Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxliv, no. 6 | Wednesday, January 28, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891
simmons REPORTS huge losses
Top University Hall officials shed light on Brown’s dark financial situation Tuesday.
Budget an obstacle to ambitious plans
by Jenna Stark
News Editor
With the University expecting to lose
$60 million in planned operating rev-
enue due to huge endowment losses,
budget cuts and tempered ambitions
may dominate the University’s plan-
ning for the next several years.
Initiatives central to Brown’s re-
cent plans that are likely to slow or
halt because of the souring economy
include expansion of the faculty and
of graduate programs, while the
University expects to slash admin-
istrative budgets and all but do away
with salary increases for the near
future.
“The best estimate we can make
at this time is that we need to reduce
projected annual expenditures by ap-
proximately $60 million” compared
to previous budget projections,
President Ruth Simmons wrote in
a campus-wide e-mail announcing
the news Tuesday.
However, the decision to reduce
UCS to fight pre-reqs, push for young alum seat on the Corporation
By Ben Schreckinger
Senior Staf f Writer
The Undergraduate Council of Stu-
dents’ aspirations for this semester
include lobbying the University to
end enforcement of prerequisites on
Banner and advancing an effort to
create a seat on the Corporation for a
young, recent alum, members of the
council’s executive board said.
Last semester “totally exceeded
my expectations,” said UCS Presi-
dent Brian Becker ’09. Becker also
inside
News.....1-4
Higher Ed..5-6
Spor ts...7
Editorial..10
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Today........12
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the number of new faculty hires for
the next fiscal year will not have a
large effect on the University, said
Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra
P’07.
“In a natural way we were already
coming to the end of the faculty ex-
pansion,” Vohra said, adding that
he still expected a small increase in
the faculty next year. The Plan for
Academic Enrichment, when it was
first announced in 2002, aimed to
expand the faculty by 100 positions­­­­­­,
and about three-quarters of those
positions have already been filled.
Still, the University may be more
hesitant to fill vacated faculty posi-
tions. “I think that it’s going to be
difficult, nearly impossible, to get
new faculty positions,” said James
Dreier, professor of philosophy and
chair of the Faculty Executive Com-
mittee. “In some cases it’s going to
be difficult to replace faculty who
leave.”
But the postponement of the ex-
pansion of the Graduate School will
said he wanted to increase transpar-
ency in the student governing body
and boost community engagement,
bringing in members of the adminis-
tration to weekly meetings. Becker
said President Ruth Simmons will
attend a meeting this semester and
he hopes Chancellor Thomas Tisch
’76 will do the same.
UCS continued its opposition to
the enforcement of prerequisites
Tuesday, making a presentation to
a meeting of the Faculty Executive
Committee.
Higher Ed, 5
E-Textbooks arrive
Electronic readers are
substituting for heavy
textbooks
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
Kim Perley / Herald
See page 4 for highlights
from Simmons’ e-mail
likely have major consequences.
The expansion of the faculty has
not been matched by commensurate
growth in the Graduate School­, leav-
ing faculty without enough gradu-
ate students to fully support their
research and teaching needs.
The FEC requested in March
that the University slow the hiring
of additional faculty to help stymie
the problems created by the lack of
support. However, given the current
economic situation, Brown has been
unable to move forward with one
of the original goals in the Plan for
Academic Enrichment — to increase
the size of the graduate school.
“It will make research more dif-
ficult,” Dreier said, adding that “in
teaching, we expect there will be
some pressure on TAs.”
continued on page 2
The council passed a resolution
expressing its disapproval last se-
mester when Banner started block-
ing students from registering for
courses if their records lacked the
formal prerequisites unless a profes-
sor gave them an override.
“We’re not against the idea of
prerequisites” when they are used
as guideposts for students, said UCS
Academic and Administrative Af-
fairs Chair Tyler Rosenbaum ’11.
But Rosenbaum, a Herald opinions
columnist, said he worries about
Endowment stands to lose $800m
Deep budget cuts to come as U. tightens belt
By Brigitta Greene
Senior Staff Writer
Confronted with staggering losses to
its endowment, the University plans
to scale back nearly all of its most
ambitious goals in the years ahead,
President Ruth Simmons announced
Tuesday.
The University has adopted a
“working assumption” that the en-
dowment, valued at $2.8 billion in
mid-2008, will be worth $2 billion at
the end of June, according to Sim-
mons.
The dramatic news, announced
in a campus-wide e-mail from Sim-
mons Tuesday afternoon, came amid
violent market turmoil and economic
contraction that has rocked the coun-
try especially hard since the fall. As
2008 came to an end, Simmons wrote,
administrators faced “significant cred-
it, liquidity and revenue constraints
on our near-term planning.”
The expected losses to the en-
dowment mean its payout to the Uni-
versity’s operating budget will fall
$40 million short of projections, of-
ficials said. Combined with expected
fundraising shortfalls and increased
Year-end total value of Brown’s endowment
$3.0b
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
FY97 F798 FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09
Sources: FY97-07: U. report to the Senate Committee on Finance, Mar. 3, 2008;
FY08: The Herald; FY09 projection: President Simmons’ campus-wide email
“a very slow chipping away at the
New Curriculum and what it stands
for.”
“We don’t want there to be
a death by a thousand cuts,” he
said.
Members of the executive board
said they also hoped to work with
the Corporation in coming months
to discuss adding a permanent seat
on the board for a recent alum — a
proposal that is aimed at bringing
the latest concerns of students to
the attention of the highest-level
Sports, 7
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The wrestling team is taken
down by Lehigh, Army
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demand for financial aid, officials will
need to slash $60 million from next
year’s budget, said Richard Spies,
executive vice president for planning
and senior adviser to the president.
As credit markets froze, large
American banks failed and a series
of peer schools announced unprec-
edented losses in recent months,
the University before yesterday had
remained largely silent on the health
of its endowment.
The last time the University pub-
licly announced details about its in-
vestments was September 2008, when
Simmons reported that the endow-
ment grew by a modest 6.3 percent
in the 12 months ending that June.
That figure compared favorably with
Brown’s competitor schools, many of
whom witnessed stagnant or negative
growth during the same period.
But if officials’ current estimate
proves correct, the endowment will
have lost almost 30 percent of its val-
ue in just one year — approximately
$800 million.
In her e-mail, Simmons outlined a
number of avenues to trim expendi-
continued on page 2
(anticipated)
decision-makers.
“Corporation members are very
out of touch with student experi-
ences,” Becker said. “They don’t
understand what it’s like to be a
student in 2009.” Along with advo-
cating for “new blood” on the Cor-
poration, Becker said he planned
to introduce forums for informal
interaction between students and
Corporation members.
“I would be surprised” if the Cor-
continued on page 6
Opinions, 11
Gossip war
Will JuicyCampus gossip
take the place of rich
Manhattan teen drama?
Page 2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Wednesday, January 28, 2009

C ampus N EWS “We are trying to do anything we can to avoid layoffs.”

— Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning

reaction on campus
Ignored by some, e-mail rattles others
Despite the unhappy
financial situation the
University is in — outlined in
a campus-wide e-mail from
President Ruth Simmons
sent yesterday around 5 p.m.
— many students interviewed
by The Herald late Tuesday
were only vaguely aware of
the e-mail’s contents.
Though many students
interviewed said they had
merely skimmed the e-mail,
those students who had read
the message were concerned
that the University did
not intend to increase the
number of doctoral students
Linden ’12, a student in the
Program in Liberal Medical
Education. She added that
it was “kind of scary being
a freshman and still having
seven and a half more years
here.”
But many students were
relieved that Simmons vowed
to meet the financial needs
of families and students
despite the intended
reduction in expenditures.
Simmons stressed Brown’s
ongoing commitment to
preserving academic life,
and outlined a multi-faceted
plan to decrease spending
Plunging endowment forces cuts
continued from page 1 Change in endowment total from previous year
25%
tures, which she will recommend to 20
the Corporation when it meets in Feb-
15
ruary to vote on the new budget.
Those include a moratorium on 10
salary increases for nearly all fac- 5
ulty and staff, $4.5 million in cuts to
0
the overall budget for administration
and lower targets for the University’s -5
ongoing expansion of the faculty, a -10
cornerstone initiative of Simmons’
-15
presidency. The University also plans
to halt previously outlined growth of -20
the Graduate School. -25
“We will have to not only pare
-30%
expenditures and eliminate some
FY98 FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09
amenities and services,” Simmons (anticipated)
wrote in her e-mail, “but think about Sources: FY97-07: U. report to the Senate Committee on Finance, Mar. 3, 2008;
doing some things differently. There FY08: The Herald; FY09 projection: President Simmons’ campus-wide email

