At the meeting, James Pickens (COL ’12) and Ace Factor (COL ’12) presented a plan to use the SAO to offer free and confidential information and advice to students accused of conduct violations. According to Factor, administrators who attended the meeting—including Director of Student Conduct Judy Johnson, Director of Student Affairs Anne Koester, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Jeanne Lord, and Director of Residence Life Stephanie Lynch—seemed open to the proposal.

“They were really receptive,” Factor said. “They really liked the idea.”

However, an application for student advisors, which Pickens and Factor originally planned to release as early as the end of this month, has been delayed by the talks, which will continue through the summer, according to Rachel Pugh, the University’s director of media relations.

“We will not send the application out until it is ready, and we are still working on coordination with the University,” Pickens wrote in an email. “The application will certainly go out before September, and we hope to have the office up and running by NSO.”

The pair of students, who joined GUSA President Mike Meaney’s (SFS ’12) cabinet after an unsuccessful presidential campaign last February, also reached out to the Georgetown University Student Rights Initiative, a student-run group with no official ties to the University. The groups hope to work together in coming months.

“GUSA has unique connections to the higher-ups within the University administration that they can use to help advocate for needed changes, and GUSRI will always be there to help give those changes a voice,” GUSRI Director James Butler (SFS ’11) wrote in an email. “We’ve already met with members of the GUSA executive to ensure that we don’t end up with two groups of student advocates that can help accused students with charges or appeals.”

According to Butler, GUSA also offered to work with GUSRI to print and distribute a student rights guide before the beginning of the fall semester.

“The goal is for all students, especially new freshmen, to be able to understand the system so they aren’t blindsided when they start the new academic year,” he wrote.

While the SAO would be a first for Georgetown, the idea is not new to D.C.-area universities. Earlier this semester, Factor and Pickens met with students at American University’s Student Advocacy Center, which has existed since the early 1980s, to figure out how to adapt the service to Georgetown. Since 2009, American’s student advocates have advised more than 200 students facing disciplinary sanctions.

“We get overwhelmingly good feedback,” Matt Kabak, a junior at American who will become the center’s director in May, said. “It’s the competency of our advocates. We hire people that mesh with our organization really well.”

Like American’s Student Advocacy Center, the SAO will be staffed by volunteer student advocates who will be required to hold weekly office hours.

“Whenever anyone has any conflict with the University, the doors of the Student Advocacy Office will be open for people to come in and ask us for advice,” Pickens said.

However, despite the two groups’ efforts to coordinate their services, competition between SOA and GUSRI may still occur if they remain separate entities. Butler believes that GUSRI’s status as an independent organization is an important quality and, as a result, may be more attractive to students.

“I believe that students would probably prefer to talk openly and honestly about their disciplinary charges with an independent group rather than one run through GUSA and the University itself,” he wrote, adding that the group has already helped students earn acquittals during disciplinary hearings. “Thanks to our independent status and funding, we don’t have to worry about censure or loss of grants when we point out bad policy or advise students on utilizing their rights to the fullest.”

Factor and Pickens are nonetheless optimistic about the future of the SAO.

“We hope to make this a cooperative process with them,” Factor said. “But we’re pushing forward regardless of what [GUSRI] does.”

The post GUSA, administration discuss student advocacy appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

University President John DeGioia, Provost James O’Donnell, Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson, as well as traffic and economic development consultants hired by Georgetown will testify at the hearing.

However, community leaders and elected officials from Georgetown’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission will not testify, due to an eleventh-hour request filed by ANC commissioners and the Citizens’ Association of Georgetown to delay their testimony. By delaying the community testimony, residents will have “ample opportunity to express their views,” according to D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who supported the delay with Councilmember Mary Cheh.

After the University filed pre-hearing changes in late March, including plans to add 250 beds on campus or a satellite location, the D.C. Office of Planning announced it would release a revised analysis and testify on May 12.

The order of presentation at the hearing will not change despite the delay and the community testimony will be held after the Office of Planning and DDOT’s presentations.

Nonetheless, the turnout tomorrow is expected to be high. Student advocacy group DC Students Speak, with funding from the Georgetown University Student Association, will provide free shuttle service to the hearing. At later hearings, DCSS plans to present student testimonies to the Zoning Commission.

