Wednesday, March 7, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDA

Volume CXLII, No. 29

M ARCH ARC H 7, 2007

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Amid budget warnings, faculty adopt new leave policy Grad School expansion to be evaluated

BY ROSS FRAZIER NEWS EDITOR

Courtesy of William Emmons Francesca Contreras ‘10, along with other members of Students for a Democratic Society, protested Raytheon’s presence at the spring career fair in Sayles Hall on Tuesday.

SDS protests Raytheon at career fair

BY SCOTT LOWENSTEIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Sixteen members of the Brown chapter of Students for a Democratic Society protested inside Sayles Hall Tuesday over defense contractor Raytheon’s presence at the spring career fair. Though students noticed the protestors as they entered the fair, most walked by without more than a passing glance.

Raytheon — which employs 80,000 people worldwide and had $20.3 billion in sales in 2006, according to its Web site — produces several types of cruise missiles and a variety of defense systems. SDS member Will Pasley ’07 called the multi-billion dollar company “war profiteers … who should not be on campus.”

A representative from Raytheon at the career fair declined to comment about the protest.

“We want to make sure that people who are here for the career fair know what sort of businesses the companies they are looking at deal in,” said Bucky Rogers ’07, a member of SDS. “They could end up helping manufacture missiles that will kill thousands of people unnecessarily.”

Though students have questioned the choice of employers at the career fair in the past, this is the first time in recent years that there has been a student protest at the fair, said Kimberly DelGizzo, associate dean of the College and director of the Career Development Center “It was a complete surprise,” DelGizzo said. “Nobody sought us out beforehand to talk.”

Employers present at the fair are invited by career services or approach the University interested in continued on page 4

INSIDE:

3 CAMPUS WATCH

Cooking House in jeopardy as Super Deadline Day passes Rush period officially came to an end Tuesday with Super Deadline Day, the last day for students to declare that they will be living in a Greek or program house next year. The 20 Greek and program houses, which have been recruiting new members since the beginning of the semester, reported mixed results as rush ended, with some houses experiencing increased numbers and others seeing a significant drop in applicants.

Cooking House, in its first year of existence, is facing severe problems meeting the number of required program house members. Greek and program houses are required to have at least 22 in-house members. Failure to do so can adversely affect a house in the semiannual program house review conducted by Residential Council.

“We had 20 applicants, and maybe half of them committed to

continued on page 4

BY OLIVER BOWERS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The University will form a working committee to investigate expanding the size of the Graduate School’s student body and course offerings, Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 announced Tuesday at a faculty meeting.

Kertzer said the committee is expected to release its final report at the end of the Spring 2008 semester and deliver budget recommendations to the University Resource Committee earlier that semester.

The expansion of the faculty has “put pressure” on the Grad School to expand its student body, Kertzer said.

But as this new committee examines the possibility of expanding

continued on page 8

continued on page 4

WOMEN IN ISLAM

Eunice Hong / Herald Hadia Mubarak, the first female president of the national muslim students association, spoke in Salomon 001 Tuesday night about “Women in Islam: Respect or Repression?” The event was presented by the Brown Muslim Students’ Association as part of Islam Awareness Month.

More money for int’l student financial aid in new U. budget

BY JAMES SHAPIRO SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Corporation approved a $1.3 million increase in financial aid for international students as part of next year’s University budget at its meetings Feb. 22-24.

The University currently spends about $3.1 million per year on scholarships for international students, according to the University Resources Committee report released late last month. The Office of Financial Aid will distribute the additional $1.3 million to students admitted to Brown over the next four years.

COLLEGES CASH IN Universities across the country last year set records for reaching new heights in fundraising, and Stanford topped the list

www.browndailyherald.com

the house, so I’m not sure what the results of that will be as yet,” said Cooking House President Jason Leung ’09. The house also had trouble meeting the required number of returning members.

“You need five returning members, and we don’t have enough of those either,” Leung said.

The fate of Cooking House is not yet clear. “We talked with ResCouncil at their meeting today, but that was before we had heard back from some of our applicants,” Leung said. “We are going to talk about it in the future.”

ResCouncil Chair Justin Glavis-Bloom ’07 confirmed that he had spoken with Leung at the meeting and that Leung “anticipated that his numbers were going to be low for next year,” but Glavis-Bloom said nothing was definite.

Rush is a particularly important time for houses with low membership numbers. Delta Phi and Kappa Alpha Theta both

BY MEHA VERGHESE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The faculty endorsed an improved sabbatical policy at its meeting Tuesday, but the new policy isn’t as expansive as some professors hoped because, as President Ruth Simmons said later in the meeting, the University’s financial situation is already “pushing the edge of the envelope.”

Efforts to reject endorsing the sabbatical policy in favor of a more equitable one failed by a vote of 51-11 after it became clear that the University is not financially prepared to fund an expanded policy that also covers non-tenured faculty.

The policy endorsed yesterday — which brings Brown on par with the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia, Duke, New York and Cornell universities — will go into effect following Corporation approval.

The endorsed policy — dis-

5 CAMPUS NEWS

The URC report said increasing aid is a “key component of the new internationalization initiative,” and called the budget increase “an initial step.”

“Based on the average need of our international students, (the new funds) will allow the admission office to award aid to roughly nine or 10 additional international students,” said James Tilton, director of financial aid.

“The effort that (Brown) is making to increase the international population on financial aid … is an admirable one,” he added.

Dean of Admission James Miller ’73 estimated that 30 of the 110 in-

J-TERM NO-CREDIT? The majority of the students who participated in the inaugural J-term think it should remain no-credit

11 OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

ternational students in the class of 2010 are on financial aid, The Herald reported Sept. 25.

Most international students interviewed by The Herald said they were pleased with the Corporation’s decision to increase international aid.

“I think it’s a fantastic thing for Brown,” said Priya Shah ’07, a former president of the Brown International Scholarship Fund who is originally from India. “International aid is crucial to ensuring the continued economic and cultural diversity of the Brown student body.”

“I’m here because Brown had some aid (for international stuREAL-ITY POLITIC-S Columnist Trevor Gleason ’07 believes the recent trend of politics reflecting reality television can’t be a good sign for the country

dents), so I think any increase in aid is good,” said Aurojit Panda ’08, who is also from India.

Some students praised the new level of aid but said Brown should do more to accommodate international applicants. “It’s obviously a great move,” said Sanaa Rahman ’08, a British citizen. “The University needs to keep moving in this direction and eventually become need-blind (for international students).”

At least six colleges and universities — Harvard, Princeton and Yale universities, Williams and Middle-

12 SPORTS

continued on page 4 SOFTBALL STARTS The softball team opened its season by winning its first three games in the Charleston Southern tournament

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

TODAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 2

WE A

T H E R

TODAY

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

Chocolate Covered Cotton | Mark Brinker TOMORROW

flurries 25 / 6

partly cloudy 28 / 13

MEN SHARPE REFECTORY

U

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Vegetarian Tacos, Beef Tacos, Eggplant Parmesan Grinder, Spinach with Toasted Sesame Seeds, Italian Sausage Soup with Tortellini, Vegetarian Corn Chowder, Lyonnaise Potatoes, Raspberry Squares, Chocolate Frosted Brownies

LUNCH — Vegetarian Mushroom Barley Soup, Italian Sausage Soup with Tortellini, Beef Tacos, Vegan Burritos, Vegan Refried Beans, Corn and Sweet Pepper Saute, Frosted Brownies

DINNER — Las Vegas Dinner Special

DINNER — Las Vegas Dinner Special

SU

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.

Hi, How Are You | Alison Naturale

Deo | Daniel Perez

Puzzles by Pappocom

CR ACROSS 1 Two-mile-high capital 6 High point 10 “Christmas Oratorio” composer 14 Expunge 15 Pillow covering 16 View from la costa 17 Football strategy 19 Image makers, initially 20 “__-Team” 21 Suffer 22 Flock in flight 23 One might put you in the orchestra 26 Choice bit 30 Falana mentored by Sammy Davis Jr. 31 Brotherly love 32 Hull projection 34 Large amount 38 Pub hazard, in some places 41 Perceptive 42 Pro follower 43 Greek column style 44 Oddball 46 Writer Hemingway 47 “I need you to be honest” 52 “Dear me!”

53 Son of a son 54 Beggar’s request 58 Yothers of “Family Ties” 59 Final result 62 Mediocre writer 63 Act of faith?

64 Piñata mark 65 Bygone dagger 66 Unaided 67 Word that can precede the first word of 17-, 23-, 38-, 47- and 59Across DOWN 1 Don’t be sweet, __ you be eaten up: start of a Jewish proverb 2 Curved doorway 3 Whittle

O S S W O R D

4 Yachting, maybe 5 Zanzibar’s capital?

6 Tomato gelatin 7 Cube for a cue 8 Some parents 9 911 response org.

10 It evolved from the Royal Game of Ur 11 Come to terms 12 You might need to do it to dance with the bride 13 “Who __?”

18 Finger part 22 “My Gal __”: 1942 film 23 Many a Babe Ruth League participant 24 Actress Verdugo 25 Informed 26 Cover up 27 Gothic curve 28 Humankind division 29 Low-calorie dessert 32 Uniform material 33 End the fast 35 Blue-ribbon 36 Hits the slopes 37 Spinoff group

39 Arrived at, as a conlusion 40 Kingly address 45 Large deer 46 Sheikh Sabah of Kuwait, e.g.

47 Plastered strips 48 Gonzalez in 2000 news 49 Carter cabinet member 50 Kind of wave 51 Safari heavyweight

54 Go for __ in the pool 55 Break in the action 56 15th-century date 57 “The dele’s off” 59 Chicago transports 60 Prefix with -lithic 61 Very close NFL games sometimes require them

Deep Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbon

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Cloudy Side Up | Mike Lauritano

xwordeditor@aol.com

3/7/07

T HE B ROWN D AILY H ERALD Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 Business Phone: 401.351.3260

University community since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the aca-

Eric Beck, President

once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER please send corrections to

Mary-Catherine Lader, Vice President Ally Ouh, Treasurer Mandeep Gill, Secretary

By Jack McInturff (c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

3/7/07

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown demic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

CAMPUS WATCH WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

Brown had the 39th highest level of charitable contributions among American colleges and universities in 2006, according to recently released results from the Voluntary Support of Education survey, conducted by the Council for Aid to Education. Brown currently ranks directly above University of Texas Southwest Medical Center at Dallas and below Washington University in St. Louis.

Brown has fallen in rank from 2005, when it was 29th and ranked directly above Princeton University and below the California Institute of Technology. Charitable contributions to the University decreased from $164 million in fiscal year 2005 to $126.4 million in fiscal year 2006.

Despite this drop in donations from 2005 to 2006, donations remain at historically high levels.

The University is currently undertaking its $1.4-billion Campaign for Academic Enrichment, and last year’s donation levels were indicative of the campaign’s fundraising efforts, said Ann Kaplan, director of the VSE Survey. The fiscal year 2006 donation levels were above those of the two years prior to the campaign’s launch, the two years prior to the University’s public launch of the campaign.

