022213 Chicago Maroon

FRIDAY • FEBRUARY 22, 2013

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

ISSUE 28 • VOLUME 124

New hospital officially opens tomorrow Gingrich on future of GOP

The University’s newest addition to its hospital system, the Center for Care and Discovery, will begin accepting patients this Saturday.

COURTESY OF ERIK UNGER

Jennifer Standish News Editor Five years in the making, the University of Chicago Medical Center’s (UCMC) new 10-story hospital, the Center for Care and Discovery, will officially open tomorrow. With the help of UCMC staff, volunteers from the Col-

lege’s Pre-Medical Student Association, and Pritzker medical students, around 200 patients—including ICU, oncology, and recovering surgery patients—will be transferred from Mitchell Hospital to the new center, according to a UCMC press release.

The center, covering a total of 1.2 million square feet, 240 single-occupancy in-

patient rooms, and 28 operating rooms, will house the cancer, gastrointestinal disease, neuroscience, high-technology radiology, and advanced surgery units.

According to John Easton, a member of the UCMC media team, these particular specialties require advanced technology that the new hospital will now be able to provide.

From extra-wide hallways for increasingly large equipment to multifunctional, adjustable rooms, the hospital was created with the future in mind. Each floor is organized by a “grid system,” consisting of 85 multifunctional “bays” 31.5 feet across and 18 feet high, which can be easily transformed into two patient rooms, one operating room, or one procedural room. Staff lounges, too, were made with removable walls so that they can convert into conference rooms if need be.

“Equipment keeps getting bigger; even patients are getting bigger. We’re just looking into the future,” Easton said.

“It’s better to do it now than to have to expand later.”

Patients will check into the hospital on the central “Sky Lobby” located on the seventh floor, which Easton described

as the part of the hospital designed to be “less focused on medicine and more focused on ambiance and comfort and [to be] family-oriented.” It’s 100,000 square feet, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows, and contains a chapel, extensive family waiting areas, private waiting rooms, a 24-hour dining area, and an acoustically designed boardroom.

The inpatient rooms, including 52 Intensive Care Unit beds, are located on the eighth, ninth, and 10th floors. The sixth floor, with its 28 operating rooms—nine more than the current hospital—is dedicated to surgery as well as pre- and post-op care. Non-operational procedures will take place on the fifth floor.

Surgical pathology, the blood bank, and the pharmacy are located on the second, while lobbies, retail space (including a Starbucks and a Wolfgang Puck Express restaurant), and an inpatient kitchen make up the first. The third and fourth floors will be unoccupied and reserved for future expansion.

The center’s architect, Rafael Viñoly, also designed the Booth School’s Charles M. Harper Center. According to Easton,

2012 presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich discussed the recent presidential election and the future of the Republican Party in a conversation with David Axelrod (A.B. ’76) at Mandel Hall this past Tuesday.

In the conversation, Gingrich criticized his party for perceived missteps before and during the campaign. However, he argued that the Republican Party does not need to completely reinvent itself to maintain support.

“Anybody who thinks we are dealing with a cosmetic problem is fundamentally out of touch with the real world.

The Republican Party is in a very serious challenge, and we have to really, profoundly rethink how we operate and

UCMC continued on page 3

NEWT continued on page 3

Ankit Jain Associate News Editor

Uncommon Interview: Profs on state of political activism Harvey Mansfield Noah Weiland News Staff Professor Harvey Mansfield has taught political philosophy at Harvard for over 50 years and has written on subjects as varied as Tocqueville, the Great Books curriculum, and the quality of “manliness.” Editor of the University of Chicago Press edition of The Prince, which is used widely throughout the Core, Mansfield considers Machiavelli the “origi-

nal insight behind the American presidency.” He delivered a Chicago Society–sponsored lecture on liberal education and the effect of nonsciences on the sciences. Before his talk on Monday, he sat down with the Maroon to discuss The Core, the relevance of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the risks of David Axelrod’s influence.

Chicago Maroon: Is it essential for undergraduates to have a UNCOMMON continued on page 2

Alexander on best seller Harini Jaganathan News Staff Michelle Alexander, civil rights advocate, law professor at Ohio State University, and author of the New York Times best-selling book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindedness, spoke about the mass incarceration of black males and how she believes that policies like the War on Drugs have facilitated this phenomenon at the George E. Kent Lecture Thursday in Mandel Hall.

Alexander explained that as a result of an economic shift toward de-industrialization in the 1950s, many blue-collar

industrial jobs were lost, and this resulted in a surplus of jobless black males.

“We could have responded to this collapse with compassion, care, job training, and economic stimulus,” she said. “We chose a different road—of division, punitiveness, and despair. We ended the War on Poverty, and declared the War on Drugs.”

That new policy approach, according to Alexander, systemically targets black males for incarceration.

She said she first discovered the nature of the system while working at the ACLU in North Carolina. She met a man who told Alexander that the police KENT continued on page 2

From left to right: UChicago professors John Mearsheimer and Bernard Harcourt, along with visiting professors Abdullah Al-Arian and As’ad AbuKhalil, discuss social resentment and active political resistance against free market ideology at International House Tuesday evening.

KRISTIN LIN | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Jon Catlin Senior News Staff A panel of four political theorists, including UChicago professors Bernard Harcourt and John Mearsheimer, spoke on violence and social movements in Palestine and in the United States on Tuesday night at I-House.

The event was entitled “Between the Ballot and the Bullet: Popular Resistance and Social Movements,” referring to civil rights activist Malcolm X’s famous 1964 speech advocating for African Americans to use violent resistance when necessary.

As’ad AbuKhalil, a Lebanese-born

professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, dispelled what he considered common Western misconceptions of the Palestinian resistance movement to Israeli occupation, such as that the Palestinian resistance had always been violent.

“The Palestinian people have been in a state of resistance for over a century,” he said. “But the movement began its resistance nonviolently, in the same ways as the rest of the civil rights movements throughout the world—petitions, demonstrations, sit-ins, peaceful letter writing campaigns, poetry—in the 1930s.”

Law and political science professor Bernard Harcourt contrasted American

social movements from the peak of the civil rights movement in 1968 to Occupy Wall Street in 2011. “[The 1960s] was a period in which utopian visions prevailed,” he said during the talk. “It would seem that the more contemporary movements…are no longer utopian in the traditional way. It’s almost as if 1968 had exhausted Marxist idealism in some way. 1989 exhausted liberal idealism. And today, many of the movements…are left without an easy answer in the conventional ideological polarity of left versus right.”

Harcourt sat down with the Maroon after the event to discuss the role PROFS continued on page 2

IN VIEWPOINTS

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

The merits of diversity » Page 4

Bissell’s upcoming book goes into The Room, new stories emerge » Page 6

Not in high school anymore: Brooks and Smith set sights on UAA title » Back Page

Predictions for Oscar gold have silver linings » Page 7

Season can end on a high note or with blues in St. Louis » Page 11

Concealing a raging election » Page 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | February 22, 2013

2

Mansfield questions that Obama “reads a lot of political philosphy,” suggests he read more UNCOMMON continued from front

highly structured curriculum based on requirements, like the Core?

Harvey Mansfield: I think that a liberal arts education should be structured around the Great Books —authors who have addressed these human questions more fundamentally and with greater interest. Almost all of them disagree with one another, so it isn’t that you’re getting a canon of people, all of whom say the same thing. On the contrary, I think that if you don’t study the great writers, you’re stuck with the thought of our time, and maybe even a narrow slice of that too.

CM: What can studying the Greeks and Romans contribute to a liberal education?

HM: A much better understanding than we have. That’s very general, but I’d leave it at that. The ancients are wiser than the moderns. The only question is their relevance. What Plato and Aristotle said about democracy isn’t as relevant to us because we have these huge states with representative governments, which they didn’t see. Our democracies are the size of their empires, so they would have been surprised that democracy could be as large as ours. But still, the analysis and understanding of politics is far superior. Moderns have an agenda. By moderns, I mean the modern philosophers and political scientists. They want to make the world better. This hurts them in trying to understand the world. In order to make it better, they had to

simplify. And when they simplified, they exaggerated and buried doubts or questions that people might have raised about their projects for bettering the world.

CM: President Obama, with his academic background, has been known for reading a lot of political theory and philosophy. Do you think he struggles to balance his more academic side with the political and pragmatic demands of Washington?

HM: I question that he reads a lot of political philosophy. That I don’t really see in the way he talks.

He’s at home in a university. He’s an academic, a certain kind of Chicago academic liberal. He takes the goals of the most advanced kinds of progressivism together with the means of Chicago politics, with people like Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, who are very effective, and helped him win reelection last year. I see almost none of the reflection or impartiality that such a study of political philosophy would give him.

CM: What does reading canonical works contribute to an understanding of how our political system works today?

HM: Reading The Federalist, you’d get a much better understanding of Congress, the presidency, the Judicial Branch, than any political science book of our day. I’d say that for sure. You’d understand the spirit of our system: Is it dysfunctional or doing what it’s supposed to be doing right now? If you want to address

Harvey Mansfield, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, discusses the nature of liberal education, concentrating on the purpose and value of science and non-science disciplines.

CHRISTIAN VERHULST | THE CHICAGO MAROON

that question, I think The Federalist would be the first place to look. And if you want to look at the problems of democracy, there’s nothing better than Tocqueville. He saw them all a long time ahead, and he sees them better than we do because we live amongst them. The great advantage of living at the beginning of the democratic era was still some leftover memories of his own, through his family, of what preceded him,

Weekly Crime Report

By Marina Fang

Since Jan. 1

Feb. 14Feb. 22

0

0

Robbery

0

0

Attempted robbery

» February 15, Kimbark Avenue between 53rd and 54th Streets, 7:10 p.m.—An unknown male forcibly took property from a victim walking on the sidewalk off campus. UCPD assisted CPD in its investigation. » February 15, 1212 East 59th Street, 6:15–7:45 p.m. —Two tablet computers left unattended on a kitchen countertop in Ida Noyes were taken by an unknown person.

PROFS continued from front

Type of Crime

7

0

Battery

4

1

Burglary

0

0

Criminal trespass to vehicle

2

0

Damage to property

67

12

Other report

1

1

Simple assault

43

6

Theft

3

0

Trespass to property

14

1

Arrest

4

Traffic Violation

» February 19, Everett Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets, 7:30 a.m.—UCPD received a complaint regarding a fradulent check scheme. The case is still open.

