1. education
2. graduate school

FRIDAY • MAY 15, 2015
CHICAGOMAROON.COM
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892
ISSUE 47 • VOLUME 126
Obama Foundation officially
announces South Side library
Maggie Loughran
Associate News Editor
The Barack Obama Foundation announced on Tuesday that
the Barack Obama Presidential
Center will be located on the
South Side of Chicago. In the
coming months, the Foundation will choose either Jackson
or Washington Park as the
site of the Center, which will
include a library, museum, office, and activity space. Martin
Nesbitt, chairman of the board
of the Foundation, expects the
doors to open sometime in 2020
or 2021.
“This day has been a long
time coming and over the past
few days, it has become the
worst-kept secret in the City
of Chicago,” said Mayor Rahm
Emanuel at a press conference at
the Gary Comer Youth Center
on the South Side. “But today
we can finally say the words that
all of Chicago has been waiting
to hear: The Obama presidential
Prior to its conversion into a dining hall, Bartlett featured a colorful display of
Ivanhoe stained glass windows, which was placed into storage in 2001.
COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO CHRONICLE
Bartlett stained glass still in storage
after 15 years
Maggie Loughran
Associate News Editor
The conversion of Bartlett
from a gymnasium into a dining hall in 2001 resulted in the
removal of a historically and
artistically significant stainedglass window from the east
side of the building. Nearly 15
years have passed and the glass
remains crated in storage, de-
spite the University’s promises
to restore and reinstall it. The
administration’s lack of initiative has alumni and professionals concerned that architectural apathy is a growing trend on
campus.
Edward Peck Sperry completed the window in 1904—
the same year Frederic Clay
Bartlett finished his mural,
“Athletic Games in the Middle
Ages,” which still sits opposite
the staircase in Bartlett’s atrium. Both works were meant
to inspire student-athletes and
complement the building’s
neo-Gothic architecture. Sperry’s window depicts a mythical
medieval scene: the crowning
of Ivanhoe by Rowena. Sperry
was most likely a professional
acquaintance of Frederic, the
GLASS continued on page 3
Trauma center protesters march
from proposed Obama library site
Adam Thorp
Senior News Writer
This Tuesday, approximately 65 people marched from
one of the proposed Barack
Obama presidential library
sites in Washington Park to
the house of University of
Chicago President Robert
Zimmer, protesting for a Level
I trauma center at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC). The announcement made earlier that day
that the library would be built
on the South Side attracted
press attention to the University and the area surrounding it;
the event’s organizers hoped to
use this attention to publicize
their cause.
There was substantial media
presence at the event, including members of the local and
national press.
At a press conference before
the march set out, Veronica
Morris-Moore, a member of
TRAUMA continued on page 3
library is coming home to the
City of Chicago.”
The South Side personally and politically influenced
President Obama, who began
his career in Hyde Park as a
community organizer. “All the
strands of my life came together
and I really became a man when
I moved to Chicago,” Obama
said in a video announcement
on the Foundation’s website.
“That’s where I was able to apply that early idealism to try to
work in communities in public
service. That’s where I met my
wife. That’s where my children
were born.”
In the same video, Mrs.
Obama called herself a “South
Sider.”
Overwhelming community
support helped the University
of Chicago win the bid over Columbia University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. “The
reason the library is coming to
the city of Chicago is because
we came together, not as different communities, but as one
city with a common purpose,”
Emanuel said.
The University drafted the
proposal for the South Side, but
will neither oversee nor fund
the project. The Obama Foundation will independently raise
money for the Center and eventually turn the operation of the
library and museum over to the
National Archives and Records
Administration.
“The idea of a presidential library as a great urban institution
is new, and the realization of the
Obama Presidential Center will
bring this idea to life,” said University President Robert Zimmer at the press conference. “We
are honored that the University
of Chicago will have the opportunity to collaborate with the
Obama Presidential Center.”
Shortly after the announcement was made, Zimmer wrote
in an e-mail to faculty, students,
LIBRARY continued on page 2
New SG budget increases
graduate student funding
Raymond Fang
Associate News Editor
On Monday night, Student Government Assembly approved its $2.18
million budget for the
2015–2016 school year.
The largest change from
the 2014–2015 budget was
a huge increase in funding
for graduate students, who
received a total budget increase of $72,500.
The increase in funding
for graduate students re-
flects a broader effort by
Student Government (SG)
to direct more funding
and attention to graduate
students on campus, who
make up 62 percent of the
University student populaSG continued on page 2
Scav wedding: You may now kiss the
Scavvenbride
Tamar Honig
News Staff
“Dress code is Scav Tie, by
which we mean wear whatever the f*** you want but
probably your team t-shirt
tbh [to be honest],” read
the wedding invitation that
kicked off the 2015 Scavenger Hunt List.
For four frenzied days
of each spring, the world’s
largest scavenger hunt captivates students and alumni
across the University of Chicago campus and around the
world. A venerated tradition
since 1987, Scav perplexes,
challenges, and inspires participants with its lengthy
list of items to find, build,
perform, write, program,
draw, eat, design, paint, and
win. For some, the results
of the hunt manifest themselves well beyond the announcement of its winners,
and participation continues
long after graduation. UChicago alumni Emily Pelka and
Christian Kammerer tied the
knot while honoring their
ties to Scav at their wedding
Friday night in Rockefeller
Chapel. Eleven of the list’s
343 items were linked to the
matrimonial affair.
“I remember the moment
during Captain’s breakfast
where the judges announced
something to the effect of
‘oh, and by the way, if it
wasn’t clear, this is a real
wedding. Like people are
actually getting married.’
That’s when I had a mini
‘excuse me, what did you
just say?’ moment,” said Sam
Levine, a captain of the Max
SCAV continued on page 3
IN VIEWPOINTS
IN ARTS
IN SPORTS
Editorial: A slice of the pie » Page 4
Violinist from renowned
Emerson String Quartet
reflects on journeys old and
new » Page 7
This week in sports: NHL playoff
predictions » Backpage
Breaking the silence » Page 4
Senior spotlight: Jennifer Hill » Page 11
THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | May 15, 2015
2
“Graduate students and College students together
need to petition the administration to increase
overall Student Government budget”
Community Service
Fund / $ 2,500
Program Co-ordinating
Council* / $ 5,000
Student Leadership
Stipend Program /
$ 10,000
Sports Club
Fund /
$ 15,000
Student Government
Fincance Committee /
Annual Allocations /
$ 28,000
Funds RSOs
* The Program Coordinating Council funds
COUP, Doc Films, Fire
Escape Films, MAB, UT,
and WHPK.
Excl. Grad. Student
Funding Increase
$ 72,500
6.6% in 14/’15’budget increases to
9.7% in ‘15/’16
Graduate Mixers /
$ 7,500
Graduate Council
Travel Fund /
$ 10,000
Graduate Council /
$ 55,000
Funds graduate student
travel, research, events,
and RSOs
INCREASE
IN BUDGET
Coalition of
Academic Teams \
$ 20,000
Funds College Bowl, Debate, Mock Trial, Model
UN, and Chess
Uncommon Fund \
$ 30,000
DECREASE
IN BUDGET
SG continued from front
tion but only 6.7 percent of Student Government’s 2014-2015 budget is targeted
toward graduate students, not counting
the Student Government Financing Committee (SGFC) budget that funds Registered Student Organizations (RSOs).
SGFC is not, however, a major funding
source for graduate students because tend
to participate less in RSOs. They will receive 9.7 percent of the 2015–2016 budget, again excluding the SGFC budget.
David Shapiro, Class of 2018 representative in College Council, proposed some
of the budget amendments that made the
shift towards increased graduate funding,
which was approved 24–4–1. He indicated that Student Government would continue to frame increasing SG funding as
an issue between students and administration, rather than between undergraduates
and graduates. He also said that SG would
continue to make increasing total funding
a priority in the future.
“Graduate students and College students together need to petition the administration to increase the overall Student
Government budget. It’s $2.18 million,
and pumping up Graduate Council specific funding by at least another $200,000,
to get it equitable to at least 50 percent
of what we give College students, is definitely something I think the slate next
year will be pushing,” Shapiro said. “Rather than fight amongst ourselves over the
money we have, we agree we did what we
could with the money we have... you have
to fight the bigger battle, which is we need
more money, period,” Shapiro concluded.
The three main funding bodies for graduate students are Graduate Council, the
Graduate Council Travel Fund, and Graduate Mixers. Graduate Council, which
funds graduate student travel, research,
events, and RSOs, received a funding increase of $55,000 for a total of $115,000.
The Graduate Council Travel Fund, which
funds travel to conferences and meetings
for graduate students, received a funding
increase of $10,000 for a total of $40,000.
Graduate Mixers, which funds mixer
events for graduate students, received a
funding increase of $7,500 for a total of
$57,500.
The $55,000 of funding for the Graduate Council was made available by cutting $35,000 from the Uncommon Fund,
which will now receive only $15,000, and
cutting $20,000 from the Coalition of
Academic Teams, which includes College
Bowl, Debate Society, Mock Trial, Model
UN, and the Chess Team, which will now
receive $200,000.
Shapiro noted that the combination of
the Student Government elections’ focus
on graduate student funding and the increasing disparity between graduate and
undergraduate funding led this year’s big
push.
“When graduate students, the ones that
do care, continue to see us pump money
year after year after year into these solely
undergraduate focused entities, money
that greatly outdoes anything we’re giving
them, they get infuriated,” said Shapiro.
“After a certain point, they were fed up
enough, and with the [2015 Student Government] election cycle really emphasizing
that anxiety, it brought the graduate students out. They had great attendance and
managed to get done what they needed to
get done.”
GRAPHICS BY ADAM THORP
| THE CHICAGO MAROON
CEP teach-in discusses equitable
policing beyond increased transparency
Anne Nazarro
Associate News Editor
On Monday, May 11, the Campaign for Equitable Policing (CEP) held a teach-in called
“Beyond Transparency: Realizing Equitable
Policing,” in McCormick Tribune Lounge.
The teach-in focused on how to make law enforcement fairer beyond increasing accountability and transparency. The conversation
turned largely toward the panelists’ long-term
goals of abolishing the police force, why they
wanted it to be abolished, and how that could
be achieved.
The event comes after the Illinois General
Assembly passed H.B. 3932, which requires
private police forces like the UCPD to comply
with the Illinois Freedom of Information Act,
like public police forces are already obligated to
do.
