New academic center opened in Hong Kong will host study abroad

FRIDAY • APRIL 3, 2015
CHICAGOMAROON.COM
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892
ISSUE 34 • VOLUME 126
Pi Beta Phi sorority pays for event
damages with charity money
Isaac Stein
Senior News Writer
A performance at Arrowfest,
Pi Beta Phi’s annual charity
event, resulted in $5,000 in damages, which the sorority plans to
pay for using funds raised at the
event.
As previously reported by
The Maroon the event featured various performances
from all on-campus fraternities
and raised money for the Pi Beta
Vue53, a new building development on East 53rd Street, received approval to begin
construction last Thursday. The complex, which will feature 267 luxury apartments, is
set to break ground shortly.
COURTESY OF THE MID-AMERICA GROUIP
Vue53 gets go-ahead to start
construction after prolonged lawsuit
Adam Thorp
News Staff
According to a sign posted
at the planned site of Vue53,
a mixed retail and apartment
building on East 53rd Street,
excavation of the plot was supposed to begin about a week
ago. However, construction
has been stalled for more than
a year by a lawsuit filed by
nearby property owners concerned about the building’s
scale. Earlier this month, an
appeal in that lawsuit was dismissed in the developer’s favor.
The suit argued that the local property owners had been
denied due process by the rezoning that allowed a 13-story
building to go up on a block
of mostly three- or four-story
buildings. State law requires
nearby property owners to be
informed about challenges to
zoning; the suit was dismissed
because the plaintiffs did not
contact some of the property
owners. The appeal was dismissed on March 13.
The lead plaintiff in the suit,
Michael Scott, said “I think
the main reaction [to the deci-
sion] is that we’re really disappointed that we did not get to
argue the merits. It would have
been good to argue the substantive part of the lawsuit.”
The University has pushed
projects up and down East
53rd Street, including the
planned and completed portions of the Harper Court
development. The completed
building will be part of the
53rd Street Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district, meaning tax revenue from the building will be redirected to other
VUE continued on page 2
Cairo Lewis
News Staff
The University of Chicago plans to sell 21 properties in Hyde Park to raise
funding for teaching and
research, according to a
statement released by the
University News Office.
The properties, which are
mostly six-unit, three-story
walk-up apartments, will
be available for sale in May.
Sales are expected to close
in the fall.
Students, faculty, and
staff members currently occupy nineteen of the properties. The University will
also sell two vacant lots.
According to the statement, “the University is
committed to working with
residents and with potential
buyers to ensure a smooth
transition, with as little
short-term impact as possible, while providing support and guidance for those
who may want to examine
their options.”
According to the statement, the University purchased the apartments
during the recession of
2007—2008 “to ensure the
availability of stable, quality housing for students, faculty, and staff near campus.”
IN VIEWPOINTS
Insecurity in security alerts » Page 4
Let’s put the (I)X in sex ed» Page 4
The University has now decided to sell the apartments
in light of the expansion of
more residential options
such as MAC apartments.
The University will hold
town-hall meetings with
residents and building managers to provide additional
information. Residents will
also be given more information via e-mail. Existing
leases will be held to term,
and building workers will
not be laid off due to the
sales.
The University declined
to comment until after more
information is provided at
the town-hall meetings.
event.
At Pi Beta Phi’s regular chapter meeting on Monday, the
sisters voted to pay the University using proceeds from Arrowfest instead of drawing from
their budget for a spring formal
dance, said Weil.
“People donated to the Pi
Beta Phi Foundation knowing that the proceeds would go
toward helping kids learn how
to read, not to pay for a stage. I
PI PHI continued on page 3
Arrested protestors for trauma
center appear in court, are released
Katherine Vega
News Staff
On Tuesday, nine members
of the Trauma Center Coalition (TCC), seven of whom
are UChicago students and
members of Students for
Health Equity (SHE) and
two of whom are from Fearless Leading by the Youth
(FLY), appeared in court and
were released without charges. The activists were arrested
on March 5 and were charged
with Class C misdemeanors
for disturbing the flow of
traffic after making a human
chain across Michigan Avenue at a protest downtown.
The protest, located near
an event for Impact and Inquiry, a $4.5-billion University fundraising campaign,
was aimed to raise awareness
about the lack of a Level I
trauma center on the South
Side. According to the Illinois General Assembly website, Class C misdemeanors
are punishable by a maximum sentence of 30 days in
prison or a $1,500 fine.
The court appearance,
which took place at 9 a.m.,
TRAUMA continued on page 2
New academic center opened in
Hong Kong will host study abroad
Eileen Li
News Staff
Univ. to sell 21 residential
properties in Hyde Park
Phi Foundation, which funds
youth literacy programs, among
other charitable causes.
However, the performance
by the Sigma Chi fraternity
involved the use of canola oil,
which stained the floor of the
Logan Center’s performance
hall. Repairs are estimated at
$5,000 and the University held
the sorority, not Sigma Chi,
solely responsible, said fourthyear Tessa Weil, a Pi Beta Phi
member who was present at the
In an event on March 28, the
University introduced a new international academic center in
Hong Kong, which will be involved in a range of workshops
and conferences in addition
to being the base for an undergraduate study-abroad program
focusing on colonization as part
of the Civilizations Core.
The Center in Hong Kong
will also host the Booth School’s
Executive M.B.A. Program in
Asia, which is already located
nearby. The University moved
the Chicago Booth M.B.A. program from Singapore to Hong
Kong in 2013 due to the city’s
proximity to mainland China,
where demand for the degree is
high.
Like the University’s other
centers in Beijing, Delhi, London, and Paris, the Center in
Hong Kong will centralize ac-
tivities for UChicago faculty
and students living and working in the city. Hong Kong was
selected as a location because of
the collaboration that the University has already undertaken
with many universities in the
Hong Kong area through the
Center in Beijing.
Recent events at the new
center include a meeting about
the Asian Family in Transition
Initiative, a series of conferences
held in conjunction with the
Chinese University of Hong
Kong, and an upcoming quantum technology workshop.
The March 28 event, which
celebrated the launch of the new
center, featured two panel discussions and keynote remarks,
including from President Robert Zimmer and Sunil Kumar,
the dean of the Booth School.
In the first panel discussion,
Dali Yang, the faculty director
of the Center in Beijing and a
professor of political science,
IN SPORTS
IN ARTS
Backstage with Clean Bandit
moderated a discussion on human capital and development,
which featured UChicago professors in economics and psychology along with faculty from
the University of Hong Kong
and the Hong Kong University
of Science and Technology.
The second panel discussion
at the event, entitled Frontiers in
Science, covered topics such as
quantum technologies, big data,
and molecular medicine. Ka Yee
Lee, a professor of chemistry at
the University, participated in
the panel and is the chair of the
Faculty Advisory Board at the
new center.
In the University’s press release, Lee stated, “Our goal is
for the center to be an intellectual destination that expands
opportunities for collaboration
with researchers and students
representing a wide array of institutions in Hong Kong and the
region.”
»
Men’s swimming takes national title
Page 6
» Back page
Kendrick Lamar back with
insight into society » Page 6
Men’s Tennis enjoys a winning
streak in California»Back page
THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | April 3, 2015
2
According to admin survey,
Reggie Love, Obama’s “body man,”
UChicago students are satisfied talks at IOP on desire to serve
Maggie Loughran
Associate News Editor
College students had the
opportunity to share their
thoughts about UChicago
with the administration by
completing the Enrolled
Student Survey in March.
The survey had students
reflect on a range of topics, including safety and
security, which have been
controversial issues since
fall quarter.
The Enrolled Student
Survey, which was e-mailed
to students last month by
Dean Boyer, is administered every couple years,
and is unrelated to UChicago’s larger effort to address diversity and inclusion by administering two
campus climate surveys.
However, the results of the
Enrolled Student Survey
may be used to compare
and validate questions on
the upcoming campus climate surveys.
Specific results of the
Enrolled Student Survey
will not be released to the
public, but according to
the administration, responses show that UChicago students are comparably
satisfied with their overall
experience compared to
students at peer institutions.
The Consortium on Financing Higher Education
(COFHE), an organization of 31 private American universities including
the Ivy League, Stanford,
Georgetown, and Williams
College, was responsible
for creating and maintaining the Enrolled Student
Survey. While COFHE focuses primarily on tuition
and financial aid, it collects
data about other aspects of
student life as well. “Over
the past three decades,”
according to its website,
“COFHE has crafted a
suite of surveys that allows
for a systematic and robust
examination of the undergraduate experience.”
Similarities among the
selective member schools
are conducive to data sharing and comparison. “The
aim of the survey is to
understand broadly how
the student experience
differs at participating institutions, covering a wide
ra nge of academic, co-curricular, and non-academic
activities,” administrators
involved in the survey
wrote in an e-mail to the
maroon. Areas of interest include the classroom
experience, advising, and
“high-level questions of
campus climate.”
Senior
administrators
and academic officers will
review and discuss the
results of the survey. Responses to this survey will
be compared to those from
past surveys and those from
other COFHE institutions
to help the administration
understand student concerns and shape campus
policy.
The deadline to complete
the roughly 20-minutelong survey was extended
from March 24 to March
27. The final response rate
was lower than usual, at
44 percent. However, response rates this year were
low across the board among
COFHE members.
“The point was to draw attention to the issue
and show how far we are able to go.”
TRAUMA continued from front
only lasted approximately 45
minutes, according to thirdyear SHE organizer Kayli
Horne. All nine arrested protesters faced the judge at the
same time.
“Because the police officers [who arrested us] didn’t
show up to court, the charges
were dropped. So there’s no
further action that needs to
be taken…. It seemed to be a
pretty quick process,” Horne
said.
After being arrested on
March 5, the students were
taken to a precinct on the
North Side, according to
Veronica Morris-Moore, a
community organizer, youth
program coordinator for
Woodlawn’s Fearless Leading
by the Youth (FLY), and student at Harold Washington
College. The nine arrested
protesters were held at the
precinct for approximately
six hours while they were
processed.
Morris-Moore, who has
had two other altercations
with the police in trauma
center–related protests near
campus, said that in her own
opinion, the people she was
with in the holding cell were
treated well by police officers.
“We [in the female holding cell] were allowed to be
together. We talked. We told
stories. We did hair. And the
police were very nice,” Morris-Moore said.
However, Horne refused
to comment on the treatment
of the protesters while they
were in the holding cell.
Although the University
never officially acknowledged
or contacted any of the protesters to Horne’s knowledge,
she still believes that the arrests had a tangible effect on
campus.
For instance, the same day
that the nine arrested protesters appeared in court, an “action,” or rally, was held after
school outside of Levi Hall,
the administrative building
on campus that houses the
offices of high-level faculty.