“We’re really trying to get students to attend because we think it will show the Zoning Commission that the stakeholders are not only the small, vocal group residents opposed to the Campus Plan, but also the students of the University,” DCSS member Alykhan Merali (SFS ‘13) said. “Our presence will set the tone for the rest of the meetings.”

Last night, Burleith Citizens’ Association President Lenore Rubino also announced plans to arrange car pools for residents to attend.

University officials, who have no plans to alter their presentation, are eager to start to the hearing process.

“We look forward to the hearing and will be ready and happy to have it go forward as scheduled,” O’Donnell wrote in an email. “We have a good story to tell.”

The post Campus Plan hearing begins today appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

This girl, who snaps necks and sheds blood like it’s her job, who was raised by her father (Eric Bana) in a remote cabin just below the Arctic Circle, who was trained by dear old dad in God knows how many languages and fighting styles but has never seen a television, heard music, or used the Internet, apparently found time to throw on a pair of earrings in between hunting elk and outrunning a ruthless bunch of assassins led by CIA handler Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett).

Hanna opens with the title character (Saoirse Ronan) questioning her spartan lifestyle, but her father soon gives her a choice: if she turns on a signal beacon in the cabin, she will leave—and face the people who want her dead. She flips the switch on the years-old device, immediately gets captured, and then, after a prolonged escape plan, breaks out of an underground complex in the Moroccan desert.

The contrast of her situation is obvious; Hanna is supposed to be a girl raised outside of our world. Sure, she wears that familiar tough-girl look that screams, “I am a raging bitch.” But she’s not—Ronan plays the character blithe and wide-eyed to the world around her, charmingly excited about all those normal teenage things she’s missed, like befriending a girl her age (Jessica Barden) or riding a motorcycle for the first time.

Then, as more nasty bits about off-the-book CIA operations and her father’s murky past emerge, an icy mask glazes over Hanna’s face. She’s on her own and she doesn’t want to hurt anybody anymore. She wants to avoid her prescribed destiny, but can’t seem to stop dispatching baddies.

Thankfully, the deeds are done in graceful, meticulous scenes that seem to react against the shaky camerawork and disjointed cuts championed by The Bourne Identity and just about every other action movie released since. The shakes inevitably seep in, but are overpowered by long tracking shots that follow sequences of ass-kickings across bleak urban scenery. Wright is a bit obsessed with this shot (it most memorably appeared in Atonement, when he first worked with Ronan) and the way he brags with it is warranted—it looks great set to the Chemical Brothers’ thumping, bass-heavy score.

But beyond the camerawork, Hanna really gets interesting when our heroine has no villains to immediately conquer. Below the surface, Hanna has fairy tale sensibilities—her dead mother and yearning for the outside world suggest a story fit for a Disney princess, not a killing machine. (She even hides a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales under her pillow.) If she could only vanquish the evil witch once and for all, she’d live happily ever after with daddy.

But Hanna doesn’t live in that kind of fairy tale. She has to run and punch and maim her way to freedom. When she cries, she’s faking. When she kills, she doesn’t flinch. And sadly, she never comes of age. The perfect soldier doesn’t change.

Except, apparently, for a piercing or two.

The post Hanna: Like Kill Bill, with a teenager appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

“If I jump, will you catch me?“ she asked him.

Was she concerned about her safety? After all, she was standing in the middle of the intersection of Prospect and 34th Streets, watching taxis whiz by as they picked up anyone who stuck around an M Street bar until closing time.

“I see that pen in your hand! You’re going to write us up, aren’t you?” she said.

LeBlanc, a Student Neighborhood Assistance Program representative, certainly didn’t look like he wanted the faux pelt-wearing stranger jumping into his folded arms. Instead, he urged her back toward the sidewalk, his arms crossed and a knowing grin spread across his face. Meanwhile, her friends stood on the opposite end of the street, giggling and shouting.

“Maybe I should call GERMS,” LeBlanc said, jokingly.

She screwed up her face, cocking her head at an angle that would topple over most sober people. Then, she returned a tease of her own.

“Doesn’t it suck to write people up?” she asked.

*

Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, SNAP representatives patrol Burleith and West Georgetown from 10 p.m. until 3 a.m., on the lookout for crime, safety issues, and out-of-control parties.

The service is in its eleventh year, although earlier programs operated through the 1990s under different names. But perhaps now, in the midst of a controversial Campus Plan approval process and an increasingly strained relationship between the University and the community around it, SNAP is more relevant than ever.

