1. sports
2. basketball

VOICE
the georgetown
LIGHTING THE HILLTOP
How Georgetown creates and
uses energy
By Ryan Miller
Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w April 9, 2015 w Volume 47, Issue 26 w georgetownvoice.com
the
Voice
April 9, 2015
This week:
Editorial ... We’re halfway towards a green campus, pg. 3
News ... University presses charges against GUFF, pg. 4
Sports ... DSR returns, pg. 6
Feature ... Energy usage at Georgetown, pg. 8
Energy and Georgetown
Leisure ... I’ve got a Blank Space baby: Arts Weeks 2015, pg. 10-12
The Voice reports on Georgetown’s use of energy on campus and around the
world.
Page 13 ... Liberty-Man, pg. 17
A Crossword of Ice and Fire
Voices ... Medical Brigades: Making change and being changed, pg. 18
ACROSS
1. Long awaited sixth
installment (3 words)
9. Energized fish
10. Historical period
12. Got a perfect
score
13. Ten cents
15. Jeepers
17. The Narrow, the
Summer, the Sunset,
& the Dothraki
19. Toolbox item
21. Eighth root of
256
23. Cloak
25. Fear
26. Antibacterial drug, common
allergen
28. Jayme & Cersei’s
banner
29. Bracing
32. Blank page at the
start of end of a book
35. Fury
36. Golf course item
37. Inputs
41. Under
44. Boar’s mate
45. Allude
47. Spanish ocean
48. Banal
51. Website for ideas
worth spreading
52. Type of twill pant
54. Lass
56. Expressed verbally
57. Farm growth
59. Hotels
60. Rafter’s need
61. No way
62. Third installment
(3 words)
– Kathleen Coughlin
DOWN
2. Decorative sticker
3. Robert Baratheon’s
is strong
4. Used
5. Get hitched
6. Bearded flower
7. Titled
8. They always pay
their debts (2 words)
11. When you play,
either you win or
you die (3 words)
12. Ripen
14. Corn serving
15. At any time
16. Eternity
18. Bargain
20. Farm female
21. Pull
22. Wrong
24. Spherical green
26. Scoff
27. Reconstruct
30. By way of
31. Infuriate
33. Hankering
34. Wind shelter
38. Likewise not
39. Small tree branch
40. Stage backdrop
41.Flower site
42. During
43. Darken your skin
46. Tariff
49. Quirk
50. Miscalculation
52. Poem section
53. Belonging to him
55. Rich soil
56. Bastard of the
North name
58. Supportive of
59. ___ & outs
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VOICE
the georgetown
Volume 47.26
April 9, 2015
Editor-in-Chief: Dayana Morales Gomez
Managing Editor: Caitriona Pagni
General Manager: Mary-Bailey Frank
Webmaster: Maya McCoy
Editors-at-Large: James Constant,
Julia Lloyd-George, Ian Philbrick
Contributing Editor: Chris Castano
Blog Editor: Marisa Hawley
Halftime Leisure Editors: Erika Bullock, Graham Piro
Halftime Sports Editors: Alex Boyd, Rob Ponce
News Editor: Lara Fishbane
Sports Editor: Joe Pollicino
Feature Editor: Ryan Greene
Leisure Editor: Daniel Varghese
Page 13 Editor: Dylan Cutler
Voices Editor: Noah Buyon
Photo Editor: Joshua Raftis
Cover Editor: Christina Libre
Design Editor: Eleanor Sugrue
Spread Editors: Pam Shu, Sophie Super
Assistant Blog Editors: Grace Brennan,
Dominique Rouge, Carley Tucker
Assistant Halftime Leisure Editor: Michael Bergin
Assistant News Editors: Courtnie Baek, Ryan Miller
Assistant Sports Editors: Isabel Echarte,
Kevin Huggard, Max Roberts
Assistant Feature Editor: Shalina Chatlani
Assistant Leisure Editors: Elizabeth Baker, Dinah Farrell,
Sabrina Kayser
Assistant Voices Editor: Leila Lebreton
Assistant Photo Editors: Vicki Lam, Carolyn Zaccaro
Assistant Cover Editor: Megan Howell
Assistant Design Editor: Ellie Yaeger
Staff Writers:
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Brian McMahon, Maneesha Panja, Brendan Saunders,
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Staff Photographers:
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editorial
making sense of gu’s leedership
Georgetown’s green record has room to improve
More than 30 years ago, Georgetown University activated 4,464 solar panels on the roof of
Bunn Intercultural Center, constructed after the
1973 oil crisis. In 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency recognized it as a Green Power Partner of the Year. These are incredible achievements.
A fair assessment of the university’s progress and sustainability, however, must look
beyond its past capital projects and ambitious
sustainability goals. Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) certifications
and EPA recognition does not necessarily mean
that this campus is truly as green as it can be.
For example, Georgetown says that its
greenhouse emissions in metric tons of carbon
dioxide equivalent in 2013 were 69.9 percent
lower compared to those in 2006. One of the
ways it did so was to purchase renewable energy certificates (REC), which provide funding for
owners of renewable power sources that create
electricity for the grid. The RECs, however, allow it to claim additional credit for the environ-
Editorial Board Chair: Kenneth Lee
Editorial Board:
Isabel Echarte, Lara Fishbane, Ryan Miller,
Dayana Morales Gomez, Ryan Greene, Laura Kurek,
Caitriona Pagni, Ian Philbrick, Daniel Varghese, Garet Williams
Director of Finance: Allison Manning
Director of Human Resources: Michael Sitcawich
Accounts & Sales Representative: Suzie Park
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materials copyright the Georgetown Voice. All rights reserved.
mental benefits of the renewable power sources
in which it invested. Without including RECs in
its calculations, the university only reduced its
greenhouse emissions by 19.4 percent.
In a similar dilemma, the University of
Pennsylvania has bought more RECs than
any other participating institution in the EPA
challenge since 2009, but some students, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian, do not see
the merits of this act. They say that RECs are
“one-time certificates with no return on investment in the future.”
Administrators also want all future buildings
and major renovations to achieve LEED Gold
certification. However, its current standards
amount to little more than a token achievement
in today’s construction projects. In October
2012, USA TODAY analyzed 7,100 LEED-certified commercial buildings and found that, too often, building projects receive credit for providing
a view of the outdoors or having a design team
member pass a LEED exam.
Further limitations on Georgetown’s sustainability initiatives stem from the Office of Sustainability’s small size. Only one full-time staff member
and a few student interns run the office. Bureaucracy and red tape have hampered an exciting
project to build solar panels on Leo O’Donovan
dining hall’s roof, as Georgetown Energy, the student organization responsible, has had to work
with so many different offices in the university.
Climate change is one of the most important, if not the most important, issue of our
generation, and Georgetown University has
made considerable strides. However, its work
is far from complete. If Georgetown truly
wants to become a green campus, the Office
of Sustainability must grow further, and the
university needs to promote grassroots initiatives to change the habits of students and staff.
Administrators, too, must take the lead on environmentally-conscious master planning and
do more than simply aim for awards and certificates that provide talking points.
the ten-ant commandments
Tenant Bill of Rights: A peace of mind for students
Many Hoyas take their first plunge into the
cesspool that is real estate market when they
rent an off-campus townhouse during their
junior or senior years. A new rule to be implemented this July by the D.C. government’s Office of the Tenant Advocate requiring landlords
to provide would-be renters with a “Tenant Bill
of Rights” makes the waters a little less intimidating for first-time leaseholders.
The document, a product of the Tenant Bill
of Rights Act of 2014 signed into law last August, is meant to be a knowledge base for renters, say, juniors and seniors scouring Burleith or
West Georgetown for a place to stay, who may
not be fully aware of their rights under housing
law—and knowledge, of course, is power.
We applaud the D.C. Council’s initiative in creating this common-sense document, which stands
to benefit our neighbors as well as students. One
of their major gripes during the negotiations leading up to the 2010 Campus Plan was that landlords
Copy Editors:
Lauren Chung, Bianca Clark, Jupiter El-Asmar, Alex Garvey,
Rachel Greene, Madison Kaigh, Julian Sena, Suzanne Trivette
The georgetown voice | 3
and lessees alike were poor stewards of their rented homes. In 2004, a student, Daniel Rigby (SFS
’05), died in a Prospect St. house fire. The building
he lived in did not meet fire safety codes.
Reviews of landlords and the leases they
make on Roomr, an off-campus housing database, reveals just how useful the new Tenant
Bill of Rights may be. One fairly representative
townhouse review claims that a specific landlord’s lease is “the product of an insane person’s
mind.” The Tenant Bill of Rights makes it clear
that landlords “may not unreasonably interfere
with [tenants’] comfort, safety, or enjoyment.”
Presumably, crafting leases that ban “music with
drums” is contestable under D.C. housing law.
The Tenant Bill of Rights may well encourage landlords and lessees to take more ownership over their townhouses and could, in the
long run, make off-campus living more palatable
to our neighbors. It’s important to remember,
however, that it is merely a legal cheat sheet. Ten-
ants still have to bring complaints to the District’s
Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), which is responsible for inspecting
homes and redressing code violations. It’s also
known for notoriously slow response times. The
government should commit to strengthening
and streamlining DCRA’s housing inspection resources to protect all tenants, especially first-time
leaseholders in the District.
Despite what our neighbors might have
in mind, Georgetown students are going to
continue renting private townhouses, which
are simply cheaper and better quality than oncampus housing, for the foreseeable future. As
long as off-campus housing remains a reality of
undergraduate life, landlords must make their
properties as safe as possible. The Tenant Bill
of Rights connects students with the tools they
need to ensure that their homes are up to code.
That way, preventable deaths like Rigby’s will
remain just that—preventable.
hyperbole does not a story make
Drawing lessons from Rolling Stone’s UVA debacle
On Sunday, the Columbia Graduate School
of Journalism released a damning report detailing how a now-retracted Rolling Stone account of
a brutal gang-rape at the University of Virginia
turned into a journalistic nightmare. The report revealed editorial failures at every level that
missed apparent fabrications by the alleged victim, a student identified only as Jackie.
Rather than calling for the heads of Rolling
Stone’s editors, we should instead consider the
impulses that led to their missteps—the lure of
a juicy story and, most perniciously, the impulse to sacrifice truth for comfort about the
subject of rape.
Amid the fallout, two things may happen.
First, sexual assault survivors may think twice
about sharing their stories with journalists at a
time when publicizing the prevalence of sexual
assault is critical to creating a societal dialogue
about the issue of campus rape.
Second, journalists and the public may shy
away from engaging with sexual assault. Rape
culture is quotidian, omnipresent, and far less
ghoulish than Rolling Stone (and probably many
of us) would like to imagine it. That’s what makes
it so pernicious. Sabrina Erdely, the article’s author, sought out a terrifying rape in a darkened
fraternity house to shock readers out of apathy.
The problem isn’t just that these notions play to
our comfortable stereotypes of what rape is—it’s
that they marginalize and devalue the experience
of victims whose stories aren’t deemed “dramatic” or “newsworthy” enough. This double-edged
sword of media attention for sexual assault is
precisely why responsible journalism must be
at the forefront of the effort to name, blame, and
shame those who engage in the practice.
But all of us should be careful to avoid compromising truth in service to a cause. Untruths
don’t just embolden rape culture naysayers;
they also damage the legitimacy of campaigns
that seek to support victims and accurately conceptualize the problem. These compromises are
often far less sensational than Rolling Stone’s faux
pas. Outlets ranging from Georgetown’s own
Stall Seat Journal to President Obama frequently
cite the widely circulated statistic that one in
five women will be the victim of sexual assault
while in college. Emily Yoffe at Slate, however,
has called this figure to task—the statistic comes
from a survey of just two colleges, and shouldn’t
be applied nationally. That we do this so readily
is a problem in itself.
This evening, at 7 p.m., Georgetown’s chapter of Take Back the Night will share anonymous
stories of sexual assault survivors at an event
called It Happens Here. The Editorial Board has
faith they will embody the truth Rolling Stone
failed: that speaking inaccurately of rape culture
hobbles only our ability to fight it. We shouldn’t
fear that accuracy hurts either victims or our
cause. Sexual assault survivors deserve brave
spaces to confront perpetrators of rape culture.
