Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxlv, no. 49 | Thursday, April 15, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Graphic novelist muses on comics, art
By Claire Peracchio
Senior Staf f Writer
Ever ything Art Spiegelman P’13
learned, he learned from com-
ics.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning
graphic novelist, comic ar tist
and one-time Simpsons charac-
ter spoke to a packed List 120
yesterday about his education
in comics. The medium that be-
came his life’s passion was the
subject of his sweeping lecture on
comics past and present, entitled
“What the %@&*! Happened to
Comics?”
The lecture’s colorful title —
particularly its suggestion of pro-
fanity — captures the irreverent
“essence of comics,” according
to Spiegelman.
“It’s such a f­— great word!”
Spiegelman declared of the jum-
ble of characters.
Spiegelman’s whirlwind lec-
ture navigated the histor y of
comics from pop art to Peanuts,
a legacy he described as “a battle
zone” shaped by a tug-of-war be-
Pre-frosh U. donates $50,000 for flood relief
invade
campus
By Anne Artley
Contributing Writer
For the next two days, Brown’s popu-
lation will increase by about 700 as
admitted students invade campus
for A Day On College Hill.
More students are expected to
attend this year than last year, after
Brown received a record number of
applications.
“Since applications were up,
maybe students are really taking
time after they are admitted to visit
campuses and see which one is best
for them,” said Eleanor Brennan,
assistant director of admissions.
At ADOCH, prospective fresh-
men and their families have the op-
portunity to attend lectures, panels
and an activities fair. They will also
get a chance to stay in the dorms
and meet other admitted students
at social events such as a dessert
social, a barbecue dinner and a tal-
ent show.
Last year, the ADOCH planners
added the Wednesday night barbe-
cue to the program and brought in
continued on page 2
inside
News.....2–9
Metro...10–11
Sports..12-13
Editorial....14
Opinion.....15
Today........16
www.browndailyherald.com
“Comics are the medium that gets past your critical radar and goes straight to the brain,” Spiegelman told a
packed List 120.
tween “tradition and transgres-
sion” and the worlds of children
and adults.
By Anita Badejo
and Emily Rosen
Contributing Writer and Staff Writer
In response to historic flooding
across much of Rhode Island at
the end of March, the University
donated $50,000 last week to the
United Way of Rhode Island’s Flood
Recovery Fund. Brown community
members affected by the flood have
also begun to take advantage of
On TV and the Web, sifting through images of Brown
By Claire Peracchio
Senior Staf f Writer
For the more than 30,000 students
who applied to Brown this year, the
popular college admissions Web
site College Confidential, whether
reliable or not, acted as a prime
source of information about the
school.
On the site’s Brown forum, stu-
dents post everything from stan-
dardized test scores to impressions
of the University, mentioning the
litany of stereotypes and press at-
tention that Brown has received —
liberal students, celebrity children,
Metro, 10
EAST SIDE TREATS
Investigating ‘snuggery’
and cupcakes at a
Wickenden eatery
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
While growing up in a lower-
middle class household in New
York City, Spiegelman didn’t have
University emergency relief pro-
grams.
“They are calling this the 500-
year flood,” said Tony Maione,
United Way of Rhode Island’s CEO
and president. “This was a very,
very unusual event.”
Funding relief
Brown was among the top five
financial donors to the recovery
fund, according to an April 8 press
Branding Brown
Third in a five-part series
a unique curriculum and even Sex
Power God. Will my conservative
beliefs be attacked if I matriculate?
Does Brown value the sciences?
Concerned students ask questions
and await responses that fluctuate
between petty and informational.
College Confidential is only part
of a larger trend. For prospective
students, parsing media coverage
of Brown — good and bad — is
particularly daunting. Stereotypes
about Brown are the fodder of blogs
and college guidebooks, television
shows and campus reviews, with
continued on page 5
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
much interest in museum art, he
continued on page 2
release from the United Way, a non-
profit organization that addresses
emergency relief, along with a
number of community issues and
individual needs.
The fund was created spe-
cifically to aid those affected by
flooding in Rhode Island with
“needs that will not be covered by
other sources,” such as the Federal
continued on page 11
University Hall got a rainbow-colored makeover for the 2008 Sex Power
God party, an event that attracted plenty of media attention for Brown.
Sports, 13
top dog
Baseball team loses to
No. 25 UConn Huskies at
home
Chem. Prof
is new Grad
School dean
By Talia Kagan
Senior Staf f Writer
Peter Weber, professor and chair
of the chemistr y department, will
replace Sheila Bonde as dean of
the Graduate School beginning
July 1, according to a Wednesday
University press release.
Bonde, whose five-year contract
as graduate school dean terminates
at the end of June, plans to return
to full-time teaching and research,
Vice President for Public Affairs
and University Relations Marisa
Quinn wrote in an e-mail to the
Herald.
“I am honored to be asked to
serve in this manner,” said Weber,
who was chosen by a committee
within the Grad School.
Weber has taught chemistr y
at Brown since 1989 and ser ved
as department chair since 2005.
As chair, he hired over half of the
department’s present faculty and
oversaw growth in graduate stu-
dent enrollment, according to the
press release.
Weber studies “chemical reac-
tions on ultrafast time scales,” ac-
cording to the press release. His
promotion of collaborative research
on energy has helped strengthen
Brown’s reputation for scholarship
in this field, according to the press
release. He has taught introduc-
tor y chemistr y classes as well as
quantum mechanics, and currently
teaches a first-year seminar on en-
ergy.
continued on page 2
Kim Perley / Herald file photo
Opinions, 15
freedom isn’t free
Nida Abdulla ’11.5 finds
faults in the looseness of
the New Curriculum
herald@browndailyherald.com
Page 2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Thursday, April 15, 2010

C ampus N EWS
Spiegelman: Comics go
‘straight to the brain’
continued from page 1
said. Yet even high art, especially
cubism, has the trappings of a
quality comic.
“Picasso was a pretty damn
good comic when he got right
down to it,” Spiegelman said.
Renowned for his innova-
tion in comics and graphic art,
Spiegelman spoke about “Maus,”
the graphic novel about his fam-
ily’s experience during the Holo-
caust that earned him a special
Pulitzer Prize, and showed cover
images that he created for the
New Yorker after being hired by
Anne Artley / Herald then-editor Tina Brown.
As part of its preparations for ADOCH, the University erected a large tent on the Main Green. Spiegelman’s iconic Septem-
ber 11 cover, which depicted two
and cartoons that “escape their
boundaries and enter into the
real world of debate.” He com-
mented on the controversy sur-
rounding cartoon depictions of
Muhammad, which were pub-
lished in a Danish newspaper
in 2005.
His essay in Harper’s Maga-
zine that responded to the con-
troversy, titled “Drawing Blood:
Outrageous Cartoons and the Art
of Outrage,” was accompanied
by cartoons invoking racial and
cultural stereotypes.
“I felt that there was a First
Amendment issue here, because
there is a right to offend even if
you don’t want to be offended,”
Spiegelman said.

Admission office gears up for ADOCH black Twin Towers on a dark

continued from page 1
about a dozen parents of current
Brown students to speak during the
Parent Information session. These
additions were successful enough to
be included again this year.
The Office of Admission is also
making an effort to get more up-
perclassmen involved in the event.
For the first time this year, juniors
and seniors will also host prospec-
tive students.
While many prospective students
will arrive Thursday, some have
been on campus for Third World
Welcome, another program for ad-
mitted students, since Wednesday.
Although any student admitted
sudoku
through regular decision is allowed
to attend, early decision students are
still asked to stay home, a policy the
admission office decided on three
years ago.
“It’s really a space issue,” Bren-
nan said. “(Before) it was chaos,
and it didn’t flow well. ADOCH is
for kids who have not yet decided to
come to Brown. It is not an orienta-
tion event.”
The student-led ADOCH com-
mittee, which starts planning the
event in September, stresses the
importance of showing students an
accurate picture of life at Brown.
At Inside Scoop at Brown, one of
the most popular and well-attended
ADOCH events, students watch
video clips of how Brown is por-
trayed in popular culture, and then
they can ask questions to a panel
of students.
“I really love interacting with pro-
spective students and I really love
Brown, so if I can convince them
to love Brown too, that would be
great,” said Jenna Kahn ’12, who is
co-coordinating ADOCH with Ed-
die Re ’12.
Fortunately, admissions officers
and ADOCH volunteers agree that
it does not take much work to con-
vince others to love Brown as they
do.
“Most students enjoy being stu-
dents here, so we don’t have to ask
them to do much,” Brennan said.
background, echoed the work
of Ad Reinhardt and attempted
to convey a profound sense of
mourning after a terrible trag-
edy, Spiegelman said.
“Comics are the medium that
gets past your critical radar and
goes straight to the brain,” he
said, gesturing to an image of
a giant laser piercing a human
eyeball.
Spiegelman spoke of the
“Faustian deal” comics made
with high culture, which he
added was “helpful for getting
grants.” This exchange — in con-
trast to the image he showed of
Americans burning comic books
in the 1950s — has made comics
something even librarians can
appreciate, Spiegelman said.
The language of comics is one
of “time turned into space,” an
idiom that Spiegelman compared
to reading sheet music. Comics
also allow the ar tist to depict
human beings through their
physical traits, which readers
instinctively correlate with an
individual’s character.
Spiegelman also examined
the use of images as propaganda
Another instance of contro-
versial imager y, the 2008 New
Yorker car toon that depicted
then-Senator Barack Obama
wearing a turban and “fist-
bumping” an artiller y-strapped
Michelle Obama, was an example
of images taking on new signifi-
cance in national discourse. The
cover evoked dialogue that had
surfaced during Obama’s presi-
dential campaign — “all euphe-
misms for ‘I think the guy might
be black,’ ” Spiegelman said.
Spiegelman added that he
would even have liked to have
seen a “Hitler collector’s plate”
on the wall to make completely
clear the cover’s satirical pur-
pose.
As for the future of comics,
Spiegelman remarked on the
genre’s ability to accommodate
different subject matter, whether
depicting vampires or “the super-
sized uber-mensch from outer-
space.”
“Some of the most sublime
comics ever made are being
made right now,” Spiegelman
said. “Ironically, at the time when
the book is under threat, the last
books standing are comics.”

Weather, menus
and news you
can use
Weber hopes to continue
Grad School progress
blogdailyherald
continued from page 1 for ward, fill it with meaning and
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Daily Herald
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the Brown
Weber is vice chair of the Hu- relevant to society.”
man Resource Advisor y Board In his capacity as senior aca-
Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | Business Phone: 401.351.3260 and serves on the advisory board demic officer of the Grad School,
George Miller, President Katie Koh, Treasurer for the Institute for Molecular Weber will also ser ve as a mem-
Claire Kiely, Vice President Chaz Kelsh, Secretary and Nanoscale Innovation. He ber of the president’s cabinet,
The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serv- is also president of Ryon Tech- according to the press release.
ing the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday nologies Inc., a local company Weber is “looking for ward”
through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during he cofounded, according to the to collaborating with Bonde over
Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily
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POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI The Plan for Academic Enrich- said.
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Copyright 2010 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved. his part, Weber said he hopes — With additional reporting
to “move graduate education by Sarah Mancone
Thursday, April 15, 2010 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Page 3

C ampus N EWS “In 20 years, I think we would all be surprised if David was not
running the country.” — Joshua Bernard ’11 on David Poritz ’11.5

Student wins prestigious

Truman Scholarship
By Heeyoung Min
Senior Staf f Writer
Over spring break, David Poritz ’11.5
checked his e-mail and found a mes-
sage from President Ruth Simmons
— telling him that he was one of 60
Truman Scholars, a select group of
students chosen from 576 candidates
across the nation to receive up to
$30,000 for their graduate studies.
Poritz, who founded the nonprofit
Esperanza International as a fresh-
man in high school, was selected
for his leadership in promoting en-
vironmental change.
Poritz took a leave of absence last
year to develop his social enterprise
organization, Gaia Certification, Ltd.,
which aims to institute the world’s
first global certification system that
creates incentives for companies to
use higher standards of oil and gas
exploration and production.
ribbean studies and anthropology,
said he is still searching for a bal-
ance between schoolwork, campus
life and running a new corporation
based in Ecuador, he is confident he
made the right decision in returning
to Brown last semester.
“My goal at Brown is to align
what I’m doing with Gaia so they
coalesce. Brown gives me a unique
opportunity to feasibly accomplish
my goals” because of the New Cur-
riculum’s flexibility, said Poritz, add-
ing that he would not be able to run
Gaia if he attended a school with a
rigid core curriculum.
Brown’s “central” geographic lo-
cation is also an advantage, said Po-
ritz, who regularly travels to Boston,
New York and Washington, D.C., on
weekends for business meetings.
“My education won’t be what it Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
The Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World recently received a grant to launch an
will be for many people. I spend less
international project on Roman art.
time in the classroom than some

