The Harvard Crimson - Volume CXLVI, No. 31

The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873 | VOLUME CXLVI, NO. 31 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS | FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2019

EDITORIAL PAGE 6

NEWS PAGE 3

SPORTS PAGE 8

HSA must do more to protect its student workers.

CAMHS is working to reduce wait times for its services.

Harvard men’s basketball controls its path to seventh Ivy League title.

Sullivan Criticizes The Crimson

By ALEXANDRA A. CHAIDEZ CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Winthrop House Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. emailed residents Thursday criticizing The Harvard Crimson’s coverage of his announcement that he would represent Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who faces charges of sexual assault, and students’ responses to his decision.

Sullivan, who is also a Harvard Law School professor, wrote that The Crimson failed to represent basic aspects of his professional and academic background and “overwhelmingly” published articles and opinion pieces that portrayed his situation “in a one-sided way.” He added that in sending the email, he was not attempting to persuade Winthrop residents to take a particular side.

Included in Sullivan’s email are several opinion pieces defending him and his actions that he said The Crimson declined to publish.

Sullivan wrote in the email that a fairly presented narrative was necessary at a school committed to “veritas” — a reference to Harvard’s Latin motto meaning “truth.”

“I firmly believe that student organizations of all types, and certainly the school’s newspaper, are critical components of university life,” Sullivan wrote.

“But I worry that the Crimson might be limiting your ability to have deep and robust discus-

College Surveys Social Groups

­

By SAMUEL W. ZWICKEL CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. is the faculty dean of Winthrop House. He emailed residents Thursday criticizing The Harvard Crimson’s coverage of his decision to represent Harvey Weinstein. CAMILLE G. CALDERA—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

sions about decidedly important matters.”

Crimson President Kristine E. Guillaume ’20 wrote in an emailed statement that the publication seeks to report with “accuracy, integrity, and objectivity.”

“The Crimson strives to fulfill our obligation to our readers by reporting with accuracy, integrity, and objectivity,” wrote Guillaume, who was not

Dean Gay Calls For Dept. Evaluations

By JONAH S. BERGER and MOLLY C. MCCAFFERTY CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay encouraged FAS departments to conduct their own climate reviews after a Government department survey commissioned by a climate committee found lower levels of satisfaction and reports of discrimination among certain demographics of students, faculty, and staff.

The Government department Committee on Climate Change — formed last March after at least 20 women publicly accused Government Professor Emeritus Jorge I. Dominguez of sexual misconduct — sent the survey to Government affiliates in fall 2018 as part of their efforts to scrutinize departmental culture. In a Thurs­

day interview, Gay praised the committee’s transparency and suggested that other departments administer similar assessments.

She said she was troubled with the survey’s findings that women and people of color, especially graduate students, “generally express less satisfaction with their experience in the department.”

The survey — which boasted a response rate of 72 percent among students — found that roughly a third of female government graduate students feel their work or study within the department is “limited” by their gender. Twenty-six percent of female graduate students reported they had experienced some form of discrimination.

“Those aspects of it, as a

SEE GAY PAGE 3

involved in the reporting or editing of this piece. “Our reporters and editors have done their due diligence in reporting and providing balanced coverage on this subject and all others.”

The Crimson initially covered Sullivan’s decision to represent Weinstein after the New York Post first reported the news Jan. 23. Sullivan is defending Weinstein as he faces five criminal charges in a Man-

hattan sexual misconduct case stemming from allegations that he raped one woman and forcibly performed oral sex on another.

In the wake of his initial announcement that he was joining Weinstein’s legal team, Sullivan emailed Winthrop affiliates to defend his involvement with the case, citing in particular the

SEE SULLIVAN PAGE 4

The Dean of Students Office is requesting that members of Recognized Social Organizations complete an online survey as part of an “assessment” of the new club category, asking them to evaluate Harvard social life to give the College a better understanding of the organizations.

Katie Colleran, senior director of student organizations and resources in the Dean of Students Office, emailed the questionnaire to student leaders of the College’s 13 RSOs – former single-gender social organizations that adopted co-ed membership policies after the College debuted its controversial sanctions policy in May 2016.

They received a link to an anonymous 15-question form surveying their experiences with RSOs and the social scene at Harvard more generally.

“With this whole process being new, we at the College know very little about what you all have been doing with your recognition and how you have been contributing to campus,” Colleran wrote in the email to RSOs. “Many still feel lingering negative stereotypes toward your groups based on past interactions with social orgs. I want

By SAM E. SHARFSTEIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

ciplines,” Edwards said.

Edwards also noted the differences between the ArtLab and traditional artistic spaces, highlighting the space’s focus on the “making” and “process” of art.

“One of the questions that we have is how can we think about a space like an artistic laboratory differently than we think about more traditional spaces which are performance spaces or exhibition spaces,” she said.

“Here we’re really focused on the making and the process.”

Associate Provost of Arts and Culture Lori E. Gross said she believes the ArtLab will inspire artistic advancement at Harvard by encouraging collaboration.

“We anticipate that new interactions between various communities will inspire projects and research that can come alive in the new Allston light-filled space. The building was made for collaboration with a sense of fluidity and

A mid ongoing efforts to increase minority representation in its case studies, the Harvard Business School is planning to hire its first-ever Associate Director for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, according to Ellen Mahoney, chief human resources officer at HBS. The new director, who will take on a position that has been developed over the past 18 months, will coordinate between students, faculty, and staff to improve the environment surrounding equity and inclusion at the school, said Mahoney, who helped lead the development of the position. The Business School is also working to address issues of diversity by increasing the number of case studies that feature black protagonists.

“What we were looking for is a way to take what we were already doing and to help accelerate that momentum,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney said that a crucial aspect of the new position will be creating new metrics that capture students’ experience at the school to understand diversity and belonging, instead of solely relying on demographic numbers .

“When you look at inclusion and belonging, we all have our sense for what that means. Part of what we are trying to figure out is what that means for the various communities that come here,” she said.

The selection process for the director will involve assistance from the school’s Student Association. A panel of 12 students will interview the finalists for the position, according to Mahoney.

The new position will allow the administration to engage with the existing

SEE ARTLAB PAGE 5

SEE HBS PAGE 3

­

Julius Maada Bio, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, spoke at the Institute of Politics Thursday evening.

CAMILLE G. CALDERA—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

By BRIE K.BUCHANAN and PETER E.O’KEEFE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Harvard’s ArtLab in Allston, a facility devoted to artistic research and innovation, is expected to open in mid-September 2019.

ArtLab’s building was designed by Harvard Graduate School of Design graduates Regine B. Leibinger and Frank A. Barkow and is in the final stages of construction. When finished, the 9,000 square foot space, which is designed to be carbon net-zero, will feature eight rooms for artistic use including an artist workshop and a recording studio.

The ArtLab is a space designed to foster creativity with the goal of attracting a variety of artists to Allston, according to ArtLab director Bree Edwards.

“This space is really designed to encourage collaboration, to encourage interdisciplinarity and to be a space for artists who cross boundaries between dis­

The ArtLab, a newly created center for arts innovation is located on North Harvard Street in Allston. KATHRYN S. KUHAR—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Harvard Today 2

News 3

Editorial 6

SEE SURVEY PAGE 4

HBS Plans New Position

SEE PAGE 4

Harvard’s Allston ArtLab Expected to Open in Mid-September

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

to give you a chance to tell us the positive that you have been up to, the way you have been contributing to a robust social scene at Harvard.”