Fidelity to truth, confronting sexual assault as it
is, lets us see the problem in the light of day. Perhaps it lets us see a way to fix it, too.
news
4 | the georgetown voice
APRIL 9, 2015
University presses charges against GU Fossil Free members for code of conduct violations
CAITLYN COBB
Three GU Fossil Free students
are facing two charges from the
Director of Student Conduct Judy
Johnson for their actions at World
Bank president Dr. Jim Yong Kim’s
speech on March 18th.
The three GU Fossil Free students walked onto the stage in
Gaston Hall between Dr. Kim’s
speech and the Q&A segment
holding a banner with a quote of
Kim, “Corporate leaders should
not wait to act until market signals
are right and national investment
policies are in place,” and the words
“Georgetown DIVEST now GU
Fossil Free.” The three students
were then asked to leave the stage
repeatedly by Director of Student
Conduct Judy Johnson and GUPD
officers, and were eventually escorted off the stage and then out
of Gaston Hall and the building.
The three students are now facing charges from Ms. Johnson for
violating the university’s Code of
Conduct on two accounts: “unauthorized access” and “failure to
comply with university officials or
university policy.”
The three Fossil Free students
posted their responses to Ms.
Johnson’s charges on the GUFF
website, arguing their actions constituted an act of “peaceful protest,”
that their actions were “protected
by the Speech and Expression Policy,” and that the charges “are unreasonable and decidedly without
grounding” and “insidious.”
The two conduct charges have
raised broader questions about
speech and expression on campus.
“We know our actions fully complied with university policy and
were an act of free speech,” Chloe
Lazarus (COL ‘16), one of the three
Fossil Free students facing charges,
said. “We believe we have a right
to speak up against the injustices
Georgetown promotes.”
The conduct charges bring an
additional dimension to the discussion of the implementation of
GU FOSSIL FRE
ONE ADMINI PRESSES TWO CHARGES AGAINST THREE STUDENTS FOR VIOLATIONS.
the Speech and Expression Policy. The Code of Conduct and the
Speech and Expression Policy are
two separate policies, and the conduct charges are not attempting
to enforce speech and expression.
This means that two separate issues of student conduct and speech
and expression are involved, but
opinions on which issue is most
important in this case vary.
Sam Kleinman (COL ‘16) [Full
Disclosure: Sam Kleinman is a
former Voice staffer], a member of
the Speech and Expression Committee and GUSA secretary of
free speech, said, “It is my opinion
that the issue here has very little
to do with accessing a restricted
area, and more to do with whether
speech was properly exercised as
allowed under the policy.”
Although Kleinman believes
the university acted erroneously
and against its Speech and Expression Policy, he understands
the basis for the university’s
charges. “There is an argument
to be made that these protesters
violated other relevant university
policy,” he said. “It really depends
on how you construct the restricted access argument.”
According to Student Advocacy Office Co-director Ryan Shymansky (COL ‘16) “unauthorized
access” means entering any area
specifically designated as off-limits
by the university, or that may reasonably be considered restricted
and “failure to comply” is behavior
that does not follow the directives
of university officials. In the case
of the Fossil Free students, the university considers their presence on
the stage “unauthorized access,”
and considers their decision to
remain on the stage when GUPD
officers and the Director of Student Conduct told them to move
“failure to comply.”
Shymansky believes the intent
of “unauthorized access” in the
code is to restrict access to spaces
where a concern for student safety
exists, such as mechanical and electrical areas. “This is not a view that
the university shares,” Shymansky
said. “The Code is too general to
reach any definitive conclusion.
The Free Speech and Expression
Policy is more specific, however,
and suggests that students are permitted on Gaston stage.”
Dr. Todd Olson, vice president
for student affairs and dean of students, wrote generally in an email
to the Voice, “Our understanding is
that the stage in any campus venue
is a space reserved for the speakers/performers at events that are
taking place there.”
The overlap between conduct
policy and speech policy in this
case sets a precedent for how conduct policies can be enforced in
relation to speech. “Free speech
and conduct issues are both at
play here. What’s difficult is separating the two.” Shymansky said.
“The Code of Student Conduct
shouldn’t be used as a club to limit
free speech rights already granted
to students by the university.”
Johnson and the Office of Student Conduct did not responded
to multiple requests for comment.
There is also concern about the
lack of separation between policy
enforcement and adjudication in
this case. Generally, there is a separation between enforcement of university policy through the GUPD
and the adjudication of cases.
“This case is slightly different,
since the Director of the Office of
Student Conduct was present at
the Fossil Free protest and is involved with adjudicating the students’ case as well,” Shymansky
said. “[GUPD and the Office of Student Conduct’s] roles are normally
much more clearly delineated.”
According to Shymansky, this
case is being resolved through
administrative action. Administrative action is defined by the
Office of Student Conduct as “the
resolution of a case by a case by a
Conduct Officer. … The Conduct
Officer has the ability to find a student responsible for violations of
the Code of Student Conduct and
assign sanctions.” In this case, the
Conduct Officer is Judy Johnson,
who filed the charges and was also
present and involved in enforcement at the protest.
“The Office of Student Conduct, and specifically Ms. Johnson, is trying to restrict our free
speech and silence our voices,”
said Lazarus.
Georgetown students march to raise awareness for She Leads Burkina Campaign
COURTNIE BAEK
On Wednesday, April 3, four
Georgetown students marched the
historical walk of the 1965 Civil
Rights movement between Selma
and Montgomery to raise awareness for She Leads Burkina (SLB)
Campaign. SLB is a crowdfunding
campaign that aims to empower
female students of Martin Luther
King School in Burkina Faso by
building a dorm on its campus.
Jean-Daniel Glausser, a high
school teacher of Chief Director of
SLB Sacha Millet (COL ‘15), created
the MLK school in 2010 after visiting Burkina Faso in 2008. “His school
is very peculiar, meaning that he has
an ambition to create a new generation,” Millet said. “He’s not trying to
educate most people, but trying to
fundamentally change kids.”
The school is officially called Lycée MLK in homage to Martin Luther King Jr., who led the march from
Selma to Montgomery to promote
equality and empowerment through
education. “[The campaign] wants
to continue [MLK’s] mission by empowering individuals in underprivileged conditions,” SLB member Sofia
Galatas (COL ‘15) said.
According to Millet, the MLK
school has very high level of academics, equipment, and buildings out of
the 54 schools in the Central Plateau
region in Africa. The co-ed school educates and houses approximately 130
students exclusively in sixth grade.
One third of the student population
come from the highest social class
from the capital who pay the whole
tuition, another third come from the
middle class who pay half the tuition,
and the last third of the kids who
come from the poorest regions who
are sponsored from various donors.
The school is open to all faiths, but
Director of MLK School Jean-Daniel
Glauser acquired his inspiration for
the school from Protestant values.
“The campaign’s goal is to raise
awareness around our campaign and
mark the symbolic link that exists
between the values of Martin Luther
King and that of the school we are
supporting that has taken the name
of the pastor,” said Millet.
SLB officially launched on
March 1 and has raised approximately $27,000.
“Ideally, the school needs
$100,000 by May to completely build
the girl’s dorm, but any amount that
we get will be directly used by the
school in one way or another to better
integrate girls.” said Galatas.
“I have a couple friends at the
World Bank, which has programs
called Gender Equality and Development and Education,” Millet said.
“We’re hoping that one of these programs will be interested in our campaign. We sent our applications and
we’re now waiting for their answers.”
SLB will be releasing a video of the
walk next week. According to a mem-
ber of SLB Paul Gioia (COL ‘15), the
members plan to continue their campaign by running from the Georgetown Waterfront to the Washington
monument next Sunday on April 12,
for which a Venezuelan donor agreed
to sponsor $2 for each completed kilometer. SLB also has a special marketing campaign and charity drink at Uncommon Grounds. SLB is currently
organizing a speaker event in the third
week of April regarding education
and female empowerment in West
Africa in collaboration with the Afri-
can Studies Department to present the
campaign to the wider Georgetown
community.
“In the US we take for granted
that both males and females have
the same access to opportunities
regardless of gender, at least in
terms of education,” said Galatas.
“However, this is not the rule in the
rest of the world. The Georgetown
community, as a privileged one, can
help create awareness about this issue and have a direct impact in another community.”
IN APRIL STUDENTS MARCH FOR EMPOWERMENT AND EQUALITY.
SHE LEADS BURKINA
news
georgetownvoice.com
the georgetown voice | 5
HIGHER EDGE: THE CHEATING SYSTEM: WHO’S TO BLAME?
BY LARA FISHBANE
a tri-weekly column
ABOUT AMERICA’s UNIVERSITIES
The Voice puts faces to the workers at leo’s and hoya court.
TARYN SHAW
Aramark workers on the record:
Francisco Lopez
LILAH BURKE
In light of the ongoing negotiations between Aramark and
it’s workers’ union, the Voice
will do a series of On the Records with Hoya Court and Leo’s
employees. This week the Voice
sat down with nineteen-year old
Francisco Lopez, who works at
Elevation Burger.
Lopez commutes nearly
two hours from Maryland to
work the night shift at Elevation Burger. He began working at twelve years old in construction before beginning a
job at Popeye’s when he was
sixteen. He started at Hoya
Court at eighteen, nearly two
years ago. He lives with his
single mother and two brothers. This interview has been
edited and condensed.
What do you do at Elevation Burger?
I’m the lead up here. I
pretty much do everything
that needs to be done, whether that’s frying, grinding the
meat, cook, do milkshakes,
register, sweep, mop, take the
trash out. I used to do all that
before I was the lead. I used
to do all that stuff just getting
paid as a regular worker.
What is the best part of
your job?
The best part of my job is
my co-workers. They’re all
fun people. Now and then the
supervisors will get on their
backs and all, but I just tell
them just to brush it off because at the end of the day everybody needs this job.
What is the worst part of
your job?
The amount of work they
tell you to do. One person
has to do like nine different
jobs. That’s too much for one
person to take. … Then you
get tired. And then if you call
out, they don’t care. They’ll
still be on your back about
why you called out.
Do you want Hoya Court to
have fair process to organize?
In a way, yeah, because, you
know, people have more freedom of what to say and speak
up. Because some people are
scared to speak up right now
because they afraid they’re going to get fired. And if we do
have fair process [to organize]
they won’t be so scared to
speak up, because then they’ll
have that back-up, that support
behind them, and they can’t
just fire them easily for no reason. We’ve had people get fired
over little stupid stuff and we
don’t understand why they got
let go. There are workers and
everything that get let go just
because they wanted to speak
their minds.
Do you think the movement for a fair process to organize is more about that sort
of protection rather than pay?
Most people up here need
the money. People need the
extra boost in their lives.
And that little cents or whatever they try to give us isn’t
enough to cut it. When they
gave us our raise some people
only saw thirteen cents. After a year of working you’re
going to pay them thirteen
more cents? That’s pretty
much a slap to the face. Some
people took it like that and
they tried to speak up. Those
people aren’t with us anymore. They got fired.
Have spoken to students
about your work?
Only during that big rally when they came up here
that one time. That was
the one time I kind of talked to some students. They
showed how much support
they had towards us.
We all were grateful that
they came here. There were so
Stanford University is investigating a recent surge in allegations of academic dishonesty
reported at the end of its winter
quarter. These allegations, including an incident which involved up to 20 percent of students in one of Stanford’s larger
introductory courses, are just
the most recent of a burgeoning
number of incidents of cheating
at universities across the country.
With issues of academic integrity on the rise, university administrators and the public are left
asking is why students cheat.
One of the biggest misconceptions about cheating is that
people cheat because they are bad,
dishonest people. The problem,
however, is that when you blame
individuals, you completely overlook the actual root of the problem. The truth is that almost anyone will cheat if put into the right
(or wrong) circumstances and as
it currently stands, America’s elite
universities provide circumstances that not only make cheating
easy, but also encourage it.
