Monday, February 26, 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD M ONDAY, F EBR UAR Y 26, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 22

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Corporation approves student center, elects new chancellor BY ROSS FRAZIER NEWS EDITOR

The Corporation, the University’s top governing body, was especially busy this weekend, discussing a strategic vision for the Alpert Medical School, approving next year’s $704.8 million budget and electing a new chancellor. It also approved a social choice fund and endorsed an official response to the report of the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. The Corporation, which is required to formally accept all gifts of more than $1 million, accepted nearly $22 million in donations to the University. A gift of $3.5 million was given to support Commerce, Organization and Entrepreneurship programs. William Rhodes ’57, a trustee emeritus and Citigroup executive, donated $10 million to establish the Rhodes Center for International Economics, which will be part of the Watson Institute for International Studies, and to endow a professorship in international trade and finance. The Corporation also accepted four gifts that will fund a $15 million renovation of Faunce House as a 24-hour student center. A $5 million gift from outgoing Chancellor Stephen Robert ’62 P’91, along with three other anonymous gifts, will fund the new facility, which will be named in Robert’s honor. It may include performance spaces, a food court and meeting and study spaces, according to a University news release. Student support offices currently housed in Faunce, such as the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life, may be moved across the street to the J. Walter Wilson Laboratory, which will be renovated to accommodate them, the release said. The Corporation also approved a social choice fund, which will focus on environmental responsibility. The fund will be established and administered through the Office of Advancement, and the University’s continued on page 4

$700m budget boosts U. spending BY ROSS FRAZIER NEWS EDITOR

The Corporation approved a $704.8 million University budget for next year during its general business meeting Saturday, raising tuition and fees by 5 percent to bring total undergraduate costs to $45,948 next year. Faculty salaries will increase by 5 percent, and graduate student stipends will rise to $18,500. The $120 million budget for the Division of Biology and Medicine, which was increased 14.5 percent last year, was only raised by 4.4 percent for next year. The University’s general budget, which funds the College and Graduate School, will total $508 million next year — a 7 percent increase. Brown’s budget next year calls for a $9.3 million deficit, which it will make up using some of its $50 million in reserves, which were authorized by the Corporation in 2004. By next year, it will have used half of those reserves. University officials have said the need for reserves is to be expected with the heavy spending called for by the Plan for Academic Enrichment. “It is clear that the University’s aspirations will continue to require the investment of reserves and balances for the next five to seven years,” read the University Resources Committee’s annual report, released last week. One of the University’s largest expenditures is financial aid, on which it will spend $56.9 million next year — an 8 percent increase. Financial aid for international students will increase nearly 40 percent continued on page 4

Tai Ho Shin / Herald BET Chairman and CEO Debra Lee ‘76 (left) with Robby Klaber ‘07 and Young Peck ‘07, co-presidents of the Brown Entrepreneurship Program.

BET CEO Debra Lee ’76: success is about risk-taking room-only crowd in Leung Gallery to “take risks, learn from them, grow with them and reinvent yourself if necessary.” “I fundamentally believe that you either are or are not an entrepreneur. I really don’t think you can aspire to be an entrepreneur,” she said — though she said it may be possible to “learn to do it better along the way.”

BY ABE LUBETKIN STAFF WRITER

Entrepreneurship is innate, not a learned skill, Black Entertainment Television Chairman and CEO Debra Lee ’76 told students at the Brown Entrepreneurship Program’s 10th Annual Forum Saturday afternoon. Lee encouraged a standing

Drawing largely from events in her own life, Lee discussed how ambition and open-mindedness propelled her from her racially segregated hometown of Greensboro, N.C. — where she grew up in the 1960s — to Brown and Harvard Law School, then on to a corporate law ﬁrm in Washington, continued on page 8

Students overwhelmingly support early admission fall — the deadline is traditionally Nov. 1. Early applicants hear back from the University in mid-December and are required to attend the College if they are admitted.

BY JAMES SHAPIRO SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Most Brown undergraduates support early admission, according to a recent Herald poll. The majority of respondents — 73 percent — said they believe Brown should offer an early admission program to the College, while only 15 percent said the University should not offer early admission. Another 12 percent said they had no opinion or did not answer. The poll was conducted from Jan. 29 to Feb. 2 and has a margin of error of 4.7 percent with 95 percent conﬁdence. The University currently offers high school students the opportunity to apply early decision in the

THE HERALD POLL

Last in a three-part series on admission policies

Early applicants constitute 36 percent of the class of 2010 and were admitted at a rate of 22.7 percent, compared to the class’ overall acceptance rate of 13.8 percent. Early admission has received extensive attention since Harvard University decided last September to discontinue its single-choice early action program, which did not require admitted students to

commit to attending Harvard. In the following weeks Princeton University and the University of Virginia followed suit and terminated their binding early admission programs. Harvard, Princeton and UVa’s decisions were primarily in response to concerns that early admission disproportionately beneﬁts applicants with more resources and knowledge about college admission. “Early admission programs tend to advantage the advantaged. Students from more sophisticated backgrounds and afﬂuent high schools often apply early to increase their chances of admission, continued on page 6

Alums discuss future of college radio BY MEHA VERGHESE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Tai Ho Shin / Herald Peter Tannenwald ‘64, Dan Berns ‘69, Rita Cidre ‘07, Dan Oppenheim ‘98, Jason Sigal ‘07, Susan Smulyan, Associate Professor of American Civilization (left to right), at a panel discussion on college radio.

INSIDE:

3 ARTS & CULTURE

PEMBROKE’S PAST The Pembroke Center is celebrating its 25th anniversary by hosting a series of lectures and discussions on culture and gender

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5 CAMPUS NEWS

DEEP SPRINGS DETOUR At least one current student spent time at Deep Springs College, a substance-free, allmale College in California, before coming to Brown

Alums and current students from WBRU and Brown Student Radio discussed balancing creativity and commercial success in radio Sunday evening on a panel on “The Importance of College Radio,” one in a series of campus events celebrating 70 years of college radio at Brown. Peter Tannenwald ’64, Don Berns ’69, Dan Oppenheim ’98, former WBRU General Manager Rita Cidre ’07 and BSR General Manager Jason Sigal ’07 addressed the evolution of Brown college radio and challenges facing stations today. Susan Smulyan, associate professor of American Civilization, opened

11 OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

SPECTATOR SPIN Justin Elliott ’07 takes the University’s conservative publication, the Brown Spectator, to task for lacking journalistic standards

the panel by explaining that student interest in the two campus radio stations sparked the series of events celebrating college radio. WBRU and BSR were also eager to work together and put to rest rumors of rivalry between them after an article about the alleged rivalry appeared in the Brown Alumni Magazine last year, she added. The panel discussion focused on radio stations’ need to reinvent themselves in the face of newer communication technologies. Berns urged students to help save the medium. “Right now is the time to come up with some idea to save radio as continued on page 8

12 SPORTS

M. HOOPS SPLITS The men’s basketball team survived a ﬂood of three-pointers in topping Columbia but fell to Cornell despite 33 points from Mark McAndrew ’08

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

TODAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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WE A

T H E R

TODAY

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

Chocolate Covered Cotton | Mark Brinker TOMORROW

snow showers 40 / 29

snow showers 38 / 27

MEN

SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Grilled Chicken Sandwich, Chicken Parmesan Grinder, Savory Chicken Stew, Ham and Bean Soup, Vegetarian Autumn Bisque, Butterscotch V Brownies, Chocolate Chip Cookies

LUNCH — Chicken Parmesan Sandwich, Spinach and Rice Bake, Green Beans with Tomatoes, Vegetarian Washington Chowder, Kale and Linguica Soup, Chocolate Krinkle Cookies

DINNER — Roast Beef, Herb Rice, Glazed Baby Carrots with Shallots, Ricotta Bread, Zucchini, Spaghetti Caponata, Chocolate Pudding, Washington Apple Cake

DINNER — Country Style Baked Ham, Macaroni Pudding, Candied Yams a la Warren, Green Peas, Cauliﬂower au Gratin, Herb Bread, Raspberry Mousse Torte

WBF | Matt Vascellaro

D O K U

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. How to Get Down | Nate Saunders

Deo | Daniel Perez

CR ACROSS 1 Tacked on 6 “Let’s go!” 10 Amo, __, amat 14 Throws 15 “What __ we here?” 16 Pack down 17 Gets suspicious 19 Con __: spirited, in music 20 No longer in use, as words: Abbr. 21 Business mag 22 Another name for bingo 23 No longer has to put up with 28 RMN and LBJ, consecutively 30 Tang 31 Weird trait 33 Gay Nineties or Roaring Twenties 34 Former Prizm automaker 37 Contacts, à la a sales rep 41 Napoleon, for one: Abbr. 42 Barrister’s deg. 43 Vegas winner 44 Club in a Manilow song 46 “Am not!” rejoinder 47 Communicates important information 53 Tracks down 54 Dizzy’s jazz 55 Hudson or Biscayne 58 10 C-notes 59 Tries in court 63 Hosiery shade 64 Actress Thompson 65 Coffee flavoring 66 Jigger of whiskey 67 Fraud 68 Farm teams?

