The Heights 12/12/2013

The Heights will return on Jan. 16. Happy holidays!

GONE BOWLING

HEALING HANDS STATE OF THE ARTS

SPORTS

METRO

SCENE

Heisman finalist Andre Williams will lead the Eagles in the AdvoCare V100 Bowl, A10

A brother-sister duo is supporting art therapy in Boston with a new startup, C10

The Scene lists the six most powerful BC arts events this year, C1

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HEIGHTS

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The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

established

1919

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Vol. XCIV, No. 48

Dias named new director of Montserrat Coalition

BY DEVON SANFORD Assoc. News Editor The Montserrat Coalition welcomed a new program manager to its office this November. Paula Dias, BC ’07, was appointed as program manager on Nov. 18, replacing Marina Pastrana, the former program manager and founder of the coalition.

Pastrana accepted a position at Catholic Extension, a national fundraising organization that supports poor mission dioceses across the country, in midOctober. The BC alumna developed the Montserrat Coalition, an initiative under University Mission and Ministry that assists students at high levels of financial need, and developed it since

UGBC revises rules for 2014 elections

its formation in 2008. Dias says she is excited to continue Pastrana’s work.

“The reason I applied for the position is because I think that this program has become a really important part of Boston College,” Dias said. “Marina did such an amazing job building it from the ground up and I was really impressed with the University’s commitment to supporting her.”

Dias joins the BC community after working at Middlesex Community College—a mid-size commuter college in Bedford and Lowell Massachusetts—for four and a half years as a student engagement specialist, developing programs to integrate academic and

See Montserrat Director, A3

BY MUJTABA SYED Heights Editor

ROBIN KIM / HEIGHTS STAFF

Paula Dias succeeds Marina Pastrana as the director of the BC Montserrast Coaltion

Report confirms decline of female self-esteem at BC Perceived Skill Change, Freshman to Senior Year

A&S A&S CSOM CSOM LSOE CSON MALES

FEMALES

FEMALES

MALES

FEMALES

FEMALES

Academic Ability Computer Skills Drive to Achieve Leadership Ability Mathematical Ability Public Speaking Ability

Self Confidence (Intellectual) Writing Ability Positive Change

Negative Change

No Change

Recommendations by Commitee Housing Causes

Collaboration with Faculty

Revise the Housing selection process, which cause immense unneeded stress, and increase adult presence in dorms.

Provide ways in which faculty can interact with students and become familiar with issues faced outside of class.

Mentoring Programs

Early “Messaging”

Increase opportunities for relationships between faculty and female students, and between younger women and older students.

Introduce students early on in their BC careers to the role women can play in the intellectual life at BC.

Campus Conversation

Alcohol on Campus Support the current efforts to address the drinking culture at BC and the resulting problems.

Provide more forums for discussion on the topic, create more retreats for women, and establish a speaker series.

JORDAN PENTALERI AND BRECK WILLS / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC

BC Law School launches experiential learning center

BY JULIE ORENSTEIN Heights Editor Beginning next September, opportunities for students at Boston College Law School to learn the practical skills of their profession will be consolidated into a newly created Center for Experiential Learning located on the law school’s campus in Newton Centre.

Currently, BC Law students can participate in in-house clinical training that allows them to serve as advocates for underserved populations in civil litigation, housing law, immigration cases, and juvenile rights advocacy, among other areas.

For over 40 years, the law school has also operated a clinic in Waltham that has been able to serve clients who do not have access to the campus itself. Students are also given the chance to complete externships, working alongside lawyers in practice and taking classes to connect their experience to their educational goals.

Within the realm of experiential learn-

ing, all of these offerings will be combined under the purview of the new center, which will be headed by Paul Tremblay, a clinical professor of law.

According to Tremblay, resources that were previously designated for the Waltham off-site law firm now will be sent to the programs centered on the Newton Campus, with plans in the works to create several additional satellite or storefront locations in the community. Preliminary conversations have also begun with the BC Neighborhood Center in Brighton, which provides social services to low-income clients, particularly immigrants.

“BC has such a strong connection to Brighton and, frankly, most of our students live right near there, so that adds to the service area that we would otherwise not be meeting,” Tremblay said.

For the on-campus center, Tremblay said that construction will take place over

Experiential Law, A3

BY MARY ROSE FISSINGER Heights Editor The ad hoc Faculty Committee on Undergraduate Women, formed in the spring of 2012 in response to the statistic revealing that female Boston College students’ self-confidence declines during their four years at BC, recently completed a report that sheds greater light on this issue. The 40-page document compiles all the relevant data from both the survey that initially uncovered this statistic and the committee’s subsequent investigation into the matter. It concludes with recommendations for how BC can begin efforts to reverse this problematic trend and foster a culture that is academically and socially supportive of women.

Among the findings presented in the report is the fact that women’s self-perception of their academic skills and related abilities most often declines or remains the same during their time at BC, while men’s self-perception is more likely to increase or remain the same—despite the fact that, in general, female students have higher GPAs than their male classmates. The report goes on to note that female students believe that the social culture at BC has a large effect on their confidence in an academic setting, and it points to the “Plex culture,” body image pressure, and the stress of the housing selection process as elements of life at BC that corrode a female student’s self-esteem.

The first portion of the report presents the quantitative data gathered from two surveys completed by the Class of 2011—one at the beginning of their freshman year and one during their senior year. Both surveys were administered by the Office of Institutional Research, Planning,

See Self-Perception, A3

On Monday, the Elections Committee (EC) hosted a mandatory meeting for all candidate teams interested in running for UGBC president and vice president. The EC used most of the time to introduce an extensive set of changes to both the election season and the rules that teams must abide by, including the movement of the race to February and the shortening of the campaigning period to two weeks.

The meeting, facilitated by EC members Ross Fishman, CSOM ’14, and Rachel Fagut, CSOM ’14, was attended by three candidate teams and began with announcing the new dates for the election cycle. The campaign kickoff and t-shirt distribution will occur on Feb. 3 in the Vanderslice Cabaret Room to allow for greater student body attendance.

Campaigning will occupy the following two weeks, with primary voting on Feb. 10; the final debate shortly after on Feb. 12; and final voting from Feb. 13 to Feb.14. These dates signify both a shift to hold the election cycle significantly earlier than it occurred last year, as well as a notable shortening of the campaign period.

“It was such a drain on the people running in terms of grades, money, and sleep,” Fishman said. “It is more for the candidates’ benefit than anything.” This change is the result of the University’s insistence that the campaign cycle in years past has taken too much time—leading to detrimental effects on those running and a loss of interest from the student body as campaigns lingered on.

This year, the EC hopes a shorter election period will more adequately sustain student interest in the race.

“I actually think total votes will go up, because I think a lot of times in the past people just got tired of the amount of campaigning,” Fagut said. While it remains to be seen whether the student body will more actively engage this elections race, the EC is also confident that the earlier cycle will help the winners of the election get a firmer grasp on the government structure than in years past.

“It gives the new president and VP ample time to learn under the past system.

They will have all of March, April, and May to learn from the past government,” Fishman said. Additionally, the placement of the presidential elections a few weeks prior to Student Assembly (SA) elections will allow unsuccessful candidates the opportunity to sustain their involvement in UGBC—a feature that was not present in past years. The

See UGBC Elections, A3

ANDRE WILLIAMS SELECTED AS HEISMAN FINALIST

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR

With 2,102 rushing yards and 17 touchdowns in 2013, Williams will join four other Heisman finalists in New York this Saturday, A8

TopTHREE

THE HEIGHTS

A2

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Thursday, December 12, 2013

things to do on campus this week

1 2 3 Pre-Finals Relaxation

Closing Mass

Today Time: 1 p.m.

Location: Gasson 013

The Office of Health Promotion will be offering coffee, tea, hot chocolate, snacks, and free 10-minute chair massages as part of their Pre-Finals Relaxation event. Other fun activities will be provided to help students destress.

Christmas Reflections

Today Time: 4 p.m.

Location: St. Ignatius Church

Friday, Dec. 20 Time: 7:30 p.m.

Location: Robsham Theater

University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J. will celebrate mass to conclude the University’s Sesquicentennial celebration. The mass will coincide with the Mid-Year Commencement mass and is open to all members of the Boston College community.

Sponsored by the Institute of Liberal Arts, actors will celebrate the Christmas season through story, music, and dance. Jesuit Artist-in-Residence Robert VerEecke, S.J., will choreograph the production.

Tickets will be sold for $15.

FEATURED STORY

Shrayer’s memoir chronicles exodus from Russia

BY REBECCA MORETTI Heights Staff Maxim Shrayer, a professor in the English and Slavic/E astern Languages Departments and an acclaimed author and scholar, has recently published a memoir about his experience growing up Jewish in the former Soviet Union.

Shrayer teaches Russian, English, and Jewish studies at Boston College and has written numerous books on the subject of Jews and Russia. He has taught at BC since 1996 and cofounded the BC Jewish studies program. Today, Shrayer will launch his new book Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story at Brookline Booksmith.

In this autobiographical, nonfiction account, Shrayer illuminates the plight of refuseniks—Soviet Jews denied permission to emigrate abroad—and tells the story of the Jewish exodus from Russia, relating the Jewish experience in Russia during the Soviet period and the last mass Jewish exodus.

“I hope that this book will give one a better sense of daily Jewish life in the Soviet Union and of the anxieties that Jews felt so acutely after the Shoah,” Shrayer said.

Russian Jews suffered great discrimination in Soviet Russia, and they had realized that they could never be fully integrated socially or enjoy freedom in a USSR that preached notions of equality, yet so clearly hated them. Discrimination against Jews took the form of unspoken, de facto policies, which eventually led to a mass Jewish exodus from the country in the final

ERIN FITZGERALD / HEIGHTS STAFF

Shrayer will launch his newest memoir today at Brookline Booksmith in Brookline. years of the USSR. “The Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union to North America and Israel is the last huge wave of Jewish immigration,” Shrayer said. “For American history it has tremendous significance, because the fabric of our communities has been changed by the influx of exSoviet Jewish immigrants.”

In 1987, in the wake of Gorbachev’s glasnost policy, the Shrayer family was among the Jews who were finally granted exit visas to emigrate from Russia, after waiting almost nine years.

Shrayer was 20 when he left Moscow, the city he had grown up in, leaving behind the country he knew and loved. This enigma between feeling strongly attached to a place and yet also strongly desiring to leave it is an integral part of Shrayer’s moving story

of longing, hope, and heartbreak.

“We left during the very dawn of the reforms that eventually led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union,” Shrayer said.

“I had to grapple with the question of how it happened that Jews—who made such great contributions to Russian culture—decided to uproot themselves and emigrate en masse, while continuing to love their former country,” said Shrayer. “It is something of a paradox.”

Leaving Russia is chronologically a prequel to Shrayer’s acclaimed 2007 memoir Waiting for America: A Story of Emigration, which recounts the story of the author and his family in transit as Jewish refugees, spanning the three months they spent in Europe waiting for American visas.

POLICE BLOTTER

12/07/13-12/11/13

Saturday, December 07

activation in Ignacio Hall.

1:38 a.m. - A report was filed regarding lewd and lascivious activity in Gonzaga Hall.

Tuesday, December 10

Monday, December 09 4:31 p.m. - A report was filed regarding property that was found in Stokes Hall.

5:21 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a larceny that was under $250.

6:34 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student in Xavier Hall.

6:52 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a fire alarm

1:47 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a larceny from a motor vehicle in the Lower parking lots.

5:00 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a fire alarm activation in Ignacio Hall.

5:14 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a non-BC affilliate in Bapst/ Burns Library.

East Lansing police made 15 arrests after Michigan State fans celebrated rowdily in response to their football team’s 34-24 victory over Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game on Saturday.

According to the Detroit Free Press, a dozen of those arrested were students at Michigan State East Lansing police and fire also responded to at least 57 fires. Participants set couches, furniture, and dumpsters on fire, and they tore bushes and branches to feed the fires . The crowd also reportedly threw rocks, bottles, and beer cans at responding officers.

Police chief Juli Liebler said that a handful of those arrested were not intoxicated. Four of the MSU students have been arraigned and charged with disorderly conduct. Police have indicated that they will be actively pursuing those involved and

have offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the convictions of those involved. In a statement, university spokesman Kent Cassella said that MSU will pursue sanctions against those students involved in the disturbance.

East Lansing city manager George Lahanas said that the city will charge all those involved. “ We understand individuals’ desire to celebrate,” he said in a statement. “But the events of Saturday night did nothing more than overshadow and take away from a great Spartan victory.”

Lahanas went on to say that most East Lansing residents were not involved in the disturbance.

Responding officers intially called the situation a riot, but officials later reffered to it as a “large civil disturbance,” according to The State News, MSU’s student newspaper.

Punishment for involved students could range from a warning to dismissal from the university. 

The Heights Boston College – McElroy 113 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467 Editor-in-Chief (617) 552-2223 Editorial General (617) 552-2221 Managing Editor (617) 552-4286 News Desk (617) 552-0172 Sports Desk (617) 552-0189 Metro Desk (617) 552-3548 Features Desk (617) 552-3548 Arts Desk (617) 552-0515 Photo (617) 552-1022 Fax (617) 552-4823 Business and Operations General Manager (617) 552-0169 Advertising (617) 552-2220 Business and Circulation (617) 552-0547 Classifieds and Collections (617) 552-0364 Fax (617) 552-1753 EDITORIAL RESOURCES News Tips Have a news tip or a good idea for a story?

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Call Sean Keeley, Arts and Review Editor, at (617) 552-0515, or email arts@bcheights.com.

For future events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the Arts Desk.

Clarifications / Corrections The Heights strives to provide its readers with complete, accurate, and balanced information. If you believe we have made a reporting error, have information that requires a clarification or correction, or questions about The Heights standards and practices, you may contact David Cote, Editor-in-Chief, at (617) 552-2223, or email eic@bcheights.com.

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The Heights is produced by BC undergraduates and is published on Mondays and Thursdays during the academic year by The Heights, Inc. (c) 2013. All rights reserved.

9:09 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a motor vehicle stop on Campanella Way

12:46 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility by cruiser.

College Corner NEWS FROM UNIVERSITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY

BY NATHAN MCGUIRE Heights Staff

Although not planned as a prequel, after publishing Waiting for America Shrayer was often asked various questions that pointed back to his Soviet past. Leaving Russia was one way of answering those questions.

“I’m often asked what it felt like growing up Jewish in the Soviet Union, and why it is we decided to leave even if we felt so connected to the place,” Shrayer said.

Shrayer wrote the novel to explain to himself, his children, his students, and all other readers what it was like growing up Jewish in the former USSR, and loving a country that would never accept him. He wrote from his perspective at the time, recalling feelings to convey his sense of both belonging and not belonging.

“The most important thing in a book like this is to be absolutely honest with yourself and the reader,” Shrayer said. “If you are withholding something, the reader will know.”

Although he wrote the novel intially as a form of unburdening, Shrayer is still pained by his memories and carries them with him.

“In many ways, this was probably the hardest book to write of all the books I’ve written,” he said. “It deals with many painful memories, as it is really a book of parting.”

Despite its pain and sorrow, though, his memoir is also filled with moments of hope and happiness.

“It’s a story that appeals to a wide audience,” Shrayer said. “While at the heart of it are Jewish questions, the story itself is universal.” 

A Guide to Your Newspaper

CORRECTIONS

Wednesday, December 11 12:08 a.m. - A report was filed regarding the civil possession of marijuana in Stokes Hall.

These corrections are in reference to the issue dated Dec. 9, 2013, Vol. XCIV, No. 47.

12:38 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported by ambulance to a medical facility from Walsh Hall.

In the article entitled ‘‘New Course Teaches Food Writing in Paris,’’ it was incorrectly stated that the course met the University’s cultural diversity requirement. It does not, in fact, count toward this requirement.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

In the review titled “Shovelhead Gets Hands Dirty With ‘Michael Vick’s Cats,’” Brennan Waldorf, A&S ’15, is misidentified as Dan Casey, A&S ’17.

VOICES FROM THE DUSTBOWL “What is at the top of your Christmas list?”

“A swagged-out Keurig with flames on the side.”

—Bill Lavelle, A&S ’17

“A reindeer.”

—Steve Trudeau, A&S ’16

“I’m Jewish.”

—Ryan Clardy, A&S ’16

“To be done with exams.”

—Vianca Figueroa, A&S ’14

The Heights

Thursday, December 12, 2013

A3

Montserrat director seeks to maintain outreach Montserrat Director, from A1 co-curricular learning. “[A] Majority of the students at Middlesex College were high financial need,” Dias said. “There was also a very diverse student body, both in age and educational background … I got to work with a lot of different kinds of students and I found that students, especially from a low income background, don’t always participate in as much … The population that I was working with there was similar to the Montserrat students in many ways.”

In her first month at BC, Dias says she has been keeping busy, spending much of her time meeting with students and developing partnerships with administrators and faculty members across campus.

“I’ve been trying to meet with as many students as I can,” she said. “I want to hear about their experiences, hear what they like about BC, what their challenges are at BC ... I want to know what the current status of BC students is.”

While Dias has spent many days running back and forth between meetings, she says she has no immediate plans for change in the Montserrat Coalition.

“I don’t want to make any decisions on something that I’m not informed about, so I think it’s really important to be as informed as possible,” she said. “I want to try and find the gaps … What are the things that we could be doing better work on? Where are the places that we could improve? And that’s not going to happen right away. I think it happens over time and after talking to people. I see this year as a learning

experience.”

As an alumna of BC, Dias brings her own memories as an undergraduate and graduate student to her new position, having graduated from BC with a philosophy major in the Perspectives program and studying in the Lynch School of Education’s Masters of Arts Higher Education Administration program.

Dias was heavily involved in the Brazil service trip as an undergrad, but, looking back on her experience, she expressed a wish that she had participated in other activities on campus. She, like many Montserrat students, had to pick her co-curriculars based on what she could afford.

“I remember not doing things because they were too expensive,” Dias said. “I worked full time as an undergrad, and I had to pick and choose where my money went. I didn’t have the money to do everything.”

Dias now hopes to help BC students experiencing similar challenges.

“I want to be a person that advocates for students on their behalf,” she said. “There is so much more we can be doing, and that’s what I’m trying to figure out now. I’m asking, ‘What do we already do? How can we keep doing that well? And what else do we need to explore?’”

Although Dias is happy to be back on BC’s campus, she says she chose to return not because she is an alumna, but because of the work done in the Montserrat Coalition.

“I wanted to be a part of something that was really meaningful to me,” Dias said. “I don’t just want a job. I want to do something that really matters to me.

The fact that I’m back at BC is a really great bonus.” n

robin kim / heights staff

In her return to BC, Dias plans to help students by enlarging the roles of the coalition.

UGBC alters campaign policies UGBC Elections, from A1

Erin Fitzpatrick / heights staff

BC law’s expansion of clinical training aims to provide students with experiential learning.

BC Law enhances clinicals Experiential Law, from A1 the summer to reconfigure offices in the law school’s Smith Wing to better accommodate student workspaces. Over the long-term, the center hopes to take over Barat House, a mansion on the Newton Campus that is currently not being used in its entirety.

Plans for the center have developed within the last year, after BC Law Dean Vincent Rougeau learned of similar programs at other law schools, such as Stanford.

“It struck me and many of my colleagues that those models had something to offer us and maybe we should think a little more carefully about how to adopt some of the models to what we do at BC,” Rougeau said.

While the program has taken ideas from existing models, Rougeau emphasized several key features of the center that make it unique to BC, including our collaboration with the University’s other professional schools.

“A very unique aspect of what we’re doing at BC is that we wanted to take advantage of what the University does,” Rougeau said. “We have now developed partnerships with other schools, particularly the Graduate School of Social Work and hopefully the [Lynch] School of Education and the [Connell] School of Nursing, where we can start looking at legal problems for underserved populations as part of a broader set of problems and then cooperate in our programming and education across all of those disciplines.”

Rougeau also believes that the new center will be an attractive facet of the school for future applicants, as well as employers of BC Law graduates.

“I hope it will demonstrate to prospective applicants that BC Law is really at the forefront of thinking about what students

need, and the best part of a cutting-edge legal education,” Rougeau said. “We hope employers will notice that we’re giving students a dynamic set of skills through a more thoughtful approach to practical and experiential learning. I hope it will cause our colleagues at other law schools to take notice of what we’re doing and really give BC a platform to present a new, improved model of legal education.”

In general, Tremblay pointed to several beneficial aspects of clinical, experiential learning for law students.

“The students inevitably tell us that the experiential learning is the best thing they’ve done at law school,” Tremblay said.

“Learning the legal doctrine and theory is intellectually really challenging ... but you only really get a sense of what it’s like to be a lawyer and get that gratification by working with clients.”

While closely supervised by full-time law school faculty, all of whom are licensed lawyers in Massachusetts, students are the primary advocates for the clients who seek legal services from the clinics.

“The beauty of that is our students are what we call lead counsel,” Tremblay said. “They do all of the work, they make all of the decisions, interview the clients, negotiate with the other lawyers, argue in court, and address the board meetings when we represent small businesses—all the work they would do as lawyers, they do as students.”

Tremblay also stressed the importance of clinical training in relation to the University’s goals to educate students ethically and morally.

“BC Law School places a really high emphasis on training ethical lawyers,” he said. “We have a really strong commitment to professionalism, and we teach it in all of our classes ... [students] are learning that who you are as a person matters as much as who you are as a lawyer.” n

gap between these elections will also give the EC time to undergo a rigorous evaluation process of the changes they made to the elections format in order to make sure that SA elections run as smoothly as possible.

Although the dates of the presidential/ vice-presidential election cycle and length of campaigning were mainly mandated by the University, the EC discussed a variety of other changes that were generated internally and passed through Student Programs Office (SPO) administrators. Smaller scale changes include having candidates get their materials approved only through SPO instead of by SPO and UGBC like in past years. The EC has also worked with the Office of Residential Life to create a regimented dorm campaigning schedule in which teams can only go door-to-door when checked in by EC members during a few allotted time slots.

Another change aims to crack down on the abuse of social networking sites—namely Facebook pages for candidate teams—by having a member of the EC create Facebook pages for each team and keep them closed until campaigning begins, when team members can be added as administrators.