The sanctions — which took effect with the Class of 2021 — bar members of single-gender Greek groups and final clubs from holding leadership positions in student organizations, securing varsity athletic team captaincies, and receiving College endorsement for prestigious fellowships like the Rhodes.

The survey poses a free-response question asking respondents to “define the ‘social scene’ at Harvard” and rank the factors that motivated them to join an RSO. It also asks students to rate whether they’d be “least likely,” “likely,” or “most likely” to be found in various locations “on a typical weekend night” and prompts them to type statements about how RSOs and their members “contribute to a vibrant and inclusive student experience” on campus.

The survey responses – anonymously reported and not tied to individual RSOs – will be aggregated and used by the DSO for a broader project aimed at assessing the nature of

Sports 8

TODAY’S FORECAST

MOSTLY SUNNY High: 38 Low: 24

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

MARCH 8, 2019

PAGE 2

HARVARD TODAY

For Lunch Basil Chicken Pizza Red’s Best Fresh Catch Grilled Chickpea Cakes with Pineapple Salsa

For Dinner Turkey Meatballs Marsala Sauce 5 Cheese Tortellini with Spinach and Mushroom Beyond Burger

TODAY’S EVENTS Winter Concert: Harvard Composers’ Association 8-9:15 p.m.

IN THE REAL WORLD Paul Manafort Sentenced to 47 Months of Prison

Is that Bach I hear? Beethoven?

Tchaikovsky? Or one of Harvard’s undergraduate composers? Head to Paine Hall to hear the world premier of works of nine of Harvard’s composers and kick off your weekend with a classy start.

President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul J. Manafort, Jr. was sentenced to 47 months in prison for fraud. The almost fouryear sentence is much shorter than the prison term of 19 to 24 years recommended by sentencing guidelines.

A Day Without a Womxn Panel 5-7 p.m.

Celebrate women’s history month and head to the Harvard Graduate School of Education to join the Womxn of Color Collective for a panel discussing what a world without women would be. Other topics on the table include intersectional identity and how to better account for women frequently left out of feminist conversations.

Dudley House Talent Show 7-10 p.m.

Head to the Dudley House common room for a talent show. There may be juggling. There may be dancing. There may be jumping through hoops of fire.

Whatever talents are on display, there will also be snacks.

Michael Cohen Sues the Trump Organization

Students head to class near the Harvard Museum of Natural History on a snowy Monday morning. ANYA X. ZHANG—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

DAILY BRIEFING Winthrop House Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. criticized The Harvard Crimson’s coverage of his decision to represent Harvey Weinstein in an email to residents Thursday. He alleged The Crimson “overwhelmingly” published articles and opinion pieces that portrayed his decision “in a one-sided way.” In other news, the Dean of Students Office is surveying members of Recognized Social Organizations in an effort to gain a better understanding of the new organizations.

Accusing the Trump Organization of refusing to pay roughy $1.9 million in legal costs, former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump Michael D. Cohen sued the organization Thursday.

The Trump Organization denied owing Cohen anything.

House Passes Resolution to Condemn Hate Speech

A resolution against religious hate speech and racism passed the House 407-to-23. The resolution came after U.S. Representative Ilhan A. Omar made controversial comments about Israel. The resolution stood to condemn “hateful expressions of intolerance.”

AROUND THE IVIES BROWN

Brown’s undergraduate student government voted to place a referendum on the ballot for its upcoming elections that will ask whether the University should divest from “stocks, funds, endowment and other monetary instruments from companies complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine,” according to the Brown Daily Herald. The referendum, proposed by the student coalition Brown Divest, seeks to increas the “financial transparency” and “student oversight” of Brown’s investment decisions, according to the referendum’s wording. Council President Tess Geri opposed adding the referendum to the ballot, calling it both “divisive” and “counterproductive.”

PRINCETON

Undergraduate organizers of the 1vyG, a conference for first-generation, low-income students, were “upset” that a video they posted to the University’s Instagram feed in February was deleted, according to the Daily Princetonian. Some organizers have asserted that the removal of 1vyG’s content was due to a reference the group made in the video to Princeton’s racist past. “We [want to] take a moment to acknowledge that this University stands on stolen land from the Lenape people, and also that the University was built by enslaved black Americans,” 1vyG organizer and Princeton student Anna Macknick said in the video.

YALE

The Board of Alders City Services and Environmental Policy Committee voted to accept over $1.1 million from the state to upgrade five parks around the city, according to the Yale Daily News. Over $300,000 will go toward funding the construction of the Lost Generation Memorial Garden, a memorial for gun violence victims. The state funds will also support park renovations for DeGale Field, including the construction of a splash pad and playground, as well as more seating and enhancing security.

THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

The Harvard Crimson Kristine E. Guillaume President Angela N. Fu Managing Editor Charlie B. Zhu Business Manager

STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE

Associate Managing Editor Jamie D. Halper ’20

Arts Chairs Kaylee S. Kim ’20 Caroline A. Tsai ’20

Design Chairs Elena M. Ramos ’20 Akhil S. Waghmare ’20

Associate Business Manager Amy E. Zhou ’20

FM Chairs Norah M. Murphy ’20 Abigail L. Simon ’20

Multimedia Chairs Kathryn S. Kuhar ’20 Kai R. McNamee ’21

Editorial Chairs Jessenia N. Class ’20 Robert Miranda ’20

Blog Chairs Lorenzo F. Manuali ’21 Trula J. Rael ’21

Technology Chairs Nenya A. Edjah ’20 Theodore T. Liu ’20

Sports Chairs Joseph W. Minatel ’21 Henry Zhu ’20

Copyright 2019, The Harvard Crimson (USPS 236-560). No articles, editorials, cartoons or any part thereof appearing in The Crimson may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the President. The Associated Press holds the right to reprint any materials published in The Crimson. The Crimson is a non-profit, independent corporation, founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. Second-class postage paid in Boston, Massachusetts. Published Monday through Friday except holidays and during vacations, three times weekly during reading and exam periods by The Harvard Crimson Inc., 14 Plympton St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138 Weather icons made by Freepik, Yannick, Situ Herrera, OCHA, SimpleIcon, Catalin Fertu from flaticon.com is licensed by CC BY 3.0.

Night Editor Andrew J. Zucker ’20

Design Editor Matthew J. Tyler ’22

Assistant Night Editors Jonah S. Berger ’21 Jania J. Tumey ’22

Photo Editor Kathryn S. Kuhar ’20

Story Editors Caroline S. Engelmayer ’20 Angela N. Fu ’20 Jamie D. Halper ’20 Lucy Wang ’20 Michael E. Xie ’20 Luke W. Xu ’20

Editorial Editor Ari E. Benkler ’21 Sports Editor Mohamed Ahmed ’22

CORRECTIONS The Harvard Crimson is committed to accuracy in its reporting. Factual errors are corrected promptly on this page. Readers with information about errors are asked to e-mail the managing editor at managingeditor@thecrimson.com.

PAGE 3

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | MARCH 8, 2019

Harvard Fails to Meet CAMHS Attempts to Reduce PILOT Program Requests Student Wait Times

By OLIVER L. RISKIN-KUTZ CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Harvard’s contribution to the City of Boston in 2018 fell short of the amount of money the city requested from the University as part of a program in which some schools make contributions to the city instead of paying taxes.

Under Boston’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes program, city officials recommend that nonprofit institutions, including universities and hospitals, voluntarily pay the city 25 percent of the property tax the groups would have paid if they had been subject to taxation.

The program applies to “educational, medical, and cultural” institutions that own property valued at more than $15 million, according to the City of Boston’s website.

