The Hoya: September 11, 2015

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD SINCE 1920 thehoya.com

Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 97, No. 3, © 2015

FridAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

FALL SPORTS PREVIEW 2015 An in-depth look at what’s on deck for fall’s slate of Big East and Patriot League sports.

TABLOID

Vets Ranking Slips With New Methodology

Oct. 28, 2011 Campaign begins

Kristen Fedor Hoya Staff Writer

While Georgetown remains at the 21st spot on U.S. News & World Report’s National Universities Ranking list, the university dropped from first to 16th on the Best Colleges for Veterans list. The 2016 Best Colleges rankings were released Wednesday.

Richard Hare, a representative from U.S. News, attributed the dramatic shift in rankings for veterans to changes in the organization’s methodology.

Institutions qualified for the 2016 rankings if they are certified for both the G.I. Bill and a participant in the Yellow Ribbon Program, a post-9/11 bill that pays full tuition and fees for veterans at public schools and a considerable portion of tuition at private universities.

From there, eligible schools were listed in order according to their placement on the overall National Universities Ranking list.

“There is no quantitative or qualitative measure of how much of a resource is being given to student veterans.”

CAPT. Jim Perkins (GRD ’16) President, Georgetown University Student Veterans Association

Missing from this year’s criteria to make the list was a third requirement that an institution must belong to the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges Consortium, an organization formed in 1972 to further aid student veterans. As it disbanded this past year, this standard was removed from U.S. News’ methodology, resulting in a rise from 311 to 721 schools eligible for the list.

Although Georgetown fits the above criteria, the addition of several hundred schools to the list resulted in a ranking drop.

Georgetown’s Veterans Office Director LeNaya Hezel pointed to the changes in methodology and did not express any disappointment with the drop in ranking.

“We are honored to be recognized in the ‘Best Colleges for Veterans’ category and to provide opportunities See RANKINGS, A7

NORTHEAST TRIANGLE Slated to open Fall 2016, the new dorm was topped off this week.

EDITORIAL Georgetown must safeguard all facets of athletes’ wellbeing.

NEWS, A7

OPINION, A2

Nov. 1, 2012

Feb. 11, 2014

April 1, 2015

$20M anonymous gift launches the Georgetown Environment Initiative

Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation opens with $10M endowment

$4M gift founds and endows the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice

August 2015 Goal reached

Oct. 29, 2011

Oct. 8, 2013

September 2014

April 23, 2015

June 30, 2016

$10M gift from campaign chair William Doyle (CAS ’72), of Potash Corp, endows the Doyle Engaging Difference Initiative

McCourt School of Public Policy launched with largest single gift in Georgetown history ($100M) by Frank McCourt Jr (CAS ’75)

Healey Family Student Center opens, partially funded by the Healey family

Steers Center for Global Real Estate funded by a $10M donation by the Steers family

Campaign ends

Capital Campaign Hits $1.5B Target Milestone comes a year early; fundraising project will end June 2016 Ashwin Puri Hoya Staff Writer

The university’s capital campaign, “For Generations to Come: The Campaign for Georgetown,” has passed its goal of $1.5 billion, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

University President John J. DeGioia announced the milestone, which was hit at the end of August, in a university-wide email yesterday.

Launched in October 2011, the project is divided into four objectives: ensuring access for students, enhancing student life and community experience, pursuing transformative opportunities and promoting faculty excellence and academic excellence.

In a statement to The Hoya, DeGioia emphasized the immense accomplishment that this milestone represents.

“We began this campaign by setting out a new and ambitious goal for our university — a recognition of the extraordinary commitment to service and leadership that defines the Georgetown community,” DeGioia wrote.

DeGioia said that the goal was achieved thanks to a large amount of donations from alumni, parents and other donors over the past few years.

“I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the 100,000 alumni and other donors who have shown their support during this campaign and have helped to share and shape our vision for Georgetown’s future,” DeGioia

wrote.

The campaign has raised $373 million for student scholarships — quadrupling past annual results — and has increased alumni participation in annual giving by nearly 40 percent.

“We want to keep building momentum until the very end.”

WILLIAM DOYLE (CAS ’72) Chair, Campaign for Georgetown

So far, the campaign has endowed and established multiple centers, buildings and programs at Georgetown, including the McCourt School of Public Policy in 2013, the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation in 2014, the Steers Center for Global Real Estate in May 2015 and the John R. Thompson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Center, slated to open August 2016.

The milestone comes with a renewed emphasis from university officials to increase Georgetown’s endowment, which was valued at $1.4 billion at the end of the 2014 fiscal year. Since then, parts of the endowment have been allocated toward specific projects.

According to William Doyle (CAS ’72), current chair of the uni-

versity’s board of directors and chair of the Campaign for Georgetown, the campaign still has to expand its funding for financial aid.

“There are still several important objectives to accomplish, most notably scholarships and financial aid, which benefit every single aspect of the entire university,” Doyle wrote on the university website in a post published yesterday.

The campaign will continue to solicit contributions until June 30, 2016, focusing on two priorities — raising $500 million for student scholarships and seeking an overall 35 percent undergraduate alumni participation rate.

Undergraduate involvement in the campaign has been particularly evident through the “One for Georgetown” campaign by the 1634 Society, an organization founded in 2011 with the goal of increasing young alumni giving through garnering initial donations from current students. Another major initiative that has contributed to the funding is Phonathon, in which students call alumni to ask for donations.

With large-scale fundraising efforts beginning only in the 1970s, Georgetown has a relatively modest endowment, in contrast with academically comparable universities.

According to a 2014 NACUBO-Commonfund Study on Endowments, the University of See FUNDRAISING, A7

Global Futures Series Returns Hellman makes public debut; theme focuses on governance Owen Eagan Hoya Staff Writer

REMEMBERINGRABBIWHITE.TUMBLR.COM

Rabbi Harold S. White was the first full-time Jewish chaplain at a U.S. Catholic university, and oversaw the foundation of the PJC.

Rabbi White, 83, Built Jewish Life, Programs Toby Hung

Hoya Staff Writer

Upon descending the stairs to the second floor of the Intercultural Center, a quaint but easily overlooked sculpture can be observed toward the right wall. The bronze statue depicts a scene in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, in which the titular character embraces his father after returning from a path of rebellion.

Only a handful of people know that the statue was brought to Georgetown

by former Senior Jewish Chaplain Rabbi Harold S. White, who approached its sculptor, Barry Woods Johnston, in 1983. To many members of the community, White himself charted an iconoclastic path at the university.

As the first full-time Jewish chaplain at a Catholic university in the United States, White persistently defied traditional boundaries set by religious and political doctrines. He sought a deeper connection and understanding

Newsroom: (202) 687-3415 Business: (202) 687-3947

School of Foreign Service Dean Joel Hellman made his first public appearance Wednesday at the inauguration of the second semester of the Global Futures Initiative lecture series in Gaston Hall.

Hellman spoke on overcoming governance issues, and his speech was followed by a discussion with Stéphane Dujarric (SFS ’88), spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The event, entitled “Challenges to Global Governance,” ushered in this semester’s series topic — the global future of governance.

Vice President for Global Engagement Thomas Banchoff, who leads the Global Futures Initiative, introduced the mission of the event.

“We had two goals: to introduce Dean Hellman to the SFS and the wider university community and also kick off the second semester of the Global Futures Initiative,” Banchoff said.

The major focus of Hellman’s remarks was the issue of development within the world’s “fragile states” — defined as such because of the lack of objective standards of institution-

al quality and the presence of peacekeeping forces or conflict.

According to Hellman, these 33 nations are spread across four continents and include developing countries like Haiti, South Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq. These countries pose significant chal-

lenges to global development as a result of their instability.

“This group of fragile states is really sort of the source of many of the major issues that are affecting us today,” Hellman said.

See INITIATIVE, A7

KATHLEEN GUAN/THE HOYA

SFS Dean Joel Hellman spoke at the first event of the second iteration of the series, alongside Stéphane Dujarric (SFS ’88).

FEATURED NEWS Deal Duel

Professor Matthew Kroenig and Biden advisor Colin Kahl faced off over the Iran deal.

A6

BUSINESS NextGenVest

Students formed a campus chapter of the organizaiton, focused on financial literacy.

A10

GUIDE Pandemopium

A review of the studentwritten play, featured at a Kennedy Center festival. thehoya.com

See WHITE, A6 Published Tuesdays and Fridays

Send story ideas and tips to news@thehoya.com

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OPINION

THE HOYA

Friday, September 11, 2015

THE VERDICT

C EDITORIALS C Care for Mind & Body C C C Founded January 14, 1920

The university has done well in showing its concern for its student-athletes, who know the risks associated with the sports they play. The recent hiring of a full-time club sports physical trainer, as well as the dedicated physical therapy staff for varsity athletes, demonstrates administrators’ resolve to protect their student-athletes. However, junior linebacker Ty Williams’ injury ought to serve as a wake-up call that student-athlete safety and well-being must continue to be an unquestionable priority of the Athletic Department, not only on the field, but in the classroom as well.

The reality of college sports is that the high level of competition results in a high level of risk. Injuries suffered in college can be catastrophic not only for athletic careers, but also for any future life course; studies have shown that former players who didn’t receive adequate care during the peak of their careers suffer from greater rates of dementia and memory loss.

For many players, who after graduation, will return to normal jobs like the rest of their peers, this is a troubling statistic. Taking this into consideration, the Athletic Department must continue to enhance its current efforts in protecting its student-athletes physically and aca-

demically.

Further collaboration between the Academic Resource Center and the Athletic Department is a good starting point.

As Anderson De Andrade, a junior goalkeeper wrote, being on a sports team at Georgetown is “like going to school and balancing a full-time job” where athletes must “meet the demands of both our professors and our coaches, while constantly striving to better ourselves and prove our disbelievers wrong” (“The Truth About Being a Georgetown Student Athlete,” The Hoya, March 11th, 2015, A3).

Were the ARC and the AD to come together to create custom guidance programs that cater to the needs of different student-athletes, depending on course of study and sport practiced, administrators would be able to ensure that athletes are excelling in the classroom as well as on the field or court.

