The Heights December 4, 2017

HEIGHTS

THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

EST. 1919

WWW.BCHEIGHTS.COM

MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2017

BEANTOWN BATTLE

THE WAFFLE WAY

After struggling at home, women’s hockey flipped the script with a convincing win in its rematch with BU.

Zinneken’s waffle truck serves up freshly made waffles to hungry customers around BU and Northeastern.

METRO

SPORTS

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Admin Respond to Rally Demands BC plans for online module, undergrad climate survey

BY COLE DADY Heights Staff

AMELIE TRIEU / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Football Returns to the Pinstripe Bowl Boston College will face Iowa at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 27.

BY ANDY BACKSTROM Asst Sports Editor 69

One week removed from handing Syracuse a 42-14 defeat in its regular season finale, Boston College football learned Sunday that it’ll be heading back to New York—only this time, the Eagles will be in the Big Apple.

On Sunday afternoon, the ACC announced that BC (7-5, 4-4 Atlantic Coast) has officially accepted its invitation to play Iowa (7-5, 4-5 Big Ten) in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl on Dec.

27, marking the school’s 26th bowl appearance, and its 16th in the last 19 years. After last year’s 36-30 win over Maryland in the Quick Lane Bowl—BC’s first postseason victory since 2007—the Eagles moved to 14-11 all-time in bowl games.

BC will be heading back to Yankee Stadium for the second time in four years. In 2014, the Eagles went toeto-toe with Penn State in the Bronx, before losing on a missed extra point in overtime.

Head coach Steve Addazio couldn’t be any happier. After all, he and his players have had their eyes on the Pinstripe Bowl since August.

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See Pinstripe, A3

Excel Credits Decrease Culture Club Funding Clubs failed to meet requirements for funding levels.

BY ANTHONY REIN Copy Editor This year, many intercultural clubs at Boston College have received less funding than they did in prior years. After last year’s leaders of the organizations failed to fulfill the requirements needed for higher levels of funding, the clubs automatically entered lower funding levels.

According to the Annual Report of the Student Organization Funding Committee (SOFC) for the 2016-17 academic year, where $791,055.26 was allocated, 30 intercultural clubs made up 34 percent of the funding to student organizations, occupying the largest share of the budget. But the mid-year report for Fall 2017 shows

intercultural clubs receiving 23 percent of the $327,928.51 allocated for the semester.

They trail the funding of music, art, and performance groups, who receive 25 percent of the SOFC’s funding.

Club funding at BC is determined by SOFC, which receives clubs’ budget requests and divides a set amount of funding among the clubs. SOFC, however, is required to give a certain level of funding determined by the Office of Student Involvement and a program for club members, the Excel Curriculum.

When leaders of student organizations fail to meet the requirements of their tier of funding, they are downgraded to a lower level of funding, as is the case this year.

The three levels of funding for on-campus organizations are Cura, up to $1,499; Magis, up to $4,999; and Ignatius, which allows for unlimited funding.

See Funding, A3

SAM ZHAI / HEIGHTS STAFF

John Finney celebrates 25 years of service to music at Boston College, B8.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

NEWS: Karl Bell

The assistant director of OSI plans to join Learning to Learn Office............................A2

Prominent administrators issued a letter on Nov. 20 outlining proposals to enhance diversity and inclusion on campus a few weeks ago, following a meeting between eight student leaders and University officials on Oct. 30. In interviews this week, those students indicated that the question now on their minds is whether the administration can meet its proposals by implementing concrete changes.

The letter was signed by Vice President for Student Affairs Barb Jones; Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley; Vice President for University Mission and Ministry Jack Butler, S.J.; Dean of Students Tom Mogan; Joy Haywood Moore, associate vice president for Alumni Relations; Patricia Lowe, executive director for Institutional Diversity; and Dan Bunch, special assistant to the vice president for Student Affairs.

The letter states that the University will require all entering undergraduate students to complete a diversity and inclusion learning module, design a survey to gather information about how undergraduates experience issues surrounding diversity and inclusion at Boston College, continue efforts to hire a more diverse faculty and recruit a more diverse student body, build on current programs for faculty and staff diversity to promote more diversity and inclusive excellence, and continue conversations involving various offices at BC. “We had a very productive meeting with a group of student leaders selected by UGBC and we look forward to continuing the dialogue,” Mogan said in an email. “As mentioned in the letter we are confident

that we can make some progress on some of the initiatives that we discussed and that we mutually agree are important to continuing to make BC a more welcoming and inclusive campus community free of racism and discrimination.”

The letter also takes note of various milestones that highlight BC’s progress toward higher levels of diversity, such as enrolling a record high percentage of AHANA students in the Class of 2021 (31 percent) and hiring a record number of tenure-track faculty of AHANA background (46 percent) in 2017. The letter says that these accomplishments are the result of “concentrated efforts involving the University President, Trustees, senior administrators, deans, alumni, faculty, and students.”

Before the events that gave rise to the meeting between administrators and student leaders, the letter notes that the University spearheaded a variety of initiatives directed at increasing cultural competence for students and faculty, such as the annual Diversity and Inclusion Summit, the renewal of the Core Curriculum, and inclusion programs such as MOSAIC and the Campus of Difference.

Franchesca Araujo, a participant in the meeting and MCAS ’20, feels that this response does not adequately address the problem at hand.

“I think it’s just an extension of the aversion that we’ve been experiencing up to this point,” Araujo said. “Though the ideas are nice, there are no specifics. We didn’t get any actual concrete action steps or timeline that we can hold them accountable to.”

Another student who participated in the meeting, Najat Goso, president of Boston College’s United Front and MCAS ’18, said she is waiting for the response “to be followed up with action.”

“While I am pleased with their [six] points to be tackled in the new BC Strategic

Plan … I just hope to see progress when I become an alumni, because I will definitely be in tune with BC’s promises well beyond my graduation,” Goso said.

Although the Oct. 30 meeting consisted of only eight students, it took many more people to gain the administration’s attention, according to Akosua Achampong, UGBC president and MCAS ’18. She and other students were involved in creating petitions to improve diversity and inclusion before the “Silence is Still Violence” march, where they presented several demands of the school.

“What was sad about it in the end is that nothing we put in there was revolutionary,” Achampong said. “We’ve done all this work to ask for things that should already be.”

For Achampong, this letter seems to be the first formal response that the administration has ever had to a student-made petition. Similarly, Goso feels that the letter showcases that administrators are listening to the student body and strongly considering its concerns.

“It’s not that the administration doesn’t care,” said Michael Osaghae, vice chair of the AHANA+ Leadership Council and MCAS ’20. “It’s that it’s not as transparent as it should be to people who are not as active in UGBC or prominent culture clubs where they’re able to have a voice.”

Goso agreed with Osaghae, noting that not many students have the privilege of communication with high-level administrators. She also believes that the student leaders present at the meeting had the means to circulate the information about what happened during the meeting to the public, displaying the relationship between the administration and the students.

Furthermore, Achampong challenged the misconception that the administration is racist. She argued, instead, that struc-

See Letter, A3

IS Classes to Count for Poli Sci Increase in majors leads to shortage of course offerings

BY CHARLIE POWER Heights Staff Political science majors will be able to take selected courses in the International Studies Program to count toward their major this upcoming semester. The policy was put into place after the class registration period, due the fact that many of the non-introductory political science courses were already filled after upperclassmen finished registering. In general, the courses will be considered electives, although there are some exceptions.

“Currently we have about 900 majors, and by the time the sophomores got around to registering there were no courses that were open,” said Kenji Hayao, the director of undergraduate studies for the department.

Hayao referenced the recent increase in the number of majors as a possible reason for the difficulty in having enough course seats for students. Political Science majors have increased from 633 to 893 in the past five years, according to the ”Boston College Fact Book” and The Chronicle.

“We probably added about 100 majors in the last year or so,” Hayao said. “It was always a problem, but it has become much more acute. We have too many majors for the courses that we have. We don’t have enough seats, essentially.”

Hayao also confirmed the department

NICOLE CHAN / HEIGHTS STAFF

is offering the same number of courses as prior years, saying that there remains the same number of faculty. The administration confirmed that it is looking into the issue.

“We are committed to working with all of the departments in the Morrissey College to manage course offerings in a way that will ensure that all students can fulfill their major requirements,” Dean of MCAS Rev. Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., said in email.

The policy change is designed specifically to help sophomores for whom many electives were no longer available. Hayao said that this was essentially a one-time decision to accommodate them.

“Students who are applying to study abroad, for instance in their junior year, need to have courses in their sophomore year in order to make good progress on the major,” Hayao said.

Due to the larger-than-average fresh-

FEATURES: Frances Christianson The senior, who frequents BC’s week-long service trips, will join Peace Corps...........A6

INDEX

man class, with a enrollment of 2,412 students, according to BC News, there is uncertainty over whether the political science department will be able to accommodate all the students who wish to major in that area. This also raises the question of whether this one-off change will have to extend into future semesters.

Hayao also speculated the recent election could be driving interest in the major.

He thinks that President Donald Trump’s election could have boosted the number of majors entering the department. He observed a similar phenomenon in 2008 when former President Barack Obama was elected.

“Obviously there’s a lot more interest in elections and that helps drive interest in political science, but this is kind of an unusual election so we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Hayao said. 

NEWS.........................A2 METRO....................... A7

Vol. XCVIII, No. 37 FEATURES..................A6 SPORTS......................B1 © 2017, The Heights, Inc. OPINIONS................... A8 SCENE.......................B6 www.bchelghts.com 69

The Heights

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things to do on campus this week

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Tonight from 7:30 to 9 p.m., the Campus Activities Board will hold an ice skating event on Frog Pond in Boston Commons. Tickets can be bought through Robsham Theater, must be picked up by 4 p.m., and are sold in a pair for $14. Transportation is not provided.

Monday, December 4, 2017

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The annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony will be held on Tuesday from 4 to 6:30 p.m. in O’Neill Plaza. Presented by the Campus Activities Board, the event will feature pictures with Santa, holiday music, free hot chocolate, ice sculpture carving, and free gift giveaways.

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“A Celtic Christmas” will come to the Cadigan Alumni Center on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. The event will feature Irish singer Nórín Ní Riain and her sons, Owen and Mícheál Moley Ó Súilleabháin, singing Celtic songs and telling stories. Registration is required for this free event.

NEWS ‘Her Campus’ Founder Discusses Web Magazine BRIEFS

By Abby Hunt

Prof. Writes Tax Bill Op-Ed

Ray D. Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School and director of BC Law’s Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good, had an op-ed published in The New York Times on Nov. 26, in which she detailed the three threats to charitable giving present in the GOP tax bills that passed in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The first threat is a raise in the standard deduction that would decrease the number of Americans who seek deductions from charitable giving, potentially causing a loss of $13 billion to charities.

“Proposals in both the House and Senate tax bills would increase the standard deduction to dollar amounts so high that a vast majority of American taxpayers would no longer itemize and therefore would receive no tax benefits for their charitable giving,” Madoff writes.

Madoff suggests allowing taxpayers to claim both the standard deduction and the charitable deduction.

The failure of the bill to address donor-advised funds, a ‘charities’ where money can be invested for a charitable tax deduction but is not legally required to be put to full use, constitutes the second threat. Madoff states that over $85 billion is held in these donor-advised funds, and that Congress should create a requirement whereby all funds must be distributed within 10 years.

The third threat is the intrusion of politics into charity, which is prevented by the 1954 Johnson Amendment banning charities from engaging in political activity.

“Charities have been unified in their support for retaining the Johnson Amendment, but still the House bill includes language limiting its application, and threatening to pollute the whole charitable sector by pulling it into the realm of politics,” Madoff writes.

Dean Calls For Climate Action Over 150 leaders of Catholic universities and organizations sent a letter to President Donald Trump and members of Congress to reassert U.S. leadership in the global effort to address climate change. Dean of the School of Theology and Ministry Rev. Thomas Stegman, S.J., signed the letter.

“On behalf of people who are poor and vulnerable and future generations, we especially ask that you act based upon the best available climate science,” the letter states.

The leaders said Catholic social teaching requires that Catholics work to combat climate change, they said.

The leaders, as representatives of the Catholic Church, urged political leaders to carry out three objectives.

Two of those objectives are to fund the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and meaningfully participate in the deliberations of the UNFCCC. “As our nation enjoys vast resources and has been a primary contributor to climate change, justice requires that the U.S. display strong and consistent leadership within the UNFCCC. In this way, the U.S. can help secure science-based global commitments which rapidly reduce greenhouse gas pollution and avoid so-called ‘tipping points’ towards unavoidable and catastrophic impacts,” they said.

Finally, the leaders called on Washington to honor U.S. commitments to the Green Climate Fund.

“The Fund helps less developed nations most impacted by climate change to build resilience to present and future impacts,” they said. “Their peoples are disproportionately harmed by climate change despite often contributing least to the problem.”

Heights Staff

At an end-of-semester dinner sponsored by the Women Innovators Network on Thursday, Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, cofounder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Her Campus, the online magazine written by and for college women, shared the story of her company’s founding and gave Boston College students advice about how to start their own businesses.

“I’m excited to talk to you about how I, along with my co-founders … started Her Campus … with no money, no work experience, and no business education, because it’s something that all of you can do as well,” Lewis said.

Lewis explained how she and the other Her Campus co-founders, Windsor Western and Annie Wang, met at Harvard University while working on a student lifestyle and fashion magazine, of which they eventually became board members.

While on the board, the three helped transition the magazine, which initially came out only in print, into an online publication. Shortly after, college women from all across the United States started telling them that they wished their schools had a publication like it, not only so they could read it, but also so they could write for it.

Lewis’s first lesson for people who are thinking about starting a business is that they should follow their passion.

She advised against chasing business opportunities solely because they seem trendy or lucrative.

“Immerse yourself in the things that you love … because that’s how you’re going to be best positioned to figure out what are those pain points and what are

those goals that there can be a business opportunity in order to fill,” Lewis said.

She also reminded the audience of how it was important, when starting their businesses, to build a team they knew they worked well with.

While many have the misconception that Her Campus was started by three best friends, Lewis stated that in reality she, Western, and Wang were actually not very close when they first started working together. But while working on their online magazine, they had found that they had complementary skill sets and were aligned in terms of their work ethic and values.

During their time on the board, the three knew their publication had the potential to become something more but did not know how to take the next step.

When Harvard’s undergraduate business competition, the i3 Innovation Challenge, came along, they decided to use it as an opportunity to force themselves to sit down and map out the ideas that they had been thinking about.

“What was really great about the business plan competition was that … it kind of asked us the questions that we hadn’t even known were things we needed to think through, and it forced us to do it on a deadline,” Lewis said.

After winning the competition in their junior year, the three moved to New York City together to pursue internships in design, marketing, and editorial work the following summer.

“We said to one another, ‘This summer we’re going to … meet as many people as we can to really build up our network and to figure out how we go from a Google Doc business plan to actually launching this company,’” Lewis said.

The team knew they wanted to launch Her Campus that fall, when they entered

Delaney Vorwick / heights staff

Stephanie Kaplan Lewis founded Her Campus in 2009 at Harvard University. their senior year of college. At a time when the site was nowhere near finished, the three of them decided to start distributing fliers around Harvard’s campus and set a launch date, Sept. 16, 2009, as a way of creating an external deadline for themselves–a deadline they were able to meet.

The founders, who had tried to make as much progress with the company as they could before graduating college, decided December of their senior year to pursue Her Campus full-time after graduation.

The following summer, they were nominated to Inc.’s 30 Under 30.

Lewis explained how even though they were their own bosses, it was important for her, Western, and Wang to give themselves schedules complete with deadlines and to make sure that they were working a normal workday everyday, if not longer.

Even when things were off the ground and becoming more stable for the company, the team still had down moments,

including times when they could not pay their salaries or huge projects and partnerships fell through.

“During those difficult times … pick yourself back up,” she said. “Keep on pushing forward. On the flipside of that, when things are going well and running smoothly … you can’t let yourself get too comfortable in that either, or otherwise things can start to stagnate.”

Today, Her Campus, now eight years old, has chapters at over 350 colleges, puts on an annual Her Conference and College Fashion Week, and has released a book entitled The Her Campus Guide to College Life.

Lewis encouraged students who are considering starting a business themselves to start as soon as possible.

“The sooner you … get something up, there’s just that momentum and that feedback that carries you forward, and then you have no choice but to keeping going and to just figure it out,” she said. n

Bell Will Leave OSI to Join Learning to Learn Office

By Anthony Rein Copy Editor Karl Bell, the assistant director of student organizations within the Office of Student Involvement (OSI), will move to the Learning to Learn Office as associate director of TRIO programs on Dec. 12.

“I’ll be responsible for working with first-generation, low-income [students], and students with disabilities,” Bell said. “[I’ll be] working those students, or that population, to get them from admission through commencement and onto life after BC, onto master’s programs, to doctoral programs.”

TRIO programs are funded by the U.S. Department of Education and “designed to identify and provide services to individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds,” according to the program’s website.

BC’s TRIO programs are run through the Learning to Learn Office, whose primary goal is to help its students excel academically at BC and create a beneficial environment for them to succeed.

Bell’s long career in OSI is something he will remember fondly.

“I have had a phenomenal experience in student affairs, in this office, working with students in good times, bad times, through ups and downs, bringing speakers, bringing performers,” Bell said. “And I’ve done it for 12 years.”

As the assistant director of student organizations, Bell oversaw the Student Organization Funding Committee, and the finances, events, and policies of BC student organizations.

He did not, however, expect to stay that long.

“And 12 years is a long time to be in any position. Students are here for

four years and they move on fairly quickly, and so I never planned to be here in this position for 12 years,” Bell said. “And so I have an awesome opportunity now to transition from this office, to stay at BC … to transition to Learning to Learn, and I’m very excited.

Bell also took the time to reflect on the biggest challenges he faced in his 12 years in Student Involvement.

“Saying no has been my absolute biggest challenge, and that space where I think students and I both learned the most. Not every idea is a great idea,” Bell said. “Not every idea is funded, not every idea results in a successful program, and I’ve been in a position that I’ve had to look ahead to see whether or not something was feasible, and it was difficult at times to say, ‘No, I see your vision, I understand your vision, and it’s not

feasible.’”

Bell sees this new position as a way to broaden his expertise, while at the same time staying at BC, an institution he has come to regard as a home, with his staff and colleagues at OSI being a sort of second family.

“As I reflect, my first kid was born when I was in this position, and she attended some of her first big events in her life at Boston College, and so BC has become a home of sorts for me, and I’ve grown a lot over that 12-year period.”

While saddened to leave OSI, Bell sees this change to Learning to Learn as something beneficial for himself professionally.

“As I think about my career, this is an opportunity for me to focus on a new area, a new population of students at a phenomenal institution,” Bell said. n

POLICE BLOTTER: 11/29/17 – 12/01/17 Wednesday, Nov. 29 10:28 a.m. - A report was filed regarding an officer providing assistance to another department.

11:35 a.m. - A report was filed regardnig a well-being check at Commonwealth Ave.

12:31 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious circumstance at Corcoran Commons.

10:42 p.m. - A report was fired regarding a drug law violation at the Reservior Apartments.

11:37 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Fenwick Hall.

Thursday, Nov. 30 12:15 a.m. - A report was filed regarding arson at Duchesne East.

9:13 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Higgins Hall.

4:33 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Health Services.

6:23 p.m. - A report was filed regarding an actual fire at Gabelli Hall.

10:40 p.m. A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Flynn Sports Complex.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

CORRECTIONS How many hours do you think you’re going to procrastinate?

“Infinite amount of hours.”

—Frederique Haverhals, CSOM ’19

“As much as possible.”

—Annika Samuelson, MCAS ’19

“Probably a lot, honestly maybe like 8.”

—Katelyn Goglig, MCAS ’21

Please send corrections to eic@bcheights.com with ‘correction’ in the subject line.

“Like 5 or 6.”

—Catherine Henckel, MCAS ’18

The Heights

Monday, December 4, 2017

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Football to Compete in Pinstripe Bowl Dec. 27 Pinstripe, from A1 “If you asked our kids to tell you where they’d want to be, they’d say, ‘We want to be in New York, playing in the Pinstripe Bowl,” Addazio told reporters during Sunday’s bowl announcement press conference.

New York serves as the hub of holiday festivities, but, more importantly, it’s essentially home for the Eagles—one of the few bowl-eligible Power Five teams in the Northeast. According to Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond, 120,000 alumni and fans live within driving distance of the city, including over 25,000 New York natives.

While the play of running back A.J. Dillon—the ACC Rookie of the Year—and Jarmond’s Big Ten connections definitely played a role in the Eagles’ selection, the first-year AD emphasized that it was BC’s

second-half resurgence that got them the bid.

“We’re an exciting team right now,” Jarmond said. “We’re a team that people don’t want to play right now. And bowl games like that—they like that energy.”

Despite losing seven starters to seasonending injuries, BC capped off the year with a 5-1 record, averaging 36 points per game in the process. To put that in perspective, if the Eagles’ offense had put up those kinds of numbers from the start of the season, it would have finished the regular season as one of the 20 highestscoring units in the nation. With a win over the Hawkeyes, BC will not only record its second-consecutive bowl victory, but it will also have won six of its past seven games—a feat that the program hasn’t accomplished in 25 years. n

UGBC Leaders Present Plans, Goals to Trustees

By Aidan Latona Heights Staff Akosua Achampong, the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC) president and MCAS ’18, and Christina “Tt” King, UGBC executive vice president and MCAS ’18, held their second meeting of the year with the Board of Trustees on Friday. The duo addressed the Student Life Committee of the Board, discussing the “Silence is Still Violence” march that occurred in October, plans for a new student center, and advocating for a climate survey at BC. A discussion of the “Silence is Still Violence” march, which, according to Achampong, was the largest protest in BC’s history, was a focal point of UGBC’s meeting agenda, Achampong said. The UGBC representatives hoped to address the ideas stated in the Silence is Still Violence petition, while, as Achampong stated, reinforcing that the administration should be held accountable.

“Boston College should be a community that we’re happy to be a part of,” Achampong said.

Achampong and King planned to advocate for a climate survey on campus to gain information about BC’s students of color, religious minorities, and LGBTQ populations. There is currently no data on these student groups, a problem King said

should be addressed.

King also stated that a number of highlevel BC administrators have recently supported such a survey as a result of students’ requests.

Achampong believes that a student center would become an essential part of BC’s campus, providing spaces for students to gather as a community, hold events, and share their diverse perspectives on life at the University. The center would help prevent the so-called “BC Bubble” by encouraging students to expand their understanding of the community, she said.

Advocating for the construction of a student center has been a central part of UGBC’s agenda for years, and the proposal has been brought up in past meetings between student representatives and the Board. Last year’s UGBC’s leaders, Russell Simons and Meredith Mccaffrey, both BC ’17, made the decision to donate $20,000 of the organization’s funds toward plans for the center.

“They set something of a legacy in motion for student government of really putting your resources where your advocacy is,” Achampong said.

Although the new 10-year strategic plan also does not include a proposal for the center, the center is still in the works, according to a previous interview with Vice President for Student Affairs Barb Jones. n

BC Responds to Concerns on Diversity, Inclusion Letter, from A1 -tural problems lead to institutional racism and the discrimination of marginalized populations. “[BC is] institutionally racist because it is a predominantly white institution, built in America,” Achampong said. “The foundations of this nation don’t necessarily allow for structures to move in the way of equity for a lot of marginalized groups.”

She praised some administrators for “genuinely caring” about the wellbeing of students and working toward tangible change and difference, noting Mogan and Vice President for Student Affairs Barb Jones.

“I think BC is trying to head in the right direction, but what is important for

the University to realize is the BC community, for the most part, is fueled with a different kind of passion than I have seen before, so they must prioritize bringing these proposals to fruition,” Goso said.

Students said they are tired of what Achampong called the “cyclical” dialogue of the University, which forces students to have conversations on diversity and inclusion with the administration frequently.

“They are here just to be students, but they are taking up other mantles just to be students for others within their own campus,” Achampong said. “Work can be lost by doing this.”