Morris-Moore and a local
rabbi, among others, gave
speeches at the event. Based
on photos from the SHE
Twitter page, approximately
30 people attended the rally.
The rally also popularized
“#TraumaCenterNow” on
Twitter the day of the court
appearance, with several
members of the University,
Hyde Park, and surrounding
communities voicing their
support for the trauma center
campaign.
“The point was not to have
to get arrested and go to jail.
The point was to draw attention to the issue and show
how far we are able to go as
part of the campaign to put
pressure on [Pritzker School
of Medicine Dean] Kenneth
Polonsky and [President of
the University of Chicago
Medical Center (UCMC)]
Sharon O’Keefe,” Horne said.
Morris-Moore also felt
that the fact that they were
arrested helped give their
cause a wider audience. “I
think that [the arrest] was
important because the message wouldn’t have had the
reach that it has…. Throughout history, that’s how great
social justice leaders reached
the masses…. For me, it’s a
very proud moment…. I am
honored to say that I did
something like that,” MorrisMoore said.
Brandon Lee
Maroon ContrNews Staff
Reggie Love, Obama’s
“body man,” spoke Thursday
evening about how persistence, maturity, and a passion for a cause greater than
oneself landed him only
steps away from the Oval
Office. The event was held
at the Quadrangle Club,
hosted by the Institute for
Politics (IOP), and moderated by IOP Fellow and ESPN
columnist LZ Granderson.
Love was the captain of
the Duke Blue Devils basketball team in 2001 and pursued a short stint in the NFL
before beginning his career
as Barack Obama’s personal
aide in 2007 during the 2008
presidential campaign. He
then left the White House in
November 2011 to complete
his M.B.A. at the University
of Pennsylvania’s Wharton
School of Business.
Granderson set the stage
for what would be a lighthearted night with a quip
about Love’s transition from
relative obscurity to fame
within the black community.
“As you know, your pres-
ence was of much conversation, particularly within the
African-American community because we were trying
to figure out who the heck
you were,” Granderson said.
When asked what his
most notable experience as
personal aide was during his
career, Love mentioned that
he gave an off-the-schedule,
impromptu tour to French
president Nicolas Sarkozy’s
then-11-year-old son around
the White House.
“From then on out, every
time I would see President
Sarkozy, he would, like, hug
me… I think that’s still one
of the weirdest things,” Love
said.
Love then spoke about
why he had forgone a potentially lucrative career in
sports to work for then-Senator Obama.
“I wanted to serve; I wanted to give back,” Love said,
stating that his job included
smaller elements that, while
not “sexy,” were impactful
to the people he worked
with. He told of how, as a
staff assistant, Love helped
manage a mailroom backlog
through clever use of Excel
spreadsheets, and was then
considered the go-to man for
difficult problems. Through
this, he emphasized the importance of playing a role as
part of a greater cause, rather
than being the star of the
show.
“Do I want to go someplace where they’re going to
pay me three or four times
the salary, or do I want to go
someplace where I’ll have impact? It’s much easier to scale
up than it is to scale down,”
he said, reinforcing that
while many want to secure
themselves financially before
pursuing impactful careers,
they move themselves out of
these opportunities because
of the lives they grow accustomed to.
When discussing how
Obama has been criticized as
soft on those who veer from
party lines, Love explained
that Obama’s eagerness to
get everyone’s opinion, rather than impose a position,
is a strength rather than a
weakness. He saw it as an effective means to get the best
out of people.
“I don’t think it’s soft to be
inclusive…it’s empowering.”
Univ. research center wins
$20-million grant for material design
Zeke Gillman
Maroon Contributor
The University of Chicago’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) was recently
endowed with a six-year
$20.6-million grant by the
National Science Foundation through the efforts of
MRSEC staff, faculty, postdocs, and students. The University of Chicago’s MRSEC
was one of 12 institutions to
receive funding from the National Science Foundation.
“My white hair is from
there,” joked Professor Ka
Yee C. Lee, director of
UChicago’s Materials Research Center, as she described the stress involved in
the 15-month grant-writing
process. The application
process for the funding began in April 2013. From that
time, MRSEC staff engaged
in writing various proposals
to defend their work to the
foundation. In preparing for
this grant, the MRSEC team
had to account for a change
in its organization, specifically the new “E” (for engineering) part of its name.
This was the first grant sent
to the National Science
Foundation where the Materials Center could claim engineering colleagues within
the Institute of Molecular
Engineering.
Lee noted how the MRSEC enables interdisciplinary collaboration between
different kinds of scientists.
“There’s really a cross talk
between
experimentalists
and theorists, between biologists and physicists, that
make a very rich interdisciplinary environment to attack the very complex problems that we want to talk
about,” Lee.
The research that MRSEC focuses on falls into
one of three categories: IRG
I, IRG II, and IRG III, where
IRG stands for Interdisciplinary Research Groups.
“The first one has to do with
soft matter, the second one
has to do with spatial-temporal control of biologically
inspired smart materials, and
the third one has to do with
engineering quantum materials,” explained Lee.
In other words, IRG I
deals with that state of matter that falls between a solid
and liquid state, hence the
term “soft.” It explores the
interfaces of such materials and their interactions.
IRG II explores dispersed
molecular components that
are not in a state of physical
balance and which convert
energy from an array of different sources into mechanical work. Finally, IRG III is
concerned with designing
materials that are among the
smallest units of matter that
may exist independently.
Lee finds that the work
the MRSEC does is important beyond the science. “I
think the idea of the Materials Research Center is not
only to come up with a basic
understanding of materials
broadly defined, but also
have a way of impacting society for societal benefits,”
she said.
The new Vue53 building will contain 267 residential units and almost 300,000 feet of retail space
VUE continued from front
nearby projects.
The plaintiffs in the suit
were concerned about the impact the large building would
have on the character of the
surrounding neighborhood.
Scott says the plaintiffs will
now turn their attention to
ensuring that commitments
to provide affordable housing
and a diverse and somewhat
locally based workforce will
be kept. Scott expressed hope
that the opposition in this case
will make similar projects less
likely.
“I do think that the lesson
here is that the legal battle is
only a vehicle for the community discussion. It doesn’t mat-
ter so much that we lost the legal case in the end because the
community relations part is so
important,” Scott said.
The building will contain
267 residential units and almost 30,000 feet of retail
space. Most of the luxury
apartments in the building
will be sold at market rate for
the Hyde Park area. The University selected Mesa Development as the developer of
the space. Mesa Development
and the University of Chicago
committed to make affordable
housing available for one-fifth
of the units in the building
after community discussions.
Mesa Development was unavailable for comment.
THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | April 3, 2015
3
Uncommon Fund money for quadcopter,
“hanging out,” and more
Sonia Schlesinger
News Staff
The board of UChicago’s Uncommon Fund announced on March 10 that
it would grant funding to
16 projects this year, totaling nearly $85,000. This
year’s projects included
bubble soccer, a pig roast on
the quad, and more.
Student
Government
designates money each year
for the Uncommon Fund,
whose aim is to “realize
unique ideas and projects
proposed by University of
Chicago students,” according to its mission statement.
Usually, funding from Student Government is allocated to RSOs and their projects, but the Uncommon
Fund allows individuals to
apply for funding without
RSO status. The projects
and budget allocations are
chosen by a board of nine
students and a staff adviser.
This year about 75 percent
of projects proposed were
funded.
Second-year Alec Goodwin’s National Symposium
on Hanging Out received
$25,000, more than a quarter of this year’s total funding. The Uncommon Fund
staff adviser, Derek Bundy,
explained that the project aims to bring in several
high-profile speakers to
campus to discuss hanging
out, and therefore required
a significant portion of the
funding.
“For the board, this was a
unique idea, and relaxation
needs to be discussed more
at UChicago so that students can learn more about
reducing stress,” Bundy said.
Further projects include
third-year Alex Pizzirani’s
Sky Lanterns at Logan, as
well as fourth-year Adrian Aldana and third-year
Konje Machini’s UChicago Quadcopter ($1,334),
which involves filming the
city of Chicago from an
unmanned helicopter.
“We got our inspiration
from a video we watched
of this in Beijing and the
shots were pretty stunning,” said project leader
Machini. “We wanted…
to also see Chicago from
quite literally a greater perspective.”
Uncommon Fund applicants begin by submitting outlines for potential
projects to the board. The
board primarily considers
the feasibility of the projects and “if we would…fund
these projects if we had all
the money in the world,”
said third-year board director Evan Rocher. “We then
decide which projects we
want to fund by looking
at…feasibility, impact, and
how well it meshes with the
Sigma Chi’s use of canola oil
during its performance caused
Logan floor damage
Uncommon Fund mission.”
Most projects are approved in the first round,
and their l eaders then
submit a YouTube video
for online student voting,
more detailed plans, and
specific budget logistics.
These plans have the largest impact on the selection
of the projects. “The more
detailed the plan is, the
more likely we are to provide complete funding,”
said first-year board member Sharan Subramanian.
Rocher, Subramanian,
and Bundy all expressed excitement about this year’s
projects. “They are plausible, safe, and meet policy,”
Bundy said. “We expect
them all to benefit the student body.”
Editor’s Note: News Editor Alec Goodwin had no
involvement in the writing,
editing, or production of
this article.
PI PHI continued from front
think that we should have taken
the money from the social budget. It would have sucked to not
have a formal, but at least it’s not
lying [to the donors],” said Weil.
Third-year Lukun Zhang,
chapter president of Pi Beta Phi,
said in an e-mail, “While our
chapter was not made aware of
the incident until after Sigma
Chi took the stage, we took full
responsibility for the damages
caused by their performance. We
worked closely with the venue to
ensure the repairs were promptly
made. Pi Beta Phi is also still in
communication with Sigma Chi
regarding the damages.”
Offering a different perspective, Weil said, “There are precedents to doing this type of
thing—using proceeds to pay
for the unanticipated costs of a
charitable event. But we chose to
do this in order to have a formal.
I don’t know what Sigma Chi
would or wouldn’t be willing to
pay for the damages. But this says
that Pi Beta Phi didn’t want to
push the subject and make it an
issue throughout Greek life.”
Eily Cummings, a national
representative of Pi Beta Phi, said
that the organization has learned
from the experience of the oil
spill.
“It is unfortunate the poor
judgement of a few resulted in
fewer dollars being raised for
Pi Beta Phi’s Read > Lead >
Achieve literacy initiatives. Our
chapter is reevaluating our event
policies and procedures to ensure
a more successful event next year,”
she said.
Campus and national representatives of the Sigma Chi
Fraternity and University of Chicago Facilities and Operations
could not be reached for comment.
Editor’s Note: Deputy Editorin-Chief Sarah Manhardt had no
involvement with the writing, editing, or production of this article.