“We’ve had some issues in past years with Facebook pages for candidates posting things that were not allowed and that went against several rules in the code,” Fishman said. “This way, as an administrator, we can immediately get rid of that.”

The most significant change, however, is a new sanctions system for violations on the part of candidates in the election. The EC split the sanctions into four categories: level four signifies disqualification from the race and can be earned through campaigning in the presence of alcohol as well as repeat major offenses; level three forces a team to start with a negative amount of votes on election day and can be earned through smearing, sabotage, or off-campus sponsors; level two leads to suspension from the race, and removal of t-shirts and other elections privileges; and level one is a warning issued to the violating team.

In light of past elections, this year’s slew of changes reflects the EC’s attempt to make the UGBC presidential elections a cleaner, more ethical process. Fagut believes that these changes will make for a better elections season this year, along with a broader recognition of the EC’s role on campus.

“I think through these changes we are going to become a lot more visible to the campus body, and they will understand what we do during the elections season,” Fagut said. n

Committee on female undergrads looks into self-esteem issues Self-Perception, from A1 and Assessment (IRPA) and are part of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, a long-term study conducted

by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute. The two surveys contain 60 identical questions, allowing IRPA to track students’ progress. Many of these items asked students to rate themselves in various “skills and traits,” including academic ability, creativity, intellectual self-confidence, drive to achieve, and spirituality, among many others.

The data reveals that BC females’ self-perceptions either decrease or remain the same in the categories of academic ability, computer skills, drive to achieve, leadership ability, mathematical ability, public speaking ability, intellectual self-confidence, cooperativeness, creativity, emotional and physical health, social self-confidence, and spirituality. Women in all schools except the Connell School of Nursing (CSON) believe their writing skills increase in college, and females in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and the Carroll School of Management (CSOM) b elie ve their self- understanding and understanding of others improves. A&S females also rate their artistic ability higher after four years.

In these categories in which some females feel they have improved, all other females report no change.

The statistical portion of the report also breaks down survey responses based on the competitiveness of the student’s college application, and based on his or her discipline. Within the former category, survey results seemed to depend more on the admissions rating than on gender, but the results were more discernible when divided by discipline—humanities, social sciences, or science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

“Women majoring in humanities seem to experience more declines in their assessment of academic skills than women in either social sciences or STEM fields,” the report read. “All groups of students in these three disciplines report declines in intellectual self-confidence between freshman and senior year; at the same time, all student groups show an increase in their assessment of their writing skills.”

Since the College Senior Survey (CSS) is a national sur vey used at several other institutions, the committee was able to compare BC students’ responses to those from students at 42 other universities. B C females’ responses did not differ significantly from the national sample. This fact is also addressed later in the report, in a section that looks at research from Duke and Princeton which came to similar conclusions about female selfesteem on their campuses.

“The reality is that what we face is the same things all other colleges face,” said University Spokesman Jack Dunn.

“This is an issue that is not at all unique to Boston College, but part of a national issue, and Boston College is taking a leadership role in addressing it.”

The second portion of the report is devoted to the results from the committee’s research, which consisted of hosting focus groups and student panels with female undergraduates during the 2012-13 academic year.

The report contains several anonymous quotes from students, including one from a woman who spoke about conversations she had with a male Australian exchange student about the culture at BC. This friend was struck by the lack of power that females at BC have in social settings. The woman recalls him saying, “The girls here are just all standing around waiting for guys to notice them.”

Several quotes mentioned the immense pressure BC girls face to be thin. One read, “[Boston College’s] women’s perceptions of what’s normal and what’s thin [are] just completely warped in comparison to what people generally accept as a healthy body weight and a healthy appearance.”

With regard to the classroom environment, students expressed varied opinions. Some felt disrespected or unfairly judged by male classmates or professors, while others praised professors as being consistently supportive and empowering.

The final section of quotes from focus groups pertained to the direct effect of the “BC Culture” on self-esteem.

One student said that she had opted out of the BC social scene for most of her freshman year, but as soon as she began to go out on weekends more as a sophomore, she felt her self-esteem decline. Another student remarked, “I’ve never really been hugely a part of the BC culture … And I feel like a lot of what people are talking about isn’t really something that I’ve run into. I think that kind of says something as like the exception that proves the rule—that I haven’t really been a part of that culture and haven’t really felt this way like most people have.”

The report concludes with recommendations for the University. The committee advocates for an increase in mentorship programs for women; for increased communication about the opportunities available for women at BC; for more forums designated for conversation on the topic of women’s self-esteem, such as retreats or a speaker series; and for the restructuring of the housing lottery. In addition, the committee focused on the need for more interaction among faculty and other departments, based on the degree to which a student’s academic

and social experiences overlap.

“It is a moment in BC ’s histor y where we agree that an important business for BC is the formation of our undergrads, and that’s intellectual, and social, and spiritual,” said Vice Provost for Faculties Patricia DeLeeuw, who was also a member of the committee.

“So how our women students—and that’s at least half of our student body— perceive their academic strengths is an important issue for us.”

To this end, a new committee will be formed from representatives of both the academic side of the University and the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs to replace the ad hoc committee, which has disbanded since the culmination of their research. The new committee, which will also likely contain representatives from Mission and Ministry, according to DeLeeuw, will be responsible for continuing to monitor the survey results, and she expects that they will advocate for the execution of many of the report’s recommendations. No concrete plans are in place for the formation of this committee, but it has been approved by both Vice President for Student Affairs Barbara Jones and Interim Provost Joe Quinn, and DeLeeuw anticipates that it will come to fruition in the spring.

DeLeeuw and Dunn both said that part of BC’s mission is to improve the culture for women, be it academically, spiritually, or socially.

“Part of cura personalis—care of the whole person—is to find ways to help support students in their development,” Dunn said. “So this is a natural extension of cura personalis to address the issue.”

Vice President of Planning and Assessment Kelli Armstrong, who first released the statistic that spurred the ad hoc committee’s creation, commented on the report. “Boston College has a

unique mission to support the development of the whole person and to see that all of our students reach their full potential, and our programs for women have been developed in concert with that mission,” she said in an email.

Robin Fleming, chair of the History Department and another member of the ad hoc committee, stressed that while the issue at hand is the result of a deeply ingrained culture at BC, some actions can be undertaken immediately in order to spark change. She suggested the installation of a student-run space on campus, such as a cafe, which would be open at nights and offer an alternative for women or men who wished to opt out of the drinking and hook-up culture. She also advocated for a bus service that would take students directly to downtown Boston on Friday and Saturday nights.

“It’s clear that there’s a weird dynamic between women students and men students on campus,” Fleming said. “This might be on a lot of college campuses, but in any case, there are things that could be done about the alcohol stuff and the nonconsensual and unwilling sex stuff, and that’s really important to do.” She also emphasized the detrimental effects of the current housing selection process, noting that it often destroys females’ support systems.

She stressed, however, that true change would only come about if students, administrators, and faculty all contributed to making it happen.

“It’s your culture, and I’d like you guys to confront it and talk about it,” she said. “And I think that this culture is as hard on boys as it is on girls. I think it can be really, really bad. What I would like is BC to give you guys enough of the stuff that you need so you guys can work some of this out for yourselves.” n

The Heights

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Thursday, December 12, 2013

The luck of Music outreach program connects BC, local students opportunity

By Kayla Famolare Heights Staff

Daniel Lee I am a little embarrassed to tell other photographers that my luck was all I had without prior experience or formal education. I tell my friends 51 percent of the quality comes from pure luck. I have been lucky to catch up with photography so quickly that I had the privilege to be the Photo Editor at The Heights.

Appreciating all the amazing responses to my photos, I once again acknowledge how much I’m blessed with what I have beyond my photography skills.

Looking back, I believe there is no way I was able to pick up the skill out of blue without the help of an “invisible hand.” The concept or the event of luck can be defined as opportunity, as it either can be given by the invisible hand or earned by personal pursuit of desire. Let’s say I was innately talented with photography—as many have told me.

Nevertheless, if I hadn’t put some time and practice into photography, I wouldn’t be as good as I am now. I was lucky enough to buy a camera, lucky enough to have the right moments, and lucky enough to meet the right people from photography.

I saw the opportunities and took the opportunities as far as I could go with them.

At my favorite cafe in Germany, my best American friend from Wyoming, Nick, and I often had dorky discussions. One of the memorable conversations was about what luck is. Non-religious at the time, I had been thinking a lot about whose hand the invisible hand is. I asked questions like why we met at all from different parts of the globe and why at this particular moment.

One by one, we knocked down levels of questions and traced back to the origin of “all-of-these,” or the universe.

I thought about the very first substance related to the big bang, with my limited knowledge in physics. Knowing that quarks spin in a certain direction, I had to ask what gave the first spin. Whose individual hand gave that little push in that particular vector? Nick kept answering: “s—t just happened.”

“It just happened” isn’t convincing, however, as we tend to give meanings to subjects and ideas. And we believe those meanings are the universal truth—if not reachable, our objective is to approach the nearest of it.

The reason I’ve been tracing the origin is the emptiness I find behind great achievements. If I deny the existence of the invisible hand, to whom do I thank for everything I experience? Without gratitude, the meanings and the values of opportunities easily diminish over time as one’s life decays. I believe every encounter with everyone has a meaning, as I learn something from each one of people I meet.

Namely—and empirically—believing in the coincidence of occurrence seems a little naive to me. I just can’t believe that everything happened completely coincidentally from the beginning of the universe to our present, because time also seems to converge into the present and near future, even after I consider that the time bends in space. If there is no meaning in occurrence and opportunity in the cosmos, I don’t see the point of the pursuit of happiness.

Some may say I’m being biased with this (sort of ) religious view, but please bear with me. If you can’t credit my approach in the invisible hand, consider this a philosophical approach. I had to imply the question of religion as the final step to explain my direction of gratitude.

As this is my last column for The Heights, I tried to re-evaluate my opportunities and what I have done with them. Many times, my opportunities have been given, and I tried my best to earn the full meaning from them. I would like to believe that my opportunities—my life in the global community—have had some meanings. That being said, I’ll never forget the Jesuit education I had at Boston College when I take action.

Daniel Lee is a senior staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at news@bcheights.com.

For about 15 Boston College students, music has become a vehicle for connecting with nearly 60 children at the Gardner Pilot Academy—an opportunity developed by Barbara Gawlick, lecturer in the music department.

Gawlick is the program coordinator for the Music Outreach program, which teaches after-school music enrichment classes to local inner-city students. “We are doing a form of community service where we are bringing music to students who might not otherwise get the chance,” she said.

The program initially began when Gawlick received a grant in the fall of 2011 to teach an education through music class at BC for students interested in becoming music teachers. “I definitely wanted to make sure that students had hands-on activities like being in the classroom, potentially doing some teaching to whatever capacity they could do at this point,” she said.

Her students began teaching after-school music classes at Gardner Pilot School in Brighton and at the Thomas Edison School.

Each week, five students would go to the schools to teach voice lessons and general music classes.

When Gawlick discovered a closet filled with 10 brass instruments, she realized the need to expand the program.

The following fall, Gawlick opened up the program to other BC students in order to form the Music Outreach program. After receiving two grants, which she used to buy more musical instruments, Gawlick recruited 12 BC students to teach private music lessons at Gardner.

“I knew our neighbors in Allston and Brighton, part of Boston Public Schools, do not have a music program, so I was excited that our program would be augmented and more meaningful, for both BC students and the school’s [students],” Gawlick said.

A greater emphasis was placed on the program at Gardner, since the Edison School already had a music program.

BC volunteers go to the school to teach once a week for one to two hours per lesson as part of a year-long commitment. With the program now in its third year, students teach about 60 children, with a BC music student at the school each day of the school

week and multiple classes occurring on any given day. The lessons are either private or semi-private and happen on a weekly basis. The program has become so popular that a wait list and a lottery system have been implemented.

The Music Outreach program has even started an initiative at Brighton High School, where guitar and piano lessons are popular among students. The program grew rapidly from the start, so group guitar lessons were needed and taught by six BC students each week.

Gawlick also organizes various concerts at the two schools where BC ensembles usually preform. “These outreach concerts are integrated with their English curriculum, because they will be looking at some of those texts and the historical background of pieces and literary values,” she said. “My hope is to place more of our BC ensembles, whether large or small or even solos, into those schools where so little music is happening and we have so many fantastic resources … we want to give these students the chance to show others who might not have access to things like this.”

Gawlick and her husband Ralf, who also teaches classes at the

schools, emphasize the importance of the relationships that are formed from these lessons aside from the musical teaching that takes place. “We are mentors—the relationship is so important for inner-city kids to interact with college students and moreover then the music teaching occurs,” Gawlick said.

“What we like to call it is, ‘Kids modeling for kids,’” Ralf Gawlick said. “Especially for high schoolers, it shows them that [they] can do this—music is the core of their conversation, but [the relationship] is centered on learning, of study, of discipline, and human exchange. For us, music is an enrichment, but for these kids, it’s so much more.”

These relationships are why the Gawlicks place a great emphasis on the instructor selection process, wanting to ensure that they have dedicated and talented BC students serving as role models for the students. “These opportunities are not ‘one-offs’ … when we choose these students, we choose them based off their passion and their commitment,” Ralf Gawlick said. “BC students are not teachers, but they are extremely committed and dedicated and passionate and I give them some

direction, but not much.”

The two also put a great emphasis on the community service aspects of Music Outreach. “For these families, many of them are really struggling, music isn’t even thought of,” Gawlick said. “This is, in a sense, social justice. This is unlike other volunteer opportunities, the study of music is not an add on—if you want to seriously motivate these children and make a difference. You show them that this can change your life.”

Gawlick hopes to expand both the Gardner Academy and Brighton High programs in the next few years. “We hope to grow in both of the schools, especially in the high school … we would need a lot more instruments,” she said.

Gawlick also hopes to establish a middle school band and an orchestra, but she recognizes the great deal of work and funding required for such endeavors.

She is, however, eager to continue the growth of the Music Outreach program and provide local children an interactive relationship with music.

“If you don’t show music to the child, they may never know that they have this talent or passion for [music],” she said. “It’s all about opportunity.” n

Study finds counting matters

By Nathan McGuire Heights Staff

Elida Laski, an assistant professor in the Lynch School of Education, has worked with young children for years, both as a kindergarten teacher and as a parent of two young children.

In 2008, she earned her Ph.D. in developmental psychology, and since then she has pursued research that has practical implications for children, parents, and teachers. Now, she’s making innovative advances in the field of child psychology by studying board games.

Her latest study, recently published in the American Psychological Association’s Developmental Psychology, reveals that how children count when playing board games matters more than what they are counting.

In a game like Chutes and Ladders, for example, players often move their tokens forward by the number indicated on the dial. If the player’s token is on square No. 5, for instance, and the dial points to three, the player usually counts out three squares, paying little attention to the actual numbers on the game board squares.

“My hunch is that when [children] play board games this way, they could technically not look at the numbers at all,” Laski said. “They could just be seeing how close they are getting to the top— so, the benefit of playing a game with numbers might not be as great because they might not attend to the numbers as much.”

Laski’s study, entitled “Learning From Number Board Games: You Learn What You Encode,” consists of two experiments. In the first, 42 low-income kindergartners from multiple classrooms at two charter schools were

randomly assigned to two groups.

Laski and her co-researcher and thesis advisor Robert S. Siegler, a psychology professor at Carnegie Melon University, looked at the effects that counting methods had on students’ number learning.

In order to test improvement and number learning, the researchers gave the students a pre-test and post-test. In each case, students were asked to name numbers that were flashed on a computer screen and to count up from a certain number. The number-line estimation task, frequently used by mathematics and early childhood researchers, was used as a third measure. In this, students were shown a line with zero and 100 marked at each end, and they were asked to point to where a certain number should be placed.

“Previous research had shown that playing number board games and the frequency with which kids play math games is related to their math learning,” Laski said. “But, we were curious if even using the exact same board, but manipulating something as subtle as the way they move their token, would have an effect.”

The first group of students played the board game, which was modeled after Chutes and Ladders, by counting in the typical method. They spun a dial and then moved their tokens by counting out that number.

The second group of students played in the counting-on method, where, instead of counting from one to the number of spaces they moved their tokens, they counted the number of the squares.

“If they were on [square] three and they spun a three, they were required to say the name of the number in the square while keeping track,” she said. “So, they

could have to say four, five, six …

The hypothesis was that not only did this give them more practice saying the names of the numbers, identifying numbers, and counting on from a number other than one ... [but] it would also force them to pay attention to the numbers on the game board.”

The experiment revealed that students who played in the typical way did not get much better on any of the three measures. The children who played in the counton method, however, showed significant improvements at number identification and counting-on, which Laski acknowledged wasn’t all that surprising given that they were practicing those very things in the experiment. What surprised her most, though, was that those students also did twice as well on the number line estimation task than did their peers who counted in the traditional method.

In the second experiment, those who played the game the typical way were given numeral cards after playing and were asked to practice counting-on.

The study found, though, that students only improved on the number line estimation task if they counted-on in the context of the board game.

“Given my experience as a teacher and a parent, I think what is really exciting about these findings is that it means that teachers can take materials they already have and just make them better simply by changing the way they ask kids to move their token,” Laski said. “It doesn’t involve a big dump of resources to buy new materials, it doesn’t involve designing a new game, it’s just a really simple way of maximizing the benefits you get from playing games with kids.” n

alex gaynor / Heights editor

LSOE professor Elida Laski’s psychology experiments study board games and their role in how children learn to count.

emily fahey / Heights Staff

Burns Librarian Robert O’Neill will soon retire after 26 years in his role.

O’Neill to retire from post as Burns Librarian

By Andrew Skaras Asst. News Editor

In the spring of 1986, the Burns Library reopened to house Boston College’s rare books, following months of renovation that began when the O’Neill Library was opened.

As a part of the transition, the position of Burns Librarian was created to direct the University’s special collections. After the first Burns Librarian, Ralph Coffman, was arrested for stealing books and manuscripts from the library in the fall of 1986, BC found its second Burns Librarian, Robert K. O’Neill. After serving 26 years in this position, O’Neill will retire at the end of this semester.

When O’Neill came to BC, one of his goals was to build on BC’s strengths.

“With the creation of the Burns Library, the opportunity was there to make it a preeminent research library in the country,” O’Neill said. “From the very beginning, the idea was to build on strengths, and the University had already established world class collections of Jesuit material, British Catholic authors, Irish liturgy and life, the history of the American Catholic Church between 1925 and 1973, and also had a very good Boston collection. I wanted to build on those strengths as well as open up new opportunities.”

Over the course of his career in the Burns Library, O’Neill was able to add many new works in those categories to the collection and described this collection building as one of his greatest accomplishments. According to O’Neill, when he came to BC, the rare books collection contained approximately 60,000 volumes. Now, the collection has over 200,000 volumes.

“I had the good fortune of meeting Michael Yeats in 1991, the son of the poet William Butler Yeats,” O’Neill said. “He offered Boston College the

opportunity to acquire a large cache of his father’s papers. I had to clear that first with the national librarian of Ireland. I got the go-ahead and, thanks to benefactors like Brian Burns and the University, we were able to acquire the second largest collection in the world.”

Not all of his work has been focused on Irish authors, though.

Working with Richard Keeley, associate dean of the Carroll School of Management and BC ’72, O’Neill has also been able to acquire the papers of Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

“He had become friends with her,” O’Neill said. “He set me up to ask her when she was visiting one time if she would consider depositing her papers at the Burns Library. She agreed, so Dick [Keeley] and I went up to her home in Toronto on a couple of occasions to arrange the transfer of her papers to Boston College. That is now one of the two or three most used collections in the library.”

In addition to collection building, O’Neill has been responsible for the community and public relations of the Burns Library. He has been involved with a number of Irish organizations, including the Eire Society of Boston, for which he served as president.

On campus, one of the issues he dealt with involved making people, especially students, feel comfortable visiting the Burns Library.

“We’ve offered a number of programs, exhibits, classes and tours to make student aware,” O’Neill said. “[We do] publicity to let people know that these are not hidden treasures.”

As of now, O’Neill said that a new Burns Librarian has not been found, but that there will be a search committee launched soon. He will not be involved with that search, and plans on relocating to Arizona to enjoy warmer weather and spend more time with his grandchildren. n

CLASSIFIEDS Thursday, December 12, 2013

The Heights The Heights

Thursday, December 12, 2013

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Directions: The Sudoku is played over a 9x9 grid. In each row there are 9 slots, some of which are empty and need to be filled.

Each row, column and 3x3 box should contain the numbers 1 to 9. You must follow these rules: · Number can appear only once in each row · Number can appear only once in each column · Number can appear only once in each 3x3 box · The number should appear only once on row, column or area.

A5 A5

The Heights

A6

Athletics has promoted Williams responsibly Williams has represented Boston College well as Heisman award ceremony approaches It’s going to be a busy week for Andre Williams. The Boston College senior is in Orlando as the heavy favorite to win the Doak Walker award tonight, given to the nation’s best running back, and he will be in New York on Saturday as one of six finalists for the 2013 Heisman Trophy, presented to the best player in college football.

While Williams, BC’s offensive line, and the new coaching staff all deserve credit for the record-breaking season, it was an impressive, combined effort from the entire athletic department and the BC community to help Williams earn national recognition. Athletics waited until the football team earned its seventh win to switch the promotion of Williams from just a Doak Walker candidate to a Heisman candidate as well, making sure that the campaign was legitimate and credible.

The Athletic Communications Department has worked tirelessly to promote

Williams since then, and they have done it with a mix of enthusiasm and respect that should not go unnoticed. Without all of the graphics, tweets, and coordination with media members to set up story opportunities, Williams’ Heisman candidacy may not have caught the attention of national media like it has in recent weeks. No matter what the awards results are this weekend, having a BC student-athlete featured on the national stage is a massive success and an incredible accomplishment.

Most notably, Williams deserves credit for how he has handled himself since the spotlight hit. From his quotes in national publications to his day at ESPN, he has been positive, humble, and confident in a way that could not have represented the University better. Athletics has promoted Williams’ candidacy in a way that fits his personality and has made sure that he has been comfortable throughout the process, and Williams has followed through simply by being himself.

Report reveals problems with female self-esteem BC must publicize findings, continue to address problems within the campus culture In the report recently released by the ad hoc Faculty Committee on Female Undergraduates, the well-known statistic on Boston College women’s declining self-esteem was investigated in depth.

