The Hoya: October 9, 2015

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

Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 97, No. 11, © 2015

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015

CRAFTING GEORGETOWN

From sports to art to leisure, students hone their respective talents, captured in this photo essay.

EDITORIAL Reducing GUPD Public Safety Alerts creates a false sense of security.

MENTAL HEALTH OPEN FORUM A spike in CAPS visits elicited administration attention Monday.

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NEWS, A7

GUIDE, B1

Donation funds Multi-Sport Facility renovations, leadership program

JULIA ANASTOS/THE HOYA

Athletics Receives Unprecedented $50M Donation Toby Hung

Hoya Staff Writer

Georgetown received a $50 million gift — the second-largest donation in the university’s history — to bolster its athletics leadership program and fund renovations for Multi-Sport Facility, announced Tuesday.

The gift, which came more than a month after the university’s capital campaign passed its goal of $1.5 bil-

lion, was contributed by Peter and Susan Cooper of Newport Beach, Calif., the parents of five alumni.

University President John J. DeGioia announced the donation in a university-wide email Tuesday evening.

“The Coopers’ investment in our community will allow us to strengthen opportunities for students engaged in intercollegiate athletics and will help to prepare them

for leadership throughout their lives,” DeGioia wrote.

It is the largest donation made in the history of the university’s athletics program, and the second-largest donation overall, surpassed only by Frank McCourt Jr.’s (CAS ’75) $100 million gift to endow the McCourt School of Public Policy in 2013.

With this donation, the Hoyas Lead program will be renamed the Cooper Athletics Leadership

Program, and Multi-Sport Facility, scheduled for renovation in 12 to 18 months, will be renamed Cooper Field.

The donation will expand the athletics leadership program, founded three years ago as an initiative to provide leadership training to Georgetown’s 750 student-athletes through an academic framework.

The original program was also entirely funded by an earlier donation

Grant Funds MPD Body Cameras

GUIDE Improving Over Time

Hoya Staff Writer

The United States Justice Department awarded Washington, D.C., $1 million to expand its Body Worn Cameras program for Metropolitan Police Department officers Sept. 21, which will require that the city establish an implementation plan and training policy for cameras, as a response to police violence nationwide.

LaTOYA FOSTER Senior Communications Officer, D.C. Mayor’s Office

The additional funding, combined with the money allocated to the program in the mayor’s budget, will be enough to provide for 2,800 cameras. Currently, officers who have daily interaction with community members in the fifth and seventh police districts use 400 body-worn cameras, which were purchased prior to this grant.

There are more than 4,000 officers total in the department.

“Body-worn cameras increase accountability, improve police services and strengthen policy-community relations,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a press release announcing the grant Sept. 25.

“This grant sends a strong message that we are on the right track.”

In total, the Justice Department awarded 73 grants worth $23 million to cities nationwide to expand the usage of bodyworn cameras and explore their potential See CAMERAS, A6

See DONATION, A6

FEATURED

Matthew Larson

“It’s increasing accountability, strengthening relations and improving services for our MPD officers.”

from the Coopers.

The university began discussing possible philanthropic projects with the Coopers five years ago. Peter Cooper was previously a member of the university’s board of directors from 2001 to 2006 and from 2007 to 2013, serving as the chairman of the investment subcommittee. Since then, the Coopers have contributed to the

The Georgetown Improv Association celebrates its 20th anniversary with a gala.

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MOLLY COOKE FOR THE HOYA

Georgetown Against Gun Violence President Emma Iannini (SFS ’16), center, addresses Tuesday’s Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Generation Progress rally.

GAGV Rallies on Capitol Hill Molly Cooke

Special to The Hoya

Four members of Georgetown Against Gun Violence participated in a rally and press conference co-sponsored by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Generation Progress on the Capitol’s West Lawn on Oct. 6.

GAGV co-founder Sarah Clements (COL ’18) of Newtown, Conn., said the rally was a reaction to last week’s shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., that killed nine people Oct. 1.

“We’re fed up,” Clements said. “We’re tired of our communities being the targets and the reason why is seeing the impact of Congress’ inaction on this issue for decades and decades. They have hidden behind the gun lobby and

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

I feel the tide’s changing. The media’s response is changing.

Journalists are fed up with covering these incidents over and over again and the public is turning away from the gun lobby, turning away from their talking points, and we’re finally winning this thing.”

“It wants constant attention if you want the Congress to do something.”

ElEANOR HOLMES-NORTON Delegate (D-D.C.) House of Representatives

The rally drew a crowd of around 50 people, including students from The George Washington University and American University and cul-

Published Tuesdays and Fridays

minated in a letter delivery to Speaker of the House John Boehner’s office.

GAGV, which has previously co-hosted events with the Brady Campaign, aims to promote gun-sense issue voting among youth through activism on campus. The organization held a candlelight vigil with Campus Ministry for the victims in Oregon in Dahlgren Quadrangle the evening of Oct. 1. Moving forward, GAGV members are using #StudentsRising on social media to draw attention to the issue.

Members were invited to participate in the rally by an American University student working on the Brady Campaign.

There is currently a legislative push for the expansion of

NEWS Leo’s Livens Up

As Aramark’s contract comes up for renewal, the dining hall has pulled out new stops.

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OPINION Romania, Remembered

Today, after communism, it is corruption that erodes democracy in Romania.

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Sports Conference Conquerors

The women’s soccer team will aim to improve to 4-0 in Big East play Sunday.

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See RALLY, A6 Send story ideas and tips to news@thehoya.com

OPINION

THE HOYA

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Founded January 14, 1920

EDITORIALS

Restore the Balance The historic $50 million donation announced Tuesday is the largest monetary gift in Georgetown’s history to focus on athletics and will be used to renovate Multi-Sport Facility and expand a three-year-old leadership program designed for students engaged in intercollegiate athletics.

This donation, in conjunction with the university’s $62 million commitment to constructing the John R. Thompson Intercollegiate Athletics Center, illustrates a fiscal preference toward athletics at the expense of other deserving programs at Georgetown. Although this momentous donation will undeniably enrich the student-athlete experience at Georgetown, future donors should consider valuable but underfunded programs as potential avenues for donation in order to ensure balance on the Hilltop.

Georgetown’s severely underfunded music program exemplifies this trend. The recent emergence of the live music community GU Jam Sesh alongside student-run record label Clock Hand Records demonstrates a passion for music among Hoyas. Nevertheless, the music department’s budget could be expanded to in-

crease the amount of programming and practice space on campus.

Increased funding could also uphold students’ fundamental interests on campus. Last year, the university considered merging the LGBTQ Center, the Women’s Center and the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access into a blanket diversity conglomerate in the interest of budget constraints. A donation meant to support diversity at Georgetown could cement the independence of these sites of identity as well as allow for new diversity initiatives, including the establishment of a disability cultural center, interpretation services for deaf students and students with partial hearing loss and support for the potential African American studies major.

Ultimately, the university’s principles must inform how it values different resources — and only a change in the interests and priorities of alumni, encouraged by the university, can effectively change Georgetown’s allocation of money. Georgetown is home to a diverse student body that spans a spectrum of interest and identity. Hoyas deserve equal access to well-funded facilities and initiatives geared toward their intellectual pursuits.

The recent drop-off in Public Safety Alert emails, sent by the Georgetown University Police Department, would forgive students for thinking campus crime has finally ground to a halt — yet a glance at GUPD’s crime log archive hardly suggests a crime-free utopia. More than 30 offenses have been reported since the start of fall classes. Within this time frame, though, the Georgetown community has received just one Public Safety Alert email.

The university must ensure that its departments are transparent and fully communicative with students, especially in matters of safety.

GUPD needs to notify staff and students of its recent change in crime-reporting criteria and should remain forthcoming about future developments in campus security policy.

Previously, Public Safety Alerts were a frequent occurrence, often appearing two or three times in a single week. However, this summer, university administrators chose to follow more stringent criteria for reporting on-campus crime to make Georgetown’s public safety operations more consistent with the federal campus security statute known as the Clery Act. As a result, GUPD will only send out emails for murder, sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, manslaughter and arson.

This decision, which explains the decline

in Public Safety Alert emails, was never communicated to the Georgetown community and was only made known to this editorial board through an interview with GUPD Chief Jay Gruber.

GUPD’s efforts to comply with federal law should be applauded. However, at a university that has grown accustomed to frequent notifications about campus crime, the abrupt and unannounced curtailing of Public Safety Alerts gives students a dangerous false sense of security. Campus safety alerts give students an idea of where and when burglaries have been taking place; if there are multiple burglaries on the 3500 block of O Street, students will be more vigilant when walking through these areas. Additionally, information on suspect descriptions are important for students who call in when observing suspect activities, as was the case last May when a student call led to the arrest of an armed robbery suspect outside of the Georgetown University Alumni Student Federal Credit Union.

Although irritating to some, Public Safety Alerts used to serve as a constant reminder for students and staff to be vigilant. While some students may enjoy not to having to hear about every laptop stolen on campus, the unanticipated lack of Public Safety Alerts this semester reduces this vigilance and threatens to aggravate campus crime.

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Friday, october 9, 2015

THE VERDICT Out and About – A man was arrested for being nude in the fountain outside of the Library of the Congress, which, ironically, features naked sea nymphs.

Netflix and Bill – Netflix has raised the price of its standard streaming service to $9.99, making it officially more expensive than Amazon Prime and Hulu.

All Eyes and Ears – Bei Bei the panda cub at the Smithsonian Zoo can now officially see and hear.

Boozy Brunch – To the delight of many brunch aficionados, Starbucks has applied for a liquor license at five D.C. locations. Fingers crossed.

Think of the Children – A new bill making its way through the D.C. city council would give new parents a fully paid leave of up to 16 weeks, one of the longest leaves in the nation.

EDITORIAL CARTOON by Michelle Xu

Crime, Unannounced

Chalk, Full of Problems Georgetown has made significant efforts to incorporate the benefits of new technology and Internet connectivity into students’ academic instruction. The university prides itself on providing numerous spaces for its students to engage in deep and meaningful relationships with faculty, both inside and outside the classroom.

However, one of Georgetown’s primary channels of online interaction, Blackboard Learn, is a clunky, flawed system. Georgetown’s administration should look to alternatives to this learning management system to improve students’ academic experience and reduce technical difficulties.

Blackboard’s convoluted interface and communication issues often lead to confusion for faculty and students, undermining a student’s ability to engage outside the classroom. A sense of academic engagement and community cannot be engendered when students cannot read each other’s online blog posts or edit and revise papers. Even administrative policies like instructional continuity — which indicate the potential for web-based learning to augment traditional classroom teaching — can be hindered when there is no system to consistently support them.

Students often relate how frustrating it is when they have difficulties accessing Blackboard, cannot upload their documents or lose their blog posts in the system. Some professors, finding the online grading system unnecessarily complex and hard to navigate, have fallen back

Katherine Richardson, Executive Editor Daniel Smith, Managing Editor Molly Simio, Online Editor Toby Hung, Campus News Editor Kristen Fedor, City News Editor Tyler Park, Sports Editor Jinwoo Chong, Guide Editor Daniel Almeida, Opinion Editor Isabel Binamira, Photography Editor Shannon Hou, Layout Editor Becca Saltzman, Copy Chief Courtney Klein, Blog Editor Laixin Li, Multimedia Editor

Editorial Board

Daniel Almeida, Chair Gabi Hasson, Irene Koo, Charlie Lowe, Sam Pence, Parth Shah

to a paper system to calculate curves and final grades. Others abstain from using Blackboard altogether and maintain a separate blog or webpage for their courses.

Georgetown is not the only school with these problems. Since 2006, Blackboard’s market share has dropped from 90 to 44 percent.