O S S W O R D

4 Building wing 5 High-speed Internet letters 6 “USA! USA!” is one 7 When spring begins 8 Eggs, to Caesar 9 Volleyball divider 10 If you’re lucky 11 Corday victim 12 Type of acid 13 Takeoff 18 Spanish ayes 22 __-relief 24 Expansive story 25 Bk. before Job 26 Poet Pound 27 Apartment dweller’s document 28 Choice in a booth 29 Ancient Dead Sea land 32 Pound sounds 33 Flow partner 34 Returns 35 Sorbonne summers 36 [Gasp!] 38 Croat or Bulgar

39 Jack of “Rio Lobo” 40 “The Way We __” 44 Violin string material 45 Approves 47 Alley rentals 48 One of a one-two 49 Año beginner 50 2008 candidate Barack

51 Seuss’s nature spokesman 52 Raises 56 Arthur of tennis 57 Those for 59 Half a sly laugh 60 Funnyman Philips 61 Actress Madigan 62 Whisper sweet nothings

Deep Fried Kittens| Cara FitzGibbon

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Cloudy Side Up | Mike Lauritano

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2/26/07

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ARTS & CULTURE MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

Catching up with the Pembroke Center BY ALLISSA WICKHAM STAFF WRITER

From their perch on the top ﬂoor of Alumnae Hall, employees at the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women have a perfect view of the former allwomen’s campus. Established in 1981, just 10 years after the all-female Pembroke College merged with the men’s college, the center’s location is a constant reminder of society’s changing views of gender roles. To celebrate its 25th anniversary, it is hosting a series of lectures and roundtable discussions designed to further investigate the cultural values assigned to gender. “Unlike a lot of other feminist research centers, the Pembroke Center questioned gender from the beginning,” said Elizabeth Weed MA’66 PhD’73, the center’s director and one of its founding members. “It was an absolutely scandalous thing to do in the 80s.” Advised by a diverse group of faculty representing disciplines ranging from biology to modern culture and media, the center seeks to create a better understanding of gender through research and seminars. The 25th-anniversary lecture series, titled “The Future of Critique,” brought philosopher Judith Butler to campus last month. The lecture series will not only focus on gender issues but will also delve into concerns of scientiﬁc and social critique. The series will continue in April with two colloquia that will include professors from across the country. When asked about the importance of critiquing society, Weed said the practice “enables one not to settle down in the complacency of truth.” The critique allows scholars to identify “the conditions of possibility for knowledge,” something the center has always strived to do, she said. Thanks to alumni donations and grants from organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the center is also currently sponsoring two research initiatives. “Embodiment,” led by Professor of Biology Anne Fausto-Sterling PhD’70, explores the development of sex differentiation in children. The project has found that from the moment a child is born, both nature and nurture act simultaneously to shape a child’s future behavioral patterns. The second initiative, “Gen-

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

der and the Politics of ‘Traditional’ Muslim Practices,” is aimed at understanding gender customs in Middle Eastern countries. “The practice of veiling looks disturbing to the West,” Weed said, “But we’ve found that it doesn’t just have to do with gender, but with notions of public and private and religion.” The center also publishes the theoretical journal “differences” as a means of identifying and addressing political and social discrepancies. Compiled three times a year, Weed said the publication has become one of the country’s premier theoretical journals. Its latest installment, titled “Indexicality: Trace and Sign,” is guestedited by Professor of Modern Culture and Media Mary Ann Doane and will focus on problems in representational theory. While wrestling with modern gender issues, the center also manages to uphold its ties to the past. The Pembroke Center Associates, a predominately female group of Brown and Pembroke alums, created and maintain the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archives in the John Hay Library. The archives contain an extensive collection of diaries, newspapers and photographs documenting the activities of Rhode Island women in the 20th century. The Pembroke Center Associates also puts out pamphlets on the history of women at Pembroke and Brown. Their latest synopsis covers the development of female athletic programs and contains a host of quirky facts. For instance, Sayles Gym — now Smith-Buonanno Hall — originally housed two bowling alleys in addition to its basketball court. The pamphlet also states that the sinking of the Titanic prompted Brown administrators to institute a mandatory swim test in 1913 for all men. The stipulation did not apply to women until 1931. The Pembroke Associates will soon have another item for their histories — relocation is on the center’s horizon. In the fall of 2008, the Pembroke Center will move to renovated offices in Pembroke Hall, leaving behind its headquarters in Alumnae Hall. According to Weed, Pembroke Hall was constructed in 1894 as the first building for “the women’s college of Brown University.” Weed said she couldn’t think of a more fitting place for the Pembroke Center to call home.

JAMMIN’ JABBERWOCKS

Chris Bennett / Herald The Jabberwocks performed hip-hop Saturday at the Congdon St. Baptist Church in celebration of Black History Month.

Rutherford’s ’07 Macbett awes with the absurd BY ELISABETH ZEROFSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

James Rutherford’s ’07 mainstage production of Macbett by Eugene Ionesco — who was part of a clique of intellectuals who decried the absurdity of any moral conviction or personal ambition in postWorld War II Europe — was heavy with the emptiness of alienation. Like ﬁgures in a Giacometti painting, the inhabitants of Macbett’s world circled the theater in solitude, talking without being heard, searching for companionship and never quite ﬁnding it. Lighting designer Justin Spiegel ’08 created a sense of vastness by illuminating the outer edges of the theater in hollow blues and reds that forced the audience into the center of an unsettling openness. Ionesco’s work is bred from Shakespeare’s original Macbeth, which was translated into French by Victor Hugo and adapted by Ionesco. His adaptation was translated into English by Charles Marowitz and was further adapted and translated by Rutherford, who chose to keep some of the original French in his production. Bewildered? So was the audience. And so were the actors. Everyone involved in Rutherford’s

production shared a sense of discommunication. The dialogue was a jumble of English and French, sometimes with a translation on a large screen that ran the span of the stage. Other times, the screen was conspicuously blank. Running on the assumption of its audience’s prior knowledge of the Scottish play, Rutherford’s piece — more a collection of scenes that glided together on a razor blade of ambition and conspiracy — skirted around the classic plot line.

REVIEW Far from falling apart, the madness that Rutherford created had remarkable method to it. Warfare without reason, power without check and the search for the elusive motivated the characters as they navigated through a sometimes literal darkness with their hands stretched out in front of them. The forcefulness of Rutherford’s actors jolted the story forward, as Macbett plotted to kill the archduke, assumed his power, committed adultery with his wife and stamped out the opposition. He was shadowed by his alter ego, Macbeth, played by Mike Obremski ’07, an overly ambitious lemon-

ade salesman who, contrary to the implications of his name, spoke only French. In the title role, Elliot Quick ’07 was a formidable presence. His forbidding quest for the throne was tempered by his weakness in the face of the capricious seductress Lady Duncann, played by Anne Troup ’07. With a serial number branded onto the side of his shaved head — reminiscent of a Nazi concentration camp prisoner — and a swastika tattooed behind his ear, he was an ambiguous tool in a plot with larger implications than at first glance. In a final condemnation of despotism, the play ended with the unfurling of enormous red flags with swastikas, the new ruler of the land standing erect with arm raised straight in front of him. It was a shock, but one that resonated sharply with the enormity of the burden with which Ionesco and his contemporaries tried so desperately cope. Imbued with irony, a quick wit and a sense of the profound amidst absurdity, it was Rutherford’s direction that gave Ionesco’s work a paradoxical beauty. More impressive still was its brilliance with a scope larger than the confines of the stage.

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U. responds to slavery and justice report The University will raise $10 million to endow a fund supporting Providence public education and will waive tuition for up to ten masters students who teach in the public schools for three years following graduation. The commitment to public schools is a main component of President Ruth Simmons’ response to the October 2006 recommendations of the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. The Corporation endorsed Simmons’ plan at its weekend meeting. “One of the clearest messages in the slavery and justice report is that institutions of higher education must take a greater interest in the health of their local communities,” Simmons said in a news release. “Lack of access to a good education, particularly for urban schoolchildren, is one of the most pervasive and pernicious social problems of our time. Colleges and universities are uniquely able to improve the quality of urban schools.” The $10-million fund could provide up to $500,000 in its ﬁrst year, with the amount increasing as the principal grows. The University will also work with local and state ofﬁcials to discuss memorializing the Rhode Island slave trade. The slavery and justice committee originally recommended a memorial be constructed on campus. The University will disseminate both its response and the original report by posting the information online and making print copies available. Brown will also strengthen its longstanding partnership with Tougaloo College and begin relationships with other historically black colleges and universities. The response also calls for sponsoring academic initiatives within the University and bringing in an external team to evaluate how the Department of Africana Studies can be strengthened. — Ross Frazier

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

M A J O R CO R P O R AT I O N B U S I N E S S T H I S W E E K E N D Set the budget, raised tuition • Approved a $704.8 million budget — a 6.4 percent increase • Increased total undergraduate fees 5 percent to $45,948 • Discussed two-year $190-million capital budget to fund the construction of planned facilities Elected new Corp. ofﬁcers • Selected Thomas Tisch ’76 P’07 as chancellor and Jerome Vascellaro ’74 P’07 as vice chancellor • Reappointed Treasurer Matthew Mallow ’64 P’02 and Secretary Wendy Strothman ’72 P’07 to oneyear terms Accepted major gifts • $15 million — including $5 million from outgoing Chancellor Stephen Robert ’62 P’91 — to fund the renovation of Faunce House into a student center to be named in Robert’s honor • $10 million from William Rhodes ’57 to fund a Center for Interna-

tional Economics at the Watson Institute for International Studies and an endowed professorship in international trade and finance • $3.5 million in gifts to support programs in Commerce, Organizations and Entrepreneurship • $1.8 million grant to design and build a high-speed 3-D X-ray imaging system for musculoskeletal biomechanics research • More than $1 million in gifts for undergraduate financial aid Endorsed President Simmons’ slavery and justice response • $10 million endowment to support Providence public education • Establishment of Urban Fellows, a program in which Brown will waive the tuition of up to ten master’s students in the Department of Education if they agree to teach in area public schools for three years • Communication with local and state officials to discuss memo-

rializing Rhode Island’s connections to the slave trade • Online and print distribution of the original committee report and the ofﬁcial University response • Academic initiatives to support the study of slavery as well as a team of outside experts to consult on strengthening the Department of Africana Studies • Strengthening Brown’s longstanding partnership with Tougaloo College and building new partnerships with historically black colleges and universities In addition • Establishment of a social choice fund, which will assure donors their gifts will be invested in environmentally responsible companies • Devoted extra time to discussing a strategic plan for growing the Alpert Medical School — Ross Frazier

Corporation accepts $22m in gifts and appoints new chancellor continued from page 1 Investment Ofﬁce will identify appropriate allocations for the fund. The Corporation spent Friday in a retreat at the Westin hotel downtown, discussing a strategic vision for the Med School as well as budget and capital issues. Their discussions on the Med School focused on recommendations from a strategic working group that studied the school’s growth potential. It also

heard a presentation from Charles Vest, former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on the role of research institutions in a globalized society. The Corporation also elected a new slate of officers. Thomas Tisch ’76 P’07, managing partner of private investment firm Four Partners in New York City, will serve as the University’s 20th chancellor. The chancellor is the University’s top official — and President Ruth Sim-

mons’ boss. Also elected was a new vice-chancellor, Jerome Vascellaro ’74 P’07, a former McKinsey & Company executive who is now a partner with the private investment ﬁrm Texas Paciﬁc Group. Reappointed were Corporation Treasurer Matthew Mallow ’64 P’02, a New York corporate lawyer, and Secretary Wendy Strothman ’72 P’07, a Boston literary agent. Mallow and Strothman will serve one-year terms.