S. Hyde Park

Blackstone

55th

60th

Cornell

59th

Stony Island

57th

62nd

Source: UCPD Incident Reports

University

53rd

Cottage Grove

» February 19, 60th Street between the Metra tracks and Stony Island, 7 p.m.—A male subject was arrested by UCPD, who were assisted by CPD, for taking property from one victim and attempting to take from a second.

51st

S. Lake Shore

Ellis

» February 18, Ellis Avenue between 54 61st and 62nd Streets, 8:30 a.m.— Hyde Park resident found a large 47th knife on rear porch. It was turned over to the UCPD.

at the different regimes, the main ones in the world right now, but with some historical background.

Study the French Revolution; read a book about it which is written from a political person’s point of view and is not so academic. For example, the history books of Churchill are excellent for the study of a politician. If Obama read those, he would be in good shape.

“Are we currently in an era of the ballot or the bullet?”

This is a series the Maroon publishes summarizing instances of campus crime. Each week details a few notable crimes, in addition to keeping a running count from September 24. The focus is on crimes within the UCPD patrol area, which runs from East 37th to 65th Streets and South Cottage Grove to Lake Shore Drive.

Here are this week’s notables:

of the Old Regime in France. If you read his book on democracy, he’s always comparing it to the aristocracy.

That’s never done anymore, and every time he does it, it’s very enlightening.

CM: Is there a lesson in that for Congress? Should our politicians be reading more history and philosophy?

HM: Yes, they should, and comparative government. Look

*Locations of reports approximate

of social movements today.

CM: Based on recent social movements like Occupy Wall Street and the NATO protests in Chicago, are we currently in an era of the ballot or the bullet?

BH: It’s neither, I would say.

There was a strong undercurrent among Occupy protesters that the ballot is corrupt today.

There was a lot of debate about Citizens United [v. Federal Election Commission] and the corporatization of electoral politics.

In fact, I’d say that the Occupy movement in part was born out of a disillusionment with traditional electoral and partisan politics. At the same time though, there was no element of “the bullet” in Occupy Wall Street.

It represented a third path that I think pretty expressly rejected both violent resistance but also the conventional electoral approach. And maybe that third way had something to do with the very paradigm of a peaceful

occupation. It was probably connected to the very term and the very idea of occupying a space peacefully.

CM: Is there a place for violent resistance in social movements today or is it counterproductive?

BH: It’s important to distinguish between resistance movements in Syria or Egypt or Greece or Spain or the United States. What I’d say is that the turn to violent forms of resistance is counterproductive in countries where there’s a dominant legitimating discourse of law and due process. Where a formal legal ideology dominates, it becomes far too easy to characterize any form of violent or deviant resistance as being outside the legal norm and therefore a form of criminality. In those spaces where the rule-of-law discourse dominates, it’s particularly unproductive to turn to violent resistance. In a country like the United States, the penal

apparatus and the legitimating discourse of liberal legalism are far too robust.

CM: What can South Side activism like the recent demonstrations at UCMC tell us about the state of activism generally?

BH: It reveals, correctly, that social protest in the United States is at an all-time high. Recent studies show that the number of people who have engaged in protest in their lifetime is actually at a high point in the U.S. It’s interesting because there have been theories about the loss of civic life and association in this country, but I think what we’re seeing is that, even if people are “bowling alone,” they seem to be marching together.

What’s also interesting is that participating in political protest tends to have lasting effects on the individual, such that they are more likely to continue to be politically engaged and to participate in protest and resistance as they get older.

“This new system is the moral equivalent of Jim Crow” KENT continued from front

had planted drugs on him. Unable to defend the man because he had a felony record, Alexander said, “It was then that the light bulb went off,” and Alexander came to the conclusion that black males face higher rates of incarceration as a result of what she sees as deep-rooted racist practices.

Alexander localized the is-

sues that she presented in her talk, noting, “If you count prisoners as people, in the Chicago area, nearly 80 percent of African American men have criminal records.”

She cited that incarceration rates have quintupled in the last 30 years, while crime rates have decreased. She claimed that this is due to the War on Drugs, which “has been waged exclusively in

communities of color.”

“It is a system that locks poor people into a permanent second class. This new system is the moral equivalent of Jim Crow,” she said.

The Organization for Black Students (OBS) and the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) co-hosted this event, which was in part funded by the Campus Dialogue Fund.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | February 22, 2013

53rd St. developments demystified

The University’s Associate Vice President for Commercial Real Estate Operations, Jim Hennessy, engages in an open discussion with students about the University’s recent economic expansion on 53rd Street.

SYDNEY COMBS | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Celia Bever News Editor Students met with Jim Hennessy, Associate Vice President for Commercial Real Estate Operations, on Tuesday for a presentation on the 53rd Street development projects and a brief tour of the recent and upcoming additions. The event was sponsored by SG with the intention of increasing awareness and correcting misconceptions about the project.

“I don’t feel like we’ve been doing a good enough job of [informing] the student population about what’s been going

on,” Hennessy began. The presentation was held on the second floor of a vacant, University-owned building at East 53rd Street and South Harper Avenue. Twelve students from the College and graduate schools were in attendance.

Inquiring into the timing of the projects and likelihood of success, one student asked, “What data have you seen that suggests this demand…and why haven’t other developers come in over the past 10 years and set up shop?”

According to Hennessy, $1.2 billion from Hyde Park–Kenwood is spent on Roosevelt

Road each year. “That’s money that could be—should be— spent here,” he said, attributing the previous lack of development to safe decision making that discourages betting on a location devoid of business competition.

Hennessy explained that the projects are meant to catalyze further business development, pointing to the success of the Five Guys on East 53rd Street as evidence that these efforts are working. Since opening in September 2011, Hyde Park’s Five Guys location has been one of the chain’s most profitable branches in Illinois. After witnessing their success, other

burger joints like Smashburger and Whataburger expressed interest in the area, Hennessy said.

Akira and Bike and Roll, both located on East 53rd Street, have also exceeded expectations since opening last year.

“Everyone that showed up so far…is doing great,” Hennessy said.

Another student asked about the role of Tax Increment Financing (TIF), funds set up to aid underserved areas, in the development projects. Hennessy said that while Harper Court Partners, the developers handling the revitalization of Harper Court, dipped into the TIF fund set up for Hyde Park in 2001, the University did not apply for TIF money for its 53rd Street projects.

“We have deep pockets, so if we’re going to be the one to go into tax money, I don’t think that would play well,” he said.

Assistant Vice President for Student Life and Associate Dean of the College Eleanor Daugherty, who was also present at the event, asked attendees how the University could better publicize the 53rd Street offerings. Students suggested Facebook, occasional e-mail updates, and outreach to Inter-House Council and Resident Heads as effective ways to keep students up to date.

3

UCMC predicts smooth transfer of patients from old hospital to new UCMC continued from front

the positive reception of the Harper Center made Viñoly a leading contender for the architect position.

Over 40 percent of the businesses involved in the construction of the Center for Care and Discovery were firms compliant with UCMC’s 2001 initiative to increase its involvement with minority- and women-owned firms, according to Easton. The construction of both parts of the Comer Children’s Hospital in 2004 and the UCMC Drexel Parking Garage also satisfied this initiative.

A statement on the opening

by UCMC president Sharon O’Keefe to medical center staff was forwarded to the campus community by Kenneth Polonsky, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and Dean of the Division of Biological Sciences, notifying people of possible effects of the move.

“From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, February 23, all UChicago Medicine property will be limited to those with prior appointments or explicit permission to be on the premises. Also, two roadways will be closed: Maryland Avenue from East 57th Street to East 58th Street, and East 57th Street

between South Cottage Grove Avenue and South Drexel Avenue. Finally, there will be many one-day parking restrictions in the area,” the statement said.

Highlighting possible inconveniences, O’Keefe also asked that those “not directly involved in the move to help ensure the safety of our patients by avoiding the medical campus on Saturday.”

Lorna Wong, Assistant Director of Media and Social Media at the UCMC, said that the security and road closures did not have anything to do with the January 27 trauma center protests, which took place outside the Center for Care and Discovery.

“All hospitals that open up a new facility do the same thing,” explained Wong, referencing the two 2012 closures of Lake Shore Drive when Lurie Children’s Hospital and the Rush University Medical Center pavilion each opened.

Wong predicted a smooth transition during tomorrow’s move of patients. “The move day orchestrators have done a fabulous job plotting the day to the minute,” she said. “If all goes well, I think nothing should go wrong…. It really does seem like they planned for every contingency.”

NEWS IN BRIEF

“Right of free speech has to include right to spend money”

Alum awarded Gates Cambridge Scholarship

NEWT continued from front

Alumna Michelle Quay (A.B. ’11) is one of 39 U.S. scholars to receive the 2013 Gates Cambridge Scholarship, announced on February 12. Quay, who will pursue a Ph.D. in Asian and Middle Eastern studies at Cambridge, is the fifth UChicago student to receive the scholarship within the

past five years.

On receipt of the full-ride scholarship, which enables her to pursue a full-time postgraduate degree at the University of Cambridge, Quay will continue her academic career in medieval Persian literature. Quay, who began learning Persian at the age of 15, received

her B.A. in Near Eastern languages and civilizations in 2011 and is now a graduate student in Iranian studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

During her time at the University, Quay was an Assistant Resident Head in Burton-Judson Courts.

—Joy Crane

IOP Executive Director reveals new fellows Before the Newt Gingrich event Tuesday, Institute of Politics (IOP) Executive Director Darren Reisberg announced the names of the six IOP fellows for spring quarter. Three fellows will be on campus for the entire quarter, including Bethany McLean, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and author of books on the Enron scandal and the 2008 fi-

nancial crisis; Steve LaTourette, a former Republican congressman from Ohio who appeared on the IOP’s panel on gun violence in January; and Gary Hart, a former Democratic senator from Colorado and a 1984 and 1988 presidential candidate.

Three visiting fellows will each be available for one week during the quarter, including

former Mississippi Governer Haley Barbour; Christopher Liu, President Obama’s outgoing Cabinet Secretary; and Jon Favreau, Obama’s director of speechwriting. All the fellows will participate in panel discussions, student study groups, and engagement with student organizations.

—Marina Fang

Renters learned their rights in Pierce on Wednesday Metropolitan Tenants Organization (MTO), a Chicago-based organization that seeks to empower and educate individuals about their rights as apartment renters, led a workshop open to the community this past Wednesday in Pierce.

The workshop was part of a campus-wide response to the impending demolition of Pierce and the consequent

expected influx of new renters for the following academic year, though the topics discussed were not specifically Pierce resident–related. The event was hosted by SG, InterHouse Council, UChicago Dining, and the South Side Solidarity Network.

