Tuesday, April 3, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD T UESDAY,

Volume CXLII, No. 42

PRIL

3, 2007 2 007

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Admission rate drops to record low of 13.5 percent

Students anxious as housing lottery approaches

BY JAMES SHAPIRO SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Brown accepted 13.5 percent of applicants this year out of a record 19,044 applications — the “lowest admit rate in our history,” said Dean of Admission James Miller ’73.

Of the 2,577 admitted students, 523 were accepted early decision, and the remaining 2,054 were accepted in the regular admission cycle. Regular

BY ALEXANDER ROEHRKASSE STAFF WRITER

continued on page 4

Breakdown of Applicants to the class of 2011

5

19,044 total applicants

54 r 2,0gulasion re eci d

16,467

not admitted Jean Yves Chainon / Herald File Photo

Students gathered in Sayles Hall last March for the housing lottery. This year’s lottery will be held in Sayles on April 10 and 12 at 6:30 p.m.

Committee appointed to consider center for study of slavery

BY MICHAEL SKOCPOL SENIOR STAFF WRITER

A committee to design a major academic initiative related to slavery and justice — one of the first steps toward implementing the University’s plan to make amends for its historic ties to slavery — was announced by the University today.

The nine-member committee will be chaired by Professor of Economics Glenn Loury and includes three members of the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, which released its report last October after nearly three years of deliberation.

The University pledged in

February to undertake “a major teaching and research initiative on slavery and justice” in response to that report, which detailed how some of the University’s early benefactors profited from the slave trade. A center for the study of slavery was a central recommendation of the report.

The committee’s written charge from Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 calls for it to familiarize itself with the resources available at Brown and “relevant centers and institutes at peer institutes” and recommend a course of action by the end of the Fall 2007 semester. continued on page 6

Med School moves up in U.S. News research rankings

BY KRISTINA KELLEHER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

the Web site, said the idea for eCollegeCribs came from its founders’ frustrating experience finding housing in Providence the summer after their sophomore year. Tuttle and Lindsay Heck ’07 designed the Web site’s business plan as an assignment for EN 90: “Managerial Decision Making,” taught by Professor Emeritus of Engineering Barrett Hazeltine, and on March 5, the plan turned into reality, he said.

The Alpert Medical School rose from No. 38 to No. 34 in the U.S. News and World Report annual ranking of top medical schools for research released last Friday. Students and administration officials alike met the Med School’s new ranking with great enthusiasm.

U.S. News compiles two sets of rankings for medical schools — research, which assesses an institution’s research facilities, and primary care, which looks at how many students enter primary care programs such as family practice, internal medicine and pediatrics.

“It is both exciting and validating to hear about Brown ascending in the medical school rankings, but it is not surprising,” Neel Shah ’04 MD’08, president of the Med School student senate, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “We have one of the very best medical schools in the country, with potential for even greater excellence under the Plan for Academic Enrichment, I expect a meteoric rise in our ranking in years to come. “ The most heavily weighted

continued on page 4

continued on page 4

Courtesy of Brown.edu Professor of Economics Glenn Loury will chair a committee to design an academic initiative on slavery and justice.

Engin 90 project to help students find summer housing

BY MARIELLE SEGARRA STAFF WRITER

Herald File Photo

Students can search for off-campus housing using a new student-founded Web site called eCollegeCribs.com.

INSIDE:

3 METRO

HOPE FOR HOPE HIGH After dramatic restructuring and state intervention, the Hope High School complex has improved significantly

www.browndailyherald.com

continued on page 6

ea 23 rly de cis io n

Another season of housing deliberation and drama is now underway — the deadline for housing lottery applications passes at 11:59 p.m. tonight. The lottery will be held next Tuesday and Thursday in Sayles Hall.

Last year’s housing lottery was the first to use a new one-segment system as part of an ongoing effort by the Office of Residential Life and Residential Council to streamline the housing selection process.

“We keep looking for the lottery to take less and less time from people,” said Thomas Forsberg, associate director of housing and residential life.

To help students prepare for the lottery, ResLife and ResCouncil have hosted information sessions, sent out bulk emails and held a social gathering for roommate matchmaking, said Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential life.

Justin Glavis-Bloom ’07, chair of ResCouncil, said only students who fail to prepare for the lottery should end up having trouble on lottery night.

“Really, I think the lottery takes two to four hours of research and talking with your friends and other group members. If you do that … you’ll be fine,” he said.

(Herald Executive Editor Allison Kwong ’08 is the lottery chair for ResCouncil.)

Despite the availability of various informational resources, the inevitable uncertainty of the lottery and the complications of organizing housing groups has left some a little nervous.

“I am kind of stressed about it just because I haven’t finished my group yet,” said Kyle Deacon ’10, adding that the preparations for the lottery have been more diffi-

admission decisions were accessible online last Thursday afternoon. The Office of Admission is aiming to matriculate a class of 1,485 students.

Students of color made up a record-breaking 41 percent of the admitted class, up from 39 percent last year. 53 percent of the admitted class is female.

“We had a pretty big increase in the number of first-genera-

7 CAMPUS NEWS

FEATURE

It’s that time of year again — the sun is shining, flowers are blooming, spring is somewhat in the air — and students staying in the area after the semester ends are embarking on a maddening struggle to find summer housing in Providence.

But eCollegeCribs.com, a new student-founded Web site that links tenants to landlords in Providence, could alleviate anxiety over uncertain housing plans that plague students throughout the spring.

Mark Tuttle ’07, co-founder of LAB THEFT AND TRASH This week’s crime log features a stolen microscope lens and a man rummaging through the trash in a women’s restroom

11 OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

BANNER FROM THE TOP Associate Provost Nancy Dunbar, leader of the Banner project, explains the system and exhorts cooperation from students and faculty

12 SPORTS

SOFTBALL SPLITS The softball team broke a 12-game losing streak with a win this weekend over Cornell, but fell once more to Princeton on Saturday

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

TODAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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SU

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

WBF | Matt Vascellaro

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21 __ pentameter 23 Wide shoe size 24 Media monitoring org.

25 EMT’s maneuver 28 Coin of the realm for 17-Across 35 Southern speech feature 37 Stone from Down Under 38 Top-notch 39 Italia’s capital 40 Stuttering pig 41 StarKist fish 42 Kiln, e.g.

43 Double-reed instrument 44 Get steamy, as a window 45 17-Across’s supplier when 28-Across runs low?

48 The guy’s 49 Balloon filler 50 Strikes (out) 52 Brusque 56 Proposing an idea to, as an editor 61 Unsliced bread unit 62 Cry from an overextended 17-Across when the 45-Across comes calling?

64 Itty-bitty pasta 65 Shore 66 Planetary center 67 Blackens the road 68 __ the hills: ancient 69 School zone sign DOWN 1 Catches, as a perp 2 Escape hatch

3 Prefix with byte or bucks 4 Actor Davis 5 Hall of Famer Reese 6 Arm bone 7 Neat as a pin 8 Podiatrist’s concern 9 “__ speaking ...”

10 Pal 11 Parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme 12 Defunct science periodical 13 Mich. neighbor 18 Shampoo brand 22 Pass with flying colors 24 In thin, flat pieces, as fish 25 PC drive insert 26 Brigham Young University city 27 Quick-cook Eastern noodle 29 Peanut, in Dixie 30 Cook’s cover-up 31 Intl. peacekeeping gp.

32 Breadmaker’s raw material 33 Ho-hum state

34 Harvests 36 Dwindle 40 Governmental go-getter 44 “__ Jacques” 46 Jabber 47 Applies, as pressure 51 Matches audio to video, say 52 Tons 53 When doubled, a South Pacific island

54 Sharp-sounding Motorola phone 55 Ships from space, briefly 56 Campus courtyard 57 Astronomical bear 58 Hollywood heartthrob 59 Infamous fiddler 60 Expanded 63 Note before la

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METRO TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

New botanical center says it with flowers

BY MADELEINE ROSENBERG CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Roger Williams Park Botanical Center opened to the public March 2 after years of development and delays. The facility, which is the largest indoor display garden in New England, is intended to attract tourists as well as serve as an educational resource for the surrounding community.

The botanical center, located in south Providence, is made up of four greenhouses and accompanying grounds. The two main greenhouses — the 40-foot high Conservatory Room and the Display Room — house fountains and plants in both pots and beds.

Soothing music plays softly as visitors stroll among the exhibits. The two smaller greenhouses will be used as an educational resource, said Jim Shepard, acting director of the center.

A team headed by Alix Ogden, superintendent of Providence Parks, oversaw the design and development of the center. The original plan for the center was created during the administration of former Providence Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, and Ogden took over the project in 2004 at the request of Mayor David Cicilline ’83.

Ogden said the botanical center had started as a “very different concept” and that Cicilline made adjustments to the original plan when he took office. “That revision, that really came from the mayor … to develop a beautiful place to visit but that also had a really community-based mission,” Ogden said.

Changes were also prompted by budget woes — original plans for the center listed a budget of $15 million, according to a March article in East Side Monthly. The current center cost $7.7 million, Ogden said — over half of which was provided by state bond dollars. The budget was supplemented by city and federal funding as well as private donations, Ogden said.

