Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxlv, no. 72 | Friday, September 17, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Hicks ’11 Religion and spirituality collide in PW’s ‘Judas’
honored
in service
By Anne Speyer
Arts & Culture Editor
Friends and family of Paige Hicks
’11 gathered in Manning Chapel
on Thursday night to share in a
service of thanksgiving for the
life of a beloved member of the
Brown community.
Hicks, who was killed July 20
during a cross-country trip for
the charitable organization Bike
and Build, was remembered by
those who knew her as an exu-
berant, loving person who could
not help but leave a mark on ev-
eryone she met.
After a musical performance
of The Beatles’ “Yesterday”
by Christiana Stephenson ’11,
Chaplain of the University Janet
Cooper Nelson addressed the
overflowing chapel. Cooper Nel-
son said Hicks had tied together
the lives of the members of the
audience with a “thread I would
be hard-pressed to label.”
Referring to a magical device
used to process thoughts and
memories in “Harry Potter and
the Goblet of Fire,” a favorite
book of Hicks’, Nelson invited
the audience to think of the
service as a sort of Pensieve, “a
place where we can put all our
feelings and thoughts and let
them swirl.”
Those feelings and thoughts
took the form of remembrances,
musical and spoken word per-
formances and a slideshow set
to some of Hicks’ favorite mu-
continued on page 4
Jim Head led a team of researchers in mapping the moon’s surface.
inside
News.....1–4
Sports........5
Arts.......6–7
Editorial....10
Opinion.....11
Today........12
www.browndailyherald.com
By Kristina Fazzalaro
Senior Staff Writer
Set in the courtroom bowels of pur-
gatory, “The Last Days of Judas Is-
cariot” opens Friday at Production
Workshop. Exploring controversial
issues of religion, forgiveness and
spirituality, “Judas” invites audience
members to continuously question
the paradoxes and contradictions
that characters face, even after the
ARTS & CULTURE
last curtain call.
Judas Iscariot, played by John
Racioppo ’11, has been in hell since
the day he hung himself in a potter’s
field over the shame of betraying
Jesus. Now his case is being ap-
pealed, but does he want it to be?
Calling forth a long list of witnesses,
including apostles, Mother Teresa,
Sigmund Freud and Satan himself,
the court debates religion, politics
and motive.
continued on page 6
Online newspaper planned at RISD
By Rebecca Ballhaus
Senior Staff Writer
Three Rhode Island School of De-
sign juniors are planning to launch
an online newspaper called the All-
Nighter on Oct. 1. The paper will
include school news, an opinions
section and other components that
will be discussed in the upcoming
weeks.
“Our goal is to increase the dia-
logue that happens between stu-
dents on campus, and make it more
central,” said Micah Barrett, one of
the paper’s editors. The editors —
Rachel Hallock, Erica Morse and
Courtesy of Jim Head
Sports, 5
football forecast
Season star ter this
Saturday against the Stony
Brook Seawolves
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
Elana Siegel ’11 plays Judas’ attorney in Production Workshop’s play opening today.
Barrett — said they hope to make
the paper a true RISD creation by
incorporating all areas of student
life. For example, they are planning
to create a section called “Inspira-
tion,” in which students will be able
to upload their work to the website
and receive comments from other
students underneath, Morse said.
“One problem with RISD is that
people don’t communicate between
different majors,” Morse said. “I’m
most excited about the collabora-
tion opportunities (the paper) of-
fers.”
Morse added that the newspa-
Prof ’s new moon maps
tell solar system’s story
By Brigitta Greene
Metro Editor
Lost deep in the flatlands of the
Orientale Crater, sucking the last
drops from their oxygen tanks,
lunar backpackers of the future
will thank their lucky stars for Jim
Head.
Head’s research team has
compiled the first comprehensive
topographic maps of the Moon’s
cratered surface. His work — fea-
tured on the cover of this week’s
Science Magazine — provides
per is a good way to communicate
both with other students and with
the administration. “Right now, ev-
eryone is excited about sharing in
some way, but it’s very scattered,”
she said, noting that various mem-
bers of the school’s faculty, includ-
ing President John Maeda, have
their own blogs. “This is one unified
place where people can come to.”
The idea for the All-Nighter
came when the director of RISD’s
student life program approached
Hallock last year, while she was
continued on page 4
researchers with a fresh window
into the early solar system.
But Head will not be looking to
take a celestial day hike anytime
soon. Instead, he will use the im-
ages to better understand the long
history of bombardment on the
lunar surface.
Both the Earth and its satellite
have been pummeled with mete-
ors, asteroids and comets since
their formation. But while geologi-
cal records of the earliest impacts
continued on page 2
Arts, 6
Contemporary ‘camelot’
Trinity Rep’s ‘Camelot’
strikes parallels with the
modern era
David Chung / Herald
$1 million
funds U.’s
supercomp
By Kyle McNamara
Contributing Writer
The National Science Foundation has
awarded Brown a million-dollar grant
after a competitive application process.
The University will receive just over
$1 million out of $20 million awarded
to 17 universities in states around the
country.
The grant will go toward additional
hardware for Brown’s supercomputer
cluster, said Casey Dunn, assistant
professor of biology. The supercom-
puter, which opened last fall, was a
major factor in the NSF’s decision to
award the grant to Brown, Dunn said.
It was “Brown’s investing in core
resources that ended up increasing
our competitiveness to get grants,”
he added.
The main research goal of the
grant is to analyze the genomes of
marine ecosystems and the genetic
responses of these ecosystems to
climate change. Dunn’s lab, which is
at the intersection of genome sequenc-
ing and computational analysis, will
study the genome functions of these
marine organisms through both com-
puter work and field work, he said.
­­­­­Dunn said that someone is “almost
continued on page 3
Opinions, 11
common Ground
Susannah Kroeber ’11
on transcending religious
divides
herald@browndailyherald.com
Page 2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Friday, September 17, 2010

C ampus N EWS “iPhones wouldn’t work — you know, real crisis.”