The report presented the survey data that led to this conclusion in great detail and included several quotes from focus groups conducted with female students about what undergraduates believed to be at the root of this disturbing phenomenon.

The report concludes with a number of recommendations for the University, ranging from an increase in the number and variety of mentorship programs available to women, to more ways in which faculty and offices concerned directly with student life can collaborate to promote the healthy development of students.

While the ad hoc committee is commendable for its initiative and hard work during the 2012-13 academic year and the publication of the final report, its efforts must be the beginning rather than the entirety of the conversation surrounding BC’s culture and the toll it takes on female self-esteem. The ad hoc committee has disbanded since the completion of the report, and the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs and the Provost’s Office have committed to appoint members for a new, official committee, which will continue monitoring relevant survey data.

It is essential that this committee come to fruition, and that it advocate for the implementation of the many recommendations included in the end of the report. It should also take into account other recommenda-

tions that were discussed during the ad hoc committee’s meetings, such as chair of the history department Robin Fleming’s suggestions for a bus service to downtown Boston on weekend nights and a student space on campus to provide accessible alternatives to students wishing to opt out of the typical BC social scene.

Drawing attention to the issue of females’ declining self-esteem is an important first step, but making a problem known does not solve it. The administration must capitalize on the attention surrounding this statistic in order to enact the changes that can alter it. Likewise, students passionate about the issue should seek out ways to get involved and enact their own changes. There is no one, correct solution, and no one catch-all remedy. Significant change will be the result of several efforts on the part of multiple groups.

With its new focus on student advocacy, UGBC should also step into the conversation and press for these changes.

Other student organizations, as well as individuals, should request a copy of this report from the administration to learn more about the issue. The University ought to not only release copies of the report to interested parties, but coordinate a public discussion of the report’s results. The information contained in this report has great potential to help students, both at BC and at other institutions dealing with similar issues. It is the University’s responsibility to keep this report’s momentum going and not allow progress to cease by keeping the report’s findings strictly internal.

Dias brings valuable experience to Montserrat Pastrana worked to offer opportunities to lower income students—Dias should further develop community

The Montserrat Coalition of Boston College appointed its new program director, Paula Dias, BC ’07, last month in succession to its previous director, Marina Pastrana, BC ’08.

After having founded and structured the coalition in 2008, Pastrana left behind a well-formed and highly effective program predicated on mentorship available to those BC students who demonstrate the highest financial need. This has been a major success in helping ensure that students of lower socioeconomic status feel welcome on a campus that sometimes fails to be inclusive toward students of all backgrounds.

In the wake of Pastrana’s departure, Dias should look to continue the community-building approach that the Montserrat Coalition set out to construct, and

further develop the program’s outreach toward students who view financial barriers as a hindrance to academic and extracurricular opportunities.

Having attended BC as a student with a low-income background, Dias, like Pastrana, brings an added understanding of the burden that expensive on-campus activities can be. Her experiences also allow her to recognize the deliberations that students with significant economic constraints face in deciding how their time and finances should be allocated.

In a welcome reception of Dias to the Montserrat Coalition and back to BC, the organization should maintain an open discussion on the topic of socioeconomic disparities among students and encourage the BC community to foster an environment of acceptance for all.

Heights

The

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Established 1919 David Cote, Editor-in-Chief Jamie Ciocon, General Manager Joseph Castlen, Managing Editor

Editorial

Kendra Kumor, Copy Editor Eleanor Hildebrandt, News Editor Austin Tedesco, Sports Editor Michelle Tomassi, Features Editor Sean Keeley, Arts & Review Editor Tricia Tiedt, Metro Editor Mary Rose Fissinger, Opinions Editor Samantha Costanzo, Special Projects Editor Graham Beck, Photo Editor Lindsay Grossman, Layout Editor

Thursday, December 12, 2013

QUOTE OF THE DAY The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

-Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), South African activist and president, Nobel laureate

Letters to the Editor The following letter is in response to “Campus School may move out of University facilities” by Devon Sanford, originally published on 11/21/13:

BC should not close Campus School I recently learned of the news regarding the Campus School and the potential move to the Franciscan Hospital due to a space shortage on campus. I wanted to send a brief email with my reactions to the news. I know many important factors must be weighed in this decision, but I wanted to provide you a first-hand perspective about the Campus School, and all that it has taught me, in the hopes that this will impact [the] decision.

I am currently a third year law student at William & Mary Law School, and a proud Boston College graduate (I received my B.A. in 2010, and my M.Ed. in 2011). During my time at Boston College, I volunteered at the Campus School, and I recall my time there as though it were yesterday.

As someone who volunteered with a “Buddy” at the Campus School for four years, I saw firsthand the power of persistence. Through the “Buddy Program,” I was paired with a disabled student and spent time each week with my “Buddy.”

Though I hope to have imparted knowledge to my Buddy, it was my Buddy who did the teaching and opened my eyes to the value of human potential.

I learned the value of viewing every person with dignity, respect, and compassion, and was so fortunate to have had the chance to give of myself to another. Similarly, watching the teachers patiently work with the students of the Campus School was both eye-opening and inspiring. Importantly, I learned the role of perseverance in allowing each student, no matter how disabled, to reach his or her full potential.

The “Buddy” with whom I was paired was a female, in her teenage years, who was blind, deaf, nonverbal, confined to a wheelchair, and fed through a feeding tube. The moment when my Buddy finally recognized me and grabbed my hand without letting go was the single most poignant moment in my time at Boston College.

I recall the moment when she became completely still as comprehension crept across her face when she held my hand. I recall the moment when my breath caught in my throat and I wished so hard that I could freeze that moment in time. I still recall the moments as though it were yesterday when my Buddy would laugh so hard, her face would split into a grin, and she would make gurgling noises and flail her hands, the purest form of human emotion there could be. Those are the moments, perhaps more than any other, that I treasure from my time at Boston College. More importantly, those are the moments of which I am

most proud as a Boston College graduate.

Moving the Campus School elsewhere would deprive countless Boston College students or volunteers (as well as students working towards their Masters in Special Needs) that same opportunity to witness first-hand the life-changing moments that occur right on campus each and every day.

If Boston College is truly to be an institution that promotes Jesuit ideals and aspires to educate students to be “men and women for others,” moving a school which provides that forum prevents students from making that difference right on their own campus, a place they call home.

Working as a volunteer at the Campus School was the highlight of my years at Boston College, and I simply cannot imagine having attended campus without the remarkable experience that the Campus School provided.

Of everything I have learned at Boston College (and there has been a great deal), I am most proud of the lessons that the Campus School has taught me. The students at the Campus School are treated with dignity, respect, and compassion, and the value of making a difference right on campus simply cannot be replaced. Those moments that I recall are not simply fond memories.

They are moments that shaped my perspectives on giving of myself to others, and moving the Campus School off Boston College’s campus denies countless other students that same chance.

Please don’t close the Campus School—it is truly an essential part of Boston College and an integral part of teaching students to both truly give of themselves and be men and women for others.

In the event you were not already aware, there is a petition circulating that contains thousands of signatures opposing the Campus School’s move.

Countless other students have written their reasons for opposing the move, and I thought perhaps you would like to read those as well: I know Boston College is an institution with much to offer, and I am thankful of all my experiences while I was a student. I would not be where I am today without the first-class education that Boston College provided, and for that, I am grateful. But Boston College simply would not be the same Boston College I know and remember without the Campus School.

I appreciate your consideration in this matter.

Christina N. Cerutti BC ’10, LGSOE ’11

A thanks for the contributions to hurricane relief Last month, Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, killed thousands, and uprooted millions of people from their homes. Though media coverage was robust at first, the journalists and television crews have packed up and left, and a disaster that was only briefly at the center of attention has dropped completely from our national consciousness. Not so at Boston College. Our community’s response to the calamity makes me proud to call myself a BC Eagle.

As soon as the full scope of disaster was made known, I have been blessed to work with a dedicated group of student leaders and administrators to help the survivors. With your support, we have been able to exceed our $10,000 goal, and though a final tally is to be determined, we have raised $11,000-$12,000 out of the generosity of the community at large at a number of co-sponsored events, online portal, and dining hall point drive. These funds will be disbursed to Catholic Relief Services and other trusted organizations.

I know of few other American universities that have raised as much money from a student-driven initiative in so short a time.

Boston College’s contributions have not just ended with the writing of a check or the plunking down of a few dollars; at every step along the way, people have been interested in doing even more to help our Philippine brethren. Students studying abroad have donated their time and effort to create relief packages for families. Alumni have been spreading the word and making donations. Parents have asked their children to include contributions from their wallets as well. Acquaintances, only vaguely familiar with BC, have given us much encouragement. Many have already supported other charity drives for the Philippines, and a few will even be traveling to the Philippines themselves during winter break. Though not many of our students are Filipinos, one might have thought that the people of the Philippines were members of our Boston College family.

Most importantly, our community has enlivened the indomitable spirit of the Filipino through

our thoughts and prayers. More than anything else, even the smallest actions that we have done and the briefest moments we have dedicated to the Philippines are greatly appreciated. Messages to the BC Typhoon Haiyan Relief Initiative Facebook page and private correspondence overflow with sentiments of gratitude, appreciation, and prayers for our own well-being here on the Heights. Reading such words convinces me of the uplifting power of prayer, even though we are located on opposite sides of the world.

What a blessing it has been to work with so many student groups over the past month!

UGBC, PSBC, RHA, Asian Caucus, ALC, ACF, CVSA, BSF, ICBC, GZBC, SEASA, D1, NOTH, The Heights, and many more organizations have gone above and beyond the call of duty to cosponsor events, get the word out, contribute manpower, and inform their membership. And of course, we could never have mobilized so quickly or had such an impact without the advice and guidance of the Volunteer and Service Learning Center, led by Mr. Dan Ponsetto, the Student Programs Office, Campus Ministry, and other University offices. It has been immensely humbling and inspiring to serve with everyday students, faculty, and staff to make this a widercommunity initiative.

Truly, Boston College has shown it cares. It amazes me how in our 150th year the driving principle of being men and women for other is expressed not only in local terms but can also be felt halfway around the world. Our initial push to assist the survivors of Typhoon Haiyan is just beginning. The rebuilding effort will take a long time. I hope that community will continue to support the Philippines in whatever way they can.

Thank you, Boston College, and as you celebrate the holidays, have a Merry Christmas—or as they say in the Philippines, Maligayang Pasko.

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The Heights

Thursday, December 12, 2013

A7

Campus School brings a spark

Eleanor Sciannella Free coffee - Finals are rough. It’s a universally accepted fact. They really bring out the worst in us.

We go from being pleasant, welladjusted members of the Boston College community to being crazy sleep-deprived balls of stress, anxiety, and whatever we happen to remember from a semester’s worth of classes. Into this chasm of despair steps BC Dining with free coffee from the beginning of study days until the end of finals.

Is it high-quality coffee? No. Does it have that sweet thing that fuels our studies—that is, caffeine?

Yes. So go you, BC Dining. We appreciate it. last day of classes - We are done … well, almost. Welcome all to the final stretch. It feels good to be done with classes. While there is always a class or two that we will miss, we are so glad to be done with what has seemed like an interminable semester. Now we just have to get through finals….

St. mary’s footbridge - It’s gone!

We would like to Thumbs Up the good construction workers who have completed the St. Mary’s renovations to the point where this is no longer necessary. We really like not having to take the wooden footbridge to get from the parking garage to O’Neill Plaza. Things are just nicer this way.

I have stepped foot into the Campus School once—it was freshman year, because one of my best friend’s sisters worked there. I have never run in the marathon for the Campus School, unless you count the mile I ran last year when two of my friends who ran to raise money for the school passed Boston College. I have never met a kid who goes to the Campus School, except in the stories that a girl in my PULSE class would tell our discussion group every week. But when I first heard the Campus School was “shutting down,” my blood boiled.

I immediately chalked it up to BC being the business it pretends it isn’t, but totally is. But upon reading some of BC’s Thank-You-For-Smoking-style PR statements, I learned what they said “might” (and by “might” they mean “no matter how much the peasants protest, most definitely will”) happen—that the Campus School was “affiliating with” (and by that they mean “moving to”) the Kennedy School, and I considered a couple things. The first is that, yes, brand-new facilities paired with the great faculty that both schools offer could be very beneficial for the development of the kids at the Campus School. As much as one could argue that the change in location could be traumatizing to a body of students who rely heavily on routine and familiarity, that problem could be remedied by a simple phase-out of the old location. They would have had to move eventually for some reason or another, so why not do it when it would result in giving the students access to some really cool resources, right? And the second is that students will still be able to volunteer and run in the marathon for the

Campus School (because otherwise there would be a lot more men and women drinking for others and a lot less men and women running for others). Both the Campus School and the Kennedy School are under-capacity, so merging would be beneficial to both of them. When you think of it that way—not much is really changing besides the location—what’s so upsetting about that, really?

Well, I’ll tell you.

As much as I have BC to thank for actually explaining what Jesuit ideals are (I didn’t even know that the Jesuits were a thing when I first got here), BC as an institution isn’t what keeps those ideals alive for this school—it’s the students and faculty who really promote and perpetuate ideas of self-giving love. I have learned more from conversations with my peers than from any mission statement the higher-ups here have put out.

The administration’s decision to relocate the Campus School puts them out of sight and out of mind. Really effective service happens when you not only give your time and energy to a marginalized group, but use that experience to change your space (shout-out to my Arrupe friends). So many children grow up in schools where special needs kids are teased, or where the word “retarded” is used as an insult. But at BC, no one uses that word to put someone else down, and if they do, they are reprimanded for it.

Taking away the people who inspire that kind of attitude would change that about BC culture. With a student body that is so homogeneous, it is essential to have students here who are not only different, but who many students learn to see as the same.

The Campus School is currently an integral part of campus life, and I am afraid to say that taking them off campus would only separate them from mainstream BC society. One of the great things about BC is the commitment of the students to service—the one thing I will say for the BC administration is that it supports and affiliates with a number

of these service organizations that make being involved with service so easy here.

There are established service organizations that are just an application and an interview away from being on your resume. But the Campus School is one of the few places completely run by BC where you can just show up and help. No e-board, no leadership position, no pregames with your small group, no dining hall point drives, no competing with 100 other students who love “helping people” just as much as you do, just plain old no-strings-attached service. BC is home to one of the top business schools in the country, and we couldn’t find a place in our budget or marketing scheme to keep the Campus School around? If BC was really committed to its Jesuit ideals, relocating the Campus School would not be an option. If there are parents and students who are still willing to be there, then so should we.

I spent so much of my philosophy and theology core learning about what it means to do service, and the importance of being not just men and women for others but men and women with others, and how if you read the Bible a certain way, Catholicism is really all about the importance of serving the marginalized. And that is so much of what the Campus School teaches its volunteers.

As much as I understand that BC’s priority is to make enough money to keep being a school so that it can teach these things to us (that is, if we don’t immediately get untaught those social justice values as soon as we get into classes for our major). But we will never be able to apply those concepts into whatever we decide to do with our lives if we don’t see examples of how social justice can be achieved in every aspect of society.

How are we supposed to set the world aflame when BC relocates the spark for many students?

Eleanor Sciannella is a staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

Let’s stop putting people in boxes snow - Yeah, this will probably raise a flurry of responses, but we don’t like all of this snow. Sure, the campus looks pretty and all, but the number of times we have almost slipped on those hidden icy patches walking home is too damn high. Plus, there are few things worse than getting home and seeing that the entrance to your house has turned into a puddle because of all the melted snow brought inside by everyone’s boots. Also, trying to walk anywhere on campus with snow blowing into our faces is really annoying. lower rice - Lower, we appreciate that you have a fried rice bar.

Really, it’s a great concept. Some days, there is nothing we would like more than a hot, steaming bowl of rice and its associated goodies. But we at TU/TD know that you aren’t using the right rice. The right rice, you see, sticks together. Your rice does not. We can see the individual grains in your rice. Please fix this.

Library space - Do you like waking up at the crack of dawn? Do you like having a place to sit and study in O’Neill or Bapst? Do you want to be relegated to the dungeon-like Social Work Library? If you want the second and hate the first, you better be ready for the third because, as finals roll around, there will not be a space available in any of the major libraries on campus, and you should just get used to it.

We would like to Thumbs Down the lack of space available for students to study. When we are worrying about passing our finals, we don’t want to have to be worrying about finding a tiny corner in which to cram ourselves and our piles of textbooks to study for those finals. Also, all of you on the third floor of O’Neill—just because you are on the entrance floor of O’Neill and it is naturally noisy does not give you the right to talk incessantly. So yeah, we’d really like it if you would be a little more quiet.

Like Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down?

Follow us @BCTUTD

Alexia LaFata If you want the greatest lesson of all time on the perils of human judgment, watch Legally Blonde.

I recently watched it for the first time ever. I’d previously dismissed it as a chick flick that I didn’t really need to see. There are certain movies one needs to see, and they’re all on the IMDb top-250 list. Does one really need to see Legally Blonde, a movie not even on that list and seemingly just about a bubbly sorority girl who fakes her way into Harvard Law because of her obsession with a boy?

Yes. Everybody needs to see Legally Blonde.

Elle Woods is a blonde, voluptuous fashion merchandising major and the president of Delta Nu sorority at a California university. In the movie, Elle’s boyfriend breaks up with her because he’s headed to Harvard Law School and doesn’t think Elle is “serious” enough for him: “If I want to be a senator,” he says, “I need to marry a Jackie, not a Marilyn.” Insulted that she was just dumped because of her appearance and positive outlook on life, Elle becomes depressed. Later, she applies to Harvard to try to win him back, but nobody takes Elle seriously. Her bombshell beauty makes people dismiss her as stupid, despite her 4.0 GPA. Her femininity and love for pink makes her seem airheaded, despite her perseverance studying for the LSAT and score of 179.

Even after Elle’s eventual acceptance into Harvard, she is still judged by her peers and ex-boyfriend, who says that she’s still not smart enough to be there. What gives?

“All people see when they look at me is blonde hair and big boobs,” she sighs. But Elle doesn’t quit, and she proves herself to be brilliant in spite of her peers’ judg-

Bird Flew

ments. She answers difficult questions in class, uses her social intelligence and intuition to garner the trust of a client, and issues a cross-examination of a witness that wins a court case. Elle’s voice may have been “too” high and her interests “too” girly, but she was smart.

About two years ago, a friend of mine told me that he refused to be put into a box. “People everywhere try to boil each other down to some basic characteristic, to figure them out or something,” he said. “‘Put you in a box’ is how I like to think about it. And when they can’t find a box for you, it upsets them.” Based on Elle’s beauty and cheerful personality, she was placed in a box. She was nothing more than, as she’d predicted, a ditz with blonde hair and big boobs. That was her box and nobody allowed her to leave.

Why were people so reluctant to break the box and see Elle as intelligent, even after she incessantly proved herself? Why did it take so much energy for everyone to accept the gifted part of Elle that had always been there? Surely, if Elle were a brunette, or less bubbly, or average-looking, or resented girly things, it wouldn’t have been an issue. However, because she didn’t “appear” to be a “typical smart girl” (whatever any of that means) people did not see her as one until the last 10 minutes of the one-and-a-half hour movie.

These judgments are unfair. I’ve been told that I’m “not allowed” to want to go to Comic Con, and other times people don’t believe that I study computer science. Based on a first glance or impression, I’m placed in a box that doesn’t include either one of those things. My aforementioned friend recalled a time in high school when he was late to a Science League team exam. It’s important to note that in high school he had an eyebrow and lip piercing, a beard, and curly black hair—not quite an intellect, right? A school security guard didn’t think so, either: Upon my friend’s arrival to the meeting, the guard tried to remove him from the premises because he didn’t believe that my friend was in Science League.

That box emerged again, and the guard didn’t know what to do with my piercedup friend who may have been smart, too.

In the end, my friend scored the highest out of anyone in the state on that exam.

It’s wrong to reduce someone to a simple quality or two—to put someone in a box—because it takes away people’s rights to choose who they want to be. So why do we do it? The reality is that there are universal examples of certain kinds of people who are supposed to have certain kinds of personalities and interests. And, along the same lines, people who are not supposed to have certain kinds of personalities and interests. Elle is “hot” and busty, so she can’t be smart. This is just how we think.

And while it’s true that being able to quickly assess people is an inherent thing that humans do to make social interaction easy, it’s also how we can get by without getting to know anybody. Whether the person matches the perceived personality or interest has become irrelevant, because humans are lazy and will continue mismatching. Even when there is proof of the mismatch, like in the case of Elle Woods and her intelligence, change takes absurd amounts of effort.

I’m challenging the value placed on and accuracy of first impressions because humans are not as one-dimensional as they are perceived to be. We all know judging is wrong, but not giving people the chance to change our judgments or grow before our eyes is even worse. What makes us think we figured someone out with a glance? And how much convincing will it take for people to realize that their perceptions of others are possibly incorrect? It’s almost conceited, even, that someone is forced to be stuck as who we see him or her as, despite his or her continually proving otherwise.

Simply put, human beings aren’t meant to live in boxes. See: Hoovervilles. And it’s time we stop putting them there.

Alexia LaFata is a staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.

BY DOLAN BORTNER

The opinions and commentaries of the staff columnists and cartoonists appearing on this page represent the views of the author or artist of that particular piece, and not necessarily the views of The Heights. Any of the columnists and artists for the Opinions section of The Heights can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

The trouble with giving Ben Miyamoto When we were young, before either of my two older siblings or I had an income of our own, my parents—or rather, my mom—would buy all the presents for our family’s Christmas morning traditions.

This was less about my financial situation as a fourth grader, and more about my ineptitude at gift-giving. To be fair to my siblings and me, it was hard to imagine that my 10-year-old self, concerned mainly with Pokemon cards, N64, and the Pistons’ championship run, should be expected to select a winning gift for my 20-year-old sister, who was concerned with whatever 20-year-old girls are concerned with, or vice versa. To remedy the gifting crisis, every year my mother performed a Christmas miracle, buying presents for each of us from each of us, from her and my father, and occasionally from my grandmothers.