In the days after Williams suffered an injury playing against St. Francis University, friends and peers hung a large poster in Red Square to show their support. The students and faculty banded together in the face of tragedy and reminded us that Hoyas are truly women and men for others. It’s time for the Athletic Department to show the same amount of care and support.

Turning to a trusted authority figure for guidance and support is often one of the first steps students take after experiencing trauma. As syllabus week comes to a close, however, students might not know that, according to Title IX, faculty members are “mandated reporters,” obligated to relay their conversations to the university’s Title IX coordinators.

While faculty members may initially be able to omit personally identifiable information — like the name of the victim, location, the name of the accused individual and other identifying details — the amount of detail needed on any report is ultimately up to the Title IX coordinator.

Currently, professors are not required to notify their students that they are mandated reporters. Students have a right to know which Georgetown community members are mandated reporters so they can make autonomous and informed decisions about what they share — and also know that they have someone to turn to, in the first place.

Discussing a traumatic experience with a mentor or authority figure represents an important step toward healing, but these

conversations can unravel and re-traumatize an individual if a student encounters a sometimes-unwanted string of incident reports instead of support.

The Main Campus Executive Faculty should require professors to inform students that they are, in fact, mandatory reporters. While students are still checking their syllabi, each professor should include a clause in his syllabus that describes exactly what this role entails. Additionally, professors should use this space to direct students to confidential support services on campus, such as Jen Schweer, certain members of Campus Ministry, the DC Rape Crisis Center, the Georgetown’s Department of Public Safety and the LGBTQ Resource Center The university has made a commitment to care for every student, and it cannot do so if students are unaware of who they can turn to for counsel in times of need. These changes would be the first steps toward creating a more transparent university climate, preventing students from unknowingly entangling themselves in a web of unwanted reporting.

Mo’ Money Mo’ Scholarships— Georgetown has officially passed the $1.5 billion fundraising goal of its current campaign: “For Generations to Come: The Campaign for Georgetown.”

The King Is Back — Stephen Colbert came back on the air Tuesday night as the new host of CBS’ late night show.

Baby Got Bagels — Einstein Bros Bagels is finally back to its Regents location. Hungry Hoyas everywhere exhaled a sigh of relief.

Flying Solo — To no one’s surprise, a recent analysis by Priceconomics ranked Dulles International Airport as the eighth worst airport in the world, just behind LondonStansted and Miami.

EDITORIAL CARTOON by Michelle Xu

Check Your Syllabus

This week on

Program With Us The #SitWithMe campaign — focused on encouraging women to enter computer science-related fields — highlights several pressing issues as it pushes for progress.

Historically, there has been a long-standing discrepancy between male and female information technology professionals due to how women are precluded from pursuing opportunities in increasingly important jobs.

The Georgetown University Law Center’s wing of this initiative stands poised to make unique efforts in doing away with this status quo. But the university’s resources could be used for an interdisciplinary approach that could accomplish even more, particularly on an undergraduate level.

The university should capitalize on the fact that women are increasingly entering technical fields to create a unique curriculum opportunity. It should explore interdisciplinary programs that fuse technological learning with pre-existing subjects, like public policy, biology and business. Georgetown undergraduates traditionally excel in these fields. Matching students with targeted technology education would create groundbreaking academic programs.

In order to best encourage greater participation in computing courses, the core curriculum ought to be liberalized so that a higher number of technical courses count toward elective credits. Additionally, current courses can do more to incorporate technology within their curricula. For instance, Georgetown University Associate Professor Heidi Elmendorf — an advocate of the #SitWithMe campaign — already uses computing technology in her labs.

Crafting niche programs that prescribe public policy or analyze genes by using information technology would combine students’ existing interests with practical and relevant applications. These programs would equip participants with unique and employable skills, which would in turn spur everyone — particularly women — toward leadership positions in these interdisciplinary positions.

Expanding these programs can demonstrate that collaboration between information technology and other fields is not an exception, but a rule. Ultimately, these programs will cultivate interest, participation and mastery of skills that can push boundaries — sociologically and technologically.

Katherine Richardson, Executive Editor Daniel Smith, Managing Editor Molly Simio, Online Editor Toby Hung, Campus News Editor Kristen Fedor, City News Editor Tyler Park, Sports Editor Michael Fiedorowicz, Guide Editor Daniel Almeida, Opinion Editor Isabel Binamira, Photography Editor Shannon Hou, Layout Editor Becca Saltzman, Copy Chief Courtney Klein, Blog Editor Laixin Li, Multimedia Editor

Editorial Board

Daniel Almeida, Chair Gabi Hasson, Charlie Lowe, Parth Shah

[ CHATTER ]

Be sure to check Chatter, The Hoya’s online opinion section, throughout the week for additional opinion pieces.

Robert Danco (SFS ’18) weighs the arguments against and for the Iran Deal: Both sides have merit. Critics are right - the deal is a stopgap, not a long-term plan for non-proliferation. It does increase cash flow into Iran, something that only increases stress on already overstretched financial intelligence organizations, like the Office of Foreign Assets Control domestically and other similar structures beyond. And it does allow Iran to have uranium, something that can be unsettling, considering regional pressures and their history of violent political tumult. Advocates are also correct — the uranium they have is much lower than weapons-grade. And the access that Iran has granted the IAEA is unprecedented and sets the standard for monitoring between non-allied countries.”​

“

Find this and more at

thehoya.com/chatter

Mallika Sen, Editor-in-Chief

Brian Carden, General Manager

Deputy Campus News Editor Tom Garzillo Deputy Campus News Editor Ashwin Puri Deputy City News Editor Emily Tu Features Editor Andrew Wallender Deputy Features Editor Maureen Tabet Deputy Sports Editor Madeline Auerbach Deputy Sports Editor Molly O’Connell Paranoia Editor Andrew May Deputy Guide Edtior Jasmine White Deputy Opinion Editor Lauren Gros Deputy Opinion Editor Jonathan Marrow Chatter Editor Sarah Kim Sophie Faaborg-Andersen Deputy Photography Editor Deputy Photography Editor Dan Gannon Deputy Photography Editor Kathleen Guan Deputy Layout Editor Nick Bailey Deputy Layout Editor Cleo Fan Deputy Layout Editor Charlotte Kelly Deputy Layout Editor Matthew Trunko Deputy Copy Editor Katherine Cienkus Deputy Copy Editor Nick Greco Deputy Copy Editor Sarah Wright Deputy Blog Editor Catherine McNally Deputy Multimedia Editor Reza Baghaee Deputy Multimedia Editor Rachelle Moon

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Sam Abrams, Kara Avanceña, Madison Ashley, Alexander Brown, Kim Bussing, David Chardack, Jinwoo Chong, Robert DePaolo, Ben Germano, Penny Hung, Jess Kelham-Hohler, Natasha Khan, Lindsay Lee, Carolyn Maguire, Emily Min, KP Pielmeier, Elana Richmond, Zack Saravay, Eitan Sayag, Katherine Seder, Ian Tice, Michelle Xu, Jason Yoffe

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OPINION

Friday, september 11, 2015

Missing Class

THE HOYA

A3

VIEWPOINT • Vetrichelvan

Dear Applicant, Maybe Next Year

W

Laura Owsiany

Perfectly Middle Class?

I

n the so-called ‘real world,’ I’m as middle-class as one can get. My household income, made up of a single parent white-collar salary and no other assets to speak of, hovers almost exactly at the national median. Money is an omnipresent concern, especially with the addition of college tuition. But despite the forces threatening my family’s security, I have always had enough clothing and food, making economic hardship relatively imperceptible to me for most of my childhood. In short, I am lucky.

But, at Georgetown, I have always felt lower-class. I am one of just 14 percent of students receiving Pell Grants and a member of the 41 percent receiving a Georgetown scholarship. While most Georgetown students do receive aid in some form (55 percent, according to Dean of Student Financial Services Patricia McWade, ), 45 percent of students receive no aid at all, including many of my friends. The number of upper-middle and middle-class students at Georgetown belies the average income in America.

I hear some of these people complain about the preference given to work-study students for on-campus jobs and the annoyance, rather than the impossibility, of unpaid internships. I have blogged about how Hoyas’ penchant for international travel and refusal to admit that it is a luxury has been especially isolating. I have complained to friends back home about how so many refuse the label “lucky” in favor of “hard-working,” which, to me, devalues the hardwork of my family and many others.

I’ve also come to embrace this identity, openly criticizing the higher education system for a lack of class diversity. During my time with The Hoya, I have written several articles focusing on socioeconomics in higher education out of personal interest and passion for the issue.

However, I have found spaces for class dialogue to be limited at Georgetown. Just 50 students per class year are part of the Georgetown Scholarship Program. The #GSProud campaign and Different Dialogues on socioeconomic class, which are capped at 15 students each, are the only class-centered initiatives I have seen in my three years on campus. There may be other existing spaces that I am not aware of, but this awareness is imperative.

As it stands, Georgetown students are seen as a certain type. Not just preppy and overachieving, but upper-middle to upper class. When I tell people in my hometown, or even elsewhere in D.C., that I attend Georgetown, I get a certain response, normally something along the lines of “That’s an expensive school.” And it is. Even among students I have frequently heard, often following a complaint about housing or O’Donovan’s Dining Hall, “We pay $60,000 a year for this.” But it is rarely acknowledged that the majority of the student body does not pay $60,000 a year and that for some, this figure exceeds their yearly household income.

At core of these issues is a lack of honest and open dialogue. It is hard to talk about class. No one wants to be poor and no one wants to be rich. This is a contradiction engrained in American culture. Hard work and self-reliance are seen as the apex of success in America. Our nation’s values tell us that if we possess those two qualities, we deserve and can achieve wealth. Consequently, both those who inherit wealth and those who fail to achieve wealth despite their greatest efforts are looked upon as lazy and entitled.

Changing this perception starts here.

We are all programmed to view our experience as the norm. Half of the student body and almost all media portrayals of the “average” family actually represent the upper classes, so it is easy for upper-class people to view their situation as normal.

