The Hoya: March 15, 2024

Journalist, GU Graduate Swisher Talks Internet, AI, Reporting on Technology

Caleigh Keating Events Desk Editor

Technology journalist Kara Swisher (SFS ’84) stressed the dangers of the internet and reminisced about the excitement of reporting on the rise of the internet in a conversation that Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service (SFS) hosted March 14 in Gaston Hall. Swisher, the editor-at-large for New York Magazine and a host of the outlet’s podcasts “On With Kara Swisher” and “Pivot,” detailed her time covering the early days of the internet — particularly AOL, the subject of her first two books — before many other journalists reported on it. Swisher said AOL’s rise to prominence drew public attention to the internet and made being a journalist at the time novel. “Nobody was writing about this,” Swisher said at the event. “And nobody knew about AOL for sure, except when you had an outage. It was a huge moment. And I thought it was a big moment because

everyone lost their minds.”

Swisher has covered the internet and the technology industry for over 30 years, having served as a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and written for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Her third book, “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story,” came out in February. Steve Case, a co-founder of AOL, who moderated the conversation, said Swisher’s commitment to covering technology and the internet since its early days is admirable. “Kara was one of the first reporters to recognize the transformative power of the Internet — as a reporter in D.C. no less,” Case wrote to The Hoya. “Kara is singular in her ability to investigate power and hold the industry to task, but also recognize that critique of technology has to be balanced with the promise and hope that it will serve to keep us healthier, safer, and more connected.”

See SWISHER, A7

Oliver Ni and Daniel Greilsheimer Senior Sports Editors

After a relentless march to their first-ever Big East tournament championship appearance, the Georgetown University women’s basketball team finally ran into a team they had no answer for.

The Hoyas (22-11, 9-9 Big East) suffered a 78-42 defeat to No. 10 University of Connecticut (295, 18-0 Big East) March 11. The Huskies’ fourth consecutive conference title ended what had

been a Cinderella run for the Hoyas, who vastly outperformed their 10th-place projection in the preseason Big East Coaches’ Poll. Head Coach Darnell Haney said while the team had hoped for a different outcome, he was proud of how hard the team fought.

“I’m so proud to be associated with these people, associated with these young women who put their hearts and souls on the line for this university, for our staff and for me,” Haney told The Hoya in a postgame press conference. The sixth-seeded Hoyas survived

a long journey to reach the championship, beating Xavier (1-27, 0-18 Big East), St. John’s (17-14, 11-7 Big East) and No. 23 Creighton (25-5, 15-3 Big East) at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. on consecutive nights from March 8 to March 10.

Graduate forward and captain Graceann Bennett said the team’s goal all season was to play in the Monday night tournament final game.

“This is an unprecedented thing for the program to be playing here, but it was not unprecedented in our minds,” Bennett told The Hoya “These are our expectations.

Federal Bill Brings GU Prisons And Justice Initiative Funding

Aamir Jamil

GUSA Desk Editor

The Georgetown University Prisons and Justice Initiative (PJI) is set to receive $963,000 from congressionally directed spending allocated by a set of six government spending bills that President Joe Biden signed March 9. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) added the funding as an earmark, a provision inserted into a spending bill that allocates funding to a specific recipient. Part of the Justice Assistance Grant Pro-

gram, the funding is dedicated to establishing programs for currently incarcerated individuals. Norton said she was proud to secure the funding for PJI to help incarcerated and previously incarcerated citizens reintegrate into society and provide them with employment opportunities.

“I am very pleased to get that $963,000 for PJI,” Norton told The Hoya. “The money of course is going to go for higher education opportunities for reentry support that transforms the lives of those affected by our criminal justice system.

The grant will be very important and we expect it to do a lot.”

Marc Howard, a professor of government and law and the director of PJI, said the funding will allow the initiative to expand its reentry, prison education and workforce development programs that provide opportunities for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals.

“This substantial allocation marks a tremendous success for PJI, empowering us to broaden and enrich programs providing education, employment, and mentorship for D.C.’s

See PJI, A7

NEWS

Luck of the Irish

A8

Students Against Starbucks Student organizers paused their efforts after the coffee chain announced it would engage with union negotiators.

A6

Caroline

“I still think the TikTok algorithm is really unique and has an ability to reach new people and it has a level of specificity that I don’t think even Instagram with reels has,” Timoney told The Hoya See TIKTOK, A7

OPINION

Standardize Research

The Editorial Board urges Georgetown to create a research database and simplify students’ search for opportunities. A2

Deep Dialogue

Inspired by her Catholic faith, Riley Talbot (CAS ’25) encourages students to be vulnerable and ask tough questions. A3

GUIDE

Dune Just Fine

‘Ricky Stanicky’

SPORTS

Men’s Basketball Blown Out

Despite sophomore guard Jayden Epps’ 30 points, the Hoyas lost 74-56 to Providence in the Big East tournament’s first round. A12

New Home, Same Wins

KEENAN SAMWAY/THE HOYA

A potential ban on TikTok that the House of Representatives passed March 13 would end some Georgetown students’ content creation on the app.

Georgetown’s Irish American Society will mark St. Patrick’s Day with an Irish dance showcase.

Andre Albrecht (SFS ’27) praises Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Part Two, featuring a compelling plot and star-studded cast. B3

Jasmine Criqui (CAS ’26) joins a gaggle of student reporters to interview John Cena and Zac Efron about their latest film. B4

Georgetown’s baseball team swept Cornell in a March 10 doubleheader, scoring 44 runs across two routs of the Big Red. A12

OPINION

EDITORIAL

Centralize Research on Campus

Each semester at Georgetown University, undergraduate students participate in meaningful research opportunities, collaborating with their peers and professors to generate knowledge.

This work aligns with Georgetown’s attitude toward undergraduate involvement in research. The university’s mission is clear in its assertion that participation in research is an enriching experience for undergraduate students.

“The purpose of our university is not the acquisition of knowledge but the search for deeper knowing,” the university website reads. “Rather than imagine your education as downloading information or facts, reimagine your education as a process of seeking, questioning, probing, arguing, and creating.”

This commitment to enriching research opportunities follows Georgetown’s Jesuit value of educating the whole person. Research requires students to exercise different ways of thinking and must be considered as a crucial component of a well-rounded Georgetown education.

Yet the current reality of undergraduate research at Georgetown does not reflect this institutional commitment to the generation of knowledge. No centralized system exists to keep track of ongoing research on campus — rather, students have reported needing to reach out to professor after professor until they find one who is conducting appropriate research and has the capacity to take on another student.

The Editorial Board calls on Georgetown University administrators to create a single database, where all undergraduates can locate research assistant positions, to streamline the process for undergraduate students who wish to obtain research experience.

Pennsylvania State University’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Database is a model research database. Despite being a large university composed of multiple undergraduate colleges, the site allows students to search for research positions across the entire university, sorting by campus, department and funding source to find a role that matches their criteria.

A university spokesperson said that what is required to obtain a research position varies across schools and professors.

“Georgetown’s undergraduate programs have developed processes to engage students in research, but the mechanisms vary both by department and by professor,” a university spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “Different departments help administer research opportunities within their areas in different ways appropriate to the nature of the research being conducted by their faculty.”

The university spokesperson also said the university views research as a central component of a Georgetown education.

“Georgetown is a student-centered research university deeply committed to undergraduate research,” a university spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “Georgetown students have access to state-of-the-art research facilities and world-class faculty who are eager to train and mentor the next generation of scholars.”

The issue, however, is how students can access these facilities and fellowships.

Gatik Gogia (SOH ’26) has worked in professor Ted Nelson’s lab doing research on nematodes since Spring 2023. He said although the human science program in the School of Health (SOH) provided some structure for obtaining a re-

HOYA HISTORY

search position — primarily through the “Research Methods” class in which different professors came in to discuss their research projects — the onus is primarily on students to find research opportunities.

“I ended up emailing one of my professors, Ted Nelson, who came into one of my classes to discuss his research, asking if there was room in his lab,” Gogia said to The Hoya. “We scheduled a meeting and I ended up shadowing another student in the lab for one semester before developing my own research stream for the lab.”

Gogia said he has only been able to accrue research experience because he was proactive in reaching out to professors who he knew.

“I think it really depends on whether professors have spots in their labs and knowing the right people to get in touch with,” Gogia said. “And you just have to ask as many people as you can.”

A streamlined database for undergraduate research opportunities would make access to these positions more equitable for students across all academic programs. Although some majors, like human science, might provide in-class opportunities for students to familiarize themselves with on-campus research, non-STEM students often do not enjoy the same privilege.

Regardless of major, Georgetown students should be aware of all the research opportunities available to them.

Georgetown is an institution that facilitates incredible undergraduate research. The Center for Research and Fellowships (CRF) supports students in pursuit of prestigious fellowships like the Marshall and Rhodes Scholars programs.

The CRF also works to support research by referring students to the Georgetown University Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (GUROP), a university-wide program that facilitates undergraduate student participation in faculty-led research projects. Another example of the university supporting research is with the Georgetown Undergraduate Research Conference, a conference highlighting undergraduate student research hosted by the SOH.

But even GUROP requires undergraduates to identify their own faculty sponsor. For many students, finding a professor to work with can be seen as a barrier to entry to research.

Students should not have to dig around on the university website or happen to know the right professor to be aware of these opportunities. In order to live up to its mission and be a university where the general educational experience involves participation in research, the university must make these opportunities more accessible by creating a singular website.

Convenience and support in the search process — which is already an intimidating and difficult one — will help to prepare students for life after college and equip them with the necessary experiences many fields often require for entry-level positions. This commitment to providing accessible opportunities for Georgetown students fosters an environment conducive to academic excellence, empowering students with the necessary experiences for post-graduate success.

The Hoya’s Editorial Board is composed of six students and is chaired by the opinion editors. Editorials reflect only the beliefs of a majority of the board and are not representative of The Hoya or any individualmemberoftheboard.

Unusual Campus Activity Denotes Spring

March 25, 1942

Spring is here. Birds are twittering in the trees; cool breezes blow across the Potomac; the convertibles around the campus cool breezes have started converting; Steve reported that a white coat was cleaned last Monday; fellows are (short high note—long low note). Spring is here.

Spring Officially Here

Officially spring was ushered in last Saturday because last Saturday was the 21st of March. Each year on the 21st of March spring is ushered in. This year, however, spring was ushered in on the 20th of March. Due to a slip somewhere in the governmental organization, a Good Humor man got his dates mixed up and appeared on the street last Friday afternoon. Naturally this caused confusion. Whether this action on the part of the gentleman in question will necessitate a revamping of our entire calendar system is unknown. What we do know is that he appeared on the street in his white uniform, pushing his white wagon, and selling his ice cream. His bell tingled; he cried, “Good Humors”; people gaped; was this the 20th or the 21st? But the majority of people were happy. Good Humors sold by the hundreds.

Dimes left over from the income tax returns flowed into the little man’ pocket. A long discussed question had been settled. Good Humor men did

get priorities. His white wagon had four new tires. He cried, “Good Humors, ten cents.” Spring is here.

Still no Bench

At Georgetown, last week, the seniors began to gather under the benchless tree in front of Copley. The juniors saw the seniors doing it and they (being very intelligent or else they wouldn’t be juniors) figured that this was the correct thing to do, so they gathered under the tree also. The sophomores saw the juniors and ditto. The freshmen saw the entire group and wondered what was going on under the tree. It was merely Georgetown’s way of announcing spring. The pool pavillions are rapidly being abandoned. Cues and balls are being returned to the discipline office for the deposit placed there in September. The long, silver flashlight (the ownership of which is in dispute) which can be seen in the hands of Fathers Law or Gieb when they are making a 2 a.m. check has received its annual spring checkup. The batteries have all been replaced. A new bulb has been inserted. The Senior Ball is coming. Spring is here. Exercises have started. Georgetown men are becoming physical giants. The spring weather has promoted long after-dinner walks. Baseball practice has begun. Intramural games dec-

LETTER TO THE EDITOR AND VIEWPOINT POLICIES The Hoya welcomes letters and viewpoints from our readers and will print as many as possible. To be eligible for publication, letters should specifically address a recent campus issue or Hoya story. Letters should not exceed 300 words. Viewpoints are always welcome from all members of the Georgetown community on any topic, but priority will be given to relevant campus issues. Viewpoint submissions should be between 600-700 words. The Hoya retains all rights to all published submissions. Send all submissions to: opinion@thehoya.com. The Hoya reserves the right to reject letters or viewpoints and edit for length, style, clarity and accuracy. The Hoya further reserves the right to write headlines and select illustrations to accompany letters and viewpoints. CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS If you have a comment or question about the fairness or accuracy of a story, contact Executive Editor Evie Steele or Executive Editor Jack Willis at executive@thehoya.com. NEWS TIPS News Editors Catherine Alaimo and Lauren Doherty: Email news@thehoya.com. Guide Editors Jasmine Criqui and William McCall: Email guide@ thehoya.com. Sports Editors Daniel Greilsheimer and Oliver Ni: Email sports@ thehoya.com. GENERAL INFORMATION

IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE “

A streamlined database for undergraduate research opportunities would make access to these positions more equitable for students across all academic programs.”

The Editorial Board

“Centralize Research on Campus” thehoya.com

graduate research opportunities on campus.

orate the gulley. One fellow attempted to take a sun bath. Haley’s is installing air conditioning. The Cosmos is closing and Rock Creek is opening. The sweater girl is becoming a common sight as winter coats are being shed. People are looking for Easter apparel. Designers are trying to think up new millinery designs for the fairer sex. Birds are flying. Flowers are blooming. Mosquitoes have arrived. Cold cuts are being served for lunch. Father Gieb is beginning to check on the tie situation again. Spring is here.

New Attire in Stock Steve has just received his new supply of summer formals. Trinity, Vizi and all the rest will be giving their proms in the near future. The fire escape on Third Healy-Maguire will have to be watched more closely. Also the one in back of Ryan. Overcoats are going into storage. Saddle shoes, worn all winter, are actually being shined. It is becoming increasingly hard to sit through an evening class. A lot of young men’s fancies are turning. Zaloom said something nice about Rankin. Rankin said something nice about Visitation. Routh said “Let’s have a picnic.” The bulletin board said Easter vacation starts April 1. She said, “No.” 1 said, “Please” … spring is here.

Bud Luckey ’44

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With the Spring 2024 semester underway, many students at Georgetown University are actively seeking research opportunities to deepen their academic knowledge, enhance their skills and contribute meaningfully to their fields of interest. The Hoya recently conducted a poll that garnered responses from 36 students about the subject. The poll asks respondents about their experiences and successes with finding under -

Among the respondents, a notable 47.2% reported successfully finding undergraduate research opportunities at Georgetown, while 36.1% attempted to but did not succeed. Additionally, 13.9% admitted they haven’t tried looking and are unsure how to navigate the search process, while a minority, 2.8%, claimed that they haven’t tried because of simple disinterest.

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POLL

Reconsider Divisions

Iremember this vividly, as if it were yesterday: A woman in a red dress crying on a rowdy street corner in Central London, a hostile-looking man shouting at her. As my boyfriend and I — two scared 19-year-olds — prepared to intervene, the man shifted his attention to us. Addressing the woman, he asked: “Do you want to tell them why you’re crying, or should I?”

Turning to us with a bitter laugh, he answered his own question: “She just found out that her husband voted for Brexit! And now she’s crying on the street!” He was referring to himself. What we thought was a cruel and predatory street encounter turned out to be a dispute of a rather domestic nature.

I would bet my European Union (EU) passport that this was not the only family in the United Kingdom torn apart by differences in political opinion. Betrayal hurts most coming from our loved ones, especially when a lot more than our viewpoint is on the line and we feel instead that our core identity is attacked.