Several high-profile universities, including the University of Texas at Austin, Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have left Blackboard in favor of emerging competitors offering better software.

Open-source programs like Moodle and more traditional programs like Canvas and Sakai each allow professors to create platforms that are personalized to their course and offer intuitive academic interaction for students, including user-friendly research collaboration, group work and ePortfolios. These options should be made available to Georgetown professors when structuring their courses. If we encourage more competition on campus, Blackboard will either improve its service and interface or risk losing yet another high-profile client, since to continue to allocate the funds Georgetown does to a system that is at its best faulty and at its worst inoperable is unacceptable.

Changing the way students and professors interact to encourage innovative teaching improves the student experience overall, but none of this can be achieved when the current system continues to disappoint.

This week

[ CHATTER ]

Be sure to check Chatter, The Hoya’s online opinion section, throughout the week for additional opinion pieces.

Robert Danco (SFS ’18) talks about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the various perspectives of the presidential candidates:

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Donald Trump has criticized the agreement as well, calling it “an attack on American business.” Hillary Clinton was a strong advocate for the fast-track authority deal that preceded the TPP but has yet to throw her hat in the ring since stepping down from her position as secretary of state. Senator Rubio also supports the TPP and fast-track authority.”

Find this and more at

thehoya.com/chatter LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The Space for South Asian Culture In response to Piyusha Mittal’s viewpoint (“Making Space for South Asian Culture,” Oct. 2, 2015, The Hoya), it is important to note that, over the course of the last year, Georgetown University and the School of Foreign Service Asian Studies Program have worked to engage South Asia in a more meaningful manner. The university offers a number of courses on India and South Asia in the fields of political science, anthropology, English literature, economics and development, history and theology. The university has, in the last couple of years, recruited a number of professors who study India closely as Georgetown increases its focus on South Asia. If one browses through the course selection page, the names Irfan Nooruddin, C. Christine Fair, Ashley Cohen, Touqir Hussain, Shareen Joshi, Nita Rudra, Ananya Chakravarti, Mubbashir

Rizvi and Ariel Glucklich will all lead to courses being taught on South Asia.

As of 2014, the GeorgetownIndia Dialogue (www.guindiadialogue.com), a student-run organization, has taken the lead on India-related programming. The group, mentored by Professor Irfan Nooruddin and supported by the university, has hosted an extensive range of South Asian events on campus. In April 2014, Georgetown organized a conference on Kashmir, hosting Omar Abdullah, the former chief minister of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, as the main guest of honor. This semester, Georgetown held talks with a former Indian cabinet minister on India’s environment policy and a with a senior Indian businessman. The campus has seen unprecedented India-related programming. This is not to dismiss the need for the

Mallika Sen, Editor-in-Chief

Brian Carden, General Manager

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Contributing Editors & Consultants

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SFS and the university to further enhance its South Asian focus and meet the student demand for essential regional language skills. Courses in Hindi and Sanskrit, for example, are invaluable to students who wish to be experts on the region, and the Asian Studies Program is actively discussing with key parties to meet this need.

Beyond Rangila, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Asian Studies Program are working to provide more resources on the very critical region of South Asia on the Hilltop. There are going to be new and exciting things unveiled for South Asia on the academic and programming fronts with the intent to build on our current progress.

Yash Johri (SFS ’17) and Jeh Tirodkar (SFS ’16)

Board of Directors

Christina Wing, Chair Brian Carden, David Chardack, Chandini Jha, Jess Kelham-Hohler, Lindsay Lee, Mallika Sen 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.

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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.

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OPINION

Friday, october 9, 2015

MISSING CLASS

THE HOYA

VIEWPOINT • Deletant

Persona Non Grata

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Laura Owsiany

Make Equality A Priority L

ast year as a news writer for The Hoya, I covered the New York Times’ first annual ranking of socioeconomic diversity on college campuses. This year, Georgetown plummeted in the rankings from 46 to 88.

While reading The Hoya’s coverage of the drop, I noticed the same line touted that I had encountered when I interviewed administrators last year: Georgetown is doing everything it can with a small endowment, and, despite the numbers, truly is committed to serving low-income students.

Perhaps this is true, in the context of elite private colleges. Schools like Harvard University, Stanford University, or Wellesley College with huge endowments ought to have stronger financial aid programs, and they do.

How can schools with much smaller endowments like Georgetown compete? Georgetown seems to prioritize a quality educational experience for all its students over providing middle-value scholarships with no additional support.

The Georgetown Scholarship Program is an incredible program dedicated not just to financial support but to community and mentorship as well. The results are smaller numbers of middle- and low-income students. Georgetown does the best that it can while playing by the conventional rules of higher education in the United States.

However, in a larger context, the failure of Georgetown and schools like it to include middle- and lowincome students is demonstrative of structural problems in the higher education system in the United States.

It is not just that Georgetown is often inaccessible to certain socioeconomic demographics. College in general is something that the current national dialogue seems to forget. Discussions surrounding the issue continually fail to consider radical reform to rectify the problem of inequity in the American institutions of higher education.

College today is viewed as everything from a serious academic experience to an investment in a future career to a place to “find yourself.”

As enrollment in four-year institutions has risen steadily over the past decade, the college experience has become a selling point. Wealthy families and students employ SAT tutors and college essay-writing workshops and use a wide variety of extracurricular activities to get into their top-choice schools for prestige and opportunity, but also for the best total experience. Students pour over college rankings and “The Princeton Review” books in the hopes of knowing which college is really right for them. The resources used in the college race alone are inaccessible to lower-income students who hope to go to an elite college. But, they also set up universities as businesses selling an experience to American elites rather than places of learning and advancement for all willing students.

When families invest so much in their children’s college education, they then expect the best: flashy new academic buildings and dorms plus a staff of administrators for any and all student needs. In an article published by The Atlantic in May 2013, author Josh Freedman referred to this phenomena as an “amenities arms race,” where schools are incentivized to spend on buildings and administration rather than increase instructional quality or finance strong aid programs. Freedman writes, “Outside of the handful of super-elite universities with fortress endowments, colleges’ finances are currently designed around enrolling a disproportionately high number of high-income students. These schools could not afford to support more low-income or middle-income students absent either a huge increase in tuition, a commensurate reduction in spending, or a dramatic change in public funding.”

Georgetown certainly plays into this paradigm. Its endowment does hinder its ability to finance low-income students, but its focus on multiple new construction projects and intricate administrative bureaucracy also fit Freedman’s framework. Whether or not Georgetown is better or worse than its peers at increasing accessibility for middle- and low-income students, it could be doing a lot better.

In order to improve socioeconomic diversity in higher education, universities across the board need to make it a top priority, not another amenity.

Laura Owsiany is a senior in the College. Missing Class appears every other Friday.

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deep commitment to democracy and a devotion to the Greek Catholic Church are features of the activity of the Romanian diplomat, writer, philanthropist and politician Ion Ratiu (1917-2000). Guided by these principles, Ratiu was a fierce critic, in self-imposed exile in London, of the communist regime in Romania for over 50 years, earning considerable recognition as president of the World Union of Free Romanians. After the downfall of Nicolae Ceausescu in December 1989, Ratiu returned to his native land to stand in the presidential elections of May 1990 but was disappointed to come only third in the ballot. Nevertheless, he was elected as a member of parliament and led the campaign for Romania’s integration into the Euro-Atlantic structures. In the mid-1990s, Ratiu endowed the chair in Romanian studies at Georgetown that I have the honor to hold as a visiting professor.

In the contemplation of the campus, the intermingling of the spires of Healy Hall with fresh, new architecture and under the imprint of the college’s spiritual tradition, it is easy to overlook that alongside our God in history, there is also a devil. One of the courses that I teach at Georgetown bears the title “The Devil in History.” It takes its name from the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski (1927-2009) , whom I had the privilege of meeting several times in Oxford. He argued that communism and fascism represent two incarnations of the disastrous presence of the devil in history. Both ideologies are seen as two sides of the same coin of totalitarianism — and both were a political, social and cultural construct that transformed earlier ideas regarding good and evil. In their application, both relied upon repression.

My experience in communist Romania first made me aware of the reliance of the regime upon repression. An inescapable feature of life under Ceausescu was the ubiquity of the securitate, or the security police. I realized as much

After speaking out against Ceausescu’s gross abuse of human rights I was informed that I had been declared persona non grata. from my first contact with the country as an undergraduate, and that realization was reinforced during my many subsequent visits. That first contact was my attendance in 1965 of a summer school in the mountain resort of Sinaia, some 100 miles to the north of the capital, Bucharest. One Sunday I was allowed to venture out from the complex in which we foreign students were quartered. In the town I was immediately intrigued by the fact that people of all ages stared at my clothes and, in particular, at my shoes. The latter, I learned, were the conclusive hallmark of a Westerner, since Romanian items

VIEWPOINT • Meyers

of clothing were uniform Standard de Stat or “state-standard product.” Only on one occasion did a trio of young Romanian students summon up the courage to ask me where I was from.

On hearing I was British they invited me for a “coffee.” I was led to a log cabin in the surrounding forest from where, as we approached, I caught the strains of “Norwegian Wood” by The Beatles.

Inside, it was crammed with teenagers in animated conversation against the background of music from a jukebox.

Successive songs were from an album by the same band, and my friends eagerly asked me to augment their frag-

mentary understanding of the lyrics.

This I did, adding translations where necessary in my faltering Romanian.

Eventually, feeling that they were in my debt, I enquired why no ordinary Romanians came up to the summer school complex. They laughed, looked around and invited me to walk with them. ‘’You see,” they said, “we live in a socialist country, and here the state maps out your life for you from birth.

You are assigned a school, you are assigned a job and you are assigned a place to live. Conformity is the rule; you do what you are told and meeting foreigners is off-limits. If your expectations are low and you don’t step out of line, then you will be satisfied. And to make sure that you don’t step out of line, they have the Securitate.”

During the late 1980s I often spoke out on BBC Radio against Ceausescu’s gross abuses of human rights. Yet, to my surprise, I was given a visa in September 1988 to enter the country. My observations of that visit were encapsulated in an article in The Times, under the byline “From a Special Correspondent,” which appeared on Oct. 8, 1988.

Two months later, I was informed that I had been declared persona non grata.

I prepared myself for a long interval of exile from my second home, only to be caught completely off guard by the sequence of events in Timisoara and Bucharest that led to Ceausescu’s overthrow Dec. 25, 1989. I was even able to claim a presence in Romania in 1989 for, thanks to BBC Television and especially to its chief foreign affairs correspondent John Simpson, I returned to Bucharest on Dec. 29 and indulged myself in the idea of a Romania without the Securitate. Today, it is corruption that corrodes democracy in Romania, and Ion Ratiu stands as a reference point in the fight against it.

Dennis Deletant is the visiting Ratiu professor of Romanian studies in the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies.

VIEWPOINT • Quallen

Politicians Should Debate the Deficit

Catholic Identity Combats Klan Racism

just survived — barely — an interview for a student organization at Georgetown. On the bright side, I didn’t have to channel my innerRick Perry by uttering “oops” after a monumental brain freeze. I never said I saw a UFO as Dennis Kucinich did in the 2007 Democratic presidential debate.

Nevertheless, I had my fair share of close encounters with questions that appeared before me like unidentified flying objects.

As a result of this experience, I have a newfound respect for the challenges presidential candidates face. Take, for example, the uproar that occurred at the Republican presidential debate CNN recently hosted on Sept. 16, 2015, at the Reagan Library. There, Republican candidates crowded before Ronald Reagan’s decommissioned presidential jet for three hours like standby passengers hoping to board a flight going nowhere.

They were grilled for three hours finding small respite in a couple questions about softball, women on the $10 bill and what their Secret Service code name should be.