Historians dig into ‘movable feast’

“Gaia was an epiphany I had while
working in a production industry in
the Amazon. I recognized that the
gas and oil industries didn’t funda-
mentally have to have a negative
social and environmental impact,”
Poritz said.
“The problem in the gas and oil
industries is that there isn’t a mecha-
nism to evaluate what is an accept-
able practice,” he said. “Gaia offers
an industry score card on various
social and environmental factors.”
Scholars were selected “on the
people, like pre-med or engineering
students, but that doesn’t make my
education less meaningful,” he said.
“It’s the concept of experimental
learning that has been the corner- By Kristina Klara project titled “The Arts of Rome’s Alcock, professor of classics and
stone of my education.” Contributing Writer Provinces.” director of the Joukowsky Insti-
Joshua Bernard ’11, co-president The grant is intended to devel- tute.
of Esperanza International — a non- The Joukowsky Institute for Ar- op an “international conversation But Kampen said she and
profit that aims to aid indigenous chaeology and the Ancient World about art histor y,” said Natalie Alcock are “not teachers in any
communities adversely affected by was recently awarded an $180,000 Kampen, visiting professor of Ro- way.” They will be “facilitators”
toxic contamination — described grant from the Getty Foundation man archaeology and art, who
Poritz’s “passion for social justice” to begin work on an international will lead the project with Susan continued on page 4
as “infectious.”
Esperanza International facili-

UCS election competition heats up

basis of leadership potential, intellec-
tual ability and likelihood of ‘making
a difference,’ ” according to a press
release from the Harry S. Truman
Scholarship Foundation.
Poritz hopes to attend law school
and pursue a master’s degree in for-
estry and environmental studies at
Yale, he said. But in addition to the
actual scholarship, he said, “You
get the opportunity to be part of
a globalized network of students
involved in leadership and social
justice issues.”
“I think having a background in
environmental law would be a criti-
cal skill set for (the Gaia) team,” said
Poritz, who oversees an advisory
council of law students that is de-
veloping environmental legislation
for the Ecuadorian government as a
client for the Yale Law School Envi-
ronmental Protection Clinic.
Though Poritz, who is concen-
trating in Latin American and Ca-
tates the development and writing
of environmental legislation in the
U.S. and Latin America, according
to Bernard.
“When I began working with Es-
peranza a few years ago, David had
been dealing with issues of inequity
and sustainability in the Amazon for
almost a decade,” Bernard said.
“In 10 years, David’s efforts may
bring about serious changes in the
way our society perceives and ex-
tracts natural resources,” he added.
“In 20 years, I think we would all be
surprised if David was not running
the country.”
Poritz said he has no presidential
aspirations, but added that he would
consider running for the U.S. Senate
“sometime way down the line.”
For now, he is focusing on ex-
panding the impact of Gaia.
“My goal is for 10 percent of
global oil production to reach Gaia
certification,” Poritz said.
By Nicole Boucher
Senior Staf f Writer
The candidates running in this
year’s Undergraduate Council of
Students and Undergraduate Fi-
nance Board elections next week
will encounter stiff competition,
with only the UCS treasurer and
UFB at-large representatives facing
uncontested races.
Students will also vote on a ref-
erendum to adopt instant runoff
procedures for future voting in
next week’s election.
Last spring, five leadership po-
sitions were uncontested, includ-
ing chair of the UCS Admissions
and Student Ser vices, Student
Activities and Campus Life com-
mittees, The Herald reported at
the time.
“I am glad there has been a lot
of turnout,” said current UCS pres-
ident Clay Wertheimer ’10, adding
that high participation “is impor-
tant to get the issues discussed and
the student body engaged.”
Kening Tan ’12, chair of the
UCS Elections Board, said the
board made a point of encourag-
ing people to apply for the chair
positions this year by increasing
awareness that candidates do not
need to be UCS members to run.
“The campaign is interesting
because there is not a lot of dis-
agreement on issue platforms,”
Wertheimer said. “What is at stake
is the experiences candidates have
and what they can bring.”
A candidate must have a “firm
understanding of how the group
functions and how it functions
best,” said UCS Communications
Chair Evan Holownia ’11, a candi-
date for the council’s vice presi-
dent.
“It is hard for someone to just
come in and effectively run the
board,” added UFB-UCS Liaison
Salsa Ahmed ’11, a candidate for
chair of the finance board. She said
the most important task next year
for UFB will be “maintaining proj-
ects” started this year. Students
“well-versed” in the finance board’s
policy will be best equipped to fol-
low through with these initiatives,
she said.
Diane Mokoro ’11, current UCS
continued on page 4
Page 4
C ampus N EWS
Joukowsky grant brings Students vie for UCS and UFB positions
researchers together
continued from page 3
who will bring together groups of
professionals that may not have
encountered each other otherwise,
she said.
Twenty people with terminal
degrees will be chosen to be a part
of the project, Kampen said. “There
is a wide spectrum of people who
could conceivably be involved in
this.”
She and Alcock will send invita-
tions to experts in the discipline of
art histor y and related fields — to
scholars at universities, museums
and professional organizations
throughout the world — to apply
to participate. Alcock, Kampen and
a small international committee
will choose the fellows.
Because ar t histor y is stud-
ied differently in each part of the
world, the project will aim to “fig-
ure out how these different kinds
of art histories can benefit each
other,” Kampen said. Local tradi-
tions will lend a new perspective
to the subject, she added.
“What we’re proposing is to do
our project in two separate coun-
tries and in each country at several
different sites,” Kampen said. She
called the project a “movable feast”
because the fellows will study Ro-
man art histor y and archaeology
in both Greece and England.
The foundation approached
Kampen and Alcock several years
ago and asked if they would form
a project to internationalize ar t
histor y and apply for the grant.
“As a 1976 Ph.D. from Brown, I
knew I wanted to bring the grant
back to Brown to say thank you,”
said Kampen, who is a professor
of women’s studies and art history
at Barnard College.
She and Alcock planned a proj-
ect that “nobody had ever done be-
fore,” Kampen said. Though she is
excited for the work to begin, she
said she is ner vous about organiz-
ing such a large project.
Kampen said she has been
asking the question, “Why is art
produced in different parts of the
Roman empire different?,” for her
entire career. Now, with tools and
insights that the other fellows will
contribute, she said she hopes not
only to “find answers” but also to
“figure out interesting ways to ask
questions.”
Being able to work on the proj-
ect is “one of these great opportu-
nities that you never think you’ll
get,” Kampen said.
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
continued from page 3
vice president and a candidate for
next year’s president, said that past
“proven leadership” is the true
mark of a good candidate.
Tan said the elections board
will strive to “encourage fairness”
in the election this year, even as
the use of Facebook, Twitter and
other online sites for publicity
is on the rise. As in years past,
campaigning will be based on a
points system designed to increase
fairness by limiting how much a
student can campaign.
Problems with online promotion
have already arisen this year.
UCS presidential candidate Ar-
thur Matuszewski ’11, a former
editor-in-chief of Post- magazine,
sent an open e-mail to over 500
students, faculty, administra-
tors and other staff Tuesday. An
anonymous reply sent to ever y-
one who received Matuszewski’s
e-mail mocked many statements
he made.
Matuszewski brought this ex-
change to the election board’s at-
tention, writing in an e-mail that
even though the response was
anonymous and possibly a form
of “shadow insult,” it might fall
under the board’s ban on negative
campaigning. But board member
Sarah Rutherford ’12 said that be-
cause he was not misquoted and
the information was therefore not
“objectively false,” nothing could
be done by the board under its
rules.
Matuszewski spoke about the
intentions of his e-mail during
community time at the council’s
general body meeting Wednesday,
saying it was a “genuine” attempt
to acknowledge connections at
Brown, despite the anonymous
responder’s cynical reaction. In
a speech filled with sensational
language and expletives, he said
UCS needed to explore “bolder”
initiatives to improve connections
rather than just bringing “bacon
to the Ratty.” He said he did not
intend to “demean UCS,” but to
encourage “conversations about
vision and expansion” at Brown.
Wertheimer later said UCS ac-
tually discusses many large issues
with the administration and the
community.
Last year, then-candidate
Wertheimer lost 15 of his 100
campaigning points after a mem-
ber of the elections board joined
his Facebook campaign group and
was appointed as a group admin-
istrator by someone other than
Wertheimer, The Herald reported
at the time.
With six non-UCS members on
the 10-person elections board this
year, Tan said UCS has sought to
increase the transparency of the
election process by increasing
community participation.
Many candidates for both UCS
and UFB also said transparency
was a larger, fundamental goal.
Most students know little about
UFB’s true function at Brown, said
vice-chair candidate Jason Lee ’12,
adding that increasing “openness
and transparency” would be one
of his main aims next year.
UFB Chair candidate Adam
Kiki-Charles ’11 said the problem
has more to do with accessibility to
the board than transparency, and
that UFB must ensure that student
groups understand how to receive
funding from the finance board.
“UFB must also improve rela-
tionships” with faculty, UCS and
the outer community, said vice-
chair candidate and current UFB
secretary Tyler Rosenbaum ’11,
adding that UFB has acted too
“autonomous” in years past.
Reed Frye ’11, a candidate for
UCS vice president, said increas-
ing the “community audience” will
help hold UCS accountable for the
Thursday, April 15, 2010
way it conducts its meetings.
The elections board will host a
debate at 7 p.m. Thursday in Sa-
lomon 001 to provide the larger
Brown community with an oppor-
tunity “to come and hear students
give their perspective on the is-
sues,” Tan said, adding that she
“highly encouraged” students to
attend the debate to understand
what the candidates stand for.
Candidate statements are now
posted on the UCS Web site.
Wertheimer said the “vision
of the candidates,” in addition to
their levels of experience, will be
important for guiding initiatives
UCS is involved in next year.
“I’m running mainly because
I love Brown, and I want to have
the opportunity to make as many
improvements as I possibly can,”
said Campus Life Chair Ben Farber
’12, who is running for UCS vice
president.
In other UCS news, the council
also unanimously agreed Wednes-
day to include a referendum on
next week’s ballot that, if passed
by the student body, would amend
its constitution to include instant
runoff plans to be implemented in
general elections beginning next
year.
The proposed changes state
that “voters shall rank candidates
by preference” when they vote. If
no candidate receives a simple ma-
jority, the votes for the candidate
with the fewest first-choice votes
will be “redistributed based on the
second choice of those ballots.”
If needed, the process would be
repeated until a winner of a simple
majority can be declared.
UCS already implemented
these changes for internal coun-
cil elections earlier this year.
“This is the most uncontroversial
thing we have done all semester,”
Wertheimer said.
UCS also discussed the Univer-
sity’s response to flood damage in
Providence, which occurred over
the week of spring break at Brown.
The council agreed that volunteer-
ing in larger groups and fundrais-
ing during Spring Weekend will be
key to supporting relief efforts.
Colleen McDonald ’12, who has
acted as a liaison between students
and administrators on disaster re-
lief, said they have been working
on these initiatives and are at-
tempting to identify regions that
can most effectively use a large
amount of volunteers.
Page 5 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Thursday, April 15, 2010

C ampus N EWS
Media an important tool for prospective students news in brief

continued from page 1
commentators offering everything
from criticism to effusive praise.
And as the University’s visibil-
ity has skyrocketed, pinning down
Brown’s image amid media scru-
tiny and college admissions hype
remains a challenge.
‘Fitting in at Brown’
“I am not very politically active
or artsy, nor am I big into the party
scene,” wrote one student on College
Confidential. “Will I find kids with
similar interests at Brown?”
“Brown is really not about any
one kid,” responded Jason Becker ’09
GS, who posts under the pseudonym
“modestmelody” on the site.
Becker started posting voluntarily
in 2005 after finding the site to be a
good source of information as an in-
coming student.
“I mostly speak from my experi-
ence or the experiences of people I
continued on page 6
For those in laptop-free classes,
back to pen and paper
Last year, the students who took POLS 0400:
“Introduction to International Politics” with Associate
Professor of International Relations Nina Tannenwald
had to leave their laptops at home. If they wanted to
take notes, they had to do it the old-fashioned way, with
pens and paper.
Laptop use in class “has become a problem,”

