Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxliv, no. 109 | Wednesday, November 18, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Dean hears concerns
about new PLME rule
By Hannah Moser
Senior Staff Writer
Students in the Program in
Liberal Medical Education are
seeking to be exempted from
a new policy about applying to
other medical schools and have
taken their objections to an Alpert
Medical School official.
Four junior PLMEs met with
Associate Dean of Medicine Phil-
ip Gruppuso on Friday to lobby
against the policy, according to
Arune Gulati ’11. He and the
other students kept their discus-
sion focused on the principle of
fair implementation of the policy,
he said.
Under the new rule, which
was announced earlier this
month, PLME students who ap-
ply to medical schools elsewhere
would forfeit the spots that are re-
served for them at Brown’s medi-
cal school from the time they en-
ter as undergraduates — though
they would be permitted to re-
apply and be considered with the
rest of the applicant pool.
The students have two main
objections to the recent deci-
sion, Gulati said, both of which
they emphasized in the meeting
with Gruppuso. First, some ju-
niors have already shaped their
academic plans around “applying
out” by taking a second semester
of organic chemistry and other
medical school prerequisites not
required by PLME, he said.
The program’s original leni-
ency may have also been a sell-
ing point for some current stu-
dents, who said they might have
enrolled elsewhere if the new
policy had been in place when
they matriculated, according to
Gulati.
In an e-mail to The Herald,
Gruppuso wrote that, in response
Brown students working through the Swearer Center are using state fund-
ing to bring expanded programming to D’Abate Elementary School.
inside
News.....1-3
Spor ts...4-5
Editorial...6
Opinion....7
Today........8
www.browndailyherald.com
to students’ concerns, “discus-
sions are being undertaken by
a number of individuals in both
BioMed and University Hall,
which I think is a testament to
how seriously we view this is-
sue.” He declined to discuss the
details of his conversations with
students until he meets with
other Med School administra-
tors later this week.
The PLME handbook does
not address the subject of stu-
dents applying out of the program
and does not include a guaran-
tee that students’ spots would be
reserved. But Gulati said some
deans have traditionally told ap-
plicants to the program that they
will be able to apply elsewhere
without losing their spot.
He and the other students
who met with Gruppuso argued
that the Med School should take
responsibility for what students
were told.
During a PLME Senate meet-
ing on Sunday, students discussed
the meeting with Gruppuso and
strategies for getting the policy
adjusted.
PLME Senate members went
over the rationale that the Med
School administration has provid-
ed for implementing the policy,
which includes the uncertainty
empty spots would bring to the
school’s admissions process and
the possibility of losing some of
the program’s brightest students
to other schools.
At the meeting, some PLMEs
said they would start a petition
and talk to President Ruth Sim-
mons if Med School administra-
tors do not adjust implementation
of the policy after their meetings
this week.
“I guess now we’ll just wait
and see what they come up with,”
Gulati said.
Nicole Friedman / Herald
News, 3
District discussion
The BUCC probed plans for
Jewelry District expansion
Tuesday
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
Kevin Gavey ’13 and the rest of the men’s soccer team will charge into the
NCAA tournament this weekend on the heels of a 3-0 win over Dartmouth.
Men’s soccer team earns
NCAA tourney bid
By Katie Wood
Assistant Sports Editor
The men’s soccer team needed one
more win in its regular-season finale
to receive a slot in the NCAA tourna-
ment. The Bears dominated from
start to finish in front of a crowd of
more than 3,000 at Stevenson Field
to hand Dartmouth its worst defeat
this season in a 3-0 win, clinching
sole possession of second place in
the final Ivy League standings and
an at-large NCAA bid.
The Bears (10-2-5, 5-2 Ivy) will
face winner of the America East
conference Stony Brook (6-9-4), a
team that is currently riding a seven-
game unbeaten streak leading up to
Thursday night’s first round home
match-up at Stevenson Field at 7
A longer day, thanks to Brown and grants
By Nicole Friedman
Senior Staff Writer
In the front lobby, a fourth-grader
contemplates which grain is her
favorite, finally settling on “pizza.”
Down the hallway, students write out
walking tours of their favorite spots
in Providence. Outside the library, a
giddy group illustrates the lyrics to a
Disney song and stops occasionally
for dance breaks.
For 174 of William D’Abate El-
ementary School’s 411 students, the
school day doesn’t last from just 9
a.m. to 3 p.m. Thanks to state funding
granted to Brown’s Swearer Center
Jesse Morgan / Herald
p.m. If the Bears win, they will travel
to No. 5 North Carolina (13-2-3) to
take on the Tar Heels on Sunday in
the second round.
“For the freshmen and sopho-
mores, this is their first time heading
to the tournament,” said midfielder
Nick Elenz-Martin ’10. “This is the
seniors’ third time, and from our
standpoint we’ve already won an Ivy
League title, and now we want to get
past the second round for the first
time. We want to make it deeper into
the tournament, and that is our main
goal from here on out.”
Elenz-Martin shined on Senior
Day against Dartmouth (10-6-1,
4-3 Ivy), tallying two assists, and
Thomas McNamara ’13, Taylor
continued on page 4
for Public Service, the D’Abate school
provides morning, after-school and
summer programming through its
community learning center.
These programs — run by
D’Abate teachers, local organizations
FEATURE
and more than 100 Brown student
volunteers — range from the Grow
Kids Garden Club on Mondays to
breakdancing on Friday afternoons.
Without the support of the Swear-
er Center and student volunteers,
“we’d probably not have program-
ming right now,” said Brent Kermen,
Sports, 4
Net Loss
Men’s hockey falls to PC
after losing goaltender
Dan Rosen ’10 to injury
Partygoer
tried to grab
cop’s gun
By Sydney Ember
Senior Staff Writer
Additional details emerged Tuesday
about a fight that turned violent at a
weekend party in Alumnae Hall during
which four people were arrested.
At one point during the conflict
Saturday night, an individual “tried
to grab at a Brown officer’s gun in
his holster,” Providence Police De-
partment Chief Dean Esserman told
The Herald. Department of Public
Safety officers initially handled the
incident before calling for backup
from PPD.
The four people who were arrested
are all Massachusetts residents and
are not Brown students, according
to the Providence Journal. Two men,
19-year-old John Germainmartinez of
Boston and 21-year-old Kenny Jean of
Bridgewater, Mass., were charged
with resisting arrest and assaulting an
officer, according to the Journal.
Jide Disu and Mario Montes, both
21-year-olds from Randolph, Mass.,
were also arrested and were written
up for disorderly conduct, the Journal
reported.
“It’s very clear to me and to all of
us how seriously Brown is taking the
event that happened this weekend,”
Esserman said, adding that it was “not
unusual for Providence Police to be
called to backup Brown police.”
Esserman told The Herald that in
an open staff meeting Tuesday he was
initially considering opposing future
parties at Brown, including one that
would be held on Friday. But the chief
said he then spoke to Brown’s direc-
tor of public safety and chief of police,
Mark Porter, and decided that PPD
would not oppose that party.
“Our initial reaction was to oppose
it,” Esserman said. His discussion
continued on page 2
D’Abate’s principal.
Though the Swearer Center has
run programs at D’Abate for 10 years,
it greatly expanded its role there in
January after becoming the lead
agent on D’Abate’s 21st Century
Community Learning Center grant
from the state.
The Rhode Island Department
of Education first gave D’Abate this
grant six years ago. When the lead
agent on the initial grant, the Educa-
tion Partnership, went into receiver-
ship in 2008, the YMCA took over
the learning center for the rest of the
continued on page 2
Opinions, 7
the way out
Michael Fitzpatrick ’12
asks PLME students to
see the silver lining
herald@browndailyherald.com
Page 2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Wednesday, November 18, 2009

