On Tuesday night, The Lecture Fund welcomed renowned radio and television personality Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West, a philosopher and writer described by Smiley as “our country’s leading public intellectual,” to Lohrfink Auditorium to speak about the growing issue of income inequality in the United States.

Smiley set the tone for his segment of the talk by declaring poverty “the moral and spiritual issue of our time,” and “a threat to our democracy.”

Referencing the historical reputation of privilege at elite universities, Smiley said, “Some might find it ludicrous or laughable that we’re talking about poverty at a place like Georgetown.” However, he continued, poverty is an issue impacting a growing number of people who had once been solidly in the middle class.

Smiley and West embarked on a “poverty tour” this summer with the aim of seeing the effects of the current recession on Americans. Visiting 18 cities in nine states over the course of a week, Smiley and West discovered that poverty can no longer be “color-coded,” for Americans of all races struggle to make ends meet.

Smiley declared that 150 million Americans can now be classified as poor or near-poor—almost half of the population of the United States. Nevertheless, the nation has been reluctant to start a conversation on the topic; in the three debates leading up to the 2008 presidential election, the words “poor” or “poverty” were never even used.

“The time is now for this conversation,” Smiley said. “Poverty is an issue of national security.”

A Princeton professor whose popular writings focus on poverty and race theory, West began his portion of the talk with kind words about departing Georgetown professor Patrick Deneen. Of Professor Michael Eric Dyson, West said, “I may not always agree with that brother, but he’s a genius.”

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Introduced by Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice director Carolyn Forché as “one of the most important of the world’s living writers,” Canadian author Margaret Atwood spoke in Gaston Hall Monday about accountability and fairness in today’s political and financial climate.

Atwood is probably best known for her work in the genre she calls “speculative fiction,” which distinguishes itself from science fiction in its discussion of possible potential events, rather than those that could never take place. Or, in Atwood’s words, “no Martians.”

Beginning her talk with a reading of one of her works, “Our Cat Enters Heaven,” from her 2007 collection of short stories entitled The Tent, Atwood captured the audience’s attention with her eloquence and wit.

Continuing with the story’s theme of balance and justice, Atwood proceeded to read from her newest book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. The non-fiction book discusses debt as a motif in literature, religion, and as a more abstract concept in human interaction, and it was the latter topic that Atwood chose to focus on in her talk.

Noting that “the antidote to revenge is not justice but forgiveness,” Atwood remarked on how embracing that phrase would have changed the course of events that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.

When prompted by audience questions, Atwood commented on issues in contemporary American politics. Comparing income disparities in today’s society to those in the time preceding the French Revolution, she expressed her view that the Occupy movement is succeeding in “call[ing] attention to the growing inequality, the growing gap between a few people at the top who are getting richer and richer and richer, and everybody else, who isn’t.”

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On Sunday, Georgetown Occupy organized a teach-in in Red Square, inviting speakers of various backgrounds to spread awareness about income inequality. Held in response to the Wall Street Training Boot Camp taking place on campus for aspiring investment bankers and other members of the financial sector, the Occupy event also attracted students from American University and members of the greater D.C. community.

The day of events included a discussion of the dangers of Wall Street risk-taking, income inequality, a symbolic cleansing of the American flag, and a Georgetown Chimes appearance that started as a counter-protest but ended as a group dialogue on Jesuit ideals.

Georgetown Solidarity Committee kicked off the event by explaining how the University can enact a policy of socially responsible investment by dissociating itself from undiscerning corporations as well as by supporting corporations that do promote the greater good.

The first two guest speakers of the day, Sarah Anderson of the progressive think tank the Institute for Policy Studies and Bart Naylor, a financial policy advocate at the consumer interest lobby Public Citizen, responded most directly to the Wall Street Training Bootcamp across campus. Anderson, while acknowledging that certain financial sector jobs are vitally important, asserted that Wall Street has grown entirely too large. The system of rewarding risky ventures and high-frequency computerized trades, she said, could cause another financial collapse.