— Jim Head, professor of geological sciences

New director of CDC Meiklejohns work on community

expands center’s hours
By Thomas Jarus
Staff Writer
After taking over as director of
the Career Development Cen-
ter on July 1, Andrew Simmons
is implementing new initiatives
this fall.
In a Sept. 10 e-mail to the stu-
dent body, Simmons outlined the
changes that would occur this se-
mester. They include “improved
advising for students interested
in careers in the common good,
weekend and evening advising,
a renewed focus on internships,
enhanced health careers plan-
ning” and a career series entitled
“Coffee and Careers.”
The changes are a result of
student feedback, Simmons said.
Dean of the College Katherine
Bergeron said she approves of
Simmons’s initiatives.
“I am thrilled that he is insti-
tuting some evening and week-
end hours. This is something that
students have been asking for for
quite a while, and he made it a
priority,” she said.
Over the summer, the center
hired Jim Amspacher as a new
career adviser. Simmons said
Amspacher brings a nonprofit
and public interest perspective
to the CDC in a way that had not
been present before.
Bergeron said that Simmons
and the CDC are working toward
goals that the University has long
hoped to meet.
She said she would like to see
sudoku
the CDC become “part of a net-
work of advising opportunities
for students.”
Simmons said he has been
working in university student af-
fairs and academic advising since
1994. Prior to working as the di-
rector of the CDC, he ser ved as
the Associate Dean of the Col-
lege for Health and Law Careers.
Before the start of his tenure at
Brown, he worked at Brandeis,
where he worked in residential
life before becoming their Assis-
tant Dean for Academic Affairs.
“His vantage point from being
in the college will really, I think,
help us reach that goal of mak-
ing life beyond Brown part of the
four-year advising experience,”
Bergeron said.
Simmons said this is one of
his interests.
“How do you use your educa-
tional experience to build toward
some par ticular career goals?
And then how do you talk about
that as a liberal arts graduate?”
he said.
Simmons said he also brings
to the table “an understanding
of careers within the academic
context.”
“Where I add value to this of-
fice is my knowledge of the cur-
riculum,” he added.
Though Simmons is not new
to Brown, he said he is excited
about the future of the CDC. “I
think we will cer tainly evolve
over time,” he said. “We’re go-
ing in a really positive direction.”
By Kristina Klara
Staff Writer
Small changes to the Meiklejohn
program this year are intended to
instill a sense of community among
peer advisers and to make Meikle-
johns more aware of the issues first-
years may encounter. Freshmen
can communicate with their peer
advisers before they even arrive on
campus through the online Advising
Sidekick tool.
“We are making what is already
a great program even better,” said
Dean Ann Gaylin, Associate Dean of
the College for First-Year and Soph-
omore Studies. No radical changes
have been made, but “over 500 stu-
dents applied to be Meiklejohns last
year,” Gaylin said. “We really tried
to choose people who were going
to be committed to the program,”
which is “one of the cornerstones
of first-year advising,” she added.
The Meiklejohn program is
composed of 12 leaders, each re-
sponsible for 25-30 Meiklejohns.
“I feel privileged to work with a
really great group of leaders this
year,” Gaylin said. “We just have an
outstanding group of Meiks,” said
Geology prof. maps moon craters
continued from page 1
have been obscured by erosion and
tectonic activity on Earth, the lunar
surface remains largely intact.
“It sounds silly but we actually
have to leave Earth to understand
the former years of our own planet,”
said Head, a professor in the Geo-
logical Sciences Department. “That’s
why we go to the moon … it’s right
there.”
Cratering, the effect of huge im-
pacts, can have far-reaching effects
on the formation and evolution of
life, he said, pointing to the demise
of the dinosaurs following a large
impact on the Yucatan peninsula.
“One of those, and we’d be toast,”
he said. “iPhones wouldn’t work —
you know, real crisis.”
About a year ago, NASA placed
in orbit around the moon a Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft
with the ability to take highly de-
tailed measurements of surface
topography, Head said. The space-
craft shot laser pulses at the moon’s
surface, measuring the time it took
for these pulses to reflect back. Over
the past several months, Head’s lab
worked with researchers from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
Megan Tuohy ’12, one of the twelve
Meiklejohn leaders. The program
“embodies Brown ideals” of friend-
liness and warmth, she added.
This year has been focused on
fostering a greater sense of com-
munity within the program, Gaylin
said. For the Meiklejohn orienta-
tion this year, each leader and his
or her group participated in Meikle-
john group wars, akin to freshman
unit wars. Also, the advising leaders
will meet with their Meiklejohns
a few times throughout the year,
Gaylin said.
“We beefed up the fall orien-
tation,” Gaylin said. Meiklejohns
now have access to more informa-
tion. They are “fully informed of
resources and opportunities made
available to first-years,” Gaylin said.
A faculty panel on different aca-
demic disciplines and advising in
those particular fields was added
along with an academic resource
panel and two sessions on academic
integrity, she said. In addition, the
Meiklejohn guidebook was com-
pletely revised.
But “Meiklejohns aren’t ex-
pected to know everything,” Gaylin
said. Sometimes the best help can
Lunar craters provide a record of the evolution of the solar system.
incredible.”
Researchers identified and
mapped over 5,000 craters that are
equal to or greater than 20 kilome-
ters in diameter. They also identified
the two most heavily cratered, and
therefore the oldest, areas. Future lu-
nar voyages — much like the earlier
Apollo missions — can now target
these regions, collecting samples
be putting students in touch with
the resources they need, and the
Office of the Dean of the College is
making sure Meiklejohns are more
aware of what these resources are,
Gaylin said.
“As a technical change, we gave
Meiklejohns and their advisees the
ability to talk to each other through
the ASK Advising Sidekick,” said
Gaylin. Students write letters to
their Meiklejohns during the sum-
mer before they come for orienta-
tion.
“It forced me to start thinking
about the things that I hadn’t yet
thought about,” said Zoe Downes
’14 of writing the letter. She said
she also e-mailed her Meiklejohn
a few times in addition to the let-
ter, asking about “little anxieties,”
she said.
“It was a good way to ask all of
the little questions that an academic
adviser would never know because
he hasn’t been a student at Brown,”
said Downes.
Meiklejohns can now see the
course preferences their advisees
record over the summer. This will
jump-start the initial advising con-
versation, Gaylin said.
Courtesy of Jim Head
the time.”
It’s unclear which of Professor
Head’s collections he enjoys more:
eccentric beer bottles or geological
fragments — both of which adorn
his office cabinets. But as he shuffles
through his meteorite collection,
it’s obvious that the sparkling rocks
tell a story much grander than they
initially suggest.

Daily Herald
ogy and the NASA Goddard Space from the earliest impacts, Head said. In a broad sense, the new data
the Brown
Flight Center to translate over 2.5 There is no way to directly mea- brings researchers one step closer
billion of these laser data points into sure the rate of bombardment from to the grand question of “how we got
Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | Business Phone: 401.351.3260 a comprehensive topographic map. meteors or asteroids, but samples to be how we are today,” Head said.
George Miller, President Katie Koh, Treasurer The Orbiter craft will most likely taken from surfaces of a known ori- “If we want to predict the future,
Claire Kiely, Vice President Chaz Kelsh, Secretary continue to collect data for the next gin can be dated radiometrically in knowing the past is really important.
The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serv- few years, Head said. Topographic lab. By comparing the age and den- ... Was the bombardment history so
ing the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday maps of the lunar surface existed sity of the impacts, researchers can great that life didn’t get started until
through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during prior to the craft’s mission, but the calculate the rate of bombardment a certain time — or did these big
Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily
Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community.
data was variable and low-resolution. over time and develop an absolute projectiles bring in life from some-
POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI “The key here is that the data chronology of impacts and impact where else?”
02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 set we have now is completely con- frequency. “These are big issues,” he added.
Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. stant in its characteristics,” Head “The rate of bombardment is low “This paper doesn’t answer those,
World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com.
Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily.
said, pointing to the new detailed, now, much lower than it was in the but it starts to talk about the earth
Copyright 2010 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved. multicolored images. “It’s a perfect early years,” Head said. “But we still in its infancy in a way that brings a
data set for a global analysis. ... It’s we get things falling to the Earth all lot more meaning.”
Friday, September 17, 2010 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Page 3