C ampus N EWS
Police, U. scrutinize
Saturday night tussle
continued from page 1
with Porter later led him to believe the
party would not have “a similar, large,
open crowd” as the party in Alumnae
Hall had. Saturday’s event, hosted
by the Delta Sigma Theta sorority,
was open to students from all Rhode
Island colleges and non-students who
notified the sorority ahead of time.
Esserman said PPD would dis-
cuss future parties with DPS and
consider each one “case by case” to
decide appropriate action.
“We have a very long working
relationship with Brown University,”
Esserman said. “We were all very
concerned.”
During the event, DPS officers
also used pepper spray to break up
a fight, according to Vice President
for Campus Life and Student Ser-
vices Margaret Klawunn, who sent
a campus-wide e-mail Monday night
about the incident. Both the incident
involving the gun and DPS’s use of
pepper spray are being reviewed
internally by Porter and DPS, she
said.
Klawunn said she estimates DPS
uses pepper spray about once a year
in similar situations.
“There are a lot of things we’re
reviewing about the event in terms
of what happened on our campus,”
Klawunn said.
She said she did not see the inci-
dent “as an argument against arming
Brown police,” adding that “most of
our events go very successfully and
without incident.”
Klawunn said University officials
are also reviewing the organization
and management of Saturday’s event
to decide what measures should be
taken in the future to prevent similar
sudoku
incidents. The review will include an
examination of all the event manage-
ment details, such as requirements
for entrance, the number of event
staff present, the positions of security
personnel and how future events are
promoted, she said.
Because the organization of Sat-
urday’s event is still under review,
Klawunn said she could not com-
ment on whether the sorority would
face sanctions from the University.
Administrators are going over details
of the event with the sorority, she said,
adding that the sorority’s leadership
has been “very cooperative.”
DPS is conducting its own evalu-
ation of the incident, including the
details of police response, said Vice
President for Public Affairs and Uni-
versity Relations Marisa Quinn.
“The Department of Public Safe-
ty is a fully accredited and licensed
force,” she said. “It is held to the high-
est form of accountability.”
Quinn added that it was important
to wait to assess the incident until
after Porter and DPS had completed
their investigation.
“It would be premature to deter-
mine what the outcome of the review
will reveal,” she said. “We certainly
have full faith in how the officers
handle themselves.”
Evangeline McDonald ’13, who
attended Saturday’s party, told The
Herald the next day that she had seen
two fights erupt among attendees,
noting that at one point “there was a
kind of powder in the air and every-
body started coughing.”
McDonald also said she “saw
blood on a kid’s shirt.”
“It had several blood splashes
— you could see handprints on the
shirt,” she said.
For Brown and D’Abate, a close relationship
continued from page 1
year. The Swearer Center then part-
nered with D’Abate to secure a new
three-year grant in January.
The Swearer Center was a “natu-
ral partner” for D’Abate — which
sits west of College Hill in Olneyville
— because of its history there, said
Jackie Ascrizzi, manager of the 21st
Century Community Learning Cen-
ter grants for the state department
of education.
“They already have a good work-
ing relationship,” she said.
On top of its new coordination
and oversight responsibilities at
D’Abate, the Swearer Center cre-
ated a number of new programs
there last semester to fill gaps in
the learning center’s offerings, said
Dilania Inoa ’99, a Swearer Center
program manager for elementary
and middle school programs.
Because the learning center
offered no math club or sports ac-
tivities, Inoa asked Jose Loya ’10 to
create and coordinate “Math in Mo-
tion.” The club, now in its second
semester, “incorporates mathemat-
ics into learning various sports” and
enrolls 32 students, Loya said.
“They can show you lots of
tricks,” said D’Abate fourth-grader
Adrian Carrasco, a “Math in Mo-
tion” participant, while his fellow
club members played basketball
with Brown volunteers.
Despite a double turnover in
leadership — Kermen took over
as D’Abate’s new principal the se-
mester before the Swearer Center
took over the learning center — the
transitions have gone smoothly, said
Roger Nozaki MAT ’89, director of
the Swearer Center and associate
dean of the college for community
and global engagement.
“We had some concerns about
continuity, generally, with our pres-
ence there,” Nozaki said, but the
investment of D’Abate’s faculty and
administration in the learning center
has been “phenomenal.”
Brown students go west
As the Swearer Center’s program
offerings at D’Abate expanded last
semester, so did the number of stu-
dent volunteers and coordinators.
“The Brown students have really
taken this initiative and run with it,”
Inoa said.
Brown students run 12 separate
after-school clubs at D’Abate, accord-
ing to Angel Brown, the learning
center’s director. Student volunteers
and coordinators allow the learning
center to provide a “much wider va-
riety of programs at much less cost,”
she said.
The Swearer Center also put
together D’Abate’s first “full-scale
summer program,” Brown said,
which offered math and reading
classes every day as well as a vari-
ety of academic and extracurricular
activities to choose from. The grant
funded the entire operation, and 90
kids — “maximum capacity,” Brown
said — participated.
“We basically had to all start from
scratch and design our own curricu-
lums,” said Adrienne Langlois ’10,
a Herald opinions columnist, who
taught music part-time at D’Abate
this summer. “There were a few hic-
cups. … But I was amazed that we
were able to keep this together and
run things smoothly.”
Because the Swearer Center runs
the entire learning center at D’Abate,
student volunteers and coordina-
tors get the chance to organize a
program in the context of a “larger
learning structure,” Nozaki said.
“In the past, we were really ask-
ing them to work at the program-
matic level,” he said, adding that the
opportunity to perform community
service while considering larger ur-
ban educational structures “didn’t
really exist in that way for Brown
students before.”
‘Outside the Brown bubble’
Since the Swearer Center took
over the learning center at D’Abate,
more student volunteers have taken
the opportunity to “step outside the
Brown bubble” and interact first-
hand with Olneyville’s underserved
community, Loya said.
The increase in volunteers “has
been phenomenal for the students”
at D’Abate, said Joshua Curhan ’10,
who coordinates the sports, mys-
tery and adventure reading team
at the learning center as well as
The learning center has im-
proved school-day attendance, be-
cause the students “want to be there
and they know they have clubs that
day,” Brown said. And after 5 p.m.,
when the clubs end, kids work on
their homework in the cafeteria until
their parents pick them up by 5:30
p.m.
Even though it is too soon to
track the learning center’s effect
on test scores or student grades,
the clubs “absolutely” help D’Abate’s
sizable bilingual student population,
Kermen said. Students who stay for
clubs interact with other English-
speaking kids after school, rather
than only speak English within “that
9-to-3, five-days-a-week situation,”
he said.
Swearer Center programs are
also vital in making the school a com-
munity center in Olneyville, Kermen
said. Even after the learning center
closes, the school stays open — stu-
dent volunteers teach English as a
Second Language classes for com-
munity members in the evenings.
Planning ahead
The learning center’s funding
from the state will remain steady
until the grant runs out in 2012. Until
then, the Swearer Center will focus
on improving existing programs
rather than expanding offerings,
Nozaki said.
In line with the requirements
of the grant, the Swearer Center
is putting together an advisory
board of Brown coordinators and
D’Abate administrators, teachers,
staff and parents. The group will
meet monthly to share ideas and
concerns, Inoa said.
“We’re really just trying to make
sure that every constituency is in-
cluded,” she added.
The state’s education department
— which receives federal funds for
these grants — is “pretty responsive”
in allowing the Swearer Center to al-
locate funds to best meet D’Abate’s
needs, Nozaki said.
Though the grant covered buses
to and from the learning center in
past years, the learning center chose
not to offer transportation, which
Brown said has “in no way affected
our after-school enrollment.”
“I thought that was going to be
a major, major hindrance,” Kermen
said, but after seeing how families
found other ways to provide trans-
portation, he made no plans to use
grant money for buses in future
years. “If we can get away with not
having transportation available,” it
will leave more money for program-
ming, he said.

