Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxlv, no. 11 | Wednesday, February 10, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Postdocs clarify policies

and build community
By Nicole Friedman
News Editor
In the ongoing effort to improve poli-
cies, communication and outreach for
the University’s postdoctoral com-
munity, sometimes the little things
can mean a lot.
“Right now, there’s no P for post-
doc” on the A through Z menu on
the University Web site, said Susan
Alex Bell / Herald Rottenberg, postdoctoral program
President Ruth Simmons, Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 and Executive Vice President for Finance and and data manager for the Office of
Administration Beppie Huidekoper discussed budget cuts.
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
on to careers in academia or other
industries.
This in-between space is often
poorly defined at universities, and
compensation and benefit policies
for postdocs differ from institution to
institution, said Cathee Johnson Phil-
lips, executive director of the National
Postdoctoral Association.
At Brown, postdoc advisory
boards and administrative commit-
tees have collaborated for several
years to clarify existing policies re-
garding benefits and compensation

U. details plans to cut millions from budget

By Alex Bell
Senior Staff Writer
The Brown University Community
Council met Tuesday night to dis-
cuss plans for the University to align
its operations with economic reality,
including consolidation of services,
layoffs, tuition increases and funding
for athletics.
Much of the discussion focused
on the report that the ad hoc Or-
ganizational Review Committee re-
leased last week. According to the
report, the ORC sought to identify
“opportunities for improved effi-
ciency and cost reduction through
administrative restructuring.” The
recommendations will be reviewed
by the Corporation at its meeting
later this month, said Executive Vice
President for Finance and Adminis-
tration Beppie Huidekoper.
Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95
P’98, who presented the annual
continued on page 3
But there soon will be, she said, and
“that’s a big deal for communicat-
ing.”
The University is currently home
to 211 postdoctoral fellows and re-
search associates in 41 departments,
according to data from the Human
Resources Department. Having al-
ready received doctorates, postdocs
are neither students nor faculty —
they have come to Brown for extra
research and training before moving
and create standards where none
existed. The Postdoctoral Advisory
Panel continues to work with several
University offices to strengthen the
postdoc community and address
concerns.
Clarifying benefits
Postdocs are divided between fel-
lows, who receive external research
continued on page 2

RISD junior Bank CEO Moynihan ’81 started on rugby field

touched by By Fred Milgrim In December, Moynihan was and the current director of Brown at Brown,” he said.

Haiti quake Sports Staff Writer

The men’s rugby team at Brown is

By Sarah Forman technically a club, but those who are
Contributing Writer
After losing her father in the Jan.
12 earthquake in Haiti, Nathalie
Joliver t decided to retur n to
Providence. The third-year stu-
dent at the Rhode Island School
of Design will take on a full load
of architecture classes when RISD
commences its spring semester
Feb. 22.
Jolivert was interning in Haiti
during the ear thquake with her
father, an engineer, and working
to design flexible of fice space
that could be easily conver ted
into apartments. She is studying
to become an architect, she said,
to build up her native countr y.
“I do spend a lot of my free time
trying to promote Haitian culture,”
Jolivert said.
She and her younger sister left
Haiti in 2005, a little more than a
year after a coup d’etat removed
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
from power. She said she and her
sister left Haiti while her parents
stayed behind because conditions
on the street had become ver y
dangerous. Since then, she has or-
ganized numerous volunteer trips
to Haiti, both as a high school and
college student. Joliver t helped
continued on page 3
inside
more intimate with the team know
that the rugby program is not your
average college club team. Rugby is
a way of life, and for Brian Moynihan
’81, it was the first stepping stone on
his way to a prolific career.
Band hits 40 years on ice
By Anna Andreeva
Contributing Writer
The first few notes of the Brown
fight song rang out in Meehan Audi-
torium as the last of the Brown and
Harvard hockey teams exited the rink
last Friday. Students stood on seats
and cheered for the past and current
members of the Brown Band — some
FEATURE
brandishing trumpets, others weighed
down by enormous sousaphones, and
almost all on skates — making their
way around the ice.
On Feb. 5, the Brown Band cel-
ebrated the 40th anniversary of its
first show on ice skates. The group
is the only ice skating scatter band in
the world, according to the group’s
Web site.
The spectators at Friday’s hockey
named the CEO of Bank of America. rugby, said he wasn’t surprised by
From his beginnings as a Providence Moynihan’s successes. The two have
lawyer and local rugger — after get- maintained a friendship ever since
Moynihan, who played football his
first fall at Brown, was approached
by former football players who had
ting his J.D. from Moynihan’s gradu- switched to rugby. When they asked
Notre Dame — he Sports ation. him to play that spring, he came out
joined FleetBos- “He has what and never stopped.
ton Financial Corporation in 1993 has appeared to be a meteoric rise, “It was a great group of team-
and worked his way up through the and he’s always had that drive, am- mates,” Moynihan said, “many of
merger with Bank of America. bition, fire and energy to achieve,
Jay Fluck ’65, his former coach and that was readily apparent back continued on page 5
game who chose to remain in their
seats for an extra half hour were treat-
ed to the Brown Band’s first alumni
ice show in honor of the anniversary,
featuring alums from each decade
since the ’60s.
After a round of Paul Simon’s “You
Can Call Me Al,” the announcer called
out the names of returning alums in
between lines of the Brown fight song.
Brown Band Alumni Liasion Andrew
Leber ’12 said the ice show was mod-
eled after the band’s performances
during football games, with the band
forming a “B” on the ice at the end of
the performance.
This is not the first time alums
have returned to play with the band,
but it is the first ice show to feature
an alum performance as its center-
piece, said President Max Mankin
’11, a trombone player. Herald File Photo
The Brown Band claims to be the only ice skating scatter band in the
continued on page 4 world.

News.....1–4 News, 3 Sports, 4 Opinions, 7 The blog today

Sports.......5
hot for teaching First year Strength Weekend weakness Sexier than yale?
Editorial.....6
Teach For America is Despite women’s hockey With the Gate’s closing, BlogDailyHerald looks at
Opinion.....7
as popular as ever with losses, first year players Mike Johnson ’11 wants a recent Yale sex survey to
Today........8 Brunonians shine weekend V-Dub hours see who takes the prize

www.browndailyherald.com 195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island herald@browndailyherald.com

Page 2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Wednesday, February 10, 2010

C ampus N EWS “There are actually a lot of negatives.”