“We want to be able to graduate from BC ... and say ‘I was so proud to go there’ because they embodied all of things they said they did when I signed up to attend this University,” Achampong said. n

Cole Dady / heights staff

Students Learn About Refugee Camps

By Cole Dady Heights Staff Boston College students were given the opportunity to learn about the realities of life in refugee camps and gain the knowledge to become advocates for change at an event Wednesday entitled “Walk a Mile in My Shoes.” The event was organized by a variety of on-campus organizations, such as BC charity: water, GlobeMed, and BC Model United Nations, as well as BC’s Center for Human Rights and International Justice (CHRIJ).

A number of stations were set up along the walls of the room, each offering insight into different facets of different camps.

Participants in the simulation first approached a table that focused on health and sanitation conditions. Speakers discussed how access to proper care and sanitation can be improved through initiatives organized by governments and non-profits. In Syria, for example, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency launched 3RP, a program dedi-

cated to strengthening the capacity of public health infrastructure and providing support for extremely vulnerable populations.

The program is not without fault, often failing to fully address unsanitary conditions and health issues in camps.

In Zaatari Camp in Jordan, there is only one toilet for every 50 Syrian refugees.

Making matters worse, anemia, diabetes, hypertension, and mental illnesses are major health concerns that are not being fully addressed.

Following this experience, event-goers headed to another station to learn about food security in camps. For refugees and displaced persons who are fully dependent on food assistance, their meals come from organizations like the World Food Programme.

This group distributes food baskets, which contain essential components of a nutritious meal, such as wheat, vegetable oil, and iodized salt. But living off of a diet like this will only provide 1,300 calories per day, far less than what people need to stay healthy, according to Sam Harmon, MCAS ’21.

Students and faculty then learned about water consumption in camps, and about how lacking potable water can have drastic consequences. By the standards of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, individual refugees are allocated five household water containers and 20 liters of water per person per day.

But back in the camps, families are oftentimes allocated only one gallon of water per day, an amount too small to survive on.

“This is a huge burden to worry about on top of the other concerns of being a refugee,” Boateng-Wilson said.

Around the world, the conditions that cause increases in the number of refugees are worsening, according to Timothy Karcz, the assistant director of CHRIJ. Germany and other countries have generously taken in refugees in this time of need, Karcz noted, while the United States has done less for them than it had in the past due to a fear of immigrants.

“Since 1975, the U.S. has resettled 3 million people,” Karcz said. “Of that, only two have been brought up on terrorism charges.” n

Culture Clubs Receive Less Funding Funding, from A1

Phil McHugh, chair of the SOFC and CSOM ’19, found this year unusual given the particular clubs that received lower funding levels.

“Historically a lot of the culture clubs have been Ignatius,” McHugh said.

“They’ve been some of our most active clubs, some of the biggest budgets we look at, but this year a lot of them are at a lower funding level. So, clubs that used to be Ignatius are now Cura, so budgets that we used to get that would be … $20,000, $25,000 for a semester now are limited to $1,500 or if they’re Magis maybe only $4000, $5000.”

While funding changed across all types of student organizations, the cultural clubs have been uniquely affected because they have been usually some of the most-active and most-funded organizations, and now have to work within a lower funding level.

Five organizations, including the Black Student Forum and Chinese Students Association, went from Ignatius level funding to the lowest funding level, Cura. Four organizations, including the Asian Caucus and Southeast Asian Student Association, went from Ignatius to the middle level, Magis, and three others, including Eagles for Israel and the Hellenic Society, went from Magis to Cura level funding.

The feedback from clubs has been mixed.

“I would say it’s been a variety of responses.” said Kyndra Angell, the as-

sistant director of student engagement who is in charge of the Excel Curriculum.

“I would say about a third of organizations … I may even move that to a half, about a half of organizations are 100 percent understanding. They realize that they dropped the ball last year, and they should have done better, they should have put this at a priority, and they are going to do so this year.”

The Excel Curriculum divides funding into three different tiers and each has a respective corresponding curriculum requirement, broken up into core and elective requirements in the form of events that club leaders must attend.

“We have events throughout the entire year … that every single OSI organization needs to partake in,” Angell said.

“It’s basically information that our office has deemed as important to run your organization. So anything from how to plan an event on campus, how to successfully motivate, recruit, and retain members.”

Last year, however, some club leaders did not fulfill the Excel Curriculum requirements, and consequently have a lower level of funding this year.

“To my understanding, the reason BC culture clubs received less funding this year is because many of them did not complete the training hours required by the Excel Curriculum … ” said Nicole Diaz, ALC Caucus co-director and MCAS ’19. “As an AHANA+ Caucus Co-Director, this is what I understand from the organizations and I think that while BC does tend to not prioritize culture clubs, the lower funding is pretty much the

responsibility of the presidents and executive boards to attend training sessions that are required by the University.”

“This happens every year … But it’s also across all organizations,” said Karl Bell, assistant director of student organizations. “And so, where the premise is cultural organizations were adversely affected, that may have been the case this year. Last year it may have been performance organizations, the year before it may have been academic organizations, and so each year is different, and it’s really being driven by the performance of the leaders for that particular year.”

Angell has already seen an uptick in attendance of Excel Curriculum events because organizations want to return to a higher level of funding, with some of them attaining all credits possible this semester. In the meantime, they have also been pursuing more collaborations with other groups as a way to more efficiently use funding, and seeking outside revenue streams through working concessions.

Some organizations were upset at this loss of funding, but Angell feels some common ground has been reached.

“They do very great work within their organizations and they depend on a lot of the resources that OSI is able to provide them, so I think yes, they were upset, maybe frustrated,” Angell said.

“But after conversations with a lot of the organizations that we’ve had … I think we are at a common understanding of, kind of, what happened in the past, how we’re going to move forward and make sure that that doesn’t happen again.” n

A4

The Heights

Monday, December 4, 2017

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Spry footwork and palpable chemistry propel Dance Showcase to new highs, B8

Professor and student discuss the Syrian refugee crisis, A5

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Vol. XCVII, No. 48

CHAMBERS OF SECRETS

SPORTS

SPORTS

METRO

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Women’s basketball fell to 2-6 after dropping two games this week,

Harvard’s Siyani Chambers snuck by BC’s defense with 11 assists and no turnovers, B8

MFA exhibit immerses visitors in an interconnected world, A5

Heights editors discuss the lms that best encapsulate the Christmas season,

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The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

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established

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Vol. XCVII, No. 49

Monday, December 5, 2016

A REEL CHRISTMAS

established

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1919

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TOM DEVOTO / HEIGHTS EDITOR

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8k 9fXi[ D\\k`e^# X 9ifX[ =fZlj L>9: \o\Zj gi\j\ek gcXe ]fi g\\i$kf$g\\i Zflej\c`e^ gif^iXd 9P :?I@J ILJJF 8jjk% E\nj <[`kfi Russell Simons, Undergraduate Government of Boston College president and MCAS ’17, and Meredith McCaffrey, UGBC executive vice president and MCAS ’17, presented to the Student Life Committee of the BC Board of Trustees on Friday about the quality of programs, student accessibility, inclusivity at BC, and the proposal to make BC a sanctuary campus. They also spoke about the post-election campus climate and civic engagement.

This is the second time Simons and McCaffrey have spoken to the Board of Trustees this year. Typically, the UGBC president and EVP meet with the Board four times a year. Simons and McCaffrey said that this discussion with the Board differed from prior presentations, which had a more narrow focus. In Simons and McCaffrey’s last presentation, they focused on a proposed student center.

“I think the major privilege of our positions is that we are so enmeshed in the day-to-day workings of the University, and that gives us a vantage point that few students have,” Simons said. “We have such a generalist approach to student advocacy now, which is the one difference

through UCS. Simons and McCaffrey also presented their work with student accessibility, and talked about the diversity of what qualifies as accessibility.

“Accessibility to us isn’t necessarily just physical accessibility,” Simons said. “[It is] accessibility in the context of communication between students, the administration, the accessibility of UGBC as a student government to the student body ... and how we continue to have an open line of communication between all the parts of the University that make our job possible on campus.”

In an effort to increase the transparency within the administration, this past October, UGBC held a conversation between student leaders and administrators. The communications department within UGBC also sent out a survey to receive student feedback on how UGBC is catering to students’ needs. McCaffrey said that they hope to release the survey’s results next semester.

UGBC is also working to accommodate students with physical disabilities at its events with the implementation of QR codes on event posters. After scanning the code, students will be directed to a webpage in which they can submit a request for an accommodation for a physical disability.

Simons and McCaffrey also provided updates on campus inclusivity.

between the Executive [Cabinet] and the executive vice presidency and the presidency—we have to be generalists.”

Simons and McCaffrey updated the Board on the initiative to keep O’Neill Library open 24 hours a day. The extended hours began last year in collaboration with Student Affairs and continued this semester. According to Student Affairs, the initiative has been a success due to the large turnout during late hours, and McCaffery hopes the program will become permanent.

Simons and McCaffrey also notified the Board about two of the resolutions it passed before Thanksgiving break, including a spirituality resolution and a resolution affirming the Student Assembly’s desire for a student center. The student center resolution, which was passed unanimously, does not outline a specific plan or budget for the center, but encourages the Board to make it a priority.

UGBC is also planning to create a peer-to-peer counseling pilot program, in which students can serve as resources for one another. The idea for this program came after an increase in student demand for University Counseling Services (UCS) this year. UGBC senators researched student-to-student counseling services at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to build a potential program. Simons and McCaff rey hope the implementation of this program would help alleviate some of the need for counseling services

See Trustees, A8

The Undergraduate Government of Boston College’s Student Assembly (SA) passed two resolutions on Sunday night, one of which endorses a petition by Eradicate BC Racism that calls for BC to take steps to designate itself a sanctuary campus for undocumented students. The other resolution calls for the University to adjust its current process for reporting bias incidents by centralizing a reporting form on the Agora Portal and creating a team of people from different campus organizations that would work on bias incidents.

University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., signed two statements last Tuesday that affirm BC’s commitment to upholding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an executive action signed by President Barack Obama in 2012 that gives protected status to undo cumente d student s . DAC A is threatened in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, who said he plans to repeal several of Obama’s executive orders, which could include DACA, in his first 100 days in office. Eradicate’s petition has 16 total recommendations, and Leahy’s action is one of them. The statements, one from Pomona College and the other from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, do not technically designate BC as a sanctuary campus.

The first resolution, sponsored by Gianina Chua, MCAS ’18, and cosponsored by Hailey Burgess, MCAS ’19, passed unanimously. The SA’s vote is the latest in a string of events since Eradicate released the petition last Monday, including Leahy’s signing the statements on Tuesday and a rally hosted

by Eradicate last Thursday that called for further, more concrete actions from the University.

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power of the people who are out there,” said Alyssa Florack, a member of CJBC and MCAS ’17. “We want to give thanks to those people, but also remind people that it’s not over. You can’t just share the Facebook link and be like ‘it’s a victory!’ when there are still so many injustices going on.”

This rally is part of CJBC’s weeklong theme of “International Solidarity: When Climate Change Impacts Aren’t in my Backyard.” CJBC is collaborating with the Chinese Student Association, the South Asian Student Association, and Eradicate BC Racism to host a series of events throughout the week.

“We’re not just looking at climate change, but we’re also looking at the social justice issues related to that,”

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General Manager to 3 p.m., where students can trace their hands in blue marker and add it to a “rising sea-level” on a poster.

“These particular injustices may be over in this one battle, but if you look at who’s going to win the war overall there’s still so much to be done,” Florack said.

of environmental degradation on Native caused concern among many members American land and Standing Rock while of UGBC. also integrating a large component of “This is dealing with fundamental prayer and faith. The rally will take place human rights,” Michael Proietta, MCAS on O’Neill Plaza at 4:30 p.m. ’19, said. “It’s an ethical and to some extent religious imperative to support “[Standing Rock is] a huge victory, and it’s very exciting, and I think it resomething like this.” ally shows the power of protest and the Raymond Mancini, CSOM ’19, raised the concern that supporting the Eradicate petition could endorse violating federal law, but several members said that the petition does not call for BC to resist requests for lists of undocumented students if the government had a warrant.

“If we don’t approve something like this, that’s an active statement that we do not support those students, or those humans, generally, which is completely contrary to what we stand for as a Jesuit 9P JFG?@< I<8I;FE university and a liberal arts university,” E\nj <[`kfi E\nj <[`kfi Josh Frazier, MCAS ’19, said. “And it’s going to put us at … a disadvantage as Just before Thanksgiving Break , See Student Assembly, A3 Boston College awarded a financial aid package to Minaldy Cadet, MCAS ’20, a student who had hoped to receive aid after he learned that he was ineligible to receive any financial aid for the fall semester because of his citizenship

AMELIE TRIEU / HEIGHTS EDITOR

To The Heights:

THE

HEIGHTS

HEIGHTS

THE

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HEIGHTS

? ?\`^_kj <[`kfi Over the summer, many events—especially the publicized incidents of police brutality and the Pulse nightclub shooting—have contributed to a growing tension and fear that marginalized communities across the nation are ex-

more of the race-biased incidents happening around us and students’ distress about that.”

With the negative impact some marginalized groups have felt this fall, AhnAllen has also noted a growing demand for an official conversation on diversity within individual counseling sessions at UCS. The panel, moderated by AhnAllen, will begin with opening remarks from Vice President for Student Affairs Barbara Jones, as well as Billy Soo, Vice Provost for Faculties. The panel will feature three professors and one member

Trump gave a lot of attention to issues of diversity and inclusion, and resulted in a general increase in student activism on campus. University Counseling Services (UCS) will host an event focusing on these issues Tuesday in the Commons Room of 2150 Comm. Ave. The event will feature a panel of both Student Affairs staff and faculty from various departments. The panelists will discuss different aspects of diversity and inclusion based on their fields of expertise, connecting their observations to campus culture.

“Our initial conversations happened

B8

Michael Proietta, MCAS ’19, looks more eccentric than most people on campus, with his trademark bowtie and wild-man, mad-scientist hair. And then he gets going on something in his deep bass voice, a sort of low, breakneck murmur, and you realize he sounds the part, too. But it might be what he’s saying that generates the most interest.

Proietta is a senator in the Student Assembly (SA) of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College. He and Raymond Mancini, CSOM ’19, have developed something of a reputation this year for being contrarians, automatic dissenters in SA resolutions dealing with social issues or diversity on campus. They certainly would like to see some changes in the SA, but Mancini said the overall characterization is unfortunate. What they’re really out to do, they said in an interview Monday, is find some balance. And as Proietta demonstrated this week, they aren’t definite “no” votes.

At an SA meeting this past Sunday, as members debated whether they should adopt a resolution endorsing a petition calling on BC to designate itself a sanctuary campus for undocumented students, Proietta raised his hand.

“This is dealing with fundamental human rights,” he said. “It’s an ethical and to a great extent religious imperative to support something like this.”

Another senator raised his hand right after: “Call to end debate?”

Some people laughed at the abruptness, and Meredith McCaffrey, UGBC executive vice president and MCAS ’17, kept the debate open, but the sense was that since Proietta supported the resolution, when he may have been viewed as likely to dissent, everybody else was a definite yes. That’s exactly the type of situation he and Mancini

2,900 30%

would like the SA to avoid.

When they were talking before the meeting, even though they disagreed, Proietta encouraged Mancini to dissent on the resolution, just because he knew there would otherwise be no dialogue. And though Mancini eventually voted yes, he argued for several minutes that becoming a sanctuary campus could endorse BC’s violating federal law.

It’s a familiarly minority position. This semester, the pair has had a finance committee resolution it proposed voted down 22-2; voted against resolutions calling for the University to establish an LGBTQ resource center and a better bias incident reporting procedure; and gotten a spiritual-9P :FEEFI DLIG?P E E\nj <[`kfi ity resolution passed after it was postponed

students accepted

accepted

<Xicp <X^c\j CXe[ backgrounds, starting with buying the names of high school juniors who perform well on the PSAT. Counselors travel widely in the fall to present about BC, targeting specific schools with large AHANA populations, as well as community-based organizations, which often come to BC to tour.

“We’re working hard to increase the AHANA student application pool and ideally would like to see that percentage of AHANA students ratchet up a little each year so that we look more like the country,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney said that the updated SAT took some getting used to for longtime admissions counselors, but his team received training and concordance tables

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financial assistance within 10 business days.

Cadet said he was told that he was offered financial aid because he found out about his legal situation right before the fall semester began. Bernie Pekala, the director of student financial strategies in the Office of Enrollment Management, said in an email Wednesday night that federal student privacy laws prohibit his discussing student matters, but he said his office has worked closely with Cadet’s family and will continue to do so.

Cadet’s parents emigrated from Haiti when he was a young child. When his parents applied for citizenship, they paid

arrived in the United States in 1999 and when they started to apply for the green card in 2004.

As a result, Cadet’s father took out a loan to pay for his first semester at BC. Cadet and his family have been working to find a way to receive financial aid since then. They appealed to BC to help them just before the fall semester began, but they were denied.

Cadet’s story gained some attention.

The Miami Herald interviewed and wrote an article on him after his father took out the loan. Rubio reached out, Cadet said, telling him not to worry about money. Rubio’s office confirmed

Managing Editor

from the College Board to help smooth the transition.

Georgetown University and the University of Notre Dame, generally considered BC’s biggest competitors for applicants, released their early admissions statistics before Winter Break. At Georgetown, the early action acceptance rate was 11.9 percent from 7,822 early applicants, a record-low rate, according to The Hoya. Notre Dame accepted 24.4 percent of 6,020 early applicants. Its admission website reported that it saw a 10 percent increase in early applications over last year.

Georgetown reported an average

See Admissions, A3

card by the end of the summer of 2016, Cadet accepted his offer from BC, which stated that he would receive financial aid once he obtained a green card.

In August, the immigration office denied his request for a green card, saying he and his family had overstayed their visa between the time that they first

According to the BC fi nancial aid website, students who believe they have special circumstances that have led them to need to adjust their financial aid packages can appeal to the Appeals Committee. After the Committee looks over the appeal form, it will notify the

student of whether he or she was offered AMELIE TRIEU / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Although his current financial aid package only covers the spring semester, Cadet believes he and his lawyers and advisers will be able to find a way to extend the financial aid.

“Obviously our main objective is to stay here for four years and graduate here,” he said.

Gianina Chua, MCAS ’18 (left), and Hailey Burgess, MCAS ’19, presented the first resolution.

and I were talking about ways to bring the community together, the collaboration with the faculty piece came about,” AhnAllen said. “Students, obviously, spend a lot of their time in class and having these kinds of conversations with faculty, and as Student Affairs folks, we are trying to merge that gap between student life, student support, and what students talk about in their classes and classrooms.”

Regine Jean-Charles, who teaches African and African Diaspora Studies, will speak about reconciling frustration toward various events in the context of

gender and race. John McDargh, a theology professor and an active member of the LGBTQ community on campus, will speak on bias incidents, how to respond to them, the impact they have on campus, and how to collectively move forward. Burns will be talking about the impact on mental health through the lense of trauma and bias.

The goal of the panel is to explore the different perspectives of diversity and inclusion from the panelists’ points of o view, then move into the larger question of how to have conversations across differences and tension points while main-

MADELEINE D’ANGELO / HEIGHTS EDITOR

9P :?I@J ILJJF 8jjk% E\nj <[`kfi Over 400 seats will be added to Boston College’s core pilot courses next academic year, which will allow 1,083 students to enroll in the experimental classes. The pilot courses were offered to 350 first-year students during the 2015-16 academic year. That number was increased to 750 students for the 2016-17 academic year.

The core pilot courses were created in 2012 when an outside agency called Continuum was brought in to help BC update its core. Julian Bourg, the associate dean for the core, said that students previously treated the pre-existing core classes as boxes to check off, and did not actually take an interest in the subject matter.

Continuum suggested that BC overhaul the current core with the core pilot classes. The original proposal created seats for every freshman. University

See AADS, A3

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tion. The Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus stepped in to sponsor the March, and well-known figures—such as Senator Elizabeth Warren, Attorney General Maura Healey, and Mayor Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09—have announced that they will join the initial series of speakers and performers to join the marchers.

“I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with women and people of all backgrounds from across Massachusetts at the Boston Women’s March for America,” Warren said in a press release. “This gathering is a chance for us to come together to make clear that we believe in basic dignity, respect, and equal rights for every person in this country, and that we are committed to fighting back against bigotry in all its forms.”

Volunteer organizers began planning and promoting the Boston Women’s March in early December. The event quickly gained interest on Facebook and—although on a smaller scale than the D.C. March—over 40,000 people have currently pledged to attend the March on Saturday. If this number of projected attendees proves true, the Boston Women’s March could be one of the largest marches in the city’s history (the current record holder is the 1969 peace rally). Regardless of its place in Boston history, the March will be the most widely-attended gathering following the election of Trump.

The unique importance of this event is not only evident from this huge number, but also from the stories featured on the March’s website. From tens of thousands of marchers planning on attending, a selection of people have written short pieces

TATIANA PETROVICK / HEIGHTS ARCHIVE

Thousands of prospective students visit Devlin Hall, the home of the Of Of ce of Admissions.

lions of anonymous tax records taken from schools that participate in Title IV federal funding. The study measures both access and outcomes and mobility.

Its access figures are based on students born in 1991, or roughly the Class of 2013. Outcome and mobility figures are based on students born between 1980 and 1982, who are now about 35, around the age when relative income stabilizes. The study does not include international students.

The Upshot reported that 2.8 percent of BC students come from the top 0.1 percent of earners, 16 percent from the top 1 percent, 44 percent from the top 5 percent, 58 percent from the top 10 percent, 70 percent from the top 20 percent, and 3.1 percent from the bottom 20 percent. BC’s share of students from the top 1 percent ranks 24th out of 65 elite colleges.

Vanderbilt ranks No. 1 with 23 percent. BC’s share from the bottom 20 percent ranks 36th. UCLA is No. 1 with 8.3 percent of students in the bottom 20 percent. The New York Times defines an elite college based on a 2009 index from Barron’s that has a “selectivity index” of one or better.

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the course, monitoring student feedback along the way.

9P :?I@J ILJJF This semester, when registration for 8jjfZ% E\nj <[`kfi core classes opened to first-year students,

applicants from a wide array of fields, including history, anthropology, and political science, who specialize in the religious experiences of African-descended people, according to the AADS website. Summers said the three finalists for that position are two historians and one art historian, so the eventual appointee will be based in either the history department or the art, art history, and film department.

The English department position had an Oct. 12 deadline, and the other positions had an Oct. 15 deadline. All three positions are open-rank, meaning applicants could range from current Ph.D. students to tenured facult faculty at other schools. After the application window closed, some preliminary interviews were held in late November at the American Academy of Religion Conference in San Antonio, and the remainder of the interviews were held in late November and early December.

In March, Introduction to African Diaspora Studies was added to the social science core and African Diaspora in the World War I and II were added to the history core. That followed a report released by the Undergraduate Government of BC in January 2015 called “Towards a More Inclusive Community,” which suggested that BC give more support and funding to programs like AADS “that accurately reflect the history, culture and perspective of underrepresented people in America.”

Summers said he had been in conversation with Provost and Dean and Faculties

Boston College is in the process of recruiting three new professors who will serve as core faculty members in the African and African Diaspora Studies Program (AADS), which will increase the program’s current core faculty from six to nine and likely expand its course offerings for the 2017-18 school year.

Each of the hires will have a joint appointment in AADS and a “tenure home” in a specific department.

The English department is handling one of the hirings, a tenure-track position in African American literature and culture. Director of AADS Martin Summers said in an interview Wednesday that a little over 100 applications were received for the other two positions, which will be focused on race, religion, and the African diaspora. AADS is overseeing the hiring process for these two positions.

The AADS hiring committee has narrowed the field of applicants to a final six, with three vying for each position. They will begin coming to campus next week for a day and a half of extensive interviews, with the last applicant visiting in mid-February.

One of the two will be based in the theology department and have a joint appointment with AADS. The other position was open to

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and rewritten.