The budget cuts delayed the center’s opening, Shepard said.

“They weren’t able to raise as much money as they originally hoped for. So we had to scale back the project, so redesigning took a little while,” he said.

“We wanted to develop something that was economically responsible and something that the city along with its partners can care for in the years to come,” Ogden said.

The botanical center is not intended to earn back the money spent to create it, but it should be able to support itself, Ogden said.

The center yields income through admission ticket sales and from renting space out for events and parties. “The center is structured so that it makes money to support itself, so ongoing maintenance and seasonally when we need to increase staffing, we feel like we’ll be able to do that,” she said.

Ogden said the center’s exhibit rotation and status as the largest indoor display garden in New England should draw visitors in

for repeat trips.

The center is also an educational resource, Ogden said. The botanical center has initiated a program with the University of Rhode Island’s horticultural and environmental programming center. “We’re going to have a satellite campus up here for them, and they’ll be providing horticultural programming from the botanical center starting (Monday),” Ogden said.

The University has no such program with the center yet, Ogden said, though she said it is a possibility.

After a month of operation, the botanical center is considered a success by those involved with its planning and operation as well as by visitors. “Everybody loves it,” Shepard said.

“We’re really, really pleased with both its daily attendance and the interest in having events there,” Ogden said.

Cicilline “envisioned a center that would successfully combine the attributes that the botanical center has with state-of-the-art greenhouses and an educational center, and he’s very pleased that the park superintendent has accomplished that,” said Karen Southern, press secretary for Cicilline. “He expects that this will attract people from throughout the Northeast, while giving visitors a real deep appreciation for our natural beauty.”

Visitors, too, have enjoyed the center’s offerings. “I think it’s wonderful. I really want to thank whoever it is that got this together and obviously put in a lot of money and thought and time,” said Rob Cable, a visitor to the center who said he has lived in Providence for 25 years. “It’s such a gift to Providence.”

Cable said he came to the botanical center to escape the dreary New England weather. “Just being in a warm, kind of tropical environment, I find very soothing,” he said.

Cable was accompanied by Judy Semonoff ’74 P’05. “I love it. It’s visually amazing, and the smells are incredible,” she said.

Another visitor to the center, Angela Ionata, said she liked the center but wished there were more seasonal flowers. “I liked in the former greenhouses when they … had masses of seasonal flowers. These look like they’re all permanent here, although they’re nice,” she said.

Tai Ho Shin / Herald File Photo

Hope High School, a year after a major restructuring, has made major improvements.

Hope High a ‘success story in progress’

BY CHRISTIAN MARTELL STAFF WRITER

Only a three-block walk from the Pembroke campus, the Hope High School complex — a collection of three public high schools that only a few years ago failed to meet federal standards — is now regarded by the state Department of Education as a positive example of state intervention in schools.

In the fall of 2005, the state split Hope High School into three smaller learning schools — Hope Arts, Hope Information Technology and Hope Leadership, each with its own principal — in accordance with the Consolidated Corrective Action Plan drafted in 2003 by Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, which was intended to help improve the failing school. Now, over a year after its implementation, teachers, students, administrators and parents say they are happy with the school’s progress, though it still has a long way to go.

Among the initiatives outlined in McWalters’ plan were proficiency-based graduation requirements, immediate re-evaluation of all instructors and increased parent and community involvement.

McWalters also appointed a special master, Nicholas Donohue, to oversee the changes and report back to the Department of Education. In his final report in November 2006, Donohue urged maintaining and accelerating the pace of progress toward the plan’s

goals.

A year and a half ago, teachers and administrators felt “like we were under water breathing through a straw,” said Mark Kravatz, facilitator of school support, development and community/family engagement at Hope. Now, he said, teachers and administrators feel “our heads (are) finally over the surface.”

Donahue’s report predicted it is “likely that Hope will achieve an ‘above average’ comparison to other Providence high schools” in the future and referred to the school as a “success story in progress,” stressing that certain issues still needed to be addressed.

Action on academics Six students move from center stage to the far right side as they recite lines about the Hurricane Katrina crisis of 2005. One student comes in late and hops on stage just in time to act as New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin at a press conference. This is the scene that recently unfolded inside Hope’s auditorium as part of a Hope Arts theater class.

“It has been proven that smaller learning communities are the way to keep students in school and learning,” said Hope Arts Principal Arthur Petrosinelli.

Each school’s curriculum aims to incorporate the school’s central focus in all subjects, even if they aren’t directly related to art, technology or leadership.

For example, a Hope Leadership English class discussed Bru-

tus’s motives for stabbing Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play “Ju“ lius Caesar.” The curriculum also provides students with appropriate electives in each school’s area of focus.

An advising program and the Individual Physical, Academic, Social Success Plan (I-PASS) instituted at all three schools this year are examples of smaller learning concepts put into practice at Hope.

Each teacher is assigned an advising group of about 15 students with whom they have to check in once a week. The advising program establishes a direct connection among the student, their parents and at least one faculty member at the school. All students must complete I-PASS forms so they are aware of their school’s graduation requirements, Petrosinelli said. The program’s impact has garnered national recognition of Hope’s progress.

I-PASS could help raise Hope’s graduation rate, which in 2004 was 48 percent, according to state Department of Education data. In 2005, 88 percent of Hope Arts students graduated along with 86 percent of Hope Tech and 94 percent of Hope Leadership students.

Thanks to the school’s three smaller communities, Hope Leadership has moved up in state rankings from “in need of improvement” in 2005 to “moderately performing” a year later. Though the school fell short of achievement target indicators on its “report continued on page 8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

As housing lottery approaches, anticipation mixes with nerves april

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cult than he expects the event itself to be. “I think it won’t be too bad, hopefully.”

And others find the housing lottery downright loathsome.

“I decided I’m never ever going through it again,” said Hayoung Park ’09, who was waitlisted for housing as a rising sophomore last year and plans to avoid the lottery in the future by studying abroad and living off campus. “It was the first and last housing lottery for me,” she said.

For those who have to enter the lottery, Forsberg said, a little planning can go a long way. Researching previous years’ picks and establishing contingency plans is key, he said.

“It’s also very helpful for folks to walk in with a realistic sense of what the odds are,” he said.

Those who have been through the lottery before are aware that weeks of planning can go by the

wayside when students find themselves forced to make a last minute decision in a whirlwind of pressure.

“It all goes out the window once you’re sitting out there on the floor and they call your number,” said Michael Williams ’08. “You can’t plan for everything.”

Without thorough planning, the rapid pace of room selection on lottery night sometimes catches people off guard, Bova said.

“Every once and a while we do have students who are completely overwhelmed and flabbergasted, and we do slow down and stop (the) lottery temporarily,” he said. “We don’t just toss them to the curb.”

Bova said that the most emotionally charged lottery occurrence is when groups miss their call time.

“That is probably the greatest lottery horror that ever existed,” he said, adding that spectators often take pleasure in chanting “no show.”

On the other hand, Bova said, “the joy stories are watching soph-

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omores and groups of four or five who, because two no shows were ahead of them, were the last to get a suite. The screaming of joy is just fun to watch.”

“I’ve certainly seen students who feel that the lottery should be a drinking event. That’s not worked out well for them. What you think might be a good pick under the influence might not actually be a good pick for you.”

Justin Glavis-Bloom ’07 Chair of ResCouncil While the event can be a social one, Glavis-Bloom advises against certain social activities. “I’ve certainly seen students who feel that the lottery should be a drinking

event. That’s not worked out well for them. What you think might be a good pick under the influence might not actually be a good pick for you.”

Students hoping to evade the drama of the housing lottery often opt out by joining program or special-interest houses.

Clark Cutler ’08, who lives in substance-free housing, said, “The major reason that I’m in sub-free isn’t actually because I strongly want to live with people who are sub-free, but just because I don’t want to have to spend my time figuring out where to live.”

“If there was just a box that I could check and say ‘put me anywhere on campus,’ I would do that,” he said.

But some find the chaos of lottery night to be charming. Glavis-Bloom said he likes the lottery’s “shared sense of stress and misery.”

“I think it very much embodies the spirit of Brown, where we value autonomy and personal choice,” he

said.

To rising sophomores trying to decide what housing is best for them, Park recommends sophomore-only housing as the best way to transition from unit-centered freshmen housing to more isolated upperclassmen housing options.

“The doors are never open, people never really say hi,” Park said of the New Dorm suite she was placed into off the waiting list. “My friend who lives in Caswell has a very different experience. They hang out a lot on their floors and have cookies together,” she said.

Future improvements to the housing selection system could include conducting the lottery online as some other schools have done, Bova said.

Glavis-Bloom said considerations for gender-blind housing are also in the works, citing a trend at other “progressive” campuses like Swarthmore College and University of California, Riverside, to adopt such policies.

Engin 90 project to help students find summer housing continued from page 1 According to Heck, eCollegA eCribs is unique in that it allows renters to see the location of their housing on an interactive map, to “bookmark” prospective apartments on their accounts — so the places they look at don’t “get lost” in all the listings — and to e-mail friends with apartment listings, which can be very helpful for roommates.