Financial aid, facilities spending in $700m budget continued from page 1 to $4.4 million over the next four years. Corporation members also discussed a two-year $190 million budget that would allow the University to begin work on planned facilities projects such as a fitness center, the Walk, the Creative Arts Building and a new cognitive and linguistic sciences building, among others. The University is also spending heavily to attract new faculty. Seventy-five searches for new faculty are currently under way. Although most will compensate for normal attrition, the number of full-time professors is expected to increase by between 15 and 25 in the next year, bringing the total near 680. The budget includes $200,000 to replace and maintain athletic equipment and support team travel. An additional $200,000 will be given to the Office of the Dean of the College to support pilot programs related to the curriculum and advising. The Grad School’s budget is suffering from major expenditures on student support, the URC report said, though funding in that area will increase by

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$3.2 million next year. The Grad School’s guarantee of five years of financial support has hurt the University financially not only because of its cost, but because it eliminates revenue from self-supporting students who had paid tuition out-of-pocket. To offset additional costs, the Grad School will reduce graduate admission — perhaps by about a dozen students, the URC report said. It will also review its policies to see where money can be saved. However, the report acknowledges that the Grad School’s budgetary needs will only increase, especially because the size of the school must be increased to support the addition of new faculty. The Corporation also approved a 10 percent increase in payout from the University’s $2.4 billion endowment, the interest of which will provide an estimated $85.4 million in revenue next year — a $9.8 million increase. These figures are based on the assumption that Brown will raise $50 million for the endowment next year, according to the URC report. University investment policy states that the draw on the endowment should range from 4.5 to 5.5 percent of the endowment’s average market value during the last three years. For next year, the en-

dowment draw will be about 5.39 percent. The budget also reﬂects the University’s expectation that it will be reimbursed by outside sources, such as the federal government, for some of the money it spends on research. Known as indirect cost recovery, this amount is expected to decline 0.8 percent to $31 million next year. In the past few years, the University has seen an average 10 percent growth in its indirect cost recovery, which reﬂected increases in lab space, faculty size and research volume. But, according to the URC report, federal funding cutbacks, particularly at the National Institutes of Health, will hurt the BioMed research funding. Though other departments are expected to receive 5 percent more in indirect cost reimbursement, BioMed is projected to see a 6 percent decrease. The University’s revenue projections have typically been fairly conservative. Despite the budgeted decrease in indirect cost recovery, grants have been up nearly 8 percent relative to last year. The University also projected the endowment would return 7.5 percent annually, though it has averaged a 14.3 percent return over the last three years.

CAMPUS N EWS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

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From Deep Springs desert to College Hill

Guggenheim ’86 wins Oscar

BY KYLE MCGOURTY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Davis Guggenheim ’86 won an Academy Award Sunday night for his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” on which he collaborated with former Vice President Al Gore. Director Guggenheim won the Oscar for best documentary feature with producers Lawrence Bender and Laurie David. On the stage, Guggenheim handed his statuette to Gore, who was the star of the documentary, which warned of the dangers posed by global warming. The movie was made “because we were moved to act by this man,” Guggenheim told the crowd, according to Reuters.

The path from high school to Brown is less direct for some than others. Some students might take time off to travel or work, but a few head to the California desert to a small institution called Deep Springs College, where they farm alfalfa, herd cattle and read Nietzsche with around 26 other young men. Sean Eldridge ’09 spent one year at Deep Springs before transferring to Brown in January. After a summer in an alcohol-soaked social atmosphere at a pre-college program in Ohio, Eldridge was attracted to Deep Springs’ substance-free policy. He said the policy, which prohibits nicotine, marijuana and other narcotics as well as alcohol, showed him that “people were really there to learn.” Eldridge said he is the only Deep Springs student currently enrolled at Brown, though a handful of others have left the California desert for Providence over the past decade. Associate Professor of History Robert Self attended Deep Springs for one year in 1986. The two-year all-male accredited college was founded in 1917 by electrical engineering pioneer Lucien Lucius Nunn. When he

—Herald staff reports

Some students want gyms open earlier Some students are irked that the gyms in Keeney Quadrangle, Graduate Center and on Pembroke campus open later on the weekends than during the week. The Bigelow and Emery satellite fitness centers open their doors at 7 a.m. on weekdays but don’t open until 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The Bears Lair in Grad Center opens at 7 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays and is closed until noon from Friday through Sunday. But early-morning workout fiends can still use the facilities at the Olney-Margolies Athletics Center, which opens at 8:30 a.m. on weekends. Some students said they find the situation annoying. “I’d like to come a little earlier than 12,” said Brian Craigie ’07, a regular at the Bears Lair. Because of the later opening, he said, the gym is often crowded at opening time. And, he said, “The OMAC might as well be in the next zip code.” Craigie lives across the street from the Bears Lair in Vartan Gregorian Quadrangle. “For most people, it’s fine” that the gyms open late on the weekends, said Sonya Goddy ’07. But, she said, “there’s a small contingent” of the “exercise-obsessed” who want to exercise earlier. But administrators say they haven’t heard complaints about the opening times. “This is the first time I’ve heard of it,” said Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger. — Ian Nappier

founded the school, Nunn envisioned it would attract and shape the nation’s future leaders. In addition to academic seminars, students are required to participate in a manual labor program at the on-site ranch. Each student must farm alfalfa, milk cows and herd cattle. Deep Springs students typically spend two years at the college, but they do not receive a degree. Instead, they put the credits they earn towards a degree at another college or university. Deep Springs students practice democratic self-governance — the farm is completely run by students, and all important decisions, including faculty hirings and student admission, are made in democratic meetings that include the entire student body. The school’s unique educational philosophy and eccentric reputation — it is often described as the most competitive school in the country — have attracted media attention. Articles in Vanity Fair in 2004 and the New Yorker in 2006 focused on scandals at the school that, according to Vanity Fair, have included sexual relations among the students or between students and professors, and a ﬂoundering endowment. Eldridge said Nunn founded Deep Springs in part to separate bright young men from alcohol

Chris Bennett / Herald Sean Eldridge ‘09 spent a year at Deep Springs, a two-year all-male institution in California, before coming to College Hill.

and women, which he saw as damaging temptations. Eldridge said the student body has voted on a number of occasions to allow women to attend, but the board of trustees always vetoes that vote. Despite media interest in the school and efforts to incite intrigue, Eldridge said most Deep Springs alums are proud of their institution. Self said he remembers taking classes on feminist literature, continued on page 6

DPS launches new outreach initiatives BY DEBBIE LEHMANN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Department of Public Safety has launched a number of new outreach initiatives this semester in an effort to better address community issues and foster positive relations with students. DPS began looking at ways to enhance its programs last semester after several robberies prompted community concern about safety, said DPS Manager of Special Services Michelle Nuey. Nuey said the alleged incidents of police misconduct that occurred last semester prompted dialogue about police-community relations, but she added that DPS has “always strived to provide ofﬁcer-student dialogue” and said the outreach efforts did not come purely as a reac-

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tion to this increased conversation. “It deﬁnitely played a role in us saying ‘Okay, we need to continue these efforts and create more opportunities for those dialogues to happen,’” Nuey said. “Following these incidents there was a great deal of communication between (DPS ofﬁcials) and students, and out of those conversations it came that continued communication will be critical.” DPS has been analyzing the results of a community opinion survey that launched in late January and will remain available to the public on DPS’s Web site through midMarch. The results so far, which indicate increased demand for crime prevention events, have contributed to the department’s outreach plans, according to Nuey. Nuey said DPS would continue

to enhance its older initiatives, adding that the department has offered meet-and-greets and study breaks with officers in the past. But additional staffing, including a new special assistant to Chief of Police Mark Porter, has allowed DPS to “build Porter greater productivity” and launch additional outreach efforts. DPS began the semester by hosting a hot cocoa study break in the evening at the Friedman Study Center. Nuey said the event attracted over 100 students and said DPS hopes to hold similar events in the Rockefeller Library. In addition, Nuey said Porter would begin holding office hours this March to provide students and staff with the opportunity to voice concerns. continued on page 8

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Students support early admission program, poll finds continued from page 1 while minority students and students from rural areas, other countries and high schools with fewer resources miss out,” said interim Harvard President Derek Bok in a Sept. 12 news release. Princeton presented similar reasons for its decision. “Less than 10 percent of the entire pool of students applying for financial aid were in the early-decision pool. We had similar findings for students of color, and we simply didn’t think it was fair. We didn’t want to continue to have a process for applicants who were privileged and could therefore get to us first,” wrote Princeton spokeswoman Cass Cliatt in an email to The Herald. Dean of Admission James Miller ’73 said the Office of Admission recently reconsidered early admission in light of other universities’ actions. “When Harvard and Princeton made their announcements, it was an impetus for everybody to go and take a look at their programs, and we did. I know we’re very happy with our early decision program, and we have no plans to alter it.” Miller said many students are ready to make decisions about which college they want to attend by the early admission deadline. “Early decision gives students who have made up their minds a chance to get into the college application process and to make a decision relatively early in their senior year,” Miller said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to make people wait until April when they know where they want to go by December.” “We have early decision as op-

posed to early action because we see it as a clear commitment on the part of both parties. We are willing to extend to (students) the opportunity for an early decision and, in exchange, we expect that to be a firm and clear decision on (their) part,” Miller said. Most students interviewed by The Herald said they support having the early admission program. “It gives students who really feel passionately about coming to Brown a chance to dedicate their time early on to the application,” said Laith Kadasi ’10. “It’s an easy way to distinguish the students who have Brown as a top choice from those who are applying to all the Ivies and who haven’t researched Brown.” But some students said they oppose the program. “I think that the early admission process runs counter to the Brown idea of taking time to explore one’s options and have academic flexibility,” said Alex Cox ’08. Many students said they doubt early admission substantially disadvantages lower-income students and minorities. “I think early decision is great. I myself am on financial aid, and at the same time I was accepted early. It didn’t affect me,” said Sonya Mladenova ’09. “I’m not quite sure why a lower income would lead to not knowing about your different admissions options,” said Andrew Ahn ’08. Other students said they think early admission does favor applicants from certain backgrounds. “Coming from a very upper-middle-class public school, early admis-

sion was on the tip of everybody’s tongue. But that’s certainly not the case with some family (members) of mine who go to school in rural districts,” said Steve Hazeltine ’09. Other students said they favored alternate solutions to the under-representation of particular groups. Gillian Heinecke ’07 said she knew Harvard had dropped its program in an effort to increase representation of minority students, but she questioned whether ending early admission was the best strategy. “I think that it would be more productive to do campaigning in other ways to get more minority applicants,” she said. Princeton and Harvard students interviewed by The Herald had mixed feelings about their schools’ decisions. “I consider it a noble attempt to try and bring diversity, but I question its effectiveness, at least from the arguments I’ve seen for it,” said Princeton freshman Tim Branigan. “They really didn’t provide much statistical evidence saying early admission hurts diversity.” Other students said dropping early admission was a move in the right direction. “I thought it was a good decision as I thought that the policy only beneﬁted those with the resources and means to apply early,” said Harvard freshman Geoff Smith. “I thought it was something that other institutions should follow and in some cases did follow.” But Brown students were not eager for the University to follow Harvard, UVa and Princeton’s lead. “What other schools do shouldn’t really dictate how Brown runs its admission process,” Kadasi said.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