C ampus N EWS
New nanopore DNA sequencing method may reduce costs
By Emily Rosen
Staff Writer
Scientists may soon have a cheaper
alternative to current methods of
DNA sequencing, thanks to new
research by Professor of Physics
Xinsheng Sean Ling and his group
published in July’s issue of Nano-
technology.
‘The team has shown that
solid-state nanopores — very thin
membranes with holes — can be
used to detect regions of double-
stranded DNA on a molecule con-
sisting mostly of single-stranded
DNA — a development that will
eventually lead to an easier method
of DNA sequencing.
This research is “related to an
ongoing worldwide effort to de-
velop nanopore sequencing,” Ling
said.
According to Ling, the Sanger
method of DNA sequencing, which
is the current, widely used DNA
sequencing procedure, has its own
procedural difficulties and can be
expensive.
While taking a sabbatical in
2002, Ling became involved with
the research, which he said is new
and different from previous work
he has done.
Ling’s group, including Senior
Research Associate in Physics
Venkat Balagurusamy and Paul
Weinger GS, has been able to use
nanopores to detect the location
of a 12-base-pair-long segment of
double-stranded DNA surrounded
on both sides by segments of single-
stranded DNA, called a 12-mer.
Balagurusamy said that a nano-
pore is an “ultra-thin membrane
with a small hole.” When a molecule
of DNA passes through the nano-
pore, the electrical current drops
in comparison to the current mea-
sured when there is no DNA going
through the nanopore.
“If DNA blocks the pore, you get
a signal,” he said.
According to Balagurusamy, be-
cause the diameter of single-strand-
ed DNA is much smaller than the
diameter of double-stranded DNA,
the drop in current when each of
these types of DNA passes through
the nanopore will be different. This
allows for the discrimination of dou-
ble- and single-stranded regions of
a DNA molecule passing through
a nanopore.
Ling’s group is therefore able to
detect locations of hybridization, a
complex process used to identify
the presence of certain DNA se-
quences.
“With this positional informa-
tion of hybridization, one should
be able to sequence the whole ge-
nome,” Ling wrote in an e-mail to
The Herald.
Ling said his group would ulti-
mately like to be able to detect a
six-mer of double-stranded DNA, a
feat that has not yet been achieved.
A six-mer of double-stranded
DNA “is not stable at room tem-
perature,” Ling said. “We need to
build a new experimental setup” in
order to detect a six-mer, he added.
Balagurusamy said the ability to
detect a six-mer of double-stranded
DNA would be more beneficial for
nanopore DNA sequencing than
would the ability to detect a 12-mer,
which Ling’s group has recently
achieved. Before Ling’s group de-
tected a double-stranded 12-mer,
researchers had not been able to
detect double-stranded DNA se-
quences of under about 1,000 base Warren Cheng / Herald
pairs among single-stranded se- Physics Professor Xinsheng Sean Ling led research to sequence DNA with
quences using nanopores, Balagu- nanopores, above.
rusamy said.

Adults head back to school, for fun Supercomputing power

By John Ewoldt
Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“It’s about forgetting about real
life and doing something fun with
friends.”
That’s how Kristen Stuenkel,
director of community education
in the Columbia Heights, Minn.,
school district, describes the popu-
lar classes for adults enrolling in
community-education programs
this fall.
“People don’t take the classes in
a recession that you would think,”
she said. “Classes about how to in-
crease fuel economy and how to
budget just aren’t cutting it.”
Scrap “50 Ways to a Frugal Life,”
and put on your “So You Think You
Can Dance” shoes and cha-cha the
education staples about writing your
will, clipping coupons and compar-
ing life insurance policies? They’re
still around, but most of those fru-
gal folks are probably watching
the scotch drinkers, salsa dancers
and deer gutters with their noses
pressed against the glass.
Wait a minute — deer gutting?
Besides the scotch tasting, it’s an-
other way that many community ed-
ucation classes are trying to attract
WORLD & NATION
more men to a predominantly female
pursuit, said Marsha Buchok, coor-
dinator for Edina Community Edu-
cation. A roadkill deer is brought
in to show how to field-dress, skin
and clean the carcass properly. In
Some of the most common
classes include fitness, cooking and
dance, all offered at prices that are
often substantially lower than at
fitness clubs or dedicated schools.
In Anoka-Hennepin’s adult pro-
gram, for example, some fitness
and yoga classes can be taken for
less than $5 per session with no an-
nual membership required. Cooking
classes that are $19 to $45 through
community ed can cost $60 to $100
at cooking academies. Some com-
munities such as Columbia Heights
offer free or $5 classes, too. Hastings
Community Education offers free
online classes for the unemployed.
The reason for the low fees isn’t
because the classes are taxpayer-
supported. It’s because the classes
are offered in a not-for-profit struc-
shared with R.I. schools
continued from page 1
always” using the supercomputer
to run hour-long jobs related to
both big and small projects. He
said training students to use high-
performance computers for com-
putational analysis is “becoming
integral to most fields of biology.”
The grant is expected to ac-
celerate current student research
projects and provide new oppor-
tunities for student research. The
grant will build local computational
expertise, as well as impact other
computational techniques in Rhode
Island, he said.
In turn, this will bolster the
“knowledge economy” initiative,
an ambitious collaboration between
public and private organizations to
attract researchers and academics
to the city and state.
The speed of the connections
used to share data between cam-
puses will also be improved. Data
will be available across universities
in Rhode Island due to “improved
collaboration infrastructure,” Dunn
said. The University of Rhode Is-
land, the Rhode Island School of
Design and Rhode Island College
are expected to participate. With
such a small distance between these
schools, this grant is expected to
facilitate statewide cooperation.

