Friday evening, the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and his security motorcade descended upon Georgetown for a talk on the future of Afghan-U.S. relations. Key Bridge closed down temporarily due to the arrival of Karzai, who also met earlier that day with President Barack Obama to enter into a bilateral security agreement and plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan over the next years.

His arrival was heavily anticipated and met with a round of applause from the students and dignitaries at the event. Over 550 students waited in line for only 400 available student seats. As Karzai stepped to the podium, he mentioned the honorary degree Georgetown bestowed upon him in September 2006. He expressed hope that his son might also get the opportunity to attend Georgetown in the future.

The speech, characterized by moments of laughter and stern reflection, kept the audience enraptured for the entire hour. He reflected, initially, on the unpleasant realities of the ongoing war on terror. “It has been costly to you in America, so many of your men and women in uniform and civilians have lost lives. It has been costly to our other allies. It has also been costly, massively, to the Afghan people,” he said. “We have lost in the past 10 years tens of thousands of civilians to violence.”

Karzai lauded the progress has made Afghanistan in the past twenty years with the help of the U.S. government in providing education to women.

He also added criticism that the U.S. media presents a biased view on Afghanistan. “If I watched television in the United States or Europe and judged Afghanistan … I would lose all hope,” he said.

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After the Hoyas’ win over Western Carolina this afternoon, Georgetown University informed media of their decision to leave the Big East Conference, in unanimity with the other six, basketball-centric schools of the league.

“I think after a lot of consideration, keeping a careful eye on the national landscape as it relates to conference realignment, what our history has been, I think we were wanting to get to a place where there was a focus on where we are and what we are philosophically in terms of our model of intercollegiate athletics,” Georgetown Athletic Director Lee Reed said.

The writing had been on the wall for months, as constant conference realignment saw the Big East pillaged of many of its crucial members, starting with Syracuse and Pittsburgh’s departures for the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and culminating with Rutgers’ defection to the Big Ten and Louisville’s move to the ACC last month.

Over the past week, talks heated up among the presidents of the “Catholic Seven” schools—Georgetown, Villanova, Providence, DePaul, Marquette, St. John’s, and Seton Hall—and conference commissioner Mike Aresco. After a reported conference call between the parties on Thursday, the move became inevitable, though the swift announcement came as a bit of a surprise considering reports of University President John DeGioia’s initial reluctance to leave the conference. Reed denied that story, though, taking exception to the report.

“I think we will always be very thoughtful and deliberate in any decision that we make that has an impact on Georgetown University, so we’ve done that,” he said. “I wouldn’t characterize it on us being slow to the table.”

For Georgetown, the move affects the entire Athletic Department, save for football which will remain in the Patriot League for the time being. All other sports will compete in the new conference.

There are a great deal of legal ramifications to work out with Aresco and the conference in order to officially split from the Big East, meaning there are still some significant hurdles before the schools can move forward with forming their new conference. Many options are still on the table; taking the Big East brand with them is not out of the question.

The move marks a significant step forward for Georgetown, as they officially take the reins on their own destiny and escape a quickly-fading Big East Conference. Despite a feeling of panic among within its fan base, leadership at Georgetown—men’s basketball head coach John Thompson III included—never panicked because of their belief in the Georgetown brand.

“Georgetown was an outstanding program for the Big East,” Thompson said. “We have been an outstanding program during our time in the Big East. And we will be an outstanding program in whatever tomorrow holds. The stability is within our institution. Whoever wants to be with us can be with us.”

Here’s the initial statement from the presidents of the seven schools:

Earlier today we voted unanimously to pursue an orderly evolution to a foundation of basketball schools that honors the history and tradition on which the Big East was established. Under the current context of conference realignment, we believe pursuing a new basketball framework that builds on this tradition of excellence and competition is the best way forward.

We are grateful to our Commissioner, Michael Aresco, for his exceptional leadership of the Big East Conference. We have been honored to be associated with the outstanding group of institutions that have made up the Big East. While we pursue this opportunity for our institutions, we believe the efforts of the past two years have established the foundation for an enduring national football conference.

We look forward to building this new foundation with an emphasis on elite competition and a commitment to the development of our students engaged in intercollegiate athletics. That is where we will now spend our energy as we move forward.

Further analysis on the move after the jump, along with statements from DeGioia, and Aresco. We will be updating this post with any further developments. 

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As we gear up for the finals countdown, the Daily Beast published a list of the top 25 most stressful schools in the country, ranking Georgetown eighth.

Washington University in St. Louis came in first place, followed by University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Harvard, Northwestern, Brown, and Wesleyan.