Deep Springs alums settle at Brown continued from page 5 Dante, the politics of technology and basic chemistry. “The concept was great,” Self said of Deep Springs, even though he “wasn’t prepared to embrace the monastic life.” “It wasn’t the right fit for me,” he said. Self finished his undergraduate studies at Oregon State University and received master’s and doctorate degrees from Washington State. Roughly 70 percent of Deep Springs alums eventually earn a Ph. D., Deep Springs student John Moriarty wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Eldridge was a dairy boy at Deep Springs and rose at 4 a.m. every day to milk the cows for the students’ breakfast. After morning chores, Eldridge attended classes in philosophy, literature and classics. In the afternoon, he had duties on the ranch — planting and harvesting eight fields of alfalfa and herding a few hundred head of cattle. In the early evening, he would serve as the budget and operations trustee, managing the alumni annual giving rate. Donations fund the school, which has an annual budget of $1.2 million and does not accept student tuition, valued at $50,000. The endowment is currently at $8 million. “It was

weird just arriving at the place and be already fighting for its survival,” Eldridge said of the school’s finances. But he said alumni generosity is “extraordinary.” Deep Springs and Brown share similar ideologies, but the schools differ in many ways besides their geographic settings, Eldridge said. “After Deep Springs everything else is downhill,” he said. “I have so much more time.” Though he hasn’t had difficulty adjusting to Brown academically, Eldridge said the College Hill social life is vastly different. Since coming to Brown, Eldridge said he has remained a “tame animal.” “Socially it is incredibly different,” he said. “Interactions were very complicated at Deep Springs. You have peers who are your classmates and board members, and you certainly get very close.” Of Brown, Eldridge said, “It has been nicer to have a more diverse community.” Eldridge said he hopes to enter national politics after his time at Brown. He said he was inspired by the Deep Springs precept “to serve humanity.” “I can’t say I prefer one over the other,” he said of Brown and Deep Springs. “The great thing about Deep Springs is you get to decide where you want to go to college twice.”

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Suicide bomber targets Iraqi university BAGHDAD, Iraq (Los Angeles Times) — A suicide bomber pushed past guards at a crowded college campus Sunday and set off a thunderous blast that killed at least 40 Iraqis, most of them female students who were waiting in line in the midday sun to enter classrooms for midterm exams. The attack was the second in recent weeks to target the mainly Shiite Mustansiriya University, and it sent a clear message that whatever calm had followed the launch of the latest U.S.-Iraqi security plan was over. Even as rescue workers mopped blood from the college grounds and as the wounded told their stories of survival, the Iraqi government insisted the plan launched nearly two weeks ago was succeeding. But radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose followers virtually control the campus, denounced the plan as a failure and said Iraqi government troops and police should take charge of security and “invaders,” a reference to U.S. troops, should leave.

Sharpton descended from slave owned by Strom Thurmond relative NEW YORK (Washington Post) — The Rev. Al Sharpton, the prominent civil rights activist, is descended from a slave owned by relatives of the late senator, and one-time segregationist, Strom Thurmond, a genealogical study released Sunday reported. “It was probably the most shocking thing of my life,” Sharpton said of learning the findings, which were requested and published Sunday by the New York Daily News. He called a news conference to respond publicly to the report. The revelation was particularly stunning for the juxtaposition of the two men’s public lives. Sharpton, known for his fiery rhetoric and a tendency to intervene in racially charged incidents, ran for president in 2004 on a ticket promoting racial justice. Thurmond made a bid for the presidency in 1948, promising to preserve racial segregation, while in 1957, he filibustered for more than 24 hours against a civil rights bill. After his death in 2003, though, it became clear that Thurmond had a complicated history with issues of race when a 78-year-old retired schoolteacher, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, revealed she was the daughter of his extramarital relationship with his family’s black housekeeper.

Hope outrunning experience in primary race BY JOHANNA NEUMAN LOS ANGELES TIMES

WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama bristled at charges that her husband was not experienced enough for the presidency. “We’ve heard this spewed from the lips of rivals every phase of our journey: He is not experienced enough, he should wait his turn,” she recently told supporters of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who at 45 is serving his ﬁrst Senate term. Only political insiders, she said, would look at his life accomplishments “and dare to have the audacity to say he is not ready.” Experience — and how to measure it — has become one of the ﬁrst big debating points of the 2008 presidential race. In one of the curiosities of the Democratic primary, some of the candidates with the most experience in national politics are at the bottom of the early popularity surveys. By contrast, Obama, with a mere three years on the national stage, is this year’s campaign-trail sensation. And so Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut — with 33 years in the House and Senate — has been trying to heighten the importance of Washington knowledge, making a constant refrain of his claim that

President Bush proves the dangers of on-the-job training in the White House. “I think people do care about experience,” Dodd said. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico — 15 years in the House, two years as U.N. ambassador, three years as Energy Secretary — touts his “unparalleled experience.” And Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. — 35 years in the Senate — has said of his campaign rivals: “It’s not so much whether I can compete with their money, but whether they can compete with my ideas and my experience.” Even former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who served a single term before opening a White House bid in 2004, has brought his twist to the issue. Asked at an event last month how he differed from Obama, Edwards said: “Experience. I’ve been through a presidential campaign.” Advocates for Obama, as for other candidates who are positioning themselves as outsiders to Washington’s political culture, like to say that the range of their life experiences makes them more ﬁt for ofﬁce than those who have spent their careers in government. In Obama’s case, that resume includes stints as a community organizer, law professor, civil rights attorney and eight-

year member of the Illinois state Senate. Obama’s allies also assert that a wealth of government experience did not make Vice President Dick Cheney or former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld any wiser in confronting the nation’s problems. And Obama launched his campaign from Springﬁeld, Ill. — a city identiﬁed with Abraham Lincoln — perhaps to remind voters that one of the country’s greatest presidents had little Washington experience before he reached the White House. Lincoln had served one House term and 12 years in the Illinois Legislature. Among conservative voters, experience is prized. “Republicans generally believe, particularly conservatives, that we are electing a wartime president, so experience will be critical,” said GOP political consultant Christopher Barron. “It’s one of the reasons you continue to see someone like Rudy Giuliani over-performing among conservatives who disagree with him on a litany of social issues.” Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and federal prosecutor, built a national reputation as a steady leader after the Sept. 11 attacks. He leads in several early polls of Republican voters.

Transcript points up discrepancies in Muslim charity case BY GREG KRIKORIAN LOS ANGELES TIMES

When the Bush administration shut down the nation’s largest Muslim charity ﬁve years ago, ofﬁcials of the Dallas-based foundation denied allegations it was linked to terrorists and insisted that a number of accusations were fabricated by the government. Now, attorneys for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development say the government’s own documents provide evidence of their claim.

In recent court filings, defense lawyers disclosed striking discrepancies between an official summary and the verbatim transcripts of an FBI wiretapped conversation in 1996 involving Holy Land officials. The summary attributes inflammatory, anti-Semitic comments to Holy Land officials that are not found in a 13-page transcript of the recorded conversation. It recently was turned over to the defense in an exchange of evidence by the government. Citing the unexplained discrepancies, defense lawyers have asked

U.S. District Judge A. Joseph Fish in Dallas to declassify thousands of hours of FBI surveillance recordings, so that full transcripts would replace government summaries as evidence. The demand could force government prosecutors to either declassify evidence it has fought to keep secret or risk losing a critical portion of evidence in its case. In December, the judge denied a defense request to declassify the documents so they could be examined by defendants in the case. Seven former foundation officials, six of them U.S. citizens, have been charged with funneling money to overseas charities controlled by Hamas, which has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. The defendants have denied the charges. While defense attorneys have government clearances that allow them to review the material, they have been prohibited from sharing it with their clients under the federal Classified Information Procedures Act. And unless the CIPA rules are declared unconstitutional in the case, defense attorneys argue, the defendants will have no way of proving that the statements attributed to them were misconstrued or never made. The recently declassified summary of an April 15, 1996, surveillance asserts that during a conversation wiretapped by the FBI, Holy Land’s former executive director Shukri Abu Baker told two associates there was no need to worry about the foundation being unfairly targeted because U.S. courts were not under the control of the American-Israeli Political Action Committee or its sponsor, he said, “the government of the demons of Israel.” The summary portrays Baker as raging against “the Jews of the world” and as claiming that Jews have no allegiance to anything but “their pockets and to preserving the illegal Zionist state of Israel.”

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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

Future of college radio debated by alums, WBRU and BSR student leaders continued from page 1 we know it,” he said. “It’s the minds that are currently passionate about what they are doing at WBRU and BSR that are going to come up with these ideas.” As podcasts and streaming radio on the Internet gain popularity, “the whole world is becoming college radio,” Oppenheim said. He added that stations gain audiences through their Internet presence, and that “The mass market as measured by the Arbitron (radio ratings system) is waning.” Particularly contentious is how college radio stations can balance their commercial interests and role as centers for students to learn and

experiment. “College radio is an experimental alternative to other media,” Smulyan said. “(It) allows us to look at the producers of radio in addition to the structure of programming.” But there are real commercial limitations to college radio, Tannenwald said. To attract advertisers, radio stations have to appeal to a larger demographic than the 18-25 category and navigate conﬂict between acceptance from their larger audience and students’ desire to be creative and try new things. This issue is particularly relevant for WBRU, an independently funded commercial station. BSR was created for students interested in experimenting with alternative

programming whereas WBRU appeals to students attracted to the large-scale commercial side of radio, panelists said. Commercial and non-commercial college radio stations are often at odds because of these differences, Cidre said. “There’s always this idea that BRU has turned into the corporate commercial monster — which we haven’t — and to idealize BSR.” “We are an educational workshop, but in order to provide that training and for students to have that experience, the sacriﬁce can be playing My Chemical Romance or another band in that genre,” Cidre said. “College radio at its best is a space for new ideas to grow unin-

hibited by the audience’s demands,” Sigal said. But college stations must also manage other interests such as providing a service to the community and providing local programs that can’t be found elsewhere, he said. The relationship works both ways, Sigal said, as community members teach students about the area and students learn from their listeners’ experiences. The representation of minorities on the airwaves also came up in panelists’ discussion. One audience member, a Brown alum involved in creating WBRU’s Sunday hip-hop program 360°, said that, though some people don’t like the hip-hop show, college radio introduces people to different genres of

music. “You may have some people say ‘I don’t want to hear 360,’ but the music is not necessarily a mystery to them.” Most of the audience members were Brown college radio alums or current interns who enjoyed the discussion. Jim Brennan ’69 said he came to see old friends and remember his college days. “I spent an enormous amount of time at WBRU, to the detriment of my academic career,” he said. “The panel itself was a good diversity of people,” said Anit Jindal ’09, station manager for WBRU. “There were a lot of really relevant alumni. It was good to sit down in an open forum and discuss these things.”