Shortly after my siblings and I reached the late-teen, mid-20s age of gift drought, our family instituted the out-of-the-hat system of gift exchange. Each of the siblings (a newly added brother-in-law and potential sister-in-law) put his or her name in the hat and drew one to determine whom they would be giving to that Christmas. This Christmas, I pulled my brother-in-law’s name, and I am faced with the same problem I have had for the past several years: How does one buy a gift for someone you only see a handful of times a year? My family is extremely important to me, and we keep in fairly regular contact, but artful gift-giving can only be done when one shares day-today life with the loved one for whom you are buying the gift. Ideally, a gift should be something that displays your attentiveness to the loved one, your intentional presence to them and their needs in everyday life. This attentiveness should allow you to quietly note their needs and wants, make a list, and materialize those wishes around the holiday season (or birthday, anniversary, etc.). Hopefully, the people you love know you love them, but giving a good surprise demonstrates the fact that you have been thinking about them in their absence, planning something with just them in mind. For example, one of the best gifts I have ever received was an original, tri-part, minimalist painting of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album art, which was given to me by a friend who not only knew that I loved the Beatles, but had also been attentive, listening to me complain about my lack of decorations for the cement prison block walls of 90 St. Thomas More Drive last year.

If, as I suspect, these kinds of surprisethoughtful gifts can only be given when you live through the mundane with those closest to you, then we are still left with the problem of what to buy those who are close to your heart but whose day-to-day lives do not overlap with your own. The first reaction, it seems, is to create a caricature of the loved one. For my brother-in-law, there are a few aspects of his life by which everyone identifies him. He is a teacher, an athlete, and a part-time theologian. He would likely enjoy a witty book about teaching languages (as he is a Spanish and math teacher), a Frisbee or pair of cleats, or a book from one of his favorite spiritual leaders. The problem, however, is that almost everyone who knows him, including the nineth graders struggling through their first semester of geometry, could buy this kind of gift.

Everyone wants to give a gift that demonstrates the relationship is special, that fulfills the need of the giver to feel like a good gift giver. To solve this, there are three options. First, I could ask someone, probably my sister (his wife), for gifts that he wants or needs. This is second-hand intentionality, but intentionality nonetheless. If I bought him the third book of a series in which he had just finished the second, he would know that I had asked my sister for help.

The thought is still there, my sister has been present to him, and I cared enough to ask for help. The second option is to give a gift important to me. This option is especially tricky, as it toes the line of selfishness. Giving a gift that shares an important part of myself is an opportunity to build our relationship by sharing what is important to me.

This, however, can easily slide into thoughtless gift-giving if I only give gifts I would like to receive. Applying my knowledge of him and our relationship, I could find something I love and think he could gain an appreciation for, offering an opportunity to learn about one another and expand our relationship. The last option is a letter. Telling the person you love that you love them seems the simplest, and perhaps most meaningful, way you can express the importance of the relationship. And what else are the holidays for if not to bring those you love close to you, share in traditions, make new ones, and remind one another how loved we are?

Ben Miyamoto is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

THE HEIGHTS

A8

Thursday, December 12, 2013

“If I actually win the Heisman trophy, I’ll chop it up into equal pieces and [the offensive line] can all take a piece of it.”

- Andre Williams

Heisman Hopeful Marly Morgus Asst. Sports Editor

JOHNNY MANZIEL 6-1, 210 LBS., QB NO. 21 TEXAS A&M

Passing Yards 3,732

Completions 270

Completion Percentage 69.1

Total Touchdowns 41

Yards per Attempt 9.5

Interceptions 13

Adjusted QBR 84.5

Rushing Yards 686

Rushing Attempts 133

Avg. Yards per Rush 5.2

Season Highs:

Touchdowns Nov. 2 vs. UTEP (6) Passing Yards Sept. 14 vs.

Alabama (464) Rushing Yards Oct. 12 at Ole Miss (124)

When Andre Williams rushed for 263 yards and five touchdowns against Army, not playing the last couple snaps of the game and finishing one yard short of the team’s single game rushing record, it seemed as though, by some mistake, he had missed his golden opportunity to make Boston College football history.

Alumni Stadium watched as the 6-foot, 227 pound senior from Schnecksville, Pa. took carry after carry, propelled forward by strong strides from what since then has been widely recognized as his “massive thighs.”

That gargantuan effort was enough for a BC win, its third of the season, and Williams was quick to shrug off the missed opportunity for setting the record, simply happy to be an important part of the snapping of a two-game losing streak. Maybe he knew that there were bigger things to come.

But then, Williams rushed for 172 yards at North Carolina, 166 against Virginia Tech, and 295 when the Eagles visited New Mexico State, breaking Montel Harris’ single game rushing record just four weeks after his narrow miss against Army.

There were also blips in his performance. Against USC, Williams managed just 38 yards on 17 attempts, and whispering began that Williams might not be effective against more high-powered defenses. Then came Florida State, though, when he rushed for 149 yards, more than the efforts of 10 full teams when faced with the Seminole defense this year.

Williams cemented his spot in BC record books, though, as the program’s all-time leader in rushing yards in a single season after a 339-yard performance against NC State and 263 yards at Maryland.

On the last weekend of regular season play, a lingering shoulder injury was aggravated early against Syracuse, forcing Williams to sit out most of the game, amassing only 29 yards as the Orange eventually staged a last-minute win.

Meanwhile, other Heisman candidates were participating in storied rivalry games with widespread national viewing. The 29 yards brought his season total to 2,102. That number gives him the ninth best rushing season in the history of college football.

Even with a nod as a finalist for the Doak Walker award, which goes out to college football’s top running back, it became apparent that Williams was not finished making history.

On Monday evening, he was announced as one of six Heisman Trophy finalists, the second ever for BC, as he joins ranks with Doug Flutie, a finalist in 1983 and 1984, who won the award on his second trip to the ceremony. On Saturday, Williams will join Northern Illinois’ Jordan Lynch, Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel, Alabama’s AJ McCarron, Auburn’s Tre Mason, and Florida State’s Jameis Winston at a ceremony in New York City, where the winner of one of college football’s most prestigious awards will be announced.

“I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around it yet,” Williams said. “I’m still really blown away about it. I’m still sifting through all the congratulations and phone calls. It’s just a really awesome experience.”

Four of the six finalists are quarterbacks, and Williams is the only member of a team that falls outside of the BCS top 25.

Williams, however, brings his own unique strengths to the tough competition. A senior in the Lynch School of Education, Williams is set to graduate a semester early and currently holds a 3.065 GPA, on top of having been a teaching assistant in a Courage to Know seminar.

This is reflected on the field as well, as he remains a stalwart leader and a role model for younger players, especially two promising freshman running backs. Through everything, he remains humble, attributing much of his success to his loyal offensive line.

“If I actually win the Heisman Trophy, I’ll chop it up into equal pieces and they can all take a piece of it home,” he said.

Throughout Williams’ Heisman campaign, head coach Steve Addazio has been adamant about how much he thinks his player deserves the award.

“Heisman mission statement,” he said. “‘Outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity.’ I would say Andre Williams absolutely fits that.”

On Saturday night, we’ll see if the voters agree. 

TRE MASON

1,621

Attempts 283

Yards per Rush

Yards per Rush

100+ yard games

Attempts

Rushing TDs

Season Long

2,102 329

6.4 17

9

80

SEASON HIGHS

Rushing Yards/Carries: Nov. 16 vs.

NC State (339, 42) Touchdowns: Oct. 5 vs. Army (5)

5.7

233

Completion Percentage 63.1

Total Touchdowns 45

Yards per Attempt 7.25

Interceptions 7

Adjusted QBR 69.1

Rushing Yards 1,881

Rushing Attempts 274

Avg. Yards per Rush 6.9

Season Highs:

Touchdowns 5 (three occasions) Passing Yards Nov. 13 vs. Ball State (345) Rushing Yards Nov. 26 vs. Western Michigan (321)

Passing Yards 2,676

Completions 207

Completion Percentage 26

6-4, 228 LBS., QB NO. 1 FLORIDA STATE

100+ yard games Touchdowns 4 (two occasions)

Completions

Passing Touchdowns

JAMEIS WINSTON

22

Season Highs:

2,676

67.6

Rushing TDs

8

Passing Yards

6-4, 214 LBS, QB NO. 3 ALABAMA

6-0, 227 LBS., RB BOSTON COLLEGE

Rushing Yards

6-0, 216 LBS, QB NO. 23 NORTHERN ILLINOIS

AJ MCCARRON

ANDRE WILLIAMS

5-10, 205 LBS., RB NO. 2 AUBURN

Rushing Yards

JORDAN LYNCH

Passing Yards 3,820

Completions 237

Rushing Yards Dec. 7 vs. Missouri 304

Completion Percentage

Attempts Dec. 7 vs. Missouri 46

10.95

67.9

Yards per Attempt Interceptions 10

Season Highs: Passing Yards

Nov. 4 at Clemson (444)

Passing Touchdowns Oct. 5 at Maryland (5)

Completion Percentage Sept. 2 at Pittsburgh (92.6)

Yards per Attempt 8.75

Sacks

Interceptions

Adjusted QBR

Adjusted QBR

Total Touchdowns

Season Highs:

23

90.9 42

5

83.5

Passer Rating

Touchdowns 4 (2 occasions)

300+ yard games

Passing Yards Oct. 12 at Kentucky (359)

190.1 7

133

With growth comes a change in perspective on Boston College sports Column, from A10 Saturday in September 2005 when College Gameday visited Chestnut Hill for the school’s inaugural ACC game against the Seminoles. Sitting above the 50-yard line sporting a maroon and gold sweatshirt, not to mention the massive ticket given to attendees that night, I watched BC come back to take a 17-14 lead.

“ESPN must be loving this,” someone behind me said.

I’m sure it was with BC in the lead, but once Quinton Porter went out with an injury the Seminoles came from behind to win.

BC’s first major ACC Championship game came the next spring. Jared Dudley’s energy and respected basketball IQ were present against JJ Reddick’s Duke, but they were not enough to secure victory.

Those were the days when I would excuse myself from class to go to the bathroom, when in reality I was headed to the library to check the basketball team’s progress. I will never forget when

the librarian at my school allowed me into a back office to watch the Eagles battle to a double overtime victory over Pacific on a six-inch TV. Losing to Villanova eight days later was painful, though, because as I had said so many times over the course of the 2006 season, “that was the team.”

In 2007, Ryan made up for disappointing Alumni Stadium in 2004 by orchestrating a famous Thursday night comeback at Virginia Tech. But when BC fell to the Seminoles one week later, losing its spot in the national title game, I was left emotionless.

I had become numb to the school’s defeats. I was growing up.

The future of BC sports was bleak headed into 2008, even though men’s hockey had won its third national title.

Al Skinner’s “Golden Generation” who ran the “flex” to perfection was gone, and Ryan was in the NFL. But that year was not as bad for BC as it could have been. Dominique Davis and Montel Harris led the football team to another ACC title game, which it lost.

BC’s backfield of freshmen could have developed into college football’s best by their graduation. Neither earned a diploma from BC. While covering men’s basketball for four years through my high school’s newspaper, I continued the switch from fan to cynic.

In my first months at BC, I have been able to find a balance between fan and journalist. While those afternoons and evenings at Alumni and Conte with a Superfan shirt on make it difficult not to support the Eagles, nights with the men’s soccer team bring me back down to earth. Writing notebooks packed with tactical analysis helped me break down the strategic thoughts of men’s soccer head coach Ed Kelly.

Those articles showed me that I had broken the barrier that separates the common fan from the analyst.

Alex Fairchild is a staff writer for The Heights. He can be reached at sports@bcheights.com.

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Boston Collge sports have hit many peaks and valleys since the start of the new millenium.

THE HEIGHTS

EDITORS’ EDITORS’PICKS PICKS

Thursday, December 12, 2013 The Week Ahead

Standings

Andre Williams will head to New York City for Saturday night’s Heisman Trophy presentation. Men’s basketball has its first ACC matchup of the season, which comes tonight against Maryland. A non-conference matchup with Philadelphia on Sunday will be followed by the women’s game against New Hampshire.

Chris Grimaldi

33.5-27

Heights Staff

33-27

Marly Morgus

32-28

Austin Tedesco

28-32

A9

Recap from Last Week

Game of the Week

Marly Morgus stood in for Chris Grimaldi in a Sporcle tiebreaker, triumphing over Maggie Powers 26 U.S. Presidents to 19 and earning Grimaldi the victory. Men’s basketball lost to UConn.

Women’s basketball beat Florida International. Women’s soccer advanced to the Elite Eight. Football beat Maryland.

The Patriots beat the Broncos.

Men’s Basketball

Guest Editor: Marc Francis

Maryland

Business Manager “There are no secrets on The Heights ... just my own.”

This Week’s Games

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Chris Grimaldi Assoc. Sports Editor

Jameis Winston

Andre Williams

Who will win the Heisman Trophy?

Football: BC vs. Arizona Men’s Basketball: BC vs. Maryland Women’s Basketball: BC vs. New Hampshire NFL: New England at Miami

Marly Morgus Asst. Sports Editor

Marc Francis Business Manager

Jameis Winston

AJ McCarron

Arizona

BC

Arizona

Arizona

Maryland

BC

Maryland

Maryland

BC

BC

BC

BC

Miami

New England

New England

Miami

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The Eagles will look to bounce back from their 78-62 defeat at the hands of USC come Thursday night. Both Maryland (5-4) and BC (3-6) are coming off consecutive losses. The Terrapins were easily beaten by No. 5 Ohio State, before George Washington escaped from College Park with a victory. Both teams have played Connecticut, losing by a combined three points to the Huskies. The Eagles had difficulty on the glass earlier in the season and were outrebounded in their last two defeats. BC averages just 30 boards per game, which ranks 341st in the country. The Terps sit at 45th in that category.

Tonight at 7 p.m.

POINT COUNTERPOINT

WHO SHOULD BE BC’S CONSISTENT STARTER? Demko is best for the Eagles’ future numbers thus far in the 2013 season. Demko has a .911 save percentage and is letting up 2.31 goals per game, while Billet has a .917 save percentage and is letting up 2.58. While the numbers compare well, Demko may have an edge on Billett in one category.

Demko has already proven that he can go on the road in Hockey East and win games against rival teams as a freshman. His last two outings on the road came last Saturday at New Hampshire and on Nov. 8, at BU. In both games, he let up just one goal and led his team to two wins. In Billett’s last road game, BC was blown out 5-1 by Maine and Billett was pulled after the second period. Winning on the road in Hockey East is never an easy thing to do, and Demko has already done it in two of the toughest arenas to play in.

What’s important to consider is that Billett will likely receive the next three or four starts. With the team off until after Christmas, Demko will be away playing with the U.S. team when the Eagles return to the ice. However, if Billett is less than dominant in Demko’s absence, then Demko should be starting.

He is a goalie who seems to have an abundance of talent and enough confidence not to be rattled in a hostile environment. Sooner or later, the net is going to be his. 

BY STEVEN PRINCIPI Heights Staff

Billett proved himself, even before BC

BY MIKE HOFF For The Heights

It’s a rare occurance for the hockey season preIn 2011, the Boston College men’s hockey view at a top-flight school like Boston College to team faced an unusual problem. After years of feature a story on the team’s freshman goalie, but great goaltending from current NHL players Scott that’s the buzz that came with Thatcher Demko Clemmensen, Cory Schneider, and John Muse, heading into this season—and deservedly so. Barethe Eagles couldn’t figure out who their No.1 was. ly 18, he’s projected to be one of the top American There was a revolving door of goalies made up of goalies taken in the upcoming NHL draft. then-junior Parker Milner, freshman Brian Billett, Because of those circumstances, the goalie and senior Chris Venti. Milner asserted himself as situation for BC has been mostly framed as waitthe starter with two solid performances against New ing for the freshman to take the reins and bring Hampshire, and from that time on, BC would not the rest of his young teammates to their fullest lose another game. potential along with him.

Now, two years later, the Eagles face a similar Those people apparently don’t remember situation. Sixteen games into the 2013-2014 season, that, two years ago, the Eagles faced the same the Eagles boast a 10-4-2 record with the youngest situation in net—just substitute “Demko” for team in the nation, and once again, there is no per“Billett.” Billett arrived on campus in 2011 with manent starting goalie. the following accomplishments: he was elected For the most part, Billett, now a junior, has been to the EJHL All-Star Game in each of his three splitting time with freshman Thatcher Demko. seasons with the New Hampshire Monarchs, he While the strategy has worked to this point, it is time led his team to titles in 2010 and 2011, was the to start giving Demko the bulk of the work.

EJHL Goaltender of the Year in 2010, and had a In terms of raw talent, Demko may be the best career .935 save percentage with the Monarchs. goalie BC has seen in a long time. Before coming to That was a lot of potential at the time—enough BC, Demko spent the 2012 season as the starting goalie for the U.S. National Under-18 team. He won 30 of the 43 games he started, posted a .910 save percentage, and picked up six shutouts along the way. Coming into BC this year, he was considered the No. 1 goalie prospect by a wide margin, and the only reason he was not taken in the 2013 NHL draft was because he was too young to be draft-eligible. While he may not see much live action ahead of Jon Gillies of Providence or Anthony Stolarz of the OHL’s London Knights, it is tough to argue that he does not have a much higher ceiling at BC than Billett.

The general consensus around BC is that the net is going to be his at some point in the future, so why not sooner rather than later? This BC team already plays as many as three freshman defensemen on any given night. Putting Demko between the pipes full time gives the whole unit a chance to grow together. Putting Demko in now is a better move for the future of the Eagles, but it is also the GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR best move for right now.

Both Demko and Billett have put up strong While both Billett and Demko have made starts for BC in net, there are arguments for and against sticking with either.

to believe that Billett could have taken a loaded 2011-12 team to the top.

That team did get to the top, but not with Billett in goal. Junior Parker Milner took hold of the starting job down the stretch and was the last goalie standing when BC was the last team at the Frozen Four. Billett made his case, though, especially with a dominant performance early in the season at Agganis Arena. Sound familiar? If the score of that game was 5-1 instead of 6-1, the parallels would be too overwhelming.

Billett was somewhat forgotten heading into this season because of a sophomore season that featured concussions and Milner as the entrenched senior starter.

Head coach Jerry York didn’t forget, though, and said he realizes he should have given Billett more of a shot last year.

“Last year we never really had a chance to play him with Parker,” York said after BC’s win at Harvard this season. “When we wanted to play him he had a concussion and missed a full month of the season. Looking back I probably should have played him more, but Parker was just so dominant.”

That night at Harvard, York also added, “Our goaltender [Billett] was the difference in the game ... He was one of the key reasons we won the game tonight.”

Last week at home against UNH, the Wildcats outshot BC 16-4 in the second period, but weren’t able to put any past Billett. Kept in the game by Billett once again, BC’s inconsistent but explosive offense detonated in the second period, and the Eagles left with a 6-2 win. After the game, UNH coach Dick Umile said, “[BC’s] goaltender won the game tonight.”

Demko can win games for BC, too, and he did the next night at UNH with an excellent road performance for any goalie, let alone a freshman. For a young, erratic team, however, one that has the capability to drop a home game to Holy Cross—a game in which Demko let in five goals on 18 shots—more reliability in net is much needed.

As tournament season approaches, York would be best served to follow his blueprint from two years ago. 

Eagles face a similar team in Arizona for AdvoCare V100 Bowl Football, from A10

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR

After seven regular season wins, the Eagles seek their eighth on New Years’ Eve against Arizona.

W. Hockey

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season, defensive coordinator Don Brown’s pass defense has struggled not to give up the big play as of late, and if Denker can link up with his favorite target, seven-touchdownscoring freshman Nate Phillips, the Eagles will be in trouble.

The player that stands to cause the most problems come New Year’s Eve, however, could be Williams on a month’s rest. On paper, Williams and Carey are reminiscent of Gatorade’s “anything you can do, I can do better” commercials. The Heisman finalist has averaged 19 more rushing yards per game and has run for 386 more yards than Carey, but Carey has played in one fewer game than Williams and has the edge in catches—Williams has no receptions on the year.

When it comes to creating big plays, Wil-

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liams leaves Carey in the dust—Williams has broken off for a 50-yard run or more in five games, whereas Carey has recorded one run greater than 50 yards, a 58 yarder, in his first game of the season.

BC’s x-factor could very well be senior quarterback Chase Rettig. Excellent against Syracuse, Rettig emerged as a dual threat in his own right, throwing for 168 yards and two touchdowns, and using his legs for 85 yards and an additional score.

It’s been an up-and-down year for the veteran signal caller. Rettig has thrown for 1,804 yards and 17 touchdowns on the year, seeing highs including a dominant fourtouchdown, 197-yard performance against Florida State, and lows such as a 57-yard, zero touchdown effort against North Carolina.

Rettig has proven himself as a capable game manager many times this season—and a

Los Angeles, ca 12/8 M. Hockey

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game changer against Syracuse—and if he’s to conclude his collegiate career with that elusive first bowl-game victory, he’ll need to be on his game.

On Dec. 31, in Shreveport, La, the Eagles and Wildcats, Rettig and Denker, and Williams and Carey will battle in an attempt to send their respective teams to 8-5. It will be the first meeting between BC and Arizona, and chances are it will be an offensive slugfest of a game—neither team has outstanding defensive numbers. With two of the best backs in college football in action, the matchup may be decided by whoever can break more tackles, overpower more defenders, juke more opponents, and throw more stiff-arms.

In the end, this battle of running backs may simply come down to which player is better at doing what he does best—running away with the game. 

Durham, nh 12/7

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hayes 1 g Desmith 17 svs

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SPORTS THE HEIGHTS

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Thursday, December 12, 2013

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2013

WILLIAMS NAMED HEISMAN FINALIST Part of the largest class of Heisman finalists since 1994, Andre Williams is headed to New York to vie for one of college football’s highest honors. See A8

Kolanos to Kelly, kid to critic

FACE TO FACE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

BOSTON COLLEGE

ALEX FAIRCHILD It was 2-2 on the evening of Saturday, April 7, 2001. Having lost to the North Dakota Fighting Sioux one year previous, the hopes of Boston College’s hockey team were riding on the stick of Krys Kolanos. As he skated down the left side of the ice, green sweaters attempted to mob him, but with the puck at his stick, he breezed by Aaron Schneekloth before corralling it with his handle’s backside. He cut across the North Dakota goaltender and—with a gorgeous sweeping motion—he was able to find enough space to slide the puck into an open net.

The Eagles were national champions.