The aim of the event was to elucidate the contingencies of Chicago’s Landlord-Tenant Or-

dinance, which grants renters several rights that, according to Grace Park, third-year community and government liaison to SG, many renters are not fully knowledgeable about. The presentation by MTO centered on the specifics of documenting apartment damage, filing work orders, and negotiating with landlords.

—Madhu Srikantha

will be going to court this Tuesday. The public hearing will be at 1 p.m. at the Second District CPD station at

51st Street and Wentworth Avenue, where the four protesters were originally held following arrest.

TIDBITS Three of the four protesters arrested during the UCMC trauma center demonstration on Jan.uary 27

the country we’re operating in,” he said. “[Republicans are] being told by the news media that the definition of change is to become a liberal party. Why don’t you become a party that the New York Times editorial board will like? Well, we already have a party that the New York Times editorial board likes…. Is there a Republican Party that can compete with people under 30?

Yeah,” he said.

Gingrich spoke to the Maroon after the event about where Republicans fell short in the 2012 election and how he believes they can recover in future elections.

Chicago Maroon: You talked a lot about some of the causes of the Republican losses in the 2012 election. What would you say the main cause was?

Newt Gingrich: I think that we failed to understand the complexity of the country we’re now competing in, and we failed to understand how to offer a better, positive solution.

For example, if Latinos were concerned about health care and therefore liked Obamacare, we had an obligation to offer them a better health care solution, not just to say no to Obamacare.

CM: You talked with David Axelrod about allowing unlimited donations to candidates.

Money played a big role in your primary and in the general election. Can you elaborate a little bit on your proposal?

NG: I think it is clear under the Supreme Court decisions

Newt Gingrich has a conversation with David Axelrod about the recent election and the state of the Republican Party at the Institute of Politics’ latest event in Mandel Hall.

JULIA RENITZ | THE CHICAGO MAROON

that the right of free speech has to include the right to spend money. Therefore, your choice is to allow people to give the money directly to a candidate, or to let them go off and spend it on these Super PACs. I think we’d be much healthier to have the money go to the candidate as long as it’s reported every night on the Internet, so you know who’s supporting each candidate.

CM: You’ve been very force-

ful in taking on your party after this election. Has that caused any problems or any rifts for you?

NG: No, but I’ve been very forceful in taking my party on since I first ran for office in 1974. I think you need to have a reform wing of the Republican Party that’s prepared to think and prepared to talk about ideas. If that makes some people uncomfortable, that’s their problem.

VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Catering to your market A lack of publicity surrounding the RSO Catering Fund undermines its usefulness as a student resource

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892 JORDAN LARSON Editor-in-Chief SHARAN SHETTY Editor-in-Chief COLIN BRADLEY Managing Editor HARUNOBU CORYNE Senior Editor DOUGLAS EVERSON, JR Senior Editor JAMIE MANLEY Senior Editor CELIA BEVER News Editor MARINA FANG News Editor MADHU SRIKANTHA News Editor JENNIFER STANDISH News Editor AJAY BATRA Viewpoints Editor DAVID KANER Viewpoints Editor EMMA BRODER Arts Editor HANNAH GOLD Arts Editor DANIEL RIVERA Arts Editor DANIEL LEWIS Sports Editor VICENTE FERNANDEZ Sports Editor MATTHEW SCHAEFER Sports Editor SONIA DHAWAN Head Designer BELLA WU Head Designer KEVIN WANG Online Editor ALICE BLACKWOOD Head Copy Editor JEN XIA Head Copy Editor BEN ZIGTERMAN Head Copy Editor SYDNEY COMBS Photo Editor TIFFANY TAN Photo Editor JOY CRANE Assoc. News Editor

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a student suffering from College-induced hunger must be in want of free food. A lesser known answer to this desire is the RSO Catering Fund, which enables RSOs to receive complimentary catering at events. Created in spring 2012, the Catering Fund is a joint partnership between UChicago Dining, ORCSA, and on-campus food provider Aramark. However, the Catering Fund is plagued by a disappointing lack of exposure, and both students and administrators could increase its efficacy and impact.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the RSO Catering Fund is how easy it is to apply. Requests need only be submitted by Tuesday at midnight two weeks before the event, with a decision by the largelystudent committee promised within two days. This quick turnaround makes the Catering Fund a highly viable, extremely useful option for students who are on a tight schedule. Additionally, the Catering Fund offers an expansive menu that goes

above and beyond dining hall fare: Fish and chips, rotisserie chicken dinners, hot apple cider, and a selection of cakes are all available.

However, the Catering Fund is somewhat underutilized by the student body. Last year, it was allocated $25,000, and this year the sum was increased to $50,000. The amount will increase by $25,000 each year, to be capped at $100,000. So far during the 2012–13 academic year, $23,000 of the available $50,000 has been given away to events that attracted an estimated total of 3,000 students.

But even given these numbers, the Catering Fund remains a largely ignored resource, especially given how much free food factors into student attendance at events. To be less than halfway through the Catering Fund’s allotted fiscal cap two quarters into the year speaks to a disconnect between students and the opportunity available to them. Catering Fund representatives rightly note that catering requests could increase in spring quarter, as it offers some of the largest student programming of the

year, but more could be done to encourage student request, especially as the fund grows.

One glaring problem with the Catering Fund is that it currently operates as a pick-up only service, forcing students to transport what is often a large amount of food from Maroon Market in Bartlett to wherever the event in question is located. A second pick-up location on the other end of campus could improve the Catering Fund’s appeal, and could remove one of the main drawbacks to the current process.

Additionally, a publicity campaign of some sort would greatly increase awareness of the fund.

The majority of the student body doesn’t even know the Catering Fund exists, which hurts its chances of success and continued growth.

Current marketing efforts include promotion by ORCSA advisers, advertising at events that have been catered by the Catering Fund (such as the recent Latke-Hamantash Debate), and the occasional shout-out in the RSO newsletter. While these

efforts are substantive, sending out information about the fund to RSO listhosts, distributing more flyers around campus, and incorporating the help of House dining hall representatives could be vital steps toward ensuring the future success of the fund, especially as its budget expands by such a huge amount each year. However, the burden of advertising should not rest solely on the Catering Fund. RSOs that benefit from the free catering should acknowledge the service in their event publicity.

The Catering Fund is a highly commendable initiative, and ORCSA, UChicago Dining, and Aramark should be appreciated for their attempts to make RSO events as effective as possible. Students often bemoan the lack of administrative support for student events, but, in this case, a delicious opportunity is being missed.

The Editorial Board consists of the Editors-in-Chief and the Viewpoints Editors.

ANKIT JAIN Assoc. News Editor STEPHANIE XIAO Assoc. News Editor EMMA THURBER STONE Assoc. Viewpoints Editor ALICE BUCKNELL Assoc. Arts Editor SARAH LANGS Assoc. Sports Editor JAKE WALERIUS Assoc. Sports Editor

The merits of diversity Students from a variety of backgrounds are essential to the development of an ideal learning environment

JULIA REINITZ Assoc. Photo Editor FRANK YAN Assoc. Photo Editor TYRONALD JORDAN Business Manager TAMER BARSBAY Undergraduate Business Executive QUERIDA Y. QIU External Director of Marketing IVY ZHANG Internal Director of Marketing VINCENT MCGILL Delivery Coordinator HYEONG-SUN CHO Designer ANDREW GREEN Designer SNEHA KASUGANTI Designer JONAH RABB Designer

By Jane Huang Viewpoints Columnist

NICHOLAS ROUSE Designer KELSIE ANDERSON Copy Editor CATIE ARBONA Copy Editor KEN ARMSTRONG Copy Editor AMISHI BAJAJ Copy Editor MARTIA BRADLEY Copy Editor SHANICE CASIMIRO Copy Editor CONNOR CUNNINGHAM Copy Editor LISA FAN Copy Editor ALAN HASSLER Copy Editor SHERRY HE Copy Editor NISHANTH IYENGAR Copy Editor

Overheard at UChicago last week: a couple of my classmates expressing their annoyance that work-study jobs outnumber non-work-study jobs available on campus. My first thought was to say, “What else would you expect? People on financial aid need work-study jobs to pay for college.” But I decided that it wouldn’t be all that constructive to add my two cents; I didn’t know anything

about these people or their lives. Nevertheless, realizing that something even as seemingly innocuous as work-study could be viewed as a cause for legitimate grievance got me thinking about what other kinds of injustices, real or perceived, are a part of college life.

It’s often disconcerting to notice some of the tensions that can simmer quietly among students. Though I don’t fully buy into universities’ representations of themselves as harmonious communities devoted solely to the pursuit of intellectual growth, the illusion is easy enough to go along with most of the time. Every once in a while though, that illusion cracks. While in recent years colleges have become quite good at assembling heterogeneous student bodies, it seems as though not much is being done to address some of the fric-

tion that might engender.

For example, since a lot of my high school classmates go to Northwestern, one link that circulated widely on my Facebook newsfeed last fall was a Daily Northwestern op-ed opposing affirmative action that complained, “We of merit, affirmative action’s victims, are now the ones who feel pressured to be silent for fear of accusations of racism.” My former classmates, who are bright and accomplished individuals, were upset that the writer was questioning the legitimacy of their places at their university. Northwestern’s implicit hope was probably that the writer would meet these people and come away with a positive opinion of them. Apparently, though, her reaction upon meeting them was, “I deserve to be here more than you do.”

Lest you think that this column is just

a series of jabs at a rival school, I should point out that some of my classmates in the College have also expressed the opinion that affirmative action leads to unqualified students being admitted. I’ve also been informed that it’s “not fair” that there are merit scholarships designated for Chicago Public Schools students or that girls have an easier time getting admitted into college. (As for the latter complaint, the premise is entirely faulty: The U.S. Civil Rights Commission investigated possible bias against females in the admissions process several years ago.)

Keeping in mind the warning that “the plural of anecdotes is not data,” I find it striking that despite having the opportunity to attend a pretty darn good school, people here still feel as though they’ve been screwed over somehow.

DIVERSITY continued on page 5

CECILIA JIANG Copy Editor MICHELLE LEE Copy Editor

CARYSSA LIM Copy Editor

Coming down from the tower

JONAH RABB Copy Editor

Academics should do more to make their valuable work readily available to those who are not experts

CHELSEA LEU Copy Editor KATIE LEU Copy Editor

LINDSEY SIMON Copy Editor ESTHER YU Copy Editor The Chicago Maroon is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters Circulation: 5,500.

