Vox is going on vacation.

I’ll be in New Jersey next week, presumably doing all of those things that I see on MTV nowadays. But all of those gym workouts, tanning, and laundry, I won’t have much time to keep you updated on Georgetown’s most hard-hitting news.

I’ll check in from time to time to make sure you’re playing nice in the comments, but don’t expect to see too many posts around these parts while I’m gone. (Although, I promise to jump into action should another golf cart set on fire.)

Thanks for reading this summer. See you in a bit.

After the alcohol policy’s resounding victory, we’re moving onto a new category: Georgetown alumni. Whose diploma do you wish Georgetown would take back and tear to shreads? We’ll keep the polls open for your votes until next week, when we’ll tackle a new category. Ultimately, you’ll choose the worst move ever made by Georgetown.

Jennifer Altemus (COL ’88)

Remember that time that Hogwarts conferred a wizardry degree upon Tom Riddle, and he subsequently became the evil Lord Voldemort and his alma mater’s greatest mortal enemy?

This is kind of like that.

In 1988, Jennifer Altemus graduated from the Georgetown College, and now, she has returned to the neighborhood to wreak havoc on student life via a robust campaign from the Citizens Association of Georgetown against the 2010 Campus Plan. (This was presumably after Provost O’Dumbledore refused to let her teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. We’ve even heard rumors that she hid a horcrux in President DeGioia’s office—but he’s never there, no one’s found it yet.)

Heir to a Citizens Association that insists your bus ride to Dupont Circle be over 4 miles long because Georgetown private property owners apparently have jurisdiction over some public streets, Altemus is even more trouble than your ordinary CAG president. Thanks to her Georgetown degree, she can claim (and local news outlets can imply) that she has an understanding of both students’ point of view and her neighbors’.

But don’t be fooled. She’s not on Georgetown’s side, she’s on CAG’s. And if they had it their way, there would be a butterbeer keg ban levied on the entire neighborhood.

—Molly Redden

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When we think about Senior Dis-Orientation, we don’t typically think about its theme. (We usually think about the free alcohol we’re going to drink, and then, the massive hangovers we’ll have the mornings after.)

But because we care about you—and you might want to know—we contacted SCC Chairman Andrew Malzberg (COL ’11) and SCC Events Chair Kristie Xian (COL ’11) to tell us more about Dis-O’s “Viva Las Hoyas” theme.

Why they chose “Viva Las Hoyas” as this year’s Dis-O theme:

[W]e want Seniors to approach their last year on the Hilltop as if they were spending the week in Vegas–they should live it up! At this time of the year, many seniors become preoccupied with graduate school applications, job interviews, and thesis writing. They forget to take advantage of everything Georgetown University and the D.C. community has to offer … “What Happens on the Hilltop Stays on the Hilltop” [will remind] seniors to live their last year in college to the fullest instead of getting bogged down by the stress of the future. After all, we’re only young once.

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Three years have elapsed since the little people of the world have been given an opportunity to croon over the desperate dialogues and grandiose compositions of Arcade Fire. Luckily, the 2010 of songwriter Win Butler’s solipsistic existence gives us a whole new reason to admire the greatest songwriter of all time.

Unfortunately, this time it’s all about how much he hates you. 

While 2004’s Funeral is one of the most important indie records released in the last ten years, 2007’s Neon Bible didn’t receive the overwhelming praise that the band grew accustomed to. The Suburbs seems to be little more than a bitter response to an under-appreciative fan base who hasn’t built their shrine to Butler quite high enough.

The Suburbs may be the band’s most cohesive and fully realized album to date, but it is also the most antagonizing and the least relatable.

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According to the Washington Post, Georgetown University Hospital suspended work in its molecular diagnostics laboratory after two women were incorrectly told that they did not have an aggressive form of breast cancer known as HER2.

The lab’s temporary closure comes at the end of a string of alleged improper testing procedures that began in May 2009, says the Post.

In January 2010, after the lab failed an examination of its HER2 test procedures, an unnamed employee suggested that her supervisors notify patients and re-test tissue samples. The employee alleged that her supervisors, including lab director Dan Hartmann, failed to act for four months, so she filed an official complaint to hospital administrators in April.

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Anticipation and speculation ran amok in the Twitterverse when Wale (@wale) announced the upcoming release of More About Nothing, the sequel to 2008′s The Mixtape About Nothing. #moreaboutnothing even landed as a trending topic when it came out earlier this week.

