THE BROWN DAILY HERALD T HURSDAY
Volume CXLII, No. 40
22, 2007 20 07
Mocha ‘2.0’ launches
J. Walter Wilson to house student support services
A new and updated version of Mocha, the student-run alternative to the old Brown Online Course Announcement, will be released this morning, according to co-creator Daniel Leventhal ’07. The new program is intended as an alternative for the recently launched Banner Catalog and Course Schedule, which replaced BOCA when they went live on Monday. Leventhal said a “quick and dirty” version of Mocha would be released first, followed by a more polished and feature-rich version in the weeks following spring break. “The first version will allow you to do course searches and basic operations, but we hope to develop some more interesting features later on,” he said. Among the new features Leventhal and his team plan to introduce is a course registration for Mocha users that bypasses Banner’s controversial user interface. Leventhal said the course registration feature is possible but will require a few “HTML tricks.” Leventhal said the delay in developing new features is due to the way Banner organizes information, which differs greatly from the BOCA did. “We’ve got to change the way our whole infrastructure works,” he said. But Leventhal said Mocha users should expect the new site to look and feel much like the old version. — Chaz Firestone
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
BY CAMERON LEE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Eunice Hong / Herald
The J. Walter Wilson building will be converted into a student services center by the end of summer 2008.
The J. Walter Wilson building — located across Waterman Street from Faunce House — will be converted into a student services center by the end of summer 2008 as part of the University’s plan to make Faunce and its neighbors a central hub for student life. By the Fall 2008 semester, the former biology laboratory facility will become home to such student services as the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life, the Office of International Programs, the Writing Center, the Writing Fellows Program, the Brown Card Office and the curricular resource and academic support centers, said Associate Provost Pamela O’Neil PhD’91. “One of the things we’ve needed on campus for a long time is a building for student support and student services,” she said. “Right now they’re spread all over campus.” As the project is still in the planning stages, the offices that will move into J. Walter Wilson have not been finalized, said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, interim vice president for campus life and student services. The plans for J. Walter Wilson will take advantage of the building’s “centrality” on campus and “significant amount of space,” Carey said. The renovated building is also
intended to complement Faunce, which will become the Robert Campus Center, and to “provide a vibrant center of activity that will serve students much better,” Carey said. “Its location near Hillel and the (planned) Creative Arts Building will make the area a vibrant and attractive area for students.” “It’s an overarching plan for the area,” O’Neil said. She said J. Walter Wilson’s proximity to Faunce House makes it conducive as both a place for student services and a “place where students can gather.” By centralizing various student services, efficiency and collaboration can be maximized, O’Neil said. “Two things that make sense to be located near each other but haven’t been are the Writing Fellows Program, located in Rhode Island Hall, and the Writing Center, located in the library,” she said. “The two actually share staff but are located in different buildings. In J. Walter Wilson, the staff can work together as a cohesive unit.” “I’m frankly delighted by the proposition we’ll have more space,” said Douglas Brown, director of the Writing Center, which is currently located in the Rockefeller Library. He also said he thought it was “an intelligent move” and that the only minor drawback would be losing “a continued on page 6
4 fail program house review Campaign nears $1 billion ahead of schedule BY MEHA VERGHESE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Four houses failed the Residential Council’s spring program house review, and four more houses receiving warnings. While 12 houses passed, reasons for warnings and failure included low membership, lack of a faculty adviser, failure to hold regular meetings and problems submitting spring review materials. Delta Phi, Sigma Chi, Phi Kappa Psi and Cooking House were the four houses that failed the semiannual review. Alpha Chi Omega was placed on warning for not having a faculty adviser. Brown’s other on-campus sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, was also warned about not having a faculty adviser, but it is in the process of acquiring one. Kappa Alpha Theta has struggled with membership numbers for some time, failing last semester’s review, but expects to have ample members next year. If it does not, ResCouncil said the sorority will fail the fall review. Buxton International House received a warning for holding significantly fewer mandatory meetings than any other house. Buxton had already been warned about its failure to hold regular meetings in the fall review. This semester it remains on notice and has been ad-
INSIDE:
3 METRO
vised to turn its Sunday brunches into informal meetings. Another house placed on warning was Theta Delta Chi because of its absence of bylaws. All houses are required to have a set of regulations on file with the Office of Residential Life. “We never really had a set copy of our laws, we always assumed that this is how we had always done things so it was just a matter of my typing up the bylaws, and I was lazy, and I forgot,” said Thete President Matthew Mullenax ’08. Mullenax said he had just submitted the bylaws to ResCouncil, “I’m pretty confident that from the fall we should be okay,” he said, though he noted that the fraternity “has a problem with damage sometimes.” Thete was also placed on notice during the fall review for issues of “cleanliness, party management and property damage,” according to the Official Recommendation of Fall Review published by ResCouncil. Cooking House, in its first year of existence, failed the review for falling short of membership requirements. The house has only 20 in-house members instead of the required 22 and only two instead of the requisite five returning members.