— Sharon Furtak, postdoctoral fellow in psychology

Navigating gray area creates challenges for postdocs

continued from page 1
grants or fellowships and make up 75
percent of the postdocs at Brown, and
research associates, who work as Uni-
versity employees.
As Brown employees, postdoctoral
research associates receive health care
and retirement benefits through the
University. Since 2004, all postdoctoral
fellows have been able to buy Univer-
sity health insurance with the portion
of their grant stipends designated for
training-related expenses — after they
have paid income taxes.
“That’s probably the biggest prob-
lem,” said Melissa Maginnis, a post-
doctoral fellow in the Department of
Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and
Biochemistry and member of the Post-
doctoral Advisory Panel, where she
serves on the benefits subcommittee.
When Maginnis and her husband were
both postdoctoral fellows last year, they
each paid taxes on their health insur-
ance costs. Now that her husband is a
research associate, Maginnis receives
pre-tax University health care benefits
through him and can use more of her
stipend to fund travel and lab equip-
ment.
Despite the prestige of receiving
a research grant or fellowship, the
inequity in benefits gives research
associates at Brown little incentive to
apply for external funding, said Sha-
ron Furtak, a postdoctoral fellow in
the psychology department who also
serves on the advisory panel’s benefits
subcommittee. Research associates
who are awarded an external grant
become postdoctoral fellows ­— and
thus lose health benefits — when the
funding begins.
“Instead of having incentives to
bring in your own money, there are
sudoku
actually a lot of negatives, and I think
the University realizes that,” she said.
“You’re losing your life benefits, you’re
losing retirement benefits, you’re los-
ing the ability to have your health care
pre-tax.”
Some universities treat postdoctoral
fellows as consultants, allowing them to
receive health care pre-tax, but modify-
ing the policy at Brown is “kind of that
gray area no one wants to talk about,”
Furtak said.
The University cannot change how
fellows’ benefits are taxed, according
to Associate Dean for Graduate and
Postdoctoral Studies Nancy Thomp-
son, due to the federal requirement
that postdoctoral fellows not be Uni-
versity employees. To compensate,
the Division of Biology and Medicine
asks professors to provide bonus funds
for research associates who receive
external funding, she said. Half of
Brown’s postdocs work in BioMed
departments, according to Human
Resources.
Brock Christensen, a postdoctoral
research associate in the Department
of Community Health and the Depart-
ment of Pathology and Laboratory
Medicine and a member of the advi-
sory panel, said that fellows are mo-
tivated to seek bigger grants to cover
their expenses, but associates have
less reason to do so.
“Why would I do that, if it would
mean that my status would change?”
he said. “All I know is, I’m thankful to
be a research associate.”
Ongoing adjustments
The Postdoctoral Advisory Panel
and the administrators that work with
postdocs have also made efforts to im-
prove salary equity and create policies
for maternal leave and leave-taking.
The University imposed a salary
freeze on all employees last year, but
postdoctoral fellows were still slated
to receive a stipend increase, as man-
dated by federal law. To maintain salary
equity between fellows and research
associates, Thompson said her office
requested that the University find a
way not to freeze research associate
salaries.
Top administrators “identified the
funds that would allow all the postdocs
at the University to get increases” this
fiscal year, Thompson said.
While this issue mostly affected
postdocs in BioMed, according to
Senior Associate Dean of the Faculty
Carolyn Dean, “the need to ensure eq-
uity is one of the few conditions under
which a salary may be raised” in the
current freeze.
Another key issue on the postdoc
radar has been the lack of a maternity
leave policy. Until now, maternity leave
has been determined on an individual
basis between postdocs and their men-
tors, with “nothing written or under-
stood ahead of time,” Furtak said.
Courtesy of Nancy Thompson
“I don’t think there’s any disagree- Non-academic gatherings, such as this September networking event in
ment that we need to have one,” said Andrews Dining Hall, provide opportunities for postdocs to meet.
Associate Provost Nancy Dunbar, who
recently convened a panel of adminis- munity across departments through in 2004, the issues they have addressed
trators to draft a policy. social events and communication. are not specific to Brown, she said.
The new maternity leave policy, “We didn’t even have a listserv,” “I think the challenges that we have
which includes language on medical Christensen said, until one was cre- with postdocs are not any different than
leave and vacation time, is “really wel- ated at the end of last semester. “You any other universities,” Dunbar said.
come,” Thompson said, and will be would think that something like hav- Postdoctoral appointments are
posted online soon. She added that ing a listserv is trivial and can’t really becoming increasingly common and
the need for a maternity leave policy make a huge difference, but in fact, necessary for graduate students hop-
is because of the growing number of disseminating the right information to ing to advance to academic or profes-
female postdocs — 43 percent of post- the right people” has helped postdocs sional careers in many of the sciences,
docs at Brown are female. meet one another and gain a bigger Phillips said. While these extra years
presence on campus, he said. of research allow postdocs to grow as
Communication and community The Postdoctoral Advisory Panel independent researchers and publish
Brown has had postdoctoral re- has also helped postdocs “have a more independently before applying to long-
search associates and fellows for years, active voice on campus,” Furtak said, term positions, Phillips said “only 20 to
but until 2004, those titles had little adding that administrators have been 30 percent of postdocs will acquire a
consistency or meaning, said Dunbar, responsive to their requests and con- tenure-track position.” She added that
who convened the Ad Hoc Committee cerns. the longer someone remains a postdoc,
on Postdoctoral Researchers in 2004. Postdocs have more opportuni- the more difficulty they have reaching
“There was tremendous confusion on ties to meet each other and network a faculty position.
a lot of fronts,” she said, adding that at professional development events, as But the current economic climate
the committee worked with postdocs well as in non-academic get-togethers, suggests that “the group of postdocs
to provide “greater clarity on their ap- Maginnis said. here at Brown and nationally prob-
pointments, on their benefits, on sup- Still, it can be hard for postdocs to ably will continue to grow,” Maginnis
port for them, on to whom they should make connections outside of their labs said.
go with various questions.” or departments, especially because Though postdocs are a “small com-
Many of the administration’s efforts they don’t take or TA courses. “You munity here,” the fact that 75 percent of
to improve the postdoctoral experience don’t always feel like you’re part of the them secure external funding for their
have centered on making information Brown community when you’re on a research is “good for the University,”
more widely accessible. University satellite campus,” Maginnis said. Furtak said.
Web sites now provide information Postdocs “are increasingly impor-
specifically for postdocs through the National perspective tant to the University and the research
Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral While statistics on postdocs are mission,” Dunbar said, a reference to
Studies, the Human Resources Depart- hard to find, “it appears that the number the ongoing goals of President Ruth
ment and the Resources for Graduate is increasing” nationally, said Phillips of Simmons’ Plan for Academic Enrich-
and Postgraduate Parents Web site. the National Postdoctoral Association. ment to expand Brown’s stature as a
Adding a postdoc category on the A Her organization lobbies on behalf of research university.
through Z list will create a “common postdocs for funding increases and Improving the postdoctoral experi-

