030513 Chicago Maroon

TUESDAY • MARCH 5, 2013

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

ISSUE 31 • VOLUME 124

Two events redefine “Coffee and Donuts” Administrators respond

Second-year Joe Kaplan (left) and third-year Patrick Dexter speak on behalf of Students for Health Equity (SHE) at the Coffee and Donuts Without Zimmer event on Monday evening.

JULIA REINITZ | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Harini Jaganathan News Staff The forum previously known as “Coffee and Donuts with President Zimmer,” has been renamed and rebranded “A Leadership

Conversation with President Zimmer.” The event will include a short presentation by President Zimmer, as well as a question and answer session centered on the topic of globalization. In addition, Dean of the College John Boyer

Prosecutors back down, trial ends Madhu Srikantha News Editor On Friday, the three protesters who were arrested and charged during the January 27 protest at the Center for Care and Discovery accepted revised versions of the plea bargains offered during the first day of the trial on Tuesday. The cases were resolved when they

accepted the deals.

The resisting arrest charge against graduate student Toussaint Losier has been dropped. Although the criminal trespass charge remains, the new plea bargain involved supervision for one day.

Supervision, which entails periodic check-ins with authorities and a promise TRIAL continued on page 5

Man confesses to area bank robbery John Gamino News Contributor Robert Shaw, 54, of Washington Park, was arrested and charged with robbing the Fifth Third Bank at 1420 East 53rd Street Friday morning.

When apprehended, Shaw confessed to the crime, telling federal authorities he

needed the money to survive.

The robbery took place at around 9:28 a.m. Shaw allegedly entered the bank and requested a withdrawal. According to the teller he approached, Shaw refused to show the identification and social security cards necessary to make a transaction.

BANK continued on page 2

and Faculty Director of the University of Chicago Center in Beijing Dali Yang, will be present to answer student questions.

Vice President for Campus and Student Life Eleanor Daugherty said in an

e-mailed statement that this event is the first of future “Leadership Conversations” focused on a single topic that will be held multiple times a quarter.

“Together with senior leaders, we hope that this new format will allow for focused conversations that explore issues deeply, while still allowing for a free exchange of ideas,” she said in the statement. “These Conversations also present an opportunity for senior administrators to hear directly from students and to share with students the University initiatives, planning and decision-making processes.”

The event was originally scheduled for earlier in the quarter but was postponed.

“We didn’t really have much information about why that was the case. My guess would be to give additional time to the rebranding process, just because it did take a little bit more energy and COFFEE continued on page 4

Uncommon Fund winners announced Sindhu Gnanasambandan & Nathan Peereboom News Staff Twenty four projects were announced as Uncommon Fund winners Sunday night. Of the $85,000 designated to the Fund, $75,132.60 was allocated. Projects ranged from professionallyfacilitated cuddle parties to a day commemorating Dean Boyer to a survey of South Side perspectives on gang violence. The most popular idea, as determined by a student vote, was a hot water dispenser in the Regenstein Library.

This year, the Fund was comprised of $50,000 taken from the Student Activities Fee, $25,000 from the Dean’s Fund for Student Life, and $10,000 that rolled over from previous years. Just two years ago, the Uncommon Fund was allocated a total of $40,000.

Though the projects vary in their time frame of execution, seriousness of topic, and general practicality, all share an “uncommonness” which leaves them few other resources to secure funding.

One of the most popular groups among students was

Smanger Breeze, which received one of the highest number of “likes” on Facebook. Spearheaded by second-years Matthew Montequin and Andrew Kramer, the intent of this initiative is to bring Turquoise Jeep, an absurdist R&B/rap collective, to perform a concert at the University.

The path to securing University support for their idea has not been easy for Montequin and Kramer.

“This movement has involved a lot of unsuccessful applying for funding. We got turned down for being an RSO. Last year we applied for the Fund but didn’t even make it to the voting round.

They thought we weren’t serious,” Montequin said.

If Turquoise Jeep rejects their request to appear on campus, Smanger Breeze will have to return the money to SG. Another funded project, dotCross Coffee, takes as its mission the promotion of coffee appreciation through tasting sessions and weekly pop-up coffee bars.

Second-year co-founder James FUND continued on page 2

to UCPD allegations Jennifer Standish News Editor After a Maroon investigation revealed that an on-duty UCPD detective dressed in plainclothes posed as a protester and marched in the February 23 trauma center protest, University administrators denounced the incident.

According to a statement from UCPD Chief of Police Marlon Lynch, the UCPD’s plan for the protest did not involve a detective posing as a protester.

“The event plan created and implemented by UCPD did not approve of any officer actively participating in the protest. That will be one focus of an internal investigation undertaken by the UCPD,” he said in the statement.

In addition, Lynch stated that “two employees have been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of this internal review.”

University spokesperson Jeremy Manier said in an email that “University leaders were not aware that a UCPD

officer would pose as a protester. The first that University leaders learned of this issue was from the Maroon story.”

In response to the Maroon article, Provost Thomas Rosenbaum and President Robert Zimmer e-mailed a statement to the campus community on Sunday, condemning the presence of an undercover UCPD detective at the protest.

“We view this action as totally antithetical to our values, and such activity, which is deeply problematic for discourse and mutual respect on campus, cannot be tolerated.

We will appoint an external independent reviewer to investigate the precise facts of this incident, as part of taking action to ensure that such behavior does not happen again.”

The logistics and timeline of the external review have yet to be decided.

Students for Health Equity (SHE), whose members met with Lynch the day before the protest to outline UCPD continued on page 4

Undercover UCPD detective Janelle Marcellis texts Milton Owens, Deputy Chief of Investigative Services , updates about the protest and the organizers’ demands.

ANONYMOUS SUBMISSION

IN VIEWPOINTS

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

Fix the police » Page 6

In new Art Institute exhibit, Kara Walker raises up her profile » Page 8

Second-years shine at NCAA regionals » Back Page

At Renaissance Society, Neff charts intimate territory » Page 9

Top-seeded Maroons fall to Hopkins, rally for third » Page 11

Attention to detail » Page 6

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | March 5, 2013

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Fund board responds to disappointment FUND continued from front

Goh said, “The Uncommon Fund is really a starting point for us, and if we find that there are enough people interested in spreading this love of coffee, we are hoping that we can incorporate it into an RSO.” A statement on the Uncommon Fund webpage responded to student disappointment that the Maroon Collegiate Sportwear project was not funded.

“There is an on-going discussion about the possibility of funding Maroon Col-

legiate Sportwear. Any money remaining will be reallocated for other initiatives since it is the purpose of the Student Activities Fee to fund projects in the same year the money is paid for by students,” it stated.

Each Uncommon Fund grant expires after a year. Some of last year’s winners, like Maroon TV and a competitive solar car team, still impact the community today.

Time will tell which of this year’s projects will have a lasting impact.

“I have a sick child,” robber says to teller, confessing to crime soon after with $1,874 of stolen money on hand

Uncommon Fund Winners DotCross Coffee Project Funded: $2,128.80

Change Ringing Funded: $2,200

Hot Water Dispenser in the Reg Funded: $4,000.00

Project Verdet Funded: $4,834.24

South Side in Focus Funded: $4,567.65

Alternative Epistemologies Funded: $3,020.00

UChicaGrow Funded: $5,000

Techno Contra Dance Funded: $621.83

Dinner in the White City Funded: $10,000

Interiors and Exteriors Funded: $4,000.00

BridgeMe Funded: $1,550.00

liquidClay Funded: $755.00

Smanger Breeze Funded: $7,000

Latin American Policy Event Funded: $1,827.50

Dean Boyer Appreciation Day Funded: $1,652.58

Ben Chicago Funded: $2,000

ShotoSnap Funded: $500.00

Principled Leadership Summit Funded: $2,000

Financial Thinking Funded: $2,140.00

UChicago Cuddles Funded: $835.00

Tea with a PhD Funded: $1,000

UniSquare Funded: $2,500

Seminary Co-op Documentary Funded: $9,000

Asian Snacks Vending Machine Funded: $2,000

Robert Shaw, 54, has been charged with the robbery of this branch of Fifth Third Bank. The robbery took place last Friday morning.

FRANK YAN | THE CHICAGO MAROON BANK continued from front

The teller said that, when denied cash, Shaw said something along the lines of “I want all of the large bills out of your drawer. I’m robbing you.” He did not show a weapon.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he told the teller. “I have a sick child.

I live a few blocks away…. I just want to get home to my child.”

The teller, intimidated and unsure of whether Shaw was armed, submitted to his demands. According to an audit by the Fifth Third Bank, Shaw took $1,874.

At around 9:50 a.m. UCPD and CPD officers apprehended Shaw on the 5200 block of Blackstone Avenue, in response to a radio dispatch of the robber’s description.

Shaw, donning a plaid scarf and dark jacket, was a match. The teller later confirmed the match in a physical “show-up” identification, when the authorities brought Shaw back to the bank and presented him to the teller.

In addition to his confession and the teller’s identification, he was also caught literally red-handed when a security dye capsule, which the teller gave him in order to implicate him as the robber, exploded along with the cash.

