new definition.

“Obviously the definition had a tion did correlate with the jump in huge impact since it encapsulates reports of sexual assault, Women’s what sexual assault is, and that is Center Director Laura Kovach said that the change definitely is goin legal definition ing to be increaswould not necesing the number sarily affect the of reports,” Sexway that victims ual Assault Peer interpret and reEducator Chanport rape, but dini Jha (COL ’16) rather it would afsaid. “I think the GWENDOLYN CRUMP MPD Director of Communications fect the legal pronew definition is cedure that ensues much better in terms of people understanding that after an assault is reported.

“Survivors will use words like rape isn’t just intercourse, but can ‘abuse,’ ‘sexual assault’ and ‘rape’ be with other body parts.”

Rape, Abuse and Incest National based on their experiences and not Network Founder and President by legal definition,” Kovach wrote in Scott Berkowitz pointed out that the an email.

Instead, several student activists new FBI definition was changed to and non-profit organizations workbetter categorize crimes.

“The Metropolitan Police Depart- ing on the issue credited the rise in ment did not change what was to be reports to an increase in both serconsidered a crime, but simply the vices and awareness on a national

Newsroom: (202) 687-3415 Business: (202) 687-3947

See SYRIA, A5

Readership Moves Online

THOMPSON IN, TENNIS OUT

Revised Definition Ups Rape Stats in District Maddy Moore

came after months of communication with the Jordanian embassy and top-ranking consulate officers in the State Department on behalf of the 12 women.

“We had been working for about nine months, very steadily and on a daily basis on the visas for these women. We were fortunate to be able to hire a top immigration attorney,” Schneider said. “We have left no stone unturned.”

Evidence such as documentation proving that the women have young children in Jordan and will leave the United States to act in scheduled performances around the world did not

“The new definition better reflects the actual incidence.”

Published Tuesdays and Fridays

Send Story Ideas and Tips to news@thehoya.com

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OPINION

THE HOYA

FRIDAY, September 5, 2014

THE VERDICT

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Founded January 14, 1920

EDITORIALS

Identifying Progress Through the developing discussion of trans issues at Georgetown, the university has reached a considerable benchmark in its history, with transgender students more welcomed on campus and issues that concern them gaining wider attention. More progress, however, can still be made, especially in the area of simple administrative policy.

Foremost is the progression of school protocol regarding transgender students who wish to use preferred names, rather than legal names, on GOCards.

While recent conversations between GU Pride and the university registrar demonstrated amenability to changes in GOCard policy, progress needs to encompass more than mere amenability.

Currently, GOCards require indicators, such as parentheses or quotation marks, to signify when students’ displayed names are not their legal ones.

Transgender students, however, are right to continue to push for more discreet forms of these indicators — or none at all. The point of contention is that quotations and parentheses beget doubt of these students’ identities to anyone who looks at their GOCards, outing them in the process. Moreover, placing quotations around a name lends a

sense of irreverence, as if it is simply a nickname, rather than an identity.

Because these aptly named Georgetown One Cards permeate many facets of student life, serving as a student’s wallet, key, identification, library card, meal ticket and more, inclusivity should be made a top priority. Singling out trans students by overtly acknowledging the difference between preferred and legal names is unwarranted and unnecessary.

The university is reluctant to depart from standards for official, legal identification. However, the purpose of a GOCard is for life within the front gates, not life outside of them. With all of a student’s vital biographical information stored on the card’s magnetic stripe, the need for a legal name that isn’t necessary for a student’s day-today interactions is hard to justify.

It is not infrequent that students and administrators come to temporary gridlocks on burgeoning issues; but with visibility and proper deliberation, many policies can be improved.

If transgender students at Georgetown are to tip this scale in their favor, they will need a push from the rest of us as well.

While Leo’s will never have trouble retaining the freshmen and sophomores who often purchase larger, more expensive meal plans as part of their mandated procurement, the dining hall’s elimination this year of 10-per-week and 45-block meal plans robs juniors and seniors of flexibility in dining options. They claimed to hear us in their advertising campaigns, but in this case, they weren’t listening.

In the past, upperclassmen, many of whom have their own kitchens available to prepare meals, were able to purchase a small meal plan that cost more per swipe but allowed for stops at O’Donovan Hall between classes or Grab ‘n’ Go for particularly busy days. Trading value for flexibility was a compromise that served the Hilltop well.

While Aramark, the private company that operates Leo’s and Georgetown’s auxiliary food services, must make some of its decisions to help its bottom line, its decision to

eliminate its smallest meal plans unduly prohibits those seeking dining flexibility and affordability from finding a plan that works for them.

If the decision were indeed about business, it does not seem to be a very smart one on the part of Aramark. Alienating those upperclassmen threatens to eliminate a part of Leo’s customer base that was reluctant to purchase meal plans in the first place.

Aramark may believe that eliminating smaller plans forces students to rely more heavily on its services, but under this year’s existing options, students must choose between paying for hundreds of dollars’ worth of wasted meals or forgoing Leo’s altogether. For many, that’s an easy choice.

To win back customers only willing to purchase Leo’s smallest plans, Aramark must better account for the realities of student life and campus dining.

Getting “All The News” Again — Despite the fact that GUSA stopped the print version of the College Readership Program last spring, students will now have access to The New York Times website through a new online version of the program.

Old McDonnell had a Felony — Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife were convicted of several counts of public corruption Thursday. They each face the possibility of decades in jail and will be sentenced in January.

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A Rapid Railway — A group of railroad entrepreneurs has applied to build a 15-minute train between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. The government of Japan has committed to help fund the project.

C

Seeing Sextuple — Secretary of State John Kerry joined five of his predecessors, including School of Foreign Service professor Madeleine Albright, to break ground for the new United States Diplomacy Center. It will be a public museum of diplomatic history that will open at State Department headquarters in 18 months.

A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD US ... @LittleNiangua

September 3 @thehoya @MarchAgainstED bit.ly/1phSe1y Join us/EDucate/Lobby-Sept30/Oct 1 bit.ly/XfZl0P @GUDiplomacy

September 3 Find out why ISD Director Amb. Bodine doesn’t eat Tuna fish. Interview in @TheHoya bit.ly/1poLpNu

EDITORIAL CARTOON by David Chardack

No, You Didn’t Hear Us

Almost Painless Printing When University Information Services updated the printing system across campus this summer, it appeared to be a move in the right direction. The clunky desktop-based setup has been abrogated in favor of placing printers on a Georgetown-wide system.

But all this new fancy printing equipment is to no avail if it gets in the way of printing. So far, it has.

In taking control of the Lauinger Library printers from library employees, UIS also took control of maintenance.

The result has been several occasions in which the printers in Lauinger have run out of paper after standard business hours, when UIS employees have long since left work, but students remain on campus, stranded without the standard means to print their work.

Outside the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. is, of course, a time when students are very likely to need to print their pro-

crastinated readings or the fruits of their all-nighters. And so long as the library is open at all hours, its printers should remain functional then as well.

When Lauinger, one of the most popular printing destinations, was responsible for its own printing, library employees were tasked with refilling the printers regularly. Even if the new system requires more expert maintenance than before, UIS should figure out a way to make sure that library employees working the night shift are able to assist students with printing during Lau’s peak hours.

Although the availability of a printer may seem like a small matter, any campus improvement project should improve campus. Making sure that Georgetown’s new printers are available when their target users — students — need to use them should be a UIS priority.

Emma Hinchliffe, Editor-in-Chief Mallika Sen, Executive Editor Robert DePaolo, Managing Editor Ian Tice, Online Editor Molly Simio, Campus News Editor Suzanne Monyak, City News Editor Sam Abrams, Sports Editor Jess Kelham-Hohler, Guide Editor David Chardack, Opinion Editor Michelle Xu, Photography Editor Zack Saravay, Copy Chief Emma Holland, Blog Editor

Contributing Editors

Zoe Bertrand, TM Gibbons-Neff, Penny Hung, Nicole Jarvis, Sheena Karkal, Hanaa Khadraoui, Jackie McCadden, Sean Sullivan, Laura Wagner, Emory Wellman

Katherine Richardson Deputy Campus News Editor Kshithij Shrinath Deputy City News Editor Allison Hillsbery Deputy Guide Editor Hannah Kaufman Deputy Guide Editor Jinwoo Chong Opinion Blog Editor Kit Clemente Deputy Opinion Editor Ben Germano Deputy Opinion Editor Julia Hennrikus Deputy Photography Editor Daniel Smith Deputy Photography Editor Lucie Felder Deputy Layout Editor Katie Haynes Deputy Copy Editor Sharanya Sriram Deputy Copy Editor Gabi Hasson Deputy Copy Editor Emily Min Deputy Blog Editor

This week on

Be sure to check Chatter, The Hoya’s online opinion blog, throughout the summer for regular opinion pieces.