In 2006, Brown received the majority of its charitable dona-

tions from foundations and alums.

Those two groups gave $52.2 and $48.l million to the University, respectively.

Brown was not the only school raking in the money last year.

Charitable donations to American universities reached a record high of $28 billion in 2006 — an increase of 9.4 percent from the previous year. Kaplan said favorable economic conditions may have played a significant role in this increase.

“The climate for capital purpose contributions was quite good for most of the year … particularly during the period at calendar-year end when contributors are most likely to have tax considerations in addition to philanthropy in mind,” according to a Council for Aid to Education press release.

The improved economy did not account for all of the increase, but it allowed for people to donate more, Kaplan said.

Nationally, donations did not increase uniformly across all types of donors. Donations from alums and other individuals increased significantly, at 18.3 percent and 14 percent increases, respectively.

But donations from organizations did not increase as sharply, with levels of increase hovering around 5 percent.

The lower increase in giving by organizations may be due to the economic conditions of 2004. “The foundations made gifts based on

Universities’ FY2006 Fundraising Contributions (in millions)

Brown ranked 39th in charitable contributions

BY IAN NAPPIER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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past year’s assets,” not based on the current year’s economic conditions, Kaplan said. Donations to Hurricane Katrina victims may have drawn foundation funds away from universities, she added.

“This year the increase was somewhat more top-heavy than usual,” Kaplan said. “The percentage of alumni who (gave) declined, but the amount given increased.”

Kaplan said donations from individuals included greater proportions of “large gifts” as compared to years past. Larger donations from fewer individuals may be indicative of more ongoing capital campaigns than usual, she add-

ed. Stanford University, which received the most donations in 2006 with $911.16 million, is in the middle of a capital campaign.

Other Ivy League schools in the midst of capital campaigns also fared well last year. Yale, Cornell and Columbia universities are all currently conducting capital campaigns and they were third, fi fth and eighth on the 2006 list.

Approximately half of the donations made to all colleges in 2006 will go toward building capital.

This money will not be spent, but any income derived from investing it may be used by the institution in the future. The other half of the donations will be put toward

ongoing operations of the university. Each donation is usually earmarked for some specific activity, Kaplan said.

For the last 50 years, the Council for Aid to Education has collected data from American universities on a voluntary basis and created a database of all the participating schools giving private information.

“The estimates have wide ranging use,” Kaplan said. “(The survey) has a use among certain institutions for benchmarking and making fundraising more efficient … the other purpose is to create public information for policy makers, the media.”

After professors misbehave, Penn considers background checks

BY MADELEINE ROSENBERG CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In light of recent scandals involving University of Pennsylvania faculty and staff, the school is considering introducing a stricter screening process for its potential hires.

The ongoing review of hiring practices is garnering mixed reactions from Penn faculty and students and national interest groups.

In the past two months, Penn has discovered that two of its staff — one an administrator, the other a temporary employee — are convicted sex offenders on the Megan’s Law list. One employee resigned and the other’s temporary employment ended as planned.

These two are the latest of at least seven incidents involving Penn employees with criminal backgrounds over the last two decades. Four professors have been connected to sex crimes since 1993, according to a Feb. 21 Philadelphia Inquirer article. In the past year, economics professor Rafael Robb, who is currently on academic leave, was charged with murdering his wife in December, and L. Scott Ward, a professor at Penn’s Wharton School, pled guilty Feb. 20 to producing child pornography.

In addition to scandals involving faculty and staff, Penn economics graduate student Kurt Mitman was recently discovered to be a convicted child molester residing at the Bucks County, Pa., prison and commuting to the campus as part of an academic-release program without the university’s

knowledge, the Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn’s student newspaper, reported March 2. Mitman has since lost his academic-release privilege.

Penn currently screens staff but not faculty for criminal backgrounds, but it has created three committees to consider implementing a more stringent hiring process for both employees and students, Penn spokeswoman Lori Doyle told the Inquirer.

As of now, no Ivy League university runs criminal background checks on its potential faculty, according to the Inquirer.

Penn Provost Ron Daniels is reviewing hiring practices and should issue recommendations in the next few months, Doyle told The Herald.

Doyle declined to comment further.

Though background checks of prospective faculty are still being considered, an opportunity for self-disclosure in the hiring process is more probable, Daniels told the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Increased screening of potential Penn employees and students

could mean a decrease in their privacy. Privacy concerns have caused disagreement on campus and among interested parties.

“We see no justification for subjecting each and every new faculty member to background checks,” said Jonathan Knight, director of the program in academic freedom and tenure for the American Association of University Professors, the nation’s largest faculty interest group. The AAUP issued a 2004 report calling for the use of background checks only when an applicant’s criminal background is relevant.

“These background checks should be in proportion or relative to the kind of actual positions the faculty are being recruited for,” Knight said.

Tanvi Goel, a Penn freshman, said she thinks a stricter screening process is a good idea. But, she said, “background checks and things like that have their limitations” and “you have to draw the line somewhere.”

Knight said guaranteeing that new hires have clean backgrounds can be challenging. “I

don’t know that you can ensure that any employee doesn’t have a criminal background,” he said.

“It becomes very difficult, especially if the worker is of the mind to keep the information from the employer.”

“I think the issue is not so much how do you ensure that you unearth every piece of information in a person’s background, but what reasonable efforts can you make that will assure you that the

person you are interviewing is no more or no less than what their resume describes them as?” Knight said.

Five members of Penn faculty senate committees interested in the issue declined to comment or did not return calls and e-mails from The Herald. Representatives from Brown’s Office of the Dean of the Faculty declined to comment on University hiring practices or Penn’s review.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 4

SDS protests at career fair continued from page 1 recruiting students, DelGizzo said.

“Our students are interested in a wide range of employers.

If a student is not interested in a particular employer, (the student) will not talk to them,” she said.

Though DelGizzo said the University could potentially turn a company away for ethical or legal concerns, this has not been done in at least 10 years, if ever, said Barbara Peoples, senior associate director of the Career Development Center.

“We have employers here representing all different industries and sectors,” including

information technology, consulting, financial services and non-profits, Peoples said, adding that the diversity of potential employers is important to a general career fair.

The Brown chapter of SDS — a multi-campus, student-run organization with roots in the 1960s anti-war movement — seeks more than just changing the career fair lineup, Pasley said.

“SDS is a multi-issue organization. We are trying to … get Raytheon off campus, but also end the (Iraq) war and decrease poverty, so this issue just fits into our overarching vision of a better world,” he said.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

More int’l financial aid in new U. budget continued from page 1 bury colleges and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — currently offer need-blind admission to international applicants.

“I know people in my high school who wanted to go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale or not go abroad at all,” said Sriram Subramanian ’10, who is from India. “If they got into Harvard, Princeton or Yale they would obviously be completely financed by those institutions. Brown should also be on their list.”

“If they aspire to go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale they’re obviously smart, and Brown is losing out on

those great minds because of its lack of funding,” he said.

Subramanian also said Brown should improve support for current students. “Apart from extending financial aid to those who will be attending Brown, it would also be great if the University could extend financial aid to those already at Brown,” he said.

Tilton said the University understood the concerns international students had for need-blind admission.

“Over the last several years Brown has increased its commitment to international students, and it is certainly a goal of the institution to be able to admit international students need-

blind,” Tilton said. “It’s a very costly proposition, but I would say that, based on the comments of the president and the Corporation, that’s a direction that would be very beneficial for Brown.”

Shovon Kibria ’08, who is from Bangladesh and serves as co-president of the Brown International Scholarship Fund along with Roxanne Horesh ’08, said Brown has made international aid a priority. “Prior to this year, I didn’t think enough had been done.

But with the Boldly Brown campaign and President Simmons’ initiative to internationalize Brown’s campus, I’ve been really pleased with the pace of the progress,” Kibria said.

New committee to consider Grad School expansion continued from page 1 the graduate student population, the Grad School student body is shrinking — its size will decline by about 12 students next academic year to compensate for the introduction of a new plan of guaranteed doctoral support.

The working committee will include four administrators — Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, Vice President for Research Clyde Briant and Associate Dean of the Graduate School William Heindel — four faculty members and two grad students, Kertzer said.

Bonde will chair the committee.

Bonde told The Herald that the dean of the College will serve on the committee to assess the effects any changes would have on undergraduate teaching. Faculty and students will be chosen over the course of this semester and the summer, and the committee will begin meeting in the fall, she said.

Bonde said it is “a good moment” to address the issues before the working committee because extensive data on the Grad School has recently been compiled for the University’s internal

census study and a National Research Council survey.

The internal census was an indepth study of doctoral students’ semester levels and expected time needed to complete their degrees and was designed to predict how much the five-year support plan would cost the University. The NRC survey is conducted by individual departments to prepare for a national ranking of the Grad School.

The committee’s formation comes on the heels of a new plan for doctoral student support, which will be implemented next semester and guarantees a five-year financial package to all incoming doctoral students, along with support for current students in their first five years at Brown. The package will guarantee tuition remission and health insurance coverage along with a stipend of $18,000 for doctoral students who become teaching assistants, research assistants or enter into fellowships.

The committee will ensure that students are supported under the new doctoral support plan, Kertzer said.

The plan has raised concerns among some students that doctor-

al candidates will not be supported beyond their fi fth year. Kertzer addressed this concern — which he called a “misperception” — at Tuesday’s faculty meeting, saying that some students will be supported for more than five years.

Kertzer praised the new plan for doctoral support, adding that the quality of the Grad School student body and the school’s selectivity has improved due to recent increases in stipends.

“For Brown to be a great university, we need a flourishing graduate school,” Kertzer said.

Several history department graduate students argued in a letter to the editor published in The Herald Feb. 7 that the average time to complete a degree in the department is six years and that the plan would cause doctoral students to devote more of their time to completing their studies instead of assisting in undergraduate courses.

Kertzer said at the faculty meeting that the new plan will not reduce the number of TAs or RAs. “That is not true,” Kertzer said, addressing concerns to the contrary. “We are expecting the same number of RA-ships” and TA-ships.

Cooking House in jeopardy as Super Deadline Day passes continued from page 1 failed ResCouncil’s fall program house review because they did not have the required number of residents.

Last year Delta Tau, long associated with the wrestling team and facing dwindling membership, was taken over by a group of members of the class of 2009 and re-invented itself.

Their first rush since then “went as well as we had hoped,” said house president Matthew Dennis ’09.

“We had aimed for about five, and that’s actually exactly what we had,” he said, noting that DTau’s new identity has led to an image as “a laid-back frat.”

“We all joined this frat on the sort of self-awareness that none of us were the typical frat guys last year,” he said.

“We didn’t have a place in the other fraternities. We sort of conveyed that notion this year in our rush process.”

The Alpha Delta Phi Society gave out 42 bids to potential members this year, and 30 pledges confirmed

by Tuesday night. ADPhi rush chair Dan Heller ’07 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, “We had a great rush this year. A lot of great people became involved with the house, and we couldn’t be more excited to get to know them better through the pledging process.”