BET CEO Lee ’76 stresses value of entrepreneurial spirit, risk-taking in career decisions continued from page 1 D.C., and ultimately BET. The former sixth-grade class president said she developed “a ﬁrm sense of self” growing up in a segregated but “proud” middleclass black community. “We were so proud of our segregated high school that when integration looked like it was inevitable, we held ‘Save the Black School’ rallies,” she said, adding later that she had led some of those rallies. “We didn’t need others to tell us we were smart … or articulate,” she said. Lee described her years at Brown as “some of the happiest moments of my life” and said she fostered her entrepreneurial spirit studying abroad in Southeast Asia her junior year. After ﬁve years with the “white

shoe” Washington law firm Steptoe & Johnson, where Lee worked on the BET account, she left to join the cable network “no one thought would last” as its first fulltime in-house lawyer. Given cable television’s then-murky future, the career move was risky. “You get to a point in life where you have to really make decisions for yourself and you have to figure out what you really want to do,” she said. “I took a step back and said ‘this is something that I want to do, even though I don’t know whether it will be successful.’ ” Twenty years later, as chairman and CEO of BET Networks, which she said reaches more than 100 million households through various media outlets, Lee said the company is at a crossroads again. As viewers rely increasingly on new technologies for entertain-

ment, Lee said BET is pursuing fresh sources of revenue — for example, making the network’s content available through iTunes and Verizon VCast. As she steers the company’s effort to reinvent itself, Lee said she is relying on her entrepreneurial spirit. Effective leaders, she said, must be “politically savvy to reach the top and entrepreneurial to stay there.” Responding to a student’s question about BET’s role in promoting negative stereotypes of black Americans, Lee said she and her colleagues “try to strike a balance” when determining each year’s programming. “It’s important for us to entertain, but we want to educate at the same time,” she said. Students in the audience told The Herald they enjoyed hearing

Lee’s life story. Renata Sago ’10, who said she attended a predominantly black high school in Chicago, said she related to Lee’s description of her early life. “What she said was inspirational,” Sago said. Gabriel Doss ’10 said he was glad Lee shared information about her life experiences. “It was an interesting choice to focus on her personal story,” he said. “I enjoyed it a great deal.” Robby Klaber ’07, co-president of the Enterpeneurship Program, said he was “very pleased” with Lee’s speech but did not agree with her assertion that entrepreneurship is an exclusively intrinsic trait. “I don’t think it’s a gene that some people have and some people don’t,” he said. “Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking, and a lot of the qualities that go along with it are

developed over time.” Co-president Young Peck ’07 said he appreciated Lee’s honesty and thought her deﬁnition of entrepreneurship may be more speciﬁc than their organization’s. “I think entrepreneurs can be created. Entrepreneurship is a way of life. It’s a mindset that involves being creative in whatever you do,” he said. In addition to Lee’s opening address, the forum included a series of smaller panels and closing remarks from John Sculley ’61, a former CEO of both Apple and PepsiCo. Founded by Brown students in 1998, the Entrepreneurship Program is a student-run organization that seeks to connect students interested in entrepreneurship with successful alumni and business leaders.

DPS reaches out to campus continued from page 5 DPS will also launch officer-student dialogue opportunities as part of its Diversity Awareness Development Initiative. Nuey said the department would begin a pilot program in early March with two black student organizations. The dialogues will be small, with five officers, five students and predetermined questions generated by both groups. “The idea is to offer this as a mechanism where we can go to a special interest group and say, ‘We want to engage in productive dialogue with you,’” Nuey said. DPS has also introduced additional crime prevention events. The department’s “Know More!” crime awareness and prevention sessions teach community members how to enhance personal safety. DPS representatives also update participants on resources and services from other departments on campus during the one-hour presentations. According to Nuey, the department hopes to hold one session every other week. The next session will be held on March 7. In addition, Nuey said residential

counselors have expressed interest in hosting safety presentations in residence halls. Last semester, ofﬁcers held pizza-making sessions in Barbour and Minden halls to address student questions. Nuey said DPS would like to continue the sessions this semester and hopes to begin presentations in dorms by midMarch. DPS has also announced the Brown Building Security Initiative, a campus security program. According to Nuey, enhancing workplace security has been an ongoing effort, but giving the program a name this semester “really structured the process for us.” “It’s a formal system for addressing this issue,” Nuey said. “It lets departments know that it’s a resource for them to use if they have a security concern about a building.” Nuey said DPS is continually looking for ways to “reach out to the community around us.” As part of this effort, the department has partnered with the Brown chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and six ofﬁcers will join students in building a house for a low-income family next month.

W. water polo suffers ﬁrst loss of season continued from page 12 title, the Bears will need to duplicate the defensive prowess they showed in the Ivy Tournament and in the ﬁrst three quarters of Saturday’s game against Hartwick. They will also need to avoid the letdown suffered at the end of Saturday’s contest.

“We played three quarters of great water polo against Hartwick, and we will continue to work hard this week on conditioning and tightening up our offensive strategies,” said co-captain Elizabeth Balassone ’07. “There is no doubt that we have a great opportunity for a ﬁrst place ﬁnish at ECACs.”

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

M. icers beat Union, lose to RPI continued from page 12 the blue line, Sean Muncy ’09 and Dersch capitalized on the ensuing two-on-one advantage. RPI struck back at 13:34, beating goaltender Dan Rosen ’10 on a rebound on an Engineer power play. Just 2:24 later, forward Jeff Prough ’08 regained the lead, scoring off a pass from forward Brian McNary ’08. McNary has a point in six consecutive games. But Brown’s lead was short-lived. RPI knotted the game at two at 17:11 of the first. After the intermission, the Engineers scored back-to-back goals 24 seconds apart at 4:19 and 4:43 of the second, staking them to a 42 lead. Bears’ forward Chris Poli ’08 buried a puck in the net just 46 seconds after the second RPI goal though, narrowing the RPI lead to 4-3 at 5:29. Forward Aaron Volpatti ’10 assisted on Poli’s goal. After 10 minutes of scoreless play, the Engineers padded their lead with another goal to take a 53 lead just before the end of the second period. “We had a good first period,” said Muncy. “But then we just kind of fell apart. We came out looking flat. And then they got a lucky goal, which deflated us. We never really got our energy back.” During the intermission, Rosen was replaced by Mark Sibbald ’09. After a number of solid saves, Sibbald was finally cracked when an RPI player scored on a breakaway at 7:35, increasing the Engineers’ lead to 6-3. But the Bears responded once again as Prough scored just 1:03 later to bring Brown back into the game After another minute of backand-forth play, Prough gained possession of the puck after an RPI turnover and passed it to forward Sean McMonagle ’10, in the middle of the offensive zone. McMonagle finished the pass into the back of goal for his third goal of the year and his sixth point in as many games, narrowing the RPI lead to 6-5 at 5:46. Brown kept the pressure on the Engineers, holding the puck in their defensive zone for almost the entire three minutes remaining in the game. Bruno was unable to net a tying goal, losing 6-5. The loss ended Brown’s chances of hosting a first-round series in the ECAC tournament. “I think we played pretty well, overall,” said Head Coach Roger Grillo. “Friday night, our defensive play was lacking, but the forwards were great. They’re putting

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up some really big numbers lately, and that’s good to see because that wasn’t really our strength earlier in the season. We just need to get back to defense, which has traditionally been one of our best areas. If we can do that, we can beat anybody.” Brown responded to the setback with a strong effort in Saturday’s regular season finale. Union and Brown played an even first period, with each scoring on the power play. McNary scored the first goal of the game at 2:39 with Brown on a two-man advantage. Prough sent the puck back to defenseman David Robertson ’08 at the blue-line, who hit McNary with a pass at the bottom of the left face-off circle. McNary buried the pass for his seventh point in as many games. “We opened the game skating, playing more consistently, not just at the start but throughout all the periods,” Muncy said. Union evened the score at 10:41, sneaking a puck past Sibbald. Brown regained its lead 46 seconds into the second period when Robertson picked up a rebound off a Muncy blast and knocked the puck into an open net. The final goal of the game was an empty-net goal scored by forward Devin Timberlake ’10 with 1:55 left in the third period. The 31 win was Sibbald’s second of the season. The Bears finished the regular season in 11th place and will travel to Princeton next weekend for a best-of-three series in the first round of the ECACHL playoffs. “Of course, now there’s added pressure,” Poli said. “It’s important to just try not to think about that going into the games. Princeton is a very good team and they’ve earned their position up there at the top of the rankings. We’ll just try to play them tough and if we do, we will definitely match up well against them and come out on top.” In the regular season, Brown lost at Princeton, 3-2 in overtime, in the first meeting and tied the Tigers, 1-1 at home, in early February. “I feel confident against any team in the league at this point,” Grillo said. “There’s really not much difference between teams. One more win, or two more points anywhere, and we’d be playing at home. All the teams are really close. If we play the way we’re capable of playing, we could go all the way.”

Mahrtian Encounters: M. hoops notebook continued from page 12 Brown tries to do. Or maybe the opposition’s hot shooting was a result of the Bears running out of gas in the second half of its games. Regardless, defending the trey should be a big part of Bruno’s practice regimen this week. Not your typical Ivy League scoring leader When people think about offense in Ivy League basketball, they tend to think of backdoor cuts and a bunch of undersized players hoisting three-point shots. Though he is proﬁcient in both shooting and cutting, McAndrew is much more than a standstill shooter. He takes his opponent off the dribble, gets to the hoop and gets to the foul line. In Saturday’s loss to the Big Red, McAndrew went into the second half wanting to attack, attack, attack, and he brought his team to within three before he succumbed to cramping and the team succumbed to Cornell.