The other BDH

pounds off with Zumba dance fit-
ness classes. Forget collecting fallen
limbs in the back yard to make an
occasional chair, and belly up to
“Scotch Talk and Tasting” — for
those who give a dram.
Remember those community
Columbia Heights, a companion
class, “Intro to Sausage Making,”
is offered a week later.
In the spirit of good, cheap
fun, let’: Learning through enter-
tainment in community education
classes saves big bucks.
ture.
“We just try to cover our costs
with the registration fees,” Stuen-
kel said.
Classes that fail to attract enough blogdailyherald.com
students to break even are often
canceled.
Page 4
C ampus N EWS
‘The All-Nighter’ to
keep RISD informed
continued from page 1
working as an orientation leader,
with the idea of having a website
advertising the school’s various
events.
“Over time, we morphed the
idea into a school newspaper, since
we didn’t have any regularly pub-
lished school newspaper with actual
news instead of creative writing,”
Hallock said.
The three editors are all study-
ing graphic design at the design
school, and while they don’t have
an extensive background in journal-
ism, they have already recruited a
large staff. At an activities fair on
Benefit Street Sept. 14 — where the
three wore “The All-Nighter Is All
of Us” T-shirts and gleefully handed
out packages of coffee, “Awake” tea
and chocolate — their table had
gathered the names of 80 interested
students after only an hour.
Erica Ehrenbard, a RISD ju-
nior, said she would be interested
in reading the paper since it would
offer “a nice way to be aware of the
Why can’t we be
friends?
facebook.com/browndailyherald
world — not just RISD news, but
the world through RISD’s (eyes).”
Suzanne Geary, a sophomore
at RISD, added that the newspaper
would be helpful to “find out what’s
going on,” she said. “Sometimes it’s
all a little disorganized.”
The newspaper is currently be-
ing funded by the Office of Student
Life, but the editors “are looking
to find advertisements so we can
become a little more independent
from our school,” Hallock said. But
she added that the paper’s budget
is small since it will only be avail-
able online, a choice she said was
made for a few reasons. “It’ll save
on production costs, it’s more eco-
friendly and we can update more
frequently,” she explained.
As for the paper’s name, Hal-
lock said it embodied the nature of
RISD students. “It’s kind of notori-
ous (here) to have people pulling
all-nighters all the time,” she said.
“We had some brainstorming ses-
sions where we threw out names —
someone said that one and we said,
‘That’s perfect. That’s so RISD.’ ”
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
The memorial service for Paige Hicks ’11 took place in Manning Chapel.
Community remembers Hicks ’11
continued from page 1
sic as her professors, roommates,
teammates, friends and family came
together to celebrate her life.
Associate Director of Residential
Life Natalie Basil described Hicks,
who was a Women Peer Counselor,
as “approachable, compassionate,
helpful and a team player,” someone
who was “not just a good listener,
but a doer” and “loved by all for her
honesty and her genuine, fun-loving
personality.”
Two of Hicks’ co-WPCs, Akinyi
Shapiro ’11 and Amina Sheikh ’11,
performed original spoken-word
pieces addressed to Hicks, in which
they remembered their experiences
“That’s perfect. That’s so RISD.”
— Rachel Hallock, Editor of RISD’s The All-Nighter
as WPCs with Hicks and celebrat-
ed the strength and warmth Hicks
brought to the position.
Matt Vitorla ’11, who spent a se-
mester abroad in Barcelona in the
fall of 2009 with Hicks, described
her as a “muse.” “She brought out
the ideas, music, beauty and light
in all of us,” he said.
Katie Silverstein ’11 and Emmy
Liss ’11 also remembered their time
in Barcelona with Hicks, describing
her as fun-loving and adventurous,
someone who loved dance parties,
music, chocolate bars and running
— and sharing those loves with her
friends.
“From Paige, I learned how many
barriers are just boundaries we set
for ourselves … and how to push
through,” Silverstein said.
“She gave everything, whether
it was a stolen pair of sunglasses
or a piece of her heart,” said Liss,
who is a deputy managing editor for
The Herald.
Michelle Levinson ’11 and Julia
Ellis-Kahana ’13, Hicks’ teammates
from the women’s club frisbee team,
Disco Inferno, emphasized her kind-
ness, determination and passion.
Levinson shared one of the team’s
favorite quotes — Lady Gaga’s dec-
laration, “I’m just trying to change
the world, one sequin at a time.”
Levinson said the quote fit both
Hicks’ love of flashy clothes and her
infectious personality, referring to
“the sequins of words and actions
(which) have touched so many
people.”
“She taught me how to be fear-
less,” Ellis-Kahana said.
The slideshow of pictures and
videos of Hicks was also shown
at the ser vice, accompanied by
a soundtrack that included Lady
Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” Tracy
Chapman’s “Fast Car” and a biol-
Friday, September 17, 2010
Hilary Rosenthal / Herald
ogy-themed rap written by Hicks
herself entitled “Let’s Talk About
Cells, Baby.” The presentation, ar-
ranged by Casie Horgan ’11 and
Serin Seckin ’11, showed Hicks
singing, dancing and laughing with
her friends.
Following the slideshow, Fred
and Mallory Hicks, Paige Hicks’
father and one of her older sisters,
thanked the audience for their mem-
ories and added their own. Mallory
Hicks recalled a day of fun the two
shared in New York on Paige Hicks’
21st birthday, and her father led the
chapel in singing “F.U.N.,” a song
from SpongeBob SquarePants cel-
ebrating time spent with friends.
Cooper Nelson then invited
the audience out onto the Quiet
Green, where a dogwood tree has
been planted in Hicks’ memor y.
“We wanted something that would
flower on,” Cooper Nelson said. The
tree will eventually feature a plaque
to Hicks, with a quote from Albus
Dumbledore in “Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer’s Stone”: “After all, to
the well-organized mind, death is but
the next great adventure.”
Hicks’ friends and family circled
the young tree while the Brown
Band played their rendition of
“Bad Romance.” By candlelight,
members of the circle read aloud
remembrances and notes to Hicks
that had been written during the
ser vice. Many notes mentioned
cherished memories of Hicks. One
simply read, “You are an infectious
spirit.”
In her remembrance, Basil read
a quote from Hicks’ application to be
a Residential Peer Leader, in which
Hicks wrote, “My greatest triumph
is knowing I have helped someone
succeed.” The testimonies of the
many people she touched with her
spirit and vivacity made Hicks’ tri-
 SportsWeekend
The Brown Daily Herald
FOOTBALL
Bruno looks to avenge
2009 one-point loss
BY Ethan McCoy
Contributing Writer
After an 0-2 start to its 2009 season,
the football team is aware of the im-
portance of a strong start to this fall’s
campaign. The Bears’ journey starts
Saturday with a clash against the
Stony Brook Seawolves in a rematch
of last year’s 21-20 loss, a defeat that
has left a “bad taste in our mouth
up to this point,” according to start-
ing quarterback and tri-captain Kyle
Newhall-Caballero ’11.
“We felt awful after the game at
Stony Brook last year,” Newhall-
Caballero wrote in an e-mail to The
Herald. “We made plays but we did
not make enough to earn a win that
game.”
Running back Zach Tronti ’11
shared the sentiment that last year’s
loss has stuck with the team, but
wrote in an e-mail that he sees Sat-
urday’s game as not only a chance to
“get revenge … but also (to) set the
tone for the entire season.”
For Tronti, a member of the
2009 All-Ivy second team, the first
game of the season could not come
soon enough. The senior back has
been working all offseason to return
healthy from a “disappointing” ACL
injury that cut short his junior sea-
son after eight games.
“I’ve been full go ever since the
first day of camp,” Tronti wrote. “I’m
excited to just get back out on the
field with my teammates and play
as hard as I can to help us win a
championship.”  playing Brown football, something
Winning a championship is a long
journey, though, and early games
this season will prove key to building
the foundation for a successful year
— a belief that the team strongly
holds.
“It’s a lot easier to keep positive
momentum rolling than it is to battle
FRIDay, SEPTEMBER 17, 2010 | Page 5
Soccer Preview
Friday, 7:00 p.m., Stevenson Field
Indiana (2-2) vs. Brown (2-0-2)
through a rough start, so a strong
first game is critical,” Newhall-Ca-
ballero wrote. No. 24 Indiana Hoosiers
The first team All-Ivy quarter-
back explained that this being his
last season as Bear is a motivating
Key Wins: No. 5 UCLA (5-1)
factor as well. No. 22 Drake(2-0)
“As a senior, you have a complete-
ly different perspective on things,”
Key Losses:
Cal Poly (1-0)
he wrote. “We take a lot of pride in
this being our year. We want people California (2-1) 2OT
to look at and admire the 2010 foot- Key Players: The last time these
ball season, and it all starts with our #11 Will Bruin - 4 goals two teams met was
first game this Saturday.” September 12,
But who are these Seawolves
#10 Andy Adlard - 2 goals 1999. The Hoosiers
that handed Brown a single-point won the game 5-0.
defeat a year ago? Having clashed
with Stony Brook during the past two
Brown Bears
seasons, Bruno regards the Long
Island squad as a familiar foe. Key Wins: Bryant (4-0)
“Stony Brook is a big and physical South Carolina (1-0)
football team,” Tronti wrote. “They
are athletic and quick on defense.” Ties:
The Seawolves boasted a 6-5 re-
Providence College (0-0)
cord in 2009 on their way to claim- Hofstra (0-0)
ing the Big South Conference title.
While this is the first game of the
Key Players:
#10 Sean Rosa - 2 goals
season for Brown, Stony Brook is
1-1 in 2010 and is coming off a win #15 Taylor Gorman - 2 goals
over American International. In #1 Paul Grandstrand - No goals allowed in 4 starts
their opening game, the Seawolves
fell convincingly to Big East giants
South Florida in a lopsided 59-14
defeat.
Finally, the 2010 football season
has arrived, and the Bears are hun-
gry for a title run. The team knows
that it all starts here.
“We’ll have to overcome any first
game jitters early on and get back to
that our entire team has been wait-
ing to unveil for a while,“ Newhall-
Caballero wrote.
Expect the Bears to come out
firing Saturday, looking to set the
tone early for the team’s 133rd year
of intercollegiate football. Kickoff is
set for 12:30 p.m.
Arts & Culture
The Brown Daily Herald
Kathryn Schulz ’96:
wrong is the new right
By Amy Chen
Staff Writer
“Being Wrong,” the first book by
Kathryn Schulz ’96, challenges its
readers to truly examine the idea
of being wrong in action or belief
instead of simply treating it instinc-
tively as negative and damaging to
character.
Published this past June, the
book explores the nature and cul-
tural conception of error. It also
raises important, fascinating ques-
tions about the benefits accrued
from making mistakes and how they
affect our relationships with people
and our knowledge about ourselves.
Schulz said she explored the
“weird” way our culture “thinks
about the idea of error” and “how
individuals think about experiences
as being wrong.” The book also of-
fers error’s intellectual history, phi-
losophy and psychology, exploring
how error has been viewed through-
out time by thinkers like Freud and
Descartes.
Schulz added that she wants
readers to learn and understand the
value of taking a step back and ques-
tioning whether we might be wrong
in believing or doing the things we
so firmly believe to be right.
“There are lots of complexities
and nuisances in our lives,” Schulz
said. “It’s easy to detect the psycho-
logical phenomenon in other people
… but we are very bad in detecting
it in ourselves. We are attached to
the sense of being right.”
The idea for the book, meant to
provoke self-reflection and reevalu-
ation, first took seed in 2004 — not
from a life-altering personal story,
but rather from a culmination of
carefully observed experiences over
a period of time.
For example, Schulz was struck
by how divisive Americans were as
they debated political issues with
the goal of definitively proving their
opponents wrong.
“We are right and everyone else
is wrong. There is no possibility to
step back to think about your own
beliefs,” Schulz said, explaining
the sort of view she explores in her
book.
On an assignment for the New
York Times to interview a group
of conservatives in Dallas, Schulz
experienced the conscious acknowl-
edgment of the possibility that she
might have to reevaluate her beliefs.
She described herself as these
people’s “enemy” because she not
only worked for the media, the lib-
eral New York Times, but also came
from an ultra-liberal educational
background. “It was striking to be
in that position. God, I wished the
people would shut up for a minute,”
Schulz remembered. “But then I
asked: Am I capable of shutting
up? Can I think about their political