The gallery also included crime rankings for each school, from data provided by the Department of Education. Georgetown ranks 21st among the top 25 for its crime rates. Wesleyan University ranked first for its crime rates.

Moral of the story? You may be stressed about losing your laptop, but the folks over at Wesleyan are more likely to have theirs stolen.

On Oct. 24 Saxbys owners Jack and Elizabeth Egle handed over the keys to the flagship Georgetown café to three Hoyas: Jim Hilson (COL ’08), Eric Rodawig (’07),  and Ken Martin (’07).

“We were all friends during school and we stayed in touch since then,” Hilson said. “Now, we’re business partners.”

Of the three Georgetown alumni, Hilson is the only one living in D.C. and will work full time as the operating manager. As a student, Hilson worked at the coffee shop for a year, shortly after the location opened. He kept in contact with the owners over the past few years and expressed interest in buying if they ever decided to relocate elsewhere and sell the shop.

Relocate they did, and Hilson pulled together the finances between him and his two friends to buy the franchise. In the past few years, Hilson worked in human resources for a defense contractor in D.C. “It will absolutely change my lifestyle but I’m extremely excited,” he said. “I love being in the atmosphere of the coffee shop.”

Although the new owners plan to “stick to the traditions” and keep the culture and ambiance of the café unchanged, Hilson plans to make a few operational modifications. “There are a few operational things that we’d like to do differently a little bit down the road…things like making sandwiches inside the shop, whereas currently we get them delivered every morning fresh from a deli,” he said.

Correction: Previous version of this post called the coffee shop “Saxby’s” when it is in fact “Saxbys.” Apologies for this error.

Last week, the 2012 Global Employability Survey, exclusively in the hands of the International Herald Tribune, released its annual study of the world’s most employable graduates based on skills, personality, and the university he or she attended. This year, the survey ranked Georgetown 68th out of 150 universities internationally. Harvard and Yale University ranked first and second internationally, followed by University of Cambridge and University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

Out of the top 20 universities ranked in this year’s survey, seven were American and five from the U.K. Peking University in China came in 11th place, and Tokyo Institute of Technology placed 14th. Other universities in the top 20 were located in France and Switzerland. The folks over at George Washington University didn’t make the cut this year or last.

Last year, Georgetown placed 54th. That survey, however, only included “hundreds” of “business executives,” whereas this year’s survey involved input from thousands of employers from a range of companies. While Georgetown dropped 14 spots in the past year, Boston University jumped 34 spots from 51st to 17th.  The only Asian university that placed in the top 20 in 2011 was Japan’s University of Tokyo. In 2011, Peking University came in 129th, marking a rise of a full 118 spots in one year. The Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore jumped from 134 to 35th place in the past year, as well.

The survey is compiled by a French consulting firm, Emerging, and a German research institute specializing in recruitment, Trendence. Their methodology is to consult employers about which universities they tend to rely on for recruiting and hiring, as well as the qualities they find most desirable in young graduates, with 2,500 recruiters and 2,200 international chief executives and business managers asked to select their top universities.

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Last Friday, Georgetown University hosted “Ask Obama Live: An MTV Interview with the President.”  Thirty Georgetown students, selected by MTV for their variety of backgrounds, interests, and political views, gathered in Healy Circle amidst the gazes of passersby to watch President Barack Obama address the issues that concern young voters in an interview with MTV’s Sway Calloway.

In the interview, President Obama answered questions put forth by the students that dealt with issues as diverse as LGBQT rights, the scarcity of jobs for new college graduates, gender inequality in the workplace, high college tuition, climate change, and economic recovery.

Usually considered a network that focuses its programming on pop culture, MTV also makes an effort to use their influence to engage young voters in politics.

“There are a lot of young people who watch the network [MTV]. I think its great that we can do things like this that reach out to young people and try to engage them. That’s important,” host Andrew Jenks said to the Voice. “I think that it is also up to us, to our generation, to get involved and engaged and to get our friends into voting, so it goes both ways.”

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When it was time for Plaintiff and Epicurean worker Marvin Hercules to go to Court and testify, Epicurean owner Chang Wook Chon gave him a map with directions and pointed him to the door with one final piece of information: a job may no longer be waiting for you when you come back from Court.

Last Tuesday, at a hearing in relation to the closed 2010 case against Epicurean filed by 14 workers, District Judge Robert Wilkins ordered a show cause indicting Chon of criminal contempt. In early November, this alleged criminal contempt will place Chon in front of the United States Attorney Robert Machen‘s office.