Guests on the event’s discussion panel included Ruby Pinto from DecarcerateChi, Janae
Bonsu, a current UChicago student and member of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100),
Page May, an organizer for We Charge Genocide, and Mikyael Muhammad, a member of
the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR). Two students from
the CEP asked questions that the panelists then
discussed.
Speakers presented the current strategies and
goals of their organizations toward building a
more just police force. For instance, May stated
that We Charge Genocide will be running “copwatch” workshops and focusing on better regulating stop-and-frisk policies. The goal of the
DecarcerateChi campaign, according to Pinto,
is to eliminate bail for non-violent charges.
The panelists also highlighted the racism
they claim to be inherent in the police’s actions
and policies, and how they would act to make
the police force “anti-racist.” They shared personal accounts or the stories of friends in which
the police had unfairly and harmfully targeted
them. Their stories included accounts of physical violence on the part of the police.
“It’s as much about addressing how violent
the police are as it is about blackness being synonymous with criminality, or something to be
controlled,” May said.
However, while these short-term goals focus
on building a more equitable police force, the
speakers agreed that their long-term goals include complete abolition of the police in general. “I am not interested in better police. I’m not
interested in fixing the police. I’m interested in a
world where we don’t need police,” Bonsu said.
One of the moderators asked the panel if
they believe that anything would be lost if the
police force were abolished and if there are certain types of crime that the police are essential
in addressing. In general, the panelists’ response
was that there were not. “The percentage of
time that police spend on violent crime is absurdly low,” May said. “A big part of abolition
is about building communities that make police
obsolete.”
In the meantime, these organizations will
continue to take action for equitable policing,
especially in the UCPD. For instance, BYP 100
currently is running a petition for the UCPD to
fire Dante Servin, the police officer that killed
Rekia Boyd in 2012. This petition was passed
around at the end of the teach-in.
SG’s It’s On Uof C campaign collects
anti—sexual assault pledges
Natalie Friedberg
News Editor
Over the past week, Student Government
has initiated It’s On UChicago, a campaign to
encourage students to sign anti–sexual assault
pledges in Hutch Courtyard and the Reynolds
Club marketplace. The campaign is a prelude to
Sexual Assault Awareness Week, which starts officially on Sunday, May 17.
The UChicago campaign is based on It’s On
Us, a national initiative to end sexual assault on
college campuses launched by President Obama,
who has encouraged universities to adopt their
own versions of the pledge campaign. The
UChicago pledge requires participants to always
ask for consent before sexual activity, to prevent
others from committing sexual acts without asking for consent, and to believe and support survivors of sexual assault. The pledge also includes
an added clause inspired by It’s On Us UCLA,
pledging to support calls for the University to
install educational programs to teach students
about their Title IX rights and resources.
“We didn’t like that it [the national It’s On Us
pledge] only focused on bystander intervention
so we wanted to make it a little better,” Veronica
Portillo-Heap, coordinator of the event, said.
Signed pledges are then posted on a board
outside C-Shop. More than 70 have been signed
over the past week.
“[The University doesn’t] have any accessible
resources for people to know if they report what
happens, what can they expect, when can they
have an advocate, how many people are they
going to have to tell their story to, et cetera, et
cetera,” Portillo-Heap said.
Student Government has also been encouraging students to take pictures holding a whiteboard with a personalized message beginning
with, “It’s on UofC to...” regarding sexual assault
at UChicago. These photographs have been
compiled in an album on SG’s Facebook page.
“It’s on UofC to discourage environments
that normalize sexual assault,” one participant
wrote.
“All the strands of my life came together and I
really became a man when I moved to Chicago”
LIBRARY continued from front
and staff: “The University will support efforts in
community engagement, including planning, economic development, and individual and institutional collaborations.”
Not everyone in the community is happy about
the decision. The nonprofit organization Friends
of the Park (FOTP) released a statement following the announcement expressing disappointment
that the Center will be built in an existing park.
Lauren Moltz, acting executive director of FOTP,
is concerned that the undertaking will negatively
alter the parkland that makes the South Side of
Chicago unique. She was quoted in the press re-
lease: “‘We would like to ensure that any impact on
historic Jackson/ Washington Park will be minimal and will fit within the vision of Frederick Law
Olmsted’s design.’”
Carol Adams, community member and former
president and CEO of the DuSable Museum of
African American History, closed the press conference by emphasizing the transformative power
the presidential library will bring to Chicago. She
called the South Side “a community overflowing
with assets and yet in need of the catalytic engine
the Obama Presidential Center surely will be….
We eagerly await the economic, cultural, and educational development that is sure to follow.”
THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | May 15, 2015
“There is a lot of artwork to it and it is the
only one out there.... Ivanhoe is truly unique”
GLASS continued from front
brother of Frank Dickinson
Bartlett. After Frank, a Chicago native, died an untimely
death in 1902, his family donated $125,000 to UChicago
in his honor.
Rolf Achilles, art historian
and curator of the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows at the Navy Pier, has a
special appreciation for the
Ivanhoe window. He recalls
walking by Bartlett and admiring the display as a student of
medieval history at the University in 1976 and 1977. “What
a wonderful symbol of justice
versus injustice,” he said of the
Ivanhoe window.
Ivanhoe is one of the largest
plated opalescent windows in
the country, and as such generates variegated colors resulting
from internally refracted light.
The effect is milky colored
streaks. Neal Vogel, principal
of Restoric, LLC, in Evanston, is quite familiar with the
window. “There was never a
time when the light coming
through was glaring or harsh,”
Vogel said. He distinguished
the Ivanhoe glass from the glass
in Bond and Rockefeller by its
depth and content. “There is
a lot of artwork to it and it is
the only one out there. Tiffany
glass is not one of a kind like
most people think…. But Ivanhoe is truly unique.”
Karl Rahder (M.A. ’89)
wishes that current students
could appreciate the window
like he did when he attended
the College. “As any good
piece of art does, it transports
you. To have this so easily accessible—to be transported
into this other world—is a
transformative experience,” he
said.
The University commissioned Brunner/Cott Associates, Inc., a Boston-based
architectural firm, to renovate
Bartlett. The firm assembled a
team of sub-consultants that
included East Coast art glass
conservator Julie L. Sloan,
LLC, whom Neal Vogel says is
not known for a conservative
approach. According to Senior
Vice President for Facilities
and University Architect Steve
Wiesenthal, the need for extensive conservation work was
identified during the renovation.
Vogel believes the window
might never have been removed if the University had
sought a second opinion.
“There is more than enough
talent in the Chicago region
to conserve and/or restore the
Ivanhoe window to museum
quality standards,” he wrote in
an e-mail.
The University of Chicago
Magazine from October of
2001 featured a photograph
of workers removing the glass
with a caption reading, “The
window, which depicts the tale
of Ivanhoe, will be placed in
storage until funds are raised
to clean and restore it.”
Rahder felt that the University had had enough time to
raise the necessary funds when
he inquired about the fate of
the glass last January. Wiesenthal responded in an e-mail to
Rahder: “In our annual budget
process we will be updating the
estimates for glass restoration
so that a decision can be made
about reinstallation. Given
many competing priorities for
finite funds, I cannot yet confirm if and when the windows
will be reinstalled, but please
know that this is a question we
hope to answer soon.”
The question remains unanswered a year and a half later.
Wiesenthal estimates that the
cost of restoration and reinstallation will be at least several hundred thousand dollars.
“We will do a thorough estimate and bid the work once
the funding is available.”
Vogel foresees the project
costing a maximum of around
$600,000, a number that
could be significantly smaller
depending on the state of the
window. In 2008 he wrote
Paul Schwab, then– University
architect, asking for an opportunity to examine the window
and consult on the project.
This was his second attempt—
the first was in 2003—to
engage the University. Both
times, the University showed
no interest.
Vogel and Achilles agree that
insufficient funding is no reason to keep Ivanhoe in crates.
Unlike a painting, the glass can
be showcased almost anywhere
there is light. Vogel wrote in
an e-mail: “If the funds are not
available for a proper conservation/restoration effort, perhaps it could simply be cleaned
and displayed in front of light
boxes in one of the many interior spaces at the U of C.”
Rahder thinks the cost is irrelevant. “If the University had
the funds to remove the glass
in 2001, it shouldn’t take them
14 years to find the money
to replace it. And preserving
the U of C’s irreplaceable architectural heritage shouldn’t
be a priority that is driven by
dollars to begin with,” Rahder wrote in an e-mail. “What
troubles me as much as the absence of the glass is what looks
like a University-wide attitude
of simply not caring about the
architectural heritage of this
University,” he said in an earlier
interview.
Wiesenthal defended the
University’s handling of its
architectural heritage, which
has been criticized most recently with the announcement
of satellite dorm closures. He
wrote: “While we manage a
portfolio of work that includes
everything from multi-million
dollar new construction (such
as Campus North Residence
Hall & Dining Commons) to
repairs and renovations of existing facilities, large and small,
we take great pride in our careful and deliberate approach to
caring for our heritage buildings.”
Achilles believes the University’s inaction regarding
the Ivanhoe window is part
of long-running anti-art sentiment. He cited the neardivestment from Frank Lloyd
Wright’s Robie House in the
1970s and the conversion of
the Chicago Theological Seminary into the Saieh Hall for
Economics at the expense of
Hilton Chapel.
Rahder thinks that Hilton
Chapel could have been saved
if people had known about its
uniqueness and beauty. “But
now it’s too late—it’s just a
classroom. But Bartlett? It’s
there. It’s just an empty space
with some Plexiglas and it can
be restored. This is something
we can do something about.
That’s why I’m hopeful.”
3
“You’d better build a trauma center now”
TRAUMA continued from front
Fearless Leading by the Youth
and an organizer with the
Trauma Center Coalition, said
that, in the view of herself and
the coalition, the newly announced library was “great”
and will add “great prestige to
the University of Chicago and
the city.” But she went on to
say that “people whose lives are
being lost on the South Side
due to gun trauma, due to economic violence, due to police
violence, will not be able to
find much life-saving value in
the presidential library.”
“Rob Zimmer and Mayor
Rahm Emanuel moved mountains to have this Obama
presidential library be secured
for Chicago. We are saying
that Rob Zimmer and Mayor
Rahm Emanuel need to move
mountains to place a trauma
center on the South Side,
so that lives—so that black
lives—can and will be saved,”
Morris-Moore said.