On one hand, college admissions are more competitive than
ever before, setting more demanding expectations for the students
who do get into elite colleges to
perform at a higher level. Students,
however, aren’t conditioned to be
able to cope with the high amounts
of stress incurred while trying to
meet these standards. According
to an article published in the Boston
Globe last month, the stress of the
workload at MIT, among other factors, contributed to the suicides of
four students in the past year.
When professors inundate students with more work than they
can handle, they don’t give students
the option to focus on learning
rather than outcomes. There is no
time for students to really engage
with material when the workload
is too intense to keep up with and
yet the assessments of “learning”
are constant. Under these condi-
tions, every hundred page reading,
meaningless problem set, and arbitrarily difficult exam reinforces the
implicit notion that achievement is
valued over education.
Since these kinds of norms
are constantly being reinforced
in classrooms, it’s no wonder that
cheating has become as rampant as
it is at elite universities. Cheating on
an assignment is the ultimate way
to perform without actually learning material. So long as students are
placed in an environment where
they believe learning isn’t valued
by their professors, there is one less
barrier of resistance placed against
academic dishonesty.
Another issue is that there are
very few barriers actually preventing students from cheating.
Although professors run some papers through Turnitin and include
a brief mention of the honor code
on the syllabus, most efforts to
stop cheating end there. There is
a certain trust that students know
what it means to have academic
integrity and will always try to uphold that standard. After all, at the
undergraduate level professors
should not have to coddle students, hold their hands through
assignments, and make sure that
they aren’t violating that trust.
With that being said, however,
professors and institutions have
the responsibility to create environments that allow for academic honesty to survive and be rewarded. For instance, although it
seems as though students should
all know their university’s honor
code, few students have ever actually taken the time to read it. David McCabe conducted a survey
of students around the country,
which revealed that most college
students do not think of corroboration as an offense and half of
students view plagiarism similarly, even when both actions are
clearly forbidden in their university’s honor code. If faculty were
to explicitly outline the expecta-
tions of academic integrity at the
beginning of each semester, they
could effectively discourage dishonesty among students.
Furthermore, if professors
want to discourage students from
working together on assignments,
the responsibility falls on professors to make sure that there are
enough resources available to students for them to work through
assignments on their own. If lectures aren’t taught clearly and the
professor isn’t available outside of
class, then students cannot be expected to complete difficult work
without turning to other students
or the internet for help.
According to a recent survey
published by Inside Higher Ed, the
most likely groups of students on
campuses to cheat are sororities,
fraternities, and athletes. In addition to being able to dedicate less
time to school work, these tightknit group environments are conducive to cheating. They take advantage of the professors who are
too lazy to change assignments and
exams from year to year by proliferating material to hand down to
younger members of the group.
The worst part about cheating
is that it runs in a self-perpetuating cycle. The more unbearable
the workload is and the more
students think their classmates
are cheating, the more likely they
are to cheat as well just to keep up
with everyone else.
If people really want to understand why there have been so
many recent cheating scandals,
then they need to stop pointing
fingers at the “lazy” and “dishonest”
students who have been caught.
Instead, people need to start looking at the institutions which teach
their students to value grades over
learning and ask what can be done
to turn the focus around. Until
there is a change in perspective,
our country will continued to be
baffled by the “inexplicable” surge
in academic dishonesty.
many students we felt … this
was something that could actually happen for us.
If you got a pay increase at
work, do you know what you
would spend it on?
Family. I want to take care
of my family over everything.
Why I’m working? It’s not for
myself. My mom just got let go
a couple days ago. I’m only 19.
I should be getting ready for
college, but I’m trying to make
sure my family’s in a better
place. That’s why I’m hoping it
comes in so that I can get a little extra boost and help us out.
Help us out with the struggles
we got going on.
Is there anything that you
would want to say to the students of Georgetown?
All I have to say is that I respect how they show us support.
A lot of kids don’t know us, but
they still show respect towards
what we do. We do what we can
to make sure that they get their
side, that they get a good burger or sandwich or a good salad
around here. We make sure everything’s fresh every day. We
make sure y’all have a good lunch.
sports
6 | the georgetown voice
APRIL 9, 2015
Stafford, Marrocco leading nationally ranked men’s lax
ALEX BOYD
Besides their New England
roots and role as teammates on the
No. 17 Georgetown men’s lacrosse
team (7-4, 2-1 Big East), Nick Marrocco and Bo Stafford have little in
common. Marrocco, a freshman
goalie, and Stafford, a senior attack,
play very different games. But this
season, the two have emerged as an
unlikely star duo.
Marrocco’s one focus in his first
year on the Hilltop has been protecting the crease, making saves and
scooping up ground balls to stave
off any threat to his net. Nothing
gets past him. Across the field, the
veteran Stafford hungers for the
back of the net, just as he has on
the Hilltop since Marrocco was a
high school sophomore. The sharpshooter can take advantage of holes
in an opposing defense in more
ways than one. He can shoot from
a distance and penetrate up near
the crease. He makes cuts off the
ball and jukes out defenders with
flashy stickwork one-on-one. He is
the very threat Marrocco eyes with
grit and enmity. He just happens to
wear the same color jersey.
The two Hoya stars play different games, but they’re both
working. After last Saturday’s 9-6
win against Providence, Marrocco was named Big East Defensive
Player of the Week and USILA
Defensive Player of the Week.
Stafford received equivalent honors for offensive players just two
weeks ago, and his performance
in Rhode Island was good enough
to earn an appearance on the
weekly honor roll, his second of
the season.
“When you get into Big
East play, you have to rely on
your best players,” Georgetown
Head Coach Kevin Warne said
after this past Saturday’s win.
Marrocco and Stafford might
well be them.
Marrocco’s 18 saves improved
his saves per game average to a Big
East-leading 13.18, and his save
percentage to .553, second in the
Big East. The freshman is emerging as a national star, standing third
in saves per game and 19th in save
percentage in all of college lacrosse.
“Defensively, I thought we did
a really good job of allowing Nick
to see shots that he wanted to see,”
Warne said. “When you watch the
film, those are the shots we want to
give up. Nick’s job is to stop the ball,
and he did.”
Stafford contributed to five of
the Hoyas’ nine goals, assisting two
and netting three of his own. Saturday’s five points brought Stafford
to 37 on the season (21 goals, 16 assists) and 3.45 points per game average, fifth in the Big East.
“I was really impressed with
what Bo did,” Warne said. “He really
fired the guys up.”
The Hoyas drove home from
Rhode Island extending their winstreak against Providence to eight,
and improving their Big East record
to 2-1. Tied with No. 16 Marquette
(9-3, 2-1 Big East) for second in the
conference, Georgetown lies half a
game back from the No. 5 Denver
Pioneers (8-2, 2-0 Big East).
With two of the next three
games coming against Big East
opponents, Villanova and St.
John’s, the next three weeks will
be imperative if the Hoyas intend
to catch No. 5 Denver, who dealt
them a humiliating 19-7 loss in
Colorado late last month. The
good news for the Hoyas is that
both Big East matchups will take
place in Washington. These two
home-turf games will sandwich a
quick 120-mile road trip to take
on Virginia in Charlottesville.
Better news is that both the
Villanova Wildcats (5-5, 0-2 Big
East), who the Hoyas play this Saturday, and the St. John’s Red Storm
(3-8, 1-1 Big East), who they play
AMBIKA AMHUJA
The Hoyas Defense has been solid all year long for the nationally ranked team.
April 25, are struggling. Villanova
dropped the last four straight games
it played, averaging 4.5 goals during
its losing streak to sit at a .500 overall record. The Wildcats have yet
to win a conference game. Warne’s
squad cannot wait to face their biggest conference rival, who they have
not beaten since 2011.
“I don’t believe there’s any love
lost between the two programs,” said
Warne of the Hoyas’ rivalry with Villanova. “Our seniors have not beaten
them. I think our seniors are really
juiced up to get a crack at them.”
Joe o’s
Pollicin
Up in Queens, the Red Storm
have dropped two of the last three
to fall to 3-8 overall. However, St.
John’s may have outperformed
Georgetown when they met the
Providence Friars, albeit in New
York, blowing out their March
meeting 17-7. Nevertheless, if the
Hoyas manage to take care of business like they should, the Blue and
Gray should stand in a good position come the postseason.
As Marrocco repeatedly shatters any notion of a ceiling as he
continues to improve through-
out his first college season and
Stafford pairs veteran poise with
refined skills, all the pieces are
there. This year’s Hoya squad has
two faces. And right now, they’re
both smiling.
“They deserve all the credit,”
said Warne of his team’s power
couple. “They had to make a choice
that enough’s enough and we were
going to make sure that we do
things the right way.”
Face-off against Villanova is set
for 3 p.m. Saturday at Multi-Sport
Field.
SPORTS SERMON---
“We can’t call it football - we should call it UFC.”-Neymar on physicality in recent matches
The past few weeks has seen
millions of high school seniors
across the country find out their
college admissions fate. And
with that comes the release of the
admissions statistics for Georgetown University, which annually
reasserts the university as one of
the more selective and competitive schools to gain admittance
to in the country.
You can attribute this year’s
16 percent acceptance rate to
the desirability of a Georgetown
education, the talented academic pool it draws from, and the
world-class faculty that it boasts.
You can base it off Georgetown’s
location and the post-graduate
opportunities available to those
with a Georgetown degree.
But while these are all valid reasons, there’s really only
one reason for Georgetown’s
emergence as one of the country’s more elite and selective
universities. You can thank
Patrick Ewing.
That seems like a phrase that
many partisans of the Georgetown men’s basketball team
have uttered multiple times
during their fandom. The seven-foot giant left a lasting mark
on the court for the Hoyas. Ewing was the leader of the dominant Hoya team of the mid1980s that advanced to three
Final Fours, including winning
a national championship. He
was a three-time All-American,
two-time Big East Player of
the Year, and Naismith College
Player of the Year during his
tenure on the Hilltop.
But off the court, no one
person has had more of an positive impact on Georgetown
University than Ewing himself.
The most important date in the
history of the university, I would
argue, is Feb. 2, 1981, when Ewing decided to wear the blue and
gray uniform and play for thenHead Coach John Thompson Jr.’s
squad. Because of the exceptional
play of the Ewing-led Hoyas, the
school’s profile was instantly elevated from that of a predominantly Northeast-based Catholic
school to a national university
that would attract students not
only from all over the country,
but also from the world. In just
a three-year period during the
mid-1980s, the number of applicants to Georgetown skyrocketed by 45 percent. You can attribute that to Ewing.
Georgetown and the effects
of Patrick Ewing’s tenure here
is just one of the many examples
of a college admissions theory
called the Flutie Effect, which
refers to the phenomenon of
having a successful college
sports team increase the exposure and prominence of a university. It’s named after former
Boston College quarterback
Doug Flutie, whose game-winning Hail Mary pass in 1984
in a nationally televised game
against Miami helped lead to an
increase in applications in the
years that followed. As we have seen during
March Madness year after year,
sports have the unique ability
to bring a community together.
This unity around a common
cause, in this case a basketball
team, has the ability to transform
a university and build closer ties
between its students, creating
desirable experiences. These formative college experiences make
graduates want to donate more
to the school and stay connected,
leading to a devoted alumni base
ready to give back to their school
to help endow scholarships or
build the newest dorm or library.
It’s because of this cause and
effect that so many colleges devote millions of dollars to ath-
letics, specifically football and
basketball, every year. It’s why
either a football or basketball
coach is the highest paid state
employee in 40 out of our country’s 50 states. And it’s why other schools, in an effort to attain
the glory and recognition that
Georgetown did with Ewing,
are willing to take shortcuts in
order to quickly find success on
the court or on the field. Just
google Binghamton basketball or
Southern Methodist football, examples that I could write a whole
article about.
Although many criticize the
sometimes ridiculous amounts
of money spent on big-time football and basketball, the benefits of
having a major sports program
are undeniable. What would Notre Dame be without its football
team? Or Duke without its basketball team? Even though all
were already prominent national
universities, the recognition that
comes with these teams have
helped them grown even more.
