GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD SINCE 1920 thehoya.com
Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 93, No. 41, © 2012
friDAY, April 13, 2012
BRING YOUR APPETITE Get a taste of Georgetown’s best eats in the guide’s Food Issue.
RECRUITING No. 1 recruit Nerlens Noel annouced he will attend the University of Kentucky.
TOCQUEVILLE Joshua Mitchell will become interim director of the Tocqueville Forum in June.
SPORTS, A14
NEWS, A4
GUIDE, G5
ADMISSIONS GU’s acceptance rate hit an all-time low of 16.5 percent for the Class of 2016. NEWS, A7
Campus Census Director Tapped for Provost Plan Talks To Resume Mariah Byrne & Matthew Strauss Hoya Staff Writers
GU and neighbors will use hearing postponement to hold private negotiations Sarah Patrick Hoya Staff Writer
The university and neighbors will begin private conversations on the 2010 Campus Plan after the D.C. Zoning Commission approved a 60-day extension in the proceedings last week. At the last hearing on Feb. 9, Zoning Commission Chairman Anthony Hood encouraged Georgetown and its neighbors negotiate an end to the campus plan debate, which began when the university first submitted the plan in Deccember 2010. The granting of the extension means that parties involved will not have to file further testimony until mid June. Previously, the Zoning Commission was slated to make a decision on the case by early May. Representatives of the university, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E, the Citizens Association of Georgetown and the Burleith Citizens Association said they welcomed the extended opportunity to communicate outside the public zoning hearings. “We hope to come to some compromises on what the community needs and what the university needs,” Jennifer Altemus, president of the Citizens Association of Georgetown, said. “I think both of our sides are very clear on what we’ve been wanting out of the process, and hopefully if we work together we can make that happen.” But few of the details of the conversations have been ironed out. A schedule for the discussions has not been established, and it is not clear that the issues discussed will be different from those brought up at zoning hearings. “[Private meetings] haven’t been successful in the past, but we haven’t given up trying,” Altemus said. The university had been meeting with neighbors to discuss the plan as it was being compiled, but those talks ceased after the plan was filed in 2010. Since then, discussion of the plan has been limited to the zoning hearings and ANC meetings, both of which are public. The Zoning Commission has held six hearings on the plan, and this latest delay represents the third consecutive postponement of the commission’s final ruling. According to Director of Media Relations
COURTESY GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
Robert Groves will replace current provost James O’Donnell in June.
Modified ATF Plans Advance
Robert Groves, director of the United States Census Bureau, has been selected as the university’s next executive vice president and provost. Census Bureau director since 2009, Groves previously worked as director of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan and as a research professor at the University of Maryland. He will begin his duties as provost on Aug. 20 and has expressed excitement about returning to a college atmosphere. “I can’t wait to actively interact with students,” he said. “My first job is to learn the aspirations and concerns of students and faculty, so that’s what I’ll do for several months. I’m anxious to hear from my colleagues.” Groves will replace James O’Donnell, who has served as the chief academic and administrative of-
ficer for the main campus since 2002. O’Donnell announced last August that he would be stepping down at the end of this academic year, but he will return to the university in the fall of 2013 as a classics professor after a sabbatical. Wayne Davis, a professor of philosophy and president of the Faculty Senate, led the selection committee that conducted the nationwide search for a new provost. According to Davis, the committee, which was composed of students, faculty and staff, emphasized three major criteria: a strong academic record, administrative experience and reflection of the university’s Jesuit identity. “Our top priority for the search was academic excellence, and [Groves’] credentials there are outstanding,” Davis said. “The quality of his academic record is incredible.” See PROVOST, A5
GEORGETOWN FARMERs’ MARKET BACK IN BLOOM
Emma Hinchliffe Hoya Staff Writer
Revised plans for the new Athletic Training Facility were approved by the Old Georgetown Board last week and will now go before the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts for final approval. “This is the third time that Georgetown has brought in a different scheme,” Secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts Thomas Luebke said. “[The earlier version] was very real-estate intensive and did not have the best relationship to campus.” Initial designs for the building, which is slated to be built adjacent to McDonough Arena, were approved by the D.C. Zoning Commission as a part of the 2000 Campus Plan process. The designs also received the approval of the Old Georgetown Board, a branch of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, in 2006, but the project was put on hold during the 2008 economic downturn. Because the prior date set for construction had passed, plans were required to be resubmitted for approval when the university made the facility a priority again last year. At a hearing in October, OGB
See PLAN, A7
See ATF, A7
ERICA WONG FOR THE HOYA
The GU Farmers’ Market spring season opened Wednesday. It will continue weekly through May 9.
Four GU Professors Chosen in The Princeton Review’s Top 300 Kelly Church Hoya Staff Writer
LEONEL DE VELEZ/THE HOYA
COURTESY SAM POTOLICCHIO
FILE PHOTO: CHRIS BIEN/THE HOYA
From left: Professor Hector Campos, Sam Potolicchio, Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J., and Barrett Tilney (not pictured) were named four of the 300 top professors according to The Princeton Review. Newsroom: (202) 687-3415 Business: (202) 687-3947
The four Georgetown professors included in “The Best 300 Professors” list released by the Princeton Review last week all expressed surprise at the honor bestowed on them. But Hector Campos, Sam Potolicchio, Barrett Tilney and Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J., all have a record of previous awards and recognition for effective teaching. The Princeton Review partnered with ratemyprofessors.com to determine which professors would be featured in the list. Annual surveys and data were first used to determine which schools had the highest-ranked professors, and a list of 42,000 professors from those top schools was then compiled using ratemyprofessor.com rankings. The two companies conducted their own surveys of the top 1,000 professors and reached out to administrators and stu-
Published Tuesdays and Fridays
dents from the respective schools to finalize the list. The result was a collection of 300 professors from 122 colleges. For Campos, associate professor of Spanish and theoretical linguistics, his selection came as a shock. Campos acknowledged that most professors maintain a love-hate relationship with ratemyprofessor.com because student reviews are often based on extreme opinions. Students of Campos said that he was demanding, but his teaching style and passion for his subject had convinced several of them to take him more than once. “Campos is hands down the best professor I’ve had at Georgetown,” Emely Pring (COL ’12) said. Despite having over two hours of homework per night for one of his classes, Pring chose to take a second course with Campos. “He’s the only professor that I would ever work that hard for,” she said. See PROFESSORS, A7
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