Boston City Councillor Lydia Edwards said the program uses property values from 2011.

2018 marked the seventh year in a row that Harvard’s contribution to Boston has dipped below the amount requested by the city.

The last time Boston University paid the full amount requested was fiscal year 2014, and Boston College has not paid the full amount for seven years in a row.

“Something like half of the real estate in Boston is in the hands of either a governmental entity which is tax exempt, or a nonprofit entity which is tax exempt, and it does really impact the ability of the city to pay for the services that the nonprofits and everyone else depend on,” Northeastern Law Professor Peter D. Enrich said. ­

Nonprofits including universities can contribute half of their payment in the form of “community benefits” rather than cash.

Schools can define what constitutes a “community benefit” under the PILOT program; the benefits Harvard listed in a 2018 report to the city included programming for public school students and summer jobs for teenagers.

Harvard contributed $9.8 million to Boston in 2018 — 79 percent of the nearly $12.5 million requested by Boston. That figure includes the University’s nearly $3.6 million cash contribution, as well as the $6.2 million in credit that Harvard received for “community benefits.”

Some politicians and experts, however, argue that the PILOT system is a flawed way of requesting and assessing contributions from Boston non-profits.

“This is based off of 2011 numbers, which is really the crying shame of it all,” said Boston City Councillor Lydia Edwards. “I’d love to be paying 2011 tax rates, but I’m not.”

Enrich said even the 2011 assessments that form the basis for PILOT might only be approximate.

“The assessments for the nonprofit buildings are incredibly badly done,” he said. “Part of it is it’s hard to do an assessment for a hospital or a university library.”

“It’s not like those things get bought and sold, and no one knows what their fair market value is,” Enrich added.

Even after property assessments and requests from

the city, some non-profits can choose not to pay the full amount Boston asks for since PILOT contributions are not mandatory, according to Enrich.

“As a matter of law, this is entirely voluntary,” he said.

“There is no obligation on any of the nonprofit entities to pay any tax at all.”

Enid Eckstein, a coordinator for the PILOT Action Group, which aims to ensure that the city receives the contributions it requests under PILOT, said she feels nonprofits have a “moral obligation to the city” even in a voluntary program.

“There’s no requirement that they do it,” she said. “But when the mayor negotiated this program, the idea was that the universities were entering into a social contract.”

Edwards argued that the city of Boston, not non-profit institutions, should decide what constitutes “community benefits.”

“As long as Harvard and other universities are able to define not only what the community benefits are but what they’re worth, that’s the city’s problem,” Edwards said. “That’s the city’s dereliction of duty.”

The Boston Mayor’s office declined to comment on the record to request for comment.

Harvard spokesperson Brigid O’Rourke wrote in an emailed statement that “the University seeks to strike a thoughtful balance between taxes, PILOT, and mission driven community programs both in Allston-Brighton and the City of Boston.” oliver.riskin-kutz@thecrimson.com

The latest on student life.

By MICHELLE G. KURILLA and TAMAR SARIG CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Despite moving into a newly renovated space, Counseling and Mental Health Services continues to battle long wait times for students seeking appointments with a therapist.

The wait time for students to be processed into CAMHS at Harvard University Health Services “gets longer and longer the further we go into the school year,” HUHS director Paul J. Barreira said in a January interview.

CAMHS employs 50 mental health professionals — a number that can be quickly overwhelmed by student demand for appointments, according to CAMHS Chief Barbara Lewis. By the first official week of classes this semester, the number of appointments for initial consultations had reached 109, Lewis said.

Barreira said that, in spite ­

of a growing staff size, CAMHS has continued to struggle to meet student needs.

“We have a huge staff that has grown quite a bit in the last couple years and it’s never enough,” Barreira said.

HUHS launched a pilot in the spring of 2018 that aimed to streamline the appointment-making process. Students start by scheduling an initial consultation, either in person or by phone, through the CAMHS patient portal. When students make the appointment, they chose from a list of providers to find a time that works with their schedule. The goal is for students to stick with the provider who completes their initial consultation, Lewis said.

“We also had a goal of getting students in for their initial consultation within 48 hours,” Lewis said. “We wanted 80 percent of students to get that within 48 hours. It took us a while in the beginning, but we did eventually get there.”

With a fixed population of students and a fixed population of staff, CAMHS has introduced initiatives to aid short-term solutions for mental health, according to Lewis. One initiative is Let’s Talk, a program for drop-in, informal, 20 to 30 minute therapy sessions with CAMHS clinicians held at various locations around campus. Another initiative is a new contract partnership with iHope, a virtual therapy program.

In spite of the problems, Lewis said that patient satisfaction surveys have struck a hopeful note.

“Our overall satisfaction we consider very good. And good is considered like 83 percent for prescribers.”

“And then in the clinicians, 90 percent said that they were able to get an appointment. And the overall is 81 percent that students are satisfied,” she said. michelle.kurilla@thecrimson.com tamar.sarig@thecrimson.com

GAY FROM PAGE 1

Dean Gay Calls for Culture Reviews in Departments faculty member, just give you pause,” Gay said. “It certainly feels like a call to action.”

Other FAS departments have also made efforts to “reflect on their overall culture,” according to Gay. Recently, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences surveyed its students on their experiences studying and working in the school, and multiple departments have launched mental health surveys of their graduate students.

Gay said departments that have not yet conducted internal reviews could stand to gain “a

lot” from undertaking such appraisals.

“For departments that have not taken a moment to take stock of their climate and culture, I think it would be great,” she said.

“I think a lot could be learned, and I would not be surprised if, on balance, you know, most departments find what the Gov department finds.”

“So not just run a survey for the sake of running a survey, but actually learning something that will then inform what you do next in your department,”

she added.

Gay said FAS is prepared to provide any resources departments need to launch their own climate reviews.

“The most important resource behind this is the will to do the work,” Gay said.

“That really is the most important resource, and these are not financially costly undertakings, they really aren’t.” words jonah.berger@thecrimson.com molly.mccafferty@thecrimson.com

HBS FROM PAGE 1

HBS Plans New Position Focused on Inclusion, Belonging diversity and inclusion student organizations, such as the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Council and the Women’s Student Association, according to Student Association Co-President Triston J. Francis, co-president of the Student Association.

“We have all of these students who are focusing on this, but they don’t have an actual counterpart on the administration side, so that is the initial gap that this is looking to fill,” he said.

As the school searches for the new director, Steven Rogers, a senior lecturer at the Business School, has led efforts to increase the diversity of protagonists in business school cases. His course, “Black Business Leaders and Entrepreneurship,” includes 14 case studies with black protagonists. Rogers, however, said that he thinks the recent increase in cases featuring black protagonists has been insufficient and that he is “not happy with where we are today.”

“I believe there are eight or ten cases versus two, which in my opinion, for a place like Har-

vard Business School, which has the ability to do whatever it wants to do as quickly as it wants to do because it has the resources and the means, I believe that that is glacial change,” Rogers said.

“There has been improvement, but the improvement has been glacial and I am a little disappointed. Because we are HBS, we are Harvard, we can do whatever we want to do,” he added.

Business School spokesperson Brian Kenny said addressing issues of diversity was a priority of the school under Business School Dean Nitin Nohria.

“These things take a long time, but under Nitin’s leadership, it has been one of his priorities. And you can see the steady progress and, frankly, the change in terms of attitude that we need to address this and we need to get better at it. And Nitin has made that a priority for the school,” Kenny said.

The school has begun to take concrete steps to include more case studies featuring black protagonists, according to Business School professor Jan W. Rivkin. One of these steps is de-

termining the number of these cases currently taught.