Want to be the first to know the story?
Write for news!
E-mail editor@chicagomaroon.com
Fundamentals: Issues and Texts
announces a public colloquium:
THE POWER
OF BOOKS
with
Nathan Tarcov
Social Thought & Political Science
and
Willemien Otten
Divinity School
Monday, April 6, 4:30pm
— Stuart 101 —
Reception to follow
This event is recommended for students considering a major in Fundamentals.
Persons who may need assistance should contact fundamentals@uchicago.edu.
VIEWPOINTS
Editorial & Op-Ed
APRIL 3, 2015
Students insecure in security alerts
Lack of information on the function of security alerts leads to student frustration with the UCPD
During finals week last quarter,
the University of Chicago community received a security alert about
Ross Jacobs, who had stabbed his
roommate multiple times and had
not yet been apprehended. This
was after the incident had already
been reported by media sources,
such as DNAinfo and the Chicago
Tribune. Many students were upset
to learn of the stabbing through
these sources first, rather than
through the University. However,
the frustration surrounding this
incident and other similar cases
speaks to a misunderstanding on
the part of students regarding the
criteria under which incidents are
reported in security alerts. Students should not expect to receive
a security alert for every mugging
or robbery reported in Hyde Park.
However, in the interest of alleviating students’ frustrations and
ensuring a sense of safety, the University should take steps to better communicate to students the
purpose of security alerts and to
clarify the conditions under which
they are issued.
The University policy on security alerts reads, “The goal of
sending a timely security alert is to
give members of the campus community information that will allow them to adjust their behavior
to protect their personal safety.”
Security alerts are not intended
to inform students of every crime
that occurs on or near campus.
Such information is reported
through the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD)
and Chicago Police Department
(CPD)’s incident reports, which
are updated daily. If security alerts
were released with the same or
similar frequency, students would
likely just stop reading them, and
the security alerts would be less
effective. This is one of the factors the UCPD must weigh when
deciding to alert the community
of an incident. Security alerts specifically focus on incidents that
involve “continuing threats to the
campus community,” a judgment
made on a case-by-case basis by
UCPD Chief Marlon Lynch. Incidents which are considered isolated by the UCPD do not warrant a
security alert.
Many students, though, do not
fully understand the end goal of
the security alert system or what
factors need to be weighed to
achieve this goal most effectively.
Although the purpose and scope
of security alerts are outlined in
the policy online, this policy’s existence is not readily apparent to
students. In addition, it is filled
with vague and legalistic terms.
It is clear that, in order to address
student frustrations surrounding
security alerts, the UCPD must
take further steps to educate students about the policy. At the very
least, the current policy on security alerts could be attached in a hyperlink at the bottom of securityalert e-mails.
Because the current policy does
not lend itself well to student understanding, we advise the UCPD
to go further. The UCPD should
publish a more readable document
with the purpose of explaining to
students in clearer terms the function of security alerts and the general guidelines followed when considering whether students should
be notified of a particular incident. A link to this could then be
attached to the bottom of security
alerts, and its contents could be
explained in Chicago Life Meetings during O-Week. There are
many ways that the UCPD could
ALICE XIAO
go about elucidating the function
and process behind security alerts,
and these are just some of them.
When students first hear about
a crime through the media rather
than from the UCPD, they may
feel left out of the loop and possibly unsafe. The typical reaction to
|
THE CHICAGO MAROON
these feelings is not to go online
and search for the UCPD’s security alert policy. Thus, the onus
falls on the UCPD to proactively
educate students and address these
frustrations.
—The Maroon Editorial Board
Let’s put the (I)X in sex ed
UChicago’s sexual assault education is still not in compliance with Title IX—and yet the University has no intention of changing it
Veronica Portillo Heap
Maroon Contributor
When I arrived in Hyde Park for
my O-Week in September of 2011,
I was woefully ignorant about sex.
I did not have any form of sex edu-
cation at my high school and never
received any “sex talk” about sexual
decision making, much less about
the mechanics of sex.
So when I attended the Sex Signals presentation during O-Week,
a nationally popular sexual assault
The student newspaper of the
University of Chicago since 1892.
Eleanor Hyun, Editor-in-Chief
Sarah Manhardt, Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Stephen Moreland, Managing Editor
The Maroon Editorial Board consists of Eleanor Hyun, Alan Hassler, and Lear Jiang.
News
Natalie Friedberg, editor
Alec Goodwin, editor
Marta Bakula, deputy editor
Isaac Easton, associate editor
Raymond Fang, associate editor
Shelby Lohr, associate editor
Maggie Loughran, associate editor
Annie Nazzaro, associate editor
Isaac Stein, senior writer
Viewpoints
Sarah Zimmerman, editor
Nina Katemauswa, associate editor
Kiran Misra, senior editor
Arts
Andrew McVea, editor
Evangeline Reid, editor
Ellen Rodnianski, editor
Hannah Edgar, associate editor
Grace Hauck, associate editor
James Mackenzie, senior editor
Sports
Helen Petersen, editor
Zachary Themer, editor
Ahmad Allaw, associate editor
Katie Anderson, associate editor
Tatiana Fields, senior editor
Sarah Langs, senior editor
Grey City
Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Editor-in-Chief
Kristin Lin, Editor-in-Chief
Design
Annie Cantara, head designer
Copy
Sophie Downes, head editor
Alan Hassler, head editor
Sherry He, head editor
Morganne Ramsey, head editor
Multimedia
Forrest Sill, editor
Photo
Marta Bakula, editor
Frank Wang, editor
Yeo Bi Choi, associate editor
Video
Amber Love, editor
Social Media
Emily Harwell, editor
Online
Ryan McDowell, web developer
Business
Nathan Peereboom, chief financial officer
Ananya Pillutla, chief operations officer
Nicolas Lukac, chief marketing officer
Zac Gunther, chief innovations officer
Theresa Peng, chief statistics officer
Lenise Lee, business manager
Harry Backlund, distributor
Kay Li, director of data analysis
This issue:
Copy: Kyra Martin, Rebecca Naimon, Erica Sun, Amy
Wang, Michelle Zhao
Design: Emily Harwell, Jen Xue
Editor-in-Chief E-mail: Editor@ChicagoMaroon.com
Newsroom Phone: 773.702.1403
Business Phone: 773.702.9555
Fax: 773.702.3032
For advertising inquiries, please contact
Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com or 773.702.9555
Circulation: 6,800.
© 2015 The Chicago Maroon,
Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
awareness program whose inaugural
college performance was given at the
University of Chicago in 2000, I was
unfamiliar with what consent meant
in regards to sexual encounters. Two
actors—a man and a woman—performed an interactive stand-up routine about “hookup culture” and
gender roles, followed by a series of
skits. Audience members were instructed to hold up a red stop sign
whenever the man “crossed the line”
at any point during the performance.
In the first skit, a man continued to
perform sexual acts on a woman in
her dorm room after she whispered,
“Stop.” I did not hold up my stop
sign because I thought the situation
was too ambiguous to be considered
assault. The presenters clarified that
this situation was not consensual and
then quickly moved on to another
skit. In the next scenario, a man continued to grope a woman at a party,
despite the fact that she was visibly
uncomfortable. The audience members were encouraged to intervene if
they ever witnessed a situation like
this, and were repeatedly identified
as a group of potential bystanders,
as opposed to a group of potential
victims or perpetrators. The creators
of Sex Signals have told The Atlantic
that this framing is intentional, albeit inaccurate.
At the subsequent Chicago Life
Meeting titled UChoose, I received
what other students called a rape
whistle and participated in a 10-minute conversation about the Sex Signals presentation. Unfortunately,
this discussion promptly moved on
to other topics and non-sex-related
campus safety issues. The description in the relevant O-Book from
2011 described the session not as
one that would deal with sexual assault explicitly, but where we would
instead “learn about campus resources related to sexual identity and
health, alcohol education, social responsibility, and informed decisionmaking.” This hasty glossing over
of the reality of sexual violence was
simply not enough to adequately get
students on the same page in a group
“I was left still unclear
on what sexual assault
encompassed or how it
was defined”
with varying levels of familiarity on
the topic. I was left still unclear on
what sexual assault encompassed or
how it was defined, and I did not
understand what my options were or
where to turn if it ever happened to
me. Because of the framing of the issue, assault seemed to happen rarely
and I naively thought that it would
never happen to me.
In my third year, it did happen to
me; I was raped by someone that I
went on a date with. While he was
assaulting me, the thoughts running
through my mind were variations of,
“Why is he doing this when I said I
did not want to do this,” “That really
hurts,” “Why is he hitting me,” and
“Why won’t he stop?” The words
“sexual assault” and “rape,” however,
did not initially come to mind as a
way to think about my experience.
I spent a few weeks in denial about
my own assault because I had not internalized that I truly had autonomy
over my own body. The preventative
education from O-Week provided
only a cursory understanding of sexual violence, without any sustained
dialogue or examples of what constituted sexual harassment, dating
violence, and stalking. In addition,
it did not clarify that a lack of a sustained or verbal “no” was not indicative of a “yes.” This lack of education
ultimately contributed immensely to
my denial.
In April 2014, the Department of
Education’s Office of Civil Rights
(OCR) released a document entitled
“Questions and Answers on Title IX
and Sexual Violence,” which it describes as “further clarify[ing] the legal requirements under Title IX [...]
and provid[ing] recommendations
for addressing allegations of sexual
violence.” Title IX, which I heard
no mention of during my O-Week, is
a federal civil rights law which prohibits sex discrimination in public
and private educational institutions
that receive federal funds. In the fall
and winter quarters, I and other concerned students from the survivor
advocacy RSO Phoenix Survivors
Alliance met with administrators
such as Dean of Students (DOS) in
the University Michele Rasmussen,
Associate DOS in the University for
Disciplinary Affairs Jeremy Inabinet,
DOS in the College Jay Ellison, and
Title IX Coordinator for Students
SEX EDcontinued on page 5
THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | April 3, 2015
5
“Of the 12 points that OCR calls to be included in the training ‘at a minimum,’ the University covers...two”
SEX EDcontinued from page 4
Belinda Cortez Vazquez to
address several points in this
document where it seemed
that the University was not
compliant with Title IX.
