As Vox reported Friday, Jeff Van Slyke is out as head of the Georgetown’s Department of Public Safety. Now, an email sent by Senior Vice President Spiros Dimolitsas to senior administrators explains how DPS will function after Van Slyke’s leaves in May.

Judging by the contents of the email, the position of DPS Director will be eliminated and DelMonaco will assume operational control.

As for Van Slyke, the University wishes “him all the best in future endeavors,” Dimolitsas wrote.

A source inside DPS said that DelMonaco is expected to “clean house,” although Van Slyke is so far the only confirmed firing.

Since he’s out at the end of the month, now is your perfect chance to read a 2008 Voice cover story about Van Slyke’s record at other universities. Alleged racial profiling and police brutality! Huge guns!

Dimolitsa’s email to senior administrators, after the jump

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According to sources within the Department of Public Safety, Director Jeffrey Van Slyke, he of the assault rifles and  alleged police brutality and racial profiling, has lost his job. According to sources who declined to be named because they were not permitted to talk to the press, Van Slyke’s position was eliminated.

“I’m an operator,” said Vice President for University Safety Rocco DelMonaco, who is said to be taking Van Slyke’s controlling position over DPS after the Director job is eliminated. He added that he is sure Van Slyke will find another job.

Georgetown must really want a boathouse on the Potomac. In the fourth quarter of 2009, the school spent at least $5,000 on lobbying efforts (PDF) ultimately aimed at getting the National Park Service to approve the proposed boathouse on the Potomac. That brings the total lobbying fees spent on the boathouse to at least $1,060,000, by Vox‘s count.

Unfortunately for Georgetown’s lobbyists in the Carmen Group, these are no longer boom times for boathouse lobbyists. In the first quarter of 2009, the group was pulling in $40,000 for talking with National Park Service officials about the boathouse. By the fourth quarter, though, the Group was only making $5,000 for helping Georgetown with “environmental documentation.”

According to Scott Fleming, Georgetown’s Associate Vice President for Federal Relations, boathouse lobbying now is focused around matching construction plans to existing sewage pipes that run along the river (although not into the river, Planeteers).

As usual, it’s impossible to know how much Georgetown spends exactly because of Fleming’s own lobbying report (PDF). The report says Fleming spent $20,000 on various lobbying efforts, including the boathouse and a potential West Bank hospital.

Pretty soon, the School of Foreign Service in Qatar might not be the only Georgetown outpost in the Middle East. According to lobbying disclosure reports filed by Georgetown, in the fourth quarter of 2009, a Georgetown employee met with officials in the State Department to talk about opening a teaching hospital in the West Bank portion of Palestine.

According to the report, Associate Vice President for Federal Relations Scott Fleming met with officials in the State Department to discuss “potential for establishing West Bank Teaching Hospital.”

Fleming told Vox that the idea to start the teaching hospital in the West Bank came from faculty at the Medical Center. He met with the officials to determine how diplomatic concerns or the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would affect the hospital. He stressed, though, that the project is only in the first stages of consideration.

“To call this preliminary—that may be a little far fetched,” Fleming said.

Looks like Mr. Smith’s might keep its reputation as “the friendliest saloon in town.” According to a document filed last Tuesday in D.C. District Court, Georgetown student Taylor Price (MSB ’10) withdrew his discrimination lawsuit against the restaurant, seemingly because Mr. Smith’s made a donation to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

“In the end, I think both sides were happy,” Price said. Price, who has been paraplegic since a 2004 diving injury,  sued Mr. Smith’s in September for a violation of the American with Disabilities Act. Price’s lawsuit alleged that on January 23, 2009, a manager at Mr. Smith’s had not allowed him to enter the back of the restaurant because the manager said Price’s wheelchair was a fire hazard.

Price said the terms of the settlement with Mr. Smith’s are confidential, but he insists he did not personally receive money. A joint statement from Price and Mr. Smith’s suggests that Mr. Smith’s did lose some money, just not to Price.

The statement trumpets Mr. Smith’s donations to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, perhaps a nod to how Mr. Smith’s managed to resolve the lawsuit. For his part, Price says in the statement that Mr. Smith’s is welcoming towards people with disabilities.

After the jump, the court document and the joint statement

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Provost James O’Donnell sent an e-mail to students tonight that criticized December’s Heckler controversy and updated students on the University’s three diversity initiatives.