“At a recent faculty meeting, we made those numbers clear and transparent to our faculty and had a group discussion about why it was important to move those numbers,” Rivkin said. “We committed to showing those numbers every year and having social accountability, if you will.”

Rivkin stressed that increasing diversity in the case studies would be valuable for all business school students, not only those from minority backgrounds, as it prepares them for work in the world outside the Business School.

“The protagonist diversity, I think, is helpful for students who come from underrepresented groups. As one of my former students said to me, how can I be it if I can’t see it. But it is also crucially important to every single one of our students, no matter what their background is,” he said. “We need them to be able to see the full range of humanity as a source of talent and opportunity.”

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | MARCH 8, 2019

Sierra Leone President College Surveys Recognized Visits Institute of Politics Social Organization Members SURVEY FROM PAGE 1

By JANIA J. TUMEY CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

President of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio outlined the current state of his country and pushed for greater representation of African nations in international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics Thursday.

Bio opened his speech by lambasting Western misrepresentations of Sierra Leone – misrepresentations, he said, that characterize the West African nation as a “failed state,” “playground for international warlords,” or solely “a site of activity for multiple international charities.”

“Sierra Leone continues to pay a hefty price for the failure and refusal of huge factions of the West to shake off their wrong perceptions of Sierra Leone,” Bio said.

He highlighted Sierra Leone’s recent success as a practicing democratic state. Bio is the third president since the restoration of the civilian government in the 1990s, after a civil war fueled by the diamond ­

trade devastated the nation.

“I want to talk about my Sierra Leone, where there has been democratic elections, and three peaceful and seamless transfers of power,” Bio said.

Bio also addressed issues of concern in his country, including rising rates of sexual violence.

Sexual violence reports more than doubled in Sierra Leone from 2017 to 2018, with a third of victims identified as minors. At the IOP, Bio explained the implications of his Feb. 8 decision to declare rape and sexual violence a national emergency.

“We can allocate resources to dealing with the emergency while reviewing all applicable laws on women’s rights and eliminating all forms of gender-based violence,” Bio said.

Bio called for increased representation within the United Nations, pointing to Sierra Leone’s growing involvement in peacekeeping operations. No African nations occupy a permanent position on the United Nations Security Council — a reality, Bio said, that must

change.

“The single objective is to gain Africa’s rightful place in the global governance system,” Bio said. “Africa’s non-representation and underrepresentation in the permanent and nonpermanent categories of the Security Council is grossly unfair and unjust.”

Bio asserted that Africa’s United Nations representation is not sufficient considering the size of the continent.

“Africa is the world’s second largest and second most populous continent, and its 1.2 billion people collectively deserve representation in the permanent category of the premier organ of the United Nations,” Bio said.

Bio concluded his speech by reiterating his commitment to democracy.

“Our vision of the new Sierra Leone is one that is developed on the principles of democratic governance and accountability,” Bio said. “Our mission is to build a Sierra Leone whose reputation is hard to destroy.” jania.tumey@thecrimson.com

SULLIVAN FROM PAGE 1

Sullivan Criticizes The Harvard Crimson’s Coverage in Email importance of representing the “unpopular defendant.” Several days later, Sullivan sent another missive outlining processes for Winthrop students moving forward, including designating Resident Dean Linda D.M. Chavers as the House’s “point person” for sexual misconduct issues.

Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana announced Feb. 25 that former Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67 would lead a “climate review” of Winthrop House amidst these tensions. Winthrop residents received a survey Tuesday as part of this review.

Since his announcement in late January, Sullivan has faced criticism from students in Winthrop and across Harvard’s campus — with calls coming

from individuals and student groups for him to resign from his post as faculty dean.

Sullivan wrote in his Thursday email that The Crimson failed to publish articles and editorials that presented a variety of viewpoints. He attached links to blog posts and articles defending his decision to join Weinstein’s legal team penned by various Harvard faculty, including former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 and Law School Professor Randall L. Kennedy.

The Crimson has published several opinion pieces from individuals both praising and criticizing Sullivan’s decision to take on the high profile case.

The Crimson Editorial Board also condemned his decision for what they argued was his fail-

undergraduate social life, according to the email sent to RSOs. Colleran wrote in an email to The Crimson that she will be holding focus groups on the College social scene this semester.

“Numerous students have expressed to me wanting changes to Harvard’s social scene, so I am inviting them to speak with me about those ideas,” Colleran wrote in an email to The Crimson.

The DSO is offering a “prize” to one of the groups if the office collects 200 or more survey responses, according to the email ­

sent to RSOs. The incentive “centers around supporting them in hosting a social event” with a College-provided venue, food, and financial resources, Colleran wrote in an email to The Crimson.

Students will have until March 15 to fill out the survey.

DSO administrators recently praised turnout for recruitment events organized jointly by four of the RSOs. Nearly 400 students registered to participate in a week of activities at the start of the semester.

Though some social orga-

nizations have changed their membership policies to comply with the College’s rules, others have refused.

Harvard is currently facing parallel lawsuits in state and federal court, with several national Greek organizations and unnamed undergraduates alleging the sanctions constitute sex-based discrimination and interfere with students’ freedom of association.

University attorneys deny the claims and have asked the judges to dismiss the complaints. samuel.zwickel@thecrimson.com

From the Law School to Longwood,

ure to consider its effects on his ability to perform his duties as faculty dean. Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at Editorial Board meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics, according to The Crimson’s policies.

“A central injunction of journalism is that journalists present important stories from multiple vantage points,” Sullivan wrote in his email. “Over the past few weeks, the Crimson has not followed through on that basic tenet.”

Guillaume wrote in her statement that The Crimson’s Editorial Board followed its customary procedures when deciding which pieces to publish. alexandra.chaidez@thecrimson.com

ARTLAB FROM PAGE 1

ArtLab in Allston to Open Officially in September t ransparency that will spark imagination and add to the richness of the arts at Harvard and beyond,” Gross said.

Edwards said she expects programming at the ArtLab to include opportunities not only for artists affiliated with Harvard, but also for artists currently unaffiliated with Harvard.

“We’ll have a visiting artists program,” she said. “So I’d say that’s beyond Harvard. But these are guests that will kind of catalyze new activity then ­

we will work with students and faculty on developing projects, and then there will be times when the Allston and Boston community come in for specific engagements.”

“I think that I’m really looking forward to seeing what that programming looks like, because it will be really driven by who’s working there.And I think we don’t even know what that will be yet,” she added.

Edwards said she did not think that the ArtLab’s relatively distant location from sev-

eral Harvard schools would significantly affect its ability to achieve its goals.

“I think we’re more interested in depth than masses of people,” she said.

While the ArtLab building is finishing construction, visiting artists will be testing out the space, according to Edwards.

The ArtLab expects to host its official opening celebration in mid-September 2019. brie.buchanan@thecrimson.com peter.o’keefe@thecrimson.com

Transformative coverage.

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | MARCH 8, 2019

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | MARCH 8, 2019

PAGE 6

EDITORIAL THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD

OP-ED

HSA Must Do More to Protect Its Student Workers

The Freshmen Fifteen

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ccording to its mission statement, Harvard Student Agencies, which operates The Harvard Shop, among other businesses, is designed in large part “to defray the expenses of [student employees’] education.” In the wake of shocking and disappointing revelations that managers at The Harvard Shop did not correctly follow labor laws with regard to paying employees in a timely manner for nearly three years — and was thus ordered to pay back nearly $47,000 in unpaid wages to employees by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office — it appears HSA has failed and directly contradicted its noble goals in this instance.