At the time Shaw was taken into custody, he had approximately $1,875 on hand.

He was turned over to the FBI at around 2:15 p.m. According to Special Agent Joan Hyde, a

spokesperson for the Chicago division of the FBI, this was in accordance with regular procedure.

Robberies of federally insured banks fall under federal jurisdiction.

Once in custody, Shaw identified himself as the man in a security photo of the robbery, telling authorities, “That’s me all day long ; anyone can see that.” He has provided a written statement confessing to the robbery and apologizing for scaring the bank teller.

Shaw was formally charged on Monday morning in U.S. District Court. His next court appearance has yet to be scheduled. If convicted, Shaw will face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Booth professors examine investment bank fraud of 2008 crisis Janey Lee News Staff A new paper co-written by a Booth professor reveals how frequently investment banks misrepresented important information about the quality of loans sold to investors during the housing bubble that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. The paper, authored by Finance Professor Amit Seru and Columbia Business School’s Tomasz Piskorski and James Witkin, was released

last week.

In their research, Seru and his colleagues sought to understand the underlying factors that led to the financial crisis in the hopes that the insight could lead to more effective regulation by the federal government, Seru said.

They found a notable prevalence of fraud.

To detect the potential presence of fraud, the researchers compared what was reported to investors about the loans to the actual characteristics of the loans.

They found two types of misrepresentation: mortgages that were labeled as owner-occupied primary residences when they were actually unoccupied and mortgages labeled as first loans that were actually concealed second or third loans. As these types of mortgages and loans are more susceptible to default in the event of a sudden drop in income, investors were unknowingly buying assets that were actually far riskier than what they were paying for.

The study found that approximately one in 10 assets from all “reputable” banks—like Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan—had one of these misrepresentations, and that those loans were 150 percent more likely to default than other loans with otherwise similar characteristics. The authors note that this is actually a conservative estimate, as there could be other types of misrepresentation that were not addressed in this research, and that it is likely that more than 10 percent

of such assets were misrepresented.

Seru said that current regulatory measures, like the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act enacted as a response to the 2008 financial crisis, are not specific enough to combat this type of fraud.

“We have to make sure banks are not too big. We have to impose taxes. These are very good broad principles, but it’s time to get specific.”

University in “silent phase” of fundraising campaign Alex Hays News Staff The University has started a major fundraising campaign to raise several billion dollars, according to several sources within the administration. The campaign will increase the endowment and support financial aid, among other things.

The University has not yet publicly announced the initiative. Dean of the College John Boyer said that the campaign, which began in the summer of 2012, is currently in the “silent phase,” during which Uni-

versity leaders try to raise about 40 percent of the target goal before making the campaign public.

Throughout this period, the University negotiates with big-ticket donors, he said.

According to University spokesperson Jeremy Manier, the University normally runs large campaigns like this once a decade.

The last large fundraising campaign, which occurred in 2008, raised $2.5 billion, according to Boyer. He said that the goal of this campaign is to raise “several billion dollars.... More than we raised last

time.”

Executive Director of Annual Giving Bridget Haggerty estimates that large-scale donations will make up a significant part of the campaign. She said the University hopes to go public with the campaign within the next year, but wouldn’t comment on at what stage the campaign is currently.

President Robert J. Zimmer has been meeting with large groups of alumni around the world to speak about his goals for the University, according to Haggerty. “He’s in year two of [connecting with alumni]

and we expect that he will continue to do that for the next several years,” she said.

The extra outreach has already started to pay off, as Haggerty indicated that there has been an increase in the number of donors and the number of dollars raised over the past year. The University raised $255.8 million in donations in 2012, according to an article by Crain’s Chicago Business, compared to $246.7 million in 2011. Haggerty attributed the increase in giving to alumni being generally more pleased with the University’s vision,

so that “they feel more inclined to give.” She added that younger alumni are giving back to the University.

Five hundred million dollars of the money raised, Boyer said, will go to the College, with at least $250 million going to support the endowment. Boyer said that he hoped to use the other $250 million “for the good of the College,” targeting areas like financial aid, international and career programs, and creating more named-chair positions for exemplary Core teachers.

—Additional reporting by Ankit Jain

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | March 5, 2013

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A rocky path, an uncertain future for Hillel Nathan Peereboom News Contributor A year after the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago ( JUF) gutted U of C’s Newberger Hillel leadership, Hillel says programming is more extensive than ever, even as the budget has been drastically decreased.

Hillel is an international organization that serves Jewish college communities. U of C’s independent Hillel chapter was acquired

by JUF in 2005, a non-profit conglomerate. In March 2012, after years of dramatic budget disputes, JUF fired Dan Libenson, Hillel’s

executive director, along with the entire board.

Almost a year later, Vice President of Campus Affairs and Student Engagement for the JUF John Lowenstein said that student participation in Hillel programs is high while Hillel’s budget has been cut. According to Hoffman, the expense budget for this year has decreased to about $750,000, over $150,000 less than Hillel budgeted for itself before JUF’s firing spree.

A history of financial conflicts Hillel’s relationship with JUF began in 1996 when the New-

berger family helped fund the addition of a chapel onto the Hillel Center that now bears their name.

The Newberger’s gift was made on the condition that the deed to the building be handed over to JUF. In 2000, the $1.5 million deed to the property was sold to JUF for $1. Since then, Hillel has paid annual rent to JUF. In the following decade, JUF dramatically increased the rent it charged Hillel for the Hillel Center. From 2002–2007, JUF increased the rent by nearly 240 percent, ultimately charging Hillel $209,854 per year. In following years, Hillel ran consecutive annual budget deficits often topping

$100,000. This led to the Hillel Board and JUF clashing continuously over the budget.

JUF’s financial support of Hillel was a particular area of contention. Last spring, JUF claimed it contributed “annual support of almost $500,000” to Hillel. The former Hillel board responded that JUF was overstating its contribution by including payouts from Hillel’s own endowment and Hillel’s bond repayments in that number.

“These funds belong to Hillel.

They were given by donors—not

by JUF—for the benefit of Hillel. JUF acts like a bank in that they hold funds for many differ-

ent organizations…. To claim this amount as ‘JUF support of Hillel’ is deceptive because JUF has no choice but to give those funds to Hillel,” wrote one source in an email.

Adding to the conflict, after JUF told Hillel to reduce their budget, JUF refused to accept the board’s budget cut proposals. The board wished to switch facilities management companies from FacCorp to a set of alternative management companies. FacCorp is owned by JUF. A source intimate with the negotiations pointed out that many increases in cost for HilHILLEL continued on page 5

Pritzker Dean Dr. Kenneth Polonsky discusses trauma center Joy Crane Associate News Editor Dr. Kenneth Polonsky, dean of the Pritzker School of Medicine, defended the UCMC’s stance against building a trauma center at a public roundtable discussion in the Biological Sciences Learning Center last night. Responding to a formal statement submitted by 14 Pritzker students, Polonsky also discussed the necessity of engaging in a dialogue with trauma center activist groups and the implications of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on health care

at UCMC. Polonsky stated that the ACA, which increases funding for health care providers like the UCMC, would likely not absorb the estimated $20 million a new adult level-one trauma center would cost. The ACA would only alleviate health provision costs due to the expanded Medicaid coverage for more low-income patients, he said.

“In the current climate, where healthcare reimbursement is diminishing, $20 million would have to come at the expense of other programs. We don’t have an

endless amount of money, and we don’t have endless capacity,” he said.

The planned talking point of the biannual “Dean’s Brown Bag” meeting was the new Center for Care and Discovery, which opened on February 23. But the question-and-answer session mostly centered on the ongoing trauma center campaign, at the direction of a statement submitted by the UChicago chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), a student advocacy group for national insurance.

“As medical students, we actually didn’t know that much about the trauma center,” Scott Goldberg, co-founder of PNHP, said. “[Medical students] are not really sure how they can get involved in this issue, or what their role might be.”

Goldberg asked Polonsky how the UCMC could better foster dialogue with activist groups, following its conversations with STOP, SHE, and FLY after the January 27 protest. Polonsky conceded that the UCMC could be doing more to improve engagement.

“I accept what you say, that we haven’t adequately communicated. I think we are moving to communicate with a number of community groups, and we hope that we will be able to have a constructive dialogue.”

Polonsky believes that at this point, the trauma center is not the UCMC’s most important priority.

“I think we are going to have sit down and figure out what are the highest priorities. In my own view...there are other higher priorities than a trauma center.”

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | March 5, 2013

4

Social Justice RSOs host “Donuts� without Zimmer SHE concerned officers will be COFFEE continued from front exchange views on global- what they feel needs to be administration’s “scapegoats�

NEWS IN BRIEF SG creates survey for Loop shuttle SG has begun to survey students about the University’s South Loop shuttle service in an attempt to convince the Office of Transportation and Parking to change shuttle locations and times for next year to fit student preferences After reportedly low ridership on the current South Loop shuttle, which transports students between the Reynolds Club and the Roosevelt CTA Station at East Roosevelt Road and South State Street from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, Student Government created a survey to provide students the opportunity to vote on the different locations and times that they would most likely use the shuttle. Possible locations include Wicker Park, Logan Square, Lincoln Park, and South Columbus Drive, behind the Art Institute of Chicago.