TWW welcomes admitted students of color

Tannenwald said. “It’s a very public announcement that
you’re not paying attention in class.”
Tannenwald added that students often multitask
By Sara Luxenberg “It’s a very intimate program,” campus, rather than just, ‘You’re the while taking notes on a computer. They shop, blog, go
Senior Staff Writer Dunlap said. “I think the whole idea minority and we’re gonna single you on Facebook and check their e-mail.
is to put a more personal face on an out,’ ” said prospective student Saman- “It just diminishes students’ engagement,” she said.
About 120 minority students admitted institution,” she added. tha Alvarez. “I’d rather see the whole Vasundhara Prasad ’12, who was a student in
to the class of 2014 arrived on cam- Attending TWW helped Belcher campus put together, and then show us Tannenwald’s class, said she “didn’t mind the rule.”
pus Wednesday for this year’s Third solidify his decision to attend Brown, the Latino groups within that.” “It’s easier to write notes and draw arrows and
World Welcome, a day before A Day he said. “I’m from Hawaii, so coming Alnifaidy appreciated the out- connections on a piece of paper,” Prasad said. “After
on College Hill, which welcomes the from so far away, I really needed to find reach to minority students but taking that class, I never bring my computer to class.”
rest of their potential classmates who that home, that family atmosphere.” wanted to see “the other side, how Associate Professor of History Seth Rockman has a
applied regular decision. The two-day The program “has transformed to integrate that into the rest of the similar policy. In lecture-based classes, he said, using a
program, which aims to give prospec- completely” in the four years that Dun- community,” she said. computer will not have such a harsh impact on others’
tive students of color a glimpse into lap has been involved in organizing it, At the same time, Alnifaidy said attention spans. However, in seminars, “laptop screens
campus life for minority students at she said, pointing to the addition of a she appreciated the efforts of the interfere with students’ ability to focus and collectively
Brown, began Wednesday and ends Minority Peer Counselor workshop, program’s organizers. “I feel like engage around a text,” he said.
Thursday evening. a panel on undergraduate research they’ve done a lot for us,” she said. “I encourage students to single-task,” Rockman
But the program, which offers and a panel that discusses “life after “I mean, that’s kind of an understate- added. “Alums often say they wish they had savored
campus tours, visits to classes, panels Brown.” ment.” moments in class a bit more, and I’m encouraging
and social events for minority students Hart also said the number and va- Wednesday’s events included a students to do just that.”
and their parents, is just one part of riety of classes students can attend welcome lunch, the MPC workshop, Tannenwald said the laptop ban is not an ideal
the University’s outreach to prospec- during the two days have increased a welcome dinner with remarks from solution. Some students are more efficient at taking
tive students of color. This year, the this year. Specialized tours for students both President Ruth Simmons and notes on a computer than by hand, but “the cost of this
University saw an increase of about 48 interested in science or globalization Tricia Rose PhD’93, professor of Af- outweighs the benefits,” she said.
percent in applications from African- have also been introduced, she said. ricana studies and the department’s Samuel Magaram ’12, another student in
American students, and of about 42 A big difference between this year’s chair, and a cultural show put on by Tannenwald’s class, said he didn’t like the restriction
percent from Latino applicants, com- TWW and previous years’ is its timeline student groups. Thursday’s events on computer use.
pared to an overall applicant increase of relative to ADOCH. TWW usually fol- include various panels and end at 4 “It prevented me from keeping organized, detailed
about 21 percent, The Herald reported lows ADOCH, but this year is happen- p.m., when ADOCH begins. notes,” Magram wrote in a message to The Herald.
in February. ing prior to the program for all admits The individuals involved in or- Tannenwald added that, from her perspective, being
“We’re making every effort to be for scheduling reasons, Go said. ganizing TWW will see the results able to turn off the Internet in Salomon 101 during
more creative and more persistent Two participants said they would of their recruitment efforts in the class time would be more suitable. Unfortunately, Brown
in our efforts to recruit minority stu- have preferred TWW to come after coming days as admitted students doesn’t have the capacity to do this, she explained.
dents,” said Elizabeth Hart, associate ADOCH. “I’m Hispanic. I’m all for La- make their decisions. “We consider it rude to use a cell phone in class,”
director of the Office of Admission and tinos, Mexicans, whatever, but I don’t “The numbers of applications she said. “Maybe one day we’ll get to that point with
director of minority recruitment. want to be seen as a minority,” said we’ve gotten from minority appli- laptops.”
These methods include electronic prospective student Eddie Diaz. “I’m cants is way up, but the tricky thing
newsletters, a blog written by the stu- not coming in as a Hispanic. I’m com- is always matriculation,” Hart said. — Luisa Robledo
dent minority recruitment interns, ing in as an admitted student.” “I’m cautiously optimistic,” she
gatherings in regions with high minor- “I’d rather see more of a united added.
ity student application rates and a new
partnership with the college access
program QuestBridge, which provides
full scholarships to low-income high
school students, Hart said.
Admitted student Redab Alnifaidy
took advantage of a regional meeting in
Maryland for minority students during
her application process. “I got to meet
the dean of admissions there and that
really got me interested in Brown,”
she said.
Hart also mentioned that current
students called potential applicants
and admitted students throughout the
school year. “It’s been wonderful that
so many students have helped us with
that effort, and I think it means a lot to
the prospective students to have that
outreach from a Brown undergrad,”
she said.
The Office of Admission’s student
minority recruitment interns have been
very involved in the recruitment pro-
cess throughout the year. “We’ve done
a lot of call-outs to admitted students
and prospective students, answering
any questions they have,” said Christo-
pher Belcher ’11, one of the interns.
“I was able to go to Atlanta and
speak to students” at a regional event,
said intern Danielle Dunlap ’10.
Belcher, Dunlap, Natasha Go ’10
and the office’s three new minority
recruitment interns helped organize
TWW.
Page 6
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Former world leaders play prognosticators at Watson event
By Sofia Castello
Contributing Writer
On Wednesday night, a panel of three
former world leaders confronted
a challenging task — “to present
in 10 minutes what will happen to
the world,” in the words of panelist
Romano Prodi, former Italian prime
minister and professor-at-large at the
Watson Institute for International
Studies.
The forum “The World in 2030:
Tomorrow’s Scenarios, Today’s Re-
sponsibilities” featured Prodi; Ricar-
do Lagos, former president of Chile
and professor-at-large at the Watson
Institute; and Alfred Gusenbauer,
former chancellor of Austria and
a visiting professor at the Watson
Institute. The panelists — whom
Michael Kennedy, director of the
Watson Institute, introduced as the
“awesome threesome” — tackled
a series of divergent subjects with
a focus on trends of globalization
before a large and diverse audience
in MacMillan 117. The topics the
speakers discussed included im-
migration, the need for reformed
international institutions, the pos-
sibility of an international currency
and the current state of the world
economy.
The three world leaders built
on and refuted each other’s points
between shared chuckles.
They frequently compared the
current state of global affairs to the
World War II era. “I’m enthusiastic
about dealing with these challenges,
because I think it’s true that we have
to create a new world today. The only
difference with 1945 is that we want
to create this world without a world
war,” Gusenbauer said. “A new major
war would lead to the extermination
of mankind.”
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
“It is so much easier to draft the
charter of the United Nations,” La-
gos said, “when you have no United
Nations at all.”
“How are we going to create a
new world for these new scenarios
when you already have an existing
world?” he asked, arguing that the
reformation of institutions will be a
difficult challenge.
“I think the solution for the world
is the Europeanization of the world,”
Gusenbauer said, because the Euro-
pean Union promotes a smaller-scale
model of open trade, free movement
of people and financial support for
member states.
The speakers also addressed con-
cerns related to sustainability during
the forum. “Today we worry about
emissions. Tomorrow we will worry
about how much water is available
for human beings in the planet,”
Lagos said.
“Sometimes, or very often, it’s not
important to have an agreement on
a topic globally,” Gusenbauer said,
Fielding questions, quelling storms
continued from page 5
know,” said Becker, who has served
as a tour guide, a member of the Task
Force on Undergraduate Education
and a part of the College Curriculum
Council.
Becker aims to “dispel misinforma-
tion” on issues like Brown’s political
atmosphere, its ranking in the U.S.
News and World Report — the lowest
in the Ivy League — its financial aid
program and the rigor of the New Cur-
riculum. But the frequency of critical
questions about Brown’s academics
has diminished since he started post-
ing, Becker said.
“because you might not be able to
reach it. Sometimes it’s more impor-
tant to start processes that lead to a
certain change.”
“We hoped for world peace every
year, for 40 years,” Prodi said. “You
have to find an agreement for the
Middle East in a short time, because
otherwise this will bring you unbear-
able consequences.”
“Now, we can see most of the
elements that are going to shape
the future. You could say, even,
that the future is now,” Lagos said.
But there are always “unforeseen”
events, he said, referring to the eco-
nomic crisis.
“We are not out of the economic
crisis … and the optimism that is
dispersing now is too much,” Prodi
said. “In 10 years, we can have two
billion new consumers. This is the
only way out without inflation or
without a war.”
With careful gestures, Prodi out-
lined economic and demographic
trends to illustrate points including
Prospective students turn to me-
dia coverage of Brown, including The
Herald, as important sources of in-
formation about the school, Becker
said.
Becker did “damage control” after
the New York Times published an
essay by a Brown student who wrote
that he “nonchalantly signed up to
take second-semester organic chem-
istry.” The essay led some high school
students to believe Brown was not
serious about science, a perception
that may also be due to the small size
of Brown’s graduate programs in the
sciences, Becker said.
While Becker focuses on giving
Thursday, April 15, 2010
China’s increased prominence and
the role of immigration.
“Five percent of the total popula-
tion will migrate from one country
to another,” Prodi said.
“No kids, no immigration, no
future,” Gusenbauer said.
Following a question posed at the
event’s end by Begum Ersan ’13 on
the cultural conflicts produced by
immigration, Gusenbauer said that
“integration is a very, very challeng-
ing issue, especially with populations
that, at least for a certain time, are
not accustomed to migration.”
Kumud Ghimire ’13 considered
the panelists’ treatment of immigra-
tion “very biased” and based on a
“Western notion of the effects of
migration.”
The three speakers and Kennedy
emphasized the importance of uni-
versities in this process of change.
“We can’t simply declare the future
unknowable and rest comfortable in
tradition, especially in a university,”
Kennedy said.
people an accurate picture of the Uni-
versity, he emphasizes the importance
of making sure Brown is the right
fit.
“One of the most powerful things
to tell people is that Brown might not
be the right place for you,” Becker
said. “But if this is what they’re looking
for, we need to help students figure
out that they don’t want to go to those
other places even before the applica-
tion process begins.”
Damage control
The University has received nega-
tive press attention for various inci-
dents in recent years, including the
decision to rename Columbus Day to
Fall Weekend in its academic calendar,
the pie launched at writer Thomas
Friedman during a 2008 lecture and
President Ruth Simmons’ position on
Goldman Sachs’ board of directors.
But echoes of media coverage
from the 2005 Sex Power God party
— which attracted the ire of Fox News
personality Bill O’Reilly — still reso-
nate. The event, a Queer Alliance party
then held in Sayles Hall, ignited a con-
troversy over partying at Brown.
In a video made by O’Reilly Factor
producer Jesse Waters, barely-clothed
students are seen gyrating in a room
ringed by portraits of University
presidents. Calling the party “pure
debauchery” in an on-air segment,
Waters — who purchased a ticket to
the dance for $80 online — described
students’ drug use and sexual prof-
ligacy.
Brown’s response largely centered
on “risk management and harm con-
trol” rather than direct engagement
with the media, according to Queer
Alliance chair Aida Manduley ’11.
Immediately following the event,
the Queer Alliance was placed on
probation. Instead of having a spring
dance that year, the alliance launched
a “sexual diversity campaign” and un-
dertook a “big revision process of the
continued on page 8
Page 7
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Most undergrads fly solo, poll shows
By Jessica Liss
Staff Writer
The majority of undergraduate stu-
dents say they are single and about
one-third report they are in an ex-
clusive relationship, according to a
recent Herald poll.
The poll found that 72.3 percent
of first-years are single and 21.7 per-
cent are in exclusive relationships,
compared to the rest of the student
body, of which 54.9 percent is single
and 37.7 percent is in exclusive rela-
tionships.
Students generally said they were
not surprised that the numbers reveal
differences between freshmen and
older students on campus.
It is natural that people enter into
relationships over time, said Kristina
Harding ’11.
“I’m a senior and I’ve been notic-
ing recently a lot of the people I’m
living with are coupled up,” said Sofia
Pellon ’10.
This trend is affected by the idea
that “freshman year there is this
whole ‘I don’t want to be tied down’
thing,” said Gabe Schwartz ’13, fi-
nance director of Queer Alliance and
co-director of the Queer Political Ac-
tion Committee.
“Most people like to think of their
four years at Brown as an experiment
to explore, but I feel like people get
into relationships because they have
this need for companionship,” said
Cherilyn Tran ’11.
But though Brown upperclass-
men are more likely to find a steady
partner than freshmen, “the com-
mitted relationships are few and far
between,” said Michele Baer ’10.
The campus appears divided —
“there are two groups: one hooks up
and the others are in serious relation-
ships,” said David Chanin ’12.
Baer agreed. “Either I’ve seen
people in non-committal non-exclu-
sive friends-with-benefits types of
situations, or couples that are really
in it for the long term,” she said.
Students also mentioned the lack
of a dating culture on campus. “Some-
times when I tell my friends I’m going
on a date, they say I’m the only one
who does that,” Pellon said.
Yet students have various defini-
tions of dating. “I see a lot of rela-
tionships where people don’t put a
What is your current relationship status?
Don’t know/no Other
1.5%
answer Engaged or
1.7%
In an nonexclusive married
0.4%
relationship
3.4%
In an exclusive
relationship
33.6%
According to the Herald poll administered last month, about three-
quarters of Brown freshmen are single, whereas upperclassmen are more
evenly divided between singles and those in relationships.
name on it, people don’t seem to do a
boyfriend-girlfriend thing,” Kelly Eng
’11. “I think people are really uncom-
fortable with labels generally.”
A recent study at Michigan State
University and Wayne State Univer-
sity found that 36 percent of students
asked considered themselves in a
“friends with benefits” relationship,
a statistic the majority of students
said also applied to Brown.
Referring to these casual sexual
relationships, “especially for fresh-
man, there is a big push for being
sex-repressed for a long time and
then having that lifted,” Schwartz
said.
But the Herald poll found that
only 3.4 percent of surveyed students
said they were in non-exclusive rela-
tionships.
Students, including both Eng and