Mike Huckabee, for example, selected his wife for the $10 bill because that way “she could spend her own money.” After I watched “Gone with the Wind” last summer, I feared one of the male candidates might controversially choose its coquettish heroine Scarlett O’Hara for the $10 bill and its rakish hero Rhett Butler as his super-secret code name. But the candidates played it safe. Even though these Republican candidates entertained a whole host of questions at this debate, they were strangely reluctant to discuss the federal debt and deficit — two issues traditionally indispensable to a Republican running for office. In fact, The Washington Post reports that the word “deficit” was only said twice in the debate, and that only one candidate proposed entitlement reform in all three hours.

According to Kevin Williamson of the National Review, writing Sept. 20 in “The Question No Candidate Will Answer,” this reticence arises because these candidates have been playing a game of “double make-believe” around the debt and deficit. They regard governmental spending as irresponsible. Yet, they view budget reform as the electrified third rail of American politics — the one no politician wants to touch for fear of committing political suicide.

Thus, some candidates claim to be budget hawks but propose more military spending that threatens the hard-won deficit reduction gains of the sequester.

For Williamson, these political

ind a copy of 1921’s yearbook. Open it to page 171. Here’s what you’ll see: around a dozen young men in dark suits. Their ties spill out of their vests and coiffed white collars top the ensemble.

Look up. A banner blares: Georgetown University. Look down. There’s the caption: Ku Klux Klan of South Carolina.

In 1921, the KKK was riding a wave of anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic anger to a second period of national prominence. “Birth of a Nation” — the film Woodrow Wilson famously screened at the White House had romanticized the KKK and the Old South six years earlier, in 1915, sparkling the resurgence. In 1920, the KKK hired professional publicists, who grew its membership to 6 million by 1924. When the 1921 edition of “Ye Domesday Book” rolled out, the KKK was a national political force.

But the presence of the KKK at Georgetown should surprise us. As forcefully as Georgetown imagined itself a Southern school, the KKK disagreed. The KKK hated Catholics, whom it equated with outsiders — Matthew threats to an old vision of the Southern order.

The “Domesday” entry explains that vision briskly, if sympathetically. It reads: “In days gone by there was organized in the Sunny South a Klan, which had for its purpose the removal of certain clouds which for a time obscured the light of reason and the restoration of the Southern Sun. This, in conjunction with other forces, it accomplished.”

We know now what those clouds are: Jews, blacks, immigrants and Catholics, among others. And to some extent, the way in which the KKK existed at Georgetown reflects this. A closer inspection of the page reveals that the KKK existed only at the Law Center, where students, then as now, were physically and spiritually removed from Georgetown’s Catholic core.

And the Klan does not appear to have lasted. It does not appear in subsequent editions of “Ye Domesday Book” (although, the reasons for this may lie elsewhere; in the winter of 1921, the faculty considered whether future yearbooks should be censored). The only other yearbook mention of the KKK inks the page in the 1916 “Domesday Book,” praising Tennessee in a law student’s biography as the KKK’s home — “that lovely section of country which witnessed the founding of the Ku Klux Klan.”

After 1921, the KKK disappears from the archive. Nationwide, the KKK’s second wave retrenched, combatted by emerging political savvy from groups like the AntiDefamation League toward the end of the 1920s. The KKK, by the time a third wave rose in the 1950s and ’60s, had crumbled into a fractious and regional — if still deadly — force for racial terror. It planted bombs in black churches and assassinated local civil rights leaders it deemed threatening or uppity, people like Medgar Evers.

This leaner, looser, darker KKK was encountered at Georgetown, too. As the Six-

I

calculations ignore a grim, mathematical reality, as a small number of federal expenditures — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national security, and interest on the debt — typically constitute about 80 percent of all federal spending. Williamson observes that “there is no mathematically plausible way to balance the budget without: 1) cutting spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and/or national security; and/or 2) raising taxes.”

So we come to the question that no presidential candidate wants to answer. What’s it going to be: spending cuts in popular programs, higher taxes or deficits forever? And please, make an effort to abstain from talking about imaginary growth, waste, fraud and abuse when answering this question.

If nothing else, this should reduce the overcrowding at the next Republican presidential debate.

Indeed, it might result in hardly any man or woman left standing.

It may also come in handy at the first Democratic presidential debate. There it could be employed — in a liberal fashion of course — whenever a candidate says higher taxes 1-percenters alone will fully solve our fiscal problems.

To be fair, presidential candidates aren’t the only ones who need a nudge or two. As senior editor of the National Review, Jonah Goldberg observes that politicians are politicians, so it should not surprise us that their interests too often lie in votes, not in principles. Thus, we bear the responsibility to do the budget math and change the political calculus so that politicians can align their self-interest with the common good. This means creating a new bipartisan consensus — one where Republicans acknowledge the need for higher taxes just as Democrats recognize the necessity for lower spending.

I hope this political realignment occurs sooner rather than later, because we need to move beyond the shopworn ineffectiveness of our present political gridlock. The national debt exceeds $18 trillion, and it’s increasing about $31,558 every second, as politicians in both parties run up the party tab on the generational theft they are committing against us. Unless meaningful action is taken, our generation will arrive late to this party but get stuck with the bill for a national debt that grew about $300,000 in the short time it took you to read this sentence.

Eric Meyers is a freshman in the College.

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ties prepared to swing in London, they began to roar in the United States. Students, usually Northerners, working with groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee travelled south to register voters, join marches and work to secure the goals of the civil rights movement. Georgetown students were no exception.

In October 1965, Bill Treanor, a recent graduate from the School of Foreign Service, went south to help black students enter newly desegregated white schools. He worked as a publicist for Martin Luther King Jr. in and around Atlanta. In Crawfordsville, Ga. Treanor was organizing voter registration when a local clerk offered 500 dollars to anyone who would beat or kill him. Five men, one wielding a hammer, took her offer. They dragged Treanor from his car and beat him into the fetal position for five minutes before police, who later declined to investigate the attack, arrived.

While staying in a Freedom House in 1965, John Quallen Reddy, then a junior in the College, was repeatedly threatened by the KKK and a local sheriff in Moultrie, Georgia, where he worked to build a voter registration program. That same summer, Walter Draude, a recent Georgetown graduate, found himself threatened by a county sheriff reported to have murdered at least four people.

These students would have known the threats against them were credible. The previous summer, three civil rights workers were famously executed by a mob of Mississippi Klansmen, who stalked the trio, executed them and buried their bodies beneath an earthen dam. The KKK often took lethal umbrage at carpetbaggers.

At Georgetown, these students were party to a vigorous social ethic helmed by the stunningly committed and deeply divisive Fr. Richard McSorley, S.J., whom we often associate with liberation theology. That theological strand, which emerged in the 1950s and ’60s, rebuilt what it meant to be Catholic at Georgetown and powerfully armed progressive Catholics in the era of Vatican II. They also witnessed a key element of Georgetown’s history. Georgetown is built on lasting contradictions — from our foundations as a Southern slaver’s school to the punchy progressivism we absorbed from the Catholic Sixties. Even the phrase “Catholic university” has been lampooned as cut through with contradiction. For precisely that reason, Georgetown can cause confusion. Our history, when we claim the good, sits uneasily with us because of the bad. Any reader thumbing the pages of “Ye Domesday Book” should soberly expect and acknowledge both.

Matthew Quallen is a senior in the School of Foreign Service. Hoya Historian appears every other Friday.

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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015

INSIDE THIS ISSUE Georgetown hosted the second annual Professional Speech Writers Association Conference from Oct. 6 to 8. Story on A8.

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DORM ROOM TOURS 4E visits with Connor Leimer, a 19-year-old musician, as he travels the country performing in different dorm rooms. blog.thehoya.com

Mayoral Initiative Supports Minority Students LISA BURGOA

Special to The Hoya

Mayor Muriel Bowser launched the new “500 for 500: Mentoring Through Literacy” program in conjunction with D.C. Public Schools, the Metropolitan Police Department and Howard University on Sept. 28.

The project aims to bridge the achievement gap between uneducated young men of color and their academic counterparts by enlisting 500 adult mentors for 500 black and Latino boys from the Washington area over the next two years.

The program is an extension of the Empowering Males of Color Initiative, launched by D.C. Schools Chancellor Kayla Henderson in January 2014. EMOC, with a similar mission to President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative, is a $20 million investment, offering support services for historically disadvantaged minority youths enrolled in D.C. schools.

Additionally, it resolves to construct an all-boys Urban Prep Academy east of the Anacostia River by 2018.

According to Bowser’s spokeswoman LaToya Foster, the volunteer mentors will promote literacy and a love of learning among struggling students, while also serving as role models for young men of color.

“One of the main things they’ll try to encourage is for these kids to read, read, read,” Foster said. “But for a lot of them, it’ll be more than that. Many of these kids are missing father figures, and mentors give them someone to look up to.”

She added that Bowser conceptualized the initiative after reading and discussing President Barack Obama’s novel “The Audacity of Hope” with a group of eight young men of color.

The conversation addressed the issue of policy implementation in helping disadvantaged minority students.

Bowser herself has signed on as one of the program’s first mentors, providing guidance for 6-year-old Tyler Towles of Malcolm X Elementary School.

The program also signifies a partnership across different Washington institutions, as both the MPD and Howard University have pledged to provide mentorship opportunities on a weekly basis starting in October.

“It’s very significant that the MPD is involved,” Foster said. “We’re fortunate here in D.C. that we don’t have tensions at the scale of those found elsewhere in the country, such as Ferguson, but it’s still vitally important that kids feel empowered to trust the police through positive connections with them. We have these partnerships with MPD and Howard because it definitely takes a village for these children.”

Together, black and Hispanic males

FILE PHOTO: NATASHA THOMSON/THE HOYA

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s “500 for 500: Mentoring Through Literacy” program, part of D.C. Public Schools’ Empowering Males of Color Initiative, pledges to tutor young men of color. The Metropolitan Police Department and Howard University have already offered mentors for the program. constitute 43 percent of all DCPS students. Both groups have consistently underperformed compared to girls and children of other backgrounds in areas such as reading and math benchmark exams, school attendance, enrollment in Advanced Placement classes and graduation rates, according to data released by the EMOC in January.

In the 2014 school year, only 32 and 43 percent of black and Hispanic males, respectively, demonstrated proficiency in reading through the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System administered to students in the second to 10th grades. Math scores were similarly low, indicating proficiency achieved by 37 and 55 percent for each demographic respectively.

Black and Hispanic males also represent the two groups with the District’s lowest graduation rates at 48 and 57 percent, respectively, compared with 82-percent of white males graduating in 2014.

Associate professor of sociology Brian McCabe (SFS ’02), whose research specializes in urban structures and social inequality, said this disparity is a result

of complex issues within the District.

McCabe cited the near-segregation of schools in Wards 7 and 8, which are predominantly impoverished and black.

“One of the main things they’ll try to encourage is for these kids to read, read, read.”

LATOYA FOSTER Senior Communications Officer, D.C. Mayor’s Office

“In cities in general but in Washington specifically, you have neighborhood conditions that are not conducive for students learning and students achieving,” McCabe said. “You don’t see a very racially integrated class setting, so I think a lot of this goes back to the kinds of neighborhoods we have created: neighborhoods without a lot of resources, neighborhoods without great schools, without great

role models that are segregated from the other parts of the city.”

According to McCabe, this lack of adequate education manifests itself later in students’ lives, from higher education to the workplace.

“Graduation from high school is a predictor of a lot of things,” McCabe said. “It predicts market outcomes, whether or not you get a job, also all sorts of health outcomes, teen pregnancy outcomes.

Over the last few decades, there used to be a very steady working class or manufacturing job ready for you even if you didn’t have a high school degree, and you could still get a steady income from it. But there are not a lot of jobs that exist like that today.”