The tentative numbers for ADPhi represent a significant increase from last year, when only seven people pledged the fraternity.

Alpha Epsilon Pi, extended bids to 18 of the approximately 40 people who rushed the fraternity this year

and expect about 16 to join, according to AEPi rush chair Devin Cohen’09.

Though fraternities reported an increase in applicants, many who pledged Greek houses this year said the process didn’t feel very cutthroat.

“It wasn’t competitive at all, probably because there’s not much interest in frats at Brown,” said David Notis ’10, who is joining Delta Tau. “I’m very excited,” he added.

“I think it’s going to be a totally new way of living.”

Other applicants disagreed about the level of competition during rush.

Elizabeth Janopaul-Naylor ’10 applied to Buxton International House and said, “I got in, but definitely the process was very intimidating. Even their parties were somewhat overwhelming in the number of people we were surrounded by who were also applying.”

She said the process was hard because applicants were judged “socially.”

“If you don’t get in, it’s like, ‘Wow, am I a loser?’” Janopaul-Naylor said.

Buxton is one of the more competitive program houses this year — 102 people applied, and 37 were admitted. However, Buxton President Hui Ling Poon ’08 said numbers had “dropped a fair amount” from the 160 applicants they had last year and 120 the year before. She attributed the drop to “a change in sentiment, or maybe people are less interested in program houses.”

Si-Han Hai ’08, the president of Spanish House in Machado House said 30 students applied this year

— an increase of 10 over last year.

Spanish House accepted all the applicants, and about 25 are expected to choose to join.

“We will have more people than we did have this year and definitely an increase in freshmen,” she said.

According to Hai, the popularity could be “because of the housing lottery, and a lot of freshmen are afraid of entering the lottery.”

Janopaul-Naylor agreed about the influence of the housing lottery.

“There’s the immediate relief of not having to do the housing lottery,” she said. “There’s less unease about housing — not just the housing lottery but also knowing who I’ll be living with.”

Olivia Olsen ’08, president of French House in Machado, said though French House had 30 applicants this year, it was a “very significant” decrease compared to the 50 applicants they had the year before.

Olsen said that the decrease might result from the lottery being held later this year, since many students may not be thinking of housing just yet.

Students who choose to join program or Greek houses will start living there next semester.

“I’m really, really excited. I think it will be a new and social environment,” Janopaul-Naylor said.

Super Deadline Day was also the last day for students to request special-interest housing. Options for special-interest housing include samesex, substance free, over-21, transgender and quiet accommodation.

CAMPUS N EWS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

J-term participants oppose for-credit offerings, survey shows

BY MICHAEL BECHEK SENIOR STAFF WRITER

About 75 percent of the 19 participants in the pilot run of January@Brown — the not-forcredit academic program held over winter break — oppose changing the program to offer academic credit, according to results from a survey conducted by the program’s organizers.

Though the program’s planners cited the lack of credit as one of the biggest reasons for lackluster enrollment, participants in this year’s program said offering academic credit would change the dynamic of the program and would hinder the program’s many extracurricular activities. Students added that taking one course for credit is insignificant in the larger scheme of an academic transcript.

Undergraduate Council of Students Vice President Tristan Freeman ’07 told The Herald in January that lack of credit was “absolutely” the biggest reason for the discrepancy between the program’s actual enrollment and the significant interest in a January term that UCS had perceived among students. In a WebCT poll conducted by UCS last spring, 58 percent of students said they would consider participating in a winter program that was for credit.

The January@Brown survey was created and administered

by Director of Student Activities Ricky Gresh and student coordinators Mika Lin ’09 and Meredith Daniels ’07. The results, recently compiled by Daniels, have been shared with some UCS members but are not publicly available.

Credit “won’t be a possibility” for next year’s program, said Sara Damiano ’08, chair of the academic and administrative affairs committee on UCS and a member of the January@Brown working group

that will plan next year’s program.

But, she said, the working group will enter discussions with the College Curriculum Council this fall about how the optional winter term can offer academic credit for the elective classes students take during the program.

In addition to expressing a desire to preserve the program’s no-credit status, many students said their favorite part of the program was the “intimate setting” created by the small group.

January@Brown’s organizers originally planned to enroll 100 students in the pilot, but less than one-fi fth that number ended up attending. Damiano said she was “confident” increased publicity would lead more students to enroll next year and said 100 students was a realistic target for the 2008 program.

“I think that a portion of it is just gaining traction and having this be an established program,” she said.

With few exceptions, January@Brown participants described the experience as positive. Courses, instructors and workload were all described as “very satisfactory,” and all but a few of the extracurricular events were described as “enjoyable” or “very enjoyable.” But a few griped about 9 a.m. classes and the housing in the Graduate Center, and students enrolled in “Caught in the Web: The Internet, Politics and Public Policy” complained that the workload was too heavy.

The 19 participants in this year’s pilot program enrolled in one of three classes: “Caught in the Web,” “From the Iron Age to the Iron Chef: Food, Culture and History” and “Storytelling and Urban Engagement: Providence Narratives.” Classes met for three hours each day for eight days.

Because of the low enrollment, continued on page 6

70 YEARS OF BROWN COLLEGE RADIO

Rahul Keerthi / Herald “From Gaspipes to Websites: Radio at Brown 1936-2006,” an exhibit celebrating 70 years of Brown college radio, is sponsored by WBRU, BSR, the Department of American Civilization and the John Nicholas Brown Center. It runs until March 9 in the John Hay Library.

Chris Bennett / Herald In the fourth week of the Recyclemania competition, Brown is in 45th place out of 75 colleges in the Grand Champion category.

The University has a cumulative recycling rate of 21.55 percent, compared to first-ranked Rutgers University’s 55.25 percent.

A month in, Brown lags in RecycleMania contest

BY TARYN MARTINEZ STAFF WRITER

Four weeks into this year’s intercollegiate RecycleMania competition, Brown is in 45th place out of 75 colleges in the Grand Champion category.

So far in this year’s competition, the University has a cumulative recycling rate of 21.55 percent. In comparison, top-ranked Rutgers University has a rate of 55.25 percent.

Brown has participated in the RecycleMania contest for three years. In 2005, the University recycled 29.94 pounds per student, with a recycling rate of 19.30 percent. In 2006, Brown continued to lag, placing 27th on the Grand Champion standings with an overall recycling rate of 21.26.

A total of 202 colleges are participating in this year’s RecycleMania. The competition is divided into seven categories, including cans and bottles, food service organics and paper. Those schools competing in both the Waste Minimization and the Per Capita Classic categories, such as Brown, are also entered in the Grand Champion category. In the Per Capita Classic, schools compete “to see which can collect the largest amount of acceptable recycles per person,” according to the RecycleMania Web site.

But RecyleMania organizers at Brown say the competition’s standings may not reflect how well Brown is actually doing.

“There isn’t a standard way

of reporting — in that sense, the competition isn’t that great,” said Kevin O’Brien ’09, one of the student organizers of Brown’s RecycleMania campaign. “It’s a good time to focus on recycling, but due to variations in reporting, it isn’t that great of a tool to use to compare amongst schools.”

Kurt Teichert, resource efficiency manager for Facilities Management, said the differences in measurements among schools render the results less meaningful.

“There are still just a lot of inconsistencies in the methodologies and the way schools estimate amounts,” Teichert said. “When you look at different categories, you can look at the entire campus or only at those using actual measurements.”

In the Grand Champion category, for example, only 54 out of the 75 competing schools use actual measurements, as Brown does. Others use a volume-toweight conversion to estimate the weight of recycled mass or can extrapolate the total amount by measuring on a sample region of campus.

In contrast, “We do our entire campus and we measure the actual waste that comes out,” Teichert said. “In some ways the details work against us, while other schools are counting containers.”

Teichert said Brown is doing better in the competition when only schools reporting actual measurements are examined.

The Rhode Island School of

Design placed first last year for the amount of recycled bottles and cans. Currently, RISD is ranked 18th in that category, with a cumulative pounds recycled per person of 2.84. But organizers say RISD’s sudden drop is a sign of more eco-friendly practices by the school, rather than a decline in recycling.

“Dining services made changes, and we’re selling less bottles and cans and selling more fountain drinks,” said Alan Cantara, RISD’s environmental health and safety manager and one of the organizers of its RecycleMania campaign. “We’re trying to reduce the amount of bottles purchased, and we have. It’s substantial. Our capture rate, I suspect, is still very good, but the amount of cans and glass on campus has decreased significantly.”

Cantara said despite the fact that RISD is “definitely not winning in any category,” the message of RecycleMania is more important than the competition itself.

“I think it’s a great competition in that it’s a real way to focus on recycling at the campus for several months,” he said.

O’Brien agreed.

“It’s definitely good to have a competition, to communicate within schools and to focus on recycling,” he said. “At times it’s kind of frustrating, but we feel like we’re doing pretty well at Brown.”

RecycleMania began Jan. 28 and ends Apr. 7.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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J-term participants against offering credit, survey says

Bombs, gunmen kill more than 110 Shiite pilgrims

BY JULIAN E. BARNES AND CHRISTIAN BERTHELSEN LOS ANGELES T IMES

continued from page 5 three additional classes UCS had selected for the program were cancelled.

Students also participated in frequent afternoon and evening events, including a weekend trip to Boston, ice skating at the Bank of America rink at Kennedy Plaza, the Providence Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast, consultations with career services, a stargazing trip to the University’s observatory, dinner at a Fedobservatory eral Hill restaurant and a conversation with Associate Professor of History James Campbell, who chaired the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice.

The January@Brown working group, which will consist of four students, including Damiano, and a number of administrators — including Gresh, Associate Vice President for Campus Life and Dean of Student Life Margaret Klawunn, Associate Dean of the College David Targan and Dean of Summer and Continuing Studies Karen Sibley — will begin meeting the week before spring break, Damiano said, and will meet every other week thereafter.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Attacks by bombers and gunmen that killed more than 110 Shiite pilgrims observing a religious ritual on Tuesday illustrated an insurgent strategy to rekindle sectarian warfare to levels that could threaten a U.S.-led effort to stabilize Iraq.

U.S. military planners have been warning in recent days that such strikes were coming, and said they expect Sunni Arab militants to launch even more spectacular attacks in coming weeks. One senior Pentagon official said insurgent groups could attempt attacks similar to last year’s bombing of Samarra’s Golden Mosque, which has been blamed for setting off a cycle of violence that has eroded security across the country.

“My read is they are trying to provoke the Shia,” said the senior Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing internal planning. “My guess is they are going to try a repeat of Samarra.

They may go back to Samarra and say, ‘We didn’t really level the place.’

Imagine that, perception-wise: to go back to Samarra and finish the job.”

The official said other targets could include the mosques at Najaf or Karbala, and some fear that Sunni insurgents also might try to assassinate Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the preeminent Shiite religious leader

Rights report shows China as nation placing most restrictions on the Internet

BY NORA BOUSTANY WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — China is at the top of a list of countries blocking Internet access, and Russia and Venezuela have shown serious regression in several areas, mainly in centralizing power in the executive branch, according to State Department officials who released the department’s annual human rights report Tuesday.