I wonder if my American readers can conceive such deep-rooted and painful societal division. I am, of course, joking. But more than three years after that street corner encounter, U.K. society is trying to move on and forget that Brexit ever happened. The United States, on the other hand, is bracing itself for another year of political turbulence. And while elements from its history and political structure make the United States unique, its problems are also uniquely complex.

Let’s start with what the United States shares with other countries. In 2016, polarization seemed to reign supreme — in a pair of hair-splitting public votes, Britons said “We’re out!” and decided to leave the EU, while Americans elected Donald Trump for president. Politically active urbanites were shocked by these outcomes, making it obvious that they had perhaps missed an important shift.

Georgetown professor Daniel Brumberg suggests in his “Political Polarization” class that, among other factors, we need to look at the United States and U.K.’s majoritarian electoral systems when attempting to understand polarization. In these electoral systems, rural voters enjoy disproportionately large representation.

Some European countries have found a solution: proportional representation. In this system,

people vote for political parties instead of individuals. Ideally, those political parties get allocated exactly as many seats in a legislative body as the proportion of voters who support them. The historical fragmentation of culturally different groups that coinhabited a relatively small territory is one of the factors for adopting proportional representation. But there are good grounds for suggesting that this proportional system, which holds space for multiple parties, may be an important buffer for polarization.

Still, the EU has its issues. In contrast to the federal system in the United States, the EU is composed of 27 very different sovereign member states that have given up part of their sovereignty in order to belong to this larger collective body. Needless to say, the historical, political and cultural differences between EU member states create tensions. Many countries from the former Eastern bloc found it difficult to get even close to the economic and democratic results of Western European nations.

Immigration has proved to be one of the most convenient and highest-reward topics to abuse. In the United States, Trump tried just about anything — from travel bans to the infamous wall with Mexico. In the U.K., Brexiteers promised tougher control on immigrants — from boats crossing the English Channel to unwanted EU free-riders from Bulgaria and Romania.

No region or nation is ever safe from insidious conflict and disagreement. The question is, “What do we turn to as a society when things get bad?”

I remember when Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022 and Britons of all ages queued for days to say their farewell — perhaps to a person, but more likely to an era. For a moment, the tradition of monarchy provided a common ground for many Brits. The American equivalent would have to be the U.S. Constitution. The difference between the two traditions could be the topic of a whole other article. But does the social contract for free speech, political pluralism and open debate provide the same feeling of past comfort? Perhaps it does. Or, perhaps, it provides something else — the freedom to let go of tradition and start creating society anew.

Nia Simeonova is a student at King’s College London who’s studying on exchange at Georgetown this semester. This is the second installment of her column “Old World, New World.”

ILLUSTRATION BY: KATHRYN SCHWEICKERT/THE

JUST THINKING

Lessons Learned from a Losing Quarterback

Set hut! The ball is in the quarterback’s hands and a receiver is open downfield. The quarterback lets the ball fly but doesn’t see the defender.

The ball is picked off. No one can catch the defender — he just scored a touchdown!

I often witnessed this scene when I played intramural flag football last semester with my friends. Although I was on the quarterback’s team and often found myself losing, I am glad I went through the experience.

To me, participating in a sport, whether club or intramural, is integral to an education and the college experience. Every Tuesday, my team would assemble on Kehoe Field and strategize for the night’s game. Regardless of the effort we put in, we would usually lose. Despite that, being out on the field every week showed me that everyone should participate in some form of team sports as a part of their education.

Whether it was dealing with failure, negativity or becoming a better team player, playing flag

football taught me great lessons. My friends were not the most enthused to participate in our weekly game — they dreaded losing. As the season went on, it became clear to me that my friends and I were operating on different value systems. While they were motivated by winning, I was just out there to have fun. Recognizing and understanding this difference has translated to my classwork as well. I have realized that being driven by the enjoyment of learning is important to stay motivated in classes. I would be lying if I said that I am always excited to go to class — but still, I strive to embody this mentality. Seeing my friends and teammates reluctant to go out and play reminds me that the way I approach my classes dictates how much effort I’m willing to put in. As such, I urge everyone to find joy in classes, even the boring ones.

When playing football, there is one position that everyone wants to play — quarterback. I am no different. I wanted to be

the gunslinging, commanding leader of the team, taking us to the championship. That all ended after the first game. I snapped the ball, read the field and threw. In my head, the throw was perfect. I was going to thread the needle between two defenders and we were going to get a touchdown. But the ball barely made it halfway to where I wanted it. I realized that I couldn’t read a defense, throw or even catch. This rather important detail made me realize that our team needed a new strategy. After calling a timeout, we switched up positions and redesigned our offense to actually fit our playing style. Those that could catch would play deeper. The shorter ones and the ones that couldn’t catch would play closer to the quarterback, to receive softer tosses. And finally, the quarterback could actually make some deep throws.

This is also applicable to school. Everyone has unique skill sets that they bring to the table — it’s crucial to ensure

that they are used well. Just as I can’t catch well and must adapt my football to succeed, I’m a visual learner, so I need to see a PowerPoint or lecture in front of me; I can’t just listen to a professor speak the entire time. When it comes to working on any team, whether a group project or club, everyone brings something different to the table. To be able to recognize your own individual flaws is the key to success, even if that means giving up whatever it is you want to do the most.

As much as I can preach these lessons I learned, it is important to experience these for yourself. Whether it is intramural flag football, club rugby or even a varsity sport, participating in any form of sport, even as a team manager, will enhance an education and teach valuable lessons.

Brinley Belding is a firstyear student in the College of Arts and Sciences. This is the second installment of his column “Just Thinking.”

Prioritize Student Mental Health Open Up Through Interfaith Dialogue

“Did you grow up religious?”

“Do you identify with a particular faith tradition?”

“How do you pray?”

These questions are not common in upstairs Leo’s where students typically discuss their classes, love lives and weekend plans over Olive Branch. Yet, as a practicing Catholic and theology major, I do not shy away from these questions. They have sparked some of my most memorable and edifying conversations at Georgetown University — even in noisy, unsophisticated Leo’s.

Studying theology and government in one of the most political cities in the country has shown me just how touchy conversations about faith and politics can be. I’ve noticed that in response to the delicate nature of these topics, conversations often remain vague and surface level so as to avoid offense or contention.

But I can’t help myself from digging deeper and asking the hard questions. And I’ve learned that all it really takes is one person to be vulnerable and open about their faith to encourage others to feel comfortable doing the same. I encourage members of the Georgetown community to intentionally practice vulnerability by sharing the deeper side of what is going on in their lives, letting their friends know about what they are struggling with and being open about where they find joy. These conversations can deepen friendships and foster a more sincere sense of belonging within a community.

As someone who is proud of my faith, the leap into vulnerability is a

first step I often take. I can attribute this openness to the formation Catholic Ministry has offered me, especially through Catholic retreats, Catholic Faith Communities and Spiritual Discussion Dinners hosted by Catholic Women at Georgetown, a student organization for faith formation and fellowship among Catholic women. These spaces are designed to develop vulnerability, and in them I have found ample opportunities to be more vulnerable about my life experiences than I can be in other contexts at Georgetown. Each time I am open in a faith space on campus, I have been met with an unwavering acceptance, which continues to encourage vulnerability and build community. I have found myself using this firm foundation to extend the opportunity for vulnerability to other people in my life: my friends, my roommates, even my Rangila dance partners. My strong Catholic faith makes me excited to cultivate openness with my friends, no matter their religious affiliation — or lack thereof — because I know just how freeing and valuable those experiences can be. I think the Jesuit Catholic identity at Georgetown encourages these conversations by providing a common language for, and an introduction to, faith conversations. Opportunities like “The Problem of God” theology course, Chaplain’s Tea — a time to chat with chaplains and practitioners from various faith traditions over yummy snacks — and campus-wide religious services are excellent entry points for all members of the community to get involved in these discussions. Georgetown’s culture is rooted in the Jesuit value of interreligious dialogue — it primes us to have respectful conversations about faith and ask questions to further our understanding.

I have had conversations about growing up religious, leaving faith

behind, coming back to faith and exploring new faiths with many different friends. I am always happy when my friends ask me questions about my own faith.

On Ash Wednesday, I got to have conversations about what the season of Lent means to me as a Catholic. From there, I was able to open into a deeper conversation about sacrifices and share my religious tradition with my friends.

I have noticed the common thread that ties my many conversations about faith with friends together: People long for opportunities to dig deeper within themselves and find an outlet to share their more personal side.

Through this deeper knowledge, I can better support my friends on their own faith journeys just as they encourage me in mine — whether it be by gently reminding me about my Lenten promises or encouraging me to go to Mass when I am tempted to watch TV with them instead.

These conversations can be scary to have, especially when others’ reactions are unpredictable, but the benefits and growth in community that come from it far outweigh the risks for me. When I am able to share that part of me beyond just my Catholic community, I become a freer, more authentic version of myself. So, this semester, I challenge you to open your vulnerable side to your friends. Take a leap of faith and have a conversation about what motivates you in life, what draws you to goodness and where you find love.

I hope that you, just as I have, will learn more about yourself and those you surround yourself with while becoming a better friend and support system. Ultimately, we can all benefit from this vulnerability by receiving the gifts of freedom and community.

Riley Talbot is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.

It can be challenging — and extremely stressful — to balance life as a student-athlete: practice, classes, studying, extracurriculars and even just spending time with friends. After all, there are only 24 hours in a day. Everyone wants to give their all to their respective activities and achieve all they can, but this level of pressure and expectation can be draining, both mentally and physically. In my experience, mental and physical health are connected, so taking care of both is critical to living your best life.

I have realized that having an outlet is crucial for maintaining my mental health. Allocating sufficient time during my day to hang out with friends, decompress when I am feeling stressed or engage in a personal hobby really helps me relax and stay happy. Personally, my outlet is tennis. Don’t get me wrong, this can lead to stress of its own. But I am constantly reminded of how lucky I am to be playing Division I tennis at a school I love with such an amazing team. There are definitely days when I’m exhausted from overexerting myself or feeling incapable of putting my best foot forward, but the simple act of being around my team and engaging in my sport lifts me up. A key feature in maintaining your mental health is to develop personal methods of dealing with the stress of daily life. This will keep your mind calmer: Having a plan of attack to manage stress or anxiety during your day will allow you to automatically know what to do in stressful situations. This plan could be a breathing exercise, something you say to yourself mentally to keep you calm or simply walking away from the situation (if possible) for

five minutes to formulate a plan to address your stress. Morning routines also help with mental health; think of something you can do every morning that helps start your day on a more positive note, like saying something to yourself in the mirror or even waking up to your favorite song so you can feel happy when you first get up.

I recently volunteered at a Strong Girls United event here at Georgetown University where I worked alongside fellow female student-athletes to teach young girls about the mental aspects of athletics. I found this to be a very rewarding experience for both the younger girls and all the student volunteers, myself included. What stuck out to me the most during the event was an activity centered around identifying what we say to ourselves when feeling nervous. In fact, some of the girls stated that they’ve never felt nervous, so they just didn’t write anything down. In that moment, I remembered a time when I was in their exact shoes — being at an age where I didn’t feel nervous about anything yet. But it also brought back memories of growing up and learning different ways to handle my developing nerves from parents, coaches and teachers until I found what worked best for me. Ultimately, prioritizing and valuing one’s mental health is something we should learn at a young age; all kids should learn how best to handle their own emotions, nurture both their minds and bodies and the importance of being able to overcome challenging situations. Educating kids early on about mental health will help them develop the necessary methods and tactics to overcome stress and

anxiety before it becomes mentally damaging. As college students, this is a skill we most definitely need to continue valuing. I find athletics to be a great way to combat feeling overwhelmed or drained. It’s cathartic to me personally, and while it might not be up everyone’s alley, I encourage giving it a shot — or finding a more appealing alternative. Your outlet should ultimately be something you find enjoyable. It is never too late to try something new. Furthermore, if someone you know is struggling with mental health, it is important to know that there are accessible avenues for help, treatment and guidance. For example, the office of Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) is a resource here at Georgetown that is staffed with psychologists and mental health professionals. Additionally, the Georgetown Athletics Department partners with the national organization Morgan’s Message, which aims to spread mental health awareness to student-athletes of all ages across the country and advocates for the implementation of mental health resources. Yet there is still room for our community to improve. The growth of mental health resources here at Georgetown is vital for not only helping student-athletes, but all students here on campus. It’s crucial to find ways to maintain your mental health, so knowing what resources you have and being able to have someone you can confide in will go a long way in making sure you are where you want to be mentally.

Ashley Kennedy is a sophomore in the School of Health. This is the second installment of her column “Athlete’s Corner.”

HOYA

Hoyas Connected, Mental Health Groups Offer Reprieve from Rigorous Campus Culture

The new Hoyas Connected class and mental health groups on campus are working to combat Georgetown students’ struggles with mental health in the university’s academic and extracurricular environment.

Nola Goodwin Features Writer

Emidway through the course, Marcus Trawick (CAS ’26), who is currently enrolled in Hoyas Connected, said one of his advisors in the Georgetown Scholars Program (GSP), which supports first-generation and low-income students throughout their time at Georgetown, encouraged him to take the class as a way to think about his relationship with the university.

Trawick said he has appreciated the student-led discussions because the facilitators share his stressors.

“I know that professors have our best interests in mind, but having discussions led by students who are probably going through the same things as us, it makes it so much deeper,” Trawick told The Hoya. “I had midterms two weeks ago; my facilitators just had midterms and projects and stuff that they’re worried about, too. We’re all struggling together. We’re not alone.”

Addison Basile (CAS ’26), a current participant in Hoyas Connection, said the course’s exercises — from trust exercises and speed friending to discussion prompts about identity — have helped her realize how much she has in common with other participants and have helped her form new connections. Basile, who plays club hockey, said that one particular conversation led her to realize that both the hockey and softball teams are frequently short on players. Through Hoyas Connected, she was able to connect with a member of the softball team.

“Now half the hockey team is playing softball, and we probably would not have ever made that connection if we didn’t have the class,” Basile told The Hoya Andrea Bonior, a professor of psychology who directs the Hoyas Connected program and trains student facilitators, said the project hopes to form connections between new students and provide them with tools to combat the loneliness and anxiety that may come with the transition to college.

“Especially at a high-achieving place like Georgetown, we see a lot of

folks who are really struggling with the expectations that society has for them. There’s just a lot of uncertainty,” Bonior told The Hoya. “There’s a lot of pressure, and we’re seeing nationwide that folks are more anxious and lonely. We’re definitely seeing that in young adults most of all, and Georgetown’s no exception to that.” All first year, second year and transfer students were eligible to enroll in the program as of the Spring 2024 semester. Each group meets once a week, and the course is pass-fail.

The Connection Project Hoyas Connected initially be-

“I don’t know if it’s specific to our campus, but I do think it’s become more of an open dialogue.”

PREETI KOTA (CAS ‘24) FORMER PRESIDENT OF ACTIVE MINDS

gan at the University of Virginia (UVA) five years ago. Student facilitators, who took a version of the course last semester alongside Bonior as training, lead these discussion sections.

Bonior said the program has allowed facilitators to learn how to build trust and foster connections among participants.

“We talked about trust; we talked about identity; we talked about what barriers get in the way of connection at Georgetown, how to just feel more engaged with the community and campus and how to think about yourself and your relationships,” Bonior said.

Facilitator Addison Horowicz (CAS ’26) said she has noticed a constant pressure to have a full Google Calendar (G-Cal) throughout her time at Georgetown, which motivated her to get involved with the program and take a leadership role.

“Having a full G-Cal is pretty much prioritized over most things,” Horowicz told The Hoya. “For me, that made me feel a little bit more isolated during my freshman year, because I didn’t have a full G-Cal. There’s kind of this illusion that no one ever has alone time, and that no one can ever take a break.”

