Spring Break
Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke (D-14) won an overwhelming victory in tonight’s Democratic primary election, assuring her of at least one more four-year term in the Baltimore City Council, according to preliminary election results.
The Baltimore Sun reported today that turnout across the city was exceptionally low, at 28 percent of eligible voters.
That was the case at a polling station in the 14th district, to the east of the Homewood campus on 35th St., where Clarke and her supporters were camped out, campaigning and handing out fliers.
“I thought people would show up today, but they didn’t,” Del. Curt Anderson (D-43) told the News-Letter.
Anderson, whose district overlaps with Clarke’s, was at the mostly empty polling station to support Clarke. He and his fellow campaigners were disappointed by the low turnout, which the Sun called a “trickle.”
“Maybe because they don’t think they have the choices they need to make change,” he added.
The Sun also reported Thursday evening that Mayor Sheila Dixon had claimed an overwhelming victory in her reelection campaign, with more than 60 percent of the preliminary vote.
As of 11:32 p.m., the city Board of Elections reported that 6,272 people had voted for City Council in the 14th district, and that of those, 5,962 — or 95 percent — had voted for Clarke. Only 209 had voted for Tom Conradt, a relatively unknown Democratic opponent, and 101 for Republican Mark Newgent.
Town & Gown will follow this story as it develops. Look for more election coverage and analysis in Thursday’s edition of the News-Letter.
sal.gentile@jhunewsletter.com
Town & Gown would like to append a correction to a previous entry, on the U.S. News & World Report annual college rankings, provided to us by commentator Mark T.
In the previous article, we stated that JHU’s record-low acceptance rate, 24 percent, might have contributed to its two-spot jump in the annual college rankings this year. But Mark T. has pointed out, correctly, that this is the acceptance rate from 2007, and that U.S. News & World Report used the acceptance rate from 2006 to compile their most recent list. That number was 27 percent (also a historic low at the time).
Mark T. also brings up some noteworthy points, many of which have been made previously by education activists urging schools to boycott the rankings. These activists, such as those at the Education Conservancy, claim that the rankings value the wrong aspects of a college education (such as reputation and alumni giving rate) in their evaluation of the “best” U.S. colleges.
Hopkins officials have made similar claims in the past, but as Mark T. points out, the rankings have been rather favorable to the University, and so they have been reluctant to speak out against what amounts to one of the most powerful public relations tools in the country.
Mark T. also brings up the problem of selectivity, and whether or not it should be considered a valid indicator of an institution’s educational caliber. Education activists who oppose the rankings point out that evaluating colleges based, in part, on how low their acceptance rates are amounts to encouraging schools to reject as many applicants as possible. They ask: Should our goal really be to withhold a college education from as many applicants as possible? And do the U.S. News rankings encourage this goal?
These are interesting points to consider. Thanks, Mark T., for bringing them to our attention.
U.S. News & World Report released its controversial college rankings Friday, and Hopkins found itself once again in the coveted top 15, after a two-spot slip to 16 last year.
The 2008 list comes amid some of the fiercest criticism the magazine has ever received for its rankings, according to a report from The Associated Press. A bloc of colleges led by education activists is boycotting the rankings and urging others to do the same, charging the magazine with diminishing the college admissions process and doing a disservice to both applicants and schools.
But as the AP reports, administrators at top-ranked colleges — including Hopkins — have been relatively tight-lipped about the controversy, partly because their schools benefit from the good publicity.
Hopkins administrators have had to strike a delicate balance in recent years, criticizing the magazine when the school’s ranking falls but softening their tone when the numbers look good.
In 2006, Dean of Undergraduate Education Paula Burger nitpicked the magazine’s methodology while stressing that the University takes the rankings “very seriously,” and University spokesman Dennis O’Shea downplayed criticism of the list in the Baltimore Sun last week: “I think it has always been the case that colleges and universities have complained that ranking colleges make the task of looking for college more mathematical than it is.”