Our concern focused on
preventative education as prescribed by section J-4 of the
OCR 2014 document. Most
students in the College attend
Sex Signals and incoming first
years in more recent years have
participated in Haven, a module that focuses on bystander
intervention as a solution to
preventing sexual assault. A
script sent to O-Leaders for
the 2014 UChoose post—
Sex Signals meeting indicates
that the University added a
15-minute-long “Title IX and
VAWA Overview” portion,
part of which was spent talking
to students about changes to
the University’s sexual misconduct policy. Of the 12 points
that OCR calls to be included
in the training “at a minimum,”
the University substantively
covers only two, one on by-
stander intervention strategies
and the other on the role alcohol often plays in incidents of
sexual violence. Given the general confusion about what this
policy and the relevant laws
are among students on campus, and given that the burden
of educating students in the
“Of the 12 points
that OCR calls
to be included
in the training
‘at a minimum,’
the University
substantively
covers only two”
Class of 2018 was placed on
O-Leaders (who are, at the end
of the day, just other students),
the University is not providing
adequate education. It does
not incorporate the meat of
these OCR recommendations,
including but not limited to
what constitutes sexual vio-
lence and consent in University policy, how the University
analyzes whether sexual conduct was unwelcome under
Title IX, and how to report
sexual violence to administration and law enforcement. We
were told in person by Cortez
Vazquez and via e-mail by Ellison that they believed their
programs to be “effective and
compliant,” despite the fact we
presented to them, in full, the
10 points that are not included in existing programming,
and despite the fact that they
could not point us to where
these points were covered. It is
unclear how they can be “effective and compliant” when the
University of Chicago does
not follow even the minimum
guidelines outlined by OCR.
Students and alumni of
Phoenix Survivors Alliance
aren’t the only ones who call
for improved preventative
education. In March 2014,
we distributed an anonymous
form where we collected student feedback on Sex Signals.
The criticism of the program
can be separated into three
main categories: (a) that it diminishes the harsh reality of
sexual violence through the
use of humor, (b) that it presents a heteronormative view of
sexual violence even as people
of all genders and sexual identities are victims, and (c) that
it treats everyone in the room
as a potential bystander, which
neglects to acknowledge that
many students have been sexually abused before coming to
campus, and that many more
will be victims or perpetrators
during their time as students
in the College. The UChicago Clothesline Project has
collected more than 150 personal accounts of assault from
UChicago students since we
opened our submission form
more than two years ago, and
we continue to receive a fresh
wave of stories every time we
put up a round of fliers in bathroom stalls on campus. Clearly,
then, not everyone is simply a
bystander—sexual assault is
prevalent on this campus, and
students need more robust
education than what the University currently provides.
The University of Chicago
has neither a compulsory
follow-up to Sex Signals nor
programming in place for students beyond the start of their
“...not everyone
is simply a
bystander—sexual
assault is prevalent
on this campus”
first year. While the University
Resources for Sexual Violence
Prevention program has developed workshops concerning sexual violence, there is no
mechanism in place to widely
share them with students, nor
is attendance mandatory. The
vast majority of students in the
College have little to no interaction with any sort of preventative education past O-Week,
even though students cannot
reasonably absorb the high
volume of information thrown
at them in one week alone.
The University has the time,
money, power, and resources
to supplement this programming for O-Week 2015 in
order to comply with OCR
guidance. All students deserve
comprehensive
education
on sexual violence and to be
informed by their school of
their rights under Title IX. It
is on the University to at the
very least inform students of
its own responsibilities as an
institution to respond to this
violence. This institution owes
it to the survivors in its community and the community
as a whole, on ethical grounds
and on legal ones.
Veronica
Portillo
Heap is a fourth-year in
the College majoring in
history and gender and
sexuality studies.
SUBMISSIONS
The Chicago Maroon welcomes opinions and responses from its readers. Send op-ed submissions and letters to:
The Chicago Maroon
attn: Viewpoints
1212 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
E-mail: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com
The editors reserve the right to edit materials for clarity and space. Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words. Op-ed submissions, 800 words
Summer
Session
N O RT H W E S T E R N U N I V E R S I T Y
2 01 5
##(
,$0&# //',+,$0&#
,."1+" 3 .!&0&
)2#.0,1/# 0 *-*-*
#"+#/" 3-.')/0 0
*##0 0 )2#.0,1/# 0-*.#01.+ .,1+"
-*0. +/-,.0 0',+-.,2'"#"
&1./" 3,$0&#Lord’s
&1./" 3-.')+"
,+"& -#) 0-*
.'" 3,$0&#
.'" 3-.')
."
,+"& -#) 0-*
Registration opens APRIL 13
northwestern.edu/summer
,)3 01." 3
01." 3-.')0&
,+"& -#) 0-*
,$0&#
1+" 3-.')0&
G e t A h e a d . E x p l o re. E n j oy.
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SUMMER SESSION
V i s i t i n g s t u d e n t s c a n c h o o s e f ro m m o re t h a n 3 0 0 u n d e r g ra d u a t e c o u r s e s .
,+"& -#) 0 *
)2#.0,1/# 0-*
+'2#./'032#
+/0 %. *1/#.+ *#
,$ 0&,)'!
ARTS
What is art?
APRIL 3, 2015
Backstage with Clean Bandit, Grammy-winning British pop sensation
Ellen Rodnianski
Arts Editor
Exactly a year ago, if someone were to have asked me
whether I had heard about the
band Clean Bandit, I would
have responded with a solid no.
Today, the Grammy winning
band is not only a sensation in
its native UK, but is also rapidly
growing in popularity in the
United States. Its speedy rise
to fame was largely the result
of its hit “Rather Be”, which
was in the number one spot in
U.K.'s top singles charts for four
consecutive weeks. On its first
U.S.-wide tour (it performed in
Chicago’s Lincoln Hall in September on a smaller tour) the
band is supporting the extended version of its debut album
New Eyes. This past Wednesday, prior to its taking the stage
of Wrigleyville’s Metro, I chatted with Clean Bandit’s Grace
Chatto about the band’s past
work, influences, fame, and future plans.
The four permanent members—Chatto, Jack Patterson,
Luke Patterson (who are brothers) and Milan Neil AminSmith—came together when
they were at Cambridge. While
Chatto and Amin-Smith had
known each other since childhood from playing together
in orchestra, the band really
came together when they met
Jack Patterson. In Chatto’s
words, “we just wanted to do
something together.” While
the band’s work is generally
categorized as pop or house,
Chatto and Amin-Smith have
a background in classical music
and Jack Patterson in jazz. Thus,
their instruments of choice are
cello (Chatto); violin and piano
(Amin-Smith); keyboard, bass
guitar, and piano (Jack Peterson); and drums (Luke Patterson, who is also the youngest
member of the band). While
both Chatto and Jack Patterson
do the occasional vocals, their
vocals mostly rely on collaboration with other musicians.
According to Chatto, the
process of finding a vocalist
differs from song to song. For
instance, the collaboration with
Jess Glynne on “Rather Be”
was the result of pressure from
Atlantic Records. But the case
was essentially the opposite
during the process of creating
their newest hit “Real Love,” for
which Glynne wrote some of
the lyrics. Usually the collaborators are friends of the band
members or musicians whose
voices they love upon first hearing. On New Eyes a lot of the
singers were young musicians
that they met through a community project with which they
were involved before Atlantic
Record signed them. The way
it worked was that instead of
paying rent in a studio in London, they took up trainees from
the area. One of these trainees
was Sharna Bass, who sings the
vocals on “Extraordinary,” and
whom the band members met
when she was only 14. While
Clean Bandit collaborates with
a number of musicians, only
one singer is touring with the
band: London-based Elisabeth
Troy, who is featured on the
tracks “Show Me Love” and
“Heart on Fire.”
The concert Wednesday
night was sold out. About
1110 Chicagoans showed up to
dance to Clean Bandit’s catchy
beats. According to Chatto, the
band did not expect either the
fame or the incredible popularity of "Rather Be". In fact,
the band “had never thought
about America before because
it just seemed so far away, so
big and [the band members]
were just trying to break out
in the UK.” “Rather Be” was
written later than the rest of the
album, and while they did not
initially expect the scale of its
success, it became immediately
evident when the band started
performing it in festivals across
the U.K.
As Chatto explained, “We
saw that people were reacting
particularly well to that song,
and like, singing along by the
time of the second chorus even
though they were just hearing it
for the first time. So we decided
for that reason to release it and
to record it.”
Clearly the band made the
correct decision. The audience
at Metro nearly exploded with
joy when the band played the
single during its encore. Other
favorites were “Real Love,” “Extraordinary,” and “Show Me
Love,” although all the songs
were incredibly well received.
Along with all of its previously
released songs, Clean Bandit surprised the audience by
Elisabeth Troy, Grace Chatto, and Jack Patterson on stage at Chicago's Metro
performance hall this past Wednesday.
ELLEN RODNIANSKI
|
THE CHICAGO MAROON
performing a new song called
“Superstar.” Written in collaboration with Andrew Martin,
“Superstar” leans more toward
hip-hop and further from
house—a direction Chatto
said was probably going to be
the trend on their next album,
which they are currently writing. As they did with New Eyes,
they are approaching the new
album by looking at each song
as an independent project; the
underlying theme for the album
comes later.
Clean Bandit’s success across
the world becomes apparent
with the staggering near-256
million views on the music video for “Rather Be” on YouTube.
This was shocking to the band
because the process of making
the video, which was filmed in
Tokyo, was “such a small production,” Chatto explained. “It
was just me and Jack in the crew
and then one of our friends
[came]…and we were just like,
relying so much on people who
wanted to be involved and be
in the video and [who would]
let us film in the fish market
and stuff and at that point we
had no idea that video would
grow and have like 260 million
views.” Even now that the band
is signed by Atlantic Records, it
continues to play a large role in
the makings of its videos. While
Chatto, who used to produce
them, is no longer involved due
to lack of time, Jack Patterson
continues to direct them. The
two most recently released were
“Stronger” and “Real Love.”
Starting with its first recorded
song “Mozart’s House” (which
was released in 2010 and shot
while both Chatto and Jack
Patterson were studying in
Moscow) the music videos have
been a memorable and highly
entertaining part of the band’s
work.
The band’s name derives
from the Russian way of emphasizing a noun with the word
“clean,” where it functions like
the words “total” or “absolute.”
Chatto explained that a Russian lady once “affectionately”
referred to the band members
as total bastards, thereby inspiring the band’s name, which they
translated into English to come
up with Clean Bandit. While I
doubt that they are indeed “total bastards,” it is clear that the
band is a “clean” sensation.
The good kid returns to the m.A.A.d. city with fresh societal reflections
Andrew Yang
Arts Contributor
Late in the evening on March
16, rapper Kendrick Lamar
dropped his third studio album, To Pimp a Butterfly, in a
surprise early release. Kendrick’s
previous album, 2012’s good
kid, m.A.A.d city (GKMC), was
hailed as a classic, praised for its
artistic coherence and cinematic storytelling. Kendrick created further buzz with a verse
on the Big Sean song “Control,”
in which he proclaimed himself
simultaneously “King of New
York” and “King of the Coast”
and called out numerous other
rappers by name (including Big
Sean himself ). With all of this
preceding it, To Pimp a Butterfly arrived as one of the most
The cover to Kendrick Lamar's new album, To Pimp a
Butterfly.