“The primary goal is to educate students,” Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Jeanne Lord said. “It’s not punitive. … We want to catch them before they reach a level where MPD might have to respond.”

The key to striking a balance between educational and judicial purposes, Lord explained, is acting before neighbors complain about loud parties.

“The majority of the stops are proactive ones and that really works to the students’ benefit,” she said. “That’s our goal.”

Cory Peterson, a SNAP representative and area coordinator in the Office of Residence Life, echoed Lord’s sentiment.

“We try to be more proactive than reactive,” Peterson said.

“Proactive” is a word you hear a lot if you hang around SNAP patrols, as I did last weekend. I met LeBlanc and Peterson on campus at 11 p.m. on Saturday, before they joined a nightly “roll call” meeting inside the Department of Public Safety’s Village C West headquarters. At the meeting, they shared information about the evening’s goings-on with DPS officers, off-duty Metropolitan Police Department officers, and Allied Barton private security officers, who all also patrol on weekend nights.

“We do it during every shift,” LeBlanc said. “Over time, it helps us build a relationship with DPS and MPD officers.”

Despite these working relationships, SNAP’s proactive approach aims to intercede before other authorities like MPD can step in and act. Before the University’s Office of Off-Campus Life remodeled SNAP in the fall of 2007, it was a response-only program that did operate nightly patrols. Now, SNAP’s neighborhood hotline dials directly to a cell phone carried by a patrolling SNAP representative.

SNAP’s efforts have become all the more important to the University since a disorderly conduct law amended by the D.C. City Council took effect last month. The law, which prohibits any loud noise between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. that is “likely to annoy or disturb one or more other persons in their residences,” can lead to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine.

“Since the law, we’ve been told to straight up shut parties down,” Dennie Flowers (COL ‘96), a SNAP representative who also works in Yates Field House, said. “It’s a way to make sure MPD isn’t involved. It keeps the kids out of trouble.”

Other SNAP representatives tell a different story, claiming that a January 2009 MPD decision to reauthorize the use of 61-D citations, which are noise fines that count as an arrest on criminal records, had already encouraged them to act early.

“I wouldn’t say we use the law as a deterrent,” Peterson said. “Just as before the disorderly conduct law, we would tell them about the 61-D and how they can issue it and this is what it is and this is what the fine is.”

After the roll call meeting, I joined Peterson and Lord on the West Georgetown route, later switching to LeBlanc’s Burleith patrol. Within minutes, Peterson mentioned the “P” word again.

“I’d much rather see a student talk to us than end up in cuffs at District 2,” Peterson said while peering down an alleyway along 36th Street. “That’s never our goal.”

The West Georgetown patrol, like its Burleith counterpart, has no defined route. It spans every street between the front gates and Wisconsin Avenue, bounded by Q Street to the north and M Street to the south. Peterson told me he prefers the route because of the area’s high traffic.

“I don’t ride Burleith as much as I ride West Georgetown,” he said. “The reason why is with more foot traffic, it’s easier to stay awake. It really has nothing to do with it being more exciting or anything else.”

The first response I observed came shortly before midnight on the 3400 block of N Street. As Peterson and a private security officer who drove the SNAP car approached the townhouse, partygoers peered out of a second-story window, but didn’t appear to quiet down. Peterson explained that he’s stopped at the house once before, but only as guests were leaving. This time, the party was just starting.

“We’re looking and listening for suspicious activity and excessive noise,” Peterson said. “If the noise is breaching the backyard into the street, that’s a sign.”

The interaction between Peterson and the woman who answered the door followed a pattern that SNAP representatives might call ideal—he told her that he could hear the party from the street, then gave her the opportunity to quiet her guests or end the party before MPD noticed. The woman smiled and thanked him, then closed the door.

“That seemed to be pretty effective, right?” Lord asked Peterson as returned to the car.

“We’ll see,” he said.

The visit, like all others that SNAP makes, will be documented on Peterson’s ever-present clipboard. He’ll submit a report of the incident to the Office of Off-Campus Student Life on Monday morning. (For incidents that involve students living on campus, reports are sent to the Office of Residence Life). Anne Koester, director of Off-Campus Student Life, will then contact, and possibly meet with, the students who live in the residence.

Koester decides when to dole out punitive sanctions, which can range from fines, mandatory work hours, and party restrictions to alcohol education classes, mandatory reflection papers, and disciplinary probation, based on a student’s judicial history and the details of the incident.

