When you see a sophomore girl selling towels in Red Square next month to raise money for a charity, know this: she could have been in movies.

But lifelong surfer Emi Koch (COL ‘12) turned down that opportunity years ago to start an international non-profit to support opportunities for impoverished children instead. Now, she’s head of Beyond the Surface, International, a group that raises money to support centers where underprivileged children in Peru, South Africa, and India can learn to surf—a positive activity, Koch said, for children in poor communities where there usually aren’t alternatives.

“In Western society, we’re so used to having a Boy Scout group a Girl Scout group, or a volleyball club,” she said, “but there they don’t really have anything like that, so this gives them more self-empowerment and more self-confidence.”

In Peru, the center Beyond the Surface sponsors works with providing children with an activity after school. The second center is located in South Africa, where Koch said it serves as more of a rehabilitation clinic. Sniffing glue has become a popular drug addiction among the children in the community where the center is located, she said, and the surfing serves as a tool for rehabilitation. The third center, located in India, is dedicated to keeping kids out of violent street gangs. The center tries to get children off the streets by replacing their gang with a home in the life of surfing.

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One of the best things about being on Twitter is being able to follow members of the Georgetown men’s basketball team. Bottom line, they’re entertaining. So from now until the end of the basketball season, we’ll be featuring our favorite tweets from the Hoyas in a special Tweetacular every Friday.

Julian Vaughn thinks it’s time for couples to recognize dating rules for the new decade.

Greg Monroe would like to maintain his individuality among his fellow players.

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Later this month, the Academics Working Group plans to release its first proposals for how Georgetown can improve diversity in its curriculum. The group, one of three diversity working groups formed by President DeGioia last spring after The Hoya’s April Fools’ Issues prompted a broad discussion of diversity at Georgetown, is geared toward determining what Georgetown is lacking in its course offerings with regards to diversity. Stephanie Frenel (SFS ’12), who serves as a student representative to the faculty co-chairs of the group, said its recommendations will probably include recommendations for new course requirements.

The group has been working to examine how Georgetown’s curriculum offerings compare to peer schools’ and form suggestions for how Georgetown can improve their requirements in ethnic studies since the Spring of 2009. Over the summer, they compared the curriculum at Georgetown to that of schools with similar rankings to determine where Georgetown needed to enhance diversity in its course offerings.

The group is co-chaired by Veronica Salles Reese, the Director for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and Professor Eusebio Mujal-Leon of the Government Department and began as small discussion groups among students that were loosely overseen by Provost James O’Donnell. Duyen Bui (SFS ’10), who acts as a facilitator for student discussions and Stephanie Frenel (SFS ’12), who serves as a student representative to the faculty co-chairs, were the two students mainly responsible for gathering student input on how to increase diversity in the curriculum.

The graphs above show the results of their research. Points were allotted to Georgetown and its peer institutions based on their course offerings. The University of Maryland-College Park was one of the institutions with a model curriculum for ethnic studies. They examined their top institutions like Harvard, Columbia, and Yale, finding that each has a much more diverse curriculum than Georgetown. As the graph shows, Georgetown is at the bottom compared to its peers, and is the only school that offers only a minor in African American studies with no general education requirements or majors in any of the three diversity areas.

Bui said that based on these findings, one question became obvious to the whole group: “If we’re one of the top international institutions, why are we so behind?”

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This week’s male Date Labber listed “sweet’’ and “caring” as the first two things that came to his mind when asked to describe his type. So, we found it appropriate to set him up with a girl who seemed sweet and caring—she’s spent her time teaching in rural and underdeveloped communities around the world, and wants to use her intelligence and interests in international affairs to make a difference.

We thought the fact that she was older and well-traveled would stimulate conversation with a guy who would choose The Amazing Race over any other reality show to be cast on because he thought “it’d be awesome to travel the world and I would totally win.”

But we knew that if these two were going to fall for one another and take whirlwind, romantic trips around the globe together, they would have to have a fun side. Since he said he loves dance parties, and she spends her weekends socializing with the theater community, Vox didn’t think that would be a problem. So, would their attraction travel as far as their overseas ambitions?

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Cherry Tree Massacre

One of the biggest a capella festivals of the year kicks off this weekend—the Cherry Tree Massacre makes its debut in Gaston Hall on Friday. The Georgetown Chimes host a performance that features Georgetown’s various a capella groups as well as acts from other campuses. Now in its 37th year, Cherry Tree Massacre has the Phantoms, Gracenotes, and Saxatones in its lineup along with groups from Fordham University, James Madison University, and Tufts. Tickets for the Friday performance are sold out, but students may still reserve tickets for February 5, 6, 19, or 27 at georgetownchimes.org for $10 each. The show will be held at 7:30 p.m. each night.

From Death Row to Freedom

Shujaa Graham, a wrongly convicted individual who spent five years on death row, will be sharing his perspective on the death penalty on Tuesday, February 2, in a lecture hosted by the Georgetown University Lecture Fund. At 8:00 p.m., “From Death Row to Freedom,” an event co-sponsored by Witness to Innocence and GU Right to Life along with the Lecture Fund will discuss the dilemma behind the wrongful conviction of 139 American citizens who have been on death row. The event will take place from 8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. in White Gravenor 201B.

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The Student Life Working Group, one of the three diversity working groups that President John DeGioia established at an April 2009 town hall, is not quite ready to present all of the proposals it has for encouraging more diversity and tolerance in student life at Georgetown. But Joshua Guzman (SFS ‘10), pictured right, who co-chairs the group with Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson, said they have already come up with several things they’d like to include.