each year.
Simmons’ message was
“shocking and scary,” said
Raechel Shaw ’12. She said
she and her friends “were
talking about how we were
living in a utopia, and we
don’t really have a sense
of the economic crisis right
now.”
“I thought it was scary
how they’re not expanding
the number of Ph.D.s that
they are taking,” said Olivia
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sudoku
and mitigate the anticipated
decrease in endowment
and available funds while
maintaining financial aid
and academic programs.
The message “seemed
pretty reasonable,” said
Kevin Kay ’11. “It was good
that she decided to increase
financial aid rather than cut
back on it like everything
else.”
— Sydney Ember
will surely be some discomfort aris-
ing from these circumstances, and
I ask that you be prepared for this
eventuality.”
In addition to deep cuts to the
annual budget, Simmons raised the
possibility of a deferral of all “discre-
tionary capital projects” — such as
the Nelson Fitness Center and a new
swimming pool — until all funding
for those buildings has been raised.
Looking beyond fiscal year
2010, Simmons anticipated further
reductions of at least $12 million in
“administrative and support areas,”
smaller increases in compensation
and “essentially no growth” in the
total number of doctoral students
over the next several years.
“Our highest priorities through-
out this process have been to protect
the most essential elements of the
University’s academic excellence
and positive momentum,” Simmons
wrote. She emphasized that the Uni-
versity will continue to meet the ris-
ing demand for financial aid.
Simmons also hinted at a smaller
increase in the hiring of new faculty
over the next three to five years — a
break from the ambitious additions
of previous years during the bright-
est years of the Plan for Academic
Enrichment.
Moreover, according to Spies,
the current hiring freeze — initially
scheduled to expire at the end of
the month — will be extended. All
recently vacated positions will be
carefully evaluated by the Vacancy
Review Committee to determine if
they need to be filled.
“We are trying to do anything we
can to avoid layoffs,” Spies said.
Because search processes for new
faculty starting in fall 2009 began last
summer — before the worst of eco-
nomic crisis hit — the number of
new incoming faculty will not change
dramatically in September, Spies said.
But fewer searches will be authorized
to begin this summer.
The value of the University’s
endowment is difficult to measure
because much of that money is in-
vested in non-marketable securities
— investments that, because they are
not publicly traded, cannot be priced
with great precision.
For example, about a quarter to
a third of the University’s portfolio
is held in alternative investment op-
tions like hedge funds and private
equity, Spies said. “It’s not shooting
in the dark,” Spies said of that kind
of investment. “But it’s pretty difficult
to measure.”
However stunning, Brown’s losses
seem to be on a scale roughly com-
mensurate with those its leading com-
petitors are projecting. In December,
Harvard announced its endowment
had tumbled 22 percent — a whop-
ping $8 billion — between June and
October, while Yale estimated its en-
dowment losses in the second half
of last year at 25 percent. Harvard is
bracing for losses totaling 30 percent
of its endowment by June, according
to the Harvard Crimson.
The deep losses Brown and
other schools are reporting stand
in stark contrast to the double-digit
gains Brown and its peers regularly
reported in past years. Brown spent
its endowment and fundraising gains
aggressively to fuel growth under
Simmons.
The University has also taken on a
substantial amount of new debt in re-
cent years in a calculated attempt by
University officials to move forward
quickly with the Plan for Academic
Enrichment. As Simmons noted in
her e-mail, “Debt markets continue
to be extremely volatile and the an-
nual cost of debt service and liquidity
protection has risen dramatically.”
Spies also said the University will
stop tapping into the $60 million in
reserve funds the Corporation ap-
proved in 2004 to fuel growth under
the Plan for Academic Enrichment
— approximately half of which has
so far been spent. That University
officials are now reluctant to spend
down rainy day funds seems to un-
derscore that the storm clouds of
2008 are far from passing.
“The basic point is to conserve
what we have in order to be in a posi-
tion to move forward in the future,”
Spies said.
Although Simmons’ e-mail sug-
gested the University was expecting
its donors to give more reluctantly in
the battered economy, the Campaign
for Academic Enrichment remains
likely to reach its goal of $1.4 billion
by the end of this fiscal year, ahead
of schedule, Spies said.
To date, the campaign has raised
over $1.3 billion to support Sim-
mons’ Plan for Academic Enrich-
ment, according to the Office of
Advancement.

Growth derailed for faculty, grad school

continued from page 1 hasn’t increased with it.” from the past,” he said, and “not one
Vohra said the graduate student we were hoping to happen at this
The graduate school’s guarantee shortage is “complex,” adding that stage.”
of five years of financial support for Sheila Bonde, dean of the Graduate “People thought this might be

Daily Herald
its students, announced in 2006, has School, is working to remedy the coming,” Dreier said. “It is unfortu-
the Brown
placed a greater emphasis on short- problem. nate that it is reality.”
ening graduation time and, conse- The University will also respond to The University anticipates fur-
Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | Business Phone: 401.351.3260 quently, has limited the amount of the decline in the endowment value ther action will be needed to help
time graduate students can spend as by not giving salary increases to “es- deal with the significant loss to the
Stephen DeLucia, President Jonathan Spector, Treasurer
TAs. Professors, consequently, are sentially all faculty and staff,” Sim- endowment, Simmons wrote in her
Michael Bechek, Vice President Alexander Hughes, Secretary
introducing course caps in classes mons wrote in the e-mail, adding that e-mail, including putting off plans
The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serv- where there are not enough TAs she understands that “the pain must for “discretionary capital projects”
ing the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday available. begin at the top and we in the senior like new buildings. Effectively, that
through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during
Still, Dreier said the Graduate administration are making major cuts could impact residence hall renova-
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Page 3

C ampus N EWS “It’s like a little surprise present in the mail.”

— Kayla Ringelheim ’11

Morning Mail cuts small event announcements Fruit fly gene

By Andrew Sia
Contributing Writer
This semester, the Brown commu-
nity will wake up to something a
little different.
Morning Mail no longer adver-
tises events in venues that cannot
accommodate 300 or more people,
a policy that went into effect last
week. The change comes as a re-
sponse to complaints from the com-
munity after last semester’s lengthy
Morning Mails, said Marisa Quinn,
vice president for public affairs and
University relations.
Morning Mail, a daily e-mail list-
ing University-recognized events,
began five years ago as a way to
share important information such
as inclement weather updates, hu-
man resources issues and large
events that required ticketing in-
formation, Quinn said. The daily
e-mail has evolved since then to
include smaller campus events,
though these events were “not its
original purpose,” Quinn said.
Quinn received a number of
complaints about the ineffective-
ness of Morning Mail, she said,
particularly last semester when,
according to Quinn, Morning Mail
contained “up to 40 events a day.”
Students felt like Morning Mail had
become a “laundry list” and had
begun to seem like spam, Quinn
added.
The change of policy is designed
to return Morning Mail to a way of
informing the community of major
events, Quinn said. For events that
do not meet the new criteria, she
said she encourages members of
the community to use the events
Thanks to a new policy, students can now expect to encounter a slimmed-down Morning Mail in their inboxes.
calendar and the Today at Brown
Web site, links to which are includ-
ed at the top of Morning Mail.
Many students are unhappy with
the change. Meredith Curtis ’10
created a Facebook group named
“Morning Mail Should Consider
Events < 300 People,” which already
has 50 members. Curtis said she
feels surprised that Morning Mail
would exclude events simply on
the basis of room capacity. She said
she has attended and organized
multiple small events and added
that alternatives to Morning Mail
can make it difficult to reach the
student body.
Ashley Anderson ’10 is also
upset with the change, and thinks
the new policy contradicts Brown’s
ideals. “The whole idea of Brown is
that there is a place for everyone,
but that nothing appeals to every-
body,” she said. Anderson said she
thinks the changes to Morning Mail
strip its readership of “the diversity
and peculiarity of options.”
The new policy “says the Brown
community doesn’t care about more
independent, low-budget events,”
Anderson said, adding that student
leaders work on a limited budget
and that electronic communication
is often the most effective option.
Both Curtis and Anderson said
they enjoy reading about smaller
events that take place each day,
even if they do not plan on attend-
ing them. Also, many interesting
events sponsored by institutions
like the Sarah Doyle Women’s Cen-
ter and the Swearer Center do not
Quinn Savit / Herald
meet the 300-person requirement,
Curtis added.
But Quinn said she will encour-
age the “bundling of events togeth-
er.” Institutions like the Swearer
Center will be allowed to send out
monthly announcements containing
a list of upcoming events, Quinn
said, adding that she still wants
those groups to be able to com-
municate with the community.
Jason Lee ’12, who reads Morn-
ing Mail every day, said the policy
change is not necessary. Lee said
the table of contents included in
each e-mail made it easy to navigate,
despite the long list of events, and
exposed him to interesting smaller
events.
“I thought it was better” before
the change, he added.
mutation
slows aging
By Sydney Ember
Senior Staf f Writer
Humans may one day thank the
fruit fly for extending their lives.
Last week, a team of research-
ers led by Professor of Biology
Stephen Helfand found that a gene
mutation dramatically increases the
lifespan of fruit flies, a discover y
that may be beneficial to humans
in delaying the aging process. The
findings were published on Jan.
21 in the online early edition of
the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.
Helfand and Assistant Profes-
sor of Brain and Neural Science
(Research) Nicola Neretti found
that this gene — called the “Indy”
gene — was involved in reducing
the activity of the oxidative phos-
phorylation pathway that produces
damaging free radicals during the
conversion of nutrients to energy
in cells.
“We knew that there was a
mutation in a gene,” said Neretti,
first author of the paper that out-
lined the discover y. “What wasn’t
known about this is how exactly
this happens.”
The goal of the study was to
discover the genetic difference be-
tween flies with the mutation and
flies without it, Neretti said.
“One of the main differences
that popped out of this study was
that genes that were involved in
the specific pathway that is called
oxidative phosphor ylation, were
significantly different between the
two types of flies,” he said. Flies