I jumped up and down in my basement as head coach Jerry York’s coaching staff mobbed him. Kolanos’ overtime winner was a magical moment to end a wild year in the world of BC sports. Earlier that season, Kolanos claimed MVP when the Eagles won their first Beanpot since 1994.

On the hardwood, the Troy Bell-led basketball team waltzed its way to victory in the Big East Tournament, before crashing out of the NCAAs just days later.

Those two teams, hockey especially, provided me with my first taste of winning. I was that kid on the kindergarten soccer field who bullied you to be first to the ball, and I bemoaned each loss, too, but BC’s victories were different—my parents went to BC and I grew up with the school, hence my attention. Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary is etched in my brain, and I bawled after the football team lost to Syracuse and threw away a trip to the Fiesta Bowl on the final day of the 2004 season. Few will remember that Matt Ryan threw three interceptions on that fateful day.

BC’s move to the ACC brought so much pride, as it showed the continued rise of the school’s sports program, but there were always the pessimists who thought the school would be smothered by the likes of Florida State on the gridiron and North Carolina on the court.

The school’s first test came on a rainy

RYAN REVOCK / THE DAILY WILDCAT

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Eagles, Wildcats have more in common than elite running backs

The Wildcats are coming off a season of ups and downs and a few highscoring blowout victories, a 2013 campaign highlighted by a 42-16 takedown of Oregon. Leading the way has been junior running back Carey, averaging 156 yards rushing per game and amassing 1,716 yards on the ground and 17 rushing touchdowns over 11 games played.

BY CONNOR MELLAS At 5-foot-10, 196-pounds, Carey is a small and shifty—but powerful—lightHeights Editor ning-quick runner with soft hands. He’s racked up 26 receptions for 173 yards Legs pounding, spikes in the air, he breaks free from the desperate scrum and one touchdown to go along with his exploits on the ground. His 2013 piece of would-be tacklers and hits full throttle, tearing into the open field. Streaking de resistance came against Oregon when he broke free for 206 yards and four touchdowns, paving the way for the Wildcats’ 42-16 drubbing of to the outside for a first down, he cradles the ball with his right the Ducks. All in all, Carey’s a nightmare for BC’s defense, the forearm and trucks an opponent with his left, before finally running second-to-last back in college football the Eagles’ would like to out of room. At game’s end he’ll have 128 rushing yards and two face—the first being their own power-running Andre Williams. touchdowns. Soon, rabid displays of running like this will become The Wildcat handing Carey the ball—or running it and throwcommonplace, maybe even taken for granted, and by season’s end ing it himself—is dual-threat senior quarterback B.J. Denker. Given he’ll have 17 rushing touchdowns and be considered one of the BC’s trouble with multifaceted quarterbacks, most recently seen best backs in college football. through Syracuse’s Terrel Hunt throwing for 270 yards and two After all, Ka’Deem Carey is having a hell of a year at Arizona.

DEC. 31, 2013 touchdowns and rushing for an additional 90 yards and a score If the Boston College Eagles stared into a mirror en masse in a BC vs. Arizona in BC’s final regular-season game, Denker could deal the Eagles’ smoky room and squinted just hard enough, they might find the 12:30 ON ESPN defense some serious damage. In 12 games, Denker has thrown for Arizona Wildcats, their 2013 AdvoCare V100 Bowl opponents, gazing back at them. Each team is 7-5 and isn’t nationally ranked, each has four 14 touchdowns and 2,241 yards and run for 12 touchdowns and 898 yards.

While the BC defense has been solid on the ground for the most part this wins in conference play, each employs a rush-heavy offense and has one widereceiver dominant above all others, each has a Doak Walker Award Finalist in the huddle, and each ended its regular season with a disappointing loss.

See Football, A9

See Column, A8

Second half bursts give Eagles home victory over cross-town rival

BY ALEX FAIRCHILD

Heights Staff After losing three straight games, the women’s basketball team bounced back with consecutive victories. In the game following Sunday’s win over Hartford, five players on head coach Erik Johnson’s squad put up double digits scoring figures in the team’s 63-52 win over Boston University on Wednesday night.

Sarah Hope and Danielle Callahan helped the Terriers get off to a fast start with two 3-pointers, but the Eagles would not let their cross-town rivals pull away, as a Kat Cooper layup before the first media timeout cut BU’s lead to one.

Throughout the first half, the visitors would take a brief lead only for the home side to pull it back from them.

With 7:20 remaining in the first half, Callahan drained another triple,

but Kelly Hughes knocked down a three of her own 20 seconds later to make it a 17-16 game. Kristen Doherty led all scorers with 14 points and her free throw, moments later, leveled the matchup at 17.

BC’s defense buckled down after another Hope 3-pointer put BU ahead.

Over the next four minutes, Johnson’s team would go on a 9-0 run that started with a layup by Katie Zenevitch.

Doherty’s jumper gave the Eagles their first lead of the game with 5:05 left in the half. Another easy finish from Zenevitch topped off the run at the 2:30 mark to give the hosts a 26-20 lead.

While a three from Callahan cut BC’s lead in half, the home team would maintain a 28-24 advantage headed into the intermission.

Melissa Gallo helped the Terriers equalize with the Eagles three minutes into the second period of play with a 3-

I NSIDE SPORTS THIS ISSUE

pointer, but Lauren Engeln’s layup saw the home team take a lead they would not relinquish. A triple from Hughes followed, the assist coming from Doherty, and Cooper would get a dish from Engeln to finish an 8-0 BC run.

BU trimmed their deficit to four, but back-to-back 3-pointers from Hughes put BC up 44-34 with 13:43 left, causing BU head coach Kelly Greenberg to take a timeout.

Two free throws from Cooper extended the BC lead to 15 points, but two straight threes from Clodagh Scannell saw the Terriers come within nine of the Eagles.

Johnson’s team did not give into the pressure applied by the visitors. Another 8-0 run from BC earned the team its biggest lead of the game (17 points), when a layup from Doherty found the bottom of the hoop with five minutes left in regulation. 

Point-Counterpoint: Hockey

Two viewpoints are presented on BC’s choice of starting goalies........................A8

EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS STAFF

After dropping three straight, the Eagles have turned it around to win two games in a row.

Game Of The Week: Basketball

The Maryland Terrapins will pay a visit to Chestnut Hill tonigh............A9

Editors’ Picks........................A9 Scoreboard...........................A9

A2FASHION FORWARD

DIVERSITY IN FASHION PUERTO RICAN MODEL JOAN SMALLS CRITIQUES RACE IN FASHION PAGE C3 OUTSIDE THE LINES

ARTIST COMMITMENT

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, January 17, 2013

ALBUM REVIEW

‘BECAUSE THE INTERNET’ COMEDIAN-GONE-RAPPER CHILDISH GAMBINO REIMAGINES ALBUMS FOR THE DIGITAL ERA, C4

‘BREAKING OUT OF A SHELL’ VERSUS LIVING AUTHENTICALLY PAGE C3 THURSDAY, DECEMBER, 12, 2013

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2013

The Arts in Review

at

BC 2013

BY ARIANA IGNERI, ASSOC. ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR | JOHN WILEY, ASST. ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR MICHELLE TOMASSI, HEIGHTS EDITOR PHOTOS: GRAHAM BECK, ALEX GAYNOR, & DANIEL LEE In 12 months’ time, a lot has changed in the arts at Boston College—Macklemore & Ryan Lewis came to campus as the biggest act

BY SEAN KEELEY, ARTS &concert REVIEW EDITOR ARIANA IGNERI, ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR | JOHN WILEY, to headline a BC in recent history,|BC hip-hop dance groupASSOC. Phaymus was contacted to audition for America’s Got Talent after ASST. ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR winning the ALC showdown, and waves of experimental music have begun cropping up at open mic events around campus.

The work of French artist Gustave Courbet came to the McMullen Museum, Avenue Q came to Robsham, and woe came to UGBC when its fall concert sold only 995 tickets and ran at a $112,000 loss. Artists around campus organized in response to disaster in the Philippines, and the city of Boston heightened safety measures at concerts in the wake of a tragedy of its own. At BC, the arts served as a force for change, and change came to the arts in turn. The Scene lists the six most powerful happenings in BC arts this year.

SEE C5 JORDAN PENTALERI / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC

THE HEIGHTS

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WILEY’S FOLLIES

Motor City blues: art in Detroit

Thursday, December 12, 2013

SCENE AND HEARD

BY: ARIANA IGNERI

JOHN WILEY The cloud of Detroit’s $18 billion debt has been cast over by the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)—the city’s $886 million art collection has entered the line of sight of hungry creditors and city officials alike.

With 17.4 percent of the people in the Detroit metro area now living beneath the poverty line, and the city itself now bankrupt and filing for Chapter 9 reorganization, the necessity of the DIA’s extensive collection has been called into question.

The fine arts have become an institution of oppression in Detroit, with the art’s value growing into a force contrary to its curators’ aims. How do we argue for preservation of fine art at the expense of working roads and basic infrastructure—especially when the art itself lends itself to an elite set of tastes? The Great Recession has spilt into the galleries, and while the discussion surrounding Detroit’s art has been going on for years, the announced bankruptcy means the value of these paintings cannot legally be ignored—the world of fine art must confront the human condition.

Detroit is not without options. While the immediately fulfilling financial decision is to auction off the gallery’s contents, several critics have argued this path is actually a fiscally irresponsible move. Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr, who is presiding for the city over the bankruptcy case, has made clear he sees no great remedy in selling the DIA’s collection—having cash on hand will not fix the unprofitability of Detroit’s institutions.

Additionally, selling fine art is a distinctly different task than negotiating on a used car, or even moving onto the market. Since art appeals to tastes rather than utility, it’s worth significantly more to the right buyers. Selling a collection as extensive as the DIA’s would need to be a long process if the city plans to recover even a fraction of its value.

Auctioning off the collection also would likely take large parts of the collection away from the public. In a troubled economy, public institutions of art are less likely to hand over large sums of cash to buy an older collection from Detroit’s museum. Wealthy, independent stakeholders are likely to snatch up the artwork, as they will likely sell well below market value considering the city’s desperation.

This potential outcome is particularly troubling, and would represent a devastating shift in the placement of fine art collections: from the great many to a privileged few.

Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Wedding Dance stands as one of the DIA’s most valuable paintings, and likely one of the first that would be auctioned off if the city is looking to make a lucrative sale. The 1566 painting runs in the school of voyeurism, depicting 125 peasants dancing at a wedding, a type of celebration that drew harsh criticism from authorities at the time. Most European artists of the time ignored the lower class entirely in their work, and what makes The Wedding Dance so valuable is that it challenges notions of a joyless, uniform working class.

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the citizenry is driven into mobs, as it hunts down the conspirators responsible for the death of Caesar. A group of citizen mistakenly kills Cinna the poet in this frenzy, mistaking the man for Cinna the conspirator.

This is the case of Detroit—the people have mistaken the artist for the conspirator. Institutions like the DIA, at their very best preserve the human condition, and at their very worst are indifferent to it. But the privatization of public works not only proves fiscally irresponsible in the case of Detroit: It ignores the social significance of the art. Detroit’s collection is not valued at $886 million because it looks good on a mantel. Rather, it speaks to the fact that since the museum’s founding in 1885, private individuals have so valued the ideas behind these painting and sculptures that they were willing to give away their fortunes to keep this art with the people of Detroit.

And if our public institutions should become disinterested in fine art, the value will be vacated from these pieces. To auction away from Detroit works like The Wedding Dance, with the public in mind, is to mistake common interest with the immediate gratification of the dollar.

Some things are more enduring. For this, the peasants dance.

John Wiley is the Asst. Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

1. COOKIN’ UP SOME TUNES

2. SANDLER’S SALARY

Macauley Culkin, known for his role in the beloved Home Alone Christmas classics, is apparently the lead singer of a hipster band that sings only about pizza, parodying the legendary ’60s group The Velvet Underground. The Pizza Underground released its first track earlier this month—it was an 8-minute medley including songs like “Pizza Day,” “Papa John Says,” and “Waiting for the Delivery Man.”

Adam Sandler was ranked at the top of Forbes’ list of Hollywood’s most-overpaid actors, demanding high salaries and delivering mediocre revenues. With recent flops like Jack & Jill and That’s My Boy, the Mr. Deeds star isn’t as green as he used to be. The magazine estimates that his last three films returned an average of $3.40 for every dollar he was paid. Katherine Heigel and Reese Witherspoon trailed close behind him on the list, rounding out the top three.

4. KATE’S DOING ‘GREAT’ This Saturday in the UK, Kate Winslet gave birth to her third child. It was her first with husband Ned Rocknroll, whom she married last December. Kate also has a daughter, Mia, with her exhusband Jim Threapleton, and a son, Joe, with her second husband Sam Mendes. The newborn baby weighed in at 9 pounds, and according to the Titanic actress’ rep, “Mother and baby are doing great.” Congrats, Kate!

3. DEMI DISHES ALL

5. BIEBER’S ‘WHALE’ FAIL

Although pop singer and X-Factor judge Demi Lovato has been transparent about her past battle with cutting and bulimia, it wasn’t until her most recent interview with Access Hollywood that she confessed how serious and extensive some of her addictions were. “I couldn’t go 30 minutes to an hour without cocaine,” Lovato revealed, opening up about her drug problem. “I would bring it on airplanes.”

He might not have gotten into a fight with the paparazzi or vandalized a hotel this week, but Justin Bieber did allegedly call a young female fan a “beached whale” while he was at a hotel in Australia on Sunday. Witnesses report that Bieber went on insulting her, telling her, “You should go on The Biggest Loser,” as he simultaneously imitated a fat belly with his hands.

THE CRITICAL CURMUDGEON

@MILEYRAYCYRUS (MILEY CYRUS, ACTRESS/SINGER)

“MY KARMA FOR CLICKING ON ‘10 CELEBS WITH CANKLES’ ... I WAS ON IT.” @STEPHENATHOME (STEPHEN COLBERT, ‘THE COLBERT REPORT’)

PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE

With hits including “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us,” Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were among this year’s highlights in the music world.

Looking back: 2013’s best and brightest MATT MAZZARI I may seem like an academic to some of you, but it isn’t true. I’m really a simple man just trying to live a simple life, unconcerned with the intellectual hustle ‘n’ bustle of the politicians, city-folk, and other such people who have seen more than two movies. My interests include creating freestyle origami, staring blankly at people on subways, and forming squares with the cursor’s drag-box on my desktop background—currently a picture of three Shibes wearing party hats.

So you can imagine how overwhelmed I felt by the wildness of life when I received an email from Spotify announcing its 2013: Year in Review. “Hit rewind!” the message read, “And look at the biggest tracks and artists of 2013.” Oh, and it added smarmily, “and check out your ‘Personal Year in Music’ too.”

But Spotify, I quibbled, it’s only Dec. 10! Surely we have more than half a month before such nostalgic lists are relevant?

“Just do it, nerd!” roared Spotify, as it slapped my beverage out of my hand.

Needless to say, I checked it out. Turns out my simple little brain was in for some more of the deep-fryer: the Spotify Year in Review “rewinder” literally operates as a dynamic zoom scaling inward from the known universe. Predictably, it blew my mind apart. Did you know that people streamed over 4,500,000,000 hours of music this year using Spotify? Or that over a billion playlists have been made? Or that a Spotify user in the U.S. holds the record for largest number of playlists, at over 90

thousand? Who is this guy, Galactus? How can he possibly consume so much music that he needs 90,000 playlists to categorize it all? Does he just enter random words in the search bar and start sorting what he finds into playlists for sick kicks? Somebody should stop him— he’s clearly lost control.

While scrolling through this immeasurable cosmos of tenuously pop-musicrelated information, I realized this column is the last I get to write this semester, so I should probably do a “Year in Review” of my own. Like Spotify’s, my attempt to summarize a full year of music releases might seem a tad early, but a year so chock full of explosive music news deserves to be preemptively looked back upon with some fondness and a shimmering gleam in our eye. No, no, I’m not crying. That’s not a tear—it’s leaking cerebral fluid from that time Spotify melted my central nervous system through my eyes.

Who were the heroes of 2013, the warriors of pop who defined the industry’s direction? If we chose a Music Person of the Year TIME Magazine-style, it’d be difficult to argue against Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, the indie-rap sensation who defied all expectations by dominating early-year hit charts without a record label.

Between “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us,” the two became the first musicians to have their first two singles reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 list—impressive, to say the least. But who could forget the stranglehold Miley Cyrus has had on music media since her VMA performance this summer? Of course, we can’t leave out Kanye’s latest album drop, Beyonce’s

fabulastic Superbowl Halftime Show, Bob Dylan’s music video experiment, or how Fall Out Boy still thinks it saved Rock and Roll.

The year 2013 also meant saying goodbye to some greats. This October we lost Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground, a creative legend and one of the strongest critical voices we still had. We’ll also miss Ray Manzarek, former keyboardist for The Doors, a phenomenal talent with an unforgettable style. But apart from these great losses, we saw the rise of some exciting up-and-comers like Lorde, as well as the triumphant return of The Postal Service, Blink-182, Stone Temple Pilots, The Pixies and many more. Overall, it’s been a memorable and productive year.

Maybe you’re still wondering: what revolutionary artists made the esteemed cut of Matt’s ‘Personal Year in Music?’ The answer is, well, none of them. I don’t really use Spotify that much. But if you’re still curious about solid new sound that’s been pushing the envelop lately, I’d recommend checking out Alt-J, Sleigh Bells, Tame Impala, STFKR, Menomena, and the Arctic Monkeys, if you haven’t already. I’m also looking forward to Beck’s 13th album, which is scheduled to come out next year in early February.

But all of that is a long way away.

Thanks for reading my column this semester, and good luck, everyone, on final exams. Happy Holidays, and have a splendidly musical break!

Matt Mazzari is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

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The Heights

Thursday, December 12, 2013

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outside the lines

music video of the week by Ariana Igneri

An artistic Spears’ ‘Perfume’ fails to leave lingering impressions commitment title: “Perfume”

artist: Britney Spears Directed by: Joseph Kahn the takeaway: Spears’ latest music video, “Perfume,” finds the pop star intimately exploring themes of jealousy and vulnerability, but the video inevitably pales in comparison to her older work.

PHOTO courtesy of RCA Records

Over the course of her career, Britney Spears has been a corner in several complicated love triangles—with Justin Timberlake, Wade Robson, and Kevin Federline, among others. So in her new music video for “Perfume,” the pop star addresses this very issue, claiming that when it comes to romantic relationships, three’s a crowd, and that’s it.

The mid-tempo ballad is the second single off her latest album, Britney Jean, and like the lyrics of the track, the scenes in the video address what it’s like for Spears to be caught up in a complex affair with someone, to be the victim of a womanizer, and to lack the strength to do anything about it but hope the lingering smell of her perfume will break the other two up.

Directed by Joseph Kahn (“Toxic”), the “Perfume” music video highlights Spears’ vulnerability, depicting both happy flashbacks of

Spears with her love interest as well as present shots of her struggling with jealousy, as she watches him with his new brunette girlfriend.

While most of the scenes in the four and half minute video are personal, poignant, and emotional enough, there are some that seem to come off as a contrived marketing technique. The times when Spears is filmed spritzing herself with a round pink bottle of perfume are particularly jarring. It makes sense that Spears would use her own Fantasy fragrance in the video, but that doesn’t mean that such prominent product placement is an effective decision to make for art’s sake.

Kahn’s video may not leave much of a lasting impression and its impact may diffuse in the atmosphere of Spears’ older music video hits—but “Perfume” is still a commendable effort on her part to be open, honest, and relatable on camera. n

Fashion Forward

High fashion stuggles with diversity January issue of Elle Magazine questions race on the runway

Therese Tully It seems that every day the fashion world is doing, saying, or promoting something that the general public is opposed to or offended by. This can make it hard to support and love fashion with a clear conscience some days. But at other times, like the recent release of Elle Magazine’s January 2014 issue, there is cause for celebration—especially as the magazine still must continue to recover from the horror that was their “North Korea Chic” slip-up. The magazine has made a statement that I can definitely get behind.

The cause for celebration, you may ask? The January 2014 issue features supermodel Joan Smalls as its cover star. If you don’t know Smalls, she isn’t the norm in the fashion world because she is a Puerto Rican-born model. Smalls is currently ranked as the No. 1 supermodel in the world, and this is the fact that should make her truly unique in the industry, though unfortunately, it is not. It is fabulous to see Elle resisting racial norms in the fashion world, and giving the cover spot to a truly deserving star.

Diversity in the fashion world is a long-standing problem that has only been gaining more attention in recent years. It takes strong voices, like that of Smalls, to fight back against excepted standards that are simply discriminatory and prejudiced. Smalls is unafraid to call attention to the racial problems that arguably could run rampant in the industry, and she is quoted in an interview for Elle saying, “People hide behind the word aesthetic. They say, ‘Well, it’s just that designer’s ‘aesthetic.’ But when you see 18 seasons in a row and not one single model outside a certain skin color…? There are people in the industry who are advocates, who support diversity.

And there are people who do not. I don’t get it.”

The fashion industry has a unique way of talking itself out of its numerous problems, but it seems that Smalls and others are tired of their manipulations and want to see real changes.

It’s hard to disagree with Smalls on this point, especially after tuning into fashion week almost anywhere in the world. The industry is sending

a blatant message that Caucasian and painfully thin women are the standard of what we hold to be beautiful, and that is about it, except for very rare exceptions. It is clearly time for a change.

Neither angry tirades, newspaper articles, nor fashion columns in a Boston College newspaper will solve these systematic flaws. Nothing will change until we change our societal view of what constitutes beauty. It is a change that must take place in each and every one of us, and it is high time that we begin in the year 2013.

Elle has begun, in its own small way, to confront issues of racial diversity head-on simply by celebrating a wide variety of beautiful men and women. It should be noted that Elle was the first high fashion mag to feature gorgeous starlet Kerry Washington, who claims African American and Jamaican American ethnicities to her name, as its cover girl. This trend of ethnic diversity is one that I love to see, and these are women who are both deserving and interesting enough to grace the covers.

Why limit the definition of beauty in a world that is already so difficult? I don’t only want to see someone who looks like me on the cover of a fashion magazine. I want to see gorgeous Indian women, African American women, Haitian women, Italian women, Swedish women, etc. I want a little bit of everything, I want to see what the world has to offer. I want to see women that are important not because of the color of their skin, but because of the amazing and inspirational things they do. Magazines like Elle and other fashion magazines sell us a version of ourselves, a lifestyle, and a dream (though often lofty) to someday achieve. When I pick up a magazine, I want to be inspired to reach beyond myself. I don’t want to put it down in a fit of self-loathing.

