Features

Dollars and Sense: UDC’s Tuition Showdown

Every time University of the District of Columbia President Allen Sessoms tries to speak to the crowd assembled in the auditorium of Building 46, seventy students rise and turn their back to him. These are the members of Operation Save UDC, and they have been standing for much of the past two hours, attentive to every detail of the public meeting of the Board of Trustees that is underway. They have reason to be vigilant; the trustees are voting on a proposed 86 percent tuition increase for the students of the University.

By Eric Pilch February 26, 2009

Features

GUSA Senate: the Few, the Proud

"Senate debates are usually controlled by about six people," Johnny Solis (SFS ‘11) said. The five others are members of what Solis only half-jokingly calls "the ‘Bro' clique": not exactly Senate elite, but powerful, vocal senators who often see eye-to-eye.

By Lillian Kaiser February 19, 2009

Features

Dance Dance Revolution: Georgetown’s Ballroom Dancing Team

The music began, a quick four/four. Dryden counted the beats aloud for me through her broad smile as she led me through the steps I had learned a little over an hour ago. How did I get here? A mere 24 hours ago I had become an honorary member of the Georgetown University Ballroom Dance team. But hell, three weeks before that day they weren't even in my periphery.

By Matthew Collins February 12, 2009

Features

Saturday Night Fever: six hours on the beat with DPS

This past weekend, I shadowed several DPS officers on patrol, to see the typical Georgetown weekend from the perspective of the officers paid to keep students safe. What follows is an account of my night on the force.

By Jeff Reger February 5, 2009

Features

Community & Disunity: scrutinizing diversity at Georgetown

You might say Brian Kesten (COL ’10) is on a mission from God. He certainly would. One night in early October 2007, Kesten was lying in bed praying before he... Read more

By Kate Mays January 29, 2009

Features

Party Politics

By the Voice Staff January 22, 2009

Features

Inaugurations: D.C’s Past, Our Nation’s Future

The Constitution’s only requirement for the Inauguration of a president is that he recite a 35-word oath promising to uphold the ideals and values of that document upon which our laws... Read more

By the Voice Staff January 15, 2009

Features

The Best Movies and Albums of 2008

The Voice staff indulges our egos by ranking this year's top ten movies and albums. Best Album - Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer Best Movie - Wall-E Read on to discover the rest of the rankings, a few of which may surprise you...

By the Voice Staff December 4, 2008

Features

Slamming Down Poetry in D.C.

It all comes down to one last vote. The score is tied at four poems each, with one judge voting for Two Deep and one for Jonathan for the last poem. The third judge, sitting at my table, stares at her dry-erase board with a furrowed brow while the audience yells at her—“Two!” “One! One!” “Come on!” It’s the end of the 11th Hour Haiku Head-to-Head Poetry Slam at Busboys & Poets on U Street, and the glory of the win all comes down to which poet this judge picks.

By Shira Hecht November 20, 2008

Features

Underdogs With A Bite: Men’s Basketball Preview 2008-2009

When John Thompson III was named Georgetown’s head coach, the Hoyas had appeared in only one NCAA tournament in the past seven seasons. Under his leadership, the team has gone... Read more

By Tim Shine November 13, 2008

Features

Working for Change: Qatar’s Silent Labor Crisis

Ramesh Sithamparapillai just wants to go home. The 23-year-old Sri Lankan has worked as a cleaner in Qatar since he was 18. He lives in a narrow room filled with... Read more

By Jeff Reger November 6, 2008

Features

Kicking It With Georgetown Women’s Soccer

After an entire first half with many near-perfect attempts but no goals on the field against St. John's, the Georgetown women's soccer team was itching to get on the scoreboard and take control of last Tuesday's game. Minutes into the second half, sophomore defender Courtney Kent came off the bench to capitalize on a throw-in from freshman midfielder Samantha Baker. Heading Baker's throw into the goal, Kent scored the Hoyas' lone goal of the game, defeating St. John's 1-0. The victory marked Georgetown's eleventh win in a season that most had predicted to be mediocre at best.

By Liz Kuebler October 30, 2008

Features

Controversial Catholics…and the third coming of The Georgetown Academy

A few weeks ago, unassuming stacks of 8 1⁄2” by 11” pamphlets appeared around campus beneath the racks that hold the Voice and the Hoya. The Georgetown Academy—which in its past incarnations has ranged from a straightforward Catholic journal of opinion to an acerbic, conservative work of satire that claims to have taken a lawsuit all the way to the Vatican—was back. Most Georgetown students were probably unaware that it had ever come and gone in the first place — petering off around 2001 after its heyday in the late nineties.