Musical students build up fame, 99 cents at a time
By Lauren Pischel
Staff Writer
The iTunes Store greets viewers
with the usual charts of top artists
and songs. But closer inspection
reveals Brown undergraduates have
also found a niche on the popular
downloading site.
“Having music on iTunes — it’s
an amazing way to market your
music because everyone knows
iTunes,” said singer-songwriter
Kayla Ringelheim ’11, who has a full
albumand several additional tracks
on iTunes. “For some reason it re-
ally resonates with people.”
For musicians at Brown, iTunes
is not an exclusive means for dis-
tributing their music or providing a
major source of income, but it is one
of several channels to spread their
songs to a larger audience.
iTunes “just adds another layer
of credibility,” said Andy Suzuki ’09,
a pianist who is working to add his
first album to the iTunes Store. One
of the first questions people ask him,
he said, is if his music is on the on-
line music store. up and down the East Coast. “Once music as “pop-concious rock music,”
“I think a lot of people get gift
certificates, or they have parents’
credit cards registered on there,”
said Rosalind Schonwald ’12, a Her-
ald contributing writer who has an
album on iTunes called “Model
that possess the mutated gene pro-
duce fewer free radicals during the
activity of this pathway.
Martian Moon Boy.” “Two Suns.” Many of the performers also play Because free radicals are linked
iTunes takes 30 cents for every “Those two songs almost felt in venues around campus, specifi- to damage that occurs during ag-
99-cent song purchased on its site, indulgent,” Ringelheim said. “Re- cally the Hourglass Café and the ing, reducing the production of
according to many of the student cording is kind of like a luxury for Underground. Berman said the Sat- these harmful chemicals through
artists. There is about a two-month musicians. It’s a completely different urday Morning Project is trying to this gene mutation delays the ag-
delay between the time of purchase mindset from playing live. When you book Leung Gallery for a show this ing process in fruit flies, Neretti
and the time the musician receives are performing it is really interactive semester. said.
a check. and different every time.” “We are trying to fit more people He said the Indy gene that is
“It’s like a little surprise present iTunes is not necessarily a large (in our shows) because, the last mutated in these flies has a ho-
in the mail,” Ringelheim said. source of income for these artists. three shows, we have had to turn mologue — an equivalent gene
Schonwald characterized her “We don’t really care about making people away,” Berman said. — in humans. Though this gene
music as folk. She was highly in- money for shows,” said Doug Ber- Suzuki also travels up and down in humans is not ver y well-char-
fluenced by Sarah McLachlan, to man ’09, guitar player and singer the East Coast, performing at uni- acterized, Neretti said, he hopes
whom she listened in for the band Saturday versities, high schools and boarding it might be possible to reproduce
her childhood. Schon- FEATURE Morning Project, which schools. the same kinds of physiological
wald has also studied is made up of six Brown He learned to play the piano when changes seen in the fruit flies to
jazz for the past three years, which students. “iTunes is just another way he was young and then focused on slow the aging process.
has affected her vocal style and to have our stuff out there.” singing. He started playing piano But Neretti also said the mu-
chord structure, she said. Saturday Morning Project be- again at the end of his senior year in tation might be a “more general
Ringelheim started taking piano gan when Berman met with several high school so he could accompany mechanism to extend lifespan,”
lessons at the age of 10. Her singer- of his friends in the Hillel practice himself in a performance. adding that there were other mu-
songwriter teacher inspired her to room their freshman year to make Though Suzuki often has a hard tations and inter ventions that can
write her own music ­— songs in- music. They then started meeting time characterizing his music, he de- increase an organism’s lifetime.
spired by Joni Mitchell and Norah every Saturday morning and soon scribed it as “more acoustic, singer- The study began several years
Jones, who is “poppy or whatever, formed today’s six-member band. songwriter with some hints of R&B.” ago as a multi-center study initiated
but she is good,” Ringelheim said. The group is made up of an elec- He said he is influenced by Mitchell, by the University of Connecticut.
Besides selling her music on tric violin, a piano, two guitars, a John Legend and John Mayer. During the preliminar y research,
iTunes, Ringelheim also performs bass and drums. Suzuki’s full-length album, called Helfand collaborated with Rogina
at a “tight network” of coffeehouses Berman characterized the band’s “Flamingos for Dinner,” is in the Blanka, assistant professor in the
final stages of recording and should department of genetics and devel-
you kind of get in there, there are a but added, “We play rap covers. We be available on iTunes in March. opmental biology at the University
bunch of places you can play,” she try to keep it fun for ourselves.” After graduation, Suzuki said he of Connecticut.
said. Saturday Morning Project is planning to move to New York Neretti and Helfand’s recent
Ringelheim recently released opened for Guster last year at Provi- City “with the ultimate goal of be- study, which was funded by the
two singles on iTunes in De- dence Piers and played at Lupo’s ing able to support myself through
cember: “Corner and Stone” and Heartbreak Hotel this past fall. music.” continued on page 6
Page 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Wednesday, January 28, 2009

C ampus N EWS “This is a sobering picture, to be sure.”

— President Ruth Simmons

E-mail from President Ruth Simmons to the community

To Faculty, Students, Staff,
Alumni and Friends of
Brown University:
It has been some time since I wrote
to you about the anticipated ef-
fects of the global financial crisis
on the University. Since then, the
crisis has expanded and deepened,
bringing extraordinary upheaval
throughout many for-profit and
not-for-profit sectors. At Brown,
upon the close of the 2008 year, we
learned more about the apparent
effect of significant credit, liquid-
ity and revenue constraints on our
near-term planning. That informa-
tion has led us to plan the imple-
mentation of a number of measures
to reduce expenditures, constrain
expansion and limit major new
obligations until we see a return
to robust growth in revenue.
Before telling you of those mea-
sures, I want to reiterate that the
context for any actions we take
remains as I stated in my previous
letter. We will act in accord with
our values as a community; we will
focus on preser ving the quality
of our academic life; and we will
continue to protect our capacity
to support our financial aid pro-
gram. Finally, even during these
perilous moments, to the extent
possible, we will make selected
investments in opportunities to im-
prove the quality of our academic
programs...
Like most large endowments,
our Long Term Pool has a signifi-
cant allocation to non-marketable
asset classes which are challeng-
ing to value in the current envi-
ronment. Therefore, for planning
purposes, the staff and Corpora-
tion committee overseeing our
investments have advised us to
use a working assumption of a total
Brown endowment of $2 billion at
the end of the fiscal year on June
30, 2009. While our payout policies
are designed to spread the impact
of market losses over three years,
acting on this planning assumption
would ultimately mean a reduction
in revenue from the endowment of
more than $40 million and a con-
comitant reduction of $40 million
from our operating budget...
Of course, these effects pale
in comparison with what has oc-
curred in the larger economy.
Major global financial institutions
have disappeared or been com-
pletely transformed. A $700 billion
bailout plan of the financial system
— matched by equally large com-
mitments in other countries — has
been shown to be inadequate to
solve the crisis and a new admin-
istration in Washington has pro-
posed a plan for almost $1 trillion
in new spending and other initia-
tives to stimulate the economy.
Even in our own world of higher
education, major universities have
canceled faculty searches, under-
taken layoffs, announced flat or re-
duced salaries for faculty and staff
in FY10, cancelled capital projects,
and instituted broad cuts in operat-
ing budgets. We, too, must take ac-
count of the all-too-real constraints
imposed by this crisis...
I fully understand that the pain
must begin at the top and we in
the senior administration are mak-
ing major cuts in our own budgets
in order to meet this challenge.
These will be detailed in the com-
ing weeks...
This is a sobering picture, to be
sure, but I remind you that the rea-
son for undertaking these difficult
actions is to position the University
for long-term health and ongoing
improvement as we await a recov-
ery. A realistic financial plan and
a sustainable base budget are es-
sential elements of that effort. It is
also essential that we adhere to the
Plan and the priorities established
by the planning process. As I sug-
gested in my November 4 letter,
our highest priorities throughout
this process have been to protect
the most essential elements of the
University’s academic excellence
and positive momentum; meet
the increased need for financial
aid; continue to take advantage of
strategic opportunities; improve
the capacity of the University to
act quickly to reduce expenditures
further if the need arises; and, to
the extent possible, work hard to
maintain the University as a stable
and supportive work environment.
Those priorities have guided us
throughout this crisis and will con-
tinue to do so as we work through
the spring to make further adjust-
ments that are necessar y to re-
establish the University’s financial
equilibrium.
I am pleased to report that,
despite the extent of the damage
done to our economic position
by the events of the last several
months, we have — in my judg-
ment — been able to preserve the
hard-won gains of the Plan for Aca-
demic Enrichment. The challenge
now is to build on those accom-
plishments in order to ensure that
Brown maintains and enhances its
position among the world’s leading
universities.
There is no question that, in or-
der to achieve those goals, we will
have to not only pare expenditures
and eliminate some amenities and
services but also think about doing
some things differently. There will
surely be some discomfort arising
from these circumstances, and I
ask that you be prepared for this
eventuality. We should all keep in
mind throughout this process that
committees are recommending
such changes in order to preserve
our ability to prevent the loss of
even more essential services and
even greater disruption to our
community.
I remain grateful for your con-
tinued cooperation and efforts
to find solutions for these chal-
lenges. Throughout this process,
we have been able to count on the
hard work and advice of alumni
and parents, the generosity of do-
nors and the steadfast support of
members of the extended Brown
community throughout the world.
The Corporation and our many
advisory councils have provided
guidance, offering expertise badly
needed in the face of enormous
financial complexity. Our students
and their parents have been helpful
in advising us of areas in need of
attention. I am especially grateful
to a parent who contacted me to
make me aware of the hardship
that our payment deadlines posed
in the current circumstances. We
were able to adjust the policy on
short notice and I am told that this
made a great difference to many. It
is just this kind of communication,
care, concern and cooperation that
makes this community one that
we treasure.
Sur veying the landscape of
higher education, I am persuaded
that we are greatly strengthened in
these difficult times by the fact that
our rigorous intellectual life and
unique curricular approach pre-
pare students well for the complex
global challenges that will continue
to emerge. The opportunities we
offer for far-ranging interdisciplin-
ary research, rigorous and innova-
tive problem-solving, and demand-
ing team work are essential for the
kinds of problems that are likely to
arise today. We take considerable
pride and comfort from the fact
that we are preparing our students
well for the future.
Further information about the
specific changes in our plans will be
announced later in the semester.
Sincerely,
Ruth J. Simmons
January 27, 2009

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Higher Ed
The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 | Page 5