SG representative Yusef AlJarani believes the Offfice initially did not understand the ridership issue but that, “after presenting the survey idea to them, they’re really willing to work with [SG].�

According to Al-Jarani, nearly 700 students have already filled out the survey, 35 percent of whom were graduate students. SG plans to keep it open until the end of the quarter, after which they will present the results to the Office of Transportation and Parking. —Maira Khwaja

thought versus ‘we’ll order some coffee and donuts and have the room set up and call it good,’� said Douglas Everson, SG vice president for Administration.

Everson also said that the rebranding of the event was largely due to the fact that “Coffee and Donuts� events were widely attended last quarter, and many students were unable to have their questions answered by President Zimmer. “Between [the event] being branded on a specific topic and being able to bring in more administrators, we’re hoping that students who come with questions on that topic will be able to get them addressed,� he said.

According to Everson, Campus and Student Life chose globalization as the topic in response to questions on study abroad programs and career treks. Dean Boyer will be present to answer questions about study abroad programs and Dali Yang will be present to answer questions specifically about the University’s Center in Beijing. “I’m there because obviously there’s quite a bit of interest into the students participating in programs in China, and, [of ] course ,overall, I’m very interested in meeting with students to

ization in many ways,� said Yang.

In light of this event and for the general purpose of discussing administrative transparency, the Chicago Justice Initiative brought together various RSOs interested in social justice for “Coffee and Donuts without President Zimmer� last night. Members from RSOs including Students for Health Equity (SHE), Southside Solidarity Network, Students Organizing United with Labor, and Organization of Black Students among several other groups, presented information about their campaigns and the questions they hope to ask at the “Leadership Conversation� event.

SHE discussed their campaign with FLY (Fearless Leading the Young) for a trauma center in the University of Chicago Medical Center and the recent events that resulted in four arrests.

SHE member and thirdyear Patrick Dexter raised the question: “As this process of conversation and dialogue unfolds, on whose term is this dialogue going to take place?

Is it going to be administrators calling on people to ask preselected questions or is it going to be a legitimate forum where people can say what’s on their mind, ask

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answered, and can be guaranteed more than a cursory response?�

Event organizer and president of Chicago Justice Initiative Michaeljit Sandhu said that the reason for holding the collaborative event was partially in response to recent developments with the trauma center protests. “There have been no forums in which Zimmer has been present since the trauma center issue [on January 27], and clearly it’s a massive issue on campus,� said Sandhu. “He hasn’t been accountable at all, nor have any higher level administrators.

It just made the issue more pressing or it drew it to our attention again.�

Sandhu expressed frustration that the event is being centered specifically on globalization. “It seems like having a forum confined to that issue is an effort to silence students and for Zimmer not to be accountable to anyone,� he said. “A Leadership Conversation with President Zimmer� hosted by the Office of Campus and Student Life will be held at 5 p.m. tonight in the McCormick Tribune Lounge. —Editor’s Note: Douglas Everson is a Maroon Senior Editor

UCPD continued from front

the intended path of the march and to ensure that they did not break any laws, also released a statement expressing their concerns regarding who will receive the blame for this incident. “We are concerned that a few officers will be scapegoated and that the administration will not take responsibility for the implicit go-ahead they’ve given for these kinds of tactics.... The police spy was deployed in the context of University disregard for community and student concerns, and for that reason is unsurprising,� it stated.

A statement by Student Goverment, stating that it has been working with both UCPD and University administrators to “build constructive relationships between the UCPD and the student body,� said that “Student Government maintains that the top priority of UCPD should be to guarantee the safety of students on campus. These new allegations run counter to our discussions with UCPD and members of the University Administration, and we look forward to continuing dialogue in light of this specific incident.�

In a letter intended to be sent out to undergraduate

students today, according to fourth-year SHE member Olivia Woollam, a group of social justice student groups including Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de AztlĂĄn, Organization of Black Students, Southside Solidarity Network, Stop Funding Climate Change UChicago, SHE, Students Organizing United with Labor, UChicago Climate Action Network, and University of Chicago Coalition for Immigrant Rights shared their response to the events and what they consider a lack of transparency from the University last night. “When peaceful student protest organizers inform police and administration of their exact plans and marching route, and the official response is police infiltration, students will demand a better relationship with the administration, if not a new one entirely,â€? it states. “A faculty committee will not fill the gap between the administration and the university community on this latest or any other issue.â€?

The Maroon investigation obtained photographic evidence that Detective Janelle Marcellis marched in the protest while working undercover.

The full story can be found at chicagomaroon.com.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | March 5, 2013

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Advertising, conferences, travel expenses cut from Hillel budget by JUF HILLEL continued from page 3

lel were based on FacCorp’s—and JUF’s—own pricing. For example, between 2007–2010 FacCorp’s Management Service fee more than doubled from $16,100 to $36,073 while the service itself remained unchanged. Further, JUF charged Hillel a 27 percent benefits surcharge on each employee’s salary that went into a benefits pool, even though the majority of Hillel employees did not receive benefits.

Eventually, Nancy Newberger requested a mediator to solve the disagreements. JUF chose Harvey J. Barnett, now chairman of the JUF Board. Frustrated with JUF’s refusal to accept Hillel’s budget

cuts, the Hillel board requested that JUF restore Hillel’s “corporate independence” in a letter late last March.

Ruth O’Brien and James Churney wrote, “We are unable to fulfill our mission if Federation will not allow us to make budget cuts from the building management and administrative charges it controls and assesses to our Hillel. This leaves us in the position of either having a building without a program or a program without a building.”

Two days later, a letter from Barnett, the mediator, fired the entire board and the executive director. Subsequently, the locks on the Hillel Center were replaced

and Dan Libenson’s files were boxed and put on the sidewalk outside the Hillel Center.

“Doing much more with less” Since last spring, old programs have grown and new ones have begun. The number of Mega Shabbats —large Friday night dinners—has decreased by half, but participation in individual Mega Shabbats has risen about 10 percent. Hillel now provides free weekly smaller Shabbats for 40 to 60 students, and applications are also strong for Hillel’s internships and the Israel Birthright trip.

“We’re doing much more with less…. Jewish life is richer on cam-

pus,” said John Lowenstein, vice president of campus affairs and student engagement for the JUF. Hoffman said that some of the cuts were made by reducing Mega Shabbats, eliminating a $20,000 speaking series, and reducing employees—particularly work study students.

Lowenstein elaborated on further cuts, saying that there were cuts across the board. These cuts included: nearly $45,000 in ‘honorarium,’ which appears as a single line–item in the budget, advertising, conferences, offering payment for people to get master’s degrees, and $12,000 in travel expenses.

However, some of the cuts

would not change the overall deficit. For example, the $20,000 speaking series—the Thinker-inResidence Program—was a restrictive gift, meaning that when the Hillel cut the program, the Horwitz Family Charitable Fund, which had funded it in past years, demanded its remaining donation returned. Similarly, when Hillel divested itself of the Latke–Hamantash Debate, its largest and most visible program by participation numbers, it also lost the $15,000 restrictive gift to fund the event.

When asked to respond on the specifics of this year’s budget, Lowenstein and Hoffman declined to comment.

Defense lawyer: “We were presuming that they were going to continue prosecuting” TRIAL continued from front

that no charges remain on record, means almost nothing for Losier, according to Alex Goldenberg (A.B. ’06), because that one day of supervision was Friday.

Goldenberg and Jacob Klippenstein have taken the new offer. Under the terms of the new plea bargain, both will be under six months of supervision and a

no unlawful contact order with UCMC property. The charges will not remain on their records.

The revisions were a surprise to the defense and the defendants.

“I was anticipating that Alex was going to take the deal that was offered to him but we were going to request that he get supervision instead of conditional discharge,” Joey Mogul, one of

three lawyers on the defense, said. “We were presuming that they were going to continue prosecuting [Losier’s] resisting arrest charges.”

Klippenstein had yet to make a decision about the original plea bargain by the time court reconvened Friday, while Losier rejected the original plea bargain last Tuesday.

Mogul said she did not know whether the University or the State’s Attorney Office pushed for the changed plea bargains, but felt the “groundswell of support” demonstrated by the community, University students, and faculty cannot be understated.

In addition, the prosecution had a “very weak case” on Toussaint’s resisting arrest charge, Mogul

said.

“We took these deals mainly because we wanted to make sure that we had all the time and the resources available to us to really organize people,” Losier said in a video following the court decision, noting that the three plan to continue the fight for a levelone trauma center on the South Side.