The map, which shows all listings on the East Side of Providence, is useful because location is “one of the most important criteria in people’s housing decisions,” Tuttle added.

Renters can filter searches by price range and distance. The site measures the distance and walking time from prospective housing to several landmarks around Col-

lege Hill.

The site currently has 70 registered users, Tuttle said, and about 20 listings. It can also be used for year-long housing, he said, but such arrangements are usually made in the fall of the prior year.

Though anyone can use eCollegeCribs, renters and landlords can specify if they want only Brown students or college students to reside in their housing, Heck said. This feature is an improvement on the housing listings on Craigslist, Tuttle said, because Craigslist can leave renters in the dark about their roommates, leading to uncomfortable rooming situations.

Renters’ ability to specify with whom they want to live adds “more of a layer of security,” Heck said.

Tuttle said Hazeltine thought visiting professors would also ben-

efit from the site, since they would be able to choose their roommates more carefully.

The site, which had 250 hits on its first day, was advertised mostly by “word of mouth,” Heck said.

“Juniors are probably the target audience,” she added, because many are looking to rent out their apartments for the summer.

Though the Web site itself does not give Tuttle and Heck “any feedback” regarding its success in matching renters with landlords, the two have received several e-mails from professors and students who liked the resource, Tuttle said.

Since eCollegeCribs does not require any administration, Tuttle said, “hopefully it will get more users and be able to sustain itself” even after he and Heck graduate from Brown in May.

Med School moves up in U.S. News research rankings continued from page 1 factor in the research category of the U.S News medical school rankings was peer assessment from medical school administrators and residency program directors. The Med School’s increased visibility is what “the rise in rankings probably most reflects,” said Philip Gruppuso, associate dean of medicine for medical education.

Despite the rise in research rankings, the Med School dropped to No. 27 from No. 16 in the U.S. News’ rankings for primary care.

30 percent of the criteria for primary care rankings are based on how many graduates on average enter primary care residencies from 2004 to 2006.

“There has been a steady decline in (the) number of (Brown) students entering primary care res-

idencies in the last five years, which was reversed this year,” Gruppuso said. “We don’t have a clue why.”

“We’re pleased about the research ranking,” Gruppuso said, adding that he was not particularly concerned about the slip in primary care rankings. “The research and primary care rankings are generally inversely related,” he said.

“The research ranking is what places mostly pay attention to,” Gruppuso said. “A research medical school can get its students into primary care residencies. It’s harder for a primary care medical school to get its students into research residencies.”

Brown shares the No. 34 slot with Boston University, New York University and the University of Rochester. Harvard University, the Johns Hopkins University and University of Pennsylvania placed first, second and third in the rankings, respectively.

CAMPUS N EWS TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

Brooks ’09 joins task force as Vasudevan ’08 steps down

CZECH SPRING

BY EVAN BOGGS STAFF WRITER

Chris Bennett / Herald Martin Palous, Czech ambassador to the United Nations, discussed philosopher Jan Patocka in a lecture Monday afternoon at the Watson Institute for International Studies. Palous also discussed his experience as an original signer of Charter 77, which called for a commitment to human rights.

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UCS poll shows significant concern about Banner 91 percent of undergraduates are at least “slightly concerned” about Banner, the latest poll from the Undergraduate Council of Students shows.

The UCS poll, which was conducted online and is not scientific, did not report a margin of error.

Just 35 percent of the poll’s 1,327 respondents said they were “informed” or “very informed” about Banner, while 40 percent said they were “slightly informed.”

UCS passed a resolution at its March 21 general body meeting calling on the dean of the College and other administrators to continue printing paper copies of the Course Announcement Bulletin and to improve the Banner Course Catalog’s user interface.

UCS Vice President Tristan Freeman ’07, who authored and presented the resolution, said the resolution would likely be just part of UCS’ response to concern about Banner.

“I personally hope that this won’t be the end of it,” Freeman said.

71 percent of respondents expressed support for outsourcing Brown’s e-mail server to a free service such as Google’s Gmail to increase storage space, though Freeman said this possibility was “in the very early discussion stages.” UCS Webmaster Jake Heimark ’10 is leading the council’s investigation into outsourcing e-mail and made a presentation about the initiative at UCS’ Feb. 14 general body meeting.

Just 9 percent of respondents said they somewhat or strongly opposed outsourcing e-mail, while 20 percent said they had no opinion.

All e-mail users would keep their current brown.edu domain names, according to the poll.

— Michael Bechek

Whelan ’07.5 wins Truman Scholarship Caitie Whelan ’07.5 was named a 2007 Truman Scholar March 27. Recipients of the prestigious Harry S. Truman Scholarship are expected to pursue a career in government or other areas of public service.

President Ruth Simmons called Whelan on the Friday before spring break to tell her the good news. “I was reduced to shock-induced grunts,” Whelan said. “It’s only within the past 48 hours that I’ve been able to resume using multi-syllabic words.”

“The significance of it hasn’t sunken in at all,” she added.

Whelan said she almost didn’t apply for the scholarship. “It never occurred to me that I could get it,” she said.

An anthropology concentrator, Whelan currently plans to pursue a doctorate in anthropology with a focus on international educational development and reform. She has worked with and studied Merasi musicians — a group of people that lives in Rajasthan, India.

The Merasi are at the bottom of the local caste system. Whelan archived Merasi music in the summer of 2006 as a 2006-2007 Royce Fellow.

“It was the experience of applying for the Royce and then getting it that gave me the confidence to actually even consider the Truman Scholarship,” Whelan said.

This year, the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation selected 65 Truman Scholars from 56 colleges and universities. Truman Scholars receive $30,000 for graduate study, leadership training, career and graduate school counseling.

The scholarship is awarded to juniors based on three criteria: “leadership potential, intellectual ability and likelihood of ‘making a difference,’ ” according to the foundation’s Web site.

— James Shapiro

The Task Force on Undergraduate Education welcomed Rakim Brooks ’09 to its ranks late last month as another student stepped down from his position.

Brooks replaced Kumar Vasudevan ’08 as one of the three student members of the task force, said Sara Damiano ’08, academic and administrative affairs chair on the Undergraduate Council of Students. The committee was concerned with filling the “void” left

by Vasudevan’s departure, added Damian, who was responsible for selecting the students on the committee.

Vasudevan said he turned down a seat on the task force because another project he was involved with — which he had expected to fall through — was green-lighted in late March. Though he said he could not provide specific details because the project is still in the

planning stage, Vasudevan said he was working with the Swearer Center for Public Service and Providence community groups.

“It wasn’t a question of if I wanted to be on the committee — it was a question of time,” Vasudevan said. “I didn’t want to split my time, give half my time to either project,” he added.

Damiano said Vasudevan was replaced about a week after the initial selections were made, and the change was announced at UCS’s last general meeting before spring break.

The task force was announced March 1 in a campus-wide e-mail from Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron and Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98. The committee, which will undertake a broad review of the College and its curriculum, comprises 13 members, including 10 faculty members, two of whom are also members of the University administration.

“One of the insights I’m hoping

to bring (to the task force) is that I’m definitely concerned about how any academic changes will affect minority students on campus,” Brooks said, adding that he is also concerned with concentration advising, especially in larger departments.

For Brooks, the task force’s “reevaluation of the New Curriculum” raises questions of incorporating the spirit of activism in which the curriculum was created throughout the undergraduate program.

With programs such as Africana studies emerging out of what Brooks characterized as “a moment of activism in our country,” he said he is concerned with the “extent to which the knowledge and discourses (of these programs) have been included and incorporated into the general curriculum at Brown.”

Damiano said Brooks’ concentration in history “brings knowledge of what it’s like to be a concentrator in a large department.”

Banner Catalog and Schedule ill-received by students

BY CHAZ FIRESTONE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The replacements to the Brown Online Course Announcement — Banner Catalog and Class Schedule — have received mostly negative reviews from students since their release last month.

Catalog and Schedule — which allow students to search for courses and provide details about classes such as descriptions, meeting times and professors — were criticized for their impracticality and lack of visual appeal in a March 21 resolution passed by the Undergraduate Council of Students. The resolution, coming just two days after the applications were unveiled, described the new systems as “disruptive and counterintuitive” and stated that the redundancy and inefficiency of the coupled databases threaten the success of Brown’s open curriculum.

The resolution also called for the reprinting of the Course Announcement Bulletin, which was discontinued in favor of a shorter, newsletter-styled Brown Course Listing that was distributed to students’ mailboxes yesterday.

“This has been a gross miscalculation on the part of the administration,” said Stefan Smith ’10, UCS atlarge representative and a co-sponsor of the resolution. “It’s one of the most impractical applications I’ve seen on the (Brown) Web site.”

Many students who have used the systems echoed Smith’s sentiments and emphasized the inefficiency of the two applications.

“Everything’s in one big list, and it’s hard to differentiate between classes,” said Courtney Pellechi ’08. “It’s hard to tell what and when things are.”

thanks for reading

“The information isn’t in one easy place,” said Megan Schmidt ’08.5. “For all the money they spent on it, it’s bad.”