The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section are not necessarily those of the Maroon. © 2012 The Chicago Maroon, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Editor-in-Chief Phone: 773.834.1611 Newsroom Phone: 773.702.1403 Business Phone: 773.702.9555 Fax: 773.702.3032 CONTACT News: News@ChicagoMaroon.com Viewpoints: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com Arts: Arts@ChicagoMaroon.com Sports: Sports@ChicagoMaroon.com Photography: Photo@ChicagoMaroon.com Design: Design@ChicagoMaroon.com Copy: CopyEditors@ChicagoMaroon.com Advertising: Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com

By Maya Fraser Viewpoints Columnist Academics are a strange breed. Growing up as the child of an academic, I spent years listening to my mother talk about historical events I didn’t know about, name-drop philosophers as if I should know who they are, and construct a slightly alarming office full of books that I was sure no one but her had ever read.

But she must have done something to convince me that academia isn’t some kind of elaborate hoax, as I have spent the last two and a half years decoding discipline-specific jargon, learning to namedrop, and using the word “epistemology” in all earnestness. I have also spent a lot of time learning how to defend academic work as something meaningful.

Why is the value of academic work always under siege? Why do many Americans have such deep suspicions about academics? When Obama was running for his first term in office, many criticized him for being too much of an intellectual to understand everyday Americans. Why should intellectuals suffer this kind of stigma when, for example, businessmen do not?

The answer lies in the academic cul-

ture of exclusion. People distrust, vilify, and devalue the work of academics because the academic community has, through various mechanisms, created an environment that is closed to most.

If we want to demonstrate the value of academia to others (and to ourselves), we need to create a more open and honest intellectual discourse that favors clarity over secret handshakes.

There are many different factors that contribute to the isolation of the ivory tower, including both the physical and intellectual inaccessibility of resources, the use of dense language and discipline-specific terms, certain assumed cultural and moral values, and the mindset that accessibility to the masses automatically indicates that a work is not of scholarly worth.

Access to resources is a big part of the problem. Academic papers are often unavailable to individuals not affiliated with a college or university. The story of Aaron Swartz, the open information activist who tried to illegally download the contents of JSTOR and who later killed himself in the face of heavy federal prosecution, demonstrated that academic information is quite far from attaining free availability.

That is not to say that academics should not be compensated for their work but rather that the current system seems flawed. Academics produce papers and submit them to journals for little to no financial compensation.

Those who want to read those papers must subscribe to journals or to a daACADEMIA continued on page 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | February 22, 2013

5

Concealing a raging election Election season in Italy is marked by an eerie silence unfamiliar to participants of the vocal culture of American politics

By Noelle Turtur Viewpoints Columnist On February 25, Italians will vote for their new government. Unlike the American elections in November, when American politics dominated the media and most conversations, this election for me is marked by silence. No one seems to be talking about it here. I’ve seen people on the streets, handing out fliers advertising the platforms of various parties. I’ve had classes cancelled because many students need to return home to vote—the system here is similar to that of the U.S., in that one votes in the place where she “officially” resides, but different in that there are no absentee ballots. In fact, I’ve spoken to some who can’t return home to vote, and who are therefore unable to vote in this election.

The lack of uproar in Italy has really

struck me. Granted, because I neither have a TV nor read Italian newspapers nor live with particularly political roommates, I am somewhat out of the loop. My understanding of local news comes more from what few things I hear people talk about and what I see on the streets.

However, I think the absence of politics from conversation is quite telling. When it was American election season, I could not escape political discussions. Anyone who noticed that I was an American would start talking politics with me. Italian friends would ask me point-blank, “Who did you vote for?” I was even interviewed on RAI, an Italian television channel, about my vote and my opinion regarding the election.

For us, election night started late at night and went into the wee hours of the morning. My evening started in a local student bar where I met a group of friends. There was a panel of Italians—political science professors and the like—discussing the American system and voting results as they came in. There were at least four TV screens, airing several different American and Italian news channels, which was striking since, unlike in American bars where TVs are ubiquitous, they are in my experience non-existent here. The bar was so full that I could hardly find a space on the wall

to lean against. Everyone stood watching.

To a certain extent, this night was a reunion of Americans living in Bologna, as was seeing the new James Bond film. But there were just as many Italians as Americans—all milling about, drinking, listening, watching, and waiting with interest.

Even after the elections were over, people kept talking about them. And they seemed pleased: Every Italian I met in Bologna who expressed a political opinion wanted Obama to win.

However, the most remarkable part of experiencing the American elections abroad was realizing the role that the U.S. plays in the world. As U.S. citizens, when we cast our votes, we may focus on domestic issues, but our decisions have a large influence on world political affairs that extend far beyond our everyday lives. I don’t mean to sound as though I’m exaggerating the United States’ influence and importance, but it is a simple fact that when we vote, we choose not only our leader for the next four years but also a world leader.

However, returning to upcoming elections here in Italy, I hope this account has given you some perspective on how quiet things now feel. When I ask friends why there is such little talk of politics, they answer ambiguously, or respond that they are

Seemingly unfair admissions realities come with their own benefits

ISABEL OCHOA GOLD

| THE CHICAGO MAROON

DIVERSITY continued from page 4 I guess in some sense they’re right in thinking that an injustice has occurred.

It’s not fair how ludicrously expensive top-tier universities are nowadays, to the point where paying tuition is burdensome even to households in the top five percent in income. It’s not fair that universities don’t have enough spots for all the ambitious, talented people who dream of attending them.

It’s not fair if your family could never have afforded the music lessons, sports expenses, foreign language lessons, trips to developing nations to build orphanages, SAT prep sessions, fancy private school tuition, and all the other things that we’re told will make admissions officers salivate. It’s also not fair

if people assume you’ve led an easy life simply because your family is financially comfortable. It’s really not fair that humans throughout history have often been quite terrible to one another and allowed racial, socioeconomic, and gender inequalities to take root.

We’re still busy cleaning up the messes they’ve made (and, to be fair, probably creating some of our own).

But ultimately, I guess what sticks in people’s craw is that it’s not fair that sometimes you can work incredibly hard, yet your best still isn’t enough to achieve all the goals you’ve set for yourself. You might have worked so hard, in fact, that it can be hard to imagine that someone else worked just as hard or that the results of their work manifest them-

selves in a different way. I won’t argue that the ways that college admissions and financial aid are handled are ideal, but the way to resolve their flaws is not to suggest to fellow students that they haven’t deserved their opportunities.

Remember that one of the opportunities you’ve been given is the chance to become acquainted with other students and get to know who they are, where they came from, what they think, and what they’re going to do. It would be a self-inflicted injustice not to take advantage of this. Maybe then we can work on addressing problems together, rather than continuing to fuel antagonisms.

Jane Huang is a third-year in the College.

all just holding their breath, waiting.

To be fair, everyone is a little nervous.

Silvio Berlusconi, whose political career has raised more than its fair share of eyebrows, is on the ballot again. No one I’ve spoken to seems to have any love for him.

(Given that there is a whole Wikipedia entry dedicated solely to “Trials and allegations involving Silvio Berlusconi,” this is understandable.) Yet there is concern that his return is a real possibility. In today’s mail, an advertisement for Berlusconi arrived. It was a mock-ballot directing the recipient to vote for Berlusconi’s party, Il Popolo della Libertà. Upon sight of it, I realized that perhaps merely seeing that name on a ballot and wondering “what if ” is the cause of this concern.

Although Italy may be as calm as can be in these days leading up to the election, the Italian government could use a good leader right now. But perhaps this calm reigns because Italians are used to it: As someone once told me, without a hint of condescension, you have to think of Italian politics as a circus. So here I sit, waiting in anticipation, hoping that Bologna puts on a good show.

Noelle Turtur is a third-year in the College majoring in history.

Scholarly standards should not be viewed as incompatible with mass accessibility ACADEMIA continued from page 4 tabase site like JSTOR. There are certainly operating costs for journals, but these expenses can be prohibitive for many potential readers. Furthermore, and perhaps more worryingly, not all individuals are even able to buy subscriptions to such sites if they are not affiliated with an institution.

That said, it is possible to promote access even within the current system.

In the name of freedom of information, many computer science researchers and programmers have been freely distributing their papers and textbooks for years. On a broader level, JSTOR’s pilot program to give individuals free access to some of its content is a move that I applaud as a step in the right direction.

Another persistent problem is the use of dense and confusing language in academic papers. In many cases, there is good reason to use technical terms that may not be comprehensible to someone outside of the discipline. They allow a paper to deal with discipline-specific concepts that do not need to be explained every time they are used. Though this can be problematic—it is frequently a barrier to interdisciplinary research—it is often justifiable. However, much academic writing is difficult to read simply because it is poorly written. Difficult prose can hide poorly constructed ideas and make simple ideas seem complex.

Even good ideas can be hidden in this

way. Readers without the tenacity to trudge through such writing in search of obscured meaning, or who are without years of experience in academia, often don’t stand a chance.

This brings me to the most deliberate form of exclusion. Many academics seem to think that a scholarly work shouldn’t be accessible to those who have not reached a certain level of education; that if laymen can read your work, you’re doing it wrong. Scholars who produce best-selling books are often looked down upon for “selling out.” Though scholarly standards are vital to producing highquality research, a work does not fall short of those standards simply by being accessible to laypeople.

Though academic culture will never be, and indeed does not need to be, mainstream, it contains elements of both deliberate and accidental exclusion. This creates an intellectual discourse that is only open to those affiliated with academic institutions. If the public cannot see or understand what is going on in such institutions, then they have no reason to value academic research or support tax dollars going to support it. Worse, we impose strict limits on the kinds of thoughts that can be considered for intellectual worth.

In the name of free discourse, let’s open the doors to the ivory tower.

Maya Fraser is a third-year in the College majoring in sociology.

SUBMISSIONS The Chicago Maroon welcomes opinions and responses from its readers. Send op-ed submissions and letters to: The Chicago Maroon attn: Viewpoints 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 E-mail: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com The editors reserve the right to edit materials for clarity and space. Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words.

Op-ed submissions, 800 words.

ARTS

Trivial Pursuits FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Bissell’s upcoming book goes into The Room, new stories emerge Paola Cardona Arts Contributor A few weeks ago, one of my housemates had the brilliant idea of having a viewing party to watch The Room. Deemed one of the absolute worst movies of all time, The Room has gained a massive cult following somewhat similar to that of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which, for the record, is a good movie), partly because the film was written, produced, directed by, and starred the enigmatic Tommy Wiseau. Audience members dress up as their favorite characters, throw plastic spoons at the screen, and toss footballs to each other all while yelling vicious critiques of the quality of the film.