Tran, said this number was signifi-
cantly lower than they would have
predicted.
In comparison with the number of
students in exclusive relationships,
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
“People get into relationships one way or another.”
Single
59.4%
Gili Kliger / Herald
“I would have assumed that more
people were dating more than just
being with one specific person,”
Harding said.
Often, “saying you are in an open
relationship has connotations, just
on a societal level, as being more
promiscuous and lacking the ability
to commit,” Schwartz said.
Ultimately, though students have
different ways of classifying it, “peo-
ple get into relationships one way or
another,” Pellon said.
The Herald poll was conducted on
March 22 and 23 and has a 3.5 per-
cent margin of error with 95 percent
confidence. A total of 714 Brown un-
dergraduates completed the poll, which
The Herald administered as a written
questionnaire to students in the lobby of
J. Walter Wilson during the day and in
the Sciences Library at night. For the
sample of just freshmen, the margin of
error is 6.8 percent. For the sample of
non-freshmen, the margin of error is
4.0 percent.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
— Sofia Pellon ’10
news in brief
Prof’s exhibit examines effects of
climate change on New England
An interactive exhibit created by a Brown professor will travel
New England over the next five years.
“Seasons of Change: Global Warming in our Backyard” tells
the story of global warming in New England, describing how
climate change may affect New England traditions such as
lobster fishing and maple syrup collecting. It has been in the
EcoTarium, a private science museum located in Worcester,
Mass., since January.
Steven Hamburg, associate professor of environmental
studies, is the scientist who initiated the project, he said.
Hamburg, who has served on the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, the leading international body tasked
with reviewing scientific research on climate change, said he
has been fascinated by translating the global picture to local
terms since the 1990s.
“We wrote one of the first local impact studies (on) seasons
of change in New Hampshire,” Hamburg said. Years later,
Hamburg led the creation of a group of scientists to document
the story of global warming in New England and received a
$1.74 million grant from the National Science Foundation for
the project, he said.
The exhibit’s purpose, according to Hamburg, is not nec-
essarily for people “to do something right tomorrow” but for
people to “realize the scale of the problem.”
“When things are happening slowly, it is easy to ignore
it,” he said. “This year, the duration of ice on New Hampshire
lakes is two weeks less than the least amount seen in 45
years,” he said.
Hamburg said he hopes this exhibit will help viewers
differentiate between the weather conditions and the overall
climate trend, making the issue real and bringing it close to
home.
According to Alex Goldowsky, the EcoTarium’s director of
programs and exhibits, the exhibit has attracted mostly young
families with children. Goldowsky, who is also an adviser for
the project, said he thinks the exhibit is truly unique in its
ability to blend cutting-edge technology and an engaging
method of presentation.
At the end of the exhibit, participants are invited to write
their thoughts on comment cards. “Even though there is a
small number of skeptical comments,” Goldowsky said, “the
majority of comments written are very thoughtful, and the
conversations started here are extremely engaging.”
— Zung Nguyen Vu
Page 8
Branding Brown
When it comes to appearances, what can Brown do for you?
continued from page 6
dance and dance policies,” Manduley
said.
Sex Power God occurred again in
2006 with notable changes, including
stricter admission policies, a list of
dance guidelines given to partygo-
ers and a new venue, Alumnae Hall.
The dance has occurred yearly ever
since.
Party life at Brown is also an issue
during Spring Weekend, when many
prospective students and their families
visit the University.
Over 1,000 people per day have
visited on the Thursday and Friday
before the notoriously raucous week-
end, a time that sometimes overlaps
with high school spring vacations,
according to Christiana Stephenson
’11, tours co-coordinator for the Bruin
Club and The Herald’s alumni rela-
tions director.
Diverting tours to bypass Wriston
Quadrangle, the center of the Uni-
versity’s Greek life, during the days
preceding Spring Weekend is a long-
standing practice that will also be in
effect this year, said Bryan Smith ’10,
tours co-coordinator.
Loud noise and the large number
of students on Wriston make bring-
ing tours through the area difficult,
according to Stephenson, who em-
phasized that the goal of the tour is to
present an accurate view of Brown.
“Is Spring Weekend really what
life at Brown is like? Probably not,”
Stephenson said.
Intellectual diversity
A 2006 article by Herald Opinions
Columnist Sean Quigley ’10 in the
Brown Spectator, Brown’s publication
for conservative and libertarian views,
called the post-O’Reilly iteration of the
party “an abomination, whose justifica-
tion is an affront to logical reasoning,
let alone spiritual well-being.”
In recent years, conservative
students and alumni have vocalized
criticism of Brown as a particularly
left-leaning institution.
Stephen Beale ’04, who started
the Spectator in fall 2002, formed the
Foundation for Intellectual Diversity
after encountering difficulty funding
the Spectator as a student organiza-
tion. A non-profit dedicated to promot-
ing “underrepresented ideas, beliefs
and perspectives” at Brown, the foun-
dation provides money and assistance
to conservative and religious student
groups, accwording to its Web site.
“The most important kind of di-
versity on college campuses is intel-
lectual diversity and so when you’re
talking about other forms of diversity
— racial diversity, ethnic diversity,
sexual diversity — Brown may do
very well,” Beale said. “But when you
talk about intellectual diversity, that is
something that Brown is very much
lacking in.”
One “encouraging development,”
according to Beale, is the Kaleido-
scope Lecture Fund, which Beale
said was started after members of
the foundation discussed a perceived
lack of diversity in campus speakers
with President Ruth Simmons.
The fund is used to bring speakers
that “in the stereotypical view are seen
as being ‘not Brown,’ ” said Assistant
to the President Hannelore Rodriguez-
Farrar ’87 MA’90 PhD’09.
Started in 2005, the fund was origi-
nally constituted with $100,000 of the
president’s discretionary funds. Past
Kaleidoscope speakers include Sally
Winn, then vice president of Feminists
for Life of America; Peter Singer, a
Princeton professor who is vocal on
animal rights issues; and diplomats
John Bolton and Richard Holbrooke
’62.
“What we need to do is fulfill our
mission,” Rodriguez-Farrar said.
“Part of that mission is intellectual
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Students lounge on the Main Green during Spring Weekend 2009.
diversity.”
In Deo Speramus
Brown’s motto, In Deo Speramus,
means “In God We Hope.” But in re-
cent years, the school has not been
known for having an especially reli-
gious student body.
Brown’s religious ties date to its
1764 start, and until Henry Wriston
— who assumed the presidency in
1937 — all presidents were ordained
Baptist ministers. But Brown was the
first in the nation to admit students
without regard to religious identifi-
cation, according to the University’s
Web site.
According to University Chaplain
Janet Cooper Nelson, the demograph-
ics of Brown’s incoming student body
mirror its early affiliation with orga-
nized religion.
“In fact, three-quarters of you walk-
ing in the door, if we ask you about
your religious backgrounds, give us
proper nouns,” Cooper Nelson said,
referring to an online religious affilia-
tion survey taken by approximately 95
percent of incoming students.
About 62 percent of students re-
ceive some form of communication
from a religious group on campus,
according to Cooper Nelson.
“Brown’s range of religious iden-
tities is really interesting,” Cooper
Nelson said. “Part of my intrigue is
for why when you look at a Brown
Web page or you look at a Brown view-
book and don’t see anything (about
religion).”
Brown’s contemporary lack of em-
phasis on religion traces to efforts to
transform the school from a regional
institution to a national research uni-
versity in the late 1950s and early
1960s, according to Cooper Nelson.
“Religion was being equated, both
in the academy and the social con-
text of the U.S., with a less intellectual
brand,” Cooper Nelson said. “Brown
wanted to put forward a picture of
itself as a really hard-boiled, intellec-
tual place and so it began to airbrush
religion out of the public face of the
institution.”
Kevin Roose ’09.5, who wrote “The
Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semes-
ter at America’s Holiest University”
about a semester at Liberty University,
struggled with how to depict religious
life at Brown “without resorting to
stereotypes,” he said.
Though Roose acknowledges
that Brown may seem libertine by
the conservative Christian values of
Liberty — namely, a code of conduct
that prohibits smoking, drinking, curs-
ing and dancing — no institution is a
monolith.
“I think there is a sense on cam-
pus that maybe students aren’t as
religiously-minded here,” said Mindy
Phillips ’10, a member of the Shepherd
Team, the leadership board of College
Hill for Christ.
While there are “pockets of ani-
mosity towards Christianity on cam-
pus,” Phillips cautioned that the per-
ception that Brown students are not
tolerant of religion is “refuted at the
individual level,” as many students are
willing to talk to members of College
Hill for Christ about their religious
beliefs.
For those who seek to practice
their faith on campus, religious com-
munities are vibrant and available,
Phillips said.
New takes, New Curriculum
For Prerna Ramachandra ’14, what
drew her to Brown is simple — the
New Curriculum.
Ramachandra, who hails from New
Delhi, India, hopes to double-concen-
trate in computer science and English
literature. Brown was the only univer-
sity that would give her the flexibility
she sought to pursue both, which was
“not offered anywhere else, even in
my own country,” she said.
“The Open Curriculum is resonat-
ing with this generation of students in
a new and powerful way,” Dean of the
College Katherine Bergeron said.
Yet Brown’s curriculum, with its
absence of pluses and minuses in
grading, emphasis on personal choice
and option for students to take classes
Satisfactory/No Credit, has caused
some to draw a link between a lack of
requirements and a lack of rigor.
Questions about the curriculum’s
rigor — leveled by what she calls
“open curriculum skeptics” — do
come up on campus tours, accord-
ing to Stephenson.
The best answer to these ques-
tions, which usually come from
parents, is to provide information
“grounded in your own experience,”
Stephenson said. “I tell people that the
average Brown student’s choices actu-
ally end up looking like they followed
distribution requirements.”
But the stereotype has two sides.
Skeptics may draw a link between
the New Curriculum’s openness and
lower academic standards.
For courses taken with for a grade
in the 2008-09 academic year, over
half of students — 53 percent — re-
Thursday, APRIL 15, 2010
Justin Coleman / Herald
ceived an A. Only 4 percent of grades
were Cs.
Michael Goldberger, former di-
rector of the Office of Admission, ac-
knowledged that the New Curriculum
was of concern to parents. The Uni-
versity will “try to convey the sense
of excitement and engagement about
learning — try not to be defensive,
because this is what makes Brown
great,” he said. “It’s not something
we have to apologize for. The key was
not being apologetic, and just saying
‘No, this is our curriculum, and it’s
fabulous.’ ”
The good news with the bad
Vice President for Public Affairs
and University Relations Marisa
Quinn is the University’s spokes-
person. Since taking the job in 2008,
Quinn has steered Brown’s public
relations through — most recently —
layoffs of 60 non-teaching employees
and Simmons’ decision to leave the
Goldman Sachs board.
She was reluctant to talk about
specific instances of negative press
or student misconduct.
“We have a lot of good news,”
Quinn said. “There’s certainly a share
of difficult and challenging news to
communicate, some of which is of
interest to the media and some which
is really just community-wide.”
The goal is to provide “clear, con-
cise, factual information” to dispel ru-
mor and give people a standard set
of facts as a story evolves. Privacy
is a top consideration when dealing
with issues regarding students, fac-
ulty and other University personnel,
she said.
But not all news is controversial.
Director of News and Communica-
tions Sarah Kidwell largely works to
provide the media and others out-
side the University with information
about research at Brown. Kidwell
often connects interested parties to
faculty and graduate students making
breakthroughs in their fields.
“We get calls from the media all
the time about the kind of research
we’re involved in,” she said.
In cases related to Brown’s inter-
nal governance, like faculty decisions
or student discipline issues, Quinn
stresses “the thoughtful, civilized
process” guiding the University’s
actions.
“We always have processes and
procedures here for dealing with
any particular event or instance, and
we think we are very well served by
those,” Quinn said.
Page 9
C ampus N EWS
Quiz Bowl team proves they have all the answers
By Sarah Julian
Staf f Writer
Which town was successfully de-
fended for 217 days by Rober t
Baden Powell and his British forces?
If you answered Mafeking — or
have any idea where Mafeking is
— the Quiz Bowl team could use
your help. Last weekend this group
of intrepid competitors traveled to
the 2010 National Academic Quiz
Tournaments’ Intercollegiate Cham-
pionship Tournament, answering
trivia questions about everything
from physics to philosophy to pop
culture.
Ian Eppler ’13, Ben Cohen ’13
and Guy Tabachnick ’13 placed
first out of 32 teams in Division II.
Jerry Vinokurov GS, Daniel Klein
GS and Aaron Rosenberg ’11 placed
seventh in Division I.
“We were pretty dominant
throughout the tournament,” Ta-
bachnick said. After going down
to the other main contender, a
team from Clemson University, in
the first round, Tabachnick and
his teammates came back to beat
Clemson twice and gain the cham-
pionship.
At the tournament, each team
of up to four members participates
in seven preliminary round robins,
and their results determine playoff
brackets. In each round, a modera-
tor reads “toss up” questions, which
have multiple clues read in order
of decreasing difficulty. There is
no talking among teammates, and
the team to answer correctly first
wins. The winner of this “toss up”
then receives three bonus ques-
tions, and the entire team is allowed
to collaborate on them.
Vinokurov, who said he acts as
the unofficial Quiz Bowl president,
said the freshman team is very tal-
ented.
“I don’t want to oversell it too
much,” he said, “but I think that’s
a possible national champ in two or
three years.”
Vinokurov said his own perfor-
mance in Division I was not every-
thing he had hoped. “It was kind of
a rough time for us,” he said. “We
usually do better than that.”
But this was in part because
of the types of questions, he said.
There are two separate Quiz Bowl
national championships, and last
weekend’s included a large por-
tion of pop culture and sports ques-
tions.
“That kind of damaged us,” Vi-
nokurov said. But the team expects
to fare better in the upcoming tour-
nament, which Vinokurov called
“more academic.” Brown has placed
second at this tournament for the
past three years, each time losing
only to the University of Chicago.
Vinokurov said this makes for
some histor y. “I would say we’re
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Thursday, April 15, 2010
pretty big rivals. It’s a friendly ri-
valry but we view them, and I think
they probably view us, as their big-
G ettin ’ Q ui z z y
gest competitors,” he said.
As with any competitive activ-
ity, the key to Quiz Bowl success
is practice. The team members
practice Mondays and Wednesdays
where they face each other in prac-
tice rounds.
The topics of sample questions
include Martin van Buren, the Khy-
ber Pass, Jane Eyre and bananas.
According to Vinokurov, competi-
tors try to be knowledgeable in a
number of fields. “My background
is physics and math, but those are
not my only areas,” he said.
Vinokurov also said many of the
best teams have specialists. “It’s
a team game. It’s not about being
a successful player,” he said. “It’s
about being a successful team.”
Eppler said there are many “one-
man teams” that rely on a single
star player, but that they often do
not place as well. Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
Vinokurov, who ser ves as the Quiz bowls duked it out in the Science Center Wednesday night.
team’s leader, will graduate in May
