The Brown Daily Herald T hursday, O ctober 11, 2007
Volume CXLII, No. 86
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Plans for new dorm may be on hold after pool shutdown By Debbie Lehmann and Scott Lowenstein Senior Staff Writers
A “planned initiative” for the construction of a new dorm, set in motion this time last year, seems to have disappeared from the administration’s immediate agenda. Some student leaders familiar with the issue say the plan for a new
From College Hill to China
dorm was set aside due to the potential cost of building a new aquatics facility to replace the Smith Swim Center, saying University officials told a group of students earlier this month that the project would not begin in the next few years. Yet President Ruth Simmons’ call last week for a reassessment of the Plan for Academic Enrichment could change University priorities
and suggests that a new dorm is not necessarily on the backburner, said a student who has met with administrators about the matter. Plans for a new swim center and plans for a new dorm have not been specifically framed as mutually exclusive. But the expense of a new swim center — necessary after the Smith Swim Center was deemed irretrievably damaged last semes-
ter — has effectively taken new housing off the administration’s immediate agenda, according to Kevin McDonald ’08, who serves on the Campus Planning Advisory Board. “Planning has completely stopped,” McDonald said. “They haven’t thrown away the plans, but
Glass professor Rachel Berwick, who became head of the department this year, says her goal is to “teach glass as a sculptural medium” and give students a solid foundation in the art. A student must be dedicated and focused, Berwick says, because glass art is done primarily through trial and error and because the medium is so fragile. Berwick received her bachelor’s degree in glass at RISD and continued her education at Yale, studying sculpture.Glass continued on page 12
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A n o t h e r d a y , an o t h e r pr o t e s t
By Chaz Firestone Senior Staf f Writer
continued on page 6
INSIDE:
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METRO
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Chris Bennett / Herald As community members advocate action against the Bush Administration and war in Iraq, Brown College Republicans stage their own protest to counter the anti-war protesters, urging passersby to “honk to end this protest.”
Down the Hill, glass is a hot topic at RISD By Allison Wentz Contributing Writer
On a hot Friday afternoon in Providence, a group of students gather near a furnace, sweating while their professor teaches. The professor retrieves molten glass, glowing orange on the end of the iron rod, and quickly begins to roll and shape the material, losing no time as it hardens more and more each second. He does none of this alone, though — at least two students help him each time he takes the glass out of
the furnace. One of the Rhode Island School of Design’s smaller departments, the Department of Glass consists of 33 undergraduate and graduate
FEATURE students. Housed in RISD’s Metcalf Building at the corner of North Main and Waterman streets, the department is home to a half-ton continuous melt furnace, diamond saws, sandblasting machines and studio space for upper-level students.
By Hazel Pike Contributing Writer
While the University created a Sexual Assault Advisory Board this spring to focus on sexual assault on campus, a group of Brown and Rhode Island School of Design students banded together to form a task force intended to bring additional attention to the issue, which some say Brown fails to adequately address. Associate Vice President for Campus Life and Dean of Student Life Margaret Klawunn, a member of the University committee comprised of administrators and students, said the board’s purpose is to improve communication with students on sexual assault issues. The student task force has a more activist role, according to post- columnist Amy Littlefield ’09, also of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance. “We started this task force to start raising awareness about the resources that do exist and to start pushing the University for better resources,” she said. In crime statistics for 2006 recently released by the Department of Public Safety, four cases of sexual assault were reported, but Littlefield said she believes this number is lower than the number of actual offenses. “Investigations of allegations of sexual assault are, by their very nature, extremely sensitive processes and we work hard to insure that we respect the privacy of all parties involved,” Klawunn wrote in her e-mail. “Protecting privacy and adhering to confidentiality standards shouldn’t be confused (with but is) sometimes misconstrued as keeping the issue quiet.” Last fall, DPS revised its crime statistics after The Herald reported that the statistics showed no sexual assaults in 2005. Four on-campus sexual assaults reported to the Office of Student Life were left out of