Digital textbooks hit campuses Virginia Tech issues alerts

By Shara Azad
Staf f Writer
Much to her frustration, Kening
Tan ’12 has already spent approxi-
mately $300 on textbooks this se-
mester, even after buying certain
books online at a reduced cost.
Her irritation may also be felt by
students on College Hill, where
the start of the new term means
the reluctant emptying of pockets
at the bookstore.
But if Brown were to adopt the
same electronic textbook initia-
tive cropping up at schools across
the United States, students like
Tan may save a few bucks on text-
books.
Northwest Missouri State Uni-
versity and the University System
of Ohio have begun e-textbook pro-
grams, where the textbooks for a
course are available in digital form.
Electronic textbooks cost “about
50 percent less than hard copy
texts,” saving students countless
dollars every semester, President
Dean Hubbard of NMSU wrote in
an e-mail to The Herald.
Since the fall of 2007, North-
west Missouri has been actively
pursuing a campus that uses only
e-textbooks, Hubbard said. The
school has even tried to adopt
e-book readers so students can
upload and read their e-textbooks,
instead of lugging around print edi-
tions, said Paul Klute, assistant to
the president at NMSU. The school
allows students to purchase or rent
e-textbooks, and the majority of
students choose the latter option
and pay a small hourly fee for use
of the book, Klute said.
NMSU tested the Sony Reader
with their students last semester
but found “the model we used was
a little outdated,” Klute said. Cur-
rently, the school provides laptops
Hard-copy textbooks are being replaced by e-books at some schools.
to students for a marginal fee, so
they can read their e-textbooks.
The Brown Bookstore, mean-
while, tried adopting the new e-
textbook technology, only to find
disappointing results. “We did it
last semester only to have about
five sales,” said Edward Weiss,
textbook manager. “Most of our ti-
tles aren’t in e-book form anyway,”
he said, adding that the majority
of books for Brown classes come
from university presses, which are
not switching to e-textbooks as
rapidly as larger publishers. Pub-
lishers McGraw-Hill and Cengage
have partnered with NMSU and
CourseSmart, a company that pro-
vides the electronic versions of the
textbooks from six major publish-
ers in the United States.
The university system of Ohio
has an exclusive partnership with
CourseSmart to offer electronic
textbooks to its students. Unlike
NMSU, Ohio will not be switching
entirely to e-textbooks. “We want
to provide the option of electronic
textbooks,” said Michael Chaney,
chief communications officer of
Janine Cheng / Herald
the Ohio Board of Regents, add-
ing that he did not want to “force
the change.”
“Some students like having a
book they can mark up or resell,”
Chaney said.
Textbook offerings are limited
by the ability of CourseSmart to
acquire more electronic titles
from additional publishers. Se-
nior Lecturer in East Asian Stud-
ies Lung-Hua Hu said she prefers
“the old-fashioned textbook” for
her classes. But she said if the
professor doesn’t use the text-
book in class, it’s better to use an
e-textbook as opposed to the print
edition.
Students still seem to want the
option of e-textbooks. “Brown is
so green,” Tan said, adding that
e-textbooks seem more environ-
mentally friendly. She also said she
thinks e-textbooks would save stu-
dents time and money.
But Tan also said she under-
stood the shortcomings of an all e-
textbook campus, noting that “even
if people use e-textbooks, they may
still print out the pages.”
as killing rocks campus
By Gaurie TILAk AND
Matthew Varley
Higher Ed Editors
In the wake of a brutal on-campus
murder at Virginia Tech University
last Wednesday, an emergency alert
system put in place after the April
2007 shootings there was called into
use, sending emergency messages
to approximately 30,000 mobile de-
vices. The death of graduate student
Xin Yang marked the first killing at
the Blacksburg, Va., university since
32 students and faculty members
were killed by a student gunman
in the deadliest campus shooting
in American history.
Authorities said Yang, 22, of
Beijing, was stabbed to death
and beheaded by another Chinese
graduate student, Haiyang Zhu, 25,
as the two shared coffee at the Au
Bon Pain cafe in Virginia Tech’s
Graduate Life Center on Jan. 21.
When Yang arrived at the university
on Jan. 8, Zhu was designated to
help her acclimate to campus, and
records indicate she listed him as
one of two emergency contacts.
Witnesses to Wednesday’s at-
tack said the violence came without
warning. Police arrived within min-
utes of the murder, arrested Zhu
at the crime scene and discovered
a number of edged weapons in his
backpack.
Due to the rapid police response,
emergency messages were sent out
“as an advisory, not an alert,” Larry
Hincker, associate vice president for
university relations at Virginia Tech,
wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
The university revamped its emer-
gency notification system after the
2007 massacre, and campus officials
used the new “VT Alert” system
to send text messages, voicemails
and e-mails to registered mobile
devices. Brown implemented a
similar system in the wake of the
2007 attack.
According to the Associated
Press, Zhu was taken into custody
around 7:10 p.m. At 7:44, a message
went out telling students to stay in
place and avoid the Graduate Life
Center. A second message sent at
8:37 confirmed the suspect was in
custody. It advised students to avoid
the crime scene but otherwise re-
sume normal activity.
The emergency messages were
sent “within 15 minutes of contact”
with police, Hincker wrote, 35 min-
utes after the initial 911 call.
But some Virginia Tech students
expressed concern about the time
lag between the murder and the
emergency notification.
Matthew Davenport, a sopho-
more, told The Herald he was with
friends at the time of the murder and
“received the message five minutes
before anyone else” in the group.
“What if something happens
in the future and I’m one of those
that receives the message too late?”
Davenport said. “I believe that the
system needs to be much faster than
it has shown to be.”
But Hincker said the message
got out as fast as possible. “One
can’t send a message before one
knows that an event happened,”
Hincker wrote.
When a false alarm triggered use
of the VT Alert system in November
continued on page 6

New Stanford institute to address energy issues

By Ellen Cushing
Senior Staff Writer
Last week, Stanford University an-
nounced a $100 million research
institute that will be dedicated to
exploring energy issues. The Pre-
court Institute for Energy will adopt
a multidisciplinary approach to solv-
ing the world’s energy problems.
“The Precourt Institute for En-
ergy … will be a broad-based effort
to attack the problem of providing
energy in a sustainable fashion for
the growing world,” said Stanford
President John Hennessy at a press
conference Jan. 13. High and un-
stable energy costs, dependence on
foreign oil and global warming are
major energy-related issues America
currently faces, Hennessy said.
The $100 million came from
alumni donations and will allow
Stanford to provide fellowships for
graduate students and postdoctoral
students, hire faculty and create a
$40 million research center, ac-
cording to a statement released by
Stanford. The PIE will draw most of
its funding from private donations
rather than industry or the federal
government, according to a Jan.
23 Chronicle of Higher Education
article.
The center will adopt a multidis-
ciplinary approach, drawing faculty
from Stanford’s international stud-
ies, earth sciences and engineering
departments, among others. Lynn
Orr, currently the director of Stan-
ford’s Global Climate and Energy
Project, will lead the PIE, which will
encompass both the GCEP and the
already established Precourt Center
for Energy Efficiency.
Steven Hamburg, an associate
professor of environmental stud-
ies currently on leave from Brown
and serving as chief scientist at the
Environmental Defense Fund, said
Stanford has established itself in
the field of energy research, invest-
ing $30 million annually. Though
there is a growing interest in energy
research, Brown simply does not
have the capacity to pursue a similar
program, Hamburg said.
The creation of the PIE comes
at a time when other colleges and
universities are putting resources
toward research on environmental
issues. At Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity, the EMS Energy Institute
— which has an $11 million annual
budget and employs 150 graduate
students, faculty and staff — con-
ducts research on alternative en-
ergy technology including wind
power and biofuel, according to its
director, Chunshan Song.
“We’re seeing a development of
interest worldwide in clean energy
research and alternative energy re-
search,” Song said. “It’s important
to train today’s students” to use
science and technology to address
energy issues, Song said, adding
that universities must “generate the
people who will be needed to gener-
ate these technologies.”
Colleges and universities have an
obligation to work to resolve these
problems, Song said. “These are
real significant issues. Important
issues challenge the very existence
of our way of life.”
Hennessy expressed similar sen-
timents at the press conference. “We
can move forward in addressing the
world’s challenges, enabling univer-
sities to apply their vast knowledge
and capability to help lead us to a
better world,” he said.
Page 6
H igher E d
As flies live longer, humans could too
continued from page 3
National Institute on Aging and
the Ellison Medical Foundation,
involved computational analysis
and follow-up experiments, Ner-
etti said. Researchers from the
University of Chicago, along with
Blanka, were also involved in the
study.
Because the discover y was
made so recently, experts in the
field of aging and its mechanisms
— Leonard Guarente, a profes-
sor of biology at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and Gary
Ruvkun, a professor of genetics at
Har vard Medical School­— were
unable to comment on the signifi-
cance of the breakthrough.
But Neretti said the general
response in the scientific com-
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
“We’re going to be a little bit more visible this semester.”
— Mike MacCombie ’11, UCS vice president
munity was already positive.
“We had a lot of people that
studied this pathway that were
interested in this finding just be-
cause this finding is consistent
to what part of the community is
thinking in terms of how to ex-
tend lifespan,” he said. But Neretti
stressed the need for follow-up
experiments. “But I would say it’s
a little too early … and we also
need to wait a little bit until more
people read this paper and com-
ment on this paper.”
read
share
origami
recycle
DUGs, cable, office hours on
UCS agenda this semester
continued from page 1
poration did not ultimately admit
a young alum to their ranks, UCS
Vice President Mike MacCombie
’11 said. The Corporation seemed
receptive to the council’s ideas, he
said — although he added Corpora-
tion members balked at the idea of
“affirmative action for a younger per-
son,” in the form of a seat explicitly
reserved for a recent graduate.
Other UCS projects this se-
mester will include advocating for
affordable rentals of set-top cable
boxes for students’ personal televi-
sions — after Brown’s cable service
is discontinued next year — and
expanding departmental under-
graduate groups to new academic
departments.
Council members will also ex-
plore ways to allow students to
return early to College Hill, or
remain at Brown, during the five-
week winter break, according to
Becker. Brown’s not-for-credit win-
ter program, January@Brown, was
cancelled after two years for lack of
participation and funding, and did
not run this winter.
One option would be to partner
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
with the Swearer Center to provide
more opportunities for students to
perform community service in Prov-
idence in January, Becker said.
The Student Activities Com-
mittee will also try to find a way to
categorize club sports in a manner
akin to other student groups, Ryan
Lester ’11, that committee’s chair,
said. Currently, Brown’s athletic
department categorizes club sports,
but “athletics is still bouncing” cer-
tain teams to UCS when they need
funding, Lester said.
The polo club, for example, has
run into funding trouble because
the University’s insurance does not
cover athletics that take place off
University property, Lester said.
Becker said he would also make
it a priority to counter the popular
perception on campus of UCS as
irrelevant and to impress on the
student body the council’s level of
involvement in campus issues. To
increase the council’s presence,
Becker said he will re-introduce the
practice of holding office hours in
the Sharpe Refectory.
“We’re going to be a little bit
more visible this semester,” Mac-
Combie said.
Death shocks
Virginia Tech
continued from page 5
2008, the Virginia Tech Collegiate
Times reported that some people
registered for the service did not
receive the e-mails, text messages
and voicemails.
Another sophomore, Sameer
Ponkshe, also said there was a
discrepancy between the time
his friends received the message
and the time he was notified. But
Ponkshe said “the school really has
taken all the necessary precautions”
for student safety, adding that he
knew of nothing about last Wednes-
day’s incident “that could have been
prevented.”
“It was just that bizarre,” Ponkshe
said of the murder.
And while Davenport said the
killing would inevitably invoke bad
memories of the bloodbath that took
place on the campus in 2007, he
said comparisons between the two
crimes are unwarranted.
“They are two completely dif-
ferent incidents and shouldn’t be
thought of otherwise,” Davenport
said.
“Obviously there will be lots of
parallels drawn by the media, but
the kids at this school don’t think
like that,” Ponkshe said.
SportsWednesday
The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 | Page 7