Page May, an organizer with
We Charge Genocide, an anti–
police brutality organization,
also spoke before the march set
off. “If you are an institution
that wants to be responsible for
your community—if you want
to be a part of making black
lives matter—you’d better get
rid of the UCPD off of my
block and you’d better build a
trauma center now,” May said.
The march featured many
of the same chants—“U of C
is wack; bring the trauma center back” and, “What do we
want: trauma center; when do
we want it: now”—that have
marked the almost half-decade
of protests objecting to the absence of a medical center on
the South Side. The route of
the march went through parts
of the UCMC and the University.
There was a noticeable police presence throughout the
march. Two Chicago Police
Department SUVs crawled between the stream of marchers
and the UCMC as it moved
down Cottage Grove Avenue;
two more police vehicles
parked outside of President
Zimmer’s house. Police officers
asked Morris-Moore to move
the protesters off of the street
both as they traveled down
Payne Drive in Washington
Park and at the march’s destination at University and 59th
where traffic, including a Central shuttle and two buses, were
backed up for a block. MorrisMoore encouraged participants in the march to avoid
interactions with the police,
but to record them if they occurred. The protesters moved
onto the sidewalk for parts of
the march and eventually at
their end destination.
The march dispersed after about an hour and a half
with a chant asking Zimmer
to “come outside.” Earlier that
day, a handful of people affiliated with the coalition had
protested outside of the presidential library announcement
at a youth center in the Grand
Crossing neighborhood after
being denied entry to the event.
The day before the march,
Students for Health Equity, a
University of Chicago student
group, also tried to link its advocacy for the trauma center
with the announcement of the
presidential library through an
hour-long Twitter campaign
that paired pro–trauma center messages with the hashtag
#DearMrPresident.
A statement by the University of Chicago News Office said that there has been
“far-reaching
enthusiasm”
for the library. Regarding the
trauma center, a March statement from the News Office
said, “Building an adult level
1 trauma center on the South
Side is not something the University of Chicago Medical
Center can undertake alone….
A universal solution has yet to
be found.”
Protestors marched from East 55th Street and King Drive to the University last
Tuesday to express their concerns about the lack of a trauma center on the
South Side, especially after the announcement of the new Obama Presidential
Center to be built in Chicago.
MARTA BAKULA | THE CHICAGO MAROON
“This is a real wedding. Like, people are actually getting married”
SCAV continued from front
Palevsky team.
Kammerer, the “Scavvengroom,” has participated
in sixteen consecutive Scav
Hunts, and Pelka, the “Scavvenbride,” was an active
dorm team member for her
four years at UChicago, with
some additional emerita
contributions.
“The Scavenger Hunt represents the best the University of Chicago has to offer:
getting groups of incredibly
smart, hard-working people
together to have fun creating and exploring, if only
for four days a year,” Kammerer said. “The friendships
forged through this event far
outlast Scav itself.”
In their wedding announcement video, Kammerer and Pelka reflect on
their longstanding involvement with Scav, and how
the event helped bring them
together. The video concludes with a request that
they be joined “as they try
to complete their greatest
item yet…” The couple delivers the announcement in
rap form, and reiterates that
“this is not a joke.”
The wedding-related Scav
Hunt items included cake
baking, hymn singing, and
pig-shaped-cufflink making.
“Construct a small Velociraptor made of tin cans, to
pursue the ‘Just Married’mobile,” instructed another
item.
Teams were awarded
points for dressing as torchbearing Vikings to lead
the couple to their chariot,
showering the couple with
diced vegetables as they exited the chapel, and reciting
passages about love from
a fantasy or science fiction
novel or film.
“Of course,” read the last
of the eleven items, “no
wedding would be complete without the traditional
crowdsurf down the aisle.”
“The wedding was amazing,” Scav judge Emily Tixier
said. “At times hilarious, due
to Scav weirdness, but also
really touching because it
was a legitimate wedding between two people for whom
Scav is so important…. It was
all amazing to watch, and I
definitely saw a lot of tears
from the judges’ section of
Rockefeller.”
“It was incredible that
they felt so strongly about
Scav to incorporate it into
their wedding day,” said
Medha Biswas (A.B. ‘16),
another team captain. “Lots
of jokes and fun and they
were probably the only couple to leave Rockefeller Chapel by crowd-surfing down
the aisle.”
Regarding this unique
mode of departure atop the
hands of cheering Scavvenwedding attendees, Kammerer commented, “I thank
each and every person there
that neither my wife nor I
was dropped for even a moment. It was both exhilarating and terrifying.”
As for the groom’s personal highlight: “I believe I am
required by marital law to
state that it is when I kissed
my bride,” Kammerer said.
“However, I will also say that
some of the readings and performances were unexpectedly touching, considering
their origins in sometimes
disreputable genre fare.”
“I can’t imagine the happiest day of my life not having
been during Scav Hunt,” he
concluded.
VIEWPOINTS
Editorial & Op-Ed
MAY 15, 2015
A slice of the pie
Graduate students should get the best possible value out of their large Student Life Fee
This week, Student Government (SG) announced a $72,500
funding increase for programs
benefiting graduate students in
its 2015–16 budget. The SG budget is funded by the Student Life
Fees (SLF) paid by graduate and
undergraduate students. Graduate
students make up 62 percent of
the University’s student population, but last year only 6.7 percent
of the SG budget was allocated
to programs specifically benefiting them. This great disparity in
funding is fundamentally unfair,
and this year’s budget begins to
reduce it, devoting 9.7 percent
to graduate students. SG should
continue to move in this direction. Furthermore, the University
has an obligation to increase the
transparency of the graduate SLF.
The Graduate Council (GC)
Travel Fund will receive an additional $10,000, and graduate
mixers will receive an additional
$7,500. These funding increases
will have real benefits for graduate
students, who often must travel to
conferences to network and present their research—both of which
are important for finding jobs
after graduation. More graduate student mixers will aid GC’s
mission of breaking down barriers between graduate students in
different programs and divisions.
Most significantly, the overall
budget for GC will approximately
double. This will allow the elected
members of GC the flexibility to
address graduate students’ needs
through new and improved programming in the years to come.
Addressing this disparity is
particularly important given that
the SLF for graduate students has
keted in the past decade.
skyrocketed
Most graduate and professional
studentss pay a quarterly fee of
$363, only $26 less than students
in the College. Since the 2004–05
ic year, the graduate
academic
SLF hass increased by 87.5
percent,, for reasons the
sity has not exUniversity
plained.. It is highly unlikely that the University would
abolish the graduate SLF, as
aduate Students United
the Graduate
ation has called for.
organization
But as long as the fee remains in place, it should
cated in the way
be allocated
est enriches
that best
graduatee student
ince a
life. Since
n
of
portion
the fee goes
directlyy into
G budthe SG
G has a
get, SG
duty too provide
support
strong
for
programming
aimed specifically at
graduatee students. This
week’s SG budget changes
will nott reduce the graduate
only the University can
SLF—only
hat decision—but they do
make that
ensure that graduate students will
benefit more from the very high
fee they are already required to
pay.
The University also has a role
to play in ensuring graduate students get the best deal by making
the SLF more transparent. If the
University continues to charge
graduate students this fee, these
students should know where the
money goes and why the fee is
constantly increasing. Currently,
ALICE XIAO
the administration provides only
a vague general description of
where this money goes; no itemized breakdown of precisely where
each graduate student’s $363 goes
each quarter exists. This information would allow students to
begin an informed conversation
with administrators about wheth-
er the fee is too high and how it
can best be allocated.
While the 2015–16 SG budget
gives graduate students a major
boost, they will still only receive
9.7 percent of SG’s total funding.
Encouragingly, SG Executive Slate
and College Council members are
exploring a long-term strategy
|
THE CHICAGO MAROON
to increase funding for graduate
student life even further. Graduate students make up nearly two
thirds of the University’s student
body, and next year’s SG budget
represents only a first step toward
recognizing this.
—The Maroon Editorial Board
Breaking the silence
The student newspaper of the
University of Chicago since 1892.
Eleanor Hyun, Editor-in-Chief
Sarah Manhardt, Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Stephen Moreland, Managing Editor
The Maroon Editorial Board consists of Alan Hassler, Eleanor Hyun, and Lear Jiang.
News
Natalie Friedberg, editor
Alec Goodwin, editor
Marta Bakula, deputy editor
Isaac Easton, associate editor
Raymond Fang, associate editor
Shelby Lohr, associate editor
Maggie Loughran, associate editor
Annie Nazzaro, associate editor
Isaac Stein, senior writer
Viewpoints
Sarah Zimmerman, editor
Nina Katemauswa, associate editor
Patricia Nyawga, associate editor
Kayleigh Voss, associate editor
Arts
Andrew McVea, editor
Evangeline Reid, editor
Ellen Rodnianski, editor
Hannah Edgar, associate editor
Grace Hauck, associate editor
James Mackenzie, senior editor
Sports
Helen Petersen, editor
Zachary Themer, editor
Ahmad Allaw, associate editor
Katie Anderson, associate editor
Tatiana Fields, senior editor
Sarah Langs, senior editor
Grey City
Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Editor-in-Chief
Kristin Lin, Editor-in-Chief
Design
Annie Cantara, head designer
Copy
Sophie Downes, head editor
Alan Hassler, head editor
Sherry He, head editor
Morganne Ramsey, head editor
Multimedia
Forrest Sill, editor
Photo
Marta Bakula, editor
Yeo Bi Choi, associate editor
Liana Sonenclar, associate editor
Video
Amber Love, editor
Social Media
Emily Harwell, editor
Online
Ryan McDowell, web developer
Business
Nicolas Lukac, chief financial officer
Ananya Pillutla, vice chief financial officer
Andrew Ahn, co-director of marketing
Eitan Rude, co-director of marketing
Ben Veres, director of operations
Patrick Quinn, director of strategy
Lenise Lee, business manager
Harry Backlund, distributor
Kay Li, director of data analysis
This issue:
Copy: Rebecca Kuang, Lauren Scott, Julia Xu, Michelle
Zhao, Sam Zoeller
Design: Emily Harwell, Julia Xu
Editor-in-Chief E-mail: [email protected]
Newsroom Phone: (773) 702-1403
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[email protected] or (773) 702-9555
Circulation: 6,800.