One of my fondest memories at Georgetown was the last
basketball home game played
between the Hoyas and Syracuse
during spring break. Played in
front of a boisterous, sold-out
crowd, the experience of a dominating Hoya victory is unforgettable to this day. We all stormed
the court, proud of the accomplishments of our Hoyas, who
won the Big East regular season
title due to the win. For all of our
differing backgrounds here at
this school in terms of religion,
ethnicity, race, and economic
status, the whole Georgetown
community united at Verizon
Center that Saturday afternoon,
bonded by a common cause that
no one, not even the menacing
Syracuse Orange could break.
And for that I say, “thank you
Patrick Ewing.”
sports
georgetownvoice.com
the georgetown voice | 7
Re-SR: Smith-Rivera opts to return
KEVIN HUGGARD
He’s back.
A week ago, it seemed
Georgetown would lose its leading scorer and first-team All-Big
East point guard. Junior guard
D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera had announced his intention to hire an
agent and enter his name into the
NBA Draft for this coming June.
On Tuesday, however, fan website Casual Hoya reported that an
anonymous source had confirmed
Smith-Rivera’s decision to return
to Georgetown for his senior season. Smith-Rivera could not be
reached for comment, and a team
spokesman stated that Smith-Rivera had not yet informed the
university of his change of heart.
It seemed that Smith-Rivera
had made this choice, and that
next year he would be making
money off his basketball talent
in either the NBA or overseas.
Hoya fans could not help but
be disappointed. Smith-Rivera was the leader of this year’s
team, which earned a No. 4
seed in the NCAA Tournament
and finished ranked No. 22 in
the country.
It turns out the panic was
premature. Instead of having to
look for a post-graduate transfer
to bolster a backcourt rendered
suddenly thin by Smith-Rivera’s absence, Head Coach John
Thompson III will instead have
the luxury of handing the keys
of the Hoya offense to his most
experienced and talented player.
Thompson could not be reached
for comment on this story.
BRENDAN CROWLEY’s TRI-weekly column about sports
coming back to tiger
FREDDY ROSAS
D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera’s Decision improves the Hoyas’ Prospects for next season. .
Without Smith-Rivera, next
year’s squad would have been
strikingly young, devoid of upperclassmen who have played serious
minutes in the past. With seniors
Jabril Trawick, Joshua Smith, Aaron Bowen and Mikael Hopkins
now departing, next year’s rotation will present some new faces
for Hoya fans.
But the return of Smith-Rivera
makes the team’s youth much less
of a question mark. The talented
quartet of Tre Campbell, Isaac Copeland, L.J. Peak, and Paul White
will have to step into a greater role
during their sophomore season,
but they will not have to replace the
16.3 points per game and 3.2 assists
per game that Smith-Rivera averaged this season, leading the team
in both categories.
Given the number of players
lost to graduation this year, a few
team members besides the rising
sophomores and the returning
Smith-Rivera will need to contribute for the Hoyas to find success. Junior center Bradley Hayes
made the most of his opportunity
against Eastern Washington (26-9,
14-4 Big Sky) during the opening
round of the NCAA Tournament,
scoring eight points and grabbing
six rebounds to spark the Hoyas
to victory. If he can maintain that
level of play, he will remain in the
regular rotation for a team that
has few true big men. The incoming freshman class should provide
some help as well, as forwards
Jessie Govan, Marcus Derrickson, and Kaleb Johnson will have
the chance to compete for playing
time early in the season. .
Still, the players who are departing this season will be missed.
Two of them, Joshua Smith and
Jabril Trawick, will play in the
Portsmouth Invitational Tournament this week. The tournament
invites 64 seniors from around
the country to play in front of an
audience of NBA scouts in Portsmouth, Va. Smith and Trawick
were selected from Georgetown
and will look to impress the NBA
representatives in attendance as
they explore future their professional options.
Softball swept by SJU and Towson
JOE LAPOSATA
The Georgetown softball
team (12-22, 2-5 Big East) lost
three away games to St. John’s
University (14-13, 6-0 Big
East) over the weekend, losing
12-2, 6-0, and 7-5. The Red
Storm beat senior Georgetown pitcher Megan Hyson in
two of the three, dropping her
to 9-9 on the season.
St. John’s took an early
lead in the first game, scoring six runs off three hits and
knocking Hyson out after just
a third of an inning. The Red
Storm scored another four in
the bottom of the second off
Lauren O’Leary, going up 10-0.
Georgetown added two more
runs in the fifth inning, but it
was too little too late; the game
was called due to mercy rule.
St. John’s equally dominated the second game of the
– RiseandFIRE –
weekend, the night half of Friday’s doubleheader, scoring
six runs on six hits off Hyson.
The third game, played
on Saturday, featured a much
more even contest. The Hoyas
gained their first lead of the
weekend off a bases-loaded
double by Grace Appelbe in
the first, which put the Blue
and Gray up 3-0.
Down 4-0 in the fifth, however, St. John’s was able to respond with five off Hyson,
bringing the score up to 5-4.
But the Red Storm’s lead was
short-lived; a throwing error
by the St. John’s third baseman
allowed Georgetown to score,
tying things up at 5-5.
The game remained tied for
two innings, going into extras,
until St. John’s catcher Erin
Burner hit a two-run homer
in the seventh to win walk-off
style, defeating the Hoyas 7-5.
The triple-header against
St. John’s was a particular disappointment for Hyson, who
entered the weekend with a Big
East best of 113 strikeouts and
a 2.30 ERA, good for fifth in the
league. She now stands at sixth
in the Big East with a 3.05 ERA.
The Hoyas then faced
Towson (19-16, 2-7 CAA) in
a double-header, where they
were swept in both games, 8-0
and 5-4. The first game was
called due to run differential and the second game was
ended early in the fifth inning
due to darkness.
Up next for the Hoyas is a
three-game series with Big East
rival DePaul (13-17, 5-0 Big
East), starting this Saturday.
First pitch for the Saturday
doubleheader is set for noon.
The Blue Demons are undefeated in leage play so far this
season.
On Tuesday, as he sat fielding
questions ahead of the 2015 Masters,
Tiger Woods resembled an aging
President. Woods, almost unrecognizable, fielded question after question, each of which danced around
the same theme: did the 14-time major champion still have it? After over
a decade of sustained dominance,
Woods, like a lame-duck Commander-in-Chief, has come to be viewed
less in terms of his past accomplishments, and more in terms of his recent failures. The once unshakably
confident Woods answers questions
today with many sighs and shakes
of the head; it appears that even he
doesn’t know how much he has left
to give or for how much longer he
can stay relevant.
If you find yourself feeling empathetic, don’t be alarmed—many
are starting to change the way they
feel towards Woods, an athlete
widely considered to be amongst
the most hated in all of sports. To
understand this dramatic change
in sentiment, one must first understand the trajectory of his career.
There was first, of course, the
glory days. Woods burst onto the
professional golf scene in 1996, a
young upstart poised for a meteoric rise to fame. Over the course of
the next decade, Woods won every
major championship at least three
times, spending over 500 weeks
as the world’s number one ranked
golfer. Woods was invincible. By
the late 2000s, the question was
not whether Woods would be one
of the best to ever play the game; it
was whether he was the best golfer
of all-time.
Phase two introduced the world
to Tiger Woods the human being, a
man many fans came to wish they’d
never met. Accusations of marital
infidelity led to an extremely public
divorce, inciting a mass exodus of
Woods’ sponsors and supporters.
The face of golf was forced to take
a leave of absence, disappearing
from the public eye as suddenly as
he had arrived. The strong man that
had single-handedly jump-started
the game of golf amongst younger
generations now seemed painfully
weak, unable to come to grips with
the mistakes he had made.
Phase three was Woods’ reentrance. A neat press conference revealed that Tiger had, in fact, been
adulterous, and that he understood
the far-reaching consequences of
his actions. Then, there was the
commercial from Nike, one of
Tiger’s only remaining sponsors,
which featured his late father asking him for a personal explanation.
The unfiltered approach taken by
Woods’ camp demonstrated that,
if nothing else, Woods cannot be
framed as a person incapable of recognizing his personal mistakes. If
Woods’ private matters were to be
discussed in public, he demanded to
be a part of the conversation.
That brings us to today. Now
five years removed from his fall
from grace, Woods has started to
put his life back together. He has
recovered strongly from a devastating series of injuries that adversely
affected his play, and, as a result, has
started to be cast as something of
a lovable underdog. Woods will be
playing in this weekend’s Masters
and, at 40-1 odds, his chances of
winning resemble that of a tournament long shot. One gets the feeling
that Tiger may have one more trick
up his sleeve, and that the world
may catch a glimpse of the old
Woods.
Are we allowed to root for
him, though? Every feel-good story about Woods’ comeback can be
countered with a reminder of his
deplorable actions. By some counts,
Woods was involved in 12 extramarital affairs; quite simply, it’s
difficult to observe this disrespect
and still root for a person’s future
successes.
On the other hand, public figures’ sexual transgressions have
been swept under the rug repeatedly in modern times. Kobe Bryant’s 2003 sexual assault case nearly
destroyed both his reputation and
his marriage, yet the Los Angeles
Laker emerged virtually unscathed.
Similarly, current New York Yankee
Alex Rodriguez has been frequently accused of extramarital activity
during his career, yet most baseball
fans would marginalize the importance of this aspect of his character,
focusing instead on his steroid use.
People seem to believe that it
is possible to support an athlete in
his professional exploits, then turn
around and dismiss his character. I
believe that you cannot have it both
ways. Until you forgive, you cannot
forget.
Tiger Woods made a series
of highly misguided decisions for
which he has paid a serious price.
At this time, however, I, like many
golf fans, am ready to let him back
into the game we love. Despite the
gravity of his transgressions, Woods
is still a human being and is doing
what he can with what mental and
physical strength he has left. I hope
he wins the Masters this weekend
and allows a little happiness back
into the life he himself tore apart.
We can never know if Woods has
truly changed, but I see nothing
wrong with giving him the benefit
of the doubt. Good luck, Tiger.
feature
8 | the georgetown voice
April 9, 2015
CHARGING IN PROGRESS:
Georgetown’s campus and global energy impact
In September 1984, Georgetown turned on the photovoltaic array atop the Bunn Intercultural Center. Composed of 4,464 solar panels divided into 10 subarrays spanning almost 36,000 square feet, the ICC array was larger
than any other rooftop solar panel array at the time of its
construction. In their prime, the ICC solar panels could
produce 300 kilowatts and 360,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year—an amount equal to the energy produced
by burning almost 28,000 gallons of gasoline, according to
the website of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The array, however, gradually deteriorated over the next
25 years. Grime from air pollution baked onto the panels,
reducing their efficiency. From July 2009 to June 2010, the
panels produced 164,300 kilowatt-hours, offsetting 13,000
gallons of gas. The panels exceeded their expected lifespan
of 20 years, but by the time the array was shut down in December 2011, they were generating less than half of the energy they had produced during their early years.
While Georgetown works to fix and improve its renewable energy projects on campus, one student group
has grown to question the university’s global environmental impact. On March 18 of this year three students from
GU Fossil Free walked onto the stage in Gaston Hall while
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim spoke about climate
change. The students held a sign reading “Corporate leaders should not wait to act until market signals are right and
national investment policies are in place. Georgetown divest now.” They were quickly escorted off the stage by officers of the Georgetown University Police Department.
Less than two weeks later, some of those same students
and many of their peers met in the Leavey Program Room
to discuss the university’s campus sustainability plan. The
Office of Sustainability has led the drafting process since
2013 while receiving input from constituent groups including students, administrators, and university vendors and
providers of energy. The plan, though still being drafted,
will impact the day-to-day operations of the university’s facilities as they relate to the sustainability of Georgetown’s
campus.
As energy concerns continue to generate dialogue on
campus, environmental groups raise questions about how
Georgetown uses energy sustainably and efficiently, and
how its decisions impact global climate change. With numerous construction projects currently underway and several renovations in the planning stages, Georgetown stands
at a pivotal juncture in its commitment to use resources
sustainably.