But we need to recognize our privileges and the fact that those very close to us, on our campus --- not just disadvantaged populations in Southeast D.C. or “the third world” --- often do not have the same experiences or privileges. Students from less privileged backgrounds need more space to express their experiences and identities on campus, to break through the feelings of shame and silence.

We, as a student body, need to attack the idea that being in the upper class is normal.

We need to attack the idea that Georgetown is full of rich kids. We are immigrants, firstgeneration college students and children of single-parent families. We are homeless. We are low-income. And we need to question why there aren’t more of us.

I am not the perfect person to talk about socioeconomic inequality. I am a middleclass white Georgetown student. But I feel the need to speak up because of conversations I have had for years, behind closed doors, with those who also feel isolated by the silence.

Laura Owsiany is a senior in the College. Missing Class appears every other Friday.

hen I first arrived on campus as a freshman, I was a bundle of emotions: excited to start a new part of my life, scared due to the newness of it all and beyond nervous to see if I would succeed. My definition of “success” at Georgetown was similar to that of most of my fellow incoming freshmen. I wanted a cool group of friends who understood me and were also willing to pose for numerous Instagram photos, successful professors to mentor me and appreciate my work and acceptance into Georgetown’s most prestigious extracurricular activities. Now, to others that may seem like a lot. But I soon came to realize that at Georgetown, such expectations were the definition of normal.

When you pile a bunch of overachieving, motivated young adults in a single location, competition begins to take a life of its own. I know almost all of us have been asked the three most common “get to know you” questions when first making a new acquaintance.

School, major and what do you do on campus? Now, the first two, I’m sure, are quite common across college campuses. However, the third is uniquely Georgetown. The first time I was asked that question, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Do I list out all the clubs I’m part of? Or list my hobbies? What exactly does this person want to know about me? I began to think, and honestly believe, that the number and prestige of the clubs I was part of defined my Georgetown experience. And I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one.

As application deadlines for clubs and activities approached, it was like I was applying to several mini-colleges, each with its own set of essays, interviews and expectations. The real pressure though, as with the college application process, came with the acceptances and, of course, the dreaded rejections.

“Dear applicant, Thank you for your interest in (insert name of club). This year set a record for

The first rejection was brutal. I wondered if I even belonged at Georgetown. But after the second and the third, I guess you could say I got over it. applications, resulting in the most competitive applicant pool we’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, we are not able to offer you an (interview/position) at this time.”

These words began to appear often in my mailbox. However, it wasn’t necessarily all bad. The first rejection, I must admit, was brutal. I wondered what was wrong with me, if I even belonged at Georgetown. But after the second and the third, I guess you could say I got over it. I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t let the rejections stop me from applying to other things.

I didn’t let them define who I was as an individual. Many of my fellow students were crushed, having never been rejected from anything in their

lives (except, probably, the Ivies). They thought, as I had originally believed, that the committee might have made a mistake. That on this beautiful campus, they were the ones who did not belong: a freshman nightmare come true.

Since Georgetown is one of the top schools in the country, it should be accepted that competition is a norm. But what is not acceptable is the degree of emotional damage that this sort of competition inflicts on the individuals just wishing to fit in at a new place.

Not only are extracurricular activities important on a resume, their place in Georgetown’s social spectrum should be noted. Clubs on the

VIEWPOINT • Shinbrot

Hilltop are much like Greek life at other schools. You hang out with fellow members, sometimes live with them and most definitely party with them. Obviously, getting rejected is a part of life, and if learned early on, it becomes easier to deal with. The problem comes when such rejection convinces individuals to give up because the competition is too stiff.

When I left high school, I told myself I was going to try new things. I wanted to become a better me (as corny as that sounds), and I believed that college was the best place to explore options that had never been open to me before.

Since Model United Nations was nonexistent at my high school, I wanted to give it a try at Georgetown. However, after getting rejected from multiple clubs, I was afraid to branch out. The kids that ended up joining the competitive Model UN team were mostly those with previous experience, and I, instead of trying something new, stuck with what I was used to. The part that upsets me the most is that I didn’t even apply.

I know of many students with similar stories, sticking to what they know instead of what they wished they knew.

I mean, when you have to fill out applications to volunteer, you know that something isn’t right. Overall, my experience at Georgetown hasn’t been a bad one. In fact, it’s the opposite. I’ve had the time of my life. Those little instances where people ask me what I do on campus, when my friends get into a new club and I feel like I’m doing less, stick with me. College is supposed to be about trying new things and learning about life, but if you’re never given a chance, how is that supposed to happen? As a new batch of freshmen descends upon campus, I suggest that we try to change the mindset surrounding what “success” really means at Georgetown — that it’s not what you do here, but who you are.

Phalguni Vetrichelvan is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service.

Hoya HistoriaN

Hungry, Neglected Slavery’s Remnants, And Always Forkless Buried and Overlooked

D

uring my two semesters at Georgetown, I have been amazed by my professors’ ability to take complex material and condense it into something students can “digest.” My professors genuinely know how to “get down to the basics,” helping me comprehend difficult concepts.

However, dining establishments on the Hilltop seem to be taking this helpful teaching tactic to an extreme by forcing customers to really get down to basics. By this, I mean eating without utensils.

I stumbled upon this commonality during my most recent visit to Bulldog Tavern, which opened November of last year. Georgetown administrators and students hoped the pub would be another location for Hoyas to socialize and build relationships. Contrary to expectations, Bulldog Tavern was given poor reviews by The Hoya shortly after opening, mainly for, among other things, its bad customer service.

As I sat down during my short visit to campus over the summer, I was again dissatisfied with the sub par service that I remember defining my previous experiences at the pub. Yet I was surprised by how busy the restaurant was compared to my past visits. I suppose students have more time to wait for mediocre food during the summer months.

After quite a long wait for my food, I was eager to finally dig in, but realized I didn’t have any utensils. Unlike every other restaurant I have dined at, both good and bad, gourmet and not, here I was not greeted by a set of cutlery upon arrival at my seat. I asked my waitress for a fork and knife so I could begin eating, and she nicely replied in the affirmative, justifying herself by apologizing and stating that the restaurant has been trying to cut back on waste.

Confused, I inquired, “What do you mean?” She retorted, “Well, we haven’t been doing too great lately, and the managers say we need to cut back on waste. So, we’re not giving utensils unless people ask because a lot of food we serve doesn’t require them, and we don’t have to clean them if people don’t use them.” I seem to have forgotten the remainder of the conversation, most likely because of how baffled I was by that statement.

How in the world can a restaurant in the modern day (other than one of a cuisine not conducive

to cutlery) not serve utensils? My mind was blown. Then I remembered that I attend Georgetown, a place where the dining options are so beyond atrocious that students impatiently await the year they are liberated from the wretched meal plan requirement. Mentions of a three-year meal plan requirement resulted in a fierce resounding “no” in an online petition that garnered many signatures.

During my daily visits to O’Donovan Hall last year, I remember a complete lack of utensils, cups, plates or bowls — the basic tools necessary for eating — at any given time. I have memories of my friends drinking chocolate milk out of cereal bowls because they couldn’t find cups by the milk dispenser. They often completely dismissed the idea of walking downstairs in search of cups because by the end of their journey, their food would be cold.

This was a recurring complaint I brought to Aramark employees during my tenure on the Dining Committee, which met semimonthly. In meetings, they routinely assured me that the problem would be resolved as an assistant ferociously took notes. Sometimes, employees informed me that an extra batch of cutlery had been purchased. However, these reports ran contrary to complaints of absent cutlery resurfacing at the next meeting.

Additionally, as a Georgetown University Student Association senator last year, I often heard students complain about poor food quality and lack of variety, all of which are somewhat subjective. Nevertheless, these complaints would be much more excusable if Hoyas actually had the ability to eat the bad food on their plates with a fork and knife. The incident at Bulldog Tavern this summer has reminded me, after my digestive tract’s two-month hiatus from Leo’s, that Georgetown dining needs to make significant improvements. We deserve cutlery, and we need to fix this shortage before we address food quality.

I’m not a restaurateur. I am simply calling on Georgetown dining establishments to realize that Hoyas are civilized individuals.

Please give us the basic respect that diners deserve and provide us with a fork, knife and spoon. They don’t even need to be rolled in a cloth napkin.

How in the world can a restaurant in the modern day not serve utensils?

Adam Shinbrot is a sophomore in the College.

T

wo weeks ago, the roughly 1,580 students comprising the Class of 2019 arrived on campus.

Beginning with New Student Orientation and trailing into the first months of their time on campus, these thousand and a half eager freshmen will begin to learn the geography of our collective home. They will notice, no doubt, the canal, tracing the Potomac to the edge of the waterfront, where they’ll find a park and a “harbor.”

They’ll note, perhaps with surprise, the presence of a graveyard at the heart of our campus, or the trolley tracks still notched into the cobblestone streets.

And these freshmen, like all of us, will come face to face with Mulledy Hall: imposing, stately and recently refurbished.

About a week before classes began, an email from University President John J. DeGioia reintroduced Mulledy Hall — one half of the Former Jesuit Residence — to all of us. Writing with reference to the tumult pouring out of Ferguson Mo, Staten Island and elsewhere, Matthew DeGioia recognized the history behind Mulledy Hall. It was named for Thomas F. Mulledy, who twice served as president of Georgetown. In 1838, Mulledy sold 272 slaves, owned by the Maryland Jesuits, south to a future governor of Louisiana. He not only guaranteed their continued enslavement but set off a chain of events that separated families and destroyed lives.

Although this history is documented, the information contained in that email came as a surprise to many students. Why, they wondered, had such a name stood for so long? With students moving into the building, some have expressed a frustration that is almost achingly obvious: no student should have to occupy a building named in honor of someone who enslaved his ancestors.

It is troubling how many people were caught off guard by DeGioia’s email.

Many had never heard of Mulledy Hall.

Until this year, it stood as a hulking red shell of a building. Passers-by admired its elaborate balconies but largely paid the structure little mind. When a message from the president’s office labeled “A Message Regarding Mulledy Hall” appeared in our inboxes, many of us felt like we were being introduced to the site and its history for the first time.