Now more than halfway to completion, the Campaign for Academic Enrichment is ahead of pace. As of March 21, the campaign had raised over $960 million — 68 percent of its $1.4 billion goal — with 54 percent of the campaign time elapsed. Campaign officials say they are pleased with the results so far and hope to surpass $1 billion in commitments by the end of June. That is a goal they “fully expect” to reach, Neil Steinberg ’75, vice president for development and campaign di-
rector, told The Herald, adding that they also “fully expect to meet and exceed” the campaign’s ultimate $1.4 billion goal. “There’s nothing automatic about this stuff,” Steinberg said. “But the momentum is good.” The Campaign for Academic Enrichment — publicized under the tagline “Boldly Brown” — went public in October 2005 after a twoyear “quiet phase” during which the University raised a “nucleus fund” of $575 million from key donors. The seven-year campaign currently aims to raise at least $660 million to bolster Brown’s endow-
ment, $540 million for immediate support and $200 million for facilities projects by the end of 2010. Donors to the campaign are encouraged to give money for a series of specific projects laid out in a “Table of Needs” designed to reflect the objectives of President Ruth Simmons’ Plan for Academic Enrichment. Ronald Vanden Dorpel, senior vice president for University advancement, said he and his staff are “enormously pleased” with the campaign’s progress to date. The continued on page 6
‘Accidental President’ Cardoso returns to Brazil BY TAYLOR BARNES STAFF WRITER
FEATURE
While studying for political science exams, students may turn to textbooks to brush up on dependency theory, a framework of international relations which argues that poorer developing nations are economically exploited by wealthier developed nations. But more resourceful students could arrange office hours with the man who helped develop the theory, Professor-atLarge Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who spends a month each year on College Hill.
continued on page 4
LATE-NIGHT LIQUOR A coalition is seeking an earlier closing time for Spats’ bar — which now serves alcohol until 2 a.m. — so that drinks would cut off at 12 a.m.
www.browndailyherald.com
BY MICHAEL SKOCPOL SENIOR STAFF WRITER
4 CAMPUS NEWS
QUIET AND SUB-FREE ResLife moved sub-free and quiet housing due to noise complaints and class years of applicants, but some students disliked the change
Students too intimidated to visit the former president of Brazil could instead read his memoirs, “The Accidental President of Brazil,” released in 2006. Brazilians chose Cardoso, who served as president from 1995 to 2003, as the best president in the nation’s history in a poll conducted just before he left office. Cardoso had previously served as finance minister for President Itamar Fran-
11 OPINIONS
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
continued on page 9 REVIEW OF THE TASK FORCE Campus Issues Columnist Ben Bernstein ‘09 argues that the Task Force on Undergraduate Education should have more student input
Eunice Hong / Herald
Professor-at-Large Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil, spends a month each year on College Hill.
EDITOR’S NOTE
This is the last issue of The Herald prior to spring break. Publication resumes April 2. News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com