Daily Herald
entry point” where postdocs can access improved benefits and policies. ence at Brown and responding to their
the Brown
information, Dunbar said. Though the postdoc experience concerns “academically, professional
On top of that, postdocs have was less than ideal when Dunbar first and socially” is in the University’s “best
Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | Business Phone: 401.351.3260 stepped up their efforts to create a com- convened the committee on postdocs interest,” Thompson said.
George Miller, President Katie Koh, Treasurer
Claire Kiely, Vice President Chaz Kelsh, Secretary
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
C ampus N EWS
Brunonians continue to flock to TFA From Haiti to RISD, with
By Alicia Chen
Senior Staf f Writer
As the Feb. 19 deadline to apply
for Teach For America looms, this
year’s graduating class, as those
before it, is applying in force to the
two-year teaching program.
Fourteen percent of the class of
2009 applied to the highly competi-
tive program, according to regional
TFA recruiter Anasstassia Baicho-
rova. Forty of those students are
in their first year of teaching with
TFA now, she said.
She said she believes that TFA
is able to attract such interest on
campus because “its mission reso-
nates with students” and because
of the personal approach that TFA
takes toward the recruitment pro-
cess.
Baichorova also thinks that “the
change in political climate, with
Barack Obama’s call to action,” has
inspired students to examine ways
Council discusses tuition, athletics
continued from page 1
report of the standing University
Resources Committee that he chairs,
said his committee instructed the
ORC, which formed last spring,
to assume 20 percent less funding
coming from the endowment this
year than last year when making its
budget recommendations.
“We’ll have something like $20
million less to spend than we had
to spend this year out of the endow-
ment alone,” he said. “We have to
generate savings somewhere, and
that is where the Organizational
Review Committee comes in.”
Huidekoper said the ORC, of
which she is a member, recognized
Brown’s sense of community as a
“ver y valuable asset” and hoped
the community members present
would let administrators know if the
recommendations of the report have
“hit the right balance” in optimizing
services.
“We know it’s going to be a little
bumpy along the way, but we re-
ally want to hear from you, as our
community council,” she said. The
council met in Salomon 101 instead
of its scheduled location in Hillel
with the hope of fostering a more
active debate with members of the
community in the larger space, Hu-
idekoper said.
The 22-page ORC report, assem-
bled by about 150 members of the
community divided into 12 teams,
calls for wide-ranging reforms of
University structure that aim to
reduce expenses by $14 million to
offset the decline in endowment
payout while making services run
more smoothly, according to Hu-
idekoper.
“We expect to see no detriment
in the quality of the services,” she
said. “In fact, if anything, there will
be improvements in how we are
supporting our students through a
more coordinated set of work pro-
cesses.”
But with the consolidation of ser-
they can give back to the commu-
nity, she said.
Baichorova — a TFA alum her-
self — said for many people, the
program is a transformative experi-
ence. Before becoming a recruiter,
she was a third-grade teacher in the
Bronx. When she started, her stu-
dents were performing well below
grade level, but in a year, she was
able to bump them up three grade
levels, she said. “Seeing them excel
in other people’s classes was very
rewarding,” she said after visiting
her students recently.
TFA alum Sarah Saxton-Frump
’07 echoed the sentiment. “I had
an incredible experience in Teach
for America. I was humbled, chal-
lenged and inspired by my stu-
dents, the community, the Teach
for America staff and my fellow
corps members,” she wrote in an
e-mail to the Herald.
TFA was created by Wendy
Kopp as part of her senior thesis
vices will come consolidation of staff
as well, Huidekoper said.
“The goal here is to minimize the
number of individuals at Brown who
will lose their jobs,” she said. “But
that doesn’t mean it will be zero.”
One way she said the University
will minimize that impact is through
its voluntary retirement program,
which about 139 employees will
take advantage of before the end
of the year.
“A number of those 139 positions
we will have to refill, but not all of
them,” Huidekoper said, adding
that those who leave will receive
generous severance packages and
outplacement support.
Kertzer said he would not yet
make public details on compensa-
tion or next year’s tuition increase,
saying “it would put the Corporation
in a very difficult position” if he re-
leased that information before the
Corporation met.
He said last year’s modest tuition
increases were “at the bottom of our
peer group,” but the University has
not actually increased its net tuition
dollars in recent years because of
steady increases in the financial aid
budget.
Kertzer said URC members were
“painfully aware” that though the
University has “some of the most lav-
ish financial aid in the United States,”
compared to Brown’s limited peer
group, “ours was not as generous
as a few — Harvard, Yale, Princeton
being almost off the charts, partic-
ularly for relatively upper-income,
middle-class kids.”
Kertzer also recommended ex-
panding enrollment to raise revenue.
He said the URC’s recommendation
to accept about 50 additional trans-
fer students would not cause the
types of problems for introductory
classes and freshman dorm situa-
tions that enrolling more freshmen
would cause.
When a BUCC member asked
what administrators thought might
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
— President Ruth Simmons, on funding shortages for sports
at Princeton. Its mission was to end
educational inequity by bringing
talented college graduates to teach
some of the country’s most at-risk
students for two years.
Since its inception in 1990, TFA
has grown into a large force within
the educational community — over
7,300 corps members are current-
ly teaching in public schools all
around the United States, and over
60 percent of alums remain in the
field of education.
But TFA has not been greeted
with open arms by ever yone, ac-
cording to Professor of Education
Kenneth Wong. “I think the educa-
tion community is somewhat di-
vided about Teach For America,”
he said. Some “professional educa-
tors feel it is important for anyone
in a classroom to get some formal
training” in pedagogy, but TFA’s
approach is more focused on core
continued on page 4
be the aspect of the plan most likely
to make headlines, Huidekoper re-
sponded that “there’s obviously a
concern about athletics” because
“it makes the news.”
“It’s been a painful realization
that our budget for athletics is abys-
mally lower than that of our nearest
competitor,” President Ruth Sim-
mons said. “What we’re trying to
do in athletics is very ambitious,
but very under-funded. The conse-
quences of that perhaps are obvious,
and that is that our students might
have a less satisfactory experience
in their sport than their peers at our
competing institutions.”
Simmons said deliberations
about cutting sports will go into
next year, and no decisions have
yet been made.
