Smithsonian Institutes First Entrance Fee

At the Smithsonian Institution, visitors can see moon rocks, dinosaur bones and priceless works of art for free – but the new butterflies exhibit will have them reaching into their pockets.

The exhibit “Butterflies and Plants: Partners in Evolution” opened earlier this month at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, making it the first in the museum’s history to charge admission. The glass pavilion on the museum’s grounds contains more than 400 live butterflies and a wide variety of plant species.

While museum-goers can view the butterflies from the museum’s lawn free of charge, they will have to pay $5 for children and $6 for adults to enter the pavilion for 30 minutes, with free admission one day each week.

According to The Washington Post, the exhibit costs approximately $3 million to finance with an annual operating cost of $900,000.

On Feb.13, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) introduced the Smithsonian Free Admissions Act of 2008, a bill that would ensure free admission to all permanent exhibits at Smithsonian museums.

The current version of the bill includes an exception for the butterfly exhibit, but Norton said in a statement Friday that she “intends to work with appropriators to require the Smithsonian to raise funds specifically for the Butterfly Pavilion instead of creating a permanent exception to the 160-year-old Smithsonian policy of free access without charge to permanent exhibits.”

– Christopher O’Brien

GU Signs Agreement With Chinese to Push Religious Dialogue

Georgetown signed an agreement with a Chinese governmental organization on Tuesday in a cooperative effort to spark religious dialogue between the two institutions.

The university signed the agreement with the Chinese Center for Religious Studies of State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), which is responsible for exchanges between religious organizations in China and those in other countries.

This is the first agreement that has been made between SARA and any university in the United States, but it is one of the many ways that Georgetown has partnered with Chinese educational organizations in recent years. Georgetown developed a formal partnership with the China Central Party School and signed a cooperative agreement with Beijing’s Renmin University in 2004. In May, the university formed a partnership with Fudan University in Shanghai, in which the two institutions agreed to work together in law, medicine and journalism and to offer dual law degrees.

embers of the Georgetown Jesuit community and administration, including University President John J. DeGioia, have been traveling to China in recent years to improve these relations.

“China is a very assertive player in higher education, seeking ways to join the leading universities in the world in strategic relationships, to place themselves in the forefront of knowledge creation in the world today. In the past decade they have doubled the percentage of their population pursuing higher education,” DeGioia said in an e-mail to university spokesperson Julie Bataille.

– Matthew Zuckerman

Bestselling Author Discusses Writing Experience, Love for Fiction

Curtis Sittenfeld, author of the bestselling novels “Prep” and “The Man of My Dreams,” discussed her experiences as a writer on Tuesday evening in McShain Lounge in a speech sponsored by the Georgetown University Lecture Fund.

Approximately 15 students attended to hear Sittenfeld speak about the writing process and the inspiration behind her novels. In addition, Sittenfeld read an excerpt from her upcoming novel.

Sittenfeld conveyed her love for fiction by explaining that writing from another person’s perspective allows her to understand and empathize with others better.

She added that writers are not limited to working in an office and are able to “wear sweatpants every day.”

“It’s nice for students to be able to meet professionals in various fields,” Sittenfeld said, explaining that her goal in speaking to Georgetown students was to “demystify” the profession of writing.

A number of students in the audience expressed an ability to relate to the characters and situations found within Curtis’s first novel, “Prep,” which is set in a boarding school. “[Curtis] addressed many of the boarding-school stereotypes,” said Anna Thomas (SFS ’11). “The truthfulness and candor of Curtis’s work allows readers to engage.”

– Candace Mosely

Roundtable Talk Focuses on Presidential Race

Georgetown students were given an expert look at the 2008 U.S. presidential elections Wednesday at a College Democrats roundtable discussion in Healy Hall with political journalists Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post and Mike Allen of The Politico.

Approximately 25 students attended the discussion, which was moderated by government professor Eric Langenbacher. The dialogued focused mainly on the media’s coverage of the candidates and their contrasting campaign strategies.

Cillizza credited Obama’s motivational speeches for his ability to gain such a following, or “Obama-mania” as he termed it, throughout his campaign.

“[He has] turned it from voting for a candidate to voting for a movement,” Cillizza said.

According to Cillizza, it has been Obama’s name and campaign for change that have dominated the headlines recently in this election season, a novelty which has attracted reporters.

“There is a level of fatigue with the Clintons,” Cillizza said, “and reporters are suckers for the next big thing.”

Allen agreed with Cillizza about the commonality among reporters to cover the same stories, which heavily scrutinized Clinton at the beginning of this election season. Allen attributed this phenomenon to Clinton’s initial lead in the campaign.

“When you’re at the front of the parade, you get a lot of shots taken at you,” Allen said. “It’s like a five year old soccer game – everyone’s on the ball.”

The discussion came to a close with an audience question-and-answer session, after which Allen and Cillizza agreed that no one candidate is likely to win the nomination by a landslide.

“I predict this will be a 50/50 nation,” Allen said. “The tipping point, I’m not so sure which one [candidate] it is yet.”

“I don’t see a blow out in the making,” Cilizza said. “But until you know the terrain that will be fought on, be cautious.”

– Kaitlyn Gallagher

IMF Officials Critique Agency in Talk

Two International Monetary Fund representatives criticized the fund’s global shortcomings yesterday in Riggs Library as part of a series of lectures on the future of the IMF.

“The IMF needs profound change,” said Executive Director Hector Torres, who represents Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. “It needs to recognize that the conditions it imposes on borrowing countries necessarily are trade-offs involving social justice.”

Torres said that the IMF consistently opposed minimum wage settings, for example.

“The more money a country puts in the fund, the more influence it gets on the fund. It impairs the ability of the IMF to scrutinize its most influential members,” he said.

“Unless the IMF changes its policy advice and decision-making, it risks becoming a perfectly irrelevant institution,” Alternate Executive Director Ramon Guzman, who represents Central America, Spain and Venezuela, said.

Guzman said the IMF needs to improve its policies in South America as well as expand upon its global surveillance.

“The fund needs to become an insurance company,” he added. “It can’t be tied to conditions on a case by case basis.”

The IMF is an international organization of 185 countries established after World War II to promote international monetary cooperation and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustments.

The talk was sponsored by the Georgetown International Relations Club, the Mortara Center for International Studies and the School of Foreign Service Academic Council.

– Maximilien Lambertson

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