“We’re just trying to find a way that we can institutionalize all that work that students put into making Georgetown a safer place and a more diverse environment,” Guzman said. “In my opinion, there’s definitely a culture of apathy on campus and a lot of people just don’t care, but we definitely should start telling people to care about these issues.”

Last semester, the admission and recruitment working group revealed its suggestions for altering admissions so that it encourages a more diverse applicant pool. These included new scholarships aimed at increasing need-blind aid, diversifying tour guides, changing essay prompts, and many other ways Georgetown could increase enrollment by underrepresented minorities.

“Student life made it a priority to get as much input not only from students, but from staff involved. I think people were really engaged and active in these dialogues and conversation, and overall the feeling was very positive about the work that we’re doing.”

The working group is split into two subcommittees: the Institutional Change Subcommittee for long-term goals and the Student Programs/Organizations Subcommittee for short-term goals. Each subcommittee has provided three preliminary recommendations as a framework for what they hope to get accomplished.

The Institutional Change Subcommittee suggests the creation of a Diversity Fellows program. Members of this program would remain fellows throughout each year at Georgetown, and be responsible for proposing new initiatives and programming related to diversity. The program would get these student leaders involved with CMEA, the LGBTQ Resource Center, and the Women’s Center as a way to provide more cohesion among the various groups already working to improve diversity at Georgetown.

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On Sunday evening, representatives from several campus groups met to discuss a proposal for a ‘nonviolence week’ later on in the semester. Hate Free Georgetown, an event being organized by Joshua Goode (COL ’10) and Lauren Cucarola (COL ’10) is an attempt to bring together different social groups and campus activities that would normally be separated in an effort to promote peace in the recently hostile Georgetown community.

At the beginning of the meeting, Goode outlined the need for such a week. He cited the many bias-related incidents Georgetown has seen in the past year or so, including the several bias-related incidents which took place at the beginning of the year, prompting the vigil shown at left.

Goode then described the ideas that had already been discussed as examples for events that might be held during the week. These ideas included a big lawn game day, dorm competitions, a barbeque, and a performance festival featuring as many campus performing arts groups as possible where students express the importance of nonviolence in an artistic way.

“The only way it’s really going to work is if we have this broad coalition,” Goode said, adding that the cultural and sports groups at Georgetown have sometimes been difficult to reach out to.

“The biggest way to stop violence is if you know the people around you,” Goode said. “And that’s only going to happen if we get these groups together. Otherwise we’re going to have pockets of people who aren’t intermingling.”

Photo by Kara Brandeisky

Creator of Sporcle Visits Georgetown

Yet another web genius who has come up with a way for college students to waste hours on end using the Internet is coming to Georgetown to tell us more about how he did it. Matt Ramme, the creator of Sporcle, a website with hundreds of online timed trivia quizzes on every subject from television shows to geography.

Ramme has said that it has fulfilled a need for learning trivia he felt was missing in on the internet, and has since become a unique phenomenon on the web. He will be giving a lecture hosted by the Georgetown University Lecture Fund on January 27, 2010 at 8:30 p.m. in Reiss 103.

Italian Embassy Dinner

Although this event is not technically on-campus, it’s the closest you can get to Europe without having to catch a flight anywhere. The European Club is sponsoring a dinner party at the Italian Embassy on Friday, January 29 at 7:00 p.m. There will be food from Café Milano and a chance to enjoy it in the Italian Embassy located at 3000 Whitehaven Street NW. Tickets are $25, and will be sold in Red Square from Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

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After reading the surveys sent in by this week’s daters, Vox prepared for comedic, lively stories from the two. Describing herself, Annie Baran (COL ’13)  said, “Laughing is epic, and I have a very sarcastic sense of humor and quote Dane Cook/Mitch Hedberg all the time.” She believed a guy might fall for her given that she’s, “hilarious and can have a real conversation.” Not only that, but much like the typical Georgetown student, she says, “I think I’m awesome and I’m obviously intellectual or I wouldn’t be here.”

Who wouldn’t fall for a funny girl who also has the ability to tickle your intellectual curiosities? Patrick Eronini (NHS ’12) seemed like he definitely would. He wrote that “a woman’s personality, intellect, demeanor, and [the] way she treats people,” are, for him, the best qualities for a potential relationship. He also said that when he finds his significant other, “I hope that they are different as far as just being able to balance me out, and be my other intellectual half.”

So, could a Classics Major looking for an “intelligent, charming” guy complete this pre-med Nursing major’s other half? Vox thought so…

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“Let Freedom Ring!”

One of the biggest concerts of the year is set to be performed this evening at an event hosted by Georgetown University and the Kennedy Center. The annual MLK Day “Let Freedom Ring!” concert for Georgetown University students, faculty, and staff will feature India.Arie, the winner of two Grammy Awards and the voice behind hits like “Video” and “I Am Not My Hair.”

Although the chance to obtain a ticket through the online lottery has passed, a live simulcast of the concert will be shown live at The Kennedy Center website. The “Let Freedom Ring!” Choir will also be performing, and The John Thompson, Jr. “Legacy of a Dream” Award will be presented to Dikembe Mutombo, the humanitarian, NBA player, and Georgetown alum. In the past, the concert has brought well known artists like Aretha Franklin, and it has always been an amazing opportunity to engage in both historic and fulfilling entertainment.

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