The University may have benefited, incidentally, from two admissions milestones this year: its lowest acceptance rate (24 percent) and highest number of applicants (14,842) in Hopkins history.
A union that represents workers at the Johns Hopkins Hospital has endorsed Mary Pat Clarke (D) in her reelection campaign for City Council.
The 1199 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) United Healthcare Workers East and the SEIU MD/DC State Council announced their joint endorsement of Clarke and several other candidates for City Council in a press release on Thursday.
1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East represents about 4,500 workers in Baltimore, and the SEIU MD/DC State Council represents about 7,000.
Each of the candidates endorsed by the unions were incumbents, with the exception of one: Fred Mason III, who is running for a vacant seat in the 11th district.
Clarke faces two opponents in the Sept. 11 primary, Thomas Conradt (D) and Kelly Fox (D), and one in the general election, Mark Newgent (R) (who works at the Hopkins medical campus).
Fox ran against Clarke in the 2003 primary, mustering 12 percent of the vote to Clarke’s 83 percent.
sal.gentile@jhunewsletter.com
Two years ago, the University surpassed a self-imposed five-percent cap on tuition by raising the price of a Hopkins education by 7.2 percent. Last year, tuition rose 5.9 percent, again above the five-percent cap and well above the rate of inflation.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress has held hearings on the skyrocketing costs of required textbooks across the country. And, in the wake of the student loan scandal, there is suspicion among many that the rates students get on their loans have been unnecessarily high.
Now, the University is increasing prices again … for soda.
Yes, soda.
Students, faculty and staff are going to have to reach deeper into their pockets this year for a 20-ounce bottle of Pepsi, according to a statement from Housing and Dining Services released today.
The price is being raised to $1.25, “still below many local retailers’ prices,” the statement said. That may be true, but it might still startle a few Hopkins students, who are used to being able to slip a single out of their wallets in exchange for a cool “carbonated soft drink” (Pepsi doesn’t use the terms “soda,” “cola” or “pop”).
Dave Furhman, director of dining programs at Hopkins, said Pepsi came to the University over year ago asking for an increase in prices. He got them to hold off for a year, but in the face of soaring fuel prices — which make it more expensive to transport Pepsi’s product — Housing and Dining ultimately had to consent.
Pepsi was chosen by the University through a formal bid process, Furhman said, much like the process the University uses to select food providers. Housing and Dining does not subsidize prices to keep them down — they simply provide the electricity and the space for Pepsi’s machines.
sal.gentile@jhunewsletter.com
The Associated Press has a story on an interesting case out of Delaware that may, in many ways, be pertinent to Hopkins: A student at the University of Delaware (UD) is suing the school after he was suspended and banned from campus for posting allegedly “racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and homophobic statements” on his University-hosted website.
The parallels to the case of Justin Park, the junior who was suspended from Johns Hopkins for over a year for what many perceived to be a racially insensitive party invitation posted on Facebook.com, are striking (Park’s sentence was later reduced).
By comparison, Park’s hypothetical case against Hopkins might even be stronger, considering the fact that Facebook.com is a privately owned website with no affiliation to Hopkins, whereas the student at UD was using a website provided to him by the school.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which lobbied on Park’s behalf, has said as much in recent weeks, putting Hopkins on “red alert” for alleged abuses of student free speech.
A recent Supreme Court decision, commonly known as the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case,” might make it difficult for students like Park to make a case against educational institutions, especially private ones, which make their own rules regarding student behavior and speech. In that decision, the Supreme Court decided that, in certain cases, the educational imperatives of public school teachers and administrators trump a student’s right to free speech.
As was last reported in the News-Letter, Park has left the University and gone abroad to New Zealand, where he was doing an internship last year. It is unknown if he will return to Hopkins.
sal.gentile@jhunewsletter.com
After months of pressure from student activists and internal deliberations that have stalled a formal announcement, the University said today that it would join hundreds of colleges across the country in pursuit of an increasingly popular goal: carbon neutrality.