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Internationalization takes shape with med student exchange
A new medical exchange program between Brown and China’s Zhejiang University was symbolically signed into agreement last night by President Ruth Simmons and Zhejiang President Wei Yang PhD’85 over cocktails at Simmons’ Power Street home. In the first significant agreement since administrators placed internationalization high on the University’s agenda last year, the exchange program will allow students at the Warren Alpert Medical School to study at local hospitals in Hangzhou while Chinese students study in Providence. Zhejiang University is one of the most prestigious universities in China and is home to over 40,000 students. Yang, who earned his Ph.D in engineering from Brown, told The Herald he was excited to return to Brown and create the exchange program — the first of its kind between Zhejiang’s medical school and any American university — and called Brown the perfect candidate for such a program. “We have very unique similarities between Brown University and my university,” Yang said. Seeds of the program were planted over a year ago when Simmons and other University officials traveled to Beijing and signed a document of interest with Zhejiang officials. Associate Dean of Medicine Julianne Ip ’75 MD’78 said the Zhejiang medical school was looking to implement an eightyear M.D. program for Chinese high school graduates, so three representatives from Zhejiang came to Brown for a week to learn about the Program in Liberal Medical Education. “Eight months later, totally out of the blue, President Yang contacted and then met President Simmons,” Ip said. “It turned out to be a perfect match, because President Sim-
Sexual assault resources must be improved, students say
Zyrra supports women’s needs
aft e r a u s c h w it z
By Meha Verghese Staff Writer
George Miller / Herald Alvin Rosenfeld MA‘62 PhD’67 P’89, professor of English at Indiana University, spoke last night in Salomon 001 on Primo Levi and forgiveness after Auschwitz.
Raising the russian The Navy may rescue the Russian submarine that sunk in the Providence River in April.
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CAMPUS NEWS
out of africa Five students and an alum spent four weeks in Kenya filming a documentary about microfinance.
FEATURE
It was during her time at Brown that Christi Andersen ’97 began to feel that she needed more comfort and support. Her feelings didn’t stem from the quality of the food in the dining halls or the sophomore advising system, but from the lack of well-made bras that could support her 34DDD frame. “I realized that I was having a really hard time as my body was changing — it probably started with the freshman 15,” Andersen said. But her bra-shopping troubles paid off — Andersen, along with business par tner Derek Ohly, launched a new company, Zyrra,
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OPINIONS
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
Internet 2.0 The new frontier of college demonstration and activism, says Maha Atal ’08, will be online.
earlier this year with the goal to fit women with custom-made bras that look attractive while providing support. Since commercial bras only vary in cup size and band width, many women buy bras that don’t fit them correctly. Andersen is hoping to change that. Andersen first thought of this concept during her sophomore year at Brown. “It was getting really depressing to be 19 (years old) and looking at granny bras,” she said. After graduating from Brown with a degree in computer science, continued on page 6
16 SPORTS
Bears beat eagles The juggernaut that is the men’s soccer team won again last night, beating No. 5 Boston College, 1-0.
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T oday Page 2
Thursday, October 11, 2007
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But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow
We a t h e r Today
T O M O R R OW
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Menu
Sharpe Refectory
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
Lunch — Cheese Tomato Strata, Wild Colonial Risotto, Louisiana-style Calzone, Hot Ham on a Bulky Roll, Shrimp in Sauce, Artichokes with Tomatoes and Wine, Apple Turnovers
Lunch — Sloppy Joe Sandwich, Falafel in Pita Bread, Cauliflower au Gratin, Enchilada Bar, Swiss Fudge Cookies
Dinner — Spinach and Rice Bake, Cajun Corn & Tomatoes, Spice Rubbed Pork Chops, Ice Cream Sundae Bar
Dinner — Roast Turkey with Sauce, Shells with Broccoli, Mashed Potatoes, Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce, Butternut Apple Bake, Apple Turnovers
Sudoku Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.
Aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer
Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins
RELEASE DATE– Thursday, October © Puzzles11, by2007 Pappocom
Los Angeles Times Crossword Puzzle C r o sDaily s wo r d Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Clinton opponent 6 Rumor 10 Philosopher Locke 14 Concretereinforcing rod 15 Mary’s “South Pacific” costar 16 Nile wader 17 See 72-Across 20 UN workers gp. 21 __ Lanka 22 High level 23 Maryland athlete, for short 25 Repeat 29 See 72-Across 34 “Same here!” 36 Large container 37 The Keydets of the Big South Conf. 38 Horizon arc measurement 41 Door banger’s demand 44 Sellout indicator 45 Flat fish 47 Undesirable aspects 48 See 72-Across 53 Antarctic waters 54 Corp. honcho 57 Deplete 60 Lilting syllable 62 Orgs. concerned with beats 63 See 72-Across 68 Sting target 69 “‘Salem’s Lot” (2004) star 70 Puccini classic 71 Corn Belt city on I-35 72 Word defined at 17-, 29-, 48- and 63-Across 73 Dutch painter of “The Cat Family”
7 Israeli weapon 8 Benzoyl peroxide target 9 Bronx attraction 10 Altar no-show 11 Last words? 12 Old platter player 13 Tiny amt. of time 18 “Topaz” author 19 Dieter’s count 24 Senior moment? 26 Part of SASE: Abbr. 27 Not so-called 28 Museo contents 30 Marker 31 Cause to appear washed-out 32 Pass over 33 Time pieces: Abbr. 34 Prepare potatoes, in a way 35 Pound of poetry 39 “__ bien!” 40 Dutch portraitist Frans 42 Company quorum?
43 Locks in a barn? 46 QB’s gains 49 They’re loaded 50 Show optimism 51 Tube-nosed seabird 52 Refer (back) 55 Draw forth 56 House channel 57 DDE’s alma mater
58 E-junk 59 Thornfield Hall governess 61 Athletes’ negotiators: Abbr. 64 ICU patient’s need 65 Tribulation 66 Attendant of Athena 67 “Horsefeathers!”
Octopus on Hallucinogens | Toni Liu and Stephanie Le
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Classic Deo | Daniel Perez
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DOWN 1 Once around 2 Memorable Memphis street 3 Soaking up 4 Month after avril 5 Indirect paths 6 Four-time all-star By Barry C. Silk catcher Santiago (c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
10/11/07
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Lt. Gov. Roberts ’78 leads New England delegation to Taiwan By Evan Boggs Staf f Writer
Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts ’78 left last Friday for Taiwan, leading a New England delegation of lawmakers on an eight-day trip focused on healthcare issues and economic development. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston, one of 13 such offices in the United States, organizes the trip each year to bring the two countries closer together, said Scott Lai, the office’s division director and senior planner for this year’s visit. Jennifer Wood ’81, Roberts’ general counsel and chief of policy, said the lieutenant governor’s office requested that the trip focus on health care reform and economic development strategies, since Roberts has focused on these issues in her time in office. Last spring, for example, her office released a report outlining potential for stem-cell research growth in Rhode Island. Rober ts is accompanied by Wood and state legislators from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine. “The economy in Taiwan is one that has really transformed itself from a manufacturing economy into a (biotechnology) economy,” Wood said, adding that Roberts wants to focus on encouraging a similar transformation in Rhode Island. “With a trip like this an elected official meets a wide range of government, business and education leaders,” said Darrell West, professor of political science and director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy. “Those types of personal relationships can really pay off down the road in terms of business deals, educational opportunities and government connections.” “My philosophy is that to see is to believe,” Lai said, adding that he was constantly working to show his American friends “how good” Taiwan is. “I always tell them to go there — to see for themselves,” he said. “That’s the purpose of this trip,” Lai said. The Taiwanese government funded the visit, and the delegation flew Friday nonstop from Los Angeles to Taipei and is set to return Saturday, Oct. 13. Lai said the planning process for the trip had been underway since the beginning of the year and that the visit’s focus on the Taiwanese healthcare system was chosen because “we know many states in the New England area are very much concerned about national health care in each state.” Though Wood said the delegacontinued on page 4
Ken Johnson / Oakham Graphics
The 43-year-old Juliett 484 sank into the Providence River in April after a violent storm. Plans are afloat to rescue the former Soviet boat in the spring.