Pledging to reduce Georgetown’s carbon footprint,
President John DeGioia committed to cutting university
emissions of Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gases to half
of the FY 2006 baseline level by 2020. Scope 1 emissions
are greenhouse gasses that Georgetown emits directly from
sources it owns, while Scope 2 emissions are greenhouse
gasses Georgetown indirectly emits by purchasing oil, gas,
and electricity.
In Fiscal Year 2013, Georgetown emitted 87,881 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCDE) in total
emission, including both Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.
That year’s emissions saw a 19.4 percent reduction from
Georgetown’s FY 2006 baseline, in which Georgetown
emitted 108,981 MTCDE, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 15,000 homes.
According to Robin Morey, Vice President of Planning and Facilities Management, the university has already
reached President DeGioia’s goal, cutting FY 2006-level
emissions by 69.9 percent through the use of renewable energy certificates (RECs).
RECs are a tradable good that represent property rights
to the environmental benefits of a renewable energy source.
When a renewable energy generator produces 1,000 kilowatt-hours of energy for an electric grid, a REC is created.
Other users of the grid can then purchase the REC from the
generator’s owner. RECs reduce greenhouse gas emissions
because they provide funding for owners of renewable
power sources to create electricity for the grid that might
otherwise have been created through greenhouse gas-emitting technologies.
“RECs create a market where people will bring green,
sustainable power to the grid,” Morey said. “So that’s effectively how we’ve achieved [the 2020 goal], in addition to the
other energy savings measures and efficiency gains.”
Georgetown owned no RECs in FY 2006, but by FY
2013, its purchases of RECs equalled 54,804 MTCDE in
emissions. Purchasing RECs meant that the university’s
87,881 MTCDE FY 2013 emissions created just 33,077
MTCDE in net emissions. That year, the EPA recognized
Georgetown as a Green Power Partner because it purchased RECs that totaled over 100 percent of its energy use
in renewable power.
Purchasing RECs, though, does not mean Georgetown
runs on renewable energy.
“Technically if you go on the EPA website, we’re [130]
percent renewable energy power, which is wonderful,” Caroline James (COL ‘16), GUSA co-secretary for sustainability said. “But it’s slightly misleading, considering that it’s
energy that we buy. Not that there is anything wrong with
that. But right now, we’re not producing it on site, and it’d
be better if we were.”
While RECs are one way the university has achieved
President DeGioia’s goal of halving its carbon footprint,
other updates to facilities across campus have improved
overall energy efficiency.
According to Morey, the master planning process has
prompted assessments of the condition and energy use of
various campus buildings. The university has since implemented a variety of energy conservation measures to modernize these facilities. Upgrading a boiler fan and repairing
steam traps in the central heating and cooling plant last
year helped cut an annual 2,502 MTCDE—the equivalent
By: Ryan Miller
of 528 cars off of the road—according to the Office of Sustainability’s website.
Georgetown’s commitment to LEED Silver certification
for all new construction and renovation projects is another aspect of the master plan affecting energy use. LEED, or
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a program run by the U.S. Green Building Council to recognize
buildings whose designs excel in efficient energy use and
environmental impact. Through a point system, a building
can receive different certifications based on its overall sustainability.
The Office of Sustainability hopes to receive LEED
Gold certification for the Northeast Triangle Residence
Hall, Former Jesuit Residence, and John R. Thompson Jr.
Intercollegiate Athletic Center—all of which are currently
under construction
“Technically, we use the word ‘committed’ to achieving
LEED Silver, striving for LEED Gold, which is great,” Mandy Lee (SFS ’17), GUSA co-secretary for sustainability said.
“At the same time, being in a city, from what I understand,
LEED certification is actually a little bit easier because
we’re already in a place where there’s public transportation
access and a lot of other things that give us a little boost in
the process. So I’d love to see the university take it a step
further and really go for a loftier goal for all future construction and renovation.”
For almost 30 years, the ICC solar panels sat alone as
a symbol of renewable energy on campus. Two years after
they shut down, a new symbol emerged.
In 2011, Georgetown Energy (GE), a project-based student organization focused on promoting renewable energy
both locally and globally, submitted a proposal for a new
solar panel project on campus. Reforms to the Student Activity Fee Endowment led to GE’s receiving $250,000 to
fund construction of “Solar Street,” a collection of solar arrays on the roofs of six townhouses right outside the front
gates.
“Solar Street” produces 20,000 kilowatt-hours annually,
27 percent of the electricity needed to power their houses.
It was the first instance of collaboration between students
and staff members on a renewable energy project.
The project ultimately cost $40,000 because the townhouses could not support larger arrays. The remaining
$210,000 have been used to create the Green Revolving
Loan Fund, part of the Georgetown’s Student Innovation
and Public Service (SIPS) endowment which helps finance
students’ sustainability projects.
Currently, GE is working on a project to build another solar array, larger than Solar Street, on the roof of the
Leo O’Donovan dining hall. Despite receiving preliminary approval, GE has hit roadblocks while trying to advance the project, according to Danny Watson (SFS ’16),
a GE board member.
feature
georgetownvoice.com
GE and the university have been working for over a
year and half on the project, according to GE board member Meaghan Keefe (COL ’15). According to Keefe, Georgetown is currently in negotiations with an alumnus who has
potentially pledged to fund the entire project. Keefe said
that the alumnus hoped to earn back his or her investment
through federal tax returns on renewable energy. Issues
with the alumnus making revenue off the panels, even if
only to break even on the investment, held the project up
several months.
For the 280 to 300 panels to sit atop Leo’s, GE still needs
to receive a formal structural assessment. Various building
permits and approval from different neighborhood boards
could also prolong the process. Georgetown and the alumnus continue to redraft their power purchase agreement, a
contract that includes the sale of energy, so that the alum
can own the array while the university uses the energy it
produces.
“To some extent, the problem is there is no real institutional mechanism for students to be working with so many
different offices in the university to try to push for a project,”
Naman Trivedi (SFS ’16), a GE board member, said. “Everyone we talk to is supportive. No one is against it. The problem is these administrators also have full time jobs and, in
most cases, it’s not within their mandate to engage students.”
GE has primarily worked with Audrey Stewart, director of the Office of Sustainability, on the Leo’s project. In
an email to the Voice, Stewart wrote that she hopes that the
project will generate a return over time to the student-run
SIPS Green Fund. The details of this arrangement are still
being negotiated.
Charlotte Cherry (SFS ’16), a GE board member, noted
that although the Office of Sustainability has been supportive, its capabilities are limited. As a one-person office with
student interns, much of GE’s ability to work with the office
depends on its ability to accommodate them.
Danielle Huang (COL ’17), the treasurer of EcoAction
and a student ambassador to the Office of Sustainability,
expressed similar sentiments about the size of the office.
“We have a roundtable for social justice issues, but
there should be a roundtable discussion for energy and
for sustainability,” Huang said. “I think that if we could
expand [the Office of Sustainability] into a department of
sustainability and have more student interns, that would
definitely help.”
Although its initial project area reached just beyond the
front gates, GE has expanded its scope to include international renewable energy initiatives.
The group traveled to Haiti in 2013 and 2014, receiving funding through SIPS and Corp grants, to install revenue-generating solar-charging systems, which were sold to
entrepreneurs who earned back the cost through the solar
energy the systems produced.
“A lot of rural regions don’t have electricity access, so
you need some off-grid solution to help them get electricity,” Trivedi said.
GE’s International Initiatives team hopes to begin a
project in Paraguay at the end of the summer to provide a
community that currently uses kerosene cookstoves with
a biodigester, a system that takes in waste and produces
methane for use as fuel and fertilizer.
Electricity Usage from July 2013 to June 2014
5,389,038 kWh =
782 vehicles =
511 homes
3,159,724 kWh =
459 vehicles =
300 homes
2,638,585 kWh =
383 vehicles =
250 homes
Central Plant
Leavey
ICC
Yates Field House
While GE works directly to provide clean energy to a
variety of communities around the world, GU Fossil Free
(GUFF) continues its efforts on campus to convince the
Georgetown administration to divest from international
fossil fuel companies.
GUFF is part of a larger activist movement at peer universities which demands removing university endowment
investment in fossil fuel companies. According to James,
also a member of GUFF, 8 to 10 percent of Georgetown’s
endowment is currently invested in such corporations.
Although the university has made great strides to reduce
on-campus greenhouse gas emissions, its continued investment in fossil fuels conflicts with its goals, GUFF claims.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that we continue
to invest in an industry that we’re actively trying to move
away from on campus,” James said. “Why are we investing
in fossil fuels when we’re trying to decrease their use on
campus? It’s not a rational way to conduct business. If you
were trying to stop smoking yourself, why on earth would
you invest in tobacco?”
In January, the Committee on Investment and Social Responsibility rejected GUFF’s complete divestment proposal
and instead recommended pursuing “targeted divestment
from fossil fuel companies with the worst environmental
records and most objectionable practices,” CISR Chair Jim
Feinman said in a statement at the time of the decision.
“
Solar panels are sexy, but not a lot of students are realizing that we’re wasting just
as much energy with halogen lights and
lights that stay on.
”
James sees partial divestment as an attempt by CISR to
appease GUFF despite acknowledging the moral inconsistency of investment in fossil fuels.
Keeping with its continued efforts to lobby the university for divestment, GUFF has joined forces with other universities by supporting a multi-school divest fund. Alumni,
students, and other members of the university communities
can donate to the fossil free fund instead of their respective
school’s endowment. Once a university divests, the organization will donate that school’s portion of the money invested in its fossil free fund to the now divested endowment.
“So Georgetown already has a pool of money that’s
sitting there, being invested in a fossil free fund, that
Georgetown can access whenever they decide to divest,”
James said.
Georgetown’s Board of Directors will vote on GUFF’s
proposal in June.
On March 30, James and Lee led the “What’s the Plan?”
meeting of Georgetown Environmental Leaders (GEL), a
coalition of environmental student groups. GEL members
came to discuss a working draft of the campus sustainability plan and propose possible improvements. During a
day-ending group discussion, students expressed a desire
for their voices to be heard during the drafting process.
According to Morey, Stewart continues to meet regularly
with student groups for their input on the sustainability plan.
Although the Office of Sustainability has sought student
perspectives, the scope of campus sustainability may be too
large for students to meaningfully impact the process, according to Cherry.
“There’s a lot of scattering of energy projects and sustainability projects in general,” Cherry said. “There’s a huge
variety. … I don’t think that most students know about
what’s happening … and so they can’t really have an educated say.”
But students and administrators both agree that simple
measures like turning off lights, using air conditioning only
when necessary, and unplugging chargers when not in use
can greatly reduce campus energy consumption.
Watson hopes that building renovations and smarter
uses of pre-existing energy sources can help Georgetown
become more efficient.
“Solar panels are sexy, but not a lot of students are realizing that we’re wasting just as much energy with halogen
lights and lights that stay on,” he said. “Why are all these
lights on right now? They don’t need to be on.”
“Students are the ones who are using the lights and the
energy, and yet most of the time they don’t have the ability
to reach up to a light bulb and make sure that it’s an LED or
CFL bulb. That’s just something that’s not really in student
power,” James added.
Every fall, the Office of Sustainability facilitates a
“Switch It Off” challenge between residence halls, encouraging students to conserve energy through a competition
with prizes for the dorms that save the most energy.
Huang cites the Switch It Off challenge as an effective
way to encourage students to examine their energy use.
The freshman dorms, according to her, cut back the most
on their energy use. “It’s all about the freshmen. When you
get them interested in their freshman year, they’ll be more
inclined to do these things more throughout their college
career,” Huang said.
According to Morey, energy conservation efforts must
be reconciled with campus safety.
“I can guarantee you that when you walk around campus at night, you’ll see lights on that don’t need to be on.
But we need to [conserve] safely,” Morey said. “You know,
recently, I got an Ideascale [suggestion], ‘Why do you have
the lights on in Multisport Field late at night?’ Well, those
are safety issues. It is a balance, but it’s one that we need to
optimize to strike the right balance.”