Can’t stop LeBron Wrestling falls to Lehigh, Army squads

(sorry, Kobe fans) By Katie Wood
Assistant Spor ts Editor

It is May 12, 2008, Game Four of ESPN announcers who were so The wrestling team fell shor t
the Eastern Conference Semifi- used to saying Kobe Br yant is against two strong programs over
nals between the Cleveland Le- the best that they hadn’t thought the weekend. The Bears headed to
Brons (the Cavs) and to reinvestigate their No. 8 Lehigh on Saturday, where
the Boston Celtics. The claim. they could muster up only two wins,
Celtics trail by seven Now it’s 2009 and falling 29-7. On the following day,
with just under two in addition to the they fought hard against Army from
minutes to go and they vast body of statisti- the beginning, opening the match
need a stop. With Le- cal evidence that LBJ with three consecutive wins to take
Bron James dribbling had on his side every a 13-0 lead before losing a tightly-
at the top of the key, season besides his contested match, 21-16.
Joe Smith slides over Tom Trudeau rookie year and pos- Greg Einfrank ’10 began the day
to set a screen on Paul Tru Story sibly 2006-2007, he against national power Lehigh with
Pierce, who is matched now has an army of a 20-8 major decision — a victory
up on LBJ. James takes the screen supporters and an abundance of by eight or more points — over
and blows by a second defender, anecdotal evidence to back him Kellen Aura at 125 pounds. Ein-
although he is by him so fast it’s up. (How’d Kobe do against the frank’s victor y gave Brown an
unclear if LeBron even notices it C’s last spring?). early 4-0 advantage for the only
is James Posey, the Celtics’ best In a Jan. 14 SportsNation chat, lead the team would claim over the
perimeter defender. Now all that David Thorpe of Scouts Inc. wrote Mountain Hawks on the day. Bran
stands between King James and to a Kobe supporter, “Get over Crudden ’10 entered the final pe-
the rim is the defensive player of your man crush. Most of the riod scoreless in his matchup with
the year, Kevin Garnett. Kevin free world acknowledges that Alex Caruso, before his opponent
Harlan had the call for TNT as LBJ is the best on planet earth.” mustered six points on an escape
The Chosen One rose up at the He agreed that you would “want and two takedowns to take the Herald file photo
rim to posterize KG. Kobe taking the last shot, because 174-pound bout, 6-1. David Craig The wrestling team lost a tight match to Army, 21-16.
“Ohhh!” exclaimed Harlan, that is the best facet of his game.” scored a takedown in the final min-
along with everyone else watch- But, he wrote, “LeBron is the bet- ute of regulation at 184 pounds to in double-overtime, according to Brown’s lead to three, but Ross
ing at home. “LeBron James — ter overall player.” earn the win over Matt Gevelinger Stearns. Crudden and Gevelinger Baldwin ’09 defeated Josh Sand-
with NO regard for human life!” “James is, hands down, the ’09. Branden Stearns ’09 pulled out picked up right where Lemmer left haus, 7-2, to give Brown a 16-10
No regard indeed, Kevin. In best player in basketball,” wrote a close 3-2 win to knock off Joe off, scoring a pin (3:47) over Tim edge. But Army went on to shut
addition to helping give bir th ESPN’s John Hollinger before Le- Kennedy at 197 pounds, giving the Dean at 174 pounds and a 14-6 ma- out Bruno the rest of the way, as
to the most polarizing play-by- Bron began his historic campaign Bears their final points of the day. jor decision over John Drew. The Steve DeLorenzo ’10 lost a close
play call of the 2008 NBA play- this year. “It amazes me how long “We wrestled tough,” Crudden Bears took a quick 13-0 lead over 2-0 bout at 141 pounds and Bryan
offs, James provided one more it’s taken people to realize it.” said. “We might not have won, but the Black Knights and had a lot of Tracy ’10 dropped a 2-1 decision at
example for why he’s the best Me too, John. Ever wonder tried to keep it close, scoring some momentum heading into the rest 157 pounds.
basketball player on the planet how the Cavs are atop the East- points along the way. It was a small of the bouts. “We wrestled a lot more ag-
— and it’s not even close. ern Conference standings despite victory — lets you know that you “The momentum was heading in gressive and looked a lot better as
Let’s just get one thing straight serious injuries to their starting are improving. That’s where you our direction,” Sterns said. “Bran a team on Sunday,” Stearns said.
before I go any further, especially shooting guard and star ting want to be.” was really aggressive — pinning his “One-point matches could have
to all the Kobe Br yant fans out center, not to mention a glaring Brown used the Lehigh trip as kid. Matt went out and did what he gone our way on a different day. It
there flipping out right now. This lack of a legitimate number-two a learning experience and came had to do, getting a solid win for was tough to lose since we wrestled
is 2009; it’s not 2004 anymore. scoring option? It’s certainly not out hot against Army on Sunday us. For us to get that start, we felt well.”
Kobe is still great, but at 30 years because of starting point guard afternoon. Jeff Lemmer ’12, step- like we could win.” The Bears will take this week-
old, he’s not what he once was — Mo Williams’ whopping four as- ping up to replace captain Chris Stearns could not follow up on end off from competition before
not that he was ever as good as sists per game, Delonte West’s Musser ’09 at 165 pounds in his his win on Saturday afternoon, traveling to Penn and Princeton on
LeBron is now. career high 12.3 points per game first varsity match since the Cliff falling quickly at 197 pounds, 7-0, Feb. 7 for their first two Ivy League
He just turned 24 on Dec. 30, or Anderson Varejao’s hair. Keen Las Vegas Invitational in early to Richard Starks, one of the best dates of a five-match conference
but King James is currently hav- And what happened to the LBJ December, recorded an impres- wrestlers on the Army squad. Ein- schedule.
ing a season for the ages. Only Mi- who doesn’t play any defense? sive 12-5 overtime decision over frank almost recorded a win for the “We’re trying to prepare for the
chael Jordan (31.71 in 1987-1988) His defensive ability in the past Michael Gorman. He hit a five-point Bears, losing a close 4-3 decision end of the season,” Crudden said.
and Wilt Chamberlain (31.84 in was always under-appreciated, takedown and a reversal all in a to Lance Penhale at 125 pounds. “These tough matches along the
1962-1963) have ever posted a particularly his help defense. But minute to push him over the edge The Black Knights had narrowed way will help us get there.”
better player ef ficiency rating James came away from Beijing
(PER) than James has so far this with a gold medal and a newfound
season, and he trails their best commitment to defense, earning
seasons by a measly .14 and .27, raves about his improvements on Gymnastics steps up against MIT and URI
respectively. To put that in better and off the ball. He’s currently
perspective, Kobe’s best statis- fifth in the league in steals and By Elisabeth Avallone in the lineup and they are handling on the beam, tallying an overall
tical season came in 2005-2006, is averaging a career-high 1.2 Spor ts Staf f Writer the competitions extremely well. score of 46.500, as Zanelli and
when he posted a PER of 27.97, blocks. In our second home meet of the Binkley finished in first with per-
good for 49th best all-time. Say what you will about Chris In a decisive victor y, the Brown season (last weekend), we scored sonal best scores of 9.475. Siems
I’ve been on the lonely side Paul, who is having a historic sea- gymnastics team outmatched both just as well as our top score for the followed in third (9.400), Lau-
of the LeBron vs. Kobe debate son in his own right for a point MIT and the URI Club Team on entire 2008 season.” ren Tucker ’12 in fourth (9.100)
many times the last couple years. guard. I’d entertain debates about Sunday afternoon at the Pizzitola On the vault, freshmen Lilly and Katie Goddard ’12 in sixth
LBJ posts a vastly superior PER, a Dwyane Wade’s greatness — he’s Sports Center, securing a second Siems ’12 and Carli Wisenfeld ’12 (9.050).
higher scoring output, better re- proving that he’s still an elite play- place standing in the Ivy League placed second and third, respec- Helen Segal ’10 and Binkley’s
bounding numbers and superior er after a regression in 2007-2008. early in the season. The Bears fin- tively, with scores of 9.550 and (9.575) second-place finishes on
peripherals such as his higher But my apologies to CP3, Flash, ished with a total score of 186.500, 9.525. Following were Chelsey Bin- the floor helped make the event
true shooting percentage, blocks, KB24 and any other challengers MIT with 179.350 and the URI Club kley ’11 (9.400) in fourth, Melissa the Bears’ strongest of the after-
assists — the list goes on. But for the title of best player, be- Team with 136.625. Bowe ’11 (9.275), Zanelli (9.250) noon. Wisenfeld (9.425), Whitney
apparently objective, quantifiable cause right now there’s a beast Victoria Zanelli ’11 finished first and Isabelle Kirkham-Lewitt ’10 Diederich ’09 (9.300) and Zanelli
measures for value used to be in Cleveland, showing absolutely on beam and second on the bars (9.200). (9.275) finished fifth through
trumped by anecdotal arguments no regard for human life, that no to help pave the way for the Bears’ The Bears claimed second- seventh, respectively, to secure
about Kobe’s rings, LeBron’s lack one can even come close to. victor y. through fifth-place finishes on the Brown’s first-place finish.
of a consistent jump shot and the “I am thrilled with the way the bars for a total score of 45.850. “Heading into our meet with
all-encompassing “who would you team opened this season. This Zanelli led the way with a 9.400, UPenn, we are energized and eager
rather have take the last shot?” Tom Trudeau ’09 is risking team has so much potential and followed by third-place finishers to show why we are ahead in the