with a doctorate in physics.
“He’s been like a mentor to us, “He’s sort of run the team as his teammates after he leaves. “I
I suppose,” Eppler said. “He’s one a benevolent dictatorship so we’ll want to see this team prosper,” he
of the all-time greats. He helped sort of be missing that,” Tabach- said. “I’m glad that people who care
us develop as teammates and play- nick said. about it are going to take it over.”
ers.” “He’s a very, very good player,” “Assuming I’m not playing
According to Tabachnick, Vi- he said. “We probably won’t be as against them, I want this team to
nokurov’s graduation “will definitely good as we are this year.” succeed and do well and bring home
have an impact.” Vinokurov has high hopes for many national titles,” he said.
Metro
The Brown Daily Herald
Local inventor goes Banana-grams Cupcakes and snuggles
By Crys Guerra
Contributing Writer
Age-neutral, board-free and un-
scored; fast-paced, portable and
creative: These are just some
of the words used to describe
Bananagrams, a word game in-
vented by Pawtucket native Abe
Nathanson.
Nathanson, whose game won
Game of the Year at the Toy of
The Year Awards in 2009, spoke
Saturday at Books on the Square,
where he was praised as a “home-
grown banana” by Andrea Bien,
an employee.
Bien decided last August to
place the Wayland Square book-
store’s first order for Banana-
grams. The small store has since
sold 140 games and become a
proud Bananagram retailer.
“That’s pretty good in a little
bookstore,” Bien said. “We don’t
sell 140 of anything.”
A crowd of 15 people sat around
Nathanson as he explained how
the inspiration for Bananagrams
came after a two-hour-long Scrab-
ble game with his grandson three
or four years ago.
Frustrated with the length of
time it took to play the game, Na-
thanson said “we need an anagram
“I suspect that at bars it will start as Zip-It and wind up as Tip-It.”
so fast it will drive you bananas.”
“After I said the words,” he
said, “they all rolled together and
then became a family project.”
The game consists of 144 letter
tiles, which the players combine
to form individual crosswords.
Letters are continuously added to
each player’s pile until the tiles run
out. At this point, the first player
to create a word-grid using all of
their letters wins.
Although Nathanson has been
making toys for his family his
whole life, he never marketed
them, he said.
“I do things when the time is
right to do them,” he said.
The Bananagrams company is
based in Rhode Island, although
the game itself is produced over-
seas. Located at 845 Allens Ave.
in Providence, Nathanson said he
has tried to keep the business as
local as possible.
“We tried having them made in
Providence, but when we priced it
out, the game would have to sell
for $70 or $80 dollars,” Nathanson
said.
Since Bananagrams was first
released, Nathanson has created
and sold two other word games:
Appleletters, which is like Banana-
grams but involves scoring, and
— Abe Nathanson, on a prospective game invention
Pairs of Pears, a simpler letter
game for younger players.
At just over 80 years old, Na-
thanson has not lost his passion for
games, especially those involving
words.
“Letters become words, words
become sentences and sentences
become knowledge,” Nathanson
says.
He has continued to invent
games and is planning on releasing
two new words games soon: Oh
Spell and Zip-It. His style of game-
making — boardless, scoreless,
fast and fun — has not changed,
he said.
Zip-It, Nathanson said, was
developed to be played within
an eight-square-inch area and
“is almost as fast as rock, paper,
scissors.” It involves 24 six-sided
cubes and plays like a sped up ver-
sion of Bananagrams, with players
racing each other to complete ten
word-grids first.
The simplicity and rapidity
of Zip-It, says Nathanson, would
make it a great drinking game for
bars.
“I suspect that at bars it will
start as Zip-It and wind up as Tip-
It,” Nathanson said.
continued on page 11
Thursday, April 15, 2010 | Page 10
on Wickenden Street
By Avery Houser
Contributing writer
The frequenter of chic East
Side eateries cannot help but be
haunted by the ghost of the Blue
Elephant — former resident of 312
Wickenden St. — upon entering
the building’s new pristine foyer.
But the Duck and Bunny, which
opened in February, soon coaxes
nostalgic memories out of mind.
REVIEW
The attention to detail is su-
perb: the petite cupcakes, blue
velvet curtains and menus on
clipboards align to create a cozy
aesthetic. The Web site proclaims
the Duck and Bunny to be a snug-
ger y: “A cosy and comfortable
place.”
The toasty feel was calculated
by husband and wife team Daniel
and Jessica Becker. The couple
actively sought to create a space
where they would want to spend
time, Daniel said. They find many
cafes to be pretentious, and they
feel people should be able to have
a drink outside of a nightclub or
bar setting. Daniel said it is im-
portant that the snuggery not be
thought of as a cafe, a tearoom, a
bar or a restaurant.
While the couple treats the cu-
linar y aspects of the snugger y
with the utmost attention, the
overall experience is the primary
focus. The culinary element is just
one part of creating a superlative
snuggery experience. Being at the
Duck and Bunny for them is about
being comfortable and being able
to do what you want, when you
want. Some people come for din-
ner, some come to sit and work
for hours on end. They love the di-
versity of their customers’ needs,
and aim to please everybody, they
said.
It has been a challenge to
break free from the “restaurant”
definition, Jessica said.
The menu, the Beckers’
own creation, is a medley of old
personal recipes, six months
of watching the Food Network
and modifications by their chef,
a Johnson and Wales graduate.
The couple has made an effort
to be creative and push culinary
boundaries. They are particularly
continued on page 11
Page 11
M etro
U. reaches out to flood victims New Duck and Bunny
continued from page 1
Emergency Management Agency and
the Small Business Administration,
Maione said.
Maione said that United Way is
attempting to use the money raised
to try to work with smaller agencies
which will then communicate with
individuals in order to understand the
“day-by-day needs that are not being
met” for Rhode Island citizens.
This was one of the main reasons
the University chose to donate to
United Way in particular, said Marisa
Quinn, vice president for public af-
fairs and University relations.
“We have a long-standing relation-
ship with United Way,” Quinn said.
“What we really liked about this fund
is that funds are being provided di-
rectly to those in need, being given to
members of the community.”
Administrators communicated
with the governor’s office, elected
officials and organizations such as
Serve Rhode Island to emphasize
that it stood “ready, willing and able”
to assist in aiding individuals, Quinn
said.
United Way was able to organize
its fundraising efforts swiftly in the
wake of the flood, raising a total of
$590,000 as of April 7, Maione said.
The organization’s existing emergen-
cy hotline and relationships with cor-
porate partners enabled it to mobilize
an immediate response, he said.
Closer to home
The University also made a con-
certed effort to organize quickly in
providing flood relief to members of
the Brown community.
“We know that cash is really im-
portant in addressing these immedi-
ate needs,” she said.
Among the services the Univer-
sity offers are Employee Emergency
Bananagrams
creator looks
to the future
continued from page 10
His latest creation is based
on the traditional card game “Oh
Hell.” Nathanson’s version, Oh
Spell, is a word-based card game
that substitutes font patterns for
suits.
“I don’t know why no one has
thought of this before,” Nathanson
said. “With numbers you are lim-
ited, but with words, creation is
infinite.”
Bananagrams breaks the mold
of most word games, which Na-
thanson described as “fixed.” Yet
he is humble about his creation.
The concept “has been around
for 200 years,” Nathanson said. “I
just gave it a spin that would attract
young people.”
Grants. These grants — offering up to
$5000 each — come from a fund de-
voted to helping employees “recover
financially from a loss due to natural
emergencies, accidents, catastrophes,
deaths, or illnesses,” according to a
April 2 memo from Vice President for
Human Resources Karen Davis.
As of April 12, seven grant re-
quests had been approved, said Beth
Gentry, assistant vice president for
financial and administrative services.
The University shortened the applica-
tion to require less financial informa-
tion — since such records may have
been damaged in the flood — and
“relaxed some of the normal grant
procedures,” Gentry said.
“We are trying to be sensitive to
the issues that are out there,” she
said. More grant requests are ex-
pected, although Gentry is not sure
of the exact number.
“We can get money to folks faster
than the government,” Davis added.
She said though Brown may not be
able to give as much money to indi-
viduals as the government, Employee
Emergency Grants are a good start-
ing place for recovery.
“We were so happy when we got
the help, and now everything is back
to normal,” said Ece Gamsiz, a post-
doctoral research associate in the
Department of Molecular Biology,
Cell Biology and Biochemistry who
lives in an apartment complex in War-
wick with her fiance, Alper Uzun, a
postdoctoral research fellow in the
Department of Bio Med Pediatrics.
Gamsiz and Uzun, who have lived
in their apartment only two months,
were told by police on March 30 that
they could not stay in the building
due to flooding. Not until April 10
was the couple allowed to return
home.
Within days of applying for an
Employee Emergency Grant, Gam-
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
“We were so happy when we got the help.”— Ece Gamsiz,
post-doctoral research associate, on Brown’s flooding assistance
siz and Uzun received a check from
the University. Both said they are
extremely grateful for the support
provided in such a difficult time.
“It’s nice to be a part of this com-
munity. They really saved our lives
those last few days,” said Gamsiz.
Uzun’s advisor, Professor of Pedi-
atrics James Padbury, and Gamsiz’s
advisor, Assistant Professor of Biol-
ogy Eric Morrow, also lent support
during the disaster and encouraged
Gamsiz and Uzun to apply for the
grant. “I think the Brown support is
extremely important,” said Uzun.
‘Anxious for opportunities’
The flood brought more atten-
tion to University support and relief
programs available to employees,
Davis said.
“Even without this kind of historic
event, we do have a lot to offer,” she
said. Additional resources available
to University employees affected by
the flood include employee loans, the
Faculty and Staff Assistance Program
and benefits programs, Davis listed
in her memo.
The University is working on a
number of initiatives to provide not
only immediate relief in the wake of
this particular disaster, but also to
address the long-term effects that
events such as the flood may pro-
duce, Quinn noted.
As an example, she suggested
research projects looking at longer-
term community mapping and water
testing, and said it is important to
understand “the impact of this flood
and help the state consider ways to
ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
“In times of need, whether ...
in Rhode Island or halfway across
the globe, the students, faculty and
staff at Brown are always anxious for
opportunities to provide support,”
Quinn said.
pushes culinary bounds
continued from page 10
disappointed with the cupcake
scene in New York, which they
called all show without the qual-
ity to back it up. They’ve made
an enormous effort to produce
interesting, high quality cupcakes
here in Providence.
All of the items on the menu
are offered all day. Many of them
are named after children of the
Beckers’ friends. The couple
has also provided drink pairings.
While some items are paired with
wines, Jessica explained that the
mushroom dish “the Wee Baby
Joseph needs to be paired with
a Guinness.”
Daniel’s current favorite menu
item is the “T.S. Geller,” a heap-
ing roast beef sandwich ser ved
in a rye crepe. The sandwich is a
spectacle, a monstrosity of meat
— enough to feed one person for
a few days. Jessica is partial to the
“Miss Harriot,” a brie, pear and
scallion sandwich. She pointed
out the menu’s other highlights:
the bacon-wrapped dates, and the
PB and B — a peanut butter and
banana sandwich drizzled with
honey, ser ved on Por tuguese
sweet bread. If you choose to get
the “Full Elvis,” they’ll add a few
strips of bacon.
The success of the menu is
dependent on both the Beckers’
attention to detail and the variety
of interesting local vendors they
have chosen. The coffee is from
New Har vest Coffee Roasters,
the bread from Olga’s Cup and
Saucer, cheese from Shy Brothers
Farm in Massachusetts.
They feel that the Providence
Thursday, April 15, 2010
food scene has embraced them
heartily and love the sense of
community they have found there.
Daniel, who worked in the New
York bar and restaurant world
prior to starting the Duck and
Bunny said the Providence envi-
ronment is far more friendly and
less competitive.
The house is perfect for their
snuggery’s feel — it was important
to Jessica not to be in a storefront,
she explained. Her background
is in interior design, so she had
a great time cultivating the snug-
gery’s aesthetic. It is broken up
into three rooms: a foyer, painted
deep blue, with a white chandelier
and blue velvet curtains; a bar,
with white-tiled walls, zebra-print
stools and unmarked beer taps;
and a dining room with a homey
dining set up and “altered mas-
terpieces.”
The art in the dining room in-
cludes a Van Gogh self-portrait
morphed into a bunny and Ver-
meer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring”
as a duck, commissioned from
a student at the Rhode Island
School of Design. The music var-
ies from the Beatles to the Goril-
laz, but the eclectic environment
suits any music.
The Beckers met on Fire Is-
land, N.Y. through mutual friends
a few years ago. On a recent visit
to Providence to visit Daniel’s
family, he took her on a walk
down Benefit Street. Seeing the
colonial houses, she decided she
could call Providence home. The
decision seems to be sound, and
business is booming in the first
two months. They have built the
paradise they envisioned.
SportsThursday
The Brown Daily Herald
Kristie Chin ’11 pitched 6 2/3 strong innings during Wednesday’s
doubleheader. The hurler gave up two earned runs and nine hits.
softball
Softball splits against
Providence College
By Ashley McDonnell
Sports Staff Writer
The softball team (14-15, 2-6 Ivy)
run-ruled Providence College (13-
20) Wednesday after only five innings,
but the Bears were shut out in the
second game and lost, 4-0.
Brown 11, PC 3
Providence College started the
game off aggressively on offense,
scoring one run in the top of the first,
but the Bears responded with two
runs of their own.
Leadoff hitter Katie Rothamel ’10
hit a double and then advanced to
third on a sacrifice bunt from right
fielder Andrea Browne ’10. Both first
baseman Kate Strobel ’12 and third
baseman Stephanie Thompson ’13
were hit by pitches, loading the bases.
Catcher Amanda Asay ’10 then hit a
single, but Rothamel was thrown out
at home plate.
With the bases loaded, desig-
nated hitter Alyssa Caplan ’13 hit a
double for two RBI, giving Brown
a 2-1 lead.
“It was the kind of pitcher we eas-
ily adjusted to,” Asay said. “And defen-
sively we were steady as well.”
PC tied up the game with another
run in the second. But the Bears re-
sponded quickly and started the sec-
ond with a double from pitcher Kristie
Chin ’11, who then advanced to third
on a sacrifice bunt from left fielder
Sandra Mastrangelo ’12. Second base-
man and Herald Sports Staff Writer
Erika Mueller ’13 was hit by a pitch
and then advanced to second when
Rothamel hit a single that brought
home Chin. Browne hit a single to
left field to load the bases.
With two outs and the bases load-
ed, PC’s pitcher, Danielle Bertolette,
walked two Bears, allowing Brown to
score two more runs and extend its
lead, 5-2. Bertolette was relieved by
Kathryn Sullivan.
“We were the most focused for a
Brown team since I’ve been here,”
said Head Coach DeeDee Enabenter-
Omidiji. “Everyone looked good in
batting practice.”
The Friars only managed to score
one more run the entire game and
could not stop Brown’s offense. In
the fourth inning, Thompson hit a
double, and then Strobel hit a home
Olivia Means / Herald
run, making the score 7-3.
A grand slam from Asay in the
bottom of the fifth led to Brown’s
resounding victory and ended the
game under the mercy rule.
“It’s a nice way to end the game,”
Asay said.
PC 4, Brown 0
In the second game, the Friars
managed to completely shut down
the Bears, both offensively and de-
fensively.
Neither team scored in the first
four innings. The game was a pitch-
er’s duel between Liz DiMascio ’13
and the Friars’ Corinne Clauss.
“Through the first four innings, it
was going back and forth,” Enabenter-
Omidiji said. “But then the defense
started falling apart, and the offense
feels the pressure.” The team was
unable to score due to this pressure,