Though making strides to increase its energy sustainability, Morey thinks Georgetown can and should continue
to improve. Both he and Stewart emphasize that the university’s goals revolve around what they call the three Ps:
people, prosperity, and planet.
“Our vision is really those three P’s ... in support of
GU’s core mission, thus advancing environmental sustainability, reducing operating expenses, and increasing the well-being of our campus community members,”
Stewart wrote.
For Keefe, more student engagement on energy issues
could not only improve Georgetown’s overall energy efficiency but also make the university a global leader in sustainable action and environmental awareness.
“I definitely think that Georgetown’s student body
could have a greater awareness and sense of ownership of
energy on campus,” she said. “I mean, we’re a great school
and we’re leaders in everything else. I think it could be a
real point of pride.”
each lightbulb = 1,000,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh)
kilowatt-hours (kWh) = annual greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles = homes’ electricity use for one year
36,122,724 kWh =
5,244 vehicles =
3,426 homes
the georgetown voice | 9
2,184,749 kWh =
317 vehicles =
207 homes
MSB
1,326,008 kWh =
192 vehicles =
126 homes
1,324,689 kWh =
192 vehicles =
126 homes
1,069,347 kWh =
155 vehicles =
101 homes
939,832 kWh =
136 vehicles =
89 homes
New South
Healy
St. Mary’s
Henle Village
776,680 kWh =
113 vehicles =
74 homes
Village A
leisure
10 | the georgetown voice
APRIL 9, 2015
Starting this Saturday, the Georgetown
University Student Association (GUSA)
Subcommittee on Creative Expression plans
to hold the second annual Arts Week to
highlight and showcase the varied talents of
the many on-campus art groups.
The newly formed committee created the
week because they “saw a need to make more
of a community around the arts,” according
to Andrew Walker (SFS ‘16), co-president of
the committee.
“While creative students on campus are
excited about the art that they are making,
Arts Week works to bridge the gap between
disciplines, promote the work being done
by artists on campus, and make students
who wouldn’t necessarily identify as creative realize there is room for art in their
lives,” he said.
Many of the events held during last
year’s Arts Week will return, including
Spring Sing, the annual a cappella concert
held by the Saxatones and Superfood, plays
from student theater groups, and daily
Open Mic Nights at Uncommon Grounds.
In addition, this year’s schedule involves
more representation from the visual art,
literary, and film communities through the
inclusion of art installations, writing workshops and a film festival.
This week’s leisure section highlights
some of these events and the many students
creating them. For a complete schedule of
Arts Week 2015, check this week’s back page.
DANCE
Highlights
courtesy of JONRCA
Ritmo y Sabor Spices up Gaston’s Stage
By Elizabeth Baker
When asked about the origins of Ritmo y
Sabor, the official starting year is not necessarily clear. While some believe the group first
formed in 2005, others believe that a smaller
form of the Latino dancing troupe first appeared on campus in the 1990s.
While the roots of Ritmo may be shrouded in mystery, one thing is clear: Georgetown’s
Latino dancing troupe have truly come into
their own in the past few years, hosting their
first independent showcase in the Spring of
2013. With another showcase coming up on
April 18th, Ritmo hopes to once more bring
their Latino flare to the Georgetown stage
—with a few surprises in store for audience
members.
Consisting of about twenty students and
practicing three times a week, Ritmo y Sabor
focuses primarily on the three largest forms
of Latino dance–salsa, merengue, and bacha-
ta. Yet in this year’s showcase, president Richard Jung (SFS’15) hopes to show Georgetown
students that Ritmo is very much a “living organization.” Completely student-run, Jung explains that depending on the choreographer’s
strengths, Ritmo’s incorporates different
forms of dance in with their traditional Latino
staples. This year, for example, students should
look for a creative fusion between Latino and
hip-hop, be it in the dance moves or the music itself. “Depending on who’s in the organization, we experiment with choosing different
things,” explains Jung.
Yet what the performers of Ritmo y Sabor
truly hope is that Arts Week will bring about
more awareness of both the smaller dance
troupes on campus and the variety of options
students have to participate in the performing
arts on campus.
While Ritmo has had success performing at off-campus locations, such as local high
schools, small neighborhood festivals, and recently the NAIMUN conference in Bethesda,
Ritmo only first received their first independent showcase last year.
The same applies to dance group Ballet
Folklorico, another troupe on campus that focuses on Latin dance; this group only typically
receives press around the Christmas season.
“I feel that at Georgetown, the arts are very
confined to a very niche part of the community,” explains Jung. “ The people that go to the
student-run shows are in the arts themselves.
Some people don’t even know a group like Ritmo y Sabor exists.”
“We have a very specific audience – but
I think it’d be good for us to branch out,” explains dancer Dustin Parker (COL’16). “I just
hope that Arts Week will help us bring Ritmo
to the general student body.” “I just want people to be more aware. And Arts Week is certainly a good place to start.”
Gaston Hall
April 18, 7p.m.
performingarts.georgetown.edu
Have you ever wanted to be
in a flash mob but never had the
chance? Good news: Arts Week will
host its first flashmob Friday, April
17 at 2 p.m. in Red Square. Starting
next week, members of Georgetown dance groups will host workshops on various dance styles in
the Healey Family Student Center
dance studios.
All are encouraged to join,
whether you have danced your
whole life or only dance in your
dorm when your roommate is
showering. One of the coordinators
of the flashmob, Katie Rosengarten
(COL ‘17), says that Arts Week is
special for the very fact that it’s inclusive to people who both identify
as artistic and those who don’t.
“Arts Week aims to create an
environment in which people of
both colors can engage with the
vibrant arts community on campus and hopefully come away
with a better sense of their own
artistic abilities and artistic identity.” And even if you decide not
to dance, be on the lookout for
Hoyas dancing to Beyoncé, Mambo Italiano, and more.
Dance Workshops
HFSC Dance Studios
April 13-15, 10:30 p.m. -12 a.m.
April 16, 11 p.m. - 12 a.m.
Flash Mob, Red Square
April 17, 2 p.m.
—Deniz Citzak
the georgetown voice | 11
ARTS WEEK 2015
georgetownvoice.com
MUSIC
Highlights
From left: courtesy of Christopher Pepe, THE Georgetown phantoms
A Cappella Concert Sings WINTER AWAY
By Jackson Sinnenberg
Spring in the District and the approaching
advent of summer herald some of the biggest
music events of the school year. On April 11,
the a cappella community, led by Superfood
and the Saxatones, will be taking over Gaston
Hall for Spring Sing, the last true a cappella
concert of the year.
Spring Sing represents the culmination
of a year’s worth of a capella events. Winter
signals the aforementioned Cherry Tree Massacre, while fall sees D.C. A cappella Festival
bring together groups from all over the District and beyond.
Spring Sing is unique among the a cappella festivals held in Gaston, however, because it features only Georgetown a cappella
groups. Joining Superfood and Saxatones will
be the Georgetown Chimes, the Gracenotes,
the Phantoms, and the Capitol G’s. Chris Pepe
(COL ’15), president of Superfood, is especially
excited for the collective nature of the showcase. “It is a really special show as it is the last
big a cappella show of the year, making it especially important for our senior members, myself included,” Pepe said.
“It showcases all of the major a cappella
groups at Georgetown all in one night, which
is unique to Spring Sing.”
Pepe sees it as an apt conclusion to Superfood’s year in the a capella spotlight. “It’s the
culmination of an amazing year of growth for
the group,” he said.
Last weekend, for the first time in the its
history, Superfood was accepted to compete in
the International Championship for Collegiate
A Cappella. The group succeeded in making it
all the way to the semifinal round of Mid-Atlantic teams, which includes groups from New
York to Washington, D.C. Progressing to semifinals made Superfood one of the top 10 groups
in the region.
Pepe also shared some of the musical secrets and previews he hopes will make Spring
Sing exciting for longtime Georgetown a cappella fans. “Most groups will be performing
completely new arrangements at the show,”
he said. “Some of ours [include] ‘La La La’ by
Naughty Boy and Sam Smith, and ‘Black and
Gold’ by Sam Sparro.”
Beyond presenting an opportunity to see
Georgetown’s six major a cappella groups in
one place as a culmination of the a cappella
year, Spring Sing acts as a final send off for
many a cappella seniors. The concert also represents the growth of the a cappella community overall.
“The a cappella culture at Georgetown has
definitely become more inclusive throughout
my time here,” Pepe said. “Groups like to collaborate and work together more than in the
past. Spring Sing really shows that.”
Spring Sing 2015
Gaston Hall
April 11, 7:30 p.m.
performingarts.georgetown.edu
Film
From left: courtesy of Bryan McDonnell, IMDB
Student Film Premieres in the nick of Time
By Graham Piro
It’s quite ironic that Mesbah Uddin (SFS
’16) and his production team have been working
furiously for months to bring a story about procrastination to life. 11:59, set to premiere Saturday, April 11, tells the tale of Sidney Phillips,
a chronic procrastinator who contends with
such issues as attention deficit disorder and
depression during his junior year of college.
“Procrastination is justifiably used to describe
situations when we waste time online and put
off our assignments,” writer and director Uddin
said. “However, we also use it to describe situations when we are unable to focus on the tasks
ahead of us due to anxiety and fear.”
Darnell Bland (MSB ‘15) and Jack Schmitt
(COL ‘15) co-star in the film. “In my prior theater
productions there’s typically been at least a month
or two long rehearsal period, whereas with our
project we’ve had a much quicker turnaround,”
Schmitt said. “It’s been an exciting challenge.”
Schmitt portrays the protagonist while
Bland plays his best friend, Marshawn Kareem, who is described as the moral compass
of the film. “Marshawn is very straight laced
and incredibly studious and intelligent,” Bland
said. “However, like everyone else, he has some
quirks and inconsistencies within his moral
compass.”
In addition to Uddin’s guidance, the film
is also produced by Bryan McDonnell (COL
‘16), who also serves as cinematographer. He
described an average day for the production:
“1-2 hours of planning, 4-6 hours of filming,
and then I relay the footage [to our editors] so
we can make a rough cut of the scenes we shot.”
The quickened production schedule resulted in several sleepless nights and tight
deadlines for the cast and crew alike, but perhaps the irony is fitting given the film’s subject
material.
According to McDonnell, the film’s stylistic choices are influenced by filmmakers
like Martin Scorsese and David Fincher. More
specifically, McDonnell explained that the use
of natural lighting (eschewing heavy duty professional lighting for lamps and the sun) was
inspired by recent Oscar winner Dallas Buyers
Club. “We want 11:59 to be a funny, deep, kick
ass movie with a cinema quality aesthetic that
will impress film snobs and regular moviegoers alike,” he said.
The balance of comedy and drama is
something that the crew worked very hard to
achieve and Uddin is extremely thankful for
the experience he’s gained. “I’m grateful for
the support I have had for this film so far,” he
wrote in an email to the Voice. “[I’ve received]
words of encouragement from friends, the
dedication and time of all the collaborators,
and an incredible amount of support from my
professors in the forms of generous extensions
and occasional cameos.”
The film 11:59 will undoubtedly be worth
the time, as the subject matter is easily relatable and the story will strike a chord with
many a viewer.
Killer Joe is most well known for
its movie adaptation, which was released in 2011 and starred Matthew
McConaughey. But Killer Joe was originally a play, which debuted in 1993
and was revived on Georgetown’s
campus two weeks ago in a collaboration between the Mask and Bauble
Dramatic Society and Nomadic Theatre. The play’s potentially triggering
content prompted a talk-back session
between the audience and the cast following the production.
“Because the play/movie has
such strong and triggering themes,
including sexual assault, the production had Sexual Assault Peer Educators facilitate a short talk-back after
each performance in order to help the
audience process what they had seen
and make a safe space for the audience to share,” director Andrew Walker (SFS ‘16) wrote in an email to the
Voice. “SAPE also communicated the
many resources available to students
before turning the talk back over to
the producer, director, and actors
to talk about the process and other
themes in the show.”
The film adaptation of Killer
Joe will be screened on campus next
weekend as part of Arts Week, and
will conclude with a similar talkback session.