But most students interviewed

by The Herald said they had little or no experience with Banner’s search applications and said they thought the average student isn’t too worried about Banner’s aesthetics.

“I think it’s a bad decision to protest Banner,” said Nathanael Horton ’09.5. “I’m glad that UCS listens to the student body — that’s their function — but their decision should have been to support the administration.”

“Too much noise is being made about all of this,” said Jon Lin ’08.

“People are looking at it almost as a civil rights movement, but it has been implemented at other Ivy League schools and hasn’t been a problem.”

Lin said he thinks students are led to believe that Banner will bring chaos to the University by those with the loudest voices and the strongest opinions, while the average Brown student is more moderate.

“Not many people actually care that much,” he said. “But from what they hear from the e-mails and UCS, they can get scared.”

Both Lin and Horton said they hadn’t yet tested out the new search applications.

Associate Provost Nancy Dunbar, who leads the Banner project, said she and her team were listening to student opinion but will be unable to make any changes to the Catalog and Schedule in the coming weeks.

“Our task in the project was to implement Banner, and we implemented Catalog and Schedule as they were built. We were success-

ful in that task,” Dunbar said. “Is that the system we think will be stable in the next five or 10 years?

Of course not. But it’s the starting point.”

Dunbar wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that the decision not to print the CAB will stand, as it was made months ago and cannot be changed in time for pre-registration.

“My efforts in April will be focused on helping students and faculty use Banner, not on changing it,” she wrote.

Design issues were also addressed by Associate Registrar for Registration Services Lisa Mather, who ran the mock registration program last month to identify bugs in Banner. Mather issued a written response to feedback from participants in the program in an e-mail to mock-registration participants.

“Part of the reason that Banner looks the way it does is because Banner must be in compliance with federal regulations concerning handicap accessibility,” she wrote.

“In this case, it means that Banner screens must be able to be read by optical readers for those who are visually impaired.”

Nearly all students interviewed

by The Herald said they would use Mocha, the recently updated student-run alternative to Catalog and Schedule, for their course shopping and preparation for pre-registration.

“As long as there’s Mocha, we’ll be fine,” Pellechi said.

Dunbar also mentioned Mocha as a useful complement to Catalog and Schedule.

“We feel that the implementation of Catalog and Schedule was successful, but Mocha is certainly a useful tool for students,” Dunbar said. “I’m very glad it’s there.”

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 6

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

U. admits more first-generation college students than ever before other Ivy League schools. Acceptance rates dropped to record lows at every Ivy League school except Yale. Harvard admitted 9 percent of its pool of 22,955, the lowest among Ivy schools this year. After Harvard, Princeton had the second lowest acceptance rate at 9.5 percent, slightly below Yale’s rate of 9.6 percent.

Other schools’ rates lingered above the single digits. Stanford University admitted 10.3 percent, while Columbia University admitted 10.4 percent. Dartmouth College admitted 15 percent of its applicant pool, and University of Pennsylvania admitted 15.9 percent.

ACCEPTANCE RATES, CLASS OF 2011

Dartmouth

Brown

Columbia

9.6% 10.3% 10.4%

Stanford

9.5%

Yale

9%

15.9% %

University of Pennsylvania

15% 13.5%

Princeton

tion (college) students,” Miller said. “We’re very excited about the socioeconomic composition of the class. The fact that we’re able to attract a large number of first-generation college students is wonderful.” First-generation students represent 15 percent of this year’s admitted class, as compared to 12 percent last year.

California had the most admitted students of any state, narrowly beating out New York for the first time. Brown admitted students from all 50 states and from 68 countries, up from 62 countries last year.

The largest contingent of admitted international students comes from China and Hong Kong, followed by Korea, Canada, the United Kingdom and Singapore, in that order. International students made up 11 percent of the admitted class.

95 percent of admitted students were in the top 10 percent of their high school class. Valedictorians and salutatorians comprise 20 percent of the admitted class, though most students come from high schools that do not rank students.

“It’s another really impressive class and another very difficult

year to make decisions,” Miller said. “In terms of academic credentials, it’s as strong or stronger than any class we’ve admitted.”

Engineering remained the most popular intended major.

59 percent of admitted applicants were from public schools, 28 percent were from private schools and the remaining students were from parochial schools or schools that did not designate a status. Miller noted that the proportion of admitted students from private schools decreased slightly this year.

With its 13.5 percent acceptance rate, Brown’s acceptance rank remained in the middle of

Harvard

continued from page 1

DECL ARED DEGREES UNDECIDED

UNDECIDED

7%

9%

28% Sc.B.

65% A.B.

32% Sc.B.

59% A.B.

2011

2010

DEMOGR APHIC BREAKDOWN, ACCEPTED STUDENTS

59% white/ undeclared

41% students of color

47% male

53% female

U. announces committee to consider center for the study of slavery continued from page 1 Deputy Provost Vincent Tompkins ’85, who will provide staff support to the committee, said the committee comprises faculty and staff with expertise in the area.

“That’s a fairly typical situation where you have a committee that is thinking about recommending a new research and teaching initiative,” he said.

The University’s February response stopped short of calling for the creation of a new center, instead saying that “whether (the

initiative) results in a new center or the significant enlargement of an existing and coordinated set of programs should be determined through (the recommendation) process.”

The possibility of creating a new center is not off the table, Tompkins said. But, he added, “I think that the charge was very clear that the first thing the committee ought to do is familiarize itself with what centers and departments and resources already exist that can be brought to bear” on issues of slavery and justice at Brown.

The three members who served on the original University steering committee are Associate Professor of History James Campbell, Professor of History Evelyn Hu-DeHart, who is director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, and Professor of History Omer Bartov.

Campbell chaired the original committee.

Bartov wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that he will be an “absentee” member of the committee for the rest of this semester, which he is spending at the American Academy in Berlin. He accepted

a place on the committee despite his absence because he considers himself a major supporter of the steering committee’s recommendation that Brown create an academic center, he wrote.

“It seemed to be reasonable, when the provost asked me, to agree to be on a committee that would specifically look into this issue and to make sure that this initiative would really be carried through without being watered down,” Bartov added.

The other members of the committee are Associate Professor of Political Science Sharon Krause,

Professor of Philosophy Charles Larmore, Professor of Africana Studies Tricia Rose PhD’93, Professor of Africana Studies John Edgar Wideman P’91 and Ted Widmer, director of the John Carter Brown Library.

Widmer, the only member of the committee who is not a faculty member, said when he was a speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton, he worked with Clinton on articulating “the problems of how the United States should come to terms with the legacy of slavery.”

The John Carter Brown Library is also one of the Brown resources the committee may choose to focus on, Widmer said, calling it “one of the best places on Earth to study the comparative history of slavery” and noting that the original committee did a good deal of its own research there.

Other existing programs slated for consideration, according to the University response, include the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization, the Department of History and the Department of Africana Studies — which was also specifically targeted for enhancement by the University response.

Kertzer appointed the committee, but both his office and the Office of President will coordinate its work, Tompkins said.

Simmons crafted the University’s response and has since played a primary role in explaining it.

Once the committee has concluded its work, according to its charge, “a panel of external scholars” will be convened to review the committee’s findings and make suggestions to Simmons and Kertzer, who will then make final recommendations, some of which may require faculty approval.

The committee has not yet met, but its first meeting should occur “about two-and-a-half weeks from now,” Tompkins said.

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Incoherent man sifting through trash among incidents reported last week

BY DEBBIE LEHMANN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The following summary includes all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between March 16 and March 29. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents occurring off campus. DPS does not divulge information on open cases that are currently under investigation by the department, the PPD or the Office of Student Life.

DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters, located at 75 Charlesfield St. Sunday, March 18: 12:58 a.m. DPS and PPD officers responded to a report of a breaking and entering theft on Cushing Street. Complainants reported that unknown persons entered their residence and took several items. There were signs of forced entry. The matter is under investigation by the PPD. Monday, March 19: 7:49 p.m. Person reported that a microscope lens was removed from the equipment area in the Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sciences. The matter is under investigation.

Wednesday, March 21: 3:31 p.m. Person reported that three microscope lenses were taken from Frank Hall. The matter is under investigation.

2:51 p.m. DPS officers responded to a report of a suspicious cir-

CRIME LOG cumstance at MacMillan Hall.

The reporting person said she observed a male subject in the firstfloor women’s restroom sifting through the trash receptacle. The subject appeared to be incoherent and he fled the building. Officers searched the area but did not locate the subject.

Thursday, March 22: 1:07 p.m. Complainant stated that his jacket — which contained his cell phone, keys and wallet — was taken by unknown persons while he was attending a party at Alumnae Hall. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time.

12:53 p.m. Complainant reported that unknown persons removed her black lunch bag from a room in Frank Hall. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time.

Friday, March 23: 9:31 a.m. Person reported that unknown persons removed a machine from Barus and Holley. The matter is under investigation.

11:52 a.m. Complainant reported that unknown persons removed the stereo system from her car sometime between 9:55 a.m. and 11:50 a.m. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time.