Naylor addressed Wall Street’s relationship with legislators. He reported that for every lobbyist on the side of the consumer, the financial sector has 150, the type of disparity that accounts in part for the power of banks.

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In a town hall-style meeting on Thursday night, the students behind the forthcoming Student Life Report 2012 fielded questions and led discussions about their findings and recommendations.

As previously reported, the authors of the report found a strong correlation between involvement in on-campus activities and overall student happiness. The report recommends giving student groups greater autonomy, a step that would maximize student efficacy and by extension student satisfaction with their Georgetown experience.

Chair of the Student Life Committee Shuo Yan Tan (SFS ‘12) emphasized that ultimately the achievability of the committee’s suggestions rests on the bodies they concern. The administration needs to step back, Tan said, and provide the right level of protection, support, and advice, while simultaneously trusting students to control their own activities.

Authors of the report visited nine other campuses across the country in an effort to compare Georgetown’s administration of activities with the systems of peer institutions. GUSA vice presidential candidate Vail Kohnert-Yount (SFS ’13) echoed Tan’s sentiment, noting that in her research comparing Georgetown with Cornell University, she found that the students in Ithaca were less constrained by bureaucracy, but ultimately less self-motivated as well.

“Georgetown students take so much initiative,” Kohnert-Yount said. “But we’re held back by a lot of hoop-jumping.”

Vice-presidential hopeful Sheila Walsh (COL ’14) addressed the proposed merger of the Georgetown Program Board and What’s After Dark. While each group’s funding is drawn from a different source, Walsh cited the groups’ similar missions in her defense of the report’s recommendation.

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In a talk Thursday morning in Gaston Hall, Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili spoke about his nation’s recent and radical successes in its battle against corruption.

Opting to speak without notes rather than to deliver the speech he had prepared, Saakashvili fondly recalled the time he spent at Columbia University, lauding the United States for what he saw as the “sense that everything is possible” for immigrants. “Ultimately for us,” he continued, “America is…an inspiration to the people.”

However, Saakashvili painted a grim picture of his own country under and immediately following Soviet rule: afflicted with poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and widespread corruption, he declared that Georgia was at that time “the classical definition of a failed state.”

In 2003, Saakashvili led a protest movement against fraudulent parliamentary elections, eventually culminating in the Rose Revolution. Overwhelmingly elected to the presidency a few months later, Saakashvili and a team of fresh, idealistic Georgian politicians set out on a quest to eradicate corruption in their country, in his telling.

Their bold reforms saw dramatic results. Saakashvili boasted that Georgia, once the nation with the highest crime rate in its area, now vies with Iceland for the title of the safest country in Europe. Georgia’s reliance on Russia for energy has declined, and according to Saakashvili, Georgia’s bureaucracy is the second-most efficient in the world.

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On March 31, the D.C. Department of Transportation laid out its 10-year plan for the Circulator bus system, in which it proposed the addition or expansion of 11 routes, among other changes.

Though developments would depend on public support and on the availability of funding, the first of the plan’s recommendations would be enacted between 2012 and 2015.

The beginning changes would be the addition of a route between Georgetown and Union Station by way of the National Mall, another route into Anacostia, and the extension of the Dupont Circle-Georgetown-Rosslyn route along U Street to Howard University.

The proposal suggests offsetting the projected $53 million in annual costs of operation and around $20 million in new bus purchases with an increase in fares.  It currently costs only $1 using cash or a SmarTrip card to ride the Circulator, but under the new plan the amount would increase to $1.50 with SmarTrip and $2 cash, which is estimated to generate around $1.1 million annually.

The plan would also decrease late-hour service on the Woodley Park-Adams Morgan-McPherson Square route, eliminate the Smithsonian-National Gallery of Art and the Convention Center-Southwest Waterfront lines altogether, and reduce the number of stops on all lines to three or four per mile to maximize efficiency.

h/t: The Georgetown Dish

The GUSA Endowment Commission held a town hall meeting on Saturday afternoon to address how to spend the $3.4 million made available by the SAFE reform passed this December.

