Monday, November 25, 2002

Page 1

M O N D A Y NOVEMBER 25, 2002

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVII, No. 121

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891

www.browndailyherald.com

Kassam sisters will trek 350 mi. along Nile for charity

5 hired by local firm as college advising assistants

BY HANNAH BASCOM

BY AKSHAY KRISHNAN

Shereen and Zahara Kassam ’05 will participate this December in the “Bike For Aid” challenge in Egypt, trekking 350 miles along the Nile River to benefit international emergency aid. The sisters will be two of 100 participants biking for Focus Humanitarian Assistance, an international agency that provides relief and support following natural and man-made disasters abroad. They first heard about the trip from a family friend when they were in Canada for a wedding. “For two months, we thought about it. … Uh Egypt, 350 miles,” Zahara said. “We’re not hardcore bikers, but this program isn’t for hardcore bikers — it’s for people that want to do something good for the world,” Shereen added. The trip runs from Dec. 26 until Jan. 2 on a route from Luxor to Aswan. The route follows and criss-crosses the Nile River and includes a New Year’s Eve celebration near the Valley of the Kings. The bikers range in age from 18 to 65 and come from all across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

A college advising firm run by current and former Brown administrators recently hired five Brown undergraduates to join the company, which is located on College Hill. ConnectEdu hired Ty-Reese Foreman ’04, Shana Gotlieb ’05, Annie Steele ’04, Isaac Young ’03 and Ted Zimmerman ’05 to serve as campus peers and help the company’s clients, who are high school students applying to college. “At the heart of our company are the campus peers. I firmly believe no one knows college better than college kids. Students provide a better perspective than the editors of Princeton Review,” said ConnectEdu CEO Craig Powell ’01. “I believe it’s a college kid business and I want the campus peers to run the show.” Gotlieb told The Herald she joined ConnectEdu to help applicants tackle the “misconceptions” and “inequality” in the admission process. “Here at ConnectEdu, the focus is not to help students get into one specific school by teaching them specific tricks. It is more about focusing on the individual student by identifying their strengths and passions,” Gotlieb said. “In my mind, this is every college kid’s dream job.” Retiring Dean Joyce Reed ’61 founded ConnectEdu this year with former Director of the College Advising Program William Caskey ’85 and Powell. Reed, an associate dean of the college ran the Miekeljourn program for 30 years. Powell said he first thought about advising high school students on the college admission process and on how to best represent their credentials when he was a first-year at Brown. “I founded Ivy Tutors in March 1997. The whole admission process was still fresh in my mind and I figured I could help high school kids by sharing my own personal experience at the time,” Powell said. “In essence, ConnectEdu evolved from Ivy Tutors. We had our first meeting in the fall of 2001, became a legal entity in April 2002 and got our first client in June.” ConnectEdu employs 60 students from 20 different colleges nationwide as campus peers for its student clients. “We’re expanding nationwide and we use new technologies like interactive messaging and video conferencing to enable our campus peers to be in touch with the students they mentor,” Powell said. Zimmerman said his background in the college admission advising process, like Powell’s, stems from involvement in Ivy Tutors. “I enjoyed the process of helping kids with their SATs, essays and physics even,” he said. At ConnectEdu, Zimmerman spends six

see NILE, page 6

U. staffer wins ‘Unsung Hero’ award for service to community

Beth Farnstrom / Herald

Amrita Mallik ’03 co-starred Sunday night in Tennessee Williams’“Summer and Smoke,” performed in Leung Gallery in Faunce House.The play was produced by Dead White Men, a new performance group that hopes to bring more dramatic works of great literature to the attention of Brown students.

BY ZOE RIPPLE

Robert LaVigne, manager of facilities management, won an “Unsung Hero” award from the local chapter of Rebuilding Together with Christmas in April for his work repairing low income families’ homes. LaVigne received the award on June 7 for his dedication to the organization for the past nine years. Rebuilding Together with Christmas in April repairs houses of low income families, disabled or single mothers and elderly people, LaVigne said. These people are “no less deserving” of a safe, well-maintained home than anyone else, he said. Rebuilding Together also repairs buildings owned by nonprofit organizations, like the YMCA. For the past nine years, LaVigne served as a House Captain, working with homeowners and securing materials to work with a Volunteer Coordinator and to organize people who want to help rebuild

For magic, escape, New Englanders flock to local gaming arcade BY JESSICA TOOKER

About 20 residents from throughout New England spend their Saturday afternoons in downtown Providence, casting spells, engaging in violent hand-to-hand combat and attacking each other’s fortresses. But no one gets hurt. For these area “gamers,” a weekly trip to Providence’s Gamekeeper store provides hours of good clean gaming fun. Located on the second floor of the downtown Arcade, the Gamekeeper provides customers with both a wide variety of merchandise and an adjoining room where “gamers” can challenge each other and put their skills to the test. The store is stocked with every kind of game, ranging from La Citta, a Renaissance board game of city building, to Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying manuals. The Gamekeeper ships its products worldwide, and the store only stocks non-computer orient-

ed games that promote interaction between players. “Deal with people, it’s a lot more fun,” said storeowner Larry Whalen. Customers are encouraged to bring their own games from home or to test out their new purchases next door, where rows of tables await, complete with handmade game board tops. Best of all, say visitors, there’s no membership fee. “All you’re required to do is show up — any game a person wants to bring down and play is fine,” Whalen said. Competitions are held each Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Loyal gamers hailing not only from Rhode Island, but also from neighboring states, and ranging in age from pre-adolescent to middle aged, arrive throughout the day and settle down to play with old friends and newcomers. “It’s like a big, dysfunctional family,” see ARCADE, page 4

see LAVIGNE, page 6

see CONNECT, page 4

I N S I D E M O N D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 0 2 Screening of ‘La Operación’ lends insight to medically induced sterilization page 3

MEZCLA dance show lives up to the hype with stirring weekend performance page 3

The Herald names new editorial, business leadership for 2003 page 5

TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Michael Rader ’95 says Israel should not return to its 1967 borders guest column, page 11

The Herald brings out all the insider information for this year’s holiday season rush special section, inside

partly cloudy high 47 low 32


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Monday, November 25, 2002 by The Brown Daily Herald - Issuu