Sunday, March 25: 5:43 p.m. Persons reported that glass on a display case in Andrews Hall East was shattered and that the fire exit in the area was also damaged. Facilities Management was notified.

High court rebukes Bush administration in greenhouse gas emissions case

BY ROBERT BARNES AND JULIET EILPERIN WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday rebuked the Bush administration for refusing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, siding with environmentalists in the court’s first examination of the phenomenon of global warming.

The court ruled 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by improperly declining to regulate newvehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists say contribute to global warming.

“EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority. The agency “identifies nothing suggesting that Congress meant to curtail EPA’s power to treat greenhouse gases as air pollutants.”

The issue at stake in the case, one of two Monday that the court decided in favor of environmentalists, is somewhat narrow. But environmentalists and some lawmakers said it could serve as a turning point, placing new pressure on the Bush administration to address global warming, and adding to the political momentum that the issue has received because of Democrat-

ic control of Congress and a desire from the corporate community for a comprehensive government response to the issue.

The Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement that the ruling “repudiates the Bush administration’s do-nothing policy on global warming,” undermining the government’s refusal to view carbon dioxide as an air pollutant subject to EPA regulation.

The ruling could also lend important authority to efforts by the states either to force the federal government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to be allowed to do it themselves. New York is leading an effort to strengthen regulations on power plant emissions.

California has passed a law seeking to cut carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles starting in 2009; its regulations have been adopted by 10 other states and may soon be adopted by Maryland.

The decision in Commonwealth of Massachusetts et al v. Environmental Protection Agency et al also reinforced the division on the Supreme Court, with its four liberal members in the majority and its four most conservative members dissenting. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s role as the key justice in this term’s 5-to-4 decisions was again on display, as he sided with Stevens and Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.

www.browndailyherald.com

PAGE 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 8

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

Hope improved after state intervention, say principals, faculty, parents and students continued from page 3 card” issued by the state Department of Education in 2005, it met all of them in 2006.

But the same changes did not have similar results for Hope Arts and Hope Tech. In 2006, Hope Arts missed two targets, the same number it missed in 2005. Hope Tech missed four, one more than it did in 2005. And the state’s 2006 report card from the Department of Education shows that only 14 to 18 percent of students at all three high schools “felt like they could talk to a teacher or member of the staff.”

Ivory Jefferies, a senior at Hope Arts, says the school has changed, but not because of any list of initiatives. ““A part of it is because of the changes and administration, but they should know that the students’ attitudes changed before the school did,” Jefferies said. “Students need to be recognized too.”

Myriam Darboe, another Hope Arts senior, agreed. ““The fact that the school had a possibility of being shut down really scared students,” she said, adding that this prospect spurred the school’s “big turnaround.”

Lost in translation Even if students’ attitudes caused the school to change, language barriers may still get in the way. A large number of Hope students speak English as a second language, and a casual stroll through Hope’s halls shows how frequently Spanish is spoken in the school. Two girls passing through a hallway while listening to an iPod conversed in rapid Spanish. That students like them choose to speak in Spanish reflects

the school’s diversity and also its “biggest challenge,” Kravatz said.

Of the 10,714 students learning English in Rhode Island, 5,685 attend school in Providence, according to the 2006 state report card.

Hope’s award-winning soccer team represents 11 nationalities.

“New students are arriving every day,” Kravatz said. “We even have some students arrive from Africa and come to school their second day in America.”

Though bilingual teachers teach some classes, other language initiatives are minimal. The school is slowly trying to translate materials like students handbooks, into Spanish, wrote Hope Arts parent John Day, president of the Parent, Teacher, Student Organization, in an e-mail to The Herald. The school has not yet made bold moves to accommodate other ethnic groups, though the administration does acknowledge the problem. ““The biggest challenge we face is trying to communicate with our students and their parents,” Kravatz said.

But language barriers and lack of resources are still a big problem, according to one teacher. Judah Lakin ’04.5 first started teaching at Hope after graduating from Brown but left to do research in Argentina in May 2005 as a Fulbright Scholar.

Lakin was hired as a bilingual teacher, but that definition was “never clear” to him, he said. Lakin — who taught his classes largely in Spanish — said he did not receive the necessary books for the course until a month before he left.

“Even then, I couldn’t use them because they were all in English,” Lakin said. “What were (students)

supposed to do with them, when some of them can barely understand English?”

Surviving and succeeding Darboe is currently taking an anatomy class, the first offered at Hope.

That class also lacks books, she said.

Petrosinelli said the lack of books is a district issue. ““A couple of us gave up our April break to stay at Hope and turn an old media room into the book room, because we want to be efficient with money and book distribution,” Petrosinelli said of the school’s new inventory room.

But for students like Darboe, perhaps an even bigger issue than the lack of books is the lack of Advanced Placement classes. “We only have, like, three AP classes,” Darboe said. Darboe, who applied to Brown, said she would have liked to take more advanced classes before attending college.

Hope graduate Jeffry Esquivel ’09 said availability of AP courses or honors classes was among the school’s bigger problems. This later affected his transition to Brown, which he said was “painful” and left him feeling “disadvantaged.”

“I did not have what it takes to succeed at a place like Brown and often found myself working harder than many of my classmates,” Esquivel said.

Despite this lack of preparation, Esquivel said he would choose to attend Hope again because it “taught (him) to survive and succeed with very limited resources.”

Day wrote that he would like his son to have more homework. “Most Providence schools are always talk-

ing about increasing rigor,” he said, adding that he has not seen that effort reflected in his own son’s workload.

On the third floor of the school there is a sign with the words, “Carry yourself with class and dignity.”

The expression is that of Wayne Montague, principal of Hope Leadership.

In his khaki slacks and tie, Esquivel’s younger brother Edgar, currently a senior in Hope Leadership, lives up to this motto. This may be unusual attire for other high school students, but Edgar Esquivel — one of many students with an internship set up through Hope — currently interns at the State House. Jeffrey Esquivel said the emphasis on internships is another change instituted after his graduation.

Edgar also played on the championship soccer team, one of Hope’s many state-recognized sports teams.

Spirit for sports Montague’s office is standard for a high school principal — that is, if a standard office includes a poster of Shaquille O’Neal on the wall.

The poster depicts the NBA player casually holding a book under the word “read,” encouraging students to read more. It also reflects how much the Hope Leadership principal loves athletics.

“Students have a lot more school spirit than before,” Montague said.

“You should go to the game tonight and see for yourself.”

On Feb. 28, the boys’ basketball team played in the state semifinals game. The team played in the state championship game March 10 but lost to Bishop Hendricken High School.

Hope also won the boys’ soccer state title and boys’ and girls’ state titles in track. The girls’ track team moved on to nationals, and the girls’ basketball team advanced to semifinals.

Amy Batts, a Hope Arts junior who has worked closely with administrators since her freshman year as a morning announcer, said she has seen the emphasis they place on athletics. “(Administrators) really like kids to be involved, especially with sports,” Batts said. “If not, they want you to be involved in other activities. You can be open with them and build a relationship, but if you are involved (in sports) they will definitely recognize you.” Batts plays basketball, soccer and softball.

Jefferies said she sees the “positive changes” that athletics have had on the school and its students, but said school spirit can border on being “sexist” at times.

“Both boys’ and girls’ semi-finals basketball games were on the same night and while everyone went to the boys’ game, the girls’ stands were empty,” Jefferies said. “That “ usually happens. You will see principals at boy’s soccer, track, basketball, but you hardly ever see them at the girl’s games,” she added.

Standing outside the principals’ office, basketball player Shawn Hill talks animatedly with Petrosinelli and Montague about the upcoming state championship. Hill transferred to Hope his sophomore year, because he ““just wouldn’t have come here” his freshman year due to the reputation the school had at that time.

“When people look back 20 years from now, they will say ‘Damn, Hope really has changed,’ ” Hill said.

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

PAGE 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Softball ends losing streak M. tennis wins two before loss to Wake Forest continued from page 12 ey Mirrer for a walk on the next at-bat before Amanda Asay ’10 doubled to bring her and Baxter home for a 4-0 lead. Pitcher Jessica Iwasaki ’10 held off a threerun onslaught by the Big Red in the top of the seventh to get the win for Brown on the mound, adding four strikeouts.

“It’s really nice to have the support of our bats as a pitcher,” Iwasaki said. “We’re getting our timing back and we just did a better job of putting them away.”

Brown also did a good job defensively, only committing one error in the contest.

“We had fewer errors and did a better job talking to each other,” Anderson added.

Bruno had the lucky draw of starting off with some of the stiffest Ivy competition, and it adapted well to the higher competition after an unsuccessful road trip.

“It feels good because I know Princeton and Cornell were two of the teams that have represented the Ivy League in the tournament in previous years,” added Head Coach DeeDee Enabenter-Omidiji. “We kept it close and made adjustments at the plate.”

Brown was up and down during its trip to the West Coast. In its two games against the University of San Diego on March 24, Brown played tight defense and only lost by a combined two runs. Kelsey Wilson ’09 and Michelle Moses ’09 gave the offense plenty of chances, holding the Toreros to 2-1 and 1-0 respectively.