argument that is erroneously sub- his basketball happiness on to be in second place in the Ivy Siems and captain Jennifer Sobuta rankings,” said Car ver-Milne.
stituted for the “who is the better LBJ coming to New York — League this early is ver y motivat- ’09 — both scoring a 9.250 — and The Bears will take on the Uni-
player?” question. I also have had in two years. ing,” said Head Coach Sara Carver- Kirkham-Lewitt (9.200) in fifth. versity of Pennsylvania on Satur-
to combat quotations from lazy Milne. “We have several freshmen The Bears were unchallenged day, Jan. 31, in Philadelphia.
 World & Nation
The Brown Daily Herald
Renowned author
John Updike dies at 76
By David L. Ulin
Los Angeles T imes
For David Foster Wallace, he was
one of “the Great Male Narcissists.”
Martin Amis declared that the last
section of his 1989 memoir “Self-Con-
sciousness” was “to my knowledge
the best thing yet written on what
it is like to get older: age, and the
only end of age.” Nicholson Baker
celebrated his “assured touch, (his)
adjectival resourcefulness.”
But for me, the lasting image of
John Updike, who died Monday of
lung cancer at age 76, is as a self-
described “freelancer,” who pro-
duced a nearly endless stream of
book reviews, novels, stories, poems
and occasional pieces — more than
60 volumes’ worth — because he felt
he’d be forgotten if he didn’t keep
his name in print.
I met Updike in November, when
I interviewed at UCLA Live. He had
been sick, he said, with pneumonia.
Before the event, we sat in the green
room at Royce Hall and talked base-
ball, going back and forth about the
Yankees (my team) and the Red Sox
(his), as well as the Philadelphia
Phillies, who had won the World
Series a few weeks before.
It’s easy to forget, amid all his
writing, that one of Updike’s early
masterpieces was a 1960 New York-
er essay called “Hub Fans Bid Kid
Adieu,” in which he describes Ted
Williams’ final game. “The affair be-
tween Boston and Ted Williams,”
Updike wrote, “has been no mere
summer romance; it has been a mar-
riage, composed of spats, mutual
disappointments, and, toward the
end, a mellowing hoard of shared
memories. It falls into three stages,
which may be termed Youth, Matu-
rity, and Age; or Thesis, Antithesis,
and Synthesis; or Jason, Achilles,
and Nestor.”
This was Updike’s gift: the felici-
tous phrase, the attention to detail,
the ability to make the mundane
profound. And yet, this was also his
Courtesy of George Bush Presidential Library
President and Mrs. George H. W. Bush present the Medal of Arts to
en:John Updike at the White House.
greatest limitation, for in his lesser
efforts, he left us to skitter along
the surface of his language without
ever breaking through.
To my surprise, Updike was open
about this; he brought it up, once we
were onstage. He asked rhetorically:
Did he write too much? Probably.
But he had made a promise to him-
self early on that he would publish
a book a year, and a novel every
other year, and he saw no reason
to rethink it now.
Had he written some books that
hadn’t worked? Certainly. But bet-
ter that, he suggested, than to hole
up, a la Saul Bellow, and deliver a
piece of writing every five years. It
was far more useful to be front and
center in the culture, to be a working
writer, to do the best he could and
then move on.
Updike is commonly regarded
as the poet laureate of the suburbs,
but that’s not really accurate. Yes,
he evoked a certain middle-class
domestic culture at the precise mo-
ment (the 1960s and 1970s) it was
exploding; without him, there’d be
no Rick Moody, no Ethan Canin -- to
name just two.
But more than suburban life, Up-
dike was an explorer of conscious-
ness; this is why Wallace derided
him as a solipsist. Even his most
celebrated works, the Rabbit novels,
are less about domestic life than one
man struggling to make sense of
himself. For Updike, it didn’t happen
unless he’d reflected on it. If that, at
times, could keep us at a distance, it
was the clearest expression of who
he was.
This is why, of all his contempo-
raries, Updike was the most effective
critic; for more than 40 years, he
reviewed books and art for The New
Yorker and the New York Review of
Books. He described it as a way to
keep his hand in, but in fact, criti-
cism became a parallel spoke of his
career, a way to think about, as well
as to produce, literature.
Dolphins moored in New Jersey
By Juliet Eilperin
The Washington Post
Early last summer, a group of 16 mi-
gratory dolphins that usually spend
their time cruising off the East
Coast ventured up New Jersey’s
Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers.
As the weather turned colder, lo-
cal residents and federal scientists
waited to see if the animals would
leave — but they didn’t.
Their presence triggered
months of debate on whether the
dolphins were trapped and should
be rescued, as politicians, research-
ers and local residents argued over
what to do when marine mammals
find themselves in unfamiliar plac-
es. While the New Jersey dolphins
have finally vanished — at least
three have died, and the remaining
members of the group have either
returned to the ocean or are now
trapped under a frozen river — the
incident highlights the scientific
and ethical questions that officials
at the National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration regularly
confront.
“There’s a push-pull between
scientists, resource managers and
the public,” said Teri Rowles, the
NOAA Fisheries Service’s lead ma-
rine mammal veterinarian. “What’s
best to maintain a wild, healthy
population — that often may be in
conflict with what the public wants
in terms of removing animals with-
in a particular situation.”
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J.,
whose district includes the region
where the dolphins found them-
selves, said NOAA should estab-
lish consistent criteria by which
to judge such situations.
“The problem is, they don’t
have any standards,” Pallone said
in an interview, adding that he had
expected the agency to intervene
once weather conditions worsened.
“What’s the policy going to be, and
what’s it based on? And we can’t
have it change from one day to
the next.”
In fact, NOAA has an elaborate
marine mammal stranding network
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 | Page 9
that involves more than 100 part-
ner organizations to help monitor
and aid animals in distress. Each
year, the groups deal with more
than 5,000 marine mammals in
trouble, including large whales,
small cetaceans such as dolphins
and porpoises, and pinnipeds such
as seals and sea lions. In Hawaii
alone, the large whale network has
tried to disentangle 28 humpback
whales since 2002; 53 percent of
its attempts succeeded.
NOAA, which ultimately de-
termines whether to attempt a
rescue, evaluates several factors
when deciding whether to inter-
vene, Rowles said. If the animals
are trapped as a result of human
activity or if they are in danger of
going extinct, federal authorities
usually make an effort to extricate
them. If the creatures are far out-
side of their usual habitat — such
as the 100 offshore bottlenose
dolphins that got stranded in a
lagoon in Long Key, Fla., in 2000
or the humpback whale cow and
calf that swam into the Sacramento
River in 2007 — officials often seek
to relocate them. On a few occa-
sions, rescuers have helped young
cetaceans that were incapable of
moving on their own.
Some animals, of course, are
easier to herd than others. Larger
groups of marine mammals are
often more willing to move than
smaller ones, and certain species
that find themselves out of their
usual range, such as pilot whales
or Atlantic white-sided dolphins,
are more comfortable following a
leader out of a tight bind.
The coastal bottlenose dolphins
that swam upriver in New Jersey
did not fit any of these categories,
said NOAA officials and indepen-
dent experts. Belonging to a popu-
lation that numbers about 7,500,
the group of 16 dolphins would
normally not be that far inland, but
they were not as far out of their
usual habitat as ones that travel
exclusively in the open ocean.
Dolphins have been stranded at
least twice before in the Shrews-
bury River, in 1993 and 2000, and
rescue attempts in those instances
largely failed. In 1993 the animals
scattered and were not seen again;
in 2000, the mother dolphin died
while her calf survived, only to die
later in a rehabilitation center.
Randall Wells, a senior conser-
vation scientist at the Chicago Zoo-
logical Society who advised NOAA
in both this year’s New Jersey case
and the one in 1993, said wildlife
managers must respect the fact
that animals sometimes seek to
expand their range. Since 2005,
the New Jersey shore has been
home to a growing profusion of
menhaden, a small fish that bottle-
nose dolphins eat — a factor that
may have lured the animals into
the two rivers.
“The animals got to where they
are under their own power. It wasn’t
human intervention that got them
to where they are,” said Wells, who
manages the Mote Marine Labora-
tory’s dolphin research program
in Sarasota, Fla. He added that for
humans to resist the idea that wild
populations can shift over time “is
insanely shortsighted on our part
and doesn’t give the animals credit
for being adaptable.”
Others challenge that reasoning.
Robert Schoelkopf, who directs the
Marine Mammal Stranding Center
in Brigantine, N.J., observed the
dolphins getting thinner over time
and accused NOAA of practicing
“poor science” by letting the ani-
mals fend for themselves.
“We do strandings. That’s what
we do,” he said, adding that he
watched the river, which is now
frozen, as the weather got colder.
“That is not natural habitat for
bottlenose dolphins.”
NOAA scientists, who have per-
formed eight vessel surveys of the
area in the past seven months, said
five dolphins remained in the river
as of Jan. 13. Two days later, local
residents saw multiple dolphins
leaving the Shrewsbury River and
heading into Sandy Hook Bay, and
no dolphins have been seen in the
area since then.
Editorial & Letters
The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Wednesday, January 28, 2009