COURTESY OF INTERSCOPE RECORDS
hotly anticipated rap albums of
all time. The album’s first single,
“i,” was released in the fall of
2014 and was met with a lukewarm reception from critics and
fans alike. Although the song
won Kendrick his first Grammy Award, it was criticized by
some as trite, overly upbeat, and
radio-friendly. But now, within
the context of the full album,
the complexity of Kendrick’s
perspective and the narrative
abilities he displayed in his previous music are apparent.
While GKMC stayed true
to Kendrick’s Compton, CA
roots with Dr. Dre–influenced
West Coast beats, To Pimp a
Butterfly veers more toward jazz
and funk, with an overall sound
that harkens backs to both
’90s Afrocentric rap and ’70s
blaxploitation music. Blackness is an important focus of
this album, both sonically and
thematically. Kendrick takes
aim at institutionalized racism,
with anger at American society
that comes through in particular on “The Blacker the Berry.”
But the greater part of his focus
is on unity and division within
the black community. On the
excellent “Complexion (A Zulu
Love),” Kendrick discusses the
use of Willie Lynch theory to
pit slaves against each other
based on skin tone, and again
on “The Blacker the Berry,” he
turns his attention to the destructiveness of gang violence
and compares Crips and Pirus
to South African tribes clashing
during Apartheid. The historical perspective that Kendrick
wields raises the stakes of his
discussion of black unity and
makes his imagery—including
the stunning album art, featuring a crowd of black men outside the White House standing
over a dead white politician
with his eyes X-ed out—all the
more powerful.
Yet while Kendrick takes on
difficult social issues, this is also
his most personal album thus
far, and he devotes most of the
album to discussing the corrupting powers of fame. The
best moments on the album are
those that explore the paradox
of being a successful rapper:
the simultaneous expectations
of both flaunting materialism
and maintaining street credibility or a “thug” image. Kendrick
delivers a critique of both institutions. On album highlight
“Wesley’s Theory” he describes
the “pimping” of rap stars by
American society, which uses
the lure of spending money to
ensnare and control then, on
“You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Mamma
Said)” he mocks the rapper who
returns home to flash his money and prove his hood status.
There are moments that feel
overwrought, where Kendrick
overreaches in his attempts at
artistry. Songs like “u,” in which
Kendrick takes on a squeaky,
drunken delivery to voice the
demons in his head, and “How
Much a Dollar Cost,” in which
he relates his encounter with
God disguised as a homeless
man, toe the line between moving and silly. But even these are
forgiven because of Kendrick’s
masterful flow and storytelling.
His rapping abilities are as impressive as ever, and Kendrick
has constructed layers of rich
symbolism and narrative, some
of which refer back to past albums Section.80 and GKMC.
This is a dense album that requires multiple listens to fully
unfold.
This album is not as polished
as GKMC, and nor should it
be. It’s as chaotic and conflicted
as Kendrick’s own grappling
with fame, self-hatred, and racism. There are moments that
are difficult and controversial,
such as the ending of “The
Blacker the Berry,” in which
Kendrick calls himself a hypocrite for mourning Trayvon
Martin despite having participated in gang life and being a
part of the deaths of numerous
black men. These are questions
without easy answers, and even
the optimism of “i” doesn't
dispel the doubt and darkness
that Kendrick builds leading
up to it. The album ends with
a long conversation between
Kendrick and the recorded
voice of the late Tupac Shakur,
in which they discuss the future of Kendrick’s generation.
Kendrick himself sounds uncertain: He has learned many
lessons from his young career
but is still unsure of his own
future, and the future of racial
politics in America, and is looking for answers. But this album
is a monumental achievement,
creative and unique, and one
that cements Kendrick’s status
as one of the most thoughtful
and talented artists of his generation.
THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | April 3, 2015
7
There is no protection against sex-themed horror film It Follows
Walker King
Arts Contributor
A young woman lazes in her
backyard pool somewhere in
the suburbs of Detroit, enjoying the waning days of a midwestern summer. The camera
cuts to her arm, floating on
the surface, and a tiny ant
crawling down its length. She
pushes her arm down and the
ant is stranded on the water,
drowning in an ocean beyond
its comprehension. The lives
of small things are fragile, and
just the slightest action can upset them forever.
You don’t need to be a devoted observer of the indie
movie circuit to notice a revival in art-house horror. Films
like House of the Devil, Cabin
in the Woods, The Guest, and
The Babadook have formed
a new wave of scare-em-ups
with the critical imprimatur
that was lacking in the endless
Saw and Paranormal Activity
sequels. Often these films either toy with well-worn horror conventions or introduce
allegorical elements into the
slaughter—an approach that
usually inspires affection towards the genre rather than
embarrassment. David Robert
Mitchell makes his contribution to this new terror movement with his second film, It
Follows.
In the film’s first scene a
young women in a negligee
bolts from her house and backs
slowly away from some terrifying unseen entity. Panicked,
she gets in her car and drives
to the beach to make an apol-
ogetic last phone call to her
family, and by morning she’s
been gruesomely mangled at
the hands of an unseen force.
We find out shortly that she
was the victim of a mysterious
curse being transmitted sexually among the young suburbanites of Detroit (think The
Ring meets Charles Burns’
Black Hole) that takes the form
of a malevolent shape-shifter
walking toward its singular
victim slowly but relentlessly
until close enough to strike.
Jay Height (Maika Monroe of
the aforementioned film The
Guest) is the latest to catch the
bug.
With the aid of her friends,
Jay aims to outrun the thing
for as long as possible. Over the
course of the film she comes to
terms with her condition, tries
to fight back, weighs the moral
costs of passing the curse on to
save herself, and gets caught
up in a love triangle between
gawky childhood friend Paul
and shaggy-haired ne’er-dowell Greg. But despite how
much she tries, the curse can’t
be shaken, and it changes
things in ways she never could
have expected.
It Follows walks an allegorical route, but does so thoughtfully, spacing out its plot deliberately without making its
central metaphor too explicit.
As a horror experience, it’s
somewhat less effective. There
are moments of genuine terror in the movie, but, just like
in a zombie movie, watching
the monster walk towards Jay
is never as scary as waiting for
it to show up next, and it's
sometimes too easy to anticipate when those moments are
coming for a sustained sense of
dread.
But It Follows still manages
to succeed. Monroe, who was
also excellent in The Guest,
has an inner ennui that gives
her moments of brief joy and
more lasting fear greater resonance—a reprieve from an
immediate death does nothing to alleviate her existential
troubles. Mitchell, too, has a
few clever tricks in his bag, like
shooting his subjects from a
distant point of view, and closing in through long, dynamically composed tracking shots.
Sometimes this puts the viewer
in the eyes of the follower, and
sometimes it’s just a fabulous
psych out. He also shows a fascination with the empty streets
and deserted parks where the
invisible dangers of suburbia
emerge, often filming 360-degree tableaus that reshape
swathes of space from innocent to sinister.
It Follows is far more rewarding as a broad parable
about the slow, painful transition into adulthood along an
untraceable path, rather than
a pinned-down metaphor for
whatever sexual bugaboo one
prefers. Near the end of the
film, Jay asks a sexual partner
if he feels different in any way,
post-coitus. He says he doesn’t,
but the couple knows something has changed, and they’ll
now face the consequences, as
mysterious as they are terrible.
Becoming an adult is scary and
beautiful. So is It Follows.
It takes a village: CSO's French festival hits on both the personal and the grand
Hannah Edgar
Arts Staff
There was a story floating around Symphony Hall
Saturday night. As it goes,
French-Canadian
pianist
and program soloist Louis
Lortie had been rehearsing
Vincent d’Indy’s Symphony
on a French Mountain Air
with conductor Charles
Dutoit and the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra earlier in the week when Dutoit noticed that Lortie was
playing the piece entirely
from memory. The touch
was professional, Dutoit
noted, but not really necessary: The piece is rarely
programmed—the CSO last
performed it in the 1940s—
nor would it figure prominently into the pianist’s
post-concert repertoire. So,
why had he memorized it?
Taken aback by the maestro’s intimation, an astonished Lortie responded as
though the answer was obvious: “Well, the Chicago
Symphony is not a village!”
Indeed it is not, which
the orchestra demonstrated
a thousandfold in a program
that opened and closed with
works composed by Maurice Ravel: concert go-tos
Rapsodie espagnole and the
Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et
Chloé, respectively. Lortie
was featured as the soloist in the concert’s middle
portion, which included
d’Indy’s
aforementioned
Symphony (which is not
really a symphony at all,
but more of a symphonyconcerto hybrid) and César
Franck’s Symphonic Variations (also a misnomer, and
also spotlighting the solo
piano).
Rapsodie espagnole is an
example of “Spanish” music
actually penned by a French
composer, standing along
standard repertory pieces
like Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, Georges
Bizet’s opera Carmen, and
Debussy’s Ibéria, the last
of which was performed by
the CSO earlier this season. However, unlike the
company Ravel joined in
composing Rapsodie espagnole, most of whom only
had a tenuous connection to
Spain at best, Ravel actually
had a direct tie to the country: His mother was Basque
and grew up in Madrid, and
he himself grew up near the
Spanish border.
That being said, the Iberian touches in Rapsodie
espagnole are more thematic than characteristic.
The Malagueña and Ha-
banera movements borrow
rhythmic elements from
traditional Spanish dance—
and naturally, there are the
obligatory, raucous castanets in the fourth-movement Feria—but on the
whole, the piece is unmistakably a product of French
Impressionism.
And how sumptuously the
CSO breathed life into Ravel’s classic: Red-blooded and
impossibly full, the CSO’s
performance of Ravel had
a distinctly different taste
than the Rotterdam Philharmonic, who performed
Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite
and Piano Concerto in G at
Symphony Hall last month.
Generally put, for the Rotterdam Phil’s silvery and
lithe Ravel interpretations,
less was more; in the CSO’s
case, more was more: more
sound, more drama, more
passion.
As for the underperformed Symphony on a
French Mountain Air, something was left to be desired
from both orchestra and
soloist, especially at its beginning. Though there were
memorable solo turns aplenty from individual members
of the orchestra—a program
all-star was Scott Hostetler,
whose sublime English horn
solos graced almost every
piece on the program—on
the whole it sounded stale,
especially compared with
CSO continued on page 8
THE C-SUITE
STARTS WITH
Write for Arts!
E-mail editor@chicagomaroon.com
Developing ethical leaders is at the heart of the Marquette University
Graduate School of Management. The nationally ranked MBA program
and the MS programs have a global focus that emphasize problem-solving
in today’s ever-changing business environment. Learn from industry
experts, study top-notch research and connect to our international
network of business alumni. Here, you will learn to Be The Difference.
