T U E S D A Y FEBRUARY 15, 2005
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXL, No. 15
www.browndailyherald.com
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
CALLING THE SHOTS Proliferation of liquor licenses on Thayer St. has neighbors feeling unpleasantly buzzed METRO
VEGGIE SALES Hill ’04 and friends roll out the local-produce-lover’s answer to eBay 3
CAMPUS NEWS
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STICKER POINT Brian Schmaltzbach ’07 gives the Georgia evolution sticker a second look — and likes what he sees O P I N I O N S 11
TODAY
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UCS voting referendum begins today BY JONATHAN SIDHU STAFF WRITER
Beginning today, all undergraduates may vote in an Undergraduate Council of Students referendum to change the voting procedure for electing executive board members to an instant runoff voting system. The vote to accept or reject the constitutionally mandated referendum will be available on WebCT from Tuesday at noon until noon Friday. The Elections Review Commission, an independent body created last semester to reassess UCS election procedures, endorsed the recommendation. Charley Cummings ’06, vice president of UCS and chair of the ERC, told The Herald that IRV is one of many planned reforms addressing a broad range of election-related topics, including financial and endorsement processes. “In our constitution it calls for a runoff election between the top two candidates,” Cummings said. “In the past four elections, one candidate has not received a majority (in the first round),” he said. In those years, candidates were shown only the percentages that each candidate earned without knowing which candidate had the largest percentage and asked if they accepted the results. “In every year except for last year, the candidates accepted the results as final without knowing which candidate had won,” Cummings said. Last year, the presidential race went to a runoff. According to the statement placed by UCS on the WebCT voting page, “IRV essentially eliminates the need for a runoff election by asking voters to rank the candidates instead of vote for a single one.”
The system would implement a preferential voting system. When voting, students would rank candidates instead of casting one vote for their favorite. At the end of the election, the votes for the student who got the least number of firstchoice votes would be redistributed to other candidates based on those voters’ second choices until one candidate won a majority. “The change will basically be that now
instead of winning by just plurality, people will rank their choices. That way you don’t have to go to through the whole process of a runoff,” said Joel Payne ’05, UCS president. “It sounds more complicated than it actually is.” The referendum comes amidst controversy that last year’s election results were skewed by holding a runoff election with a see UCS, page 9
ence. “We’re very pleased with how smoothly the rollout went,” Birdsall said. “We think it’s going to make a huge difference on campus” in fighting spam. — Ben Leubsdorf
see ROTC, page 4
LOVE IS IN THE CLEAN AIR
Juliana Wu / Herald
Brown Environmental Action Network member Emily Benjamin ’08 asked students passing by the main green to donate $1 in support of clean energy and send a valentine to President Ruth Simmons asking the University to make use of renewable energy sources.
spam quarantine digest this morning, deleting it after “glancing” over the email subject lines within. She said she expects most students to simply delete the digest each day, calling it the “normal reaction” for students who have “figured out” how to deal with spam by experi-
Editorial: 401.351.3372 Business: 401.351.3269
BY AIDAN LEVY STAFF WRITER
The Reserve Officers Training Corps, abolished during the Vietnam War throughout most of the Ivy League, is sparking renewed controversy on several campuses over whether to reestablish their programs. But at Brown, the issue only persists through some limited student interest. At Yale University, a Republican student organization hopes to get 2,000 student signatures in support of ROTC, the Yale Daily News reported. Harvard and Columbia groups have also mounted substantial campaigns, with the Columbia newspaper appealing for the reestablishment of ROTC and former defense secretary and Harvard alum Caspar Weinberger getting involved in the push to bring the program back. Buttressed by the Pentagon’s recent recommendation that Ivy League institutions investigate the possibility of reinstating ROTC, student and alumni groups are mobilized to demonstrate the necessity of a change. “If there are groundswells forming (at Brown), we’re not aware of them,” said Carol Cohen, associate dean of the college and coordinator for ROTC. Yet Brian McGuirk ’06 asked about the possibility of reviving ROTC during the question-and-answer session at the Feb. 1 Spring Semester Opening Address two weeks ago. “People at Brown are the type of people who should be filling the military in large numbers,” McGuirk said. “I think the military is an institution we should be dedicated to repair and bring into the 21st century.”
New system blocks 90,000 spam e-mails in first 24 hours Brown University woke up to cleaner inboxes Monday morning. Computing and Information Services rolled out the new anti-spam system Proofpoint Monday. Proofpoint quarantines suspected spam messages and prevents them from reaching e-mail users’ inboxes while sending users a digest of those e-mails. “Overall, it’s going very well,” said Nancy Magers, a manager at CIS. The quarantine mechanism was activated Sunday at noon, and the first round of daily quarantine digests was sent out by midday Monday. In its first 24 hours of operation, Proofpoint stopped 90,000 spam e-mails sent to 8,378 users on campus, for a total of 447 MB of e-mail storage saved, Magers said. CIS had originally intended to roll out Proofpoint March 1 but sped up its efforts in recent weeks to bring it out earlier, The Herald reported last month. “We’ve been getting a lot of great feedback from faculty and staff,” said Stephanie Birdsall, lead communication specialist at CIS. Those users reported a “significant drop” in the number of spam e-mails received, she said. While no students had yet given feedback to CIS, Birdsall said she had noticed a positive discussion of the new system on the Brown Daily Jolt forum. “We like that one,” she said. Yvonne Wang ’07 said she received the
Interest in ROTC minimal at Brown despite debate at other Ivies
Faculty fellows, community directors offer adult presence in dorms BY ERIC BECK SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Students may feel as though they are surrounded only by their peers in residential halls, but someone older is usually only steps away. The University’s faculty fellows and community directors programs are designed to integrate adults into student life and ensure that they are available to help students. Through the faculty fellows program, professors living in University-owned properties on campus are available to students for conversation, advice or a break from studying. “We are not trying to give Brown students more to do — we are trying to give them better things to do,” said Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry J. William Suggs, who is the faculty fellow for Keeney
Quadrangle. Suggs said weekly study breaks can feature special topics such as summer internships, visits by representatives of campus resources such as the Chaplain’s Office, guest speakers or simply conversation. In the past, the Hewlett Foundation and the Office of the Dean of the College have funded special faculty fellow programs to promote diversity, such as a trip to the Black Repertory Theater, Suggs said, adding that the Dean of the College continues to fund special events. About seven or eight speakers are being considered for this semester, he said. Suggs said one of the challenges of planning events is balancing the desire to offer something intellectual with students’ desire to relax.
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“Students are intellectual enough from nine-to-five, so in the evenings they just want to kick back, relax and have fun,” he said. Stephen Foley ’74 P’04 P’07, associate professor of English, said he and his wife Mary Jo ’75 GS’99 P’04 P’07 wanted to be faculty fellows after their experiences as undergraduates. He is the faculty fellow for east campus, encompassing Perkins Hall, Young Orchard and Barbour Hall and Apartments. “As students, we enjoyed that kind of community programming. … It seemed like a good way to get involved in student life, and my wife and I, as alumni, thought it was a natural for us,” Foley said. Foley said his weekly study breaks see DORMS, page 9 News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com