On Sudan, the report outlined evidence that genocide continues to ravage the western region of Darfur, and said the Khartoum government and its militias were responsible for it, despite violations of humanitarian law by all sides in that conflict. “It is inconceivable to me to say we’ve moved away from the issue of genocide,” said Barry Lowenkron, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, speaking at a State Department briefing. He is heading to Darfur and Khartoum on Thursday.

In addition to its traditional focus on the repression of political liberties around the world, this year’s report addressed Internet freedom and the issue of nongov-

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

ernmental organizations (NGOs) that are being harassed while carrying out their missions.

“Today, people are imprisoned in a number of countries simply for expressing their peaceful views online,” said Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary for democracy and global rights. She said numerous repressive regimes were threatening the Internet’s ability to empower individuals and obstructing its “transformational power.”

Lowenkron called 2006 “the year of the pushback” because a surprising number of countries selectively applied regulations against NGOs and the news media as the drive for personal and political freedoms grew stronger.

He put China at the top of the list of countries putting restrictions on the Internet. Human rights in China have “deteriorated on a number of areas,” with no action on promised legal reforms or changes in courtroom proceedings, and a continued “system of reeducation through labor.”

Thousands of demonstrations in the countryside showed that people were seeking redress and accountability was still lacking, he added.

in Iraq. Although the warnings are not based on specific intelligence information, military planners believe such attacks are likely because Sunni militants are thought to be trying to goad Shiite militias back into battle.

Although the number of murders attributed to Shiite militias has begun to creep back up after a decline, U.S. military officials believe the security plan had dissuaded some Shiite militias from conducting reprisal attacks even in the face of a series of bombings carried out by Sunni groups.

But the failure of the Sunni bombing campaign to draw out Shiite militias has Pentagon planners worried that al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgent groups will undertake far more sensational attacks in an attempt to intensify the civil war.

The attacks on Shiite Pilgrims Tuesday may be part of just such an escalation plan by Sunni insurgents.

In all, more than 110 Iraqi Shiites were reported killed Tuesday in Hilla, Baghdad and Mosul.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, issued a statement condemning the attacks.

In the worst incident, two suicide bombers walking among the Shiite pilgrims in the southern city of Hilla detonated their explosive belts within two minutes of each other, killing at least 77 and injuring 127, according to local police. The bombs scattered flesh and splattered blood across a wide area strewn with

shoes, women’s abayas and abandoned banners carried by pilgrims on the journey to Karbala.

Witnesses said the first bomber walked near a large group of pilgrims, chanting prayers in an apparent effort to blend in with the crowd, before detonating his bomb — the second blew himself up about 50 yards away.

In Baghdad, officials said at least 35 more people, likely Shiites, were killed by gunmen, car bombs and roadside bombs. An estimated 137 more people were injured in the attacks.

The pilgrims were participating in Arbain, an annual celebration related to Ashura, one of the most important celebrations on the Shiite calendar. Ashura and other Shiite religious celebrations were largely suppressed under Saddam Hussein.

Since his fall, public Ashura festivities have become an important symbol of Shiite pride, but they have also become a target for Sunni attacks.

In Hilla, Ali Khadum, a 26-yearold member of the Iraqi National Guard who was waiting for a cousin who was part of the pilgrimage, said people froze in shock after the first explosion before stampeding in all directions, and the second one occurred shortly after that.

“Women and men were running in all directions screaming,” said Najiha Mohammed, a 53-year-old housewife. “Some of them were falling down. I think they were injured but they didn’t feel it because of the

shock.”

The new security plan began Feb. 13, but the number of Iraqis killed has changed little. According to the Web site icasualties.org, which tracks war-related deaths in Iraq, 1,802 Iraqi civilians and security forces were killed in January, before the crackdown began, and 1,531 were killed in February.

In Washington, military officials describe a particularly complex situation in Baghdad, as the U.S., the Shiite militias led by Muqtada alSadr, and the Sunni insurgents, including al-Qaida, all adjust strategies.

“This is a bit of a chess game,” said the senior Pentagon official.

“We made a move, we are surging.

He (al-Sadr) made a move, he is laying low. Meanwhile al-Qaida is moving.”

A military official in Baghdad said he had seen no intelligence about any specific planned Sunni attacks. But the official said U.S. military planners in Baghdad had predicted both the Shiite militia strategy of curbing death squad executions and a Sunni strategy of seeking ever more spectacular bombings.

“We did predict sensational attacks and anonymous attacks as this whole operation goes forward,” said the military official, who also spoke of condition of anonymity. “Something that is truly going to attract public attention. I don’t know what form it will take but the intent is the media draw.”

Internet radio stations face fee increase

BY JIM PUZZANGHERA AND JOSH FRIEDMAN LOS ANGELES T IMES

WASHINGTON — Video killed the radio star, as the 1979 hit song goes, and now some fear an obscure group of federal copyright judges may be on the verge of killing Internet radio.

In a ruling made public Tuesday, the Copyright Royalty Board significantly increased the royalties paid to musicians and record labels for streaming digital songs online. The decision also ended a discounted fee for small Internet broadcasters.

Broadcast radio stations that also stream their programs online, such as KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif., said they might have to scale back on webcasting, and operators of Internet-only radio stations said the new fees would probably force them to go silent.

An estimated 72 million listeners each month tune in to Internet music programming from hobbyists, traditional radio broadcasters and Web companies such as Yahoo Inc., AccuRadio.com and Pandora.com, seeing them as an alternative to broadcast radio.

The board ruled that the cur-

rent rate, in place since 1998, of .08 of a cent each time a song is played would more than double by 2010. For sites run by tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, the board set a flat $500 annual fee per radio channel for a certain number of listening hours per month -- which stations such as KCRW far exceed.

“Unless we can find an alternative to paying the published rates, there’s no feasible way we can continue,” said Bill Goldsmith, who operates an online rock-music station called Radio Paradise in Paradise, Calif. He estimated that he would owe $650,000 in royalties under the new fee structure in 2007 — 25% more than he expected to pull in this year from listener donations.

KCRW general manager Ruth Seymour called the ruling draconian. She said the station, one of the largest National Public Radio affiliates in Southern California, could owe more than $350,000 for 2006 and 2007.

“Do I build a gate, where you can only listen online if you’re a subscriber?” she said. “I’m opposed to that idea. I’m a public broadcaster, after all.”

Seymour said she was optimis-

tic that National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting could negotiate a better deal with the recording industry.

Such separate royalty agreements are possible, though difficult to negotiate. An attorney representing small Internet broadcasters said they would try to do the same.

Internet radio supporters also can appeal the board’s decision or ask Congress for help.

All broadcasters have to pay royalties to composers and publishers, but traditional radio broadcasters — arguing that airtime is free promotion — have long been exempted from paying royalties to artists and record labels whose songs they play on the air. Laws passed in the 1990s governing digital recordings, however, required Internet and satellite radio operators to pay those socalled performance fees.

Faced with increased royalty fees, Internet broadcasters in 2002 persuaded Congress to create an exemption that allowed small online radio operators to negotiate a lower fee based on a set 10 percent to 12 percent of their revenue, not on how many songs they broadcast. That guaranteed that Internet broadcasters would not have to pay more in fees than they collected in revenue.

In 2004, Congress created the Copyright Royalty Board, a threejudge panel under the auspices of the Library of Congress, to deal with such issues. Because that board established the new higher performance fees, lawmakers may be reluctant to step in this time.

The board’s top judge said its guidelines allow it to consider only economic factors -- not issues such as educational opportunities at college radio stations and the continued on page 8

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Bush names panel to study military health care WASHINGTON (Washington Post) — President Bush Tuesday named former senator Bob Dole and former secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to co-chair a bipartisan commission examining the care America’s wounded troops receive after they return from the battlefield, one more among several high-level reviews and investigations spawned by recent revelations of squalor and bureaucratic woes facing veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The commission will look at the treatment U.S. troops receive from the time they leave foreign battlefields through their return to civilian life. Bush also announced that he has asked the secretary of Veterans Affairs to lead a Cabinet-level interagency task force to deal with immediate shortcomings in helping veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We have a moral obligation to provide the best possible care and treatment to the men and women who have served our country,” Bush said to an audience of war veterans with the American Legion in Washington. “They deserve it, and they’re going to get it.”

Bush again said the conditions at Walter Reed described in a series of Washington Post articles are troubling and that the situation is unacceptable: “My decisions have put our kids in harm’s way, and I’m concerned about the fact that when they come back they don’t get the full treatment they deserve.

NATO launches major operation in Afghanistan ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Washington Post) — NATO and Afghan forces launched what commanders described as a major operation in a key province of southern Afghanistan on Tuesday morning, part of a bid to win back territory that has become a haven for insurgents.

The operation, the international force’s largest to date in the country, was centered in the northern part of the Helmand province, where Afghan government authorities have very little control and insurgents have been able to move with relative impunity. The province’s governor said 700 al-Qaida fighters recently moved into the region, and were planning to continue the wave of suicide bombings and other attacks that have besieged Afghanistan for the past year and a half.

Jury finds Libby guilty on four counts

BY RICHARD B. SCHMITT LOS ANGELES T IMES

WASHINGTON — Former vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted Tuesday on four counts of obstruction of justice and perjury.

Libby was found guilty of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and one count of making false statements to the FBI. But he was acquitted on one count of making false statements to the FBI concerning his conversations with former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

Libby is out on bail, pending appeal. As the verdict was read, Libby’s wife and one of the jurors started sobbing. He could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for the obstruction count and up to five years each for the other counts, but under federal sentencing guidelines he is expected to get much less. In addition, Libby could be fined up to $250,000 on each guilty count.

After the verdict, Libby and his lawyer Ted Wells emerged on the courthouse steps. Libby, once chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, did not speak.

Wells, who cried when he asked the jury for a verdict of not guilty, said the defense team is “very disappointed in the verdict of the jurors.” He said he will move for a new trial and, if that is denied, appeal the convictions.

“We have every confidence that ultimately Mr. Libby will be

vindicated,” Wells said. “We believe that he is totally innocent, and we intend to keep fighting.”

Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald said he was “gratified by the jury’s verdict,” but said the investigation was justified regardless of the verdict.

“It’s not the verdict that justifies the investigation, it’s the facts,” Fitzgerald said. “Any lie under oath is serious, (especially) in a national security investigation.”

Fitzgerald said he does not expect to file any additional charges.

The trial, the first of a senior White House official in more than a decade, attracted considerable attention. Its backdrop — the decision to go to war in Iraq — is one of the defining issues of the Bush presidency. And the case highlighted the cozy interactions between high-ranking officials and big-name journalists, who paraded into court to expose the sometimes sloppy way that information is traded in the nation’s capital.

When syndicated columnist Robert Novak disclosed in 2003 that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, was a CIA operative, it triggered a three-year federal probe into who leaked the classified information.

Although Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage later acknowledged that he first leaked the information, Fitzgerald charged Libby with perjury. The decision to prosecute Libby, the

only person charged in the case, was controversial from the beginning.