MBA and master’s programs
accounting | applied economics | human resources | leadership
marquette.edu/gsm
THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | April 3, 2015
8
“even a subdued CSO packs quite a punch, and it certainly warmed to the d'Indy by piece's end”
CSO continued from page 7
the richness of the preceding Rapsodie espagnole. I
recall feeling similarly underwhelmed when the CSO
gave its first performance of
a Pierre Boulez piece some
months ago, and I can’t help
but wonder if “Warhorse
Syndrome” is accountable
for the flat execution of
these neglected pieces. All
in all, the standard concert
repertory is actually quite
small; oft-performed pieces
like Rapsodie espagnole
gain a superhuman degree of
Polish while others languish
in obscurity, forgotten to
musicians and audiences
alike. It’s only a hypothesis—even a subdued CSO
packs quite the punch, and
it certainly warmed to the
d’Indy by piece’s end—but
Saturday’s concerts brought
these sentiments back with a
vengeance.
Nor did Lortie help the
orchestra out much at all:
In the first two movements,
he sounded just as tense as
he looked on the bench.
Lortie’s nervous energy was
finally put to good use in
the jaunty third-movement
Animé, whose main theme
the soloist aptly described as
an “earworm” in rehearsal.
He was certainly better suited to Franck’s Symphonic Variations than the
d’Indy, but the same deficits
marred both pieces. Often
the CSO nobly attempted
to compensate for his lack
of lyricism, but Lortie never
fully reciprocated. An example that’s fresh in my mind
was acting principal violist
Li-Kuo Chang’s gorgeously
phrased solo in the second
movement of the d’Indy,
over which the solo piano
plays a twinkling tremolo,
during which Lortie blithely hammered away at the
keys instead of sensitively
adjusting to his partner.
Conversely, in moments
that begged for more virtuosic sparkle, Lortie never
seemed to coax enough con-
trast with the orchestra to
be heard.
Lortie’s playing was not
without its merits, but for
all his conviction that Chicago is “not a village,” his
playing more often than not
came off as disappointingly
provincial.
If anything, a concert
of so many ups and downs
made the CSO’s closing
performance of Daphnis
et Chloé all the more rousing. Each swell inundated
the hall; the sound gener-
ated by the CSO with each
sweeping, languid gesture
from Dutoit was absolutely
astounding. Unsurprisingly,
it was the ethereal, atmospheric strains of Ravel’s
suite that swam in my ears
as I left the concert hall.
No, the CSO is not a village. But for such a towering
institution, it does have a
way of drawing you into its
intimate sphere, making you
feel as though you, too, took
part in something as personal as it is grand.
theSketch
Arts, Briefly.
The biggest Christian
service of the year will be
receiving
appropriately
monumental treatment at
Rockefeller Chapel this
Easter Sunday. Organ
music? Plenty. Trumpets?
We’ve got ’em. A sermon
rousing enough to raise anyone from the dead? Naturally, courtesy of Rockefeller’s
own Associate for Congregational Life, Pastor Bromleigh McCleneghan. Musically, the service will feature
classics old and new: both
Mozart’s Mass in F Major,
K.192 and UChicago Ph.D.
candidate Katherine Pukinskis’s To Welcome in the
Year, the latter of which was
commissioned by the Rockefeller Children’s Choir and
will be enjoying its world
premiere. Go for a beautiful
non-denominational
Easter service. But if that’s
not your thing, go for the
stained glass windows and
magnificent music.
Sunday, April 5, Rockefeller, 11 a.m., free
Lisa Peterson and Denis
O’Hare, the same minds
that brought An Iliad to
the Court Theatre to widespread acclaim in 2011,
offer up yet another fresh
take on a classic text with
The Good Book. And what
text is more classic than the
Bible? Identity and spirituality clash throughout,
with the play’s protagonists—Connor, a devoutly
Catholic teen coming to
terms with his sexuality,
and Miriam, a jaded biblical
scholar—both struggling
to reconcile the two. An
imaginative epic which the
Court describes as “[spanning ] millennia, languages,
cultures, religions, and even
theatrical styles,” The Good
Book is sure to have something for believers, nonbelievers, and everyone in between. While the show runs
through April 19, today is
both the opening run and
a student night, which offers the bonus of free food
and drinks after the opening run.
Friday, April 3, Court Theatre, 8 p.m., $15 for students
with UCID, $25 for faculty,
$35-65 general admission
WEI YI OW
|
THE CHICAGO MAROON
Brush off your best lungi
and bust out your brightest sari; tomorrow evening
is the South Asian Students Association (SASA)
Cultural Show. This year’s
theme is Journey, and acts
ranging from traditional
Kathak dance, to Hindi a
cappella, to more modern
fusion dance will be the
focus of the show, while a
series of sketches moving
through the diverse cultural landscape of Southeast
Asia will play in between
each of the performances.
Along with the show, food
will be catered beforehand
from Udupi Palace and
ticket holders will receive
a SASA Journey T-shirt.
Dinner tickets for the show
have already sold out, but
there are still a limited
number of tickets to the
show available, which can
be purchased in the Reynolds Club. Part of the revenue from the evening will
be donated to the organization Pratham U.S.A., which
funds educational opportunities for underprivileged
Indian youth.
Saturday, April 4, Mandel
Hall, dinner at 5 p.m., show
starts at 7 p.m., Tier 1 Ticket: $10 with UCID, $15
otherwise, Tier 2 Ticket: $12
with UCID, $17 otherwise
It’s time to embrace the
fact that you are already losing sleep one week into the
quarter and support people
who pull all-nighters for a
higher cause: theater. Theater [24] is a quarterly University Theater ritual that
puts six groups to the test
and makes men out of boys.
Can they create a show—
from writing to blocking
to performance—in just 24
hours? That’s a question
only those who attend the
show will be able to properly answer. Come one, come
all. This is a one-night-only
show that you can’t miss.
Saturday, April 4, FXK
Theater, 8 p.m., Reynolds
Club, $4
Every quarter, businesses
on 53rd Street participate
in First Weekend, an event
that celebrates the beginning of the new academic
quarter with free offers and
sweet deals for University
students. Harper Theater
is offering $5 movie tickets and 2-for-1 popcorn
and drinks, Kimbark Liquor is offering free root
beer floats, and numerous
restaurants are offering
discounts and free food
items. Check firstweekend.
splashthat.com for a full list
of locations and offers.
Friday, April 3, 53rd Street,
offers vary by business, all require UCID.
CLASSIFIEDS
2 & 3 BDRM APTS. FOR RENT in HYDE PARK
Large Apts. Hardwood Floors, Ceiling Fans in All Rms.
Located at 54th & Harper. Laundry on Premises. Quiet &
Secure Bldg. Contact Dino 312-802-6813
4BR/3BA Graystone
W/D, Dishwasher, Garage, Alarm
Near campus, $3200/month
773-573-7109 Lv message
Expert Editor, Writer,
Typist for Books, Scripts, Grants.
I edit dissertations.
I am a Published Author
312-543-9919
THE CHICAGO MAROON | ADVERTISEMENT | April 3, 2015
9
ok, so my subs really aren't gourmet and
we're not french either. my subs just taste
a little better, that's all! I wanted to
call it jimmy john's tasty sandwiches, but
my mom told me to stick with gourmet.
Regardless of what she thinks, freaky fast
is where it's at. I hope you love 'em as much
as i do! peace!
Established in Charleston, IL
in 1983 to add to students GPA
and general dating ability.
8" SUB SANDWICHES
GIANT club sandwiches
All of my sandwiches are 8 inches of homemade
French bread, fresh veggies and the finest meats &
cheese I can buy! We slice everything fresh daily in this
store! It tastes better that way!
My club sandwiches have twice the meat or cheese, try it
on my fresh baked thick sliced 7-grain bread or my famous
homemade French bread! Tell us when you order!
#1 PEPE®
SLIMS™
Any Sub minus the veggies and sauce
Real wood smoked ham and provolone cheese,
lettuce, tomato & mayo. (The original)
slim
slim
slim
slim
slim
slim
#2 BIG JOHN®
Medium rare choice roast beef, mayo,
lettuce & tomato.
#3 TOTALLY TUNA®
Fresh housemade tuna, mixed with celery, onions,
and our tasty sauce, sliced cucumber, lettuce & tomato.
(My tuna rocks! Sprouts* optional)
#4 TURKEY TOM®
Fresh sliced turkey breast, lettuce, tomato & mayo.
The original (Sprouts* optional)
#5 VITO®
1
2
3
4
5
6
Ham & cheese
Roast beef
Tuna salad
Turkey breast
Salami, capicola, cheese
Double provolone
Low Carb Lettuce Wrap
®
JJ UNWICH
Same ingredients and price of the
sub or club without the bread.
The original Italian sub with genoa salami, provolone,
capicola, onion, lettuce, tomato, & a real tasty Italian
vinaigrette. (Hot peppers by request)
#6 THE VEGGIE
Layers of provolone cheese separated by real avocado
spread, sliced cucumber, lettuce, tomato & mayo. (Truly a
gourmet sub not for vegetarians only, Sprouts* optional)
Bacon, lettuce, tomato & mayo!
(My B.L.T. rocks)
★ Soda Pop
TW YM
NL J
// NSF
¹8 Q
J.J.B.L.T.®
★ sides ★
ES ★
H
C
N
U
L
X
★ BO PLATTERS ★
★ PARTYTY SU BS ★
,
★ PAR
R NOTICE
U
ER 24 HOE’LL DO WHAT
F
E
R
P
E
W
,W
APPEN!
O U C AL L
BUT IF YN TO MAKE IT H
WE CA
DELIVERY ORDERS will include a
delivery charge per item.
ORDER ONLINE @ JIMMYJOHNS.COM
freebies (subs & clubs only)
Onion, lettuce, tomato, mayo, sliced cucumber,
hot peppers, Dijon mustard, yellow mustard,
oil & vinegar, oregano, sprouts*.
#8 BILLY CLUB®
Choice roast beef, smoked ham, provolone cheese,
Dijon mustard, lettuce, tomato & mayo.
#9 ITALIAN NIGHT CLUB®
Genoa salami, Italian capicola, smoked ham,
and provolone cheese all topped with lettuce, tomato,
onion, mayo & our homemade Italian vinaigrette.
(Order it with hot peppers)
#10 HUNTER’S CLUB®
A full 1/4 pound of medium rare roast beef,
provolone, lettuce, tomato & mayo.
#11 COUNTRY CLUB®
Sprouts*
optional
Fresh baked turkey breast, provolone cheese, avocado
spread, sliced cucumber, lettuce, tomato and mayo!