“It is my practice to follow up on all SNAP reports received by meeting with the students involved and discussing the relevant report with them,” she wrote in an email. “Whether the follow-up leads to disciplinary sanctions pursuant to the Code of Student Conduct depends on a variety of factors, such as the circumstances of the incident.”

The Office of Off-Campus Student Life prides itself on Koester’s ability to determine appropriate punitive action, according to Lord.

“Each one of these incidents is addressed on a case-by-case basis,” she said. “It’s not a presumption that students have done something wrong. Anne takes a lot of time and is really thoughtful in those conversations with students.”

Some students, such as Matt Lavin (COL ‘11), who rents a row house on Reservoir Road, agree with Lord. In January, SNAP shut down a party at his house while responding to a neighbor’s misinformed complaint. The following Monday, Koester emailed Lavin and his housemates with a request to meet with her. Although this kind of visit is called a “disciplinary meeting” by the Office of Off-Campus Student Life, Lavin was surprised to learn that it didn’t guarantee disciplinary action.

“I imagined it was going to be worse,” he said. “[Koester] told us what was in the SNAP report and went over the details to make sure it was all true. Since the call wasn’t meant for our house, there was no punishment. No anything.”

*

Shortly after midnight on Sunday morning, the West Georgetown SNAP patrol ran into its distant relative—a private security officer hired by the Citizens’ Association of Georgetown. Although no official relationship exists between CAG and SNAP, many of the hired officers who work for the groups personally know each other—they even worked for the same company until last fall.

The officer told Peterson about loud noises he heard on the 1300 block of 35th Street. A search of the area, however, turned up little evidence to back up his claim. Still, Peterson visited the alleged party house to tell residents about the complaint.

“All I hear is foot traffic,” he said. “I think I can hear something in the backyard, but it’s not that loud.”

A student answered the door, claiming that the noise came from a townhouse behind his property, and promised to talk with the residents. While shaking hands with Peterson, he thanked SNAP for stopping by.

“He told me he appreciated us,” Peterson said. “He said that when MPD shows up, it’s always a bit tense.”

Although the University pays three off-duty MPD officers, known as the reimbursable detail, to patrol West Georgetown and Burleith in conjunction with SNAP, students almost universally prefer to deal with SNAP.

“SNAP seems to be a better alternative to having to deal with Metro,” Lavin said. “It could be a lot worse.”

However, many residents argue that SNAP is a poor way to control off-campus parties. Community leaders, such as CAG President Jennifer Altemus and Burleith Citizens’ Association President Lenore Rubino, encourage residents to call 9-1-1 to report noise complaints.

“We haven’t found SNAP to be an effective deterrent because people still have parties in the same places over and over again,” Altemus said. “If there’s illegal activity, they should call the police. Most of the time SNAP was called, residents found it to be ineffective.”

As one of the people responsible for the creation of SNAP, Lord strongly disagreed.

“It’s frustrating when people choose not to use it,” she said. “We feel very strongly that we provide this resource and we’d like to reserve MPD for more serious things. We would like our neighbors to call SNAP first.”

*

Almost a mile away from West Georgetown, SNAP’s Burleith patrol wasn’t doing much work, proactive or otherwise. Only one call came in before midnight, but the caller, a Georgetown student, didn’t make a formal complaint.

According to LeBlanc, the number of complaints SNAP receives can vary wildly from weekend to weekend.

“There are nights where one neighborhood seems to have all the action going on and the other neighborhood will be dead,” he said. “It depends.”

But after a while, a call came into the SNAP hotline from a resident on the 3700 block of R Street, complaining about a party at a nearby student townhouse. According to LeBlanc, reasonable amounts of noise early in the evening can quickly become intolerable to some residents.

“Once we get past 11 p.m. or 11:30 p.m. into the 12 a.m. range, the line between appropriate and inappropriate is much more well defined,” he said.

The SNAP car approached the party from the alleyway between R Street and Reservoir Road, where LeBlanc was told that the noise was loudest. As he stepped out of the car to speak with the party hosts, his phone rang again—it was the resident who filed the complaint, confirming that he had the right house.

“When SNAP showed up, there was no more than 15 people at the house,” Issei Nino (COL ‘12), who was celebrating his 21st birthday in the house on Saturday night, wrote in an email. “SNAP explained exactly what the neighbor complained about, and we immediately turned the music off and kept it extremely low for the rest of the evening.”

