For the seventh year in a row, Georgetown students will celebrate spring this weekend by raising money for an oft-forgotten cause: fire safety.

The 2011 Rigby Weekend will kick off on Saturday with a 5K run/3K walk through the Georgetown campus and neighborhood and will end with Rigby Ball, a semi-formal party at Capitol City Brewery. Although Rigby Ball sold out of tickets already, the Run for Rigby is still open for registration.

The Run for Rigby first took place in 2005 to memorialize Daniel H. Rigby, a Georgetown University senior who died the previous October in an off-campus housing fire. The fire appeared to be have been caused by an electrical malfunction and spurred a wave of inspections of off-campus student housing. Of the inspected houses, 150 were found to have violations.

“The goal of the organization is to ensure that no Georgetown student ever again falls victim to the kind of unnecessary accident that took Danny [from his family],” Grace Kane, co-president of the Friends of Rigby Foundation told Vox. Rigby’s family has spearheaded the foundation.

The 2011 Rigby Weekend funds will supply fire-safety equipment to Georgetown students’ housing.

In addition, the foundation helps fund scholarships in Daniel’s memory. So far, the Friends of Rigby have supplied over 800 fire extinguishers and 800 carbon monoxide/smoke detectors, as well as funding community programs.

A GUGS lunch will follow the Rigby Run. Those interested in registering for the race or finding out more about the foundation can visit www.friendsofrigby.org.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday evening, the Southwest Quad Community Council will present two crime-prevention summits, conceived of by the council as “unconventional forums [...] to share the vision and experience of safety precaution practices.”

In an effort spearheaded by Interhall Vice President of External Affairs Dalvin Butler (COL ’13), the council invited the Department of Public Safety’s new crime prevention coordinator, Talib Abdur-Rahim, to help organize and run the summits.

The summits will take place on April 5th from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. in the lobby of McCarthy Hall and April 6th from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. in Reynolds Hall.

They will be open to all students and will offer free laptop and bike registration to the first 10 participants. Each service normally costs $10 and $15, respectively.

Abdur-Rahim and the council will also disseminate safety tips and best practices to help students avoid being a victim of crime.

No other residence halls have made plans as of yet for similar summits, but Butler hopes the idea will spread.

“We must be proactive in providing the safety tips to residents,” he says.  “We cannot prevent or solve crime in a vacuum by passing resolutions or amendments.”

Late for work?  Stranded in Adams Morgan?  Loaded down with groceries?  If these situations spell out C-A-B for you, you better budget an extra dollar for each fare.

Starting yesterday, tax rides in the District of Columbia have an additional $1 surcharge to aid taxi drivers with rising fuel costs.

Mayor Vincent Gray signed an executive order authorizing the fare hike on Saturday, after being advised by the D.C. Taxicab Commission to do so.  The fuel surcharge will remain in effect until July 25th, unless the Commission chooses to repeal it in the meantime.

The surcharge does not apply to interstate rides. Does walking to Rosslyn in order to catch a taxi to Columbia Heights suddenly seem to make a little bit of sense?  Vox’s shoestring budget says yes.

h/t: Georgetown Patch

This weekend, Georgetown will host the “Tenn Cent Fest,” a four-day artistic celebration of Tennessee Williams‘ life.  The festival will kick off on Thursday, March 26th, 100 years after Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi. The festival’s opener will be a conversation with playwright Edward Albee in Gaston Hall at 5 p.m., followed a performance of the play “The Glass Menagerie” at 8 p.m..

Other events include readings and performances of Williams’ works and panels on his legacies featuring the likes of John Waters, playwright Christopher Durang and director Michael Kahn.

Derek Goldman, artistic director of the Davis Performing Arts Center, says, “[t]he opportunity to engage so deeply with the singular lyricism, tenderness, violence, excess, desire, laughter, and tragedy that characterize Williams’ work and life has inspired and transformed our students and our wider community. His work is still radical.”

Williams’ plays are notably part autobiographical. Their dramatic and unsettling portraits of Southern life is often paralleled with Williams’ own turbulent upbringing and adult life.

Through this four-day festival, students, professor and noted theater professionals will pay tribute to Williams and his enduring impact on American theater.

The first ever TedxGeorgetown will take place Wednesday afternoon and evening.

