COMING HOME
999 AND COUNTING
VIVA DALLA RIVA
SPORTS
METRO
SCENE
After a win and a tie against BU, Jerry York sits one win away from 1,000, B8
General Electric announced that it is moving its global headquarters back to Boston, A4
Junior singer-songwriter Chris Dalla Riva discusses songwriting, finding a band, and finding his sound, B3
www.bcheights.com
HE
The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College
established
1919
Thursday, Janurary 21, 2016
Vol. XCVII, No. 1
8k_c\k`Zj I\c\Xj\j =`eXeZ\j 9: d\eËj YXjb\kYXcc klie\[ X gifÔ k `e A`d :_i`jk`XeËj Ô ijk p\Xi 9P D@:?8<C JLCC@M8E Jgfikj <[`kfi Boston College men’s basketball finished 13-19 in head coach Jim Christian’s first season at the helm, a five-win jump from Steve Donahue’s pitiful last season in Chestnut Hill. But that wasn’t Christian’s only success—the Eagles also brought huge returns to the Athletic Department’s pocketbooks. After a down year in 2013-14, the program returned to profitability, according to the University’s Equity in Athletics Data Report. The U.S. Department of Education releases this information, reporting financial information for any institution which receives federal funding for athletics. Donahue’s final season, an 8-24 campaign which saw only one notable win—a road upset of No. 1 Syracuse University—was hampered by misuse of his best players, a lack of year-to-year improvement, and an inability to adjust to rule changes by the now-University of Pennsylvania skipper. But its profitability problems stemmed from a challenging non-conference schedule that featured several out-of-state games, including trips to Los Angeles (USC), West Lafayette, Ind. (Purdue), Auburn, Ala. (Auburn), Brooklyn, N.Y. (VCU), and Manhattan, N.Y. (UConn and Washington). This resulted in a net loss of $1.68 million. In 2014-15, Christian only scheduled one major out-of-state tournament—a threegame slate against New Mexico, UMass, and Dayton in San Juan, Puerto Rico—while keeping BC’s remaining non-conference games at home. BC’s marquee home matchups against Virginia, North Carolina, and Notre Dame also occurred on Saturdays, likely helping ticket sales at home. Because of these (and other) factors, the program spent $5.68 million, a 20.3 percent drop. This helped men’s basketball turn a profit of $1.12 million, a rise from 14th to 10th in the ACC. Both Notre Dame and Virginia Tech reported losses of $3.15 million and $79,837, respectively. BC, however, is still well behind the conference’s frontrunners, such as first-place Louisville, which turned a $29.05 million profit last season. Yet men’s basketball wasn’t the only program that showed a notable improvement in only one year. Despite having the exact same 7-6 record in each season, BC football turned a higher profit during the 2014 season than in 2013, increasing from $4.07 million to $5.37 million. Like men’s basketball, this total still pales in comparison to BC’s contemporaries. The program again finished 14th in the ACC, only $20,000 ahead of last-place Wake Forest and well behind the conference average of $16.71 million. Only four schools—BC, Wake, Duke, and Virginia—reported revenues under $10 million, while first-place Notre Dame amassed a profit of a whopping $54.25 million. This is largely due to Notre Dame’s football independence—the Fighting Irish earn a majority of their profits from an exclusive TV deal with NBC. Men’s hockey also received good news, if only marginally so and for negative reasons. Head coach Jerry York’s team finished 2115-3 in 2014-15 with a first-round loss to Denver in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament in Providence, R.I. This was a far cry from BC’s 2013-14 campaign, which featured a Frozen Four run in Philadelphia. But BC’s shorter season helped the program financially. The team still did not turn a profit, yet improved its losses from $1.46 million to $892,650, a 61.1 percent decrease. Of the four profit sports, the only one
See Equity in Athletics, A8
KELSEY MCGEE / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC
<Xicp 8Zk`fe JkXkj J_fn @eZi\Xj\[ 8[d`kkXeZ\ 9P K8PCFI JK% ><ID8@E 8jjk% E\nj <[`kfi Despite a decrease in the number of early action applicants and a rise in the acceptance rate, landing at 32 percent, Boston College’s early action admittance class maintained last year’s academic rigor and matched the class of 2019’s average SAT and ACT scores. BC Undergraduate Admission re-
ceived 8,600 early action applications, a decrease from last year’s spike in interest. John Mahoney, Boston College Director of Undergraduate Admission, said, however, that the number of applications is similar to what was received in past years. “We have carved out our niche in terms of the reputation of the institution and the quality of students that apply,” Mahoney said.
The admitted class averaged 2128 on the SAT and 33 on the ACT, nearly matching last year’s early action class’ scores. BC Undergraduate Admission admitted 30 percent of the 2020 class through the restrictive early action program. Because the office received about a third of the overall applications through early action, allotting 70 percent of spots for the regular decision
students creates a fair playing field for those who apply to the Jan. 1 deadline, Mahoney said. “We are great believers in this idea that the people applying at the Jan. 1 deadline should be treated with the same fairness and equity as those who are applying early action,” Mahoney said. “So as a result, we do apply a
See Early Action, A3
L>9: 8Zk`fe GcXe Led\k Yp 8[d`e Jkl[\ek ^fm\ied\ek \o\Zlk`m\j fi`^`eXccp ZXcc\[ ]fi X [\X[c`e\ f] k_`j Kl\j[Xp 9P 8C<O8E;I8 8CC8D E\nj <[`kfi
MARISSA VENUTO / HEIGHTS STAFF
K`Zb\kj ]fi Gc\oXgXcffqX J\cc Flk `e I\Zfi[ K`d\ K_\ ZfeZ\ik# n_`Z_ ]\Xkli\j <;D ^iflg K_\ :_X`ejdfb\ij# jfc[ flk `e knf d`elk\j fe Kl\j[Xp dfie`e^ 9P 8C<O8E;I8 8CC8D E\nj <[`kfi Tickets for this year’s Plexapalooza went on sale at 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning through the Robsham box office. Two minutes later, the tickets were sold out, breaking previous sell-out time records. The Campus Activities Board announced Dec. 15 that The Chainsmokers will be the guest performers at the 2016 Plexapalooza. Many upset students criticized the amount of tickets on the event’s Facebook page. “While we are happy to see that students are excited about this event, we understand the frustrations regarding the limited number of tickets,” Christine
Cocce, CAB president and CSOM ’16, wrote in an email. Cocce wrote that the maximum capacity of the venue is 1,800 people due to fire code and safety laws and that all tickets were sold this morning. She explained that the standard policy of two tickets per student ID has always been in place for this event. Cocce wrote that CAB has already identified students online who are attempting to resell their tickets at a higher price. Those tickets will be voided without refund. Tickets must be presented at the door, and all tickets will be scanned upon entering the event, which will be held Jan. 29 at 8:30 p.m in the Flynn Recreation Complex.
At the end of last semester, the Undergraduate Government of Boston College called for a plan of action from the administration regarding race and institutional racism to be released Jan. 19. Despite the push for a response and changes made by UGBC on the working proposal earlier this month, the administration chose not to release a statement or plan this past Tuesday. Since the initial release of its working proposal, UGBC has been working with Barbara Jones, vice president for student affairs, and Dean of Students Thomas Mogan to create a proposal. This has included benchmarking other schools, as well as adding its own recommendations about what a proposal would look like in order to assist in the process. Members of the administration were contacted, but have not yet responded at this time. “We are committed to continuing the dialogue with students around issues they have raised,” Jones wrote in an email. “We look forward to discussing with UGBC their concerns, correcting some misperceptions, and sharing our mutual commitment to diversity and inclusion.
See UGBC, A3