editorial
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Volume 47.27 April 16, 2015 Editor-in-Chief: Dayana Morales Gomez Managing Editor: Caitriona Pagni General Manager: Mary-Bailey Frank Webmaster: Maya McCoy Editors-at-Large: James Constant, Julia Lloyd-George, Ian Philbrick Contributing Editor: Chris Castano Blog Editor: Marisa Hawley Halftime Leisure Editors: Erika Bullock, Graham Piro Halftime Sports Editors: Alex Boyd, Rob Ponce News Editor: Lara Fishbane Sports Editor: Joe Pollicino Feature Editor: Ryan Greene Leisure Editor: Daniel Varghese Page 13 Editor: Dylan Cutler Voices Editor: Noah Buyon Photo Editor: Joshua Raftis Cover Editor: Christina Libre Design Editor: Eleanor Sugrue Spread Editors: Pam Shu, Sophie Super Assistant Blog Editors: Grace Brennan, Dominique Rouge, Carley Tucker Assistant Halftime Leisure Editor: Michael Bergin Assistant News Editors: Courtnie Baek, Ryan Miller Assistant Sports Editors: Isabel Echarte, Kevin Huggard, Max Roberts Assistant Feature Editor: Shalina Chatlani Assistant Leisure Editors: Elizabeth Baker, Dinah Farrell, Sabrina Kayser Assistant Voices Editor: Leila Lebreton Assistant Photo Editors: Vicki Lam, Carolyn Zaccaro Assistant Cover Editor: Megan Howell Assistant Design Editor: Ellie Yaeger
Staff Writers:
Chris Almeida, Sourabh Bhat, Emilia Brahm, Emmy Buck, Lilah Burke, Caitlyn Cobb, Brendan Crowley, Patrick Drown, Emmanuel Elone, Tyler Kranawetter, Joe Laposata, Brian McMahon, Maneesha Panja, Brendan Saunders, Thomas Stubna, Manuela Tobias, Colleen Zorc
Staff Photographers:
Ambika Ahuja, Saman Asdjodi, Jen Costa, Megan Howell, Gavin Myers , Freddy Rosas, Taryn Shaw, Andrew Sullivan
Staff Designers:
Erin Annick, Lizzy Blumberg, Caitlin Garrabrant, River Davis, Katie Hyland, Johnny Jung, Erin McClellan
Copy Chief: Dana Suekoff Copy Editors:
Lauren Chung, Bianca Clark, Jupiter El-Asmar, Alex Garvey, Rachel Greene, Madison Kaigh, Julian Sena, Suzanne Trivette
Editorial Board Chair: Kenneth Lee
profess your priorities
Keep professors accountable in course evaluations Of the many adjectives that can be used to describe America’s post-secondary education system, “transparent” is not one of them. Unfortunately, Georgetown’s course evaluation system is not an exception to this rule. Despite its relentless email and advertising campaigns to solicit student participation course evaluations, the university neglects to inform students that there is no guarantee that any faculty besides their professors will read their comments. The Editorial Board recognizes that there are legitimate reasons for keeping evaluations private. One glance at Rate My Professor’s listings seems enough to justify administrators’ efforts to contain offensive comments. Notwithstanding, the comments section in course evaluations can provide details about what professors teach and how they teach that quantitative reviews provided by the university registrar on MyAccess cannot. Given the many biases embedded in simple numerical ratings, like the
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positive correlation between high marks from professors and higher ratings for professors, or the documented bias of giving better scores to male professors, it’s questionable that numbers can tell much of a story at all. Such tensions embedded in course evaluations are but one aspect of broader issues in higher education that pit professors against students. Although there are professors who manage to balance their research and professorial responsibilities, the sense that professors are researchers first and teachers second is still prevalent among the undergraduate student body. Georgetown is understandably proud of its diverse and accomplished faculty, who are often lauded practitioners in their fields. But all students should have an avenue to express their opinions on their courses and professors, and to know that their opinion is taken seriously by university faculty. Faculty research is essential to the mission, both historical and current, of any uni-
versity. It is also a public service, enhancing the corpus of human knowledge, but it often comes at undergraduates’ expense, which hardly seems fair given the costs of a Georgetown education and the Jesuit commitment to education through interactive discourse. The Editorial Board has heard students frequently complain that their professors are absent for days on end attending far-off scholastic conferences, or that they limit their office hours such that there is little hope of getting productive face time with them. We propose that qualitative course feedback be better utilized by department chairs in order to hold professors accountable to their students. This begins with extending access to written feedback to department chairs or to a third party auditor. After all, Georgetown entrusts undergraduates to run its coffee shops, its residences, and even its emergency medical service. Surely it can trust us to take a little more ownership of our education as well.
but do they make bank?