Good hustle You know those crowd favorites who seem to come up with loose balls and important rebounds that energize the team and the fans? Well, before long, Robinson could find himself with an army of such players. For much of the season he has preached the value of getting after an opponent and not ever letting up, and it definitely looks like his players have bought into that mentality. They rarely take a break from their full-court pressure, hit the floor for every loose ball and aren’t afraid to play a physical game in general. Two hustle guys that Brown will rely on next season are Chris Skrelja ’09 and Steve Gruber ’10. Skrelja can guard any man on the floor and may yet emerge as Brown’s best rebounder. He had five offensive rebounds in Friday’s win over Columbia. Gruber is an absolute pest to ball handlers in Brown’s pressure defense, and in recent weeks Robinson has

turned to him several times when his team has needed a boost. Getting bigger and redder Cornell is just a really good team, and they have been since I started following Ivy League basketball freshman year. Head Coach Steve Donahue runs a really scary offense up in Ithaca, and he seems to reload with good players each year. His latest stars are both great shooters, and unfortunately for Brown and the rest of the Ivy League, they’re only freshmen. Both Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale finished with 22 points in Saturday’s 12-point win, and it seemed like neither missed in the second half. Dale in particular was on fire, going 5-of-5 from beyond the arc in the final 20 minutes. It will be interesting to see if both Brown and Cornell find themselves fighting at the top of the Ancient Eight standings next season and what role Skrelja and Gruber and Wittman and Dale have for Brown and Cornell, respectively.

M. hoops holds off Lions, trapped by Big Red continued from page 12 arc. The Lions shot 9-of-13 from three-point land in the second half, hitting both open and contested shots from every spot on the court. But the Bears countered with Huffman, who finished the game with six treys and 22 points. “Every year I seem to go out and do really well against Columbia,” Huffman said. “Freshman year, I had my career high (17), sophomore year I had my career high (23), and this time around was a really good game … those first two threes that I hit really gave me confidence. Anytime you start out the game hitting shots, you really get into a rhythm.” After beating Columbia, Saturday’s game against Cornell was an opportunity for the team to add to its three-game winning streak and even its Ivy League record. But the Bears’ first-half play versus the Big Red was a far cry from their machine-like dismantling of Columbia in Friday’s first period. The Bears committed 10 turnovers in the first half against Cornell, one less than their total against Columbia for the game. Despite the team’s sloppy play, Brown found itself down only 2420 at the 5:18 mark after a 6-0 run capped by a breakaway layup from Becker. But the Big Red combined

steady free-throw shooting with easy layups to take a 33-22 lead into the break. In the second half, the Bears came out with a burst of energy. The team cut the Big Red lead to seven just 2:33 into the second half on the strength of a three-pointer by McAndrew. But it seemed every time the Bears trimmed the deﬁcit, the Big Red would respond with a three-pointer to restore its lead. With 8:58 left, Becker led an aggressive full-court press and Steve Gruber ’10 came up with a steal and a fast-break layup to draw within three, 54-51. But then Cornell freshman and leading scorer Ryan Wittmann buried a three from the corner. “Once we went in at half time (we) came out with a little more ﬁre,” Robinson said. “You make your run and you hope you slow them down a bit, but they just kept coming.” Just 30 seconds later, the intensity of the game boiled over when McAndrew was fouled hard on a drive to the basket. A Cornell player fell to the ground, and players on all sides jawed at each other. Becker received a technical foul for his role in the incident. “I was turned the other way, and (a Cornell player) had his foot on Mark McAndrew’s chest, and it looked like it was coming down

like he was stepping on him,” Becker said about the incident. “So I pushed him off, and just then the ref looked, so that’s why I got the technical.” After Wittman converted the technical free throws, Cornell freshman point guard Louis Dale hit three pointers on two of three possessions and Wittman hit another three to push the Big Red lead to 12 at the 6:08 mark. Brown would get no closer the rest of the way. McAndrew led the Bears with 33 points, including 27 in the second half, for a career-high. McAndrew scored most of his points on drives to the basket, saying that the team “needed to be aggressive and I made a concerted effort to do that.” Though Becker was disappointed to end his home career with a loss, he said he was satisﬁed with the team’s effort. “For my last game, it was a good ending because there was a lot of action and the crowd was really into it,” Becker said. Becker ﬁnished the game with seven points, four steals, three assists and two rebounds. Next week the team hopes to end its season on a high note with a trip to Princeton and the Ivy League-leading University of Pennsylvania.

recycle this herald

E DITORIAL & L ETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 10

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

STAF F EDITORIAL

Next on the agenda The news streaming out of University Hall this weekend is a strong reminder that the University is on the move — it is spending more, hiring more, building more and doing more. The Brown of today looks very different from the Brown of just five years ago, and leaders in University Hall and on the Corporation are guiding the University on a trajectory that leads to a much larger, more robust and more complex institution. Many of the initiatives adopted by the Corporation this weekend address long-standing campus or institutional needs that matter to students. The plan to overhaul Faunce House to create a campus hub that will be open around-the-clock fulfills a goal that has been on President Ruth Simmons’ radar since her first day at Brown. The creation of a social-choice fund has long been advocated by students, and more money — a 40 percent boost over the next four years — will finally be allocated to financial aid for international students, which we have advocated as a top fundraising priority. But all of this aggressive spending requires aggressive fundraising. The complicated $700 million budget for the next fiscal year calls for increased revenues from a variety of areas, including the continued success of the Campaign for Academic Enrichment and a greater payout from the endowment. But one source of funding that the University shouldn’t count on to support its capital initiatives is undergraduate tuition. Many cash-strapped undergraduates are already buckling under the weight of the $45,000 burden they face each year on College Hill. University officials stress the importance of financial aid as a key institutional goal, and tremendous progress has been made in the few years since the Plan for Academic Enrichment was crafted. Indeed, the University calls financial aid “long (one) of the fastest growing expenditure categories,” and the new budget increases the financial aid allocation by 10 percent to $56.9 million. But a boost to financial aid isn’t enough to address the serious concerns about the rising cost of a college education. Slowing tuition increases won’t affect the University’s ability to attract students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, but it will ease the burden for much of the student body, including the nearly 40 percent of financial aid recipients who told The Herald in 2006 they were dissatisfied with their packages. We know the five-percent tuition increase is in step with virtually all peer institutions — the College Board reported that tuition and fees jumped 5.9 percent nationally for the next academic year at private four-year colleges and universities — and that the University can’t afford to hold off on tuition increases. We know Brown lacks the fundraising muscle and mammoth endowments of Harvard, Princeton and Yale. It’s unrealistic to expect the University will be the first to halt, or at least slow, tuition increases. Still, as each February adds a few extra thousand dollars to the tuition bill and the Corporation demonstrates a commitment to bold initiatives, we hope quashing the rising tuition that students are asked to pay each year ranks high among the University’s institutional priorities.

T HE B ROWN D AILY H ERALD Editors-in-Chief Eric Beck Mary-Catherine Lader

Executive Editors Allison Kwong Ben Leubsdorf

Senior Editors Stephen Colelli Sonia Saraiya BUSINESS

EDITORIAL Lydia Gidwitz Lindsey Meyers Stephanie Bernhard Stu Woo Simmi Aujla Sara Molinaro Ross Frazier Jacob Schuman Michal Zapendowski Peter Cipparone Justin Goldman Sarah Demers Erin Frauenhofer Madeleine Marecki

Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Editor Features Editor Features Editor Metro Editor Metro Editor News Editor Opinions Editor Opinions Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor

PHOTO Eunice Hong Christopher Bennett Jacob Melrose

Photo Editor Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

General Manager Mandeep Gill General Manager Ally Ouh Executive Manager Darren Ball Executive Manager Dan DeNorch Laurie-Ann Paliotti Sr. Advertising Manager Ofﬁce Manager Susan Dansereau PRODUCTION Design Editor Steve DeLucia Copy Desk Chief Chris Gang Graphics Editor Mark Brinker Graphics Editor Roxanne Palmer Web Editor Luke Harris POST- MAGAZINE Hillary Dixler Melanie Duch Taryn Martinez Rajiv Jayadevan Mindy Smith

Managing Editor Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor Features Editor

Steve DeLucia, Matthew McCabe, Designer Karen Evans, Alex Mazerov, Meha Varghese, Copy Editors Senior Staff Writers Rachel Arndt, Michael Bechek, Oliver Bowers, Zachary Chapman, Chaz Firestone, Kristina Kelleher, Debbie Lehmann, Scott Lowenstein, James Shapiro, Michael Skocpol Staff Writers Susana Aho, Taylor Barnes, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Irene Chen, Stewart Dearing, Nicole Dungca, Thi Ho, Rebecca Jacobson, Tsvetina Kamenova, Hannah Levintova, Abe Lubetkin, Christian Martell, Taryn Martinez, Zachary McCune, Nathalie Pierrepont, Robin Steele, Allissa Wickham, Max Winograd Sports Staff Writers Amy Ehrhart, Kaitlyn Laabs, Eliza Lane, Kathleen Loughlin, Megan McCahill, Marco Santini, Tom Trudeau, Steele West Account Administrators Emilie Aries, Alexander Hughes Design Staff Brianna Barzola, Aurora Durfee, Sophie Elsner, Christian Martell, Matthew McCabe, Ezra Miller, Sarah Raifman Photo Staff Stuart Duncan-Smith, Austin Freeman, Tai Ho Shin Copy Editors Ayelet Brinn, Catherine Cullen, Erin Cummings, Karen Evans, Jacob Frank, Ted Lamm, Lauren Levitz, Cici Matheny, Alex Mazerov, Ezra Miller, Joy Neumeyer, Madeleine Rosenberg, Lucy Stark, Meha Verghese

PETE FALLON

LETTERS Bogard ’09 misses admission as a zero-sum game To the Editor: I am writing in response to Jon Bogard’s ’09 column (“Asians are not discriminated against,” Feb. 22). I applaud Bogard for pointing out that a study that considers only race and SAT scores is woefully incomplete. However, I have to point out a signiﬁcant error in Bogard’s reasoning. He writes, “To afﬁrmatively value one quality is not to discriminate against those who do not have that quality.” However, as any economist will tell you, this is not the case if one is allocating a

limited resource, such as Brown University acceptance letters. The admissions process is a zero-sum game, and consequently a preference for those in a particular group is logically equivalent to discrimination against those not in the group.

Casey Marks ‘01.5 GS Feb. 22

Brown shouldn’t recruit Duke’s Seligmann To the Editor: I am writing to express my surprise and disappointment with Brown for entertaining an application from, much less recruiting, Reade Seligmann, one of the Duke lacrosse players involved in last year’s rape incident. Irrespective of whether he is guilty or innocent of the particular charge, he exercised ﬂagrantly bad judgment by remaining at the party where these events occurred, and a total absence of character by

not intervening and putting a stop to it. For an institution such as Brown that rightly prides itself on its social conscience, it’s beyond reproach how it can admit someone who lacks any.

