GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD SINCE 1920 thehoya.com
Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 95, No. 24, © 2013
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013
DC FOOTBALL FUROR A debate over Washington’s team name grabs national headlines.
GUIDE, B1
EDITORIAL The editorial board presents 10 ways to test the status quo of finals.
SURPLUS The university posted a budget surplus for the first time in 11 years.
SAN JUAN SHOCKER Northeastern stuns GU in the quarterfinals of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off.
NEWS, A6
OPINION, A2
SPORTS, B8
Tavern License Up for Grabs Kit Clemente Hoya Staff Writer
For the first time in 20 years, a tavern liquor license is now available for a Georgetown restaurant. A tavern liquor license, as opposed to a restaurant liquor license, allows an establishment to rely more on alcohol sales. Restaurant liquor licenses mandate that food sales account for at least 45 percent of gross annual receipts, which requires a quarterly report sent to the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. The number of tavern or night-
EUGENE ANG/THE HOYA
Gypsy Sally’s on K Street is first in line for a tavern license.
In NHS, Part-Time Flip-Flop
club licenses in Georgetown is capped at six because the neighborhood is designated as an alcoholic beverage control moratorium zone, as are Adams Morgan, East Dupont Circle, West Dupont Circle and Glover Park. The number of tavern licenses for each moratorium zone varies, but other areas of the District do not carry any restrictions. Currently, Chadwick’s, El Centro D.F., Modern, Blue Gin and Rhino hold tavern licenses. El Centro was able to inherit Third Edition’s license when it took over its location earlier this year. There are no nightclub licenses in the neighborhood. Saloun, which was located at 3239 M St. NW before it closed in October 2011, held the sixth license. Establishments can still keep liquor licenses after closing, as is the case with Blue Gin, which closed in November 2008, and Saloun did not give up its license until this year. The restaurant did not apply for renewal by the Sept. 30 deadline, and the ABRA cancelled the license Oct. 30. “Restrictions have temporarily been lifted on alcoholic beverage licenses for taverns in the Georgetown Historic District,” ABRA announced in an online press release Nov. 13. “Taverns located in the Georgetown Historic District are permitted to transfer alcoholic beverage licenses to new own-
ers and new locations within the area. An existing restaurant in the historic district will also be able to apply to become a tavern or nightclub in the neighborhood.” Applications are available online and will be considered by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board on a first-come, first-serve basis. As of press time, two Georgetown restaurants, Gypsy Sally’s, at 3401 K St. NW, and Smith Point, at 1338 Wisconsin Ave. NW, have submitted applications for a tavern liquor license, in that order. Applicants must undergo a background investigation that includes a criminal history check. “Because I personally am the person who’s doing all of the administrative work for those reports that have to be done, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, wouldn’t this be great if I didn’t have to do this any longer?’” Gypsy Sally’s co-owner Karen Ensor said. “Having a tavern license, you don’t have to have any filing requirements, so I thought it would be a nice relief to not have to do that.” Although a tavern license would alleviate the pressure of meeting the food sales restriction, Ensor said that it would not change the restaurant’s overall business plan, which combines food, alcohol and live music. “We have no intention of changing our business plan because See LICENSE, A6
OH, THAT’S A HOYA
Hoya Staff Writer
See NHS, A6
ALEXANDER BROWN/THE HOYA
@thehoya
Legendary English Professor Knoll Dies Kayla Cross Hoya Staff Writer
One word comes up in every conversation about Wayne Knoll: love. An English professor and former Jesuit priest, Knoll, 80, died Nov. 10 after a three-month battle with an incurable and inoperable cancerous tumor. He joined the Georgetown faculty in 1972 and taught here for 41 years. “Wayne said that the most satisfying element of being human and being alive is to love, to love others and to be loved,” Knoll’s wife, Rev. Anne Gehman, said. Raised in Kansas, Knoll grew up with the tradition of the Catholic Church. He was gifted academically from a young age and finished all the books in his middle school library two years before he graduated eighth grade. He joined the Jesuit order before attending St. Louis University and then Harvard University for his doctorate in literature. Throughout his studies, Knoll developed the singular dream of teaching at Georgetown. It was the only place he applied when searching for a job. “I have never known any person with more single-minded purpose than Dr. Knoll. His goal was to become a professor of literature at Georgetown University,” Knoll’s biographer, Suzanne Giesemann, said. “He would not have settled for anything else.” At Georgetown, students and colleagues adored him for his commitment to his work. Recognized for his talent for teaching literature, Knoll was honored
with the Edward B. Bunn Award, given annually by the senior class, for excellence in teaching in 2006. His classes, including “Faulkner” and “Eliot’s Waste Land,” were among the most popular in the Department of English every semester. While at Georgetown, Knoll made an enormous change: He left the Jesuit priesthood more than 25 years ago and later married Gehman, who is a worldrenowned psychic medium. Gehman described herself and her husband as soul mates, recalling their routine of beginning each morning with a meditation and a reading, whether from a philosophical book, a scientific work or scripture. She said they were brought together by their love for God and the REV. ANNE GEHMAN Widow of Wayne Knoll “spiritual pathway of life” they shared. “We have a totally different philosophical understanding,” she said. “He was very Catholic, while I’m more of a Universalist and accept truth in all the world religions. But it never made a difference to us that we had that difference, because we honored that in one another.” Knoll’s life and transition from the priesthood was recorded in Giesemann’s biography “The Priest and the Medium,” which was published in 2009. “When I interviewed him and asked him what it was like to leave the priesthood, he couldn’t talk about it. He had blanked it out of his mind,”
“In his heart and soul, he was always a Jesuit priest.”