“If we’re going to offer a varsity
support, we should do that cor-
rectly, with all the protections that
students should have for competing
in a sport,” Simmons said. “That’s
the wake-up call for us, to face up to
the fact that we simply don’t have the
resources to mount the number of
team sports that we offer.”
BUCC member and Vice Presi-
dent for Campus Life and Student
Services Margaret Klawunn said a
proposed fee for athletes would help
the University not make “deeper
cuts” as it considers how large of an
athletic program it can support.
Professor of Africana Studies
Anthony Bogues also reported to
the Council on the status of Brown’s
Haiti relief work. He called the im-
mediate food and medical relief com-
bined with strategies for long-term
help a “Brownian” way of responding
to the crisis. He praised the Univer-
sity’s “very alive” Web site, which
contains information on the com-
munity’s efforts and dispatches from
community members in Haiti.
Bogues also highlighted a pro-
gram planned for Feb. 19 that will
draw scholars on Haiti and relief
workers to campus.
“That’s the wake-up call for us.”
stories and sorrows to share
continued from page 1
plan an alternative spring break
trip that was supposed to go to
Haiti this year, but has been can-
celled because of the quake.
Joliver t also spent her win-
ter vacations in Haiti, where she
worked directly with her father
in previous years. But because
her duties this Januar y involved
staying in the of fice, she was
not with him when he went to a
school directly on the fault line
to begin planning renovations.
The building collapsed during
the quake, killing him and 200
students and teachers, Jolivert
said.
“We didn’t know until the
second day,” Jolivert said of her
father’s death. “It was hard for
us to find him.”
It wasn’t until Jolivert’s old-
er sister called her father’s cell
phone — and a nun answered to
explained what happened — that
Jolivert learned of the collapse.
“Trying to find his body was
another problem,” said Joli-
vert. “There was no real time to
mourn.”
Jolivert’s mother, a physician,
eventually located the body at a
morgue, but she had to leave
Haiti before his funeral ser vice
was held.
Joliver t and her mother —
who broke her foot during the
earthquake — went to Florida
the week after the disaster and
stayed there for seven days. “All
the week before coming here,
I was mostly taking care of my
mom,” Jolivert said.
She returned to campus Jan.
29. But because RISD is still in
winter session, she will not begin
classes until Feb. 22.
“I know that I need to be ready
to go back. The faster I can get
my education, the more ready
I’ll be,” said Jolivert, explaining
why she had decided to return
to school immediately. She said
Page 3
she wants to complete her stud-
ies as quickly as possible, so that
she will be able to begin build-
ing projects in her home country
when she graduates from RISD’s
five-year architecture program
in 2012. “I want to be prepared,”
she said.
Jolivert said that she has felt
support from the RISD communi-
ty and that both the Office of Mul-
ticultural Affairs and counseling
ser vices have made themselves
available to her.
“There is no normal process
for students who lose a parent,”
Damion Vania, a counselor at
RISD’s Student Development and
Counseling Services, said. “We’re
just available.”
He explained that RISD, unlike
Brown, offers its students unlim-
ited counseling sessions and has
no waiting list for appointments.
Jolivert expects to continue de-
voting herself to relief and build-
ing efforts in Haiti, and plans to
return to the country this summer
through a cousin’s architecture
firm in New York.
She said the support for Haiti
from both Brown and RISD has
helped raise her spirits.
“It was surprising to see how
active the community has been,”
Jolivert said. She warned against
thinking about the crisis in the
short term and instead advocated
working on longer programs to
make substantive, enduring im-
provements in the country.
“I think there is a big need of
collaborating,” Jolivert added.
“I’m afraid of politics going into
it.”
Even though she’s back at
school, Jolivert is still tr ying to
come to terms with her father’s
death, but she said in some ways,
it is easier to be at RISD while
she goes through the grieving
process.
“It’s actually harder when
you’re not doing anything,” she
said.
Page 4
C ampus N ews
Year after year, alums Forty years old, Brown Band skates on
Teach for America
continued from page 3
content knowledge, he said.
While some have criticized
TFA’s teacher training program,
Wong said, TFA is actively work-
ing to address the issue by part-
nering with colleges and uni-
versities to provide continuous
training. Wong said he hopes to
“have a conversation to explore
that possibility” with the new TFA
branch in Providence.
Some teachers’ unions have
publicly criticized TFA. Last year,
the Boston Teachers’ Union wrote
a letter to the organization oppos-
ing its entrance into the area, ac-
cording to a Boston Globe report.
The union said there was already
a surplus of professional teachers
in the area.
But others do not see this as a
“zero-sum game,” Wong said. By
inviting TFA into their schools,
districts are widening the pool of
potential applicants, allowing the
best possible candidate to be hired,
he said. “It is not a jobs program.
It is a human capital investment
strategy,” Wong said.
Wong said TFA represents a
creative means of improving the
education system. “We have been
relying on the traditional way of
filling teachers for the last 100
years,” Wong said. “And for the
last 20 to 30 years, we have seen a
persistent problem in low-income
areas. I think we need to continue
to try new strategies, including
partnering with TFA.”
Teachers’ unions in other areas
have also expressed concerns that
TFA’s two-year contract promotes
high turnover. However, Saxton-
Frump, who originally intended
to go to law school after teaching
for two years, wrote that her TFA
experience in the Rio Grande Val-
ley helped her find “a purpose in
life,” and she now is working as
a social studies teacher at a high
school in Austin, Tex.
When asked what she would
tell a student considering joining
the program, Saxton-Frump wrote,
“I would pass on the same advice
given to me by Seth Magaziner
’06. Do it, but you have to want it
to be hard. This is not something
to be undertaken lightly. This is
not something you do because it
looks good on your resume. Do
it because you want to spend two
years of life in service to others. Do
it because you believe education
is crucial.”
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
“Instruments were freezing to people’s faces.”
continued from page 1
“I have probably been back a half
dozen times,” wrote Christopher
Maden ’94 in an e-mail to The Her-
ald.
To prepare for the ice show, alums
like Maden were e-mailed scans of the
songs ahead of the performance, Leb-
er said. “Most of them still do play or
practice in some capacity,” he said.
The Brown Band was founded in
1924 by Irving Harris ’28, and donned
ice skates for the first time in Febru-
ary 1970 — the same year that women
were allowed to join the band.
The band performs to a script read
aloud by the commentator, though
acoustics can sometimes pose a prob-
lem, Leber said. Designated members
of the band write the script and hand
it over to the band’s vice president