The Winter 2013 Grey City Magazine is coming

Tuesday, March 12th

In this Issue: Fledgling Faculty • Sustainability • I Was Robbed • Dr. Liu • Social Thought

VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed MARCH 5, 2013

Fix the police UCPD’s use of undercover officer at trauma center protest was counter to UChicago’s values 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

As reported by the Maroon last Friday in an article that appears in today’s print edition, UCPD detective Janelle Marcellis posed in plainclothes as a protestor and participated in the trauma center march held on February 23. After her uncomfortable behavior and unusual questions to other protestors raised the suspicions of several members of Fearless Leading by the Youth (FLY) and Students for Health Equity (SHE)—the march’s organizers—an anonymous source photographed Marcellis texting UCPD Deputy Chief of Investigative Services Milton Owens with updates on the protest. Yesterday, a statement from Associate Vice President for Safety and Security and Chief of Police Marlon Lynch confirmed he had no knowledge of the operation, and that two employees would be placed on administrative lea pending an internal investigation.

The detective work by Marcellis that led to her discovery makes this situation almost farcical, but its implications are no laughing matter. That employees of a university police force

would find it necessary to spy on a peaceful demonstration by students and community members is objectionable in the first place; the presence of uniformed police at the event was more than sufficient. That members of the UCPD chose to do so after protest leaders had met multiple times with University administrators, informing them of the march route and even agreeing to limit bullhorn usage near the Center for Care and Discovery (CCD) to avoid disrupting its movein day, shows a breathtaking lack of trust by some of its officers in the public they are charged with protecting.

This unnecessary surveillance compounds the concerns about campus policing raised by the arrests and alleged mistreatment of several protesters by UCPD officers during the January 27 demonstration at the CCD. By now many people on this campus, and in the surrounding community, are losing confidence that the UCPD can be relied on to act appropriately in such situations. If not addressed, the specter of an overbearing and threatening police may well chill dissent in Hyde Park.

President Zimmer and Provost Rosenbaum should be commended for quickly recognizing this incident for what it is: a severe violation of this University’s commitment to free inquiry and peaceful expression. “We view this action as totally antithetical to our values,” they wrote in a statement e-mailed to faculty, students, and staff on Sunday afternoon, “and such activity, which is deeply problematic for discourse and mutual respect on campus, cannot be tolerated.” Their decision to lift the vital investigation of this matter above the vicissitudes of University politics by appointing an external independent reviewer to conduct it is especially welcome. It’s also encouraging that President Zimmer rightly considered the incident important enough to warrant affixing his name to such a strong official statement.

It is deeply disturbing that Chief Lynch apparently had no knowledge of the force’s conduct until the Maroon published its article. The investigations into this incident, both external and internally within the UCPD, should not only focus on allocating blame, but

must also look into whether reforms need to be made to the UCPD’s command structure and organizational culture. The UCPD is a long way from regaining the confidence of the public it is meant to protect; and the road toward attaining that trust must begin with a wholehearted, serious attempt to get its own house in order.

The recent problems with UCPD conduct present one of the most serious tests of this institution’s adherence to its values in recent memory.

It is of the utmost importance that the facts be brought to light thoroughly and swiftly. Once they are established, it is incumbent upon all of us—students, faculty, administrators, community members, and the UCPD—to ensure that this campus engages in open discussion about this incident, that substantive changes are instituted where needed, and that our university recommit itself to the freedoms it holds most dear.

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

Attention to detail Far from wasteful, academia’s fixation on seemingly trivial issues is necessary in a complex world

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 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 CECILIA JIANG Copy Editor MICHELLE LEE Copy Editor CHELSEA LEU Copy Editor

By Emma Thurber Stone Associate Viewpoints Editor As someone who enjoys discussing current events, feelings, and text message punctuation at great length and in great depth, I am often accused of “overthinking.” Based on the contexts in which it has been used against me, apparently I am to take this term to mean that I am intellectually wasteful: I spend time and effort thinking about matters that will not change anything. If it isn’t already clear, I don’t buy this accusation, and not just because it’s insulting. It also recalls what seems to be the primary,

and most potent, critique of academia on this campus: that it embraces a narcissistic, do-nothing spirit that ought to be quashed in the service of Progress— that academia is masturbation of the mind, if you will, in place of intercourse with the real world.

Before I dive in, some analytical housekeeping: It is no secret that when we invoke an abstracted “academia,” we always seem to end up talking about the humanities and social sciences, and that those areas of scholarship bear the brunt of the negative assumptions about higher education. It is under this general idea of “academia” that I will operate, since it is those negative assumptions that I hope to overturn. I would also like to acknowledge that I am aware that this debate is an old and tired one. I will do my best not to further age and tire it here.

OK, where was I? Ah, yes—masturbation. The thing is, if we allow for such a thing as over-thinking, then we

must also allow for such a thing as underthinking: spending not enough time and effort thinking about crucial ideas. What I want to argue is that the implications of the latter are far more dangerous than the former. It is far riskier, ultimately, to elide difference than to presume complexity.

This is not to say that intellectual wastefulness does not exist. Relatively simple questions such as, “If this banana is moldy and I prefer to stay alive, should I eat it?” or “Should I inform this stranger whom I have no intent to harm that his sleeve is on fire?” certainly do not require a whole lot of thought, and to spend a great deal of time on them is evidently ridiculous. But when it comes to areas like politics, and the arguments and language we use to talk about things we all claim to care a great deal about, shortcuts have unthinkable consequences. To draw from a topic I’ve been reading a lot about recently, it is definitely worth spending time thinking about what “sexual exploi-

tation” means, and then how to spot it, and then if legal intervention is necessary in what you’ve spotted. If you blunder off into the world ready to eradicate something called “sexual exploitation” without being able to talk about what it is, you will probably end up being more harmful than helpful. If that sounds obvious, good. It should.

Here a heroic caller-to-arms might argue that time is something we cannot afford to spend and that immediate action is always more valuable than dithering around thinking about things. She might even quote John Maynard Keynes’s famous, and entirely accurate, observation that “in the long run, we are all dead.” I agree: It’s important to make a move.

But it also seems clear to me that if you make an important one without thinking it through, the resulting web of misunderstandings will surely ensnare you such that you can no longer move at all.

COMPLEXITY continued on page 7

KATIE LEU Copy Editor CARYSSA LIM Copy Editor JONAH RABB Copy Editor LINDSEY SIMON Copy Editor ESTHER YU Copy Editor

Letter: Senior Class Gift a gift for students

The Chicago Maroon is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters

In response to “The greatest gift of all” (Feb. 25)

Circulation: 5,500.

Last week, a Maroon op-ed suggested that funds contributed to the Senior Class Gift are absorbed into the endowment, which is then spent by University officials at their discretion.

I want to be clear that this money is allocated to the College Fund and is spent on programs, events, trips, and opportunities that benefit students just like you.

I am an alumna who came back to work for the University because of the leadership of Dean Boyer, who, for the past 20 years, has shaped our college into a place of international excellence that prioritizes student life and greets student innovation with support provided by the Fund.

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

For those who seek transparency about funds, I can attest that the Senior Class Gift is an expendable fund rather than an endowment fund.

As a College student in the ’90s, I knew this campus when there was no Max P., South Campus, Ratner, or Booth. Harper was a library. With books. I remember coming back to campus in 2010 when I was interviewing for the position I now hold. I was incredibly impressed by how much change had occurred and how the student body had transformed. One thing, however, remained the same: Dean Boyer.

Dean Boyer, an alumnus like me, and countless others demonstrate

commitment to student life on campus through the College Fund. For more than 10 years, the College Fund has supported a myriad of programs, projects, and ideas that help students develop professionally and personally, build community, and excel in areas in and out of the classroom. This includes supporting “UChicago Careers In…” programming, Metcalf internships, and opportunities for students to go abroad for study and research. As recently as this quarter, the Fund has supported our students’ initiative and innovation by funding Chicago Raas’s recent trip to a dance competition in California and MODA’s fashion show, and is provid-

ing additional financial resources for the Uncommon Fund.

The expendable dollars in the College Fund are not a part of the permanent endowment of the University.

The loss to College students engendered by the absence of a Senior Class Gift would be direct and, in my view, very regrettable.

I am very happy to meet with College students who wish to discuss the College Fund.

Eleanor Daugherty, A.B. ‘97, Assistant Vice President for Student Life and Associate Dean of the College

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | March 5, 2013

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Not strictly confidential Romney’s cocky attitude a symptom of a culture in which the appearance of certainty is valued over accuracy and truthfulness

By Anastasia Golovashkina Viewpoints Columnist In light of the Institute of Politics’ ongoing series about the 2012 presidential election, I invite you to reflect back on its first event of this school year: a screening of the first presidential debate, in which Mitt Romney lied at least 27 times and made a number of wildly inaccurate claims about basic facts like U.S. oil production levels, the unemployment rate, and even his own presidential agenda.

But the candidate’s calculated insincerity didn’t seem to matter; though we certainly didn’t praise Romney for his dishonesty, it did little harm to our bipartisan consensus on his triumphant debate performance. Romney won, we all seemed to agree, and he won because he seemed so sure of himself.

In many ways, Romney was simply following the most oft-given advice for public speakers: Be confident. Imagine your audience in their underwear. Don’t worry about statistics or substance; just fake it ’til you make it. More than anything, our near-consensus assessment of the first presidential debate speaks to just how highly our society prizes confidence, apparently placing it above

such values as honesty, intelligence, or even accuracy. Even though this debate took place immediately after the “47 percent” video, and long after Romney had begun to draw criticism for his flipflopping tendencies, even most of the staunchest Democrats conceded that he had been the clear winner.