The Pandora’s box that opened the controversy began with a single sentence in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address, in which he sought to build the case that Saddam Hussein was a threat to U.S. security by alleging that the Iraqi dictator, among other actions, had recently sought nuclear material in Africa.

The statement roused Wilson, who had once been U.S. envoy to Baghdad. Only the year before, in February 2002, Wilson had been sent by the CIA to Africa to assess the claim about Iraq and found it baseless.

Wilson began speaking to reporters and ultimately went public, accusing the administration in a New York Times op-ed article on July 6, 2003, of twisting the prewar intelligence and misleading the American people. The prosecution argued that the article infuriated Cheney, who launched a campaign to discredit Wilson.

Eight days later, Novak disclosed that Wilson’s wife was a CIA operative, suggesting that she had arranged for the agency to select Wilson for the fact-finding mission to Africa knowing about his anti-war perspective.

Libby was neither the first nor the only government official to speak with reporters about Wilson’s wife before her identity continued on page 8

In Iraq, ‘dating’ happens online

BY ALEXANDRA ZAVIS LOS ANGELES T IMES

BAGHDAD, Iraq — For Ali and Noura, love blossomed in an Internet chat room.

Both were young, educated, devout Sunni Muslims who shared a passion for Jim Carrey movies and Arabic love tunes.

For months, they chatted online obsessively. As the friendship deepened, she shyly agreed to a Webcam meeting.

But their relationship was doomed from the start: He lives in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood of east Baghdad; she is across the Tigris River in the city’s war-torn west. It was out of the question that they should ever meet.

“It seemed like a pointless relationship,” says Ali, who now refers to Noura as “my ex-Internet girlfriend.” He stopped responding to her messages and she eventually stopped sending them.

“She must be angry,” he says, looking slightly embarrassed as he leans forward to stub out a cigarette. “Maybe if we could have been alone together, it would have been different.”

Young Iraqis, trapped in their homes in the mean streets of this bloodstained capital, are increasingly turning to the Internet to chat with relatives, hang out with friends and search for love.

Such virtual relationships offer a refuge of sorts from numbing isolation and fear during a time of staggering violence. But

all too often they are mirages — a seductive reminder of a life now tantalizingly out of reach for most.

“They are like birds in a cage,” says Anas Attar, 22, one of a growing number of businessmen cashing in on the demand by selling access to their satellite-based Internet connections.

In Iraq, like many other Muslim countries, it has always been difficult for young men and women to spend time together. Introductions were frequently arranged by families and closely chaperoned. Many couples from more privileged backgrounds met at university, which was often the first time they attended a coed school. But they were rarely allowed to be alone together unless they were engaged.

As Iraq’s civil war has deepened, even close relatives and friends have found it hard to get together.

Reem, a striking 28-year-old with long dark hair, heavy makeup and lots of gold jewelry, used to meet regularly with a tight-knit group of college girlfriends. They would picnic in the park, go shopping and gossip at one another’s homes.

She hasn’t seen some of them for two years now. Many have fled the country. Those who remain venture outdoors only when they must.

Depressed and with too much time on her hands, Reem started posting love poems on an Internet forum for young Iraqis. Soon she was getting inquiries from

lonely young men, with whom she chats about current events and vacations outside Iraq.

A civil servant who was afraid to give her last name, Reem isn’t interested in meeting any of them, but she enjoys the unfettered conversations that are possible only online.

“It’s very interesting to get to know a man away from the constraints of culture and tradition,” she says. “They console me and tell me there will be a day when this mess will end.”

Across the Middle East, more and more young people are doing the same thing. In Iraq, there are few other ways for them to interact.

Universities are becoming increasingly conservative, frowning on too much contact between male and female students. Many of the old hangouts — restaurants, cafes, parks, social clubs — are closed. At the end of the workday, Baghdad residents hurry home to beat the curfews and the approaching darkness.

Ali Azawi, a tall, polished medical student from a well-to-do Baghdad family, was beginning to despair of ever having a girlfriend when he started trawling Arabic-language chat rooms and found Noura.

He composed a brief introduction, which he copied and pasted over and over for hours before getting a response: “My name is Ali, age 23. I live in Baghdad.

I am looking for a young, beauticontinued on page 8

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

High University spending influences new faculty sabbatical policy continued from page 1 cussed among faculty in recent months as Option A — provides tenured faculty with the opportunity to go on sabbatical with 75 percent of their normal salary after every six semesters of teaching. As part of this new system, professors also have the choice of taking a semester-long sabbatical at full pay after 12 semesters, or a yearlong leave at 75 percent pay.

In addition, when a department loses a professor to a sabbatical, the department can expect to receive $10,000 in automatic funding to hire replacement instructors. Extra funding can be granted as the need arises, said Associate Professor of History Robert Self, vice chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee, at the meeting. The departmental funding is designed to alleviate pressure on the curriculum that might come with more faculty members spending time off-campus.

The current policy allows faculty to take a semester-long sabbatical at full pay after 12 semesters of teaching or a year-long leave at half pay, according to a September 2005 letter from Dean of the Facul-

ty Rajiv Vohra P’07 to professors.

In Tuesday’s discussion of the new policy, faculty members again voiced concerns about the policy’s fairness to senior lecturers and research faculty, who do not stand to benefit from the new system even though a portion of their pay goes into a fund supporting sabbaticals.

Their objections — brought up in at least two other faculty meetings — centered on the policy’s focus on tenured faculty.

Existing University policy is not to grant senior lecturers sabbaticals, though several professors and administrators acknowledged that it often happens anyway because lecturers’ experience and research expectations vary across departments. Some professors said explicitly excluding senior lecturers from the new policy is unfair and disregards the realities of their role at Brown.

“This will have a destructive impact in terms of morale if we widen the breach between tenured and non-tenured faculty,” one professor said at the meeting.

“It’s an undue slap in the face to these people.”

It became apparent as the meeting progressed that at least

part of the reason for excluding non-tenured faculty is financial in nature.

“This is what is — at the moment — financially feasible,” Self told the faculty. “But the FAC will continue to work with the administration on this issue.” Faculty Executive Committee Chair Ann Dill, associate professor of sociology, also vowed the committees involved would continue discussing policies for non-tenured faculty.

“Enlarging the number of people away from teaching changes a lot of financial calculations, and we don’t want to do that on-thefly,” one professor said.

Self added that he thinks the best solution is to get Corporation approval now for the principle of one semester’s sabbatical every six semesters and then work over time to fine-tune the other components.

University officials have long had the goal of providing faculty full pay — rather than 75 percent pay — for those on sabbatical.

But not all were swayed by financial considerations. Citing improvements in graduate student stipends, faculty size and financial aid that once seemed unfeasible, Associate Professor of Portu-

Internet radio stations face fee increase continued from page 6 increased diversity of music that Internet stations may provide.

“Congress apparently made a determination for an interim specified period of time to assist a nascent industry, and that period of time has passed now,” Chief Copyright Royalty Judge James S. Sledge said in an interview.

David Oxenford, an attorney who represented independent commercial Internet broadcasters, predicted that a formal appeal to the board or federal courts would be difficult to win.

“This would shut down the en-

tire medium,” said Kurt Hanson, who runs AccuRadio.com and publishes the Radio and Internet Newsletter.

SoundExchange, an organization created by the recording industry to collect and distribute Internet and satellite music royalties, dismissed talk of an Internet radio apocalypse.

Executive Director John Simson said the new fees simply leveled the playing field for Internet radio and forced websites to adequately compensate the artists and record labels providing the music.

“This is money that they’ve

earned from valuable recordings they’ve created,” Simson said.

Simson said the hundreds of Internet radio services include corporate giants, such as Yahoo and Clear Channel Communications Inc., that can afford the higher fees. Those companies declined to comment Tuesday.

KCRW has helped eclectic artists such as the Shins, Arcade Fire and Damien Rice break out in recent years. Seymour wondered why the recording industry would want to endanger asuch a tastemaker.

“I can’t believe they want to kill the golden goose,” she said.

In Iraq, ‘dating’ happens online continued from page 7 ful woman.”

Noura first approached him under a pseudonym — “Abbas” — which he says conjured up images of a large, oafish man.

She wanted to know what he did for a living and to which Muslim sect he belonged. Reassured by his answers, she revealed that she was a 24-year-old woman who taught English at a primary school a few blocks from her home.

They chatted for months, swapping jokes and music downloads and sharing the details of their lives on opposite sides of Baghdad.

As a man living in a relatively safe, religiously mixed neighborhood, Azawi could still get out and go to college. But life was very different for Noura, a woman in a Sunni-dominated area that has seen repeated clashes with Shiite militiamen.

“She was trapped between her four walls and in front of her PC 24/7,” says Azawi, who declined to provide Noura’s last name because he says her parents would not approve of her chatting with men on the Internet. “Every time I logged on, she was there.”

The first time he saw her on a Webcam, he says, he found her a little “puffy.” But “I felt very special, because it is not an easy thing for a woman to do that.”

Six months later, they still hadn’t met. And he had lost hope of ever bridging the few miles of real estate that divided them.

Azawi envies the ease of relationships in the United States.

“You have the bar, the streets, the freedom and no religion to judge you,” he says. In Iraq, “it is a fight for the heart.”

Dozens of private providers also offer wireless connections to satellite-based hubs, bypassing the country’s notorious phone lines.

In troubled parts of the capital, some Internet cafes have received threats and closed. Militants accuse them of spreading pornography and providing a means to contact the U.S. military.

In Karada, a relatively safe neighborhood of east Baghdad, university students in jeans and baseball caps tap busily at dozens of computers in a converted house tiled in blue and white faux marble. Framed Quranic verses hang on the wall, and there are sodas in a fridge and a television set playing in the corner.

But most of the overwhelmingly male customers stare intently at their screens.

“All they do is chat, chat, chat,” says owner Yousef Abdulla, 25, a computer sciences major who opened the Shirifi Internet Cafe three years ago. “They have the opportunity to expand their horizons with this portal and get whatever information they want about anything, but all they are interested in is chatting — especially with girls.”

A few women also come to the cafe, but most are accompanied by a male relative and stay only a short while, Abdulla says. Those who can afford the monthly fee of $30 to $50 prefer to subscribe to the Internet at home.

They include Dahlia Muayed, a gregarious 29-year-old who flashes a cheery smile in the photograph she sends by e-mail after declining to risk a meeting with a Western reporter.

She says her main connection to family, friends and the life she once knew is the Internet.

Through e-mail and instant messaging, she is able “to spend time, to make relationships with others, to feel that I am important.”

“I thank God I have that,” she says. “I am not alone.”

guese and Brazilian Studies Luiz Valente spoke passionately about avoiding complacency.

“With all due respect, I thought we got rid of this ‘no at Brown’ mentality on July 2, 2001, when President Ruth Simmons took the oath of office,” said Valente, a former FAC and FEC chair. “I’m a little troubled by the mentality that we should take this policy today because it’s the best we think we can get.”