Attorney for Plaintiffs in both the 2010 and 2012 cases Darian Dalmat believes Judge Welkin’s decision comes with great purpose. ”I think that the Judge very appropriately sent a strong signal to Mr. Chon that he is not above the law and that even those these workers may not have the biggest case of all time, that they do have rights under the law,” he said. “Mr. Chon’s interference with that opportunity is not going to be countenanced in this court, at least.”

The more recent lawsuit settled claims for three different workers. In the 2012 case, workers accused Chon of failing to pay overtime wages. The 2010 lawsuit dealt with claims for several workers, most of which were settled without a formal trial.

During the 2010 lawsuit, Chon did not go through appropriate legal avenues to settle the case. “Mr. Chon was just completely unwilling to allow people their day in court and allow them to litigate their claims fairly and use the judicial process that has been set up for employees to vindicate their rights to overtime wages,” Dalmat said.

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In late September, the Arabic Department of the School of Foreign Service’s Qatar campus announced plans to spearhead the development of a groundbreaking Arabic-learning program that targets students with backgrounds in Arabic language and culture, otherwise known as “heritage learners” or “native speakers”. The press release was sent to campus media last week.

Unlike most students at the SFS-Q who study Arabic as foreign language, “heritage learners” and “native speakers” are unique that they already posses fundamental knowledge of Arab culture and language from their personal backgrounds.”This new initiative will address two groups of students of Arabic who fall outside the traditionally predominant group who learn Arabic as a foreign language,” Dr. Gerd Nonneman, Dean of SFS -Qatar, said.

Studies carried out by a team from the SFS Qatar campus and funded by the Qatar National Research Fund found that, on average, standard Arabic among students in primary and secondary public schools was three years below their age level. Thus, the initiative will target students who have some experience in Arabic, but whose knowledge of the language lacks fluency and professionalism.

Professor Abbas Al-Tonsi, one of the initiative’s principle developers states: “The new initiative will enable a student of business to continue learning about his or her major but also much expand the ability to read and write in the clearest of Arabic. The same is true for a media student or a political science student. They will then know business or media or political science not just in English, but also in Arabic. ”

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This is the third part of our Vox series called “Hoya Citings” in which we feature Georgetown students’ research projects and pursuits in academia. Last week we profiled a student who researched foot-and-mouth disease at a laboratory in China.

As International Health majors in the Nursing and Health School,   Alexandra Melo (NHS ’13) and Ally Noyes (NHS ’13), were required to spend the first semester of their senior year in a developing country having a “practical experience” in the international health field. They are working at a public health clinic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that serves a low-income population.

However, they are not simply spending time in the clinic and shadowing doctors. The two are also conducting a research project for their thesis which investigates how the Internet impacts a person’s health, through surveys and on-site interviews of patients in the clinic.

“Our hypothesis is that people who use the Internet more and are better connected are going to have a better perception of their own health, going to be more compliant with medicine, and be more regular with doctor’s visits,” Noyes said. “We’re kind of looking at this whole psycho-social model of health and how the interent is influencing that.”

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Yesterday, the GU Art Aficionados, the Lecture Fund, and the Department of Art and Art History hosted a panel discussion on Ai Weiwei, a controversial Chinese artist who often uses his art to criticize the Chinese government. This panel discussion comes at an opportune moment, as the opening of Weiwei’s first North American exhibit, “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” will occur on Sunday, October 7th at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.

The panel consisted of curators Kerry Brougher and Mika Yoshitake of the Hirshhorn Museum and Chief Curator of the Tokyo Mori Art Museum Mami Kataoka. Carol Huh, a curator at The Freer and Sackler Galleries and Carma Hinton, a George Mason University professor of Visual Culture and Chinese Studies were also panelists. Georgetown University professor of Asian Art Michelle Wang moderated the event.

Just a few years ago, Weiwei was one of three designers chosen by the government to assist in the construction of the Bird’s Nest for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Since then, he has grown increasingly critical of the Communist Party. These negative feelings reached their peak after the Sichuan earthquake in China in 2008, during which school buildings collapsed on children while surrounding office buildings remained standing. Many people claim that corruption in the government allowed building code violations to slip through the cracks. Much of Weiwei’s recent artwork has been directed towards exposing the injustice of this event and of other offences of the Chinese government.

In April of last year, Weiwei was arrested by the government and jailed for 81 days in a secret location under allegations of economic crimes. Today, he remains under 24-hour surveillance by the Chinese government. They have revoked the license for his company and have taken his passport, leaving him unable to travel to North America for the opening of his exhibit’s tour. When asked how the Chinese government felt about the new exhibit, Chief Curator Kerry Brougher explained that the Hirshhorn has not had any contact with the Chinese embassy, and that the relationship between the Smithsonian and the Chinese government has thus far been “complicated but quiet.”

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