But I’m not here to complain about Mitt Romney; I’m here to talk about overconfidence, and the problems it poses for our society. Back in 2002, baseless, overconfident conclusions regarding Iraq’s presupposed possession of WMDs led to at least 6,000 unnecessary military deaths and trillions of dollars in unwarranted federal spending. Mutually reinforced overconfidence in rising real estate prices similarly propelled us into the single biggest stock market crash since 1929. Indeed, overconfidence is the very essence of commercial disaster.

The extent to which this “virtue” of overconfidence has become embedded in the very fabric of our society’s cultural expectations is manifest in every overconfident protagonist, from Harry Potter to fifty-grand-for-fireworks Romney.

From day one of elementary school, we were taught to be confident—to raise our hands and speak up, and to avoid being shy or quiet, as the latter implied that we were hostile or antisocial.

Although class participation didn’t carry quite the weight of a devastating foreign war, the consistent reinforcement of the relationship between confidence and academic success (along with its emphasis on involvement above achievement) did help us grow accustomed to speaking and acting before we think.

Moreover, because most of us are (admittedly

or not) clueless regarding most subjects, we’ve developed a tendency to congregate around those individuals who seem most knowledgeable. Even when nothing could be further from the truth, we conclude time and time again that he who is confident must know what he’s doing. And as nobody enjoys admitting that they’re wrong, the more committed to a cause or individual we become, the less likely we are to consider —let alone admit—any prospective oversights in our convictions. Not surprisingly, this sort of mutually reinforced overconfidence can become very problematic, very quickly.

“

Even when nothing could be further from the truth, we conclude time and time again that he who is confident must know what he’s doing.

”

I am by no means trying to imply that confidence or participation are bad things, nor that we should radically realign our preferences to value unequivocal truth and accomplishments above less concrete things like hard work and commitment. For one, it’s true that self-confidence is crucial to succeeding in most, if not all, settings and professions; the hypercritical world of success demands that its inhabitants couple determination with strong self-belief.

Moreover, such a change would be impossible—so much of life is simply about showing up and making an effort.

But it’s equally important for us to realign our perceptions with reality. We must focus on recognizing the inherent and inevitable limitations of our knowledge and abilities, whether that entails dissociating self-confidence from superiority or emphasizing opportunities for improvement above praise of mediocrity. To start with, schools could place greater importance on critical thinking at an earlier age and present confidence as a natural consequence of thoughtful pre-consideration. Perhaps then we could work toward cultivating an environment that appreciates the incredible diversity of each of our unique combinations of strengths and weaknesses, as opposed to condemning those who do not fit trendy character traits. After all, a below-average person in a certain field won’t improve unless she realizes that improvement is necessary, and also that half the population is always in the same boat.

They say that knowledge is power. That’s why the mere assertion of knowledge wrongly made by overconfident people—persons emboldened by overestimates of their knowledge or predictive abilities—is so convincing and so dangerous.

But therein lies a critically nuanced distinction between knowledge of information and knowledge of one’s true self and limitations. In regard to this, Socrates phrased it best: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

Anastasia Golovashkina is a secondyear in the College majoring in economics.

Letter: Activists disrespect visiting lecturer In demonstration against American-Israeli speaker, Students for Justice in Palestine rejected UChicago’s tradition of open dialogue On the evening of February 25, the World Behind the Headlines program at I-House held an event entitled “Legitimate Target: A Criteria-Based Approach to Targeted Killing.”

Amos Guiora, an American-Israeli law professor at the University of Utah and counterterrorism specialist, was invited to talk about targeted killings, the criteria for determining what is a legitimate target, and the need for restrictions on current drone warfare.

Before the event began, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) representatives were protesting in

front of I-House, blocking the path for people to enter the building. This was not only an inconvenience for people who wanted to attend the event, but for the residents of I-House as well.

The talk began relatively peacefully, without any major disturbances, and many SJP members sat in the front row of the hall. As soon as the law professor mentioned that he served for 19 years in the Israel Defense Forces, the students turned their chairs around and put their backs toward the distinguished speaker. They accused him of being a war

criminal and yelled for the end of “the occupation.” The professor did not engage and was booed as a coward. Eventually, the protesters caused enough of a disturbance that I-House staff asked them to leave.

It is certainly reasonable for people to disagree with a speaker’s opinion. However, it is rude to interrupt an event with political statements that are unrelated to the topic at large.

What I find most fascinating is that SJP did not criticize Professor Guiora’s views on targeted killings in their chair demonstration.

Rather, they criticized the fact that he was an Israeli and had served in the IDF. They were not protesting his opinion, but rather his right to speak. The University of Chicago is a rich intellectual community that shares the values of free thought, expression, and civil discourse.

SJP’s actions on Monday broke from this tradition. I hope they will recognize their inappropriate actions and change their behavior accordingly.

Blake Fleischer, Class of 2015

Academic writing, though dense, fits task at hand

ISABEL OCHOA GOLD

| THE CHICAGO MAROON

COMPLEXITY continued from page 6 And, in a satisfying twist of fate, the confusion and frustration you feel upon becoming entangled will undoubtedly be hundreds of times greater than the confusion and frustration you initially felt attempting to slog through a difficult question.

This is where over-thinking comes in. Academic writing—though sometimes dense, obtuse, or pretentious—is over-thinking at its finest, and that is wonderful. We need it. It’s true that often these complex thoughts are expressed in copious pages with eye-numbing blocks of prose and Googleworthy words every fifth sentence. And this isn’t, of course, to say that bad academic writing doesn’t exist, or that academia is to be sheltered from writing criticism. It is simply to say that the world is complex and that efforts to tease out its complexity are not in the least wasteful.

Old and tired this all may be, but it is absolutely not irrelevant. Accusations of over-thinking are so effective at stopping conversation because they laugh at the possibility that a conversation is necessary—in short, they trivialize. As students at this university and thus members of an extremely fortunate and select group, we should be especially humbled by the risks of trivializing any concept, person, or idea. Academia treats with grave importance that at which we laugh; it asks those people to speak whose voices we habitually silence; it retraces systems of power that have vanished into the woodwork of our experience.

It is essential that all of us, no matter our academic and career interests, recognize that a willingness to take the world seriously in all its detail is something we cannot afford to disdain.

Emma Thurber Stone is a second-year in the College.

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 MARCH 5, 2013

In new Art Institute exhibit, Kara Walker raises up her profile Alice Bucknell Associate Arts Editor Known for her dramatic, wall-mounted cut-paper silhouettes, Kara Walker’s exhibitions cultivate a world of their own: Rife with hyperbolized antebellum stereotypes, each installation addresses themes of violence, race, sexuality, and power relations. Her detailed and dynamic creations behave with an almost theatrical autonomy. Leaping and tugging at one another

RISE UP, YE MIGHTY RACE! Art Institute of Chicago Through August 11

from wall to wall, the figures channel a bodily energ y that likewise pulls the viewer through the gallery space. Rise Up, Ye Mighty Race!, Walker’s newest exhibit at the Art Institute, is emblematic of her stylistic and symbolic legacy, but offers up a few unique features of its own.

Walker’s constructed world was commissioned by and designed specifically for the Art Institute: Each piece of the installation is conscious of the space that it occupies. The effects of this conceptual cohesion are obvious when viewing the exhibit from afar; it

A combination of drawings and silhouettes make up this debut installation at Kara Walker’s recently opened AIC exhibit Rise Up, Ye Mighty Race!.

COURTESY OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

blends seamlessly with other works in the gallery, sharing wall space with Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and others. Due to its subtle integration into the contemporary art space on the third floor of the Modern Wing, Walker’s exhibit is an inevitable

encounter—one that, for many viewers, occurs before they even know it.

Opposite the walkthrough entrance, a bluish backdrop descends from the ceiling to frame the white text announcing Walker’s installation. A gap in the false wall gives the viewer

a peak into the interior space, also washed in a dark blue and filled with dozens of Walker’s creations. In addition to her iconic flat caricatures, several largescale graphite drawings come into view, each giving a depth and material density, which those who

are already familiar with her silhouettes will perhaps find surprising. There are also 40 small-framed mixed media drawings in the exhibition, many of which are rendered in colored ink or paint and feature written text, two elements uncharacteristic

of Walker’s more well known work.

Walker describes this mélange of images as a “kind of paranoid panorama wall work,” and it is perhaps their lack of material uniformity that breaks down the typically WALKER continued on page 10

Out of four speeches, Ali Smith fashions a cunning voice Emma Broder Arts Editor

Nobody puts Greek actress Aliki Vougiouklaki in the corner.