Every Tuesday, liberal and conservative student commentators from Georgetown go head to head on topics regarding the upcoming fall 2014 elections.

Seamus Guerin (COL ’16) reflects on where a few months abroad in Spain are bound to take him: “I know there is much to learn abroad. It is my belief that I will develop a more profound sense of what it means to be a Hoya by reflecting on experiences, new and old, graciously afforded to me in this opportunity and adventure in Spain.”

Find this and more at

thehoya.com/chatter CORRECTION The article “Fossil Free Releases Proposal” (The H oya , A5, Aug. 29, 2014) stated that GU Fossil Free suggested specific companies to the university for reinvestment. GU Fossil Free is a divestment campaign, not a reinvestment campaign, and has not suggested specific companies for reinvestment to the university.

Michal Grabias, General Manager Jason Yoffe, Director of Accounting Brenna Muldrow, Director of Corporate Development Nicole Foggan, Director of Marketing Addie Fleron, Director of Personnel Brian Carden, Director of Sales Janet Zhu, Director of Technology Tessa Bell Laura Tonnessen Tessa Guiv Catherine Huber Christine Cha Gregory Saydah Chris Amaya Dimitri Roumeliotis Matthew De Silva

Senior Accounts Manager National Accounts Manager Alumni Relations Manager Special Events Manager Institutional Diversity Manager Local Advertisements Manager Alumni Relations Manager Special Events Manager Systems Manager

Editorial Board

Consultants

David Chardack, Chair

Nick DeLessio, Kevin Tian, Christina Wing

Celeste Chisholm, Kit Clemente, Ben Germano, Johnny Verhovek

[ CHATTER ]

Board of Directors

Sheena Karkal, Chair

Michal Grabias, Emma Hinchliffe, Hanaa Khadraoui, Hunter Main, Zach Singer, Laura Wagner Letter to the Editor & Viewpoint Policies The Hoya welcomes letters and viewpoints from our readers and will print as many as possible. To be eligible for publication, letters should specifically address a recent campus issue or Hoya story.

Letters should not exceed 300 words.

Viewpoints are always welcome from all members of the Georgetown community on any topic, but priority will be given to relevant campus issues. Viewpoint submissions should be between 600-800 words.

Send all submissions to: opinion@thehoya.com.

Letters and viewpoints are due Sunday at 5 p.m. for Tuesday’s issue and Wednesday at 5 p.m. for Friday’s issue. The Hoya reserves the right to reject letters or viewpoints and edit for length, style, clarity and accuracy. The Hoya further reserves the right to write headlines and select illustrations to accompany letters and viewpoints.

Corrections & Clarifications If you have a comment or question about the fairness or accuracy of a story, contact Executive Editor Mallika Sen at (310) 918-6116 or email executive@ thehoya.com.

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General Information The Hoya is published twice each week during the academic year with the exception of holiday and exam periods. Address all correspondence to:

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OPINION

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

OF PROGRESSIVE PERSUASION

Georgetown’s Picky Version Of Pluralism E

arly last week, new students entered McDonough Arena to listen to a heartfelt presentation synthesizing numerous incoming students’ essays into one cohesive narrative.

For many incoming students, “Pluralism in Action” sets the tone for their Georgetown experience.

Not only does it champion the diverse backgrounds represented among the student body, but it also encourages all incoming students to celebrate, rather than scorn, these differences.

At a diverse institution such as Georgetown, this commitment to pluralism fosters a healthy community that is vital to scholarship and understanding.

This is the Georgetown that I believe we all aspire to create, to partake in and to claim as our own. However, after peeling back this first layer of rhetoric, it becomes quite clear that Georgetown’s administration displays only a sort of “picky pluralism” that bends at the whim of the status quo.

Instead of supporting our innate right to freely express minority opinions, administrators succumb too quickly to outside pressures and spurn our innate, individual rights.

To our administrators’ credit, fostering a community defined by pluralism and tolerance is a challenging task. Providing individuals who hold opposing beliefs with an opportunity to champion their individual causes is difficult and requires exceptional effort. However, our administration has recently encountered problems in choosing which opposing beliefs can peacefully coexist and which to systematically suppress.

Take, for instance, the Center for Student Engagement’s recent handling of Welcome Week event applications. As president of H*yas for Choice, I was contacted by a Welcome Week student coordinator who asked me to assemble an application for an HFC Welcome Week event.

Told from the outset that we would have no access to funding that groups with benefits receive, we still decided to apply, and we designed an event that would educate incoming students about the sexual health resources available on campus, through our organization and others in Washington, D.C. Far from contentious, our event sought only to inform incoming students about resources that Georgetown students frequently utilize, and, of course, provide cookies.

CSE appeared to be moving toward more inclusive and complete tolerance. Recently, the organization decided to update co-sponsorship policies in order to shield recognized student groups from disciplinary action when co-sponsoring with unrecognized student groups.

So, when the coordinators reached out to me, I was pleasantly surprised that CSE was further opening up to student groups without access to benefits. However, I should have known that such a quick change of heart was too good to be true. After submitting an application that Welcome Week coordinators requested themselves, our event was ultimately rejected by CSE administrators.

Unfortunately, this is just one example of many decisions made by CSE demonstrating how the university chooses to selectively apply its grandiose calls for pluralism. This selective application of pluralism was visible in Georgetown’s response to LGBTQ issues several years ago.

Forced to confront heinous, violent crimes committed against LGTBQ students in 2007 and an embarrassing lawsuit in the 1980s, Georgetown’s court-mandated response is packaged as “progress” and sold to the greater community as a ground-breaking development in CatholicLGBTQ interaction.

While the outcomes of both of these regrettable instances have greatly improved our campus and brought us closer to attaining this elusive goal of “pluralism,” it is important to remember that it takes persistent action and vigilance to effect positive change.

If we continue to advocate for pluralism, we can create a Georgetown community that lives up to its pluralistic goal. So, for now, I will pose these questions: What standard is our university utilizing to determine which ideals are worthy of supportive funding and equitable access to space? How is this standard used to determine what beliefs can be systematically oppressed in a university that aspires to promote discourse and dialogue? What method does the administration use to arrive at this standard, and what steps are taken to ensure that it is equitably applied?

If we, as students, aspire to hold Georgetown accountable to the standard of “pluralism” that is presented to the student body, alumni and community, we must stand up to the administration. We must demand clear guidelines about which opposing beliefs deserve access to benefits and which are subject to suppression.

With a goal as lofty as pluralism, there will be failure, success and room for improvement.

As we start this academic year, I would like to remind everyone that a goal as worthy as pluralism deserves our attention and energy. If all us students continually remind ourselves of the commitment we made to partake in this pluralistic community, encouraging administrators to do the same is the least we can do.

Abby Grace is a junior in the School of Foreign Service. OF PROGRESSIVE PERSUASION appears every other Friday.

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AS THIS JESUIT SEES IT ...

The 6 Habits of Highly Effective Hoyas N

Abby Grace

THE HOYA

ow that the add/drop period has come to a close, we enter a different phase of the semester. The slow, “Georgetown 3-4-5” start is reaching its finale (we had three days of class the first week, four days this week and will have five full days next week). Ready or not, we are settling into the regular rhythm of study and activities that will keep us busy until Thanksgiving.

Over my years as a student and professor, I’ve learned that one of the keys to success — and to really thriving at Georgetown — is establishing a few habits during these coming days. There can be a temptation to drift and float until the first papers and tests come along, but if you begin now, you will find yourself more engaged, better prepared and even happier for the rest of the semester. So, speaking as a Jesuit and a professor, here are my six habits of thriving Hoyas:

1. Say something in class this week.

3. Find others with whom you can study.

4. Pay attention to your body.

I often tell students that they In an environment as exciting will likely learn as much, if not and interesting as Georgetown, more, from their fellow students we can become so engrossed that as from their professors. Some we neglect the most basic needs of this happens informally with of our bodies. Sleep is often the late-night confirst thing to versations in the be sacrificed. common room.

Sometimes we But it helps to esfind ourselves tablish a regular skipping meals group with which because we feel you can discuss busy, stress-eatideas from lecing when we are ture, edit each under pressure other’s papers Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J. or giving up exand help one anercise because other review for it would take Students must exams. Set up a too long. Make study group or a commitment remember self-care find a study partnow -- maybe throughout the year. ner now, even if even putting it it’s just someone in your calendar to go to Lau with; having anoth- -- to a healthy schedule that emer person involved will help hold bodies our ideal of cura persoyou accountable for keeping up nalis, with a mix that works for with your reading and progress you of sleep, healthy meals and in your courses. regular exercise.

I have found that if students say something in my class during the first two weeks, they generally continue to be active participants throughout the whole semester. They lean forward in their chairs, listen better to their classmates and they often perform better on tests and papers. So step out of your comfort zone and set the pattern now of speaking up in class.