according to Enabenter-Omidiji.
The defensive trouble started in
the fifth. With two outs, DiMascio
gave up a walk. Jen Abrams hit the
ball right to Rothamel at shortstop,
but Rothamel bobbled the ball and
was unable to make the play at sec-
ond. Frazzled, DiMascio hit the next
batter with a pitch. With the bases
loaded, Justine Stratton hit a fly ball
that Rothamel, Mastrangelo, and
center fielder Avery Silverstein ’13
all ran towards and allowed to drop
between them.
“We didn’t move our feet the way
we needed to,” Enabenter-Omidiji
said. “We need to be more aggres-
sive in the outfield. Even if you just
give an effort, your pitcher will be
energized.”
PC continued to capitalize on
Brown’s errors in the sixth inning. Af-
ter the Friars hit a double and a single,
Strobel could not field a ground ball
that went right to first base, allowing
the runner on third to score and the
runner on second to advance.
The runner on first stole second
but advanced to third on an over-
thrown ball from Asay to second
base. The runner that had been on
third also scored.
“In the beginning of the season,
we played better in the second game,”
Asay said. “But now, we’re hesitant.
We need to somehow find that ag-
gression from the beginning of the
season.”
rugby
No. 1 w. ruggers thrive against the odds
By Tory Elmore
Sports Staff Writer
The coaches are unpaid, the funds
raised by the team. Many of the ath-
letes have never played the sport
before. Is this Little League, you ask?
No, it’s not. It’s the No. 1-ranked
women’s rugby program in the na-
tion.
The Brown women’s rugby team
is arguably the most successful team
on campus — and perhaps the most
successful of its kind in the country
this year — though it receives no
school funding, has no ability to re-
cruit and lacks a significant following
among Brown students.
As the team heads to Orlando for
the opening round of Nationals this
week, a lack of ESPN coverage and
Vitamin Water sponsorships won’t
faze the Bears. They’re determined
to come home with the Division I
national title, regardless of who takes
notice.
This determination is only one
part of what makes the women’s
rugby program — almost 35 years
in the making — so successful. Head
Coach and the Swearer Center’s
Zrenda ’11 swings for the fences
By Tony Bakshi
Sports Staff Writer
The baseball team devoured the
opposing teams’ pitchers this week-
end, scoring double digits in each
of its four victories against Princ-
eton and Cornell. Infielder Ryan
Zrenda ’11 led the way, hitting two
mammoth home runs and notch-
ing seven RBI. Earlier in the week,
Zrenda mashed three home runs
in one day during a doubleheader
against Siena. For his impressive
performance at the plate — along
with some dazzling defense around
the infield — The Herald has named
Zrenda Athlete of the Week.
Herald: You guys exploded on
offense this weekend, scoring
58 runs in four games. How’d
that feel?
Zrenda: Great. It was good to
see our offense come out the way
that it did and get the sweep.
You already have seven home
runs on the year, after hitting
two all of last year. What’s
been the dif ference in terms
of power?
I feel like this year I’m seeing the
ball pretty well overall. Last week I
had a good week — I strung a few
good at-bats together. It felt good.
Last week, you came in for some
mop-up pitching duty against
Siena. You were a dominant
pitcher in high school. Was this
your first time pitching in col-
lege?
Yeah, it was. I was going to pitch
a little last year, but I never got the
opportunity. I always throw dur-
ing practice, and I enjoy pitching.
Thursday, April 15, 2010 | Page 12
Director of Faculty Engagement
Kerri Heffernan said she believes
that Brown’s high standards for
academic excellence in its students
contribute largely to the triumphs
of her team.
“Rugby is a smart sport,” she
wrote in an e-mail to the Herald.
“You have to think and project — it’s
about engineering space and using
that space effectively. We have been
able to find the right combination of
athlete and student.”
Many of the players were drawn
to rugby after ending other sports
careers in high school. “A lot of the
sport skills are transferrable to rugby
— the handling skills of basketball,
the field sense of soccer, lacrosse,
field hockey, the strength and speed
of track,” Heffernan wrote.
“Plus, Brown students are smart;
they tend to have high expectations
and a good work ethic — nice com-
binations for winning teams,” she
wrote.
Captain Alicia Hartley ’10 agreed
that it’s the girls’ mentality that keeps
the program afloat — and makes it
so dominant.
“Brown has steadily become
Infielder Ryan Zrenda ’11 has been one of the keys to the baseball
team’s 6-2 Ivy League record this season.
Whenever I get an opportunity to
throw, I try to take advantage of
it.
What are you studying at
Brown?
History.
Do you see yourself doing some-
thing histor y-related after col-
lege, or do you still want to be
involved in baseball?
I hope to play as long as I can.
If that doesn’t work out, I’d like
to coach. I definitely see myself
coaching after school.
What is your favorite memor y
from Brown, baseball-related
or not?
That’s a tough question. I think
times like Christmas, when we have
the whole team together. We do
Secret Santa — any of the holiday
parties that we have as a team.
a force within Division I women’s
rugby, mostly due to the time and
dedication every player is willing to
put in,” she said.
Hard work is a huge part of being
a rugby player. The sport is prac-
tically unrivaled in its demand for
physical fitness: with an 80-minute
running clock, no time-outs and
no re-entry once a player has been
subbed off the field — not to mention
full contact and minimal padding —
speed, strength and endurance are
all necessities.
The girls challenge each other to
excel every day, partly as a result of,
and partly contributing to, the deep
bonds that have formed between
members of the team.
“I think most of us would not be
willing to put in the amount of time
we do for this team if it wasn’t for the
friendships we have made. The rela-
tionships we make with each other
at Brown are special to this team
alone and arguably one of the rea-
sons we mesh so well on the field,”
Hartley said.
It’s this camaraderie among team-
continued on page 13
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
It’s just great to get ever ybody
together.
What’s the team’s ultimate goal
this season?
Win the league. We’re in good
shape right now — we’re two games
up in our division. If we win our
league, we get back in the regional
like we did two years ago. That’s
been our goal from day one.
Finally, anything you want to
tell The Herald’s readership,
maybe something to get them
to show up en masse to your
games?
Well, we’re in first place. If the
weather’s nice, it’s great to see peo-
ple come out. I know it’s hard when
it’s cold to get people motivated.
But lately it’s been warm out, and
we’re in first. I hope people realize
that and come out to support us.
Page 13
S ports t hursday
rugby
W. rugby team to
compete in Nationals
continued from page 12
mates, as well as the physicality of the
game that drew many athletes to the
sport in the first place.
“It is hard to convey all the things
that are wonderful (about rugby). I
think one element that confuses
people is the idea of women play-
ing a contact sport — but there is
something wholly satisfying about
collision/contact sports,” Heffernan
wrote. Access to these kinds of sports
“is the next horizon for Title IX,” she
wrote.
Title IX is the law forbidding gen-
der-based discrimination in federally
funded programs, namely the NCAA.
Right now, the NCAA does not rec-
ognize women’s rugby as an official
collegiate sport — hence the team’s
status at Brown as a club, not varsity,
athletic program.
For the players and coaching staff,
this means that neither the govern-
ment nor the University provide funds
for equipment or travel expenses. The
Brown rugby Web site estimates these
costs at about $80,000 dollars per year,
while the NCAA Web site puts it be-
tween $90,000 and $100,000 — to be
raised by the athletes alone.
If the girls are successful in the
preliminary rounds of the national
tournament this year, they will travel
to Stanford University in early May
for the championships. The trip will
cost significantly more than the spare
change lying around their dorm
rooms.
The team primarily receives fund-
ing through donations, sales of team
photo prints and the “Adopt-a-Rugger”
program. According to the fundrais-
ing Web site, the program allows do-
nors to adopt players for $600 each.
The money helps to cover necessary
equipment, tournament fees, travel
expenses and meal costs over the
ivy league sports brief
Harvard’s National Championship-winning squash coach dismissed
By Andrew Braca
Assistant Spor ts Editor
Harvard announced Tuesday that it
will not renew the contract of head
men’s and women’s squash coach
Satinder Bajwa for the 2010–11 sea-
son, ending his 11-year tenure.
The dismissal, which came less
than two months after the Crimson
captured the women’s team national
championship and the men’s and
women’s individual national titles,
stunned and upset several players,
the Har vard Crimson reported
Tuesday.
“I think everyone’s still in the
stage where they’re trying to un-
derstand it,” Laura Gemmell, who
won the women’s individual national
championship, told the Crimson.
“Obviously people are sad, and they
really respect Baj as a coach.”
The reasons for the dismissal
remain unclear. “We have decided
to go in a different direction with
the leadership of the program,” said
course of a season.
With the team boasting two alums
on the U.S. World Cup team, four play-
ers on the U.S. national team and three
All-Americans, financial support for
the team has risen in recent years.
Still, there is frustration with the lack
of University and NCAA recognition
of the sport.
“The success of the rugby pro-
gram raises questions about the ef-
ficacy of the current way in which
sports are designated and classified
at Brown,” Heffernan said. “Rugby is
considered a club sport. That is just
not an accurate designation — it does
not consider the reality and experi-
ence of rugby players,”
Being a women’s rugby player
is perhaps even more than just an
experience — some would consider
it a way of life.
“I am graduating in May, and I
know a huge part of me will always
feel connected to this team. I have
arguably put more time into this team
than any other thing I have done at
Brown and that is not something that
just stops when you walk through the
Van Wickle Gates,” Hartley said.
This year is Hartley’s last chance
to win a national title, as she will be
heading to graduate school in the
fall instead of continuing her rugby
career, despite prior participation on
the U-20 national team.
“Every year we set our sights high-
er and higher. But, nothing can hap-
pen unless we win that first game, and
that is definitely the mindset we are
taking going into Nationals this year
— one game at a time,” she said.
The girls embark on the path to a
national title this weekend, and even
though their 12-2 winning record
receives little recognition here on
campus, there’s a UNC team waiting
fearfully to take on some of the best
female athletes Brown has to offer.
Director of Athletics Bob Scalise ’71
in a Tuesday press release.
The Crimson reported that after
Scalise met with players Monday,
several remained dissatisfied with
his explanations and their lack of in-
volvement in the process. Freshman
Charles Gertler told the Crimson
that Scalise cited “breaches from
administrative protocol, an inability
to be a ‘good community member
at the athletics department,’ and
recruiting deficiencies.”
Bajwa told the Crimson the ac-
cusations were “very vague.”
Alum and donor Albert Gordon
told the Crimson that racism was
a factor, alleging that large donors
worked to end Bajwa’s tenure, but
administrators denied the charges,
and players the Crimson interviewed
said they did not believe it.
In his 11 seasons at Har vard,
Bajwa coached five individual cham-
pions and won two team national
titles, as well as six women’s and
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
“They are the 25th in the country for a reason.”
First baseman Cody Slaughter ’13 went 2-for-4 Wednesday in a 15-3 loss to Connecticut.
baseball
Brown falls to No. 25 UConn
By Jesse Frank
Spor ts Staf f Writer
The Bears took their home field in
the sun-drenched Murray Stadium
yesterday against No. 25 Connecti-
cut Huskies and left the diamond
with a 15-3 loss.
“They are the 25th in the coun-
try for a reason,” said Head Coach
Marek Drabinski. “They are the
best team we’ve played up north.
They are athletic, physical and can
run. We can’t give up four or five
outs per inning.”
Brown squandered many op-
portunities throughout the game,
leaving 11 runners on base and
hitting into three double plays.
The offensive bright spots for
the Bears were Mike DiBiase ’12,
who was 4-5, Pete Greskoff ’11, 2-3,
and Cody Slaughter ’13, 2-4.
UConn — who came into the
game second place in the Big East
five men’s Ivy League titles. But the
men have declined from the glory
years of eight-straight national titles
in the 1990s to a pair of fifth-place
finishes in the last two seasons — its
worst showings in at least 20 years,
according to the Crimson.
Har vard will begin a national
search for Bajwa’s successor im-
mediately, according to the press
release.
Brewer ’00 and Mounsey ’02.5
named to women’s ECAC
Hockey All-Decade First Team
Goalie Ali Brewer ’00 and defen-
seman Tara Mounsey ’02.5 were
named to the ECAC Hockey All-
Decade First Team, recalling the
golden era of the women’s hockey
program. Brown is one of only two
schools, along with Harvard, to earn
slots on the first team.
In 2000, Brewer became the only
Brown player to win the Patty Ka-
zmeier Award as the most outstand-
— Coach Marek Drabinski on loss to UConn
Conference — got on the board
early with three runs in the top of
the first inning on a three run home
run by Mike Olt ’11. The home run
came one pitch after pitcher Matt
Boylan just missed low with a po-
tential strike three.
UConn added another three
runs in the top of the second inning,
and Brown went into the bottom of
the second inning down, 6-0.
In the bottom of the second,
Greskoff led off with a single, and
Ryan Zrenda ’11 followed with a
double. Both Bears scored later
in the inning on a sacrifice fly by
Josh Feit ’11 and an RBI single by
Slaughter. But UConn escaped
without further damage, and the
Bears trailed, 6-2, after two in-
nings.
The Bears threatened in the bot-
tom of the third inning when they
loaded the bases with no outs. But
a pop-out and a slick double play
ing player in women’s collegiate
hockey. She holds school records
for lowest goals-against average in
a single season and a career, high-
est save percentage in a single sea-
son and a career, most shutouts in
a single season and a career and
most wins in a single season and a
career. She stands second in career
saves to former Herald Sports Staff
Writer Nicole Stock ’08.
Mounsey, who stands 13th on
Brown’s all-time scoring list with
48 goals and 70 assists in just 78
games, was named a second team
All-American in 1999 and a first-
team selection the following year
and played in the 1998 and 2002
Olympic Games.
Harvard racked up six selections
to the 12-player team, including four
first-team members. St. Lawrence
picked up three second-team selec-
tions and Dartmouth boasted one
second-team pick.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
turned by the Huskies kept Brown
off the board.
Brown once again put together
a potential rally in the bottom of the
fourth. Chris Tanabe ’10 singled,
then stole second base and scored
on an RBI single by Graham Ty-
ler ’12. However, two batters later,
the rally was cut short when Tyler
was thrown out at home plate as
he tried to score on single by Matt
Colantonio ’11.
UConn put the game out of
reach with four more runs in the
top of the fifth. Three errors com-
mitted to the Bears led to the Hus-
kies runs.
UConn scored another four
runs in the top of the sixth inning
to go ahead 15-3, the final score.
Despite falling to 9-20 on the
season, the Bears are still in good
shape for an Ivy League title. They
lead the Rolfe Division of the Ivy
League with a 6-2 league record.
Ivy quick hits
— Princeton fencers Evan
Prochniak, Alex Simmons and Si-
natrio Raharjo competed at the 2010
World Championships in Baku, Azer-
baijan. In the sabre, Prochniak took
16th individually and was a member
of the American team that won the
bronze medal. In the foil, Simmons
placed 21st and his Canadian team
finished 10th. In epee, Raharjo failed
to win a bout while representing
Indonesia as an individual.
— Cornell’s Rob Pannell was
named the Nike/Inside Lacrosse
Division I Player of the Week for
scoring three goals, including the
game-winner, and handing out five
assists in a 13-12 victory over Har-
vard on Saturday.
— Yale’s Deb Gruen, a Para-
lympic swimmer who has set five
world records, has been selected to
the U.S. team that will compete at
the IPC Swimming Worlds in Eind-
hoven, Netherlands, in August.
Editorial & Letters
The Brown Daily Herald