In response to this issue, former HSA President Ali Dastjerdi ’19 claimed that the complaint was a comparatively “small” deal in the context of the broader company. We strongly disagree. The amount HSA was ordered to compensate students in back-pay was over a tenth of their expenditures on wages and salaries in fiscal year 2017, according to publically available figures. While we believe HSA’s efforts to retroactively compensate their employees so far constitute the legal bare minimum, the organization must do a better job of looking out for and proactively defending its workers.After all, HSA is a non-profit business that claims to help its student workers in its mission statement, not cheat them out of their earned wages.

Moreover, as HSA proudly vaunts their “student-run” status, they should especially empathize with its student workers, and look out for those whose labor is not only an invaluable contribution to their collective endeavor, but who work because of financial need.

Some significant degree of responsibility for these violations of legal and ethical standards must be placed on HSA’s permanent employees and board of directors. Given their role in guiding

It appears HSA has failed and directly contradicted its noble goals in this instance. student managers at HSA, they should be expected to keep up with labor laws and other relevant policies pertaining to workers.

It is inexcusable that these officials were unaware of an existing law for more than two years. That said, an organization which prides itself as much as HSA does on its long-held independence and student-run management should hold its student leadership accountable for all of the practices and nuances of running a business, not least fairly and legally paying its employees. The fact that the labor law, which requires employers to pay a premium to Sunday and holiday hourly workers, was not fol-

lowed for nearly three years, only adds to this disastrous turn of events.

Recognizing that student organizations by their very nature have regular turnover, we urge HSA to think more critically about how they train new leadership and employees about laws and regulations that apply to their businesses, as well as ethics. To that end, we hope that the internal auditing process that HSA undertook to discover payroll discrepancies does not stop with The Harvard Shop, and continues to its other businesses that are responsible for paying student workers to ensure that the organization is not only upholding its stated mission but also the law.

Ultimately, The Harvard Shop’s incompetence reflects poorly not only on HSA’s part, but on all of Harvard’s independent student organizations. Making up for this loss of reputation, as well as making amends to those students who were wronged, will take serious institutional work and understanding across the company.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

Submit an Op-Ed Today!

op-eds@thecrimson.com

COLUMN

Writing is Becoming the Lost American Art Form Henry N. Brooks SOCIALLY LIBERAL, FISCALLY LIBERAL

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quickly becoming apparent. Democracy itself is beginning to strain without the written word to support it. This has been most apparent in the virtual public sphere, where tweets have become our modern stand-ins for the old radio or television address. One commentator recently suggested that President Donald J. Trump should use Twitter like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904, used radio for fireside chats. I’m forced to wonder whether such a use of the platform is even possible, given that FDR’s chats were in fact full-blown essays.

The meme has produced its own cor-

Whatever the causes, the cultural effects of our departure from writig are quickly becoming apparent.

Democracy itself is beginning to strain without the written word to support it. rosive effects online, particularly as a vector for “alt-right” propaganda. While hateful messaging can certainly take the long-form, one wonders whether the racist, sexist, homo- and trans-phobic messaging of the alt-right would have proliferated as quickly if its devotees had had to invest the time required to read a full volume. Or if it could strike as much fear through full sentences as a symbol like the swastika or the Confederate flag could with a single appearance. My guess is likely not.

There is something jarringly postmodern about the collapse of written culture into visual culture. Jacques Derrida, the famous French deconstructionist, believed that words and sentences — the so-called “logos” — were too unstable and too interdependent to transmit meaning, perhaps a reason for our departure from the form. Derrida’s view stemmed from another radical thought, that language, as one author put it, was not a tool at our disposal but a “force that acts through us.” A book, by this standard, is just a telling social construct, a codification of our own inbuilt biases.

Whether that view captures the great

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longside the phrases “comp,” “final club,” “lit,” “consulting,” “Quadded,” “Goldman Sachs,” and “Mankiw,” you won’t make it through Opening Days without mention of the “freshman 15.” The fear-instilling, joke-inspiring “freshman 15” is a buzz word in the common language we speak as college students.

It echoes around campus, serving as a witty, self-deprecating remark to break ice in “the Berg” or as students haul themselves to the Malkin Athletic Center. But the legend seeps through hallowed halls as hollowed cheeks grow deeper.

The “freshman 15” has a dark flipside.

For all the talk of first-year students gaining 15 pounds, we forget about the countless freshman who are losing 15 pounds — or more — at the ignorant hands of this harmful myth.

Before arriving on campus, first-years are bombarded with news articles warning of the “freshman 15” and offering concrete tips about how to “beat weight gain.” But to what extent is this fear justified? Apparently, not at all. The idea that first-years even gain 15 pounds once they arrive at college is completely unfounded.

The preponderance of research indicates that if college students do gain weight, it is usually within the range of two and a half to six pounds.

Furthermore, college students self-report weight gain that is not verified by their doctors or by researchers. They perceive weight gain where it hasn’t occurred; reported numbers are inflated by fear and the use of inconsistent scales. The freshman 15 doesn’t make us heavy — it makes us feel

The “freshman 15” has become such an integral part of our vocabulary as first years that we don’t even think about how degrading it is.

The “freshman 15” is most often cushioned as a joke — but for many of us, it isn’t so funny. This joke in passing ends up sticking to something deep inside of us.

The Crimson

ne of my favorite scenes in American cinema is from Robert Redford’s “A River Runs Through It,” when the young Norman Maclean comes before his father’s desk with a handwritten essay, ready for revisions. Maclean’s father — a Presbyterian preacher and strict grammarian — parses through the essay, marking it up until the original penmanship is nearly illegible. He then returns it to his son, who runs off to edit some more.

Redford’s film encodes much of the DNA of American life: a rich Montana geography (where my own great-grandmother grew up), a life on the former frontier. I’m inclined to think, from all this, that the writing motif wasn’t accidental. Wherever it appears — in the Maclean family’s study, at the local newspaper where Norman’s brother Paul goes to work, in the letter from the University of Chicago offering Norman a professorship in the English Department — it is always as a gesture toward improvement, a stand-in for the American Dream.

I’m forced to wonder, in light of that film, what has changed about our American experience that prompts article titles like some I’ve seen recently.

One, from 2015, studies “Why Americans can’t write.” The author raises the startling statistic that in 2011, only 24 percent of graduating middle and high schoolers were considered proficient relative to their grade level in national testing. The blame, she suggests, lies with the Common Core system, which lays out age-group standards for writing ability but gives no suggestions for actually teaching writing.

Another article, from 2013, proposes that “The Internet Is Making Writing Worse.” The story feels rehearsed by now, though no less true, that social media has destroyed our vocabulary and made us more prone to plagiarism.

The truth is, there are most likely several root causes, including that schools don’t teach grammar or expository writing like they used to. Part of the problem, if we take Redford seriously, also stems from our parents. Not all of us grew up under strict Presbyterian grammarians (I definitely did not, at any rate).

Whatever the causes, the cultural effects of our departure from writing are

By AYSHA L. J. EMMERSON

power we still hold over our own language — or the great potential for misunderstanding we incur by surrendering it — is uncertain.

Marshall McLuhan, the famous Canadian media theorist whom I have discussed before in these pages, wrote extensively on the cultural turn away from the written word, noting its tribalizing effects on modern people. The rise of the internet seems to have vindicated McLuhan’s view, with new ideological silos marking our evolving political landscape.

History certainly tells us of the importance of writing to fostering (or underwriting, as it were) our freedom. By 1831, all but three of America’s slaveholding states had outlawed the instruction of reading or writing to slaves. The absence of writing was a precondition for the most repressive period of American history.