Despite Nino’s compliance, his case could potentially be hurt by the actions of his guests, whom he called “friends of friends who were visiting from Harvard.” According to LeBlanc, the guests were “rude and disrespectful” when he approached Nino’s back porch.

“That was a good instance where the residents of the house responded very nicely, but some of their guests were not as well behaved,” he said. “Those people are going to get to go home, but the people who live in that house are going to be called in for a meeting. If you’re a party host, you’re responsible for your guests’ behavior as well.”

On Wednesday, Koester requested a disciplinary meeting with Nino, who did not know SNAP was responding to a noise complaint at his house until LeBlanc walked around the block and knocked on his front door.  He plans to meet her on Thursday.

“He told us what happened and that he wanted to see those specific students leave, so we kicked them out immediately,” Nino wrote. “The student in question had been a pain all night actually, treating guests disrespectfully, so it was kind of nice that we had an excuse to kick him out.”

Ultimately, Nino believes that SNAP must balance its duel roles as educator and punisher to be effective.

“SNAP should be able to impose sanctions and potentially shut down the party if students aren’t compliant after their initial warnings,” he wrote. “SNAP’s initial goal should be to serve as a warning, but if warnings aren’t heeded then it’s the student’s fault and they should rightfully suffer the consequences.”

*

A day earlier, LeBlanc finally convinced his new panda-hat wearing friend to step onto the sidewalk. Although some SNAP representatives only leave their cars to talk to the hosts of unruly parties, he believes SNAP’s charge to “enhance student and neighborhood safety” also means taking care of those who might not be able to take care of themselves.

“There are times when we just want to make sure people get home safely,” he said. “We’ll walk them home, onto campus, wait with them until a SafeRides van comes to pick them up. There’s that judgment to consider, too—when they don’t need to be GERMed, but they’re not okay to get home on their own.”

LeBlanc’s friendly questioning of the student’s friends revealed that her brother lived immediately across the street on the 3300 block of Prospect Street. LeBlanc walked the student to the house, watching carefully as she stumbled up a staircase to the door.

“I’m not showing up with a badge,” he said hours later. “I’m showing up in a hoodie and clipboard. It puts people at ease.”

As she closed the door behind her, LeBlanc turned and began walking towards Wisconsin Avenue. Closing time means that she won’t be the only one who needs help getting home.

“I really want to be as friendly with them as much as I can be,” he said. “If they’re responsive to that, we can all have a great night.”

The post Oh, SNAP: A weekend with the party police appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

The woman, who was not identified by University or city officials, was operating a forklift-like piece of equipment known as a lift platform when she became pinned on an elevated surface between scaffolding and an overhead railing. After her coworkers freed her and administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation, D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services rushed her to George Washington University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Whiting-Turner Construction, the company responsible for the building site, informed the University that the worker died later that afternoon, according to the University’s Senior Vice President Spiros Dimolitsas.

“It is not clear whether the injuries were work related or due to some kind of medical emergency,” Dimolitsas wrote in an email to the Georgetown community Wednesday evening.

At the time of the accident, D.C. Fire EMS reported on Twitter that the worker, who was employed by Cleveland Construction Company, a subcontractor of Whiting-Turner, was pinned by a forklift in an underground worksite. Later, D.C. Fire EMS spokesperson Pete Piringer told Georgetown Patch that the victim’s injuries were consistent with reports that she was pinned between the scaffolding and railing. Piringer did not respond to requests for clarification.

Dimolitsas added that the worksite was shut down on Wednesday out of respect for the workers. The Metropolitan Police Department and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will open an investigation into the incident.

According to the Washington Post, the worker was taken to GWU Hospital instead of Georgetown University Hospital because emergency responders determined it had better resources for her treatment. As a level-1 trauma center, GWU Hospital has trauma specialists and equipment available for high-priority incidents 24 hours per day.

Officials from Whiting-Turner could not be reached for comment.

The post Construction worker killed in accident at science center site appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

“We were given no formal opportunity to provide feedback on the existing Funding Guidelines prior to the release of the new funding guidelines,” the group wrote in a letter, which will be released Thursday.