Page 14 | Thursday, April 15, 2010

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

Coverage doesn’t help victims

To the Editor: sity officials and inaccessible campus
judiciary processes.
The Herald’s article “Former Between 20-25 percent of women
student claims misdeeds by U. offi- will be the victims of rape or attempted
cials in sealed case” (April 12) failed rape while in college. For more than
to separate two critical issues: the three years, the Sexual Assault Task
alleged misconduct of Brown Uni- Force has been working to make
versity administrators in compelling Brown’s disciplinary process more
former student William McCormick to accessible to survivors of assault. The
leave Brown after he allegedly raped McCormick case is exceptional; the
the daughter of a major donor, and vast majority of people who report
the truthfulness of the victim’s claim, sexual assault at Brown do not see
which no one except the victim herself their perpetrators separated from the
can speak to with any authority. University. Brown’s interest in main-
The information that the article taining silence around these issues
relied on came from the plaintiff’s side almost always works in favor of the
of a civil lawsuit, the intent of which is perpetrator, not the victim.
precisely to discredit the victim. In focusing on the truthfulness of
We are not in a position to address the victim’s statement, rather than
the specifics of this or any sexual as- on the University officials’ alleged
sault case, nor do we want to. We must, misconduct, the article has done
however, address the issue of “false the entire Brown community a dis-
reporting.” The FBI estimates that a service. We hope survivors are not
mere two to eight percent of sexual discouraged from speaking out or PAUL TRAN AND RICHARD STEIN
assault cases are “false reports” (a rate utilizing campus resources, such as
similar to other violent crimes). Many Trish Glover, Brown’s Sexual Assault
victims do not name their experiences Response and Prevention Program e d i to r i a l
as “rape” or “sexual assault” right Coordinator, and other resources
away; victims often come forward listed on the Health Education Web
only after conversations with friends
and supporters, and some never do.
site. All survivors deserve to be sup-
ported and believed.
Making space
According to the Department of Jus- Brown offers its undergraduates a significant support pate that Brown’s two main libraries will soon flood
tice, 95 percent of sexual assaults go system and a host of opportunities, but when it comes with students. The Friedman Study Center and the
unreported to police, making this the Haley Kossek ’13 to providing space for common use and studying, Rockefeller Library often fill up quickly, leaving only
most underreported crime. According Annie Kurtz ’11 our school is somewhat deficient. With over 6,000 less desirable study spots like shaky carrels or sleep-
to a recent Center for Public Integrity Amy Littlefield ’09 undergraduate students at Brown, it’s often difficult inducing couches. Sketch comedy group Out of Bounds
investigation, the biggest barriers to Catherine McCarthy ’11 to find a free table in the library or a place to arrange articulates this problem well. “How am I to work in
reporting sexual assault on college Emily Mellor ’10 an informal meeting. Now that the weather is nice these big arm chairs?/ I’m typing on the laptop and
campuses are disbelief from univer- April 13 and students have begun to congregate outside, the an outlet’s rare,” they lament in their video, “SciLi
shortage of study and meeting spaces indoors is easy State of Mind.”
to forget. But for most of the year, the options seem We hope that some of the new community spaces
limited. will provide additional places for students to study, and
t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d For this reason, we were pleased to hear President we encourage students to seek out these new locations
Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Deputy Managing Editors Senior Editors Ruth Simmons declare in the State of Brown address and make use of them. But for now, we want to suggest
Sophia Li Ellen Cushing
George Miller Chaz Kelsh
Seth Motel
that new construction and renovation is going to create some underrated places where students can get their
Emmy Liss
Joanna Wohlmuth more community spaces. work done away from the masses.
editorial Business “One of the things that we’ve been doing on all build- For a slightly alternative library experience, try
General Managers Office Manager
Anne Speyer Arts & Culture Editor ing projects is claiming a portion of building projects the library at the Watson Institute for International
Suzannah Weiss Arts & Culture Editor Claire Kiely Shawn Reilly
Brian Mastroianni Features Editor Katie Koh for the benefit of the whole,” Simmons said. Studies, the Orwig Music Library, the new Science
Hannah Moser Features Editor Directors This practice is a commendable one, and we believe Center in the Sciences Library, or the Fleet Library
Brigitta Greene Metro Editor Kelly Wess Sales
Ben Schreckinger
firmly in the “if you build it, they will come” adage. at the Rhode Island School of Design, which is acces-
Metro Editor Matthew Burrows Finance
Sydney Ember News Editor Margaret Watson Client Relations Moreover, the new spaces for common use will offer sible to Brown students with Brown IDs. Our favorite
Nicole Friedman News Editor Christiana Stephenson Alumni Relations students a change of scenery and the chance to get non-library study spaces include the Sidney E. Frank
Dan Alexander Sports Editor
Zack Bahr Asst. Sports Editor Managers away from crowds at the main libraries and eating Hall for Life Sciences and the Brown/RISD Hillel
Andrew Braca Asst. Sports Editor Arjun Vaidya Local Sales establishments. building, which is open late and welcomes all Brown
Han Cui Asst. Sports Editor Marco deLeon National Sales
The Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center at Faunce students. Empty classrooms in J. Walter Wilson also
Aditi Bhatia University Sales
Graphics & Photos Jared Davis University Sales House will include a number of informal meeting offer good, secluded spots.
Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor Trenten Nelson-Rivers Recruiter Sales spaces, as well as a new and improved place to eat, That being said, we won’t blame you if force of
Alex Yuly Graphics Editor Maximilian Barrows Business Operations
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong Photo Editor Jilyn Chao Business Analytics according to the Building Brown Web site. The renova- habit or the need to work late brings you back to the
Max Monn Asst. Photo Editor Danielle Marshak Credit and Collections tions to Metcalf Chemistry and Research Laboratory Friedman Study Center. You’ll be in good company, and
Jonathan Bateman Sports Photo Editor Alexander Carrere Special Projects
Kathy Bui Staff
will create common space for the whole community at the end of the day, that’s what community spaces
Production Opinions to use. And all rooms within the Perry and Marty are all about.
Kelly Mallahan Copy Desk Chief Michael Fitzpatrick Opinions Editor Granoff Center for the Creative Arts “will be assigned
Marlee Bruning Design Editor Alyssa Ratledge Opinions Editor
Anna Migliaccio Asst. Design Editor for multi-disciplinary work,” the Web site notes. Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board.
Julien Ouellet Asst. Design Editor Editorial Page Board Since finals are just around the corner, we antici- Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
Neal Poole Web Editor Matt Aks Editorial Page Editor
William Martin Board member