Killer Joe Screening and Talkback
HFSC Film Screening Room
April 17-18, 5 p.m.
—Chris Almeida
Next week, the Georgetown
Program Board (GPB) is bringing the
silver screen to the Hilltop, presenting
Into the Woods and American Sniper in
the Healey Family Student Center.
Into the Woods, Disney’s adaptation of a Stephen Sondheim musical
that mixes many classic fairy tales
together, has received critical acclaim
since its release last December. The
movie features many high-profile
stars, most notably Meryl Streep, who
earned an Oscar nomination in the
category of Best Supporting Actress
for her performance. The film also
showcases performances from Anna
Kendrick, Chris Pine, Emily Blunt,
and Johnny Depp.
American Sniper generated widespread conversation for the portrayal
of its subject material upon its release
in January. Since then, it has earned
praise as both a critical success (particularly for Clint Eastwood’s direction)
and emerged as a studio moneymaker. The film, which stars Georgetown
alumnus Bradley Cooper (C ‘97), was
nominated for six Oscars, including
Best Picture. Cooper earned a Best
Actor nomination for his portrayal of
Chris Kyle.
And if the free films aren’t
enough, GPB will be providing free
popcorn as well.
Into the Woods
HFSC Film Screening Room
April 10-11, 8 p.m., 11 p.m.
American Sniper
HFSC Film Screening Room
April 17-18, 8 p.m., 11 p.m.
—Chris Almeida
leisure
12 | the georgetown voice
APRIL 9, 2015
Highlights
THEATER
From LEFT : courtesty of CAITLIN DUCKEWITZ, the lab for Global performance
Take the “tumble of a turney” to urinetown
By Graham Piro
Peeing isn’t exactly a popular topic for the stage.
But the Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society’s production of Mark Hollmann’s Tony Award-winning
Urinetown excitedly tackles this scatalogical issue
alongside themes including the pursuit of dreams,
corporate greed, class conflict, and the consequences
of one’s actions.
“Urinetown is a musical satire about freedom,
justice, urine, and towns,” director Sean Craig (COL
‘16) said. The musical takes place in a drought-stricken dystopian city controlled by the ruthless Urine
Good Company, which controls the means of waste
production by forcing citizens to pay to access public
toilets in an effort to conserve water (private toilets
having long-since become cost prohibitive). Those
who refuse are banished to a penal colony, the eponymous Urinetown. The action revolves around a
young populist hero, Bobby Strong, as he leads a rebellion against the maniacal CEO of UGC, Caldwell
B. Cladwell. The urine-soaked story permits plenty
of hysterics, making its poignant social commentary
all the more shocking.
The play’s production was overseen by both
Craig and producer Emily Grau (COL ‘16). According to Grau, producing Urinetown was a particularly
ambitious undertaking because the musical aspects
of the show required a plethora of moving parts
throughout the play. Still, Grau said the effort was
well worth it. “The opportunity to watch this immensely talented group take a concept and make it
into the living, breathing, hilarious show that it is today has been incredibly rewarding,” she said.
Craig concurred. “The process has been so unbelievably fulfilling,” he said. “It has been amazing
to watch the cast find their characters and grow together. And our designers and production staff have
put so much time, effort, and talent into everything
they’ve done. It’s magic to see all of our ideas turn into
something real.”
Despite the air of professionalism its productions exude, both Grau and Craig expressed that
Mask and Bauble behaves more like a family. “I really
found my home at Georgetown with M&B,” Grau
said. “I’m happiest working in Poulton [Hall, located
outside the front gates], surrounded by this incredible group of people, even when that means we’re
painting set pieces at 2 a.m.”
Craig echoed Grau’s sentiment. “I was cast in
their spring musical my freshmen year and fell in
love with theater instantly,” he wrote in an email to
the Voice. “Since then I have worked on a number of
M&B shows and have made some of my absolute
best friends along the way.”
Don’t be put off by the outlandishness of Urinetown’s title, premise, or fixation on bodily secretions.
The musical is a wildly fun and insightful ride that
seeks to make its audience think as much as it seeks to
make them laugh. The zany yet passionate storyline
only heightens the experience. Just remember to
check your “Privilege to Pee.”
Urinetown
Poulton Hall Stage III
April 9-11, 15-18 8 p.m.
April 12, 2 p.m.
performingarts.georgetown.edu
VISUAL ART
Courtesy of SAbrina Kayser
Student Artwork Steals the Spotlight
By Sabrina Kayser
As part of Georgetown University’s second annual Arts Week, student artwork submissions will be on display in the Healey Family Student Center this Sunday night.
Artwork was submitted by 15 different
students and ranges from a portrait made on
a wood panel with old makeup to large paintings and ink drawings.
The richness and diversity of the works is
found in both technique and choice of subject.
Themes include a celebration of firefighters
and their role in society, as well as an exploration of cultural identity and influences that
have shaped it. Many pieces portray the human
figure in some form or another on a spectrum
of realistic interpretation.
These 15 artists are not only visual arts
majors. They come from diverse background
and represent everyone from freshmen to
graduate students to alumni and three of the
four undergraduate schools: the College, the
School of Foreign Service, and the McDonough
School of Business.
All of the submissions were accepted
without any selection process that evaluated
or rejected artworks. “We wanted to open this
opportunity to all students on campus—artists
as well as people who love to sketch and fool
around with a pen and paper or with any sort
of objects,” wrote Arianna Calabrese (SFS ‘17),
visual arts coordinator of Arts Week 2015, in
an email to the Voice.
Students submitted for a variety of reasons. “I wanted to be part of Art Week to encourage myself to be a better artist,” Krishna
Sharma (COL ‘16), one of the student artists,
wrote in an email to the Voice. “Having your
work for exhibition is an exhilarating feeling.”
Other students who submitted artwork
also expressed this sense of exhilaration. “I’m
so excited for Arts Week, not only to show my
work, but also to discover all of the incredibly talented artists hidden on campus,” art-
ist Robert Cortes (COL ‘18) added. “Maybe if
Georgetown was more artsy, students would
feel more comfortable being honest about their
emotions. In a place where everyone is doing
a million things at once and still ‘fine,’ artistic
and emotional expression is vital.”
Many other students revealed that they
were bothered by the lack of visibility of visual
art on campus and most shared an appreciation for the visibility that Arts Week is trying
to bring to the arts on Georgetown’s campus.
Georgetown’s “arts community on campus is
hard to see sometimes beneath the business
and political sides of things,” artist Taylor
Bond (COL ‘18) said.
The artworks to be displayed in the HFSC
shine a light on the hidden talent and immense
creativity of Georgetown students that often
goes unnoticed.
Arts Week Visual Art Displays
Healey Family Student Center
April 13-17
How does transitioning genders
affect one’s family? How unconditional is the love we possess for those
close to us? In Draw the Circle, playwright Mashuq Deen—along with
director Chay Yew—takes on these
weighty questions, exploring transgender issues through a multicultural
lens. Although Deen alone mans the
stage, the story takes the perspectives of those around him trying to
make sense of life’s transitions. The
performance marks the close of the
Undergraduate Bioethics Research
Showcase and is co-sponsored by the
LGBTQ Resource Center. Prior to the
show, a reception will be held in the
Riggs Library Blue Room, showcasing
students’ work in various mediums.
Based out of Brooklyn, Deen is
an advocate for LGBTQ rights and
the inclusion of transgender individuals. He has had success in his young
career across the northeast, earning
accolades such as a Fellowship from
the New York Film Academy.
From a foundation of compassion, Deen conjures a performance
that evokes laughter and joy without
sacrificing serious considerations. He
allows their emotions and challenged
assumptions to guide his work. Draw
the Circle starts from a place of confusion and discomfort but seeks togetherness and understanding, for all of
its figures and their evolving attitudes
towards gender, sexuality, and love.
Draw the Circle
Riggs Library
April 16, 6:30 p.m.
guevents.georgetown.edu
—Brian McMahon
Some generations are easier
to identify than others. Take the
Baby Boomers, for example, or the
so-called “Greatest Generation”
that preceded them. But how do
we define ourselves as members of
Generation Y?
As part of a yearlong project
entitled Myriad Voices, the Laboratory of Global Performance is presenting Generation (WH)Y, a performative culmination of dialogue and
encounters between Georgetown
students and youth living in Pakistan, Ireland, India, Egypt, Greece,
and the United States. Generation
(WH)Y was birthed out of encounter. The show marks the third installment in the four-part Myriad
Voices series, enhanced by multimedia including video, audio, nontraditional lighting, projections,
and poetry.
But what’s most fascinating
about Generation (WH)Y it not the
technology it uses. It’s the quest
for identity. Starting with merely an idea Georgetown students
were able to create not only a performance, but, perhaps, a satisfying answer to the question of how
we identify ourselves, uniquely, as
a generation.
Generation (WH)Y
Gonda Theater
April 17-18, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
performingarts.georgetown.edu
—Elizabeth Baker
georgetownvoice.com
PAGE THIRTEEN
the georgetown voice |13
– Dylan Cutler
voices
14 | the georgetown voice
APRIL 9, 2015
Redefining service as an interaction, not a one-way action
NEENA AGGARWAL
This spring break, while on
a Medical Brigades trip, I had
the opportunity to interact with
community members in the
city of San Diego, Honduras.
Medical Brigades is one of the
programs of Global Brigades, a
non-profit whose mission is “to
empower volunteers and under-resourced communities to
resolve global health and economic disparities and inspire
all involved to collaboratively
work towards an equal world.”
As a part of Medical Brigades, a group of fifty students
from Georgetown traveled to
Honduras in March with the
goal of providing healthcare
to the residents of San Diego,
who lack access to medical services except for when Medical
Brigades comes every three
months. We worked with three
clinicians, who were parents of
students on the trip, as well as a
team of doctors and staff mem-
bers from Honduras to set up a
health clinic at a local school.
Because we were dedicating
our spring breaks to improving
the health of other people who
do not enjoy the same kinds of
resources we do, I assumed we
were engaging in selfless service. I thought I would enjoy the
trip mainly because of the satisfying, do-good feeling that I was
sure to get when helping others.
I also expected that the people
whom we were serving would
be different from us, since they
have very different lifestyles and
life experiences. My interactions
with them, I thought, would be
different from those I have with
Americans.
However, throughout the
week, I noticed something: the
community members in Honduras were the same as us. When a
concerned mom exaggerated the
severity of her son’s medical concern, I was reminded of my own
mother. Teenage boys tried hard
to conceal their nervousness about
tooth extractions at the dentist.
The kids we played soccer with everyday were like many of the kids I
have met in the United States.
On service projects, there is
often a tendency to dehumanize
the people being served by “otherizing” them. Many times when
privileged students participate in
service, we (myself included) subconsciously believe that we are
superior to those whom we are
serving. Perhaps this is because
we, the resource-providers, are
the ones in power; we are wealthier, more educated, and are acting
generously with our time and
money. In Honduras, our scrubs
signified that we students were
the ones in authority, even though
we don’t have much medical
training. In reality, as humans, regardless of socioeconomic status,
we are all the same. We just have
different living situations.
A community is defined not
by its resources but by its people and its culture. In San Diego,
Honduras, the people and the
culture are beautiful. The city’s
residents welcomed us gringos,
or foreigners, into their community and allowed us to take over
their school to help them. They
accepted, trusted, and respected
us, and they treated us with kindness and gratitude.
When we serve, we are not
only the givers. We are also takers,
as those whom we serve also serve
us in return. In Honduras, while I
was helping to provide medical
care to patients, I received very
much in return: by spending time
in the community and interacting
with the patients, I learned about
their country, culture, and people,
and I received an overwhelming
amount of respect and gratitude;
meanwhile they changed me and
my worldview. This story is a
product of what they taught me.
Service is about forging human connections and bridging the divide between people
of different backgrounds. It is
about showing love and kindness
towards others. Service is not
simply a one-way relationship
wherein a less privileged person
draws benefit from a more priv-
ileged person; rather, it is a mutually-beneficial relationship in
which two individuals or groups
collaborate to help each other and
grow together. Therefore, no party is superior or inferior to another; both are equal.