Under the new funding guidelines, SAC will allocate funds  to events based on anticipated attendance. Clubs will also be allowed to hold a single fundraising event per semester not planned in its annual programming arc, which clubs must submit to SAC by early March.

The representatives who signed the letter, including students from the International Relations Club, Philodemic Society, GU PRIDE, the Georgetown University Student Association and GU College Democrats, claim that the guidelines will have an adverse effect on club programming at Georgetown.

“Clubs cannot hold any events that are not on their Programming Arc,” the letter reads. “This inhibits creativity, undermines the authority of newly elected boards, and makes it more difficult for clubs to adapt programming to club members’ wants.”

Nonetheless, SAC officials believe that its funding guidelines are an effective means to meet clubs’ needs.

“The allocation amounts are based on three years of hard data, which we feel accurately reflects programming needs, not wants,” SAC Commissioner Ruiyong Chen (SFS ‘13) wrote in an email. “Student group feedback, formal and informal, is certainly very important in that revision process, but we also have to consider how those needs fit within the existing framework of University policies and processes.”

SAC Chair Andrew Koenig (COL ‘12) plans to release an open letter of on behalf of SAC on Thursday, in response to a letter signed last week by club leaders, Georgetown University Student Association representatives, and former SAC commissioners. Although SAC officials declined to comment about the letter, they plan to vote on an amendment next Monday that will allow for mid-semester amendments to funding guidelines.

“[The amendment] was brought up in response to some of the concerns that were raised by the open letter and during the bulk allocation information sessions going on this week,” Chen wrote.

While some students, such as College Democrats Vice President Jake Sticka (COL ’13) believe mid-semester amendments are “a small step in the right direction,” others believe SAC needs to offer more opportunities for feedback from clubs.

“Under the funding guidelines created last semester, the Philodemic lost a significant portion of our requested budget,” Emma Green (COL ’12), Philodemic treasurer, wrote in an email. “After reaching out to our commissioner and the Chair of SAC to request a formal feedback session, our concerns were still not addressed and no formal feedback session was held.”

Green’s opinion was echoed by Eitan Paul (SFS ’12), chair of the International Relations Club.

“[E]ven after communicating individually with SAC Commissioners throughout last semester and this semester, we are still unable to participate in or even observe the process of improving Funding Guidelines,” Paul wrote in an email. “Moreover, we had no way of determining whether our suggestions were actually considered or why they were ultimately ignored.”

Despite the complaints, Chen argued that clubs have the opportunity to offer feedback.

“While there were no formal ways such as town halls to share their thoughts specifically about the funding guidelines, student groups and their leaders are and have always been encouraged to communicate with their SAC commissioner and their [Center for Student Programs] adviser about any concerns they may have, some of which were then brought to the table for discussion and consideration,” she wrote.

The post Clubs, SAC lock horns over funding appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

Credit: Jackson Perry

On Sunday, the Georgetown University Student Association announced plans to create an Endowment Commission that will propose how to spend the $3.4 million left over from the Student Activities Fund Endowment.

The Commission, which will be staffed by 15 undergraduate students, must submit no more than five super-majority-approved proposals  to GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee no later than Apr. 25. If approved by that committee and the GUSA Senate, the proposals will be presented in a campus-wide referendum.

The students on the Commission will include GUSA’s FinApp Chair, as well as 14 other undergraduates from the GUSA Executive, the GUSA Senate, the Corp, the Georgetown University Alumni and Student Federal Credit Union, the Georgetown Program Board, the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access, and the advisory boards of Club Sports, the Center for Social Justice, the Student Activities Commission, the Media Board, and Performing Arts Advisory Council.

“I believe the members of this Commission, while they do represent different campus organizations, will be sitting on the Commission as students first,” FinApp Chair Greg Laverriere (COL ’12) wrote in an email. “All these groups were included on the commission because they have different backgrounds and experiences from across Georgetown, but collectively they can represent the general student body effectively.”

The Endowment Commission is the latest step in GUSA’s yea-long Student Activities Fee Endowment reform, which passed a student referendum last December. The $3.4 million endowment, which is held in multiple accounts, was created in 2000 with hopes that it would eventually replace the Student Activities Fee. However, poor economic conditions and a lack of pledged University support doomed the plan.

As of Thursday, only the Media Board has selected its representative, Rich Rinaldi (MSB ’12). Rinaldi declined to comment because he just recently learned of the commission. Other groups, such as the PAAC and SAC, plan to select their representatives soon.