Georgetown’s club culture is notoriously intense, which has caused the administration to step in in recent years. Pre-professional organizations often require long, written applications and have applicants undergo multiple rounds of interviews. Many of these groups have acceptance rates as low as 6%.

Halfway through her experience facilitating the program, Heather Doherty (CAS ’24), another facilitator, said her group has still been focusing on getting to know each other and becoming more comfortable around

each other, but that as the semester continues to progress the activities will move from more surface-level conversations to topics that are significantly deeper. She said that the group has begun reading stories of past participants from UVA, which will act as starting points for new conversations.

“People are starting to dive into how their identities reflect the identities and stories that we heard, or their experiences or things about their families or upbringings, and how those impact them right now,” Doherty told The Hoya. “We’re starting to get into those more vulnerable conversations, and people have been, for the most part, super willing to share stuff about themselves and respond to other people, which I think can be the more difficult part.”

Doherty said leading her group this semester has pushed her to apply the skills she learned last semester — including supporting people through challenging discussions and reacting on the spot — and become more comfortable taking risks.

“You can prepare for it all you want, but you don’t really know how it’s going to go until you’re actually doing it,” Doherty told The Hoya. “Last semester was great for preparation and for knowing the skills and experiencing the class yourself as a participant, but I’ve definitely learned a lot this semester, too.”

“There’ve been some creative liberties we’ve been able to take from the original lesson plan, which has been a little bit risky but definitely paid off,” Doherty added. “It’s very empowering when a decision you make actually plays out and it works.”

While the original curriculum outlines a specific progression of exercises, Doherty and Bonior both said that they have been able to make changes to that order to better suit specific groups’ needs. This has included spending more time on specific exercises that fostered meaningful conversations and adding more get-to-know-you activities.

Bonior does not participate in the sessions, but said she meets with the facilitators frequently to discuss the program’s progress and any changes that may need to be made.

“My facilitators have been working really hard, and they’re really enjoying it too,” Bonior said. “They seem to be getting a lot out of it because they’re learning how to troubleshoot different things.”

“Certain groups might need something different from others due to the personalities of the people in the group, and my facilitators have been really building their skills and adjusting as necessary to whatever their group needs,” she added.

Student Organizations Pushing for Positive Mental Health Campus Climate

While the university facilitates and funds Hoyas Connected, several student-run organizations

allow students to get involved with promoting a positive mental health culture on campus.

Active Minds is a group dedicated to encouraging open and honest conversations about mental health through regular meetings, activities and speaker events. The group hopes to help destigmatize mental illness among Georgetown students. Preeti Kota (CAS ’24), the former president of Active Minds, said her experience with mental health on campus motivated her involvement with Active Minds.

Kota said students have gradually become more willing to participate in open discussions of the stigma that sometimes surrounds mental health conversations.

“I don’t know if it’s specific to our campus, but I do think it’s become more of an open dialogue,” Kota told The Hoya. “I think people aren’t hesitant to say they’re interested in mental health.”

During her time as president, Kota said she put effort into expanding the group’s reach and making their mission more wellknown through tabling and more frequent meetings and events.

Kota said she feels students do not focus on their mental health as much as they should, making Active Minds’ work especially important.

“I think there’s a lot to be done on Georgetown’s campus,” Kota said. “It’s a very competitive, occasionally toxic, culture with high stress. I feel like students don’t always admit that they’re going through something, or they think that others are perfect. It’s just not the best culture.”

“Georgetown is more pre-professional, and that’s the main focus, which is reasonable,” she added. “People need to focus on that as well. But I don’t think mental health is prioritized enough.”

Recently, Active Minds has been focusing on introducing collaborations with other on-campus organizations, including The Corp and the Disability Cultural Initiative, Georgetown’s team dedicated to celebrating disabled identities and promoting accessibility on campus.

Kota said these collaborations help increase Active Minds’ visibility and added that she has wanted to partner with additional organizations such as the Pre-Med Society and the South Asian Society, saying that South Asian cultures face stigmatization of mental illness.

While Active Minds focuses on the stigma around mental health, Georgetown Individuals Vocal and Energetic for Service (GIVES) takes another approach: random acts of kindness. In the past, the club has given out free food in Red Square, distributed handwritten notes, hung Christmas lights and operated food drives.

Abbey Swartzwelder, the former president of GIVES, said the group aims to make students feel more welcome around campus and provide brief reprieves from the stress of academics.

“At its core, GIVES’ goal is to foster a kind, loving environment, especially when Georgetown is kind of known to have a lot of pre-professional clubs that are very hard to get into,” Swartzwelder told The Hoya Swartzwelder said GIVES is working to expand after shrinking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even so, Swartzwelder said she believes the group still creates a positive campus culture.

“I think people know that when they see food being given out, and our big banner, but also when they see the big Christmas lights that say Hoyas on them and things like that, they know that we were there and that we were trying to spread kindness,” Swartzwelder said.

Mental Health Groups Provide a Welcome Reprieve

Kathryn Castle, Georgetown’s assistant vice president for student health, said avenues to engage in peer support are helpful in combating undergraduates’ loneliness.

“Across the country many colleges are utilizing students as peer supports and mentors for other students,” Castle wrote to The Hoya. “For some students, knowing that they are not alone is always helpful and encouraging. Peer supporters can engage more students throughout their health and well-being journey while sharing a similar lived campus experience and providing them with information about on campus resources.”

The Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS), which Castle helps oversee, is the main center on Georgetown’s campus for mental health support. It provides students seeking therapy and other forms of support with consultations and referrals and has individual and group counseling options. As mental health awareness continues to grow in the United States, especially among students, leaders on the Hilltop like Horowicz said they are committed to fostering positive, welcoming environments that provide students with space to navigate their feelings about the transition to college and help make them feel more connected to the Georgetown community.

“Honestly, freshman year was really rough,” Horowicz said. “I had a lot of feelings and I had a lot of people around me that I was friends with, but I don’t know if I felt fully connected. I felt pretty isolated and a little bit adrift, and I kind of got it into my head that I was the only one experiencing that feeling of not having it figured out.”

“Realizing that, actually, everyone else experiences the same thing was a big motivator for why I’ve kept going,” Horowicz added.

Blue Flags Cover National Mall, Raise Awareness for Colorectal Cancer

Audrey Twyford Senior Science Editor

The National Mall became a rippling sea of blue — the color of colorectal cancer awareness — when volunteers for the advocacy organization Fight Colorectal Cancer (Fight CRC) planted 27,400 cobalt-colored flags as part of their “United in Blue” installation March 9.

The flags, which will remain on display between 3rd and 4th St NW until March 22, represent the 27,400 people younger than 50 who are projected to receive a colorectal cancer diagnosis in the year 2030. United in Blue is one of several initiatives put on by Fight CRC in March, recognized as National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month by the White House.

Molly McDonnell, vice president of advocacy at Fight CRC, said that United in Blue seeks to spotlight growing rates of colorectal cancer among younger people, especially as colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among all adults in the United States.

“We designed it really to raise awareness around colorectal cancer broadly, but also around the growing number of young people being

diagnosed with colorectal cancer,” McDonnell told The Hoya. “I think there’s, amongst the general public, sort of a belief that colorectal cancer is kind of an old person’s disease, but more and more young people in their twenties, thirties and forties are being diagnosed.” Since young people often do not discover their cancer until it is too late for treatments to be effective,

McDonnell said that Fight CRC has pushed for Congress to fund more accessible, widespread colorectal cancer screening programs.

“On the screening side, we’re advocating for additional funding for the colorectal cancer control program,” McDonnell said. “That’s a program that works with clinics in states across the country to increase colorectal cancer screening rates, particularly in underserved communities.”

Dr. Benjamin Weinberg, an associate professor of medicine and attending physician at Georgetown University School of Medicine and a gastrointestinal oncologist at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, said that this uptick in early-onset colorectal cancer cases is a relatively recent development.

“It’s been quite surprising that

just within the last 25 or so years, since the mid-nineties, we’ve seen this rise in young-onset colorectal cancer, for reasons we don’t fully understand,” Weinberg told The Hoya According to Weinberg, the cause of this spike in early-onset colorectal cancer remains something of a mystery. There is a general consensus that environmental factors, rather than inherited genetic mutations, are responsible for the trend, but researchers disagree about the precise culprit.

While some researchers point to obesity or highly-processed diets as key colorectal cancer risk factors, Weinberg said that his research focuses on the relationship between colorectal cancer and the gut microbiome, the communities of bacteria that live in our colon and rectum.

“Our research is interested in the microbiome, which is sort of a hot area of research,” Weinberg said. “The microbes in our guts, some of which we know have associations with the development of colorectal cancer — what role are they playing? Do they place patients at a higher risk of developing colorectal cancer?”

Experts say the colonoscopy — a procedure in which doctors use a small camera to examine the inside

@AMCOLLEGEGASTRO/X

Fight Colorectal Cancer (Fight CRC) planted 27,400 flags across the National Mall to repesent the number of people under 50 expected to face a colorectal cancer diagnosis in 2030.

of your intestine — is key when it comes to screening for cancerous or precancerous growths in the rectum and colon. The American Cancer Society (ACS) recommends that people at average risk for colorectal cancer get colonoscopies every 10 years, starting at age 45, and those with a family history should start earlier. Dr. Laura Makaroff, senior vice president for cancer prevention and early detection at the ACS, said in a March 1 press release that people should ask their doctors to check for colorectal cancer if they observe

Former White House Advisor Reflects on Career Path

Pallavi

Bommareddy Senior Science Editor

To recognize the fourth anniversary of the date that the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, Georgetown University’s School of Nursing, School of Health and School of Medicine jointly hosted a fireside chat with a former White House healthcare advisor about working in the healthcare industry Mar. 11.

The event, titled “Navigating the Healthcare Journey and Pioneering Tomorrow,” featured Andy Slavitt, a former senior advisor to the Biden administration’s COVID response, now a general partner at healthcare investment firm Town Hall Ventures. Dr. Kevin Ban (COL ’90, MED ’96), the former global chief medical officer of Walgreens’ pandemic response, moderated the conversation.

Attending the event were Dr. Robert Califf, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); Roberta Waite, dean of the School of Nursing; Christopher King, dean of the School of Health; and Dr. Lee Jones, dean of the School of Medicine, among other faculty, alumni and students.

Slavitt reflected on the start of his career, stating that he began working in the finance industry before a personal tragedy prompted him to step into the healthcare field.

“I was making really bold choices, going to Goldman Sachs, Harvard Business School, then McKinsey,” Slavitt said sarcastically at the event.

However, after one of his close friends died from a brain tumor in his early thirties, Slavitt said he felt the desire to change course in his career.

“That kind of thing is the thing that throws you off course; it doesn’t have to be a tragedy, it can be anything, but

something takes you up and says, maybe working twenty hours a day on Wall Street isn’t what I want to be doing,” Slavitt said. “I started caring about people who were under- and uninsured, people who didn’t have healthcare access, and that became a thread in my life.”

Slavitt went on to found HealthAllies, an internet-based company focused on helping uninsured patients.

HealthAllies was later acquired by UnitedHealthcare, a healthcare conglomerate where Slavitt worked for the next decade.

“I built my life and sold it to UnitedHealthcare,” Slavitt joked. “And I spent ten years there on what was then a new business.”

During Slavitt’s time at UnitedHealthcare, the Obama administration launched the website for the Affordable Care Act, which shortly thereafter crashed. Slavitt reached out to the administration to help improve the technology and soon began work in the public sector.

“It was 2013, they launched the ACA, and for me this was exciting because I had focused on the uninsured and underinsured,” Slavitt said. “President Obama launched this huge initiative and it came out, and it fell flat because the technology didn’t work.

I felt like there was a lot at stake for a lot of people, but also for our country’s ability to do important things.”

“I called the White House, and I didn’t expect anything of it, but I called on Tuesday and that Friday they had a press conference at the White House where they announced that I would be leading the turnaround,” Slavitt said. As acting administrator at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Slavitt said he was involved in many healthcare transitions related to increasing equity.

“We were introducing things like value-based care, which is how we pay for healthcare, we were expanding access, we were making all kinds of changes, and the organization wasn’t set up for change, it was meant to set policy and make rules,” Slavitt said.

According to Slavitt, his experience working in the healthcare industry emphasized the importance of collaboration between private and public sector offices, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to drive change in the healthcare system.

“When you’re at the White House, or HHS, or CMS, you are maybe working with a couple hundred colleagues, so you have to rely on the private sector – doctors, physicians, hospitals, pharmacies – to do their jobs and to be accountable.”

Now, Slavitt is a general partner at Town Hall Ventures, a venture capital company that invests in companies focused on addressing healthcare equity issues.

Slavitt said that the company is focused on providing healthcare solutions to communities that are often overlooked by the current system.

“There’s another half the country, about 130 or 140 million Americans, who either live on a low income, live on a fixed income, live in a zip code where there is not a lot of healthcare, live in a community where they have been forgotten, maybe they are elderly, maybe they’re on Medicaid, and it’s not that we don’t know what to do, it is that we have not built our system around the way people live,” Slavitt said.

Slavitt said that he hopes to translate ideas that researchers, doctors, and businesspeople have created into the reality of these communities.

“We started Town Hall Ventures to create an innovation platform for people in these underserved communities to bring the best care and best ideas into their communities, and it turns out that there are entrepreneurs and physicians and scientists who have the answers,” Slavitt said.

Researcher Talks Late Effects of Childhood Cancer

On average, childhood cancer survivors experience almost twice the disease burden of other adults when they age into adulthood, encountering higher rates of cardiovascular diseases, hormonal disorders and other conditions.

According to Sapkota, residual effects of cancer treatments like radiation therapy, a treatment that uses energy beams to kill cancer cells, contribute to the increased incidence of cardiac problems among childhood cancer patients as they grow older.

“There is a significant contribution by the exposure to radiation therapy that is increasing the risk of coronary artery disease in survivors,” Sapkota said.

Although Sapkota noted that several existing screening methods and prediction tools can detect survivors at high risk for developing late effects and explore intervention opportunities to reduce risk early on, current guidelines for predicting the onset of late effects like coronary artery disease or heart failure are limited.

“All of these guidelines and risk prediction tools are mostly utilizing demographic and cancer treatment variables, not beyond that,” Sapkota said. “We have also seen in multiple studies that there is

a large risk variation despite survivors being exposed to the same treatment exposures, similar dose, suggesting other factors also contribute to the development of late effects in survivors.”

This discrepancy led Sapkota to explore another component that influences the risk prediction of outcomes in survivors: genetic factors. Sapkota said one risk prediction method based on genetics is to use a polygenic risk score (PRS), which measures all the genetic variation in a person’s genome that confers a risk for developing certain diseases or traits.

“If we use the PRS score, which is based on the common variants across the genome, then we can identify a lot more individuals at high risk,” Sapkota said.

In particular, Sapkota and his team published a study in 2021 that examined a sample of nearly 12,000 childhood cancer survivors.

According to Sapkota, the study showed that clinicians could accurately use PRS to detect patients at risk for developing coronary artery disease after receiving radiation therapy.

“PRS was useful in identifying more survivors who are at risk for developing coronary artery disease as they become older,”

Sapkota said.

However, while using genetic factors like the PRS can allow for increased screening of individuals with the highest risk of developing late effects, it is crucial to ensure medical professionals’ access to this data will not affect patients’ opportunities for future medical treatments, according to biochemistry professor Jessica Jones.

“It would be critical to make sure the privacy of these individuals is protected and that the polygenic risk score has no effect on their ability to obtain healthcare later in their life,” Jones told The Hoya. “It’s important that the risk score is never used in screening for their access to insurance or other ways of getting access to health care.”

Sapkota said knowing that genetics can be used to predict the onset of late effects could, going forward, lead cancer researchers away from a treatment-centric prediction model for late effects, cementing the importance of incorporating genetic information into these predictions.