Though McCabe said these services could potentially bolster academic performance among struggling students, he maintained that true progress can only be achieved by directly addressing problems within the D.C. school system.

“Generally, I think tutoring programs are a good supplement to some of the work that should be done in school, but it also raises the question about why we need voluntary tutors,”

McCabe said. “There’s no problem with voluntary tutors, and as long as you have schools that are underperforming they are a great resource, but the question remains why these schools are sometimes failing to provide for their students in the first place.”

Jake Robinson (SFS ’16), a former coordinator for the D.C. Reads program, which provides tutoring for innercity elementary school students, said that tutoring programs play a pivotal role in fostering academic progress among disadvantaged students.

“I think mentorship programs have a huge part in helping kids realize their own potential and really realize their strengths as individuals,” Robinson said. “Ward 7 is a very resource-depleted community, and it’s definitely nothing to do with the nature of the people that live there. Having forged relationships with students in that community, I can tell you they are just as intelligent and creative and passionate and driven, but it’s just a matter of having the resources to see that intelligence and creativity allow to grow.”

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Leo’s Sees Wider Dining Options Ahead of Contract End Aly Pachter

Special to The Hoya

Ahead of the expiration of Georgetown’s contract with its auxiliary services provider Aramark in 2017, the company has increased its efforts to improve the quality of on-campus dining and engage with students to receive feedback.

Since the beginning of this semester, Aramark has increased its offerings at both O’Donovan Hall and the Grab ’n’ Go locations after receiving student feedback from surveys and monthly meetings with the Georgetown University Student Association Dining Committee.

New additions include a wider range of dining options, such as whole grain foods, smoked salmon, eggs Benedict and chocolate fondue in Leo’s, as well as new salads, sandwiches and snack boxes in Grab ’n’ Go. According to Associate Vice President of Auxiliary Services Joelle Wiese, Aramark implemented the changes to keep up with evolving student tastes.

“One of the trends that we’ve seen is that students want more of a global palette and bolder flavors,” Wiese said. “We’re trying to tap into that, whether it’s in Grab ’n Go or in Leo’s overall.”

Aramark Marketing Manager Adam Solloway also said the company relies on the student community to suggest additions and improvements to dining.

“Our dining committee meetings have been a key factor in student engagement and the feedback has been valuable in guiding our menu planning to increase variety,” Solloway wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“Meetings are instructive and we collaborate together to make enhancements.”

Besides the committee, other student working groups formed at the end of last year have held meetings with chefs and representatives from Aramark’s culinary team to help construct the current Leo’s menu.

GUSA Secretary for Auxiliary Services Nicolette Moore (SFS ’17) said that the committee has been instrumental in Leo’s improvements.

“It’s been a really good forum,” Moore said. “It’s making the administrators and the people who work in Leo’s more accountable. When they hear it directly from the students, it means more.”

The beginning of this academic year was also marked by a poor

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As Aramark and Georgetown’s contract comes to an end in 2017, the company has increased its dining options beginning this academic year at both O’Donovan Hall and its Grab ‘n’ Go locations, including a wider international selection in response to student feedback. health inspection record for Leo’s given by the United Statse Department of Health. In early September, Leo’s received two critical violations and three noncritical violations on its health inspection report, which included observations of mice droppings in the bake shop storage cage and employees handling cooked broccoli with their bare hands.

GUSA Dining Committee Member Joshua Shinbrot (COL ’16) said the health inspections reflect poorly on Aramark’s management.

“I think it’s pathetic that the health inspection results have been so poor the past several times that they’ve been inspected,” Shinbrot said. “[Aramark] should know how

to operate it. They should know how to deal with those contingencies by now.”

Wiese said that Aramark has begun to make improvements in response to the report.

Shinbrot also said that the timing of Aramark’s improvements is questionable given their prior negligence to student input.

“They’ve been nodding their head for years, and all of a sudden, they’re going out to bid early and you see major changes in a matter of weeks,” Shinbrot said. “My big concern is that these improvements are going to be short-lived. … They don’t want to lose that contract.”

Moore also said that the impend-

ing end of the contract, which began in 2007, could play into Aramark’s decision to make improvements to the dining services.

“It’s possible that maybe they’re trying to be really responsive just because they know that their contract is ending soon,” Moore said.

However, Wiese said the upcoming end of Aramark’s contract has no relation to the recent improvements, which she said are the result of discussions between student groups and Aramark.

“We’re always tweaking it [and] always fine-tuning it,” Wiese said.

“Aramark, as well as all of us, really just want to provide the best that we can for the students. … It’s really just

trying to meet the needs of what students want versus anything relative to a contract.”

In addition, Wiese said it is too early in the bidding process to identify prospective vendors or determine the possible renewal of Aramark’s contract with the university.

Despite her skepticism of the changes at Leo’s, Moore said that Aramark has generally become more receptive to student feedback this year.

“I think that they genuinely want to make it better,” Moore said. “Whether that’s something that they would continue to do if their contract was renewed, I don’t know.”

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THE HOYA

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015

Student Group Rallies for Stricter Gun Control RALLY, from A1 the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to include more extensive background checks, enacted in 1993, which mandates federal background checks on potential firearms buyers.

President and co-founder Emma Iannini (SFS ’16) spoke about her resolution to tackle issues surrounding gun control legislation over the past three years.

“We’re counting up to the 150th school shooting that’s taken place in the three years since Sandy Hook,” Iannini said. “That is a shame, a blight on this beautiful country, and we shouldn’t accept that. But we know that with each and every incident that it’s the beginning of the end and that each one, at least for me, strengthens my resolve, my recommitment to dedicate my life to changing things.”

Iannini also compared gun lobbyists’ positions to those of car and tobacco manufacturers against safety measures like seat belts and cancer warnings, respectively.

“I am fully confident that we will come back here by the time that my generation is running this country and we will say, ‘What were we thinking 50 years ago? How could we have let the unabated carnage continue shooting after shooting?’” Iannini said.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (DD.C.) joined the student speakers to introduce a resolution to make June National Gun Safety Awareness Month.

Norton encouraged continued student activism past this particular rally, also citing youth-populated locations like schools and movie theaters as common targets for mass shootings.

“If this is a one-day deal, expect that it will not have the effect you should have,” Norton said. “I would like to see young people on the case of gun safety in a continuous way, stressing that this is a city with an extraordinary number of gun people who are at particular risk. Then, I think you will get the attention of the Congress. It does

not mind episodic attention. It wants constant attention if you want the Congress to do something.”

Clements echoed Norton’s sentiments, urging students to become more involved in gun control activism.

“As college students, as millennials, as the next generation, we have a responsibility to stand up and break that silence,” Clements said. “We must demand that Congress takes action and if they don’t, then we will vote them out.”

According to Iannini, the students present at the rally met a measured response at Boehner’s office.

“They only cracked the door open slightly and we spoke to one of the speaker’s staffers and then they politely told us that we needed to leave,” Iannini said.

GAGV member and rally participant Kate Sullivan (COL ’17) described speaking up in a “U.S. Political Systems” lecture last week after receiving news of the UCC shooting.

“I basically told the class, ‘Listen, there was just a shooting in Oregon at a community college, and I’m wondering when are people going to realize that protecting certain civil rights and liberties actually isn’t what’s best for society, that it’s not worth it,’” Sullivan said. “People need to realize what’s best for everyone as a whole instead of holding onto this idea, this amendment that was ratified in 1791.”

Annie Hill (SFS ’16), also a member of GAGV who attended, highlighted the momentum the gun reform movement is gaining and expressed hope that the process will continue.

“I think that you just kind of have to have hope in the American people that at a certain point you are going to have to start valuing human lives over liking guns,” Hill said. “This is a problem that’s not going to be going away unless we make a change, and it’s a problem that we’re seeing more and more frequently, and it’s breaking more and more hearts across the country. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon, but it’s starting to pick up the pace.”

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Georgetown Against Gun Violence members, including Kate Sullivan (COL ’17), took part in a rally on the lawn of the Capitol on Wednesday in response to the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Roseburg, Ore.

Donation Supports Athletics Program DOJ Issues DC DONATION, from A1 financial aid program in addition to Hoyas Lead, having previously donated a total $3 million.

Peter Cooper said that he and his wife were driven to develop the leadership program after witnessing their own children’s involvement in intercollegiate athletics. Three of their sons — Ryan (MSB ’02), Matthew (MSB ’07) and Kris (MSB ’10) — played football, while their daughter Kylie (COL ’02) was on the swim team.

“As a father … I know what [my children] went through — the rigor and the dedication that’s involved in being a student-athlete at Georgetown in terms of meeting the same qualifications as everyone else,” Cooper said.

“I was very moved by that experience.”

Building on Hoyas Lead, CALP will provide a four-year curriculum for student-athletes, including classes on the elements of leadership, theories of influence, team dynamics and preprofessional skills.

The donation will also fund additional research for the program and professional development training for coaches. Assistant Athletics Director for Student-Athlete Leadership Mike Lorenzen, who has led Hoyas Lead since its founding in 2012, will continue his role as the director of CALP. Vice President of Advancement Bart Moore (SFS ’87) said the Coopers and the university identified the program’s expansion as a potential project as they observed its increasing demand among student-athletes.

“A lot of juniors and seniors continue to participate, and that’s evidence

that the program has continued to grow, as there is more demand for it,” Moore said.

While the specifics of the expanded program have yet to be determined, the Office of the Provost will work with the athletics department to develop a plan, which includes the possible integration of the courses into the general curriculum.

Vice Provost for Education Randy Bass said that the financial support for a curricular program on leadership is unprecedented.

“It is rare that these kinds of resources can support rigorous development of curriculum and assessment around the question of leadership and co-curricular activities,” Bass wrote in an email to The Hoya. “We look forward to approaching this opportunity … through careful design, thoughtful experimentation and the engagement of the whole community in charting a path.”

Administrators across multiple offices stressed the importance of developing leadership skills among studentathletes.

Athletic Director Lee Reed said that the program will help student-athletes achieve their full potential beyond the sports field.

“It’s a privilege to be a student-athlete at Georgetown University, and with that privilege comes responsibility,” Reed said. “This is a way that we can ensure that student-athletes have the tools and resources they need to be successful beyond the Hilltop.”

Office of the President Chief of Staff Joe Ferrara agreed that student-athletes can apply the leadership and team-

JULIA ANASTOS/THE HOYA

Georgetown received its second-largest donation in history Tuesday for the athletics leadership program and Multi-Sport Facility.

building skills fostered by the athletics program to other aspects of their lives.

“CALP honors the idea at the heart of intercollegiate athletics. The leadership our students learn on the field impacts, in a profound way, their formation as women and men, and their ability to respond to the challenges they face throughout their lives,” Ferrara wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Part of the gift will be directed toward completing planned renovations for Multi-Sport Facility, which will include natural seating on the east and north sides and renovated locker rooms. The renovation will continue from the first phase of the facility’s reconstruction, which was funded by $10 million in donations from the previous campaign, ended in 2005.

Multi-Sport Facility renovation will occur alongside the construction of the Thompson Intercollegiate Athletics Center, which was supported through $62 million in donations. The center is expected to open in the summer of 2016.

According to Moore, the renovation project was stalled due to the lack of fundraising, which was brought to the Coopers’ attention as they discussed possible philanthropic projects.

“We had found ourselves in a difficult position with the [Multi-Sport Facility]. … It is very difficult to reinitiate funding for a project that’s been around for a while, but is only half done,” Moore said. “[The Coopers] said, ‘How can we most help you?’ The obvious answer was the completion of the [Multi-Sport Facility].”

Vice President for Planning and Facilities Management Robin Morey said that the renovation plans will align with the existing master planning goals.