Army and Navy help save Providence’s Russian Sub By Simmi Aujla Metro Editor
After a storm hit Rhode Island in April, Providence’s only Russian submarine — one of two of its kind in the world — sank. The 300-ft.long black sub, called Juliett 484, was part of a fleet of Russian subs built at a Polish shipyard in 1964. It had floated in the Providence River for nearly five years before the storm flooded and sank the sub. But come this spring, the sub will be resurrected, with a little help from the U.S. military. In August, about 24 Army and Navy divers plunged into the river to anchor the sub to land, said Bill Sheridan, sub manager for the Russian Sub Museum. The anchors will secure the sub during winter storms, ensuring it won’t float down Narragansett Bay. The divers also measured the submarine to prepare for its resurrection next spring, when the Army and Navy crews are slated to come back with proper equipment. The Russian Sub Museum opened to the public in August 2002 as a resource for Soviet histor y buffs. Before highway con-
struction made the museum — located about two miles south of the Providence Place mall — less accessible to visitors, the sub averaged 10,000 visitors annually, Sheridan said. The 43-year-old Juliett 484 first targeted cities on the U.S. East Coast with “nuclear-tipped cruise missiles,” Sheridan said. When the Soviets began to use newer ships to target cities, the sub targeted large American carrier ships in the Atlantic. The Juliett was retired in 1994, and before long a Finnish man bought it from a shipyard in Latvia and converted it into a tourist attraction in Helsinki, Finland, complete with a restaurant and vodka bar. Before it made its way to Providence in 2002, the sub was used in the filming of the 2002 movie “K-19: the Widowmaker.” When buying the sub from a Florida businessman who had acquired it, the film company agreed to find the sub a new home. The North Kingstown-based USS Saratoga Museum Foundation, an organization created in 1998 with the goal of converting the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga
into a museum and entertainment center in Rhode Island, acquired the sub in 2002. The foundation was interested in the sub as a source of income to help it stay afloat while then-Gov. Lincoln Almond failed to support the group’s plan to anchor the Saratoga in Narragansett Bay, Sheridan said. Admission fees from the sub allowed the largely volunteer-run foundation to survive through the rest of Almond’s term, Sheridan said. Current Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 supports the foundation’s efforts, and the group has raised enough money to buy the Saratoga and move it to Rhode Island. Army and Navy divers surveyed the Russian sub as a training exercise through a Navy program that trains divers in real-world scenarios before sending them on actual salvage or rescue operations. The same Navy unit that sent divers to Providence also sent divers to Minneapolis, Minn., following the August collapse of a bridge over the Mississippi River. Divers from the unit have also begun a salvage operation in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., where a collapsed artificial reef made of tires littered the ocean’s
floor. Divers investigated the tires in June to determine how to best remove them, and they will return to actually remove the tires in a later operation, said Lt. Cdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, public affairs officer for the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, based in Norfolk, Va. Whether the Army and Navy come back to Providence depends on how many divers can be spared for training projects. “We’d like to see it through,” Hull-Ryde said. But “if another Hurricane Katrina hit and we had to help with those kinds of recover y operations,” the Army and Navy may not be able to spare divers in the spring, she added. If the Army and Navy divers are able to re-float and drain the sub in the spring, the museum will evaluate the damage to the sub’s interior and decide how to proceed. If the water has damaged the sub completely, it could be sold to a salvage yard and cut up for scrap metal, Sheridan said, or used as an artificial reef to encourage water-life growth in the Atlantic. But Sheridan said he hopes at least part of the museum can be salvaged and reopened to the public.
Emergency siren system still awaits the city’s approval By Amanda Bauer Staf f Writer
Emergency alert sirens could be installed on campus by the end of the semester, if the City Council passes legislation approving them. Ward 1 City Councilman Seth Yurdin introduced an ordinance last month that would lay the groundwork for such a system to be established. The legislation was referred to the Ordinance Committee. Yurdin said legislators will address the ordinance after the University contacts relevant neigh-
borhood groups about the sirens. “Once the University comes in with information about how it has talked to the community it will move along,” Yurdin said. Vice President of Administration and Chief Risk Officer Walter Hunter said there will be an Ordinance Committee meeting at the end of the month to review the draft ordinance that has been proposed. The emergency siren system will only be set off in the case of a hostile intruder, a large chemical release near campus or a natural
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disaster, according to the Brown Environmental Health and Safety Web site. If the sirens are ever activated, they will be used in conjunction with an emergency notification system that will use cell phone and landline calls, text messages and e-mails to give people further instruction, Hunter said.“The siren is just to have people seek shelter and get additional information,” he said. University administrators are attempting to coordinate the system with the city of Providence so that non-student residents of College
Hill will also be notified in an emergency. “The city has a reverse 911 system, so the city can send out a message to residents about the nature of the emergency,” Hunter said. “Residents will be called, so if they hear the siren, they can go on our Web site and see what the alert is about.” When asked for comment on the proposed alert system, Fox Point Neighborhood Association President Daisy Schnepel said, “We don’t have any neighborhood continued on page 4
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U. siren plan seeks city approval Lt. Gov. Roberts ’78 leads continued from page 3 reaction as yet” because they have not yet spoken with a University representative about the sirens. The FPNA board and Darrell Brown, the University’s director for state and community relations, will meet Oct. 24. Schnepel said she asked Brown for a tape of how the siren would sound. The Herald obtained from Hunter an MP3 file of the siren, which will emit a medium-pitched, continuous noise, unlike the repeating high-pitched sound made by a traditional alarm. Schnepel said the sirens are a necessar y alert system, but she expressed concern that neighborhood residents will still need some other mode of notification about the nature of the emergency. “If for example — and this is a horrible example — there is a mass murderer on campus and he or she has done something and they’re free in the neighborhood ... it would be good to have some link to, say, a radio station so that people would know what’s going on,” Schnepel said. The College Hill Neighborhood Association will also meet with a University representative about the sirens. CHNA President William Touret would not comment on the alert system in advance of the meeting.