“We all had been thinking that cancer treatment is the primary driver, but that’s not actually the case,” Sapkota said.

any of the disease’s warning signs, including abdominal pain and blood in their stool, which can also resemble symptoms of other gastrointestinal conditions. “Many symptoms of colorectal cancer can appear similar to symptoms brought about by other issues, such as infection, hemorrhoids or irritable bowel syndrome,” Makaroff said in the press release.

McDonnell said she hopes that the United in Blue installation, as well as Fight CRC’s March 12 “Callon Congress” event, which saw col-

THE INTERSECTION

Illiteracy

orectal cancer survivors and caregivers rally together on Capitol Hill, will draw support from policymakers for more federally-funded colorectal cancer research going forward.

“Many voices are stronger than one,” McDonnell said. “We take this as an opportunity to be on the front lawn of Congress with this powerful visual, but then also go to Capitol Hill with over 200 advocates from across the country to share their stories and say, you know, these are the faces of colorectal cancer.”

Epidemic Raises Barriers to Healthcare Access, Key Treatment

Keerthana Ramanathan Science Columnist

“It’s not a disease; it’s illiteracy,” the doctor I was working with said after I asked him for help with a patient’s medications.

I was stunned by this diagnosis. I had just finished working with a patient who came in to review his medications for hypertension, or high blood pressure. When I asked him to confirm the names of the medications he took, he said he could not do it. I never considered that he might have an additional diagnosis: illiteracy. Although this diagnosis took me aback, it is an incredibly common one. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, around one in five U.S. adults have a “below basic” level of functional English literacy. Functional literacy is defined as “understanding, evaluating, using and engaging with written text to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.”

At low levels of functional literacy, people can recognize basic sentences, read short paragraphs and locate single pieces of information. However, at this level, people struggle with integrating multiple pieces of information and thoroughly understanding the English language itself.

Low literacy levels are especially pronounced in immigrant populations, particularly non-native English speakers. Out of non-U.S.-born adults, around 34% possess low levels of functional literacy. This veiled illiteracy problem has serious implications, including barriers to healthcare. For example, for a patient with a low level of literacy, the directions on a medication bottle may be difficult to understand, therefore impacting their ability to take a potentially life-altering medication. It may be difficult to fill out medical insurance paperwork or understand the information provided in a medical brochure. All of these essential steps to attaining care are rendered significantly more difficult for people who lack literacy. In a context that is specific to health care, health literacy, as defined by the Healthy People 2030 initiative, involves using literacy skills to directly inform health-related decisions and actions. To be health literate not only requires basic literacy skills but also the ability to be able to navigate the complex U.S. health care system and fully participate in the man-

agement of your health.

People with low levels of health and general language literacy are more likely to experience poor health outcomes, including inadequate management of diabetes, higher rates of depression and anxiety and worse overall health. Though other factors likely play a role in poor health outcomes, including low socioeconomic status, race and gender, illiteracy is not as commonly considered a cause of health inequity.

Central to the issue of poor literacy is the stigma that surrounds it. According to Barry Weiss, a physician at the University of Arizona, doctors routinely overestimate a patient’s literacy level, assuming that they know more than they truly do. Therefore, a patient might struggle on their own to understand a diagnosis or how to take a particular medication.

Illiteracy is also a hidden diagnosis, difficult for providers to recognize, because patients may feel shame when they experience poor literacy, forcing them to hide it. This has facilitated what many researchers have dubbed a silent epidemic. According to Dr. Ruth Parker, a professor of medicine at Emory University, speaks about the incredibly strong and profound emotion of shame, perpetuated in the health care system because “in our society, it is very embarrassing not to know. Nobody wants to look dumb, especially not in front of their doctor.” In one study, out of all patients surveyed who experienced low literacy, almost 70% did not tell their spouses and 19% never told anyone, including their doctors. For this reason, illiteracy can be difficult for physicians to recognize, therefore impacting the care a patient receives.

Because of illiteracy’s hidden prevalence, experts are calling for universal precautions to be put in place. These include translating medical jargon into simpler phrases, focusing only on two or three key pieces of information and using teach-back techniques, which is when providers ask patients to repeat instructions back to them as a way to test a patient’s understanding. In our current era of 15-minute appointments, universal screening is an efficient and easy way to recognize if a patient may be illiterate, which can inform crucial decisions regarding care. Other experts support the idea of screening for literacy in medical appointments or hospital visits, similar to routine vital sign screenings.

To ensure that everyone has the opportunity to be an agent of their own healthcare, it’s time we start combatting this epidemic of illiteracy.

PALLAVI BOMMAREDDY/THE HOYA

Andy Slavitt, Biden’s former COVID-19 response advisor, switched careers from finance to healthcare after the death of a close friend.

Students Against Starbucks Suspend Campaign, Pledge to Watch Contract

Maren Fagan Academics Desk Editor

Georgetown Students Against Starbucks (GSAS) announced the suspension of its anti-Starbucks campaign March 1 following the announcement that Starbucks would enter into contract negotiations with union leaders. Leaders of GSAS, which is a branch of the Georgetown Coalition for Workers’ Rights (GCWR) that opposes Starbucks due to its treatment of its employees, said the group plans to shift focus from Starbucks to upcoming contract negotiations between Aramark, a subcontractor that provides food services to campus, and Georgetown University dining employees.

The shift in anti-Starbucks organizing strategy developed as Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), a branch of the labor union Workers United that represents Starbucks workers, halted its anti-Starbucks campaign Feb. 27 to focus on negotiating union representation for workers with Starbucks.

Elijah Ward (CAS ’26), a lead organizer at GSAS, said Starbucks’ decision to enter into contract negotiations represents a historic win for the workers’ rights movement because of the activism of workers, students and unions in supporting labor rights.

“This is a big deal,” Ward told The Hoya. “This is one of the biggest pieces of news in a long time for organized labor. We had our panel, and we had a rally afterward where we displayed the number of labor abuses Starbucks had committed, and to have that culminate a week later into this huge, huge victory, being the culmination of what we’ve been seeking for so long or at least a step towards the ultimate victory of getting a contract, was massive.”

GSAS has advocated for Starbucks workers’ rights on campus through a petition that has garnered more than 500 signatures as of March 14 and a panel on the national day of action for college chapters of SBWU, which featured members from SBWU, followed

by a rally to call the university to end its contract with Aramark.

Valli Pendyala (SFS ’27), another lead organizer with GSAS, said that although the group recognizes victory for workers and labor rights in Starbucks’ renegotiation, the GSAS campaign will resume if Starbucks fails to grant its employees union representation.

“As long as Starbucks continues to meet those bargains in good faith, we’re going to pause our campaign to create the best possible space for workers to negotiate with Starbucks,” Pendyala told The Hoya. “We are keeping a watchful eye on these negotiations, and if there’s a sign that Starbucks is no longer bargaining in good faith, that it’s going back to union-busting practices, that it’s hurting workers, that’s when we’re going to talk to our stakeholders and our partners and consider restarting our campaign.”

At Starbucks locations across the United States, allegations of union-busting practices — which disrupt or deplete the power of unions — include refusing credit card tipping to unionized stores and awarding increased benefits to non-unionized workers, such as improved sick leave and less restrictive dress codes.

A spokesperson for Starbucks said coming together to establish the framework for both Starbucks and members of SBWU represents an essential collaborative effort from those involved. The spokesperson added that Starbucks will provide workers represented by SBWU credit card tipping as a show of good faith.

“Starbucks and Workers United have a shared commitment to establishing a positive relationship in the interests of Starbucks partners,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “While there is important work ahead, coming together to work on this framework represents an important step forward and is a clear demonstration of a shared commitment to working collaboratively on behalf of partners.”

Elinor Clark (CAS ’27), a former Star-

bucks employee and lead organizer with GSAS, said the group had focused its campaign on two ideal outcomes: Georgetown removing the Starbucks location and Starbucks branding in the Leavey Center or Starbucks entering into negotiations with SBWU.

“We’re just some of the many examples of the power that workers and society have when we’re standing up against big corporations,”

Clark told The Hoya Clark won her case against the company in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) trial in July 2023. The judges ruled that Starbucks illegally retaliated against Clark for wanting to form a union among the employees at her store.

A university spokesperson confirmed the upcoming negotiations between Aramark and their workers represented by the UNITE HERE union and said the university does not have a contract with Starbucks as Aramark manages the corporation’s location and operations on Georgetown’s campus.

“We are continuing to look closely at this important issue,” a university spokesperson wrote to The Hoya.

“Georgetown does not have a contract with Starbucks,” the spokesperson added. “Aramark has a license agreement with Starbucks, and union-represented Aramark dining employees staff the Leavey Center Starbucks location.”

Clark said that as many students involved with GSAS shift their advocacy focus to the upcoming Georgetown-Aramark contract negotiations, efforts will center around calling for improved working conditions, access to parking, paid time off (PTO) and sick days in what are the first negotiations since 2019.

“Universities as a whole have always been at the forefront for change and movements of freedom and justice,” Clark said. “We want to make sure that they show us that they are pro-labor and stand by the workers in their contract renegotiations with Aramark.”

WHAT’S NEW IN MULTIMEDIA

event March 14.

The featured panelists at the talk included authors Victoria Christopher Murray, Joshunda Sanders and Ruth P. Watson.

The women read aloud sections of their books and discussed the ways each features the experience of Black women in the United States historically and in the present. Author Joshunda Sanders said historical fiction plays an important role in humanizing the stories of Black women in history by centering Black joy and emotion.

“How did they kiki and kick it when they were not working?” Sanders said at the event.

“I think the archive needs to humanize us, to reintroduce us to American history and to say that ‘This is also what a patriot looks like,’ is that we could pass around mason jars of moonshine after hours. We can also go to the officer’s balls and then all the things, and I think it rounds out and completes the story of

who we are in America.”

Murray’s novel “The First Ladies,” written alongside Marie Benedict, tells the story of the friendship and working relationship between former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. The book focuses on their advocacy to get Black representation in the government and to pass anti-lynching legislation.

Murray said the interracial friendship between Roosevelt and Bethune reflects the authentic connections fostered between women with different lived experiences. “These were two women, one Black and one white, wanting to be friends, coming from different worlds, seeing the same situation very differently and trying to work it out. And that’s all they had. They made a lot of mistakes with each other. But we make mistakes with our friends all the time. The stakes are just higher if it’s racially based,” Murray said at the event.

Joshunda Sanders, author of “Women of the Post,” a novel about the all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps during World War II in Birmingham, England, described the bravery of pioneers like Commanding Officer Charity Adams Earley, who stood

up to her white male general.

“I think there’s an expectation for there to be this sort of dignity and poise in the face of continued disrespect and dehumanization and demeaning conduct, specifically by white people and specifically white men in the military,” Sanders said at the event. “And what I appreciated about her was that she could be respectful and composed, but she also drew a line in the sand.”

Famously, Adams Earley responded to a general threatening to replace her with “Over my dead body, sir.”

Watson’s novel, “A Right Worthy Woman,” profiles Maggie Lena Walker, the first Black woman to establish and preside over a bank. Watson said Walker’s resilience and bravery helped her as she fought to ensure Black-owned businesses received loans and were given fair treatment in banks.

“She was a woman who had a vision, but she also was not afraid. And I think fear is the one thing that keeps most of us from being successful,” Watson said at the event.

Murray discussed Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune’s advocacy around anti-lynching legislation. Although there was an effort by

Check out our weekly podcast, “Mondays with Melanie,” and an upcoming video series featuring Georgetown student artists. All videos are available on YouTube, and podcasts are available for streaming on Spotify, SoundCloud and thehoya.com.

Experts Discuss the Current State Of Political Language, Free Speech

Jasmine Zhang

Special to The Hoya

Linguistics professors and other academic experts evaluated the political misuse of language and the current state of public discourse in a March 14 event.

The event, hosted by Georgetown University’s Free Speech Project and the Future in Humanities Project — a collaboration between the Georgetown University Humanities Initiative and Oxford University — was a part of the “Free Speech at the Crossroads: International Dialogues” series, which seeks to provide international perspectives on global challenges to free expression. Michael Scott, senior dean at Oxford’s Blackfriars Hall, and Sanford J. Ungar, director of the Free Speech Project, moderated the event.

The panelists began by discussing political language, which they said is currently adversarial, and the influence of lies on media and politics.

Georgetown linguistics professor Deborah Tannen said politicians often take extreme positions to make a lasting point, which often leads to accusations of dishonesty between politicians.

“So much of what we hear as not true; we wouldn’t actually say is a lie,” Tannen said at the event. “A lie means you’re intentionally saying something that’s not true for some end. But I think the issue of what can you believe, and what is true, and what is not true, that’s a challenge that people have been facing forever,” Tannen said at the event.

The conversation then shifted into a deeper discussion on the influence of technology as a method to more efficiently spread false information. Jessica Mudry, chair of the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University, elaborated on the use of the term “alternative facts” as a way for many politicians to spread lies.

the Senate to pass anti-lynching legislation in 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ultimately refused to support it, and the bill died before being voted on.

“They cried together over the lynching bill not being passed, and I often wonder what they would have thought when this happened in 1935, what they would have thought that the lynching bill did not pass until 2022,” Murray said.

The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act passed in 2022, declaring lynching a federal hate crime offense. Sanders said that Black women in America are often not given the credit they deserve, similar to the women in the novelists’ books.

“You have to thrive knowing that you are not meant to survive. We operate in places that are not built for us and we thrive in them. And that continues to be the case whether or not people give us credit or not,” Sanders said.

Watson quoted James Brown’s hit song “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” saying that the women represented in their books were essential to the America of today.

“This is a man’s world — James Brown said it best — but it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl,” Watson said.

Mudry said that by labeling untruths as an alternative set of facts, politicians can utilize false information and gain social traction.

“This is the form versus content duality,” Mudry said at the event. “We can make something look objective; we can make something look scientific. This is the work that I do in objectivity — looking at if we can make a fact seem objective by having some statistics, which may be manipulated or cherry-picked.”

Mudry said modern politics primarily concentrate on the arguments between parties of different interests, rather than collaboration.

“Everybody is busy pointing fingers,” Mudry said. “Nobody is thinking, ‘Let’s cross the line and invite others into the conversation.’”

Additionally, the panelists said individualism is the root cause of the shift toward the current contentious political environment, particularly in the United States. Mundry said that with curated ads and personalized recommendations amplified by social media and news outlets, individuals have become more isolated and less likely to think of themselves as part of a common collective.

Tannen said it is crucial to try to see the differences and perspectives of others, rather than dismissing others and demonizing them.

“Stop for a moment before you think someone is doing something evil and has evil intentions, or is a stupid person,” Tannen said. “Just step back and ask, what could the world look like from their point of view? Could it be just a different use of language from their cultural background?”

The panelists also explored the changing global social standards of politically appropriate language, in which the strained political environment has changed the culture

of everyday speech.

John Drakakis, an emeritus professor of English studies at the University of Stirling in Scotland, said that many in the realm of academia have become too hypersensitive toward others’ words, frequently finding them offensive when they are not intended to be.

“I think academics are getting progressively more and more thin-skinned,” Drakakis said. “I come from the thick-skinned generation where you said it, and then you ducked.”

The event concluded with a debate on the interpretation of political speech and intention in lies, including the differences between manipulating imagination, intentionally leaving out parts of the truth and a lie.

Mudry said the interpretation of political speech can be a gray area, as language evokes different images and represents different thoughts in each individual citizen.

“It really does speak to the individuality of language and

our own interpretation,” Mudry said. “There’s no litmus test for determining language as a lie or language as a truth.”