The commission’s chair, Andrew Curtis (MSB ’11), described to a group of around 20 students the process that governs the use of these funds so that they have a positive and lasting impact on all Georgetown undergraduates.

Though proposals can include various components, the Commission will choose no more than five submissions from both current students and alumni.  The Commission also hopes that alumni additions to the $3.4 million will expand the impact of student-directed improvements to the University.

GUSA Finance and Appropriations Committee Chair Colton Malkerson (COL ’13) stressed that students submitting proposals should become fully aware of the feasibility of projects by contacting appropriate offices on campus.

Though some proposals have suggested efforts at beautification or improvements of athletic facilities, Curtis said that the most common theme throughout the approximately 20 submissions the commission has already received has been the desire for more student space on campus.  Despite not yet having formally been presented to the commission, the reestablishment of a pub in the basement of Healy Hall to provide an informal space for students to socialize has received particular attention.

The next step in the process of deciding how to spend the funds is a second town hall meeting on Saturday, April 9.  After all proposals have been submitted by April 10, the FinApp body will review them over the summer.  The final step, a student referendum, is expected to take place next winter.

As Democratic National Committee chair Tim Kaine is expected to announce this week whether he will step down from his position to run for a senate seat in Virginia, Georgetown professor Donna Brazile has been suggested as a possible replacement.

Brazile, an adjunct assistant professor in the women’s studies program, currently serves as the chair of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute.  She became the first African-American to direct a major campaign when she served as the manager of Al Gore’s presidential bid in 2000, has experience as Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton’s chief of staff and press secretary, and as a campaign strategist for Carter-Mondale and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

On top of her duties as a Georgetown professor, Brazile maintains a busy schedule as a lecturer at college campuses across the country and as a regular contributor on national television shows.

A number of other potential candidates have been named for the position, including former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, and Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The DNC chairperson serves as a spokesperson for the party, and is responsible for mobilizing support and fundraising for Democratic candidates.  Brazile has previously stated that regardless of her official position she will work to aid President Obama and the Democratic Party.

At a ceremony on Monday afternoon, Georgetown University President John DeGioia awarded an honorary degree of doctor of humane letters to Michael M. Kaiser, the president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The event, which took place in Healy Hall, featured a performance by mezzo-soprano, and Washington D.C. native, opera singer Denyce Graves, and rewarded Kaiser’s 25-plus years of experience in the field of arts management.

Kaiser has received international acclaim for his work as the executive director of New York’s Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the American Ballet Theater, as well as the Royal Opera House in London.  Dubbed “the Turnaround King” by the Chicago Tribune, Kaiser was able to revitalize and make each company financially stable.

Though the Kennedy Center did not face economic difficulties when he assumed the position of president in 2001, Kaiser has overseen an expansion of its artistic and educational programs and a renovation of most of its theaters. He also created a unique program to train future arts administrators.

Kaiser also blogs for The Huffington Post and is a cultural ambassador for the State Department.

Image: The Kennedy Center

As part of an annual contest put on by Food & Wine magazine, Chef Daniel Giusti of 1789 Restaurant was nominated last week as a candidate for the title of The People’s Best New Chef of 2011.

Put on every spring for more than 20 years, the competition honors “exceptionally talented men and women who are pushing culinary boundaries in America.”

Giusti was among 10 chefs nominated from the mid-Atlantic region, and 90 more nominated from restaurants across the country.

As the contest’s name suggests, the winner will be determined by a nationwide poll.  Food & Wine encourages the public to vote online for one of these 100 chefs before Tuesday, March 1, but they request that participants only vote for chefs whose restaurants they have visited, to maintain the award’s meaning.

Giusti got his start at the age of 15 as a prep cook at Clyde’s, and has since worked in such varied locations as Las Vegas, New York City, and Piedmont, Italy.  As 1789 Restaurant’s Executive Chef since 2008, Giusti has been praised for his youthful, American additions to the menu.  In his interview with Food & Wine, Giusti particularly recommended his crispy terrine with lentils, bacon, and celery hearts – though you might want to wait until your parents are in town to check it out.

h/t: The Georgetown Dish