Well, none of us was disappointed as we sat through 99 minutes of horrible acting, laughable dialogue, awkward sex scenes, and overall some of the best WTF moments in bad movie history. Given that amazing experience, I wasted no time showing interest in Tom Bissell’s reading of his new book about The Room, which, according to the author, will be published in the fall. I went in expecting to be in fits of laughter the whole time over Wiseau’s antics, and while this certainly did happen at points, the reading held much more in store for its audience.

The book is written from the perspective of Greg Sestero, the actor who portrayed Mark, Tommy’s dreamy best friend. Sestero had been friends with Wiseau for years before the movie was made, and apparently got involved the night before production.

The book-writing process was an interesting one, with Bissell, recorder in hand, listening to Sestero read aloud what he wrote and then

H U N G E R

Tommy Wiseau (left) and Greg Sestero (right) share a fleeting rooftop moment in this poorly-timed still from The Room.

COURTESY OF WISEAU FILMS

re-writing the material in a “more awesome way”…only for it to be re-written by Sestero, and then have the re-write have to be re-written. The passages that Bissell read focused on Sestero’s first encounters with Wiseau, which took place in the setting of an acting class in San Francisco. Wiseau, apparently a fan of Shakespeare, was fond of butchering sonnets on stage and generally doing whatever he felt like. Apparently, at one point, he threw a glass of water at a wall and kept

acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. His response when inquired as to why was a simple, “I was in the zone.”

Sestero, immediately intrigued by Wiseau’s confident and outspoken personality, asked the eccentric man to become his scene partner. Their first outing, which included visiting a park in San Francisco, featured quotes such as, “This park perfect place for vampire, vampire from Alcatraz….

Let’s play before I get the heart attack,”

“What’s wrong Greg, are you chicken?” “Be careful, or else Monster [a robot toy crab in Wiseau’s dashboard] will get you.” They also played a game of soccer. Most of the people in the reading had already seen The Room, so we were not surprised by this aspect of Wiseau’s personality, but what we didn’t expect was to be treated to an inside view of his aspirations and motivations. At one point a member of the audience remarked BISSELL continued on page 7

S T R I K E

A macautionary tale Iliya Gutin Senior Arts Staff

As regular readers of Hunger Strike may note (shout-out to my homeboys, M.C. “Mom” and D.J. “Dad”), I’m never afraid to bite down on the unsavory issues of the day, even if that means a bellyache later on. Does Guy Fieri actually know the way to Flavor Town? Is consistently eating in the West Loop a leading cause of heart disease? How much frostbite is acceptable while waiting in line at the Doughnut Vault? Though, on rare occasions, marginally deeper thoughts are cooked up within the food pun-riddled recesses of my mind. And thus, sitting up at the counter last weekend at Fat Rice, one of a few new ethnic cookeries clustered up in Logan Square, the subject of colonialism bore heavily upon my furrowed brow.

FAT RICE

2957 West Diversey Avenue Average plate: $14

I mean, was it really that bad? If you gently put aside the ethnic genocide and disease, and the whole social Darwinism monkey

business, and basically any and all prevailing theories of international relations and political science…. When all’s said and done and forcefully converted to Christianity, the unrestrained megalomania of our forefathers yielded some delicious crosscultural results. Bánh mì, chile rellenos, chicken tikka masala—nothing inspires culinary innovation like cultural oppression.

Call it culinarialism (trademark pending ) if you will, which Fat Rice eagerly conveys in the form of Macanese cuisine. But don’t you dare call it fusion. That’s a term that completely mischaracterizes the food—a globalized lovechild, the product of an orgy of Chinese and Portuguese influences with no small degree of “participation” from Thai and Indian—that emerges from this kitchen. And my, what a lovely kitchen it is. If only all restaurants could master such effective use of open space. The kitchen is an integral part of the interior, yet it’s not at all intrusive in that hibachi-flaming-onionvolcano-all-up-in-your-grill way. Watch the flames erupt, look on the woks, and despair; the ingredients and techniques are gradually making their way around the world, full steam ahead in your direction.

Working my way, quite literally, down the menu, I took a decisive swing at the hefty pickle selection, but only after two strikes did I secure a solid hit. Spicy, garlic

Don’t watch Nickelodeon anymore? You can still get that pickles family fix at Fat Rice.

COURTESY OF HUGE GALDONES

cucumber was virtually indistinguishable from something the Vlasic stork might carelessly dump on your plate...to the extent that I nervously scanned the kitchen for any suspiciously empty jars. And the ginger lime cauliflower, while crisp as can be, felt like biting into an ice cube marinated in cumin. Luckily, Sichuan eggplant, the redeemer, absolved these pickling sins;

meaty, yet simultaneously melting at room temperature, bites laced with sesame seeds and chili oil were some of the best I had.

On the more European side, the Portugese-influenced linguica was a thing of beauty. It was a hideous beast of a sausage: a Frankensteinian amalgamation that tastes of garlicky kielbasa, Chinese lap chang, and HUNGER continued on page 8

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | February 22, 2013

Predictions for Oscar gold have silver linings James Mackenzie Arts Contributor It’s that time of year again for movie enthusiasts everywhere. Punctuating the nearly unbearable dearth of quality movies in the months of January and February, the Academy Awards captivate our attention as we reflect on and argue over the finest films of yesteryear. I’ll break down the major awards and explain who will win, who should win, and why. Let the festivities commence.

The Best Picture award might actually be the trickiest to figure out this year.

We can eliminate some of the nominees, such as Les Misérables (not good enough) and Django Unchained (this category has never been kind to Tarantino), along with Argo, Life of Pi, and Beasts of the Southern Wild, the three of which do not seem to have the buzz necessary to contend.

Of the remaining nominees, there is still no clear victor. Amour, an Austrian film about Monsieur and Madame Laurent, an elderly couple struggling with Madame Laurent’s rapidly declining health, received huge critical acclaim and will easily win the Best Foreign Language Film award. However, no foreign language film has ever won Best Picture.

Zero Dark Thirty, among its many attributes, smartly packs the 10-year-long tale of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden into a three-hour movie while still maintaining the emotional connection between audience and characters. Yet the film’s depiction of effective torture and tacit approval of Bush-era anti-terror measures may hurt its chances with the predominantly lib-

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eral voters of the Academy. It would not be the first time politics seemingly swayed votes for an award (see Waiting For “Superman”).

Silver Linings Playbook successfully fuses the light romantic comedy and heavy personal drama genres in a way that seemed impossible in an age when both felt insular and stagnant. The story of two ordinary people with mental disorders coming together for love and self-repair was my personal favorite film of 2012. Deft attention to detail and the depth of the plot outside the love story make Playbook feel more realistic than it has any right to.

Still, Lincoln is likely the film to beat, by default more than through any overwhelming merits. The other top nominees have some small things holding them back (in the case of Playbook, its comedic genre) while Lincoln has Steven Spielberg , Daniel Day-Lewis, great historical source material, and a great ensemble cast. All of these are classic indicators of Best Picture material, and while I did not enjoy the movie as much as others, the excellent work put into it is obvious.

Day-Lewis will be going home with another trophy for his performance as the titular Lincoln. Day-Lewis’s famous method acting has earned him two Best Actor awards out of four nominations. With respect to the other nominees, the hype behind Day-Lewis is at the level of Colin Firth in The King’s Speech from two years ago. He’ll win, and deservedly so.

The Best Actress Oscar will likely come down to Jennifer Lawrence in Playbook and Jessica Chastain in Thirty. Both have been nominated for Oscars in the recent

past—Chastain for The Help last year and Lawrence for Winter’s Bone the year before. Chastain’s performance as Maya, a fictionalized representation of a group of CIA analysts who tracked down bin Laden, is arguably more nuanced if a bit less natural than Lawrence’s turn as the widowed and neurotic Tiffany. Chastain earned the Golden Globe for her efforts, but I don’t see Lawrence walking away empty-handed. The Academy loves giving acting awards to those portraying the mentally ill, and Lawrence turns in an unusually subtle performance as opposed to the over-the-top acts that Hollywood typically spawns.

The Best Directing award is fairly clearcut. Spielberg is the tentative favorite as he continues his legendary career with Lincoln. David O. Russell is on a hot streak with Playbook following 2010’s The Fighter, for which Russell was also nominated.

While Lincoln may win Best Picture, the Academy has a tendency to not spoil legends like Spielberg with more than a couple of wins in their lifetime, opening the door for Russell to take home the award I feel he deserves. However, the movie that won Best Picture has also won Best Director every year since 2005 saw Ang Lee (also nominated this year for Pi) win for Brokeback Mountain only to see Crash win Best Picture in a major upset. The point is that Spielberg remains the safe bet, though I’ll throw in my vote for Russell.

There’s a lot that goes on in Oscar voting , both analytical and political. Whatever the outcomes, we can be sure that we’ll be arguing over these great films for years to come.

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Prolific writer with diverse body of work has the “mark of the beast” BISSELL continued from page 6 that The Room seemed like an attempt for Wiseau to erase his past and start anew with an American identity. Bissell assented.

“Ashamed of who he is, The Room was a Herculean effort to convince people that he was American,” he said.

But now, a moment to talk about Tom Bissell. I honestly had never heard of this author before, but when I filled out three lines’ worth of topics he’s written about in my notebook (that is, before I stopped trying to keep up), it became abundantly clear that I was in the presence of one of the most prolific writers of our time. Amongst these topics are the war in Iraq, meteors, video games, and the Loch Ness Monster. His short stories have even been featured in The Best American Short Stories anthology. I’m guessing that if there’s any more room in his résumé, “Book about the Worst Movie of All Time” will be added now, too.

The Q&A session ranged from more questions about The Room to Bissell’s experience as a writer for the highly acclaimed video game Gears of War 2, but I was able to have some one-on-one time afterward with Bissell and asked him about his advice for students interested in being writers. His response was straight to the point and went something along the lines of, “It doesn’t matter what school you go to, everybody has to move to L.A. or New York and start writing a lot of shit.” Also, if you’re an avid reader, then congratulations: You have the “mark of the beast.”