2. Go to office hours.

Georgetown has outstanding faculty, and you have a unique opportunity to get to know them.

Start now, and go back regularly. Be sure to respect their time by signing up in advance and coming prepared with a question or idea you would like to discuss. The relationship you develop with your professor can be the foundation for a job as a research assistant, letters of recommendation, thesis or major or career advising or even a lifelong friendship. I still keep in touch with my undergraduate adviser, and he has been one of the most important influences on my life.

5. Engage Georgetown’s Jesuit values, especially as they find expression in questions of faith, meaning and service.

Spend at least five minutes a day — maybe on a bench on Healy Lawn, in Dahlgren Chapel or gazing out on the Potomac — considering the nature and purpose of this “community in diversity,” which embraces the call to be “women and men for others.” Sign up for a retreat, attend a religious service or go to a talk on Georgetown’s identity, history and mission. Push yourself to go deeper than just the buzzwords and banners; ask how our values are making you different, today, in your classes, your friendships and your commitment to a life pursuing truth, integrity and justice.

6. Take a Sabbath.

A recent graduate told me that after an exhilarating but exhausting first year on the Hilltop, she made a decision to take a reflective day off every week of her remaining Georgetown years. In a concession to the busy life we all maintain, it was an 8-hour Sabbath, but it still made a powerful difference in her life. She usually took it Sunday, which allowed her time to connect with her faith community, as well as to rest, exercise, read for pleasure and enjoy unhurried time with friends. When things got busy, her Sabbath helped bring balance back to her week, and it reminded her that her life is about something much bigger than the latest paper or test. Most importantly, it made her grateful for this unique, blessed experience.

Habits help us become the people we want to be. Now is the time to set the patterns that will allow you, and our entire community on the Hilltop, to become the people we are called to be in the coming semester.

Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J., is an assistant professor in the government department. He is one of the alternating writers for AS THIS JESUIT SEES IT … which appears every other Friday.

VIEWPOINT • Carter

VIEWPOINT • Walsh

Campus Gun Violence Ebola Outbreak Shows Debate Stuck on Safety Disparity in Resources

E

ntering my first class of the school year, I claimed the desk closest to the door in anticipation of my mad dash to the next class. Notebook out, polite conversation conducted, my eyes wandered to the emergency instructions posted on the wall next to me. In addition to the typical instructions about the fire escape route and the course of action for a natural disaster, I found a section on what to do in a defend-in-place or active shooter situation.

As I completed the 10-minute dash from the ICC to Car Barn — working my way through the labyrinthine buildings and cursing the heat — a disturbing internal monologue played out in my head. I lamented the seemingly 100-degree afternoon and my new seat in the back between a sweaty football player and a girl whose laptop covered half my writing surface.

Yet, the silver lining I came to was that if someone came in and started shooting, the 50 bodies obscuring my view of the front of the classroom would cover me.

Why would such a morbid thought come to my head? Open a newspaper, watch the news or scroll through your Facebook newsfeed; gun violence pervades the current state of affairs in the United States.

One may posit that I simply possess a twisted mind or should seriously stop visiting news sites before bed, but the specter of gun violence is inescapable.

I live in Washington, D.C., where 12 people were killed at the Navy Yard last year, and I have a penchant for movie theaters, where 12 people were killed in Aurora, Colo., in 2012. Beyond that, I am a college student with two sisters in college; one interns in a second-grade classroom and the other works fulltime coordinating undergraduate co-ops, and neither plans on leaving the

world of education.

We all know the names — Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook — but as unnerving as these names are, more alarming is the unknown name of the next school. We know that there will be another school shooting, as evidenced by the names that have come after Sandy Hook — Santa Monica College, UC Santa Barbara, Seattle Pacific and many more. What if that next school were my sister’s secondgrade classroom? Or her future kindergarten one? What if that school were the one my older sister is about to start a doctoral program at? Or the one where she works at every day?

What if that school were Georgetown?

A school brimming with altruistic students who throw themselves into programs to raise funds for cancer research, tutor underserved kids, advocate for workers and pretty much e ve r y t h i n g else. A school cultivating flocks of future lawyers, doctors, financiers and politicians.

Despite the prevalence of gun violence in this country, it remains an issue untouched by the Georgetown community. Not one of my professors went over the instructions on the signs posted by every classroom door; none of the campus ministry organizations tabling in Red Square last week recruited students for a campaign against gun violence; none of the more than 200 cocurricular clubs and activities on campus cater to this issue.

What will it take for the Georgetown community to raise its voice against the explosion of gun violence in our country?

As the person sitting closest to the door in all but one of my classes, I am praying that I won’t be told to defend in place in an active shooter situation.

Georgetown’s student groups should start to focus on the problem of gun violence in America.

JADE WALSH is a senior in the College.

H

ow many handshakes do you think happen in Washington, D.C., every

day?

Used in business deals, among friends and between politicians, a handshake is a nearly universal sign of greeting in the Western world.

Now imagine D.C. with no handshakes. It is an unnerving mental picture that seems awkwardly stiff and uninviting, but it is the daily reality in another capital city right now. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, the fear of Ebola has ended the use of handshakes entirely.

Ebola, a deadly virus transmitted through contact with infected bodily fluids, is ravaging western Africa. By the most recent reports, there have been roughly 3,000 cases and 1,500 deaths, although the World Health Organization thinks that actual numbers could be much higher.

Frighteningly, the uncontrolled nature of the epidemic has led to an exponential uptick in cases, and some experts predict that there could be 40,000 or more cases before we stop the spread of the disease. As J. Stephen Morrison from the Center for Strategic and International Studies has commented, even our confidence in calculating these types of numbers has eroded as this outbreak has mushroomed out of control.

Larry Gostin, the faculty director for the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, has called this “one of the great humanitarian tragedies of our time” that was “in many ways highly preventable.” The outbreak occurred in countries that already had fragile healthcare systems and were operating with a bare-minimum number of health workers.

Now, over 100 of those health workers have died, which has further exacerbated the situation.

Additionally, many people have become scared or skeptical of the health care system and are now avoiding hospitals. The skeptics have a point — while hospitals are still the best option for infected people to receive treatment, they

aren’t the safe havens they should be.

Logistical shortcomings have meant that health workers do not have the proper personal protective equipment, like basic gloves and facemasks, to keep themselves safe, and adequate infrastructure does not exist to ensure basic sanitation. Worse than the hospital situation are the difficulties for people who are unable to access health care facilities and die at home. These individuals are often stigmatized and are more likely to spread the disease to those with whom they live.

In the words of Marty Cetron of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this Ebola outbreak is one of what are becoming “predictably unpredictable outbreaks.” While we can invest large sums of money into treatments and vaccines for Ebola, there are also many “best value” interventions on which we should also focus our effort and money.

Hospitals must have the resources to be true care facilities.

Investing in personal protective equipment, training doctors and nurses and improving community health education will not only help tremendously in this crisis, but will also fortify the healthcare landscape in general.

And unfortunately, while Ebola has received deserved widespread media attention, it is not the biggest killer in the region. HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB and diarrheal diseases also have a great, yet preventable, impact on these same countries.

Investing in health systems and strengthening measures to combat Ebola will also help to combat these other diseases.

It will be an international triumph when the Ebola virus is brought under control and when the outbreak has ended.

But we can’t stop our efforts when the crisis is over. In order to be prepared for future predictably unpredictable outbreaks of this magnitude, basic health care in the region must be strengthened.

ALI CARTER is a senior in the College. She is president of END7, a group that works to raise awareness about neglected diseases.

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THE HOYA

PAGE FOUR

NEWS

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

THE HOYA SPORTS ONLINE Football loses its home opener to Wagner 21-3, with an offensive collapse. See story at thehoya.com.

Your news — from every corner of The Hoya.

IN FOCUS

verbatim

CLUB LAU

“

It can be a means to become more thoughtful citizens no matter where we come from.”

Khawla Al-Derbasti (SFS ’15) on the Journal of GU-Q Middle Eastern Studies Student Association See story at thehoya.com.

the guide

HANDSOMETOURS.COM

MICHELLE XU/THE HOYA

Students pack into the third floor of Lauinger Library for the chance to show off their dance moves and party with their peers in the library turned nightclub, transformed annually by the Center for Student Engagement as part of Welcome Week.

THE GUIDE ONLINE Read our columns, reviews and feature on GEMA Rocks, online this week. thehoya.com/guide

NYT Ranks Colleges GUSA Mentors Transfers

By Socioeconomics KATHERINE RICHARDSON Hoya Staff Writer

LAURA OWSIANY Hoya Staff Writer

In response to the U.S. News and World Report National University Rankings, The New York Times will release its own college ranking system, focusing on socioeconomic diversity, at its Schools for Tomorrow conference Sept. 8 in New York City.

The rankings will be based on the ability of the universities to attract underprivileged students.