The event, entitled “Netcetera,” features a promotional YouTube ad claiming “every Georgetown student is connected to the world wide web for at least three hours a day.” The video bills the event as exploring “the ways the Internet affects, well, everything else,” including “terrorism, literature, religion, athletics, peace, family, and food.”

Netcetera will showcase Georgetown professors, staff, students and alumni from Georgetown, American University and the University of Maryland, as well as professionals from the online realm.  The speakers’ topics are grouped into the categories of “Community Building,” “Food for Thought,” and “Outside the Lines.”

The TEDxGeorgetown event is free and will take place in the Lohrfink Auditorium is split in to three sections between 4 and 8 p.m. Those interested in attending may RSVP online in order to receive priority seating.

Gaston Hall played host to the current secretary of Homeland Security as well as her two predecessors Tuesday morning.

NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell moderated “The Department of Homeland Security: Year Eight,” which was coordinated by the Aspen Institute and Georgetown University.

Following opening remarks from University President John DeGioia, Mitchell spent approximately an hour aiming questions at current Secretary Janet Napolitano, her immediate predecessor Michael Chertoff, and the first secretary of the DHS Tom Ridge.

On the eighth anniversary of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, all three secretaries stressed the success of the department’s evolution and effectiveness in protecting the country from terrorism.

The DHS “has been successful up until now,” Ridge succinctly asserted.

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One day of this year’s TED conference, titled “The Rediscovery of Wonder,” will be screened in Leavey’s Sellinger Lounge tomorrow. Georgetown is showing the second day of the four-day conference, which will take place through March 4th in Long Beach, California, as part of the TEDxGeorgetown initiative. TEDx invites individuals and groups to hold local versions of the TED conference, and Georgetown’s version was started by the Lecture Fund.

Wednesday’s program consists of sessions “Deep Mystery”; “Worlds Imagined”; “Knowledge Revolution,” which features Bill Gates; and “Radical Collaboration”. The conference’s other notable speakers include journalist David Brooks, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, film critic Roger Ebert, General Stanley McChrystal, and singer Jason Mraz, among others.

TEDxGeorgetown is putting on a local TED conference on March 23rd entitled “Netcetera” which will feature professors and students. To check out the TED offerings, visit www.ted.com or www.hulu.com

Ever wonder exactly how much of the Georgetown experience your tuition pays for?  It turns out the answer is about six months out of every year.  To be precise, today, February 24th, is the last day of the school year that will be paid for by students’ tuition.

The 1634 Society, a group connected to the Senior Class Fund and the Office of Advancement, marks this day every year to point out the importance of alumni giving.  The society’s name comes from the year two Jesuits who were connected with the founding of Georgetown, Andrew White and John Gravenor, first arrived in Maryland.

“What makes Tuition Day so important is the fact that most students don’t realize the impact that alumni giving has on their own four years at Georgetown. Without it, much of what we enjoy most about Georgetown, Georgetown Day for example, simply wouldn’t be possible,” says 1634 Society co-chair Kirsten Hardy (SFS’11).

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Last week, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier called for the Metropolitan Police Department to enlist campus police—such as Georgetown’s Department of Public Safety—in university-related calls that occur off campus.

Julie Green Bataille, associate vice president for communications, praised the new order for clarifying the two police forces’ cooperative efforts. The order stipulates that MPD should invite the university police force to participate in the police response.

This includes both on-campus and off-campus housing calls.  Spokespeople from Catholic University of America and American University said that this practice is already in place at their universities.

Lest you think this means we’re all getting off of our noise violations scot-free from now on, Advisory Neighborhood Commission representative Ed Solomon clarified that MPD will still take the lead in responding to all calls.

If you’re into handcuffs…

If you and your significant other are particularly secure in your love for each other, or you’re hoping to get dumped, spend Valentine’s evening at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment’s “Crimes of Passion” exhibit. For $30.00, you and your loved one can be bound together and led through the museum’s collection of “crimes of passion” exhibit boards. Warning: NOT recommended for first dates.

Whoopie pie?

Tonight, an event that is especially dear to my Mainer heart: Zola Wine & Kitchen is holding a Whoopie Pie Eating Contest. The first-place winner will wow their Valentine with a hard-won couple’s cooking class and a bottle of wine. From 5 PM to 8 PM Friday.

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