Chooky DeBeaulieu, the owner of Yang’s, a retail shop on Thayer Street, said she does not mind the proposed sirens. “When we used to have a siren everyday at noon, it was a sense of security,” said DeBeaulieu, who grew up during the Cold War. “We need it as much if not more now than we did then,” she added, making reference to last spring’s shooting at Virginia Tech. Not many Brown students seem to be aware of the proposed system, but those who are indicated support. “It seems like before this whole thing started, (Brown) didn’t really have a way of alerting people if something was going on,” said Maria Capecelatro ’10. “So I think the sirens will be a good idea, especially since our campus is so small, and you most likely will be able to hear it.” “It seems like these are things that we need to be prepared for,” she added. “Even though it seems … excessive now, you never know what could happen.” If the City Council passes the legislation, Brown will install the system manufactured by the Whelen Engineering Company, which has many natural disaster alert systems already in use in the Midwest, according to Hunter. At the Brown University Community Council meeting last Tuesday, Hunter briefed the council
about the progress of the system thus far. According to Hunter, an e-mail was issued Sept. 26 asking students to enter their cell phone number on their Brown “MyAccount” page. Within 72 hours, 1,856 out of approximately 6,000 Brown students responded giving their cell phone numbers. Hunter said the University will continue to encourage students to enter their numbers in the following weeks. According a Sept. 30 New York Times article, officials at St. John’s University in Queens, New York used a similar text-messaging system last week to inform students and faculty members of a gunman on campus. Though there were at least 10,000 students on campus at the time of the incident, St. John’s officials said the text-messaging system allowed campus security officers to ensure all students’ safety. A similar event occurred on the first day of classes at the University of Colorado in Boulder in August, when a text-message alert was sent from university officials alerting students of a stabbing on campus. While only 1,300 people hadsigned up for the university’s new alert system, nearly 8,000 of the University’s 28,000 students had enrolled witin five days. Neither of these universities’ emergency aler t systems included sirens.
a delegation to Taiwan continued from page 3
tion was not hoping to “transplant wholesale the nationalized health care system” in Taiwan, she said legislators would be looking at how the system is structured, how it operates, who it affects and which elements have been criticized. “Health care has been and continues to be a big part of (Roberts’) portfolio,” Woods said, mentioning the lieutenant governor’s co-chairmanship of the permanent Joint Committee on Healthcare Oversight during her five-term stint in the Rhode Island State Senate. During their week-long sojourn, the delegation is expected to meet with officials from the Taiwanese Ministr y of Foreign Affairs and the National Taiwan University Hospital. The trip also includes visits to the Taipei World Trade Center and the International Electronics Autumn Show, as well as a tour of the government-supported Tainan SciHerald File Photo ence Park, which Wood described Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts ’78 as a crucial aspect of the visit as Rhode Island pushes to become a Biotechnology in Rhode Island biotechnology hub. took a hit in September when “We will visit the industrial park pharmaceutical company Amgen administration, which is a govern- announced the layoff of 450 workment hub, and two of the actual ers at its West Warwick plant, but companies (located within the West said that development only park),” Wood said. heightened the need for these types of visits. “The current layoffs demonstrate how precarious the Rhode Island economy is, and ... we need businesses to export abroad. That will bring more revenue to the state and create needed jobs,” West said. Biotechnology is an intelligent economic strategy for Rhode Island because of intense interest in the industry, especially in the form of venture capital, he said. “It’s a job creator,” West added. Wood said the Amgen layoffs highlight the process of “fits and starts” of biotechnology in Rhode Island. The industry “can become a stable environment for our economy, but there can be bumps along the way,” she said.