Georgetown has placed reliably around number 20 for years on the U.S. News rankings, which measures average class size, retention rate, student SAT/ACT scores and graduation rate as well as faculty salaries, financial resources and alumni giving rates.

David Leonhardt, managing editor of The Upshot, The Times’ website on politics, policy and economics that has produced the rankings, told The Chronicle of Higher Education that the ranking is not meant to be comprehensive but rather aims to highlight the pursuit of greater socioeconomic diversity in higher education.

“We’re in no way trying to compete with the various ‘best school’ rankings out there,” Leonhardt told The Chronicle.

University of Florida President Bernie Machen, who will speak on a panel after the rankings are revealed, told THE HOYA that “underprivileged” refers in an abstract sense to students of “different life experiences and different backgrounds” and, more concretely, is based largely upon the percentage of students receiving Federal Pell Grants. He agreed that The New York Times’ rankings are not aiming to determine definitely the best colleges for students to attend.

“They don’t think of this ranking of theirs as the most comprehensive,” Machen said. “You’ll have to decide if that’s the most important thing to you, being the parent and the student.”

Both Vassar College and the University of Florida were chosen to speak at the conference because of their dedication to socioeconomic diversity, Machen said. According to Machen, University of Florida’s percentage of Pell Grant recipients is up to double that of Ivy League universities.

Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Charles Deacon said that while Georgetown’s percentage of Pell Grant recipients, at 10.8 percent, more closely resembles that of the universities in the Ivy League than Florida’s 30 percent rate, the university’s selectiveness limits its ability to admit a large amount of low-income students who have fewer opportunities to meet the standards of elite institutions.

“I think the greater issue starts with the beginning that there aren’t enough kids coming along with the level of academic talent and background it’s going to take to fill up lots of spaces at these very top institutions,” Deacon said.

According to Deacon, endowment is also a limiting factor.

“For a place like Georgetown to have 50 percent Pell Grant, we would need to have someone give us about $5 billion in financial aid to meet the need of those students at the level of equality,” Deacon said.

Anthony Carnevale, director of the McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center on Education and the Workforce, agreed, pointing to Georgetown’s endowment , which is smaller than those of universities in the Ivy League.

“At some level, the rankings are aspiration, and they’re a little bit unfair,” Carnevale said. “What is stunning about Georgetown … is that the graduation rate for low-income and minority kids at Georgetown is just as high as the overall graduation rate, and it’s well above 90 percent.”

Deacon similarly noted the high graduation rate of low-income students as well as the Georgetown Scholarship Program as alternative indicators of Georgetown’s relative success in socioeconomic diversity.

“Getting in is step one, getting through is the key. And not only getting through, but getting through with pride, with accomplishment and with opportunities that are on the equal playing field with the rest of your students,” Deacon said. “How do you measure that in this New York Times poll?”

However, Machen said the U.S. News rankings are no more comprehensive than The New York Times rankings would be.

“At least they’re honest about it. To say that [the U.S. News Rankings are] a comprehensive ranking is a joke,” he said. “There are other things that are important.”

Nora Gordon, a specialist in education and economics in the McCourt School of Public Policy, believes the new ranking system could highlight the inequalities in existing rankings.

“I think one potential benefit of having a system like this could be to actually make people discount the other rankings, even if it doesn’t make them care a lot about these rankings,” she said.

Though Machen agreed that the rankings were not ideal indicators, he believed they would play an important role in indicating the affordability of colleges for students of limited means.

“I’m not sure it’s a perfect surrogate for diversity,” he said. “But it does show that kids who don’t have the economic means of the middle class kids can come here and not be put into big debt.”

Despite continuing debates on metrics for economic diversity, the rankings’ mission to draw attention to economic factors in higher education has been well-received.

“I imagine the primary benefit of this will be just kind of shining a light on the disparities that exist and basically the lack of representation of low-income students at elite institutions.” Gordon said.

The Georgetown University Student Association and its Transfer Council launched a mentorship program for incoming transfer students this semester. In June, 100 transfer students were assigned to 40 peer mentors who helped answer questions and ease each transfer student’s transition into life at Georgetown.

Although all incoming transfer students have an orientation adviser during New Student Orientation, and transfer students in the College, the School of Nursing and Health Studies and the McDonough School of Business have academic peer advisors, GUSA’s peer mentorship program is a unique resource.

GUSA’s Secretary of Transfer Affairs, Sara Margolis (COL ’16) said that she feels that transfer students enter college on a different plane than freshmen, making the transition more difficult in some ways.

“While freshmen don’t really know what the deal is with college, everyone kind of comes in in the same place. They’ve never been to college before and they have kind of leveled expectations,” Margolis said. “When transfers get to campus, they’ve come from different kinds of schools. … Everyone has a different story when they come to Georgetown, but I think that’s especially so with transfers. I felt that there was this void for a resource to introduce transfers to campus and campus life.”

According to GUSA Vice President Omika Jikaria (SFS ’15), the program will help give transfers access to more long-term support.

“We definitely saw in talking to transfers last year that often, transfers are not thought of as a first priority when they come to Georgetown, which can really be detrimental to their experience and their transition,” Jikaria said. “We thought that GUSA was a great place where we could create a transfer council that advocates for transfer specific issues.”

Over 40 students applied to become peer mentors for incoming transfer students. These mentors, all transfer students themselves, contacted their mentees during the summer and answered their questions about Georgetown.

“There are a lot of great services for freshmen that come to Georgetown, but often transfers

COURTESY GUSA

Transfer students mingle in Dahlgren Quad during NSO. Transfers now have mentors to help ease their transition into Georgetown. aren’t thought of in that process. The mentorship program kind of is an offshoot of that. It’s a great way to pair up transfers with transfers that are already at Georgetown,” Jikaria said. “It’s definitely important to have that kind of connection and it’s great to be connected to a transfer at Georgetown because a lot of the transfer orientation advisers aren’t transfers themselves, so we thought this was a great way to create that community.”

Kristen Fedor (COL ’17), an incoming transfer student, said that the added resource of a peer mentor has helped her transition into campus life.

“It’s hard going in as a sophomore,” Fedor said. “You don’t want your hand to be held like freshmen’s are, but we still have a lot of questions. It’s nice that they take an extra step for that.”

Although Fedor has not corresponded with her peer mentor frequently, she said that it is reassuring to know that a resource is always available to her.

“I didn’t end up asking [my mentor] that many in-depth questions, but it was definitely nice to know that there were people on campus who were there to help if I did have any questions and to have as a resource especially going through things like preregistration for the first time, or just knowing that if I needed help with the transition, that there was someone there who I had as a resource,” Fedor said.

Margolis said she hopes that this program will be part of a bigger process to make Georgetown more transfer friendly over the next few years.

“I’m hoping that it’s … raising the transfer experience at Georgetown,” Margolis said.“Transferring is never going to be easy. I would never go back and do it any other way, but it’s not easy to transfer schools. I’m hoping that gradually this gets picked up and someone keeps doing it year after year and it becomes the best school in the country to transfer to.”

NEWS

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

THE HOYA

A5

NYT Available Online READERSHIP, from A1

FILE PHOTO: TIM KEHRER/THE HOYA

Roy Hibbert’s $1 million donation to the Thompson Athletics Center follows gifts from Patrick Ewing (CAS ’85), sports agent David Falk and Jeff Green (COL ’12).

mittee, said that The New York Times online subscriptions worked well because they allow GUSA to analyze how many students use the program each day. Before cutting Collegiate Readership, GUSA members said they suspected students were not fully taking advantage of the program, but did not have a way to measure that claim.

“The New York Times financially made sense, and provided online passes, which we would be able to analyze data on usage,” Cheney said.

“It was important to us to be able to evaluate whether people were actually going to use online subscriptions like they said they would.”

According to Cheney, GUSA is working to create a more

long-term system, potentially expanding to reach more Georgetown students, including those in graduate and continuing studies programs.

A factor in the decision to cut the Collegiate Readership print program was the belief that graduate students and professors were taking advantage of the free newspapers earlier in the day, before undergraduates got to them.

“Long-term speaking, we are hoping to work with the library and also faculty and staff, as well as departments across campus including continuing studies and graduate students to implement a campus-wide program,” Cheney said. “That would be my ultimate hope. Also, on the sustainability front I think it would be wise to strongly consider going completely

Hibbert Gives $1M To Athletics Center HIBBERT, from A1 der to help the cause,” Geiger wrote. “The response to The Casual Campaign has been overwhelmingly positive, and the timing of the initiative in concert with the donations from Ewing/Falk, Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert was perfect as there is an energy among Hoyas basketball fans right now about the project and a desire to make sure it gets completed on time.”

With the looming 2014-2015 basketball

season, the importance of Hibbert’s gift and the Thompson Athletic Center project as a whole comes into clearer focus. The Thompson Athletic Center will house the new Georgetown Athletics Hall of Fame and men’s and women’s basketball coaches’ offices. The four-story, 144,000-square foot structure will be built adjacent to McDonough Arena, and will contain weighttraining, sports medicine, team meeting and practice facilities for all varsity programs.