Journalist, Georgetown Graduate Talks Evolution of Technology

SWISHER, from A1

During her time at Georgetown, Swisher wrote for both The Hoya and the Georgetown Voice. She began her career for the Washington Post while still a student at Georgetown, getting the job after she criticized a Post journalist’s coverage of a Georgetown event.

Swisher said although technology can enrich communities, the amount of influence tech leaders like Elon Musk have amassed has become dangerous. She said these leaders’ companies take people’s data without thinking about the implications of their actions.

“When you realize they were the richest people in the world with unaccountable power, that’s a prescription for disaster, as you’re seeing

and regulation possibilities, such as President Joe Biden’s recent executive order on AI and other guidelines needed to ensure privacy and safety in the age of AI, for technology and the internet.

“This is supersized internet,” Swisher said. “It’s hard to describe what it’s going to do. Like, did we know when AOL started, we’d have Uber? Did we know about Amazon? No, none of this existed. And so I don’t know what the companies are going to be, but I can imagine some of them.”

“I feel like this is the opportunity to finally regulate the internet and not think it’s a dirty word,” Swisher added.

Swisher’s comments follow a recent congressional effort to pressure ByteDance, the Chinesebased and owned company that owns TikTok, to sell the company’s U.S. operations or risk facing a nationwide ban.

Swisher said she supports this legislation because the company’s Chinese ownership poses a major threat to Americans’ privacy and national security due to the Chinese government’s track record of interference in tech companies. Although the Chinese government does not have any official direct involvement with

ByteDance, there is evidence the Chinese government is involved with or collects data from the company in some way.

Swisher said she thinks TikTok will ultimately be sold rather than banned due to its economic value.

“Kids, your TikTok’s not going away, FYI,” Swisher said. “It’s worth too much. None of these rich people are going to let that die. It’s whether the Chinese government, which has been involved in every Chinese company — I’m sorry, they just have — is going to be able to have this access.”

Swisher said she has recently noticed an increasing awareness of technology’s dangers and a rising movement to protect individuals’s privacy online.

“I think there’s a real movement in this country worrying about the power of tech over people’s lives and a desire to take it back from people,” Swisher said. “Parents are concerned. I think people who believe in civics are concerned, and they know what’s happening, and they know they need to hold people accountable for what these technologies are.”

FLICKR

The House voted March 13 to pass a bill that would ban TikTok, raising various reactions from Georgetown students and content creators, including dismay, indifference and skepticism.

PJI, from A1 incarcerated and formerly incarcerated citizens and their families,” Howard wrote to The Hoya “We are immensely grateful for the support from all those involved in securing this funding, and we are committed to increasing and sustaining our impact on the lives of members of this traditionally underserved and under-resourced community,” Howard added.

Ellie Sims (CAS ’25), a student operations associate at PJI, said the funding also benefits students involved with the institute, providing them with experience in reforming the prison system and improving outcomes for previously imprisoned individuals.

“This allocation of money and appreciation for the work of the initiative is a major win for Georgetown students,” Sims wrote to The Hoya. “Building relationships with justiceimpacted Hoyas throughout my time at PJI has made my Georgetown experience so much more fulfilling.”

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) attempted to remove the funding as the Senate debated the bill, arguing the funding was unnecessary because Georgetown has a $3.2 billion dollar endowment.

“I don’t know a whole lot about exactly what this will accomplish,” Lee said on the Senate floor. “It may well have good elements to it. But the point is this: Georgetown University is not only one of the wealthiest universities on planet Earth, it is one of the wealthiest entities of any kind on planet Earth.” However, Lee was unsuccessful in his attempt, as Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) objected to blocking the funding, which would have required unanimous consent from all senators.

Tyrone Walker, the director of reentry services at PJI, said the funding will help others find success like him.

Walker was incarcerated for nearly 25 years before graduating from the PJI Pivot Program, which provides professional development and job training. “I am grateful for the continued funding that supports individuals like me in gaining valuable skills through its educational and workforce development programs,” Walker wrote to The Hoya “Prior to my enrollment in the Georgetown Pivot Program, I had spent nearly 25 years incarcerated without any experience of employment in

the community. It is through the Pivot Program that I acquired the necessary skills to become employable.”

Sims said the PJI’s work of providing opportunities to formerly incarcerated individuals builds community on campus.

“I’ve been lucky enough to witness the reality that when all students, including those incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, have access to more resources and opportunities, our entire community is enriched as a result,” Sims wrote. “I look forward to seeing how many more lives can be bettered through our programs with this new allocation of funds.”

Walker said the reentry program changed his life for the better, adding that his role in PJI demonstrates that formerly incarcerated individuals can succeed in finding employment and building a new life.

“This program not only transformed my own life but also the lives of others who have similarly benefited from it,” Walker said. “Now, working in a position of leadership to help the same population I emerged from, sends the message that it’s possible and that we are valued.”

TIKTOK, from A1

Trigiani said the ban on TikTok would affect his daily life but that it would benefit him by cutting his screen time.

“It would definitely be very strange if it just went away, Trigiani wrote. “I mostly use TikTok for entertainment, and I would definitely miss scrolling on the app if it were to go away,” Trigiani wrote. “However, I think this shows us that maybe we could all use a step away from the app and back towards reality.”

The bill’s lead sponsors have argued that TikTok may present a danger to user privacy and national security because of ByteDance’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (GRD ’12, ’15, R-Wisc.) told reporters that potential Chinese government influence on TikTok presents threats to U.S. security.

“This is about foreign adversary control of American social media and, by extension, the dominant news platform for young Americans,

and the risks of that I think are just too great,” Gallagher told C-SPAN. Margot Barrett (MSB ’26), who works as director of community at Georgetown Ventures, the student entrepreneur funding club, has used TikTok both as a content creator as well as to identify trends and discover customers for startups her club works with.

Barrett said TikTok users will simply turn to other apps if Congress bans the platform.

“If TikTok gets banned, another similar platform will likely arise; maybe people will transfer to Instagram Reels,” Barrett wrote to The Hoya. “I will likely follow suit to this transfer; as both a producer and consumer of TikTok content, I, like many other users, have become addicted to consuming shortformat videos.”

Sophia Pezeshkan (SFS ’26), an intern in Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-Conn.) office, said her office has received many calls from constituents concerned about the proposed ban.

“We’ve definitely been getting a crazy amount of calls specifically

about this bill, from both sides,” Pezeshkan told The Hoya. “From a younger audience about not wanting TikTok banned and, at the same time, we’ve also been getting a lot of calls typically from older audiences who are in support of banning TikTok.”

Pezeshkan said many of these callers have argued that banning TikTok violates their First Amendment right to free expression.

“Usually when people call in support of TikTok not being banned, they are saying that it goes against their constitutional right,” Pezeshkan told The Hoya Barrett said TikTok has allowed her to build a community with friends and neighbors in her hometown of Los Angeles.

“The platform allowed many of my good friends to change their financial situations and pursue creative pathways that, in the past, were not profitable,” Barrett wrote. “It allowed me to discover niche aspects of my city that I had not realized were there – I found local stores, hidden hikes and adventures, and creators

GEORGETOWN SFS/YOUTUBE

Journalist Kara Swisher (SFS ’84) discussed her experience reporting on the rise of the internet in a March 14 conversation in Gaston Hall.

The Georgetown Prisons and Justice Initiative will use the $963,000 to expand its reentry, prison education and workforce development programs.

Volunteers Fired After Raising Concerns About Animal Welfare at Shelter

Michael Scime

Special to The Hoya

Over two dozen volunteers at the Humane Rescue Alliance (HRA), a local animal shelter and foster program in Washington, D.C, claimed they were fired for raising concerns about poor conditions and disregard for animal welfare at the facilities.

Volunteers reportedly voiced concerns about cleanliness and animal safety conditions in a letter to the shelter system’s board of directors last October. In addition to having unkempt facilities, the letter also accused HRA of unnecessarily euthanizing kittens with treatable sicknesses, such as an eye infection or diarrhea.

Kate Meghji, the chief operating officer of HRA, told The Hoya that these allegations are false, and said the employees were terminated because of behavioral issues. She said she only wished the HRA corrected their alleged behavior sooner.

“We ended relationships with volunteers due to serious breaches of their Volunteer Agreement,” Meghji wrote to The Hoya. “We are certain that no nonprofit organization would tolerate these behaviors. And our regret is not addressing these issues earlier, as our responsibility extends not only to the welfare of animals under our care, but also to the safety and wellbeing of our dedicated staff and volunteers. We should’ve acted more swiftly.”

According to HRA, these breaches included violations of employee confidentiality, information privacy and organizational policy, as well as bullying behavior.

Christy Lambert, one of the volunteers who was fired, told WUSA9 that neither she nor any of the other volunteers who were terminated or ex-

pressed concerns acted in such a way.

“Myself and my friends, we were nothing but respectful and kind,” Lambert told WUSA9.

Sue Bell, the executive director of the local Homeward Trails Animal Rescue, told The Hoya that shelters are facing widespread problems as they are overfilled with unwanted animals.

“We are seeing shelters and communities bubbling over with unwanted animals and shelters and rescues have the difficult task of seeking ways of managing this,” Bell wrote to TheHoya

“It is not the fault of the shelters, although shelters often bear the brunt of the blame, which is not fair. This is a community problem and can only be solved with community solutions. That means volunteering, donating, helping your neighbors,” she added.

According to a report from Time magazine, the number of stray dogs being taken in by shelters has risen 22% since 2021.

Lambert said the HRA has neglected their duties to maintain clean facilities and keep the animals in a safe environment because of the influx of dogs.

“The kennel had lots of feces, pee, blood even, on the walls,” she told WUSA9.

Meghji defended the shelter, adding that the well-being of the animals will always be their first priority.

“Our animal care team diligently works to maintain clean kennels and provide excellent care for our pets. Dogs have accidents, especially ones who are in a new setting,” Meghji said. “Every kennel is deep cleaned first thing in the morning seven days a week and spot cleaned multiple times throughout the day. We take great care to keep the facility clean despite experiencing an unprece-

Former GU Professor Talks Tar Seeps, Related Climate Change Threats

for its beauty rather than its degenerative nature.

“Great Salt Lake is a vibrant living body of water that supports many lives, often dismissed as a dead sea,” Henderson said. Henderson’s book is meant to follow a spiral pattern through each chapter, like the outward motion of “Spiral Jetty.” The jetty marks changes in the Great Salt Lake’s architecture, and although Henderson referred to it as a barometer for climate change, she mentioned that all land art is prone to change.

“The Jetty, just the fact that they are marking the edge of the landscape as the lake retreats, you see them farther and farther from the shore, so they’re almost like on the measure of that distance,” Henderson said.

dented surge in animals.”

With such a high surge in occupancy, Bell said her job has never been harder and that animal shelters need more help than ever.

“No time in my 22 years of running Homeward Trails has animal welfare been so incredibly challenging. The number of animals entering shelters and the demand on our services is unprecedented.

It is an extremely, extremely difficult time for anyone working in animal welfare, whether paid or volunteer,” Bell wrote to The Hoya

With tensions running high as a result, Bell believes the best way to handle internal situations is to ensure that all parties are being heard.

“Regular ongoing communication and transparency is key. We must not only welcome the public into our work and commitment but be honest with all about our struggles, our needs, our successes and our failures,” Bell said.

“This is sometimes not easy as it is emotional work and opinions may vary and disagreements will happen. But if we all remain focused on lifesaving and can appreciate each other and communicate, ideally we can get there,” she added.

Meghji said that the HRA respects the former volunteers’ right to speak out and does not plan to pursue legal action against them, but does not plan to hire any of them back because of the breach of their volunteer agreements.

“If a volunteer fails to uphold their agreement, we part ways. We’re committed to ensuring positive experiences for our more than 800 active volunteers, and we don’t believe we can sustain that by re-inviting volunteers we’ve recently separated from,” Meghji said.

Honoring Women’s History Month With Lectures

educational access.

to the wider discussion of climate change.

Henderson referred to “Spiral Jetty,” a coil-shaped art piece made out of mud and rocks, as a way of measuring climate change, especially as the jetty’s architecture has changed over the years with the water’s movement.

“I mentioned earlier about it being an inadvertent barometer for climate change,” Henderson said. “You can see how as the lake level has retreated, it has left the jetty fairly high and dry, so it does become a kind of aesthetic measure.”

Henderson said she discovered an interest in both natural and human-made tar seeps, which are found near the Great Salt Lake, following a car accident.

“I went to Great Salt Lake after recovering from being hit by a car in a crosswalk on man-made asphalt, but it took me longer to correlate the lake’s tar seeps of natural asphalt by comparison,” Henderson said. “Nicknamed death traps, tar seams are pools of raw oil that creep up from tectonic fracture.”

Henderson said she was inspired to write the novel when she began observing natural tar seeps in several visits to “Spiral Jetty” in the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

“As I visited the lake again and again, life and death, degeneration and regeneration, injury and healing slowly started to congeal,” Henderson said. “My accident colored the backdrop against which I came to see the lake not as dead but as wildly alive.”

Henderson said her recurring visits to the Great Salt Lake allowed her to appreciate the lake

Even though tar seeps are known as ‘death traps’ and are frequently seen as negative human-made traps in ecosystems, Henderson said that they are not entirely harmful and can help an ecosystem thrive.

“The first thing is you almost would say they’re a negative thing, like they’re a death trap,” Henderson said. “An unsuspecting animal that crosses a melting seep can get fatally stuck.”

“Even in the years since I started going out there, it actually has changed quite a bit because not as much bird life was migrating through there,” Henderson added. “It’s really an indication of how much life is there.”

Henderson said the change in the structure of the tar seeps at Great Salt Lake illustrates natural changes in the ecosystem from the lake’s ebbs and flows.

“As Great Salt Lake depletes from drought, more tar seeps have emerged along the receding shore,” Henderson said. “The tar seeps fossilized signs of the lake’s abundant life, including pelicans that breed offshore.”

Henderson said signs of natural life can be observed everywhere and that anyone can find an appreciation for nature in their own backyard.

“Interconnections between tar and art, sea and sky, weathered rocks and feathered birds invite reevaluations to reperceive not only an overlooked lake in Utah, but also other underappreciated places across the planet, both far afield and right where we are,” Henderson said.

Jasmine Zhang

Special to The Hoya

Student organizations and academic departments at Georgetown University are hosting events to celebrate Women’s History Month, which began March 1.

University organizations and student groups including the Georgetown University Women’s Center, which offers programs and resources to women on campus; GU Women of Color (GUWOC), a student group dedicated to the advancement of women of color; the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS), a university organization that focuses on the role women play in international stability; and the Office of Student Equity and Inclusion have hosted events this month to recognize women on Georgetown’s campus. The groups have hosted lectures from guest speakers, group conversations on issues regarding women’s rights, panel discussions and community bonding hours.

Celebrations for Women’s History Month included discussions surrounding the application of female identity on campus and beyond. GUWOC, the student group that aims to advocate for women of color, will host a discussion on March 19 titled, “Stronger Together: What Does Solidarity Mean?” which hopes to explore collaboration and dialogue across diverse identities.

The Women’s Center focused on the theme of rage this year, planning activities such as a cut-up poetry and spoken word event, which includes piecing together lines of cut-up poetry to form a new piece, and a mobile rage room plate smashing event, where students can write statements

of anger on plates and smash them.

Lily Odenwelder (SOH ’26) a student worker at the Women’s Center, said the Women’s Center chose this theme to allow women an opportunity to express their anger at misogyny. “We’re just really trying to delve into a precise topic because the way that institutions as a whole will address Women’s History Month is just what we do every day,” Odenwelder told The Hoya “We decided to talk about rage, anger, emotional liberation, how anger can be incredibly powerful to harness and fighting against the policing of emotions while still being grounded in the context that we live in a society where emotions are socialized,” she added.