It is inspiring to see Elle beginning to do this, but the fact still remains that we still have to celebrate diversity in fashion rather than accepting it as the norm. The mainstream fashion world needs to change its ways and think inclusively, rather than exclusively. Voices coming from within the industry, like Smalls’, will hopefully go a long way in helping to make these changes come about. The people of the fashion community must demand what they want from these magazines, and I don’t think some more diversity, whether racial or otherwise, would be a bad thing at all.

Therese Tully is a senior staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at arts@ bcheights.com.

photos courtesy of Google Images

Featuring Puerto Rican supermodel Joan Smalls, the January 2014 ‘Elle Magazine’ issue cover represents a step in the right direction for the mainstream fashion industry—it rejects racial prejudices and norms and instead celebrates beauty in all its diverse forms.

This Month in arts

By: Ariana Igneri | Associate Arts & Review Editor

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Friday, 12/13 Opening)

Christmas Reflections (Friday, 12/20 to Sunday, 12/22)

Choreographed by Jesuit Artist-in-Residence Robert VerEecke, S.J., Christmas Reflections celebrates the holidays through story, music, and dance. The show runs 7:30 p.m. on Friday and 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets can be purchased through Robsham for $15.

Peter Jackson’s second installation in the epic The Hobbit movie trilogy continues, recounting Bilbo Baggins’s journey to Lonely Mountain and his battle with the terrifying dragon Smaug. The film premieres this weekend.

I Love Lucy! Live on Stage (Recurring through 12/22)

KISS 108’s Jingle Ball 2013 (Saturday, 12/14 7 p.m.)

Adapted from the beloved 1950s TV show, I Love Lucy!

Live on Stage brings viewers behind-the-scenes in a charming, entertaining stage production complete with theatrical antics and retro musical numbers. The play is being hosted at Citi Emerson Colonial Theatre. Tickets start at $34.50 through ticketmaster.com.

Miley Cyrus, Fall Out Boy, Enrique Inglesias, Robin Thicke, and others are uniting for Kiss 108’s annual Jingle Ball Concert at TD Garden. Tickets range from $45.50 to $270.45.

SoWa Holiday Market (Saturday 12/14 to Sunday 12/15 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.)

Featuring an array of indie goods and handmade gifts from New England’s designers, artists, and crafters, this year’s SoWa Holiday Market will be hosted in the historic Benjamin Franklin Institute on Berkeley Street. Admission is $5.

photos courtesy of gene schiavone

The Nutcracker (Recurring through 12/29)

The Boston Ballet is performing Mikko Nissinen’s The Nutcracker at the Boston Opera House for the holiday season. Tickets start at $35.

Christmas Carol 2: Deadly Dickens (Recurring though 1/25) Mystery Cafe is presenting an offbeat sequel to Charles Dickens’s classic, following the Ghost of Christmas Future.

The show is being performed at The Elephant & Castle Restaurant and Pub. For more information about tickets, dates, and times, visit mysterycafe.com.

Michelle Tomassi Several people have told me recently that this was the year I broke out of my shell. It was the year that I opened up to other people outside my close friend group, moving beyond the days that I was painfully shy, and instead willing to be myself—whatever that means. It was the year I took on more responsibilities, showed my potential as an editor of this organization, and came into my own: breaking out of my shell.

I absolutely hate that phrase.

Aside from its overtly cliche nature, the phrase just conjures unpleasant images in my head. I picture a turtle sticking its head out from beneath its hard exterior, and I would rather not be compared to a slow-moving reptile. I imagine a vibrant yellow yolk dripping out of its eggshell, and I cringe at the thought of being a slimy liquid about to be fried in butter and morning hunger. I’m not a shell—I’m a human. I don’t have an impenetrable wall surrounding me, waiting to be broken down. I like to give hugs, and I will laugh with you until I’m at the point of tears. I listen to Katy Perry on repeat and can sing the entirety of the Pitch Perfect “Riff-Off” by myself. I’d like to think that I’m a little more fun than just a shell.

The unfortunate reality is that not every person gets to see the side of us that we want them to see, no matter how hard we try. And despite the concept of selfexpression, whether in class, with friends, or through the arts, it’s nearly impossible to convey the entirety of the self at any given moment.

When I look back at the past few years, at all the moments that may have contributed to the revelation of my inner “self” to the people around me, there’s one moment that really forced me to break out of my “shell:” joining The Heights.

I came to Boston College as someone who wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to even stay here. I was hoping to finish a semester, look at transfer applications, and be on my merry way, for an assortment of reasons. However, I can honestly say that joining this organization—a decision I was hesitant to make—was a large part of my decision to stay. The Heights has helped me find my voice not only as a writer, but as a thinker. As a laugher. As a teller of stories. And as a lover of all things BC. It was a commitment, which sounded like a scary word to a freshman who was still trying to figure everything out, but I’m glad I’ve decided to have an exclusive relationship with this publication and the beautiful people that make up our family.

This semester in particular, I can probably name the point when I “broke out of my shell,” as they say—when I decided to leave the comfort of the Features section and venture into the Arts section. I had covered some on-campus events, written some album reviews, and came to the conclusion that joining the section could be fun, exciting, and unexpected, but it could also be a challenge. And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it—after all, how much do I really know about the arts?

But I remembered the commitment I made—the decision to be faithful—and just couldn’t abandon the one thing that influenced me to stay.

This newspaper, with its writing, photography, creative layouts, and graphic designs, is an art form in and of itself.

Maybe it’s possible that I know more about the arts than I initially thought.

Art, in whatever form, isn’t merely about knowing. It’s about the commitment—a commitment that every single student on this campus has made at some point in his or her life, and probably at some moment here at BC. I’d like to hear about those commitments: the things that make our students, our faculty, and our alumni continue doing what they love, whether through performing, working behind the scenes, or anywhere in between. In my year with the Arts section, perhaps I can chronicle their stories and their commitments manifested in artistic expression.

While some may say that I’m breaking out of my shell with this new section, I see it more as a rediscovering of my own commitment and a realization of my own place in the arts.

This column is just the beginning, and I fully intend to extend my promise beyond the page of this newspaper— to all of the committed artists just waiting to have their stories told.

Michelle Tomassi is an editor for The Heights. She can be reached at arts@ bcheights.com.

THE HEIGHTS

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Thursday, December 12, 2013

Hip-hop zealot: Gambino’s genius shines on ‘Internet’

BY JOHN WILEY

Asst. Arts & Review Editor Because the Internet is a record in five acts, following an artist trapped in his celebrity and confronted by the shifting realties of music in a digital world. Georgia rapper Childish Gambino shoots from a tricky angle in this project: Because the Internet is an album that hopes not to be one.

“I don’t want to do albums,” explained the former Community star in an October interview with FUSE. “Especially now, if you put out a body of work, it should be like an experience, because it’s easy to do that now.”

Without first considering the man behind the moniker, this claim comes off as pretentious—but in the case of the 30-year-old comedian-turned-rapper, there’s been nothing conventional about approaching hip-hop.

Donald Glover started his career in television—after graduating from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, he began writing for NBC’s 30 Rock in 2006, and three years later came to star in the network comedy Community.

Glover entered the music industry under the alias Childish Gambino in 2008, with the release of his independent record Sick Boi. He has since become one of the foremost figures in hip-hop, building a career on his 2011 concept album Camp.

Above all, Gambino’s work has been synonymous with his wit.

But the quippy remarks and comic rants that made Gambino iconic are only a small part of Because the Internet, which mostly speaks through cryptic verses, sound clips, and frag-

mented sound. For most of the record, the rapper comes off as distracted, even disinterested. The first act introduces Gambino’s superstardom, only to transition quickly to a parallel narrative of a loner, obsessed with technology, detached from the world.

Gambino’s project here goes beyond just recordings, with an Internet screenplay and related video segments provided on his website as a companion to the record. The story behind Because the Internet builds more like an existential novel than a hip-hip narrative: the ego is almost entirely absent in Gambino’s verses, and what’s left is the insecurity. Even in “I. The Worst Guys,” a track in act two mimicking the masturbatory verses of anthem rap, Gambino makes a pointed reference to his sexual inadequacy.

Structurally, Because the Internet is redolent of Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, and for a good chunk of the record, Gambino works through vocals rather than rap verses, comfortably building melodies into a pseudo-rap dynamic. As his own executive producer, Gambino never commits entirely to clear patterns in his instrumentals, but on this record he closely mirrors the soundscape of Kanye West’s Yeezus, a project Gambino has openly praised.

Because the Internet closely follows recent trends in rap but ultimately refuses to approach the hip-hop industry on the industry’s terms. Its tracks come off a case study of a sort, identifying the patterns in conventional rap and constructing criticisms out of them. It’s an incredibly high-reaching work that often feels a little unexcited,

CHART TOPPERS TOP SINGLES

1 The Monster Eminem Feat. Rihanna 2 Timber Pitbull Feat. Ke$ha 3 Counting Stars OneRepublic 4 Royals Lorde 5 Wrecking Ball Miley Cyrus 6 Wake Me Up Avicii 7 Demons Imagine Dragons 8 Say Something A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera

BECAUSE THE INTERNET CHILDISH GAMBINO PRODUCED BY ISLAND RECORDS RELEASED DEC. 10, 2013 OUR RATING A-

PHOTO COURTESY OF ISLAND RECORDS

Gambino hopes to transcend conventional album structures with ‘Because the Internet,’ his new multi-sensory project. but never uninspired.

It’s difficult to say if Because the Internet succeeds in transcending the album entirely, as it still capitalizes in part on the appeal of albums.

Gambino works with Chance the Rapper on “I. The Worst Guys,” and later with Macklemore on “II. Earth: The Oldest Computer (The Last Night)”—not surprisingly, these two tracks seem particularly ready for release as singles.

While the record will likely be met with considerable commercial success because of the big names involved, Gambino makes it problematic to market. There’s little cohesion within

Because the Internet’s individual tracks, and even less holding the record’s 19 tracks together. Additionally, intensive vocal filters make some of Gambino’s verse indiscernible, and accordingly, many of the rap elements of the record serve more as a texture.

Moments on Because the Internet are the absolute shining of Glover’s genius, and while Camp showed his talent as a rapper, Because the Internet defines him as an alarmingly capable producer. In the fourth act, the album comes to a powerful climax with “II. Zealots of Stockholm (Free Information),” a reverb-heavy, bass-consumed club ballad. The track reworks the

terms of hip-hop, placing Glover the producer over Gambino the rapper.

The project ends with two similarly powerful pieces: “II. Earth: The Oldest Computer (The Last Night)” and “III. Life: The Biggest Troll (Andrew Auernheimer).”

There’s an overwhelming sense, by the end of the album, that this isn’t just the new Gambino—this is the new hip-hop, and while Glover did not invent many of the production techniques on the record, he’s the first to successfully synthesize them all together.

In the age of Internet piracy, Gambino asks what an album’s worth. 

TOP ALBUMS

1 Blame It All on My Roots Garth Brooks 2 Midnight Memories One Direction 3 Wrapped in Red Kelly Clarkson 4 Britney Jean Britney Spears 5 Duck The Halls The Robertsons Source: Billboard.com

Britney’s career-encompassing record has nothing new to say

BY PHOEBE FICO For The Heights

Besides maybe her predecessor Madonna—who similarly enjoyed the throne as the queen of pop— Britney Spears has gone through more career reincarnations than just about any other artist. From

bubblegum pop princess to sexy vixen, mental breakdown Britney to Las Vegas performer, Spears’ career has taken some unusual turns.

Spears tells the press that a Vegas show was always her dream, but for the 32-year-old pop star, it’s less about the show and more about the curtain. Unlike the Wizard of Oz,

though, pulling away this curtain won’t reveal a man with no exceptional talent, but rather a performer barely held together.

The songs on Spears’s new album Britney Jean seem to act as a revision to her entire career, with many songs borrowing both sonically and lyrically from the different periods of

BRITNEY JEAN BRITNEY SPEARS PRODUCED BY RCA RECORDS RELEASED NOV. 29, 2013 OUR RATING C

PHOTO COURTESY OF RCA RECORDS

The few songs on ‘Britney Jean’ that reflect the iconic eras of Spears’ career are not enough to salvage the album.

her development. The pop princess era of Spears’ career was probably her best, along with perhaps that of the sexy vixen. The best songs on the album borrow from these eras. The third song on the album, “Perfume,” is the first of the album to borrow from the old era that made Spears’ …Baby One More Time so popular among millennials growing up, including yours truly. The song details a woman, as voiced by Spears, who knows that her boyfriend is cheating on her—she wants the other woman to smell her scent on him.

“I’m gonna mark my territory,” she sings. The song refreshingly begins with a sweet piano melody, paired with vocals from Spears’ lower range, which is undoubtedly her most youthful register. The song is not only emotionally resonant, but it is also danceable, sampling a bass drop from Spears’ 2001 song “Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know.”

The second song on the album that is reminiscent of the golden era of Spears is “Passenger.” The beat is simple, backed up by an eighth note guitar, with an Indian-sitar feel in the beginning, matched with ’80s style Van Halen synths. The lyrics

are also some of the album’s most profound. Meanwhile, Spears lets go, becoming a passenger, allowing the music to drive—her voice reflects this, as she again uses her lower register and really lets go.

Next comes the sexy pop vixen era of Spears’ career. Sadly, there’s only one take from this era. “Tik, Tik Boom” comes with a staccato chorus, and it includes a smooth verse from T.I.—the track begs for an extended play remix.

Third is mental breakdown Britney. This epoch, occurring mostly in 2007, featured Britney taking a green umbrella to the hood of a car, as well as infamously shaving her head—not to mention some of Spears’ worst music and performances. Britney Jean includes too many songs which emulate, hopefully unintentionally, this era. From the atrocious “It Should Be Easy,” featuring Will. i.am—who produced the equally atrocious “Scream and Shout” with Britney in 2012—to the laughable, albeit danceable, first single, “Work Bitch,” the album has too many throwaways.

But the worst of all is “Chilling With You,” which features Spears’

little sister, former Zoey 101 star Jamie Lynn Spears. The problem with the song is not only its ridiculous lyrics (“I sang so loud that I smiled / I made it worth my while / I drank some white wine / Now I’m walking on the sky”), but also the fact that it cannot decide what it wants to be.

In the beginning, it is a guitar pop ballad, and then in the chorus it tries to be awkwardly danceable. It just does not work. The one surprise from the song is Jamie Lynn’s voice, which has a nicer, stronger tone than that of her superstar sister.

The final era of Britney’s career—let’s just call it the wicked witch of Vegas era—has included some pretty good songs, despite the fact that it seemed Britney was always white-knuckling it. In Britney Jean, “Alien” stays true to this era: it is a slick electronic pop song for a new millennium.

With some songs, Britney Jean shows us the ghosts of Britney past—a simpler time that produced some of Spears’ best material. But these moments are few and far between, and many of the songs seem as removed as the pop star’s confused appearance. 

R. Kelly doesn’t have much to show on latest record ‘Black Panties’

BY HARRY MITCHELL For The Heights Following two appearances at the Coachella and Pitchfork musical festivals this past summer—and after being featured on Justin Bieber’s “PYD” and Lady Gaga’s “Do What U Want”—R. Kelly ends his eventful year with the release of his 12th solo album, Black Panties.

The 46-year-old R&B legend steps away from the soulful approach of his last two records and attempts to return to the aggressively sexual style with which he made his name on the new album. Black Panties features an intriguing mix of tracks including, but certainly not limited to, “Legs Shakin,” “Marry the P—y,” “Show Ya P—y,” “Tear it Up,” “Crazy Sex,” and “Cookie”—in the last of which, Kelly explains that he “love(s) to lick the middle like an Oreo.” With these words, R. Kelly likely will change forever the way you look at America’s favorite cookie.

On tracks like “Show Ya P—y” and “My Story,” the use of autotune masks R. Kelly’s smooth and

soulful vocals, as featured hip-hop artists Migos, Juicy J, and 2 Chainz provide a whole new, less effective sound, which diverges from the authenticity of vintage R. Kelly.

The smooth and exciting sound we heard in songs such as “Ignition,” “I Believe I Can Fly,” and “I’m a Flirt” seem to be a thing of the past.

Although the album features a couple of tracks uncharacteristic of R. Kelly’s career, the album does display pieces of the sex-obsessed and passionate R. Kelly we all know and love. R. Kelly scraps the autotune effect on tracks like “Genius” and “All the Way,” and he allows his vocal talents and provocative lyrics to take control.

While the record does provide some enjoyable tracks, Black Panties does not provide the complexity that R. Kelly’s past works have.

Instead, the listener gets a decent R&B album that ultimately feels a little bit empty and contrived.

Seldom do its songs offer any sort of story or include the intricacies of past albums. Although the raw sexuality of R. Kelly is certainly present, the character of his work

is lost. Throughout, there exists a simplicity uncharacteristic of R. Kelly that shows somewhat of a loss of individuality.

The 13th track on the album, “Shut Up,” stands out amid the almost entirely sex-based collective.

On the track, R. Kelly discusses the throat surgery he underwent in 2011 and denounces his critics for judging his past actions. He begins by thanking his fans, God, and his doctors for helping him through the struggle—before attacking the detractors who claimed he would fail to return from the surgery. He sings, “This song goes out to all the people out there that be running they mouth / And they don’t know what the hell they saying.” R. Kelly dramatically explains to his critics that they’ve overstepped their roles in his career, and that for the sake of honesty, these critics would best mind their own business. All this is set over a slow, intense, and drawn out beat. The song is the only moment on the record truly deviating from the rest, and it is a welcome break before the somewhat vague, uninteresting, and repetitive re-

mainder of the album.

R. Kelly claims that his new album is “the new 12Play,” bringing the sound back to his highly respected solo debut album, and yet, Black Panties is far from it. The monotonously focused, blandly recorded album does not compare to some of his more popular

albums and will likely be seen as a mediocre effort from an artist of considerable respect in the R&B industry. R. Kelly does work to transition his music into a more modern, hard-hitting sound on Black Panties, and his lyrics seem to mark a return to the raunchy content and forward sexuality that

made him iconic. Black Panties is listenable, but ultimately, the overwhelming banality of the project and the general absence of remarkable songs prevent it from being anything more than a thin, black layer of fabric—exposing many of Kelly’s weaknesses, but highlighting few of his strengths. 

BLACK PANTIES R. KELLY PRODUCED BY RCA RECORDS RELEASED DEC. 10, 2013 OUR RATING C-

PHOTO COURTESY OF RCA RECORDS

R. Kelly’s latest release, ‘Black Panties,’ lacks variety and depth, with an overly sexual and repetitive track list.

SINGLE REVIEWS BY PHOEBE FICO Justin Bieber feat. Chance the Rapper “Confident” Bieber concludes his 10-week, 10-song rollout with a minimally produced hip-hop track featuring industry newcomer Chance the Rapper, whose April mixtape Acid Rap has been met with high praise. “Confident” breaks no new ground, but it is a refreshing interruption in a two-month string of overproduced tracks released by Bieber.

U2 “Ordinary Love”

Evian Christ “Salt Carousel” Isn’t this a Sade song? No, it’s not. It’s U2’s new song for the Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom soundtrack, on which the band manages to kept the echo-y guitar to a minimum and let Bono’s smooth tone and voice shine through on the high notes— even if what he’s saying doesn’t make much sense.

Christ, who collaborated with Kanye West on his massive Yeezus, finds his own wacky voice with an all-instrumental track that features steady but sudden drops of the bass and seeming glitches that sound like tires on the track, or perhaps, even distorted rap verse. No wonder Kanye wanted to work with him—the two are common in insanity.

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, December 12, 2013

C5

The Arts in Review at Boston College

’

Courbet: Mapping Realism If you ever wondered what exactly “realism” means as an artistic movement, you might have found your answer by stepping into the McMullen Museum of Art this semester. An array of detailed landscapes and portraits make up the latest exhibit on display in the museum—Courbet: Mapping Realism. Gustave Courbet, the leader of Realism in 19th-century French painting, is one of the biggest names to be featured within the walls of Devlin Hall since the Pollock Matters exhibit in 2007. While the museum tends to organize its exhibits by artistic period and region, there’s something to be said for a gallery dedicated to a single figure, enabling visitors to witness the visual telling of the painter’s story in the context of broader artistic movements and themes.

Mapping Realism is significant not only in displaying the various works of a renowned artist, but also in bringing a sense of relevance, as it integrates the pieces of Courbet’s American contemporaries. It allows visitors to get a sense of how Courbet attempted to breathe life into his realist landscapes, and how his immediacy of expression has influenced artists closer to home. Beginning as part of an exhibit at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and ending up in a Boston Globe review, Mapping Realism is a journey in and of itself—an exploration into a movement that extends far beyond France. -M.T. BC Artists Organize to Raise Funds for Victims of Haiyan Less than three days after Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines on Nov. 8, the Boston College community began organizing a fundraiser to meet a first semester goal of $10,000 in relief funds for the victims of storm.

BC artists and performing groups played a particularly important role in getting the initiative off the ground. On Nov. 21, a Typhoon Haiyan benefit concert was held in the Rat. The event featured a long list of individual acts, including alternative band Jammin Toast; the 2013 “BC Idol” Caroline Portu, A&S ’16; and William “Times New Roman” Bolton, CSOM ’16; as well

Avenue Q During Arts Fest this past spring, the theatre department welcomed some new, furry friends to Robsham in the production of Avenue Q. The adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical brought copious amounts of shock and laughter to Boston College, but most of all, it pushed the boundaries of conventional theater with the inclusion of puppets on stage. The show highlighted the capacity for talent that our student performers have, since each one balanced singing, acting, dancing, and puppeteering in this double-layered comedy. These puppets were anything but innocent—they touched on issues such as homosexuality, racism, and the ever-present struggle to find one’s “purpose” in life. And there was no lack of adult humor—the musical was teeming with vulgar jokes, absurd puppet sex scenes, and references to porn.

Avenue Q struck a chord with its audience—especially those wondering what exactly they can do with a degree in English, as well as other students who know all too well the stress of finding life after college.