© 2015 The Chicago Maroon
Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
Addressing depression means sharing our struggles, not just our accomplishments
Nina Katemauswa
Maroon Viewpoints Associate Editor
It was late fall quarter of my second year in the College. I was walking home to my nearby dorm when
two masked figures approached me
from behind and dragged me into a
side alley to do things to me that I
have trouble recounting to this day.
What happened became a sort of
negative catalyst that allowed everything else in my life to fall neatly
apart shortly afterwards.
News of the incident spread,
and as I let the walls guarding my
privacy deteriorate in exchange for
momentary influxes of sympathy
from people on the outside, the
weather grew colder and my nights
became inexplicably longer and
distinctly unbearable. During this
time, I had a hard time determining
which of my emotions were actually “valid”—figuring out how many
of them stem from a desire just to
feel acknowledged or loved. Often
I found that I was only capable of
discussing these emotions in the
most abstract or indirect ways. I
could handle talking about “depression,” but only if I could wrap it
in a metaphor or deconstruct it in
analytical ways for a literary assignment. But to confront it—boldly,
plainly, unforgivingly—asked too
much from me, like handing me
a mirror in the middle of a public
outburst, asking me to stare at a reflection that is absolutely mine and
yet one that I somehow still cannot
recognize.
In the mornings after the incident I began a biweekly ritual of
waking up to the first of an extended series of alarms between 4:30
and 5:00 a.m., hauling myself out
of bed at last on the fifth or sixth
of these reminders, and getting into
one of the communal showers on
my dorm floor. All that in exchange
for the privilege of being able to
openly sob for about 20 minutes
straight, since this is the time I
knew everyone else in my house
was usually asleep and I was least
likely to be heard.
Once during my time in Catholic school, a priest told me “crying is
the body’s way of releasing the poi-
son,” and I thought of those words
each morning as I did this, during
my shower and again afterwards. I
felt alert even in exhaustion, staring
up at the ceiling of my room, thinking of ways to avoid confronting
the rest of the day’s responsibilities—ways that I could keep eking
away at my depleted reserves of
energy more and more efficiently,
saving all my vital stores of it for
the major tasks in my life, like attending lecture on the day of a quiz
or the weekly phone call to my
mother each Sunday night, where
I proceeded to exhaust seemingly
enormous amounts of it in convincing her that I’m doing all right
and that no, I promise, I don’t need
to go “talk to someone” or to leave
school and come home early.
On less forgiving days, I would
cancel appointments with no explanation because I knew that even
if I did show up, I’d effectively be
a shell of myself—devoid both of
my usual characteristics and of the
desire to project them even out of
habit. Instead I stayed in bed and
DEPRESSION continued on page 5
THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | May 15, 2015
5
Stronger together
SG balances the budget to reflect the entire University—not just the College
Tyler Kissinger
Maroon Contributor
Earlier this week, the Student
Government Assembly (made up
of the College and Graduate Councils) passed its budget for the 2015–
2016 academic year. While in many
ways its prioritization of the graduate students who constitute twothirds of our campus represents a
step forward, it’s useful for us to
contextualize this change within
the broader institutional patterns of
the last decade.
Student Government has a $2.2
million budget, funded by a “Student Activities Fee” (SAF), which is
embedded within the Student Life
Fee (SLF) paid by each enrolled
student—graduate and undergrad-
uate—at UChicago. For graduate
students, this student activities fee
represents about 20 percent of each
student’s individual SLF—however,
since half of this gets sent directly
to each student’s school or division, this leaves 10 percent of the
SLF for the SAF central fund. In
comparison, for undergrads, about
24 percent of each individual SLF
gets directed to this central fund.
However, since graduate students
vastly outnumber undergraduate
students, they end up contributing
about half of the total SAF budget.
SG is ultimately responsible for allocating approximately 90 percent
of this central fund.
As they have historically stood,
from funding RSOs to supporting academic teams, the Major Ac-
tivities Board, and club sports, the
financial obligations of Student
Government skew heavily toward
supporting students in the College.
In all, only about 12 percent of our
budget goes to graduate students.
This means that graduate students
essentially subsidize undergraduate
student life, and this is by no means
an accident. University administration has long pressured SG to meet
needs on the undergraduate side
without providing them with the
resources necessary to fairly and
equally support graduate students.
Years of ineffective leadership on
the side of SG paired with weak
engagement with graduate students
(even those serving on the Graduate
Council) did nothing to call attention to this problem.
Now, things are different. There is
a near consensus within SG on the
seriousness of the structural imbalance that exists between graduate
and undergraduate student support.
Years of work by the outgoing chair
(Anthony Martinez) have built the
Graduate Council up into a strong
and effective advocate for students
at UChicago. Renewed interest in
how we spend our money has generated the energy for reforms and
budgetary audits.
At the end of the day, no matter
how well we spend the money we
currently have, the only way we can
seriously begin to move the needle
on graduate student support is
through a larger budget. The University should not expect graduate
students to support undergraduate
student life. The vast majority of the
Student Life Fee goes toward funding health and wellness services that
ought to be provided for through
tuition, which would free up funds
to increase support for groups like
academic teams and reduce the need
for small and mid-sized RSOs to
fundraise for each event they host.
This isn’t an undergraduate versus
graduate issue. We’re stronger together, and that’s precisely how we
should push to have more resources
directed to support all students,
graduate and undergraduate.
Tyler Kissinger is a thirdyear in the College majoring
in public policy and is the
president of Student Government.
“We need people who can understand. People who can empathize.”
DEPRESSION continued from page 4
binge-watched entire television
seasons at a time, wasting money I
still felt unaccustomed to having on
take-out or delivery for the small
reprieve of avoiding the pressures of
the dining hall. I spent nights staring at problem sets and BuzzFeed
articles, wondering how I could
have made it this far when my emotions oscillated reliably between a
self-righteous kind of indifference
for things outside of my head and
sudden periods of full-blown panic
about everything all at once.
Somehow I managed to remain
“stable” enough to turn in most assignments and receive grades that
seemed to satisfy the people around
me enough. I finished second year
in dreadfully low spirits and with
an overwhelming sense that the
“life of the mind” was really just a
test of endurance that I was now
unsure I would be able to actually
complete.
* * * *
Flash-forward to today, over a
year since the events of that quarter
and the onslaught of the emotions
and experiences that followed,
which I can now fully acknowledge
as symptoms of my depression. I can’t tell you exactly when
things began to get better, but I
do recall how, almost imperceptibly, the days began to merge into
one another and the regular routine of everyday living picked up
its pace again, demanding that I
adapt. Pretty soon I was able to
go from a few days to a few weeks
without waking up to cry or forcing myself to eat and go out. Pretty
soon I was planning ahead again
and taking stock of the inventories I’d been neglecting for a whole
year: which friendships I could still
count on and what goals I hoped to
accomplish in various areas of my
life again.
Being depressed at an elite university is much like being poor at
an elite university: There are always
more people like you around than
you’d think. Of course, as I was disposed to grossly personalizing every
experience—to interpreting each
passing event through the confined
lens of my suffering, my pain—I
hardly took notice of all the distress
signals my closest friends and circle
of acquaintances (mostly low-income or first-generation students as
well) were all beginning to display
to varying degrees. Some friends
had taken abrupt leaves of absence
(something that only a few of us
had even heard about), and others
had taken to new habits (drugs,
alcohol, prescription medications,
spiritual awakenings) or new houses, leaving the rest of us behind and
finding their own ways to cope with
the same feelings, the same fears.
Even when I had friends who had
the courage to explicitly confess to
me the extent of their own experiences, as I would console someone
as they cried on my shoulder—it all
felt so remote; I felt like, “yes, this
must be awful for you and I understand that you’re in pain, but you
don’t really know what it’s like to
feel bad—not the same way I do.”
For me, depression manifested
through uncontrollable thoughts
like those, and hours of guilt spent
contemplating the ways in which
my anxieties had turned me into
exactly the type of person I always
feared I would become when taken
from the structured lifestyle of my
upbringing—self-centered, uninspired, and unreliable. While the
sense of loneliness I felt was “real,”
the experience of it was caused in
some ways by my inability to notice the opportunities for genuine
understanding around me—my inability to place into perspective the
things outside of my own head. Yet regardless of my quality of
life during that time, coming to college had objectively improved my
standard of living by far. Through
the generosity of scholarships, I felt
more financially secure and materially stable than I had throughout
the majority of my upbringing. For
the first time since being a small
child, I felt less restricted by my
external environment than ever before. When it came to “fun,” I ostensibly had plenty of it—in bolder,
richer, more expensive ways—yet
I never would have called myself
a “happy” person then. The brief
thrills I experienced did nothing to
assuage the sense that I was observing myself do things more than I
was actually enjoying them. Eventually, those times became a shoddy
but salvageable foundation for my
remaining relationships, and anticipating their arrival became the fuel
I burned in the final hours before a
GRACE HAUCK
big paper was due or after a particularly rough morning.
So, all that time I lied to myself
that I couldn’t be depressed—not
with the scholarship, not with the
circle of friends, not with the “freedom.” These were things my unstable but not unhappy childhood
had not always been able to afford
me. On top of that, the University
of Chicago had been the school of
my “dreams”—or rather, my emotionally-invested fantasies about
doing well in The Future turned obsessive—and so even if deep down
I knew it was time to finally wake
up from some of the more fanciful
aspects of these (This is the place
I’m going to find my soul mate! I’m
going to find my life’s passion here!
College is the most formative time
of my life!), I wasn’t ready to let go
of the suspicion that it was I—not
the school—who was fundamentally messed up. I lied to myself
by believing that even if I didn’t
feel content at all, I couldn’t actually be unhappy, that even though
I was struggling or wading my way
through all my courses, I was still
embodying the “life of the mind,”
and that the feeling of “depression”
was for people with less active social lives or fewer available resources than mine.
Last week, after the results of
the Student Government elections
came out, a first-year student came
up to congratulate me on securing
the Community & Government
Liaison position and to say that she
really “admired” me. After thanking
her for the comment and making a
joke about how it really wasn’t that
big of a deal since I was the only
candidate on the ballot, she got
very serious and said that it wasn’t
that I’d got the position, but that
I’d “put myself out there” in the
first place that had inspired her.
The problem is most of us don’t
really need more people who can
“inspire” us. We need people who
can understand. People who can
empathize. People who will interpret, not just listen. People who
aren’t just always around, but always there. Most people who are
struggling here—academically or
emotionally—don’t need another
role model; they need someone
who’s consistent, someone who
will know the difference between
an actual cry for help and a cue to
bring some drinks and snacks over.