Mulledy isn’t the only site to which Georgetown deserves a new introduction. Our campus environment is suffused with the legacy of slavery.

Take the waterfront and canal, for example. The canal, now a nice place for a light lunch or a stroll, exists because Georgetown was historically the last navigable site on the Potomac for seafaring vessels. The canal cuts deep

into Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, from which it used to ferry trade goods destined for the interior or for the port of Georgetown. Like most significant ports at the time, Georgetown was a slave hub. The community in Georgetown included hundreds of slaves and free blacks alike. In fact, the Georgetown of Thomas Mulledy’s day was much blacker than the neighborhood we know today.

There’s more. Roughly at the intersection of P Street and Wisconsin Avenue (think Thomas Sweet) a slave market took place. And a few dozen miles closer to the coast of Maryland, the Jesuits maintained vast plantations that relied on slave labor to support Jesuit education endeavors. Slavery built and supported Georgetown — all of it.

Not just Mulledy Hall.

The signs are on campus too. Several slaves, although likely not many, worked on Georgetown’s campus. Some of them are buried here. In 1821, a slave named Rachel, who worked in the College Wash House, was buried in the Old College Quallen Ground — a cemetery that existed roughly where the Northeast Triangle is now being built. More slaves were likely buried in the area between Yates Field House and the Georgetown University Observatory, a garden now.

Slaveholding culture also infiltrated our campus. Georgetown, after all, was a southern institution. As many as one in five of our students during the first half of the 19th century were the children of planters. In the Civil War, our graduates overwhelmingly enlisted to fight for the Confederacy. They even participated in the Lincoln assassination, helping earn Georgetown the moniker “alma mater of the Confederacy.” When Georgetown adopted Blue and Gray as its colors, it was as much out of necessity as magnanimity.

When we wander our campus, we are usually too self-assured in the present to interrogate Georgetown’s sights and emblems. We often discuss the legacy of racial intolerance in the United States as if it is happening elsewhere.

Ferguson, after all, is far away; it can be murky and fraught.

We would do better to take a lesson from the Class of 2019. Just as they introduce themselves to our campus for the first time, we should take this semester to reintroduce ourselves to our environment and its troubled history. If the dialogue on race DeGioia calls for is to be a success, Georgetown will need to come face to face with its history — now hidden, squirreled away in plain sight.

Matthew Quallen is a senior in the College. Hoya Historian appears every other Friday.

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Smoke billowed from the Pentagon after American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into it on Sept. 11, 2001. This picture, taken from the Village A rooftops, originally accompanied The Hoya’s coverage of the attacks in its Sept. 14, 2001 issue.

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Student Play Makes Debut at Kennedy Center CAROLINE WELCH Hoya Staff Writer

Seven actors took to the stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Terrace Theater Monday for a 50-minute reading of the student-written “Pandemopium,” Georgetown’s entry to the 14th annual Page-to-Stage Festival.

The play, written by Connor Rohan (COL ’16), centers on the daily life of an Afghan poppy farmer, Ashraf, played by Adly Alec AbdelMeguid (COL ’17), in rural Kandahar, Afghanistan. Ashraf holds a duel loyalty to his family’s safety and his livelihood, which depends on the Taliban-controlled opium market.

The yearly festival aims to support more than 40 theater companies in the D.C. area through public readings and rehearsals of their new works. “Pandemopium” opened to a crowd of Georgetown alumni, students and faculty, as well as Kennedy Center regulars. Rohan’s work won the Donn B. Murphy One-Acts Festival prize last year. Director of Theater and Performance Studies Maya Roth, who directed the staging, worked to bring the play to the Kennedy Center stage.

“Georgetown always liked to feature students or alumni works [at Page-to-Stage], and I talked to a faculty professor who suggested Connor’s work as exceptional,” Roth said. “It’s unsettling and taut and humane and unexpected, which hooked us.”

Rohan conceptualized and penned the play in the spring while taking the „Hope Playwriting Seminar,“ taught by theater professor Christine Evans. The subject matter and title of the play, though, originated from a paper he wrote in a government course.

“My interest in Afghan opium started as purely academic,” Rohan said in a question-and-answer session after the performance, eliciting chuckles from the audience. “I had the opportunity to write a paper in my “Comparative Political Systems” class and discovered how pervasive [opium] was in Afghan culture.”

As a longtime member of the Georgetown University Improv Association and the Georgetown Heckler, Rohan originally set out to write a comedy. However, because of the gravity of his subject, Rohan quickly realized that his piece required less levity if he wanted to authentically tackle the issue.

“I said that I was going to write a comedy, and I soon found that just because of the subject matter that could not be,” Rohan, who also serves as vice president of the Georgetown University Student As-

COURTESY MICHAEL REDMAN

“Pandemopium,” a play written by Connor Rohan (COL ‘16), third from left, made its debut at the Kennedy Center Monday, Sept. 7, as part of the 14th annual Page-to-Stage Festival. The play explores the life of an Afghan poppy farmer, played by Adly Alec Abdel-Meguid (COL ‘17). sociation, said. “Ninety percent of the world’s opium comes from Afghanistan, and 70 percent of the Taliban’s funding comes from Afghan opium. … It is easier and was easier to get opium than food.”

Instead, Rohan sprinkled moments of comedy into a tense and intentionally complex landscape of relationships between Ashraf’s family, business and nationality.

“A lot of the issue in foreign policy related to Afghanistan is oversimplification,” Rohan said. “However, these are very complex societies with complex, deeply rooted issues of identity and association. There are a lot of real people. There is no real good or pure evil.”

Roth also acknowledged that the Page-to-Stage reading allowed an open exploration of Rohan’s text that may not have been possible in full production — namely, without an entirely Afghan cast.

“I felt that we had this freedom to share this play that would be hard for Georgetown as a campus to pull off, and even for maybe a professional theater in D.C. to pull off,” Roth said. “But Georgetown was also a gift in [that] I [cast] people who can engage the subject in the play … who have some understanding of, some interest in some of the range of issues in the text.”

Instead of looking to cast actors of Afghan backgrounds, Roth pulled seven talented students and alumni with varying experiences in Middle Eastern studies; all actors came from Georgetown, with the exception of Jesse Robinson, a senior at Rohan’s previous school, George Mason University. Roth pointed to Asif Majid (GRD ’15), who played Ashraf’s brother-in-law Said and recently graduated with his masters in conflict resolution at Georgetown.

Additionally, Roth looked to cast

students who spoke Arabic, which aided in the final reading.

“My initial hope was to do dialect work so that we could do justice to the text in a reading,” Roth said. “Ultimately, due to time constraints, it was important to work more on the acting.” Sarah Kelly Konig (COL ’16), who served as the play’s stage manager, added a soundtrack of gunfire throughout the reading, as well as picture cards depicting poppy fields, helicopters and Afghan children to mitigate time and staging constraints. Anna Arena (COL ’17), who attended Monday’s reading, said she was convinced of the text’s realistic portrayal of the conflict, despite limits on rehearsal time and staging.

“I thought that was realistic and addressed the conflict well,” Arena said. “I think … realizing that these people have been living in this state of perpetual insecurity for so long

and that within that, life does go on somehow and there are elements of humor in daily life.”

Roth hoped that the audience would grapple with the insecurity not only in the text, but also apply the play to present-day conflicts as well.

“The larger question about what is going to happen in Afghanistan and in the region,” Roth said. “I think it’s important that the play is unsettling at its end, so people start thinking, ‘Maybe I should know more, or that this is more complicated than I think it is.”

While the staged reading was the first time Rohan had heard and seen his play in full, Roth said she hopes it will not be the last time.

“Our hope is that there are a couple of theaters who could actually cast this, and so we’ll share it and hope that it finds a place in the world,” Roth said.

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DC Mayor Launches Homelessness Reform Charlotte Allen Hoya Staff Writer

FILE PHOTO: ALEXANDER BROWN/THE HOYA

Local girls, ages 7 to 17, learned about coding at the Law Center’s “Build a Webpage in a Day” event, hosted in conjunction with Black Girls CODE and the Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Girls Learn to Code at GULC Matthew Larson Hoya Staff Writer

The Georgetown University Law Center partnered with Black Girls CODE and the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality to host more than 50 girls from the Washington, D.C. area at its “Build a Webpage in a Day” event on Aug. 22.

Girls aged 7 to 17 were tasked with writing and creating code on computers provided GULC and Black Girls CODE, while their parents learned ways to help their daughters thrive in the computer science field at the event held at the law center.

“I think it was a wonderful success,” Center on Poverty and Inequality Executive Director Rebecca Epstein said.

Planning began after a January conference in association with the White House emphasized increasing marginalized girls’ access to careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Two White House advisors attended the “Build a Webpage in a Day” event and encouraged the girls to stay in the field of computer science. Roy Austin, from the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, and Kimberlyn Leary, an advisor to the White House Council on Women and Girls, also communicated the president’s appreciation of their interest in the computer science field.

“Two White House officials stood up in front of all these girls and their parents and said, ‘ [President Obama] supports what you’re doing,’” Epstein said.

“That’s an incredible message for these girls to get.”

Additionally, Obama’s administration invited girls in attendance at the law center to the White House for an upcoming Champions of Change conference.

“What we know is when we give outstanding young people like this a chance, they can succeed,” Obama said in June. “They just need a little bit of help.”

The event also served as the launch for the D.C. chapter of San Francisco-based Black Girls CODE, an organization that helps minority girls begin to pursue careers in STEM fields. Since its 2011 founding, the organization has expanded to locations across seven states and to one international location in Johannesburg, South Africa,.

“When [Black Girls CODE] contacted us … I really jumped at the opportunity,” Epstein said. “We welcomed the chance to give directly back to the community.”

Black Girls CODE Founder and Executive Director Kimberly Bryant said she is optimistic about expanding to the D.C. area.

“We’re very happy with how [the event] was and how the expansion to the District has gone for us overall,” Bryant said. “I’m really happy that we’re in D.C.” Bryant also stressed that Black Girls CODE is a way for young minority women, who are underrepresented in the field of computer science, to bridge the workplace gap.