who then chooses the formations
for the band’s performance. Past
formations have included a goblet,
Pac-Man ghosts and Pac-Man himself,
he said.
The band can be spotted playing
at Brown’s Homecoming, most home
and away football games, and some la-
crosse and hockey events. They have
also played at A Day on College Hill
and at Ben and Jerry’s Free Cone
Day, Leber said. Members of the
Brown Band often play in the Brown
Commencement Band, along with
musicians from other Brown music
programs.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
— Max Mankin ’11, president of the Brown Band
Keeping up tradition
For Mankin, the ice show was an
opportunity to trace the band’s his-
tory through the stories of alums.
“It was really exciting, because
the band has a lot of quirky tradi-
tions,” Mankin said. “Reconnecting
with all these alumni sort of illumi-
nated where (the traditions) came
from.”
These legacies include adding
verses to their chants, Brown Band
mascot Elrod Snidley — who reput-
edly nearly won a 1970s Undergradu-
ate Council of Students presidential
election — and the famous Brown
Band buttons.
“I am the ‘inventor’ of the Brown
Band Button,” wrote Kenneth Sloan
’69 in an e-mail to The Herald. Sloan
suggested making the buttons during
a band meeting in September 1967,
as a promotion during that year’s
football season.
Sloan ordered the first buttons —
which read “Jam the Ram” — from
his cousins’ company, he wrote. Sloan
knew the buttons were a hit when a
delegation from the football team
asked for their own.
Not all fun and games
The status of the world’s only ice
skating scatter band does not come
without challenges. “The most dif-
ficult thing was getting everyone to
stop in the form,” Leber said. “When
we’re doing forms in the football field,
it’s one thing. When we’re ice skating,
people start holding onto others and
sliding into position.”
Not everyone was on skates on
Friday night since “everyone is at
different levels” of ice skating ability,
Leber said. During this show, “the
conductor was skating backwards”
while “some people were shuffling,”
Leber said.
Mankin said certain instruments
are too unwieldy to be played on the
ice. “Two years ago, one player wiped
out … her instrument split into sev-
eral different pieces,” he added.
Weather is another concern for
band members. At a performance
two years ago on Yale’s campus, “the
football game fell on a weekend when
hurricane Noel and the Nor’easter
were coming in — we got pum-
meled,” Mankin said. “Instruments
were freezing to people’s faces.”
Traveling and camraderie
Friday’s ice show brought back
fond memories for the alums. “Com-
ing back, I enjoyed reconnecting with
other alums,” Sloan wrote. “I also re-
ally enjoyed seeing how old traditions
have survived and new ones created
in the same spirit. I’m very proud of
an ‘institution’ and a tradition that I
helped create.”
For Sloan — whose wife Christine
Curcio ’72 was one of the original
three Pembroke band members —
the social aspects of the Brown Band
were the most enjoyable. “I was active
in writing shows for football games,
was an early member of the Hockey
Pep Band” and also was one of the
founders of the band’s ice show, he
wrote.
Maden’s favorite parts of being
in the Brown Band were traveling
and the camaraderie with the fellow
band members. “Much of what the
Band does is part of a modern folk
tradition,” he wrote. “More than a few
of the songs they sing can trace their
origin back hundreds of years.”
For Leber, one of the great re-
wards of being part of the band is
“being able to do something that no
one else does,” he said.
Mankin said being part of the
band “is like hanging out with 50
of my best friends. There’s a collec-
tive enthusiasm toward the sporting
event, but more importantly toward
making band fun for everybody.”
 SportsWednesday
The Brown Daily Herald
W. Hockey
Two strong performances, but without a win Tough end
By Andrew Braca
Assistant Sports Editor
The women’s hockey team lost a pair
of games over the weekend to No. 5
Harvard and Dartmouth, but the fi-
nal scores of 4-1 and 4-2, respectively,
don’t tell the whole story.
Facing both Harvard and a Big
Green squad locked in a fierce battle
for the final ECAC Hockey playoff
slot, the Bears (2-18-4, 0-15-3 ECAC)
rallied to tie the score in both games
and remained close until the waning
minutes of each game.
“I think people get caught up
in the wins and the losses, but I’m
proud of the way my players con-
tinue to battle through really tough
circumstances,” Head Coach Digit
Murphy said.
First-years shined for Brown
in both games. Victoria Smith ’13
scored the first goal of her career on
Friday against Harvard, and the fol-
lowing day, Erica Farrer ’13 scored
twice. First-years keyed the offense,
taking nearly half of the team’s shots
in each game. And Katie Jamieson
’13, who made 39 saves against the
Crimson and stopped 32 Big Green
shots, “did a really good job keeping
the score pretty close,” Smith said.
“I’m really proud of the growth
and development of the freshman
class,” Murphy said.
Starting strong
Smith said the Bears came into
the weekend ready to give their op-
ponents a fight.
“We knew they were going to be
hard games, but we knew that if we
worked hard, they weren’t going
to expect a team that was going to
come out and give them a run for
their money,” she said.
Bruno came out sharp on Friday
in Cambridge, Mass., taking just a
single penalty before the third pe-
riod. Facing a 1-0 deficit with un-
der four minutes left in the second,
Smith got the puck at the point and
Before banking, he played the field
continued from page 1
whom I keep up with today.”
And his love of the game, the play-
ers and the organization has remained
strong, playing a crucial role in the
continuing success of this storied
club. When Brown approached the
team about building a new rugby field
to give the team its first true home,
Moynihan stepped up. He, along with
other friends and alumni, raised just
under $1 million to build the Brown
Rugby Field in 2004, according to
Fluck.
Moynihan said many students find
college sports rewarding. “I think the
ability to provide avenues for people
to spread themselves is tremendous,
and rugby is one way they can do that.
It’s a great sport. It’s a great chance for
people to travel and stay involved,”
During his playing days, Moynihan
— who played fly half and inside center
— was under six feet and about 175
pounds, according to the Wall Street
Alena Polenska ’13 is one of many first-years who have been bright spots
on the women’s hockey team, which remains winless in the ECAC.
shot quickly to elude a defender.
With Farrer screening the goalie,
the puck slid into the net.
“When I saw the puck go into
the net, it didn’t even hit me that
I had scored until I looked at my
teammates, and they were all cel-
ebrating,” Smith said. “It was a great
feeling, especially to score against
Harvard.”
Saturday’s game in Hanover,
N.H., began with a Brown goal less
than four minutes in, when Farrer
capitalized on the rebound off a
shot by Jenna Dancewicz ’11. After
Dartmouth answered with two goals,
Farrer tied the score 5:51 into the
third period.
“Nicole Brown (’10) did all the
work, rushed at the other team and
tapped it across, (leading) the de-
fender and giving it right to me to be
able to shoot it in,” Farrer said.
