On Monday, President Jack DeGioia joined Harvard’s President, Dr. Drew Faust, in announcing Georgetown’s membership in edX, an online consortium between Harvard, MIT, Wellesley, the University of Texas, and University of California Berkeley.

Started between Harvard and MIT, edX is part of a growing movement to offer Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). EdX was started as a non-profit in March of this year, and offers free university-level classes.

“Welcome, Jack, to edX—we’re delighted to have Georgetown as a part of the group. It’s such an extraordinary institution, committed to excellence in every way,” said Faust. “I think you have very special capacities to bring to edX.”

Currently edX offers mostly science- and technology-based courses, such as “Introduction to Solid State Chemistry” and “Circuits and Electronics.” President DeGioia would not say what courses Georgetown plans to offer on the edX platform. “Part of what we complement is we bring very strong support in the social sciences and the humanities, policy studies, law, business,” said DeGioia. “We’ll begin the process when we get back in January of trying to determine what will be the first courses we place in the fall of 2013.”

Another aspect that Georgetown brings to edX is an international perspective, with its SFS-Q campus. “I’m going next week to Doha to announce this same initiative. We’re hoping there will be grant proposals from Doha,” said Provost Robert Groves. “In fact, if you think about this, a global audience requires great cultural sensitivity. We have to know whether the kind of pedagogy that’s done at Georgetown actually works in a variety of cultures. We think we’re wonderfully positioned to do that.”

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This weekend proved that you only need a handful of protesters to close down Bank of America.

“Bank of America, bad for America!” shouted 14 protesters from Occupy Our Homes DC at the Bank of America on the corner of Wisconsin and Dumbarton last Saturday. The bank was forced to close operations for its entire business day. At about 8:45 a.m., the protesters struck, putting “foreclosed” signs on the bank’s doors and caution tape on the bank’s ATMs. The protest was one of eleven Bank of America Occupy protests, each targeting a different branch in the district.

“This has been a mobilization to shut down all the Banks of America that will be open today,” Ben Johnson, a sophomore at American University and a member of the Occupy Our Homes team, said. The protest is for Michael Vanzant, a reverend who formed Faith Temple, the first LGBTQ church in DC for people of color. Vanzant is allegedly being evicted.

Vanzant’s house served as more than just a house. It was a community center, a shelter for the homeless, and a hospice for HIV AIDS patients. Vanzant started having trouble with the Bank of America a year ago, when he fell behind in payments due to a disability.

“He tried to call ahead and was like, yo I’m going to on disability pay because I hurt myself, so I’d like to negotiate with you guys now before I fall behind,” Johnson said. “They were like nope, we can’t help you until you fall behind. After missing one or two payments and refusing to negotiate with him, despite the fact that he was good on all the money, they started to try to kick him out of his house.”

“It’s bullshit, get off it, our lives are not for profit.”

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The results are in from this year’s GUSA senate election. The election and referendum saw the largest student voter turnout in recent history, as well as a large number of candidates in some districts.

• Representing Village A are  Nate Tisa and Lawrence Slusky.

• The senator from LXR is Zach Singer.

• Representing Nevils and Village B are Jay Factor and Vetone Ivezaj.

• Copley ‘s senator is Elizabeth Oh.

• Representing students in townhouses is Sheila Walsh.

• Of the 18 students who ran for Darnall and Harbin’s three seats, Billy Bowers, Shweta Wahal, and Tim Rosenberger won.

• Representing New South and Village C West are Seamus Guerin, Chandini Jha, and Abby Cooner.

• Robert Shepherd will represent Village C East.
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As expected, the referendum on changing the Student Code of Conduct policy from “more likely than not” to “clear and convincing” has passed with an overwhelming majority. The total number of students supporting the measure was 2,507, with only 93 opposed. In total number of votes cast in the election was 2,629, which is more than the previous referendum on the SAFE reform from last December, in which 2,446 votes were cast.

The referendum is non-binding, and the final decision still rests with Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson. Olson has previously said that he will not make a decision until the conclusion of an outside audit of the Office of Student Affairs is complete.

The audit was conducted by administrators from a university that has the clear and convincing standard and one that does not. The referendum is intended to show Olson and the administration the overwhelming support the student body has towards changing the Student Code of Conduct.

Today, Vox will complete the series of blurbs on students running for GUSA Senate. Yesterday we ran candidates from Village A, here we have the seven candidates for the Southwest Quadrangle: Sam Greco, James Gadea, Michael Mezzino, Jemm Dela Cruz, Nolan Diconti, and Jack Manning. Max Malec could not be reached for an interview.

Sam Greco (SFS ’15): Reform Leo’s!

Sam Greco is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service, thinking of majoring in International Politics. He previously served in GUSA for half a year as a Senator-At-Large. He is running for reelection because he believes GUSA has an important role to play in serving as a check on the administration.

“Whenever I talk to students I hear the same thing, the administration will put their other pursuits over the undergraduates and that couldn’t be a bigger problem in my opinion.” Greco said. “So I’m running to make sure the university considers the students as their top concern in any decision they make.”