“There’s only about three percent of African-American women that graduate with a bachelor’s

degree in computer science,” Bryant said. “That number translates directly into what we see in the workplace.”

Epstein agreed, and added that one of the Center on Poverty and Inequality’s main goals is to prepare underprivileged citizens for future careers. She said events like this are needed to increase awareness and interest for females in the computer science field.

“At the Center on Poverty, one of the issue areas we focus on is the development of workplace skills,” Epstein said. “We were grateful for the opportunity to help highlight the assets that girls of color can bring to the field if it were more diverse.”

Bryant said that certain moments during the event stood out to her, specifically. The first was at the end of the day, when the girls presented their code to their parents, and the second was in the morning, when parents learned about STEM’s influence on the lives of their children.

“There’s some very significant magic that takes place in those settings,” Bryant said. “It’s always a very celebratory event for everyone.”

Following the success of “Build a Webpage in a Day,” Epstein and Bryant agreed on possibly collaborating again to continue to raise awareness for underrepresented demographics in STEM fields.

“We’re always open to considering ways in which to highlight the needs and the assets of girls of color,” Epstein said. “We would welcome the opportunity to do more events in the future.”

Mayor Muriel Bowser announced her plan to address Washington, D.C.’s homelessness crisis response system with a set of proposed administrative and legislative policy changes during a meeting with the District’s Interagency Council on Homelessness Sept. 1.

“Homelessness can seem so big and so insurmountable, but the fact is we can quantify the challenge,” Bowser said during the official announcement.

“A city as prosperous as ours should and must solve the problem of homelessness.”

An expanded homeless shelter application process, a new interim shelter option during that process and additional housing options are among the changes and proposed legislation Bowser outlined.

Additionally, Bowser’s budget for the 2016 fiscal year, “Pathways to the Middle Class,” included a $23 million down payment toward reducing homelessness. The mayor’s office also pledged to establish new emergency housing throughout the District to replace the existing D.C. General Family Shelter.

Previous policy dictated that the District would only accept shelter applications from homeless families on nights when the temperature dropped below freezing — a time known as hypothermia season — which historically resulted in a large demand crunch. Only 1,007 of the 1,942 families that applied for shelter last winter were offered housing, according to the Washington Post.

However, Bowser’s administration implemented a year-round application process for shelter in April.

D.C. Department of Human Services Director Laura Zeilinger also spoke about the necessity of providing families with both an emergency response system and a strong support system once they are placed in housing.

“People with children need to have a safe place to be when there is a housing crisis,” Zeilinger said. “It is very important that we have a crisis response system that has all of the necessary tools.”

Additionally, Bowser and her team proposed two main changes to the city law to be enacted later this year, pending D.C. Council approval.

The first is to amend the configuration of family shelters so that the District has the ability to shelter homeless families in both apartments and private rooms in addition to current public spaces.

“These new emergency housing facilities will be safe, clean, modern

developments with private rooms for families and the amenities and services they need to succeed in the long run,” according to the Office of the Mayor’s website.

The second proposal involves amending the Homeless Services Reform Act, which dictates that homeless families must prove that they have nowhere safe to stay before being admitted to a shelter. Bowser’s amendment would allow for an interim shelter of at least 12 days to families applying for housing as the city determines their eligibility, starting this November.

D.C. Councilmember David Grosso expressed support for Bowser’s initiative in an email to The Hoya.

“It is very important that we change our approach to homelessness,” Grosso wrote. “For too long, we have been warehousing individuals and families in decrepit buildings, without sufficient services to help people get back on their feet and lead successful, selfsufficient lives.”

Zeilinger was similarly optimistic regarding the success of the initiative.

“It’s going to be hard, but I have full confidence that we will be very effective,” Zeilinger said.

“It is such an exciting time in D.C. that the mayor is fully committed to creating a system of care that works for homeless families. The time is really now for us to MURIEL BOWSER fix what has been Washington, D.C. Mayor broken for a long time.”

Grosso offered an example of these facilities and highlighted suggestions for more effective ways to provide housing to families in need.

“After visiting some of the shelters for our homeless individuals, I was appalled at the conditions,” Grosso wrote.

“People were only let in for the night, were kicked out at 7 a.m., and were not provided any services. I think we have models in the city to help people out of homelessness effectively, such as Friendship Place, which offers wraparound services with an emphasis on housing and employment as well as mental health supports.”

Bowser and the District’s ICH are enacting these changes in accordance with the Homeward D.C. plan, a citywide initiative that aims to significantly reduce homelessness over the next five years.

Grosso added that homelessness has been a citywide concern for years and supports efforts to address the issue.

“Our efforts must continue to focus on preventing people from becoming homeless, while effectively supporting those who are homeless to get back on their feet,” Grosso wrote.

“Homelessness can seem so big and so insurmountable, but the fact is we can quantify the challenge.”

Kahl, Kroenig Debate Viability of Nuclear Deal Jack Bennett Hoya Staff Writer

Nearly 200 students packed the Healey Family Student Center Social Room Wednesday night to listen to two experts on nuclear proliferation, Professor Matthew Kroenig and National Security Advisor to the Vice President Colin Kahl debate the recent accord reached with Iran. The event was hosted by the College Democrats and co-sponsored by the Georgetown Israel Alliance, the International Relations Club, J Street U and the Security Studies Program.

The debate was moderated by Ariane Tabatabai, a visiting professor for the SSP. In the event, Kroenig argued against the deal, while Kahl expressed his support for it. Both acknowledged that the deal was nearly guaranteed to pass in Congress, a prediction that was proven correct when Democrats blocked a resolution of disapproval of the deal from going to vote.

While the debate marks the third time the two have clashed over Iranian proliferation, it is the first time they have publically debated about the topic in person. In 2012, Kroenig published an article in Foreign Affairs titled “Time to Attack Iran,” to which Kahl replied in the next issue with a rebuttal, “Not Time to Attack Iran.” Two years later, Kroenig published another piece in support of an attack in Foreign Affairs, to which Kahl replied for the second time with an article titled “Still Not Time to Attack Iran.”

Before starting the debate, Tabatabai provided an overview of the deal.

“What it aims to do is to ensure that Iran is prevented from creating nuclear weapons by enforcing international inspections and reducing Iran’s nuclear capabilities. In exchange, Iran is going to receive sanctions relief, which are hurting Iran’s economy,” Tabatabai said.

The debate began with three-minute opening statements from Kroenig and Kahl. Following the opening

ERICK CASTRO/THE HOYA

Professor Matthew Kroenig and Colin Kahl, the national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, participated in a debate Wednesday night at the Healey Family Student Center on the topic of the Iranian nuclear deal with the attendance of approximately 200 students. statements, the debate rotated the questions between the debaters with a two-minute response to a question followed by a one-minute rebuttal and 30-second counter-rebuttal.

In his opening remarks, Kroenig expressed doubts about Iran’s trustworthiness and asserted that the deal was only short-term, allowing Iran to expand its conventional weapons programs.

“We need to be skeptical. We’re dealing with a dangerous adversary,” Kroenig said. “There is a difference between operating a peaceful nuclear program, operating reactors for research or energy purposes and making the fuel for those reactors, because once you have the ability to make the fuel for reactors, you also have the ability to make the

fuel for nuclear weapons.”

Kroenig continued by pointing out benchmarks of the deal that allow Iran to buy conventional weapons in six years and have ballistic missiles by eight years time, which he argued would allow them to build Intercontinental Ballastic Missiles that could hit the East Coast.

On the other hand, Kahl expressed his support for the deal, labelling it as a diplomatic way to resolve the conflict.

“What the president has made clear from the beginning is that a peaceful diplomatic solution is ultimately the most enduring and sustainable solution to this problem, and that’s the solution that we have,” Kahl said.

Kahl further argued that the deal

was an effective long-term solution.

“It’s a good deal. It closes off the various pathways by which Iran could get a bomb; the uranium pathway, the plutonium pathway and the covert pathway,” Kahl said. “Right now, without this deal, Iran could produce highly enriched uranium for its first nuclear weapon in as little as two to three months,” Throughout the debate, Kahl referred to Kroenig’s arguments for a better deal as “crazy talk” and “fantasy,” suggesting that other countries would abandon negotiations if the United States gave up the deal.

Kroenig responded by saying that Kahl was stuck in a “White House echo chamber.”

“I’m the one living in the real world, who understands power dy-

namics and understands these issues,” Kroenig said.

Katie Kelly (SFS ’19) said she attended the event because she wanted to hear alternative views on the Iran deal.

“Before the event I was mainly against the deal,” Kelly said. “I felt if there was lifted sanctions there would be more money that the Iranian government could deal to antiAmerican terrorist groups, and both sides agreed on that point.”

Jawad Pullin (COL ’18), a member of the College Democrats who helped to organize the event, said he supports the deal and hopes the event sparked dialogue. “[We wanted it to be] an objective debate to bring the campus out to see two sides of the issue,” Pullin said.

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GU Sees Tour Previews New Northeast Triangle Hall Slight Fall in Ranking RANKINGS, from A1 to military students to pursue higher education at any point in their career,” Hezel wrote in an email to The Hoya.

U.S. Army Captain Jim Perkins (GRD ’16), president of the Georgetown University Student Veterans Association, said the rankings are not an accurate reflection of an institution’s support for military members.

“There is no quantitative or qualitative measure of how much of a resource is being given to student veterans,” Perkins said.

He added that Georgetown’s efforts to provide additional aid for student veterans go far beyond the criteria outlined in U.S. News.

“From the perspective of the university, they’ve actually done a lot in terms of partnerships with outside organizations and fostering all of that stuff inside the university that is specifically targeted at helping student veterans,” Perkins said.

Perkins specifically referenced collaborations with organizations such as Service to School and Four Block, which offer services such as providing support for veterans in the admissions process, transition to civilian life, job search and various other challenges.

“These are all things that even under the previous ranking methodology, U.S. News & World Report would’ve never really even picked up on,” Perkins said.