“We did not approach all the groups beforehand, but are now extending invitations now that the plans for the commission have been finalized,” Colton Malkerson (COL ’13), FinApp committee vice chair, wrote in an email. “Any group can decline to appoint a representative and we will fill the slot with another student.”

Malkerson added that he hopes to have all the commission positions filled “within a week or two at the latest.” If a group declines to appoint a representative, the FinApp Committee will appoint someone from the general student body to fill the position.

After the commission is filled, members will select a chair, who cannot be currently associated with GUSA. The commission meetings will remain open to the public.

“Students will absolutely have the ability to come before the commission to present their ideas,” Malkerson wrote. “In fact, we hope students, administrators, and alumni present ideas. If you have a good idea on how to spend the money, it should be heard.”

The post Students to decide fate of GUSA’s $3.4 million fund appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

“We were safe on campus, which despite being located in Cairo, is actually about a 45-minute bus ride away from all of the happenings, but we were warned not to go into the city,” Jennifer Chau (COL ’12), who lived on AUC’s campus, wrote in an email. “If we were to go, we were to stay in groups and watch from rooftops.”

In a teleconference with University officials on Monday, the students expressed gratitude for the University’s role in their evacuation.

“I’m sure glad I got the international Blackberry before I left the States,” Benjamin Johnson (SFS ’12) joked, referring to the Egyptian government’s shutdown of Internet and cell phone access. “It’s been a really crazy 24 hours, especially the airport. That two-hour time period felt like a two-week time period that none of us are ever going to forget.”

After the University’s Emergency Response Team—a group comprised of different parts of the University’s administrative infrastructure, from the Office of Communications to University Information Services—decided to evacuate the students on Sunday, University officials shaped an evacuation plan that involved commercial, charter, and State Department-funded flights.

Julie Green Bataille, a university spokesperson, wrote in an email that Georgetown took advantage of the first flight that became available.

“There were a number of people from different schools who called their schools on Sunday and their study abroad people or whoever they were calling had no idea how to get them out,” Rich Rinaldi (MSB ’12), another student studying abroad at AUC, said. “The whole time [Georgetown] was on top of it.”

The students, who were some of few at AUC to have a confirmed flight, departed Egypt at 2 p.m. on Jan. 31 and arrived in Doha, Qatar the same day. According to Bataille, the University worked closely with State Department and AUC officials to coordinate the evacuation. Department of Public Safety Director Rocco DelMonaco, who was visiting the School of Foreign Service’s Qatar campus with Director of Safety Phil Hagan on unrelated business, met the students in Doha.

“[DelMonaco and Hagan] oversaw some of the emergency planning from [Doha] along with many of the SFS-Q staff and in consultation with the ERT team in Washington,” Bataille explained.

Chau recounted the hectic atmosphere at the airport as the students waited for their flight.

“I was stuck in this mob of people trying to rush out,” she said. “Nobody was moving anywhere because there was so many people. People were throwing luggage over my head because they were trying to get to the other side [of the airport].”

While their children were evacuating a country experiencing rapidly growing demonstrations, the parents of the students monitored their status on a private website created by the University’s Office of International Programs.  According to Bataille, the website is a part of the University’s planning for overseas emergencies.

“[The website] consisted of textual information about the status of the evacuation,” Diane Vine, the mother of Lauren Vine (SFS ’12), wrote in an email. “It also updated us when the students arrived at the airport in Cairo and when they arrived in Doha.  We are continuing to receive information including additional contacts in Doha for the students.”

Vine, who is one of the three students returning to campus Thursday, stayed in touch with her parents while in Cairo via sporadic cell phone and Internet access.

“I would give Georgetown the highest rating for the handling of this situation,” Vine, who spoke with her daughter before she returned to the United States earlier this week, wrote. “I keep telling my friends and family that they were amazing.”

During Tuesday’s teleconference, Provost James O’Donnell explained how the University plans to accommodate the displaced students. A team comprised of University Registrar John Pierce, Director of Student Financial Services Patricia McWade, advising deans from Georgetown College, School of Foreign Service, and McDonough School of Business, as well as Director of the Office of International Programs Kathy Bellows will advise the students about their academic and financial options.

“We want every single one of you to have the very best semester you can possible have from this point forward,” O’Donnell said. “We don’t know what that’s going to be yet, but we want you to have that best semester. It won’t be one size fits all. It won’t be cookie-cutter.”