The Office of Undergraduate AdmisEach of those moves has come out of sion admitted 2,900 students to the Boston a frustration with the politics of the SA, a College Class of 2021 in December, about sense that its focus should be elsewhere, 33 percent of a pool of 9,000. Last year’s or a feeling that the proposals it considersearly action acceptance rate was 32 perare unnecessary and toothless, just emptycent, with a pool of about 8,500 applicants, rhetoric. Mancini voted against the LGBTQmarking a 5 percent increase this year in resource center resolution, for example,early applications. because he thought it wouldn’t make a big Admitted students averaged a 33 on the change in the community. He thought theACT and a 1425 on the SAT, which was resolution’s statements about a potentialupdated this year by the College Board to center’s purpose were too vague, and hea 1600-point scale and a new Evidencewould have voted for it had it been moreBased Writing and Reading section. Last specific. Proietta agreed that it was vagueyear’s early action admits averaged a 33 and didn’t see the need for a separateon the ACT and a 2128 on the old 2400building, thinking instead that a studentpoint SAT. center could contain LGBTQ and other Students were accepted from 46 states resources. The resolution, however, doesand 30 countries, with a geographic disnot call specifically for a separate building,tribution that John Mahoney, director of just a resource center intended to provideundergraduate admission, said is about the same as in years past. AHANA students education, programming, advocacy, and make up about 27 percent of those admitsupport. Overall, they saw it as an ineffected, compared to 28 percent last year. Matual statement, and were the only dissenters honey said about 30 percent of high school in a 15-2 vote. graduates nationally are AHANA. “UGBC is really a monolithic orgaAdmissions hopes to fill about 30 pernization, they’re impervious to change,”cent of the Class of 2021 with students who Mancini said. “Many of the senators don’twere accepted early action. BC uses a nonwant to make any overhauls that wouldbinding, restrictive early action program, actually develop meaningful change withinwhich means applicants may not apply to the organization itself.” both BC and another school’s binding early Proietta described the ideology of thedecision program, but may apply to other SA as dominated by a “complacent leftism,”schools’ early action programs.

Mahoney’s office makes extensive efforts to recruit students from AHANA See UGBC, A3

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Men’s basketball suffered its second consecutive blowout loss on Wednesday, 71-54.

B2

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SPORTS

Professor Gautam Chopra’s new film details authentic teenage struggles.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Eradicate—whose petition has been signed by over 1,700 students, faculty, and staff as of Sunday night—is now calling in particular for Leahy to sign on to an additional statement by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. BC is the only of the 28 American, Jesuit colleges to have not signed it. The statement explicitly commits to “[pro9P ?<@;@ ;FE> tecting] to the fullest extent of the la<o\Zlk`m\ 8jj`jkXek <o\Zlk`m\ 8jj`jkXek w undocumented students on our campuses,” which, according to an analysis Climate Justice for Boston College posted on Facebook by Eradicate, the (CJBC) will host a rally on Thursday to speak out in solidarity with the other two statements do not do. AfterStanding Rock Sioux Tribe, which has wards, Chua said in an interview that she was surprised Leahy had signed the two received significant attention this fall. statements last week, but more surprised The tribe’s lands have been the site of that BC was the only school not signed protests against the planned Dakota Acthe AJCU statement cess Pipeline. President Barack Obama’s Chua said the statements BC has administration said this week that it had signed do not necessarily protect agains denied permission for the last leg of the t pipeline to be built, a major victory for potential immigration raids at BC. The

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EST. 1919

WWW.BCHEIGHTS.COM

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2017

fewer freshmen registered for these The Upshot, a data and analytclasses than expected. As a result, theics blog run by The New York Times, classes were opened to sophomores onpublished a study on Wednesday night Monday. If the seats do not get filled bythat maps financial data at American enough sophomores, the classes will becolleges and universities. Boston Colopened to juniors. lege students reportedly have a median The Complex Problems classes ,family income of $194,100, ranking 21st which each seated 76 students last year,out of 65 elite colleges, and 70 percent of increased to 152 students this year. Thesestudents come from the top 20 percent classes were not being filled by freshmenof earners, ranking 22nd, according to the study. like Bourg expected.

“With any new experiment, there’s The article’s introduction states that turbulence when you take off the runway,”“some colleges are even more economically segregated than previously underBourg said.

Seats were also filled by sophomoresstood, while others are associated with income mobility,” though it does not in August for the first semester’s core explicitly criticize BC. Representatives pilot courses. from BC were not yet available when Despite the lack of seating, the core contacted for comment late Wednespilot courses will still expand another day night.

400 seats next academic year as planned.

The Upshot’s report is based on milDecisions to create classes are made a year in advance, which limits decisionNEWS: Late Night, Hillside Edition making based on student feedback for Hillside will now be open until midnight administrators.

Monday through Thursday.......................... A2 “[The] faculty are really pleased with the level of student engagement and in-

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

The Upshot also reported that BC is one of 38 colleges that has more students from families in the top 1 percent (16.1 percent) than students from families in the bottom 60 percent (15.2 percent). Families from the top 1 percent are reported to earn over $630,000 a year, while those in the bottom 60 percent earn $65,000 or less.

BC ranked 19th out of 64 elite colleges in median student income at age 34, with $71,800. At 56 percent, it ranked 17th in the share of students who moved from the bottom fifth of earners as children to the top fifth as adults. At 11 percent, BC ranked 38th in “overall mobility,” or the likelihood that a student moved up two income quintiles.

The New York Times also ranked BC against other contemporaries, such as schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference, other Massachusetts schools, and all of the nearly 2,200 schools it analyzed. When compared against these schools, BC often ranked very high or very low in each of the aforementioned categories. More information about these statistics can be found at nytimes. com.

9P D8;<C<@E< ;Ë8E><CF D\kif <[`kfi This Saturday, not even 24 hours after Donald Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States, downtown Boston will fill with attendees of the Boston Women’s March for America.

Beginning at 11 a.m. on Jan. 21, 40,000 people of all genders, ages, and races will gather in the Boston Common, at the corner of Beacon and Charles Streets. There, a selection of speakers and performers will begin the event and continue speaking before the crowd until 12 p.m., at which point the march will commence. Until 2 p.m. marchers will follow a 1-mile route that loops down Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street before returning to the Common where the March will end.

One of what is now 300 similar marches occurring across the globe following the Inauguration, the Boston Women’s March for America began as a grassroots event inspired by the Women’s March on Washington. The impressive size and reach of the Washington event, which is projected to draw at least 200,000 marchers to the nation’s capital on Saturday, inspired activists across the country to create similar events in the cities that they called home—including Boston.

In an effort initially pushed forward by local volunteers, the Boston Women’s March quickly gained attention and trac-

METRO: Revolutionizing Recovery

With their startup Exowear, BC grad streamlines patient recovery.........................A4

INDEX

See Women’s March, A4

NEWS.......................... A3 ARTS & REVIEW............ B1 METRO................... A4 SPORTS......................B8 OPINIONS................... A6

Vol. XCVIII, No. 1 © 2017, The Heights, Inc. www.bcheights.com

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HAVE A PURPOSE

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ARTS & REVIEW

Outgoing members of the 99th Editorial Board of The Heights.

Now the star of the show, Scott Savage takes inspiration from former teammate Ian Jenkins.

DOBC puts on a stellar performance in its eclectic ‘SHINE’ showcase.

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE

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NEWS: Unauthorized Posters

Several unapproved posters appeared in women’s bathroom stalls on campus........ A3

FEATURES: One Scoop or Two?

INDEX

White Mountain Creamery has served many generations of students...................................A4

Vol. XCVIII, No. 6 © 2017, The Heights, Inc. www.bcheights.com

NEWS.......................... A2 SPORTS......................B1 FEATURES...................A4 ARTS & REVIEW............ B8 OPINIONS................... A6

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Monday, December 4, 2017

Service Trip Guru Heads for Guyana After Graduation

By Timmy Facciola Heights Staff Frances Christianson, MCAS ’18, has seven months left to enjoy her flushable toilet. On June 10, 2018, she’ll depart for Guyana for two years of work with the Peace Corps.

The soon-to-be Boston College graduate, who arrived on campus planning to pursue dentistry, will be a primary literacy specialist and will aid teachers in making their curricula more efficient. She also plans to run a reading club for adults and design activities to help kids integrate English into their home lives.

Christianson grew up in Plymouth, Minn., a small town surrounded by lakes and 100 of her first cousins. Her mother is one of nine, and her father is one of 10. The extended family has a polka band and two blues bands.

“Our family reunions are sometimes like battle of the bands,” she said.

For fun, Christianson and her family will pack walkie-talkies, books, fishing gear, and back up sandwiches in case they don’t find any fish, and maroon themselves on islands in the lakes of Canada. In her time on the islands, Christianson loves to journal and reflect on life.

“You need to be at peace with yourself to step back from the situation and understand that you are there and this is happening in this moment,” she said.

Growing up, Christianson watched almost no television. The family TV had only 10 channels, and her parents encouraged their kids to venture into the outdoors or read instead. In the same spirit that some siblings steal clothes, Christianson and her siblings stole each other’s books. The whole family adores The Lord of the Rings series and watches all of the extended cuts of the movies over school breaks.

If you make a reference to Wizards of Waverly Place or Hannah Montana, Christianson probably won’t know what you’re talking about—usually when her friends share memes, she just smiles and pretends to get the reference, she said.

Her home life was wholesome but still active. She was sheltered from the

antics of Zack and Cody but was always encouraged to hike, fish, and sail. Christianson embraces her surroundings wherever she is, so when she left her quaint, midwestern town for the bright lights of Boston, she adapted.

On the first night of Welcome Week at BC, in what seemed to her like a daring act of defiance, Christianson skipped the optional movie night in Conte Forum and ventured into Boston with friends. Before that night, her only contravention was sneaking the school-forbidden Harry Potter and Twilight books—wrapped in brown paper bags—into her parochial grade school.

On the walk to the T, Christianson’s head was on a swivel, keeping an eye out for any kidnappers that might pick her out of the group of 20 girls walking around Chestnut Hill.

She maintained her heightened sense of caution for the duration of the year. One of Christianson’s favorite weekend trips was to a chocolate shop on Newbury Street for hot chocolate.

She’d get it to go, buy a croissant from the bakery across the street, and then sit on the bench in front of Tiffany & Co. Christianson would perch under the blue awning, on the lookout for any approaching muggers.

Freshman year was spent exploring, but also served as a spiritual and intellectual awakening for Christianson.

“I arrived to campus with a very bythe-book understanding of my faith,” she said.

She enrolled in Perspectives on Western Culture, taught by Stephen Pope of the theology department. In that class, Christianson first encountered the work of Dorothy Day and became exposed to the concept of discipleship.

“The fact that [Day] wasn’t afraid to get dirty, I loved that,” she said. “She embraces humanity as it is. Meeting people for who they are, never putting a fake face on herself or the people she met. I think that’s crucial for living life.”

With her new understanding of the importance of service, Christianson signed up for Appalacia Volunteers and ventured to Lexington, Ky. That week, two inches of snow fell, effectively shutting down the town. Christianson

and her peers had to stay in the Lexington Habitat for Humanity office, performing tasks that were tedious, but necessary. The team built frames of wood that would later get transported to the building sites and installed in the homes. But, Christianson never got to experience working on an actual construction. In hindsight, she thinks this was good because it challenged her preconceived notions of service and taught her it was the work that mattered most.

In preparation for her high school National Honor Society, Christianson had to satisfy a community service requirement. To do so, she did the bare minimum, telling herself repeatedly that it was for her resume and going more to be there than to do something. She raked leaves at the church and handed out medals at a half marathon.

“I wouldn’t call it service. I was just a floating body,” she said.

In Lexington, although Christianson didn’t get to see the lasting effects of her work, she was making a lifechanging impact. She was doing the work but not seeing the people.

“I learned that the importance was that the community would benefit from the work, regardless of if I got to see them appreciate it or hear them thank me,” she said.

With a refreshed image of service in her mind, Christianson went to a career fair at Conte her sophomore year, curious about service opportunities available after graduation.

Everyone was in their CSOM-finest, while Christianson had showed up in jeans and a sweatshirt. Nevertheless, she perused the different stations and arrived at the Peace Corps table, where she met Lori Dunn, the field-based partnership builder and recruiter for the Boston region. Dunn told her about what distinguishes the Peace Corps from other service groups.

The Peace Corps sends its volunteers to countries for two years at a time. The community needs to reach out to the Peace Corps first, and if their plea is heard, an English speaker with a bachelor’s degree will go join the community, living in the same quarters with the same amenities as everyone

Sam zhai / Heights staff

After graduation Francis Christianson will spend two years with the Peace Corps. else. Each volunteer is typically the only native English speaker within an hour’s drive of his or her location. Christianson was intrigued by the challenge.

She worked tirelessly on her application for campus ambassador for the Peace Corps. In her essay, she recalled her trips to the lake islands with her family and talked about how she enjoys isolation, but her roommates were a little unsure about the whole thing.

“I actually cried in class when I found out she had been accepted,” said Rachel Piccolino, MCAS ’18.

Christianson earned the position of campus ambassador at the end of her sophomore year. She now talks to prospective applicants to help them discern if the Peace Corps’ challenging mission is a good fit for them. In her work, Christianson frequently reflects on the demanding sacrifice of the service.

Christianson is looking forward to the challenging but rewarding nature of being a foreigner in a new culture and gets more excited for the Peace Corps after each BC service trip she takes.

Her junior year, she went on an Arrupe trip to Belize, where she got a taste of the sort of environment the Peace Corps will eventually place her in. There was limited privacy and crowded conditions, but Christianson loved every moment of it.

“To embrace humanity every day, you to have to cross multiple cultural boundaries, and if you can embrace and listen to people, you can start to under-

stand their points of view,” she said.

She returned from Belize at the end of Winter Break. That spring, she began working with the St. Joseph’s Society, which travels to a street near Berklee College of Music to hand out coats and sandwiches to the homeless.

One night, she jumped a bit when out of nowhere she heard someone say, “I like your coat.” She looked up to see a homeless man smiling. The two began talking, and she learned his name was Fred. On her Friday night outings, Christianson and Fred bonded over their curiosity about life and their love of plaid.

“He was the first person who challenged me to think about the privilege I have and how I use it,” she said.

Fred doesn’t have a cell phone, so he and Christianson keep in touch through Facebook, which he accesses at the public library. She considers him a mentor.

It was during her junior year—at a crossroads between her experience in Belize, her student ambassadorship with the Peace Corps, and her friendship with Fred—that Christianson began to understand her purpose in life.

“Yes, I’m getting this education for me and doing things in life because they affect me,” she said. “But I’ve realized I’m going to affect other people either positively or negatively, and I’ve decided I want to use my privilege to help people.” n

Althari Hopes to Score in Public Policy and Global Affairs

By Colleen Martin Heights Staff Sultan Althari has boundless energy.

His vibrant personality is apparent as he walks through campus—he stops to chat with a friend in Gasson’s reading room and throws up a hand in greeting to another at Hillside. Even his professors recognize his charm and charisma.

“He’s kind of a celebrity on campus,” said Kathleen Bailey, a professor in the political science department and the supervisor of Althari’s senior thesis.

Born in Saudi Arabia, Althari moved to Virginia when he was only three months old so that his mother could complete her medical residency at Georgetown University. His father worked for the embassy while pursuing a higher degree in finance, and Althari grew up having a self-described normal ’90s childhood. When he was about five years old, his mother finished her residency and the family returned to Saudi Arabia.

For the first few years following his return to Saudi Arabia, Althari attended elementary and middle school. At around 10, he began to dream of becoming a professional soccer player. What was once a hobby quickly became an obsession, and before long he told his parents how he felt. Their incredible support allowed him to pursue his passion, and he began

training with local clubs.

Althari went to Milan for two trials for the professional team when he was only 14. Although he didn’t make it, he is grateful for the experience because it provided him with feedback that allowed him to see what he had to improve in order to get where he wanted to be. He embraced the concept of “failing forward” in order to turn his failures into successes.

After returning home from Milan, Althari heard about Aspire Academy in Qatar, which was dedicated to recruiting superior athletes to attend school.

Althari said that his parents recognized his independence and ambition, and understood why he wanted to take a step as major as moving to another country to pursue soccer. Coming from a very academically focused family, he realized that his dream was unconventional, but not impossible.

Although his family was supportive, he faced social pushback. Some of his peers at home didn’t understand why he wasn’t following the norm. His aspirations were stronger than any doubts, however, and he decided to try the academy. What may seem like something too nerve-wracking for any 15-year-old to attempt was just another step for Althari.

“He’s fearless in so many ways,” said Bailey.

Sam zhai / Heights staff

Sultan Althari channels his roots to provoke growth in public policy and youth empowerment.

He went for one month as a trial period—incredibly stressful for a 15-yearold surrounded by people who were gifted both athletically and academically. He had two- to three-hour practices, sometimes twice a day. Even though he felt challenged, he was happy with his decision.

The school had 24 fields, and for a young athlete, that was paradise.

“It was like [being a] kid in a candy shop,” Althari said.

He was awarded a scholarship from the school and continued on to be one of the top three scholar athletes by the time of his graduation. As his senior year rolled around, he had a choice to make: Should he continue on the path to professional soccer or choose a more academic route?

Althari had remained dedicated to his academics throughout his time at school, always reading and trying to improve in his studies. After strong urging from his teachers, he started to look into combining his passion for soccer with his schooling. After emailing with coach Ed Kelly, he decided to come to Boston College. His siblings were familiar with Boston since they had attended school in the area.

He was intrigued by BC because, although Boston has a large Saudi community, BC only had one undergraduate and three graduate Saudi students at the time, according to the BC Fact Book. Althari was interested as to why they were so underrepresented, and embraced his role as a trailblazer and model for other Saudi students in the future. Since his arrival, BC has gained four more Saudi students in its undergraduate and graduate programs combined. Althari recognized that BC was one of the best schools in the country to carry out his ambitions.

Althari credits much of his academic success to his family. His mother, Khawla Al Khuraya, is a physician and cancer specialist in Saudi Arabia. She is at the forefront in her field, having discovered the FOSM1 gene that is responsible for the formation of cancer cells in the human body. Her work did not go unnoticed, and in 2010 she was awarded the Order of Abdulaziz al Saud presented by King Abdullah, according to Arabian Business’s

list of the Top 100 Most Powerful Arab Women. She was the first woman in history to receive the award. Three years later, she became one of 30 women appointed to the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia, a group of 150 members that is dedicated to proposing laws.

Althari looks to the other women in his life, his sisters, for inspiration as well. His older sister, Sara, earned a degree from Wellesley and continued on to pursue a Ph.D. at Oxford University. His other sister, Mashael, is getting her master’s at Boston University after completing her undergraduate studies at Simmons, and his brother is working for the United Nations. Althari felt pressure being the youngest in such a high-achieving family, but it was a positive pressure that encouraged him to do his best. His family is firm in its belief that you can make it with the right amount of work.

When Althari was in Saudi Arabia, he realized that he was an underdog in all aspects of the word. Saudi Arabia wasn’t a top nation for athletics or academics, but his understanding of this didn’t discourage him—it pushed him to work harder and go wherever he had to in order to succeed.

When he arrived at BC, he found that his passion for political science, global affairs, and social justice grew faster than his love for soccer. He recognized the power he had as a student here and fully embraced the idea that one person can make a difference. Being one of only a handful of Saudi students on campus, Althari wanted to be a model for his nation.

“I wanted to be a good example for not only Saudis, not only Arabs, but for Muslims in general,” Althari said. Every morning, he prays before he does anything else.

If he has time, he likes to meditate before he leaves home for the day.

He wants to set the tone for incoming students and correct some of the false assumptions about Saudi men. Much to his pleasure, he has been able to see some of the impacts he has had throughout his time here—his friends that knew little to nothing about the politics and events in Saudi Arabia now keep up with the news every week. Althari stresses the impor-

tance of believing that one person can make a difference, a philosophy that carried into his choice for a senior thesis and plans for his future in public policy.

Althari is currently working on a thesis on the correlation between the empowerment of youth and national development in Saudi Arabia.The 32year-old crown prince in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salmen, is currently leading a reform in public policy focused on the empowerment of young people and is encouraging the aspirations of young people living there.

“He says we have the ambition, the creativity, the will, and the skills to succeed. All we need to do is work,” Althari said. “I’m a firm believer in that.”

Young people are on the forefront of national development in Saudi Arabia in a way that they haven’t been before.

While there are some reports on this correlation, Althari believes that they are missing a crucial element. Althari is not an analyst from the United States who has never visited the region, and he is not making generalizations and oversimplifications about the area and the people living in it. He is not an outsider that is speculating about what it might be like to be a Saudi youth—he is a young Saudi man with the desire to give back to the nation that allowed him to be educated at BC through the King Abdullah scholarship, a grant awarded to exceptional Saudi citizens so that they can study at the best universities in the world without the burden of debt.

“I want to provide an impartial, yet fair, expansive, and exhaustive account on Saudi youth and how they affect national development,” Althari said.

He has been analyzing the public’s opinions on how young policy makers have affected youth by conducting surveys and interviews. Althari’s goal is to be involved in the shift from a lack of equity to a system where merit is valued.

He hopes to pursue a master’s degree in national public policy or global affairs in order to help the most that he can.

“I have huge confidence that he is going to be successful,” Bailey said. “He’s going to be an agent of positive change in the world.” n

The Heights

Monday, December 4, 2017

A7

Boston City Hall Plaza Hosts Second-Annual Winter Market ByAlessandro Zenati For The Heights It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas in Boston, as many coffee shops and gift stores switch to playlists featuring songs about sleigh rides and winter wonderlands. While many Bostonians still await the first sight of snow, City Hall Plaza offers visitors from far and near the opportunity to get an early start on the Christmas spirit.

The large open space outside City Hall is getting a holiday makeover, with reindeer tracks and pine-tree branches lining the arteries that wind through over 85 cozy, boutique-style chalets.

Inside each one, local artisans, artists, and small-batch bakers have their products on display for visitors to purchase throughout the day.

At the center of the enclosure lies a custom-designed ice skating rink where people of all ages can weave around the marquee ‘BOSTON’ sign to spirited Christmas tunes in the light of an enchanted 20-foot-tall holiday tree situated in the middle of the rink.

After a successful debut last year with over 300,000 visitors, “Boston Winter Presented by Berkshire Bank” returns to City Hall Plaza until Dec. 31 thanks to a partnership between Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, BC ’09, and the Boston Garden Development Corporation. With an impressive outdoor skating path and a Holiday Shopping Market, Walsh hopes this family-centric holiday tradition will

reinforce City Hall Plaza’s potential as a holiday destination.

Upon passing under an archway decorated with weatherbeaten wooden skis and snowshoes flanked by miniature Douglas Fir trees, local residents and visitors are drawn to an oversized Adirondack chair. There was certainly no shortage of family activities, artisanal goods pop-up shops, and food offerings at “Boston Winter.”

The challenge was in deciding how best to visit all of them. A steady stream of classic Christmas jingles filtered through the grounds from a mounted speaker adjacent to the skating rink. Glimpses of ice skaters, young and old, whizzing by and dancing to the beat reminded visitors to embrace their inner kid and enjoy the time spent wandering through the market with family members.

As people popped in and out of the small wooden cottages, it felt as if you were making the rounds on Christmas day visiting old friends and relatives.

A number of local university A capella groups stood in as carolers at “Boston Winter” including Pitch Please, an allfemale a cappella group out of Northeastern University.

One cottage hosted Botanical Springs, a Vermont-based maple syrup producer that dished out sweet samplings of their blended and infused recipes, bringing smiles to the faces of all the proud New Englanders in attendance. Hand-woven scarves and accessories hung from door handles, such as those put on display by

The Tanzania School Foundation. This organization sold a variety of products made by hand in Tanzania and siphoned a portion of all proceeds toward funding the construction of new schools in Tanzania and improving the quality of education.

For many of the vendors at “Boston Winter,” this year’s edition marked their first time in attendance. One of the newcomers to this holiday festival was Xareni Artisan Made.