Daily Herald
the Swearer Classroom Program, While Swearer Center admin-
the Brown
which provides tutoring during the istrators are unsure whether they
school day. will apply for another 21st Century
Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | Business Phone: 401.351.3260 The learning center charges be- Learning Community Center grant
Stephen DeLucia, President Jonathan Spector, Treasurer tween $2.50 to $10 per family per on top of this one, running D’Abate’s
Michael Bechek, Vice President Alexander Hughes, Secretary week, Brown said. She added that learning center has been a “fantastic
The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serv- around 85 percent of families earn experience so far,” Nozaki said, add-
ing the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday below $1,600 per week, “the $2.50 ing that the Swearer Center plans
through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during range,” but no families are on full to continue securing funding for
Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily
Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each members of the community.
scholarship. D’Abate’s learning center.
POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI “We debated a lot” about whether The learning center and the
02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 to charge families at all, Inoa said, but Swearer Center coordinators are
Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. paying for the programs “gives them ‘incredibly influential here in the
World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com.
Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily.
this sense of belonging and knowing Olneyville community,” Kermen
Copyright 2009 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved. that this is something they’re provid- said. “It really ties the school and
ing for their children.” the community all together.”
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
C ampus N EWS
Princeton professor Stanley Katz urged universities to remain just while
they struggle to weather the economic downturn.
Universities must stay ‘moral’
during downturn, prof says
By Sara Luxenberg
Contributing Writer
Universities must not lose their “moral
purpose” as they struggle during chal-
lenging economic times, Princeton
professor Stanley Katz told a Marcu-
vitz Auditorium audience Tuesday in
Sidney Frank Hall.
Katz addressed the effect of the
economic climate during a lecture
about what justice has meant for uni-
versities historically.
In weathering the downturn, uni-
versities “will solve the money prob-
lem,” but the larger battle “is what we
will give up in the process,” he said.
Katz, a professor at Princeton’s
Woodrow Wilson School of Public
and International Affairs, attempted
to elucidate the social mission of
universities. Drawing on the ideas of
other thinkers who have examined
social justice in higher education,
Katz defined two major notions of
justice — procedural and substantive
— and spoke to their importance in a
university’s administration.
Katz explained that a university
“at the very least ... must be a just cor-
poration.” Non-discriminatory hiring
practices, accessible campuses for the
disabled, ethical research procedures
and harrasment-free work environ-
ments are the “minimal threshold”
of procedural justice that schools
must practice, he said. Katz used
the examples of the anti-sweatshop
movement of the 1990s fostered by
university students across the nation
and university faculty layoffs in re-
sponse to the recession to illustrate
how universities must grapple with
the question of justice in a procedural
context.
“It’s surprising to me that the jus-
tice question hasn’t been raised with
respect to layoffs,” he added.
But procedural norms are “too
narrow” because they fail to “distin-
guish universities from other social
institutions,” he said. He defined the
substantive notion of justice as the
higher standard to which universi-
ties should hold themselves and said
universities should “help achieve ...
social goals” in society.
“American higher education has
gone too far in the direction of ... func-
tionalism,” Katz said. Universities have
become “transnational corporations”
that emphasize a type of excellence
geared toward market capitalism and
measured “only by the input-output
ratio,” he said.
While Katz urged a “reconceiving
Julia Kim / Herald
of the university,” he recognized that
even a just university cannot necessar-
ily “meet society’s needs or control
social problems” entirely. Moreover,
the structure of the tenure system
prevents large-scale changes from
being initiated by junior faculty, Katz
added, emphasizing the role of senior
tenured faculty in improving the uni-
versity’s social mission.
Katz concluded his lecture by
highlighting the importance of teach-
ing students, especially undergradu-
ates, to consider social justice while
still giving them latitude to decide for
themselves what exactly that means
for them.
“If we’re going to get anywhere, we
need a faculty movement ... at least to
put it on the agenda,” he said as he
concluded. “I solicit the help of every-
body in this room to do that.”
A 40-minute question-and-answer
session followed the 35-minute lecture.
In response to a question from Dean
of the College Katherine Bergeron
about the importance of student-facul-
ty relationships, Katz said the faculty
should redefine goals and “reorient
their own ambitions and values.”
To answer a question about the
importance of access to higher educa-
tion, Katz explained the responsibility
of private universities to make edu-
cation as affordable as possible for
students who meet the criteria for
admission. Public universities must
not only make education accessible,
he said, but also foster success for as
many students as possible.
Students in the audience had a
mixed response to Katz’s lecture.
Lyndsey Barnes ’11 said she “was
really neutral” at the end of the lec-
ture but that the question-and-answer
period brought more depth to the
presentation.
Winnie Fung GS, a master’s can-
didate in urban education policy, said
that while Katz provided a “good re-
minder of the purpose of faculty and
how they should be guiding what
undergraduates learn,” she would
have liked “to hear more about what
he would suggest the public universi-
ties can do.”
Julie Pittman ’12 said the talk “was
much more aimed at faculty and ad-
ministration” as opposed to students,
who were often “left out of (the) dis-
cussion.”
The lecture was sponsored by the
Swearer Center for Public Service
and the Harriet W. Sheridan Center
for Teaching.
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
— Gillian Bell, CIS project manager, on U.’s expansion downtown
Community, U. discuss expansion plans
By Kristina Klara
Contributing Writer
The University could help fuel
the developing knowledge-based
economy in Providence, accord-
ing to Assistant Vice President of
Planning, Design and Construction
Michael McCormick.
In a Brown University Commu-
nity Council meeting Tuesday at
Brown/RISD Hillel, McCormick
and several other officials unveiled
the University’s plans for expansion
into the Jewelry District as part
of the Institutional Master Plan, a
“compliance document” through
which the University lets the city
know its plans for its land.
In addition to the new Medical
Education Building at 222 Rich-
mond St., the plans for the Jewelry
District include research centers,
offices, residential areas, campus
centers and conference hubs. Ac-
cording to McCormick, surveys
taken throughout the University
community showed a demand for
“a healthy mixture of uses” of the
area.
As planners continue to consider
long- and short-term development,
they are faced with the challenge of
building research facilities, which
TGIF — but don’t forget about class
By Sarah Julian
Staff Writer
A recent re-accreditation report by
the New England Association of
Schools and Colleges has ranked
Brown ahead of many of its fellow
institutions — Brown “may be the
best among its peers in scheduling
classes five full days a week,” accord-
ing to the report.
Students don’t need to worry
about the report’s final verdict —
Brown was re-accredited with flying
colors. But they can worry instead
about working up the energy to at-
tend class every weekday while their
peers at other institutions may be
sleeping in.
Although the association’s evalu-
ators did not go into further detail,
Brown’s “full five days a week”
schedule may differentiate the Uni-
versity from its peers, according to
Barmak Nassirian, associate execu-
tive director of external relations of
the American Association of Col-
legiate Registrars and Admissions
Officers.
“Many institutions avoid schedul-
ing classes on Fridays because stu-
dents and faculty like having three
continuous days off,” Nassirian wrote
in an e-mail to The Herald.
Students might not like the idea
of waking up at 9 a.m. on a Friday,
but resource constraints and the
exigencies of the New Curriculum
may make class-free Fridays a poor
fit for Brown.
The system largely has to do with
classroom space, said University
Registrar Michael Pesta.
“There’s a tendency in most uni-
versities for classes to be clumped in
the middle of the day in the middle
of the week,” he said. “The prob-
“Security is a number one priority.”
can be tougher to plan than office
and residential spaces, McCormick
said. “We need to be careful for the
few places that have footprints for
research.”
For transportation to and from
the Jewelry District, students would
use the Rhode Island Public Transit
Authority’s UPASS program and
the Brown Med/Downcity Express
shuttle, a riverfront walkway and