views?”
Schulz is a freelance journalist
who has written for the New York
Times, the Boston Globe and For-
eign Policy, among many other
newspapers, and a regular contribu-
tor to the blog on Slate Magazine,
which gives her an opportunity to
discuss making mistakes with ce-
lebrities.
With all her experience, it would
be easy to assume that writing the
book came easily to her. But “writ-
ing is hard,” she said firmly. “The
most challenging aspect was how
to organize it.”
“The best part was going out and
getting materials,” she said, “and
spending a year talking to people.”
Always interested in language
and ideas, Schulz said writing a book
pushed her to enhance her skills
as a reporter and her ability to get
people to tell their stories.
In the end, Schutz said, she feels
“very happy and fortunate to say
that I really love this book. It’s a
hard enough process … I felt re-
ally blessed and honored.”
Schulz described her experience
at Brown, where she concentrated
in history, as “highly influential” in
motivating the kind of writer and
individual she is today. “In the most
basic and fundamental level, Brown
makes me feel like someone who
has the right to make intellectual
contributions,” Schulz said. “I have
the right to have my own thoughts.”
This intellectual freedom allowed
her to “step back and look at the
world,” an opportunity for open-
mindedness which she capitalizes
on in her book.
Schulz said students in high
school — worried about perfect
SAT scores and entering the best
college — often create a checklist
of things to do and want to know
precisely “what decision leads to
(what) outcome.”
College is the last phase of life
when this attitude works, said
Schulz, referring to the “messiness
after college.” Career paths change
constantly, and “this new environ-
ment has no checklist,” she said.
While there is nothing wrong
with being a perfectionist — Schulz
admitted that she is one — the ex-
pectation of total success “is really,
really hard to deal with,” she said.
“The important thing is to accept
that something’s going to happen
Round Table as political commentary
By Suzannah Weiss
Arts & Culture Editor
“Camelot” is a self-conscious musi-
cal, the characters constantly refer-
ring to themselves and their predica-
ments in the third person — take the
number “I Wonder What the King
is Doing Tonight,” sung by none
Biblical villain comes to PW’s stage
continued from page 1
The play addresses “the differ-
ence between religion and spiritual-
ity,” said director Jacob Combs ’11. It
asks the question, “Have we lost the
connection to the spiritual through
the institutionalism?” he added.
The characters are so well devel-
oped and embodied by the actors
that even double-casting does not
impede the audience’s understand-
ing of the text.
When Caiaphas the Elder is
called to the stand, for example, the
judge, played by Doug Eacho ’11,
excuses himself from the courtroom
on grounds of conflict of interest. A
minute later, Eacho is back, but now
he is no longer the loud, Southern
judge he has been, but the aristo-
cratic, 613-laws-of-the-Torah-abiding
Jewish high priest of millennia past.
Other show-stopping characters
include a sassy Saint Monica played
by Chantel Whittle ’12 and confi-
dent, smooth and, above all, smug
Satan played by Brady Waibel ’12.
Whittle describes her character as a
“powerful and opinionated, but soft
and motherly black woman.”
Waibel’s Satan, familiarly known
as Lou, is anything by soft. Complete
with a Gucci suit, graceful stride and
twisted smirk, not to mention an
unfailingly chilly delivery of dispar-
agements, he leaves viewers more
than a little wary themselves.
The two lawyers are equally
important to the show. The hilari-
ous, fast-talking and overly flirta-
tious prosecutor Yusef El-Fayoumy,
played by Jonathan Gordon ’11, is
a joy to watch. His comedic timing
is on point throughout the show.
Judas’ lawyer, Fabiana Aziza
Cunningham is a different type of
character altogether. “I was really
worried because my character isn’t
outlandish or comedic,” said Elana
Siegel ’11, who plays Cunningham.
“She is the voice of the playwright
… and I didn’t want that to get lost
in the mix. Understanding what
Cunningham says is what you leave
thinking about.”
Cunningham’s impassioned
Friday, September 17, 2010 | Page 6
other than King Arthur (Stephen
Thorne) in his introductory scene,
as an example. Trinity Repertory
Company’s current production ex-
pands this self-consciousness into
the audience, as viewers become
characters and the theater becomes
scenery.
For long-time fans, the ability to
A softer side of Judas portrayed in PW’s play.
speech toward the end of the second
act questions Satan on the nature
of God and demands answers — to
receive none.
This is what the play is about:
people have to answer their own
questions, no matter how hard that
might be. Such is the case with Ju-
das. Driven into a catatonic state of
despair by the guilt of his betrayal,
Judas awaits salvation from Jesus.
But he cannot forgive himself and
muster the strength to leave his
personal hell.
Combs said he hopes the play
will open new conversations and
thoughts about something most
Brown students stray away from
— religion. “By not talking about
it, we’ve made it a sacred subject,”
Combs said, citing the awkward
moments that occur when reli-
gion enters the dialogue. Combs,
brought up by a Jewish mother and
a Christian father, said this religious
perspective piqued his interest in
religious communities at Brown and
their associated stereotypes. After
reading “Judas,” Combs knew he
wanted it staged at Brown to expand
that conversation.
Consequently, one of Combs’
biggest goals for the production
is to tackle the stereotype that stu-
dents are just a bunch of atheists and
agnostics who are cruel to people
who practice a structured religion,
he said.
With a cast of 14, getting every-
one to agree on the message the
play puts forth would appear to be
a challenge — one that Combs said
was very important to him.
Returning to campus a week be-
fore the semester began, the cast
and crew, selected in May, had a
two-hour discussion about the play,
its message and their own religious
backgrounds, said Helen Diagama
see and be seen by other enthusiasts
while singing along to the opening
number could be a bonding expe-
rience. And Lancelot’s exhibition-
ism as he holds his arm out to the
front row and instructs spectators
to “touch it” could be charming and
continued on page 7
David Chung / Herald
’12, the show’s stage manager.
“People were really open,” she
said. “They recognized they had
to be.”
The cast also met with Reverend
Janet Cooper Nelson, chaplain of
the University, to discuss the story
they were going to present onstage,
Combs said.
Cooper Nelson will participate
in a talk-back after Saturday’s per-
formance.
The end result is a show that de-
livers a powerful message packaged
amidst a score of comedic dialogue.
Finding just the right balance be-
tween humor and gravity, playwright
Stephen Adly Guirgis has produced
a hilarious dark comedy.
“Working with — playing with
really — this cast is amazing,” Siegel
said. “They make me laugh out loud
on stage every day against my will.”
The play presents an interesting
picture of Judas, often portrayed as
evil in literature. Instead, this Judas
is in the most acute of pains over his
actions. In addition, the audience
gets a glimpse into the life of Judas
before his betrayal and leaves un-
able to not feel compassion for the
man. Racioppo easily weaves his way
throughout Judas’ life, drawing the
audience into one young man’s story
of hope, loss and anguish.
Maybe Judas’ moral standing
is up to the court after all. He did
not realize that violence was never
part of Jesus’ plan — and that cost
him dearly. But if he cannot forgive
himself, how can the jury?
This comedic controversy leaves
audiences thinking and, at the same
time, laughing as they leave the the-
ater.
“The Last Days of Judas Iscariot”
is playing Sept. 17, 18 and 20 at 8
p.m. and Sept. 19 at 4 p.m. and 9
p.m. at Production Workshop.
Page 7
A rts &C ulture
Critiquing self-consciousness in Trinity’s ‘Camelot’
continued from page 6
humorous.
But the actors’ lack of regard for
the fourth wall could also elicit self-
consciousness, in the more common
sense of the word, in the crowd. In-
deed, being put on the spot and in
the spotlight is unsettling until one
realizes why: because the show is
really about the audience and their
similarities to King Arthur’s subjects.
“We consider how the forces of
barbarism and outrage, masquerad-
ing as the powers of justice, have
dragged at the foundation of our
civilization,” Artistic Director Curt
Columbus wrote in the playbill’s in-
troduction.
To illustrate the timelessness and
relevance of the medieval legend,
T.H. White’s 1958 book “The Once
and Future King” and the classic
1960 musical that made the tale ac-
cessible to theatergoers, the Trinity
team embellished an otherwise me-
dieval setting with British subway
signs, nuclear warfare sound effects
and intentionally anachronistic wall
decorations.
As Arthur resolves in the end to
never again let his round table stray
from “right and honor and justice,” he
invites memories and premonitions
of past and future powers fighting
in the name of these virtues. Just
as Arthur recreates the violence
the Round Table knights intended
to resist, modern governments and
citizens live under the fanciful delu-
sion that their wars are “to end war”
(Woodrow Wilson, 1914), fulfilling
a “duty to be a fighter for truth and
justice” (Adolf Hitler, 1922) or inaugu-
rating “an era of new hope” (George
W. Bush, 2002).
Hence, the viewers’ embarrass-
ment: modern civilizations haven’t
progressed much since Arthur’s
time. Indeed, the world has perhaps
become even more replete with ideal-
ism gone awry.
The dissonance between the
ye-olde-times-inspired script and
up-to-date scenery in Trinity Rep’s
production can get a bit confusing.
Arthur’s song about how it feels to be
hiding out in a tree the night before
his anxiety-provoking wedding, sung
from the top of a bunk bed, begs the
question, “Where is the aforemen-
tioned tree?”
Enter Guinevere, who ironically
stumbles upon this “tree” while es-
caping her impending marriage to
Arthur. Like any character originated
by Julie Andrews, Guinevere is hard
to like or relate to, especially when
portrayed by Rebecca Gibel as a self-
pitying bimbo with pretty voice and
a naive rebellious streak.
Resisting a queen’s traditional
role, Guinevere yearns for “The
Simple Joys of Maidenhood”: knights
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Friday, September 17, 2010
who “let their blood be spilt for me,”
the chance to “be on a pedestal” and
other typical maiden activities.
Perhaps 50 years ago, nostalgic
older women and hopeful single la-
dies could relate to these fantasies,
which now are painfully outdated.
Even Guinevere’s dream of total
privacy — the freedom to do every-
thing naked — turns into Arthur’s
anachronistic frat-boy fantasy. The
only ambition of hers that is worth
pursuing is to “be carried off” — off
the stage, one can only hope.
But she and Arthur are meant
for each other. He is not the most
charismatic character, either, and the
two share their ignorant hypotheses
on the lives of ordinary folks. In an as-
tounding feat of meta-reflection, the
two puzzle over the question, “What Courtesy of Marilyn Busch
Trinity Repertory Company’s ‘Camelot’ breaks the fourth wall.
Do the Simple Folk Do?” until they
conclude that simple folk must pass
their hours wondering about royalty. cryptic Merlyn (Mauro Hantman), a modern-day scenery and interactive
If King Arthur is the typical dim- fitting narrator with his captivating staging.
witted popular guy in high school, perspective on time and tortured Coming from somebody who has
Lancelot (Joe Wilson Jr.) is his jock relationship with a long-lost love; not seen other productions or the
best friend, who develops a secret the comical Pellinore, portrayed by film, Trinity Rep’s take on “Camelot”
affair with Guinevere and launches Barbara Meek as the Shakespear- makes some valid observations, like
the Round Table into war. Exchanges ean fool who actually knows what is the incongruity between noble ideas
between Guinevere and Lancelot in happening; and the candy-addicted and ignoble actions, and is entertain-
which they declare their love, includ- sorceress Morgan Le Fay, depicted ing enough. But “Camelot” appeals
ing the famous songs “If Ever Would with flair by Janice Duclos. to an older audience, and the music,
I Leave You” and “I Loved You Once Whether to go buy a ticket de- romance and humor extract their joy
in Silence,” prove that overexposure pends on one’s view of the script, from the nostalgia they invoke.
to love stories incites melodrama. which Trinity Rep’s production sticks “Camelot” is playing at Trinity Rep-
The highlights of the show are the to faithfully but complements with ertory Theatre now through Oct. 10.
World & Nation
The Brown Daily Herald