Rape Reporting Rises After Definition Change STATS, from A1 people have been made aware of the excellent services the District has to offer.”

The recent passage of the Sexual Assault Victims’ Rights Amendment Act in May 2014 also guarantees that survivors will have the right to have an advocate present during police interviews and hospital exams. “[SAVRAA] allows certain rights for survivors to feel comfortable and empowered to share their stories,” Jha said. “It confers confidentiality onto advocates and you can communicate with advocates without fear of being subpoenaed.”

Despite the great increase in reports in 2013, according to RAINN, 60 percent of sexual assaults nationally are not reported to the police and only about 3 percent of rapists will serve time in prison. These figures could be credited to discomfort that survivors feel when reporting to law enforcement — an issue that has been key for activists.

“There is still an issue and the actual rates of sexual assault and the numbers reported to police because sometimes survivors don’t feel comfortable going through the legal process since historically police have not been survivor-centric and have not provided trauma-informed care,” Jha said.

MICHELLE XU/THE HOYA

GUSA’s replacement to the Collegiate Readership Program allows students to access paywall-blocked content on The New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today online.

online.”

Cheney said she hopes that the program can evolve to include a variety of online sources.

“I think that being on a college campus is very much a bubble, and you have to put effort in to burst that bubble,” Cheney said. “I think it’s important to first be diverse in your intellectual scope, and I think it’s also important to be able to decipher which news source you want to educate yourself with. I hope that we can work with Georgetown to diversify our sources.”

Although GUSA has provided an online subscription to students, Jack Bennett (COL ’17) said that he still plans to push for print newspapers on campus.

“Our generation is not aware of the world around us. We read BuzzFeed and Huffington Post and get our news like that,” Bennett said.

“There have been a number of studies coming out in the field of sociology on when you have people getting their information from the internet, people are only going to websites that support the views that they already have.”

Bennett said that he believes that The New York Times subscription is a good start on the way to a more robust readership program, but worries that solely online content could be intellectually detrimental.

“I think that if we were to keep not reading the newspaper and it was to eventually just become online stuff, I think that people would totally phase out anything that disagreed with their preconceived notions of how the world works, and there is so much more depth to a lot of issues that people don’t approach with BuzzFeed and everything else,” Bennett said.

Syrians Denied Visas SYRIA, from A1 prove sufficient in convincing the State Department that the refugees do not plan to stay in the United States, Goldman said.

The group is scheduled to perform in Switzerland in November, and the Swiss government has already approved their visas.

“We hope that if we do go to Switzerland and return from Switzerland, that will be an added piece of information in their favor and we could then potentially reapply with that piece of information,” Schneider said.

In lieu of the play, the festival will commence Sept.

19 with a summit about “Syria: Trojan Women.”

The summit will include video footage from the production, a conversation with the show’s artistic team and producers and a forum with policy experts who will talk about the situation in Syria. There will also be a live video chat with the group of women in Amman.

“The summit is basically a solidarity event and an awareness and advocacy event in a moment for the

community to come together around this project and hear from the women,” Goldman said.

Additionally, Goldman said that he hopes that the summit will garner attention about the visa denial.

“There’s been a lot of impassioned response in reaction to this news from everyone from government officials to the press,” Goldman said. “I think awareness is the first step. People are feeling outraged that they missed something.”

Schneider and Goldman will continue to work with the State Department and the Jordanian embassy to bring the women to the United States. They are calling the cancellation of this month’s scheduled performance an “indefinite postponement.”

“We certainly hold out hope that the project has a future life in person in the United States and indeed at Georgetown, but we also are realistic about … how difficult the challenges of getting that to change are going to be,” Goldman said.

“We believe there could be a way, but it’s going to take some imagination

and some open-mindedness and open-heartedness on the part of a range of people including state department officials to really see the reality of the situation.”

Amin Gharad (COL ’16) said that he was disappointed to hear that the refugees will not be coming to campus this month. Gharad, along with 13 other Georgetown students, met four of the 12 Syrian women in the production last month during the Office of Global Education’s Summer in Amman program.

“Spending an evening in Amman with these inspiring women and hearing their stories, in their voices, on their terms, brought the Syrian crisis to life in a painfully real, but necessary, way,” Gharad wrote in an email. “Their visit would’ve gifted us with true voices from a conflict that are often lost in the sea of figures and detached reports. It’s shameful that realpolitik and selfishness could be allowed to stonewall such an opportunity and bring further difficulty to individuals who have already suffered so much.”

COURTESY LYNN ALLEVA LILLEY

Syrian women denied U.S. visas because of their refugee status were scheduled to perform a play at Georgetown, their first performance outside the Middle East.

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NEWS

THE HOYA

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

HFSC Opens; Pub, Hilltoss Under Construction IAN TICE

Hoya Staff Writer

The Healey Family Student Center, located below the New South Residence Hall, opens today after years of planning and months of construction.

The university is celebrating the inauguration with tours and free food from noon to 5 p.m. today and a casino night from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Although today marks a soft opening of the center, targeted toward students, an official dedication ceremony featuring the donors and a blessing of the new space will take place Oct. 8.

Currently, the HFSC features a great room, with two fireplaces and a dais for events and performances, along with 12 study rooms and three larger conference rooms. The student center also has four music practice rooms, each of which has a piano, and two dance studios for use by student groups. The great room overlooks the Potomac River.

“Chairs will be lined up toward the window to take advantage of the views and all the natural light. There’s a lot of natural light from the skylights and also from the windows,” Center for Student Engagement Director Erika Cohen Derr said.

Cohen Derr said that building’s incorporation of natural light allows for the minimization of fluorescent lights. Additonally, some rooms within the HFSC include automatic lights operated by motion sensors in order to minimize excess power use.

The university is striving to attain LEED Gold Certification for the HFSC, although the application for the certification can only be submitted once the center is complete.

The other main attractions of the center will open later in the semester. The opening date for the newlynamed pub, Bulldog Tavern, is set for Oct. 31, while Hilltoss, the new Students of Georgetown Inc. storefront, will open Nov. 1.

The name for Bulldog Tavern, which was chosen through a studentwide vote, was announced Thursday.

Another student-wide vote will be held at the end of the month to select the pub’s logo, which will be studentdesigned.

The HFSC is two stories, and its elevators allow those with physical disabilities to access New South without ascending the steep hill on Library Walk.

A yet-to-be-built terrace financed by a $2.2 million allocation of the Student Activities Fund is planned outside the great room. It should be open within four to six weeks, according to Cohen Derr. Another deck is located outside the pub.

“All of this in the original design wasn’t there. It was all because of student activism and work to reform the endowment process that they had a campus referendum, everyone voted and they voted in favor of giving $2.2 million to create this terrace,” Cohen Derr said.

For the time being, the center will be open from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekdays and from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. on weekends. Once the pub opens, the hours will expand to match the later hours of Bulldog Tavern, which will stay open until 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. Cohen Derr said the Center for Student Engagement plans to keep the center open 24 hours during final examinations. Longer hours will be considered once student interest is assessed.

JOSH GORDON/THE HOYA

The Healey Family Student Center will feature 12 study rooms and three large conference rooms, as well as four music practice rooms and two dance studios.

INTERVIEW PRESIDENT DEGIOIA. Create our new marketing plan. Attend the Inauguration.

Photograph the new mascot. Connect with alumni.

DESIGN A WEBSITE. Report from the Inauguration. Meet JTIII. Make our biggest sale yet. Write a viewpoint everyone reads.

Chat with Bradley Cooper about his newest film.

COVER THE FINAL FOUR. See President Clinton in Gaston Hall. Design graphics.

Launch a social media campaign. Revamp our hiring process.

Help build a business. Break GUSA election results.

CHANGE THE WAY WE DO NEWS.

Head to Alabama for the College Cup Championship.

Lay a page. Make videos the whole campus will watch.

SEE YOUR NAME IN PRINT. OR ONLINE. MAYBE BOTH. Balance the books. Meet student leaders. Make best friends.

Visit the newest restaurants. Find your passions.

Write a blog post that goes viral. Fix our grammar.

BECOME A PART OF A TRADITION THAT’S 94 YEARS IN THE MAKING.

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Come to our information session Sept. 7 in ICC 115 at 8:30 p.m. to find out more about joining Georgetown’s newspaper of record. Apply by Sept. 11.

FIND THE APPLICATION AT thehoya.com

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THE HOYA

fRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

Kaya Henderson Joins GU Board of Directors Suzanne Monyak Hoya Staff Writer

D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson (SFS ’92, GRD ’07) has been appointed to Georgetown University’s board of directors. She will serve a three-year term beginning in October.