possibly a future streetcar to con-
nect “meds to eds,” McCormick
said.
McCormick said the University
envisions the Jewelry District as an
area teeming with new research
and bustling with businesses and
cafes, but added that there remain
some concerns about security, sani-
tation, lighting, graffiti and com-
mercial retail activity.
Several people who attended
the meeting responded to these
and other issues. Nancy Fjeldheim,
manager for the Department of
Geological Sciences, urged that the
greenway down to the Jewelry Dis-
trict be a “clearly marked path.”
Joseph Bush GS suggested craft
fairs and farmers’ markets as events
to draw people to the area. He also
said offering a prize for murals on
the new buildings could prevent
lem is we simply don’t have enough
classrooms.”
Assigning a room to fit each
course’s needs is a difficult pro-
cess, Pesta said — one that would
be nearly impossible if professors
could choose any meeting time.
“If you clump your courses then
you limit students’ abilities to take
all the courses that they want,” he
Higher ed
said. “So the other benefit is giving
the students the opportunity to build
a schedule for themselves that fits
their educational plan.”
As a result, the registrar requires
that departments spread class offer-
ings evenly over all available time
slots. “Friday becomes a necessary
component of that principle,” Pesta
said.
Some students at Harvard, Princ-
eton, Columbia and the University
of Pennsylvania, on the other hand,
reported having scheduling systems
that allow weekends to begin Thurs-
day evening.
“It is totally possible for you to
have the bulk of your classes on
Tuesday/Thursday,” wrote Emily
Leitner, a student at the University
of Pennsylvania, in an e-mail to The
Herald. “I know people have Wednes-
days off and Fridays. Your schedule
is up to you — all you have to pay
attention to is major or requirement
guidelines.”
Genevieve Irwin, a student at
Princeton, said, “I don’t have Friday
class and am loving it.”
“I get a three-day weekend and
a day to sleep in and organize all I
have to do over the next two days,”
she added.
But, according to Nassirian, crit-
Page 3
graffiti.
Gillian Bell, a project manager
for Computing and Information Ser-
vices who said she has worked in
the Jewelry District for four years,
said, “Security is a number one pri-
ority.” She added that additional
retail development in the area is
necessary.
Merle Krueger, associate di-
rector of the Center for Language
Studies, suggested including a ho-
tel run by the University to bring
guests to Providence for confer-
ences and other events. Krueger
also said dorms based in the Jew-
elry District would be the “key to
keeping the two parts of campus
integrated.”
The group Beyond the Bottle,
which advocates for the University
to discourage the use of plastic wa-
ter bottles, also made a presentation
at the council’s Tuesday meeting.
Following the presentation, the
council passed a motion supporting
the group’s campaign“to provide
sustainable alternatives to single-
use water bottles on campus.” The
motion also urged “Dining Services
proactively to provide alternatives
to students, faculty and staff,” and
identified as a goal the “elimination
of bottled water on campus.”
ics of Monday-through-Thursday
weeks say it leads to under-utilization
of costly campus facilities.
Some have questioned “whether
the extra day off is put to particularly
good use, particularly by students
who allegedly simply start their
weekend parties earlier,” Nassirian
wrote.
Of course, there’s nothing to stop
some Brown students from starting
their weekends early, too.
Timothy Peacock ’12 agreed, say-
ing, “I’m pretty sure that (my profes-
sor) in Chem 33 used to joke that
Friday classes were smaller because
people had a higher concentration of
alcohol in their system,” he said.
“I have a seminar 3 to 5:30 on Fri-
days,” said Alexander Luedtke ’12. “I
go maybe once or twice a month.”
But whether or not some students
skip Friday class, two long-serving
faculty members consider the sched-
uling system a good one.
Professor Emeritus of Engineer-
ing Barrett Hazeltine and Professor
of Computer Science Andy van Dam
each said they do not see a decrease
in student attendance at the end of
the week. The drop off, they said,
comes right before the holidays,
when students head home early.
“My attitude toward dealing with
students has always been, ‘This is
Brown,’ which is shorthand for
‘students are in charge of their own
fate,’” van Dam said. “They make
their own decisions and I’m here
to facilitate.”
He said when he was in school,
he attended classes six days a week,
including Saturday mornings at 8
a.m.
“I think five days a week with
classes not before 8 a.m. — that’s
pretty cushy,” he added.
SportsWednesday
The Brown Daily Herald
Two ties for still-winless w. hockey Dartmouth defeated, m.
By Andrew Braca
Sports Editor
Having been shut out for past three
straight games, the women’s hock-
ey team went into the third period
against Rensselaer on Saturday fac-
ing a 1-0 deficit. Unwilling to fold,
the Bears battled back. Kelly Griffin
’13 scored the tying goal less than
four minutes into the period, and
the Bears held on for the 1-1 tie.
Brown played to a scoreless tie
the day before — the team’s second
tie in three games — against Union,
leaving the Capital District of New
York two crucial points higher in
the ECAC Hockey standings. The
Bears ran their record to 1-4-3 over-
all and 0-3-3 in league play behind
the goaltending of Katie Jamieson
’13, who made 67 total saves en
route to being named the ECAC
Goalie of the Week.
“Without Katie Jamieson’s play
this year, we don’t have any points,”
said Head Coach Digit Murphy.
“She’s just come up big in so many
situations that you can’t even name
them. To seamlessly come in and
— with the exception of a couple
games, a couple bad goals, and you
have to give that to a freshman —
she’s done an outstanding job.”
“Without the D and the goalten-
ding, Brown hockey is not Brown
hockey,” she added.
Brown 0, Union 0
Brown and Union (2-9-1, 0-5-
1) battled to a scoreless tie in
Schenectady, N.Y., Friday evening.
Strong performances by Jamieson
and Union goalie Alana Marcinko
kept both teams out of the net.
Brown failed to convert on nine
power plays — totaling just seven
shots with the advantage — thanks
to an aggressive Union forecheck
and the team’s still-unsettled per-
sonnel groupings, Murphy said.
“We had a lot of chances that
just missed, you know. We just
couldn’t finish,” Griffin said. “It’s
definitely going to be something
we’ll work on for the upcoming
weekend.”
Brown 1, RPI 1
The Bears did just that the fol-
lowing afternoon in the 1-1 tie with
RPI (4-6-4, 2-2-2) in Troy, N.Y.
The Engineers took the lead
3:48 before the first intermission on
a fluky goal. RPI’s Allysen Weidner
cleared the puck in from the blue
line, but the puck hit a rough patch
of ice and bounced over Jamieson’s
shoulder.
“It happens to every goalie, I
think — unlucky bounces here and
there,” Jamieson said. “Not really
much I can do about it.”
Murphy said that because it was
not a quality goal, it did not discour-
age the team as much.
“We knew that we could skate
with them, we knew that our
forecheck was working, we knew
that we were going to get opportu-
nities if we just did things like stay
out of the box,” she said.
The Bears gave the Engineers
only three power plays, none com-
ing after the second period.
The stage was set for Brown’s
comeback.
The goal 3:41 into the third pe-
riod broke a scoreless streak of
282:05 for the Bears. Erica Kromm
’11 took the puck up the boards
before finding Griffin near the
circle. With Jenna Dancewicz ’11
screening RPI goalie Sonja van der
Bliek, Griffin lifted a shot over the
netminder’s shoulder to tie the
game.
“It started with momentum from
all the other lines,” Griffin said. “We
were coming together as a team,
and I was the lucky person who put
it in, but I can’t really take credit for
that. There were 19 other players
continued on page 5
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 | Page 4
soccer advances to tourney
continued from page 1
Gorman ’12 and Austin Mandel ’12
paced the rejuvenated offense with
a goal apiece.
“There was so much pressure
leading up to the game, and we had
to throw that pressure away,” Elenz-
Martin said. “This was potentially
our last game together. We wanted
to all work as hard as we could and
leave it all out on the field.”
The Bears came out of the gate
with an offensive mindset, control-
ling the ball in Dartmouth’s territory
for much of the first half. Co-captain
David Walls ’11 booted a free kick
just high of the goal in the open-
ing minutes, setting the tone for
an offense that would pressure the
Big Green’s defense relentlessly
throughout the game.
Elenz-Martin set up the first goal
of the day with a cross from the right
side to a cutting McNamara, who
had only one man to beat for the
goal. McNamara swiftly moved past
his defender and his shot trickled
through to the goal, just to the right
of rookie goaltender Sean Donovan.
McNamara’s goal at the 15-minute
mark gave him five goals for the
season, tied for the team high.
The goal by McNamara marked
the first time the Bears have scored
first in a game since their 1-0 victory
over Cornell on Oct. 24, and Gorman
followed up the early strike with one
of his own just 12 minutes later.
“It was arguably the best 30 min-
utes we’ve played all year,” Walls
said. “It was nice to score two goals
when we were playing well. The
guys off the bench brought a load
of energy, and it was great to be a
part of such a great overall perfor-
mance.”
Leading up to the play, Jon Oka-
for ’11 was hit hard by a Dartmouth
defender and found himself knocked