“The design of Cooper Field will integrate Georgetown University’s master planning principles to support a pedestrian-friendly campus, improve green space and campus sustainability,” Morey wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Football Head Coach Rob Sgarlata (COL ’94), who coached the Coopers’ three sons on the football team, also said that the renovation will benefit the football program.

“Completing the field is just another piece of the puzzle for the program.

It’s going to be a huge boost in recruiting and just another huge show of the commitment to the football program from the school,” Sgarlata said.

According to Moore, multiple projects are lined up after the renovation of Multi-Sports Facility, including an additional residential hall, a new academic building and a renovation or replacement of Yates Field House.

For the time being, Moore said that he hopes the Coopers’ donation will encourage more donations to Georgetown’s endowment.

“Success leads to success in fundraising. Donors like to know they’re giving to a winning team,” Moore wrote in an email to The Hoya. “I think that Peter and Sue’s gift, on top of everything else it will do, also puts us closer to our next transformative gift.”

Hoya Staff Writer Katherine Richardson contributed to reporting.

Camera Grant CAMERAS, from A1 impacts on these communities. D.C., along with Los Angeles, Detroit, Miami, Chicago and San Antonio, received the highest dollar amount among recipients.

“The impact of body-worn cameras touches on a range of outcomes,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a press release announcing the department’s awards. “[These] build upon efforts to mend the fabric of trust, respect and common purpose that all communities need to thrive.”

Bowser’s Senior Communications Officer LaToya Foster said that while the grant will not be able to fully fund the body-worn camera program in D.C., it is still a significant contribution.

Foster m a i n tained that Bowser’s main goal for the program is to increase police accountability and strengthen relations between citizens and police within the D.C. community.

“As part of the mayor’s supplemental budget, she proposed to the Council to pass the additional funding to implement the body-worn camera program,” Foster said.

“It’s increasing accountability, strengthening relations and improving services for our MPD officers, so it’s a winwin all around.”

Foster said that while there are other methods of accountability in the police force to prevent abuse of police power, body-worn cameras constitute a logical step in ensuring adherence to laws.

“There are other programs that are implemented within MPD that increase accountability,” Foster said. “But body -worn cameras are definitely something that the mayor believes are necessary at this point in time.”

Georgetown University Police Department Chief Jay Gruber said that a similar program would not be used by Georgetown’s police force in the near future. He said that the high cost of the program, as well as the complex procedures needed for accountabil-

ity, have made the university hesitant to implement it for security personnel.

“All that planning has to take place ahead of time, has to be vetted through different groups on campus,” Gruber said. “It is not on our short term list of things we’re going to be doing here.”

In the context of MPD, Gruber also argued that cameras help increase accountability and protect the public from officers who are not using their powers properly. He added that cameras can be used as evidence to help find accused criminals innocent or guilty in a court of law.

“I think they’re an important tool that police officers use,” Gruber said. “[Cameras] become part of evidence that could be used in court and other administrative hearings to show what happened at the scene of [an] incident.”

Foster admitted that the mayor’s office has not yet fiLORETTA LYNCH nalized U.S. Attorney General procedures for footage once it has been captured, which was one of Gruber’s concerns with the program.

It is currently unknown how much video from each camera can be released to the public under the Freedom of Information Act, but the mayor’s office is formulating a plan.

“While [cameras are] holding people accountable, the mayor wants to be sure privacy for those captured in the video and be cognizant of that as well,” Foster said. “That’s the part that’s been a little tricky.”

Gruber added that MPD is addressing improving police relations with citizens through alternate programs, including having officers participate in community-based programs, provide support to neighborhoods and better integrate into the communities they serve.

“I think there’s a lot of things [officers can do],” Gruber said. “I think that a lot of what the MPD does is very community-based and has the community’s best interests at heart.”

MPD communications declined requests for comment.

“[These] build upon efforts to mend the fabric of trust, respect and common purpose that all communities need to thrive.”

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GUPD Reconsiders Public Safety Alerts Sarah Griffin

better idea than what they were doing in the past, but until it’s actually tested practically we have no way of The Georgetown University Police knowing how effective it will be.”

Department began sending fewer Yu He (GRD ’18), however, said she Public Safety Alerts in August after appreciated being informed of all poit reformed its guidelines to only no- tential safety issues under the prior tify students of major crime, such as system. murders, sex offenses and aggravated “I don’t have a problem with it,” He assaults. said. “I would appreciate if they can After a review by university leader- keep us alert about what’s going on ship, GUPD changed the Public Safety around this community.”

Alert methodology in accordance Lily Ryan (COL ’18) said she fears with the 1990 Clery Act, which re- that students will be more careless quires that institutions of higher edu- with their belongings if they are not cation record and disseminate crime reminded of theft on campus. data to the campus community and “I guess I’m slightly less cognizant provide timely warnings of safety of thefts at least, or of like locking threats to students and employees. my room because I’m not hearing “We looked closely at the Clery Act as much about things getting stolen requirements as well as surveying out of dorm rooms,” Ryan said. “And I our local and know that still is national peers,” going on, so that GUPD Chief Jay could be a probGruber wrote lem with not rein an email to porting.”

The Hoya. “We Abdulla Al discovered that Shirawi (MSB ’16) we were sending raised concerns out too many about the camalerts on issues pus alerts that that were not will be omitted mandated by the under the new Clery Act.” methodology.

Under the “It’s pretty new system, bad, because beGUPD will send fore, we used to campus-wide know what was alerts exclusively happening on for murders, sex campus, we were offenses, robbermore aware, and ies, aggravated now it just seems CHRIS GOUGH (COL ’18) assaults, burglarlike, you know, ies, motor vehithe campus is cle thefts, manslaughters and arson. safe again, but it’s very subconscious,” According to Gruber, students have Shirawi said. “We should know if been seeing fewer Public Safety Alerts anything is happening on campus recently due to a decline in the num- because it’s important to us. ... Some ber of crimes requiring notification of the times it’s close to where I live, of the community. In addition to of- and I just want to know if something ficial alerts, GUPD maintains a daily is happening there and if it’s happencrime log, which can be found on the ing to any of my neighbors.” department’s website and includes Marlena Konopka (SFS ’17) recomdetailed descriptions of less serious mended a reformation of the current crime, like petty theft and simple as- system to allow students to choose saults. the alerts they receive.

“We are now in line with the Clery “I don’t really look at emails from Act as well as our local and national GUPD, even though I should and peers on the issue of Public Safety then the ones that I look at are always Alerts,” Gruber wrote. the worst ones,” Konopka said. “MayChris Gough (COL ’18) expressed be if they can make it like an opt-in gratitude that he is no longer being or opt-out decision so that we don’t inundated with emails. have to be bogged down if we don’t “I’m certainly happy that they want to, but we should definitely get haven’t been blowing up my phone to decide.” quite as much, so it’s easier to do things without the constant emails,” Hoya Staff Writer Gaia Mattiace Gough said. “I certainly think it’s a contributed reporting.

Special to The Hoya

“I’m certainly happy that they haven’t been blowing up my phone quite as much, so it’s easier to do things without the constant emails.”

STEPHANIE YUAN FOR THE HOYA

Senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former professor Arthur Herman spoke about his latest book on the history of Western civilization and its shifting values in the Intercultural Center on Tuesday.

Herman Talks Western Values Jesse Jacobs Hoya Staff Writer

Hudson Institute senior fellow and former Georgetown professor Arthur Herman discussed shifting values in the Western world at an event in the Intercultural Center on Tuesday evening.

The event, which was titled “The Western Experiment,” was sponsored by the Tocqueville Forum for Political Understanding and focused on ideas from Herman’s latest book on the history of Western civilization, “The Cave and the Light.”

Best known for his New York Times bestselling book, “How the Scots Invented the Modern World,” Herman previously taught at Sewanee: The University of the South, George Mason University, Catholic University and Georgetown before beginning work at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C. Herman is also a contributor to The Wall Street Journal.

In his speech, Herman praised Western civilization as a successful experiment, in which proper governance has led to wealth accumulation throughout all social classes.

“To think of Western civilization in

some ways as an experiment … Western civilization has evolved as the most materially rich of all civilizations,” Herman said. “Rich not just at the top but permeating down through society even to the lowest rungs of society.”

Herman discussed the historical importance of democracy in the foundations of Western countries such as the United States. “[American democracy] is an experiment. It is an unusual turn in the course of human history and societies that you and I and everyone can have a role in the making of major political decisions. But also that the role of government itself … remains highly limited,” Herman said.

Herman also said that diversity is a key element in Western societies.

“In the Western tradition, we end up with a host of different books and a range of different religions … even the rejection of religion and the humanistic strain that emerges from that,” Herman said.

Herman then identified the key difference between the West and the rest of the world as rooted in the ideas of Plato and Aristotle.

“What I want to suggest to you is that if

you look at the course of Western history, from ancient Greeks on, what you see is these two great figures having enormous influence,” Herman said.

The talk concluded with a questionand-answer session.

Annee Lyons (COL ’18) attended the event because she is interested in ancient philosophical thought.

“As a classics major, I love discussions of the modern relevance of ancient thought,” Lyons said.

Ellen Singer (COL ’18) applauded how Herman linked Western culture to Platonic and Aristotelian thought.

“I thought he offered a compelling narrative, that progress comes from a dynamic exchange between Platonic truth-seeking and Aristotelian practicality,” Singer said.

However, Singer disagreed with Herman’s focus on Western tradition and questioned his assumptions of Western dynamism.

“I think his claim that this is a Western phenomenon is unfounded,” Singer said. “He failed to prove that similar philosophical tension did not drive progress in any other civilization, and his argument was laced with ethnocentric patronization of non-Western tradition.”

Sexual Assault Talk Returns Students Discuss Mental Health Issues on Campus Molly Cooke

Special to The Hoya

The 13th annual “Are You Ready?” event, a dialogue on sexual assault awareness and promotion of a survivor-orientated response culture, returned this year in Copley Formal Lounge on Thursday.

Health Education Services, Counseling and Psychiatric Services, and the Office of Residential Living sponsor the event each year in partnership with the LGBTQ Resource Center and the Division of Student Affairs.

The event kicked off Take Back the Night’s monthlong program for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which includes further discussions with survivors of domestic violence and other commemorative events. Thursday’s event featured a talk by founders of sexual assault prevention initiative One Student Kelly Addington and Becca Tieder. The pair also created a sexual education card game, Sexversations, which encourages conversation about sex.

Addington, a rape survivor, encouraged the use of campus dialogue to confront issues of sexual assault. She highlighted the need to create safe spaces for survivors to come forward.

“Look … at the campus population as a whole and see what works with specific groups,” Addington said. “Help create a culture of consent and a space where survivors

are comfortable coming forward.”

Addington described how she did not know she was raped until she started having nightmares and panic attacks, since the assault was drug-induced. She decided to take action after a particularly harrowing nightmare left her hysterical and led her to go to the gynecologist, where she learned she was pregnant.

“One morning I woke up screaming at the top of my lungs, crying uncontrollably,” Addington said. “I was sweating so badly that my pajamas were drenched.

I was shaking.”

Addington said that she felt conflicting emotions after learning what had happened.

“I couldn’t help but think, ‘What did I say? What did I do?”

Addington said. “‘What did I wear that night? How much did I drink? What did I say to him?

How does this happen?’”

Addington added that she faced difficulty coping with recovery because she initially chose to be silent about the assault. “‘This is my fault. This is my fault and I’ve got to fix this,’” Addington recalled thinking. “[But is] what happened to me ... less of a rape because I had been drinking or because he was an invited guest in my home?”

Tieder, who was Addington’s good friend at the time of her rape, said that the day she learned Addington had been raped was a life-

changing moment. As a result, the two have dedicated their lives to advocating survivor-friendly environments and healthy discussions of consensual sex.

