A6
The Heights
Editorials
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING:Breaking down Borders
Jump on the Superfan wagon
Thursday, February 17, 2011
“Borders is filing for bankruptcy protection and will shutter about 30% of its stores—or about 200 locations— over the next few weeks. The 40-year-old company, which has struggled in the face of competition from Amazon, the Kindle, and deep-discounters Walmart and Target, will receive $505 million in so-called debtorin-possession financing from GE Capital and others to help it reorganize.” Source: “Borders Closing 30% of Stores,” by Kate Schwartz, Feb. 16, 2011
The momentum created by the men’s hockey team’s back-to-back Beanpot wins should be carried through all season The Eagles are now back-to-back Beanpot Champions and it is undeniable that the Superfans have been out in full force this season; a notably robust student crowd filled the stands during the recent championship game. Whether this is due to the talent of the men’s and women’s hockey teams, or just the excitement surrounding the Beanpot, the fact remains that the teams are drawing increasingly more fans. Boston College is now leading the Hockey East in the average number of attendees per home game. Since the 2007-2008 season, previous attendance had been on the decline. Records show that Conte Forum was No. 4 in home attendance in the Hockey East last season with around 1,000 fewer fans per home game than this season, on average. Fans should take this positive trend and run with it. The pride the BC community has for the hockey team should be cel-
ebrated by encouraging even more people to go to the games. We believe that this is the perfect opportunity to turn attending athletic events into a tradition. Students should embrace the rare chance to cheer on a men’s hockey team vying for backto-back national championships. But the support for BC athletics should not stop there. The men’s basketball team is currently next-to-last in the ACC in home game attendance. The excitement surrounding the hockey team could be contagious and spread to even more sports and teams. If students start going to games not just for the love of watching the sport, but also because it’s an integral part of the BC culture, game attendance will transcend the success of any one team at any one time. It will cease to be a function of the teams’ standings and become a worthy social event in the best of times and in the worst of times.
Moving beyond the monologue
Matt Laud / Heights Illustration
‘The Vagina Monologues’ is still a marginal event where it should find an engaged audience — a college campus Fifteen years after the The Vagina Monologues were written by Eve Ensler, the performance, which is hosted at colleges and universities around the country, remains a polarizing force on campus. For the eight years that The Vagina Monologues have been hosted on campus, the organizers have operated at a distance from the University, seeking funding from the student government and adhering to numerous administrative restrictions. While the distance between the performance and the University is understandable given the production’s content (some of which deals with same-sex relations), it is easy to confuse quiet acceptance on the part of Boston College community members with quiet animosity. We think that it’s time to view the Monologues as a springboard to discuss not only feminism and women’s issues, but also more BC-specific topics like feminism and sexuality in the Catholic Church, which would only be appropriate given the setting of the performance. In past years, the University itself
has received criticism for its allowance of The Vagina Monologues on campus. In 2004, the Cardinal Newman Society ran a full-page ad in USA Today listing Catholic universities (including BC) that allowed the performance. Yet, The Vagina Monologues remain a perennial event. We praise the University and its administrators for their commitment to academic freedom. But the campus needs to take it a step further. It will be at institutions like BC that the Church in the United States will define its place in the 21st century. Here at BC, there are at least some students interested in talking about sexuality, feminism, and morality. This is manifested in The Vagina Monologues and the post-performance discussions held every year. That interest is the fuel on which these conversations about the Church’s place in society will run. No matter what their thoughts are on the presentation of The Vagina Monologues, administrators, faculty, and Jesuits should acknowledge the presence of this student interest and engage it off of the stage, but always in the spirit of open dialogue.
Not merely a matter of formality An expansion of formal programming would not only foster community and class, but fill a social void that students face
During football season, when the campus comes alive under the communal spirit of football, particular attention has recently been given to the Notre Dame game because, in the spirit of collegiate rivalry, the Fighting Irish is the team Boston College students love to hate. Though we brag about BC having the superior football team, we feels that in terms of campus traditions, our student body could take some advice from our South Bend-based foes. When choosing to attend a Jesuit school, BC students willingly forfeit the potential to engage in Greek life during their undergraduate experience. With this in mind, it is disappointing that few clubs or student organizations takes up the challenge of providing the kinds of large-scale campus events that are typical of schools within unifying Hellenic institutions. For an event to gain the type of status that would solidify it as a tradition, there are a few factors we feel would need to be considered. The type of events that would be most successful are those that every-
one on campus could attend. The reason football is such an engaging activity is due largely to the fact that everyone – Superfans past, present, and future – can join in. Fair and ample ticket sales, as well a sensible sales methods, are of critical importance to an event’s success. One thing that many students have noticed is that the ticket office in Robsham Theater is manned by one or two employees on most days when event tickets are sold. It would make much more sense to sell tickets in the regulation-sized windows at Conte Forum. With programming as a major platform point during this year’s UGBC presidential election, we would like to suggest that candidates seek to unite groups on campus—a process that could lead to larger-scale activities whose reputations would arouse anticipation in students from freshman year onward. We hope to see this year’s candidates adopt this spirit so as to work to unite a student body and engage in the deeper sense of what it means to be part of the BC community.