One such leader may just be
See the text of the University announcement here.
sal.gentile@jhunewsletter.com
There are three people running against Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke (D) in the 14th district this year — though you wouldn’t know it if, say, you went to Hopkins.
Clarke, much beloved by constituents and non-constituents alike, faces token opposition from two Democrats in the Sept. 11 primary (which, in heavily Democratic Baltimore, is all that really matters) and one Republican in the general election this Nov.
There was some giddy chatter on the Hopkins forum of the Daily Jolt recently about the prospect of unseating Clarke, who has consistently butted heads with the students who live in her district. One poster urged readers to support Clarke’s challengers and register to vote in Baltimore in time for the Sept. 11 election.
Of course, this is merely unbridled fantasy. It would take either a calamity or a scandal — or some serendipitous combination of the two — to defeat a sitting member of the Baltimore City Council.
That goes especially for Clarke, who is cherished here in the 14th district for the very same reasons she is vilified by students. Clarke is practically an institution in Baltimore — she has twice led the City Council as its first female president and mounted an unsuccessful (though stirring) campaign for mayor in 1995. She was even roused out of retirement to run once again for the Council after redistricting created her current seat in 2003.
Clarke, who has a knack for political spectacle — she once famously spent the night in a vacant public housing unit — is especially gifted at the one thing members of the Baltimore City Council are really empowered to do: respond to constituent complaints.
They don’t really legislate, or exercise much oversight over the mayor. In fact they don’t even control the purse strings (that power is delegated to the Board of Estimates).
What they do is lobby — lobby, lobby, lobby on behalf of their constituents. And Clarke does that with considerable skill.
The fact that she summoned City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the city’s No. 2, to step off the campaign trail for a day and effectively settle a dispute between a fraternity and its neighbors is evidence of this alone.
Many argue — and they are probably right — that Rawlings-Blake’s rather theatrical appearance in front of the Phi Psi house was just another campaign stop, an effort to drum up support and money in an affluent area of the city. Even that, however, is evidence of Clarke’s electoral and political clout.
All of this will conspire to keep Clarke in office come this Nov., no matter how hard her few but erstwhile opponents campaign.
But if students really want a culprit — or anything, really — to explain why their interests have been trampled and their University manhandled by Clarke and her adulators in the community, they might look only at themselves.
Clarke is a good council member, and an even better politician — she knows that people who don’t vote don’t matter, especially if they don’t pay taxes or donate to political campaigns. Hopkins students, who number nearly 5,000 now, don’t do any of those things.
Nobody’s saying that’s bad, necessarily. Hopkins students are busy with organic chemistry exams, differential equations and applications to graduate school. They also tutor underprivileged children in Baltimore and work with patients in health clinics for free.
But they don’t vote. And it’s a shame, really, because Hopkins students could leave a tangible electoral impact on this district, if only they really wanted to.
According to information provided by the city Board of Elections, about 43,000 people live in the 14th district — but only 23,835 are registered to vote.
An extensive, organized voter registration effort might add, say, 5,000 to that number — all Hopkins students. And if we have learned anything from the Hopkins Energy Action Team, it’s that it only takes a handful of impassioned student activists and an effective marketing strategy to make an effort like that happen.
And if it did — if the 5,000 newly registered Hopkins voters became a fiercely cohesive electoral bloc — the results would be substantial.
No, Hopkins students would not be able to oust Mary Pat Clarke, and they never will be. But 5,000 voters would represent about 17 percent of the electorate in the 14th district.
To put 17 percentage points in the column of a given candidate — even a losing candidate — would say that Hopkins students, and their interests, actually matter.
And those interests, reinforced by 17 percent of the electorate, would matter even more when the aging Clarke retires, leaving her vacant council seat up for grabs.
If that happens, it’s a sure bet that the candidates vying to succeed her will want every possible advantage over their opponents, every edge they could possibly use to one-up what will likely be a crowded field.
And 17 percentage points — that’s a pretty sharp edge.
sal.gentile@jhunewsletter.com
Pamela Flaherty, president and CEO of the Citigroup Foundation, will become the first woman in Hopkins history to chair the University’s board of trustees, President William Brody announced this week.