Assuming that Derrida underestimated writing, it still remains for us to revive it. How do we go about it? The teaching guidelines offered by the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, contain simple suggestions: give short, inclass prompts; teach the value of outlining and drafting; stress the importance of structure (how very un-Derrida!). The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University includes a kind of starter kit for “General Writing” that emphasizes mechanics, grammar, and punctuation. Sometimes the obvious answer is also the right one.

I confess, the thought has crossed my mind of an updated version of “A River Runs Through It” in which the young Norman Maclean presents his father not with an essay but instead a tweet or a meme. One almost struggles to envision the range of cultural implications such a moment would have. How great would the significance be of replacing words with images as the reserve currency of meaning?

The suggestion is a hasty one, I admit, and certainly too thin for serious study. Still, I can only imagine the kind of marks such a thing would get from the old Presbyterian preacher.

—Henry N. Brooks ’19 is a Social Studies concentrator in Currier House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.

heavy. It weighs on us, not around us.

Fifty percent of teenage girls and 33 percent of teenage boys engage in “unhealthy weight control behaviors.” The freshman 15 dialogue then exploits these pre-existing behaviors once adolescents get to college. Anorexia and bulimia onset among women between ages 16 and 19, coinciding with young women’s college transition.

When taken to the extreme, the “healthy habits” encouraged by the media can easily turn into obsessions. Of course exercise is good: It makes you feel strong! It helps you focus! It releases stress! But it can quickly become an unhealthy addiction when promoted in the sole context of losing weight.

Perhaps the most harmful thing freshman are consuming is not dining hall food but instead is the false information that we and the media promulgate on a daily basis.Yet we continue to talk about something fake as if it were real.

The “freshman 15” has become such an integral part of our vocabulary as first-years that we don’t even think twice about how degrading it is.

The “freshman 15” is most often cushioned as a joke — but for many of us, it isn’t so funny.

This joke in passing ends up sticking to something deep inside of us. It attaches itself to the fears we internalized as children, that are constantly reinforced with every hypersexualized magazine cover, every “before and after” Instagram post, and every unhelpful comment we make to our roommate as we fret under a mirror’s watchful eye. I never used to consider myself an angry person. In high school, it was actually a bit of a joke amongst my friends that they could never rile me up.

However, a few nights ago, when one of my closest friends here at the college broke down and told me that she thinks she has an eating disorder, I realized that I am infuriated — and I have been infuriated for a long time. I am enraged at systems. I am sick of a culture that allows body-shaming dialogue to be mainstream.

I am tired of a culture where women wince when their significant other touches their side because it reminds them of the body that they don’t want. This culture needs to change and we each need be held accountable for the damaging messaging we promote everytime we talk about weight gain in this manner. College is hard enough.

We are constantly trying to “fit in:” fit in with a new group of peers; fit in enough hours of sleep so that we can reasonably function the next day; fit in social time with class time; fit our old selves into new, ever-changing versions of who we are.

We shouldn’t have to constantly be worrying about fitting into our jeans as well, but the “freshman 15” serves as a constant reminder of this fear.

As someone who was affected by an eating disorder at a very young age but has since recovered, I am painfully aware of the suffering around me.

There are so many students, especially women, who are struggling.

The lunchline at Annenberg is already chaotic. Combined with a fear of food, it is an absolute nightmare. It is our job to take care of one another. Next time you want to make a comment about the freshman 15, I beg you to think twice. The punchline feels a lot more like a punch and it is time we take the weight of our words seriously.

Last week was National Eating Disorder Awareness week. How aware are you?

—Aysha L. J. Emmerson ’22, a Crimson Editorial comper, lives in Straus Hall.

ARTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | MARCH 8, 2019 | PAGE 7

THEATER

Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s ‘John Corigliano Portrait Concert’: A Journey of Many Proportions

COURTESY OF CLIVE GRAINGER

IAN CHAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project prides itself on championing “monumental and provocative new works,” with the hope of expanding “the horizon of a typical night at the symphony,” according to its mission statement. Its most recent concert of the season, “John Corigliano Portrait Concert,” embodied exactly that: Under the baton of artistic director Gil Rose, the orchestra embarked on an expansive and refreshing musical journey, highlighting contemporary orchestral innovation in a surprisingly accessible manner.

The performance, which took place on Feb. 23 at the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, featured works by two composers, John Corigliano and Diana Voyer. Corigliano is well-versed and well-known in today’s compositional realm — he has won five Grammy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize and is on the composition faculty at the Juilliard School, while Diana Voyer is an engineer by training and winner of this season’s New

England Conservatory’s Composition Competition. Voyer’s piece, “The Infinite Forest,” harmonizes their quantitative background with their natural musical intuition in the form of a “process piece” based on mathematical constructs like prime numbers and non-abelian groups.

Despite the work’s rigorous backbone, the music never feels artificial or contrived. Instead, “The Infinite Forest” unfolds continually like a tapestry, wherein myriad members of the orchestra interact delicately — yet deliberately — with one another, highlighting independent timbral motion while ensuring that none take an overpowering role. Indeed, meticulous orchestration and musicianship allow for a veritably immersive, forest-like soundscape to emerge, moving through passionate climaxes and moments of repose seamlessly.

Corigliano’s pieces, though not as through-composed, reflect as much musical intricacy and thought. Such is the case with his “Symphony No. 2,” a work for string orches-

tra. Written in five movements, the work is a structural palindrome, thereby embarking on an aural adventure that culminates in a similar tonal and orchestrational place as it began — albeit undergoing a deep-rooted transformation through the course of the piece. The outer movements, aptly titled “Prelude” and “Postlude,” embody a hazy quality that feels as uncertain as it does ethereal. Indeed, the nuance of the orchestra’s strings highlighted this notion, imparting clarity and smoothness. These movements are respectively bordered by “Scherzo” and “Fugue,” both of which start with a moreor-less rigid order that devolves, equally through orchestrational and structural methods, into fervent chaos.

This leaves the middle movement, “Nocturne,”as a being of its own: Gliding in and out of both tonality and concerto-like form, the movement approaches the lament in a sparse but equally impactful way. It is through this extensive, impassioned structural treatment that the root of the work — the Baroque-like chorale that features itself in some way in each month — epitomizes a symphonic journey.

However, perhaps the most compelling piece of the night was Corigliano’s “Troubadours,” a single-movement (but in three parts) concerto for guitar and orchestra. Grounded around a beautifully wistful flamenco-esque tune, the work undergoes a series of transformations that are transportative and reflectionary. Yet, these transitions are never once jarring, instead taking on a subtler, more nuanced quality. This is enhanced by Corigliano’s phenomenally gifted orchestration: the impossibly smooth coalescence of the strings’, the winds’, and the guitar’s timbre at the piece’s opening is just as striking as their independence in the second part. It is this aspect of “Troubadours” that makes its main theme — when heard in the solo guitar with shocking sparseness compared to the rest of the work — so powerful each time it returns.

The masterful, virtuosic performance of soloist Eliot Fisk allowed Corigliano’s concerto to embody the warm, intimate storytelling which the title suggests.

Through these avenues, Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project managed to craft not only three independently fulfilling musical journeys, but also one macroscopic voyage: From the precision of Voyer’s opening notes to Corigliano’s subtle finish under the craft of the orchestra’s musicians, the performance’s program takes both an emotional and harmonic arc, thereby embedding novelties in compositional techniques with roots that naturally resonate and synergize, as most stories do.