Chau, who corresponded with the Voice before leaving Cairo, expressed ambiguous feelings about the evacuation.

“After being in Egypt barely a week, I have seen, felt, and heard a great deal. Right now, a lot is uncertain,” she wrote. “What I do know is that I am already more grateful and more appreciative of the life I have in the U.S., including Georgetown. As for the next four months of this semester, who knows what else they will bring for me?”

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Photo: Julianne Deno

After an introduction by Johnny Solis (SFS ‘11), Porterfield talked about the joy of college and how it prepares students for life’s difficulties. Although graduation can present daunting questions, he said, he warned against focusing on “the fulfillment of externally-defined success.”

“If the plan is to stay out of jail and keep learning, that’s a good plan,” he joked.

Porterfield added that he is leaving in order to embody the path he encouraged students to follow.

“Change is not a bad thing,” he said. “Change is a good thing.”

Reporting by Matt Kerwin

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“Certain people are casual. Certain foods are casual. Certain things are casual. And certain Big East teams that play at the Verizon Center can be both casual and not casual depending on the game,” Geiger wrote in an email.

Casual Hoya isn’t just a bored alum’s musing, however; it’s become many fans’ go-to source for everything Georgetown basketball. As the site’s audience responded favorably to its unique style, traffic rose by more than 900 percent between September 2009 and September 2010.

It all started after Geiger was fired from “some awful finance job” and began writing about Georgetown basketball online as Casual Hoya in 2008. He started off on his own, but within mere months, SB Nation approached him to join its sports blog network.

“We aim to bring in the most high quality, fan-centric communities out there. Casual Hoya was and is a perfect example of that,” Tyler Bleszinski, founder and executive director of SB Nation, wrote in an email.

Before he would join SB Nation, Geiger needed some help. He recruited Ankit Bishnoi (MSB ‘06), who ran a personal Georgetown basketball blog under the pseudonym Hire Esherick.

“Casual contacted me to start the SB Nation thing with him,” Bishnoi wrote in an email. “I thought the idea of merging blogs was funny and went along with it. Worst decision ever.”

Although Casual Hoya launched less than two years ago, it is already a success by any standard. The site draws more than 13,000 daily page views during the basketball season and now boasts three more anonymous editors: Jeff Green’s Dad, itsallthatmatters, and lordnick. Even Matt Glaude, the man behind the Syracuse basketball blog Hoya Suxa, offered his compliments to the gang.

“I used to read [Bishnoi’s blog], then when they moved over to SB Nation, I started reading [Casual Hoya] like everyone else,” Glaude said. “It’s definitely changed things for me. I’m watching as many Hoyas games as I am Orange games now, which is nuts.”

Casual Hoya did have its bumps, however. Last year, Bishnoi and Geiger heard rumors about members of the men’s basketball team reading their blog posts. Henry Sims and Julian Vaughn began to tease Casual Hoya through their Twitter accounts.

Although the writers responded to the jabs—they even established their collective self as the arch-nemesis to Vaughn’s Swagman, his online superhero alter-ego—they had trouble reconciling objective, critical blogging with their desire to see the Hoyas win.

“We’ve decided that interacting with the players is something we’re not going to do going forward,” Geiger wrote. “At the end of the day it’s our job to report on Hoya hoops and engaging guys on the team doesn’t do anything to help us achieve that.”

Together, the five-man editorial staff covers Georgetown basketball unlike any newspaper or sports media outlet: Bishnoi is the closest to a traditional sports journalist, Geiger adds a funny, whimsical edge, and the rest of the staff provide fans’ perspectives to the site. They are tight-knit group. Despite only meeting in person once a year, they trade 100 to 150 emails back and forth daily.

“[We’re] the bestest of blog friends,” Geiger wrote. “One weekend out of the year we host a Casual Extravaganza D.C. on a day when the Hoyas play that allows us to all get together and make fun of one another in person as opposed to our usual email forum.”

On Casual Hoya’s front page, capital-lettered text declares that the blog is a “global phenomenon.” The claim isn’t far from the truth; Casual Hoya headbands, which were given away at the Verizon Center last year, have popped up as far away as Spain, Zimbabwe, and the Virgin Islands.

And though it may not be a global phenomenon yet, Casual Hoya has definitely conquered the Hilltop.

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