to the ground. After returning to his
feet, he created a scoring opportu-
nity that Gorman put away for the
goal. Okafor split his defender up the
right side and sent a cross to the far
left post, where Gorman rifled the
ball to the right-hand corner of the
net for the 2-0 lead at 27:21.
After surrendering two goals,
the Big Green finally put together
a string of offensive chances, which
fell short thanks to several key de-
fensive stops by Evan Coleman ’12,
Ryan McDuff ’13, Dylan Remick ’13
and Walls. The Bears protected their
lead, heading into the half with a 2-0
advantage over the Big Green.
“At this time of the year, in any
sport, the defense has got to be suc-
cessful in order to win,” said Head
Coach Mike Noonan. “Our back line
and really everyone defensively was
very sound and that’s where our of-
fense comes from. There’s no one
goal scorer this year, and there is a
huge team concept that has shined
through in the last two games.”
Dartmouth came out with a sense
of urgency in the second half and
pressured Bruno’s defense with sev-
eral offensive attacks. At 55 minutes,
the Big Green kept the ball in the
Bears’ territory for several minutes,
trying to catch the stingy Brown
defense off-guard. One of the best
looks of the night for the Big Green
came off of a cross from the right
corner to a cutting forward that went
just past his intended target in the
60th minute, and the ball trickled out
of bounds for the throw-in.
“A 2-0 lead at the half is a danger-
ous lead in soccer,” Noonan said.
“We were a little bit slow starting
in the second half, and Dartmouth
had some great chances to score.
If they had scored, the game would
have been different. But I was very
pleased that we were able to with-
stand that pressure.”
The ball shifted back into Dart-
mouth’s territory and the Bears had
a look on goal by a Walls corner kick
from the right side of the field. He
settled the ball right at the near post,
where Coleman narrowly missed a
header that bounced off the post and
back into play.
In the 69th minute, the Big
Green’s Andrew Olson received a
red card that sucked the remaining
life out of the Dartmouth players,
who gave up a third goal four min-
utes later.
Jay Hayward ’12 received a cross
on the far left side and tapped the
ball to Elenz-Martin, who found a
wide open Mandel cutting to the
middle. Mandel placed his head on
the ball and connected on his fifth
goal of the season, tying him with
Elenz-Martin and McNamara for
the team lead.
“When we move the ball, we play
well,” Walls said. “It shows a lot of
trust in each other and we’re able to
play more freely. It is refreshing to
play on a team that is so comfortable
playing with one another.”
The Big Green failed to convert
on its two shots on goal, and the
Bears capitalized on their only three
chances of the game. Despite the
lopsided score, the Bears held a slim
12-11 shot advantage. Paul Grand-
strand ’11 (9-2-5) stayed consistent
for the Bears in the net, notching
two saves and recording his sixth
shutout of the year.
Harvard earned the Ivy League
title on Sunday with a 1-0 win over
Penn and received the overall No.
10 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Dartmouth and Princeton also join
the Bears in the tournament, as the
Ivy League sends four teams to the
tournament for the first time since
1977.
“There’s still a lot of growth left in
this team,” Noonan said. “The longer
we can play, the more this team will
grow and learn about each other and
continue to get better.”
The Ivy League announced the
first- and second-team honors for the
2009 season on Tuesday, and seven
Bears made the list. Elenz-Martin,
Granstrand and Sean Rosa ’12 re-
ceived first team accolades, while
Coleman, McNamara, Rob Medairos
’12 and Walls rounded out the All-Ivy
honors on the second team.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
S ports W ednesday
In 4-3 loss, men’s hockey W. hockey
loses Mayor’s Cup to PC to face Ivy
By Dan Alexander rivals
Senior Staf f Writer
Mike Clemente ’12 wasn’t supposed
to play much in last night’s 4-3 loss
to Providence College at Schneider
Arena.
The Bears’ goalie, who had
star ted the
Brown 3 team’s first
Providence 4 five r egu-
lar-season
games, was supposed to watch
from the bench while Dan Rosen
’10 got his first official start of the
season in net. (Rosen started in an
exhibition game in October.)
But just 1:24 after the puck
dropped, Rosen suffered a game-
ending groin injur y and Clemente
stepped in. By the final whistle,
Clemente had let in four goals.
He said he wasn’t fatigued and
that he prepared for last night’s
game as he always does, even
though he wasn’t starting. But he
also said it’s tough to come into a
game unexpectedly.
Barely two minutes after Clem-
ente skated onto the ice, he let in
the game’s first goal. Providence
defenseman Mark Fayne shot from
the right point, and Clemente de-
flected the puck but couldn’t cor-
ral the rebound. Sophomore wing
Matt Bergland could, however, and
he beat the Brown goalie to give
the Friars a 1-0 lead.
“I didn’t handle it correctly,”
Clemente said. “I should have tried
to kick it to the corner. The guy
made a good move.”
Two of Providence’s goals came
off rebounds.
“You see the rebounds com-
ing out, you want to crash the
net hard,” said junior Matt Ger-
main, who scored two goals, one
of which came on a put-back. “I
mean, there’s nothing better than
getting a goal right on your tape
from crashing the net hard.”
Germain scored his first goal at
15:47 into the opening period when
he received a cross-ice feed and
one-timed it into the back of the
net, giving Providence a 2-0 lead.
The Bears (0-5-1, 0-3-1 ECAC)
got an opportunity midway through
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Page 5
“I think coming in as the underdog is a
great advantage.” — Kelly Griffin ’13
the second period when PC (6-3-0)
took three consecutive penalties. continued from page 4
The Bears capitalized on a pow-
er play when Marc Senecal ’13 sent on the team working just as hard
a pass from behind the net through as I was.”
the crease and defenders to tri-cap- The Bears continued to play well
tain Jordan Pietrus ’10. The Bears’ down the stretch, tallying more
leading goal scorer one-timed the shots in the third period than they
puck into a half-open net to cut the had in the first two combined.
Friars’ lead to 2-1. “It was really important to come
But Providence regained its from behind, score a goal and con-
two-goal advantage 13:51 into the tinue to fight the good fight,” Mur-
middle period when Kyle MacKin- phy said. “We haven’t done that in
non curled into the slot and fired a while.”
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
a wrist shot through traffic. Ian But when the Engineers recov-
Alena Polenska ’13 and the women’s hockey team earned two hard-
O’Connor deflected the shot in for ered to post a strong overtime, it fought ties last weekend.
a goal. was up to Jamieson and the de-
The Friars then took a 4-1 lead fense in front of her to repulse the and 67 on the weekend, continuing 4 p.m. Murphy said the weekend
1:36 into the final frame on Ger- charge. her strong first season. will probably come down to the
main’s second goal, a put-back “I saw most of the shots,” Ja- “I worked pretty hard in the off- performance of the power play and
from point-blank range. mieson said. “That had a huge season, and I think that definitely penalty kill units.
Midway through the third pe- impact on the game.” is a huge factor to how I’m doing “We really need to bear down
riod, Chris Zaires ’13 netted his “Our D was exceptional — from this season,” Jamieson said, adding and figure out a way to put a couple
second goal of the season to bring top to bottom, they all contributed,” that she is surprised by how well (goals) in and to play good D,” Mur-
Brown back within two. Murphy said. “Nicole Brown (’10) she is playing. “This is a big jump, phy said.
The score remained 4-2 until has just done a great job of being and the girls are a lot stronger and Griffin said she is optimistic
late in the period, but the game converted — she was a forward last faster. So, yeah, I’m pretty proud of about the Bears’ chances.
heated up when Brown Head year. Her size and reach is one of myself overall.” “I think coming in as the under-
Coach Brendan Whittet ’94 de- the reasons why we put her back The Bears will return to Mee- dog is a great advantage,” she said.
cided to pull Clemente in favor of there. She’s patient and poised with han Auditorium this weekend to “We have nothing to lose. We have
an extra attacker with more than the puck.” host Dartmouth (2-3-1, 2-31 ECAC) a great team, we’ve worked really,
four minutes remaining. Jamieson made six overtime on Friday at 7 p.m. and Harvard really hard for this weekend. This
“To me, it doesn’t matter if they saves to finish with 37 in the game (3-3-0, 3-3-0 ECAC) on Saturday at is a big weekend for us.”
score and they win 5-2. It’s still a
loss,” Whittet said. “We pull the
goalie at the end because we’re
tr ying to give the guys an oppor-
tunity to win.”
They nearly did. With 1:11 re-
maining, Pietrus took the puck up
from the left faceoff circle towards
the blue line. A stride before he
reached the point, Pietrus turned
on the puck and whipped a shot at
the goal. The puck beat Providence
goalie Alex Beaudr y glove-side,
narrowing the deficit to 4-3.
With 50 seconds left, Clemente
again vacated the goal, giving the
Bears a six-on-five attacking ad-
vantage. But Brown could not find
the back of the net, and the Bears
skated off the ice one goal short
of a win.
“They play hard,” Providence
Head Coach Tim Army said of
the Bears. “They work hard.
And they’re going to win some
games.”
Editorial & Letters
The Brown Daily Herald

