THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2006
Volume CXLI, No. 21 UGANDA OR BUST Women’s rugby aims to beat African teams and AIDS during an atypical Spring Break trip CAMPUS NEWS 5
www.browndailyherald.com
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891 NO MORE FUN IN GAMES After a struggle for survival, Games House votes to disband due to low membership CAMPUS NEWS 5
SQUASHING THE OPPOSITION Athlete of the Week Breck Bailey ’09 discusses vegetables, office cubicles and octogenarians SPORTS 12
TODAY
TOMORROW
snow / showers 36 / 18
pm showers 35 / 19
LiSci to open this summer after troubled construction process
RUB A DUB DUB
BY KAM SRIPADA STAFF WRITER
Sonya Mladenova / Herald
Students received free backrubs for stress relief from members of the Brown Univeristy Relaxation Project at a Wellness Cafe recently.
Tuition hike, Sudan divestment on Corporation’s weekend agenda BY ERIC BECK NEWS EDITOR
Members of the Brown Corporation will convene on campus this weekend to set the University’s budget and tuition, consider divestment from Sudan, formally accept major donations and plan for the University’s future. Brown’s bicameral governing body gathers on campus three times each year — in October, February and May. The tightly scheduled weekends include a strategic discussion session, a general body business meeting and committee meetings. The February meeting is especially notable because the Corporation sets
the University’s operating budget for the next fiscal year. Each year, the University Resources Committee makes a budget recommendation in a report to President Ruth Simmons. The president then makes her own budget recommendation, which is presented to the Corporation along with the URC report. The Corporation’s budget topics include increases to tuition and room and board fees for the next academic year. The budgetary considerations will include whether to move club sports from the student activities budget to see CORPORATION, page 4
Despite several crucial setbacks, the massive Life Sciences Building — a $95 million undertaking to expand science facilities on campus — is slated to open this summer. Since work at the site of the building began in 2003, several problems emerged that impeded construction. While some of these problems were unforeseen, others resulted from the building’s complex architectural program. The LiSci was “talked about 10 years ago,” and design work began in September 2000, according to Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior advisor to the president. By mid-2003, the Brown Corporation had approved the budget, and work on the site began soon thereafter. Since then, “this whole project has been a struggle,” Spies said. “We’re fighting to hang on to both our schedule and our budget.” Spies called the 170,000 square foot structure “by far the most expensive building on campus.” The original plan for the building included space for the cognitive and linguistic sciences department, in addition to the molecular and cell biology department and the neuroscience department. But by mid-2002, “the Plan for Academic Enrichment increased faculty, (and) we realized that we couldn’t fit all three departments,” Spies said. This realization “inspired us to push for the Sidney Frank Hall,” which is where the cognitive and linguistic sciences department will eventually be relocated, Spies added. Plans for building faced another problem when community members filed
Could copyright laws land you in a courtroom? Even with Napster service, illegal file-sharing continues on University network BY SIMMI AUJLA SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Kanye West is hot on campus. In fact, his single “Gold Digger” topped a recent list of most downloaded songs on Brown’s Napster service, which the University began to offer students this fall in an attempt to curb illegal downloading. But the Napster program itself has not been nearly as popular with Brown students. Daily summaries that the music vendor FEATURE sends to the University show that only 1,866 students currently subscribe to Napster. Not all students are able to subscribe because the service is not compatible with Macintosh computers. Even with non-Mac users, Napster has not been met with the unbridled success for which the University had hoped when a committee decided last spring to offer students a one-year trial of the program. “For such a large group of people, it’s really hard to find something that works,” said Sarah Saxton-Frump ’07, president of the Undergraduate Council of Students and member of the selection committee. The committee also considered other music vendors, such as Rhapsody, Cdigix, Ruckus and iTunes,
according to Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene. “I can see the value of using it (next year), but also how the money might be used in a better way,” Saxton-Frump said. Greene said Napster would have cost the University $30,000 this year had it not received a grant from “a group remaining anonymous that had an interest in keeping file-sharing legal.” Saxton-Frump and former UCS President Brian Bidadi ’06 told The Herald in September that Campus Action Net-work, a Sony BMG Music Entertainment-led industry group, was funding the service. Greene told The Herald that the University would evaluate the program’s success this spring, paying special attention to any decrease in illegal file-sharing on campus. Computing and Information Services can determine a decrease in illegal activity by noting changes in the amount of traffic that passes through the network. But activity appears much the same as before, according to Director of Information Technology Security Connie Sadler. “The activity tracks very close to what we saw last year during this same period of time,” Sadler wrote The Herald in an email. Copyright holders such as the Record-
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ing Industry Association of America, the Motion Pictures Association of America and Universal Studios send the University complaints on a weekly basis, she wrote. The University would like to see a decrease in illegal file-sharing for practical reasons as well, according to Greene. “We don’t want (the network) slowed down by music and videos when people have to use it for legitimate uses,” he said. “It interferes with the educational process.” Students who illegally share files also violate CIS policies, which require network users to “observe the copyright law as it applies to music, videos, games, images, texts and other media.” Last summer, The Herald reported that the University had received a subpoena from the RIAA requesting information about six students who had illegally shared files. “If they have an (Internet Protocol) address, they can ask the University to turn over a name and other info,” Greene said. Once the University turns over the information to the RIAA, the suits become a private matter. “That’s why we wouldn’t know what’s necessarily going on with an individual student and the RIAA,” Greene said. The University did not release see COPYRIGHT, page 8
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
Kam Sripada/ Herald
The two-story glass-enclosed atrium contains a curved stairway designed to mimic the double helix curve seen in DNA. a lawsuit against the federal government agencies responsible for environmental assessment of the LiSci. The suit alleges that these agencies “did not properly follow the procedures and rules established for such a review and did not do a full enough job,” according to Spies. “(The agencies’) determination was that they did not need to do the next level of the review, and that’s part of what’s being contested.” Notwithstanding this litigation, Paul Dietel, assistant director of design and construction, hopes that the building will earn Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, which is granted by the U.S. Green Building Council. If the LiSci does receive see LISCI, page 4
QA and CHC collaboration for HIV testing not an official cosponsorship BY MARY-CATHERINE LADER FEATURES EDITOR
Queer Alliance will provide free HIV testing on campus in March in cooperation with the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center and the LGBTQ Resource Center. A story and accompanying headline in yesterday’s Herald incorrectly described College Hill for Christ’s general support for the event as an official co-sponsorship. QA Co-President Josh Teitelbaum ’08 said the group had not discussed holding the event in partnership with CHC, but he added that “we can talk about it now.” A formal co-sponsorship “raises some questions for us about how it affects our constituency if we partner with a group that has not always favored some of our members,” Teitelbaum said. But he added that, “By no means are we antireligion.” One CHC leader, Alana Rabe ’08, said she attends QA meetings and planning see TESTING, page 3 News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com