Most of all, the show marked a breakthrough in Robsham productions by touching on sensitive and controversial issues through a medium unconventional for theater. The puppets, some of which were “monsters” representing minority groups, allowed for a social critique in a manner that was understated yet highly effective. If anything, Avenue Q attempted to challenge traditional perceptions of puppetry by bringing this art form into a modern and relevant setting, opening up a realm of possibilities and expanding the potential for future performances. -M.T.

Avenue Q ALC Showdown 2013 Each year, ALC Showdown is consistently one of the most thrilling arts events on campus, filling Conte Forum’s bleachers from top to bottom. And last year’s really was no different: there were performances by both dance groups and culture groups, each competing in their own respective categories to win a check made out to a charity of their choice and the title of Showdown champions—as there always are. What made this year’s Showdown significant, however, is what happened after it. While AeroK came out on top in the cultural category, hip hop dance group Phaymus took home first place in the dance category, beating out former title holders Sexual Chocolate, as well as F.I.S.T.S., UPrising, Synergy, and Fuego del Corazon. After winning the competition, things began to take off for Phaymus—they were contacted by a talent scout and encouraged by their alumni to audition for the hit show America’s Got Talent in New York. Showdown gave the group a platform upon which to flaunt their tenacious and bold choreography, to display their talents not only to the BC student body but also to a wider audience. Phaymus will find out whether they’ll be on America’s Got Talent in March, but until then, the group has been pushing the limits of their dance moves and growing closer as a team because of the experience.The biggest dance event of the year, Showdown has proven an important opportunity for those groups involved with it—in 2012, it catapulted UPrising to success after their Showdown debut, helping them garner attention when they won first place in the cultural category. This year, Showdown did something similar for Phaymus, giving them the opportunity to be famous not only on campus, but also on a national level. -A.I.

Typhoon Relief as performance groups Masti, UPrising, Sexual Chocolate, Liturgy Arts Group, and Against the Current. The event raised $1,200 in cash donations.

But efforts did not stop there—many of BC’s performance groups were already preparing for late semester show and opted to run collections outside their performances. A SEASA / Conspiracy Theory Dance Show the night after the benefit concert also collected for the relief effort, and last weekend, sketch comedy group Hello ... Shovelhead! did the same with its fall show—throughout the semester, similar efforts have been cropping up around campus.

The District 1 Kamayan in November was an especially powerful moment in the student mobilization for the Philippines. The culture show brought together Filipino performance groups from across the greater New England area—college students from Boston University, Northeastern, and Brown collaborated with BC students to celebrate a culture and raise money for those suffering in the Samar and Leyte regions of the Philippines. -J.W. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis perform at Modstock, O.A.R. at Fall Concert Rapper-producer duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis headlined the Modstock concert on May 2. Administrators were forced to reconsider ticketing policies at the event in the two weeks leading up to the concert, following the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15. With the quantity of tickets limited to 6,000, thousands of undergraduates lined up outside of Conte Forum on the Tuesday before the Thursday concert to pick up tickets at 8 a.m., and several students slept outside the arena overnight.

Boston College rock band Lucid Soul and step team Sexual Chocolate opened for the event, which was held on a cold spring afternoon in the Mod Lot. Following a performance by Brighton hip-hop duo Fresh Aer Movement, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis performed for just under an hour to an energetic crowd—at several points during the concert, BCPD and Team Ops forced students to ease away from the stage. But Team Ops couldn’t hold us, and Macklemore gave a salty, albeit short performance of his hits, including “Thift Shop,” “Same Love,” and “Can’t Hold Us.” While all 6,000 tickets went into circulation for Modstock this year, only 995 were sold for the semester’s Fall Concert, and the concert operated at a $112,000 loss. Also put on by the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC), the show featured alternative jam band O.A.R. and Boston rapper Moe Pope. In a recent vote, the Student Assembly amended UGBC’s constitution to remove its programming branch, effectively making this year’s Modstock and Fall Concert the last major concerts to be put on by UGBC, save for any such programming it might opt for this spring semester. -J.W.

Courbet: Mapping Realsim

BC Underground

BC Underground There’s little denying the artistic talent on Boston College’s campus: most people are either part of or know of someone involved in a dance, a cappella, or theater group. Students in these clubs aren’t the only gifted people here, though there are others who, until recently, went by largely unnoticed. BC Underground premiered last year at Arts Fest, seeking to remedy this problem by providing more artists with an outlet to express their creativity. The event showcased rappers, spoken word poets, DJs and break dancers, among others. It highlighted the diversity of BC’s artistic talent and enabled students to engage with and appreciate often-overshadowed art forms. Underground was an achievement in and of itself, that has since worked into a new culture on campus—it simultaneously gave these artists a foundation on which to build and led to an increase in other events of the same kind. This year welcomed a host of independent artists, including musicians like Seaver’s Express, Bobnoxious, and Times New Roman—who played at Underground and its sister event Battle of the Bands. Showcases and concerts featuring these artists and others have become more common over the last semester, too. Underground sparked an interest in students and impressed a sense of confidence in artists. Only in its first year, it was beneficial for all involved—it fostered a stronger, closer, and more vibrant artistic community, and hopefully established a relationship between artists and students that will continue to thrive in the future. -A.I.

Macklemore

ALC Showdown

C6

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, December 12, 2013

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, December 12, 2013

C7

THIS WEEK IN...

BY LESLIE GONZALEZ | FOR THE HEIGHTS

SPORTS The Patriots officially placed tight end Rob Gronkowsk i on injure d reserve on Monday, signifying the end of the season for this player and a major loss for the Patriots.

Gronkowski was injured on Sunday in the victorious game against the Browns. He was struck down by safety T.J. Ward after a 21-yard reception in the third quarter. A day later the Patriots, along with saddened fans, received the news that Gronkowski had suffered a torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in the right knee. It is not clear when he will be able to return. According to The Boston Globe, Bert Mandelbaum, an orthopedic surgeon at the Institute for Sports Sciences in Los Angeles, said of Gronkoswki, “He’s a tough guy and it seems like he has that element to him, the ‘mend it like Beckham’ as I call it.”

SCIENCE For decades now, scientists have been looking toward Mars for evidence that life exists. On Monday, a team of scientists working on what is called the “Curiosity Mission” released new evidence about the existence of a freshwater lake on Mars. After drilling into an area about the size of Finger Lakes in New York, the Curiosity rover discovered sedimentary rock that must have formed in the presence of fresh water. Now the team is faced with the task of finding carbon-based organic molecules, a basic component of life.

Roger Summons , an astrobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and participating scientist on the Curiosity Mission, anticipates finding a way to overcome present complications that may obscure the detection of organic carbon, The Boston Globe reported.

POLITICS

SANTA

WORLD

Democrat Katherine Clark will succeed now-Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey to represent the states’ fifth district. Clark’s path to victory was a smooth one, although voter turnout was lower than in any recent race for a congressional seat in the state.

“We all know Congress is broken,” Clark said, according to a copy of her speech provided by her campaign to The Boston Globe. “But you’ve shown in this campaign that we are not going to sit on the sidelines and accept gridlock as the new norm. We know that we can—and we must—do better.”

Clark will become the fifth woman to represent the state in the U.S. House of Representatives, where women hold only 18 percent of the 435 seats. She indicates that she will model her leadership style after Senator Elizabeth Warren, who recently said she will not seek the presidency.

Ever y year, The Boston Globe Foundation funds the admini strative co st s behind Globe Santa, who visits thousands of households in the Greater Boston area. Globe Santa delivers toys, books, and other treats to the children of needy families. Last year, Globe Santa visited 6,200 households and more than 49,000 children received presents, according to The Boston Globe. This year, a letter was sent in to The Boston Globe on behalf of a 3-year-old girl from a community in Boston who had recently lost her mother to cancer. Because of the Globe Santa tradition, this little girl, among countless other children, will be receiving a little bit of Christmas cheer despite her family’s financial burdens. It is due to the generosity of individuals and local businesses that Globe Santa will be active this year, as it has been since 1956.

Wo r l d l e a d e r s will rush forward to pay their respects at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service on Tuesday. The service will be held in the FNB Stadium, where Nelson Mendela last gave a public appearance. The stadium is located in the town of Soweto, which was once the site of the rioting and bloodshed that contributed to the unraveling of apartheid. As world leaders travel to South Africa, local politicians express their condolences: “The world lost an ambassador of peace, reconciliation and brotherly love today,” Governor Deval Patrick said.

“Nelson Mandela was a remarkable and inspiring example of resilience, persistence, determination and grace.” According to BostInno, Nelson Mendela touched the lives of many when he visited Boston in the summer of 1990, drawing a crowd of 300,000 Bostonians to the Esplanade.

RESTAURANT REVIEW

Pho Basil is a Vietnamese joy

ZACHARY COHEN / FOR THE HEIGHTS

B Y Z ACHARY C OHEN For The Heights

HOUSE AD

Nestled away in the city of Boston, near the Hynes Convention Center stop along the Green Line, sits a tiny restaurant that serves some superb Vietnamese and Thai. Pho Basil is a popular establishment on Mass Ave. that is able to attain a loyal following of dine-in, take-out and delivery customers. This restaurant not only features great food, but also has a helpful and considerate staff that contributes to making the experience all the more merry.

The best part about this restaurant, though, is its affordability.

The appetizers may come off as a bit pricey, but the entrees are within the typical college student’s budget and the portions that they serve ensure that one will be eating food that is much better than anything at late night in one of Boston College’s dining halls.

Pho Basil has a small dining area with only enough seating for about three dozen patrons.

During the day this is usually not an issue, but come a weekend evening, diners may be waiting longer than they would hope. Many choose the more convenient options of delivery or take-out in order to avoid any potential wait.

If patrons choose to dine in, they may also notice that the little space provided for dining will afford them the opportunity to learn more about their fellow diners than is preferable.

The small size of the restaurant, however, does not detract from the big flavor that is in all of the food. The first entree ordered was the mango chicken curry. This dish is able to incorporate the spicy nature of curry and counterbalance it with the sweet flavor of mango.

The soft rice and crisp of the snow peas add an interesting texture combination that nicely complements the taste of the dish. Served with a variety of vegetables, the mango chicken curry is for those who want a cacophony of the finest characteristic that can be found within food.

To simplify the mood, one should consider the basil fried rice. While this dish may not be very complex, it is still rather good.

This dish’s spicy taste fused well with the usual components of chicken fried rice. The distinctive characteristic of this dish is the basil. The

basil’s noticeable presence adds originality that pairs well with this traditional entree. The crunchy veggies only helped this marvelous dish. Those who only like to eat classic Asian foods will enjoy this dish.

Another Thai original is the pork pad thai. The tender pork has a desirable consistency, almost falling apart as it is eaten. The thick bunches of noodles were stuck together with the assistance of the restaurant’s original sauce, was both sweet and savory. People with peanut allergies beware, for this dish contains ground peanuts that were so fine that they almost appeared to be dust. This intriguing element left a distinct peanut flavor that will leave those enjoying this dish only wanting more.

LOCATION: 177A Massachusetts Avenue CUISINE: Vietnamese SIGNATURE DISH: Pad Thai ATMOSPHERE: 8/10 OVERALL EXPERIENCE: A

People who enjoy pad thai will definitely like Pho Basil’s take on this traditional dish.

The last entree ordered was the staple Vietnamese dish, beef pho. The noodles were soft and delicious.

A turn-off, however, was the broth. The consistency was fine, but the taste would be too salty for most. The rare beef was able to cook nicely inside the soup bowl. The extra large portion came out in a bowl larger than most babies, so there is plenty to share with another guest. Some added basil will give this dish a boost, but the best accompaniment to the pho would have to be srirachi sauce.

Overall, Pho Basil is great restaurant if one is in the mood for some Vietnamese or Thai.

The pleasant service, large portions, low prices and, most importantly, stellar food all work well together to make sure that customers will come back in the future and enjoy their Vietnamese cuisine. 

THE HEIGHTS

C8

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Winter Days

BENNET’S BANTER

It’s time to find your Boston

holiday blurbs

a sample of some fun activities for the season

BY SARAH MOORE HEIGHTS STAFF

BENNET JOHNSON There’s no denying it. You hear it everywhere you go. The same phrase is constantly repeated after you graduate from high school, as you proceed from graduation party to graduation party, with each parent voicing his or her opinion to you on your school choice.

“Wow, you’re going to school in Boston? Boston is an amazing city.”

Throughout this past summer, I must have heard this phrase dozens of times. Many of these wise relatives and parents all had the same strong opinion on the city of Boston.

Sure, I had visited Boston College a couple of times, and knew that I wanted to go to school here. But I wasn’t sure about being so close to a major city. What’s so great about Boston, anyway? I would ask myself this each time I was lectured by an adult on this topic.

In order to answer this question, I had to explore Boston during my first semester to see what all of this fuss is about. I have always enjoyed writing, so I decided to join The Heights, and write for Metro in order to learn more about the “Athens of America.”

Over the past few months, I’ve covered a multitude of stories ranging from Ron Burgundy visiting Emerson College, to a bid for hosting the Olympics here in 2024.

These stories, along with my multiple trips to visit BC’s “extended campus,” have helped me find my Boston.

After a semester of exploring the city that I believed to be ordinary, I have found some of the things that make Boston special to me. What fascinates me the most about Boston is not what I originally planned. While being in close proximity to a city full of sports, fancy restaurants, and shopping malls is appealing to many individuals, I’ve found my Boston present in more traditional aspects.

Boston truly is a melting pot of cultures. I came to this realization while walking through the neighborhoods of the North End, Charlestown, Chinatown, and even Newbury Street. From the shoppers carrying their designer bags down Newbury Street, to the Italian families selling homemade pizza for $1 a slice outside their apartments in the North End, to the loud man from Charlestown yelling at a passing Yankees fan, I’ve experienced the many faces of Boston. These individuals each have their own stories, and are tied together in a city with a large variety of people.

As Bostonians, we all come together to form a community. Although we come from many different backgrounds, nothing unites us more than our city. We come together to sing “Sweet Caroline” at the Red Sox games, unite under times of distress like the tragedy at the Boston Marathon, and we cherish the rich history of our city.

I encourage you to find what makes Boston special. Find what makes the city unique for you. Your own Boston might be cheering with fellow Bostonians at a Red Sox game, watching dancers perform outside Faneuil Hall, walking the freedom trail, skating outside at the Boston Common Frog Pond, or maybe enjoying dinner at the Capital Grille.

It doesn’t matter. Be part of a city that prides itself on the variety of its people and their experiences.

As a member of the Metro section for The Heights, I plan on exploring more of Boston and sharing my experiences with BC students. My goal is to provide readers with fun and interesting opportunities in Boston and share some of the things that improved my freshman year experience. Although many freshmen are content with staying on campus most weekends, I urge them to explore the city that is at our fingertips and find some of the things that make their Boston special.

I found some of the things that make this city my own, and now I can now look my relatives in the eye and proudly say that I go to school in Boston.

Bennet Johnson is a staff writer for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

CELEBRATE WITH HOLIDAY LIGHTS

GET OUTSIDE

WARM UP

Celebrate the season by attending one of Boston’s multiple holiday light displays including the Mayor Menino-sponsored “Blink!”, a Light & Sound Extravaganza in Faneuil Hall marketplace. This seasonal spectacular includes over 350,000 LED lights on an 80-foot tree that twinkles in rhythm with songs performed by the Holiday Pops. Light shows run hourly from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. every day. The celebrations continue outside of the city as Stone Zoo decorates its paths for Zoo Lights, a fun way to both celebrate the holidays as well as to get up close and personal with some iconic arctic animals.

After walking through the zoo’s festively lit paths, both Santa and Stone Zoo’s reindeer await a great photo opportunity.

Brave the Boston winter for some outdoor holiday fun by taking advantage of the city’s snowcovered public parks. One option is to bundle up and pay an $8 rental fee to skate on the Boston Common’s Frog Pond, which also offers deals for college students with a current school ID, guaranteeing discounts on both rentals and admission.

When the rinks are covered with snow, take to Boston’s best hills for sledding. Bring toboggans, sleds, and the occasional dining hall tray to one of the local favorites including Peter’s Hill at the Arnold Arboretum or the hill at the Soldiers & Sailors Monument in the Boston Common. If one is feeling less ambitious, a walk through the snowcovered Common is always an option.

Beat the season’s chills by indulging in a cup of Boston’s best hot chocolate this winter. L.A. Burdick’s in Harvard Square has more varieties of the seasonal drink than any sweet tooth could imagine. All of their flavors, including the most popular milk, dark, and white hot chocolates, can be served warm or cold.

BoYo’s on Beacon Hill takes a different approach, serving a standard Ghirardelli hot cocoa that can be personalized with the 25 different toppings of their hot chocolate bar ,including Reese’s cups and candy canes.

For those looking for a more unique hot chocolate experience, Voltage Coffee & Art located near MIT’s campus is serving up their famous Plaid Jacket—a peppermint and cinnamon flavored cocoa sure to defrost any chilly Bostonian.

SEE A CHRISTMAS CLASSIC

FIND THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT

BRING IN THE NEW YEAR

Continue seasonal traditions by seeing one of the prestigious Boston area productions of a holiday classic. The Boston Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker has viewers coming back every winter to see the magic of Clara’s story unfold on stage. Seeing the sugar plum fairies is even easier this year—tickets for the show are half price as a part of the Mayor’s Holiday Spectacular. New York’s Radio City Christmas Spectacular descends on Boston this season from Dec. 3 to Dec. 29, complete with the high-kicking Rockettes and their glitzy holiday entourage. For those who prefer to stick to a true holiday classic, Scrooge and the cast of A Christmas Carol are returning to the stage of the North Shore Musical Theatre this winter.

Instead of braving the craziness of Black Friday and the lines of the malls this winter, look to Boston’s seasonal shopping opportunities to find a perfect, lastminute holiday gift. The Downtown Boston Holiday Market returns to Summer Street this season for its fifth year, offering hand-made jewelry and crafts as well as artisanal foods perfect for anyone on your list. Pick up beautiful Christmas ornaments along with other affordable gifts from the Harvard Square Holiday Fair, one of the oldest and most popular holiday events in Boston. Finally, make one last stop to the Prudential Center, which will be festively lit throughout the season, to purchase any final presents and, of course, to take the always-needed picture with Santa.

Celebrate 2014 in the city during First Night Boston, the finale of the Mayor’s Holiday Spectacular. This citywide festivity continues from 1 p.m. on Dec. 31 to the first minutes of the New Year. The celebration includes live performances throughout the evening as well as ice sculptures and a visual art display that will be projected onto the Boston Public Library. Admission to all of the shows, which is on a first come first served basis, is only $10. The tickets are in the form of buttons that can be purchased at Boston area Bank of America branches as well as CVS stores and online.

This event ensures an exciting celebration of the New Year with fireworks and a countdown clock centered in Copley Square.

Pond offers college deals Frog Pond, from C10 rink maintenance, to staffing and the payroll,” Schaub said. While there are managers on duty that work shifts, Schaub oversees the quality of the ice.

“We get a lot of tourists and families that come and skate here,” Schaub said. According to Schaub, the Frog Pond caters to 500 people on the weekdays and will host over 2,000 skaters on the weekends.

For eager skaters looking to hit the ice, finding the right time to visit Boston Common is very important. “The weekdays are rather quiet,” Schaub said. “The weekends are chaos, in a good way. Typically, there can be very long lines of people getting in to skate on a Saturday afternoon.”

Last year’s unseasonably warm weather posed a problem to the outdoor ice rink. Closing twice before Christmas, the Pond found itself defenseless against the odd temperatures. This year, the Frog Pond staff is hoping for a more consistent environment.

“We have a lot of difficulties with snow, rain, and warmer weather,” Schaub said. “If it is 50 degrees and sunny, the ice loosens and can go down to full concrete areas, which presents a whole different scenario of problems.”

Due to the unpredictable New England weather, Schaub has to be ready at any moment to repair or alter the condition of the ice.

Schaub resurfaces the ice every hour, but the weather can suddenly cause difficulties to arise. Snow, rain, and hail, for example, can form a crust on the ice, which has to be shaved off in order to maintain the quality of the ice.

Accommodating the thousands of college students in Boston, the Frog Pond offers a special program known as College Nights.

For its second year in a row, College Nights are being held every Tuesday night from 6 to 9 p.m. with discounted admission to college students who present a valid student ID. “We started College Nights last year, and

they have been really successful,” Schaub said.

“It can be a fun way to go into the city on a Tuesday night, and we usually see about 300 to 400 students.”

In addition to College Nights, the Frog Pond hosts a number of different events throughout the holidays. Some of these events include a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and a New Year’s Eve ice skating performance.

“The skating shows are my favorite,” Schaub said.

The Frog Pond hosts various professional and semi-professional skaters on their outdoor rink. Coming up on New Year’s Eve, the Frog Pond will host its first ever Frog Pond Skating Spectacular. At 6 p.m. the Skating Club of Boston will present a free world-class figure skating ice show with 130 national and international figure skaters, synchronized skating, and Theatre on Ice teams. There will be a fireworks display following the ice show.

“It is really fun to watch these skaters,” Schaub said. “They are professionals who train their whole lives to skate, and it is amazing to watch them perform on a different level.”

In addition to the Skating Spectacular, the Frog Pond will be hosting an event in conjunction with the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships at the TD Garden in January. These championships will precede the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

“Elite skaters will be coming to the Frog Pond during the National Championships in order to do some small performances at the Pond for entertainment,” Schaub said.

Besides the variety of events happening on the ice, skaters, families, tourists and students flock to The Frog Pond Cafe. The cafe runs year-round and offers individuals free WiFi and food items ranging from cheeseburgers to a cup of warm hot chocolate.

On what makes the Boston Common Frog Pond work, Schaub found that the answer is simple: “It’s all about the ice,” he said. 

ELISE AMENDOLA / AP PHOTO

Revere Mayor Daniel Rizzo spoke on Dec. 9 regarding the casino development.

Revere still to vote again Suffolk Downs, from C10 casino owner. Mohegan Sun must build, own, and operate independently of the racetrack while leasing the land from Suffolk Downs. The racetrack would no longer be required to continue horse racing, yet, according to The Boston Globe, track officials have pledged to keep racing.