But what Brown can get may be severely limited over the next few years, according to Simmons’ general remarks to faculty. Simmons said the University’s spending has increased rapidly to fulfill priorities in the Plan for Academic Enrichment, adding that Corporation members challenged University officials in May 2006 to become more ambitious about their goals than in the past.

Simmons said future University budgets will entail “a fair degree of risk,” alluding to additional debt being taken on to finance spending priorities.

“We’re reaching the point in our financial plan where we’ll have less and less flexibility, but we are pushing the edge of the envelope,”

Simmons said. “Within a couple of years, we will be at the point where we can’t stretch this just too much more.”

Simmons said, with regard to faculty leave policy, the University simply doesn’t have the financial or human resources to support policies like those at Harvard and Yale universities.

“We have to push as fast as we can, though there are limits on that,” she said. “We just have to keep seeing how far we can push those limits.”

The faculty also unanimously approved — and applauded — the creation of a five-year, dual degree program with Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design.

The program, which will award students a bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree from Brown and a bachelor of fine arts degree from the RISD, will annually admit approximately 20 students, who have to be accepted to both schools before applying for the joint program. Students will pay Brown-level tuition, which will be split between the University and RISD. The program is expected to accept its first students in 2008.

Jury convicts Libby continued from page 7 surfaced. Nor was he alleged to have violated the federal law that protects against the disclosure of covert operatives.

His defenders accused Fitzgerald of unfairly singling out Libby.

His lawyers said he had no motive to break the law and taint a long record of public service.

He might have misspoken to investigators, the lawyers said, but that was only because he was so focused on his weighty work as the chief of staff and national security adviser to Cheney.

Libby told investigators that he told one of the journalists that he did not even know that Wilson had a wife.

During the trial, the government presented evidence showing that Libby and Cheney were intensely focused on Wilson and his criticism. The trial detailed a high-level effort to discredit Wilson in which Cheney prepared handwritten talking points and dispatched his top aide to counter Wilson.

Plame, who had recommended her husband for the trip, became an important part of the administration story line, prosecutors alleged.

A parade of witnesses contradicted Libby’s account that he did not know Plame’s identity. Top officials from the CIA and the State Department testified that they gave Libby information about Plame.

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer testified that he had a private lunch with Libby the day after Wilson published his critical op-ed article at which Libby told him in hushed tones that Plame worked at the CIA. Libby told investigators that he learned about Plame from ``Meet the Press’’ moderator Tim Russert. But his account

seemed to unravel in court.

Russert testified that he did not give Libby that information and did not know about Plame until Novak published his revealing column. In fact, Russert said, he remembered thinking the Novak disclosure was important.

Fitzgerald alleged that Libby concocted the story because he came to realize he had leaked information about Plame that had come from official sources. That meant he could be liable for disclosing classified information. Passing along tips from journalists would not be a crime.

“The sad truth,” Fitzgerald said during his closing argument, “is when people lie, it looks dumb when they are caught.”

The verdict is bound to fuel debate over the wisdom of prosecuting government officials for leaking information to reporters.

Such investigations have universally failed in the past because prosecutors have been unable to get the cooperation of the journalists receiving the leaks.

Fitzgerald, by contrast, went so far as to subpoena reporters for their testimony, putting one of them, former New York Times correspondent Judith Miller, in jail for 85 days until she agreed to talk about Libby.

The jury’s verdict came after 10 days of deliberation. One juror, an art curator in her 70s, was dismissed after two and a half days of deliberation. She told her peers she had come into contact with media information about the case over the weekend.

Rather than tap one of the panel’s alternatives — which would have required deliberations to begin anew — the judge, over the prosecution’s objections, decided that the panel should continue to deliberate with 11 jurors.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

Watch out for the next George Mason this March continued from page 12 out, a very deserving 27-6 Virginia Commonwealth team was in and we were searching for a new David.

Could it be Winthrop of the Big South, or Niagara of the Metro Atlantic?

Maybe it’ll be Davidson of the Southern Conference, a team Lefty Driesell took to the regional finals eons ago. Belmont won the Atlantic Sun Conference and an automatic bid. Butler or Wright State will win the Horizon and qualify for the NCAAs. Maybe North Texas will storm out of the Sun Belt.

You can be an extreme cynic like Tony Kornheiser, who says, “Because of George Mason last March, there won’t be and can’t be another George Mason this March.” Of course, Kornheiser, who has lived his entire life where the Big East plays, speaks for power conference coaches everywhere who as basketball Goliaths cringe at the notion of another David. To them, George Mason was a one-time lightning strike, not hard evidence of an evolutionary change in college basketball. These are the same people who weren’t paying attention two months ago when Boise State topped Oklahoma in college football, where it’s infinitely more difficult to score an upset than in college basketball.

People who are actually paying attention, who don’t turn off the TV because Creighton is playing or scoff aat the polls because Southern Illinois is ranked 13th and has had a RPI as high as No. 4 understand that because of what George Mason did last year, it’s increasingly likely that mid-majors will have a similar impact on at least the early rounds this year and moving forward. Nobody’s predicting a mid-major team will sweep through to the Final Four again.

As ESPN analyst Jay Bilas pointed out recently, while most mid-majors are loaded with good perimeter players but size-challenged, Mason had bigs last year who could score in the post, defend in the post and pass out of the post. There are power conference teams that don’t have players who can do that, but Mason did in Jai Lewis and Will Thomas.

Still, what conveys from last year’s Mason run is a certain boldness the mid-majors have. Not only are they unafraid of the big conference teams, they can’t wait to play them. The mid-majors are close and they know it.

Mason wasn’t a Disney movie to

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them — Mason was proof.

Appalachian State of the Southern Conference lost at Clemson, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech, but beat Virginia, Vanderbilt (which beat Florida), Wichita State, the aforementioned Virginia Commonwealth and Davidson, which won the league’s automatic bid. The Mountaineers lost in the Southern Conference semis, but had won eight straight and 12 of 13.

Appalachian State ought to be in the tournament. The Southern Conference, if its teams were treated fairly and seeded fairly, could be to this March what the CAA was to last March. I’d certainly prefer to see Appalachian State get an atlarge bid than the eighth- or ninthplace team in the ACC. And nobody, no matter how lordly a league they play in, wants to play Winthrop of the Big South.

You don’t have to know the stats of their best players (Craig Bradshaw and Torrell Martin), you only have to know that Winthrop lost to North Carolina by seven on a neutral court, by 11 at 20th-ranked Maryland, in overtime at fourthranked Wisconsin and at seventhranked Texas A&M. How did they do against everybody else? Undefeated, 28-0. None of those schools would dare travel to Winthrop and play in the regular season.

Butler can’t be Cinderella because at 27-5 and ranked in everybody’s top 20, Butler is a known quantity. Same goes for Southern Illinois, Air Force and Nevada.

But a legit pick would be Davidson, which has won 25 of 26, or Drexel, which has battled to 217. Maybe West Coast Conference champ Gonzaga, now that it doesn’t have a glamorous player, qualifies one again as a Cinderella candidate. And Virginia Commonwealth has those 27 victories and a coach, Anthony Grant, who might have brought some magic from Florida, where he was an assistant coach with the champs last season.

Still, the power conferences will be awarded all the top seeds, even in a year when none of the traditional powers seem particularly impressive. Teams with five and six losses will be in the running for a No. 1 seed when the tournament field is announced Sunday. And the teams who had to battle their way through, from leagues with one big, two at the most, will lie waiting in the weeds, more confident than ever that knocking off one or more of the big boys in the NCAA tournament is within their power.

The Tru Story behind Nike’s second coming continued from page 12 each guy got some face time. In a 60-second commercial, there’s not much time to go around.

What’s the dynamic with the players like during the shoot? Is there any trash talking or messing around?

The guys got along great. One of the cool parts of the job was getting to be there and be around those players. It’s not often that those group of guys are there together in one place, they definitely got along, joked.

Are the in-game shots staged, or do they get to actually play unscripted ball?

There was some stuff where we’d say, “Amare, get on the court,” and tell him to go dunk.

We just made sure we got individual shots of guys doing stuff, and then at the end of the day we told them to just do go out play.

How’d you make Steve Nash seem so badass?

He can just play. When he is just standing there on the set it doesn’t really look like it, but once he is out there with a ball in his hand his play speaks for himself.

The respect that he has from all the other players is tremendous.

They recognize there is a reason he has won two MVPs. If there were stats for commercial making (unselfishness, screen presence, professionalism, humor) who might have the best line?

Not surprisingly, LeBron and Kobe are both amazing individuals. Their games on the court are amazing, and they have the magnetic personalities to go with it.

They are just interesting people to be around. They’re outgoing, boisterous and a lot of fun.

How do you decide which Nike players to target when you do an ad like this one that features so many different players?

The concept called for 10 players. Quite simply, we wanted to pick our best 10 and the 10 that rep-

resented the future of the game.

We tried to get the best available.

We couldn’t get Dirk (Nowitzki), Vince Carter and Manu Ginobili.

What was your fondest memory from the shoot?

The ad was shot in an airplane hanger, which was convenient because most of the players came by private jet. It was just incredible watching them land, and another amazing NBA star would come out. Then a few minutes later another jet would arrive with another player.

What’s up next for Nike commercial ads?

Up next in the basketball world will be Kobe. His shoe is called the Zoom Kobe 2. Launches in early April.

You’re three hours behind on the West Coast, what’s it feel like perpetually living in the past?

It’s great because you don’t have to stay up past midnight to watch the end of Monday Night Football.

Softball hits ground running in first weekend continued from page 12 3-3 after six, Michelle Moses ’09 came in to pitch in the seventh and eighth before Wilson returned in the ninth to finish the game. Hartford’s pitcher intentionally walked two batters, which loaded the bases after the extra-inning tiebreaker rule put a runner on second to start the ninth, then walked Katie Rothamel ’10 to give Brown the walk-off win. “(The intentional walks) backfired on them, so it was more of a mentally tiring game, and you just want to win it and be done. That might have contributed to the loss

in the second game,” Wilson said.

Moses had four strikeouts in the loss against Campbell after pitching a complete game against Bowling Green in Brown’s first win.

“She came in a few different situations, saved another game and did well for us,” Enabenter-Omidiji said.

Enabenter-Omidiji was particularly pleased with the defensive effort after having minimal practice time on the field prior to the team’s first games.

“I really wasn’t sure what the defense was going to look like and how they would field ground balls ... we had just a handful of errors

and were really sound,” EnabenterOmidiji said.

Third baseman Whitney Lewis ’10 was particularly impressive, according to Enabenter-Omidiji. She played “errorless ball” and triggered numerous double plays over the weekend.

The Bears take their defensive prowess back down south this weekend to Fairfax, Va., to take on Youngstown State, Morgan State and George Mason universities.

“I have a lot of confidence in the team’s defense, and I think the hitting will continue to get better with the more at-bats people get,” Wilson said.

E DITORIAL & L ETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

STAF F EDITORIAL

A strange sight Sayles Hall was much more crowded than usual on Tuesday afternoon during the first half-hour of the spring career fair. More than a dozen protestors and at least six Department of Public Safety officers sent to disperse them clogged the narrow corridors between the rows and rows of booths set up for engineering companies, investment firms and technology startups.