“As her best friend, [I feared] that I failed her,” Tieder said. “Until we can create an environment where we can have healthy, honest conversations about consensual sex, we’re not going to create a survivor-friendly culture where they can come forward.”

Tieder also criticized what she called an “a.m./p.m.” mentality, in which friends of victims say or do one thing at night that they would never do during the day.

“Far too many people act differently or they’re not there for their friends, and that’s unacceptable,” Tieder said. “[People who leave] your friends behind, you’re the problem, not your friend who maybe had a couple of beers.”

After Addington and Tieder’s talk, more than 100 attendees broke off into smaller group discussions.

Carlo Izzo (COL ’17), a student facilitator of one of these discussions, said the discussions gave students a space to discuss difficult issues.

“There’s a lot of really enthusiastic students that want to have this conversation and they don’t find other places on campus to talk about it,” Izzo said. “Working to bring what these sessions are onto the rest of campus is what everyone’s really eager about.”

KARLA LEYJA FOR THE HOYA

Founders of sexual assault prevention initiative One Student Kelly Addington, left, and Becca Tieder spoke about sexual violence at this year’s “Are You Ready?” on Thursday.

William Zhu

Special to The Hoya

The Georgetown University Student Association Committee on Mental Health hosted a panel discussion with administrators Monday in the Healey Family Student Center to address student concerns about mental health policy after an academic year marked by a spike in student visits to Counseling and Psychiatric Services.

Last year, CAPS received an unprecedented 11,472 visits from 1,772 students, including 39 cases of psychiatric hospitalization. The forum raised students’ concerns ranging from the cost of counseling services, CAPS’ limited hours of operation and the university’s responsibility in helping students returning from medical leave.

The forum featured administrators involved in mental health services on campus, such as Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson, CAPS Director Philip Meilman, Student Health Services Associate Vice President James Welsh, Health Education Services Director Carol Day and Student Outreach and Support Director Katie Boin.

GUSA Undersecretary of Mental Health Ben Johnson (NHS ’17) began the event by discussing how mental health on college campuses has become a hot topic in recent years, resulting in the need for more dialogue.

“Mental health is something which has taken an increasing role in all of our minds as an increasing area of activism and concern and excitement on campus. I think that this is a great forum. I am so excited to have everyone here and get this conversation started,” Johnson said.

The panelists then reported on recent developments in their departments in regards to mental health.

“We have seen an escalating client caseload,” Meilman said.

In the question-and-answer session, students asked administrators about the cost of psychiatric counseling and the possibility of offering unlimited free counseling. Currently, CAPS covers group counseling and the cost of a first psychiatric visit.

Olson said that while there have been previous proposals for free psychiatric counseling, the administration does not have a plan to implement the proposal due to financial constraints.

However, Olson stressed that the administration understands the need and will continue to pursue a solution.

“We are taking seriously the request that we have heard, and we will actively explore that this year,” Olson said.

The panel then addressed concerns that the hours of operation for counseling services may make it difficult to schedule appointments around class schedules. Currently, CAPS is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In response, both Meilman and Day said that they accommodate students who cannot meet during the day.

“Even though it is published as daytime, we often have evening appointments,” Day said.

Scott Dennis (COL ’17), an attendee of the forum, then asked the panel why the university does not publicize statistics from the 2012 American College Health Association National College health assessment survey on Georgetown to students. Results from the survey are partially available on the Student Health Services website.

Boin said that using statistics specifically about Georgetown could potentially have a negative impact on the mental health of students.

“One of the consequences … is that it really brings people to the place where they start to wonder, ‘Is everyone suffering? What is the meaning of this suffering? Why are we all having such a hard time?’” Boin said.

Following Boin’s response, Dennis argued that the university needs to collect concrete data on students’ mental health in order to take action.

“Georgetown very much needs a wakeup call and needs to understand that the stress culture is very real on this campus, and anxiety is a very real problem on this campus, that loneliness and depression are very big issues,” Dennis said.

To close the forum, students and administrators discussed the subject of helping students return from medical leave. Students cited concerns that the university may not be doing enough to work out how students can transition from medical leave to routine academic life most effectively.

Welsh said that the university is dedicated to communicating with students who have taken medical leave and is involved in the process of deciding whether they are fully ready to rejoin the university again.

“We have committed to two things. Number one, to engage with students that have been on a medical leave of absence and identifying those students and getting them to participate,” Welsh said.

Boin also said that there have been numerous improvements in outreach and assisting students with adjusting back to academic life over the past few years.

“I think that one of the things we have done in three years is create good relationships in the dean’s office with the most caring individuals in those units,” Boin said.

GUSA Chief of Staff Abbey McNaughton (COL ’16) said that the event was a productive forum for students to share their concerns about mental health with administrators.

“It’s good to have a lot of the issues on the table and have students express their concerns and frustrations with the way that some of the policies are implemented,” McNaughton said.

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THE HOYA

Friday, October 9, 2015

Carnes, Kabore Participate in Economic Task Force Owen Eagan Hoya Staff Writer

Associate professor of government Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J., and former visiting assistant professor of the School of Foreign Service Rev. François Kabore, S.J., participated in the final meeting of the Jesuit Task Force on Global Justice in the Economy two weeks ago in Rome to examine the role of justice in the global economy and environment.

Carnes and Kabore were two of seven Jesuits worldwide, along with two nonJesuit professors from Jesuit universities, selected by the Society of Jesus for the task force over a year ago to draft a document on economic and environmental justice from a Jesuit perspective.

Since then, the group has met twice — first in Paris last year and later in Pueblo, Mexico this March — before its final meeting from Sept. 24 to 27 in the Curia Generalizia, the international headquarters of the Society of Jesus in Rome. Other members include an economist from France, a professor from the Atenao University in Manila and a coordinator of the Jesuits’ social ministries in Spain.

Over the course of its meetings, the commission produced a document of around 45 pages under the working title “Building Sustainable and Inclusive Communities: Justice in the Global Economy.” The work will be published in four languages and distributed globally through the Jesuit Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat’s journal Promotio Iustitiae in January or February of next year.

Carnes said that Pope Francis’ statements about inequality and environmental concerns were a major inspiration for the creation of the task force.

“It was borne out of the early statements of Pope Francis … his concerns about poverty and inequality and especially his concern about the environment,” Carnes said. “[The Society of Jesus] convoked a group of us social

scientists to reflect on the ideas that the pope had been saying in a somewhat theological framework [and asked], ‘Could we think about them in a social science framework and have these two speak to each other?’”

Carnes, who was the only political scientist on the commission, said that he was selected to the commission because of his knowledge of economic inequality and policy. He has previously written several papers and taught courses on inequality at Georgetown.

“I think that they wanted someone who understood economics at a pretty deep level, and especially my work on inequality lately is something that attracted attention,” Carnes said.

In addition, Carnes said that he was able to offer his insights on Latin-American policy and culture in the group.

“I think that they wanted someone that had a perspective that was more than just the United States,” Carnes said. “My work in Latin America … is something that may have attracted the eye of the planners.”

According to Carnes, although there has been significant progress made in global human development over the past decades, this progress has not been totally inclusive.

“That level of improvement, everybody should know about that,” Carnes said. “But at the same time, I think everybody should be profoundly worried that it hasn’t been as inclusive as we would like across different countries, across different classes within countries, and this growing apart, this division, this social separation that I think is profoundly concerning.”

Kabore, who now serves as director of the Jesuit University Institute of West Africa in Côte d’Ivoire, said that he hopes that the commission’s document will encourage the Catholic Church to be hopeful in the face of environmental and economic injustice.

“I hope this document will shed light on the potential for the church and all

the people of good will to be a beacon of hope in pretty troubled times,” Kabore wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Carnes also said that the paper challenges individual Jesuit institutions to address issues of economic and environmental justice on a small scale.

“I think that one of our hopes is that, much like Pope Francis has done, we will make ourselves a little bit uncomfortable …” Carnes said. “We need to be here at the microlevel on our own campuses dealing with this, and I think that’s going to be interesting for reflection on our campuses.”

Kabore said he believes Georgetown students are in a good position to address issues of global economic and environmental justice.

“I believe Georgetown students have more responsibility than others … to be global players that could make the difference not only in their own lives but also in the lives of others, in order to foster global economic justice,” Kabore wrote.

Elizabeth McCurdy (COL ’17), a Program on Justice and Peace coordinator and justice and peace studies major, said that the creation of the document is well timed.

“I think that a lot of our Jesuit values … go a little bit too micro in making sure that individuals can take care of themselves. When we’re on a planet that can no longer take care of [itself], it becomes hard for anyone to do that,” McCurdy said.

Elena Itameri (COL ’18), a JUPS major who is involved in the Georgetown Sustainable Oceans Alliance, said that this document provides a useful perspective in inspiring the current generation to act on economic and environmental issues.

“I think that the Jesuit perspective will actually have some sort of fresh idea in terms of what … our generation can do [and] in terms of going out and actually having an influence on these issues, rather than simply acknowledging the existence of them,” Itameri said.

TWITTER

Rev. François Kabore, S.J., far left, and Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J., far right, travelled to Rome two weeks ago as part of a Jesuit task force.

Speechwriters Gather For World Conference Caroline Welch Hoya Staff Writer

COURTESY FRANCES DELAURENTIS

Georgetown University Law Center professor Frances DeLaurentis, center, received a legal service award Oct. 4 for her pro bono work with the Catholic Charities Legal Network.

Professor Recognized for Service Cheryl Liu

Special to The Hoya

Georgetown University Law Center professor Frances DeLaurentis was selected as a recipient of the Archdiocese of Washington John Carroll Society’s Pro Bono Legal Service Award for her work with the Catholic Charities Legal Network.

DeLaurentis will be recognized for her work in supervising the production of nine handbooks over the past year to be used by the Legal Network’s volunteer lawyers.

The award recognizes individuals and organizations that have done exemplary pro bono legal work for the Catholic organization. received, along with law firms Keller & Heckman LLP and Steptoe & Johnson LLP,, Oct. 4 The John Carroll Society serves the Archbishop of Washington through its Catholic Charities Legal Network, in which Professor DeLaurentis is heavily involved in.

The network is a pro bono legal service that serves clients with a variety of issues, including debt, child custody and domestic violence.

DeLaurentis’ law students, with the help of law librarian Carla Wale, spent more than 500 hours creating the handbooks, which were used for reference by attorneys. Logistical information such as county-specific court names and fees were also included.

Caitlin Callahan (LAW ’17) was one of these students and spoke highly of her experience working on the project.

“It was not only rewarding to contribute to the meaningful work of Catholic Charities, but it was exciting to apply our newfound legal research skills to real,

practical lawyering and to learn about new structures of local law,” Callahan said.

DeLaurentis spoke of her desire to become more involved, highlighting her goal of completing a project that would not only benefit the network but also involve her students and help them learn.

“It was exciting to apply our newfound legal research skills to real, practical lawyering and to learn about the structures of local law.”

CAITLIN CALLAHAN (LAW ’17)

“I am actually having an impact on students, and it’s having an impact on me,” DeLaurentis said.

“They did the real work. ... I was just the vehicle.”

She said the most fulfilling aspect of the project was the relationship she developed with each of her students through the cause of serving others.

“Seeing the light bulb go off, I learned so much,” DeLaurentis said. “The service aspect and the teaching aspect of it ... [was] a live education.”

DeLaurentis was a civil litigator and partner at a law firm before teaching at the Catholic University of America and coming to

Georgetown in 1999. She served as chair of GULC’s legal writing and research program until 2013. DeLaurentis currently teaches legal practice, applied legal composition and advanced legal writing in practice, as well as upper-level writing seminars. DeLaurentis is also director of GULC’s writing center.