A graduate of the School of Advanced International Studies, she is currently one of the board’s four vice chairs. She will replace the outgoing chair, Raymond Mason, president and CEO of Legg Mason.
Both Flaherty and Brody were out of the country at the time of the announcement.
“At this time — as the university is making a solid commitment to achieving diversity, particularly in leadership positions — it is an added bonus that Pam is a woman,” Brody said in a statement. “She is a role model and an inspiration for other Hopkins women.”
“This is a tremendous honor. I feel blessed by current leadership to be named chairman of the board of trustees,” Flaherty said.
She is the latest in a line of high-profile businesspeople, particularly from multinational corporations and the financial services sector, to serve as chair of the board of trustees. One of her most notable predecessors is current New York City mayor and Hopkins alumnus Michael Bloomberg.
Flaherty’s appointment will take effect on July 1.
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University President William Brody was elected to the IBM board of directors this week, adding to an ever-growing catalogue of high-profile appointments and outside business interests the president has accumulated during his tenure at Hopkins.
“We are delighted that Bill will be joining the IBM board, bringing with him extensive experience as a leader of a world-renowned teaching and research institution that will be extremely beneficial to IBM,” IBM chairman Samuel Palmisano said in a statement.
Brody was out of the country at the time of the announcement. He will join the 13-member board on July 31.
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There has also been wide reporting on a proposed plan to build a trolley line through the heart of Charles Village, connecting the Homewood campus to the Inner Harbor.
According to a report in The Sun last week, the city Board of Estimates approved the allocation of an initial $200,000 to study the logistics of the proposal, which area businesses and community leaders have been pushing for some time.
The trolley idea — not likely to materialize in Charles Village for years — is the latest in a series of development initiatives that have commercialized the Charles Village area, sweeping away blighted and crumbling rowhouses in favor of franchises and upscale condominiums.
While the University and its students — along with area businesses and members of the Charles Village community — have pushed hard for and benefitted from the flurry of commercial activity, other projects in the area have seen less success.
As the News-Letter has reported, the empty lot on St. Paul and 33rd Streets, slated for development as the Olmsted Condominiums by Struever Bros., Eccles and Rouse (SBER), has gone untouched for some time, and its future remains tenuous (read the News-Letter’s editorial on the stalled development here).
According to reports in both City Paper and the Sun, the company plans to “scale back” its development there in response to a souring housing market and less than impressive sales at the upscale Village Lofts across the street.
Residents in nearby neighborhoods such as Remington have also reported an uptick in crime and drug-related activity — which coincides with a similar increase across the city — which they attribute partly to the construction. There have been at least two homicides in the area in the month of June, a non-fatal shooting and a rash of burglaries.
sal.gentile@jhunewsletter.com
The University has been placed on “Red Alert” by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), for what the organization calls Hopkins’ “particularly severe and ongoing disregard for their contractual or constitutional commitments to uphold the fundamental rights of students and faculty.”
No, this does not mean that a terrorist threat is “imminent.” Think of it more as the Razzie for free speech.
Hopkins earned the “award” for its response to the Sigma Chi controversy, which students may recall resulted in the suspension of Justin Park ‘08. Park had posted what many complained was a racially insensitive invitation to his fraternity’s “Halloween in the Hood” party, facetiously praising such figures as “Orenthal James Simpson” and Johnnie Cochran, referring to Baltimore as an “hiv [sic] pit,” and urging attendees to wear “hoochie hoops” and “grills.”
To say the least, Park’s juvenile attempt at comedy — a career he should avoid at all costs — got him in some hot water, when the Black Student Union (BSU) held protests and invited the attention of local and national media outlets. The fact that racial tensions on college campuses across the country had already been heightened by the Duke lacrosse scandal only made matters worse.
Park apologized, rather insincerely, and tried in subsequent remarks to defend his actions, citing statistics such as Baltimore’s HIV rate and, in an especially desperate move, referring to the HBO cop show The Wire to reinforce his “jokes.”