COURTESY OF THE PENGUIN PRESS

The 20th-century fiction writer Leonard Michaels’s book Sylvia is a fictionalized memoir—or a truth-based novel—about living with his mentally ill ex-wife, named Sylvia, in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. Rereading Sylvia recently, I was struck by how much I loved a passage Michaels quotes from his own journal entry about Sylvia and her similarly depraved friend Agatha: “‘They are even close in their looks—same height, same shape. I found them asleep together, on the living room couch, one black-haired girl, one blonde. The difference only showed how much they looked the same, two girls lying on the couch in late afternoon. They looked like words that rhyme.’”

The next day, I found myself noticing that the title of a short story I had read rhymed; then I began thinking the story’s main ideas, and main characters,

“rhymed.” In her new genre-defying book Artful, Ali Smith reminds us that we’re always doing just this.

We’re always synthesizing our personal, particular cultural references to create ideas about how art moves through us, and moves our lives forward.

Artful began as four lectures Smith delivered when she was a visiting professor at St. Anne’s College, Oxford (she’s Scottish). The lectures are simply titled, “On time,” “On form,” “On edge,” and “On offer and reflection.” They have numbered subtitles, some of which poke fun at the cute/clever academic title. (“Please Mr. Post Man, Look and See: Remembrance of Things Post.”) Yet Smith also seems committed to presenting Artful in an unpolished, artless way. She keeps some of the lectures’ subtitles in what appears to be their original drafts, like, “Haven’t Found a Song Title for This Section Yet/ something about linearity—

maybe Time After Time or Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime (By the Korgis— check lyrics).”

Sometimes this idea of Smith’s, that of the joint cultural/emotional touchstone that propels us, which is really the backbone—spine—of her book, aligns all neat, like in one plot thread that begins when the image of her dead lover speaks to her in what Smith believes are nonsense words. Smith recounts the words to a psychiatrist, who says they sound Greek; eventually the words lead her to the movies of Greek actress Aliki Vougiouklaki, who is featured on the book’s cover and comes to symbolize how connected Smith and her lover have remained.

Another cool synthesis comes when Smith sees the psychiatrist for the first time.

The psychiatrist does a hokey visualization exercise, and instead of picturing herself in a movie theater during the exercise as she’s supposed to, Smith imagines having

transcendent sex with her dead partner. Afterward, the psychiatrist asks her if the exercise was helpful and, in reference to a sexual metaphor she had been thinking of moments before, Smith replies, “‘It rang a bell with me somewhere, yes.’” It’s a poignant incident, one that supports the idea that we go through our days making a series of inside jokes with ourselves, so that what passes for interaction actually happens at the intersection between two people’s mutually indecipherable allusions.

Like amateur hip-hop choreography, though, the book stalls between its brilliant forward leaps. It’s obvious when Smith’s heart and full energies aren’t present, which happens when she tries to be academic. She is obviously not at home in heady prose, where her ideas are stimulating but vague. She gets into a weird abstraction and definition mode.

Consider these ARTFUL continued on page 9

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | March 5, 2013

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At Renaissance Society, Neff charts intimate territory Lauren Gurley Arts Staff In photography, the private and public spheres of life have always had a unique and puzzling relationship. The camera has the power to capture private and personal moments in people’s lives and preserve them for others to see, in a sense stripping these moments of their “private-ness.” But John Neff ’s photography, currently on display at the Renaissance Society, presents to viewers an intriguing entry into his romantic and domestic life, while simultaneously maintaining its sense of privacy.

JOHN NEFF

The Renaissance Society Through April 14

At the Society, Neff ’s installation of 58 black and white photographs— arranged chronologically by the time at which they were taken, but otherwise left untitled—draws the viewer into a very intimate setting.

Each of the photos, framed by large white matte backgrounds, is displayed across three charcoal gray walls. The windows of the Society have been tinted gray. Nothing shocks or jumps out at the viewer.

Neff took the photos with an old Kodak folding camera, which was attached to a portable Canon

scanner. Although Neff ’s process is extremely simple—he imports the photos into his computer and then strips them of their color— the results are intensely intimate and melancholic. Neff discovered this rudimentary process in 2011 after taking a few photographs at his friend’s apartment in Edgewater. Over the course of the next 18 months, he continued to document—in an almost diaristic sense—the people and particulars of his Chicago life.

The works, which are largely homoerotic in subject matter, range from portraits to still life to landscape to domestic scenes.

A trash can filled with tissues and Q-tips, the gray view from one Chicago apartment building of another Chicago apartment building, the reflection off the hood of a car, and the waves crashing off the shore of Lake Michigan each create a little portal into the artist’s interior life. Nothing is shocking or new, but perhaps in these mundane scenes, we recognize many of the quotidian details of our own interior lives. Most of the images’ content is shrouded in darkness, while the subject matter is illuminated by soft gray light. It seems Neff intentionally obscures most of the image to preserve the intimacy of the personal subject matter.

The men in the photographs, often sprawled in the nude, are Neff ’s lovers. “I point my camera

John Neff photograph, 1/4/2011—each piece in the exhibit is chronicled by the date on which it was taken.

COURTESY OF JOHN NEFF

at people that I care about,” said Neff at a talk in Kent Hall on Sunday, following the opening of his show at the Society. The mood in each of these images is often subdued and quiet, and there is a familiarity and lack of selfconsciousness between artist and subject. “It’s ‘I want to involve you.

I think you’re beautiful. I want to take your picture,’” Neff continues.

Neff ’s male muses generally recline comfortably on a bed or chair, and often have their backs turned or are partially cropped out by the camera

or hidden in shadows. None make direct eye contact with the viewer.

Thus the theme of the private life is very present in that even in Neff ’s most intimate depictions of those he “cares” about, some information remains hidden from the viewer and from Neff himself.

The show at the Society, Neff ’s first solo exhibition, is a significant departure from his past shows. Neff has never been loyal to a particular medium or movement, although homoerotic themes and photography have

Brown cooks up homey show at City Winery

Greg Brown (above), who’s played folk music for four decades, performed with Bo Ramsey on Saturday night.

COURTESY OF LILY GORDON

Lily Gordon Arts Staff It’s no surprise that revered folk singer-songwriter Greg Brown gained his fame through his live performances and recordings, particularly from his appearances on A Prairie Home Companion, the weekly radio show aired by more than 600 public radio stations. It’s easy to smile while listening to the Midwesterner’s raspy yet playful voice and to the relatable anecdotes he tells between songs.

Brown, who has been a

recording artist for around 40 years, performed with blues-rock guitarist and producer Bo Ramsey at City Winery on Saturday night.

Brown played an acoustic guitar while Ramsey played electric, and they both wore hats and sunglasses during the entire show.

The open yet cozy seated venue and the glasses of wine in most guests’ hands facilitated an intimate performance. City Winery, which opened in August 2012, makes its wine on-site and announces special-edition bottles for sale at the beginning of each performance—Greg Brown’s was a

Sauvignon Blanc.

“I’m here with my dear friend Greg Brown,” Ramsey said after performing a few songs solo before Brown joined him on stage. “He’s one of my favorite people in the whole, wide world. One of my favorite songwriters in the whole, wide world too.”

Ramsey is one of many who love and respect Brown’s songwriting; his lyrics have been performed by a who’s who of singer-songwriters, including Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jack Johnson, and Ani DiFranco.

Brown sang about his beer belly, his daughter, the 2012 presidential

election, and baseball—and I didn’t have to guess the meanings of his lyrics. Before most songs, he told the story behind the music.

“I wrote this song the same way most of my songwriting works,” Brown said before performing “Laughing River” from the 1992 album Dream Café. “I like life—I don’t think it needs any written commentary. But I think the muse picks people who aren’t particularly bright, [laughed] and when an idea starts bugging them so much…they need to write it down.”

He also performed a song written by his wife, country singer Iris DeMent.

Brown growled about the realities of aging and called life a “big old compost pile” in “Bones Bones,” one of the several songs he performed from his latest album Hymns to What is Left. But even singing with the persona of a grumpy old man, he made the audience laugh with the line, “I’ll never be tired of looking at you / I got a stiff old bone, baby what you wanna do?”

While I yearned to hear him perform more of his older music— but isn’t that the case at most concerts?—at least Brown wisely closed before the encore with “Canned Goods,” the nostalgic 1982 track about tasting summer in December; his “grandma put it all in jars.”

Brown gave as intimate a show as I have ever seen: I learned about his wife’s cooking, his Pentecostal preacher father, his support of Obama, and his views on genetically modified organisms (“GMO crap”).

often been incorporated into his work, but it seems that within this new exhibition Neff has matured significantly as an artist. He refers to this show as extremely “un– selfconscious.” Neff unabashedly yet discreetly recreates his everyday life through images of his lovers, domestic spaces, and everyday sightings without the intent to impress, inspire, or shock, but rather to tell us who he is. And in doing so, the collection of photographs is indeed a very interesting portrait of an artist.

Artful’s beauty is its vulnerability ARTFUL continued from page 8 sentences from “On edge”: “Edges are extremes. Edges are borders.

Edges are very much about identity, about who you are.” In these disappointing, indecipherable passages, Smith never goes beyond the superficial notions to which her words gesture.

In an interview ten years ago with the writer Jeannette Winterson, Smith said she wants her books to stand upright on their own, without her promotion and authorly presence, since she “looks like a troll.” With this in mind, it feels important, for Smith’s sake, to seriously consider recasting the book’s elusive nature as intentional.