Associate Dean of the J.D. Program Naomi Mezey said DeLaurentis is a committed GULC professor, supported by both her colleagues and her students.

“I’m looking at her teaching evaluation, and it just gives you an idea of how much her students love her and care about her,” Mezey said. “For example, one person commented that ‘I loved Professor DeLaurentis and her class. I feel like I’ve really improved a lot from her teaching.’ Her values are internal and they’re part of her identity as a teacher.”

Julie Ross, current chair of the legal research and writing program, succeeded DeLaurentis two years ago and has worked with her at GULC for 16 years. Ross highlighted DeLaurentis’ relationships with her students and expressed excitement at the recognition of her work.

“I was thrilled to hear that she was being recognized for the work that she did with her students last spring,” Ross wrote in an email to The Hoya. “It recognizes both Prof.

DeLaurentis and the work of her students; it underscores the obligations of members of the legal profession to engage in pro bono work; and it acknowledges that engaging students in work that serves others is consistent with the Jesuit tradition underlying a Georgetown education.”

Around 120 speechwriting and executive communications professionals shared their experiences working for international political and business leaders at the second Professional Speech Writers Association annual world conference in the Rafik B. Hariri Building from Oct. 6 to 8.

Speechwriters from nine countries attended the three-day conference, including former speechwriters for President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush and former President Ronald Reagan, among others.

The conference was sponsored by both the McDonough School of Business and Gotham Ghostwriters, a New York City-based ghostwriting firm. Attendance at this year’s world conference was more than double that of its inaugural session at New York University in May 2014, including a range of professionals from government, corporate, nonprofit and independent sectors.

“It is morning in speechwriting … but it’s a dangerous morning in speechwriting,” PSA Director David Murray said as he opened the conference Wednesday morning, alluding to Ronald Reagan’s famous “Prouder, Better, Faster” campaign ad in 1984.

Murray, who is also the editor of monthly magazine publication Vital Speeches of the Day, established the PSA in 2013 as a way to connect leaders in a profession that he said is often overshadowed by the speakers or organizations for which they write.

“Here is your first best chance … to open your hearts about the rigorous, dangerous and sometimes absurd moments of your profession,” Murray said, “To decide: Is speechwriting a lonely profession by nature or can speechwriters nurture each other?”

Participants at the 2015 world conference engaged in a series of panel discussions, question-and-answer sessions, roundtable dialogues and networking events that revolved around the growth of leadership communication.

Speechwriter for Clinton Lissa Muscatine began Wednesday’s question-and-answer session with a candid discussion on her own evolution as a speechwriter and the future of rhetorical craftsmanship.

“I came into the profession when speechwriting was not what it is today,” Muscatine said. “I had never written a speech before [applying to the position] … and had no connection with the Clinton administration.”

However, Muscatine said that she connected with Clinton on both her political actions and messages, finding value in speechwriting through end results.

“Speeches are some part of the historical record of what people of the time are thinking,” Muscatine said.

“The speaker needs to be forced to make their case and go through the process of writing a speech. What beguiles me today is that I go into speechwriting courses … and textbooks are used as guides for students. … As soon as it becomes formulaic, you lose the potential for great speeches.”

Other presenters, including MSB marketing and international business professor Charles Scuba, discussed the creativity and strategy behind storytelling

for a public audience.

Wednesday’s conference session ended with a panel of seven former presidential speechwriters from the Nixon, Reagan, Bush ’41, Clinton, Bush ’43 and Obama administrations, who shared their personal experiences with creating an appropriate narrative in times of crisis.

John McConnell, former senior speechwriter for George W. Bush, spoke about the high-tension situation in the aftermath of the space shuttle Columbia disaster.

“Pressure doesn’t just concentrate your mind. … It clears away the clutter,” McConnell said.

Adam Frankel, former senior presidential speechwriter for President Barack Obama, added that he thought of the victims when writing speeches addressing tragedy.

“You try to make speeches as unique and distinct as possible and to make them about the individuals affected,” Frankel said. “You imagine if the people who were suffering were in the room, and think about what they would want to hear.”

Because political speeches following tragedies garner high public attention, the panel emphasized the significance of writing a speech that resonates with the greater public.

“If [television networks] didn’t cover us, or The Washington Post or The New York Times, it may as well not have been said,” Clark S. Judge, former senior speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, said.

Former Bill Clinton speechwriter Jeff Shesol echoed Judge, noting that the evolution in media coverage from lengthier stories to fragmented clips places nuanced demands on political speakers.

“Presidents [today] are made to be seen and heard all the time,” Shesol said. “If you didn’t comment on everything then there’s a vacuum that people will exploit. … It’s harder than any day before to control the conversation.”

In light of the changes in media and other methods of communication, conference participants also engaged their peers and co-workers in roundtable and sector-based dialogue, fostering an exchange of strategies, pitfalls and experiences working in executive communications today.

These more intimate discussions concluded Thursday, with a mentoring session for members of the Georgetown University Speechwriting Advising Group — a student-run pro bono speechwriting organization on campus — who initially proposed holding the second annual PSA world conference at Georgetown last year.

GSWAG Co-President Will Simons (COL ’16) commented on the unique opportunity to speak with and learn from top-industry professionals as undergraduates interested in political communication careers.

“Hearing Lissa Muscatine speak was incredibly valuable because she focused on the relationship between speechwriter and client, and that’s something that is so hard to teach, and only with experience you can get better at,” Simons said. “This is just an unbelievable opportunity for all those involved in GSWAG to talk candidly with professionals in the field.”

NEWS

FRIDAY, October 9, 2015

THE HOYA

A9

BY THE NUMBERS

Food Shortage Requires New Solutions HOCHBERG, from A10

Kathleen Guan/tHE hOYA

In addition to bargain prescription and nonprescription glasses, Warby Parker’s new Georgetown storefront features artwork by poster artist Jason Munn as well as books from the eyeglass retailer’s new Warby Parker Press.

Warby Parker Launches in Georgetown EYEWEAR, from A10

life into our stores,” Read said. “In this store we have a custom piece of art by [poster artist] Jason Munn.”

Margot McCloskey (COL ’18) became a fan of Warby Parker after she visited one of its stores in New York.

“When I first got my glasses, I went into the store in the meat packing district in New York City because my friend, who actually needed glasses, needed a new pair,” McCloskey said. “I tried on a bunch of different styles just for fun, but was imme-

diately sold.”

According to Read, the company is also committed to philanthropy — since Warby Parker launched in 2010, for every pair of glasses sold, the company distributes a pair to those in need through its nonprofit, Vision Spring.

Co-founder Neil Blumenthal expressed his business philosophy to online blog Live in the Grey in January 2013.

“Creating an artificial distinction between ‘work’ and ‘life’ has never done the trick for me,” said Blumenthal in his interview with

the blog. “It’s a boundary that I associate more with 1950s sitcoms than with today’s work environment. Because we spend most of our lives working, it’s so important that your work be your life’s passion. When that’s the case, there’s no need to institute a separation.”

While Warby Parker hasrapidly increased its storefront presence, it continues to be online-focused.

“We’re still doing the majority of our business online, but we don’t intend for one to take over the other,” Read said. “We think the future

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of retail is a blend of offline and online experiences.”

But for McCloskey, Warby Parker’s decision to open a storefront in Georgetown is more than welcome.

“I’m so excited about Warby coming to Georgetown,” McCloskey said. “I actually don’t even need glasses, but I see them as a fashion statement. I invest in glasses like other people might invest in necklaces.”

Warby Parker plans to follow up its Georgetown opening with another store location in the Shaw neighborhood of Northwest D.C.

the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The tendency is to see resource waste as a purely First World problem or a product of rampant American consumerism, but the truth is more complicated.

Reducing food waste in our own country is a noble goal, but it will do little to put food on the plates of those hungry children in countries like Haiti and Niger. Instead, the best way to prevent widespread starvation in Third World countries is to beat the problem at the source. Taking relatively simple on-site measures will improve efficiency in the areas with the most widespread nutritional deficiencies.

Not only is large-scale food waste a humanitarian issue, it can also destroy a country’s economy in a multitude of ways. Authors John Mandyck and Eric Schultz, who co-wrote a book on food waste, estimate that more than 800 million people worldwide are continuously hungry. That number is equivalent to the combined populations of the United States and the European Union.

A nation’s aggregate economic success depends on its ability to produce goods and services, but a weak, starving workforce tends to yield very little. When poor transportation and storage measures destroy produce before it even reaches a store, the producer’s costs per unit sold increases. This chronic inefficiency helps no one; it only drives a wedge between the producer’s profits and the consumer’s benefits. The biggest instances of waste often occur before food even reaches a vendor. But basic transportation improvements can go a long way in addressing the problem.

Even teaching farmers to move fragile fruit like tomatoes in boxes instead of cloth bags would fix a lot of the most egregious problems, according to Mandyck and Schultz. Better refrigeration before and during shipping would cut down immensely on the quantities of perishables that spoil daily in countries that cannot afford to those kinds of loses. Of course, new technology can be cost prohibitive in highly underdeveloped regions, but it would quickly pay for itself in the form of increased production with few long-term upkeep costs.

Lack of proper storage and refrigeration destroys food in both stores and individual homes. Particularly in the case of economic actors with extremely limited resources (like starving households), non-governmental organizations, such as UNICEF, could play a crucial role. These organizations have the potential to drastically improve the conditions of the developing country’s poor by gifting them inexpensive, individual refrigerators.

This action would have a multiplying effect, indirectly helping those without refrigeration. As less overall food is wasted, more food becomes available at lower prices. As for the stores, NGOs or governmental agencies could effectively eliminate investment costs in the long run by offering loans, which would be relatively easy to pay back due to the predictable increased profits resulting from increased refrigeration.

In December 2014, the United Nations vowed to try to end world hunger by 2030. The organization will only be able to do so by implementing strategies where the problem is at its worst. Merely sending food over to the poorest nations may work for short-term crises, but it will do little to foster lasting improvement. Instead, on-site improvements in how food is moved and kept will allow individual nations to make better use of what they are already producing.

Even though solutions to these problems are local, thriving nations are still obligated to help where possible. Many food-saving programs require at least an upfront investment, if not an unconditional gift, which is a massive burden for NGOs to bear in every country. Individual countries will have to finance many of these improvements via the taxation of their own people.

But in the end, the trade-offs are worthwhile. Improved aggregate population health will boost worldwide production of goods and services — and that is something that will benefit almost every participant in the world market.

Gracie Hochberg is a sophomore in the College. BY THE NUMBERS appears every Friday.

Rosslyn Receives Retail Upgrade TARGET, from A10

goods and athletic apparel.

“Rosslyn, we think of as a very active area, so we have sporting goods, we have some active wear apparel — and then also some travel accessories because of the proximity to Reagan,” Dietz said.

The store is modeled after two TargetExpress locations in San Francisco and features a Starbucks and pharmacy.

A key difference in TargetExpress is its “to-go” focus, geared toward professionals and commuters. A small sportswear section features Wizards, Nationals and Capitols gear with fans en route to games in mind. The store also offers an assortment of beers and wines, with smaller packaged drinks for area hotel guests.

“The idea behind these flexible format stores is all about convenience,” Dietz said.

Five self-checkout lanes, four staffed lanes and two sections of graband-go food items aim to serve those on the go. Two iPads in a “seamless service station” allow shoppers to order items not available in store to be shipped to their homes.

Saejal Chatter (COL ’17) said she is looking forward to having a new option for buying basic kitchen and cleaning essentials and dry foods.

“It’ll be really convenient that I don’t have to take the metro and go to the other Target that’s far away,” Chatter said.

“And it’ll be cheaper than M Street.”

A District Taco is also scheduled to open in the same Wilson Blvd. building in December.