Post- magazine
Melissa Shube
Gaurie Tilak
Board member
Board member
correction
Marshall Katheder Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Topaz Board member

Gili Kliger, Designer An article in the April 9 Herald (“Gala moves back onto campus”) incorrectly stated that Westin workers had
Nicole Boucher, Christine Joyce, Sara Luxenberg, Raaj Parekh, Lindor Qunaj, Copy Editors called for a boycott the previous Thursday. In fact, they called for a boycott Thursday, March 18. The Herald
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Opinions
The Brown Daily Herald
Brown, the FDA, ROTC and discrimination
EMILY BRESLIN
Opinions Columnist
The U.S. Armed Forces and the Rhode Island
Blood Center, a Food and Drug Administra-
tion-regulated bank, both have policies in place
that exclude people on the basis of sexual
orientation. According to the 1993 “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell” memo, “The military will discharge
members who engage in homosexual con-
duct.” The FDA states, “Men who have had
sex with other men, at any time since 1977
(the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the
United States) are currently deferred as blood
donors” because they are at “increased risk”
for HIV. Brown welcomes the Rhode Island
Blood Center on campus at the same time
that it bans Armed Forces recruiters and the
Reserve Officers Training Corps precisely
because it discriminates against gays, lesbians
and bisexuals.
Is this inconsistent? Are either of these
policies ethical? There is no rational basis
for the military’s policy. According to federal
law (10 U.S.C. § 654), the “presence in the
armed forces of persons who demonstrate a
propensity or intent to engage in homosexual
acts would create an unacceptable risk to the
high standards of morale, good order and dis-
cipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence
of military capability.” Andrea Lafferty of the
Traditional Values Coalition states that she
NIDA ABDULLA
Opinions Columnist
It is time to shelve the New Curriculum, at
least for a while. Today I passed an impas-
sioned tour guide who longingly, lovingly,
yearningly explained the benefits of the New
Curriculum. He pleaded that each Brown
student wants to be here, that we’re not just
here because we want to fulfill some require-
ments. Enough of that. Have you ever heard
of organic chemistry? How about the large
introductory courses you might have to take
for your degree? How about courses that you
have to take to fulfill some obscure require-
ment within your concentration? Such is the
false promise of the New Curriculum.
In its final report on the New Curriculum,
the Task Force for Undergraduate Educa-
tion states that incoming students “share a
responsibility for arranging their own core
programs.” The idea that we are supposed to
shape our own core program sounds amazing.
However, I was under the impression that we
are supposed to choose courses that sound
interesting until we stumble upon something
in which we could possibly concentrate. At
Brown, we are supposed to be free from any-
thing remotely similar to a “core program.”
Creating such a program would require seri-
ous advising — someone sitting down with
each student, discussing and suggesting
Got something to say? Leave a comment online!
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“can foresee rampant violence in the military
if macho men must share shower facilities,
bunk beds in a submarine or fox holes with
sex-crazed gay males” if the law is repealed.
The legal justification is couched in terms
of differences between military and civilian
life, so “numerous restrictions on personal
behavior, that would not be acceptable in civil-
ian society” are acceptable in the military. This
raises the question of whether it is a right to
serve in the military or not. The legal language
cited suggests that it is not, and this makes a
fair amount of sense.
We are not condoning discriminatory practices
when we choose to donate blood in the same way
some think we would be if we allowed ROTC on
campus.
Experts ought to be deferred to when it
comes to defending the country. However, the
fact that something as vague as esprit de corps
is given as the reason to ban lesbian, gay and
bisexual people from military service makes
the policy a manifestation of persistently lin-
gering homophobia. It is discrimination, pure
and simple, not an expert opinion.
Lesbians, gays and bisexuals currently
serve valiantly in the military, as well as in civil
society, so this restriction does not seem to be
Old is gold
possible interests, and then creating a core
curriculum outside of whatever concentration
he or she might choose. Of course, this is also
impossible: How can you create a curriculum
for a student if they don’t know in what they
want to concentrate?
Many of us think that we wouldn’t like to
be told what to do. But when a university has
a core curriculum, these classes are sure to
be of good quality because the administrators
know that most students are taking them. In
creating one’s own core, some classes are
going to be hits and others are going to be
misses.
What’s the big deal if we are given some loose
requirements? It makes a lot more sense than
handing a freshman a list of 3,000 courses and
telling them to choose four.
Furthermore, the demographics of the
University have changed since the New Cur-
riculum was instated. Today we have more
international students, first-generation college
students and minority students. For many of
these students, the stakes seem higher when
they are choosing classes, and it is harder for
them to willingly experiment — hence they
would benefit from a core, or at least distribu-
tion requirements. Give me a solid education,
one that is necessary in the armed forces. The
military needs all of the competent people it
can get right now, and this demonstrable need
would seem to override the obscure possibility
that the armed forces will be “taken over by
gay militants,” as Lafferty has it.
So what about the FDA policy? Is this exclu-
sion warranted as part of a statistically-ground-
ed effort to make the blood supply as safe as
possible, or is it also discrimination based on
prejudice? It is undeniably not a right to do-
nate blood; everyone agrees that HIV-infected
blood ought not be used in transfusions. It is
a fact that “among the estimated number of
persons living with HIV at the end of 2006,”
according to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, “the greatest percentage of
cases was attributed to male-to-male sexual
contact, accounting for 48.1% overall.”
By barring men who have had sexual
contact with other men (sometimes referred
to as MSM) from donating blood, the FDA
might argue it has made the blood supply
safer because there is less of a chance that
and I will give you my money. I don’t want to
engage in a gamble, especially since it is my
dad, not me, who is footing the bill.
Some will stand on the other side of the
chasm and tell me that, from these tough
decisions about courses, they learned that it’s
okay to fail, or that these decisions help one to
learn how to fail. Well, try putting that in the
Brown catalogs — “We set our students up for
failure so that they can learn how to fail.”
What’s the big deal if we are given some
loose requirements? It makes a lot more sense
than handing freshmen a list of 3,000 courses
and telling them to choose four. What is wrong
with some professors and administrators (who
are wiser than me) sitting down and putting
some thought into what I should know in order
to graduate? Distribution requirements, such
as those at Harvard, require students to take
eight courses in various categories, such as
“Culture and Belief” and “U.S. in the World.”
Meanwhile, at other schools, students are
simply required to take a breadth of courses
in many disciplines. At universities such as
Thursday, April 15, 2010 | Page 15
tainted blood will be donated and therefore
less of a chance that it will fail to detect HIV
in the blood. In fact, this is exactly what they
argue: “Several scientific models show there
would be a small but definite increased risk
to people who receive blood transfusions if
FDA’s MSM policy were changed and that
preventable transfusion transmission of HIV
could occur as a result.”
We are not condoning discriminator y
practices when we choose to donate blood in
the same way some think we would be if we
allowed ROTC on campus. The distinction
made between the two policies rests on the
availability of evidence. Supporters of the ban
on lesbians, gays and bisexuals in the military
cannot point to any facts that make the ban
effective in promoting health and safety, while
the FDA has hard data that its ban will.
I am tempted by the line of thought that we
ought to allow ROTC on campus because we
believe that intelligent minds in our military
are a national necessity, just like a safe blood
supply. However, in the end, I think this is a
false equivalency. The argument from igno-
rance is never a good one; we ought not leave
behind our qualms about discrimination just
because we cannot say with absolute and total
certainty that ROTC at Brown might produce
the next great general.
Emily Breslin ’10 is a philosophy
concentrator from Harvard, Mass. She can
be reached at emily_breslin@brown.edu.
IU Bloomington, the requirements fall under
traditional disciplines such as “Arts and Hu-
manities” or “Social and Historical Studies.”
The intentions behind these distribution re-
quirements and the New Curriculum dovetail
because both aim for students to have a well-
rounded, coherent liberal arts education.
In short, I’m not satisfied with the edu-
cation I have gotten thus far. My individual
classes have been for the most part excellent,
but there is a lack of cohesion among the
classes outside my major. I have been the
architect of a shoddy house that I wouldn’t
want to live in. Having so little experience
before this construction, it’s no wonder that
my house is shaky. No one taught me what
to use for foundations, or as pillars. Fresh-
man orientation might be better spent on a
seminar teaching new students how to be the
architects of their education. Teach us what
can make up the basement, and what should
only serve as the roof. Maybe some history
for the foundations, and literature for the roof,
with some economics in the pillars. This is a
possibility if the University and its students
insist on maintaining the new curriculum —
after all, what else would distinguish us from
Harvard? In the absence of such an effort, it
may be time to end this “experiment” and get
back to the serious task of sending rigorously
educated students out into the world.
Nida Abdulla ’11.5 is an English
concentrator from New Jersey. She may
be contacted at nida_abdulla@brown.
edu.
 Today 3 Joukowsky Institute receives grant to day to m o r r o w

The Brown Daily Herald

Poll finds most undergraduates single

7 61 / 39
Thursday, April 15, 2010
45 / 41
Page 16

t h e n e w s i n i m ag e s

3 7 13
c a l e n da r comics
Today, april 15 tomorrow, april 16
Cabernet Voltaire| Abe Pressman
4:00 p.m. — Fulbright Festival, Brown- 4:30 P.M. — “Audience, Aesthetics,
RISD Hillel Assumptions: Putting the Groove Into
Classical Music,” Steinert Hall
6:00 p.m. — Up the Nile in Style: Travel
in Egypt, Napoleon to 1930, Rhode 7:00 P.M. — Latino Gala, Andrews
Island Hall 108 Dining Hall

menu
Sharpe Refectory
Lunch — Hot Turkey Sandwich with
Gravy, Baked Vegan Nuggets with
Dipping Sauces, Pumpkin Bars
Dinner — Salt and Pepper Jerk
Chicken, Vegetarian Tamale Pie,
Strawberry Jello
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline
Lunch — Turkey Cutlet Sandwich
on Bulky Roll, Peanut Butter and
Jelly Bar, Milk and White Chocolate
Cookies
Dinner — Chicken Caesar Salad
Wrap, New Potato Salad, Rainbow
Sprinkle Cake

a c r o s s to b e a r
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15 “L’___ c’est moi”:
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55 “The Princess and means “wave blogdailyherald.com
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