The Bears appeared to have the
momentum.
“Everyone was really positive,”
Farrer said. “We thought we had a
good chance of winning it and just
got unlucky at the end.”
Journal. “Athletically, he wasn’t an im-
posing guy, but he was very smart and
he was deceptively fast,” Fluck said.
What made him excel was his un-
derstanding of the game, his ability to
teach himself and to set an example for
others, according to Fluck. Now at the
head of arguably the most successful
bank in the country, Moynihan’s days
as a leader on and off the field have
translated into what he does now.
“The lessons of leadership do trans-
fer — how to motivate people, how to
try to get people to do more than a
team can do apart,” Moynihan said.
“He probably understood the game
as well or better than most,” Fluck
said. “He was one of the leaders of
the club, he had the respect of all his
teammates.”
“You can only win in rugby if you
play as a team,” Moynihan said. “I
mean, every person has to carry the
ball, every person has to tackle, every
person has to pass the ball, so you have
to work as a team.”
Jonathan Bateman / Herald file photo
Faltering late
Both games went south. Harvard
answered Smith’s goal 1:48 later to
take a 2-1 lead into intermission.
Brown lost Sasha Van Muyen ’10,
who had assisted on the goal, to
a concussion late in the middle
frame, and both she and blueliner
Samantha Stortini ’11 would sit out
the Dartmouth game. The Crimson
scored on a quick transition early in
the third and tacked on a power-play
goal with 32 seconds left.
“It was a lot closer than a 4-1
game,” Murphy said.
On Saturday, Dartmouth an-
swered Farrer’s second goal within
14 seconds, and tacked on the final
goal with under four minutes left.
“It was 2-2, we silenced the crowd,
and then … we let them back in and
they scored,” Murphy said. “That
was very frustrating.”
This weekend the Bears will play
at Meehan Auditorium for the final
time this season, hosting Cornell
(11-8-6, 10-2-6) on Friday at 7 p.m.
and Colgate (9-17-4, 5-9-4) on Satur-
day at 4 p.m. Farrer said the Bears
hope to sneak up on an opponent
And it was with his team that he
won the Ivy League championship his
junior year, in the midst of a string of
dominant Brown rugby teams.
After having recently seen the film
“Invictus,” Moynihan recalled one of
the greater opportunities that being
on the team afforded him.
“We hosted a team of black South
Africans. It was the first team that ever
left the country,” Moynihan said. “It
was quite fun.” All this, almost 15 years
before Nelson Mandela’s release from
prison and the end of apartheid.
But probably more remarkable
than any of his athletic or academic
accolades, is that he was just a normal
Brown guy.
“He was a real guys’ guy,” said
Fluck. “Very bright, extremely ener-
getic, extremely ambitious in all as-
pects of his life. He was always busy
and always active. You saw that in his
rugby.”
— With additional reporting by
Dan Alexander
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 | Page 5
and pull off an upset.
Freshmen and the future
Despite the pair of losses, this
weekend shows how strongly the
freshmen have performed. Farrer
and Smith said the adjustment to
collegiate hockey is a challenge,
both citing stronger and faster op-
ponents than those they faced in
prep school.
“Usually, considering my size,
last year I was able to push girls
around a lot easier and move them
with my body,” Farrer said. “This
year, it’s definitely a battle whenever
I get up in front of the net or stuff
like that, because these aren’t really
little girls.
“Especially being four years
younger than a lot of them, they
just have a lot of experience, but
it’s good because that makes me
have to play better and quicker and
move faster.”
Smith said it takes a positive at-
titude to thrive as a freshman.
“Understanding that you’re com-
ing in here one of the youngest play-
ers, you need to impress the coaches
and impress your teammates,” she
said. “You have to show that you’re
willing to work really hard and do
anything to play.”
Murphy said it takes an entire
team to develop a key group of fresh-
men.
“Jamieson’s been a stalwart all
year, and (Alena) Polenska (’13) and
(Laurie) Jolin (’13) on the power play
… we’ve really seen them play key
roles in our wins, but it’s not just
them,” Murphy said.
“People like Stortini and (Erica)
Kromm (’11) and Erin Connors (’10),
those players are actually kind of
dragging people up, so it’s kind of
the growth and maturity of the whole
team together that helps the fresh-
men get better,” she continued. “The
team is connected in a different way.
I think that bodes well for the future
of Brown women’s hockey.”
SKIING
Team finishes strong, looks
forward to championships
By Ashley McDonnell
Contributing Writer
The ski team finished the regu-
lar season last weekend with an-
other first-place finish in giant
slalom and a fifth-place finish in
slalom.
In giant slalom, captain Krista
Consiglio ’11 came in second over-
all, followed closely by Emily Sim-
mons ’12 in sixth place and Kia
Mosenthal ’12 in eighth.
Despite the team’s dominance
in giant slalom, it struggled in sla-
lom — one skier crashed and none
of the Bears managed to make it
into the top 15 in that event.
In preparation for the upcom-
ing ECSC Championships, “we
just really want to do slalom train-
ing in the next two weeks and fo-
SwIMMING & DIVING
to season
for Bears
By Sahar Shahamatdar
Contributing Writer
Men’s swimming and diving
The men’s swimming and diving
team finished the regular season
after two tough losses last week
to Yale and Cornell, 161-137 and
166-134, respectively.
The team started off the Yale
meet by winning the 200-yard
medley relay by just 0.01 seconds.
Yale swimmers took first in the
next three events and picked up
momentum that lasted through-
out the meet.
There were many close races
in both dual meets, but Brown ul-
timately came up short of enough
gold medals to win either.
The Bears will return to the
pool on March 4 to compete for a
title at the Ivy Championships.
Women’s swimming and diving
The women’s swimming and
diving team ended the regular
season 2-8 after losing to Yale,
191-107, and Cornell, 160-135,
this past week.
In the last home meet of the
season, the Bears battled Yale
in a tough dual meet. The Bears
had many second-place finishes
but only one gold medal in the
400-yard freestyle relay.
The team then traveled to
Ithaca, N.Y., to race against Cor-
nell on Feb. 6. Kristen Jackson
’13 and Kristen Caldarella ’12 led
Brown to five victories, but they
were not enough, as the Bears
fell to Cornell.
Brown will have a three-week
break before heading to Princ-
eton for the Ivy Championships
on Feb. 25.
cus on skiing fast and finishing”
the race, Consigilio said. “I think
in terms of going on to nationals,
we just need to finish.”
The championships will be
held the weekend of Feb. 20 at
Waterville Valley Resort in New
Hampshire, where the Bears
came in ninth in giant slalom on
Jan. 24.
Coach Michael LeBlanc said
the team’s previous performance
at Water ville Valley “had noth-
ing to do with the hill.” Consiglio
added that the giant slalom at
Waterville Valley had been short-
ened that weekend due to “snow
issues.”
Regardless of the Bears’ past
issues at Waterville Valley, LeB-
lanc is “positive they’ll get it done
at regionals.”
Editorial & Letters
The Brown Daily Herald