Due to the sudden and immense changes to the plan, State Gaming Commissioner James McHugh argued Tuesday that the commission, a fiveperson panel founded less than two years ago (in conjunction with Massachusetts’ legalization of gambling), should hear from the voters in Revere once more.

The panel should “treat the proposal for what it is—a different and new proposal,” said McHugh, according to The Boston Globe.

The gaming commission unanimously agreed with McHugh. A new vote will be set for February.

Developers of the new project have

seven days to accept the opportunity for a new vote in Revere. Suffolk Downs Chief Operating Officer Chip Tuttle told The Globe that, after the meeting, he expects the developers to accept.

Despite the struggles permeating through the Suffolk Downs casino plan, developers push on in hopes of gaining access to what is considered the most profitable gambling license in the state.

The only remaining contender for the license is the $1.3 billion development plan by Wynn Resorts, which gained the overwhelming support of residents in its proposed location of Everett, Mass. Although Wynn has the backing of voters, the company has yet to be approved by the gaming commission’s “intensive suitability screening,” according to The Boston Herald.

Come May 2014, the gaming commission will make a final decision on which bid—Mohgean Sun in Suffolk Downs or Wynn Resorts in Everett— gets the one license available for the Greater Boston area. 

Pressure mounts for Walsh to name key staffers Walsh, from C10 Jeffrey M. Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University, said that some choices are not as immediately consequential as others, but that there are several choices that need to be made soon. “The chief of staff is critical because he is going to help create the organizational structure that Walsh will use to govern,” Berry said. “It’s the person that can pick up the phone and call anybody else in the administration as say, ‘The Mayor wants this done.’”

With an impending April 9 deadline for a new budget, Walsh also has a great deal of pressure to determine who his chief financial officer will be. The position is currently held

by Meredith Weenick, who has not indicated

whether she will stay. Furthermore, with the winter season upon the city, there is mounting pressure for Walsh to determine who the Public Works Commissioner (PWC) will be, especially considering the fact that the current PWC, Joanne Massaro, is leaving, and the PWC is integral in forming a solid emergency plan for Boston to deal with winter weather.

During his campaign, Walsh promised to establish a cabinet-level commissioner for the arts and culture in Boston and allocated a set percentage of city revenue to the arts. He hired Joyce Linehan, arts publicist and record label executive, as one of nine co-chairs of his transitional team. Together, the two hope to bring to reality the vision of a more prevalent arts community in Boston. “The first thing I

think it means is a real commitment to the arts in Boston,” Walsh said, according to The Boston Globe. “From the local artists in the neighborhood, to the Museum of Fine Arts and the bigger institutions and somewhere in between, one group of people who have felt they’ve been left kind of out there, in the lurch, is the arts community. We’ve got a lot of great talented people in the city of Boston.”

Walsh is not sure yet how much revenue will be dedicated to the arts in the new budget, or where it will come from. Furthermore, he is unsure of who he will name as commissioner but predicts he will have a name in January.

Although the superintendent of the Boston school system is not in the Mayor’s administration and is not chosen by the Mayor directly,

the transition from the interim superintendent, John McDonough, to a permanent one is another serious personnel choice facing Walsh.

The person to replace Carol Johnson, who retired in August, is not chosen by the mayor, but Walsh does have the power to appoint school committee members, and therefore he carries a certain amount of influence on the decision.

Walsh has met several times with the school committee since being elected but has yet to settle on a person for superintendent of Boston. Walsh has said he would look outside the school system for a successor, including the possibility of his former rival candidate, City Councilor John Connolly. Connolly, however, has said he would deny such an offer. 

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, December 12, 2013

C9

ArtLifting to raise awareness at local colleges ArtLifting, from C10 found a startup called City Heart in 2011, which Powers joined in 2012. City Heart is an annual art show in Boston that features the work of artists involved with art therapy, but the siblings quickly realized that City Heart was not able to do all they wanted to accomplish.

The City Heart show was held this past May in the Prudential Center Mall. Powers said that customers would excitedly approach them at City Heart and ask when the next show would be, expecting it to be in a month or two.

He repeatedly had to tell customers that the show would not be for another year. Although the siblings will still produce City Heart each year, Powers said that they were inspired to launch a new idea that would meet the demand of their customers and expand the assistance they could provide to those in art therapy. That motivation resulted in ArtLifting, which launched on Nov. 29.

Powers said that it is often difficult for homeless or disabled artists to sell their own work. On snowy days, for example, he worries about how hard it will be for artists to sell their artwork on the street.

ArtLifting tries to alleviate such problems through an online marketplace, ArtLifting.com, which allows customers to view high-resolution images of original artwork created in art therapy. As a low-profit, limited liability company, money from the sale of artwork goes in part to the artist and to the art therapy program in which that artist is involved. The sale of one art piece allows ArtLifting to provide enough money or materials to an art therapy program to create two more works of art, according to a press release.

ArtLifting’s major products include art prints and iPhone cases.

Powers and his sister are also hoping to raise awareness about homelessness in general. “Many homeless people are working actively to heal themselves and improve their situations,” Powers said.

“One of their tools is art therapy.”

The two hope to extend the reach of ArtLifting to other communities and to strengthen its place in the Greater Boston area.

Kristen Mabie, A&S ’17, is an intern at ArtLifting intent on helping the startup reach out to local colleges.

THE HEART OF THE CITY

Lights and the promise of home

MAGGIE POWERS

PHOTO COURTESY OF ARTLIFTING

Spencer Powers (far left) and Liz Powers (far right) stand with artists Dante Gandini (center left) and Allen Chamberland (center right).

A member of Boston College’s sailing team, Mabie found out about the opportunity to intern for ArtLifting through her coach, Greg Wilkinson, for whom Powers was an assistant coach for two and a half years after he graduated from BC. Mabie said that Wilkinson told her to take advantage of opportunities presented to her outside the immediate BC community.

Her plan is to spread the word about ArtLifting by communicating with smaller segments of the BC community in the hope that word will spread from there, and she currently is reaching out to other students in her dorm and to other athletic teams.

Like the Powers siblings, Mabie is a Massachusetts native. “I already have such a passion for the city of Boston, but I’m from the South Shore,” Mabie said. “Getting to learn a lot more about a city that I grew up near is a lot of fun for me.”

Mabie explained that she feels a strong connection to ArtLifting’s mission because of her own relationship with art, as she is in a drawing connections class with Sheila Gallagher of the Fine Arts department. The only

freshman in the class, Mabie said that being surrounded by artists of greater experience has helped her to develop her craft more quickly. “It’s turned out to be an incredible experience for me to create better work and have a better identity as an artist,” Mabie said. “So I have a strong connection to the company just because of that.”

Powers said that he is confident in Mabie’s ability to spread the word at BC, and that the University will be an especially good place to promote ArtLifting.

“We really think the BC community will be very much interested in supporting ArtLifting, because BC is centered on advancing social justice,” he said.

When not meeting at Grendel’s Den, the ArtLifting team gathers at Liz’s apartment, which is attached to Lowell House at Harvard University where she works as a residence manager. Currently, ArtLifting houses its artists’ work in extra closet space that Liz made in one of the rooms of her apartment.

“Liz and I have very different personalities, but that’s an advantage in our work for ArtLifting,” Powers said. His apartment in Beacon Hill is technically

the legal home of the startup. “Liz is very much the artist between the two of us. I focus on the operations and getting the technical and the boring stuff done, like building the website and working with the banks.”

Powers said that his sister is particularly good at forming relationships with the artists, and that many of those involved in ArtLifting are artists with whom Liz formed bonds through City Heart. One such artist is Randy Nicholson, who has been involved with art therapy for many years.

On the day that he joined ArtLifting, Nicholson told Powers and his sister that their interest in his work made him feel validated. “Not ‘validated as an artist’ or anything like that,” he said in a press release. “Just validated.”

“One of the things that he wanted to make sure was very clear to Liz and me was that the interest that he’s received because of his art enhances his confidence and his trust in his future,” Powers said. “Not because people are liking his art and because he feels better as an artist, but because he’s working toward healing himself through this endeavor.” 

COLLEGIATE ROUND-UP

BY CLARA LEE | FOR THE HEIGHTS

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY

University plans for new science and engineering center In preparation for its long-term plan to recruit more professors and expand research at the university, Northeastern University plans to begin the construction of its new science and engineering center next month. The cost of construction totals $225 million, and will provide 630 new jobs, as well as 700 permanent jobs once the project is complete.

Northeastern hopes that the building will be open for students and faculty by 2016. The building will six stories, consisting of an auditorium, labs with new scientific equipment, classrooms, offices, and an atrium. The building takes up 3.5 acres, and it is planned to be located near the Roxbury T-stop.

Northeastern is not the only college in the Boston area that plans to expand its science and research centers by building a new facility. Seven colleges in the vicinity have already started construction or are planning to create

HARVARD With Harvard’s recent experiment in its business school to create a less hostile environment for women, it has recently expanded this experiment to its law school.

Earlier in the year, a coalition group named Shatter the Ceiling brought to light the sexism that exists within this prestigious school through a brief mini-documentary. The public’s reception was positive, sparking much concern among the students and professors at the university.

Concerns have now shifted to the law school.

Statistics showed that women entered law school with LSAT scores similar to men’s, but they start to fall behind. Only 20 percent of law school graduates last year were women.

Recognizing the issue, Harvard has made efforts to change, with 38 percent of the incoming class of 2015 being female. Harvard has acknowledged this to be a long-term process but hopes for results similar to the ones they have seen with the business school.

their own facilities. UMass Amherst has recently finished construction of its sciences facility and plans to finish the other half by 2016. Many colleges hope to finish these construction plans within the next decade.

Over the past two years, the sciences have become a popular area of study. Joseph E. Aoun, the seventh president of the university, described the different sciences as “national imperatives.” Northeastern has made agreements with the neighboring communities in order to build its new facility.

The administration plans to hire more people from that specific neighborhood as well as to provide scholarships for students in these neighborhoods. With this new facility, Northeastern plans not only to better its reputation as a research university but also to serve the community around it.

BOSTON UNIV. B oston University welcomes David Carr, star media columnist for The New York Times, as its new communications professor. It has been confirmed that Carr will begin this spring semester by teaching a class on media criticisms for graduate students. As of now, this is Carr’s only class, as he still has a weekly column on popular culture in The New York Times.

Carr’s work at Boston University will focus mainly on the development of new business models for digital journalism.

“A lot of journalism education that is going on is broadly not preparing kids for the world that they are stepping into,” Carr said. He will not be given tenure at Boston University but will work on a contract. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Carr double majored in psychology and journalism. He is featured prominently in the 2011 documentary Page One: Inside The New York Times.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

MIT MIT has created the world’s hardest tongue twister. After researching the different sounds of words and common mistakes that people make in pronunciation, MIT concluded that the phrase “pad kid poured curd pulled cod” was the hardest tongue twister ever to be created. Researchers tested both combinations of simple words and simple sentences to find the most challenging combination of sounds for an individual to speak. Principal researcher and MIT psychologist Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel said that the difficulty in producing certain sounds repetitively is due to the overlap in brain processes.

In her last experiment, no participant was able to read or repeat the phrase without error.

Shattuck-Hufnagel presented her tongue twister at 166th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Francisco on Dec. 5. “If anyone can say this [phrase] 10 times quickly, they get a prize,” Shattuck-Hufnagel said.

Confession: I have not been into the city in weeks. Among swallowing Spanish vocab words, wading through Eliot, and spooning my Shakespeare notes, there has been no time to slip away to visit Boston.

Lately, I’ve been sitting on the fifth floor of O’Neill (one of the most underrated studying spots on campus, in my opinion) facing the windows. From here, you can see the spire of the Prudential Center sticking up far over the trees, in stark contrast with the gray December sky.

Most of the year, gazing at the Pru gives me great comfort while studying. It is a simple reminder that I am blessed enough to go to a school that, despite the different zip codes, is deeply linked to the city I love. Most of the time, seeing the skyline from the library reminds me how close Boston and Boston College really are.

Lately though, it has been a reminder of how far I really am. Studying and gazing at Boston has made me feel restless, trapped. Christmas in the city is one of the best times of year to be a part of the Boston community, but instead we are shackled to our campus by the demands of our courses.

A few weeks ago, my history class was given a pretty typical assignment to go to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) and compare two objects.

Nothing too difficult, and I was excited to have the chance to get off campus. However, as the Green Line approached Northeastern, I began to get stressed. Every fiber of my student being yelled at me, “What are you doing? You do not have the time to being gallivanting through the city, drinking Starbucks and gazing at Christmas lights. There are poems that need to be interpreted, flashcards that need to be made.”

I am embarrassed to admit I charged through the American Wing in the MFA like a mad person. I found two objects, took a few notes and charged out, noting a few members of my 300-person lecture doing the same thing.

This, of course, was not what my professor had intended at all. I’m sure if anything, his image of his students was closer to the art-experiencing, coffee-drinking, wonder-filled excursion I initially had planned for myself. Instead, I wound up blowing past Monets because of this pressure to return to the library.

On the T home I began to ponder—if finals are supposed to be the culmination of our academic experience, how truly wrong is this? Many of us chose to attend BC for the education of the whole person and the link to a city. But these high ideals are abandoned the moment final grades are on the line.

There is no answer for this issue, nor do I think it is actually reasonable to fault a university for making its students take finals. It is just the reality of what we do. But a simple final assignment to visit the MFA made me wish that this was not the case.

Consider using the city to its full advantage during finals, even though it may seem difficult. Sacrifice the hour of transportation for the sanity you will gain from the change in scenery. Camp out in the Boston Public Library or a small cafe on Newbury Street. Marvel for a moment at the fact that the thousands of other students that share this city are doing the same exact thing right now.

Catch eyes with another sweatpantsclad student preparing for the storm of finals that is about to hit and be in solidarity for a moment.

More importantly, seeing real people (by that I mean non-students) bustle up the slick sidewalks in preparation for the holidays reminds you there is life beyond finals. These are just assignments, just due dates, just grades. You have twinkle lights and the promise of home waiting for you at the end of this tunnel.

Maggie Powers is an editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@ bcheights.com.

METRO THE HEIGHTS

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Thursday, December 12, 2013

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2013

BOOKISH BOSTONIAN

Past year ponderings

Gambling Commission calls for another vote The citizens of Revere will have to vote again on a development at Suffolk Downs B Y T RICIA T IEDT Metro Editor

RYAN TOWEY I have never been one to celebrate the New Year—it has yet to prove itself something to celebrate. Instead, I like to look at the year that is past.

I ask myself: What have I learned?

Another year is coming to a close, and I suppose it is time to ask myself that question.

I have been a student at Boston College for three semesters now, and I have been an editor for the Metro section for a year.

Surely, I have learned something. After all of the hours spent writing columns and interviewing subjects and editing articles and losing sleep wondering if people will like my articles and then losing sleep because I remember how few people probably even read them—what does it all add up to?

I cannot look in the mirror anymore and say that I am the same high school graduate that showed up in his family’s SUV thinking he already had most of it all figured out—even though I do sometimes roll out of bed and look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror with surprise.

Wasn’t I just a lanky 13-year-old with braces a moment ago? When did the nerdy kid finally decide to move out?

When I walked into my experience of getting to know BC and Boston, I just wanted to know that I would end up happy. But when I walked in with this expectation, I had forgotten some great advice I once learned over the family dinner table.

My whole extended family had turned out to have a Sunday meal together, as if the whole group knew the momentous realization I was about to have. We were having one of those typically existential conversations, the ones that leave people running around in circles with frustration but unbelievably excited by what they might somehow figure out—what should we do with our lives and why should we do it?

I was an agressively active participant in the conversation. At 16, I was more arrogant than ever, and I cringe now at how much I thought I knew. While I gesticulated professorially to the rest of the people at the table, someone broke my focus. I cannot remember which family member said this, but I will always remember what he said: “I just want to end up okay.”

Then, as if the whole universe were zeroing in on an insignificant boy at a dining room table in New Jersey, I heard my uncle respond: “You don’t end up anywhere.”

And his voice echoed in my ears.

It was not a pessimistic statement, or a fatalistic one. Instead, it spoke to something that all people instinctively know—life has no finish line, no point at which we say, “Oh, I guess I’m done.”

Life is not always a fight or a struggle, but there is also never a permanently restive state, no matter how old or experienced one becomes. In my year as an assistant editor for this section of The Heights, I have found great evidence to support the notion that no one really ends up anywhere, that lives are continuously undergoing change.

In the past year, I have written about artists and marathon bombing victims. I have written about mayoral politics and museum exhibits. I have written about comedy clubs and music festivals. It is still amazing to me that all of these compelling stories are unfolding in the city that I love. When one walks down a street in Boston, one must remember that there are thousands of such stories happening every day, like full and complete characters in the world’s most populated book.

I am honored to have told some of these stories in the past year.

So, as the year 2013 comes to a close, what have I learned? Only that, still, there is so much to learn.

If I have discovered that, then this past year is one worth celebrating.

Ryan Towey is the Asst. Metro Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

A new obstacle has been added to the growing number of roadblocks stalling the development at Suffolk Downs, a thoroughbred racetrack that straddles the city line of Revere and East Boston. On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission passed a new referendum to require another vote

be taken on the building of a casino on the Suffolk Downs property in Revere, Mass. The prompt for a new vote comes after significant changes were made to the plan originally endorsed by Revere voters in the Nov. 5 election.

While the city of Revere supports the casino, their neighbors in East Boston altered Suffolk Downs’ original plans.

On that same November day, the voters in East Boston struck down the idea of a

casino in their city. A Revere-only plan was then put together to adapt to the restrictions set by voters.

After gambling was legalized in the state of Massachusetts in 2011, the track owners made a bid for a casino license—a bid which has still not yet been approved. Originally, the track collaborated with Caesars Entertainment Corporation in a $1 billion casino resort deal that would include two hotels, a casino, and a spa, amongst other amenities, across Suffolk Downs’ 163-acre property. Caesars withdrew its application in late October due to federal scrutiny over background checks

conducted by a local gaming regulator.

This sudden change came just three weeks before the voting commenced on Nov. 5.

When voters forbade the casino’s development in East Boston, Suffolk Downs struck a deal with Mohegan Sun to develop on the 53 acres of the racetrack’s property located in Revere. The new proposed plan includes a casino overlooking the track, complemented by shops, restaurants, and two hotels.

Additionally, this new proposal calls for Suffolk Downs to be a landlord, not the

See Suffolk Downs, C8

Introducing ArtLifting

PHOTO COURTESY OF ARTLIFTING

Katie Hickey Schultz, who creates her work at Common Art, an art program for the homeless in Boston, is the artist of ‘Freak,’ one of several art pieces up for sale at ArtLifting.

Siblings Spencer and Liz Powers look to support art therapy with new startup

BY RYAN TOWEY Asst. Metro Editor Spencer Powers, BC ’07, often meets his sister Liz at a Harvard Square pub called Grendel’s Den, where food is half-priced after 9 p.m. The siblings met at the pub on Dec. 1 with other members of the ArtLifting team, just two days after the startup’s launch. The

waiter recognized Powers and his sister—they had been there just the night before.

It is from this small eatery that Powers and his sister run their new startup, ArtLifting, which works to sell the artwork of homeless and disabled individuals who are involved in art therapy via an online marketplace.

“We’ll work sometimes at night,

through midnight, over in Harvard Square,” Powers said.

Powers and his sister, who graduated from Harvard University in 2010, have experience investing their time in service to others. The siblings grew up in Wellesley, Mass., and their father, Richard Powers, a CSOM senior lecturer, often brought the siblings to mass at St. Ignatius Church or St. Mary’s Chapel when

they were in high school.

“We have always been very much entwined with the BC community,” Powers said, adding that the Jesuit value of serving others was a part of his family life.

During her time at Harvard, Liz wrote a thesis on art therapy as a healing tool. She was inspired to

See ArtLifting, C9

Walsh aims to make picks for staff before holidays

BY MAGGIE MARETZ Heights Staff

PHOTO COURTESY OF MARK HUNT

The outdoor ice rink brings college deals and professional ice shows to downtown Boston.

Boston Common Frog Pond set for the holiday season

BY BENNET JOHNSON Heights Staff John Schaub, the general manager of the Frog Pond, has been working at the Boston Common for three years. Situated in the heart of Boston, the Boston Common Frog Pond is open this winter for another season full of holiday fun. Thousands of Bostonians, tourists, students, and skating enthusiasts fill the Frog Pond rink at the northern end of Boston Common each winter, as the reflecting pool of water in the summer is transformed into

I NSIDE METRO THIS ISSUE

an ice skating rink in the winter.

Since its opening in 1996, the Frog Pond operates as a public and private skating rink and is run by a staff that maintains the rink so skaters can enjoy the outdoors in Boston Common.

“It’s a magical place to be during the winter season,” Schaub said.

Schaub’s job, managing the maintenance of an outdoor rink in the city of Boston, is no easy task. “I oversee the whole operation from

See Frog Pond, C8

Collegiate Round-up

Although Mayor Elect Martin J. Walsh has yet to make any decisions about who he will appoint to his mayoral staff, he announced last week that he will make his selections before Christmas.

Walsh has assembled 11 policy teams comprised of over 250 people, who are collectively responsible for examining the current state of affairs in Boston and determining where there needs to be change. Walsh’s pace has been criticized because of an impending Jan. 6 inauguration date.

He has yet to determine how he will structure the office and has not started formal interviews with the candidates for positions in his cabinet.

When Menino took office in 1993, he had been acting mayor for four months and therefore had a team in place before his election.

Within a month of his election, Menino had fired and replaced eight city department heads. In New York, Bill de Blasio has already named his top deputy and police com-

Highlights in the news from other universities and colleges in the greater Boston area......................................................................................C9

missioner, while Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles named his chief of staff four weeks after the election day.

Walsh, however, is reluctant to agree that his selection process is taking too long, explaining that he does not want to rush what is a very important series of choices.

“These are big decisions,” Walsh said, according to The Boston Globe. “When I ran my campaign, I wasn’t focused on who my chief of staff was going to be. I want to make sure I get it right. That’s more important than the quickness of it.”

Over 1,100 candidates have submitted resumes, and the transition team Walsh has assembled is now faced with the task of determining how to appropriately evaluate the large sum of possible members of the cabinet.

See Walsh, C8

Restaurant Review: Pho Basil..........................................................C7 Winter Days: a list of activities...........................................................................C8