Artful’s great power and great vulnerability lies in its refusal to be confined to one genre, or idea, or movement. It’s a novel about love and mourning; it’s a short story or essay collection about one person’s web of culture; it’s a cultural treatise about the relationship between art and us. To wit, Smith has written the crap out of Artful, with the result that it moves around so much it might not go anywhere. But what weakens the book’s trajectory in our eyes gives it uniqueness and character by Smith’s account— staying power, instead of direction.

The best advice for how to move through Artful comes from its own epigraph, several lines from a Bertolt Brecht play. “Don’t try to hold on to the wave/That’s breaking against your foot: so long as/You stand in the stream fresh waves/Will always keep breaking against it.”

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | March 5, 2013

10

Lazer-sharp lineup rolls through Congress Theater

Fans have a ball as they hoist an encapsulated musician into a field of laser beams.

ELLEN RODNIANSKI | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Ellen Rodnianski Arts Staff A diverse and young crowd gathered last Saturday in the Congress Theater to see Major Lazer perform. However, ‘young’

doesn’t mean too young.

No entrance was granted to those without 18+ IDs. The audience was varied; some members clearly came to rave and were dressed in neon clothes that barely covered decent

amounts of their bodies, others patiently sweated through their very hip sweaters.

There were also many readily apparent advantages to having a dance concert in Congress

Walker’s large-scale drawings stage scenes of racially-motivated victimization and cruelty WALKER continued from page 8 linear narrative of her installations into something instantly more personal, albeit disjointed. Rather than a play or story with a unified plot, the exhibition behaves almost like a diary, with each piece acting as a unique and autonomous iteration of Walker’s long, ongoing dialogue with race.

There is less leaping from wall to wall; the silhouettes included in the exhibit seem, in some senses, more restrained than in some of her past shows, and certainly more self-contained. Many of the silhouettes are segmented into groups of two, their bodies facing one another, sometimes physically interacting. Each group performs its own distinct narrative, creating a series of simultaneously occurring scenes, as opposed to an overarching story. The sheer amount of content in a relatively small, singular room is another factor in the development of small clusters of interlocking narratives.

The bands of silhouetted figures that do take an interest in the world outside of their own each physically gesture towards any of the five large-scale graphite drawings in the gallery space. These five scenes, stationed at regular intervals throughout the room, reveal explosive and populated scenes of violence in the Civil War. Slaves are shown victimized and massacred in each depiction, and, although the settings do vary widely—from smoke-riddled battlefield to what appears to be a river scene, washed in a thick and disorienting grey—the graphic and dramatic nature of the drawings remains consistent. Bodies are smashed, severed, inverted in puddles of blood; the artist has worked several layers of different shades of graphite onto each

drawing, occasionally re-entering the work with an eraser to obscure or add highlights to certain forms. The dynamism of her technique, in addition to the sheer size of each drawing and the shocking content portrayed, creates five overwhelming and affecting illustrations of the grotesque and violent history of slavery.

While the small-framed drawings are scattered throughout the exhibition at large, the final wall of the gallery space exhibiting Walker’s work features these pieces exclusively. Arranged in a way that resembles how one might hang family portraits in a living room or along a staircase, these small-scale images unpack large concepts. Some illustrations are portraits resembling the work of Egon Schiele; others depict gangs with the slogan “integrated rape gangs”; still others draw from and parody symbols of American culture and notions of patriotism. Almost all of them are corporeal, echoing Walker’s fundamental interest in the body as a medium for storytelling, and many include gorgeous applications of a rich variety of color and detail work.

Typically tempered by the flash and force of the aesthetic uniformity and exaggeration of her silhouettes, the artist’s personal struggle with the politics of race, gender, and power is here given a generous space to unfold. Rise Up Ye Mighty Race! presents many of the themes tackled

by Walker’s typical monochromatic silhouettes in a new range of color, form, and scale. Walker’s world comes to life under the gaze of the viewer, its characters’ unique narratives speaking volumes to the horrors of slavery and the dynamics of power, gender, and race relations.

Theater. The lower deck of the theater isn’t seated, and thus audience members have 20,000 square feet of space in which to dance and nod their heads to the beat. Overall, the theater holds 3,500 people for live music concerts, making the ambience of the place during shows particularly lively.

The main opening act was Dragonette, who was extremely popular in Europe two years ago due

to its hit song with famous D.J. Martin Solveig , “Hello”, which reached number one on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart in the United States in February 2011 and was numbered in the Top 10 of 10 different countries.

Although doors opened at 7 p.m., Dragonette came out around 9 p.m.

The mood was excited but not adrenalized until more people had time to arrive, just in time for Major Lazer to come out. A screen, which had shielded part of the stage during the opening acts, lit up with an image of Major Lazer’s band symbol— the Jamaican commando who lost his arm in the secret Zombie War. The volume increased and the screen fell, revealing Diplo, the Canadian D.J. and the most famous band member, as well as the two new members of the band, Jamillionaire and Walshy Fire, who both performed admiringly alongside him.

Although Major Lazer started out between Diplo and another house D.J., Switch, they parted ways in 2011 having released only one album, Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do. Now with the new permanent members Jamillionaire and Walshy Fire, the band is getting ready to release its latest album Free the Universe.

Musically, the show was a great example of

the band’s varied body of work. Its song choices were never limited to a specific genre; it would always shift between hip hop, dancehall, and electronic dance, and the performance finished with its top hit, “Get Free”.

These organizational choices left the audience engaged for the entire two-hour performance.

Major Lazer kept the audience entertained and busy throughout the entire show. About 15 minutes into its set, it brought out huge hamster balls.

Moments later Diplo and Walshy Fire were rolling around on top of the audience in these gigantic balls. Needless to say, the audience was ecstatic.

However, the audience participation in the action on stage was not limited to the hamster balls. The show was extremely interactive, and when the recent hit “Harlem Shake” came on, Major Lazer restarted because it was unsatisfied with the audience’s ability to freeze before the bass came on. At one point in the performance, Diplo urged audience members to take off their shirts, and the majority listened to him without hesitation.

Following a few minutes of waist-up nudity, the band suggested that everyone throw their shirts up in the air, and many listened, resulting in lost clothing and a euphoric audience.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | March 5, 2013

11

For rest of squad,

Top-seeded Maroons fall to Hopkins, rally for third

focus shifts to

Women’s Tennis

outdoor season TRACK continued from back

nationals.

Whitmore’s time of 14:33.99 in the 5000-meter run from the Leonard “Squig” Invitational held strong as Patrick Jenkins of UW– Stout and Bryan Marsh of Wesleyan (CT) moved ahead of Whitmore and pushed him to 12th in the nation. However, because the top 13 in each event qualify, Whitmore still qualified for NCAAs as the sole representative of the men’s squad.

Sizek’s time from the Warhawk Classic that took place earlier this year was also strong enough to withstand a slight fall. She ranked ninth in the 5000-meter run with her time of 17:11.37 going into the weekend, but she was eventually pushed to 11th. Sizek will represent the women’s squad by herself at the NCAA Championship.

The NCAA National Championship will take place this weekend at North Central in Naperville, IL. While Whitmore and Sizek prepare for one final go around at the national meet, the rest of the Maroons will not let their time go to waste.

“There really isn’t a lot of time before the outdoor season starts,” Whitelaw said. “Conference is in the fourth week, and we just want to carry over into the outdoor season.

We know we have more potential, and we just have to work hard and put the effort in to keep improving.”

Alexander Sotiropoulos Senior Sports Staff It is clearly not a rebuilding year for the Maroons.

After graduating its three best players, the young Chicago team has been on a quest to improve from last year, rather than rebuild.

This past weekend’s ITA Indoor Championships in Greencastle, IN was a microcosm of these efforts. The topseeded Maroons took third place after beating eighth-seeded UW–Whitewater 9–0 on Friday, losing to fifth-seeded Johns Hopkins 6–3 on Saturday, and defeating sixth-seeded Trinity (TX) 8–1 on Sunday.

Even with Whitewater going 10–0 in match play in the fall, the Warhawks’ dual against Chicago was the first of the season.

“Whitewater might not have been as strong as I thought they would’ve been, but, overall, I was really happy with our level of play,” head coach Jay Tee said.

“Even if [the Maroons] didn’t play their best, they found a way to win, and that was what was important that first day to start off the tournament.”

The Maroons would not have an easy match in the semifinal against fifthseeded Johns Hopkins.

The Blue Jays had a 2–1 lead going into singles. The lone Chicago win in doubles came from the No. 1 tandem of second-year Megan Tang and first-year Helen Sdvizkhov (8-4).

“We want to be the first team to hit a volley in the point and the first team to cross, and we got a little tight and a little timid in a few of our matches this

weekend when it came to closing out different games,” Tee said.

The Maroons could not make a comeback, losing four of six singles matches.

“As a team, I don’t know if we came ready to play at that high of a level,” Tee said. “That was probably our first real Division III test of the year. This was definitely the best Division III team we faced.”