Kit Clemente The School of Nursing & Health Studies approved part-time status for the spring semester Thursday for all 26 students who applied for it, two weeks after denying that request to the majority of applicants. “After careful review of those petitions, some were granted, and some were not,” NHS Assistant Dean for Enrollment Management Marianne Lyons wrote in an email to The Hoya on Nov. 13. “We carefully evaluate those requests and typically grant them for compelling reasons, such as a medical situation, family issues and a desire to perform, in keeping with Georgetown’s Catholic, Jesuit values, community service.” Students who were initially denied part-time status said that administrators originally portrayed the petition process as less rigorous than they did after the denial. “They gave us a piece of paper, and what I was told when they gave us the petition was, ‘Don’t worry, this is just a technicality, we rarely reject people,’ so I filled out the petition
COURTESY ANNE GEHMAN
Wayne Knoll arrived in 1972 at Georgetown, where he was a beloved member of the faculty for more than four decades. He died of cancer Nov. 10.
NATASHA THOMSON/THE HOYA
Fr. Kevin O’Brien, S.J., speaks at the first What’s a Hoya? seminar for freshmen looking for housing points Wednesday.
See KNOLL, A6
For Mayoral Race, Students Take a Stand Ashley Miller Hoya Staff Writer
As the D.C. mayoral race heats up, Students for a Better D.C. is working to ensure that candidates keep universities’ interests in mind. The newly founded student organization is reaching out to mayoral candidates with policy ideas that would benefit students and the wider D.C. population. “D.C. is right in the middle of the election process. Everything is kind of fluid, everything is kind of in transition,” member Sarah Rabon (COL ’16) said. “Since it is going to be transitioning to a new direction, depending on who is elected, we wanted to branch out to all the people who could potentially be leaders of D.C. in the near future.” The group is pushing for a more precise noise ordinance than the
Disorderly Conduct Amendment Act of 2010. According to the law, unreasonably loud noise is prohibited between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. if it disturbs other residents, although a decibel restriction is not specified. The group also plans to advocate for a higher education mayoral advisory board that would provide students with a direct channel to the mayor. “It would be basically a panel of students who the mayor could consult with if he wanted to know how a young person would view an issue or if there was an issue that a community member wanted and he wanted to know how a young person would feel about that issue, it would be a board that he could consult,” member and Georgetown University Student Association Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Peterson (COL ’14) said. Member Olivia Hinerfield (SFS ’17), Published Tuesdays and Fridays
however, questioned whether candidates would implement student-created policies. “So far, they have all been very receptive, but one of the hardest parts about it is that the majority of Georgetown students are not registered to vote in D.C., and so while they are representing us as mayor, we are not going to help them get elected,” Hinerfield said. Nevertheless, Peterson stressed that students are a vital resource for the District that is severely underutilized. “Students and young people are a really great resource in terms of our time,” Peterson said. “Even though we tend to not have as much money, but in terms of our time to volunteer and our voting, we can be really powerful in D.C.” Students for a Better D.C. follows in the footsteps of force student advocacy group D.C. Students Speak,
which was founded in 2009. According to Trevor Tezel (SFS ’15), former DCSS Georgetown chair and current Students for D.C. member, DCSS was primarily formed to represent student voices in the formation of campus plan agreements at local universities, primarily American University, The George Washington University and Georgetown. Tezel said that the organization has largely disassembled and many members have since graduated, although representatives from each school meet approximately once a month to discuss student issues. “They are pretty similar, and they’re going to the same goals, but I think the battlefield has changed a bit,” Tezel said about DCSS and Students for a Better D.C. “The issues are a bit different.” See CAMPAIGN, A6
Send Story Ideas and Tips to news@thehoya.com