The protest was surprisingly low-key — a group of students simply stood by, holding homemade cardboard signs denouncing Raytheon for being a national defense contractor. The protestors did not shout or attempt to incite argument. Students continued to discuss working for Raytheon with the company’s representative even as DPS officers tried to clear the area of protestors.

Even if the SDS protestors only entered Sayles to avoid the below-freezing gusts outside, their protest was successful. It showed a strange dichotomy of our Brown student college life. On the one side were students opposing a powerful American corporation they feel is harming the world. On the other side were students with resumes in hand, trying to score a job with the same company their classmates were passionately protesting.

Regardless of one’s feelings about Raytheon’s products or the company’s involvement with the U.S. government — or the Iraq war in general — this odd mix of protestors and job seekers seemed almost normal in Sayles, under the portraits of past University leaders. It was as if both sides of students tacitly acknowledged some respect for the other, while pursuing their divergent goals — either impressing or embarrassing Raytheon.

Which side is right doesn’t matter. What does matter is that both groups could comfortably express their opinions without offending the other.

A L E X A N D E R G A R D - M U R R AY

LETTERS

J-term’s identity crisis

Grad School dean responds to int’l student concerns

The favorable reviews of this year’s January@Brown show the program wasn’t an utter failure even though it drew one-fi fth the number of students expected, but UCS members and supportive administrators must set a clearer objective for the program before pouring time and resources into another lackluster winter session.

We’re glad the 19 students who took shelter in Grad Center this January enjoyed reading and writing about the Internet, food cultures and neighborhood stories without the promise of a grade at the end. But we wonder whether many more students would sign up for a snowy homework-filled vacation without academic credit. If the UCS members who spearheaded January@Brown hope to continue this program next year, they must clarify its objective — an intellectual vacation or rigorous work for a grade.

Giving over-eager students the option to lengthen their academic year — and consequently their stress levels — at the expense of much-needed rest seems to threaten the goals of the winter term and adds an element of competition among students as they consider the program’s potential impact on their transcript or resume. Some student leaders behind the Jterm suggest adding credit will boost the program’s popularity, but the resounding majority of this year’s January@Brown attendees oppose giving credit for the winter term, indicating grades would fundamentally change the experience. But maintaining a tiny program without academic credit and with significant organizational demands for the handful of students who get bored at home come January and can afford to pay to hang out in Grad Center makes little sense.

We anticipate problems with either option. But regardless, we hope the J-term “working group” chooses to take one route over the other instead of hazily wandering somewhere between the two.

To the Editor:

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 Steve DeLucia Chris Gang Mark Brinker Roxanne Palmer Luke Harris

Design Editor Copy Desk Chief Graphics Editor Graphics Editor Web Editor

POST- MAGAZINE Hillary Dixler Melanie Duch Taryn Martinez Rajiv Jayadevan Mindy Smith

Managing Editor Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor Features Editor

Steve DeLucia, Designer Ayelet Brinn, Ted Lamm, Cici Matheny, 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 Sports Staff Writers Amy Ehrhart, Kaitlyn Laabs, Eliza Lane, Kathleen Loughlin, Megan McCahill, Marco Santini, Tom Trudeau, Steele West Business Staff Dana Feuchtbaum, Kent Holland, Alexander Hughes, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Viseth San, Kaustubh Shah, Jon Spector, Robert Stefani, Lily Tran, Lindsay Walls 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

I am writing in reply to a recent letter to the editor in The Herald from international graduate students (“New grad funding policy will hurt international students,” March 6). Contrary to what was asserted in that letter, the Graduate School’s new guarantee of five years of funding for incoming doctoral students represents an improvement over prior policy and practice for international students.

Since Brown is now issuing what is essentially a five-year contract for incoming students, the visa reapplication and approval process for these students should be somewhat easier. We are aware that international students have fewer options for supporting themselves once they reach the end of their support guarantee; this will be no different in the future than it has been in the past. We will work to address the concerns of international students on an individual basis

just as we have in previous years.

Any doctoral student with concerns about the Grad School’s funding policies and processes should consult the website: http://gradschool.brown.edu/go/ doctoralsupportfaq. This information will be circulated among doctoral students in a variety of forms in the coming weeks.

On a lighter note, I am delighted to see that the graduate student readership of The Herald seems to have reached new heights in recent weeks. And as always, I remind students with questions to e-mail Graduate_School@brown.edu or visit me during my open office hours, Monday afternoons from 1 to 2:30.

Sheila Bonde Dean of the Graduate School March 6

State shouldn’t cut health funding for youth To the Editor: This week, the Rhode Island Senate Finance Committee will hear testimony from children, parents, professionals and advocates regarding Gov. Donald Carcieri’s ’65 proposal to cut funding for youth in care of the Department of Children, Youth and Families on their 18th birthday, as opposed the current cut-off at age 21.

If the budget cut is approved, on July 1, 2007, over 900 youth in DCYF care will have their cases closed and will immediately lose their health insurance and counseling services, among other aid. Over 500 of the youth are currently living in group homes, foster homes and independent living placements and would have a very high risk of homelessness if they lose their support.

Various studies have proven that youth in foster care are much more likely to experience challenging life situations, especially homelessness, when there is a lack of support during the often-challenging transition

to adulthood. In fact, national data presented by the Urban Institute showed that 60 percent of homeless youth aged 18 and 19 are former foster youth, and that foster youth make up 25 percent of the adult homeless population — both staggering statistics given that foster youth make up only 3 percent of the country’s total population.

It is imperative that we provide the necessary support for these youth to succeed as adults, which can be accomplished by continuing to provide the funds to do so. I ask the Senate Finance Committee and all other Rhode Island legislators to oppose the governor’s DCYF budget cut and to support instead some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

Kirsten Rutkowski GS March 4

CORRECTION An article in Tuesday’s Herald (“Scientists speak out on their religious beliefs,” March 6) incorrectly stated that Luke Renick ’08 cited the writings of Francis Crick. Renick cited Francis Collins, a leading researcher for the Human Genome Project.

Due to an editing error, an article in Tuesday’s Herald (“Banner mock registration kicks off,” March 6) incorrectly stated that the mock registration of Banner would include a “summer” period, designed to simulate Orientation, from 12:01 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday. In fact, the mock “summer,” which was designed to simulate the period when classes are not in session, was Tuesday from 10 a.m. to noon, and a separate mock Orientation period, when 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.

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ADVER TISING POLICY The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

O PINIONS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

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Reality TV-cum-politics spells new woe to our republic TREVOR GLEASON OPINIONS COLUMNIST

The media has played an important role in presidential elections throughout our county’s history, including some of the most fantastic contests. The aftermath of the first televised presidential debate proved this rather clearly. While those who listened over the radio in 1960 felt that Nixon and Kennedy had been closely matched, those who viewed the debate on television overwhelmingly felt that the well-groomed Kennedy talked circles around the haggard, sweaty Nixon. It comes as no surprise, then, that politicians across the country who are chasing after presidential ambitions have internalized the importance of television to the attainment of their goals.

However, at some point, that lesson seems to have been internalized a bit too well. With the presidential election cycle now one never-ending daze, everyone even remotely associated with any of the multiple campaigns seems more concerned with getting air time for the sake of air time than for the sake of actually saying something. Indeed, in a far cry from whatever honorable endeavor politics may have been in times past, as of late politicians have instead turned their campaigns into imitations of another troubling cultural creation — reality TV. It’s unclear whether recent political events were inspired by the explosion of reality television or whether both trends were forged separately in same dark pit of hell, but the similarities are unmistakable. For one, both star a consistent cast of well-known provocateurs who are more important for their

shock value than for any actual substance.

The Omarosas and Simon Cowells of the reality world find their analogs in the likes of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rush Limbaugh — they may not really be “on topic,” they may not even be “comprehensible,” but as long as they give us a reason to tune in to the news every week, the substance of their message matters very little. After all, inquiring minds want to know — what will Nancy Pelosi wear to her first address as speaker?

Will Ann Coulter mindlessly disparage another Democratic candidate, calling him or

designs make it hard to suspend disbelief long enough to buy into “Survivor,” so the grandiose, staged actions of politicians make it difficult to take seriously any association they may have with the average American.

At the same time, it makes it all too simple to deflect any sort of engagement over real controversy. After all, on the anniversary of the historic Selma, Ala., civil rights march, why bother discussing any real issues relating to race — such as the Cherokee Nation’s recent decision to expel descendants of the tribe’s past slaves — when you can merely

In an era where many are worried about flagging interest in the political process as a whole, what better way is there to make sure that people tune into the presidential debates than to include a panel of celebrity judges? her a “faggot” like she did John Edwards? Is any of this even tangentially related to the task of actually governing the country?

Another notable similarity is that both politicians and reality TV “stars” give off the unmistakable impression that no matter how hard they try to pretend otherwise, there is a significant lack of actual reality in what they present. Just as the sweeping set

do as Sen. Hillary Clinton D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., did and make a token appearance at the scene of a conflict that is safely tucked away in the past?

We have the cast, we have the bizarre and nonsensical situations — all that is left are the elimination challenges. Here too we can see a convincing parallel. Long gone are the days in which the elections are

the only thing that matters. Now, we have a never-ending series of referenda (the polls), the loss of any of which could lead to a candidate’s collapse. Former Virginia senator George Allen may have led the field after last year’s Conservative Political Action Committee straw poll, but one chance “macaca” later, he not only had lost his immunity but found himself catching an early ride home.

Like any good reality television show, we even call back the fan favorites of the past for reunion episodes to boost our ratings. There seems to be no other explanation for why, in a recent series of head to head polls between politicians, SurveyUSA felt it necessary to include the all important, largely hypothetical “Reagan vs. FDR” matchup. By calling back to the heroes of yesteryear, it becomes possible to bring back the memories associated with them just in time for sweeps week.

In light of the unmistakable drawing together of the political and entertainment spheres, I think it only makes sense that everyone involved stop denying the obvious and give in to the inevitable collusion of the two. In an era where many are worried about flagging interest in the political process as a whole, what better way is there to make sure that people tune into the presidential debates than to include a panel of celebrity judges? That’s right, in politics they’re called “celebrity endorsements.”

If it’s only a matter of time before we will sit around watching VH1’s coverage of Ryan Seacrest giving the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, we might as well accept our new reality with open arms.

Trevor Gleason ’07 is just bitter because he lost his bid for the high school presidency to a smoove-talkin’ fox.

U.S. should negotiate with Syria

BY JEBEDIAH KOOGLER GUEST COLUMNIST

It’s time to talk with Syria.

Talking with Syria is long overdue. In the face of the escalating violence in Iraq, an increasingly unstable Lebanon and the rise of Hezbollah and Iran as formidable regional actors, the fact that the Bush administration has refused to seriously engage with the Syrian government is a strategic blunder of monumental proportions.

