BEST OF BOSTON?
STEPPING IN
‘A NEW HOPE’
SPORTS
METRO
SCENE
Men’s and women’s hockey teams both advance to Beanpot final, A10
Former Senator John Kerry takes on new role as Secretary of State, B10
With Star Wars: Episode VII on the way, The Scene looks at franchises that have struck back, B1
HEIGHTS
www.bcheights.com
THE
The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College
established
1919
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Vol. XCIV, No. 6
BC webmail will move to Google Apps BY ELEANOR HILDEBRANDT News Editor By fall 2013, Boston College webmail will have transitioned entirely to Google Apps for Education, a free platform that includes, in addition to email, a web-based calendar, documents, and Google Drive. “A committee was formed a couple years ago to look at student email,” said Julie Gillis, director of technology implementation and communication at BC. “We were well aware of the limitations of the current system, particularly the space quota.” That committee, the Student Email Project, consisted of 14 administrators, including Gillis, and seven student representatives, all but one of whom graduated within the past two years. “The process was a real collaboration,” said Scott Cann, technology director for ITS Support Services. “We looked at peer institutions … we had students participating, faculty participating, and staff participating. We wanted it to be a real group decision.” Gillis also said that, in switching from an internal email system, BC is following in the footsteps of other institutions. In the process of finding a new platform, the University looked at various options, including Microsoft and Google, for outsourcing webmail, and talked to faculty members and students about the transition. Gillis noted that over 60 percent of students said that they already forwarded their BC emails to another account, and 76 percent of those students chose Gmail. “We’re really excited that students will not only have 25GB for email and docs,
See Email, A4
EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS STAFF
On Monday night in Robsham Theater, five finalists for Boston College’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship were honored. Voices of Imani (above right) performed.
BC awards commemorative King scholarships Clayborne Carson speaks at annual MLK Scholarship ceremony; students honored BY BRIAN THUROW For The Heights The audience in Robsham Theater was tense Monday night as five finalists for the 31st annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Scholarship awaited the award presentation. The scholarship, which is funded and presented by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Committee, awards $20,000 to the Boston College junior who has demonstrated
superior academic achievement, extracurricular leadership, community service, and involvement with the African American community and African American issues both on and off campus. The selection process is rigorous—of this year’s 22 applicants, only seven advanced to the interview stage, and only five were chosen as finalists: Steven Jefferson, A&S ’14; Patrick Williamson, A&S ’14; Kayla Mendonca, A&S ’14; Natali Soto, CSOM ’14; and Philip McHarris, A&S ’14. Before
the winner was announced, however, a number of speakers and performers took the stage. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Committee is a faculty organization at BC that has been awarding scholarships to students since 1982. Monday night’s ceremony started off with a short video detailing the committee members’ personal appreciation for King and how his achievements inspired the scholarship. The video was followed by a performance by Voices of Imani, BC’s gospel choir. They sang “I Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” a triumphant song written about King. Last year’s recipi-
Black History Month kicks off BY QIAN DENG Heights Staff Rayana Grace, A&S ’13, and Sandra Dickson, CSON ’13, are both busy individuals, serving in leadership positions for many clubs and service opportunities. What brought them together recently is the desire to make this year’s Black History Month (BHM) the best ever at Boston College. They took the first step in achieving this goal by making speeches to convince the BHM Planning Committee that they were the right people for the task. Perhaps one reason they were so persuasive is their genuine stake in the issues at hand. “My elementary school was very much educational about black history,” Grace said. “We watched civil rights videos, we learned Negro spirituals, and we read Harriet Tubman books in first grade. That’s always something that’s been a part of me, that my family really embraces.” As she grew older, Grace noted a “separation” between American history and black history, and soon realized that,
Athlete speaks about the dangers of contact sports BY CONNOR FARLEY Heights Editor
ed, Liptak talked about Fisher v. University of Texas, a case involving two white college applicants who were allegedly denied admission because of affirmative action admission policies. “What the University of Texas does is admit about 75 percent of its students on what they call the Top Ten Program. All you have to do is graduate in the top 10 percent of any high school and you get into the University of Texas.” Liptak said. “And that, in Texas at least, generates very substantial diversity, because Texas high schools are largely segregated.” The Supreme Court’s decision regarding the legality of this policy will help set the legal understanding of affirmative action going forward, and more generally, the attitude the Supreme Court has concerning race. The second major issue confronting the Supreme Court is the future of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in the case, Shelby County v. Holder.