It is a Guatemalan collective that sells handbags made out of recycled materials as well as jewelry and cushions handmade by highly-skilled Mayan indigenous artisans in Guatemala.

Pablo and Eva Del Sil, who are not only business partners but also husband and wife, were inspired to create Xareni Artisan Made when they met a woman that represented her Mayan village at an expo in Guatemala City. They return to Guatemala once a year to visit the village that produces their goods.

“I brought my wife to Guatemala for the first time and she fell in love with all the Guatemalan handcrafts,” Pablo del Sil said. “We decided to start the business shortly thereafter,” Eva added.

“We need to receive people that really appreciate handmade products. There’s a story behind all of this.”

While Pablo and Eva only drove an hour from Rhode Island to attend “Boston Winter,” the festival gave visitors a taste of many different countries around the world through Vinopolis, an interactive

ALESSANDRO ZENATI / For the heights

At the second annual Boston Winter, visitors skate to Christmas jingles. wine-tasting experience. Red wines from France, white wines from Italy, and sangria found their ways onto the menu for some of the adults who wanted to take a break from strolling around the market.

Next to the wine-tasting tent, volunteers spooned out large ladles of steaming clam chowder and white bean chili to a pair of hungry kids that were discussing whether or not Santa was real. Non-believers were made into believers as they passed the cottage with a mailbox labeled “Santa Mail.”

Sarah Tucker and Brianna Simmons, seniors at Wheelock College, took a break

from gift shopping at “Boston Winter” to sit on a pair of wooden lawn chairs in the warmth emanating from a nearby heater. They spent the day at “Boston Winter” after hearing about the event on Facebook.

“We went last year. We were just walking by and saw the ice-skating rink.

At that point we had to stop in,” said Simmons. “[Boston Winter] gets me in the Christmas mood,” Tucker said. “We’re also sending christmas cards to our families and there are good backdrops. We took a picture in the sleigh.” n

With New Technology, Ardent Breaks Cannabis Stigma

By Charlotte DeMartini For The Heights Throughout her life, Shanel Lindsey struggled with factors associated with her personal use of medical marijuana. These struggles led her to found a medical cannabis start-up called Ardent, which is booming with popularity in Boston.

The sale of marijuana is a hot topic, with new legislation legalizing the drug in the state of Massachusetts in 2016. Lindsey wears many hats for Ardent, from the science behind the company to the business aspects.

“I was a one-woman team,” she said.

Lindsey is both the founder of Ardent and an attorney who contributed to writing the legalization bill of cannabis for the state of Massachusetts.

Using medical cannabis personally hits home for Lindsey. She has personally been using medical cannabis for the past 16 years, following the birth of her son.

She became frustrated with the fact that it was extremely hard to dose in the correct amount. She also struggled with the fact that it would

make her house smell. It became her inner drive to find a solution to her problem, so parallel to her legal career she founded Ardent and worked on making medical marijuana a better product.

She went to a lab in Framingham where she tested her homemade medicine, cannabis, in the lab. Quickly learning that activating marijuana requires precision, she realized that she could develop a machine that would activate the marijuana to its fullest extent.

Lindsey came up with the idea, and then brought a team together when she established Ardent. She had to hire a thermal and electronic engineer to design a device to transform the cannabis from units to an actual product. This product is known as the NOVA decarboxylator.

The NOVA decarboxylator is a precision heating device with laboratory grade heating. Heating is required to activate cannabis, which is why people either smoke it or bake it into pot brownies. But these alternatives waste about 50 percent of the cannabis.

Ardent’s product, the NOVA de-

carboxylator, is a game-changer due to its user-friendly setup. All a patient has to do is insert the cannabis and press a button, and they will need only 20 percent of what they used before.

Not only will people receive stronger effects from this method, but it is a big cost-saving tool. Additionally, NOVA removes the smell that comes with typical activation methods. This invention makes this form of medicine both simple and affordable.

Regarding the safety of cannabis, compared to other pharmaceuticals on the market Lindsey argued that her product is much safer. She claims that while pharmaceutical use has skyrocketed, the level of sickness has stayed the same.

Lindsey said that traditional pharmaceuticals are killing people through misuse. For pain relief, people are given opioids, which can lead to overdoses and death.

However, cannabis as prescribed for pain relief is a much safer alternative. Cannabis can treat people without many of the terrible side effects that come from other pharmaceutical drugs.

It helps people with painful dis-

eases such as cancer, and alleviates the side effects from chemotherapy Lindsey’s first investor was her mom, who helped to bring the company and its product to life. Lindsey expressed many times how it is important for women to take the lead in the industry, in addition to people who have been disproportionately targeted under prohibition, such as people of color, women, and minorities.

She also shared her excitement about the industry in Massachusetts, since it has been an inclusive community for those who haven’t been given opportunities to get ahead in the past.

Her goal, as well as Ardent’s, is to bring an understanding of science and data to people, in order to educate them about cannabis.

“Our goal from day one has been to give control back to medicinal cannabis patients, and to remove the stigma attached to cannabis,” Lindsey said.

“We want people to see that there are effective, all-natural alternatives to pharmaceuticals, and I believe NOVA is a gigantic step forward in offering that to the public.”

Though she initially became mo-

tivated from her personal struggles, Lindsey was also frequently exposed to the stigma around cannabis as a lawyer.

Lindsey expressed how she is a black woman and knows people of color are jailed disproportionately because of cannabis, which deals with both issues regarding social justice and the stigma of cannabis.

Lindsey was sparked to innovation by both these issues, making her mission to bring equity to the market and to let people have an opportunity to use cannabis effectively for medicine.

“When we set out to write the Massachusetts adult-use cannabis laws, we wanted to create a system that the rest of the country, maybe even the world, could look to when implementing their own cannabis regulations,” Lindsey said.

“We want our cannabis markets to be inclusive and open to everyone, and our hope is that the rest of the world will follow our example, she said.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but we’re heading in the right direction.” n

Muralists Paint Boston’s Immigrant History on City Streets

By Isabel Fenoglio For The Heights Painted on the brick exterior of Atlas Wines and Liquors in Boston’s Roslindale neighborhood is a colorful mural depicting Louis and Beatrice White, the store’s original owners.

Russian immigrants who came to the United States in the early 1900s, the Whites’ smiling faces are surrounded by flowers and cursive text written in Spanish, Italian, and Yiddish. The mural reads,“You will always be welcome in the city of Boston.”

Commissioned as part of the “To Immigrants With Love” mural project, a collaboration with the national letter-writing campaign of the same name, the mural celebrates immigrants from both the past and present, and reflects Boston’s unwavering support of its immigrant communities.

“It’s a pretty scary time for a lot of people right now,” said Katherine Copeland, the public art coordinator for the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement, which helped develop the campaign.

“We wanted to inform the community and really humanize the immigration conversation.”

After seeing Stephen Powers’ “Love Letters to Philadelphia” mural project, Copeland realized that the best way to do this was through public art.

“That’s what sparked the idea, I realized we could take the concept of

‘To Immigrants With Love’ one step further, for Boston,” Copeland said.

“It’s one thing to talk about it in policy and another to literally paint it on the city’s walls. This is the best way to show the city’s permanent and direct support.”

Three murals were commissioned, one in Roslindale and two in East Boston.

“We wanted to pick neighborhoods that were underserved in terms of public art and profoundly shaped by immigration,” said Copeland.

The murals were completed by the Mayor’s Mural Crew, a program created in 1991 to enable youth to become active participants in the creation of public art.

“A good chunk of the kids working are children of immigrants, so that made their work and involvement even more important,” said Heidi Schork, director of the Mural Crew.

In addition to the location of the murals and artists, subject matter was also carefully selected.

“Instead of randomly choosing anyone, we decided to focus on immigrant business people, people who came to Boston and achieved the American Dream,” Schork said.

“The goal was to juxtapose an immigrant from the past next to an immigrant from the present, to highlight how immigrants are still making huge contributions to our city.”

Portraits of Carmello Scire and

Veronica Robles dominate the side of a dentist’s office in East Boston.

Scire emigrated from Sicily to Boston in the 1930s, and founded the catering company now known as Sammy Carlo’s Delicatessen and Catering, a business that has served the community of East Boston for 75 years.

Clutching an oversized sombrero, Robles image stands next to Scire. Robles emigrated from Mexico to Boston in 2000, and serves as the executive di-

rector of the Veronica Robles Cultural Center, an organization that provides community activism and economic growth in East Boston.

The third mural is located along East Boston’s bike path, and depicts immigrant grandmothers collected from photographs submitte d by residents.

But the project goes far beyond the faces painted on the walls and the stories they tell. It is part of a larger effort to better connect immigrants

to city services and resources, Copeland said.

In addition to the commission of public murals, multimedia projects, social media campaigns, and a website with resources and services were made accessible by the public.

“Immigration is embedded in the fabric of our city,” said Copeland.

“Making the public accept and celebrated is our ultimate goal. Without immigrants, Boston wouldn’t be the same.” n

Keith Carroll / Heights staff

Murals in Roslindale and East Boston celebrate the city’s immigrant communities of the past and present.

The Heights

A8

Monday, December 4, 2017

Editorials

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Admin’s Response Is Necessary Acknowledgement of Student Demands

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

At the end of October, students organized multiple rallies and walkouts in response to the defacing of several Black Lives Matter posters and a racially charged Snapchat. At the “Silence is Still Violence” march organized on Oct. 20, student leaders presented the University with several demands, including the creation of a campus climate survey and the establishment of an online pre-university educational module, as well as the making of the African and African Diaspora Studies Program into a fullfledged department.

Soon after, on Oct. 30, eight students met with a group of administrators to discuss appropriate administrative action in light of the racial incidents that occurred. Addressing student responses through these representatives, the University released a letter just before Thanksgiving Break

outlining measures to be taken in the near future.

Appointed by University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., the group of administrators expressed a commitment to increasing the diversity of the faculty as well as the student body, creating a more inclusive environment.

Furthermore, they plan to educate incoming students through an online module and launch a survey to assess the campus climate among undergraduates.

The administrators acted swiftly in response to the students’ requests. By collaborating directly with the student body and prioritizing this situation, the University displayed its respect for students and awareness of the importance of taking action.

Although these immediate responses are relatively minor propos-

als, the administration’s quick response shows that they are committed to developing long-term solutions.

They have established this issue as a primary concern and hope for realistic and attainable propositions for future resolutions.

Nevertheless, there remains uncertainty over a specific plan to recruit more diverse faculty members, which the administrators acknowledge.

It is certainly difficult to guarantee that a diverse group of candidates will be available and suitable to hire, and BC has made progress in the past couple of years in hiring a high proportion of AHANA faculty. BC’s Class of 2021 is also the University’s most diverse class ever. Despite a lack of specifics, overall the administration presented proactive and effective actions that responded positively to the students’ demands.

Tune in to Eagle-Eyed at bcheights.com/podcast.

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editorial resources News Tips Have a news tip or a good idea for a story? Call Connor Murphy, News Editor, at (617) 552-0172, or email news@bcheights.com. For future events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the News Desk.

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Have an event that BC students might be interested in? Contact Madeleine D’Angelo, Metro Editor, at (617) 552-0515, or email metro@bcheights.com.

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If so, contact Archer Parquette, Features Editor, at (617) 552-3548, or email features@bcheights.com.

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Photography Are you interested in photography? Do you want to take pictures for an event? If so, contact Julia Hopkins, Photo Editor, at (617) 5521022, or email photo@bcheights.com.

- Nelson Mandela

Letter to the Editor A Response to “On Anniversary of Trump’s Election, Union Calls for BC to Drop

Josh Behrens, MCAS ‘18 Andrew Vaccaro, MCAS ‘20 Matthew Barad, MCAS ‘20 Sean Farley, MCAS ‘20 Kai Jorgensen, MCAS ‘21 Helen Haskin, MCAS ‘21 Jack Demasi, MCAS ‘21 Penny Hawthorne, MCAS ‘20 Will Supple, MCAS ‘20 Michael Quinn, MCAS ‘19 Julia Perry, MCAS ‘19 Fatoumata Sall, MCAS ‘21 Ann Mahoney, MCAS ‘19 Madison Boettner, MCAS ‘19

Ethan Starr, MCAS ‘21 Connor Kratz, MCAS ‘18 Kelly Nguyen, MCAS ‘21 Sara Valdez, MCAS ‘18 Kayla Lawlor, MCAS ‘20 Dan McCarthy, MCAS ‘20 Solina Jean-Louis, MCAS ‘18 Madison Hynes, MCAS ‘18 Megan Kay, MCAS ‘18 Ashley Puk, MCAS ‘18 Jennifer Zheng, MCAS ‘21 Victor Fisher, MCAS ‘20 Eliza Manriquez, MCAS ‘20 Grace Chung, MCAS ‘18 Paola Sanchez, MCAS ‘21 Harrison Tune, MCAS ‘18 Joseph Kim, MCAS ‘19 Katie Oh, LSOE ‘19 Joely Centracchio, MCAS ‘20 Krista Roze, MCAS ‘20 Kelsey Dullea, MCAS ‘18 Julia Barrett, MCAS ‘19 Maura Donnelly, LSOE ‘20 Alyssa Farnkoff, MCAS ‘20 Sabel Flynn, CSON ‘19 Elizabeth Madden, MCAS ‘18 Prianka Bedi, MCAS ‘18 Conor McCadden, MCAS ‘18 Kayla Dowling, LSOE ‘18 Renee Nichols, MCAS ‘21 Elizabeth Spitzenberger, MCAS ‘21 Aaron Salzman, MCAS ‘20 Elliot Smith, MCAS ‘14 Samantha Martin, MCAS ‘17 Matthew Bland, MCAS ‘07 Amber Ruther, CSOM ‘17 Andrew Donnelly, MCAS ‘10 Andrew Engber, MCAS ‘15 Stephanie Saltzman, MCAS ‘10 Jason Hazzard, LSOE ‘10 Nicholas Bain, CSOM ‘17 Michael Kolhede, MCAS ‘12 Tyler Wilkinson, MCAS ‘15 Alex Nicoll, MCAS ‘15 Lucas Shin, MCAS ‘12 Colleen O’Connor, MCAS ‘10 Bennett Applegate, MCAS ‘10 Jenna Zellmer, MCAS ‘10 Meghan Gavin, MCAS ‘10 John McLaren, MCAS ‘10 Andrew Kunzweiler, MCAS ‘10 Stephan Roundtree, MCAS ‘10 Jennifer Applegate, CSOM ‘10 Stephany Kunzweiler, MCAS ‘10 Matthew Hearns, MCAS ‘10 Catherine Curley, MCAS ‘10 Joe Monahan, MCAS ‘10 Clare Short, LSOE ‘10 Michelle Glennon, MCAS ‘10

The Heights reserves the right to edit for clarity, brevity, accuracy, and to prevent libel.

The Heights also reserves the right to write headlines and choose illustrations to accompany pieces submitted to the newspaper.

Letters and columns can be submitted online at www.bcheights.com, by e-mail to editor@ bcheights.com, in person, or by mail to Editor, The Heights, 113 McElroy Commons, Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467.

Father Leahy and the Boston College Administration, A majority of research and teaching assistants voted yes to the union, Boston College Graduate Employee’s Union – UAW, in a fair and democratic process certified by the National Labor Relations Board. We now urge you as Boston College students and alumni to respect their choice and work with the grad workers and their union in good faith.

They join thousands of RAs and TAs who have voted for unionization since 2013, when New York University agreed to respect a democratic vote on unionization by its graduate employees. 33 democratically elected Grad Workers’ Unions have successfully negotiated contracts with their university administrations.

We are deeply disappointed that your administration has asked Trump NLRB appointees to reverse the very rights of graduate student workers to unionize. In doing so, you stand with the Trump Administration.

Additionally, refusing to work with the union disrespects the history of Catholic social teachings advocating for workers and the right to bargain collectively. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reaffirmed this in 2007, writing, “Catholic social teaching supports the right of workers to choose whether to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively, and to exercise these rights without reprisal … Workers, owners, employers, and unions should work together to create decent jobs, build a more just economy, and advance the common good.”

We urge you and the Boston College administration to honor Catholic social justice traditions, drop your appeal at the NLRB and commence good-faith negotiations for a fair contract.

customer service 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 Michael Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, at (617) 552-2223, or email eic@bcheights.com.

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The views expressed in the above editorials represent the official position of The Heights, as discussed and written by the

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Editorial Board. A list of the members of the Editorial Board can be found at bcheights.com/opinions.

Editorial Anthony Rein, Copy Editor Alec Greaney, A1 Editor Abby Paulson, Creative Director Connor Murphy, News Editor Riley Overend, Sports Editor Caleb Griego, Scene Editor Archer Parquette, Features Editor Madeleine D’Angelo, Metro Editor Leo Confalone, Opinions Editor Julia Hopkins, Photo Editor Max Roth, Online Manager

Business and Operations Steven Everett, Layout Editor Madison Mariani, Layout Editor Meg Dolan, Graphics Editor Zoe Fanning, Graphics Editor Joan Kennedy, Assoc. Copy Editor Grace Gvodas, Asst. Copy Editor Chris Russo, Assoc. News Editor Heidi Dong, Asst. News Editor Annabel Steele, Assoc. Sports Editor Anders Backstrom, Asst. Sports Editor

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Jack Powers, Business Manager Kelsey McGee, Outreach Coordinator Kipp Milone, Collections Manager Will McCarthy, Account Manager Mike Rosmarin, Account Manager Chris Chilton, On-Campus Ads Manager Griffin Elliott, Systems Manager

The Heights

Monday, december 4, 2017

A9

Learning to Appreciate Coffee Benefitting 69

69

Joanna Yuelys The collaboration of two musical geniuses - A.k.a. Beyoncé and Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” remix. Sheeran’s lyrical brilliance accompanied by Beyoncé’s angelic vocals create a euphoric sound that will transport any listener to his or her happy place.

There are no other performers today who could create a more perfect union of musical flawlessness. I’m not saying they should get married, but more heavenly sounds have yet to emerge from any other beings.

The acoustic instruments, the choir, the harmonies, the raw emotion—it gets me every time. Beyoncé has been claiming a stake alongside other talented lyricists lately (i.e.

Eminem), and my ears—and my thumbs—approve.

When other people are uncomfortable - Yes, I’m sorry, I’m one of those people. I find a sliver of pleasure in other people’s pain.

Sue me. I’m not talking about some exponentially detrimental kind of discomfort. I appreciate the little things, like a minor faceplant or an awkward interaction with that one kid you had that one class with that one time. If you acknowledge a personal connection to this semiacceptable flaw, I appreciate you. If not, stop lying to yourself.

69

The end of Harry Potter Weekend - Live television is dying. No longer does joy come from lounging on the couch and flipping through channels until you eventually settle for Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

Now, joy claims its place among the company of on-demand streaming networks, like Netflix and Hulu.

You abandon Guy and the bliss of Flavortown and binge the newest Netflix original series before you settle for a show with eight seasons you’ve watched three times already. Alas, rumor has it that the infamous Freeform—formerly the glorious ABC Family—is feeding into the viewer’s existential crisis by cancelling the only good thing they had going for them anymore, Harry Potter Weekend. Cue the hysterics: sobbing children, burning bridges, wreaked havoc. The world as we know it is ending, and no one is mentioning it. I mean, apparently HBO gained the rights to start airing the movies in January, but still.

A Royal Engagement, a Lowly Disappointment - My future has never been more uncertain. Prince Harry, otherwise known as Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales, is, unfortunately, engaged. Despite the difficulty of absorbing such tragic news, I have since gathered enough composure to hold traditional mourning services due to this dire event (catch me wearing all black for the rest of my life). If only I heeded the wise instructions of the ominous “they” so that I may no longer remain an ignorant youth of a generation too dependant on such easy acquisition of fame—they did always tell me not to put all my eggs into one basket. Alas, maybe this is a girl thing, or maybe it’s just a me thing. Either way, this engagement isn’t a good thing.

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I started drinking coffee when I was a little kid. Maybe that’s a stretch—my grandma, or Yiayia as I called her in Greek, would give me a cup of decaf that was mostly milk. I would sit with her while she had her cup, and we would talk about the events of the day. The combination of Stella D’oro breadsticks and hazelnut coffee is one of those childhood memories that always brings me comfort.

The summer after my sophomore year of high school, I started working in a bakery. I would go in a little before six in the morning to load up all the shelves and ensure everything was running smoothly. It was my summer vacation and I was 15, so of course I was never going to go to bed at an adequate hour.

This was the summer I rediscovered coffee, except at this point I would drink it by the bucketful without creamer to maximize my efficiency and cut out unnecessary calories.

For the next few years, as I was navigating high school and college preparation, I quickly developed a reputation among my friends as the coffee fanatic.

I would drink around four cups a day, sometimes more if I felt like I needed to be extra productive. It served a functional purpose: to get me through the endless cycle of school, cross country, and college prep.

Coffee meant something very different to my Yiayia than it did for me. She was born and raised in Greece, where the culture around coffee is predicated on the idea that it is something to savor, a break from a busy day. When I return to the village where she grew up, as I do most summers, I walk through the town

square and see people at cafes sitting outside for hours, talking, smoking cigarettes, and playing backgammon.

The people in my Greek town treat coffee as a social activity, which has caused it to become an essential part of everyday civil life.

While in Greece, my family starts dinner in town around 10 or 11 at night.

We sit with our coffee until three in the morning, just talking and enjoying the beautiful nights. This is a liberal use of “we”—I’m known to doze off at the table.

Compared to my inhaling black coffee at three in the morning while I study for a test, this appreciation makes me feel like I am treating coffee the wrong way. For me, coffee is a pragmatic choice, not for comfort, but for utility to get me one step closer to success.

“Coffee meant something very different to my Yiayia than it did for me.”

The difference between my Yiayia and I is that I grew up in the fast-paced culture of New York, engulfed in an American society where productivity determines worth. She grew up starving under inhumane circumstances during World War II, coming to America, and working hard for everything she had.

For her, coffee was her break, a time to recharge and refuel in order to persevere through the difficult circumstances she had been dealt.

Nowadays when I speak to my Greek relatives, who mostly live in Athens, they tell me that this is a tradition of the old village. Now the major cities there are industrialized and in many cases people have adopted these American attitudes.

My uncle always updates me on the coffee trends in Greece—last year it was a Greek variation of a cappuccino.

Still, whenever I am in my town I order a traditional frappe—not the Starbucks drink, but the coffee and foam mixture that is a staple in any Greek establishment. Fusing my American and Greek influences, I still take it black because I am now used to the taste and cannot stand sugar or milk in my coffee.

I do not drink coffee every day anymore. Not for any profound reason, but purely because it makes me too jittery and shaky to focus on my tasks. I do drink it once in a while when I need to get a lot of work done or want to stay up late, but not nearly as much as I used to. I’m sure my looming final exams will prove to be one of these exceptions.

At Boston College, you never have to look far to find coffee. It’s served in every dining hall and is free during finals.

It proliferates our campus and is the key to survival for many students. “The Director” is a drink served at Hillside with four shots of espresso, in my opinion epitomizing BC students’ love for caffeine. Because our university culture all but mandates constant attention to our studies, organizations, and friends, coffee can feel like the only means by which to achieve this survival.

When I find myself up late and hyper-caffeinated I often think back to the coffee I would drink with my Yiayia, if you can really even call it coffee, and all of the trade-offs that come with the change of consumption. I do not think that either preference is normatively superior, but they are just two of many ways that different cultures value coffee.

As we approach finals, I will keep my Yiayia in mind and try to step back and enjoy my coffee, rather than just use it to do well.

Joanna Yuelys is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

Contemplating American Consumerism Lucia Madero During this Thanksgiving holiday at home, I found myself reminiscing with my family about our different holiday experiences in the various countries we have lived in.

I mentioned Black Friday and all the emails I had been getting from different companies offering coupons and sales.

I remembered the first time I found out about Black Friday. I had heard of people doing crazy things like camping outside of stores for hours, but I’d never seen it in person until about two years ago.

Wandering the streets of New York the day after Thanksgiving, I was shocked.

There were camping tents outside many of the stores I passed, and lines of people that went around the block.