C ampus n ews Thursday, October 11, 2007
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Private lenders to cut student loan benefits, few students affected By Rachel Arndt Senior Staf f Writer
Banks that offer federal student loans are raising fees and taking away discounts to recover some of the money they’ll lose because of the new terms imposed by the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. As a result, student borrowers may not see as big a break on their loan repayments as Congress had intended with the legislation. The bill, signed into law by President Bush on Sept. 27, raises the maximum Pell grant to $5,400 and cuts Stafford loan interest rates from 6.8 to 3.4 percent by decreasing subsidies to private lenders. The decrease in federal interest rates on Stafford loans will be “paid for by taking $21 billion over the next five years from lender profits and redirecting it to student aid,” said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of finaid.org. “I see this as a net win for the students.” “Banks are reacting by cutting the discounts they give to students,” Kantrowitz said. The cut in federal subsidies to the lenders will lower their profits, he explained, so they must find ways to stay profitable in the financial aid market. Previously, some lenders offered a one-percentage-point reduction in interest rates for students who paid on time for 36 months. Now some firms are cutting that benefit to .25 percent for students, and in some cases, they are only offering the incentive to students who transfer funds online, Kantrowitz explained. Still, only 20 percent of students were making the first 36 payments on time, Kantrowitz said, adding, “The discounts were more apparent than real.” “Three years from now, they’re going to have to find some other way to cut costs,” Kantrowitz said of the lenders. Because the University is a direct lender and participates in the Federal Direct Student Loan Program, most Brown students should
be unaffected by the banks’ cut in benefits for private borrowers, according to Director of Financial Aid James Tilton. As a direct lender, Brown grants “federal student and parent loans directly from the federal government,” Tilton wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Still, approximately 260 students at Brown could be affected, since 4 percent of undergraduates borrow privately every year, Tilton wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “We don’t really have a preferred lender list,” Tilton said, but there is “a list of four or five lenders that we’ve had relationships with in the past.” Most Brown students who are granted financial aid — 1,925 undergraduate and 460 graduate and medical students — received Federal Direct Student Loans this year. Students who borrow using unconsolidated Stafford loans will also see their discounts cut, Kantrowitz said. Regarding the recent legislation, Tilton sai, “It can’t help but change the industry.” He said he expects lenders to look at their customer base to see what they can do to stay profitable. The most prominent change Tilton expects to see in the loan industr y is “growth in direct … marketing.” The Office of Financial Aid will have “to be diligent about finding out … what kind of information” students are getting to make sure they borrow wisely. “Many different loan products will come out of this legislation,” he said. “The market is going to change.” “Private student loans are more expensive than federal student loans,” Kantrowitz said, so students should exhaust their federal eligibility before turning to private lenders. “I don’t think it’s going to end up hurting students,” Tilton said. He emphasized that students need to be cautious as more private loans become available. “Students should be very aware of what they’re getting into.”
Courtesy of Max Schoening
This summer, five Brown students and an alum traveled to Kenya to document the impact of microfinance on the lives of the loans’ beneficiaries.