Brown lost the first game of its doubleheaders against Long Beach State University, San Diego State University and the University of California, Riverside, later in the week by more than seven each time. However, the Bears battled back against each team in the second go-round, losing just 1-0 to UC Riverside

and 6-4 to Long Beach State.

“Our main problem over the past week has been the hitting,” Baxter said. “Our pitching’s good. … Having the pitchers that we have is a great combination.”

Moses, Iwasaki and Kristen Schindler ’09 made up the pitching unit in California, but they were missing a key component for most of the trip. Wilson was not with the team after the USD games for personal reasons. But Wilson will rejoin the team for this weekend’s contests.

“There was a big hole missing with Kelsey gone,” Enabenter-Omidiji said.

When Wilson is not on the mound with her team-low 1.21 ERA, the honorable mention All-Ivy returnee is getting it done on offense too, earning the highest slugging and on-base percentage for the Bears so far this year.

With a new league design this year, Brown will need all the offense it can get if it hopes to make the tournament. Now, softball has two Ivy divisions set up like the baseball teams do, with the top two teams from each division playing each other at the end of the season for a spot in the NCAA tournament.

Brown, 1-3 in the Ancient Eight and 7-14 overall, is third in the North division, which includes Har vard and Dartmouth, which are currently tied for first with 2-2 records, and Yale, which is 0-4. Brown will start its interdivision schedule in two weeks after a couple of non-conference games. Bruno plays Boston College at home today at 4 p.m. and will face off against Boston University on April 12.

After this weekend, Princeton is leading the South division, and Brown’s opponents for next weekend — University of Pennsylvania and Columbia — are right behind the Tigers.

“We can do really well (this weekend)—we have the defense, the hitting and good team chemistr y,” Iwasaki said.

continued from page 12 Hanegby said.

Sunday’s match against a top10 opponent put the Bears to the test. The battle began with doubles play as Pasanen and Gardner demolished Andrew Hamar and Steven Forman 8-2 at third doubles, and Ratnam and Thomas dropped their match 8-4 to Cory Parr and Charles Sartor at second doubles. The pressure was on at first doubles, but Hanegby and Kohli overcame the No. 25-ranked duo of Todd Paul and Mariusz Adamski by a score of 8-6 to take the doubles point.

At the beginning of singles play, several Bears led, but when the first sets were pushed to tiebreakers, the Demon Deacons came out ahead. At third singles, Thomas

Keefe ’08 qualifies for equestrian nationals continued from page 12 least a second-place finish to qualify, Mickenberg placed third in the Novice Flat, Geoffroy placed fourth in Open Flat, and Peloquin finished fi fth in Intermediate Flat.

“It was disappointing,” Scanlon said of the team’s near-misses.

“They had a very strong year. At Regionals, unfortunately, it becomes a luck-of-the-draw affair, and we had some bad luck. They feel good about their season even though they were disappointed by the result.”

The Bears will travel to the Zone 1 Championships in South Hadley, Mass., next weekend. They will face Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke and Stonehill colleges, and the top two teams will advance to Nationals in Springfield, Mass., May 3-6.

“This weekend is the big one for the team,” Keefe said. “We’ve got a good chance of advancing to nationals this year, and Nationals would just be a great experience for our entire team.”

M. lax goes 1-2 over spring break continued from page 12 time once they see what the other team is doing,” Shields said. “If we can play with energy in the second half, like we do in the first, a lot of teams can’t keep up.”

Unfortunately, the team’s early struggles in games caught up to it in its final game of the break against Notre Dame. The No. 18ranked Fighting Irish came out on fire in front of a crowd of over 2,000 people at home on Saturday. After tri-captain midfielder Alex Buckley ’07 tied the game at one early in the first quarter, the Irish rattled off five straight goals en route to a 7-2 halftime lead and 11-3 victory.

“Notre Dame played really well,” Tiffany said. “They are a good team, and we know we can play and coach better than we did.

Hopefully it is a game we can learn from.”

Shields said he felt that the team could certainly take some things away from the Notre Dame game as it moved forward.

The 5-3 Bears will try to right the ship Saturday at home against Yale as the heart of their Ivy League schedule begins.

www.browndailyherald.com

lost 7-6, 6-3 to Forman, and at sixth singles, Gardner lost 7-6, 6-2 to Andrew Brasseaux. At fourth singles, Kohli also took his first set to a tiebreaker but lost the match 7-6, 6-2 to Andrew Hamar.

“I did well,” Kohli said. “I won both of my matches (against Florida Atlantic and Assumption), and I started off well today. I’m hitting the ball better, and I’m confident going into the Ivy League season.”

At second singles, Ratnam also had an early lead, after winning the first set 6-3. However, he dropped the next two sets 6-1, 6-0 to No. 74 Parr. At fi fth singles, Pasanen lost 6-3, 6-4 to Jason Morgenstern, and at first singles, No. 116 Hanegby lost 6-4, 6-3 to No. 7 Paul.

“Today was a little disappointing,” Hanegby said. “We had a lot of opportunities in singles, but

we didn’t take advantage of them.

That’s the difference between us and a top-10 team in the country.”

Harris said the Bears will focus on improving in doubles as they head into the Ivy League season.

The Bears will host No. 65 Princeton on Friday and the University of Pennsylvania, with whom Brown shared the Ivy League title last year, on Saturday.

The Bears hope to win their third consecutive championship this season, and the experience they gained from playing a top-10 team will help prepare them for this goal.

“This match will motivate us to get better,” Kohli said. “We had a close match against the No. 7 team, so we’re up there. We’re feeling confident about the Ivy League season.”

E DITORIAL & L ETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 10

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

STAF F EDITORIAL

Committing to results Yet another committee on slavery and justice may strike students as an ineffectual step in the University’s drawn out inquiry into its historic ties to slavery. But this newly appointed group has a deadline and a focused mission that could land not just a report but an innovative academic center on Brown’s campus.

While the original steering committee was intended to be representative of the University community and had virtually the broadest possible mandate — to explore Brown’s history of slavery and recommend ways to make amends — this new committee is a team of experts. Its appointees will bring a breadth of knowledge about history, race and ethnic studies across various disciplines to their consideration of how — and if — Brown can carve out a new space for the study of slavery and its legacy.

As institutional buzzwords, “centers” and “committees” may cause more students’ eyes to glaze over than light up. It’s easy to forget that while the words “slavery and justice” may sound like tired University jargon to many Brown students, this three-year-long endeavor is among the most high-profile and distinctive measures taken by the University in recent years.

The creation of the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice was seen as a bold move in 2003 and generated significant buzz on campus at the time, but over the next three years, the committee became an unremarkable part of the campus fabric. Its final report was released to little fanfare last October, and the University’s official response — which included a $10 million fund to support local schools and a sustainable memorial — drew limited student interest.

Still, we’re glad to see the new committee will build on the framework established by the previous steering committee by including three of its members. Though he will be a member of and will not lead the new committee, James Campbell, the associate professor of history who chaired the steering committee, became the face of the University’s slavery and justice effort and brought a clear passion and dedication to the committee’s work. Another former steering committee member, Professor of History Omer Bartov, told The Herald he agreed to join this new committee because he staunchly supported the recommendation that the University create an academic center related to slavery and justice and now feels compelled to join the team that will “make sure that this initiative would really be carried through without being watered down.”

The new committee’s recommendation, due to the provost at the end of the fall semester, could ultimately be a hesitant suggestion that Brown “focus existing resources” or bestow a fancy name on existing faculty research in this field. The committee could recommend that the University launch an entirely new academic venture, or perhaps it might recommend strengthening and better coordinating existing programs. Whatever its recommendation, we hope the committee’s work will leave a lasting mark on the University.

Whether or not students support the premise of this inquiry, its results — the $10 million commitment to public education in Providence and now a prospective center for the study of slavery — are beginning to show how academic inquiry can lead to groundbreaking results.

PETE FALLON

LETTERS SDS clarifies position on tuition and aid To the Editor: In a recent Herald article (“SDS seeks tuition freeze, fewer student loans,” March 22), the aims of our campaign for accessible and democratic education were presented in a way that could be easily misunderstood. Students for a Democratic Society is not in any way against increasing financial aid for international students. We believe education is a right for everyone, regardless of their place of birth. Our disagreement with Brown’s approach is with the University’s heavy reliance on student loans rather than grants and scholarships, as well as the fact that tuition is prohibitively high and increases at a rate which far outpaces inflation.

Increases in financial aid programs are always welcomed by SDS. However, not when they are coupled with large tuition increases and implemented in a way that increases the student debt burden. This fundamental problem applies to both international and American students. As such, SDS demands aid levels

addressed for all students, regardless of citizenship.

Furthermore, the title “SDS seeks tuition freeze, fewer student loans,” is rather misleading. SDS does not necessarily seek fewer student loans — rather, we seek a general increase in the accessibility of education and an overall reduction in student debt.

One means to this end might be replacing loans with grants. A more appropriate title might have been “SDS seeks more accessible education, reduction in student debt.”