“We are proud to have Kaya Henderson serve on Georgetown’s Board of Directors. We admire and appreciate her contributions to our community, to the District of Columbia and to the education of young people here in our city, and across the country, and around the globe,” University President John J. DeGioia said in a statement to The Hoya. “By focusing on purpose, passion, empowerment, excellence — and most importantly — the success of the young people she serves, Kaya inspires those around her to promote one, fundamental idea: that nothing but the very best will do.”

After graduating from the School of Foreign Service, Henderson joined Teach for America, where she taught middle school Spanish in the Bronx. She went on to serve as national director of admissions for TFA, and eventually as executive director of TFA’s Washington, D.C. branch.

While pursuing her executive master’s degree in leadership at Georgetown, Henderson also worked as vice president for strategic partnerships with The New Teachers Project, a national nonprofit aiming to improve equality of education.

She became the interim chancellor of DCPS in November 2010, and was officially appointed chancellor in June 2011. Named one of the “World’s 7 Most Powerful Educators” by Forbes magazine in 2011, Henderson also received an honorable doctorate from Georgetown in April 2012. In fall 2012, she taught “Education Policy: Teachers” at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.

“My many experiences as part of the Georgetown family have afforded me some truly incredible opportunities, including the surreal and touching moment when I was presented with an honorary doctorate,” Henderson said in a statement to The Hoya. “I firmly believe Georgetown is the best university in the world and has helped to shape who I am as a person and as a professional.”

In response to an inquiry by Henderson, D.C. Director of Government Ethics Darrin P. Sobin affirmed her ability to serve both on Georgetown’s board while continuing her position as DCPS Chancellor.

“Here, your service on the board would be part time, and I otherwise find nothing to suggest that that service would conflict significantly with the performance of your duties or impair the efficient operation of DCPS,” Sobin wrote in a letter posted on the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability’s website.

In his letter, he stressed that she will be barred from receiving any kind of gift or payment for her service to Georgetown while she is serving as DCPS chancellor. Additional-

ly, she will be ethically obligated to recuse herself from any issues that could create a conflict of interest.

Georgetown has two contracts with DCPS: one that permits DCPS principles to earn master’s degrees and another that gives law students the opportunity to teach pre-law classes to high school students. Henderson will recuse herself from participating in any matters related to these contracts or to any issues that involve both Georgetown and DCPS. Henderson said she was honored to be chosen for this position at her alma mater.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to lend my knowledge and expertise to help the university continue to meet the Jesuit ideal of developing men and women for others,” she said.

COURTESY ANDY LE

COURTESY BEVERLIE LORD

Kaya Henderson (SFS ’92, GRD ’07) will begin her three-year term on Georgetown’s board of directors next month.

LiveSafe App Promotes Student Safety on Campus Maddy Moore Hoya Staff Writer

In response to several campus safety concerns from students and administrators last spring, the university has introduced LiveSafe, a new mobile application that focuses on addressing campus safety through a simple virtual platform.

The application, which replaced the EmergenSee app, became available to Georgetown students at the start of New Student Orientation last month.

LiveSafe is currently active at various universities, including Arizona State University and Virginia Tech, but has been modified to meet Georgetown’s specific safety needs.

“There have been trainings done for the police dispatchers, communication with the NSO leaders and a lot of activity will be taking place within the next weeks and months talk through how best to market the app at Georgetown,” LiveSafe Founder Shy Pahlevani said.

The application includes several unique features to promote safety on campus. An essential component

community,” Pahlevani said. of the app is to provide a compre- cy and communication options The tips will instantly be sent to through the LiveSafe applicahensive place for students to call GUPD, where officers will address and message law enforcement in tion.

“When a tip is submitted, [it] fun- the safety issues. order to change how students in“LiveSafe helps facilitate inforteract with the Georgetown Police nels through our communications Department and the wider campus center and it’s the responsibility of mation sharing about safety in the communications person to ac- a real-time manner. We envision community.

“LiveSafe is a two-way communi- knowledge that we got their tip,” students using this app to commucation tool between students, cam- Gruber said. “If it’s an emergency, nicate directly not only with each pus police and the school admin- we are going to dispatch officers to other, but also with the authorities to more quickly istration,” Pahlevani disseminate urgent said. information about Students can report “We envision students using this app to campus safety,” concerns to GUPD di- communicate not only with each other, Georgetown Univerrectly through an onsity Student Associaline messaging system. but also with the authorities.” tion Vice President The system includes the Omika Jikaria (SFS option for students to OMIKA JIKARIA (sfs ’15) GUSA Vice President ’15) wrote in an send tips anonymously. email.

“The Georgetown The app also includes SafeWalk, University Police Department has the scene immediately.”

The innovative app also allows a feature that allows students to a communication consult in their office and [students] can have a con- students to customize the tips select contacts to virtually track tinued conversation and it remains about specific incidents, such as their walk from one place to ananonymous,” Pahlevani said. “It fo- vandalism or assault, and send other, in order to ensure that they cuses on breaking down the barri- them to campus law enforcement. safely arrive at their destination. It ers to communication by making it Students can also include pictures, aims to provide students with an additional layer of security as they really simple, intuitive and easy to audio and video with their tips.

“LiveSafe hopes to empower stu- walk alone. share information.” “[SafeWalk] can track you in GUPD Chief Jay Gruber is opti- dents to choose what they want mistic about the increased efficien- to share with the broader campus real time with your selected emer-

gency contacts. … It makes it really easy to contact campus police if needed,” Pahlevani said. “It’s these engaging features that draw Georgetown students in.”

The LiveSafe application hopes to eventually include a feature similar to one featured in TapRide, an older app, that allows students to order a SafeRides vehicle and track it in real-time.

“It’s a nice platform on which we can expand and it’s a really simple way for students to become connected to us,” Gruber said.

“Texting is so natural and just pulling up the app is so easy.”

LiveSafe and GUPD are currently working with campus partners and groups such as InterHall, GUSA, University Information Services and others to advertise the app and encourage all members of the Georgetown community to download it.

“It’s a continuous process. We are going to work on marketing throughout the entire year to convince students that it’s important enough to take 30 seconds to download [LiveSafe],” Gruber said.

Sudoku

GU FARMERS MARKET

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Answers to last issue’s puzzle:

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MICHELLE XU/THE HOYA

The Georgetown University Farmers Market returned to campus on Wednesday in its new location in Red Square.

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NEWS

FRIDAY, september 5, 2014

THE HOYA

A9

Streetcar Construction on H Street Completed Kshithij Shrinath Hoya Staff Writer

As testing continues for the D.C. Streetcar project, operation of the public transportation line is set to begin later this year, after a series of delays plagued the project.

Construction is complete on the H Street/Benning Road line connecting Union Station to Oklahoma Avenue in the northeast quadrant of the city. Testing began near the end of July as drivers learned how to maneuver traffic and control the unwieldy vehicles.

Reggie Sanders, spokesperson for the District Department of Transportation, said that the project was on schedule to open later this year.

“We now have four cars moving up and down traversing the streetcar system between H Street and Benning. We are doing operator training, and we have 30 operators that have now completed their training,” Sanders said.

“That’s very good news towards certifying the system, so we’re really happy with our progress.”

The streetcar runs on rails built into the streets, so operators can merely accelerate and decelerate — albeit slowly — along the track; they cannot change lanes in the street. Consequently, in addition to the 30 hours of required training, the testing process is of vital importance in familiarizing the operators with the road, and allowing drivers along the H Street/Benning Road corridor to learn safe practices while operating near streetcars.

Because the streetcar occupies one lane of the road, potentially increasing vehicular traffic in the area, the DDOT released proposed

The increased room required on the street for the vehicles has also caused a spike in parking tickets along the line, as previously available parking spaces have been eliminated to make room for the streetcar. The Department of Public Works reported giving out 143 tickets since July 24.

Sanders remained confident, however, that the community was still embracing the project.

“When you’re doing something this big, there’s always going to be concerns.

We’ve reached out to many groups of people, and that includes businesses, to explain the effect it will have on them,” he said. “We work hard to keep everyone informed and to manage expectations REGGIE SANDERS and also to work with Spokesperson for the District Department of Transportation them on any problems that may have site or to the left or to the right of come about.”

The modern streetcar revives a the train. There’s just not enough room. There’s too much vehicular dormant Washington, D.C. tradition for the first time in 50 years, traffic there to do that safely.”

To ensure cyclists still have a way though only after nearly a decade to traverse the corridor, the DDOT of deliberation. Although DDOT installed “contraflow” lanes on G broke ground in 2004 on a line in Street and I Street to the north and the Anacostia district, the project faced contracting issues and delays south of the streetcar line.

However, the Washington Area that led to the project being shut Bicyclist Association pointed out down.

Despite the hiccups, the openthat H Street was a vital business corridor that cyclists could ing of the streetcar line in D.C. folnot reach anymore and urged the lows similar projects in cities like DDOT to make the street safer for Atlanta and, according to Sanders, heralds more options for public bicycles to traverse.