e d i to r i a l
Morning FAIL
Students accustomed to scrolling through a dozen or more items in Morn-
ing Mail, Brown’s daily electronic communication, can begin to expect a much
shorter list. Due to a new policy announced last week, only events that can
accommodate over 300 people will be advertised in Morning Mail.
The bulletin states that the change in policy “responds to comments and
requests from the Morning Mail readership and will help realign Morning Mail
with its original mission as a vehicle for announcements.” This justification is
vague and bizarre: Morning Mail has almost never, at least in the past four
years, carried anything but announcements. Administrators may have thought
that students weren’t reading the e-mail because it was too long.
This concern, though understandable, won’t be resolved by the new policy.
Students who didn’t already read Morning Mail aren’t going to start simply
because it contains five announcements instead of 15. The e-mail already
features a digest that makes it easy to scan for items of interest. Furthermore,
the new policy hasn’t radically altered the kinds of announcements carried,
just the number — Tuesday’s Morning Mail listed the same kinds of career
info sessions and community volunteer opportunities as always, but fewer of
them. The University’s administrators typically send out a separate campus-
wide e-mail if an announcement is especially important.
The new policy could pose a hardship for campus organizations and the
community they seek to serve. Though student groups have access to a listserv
through MyGroups, this service only reaches their current members. Groups
seeking to advertise a show, fundraiser or lecture in a small space will now have
a much harder time informing the community about their projects. This is a
disservice not only to groups but to students who might attend events.
Finally, the policy arbitrarily limits announcements to events in places that C arly huddelson
can accommodate over 300 people, a restriction which excludes practically
every event at Brown. Leeds Theater can accommodate only 202 people. Grant
Recital Hall can accommodate 133, while Production Workshop’s black box
theater can fit 239. Even Salomon 001 can only fit 224. It doesn’t seem to be the
l e t t e r s to t h e e d i to r s
University’s intention to decrease attendance at events in these locations, but
that’s precisely what will happen if it adheres to the new guidelines.
Brown should consider restoring Morning Mail to its old form, or eliminat- Ratledge misrepresents SDS’s position
ing it altogether. For notifications important to everyone in the community, the
University can continue to send out campus-wide e-mails. Student groups could To the Editor: curred who were not charged. The targeting of specific
announce their events through several topical listservs that students could easily individuals was both unnecessary and unjustified. If, as
join or unsubscribe from online. The new policy sees Morning Mail as a tool In Friday’s column (“An appropriate punishment,” Ratledge wonders, “this incident had happened at the
for the administration, but it really should serve the whole community. Jan. 23) Alyssa Ratledge ’11 displayed a general dis- Rhode Island Capitol,” not only would there have not
regard for the facts regarding the events and the af- been sufficient proof to level charges, as the evidence
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to termath of the Oct. 18 SDS protest for Corporation was only circumstantial, but it would have never have
editorials[at]browndailyherald.com. democratization. been an issue in the first place as the Capitol building
Ratledge makes the claim that “administrators sought is open to the public, unlike Corporation meetings, and
to discipline only those who were involved in damage to thus does not require armed staff to prevent entry.
t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d the building and injuries to workers.” First of all, it was Furthermore I would like to point out that on every
Editor-in-Chief Managing Editors Associate Editors Senior Editors not administrators that ultimately made the judgment occasion possible, those accused of injuring staff, as well
Steve DeLucia Michael Bechek Nandini Jayakrishna Rachel Arndt to issue probation, community service and research as SDS as a whole, have apologized to those individuals.
Chaz Firestone Franklin Kanin Catherine Cullen
Michael Skocpol Scott Lowenstein
papers, but rather members of the University Disciplin- I, too, was there that day and had been involved in the
editorial Business ary Council, which includes students and faculty, in planning of that action, and I apologize again for any
Ben Hyman Arts & Culture Editor addition to administrators. injuries that may have resulted from it. Nonetheless, in
Hannah Levintova Arts & Culture Editor General Managers Office Manager
Sophia Li Features Editor Alexander Hughes Shawn Reilly Secondly, those who were issued charges were the future I would hope to see better fact-checking.
Emmy Liss Features Editor Jonathan Spector charged only on the basis that they had been identified
Gaurie Tilak Higher Ed Editor Directors
Matthew Varley Higher Ed Editor Ellen DaSilva Sales Director
as entering University Hall, via Facebook — there were Julian Park ’12
George Miller Metro Editor Claire Kiely, Sales Director others who were in the area of where the injuries oc- Jan. 23
Joanna Wohlmuth Metro Editor Phil Maynard Sales Director
Chaz Kelsh News Editor Katie Koh Finance Director
Jenna Stark News Editor Managers
Benjy Asher Sports Editor Kelly Weiss Local Sales
Andrew Braca Sports Editor Kathy Bui National Sales
Alex Mazerov Asst. Sports Editor Alex Carrere University Sales
Katie Wood Asst. Sports Editor Christiana Stephenson Recruiter Sales
Graphics & Photos Opinions
Chris Jesu Lee Graphics Editor Sarah Rosenthal Opinions Editor
Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor
Editorial Page Board
Eunice Hong Photo Editor
Kim Perley Photo Editor James Shapiro Editorial Page Editor
Justin Coleman Sports Photo Editor Nick Bakshi Board member
Zack Beauchamp Board member
production
Sara Molinaro Board member
Kathryn Delaney Copy Desk Chief Meha Verghese Board member
Seth Motel Copy Desk Chief
Marlee Bruning Design Editor Post- magazine
Jessica Calihan Design Editor Arthur Matuszewski Editor-in-Chief
Anna Migliaccio Asst. Design Editor Kelly McKowen Editor-in-Chief
Julien Ouellet Asst. Design Editor
Neal Poole Web Editor
Marlee Bruning, Julien Ouellet, Designer correction
Janine Lopez , Jordan Mainzer, Copy Editors
Ellen Cushing, Sydney Ember, Sarah Husk, Jenna Stark, Gaurie Tilak, Matt Varley, Night Editors
A calendar event in yesterday’s Herald incorrectly stated the location of Michal Bregant’s seminar “Contemporary
Senior Staff Writers Mitra Anoushiravani, Colin Chazen, Ellen Cushing, Sydney Ember,
Film and Politics in the Czech Republic.” It will be in the McKinney Conference Room at the Watson Institute.
Lauren Fedor, Nicole Friedman, Britta Greene, Sarah Husk, Brian Mastroianni, Hannah
Moser, Ben Schreckinger, Caroline Sedano, Melissa Shube, Anne Simons, Sara Sunshine,
Staff Writers Zunaira Choudhary, Leslie Primack, Christian Martell, Alexandra Ulmer,
Lauren Pischel, Samuel Byker, Anne Deggelman, Nicole Dungca, Cameron Lee, Seth C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy
Motel, Kyla Wilkes, Juliana Friend, Kelly Mallahan, Jyotsna Mullur, Chris Duffy
The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections
Sports Staff Writers Peter Cipparone, Nicole Stock
may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.
Business Staff Maximilian Barrows, Thanases Plestis, Allen McGonagill, Ben Xiong, Bonnie
Kim, Cathy Li, Corey Schwartz, Evan Sumortin, Haydar Taygun, Jackie Goldman, Jilyn Chao, C ommentary P O L I C Y
Kenneth So, Lyndse Yess, Margaret Watson, Matthew Burrows, Maura Lynch, Misha Desai, The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily
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Opinions
The Brown Daily Herald
You know you love me — XOXO JuicyCampus
Jeanne Jeong
Opinions Columnist
Monday nights at Brown are interesting.
While our counterparts at other schools sit in
front of the television with a bucket of buffalo
wings to watch Monday Night Football, it is
not an exaggeration to say that, more often
than not, “Gossip Girl” takes precedence
over spor ts on this campus. Name your
excuses — you like the clothes, you drink
ever y time you can see your apartment on
the show, you think you look like Chuck
Bass — let’s face it. Part of the addiction is
actually the ridiculous stor y line, spurred
on by the omnipresent chirpy gossip. It’s
even in the name of the show.
So perhaps that particular aspect con-
tributes to the appeal of JuicyCampus.
com. The site’s name is as embarrassing
to mention in casual conversation as “Gos-
sip Girl,” and the idea is essentially the
same. JuicyCampus is like GossipGirl.com
­— a site where anonymous aspiring scan-
dalmongers can sharpen their craft — but
the former concerns real-life subjects who
are slightly less attractive than their TV
counterparts.
In my defense, I only stumbled across
JuicyCampus because Gossip Girl was a
rerun on that fateful Monday. Though I
would like to deny any connection to the
site, consider this my official public ad-
Rhode Island’s probation problem
DAN DAVIDSON
Opinions Columnist
Along with many other states, including its
neighbor Massachusetts, Rhode Island faces
daunting financial difficulties this year and will
have to make tough spending decisions. Rhode
Island’s unusually strict and increasingly ex-
pensive probation policy attracted attention
in the last legislative term and will hopefully
receive closer scrutiny this session.
In line with national trends, Rhode Is-
land’s prison population has soared in re-
cent years. Over the past two decades,
the Rhode Island prison population has in-
creased by 168 percent. Many of Rhode Is-
land’s incarceration facilities are approach-
ing full capacity, and the prison population
is expected to increase another 21 percent
by 2017.
The spike in Rhode Island’s prison pop-
ulation has not been adequately addressed
in recent years, despite its staggering cost
to Rhode Island taxpayers. Prison costs ex-
ceed $30,000 per inmate, and projected in-
creases in the prison population over the
next eight years could cost the state an ad-
ditional $300 million.
Rhode Island’s severe probation poli-
cies are partly to blame for recent surges
mission to having visited it before, once or
twice or maybe weekly. I may have even
found some of the posts amusing, such as
the one created by the oblivious prospec-
tive student worried about finding weed
on campus.
The personal attacks posted on JuicyC-
ampus, however, have raised far more sub-
stantial issues than a gossip site should.
While the fictitious “Gossip Girl” filters,
albeit poorly, the stories that come her —
or is it his? — way, there is no real filter for
The personal attacks posted on JuicyCampus
have raised far more substantial issues than a
gossip site should, because there is no real filter
for its unlimited contributors.
the unlimited contributors to JuicyCam-
pus. On the one hand, this certainly adds
to the humorous element of the site. Such
anonymity can sometimes result in a curi-
ously large number of adoring posts dedi-
cated to a single person, generally male,
all appearing within the span of a day.
On the other hand, in more uncomfort-
able circumstances, the posts can range
from being an invasion of privacy to harm-
ing reputations and ruining friendships. I
assume the appeal of shamelessly posting
on JuicyCampus is in part due to the lack
in the prison population. Over 40 percent
of new prisoners were incarcerated for vio-
lating the terms of their probation. Rough-
ly 21,000 Rhode Islanders — about 3 per-
cent of the state’s adult population — are
on probation, providing a steady supply of
probation violators.
Probation, strictly defined, is a punish-
ment doled out in lieu of a prison sentence.
Many of Rhode Island’s incarceration
facilities are approaching full capacity,
and the prison population is expected to
increase another 21 percent by 2017.
Probation is similar to parole, in which a
criminal is released early from his or her
prison term and placed under state super-
vision.
Rhode Island’s rate of probation is 46
percent higher than the national average,
and sentences are 60 percent longer. With
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 | Page 11
of accountability. That is, of course, un-
less your particularly nosy friend browses
the site using your laptop (don’t say you
haven’t been warned). The same lack of
accountability that fosters such brilliant
Internet discussion is what creates the
risk of controversy in this outlet of expres-
sion.
Certainly, what some call free speech
can be untrue and inappropriate. Some
colleges have blocked the site from their
ser vers when posts have become threat-
ening and potentially dangerous, but they
debate the validity of censoring the site for
the sake of a potential ruined reputation.
That kind of controversy over the mor-
al dimensions and First Amendment impli-
cations of JuicyCampus ought to be unnec-
essar y, at least at Brown. Though Brown
students have posted their fair share of
negative comments about various peers,
the University’s relatively small number of
pages on the site testifies to its small im-
pact on campus culture when compared to
other schools.
so many people on probation for such a
long time, a substantial number are bound
to violate the terms of their sentences.
Beyond financial concerns, Rhode Is-
land’s probation policy poses disturbing
questions about the state’s criminal justice
system. Probation policy disproportionate-
ly impacts the poorest areas of Rhode Is-
land. In Upper South Providence, over 25
percent of males aged 18-64 were on pro-
bation or parole as of 2003.
In the probation process, the slightest
mistake — failing a drug test or missing
a meeting with a probation officer, for ex-
ample — can land a probationer back in
prison. Many of Rhode Island’s prisoners
I give credit to Brown students for their
healthier attitude towards petty gossip and
their ability to assume responsibility and
perspective for what is posted. Although
posts are often admittedly inappropriate,
those that cross the line into discrimina-
tor y speech are ridiculed, and posters are
openly criticized. Whether it happens in
person or online, free speech isn’t always
free on an extremely liberal campus. In
this case, students’ advocacy for political
correctness ser ves as a balance to the stu-
pidity that can result from anonymity.
Yet when we remember the Naked
Doughnut Run and a professor of cracked
pots, it’s clear we Brown students don’t
take ourselves too seriously. To award
JuicyCampus with any more attention than
it deser ves would only be silly, because we
know better, or we should. It is what it is
— an outlet for self-absorption, hopeless
immaturity, and mindless procrastination.
To be fair, all of this probably appears
less light-hearted if your name has ever
appeared on the site. Still, from what I’ve
seen of JuicyCampus, positive defense
generally follows negative posts, so thank
your friends and allow yourself to feel su-
perior because you aren’t the one spend-
ing your weekends posting on an online
gossip forum. Unless, of course, you are.
Jeanne Jeong ’12 is a first year from
Ashburn, Virginia. She can be reached
at jeannejeong@gmail.com
are incarcerated for violating the terms of
their probation, as opposed to committing
new crimes.
The state’s obsession with incarceration
is not motivated by higher rates of crime.
The overall crime rate in Rhode Island is
about 20 percent lower than the national
average, and the violent crime rate is 44
percent lower.
The criminal justice system has a re-
sponsibility to maintain public safety, and
one man’s unfair sentence is another’s as-
surance that threats to the public are con-
tained. In my next column, I will argue
that Rhode Island’s probation policy is not
worth the expense because it frequently
puts people in prison who pose little or no
threat to the community. Throughout the
semester, I hope to use this column to ex-
plore the contours of the criminal justice
system in Rhode Island.
For now, I would like to suggest that we
can solve the probation problem without
compromising public safety and must look
to do so at a time when resources are in
short supply. The increasing costs of incar-
ceration are taking a toll on Rhode Island’s
budget, and the state’s misguided proba-
tion policy is making matters worse.
Dan Davidson ’11 is a sophomore
from New Jersey. He can be reached
at Daniel_Davidson@brown.edu
 Today 5
to day to m o r r o w
Morning Mail limits event announcements
The Brown Daily Herald