The new Rosslyn District Taco will be the District-based chain’s seventh brickand-mortar location. The restaurant started as a food truck in 2009 and has

since spread its operations across the Washington, D.C., area.

For District Taco CEO Osiris Hoil the restaurant opening in Rosslyn is deeply personal.

“When I was laid off from a construction job in 2008, I was feeling down in the dumps,” Hoil wrote in an email to The Hoya. “My Family and friends suggested to pursue my real passion: cooking. With my family’s encouragement, the DT taco stand was born late that summer in Rosslyn.”

District Taco’s menu features lowpriced tacos and vegan, gluten-free and vegetarian options, as well as catering and online ordering. The new restaurant will serve the same menu as other locations.

“Rosslyn is very special for us and we want to go back where everything started,” Osiris wrote in his email.

Blackboard Dominance Falters BLACKBOARD, from A10

and to distribute modified versions to other customers without paying licensing fees.

Meanwhile, it seems unlikely that Georgetown will switch from Blackboard anytime soon. Director of Educational Technologies for University Information Services Peter Farkas said that, while UIS does not commit itself to using only Blackboard, there will always be difficulties in using any LMS platform.

“I will say that there is no perfect software,” Farkas said. “We do encounter problems with Blackboard as we do with any software we use.”

For Georgetown, cost has not been a major obstacle in using Blackboard.

“The cost of Blackboard is very competitive … partly because of our long-standing partnership with Blackboard,” Farkas said. “I think there is a mistaken notion that open source means free. It generally means we don’t have to pay the licensing fee. But running a system is a costly endeavor, especially complex ones that serve the needs of tens of thousands of people.”

Farkas added that Georgetown has not experienced problems with customization either.

“Blackboard has a robust capability to offer customization, and we have built quite a number of features to enhance the experience for faculty and students,” Farkas said.

Still, students and professors suggest that there is room for improvement.

Associate professor in the African Studies Department Lahra Smith said that it can be hard to encourage a speedy and interactive discussion through Blackboard’s blog function.

“It doesn’t aggregate responses,” Smith said.

One of the most important things in a LMS is an intuitive interface, according to Smith.

“Professors are a tricky market because most of us are not very good with technology, and we don’t often want to put as much effort into learning it as people in another field would do,” Smith said. “So we need technology tools that are fairly user-friendly and easy to learn.”

Transfer student Erin Cao (SFS ’17)

pointed at the difficulty in locating course materials. While a student at Columbia University, Cao used an LMS called Coursework powered by Sakai.

“Sometimes when my teachers post stuff, it’s really complicated to find out where they posted it and under what folder,” Cao said. “I can never find anything.”

London School of Economics student Jungwoo Yang shared a similar sentiment. Yang transferred from Georgetown to LSE in 2014 and now uses Moodle.

While characterizing his experience with Blackboard as “generally pretty good,” Yang wrote in an email to The Hoya that Blackboard had its drawbacks.

“I found it difficult, relative to LSE, to navigate to previous posts,” Yang said.

Blackboard itself has changed hands as well. In 2011, a private equity firm, Providence Equity Partners, acquired Blackboard from the founders Michael Chasen and Matthew Pittinsky for $1.64 billion.

There is currently conversation in the business world that Blackboard is considering another sale, but Stout declined to comment on “rumors or speculation.”

Business & Tech FRIDAY, october 9, 2015

business Target, District Taco Arrive in Rosslyn bits Melina Delkic

Special to The Hoya

Georgetown Team Selected for NASA Rocket Challenge NASA selected Georgetown and 53 other university teams this week to compete in its Student Launch competition in April. Teams were chosen based on assessments of their proposals containing outlines for their vehicle. Student Launch is an eight-month program in which students design, construct and launch their own reusable rockets. Students engage in the same procedures that NASA currently implements for its employees and projects.

MSB Faculty Supply Advice on UN Sustainability Document McDonough School of Business Senior Associate Dean and Director of the undergraduate program Norean Sharpe provided input on a new United Nations paper addressing sustainability. The document, titled “The United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development: Introducing a New Age for a More Secure and Fulfilling Human Prosperity,” was created in a meeting of academic, corporate and nonprofit representatives in July. Sharpe and others participated in the meeting, discussing global economic sustainability, specifically the United Nations’ Global Sustainable Project in Rio de Janeiro in 2013.

Former Presidential Candidate Talks to MSB Students Former Governor of Massachusetts and 2012 Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney visited Lohrfink Auditorium to address MSB students on the issues of politics and business Sept. 30. The talk took the form of an hour-long question-and-answer session in which Romney discussed his presidential run, the 2016 presidential race and policy issues like immigration.

Romney also emphasized the importance of bipartisanship, saying that running against former senator Ted Kennedy opened his eyes to the love for America that can transcend party lines.

Georgetown Named in Top 15 Most Innovative MBA Programs Georgetown was recognized as one of the 15 most innovative MBA programs in the country in a Sept.

25 Inc.com article. The magazine said that events such as schoolsponsored debates helped set McDonough’s MBA program apart.

These debates often focus on topics such as how reduced copyright and patent rules could lead to more accessible healthcare for Africans with HIV or AIDS. Other schools named in the list included business schools at Harvard University, University of Notre Dame, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Andrew Wallender/The Hoya

Rosslyn’s new TargetExpress will celebrate its grand opening Saturday. The new storefront, located at 1500 Wilson Blvd., is a third of a mile from the Rosslyn Georgetown University Transportation Shuttles stop.

Hoya Staff Writer

Online eyewear company Warby Parker opened a retail showroom in Georgetown on Sept. 26. The storefront, located at 3225 M St. NW, celebrated its launch by releasing

See TARGET, A9

Blackboard Usership Steadily Declines Eunsun Shania Cho Special to The Hoya

Blackboard Learn, Georgetown University’s campus learning management system and the traditional dominant player in the LMS industry, is facing hard times. The company continues to see its market share dwindle, but it seems unlikely that Georgetown will jump ship to a different LMS. First released in 1997, Blackboard was one of the pioneer software companies in the LMS industry and has long remained the leader in the market. Yet what was nearly a 90 percent LMS market share has shrunk to around 44 percent, according to The Washington Post. Georgetown professors have been using Blackboard to upload course materials and make class announcements for more than 15 Sophie Faaborg-Andersen/The Hoya years.

A growing number of schools are moving their learning management systems away from Blackboard, which As competition in the LMS market intensified in the latter half Georgetown uses for its LMS. Blackboard’s nearly 90 percent market share has slipped to about 44 percent. of the 2000s, the dominant mardevices,” Stout wrote in an email to market share in the United States, tag for large institutions at around ket share of Blackboard began to decline. According to a report by The Hoya. “They are on social media. the United Kingdom, Canada and $25,000 to $75,000 annually.

In 2012, Duke also completed its The Campus Computing Project, They are collaborating with their Australia between 2013 and 2014.

71 percent of higher education in- fellow students and interacting with Meanwhile, the share of Moodle, a transition from Blackboard to Sakai, stitutions in America were using professors online. We are much competing LMS, jumped from 15.8 one of the main reasons being increased flexibility with Sakai.

Blackboard in 2006. The number de- more interested in using many percent to 19.7 percent.

A 2009 LMS review by Duke Uniforms of technology, in a connected The functional flexibility of creased to 57 percent by 2010. versity showed that several higher Moodle and Sakai primarily comes In response to the changing mar- and cohesive way.”

Blackboard’s overseas market education institutions have cited from their open source base. Open ket landscape, Blackboard plans to incorporate new technologies in its prospects also look precarious. Ac- cost savings, customization and flex- source software allows individual system. Senior Vice President of Mar- cording to edutechnica.com, an ibility as the advantages of switch- users to use and modify the system keting for Blackboard Tracey Stout education technology blog run by ing to other LMS platforms, most and to distribute modified versions said Blackboard aims to expand its a former development manager at predominantly Moodle or Sakai. Al- to other customers without paying service beyond traditional functions Blackboard, Blackboard witnessed though Blackboard does not release licensing fees. a 4 percent decrease — from 39.6 details on pricing, a June 2008 Eduof LMS. See BLACKBOARD, A9 “Learners today are on mobile to 35.8 percent — in its combined cation Week article put the price

Warby Parker Opens 1st of 2 DC Stores Maureen Tabet

Georgetown students now have two more reasons to trek across the Key Bridge. Target opened its latest “express” storefront in Rosslyn Wednesday, catering to young professionals, local hotel guests and commuters. And in December, District Taco will open its seventh storefront in the same building.

The new TargetExpress is located one-third of a mile from the Rosslyn Georgetown University Transportation Shuttles stop at 1500 Wilson Blvd. and will celebrate its official grand opening Sunday.

TargetExpress or “Flexible Format” stores are much smaller than their counterparts, typically 20,000 square feet versus a full-sized Target’s 135,000 square feet.

Target opened another express location in College Park, Md. near the University of Maryland’s flagship campus in July. The Minneapolisbased chain also opened locations in Chicago, Ill., San Diego and Berkley, Calif.

Rosslyn TargetExpress Store Manager Anna Dietz said that the Rosslyn location will carry dry foods, produce, home and kitchen necessities, travel accessories, electronics, sport-

an exclusive pair of sunglasses only available at its M Street location.

The storefront displays a variety of styles of eyeglasses for customers to try on. Once a customer selects a style of his choice, the company ships the prescription glasses to his home or workplace. The shop also

Kathleen Guan/The Hoya

Warby Parker opened its new showroom in Georgetown on Sept. 26.

The storefront is the first of two planned D.C. retail locations.

offers same-day non-prescription eyewear service.

Company officials first considered the Georgetown area for a permanent location after the young company opened a pop-up shop in Georgetown in 2012 and 2013.

“It was so fun being here and we knew we were going to open a store in D.C.,” Warby Parker Communications Manager Kaki Read said. “So much is happening here. There’s so much history, and a lot of what Warby Parker is inspired by is history, literature and culture. There’s so much of that here.”

The inception of Warby Parker began after a group of four graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School became frustrated with soaring eyeglass prices. In response, the quartet decided to start a company of their own committed to low-price eyewear. Warby Parker glasses cost between $95 and $395.

“There’s no reason glasses should cost 500 or 600 dollars,” Read said.

“There’s no secret science; it’s just that glasses shouldn’t cost more than 95 dollars.”

When the company launched in 2010, it was solely an online enterprise. Demand for the company’s glasses grew quickly, though, and Warby Parker sold out of their top three styles in just a few weeks.

The company was soon featured in

Vogue and GQ. In response to that demand, the founders opened up their apartment to customers in Philadelphia who requested to meet in person.

The owners would spread out different frames on coffee tables and eventually realized the benefits of a physical retail presence.

When Warby Parker opened its first official office in New York City, it again committed table space to customers who phoned in wanting to try on glasses. Eventually, the company decided to open a pop-up shop in New York City for the holiday season and has grown its physical storefront presence since, with 21 stores across the country.

In the Georgetown storefront, Warby Parker designers aimed to match the interior design to the prevailing aesthetic in the local area.

“We also try to maintain the integrity of the local environment as much as possible with our stores,” Read said. “I believe the masonry on the front of this space is original. We try never to go into an environment and tear everything down.”

On top of selling books from the new Warby Parker Press, the store features the work of different artists.

“We work with a lot of different artists to help breathe some more See EYEWEAR, A9

BY THE NUMBERS

Gracie Hochberg

Food for Thought W

hile many children do not buy their parents’ “there are starving children” argument as a reason to eat that last bite of broccoli, the tired adage makes even less sense in the context of current food-waste trends.

Developing countries need to rethink how they fight widespread hunger.

Developing countries account for roughly half of the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted annually, according See HOCHBERG, A9