#12 BEACH CLUB®
#13 GOURMET VEGGIE CLUB®
Double provolone, real avocado spread, sliced
cucumber, lettuce, tomato & mayo. (Try it on my
7-grain whole wheat bread. This veggie sandwich
is really yummy! Sprouts* optional)
#14 BOOTLEGGER CLUB®
Roast beef, turkey breast, lettuce, tomato & mayo.
An American classic!
#15 CLUB TUNA®
★ Real potato chips or jumbo kosher dill pickle
★ Extra cheese or extra avocado spread
1/4 pound of real wood smoked ham,
provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato & mayo!
Sliced turkey breast, real wood smoked ham,
provolone, and tons of lettuce, tomato & mayo!
(A very traditional, yet always exceptional classic!)
★ Chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin cookie
★ Extra load of meat
#7 SMOKED HAM CLUB
THE J.J.
GARGANTUAN®
The original gutbuhstuh! Genoa
salami, sliced smoked ham, capicola,
roast beef, turkey & provolone,
jammed into one of our homemade
French buns, then smothered with
onions, mayo, lettuce, tomato & our
homemade Italian vinaigrette.
The same as our #3 Totally Tuna except this one
has a lot more. Housemade tuna salad, provolone,
sliced cucumber, lettuce & tomato. (Sprouts* optional)
#16 CLUB LULU®
Sliced turkey breast, bacon, lettuce, tomato
& mayo. (JJ's original turkey & bacon club)
#17 ULTIMATE PORKER™
Real wood smoked ham and bacon with lettuce,
tomato & mayo! (This one rocks!)
WE DELIVER! 7 DAYS A WEEK
TO FIND THE LOCATION NEAREST YOU VISIT JIMMYJOHNS.COM
"YOUR MOM WANTS YOU TO EAT AT JIMMY JOHN'S!" ®
*WARNING: THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH ADVISES THAT EATING RAW OR UNDER-COOKED SPROUTS POSES A HEALTH RISK TO EVERYONE, BUT ESPECIALLY TO THE ELDERLY, CHILDREN, PREGNANT WOMEN, AND PERSONS WITH WEAKENED
IMMUNE SYSTEMS. THE CONSUMPTION OF RAW SPROUTS MAY RESULT IN AN INCREASED RISK OF FOODBORNE ILLNESS. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT YOUR PHYSICIAN OR LOCAL PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT.
©1985, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2013, 2014 JIMMY JOHN’S FRANCHISE, LLC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. We Reserve The Right To Make Any Menu Changes.
10
THE CHICAGO MAROON | ADVERTISEMENT | April 3, 2015
THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | April 3, 2015
11
Maroons start strong on annual spring break trip
Softball
Andrew Beytagh
Sports Contributor
Chicago recently concluded its annual spring break
trip to Clermont, FL. In the
Sunshine State, the Maroons
competed against a variety of
DIII schools from across the
country. The trip provided experience, confidence, and sunburns for the promising squad.
Overall, the Maroons compiled an 8–4 record, with
notable victories over MIT,
Wellesley, and Carleton. Over
the course of the 12 games, the
South Siders posted an impressive team batting average
of .327 while scoring 58 runs.
While the young squad got
off to a bumpy start, dropping
three of its first four games,
the team pulled it together in
the second half of the trip to
win seven of its eight remaining games.
March 25 proved to be momentous for Chicago. After
struggling to find their footing
in the season thus far, games
against MIT and Wellesley
brought out the perseverance
and skill of a high caliber team.
In an especially exciting game, Chicago defeated
Wellesley in extra innings by a
score of 6–5. The team fell behind early, entering the fourth
inning down by a score of 3–2.
After climbing back into the
game and battling it out for
the rest of the match, the two
teams were tied at the end of
nine innings. With two teammates on base following a pair
of bunts, third-year Kristin
Lopez brought them home
for the extra inning win with a
line drive to center field.
The Maroons faced off
with MIT later that same day.
Again, Chicago fell behind
early, heading into the fifth inning down by a score of 3–0.
Things looked gloomy even in
the Florida sun. The seventh
inning brought good fortune
for the Maroons. After MIT
walked second-year Maggie
O’Hara with bases loaded, Lopez came up big again to send
two players past home plate.
Third-year Kathleen Kohm
and first-year Molly Moran
followed Lopez’s example and
each contributed a two-run
single to give Chicago the 7–3
advantage at the end of the
seventh. MIT was unable to
recover from this seventh inning bashing and the Maroons
walked away victorious on the
day.
Over the course of these
12 games, the squad’s returners proved to provide a steady
backbone. Second-year slaphitter Anna Woolery hit .395
and scored an impressive 10
runs, while outfielder Kohm
led the team with eight RBIs.
Third-year Devan Parkison
also stole 10 bases for the
Maroons and amassed a teamleading 16 hits.
New additions to the team
provided depth to the bench.
First-year designated hitter
and infielder, Alyssa Stolmack,
provided a spark in the middle
of the Maroon lineup. With
a team-leading seven doubles
in just 12 games, Stolmack
said that she is “excited for
the opportunity to contribute
to such a positive team atmosphere and is looking forward
to the rest of the season.”
Chicago’s pitching squad
boasts the lone fourth-year
on the team, Tabbetha Bohac, while also integrating
the last week’s UAA Pitcher
of the Week, second-year
Jordan Poole, and a pair of
rookies Molly Moran and Olivia Haney. After a shaky first
outing, first-year Moran rebounded to post an impressive
1.98 ERA and led the pitching
staff with 26 strikeouts in 28
and one-third innings. Poole
also posted a record of 3–1, allowing a team-low nine walks
in six appearances. Finally, to
round out the starting pitchers, Bohac posted 24 strikeouts in six appearances and an
ERA of 2.50. First-year Olivia
Fourth-year Tabbetha Bohac prepares to pitch a ball at a game against North
Park last year
FRANK WANG | THE CHICAGO MAROON
Haney anchored the pitching
staff as the Maroons’ catcher,
starting all 12 games of the
trip.
Their season continued last
night as the squad traveled
to Lake Forest to play in an
afternoon cross town game.
The Foresters have posted an
impressive 13–3 record thus
far and have won four straight
games. The Maroons look to
continue their own three game
winning streak. The Maroons
then host a doubleheader
tonight at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
against Lawrence of Appleton, WI.
Chicago gains valuable expe- Team looks forward to
rience in spite of frustrating kickoff of outdoor season
defeats
Track and Field
Women’s Tennis
Brad Bozych
Sports Contributor
The Maroons went off
to California over the academic break to take on No.
13 MIT, No. 8 PomonaPitzer, and No. 9 Middlebury. This trip proved
to be a tough one for the
South Siders as they fell
7–2, 5–4, then 6–3 to each
of the three opponents, respectively.
Chicago started its trip
off against MIT, a contest that eventually wound
up in the Maroons falling
7–2 to their Boston counterpart. In singles play,
first-year Ariana Iranpour
at No. 1 singles defeated
MIT’s second-year Elysa
Kohrs 6–4 in the first set
and 7–5 in the second.
Fourth-year Megan Tang
of the Maroons also won
in her No. 2 singles match
against first-year Sonya
Das, by a score of 6–3 in
both sets. However, these
were the only wins for the
Maroons on the day, but
they would take on Pomona-Pitzer next.
The toughest match
of the trip would come
Russell Mendelson
Sports Staff
against
Pomona-Pitzer,
as the Maroons fell in
heartbreaking fashion to
the California side 5–4.
Ranked No. 8 at the time,
Pomona-Pitzer proved to
be an excellent test for the
No. 13 ranked Msaroons
during their trip. On the
singles side, the Maroons
got wins from Iranpour as
well as third-year Sruthi
Ramaswami, who won
their matches 6–3 6–0, and
4–6 6–2 6–1, respectively.
Iranpour and Tang teamed
up to win their doubles
match 8–5. The Maroons
also got a doubles win from
Ramaswami and thirdyear Lucy Tang 8–6. The
Maroons couldn’t hold
onto their early lead in the
match though, and eventually and fell 5–4.
First-year
Courtney
Warren spoke about the
tough loss the team took
saying, “Losing 5–4 is always very tough because
they’re matches that could
go either way, but we just
fell short. We have lost a
few matches 5–4, starting
with our match against
Case Western, and after
this match our team is ex-
cited to start winning some
of these close matches.”
“This weekend will be a
good test for us, and hopefully we can pull out a good
result. The team’s energ y
has been very positive, and
everyone is very excited
for next weekend,” Warren
added.
The Maroons then took
on No. 9 Middlebury to
wrap up the trip. The Panthers were the Maroon’s
seventh consecutive match
against a nationally ranked
opponent, proving a good
test for the South Siders.
Lucy Tang won her singles
match for the Maroons
over the Panthers 6–4 in
both sets. The doubles
duos of Warren and second-year Tiffany Chen and
Ramaswami and Lucy Tang
were victorious for the Maroons, winning 8–2 and
8–5 respectively. However,
the Maroons fell short, losing 6–3 to the Panthers in
California.
The Maroons play in a
week as they will head to
Madison, WI next weekend for the Midwest Invitational.
The Maroons begin their outdoor season at home with the
Ted Haydon Invitational this
weekend in what will be their sole
home meet of their spring season.
Chicago capped off an exciting indoor season with the
women clinching the conference
championship at home by over
20 points, while the men fell just
short of a title by just a point to
Wash U. For the men, the crowning of the UAA champion came
down to the final event, the
4x400-meter, where they fell
just short to Wash U. Additionally, the women sent their thirdranked Distance Medley Relay
(DMR) squad to the DIII National Championships in Salem,
N.C. where they finished third
overall. The men also sent their
4x400-meter squad, which qualified at their last chance meet just
a week prior and finished ninth
overall the following weekend.
Pole-vaulter Michael Bennett
earned a spot at Nationals but did
not compete due to injury.
“The conference championships were a big improvement
from last year but unfortunately
we came up one point short,”
said first-year Obi Wamuo who
ran the second leg of the 4x400meter for the men at UAA con-
ference.
“This close call to what could
have been has made the team
hungry for a championship that
we believe we deserve,” added
Wamuo.
Unlike the men’s successful
relay squad, on the women’s side
the competitors will be split up
into their other events for the remainder of the season as there is
no outdoor DMR event.
“Everyone comes back from
nationals in a different way. Especially with spring break and finals
week, there are not many team
practices happening, so it really
is an adjustment period,” said second-year Michelle Dobbs, who
ran the third leg of the DMR at
Nationals.
“For some this means pushing
the workouts harder than ever
during indoor, and for others it’s
best to ease back a little bit and
make sure to stay healthy in the
long run,” continued Dobbs.
