The Brown Daily Herald T hursday, S eptember 13, 2007
Volume CXLII, No. 67
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Grad School cuts enrollment after $2.5m budget deficit By Matthew Varley Staff Writer
The Graduate School faced a $2.5 million budget shortfall last academic year, resulting in a reduction in the number of graduate students entering the University this fall. Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde told The Herald that 23 fewer grad students matriculated at the University this year compared to last year. Bonde called the number a “relatively modest reduction” that was the product of a “predicted but unplanned shortfall” resulting from the University guaranteeing
five years of funding to most doctoral candidates, a policy which starts this fall. The reduction in the number of students coincides with an increase in applications to the Grad School. For the 2007-2008 academic year, applications were up 9 percent — an increase of 570 applicants — from the previous year. “What we did was to restrict slightly the allowable offers of admission that departments were making so that we had a slightly smaller incoming class in some departments. But that did not touch the amount of support for
continuing students,” Bonde said. She added that the Grad School budget was boosted by $2 million “on account of the predicted pressures on it” and was “balanced in the final analysis ... at the end of the year.” P. Terrence Hopmann, professor of political science, chair of the department and coordinator of its Ph.D. program, said the effects of the budget shortfall were felt in his department. “We feel basically that we had to turn down some quality applicants last year ... because we just didn’t have the resources to offer them
fellowships and teaching assistantships,” Hopmann said. “Ideally, we’d like to take advantage of the fact that we see ourselves as a department on the rise ... to be a little bit more aggressive and generous in recruiting some of the best graduate students,” he added, citing an increase in yield among admitted political science graduate students in recent years. Joseph Bush GS, a doctoral candidate in chemistry and president of the Graduate Student Council, said the move to five-year guaranteed continued on page 6
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MIT’s Sloan names alum as dean By Joy Chua Staf f Writer
Three decades ago, David Schmittlein ’77 spent his days on College Hill reading on the Main Green, working in two of Providence’s costume jewelry factories and fishing for bluefish off the coast. Just last month, Schmittlein returned to New England as the dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management — the first dean Sloan has hired from outside the school.
FEATURE Gabriel Bitran, a professor of management at Sloan and co-chair of the faculty committee in selecting the new dean, told The Herald the school is starting to focus on establishing the connection between Sloan and the outside world, and it wanted its new dean to lead this initiative. “We looked for a person with a lot of experience in that domain, and (who) has outstanding academic values and recognition,” Bitran said. “David was the one who fit the recipe.” Bitran said he hopes Schmittlein’s experience in academia will benefit Sloan. “I think he will bring much greater recognition and visibility to the Sloan School, because he has a clear perspective of the stage in which business schools find themselves,” Bitran said. Bitran said Schmittlein’s academic background made him stand out on the shortlist of possible appointees. “His coming from Brown certainly means he’s smart,” Bitran said. “There are few schools that turn out people who learn how to adapt in the situations they face.” Prior to his appointment at Sloan, Schmittlein was a professor of marketing and vice dean of global initiatives and brand development at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Wharton faculty in 1980 and has continued on page 4
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The newly renovated Gate, located in Alumnae Hall, features a refreshed retail space and new food and drink offerings. See Campus News, Page 5
U. aims to use Fox Point land to ease parking crunch By Simmi Aujla Metro Editor
Tall coffee at Starbucks: $1.65. Books for classes: $300. East Side parking spot: priceless. Brown may have made rides on the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority free, but University officials are still looking for a place to put the hundreds of cars that come onto campus every morning. Administrators told residents of the Fox Point neighborhood, just south of Brown’s campus, that they are seeking developers to create up to 300 parking spaces on University-owned land now occupied by two little-used warehouses near India Point Park. University officials sent formal requests for proposals in late July to six area developers, said John Luipold, Brown’s new director of real estate, speaking Monday night at a board meeting
OBAMA DRAMA Hillary Clinton trounces Obama in a Brown survey of Rhode Island voters.
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of the Fox Point Neighborhood Association. A committee of administrators, including Luipold and Brown’s director of strategic growth, Rebecca Barnes, will review applications received by Sept. 18 and make recommendations to the Corporation this fall on how to use the land, Luipold said.
METRO Though Brown mandates that developers create some parking spaces for University use, a developer could also use the land in other ways, Barnes said. Luipold and Barnes suggested at the neighborhood association meeting that the property could be used for housing, but they were vague about who might live there. The University doesn’t often request that developers lease Brown-owned land, Barnes told The Herald, but the two warehouses — at 271 to 275 Tockwotten MPCS NEAR YOU After splitting from the Residential Peer Leader program, MPCs are back in most freshman units.
St. — don’t fit into the University’s long-term plans for growth in the Jewelry District and on College Hill. Giving developers autonomy to tear down the buildings and undertake a project largely independent of the University — as long as they provide some parking space — may make the property an asset to the Fox Point neighborhood, Barnes said. Professor of Visual Art Richard Fishman and his students use one warehouse as studio space. The other warehouse is vacant. Deborah Dinerman, community and government relations liaison, told the neighborhood association board that University officials are aware of Brown’s previous attempt about six years ago to turn the property into a parking garage, which was stymied after Fox Point residents strongly opposed the plan.
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195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
continued on page 6 the pick-up artist Kevin Roose ’09.5 considers the “neg,” a subversive way to pick up women by insulting them.
IR changes to ease concentration woes By Olivia Hoffman Staff Writer
Insufficient advising and limited senior seminar offerings were among complaints raised by international relations concentrators in a survey conducted by the IR Department Undergraduate Group last spring. The program’s new director said IR’s interdisciplinary status makes increasing course offerings and hiring new faculty difficult but that the sole concentration adviser’s new appointment as a full-time assistant director should relieve pressure on advising. Peter Andreas, an associate professor of political science with a joint appointment at the Watson Institute for International Studies, is now director of the program, replacing Melani Cammett ’91, who served as director for one year but is currently pursuing a fellowship at Harvard University. Claudia Elliott PhD’99, the only general concentration adviser for the several hundred IR concentrators, will now serve full-time as faculty lecturer and assistant director of the undergraduate program. IR concentrators expressed their frustrations with advising in an IR DUG report that compiled feedback from 115 junior and senior IR concentrators in an effort to “generate more accurate information about the state of IR at Brown.” Only 10 percent of the survey’s respondents said they considered the guidance they received from concentration advisers “very useful,” while 32 percent described it as “somewhat useful” and another 28 percent said it was “occasionally useful.” Elliott said she was devoting “well beyond” the time she was compensated for as an adviser and was holding weekly open office hours to see as many students as possible. “This wasn’t reflected in the DUG report,” she said. But this year, Elliott said her new continued on page 4
Courtesy of brown.edu
Associate Professor of Political Science Peter Andreas is now the director of the international relations program.
16 SPORTS
Game time Coming off two stunning victories, the men’s soccer team will host Maine this afternoon.
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