“On H Street, the guideway is the transportation in the city.

“Streetcars are really short-trip entire street, effectively banning biking in this popular corridor. ways of getting around town, and This is a problem,” WABA Com- we’re moving towards a multi-modmunications Coordinator Colin al transportation effort, where you Browne wrote in a post on the orga- can use bus or rail or car,” he said.

“It’s of great value to the residents nization’s website. regulations limiting cycling on H Street in areas with rails. They will accept comments on the proposal until Sept. 27.

“We’re recommending that cyclists not be allowed to ride between the rails east and west on the streetcar because there’s simply not enough room,” Sanders said.

“It’s not safe for cyclists to ride in front of the train and ride oppo-

“It’s not safe for cyclists to ride in front of the train ... or to the left or to the right of the train. ... There’s too much vehicular traffic there to do that safely.”

37TH & WALL ST.

Tax Inversion Poses Threat to Capital Gains SULLIVAN, from A10 will be no immediate effect. Whoppers will still be served and life will go on. However, over time, there will be wider financial effects. On the positive side, Burger King (and by extension, its loyal customers) will have a lower tax burden, increasing profits if all else holds equal. This could mean less vulnerability to price increases. On the other hand, there are a few more negative implications, particularly if you are an American shareholder. First, the government receives a lower corporate tax receipt, the cumulative effect of which across all inversions is estimated to be $20 billion over the next decade by the Treasury Department.

Second, shareholders are charged a capital gains tax when the company reconstitutes itself. Therefore, the private shareholder and the federal government bear the financial burden of the company moving abroad.

Your Whopper’s not going anywhere, but the King certainly is.

Sean Sullivan is a senior in the McDonough School of Business. 37th & wall st. appears every month.

FILE PHOTO: CHARLIE LOWE/THE HOYA

The D.C. Department of Education has proposed biking restrictions around the new streetcar lanes on H Street/Benning Road. that live in those areas and the people who come to visit Washington.”

Current plans feature six stops along the way. Although the current line does not cross the Anacostia River, future development of the Streetcar system plans to include an extension across the waterway into Ward 7, as well as an extension in the other direction to Georgetown, which would make the system more accessible to students.

Sanders declined to comment on

possible expansions.

John Reilly (COL ’17) said that he didn’t see the new streetcars having much of an effect on Georgetown students.

“It’s certainly an interesting idea.

Right now, I can’t see the cars having a big impact on student life as they’re so far from the Hilltop. If a line is created connecting Georgetown and Union Station, it would be a great and easy way for students to cross the district,” Reilly said.

Q&A: From the MSB to BuzzFeed Kim Bussing Hoya Staff Writer

According to Greg Coleman (GSB ’76), he’s the luckiest man in the world. And with successful careers at Yahoo, Reader’s Digest, The Huffington Post and Criteo, a personalized retargeting company, behind him, the new president of BuzzFeed — responsible for the management and growth of all business sections — may very well be right. His resume boasts increasing Yahoo advertising revenues from $600 million to $6 billion, teaching graduates at New York University’s Stern School of Business and bringing advertising to account for 25 percent of Reader’s Digest corporate profit, leaving Coleman more than prepared for the adventures and challenges working at BuzzFeed promises.

What is a day in the life of the president of BuzzFeed like?

Because this is the beginning of my fourth week coming into a very popular consumer brand, it’s thrilling, exciting. Business is booming. There’s so much action on all fronts — the team that’s producing the creative [content] or the team running the sales side or the teams running our account management. What’s it like? It’s like walking into a casino with a pocket full of money trying to figure out the best way to maximize your return.

What drew you to BuzzFeed?

I was president of Criteo, and we took the company public last year.

It was a substantial company, and I was fully engaged. I had been there for three and a half years, when I got a call from the chairman and CEO of BuzzFeed, who were also two of the co-founders of The Huffington Post. I’ve kept in touch with these guys, they’re dear friends, and at the meeting, the chairman looked at me and said, ‘Greg, the reason I called is we wanted to see if you wanted to come back to the family.’

I had no idea. He said, ‘Would you consider being the president of BuzzFeed?’ I thought, ‘I don’t know how I can say no to this.’ I felt like the luckiest guy on the face of the earth.

I’m a big believer in the people part of the equation. It’s how I’ve made decisions throughout my career.

You’ve worked at The Huffington Post and Criteo. How did those positions prepare you for BuzzFeed?

It goes to scaling. How can you scale a business? How can you introduce a brand to the marketing and media community? In both cases, advertising is the pathway.

It’s how we get our revenue. How can you get ads to take notice and to believe their investment in advertising is very valuable? That’s kind of in a nutshell what we do.

The mechanics: How do you serve the ads? Make sure the machine works well? Whole bunch of that

COURTESY BUZZFEED

Greg Coleman (GSB ’76) took over as Buzzfeed president this August. His career has included stints at The Huffington Post, Yahoo, Reader’s Digest and Criteo. stuff that goes into it.

How did your Georgetown education prepare you for your career?

At Georgetown I got a great education, but I also was extremely connected to lots of relationships there. The blessings that anyone that went to Georgetown has is friendships, relationships, that last a lifetime.

At Georgetown, I took a class in magazine marketing and that really put me on the pathway to say ‘Hey, I want to get into the media business.’ I had the right professor at the right time who ultimately became my mentor.

I’ve been teaching for the last seven years. I taught three years at Georgetown, and then when my daughter Melissa Coleman (MSB ’11) graduated, it was easier to come up to NYU, where I teach digital media innovation. It’s a little bit like I’m giving back, like my teacher did.

He was president of Newsweek magazine. I feel like it was so helpful, I’m doing something of the same.

Do you have any advice for Georgetown students?

With this digital world continuing to grow, I encourage my students to think about whether or not they want to take an adventure versus taking a job. I had jobs, and it wasn’t until I left Reader’s Digest, where I was president, in 2001 to go to Yahoo that I had my first massive adventure. When I teach my students, I’m really trying to seduce them to taking an adventure, something that is uncertain, growing fast.

I would also tell students to not be afraid to use their connections.

If you know somebody who knows somebody, don’t be afraid to talk to someone who can open the door.

You’ve said in other interviews you think video content is BuzzFeed’s future. Why? The prevailing thought is that our video business could be larger, in time, than our website business. The magic of BuzzFeed is about creating content that people want to share and post.

It’s art and science. We believe that based on the early numbers,

we have to create content that is really breakthrough and is really different and should make you want to watch it, make you want to share it. We have a four-acre studio in Hollywood, where we do all of our original editorial. It’s nothing less than remarkable to see how everyone thinks outside of the box and understanding what the human mind really wants to delight in, share. It’s not the way it used to be done. Even on the advertising side, we produce videos for our clients that are ads that people really want to share.

If there were a BuzzFeed list about your life, what would it be called?

“Why Is Greg Coleman The Luckiest Man On The Planet?”

I think of all the jobs I’ve had, on the business side the companies I’m on boards of, involved in, how I’ve figured out and connected with the right people. It’s like I can sniff out a big fat truffle.

I made good decisions based on people, and then coming to BuzzFeed was the cherry on top of the cake.

BUSINESS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

BUSINESS BITS ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE

McDonough faculty and MBA students participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge on Aug. 29 in response to a challenge from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School students. In response, the McDonough students challenged students at ESADE, INSEAD and Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.

McDonough Dean David A. Thomas was also challenged. He, in turn, challenged Georgetown President John J. DeGioia, other prominent alumni and AOL CEO Steve Case.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

Featured on freeenterprise.com, Jeff Reid and Alyssa Lovegrove were praised for spearheading the Georgetown University Entrepreneurship Initiative. The Entrepreneurship Initiative provides mentorship and focused networking activities for promising startups over an intensive two-month program, and insight and experience to students about how to run and grow a business. It has been praised for increasing awareness across the nation as entrepreneurship becomes more important in today’s world.

SMALL BUSINESS BENEFITS

A recent study by assistant professor Neeru Paharia and her colleagues revealed small-scale retailers can succeed despite being in the shadow of multinational competitors by cutting prices, bolstering customer service or specializing in an even narrower niche. Featured on TheAtlantic.com, the article stated that Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a chain of coffee shops local to Los Angeles, has spread throughout the West Coast, despite being threatened by Starbucks. In a world where globalization of corporation has become commonplace, this research shows that mom and pop stores will always have a fighting chance.

ERICA WONG/THE HOYA

New alcohol delivery services like Ultra and Drizly threaten popular liquor stores, including Potomac Spirits, left, and Dixie Liquor. The legality of the delivery services has been questioned, but their ease and convenience have allowed them to become more established in D.C.

Apps Compete With Local Liquor Stores DAVID BROWN Hoya Staff Writer

Thanks to apps like Drizly and Klink and delivery services like Ultra, buying alcohol has never been easier, although some question this increased convenience.