Staff Writer Ian Chan can be reached at ian.chan@thecrimson.com.

CAMPUS

Isabella Boylston on Ballet, Business, and Being Yourself JOY C. ASHFORD CRIMSON STAFF WRITER COURTESY OF ISABELLA BOYLSTON

At 32, Isabella Boylston — or “Bella,” as her friends like to call her — is an icon of American classical ballet. A principal for the prestigious American Ballet Theater (ABT), she holds one of the most sought-after positions in the ballet world. But between her large social media following and score of individual projects, Boylston is not just a beloved member of the company but a fascinating artist and innovator in her own right. The same ambition that led her to upper echelons of the ballet world brought her, this past semester, to the Harvard Business School’s Crossover into Business program. Pioneered in partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA), the program pairs professional athletes with MBA mentors to help them prepare for a life after their athletic careers. This year, Boylston received the Crossover into Business program’s “championship ring” for top performance throughout the program and on the final exams.

Last Monday, she sat down in a crowded room at the Office of Career Services to eat pizza (one of her favorite foods), accept her new ring, and talk about her journey into the upper echelons of the ballet world — and the boundaries of dance beyond it.

Boylston grew up in Sun Valley, Idaho, a town of only around 1000 people. She caught the ballet bug early: Boylston went to her first summer intensive when she was only 11, and began commuting two hours to study at the Colorado Ballet Academy when she was 12.

Her parents were initially concerned about letting her specialize so early, and, as Isabella recounted, would even send her Harvard brochures in the mail in the hopes of encouraging her to pursue a college degree. But ultimately, Boylston’s determination to succeed in the ballet world was unstoppable.

“There was nothing they could have done to dissuade me — they would have had to lock me in a jail cell, I was so determined,” she said.

Once Boylston began to find success as a professional ballerina, she said that one of the biggest challenges she needed to overcome was her relationship with ballet’s heavy culture of criticism.

“When I joined ABT, I had both a superiority complex and an inferiority complex at the same time,” she said. “It’s a fine line between having a realistic self-appraisal and being open to criticism and being able to believe in yourself and get out there and give a really stellar performance.”

The personal confidence that led Boylston to a semester at the Business School is, Boyl-

ston said, not always easy to find in the dance world.

“Ballet is such a hierarchical environment, and, growing up, you’re super deferential,” she said. “You never talk in class.” Many dancers, she explained, are satisfied being in the “corps” — in groups of non-soloist dancers, often performing the same ensemble routines in familiar shows.

The #MeToo movement and the corresponding scandals around several dance company executives, however, have inaugurated a culture shift.

“There are a lot more conversations about women leaders and women choreographers,” Boylston said. “When I joined, that wasn’t so much the case — I never danced work by women choreographers.”

Boylston also talked about the future of ballet as a career and the importance of developing a personal brand — something she’s particularly known for. Her curated image and large social media following have landed her photoshoots and interviews with Self, Elle, Vogue, and Dance Magazine.

“It’s very young and fresh and honest,” Katherine L. Penner ’07, a math preceptor at Harvard and social media manager for Vail Dance Company, said of Boylston’s brand.

“There’s a lot of focus these days on projecting a part of yourself that’s somewhat perfect, or perfectly imperfect, and I like that Bella is not as concerned about that. She posts videos that make fun of herself, she posts videos that are things that she’s really proud of — they’re authentic moments in her work day.”

That branding, in many ways, is what has enabled Boylston to connect with her audiences — and to attract a wide range of students to her talk, even those without a ballet background. While many students in the audience listened eagerly for Isabella’s advice on professional ballet careers, others found commonality simply in her ambition and unbridled dedication to what she loved — from former dancers to student athletes.

One such student athlete, Naomi P. Davy ’22, said that though she is not a dancer, she appreciates Boylston’s drive.

“There’s a lot to learn from ballet. Athletically, I understand the pain, the drive, what it takes to keep going. I can relate to that,” Davy said.

Staff writer Joy C. Ashford can be reached at joy.ashford@thecrimson.com.

SPORTS

IN OTHER NEWS

BASEBALL

TRACK AND FIELD

Harvard is set to play four games at Radford this weekend in their second series of the season, coming off their two game split with Wofford this past weekend.

Junior triple jumper Simi Fajemisin will be the sole Harvard representative traveling to Alabama to participate in the 2019 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.

MEN’S LACROSSE

Manager to Midfielder: The Story of Michael Calabro

By BEN MORRIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

LFor most college students, the dreams of suiting up to play a varsity college sport are left back in high school. However, there are, every once in a while, exceptions.

Despite not receiving scholarships nor recruiting letters, these are individuals who are willing to dedicate their time and energy, while balancing other life activities, to a sport simply because of a love for the game.

Walking on to a team requires an immense amount of diligence and hard work that not many are willing to put in.

This is a story on one of the few dream chasers. This is the story of Michael Calabro.

Calabro, now a junior, moved into his first-year dorm room in the fall of 2016. It just so happened to be that his roommate was current junior defenseman Beau Botkiss. Botkiss, who still remains roommates with Calabro to this day, had a major impact on shaping the Dunster resident’s future. The pair grew close in the following months, and Calabro also developed close friendships with other freshmen on the lacrosse team.

Up until college, Calabro had never played lacrosse, but he wasted no time getting involved with the Crimson program.

“One day, the coaches mentioned that the team was looking for a manager to film practices, and the guys convinced me to take on the gig,” the Andover, Mass., native said.

As the lacrosse manager, the St. Sebastian’s product trekked down to Jordan Field alongside the rest of the team. Every day during the season, he would help set up and take down the field, as well as film the practices, rain or shine. Calabro was very appreciative of the expe­

rience, as it allowed him to become closer with a lot of the team members and coaches.

The new team manager continued to maintain an active role around the team for the rest of his freshman year, as well as all throughout his sophomore year. While he very much enjoyed his time as manager, something changed for the Andover, Mass., native towards the end of his sophomore year.

“I came to the realization that I really missed competitive sports and decided that I wanted to try out for some team in the fall,” Calabro said.

Up until attending Harvard, Calabro had played football, basketball, and baseball for his entire life. He especially missed the camaraderie and competition and sought to reattain it heading into his junior year. After pondering over which sport to attempt trying out for, Calabro ultimately decided to try to join his friends on the lacrosse team.

During his sophomore year, Calabro gained a bit of experience playing lacrosse in some club games, but found that he needed to better prepare himself both mentally and physically.

“I knew that learning a new sport would be a huge challenge, and would make for an exciting way to push my boundaries over the summer,” Calabro said. “Regardless of whether or not I ultimately made the team.”

Calabro knew he had a lot of work ahead of him, but he was fully committed to achieving this goal. After getting approval from head coach Chris Wojick ‘96 and head strength coach Tim Mullen to participate in strength and conditioning workouts in the summer, the incoming junior began the seven-week process of early morning lifts, speed work, and conditioning. At the same time, Cal-

NO CALABS POLICY After serving as a team manager for two seasons, junior Michael Calabro earned a spot on the men’s lacrosse team this season despite having no real experience before coming to Harvard. COURTESY OF MICHAEL CALABRO

abro took summer classes and worked for Harvard Student Agencies.

Outside of the actual summer sessions, Calabro sought the advice and guidance of some of his friends on the team.

He would practice as much as he could, and when he had any free time, the midfielder would spend it studying the game and learning little tips and tricks to help him improve. Calabro kept up this routine all summer in preparation for tryouts in the fall.

Finally, tryouts came around, and all of the hard work that Calabro put in paid off.