Vale Cofer-Shabica ‘09 Will Pasley ‘07 Senia Barragan ‘08 Mike da Cruz ‘08.5 Members, Students for a Democratic Society April 2

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O PINIONS TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

PAGE 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Approaching Banner

BY NANCY DUNBAR GUEST COLUMNIST When I signed on to guide the Banner project over a year ago, I quickly began seeking advice from people who had implemented large information systems like Banner.

I’d like to share two of these lessons as we approach online registration in Banner at Brown.

The most common admonition was a simple one: I was urged always to keep in mind that bringing a new student information system online is just plain hard. An integrated student system that replaces multiple, aging, stand-alone systems is essential to meet the University’s information needs and provide a foundation for improved student services in many offices. But it is a massive change that affects thousands of people. There is simply no getting around the fact that learning to work in a new student system will challenge the creativity and ingenuity of everyone involved.

We now have evidence of the truth of that statement from within our own implementation. The Admission and Financial Aid teams did outstanding work bringing their modules into production last September and October, and they’ve been conducting their work in Banner ever since. Just last week, the teams sailed through an extremely important milestone — communicating undergraduate admission decisions and financial aid awards to applicants — without a hitch. But if you talk with project members in these offices, they will confess that their work the last six months has been more difficult, slower and more frustrating than it was in the old system.

We sometimes say that learning to work in Banner is like total immersion in a foreign language and culture. One may have studied the language and learned something of the history and culture of a people. One may be able to function day to day, to manage in the new environment. But it is unfamiliar. It is awkward. It is different. Certainly, it is not easy.

So it is with Banner. Every student who registers for a class, every faculty member who enters a final grade, every staff member who looks up information in the student

means is not modifying or customizing the product to replicate past practice unless we absolutely had to, delaying enhancements even when we know they will be requested by students and faculty and living with certain features that we don’t particularly care for in the short term. There are lots of reasons for this approach, not the least of which pertain to maintaining a schedule and budget. But the more important conceptual rationale is that such an approach requires us to thoroughly learn a new system before we evaluate and change it.

Let’s accept that our first online registration will be challenging, and commit to helping one another. information system or posts a charge to a bill will do so in a new way. That is a tremendous amount of change for a community in a short span of time. So it is no wonder that each of us may sometimes feel frustrated and confused or that we long for the old system that is familiar and comfortable.

A second piece of advice had to do with how we should approach the implementation as a whole. Every person I engaged on this question — including some who had reached this conclusion the hard way — recommended that we implement as close to the baseline product as we could possible manage. Practically speaking, what that

Last April, we made some very tough decisions about what to include and exclude from the “phase one” implementation. We protected functionality that was essential to the business practices of the several Banner offices, requirements of the Faculty Rules, and fundamental curricular principles — and we retained a long list of items we wanted “for future consideration.” That list has grown considerably over the last year as we’ve talked with students, faculty and staff. After April pre-registration, and again after the add/drop period in the fall, the project team will continue to work with the Undergraduate Council of Students and

faculty committees to gather more feedback and to prioritize the most important next steps.

How, as a community, will we respond to this new system? First, I hope we will respond with a certain amount of curiosity and a willingness to learn how Banner works.

There’s plenty of time for the critical task of evaluation, but I hope that evaluation follows sincere efforts to learn what Banner has to offer. Let’s get fluent in Banner.

Second, I hope we will respond with patience and generosity toward one another.

From what we’ve learned from other institutions, online registration implementations usually suffer a few glitches the first go-around, and, we are told, one usually cannot predict them. The team has tested and tested and tested again, but we know it is possible that we could be surprised.

Even more likely, our communication efforts may have missed someone. We have hotlines and tip sheets and an FAQ site — we can accomplish a great deal more by just helping one another as the need arises. Let’s accept that our first online registration will be challenging, and commit to helping one another.

Third, I hope we’ll respond with an eye toward the future. We need everyone to think about what Banner should be in the future, not so much to determine how to modify it to replicate the past, but to explore how a registration system best supports Brown’s open curriculum and strengthens faculty/ student interaction in curricular planning.

Let’s consider this first step a beginning point on which we will build.

Nancy Dunbar is associate provost and Banner project owner.

Brown’s peculiar lack of queer studies

BY KARLA BERTRAND OPINIONS COLUMNIST When choosing courses for this semester, I came across an unexpected shortcoming of Brown academics: a dearth of queer-related courses. For such a liberal school, Brown’s offerings are surprisingly paltry when it comes to such studies. Where is the “Intro to Queer Theory,” never mind advanced courses? This semester, only three courses at all related to LGBTQ issues were offered, and that appears to be a fairly high number — last semester, there was only one, and one the entire year previous to that. These few courses are scattered among disparate disciplines and tend to broach the topic only peripherally in pursuit of other topics: queer theory as it relates to French feminism, queer theory as it relates to art criticism, etc.

Why is there this lack?

The old Sexuality and Society concentration — which did focus specifically on queer issues — foundered due to a combination of student disinterest and Brown’s hiring policies, which only allow full-fledged departments to hire faculty. This restriction meant that the Sexuality and Society program (like many other interdisciplinary concentrations) lacked the requisite number of researchers and educators to flourish. Furthermore, according to Michael DeLucia ’07, the founder of the Undergraduate Working Group for Queer Studies, a division of the Queer Alliance devoted to advocating for more queerrelated academic offerings, “sexuality studies was never given office space, administrative support, and most classes were taught by faculty on ‘overload’ — a.k.a., out of their own pockets.”

Queer studies courses and a legitimate related concentration are desirable for several reasons. While the campus LGBTQ community’s reasons for wanting this are fairly self-evident, there are other, perhaps less obvious ones as well. The failure to provide these options to students has been a failure to keep pace with the school’s image and social reality as a queer-friendly environment. Furthermore, instituting these changes would not only allow queer students to feel that they are represented in Brown academics, but also offer straight students the knowledge base and insight to be able to enter the dialogue on queer issues.

The lack of academic offerings in LGBTQ

tate outside the Ratty in drag for more gender-neutral restrooms. The bathroom on my floor, incidentally, is clearly marked as such — the original sign said “Women,” and to this a Post-It was stuck, perkily adding, “And men!” Below this, another Post-It in another hand further clarified, “And all other genders too!” This is Brown, where boys attend Sex Power God in nothing but fishnets and heels. This is Brown, where a Greek fraternity hosts a tranny queercore band. This is Brown, where — both seriously and in jest — we are comfortable messing around with the gender binary. It is a strange and rather embarrassing phenomenon that the academics here have not caught up with the

We, the majority of the straight Brown population, drape ourselves in the trappings of progressivism but lack substance. issues is particularly bizarre and disappointing when juxtaposed with Brown’s queerfriendly image. Our reputation as the “gayest Ivy” is attested to in Facebook groups and proudly touted by many students. The zeitgeist on campus is certainly one consistent with our image as a bastion of sexual freedom, experimentation and acceptance. We are students who casually throw around terms like “heteronormative” and “gender binary” and never say “sex” when we mean “gender.” Our biologically male freshmen — excuse me, first-years — agi-

school’s reputation and with the sensibilities of its student body.

However, while all this may seem excitingly progressive compared to the stereotypical American suburban sensibilities, and it is a certainly a cause for pride, there remains something very superficial about it. We, the majority of the straight Brown population, drape ourselves in the trappings of progressivism but lack substance. There’s the tacit assumption that one subscribes to all the mainstream left-wing positions — support for marriage equality, anti-discrimination

laws and the like — but there is no real examination of issues. There is no nuance, no room for debate about identity and politics and roles. There is no recognition that the LGBTQ community is as varied and diverse as any other, with all the attendant in-fighting and ideological struggles. All we have is a knee-jerk liberal reaction: Any alternative sexual preference or gender identity is lauded, because hey, we’re tolerant around here.

Why is the conversation suspended at this shallow level? Certainly for many of us, the insubstantiality of the dialogue is not due to lack of interest or understanding of myriad complexities. In fact, it is precisely because we — and here again I am speaking of a contingent of largely straight students — are aware of the existence of these complexities and likewise painfully aware of our inadequate knowledge of them. We are outsiders to the community, certainly, but it is more than that — we are ignorant. In the same way that males attend FemSex or white students take Africana studies courses, it seems that the non-queer community would benefit a great deal from the inclusion of more queer-related classes in the curriculum.

The dying Sexuality and Society concentration has recently merged with Gender Studies. However, as DeLucia puts it, “the new combined concentration desperately needs student support to make it clear that students want these courses to stick around.”

If you would like to demonstrate your interest in queer-related courses (without an academic commitment), please send an email to queer@brown.edu.

Karla Bertrand ’09 is a little disappointed that she can’t subvert the gender binary by wearing fishnets and heels.

S PORTS T UESDAY TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007

Keefe ’08 qualifies for equestrian nationals

BY PETER CIPPARONE SPORTS EDITOR

When Brown captured the Region 1 team equestrian championship after its March 17 competition was canceled due to snow, the Bears looked like they had hit the peak of their season by default.