People were pushing and shoving each other in an attempt to get to the front of the lines, and as I walked by, I heard some say they had been out on the sidewalk all night.

Remembering how foreign and strange this had all seemed to me, I asked my parents if Black Friday happened in Mexico, and if I had just failed to notice. My parents explained that Mexico had been trying to emulate the U.S. in that way, recently calling the weekend after Thanksgiving the “Good Weekend,” but that the custom was not as big as it is in the States.

After thinking about it for a couple of seconds, they mentioned that they preferred what occurred in Spain during the public holidays.

In Spain, shops close completely during public holidays. The hours of operation are much more limited than in the U.S. in general. Shops in Madrid are open during the first Sunday

of the month and closed on the rest of the Sundays. Around 70 percent of shops and businesses are closed during August, and if holidays land on a Tuesday, most people also take Monday off, bridging their holidays, so to speak.

Most establishments are even closed during lunch, in order for the Spanish people to go home, eat with their families, and take a siesta—a short nap.

Not only are the hours different, but the way people shop is different too. My mother vividly remembers

“What if one day, for a change, the shops were closed the day after Thanksgiving?” one of her first times going to a pharmacy in Spain.

She walked in, and asked for eye drops to whiten her eyes because she was very tired. The man working in the pharmacy turned to her and logically said, “If you’re tired what you need to do is sleep,” and then refused to sell her the eye drops. My mom then tried to buy soap, and the pharmacist pulled out four different brands.

“I’ll take six bars of this brand,” my mom said, pointing to one.

“No, ma’am, we only have these four,” he said.

“Okay, well I’ll take all four,” my mom replied.

“But then you’ll leave me with no soap to sell…I can sell you two at the most. Why do you even need all four bars?” the pharmacist replied.

Initially, my mom was confused.

How could the pharmacy only have four bars of soap total? She thought of WalMart, with its long white aisles filled with row upon row of soap.

Then she thought about the simple manner she had been able to decide

what soap to take compared with how long she would’ve taken in WalMart, choosing between extra lather, extra moisture, extra freshness, cucumber scented, lavender scented, complete hydration, or any of the other multitude of assorted variations that line the rows.

After reflecting on it further, my mom saw the logic in what the pharmacist in Spain had been saying. An article in Scientific American explains that we have a limited capacity of decision-making per day. This decisionmaking power starts to grow weaker the more decisions we are forced to make, until in the end, our brain is fatigued.

Instead of spending too much energy picking between the 30 different deodorants at CVS, we can choose our choices—limiting the number of decisions we have to make a day—which allows us to make better choices when it comes to important decisions.

Though the U.S. is certainly not alone in being a country of consumerism, I think the differences become obvious when it is compared to other countries. We are stuck in a bubble that encourages us to be materialistic people, starting with the advertisements, coupons, and sale events that constantly surround us.

Though it is not an easy suggestion, it might be interesting to see how we felt if we operated more like the Spanish do on a daily basis.

Perhaps we would feel less like we are constantly running out of time if we did not have to choose between Colgate extra-white, Colgate optic-white, Colgate extra-strength, Colgate cavity-prevention, and Colgate healthygums.

I’m sure many people would riot against this thought, but what if one day, for a change, the shops were closed the day after Thanksgiving?

Lucia Madero is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

The opinions and commentaries of the op-ed 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.

From Fear

Shannon Lyons

The first time I spoke in a college discussion was my freshman year, during my 9 a.m. class, “Philosophy of the Person.” I remember meticulously planning out what I was going to say as though it were an inaugural address—trying to string the words together in a way that would impress my professor and desperately hoping that I would maintain a calm, confident tone in front of my new peers.

The moment I raised my hand, however, I felt fear enter my body. My heart sped up and a surge of anticipation made my stomach curl. From the front of the room, my professor spotted me immediately and called my name. It was too late to back out. I took a deep breath and began to speak.

Looking back upon this memory a year later, I recognize how irrational my worries were. Now that I am more accustomed to the college classroom setting, I understand that it is not necessary to censor my every thought or to worry about seeming cool while discussing Plato’s abstract Allegory of the Cave.

With that said, however, fear continues to manifest itself in different aspects of my life, as I am certain it does for everyone. When I think about potentially studying abroad in a country 5,000 miles away from my home, my heart starts to race. When my mind wanders down the path of time and I consider that I only have two years left before I must enter the “real world,” my stomach twists into a knot. When I meet someone of authority or prestige, I can feel the heat rise in my neck and suddenly become acutely conscious of my every word.

Do these intense visceral reactions mean that I should ignore my curiosity to see other parts of the world—that I should resist looming adulthood by turning my gaze away from the future— that I must avoid speaking to people I respect or admire, so as to maintain the appearance that I have no fear?

In the utopian society of the college campus, there seems to be an underlying expectation for us to “save face” and to conceal the fear that makes us human. This paradigm is one that we ourselves perpetuate. As a culture, we are constantly demanding each other to relax—to “chill out,” to be cool.

But what if fear isn’t so bad?

Rather than seeing fear as a weakness or a burden, what if we began to view it as a springboard for opportunity? What if, instead of allowing it to slow us down, we began to interpret it as our body’s natural way of preparing for greatness?

In Amy Bucher’s article, “The Value of Fear,” she writes, “Just as there seems to be an optimal level of stress for growth and learning, a certain amount of fear can lead to high performance.

Fear signals there’s something of consequence on the line, a reason to exert effort.”

The presence of fear, whether it be in a classroom setting, in a relationship, or in contemplating the future, indicates that we are emotionally engaged in our own reality—that we are fundamentally invested in the the trajectory of our own lives. To feel deeply and to embrace all of our innermost sentiments, unconditionally, is to live authentically.

Just as sadness or anger often occur as fleeting flashes of emotion, fear too is ephemeral. At the most fundamental level, it is no more than our bodies’ internal preparation for the unknown, a physical response to the unpredictable question “What is going to happen?” It’s only purpose is to make us stronger—to stir our spirits and to propel us to leap into action. Other than that, it is entirely meaningless, insignificant, illusory.

In her best-selling book The Universe Has Your Back, Gabrielle Bernstein writes, “In every situation you have two choices: Will you learn through fear or will you learn through love?”

I believe that there is a way that we can do both.

Fearlessness is for the indifferent. I say, let us be fearful—to the very brim of our being—and let us rise in love anyway.

Shannon Lyons is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

The Heights

A10

Monday, December 4, 2017

Zinneken’s Waffle Truck Brings a Taste of Belgium to Boston

This eclectic waffle truck brings a twist to a growing food truck presence at colleges, serving dough-based waffles.

By Michael Sullivan Editor-in-Chief It’s past 4 p.m. on a Friday, and our camera crew is getting settled. On the search for the perfect food truck that could satisfy our insatiable desire for breakfast in the afternoon, we stumble upon Phil Pham.

He opens the sliding metal door to the window of the Zinneken’s Waffle Truck, where he has worked for the last two years and is now co-owner.

Pham fires up the motor that will power the fridges and electricity on the inside, pulling a lever that makes him look like he’s starting up a boat engine. It makes a loud hum that drowns out the sound of traffic slowly rumbling down Huntington Ave. He opens a door on the truck’s rear that would fit in more on a backyard porch overlooking the White Mountains.

Once inside, he begins pulling out premade dough from the refrigerated areas of the truck and placing them on the waffle makers, so that when customers come down, the waffles are ready to be topped with their choice of fruits and sweets.

For most restaurant owners, 4 p.m. denotes the dead zone—it’s too early for the dinner rush, but too late for

business people shuffling through for their power lunches. But for the crew of Zinneken’s, parked just across the street from the main gate of Northeastern University, the day is about to start.

Pham and his revolving crew of Mass Art and Boston University grad students—it’s not a Michelinstar restaurant, after all, as he puts it—cook up liege waffles. Unlike Brussels waffles, the more popular variety which are made out of a soupy batter that would require a ladle, liege waffles are made with a dough. It has the consistency of pizza, but includes pearl sugars that, when baked, caramelize into the waffle to give it a sweet taste. When the dough rises, it only stays in one place and doesn’t cause a mess in the truck.

The Fruit Delight and the Sin are Zinneken’s two most popular options. The Fruit Delight is topped with rich Belgian chocolate, hot and draped gently across sliced bananas and strawberries, while the Sin has globs of Nutella on top of banana.

Other toppings include caramel, speculoos (a crunchy Belgian cookie), Oreos, and other berries. Each can be topped with a delicious vanilla bean ice cream, or can even be made into

a sandwich.

The idea for Zinneken’s began in Belgium, when Nhon Ma and Bertrand Lempkowicz, two Brussels natives, met at school. On a trip to the United States in the early 2000s, they had noticed a lack of Belgian waffle restaurants. A decade later, they moved to Cambridge, where they opened a brick and mortar in 2011.

Three years later, they met another Belgium native, Anh-Phi Tran, who convinced them to take the Zinneken’s show on the road—literally—by joining the food truck craze.

To do that, the trio needed Pham, a man who has always known being a restaurateur was the dream.

“I just love food,” Pham said. “I mean who doesn’t love food, right?

There are many things about food that can be done with it you know. Not only does it taste good, smell good, it can even look good. Like you know, so many aspects to it, you can’t really say that about other thing. Like, for example, when you’re painting something, you can’t taste that.”

As a young man growing up in upstate New York, he began working in restaurants, in the front and back of the house, to learn the industry.

He spent a couple of years in retail

Madeleine D’Angelo / heights Editor

Phil Pham says that while food trucks have a stigma of being dirty, they are actually subject to strict health inspections.

Madeleine D’Angelo / heights Editor

The Fruit Delight features sliced bananas and strawberries with rich Belgian chocolate. when he moved to Boston, when he spent every day eating at the famous Chicken and Rice Guys food truck.

He noticed that how, in Boston, food trucks had begun to take off. So when Pham talked to the owner one day, with whom he had built a rapport because of how often he frequented the truck, the owner offered him a job.

Pham spent the next three years as the manager for one of their trucks.

As they began to get ideas for the truck, the Zinneken’s trio approached Pham to ask a few questions about how to get started. A few questions turned into a lot, with Pham advising them directly on how things should and shouldn’t go with the truck. According to Pham, the owners asked him to take a look at the truck they had purchased. The first thing he noticed was that the truck was too low, which would prevent the generator from starting properly.

“Eventually they knew they couldn’t really do it by himself,” Pham said.

“So that’s why they asked me to be a partner.”

Pham knew the waffle truck model in particular would take off after standing in long lines at the Wafels and Dinges carts, which have become highly popular in New York City. The primary target needed to revolve

around college students—Northeastern, BU, and Harvard are their most popular landing spots. They have particular success at Northeastern, where they advertise their “Waffle Wednesdays.”

Plus, Pham said, one of the benefits of having the truck is that, because of the small space, there’s not a ton to clean. On the other hand, when something does get messy, you have to clean it up immediately—food trucks are subject to strict checks from health inspectors, in large part due to their reputations.

“People tend to have like a stigma toward food trucks, thinking that it’s like a roach kill, it’s really dirty and all that,” Pham said. “But surprisingly food trucks are actually one of the cleaner ones compared to most restaurants.”

And the truck is just the first step.

Soon, Pham hopes, they’ll continue to expand in the city past the wheels and onto the ground.

“I would probably prefer to eventually get a brick and mortar just to have a home base for the truck,” Pham said.

“I think most food trucks do strive for that it’s not like they go through with the mindset that this is my life, like this food truck. … But at the moment we’re still trying to like build up our brand, our food truck brand.” n

Thank You and Goodnight: 140 ‘Heights’-less Days at BC Shannon Kelly I arrived at Boston College on Aug. 28, 2015. I set down Space Bags full of linens and sweaters on the mint green mattress in 90 St. Thomas More Rd. room 401, a memory book and picture frames littered among clothing. I said goodbye to my family, who despite the four-hour drive up from New York was ready to leave after 20 minutes. I sat on the bed, still uncovered, thinking about what to put on my walls. I wasn’t allowed to put up posters in my room as a kid, save for a paper cutout of David Archuleta from The New York Post when I was 11. But before I unpacked, I got a text from Michael Sullivan, then the sports editor. There was a men’s soccer game at 4 p.m., and I could sit in the press box. I loved it—tweeting out the play-by-play, writing during halftime, talking to the coaches after.

I wrote my first article on Aug. 30.

I’ve been working for The Heights ever since.

There are some things that are so difficult to ascribe meaning to, because those things tend to matter only to the smallest groups of people, or maybe just yourself. My best example of this is knowing that somewhere in the world at some point, a couple has used the full, eight-minute and 44-second cut of Don McLean’s “American Pie,” a song about celebrities dying in a plane crash, for their first wedding dance. For them, it must have made a lot of sense.

Maybe they were big fans of memorializing Ritchie Valens, or the way McLean sings, “Can you teach me how to dance reeeeeal sloooow.” Or maybe they heard it one time and that was the moment they fell in love, and no matter

what it was destined to be their song. I don’t know.

To people who only see the words we put on the page or on the internet, The Heights as a student organization can sound like a waste of time, an outdated means of distributing information, or just something that doesn’t deserve a lot of attention. But I’ve fashioned an entire world within the walls of McElroy 113, something that maybe 40 people understand, but never in quite the same way. The Heights is my “American Pie” as a first dance.

Everyone has one of these, whether it’s your 4Boston placement, or your quad in Fitzpatrick that roomed together for the next four years, or the three months you had in Barcelona when everything was in Spanish even though you only demonstrated intermediate proficiency. This newspaper defines my life at BC, whether I like it or not.

BC will always be intertwined in my head with the students and professors I’ve interviewed, the deflated-looking navy couch in the Heights office, the times I spent typing 90 words per minute the night before a special issue, the days I sat staring at a Google Sheet trying to come up with ideas, and carefully adjusting text boxes in InDesign, a skill that I never mastered. I made meaning here through slashing other people’s words and adding em-dashes with red pen and asking people I’d never seen before questions about their lives. I got comfortable writing silly columns that people thought were real (I don’t think anyone has ever sent me an email asking me for advice). A trip to a movie theater couldn’t happen without thinking, “I should review that.”

I would also like to take this column to thank a few people. Firstly, thank you to my compatriot in the features section, Archer Parquette, who grimaced at a lot of the jokes I made and is probably grimacing now, reading this. You are one of my greatest friends,

and we survived a great many things, namely co-writing a novella, coming up with the fish story last-minute, and the distinct lack of Payday bars because it is a candy from 1932. The section will be in good hands with Joan Kennedy, Brooke Kaiserman, and Timmy Facciola next year—we believe it.

Thank you to the sports section for always keeping the door open for me, to BC women’s hockey for being such an electric team to watch, and for Lizz Summers, the team’s sports information director. One of my favorite memories of my college career was driving up to Durham, N.H. three times round-trip to cover the Eagles in the National Championship and the Patty Kazmaier Awards. Photo editor Julia Hopkins and I talked the whole two hours up, even though we’d never really spoken before. We picked out a bridge that we passed by on the bus that was our marker for the rest of the trip, which I point out every time I drive on the I-95 N. I think of Riley Overend driving us up the next day at 7 in the morning and accidentally breaking the car, and how the office consoled Julia and me with White Mountain when the team lost. The sports section, from Tom DeVoto and Jack Stedman to Riley and Annabel Steele and Andy Backstrom and honorary member Keaton McAuliffe, will always hold a special place in my heart.

A special thanks to the graveyard of stories I never got to publish, from games that turned out different to the 3,000-word tirade I wrote about the Dirty Dancing remake. I guess the lesson there is that no one will ever get to see some of your passion-filled work, but sometimes that’s for the best. Another extension of gratitude to the hundreds of PR representatives and managers that email the features section weekly—even though we never wrote about you, I’m really rooting for the staggering number of Americana

folk bands we still have in our society.

Also a shout-out to New Hong Kong, which delivers to the Heights office without fail and whose dumplings are excellent.

I am thankful for almost everyone I met here. You have all given me the opportunity to make a fool out of myself and tell jokes every day. Sundays will always mean a time and place to go home after a long week and sit around and talk with my favorite people. I’m thankful that it brings people together in a way that your whole life is affected by it. Kaylie Daniels, a copy editor with me when I was a sophomore, is now my roommate. We were thrown together with Connor Murphy, with nothing in common save for a general knowledge of The Heights’s style guide. At this university of 9,500 people, this newspaper managed to introduce me to my best friend, the 2018 editor-in-chief.

There are also a lot people I felt like I just didn’t get enough time with, like Madeleine D’Angelo, who acted quiet for two years until she realized she was going to Paris for four months following her departure from The Heights and just burned every bridge and started inviting me to do things with her (this is, of course, just my interpretation of the events, so I could be wrong). She’s one of my dearest friends. I’d also like to thank Jacob Schick and Steven Everett, who transcend comedy and whom I adore. Also Caleb Griego, who by the time this is published probably will be halfway to Bermuda or something, but who is also someone who has been one of my best friends for two years but doesn’t get any of the credit.

Obviously it’s a lot to step away from something that has taken up my entire career at BC. For most other clubs, the separation period happens around the same time the rest of the goodbyes happen—your last meeting

or event takes place in May, just before finals, Commencement Ball, and graduation. The whole year leads up to that, sure, but it’s not like you’re being introspective about it early. But for me, I have to be, because this is ending, and while this isn’t my last piece for The Heights (I have movie reviews for Father Figures and Blockers penciled in, as well as a potential run for the National Championship with women’s hockey, so I’m not gone forever), I have to think about where I’m going next.

And truthfully, I don’t know. How do I fill up my Sundays with work or lying in bed watching Chopped when it was always the best day of my week because I was around the most incredible people writing about other incredible people and things? It’s sad. Some of my plans involve brunch with the same people I’ve spent my Sundays with this whole time. Others involve having a very hectic but rewarding internship (Application still open! Please email kellyaao@bc.edu if interested in giving me a job; will work for academic credit!). Most involve actually doing assignments ahead of time.

But even though it’s sad, it’s also exciting. Sometimes new chapters in your life are marked very clearly by images of caps being thrown up in the air or walking up the aisle of a church or an email from the company you’ve always wanted to work for saying “Congratulations!” (I can’t confirm that’s how an email about a job offer would look). I have had three days on this campus when I haven’t unofficially or officially worked for The Heights.

But a new chapter for me is starting right now, even if it’s kind of messy and blurry around the edges. I have 140 days left of BC without The Heights.

And I’m excited.

Shannon Kelly is the assistant features editor for The Heights. She can be reached on Twitter @ShannonJoyKelly.

SPORTS

MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2017

B1

@HEIGHTSSPORTS

BC Needed Adversity

HOCKEY

ANDY BACKSTROM

the game, packing on the pressure right from the initial faceoff and keeping the puck in BU’s (6-8-3, 3-6-3 HEA) zone. Toni Ann Miano took the first shot, but her attempt went just wide of the net and headed for Kenzie Kent.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, it was too fast for the senior to handle. The Terriers packed their defense around goaltender Erin O’Neil, denying the Eagles an opportunity to get on the board in the first period.

Despite racking up 18 shots, effectively putting pressure on the Terriers’ defense, the Eagles skated off the ice with a one-goal deficit, to head coach Katie Crowley’s dismay.

“I thought our first period was slightly disappointing,” Crowley

Already leading 20-3, Josh Jackson and Virginia Tech were on the move.

Inside Boston College territory, the redshirt freshman quarterback snapped the ball out of the shotgun and surveyed the field. Within seconds, Harold Landry was in his face. Bolting off the edge, the senior defensive end bull-rushed through a pair of Hokies. Before Landry could wrap up Jackson, Noa Merritt swam past the Tech center and dove for the redshirt freshman’s legs. But in doing so, Merritt rolled over Landry’s right ankle.

Still, the NFL prospect finished the play.

With one hand, Landry brought Jackson down by the shoulder pads, recording his third sack of the night and the 26th of his collegiate career—a mark that tied the Eagles’ all-time record.

But it was also his last of the regular season.

As soon as Landry threw Jackson to the ground, he jumped up and started skipping away from the play. Moments later, he was limping. All of a sudden, he stopped. The senior reached down and pointed to his right ankle before falling to the turf. His night was over, and, in reality, so was his season.

Landry saw limited action in the next two games and sat out the remaining four. He was just the latest victim of the injury bug—one that the Eagles caught back in the spring when offensive guard Elijah Johnson tore his ACL. But Landry’s ailment carried more weight than the other injuries. Regardless of BC’s record, he gave fans something to cheer for. Projected to be the first defensive end off the board in the upcoming NFL Draft, Landry put a reeling Eagles team on the map. Missing its star player, along with a handful of others, BC was as helpless as ever.

The injuries didn’t stop, but the misery did. The Eagles won five of their last six games, and with time, it became apparent that losing seven starters for the season was the best thing that could have happened to head coach Steve Addazio’s team.

Following the loss to then No. 16 VTech, Addazio walked into the Yawkey Athletic Center for his postgame press conference just like he would for any other home game. But this wasn’t your typical Q&A session.

See WHOK vs. BU, B3

See Adversity, B2

LIZZY BARRETT / HEIGHTS EDITOR

After failing to upend archrival Boston University on Friday night at home, both men’s and women’s hockey recorded multi-goal victories at BU just one day later.

BY MICHAEL SULLIVAN Editor-in-Chief BOSTON — It was deja vu all over again for Boston College men’s hockey—almost.

The Eagles got off to a blazing start against archrival Boston University at Agganis Arena on Saturday night.

Like Friday’s 7-4 loss at Kelley Rink, BC jumped out to a first-period 2-0 lead. Though they held for the remainder of that frame, the wheels started coming off by the second.

Shane Bowers tipped in a pass from Kasper Kotkansaro, while screening goaltender Joseph Woll to cut the Eagles’ lead in half.

But on just the team’s fourth shot of the frame, 15 minutes through, BC’s fourth line wouldn’t allow the deficit to get any worse. Casey Carreau’s perfect find to Ron Greco, who launched his third goal in two days, helped stop

the bleeding. And with 36 saves by Woll, the Eagles cruised to a 4-1 win in the 276th meeting between the two programs.

“We got a good start, and they couldn’t really dent Joe,” head coach Jerry York said. “Joe was the story, he played exceptionally well in a lot of different segments in the game.”

The first 10 minutes of the game appeared more like a track meet than a hockey game, with the same “ageappropriate” play from Friday night’s game, as BU head coach David Quinn called it, permeating down the B Line.

But the No. 15 Eagles (9-6-2, 9-2-0 Hockey East) thrived in particular on the strength of their backcheck.

Centers Julius Mattila, Aapeli Räsänen, Christopher Brown, and Greco each showed off their defensive skills with punishing

See MHOK vs. BU, B3

BY NICOLE PLA Heights Staff Abbey Stanley got her chance.

Boston College women’s hockey goaltender Katie Burt was out of the net, following a save, and the redshirt sophomore had a clear shot at an empty cage. She wound up giving it a go, but before the puck could connect with the back of the net, Serena Sommerfeld skated in from behind to block the shot and deny Boston University a goal.

Matchups between the Green Line rivals are always emotional, and Saturday afternoon’s meeting was no different, as the physicality was palpable. There were 15 penalties in total, and the Eagles tallied eight, en route to their 4-2 victory over BU. No. 2 BC (13-1-3, 7-0-3 Hockey East) dominated the puck early in

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

BC Flounders From the Field, Drops Third Straight to Fairfield

BY MIKE MALLEY For The Heights After more struggles on the road against Boston University and Columbia, Boston College women’s basketball returned home Sunday, attempting to right the ship. PreviFairfield 66 ously undefeatBoston College 58 ed in the familiar confines of Conte Forum, the Eagles faltered late in the second half and dropped their third-straight game, 66-58, to visiting Fairfield (3-5). BC (3-5) found itself in a

difficult position coming into the game, with only 10 active players, and never really found a rhythm against the Stags.

The game early on was a defensive battle, with both teams pressing high. BC picked up its defensive assignments right at half court, which proved effective early, but the Stags generated open looks with lots of movement and screens. Both teams struggled offensively early, as the first three minutes of the game were completely scoreless.

