THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2006
Volume CXLI, No. 7
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An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
GOD IS MY ADVISOR Post- takes a look at Christian students on campus and concludes: they’re not your mom’s evangelicals INSIDE
MONEY HONEY The latest FEC reports show R.I. candidates from Laffey to Lawless are depending on loans METRO 3
A SMASHING GOOD TIME The crime log proves last week was a bad one to be a car window on College Hill CAMPUS NEWS 5
TODAY
TOMORROW
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showers 48 / 38
UCS plays musical chairs University continues preparation for Saxton-Frump ’07 replaces Bidadi ’06 possible avian influenza pandemic BY STEPHANIE BERNHARD SENIOR STAFF WRITER
At the semester’s first meeting of the Undergraduate Council of Students last night, Sarah Saxton-Frump ’07 was elected as president to fill the vacancy left when Brian Bidadi ’06 resigned last week for medical reasons. “My goal is to go big or go home,” Saxton-Frump said of her impending term. She said she intends to “fight for students and fight hard.” “I have experience with the administrators. I can speak administrator-ese without sacrificing the wishes of the student
body,” she said. Saxton-Frump’s election opened up the position of vice president, which she had previously held. Zachary Townsend ’08, formerly chair of the Admissions and Student Services Committee, was elected to the position. “I have a unique amount of knowledge about this University,” Townsend said. “The student body often doesn’t feel empowered through the UCS because the UCS takes on smaller problems. The UCS needs to take on more of a leadership role and tackle more serious issues.”
BY SARA WALTER STAFF WRITER
A sign at the entrance of Health Services instructs students who have recently traveled to a list of countries that includes Cambodia, Indonesia and Turkey to put on a mask if they are experiencing a fever or cough or have been in direct contact with uncooked poultry. This is just one of the many ways the University is preparing for the possibility of an avian influenza pandemic. On Dec. 21, Walter Hunter, vice president for administration, sent an email to the Brown community concerning bird flu and “steps
see UCS, page 6
the University is actively taking to prepare for the possibility of a flu pandemic.” The e-mail told community members that the University had organized a task force of administrators and faculty who would monitor the status of the flu and work together to construct plans to protect the health of the Brown community. “The way we’ve tried to work out the planning is to anticipate what we would do at various levels of threat,” Hunter told The Herald. Hunter, along with other University officials, including Edward Wheeler, director of health services, attended a flu pandemic conference called by
Simmons shares heartwarming experiences at fireside chat BY ALISSA CERNY STAFF WRITER
Austin Freeman / Herald
Jamal Shipman `07 listens to Ruth Simmons during her fireside chat last night at the Third World Center.
President Ruth Simmons discussed her life, inspirations and struggles with about 30 students at an intimate fireside chat Wednesday night at the Third World Center. Simmons began by describing her experiences growing up as a black woman in the South in a family with 12 children. She encountered many obstacles in a society where the limitations on her advancement seemed impossible to overcome. “When I was a student, my options were fairly prescribed. It was widely known at the
time that there were few careers accessible to AfricanAmericans with the possibility for success,” Simmons said. As a child she believed that an office job was the highest level of responsibility she could ever strive to achieve. As the youngest child in a large family, with a “dominating father” who harbored the notion that men’s desires are paramount, Simmons understood the expectations and limitations of females in the 1950s. Simmons credits her older sisters for challenging the accepted norms, asserting their see FIRESIDE, page 4
Governor Donald Carcieri ’65 on Jan. 13. “The purpose was to let people know that the federal government has a plan being organized in states, and (within) states they want businesses to develop plans as well,” Wheeler said, adding that Brown is considered a business in this case. Four components of preparedness and response actions were reviewed at the January conference: surveillance of the virus, stockpiling of antivirals and vaccines, a strong network of federal, state and local preparedness and further development of public education and communications that will keep citizens informed. Wheeler said the University’s plans are very similar to those of government officials. “We’re preparing locally but may get told to do something differently by the state or federal government,” he said. Wheeler’s focus includes medical tasks such as the University’s plans to buy extra intravenous supplies, masks and gowns. He is also working to identify what space could be used if a large part of the community needed care. In an extreme case, Brown could be directed to close and send any medical professionals to other places where they could be more helpful, Wheeler said. However, because various factors could come into play, see BIRD FLU, page 5
New Orleans could lose 80 percent of black population, Brown study finds BY ROSS FRAZIER SENIOR STAFF WRITER
On Dec. 27, a team of Brown researchers garnered national media attention for their findings that Hurricane Katrina disproportionately impacted New Orleans’ poor blacks. BROWN & The study, led KATRINA by Professor of Last in a series Sociology John Logan,quantifies what was already suspected: the population of the storm-damaged areas is nearly half black (45.8 percent, versus 26.4 percent of the undamaged areas), and disproportionate segments of those affected live in rental housing (45.7 percent compared to 30.9 percent), fall below the poverty line (20.9 percent versus 15.3 percent) and are unemployed (7.6 percent compared to 6 percent). According to the study of the area’s 13 planning districts and 72 neighborhoods, a lower economic status forced poor
people to live in low-lying areas. These areas, and thus the people who would have the most difficulty recovering, were hit the hardest when Katrina struck. Most striking about the data, however, is the realization that if New Orleans’ citizens are prevented from returning to flood-ravaged areas, the city could lose more than 80 percent of its black population. With the migration of so many residents quickly becoming a diaspora, many New Orleans officials have made public comments about being in a race against time, saying that the city must rebuild before people settle into new homes in places like Houston, Dallas and Atlanta. The Brown study is the first quantification of these fears and it paints a grim picture for the future of New Orleans’s diverse cultural heritage. Conflict over implications The group’s findings came not long before New Orleans Democratic Mayor Ray Nagin
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said in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech that God wants New Orleans to be a “chocolate city.” “You can’t have New Orleans no other way. The city will be a majority African-American city. It’s the way God wants it to be,” Nagin told the audience on Jan. 16. The Brown study seems to paint a different picture of New Orleans’ future. Nagin has not commented on the Brown study, and his office did not return calls from The Herald. Despite the mayor’s comments, Logan said he believes public officials are beginning to do their jobs effectively. “They didn’t manage things well in the fall but, now, maybe just in the last month, is when people have started to confront some of the policy choices that have to be made,” he said. Indeed, community leaders from the city’s Bring Back New Orleans Commission recently introduced its urban renewal see KATRINA, page 7
Blair Hickman / Herald
Katrina’s long-term damage is still visible along the roads swept by the hurricane.
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