Because of the power that I
did nothing to earn, I was surprised to learn that people less
advantaged than me were, in
fact, just like me. By connecting with people in Honduras
despite the vast gulf separating
their life experiences from my
own, I saw that we are all basically good people with the same
end goal of living happy and
healthy lives. I went to Honduras with the intention of caring
for others, and I came back having been cared for.
Most of us serve others not
just to change, but to be changed.
NEENA IS a SOPHOMORE in the NHS
The DNA dilemma: Trading privacy for some peace of mind
CHARLES EVAIN
Have you seen the movie Zodiac? It’s a true story about the
search for a serial killer who terrorized Los Angeles during the
‘60s and ‘70s. What sets it apart
from most other crime dramas is
its frustrating ending. You spend
the entire movie mentally accusing one character after another,
but the ending just indulges your
maddening paranoia by never telling you whodunit.
Fifty years later, the Zodiac killer still hasn’t been found.
Alongside Jack the Ripper and
the Boston Strangler, he’s now
joined a long list of criminals
who have never been and may
never be caught.
If only these were outdated,
isolated cases. Only 53 percent of
homicides were solved in D.C. between 1980 and 2008. And Washington isn’t the outlier. Year after
year, around 40 percent of homicides remain unsolved nationwide.
Clearly, more has to be done to
ensure that no criminal escapes
justice which puts our safety at risk.
Between 40 and 50 percent of
all criminals are first-time offend-
KATIE HYLAND
DNA RECORDS CAN KEEP INNOCENT MEN AND WOMEN OUT OF THE PRISON SYSTEM
ers, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. In most states,
only sex offenders and murderers
are required to give a DNA sample to the authorities. Therefore,
it is much harder to solve crimes
committed by petty criminals
and first-time offenders since
it is impossible to identify their
DNA—unless, of course, they are
already suspects. Nationwide, a
full 36 percent of violent crimes
are committed by prior culprits of
non-violent crime. In California,
21 percent of violent criminals
are first-time offenders, according to a survey done by the state’s
attorney general. These groups,
whose DNA records the police do
not currently possess, comprise a
majority of all criminals in many
areas of the country.
Given the limited amount of
funding and personnel available
in law enforcement, the more
time and resources are poured
into one investigation, the less
become available for another.
Hence, making unsolved cases
solvable isn’t the only way we
can improve the system. We can
also ensure that more time and
personnel are freed up for other,
more complicated investigations
by reducing the time it takes to
solve other, simpler crimes like
misdemeanors.
More than half of all people who commit crimes aren’t in
DNA databanks since they haven’t
committed any crimes yet. If the
police already had their DNA on
file, their crimes would become
eminently solvable.
In 2004, California passed
Proposition 69, which expanded
its DNA database by allowing the
collection of DNA samples from
felons convicted of all violent
crimes. As the measure came into
effect in 2009, proponents argued
that it would increase the chances of solving rape and murder by
85 percent. Whether or not it is
as effective as they claim, it has
definitely helped. In 2013, a study
by California’s attorney general
showed that 92 percent of crimes
where DNA evidence was found
and linked to a culprit used DNA
records from a violent crime that
wasn’t rape, murder, or robbery
(which are crimes that warranted
DNA collection prior to 2009).
Hence, 92 percent of DNA links
were made thanks to Proposition
69. Some states such as Virginia
collect the DNA of all felons, violent or not, and have the highest
rate of cases solved using DNA
evidence. Imagine how much
more we could achieve if we expanded the DNA database even
more—to include all citizens—on
a federal level.
A lot of people may recoil at
that idea, arguing that we would
be giving too much information
and thereby too much power to
our government, opening doors
to abuse. What about the abuses
that happen every time an innocent man or woman is mistakenly punished for a crime he or she
didn’t commit?
The Innocence Project is a
non-profit organization that uses
DNA testing to prove the innocence of alleged criminals who
have been imprisoned for years.
Since 1989, it has helped exonerate a total of 328 people. According to some studies, around 20,000
innocent Americans are incarcerated right now. With access to everyone’s DNA, mistakes would be
less likely to occur, and these abuses will be curbed.
This isn’t a perfect solution,
but safety, security, and justice
come at a price. If you don’t give
your DNA, neither will a guilty
man. I wish that the Zodiac killer would be the last name added
to that terrible list of murderers
who were never identified, but
inaction won’t bring change.
Victorian England was powerless
against Jack the Ripper, but today
we have a three-letter means to
stop violent criminals. Is some
of your privacy worth leaving
murderers at large and innocents
behind bars?
CHARLES IS A SOPHOMORE IN THE SFS
voices
georgetownvoice.com
THE GEORGETOWN VOICe | 15
Graduation retrospective: Learning in the social classroom
NAVEEN YARLAGADDA
It was spring break of senior year when I stepped off
of a plane in Rwanda on a trip
with Georgetown. A few days
earlier, I had been at the university’s Career Education
Center, frantically looking at
different job opportunities.
There, I heard many people
nervously wondering whether
they would make it to the next
round of interviews. In Africa, I began to realize that the
life we see on campus, replete
with parties, brand name internships, and high-achieving
students, was just a fraction of
the life that is out there. The
collegiate atmosphere alone
should not limit us in the decisions we make. When I visited many towns in Rwanda
that were recovering from the
1994 genocide, I learned the
importance of interpersonal
ERIN ANNICK
THE METRO IS AN UNLIKELY CLASSROOM, BUT THERE’S A LOT TO LEARN ON THE RIDE
CARRYING ON
skills and emotional growth.
These are things I seldom
learned in a classroom; rather
I picked them up with friends,
while exploring places I had
never seen before.
I remember the times when
my friends and I would ride the
Washington Metro and choose
the farthest places to go. It was
during these adventures when
my education felt real, as I
wasn’t simply just studying for
the sake of getting a good grade
on an exam. Our forays were a
kind of social classroom, where
we learned to understand one
another, who we wanted to
be, and what impacted us the
most. Even when we went to
parties or formal events, it was
not necessarily the music or
club that made each moment
amazing. Instead, it was the
fact that we were all together.
We reveled in the idea that we
all were in the same phase of
life and unsure of where our
journeys would take us. What
mattered in the end was that
we knew how to figure out
who we wanted to be through
THE CHALLENGE OF STUDENT MEDIA
BY JULIA JESTER
A rotating column by senior Voice staffers
Controversy. Clicks. Criticism. These buzzwords have come
to define both the goals and perceptions of modern-day media,
for better or for worse. And as I
prepared to write my final column
for the Voice, I realized that while
I’m about to embark on a career
in journalism, I’m leaving behind
one of the most empowering, illuminating experiences of my life—
being a part of campus media.
After writing countless editorials, numerous news articles,
and a few features, the critical
importance of campus journalism
has resonated with me deeply.
College publications are not free
advertisers for universities, nor
are they mouthpieces for student
advocacy organizations; rather,
they are invaluable conciliators
between the two. Just as niche
groups on campus influence
Georgetown policy and politics,
the Voice and The Hoya have the
potential to make a significant
impact on the Hilltop. As campus
media, I’d argue that they have the
added responsibility to do so.
One of the most rewarding (yet painstaking) experiences I’ve had at Georgetown
was writing the Voice’s medical
leave of absence feature last fall.
During the writing and editing
process, I stressed about doing
the topic, and the stories of my
interview subjects, justice. I kept
asking myself: Am I providing
a fair picture based on the accounts from all sides? Are my
editors preserving the vision and
integrity of my sources and the
piece overall? Throughout my
research and reporting, I learned
that the cracks in the foundation
of Georgetown’s medical leave of
absence process abound, and the
pressure to tackle this topic was
Let the Voice be your voice. We accept opinions, letters to the editor, and
creative writings that are exclusive to the Voice. Published submissions do not
necessarily reflect the opinion of the board of the Voice. The Voice reserves the
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email [email protected] or visit the Voice office in Leavey 424.
our different experiences, and
what friendship meant to each
of us. It’s this education that I’ll
value most from my experience
at Georgetown.
Africa made me realize that
life cannot always be planned
out exactly in advance—something many students I encounter at Georgetown seem to have
down. In Rwanda, I visited a
village that had a school devoted to teaching advanced science
and mathematics to young girls,
and I met a senior official of a
major telephone company. I realized the one attribute that all
these people had in common
was the ability to think beyond
their four walls and realize that
there was something greater
than themselves such as helping others. I am not referring
to a higher being, but to ideas
and concepts that can only be
discovered through experience.
It was one thing reading about
politics in Africa on the Internet, but actually going to the
continent made me think differently because all my senses
were fully engaged.
even greater since, at least in recent years, it hadn’t before been
addressed. When the article appeared in print, coupled with an
editorial, the response was overwhelming—I had acquaintances
reach out thanking me; I saw the
piece being shared on social media more so than any other I had
written; a member of GUSA (yes,
GUSA!) even reached out to me
informing me that it would now
try to take the reigns to solve the
problems elucidated in the article. More than anything, I was
both inspired and motivated by
the impact I had on the lives of
my sources who had been mistreated by the system.
Even the negative feedback
was productive—after the editing process, where content must
be cut to fit a word length and
paraphrasing can get murky,
one of my sources voiced valid
criticisms of the piece, and so I
encouraged him to write an oped addressing his concerns. The
following week, he and another student wrote a Voices piece
that continued the conversation
surrounding medical leave. The
GUSA Senate set goals on addressing Georgetown’s MLOA
policy in its next meeting. And
yet, nothing has happened. No
concrete action has been taken. The buzz generated by the
article—like the RA treatment
and diversity requirement features—naturally dissipated. In
order for campus media to fulfill
its potential to make an impact,
this can’t happen.
The Voice prides itself on consistently covering issues like sexual assault, free speech, workers’
rights, and ever-changing housing
and meal plan requirements. And
its efforts have helped magnify the
voices of students actively advocating for those issues while holding the university accountable to
respond—resulting in mandatory
sexual assault education at NSO,
reforms to the free speech code,
crucial ongoing conversations
with the university regarding the
rights of Leo’s workers and adjunct professors, and the tabling
of the considered third-year meal
plan mandate. Not to mention,
the 2012 investigative feature on
The Corp received both praise
and backlash in its 93 comments
and resulted in real institutional
changes—if that’s not a conversation, I don’t know what is. If you
don’t think campus media matters, think again.
As graduation approaches, my initial nervousness and
anxiety is beginning to ease,
because I know that the race
to get jobs and win prestigious
academic awards is just the
part of life that I lead as a student, and is not as important as
understanding the world and
the people in it. It is amazing
to think that the genocide in
Rwanda was not stopped by
academic work and management skills alone, but also by
the ability of people to understand each other emotionally
and personally.
When I exit the campus
gates one last time, it will be
my experiences with friends
sitting outside discussing how
we felt and my experiences in
other parts of the world which
will help me to make tough decisions as I decide my future.
NAVEEN IS a SENIOR in the COLLEGE
That being said, students
can’t be afraid to talk to campus
press about pressing issues. For
example, while I served as news
editor last semester, one of my
writers pursued a story about the
mistreatment of dance groups
on campus, from practice and
performance space access to bureaucratic barriers to funding. No
dancer, however, would speak
with the reporter, for fear of repercussion from DPAC. I then realized that this incident was likely
not the first of its kind.
Georgetown’s campus publications will be more crucial than
ever entering the 2018 Campus
Plan discussions—but the virality
of stories doesn’t mean a damn
if there’s not continuous follow-up from journalists or follow
through with students involved in
relevant advocacy organizations.
The Voice and The Hoya will continue to serve as whistleblowers
to the injustices on campus, be
they perpetrated by administrators or fellow Hoyas, but campus media need student help in
spotting such problems, whether
through tips or even just willingness to speak on sensitive topics.
And just as student publications
hold the university accountable,
students can hold publications
accountable—to truth, to fairness,
and to dignity. The relationship
between students and student
media is both symbiotic and significant. If we don’t tell our own
stories, who else will?