W E D N E S D A Y DECEMBER 4, 2002
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVII, No. 124
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
Students raise concerns over Brown Police accountability
Administrators’ lottery reform plan draws criticism from ResCouncil
BY ELENA LESLEY
As the debate over arming the Brown Police continues, some students are raising questions about the University’s current regulations governing police accountability. Because the Department of Security is technically an office of the University, it is not required to release police reports to the public, said Director of the Brown News Service Mark Nickel. Municipal forces like the Providence Police Department are required by state law to make such information public, he said. “The Brown police force is a private security force, but it’s trying to defend public safety,” said Doreen Wang ’05, a member of Third World ACTION who works on the campaign against arming DPS officers. “This seems like a contradiction to me. How can they defend public safety if not everything is open to the public?” Members of twA discussed this issue in detail and expressed their concerns to President Ruth Simmons, Wang said. Although DPS doesn’t have to release records, it is required by federal law to report crime statistics because the University receives federal funding, Nickel said. Each year, the University files a campus crime report that is available on the Internet. DPS also releases summaries of incidents. “If there’s a situation where members of the campus should know,” Nickel said.
BY MOMOKO HIROSE AND AMY RUDDLE
Seth Kerschner / Herald
LONELY MR. SNOWMAN The Main Green was empty Tuesday as temperatures hit the teens. Students stayed indoors leaving one lonely snowman out in the cold.
see DPS, page 4
ResLife restricts off-campus permission to make up for impending budget shortfall Juniors returning next semester from leave, study abroad, will be most affected in ResLife’s effort to fill beds and recoup losses BY JULIETTE WALLACK
A large number of empty beds this semester left the Office of Residential Life facing a budget shortage and is forcing administrators to restrict off-campus permission in an effort to make up for the shortfall. Director of Residential Life Donald Desrochers said ResLife is short approximately $600,000 to $800,000 of its $23.5 million budget. A high rate of vacancies caused the shortage, said both Desrochers and Margaret Jablonski, dean for campus life. Each year, about 1.5 percent of beds in University residence halls are vacant. This year, more than that were unoccupied for several reasons: the decision to open Minden Hall, a change to how the University counts overflow space and the move to grant more than 300 rising juniors off-campus privileges, Desrochers said. Every vacancy leaves ResLife short about $5,000, so an unexpectedly high number of unoccupied beds can result in a sizeable amount of lost income, he said. Desrochers and Jablonski said the problem can be alleviated for the next academic year by not granting as many rising juniors permission to live off campus. “We need to go back to being extremely conservative in terms of allowing (rising) juniors to go off campus,” Jablonski said. During this academic year, “those students returning from study abroad or leaves” will not be granted off-campus permission, she said. Students affected by this will receive
letters this week. Desrochers said a large part of the empty bed quandary resulted from his office granting off-campus permission to about 300 juniors. In previous years, only 100 to 200 juniors received permission to live off campus. In an effort to alleviate the problem, decisions to allow rising juniors to live off campus will now be made later in the year when the University has a better idea of how many empty beds to expect, he said. “We will notify juniors as soon as possible” whether they were granted permission to live off campus, but that will likely be later in the spring than it has been in recent years, Desrochers said. The office also will be “tightening our procedures, timelines,” Jablonski said. “Deadlines will be adhered to in the future.” But Desrochers said attempts to alleviate the budget shortage are not related to possible cutbacks in the numbers of students working each shift at Residential Life. He said right now, two or three students cover each shift in the office, but it is a common practice to reevaluate the need for student workers at this point in the year. His office often hires extra workers at the beginning of the semester and then must examine its needs later in the year. Often, as many hours from student employees may not be as needed later in the semester, Desrochers said. Instead of using workforce cutbacks to alleviate the shortage, the Office of Campus Life and Student Services will provide funds to make up for ResLife’s deficit. Plans to cover ResLife’s budget shortage include asking the offices overseen by Campus Life and Student Services to “try to contribute as much as they can to the central campus life” budget, said Vice President of Campus Life and Student
Disregarding a Residential Council proposal to reform the housing lottery, administrators proposed their own plan to reform the lottery Tuesday despite unanimous oppositon by ResCouncil. ResCouncil members contend the proposal proposed by administrators in the Office of Campus Life inadequately responds to students’ problems with the lottery system, inconveniences underclassmen and limits housing options. “We feel that this process would seriously alter the lottery system for the worse, especially for rising sophomores,” said Evan Metcalfe ’03, a ResCouncil member. The Office of Campus Life plan would combine the last two segments of the lottery—segment 5, which consists of mostly doubles and singles, and the 5/7 person lottery, which is mostly suites in Grad Center. This proposal is tentative and is subject to review by ResCouncil and administrators in the Office of Residential Life, said Dean for Campus Life Margaret Jablonski. She said the plan aims to shorten the lottery process and alleviate administrative stress. “The general idea is to finish the process before spring break,” she said. ResCouncil member Jesse Goodman ’04 said the plan removes much of the flexibility in housing choices, making it riskier for sophomores to enter as a suite. “It’s adding a lot of sophomore stress for what I see is a very limited gain of not knowing what house you’re going to be in over one week of spring break,” he said. Metcalfe said he conducted an informal survey of sophomores at the beginning of the 2002 school year. When sophomores were asked to list their concerns with the housing lottery, the length of time the lottery took ranked least important, behind other problems like having to restructure groups from one segment to the next. Of the 95 students who responded, most said they like the current length of the housing lottery because it allowed time to fully research housing options, said Michael Blitstein ’03, also a ResCouncil member. Goodman said the Campus Life’s new proposal seems see RESCOUNCIL, page 4
URC considers budget requests The University Resources Committee entered into deliberations over the 2003-04 budget Monday. The committee will consider the budget requests that it received over the semester, as well as student fees and tuition. The meeting was closed to the media and to members of the Brown community. Committee members and administrators declined to release information regarding URC’s meeting. The specifics of the deliberations are confidential, Associate Professor of Community Health Kay Dickersin, a URC member, told The Herald. The URC’s recommendations will be posted on the Provost Web site when the committee releases the recommendations to President Ruth Simmons, Assistant Provost Brian Casey told The Herald. He said he expects the committee’s report to be finished in mid-January. Deliberations will continue through December and into
see BUDGET, page 9
I N S I D E W E D N E S D AY, D E C E M B E R 4 , 2 0 0 2 Arming police could take up to two years once a decision is reached page 3
It might not be such slim pickings for the Dems in 2004, says Joshua Skolnick ’04 column, page 11
www.browndailyherald.com
Cate Oswald ’04 says the U.S. should reevaluate its AIDS strategy column, page 11
see URC, page 4
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Disco inferno captures championship and brings home a large trophy sports, page 12
Big Ten surprises with the strongest conference in college football, says Luke Meier ’04 sports column, page 12
mostly sunny high 31 low 23