Peter Friedman P ’07 Feb. 22

Iraq protest’s logic not convoluted To the Editor: In response to Wednesday’s editorial on the vigils at the office of R Re p. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., (“A messy debate,” Feb. 21) I am writing to thank The Herald for acknowledging the efforts of Military Families Speak Out, R.I. Declaration of Peace and Operation Iraqi Freedom members to bring the war to an end. However, I reject the idea that the aim or motivation of the protest were in any way convoluted. Our purpose was simple: to end the war by taking away the funding. Our troops are only inflaming the conflict and the situation will not improve with our troops there, a fact the British have acknowledged in the explanation for their partial pullout. Defunding the war would require President Bush to recall the troops before the current funding runs out in 10 months. It would be hypocritical for Congress to simultaneously be against the war but still fund it. If our representatives want to end the war, as Ken-

nedy and Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., now say they do, they have the perfect opportunity to take a very simple, straightforward action: block the bill to increase the money for the war. Our presence was meant to show our representatives that Rhode Islanders are committed to supporting them in taking a politically courageous action in keeping with their stated views. While the war might be a sticky situation, those of us who participated in the vigils this week did so because we strongly believe that the right ﬁrst step toward solving it is to take away the money for it.

Ingrid O’Brien ‘07 Operation Iraqi Freedom R.I. Declaration of Peace Feb. 22

CORRECTIONS POLICY The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication. COMMENTAR Y POLICY The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reﬂect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reﬂect the opinions of their authors only. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. ADVER TISING POLICY The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

O PINIONS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Fact-electual diversity BY JUSTIN ELLIOTT GUEST COLUMNIST

Brown Jug, move over. The Brown Spectator is now the premier humor magazine on campus. For those of you who don’t know, the Spectator is a right-wing magazine that appears at the Ratty more and more often these days thanks to a few Brown alums who started a fundraising operation called the Foundation for Intellectual Diversity (motto: “ideas without labels”). The ofﬁcers of the foundation include Travis Rowley ’02, whose book “Out of Ivy” is a heart-rending account of his brutal victimization at the hands of the campus left. Ideally, a conservative magazine like the Spectator would provide a welcome counterpoint to Brown’s prevailing “liberal orthodoxy.” Instead, the latest issue of the publication that calls itself “a journal of conservative and libertarian thought” is a hilarious mix of bad writing, bad arguments and other crimes against journalism. Editor in Chief Pratik Chougule ’08 leads the charge with two classic conservative-aseternal-victim narratives. In “Teaching Republicans: Dogmatism at the Brown Alumni Magazine,” Chougule takes aim at the BAM for printing two letters to the editor responding to a recent cover story on campus politics. Chougule was one of a handful of students featured in the BAM cover story, and both letter-writers criticize his comments about Iraq and Iran. In his Spectator article, Chougule asserts the letters have a “totalitarian tone” (whatever that means) and writes, “most galling … is the Brown Alumni Magazine’s decision to publish only these two letters. While I am certainly speculating, I think it is fair to

assume that (Howard) Karten ’65 and (Sara) Silberman ’63 were not the only alumni to send letters to the editor.” Chougule reinforces his anti-totalitarian credentials with the assertion that “reeducation in journalistic integrity wouldn’t be such a bad idea for the editors at the Brown Alumni Magazine.” I went ahead and asked BAM editor and publisher and known pinko Norman Boucher about the letters — something Chougule could have done instead of “certainly speculating.” Here’s what Boucher wrote me via email: “The letters we printed were the only ones we received about the article.” Oops. Who is it, again, that needs reeducation in journalistic integrity? Chougule’s other article, titled simply “Sharia Law,” takes on the Nonie Darwish speaker controversy. Darwish is an “Arab feminist” who gave an emotional, somewhat loony speech earlier this month about the threat of radical Islam. Chougule tells his version of the story of how Darwish’s initial invitation to speak was withdrawn by Hillel. His is a lurid tale of radical Islamist censorship. “When Hillel announced its decision to invite Darwish to speak, the Brown University Muslim Students Association promptly insisted that Hillel rescind the invitation. Their reasoning: Darwish is ‘too controversial.’ After a brief period of internal debate, Hillel buckled and withdrew its invitation.” Chougule doesn’t cite any source for his “too controversial” quote or, for that matter, any of his narrative. The kicker, however, comes later: “In successfully pushing to silence a woman ... simply for voicing grievances against Islamic radicalism, the Muslim Students Association sends an unequivocal message: Muslims who defend Israel and America in the War on Terrorism … are anti-Muslim.” That’s quite a condemnation. Our poor Muslim Students Association really comes

across as an al-Qaida sleeper cell. If Chougule had bothered to spend two minutes on Google before breathlessly alerting us that the Brown MSA hates Israel, he would have found an ofﬁcial University statement from December that dispels all of his allegations: “It has been reported in many venues that the Muslim Students Association voiced objections to the original idea of bringing Ms. Darwish to the Brown campus. That is not, in fact, true. The Muslim Students Association was not approached as a group about the event nor did they express any objection to her speaking at Brown. Any representations to the contrary are false.” Hmm. The only mystery left is where Chougule got his false narrative. It turns out some right-wing commentators in the national media, including CNN talk show host Glenn Beck, picked up the Darwish story late last year. Unsurprisingly, while scoring cheap talking points on a campus story, the pundits got some basic facts wrong, including the (non) role of the Muslims Students Association. Chougule apparently decided that Beck, who once described himself as “a recovering alcoholic rodeo clown with limited education,” was a good source for campus news. So much for “Sharia Law.” Unfortunately, Chougule’s not the only Spectator writer to suffer from a trigger-happy keyboard. Managing Editor Jason Carr ’09 has a thought-piece in the latest issue called “Asian-Americans in Admissions: When Success Breeds a Backlash.” Surely this is a complex issue that deserves a nuanced treatment, especially because Brown admission data is not public, meaning that any speculation about discrimination is, well, speculation. The argument Carr delivers instead is vintage Spectator. He begins by seeming to quote our own admission ofﬁcer: “according

to Brown Dean of Admission James S. Miller ’73, the University works to achieve, ‘selection by a personal estimate of character on the part of the admission authorities, based on the probable value to the college and to the community of his admission.’” Except Carr immediately reveals that the quote is from 1926, and the speaker not our own James S. Miller but A. Lawrence Lowell, former president of Harvard University — “that rabidly anti-Semitic institution of yore [sic].” Whoah! Bet you weren’t expecting that one. Rather than actually quoting Miller, Carr puts words from a completely different context in his mouth — a context which happens to be anti-Semitic. No explanation is necessary. The analysis is damning. I can’t cover the whole magazine here, only encourage you to flip through and share a few guffaws with your friends. “Panda Porn” is a strange, extended analogy involving Sex Power God and Chinese pandas having sex. There’s another piece arguing Israel should put the peace process “on the ash heap.” There’s an article taking on the Red Terror (“Thievery as Public Service: Understanding Communism”) approximately 20 years after everyone stopped caring. All of this from a publication that bestows the title “editor” on twenty-five individuals. What’s worse, this column will probably inflame the magazine’s misplaced sense of victimhood. Seriously though, if the Spectator is the cutting edge of “intellectual diversity” at Brown, can someone please tell me how to opt out?

Former Herald Executive Editor Justin Elliott ’07 is actually an alumnus from Yale. His real name is Martin Silberman. We apologize to our readers for any confusion.

Iraq: More real and less moralpolitik BY BORIS RYVKIN OPINIONS COLUMNIST

The United States stands at a critical geopolitical crossroads. The next year will determine whether the United States attains the position of power broker or sees its power break. The current situation in Iraq underscores an unfortunate adage: politicians rarely make effective strategists. In order for the United States to buttress its strategic interests and national security needs, minimize its military casualties and wartime expenditures and strengthen its regional influence, it must repudiate democracy building and return to a realist mindset. A new vision for Iraq and the Middle East is necessary if U.S. fortunes are to improve. Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional aims must be addressed in any serious discussion of Iraq. The regime in Tehran faces a number of serious challenges in its nuclear development. The quality of the nuclear fuel at the Bushehr and Isfahan facilities is dubious, as are the centrifuges necessary for uranium enrichment. The lack of a delivery mechanism is another problem, which is underscored by a few comparisons. South Africa began its nuclear program near the end of World War II and tested its first device only in 1976. It should be noted that the country had a wellfunded and advanced research and development core, large territorial uranium deposits and near-perfect secrecy. According to the Institute for Science and International Security, the first bomb measured a gargantuan 4.5 me-

ters in length and weighed 3,400 kilograms. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reported that China, a state with a $700-billion trade surplus and a standing army of over 2.3 million, has produced only 80 land-based weapons after 40 years of nuclear development. Given Iran’s low uranium deposits, dearth of trained scientists and 11 percent unemployment rate, historical precedent should cause us to question our hysteria. Whatever weapon Iran does produce, it will simply be too large to hand to individual terrorist groups. Iran’s nuclear drive is not aimed at global apocalypse, but at sustaining an increasingly tenuous regime. Iran’s aims are almost purely regional. Shackling Western diplomacy with its public provocations and military posturing, it has made tremendous inroads on the Arab street. The regime has expanded its influence in Lebanon by footing the bill of last summer’s conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, signed military cooperation pacts with Syria and funds the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance in Iraq. While problematic, this situation presents an opportunity for U.S. strategists. It was Iran that backed the Northern Alliance against the Taliban more than five years before Enduring Freedom. Tehran fears a success of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, perhaps more than we do. It is especially eager to augment its position at the expense of its chief Sunni rival to the west and the second regional player of significant importance — Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s relations with the United States are heavily one-way. The threat emanating from Riyadh could be traced back to 1925, when the House of Saud captured

Mecca and Medina to become the dominant political force in the Arabian Peninsula. The victory was achieved in part due to Muhammed Saud’s alliance with the followers of Muhammed Abd bin-Wahhab, the founder of Salafism, considered among the most fundamentalist strains of Sunni Islam. In 1979, Khomeini’s rise in Iran and the seizure of sensitive parts of Mecca by extremist elements led the Saudi royal family to make what former C.I.A. Director James Woolsey called a “Faustian bargain” with the Salafi clerics. The royals ceded most educational, religious and cultural authority to the clerical elite in return for increased legitimacy and fewer investigations into state corruption. Presently, the Saudi royals are largely shunned on the Arab street as apostates and Western sell-outs, forcing them further into the arms of the clerics.Twentyfive percent of state GDP is set aside for socalled “patronage projects,” largely bribes to tribal and religious leaders as well as the export of Salafism across the globe. The billions of Saudi Riyals spent on such efforts, which include complete or partial funding of over 200 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques and 202 colleges were publicly acknowledged by the royal family. According to the think-tank Fredom House, King Fahd, the main mosque in Los Angeles, has been directly staffed by Saudi officials. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Right up until the U.S.-led invasion, the U.S.’s trusted “allies” in Saudi Arabia were directly equipping and financing the Taliban. The Saudis pose a distinctly transnational threat, and to a US fighting an ideological conflict and defending

far-reaching global interests, a more lethal danger than Iran’s regional aspirations. Having positioned the chief players, we return to Iraq. The United States should move toward trade and diplomatic normalization with Tehran, perhaps engaging in limited military cooperation. The Saudis, heavily divided about supporting the Sunni insurgency between clerical hardliners and wealthy coastal Shiites, would be pushed to step up aid. Accepting Riyadh, and not Tehran, as the chief threat to US interests, Iran would be allowed to consolidate a sphere of influence in the Shia south. The Saudis would be pressed to create a sphere of influence in Anbar Province. U.S. troop deployment could be reduced from 133,000 to less than 50,000, with bilateral negotiations beginning with Turkey on a package of financial and military incentives to allow for a maximum of Kurdish autonomy and a minimum of tolerance for the increased troop presence. Iraq’s collapse into three pieces and a Saudi-Iranian balance coordinating a massive proxy sectarian conflict would completely change U.S. fortunes. The Saudis would have to divert funding to check Iranian influence and a feigned embracing of Tehran might convince them to stop seeing their relations with the United States as a oneway street. Iranian regional influence would be weakened, a split from Syria made more likely and its nuclear program delayed. The United States could emerge as a major regional power broker and frame Iraq into a larger balance of power strategy. Boris Ryvkin ’09 wants to be a politikian.