According to a flyer from the Women’s Center, the theme of rage for Women’s History Month was chosen for its historical role in activism to discuss and challenge historically gendered and racialized narratives.

“Collective feminist rage is a powerful tool for activism,” the Women’s Center flyer read. “In a culture marked by sexism, ableism, racism and discrimination of all forms, anger is a justified and appropriate reaction.”

Besides the Women’s Center events, celebrations for Women’s History Month included discussions surrounding female identity on campus and beyond. GIWPS hosted an online webinar on March 1 titled “End Gender Apartheid: International Law & Women’s Rights in Afghanistan,” focusing on the Taliban’s attacks on women’s rights and freedoms in Afghanistan, such as strict restrictions on dress code and fair

Diep Nguyen (CAS ’27) attended the GIWPS webinar and said she was surprised by the depth of the conversation and panelists’ commentary on the details surrounding the political and humanitarian crisis.

“For me, this event highlighted the incredible resources that Georgetown organizations bring directly to the student body, and it has definitely inspired me to explore more of what the women’s institutes on campus have to offer,” Nguyen told The Hoya.

Renée Clark (CAS ’24) said celebrations of Women’s History Month at Georgetown allow students to commemorate the fight for equality on campus.

“When you’re at a place like Georgetown, the history of women here actually hasn’t been that long,” Clark told The Hoya. “Even though now it feels like a lot of the work of equality has already been done, we still have pretty far to go, and Women’s History Month is a good reminder of how far we’ve come in a short amount of time, particularly on the Hilltop.”

The Women’s Center said Women’s History Month is an important time for Georgetown women to explore and reflect on gender roles in society.

“Women’s emotional liberation is an incredibly complex topic, and Women’s History Month provides opportunities for our community to dive into different facets of the way that society forces women to resist our rage as well as how we may harness it for political and personal change,” a Women’s Center spokesperson wrote to The Hoya

Hoyas, Irish American Society Celebrate Heritage

Madison Fox-Moore

Student Life Desk Editor

The Georgetown Irish American Society (GUIAS), a student group dedicated to celebrating Irish culture, will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with an Irish dance showcase March 17.

GUIAS’s Irish Dance Team, a branch of the club, participates in global Irish dance competitions, sending dancers last spring to compete in the All Scotland Championships competition in Glasgow, Scotland. The team’s members will perform twice at neighborhood restaurant Martin’s Tavern for the holiday.

Margaret Hartigan (CAS ’24), president of GUIAS, said the holiday presents the opportunity to share her Irish ancestry and favorite traditions with her friends on the Hilltop.

“To me, St. Patrick’s Day is a time to celebrate my Irish heritage, listen to Irish music (Tell Me Ma and Rattlin’ Bog are some favorites), and do some dancing,” Hartigan wrote to The Hoya. “It’s also a time to share the things I love about Irish American cul-

ture with others — it’s a time to teach others a jig or two and spend time with my teammates on the Irish dance team.”

Meghan McGorty (CAS ’26), co-social chair for GUIAS and co-choreographer of the Irish Dance Team, said that campus appreciation of Irish dancing has enriched her Georgetown experience.

“I grew up Irish dancing and a ton of my classmates and friends had no Irish heritage at all,” McGorty wrote to The Hoya. “I love that Georgetown brings all students together to celebrate and students can (and should) get involved in whatever way they find most fun and enjoyable.”

In the past GUIAS has celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in a variety of ways, including selling green spirit gear and booking the Irish Dance team for club events.

Hartigan said that this year’s celebration of St. Patrick’s Day involves a host of dance performances throughout the weekend, but centers around the dance team’s performance on St. Patrick’s Day at Martin’s Tavern.

“This year, we will be dancing at various informal events through-

out the day on Saturday, and performing at Martin’s on Sunday at 6:30 and 9 p.m., so I encourage students in the area to come watch us dance,” Hartigan said.

McGorty said that St. Patrick’s Day is poignant for Irish Americans such as herself because it marks a day of visibility for the community on campus.

“I feel especially seen during the holiday at Georgetown because I’m known for being on the dance team, I wear Irish jewelry, and I tell a lot of people about my background dancing,” McGorty wrote.

Hartigan said that, although St. Patrick’s Day is particularly enjoyable for the members of GUIAS, the club does not limit their celebration to the Irish American community, as Irish heritage is not a requirement for celebrating Irish culture.

“Anyone can come to our events, regardless of whether they have Irish heritage!” Hartigan wrote. Shrutha Venkatesan (SFS ’26) does not have Irish ancestry but said that she enjoys celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, as it represents the strength of the Georgetown community.

“It’s so cool to me that we all collectively come together to celebrate a different culture in such a unique way,” Venkatesan wrote to The Hoya. “I love to see how committed everyone is.” While St. Patrick’s Day marks GUIAS’s most notable event, the society also hosts Irish Dance workshops with dancers of all experience levels. Hartigan said that the club also hosts a wide range of events beyond dance showcases and workshops.

“In the past, the Irish dance team has performed at Martin’s Tavern, tabled in Red Square, and done performances at various events throughout campus, including GAAP weekend events,” Hartigan wrote. “We’ve also hosted ‘Tea and TV’ events (during which we drink tea, eat snacks, and watch Derry Girls) and put together trivia events.”

Hartigan said that regardless of how students celebrate or their Irish ancestry, St. Patrick’s Day festivities are open to all.

“I often say that you don’t need to have Irish ancestry to be Irish — you just need to be Irish in your heart,” Hartigan said.

THE HISTORICAL MARKER DATABASE

Volunteers at the Humane Rescue Alliance (HRA), a local animal shelter and foster program in the District, raised concerns about animal safety conditions and the cleanliness at the facilities in a letter to the shelter’s board of directors.

Experts Talk Privacy, Data in the Age Of Artificial Intelligence at McCourt Event

Tristan Perkins Special to The Hoya Technology, policy and law experts provided critical insights regarding the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in everyday life in a March 12 conversation hosted by Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

The conversation was part of the “AI & Me” discussion series, which is coordinated by the McCourt School’s Massive Data Institute (MDI) and Tech and Policy Program and invites experts to discuss the future implications of AI on daily life through the lenses of privacy, equity and creativity. This iteration of the series focused on privacy and data, with professors, a lawyer and a policymaker discussing generative AI governance. MDI professor Amy O’Hara moderated the conversation.

Lisa Singh, the director of the MDI, said there are positives and negatives to the societal transformation AI is spearheading.

“We need to pause at this moment as a community and think about what AI means to each of us,” Singh said. Eric Null, who studies privacy and data at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a non-partisan non-profit that focuses on technology legislation, said AI is much more mundane than it can seem in media portrayals.

“When we talk about AI, I feel like a lot of people jump immediately to killer robots like an iRobot from a horror movie,” Null said at the event. “What we are talking about at this point are these software programs that are designed to intake a bunch of data about someone or something or the environment, and then you train that system to make decisions or recommendations on new prompts into that system.”

Jane Horvath, a lawyer who previously served as Apple’s chief privacy officer, Google’s global privacy counsel and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) first chief privacy counsel, discussed the tensions between

AI and existing privacy laws.

Horvath said minimizing the purposes companies collect user data for is a prominent struggle.

“When you are looking at training a model, and you have all this personal information that you’d like to collect to train your model, and particularly when you are looking at general purpose AI, how do you narrow down and minimize the data?”

Horvath said at the event “That is a tension: purpose limitation.”

Null said “opt-in” and “opt-out” policies within apps have protected customers’ data and limited nonconsensual data sales.

Ryan Hagemann, IBM’s global lead for AI policy, said there is a rise in advanced technology around the globe, and everyone wants to be at the forefront.

“There is an intense desire to be national leaders in AI,” Hagemann said at the event.

Muthu Venkitasubramaniam, an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown, said cryptography is key to protecting data.

“There are cryptographic enhancing techniques that will help you to minimize the data you share for the computation you need,” Venkitasubramaniam said at the event. “There is a beautiful cryptographic concept called ‘secure multiparty computation’ that allows all of us to share data jointly while keeping the inputs private.”

Null said asking for users’ specific consent maximizes data protection.

“If a company wanted to sell your data to a data broker, they’d have to ask you first, and if you didn’t respond or said no, then they wouldn’t be allowed to do it, and only if you said yes, they would be allowed to do it,” Null said.

However, Horvath said it can be difficult for users to fully consent to companies’ use of their data.

“How many of you all read the cookie consents that appear every time you try to load a page? Very few,” Horvath said. “And sometimes you read them and can’t understand them, and then get frustrated. The laws are there, but understanding how to exercise your rights is difficult.”

H*yas for Choice Raises Money to Help With Distribution of Menstrual Products

Ruth Abramovitz Special to The Hoya

H*yas for Choice (HFC) is fundraising throughout the month of March to purchase and distribute menstrual products to survivors of domestic and sexual violence in the Washington, D.C. area.

HFC, an on-campus abortion and reproductive rights organization that is officially unaffiliated with Georgetown University, is partnering with Georgetown’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter and the University of Maryland organization Pro-Choice Terps. The three groups are working with the District Alliance for Safe Housing (DASH), an organization that supports and empowers survivors of domestic abuse in the D.C. area by providing housing and other services, to help allocate menstrual resources to underserved communities.

Sophia Urdinola (SOH ’27), co-director for advocacy and organizing at HFC and an organizer of the drive, said that HFC partnered with DASH in particular to support communities that disproportionately lack access to period products.

“That’s why we want to work with DASH, specifically an organization that helps survivors of domestic violence and low income communities specifically, because those are the ones that are most targeted,” Urdinola told The Hoya

Through the end of March, students can use Paypal or Venmo to make monetary donations to the D.C. chapter of PERIOD., a national menstrual advocacy

organization. Donations will be used by PERIOD. to purchase menstrual products and other toiletries, which will then be allocated into care packages and delivered to DASH.

Stella Linn (CAS ’27), co-director for advocacy and organizing for HFC, said the organization’s goal is to raise awareness about period poverty, wherein menstruating persons cannot afford or find the basic hygiene products they need.

According to Linn, this topic is often absent from larger conversations around poverty.

“When people think about poverty, it’s not the first thing that comes to mind. And, you know, you see so many food drives or even like, clothing drives, when menstrual products are absolutely necessary. And they are really expensive, or they can be, especially for people in low income situations,” Linn told The Hoya

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), 16.9 million women who menstruate live in poverty in the United States, approximately two-thirds of whom are unable to regularly afford menstrual products.

Urdolina said that part of the problem with achieving equitable access to menstrual products is that menstruation is stigmatized instead of being treated as a regular bodily function.

“Most public restrooms have toilet papers for free, but they don’t have period products,” Urdinola told The Hoya. “Menstruation is a biological process. It’s not something that we can control. And it’s ultimately something that enables human life. And if all bathrooms are able to have free

toilet paper, why don’t we have free menstrual products?”

Urdinola added that period poverty can harm the mental and physical well-being of menstruating people.

“If you don’t have access to proper menstrual products, a lot of menstruators will turn to things like dirty cloths and dirty rags, and that leads to an increased susceptibility of negative health consequences like reproductive tract infections, urinary tract infections and human papillomavirus,” she said.

“Not having access to proper period products, that can like increase shame, depression and a lot of things which inadvertently increase period stigma,” she added.

Reilly Souther (CAS ’27), a donor to the drive, said that she contributed because she believes access to menstrual products is a basic right.

“Participating in this drive reaffirms the importance of menstrual equity: everyone who menstruates needs access to the necessary resources, regardless of their socioeconomic condition. I also think we have a responsibility to make menstrual products accessible and affordable to everyone,” Souther wrote to The Hoya

Linn said she encourages Georgetown students to participate in the menstrual product drive in order to support the D.C. community at large.

“We know that at Georgetown, we’re in such a place of privilege, and we should do something with that,” she said. “It’s not just a within-the-school drive. It’s getting out to the greater community and those underserved communities that really need these products.”

@GUWOMENSCENTER/INSTAGRAM

The event was part of the Women’s Center’s programming for Women’s History Month.

Women’s Center Discussion: Channeling Rage, Anger Through a Feminist Lens

Caleigh Keating Events Desk Editor

Campus community members discussed the intersection of rage and gender, along with how to productively use rage in activism and daily life, in a “Rage Dialogue” event hosted by the Georgetown University Women’s Center on March 12.

The discussion, led by African American Studies Department chair LaMonda Horton-Stallings, was a part of the Women’s Center’s Women’s History Month programming. The theme for the programming this year is “Rage Renaissance: Challenging Gendered and Racialized Narratives,” which seeks to understand and discuss collective feminist rage as a tool for activism.

Annie Selak, director of the Georgetown Women’s Center, said the center is committed to an intersectional discussion of anger and gender, centering on women’s lived experiences.

“We are examining the topic of rage for Women’s History Month. We are committed to focusing on an intersectional, lived approach,” Selak wrote to The Hoya “This month is an exploration of rage, anger, and emotion from a variety of experiences, lenses and angles,” she added.

At the event, Horton-Stallings spoke about how the way women are taught to deal with rage early on has lasting impacts on how they express rage today, creating barriers to collective activism.

“The way that we are taught to deal with rage impacts how we will do this collective feminist raging that’s being talked about for this month,” Horton-Stallings said at the event.

“Even thinking about this idea of examining rage through an intersectional lens and ways that controlling women’s emotions and especially our collective rage might reduce us, is to think about not just that the things that we are fighting make it

difficult for us to connect and collaborate, but even the ways that we are taught about rage early on create the initial things that inhibit that collective collaboration about rage.”

Ruqia AlAbduljader (GRD ’27) said she has observed varying stereotypes between men and women when it comes to rage, noting that while women are expected to hold their anger in, men are not.

“I think many of us have experienced this, where women are supposed to be soft and gentle and be polite and conduct yourself properly. And an extension of that is to not at least express your anger or hold it in quietly,” AlAbduljader said at the event.

“Whereas men were the ones who claimed rage as if it’s theirs, they’re the ones who are allowed. They are the ones who are allowed to be angry.”

Anger can be a productive emotion for men and women alike when handled correctly, according to the American Psychological Association, which says that while men and women handle anger differently and any extreme approach to anger is unhealthy, anger can be productive when handled directly and with problem-solving techniques.

Horton-Stallings said women are often only perceived as being civil if they hold in their anger rather than expressing their rage.

“There’s a bunch of things that women have to be angry about right now, but somehow we’re also the ones who are supposed to be accountable and not curse people out, or any of these things while people are making our lives unbearable,” Horton-Stallings said. “This question of how do we hold space for both of those things but also learn that sometimes, especially collectively, if we’re collectively trying to get something done, there’s no way we’ll be seen as the civilized group that’s not going to seem like we’re raging all the time.” AlAbduljader said that, while she

understands the fear that comes with confronting people and holding them accountable, she also sees the importance and necessity of doing so.

“We shouldn’t be scared to express our real opinions. I understand the fear, 100%, but at the same time, the world is only going to get better, in general, if people with good values speak about those values,” AlAbduljader said.

“One of the things that I feel like rage can move us to do is to educate other people around us. Even though it’s not our responsibility, but it might make the world easier for us to live in and navigate,” she added. Female rage has been depicted and studied widely in media and popular culture, whether through an NIH study, the TV series SheHulk, or best-selling books such as “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn.

AlAbduljader also said she came to realize how powerful and productive anger can be, referencing poet and activist Audre Lorde, who dedicated much of her career to writing about civil rights and feminism and famously believed there should be “no hierarchy of oppressions,” as an inspiration.

“Growing up, I realized how powerful rage is as an emotion. And this, for me, also comes from Audre Lorde. And I realized that anger can actually move us and make us productive.

And this is something that is very important to me now,” she said.

Horton-Stallings said her vast experiences in academia and from consuming available media have served to justify the anger she feels at times.