The loss was Chicago’s first against a D-III opponent this season. Johns Hopkins ended up winning the tournament.

“No one on the team likes to lose, and especially in this situation at the national tournament,” Tee said. “You want to play your best every match, and if that doesn’t happen, then you have to reevaluate what you’ve been doing and how you’re playing.”

The Maroons brought a new energy level in Sunday’s third-place match against Trinity.

“We were determined to win and end the tournament strong,” second-year Kelsey McGillis said.

And the Maroons did just that. The lone loss of the third-place match came at No. 1 doubles, the same tandem that was successful all weekend long. Tang and Sdvizkhov were down 4–1 before winning four straight games to put them up 5–4. Unfortunately for them, Trinity’s accurate serving and strength at the net proved too much for Chicago.

“I thought we were in position to win, but as the points got bigger and the games got bigger, we played a little nervous and a little scared,” Tee said.

“The other team didn’t play nervous and scared.”

Second-year Kelsey McGillis returns the ball at the NCAA Women’s Tennis Regional Final last season.

COURTESY OF DAVE HILBERT

First-years Stephanie Lee and Sruthi Ramaswami won a nail-biter at No. 3 doubles, 9–8 (5). No Chicago players lost in singles.

“I am very proud of the whole team for not letting the loss against Hopkins affect our play or mentality against Trinity,” McGillis said.

Even with the third-place finish, Tee said this tournament was a steppingstone to further success this season.

DESIGN.

DRAW.

“As a team, we know that this was a big weekend, but the biggest weekend of all is in May, and that’s the weekend we want to be ready for. So, we can take everything we learned this weekend and put it into practice the next few weeks and work towards the NCAA tournament.”

The Maroons head back to Greencastle, IN this Saturday to face Oberlin and DePauw.

WRITE.

COPY EDIT.

SEEKING WRITERS, DESIGNERS, COPY-EDITORS, CARTOONISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS Have what it takes to make the Maroon Staff? Contact us: editor@chicagomaroon.com

SPORTS Second-years shine at NCAA regionals Diving

IN QUOTES “‘He wants Obama to do one thing: Call him. This week. He said, ‘If you can, Dennis—I don’t want to do war. I don’t want to do war.’ He said that to me.”

—Former Bulls forward Dennis Rodman on his meeting with North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

Season ends with promise, but no Nationals Wrestling Derek Tsang Sports Staff The nation’s most difficult regional qualifier closed the door on the Maroons’ NCAA hopes on Saturday, as Chicago finished its season with an 11th-place performance at the NCAA Midwest Regional.

Second-year Adam Wyeth had the Maroons’ standout performance with a fourth-place finish at 133 pounds.

Behind him, fourth-year Joeie Ruettiger and second-year Mario Palmisano lived up to their seeds with fifth- and sixth-place performances, respectively, at 149 pounds and 197 pounds. The top three finishers in each of the 10 weight classes qualified for the NCAA Tournament.

“For the team as a whole, it’s never fun to go to a tournament like this and not qualify anyone for Nationals,” Wyeth said, “but most of us that wrestled are young and can take it as a learning experience for next season.”

The odds are strongly against Chicago seeing another deck as stacked as Saturday’s. Twenty-seven nationally ranked wrestlers competed

at the Midwest Regional, with seven of them missing out on qualifying.

Second-year Joe Ellis and fourth-year Jim Layton each shared brackets with four wrestlers in the national top10s at 141 pounds and 157 pounds, respectively.

The teams that placed first through fifth were each ranked in the top 12 in February’s coaches’ poll, with fourthranked UW–Whitewater (121 points) beating out second-ranked Elmhurst (108 points) behind four first-place finishes.

Wyeth came in unseeded, spotting injured second-year Willie Long.

After losing his first match to Elmhurst’s Dalton Bullard, a reigning All-American and the eventual second-place finisher, Wyeth won a 4–1 decision over the sixth seed and a 13–9 decision over the fifth seed before losing to UW–Whitewater’s Grant Sutter, another All-American.

“I came into the tournament after a pretty rough season without a lot of concrete successes, but knew that I had been improving throughout the year and was close to taking my wrestling to the next level as long as

I stayed confident,” Wyeth said. “My successes were a result of mentally preparing myself to wrestle hard for all seven minutes while letting my technical instincts take over.”

In his last college tournament, Ruettiger finished with a 3–2 record.

He lost his opening match to the eventual champion before bouncing back with a first-period pin and an 8–4 decision. Second-seeded Jake Strausbaugh from Wabash sent Ruettiger into the fifth-place match, which was won via forfeit.

In a weight class that featured three nationally ranked wrestlers, Palmisano faced six matches and came away with a 3–3 mark to finish sixth, earning his three victories by decision (9–3, 9–5, 7–5). The secondyear gave the eventual champion his closest contest of the day, eventually losing a 14–12 decision.

“I think for the most part, the team brought their A-game,” head coach Leo Kocher said. “We played the hand we were dealt. All of the returners and coaches are determined to close what is not that big of a gap between us and the best of Division III next season.”

Whitmore, Sizek turn down last chance, still qualify Track Second-year Anthony Restaino won the three-meter dive at NCAA Diving Zones on Friday.

COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT

Tatiana Fields Sports Staff Second-years stole the spotlight at the NCAA Diving Regionals in Grand Rapids, Michigan this past weekend. While four members of the team competed in Diving Zones to qualify for Nationals, only two members made the cut and will compete in D-III Championships.

Despite strong performances, fourth-years Bobby Morales and Becky Schmidt missed out on qualifying spots. The focus now shifts to second-years Matthew Staab and Anthony Restaino to represent the diving team, and their stellar showings at Regionals give the Maroons hope for good placement at Nationals.

This year also marks the beginning of the new diving format for D-III Championships. After three years of the old format, Schmidt was happy with the change.

“I think it is about time that D-III diving switched over to the qualifying meet format, like the rest of the diving world,” Schmidt said. “The old video system worked out very well for me in the past, but I think it is much fairer and true to the sport to select national competitors based on a specific competition than judge a videotape of people’s best meets.”

Because of the new format, the meet ran less than smoothly.

The divers did not get a chance to practice at the competition pool the day before competing, and the competition stretched longer than planned. The men’s team wound up

diving at 10:30 p.m.

Despite problems with the meet, though, the Maroons put forth solid performances. Top finisher Staab finished fifth in the one-meter dive with 469.05 points to qualify for Nationals, and also earned a berth in the three-meter dive.

Restaino was the highlight of day one. He set a new personal best in the three-meter dive and won his spot by less than a point. His first-place finish gives him an automatic bid to Nationals. Restaino also placed ninth in the one-meter with 452.35 points.

Morales just barely missed out on a qualifying spot in the one-meter with an 18th place finish and 384.50 points. Morales is listed as an alternate for the three-meter springboard, and will be eligible to compete if another diver from this zone drops out of Nationals.

With a ninth-place finish in the three-meter dive, Schmidt is officially finished with her collegiate diving career. Despite not qualifying for Nationals, she feels no bitterness.

“Though my own performance was less than stellar, I have no regrets,” Schmidt said. “The competition was very close across the board, and I have a lot to be proud of from this meet and my four seasons as a UChicago athlete. The strong performance of our sophomores shows how bright the future of UC diving is for nationals and for years to come.”

Staab and Restaino will compete at Nationals, along with qualifiers from the swim team, March 20–23 in Shenandoah, TX.

Isaac Stern Sports Staff The Maroons had mixed results this weekend, as fourth-years Julia Sizek and Billy Whitmore qualified for the NCAA Championship with times from earlier this season, while other Maroons failed to qualify in their last chance meet at UW– Stevens Point.

In the weekend before nationals, competitors from around the country compete in last chance meets in an effort to rank high enough to qualify for the NCAA National Championship. The top 13 athletes in each individual event and top 10 in each team event make it to

the championship.

A small group of Maroons traveled to UW–Stevens Point to compete in such a meet. Despite some impressive finishes, none in the group ranked high enough to qualify.

“I think we did well as a whole,” third-year Michaela Whitelaw said.

“It’s tough that we didn’t get the times we needed for nationals, but, overall, we’re not upset with our performances. We competed for the sake of competing, and while we didn’t qualify, we still had fun.”

First-year Michael Bennett broke the school record for the second time this year in the pole vault with his jump of 4.70m. The height earned him first place at

the meet and moved him up to 19th in the national rankings. But, unfortunately, Bennett was a 10th of a meter short of matching the qualifying height.

The women’s distance medley— comprised of Whitelaw, first-years Alison Pildner and Brianna Hickey, and fourth-year Kayla McDonald— made a strong effort that finished second at the meet and 18th in the nation. But their time of 12:05.52 did not beat Muhlenberg’s 10th ranked time of 11:55.74.

However, previous performances

by Whitmore and Sizek stood the test of time as other competitors attempted to steal their spot at TRACK continued on page 11

Fourth-year Julia Sizek (front) and third-year Elise Wummer run in the Wisconsin-Oshkosh Dual in the Henry Crown Field House.

COURTESY OF HANS GLICK