Wale scored a novelty hit and DC anthem with Attention Deficit‘s “Chillin’,” but its popularity didn’t translate into album sales. Instead of being a breakthrough debut, Attention Deficit dissatisfied fans of Wale’s mixtapes and left mainstream audiences disinterested. Enter More About Nothing.

More About Nothing is a top-shelf release. Wale’s wordplay grows ever stronger, and his sense of humor is on point as always and shines through his disappointment, if not laughing it off completely. And thankfully, it’s not a carbon copy of Mixtape About Nothing. (Although I miss the banter-filled shout-out tracks and the surprise Julia Louis-Dreyfus feature.)

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For more than a year, rumors suggested that Georgetown Public Library would re-open in Fall 2010. Now, that target date is a bit more specific.

According to a D.C. Public Library representative who contacted Georgetown Metropolitan, the library plans to officially open its doors in October. The re-opening is quite the accomplishment, considering that after a three-alarm fire destroyed the building in May 2007, reconstruction efforts were wrought with legal tussles and finger-pointing.

The fire, which was allegedly caused by heat guns, led to a $13 million lawsuit brought by the D.C. government against a Dynamic Corp., a construction company contracted to work in the library. After the city blamed Dynamic Corp., the company turned around and contested the suit, claiming that the D.C. Fire Department botched the investigation.

Luckily, the lawsuit didn’t ultimately derail the reconstruction process. GM has the rundown of the library’s renovated look, but personally, we’re just happy to see it re-open. (Have you ever seen the library’s DVD collection? It’s a hidden gem, we swear!)

This week, Vox wanted to give the Class of 2014 a sneak peek into each of Georgetown University’s four schools. Today, we take a look at the McDonough School of Business.

Business students get special treatment

While your non-MSB friends will have to put up with the utterly ineffective UIS (at least for a little longer), business school students get access to technological resources that actually belong in the 21st century. Chief among them is the MSB Tech Center, a competent, accessible alternative to UIS. Located on the first floor of the Hariri Building, the Tech Center is staffed with trained students who can help you troubleshoot most computer issues during walk-in hours.

In addition to tech support, the Tech Center also facilitates all the other technological services that MSB students get access to, which includes the MSB’s printing services. Despite what students from other schools might think, not actually free (check your bill for a $75 “MSB Lab Fee”), but the 1000 pages business students are given to print each semester are still a better deal than paying at Lau. They’re a lot more convenient too: using the iPrint software, students can print to nearly every printer in Hariri and pick up their paper on the way to class.

Even the MSB’s one previous technological weak spot, e-mail, has been turned into an advantage starting this semester with the transition from the cumbersome Groupwise system to Google Mail. And unlike the other schools’ UIS-provided Google Mail, the MSB’s offers a wide array of other services, including Google Docs, Calendar, and Talk (a.k.a. GChat).

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This morning, a commenter republished an email about changes within the School of Foreign Service administration. We decided to put on our journalism pants and investigate the claims.

According to the email, which was sent to SFS faculty and staff by Dean Carol Lancaster, Associate Dean Mitch Kaneda replaced Senior Associate Dean James Reardon-Anderson on July 1 as director of the Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service program.

SFS Director of Communications Beau Boughamer confirmed the changes via email earlier today.

“We are extremely proud and fortunate to have a teacher and advisor of Mitch Kaneda’s quality and character taking on this role,” Reardon-Anderson said of Kaneda, who has advised students as an associate dean for almost a decade.

However, don’t expect Reardon-Anderson to leave the SFS. As Senior Associate Dean, he now “[oversees] all curricular programs, academic appointments and finance,” according to a comment written by Lancaster. Reardon-Anderson’s duties will extend to serving as acting dean when Lancaster is out of the office.

“I didn’t want anyone to somehow get the impression that Jim Reardon-Anderson had left,” Lancaster wrote in an email to Vox.

Jennifer Windsor, former Executive Director of Freedom House, will step in on August 23 as Associate Dean of Programs. Windsor, who previously taught for MSFS, will be in charge of “administration, communications, the career center, the Georgetown Journal, Fellows in Foreign Service, alumni affairs, [and] new initiatives (including putting together an executive education degree),” according to Lancaster.

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We can’t believe we almost missed Princeton Review‘s college rankings!

Every year, we use the college rankings to remind ourselves that Georgetown’s politically active students, surroundings, and study abroad program aren’t just the best in the country, but also kick the ever-loving shit out of other colleges.

Wait … what?

NOOO!

Forget everything we just said. Only dumb schools, like American, Columbia, and Goucher College tie up their hopes and dreams into something as profoundly silly as arbitrary ranking systems.

Besides, everybody knows the U.S. News & World Report is better.