Page 6 | Wednesday, February 10, 2010

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

Banner needs to fit values of

New Curriculum
To the Editor: protecting at great expense. At other
colleges, the curriculum seems like
I’m writing to thank Pacifica House an afterthought; at Brown, it is the
for their thoughtful analysis of the ef- centerpiece. Brown is also unique in
fect that Banner course registration that our curriculum is the product
has had on Brown students’ enjoy- — and as a result, the dominion —
ment of their curriculum. I was lucky of the student body. No action that
enough to find myself on campus might affect the curriculum should
this weekend, and I got a chance be taken without consulting students
to look at the special report that and alumni, and considerable defer-
they tucked into copies of Friday’s ence should be given to their views.
Herald. I hope the discussion that Frankly, if an administrator “can’t
they’ve started will develop into a understand what all of the fuss is
productive dialogue among students, about,” it is most likely a reflection
faculty, and administrators. of his or her own incomplete under-
The concerns raised by Pacifica standing of the curriculum.
House are not new. Rather, these Luckily, we have in President Sim-
very same concerns were the subject mons a head administrator who is
of a UCS resolution (full disclosure: (from what I can tell) an unabashed A le x Y uly
I was a co-author of the resolution) believer in the New Curriculum —
and discussions between students but her job is to run a major research
and administrators at the time of university, not to tend to the nitty-
e d i to r i a l
Banner’s implementation. At the gritty administration of the college.
time, the Provost’s office suggest-
ed that Banner’s implementation
I hope that in the future, we’ll make
sure that more of the other admin-
Building BIAP
wouldn’t have any substantial cur- istrators “get it,” either by virtue In last Monday’s report on the growing popularity of that the BIAP program is too important to scale down.
ricular consequences, and the Office of having attended as undergradu- unpaid internships, The Herald cited an increasingly For this reason, we are appealing to alums, parents
of the Dean of the College suggested ates or by demonstrating a genuine competitive job market and a depressed economy as and companies who might be looking for a way to
that the effects might actually be understanding of the curriculum two major causes. For students, an internship can give back to the University. Endowing a BIAP award
positive. It seems that neither view during the hiring process. provide an opportunity to explore a field or career, is a great way to connect with students, and help
has panned out. gain practical work experience, network with profes- students explore their interests and get a head start
The New Curriculum at Brown Matt Gelfand ’08 sionals and apply knowledge gained at Brown in a in their careers. Individuals, families and companies
is sacred and, in my opinion, worth Feb. 7 new context. But not everyone can afford to take currently endow general BIAP awards, as well as spe-
an unpaid internship and forgo the chance to make cific awards for internships related to the arts, labor
money during the summer. Internships also impose relations and politics. There are many opportunities
costs, especially if the intern must arrange his or her for expansion. We urge potential donors to contact the
own housing and transportation. Career Development Center, which is responsible for
This is where the Brown Internship Award Pro- overseeing the awards.
gram comes in. BIAP provides $2,500 in funding for In addition to easing financial burdens, we believe
students to take unpaid summer internships. Its sister that BIAP can increase the quality of an internship.
award, formerly known as the Aided Internship Award Financial support can legitimize the internship in the
Program and now named the Summer Earnings Waiv- eyes of the employer, and may even lead to students
t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d er, eliminates up to $2,800 of the summer contribution being given more responsibility. Further, having a
Senior Editors
Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Deputy Managing Editors for students on financial aid. The awards are funded by supervisor connect with Brown — even just at applica-
Chaz Kelsh Sophia Li Ellen Cushing
George Miller
Seth Motel private donations — gifts from parents, alums, faculty tion time and after the internship has finished — will
Emmy Liss
Joanna Wohlmuth and companies — and Brown’s endowment. push employers to think about the intern experience
editorial
Business The Herald noted that last year, the number of both generally and in the specific case of the Brown
General Managers Office Manager
Anne Speyer Arts & Culture Editor Claire Kiely Shawn Reilly
students applying for BIAP awards increased by 30 student currently employed.
Suzannah Weiss Arts & Culture Editor Katie Koh percent to 235. Given the economic climate and the In an ideal world, companies and organizations
Brian Mastroianni Features Editor
Hannah Moser Features Editor Directors growing popularity of unpaid internships, we imagine would be able to pay student interns for the work they
Kelly Wess Sales
Brigitta Greene Metro Editor
Matthew Burrows Finance this number will only rise. However, despite elevated do. But since that is not the case, we appreciate that
Ben Schreckinger Metro Editor
Margaret Watson Client Relations demand for both internships and financial assistance, the Career Development Career can pick up some of
Sydney Ember News Editor
Christiana Stephenson Alumni Relations
Nicole Friedman News Editor the supply of awards will decrease this year. Citing the slack. Ultimately, the main problem facing BIAP
Dan Alexander Sports Editor Managers funding issues, the Career Development Center has now is that demand is up and supply is down. If you’re
Andrew Braca Asst. Sports Editor Arjun Vaidya Local Sales
Han Cui Asst. Sports Editor estimated that they will only be able to fund about 40 reading this and looking for a way to give back to
Marco deLeon National Sales
Graphics & Photos Aditi Bhatia University Sales students this summer, compared to 50 last year. For- Brown, please consider the BIAP program.
Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor Jared Davis University Sales tunately, the number of available Summer Earnings
Alex Yuly Graphics Editor Trenten Nelson-Rivers Recruiter Sales
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong Photo Editor Alexander Carrere Special Projects Waivers will remain constant at 25. Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page
Max Monn Asst. Photo Editor Kathy Bui Staff We understand that times are tough, but we believe board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.
Jonathan Bateman Sports Photo Editor
Opinions
production Michael Fitzpatrick Opinions Editor
Kelly Mallahan
Jordan Mainzer
Copy Desk Chief
Asst. Copy Desk Chief
Alyssa Ratledge Opinions Editor correction
Marlee Bruning Design Editor Editorial Page Board
Anna Migliaccio Asst. Design Editor Matt Aks Editorial Page Editor
The editorial in Tuesday’s Herald (“Newsworthy,” Feb. 9) said a proposed $33,000 cut in spending would represent
Julien Ouellet Asst. Design Editor Debbie Lehmann Board member one-fourth of one percent of the total amount that the University Resources Committee plans to cut. In actuality,
Neal Poole Web Editor William Martin Board member this statistic applies to the total amount the Organizational Review Committee plans to cut.
Melissa Shube Board member
Post- magazine Gaurie Tilak Board member A photo accompanying an article in Tuesday’s Herald (“RIC prof’s story hits the big screen,” Feb. 9) was
Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Topaz Board member
Marshall Katheder misattributed. The photo was courtesy of Thomas Cobb.
Marlee Bruning, Katie Wilson, Designers
The Herald regrets the errors.
Jordan Mainzer, Kelly Mallahan, Carmen Shulman, Copy Editors
Alex Bell, Sydney Ember, Sarah Mancone, Night Editors
C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy
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Opinions
The Brown Daily Herald
Mike Johnson
Opinions Columnist
In the aftermath of the horrifically burst
steam pipe under the Gate, the University
has decided to close the eatery indefinitely
until the pipe can be repaired. While fairly
understandable from a safety point of view
(who really wants their paninis with a side
of scalding hot steam?), the decision leaves
Pembroke campus with a definite lack of
dining options.
As all Brunonians know, and as many
freshmen figure out the hard way, the V-Dub
is closed on weekends. On weekdays, the
Gate provided those on Pembroke campus a
convenient alternative to the usually crowded
lunch environment of the V-Dub. On week-
ends, the Gate was the only thing on this
side of campus and usually had a constant
flow of students.
But as of Friday, this is no longer the case.
On weekends, all those who are hungry will
be forced to walk to the Ratty for meals, an op-
tion that many find leaves a bad taste in their
mouths. Now, while it is obviously physically
possible for students on Pembroke campus
to get themselves to the Ratty, it’s gosh darn
inconvenient.
This lack of choice is even worse for those
of us who may want dinner later than 7:30
p.m. on weekdays, in which case the only
A skeptic’s response to Oscar the cat
David Sheffield
Opinions Columnist
Human interest stories are an easy way for
newspapers to fill space. They appeal to read-