WITH HANNAH GOLD

Do What You’re Told

Friday | February 22 Pretty much all you’re going to do this weekend is eat and drink; sorry, that’s just the way things go sometimes. You’ll be starting off the weekend with sandwiches, that most versatile dish of layered meat, bread, and whatever else occurs to you in the moment. Head to the Grand Bizarre Gallery for Hot Temple Hot Sauce’s fourth annual Iron Chef Sandwich Battle & Dance Party, inspired by the Food Network show that launched a thousand defeats at the hands of Bobby Flay. The challenger, Chef Drew (“Skillet”) of Flesh for Food, will challenge reigning champ Chef Won Kim of Whole Foods for the coveted title of Sandwich King. Will there be a secret ingredient? Yes. Will there be a DJ? Yes. 1418 West Division Street. Starts at 9 p.m., free.

It may be the Year of the Margarita in your living room, but for the rest of the world it’s also National Margarita Day. Restaurants throughout Chicago are doing their patriotic duty by offering drink specials you can be proud to waste away in. At Nacional 27 you can choose among seven varieties of margarita for $8 while tipsily taking in the musical stylings of DJ Konsept. Meanwhile at Cantina Laredo, knock back Casa Ritas at less than half the price (that’s $4). There are some pretty good specials at Zocalo and Taco Joint as well. This holiday is brought to you by Friday. Nacional 27: 325 West Huron Street. 5 p.m.–2 a.m; Cantina Laredo: 508 North State Street.

11:30 a.m.–11 p.m., 21+.

ALICE BUCKNELL

| THE CHICAGO MAROON

Saturday | February 23 Whether you willfully blocked out February 14 or all the targeted ad campaigns went over your head, you can atone for what you’ve done—if you have a ukulele. The newest edition of Chicago Ukulele Cabaret’s open mic night at Sylvie’s is themed “Sorry I Forgot About Valentine’s Day” (honestly, it took them long enough). Performers have 15 minutes and three songs to express just how sorry they are in what is perhaps the most adorable medium possible. And flowers never hurt, either. 1902 West Irving Park

Road. Starts at 8 p.m., free, 21+.

A dozen local printmaking and selfpublishing organizations, including One Horse Press, Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, and The Printstitute, will bring a homemade pot of chili to the Spudnik Press Cooperative for their Hashbrown Chili Cook-Off. The competition will be followed by the launch of Daniel Mellis’s solo show of artist books in Spudnik’s Annex Gallery. 1821 West Hubbard Street, Suite 302. 6–10 p.m., $10–$20.

Sunday | February 24

There’s no better way to avoid watching the Oscars than going to an Oscar party.

Everyone will be talking, drinks will be flowing, and by the end of the night you won’t even remember that Argo was a thing.

There are options. You can dust off your evening gloves and head to Reggie Rock Club’s Oscar Party on the Roof (where you’ll find lemonade cocktails), or attend Heartland Alliance’s Cocktails for a Cause at the Hard Rock Hotel for drinks, DJs, and Garrett’s Popcorn. Reggie’s: 2105 South State Street 8–10 p.m., free. Hard Rock: 224 North Michigan Avenue. Starts at 6 p.m., $65, 21+.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | February 22, 2013

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Fat Rice is decked out with stools and chairs, just waiting for the people to come.

COURTESY OF HUGE GALDONES

HUNGER continued from page 6 some spicy chorizo. At least the red cabbage and olives, which were startlingly good to the extent that I am taking the time to praise an olive, brought some civility to the dish.

Yet this was only a brief detour on what was primarily an East Asian adventure—a point emphasized by the arrival of the Sichuanstyle bacon and shaking chili whitefish.

Though I’m successfully in remission from the bacon boom of the early 2010s (VH1 special forthcoming ), belly meat might strike you as an odd ingredient choice for what initially comes across as a generic stir-fry: the requisite veggies, proteins and gloopy sauce all ready for action. But the dish grows on you, as does your appreciation for some of its very un-generic tricks. Any of the particularly charred pieces of leek and bacon (more Canadian than American) are smoky and pleasantly abrasive in contrast with the relatively mild wood ear mushrooms and thick gravy. The flavors steadily intensify, as does the accelerometer on your chopsticks.

I would further commend the shaken whitefish for some expert fry-manship, a bite of which rivals the greatest East Coast rendition of fish and chips. Unfortunately, in lieu of chips you just get a shit-ton of somewhat flavorless grilled shisito peppers.

Rarely do I question the underlying philosophical grounding of my food, but this dish confounded me. Fish, shisitos, a weird aioli of some sort…all amidst a red sea of Sichuan peppers clearly not intended for human consumption. Sure, I dutifully devoured the dish—piece by piece, Pisces by Pisces—but in the end it was just me picking away at a peck of peppers.

Only on the last leg of this imperialist crusade did I encounter the “large” dishes, heated clay pots brimming with tasty treasures of land, sea, and sky. Each comes with a side of the restaurant’s signature coconut rice, ensuring maximum sauce absorption. Perhaps the most “traditionally” Macanese of the options, the pork belly and catfish conglomeration, is nowhere near as indulgent as it sounds. The pork, a textbook example of belly-braising, was awkwardly isolated to two lone pieces patiently awaiting their demise; I found it disturbingly difficult to discern whether the itty little white bits were tofu or torn fish. But the brown, slightly sweet-andsour sauce worked amazingly with the rice, and even better with the little shrimp chips served atop the dish. Seriously, give me a bowl of these chips and dip and I’ll watch as many disgusting GoDaddy Super Bowl commercials as you want.

However, Goan cauliflower curry, a rare vegetarian order on my part (intended to “lighten” the meal), was actually far and away the better of the two large dishes. Flavorful is a stupid and hollow food descriptor…but compared to the pork and catfish, damn if this dish wasn’t full of flavor, perhaps even too much. Working off a base of rich, thick curry—sweetened with coconut milk and

ginger—the stew was super-saturated with king-size pieces of cauliflower, pumpkin, okra, and tomato; Thai eggplants and long beans made an occasional crunchy cameo.

But the coconut milk coupled with the coconut rice was coco-not doing this plate any favors; the monotone flavor fatigue began setting in. By the time the bowl was emptied of its curry contents, I was content with not having curry anytime soon.

Much like the mixed culture and cuisine of Macau, I had mixed feelings about my meal at Fat Rice. Even though there were no outlandish claims of fusion or wacky plays on Macanese standards, whenever you encounter a rare or under-represented culinary tradition, the expectation of uniqueness is inevitably raised. Looking at this menu, every single item reads like a “special”—novel and unexpected. Yet all of this food felt too familiar; my culinary boundaries were unperturbed.

Craving uniqueness above all else, I had every intention of loving each moment and morsel. Yet my taste buds cannot tell a lie, so be still my beating heart. With this many ingredients, techniques, and influences, what could possibly go wrong? Well, mix together too many pretty colors, and soon you’ll be painting black. Or take the opposite route—rely too much on a single color, or flavor—and any detail or nuance is quickly lost. But strike that harmonious chord, find that middle way, and behold as Fat Rice begets even fatter riches.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | February 22, 2013

9

Arch rivals: Season to end vs. Wash U Chicago returns home to take on Big Red Men’s Basketball Sam Zacher Sports Staff After pulling off an incredible upset against #22 Wash U (19–5, 9–4 UAA) on January 5—when the Bears were ranked #5 in the country—the Maroons (11–13, 5–8) get set to take on their rivals once more this Saturday.

In the first matchup, Chicago had home court advantage. This time, they’ll be playing in St. Louis.

The lead changed hands several times during that first meeting, but Chicago finished the first half on top, 32–27. In the second half, a run of big plays from third-year forward Charlie Hughes and first-year guard Jordan Smith left the Maroons up by a score of 50–38. Chicago never lost that lead again.

Going seven for 10 from the free throw line down the stretch—including six successful attempts from second-year point guard Royce Muskeyvalley—the Maroons pulled out a 68–60 win.

The game, as is so often the case, was won and lost on the boards. Wash U entered the contest leading the nation in rebound differential (+17.2 per game), but Chicago outrebounded the Bears 41–35.

The Maroons also shot well, sinking 42.9 percent from three-point land, an area of inconsistency for Chicago this season.

The Maroons did everything necessary to beat the Bears in January, and they had the luxury of playing on their home court.

To claim a road victory on Saturday, Chicago has to play even better. Head coach Mike McGrath thinks the same focuses will be key.

“We will have to be strong on the boards like the first time and challenge them inside,” he

Women’s Tennis said. “Rebounding will certainly be a key.”

Last weekend, the Maroons lost to Brandeis and then came out victorious against NYU. McGrath hopes to see the same attitude his players took into the NYU game on the court this weekend.

“I could tell the guys felt frustrated about the season not going as well as we’d hoped, and against NYU, the guys let it go a bit,” McGrath said. “I hope to have them play like that again.”

The odds are certainly stacked against the Maroons this weekend. They are playing the second-best team in the UAA, a team looking for vengeance against them, and they are playing on the road. But as exceptional as these circumstances are, their preparation will not change.

“We always try to get better every day and every game, and that won’t change,” McGrath said. “We also have to realize how lucky we are and just enjoy the opportunity we have to play at the University of Chicago.”

The Maroons will need players like Muskeyvalley (14 points and 3 assists in the first meeting) and Hughes (averaging 9.4 points and 5.0 rebounds per game) to perform at their best, along with veteran leadership from lone fourth-year Matt MacKenzie.

McGrath is confident MacKenzie’s play will not be affected by the idea of playing his final college game.

“He’ll certainly think about it because it’s significant for him, but I don’t think it’ll change his approach,” McGrath said.

Though it won’t be an easy matchup for the Maroons, if they shoot well and handle their business on the glass, Chicago is capable of making it two upsets out of two.

Tip-off against the Bears is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Saturday in St. Louis.

2012/2013 CONCERT SEASON

Sarah Langs Associate Sports Editor The Maroons hope for a successful return to DIII this Saturday after facing two DI opponents to open their season.

The South Siders will take on Denison, who lost 9–0 to California (PA) in its first match of the year. The Maroons, on the other hand, had a strong showing last weekend, beating DI UW–Green Bay 6–1.

The Maroons will look to capitalize on the weaknesses of their DIII opponent.

“I’m expecting the team to come out ready to compete and show improvement from our previous matches,” head coach Jay Tee said. ”We’ve been playing well in practice and I’m ready to see how it translates against a tough, regional opponent like Denison.”

This match marks the real beginning of Chicago’s season, and the importance of a good start has not been lost on the players.

“The mentality going in will definitely be different since it is the first match that counts toward our record,” second-year Kelsey McGillis said.

Though it’s early in the season, the South Siders have already zoned in on a few areas of their overall game that they’d like to improve.