S PORTS M ONDAY MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007

M. icers beat Union, lose to RPI BY ELIZA LANE S PORTS S TAFF WRITER

Jacob Melrose / Herald File Photo David Robertson ’08 scored the game-winning goal in the men’s hockey team’s 3-1 win over Union on Saturday. Robertson also assisted on the team’s ﬁrst goal of the game.

Mahr: M. hoops notebook I hadn’t really given much thought to the personal signiﬁcance of Saturday’s game against Cornell, but when Mark McAndrew ’08 asked me after the game if I was a senior and I said yes, I couldn’t help but feel sentimental. It was the last game I would ever cover for Chris Mahr The Herald. Mahrtian Encounter While the game doesn’t mark the end of my tenure as a writer — Mahrtian Encounters will still appear this semester — it will take some time for me to adjust to weekends of not showing up early at Stevenson Field, Meehan Auditorium, the Pitzzitola Center or even the Smith Swim Center, press pass in hand, ready to serve as that token annoying reporter from the campus newspaper. So for everyone associated with football, men’s basketball, men’s hockey, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s lacrosse and women’s water

P O R T S

FRIDAY, DAY FEB. 23 DAY, M. BASKETBALL: Brown 64, Columbia 59 W. BASKETBALL: Brown 72, Columbia 69 M. ICE HOCKEY: Rensselaer 6, Brown 5

SATURDAY, ATURDAY FEB. 24 ATURDAY, M. BASKETBALL: Cornell 79, Brown 67 W. BASKETBALL: Cornell 41, Brown 36 EQUESTRIAN: 1st of 10 teams (Wesleyan University Show) M. HOCKEY: Brown 3, Union 1 M. LACROSSE: UMBC 12, Brown 11 (OT)

PAGE 12

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

polo, I thank you for answering my questions and bringing me inside the game these past four years. It’s been real. But enough of my self-involved reminiscences — on to the game notes. Practice pointers I’m sure I don’t need to tell Head Coach Craig Robinson or anyone on the team about this, but Brown needs to work on defending the three-point shot. In Brown’s seven conference home games this year, there have been junctures in every single game where the opponents have shot the lights out from long range. The Columbia and Cornell games were probably the most stinging examples, particularly in the second half of each game. The Lions and Big Red shot 9-of-13 and 10of-13, respectively, in the ﬁnal 20 minutes — and yet Brown managed to escape the weekend with a split. My guess is that the open threes are a consequence of the difﬁculty in switching between a full-court press and a 2-3 zone, as continued on page 9

C O R E B O A R D M. SWIMMING: 7th of 9 teams (EISL Championships) M. TENNIS: Brown 7, Navy 0; Brown 6, Buffalo W. TENNIS: No. 25 Vanderbilt 6, Brown 1 W. WATER POLO: Hartwick 13, Brown 7

SUNDAY, DAY FEB. 25 DAY, W. LACROSSE: North Carolina 17, Brown 5 W. TENNIS: No. 28 Virginia 7, Brown 0 M. TRACK: 5th of 8 teams, Ivy League Heptagonal Championships W. TRACK: 2nd of 8 teams, Ivy League Heptagonal Championships

T The men’s hockey team traveled to upstate New York this weekend for two games with playoff implications. Brown faced Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Union College in its last two ECACHL games and would have had an outside opportunity to host a firstround playoff series with two victories. But Brown fell 6-5 to the Engineers on Friday night. Even though the team rebounded on Saturday and defeated the Dutchmen 3-1, it will be heading to Princeton on Friday to face the Tigers in the ECACHL first round. The Bears closed the regular season with a record of 10-13-6 overall, and 6-13-4 in the ECACHL. Both were improvements over last year’s regular season marks of 4-18-7 overall and 3-14-5 in the conference. The opening period of Friday’s game was full of offensive chances for both teams. Brown and RPI each tallied two goals in the first 20 minutes of play. Captain and forward Sean Dersch ’07, started the scoring at the 7:16, notching a short-handed goal. After an RPI player lost control of the puck at continued on page 9

M. hoops ﬁghts past Columbia but falls to Cornell on barrage of 3’s BY PETER CIPPARONE SPORTS EDITOR

In its last home games of the season, the men’s basketball team beat Columbia 64-59 on Friday but lost to Cornell 79-67 on Saturday. The team’s mixed results did not reﬂect the effort the Bears put forth in the two games — the last at home for seniors Marcus Becker ’07 and Sam Manhanga ’07. Brown is now 5-7 in the Ivy League, 10-17 overall. The team staved off some deadly second-half shooting Friday from Columbia by making 20of-23 free throws. On Saturday, the Bears fell behind by 11 but clawed back with gutsy play from Becker and Mark McAndrew ’08. As a result, Head Coach Craig Robinson said he was less disappointed with the Saturday loss. “The team really wanted to win the game, I mean we all did, and they took (losing) hard,” he said. “So I had to go in there and be a little bit positive because we’ve made so much progress.” The team began the weekend hosting Columbia in a battle for fourth place in the Ivy League. Damon Huffman ’08 started the game with two three-pointers to give the Bears an early 6-3 lead. The teams then traded defensive stops until

center Mark MacDonald ’08 got the team back on track. MacDonald, who started the weekend’s games in place of Matt Mullery ’10, hit a three-pointer from the corner, then received a pass from Scott Friske ’09 and dunked over John Baumann, Columbia’s leading scorer, a minute later. MacDonald’s strong play gave the Bears a 16-11 lead at the 7:35 mark and ignited a 17-7 run, punctuated by another MacDonald slam. As a result, the Bears ended the half with a 28-17 lead. “I dunked a lot in high school, but I haven’t gotten too many in college, so it felt good,” MacDonald said. In the second half, the Lions’ shooting brought them back from a 14-point deﬁcit. They closed to within six with 8:59 to play in the half, then cut the Bears’ lead to three with 1:13 to go. But on the next possession, MacDonald received the ball underneath the basket, converted a layup and was fouled in the process. He hit the ensuing free throw to secure the victory. He ﬁnished with a seasonhigh 14 points. The biggest contributor to the Columbia comeback was its marksmanship from beyond the continued on page 9

W. water polo suffers ﬁrst loss of season BY BENJY ASHER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

With the Smith Swim Center still closed while the University assesses the roof’s structural problems, the women’s water polo team traveled to Harvard for its scheduled home game on Saturday and lost to No. 13 Hartwick College, 137. Though the 20th-ranked Bears held a 7-4 lead with under two minutes remaining in the third period, Brown allowed nine unanswered goals to finish the game. The loss was Bruno’s first of the season. Previously, the team went 6-0 at the season-opening Ivy Tournament on Feb. 10 and 11. The Bears faced their first Top 20 opponent of the season in Saturday’s game. For most of the game, Brown appeared to be up to the challenge. Brown jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first quarter and led 4-2 at the end of the second quarter. In the third quarter, Brown opened up a three-goal advantage at 7-4, but Hartwick responded forcefully. The Hawks’ Kirsten Hudson scored with 1:38 remaining in the period, and then again with six seconds left in the session to cut Bruno’s lead to 7-6 heading into the final period. In the fourth quarter, Hartwick ran away with the victory, erupting for six goals in the final 6:06. The Hawks tied the game with a goal with 6:06 left, and Megan DahlSmith put them ahead just 51 seconds later with the first of her two goals. Hartwick never looked back, scoring five more times to finish off the contest with a convincing 13-7 victory. “Having a lead late in the game against a highly ranked team is something that is fairly new for us,” said Head Coach Jason Gall. “I

Jacob Melrose / Herald File Photo Paige Lansing ’07 scored two goals in the women’s water polo on Saturday.

think we were a little too worried about protecting the lead instead of building on it. Hartwick turned up the intensity, and we became less aggressive on offense.” The Bears received signiﬁcant contributions from a mix of players, both veterans and underclassmen. Sarah Glick ’10 led the team with three goals, and Lauren Presant ’10 and Paige Lansing ’07 added two goals apiece. “Sarah Glick and Lauren Presant have raised the level of intensity of our team,” Gall said. “They see plays develop and play with a level of intensity that allows them to make game-changing plays. Their teammates have seen this, and in turn everyone is playing with more intensity. For two freshmen to be making this type of impact is very impressive.” Gall also lauded the play of goalkeeper Stephanie Laing ’10. She blocked 11 shots, including a ﬁvemeter penalty shot, and assisted on

two goals. “The blocks that Stephanie made allowed us to be more aggressive and get open on the counterattack,” Gall said. “Having the conﬁdence to know that Stephanie is going to block most shots allows us to take more chances on the defensive end, which results in goals for us on the offensive end.” The Bears’ next competition comes this weekend, when they will return to Cambridge for the ECAC Championships. The Bears are currently ranked behind only Princeton in the ECAC. The ﬁeld contains other talented teams such as Bucknell University, Harvard and the University of Maryland at College Park. Brown has already claimed two wins against ECAC teams, having defeated Wagner College 10-8 and Harvard 11-4, both at the Ivy Tournament. To come away with the ECAC continued on page 8

The Brown Daily Herald

Published on Feb 26, 2007

Monday, February 26, 2007

The February 26, 2007 issue of the Brown Daily Herald

Monday, February 26, 2007

Published on Feb 26, 2007

The February 26, 2007 issue of the Brown Daily Herald

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