W E D N E S D A Y DECEMBER 3, 2003
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVIII, No. 122
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
www.browndailyherald.com
“Cranky” artist creates activist cards BY MERYL ROTHSTEIN
President George W. Bush makes Kath Connolly ’89 cranky. And 8,000 people around the country are about to learn just how cranky she is when they open their holiday mail this year. Last summer, she founded Card Carrying Liberal, a political card company with a brazenly liberal agenda, said Connolly, who is also senior assistant director at the Swearer Center. Her premiere line of holiday cards combines traditional season’s greetings with anti-Bush sentiments. One card reads “trim the tree/uproot the Bush.” Another displays the message “Dreaming of an old-fashioned White Christmas” on the front, but “and a new White House” on the inside. After yelling at her newspaper all summer long, Connolly said she decided to channel her frustration by adapting her tradition of sending homemade cards to friends and family into a political statement. “I felt that it was going to be difficult to give a usual message of peace given all the things that are happening in the world,” she said. She said she wanted to capitalize on people’s habits of sending cards to voice a message of protest. “What if those messages also pointed out that this would be a great time to vote for someone else?” she said. Connolly said she thinks of Card Carrying Liberal as a “broad grassroots program that paid for itself,” although it is, in fact, a private company. “I thought it would be a more elegant commentary if this protest … took the form of a private company,” she said. And, “I thought it made the joke even funnier.” She donates half of the profit to charities determined by votes customers place at the end of their order. Connolly said the company is currently breaking even, but her cards are top-sellers at Okiedokie, a Providence gift shop, according to the store’s owner, Johanna Fisher. But this is not how she measures success, Connolly said.
Marshall Agnew / Herald
Vice President for Administration Walter Hunter and Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene spoke to a group of seven at a forum responding to the decision to arm campus police Tuesday night.
Times article misleading, financial aid directors say BY KIRA LESLEY
Private universities with the wealthiest student bases receive a larger share of government funding for financial aid, the New York Times recently reported. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story, according to financial aid directors at local colleges. Some of this discrepancy is due to the fact that schools with wealthier student bases also tend to have higher tuition, said Michael Bartini, director of financial aid at Brown. Although the Times article points out that some expensive schools, such as Sarah Lawrence College, receive less federal money than other schools with comparable tuition, Bartini said the
see CARDS, page 8
difference might be attributable to schools’ abilities to document their need. A computerized system that determines financial aid allocations was devised in the 1970s, said Herbert D’Arcy, executive director of financial aid at Providence College. Up to that point, distribution of government funds was determined manually and the process was subject to regional number fudging, he said. Under the new automated system, the government gleaned information from individual university databases. “Those who had good databases 20 see AID, page 7
Applications jump with new policy at Stanford, Yale BY ROBBIE COREY-BOULET
Three of the nation’s top colleges that defied admission regulations to institute single-choice early action policies saw big changes in the number of students applying this year. Harvard University, CAMPUS Stanford University and Yale University all adopted WATCH early action policies this year that prohibit college applicants from applying early to other schools, but not from applying elsewhere even after they are accepted. Last year, Harvard’s early action program permitted students to apply simultaneously to multiple early action
schools. But now Harvard early applicants may not submit any other early applications, although they are not committed to matriculate at Harvard if accepted. The change has caused a significant drop in early applications to the Harvard Class of 2008, with the number of applicants falling from 7,615 last year to 3,894 this year. At Stanford and Yale, the new policy replaced binding early decision policies, bringing a 62 percent increase in applications to Stanford and a 42 percent increase to Yale, according to the New York Times. Harvard expected the policy change to
decrease its applicant pool. “The people who were applying to multiple other places are no longer in our early system,” said Harvard Director of Undergraduate Admission Marlyn McGrath Lewis. “So the number of applications has declined to just about where we expected it to.” For Stanford and Yale, the change to single-choice early action marks the end of binding early decision policies at both schools, resulting in an increased early applicant pool for this year. The possibility for single-choice early action at Brown is “certainly something that we’re talking about,” said Director of
Admins. clarify DPS arming at poorly attended meeting BY SARA PERKINS
The decision to arm campus police was reached after careful consideration of community concerns, administrators told the seven students who attended a forum on arming in Starr Auditorium on Tuesday evening. At the event, students aired concerns to Vice President for Administration Walter Hunter and Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene, including the fact that city officials such as Mayor David Cicilline ’83 and Ward One Councilman David Segal are opposed to the move. Most of the questions were aimed at the process of making the decision and asked for specific information about why there was a need for officers to be armed. Hunter listed three situations in which the Department of Public Safety’s policy of disengagement had prevented an officer from acting effectively and where armed police officers could have acted more effectively, without necessarily even drawing their weapons. These included an incident in which a Brown officer had interrupted an attempted rape but had to be called off from pursuing the man when the department learned the suspect was armed. “There have been at least 10 situations in the last 10 years” when armed officers could have acted, Hunter said. Of particular issue was the Brown Police’s inability to make car stops because they are unarmed. Hunter referred to an
see APPS, page 8 see ARMING, page 5
I N S I D E W E D N E S D AY, D E C E M B E R 3 , 2 0 0 3 New campus journal published with “big name,” as well as student authors campus news, page 3
Nate Goralnik ’06 says “liberal antiwar nuts” do not represent the Democratic Party column, page 11
Marc Lanza ’06 picks NBA early season surprises, as well as what we all expected sports column, page 12
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T W. basketball loses four straight games in recent play, bringing overall record to 1-4 sports, page 12
Wrestling pins down an impressive fourthplace finish at the Keystone Classic sports, page 12
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