They need a university that doesn’t
make them feel designated into one
of two classes: achievers or screwups, with accolades for the former
and apathy for the latter. They need
a supportive group of people they
can actually trust, not a governing
body of other students or a committee that “represents” them.
Yes,
things
get
better.
Yes, they are usually not as bad as
you think they are.
| THE CHICAGO MAROON
But without examples of people
around you to actually show you
that, it’s hard to feel like everyone
else isn’t actually doing as badly as
they say they are, and easy to feel
like you’re actually on your own.
And if we only use our platforms
to discuss our successes, it’s hard
to remember that that’s all they
are: platforms. The foundation—
the core—of us as individuals is
complex and in constant flux; no
one’s always on a winning streak;
no one’s always on their “A” game,
in spite of what their Facebook or
Linkedin profiles might suggest.
This University asks us to be “uncommon,” yet predictable; “quirky,”
but neurotypical. As students, it’s
in our hands to create a more supportive culture among ourselves:
one where we agree to not shame
each other for being fallible or to
make mockeries of our shared afflictions, but where we are kinder
toward each other out of compassion and not complacency, where
we are there for each other in times
of public campaigning and times
of depression, where politics and
individualism come secondary to
our commitment toward fostering
a less oppressive and more inspiring
environment for everyone.
Nina Katemauswa is a
third-year in the College
majoring in political science
and philosophy.
6
THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | May 15, 2015
A seat at the table
University-led programming dealing with sexual assault silences the voices of actual campus survivors
WEI YI OW
Veronica Portillo-Heap &
Olivia Ortiz
Maroon Contributors
In spring 2013, the Student Government (SG)
Annual Allocations Committee denied the UChicago Clothesline Project
funding for the 2013 – 14
school year. The community response to this denial
was powerful; an online
petition drew nearly 1,000
signatures and funding was
granted by the SG Finance
Committee that summer.
In spring 2014, SG established a $10,000 Sexual
Assault Awareness fund
for the 2014 – 15 school
year, which we are finally
seeing in action; most of
the funds have been used
for Sexual Assault Awareness Week, set for eighth
week, May 17–22. This
week has been sponsored
in part by generous grants
from the Campus Dialogue Fund, the Office of
LGBTQ Student Life, and
the Office of Multicultural
Student Affairs (OMSA).
The programming includes
workshops by RSOs and
the third annual spring
installment of the UChicago Clothesline Project in
Hutch Courtyard. It boasts
events featuring prominent
anti–sexual violence activists, including Dana Bolger,
a founding co-director of
Know Your IX; Wagatwe
Wanjuki, coiner of the nationally trending #SurvivorPrivilege hashtag ; and
John Kelly, the first person to testify before the
Senate about queer dating
violence. This student-led,
survivor-driven programming amplifies sexual assault survivors’ voices in an
institutional environment
that silences them.
Student Government has
certainly come a long way
since 2013, but this progress stands in stark contrast
to the University-led events
this year. A concerning pattern regarding this issue has
arisen: Students have submitted event proposals featuring student and survivor
activists to the Center for
the Study of Gender and
Sexuality (CSGS) and the
Institute of Politics since
fall 2014, but none of these
requests has been granted.
Instead, programming like
the CSGS Sexual Violence
on Campus series this
school year has primarily
featured academic speakers:
The first event in the series,
in October 2014, featured
Harvard Law professor Janet Halley. The panel after
the The Hunting Ground
screening this April was the
first time a student activist
or survivor was included
in this series, and the film
itself portrayed a narrow
narrative of campus sexual
violence. In March, the
IOP held the student-proposed panel Strengthening
Title IX. Only at the last
minute did it agree to add a
UChicago student survivor
to the program and remove
UChicago Title IX Coordinator for Students Belinda Cortez Vazquez from
the panel; the only UChicago voice that the IOP
initially deemed acceptable
to comment on the ongoing
federal Title IX investigation was that of an administrator. This was an event
that was meant to focus on
local and national student
activists, yet we struggled
to get even one student on
the panel. University programming fails to reflect
student, survivor, and activist proposals and does
not treat student survivors
as key stakeholders in issues
that intimately affect them.
What is more concerning
than the lack of inclusion
from departmental event
leaders and coordinators is
the lack of inclusion from
administrators on policies
that directly affect survivors. A Provost-appointed
committee met in winter
2014 to review changes
to the Policy on Unlawful
Discrimination and Sexual
Misconduct, but student
survivors and our organizations—like the Phoenix
Survivors Alliance and
the UChicago Clothesline
Project—were
excluded
from these meetings. While
some student survivors have
been appointed to the Resources for Sexual Violence
Prevention (RSVP) Student Emergency Response
Systems advisory council,
this council’s power has yet
to be proven—Dean of Students in the University Michele Rasmussen has stated
to council members that we
do not actually advise Campus and Student Life but
rather provide feedback to
the small RSVP office. Instead of inclusion in powerful entities like the Provost’s committee, survivors
are delegated to powerless
councils. Administrators not only
fail to include survivors in
key decision-making sessions, but they also outright
refuse to cooperate with us.
Other powerful administrators, such as Karen Warren
Coleman, vice president
for campus life and student
services, and John Boyer,
dean of the College, have
never so much as replied
to one e-mail requesting
a meeting to discuss these
key topics of campus safety.
| THE CHICAGO MAROON
As survivors of sexual violence, our existences should
not be treated as liabilities
that could harm the University’s brand. Our painful lived experiences should
not disqualify our opinions
but instead make them all
the more valuable.
There is a myth that the
University as an institution
is “trying hard” to do better by survivors and that it
“means well.” In an e-mail,
CSGS director Linda Zerilli has stated that “many of
these administrators are actually trying to help. They
are in a crisis right now
and scrambling around trying to make sense of what
to do next.” What Zerilli
seems to not understand is
that those who are truly “in
crisis” are the sexual assault
survivors at this University, not the incompetent
administrators. While we
support the campus climate
survey, the claim via e-mail
from Karen Warren Coleman to students about the
survey, that it will be used
to “inform [University]
efforts to improve sexual
misconduct
prevention,
education and awareness
programs, as well as [their]
commitment to provide the
best resources to survivors,”
implies that the University is ignorant concerning
these issues. The existence
of the UChicago Clothesline Project since fall 2012
and our public statements
and installations with more
than 175 stories of violence
from students, not to men-
tion the ongoing federal
investigation into Title IX
violations, are sufficient
evidence that the University of Chicago knows it
has a rape problem. Even
with this evidence, though,
the University remains apathetic, and at times antagonistic, to survivor concerns.
If the University cared
about making meaningful
change, then it would allocate its plentiful resources
to properly train University employees, enforce nocontact orders to protect
traumatized students, and
actually support survivors.
Instead, as seen with the
planned programming of
Sexual Assault Awareness
Week and refusal of administrative cooperation, students will have to bear that
responsibility themselves.
Veronica
Portillo
Heap is a fourth-year
in the College majoring in history and
gender and sexuality
studies.
Olivia Ortiz is a linguistics major in the
College
GRADUATE STUDENTAT-LARGE
INFORMATION SESSIONS
Join us to learn how you
UPCOMING DATES
can take one or more
undergraduate or graduate courses across campus as a GSAL student
to bridge your undergraduate experience to a
graduate or professional
degree program.
MONDAY, MAY 11, 2015
12–1 PM; HM 151
TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2015
4–5 PM; CL 111
MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015
12–1 PM; HM 151
TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2015
4–5 PM; CL 111
TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2015
4–5 PM; CL 111
RSVP to
[email protected]
Please indicate which session
you would like to attend. Pizza
and soft drinks will be served.
ARTS
What is art?
MAY 15, 2015
Master’s candidates showcase thesis work in offbeat exhibition
Go Away, Ghost Ship! features the work of Master's of Fine Arts student Zachary Harvey, Autumn Elizabeth Clark, Sara Rouse, and Alex Calhoun.
GRACE HAUCK
| THE CHICAGO MAROON
Grace Hauck
Associate Arts Editor
“Phallic symbols on the wall
that are flaccid and portraits of
old guys with a bear—it’s weird
right?” Camille Morgan, Curatorial Coordinator of Logan
Center Exhibitions, said with a
laugh in response to the art of
MFA student Zachary Harvey.
Go Away, Ghost Ship!, the
Logan Center’s most recent
exhibit (closing today), was,
indeed, a bit strange. This first
of two student-curated MFA
Thesis Exhibitions of 2015
opened at the end of April as a
collaboration between Logan
Center Exhibitions and the
Department of Visual Arts.
It showcased the works of
four graduating artists: Zachary Harvey, Autumn Elizabeth
Clark, Sara Rouse, and Alex
Calhoun.
The title of the exhibit, taken
from the name of a 1969 Scooby Doo episode, reflected the
unifying theme of the artistic
motivations of the exhibiting
students: to translate the invisible into something creative yet
inherently personal. For many
visitors, however, Harvey’s take
on the invisible was easily the
most noticeable installation in
the gallery. It had shock value.
“My work probes and celebrates the nature of desire, as
it relates to masculinity within
our culture. I approach art
making as time for serious play,
reflection, and experimentation. I embrace libidinal impulses, find pleasure in color
and texture, and question the
framing of a work within the
larger field,” Harvey said in the
artist statement accompanying
his works.
Harvey’s installation—an
unruly collage of bright paint,
clothing, sculpture, scraps, and
furniture—occupied an entire
corner and featured two live
components: a television screen
showing a white male slowly
and deliberately accumulating
objects in his white underwear
and a nude, middle-aged man
lounging on a fluff y white bed
(the live feed of whom was constantly on display in the middle
of the Logan Café). Harvey’s
unusual contrast between the
frank exposure—perhaps even
glorification—of a stereotypically undesirable and hidden
male form against a childishly
sucrose stage was bizarre and
humorous, yet ultimately un-
settling. It was like a clubhouse
for toddlers… for a middleaged man.
“In championing what may
seem commonplace or undesirable, I hope to confuse and
subvert normal expectations
of beauty, fashion, and taste,
and push my subjectivity onto
the viewer,” Harvey said in an
e-mail.
Morgan expressed a similar
view: “I think when you do
see a male figure of that age in
modern culture, it’s not with
a playful approach; it’s more
serious. But these are old guys
just being themselves, literally a
stripping down of honesty.”