Terry Long, Andre Waters, John Grimsley. The list goes on—all former NFL players, all committed suicide before the age of 50. “I’m going to talk to you tonight about the concussion crisis,” Chris Nowinski said in Gasson 100 on Tuesday night. Nowinski, a nationally recognized expert on concussions, co-founder and executive director of the Sports Legacy Institute (SLI), as well as the co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University (BUCSTE), was hosted by the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics to speak about the troubling and largely disregarded statistics behind head injuries in sports. Nowinski played football at Harvard and later went on to a short-lived professional wrestling career for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Known as “Chris Harvard” among the WWE community, he made a prominent career for himself, even meriting the WWE title of “2002’s Newcomer of the Year”—but that all ended after a performance gone wrong in 2003. After sustaining a severe injury to the face as a result of a gaffed stunt, Nowinski was forced to reevaluate his standing on head injuries. Like most diehard athletes, Nowinski generally shrugged off substantial injuries even when “seeing stars,” “blacking out,” or experiencing extreme disorientation, but long-term effects led him to take initiative toward his own wellbeing. The wrestler found himself “unable to last in the gym for even five minutes” and experi-
See Liptak, A4
See Nowinski, A4
EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR
‘NYTimes’ writer Adam Liptak talks Supreme Court BY GIANNI MATERA Heights Staff On Wednesday, New York Times reporter Adam Liptak gave a talk reflecting on his experience covering the United States Supreme Court. He also reviewed the upcoming controversial cases that will be addressed in the coming months. The event was sponsored by the Quality of Student Life Committee and was entitled “The Roberts Court in 2013: A Reporter’s Reflection.” Liptak gave a brief background of the nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court, including facts related to their racial diversity, academic background, and religion. “For the first time in history there are three women on the court,” Liptak said. “The court has a black member, Justice Clarence Thomas, only the second black member of the Court … and Justice Sonia Sotomayor is, of course, the first Hispanic member.” He mentioned that all nine justices attended either Harvard or Yale Law School, and that
there are six Roman Catholic members and three Jewish members of the Court. With this context, Liptak then conducted a thorough overview of the hot topics that will be addressed in the upcoming months in the court.
“We’re going to have decisions this term in major, major cases on affirmative action in higher education admissions, in the future of the Voting Rights Act and in same-sex marriage,” Liptak said. On the topic of affirmative action in higher-
ALEX GAYNOR / HEIGHTS EDITOR
Supreme Court journalist Adam Liptak talked to a crowd in Devlin 101 on Wednesday.
See MLK Scholarship, A4
Nowinski discusses head injuries
“It’s not that people don’t want to learn; it’s that they never had the chance to,” so she aspired to provide more individuals with such a chance. “We’d like to share the figures and events that might not be as talked about, in a way that people have never approached before.” A resident of New Jersey, Dickson prefers to identify herself first and foremost as “originally from Ghana,” where she was born. This will be her third time co-chairing the celebration. Before arriving in the U.S. 13 years ago, Dickson said, “I don’t think I was ever exposed to the tension. Race really wasn’t a factor. We had people of different backgrounds, but we didn’t look to anybody as superior or inferior. Then, coming here, where it was really very pervasive, I was forced to understand this culture.” Similar to Grace, Dickson said she “was fortunate
See BHM, A4
ent of the scholarship, Sandra Dickson, CSON ’13, then took the stage. Dickson has worked up an impressive resume since receiving the scholarship—she co-presented at the National Black Nurses Convention, worked at a health clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and acts as co-chair for BC’s Black History Month committee. She encouraged this year’s finalists to bring issues of social injustice to light, inspire others, and act as a role model for their peers. Dickson then ceded the stage to the evening’s keynote speaker, Clayborne Carson.