Turnover problems plagued the Eagles, as they committed four early, with no signs

of slowing down. Fairfield’s offense created open looks for its shooters from deep, but they couldn’t convert, shooting only 25 percent from beyond the arc, and the Stags went into the first intermission with a slim one-point lead.

The beginning of the second quarter saw more of the same, with Fairfield shooting lots of 3-pointers and BC committing more turnovers. Fairfield continued to create a lot of open shots, due to a good offensive scheme that resulted in plenty of miscommunication on the Eagles’ front.

The Stags took 18 treys in the first half,

but only made five of them. The Eagles, however, couldn’t capitalize on the Stags’ turnover issues. Fairfield had 13 at the break, including four takeaways apiece for Taylor Ortlepp and Katie Quandt.

The game remained close throughout the half, though, as both team’s offenses were rather stagnant and unable to make a run.

But the period did end on a high note for the Eagles, as guard Milan Bolden-Morris banked in a last second 3-pointer to give them a one-point lead.

The second half saw a change in strategy for both teams, as each squad looked

for its forwards in the paint. This seemed to benefit the Eagles as they had a decisive 33-18 rebound advantage at the close of the first half, but that wasn’t the case. The Stags moved away from 3-point shooting and began setting screens for their bigs to roll to the hoop, rather than trying to spring open the guards for 3-point shots.

This created a lot of opportunities for forward Khadidiatou Diouf, who used her tremendous post moves to score 10 important points for the Stags in the third

See WBB vs. Fairfield, B3

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Bowman, Robinson Carry Eagles to Victory at Hartford

BY ANDY BACKSTROM Asst. Sports Editor About a minute into Boston College men’s basketball’s Saturday night game at Hartford, Jerome Robinson dished a pass inside to Boston College 73 Nik Pop ovic , Hartford 61 and the 6-foot11 sophomore laid it in. But over the course of the next four minutes, nothing

INSIDE SPORTS

came that easy. In fact, the Eagles didn’t even score. BC’s starting five missed shot after shot, allowing Hartford to build an early 10-point lead. The Eagles looked out of sorts and were clearly missing graduate transfer Teddy Hawkins.

BC was saved by a media timeout—one that gave the team, namely Ky Bowman and Robinson, time to regroup. The extra minute or so paid huge dividends. Immediately after the break, the two guards

single-handedly cut BC’s deficit to five, a sign of things to come. Much like last season, Bowman and Robinson carried the Eagles to the finish line.

For the first time all year, they both scored 20 or more points in one game. And when all was said and done, the backcourt duo combined for 44 total points. Bowman’s and Robinson’s athleticism proved to be too much for even John Carroll and a stingy Hartford team to overcome, as the

Eagles pulled out a 73-61 victory.

Right from the get-go, the Hawks (3-6) tried to outshoot BC (6-3), just like pretty much every other non-conference opponent the Eagles have faced this season.

And once again, BC’s poor perimeter defense was exposed. Carroll and Travis Weatherington teamed up to knock down three-consecutive shots from beyond the arc to put Hartford up seven in the early going. With a couple more Hawks free

WOMEN’S HOCKEY: Eagles Win at BU MBB: Backcourt Fuels Victory at Hartford

One day removed from tying the Terriers, BC recorded Both Ky Bowman and Jerome Robinson scored 20-plus a decisive 4-2 victory in enemy territory......................B3 points, snapping the Eagles’ two-game losing streak. B4

throws, Hartford already had a doubledigit lead.

That’s when Bowman and Robinson flipped the switch.

The two guards brought the Eagles back from the dead by attacking the paint. In no time, head coach Jim Christian’s team was within striking distance. Popovic gave his backcourt a breather, netting a mid-range

See MBB vs. Hartford, B2

SPORTS IN SHORT................................ B2 MEN’S BASKETBALL........................... B3 MEN’S HOCKEY....................................... B4

The Heights

B2

Monday, December 4, 2017

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Despite Road Victory, BC’s Early-Season Struggles Continue

By Ben Thomas Heights Staff

After back-to-back losses, Boston College men’s basketball was looking to get back on track against Hartford in the final game of a three-game road trip. Although a game against No. 1 Duke looms in the coming week, it was important for the Eagles to stay in the present against a Hawks team that pulled off a buzzer-beater upset just a year ago. BC was able to beat Hartford, 73-61, a game in which the backcourt duo of Ky Bowman and Jerome Robinson each put up 20-plus points, while forward Nik Popovic added a doubledouble and three blocks. But BC (6-3) had no luck correcting some of its early-season miscues.

Three Up 1. Making History Jerome Robinson needed just 13 points to become the 42nd member of BC’s exclusive 1,000-point club, and he scored 23. With nine minutes left in the second half, Robinson took a strong drive down the baseline for a tough layup off the glass to reach the milestone.

Luckily for the Eagles, Robinson’s game was not just about reaching the fourdigit mark. Once he got the highlightreel layup, Robinson went on a tear, scoring nine points down the stretch.

After Hartford (3-6) managed to tie the game with under six minutes left, Robinson had a big alley-oop jam just seconds later. The fastbreak dunk took Hartford out of their comfort zone, as they committed several turnovers down the stretch when the pace of the

game increased. Robinson affirmed his veteran status by going 6-of-6 from the charity stripe and only committing one turnover. The game was also coach Jim Christian’s 500th as a head coach.

2. Mighty Mitchell Steffon Mitchell got the dirty work done for the Eagles on Saturday night.

He shot just 1-for-7 from the floor, and missed his only free throw attempt, but was still a big factor in the comeback win. The 6-foot-8 Mitchell looked like an NFL cornerback on the floor. He read the eyes of Jason Dunne perfectly and made a beautiful sideline, toe-tapping interception on one end that led to a layup of his own on the other. He finished with a season-high three steals and four offensive rebounds. The mismatches at the guard position allowed Bowman and Robinson to take over the game, but without Mitchell, the Eagles may not have been able to pull away in this one.

3. Bowman’s Friendly Rolls On two separate occasions, Bowman and the Eagles got lucky. The sophomore pulled up from deep twice, shooting a pair of 3-pointers that looked as if they were off the mark.

The first went off the back rim and shot up at least 10 feet in the air. The ball’s trajectory, however, stayed perfectly vertical and traveled right back down through the hoop. Bowman’s next shot bricked right off the end of the rim, rolled around, and landed softly in the net. The six points turned his 15-point outing into a 21-point season-high. The timing of the lucky shots also took the air out of the Hawks’ attempt at a late-

Jake evans / Heights Staff

Jerome Robinson became the 42nd Eagle to eclipse the 1,000-point mark during BC’s win at Hartford on Saturday night.

game comeback. Hartford appeared to think that Bowman’s fortune would carry over to its own success, but instead went 4-for-17 from long range in the second half, including four embarrassing airballs.

Three Down 1. Slow Start What is it with BC and its slow starts? Again, the Eagles let up an early lead to a lesser opponent. Their 2-0 advantage lasted just 21 seconds until John Carroll hit a 3-pointer, which started a 15-2 run for the Hawks—one in which BC was held scoreless for a four-minute stretch. The Eagles proceeded to go on their own 15-2 outburst, taking the lead with just under 10 minutes remaining in the first half.

The fact remains, however, that poor initial showings have been a consistent

theme.

2. Bench Play The Eagles also need to improve in terms of bench production. Unfortunately for Christian, BC could not have done worse in the substitute department, as its bench failed to score a single point in the game. While the quartet of Bowman, Robinson, Nik Popovic, and Jordan Chatman combined for 71, Mitchell only contributed an additional two points. BC played well, but the imbalance of scoring on the court is worrisome. Freshman Vin Baker Jr. went up against his father’s old team, and was allotted 10 minutes of game time, but didn’t get a single shot up in the contest. The Eagles have 16 players on their roster, but only a quarter of them really showed up in the box score.

3. Perimeter Defense Outside shooting allowed Hartford to keep it close, as it built an early 9-2 lead by knocking down three-straight triples. The Hawks’ starters went 10-of-23 from 3-point land, hitting six in the first half. Before missing seven-straight toward the end of the game, it appeared as if Hartford was going to give BC a run for its money.

Heading into the Eagles’ first ACC game next weekend, they have to get things together. Bowman and Robinson may have combined for 44 points, but if they cannot get it together on the other end, it will be a long winter for BC. If Hartford can rack up a total of 30 points from behind the arc, how many will Grayson Allen and Co. be able to tally against BC before things get out of hand? n

Injury-Riddled Season Was Exactly What Eagles Needed Adversity, from B1 Rather than dancing around the defeat, using strength of schedule and injuries as his key talking points, Addazio took the blame for BC’s 2-4 start, and proceeded to make a promise.

“It’ll come together, and it’ll be beautiful,” he said. “You can write that one down.”

It wasn’t long before the team captains led a players-only meeting—a gathering that A.J. Dillon later labeled the turning point of the season. Addazio repeated time and time again that he didn’t know exactly when everything would “come together.” But BC’s play answered that question just a week later.

Against Louisville, the Eagles totaled 555 yards of offense and recorded 40 or more points against an ACC opponent for the the first time in the Addazio era.

Dillon headlined the shootout victory, racking up 275 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. Naturally, the true freshman’s breakout game overshadowed the play of BC’s makeshift offensive line.

A unit that struggled to consistently open up holes in between the tackles throughout the first half of the season was practically flawless at Louisville. At times, Dillon would make it 10-15 yards downfield before even being touched.

While the power back had the stats to show for his electric performance, another true freshman was the motor behind it all. Ben Petrula, who replaced Jon Baker at the center position after the senior went down with a season-ending knee injury in Week One, was finally starting to settle in, and even thrive in the offense. Not only was the Eagles’ rushing attack dramatically improving, but so was

its play-action passing. Suddenly, a throw game that had previously amounted to nothing more than screen passes and a few crossing routes here and there, was threatening.

The next week, BC poured on 41 points against a 5-1 Virginia team, stealing its second-consecutive conference road game. Yeah, Anthony Brown threw for a career-high 275 yards and three touchdowns, but without the guys on the defensive side of the ball, the Eagles wouldn’t have put up the same kind of numbers.

Since both Connor Strachan and Max Richardson sustained season-ending injuries, BC’s linebacking corps was among the weakest in the ACC, as far as depth was concerned. Yet, week-by-week, Ty Schwab, and backups Kevin Bletzer and John Lamot rose to the occasion.

And it all started in Charlottesville, Va. Bletzer showcased the ability to close on the ball, whether it be in the backfield or sailing deep down the field, forcing him to temporarily drop back in coverage.

On the other hand, Lamot was a tackling machine. Despite not playing the first three games of the season, he recorded 10 or more tackles on three separate occasions. But perhaps his most memorable accomplishment was his 40-yard pick six that put an exclamation point on BC’s blowout win over the Cavaliers.

When Florida State came to town, it was Schwab’s time to shine. The senior was everywhere on the field, tallying a career-high 12 tackles, one sack, and even an interception. Schwab, now the leader of the Eagles’ linebacking unit, was clearly in his element. In the trenches, Wyatt Ray made his first start in place of Landry, and quickly established a rapport

with fellow defensive end Zach Allen. The two terrorized Seminoles quarterback James Blackman, disrupting any sort of offensive rhythm that the true freshman was attempting to materialize.

BC hammered FSU, scoring its most points against the Seminoles (35) in program history. For the first time in four years, the Eagles were winners of three-straight ACC games. Better yet, they had a bye week on tap. But just when it looked as if BC had it all figured out, it lost a few more players to injury. And not just any guys—its signal caller and its defensive captain.

Shortly into the Eagles’ bout against then-No. 23 North Carolina State, both Brown and cornerback Kamrin Moore were sidelined with season-ending injuries. Darius Wade replaced the redshirt freshman behind center, and Hamp Cheevers filled in for Moore. Cheevers made an immediate impact, breaking up a couple of Ryan Finley deep balls. But it took Wade a little longer to find his footing—a full week to be exact.

Although Addazio insisted that BC wouldn’t make any changes to its gameplan with Wade in at quarterback, it was obvious that the Eagles were a different team with the graduate student at the helm. The number of pass attempts decreased, especially those downfield, and BC shifted back to a run-first offense— Addazio’s bread and butter. But to his credit, Wade regrouped at Connecticut, and finished off the season with a career day at Syracuse.

That being said, with the way his defense was playing, the fourth-year gunslinger had quite a bit of wiggle room.

By the last week of the regular season, Jim Reid’s unit was as selfless as any in

the conference. So much so that when Cheevers broke up a backward pass in Orange territory, essentially forcing a fumble, he didn’t even scoop up the ball and take it to the end zone himself.

Instead he made eye contact with safety Will Harris, and let the senior do the honors.

In spite of all the adversity, BC evolved. Entering the season, all the talk surrounded Landry and the quarterback controversy. Before just about every game, commentators would spotlight the high-profile defensive end, and, simultaneously a graphic listing Landry’s accomplishments would pop up on the screen. Then, they might mention how Brown beat out Wade in an offseason quarterback competition. Besides that, the rest of the team was unknown outside of Chestnut Hill.

But as soon as the injuries started to pile up, players who normally would’ve sat out the entire year, were given the opportunity to star. And that’s when the Eagles really gelled. BC’s season was no longer about one guy making a push for the No. 1 overall pick, but rather it was about a group of men proving the doubters wrong, including their own “fans”.

Over the course of the final six games of the regular season, the Eagles averaged 36 points per game—19.7 more than they posted in the first half of the year. To put that in perspective, if BC had put up that many points from the start, it would have finished the season as one the 20-highest scoring offenses in the country. Possibly even more impressive, the Eagles averaged 451.5 yards per game, and scored 40-plus points three times, something that they had only done once in their first 96 ACC games.

So yeah, everything came together, and it was, well, beautiful.

But without a host of injuries, BC might not have started 2-4. And, hey, maybe that player’s meeting never happens. While some might speculate that the Eagles would have won eight or nine games if guys like Baker, Landry, Strachan, and Brown didn’t go down, I’d counter that they could have just as easily missed out on a bowl game.

When Addazio took the head coaching job at BC, he didn’t shy away from long-term goals. He employed a five-year plan that, in his mind, would get the Eagles back in the thick of the ACC title conversation. But over the course of the first four and a half years, it was hard trace any sort of consistent progression. It appeared as if Addazio was simply playing it by ear—first running a pro-style offense with Chase Rettig, then switching to the option with Tyler Murphy, and finally returning to a ground and pound rushing attack with the Patrick Towles in 2016, before installing a balanced, up-tempo offense this season.

It took a boatload of injuries for Addazio and Co. to take the first real step toward finding their identity—a team that will run the ball down your throat, and keep you off-balanced with a potent play-action passing game, not to mention a turnover-hungry defense. When Landry laid on the turf of Alumni Stadium with a 17-point deficit looming over his head, it appeared as if BC’s season was over. But actually, it was just getting started. n

Andy Backstrom is the assistant sports editor for The Heights. He can be reached on Twitter @AndyHeights.

SPORTS in SHORT ACc FOOTBALL

Numbers to know

Conference Atlantic 7-1 Clemson 6-2 NC State 4-4 Wake Forest 4-4 Boston College 4-4 Louisville 3-5 Florida State 2-6 Syracuse Coastal Miami Virginia Tech Georgia Tech Pittsburgh Virginia Duke North Carolina

7-1 5-3 4-4 3-5 3-5 3-5 1-7

overall 12-1 8-4 7-5 7-5 8-4 6-6 4-8 10-2 9-3 5-6 5-7 6-6 6-6 3-9

36

Number of saves recorded by men’s hockey goalie Joseph Woll, a season high.

17

Number of consecutive games in which women’s hockey forward Makenna Newkirk has recorded a point.

0

Number of bench points scored by men’s basketball in a 73-61 victory over Hartford.

QUote of the week

“They couldn’t really dent Joe [Woll]. Joe was the story.”

— Jerry York,

following BC’s 4-1 victory at Agganis Arena on Saturday night.

The Heights

Monday, December 4, 2017

B3

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Turnovers, Poor Shooting Spell Doom for BC Against Stags WBB vs. Fairfield, from B1 alone. She really started to dominate once the Eagles switched to a zone defense halfway through the period, which they quickly abandoned.

BC forward Emma Guy managed to get going, scoring 10 for the struggling BC offense, but her contributions were not enough to keep the game close.

“The defenses dictated the play in this game,” BC head coach Erik Johnson said. “That’s why both teams started to go inside in the second

half.”

Fairfield built a seven-point lead entering the final quarter, but BC came out firing. It opened up the period on a 11-2 run, tying the game at 47 with seven minutes to play. A couple of 3-point shots and a driving layup by Taylor Ortlepp brought the Eagles back from their deficit.

The game eventually slipped away from BC when Fairfield started putting the ball in the hands of forward Samantha Cooper.

She completely took over the game with a trio of consecutive 3-pointers,

creating a comfortable lead for the Stags. She finished the game with a double-double, her fourth of the season, totaling 24 points and 10 rebounds.

A late comeback from the Eagles was not enough, as BC fell eight points shy of Fairfield when all was said and done.

After shooting 36 percent from the field, the Eagles were lucky to keep the game close in the first place. Now, Johnson turns to Holy Cross. With ACC play just about a month away, BC is running out of time to regroup. n

DElaney Vorwick / Heights Staff

Georgia Pineau followed up a career performance with just five points on Sunday.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Robinson Joins 1,000-Point Club in Victory Over Hawks MBB vs. Hartford, from B1 jumper from the right block, and then, backing down in the post for two more on the next possession. To cap off the 14-5 run, Jordan Chatman flew down the court, elevated, and finished at the rim.

After starting the game 3-of-6 from the field, Hartford had gone completely cold, missing eight of its next 10 shots.

Meanwhile, Bowman, red hair and all, couldn’t have been hotter. The sophomore hit his first 3-pointer of the game, continuing BC’s scoring spree and reclaiming the lead for the first time since the opening minute of play.

Now trailing, Hartford needed someone to step up before the game got out of

hand. That someone was J.R. Lynch. The 5-foot-10 guard sunk three shots from deep in the span of three and half minutes to keep the Hawks’ upset hopes alive. But for every 3-pointer that Lynch made, either Bowman, Robinson, or Chatman had an answer—the biggest of which was Chatman’s triple from the right wing that slid the Eagles in front of Hartford, 31-30, seconds before the half.

Bowman came out of the break firing.

The former All-ACC Freshman scored six of BC’s first 10 second-half points, getting two high-arcing 3-pointers to fall, thanks to a few favorable bounces.

Yet, even though the Eagles were finally clicking offensively, their defense still had no means of stopping the Hawks’ air raid.

Having converted six 3-point attempts in the first half, Hartford kept jacking up shots from downtown in the latter portion of play, and it worked.

Jason Dunne and Weatherington netted a pair of shots from 3-point land, not to mention that the Hawks’ leading scorer, Carroll, came to life. Just when Lynch took a backseat, the 6-foot-8 forward, who posted seven points in the first half, stepped up his game.

Despite being undersized, Carroll managed to slip underneath and make a home for himself in the interior. That being said, the junior wasn’t afraid to step outside and shoot from long range. During a five-minute segment of the second half, Carroll scored nine of the Hawks’ 11

points, drawing within one point of the Eagles’ 50-49 lead. All the while, BC’s core four—Bowman, Robinson, Chatman, and Popovic—shouldered the offensive workload, fending off Carroll and Hartford.

In the process, Robinson became the 42nd Eagle to score 1,000-plus points. But he didn’t stop there. The junior ended up logging 13 second-half points, and working with Bowman to help BC pull away from the Hawks.

First, they each drilled a 3-pointer.

Then, Bowman dialed up an alley-oop pass to Robinson, who slammed it home at the rim. Soon after, Bowman used a hesitation move to get by Lynch for another two points inside. The sophomore added one more layup to his stat sheet,

stretching BC’s lead to eight with a minute and a half to go.

Hartford extended the game by repeatedly fouling the Eagles, desperate to claw its way back into the game. But Chatman and Robinson were perfect at the line, putting the game to bed.

Although this matchup didn’t go down to the wire like last year’s, it was much closer than Christian probably would have liked. BC’s 15 turnovers and occasional lack of communication on the offensive end were concerning to say the least. Without Hawkins, it appears as if the Eagles are emblematic of last year’s team—a group heavily dependent on the play of its NBA prospects, Bowman and Robinson. n

MEN’S HOCKEY

At Agganis, Eagles Avenge Loss to Cap Weekend Series MHOK vs. BU, from B1 hits on BU (7-9-1, 5-5-1) forwards whenever they threatened Woll.

But 13 minutes into the frame, the Eagles got out to the early lead.

J.D. Dudek crossed by the crease to find Connor Moore standing at the top of the right circle. The defenseman from Cumming, Ga. blasted the shot, which initially appeared to be redirected by Graham McPhee screening in front.

Upon review between the periods, however, the goal belonged to Moore.

On a 4-on-4 just 40 seconds later, BC’s biggest forward, David Cotton, showed off his physicality. He wrestled the puck away from a sloppy Chad Krys at center ice, drawing a slashing penalty. But the Carolina Hurricanes product was strong enough to force his way down toward Jake Oettinger in net anyway. He ate up his own rebound to

give the Eagles their 2-0 lead.

“Disappointing result, something I feel like we’ve been saying in here too often,” Quinn said. “Two costly mistakes early put us down early again.

Tough to dig yourself out of that hole when you’ve got the first place team in here with a goalie like that.”

After a physical end to the first period that kept the penalty box benches warm, BU came out firing on all cylinders in the second.

Halfway through the frame, the Terriers outshot the Eagles, 12-1. The one BC shot came on a shorthanded attempt, despite a power play.

The Bowers goal officially swung the momentum in the home team’s favor.

But Greco’s scoring play put that threat to bed. Carreau weaved between several Terrier defenders before eyeing the sophomore from Philadelphia.

Greco went bar down over Oettinger’s left shoulder for the much-needed

insurance goal.

“It was a really important goal for us by Greco,” York said. “He hasn’t scored a lot of goals for us in his career, but he had three goals this weekend.”

The win was also a night-andday performance for Woll compared to Friday’s game. Throughout the evening, Woll stood up to the challenge against Grade A chances by the Terriers.

On an early BU power play, the sophomore stoned Bowers by using his glove to push the puck upward over the net, while the center was tight on his left side.

Minutes later, he quickly reacted against Nikolas Olsson on a trickling loose puck in the crease.

On a crossing pattern late in the third period, Woll kicked away both Jordan Greenway and Drew Melanson’s attempts, one with each leg. In total, the BC goaltender put together one of his best outings of the year on

the heels of his worst.

“The game got a little bit out of hand last night, and I didn’t play as well as I could’ve,” Woll said after giving up six goals on Friday. “I made it a point to give my team a full 60 minutes tonight.”

Woll was most impressive at the end, when, with 3:41 remaining , Quinn decided to pull his goaltender.

Michael Kim added to that stress by taking a penalty to give BU a 6-on-4 advantage.

But the Terriers’ clumsy play continued.

Bobo Carpenter, brother of BC women’s hockey legend Alex, twice missed empty nets on crosses that would’ve brought the Terriers closer.

Greenway had another stellar opportunity to tap it over Woll when streaking in front, but he knocked it right into the goaltender’s glove. Seconds later, McPhee added the empty netter to clinch it.

“Our power play really let us down tonight, 0-for-6,” Quinn said. “Not only 0-for-6, but we didn’t look particularly good doing it.”

Friday’s game appeared to signal the beginning of the end of a hot streak that helped launch the Eagles to the top of the Hockey East standings. But that 7-4 loss now looks like it might just be the aberration.

As York emphasized during the postgame press conference, the Eagles learned quickly from their mistakes—he said they reviewed the tape thoroughly to fix puck management and decision-making, in addition to limiting turnovers.

But none of that would’ve mattered had Woll not returned to form. And, as BU forward Nikolas Olsson explained, there’s not much a team can do when a goalie plays like that.

“Woll stood on his head, and made some big-time saves for them,” Olsson said. n

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

Watts, Newkirk Preserve Undefeated Conference Record WHOK vs. BU, from B1 said. “I felt we were pretty dominant in that first period and we didn’t have anything to show for it, and they were up 1-0.”