While this piece may have
struck a lighthearted cord with
some, this peculiar—verging
on twisted—experiment made
me distinctly uncomfortable.
The works of Clark also
flirted with the theme of invisible repressions masked by the
lighthearted, and she furthered
this idea with a visual contemplation on memory. Her works
included an array of drawings,
photography books, and wallpaper—a collection she titled
Underneath. She sees her wallpaper strips as concealing skins
that obscure the true wall
“The wallpaper draws on
the first line of Mary Howitt’s poem ‘The Spider and the
Fly’—the colors and patterns
seemingly innocent until one
comes closer and looks at what
makes up the patterns. The appearance of something good
until it’s further investigated to
truly be seen for what it really
is, violence in a domestic space,”
Clark said in an email.
Trapped in a web of unassuming sculpture and domestic furniture that resembled a
funky, spread-out living room,
I was surprised to recognize the
menacing undertones spread
throughout the entire exhibit.
“If the walls could bleed then
everyone would know what
had happened, and the more
one sweeps the dirt under the
carpet the bigger the mountain
grows,” Clark said in her artist
statement.
The peaceful, organic works
of Rouse, however, granted me
solace amidst an increasingly
spine-chilling exposé. Rouse
chose to explore the invisible
through the creation of otherworldly landscapes. Her elegant arrangements of natural
elements—such as wood, rock,
MFA continued on page 9
Violinist from renowned Emerson String Quartet reflects on journeys old and new
Hannah Edgar
Associate Arts Editor
Counting nine Grammys,
three Gramophone Awards, and
an Avery Fisher prize among
its achievements, the Emerson
String Quartet is widely regarded as a giant among American
string quartets. For the bulk of
its illustrious career, the Quartet’s personnel remained remarkably unchanged, consisting
of Eugene Drucker and Philip
Setzer (violins), Lawrence Dutton (viola), and David Finckel
(cello). However, their most recent album, Journeys, marked
Finckel’s departure from the
quartet after a distinguished
34-year career, being succeeded
in 2013 by cellist Paul Watkins.
In anticipation of the Quartet’s
upcoming performance at Chicago’s Harris Theater on May
20, the maroon spoke with
violinist and founding member Eugene Drucker about the
group’s beginnings, collaborations old and new, and what the
future holds for the Quartet.
Q: When did you begin
calling yourself the Emerson
Quartet? And why?
A: In the ’76-’77 season, we
decided to become a professional quartet—to really make
a go of it. I think it was sometime earlier in 1976 that we
decided to take the name “Emerson” because we wanted to
celebrate the U.S. bicentennial
year with an American name
that had cultural overtones.
Q: Your most recent album, Journeys, was an album
of sextets released in 2013.
That was the year, of course,
that the quartet embarked
on a new journey itself with
the official addition of Paul
Watkins on cello. How long
have you known Mr. Watkins?
A: Well, Lawrence Dutton
played some chamber music in
an ad hoc ensemble with him
in 2009. I didn’t know [Paul]
at that point, but Larry came
back from that experience
and said to Phil and me, “If,
for some reason, David ever
decides to leave the quartet,
we’ve got to try to get this guy
as a replacement because he’s
amazing.” I’d never heard Larry talk like that about another
cellist, because we’d always
thought that our current lineup at that point was going to
be the final lineup of the quartet. Then in the summer of
2011, Phil Setzer played with
Paul Watkins at David Finckel’s festival Music@Menlo,
and he had a wonderful experience doing that. It was only a
couple weeks after Phil played
with Paul that David informed
us that he would like to quit
the quartet after another two
seasons. We took a couple of
weeks to decide what we wanted to do, and we decided yes,
we did want to continue with
the Emerson Quartet—regenerate ourselves, so to speak—
and within a couple of months
after that, we approached Paul
Watkins.
Q: Your management released a beautiful mini-documentary, “Transition,” on
YouTube that chronicles DaSTRINGS continued on page 9
8
THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | May 15, 2015
“...every time you play with someone else...you learn something new”
STRINGS continued from page 7
Top: Eugene Drucker, a founding member of Emerson
String Quartet, is one of two violinists in the group today.
Bottom: Emerson String Quartet, a nine-time Grammy
award winning ensemble.
COURTESY OF EMERSON QUARTET
vid Finckel’s last performance with
the Quartet. In it, you said that
“every time you play with someone
else, whether it’s a temporary collaboration or a permanent collaboration, you learn something new.”
What have you learned from Paul
Watkins, having played with him
for almost two years now?
A: He’s a very beautiful player
who has brought a different sound
to the Quartet. You know, the cello
provides foundation for the sound
of the whole quartet. Probably the
Quartet’s sound itself has—I hope
without losing excitement—taken
on a slightly mellower hue than what
we had before. It’s not that he has
taught us anything in a pedagogical
or didactic way, but I can tell you this:
He is an extremely busy person. He
still has solo commitments from his
previous career—he goes to England
often to record—and he’s also a conductor and [pianist]. So I’d say what
I’ve learned from him, or at least can
aspire to, is a way to be as busy as he
is and yet not seem driven—on a personal level, and to some extent on a
musical level.
Q: Speaking of colleagues: Tell
us a little bit about Colin Carr
(cello) and Paul Neubauer (viola),
with whom you collaborated for
Journeys, and with whom you’ll be
performing at the Harris Theater
on the 20th.
A: We collaborated with Paul Neubauer on the Dvorak String Quintet
No. 3 in E flat major (Op. 97), which
is included in the last album we made
for Deutsche Grammophon, Old
World–New World (2010). They’ve
both played Brahms sextets with us,
as well. So we’ve had a collegial rela-
tionship with both of them over the
years in different configurations, and
it’s a pleasure to play with them.
Q: Attendees of that program
will have the exciting opportunity
to hear a new piece—only premiered a few months ago—that
was commissioned specifically for
the Quartet: Lowell Liebermann’s
String Quartet No. 5. How would
you characterize the piece?
A: It’s a very accessible piece. It’s
scored big-time, I would say, with
audiences at most of the concerts
where we’ve performed it; people
speak to us quite frequently about the
Liebermann afterwards. It has long,
sweeping romantic lines, a compelling narrative arc, and a lot of exciting, fast material. But mostly I would
say there’s a sense of inner cohesion
about it. The slower sections have
not only that sort of romantic, lyrical strain I’m talking about, but at the
beginning and end of the piece there’s
also this very mysterious sort of atmosphere.
Q: We have a robust chamber
music scene at the University of
Chicago, with both a departmentled program and a student-run
program. As a longtime chamber
musician, is there something about
playing or rehearsing with a quartet
that you know now that you wish
you knew when you were younger?
A: That’s a good question…. I
think maybe I just understand certain
things more deeply than I understood
them decades ago, that playing together in a quartet involves negotiating the differences between the four
personalities. You don’t always want
to avoid confrontation, but you have
to be diplomatic. Everybody should
try to respect everybody else, includ-
ing the differences in playing styles
and in the way people’s personalities
are expressed. And you know, you
have to find the right way of asking
for what you want—that much I have
discovered. Probably it’s important
not to take on a certain role, like the
guardian of intonation or the guardian of rhythm, or something like that.
Everyone should share those responsibilities.
Q: Journeys was the Emerson
Quartet’s final album with David
Finckel. Any upcoming recording
projects with Mr. Watkins that we
can look forward to?
A: Yes: A recording of Berg’s Lyric
Suite and five songs by Egon Wellesz.
[Wellesz] was a contemporary of
Berg, and [the songs’ texts] are five
sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning that were translated into German.
The reason that’s on the recording is
that Renée Fleming joined us for the
final movement of the Lyric Suite
with [Berg’s] hidden voice part. It
was a great honor for us to collaborate
with Ms. Fleming, and we wanted to
have another piece on that recording that would feature her. The five
sonnets are very intriguing, kind of
impressionistic writing for both the
voice and the quartet, and that will
come out in September. We’ve also
got another recording in the can, but
I don’t know when that’s going to
come out. That’s music by Britten and
Purcell: the second and third Britten
quartets, Britten’s edition of Purcell’s
Chacony, and four Purcell fantasias.
They’ll come out sooner or later!
The Emerson String Quartet performs with Colin Carr and Paul Neubauer at the Harris Theater (205 East
Randolph Drive), Wednesday May
20, 7:30 PM. Tickets $10–50.
Shadows of Shyamalan can be found in Fox’s new Wayward Pines
Looks like these pines are a bit wayward.... They're covering up the glamorous cast of Fox's new show from celebrity film director M. Night Shyamalan.
COURTESY OF FOX
James Mackenzie
Senior Arts Editor
The last we saw of M. Night Shyamalan, he was at the helm of Will Smith
ego project-turned-box office disaster
After Earth, the latest in a long series of
critical and commercial flops produced
by the once lauded director. Most of
Shyamalan’s projects in recent years
have carried the same question: “Is this
the comeback? Is this where he’ll recapture the magic of The Sixth Sense? Is
this where he finally fulfills the promise
he showed all those years ago?”
These attempts have thus far all
been failures, each more spectacular
than the last. His name is so tainted
that studios have largely ceased promoting him when marketing his cre-
ations. You’ll only find small allusions
to his involvement in the new Fox series Wayward Pines, which premiered
last night.
The show, based on a book series of
the same name by Blake Crouch, follows Secret Service agent Ethan Burke
(Matt Dillon) as he is sent to investigate the disappearance of two fellow
agents in rural Idaho. After a car accident kills his partner and knocks him
unconscious, he wakes up in a hospital
in a town called Wayward Pines. As one
might expect, all is not as it seems in
Wayward Pines. Contact with the outside world is impossible, surveillance
devices are everywhere, and the entire
town is surrounded by a giant electric
fence preventing escape. On top of all
that is the despotic sheriff (Terrence
Howard, coming off his recent leading
role in Fox’s Empire) who has a penchant for public executions. The leaders
of this town have some nefarious plot
in the works, which is without a doubt
leading up to the trademark Shyamalan
twist.
The extent to which Shyamalan is
directly involved in this show is hard to
discern. The typical approach for famous film directors creating TV shows
is to form the concept, direct one episode, and then let handpicked producers take over the show completely (Take
J.J. Abrams and Lost as an example).