“There’s ways that, again, maybe if I was in a different field, I wouldn’t have the history to back up that my anger is justified, and that it might all be okay to express that,” Horton-Stallings said.

“They give us comfort that we’re not being unreasonable. If we’re seeing this in other things, in other kinds of spaces, whether that’s literature, television, podcasts, music, there’s some justification to some of that.”

TRISTAN PERKINS/THE HOYA

The discussion was part of a series that McCourt’s Massive Data Institute (MDI) and Tech and Policy Program organized.

SPORTS

GU’S ROAD TO THE BIG EAST WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONSHIP

Despite Loss at Championship Against UConn, Hoyas Proud of Journey

revealed itself. The Husky defense made a loud first impression as well, completely smothering the Hoyas’ passing lanes and swiping 3 steals in the first three minutes. Georgetown found itself down 9-0 with 6:54 left in the first quarter, forcing Haney to call a timeout.

Haney recognized that the boisterous Mohegan Sun crowd, flush with Husky blue, was impacting his players’ confidence in the early going.

“Them hitting shots and us not being in position and us not finishing some plays, I think we got a little rattled,” Haney said. “We had never been here before, so I think we got a little rattled. But I’m proud of their fight, man. We fought.”

Following the quick reset, UConn went on yet another run to extend their lead to 16-2, but the Hoyas began to string together some better plays. Senior guard Kelsey Ransom, graduate forward Mya Bembry and Bennett led a small 7-3 run, but as the quarter ended, Georgetown still trailed 28-11. Georgetown desperately needed to limit UConn’s damage — and the team did just that. Though the Huskies went on a 14-2 run to begin the period, shooting 72.2% from the field at that point, a series of substitutions woke up Georgetown’s defense.

Led by Ransom, senior guard Yasmin Ott and junior center Ariel Jenkins, the Hoyas shut down their opponents’ passing lanes and made crucial defensive stops to create more offensive opportunities. To end the half, Georgetown went on a 12-5 run of its own, cutting the deficit to 47-25.

The Hoyas had little time to catch up and played with far more physicality to begin the second half. Still, amid the numerous on-court collisions and tumbles, the Huskies remained comfortably ahead behind the stellar play of former National Player of the Year guard Paige Bueckers and standout forward Ice Brady, who combined for 40 points, 12 rebounds and 7 blocks on the night. As the scoreboard read 58-35 to open the fourth quarter, it was already too late for a Hoya comeback. Aside from a few highlight plays by Bembry and some valuable playing experience

for Georgetown’s second unit, UConn cruised to the final whistle to hoist its 22nd tournament title. Between their historic 22 wins on the season, the most for the program since the 201112 season, and the official hiring of Haney as Georgetown’s permanent head coach, the team has plenty to celebrate. Still, the Hoyas have unfinished business. “We’re not gonna wither; we’re not gonna crumble,” Haney said. “We’re gonna go at them every single day.”

“You get punched in the mouth,

you get knocked down, you’re gonna get back up,” he added. With the NCAA tournament selection show scheduled for this Sunday, Georgetown hopes its resume is good enough for one of the 68 March Madness berths. If they miss out, however, the Hoyas are likely to find themselves in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament (WNIT).

“Right now, it feels like we have a lot of basketball left to play,” Bennett said. “We’re gonna go one day at a time.”

GU Advances to Big East Tournament Semifinals, Defeats St. John’s 53-44

In the quarterfinals of the Big East women’s basketball tournament, the Georgetown University women’s basketball team (21-10, 9-9 Big East) matched up against the thirdseeded St. John’s Red Storm (17-14, 11-7 Big East), pulling the upset in a 53-44 win. In a game expected to be close — the teams split the season series, with each game decided by single digits — the Hoyas raced to an early 10-0 lead midway through the first quarter.

St. John’s, playing for the first time in ten days, was visibly rattled by the ferocious Georgetown defense. The Hoyas entered the game with the tenth-ranked nationally scoring defense, allowing only 54.4 points per game.

By the end of the first quarter, Georgetown led 17-7, having forced 5 St. John’s turnovers. The Hoyas’ offense was paced by senior guard and Big East Co-Defensive Player of the Year Kelsey Ransom, who scored 4 points on 2-8 shooting in the opening frame. With just over five minutes remaining in the second quarter, graduate forward Mya Bembry recorded a steal and put in the easy layup to push the Georgetown advantage to 13 points, up 23-10.

By the end of the half, the Red Storm clawed their way back within single digits, but the Hoyas

were firmly in charge, up 25-16. However, St. John’s emerged from the halftime break with a newfound fire behind forward Jillian Archer, who transferred from Georgetown in 2022. She finished the game with 16 points and 3 rebounds. An Archer layup with 6:18 remaining in the third quarter cut the Hoyas’ edge to 3, but smooth jumpers from Ransom and graduate forward Graceann Bennett nosed Georgetown further in front. At the end of the period, the Hoyas led 35-30.

Although St. John’s came within one possession again after a pair of made free throws by guard Unique Drake, Georgetown put its foot on the pedal in the fourth. Basket after basket by Bennett and Ransom gave the Hoyas a 4232 lead, and a dagger 3-pointer by sophomore guard Victoria Rivera with 5:16 remaining in the quarter all but sealed the game, as Georgetown led 47-34. With just over a minute left in the game, junior forward and Big East Sixth-Woman of the Year Brianna Scott scored a layup, putting the cherry on top of a strong team win.

On the day, Bennett tallied 16 points and 7 rebounds to go along with 1 block. Ransom added 13 points, 5 assists and 3 rebounds.

Georgetown’s defensive intensity was high throughout, holding St. John’s to a 36.6% shooting

Georgetown Secures Statement Win, Defeating No. 23 Creighton En Route to the Big East Final

lowest scoring output this season.

On what would have been late Head Coach Tasha Butts’

42nd birthday, the Georgetown women’s basketball team (2211, 9-9 Big East) defeated the No. 23 Creighton Bluejays (25-5, 15-3 Big East) 55-46 to advance to their first Big East tournament final in program history.

Upon learning that Butts’ birthday fell on March 10 while in the postgame press conference, graduate forward Graceann Bennett emphasized her influence on the team’s landmark year.

“What I know is true is how important and impactful Coach Tasha was for us in the spring and in our fall practices and how clear it was that our next step was just to get back in the gym and work as hard as we could in her honor,” Bennett said. “It’s how she started the program, the foundation that she set, and it became our responsibility to do it moving forward and do it out of love for her, for each other, and love and respect for the game.” Bennett also credited Head Coach Darnell Haney, who was recently promoted to the permanent position, for leading the team through what has been an emotional season. “He’s been incredible. I don’t know how he handled the situation the way that he did. I have nothing but just respect and gratitude for how he’s led our program in a situation like that, and to get where we are is really amazing. He’s been tremendous,” Bennett added.

Against Creighton, Georgetown played Haney’s defense-first style to a tee, controlling the pace of the game and holding the Bluejays to their

The game was scoreless for the first 2:21 before senior guard Kelsey Ransom gave the Hoyas a 2-0 lead. She would finish the game with 14 points and 6 assists, albeit on 7-20 shooting.

Midway through the first quarter, Georgetown and Creighton played to a 6-6 tie, both teams off to a slow offensive start.

By the end of the period, the Hoyas narrowly trailed the Bluejays 13-10. Despite pulling in 7 offensive rebounds in the first quarter alone, Georgetown was unable to turn those secondchance opportunities into points.

However, after a made jumper by Creighton forward Morgan Maly gave the Bluejays a 15-10 lead at the start of the second quarter, it was all Georgetown. The Hoyas unleashed a 9-0 run, punctuated by a 3-pointer by graduate guard Alex Cowan with 5:34 remaining in the half.

During that stretch, sophomore guard and primary 3-point threat Victoria Rivera exited the game to the bench with a right knee injury. She would later return in the third quarter.

At halftime, Georgetown led Creighton 26-23, as the Hoyas’ defense allowed the Bluejays to shoot just 31.3% from the field, including 2-13 from beyond the arc. Cowan was a bright spot for the Hoyas, scoring 9 points on 3-5 shooting from 3-point range, stepping up in Rivera’s momentary absence. She finished the game with 12 points and 4 rebounds. Coming out of the midgame break, Georgetown was incredibly impressive, going on a 10-0 scoring run, while holding Creighton scoreless to extend their lead to 36-23 with 6:50 remaining in the third quarter.

In an unusual and somewhat successful move, Creighton Head

Coach Jim Flanery pulled his entire starting lineup for the remainder of the quarter. The Bluejays cut the deficit to single digits by the end of the period, down 41-33. In the fourth quarter, play got increasingly more physical, but the Hoyas maintained their lead. With 2:57 remaining, Georgetown’s advantage was 48-37.

In a hard-to-watch moment with the win all but sealed for the Hoyas, junior forward and Big East Sixth Woman of the Year Brianna Scott exited the game in visible pain with a right leg injury.

Nonetheless, Georgetown secured the season’s statement win, defeating Creighton 55-46.

The Hoyas’ defense was particularly strong, holding the Bluejays to a dismal 26.3% shooting percentage over the entire game and collecting 43 rebounds to Creighton’s 28. Bennett led the way with 11 rebounds and 2 blocks to go along with 8 points. Graduate forward Mya Bembry also added 8 points and 10 rebounds.

Haney said that Georgetown’s defensive style of play was no accident.

“We’re a physical team. That’s what we are. That’s what we do,” Haney said. “We’re going to try to irritate you. You know that gnat that’s always around, just flying around your ear, always there, that pest? We don’t want to make it easy on you.”

Although the Hoyas fell to the No. 10 UConn Huskies (29-5, 18-0 Big East) 78-42 the following day in the Big East championship game, this season has been a landmark one for Georgetown. They have achieved their first 20-plus win season since 2012-13 and will likely be selected to the Women’s National Invitation Tournament (WNIT) for the first time since 2019.

Graduate forward Graceann Bennett had 11 rebounds, 8 points and 2 blocks against Creighton.

Hot-Handed Hoyas Advance Past Big East Tournament’s First Round

trailed 16-9 at the end of the period, converting just 3-of-15 field goal attempts.

percentage, including 2-14 from beyond the arc. Both of the Red Storm’s poorest offensive outings this season came against the Hoyas.

Georgetown was particularly dominant inside, collecting 11 offensive rebounds to St. John’s 5 and outscoring the Red Storm 32-12 in the paint.

Interim Head Coach Darnell Haney was pleased with the win, noting the team’s defensive presence was key.

“I think one of the biggest things that we harp on every single day is making sure we lock in on our defensive principles and the defensive game plan,” Haney said in a postgame press conference. “I’m happy for us, but it’s tournament time, man, so it’s next day, next play.”

In the team’s first Big East Tournament semifinal appearance since 2019, Georgetown will face off against the No. 21 Creighton Bluejays (254, 15-3 Big East) Mar. 10 at 5 p.m. In their lone matchup this season, the Bluejays emerged with a 77-72 victory in a scrappy game decided within the final five minutes.

“I just think we prepare to play a good team, right? But Creighton knows — I think Creighton knows that we’re a good team too, so we have to make sure that we’re prepared to go out and perform and go out and do things the Georgetown way,” Haney added. “We’ll be just fine.”

Just six days removed from a convincing win over Xavier, the Georgetown University women’s basketball team began its postseason march with a rematch — and showed that its previous success was not a fluke.

The sixth-seeded Hoyas (22-11, 9-9 Big East) scored a 62-40 victory over the 11th-seeded Musketeers (1-27, 0-18 Big East) in the first round of the 2024 Big East Tournament March 8. After rebounding from a quiet start, Georgetown rallied past Xavier with balanced offensive contributions across the roster and a record-setting third quarter defensive stand.

Head Coach Darnell Haney said the team found a way to rally around its core principles to earn the win.

“Kudos to our group. They persevered and came out the second quarter and played Georgetown basketball,” Haney said. “We have to do a better job of starting and finishing better than we started, and I think we’re ready to do that.”

Although Georgetown came in as heavy favorites for the game, Xavier had the upper hand in the early stages. Both teams got off to a slow start with the score tied 4-4 six minutes into the first quarter, but an 8-point Musketeer run fueled by two 3-pointers from guard Aizhanique Mayo helped Xavier break the initial deadlock. Just over a minute left in the quarter, however, Musketeer starting guard Daniela López suffered a head injury after drawing a foul and sat out the rest of the game. The Hoyas still

The Hoyas settled down coming out of the huddle, going on a blistering 14-2 run within the first four minutes of the second quarter. Even with a majority of Georgetown’s production coming from inside the paint, clutch 3-pointers from graduate guard Alex Cowan and junior forward Brianna Scott and a stellar jumper by senior forward Jada Claude helped the team stretch the floor more effectively.

The defense, too, found its groove, forcing bad shots by taking away quality passing options and penetration opportunities.

Georgetown contained Xavier to just 3-for-13 shooting from beyond the arc in the first half, with guard Mackayla Scarlett rendered largely ineffective as the offensive focal point.

As the referees were relatively lax in whistling fouls, both teams played with considerable physicality to eventually draw the half to a 30-24 close with the Hoyas in front. In a halftime interview with Big East Digital Network, Haney commended his squad for bouncing back from the tough first quarter showing.

“They calmed down, they were able to get some buckets that we missed earlier in the game, we started to make some,” Haney said. “We just gotta make sure we consistently defend them on a high level down there.”

The third quarter was nothing short of a defensive masterclass.

Georgetown limited Xavier to just 2 points in the quarter, a new Big East Tournament record, and 0-for-

8 field goal shooting. Senior guard Kelsey Ransom and Bembry were particularly impressive — beyond combining for 3 steals and 1 block, the two constantly converted defensive stops into transition scoring chances. Cowan, too, found her shooting form at just the right time, landing two 3-pointers in the quarter despite coming into the game on a 1-for-20 field goal slump.

Georgetown’s dominant 20-2 scoring advantage in the period opened up its lead to 50-26 at the end of the third quarter, all but securing the win.

The fourth quarter allowed Haney to give his second unit valuable playoff experience. Claude and senior guard Yasmin Ott turned in impressive showings as the Hoyas continued to keep pace with the Musketeers through the end of the game.

Ultimately, Georgetown’s success was the result of a balanced effort across the board, as evidenced by the team’s 37 bench points. Four players — Scott, Ransom, Bembry and Claude — had at least 10 points, while Cowan trailed just behind with 9 points of her own. The Hoyas also managed to force 18 Musketeer turnovers. Ransom’s 4 steals led the team, while Bembry contributed 3 steals and 1 block to continue an impressive season.

Georgetown proceeded to beat third-seeded St. John’s (17-14, 11-7 Big East) and second-seeded No. 23 Creighton (25-5, 15-3 Big East) before finally falling in its first-ever Big East Tournament championship against firstseeded No. 10 University of Connecticut (29-5, 18-0 Big East).

WBB, from A1

Daniel Greilsheimer Senior Sports Editor

GUHOYAS

Graduate forward Mya Bembry shoots a jumper. Bembry has been one of the team’s unsung heroes this season.

GUHOYAS

Oliver Ni Senior Sports Editor

Daniel Greilsheimer Senior Sports Editor

OUT OF LEFT FIELD

Since

HERMAN, from A12

In retrospect, the era of white flag-inducing closers retired alongside Rivera in 2013.

Since then, MLB teams have trended toward treating roster construction like a patchwork quilt. Designating a roster spot for a particular position is no longer the default. Instead, teams employ a number of flexible players whom they masterfully juggle depending on analytics and the situation. As a result, many MLB teams lack a traditional closer. Rather, they tap any one of their relievers to pitch the ninth.

Even the team that staunchly continues to resist the crashing tide of modernization in baseball — my Yankees — has accepted this “closer by committee” approach. Last season, manager Aaron Boone responded to a reporter’s question about the team’s closer by asserting that he saw “a number of guys getting saves.”