“Ultimately I tried out for and made the team as a defensive midfielder this fall,” Calabro said. “Making the team was the craziest, coolest, and most important thing that has ever happened to me.”

At the end of those tryouts, Coach Wojick had a special surprise announcement given in front of the entire team.

“Calabs you have been with us for two years now and have done an awesome job,” Wojick said in a locker room video posted on Instagram. “You have been a great manager and someone I don’t know how we will replace...Today, rather than

filming, you will be wearing Crimson, my man!”

However, Calabro knew that the journey was not over, rather, it was just getting started.

The transition to playing a varsity sport, especially one that Calabro was still picking, was not an easy one. “There were a ton of nuances of the sport that I still did not know, and I was extremely blessed to have a group of awesome teammates who would always encourage me whenever I screwed some detail up in practice.”

Calabro continued to work all fall and winter with the team, and when opening day came on

Feb. 16 against No. 12/14 North Carolina, he was suited up alongside all of his teammates.

Thus far, Calabro has played in all four games of the young 2019 season. He continues to train hard to develop his skills and studies as much lacrosse as he can to learn more about the game.

Looking back, Calabro credits all of his success throughout this long journey to his teammates.

“They’ve been insanely supportive of me throughout all of this, and I am lucky to have these 38 guys as my best friends on campus. They’re the best.”

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Harvard Controls Its Path To Seventh Ivy League Title

By HENRY ZHU CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

*Update: 2017-18 Ivy League Player of the Year Seth Towns announced on his Instagram page that he will miss the remainder of the season. The junior has not suited up in a game since suffering a knee injury in last year’s Ivy Tournament final against Penn.

Heading into the final weekend of Ivy play, the Harvard men’s basketball team has control over a regular-season championship and No. 1 conference tournament seed ranking in its own hands. A road sweep over Cornell and Columbia would be the most direct path to the program’s seventh-ever Ivy League title, an honor it would share with the Yale Bulldogs if its New Haven foes can similarly knock off Princeton and ­

Penn. Due to Yale’s upset loss over the seventh-place Lions last weekend, the Crimson and Bulldogs carry identical 9-3 Ivy records approaching its last two round-robin games.

Coach Tommy Amaker’s side also holds the statistical tiebreaker over Yale, thanks to its 2-0 head-to-head record this season against Coach James Jones’ team. Unless both teams drop its pair of contests this weekend and Princeton is also able to garner a victory over Brown, the Crimson will head into the four-team Ivy League Tournament as the No.1 seed — as well as its name etched on the Princeton Alumni Council Trophy — if it can match Yale’s weekend record.

“We all know how tough we need to be to win games on the road, as we have had to be

during this conference race so far,” said Coach Amaker following the Mar. 2 victory over Penn.

“Now that it looks like with the Yale thing that has happened, we are in first place and we have a chance to…it’s on us to close this thing out.”

The Crimson was in a similar position last season, having been vaulted onto the top of the Ancient Eight leaderboard after sitting behind a league leader(then-Penn) for much of the conference slate. The Quakers’ loss at Yale in the penultimate weekend dropped the Philadelphia side to the No. 2 slot, and Harvard’s weekend sweep held onto its newly-gained position with home wins over Cornell and Columbia.

But that campaign ended in forgettable fashion, as the Crimson failed to earn a berth

FIRST AT LAST If the season ended today, Harvard would earn the No. 1 seed in the four-team Ivy playoffs.

QUINN G. PERINI—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

in the NCAA Tournament in a three-point loss to Penn in the conference finals.

“I think it just puts a heavier chip on our shoulder,” said sophomore forward Danilo Djuricic. “We have the experience of winning the regular season last year and then losing in the tournament overall, and then having our ultimate goal not be achieved. So I think we just got to learn from our mistakes last year, and then go in with that mindset that we won’t be stopped.”

Regardless, the final chapter of the regular season has not been closed just yet: Cornell and Columbia are certainly no walks in the park.

The Crimson was one miraculous Bryce Aiken heave away from suffering its first weekend sweep since the end of the 20162017 season last time around, having had Columbia chase its heels for three overtimes. That Friday night ordeal in some ways contributed to a lackluster Saturday outing against Cornell, even with a rare off-night from Matt Morgan. The senior recently propelled himself to second in the all-time Ivy scoring list and currently leads the Ancient Eight in scoring with 22.3 PPG. “Such a big game for both of us, [Cornell] trying to be in that four seed and us trying to get that top seed,” first-year Noah Kirkwood said. “I think for [Matt] being one of his last games there he will ever play, so he will be tough for us regardless of that circumstance.”

Kirkwood, who recently earned his program-tying sixth Rookie of the Week honors, has had to assume a heavier defensive load in place of injured junior wing Justin Bassey. Amaker’s defensive cog has missed the past three games recovering from a lower leg injury suf-

fered early in the Brown contest. Bassey had only engaged in light practices up to this Wednesday, according to Coach Amaker.

“I think with [Justin] being gone, it kind of makes us all realize all the things he did that might not show on the stat sheet — charges, deflections, boxouts that we took for granted almost at times,” Kirkwood said.

“So for me, I felt it was my job to try to do my best to do all those things he did do for us. And as for that, I’ve been growing defensively and then my defense gives me confidence on offense.

So it’s been helpful.”

The freshman will certainly be occupied around the perimeter, assuming responsibilities on both Morgan — who had knocked down a combined 14 triples in the four games prior to last weekend’s 1-of- 7 showing from deep — as well as Columbia’s sharpshooting core in Gabe Stefanini and Quinton Adlesh, who combined for 49 points this past weekend.

While the Lions are statistically eliminated from playoff contention, it has gone on a late-season tear with wins in three out of its last four games over Penn, Yale, and Brown.

The “party” spoilers also had its first Ivy League Player of the Week in big man Patrick Tapé, who tallied consecutive 16-point outings this past weekend. Tapé had arguably his best game of the campaign in the last run with the Crimson, collecting 12 boards and a season-high 22 points.

Cornell has even more to play for outside of personal pride, as it is currently in must-win mentality if it seeks to sneak in as the No. 4 seed the following weekend. Having dropped its last five contests, the tiebreaker odds do not align in favor of the Big Red who are currently in sixth be-

hind Brown and Penn. Brown is one game ahead on the win sheet, while Penn beats out Cornell in most tie-breaking situations.

Given the Crimson’s difficulty this season in nabbing victories over traditionally smaller Ivy programs(its three losses have come to Dartmouth, Cornell, and Brown despite sweeping Penn, Princeton, Yale), Harvard has plenty still left to show before it can dream about Selection Sunday.

“Our league is really, really hard,” Coach Amaker acknowledged. “And no matter who we play, we’ve had gut wrenching games, close games. And Iooking at a Dartmouth team, for instance, I know they are last place in the league. I don’t know how many games they played that were [decided by] overtime, one or two points, one-possession games. We’ve been fortunate to come out on top with some wins that we have and unfortunate for us on the other side of it.

That just I think says a lot about the, the depth and I think the parity of our league for us to the losses we have.”

With the festivities of senior weekend behind and an opportune loss from its rivals, the Crimson is once again in the driver’s seat in controlling its own destiny. After numerous bumps to the season, Harvard is hoping for a much smoother ride to New Haven for the Ancient Eight playoffs, and somewhere in the distance, a journey to the NCAA Tournament. It’s one game, and one road trip at a time before all of that madness ensues. Onwards continues the trek, to Ithaca first and then — potentially with the championship trophy in the building— to Morningside Heights we head.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, henry.zhu@thecrimson.com.