As alcohol delivery services like these take hold in Washington, some local liquor stores worry about the potential impact on their clientele and sales.

Despite contention earlier this summer, with D.C. regulators forcing Ultra to stop serving on June 26, a recent decision by the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration found that the business models of these services do not violate District law, allowing most forms of alcohol delivery services to operate legally in D.C. “I am not worried about them, we have been here for 80 years and these apps are so new,” Dixie Liquor Managing Partner Sean Clark said.

“We haven’t noticed any impact yet.”

However, the concept of being

able to order alcohol from the com- islative roadblocks concerning sellfort of your apartment is not a new ing alcohol outside of their physical location. one.

“These apps can benefit from de“We already have a delivery service; what are these new apps offer- livering straight to students because ing that we aren’t already?” Towne their legal obligation of selling to unLiquor employee Leslie Eye said. “I derage drinkers is far less than ours,” Clark said. doubt we will The services make any partand app companerships with nies also aren’t these apps. It responsible for just makes no paying the same sense to me.”

10 percent tax According to that physical the ABRA, no stores do. campany can “These apps store their own are going to alcohol before SEAN CLARK come in, buy a transaction, Dixie Liquor Managing Partner our alcohol, and they are theoretically required to buy the drive it to your door with a price alcohol from retail stores in the Dis- markup, not pay their own tax and trict — specifically in Georgetown, then ask for a tip on top of that. To where some liquor stores already me, it’s a license to steal and a slap in offer these services. Clark believes the face to local retailers,” Clark said.

Retailers like Dixie and Towne that the value of these services is their ability to circumvent issues compared these new alcohol delivthat traditional, brick-and-mortar ery services to the food delivery serstores have faced: legality and leg- vice GrubHub. Just like GrubHub,

“It’s a license to steal and a slap in the face to local retailers.”

alcohol delivery apps will be able to include a price markup in the products they buy from local retailers as well as a delivery service charge and tip. However, while they are essentially identical in function, the laws regulating the sale of alcohol are much more stringent than those regulating delivering food.

While legal, at least by ABRA standards, these apps will be able to make a quick and easy profit on the delivery of alcohol with almost no risk. Technically, the sale of the alcohol is performed by the retailer — only facilitated by Drizly or Klink services. There is the possibility of retailers facing inadvertent criminal penalties for the carelessness of delivery services concerning the use of fake IDs. Some students said they would use the apps.

“If all I had to do was click a few buttons on an app instead of trekking all the way to the liquor store, it would be awesome. I order Safeway all the time because it’s so easy,” Liz Lafranchise (COL ’15) said.

37TH & WALL ST.

As HQs Go Overseas, Expect Steep Taxes W

hile taxes may not be the loopholes in the tax code.

Companies have been inverting sexiest topic in finance (unlike, say, “corporate raid- their tax structures for decades, but ers,” easily the coolest name in the only in recent months has there industry), tax inversion has come to been a strong enough public outcry the forefront of both the financial to warrant a discussion at the federnews media and the political dash- al regulatory level. Earlier this year, Illinois pharmaceuticals manufacboard in recent months.

First, we need a working defini- turer AbbVie Inc. declared its intention. Tax inversion is the acquisition tions to merge with Shire, a similar of a typically smaller foreign entity pharmaceutical company headquarby a U.S. company with the express tered in Ireland and incorporated in purpose of lowering, but not elimi- the British island tax haven of Jersey. nating, their U.S. tax obligations. While this move would help expand Oftentimes U.S. companies acquire AbbVie’s product line, according to foreign firms in order to strengthen Bloomberg it would also decrease its global market share, increase inte- effective tax rate in the U.S. from 22 gration across business units and percent to 13 percent, a significant diversify their operations. Tax in- amount considering AbbVie’s net income of over $4 billion version is designed to in 2013 on over $18 billimit the company’s lion of revenue. More earnings’ exposure recently still, Burger to the 35 percent fedKing announced plans eral corporate tax rate to buy Tim Horton’s in the United States, and relocate its headone of the highest of quarters to Canada, Organisation for Ecowhere Tim Horton’s nomic Cooperation is located, shaving its and Development Sean Sullivan tax bill by over a quarcountries, by reincorter. porating headquarInversions of such ters in a location with Companies have been successful or welllower top corporate ininverting their tax known companies come taxes, typically Ireland, Switzerland, structure for decades. such as these have prompted officials in the Cayman Islands and other relative tax havens. Histor- the federal government to reassess ically, when inversions take place, the conditions that allow companies despite the headquarters having to complete these restructurings. At nominally been moved, most opera- the end of August, Treasury Secretions management still takes place tary Jack Lew announced that the Treasury was going to re-examine in the United States.

Since the government still taxes whether or not it had the legal auearnings inside the U.S., as well as thority to act on its own and if so, profits of foreign divisions of U.S.- alter the limits to make it more difbased companies entering the coun- ficult for a merged company to shirk try, simply buying a foreign compa- its tax liability. Others, such as the ny to use as a tax shelter is usually Economist, have argued that tax not enough to dodge the tax bill. inversion is the symptom, not the After merging, some companies en- problem, and that the real danger to gage in earnings stripping, a process U.S. economic interests is the dizzyinvolving the foreign entity lending ingly complex U.S. tax code, where money to the American entity (both top companies are theoretically liparts of the same company). The able for 35 percent plus the average American company can then deduct state and municipality taxes, typifrom its tax bill the interest pay- cally around 4 to 5 percent.

So how does this issue affect the ments it is making on the debt, reducing the degree to which its prof- average Georgetown student? For its can be taxed. This sum is added example, if Burger King inverts itto the savings achieved by keeping self and relocates to Canada, there profits earned abroad outside the United States as well as the existing See SULLIVAN, A9

MICHELLE XU/THE HOYA

Peter Fanone (COL ’15) performs at Kickback, a music festival sponsored by The Corp and Welcome Week on Sept. 1. The groups have not yet decided whether they will hold the festival next year.

After Successful First Run, Corp Unsure if Kickback Will Return KIM BUSSING Hoya Staff Writer

This Labor Day saw the debut of Kickback, a music festival featuring professional and student acts, sponsored by Students of Georgetown, Inc. and Welcome Week.

Although a final ticket sale count is still being calculated — finalized information will not be made available to the public — the number of attendees fell well within the range of students the planners of the event were hoping to attract, and exceeded the number of tickets sold for events such as the more expensive Corp Gala, which ranges between 800 to 950.

“It looks like we sold to about a quarter of the population, so somewhere between 1,400 and 1,600 tickets,” Corp CEO Sam Rodman (MSB ’15) said. COO Patrick Moore (MSB ’15) estimated that projected sales were between 1,000 to 2,000.

Kickback may not be a regular Labor Day installation on campus, however.

“There’s a lot to look at,” Rodman said. “We still have to look at where we broke down from a financial perspective. We left the event really happy with how things went, and we think we did a good job of making people happy with the day, but in the

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end it comes back to the finances of it, as well as just the operations, finding people to do it next year.”

Moore believes that if the event does continue, it will most likely return in a different form.

“Maybe it will be more of a campus-wide committee versus a Corp and Welcome committee,” Moore said, citing turnover as a main issue concerning Kickback becoming an annual event. “Welcome [Week] coordinators will be completely different next year. Corp leadership will be completely different next year.”

During the day, however, the festival took on a tone much more reminiscent of the Georgetown community as a whole, rather than just The Corp, a shift that gave Rodman confidence in Kickback’s potential longevity.

“The event became enriched when it began to have more a campus-wide feel to it — for example, when Art Aficionados brought in their installations, or when Blue and Gray had a table and kiddie pool there,” Rodman said. “People brought cornhole.

I think that was when the event really started to take off. Not only is it enriched by the people participating, but it has a broader appeal to everybody who’s on campus.”

Rain delayed the show for 20 minutes during the middle of a set by

COIN, a professional act, but the inclement weather had relatively little impact on the rest of the festival.

“It worked out as well as it could.

We had talked to the emergency preparedness group at the university and worked out a plan,” Rodman said.

“As soon as the rain storms passed 20 minutes later, we brought everybody back in. I think just because the sun was so hot, it was almost the break everybody needed, because people poured back into the venue.”

Despite the growing pains of a first-year festival, attendees enjoyed the event.

“Even through the almost unbearable heat, the performers maintained a great energy level which in turn upped the Kickbackers’ energy as well,” Eliza McCurdy (COL ’17), who attended Kickback, said.

Regardless of whether or not Kickback will return next fall in some capacity, the festival provided a model for similar events in the future.

“It was a total test run this year, a total experiment,” Moore said. “We have a model now, which is really exciting to see if this is something that people are into going forward, how they make it better, how they do it different. What it looks like. Basically we built the model, we know now what the workload is for this type of event.”