But in Saturday’s individual Region 1 Championship, the team rode with the same passion it had used to take the conference crown. Whitney Keefe ’08 defeated Amanda Tustian of the University of Rhode Island in a ride-off to capture the Region 1 berth to the Cacchione Cup, the individual national championship. In addition, Kimberly Mickenberg ’07, Marissa Geoffroy ’07 and Grace Peloquin ’07 all posted high finishes in the competition, which was held at the Mystic Valley Hunt Club in Glades Ferry, Conn.

Keefe began her day by placing first in the Open Fences class and second in the Open Flat class, qualifying Keefe for the individual competitions in both open classes at next weekend’s Zone Championship.

Later, Keefe squared off with Tustian with a bid to the national championship hanging in the balance. Each year, the Region 1 rider with the most points in the season earns an automatic berth to the cup.

Keefe led Tustian in points going into a March 17 competition in Rehobeth, Mass., but Tustian evened the score. After the final competition of the regular season was snowed out, the two were forced to meet in a dramatic ride-off.

In most competitions, riders are assigned a horse they have never ridden before and ride it in the flat and jumps classes. But in order to ensure equality in the ride-off, the competitors were each assigned a horse upon which they completed a flat and jumps course, then the two swapped horses and completed the events again.

“I jumped better on the first horse because the horse didn’t respond as well on flat,” Keefe said.

“Then when we switched I jumped really well, then the horse (which her opponent was now on) had the same problems in flat, so I was able to get the better of her there, and that’s probably why I won.”

Head Coach Michaela Scanlon said Keefe began to display her superior riding skills towards the end of the match.

“The ride-off was really exciting,” Scanlon said. “It was interesting to see Whitney’s strengths come out as the competition went along. It became more and more apparent to me that she was the toughest rider in our region. The ride-off really highlighted her talents, and I feel she’s definitely the best delegate for our region at nationals.”

In the rest of the competition, Brown’s upperclassmen put together strong performances, but none could manage to qualify for the individual competition at the upcoming Zone 1 Championship. Needing at continued on page 9

PAGE 12

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

M. lax goes 1-2 over break, including loss to Dartmouth

BY JASON HARRIS SPORTS STAFF WRITER

The men’s lacrosse team headed into spring break with a strong 4-1 record but hit a rough patch over the vacation, dropping two of its three games. Losses came against Dartmouth and the University of Notre Dame, and the sole victory came against the University of Vermont.

The team easily could have been 2-1 for the week, had it not suffered a heart-wrenching loss in a battle against the Big Green on Saturday. The Bears came out of the gates slowly and had to fight uphill the whole way to get back within striking distance. Trailing 8-5 after three quarters, Bruno mounted a relentless comeback, tying the game at eight at the end of regulation.

Though the momentum that Brown built late in the fourth quarter carried into overtime, the Bears could not find the back of the net and put the game to rest. Tri-captain defenseman Bobby Shields ’07 said he was proud that the team played so Jacob Melrose / Herald File Photo well during and after the come- Jack Walsh ’09 scored two goals in the Bears’ 13-4 win over Vermont. back.

“We controlled the temEventually, Dartmouth did Muldoon ’10 had two goals for po,” Shields said. “And we just get that game-winner in the the second straight game. seemed faster in the second half fourth overtime, but instead of Once again, Tiffany said he and overtime.”

Brown allowing the devastating was very pleased with Burke’s Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90 loss to linger, the Bears “used in goal. “He kept Vermont down agreed, despite the disappoint- the pain of (their) loss as venom early in the game despite their ing result, that the team stepped on the next opponent,” Tiffany onslaught,” he said. up late in the game. “The out- said.

Though Brown started somecome really hurt,” Tiffany said.

The Dartmouth game “left a what slowly, as it has done for “We came from behind, never bitter taste in our mouths, and much of the season, it outscored quit, and we outplayed Dart- that attitude spilled over to the UVM 7-1 in the second half. mouth in the fourth quarter and Vermont game. We wanted to Consistently strong play after overtime.” make a statement,” Shield said. halftime continued to make up Though Brown displayed inThe Catamounts were no for the team’s sluggish starts so credible resilience and intensity match for the Bears’ anger, as far. Shields credited the coachfor a prolonged period of time, it Brown crushed UVM 13-4 be- ing staff with Brown’s success could not get the game-winner. hind six goals from tri-captain in the second half so far this sea“Every shot late in the game attackman Dave Madeira ’07. son. felt like it was the one that was Goalie Jordan Burke ’09 had his “The coaches are really good going to fall,” Tiffany said. “We third straight tremendous game at making adjustments at halfdid everything but get that in the cage, making 19 saves, and continued on page 9 goal.” midfielder/attackman Thomas

Softball halts 12-game losing streak

BY AMY EHRHART SPORTS STAFF WRITER

After a rough start, the softball team ended its spring break on a high note, beating Cornell 4-3 Sunday in its fourth Ivy contest of the season. The team rebounded from seven losses in California — and 12 overall — for its first Ivy win of the season. The Bears almost split their games against Princeton on Saturday, but they lost their second game of the day in extra innings, 4-3.

“We finally started playing with intensity,” said co-captain Liz Anderson ’07. “(In California) we learned the importance of hitting, and we just came to play (back in Providence).”

On Saturday, the bats were silent in the first game, which resulted in a 2-0 loss. Brown out-hit Princeton three to two but couldn’t bring anyone home, leaving seven on base throughout the game.

In the second game of the day, the outfield spurred a strong ninehit effort with right-fielder Anderson going 2-4 with a double and left-fielder Kaitlyn Laabs ’09 going 2-3 with one RBI. Once again, Bruno left too many runners on base — this time stranding 10, including two in the eighth inning.

“We weren’t capitalizing on things,” said co-captain and catcher Amy Baxter ’08.

After a dismal 5-1 loss in the first game, Brown brought its runners home with six hits, leaving just two on base in its 4-3 win in the second game on Sunday.

With a 1-0 lead going into the bottom of the sixth, Baxter hit a single to center to bring in Andrea Browne ’10, who had singled to start the inning. Whitney Lewis ’10 worked Cornell’s pitcher Halcontinued on page 9

M. tennis triumphs twice, but loses to Wake Forest

BY ERIN FRAUENHOFER ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Jacob Melrose / Herald File Photo Co-captain Eric Thomas’ ’07 match was the difference in Brown’s 4-3 victory over Florida Atlantic. Thomas also had a victory against Assumption.

Coming off a successful spring break, the men’s tennis team looks ready to take the Ivy League by storm. After defeating Florida Atlantic University 4-3 on March 26 and Assumption College 6-1 Thursday, No. 63 Brown faced No. 7 Wake Forest University Sunday. Though the Bears ultimately dropped the match, it was much closer than the 5-2 score indicated.

“It’s been a great break,” said Head Coach Jay Harris. “A week ago, I was a little worried, but this week, I’m much happier with how we look going into the Ivy League season.”

Against Florida Atlantic, the Bears captured the doubles point to give them an early advantage.

At second doubles, co-captain Eric Thomas ’07 and Saurabh Kohli ’08 earned a 9-8 win over Olivier Sajous and Karol Szmurlo, and at third doubles, Noah Gardner ’09 and Zack Pasanen ’07 defeated Daniel Vardag and Eddie Majcher 8-5.

But in singles play, the Owls

fought back to even the score.

The Bears dropped the first two singles matches as co-captain Dan Hanegby ’07 lost 6-3, 6-4 at first singles and Basu Ratnam ’09 lost 6-1, 6-4 at second singles. Bruno took two more wins at third singles, where Kohli defeated Vardag 6-3, 7-5, and at fi fth singles, where Pasanen defeated Majcher 6-2, 6-3.

Meanwhile, in the sixth singles match, Gardner narrowly lost the first set 7-6 but bounced back to take the second set 6-4, then dropped the third set super-breaker. With the score tied at 3, the final outcome rested on the fourth singles match between Thomas and Corey Smith. After Thomas won the first set 7-5, he dropped the second set 3-6, then dominated in the third set, demolishing Smith 6-1 to give Brown the 4-3 victory.

“We really came together as a team,” Harris said. “Florida Atlantic is a very good team, so it was a huge win for us. It came down to the wire, but Eric Thomas pulled through at fourth singles. That was big.”

The match against Assump-

tion went more smoothly, beginning with a sweep of the doubles matches. Kohli and Hanegby devoured Collin Vero-Casavante and Dave Marshall 8-1 at first doubles, Ratnam and Thomas overwhelmed Antonio Recalde and Matt Stopp 8-4 at second doubles, and Gardner and Pasanen trounced Jared Dorfman and Rich Lieberman 8-2 at third doubles.

Brown took only one loss against the Greyhounds, when Ratnam dropped the first singles match in a third set super-breaker. The Bears won the remaining singles matches in straight sets. At second singles, Hanegby destroyed Stopp 6-2, 6-0, and at third singles, Kohli defeated Dorfman 7-5, 6-3. Thomas easily overpowered Marshall 6-0, 62 at fourth singles, while Gardner and Joe Scott ’08 completed Brown’s 6-1 win at fi fth and sixth singles, annihilating Vero-Casavante 6-0, 6-1 and defeating Tom Novak 6-2, 6-2.

“Our match against Assumption was a pretty good match,” continued on page 9