Monday, October 28, 2002

Page 1

M O N D A Y OCTOBER 28, 2002

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVII, No. 100

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891

www.browndailyherald.com

Simmons outlines future plans for parents BY OLIVER BOWERS

President Ruth Simmons outlined the University’s plans for the remainder of the year and beyond to a tent packed with parents and students yesterday in her concluding Parents Weekend address. Simmons described Brown’s planned hiring of 100 new faculty members over the next four years, an addition that would swell course offerings by about 90 classes while shrinking current class sizes and opening a slue of new research opportunities. She also cited improved compensation for new professors and additional efforts to attract competent faculty. Tackling security, Simmons spoke frankly, deeming the judgment of whether to arm Brown Police officers, “probably the most difficult thing I’ve had to do as a leader” at Brown. “But I will do whatever I have to do to ensure the safety of this community” she said. Brown Police Chief Col. Paul Verrecchia and Vice President for Administration Walter Hunter joined see PARENTS, page 4

Cornell grads reject union in overwhelming numbers BY BRIAN BASKIN

While the results of Brown’s graduate student unionization vote remain sealed, Cornell University graduate students emphatically rejected a plan Thursday for teaching and research assistants to join the United Auto Workers. Of the 2,043 students who voted on Oct. 23 and 24, 1,351 were against unionization and 580 in favor. Only 275 of 2,318 eligible students failed to vote. Had the graduate students voted to unionize, they would have been the second private university to do so after New York University. Instead, the Cornell Association of Student Employees / United Auto Workers will have to wait a year before bringing unionization to a vote again. Though the final vote was a landslide victory for anti-union student group At What Cost, co-founder Allen MacKenzie said even on the day of the vote neither side was sure who would win. “We were extremely surprised by the margin of victory,” said MacKenzie, a graduate research assistant in engineering. Many students who voted against unionization took issue with the national

Photo courtesy of Anya Goldstein and Josina Shields-Stromsness

Isabelle Zuagg ’06, left, Sharon Mulligan ’05, center, and Andres Luco ’03, right, were among the Brown students who traveled to Washington, D.C., this weekend to join over 100,000 people who turned out to protest the potential war in Iraq.

In D.C., students protest war Students joined over 100,000 protestors to voice their opposition to a U.S. invasion of Iraq BY BRIAN BASKIN

A busload of Brown undergraduates joined over 100,000 protesters in Washington, D.C., Saturday to voice their opposition to a potential U.S. military invasion of Iraq. Riana Good ’03 was among over 50 Brown students to attend a three-hour rally at Constitution Gardens near the Vietnam War Memorial and then march around the White House. “Everyone from ‘Vermonsters for Peace’ to ‘Arizona Says No to War’ and everyone in between,” was there, Good said. At Constitution Gardens, protesters heard from Jesse Jackson, The Rev. Al Sharpton, actress Susan Sarandon, ice cream entrepreneurs Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and other speakers. Cohen listed programs and services that could be funded with half the money that might be designated for war, said Anya Goldstein ’05. “It was inspiring, invigorating to be around so many people who are there for a lot of the same reasons you’re

there,” said Josina Shields-Stromsness ’05. The crowd appeared at its largest after the rally when marchers walked down the streets surrounding the White House, Good said. Marchers circled back to the rally point and met thousands more who were just starting the loop, she said. The sheer number of protesters was the strongest message of all, Good said. “In a way, this was being looked towards as a gauging of public sentiment, and I don’t think this even began to represent the population who are questioning the war,” Good said. Saturday’s gathering was the first large-scale peace protest since 75,000 dissenters met in D.C. in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War. Protestors held a sister march in San Francisco Saturday that drew thousands, while protesters also converged in Rome, Berlin, Copenhagen, Denmark, Tokyo and Mexico City. Good compared the protest to similar events at the height of the Vietnam War that drew as many as 500,000 people in 1969, with one key difference — this protest was the first of its kind to be held at the threat of war rather than after an invasion had begun. “Here is a protest that comes even before the body bags of the U.S. soldiers are coming home,” she said. The crowd was also more diverse — “Soccer Moms Against the War” rallied

with the “Raging Grannies” and the “Party for Perma-War,” whose neon wigs spoke to their motto — “an absurd response to an absurd war.” About 100 counter-protesters gathered at 17th Street and Constitution Avenue. Composed of members of Free Republic and a group of Iraqi exiles, they chanted slogans against Saddam Hussein. “Most of these people across the street, they don’t know the reality in Iraq,” Imam Husham Al-Husainy told The Washington Post. Al-Husainy brought 40 Iraqis from the Detroit area to show how the Iraqi people had suffered under Hussein. In the only arrests that day related to the protest, police broke up a scuffle between protesters and counter-protesters. Three were taken away. During the demonstrations against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank during their annual meetings in D.C. in September, police arrested more than 600 people. At one point Saturday, a group sat in the middle of a street and played “duck duck Bush.” Police officers watching nearby seemed to get a kick out of the game, exemplifying the positive relationship between police and protesters, Good said. Herald staff writer Brian Baskin ’04 can be reached at bbaskin@browndailyherald.com.

see CORNELL, page 4

I N S I D E M O N D AY, O C T O B E R 2 8 , 2 0 0 2 Wind symphony incorporates Burmese music into energetic Saturday concert page 3

Parents Weekend dance concert showcases six dance, two musical pieces page 3

The East Side’s reclusive Hope Club offers privacy, dining, discussion to members page 5

TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Adam Stern ’06 says college-age men fall into one of five distinct categories column, page 11

Football loses another game, this time to Cornell, and falls to 0-6 sports, page 28

partly cloudy high 52 low 31


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