One additional resource for student veterans at Georgetown is the first military prospective students day for MBA candidates at the McDonough School of Business Nov. 12. For student veteran applicants who choose to apply in the first round of admissions, the school sets up on-campus interviews for the following day, a convenient feature of the program Perkins said sets Georgetown apart from other institutions.

“This is something that comparably exceeds most other MBA programs,” Perkins said. “We’re really proud of making that choice.”

Other notable appearances throughout the 2016 lists included a ninth ranking for undergraduates studying international business and 14th and 15th rankings for graduate law and public policy programs, respectively. In both the overall university and veterans rankings, Georgetown is tied with Emory University.

Georgetown’s highest rating, however, came with the eighth spot on the list compiled from surveys of high school counselors. U.S. News collected, “high school counselor reputation scores,” using the average of surveys from 2013-2015 of counselors from public high schools.

Counselors assigned schools ratings on a scale of one to five, based on their perceived quality of a given school’s undergraduate education.

$1.5B Reached Early FUNDRAISING, from A1 Notre Dame has an endowment of approximately $8 billion, the University of Pennsylvania’s endowment is approximately $9.6 billion and Harvard University’s endowment is valued at $35.9 billion.

In comparison to Georgetown’s $1.5 billion fundraising campaign target, Harvard launched a $6.5 billion fundraising campaign in September 2013, and has already raised over $4.8 billion as of January 2015.

Doyle said that Georgetown needs to keep building on current momentum to accomplish further objectives.

“We’ve surpassed the original dollar goal and we’re justifiably proud about that, but we want to keep building momentum until the very end,” Doyle wrote.

ISABEL BINAMIRA/THE HOYA

The Northeast Triangle Residence Hall was topped off Sept. 5, a milestone that was celebrated by students and administrators.

Tom Garzillo Hoya Staff Writer

Students and administrators celebrated the topping off of the Northeast Triangle Residence Hall Wednesday with guided tours of the building, which revealed its interior to the public for the first time.

The residence hall is expected to include rooms for 225 students, the majority of whom will be sophomores.

Construction for the building, which came to $46 million, began last year and is expected to be completed by August 2016 as part of the 2010 Campus Plan agreement to house 385 more students on campus by this semester.

In the meantime, two floors of the

Georgetown University Hotel and Conference Center have been converted into temporary housing as construction of the NET continues.

The topping off event began with a series of speeches in Red Square, where Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson thanked all those involved in the planning and building of the new dorm.

“This is an exciting moment, as we continue to make Georgetown an even more vibrant residential campus and a great place for living and learning for all our students,” Olson said.

Topping off ceremonies are traditionally held when the last beam is placed atop a structure. The eightstory NET was officially topped off on

Sept. 5.

Prior to the tour, students who attended the event had the opportunity to sign two beams that will be placed in the elevator shaft of the building.

Senior Project Executive at Gilbane Building Company Robert Walcott said that student input has influenced the design process.

“The topping off has always been a big deal and I’m glad to share it with Georgetown and the students,” Walcott said. “We’d like to keep that student involvement moving through the project.”

The NET will be the first residence hall on campus that is certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system from the United States Green Building Council, which indicates that the building uses resources efficiently.

According to building architect Vinicius Gorgati, the entire building, which includes a green roof and rainwater harvesting system, was designed with the environment in mind.

“This building has a very significant sustainable agenda, everywhere from the quality of the glass to the quality of the air in the building,” Gorgati said.

“It’s a very serious endeavor.”

The first floor of the building will function as a new student center, complete with a lounge area and multipurpose room.

Outside of the residence, the grounds have been re-landscaped as a pedestrian plaza with benches and newly planted trees.

On the east side of the building, there are plans for a terrace area including a sloped lawn and patio. The glass-paneled first floor will serve as the promenade’s light source at night.

“The idea is that any student can come here to hang out, study and see their friends,” Gorgati said. “There was a very purposeful strategy to get students to come together and be part of the Georgetown experience.”

A guarded front desk will separate students from the residential areas of the building and another lounge area exclusively for residents. The first floor will also hold a large bike storage area.

The majority of rooms in the NET will be two-bedroom suites for four residents. Every suite will have a full bathroom with two sinks, as well as large storage closets and windows for natural light.

Additionally, there will be a mix of

singles and three-bedroom suites with more bathroom access. The building is fully accessible and will forgo keys in favor of GOCards.

The residence’s only laundry room will be located on the second floor, and each floor will have its own lounge, television and kitchen.

Residents will have access to a prayer room on the eighth floor.

The basement of the building is joined with an access tunnel to a loading dock, where garbage will be disposed.

One of the NET’s most attractive features is a full view of Washington, D.C. from the seventh floor terrace and the eighth floor, where students can see the Potomac River, the Washington Monument and other landmarks.

Other vistas can be found from the north end of the building, where a tower of student lounges looks out over Georgetown’s campus.

“It embraces the plaza, and you have these very nice views of Red Square,” Gorgati said. “As you go up, you see all the steeples and towers of campus. From the seventh and eighth floors, its really superb.”

Gorgati and Sasaki Associates initiated the dorm’s design process in mid2013, and continued throughout 2014.

According to Walcott, the next step for the construction is to make the building watertight by December.

Following that milestone, the brick, stone and metal on the outside of the building will be built up through March.

Scaffolding is expected to come down in April, followed by re-grading and final paving scheduled for June.

“As I see … this new place of beautiful views and open spaces and welcoming places for students to live, I’m very enthused for the future of our students and our campus,” Olson said.

Secretary of Campus Planning Ari Goldstein (COL ’18) said he is pleased with the progress of the building and the student involvement that has gone into the planning process.

“Administrators have made a meaningful effort to engage students in the building’s design and construction processes, and we should see the positive results of that,” Goldstein wrote in an email to THE HOYA. “As we’ve seen from the opening of the Former Jesuit Residence, meaningful collaboration and thoughtful long-term planning can yield great results.”

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THE HOYA

Friday, September 11, 2015

Rabbi Remembered for Interreligious Teachings

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Rabbi Harold White was the first full-time Jewish chaplain at a Catholic university when he first joined Georgetown in 1968.

WHITE, from A1 between people of all religious and cultural backgrounds through his work in the Jewish ministry, his founding of the Program for Jewish Civilization and the hundreds of interfaith weddings he officiated over the past half a century.

White died Aug. 31 of complications from a stroke. He was 83 years old.

In a university-wide email sent on the day White passed away, University President John J. DeGioia commended White for his impact on Georgetown as an institution that welcomes diversity.

“Rabbi White’s devotion to our shared values and our mission as a community was unparalleled,” DeGioia wrote. “His leadership and vision in creating opportunities for dialogue strengthened our community and helped build the ethos of engagement that characterizes our campus ministry today.”

White is survived by his son, Ross McQuilkin. The university will hold a memorial service in celebration of White’s life on Sept. 20 in Gaston Hall.

Yotzei Dofen Born in 1932 to Jewish immigrants from Austria, White grew up in Connecticut and studied philosophy at Wesleyan University before receiving his rabbinical ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

White arrived at Georgetown in 1968,

three years after the Vatican released “Nostra Aetate,” a declaration that repudiated the Catholic Church’s prior prejudices against Jews and other practitioners of non-Christian faiths.

According to PJC Associate Director Rev. Dennis McManus, White was not hired to serve Jewish students, as there were very few on campus at the time.

Rather, the rabbi was tasked with educating the entire student body about Judaism.

“Harold White was ‘Nostra Aetate’ at Georgetown. He’s the one who opened the door for us to understand that on a daily basis. He’s the one who got us going. The most important thing he did was consent to that job offer,” McManus said.

From then on, White’s dedication to interreligious understanding transformed Georgetown. Students of all religious backgrounds frequently crowded the hallway outside his Healy Hall office, competing for a time slot to engage the rabbi in discussion.

For many in the Jewish community, White is best remembered in his rabbinical robe, delivering sermons on the stage of Gaston Hall for High Holy Days services, open to the general public.

Israel Klein (COL ’99), a friend and former student of White’s, said that even after he graduated, he returned to Georgetown to attend White’s sermons.

“You really had to make it a point to

get there early. They are extremely well attended,” Klein said. “The way [White] conducted a service was really inclusive.

It was open and accessible to everybody.

You were made to feel at home.”

Director of Jewish Chaplaincy Rachel Gartner, who assumed White’s position after he retired in 2010, said that he solidified Georgetown as a welcoming institution to Jewish students.

“Over my last four years here. I’ve heard repeatedly [from Jewish alumni] that it was Rabbi White who made Georgetown feel like home for them,” Gartner said.

Theology and fine arts Professor Ori Soltes, who was initially recommended for a teaching position at Georgetown

by White two decades ago, described him as yotzei dofen, a Hebrew phrase that roughly translates to “outstanding.”

“I think of him as not just outstanding, but in the etymological sense of the Hebrew, as someone beyond the norm,” Soltes said. “He was always reaching in different directions that took him away from the safely circumscribed, the mainstream. And often, he ended up bringing the mainstream, dragging it with him in the direction he took.”

White was not only known for bridging religious groups in the public sphere. He also played a significant role in the personal lives of many interfaith couples. At a time when interfaith marriages were still relatively unaccepted by most religious communities, many turned to White to perform their ceremonies.

White officiated the wedding of Vice President for Public Affairs Erik Smulson (CAS ’89) and Jennifer Beard (CAS ’89). The Jewish-Catholic couple met at Georgetown, and asked the rabbi and Rev. James Schall, S.J., to preside over their nuptials.

Smulson said that the rabbi provided endless guidance for the marriage.

“As we were leading up to our wedding, Rabbi really reinforced our patience and understanding with each other,” Smulson said. “It wasn’t always easy, but to have Rabbi and Fr. Schall there was a big part of our lives.”

An Inspired Teacher Beyond his role in the Jewish chaplaincy and ministry, both students and faculty said they considered White an incredible and highly knowledgeable educator.

Vice President for Mission and Ministry Fr. Kevin O’Brien, S.J., said that White’s teachings were instrumental to his development as a Catholic priest.

“My relationship with [White]

Hellman Talks Governance INITIATIVE, from A1 the major issues that are affecting us today,” Hellman said.