Both teams started the second with a player sitting, and BU ended it’s penalty without either team connecting on an opportunity. After returning to full strength, the Terriers kept the puck in the Eagles’ zone, starting the period much more aggressive than in the first. After returning to full strength, BC regained possession and quickly headed toward O’Neil. Both Erin Connolly and Willow Corson made attempts to tie the game, but

O’Neil deflected both shots.

BC didn’t have to wait long before it created a scoring opportunity. Maegan Beres took the puck from her own zone and sent it to Daryl Watts. The freshman pushed it down the left side of the ice and ripped a shot that ricocheted off the pipe and past O’Neil’s shoulder, tying the game. Later, BC was on the penalty kill following a whistle on Miano for hooking Deziray De Sous. Watts tried a shorthanded shot right off the face off, but a check from Rebecca Leslie thwarted her plans and resulted in 4-on-4 hockey for one minute before the Eagles returned to full strength.

Leslie was sent to the box when

she was called for slashing in front of Burt. With a one-player advantage, the Eagles were immediately on the offensive. After Makenna Newkirk took a shot that deflected off O’Neil’s pads, Watts corralled the puck and narrowly slipped it past the goaltender’s legs and into the net for her nationleading seventh power-play goal. The Eagles’ lead was cut in half when the Terriers secured a power-play goal of their own.

Heavy traffic in front of Burt led to two shots dangerously close to the net before the senior could jump on the puck. A fight for possession resulted in a pileup as the whistle was blown, and Watts was punched in the face

twice by Savannah Newton before Sommerfeld could break it up. The fight sent both players into the box with less than 20 seconds left in the period.

BC pulled away from the Terriers early in the third period, as it recorded its second power-play goal of the day.

Sommerfeld immediately followed with the Eagles’ fourth and final scoring play of the game.

Desperate to close the gap, the Terriers controlled possession of the puck and whipped shot after shot on goal.

After the puck was left open in front of the cage, the seasoned goaltender slapped it away with her stick. Watts came over to cover it up, but was

called for delay of game and sat for two minutes, much to her frustration.

“I didn’t think I actually grabbed the puck.” she said. “I fell on top of it, and I knew I wasn’t able to actually grip the puck so I was just laying on top of it. But I didn’t have my glove so my hand was in a fist so maybe [the referee] thought I had it.”

Despite the penalty, the Eagles kept the Terriers scoreless in the third period and finished the weekend series on top to claim their 200th Hockey East victory.

With the win, the Eagles remain undefeated in conference play, something no other team in the Hockey East can say. n

LIZZY BARRETT / Heights Editor

After scoring a late third-period goal to force overtime and, eventually, a tie on Friday, the Eagles defeated the Terriers, 4-2, on Saturday, in large part because Daryl Watts and Makenna Newkirk combined for five points.

THE HEIGHTS

B4

MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2017

MEN’S HOCKEY

Despite Early Two-Goal Lead, Eagles Blow 275th Meeting With BU

BY MICHAEL SULLIVAN Editor-in-Chief

What’s better to have through the first two months of the college hockey season: results or potential?

MemBoston University 7 bers of the Boston College 4 media have struggled with that question early in the 2017-18 season when it comes to Boston University. With 12 draftees, the Terriers possess the most players in Hockey East bound for the NHL, second in the country only to Minnesota. That total includes three first-rounders: freshman Shane Bowers and sophomores Dante Fabbro and goaltender Jake Oettinger. But through those first two months, BU has a losing record, and has fallen all the way from No. 2 in the nation to unranked.

On Friday, in the 275th matchup with archrival Boston College—the 100th year these two squads have met—the Terriers showed why they have the potential. Despite falling down 2-0 after just two minutes, BU marched all the way back en route to a 7-4 victory over the Eagles. And head coach

Jerry York was none too pleased with his team’s effort.

“From my perspective, we made some really poor decisions on clears and on our power play, we turned pucks over too much,” York said.

No. 15 BC (8-6-2, 8-2-0 Hockey East) started off the game like it had entered the month: red hot. The Eagles went undefeated in November, launching to the top of the Hockey East standings. And against the Terriers (7-8-1, 5-4-1), they started the same way. Just 90 seconds into the game, freshman Aapeli Räsänen got in front of BU’s Logan Cockerill. The Terrier left wing had a lazy backcheck that allowed Räsänen to find space in front of Oettinger. Cockerill couldn’t poke the puck away from Räsänen when he received a pass from Christopher Grando from the boards—the Fin pushed it home to give BC the game’s first goal.

A mere 40 seconds later, the Eagles struck back. Kevin Lohan, a grad transfer from Michigan, blasted a shot from the blue line that Oettinger kicked away with his left pad. But the goaltender left a rebound that was too juicy, right onto the stick of Ron Greco. The sophomore slotted it past an

open net for the 2-0 lead. BU head coach David Quinn had no answers for his team’s sloppy start.

“It’s 2-0 before people could put cream in their coffee and get seated, but it looked like it was going to be a tough night,” Quinn said. “We practiced D zone in the first three months, but it certainly didn’t look like it in the first three minutes.”

Whatever Quinn said to his team worked, because the Terriers dominated the remainder of the frame. Halfway through the first, Brandon Hickey rocketed a shot from the blue line that Bowers screened in front of goaltender Joseph Woll. Just a minute later, Cockerill got his revenge.

Bowers sent a crossing pass in front of the net that Cockerill tipped past Woll. The refs confirmed the equalizer upon further review. The snowballing continued toward the end of the frame, thanks to turnovers.

A Kasper Kotkansalo hit from behind gave the Eagles a power play, but Brady Tkachuk broke free from Michael Kim. His shorthanded goal went top shelf over Woll, and gave BU a 3-2 lead.

“The shorthanded goal was really a turning point, I thought—2-2 and then to give

them a shorty to make it 3-2,” York said.

The intermission appeared well-timed for the Eagles, and they took advantage.

Greco ate up the third rebound in a row off Oettinger with a push past his stickside. The goal marked the first time the sophomore from Philadelphia scored twice in a game.

Five minutes through the second, Woll and the Eagles fell apart. Jacob Tortora took an unnecessary tripping penalty. A scrum in front of Woll freed Chad Krys at the blue line. The Chicago Blackhawks product got a clear look at the twine to put BU up 4-3.

Two minutes later, Tkachuk broke away for a clear chance on Woll. Luke McInnis held him in the process, causing the ref’s right hand to go up. But the son of the legendary American hockey player Keith Tkachuk had just enough in him to push the puck off Woll’s legs. Hickey trailed in the process and found a way to push it home.

On the ensuing BU power play, Patrick Harper made the Eagles pay with a crisp pass to Bobo Carpenter, who scored to make it 6-3. A back-and-forth battle quickly turned into a blowout. Julius Mattila attempted to reclaim the momentum with a goal off a Brian Diffley penalty blasted from the blue

line, but it was too little too late. Despite the career-high six goals allowed by Woll, York had no intentions of altering his gameplan.

“I just thought we had a chance to get back in it, down 6-4,” York said. “I didn’t want to make a change at that time.”

In the third period, the Terriers went into lockdown defensive mode. Up against a swarming backline attack with which the Terriers have thrived under Quinn, BC kept turning the puck over, and couldn’t find a consistent rhythm to mount a comeback.

“As the third period went on, we got smarter,” Quinn said. “You play different when you’re up by two, you’re not as aggressive, it’s human nature.”

BC, a team that lacks high-level firepower and was not expected to do much entering the year, still has to answer the same question BU has had to all year: Do the results from the first three months match the potential? With the game the Eagles had on Friday, that’s not likely. And York sees the same.

“Certainly not a great game from our perspective,” York said. “We got really excited [after the 2-0 start], but kind of lost that poise.” 

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Already down two goals less than eight minutes into the first period of Friday’s game at Kelley Rink, Boston University men’s hockey forward Brady Tkachuk lurked near the blue line. Distracted by the commotion on the other side of the ice, Boston College defender Michael Kim lost track of Tkachuk.

Pressured near the boards, Terrier Shane Bowers flung a pass to the freshman, who was now five feet in front of Kim. Tkachuck received the feed in between the circles, pushed the puck left, then right, but instead of elevating a shot, aimed straight for BC goaltender Joseph Woll. The sophomore netminder didn’t budge, trapping the puck with ease.

After the game, Tkachuck explained that he was trying to pull off a high-glove move that he had been practicing all week.

But when the moment came to lift the puck off the ice, he panicked. Luckily for the St. Louis, Mo. native, he got a chance to redeem himself.

Following two quick Terrier goals that evened the score, the Eagles drove the puck into the BU zone on the power play. But before they could even get anything going, Casey Fitzgerald’s pass whizzed by Christopher Brown. Just trying to clear the puck out of Terrier territory, Hank Crone wristed it toward the left side of the ice. Instead of hitting the boards, the puck bounced off of Kim’s skate and landed in the middle of the rink for none other than Tkachuck. With only Woll to beat, the freshman sprinted down the ice and went top shelf, scoring a shorthanded goal and giving BU its first lead of the game.

Jerry York labeled the scoring play as the turning point of the game. The long-time BC head coach was spot on. From that point forward, the Terriers outscored the Eagles, 4-2, en route to a 7-4 victory.

Two Up 1) Fast Start During the No. 15 Eagles’ (8-6-2, 8-2-0, Hockey East) eight-game unbeaten streak, they averaged 3.4 goals per game—about twice as many as they posted in their first seven games of the season. On Friday night, BC came out firing again, recording five of the first seven shots, and, more importantly, the game’s first two goals. It only took the Eagles a minute and a half to get on the board. Debatably even more impressive, York’s team followed up the game-opening goal with another scoring play just 44 seconds later. Thanks to Aapeli Räsänen and Ron Greco, BC already had its crosstown rival on the ropes.

“It’s 2-0 before people could put cream in their coffee and get seated, but it looked like it was going to be a tough night,” BU (7-8-1, 5-4-1) head coach David Quinn told reporters. “We practiced D zone in the first three months, but it certainly didn’t look like it in the first three minutes.”

To put the Eagles’ scoring spree in perspective, prior to November, BC had only logged two or more goals in a game twice.

But against the Terriers, it accomplished that feat in exactly two minutes and 16 seconds.

2) Faceoffs After taking a 5-2 shot lead early in the first period, BU rallied to record 10 of the game’s next 11 and soon controlled pretty

much every statistical category there is.

Well, except for one—faceoffs. When all was said and done, the Eagles had won 35 of the game’s 56 bouts. Brown and Julius Mattila led the charge with 13 and 12 decisions, respectively. But BC wasn’t just dominating the battle in the circles, it was turning draws into goals.

Räsänen won the second faceoff of the night, batting the puck into the far corner of the rink. Fellow freshman Logan Hutsko corralled the puck and sent it back out to Christopher Grando, who then located Räsänen in front of the net. On his second go around, the Fin flicked a shot past BU goalie Jake Oettinger.

Another faceoff victory, this time at the hands of Julius Mattila, produced the Eagles’ fourth and final goal toward the end of the second period. One man up, Räsänen passed the puck to Connor Moore at the point. Instead of taking a shot of his own, the sophomore defenseman made the extra pass, connecting with Mattila atop the right circle. Without hesitation, Mattila one-timed a slapshot past Oettinger to cap off the near-perfect possession.

Two Down 1) Joseph Woll Entering the season, Woll was supposed to make up for a relatively weak Eagles offense. But week-by-week, it has almost looked as if the sophomore has regressed in year two. And on Friday night, he reached a new low. Playing easily his worst game of the season, Woll gave up six goals to the Terriers in just 22 shots. Eventually, he reverted back to his normal self in the third period, making six saves and shutting out BU, but the damage had already been done.

To be fair, the Toronto Maple Leafs prospect did face a lot of open looks, especially on 3-on-2s and 2-on-1s. But that being said, he was still slow to react to several BU shot attempts. Woll’s unusually lagging reflexes were exposed multiple times.

A bit more than five minutes into the second period, BU’s Chad Krys launched a sliding slapshot. Immediately, Woll closed his legs together as if the puck was heading directly for his feet. Only when the puck hit the twine did Woll raise his glove in a delayed fashion.

2) Turnovers If BC didn’t turn the puck over as much as it did, Woll might not have given up six goals. From start to finish, the Eagles’ passing was erratic. An inaccurate exchange led to Tkachuk’s game-changing, breakaway goal. Then, with less than a minute to go in the game, BC, despite having a 6-on-4 advantage, turned the puck over again. Räsänen’s pass sailed past Grando, and, within seconds, Bowers was guiding the puck down the right side of the ice with no one in net. Adding insult to injury, the freshman laid it in the cage, scoring the Terriers’ seventh goal of the night—the most BU has recorded against BC in 21 years.

York made it clear that he wasn’t pleased with his team’s lack of execution and assortment of mental errors.

“From my perspective, we made some really poor decisions on clears,” he said. “And we turned pucks over too much…We weren’t real sharp. Part of it’s that BU’s got a good club, but part of it’s that we just didn’t execute like I’ve seen us do.” 

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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: 路 Number can appear only once in each row 路 Number can appear only once in each column 路 Number can appear only once in each 3x3 box 路 The number should appear only once on row, column or area.

The Heights TheTH heeights Heights

B5 B5 B5

THE HEIGHTS

B6

MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2017

‘The Disaster Artist’ is Delightfully Incompetent

BY MICHAEL TROY For The Heights

The Room is easily the most wonderfully terrible film ever created. For perspective, The Room is a film written by, directed by, produced by, and starring Tommy Wiseau, a complete unknown in both the film industry and the world itself before this movie was released. Wiseau badly wanted to make a movie, but had no knowledge of film whatsoever.

He did, however, find a rabbit hole of funding. The resulting picture is so fundamentally broken that it’s one of the most unintentionally hysterical movies ever made. The perfect whirlwind of incompetence displayed in every frame of that movie has proven impossible to recreate in recent years with the “so bad it’s good” film craze that every flick other than the irritating, but popular Sharknado franchise has fallen well short. Paying homage

to a movie so beautifully inept takes a special sort of film, and unfortunately The Disaster Artist, a big-screen adaptation of the book of the same name

by Wiseau’s best friend Greg Sestero, doesn’t quite get there.

Before the message gets misconstrued, this movie is not bad. In fact, it’s quite good. The writing is fantastic, and the performance from James Franco as Wiseau is convincing enough to hopefully earn him an Academy Award nomination. In a vacuum, this is a very funny movie about two guys, Wiseau and Sestero (played by Dave Franco), trying to make a good movie and instead making a movie that was so bad it was good. But considering its inescapable context, this movie feels like it could have been so much better.

The picture feels much more like a fan film than anything else because instead of spending the majority of the run time telling the story of Wiseau

FILM

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and Sestero, the movie shifts from that narrative into a montage of clips about the creation of The Room once the second act of the film begins. This problem stems from the movie’s basis on a book that much more evenly spread its coverage between the creation of The Room and the relationship between Wiseau and Sestero. Franco also directed the movie, and he decided to start the film by creating a case study of Wiseau and Sestero’s odd friendship.

This portion showcases the potential this film had, but instead of building on the promising start, Franco spends the second half of The Disaster Artist focusing on the making of the movie. Everything that happens once the film production begins is essentially a recreation of various scenes from The Room. These scenes are funny, but it still feels like a “Best Film” kind of movie could have come out of this production if Franco had stuck with the beats that defined the movie’s first half.

Now, for what it is, The Disaster Artist is a lot of fun. Franco is simply brilliant in his role as Wiseau, and according to screenwriter Michael H. Weber and cast member Paul Scheer, both of whom spoke to the crowd following a screening of the film at the Loews Boston Common on Wednesday, Franco directed the film in character as Wiseau. Scheer explained that often he was unsure if Franco was yelling at him as his character—who is the director of the movie being made within the movie—or as the actual director of the film. The supporting cast was serviceable, but none of them are particularly stellar in their roles.

Dave Franco basically plays himself as Sestero, while Seth Rogen and the aforementioned Scheer headline the rest of the supporting cast. There are numerous celebrity cameos as well as various famous people, including Hannibal Burress, Sharon Stone, and Zoey Deutch, playing small roles throughout the film. These appearances are funny but feel quite unnecessary, as their characters serve very little purpose but become important simply because they are played by an actor everyone knows.

The plot is finely tuned and the character writing is superb, but there are a few moments throughout the story, namely the corny and irritating ending, that simply seem far too exaggerated to have actually happened.

The cinematography is average at best, with no visually interesting shots or fun editing, but that can be easily ignored because the endless barrage of comedic moments has the audience laughing so hard that it’s difficult to focus on the simplicity of the camerawork.

Franco’s direction is nothing to call home about, but nobody should expect it to be anything more than that. His track record is littered with far more bad films than good, and the good ones normally star himself and his famous comedian friends like Rogen, Danny McBride, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, and others. The Disaster Artist is entertaining, funny, and a decent homage to the greatest bad movie in the history of film. It isn’t the best movie of the year, and it isn’t a generation-defining mockumentary, but it most certainly is not a disaster. 

Bjork Channels Ethereal, Mystical Sound on ‘Utopia’

BY TRISTAN ST. GERMAIN Heights Staff

Coming off of the dense electronica of her 2015 release Vulnicura, an album which charted the melancholy and reconciliation involved in her divorce from filmmaker Matthew Barney, Björk returns with Utopia to the airy forest frolic that characterized much of her earlier discography. The album aims at what its title suggests, the clash of the ancient world with the modern, to create an ethereal unity that occasionally veers off into industrial mayhem. The influence of Björk’s previous collaborator Arca is felt heavily throughout the record, as the two combine their talents to take us through the breathtaking evolution of a society in which even the emotions have been sterilized.

“Arisen My Senses” starts off the record with bird sounds that quickly metamorphose into glitchy whirls and sirens, the first instance of Björk synthetically reinventing the natural world she admires. Ecstatic cymbals crash like waves splattering foam across a light-filled sea. The production is intensely ethereal, suggestive of an airy freedom that Björk’s harrowing Icelandic vocals both affirm and make terrifying. It is a strange combination of beauty and discomfort that feels primordial, beyond the vocal inflection of joy and happiness. This contrasts all the more strongly with the innocuous subject matter of two young people falling in love by meeting at a record store. “Just that kiss / Is all there is / Weaving a mixtape / With every crossfade,” sings Björk, her voice

straining as if climbing some insurmountable object in the music itself.

The romantic relationships on Utopia are devoid of the psychological rivalry between genders that often forms the core content of many pop albums. There is a purity that marks the mechanical simplicity with which two lovers bond over mixtapes and music. This continues in the following song, “Blissing Me,” on which the previous track’s dense and bubbly character is replaced with the spacious humidity of harp plucks and drum dissolves. These harmonic elements accelerate into a tense confusion as Björk’s descriptions become more sexual. The body is associated with “wickermen” and “skeletons,” while love possesses a sanctity in the realm of idealistic feeling.

Many tracks on Utopia recall the textural qualities of Hellenistic music, the evocation of tragedy through fragile lyre melodies and epic woodwind instruments. The eighth track “Loess” heightens the conflict between the natural world and the techniques by which humanity orders it. Grinding drum patterns that sound like the factory production of sheet metal distort what semblance of a melody is discernible. Björk’s lamentation of failed relationships is as direct and to the point as ever—“Loss of love we have all suffered / How we make up for it defines who we are,” she sings over an increasingly chaotic instrumental. Whereas other artists might try to inject these themes into their work by emotional gradients, Björk aims at a non-judgemental rendering of our passions and compulsions. The result is a sleekly alien and yet juevenile glimpse

into the human psyche as it is apart from technological conveniences.

For all of Björk’s brilliance in achieving these emotional peaks of sonic futurism, there are often moments when the discordant elements overstay their welcome or become forcibly juxtaposed with their “naturalized” counterparts. Clocking in at 10 minutes, “Body Memory” is an operatic chorus of various forest creatures from which spawns the identity of an earth without humans. The flutes and bass drums bring to mind imagery of ancient civilizations at war with current technological climates—“I wasn’t born urban / Toxic doesn’t agree with me,” sings Björk. But in these moments when Björk negates the contemporary subject, the music becomes obscure and alienating,

full of itself and without much room for the listener to wiggle in a reaction.

The track “Sue Me” makes the same mistake, this time by doing the exact opposite. Björk recounts a custody battle with her ex-husband, constantly referring to her “origin” and “DNA” in the context of her daughter’s lineage being corrupted.

Although it is intended to mirror the language with which animals would interpret human events, the effort feels forced and unconvincing. The album’s best moments come at its beginning and end, when it achieves a perfect balance between the human and natural elements at play in Björk’s vision of utopia, transcending the emotional contours we place around love and science in a way that is euphoric and breathtaking. 

MUSIC

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ONE LITTLE INDIAN RECORDS

Gallagher Explores Diverse Sound on New Album

BY KAYLIE RAMIREZ Heights Staff

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have struggled to fly quite as high as Gallagher’s former Oasis bandmate and estranged brother Liam did in the past, but they have found find an original sound on their Nov. 24 released album Who Built the Moon? As suggested by the inquisitive title, the 12-track album takes listeners on a journey through exotic and unexpected sounds with a mix of sincerity and classic Gallagher sarcasm.

The first track, “Fort Knox,” finds the band in a state of urgency as a screaming, synthetic beat opens the track and is accompanied by the loud sound of jet engines overhead. Named for a U.S. military base in Kentucky, it is full of dire lyrics like “Keep on holding out” and “You gotta get yourself together” that suggest a need for defense.

In an interview with NME, Gallagher cites an unlikely source of inspiration for the song, Kanye West’s “Power,”an intense masterpiece and a staple from the rapper’s illustrious discography. Gallagher’s take echoes the track’s repeating “Hey” throughout the song. The progressively busy beat is overpowered by the sound of an alarm clock in the middle of the song, signifying a call for action from Gallagher.

“Holy Mountain” follows the imposing opening track and takes on a light-hearted character. The band employs a stadium marching band sound with horns and a clap-along drum beat to create a simple, danceable hit. The lyrics of the song match the instrumental simplicity as the vocalist Noel Gallagher repeats “She fell, she fell, right under my spell” 15 times to complete the song. While the song acts as a likeable radio track, it seems out of place on the album that otherwise attempts to expand

MUSIC WHO BUILT THE MOON? NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS PRODUCED BY SOUR MASH RECORDS RELEASE NOV. 24, 2017 OUR RATING

SOUR MASH RECORDS

the band’s musical creativity and heighten the subject matter of an often trite genre.

A fast drumline accompanied by an equally energetic baseline sets the mood for the third track of Who Built The Moon?, “Keep on Reaching.” Mystical tones introduce Gallagher’s vocals, which chirp “Keep on running down that long black road / You’ll find sunshine and showers with love to behold,” a lyric that sounds like it was pulled straight from an upbeat, introspective poem rather than a rock song. The track pays overt tribute to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ popular cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground,” a hit dominated by Flea’s legendary bass playing and the repetition of phrases like “keep on” and “highest ground,” as well as lyrical allusions to soul and funk.

“It’s a Beautiful World” and “She Taught Me How to Fly” introduce an element of wonder and amazement to the eclectic album. The former relies on a techno drum beat and almost garish twinkling sounds to crystalize the song’s faux optimistic message in listeners’ heads. Verses including the lines “It’s a beautiful dream / A beautiful night” convey a positive message, but the distant delivery of the lyrics, combined with tawdry space age instrumentals and a random rambling breakdown in French, cause the listener to question Gallagher’s authenticity—a skepticism supported by the singer-songwriter’s history of sarcastic and condescending statements both in songs and interviews. “She Taught Me How to Fly” conveys a similar theme of astonishment, with lyrics like “She’s out to blow my-my-my mind.”

The song differs in intent from “It’s a Beautiful World” due to the presence of

more meaningful and sincere lyrics, like “‘Cause all the roads I run are coming back to you.” Despite the shift of tone, clichés such as “So put your money where your mouth is” and “I don’t mind if you don’t mind” prevent the track from transcending boring love song norms.