Foreign Service career stats only half the picture
According to the Cawley Career Education Center’s post-graduation employment statistics, in the past decade, more students who graduate from the School of Foreign Service are entering jobs in consulting and financial services than are entering the public sector. At face value, the career center’s findings seem to show that more and more Hoyas are passing up the public sector altogether. However, these statistics do not necessarily reflect that SFS graduates have changed their career preferences—they show the difficulties that recent graduates face in an unfavorable job market. The scarcity of public sector openings in a difficult job market has pushed students towards the private sector. And of the few public sector openings that are available, many require applicants to hold graduate degrees, so they are out of reach to even the most ambitious SFS alumni. Moreover, some graduates—especially those who come from low-income backgrounds—contemplate consulting and financial jobs out of consideration for their families or to pay off student loans.
Put simply, the career center’s data do not indicate that SFS students have stopped taking government jobs, only that they are less likely to do so immediately after graduation. As SFS Associate Dean Emily Zenick recently told The Hoya, the future jobs that SFS graduates may hold are not included in the career center’s survey. Students who want to serve the country may first enter their private sector jobs in order to gain the necessary experience to secure public sector positions in the future. Nevertheless, students may have gravitated largely toward consulting and financial services for their first jobs because they receive less help in entering other fields. Of the 16 “employer partners” that the career center lists on its website, all of them are consulting or financial services firms. A school that heavily promotes its Washington, D.C. location should be able to say that it partners with D.C. or federal government to provide fresh graduates to their agencies. Students should not have to rely primarily on word-of-mouth from professors, friends, or the Internet to
search for such opportunities without guidance from career center staff. The Walsh Scholars’ Initiative, which the SFS Academic Council announced on Tuesday, aims to provide students with mentorship from a wide variety of high-profile movers and shakers in public service. While it might help reverse the shift in the SFS toward the private sector, with its application-based process and extremely small size—only five students can join the program—the Initiative does not address the problem that most SFS students are not benefiting from discourse and advice that inspire them to join the public sector. Ultimately, economic conditions and insufficient qualifications for entry-level government jobs, rather than a mere attraction to the private sector, have lowered the chances that SFS graduates include public sector work in their immediate post-graduation plans. With more inclusive institutional support from the university, the numbers of graduates entering government work could increase and allow the SFS to more fully live up to its namesake as the School of Foreign Service.
we love our cute little freshmen
Editorial Board:
Isabel Echarte, Lara Fishbane, Ryan Miller, Dayana Morales Gomez, Ryan Greene, Laura Kurek, Caitriona Pagni, Ian Philbrick, Daniel Varghese, Garet Williams
The georgetown voice | 3
Making peer mentorships a productive experience
In the next few weeks, Georgetown’s admitted students will commit to becoming members of the Class of 2019. Over the summer, incoming freshmen have the option to communicate with upperclassmen peer advisors, who are chosen by the deans and staff members of the undergraduate schools, about the transition to college life. Unfortunately, as the program stands right now, the peer advisor programs are not much more than an additional line on the resumes of upperclassmen. Incoming freshmen can read the individual biographies of each peer advisor and email questions, but that is, for many people, the extent of their possible interactions. Sometimes, a reply from the advisor isn’t even guaranteed, making them seem even more remote. Pre-registration, time management, extracurricular options, and the roommate search are
undoubtedly some key questions all incoming students face in their summer before Georgetown. However, their experience with their new college is likely limited to a Blue and Gray tour that they may have participated in during GAAP week. Some students may not even have had an opportunity to step foot onto campus. Soliciting inquiry emails thus creates a lose-lose situation. Since admitted students do not know what questions to ask and how to ask them, their peer advisors, while with good intentions, are unable to provide them with useful answers. We urge deans in the four undergraduate schools to consider revising the Peer Mentor system based on how the Georgetown Admissions Ambassador Program organizes their state, transfer, and international chairs programs for prospective students. In a similar fashion, peer
advisors could organize themselves by state, by major city, or by country for incoming students. Deans could require them to proactively reach out to those who live in the region and host coffee chats or informal gatherings, in order to not only to create an accessible space to get general advice, but also to provide a way for new students to meet each other, as the students already do independently through their GAAP Facebook group. All peer advisors should aim to create longterm connections into the school year. However, they cannot cultivate and catalyze such relationships without face-to-face contact. By placing more emphasis on personal social interactions and less on the chore of answering emails, deans should reshape peer advisors into more proactive and valuable mentors who can guide freshmen to their new home on the Hilltop.