O’Donnell said the Heckler‘s latest issue was another failure of the University’s culture:

We continue now in the shadow of another failure — the Georgetown Heckler website’s tasteless and offensive attempt to revisit last spring’s issues, which showcased a failure to comprehend some toxic parts of America’s past and present, a failure to realize that lynch mobs not only aren’t funny, their very invocation sends a painful message to many in our community who directly or through family members had to deal with such threats, while offending many others.

He also wrote that one working group’s proposals are under consideration by President John DeGioia and the Provost’s Office, while the other two working groups will soon present their suggestions for improving Georgetown on diversity issues.

Full e-mail after the jump

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Saxaspeak, Vox‘s old blogging buddy, is back. This time, though, it’s called, Saxaspeak: The Talk of the Hilltop, and it’s run by the Hoya.

The old Saxaspeak collapsed shortly after it became a mere repository of Georgetown Google Alerts. Will this Saxaspeak suffer the same fate? Editor-in-Chief Marissa Amendolia and Online Editor Meghan Bartels say no, in a blog post:

Saxaspeak will provide more regular and, occasionally, more casual coverage of the events and trends that affect Georgetown students….it will augment our customary high-quality and in-depth coverage with shorter, more frequent pieces to keep up with the pace of life at Georgetown. The blog is also designed to simplify the search for information by collecting relevant news links in one place.

Bartels told Vox that The Hoya chose the Saxaspeak name because they thought it was suitable, and because of name recognition among older students.

Although Bartels is currently the only blogger on the Hoya‘s Saxaspeak staff, she said she expects to create her own blogging staff separate from the paper soon.

Well, are you?

Georgetown Dish, the Georgetown neighborhood’s news and gossip website, launched last month. Most of it caters to Tiger Woods obsessives and the old-enough-to-be-your-grandparents set, but at least one column on the site could interest Georgetown students: Town/Gown, written by Georgetown junior Katherine Duncan (COL ’11).

For her debut column, Duncan explains Gtown Genpop, a term her friends on the track team came up with. Who qualifies as Gtown Genpop? Perhaps everyone who isn’t on the track team:

It captures the various different stereotypical groups on the Georgetown campus—the overzealous SFS (School of Foreign Service)/IPOL (International Politics), students, the “bro” types (think loud, obnoxious, beer-bonging, etc.), the privileged preppy boarding school New-Englanders, etc. Essentially, the “Jane and Jack Hoya” typecast for which Georgetown is known….Let’s expand these types by adding “Georgetown students within the greater Georgetown community.”

It doesn’t make sense, but it’s better shorthand than Joe and Jane Hoya.

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Blizzards can be hard on your stomach. Vittles is out of the good sandwiches, and some restaurants won’t deliver.

Fortunately, the following restaurants are committed to making sure Georgetown students don’t go Donner Party:

• Philly Pizza (202-333-0100)-Drunk food becomes sober food when it’s snowing.

• Bangkok Bistro (202-337-2424)-A poor substitute for Vox favorite Basil Thai, but if you’re hankering for Pad Thai this’ll have to do.

• Ledo’s Pizza (202-342-0091)-Square pizza lovers rejoice!

• Pizza Movers and Calzones (202-333-9199) –   Calzones-Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Photo from Flickr user ZiggyFresh

Stuef speaks at last night’s forum

Heckler Editor-in-Chief Jack Stuef (COL ’10) answered questions and tried to explain his point of view on a recent controversial Heckler issue at a forum Tuesday night, while students debated the articles and expressed why they were offended by the satirical articles.

Copies of the Heckler’s article about Hoya staff members holding a Ku Klux Klan-like crossburning were passed out before the forum, and much of the conversation centered on that article.

“The KKK isn’t funny,” Stuef said. “The article is to take the situation to the extreme, to show what is maybe buried in this campus.”

Stuef said that he was sorry for offending anyone, but added that with satire, offending people “comes with the terrain.”

LaMarr Q. Billups, Georgetown’s Assistant Vice President for Business Policy Planning, argued that the Heckler should not have used the picture of a KKK crossburning for the article because its hurtful power.

“This is an image that is deeply rooted in our souls,” Billups said. “In my own lifetime, thousands of people were lynched. Cross were burned in people’s actual yards.”

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