Whether or not such puerility deserves the contempt of an entire university and a year’s suspension from school (his initial punishment, which was eventually reduced) is another question.
Though I share FIRE’s misgivings about the results of this particular incident (the News-Letter editorial board, of which I am a member, was quick to call the University’s response “positively draconian”), I find it hard to support the organization’s often misguided (and ideologically driven) activism.
Students may recall another example of FIRE inserting itself into campus affairs from a little more than a year ago, when the conservative newsmagazine The Carrollton Record published a lengthy and controversial “exposĂ©” on a Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance (DSAGA) event that featured a talk on sexual health by transgender pornography director Chi Chi LaRue.
Strewn with rampant factual inaccuracies and seething ideological bias, the Record article alleged that the University had subsidized the distribution of pornographic material and even allowed minors to participate. The latter claim was supported by the author’s observation of someone who he “thought” — but did not independently confirm — was a high school student at the event. That student’s name or age was never given, nor was he approached for comment.
More egregious, however, was The Record’s decision to publish photographs of DSAGA members on the cover of its magazine, referring to them as “The DSAGA Bunch.” How did the Record obtain these photographs? They downloaded them from the Facebook profiles of students who identified themselves as DSAGA members.
As it turns out, the Record didn’t bother to confirm whether any of the students whose pictures it had published — and whom it had effectively “outed” — were actually involved in the coordination of the event. Many complained after the fact that they had nothing to do with it, and had been injured rather publicly by the Record’s irresponsible sensationalism.
Anyway, where FIRE comes into all of this is simple — it supported the Carrollton Record and complained that the University was “censoring” the publication by removing it from the dormitories after a flurry of student complaints and allegations of harassment.
FIRE didn’t really bother to delve into the content of the Record’s “exposĂ©,” which I am sure any fair-minded person would have judged as libelous, defamatory and factually baseless. Once a purportedly journalistic publication abandons truth in a fit of ideological fervor, and does so in an educational setting (where students are entitled to, and pedagogy demands, universal decency and respect), it has arguably crossed the line into harassment.
As a result, I am generally wary of FIRE’s claims (especially those that fall into the “Red Alert” category) with regard to controversies such as these.
Nonetheless, I should note once again that I share much of the organization’s indignation at the idea that a student can be forced out of an educational setting, his life irreparably altered, simply for a poor attempt at humor on a social networking website.
Of course, University officials almost certainly mucked up the ensuing investigation and “trial” from the start. First, they denounced the fraternity nearly immediately. Then we learned that many of the claims (for example, that a pirate hanging from the front porch of the Sigma Chi house was supposed to resemble a lynching) had been exaggerated. Then, they assembled a “conduct board,” which FIRE is correct in pointing out included a member of the Black Student Union (BSU), which had already made public its position on how Park should be treated.
The members of the board decided to suspend Park for a year. They invalidated the semester he had already started, exiled him from campus, and chose 30 books about racism and diversity for him to read and review before he could be re-admitted (which would not be guaranteed.)
Then what happened? After a campus-wide backlash, counter-protests and attention from organizations such as FIRE, Susan Boswell, dean of student life, quietly and inconspicuously overturned the ruling upon appeal. Though Park’s final sentence is still unknown, he told FIRE it had been “substantially reduced,” and that he was “pleased” with the results.
And that was that. All the bluster, all the procedure, came to a quiet and as-yet unresolved end. The din of cross-talk and heated debate soon dissipated, and the infamous Sigma Chi incident faded discreetly into the mass of incidents at Hopkins that people had decided to forget.
So, if FIRE’s complaint is that the University failed to handle this situation accountably, transparently, and with respect for everyone involved, then the organization may have a point.
But it might be difficult to get behind an organization that puts Hopkins on “Red Alert” simply for failing to protect irresponsible people from the backlash they have earned.
sal.gentile@jhunewsletter.com
Notes on culture and the news from the writers and editors of The News-Letter
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