On Grecos’ agenda is passing the Student Code of Conduct reform and reforming Leo’s. Reforming Leo’s was something Greco worked on previously during his term in GUSA. “The university has a large amount of influence they can put on ARAMARK that they’re not doing at the moment, and we need to get on them to make those changes.”

Greco points to his experience in GUSA and SFS academic council as an asset which will allow him to hit the ground running. “I know the ropes, I know who you have to talk to to get things done. There’s no learning period with me.”

He feels his biggest accomplishments in GUSA include supporting the Code of Conduct reform and fighting to eliminate the sophomore meal plan requirements. “That’s just an example of a time I was really fighting for something that would benefit students and although we were up against the administration I’m not done fighting.”

James Gadea (SFS, ’16): Let’s Go Green

James Gadea is a freshman in the SFS, thinking of majoring in International History. He lives on the Culture and Performance Living Learning Community in Reynolds.

Gadea places a strong emphasis on environmental impact and creating a green future for Georgetown. “I want to start an environmental program.” Gadea said. “[It] would plant a lot of trees and do some landscaping for the University, so that in 20 years or so, there would be a lot more trees on campus and make our campus a lot more greener.”

Gadea feels that around campus there are very few trees, which can have huge a large positive environmental impact. Getting this project off the ground would be among Gadea’s first priorities, “working with the administration, seeing if we can get some funding to do some planting. Planting trees is a relatively low cost investment and it has a high pay off because in 20 years the campus would be significantly nicer.”

Gadea would like to plant these trees in the different grassy areas around campus. In high school Gadea researched the impact trees could have on lead in the soil, which started his interested in environmental causes. “I know the university is trying to go greener, so I think this would go well with what they’re already working on.” Gadea acknowledges his project is looking for a long term payoff and as much as he wants to make current students happy, he also wants “to put my concerns to the use of future generations as well.”

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Yesterday evening, Georgetown University Student Association hosted a town hall meeting between students, the architectural firm ikon 5, and administrators to see the preliminary drawings and concepts of the New South Student Center. ikon 5 stated that the goal for completion is the fall of 2014.

Although not a final plan, the drawings showed an 11,500 sq ft ‘living room’, with a bar at one end, broken up into three sections by clusters of small study spaces. Adjoining the living room will be a smoothie and coffee shop run by the Corp. The pathway behind New South which leads past Riverside Lounge and into Village A is to become a terrace. A ballroom dining able to seat 150 for dinner and 360 for a presentation is part of the plan.

Some students raised concerns about where student groups using space in New South, especially the storage areas, would be relocated. Todd Olson, Vice President of Student Affairs, addressed these concerns by reiterating that it’s too early to be bringing up questions.

“From the start of the feasibility study there was an acknowledgement this is a serious need in a lot of ways as one we need to keep improving on,” Olson said. “But doing that right in this building would pretty quickly squelch the hope for this to be a living room.”

Also in response to this concern, GUSA President Clara Gustafson (SFS ‘13) said: “We wanted to make sure that this didn’t become a Leavey Center.”

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This past Sunday, the GUSA Senate amended its bylaws regarding the election of committee chairs, requiring that all chairs, not just the chair of the Finance and Appropriations Committee, be elected by the entire senate. Some dissenting senators worried that changing the process would allow the cliques in GUSA to form undemocratic voting blocs.

Other committees are just as important as FinApp

Before the change, only the Senate Speaker, Vice Speaker, Chair of the Finance and Appropriations committee, and the members of FinApp were elected by the entire body. Due to “SAFE reform and their responsibility over the GUSA budget,” the FinApp chair is voted on by the entire senate, explained Senator Ben Weiss (Col ‘15). “The reason Vice Speaker Nate Tisa (SFS ‘14) changed this bylaw was to make it so that all committees are of equal importance, especially now that SAFE reform is essentially over,” Weiss said. Besides creating more equality between the committees, Weiss hopes the change will encourage committee chairs to have clearly defined goals. “One of the main critiques of student life and CBO [Community Building and Outreach] is they don’t have clearly defined goals,” but with this process “chairs will have to have clear goals going into the year,” Weiss said.

Dan LaMagna doesn’t fit in with GUSA cliques

Senator Dan LaMagna (COL ‘13) raised concerns before Sunday’s vote. He describes the voting for Speaker, Vice Speaker, the Chair, and members of FinApp as a highly political process. “I do realize this is student politics and its what people are sort of in it for, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a good thing,” LaMagna said. For him, there is no need to change the current system because it works well. “People should be electing the people who will be leading them on a weekly basis,” LaMagna explained, adding “I don’t know why I need to be voting for the chair of FinApp, [but] I can understand why we vote for the members of the committee because it does control all the money.” Senator LaMagna serves on the Student Life committee. At the meeting LaMagna and others raised concerns of power blocs forming in the senate, considering that approximately 15 senators are returning every year and would be able to, in effect, control who becomes committee chairs. “There are cliques in the Senate, and one tends to be more powerful than the other. You want to make things as democratic as possible, and I think the best way to do that is voting within committees,” LaMagna said.

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