Page 6 | Wednesday, November 18, 2009

l e t t e r to t h e e d i to r

Good without the

Loch Ness monster
To the Editor:
I want to address a couple key
points in Anish Mitra’s ’10 recent
column (“Good without God? A
response,” Nov. 16). The thrust of
Mitra’s piece is a critique of the mili-
tancy and vocalness of the atheist
movement today. He begins by posit-
ing that taking a missionary strategy
toward atheism, i.e. trying to spread
it, is hypocritical since atheists are
thus “bearing a striking resemblance
to the organization they are trying to
discredit: the Church.” Such a state-
ment reveals a deep misunderstand-
ing of atheism. It is not a rejection
of bureaucracy, it is not a rejection
of community, or of the spread of
beliefs in general; it is a rejection of
any kind of God, of the occult, of the
supernatural, of superstition.     not want abortion to be legal, gave
Mitra then goes on to discuss
the activism of atheists. He asks,
“If something does not exist, why
ing columns, paying for advertising
campaigns or actively ‘enlightening’
my peers about my thoughts.”             
This analogy between belief in
the Loch Ness and in God overlooks
a fundamental extension of the latter:
religion. If billions of people based
their ethics, their values, their scien-
tific beliefs and their daily customs
off what they conceived the Loch
Ness monster to represent and de-
mand, then I should hope that Mitra
and everyone else would feel the
need to engage in all the counter-
movements that he scoffs at. In fact,
I am always confused when I find an
atheist who does not feel angered
or frustrated by the mass religious
faith that possesses our world. If you
ale x yuly
lived on a planet where people did
not want homosexuals to marry, did
women far fewer rights than men,
flew planes into buildings and waged e d i to r i a l
countless wars, all out of devotion

On the path to leadership

would anyone feel the need to
militantly preach about the entity’s
non-existence?” He underscores the
suspicious and discrediting nature
of this eagerness to fight for athe-
ism by pointing out that, though he
does not believe in the Loch Ness
monster: “I don’t waste my time writ-
to the Loch Ness monster, wouldn’t
you feel the compelling, burning
need to do something about it? God,
I hope so!
The addition of Chinua Achebe to Brown’s In addition, the field of Africana studies is
Nora Bosworth ’10 faculty marks a bold step in the University’s quickly expanding, and most of Brown’s peer in-
Nov. 16 efforts to establish itself as a leader in Africana stitutions offer Ph.D. programs in the discipline.
studies. With the “father of modern African lit- Har vard, Yale, Cornell and Columbia all have
erature” on College Hill, Brown’s Africana stud- graduate programs in African American studies.