“As a team, we are still working on aggressive doubles play. That has been our focus at practice, and our hard work should pay off this weekend,” second-year Megan Tang said.

Fourth-year Linden Li also spoke to the importance of that aggression.

“The moment we strike the first few balls in the doubles match, the morale of the team is boosted up, and the firepower begins,” she said.

Aggression has been something of a watchword for Tee this season, who has high expectations of the squad that finished second in the NCAA Championship last year.

However, that aggression needs to be mental as much as it is physical or tactical.

“We want the reputation of our team to be that of the toughest, most focused team in the NCAA, and I think we’re on our way there,” he said.

The meet against Denison, although not on campus, will count as a home match, one of only three for the Maroons this season.

The South Siders, then, must cherish this rare opportunity.

“We’re very excited to play in front of our home crowd. We’re expecting a lot of fans to come out and support us this weekend because it also happens to be our alumni, family, and friends weekend,” Tee said. “It is our goal to set an attendance record on Saturday night. We’re optimistic that we will crack the 200-fan mark, which would be outstanding.”

Despite having only had two matches, the season is already in full swing. The Maroons will compete almost every weekend for the next two months. Tee and his players are relishing the challenge.

“This is my favorite time of year,” Tee said.

“This is why I love to coach, and this is why the players commit the all the hours to practice…. I think the teams were sick of battling each other every day in practice, and I know I was getting tired of spending so many hours in my office, counting down the days until we got to compete again. We’re ready to get the season going and prove to the other teams that Chicago is for real this year.”

The Maroons take the court at 6 p.m. on Saturday at Five Seasons in Burr Ridge, IL.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | February 22, 2013

10

Ballin’ since seventh grade, first-year duo reunites on the court REUNION continued from back

the overwhelming amount of stars the two played against.

“Let’s see, NBA players right now: We played against Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Jabari Parker—he’s up and coming,” Smith said. “There are just so many people.”

It was imperative that Brooks and Smith keep their composure during pressure situations, given the stage they were playing on.

“We played on ESPN two or three times while we were there, and then every big game we had was just on TV locally or on ESPN3,” Smith said.

“It felt like almost every weekend we were playing just another huge game so there was a little bit [of excitement], but we were playing top 25 teams around the country every week, so you can’t really hype up every game too much,” Brooks added.

Smith and Brooks had a star on their own team—current high-school junior Jahlil Okafor. Okafor is ranked #2 in ESPN 100’s high school class of 2014. Despite being two years younger than the Maroon firstyears, Okafor has many traits that Brooks and Smith laud.

“He’s still humble. It’s admirable….Somebody getting all this national acclaim and what-not still being able to keep his head is pretty cool,” Smith said.

Brooks looks up to Okafor’s competitive drive.

“I don’t think I’ve seen anyone take a loss harder than him. When he’s really focused, he’s in the zone,” Brooks said. “You can’t really get him out of it.”

And because of this, Brooks was not dismayed that Okafor would start over him.

“I mean it definitely hurts coming off the bench a little bit, but just looking at the team and the talent around it, I got over

it pretty quickly and realized we’re all just really good, and it doesn’t matter if you’re starting or just pretty much finishing the game,” Brooks said.

The caliber of the Dolphins combined with the performances of Brooks and Smith put them on the radars of DI schools, including UIC. But after McGrath talked to Brooks, Chicago was on top of Brooks’ radar.

“I did some research on the school and realized how good this school actually is,” Brooks said.

From there, Brooks began conversing with Smith about the Maroons, and soon enough, Smith’s interest in the academic powerhouse peaked.

“I never really knew much about the school, like it never even came to my thought process that I was going to come to the University of Chicago; Nate was talking about it,” Smith said. “After that, I found out it was one of the best schools in the world and I was like, ‘Well, it can’t hurt to go there.’ Academics did really come first in a sense. The fact that we didn’t have any crazy offers made it a lot easier to do.”

Both Brooks and Smith realized that the academics and athletics at the University of Chicago were unmatched.

“I started to weigh out my options from there, where I could go—somewhere like a mediocre DI and enjoy my four years there, or I could come to a school like this and have a chance to actually play for a DIII championship and still have an amazing school too,” Brooks said. “That’s what really sold me on that.”

Finally, Brooks and Smith were accepted and enrolled as part of the University of Chicago class of 2016, which surprised many classmates.

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“It was kind of weird at school though, cause a lot of kids were applying to the University of Chicago, and the basketball team at our school isn’t known for being notoriously smart, so some of them didn’t get in, and then they see me and Nate going to the University of Chicago and they’re like, “How did these guys get in?” Smith said. “It was just weird. The basketball people were like, “How come you guys aren’t going DI; why are you going DIII?’” Brooks faced a misconception that most University of Chicago students from the Chicagoland area face.

“A lot of the basketball people I talked to didn’t know the University of Chicago existed,” Brooks said. “They’re just like, ‘Oh, you got into UIC? Good for you.’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s not really UIC; it’s the University of Chicago.’”

The entire process made Brooks and Smith better friends. In fact, both of them interned at Loop Capital this past summer.

“We were real cool before that, even before we thought about going to the University of Chicago, but I guess when we both found out we were going to the University of Chicago…we started hanging out more,” Smith said.

Even though Smith and Brooks are the best of friends, they could not single out one Maroon as a best friend. They agreed that the Maroons are one cohesive unit.

“Really, everyone on the team is best friends with each other, and that was one of the things I noticed on my recruiting trip— is how close the guys were and I loved that,” Brooks said. “When I got here, it’s been no different.”

At Chicago, the two made an impact early on in the season.

In spite of back problems that have been hindering Brooks for much of the season,

he has still managed to be a presence down low. Opponents fear his attack on the offensive end and his aggressiveness on defense.

Smith has been a crowd-pleaser, something the Maroons have been missing the past several years. Whether it’s a fast-break block or slam, Smith manages to rejuvenate his team and the crowd when they need it most.

The Whitney Young products have not forgotten about the Dolphins.

On Friday, February 15, after Brandeis defeated Chicago 75–56 at the Judges’ home court, Whitney Young won its first Chicago Public League title since 1998.

“We were on the bus coming back right after the Brandeis game,” Brooks said. “It was actually kind of rough ’cause we had just came off of a pretty crummy loss, and then just get on Twitter and see that they won. I was proud of the young guys.”

Although the season ends tomorrow at Wash U with no chance for Chicago to win the UAA title or receive an at-large bid to the NCAA DIII Tournament, Smith and Brooks elaborated on their team goals for the next three years.

“I want, at the very least, a UAA Championship in the next three years, and I feel that after seeing some of the competition and the rest of the league, I feel we can make at least two or three tournament appearances in the next three years easily,” Brooks said.

“We’ve got to get some championships,” Smith added. “I think the sky’s the limit.

Championship or bust, pretty much, in the last two years.”

And if the Maroons do win a championship, there will be even more buzz surrounding Brooks and Smith when they graduate than when they were recruited.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | February 22, 2013

11

Season can end on a high note or with blues in St. Louis Women’s Basketball

MEN’S BASKETBALL UAA Standings Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

School Rochester

Record 21–3 (10–1)

Win % .875

Washington (MO) Emory Brandeis Case Western Chicago NYU Carnegie

19–5 (9–4) 18–6 (9–4) 17–7 (8–5) 12–12 (5–8) 11–13 (5–8) 14–10 (4–9) 5–19 (2–11)

.792 .750 .708 .500 .458 .583 .208

Points Rank Player John DiBartolomeo 1 2 Jake Davis 3 Alex Greven 4 Chris Klimek 5 Austin Fowler

School Rochester Emory Emory Washington (MO) Case Western

Avg/G 22.9 18.1 17.0 15.6 15.2

Assists Rank Player 1 Michael Florin John DiBartolomeo 2 3 Alan Aboona 4 Gabriel Moton 5 Carl Yaffe

School Emory Rochester Washington (MO) Brandeis NYU

Avg/G 5.5 5.5 4.8 3.9 3.6

Rebounding Rank Player 1 Matt Palucki 2 Austin Fowler 3 Carl Yaffe 4 Robert Burnett 5 Michael Friedberg

Guard Julie Muguira (3) dives for the ball in a game against NYU earlier this season. The Maroons and the Violets are tied for sixth in the conference standings at 3–10.

COURTESY OF HANS GLICK

Mary MacLeod Sports Staff It’s the end of the road for the Maroons.

This Saturday, Chicago will play one final conference game against #14 Washington University, a team it lost to 96–67 on January 5 in their first meeting of the season. After a grueling three and a half months of basketball, the South Siders are looking for redemption and one last W. “Our mindset is confidence in the fact that we are going to play our hearts out, and in each practice leading up to Saturday,” third-year guard Kate Casaday said.

Thus the team is using the possibility to go out on a win as motivation. However, the battle is going be tough. Wash U is currently third in the UAA, and, after defeating Brandeis 57–62 last Sunday, they now have a record of 19–5 overall and 9–4 in conference play. Chicago is currently 7–17 overall and 3–10 in the UAA. Nevertheless, the Maroons believe that

the improvements they have made since the last time they faced the Bears might give them a leg up on Saturday.

“Over the course of the season everyone has gained a lot of experience, and we’re continuing to learn how to play with each other as a unit,” second-year guard Morgan Donovan said. “We’ve really improved our team defense and rebounding ability, and I think if we are able to execute both of those concepts we will put ourselves in a really good position on Saturday.”

Rebounding has been a particular strength of the Maroons. Over the course of the season, Chicago has succeeded in winning the battle of the boards against the majority of its opponents. It will be a key area once again on Saturday.

“Rebounding plays a big role in any game, but I think it will be essential in this game,” Donovan said. “If we are able to limit their offensive rebounds and get some ourselves, then we have a really good shot.”

However, as much as the game is going to

come down to a physical battle, specifically on the boards, the Maroons are also going to have to play a smarter game.

“Playing harder than Wash U is a key to beating them, but it also must be accompanied by playing smarter and adjusting to take advantage of the opportunities that their game plan gives us,” Casaday said.

Chicago must play a tight overall game in order to beat Wash U. The contest will be an uphill battle, but if the Maroons can capitalize on their strengths and mitigate the Bears’ offense, the team stands a chance.

“I think we will match up much better this time,” Donovan said. “We’ve come a long way since the first conference game, and now we know what it will take to beat them. We know the effort and focus that will be needed to win and how important executing our offensive and defensive strategies will be.”

Tip-off is at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Washington University’s WU Field House.