“Be Careful What You Wish For” and “The Man Who Built The Moon” are two of the most impressive tracks of the album from a strictly musical standpoint. “Be Careful What You Wish For” starts with a low acoustic guitar, then adds a wind chime-esque sound effect and a prominent, yet relaxed bassline that creates the effortlessly cool aura of the song. Combined with Gallagher’s change of vocal style from a loud scream to a calm near whisper, the song juxtaposes relaxation with unsettling lyrics. Similarly, “The Man Who Built the Moon” opens with a striking combination of dragging drum and screaming guitar, foreshadowing the dark lyrics of the song.

The vocalist conveys regret with lyrics like “We never should have left town in the first place / Now we gotta walk like they talk in the rat race.”

Perhaps the most enduring and timeless song on the album is the bonus track “Dead in the Water,” a live recording for BBC Radio 4 done in Dublin years prior to the album’s release. The track is beautiful in both sound and content—the lone acoustic guitar and piano create an excellent frame for the image of a love lost at sea. The cho-

rus croons “Let the storm rage, I’d die on the waves / But I will not rest while love lies dead in the water.” The comparison of lovers at a standstill to a ship stuck in the eye of the storm at sea is fresh and well constructed by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. 

SINGLE REVIEW CANNON FEW

‘1000’ N.E.R.D.

Beginning with Pharrell’s signature four-count start, “1000,” the newest single from recently reunited N.E.R.D., bounces around for four minutes packed with samples and jittery exclamations. Pharrell calls out, “Holy shit it’s working, we all got in,” referencing the inclusion of members of N.E.R.D. and featured artist Future.

The track bounces between the meaning of “1000” as luxury (thousands of dollars) and the amplification (1,000 percent) of N.E.R.D.’s and Future’s new lives. Pharrell’s unique beat-making tendencies are clear in the haphazardness of “1000.” The track moves from a hard-hitting, syncopated verse in which Future ends each bar with the word “thousand” to boast of his Rick Owens boots and Ferragamo belt, to a bridge featuring Shay Haley. Looking at the track as a whole, it feels like N.E.R.D. can’t really make up its mind on where it wants to go with this song. The space and flow of the beat and accompanying vocals ultimately don’t really fit together. N.E.R.D.’s next record, titled No One Ever Really Dies, after their acronym, is due out Dec. 15 and will feature guests M.I.A., Ed Sheeran, Andre 3000, Gucci Mane, Wale, and Kendrick Lamar. Hopefully, it will have a greater sense of cohesion. 

MUSIC VIDEO CANNON FEW

‘OBSESSION’ OK GO What do you get when you mash together a tremendously creative band, suspension ropes, 567 printers, and a lot of paper? Ok Go’s latest music video for their song “Obsession.”

Back in 2009, Ok Go released a music video for its most popular song, “Here It Goes Again,” which consists of a hilarious and strangely aesthetically pleasing choreography of band members dancing around on treadmills. Since then they’ve established themselves as the harbingers of extremely well-thought-out and inventive videos that teeter on the edge of absurdity.

“Obsession” is the latest addition to this trend. This time, the band stacks hundreds of printers on top of each other in two walls that form a corner, spitting out waves of paper in different designs, colors, and configurations. At first, it starts off simple, with blank white sheets coming out in manageable patterns in real time. Though the disclaimer at the beginning of the video claims that everything is real, the identical sheets spewing out of the printer wall behind lead man Damian Kulash in the beginning look a lot like CGI. When the rest of the band comes in and the music starts, the video transitions into a stop motion effect, which makes for a very cool visual.

Still, the rest of the video consistently impresses and amazes with its design and execution. The paper coming out of the printers serves as its own computer screen, portraying animations, patterns, and even a three-dimensional illusion. The band interacts with the images, pretending to throw blocks at each other and around the screen.

Perhaps the coolest moment of the video is about halfway through, when the orientation of the camera flips and the band members are hoisted up on suspension ropes. As one would expect, this feature allows for more versatility. The band is now able to fly around and flip upside down, the printers spewing out increasingly artistic patterns and designs all the while.

The description to the video says, “This video has a lot of colors.

Your viewing experience will look significantly better if you manually set your YouTube resolution settings to 1440p or 4k. Otherwise, there’s actually just too much information flying by for YouTube’s normal HD compression. We broke the matrix.”

Interestingly enough, there’s almost too much information flying by for our brain’s normal compression too.

The fact remains that watching this music video is a pleasure. 

The Heights

Monday, December 4, 2017

B7 I’m Just Sayin‘

The Year in Review Jacob Schick

Sam Zhai / Heights Staff

Christmas Concert Imparts Joy to the World

By Emily Himes Heights Staff Poinsettia embellished the stage and candles were lit in the stained-glass window sills. Wreaths adorned the large, wooden doors. Trinity Chapel was buzzing with Christmas cheer—the small chapel was filled to the brim with students, grandparents, and neighbors alike. The two rather enthusiastic and chatty women next to me leaned over and proudly informed me that their grandchildren were part of the University Chorale. One of them donned a T-shirt that read “BC Grandparent.”

When John Finney marched up to the stage, the audience erupted in applause.

2017 marks Finney’s 25th year as conductor of the University Chorale of Boston College.

Finney invited the audience to sing along with the Chorale during the more popular Christmas carols. He was also sure to note that this concert was starring not just the Chorale, but the BC Symphony Orchestra, too.

The concert began with a rousing performance of “Joy to the World.” The song was executed with exuberance and strength. This performance made the

beautiful harmony and compatibility between the Chorale and the Symphony Orchestra evident from the beginning of the night. After “Joy to the World,” the Chorale proceeded to sing “Tollite Hostias,” from the Oratorio de Noel by Camille SaintSaens. Prior to the performance, Finney reminisced on the meaning of this song in his own life. 25 years ago, when he had just become the conductor for the University Chorale, they performed this song for him as a welcome at an after-party for the first Pops on the Heights. He soon learned that the Chorale performed this song to welcome and celebrate various people and events throughout history—they even sang it for Pope John Paul II. “We Three Kings of Orient Are” incorporated vocal and instrumental soloists to capture the reverent and personal nature of the song. It started off with an intricate lead-in by soloists on the violin, viola, cello, and bass. This song was performed with amazing harmony, and it was soft, smooth, and completely mesmerizing. The slow but steady beat was almost trance-inducing for the entire audience. The singer’ passionate voices rolled off the stage like waves into the pews.

The Chorale sang “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” with complete elation. Their voices grew stronger and stronger, leading to a climactic third verse bursting with sounds from all over—the horn section was especially notable during this triumphant run. The two grandmothers sitting next to me were absolutely thrilled about this song—they endearingly belted out the entire thing with almost as much fervor and animation as the Chorale itself.

Next up was “Trepak,” a long-time Christmas favorite from the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky. This was performed by the Symphony Orchestra alone. It was one of the most impressive pieces of the night, as it was joyful, happy, and upbeat.

This song showcased the impeccable work of the percussionists in the Symphony Orchestra. It was executed so perfectly that it easily could evoke the image of the Russian Dancers for anyone who has seen The Nutcracker performed as a ballet.

To end the first half of the concert, the Chorale performed “A Christmas Festival,” a medley of seasonal songs by the American composer Leroy Anderson. It included many of the songs performed already throughout the concert, such as “Joy to the World,”

“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” as well as new additions “Deck the Halls,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” “Silent Night,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” and an unexpectedly dramatic take on “Jingle Bells.”

To start off the second part of the concert, the Chorale sang “Ave Maria.”

They performed the version by Franz Biebl, which is known for his unique arrangement.

Instead of using the ordinary lyrics, he set the song to the words of the standard “Ave Maria” prayer.

“O Come, All Ye Faithful” was the most regal, devout performance of the night. Finney asked the audience to rise and sing along (not that the grandmothers needed any convincing) in accordance with tradition. This serious tone was quickly juxtaposed with the joyful and light “Sleigh Bells.” This was another performance that excluded the Chorale. The instrumental tune incorporated a comedic aspect, as wood blocks were frequently smashed together to imitate the sound of Santa whipping his reindeer. At one point a reindeer sound emerged from the stage. The noise was so loud and realistic that it will forever be a mystery what instrument (or person, perhaps) could create it. n

Kaitlin Meeks / Heights Staff

Third-Annual Week of Dance Unifies Groups

By Barrette Janney Editorial Assistant Sequins, brilliant colors, refreshing mu s i c , a n d o f co u r s e , v i v i f y i n g m o v e m e nt e l e c t r i f i e d R o b s h a m Theater this past Friday for the Week of Dance Showcase. Uniting people of all interests and rhythmic styles, the dancers of Boston College portrayed exactly what characterizes the realm of arts—an unadulterated sense of joyful spirit and energy.

For the third annual Week of Dance, dance organizations from across campus held workshops throughout last week, culminating in two weekend showcases.

Friday’s showcase kicked off with an ode to the ’90s with a performance

by Females Incorporating Sisterhood Through Step, or F.I.S.T.S., called “Blast from the Past.” From Fresh Prince of Bel Air music all the way to each member’s matching pink jacket, every detail highlighted the incredible unity of their step combinations.

Movement transitioned into a story as the other half of the dance group, the “millennials” who boasted of their superior style and selfies, entered and demonstrated their equally impressive

moves. The playful battle, which ended in a common goal of synced steps, served as the perfect opener for the simultaneously fun and physically superb performances to come.

Swing acted as a shared theme for both the group specializing in it, Full Swing, and, unexpectedly, for the BC Golden Eagles. Full Swing obviously embodied swing in its more traditional sense, showcasing classic partner dancing and lifts, but also included some sensual, darker interludes. BC Golden Eagles channeled swing more through its period music and sweet choreography, topped with a crowdstirring split sequence.

Te chnique radi ate d f rom the particular performances of the Dance Ensemble, Pom Team, and Dance Organi z ation of B o ston College (DOBC). Dance Ensemble dazzled in hot pink, blending smaller features with their large group dynamic in their jazz set. Their transitions were effortless, and their f luidity incomparable, allowing their cultivated dance talents to shine. DOBC mirrored a similar kind of effortless beauty, but instead projected this skill on a more theatrical performance. Their combination of splits and turns accompanied by their

constantly shifting levels served as a cheerful treat to the eye. A tonal shift from their first “Walk This Way” set, Pom performed a lyrical set to the moving ballad “Home,” demonstrating their ability to carry their flawless unity into every stylistic setting.

Presenting Africa to You (Patu), Fuego del Corazon, BC Irish Dance, and Masti all ushered in cultural flair to their performances, mixing modern music with their distinct dance forms.

Patu’s “Welcome to the Diaspora” highlighted their upbeat embrace of African dance, eliciting wild cheers from the entire audience. Fuego received a similar reception from the crowd, transitioning back and forth from modern to classic Latin dance and flashing their capacity for some stellar, extremely lofty lifts and even flips. BC Irish Dance wowed with their intricate footwork, which always seemed perfectly in sync in both appearance and sound. Their specific crowd pleaser was a visual illusion in which the dancers formed one linked circle and then appeared to magically break the formation into two and then four circles.

On Tap, B C ’s tap group, were also particularly quick on their feet,

exemplifying a mastered duality of arm and feet combinations. Sexual Chocolate’s take on complex footwork reached a new level as they invited the audience into the North Pole, which in their story was enduring infiltration by a sworn enemy, Tommy Thanksgiving.

The war on Christmas subsides when the brotherhood teams up in powerful step sequences accompanied by chants.

And what would an SC performance be without a little promiscuous floorwork at its conclusion?

Synergy, Phaymus, and Uprising all colored the stage with booming hip-hop performances. While Synergy and Phaymus blended syncopation and flow, Uprising demonstrated the slower, smoother side of the genre by dancing to both Cardi B and John Mayer.

While each and every performance showcased individual groups’ respective strengths and unique styles, all of the dance groups accomplished one common goal—illuminating the spirit of dance. In this week dedicated to the power and beauty of movement, dancers of differing levels of experience and varying styles unite to show the BC community exactly why there are 16 dance groups on campus. n

I saw a lot of movies this year, just like I do every year. There were an awful lot of horrible movies that I sat through so that you didn’t have to, my dear readers. But, as Robert De Niro says in Heat, “there is a flipside to that coin.” There were quite a few good and great movies that came out this year. I’m here to quickly discuss some of my favorites and one film which I would watch again if you put a gun to my head, but I really wouldn’t like it. My Deep Tracks column is being put on hold, but because I like writing that one so much, I’ll dust it off and continue at some point next semester.

First, I want to talk about my favorite movie of 2017, Get Out. This movie was a pretty big deal when it came out, and rightfully so, because it is fantastic. But I think that the attention has died down nine months after its release. Get Out is funny and scary at the same time, and it is also a biting satire of a subversive kind of racism of which I, as someone who has never been persecuted for the color of my skin, was entirely unaware.

All of the actors turn in an incredible performance throughout, the story is tight and engaging, and the dialogue is compelling, witty, and thought-provoking in one fell swoop. I keep an alternate list of movies that I think everyone should see, and although it’s in no order, Get Out is a movie I genuinely think everyone should watch, even if they don’t particularly like movies.

The film has already been nominated for and won multiple awards, and although I’m unsure if it will make it to the Golden Globes or Academy Awards, I think it should win.

There is even more good news for Get Out: It has been added to HBO. At this point, Game of Thrones has become popular enough that everyone who doesn’t have an HBO account has a friend with one. This holiday season, treat yourself to an incredible movie.

Now, one of my least favorite movies of 2017. In July, I saw The Emoji Movie in theaters. I had high hopes for this film, trusting the strong and eclectic voice cast and the high bar set by a similarly cast animated movie, The LEGO Movie. But I was sorely disappointed. The Emoji Movie was atrocious. The story was trite and predictable, the characters were poorly motivated and voiced, and I can guarantee that I did not laugh one time in the 91 minutes of this commercial with a “story.”

There were blatant ads for Dance Dance Revolution, Candy Crush, and Dropbox (a favorite app among preteen children, as everyone knows). The Emoji Movie went so far as to try to create a new summer “dance-song” combination, the “Emoji-Bop.” Apparently there is some benevolent deity watching over us with a stoic scowl on its face, because this song-and-dance did not catch on. Trolls, as bad as it was, at least had a pretty good pop song as the main soundtrack, “Can’t Stop the Feeling.” The “Emoji-Bop” is not that, and we should all be thankful.

There is one more film-like creation that was released this year that deserves everyone’s special attention. It was not released in theaters, or on DVD. No, it was performed 138 times at the prestigious Lyceum Theatre from September 2016 to January 2017, where it was filmed and then released on Netflix on June 13, 2017.

Oh, Hello on Broadway is the lovechild of comedy legends Nick Kroll and John Mulaney. The production is a two-hour version of the “Oh, Hello” bit on The Kroll Show. Mulaney and Kroll play George St. Geegland and Gil Faizon respectively, two geriatric New Yorkers. The special is filled with weird and hilarious bits, recurring jokes, and isms of both the Mulaney and Kroll variety. There are countless, fairly intelligent references to obscure and wellknown theatre productions like Hamilton and The Pillowman, shoutouts to acclaimed New York actor Alan Alda (“double-A beep beep get off my property!”) and Steely Dan, and there are such amazing quotable moments as “Oh, Hello!”, “Alright!”, and “That’s too much tuna.”

There are a lot of other must-watch and must-avoid movies from this year, but these three are the most pressing for each category. Other than that, have a great break and I’ll see you in the new year, with another 30 movies to talk about.

Jacob Schick is the assoc. scene editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2017

@BCHEIGHTSARTS

SAM ZHAI / HEIGHTS STAFF

To Be Heard By The People

John Finney speaks about his role after 25 years of dedicated work as director of the University Chorale and conductor of the Symphony Orchestra.

BY JACOB SCHICK Assoc. Scene Editor Jo h n Fi n n e y, d i re c to r o f th e University Chorale of Boston College and conductor of the BC Symphony Orchestra, rarely listens to music for fun. Driving in the car, he listens to CDs of the songs he’s working on with the Chorale or the Symphony Orchestra.

When he works at his office in Lyons Hall, he works in silence. There is no background music echoing off the four white walls of the small room he sits in. Instead, the music flows through his mind. Background music is rather jarring, especially when it does not match the genre, decade, or even century of the song he is focusing on.

“The popular songs that I know, I know from hearing them at the gym,” Finney said. “I always have to ask students ‘What is the name of this song? It goes like this’ or ‘It has this line.’”

Finney has been the director of the University Chorale since 1993 and the conductor of the Symphony Orchestra since ’99, and over his 25 years at BC, he has had an enormous influence on the two groups and the music program as a whole. Finney has directed the Chorale on tours through Europe and has conducted the two groups at dozens of concerts over the years, including BC’s celebration of its 150th anniversary.

His skill and talent as a conductor and director are mirrored not only by his accomplishments, but by the feelings of the students he works with.

“John in the lifeblood of the Chorale,” said Eddie Dols, social director of the Chorale and MCAS ’18. “His energy and attention to detail make it possible for 160 kids with various levels of musical background able to perform high caliber chorale pieces.”

There are two main components to Finney’s job. First, as the director of the University Chorale, he is responsible for running auditions every September to replace previous members and maintain a full chorale at 160 voices, made up of both men and women. At these auditions, Finney hears about 100 voices and usually accepts around 60 people. Choosing these voices marks one of the more challenging aspects of Finney’s job. When listening to a voice, Finney looks for a few key things.

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“B eautiful sound, confidence, matching pitch,” Finney said. “If I play a note, they need to be able to match that pitch exactly and control their voice.”

Finney demonstrated this more technical aspect of vocal quality. In someone’s audition, he’ll play a note from an instrument or simply sing the note to the potential member. If this person can match the note, they are one step closer to being accepted. Vocal control, however, is more nuanced. If someone matches the note, but their voice wavers up and down and they are unaware of this, that presents a problem. Finney explained that this is not necessarily a defect in someone’s voice, it only means that they have not yet learned how to control their voice with precision.

“I wish I had time to work with every single singer who auditions for us,” Finney said. “I think anybody can learn how to sing, and I think everybody can learn how to sing better.”

For Finney, singing better means being able to match pitch more consistently and produce a more appealing sound with regularity.

Some of the people who audition for the University Chorale admit that they have never sung in a choir before.

But when they sing for Finney, if they demonstrate their ability to match pitch and Finney is happy to accept them.

Unfortunately, there is a limit to the number of people Finney can accept, and some people who try out are simply not yet experienced enough.

When accepting auditionees, Finney must also consider the available spaces in each group of vocal ranges. There are four sections of the Chorale. Soprano and tenor are the higher female and male voices, respectively, while alto and bass are the lower female and male voices. The lines between these ranges are blurred, Finney explained, as almost any trained man or woman in their 20s can sing in either range with some competency. Usually, the singers are more comfortable with one or the other, but they can likely sing both.

Some of the students who are rejected from the chorale can be great singers, but there may simply be no room for them.

“Say we hear 100 people audition, and 80 of them are sopranos,” Finney

BC Week of Dance Performance

said. “If I’m only looking for 20 sopranos, I have to be really, really selective.”

The other aspect of Finney’s role, aside from directing the Chorale, is choosing the music that the y perform.

“I try to choose music that’s really challenging and really satisf ying,” Finney said. “I tend to do mostly traditional, classical, sacred music with the Chorale.”

Finney usually selects sacred music first, both because BC is a Jesuit university and because most of the great landmarks in choral music were written and sung for the Church. An additional reason for nearly exclusively singing sacred music is that when the University Chorale goes on tour, it usually performs in European churches, where this type of music is required.

There are exceptions to the sacred music for the Chorale, most notably the group’s yearly performance at Pops on the Heights. At the annual fundraiser, the Boston Pops sometimes request more popular songs that fit in with their setlist from the Chorale. Here, the Chorale has sung songs such as “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “The Circle of Life.”

Aside from performances at Pops on the Heights, most of the University Chorale concerts that are put on at BC are centered on a classical, and usually religious, work. This year the Chorale performed Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and in the past it has done a show on Mozart’s Requiem. If the concert consists of more than a single piece, however, Finney tries to select songs that are engaging for both the Chorale and the audience.

“I want it to be something that makes you want to sit up and listen to it,” he said. “There is a lot of music that can be sort of boring to listen to, and that’s the last thing that I want.”

This does not mean that every piece must be “fast and loud.” They can be slow and soft, yet still be very interesting to listen to and to sing.

Once Finney has settled on a piece that he knows will be engaging, he has to “sell” it to the Chorale. Some pieces that Finney knows people will love once they’ve learned them are quite unattractive at the start. When Finney first chose Sunrise Mass by

The dance groups of BC, including the Golden Eagles and Pom Squad, come together in celebration of dance............B7

the Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, he really had to work to impart his excitement about the piece to the members of the group. The piece starts with waves of sound that produce an incredible effect for the audience, but the experience of singing it is, as Finney describes it, “really quite weird.”

Finney works to introduce the music in such a way that the Chorale will trust him. To do so, he tries to mix in pieces that the singers can pick up in one practice while also balancing the very challenging pieces that will take weeks of work to sound even passable.

The University Chorale often collaborates with the BC Symphony Orchestra when they perform.. This unity is how Finney ties together his roles in the Chorale with his conducting of the Orchestra.

Many parts of his dual-role are quite similar. He must run auditions for the Orchestra in S eptemb er every year in order to keep the total count of players near 50. He is also responsible for choosing the pieces for each performance by the Symphony Orchestra.

M a ny o f th e co mp o s e r s a n d works Finney selects are classics like Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, but he also often picks 20th- and 21st-century music that doesn’t appeal to him as much as a musician. He is not choosing the music for himself, but for the players. He recognizes that for many in the Orchestra and singers in the Chorale, their time at BC may be their last opportunity to play in a symphonic orchestra or to sing in a full chorale.

Of course, there are students who are majoring in music so that they may go on to pursue this full-time, but many of Finney’s players and singers are studying to be nurses or accountants or lawyers. By varying the music between classic and modern pieces, Finney can provide them with as large and appealing a repertoire as possible.

“It’s my hope and my goal that every piece that they sing or play is engaging,” Finney said. “Every piece is something that they will always remember.”

Finney also has goals for every performance, Chorale and Orchestra alike, that he puts together. Depending on the pieces selected, Finney will use to the players and singers to evoke different emotions from the audience.

‘The Disaster Artist’

James and Dave Franco collaborate to recreate the wonderfully terrible masterpiece ‘The Room’.......................B6

When he set Sunrise Mass for the Chorale, he was trying to convey a sense of wonder and amazement from a piece that he was nearly positive none of the audience members had heard before.

In every performance, Finney tries to impart the countless hours of work put in by the players and singers to the audience without making it sound like such efforts took place. If the song or the music sounds like it is hard, the effect is lost. Finney seeks performances that the audience feels are effortless and yet knows were arduous, time-consuming, and challenging to make happen.

Fo r t h e U n i v e r s i t y C h o r a l e and Symphony Orchestra’s recent Christmas concert, Finney sought a much simpler feeling. He wanted the audience to feel only joy—an over whelming feeling of joy. For the concert, he selected songs that everyone knows and expects to hear like “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night,” while balancing the setlist with more elaborate and technically challenging pieces like the French carol “Ding Dong Merrily on High” and Beibl’s “Ave Maria.” In every concert, he must think of the audience, but the Christmas concert is an especially telling case study for this practice.

The audience arrives expecting to hear familiarity, while wanting to hear novelty. Finney and the Chorale meet and exceed the audience’s expectations by inviting them to sing along to four or five of the familiar and timeless pieces. But the Chorale, the Orchestra, and Finney are quick to turn around and display a tour-de-force of talent with an entirely new and complex song that will have the audience marvelling.

Finney creates an exciting mixture of vocals and instrumentals every single show.

His ability to craft this elixir of sound keeps audiences coming back to these performances again and again.

Finney’s ability to direct and conduct singers and players to new levels of performance keeps students coming back to the Chorale and Orchestra year after year. By maintaining this high level of interest, excitement, and enjoyment, Finney can honor his personal philosophy for his work.

“Music is only music if it’s heard by people,” he said. 

‘Utopia’.................................................. B6 ‘Who Built the Moon?’...................................... B6 ‘Obsession’...................................................B6