The Heights The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Established 1919 Michael Caprio, Editor-in-Chief Daniel Ottaunick, General Manager Hilary Chassé, Managing Editor
Contributors: Maggie Burdge
Letters to the Editor Consider a Men’s Resource Center During this time of year, students are being hounded for their vote in the upcoming UGBC elections, as four teams compete based on their “experience, ideas, and energy.” But this is also the time of year where students should demand action from those they elect, so that those student leaders direct attention where the student body needs assistance. One of the most visible and effective university programs on campus is the Women’s Resource Center (WRC), located in McElroy. The WRC offers support for women within the BC community, and emergency services such as the sexual assault hotline. But our community includes two genders, and the concerns facing male students are no less worthy of attention from the administration and student leaders. Compared to the excellent administration, funding, and resources provided by the WRC, malefocused resources are noticeably lacking, and there are few
outlets for underclass male students to find support and mentorship within our large community. To this point, I expect our candidates for student body president and vice president to support the development of male students on campus, through UGBC policy and in conjunction with the administration. Student formation has become a source of constant discussion within the administration, and I believe it is time for UGBC to demand resources for male students, with the end goal of a Men’s Resource Center. The candidates who fight for this goal may not gain a large number of votes, but they will improve the Boston College community for thousands of future students, and fulfill their roles as leaders of the whole student body. Peter Brown A&S ’12
Expansion of merit aid is key The Presidential Scholars Program appropriately addresses the pre-college achievements of a (regrettably) small group of students; however, granting merit aid to students only for their achievements in high school is fundamentally contrary to the purpose of a college education. A scholarship program that does not recognize students for achievement during their college years fails to encourage personal and academic growth. While some students have been able to attend prestigious high schools, study abroad, and do other things worthy to note on their college applications, others simply have not had these opportunities. College gives these students their first chance to reach their potential, so they should
be encouraged to do so. The problems regarding Boston College’s scholarship programs are, unfortunately, not limited to financial aid. The resources available to the Presidential Scholars and other merit aid recipients should be made available to worthy undergraduates as well. The purpose of a college education is not to celebrate past achievements but to nurture future ones. Expanding merit aid to undergraduates is just the first in many steps that BC must take to preserve this notion. Kaitlyn Quaranta A&S ’14
Pairing ‘The Vagina Monologues’ and Rand As a feminist who has taught both The Vagina Monologues and Atlas Shrugged, I thank The Heights for its two enjoyable pieces on these works in Monday’s edition. One might think The Heights, or myself for that matter, might be looking for “balance” in spotlighting both the Progressive playwright Eve Ensler and the Conservative novelist Ayn Rand, but there are interesting similarities in these works too. Both of them take on “the world” as the artist believes it unfortunately is, and project an alternative vision of how the world could be: The Vagina Monologues uses comic exaggeration as well as pathos to achieve this dystopian-utopian mix, and Atlas Shrugged projects the same mix in its blend of realist fiction and fable. The play goes for the emotional solar plexus in under two hours; the novel, thousand pages or not, also carries a world-changing emotional impact for many.
Yes, you can read the text of Eve Ensler’s play with profit, but the heart of the matter is its living presence – that’s one of the many reasons why the Women’s and Gender Studies Program supports the 20 or so students who every year for eight years have gathered to do it, and facilitates all the assenting and dissenting “Dialogues on the Monologues” that goes on. Yes, like your columnist Taylor Cavallo, I will eagerly go to see the film “Atlas Shrugged Part One” (and would have even had it starred Angelina Jolie), but even if it’s good I’ll want to keep teaching the novel, and facilitating all the assenting and dissenting dialogues it sparks.
Judith Wilt
Professor, English Department
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