DIII slate set to begin against Denison Men’s Tennis Jake Walerius Associate Sports Editor As their season begins to take shape and with some momentum behind them, the Maroons are preparing for what could be a very decisive point in their competitive calendar.

Chicago faces Denison on Sunday in a meet that has national and regional ramifications. Denison is ranked 27th in the nation and fifth in the Central region, two places ahead of the Maroons, and head coach Jay Tee is expecting a close-fought encounter.

“It’s going to be a tough challenge,” he said. “They’re a team ranked ahead of us in the national poll. Denison’s always a tough opponent. We’re expecting a tight match, but we’re expecting to win.”

Though it will not be the Maroon’s most difficult meet of the year—they have already played second-ranked Kenyon (and lost 9–0)—it will be a good indicator of the progress they’ve made since that loss. It will also be an opportunity to stake their claim to a spot in the nation’s top 30.

The meet against Denison comes a week after the Maroons defeated Kalamazoo 8–1. Kalamazoo began the year ranked 30th in the nation, but sits two places behind Chicago in the regional rankings at ninth. Given the Maroons’ expectations for this season, victory over opponents like Kalamazoo and Denison is imperative.

And Tee is quick to emphasize the height of his team’s standards.

“We’re happy with where we’re at, but we’re not satisfied. We still want to get better. We looked at our schedule the other day, and our goal is to win every match on the schedule,” he said. “We have the confidence and hopefully the talent to be able to do that if we keep working hard every day in practice and keep getting a little better each day.”

For those expectations to be met, one gets the sense that the next few weeks will be particularly important for Chicago. Two weeks after the Denison meet, the Maroons will face DePauw, who is currently ranked sixth in the region. If Chicago is able to make it two wins out of two, the new regional rankings, which come out on March

14, are likely to make pleasant reading for Tee and his players.

Of course, theses rankings are not Chicago’s primary concern. Nor should they be. The focus, as always, remains on the next opponent. And maintaining focus in a schedule that sees the Maroons face highly competitive teams such as Kalamazoo just a day after playing much weaker teams like Lake Forest is vital.

“Playing very strong and relatively weak teams is always part of every team’s schedule,” fourth-year Harrison Abrams said. “It’s good to be able to grind through the tough matches when you’re the underdog, but it’s also important to be able to close out matches when you’re up and deserve the win.

“The flexibility of competing against very different teams, playing at new sites, and playing new lineups has always been something we try not think about too much. This was a good weekend for us, and hopefully we can make a few more tweaks for next Sunday and play even better against Denison.”

The Maroons’ match against Denison is set to begin 9 a.m. this Sunday at Five Seasons in Burr Ridge, IL.

School Washington (MO) Case Western NYU Washington (MO) Emory

Avg/G 8.4 7.9 7.7 7.1 7.0

Field Goal PCT Rank Player 1 Rob Reid 2 Devin Karch 3 Chris Klimek 4 Tyler Sankes 5 Dane McLoughlin

School Rochester NYU Washington (MO) Rochester Case Western

Pct .631 .601 .595 .574 .541

Free Throw PCT Rank Player McPherson Moore 1 John DiBartolomeo 2 3 Nate Vernon 4 Alan Aboona 5 Jake Davis

School Emory Rochester Rochester Washington (MO) Emory

Pct .960 .922 .903 .900 .869

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL UAA Standings Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

School Emory

Record 21–3 (11–2)

Win % .875

Rochester Washington (MO) Case Western Carnegie NYU Brandeis Chicago

19–5 (11–2) 19–5 (9–4) 15–9 (7–6) 13–11 (5–8) 10–14 (3–10) 9–15 (3–10) 7–17 (3–10)

.792 .792 .625 .542 .417 .375 .292

Points Rank 1 2 3 4 5

Player Evy Iacono Melissa Gilkey Emily Peel Hannah Lilly Megan Dawe

School Avg/G Case Western 17.7 Washington (MO) 15.5 Carnegie 13.5 Emory 13.1 NYU 13.0

Rank 1

Player Erica Iafelice

School Case Western

Avg/G 5.3

Savannah Morgan Riley Wurtz Ally Zywicki Evy Iacono

Emory NYU Rochester Case Western

5.3 4.7 3.9 3.9

Assists

2 3 4 5

Rebounding Rank 1 2 3 4 5

Player Misha Jackson Riley Wurtz Liza Otto Emily Peel Loren Wagner

Rank 1 2 3 4 5

Player Emily Peel Megan Dawe Melissa Gilkey Berit Eppard Brooke Orcutt

School Emory NYU Carnegie Carnegie Rochester

Avg/G 9.2 8.8 8.2 8.1 8.0

Field Goal PCT School Carnegie NYU Washington (MO) Case Western Case Western

Pct .559 .529 .518 .506 .497

Free Throw PCT Rank Player 1 Morgan Donovan 2 Evy Iacono 3 Caitlin Moore 4 Ally Zywicki 5 Emily Peel

School Chicago Case Western Chicago Rochester Carnegie

Pct .827 .816 .787 .757 .750

VISIT CHICAGOMAROON . COM VISIT CHICAGOMAROON . COM VISIT CHICAGOMAROON . COM

SPORTS

IN QUOTES

“#Nets now 32–0 when outscoring opponents this season.”

—@Nets_PR, the Brooklyn Nets PR department twitter, harnesses its inner stats geek.

Not in high school anymore: Brooks and Smith set sights on UAA title Basketball Alexander Sotiropoulos Senior Sports Staff There was a lot of buzz around campus last year regarding what was going to happen to the basketball program.

After graduating seven fourthyears, the Maroons were in desperate need of recruits who would shape the program for years to come. To find those players, head coach Mike McGrath did not have to look far.

Hailing from Chicago’s Whitney Young Magnet High School, first-years Nate Brooks and Jordan Smith have already made a notable impact for the Chicago squad.

Averaging 4.1 and 7.9 points per game in just under 20 minutes per contest, Brooks and Smith have been a force off the bench. In fact, in the first three games of the season, Smith was the Maroons’ leading scorer.

But their road to the University of Chicago was different from most, and the entire process has

united the two to become the best of friends.

Brooks and Smith met in seventh grade when they played on the same AAU team. When it came time to enter high school, the pair based their choice on both basketball and academics. Having already succeeded academically throughout primary school, the two were accepted to Whitney Young, a prestigious public magnet school in Chicago.

When the dynamic duo enrolled, the school had begun garnering national attention for its basketball team. Marcus Jordan, the son of Michael Jordan, was a senior for the Dolphins’ squad when Brooks and Smith were freshmen.

“The hype surrounding Whitney Young basketball I don’t think had ever been higher at that point [because] everyone really wanted to come out and see if he was as good as his dad,” Brooks said. “I think that’s when they really started going on a national schedule and playing around.”

Jordan led the Dolphins to a state championship the year before Brooks and Smith moved up to the varsity squad.

“Just coming in as freshmen and seeing the guys win state kind of set a precedent,” Smith said. “You come in and you don’t really know much about the basketball scene.

It’s all this ‘hoopla’ and what-not, and then they actually win state.

The next year, actually playing on that same team that won state, you have standards now; it just makes you work a lot harder.”

The hard work paid off, and the two saw meaningful minutes by their senior seasons.

What is more impressive is the cool, calm, and collected attitude Brooks and Smith exhibited as part of one of the most recognizable basketball teams in the country and playing against future NBA stars. When asked which stars they have played against, the two could not help but laugh.

“Man, the list is—” Brooks said, not being able to put words to REUNION continued on page 10

First-year Nate Brooks shoots a free throw during a game against the University of Rochester earlier this season.

COURTESY OF HANS GLICK

Maroons set the bar high for conference championships in Cleveland Track and Field

First-year Mackenzie Smith charges toward the bars in her pole vault run against Wisconsin-Oshkosh earlier this season.

COURTESY OF HANS GLICK

Isaac Stern Sports Staff The South Siders will travel to Cleveland, OH this weekend to compete for the conference title.

There, they will face off against the best of the UAA in an effort to claim their first conference title in three years for the women and five for the men.

“We’re all really excited about the opportunity we have right now,” first-year pole-vaulter Chase Wilson said. “We know we have the ability to do

some great things this weekend.”

Last year’s UAA results are still very much in the minds of the Maroon men and women, and their objective is clear: improvement. In 2012, the men finished fifth in a field of seven while the women took third.

In order to prepare for the meet, the Maroons have decreased the intensity of practice. The added rest should help Chicago fully recover from a busy schedule in the past two months.

“Coach has really slowed things down for us

this week,” Wilson said. “Practices aren’t as hard as usual, but we’re still getting some good work in.”

Currently, the men’s squad has 12 members ranked in the top five of their respective events. However, some competitors in the UAAs have not yet competed in their top event due to injury or rest.

For example, fourth-year Brandon Meckelberg, who placed first in the discus last year, has only competed in the weight throw this season.

The women’s team is in a similar situation,

with 14 members currently in the top five of their events and some competitors battling injury. Second-year Pam Yu returned to action just last week after being ranked nationally in the long jump during the preseason.

“Injuries have really held us back as a whole this year,” Wilson said, “but mostly everyone seems good for this weekend.”

The level of competition in the UAA has improved as well, which has only made Chicago’s task more difficult. The Maroons have lost to defending conference champion Wash U in several meets this year already.

“Wash U is usually the team to beat,” first-year pole-vaulter Michael Bennett said.

The Maroons must overcome a variety of obstacles to truly have a shot at the conference crown. On the men’s side, the lack of throwers beyond Meckelberg will hinder the South Siders’ ability to pick up relatively easy points. The women, while more evenly balanced throughout, will be facing tougher competition on the whole, competing in a conference that ranked sixth in the nation last week.

However, both the men’s and women’s squads have received a boost from a group of first-years who have done nothing but impress this year. Michael Bennett shattered the school record in the pole vault last week and currently ranks first in the conference. First-year Nkemdilim Nwaokolo holds the best throws in the conference for both the shot put and weight throw. If the Maroons do pull off the conference upset, a great deal of credit will go to this new crop of South Siders.

The Maroons should place in the top three in the conference for both the men and women. And they do have a real shot at the conference title. However, improvements from last year and a talented crop of first-years may still be insufficient for a first-place finish. The increased level of competition in the UAA will most likely prove to be just too high.

“No one would be upset placing third in the conference, but we really do feel we have a legitimate shot at first,” Wilson added. “That is what we are working towards.”

The UAA Championships are set to begin at noon tomorrow and continue at 9 a.m. on Sunday.