The Brown Daily Herald F riday, S eptember 14, 2007
Volume CXLII, No. 68
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Brown fans rise up to join BrowNation By Pete Cipparone Sports Editor
SPORTS
Few would ever confuse a crowd at the Pizzitola Center with the student sports enthusiasts you might find at Duke University, home of the notorious Cameron Crazies. But this fall, a group of students is trying to change that. The new school year marks the debut of a recently created a student fan group known as BrowNation. Founded and led by Moses Riner ’08, BrowNation will promote attendance at athletic events by offering incentives according to the number of games fans attend. Riner, who transferred to Brown after attending Duke for his first two years of college, said the idea came from his former school. “I initially got the idea from Duke who has a student group called ‘The Inferno,’ ” Riner said. “I knew one of the guys who helped start the group (at Duke), and I talked to him and said ‘Hey, I’ll do it here.’ He kind of coached me through the steps of starting up a group like this.” Riner first started promoting the idea during his campaign for president of the Undergraduate Council
of Students in the spring, and said he “went all over campus so it was easy to get the word out.” Riner knew that the group, then under the name of ‘The Blaze,’ would be popular among athletes. But what surprised him was the high level of support expressed by non-athletes. “Everyone was like ‘If I knew I could get free stuff, I’d definitely go to the games,’ ” Riner said. “I guess all Brown students need is a little bit of incentive.” After filling out a form and paying a $20 entrance fee to join BrowNation, members will receive one point for each game attended. The group will have a table set up at each game where members can check in to receive credit for attendance. There are currently 12 games listed on the September schedule, all of which can be found at the group’s Web site, hosted at brownbears.com. At the end of the semester, each member will receive Brown
Chris Bennett / Herald File Photo
The Undergraduate Council of Students will host its first meeting of the academic year next week.
New leadership, new year for UCS By Franklin Kanin Senior Staf f Writer
The Undergraduate Council of Students begins the new academic year with a new president, vice president and committee chairs on the executive board. Freshman elections will run from Sunday to Tuesday, and the body’s first meeting will be held next week when the eight at-large positions will be elected internally.
continued on page 4
Though official meetings will not start until five freshmen have been elected, the officers of the executive board have many goals for the coming year. Incoming President Michael Glassman ’09 has served on UCS since his freshman year and was the communications chair last year. Glassman wants to involve more students in high-level University decision-making, such as the Corporation, new dorm plans, financial
Ne
ws
aid initiatives and planned renovations in the Bear’s Lair.He also said he plans to work on getting the University to approve last year’s Energy and Environmental Advisory Committee’s recommendations on how the University can help to preserve the environment. Vice President Lauren Kolodny ’08, last year’s Corporation liaison, shares many of Glassman’s goals, continued on page 4
i n
B
r i e f
In pink or Pink Floyd, posters unroll personality Widmer gains new appointment By Meha Verghese Staff Writer
When you walk into a Brown student’s dorm room, you’re likely to find one of a few familiar images on the wall: John Belushi in “Animal House,” the Beatles crossing Abbey Road or the iconic Che Guevara.
FEATURE Buying posters outside Faunce House, at the Brown Bookstore or over the Internet is a beginningof-year tradition — posters are a popular and inexpensive way to decorate a dorm room. Chris Alexander works for the College Poster Sale Company. He sets up outside the campus post office each September, where he obser ves first-hand the annual poster purchasing habits of Brown students. He said that on Monday, the first day of the sale, students bought between 800 and 900 posters bearing images of art, bands, landscapes and movies. He said art posters tend to be particularly popular. “Andy Warhol is really popular — anything pop art,” Alexander said. Many students adorn their walls with modernist art, while others prefer the works of the impressionists such as Van Gogh, Monet and Matisse. But “romantic and classical-looking art” doesn’t sell well, according to Corey Philips, a cashier at the Brown Bookstore. Also less-than-popular: educational posters depicting female
INSIDE:
3
ARTS & CULTURE
www.browndailyherald.com
Rahul Keerthi / Herald
Students shop for posters outside the Faunce post office.
aviators and Greek art. But, he added, “tropical pictures always sell pretty well.” Giselle Torres ’08, who has a poster of a beach scene in her room, thinks pictures of a warmer climate enliven a room when Providence weather is at its worst. The poster also reminds Torres of Puerto Rico, where she grew up. “When it’s really dark and gloomy here, I look at it and it makes me feel good,” she said. Nathanael Geman ’09 also selected his wall art to evoke memories of his home: Paris. “I chose one
FELDMAN RETIRES Professor Emeritus of Visual Art Walter Feldman is retiring and gets a new show for his send-off.
3
poster because it also hangs in a restaurant near my house,” Geman said. A poster of the Eiffel Tower also hangs in his room. While art and landscapes are popular, motivational posters have seen lackluster sales. “We’ve sold not too many, but a few motivational posters,” Philips said. “There’s a nice penguin one on individuality.” Robert Emlen, senior lecturer in American civilization and University curator, said he thinks buyers continued on page 5
ARTS & CULTURE
CHARLES THE SAVIOR Store 24 clerk Charles White is the best Providence rapper you’ve never heard of — until now.
The New America Foundation, a centrist think tank, has appointed Ted Widmer, director of the John Carter Brown Library, as a senior research fellow in its foreign policy division. The appointment will not take Widmer away from Brown, and his role at the University will remain unchanged. “I’m basically a kind of virtual fellow,” he said. “I communicate with other fellows, but I don’t expect to be in Washington a great Chris Bennett / Herald File Photo deal. After all, we all know Providence Ted Widmer, director of the John Carter Brown Library is the center of the universe.” Though he grew up near campus, Widmer returned to Brown in 2006 after working as a speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and, later, directing Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. He most recently published a compilation of American presidential speeches and is an affiliated scholar at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “Everyone knows I’m a Democrat, but I like talking to people with different points of view — it makes life a lot more exciting,” Widmer said, adding that he thinks the New America Foundation is “unusually open-minded.” “They are doing very original work, matching surprising speakers and researchers to each other. They’re always looking at issues with fresh eyes,” he said. The New American Foundation seeks to bring “new ideas to the fore of our nation’s public discourse,” according to its mission statement. Widmer’s work for the foundation will concentrate on the history of American foreign policy, which is also the focus of his forthcoming book, “Ark of the Liberties: America and the World.” The book, he said, is an intellectual history of Americans’ understanding of their place in the global political universe. “It’s not every treaty and every military action, but much more a history of how we have thought about how we fit in,” he said. Widmer expects to present the book and his research both at Brown and the New America Foundation. Steve Clemons, of the New American Foundation, said Widmer will be writing and speaking about U.S. foreign policy for the foundation’s American Strategy Program, which Clemons directs. “He is one of the nation’s leading historians on the legacy of early American political thought on U.S. foreign policy,” Clemons said. — Marisa Calleja
7
OPINIONS
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
OVERHEARD at brown This week, Overheard on College Hill asks what Brunonians think of the new Banner system.
8
SPORTS
M. SOCCER WINS The No. 21-ranked men’s soccer team defeated the University of Maine 2-1 Thursday at home.
News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com