Friday, September 17, 2010 | Page 8

Recession sent millions into poverty, Census Bureau finds

By Tony Pugh
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The withering
recession pushed the number of
Americans who are living in poverty
to a 51-year high in 2009 and left a
record 50.7 million people without
health insurance last year, the Cen-
sus Bureau announced Thursday.
The 43.6 million Americans who
were poor in 2009 — up from 39.8
million the year before — was the
highest number since poverty esti-
mates were first published in 1959.
The national poverty rate of 14.3
percent, up from 13.2 percent in
2008, was the highest since 1994.
Were it not for federal interven-
tion in the form of extended unem-
ployment insurance benefits, 3.3 mil-
lion more people would have fallen
into poverty last year, said David
Johnson, the chief of the Census
Bureau’s division on housing and
household economics.
Massive job losses and work re-
ductions for hourly employees led
the number of uninsured Americans
to rise from 46.3 million people in
2008 to 50.7 million in 2009.
Most of that decline stemmed
from a loss in the percentage of
people who have private and job-
based coverage. The percentage
with job-based coverage fell from
58.5 percent in 2008 to 55.8 percent
last year, the lowest coverage rate
since 1987.
As more people lost jobs and
were unable to afford private cov-
erage, enrollment spiked in govern-
ment insurance programs such as
Medicaid and the Children’s Health
Insurance Program. In all, the num-
ber of people with government-spon-
sored coverage went from 87.4 mil-
lion in 2008 to 93.2 million last year.