Therefore, the recent decision by the Bush administration to participate in talks with the Syrian government, albeit indirectly, is a decision that should be applauded.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who made the announcement last week, indicated that the United States would sit down at the same table with Syrian officials during a regional conference scheduled for March 10. The conference, which is being organized by the Iraqi government, will not involve any one-on-one discussion between the United States and Syria, but hopefully it might lead to such an outcome.

The issues at hand are complicated and numerous but, if done correctly, the possibility of successful negotiations with Syria is high.

First, the United States needs to convince the government of Bashar al-Assad to give up its partnership with Tehran. This is a lot easier than one might imagine. Here’s

why: The alliance between Syria and Iran is an uneasy one that was forged primarily out of necessity. Both governments have dramatically different goals, and their association seems primarily to be an attempt to counter the threat of increased American influence in the region. Many Middle Eastern experts argue that pulling Syria away from Iran and enticing it into a closer, more

bollah is useful to Damascus in the short term, the goals of the Shiite group are quite different than those of the secular government of Syria. Despite Syria’s ties to Hezbollah, its involvement with the organization is primarily a way of exerting pressure on the Israeli government. With the right incentives — negotiations about the future of the Golan Heights, for example, and se-

The fact that the Bush administration has refused to seriously engage with the Syrian government is a strategic blunder of monumental proportions. cooperative relationship with the United States would not be impossible if Syria were presented with the right incentives. With a serious discussion about its security concerns and offers of economic aid, Damascus might, the theory goes, be willing to turn its back on Tehran.

Second, the Bush administration must urge Assad’s government to forgo its strategic alliance with Hezbollah. While Hez-

curity guarantees from Israel and the United States — Syria might be enticed to drop its support for Hezbollah.

Finally, Syria’s role in the Iraqi insurgency is of much concern to Washington and could also be dealt with diplomatically.

While the Syrian government allegedly allows militants to enter into Iraq across the country’s eastern border, any involvement that it might have in its neighbor’s civil war

comes from the fear that if American troops are not bogged down in Iraq, the Bush administration might turn to Syria as its next target for regime change. A U.S. guarantee not to threaten Syria could go a long way in convincing Assad’s government to take a more positive role in Iraq’s reconstruction.

There would, of course, be many sticking points that would have to be addressed. The future of Lebanon, in particular, could be a subject of much disagreement. Fortunately, it does seem possible that with enough carrots from Washington, Syria might be willing to give up its historical dominance of Lebanon in favor of closer ties to the West, a serious discussion about the return of the Golan Heights and a large package of economic aid.

Negotiations are long and frustrating, and they rarely produce immediate results.

But the alternative — not talking — is much worse. Syria is a key component to bringing about a peaceful Iraq, to stabilize Lebanon and to undermining the rising influence of Iran and Hezbollah. To continue to ignore the prominent and important role it plays in the Middle East would be a huge mistake.

With a regional conference scheduled for this month, an opportunity has risen for greater diplomatic engagement between Washington and Damascus. The Bush administration should take it.

Jebediah Koogler ’10 talked through the movie “Syriana.”

S PORTS W EDNESDAY WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

Trudeau gets behind the scenes at Nike Alistair Campbell is the advertising manager for Nike based in Beaverton, Ore. I spoke to him using my cellular phone device about his experience on the set of Nike’s newest basketball commercial, titled “The Second Coming.” The commercial features 10 of the best professional basketball players in the NBA, including CleveTom Trudeau land’s Lebron Tru Story James, Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers and Steve Nash from Phoenix, playing a pickup game.

Trudeau: What’s the creative process like over in Beaverton? Who comes up with the actual ideas for the commercials?

Alistair Campbell: We work with an advertising agency, Wieden+Kennedy. They’re the ones who come up with a lot of the classic Nike ads. They wrote the line “Just Do It.” We develop the creative brief and a strategy and then come to them. A couple weeks later they get back with a couple different ideas.

I couldn’t help but notice certain big-time players were featured less than others. Do you have to manage egos on camera too?

Absolutely. It’s a very tricky balancing act. That’s probably the reason why most of our commercials — we don’t have 10 different guys.

That was a big deal to get our 10 best athletes to appear in the Air Force One campaign. Each guy expects he is going to get more face time than the next. But the guys know there is a pecking order. LeBron is our top guy. Then Kobe. Amare is our next guy down. We knew that going in, and I thought we did a pretty good job of making sure continued on page 9

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Sports briefs: W. tennis loses twice over weekend After five straight home matches, the women’s tennis team experienced a rough return to the road this weekend, keeping its matches competitive but dropping a 5-2 decision to Marquette University on Saturday and falling to Syracuse University 4-3 the following day. The losses leave the Bears’ record at 3-7 on the season.

In the Marquette match, the Bears’ No. 1 doubles team of Sara Mansur ’09 and Michelle Pautler ’07 took down its opposition 8-5.

But the Golden Eagles claimed the next two doubles matches by the slimmest of margins, 9-7 and 9-8(4), to lose the doubles point.

Mansur won again at No. 2 singles, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, and Emily Ellis ’10 won another three-set affair 3-6, 6-4, 6-0. But the Bears could not secure victories in any of the other four singles matches.

Brown jumped out to an early lead against the Orange. Second doubles team Kelly Kirkpatrick ’08 and Emily Ellis ’10 brought home an 8-4 victory, and Daisy Ames ’07 and Kathrin Sorokko ’10 won at No. 3 doubles, 8-6. Unfortunately the Bears could not make their one-point advantage hold up. The Bears got victories from Pautler at No. 3 singles and Brett Finklestein ’09 at No. 6,

but fell one win shy of taking the match.

This weekend the Bears will face the University of Rhode Island and West Virginia University on Saturday and Sunday. Both matches will be held at 11 a.m. at the Pitzzitola Center.

— Peter Cipparone Gymnastics falls at Yale On Saturday, the gymnastics team dropped a close contest to Yale, but the Bears took several first-place finishes in the 188.800185.825 decision. Alicia Sacramone ’10 led the Bears by placing either first or second in all four events and in the overall score.

Brown opened the meet with a win on the vault. Sacramone scored 9.825 to finish first, and she followed up the victory with another first-place finish in the uneven parallel bars. Sacramone earned a score of 9.800 in the event, while Alanna Kwoka ’10 scored 9.325 for third place.

The Bears gave solid performances on the balance beam as well. Jennifer Sobuta ’09 won with a score of 9.800, tying her personal best. Sacramone posted 9.775 for a second-place finish, and Isabelle Kirkham-Lewitt ’10 placed third

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo Sara Mansur ’09 contributed to both points in the women’s tennis team’s 5-2 loss to Marquette. She claimed one victory in singles and one in doubles play.

with a personal best of 9.650.

Sacramone also placed in the floor exercise, earning a score of 9.700 to tie Yale’s Alina Liao for second. Sacramone’s impressive results in every event landed her in first place in the all-around with 39.100 points. Sobuta, Kirkham-

Lewitt and Kwoka finished fourth, fi fth and sixth in the all-around, respectively.

The squad is back in action on Sunday, when Brown hosts Southern Connecticut State University.

— Erin Frauenhofer

Watch out for the next George Mason this March

BY MICHAEL WILBON THE WASHINGTON POST

It’s become the coolest week of March, in some ways more irresistible than the Final Four itself.

Just as it was in high school, the anticipation of the Big Dance is often better than the dance itself.

Not that the NCAA tournament is likely to disappoint — it hardly ever does, especially those first two days when scores pour in from eight sites, sort of like election results from all over the country.

Still, this “Championship Week”

has become the perhaps the best appetizer in sports, a week filled with the same dramatically desperate basketball that has made the rest of March famous and yet with a touch of athletic innocence the power conferences haven’t had in decades.

At the center of all this good feeling is the search for Cinderella, a team from some one-bid league that could upset some snotty blue-blood in the first round or at least make one of the royals sweat. And this “Championship Week” has taken on a new signifi-

cance because we’re all looking for the next George Mason, an afterthought team at the beginning of the month that not only is capable of busting up brackets by scoring one upset, but holding our attention for the full month and putting real madness into March.

Who knew George Mason had a chance to be the new George Mason? It was as if the Patriots, having gotten all the way to the Final Four last year, were defending something, some mythical crown representing all the schools who can’t ever get a home game

from teams in the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-10; who have to fight each other for a handful of lousy spots in the Big Dance while coaches from the big leagues lobby to get eight or nine of their teams in.

Up five, with the ball, two minutes left — it certainly looked like the slipper still fit, that George Mason was going back to defend the honor of mid-majors everywhere. But two bad turnovers and a couple of bricks later, Mason was continued on page 9

Softball hits ground running in first weekend

BY AMY EHRHART SPORTS STAFF WRITER

The softball team opened its season with a bang last weekend, coming back from South Carolina with a 42 record at the Charleston Southern University tournament. On Friday, the team captured both of its games, handing Bowling Green State University its only loss of the tournament 4-3 and winning the second game against the host school, Charleston Southern, 3-1.

On Saturday and Sunday, Brown split two games each day. The magic from a 4-3 extra inning win against the University of Hartford on Saturday morning didn’t carry over to the afternoon, when Brown suffered a 1-0 loss to Campbell University. After a 10-2 loss to Providence College

SPORTS SCHEDULE WEDNESDAY, DAY MAR. 7 DAY, Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo Kelsey Wilson ’09 hit her first home run of the season in the softball team’s 3-1 victory over Charleston Southern on Friday.

SKIING: at USCSA National Championships, Giant Slalom (Winter Park, Colo.)

on Sunday, the Bears bounced back by ending the trip with a 3-1 victory over St. Bonaventure University.

The team felt the successful trip was triggered by sound defensive play.

“Our defense was our strongest point, and the pitching was really strong,” said co-captain Amy Baxter ’08. “(The pitchers) did a good job hitting their spots and keeping the other teams off-balance.”

The team’s match-up with Charleston Southern was a backand-forth affair. Brown took a tworun lead on a two-run single from Amanda Asay ’10, but Charleston fought back with an RBI triple from Ashley Conway. Later in the inning, Conway attempted to score on a suicide squeeze, but Baxter blocked the plate and tagged out Conway, preventing Charleston Southern from scoring the tying run. “(Pitcher) Kristen (Schindler ’09) fielded it, and I got a good toss from her to stop them,” Baxter said of the play.

In the bottom of the sixth, Kelsey Wilson ’09 hit a home run over the

right-center field wall to give Brown a lead it refused to relinquish.

“It’s always nice to start the season off with something like that. It was great, and (the hit) felt really good,” Wilson said.

“I think the reason she did so well offensively was she did absolutely everything we asked,” said Head Coach DeeDee EnabenterOmidiji.

Wilson also pitched in the wins against Hartford and St. Bonaventure.

“I felt like we played really solid defense,” Wilson said. “As a pitcher, it’s always great to know your “D” is back there and going to make plays.

It really makes a difference.”

For her efforts, Wilson was named to the All-Tournament team.

She was the only representative from Brown and was selected for the second consecutive year.

It took Bruno nine innings to earn its third straight win of the weekend against the Hawks. Tied continued on page 9