Gymnasts bounce over MIT and URI

7
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
39 / 24 33 / 18
Page 12

t h e n e w s i n i m a g e sChange in endowment total from previous year

25%
20
15
10
5
0
-5
-10
-15

5 2
-20
-25
-30%
FY98 FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09

h’s letter
(anticipated)
c a l e n da r e x c e r p t s fSources:
r oFY97-07:
m U.rreport
ut to the Senate Committee on Finance, Mar. 3, 2008;
FY08: The Herald; FY09 projection: President Simmons’ campus-wide email
JANUARY 28, 2009 JANUARY 29, 2009

4:00 PM — Michal Bregant, “Contem- 6:30 PM — FemSex Spring Info Ses- A message from
porary Film and Politics in the Czech sion, Upper Blue Room
Republic,” McKinney Conference Room, President Simmons
Watson Institute 7:00 PM — “Gaza: Implications and
Reconceptualizations,” MacMillan 117 Announcing that the University’s
7:00 PM — Community Service Op- endowment stands to lose nearly 30
portunities Fair, Leung Gallery percent of its value, President Ruth
Simmons sent a lengthy e-mail to the
menu community Tuesday outlining how
spending will be cut next year.
Sharpe Refectory Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
“This is a sobering picture, to be
Lunch — BBQ Chicken Sandwich, Lunch — Italian Sausage and Pep- sure,” Simmons wrote, “but I remind
Stir-Fried Rice, Sweet and Sour Tofu, pers Sandwich, Vegetable Strudel, you that the reason for undertaking
Green Peas Peas, Frosted Brownies these difficult actions is to position
the University for long-term health
Dinner — Tuna Noodle Casserole, Dinner — Beef Strips Shish Kabob, and ongoing improvement as we
Mushroom Risotto, Cheese Quesadil- Vegan Ratatouille, Mashed Red Potatoes await a recovery.”
las, Steamed Vegetable Melange with Garlic
RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, January 28, 2009 Simmons’ message is reproduced
in part on page 4.
Los Angeles Times
c r o sDaily
s w oCrossword
rd Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 3 Silver rider, with 39 Two-tone 50 Meter maid of
1 Lacking tread
5 Snitch
“the”
4 Crack legal org.?
treat
41 Stimulating
song
51 Secret plot found comics
9 Fryer piece 5 Spouse-to-be capsule in 17-, 26-, 44-
14 __ vera 6 Peruvian empire 42 “I Got a Name” and 55-Across Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman
15 Privy to builder singer Jim 53 Powerful TV
16 Numbered 7 Neither here __ 45 Grocery princess
supermarket there employees 54 Winged deity
area 8 Prayer joint? 46 Went wild 55 Kilmer of
17 Rich desserts 9 Burrito cousins 48 Old Italian “Tombstone”
20 Pocatello-to- 10 Broad in the bread? 56 Hot mo.
Provo dir. beam, so to 49 Celtic land 57 Yale Bowl rooter
21 “Reflections __ speak
Golden Eye” 11 Horned goddess ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
(McCullers novel) 12 Unrestrained joy
22 Pass by 13 “__ So Fine”:
23 Campus military 1963 #1 hit
prog. 18 Dodge SUV
25 Take off 19 Pianist Brendel
26 Squid, e.g. 24 Prefix with -pus
31 Saturated 26 Movie segment
34 Singing, in Sicily 27 Ready for action
35 Microsoft mogul 28 Representative
36 Tankard filler 29 Long-snouted
Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner
37 Maker of Flip browser
Flop waffles 30 Rival of ancient
38 Lukewarm Carthage
39 Some bulls 31 Deli wrap
40 Wedding 32 Aromatic resin
announcement 33 Basic belief
word 38 Publicans of old
41 High anxiety Rome xwordeditor@aol.com 01/28/09
42 __ de menthe
43 Mess up
44 Grade booster
46 Tach measure
47 Circuit
48 Skydiver, at first
51 Post-WWII
nuclear org.
52 Bunyan’s tool
55 Boston ivy
relative Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley
58 “The Tempest”
spirit
59 Istanbul native
60 Star seen around
midnight
61 19-time grand
slam singles
finalist
62 Quite a while
63 Funds for the
golden yrs.

DOWN
1 Streisand, in
fanzines
2 Word of woe By Robert E. Lee Morris
(c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
01/28/09