David Gregory (COL `10), a Catholic from New York and a member of the Knights of Columbus, is primarily responsible for reviving the Academy and serves as its newest Editor-in-Chief. The independent publication, which first appeared in 1991, is essentially a collection of essays on campus issues often written from a Catholic viewpoint, and is staffed by a largely conservative group of Gregory’s friends, most of whom he knows through campus ministry. According to the Academy’s Staff Editor Matt Cantarino (COL `11), the publication’s mission is to convey Georgetown’s identity as a Catholic one.

By Molly Redden October 23, 2008

Features

Fall Fashion 2008

This fall, fashion takes its cue from the movies. Books like Brideshead Revisited and Atonement set the stage for the never-ending parade of hacking jackets, cocktail dresses and felted hats that marched out of movie screens, onto runways and into stores. High waists and sheer, fluttery sleeves abound, and it’s now possible to sit in class looking like you’re relaxing on some far off terrace, surrounded by Georgian columns with a gin fizz in your hand. This season, draw inspiration from those women from the 30s who rediscovered their waists after the flappers draped their curves away for a decade.

By Katherine Norton October 16, 2008

Features

Art for the People

If it weren’t for the orange and black signs hanging outside, the District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC) would be virtually invisible. A solitary door squashed between a junk shop and a pizza place opens to reveal stairs that lead to a shoebox of a gallery and, behind it, a pin box of a theater, which collectively comprise the District’s self-proclaimed “hub of alternative activity.”

DCAC, a non-profit gallery, theater, and educational center for artists and aspiring artists, bears all the characteristics of a makeshift, underground movement. One must venture outside in order to enter the theater, which used to be a garage. Meanwhile, the 750-square-foot gallery’s whitewashed walls reflect the open-ended, artist-centered vision that DCAC’s founder, Herb White (SFS `57), strived for from the time he founded the Center in 1989 until his death in June 2007.

By Chelsea Paige October 9, 2008

Features

No Money, Mo’ Problems

The Leavey Center buzzed last Friday as juniors, seniors, and graduate students chatted their way through a maze of corporate logo-laden tables at Georgetown’s Career Fair. Students looked for welcoming signs from recruiters representing over 100 employers, but amidst the din and the flurry of strong handshakes, a sense of uncertainty loomed.

By John Lawless October 2, 2008

Features

Is the City Paper dying or just growing up?

“I see the City Paper a year from now as something that is very, very, very much a web machine,” Erik Wemple, editor of the Washington City Paper, said, sitting in his corner office above a side street in Adams Morgan. “[It] had to make a choice so it’s customizing its material for the web and then scrambling as best it can to push it into the paper.

“And if there’s a narrative out there,” he added, “if there’s a long cover story, it’s done on someone’s personal free time.”

Click here to view a slideshow which accompanies the story.

By Sam Sweeney September 25, 2008

Features

The Murphy Code

It was a dark, rainy afternoon in Bamberg, Germany, but Fr. G. Ronald Murphy wasn’t about to let inclement weather thwart his quest. The Jesuit priest, a professor in Georgetown University’s German Department and scholar of medieval literature, was not looking for an obscure manuscript or a quiet refuge in which to spend his sabbatical. Rather, he was seeking the single object that has had the power to capture the imaginations of men and women for centuries, a relic which has inspired works of art ranging from the Arthurian legend and The Da Vinci Code to Indiana Jones and Monty Python. He was looking for the Holy Grail.

By Traviss Cassidy September 18, 2008

Features

High Marks

“In terms of what has actually been happening over the past 20 years, there’s no doubt that there has definitely been grade inflation,” School of Foreign Service Professor Ted Moran said. Moran, who began teaching at Georgetown in 1978, has witnessed the upward surge of grades at the University first-hand.

Georgetown currently lacks any official policy to combat inflation. The University has a recommended grade distribution for all departments and instructors, suggesting that professors attempt to award 30 percent A’s, 54 percent B’s, 13 percent C’s, 2 percent D’s, and 1 percent F’s. But there are no formal, university-wide procedures to address deviations from the recommended guidelines.

By Alisha Crovetto September 11, 2008