ers without having journalists spend much
time with pesky fact checking. Especially as
newspapers and other organizations lay off
science journalists, it is increasingly clear
that entertaining consumers, rather than get-
ting the facts right, is what is important.
A good example is the case of Oscar the
cat. In 2007, David Dosa, an assistant profes-
sor at the Alpert Medical School, wrote an es-
say in the New England Journal of Medicine
describing a day in the life of Oscar. He and
the staff of Steere House, a Providence nurs-
ing home where the cat lives, believe that
Oscar has the ability to predict the deaths of
patients. News agencies worldwide picked
up this stor y in 2007 without considering
whether there was scientific validity to it.
The articles might have contained some
token skepticism in an attempt to show bal-
ance — the false proxy of objectivity. They
did not.
The Herald now has its own article on
Oscar, which repeats the unfounded claim
as credulously as anything from 2007. The
piece, “Prof’s book tells the story of a cat’s
eerie sixth sense” (Feb. 2), tells the stor y
of Oscar and of Dosa’s newly released book.
Dosa’s claims of Oscar’s abilities are taken
as fact and uncritically examined. After all,
“Dosa published an article about him in the
Let us eat cake… please?
options on campus are the Ivy Room and Jo’s.
Friday nights? We’re left with just Jo’s, a nice,
scenic 15-minute walk through the frozen
tundra that is this current winter.
Friday’s Morning Mail included a brief
statement regarding the Gate’s closing and
attempted to reassure us by claiming, “All
other dining facilities remain open and ready
to serve you.” While ostensibly true, in real-
ity, this statement is false. All dining facilities
are not open to us: the V-Dub is still closed
on weekends.
There must be a way to temporarily open the
V-Dub on weekends.
True, this is an issue that students have
seemingly griped about for ages. But in an
interesting turn of events, Brown Dining
Services and the Undergraduate Council of
Students actually came to an agreement over
something, providing a terrible precedent.
While the extension of V-Dub breakfast was a
long time coming, once they finally let a “yes”
out into the world, all crotchety columnists
will be free to make outlandish demands for
convenient dining options.
In the aftermath of the Gate disaster, I’m
New England Journal of Medicine,” so it
must be true.
It turns out that the “article” is actually an
essay, a narrative of a day when Oscar spent
time by a dying patient. The important differ-
ence is that an essay presents no evidence to
support its claim. The physicians and staff
of the nursing home believe that their cat
possesses the ability to sense when a patient
is near death, but that does not mean that it
is so. All we are given is an anecdote.
Many of the 2007 articles contain com-
mentary on why a cat would be inclined to
Before even bothering to speculate on the cause
of Oscar’s ability, we should first know whether
the effect is real.
stay near a person just before his or her
time of death. This, however, is premature.
Before even bothering to speculate on the
cause of Oscar’s ability, we should first know
whether the effect is real or whether the
staff of Steere House is mistaken. Anecdotes
might be useful for indicating new areas of
research, but they are worthless for actually
determining whether an effect exists. In this
case, the staff’s observations and Dosa’s es-
say are cause for looking into this further,
but they cannot be used to support the claim
that Oscar has any unusual abilities.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 | Page 7
feeling fairly stranded by the administra-
tion. In this time of crisis, it seems that the
needs of the Main Campus population are
held more dear than those of the estranged
Pembrokers.
My fellow members of the New Pembroke
Fourth Estate have compiled a list of “Rights
of Brunonians,” and right at the top of the
list is opening the V-Dub on weekends until
this calamity passes us by. If this demand
isn’t met, I’ve heard rumors of methodically
forcing every Main Campus resident to stand
firmly on the Pembroke Seal, until the V-Dub
unbars its doors and releases the convenience
held prisoner inside.
There must be a way to temporarily open
the V-Dub on weekends. There are many
students who are out of work at the Gate
while it’s closed. I’m sure they’ll be happy
to work at the V-Dub until the Gate reopens.
Even if part of the union contract stipulates
that non-student workers have priority at the
V-Dub, then with the money saved on student
salaries from the now-closed Gate, BDS can
I suspect that an actual study would find
that Oscar cannot predict deaths, as this
looks like a typical case of confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias is caused by the tendency
to remember evidence that confirms one’s
hypothesis while forgetting evidence that
disconfirms it.
One of the classic examples of how
confirmation bias works is the myth that
emergency rooms get more visits during
full moons. This results from emergency
room staff experiencing a busy night and
then discovering that the moon is full. Be-
cause this is an interesting coincidence,
they tend to remember it more than other
nights throughout the month that were just
as busy. When staffers think back to when
they were the busiest, they are more likely
to say that it was around the time of the
full moon. But when systematic studies are
done, relying on records rather than fallible
human memory, there is no correlation with
the moon’s phase.
The same effect has likely caused the staff
of Steere House to believe that Oscar has
abilities that he does not actually possess.
pay those workers to staff the V-Dub.
Chefs are unnecessary, as the Ratty makes
more than enough food that sits in warming
ovens until it is served. Pop a few of those
trays into one of those snazzy Brown Dining
Ser vices vans constantly cruising around
campus and bring them up to sit in the V-Dub
warming ovens.
Students will be so happy that the V-Dub is
open that they won’t complain about the lack
of variety. (Those that would complain are
probably the sort to walk all the way to Jo’s
in the first place.) Far from being a wasted
gesture, the V-Dub would be swarmed by
hungry students who don’t have the time to
break their studies to walk to Main Campus
for a sandwich.
So in an effort to prevent needless preg-
nancy and dropouts at the hands of the Pem-
broke seal, I make a humble plea for the
temporary opening of the V-Dub until the
steam pipes can be repaired underneath the
Gate. It won’t be a permanent addition to
the dining calendar, unless, of course, BDS
decides it wants to be extra generous (hint,
hint). Think of it as a trial run, to see what the
demand would be like. It’s a commonsense
solution to a devastating problem that would
ser ve the dual purpose of being the right
thing to do and making students happy. Who
can say no to that?
Mike Johnson ’11 can be reached
at Michael_Jackson@brown.edu.
Dosa has yet to publish a study showing
the amount of time that Oscar spends with
near-death patients as compared to other
patients.
Dosa’s essay claims that Oscar visits nu-
merous patients throughout the day. It is
therefore unsurprising that Oscar would
visit a dying patient at some point before
death. The staff remembers those visits
while they forget the visits to patients who
continue to live. Supposedly, the difference
between those uneventful visits and the ones
where Oscar predicts the patient’s death is
the length of time that Oscar spends with
the patient. However, Dosa gives no definite
length of time at which Oscar’s visit turns
from friendly to grim. Nor is there a fixed
amount of time between when Oscar stays
with the soon-to-be-dead patient and when
the actual death occurs. This means that it
is easy for staffers to retroactively fit Oscar’s
behavior with what they expect to happen —
perfect fodder for confirmation bias.
There is some good speculation on how
Oscar could be predicting deaths, but without
a systematic study to demonstrate Oscar’s
ability, the frailty of human memory provides
a much better explanation for what is hap-
pening in Steere House. Until such a study
is done, it is irresponsible for articles to
propagate unfounded stories like those of
Oscar the cat — even if only to entertain.
David Sheffield ’11 is a math-
physics concentrator from New
Jersey. He can be reached at
david_sheffield@brown.edu.
 Today 3
to day to m o r r o w
Brown students join TFA en masse
The Brown Daily Herald

Swim teams face tough losses

5
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
33 / 25 35 / 18
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c a l e n da r
Today, February 10
5:00 P.M. — Timothy Patrick Moran:
Unveiling Inequality —A World-Histori-
cal Perspective, McKinney Conference
Room
6:00 P.M. — Hoops for Haiti, Pizzitola
Center
comics
tomorrow, february 11
Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman
4:00 P.M. — NSGP Seminar: Dr.
Jeffrey Macklis, Harvard University,
Sidney Frank Hall 220
7:00 P.m. — 1st Annual Environmen-
tal Activities Fair, Salomon Lower
Lobby

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

Lunch — Vegetable Enchiladas, Beef Lunch — Hot Ham on a Bulkie

Tips with Curry, Polynesian Ratatouille, Roll, Pizza Rustica, Italian Marinated
Raspberry Sticks Chicken, Raspberry Sticks

Dinner — Chicken Tikki, Vegan Chana Dinner — Italian Meatloaf, Stuffed

Masala, Fresh Vegetable Melange, Af- Spinach Squash, Jamaican Pork and
rican Honey Bread Apricot Saute, Apple Oatmeal Crisp

crossword
Excelsior | Kevin Grubb

Fruitopia | Andy Kim

Hippomaniac | Mat Becker