The outdoor season includes
environmental factors that are
not present during the indoor
months. Leading up to this weekend’s meet, some athletes were
concerned that competition
would be difficult due to the recent snowfall and colder weather
last week, but as of late Thursday
the conditions appear favorable
with the temperature slated to be
in the high 50s and sunny.
“Chicago can be a little unkind to us on practice or meet
days,” said Dobbs on the tougher
climate athletes must face outdoors.
“We definitely have to prepare mentally to be able to face
these differences and understand
that worse times at this point
in the season don’t necessarily
mean worse performances,” said
Dobbs.
Despite the challenges the
weather may bring, there are
other concerns that some of the
athletes may have to address as
well, such as the wear and tear
from the indoor season.
“The biggest challenge would
be overcoming the sense of being
burnt out from track and field,”
said Wamuo on the metaphoric
hurdles he will need to jump over
this weekend.
“Track and field is not only
physically exhausting but also
mentally and it will be easier to
zone out when facing external
factors such as weather,” finished
Wamuo.
Both athletes have had three
weeks to recuperate from their
strong winter campaigns, but
most of their teammates are itching to compete after over five
weeks of competitive inactivity. The Maroons rush out of the
starting gates tomorrow morning
at 11 a.m. at the Haydon Track.
SPORTS
IN QUOTES
“I don’t even know how I got to my hotel last night”
–New England tight -end Rob Gronkowski disregarding the impact of concussions in football
Men’s relay captures national title in Texas
Swimming and Diving
Katie Anderson
Associate Sports Editor
The Maroons excelled at the
four-day NCAA DIII Championship in Shenandoah, Texas
last week, as the men finished
14th and the women 13th.
On the men’s side, Kenyon
College placed first, tallying
468 points, while the South
Siders finished with 94 points.
On the women’s side, swimming and diving powerhouse
Emory University was victorious with 603 points, while
the Maroons finished with 82
points.
Collectively, Chicago placed
an impressive 13 individual
All-Americans and seven relay
All-Americans to conclude a
banner year for the squad.
Highlights on the women’s
side include the seventh-place
finish and All-American status
of second-year Alison Wall in
the 200-yard backstroke. Wall
was also a member of the 13thplace 400-yard freestyle relay
squad alongside second-year
Maya Scheidl, third-year Jen-
nifer Law, and fourth-year Jennifer Hill.
Swimming and diving may
technically be individual sports,
but Wall attributes much of the
success to Chicago’s team spirit
throughout the weekend.
“Having the team around
supporting and cheering definitely contributed most to
both the team’s success and my
personal success. We trained
hard the whole season for this
meet, so we knew we were
ready to swim fast,” Wall said.
Undoubtedly, the meet
highlight for the Maroons
came in the final event of
the competition. The team
of second-year Mantim Lee,
third-year Thomas Meek,
second-year Jeremy Estes and
third-year Matthew Veldman
claimed the national title in the
400-yard freestyle relay, and
shattered the previous school
record in the event.
As the fourth-seeded team
at the conclusion of preliminaries, it wasn’t until race time
that the group actually realized
their chance of winning a na-
tional championship.
“Between sessions on the last
day we joked about winning
the relay,” Meek said. “I don’t
think any of us really considered the possibility until during the race. Jeremy Estes even
admitted during his portion of
the post-race interview that he
didn’t think until his leg that
winning was possible.”
During the third leg, Estes
placed the Maroons in a neckand-neck position for first,
where they stayed. Remarkably, the South Siders tied exactly with The College of New
Jersey with times of 2:57:85 to
tie for the national title.
“The feeling was definitely
euphoric,” Meek said. “I can’t
describe how great a feeling it
is to win alongside your teammates and greatest friends.”
Seeing that many of the top
Maroon swimmers are underclassmen, Chicago has much to
look forward to for next year.
“I think I am most looking
forward to getting to meet and
know the new first-years and
seeing what new depth they
South Siders narrowly miss out on
blemish free start
Men’s Tennis
Britta Nordstrom
Sports Contributor
While most of the campus
was off doing whatever it is that
college kids do on spring break,
the No. 13 Maroons played
four matches in four days—two
of which were against ranked
opponents. Fortunately, they
had the opportunity to play
under cozy conditions in sunny California. First-year Peter
Leung was especially effusive in
his praise of the weather.
“Comparing its weather to
Chicago’s or Houston’s [his
hometown], I would consider
it heaven,” Leung said.
The Maroons kicked off their
campaign by sweeping Glendale 9–0, followed by victories
over No. 24 Cal Lutheran by a
score of 7–2 and Whittier by
a final tally of 8–1. Chicago’s
lone loss of the weekend came
at the hands of No. 4 PomonaPitzer in a battle that ended at a
close score of 5–4.
Possibly the nice weather
contributed to the Maroons’
strong start, where they swept
their first match against Glendale 9–0, extending their winning streak to seven straight
matches in the season.
This streak continued against
Cal Lutheran, as the Maroons
won 7–2. While Cal Lutheran
came out hot, winning two of
A University of Chicago swimmer dives into the pool at the start of a race at
the Phoenix Fall Classic last year.
FRANK WANG | THE CHICAGO MAROON
can bring to the team. With
that being said, I will definitely
miss all of the seniors next
year,” said Wall, who has two
more years in the pool.
As Wall mentioned, the
fourth-years will be missed, as
many of them had great careers
in the pool and on the board.
Notably, Matthew Staab and
Anthony Restaino concluded
their illustrious careers as Hon-
orable Mention All-Americans
in the three-meter dive, as Staab finished 10th with 494.05
points and Restaino 14th
with 462.35 points. On the
women’s side, swimmer Jennifer Hill wrapped up her time
in the pool by breaking the
school record, placing 15th in
the 200-yard breaststroke, and
earning Honorable Mention
All-American honors.
Looking forward to next
year, Wall said, “Personally, I
would just like to keep getting
stronger and continue to drop
time in my events. I think it
would be cool to break more
records, especially relay records.”
With lofty goals and a tremendous pool of returning talent, the future looks bright for
Chicago swimming and diving.
Prescott shines as squad has
rocky start to season
Baseball
the three doubles matches, the
Maroons stormed back to take
all six singles matches.
The following day, the Maroons continued their dominance, defeating Whittier 8–1.
This brought the South Siders’
win streak to a total of nine
straight matches. While they
dropped the No. 1 doubles
match, the Maroons were resilient and proceeded to only lose
one game in the second set of
their singles matches.
Unfortunately, the ninematch win streak came to a
close on last Friday against No.
4 Pomona-Pitzer. It was a closely contested game, with the
Maroons falling 5–4. Chicago
won one of the three doubles
matches, followed by a very
contentious group of singles
matches, in which three of the
matches went to decisive third
sets. The contest came down
to No. 4 singles, which was
one of the three that went to a
tiebreaker. In the end, the Maroons were unable to muster
enough strength to take down
Pomona-Pitzer.
Although the streak has ended, there were several positive
points of the Pomona-Pitzer
matchup. Fourth-year Deepak
Sabada was named the UAA
Co-Men’s Tennis Player of the
Week after he extended his
singles matches streak to eight.
“The streak isn’t something
that is on my mind when I play
so I don’t think it adds any pressure,” said Sabada. “[It] definitely helps with confidence as you
know you’ve been successful in
many different situations in the
past.”
This confidence was extremely helpful against Pomona-Pitzer, where he was able to
come back from being down
5–1 in the third set to win.
“I played more fearlessly
when I was down 5–1 and once
I got a couple of games, my opponent got tight,” Sabada said.
Another highlight of the
match was Leung’s easy win,
as he triumphed 6–1 and 6–3
in straight sets in his singles
match.
“What enabled me to be
successful against Pomona was
having the confidence that I
was part of a team that was just
as good, if not better, than Pomona,” said Leung.
Moving forward, this sentiment was also echoed by
second-year Sven Kranz who
said, “We almost upset the No.
4 team in the country, and we
will take that as motivation in
the upcoming weeks.”
The Maroons’ next match
is against No. 3 Wash U, and
based on how close their last
match was, it will definitely be
one to watch. It will take place
at Wash U next Saturday at 9
a.m.
Michael Cheiken
Sports Staff
While most of the student body vacationed for
spring break, the Maroon
baseball team got to work.
On March 21, the squad
kicked off its week with a
visit to Blackburn. When
Blackburn pitcher Tyler
Morgan threw wild pitches
in the sixth and seventh innings, Chicago capitalized
and stole the game away
4–3. Backed by a threehitter from second-year
pitcher Thomas Prescott,
the South Siders won the
second game of the day,
sweeping the doubleheader.
As the road trip continued, however, the Maroons
struggled. Millsaps in Jackson, MS was the next stop,
and the Chicago squad got
shellacked by the Majors,
losing all three games by a
combined score of 36–18.
Chicago looked forward to
better days against Rhodes
College in Memphis, TN.
Those days did not come.
A nine-run second inning
from the Lynx highlighted
the first game. Later in the
day, even though third-year
pitcher Nick Watson threw
a fantastic complete game,
the offense was unable
to provide any support.
Rhodes took both games.
Chicago’s spring break
journey continued into
Georgia. After a quick loss
to LaGrange, the Maroons
hopped back aboard the
bus. The spring break tour
ended in Atlanta with a
doubleheader against UAA
rival Emory. The Eagles
handily beat the Maroons
11–4 and 10–1.
The team returned home
after the week with a 2–8
r e c o r d .Un d i s c o u r a g e d ,
however, Watson noted,
“We definitely showed
some bright spots both defensively and at the plate
during the trip, but we had
trouble putting it all together.”
The postponement of
the March 29 game provided the Maroons with
some reprieve and time for
reflection. “Our practices
continued to focus on good
hitting approaches at the
plate, playing solid defense,
and throwing strikes,” Watson said.
While Chicago had previously struggled to perform well in all of these aspects during a single game,
the Maroons were able to
complete the puzzle during
the April 1 doubleheader against Benedictine.
Watson threw his second
complete game in as many
starts, giving up just one
run on three hits. The batting provided him offense
to match, giving the Chicago squad a 5–1 victory.
After the intermission,
first-year Michael Davis
took the mound. He gave
up three earned runs during his 2.1 innings, but by
that time the Chicago batters had already amassed
a hefty total of six runs.
Benedictine kept the game
close, but the Maroons
were able to hang on to a
7–4 lead as second-year
William Potebnya-Meyer
earned his first save of the
season.
The Maroons’ newfound
success certainly is encouraging. The season is still
young, the team is just
starting to kick into gear,
and a single home game
has yet to be played. This
weekend the Maroons will
travel for a doubleheader
against a 5–7 UW–Platteville team. They will hope
to extend their two-game
winning streak and prove
that their record is nothing
more than a past already far
behind.