True to this form, of the episodes available, Shyamalan only directed the pilot
(Disclaimer: Fox provided the first five
episodes on DVD for the purpose of
this review) but his stylistic fingerprints
are all over the following entries.
From the steady tilt up on the face
of a confused character to the steady
wide shot of a menacing one, all of
Shyamalan’s cinematographic tricks are
in play even when he’s not behind the
camera. So too are the hokey dialogue
and hokier acting that has characterized most of his films. However, both
of these elements actually work in the
show’s favor, since the premise essentially calls for the residents of the town
to act strangely and awkwardly under
the stress of being constantly watched.
The alien-like performances work infinitely better here than in something
like The Happening, which was allegedly centered on a group of normal
people in the face of the apocalypse.
It’s currently unclear whether Way-
ward Pines is intended to be a one-off
mini-series or the beginning of a longrunning show. The early ratings will go
a long way in determining its future,
but it’s hard to envision a show that
seems built around an inevitable twist
being able to hold up longer than one
full season. It’s easy to hazard a few
solid guesses about this town’s “secret,”
but the mystery is genuinely intriguing without overwhelming the actual
experience of watching the show. Like
Fox’s Empire, Wayward Pines moves at
a very fast clip, leaving little time to consider the ridiculous events being put on
screen. All in all, it makes for a highly
enjoyable show, even if the future is
murky. This may not be a return to
Sixth Sense form for Shyamalan, but it
seems to be a step in the right direction.
THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | May 15, 2015
9
“I’m interested in abstraction as a way to synthesize material”
Zachary Harvey's colorful work was the most eye-catching in the exhibit which is coming to a close today.
GRACE HAUCK
| THE CHICAGO MAROON
MFA continued from page 7
muslin, dye, salt, plaster, and cement—harken
back to lunar terrain and the depths of the sea.
Soft blue drapes hover above and along the landscapes, lending fluidity to their grainy bases.
One notices her reverence for the power of
nature in her artist statement: “I find a tension
between the feelings of ecstatic hubris and crippling humility. In many ways I orient myself as a
user in a world of materials, technology and applications but then I see a forming storm, or lose
electricity, or can’t seem to rationalize the scale
of geologic time, climate change or a black hole,
and I am small again, not a user but just another
form.”
Morgan was sure to highlight the work of
Calhoun as well: “I feel like what might get lost
in the noise is Alex’s work, just because the scale
of her work is so small. There is a nautical feel
to them for me. She used a lot of wood, found
objects, some netting. Hers is probably the most
enigmatic for me.”
Spread throughout the gallery yet still hidden,
Calhoun’s pieces were simple and delicate—I
had to take care not to step on her various sculptures laid on the ground. Her naturalistic materials and streamlined designs masterfully bridged
the alien terrains of Rouse and the manufactured
furniture of Harvey. In her artist statement, Alex
said, “I’m interested in abstraction as a way to
synthesize material and form into something
that pushes on the edges of our expectations surrounding form and use as it relates to our world.”
This MFA Thesis Exhibition marked the culmination of years of artistic inquiry for these
four maturing students. In an email, Clark said,
“A faculty member I admire calls our MFA exhibition our “debutant ball,” and in many ways
I would agree that this is what Go Away, Ghost
Ship! has meant to me in relation to my artistic career. Having gone through the rigors of
academic classes and intense critiques to now be
equipped and ready to continue my academic
and artistic practice in the world.”
For a debutante ball, it was a pretty unsettling
affair, yet the artists managed to transform the
invisible—however, weird, foreign, or ambiguous—into the tangible, the real, and the beautiful (with phallic symbols aplenty).
If you missed Go Away, Ghost Ship!, stay tuned
for Trapped in Acapulco, Logan’s second MFA Thesis Exhibition of 2015 running May 22 through
June 14. This show will feature the works of David Lloyd, Richard Williamson, Tori Whitehead,
Carris Adams and will kick off with a reception on
Friday, May 22 from 6–8 p.m.
10
THE CHICAGO MAROON | ADVERTISEMENTS | May 15, 2015
Shulamit Ran, artistic director
50TH SEASON
2015
CONTEMPO: TOMORROW’S MUSIC TODAY II
05.15.15 FRI | 7:30 PM
GANZ HALL, ROOSEVELT UNIVERSITY
430 S. Michigan Avenue
Featuring performances by
Cliff Colnot, conductor
eighth blackbird
Pacifica Quartet
Nina Dante, soprano
Amanda DeBoer, soprano
Elisa Sutherland, mezzo-soprano
In the second program of Contempo’s annual showcase of UChicago doctoral
candidates in composition, Cliff Colnot, eighth blackbird, and Pacifica Quartet
again join forces. Hear bold new works by Katherine Pukinskis, Phil Taylor,
and Iddo Aharony, and you will discover important new voices.
FREE admission, no reservations required. Includes a post-concert
reception with the artists. Note downtown location.
CONTEMPO. 50 YEARS, AND COUNTING.
contempo.uchicago.edu
CLASSIFIEDS
ASSISTANCE NEEDED
Would Serve as Companion to an 85yo Gentleman
Graduate of Harvard Law & Univ. of Michigan
Knowledge of History & Classical Music Pref.
Love of Baseball Required
Must be Willing to Drive
Schedule and Salary Negotiable
bgeorgegold@gmail or text/call 312-218-1067
House for Rent
Big Beautiful Ranch-Style Home
5-Bedrooms 4-Baths
2-Car Garage & Patio
in Chatham 15 minutes from UOC
Mrs. Pyrzynski 708-214-1990
THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | May 15, 2015
Chicago to play defending National Champions
Fourth-year Deepak Sabada prepares to serve a ball at a practice game last
season.
COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS
Maroon Staff
While most of the student body at
UChicago was in the throes of midterms
and sixth week, the hard-hitting Maroons
were in Whitewater, Wisconsin, making
history by advancing to the Elite Eight of
the NCAA Division III National Championships. It is the first time that the Maroons have ever made it to the quarterfinal
round. Having come off a 5–2 drubbing of
Gustavus Adolphus to make it to the Elite
Eight, the Maroons hope they can ride
their established momentum into the next
round.
The South Siders will take on No. 2 Amherst on Monday. While one would assume
that it would be intimidating to take on the
No. 2 team in the nation, anyone that has
been following Chicago this season knows
this team is familiar with top ranked teams.
In fact, of the seven teams left in the tournament (outside themselves), the Maroons
have taken on two of them, which certainly
puts them far ahead of their opponent in
terms of high–level experience.
When asked how this experience against
top team helps the South Siders, firstyear Peter Leung said, “It has given us the
knowledge that we can take on any team in
the whole nation. We can contend and beat
every team in the top five, and there isn’t
much that can stop us.”
Fourth-year Deepak Sabada echoed this
sentiment and said “We’ve learned multiple times this year that we can beat anyone
in the country and we are excited to show
that against Amherst.”
However, the Lord Jeffs of Amherst have
Chicago beat in that category, as they have
played three of the seven opponents left in
the tournament. Something that Amherst
doesn’t have on the Maroons? Youth. Amherst has a team full of upperclassmen, and
while one would think that this give the
Lord Jeffs an edge, the South Siders wholeheartedly disagree.
“Every one of the freshman has competed
at the highest national level with the biggest stakes for many years so we know how
to play big matches,” first-year Nicholas
Chua said. “If anything, I think we bring
a large amount of experience to the table.”
Leung said, “I don’t really know anything
about Amherst’s team, but I know that incoming freshmen tend to revitalize any
team,” which displays the confidence that
the Maroons rightly deserve.
As mentioned previously, the team as a
whole lacks experience in this round of the
tournament: it is the first time Chicago has
made it to the Elite Eight. Instead of letting
this rattle them, the Maroons are using it to
fuel their competitive drive.
“It feels good to be a part of this especially since this is the first time the team
has made the tournament in my four years
here,” said Sabada. “Obviously, we have
never been to the Elite Eight before while
Amherst is the defending national champ,
but we have played top competition
throughout the year and we feel confident
in our abilities to knock them off.”
Chua said, “I think what a lot of people
don’t realize is that for us freshmen it could
very well be the 10th or 15th time in the
quarterfinals and it wouldn’t make a difference because this is our first year on the
team and anything is a new situation.”
The team has already made history, but
there’s no way that this Chicago squad is
in any way satisfied. Regardless of ranking,
previous opponents, or overall team experience, Chicago and Amherst will play at 1
p.m. on Monday, May 18 in Mason, Ohio.
That matchup will ultimately determine
who gets the chance to play in the semifinals against either Middlebury or Trinity
on Tuesday.
North Central to host Last Chance Meet
Track and Field
Max Hawkins
Maroon Staff
The Maroons are competing today in the
North Central College Last Chance Meet
in Naperville, IL, which started yesterday.
This meet serves as the last opportunity for
the South Siders to qualify for the NCAA
DIII National Championship, which will
take place in two weeks.
“The field is very competitive, with a
number of other runners looking to qualify,” said second-year Gareth Jones. There
are a few different anticipated races, such
as the one between fourth-year Ben Buchheim-Jurrison and third-year Yorkbell Jaramillo in the 300-meter steeple, as both
look to continue their successful seasons
thus far.
On the women’s side, the Maroons look
for more individual success as third-year
This Week in Sports:
NHL Playoff Predictions
with Ruslan Shchetinin
Men’s Tennis
Britta Nordtsrom
11
All-American and All-UAA Brianna Hickey looks to qualify in the 1,500-meter race
and retain her qualifying spot. Second-year
Michelle Dobbs, another All-American
who is currently ranked fifth in the country, looks for another win in the 800-meter
race. Third-year Nkemdilim Nwaokolo, an
All-American in the indoor weight throw,
also looks to qualify for the outdoor weight
throw on Thursday.
Having earned both the indoor and outdoor UAA titles, the women look to cap
off their regular season on a high note.
“The fact that the women were able to take
both the indoor and outdoor championship titles was huge. This is even considering all of the injuries that have nagged the
team throughout the season,” Jones said.
The men’s team has also found success
this year, finishing second in the indoor
UAA championships and third in the out-
door UAA championship a few weeks ago.
First-year Obinnaya Wamuo, third-year
Ben Clark, third-year Jacob Romeo, and
first-year Nathan Downey look to secure
a spot together at Nationals in the 4x100meter race.
Jones, coming off an All-UAA selection
in both the outdoor and indoor 5,000-meter race this year looks to qualify for the
10,000-meter race. “I think my odds are
good, but in a race as long as the 10K, a lot
can happen,” Jones said .