It is as if teams witnessed the invincible Mariano Rivera, threw

player, as the Yankees could.

In a way, it’s understandable. Maybe the magic was not a product of the closer role itself, but a reflection of Rivera’s sheer invulnerability.

And maybe teams are right to believe that there will never be another closer who can measure up to Mariano Rivera. But they are wrong to deny players that chance to try — and fans that chance to watch one. Rivera did not become indestructible overnight. The Yankees originally viewed him as a starting pitcher — and at first, a rather mediocre one. Their ownership even came inches away from trading him to the Seattle Mariners for little in return.

But instead, they gave him a chance. They let him develop his unhittable cutter and grow into his role as a closer — and he eventually became the most effective relief pitcher in history.

Teams today fail to provide their blossoming pitchers with the same opportunity. By shifting away from employing a designated closer, they mistakenly prioritize current convenience at the expense of future talent.

Simply put, I ask teams to have some patience.

They must realize that to build a legacy — the kind of dynasty that Rivera played for as a Yankee at the turn of the millennium — they cannot give up on players at the slightest sign of imperfection.

The next mission to the moon is scheduled for 2025, and I hope that before the astronauts take off, they will have had the privilege to witness the emergence of the next Mariano Rivera.

And maybe, by the time we make it to Mars, he will already be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

PROVIDENCE, from A12

dominated over the last three minutes of play, ending the game on a 10-0 run to seal the 74-56 victory. Carter was instrumental in the Friars’ push to the finish, tallying 5 points, 2 rebounds and 1 steal in those final few minutes.

Shooting woes plagued the Hoyas throughout the game — the team ended the game with a 40.7% field goal percentage, including 8-24 shooting from beyond the 3-point arc — but their free throw shooting was particularly dismal, representing missed opportunities for points throughout what was a closer second half.

Georgetown shot 4-19 from the charity stripe, including 2-14 in the second half. That put the team’s free throw percentage — 21.1% — markedly lower than their 33.3% 3-point percentage.

Epps finished with a game-high 30 points, his seventh 30-plus point performance of the season and the highest Hoya output in the Big East tournament since Jeff Green (COL ’12) in 2007, but Georgetown struggled to find offense when the ball was not in his hands. Epps was the only Hoya to score in double figures.

Epps said Cooley’s game plan focused on exploiting his sharpshooting skills.

“My teammates were finding me. Obviously it wasn’t enough for us to get the win,” Epps said in a postgame press conference. “He dialed me up. And whenever it’s called, I try to deliver.”

At the end of his first season at the helm of the Georgetown program, Cooley was candid about the team’s struggles and the road ahead.

“This has been a very challenging year, an emotional year. I wish I could have done

a much better job with them over the course of the 32 games we played,” he said in the postgame press conference. “It didn’t turn out the way we wanted, but it’s an opportunity for us to grow, get better.” With a strong recruiting class committed and some transfer pieces expected, Cooley said he hopes to continue to build off this season’s key players in his second season. “Obviously, we gotta add some

pieces. Right?” he added. “We have a really young core that’s coming in. You know, we feel we have a good nucleus, so there will be some carryover.”

However, Cooley shared a message for students and fans as the program continues its rebuild, urging them to remain faithful.

“Stay with us,” he told The Hoya after the game. “Trust what we’re doing, it’s hard. Our actions will speak louder than our words as we continue to build our team.”

Hoyas Remain Undefeated at Capital One Park BASEBALL

GUHOYAS

The Georgetown baseball team had a huge day against Cornell at home at Capital One Park, putting up a combined 44 runs in the March 10 doubleheader sweep. The team faces the University of Albany this weekend in a three-game series.

CORNELL, from A12

walking the bases loaded, Ficca greeted Big Red reliever Ethan Hamill with a single. Smith then cleared the bases with a triple, giving the Hoyas a 10-0 lead. Next, Hollerbach grounded one to third, appearing to mark the end of the inning. However, Cornell’s third baseman’s throw sailed over the outstretched glove of the first baseman, allowing 2 more runs to score. After the fourth, the Hoyas had extended their lead to 12-0.

The fifth inning spelled more trouble for Cornell. Hyde led off with a single. Another single put two men on for Ficca, who unloaded on a fastball, sending

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a laser over the right field wall. His second three-run home run of the day and fourth homer of the season gave the Hoyas a 15-0 advantage. Georgetown scratched 2 more runs across the plate before the end of the inning, further extending the lead to 17. Graduate right-handed pitcher Cody Jensen worked a clean top half of the sixth before the Hoya offense struck once more. Thompson emptied the bench again, allowing for several atypical contributors. Junior outfielder Jaden Sheffield singled with the bases loaded to score Georgetown’s 18th run. Graduate utility player Marco Castillo, pinch-hitting for Hollerbach, singled home

Bauer and Gilio, making it an even 20 for Georgetown.

Sunday marked the first time in program history that Georgetown had scored at least 20 runs in consecutive contests. Sophomore right-handed pitcher Kai Leckszas picked up the last 3 innings, not allowing any runs while striking out 2. He recorded his second save of the season and has not allowed an earned run over his last 6 innings. Georgetown’s 20-0 victory in game two marked the first shutout of the season for the Hoyas.

Perhaps this performance came as a result of the Hoyas’ heartbreaking loss on March 5 to the No. 1 Wake Forest Demon Deacons. In what was a win-

nable game thanks to a strong start from senior lefty Everett Catlett, the Hoyas tallied 8 errors, letting the game slip away and ultimately losing 11-9.

Thompson recognized this truth in a postgame press release.

“What a great day for our team,” Thompson told Georgetown Athletics. “To come back after Tuesday’s game, and not playing a couple days, to do what we did was great.”

Following a perfect week on the road with wins against George Washington and the University of Delaware, Georgetown will return to Capital One Park to take on the University of Albany in a three-game series from March 15 to 17.

Suarez’s incredible consistency and accolades between 2011 and 2020 earn him my selection for the best overall career aside from Messi and Ronaldo. With elite scoring prowess and the ability to play in possession, Suarez is the most complete striker of our generation. He boasts 280 goals and consistent postings of a 7.80 average match rating per season between 2011 and 2020. Suarez’s success with Uruguay in the 2011 Copa America and remarkable trophy cabinet — courtesy of his five league titles with Barcelona, one Champions League title, four Copa Del Rey victories, one FA Cup with Liverpool

and two golden boots between the Premier League and La Liga — give him an outstanding list of awards to go along with his consistent greatness. Besides Suarez, three other players with consistent and outstanding careers come to mind: longtime Real Madrid players Sergio Ramos and Luka Modric and Bayern Munich’s Manuel Neuer. Admittedly, quantifying their value to a team as a defender, midfielder and goalkeeper, respectively, is harder, but each player’s accolades speak for themselves. Modric’s 2018 season was good enough to steal the Ballon d’Or away from Messi, and his five Champions League titles cemented him as the best midfielder of the 2010s. Similar to Modric, Sergio Ramos’ consistency defines his greatness. Largely

recognized as the best defender of our generation, Ramos shares four of Modric’s five Champions Leagues but distinguishes himself with a World Cup victory in 2010. The only goalkeeper to place in the top three for Ballon d’Or voting in our generation, Manuel Neuer makes a case for best career as well.

Despite the achievements of these titans of modern football, Luis Suarez still takes the crown as my selection for the third-best overall career of our generation. It is difficult to decide whether a player’s career as a whole or their peak years should be more relevant in deciding who the thirdbest player of our generation is. But for now, I’ll call it a draw between Neymar’s prime and the consistent greatness that defined Luis Suarez’s entire career.

The Argument For Dominant Closers in MLB Games Today

entrance music, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”

See HERMAN, A11

BASEBALL

No. 11 Georgetown (4-2) vs. Dartmouth

Tuesday, 3 p.m.

Cooper Field

The

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Christian Baldari and Daniel Greilsheimer Deputy Sports Editor and Senior Sports Editor

In a hotly anticipated matchup, the Georgetown University men’s basketball team capped off their season with a loss to the Providence Friars, first-year Head Coach Ed Cooley’s former team, falling 74-56 in Madison Square Garden in the first round of the Big East Tournament March 13. Before the game, Friars fans met Cooley, who was at the helm at Providence for 12 seasons, with jeers. But it was more than their fans’ support which propelled Providence (21-12, 10-10 Big East) to victory over Georgetown (9-23, 2-18 Big East). Rather, it was Georgetown’s unbalanced offense and lack of discipline on defense. Sophomore guard Jayden Epps

scored Georgetown’s opening 7 points, a trend which would become the story of the game for the Hoyas. Despite his output, Georgetown’s slow rotations and soft on-ball defense allowed Providence to get off to a 20-7 start with just under 13 minutes remaining in the first half.

However, the Hoyas matched the strong Friar start with a 14-8 run of their own to cut the lead to seven points with 9:25 left in the first half. But of those 14 points, Epps contributed 9, displaying Hoyas’ offensive imbalance.

Time and again, the Hoyas’ offense relied on Epps to make plays, and in the first half he frequently answered the call. The rest of the team, however, could not say the same, fostering an unimaginative, static offense.

The 7-point deficit was the closest Georgetown would get the rest of the game. From that

point, with 9:25 remaining in the first half, Providence marched to a 12-6 run to head into the locker room with a 40-27 lead.

Although Providence guard

Devin Carter was crowned Big East Player of the Year earlier in the day, much of the Friars’ firsthalf offense ran through forward Josh Oduro, who had 9 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists in the opening frame. On offense, the Hoyas looked like a one-man show starring Epps. Although Epps had 19 points in the first half, Cooley would need to get more out of his supporting cast in the second half if the Hoyas were to turn the game around. Friars’ firsthalf offense ran through forward Josh Oduro, who had 9 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists in the opening frame.

Out of the gates of the second half, Providence was hot, scoring

five straight on their way to a 4527 lead with 18:25 remaining. The scoring run forced Cooley to call a timeout to reset the defense, installing a somewhat successful full-court press. Georgetown countered with a 13-4 run over the next four minutes to bring the deficit to single digits, trailing 49-40. During the stretch, the Hoyas were led by Epps, who tallied 6 points, with a highlight reverse dunk coming from junior guard Dontrez Styles off an alley-oop pass from first-year guard Rowan Brumbaugh. Although a series of defensive stops provided the Hoyas with a chance to claw their way back, the team was unable to capitalize on the additional possessions. With 10:50 remaining, the Friars took a decisive 55-41 lead, behind 3-point makes by Oduro and guard Ticket Gaines.

Oduro torched the Hoyas for 20 points and 9 rebounds on the day, acting as a matchup nightmare for Georgetown forwards senior Supreme Cook and first-year Drew Fielder. No one on the Hoyas’ roster could match Oduro’s 6-foot-9, 240-pound frame, as he drew 9 fouls and consistently found open 3-point looks for his teammates. With 6:28 remaining in the second half, two Oduro free throws gave Providence a 63-47 lead.

However, Georgetown rallied back and countered with a 9-1 run of its own to bring themselves within eight points, down 64-56 with 3:43 left to play. Fielder was impressive during this frame, recording all 8 of his points on two 3-pointers and a layup.

Nonetheless, the Friars

See PROVIDENCE, A11

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addition, first-year middle infielder Blake Schaaf walked twice with the bases loaded to record 2 RBI. The Hoyas went quiet in the third inning before tacking on another 7 runs over the next 3 innings. Graduate third baseman Joe Hollerbach, facing his former team, drove in 2 runs with a single in the fourth, his fourth and fifth RBIs of the contest.

In the fifth, senior first baseman Christian Ficca, also coming off of a selection to the Big East Weekly Honor Roll, blasted a 3-run homer. In the sixth, Eze tripled in Schaaf, his third extra-base hit of the game and fifth RBI.

Owen Reid

Hoya Sports Columnist

Undoubtedly, the two best players of our generation are Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo (in that order). They have by far the most goal contributions, and the strongest accolades and have demonstrated a peak and consistency better than anyone over the last 15 years.

as “best,” I think of the extent to which players play their position better than their contemporaries and the ability to win their team a game on their own.

The southpaw twirled a scoreless 5 innings, striking out 2 while only allowing 3 hits and 2 walks.

Cornell’s starting pitcher Carson Mayfield needed just 6 pitches to sit the Georgetown offense down in the first inning. However, the Hoyas responded with 16 runs in the second, chasing Mayfield out of the game after lasting just 1 and 1/3 innings.

In an inning where the Hoyas batted around not once, but twice, junior catcher Owen Carapellotti recorded 3 hits and 4 runs batted in (RBI). Senior shortstop Michael Eze, breaking out of a 6-43 slump, then hit a pa ir of 2-run doubles. In

First-year right-handed pitcher Jack Volo turned in a scoreless sixth inning. Sophomore left-handed pitcher Andrew Jergins replaced Volo to start the seventh, but gave up a leadoff single, snowballing into 6 runs for Cornell. Sophomore right-handed pitcher Andrew Citron relieved Jergins with one out to end the inning, with Georgetown leading 23-6.

In the eighth, first-year middle infielder Ashton Gilio singled in sophomore first baseman Luke Bauer to bring Georgetown’s total tally to 24 runs. Graduate right-handed pitcher Ayden Head pitched a clean ninth to close the book on the first game, securing a huge 24-6 victory for the Hoyas. The blowout allowed Head Coach Edwin Thompson to empty his bench, with 23 different Hoyas see-

ing action. Of note, first-year catcher Braxton Templin earned his first collegiate plate appearance.

First-year left-handed pitcher Marcello Mastroianni got the ball in the second game. In his prior start against FDU, Mastroianni pitched 5 innings of one-run ball, ultimately picking up his first collegiate win.

He was masterful again against Cornell, recording 3.1 innings before allowing a hit, the only one he would give up across 5 scoreless innings. He walked 1 and struck out 5, winning his second consecutive start and earning a selection to the Big East Weekly Honor Roll.

The Georgetown offense wasted no time jumping on Cornell’s pitching. Two walks and a single loaded

the bases for graduate outfielder Derek Smith, who walked to plate the Hoyas’ first run. In the next atbat, graduate outfielder Kavi Caster hit what looked like a lazy fly ball to right field. However, powerful gusts carried the ball over the fence, adding a grand slam to the lead. Thanks to Caster’s first home run this season, Georgetown entered the second inning with a 5-0 advantage. Both sides went quiet until the fourth, when the Hoyas put up another crooked number. Senior outfielder Jake Hyde doubled in Hollerbach, prompting Cornell to remove their starter, William Jaun. After See CORNELL, A11

In short, Messi and Ronaldo really only rival each other. That begs the question, though: if we take those two players out of the equation, who is the third-best player of our generation?

Let’s start with some definitions: when I say “of our generation,” I mean the time since 2008, when Ronaldo won his first Ballon d’Or, the annual award that goes to the top footballer in the world, and Pep Guardiola took over as manager of Barcelona, until now. The marker “best” has a little more nuance. In this article, I will draw a distinction between a player’s peak (around one to two isolated years) and a career as a whole, and I will present candidates for both avenues before ultimately choosing two players. To identify players who qualify

Peak: Neymar Jr. achieved his peak years during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons. In his final season at Barcelona, Neymar averaged an absurd, league-leading 8.52 match rating across 30 games, according to WhoScored. com, tallying 13 goals and 11 assists in La Liga. He also equaled Messi with an average match rating of 8.24 across nine Champions League appearances. This amazing season prompted a record €222 million transfer to Paris Saint-Germain, where he debuted in Ligue 1 with an 8.95 average match rating in league play, a number that no player has surpassed with a minimum of 20 appearances since 2008. Though Neymar did achieve the highest match rating of anyone in our generation for a single season, there is something to be said about the lack of quality in Ligue 1 compared to other leagues.