Thursday, October 16, 2003

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T H U R S D A Y OCTOBER 16, 2003

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVIII, No. 93

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891

U. ranks high in “flawed” Atlantic ratings

Speaker marks “Love Your Body Day” BY MONIQUE MENESES

There were vulva puppets, Hershey’s Kisses and tables full of condoms, but the climax of Wednesday’s fifth annual “Love Your Body” day came at noon, when a female streaker ran a 10second loop around the Main Green. “It’s fall, it’s ‘Love Your Body Day,’ and there are many things to celebrate,” the streaker — who said she would like to be known as “Legs and Eggs” — told The Herald. Students passing through the Green Wednesday could stop by some 11 booths to find out about the different organizations, learn more about sexual awareness and pick up free candy or condoms. The event was co-sponsored by Brown Health Services, Students for Choice and Women Students at Brown. “Love Your Body Day” was pioneered by the National Organization for Women in the hopes of providing a way to combat negative images of women in cigarette advertisements. Brown has taken this idea and tried to make it more inclusive over the past years, promoting “Love A Body” rather than “Love A Woman’s Body” day, said Emilee Pressman ’05, one of the coordinators of Love Your Body Day and a member of Students for Choice. The fair’s ultimate success was the dialogue it initiated between health educators, whether peer or professional, and students, Pressman said. “The main point was that we had people talking about sexual and self-awareness and that was see BODY, page 7

www.browndailyherald.com

BY JOANNE PARK

Sara Perkins / Herald

To resolve controversy over the listserv in the future, UCS President Rahim Kurji ’05 said,“Instead of allowing general e-mails from specific student groups, we should include information from such groups as bullets in our weekly e-mails.”

UCS resolves listserv debate BY SHEELA RAMAN

After considerable debate, the Undergraduate Council of Students voted Wednesday night to send a campus-wide e-mail on behalf of conservatives and classical liberals at Brown. This marks the second time the Council has granted a student group access to the campus-wide e-mail listserv. Earlier this semester, UCS allowed the Queer Alliance to use its listserv to announce National Coming Out Day activities and solicit support for an advertisement in The Herald supporting the LGBT community. The e-mail, approved last night and sent an hour after the meeting, informed the student body of upcoming con-

servative-sponsored events on campus, including an Oct. 22 lecture by commentator David Horowitz. Although the UCS Communications Committee changed the text of the e-mail from what was originally proposed by Eric Neuman ’04, president of Classical Liberals and Conservatives at Brown, before it submitted it for general council review, other members of UCS still considered the text inappropriate. A major point of contention was the reference to Oct. 18 as “Brown Classical Liberal and Conservative Pride Day.” Using the word “pride” irked some members of the Council, saying it could be seen as a mockery of gay and lesbian pride promoted in the Queer

Alliance’s e-mail, especially because the new e-mail would project conservative views. Sonia Gupta ’06 motioned successfully to remove the word from the text. Some representatives said UCS should not be so lenient in allowing student organizations to access the campus listserv. They said, although it was important to give the Queer Alliance publicity in light of recent hate crimes on campus, the conservative groups are not in such a dire situation. Other members protested giving out the listserv in general. Of last night’s proposal, UCS Secretary Joel Payne ’05 said, “We went down a slipsee UCS, page 9

U.S. Postal Service cutbacks inconvenience students at Brown BY EMIR SENTURK

Sara Perkins / Herald

Students who want to send mail through the United States Postal Service office in Faunce House face a new and inconvenient schedule this year as a result of a recent USPS cutback in the number of workers from two to one. According to University Mail Services, due to the relatively lower traffic over the summer, there is usually only one USPS worker in Faunce House during the summer months. By September, a second worker is normally brought in. In the past, one worker would work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the other from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Each worker would receive a break from noon to 1:30 p.m. The management office of the USPS cut back the number of workers this year “in response to an analysis of customer traffic that showed that needs could be met with one clerk and that there was alternate service very close by,” said USPS spokesperson Christine

A cutback at the United States Postal Service office in Faunce House has left the office with only one worker and shortened hours.

According to the November issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Brown is the ninth most selective college in the country, eight places higher than the University fared in the U.S. News and World Report rankings released in September. But by The Atlantic’s own admission, the magazine’s ranking system — as well as that of U.S. News and World Report and most other college lists — reveals more about what’s wrong with ranking systems than which schools are the nation’s best. That a school’s selectivity alone will make it more desirable is a damaging concept in the college admission process that should be reconsidered, said James Fallow, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. The Atlantic’s system should not be viewed as a new set of rankings like the one published annually by the U.S. News, Fallow said. “There’s been all this mania about selectivity as being the only thing that counts,” Fallow said. “The purpose was to show the idea that things are desirable just because they’re scarce. We were trying to concentrate on how selectivity has gone nuts as the only thing people care about.” But The Atlantic’s anti-rankings may already be part of the system the magazine was trying to bring down. A New York Times article that compared The Atlantic’s experimental ranking to the yearly U.S. News college rankings was a “misrepresentation,” Fallow said. “We naturally were amused that this issue was taken as being a new ranking system. No reasonable person could look at it and see it that way,” he said. Although the issue was not aimed at U.S. News, Fallow said The Atlantic was attempting to reinforce the notion that students should shy away from a “status system” that emphasized selectivity and prestige, often to the exclusion of other factors. Fallow said the U.S. News college rankings provided helpful “sources of data that students can use to compare” colleges. On the other hand, the rankings gave the idea that “one school is better

see MAILROOM, page 8 see ATLANTIC, page 8

I N S I D E T H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 1 6 , 2 0 0 3 New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast RISD ’77 discusses making a living drawing cartoons risd news, page 3

Common spaces become student gallery space for rising artists risd news, page 3

Students should be smarter about twowheel safety, says Rachel Marshall ’04 column, page 15

TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Field hockey shuts out Columbia, 1-0, and Fairfield, 3-1, in last week of play sports, page 15

W. cross country win New England Championships for first time sports, page 16

sunny high 61 low 42


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Thursday, October 16, 2003 by The Brown Daily Herald - Issuu