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Editorial & Letters
The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Friday, September 17, 2010

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

Campus trash not just caused

by laziness
To the Editor:
As a Keeney Quadrangle ex-
resident/sur vivor, I read Deniz
Ilgen’s ’13 column (“Brown: clean
campus?” Sept. 8) with all too much
familiarity with the Keeney scum she
described, from dangling exit signs
with eviscerated wires to someone
passed out in the corridor in his
own vomit. My friends and I are
indeed offended by such inconsid-
erate slobs. Ilgen rightfully calls for
a thoughtful and observant approach
to property management. I, however,
seek more concrete solutions for
facilities maintenance.
I see students performing ori-
gami as they attempt to stuff take-out
boxes into the awkwardly shaped
cans outside before shrugging and
walking away from the mountains
of garbage. Clearly, they make an
effort to contain their trash, but
they physically cannot. This isn’t
an issue of not bothering; it’s one of
inadequate infrastructure. Likewise,
at the Gate and the new Blue Room,
plates and boxes are too large to fit
into mysterious countertop holes.
Thus, the University should rethink
the design and implementation of its
trash receptacles and their storage
capacity.
Sustainable Food Initiative and
Brown EcoReps already do impor-
tant innovative work in waste con-
trol, and I’m a big fan of the Sharpe
Refectory’s new trayless option. An-
other neat idea is providing rooms
with separate recycling buckets for
paper and plastic (or allowing inter-
ested students to pick up an extra
one) so that emptying recycling into
the appropriate larger bins doesn’t
require manually sorting through
old bottles and newspapers. Perhaps
we need to consider ashtrays, not
to promote smoking, but to reduce
litter from people who already and
will continue to smoke and would
otherwise flick their cigarette butts
to create a solid layer of debris (I’m
looking at you, Keeney heater). E rik S tayton and evan donahue
For all this trash-talking, there
will be individuals who just always
refuse to properly dispose of their d i a m o n d s a n d c oa l
refuse. But for those of us who aren’t
so persistently careless, the Univer-
sity must examine how to make it
easier — the desire is already there Coal to Ratty frankenfoods “French fusion taco sand- A diamond of confused admiration to Brown book-
— to keep our campus clean and wich” and “corn cobbets” — and a grateful diamond keeper Beppie Huidekoper, who told us, “There are a
beautiful, the way Brown should be, to the undergraduate population for removing them lot of buildings we are willing to name if you are willing
and so a little bit easier for our dedi- from the ecosystem. to give X.” That’s a bold move, Beppie, looking for illegal
cated custodians to do their jobs. drugs in our pages.
Cubic zirconium to Banner for eliminating long lines
Kathy Nguyen ’13 in U. Hall during shopping period. Because waking up A diamond to Sidney Frank ’42, who knows this Uni-
Sept. 9 at 8 a.m. to preregister is so much better. versity is built on booze money, not party drugs.

Diamond to Dahlia the dairy cow, who appeared Coal to the upstart RISD kids starting the online-only
t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d Wednesday on Wriston, for giving fraternity row some- newspaper they’re calling the All-Nighter. Unless we’re
Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Deputy Managing Editors Senior Editors thing wholesome to drink. Gets those cobbets out of mistaken, RISD is already served by an illustrious
George Miller Chaz Kelsh Emmy Liss Ben Hyman your system. publication: the College Hill ’Dependent.
Joanna Wohlmuth Seth Motel