Letters, please! ies faculty now includes several distinguished

writers and scholars. Still, there is much to be
done when it comes to increasing the Univer-
A graduate-level program here at Brown would
not only bolster the reputation of our Africana
studies depar tment, it would also make the
letters@browndailyherald.com sity’s impact on African scholarship. As Profes- University more competitive in the academic
sor of Africana Studies Anthony Bogues told arena. Brown’s department of Africana studies
The Herald last month, “there’s no way we can is already robust, and as the University expands
t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d
consider ourselves a leader at this point.” the Graduate School, it should capitalize on its
Editor-in-Chief Managing Editors Deputy Managing Editors Senior Editors
Fortunately, the University is considering a strengths.
Steve DeLucia Michael Bechek Nandini Jayakrishna Rachel Arndt
Chaz Firestone Franklin Kanin Isabel Gottlieb proposal that could go a long way toward chang- Perhaps most importantly, Africana studies is
Michael Skocpol Scott Lowenstein ing that. For over two years now, the department a distinct discipline that merits its own academic
editorial Business of Africana studies has been pushing a proposal infrastructure. Though the field is interdisciplin-
Ben Hyman Arts & Culture Editor General Managers Office Manager
Sophia Li Features Editor Alexander Hughes Shawn Reilly for an M.A./Ph.D. program. Last week, the pro- ar y and shares much in common with histor y
George Miller Metro Editor Jonathan Spector posal cleared the Faculty Executive Commit- and literar y arts, it is not simply a collection
Joanna Wohlmuth Metro Editor
Seth Motel News Editor
tee. If the faculty gives it a green light in early of courses about people of African descent.
Directors
Jenna Stark News Editor Ellen DaSilva Sales December, it will head to the Corporation for Rather, it has developed its own debates, texts
Andrew Braca Sports Editor Claire Kiely Sales final approval. and methodologies. Africana studies merits the
Han Cui Asst. Sports Editor Katie Koh Finance
Alex Mazerov Asst. Sports Editor Jilyn Chao Asst. Finance There are a number of reasons to launch a same intellectual attention as other departments
Katie Wood Asst. Sports Editor Christiana Stephenson Alumni Relations graduate program in Africana studies. First, at Brown, and a graduate program would sup-
Graphics & Photos Managers
Brown has made a commitment to expanding port high-level research and the advancement
Chris Jesu Lee Graphics Editor Kelly Wess Local Sales
Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor Kathy Bui National Sales research and discourse in the field. In 2007, fol- of knowledge in the field.
Kim Perley Photo Editor Alex Carrere University Sales lowing the release of the Report of the University In recent years, Brown has focused increased
Max Monn Asst. Photo Editor Matt Burrows Credit and Collections
Jesse Morgan Sports Photo Editor Steering Committee on Slaver y and Justice, the attention on Africa and poured resources into
production Opinions University laid out a plan of action to acknowl- attracting African scholars and students to the
Ayelet Brinn Copy Desk Chief Alyssa Ratledge Opinions Editor edge the histor y of Brown’s connection to the University. A graduate program in Africana stud-
Rachel Isaacs Copy Desk Chief Sarah Rosenthal Opinions Editor
slave trade. As part of that plan, the University ies is the logical next step in that effort. Brown
Marlee Bruning Design Editor
Jessica Calihan Design Editor Editorial Page Board committed to strengthening the Department may not yet be a leader in African scholarship,
Anna Migliaccio Asst. Design Editor James Shapiro Editorial Page Editor of Africana Studies. A graduate program in the but as Professor Achebe told The Herald last
Julien Ouellet Asst. Design Editor Matt Aks Board member
Neal Poole Web Editor Nick Bakshi Board member department would solidify this commitment week, the University has the resources to put
Post- magazine Zack Beauchamp Board member and generate long-term contributions to African itself “wherever it desires in the African field.”
Debbie Lehmann Board member
Arthur Matuszewski Editor-in-Chief
William Martin Board member
scholarship and dialogues about race. This ac-
Kelly McKowen Editor-in-Chief
tion may be one of the most meaningful we can Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial
Zahra Merchand, Leor Shtull-Leber, Anna Migliaccio, Julien Ouellet, Designers take as a university to address our connection page board. Send comments to editorials@brown-
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Opinions
The Brown Daily Herald
Today, PLME killed my dreams. FML.
BY MICHAEL
FITZPATRICK
Opinions Columnist
A few friends of mine really got shafted last
week. As students enrolled in the Program
in Liberal Medical Education, they discov-
ered that their guaranteed acceptance into
Warren Alpert Medical School will be ren-
dered null and void if they send out applica-
tions to any other medical schools.
I shouldn’t have to remind everyone that
this policy change is nothing short of theft.
Our fellow students applied to a selective
program with the understanding that they
would have the freedom to apply to other
medical schools while still keeping their
guaranteed spot at Alpert. But the Alpert ad-
ministration did more than just breach a con-
tract: their deception resulted in the loss of
countless opportunities.
Students who joined the program have
forfeited chances to apply to or attend other
colleges with better financial aid packages
than those offered at Brown. They willing-
ly chose to bear the weight of hundreds of
thousands of dollars of undergraduate debt
for a definite spot at a superb medical school.
Now, the new policy demands one more sac-
rifice from them: their freedom to apply out.
While I wholeheartedly agree that the
Alpert administration is guilty of breaching
a contract with the members of the program,
I don’t agree with Simon Liebling ’12 that the
Toward a more soccer-loving Brunonia
DOMINIC
MHIRIPIRI
Opinions Columnist
I grew up in one of the most picturesque
places you could imagine, a township that
bustled with life in a small and beautiful
country on Africa’s southern tip — just twenty
years after it played host to a fiery national
liberation war.
For me, childhood was not a collection
of wonderland adventures on Disney turf,
savoring a “Mac-n-Cheese” meal after kin-
dergarten kickball or curling down to watch
“Chuckle Brothers” and “Scooby Doo” on
Saturday mornings. Childhood was the view
of the entire world (or so I thought) from
the high perch of my father’s shoulders as
he took walks in the natural Mayambara
plains close to our small home. Childhood
was “chasing” after airplanes in the air with
my five-year-old companions shouting with
uncontainable excitement, “Ndeeeege,
ndeeeege, ndeeeege!” (Shona for airplane)
until long after the plane had been buried
in the graying oblivion of the Zimbabwean
sky.
But most important to me, childhood
meant the endless runs and darts on the
dusty streets of my neighborhood, kicking a
bouncy plastic ball through the sun, rain and
cold. By nature and instinct, I joined one of
the biggest and most rewarding cultures in
the world — from Beijing to Rio de Janeiro,
Moscow to Cape Town — followers of the
world’s most beautiful game, football. Um
… let’s call it soccer.
Soccer’s ability to forge unity among na-
new policy “effectively prohibit(s) students
from applying to other medical schools”
(“WTF, PLME?” Nov. 12). They might for-
feit their spot at Alpert, but it’s not as though
they’ll suffer disciplinary actions if they in-
form the administration of their intention to
apply out. I see the policy as a challenge, and
I hope that some PLME students are bold
enough to rise to it.
PLME students should recognize that the new
policy didn’t actually nullify their guarantee, but
it did force them into making a very unsavory
decision.