Hellman addressed many of the specific issues that fragile states now face, including extreme poverty, a smaller share of international development assistance than other developing nations, inadequate local aid distribution architecture, security concerns, institutional inefficiency and corruption.

“Extreme poverty is declining at unprecedented rates,” Hellman said, citing World Bank statistics showing that from 1993 to 2011, global poverty levels fell from 41 to 17 percent. “If we look at governments that we term fragile states, we see that poverty rates there have pretty much stayed stable over a long period of time and in fact even more recently there has been an uptick in poverty rates in the fragile states.”

In general, Hellman said development in fragile states requires new approaches to state-building.

“If we look down at governments [of fragile states], especially local governments, we see that

state-building often looks different than our assumptions of what we think it is,” Hellman said. “It is often an empty room, with a single desk, with a single powerful individual who uses individual relationships … lacking ... everything that you need to create a state. How do you build a state in that kind of environment?”

In order to address these issues, Hellman suggested that he would like Georgetown students to examine them in their studies.

“We need to fundamentally rethink these issues,” Hellman said. “Georgetown offers the opportunity at its School of Foreign Service in particular … to really rethink these issues in a different way.”

Hellman also noted that Georgetown’s connection to a global Jesuit network of relief services and universities — many of which exist in fragile states — could be leveraged to combat issues of global governance.

“We also have one other advantage here at Georgetown that I want to think very seriously about, which is our Jesuit values, of course, but also the

Jesuit organizational network,” Hellman said.

Dujarric also noted Georgetown’s ability to combat international issues of governance.

“I think that a school like Georgetown has a role to play in training people differently, in producing different types of graduates who then go into the international world, into development aid,” Dujarric said.

The event concluded with a question-and-answer session with the audience and students watching live from the Qatar campus.

Teresa Eder (SFS ’17) said that attending the event changed her view of the state of global affairs.

“The event shifted my focus to the fact that fragile states are the ones we have to focus on if we are talking about future development policies,” Eder said.

Tsai Chih Tang (SCS ’16), a student in the Business Professional English program, said the event may guide his future aspirations. “[The event] did affect my viewpoint in a way that it gives me the thought of devoting myself to international humanitarian operations in the future,” Tsai said.

has made me a better person, a better Catholic, a better priest,” O’Brien said. “He helped me to understand my own Christian tradition in a new way from a Jewish perspective. … [He was] an inspired teacher.”

From his first days at Georgetown, White longed to create an academic center focusing on the different dimensions of Judaism, according to McManus. After an extensive fundraising period under his leadership, the Program for Jewish Civilization was launched as a program within the School of Foreign Service in late 2003.

After he retired, he continued to serve as an advisor to the program, which also saw the establishment of the Harold White Chair in Jewish Civilization made possible by alumni donations.

Next February, the PJC will officially be expanded into the Center for Jewish Civilization, which will push forward plans to create a major and a master of arts degree in Jewish civilization.

McManus said that the center is a testament to White’s continued influence on Georgetown.

“He knew about this before he passed, and that elicited a huge smile. He understood this was actually going to happen and we were going to be a center. It was the culmination of his life’s work,” McManus said.

Aside from the PJC, White was a professor who brought his endless thirst for knowledge to the lecture hall.

McManus, who co-taught a popular course on the dialogue between the Abrahamic religions called “Interreligious Encounter and Dialogue” with White and Imam Yahya Hendi, said that White’s approach to teaching was dynamic and engaging.

“He’d make his notes fresh every single time. He’d come in and say, ‘You know what, I’ve changed my view on something.’ [It was] a new surprise a week,” McManus said. “‘Why not?’ he would say. ‘Why not continue to change? It means that you’re growing and seeing new things. You should bring them in.

You shouldn’t be afraid of that.’”

Hesham El Abd (GSB ’76), another friend and former student, agreed that White consistently welcomed new perspectives into the classroom.

“I was the only non-Jewish student in his class,” El Abd said. “You can imagine, I’m sitting there and you have 15, 17 Jewish students. He would say, ‘Okay, Hesham, but what about Islam?’ It added to the discussion and dialogue.”

El Abd continued a friendship that

lasted decades with the rabbi, who had made plans to spend Thanksgiving with him in Cairo this year.

White also co-officiated El Abd’s wedding in 1983. Neither the bride nor groom was Jewish — he was Muslim, she was Presbyterian. Still, White performed a ceremony unique to El Abd and his wife.

“You could plan any wedding with Harold, and Harold would wake up that morning, decide what he’s going to do and he’d do it,” El Abd said. “You don’t call the rabbi if you want it to be by the book.”

Marin In his lifetime, White fostered relationships that transcended religious, cultural and political borders.

“Thousands of people would say that he was their friend, and they would all be absolutely correct,” said Richard Chused, a former professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and a friend whose wedding White officiated.

Hendi, who became the first full-time Muslim chaplain hired by a Catholic university in 1999, pointed to a memorable experience in which he, Rev. Raymond Kemp and White blessed each other at the Jordan River during a trip that focused on interfaith dialogue.

“How rare would it have been for a Christian to be blessed by a Muslim and a Jew? People started taking pictures of this, and we became celebrities for almost half an hour,” Hendi said.

For Hendi, White’s connection with others stemmed from his marin, an Arabic word that means flexibility or elasticity.

“He wanted for everyone to be happy,” Hendi said. “He was one of those people who were naturally not willing to fight.”

Yet, despite his easygoing nature, White fought tirelessly for a society that embraced differences. He was an advocate for not only religious but also racial equality, having participated in the civil rights movement in 1961 as a Freedom Rider.

Berlinerblau said that White’s acceptance was a rare quality that left a lasting impression on those who knew him.

“He was an enemy of close-mindedness, philistinism, homophobia, racism and any type of prejudice,” Berlinerblau said. “He didn’t look at somebody and just draw assumptions from that. For an 83-year-old Jewish man, having gone through what Jews had gone through in the 20th century, that was sublime.”

NEWS

FRIDAY, September 11, 2015

THE HOYA

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Startup Expands to GU to Teach Economic Literacy NEXTGENVEST, from A10

Connecticut and University of Denver. Peeler said she hopes to recruit as many Georgetown students as possible through incentive campaigns. During move-in weekend, the company awarded a $1,000 scholarship to a random new NextGenVest member. Peeler declined to comment on the exact number of students signed up for NextGenVest in the two weeks since the recruitment push, but she did say the number was high. Stephen Yin (SFS ’17), the winner of NextGenVest’s $1,000 scholarship, said he heard of the company when he was on his way to Wisemiller’s and signed up because of the opportunity to win money.

“I signed up because there was little risk and potential to benefit,” Yin said. “The potential to win money to pay off tuition, I think, would sound appealing to any student.” After winning the $1,000, Yin said that he plans on getting more involved in NextGenVest’s mission and will attend a conference in D.C. this month hosted by

the company.

Herrigel said he is proud of the progress NextGenVest has had on Georgetown’s campus so far.

“I think NextGenVest is making great strides toward helping students of all backgrounds achieve financial literacy.”

Greg Herrigel (COL ’16) NextGenVest Georgetown Chapter Founder

NEXTGENVEST

“I think NextGenVest is making great strides toward helping students of all backgrounds achieve financial literacy in an easy and affordable way,” Herrigel said. “The great thing about this company is that they understand where we are

Students who paid to become members of NextGenVest were given Money Box welcome kits when they signed up for the service. NextGenVest expanded to Georgetown’s campus in August. coming from as students, and they just want to make our lives a little easier.”

Collantes said that NextGenVest’s

main goal now is to increase awareness across Georgetown’s campus.

“Now that we have a newly established chapter, we really just want

to continue to expand on campus and inform people about all of the free financial literacy resources we have available,” Collantes said.

Initiative Promotes Women in STEM

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CAMPAIGN, from A10

“We are so good at engaging and shaping dialogue here at Georgetown University, [and] I see this being an initiative where Georgetown draws on that strength to participate in and influence an important national dialogue.”

Throughout the coming months, the Sit with Me campaign will be visible on campus for various events such as Georgetown Day in April when a symbolic red chair will be displayed on campus to rep-

resent the seat that females should take in technological development.

According to Karn, the fields of technology and computer science would be greatly benefited by increased female participation.

“In the United States, we don’t ask why it’s good that women go into medicine, law, academia, politics or journalism,” Karn said.

“We’ve seen the positive contributions that women bring to these fields. So to me, it’s a bit strange to hear people ask, ‘Why should more women go into IT?’ My answer is, ‘Why not?’”

Dan Gannon/The Hoya

Students of Georgetown, Inc. debuted a new point-of-sale system, Square, in all storefronts late this summer. The new POS system is geared towards small businesses and offers a new interface for customers.

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COURTESY Charlie Long

Sit With Me gave members of the Georgetown community an opportunity to speak about why gender equality in the tech industry is important.

Alums Help Grads Find Housing STARTUP, from A10

them upfront.

What were some challenges you faced in creating the company?

The biggest challenge in entrepreneurship is execution. We also struggled in balancing the development of our actual product with growing our user base. It’s kind of a chicken or an egg problem. You can have a great product, but it’s not a given that “the people will come.”

You need to get the word out. On the other hand, you can spend all your time on marketing, but if the service is not functional, you’ve failed. Reaching that equilibrium of product quality versus speed was key. As Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, once said, “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

Who are some other people who played a big role in getting this company off the ground?

Professor Anthony Cook at Georgetown Law School has been an incredible advisor and supporter of Roamer. Professor Cook runs the Law and Entrepreneurship Practicum at Georgetown Law. Once Roamer started to take off, Professor Cook helped us obtain legal counsel from a big law firm in D.C. He has also advised us on our business strategy and future. This past summer, Roamer participated in the Georgetown Business School summer incubator program. Our advisors, especially Marc Steren, Alyssa Lovegrove and Greg Cinque, have been instrumental in Roamer’s continued evolution, growth and success.

What are your future plans for the company? Where do you hope it goes?