editorial Business A diamond of encouragement to Marisa Quinn, vice A diamond to people who “don’t smoke but hold a ciga-
General Managers Office Manager
Anne Speyer Arts & Culture Editor president for public affairs and University relations, rette in their hands and feel better about themselves.”
Suzannah Weiss Arts & Culture Editor Claire Kiely Shawn Reilly
Sara Luxenberg Features Editor Katie Koh who said of social networking, “I’m 46 and don’t know Maybe the diamond will improve their self-esteem.
Brian Mastroianni Features Editor Directors how.” Don’t lie, we’ve seen you liking all of Ruth’s sta-
Brigitta Greene Metro Editor Kelly Wess Sales
Ben Schreckinger Metro Editor Matthew Burrows Finance
tuses. (P.S. Facebook suggests you should be friends Diamonds and Coal is written by Herald staffers. Share
Sydney Ember News Editor Margaret Watson Client Relations with our mom.) your own at diamondsandcoal.com.
Zack Bahr Sports Editor Christiana Stephenson Alumni Relations
Tony Bakshi Sports Editor Managers
Ashley McDonnell Asst. Sports Editor Isha Gulati Local Sales
Erika Mueller Asst. Sports Editor Arjun Vaidya Local Sales
Graphics & Photos Rajiv Iyengar National Sales
Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor Aditi Bhatia University Sales
Alex Yuly Graphics Editor Jared Davis University Sales
Stephanie London Photo Editor Trenten Nelson-Rivers Recruiter Sales
Max Monn Photo Editor Maximilian Barrows Business Operations
Hilary Rosenthal Photo Editor Jilyn Chao Business Analytics
Jonathan Bateman Sports Photo Editor Danielle Marshak Credit and Collections
Jesse Morgan Asst. Sports Photo Editor Alexander Carrere Special Projects
Production Kathy Bui Staff
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Opinions
The Brown Daily Herald
BY SUSANNAH KROEBER
Opinions Columnist
Cynicism runs rampant at Brown. We are
taught to question everything we hear in the
classroom, and we often turn this cynicism into
inaction, into a belief that the really big issues
are the ones we shouldn’t work on by virtue
of how monumental the problems facing us
are. Dr. Eboo Patel, in his talk on Wednesday
night in Salomon 101, offered an option based
on action, one directed specifically at students
here when he said, “I don’t think there is a
better place in America to implement this than
right here at Brown University.”
The “this” he was referring to was the doc-
trine of multifaith. He spoke to the students
gathered in Salomon 101 about what is at
stake, about “the cut of hate” that is deeper
now than at any point in recent American his-
tory. He rallied us with stories of “the forces
of inclusiveness,” of the Muslim community in
Gainesville, Fla., who responded to a threat of
Quran burning with an interfaith book drive.
Dr. Patel’s message was one of profound belief
in today’s youth to use the opportunity pre-
sented by the “forces of bigotry” to find the
common ground of shared values.
Interfaith is about “equal dignity and mu-
tual loyalty.” It is about finding the shared
stories, the shared beliefs, the shared fun-
damental principles that transcend personal
religious practice and are rooted in all of us
who believe in tolerance and an inclusive defi-
BY DENIZ ILGEN
Opinions Columnist
While Brown has been doing an excellent
job of renovating the campus by remodeling
the Blue Room and beginning construction
on the Metcalf Lab, it needs to seriously
consider refurbishing certain older dorms
around campus. Not ever yone enjoys wak-
ing up to scratched, dirty walls or viciously
beaten up desks and drawers.
Moving into dorms at the beginning of
each school year can be an unpleasant sur-
prise for some. Looking for ward to a single
this semester, Julia Metzger ’13 had high
hopes for her new residence in the Gradu-
ate Center. However, she was disappointed
when she entered her room to find shabby
furniture, peeling walls, and musty curtains.
Her suitemates were also in for a big sur-
prise when they encountered a bloodstained
mattress, splotches of unknown substances
on the bathroom door and a pair of dirty
under wear in the drawers.
Metzger also stated that her mother,
Brown alum Wendy Pollard ’81, noted that
the dorms look “exactly the same as they
did twenty years ago.” Not to be misunder-
stood as an admirable thing, this observation
is actually somewhat alarming; I’m sure
none of the students would be ecstatic to
discover they use decades-old furniture on
a daily basis.
Keeping up with the tradition of ancient,
America’s better angels
nition of what America is. Where I felt most
at fault, as if I personally hadn’t done enough
for these undeniably good forces, is when
Dr. Patel said, “The song of pluralism isn’t
being sung.”
Dr. Patel’s remarks were a rallying cry for
those in this community who have been look-
ing for someone with a positive message to-
wards progressive change in the social norms
of America. They were also searing. His words
remembered the promise of a generation be-
fore us, and asked us to find “a new version
Dr. Patel has challenged us to build from the
Cordoba House and Quran burning scandals,
saying that “America should never go through
the embarrassment that we’ve felt in the last two
months.”
of ‘never again’.”
He asked us to help rephrase the discourse
in society, to change from an “us versus
them” where the “them” means “Muslims,”
and instead substitute “extremists.” “The
extremists of all traditions belong to one tra-
dition: the tradition of extremism,” he said,
warning those assembled that those extrem-
ists will always show up prepared.
The challenge that Dr. Patel brings to the
Brown community is one of building a knowl-
edge base of interfaith understanding and
language. The biggest problem we face is that
Tradition: good or bad?
rustic buildings may seem like the right
thing to do in order to maintain Brown’s
status as a well established Ivy League in-
stitution. However, tradition isn’t always a
good thing, especially when it comes to liv-
ing conditions for students. Brown is aware
of this to some degree as shown by its work
on the Metcalf Lab, but its priorities need
to be rearranged slightly. Students deser ve
respectable housing conditions and should
be able to feel relaxed in their own rooms,
not alarmed by the decrepit states of the
buildings.
Students deserve respectable housing
conditions and should be able to feel relaxed in
their own rooms, not alarmed by the decrepit
states of the buildings.
Metzger “(loves) having a single, but
the walls are peeling off and the furniture
is extremely beat up.” She realizes that the
Grad Center is one of the older dorms and
recognizes the superior quality of the newer
dorms. Machado House, for example, is a
building in mint condition and even has air
conditioning; this is a colossal step ahead
of older buildings like Keeney Quad, which
has ancient furniture and heating systems
that leave the rooms too hot or too cold and
never in between.
Alex Forney ’13 recalls his personal ex-
FRIDay, SEPTEMBER 17, 2010 | Page 11
people don’t even know what interfaith means.
No one has a picture of what an “Interfaith”
America would look like.
In response to a question about how we
begin, Dr. Patel said, “This is about having
a conversation with your twelve-year-old
brother.” His challenge for youth is to start
putting words and examples and stories of a
new definition of what it is to be American — a
definition that is entirely inclusive.
In my last column, I worried about Ameri-
ca’s seeming desire to abdicate global leader-
ship in matters of religious freedom, especially
in regards to the Cordoba House, otherwise
known as Park51 or the so-called “ground-zero
mosque.” Rather than take a negative stance,
Dr. Patel has challenged us to build from the
Cordoba House and Quran burning scandals,
saying that “America should never go through
the embarrassment that we’ve felt in the last
two months.”
In my conversation with Dr. Patel, he told
me that a college campus is “a model for what
good looks like.” By creating a dialogue and
by teaching others the language of multifaith,
perience of living in an unusually cold room
his freshman year in Keeney. His old room,
a converted lounge, unfortunately had multi-
ple doors, one of them connecting straight to
the outdoors. This door caused an immense
temperature decrease in the room during
cold weather, which is all too frequent on
the East Coast. The main problem with this
situation was the fact that no extra measures
were taken to make sure the room was well
insulated; the only adjustment made was to
block off the door from the outside. Forney
shared, “My room was so poorly insulated
that I could seriously see my breath in my
room. People would come into my room
and then leave because it was so freezing.”
Allowing the students to put up with such
circumstances is not something I would
have thought Brown would do. It is under-
standable that the University can’t remodel
ever y altered building or spend the time
and money to renovate the entire campus,
but the fact that the Office of Residential
Life doesn’t even periodically check the
dorm rooms for habitability is astonishing.
As Forney pointed out, “how hard would it
maybe the media will realize they are “getting
played by terrorists” every time they show a
beheading on television. There couldn’t be
more at stake. We should be fighting to build
an America where no child of any religion is
taught that it is right and good to hate those
of other religions.
We can all agree on multiculturalism. At
Brown, we have the Third World Center and
programs during freshman orientation about
a dozen different kinds of plurality. Why can’t
we take the next step and embrace the idea of
a multifaith community, regardless of our level
of observance or lack of religion? Dr. Patel
told me of a Jewish and a Muslim student at
Wesleyan who realized that in both of their
faiths, fasting was about justice. They orga-
nized a multifaith school-wide fast where the
money that would have been spent on lunch
that day was donated to a food bank.
These small acts of coming together and in-
clusion are phenomenally simple. But enough
people choose the didactic path of extrem-
ism, and they have been entrenched in the
United States for so long, that the rest of the
population needs to counter them. We need
to abolish the religion line. We need to stop
watching as fundamental rights and values are
crushed by the smallest of minorities. Brown
students are not exempt.
Susannah Kroeber ’11 hopes that
next time an interfaith speaker
comes to Brown, the message
will be so familiar it will be almost
redundant information.
have been to put cement or dr ywall there?”
According to Metzger, “there’s even a
huge disparity between New Dorm and Grad
Center,” which comes as a surprise consid-
ering the buildings are across the street
from each other. Brown doesn’t necessarily
have to reconstruct the older buildings, of
course, but the least it could do is replace the
chipped, molding furniture or even repaint
the stained walls.
I feel that on the whole, students would
work better and be more productive if they
resided in places where they feel comfort-
able and at home rather than distracted by
their less than ideal surroundings. And, as
this is a university with a primar y goal of
promoting academic excellence, it should
be Brown’s duty to at least make an effort
to refurbish its dorms. As Metzger aptly
put it, “for so much money we live in such
run-down living conditions.”
I appreciate Brown’s solid attempt to
renovate the campus. The Blue Room and
Metcalf Lab were both in dire need of a
fixing up. However, I also feel that the Uni-
versity should allocate some time and money
to improving student dorms first. After all,
“home is where the heart is.”
Deniz Ilgen ’13 is a civil
engineering concentrator from
Los Gatos, California. She can be
reached at deniz_ilgen@brown.
edu
 Today
The Brown Daily Herald
1
c a l e n da r
Today, September 17
10 a.m. — “A Conversation With
Ludmila Ryba and Michal Kobialka
about the Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor,”
Pembroke Hall
12 p.m. — “Mesa de Conversacion,“
Sharpe Refectory, Dining Room 6
menu
Sharpe Refectory
Lunch — Parmesan and Herb
Pepperoni Pizza, Bulgur Stuffed
Pepper, Coconut and Ginger Rice
Dinner — Gnocchi with Arugula
and Spinach Pesto, Grilled Key West
Chicken, Baked Sweet Potatoes
crossword
3 New method in DNA sequencing to day to m o r r o w
5
Football kicks off its season this weekend
69 / 55
FRIDay, SEPTEMBER 17, 2010
71 / 56
Page 12
t h e n e w s i n i m ag e s
tomorrow, september 18
1 p.m. — “Exhibition: ‘Pictures from
the Hay: Celebrating the John Hay at
100,’” List Art Building
6
8 P.M. — “Production Workshop:
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot,”
T.F. Green
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
comics
Lunch — Zucchini, Carrot and Garlic Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman
Medley, Chicken Fingers, Rice Krispie
Treats
Dinner — Pollock Putanesca,
Golden Corn and Rice Casserole,
Spaghetti
Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline
Fruitopia | Andy Kim
The Adventures of Team Vag | Wendy Kwartin