I don’t usually sugarcoat my opinions, but
I will for the sake of my PLME friends. How-
ever, there are some things that they really
need to know.
First, they need realize that they are
uniquely fortunate. In order to get into the
program, they were either exceptional appli-
cants or very lucky ones. If they do choose
to apply out, their Brown education will still
make them superior candidates for admis-
sion to any other medical school. Luck is
unpredictable, but their grades, experiences
and accomplishments at Brown will speak
for themselves.
tions and cast a spell upon billions globally
is unmatched by any other sport — a fact
mirrored every week at Brown by the diverse
student and faculty body that converges upon
the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center greens
to duel on the field. I have brushed shoulders
on the grounds with my former political
science teaching assistant, the professor
On that note, with a passionate, balled fist raised
up high in the air, I call upon the men and women
of this institution to join the soccer family of
nations. I beseech you all, to dare just for once,
and embrace the world’s most beautiful game.
for my next applied math class, my ment-
ees from this year’s international student
orientation, a leader of my investment club
and an endless array of friends and campus
acquaintances.
Brown’s highly organized intramural soc-
cer season allows students to create teams
made up of basically any member of the
community and name their team within no
particular bounds whatsoever. I won the
championship in the low division last year.
The wacky name of my team? Multiple Scor-
gasms. But any giggles you may have had
should be spared until hearing the names of
other teams: Spicy Withs, I Did Not Have Sex
With That Woman, Swedish Medics, Bob’s
Discount Gear, Frisky Demons, Retired Jug-
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 | Page 7
Second, we should all be reminded that
life is never fair. If they didn’t realize that by
now, they certainly would have figured it out
by the end of medical school. As my high
school calculus teacher always told us, “Life
sucks, and then you die.”
Third, there are hundreds of intense,
cutthroat students across the country who
would perform unspeakable acts to secure a
spot at Alpert or any other medical school,
for that matter. I hope my PLME friends
don’t take this the wrong way, but it would
behoove them to remember how fortunate
they still are.
That leads me to my fourth point: They
should recognize that the new policy didn’t
actually nullify their guarantee, but it did
force them into making a very unsavory de-
cision. The real question is, will they choose
to accept their spot at Alpert at the loss of
their freedom to reap the full rewards of
their ambitions, or will they relinquish their
PLME birthright in order to pursue a more
gernaut, USB, Still Better Looking, Volvox,
Applied Math, Random Walk, NakedBoy55,
Dragon Slayers and Public Policy.
The freedom to play soccer at your own
comfort level and exactly the way you want
is great. In fact, it captures the famed phi-
losophy of liberty inherent in Brown culture
that has always distinguished it from other
great schools. And while I am impressed by
the great opportunity at Brown to enjoy this
amazing sport, I am convinced that, due to
a number of different reasons, not enough
Brunonians have either explored soccer or
are open to kicking a ball before they cross
the Van Wickle Gates again.
Legend tells us that American histor y
is steeped against soccer, with American
football, baseball and basketball claiming the
hearts and souls of its people. Meanwhile,
soccer grew and conquered the other nations
of the world. It created heroes, if not gods —
Diego Maradona, Pele, Franz Beckenbauer,
Zinedine Zidane and so forth. Great teams
were created that outgrew even political
empires — Real Madrid, Barcelona, Boca
desirable medical school education? Both
are pretty big sacrifices to make, but they
should take comfort in the fact that they still
have the ability to choose.
But speaking of choice: I also hope they
realize that, although they stand to lose their
PLME spot in doing so, applying out is not
necessarily a bad decision to make. In fact,
it’s a brutally honest one. Plenty of other
students apply to medical schools without a
“backup plan.” They apply because they be-
lieve they deserve a chance to learn medi-
cine, and they’re willing to risk a little rejec-
tion to see if they are worthy. Let’s not fool
ourselves: Medicine is a risky business. If
PLME students are not willing to take a sim-
ilar wager, if they are willing to let the ad-
ministration effectively choose for them, it
would probably be in their best interests to
evaluate whether or not they really want to
practice medicine.
Granted, any student in the program with
an ounce of common sense would force an-
other applicant to pry their precious spot
from their cold, dead hands. But it would be
a shame if the administration’s new policy
stifled even one student’s aspiration of grad-
uating from Johns Hopkins School of Medi-
cine. If we wanted our dreams and ambitions
crushed underfoot, we would have matricu-
lated elsewhere.
Michael Fitzpatrick ’12 defines his life by
the choices he makes. He can be contacted
at michael_fitzpatrick@brown.edu.
Juniors, AC Milan and Manchester United.
Yet clinging to that old stereotype not only
slows the imminent spread of “the beautiful
game” to lands virgin to it, but more directly,
denies Brown students what could become
a healthy and rewarding interest before and
after they graduate. I recently tried playing
a few sports that are relatively new to me —
and after two tiring and confusing afternoons
of playing basketball inside the OMAC with
my friends, I pretty much have no doubt that
I am officially the worst basketball player in
the history of round balls.
But I am not going to stop tr ying new
things, persisting for the sake of broadening
my experiences. I am not going to refuse
when a friend offers to humiliate me on the
tennis court or in the dunk-o-sphere. I am
not going to feign an understanding of other
sports that I do not know so that I appear to
be “cool,” or to create a false sense of “fitting
in.” But I am going to take the pains, with
patience, to play new sports and have fun in
different ways. I promise to graduate from
Brown having mastered one of these many
sports and, surely, having claimed a few
victims from among my peers and current
conquerors.
On that note, with a passionate, balled
fist raised up high in the air, I call upon the
men and women of this institution to join
the soccer family of nations. I beseech you
all to dare just once to embrace the world’s
most beautiful game.
Dominic Mhiripiri ’12 has never missed
a penalty in any real game, a 29-0 record
since elementary school.
 Today 3 Community members talk expansion to day to m o r r o w

The Brown Daily Herald

5
Providence beats m. hockey for Mayor’s Cup
53 / 35
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
58 / 44
Page 8

bears on ice comics

God’s Day Off | Alex Yuly

4
Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman
c a l e n da r
Today, november 18 thursday, november 19

5:30 pm — A Conversation with Italian 4 PM — “Does Race Matter? Minority

Journalist Beppe Severgnini, Smith- Groups and Political Representation,”
Buonanno 106 Salomon 101

7 pm — South Asia Rising: A Faculty 8 pm — Body and Sole’s Fall Dance

Discussion, Jouwkowsky Forum Concert, Ashamu Dance Studio

menu
Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline
Sharpe Refectory Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Buffalo Chicken Wings with Lunch — Chicken Fajitas, Veg-

Bleu Cheese Dressing, Vegetarian Reu- an Black Bean Tacos, Mexican
ben Sandwich, Falafel in Pita Succotash

Dinner — Garden Style Baked Scrod, Dinner — Cilantro Chicken, Mexican

Couscous Croquettes with Cider Pepper Cornbread Casserole, Herb Rice
Sauce, Vegan Rice Pilaf

crossword

Fruitopia | Andy Kim

Hippomaniac | Mat Becker

STW | Jingtao Huang