We are planning to keep growing

COURTESY Alexander Galicki

Roamer has connected more than 2,000 graduate students looking for furnished housing to other graduate students looking to sublet. our user base and to expand our geographic coverage. The demand for apartments in major cities, like D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco, has been insane, so we are looking to increase the supply. We’re also working on developing some new features, and are considering expanding to other demographic groups. We currently focus on law, MBA and graduate students, but for this next summer, expanding to college students and more professionals is a possibility. Balancing size with quality is a constant struggle.

Tell me about your relationship with your co-founder, Kentaro.

We’ve been friends since meeting during the first year of law school and run the company together. I

think any person interested in running a startup should find a cofounder to split the burden.

What will make your company successful in the future?

What we learned from starting Roamer is that the company you envision diverges from the company that you end up with. This divergence is driven by user feedback as well as limited resources. That means that your original idea has little to do with your future success.

I think to be successful we will need to be resourceful and learn from our experiences. We will face foreseen as well as unforeseen challenges, but it is what we learn from those challenges and how we apply those lessons that will define our future.

Business & Tech FRIDAY, september 11, 2015

business NextGenVest Teaches Finances, Budgeting bits Sarah Smith

NextGenVest

online membership, which gives them access to various videos teaching financial know-how or sign up for a $25 membership that offers Georgetown-specific money advice and discounts at local businesses.

“On the whole, we want to make the process of dealing with and learning about money suck less for students so they can get back to enjoying college,” Peeler wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Despite NextGenVest’s recent expansion to Georgetown, the program was able to recruit several student volunteers before the year began.

Frankie Collantes (COL ’17), the Director of Partnerships for NextGenVest Georgetown, got involved after speaking to Herrigel about the company over the summer. (Full disclosure: Frankie Collantes served on The Hoya’s editorial board last year.)

Georgetown students received their training over the summer and chapter members also received free Chipotle, one of several companies partnering with NextGenVest Georgetown.

“We have NextGenVest chapters in high schools and colleges across the U.S., so many of our students who were NextGenVest leaders in high school start college chapters to be part of our global chapter community,” Peeler wrote.

NextGenVest currently includes college chapters at Columbia University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Duke University, Wake Forest University, the University of

Students signed up to become members of NextGenVest during New Student Orientation the weekend of Aug. 28. The startup advertised their service outside the front gates of the university on O Street.

See NEXTGENVEST, A9

Hoya Staff Writer

mba student named 2015 mcgowan fellow David Crowley (GRD ’16) was selected as one of 10 McGowan Fellows this year. The William G. McGowan Charitable Fund gives a full-tuition scholarship to selected fellows for their second-year of MBA study and links students with a mentor who is a leader in the business world. Crowley’s mentor will be selected by Georgetown and will meet with Crowley throughout the academic year. This year, the 10 fellows will participate in a collaborative social-impact project sponsored by Rush University Medical Center in Chicago that will aid the city’s uninsured population.

As hundreds of freshmen made their way through Georgetown’s front gates for New Student Orientation this year, they were greeted not only by orientation advisors, but also by representatives from Next-

GenVest, a New York-based startup that promotes financial literacy.

NextGenVest was started by Harvard graduate Kelly Peeler with the aim of educating the next generation of adults about money management. After interning at the company, Greg Herrigel (COL ’16) inaugurated a NextGenVest chapter at

Georgetown last month.

NextGenVest and its website nextgenvest.com will serve as a money mentor to members, giving them discounts and money advice, such as how to sign up for work-study or how to find good deals at local restaurants.

Students can sign up for a free

Washington Post PRESIDENT to Found Business Program Washington Post President and General Manager Stephen P. Hills is resigning to become the founding director of Georgetown University Law Center’s Business Skills Program where he will serve as a visiting professor. Hills’ last month at the Washington Post will be in January, after which he will begin work on the new program’s curriculum. The program will teach law students the fundamentals of business administration. Hills has served in his current position at The Washington Post since 2002, where he helped transform the Post from a print-centered news outlet to a leader in digital media. In the past three years he helped grow the newspaper’s online traffic and engagement by more than 200 percent.

MBA Student Creates An Easy Way to Access Pet Health Advice Tonja Hardyman (GRD ’15) officially launched a new online service linking pet owners with veterinarians over the Internet. The service, named Barkzy, debuted in July and aims to give pet owners advice more quickly and easily than a trip to the local veterinarian.

Hardyman calls entrepreneurship the highlight of her career at Georgetown and gave up a position at a Fortune 500 company to pursue her newly launched start-up. Through live video consults, pet owners can receive less expensive answers to their important pet questions.

GU, Howard Awarded $27M Grant for Clinical Research The National Institutes of Health awarded a $27 million grant to a clinical research program that is a partnership between Georgetown University, Howard University, the MedStar Health Research Institute and the Washington, D.C. Veteran Affairs Medical Center. The research program, which was founded in 2010, has led to the participation of more than 4 million district residents in clinical trials and directly funded more than 440 published studies.

Researcher Gives Tips on InFlight Medical Emergencies Georgetown University School of Medicine researcher Jose V. Nable released a study detailing how a doctor should expect to act if a medical emergency takes place on a plane. While such incidents are statistically unlikely — a medical emergency only takes place on approximately one of every 604 flights, according to the study — doctors have to consider liabilities that come with doctor-patient care when aiding a passenger in-flight. Liability laws are usually determined by the country the aircraft is flying over at the time of the emergency, though the study said asking patients for permission to treat them was essential, even if that means looking for a translator.

Georgetown Partners With Sit With Me Patricja Okuniewska Hoya Staff Writer

Despite rapid growth in the technology industry, there is only one woman for every three men employed in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics job.

The Sit With Me initiative hopes to turn that statistic around. Sit With Me, formed by members of the National Center for Women and Information Technology, highlights women’s role in technology and encourages them to pursue tech careers.

Georgetown University announced its participation with Sit with Me this April, releasing a promotional video that consisted of brief interviews with professors and administrators who encouraged female students to become involved in the tech industry.

Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Helen Karn, who worked as a volunteer for Sit With Me, said the campaign is much needed in a national academic environment where the field of computer science is becoming increasingly less diverse.

“The picture is not improving,” Karn said. “From the mid-1980s to 2010, the percentage of women [who pursue] computer science majors dropped from more than 35 percent to less than 20 percent.”

Interim Vice President for Information Services and Georgetown Chief Information Officer Judd Nicholson said that Georgetown’s work with Sit With Me is just one aspect of a long-term university commitment to decreasing the gender gap in STEM jobs.

This summer, the university hosted 60 rising junior and senior girls from local schools for a sevenweek Girls Who Code immersion program. Additionally, Georgetown has put a lot of support into a nearly three-year-old women’s coding initiative on campus called We Code, formerly known as GU

Women Coders.

“We remain committed to bridging the gap here on our own campus,” Nicholson said of the university’s efforts to aid women interested in STEM jobs.

We Code helps Georgetown women pursuing a computer technology career by teaching them how to code. The organization partnered with Sit With Me to help local female high school students receive training in STEM fields.

We Code executive board member Stephanie Kim (MSB ’17) said that learning how to code is beneficial to everyone.

“Coding skills are becoming increasingly in-demand by employers from a range of industries including marketing and finance,” Kim said. “Coding sharpens your analytical and problem-solving skills while fueling your creativity, and all of these qualities can breed strong leaders in any field.”

Chief of Staff to University President John J. DeGioia, Joseph Ferrara, issued a statement from the President’s Office in April that praised Sit with Me for raising awareness of gender imbalance in the field of computer science.

“Here at Georgetown, we challenge our students to engage the world and become women and men in the service of others,” Ferrara said in the statement. “This value is at the core of our identity. The Sit With Me initiative is an important way our community can raise awareness that women need a seat at the table in all STEM fields, and especially in technology.”

Vice President for Information Services and Chief Information Officer Lisa Davis said that she has high hopes for the movement on campus.

“I’m excited to see the Sit With Me initiative grow at Georgetown through the growing engagement of our community,” Davis said.

See CAMPAIGN, A9

COURTESY Charlie Long

The university placed a red chair in Healy Circle this past spring to symbolize the seat women should take in technology development.

Q&A: Startup Connects Grad Students to Apartments Maureen Tabet Hoya Staff Writer

Alexander Galicki (LAW ’16) and Kentaro Murase (LAW ’16) joined the start-up game in August 2014 when they created Roamer, an apartment rental app that tailors specifically to graduate students looking to sublet apartments.

Roamer currently hosts more than 2,000 users. The Hoya got in touch with Galicki to hear about his experience with the nascent company.

How did you come up with the idea for Roamer?

My idea came from seeing a prob-

lem during my 2L [second year law student] summer. All of my peers from law schools across the country had trouble with summer housing.

They faced a dual problem: they needed to find a furnished place for the summer in the city where they were working, and they needed to sublet their place at school to someone trustworthy. The available solutions were inadequate. Facebook and networking with friends occasionally worked, Craigslist was a complete gamble and often fell through and Airbnb was too expensive. Fundamentally, there was no trustworthy marketplace dedicated to graduate student subletting. We believed this problem existed far

beyond the graduate student population, but decide to test our idea by focusing on that demographic.

“Roamer has ridden the wave of success.”

Alexander Galicki (LAW ’16) Co-founder of Roamer

Why do you think Roamer has been successful so far?

Roamer solves a real problem, and is better than any existing al-

ternative. Our interface is simple, our service is free, and the site is restricted to users with a .edu or company email address. The fact that it’s a closed off social network is key because it creates trust among users. Roamer has ridden the wave of success of the “sharing economy” — in many ways companies like Uber and Airbnb have paved the way, especially in terms of regulatory obstacles.

Do you have any advice to current Georgetown students in general and in regards to those hoping to create a start up?

Just do it.

Everyone has good

ideas, but it’s 99.9 percent execution. All great companies are created to solve a real problem. Don’t set out to make money or create a “company.” Set out to solve a problem. As far as how you go about doing that — there are hundreds of ways to validate a concept without software: surveys, landing pages, interviews, blogs, Facebook groups and beyond. A finished software product is the last thing you should be thinking about. OneKingsLane started out as an email list. The founder of Zappos started by taking pictures of shoes that he did not own in stores, and then selling See STARTUP, A9