Regardless of the outcome, Chicago
looks to finish the season strong, send its
seniors off the right way, and retool for the
upcoming season.
The Last Chance Meet began yesterday
at 12:15 p.m. and will continue through
today at North Central College.
Western Conference Final:
Anaheim Ducks vs. Chicago Blackhawks
How Anaheim got here: Nine games. Nine
games are all it took for the California-based team
to make it to the Western Conference Finals. A
sweep against Winnipeg in the first round followed by a 4–1 series win against Calgary in the
second. Star forward Corey Perry leads the postseason with 15 points, and his linemate, center
Ryan Getzlaf (12), isn’t too far behind. Getzlaf
and Perry were offensive juggernauts against Calgary, combining for 16 points over the five games.
How Chicago got here: Chicago had a sweep of
its own—beating the Minnesota Wild 4–0—and,
for the fifth time in seven seasons, the Chicago
Blackhawks are back in the Western Conference
finals. The Blackhawks have been absolutely dominant since 2008-2009, setting up what I would be
so bold as to call a modern day dynasty. Statisticians back me up—since 2009, the Blackhawks
have posted up the most points (700) in the NHL
regular season, as well as the most goals per game
(3.09). Whether it’s on general manager Stan Bowman, coach Joel Quenneville, or the elite duo of
Kane and Toews, the Blackhawks find themselves
in a familiar spot: The Western Conference Finals.
How they match up: In the regular season, the
Blackhawks won two out of their three games
against the Ducks. The Ducks, who more or less
breezed through the first two rounds of the playoffs, now find themselves facing an elite opponent.
Will Getzlaf and Perry be able to outshine Toews
and Kane? Fan predictions say no, with 67 percent
of fans predicting that Blackhawks will take this
one.
Eastern Conference Final:
New York Rangers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning
How New York got here: Henrik Lundqvist.
Which is synonymous with becoming the first
ever NHL team to come back from 3–1 series
deficits in back-to-back years. Henrik Lundqvist
means you’re grinding out wins in big games since
2012, evidenced by the fact that the Rangers have
been 14–3 in games where they face elimination
over the past three seasons. New York could not
have done any of this without Lundqvist, who’s
earned his nickname of “The King.” Appropriately,
Lundqvist set an NHL record with a sixth straight
Game 7 win against the Capitals, a stretch in which
the star goalie has put up a .973 save percentage
alongside a 0.81 goals against average (GAA). The
Rangers are playing close games, setting a record
for 14 straight one-goal playoff games.
How Tampa Bay got here: The scary, all-sophomore line of Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov has scored 17 of the 34 Lightning
goals. More so, Tyler Johnson leads the playoffs
with eight goals. Nikita Kucherov, only 21-yearsyoung, scored six goals in the second round against
the Montreal Canadiens. Now, let’s not forget
about Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos, who is finally
heating up and coming back to form with seven
points in his last five games, after mightily struggling in the first round. Tampa goalie Ben Bishop,
in his first postseason run, has done his part with a
.931 save percentage and 1.81 GAA.
How they match up: After a captain-swapping
mega trade last season, New York rightwing (RW)
Martin St. Louis and Tampa Bay RW Ryan Callahan have set the stage for an emotional, dramatic
series. Add the fact that former Rangers Anton
Stralman and Brian Boyle have chosen to sign with
Tampa this past summer, throw in that current
Ranger defenseman Dan Boyle won a cup with
Tampa in 2004, and we have ourselves a recipe
for a thrilling series. Tampa Bay beat the Rangers 3–0 in the regular season, but all three games
were played in a 15-day span early in the season.
A Tampa Bay team with seemingly endless offensive weapons versus a well balanced, but fast, New
York Rangers team that has as solid a back-stopper
as you can have in the playoffs in Lundqvist. Either
team can take it, but fan predictions are 69 percent
in favor of the Rangers.
SPORTS
IN QUOTES
“Our latest observations show no Penguin activity currently on ice in Pittsburgh. Where did they go?”
– The @Discover Twitter handle calls out the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL franchise on their elimination from the playoffs
SENIOR SPOTLIGHT
JENNIFER HILL
SWIM & DIVE: HILL’S CAREER FILLED WITH THRILLS
Fourth-year Jennifer Hill swims across the pool at a meet last season.
COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS
Ahmad Allaw
Associate Sports Editor
On the outside, it’s loud. Coaches line the
edges, shouting to inspire. Officials pace the
sides, looking for possible infractions. Over
200 athletes fill the space, some preparing
for the next event, others relaxing with idle
chat. It’s a disordered frenzy.
But in the pool, things are different.
The sound is turned to mute and the hec-
tic scene reduced to a steady rhythm: One
arm extends forward as the other pulls back.
Occasionally, the head turns and a breath is
drawn. And with full lungs, the sequence
repeats.
The swimmer, now, can see the finish.
To her right and left, however, she can also
sense her competition. For the last few
strokes, she pushes hard and extends her
arms. Her fingers reach the pad. Chicago
fourth-year Jennifer Hill finishes first.
Hill has had no shortage of athletic success during her four years at Chicago. In the
2013–14 season, she set the school record
in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:05.23), the
200-yard IM (2:05.76), the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:35.10), the 400-yard freestyle
relay (3:27.17), the 200-yard medley relay
(1:44.71) and the 400-yard medley relay
(3:48.73). That year, she also qualified in
the 200-yard IM, 200-yard medley relay,
200-yard freestyle relay, 400-yard medley
relay and 400-yard freestyle relay.
She has had similar success this season, receiving Honorable Mention All-American
honors in the 200-yard IM, 200-yard medley relay, 200-yard freestyle relay, 400-yard
medley relay and 400-yard freestyle relay,
and All-American in the 400-yard medley
relay (8th, 3:51.10).
Certainly, with such success, Hill must
have started swimming from a young age.
The opposite, however, is true. As she recalls, “I started swimming on a summer
league team at age nine. Joining the team
that summer was kind of a fluke–the summer camp counselors had to encourage me
to give it a try.”
But once she started, she couldn’t stop. In
swimming, she found a beautiful blend of
sport, friendship, and opportunity. “Fourteen years of competitive swimming later,
I’m so thankful that those counselors pointed me in the right direction. I fell in love
with the sport, especially since I quickly
realized that swim meets were a prime opportunity to socialize with my friends.”
That never stopped when she came to
the South Side. If anything, in fact, the
sport she loved kept on giving. “Eventually,
swimming brought me to UChicago, where
it has proved to be a fundamental part of
my college experience. Athletics at UChicago helped me become a more determined,
passionate, and selfless person,” Hill said.
“When it comes down to it, college swimming is about cultivating relationships with
your teammates while working to improve
yourself as a person. It has been a wonderful experience that I will always be thankful
for.”
Yet Hill’s impact on the team has been just
as strong as swimming’s impact has been on
her. Over the past two years, as the team’s
co-captain, she has inspired the swimmers,
encouraged the younger athletes, and led
the team veterans. Hill, though, only thanks
her teammates. Even though she will be
leaving Chicago at the end of this quarter,
memories of her team and friends will never
go.
As she says, “Most of all, I’m going to
treasure the memories I made with the
people I met on the team, in the housing
system, in the classroom, and in the community. My favorite memories include the
times when my roommates came to cheer
for me at swim meets and when my swim
teammates came to watch me perform in
the orchestra. I will remember all the support I received from my friends and how
they helped me grow.”
In the near future, Hill, who has also
been an outstanding student, will be working for AmeriCorps as a health educator for
the Chicago Health Corps branch. In the
meantime, she will be applying to medical
school, looking to continue with her spirit
of providing and care.
She leaves her peers with a few words of
wisdom: “Always keep the bigger picture
in mind, and never give up, even when the
odds are not in your favor.”
Maroons finish third in UAA, end season at regionals
Women’s Tennis
Harry Brownfield
Maroon Staff
The Maroons fell just short of reaching the
Elite Eight of the NCAA Division III National Championship this past Sunday in the
third round. Although the Maroons were defeated by No. 5 Carnegie Mellon in a match
that would have sent them to the Elite Eight,
they were able to go home proud of what they
accomplished this year.
The South Siders faced a difficult schedule
this year. The team played against nationally
ranked opponents 12 times this spring. This
includes eight games in which they faced
teams ranked in the top 15. Additionally, the
South Siders needed to travel to nearly all of
their games, only playing three matches at
home all year. That said, Chicago finished the
season with a winning record (13–12).
In the postseason, the Maroons kicked
things off with the UAA Championship,
which they entered as the fourth seed. The
South Siders won their first match and then
lost to defending National Champion Emory
and heated rival Wash U. All in all, the Maroons were able to take home third at the
UAA Championships. However, the main
reason for that loss against Wash U may
have been first-year Ariana Iranpour’s injury.
Iranpour was injured in her doubles match,
forcing her to retire. She did not return for
the rest of the season, a devastating blow to a
team that had relied so heavily on the young
star.
After the match, coach Jay Tee said, “We’ve
come a long way since the season started, and
we hope to get a chance to prove ourselves in
the NCAA Tournament.”
Two weeks later, Chicago reached the regional level of the National Championship
for the seventh year in a row. The No. 15 Maroons hosted the regional round and received
a first-round bye. The South Siders opened
up play by soundly defeating Augustana 5–0.
While the Maroons fought valiantly, they fell
for the second year in a row to Carnegie Mellon in the third round, ending their championship run. Part of this was due to injuries, as
Iranpour and her fellow first-year, Courtney
Warren, were unable to play.
With the season now finished, Chicago
will graduate three seniors: Megan Tang,
Kelsey McGillis, and Maggie Schumann. All
three of these women have earned All-American honors in their time with the Maroons
and have been a big part of the team’s success
over the past four years. It will be difficult for
the South Siders to fill these gaps next year,
but the team is confident that the unity of its
players will see it through the transition.
First-year Jasmine Lee said, “We got very
close as a team this year. It was noticeable how
much better we played when the team held
First-year Jasmine Lee prepares to return a ball during a practice game this season.
COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS
together, even when we had tough days. I’m
really proud to be a member of this team.”
With a strong team atmosphere and obvious young talent, the Maroons should have
no trouble carrying on their history of success
next year. As a group of women best characterized by their hard work, the team will certainly enter the next year fit and eager.