011513 Chicago Maroon

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TUESDAY • JANUARY 15, 2013

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

ISSUE 19 • VOLUME 124

Mandel makeover maintains historical design Ankit Jain Associate News Editor Mandel Hall is ready for its closeup. The 985-seat concert hall underwent one of the biggest renovations in its history over winter break. The revamp has left the venue “repaired and refreshed,” according to Heather Kneezel, the project architect for McGuire Igleski & Associates, the firm that designed the renovation. The renovation focused on improving the look and functionality of the interior of the hall. This involved repainting and repairing walls and parts of the ceiling that in some cases had not been touched in over 100 years, according to David Culcasi, Project Manager for Capital Project Delivery for the University’s Facilities Services. Some areas of the ceiling were so old that they had rotted away. “There were a few areas where you just went up and touched it and the

woodwork would just crumble and fall all the way down to the floor,” Culcasi said. Additional changes included the installation of new seating, acoustical reflectors to improve sound quality, and a fire alarm and sprinkler system. The cumulative effect of the changes has left the hall feeling almost new. “It’s a major facelift. Things that were in disrepair were fixed. All the wood and the ceiling—it was all dusty. When you walk down the hall on the second floor, you didn’t really want to be there. It was really dirty. Carpet was faded. It was just, I would say, an overall repair and refresh,” Kneezel said. Despite the changes, the University was careful in making sure the renovation did not change the historic nature of the hall. In fact, the architects even looked at pictures and drawings from the early 1900s to replicate the original design. “[The hall] looks like it stepped MANDEL continued on page 2

Mandel Hall, located in the Reynolds Club, recently received a face-lift with renovations to seating, acoustics, and interior details. SYDNEY COMBS | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Gov. joins new Newtown prompts Crime Lab to get political hospital dedication Marina Fang News Editor

Celia Bever News Editor & Alex Hays News Contributor Governor Pat Quinn and other state and local legislators spoke at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC)’s new adult hospital yesterday morning, commending the anticipated positive economic impact of the facility. “It is one of the most up-todate hospitals of the South Side,” said Kenneth Polonsky, executive vice president for medical affairs, dean of the biological sciences division at the University, and dean of the Pritzker School of Medicine. According to Polonsky, the project was completed on time and on budget. The Center for Care and Discovery, which occupies 1.2 million square feet and cost $700 million to complete, is “the single largest facility the University of Chicago has ever built,” according to President Robert Zimmer, who spoke at the dedication. Three hundred permanent jobs were created as a result of the project and $558 million were doled out in contracts, wages, and benefits during con-

struction, $430 million of which was spent in Illinois, according to numbers provided by the UCMC. Nearly half of the contracts were awarded to womenowned and minority-owned businesses. Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston said in an interview after the dedication that the University is “better than the city of Chicago” in terms of awarding contracts to women-owned and minority-owned businesses. Illinois state representative Barbara Flynn-Currie (A.B. ’68, M.B. ’73) spoke about the impact of the new hospital on the University’s relationship with the neighboring residents. “Occasionally there have been tensions between the University and the community, but those tensions seem to be a thing of the past,” she said. “The [construction] of this building makes absolutely, glaringly clear that this University is committed to the health care needs of the people who live on the South Side,” she said in an interview after the event. Asked in the interview for a response to Flynn-Currie’s statement, Hairston said, “[The University] is always a work in progress working with the community.”

The University of Chicago Crime Lab issued a letter on gun violence to the commission, appointed by President Obama, created in response to the Newtown, Connecticut shooting, recommending that the government increase funding and remove constraints on gun policy research. The letter, initiated by Professors Jens Ludwig and Harold Pollack, directors of the Crime Lab, was signed by over 100

academics, including medical, legal, and economic scholars from a host of major universities across the country. The authors stressed that political posturing from the gun lobby has curtailed the ability of agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health to adequately research gun violence and track the distribution and sale of weapons in the United States. “Removal of constraints on research would send an important message to both federal offi-

cials and the research community regarding their independence from political and ideological interference in the research process,” they wrote. The letter also recommended that the government augment federal funding for research related to gun policy. Currently, private donors bear the main costs for most of the research, but the authors believe this “is hardly a reliable, sustainable, or responsible means for our nation to tackle one of the most pressing public health problems we currently face.”

Much of the debate surrounding gun violence since the wake of the Newtown shooting has centered on topics such as background checks, access to high-capacity magazine clips, and the possibility of an assault weapons ban. However, at a White House press conference Monday, Obama shifted the conversation in step with the Crime Lab’s recommendations, indicating that gun policy research is a politically feasible step in addressing gun violence. CRIME LAB continued on page 2

Computers, cash reported missing by Doc Mara McCollom News Contributor Doc Films reported two iMac computers and some cash as missing to the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) on January 3. This is the fourth such incident at Doc that has occurred since the beginning of the academic year. The computers were taken from Doc’s office on the third floor of Ida Noyes Hall, and the cash, the amount of which was not specified in the police report, was taken from “another office on the first floor.” According to University spokesperson

Jeremy Manier, the items were taken from Doc. The incident report indicates that it occurred over winter break. Doc also filed a police report on November 26 following the third incident, which occurred over Thanksgiving break, when they found $150 missing from their cash lockers. In November, Doc’s General Chair, fourthyear Michaeljit Sandhu, said he was “hesitant to ‘officially’ label” the incident as a theft while police investigations were still ongoing. It was referred to as a theft in the police report. Neither the first nor the second incident was reported to

the UCPD. “At least once a quarter someone will misplace the change,” Sandhu said in an e-mail to the Maroon in November. “Since Doc is such a big organization, and it’s made up of volunteers, we usually assume that it’s going to happen once a quarter.” “There’s too many people handling money for it not to happen once,” he said. At the time of the second incident, a wallet was also found missing from the backpack of a Doc affiliate. The affiliate chose not to report it to UCPD. The January 3 incident is referred to as a burglary in the

police report. According to UCPD spokesperson Robert Mason, a theft is defined as the “unlawful taking of property from the possession of another person,” while for an incident to be defined as a burglary it requires that a structure be entered unlawfully. Doc receives funding through the Program Coordinating Council, one of the bodies through which SG allocates money from the Student Life Fee to RSOs. Doc Films received $90,796.77 for the 2012–2013 academic year, a $53,796.77 increase from last DOC continued on page 2

IN VIEWPOINTS

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

East Asian Studies, Part I » Page 3

Quaytman critiques a campus institution from within » Page 4

South Siders reign supreme at Chicago Invitational » Back Page

In season two, Girls just wanna make sensible life decisions » Page 4

Maroon Basketball, In Pictures » Page 7

In Lew of progress » Page 3


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