Students film effects of microfinance in Kenya By Joanne Wang Contributing Writer
After school let out last spring, five students and an alum traveled to western Kenya for four weeks to gather footage for several films on how microfinance is changing the lives of entrepreneurs in developing countries. Stephen Salisbury ’09, Max Schoening ’09, Justine McGowan ’08, Tihtina Zenebe Gebre ’09, Colin Chazen ’09 and Ryan Heath ’05 went to Africa in cooperation with Kiva, a microfinancing organization that allows individuals to lend small sums of money to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world through the company’s Web site. The idea for the trip came from Brown’s chapter of Students of the World, a national organization that sends teams of college students to developing countries to document
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progress. The students are still in the process of editing their film footage, but they hope to ultimately produce two promotional films for Kiva documenting success stories of microfinance in Kenya, as well as another microfinance film that will present this story to the Brown community. The students originally traveled to Africa simply to film for their documentary, but they ended up working for Kiva as well. McGowan, Schoening and Heath were located in rural Kenya, while Gebre, Chazen and Salisbury were located in Kisumu, the third-largest city in Kenya. In each group of three, two students worked as field journalists, traveling to interview entrepreneurs in Kenya who had received loans through Kiva. The third person documented stories of the interviewed entrepreneurs
by maintaining online profiles of them. “It’s a totally different experience to actually get on the ground. The people in the country were very interested in bettering their country … (which) was really inspiring,” said Heath, who served as a field journalist. Since microfinance is still being introduced to Kenyans, changes in the countr y are not monumental just yet, Schoening said. Still, based on his observations, he said microfinance has been able to change the lives of the limited number of entrepreneurs who have received loans. For example, Schoening described a particularly memorable female entrepreneur whose husband, who had four other wives, had ceased to take care of her and her children. Through the loans, she started continued on page 13
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Brown signs exchange with Chinese U. continued from page 1 mons was interested in Zhejiang University.” Yang said the two schools will “have more collaboration,” in the near future. The University also has international exchange programs with the University of Tuebingen and the University of Rostock in Germany, the Sackler Faculty of Medicine of Tel Aviv University and the Bruce Rappaport Medical School Technion Institute of Technology in Israel and Moi University School of Medicine in Kenya.
Courtesy of Jeffrey Fitton
President Ruth Simmons (right) and Zhejiang University President Yang Wei PhD’85 sign the memorandum of understanding between the two universities for a new medical exchange program.
2 new committees to address sexual assault continued from page 1 the crime summary, Klawunn said in a Nov. 1, 2006, article, attributing the change to an “administrative error.” Frances Mantak, director of health education, said sexual assault is an under-reported crime on all college campuses, not just at Brown. “Anyone who understands this information doesn’t pay attention to reported statistics, because it is the most under-reported crime,” she said. Mantak estimates that three to five students come to Health Services each year with reports of sexual assault, but that many victims of assault do not self-report. “What we’re finding out more and more is not just that Brown hasn’t been paying attention to the issue,” Littlefield said. “It’s that Brown ... is trying to keep the issue as quiet as possible.” Klawuun disagreed, writing in an e-mail to The Herald that “the administration works very hard to address this issue in a variety of ways,” including holding a session at first-year Orientation, a Web site that was launched last year and informational campaigns held in dining halls, residence halls and other areas around campus. Other methods she cited were training for Residential Peer Leaders and having a nationally-known trainer educate campus life staff and interested students. But Kristin Jordan ’09, a member
of the student-led task force, said her own case last year — she said she was sexually assaulted — was mishandled by the University. At an open hearing last week regarding DPS’s reaccreditation, Jordan described her case, saying DPS failed to respond in a time-efficient manner after one of her friends called DPS for her. Furthermore, she said, when she contacted DPS to check on her record, it was not on file. “I understand that DPS can only report the assaults that are reported to them,” she told The Herald. “The thing that’s a problem for me is that they don’t even seem to translate the ones reported to them into their statistics.” “I think in a lot of ways, the school has an image to uphold,” Jordan said. “In general, the Brown institution doesn’t do anything unless it’s pressured to. I think that’s colleges in general ... I think the administration gets very busy with other things ... that sometimes they miss things like this.” That’s the task force’s objective, Littlefield said — to push the University for better outreach and education, a sexual assault hotline that will be available 24 hours a day, a peer education program, more programs aimed at prevention and more training on sexual assault for staff. The task force has recently begun holding support sessions for victim-
sand is in the process of creating a resource center in the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center available to anyone interested in learning more. The first session was held last Wednesday, and Jordan said it was a success. “I was happy with the turnout and I was happy with the commitment people had to the group,” she said. “Being attacked or raped or assaulted is such an oppressive thing that being able to find your voice and then to amplify your voice through the task force is just empowering,” she added. In addition to helping found the student task force, Littlefield is a member of the University’s advisory board, which she said has not yet had an official meeting. The board met informally in September, Klawunn wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, “to discuss plans for the semester, training needs for group members and anything else that individuals were interested in discussing.” She noted that two separate meetings were held due to student representatives being unable to arrange a common meeting time. “The main goals are for information sharing and trying to make things work better for everybody,” said Gail Cohee, director of the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center and a member of the board. “Students may enter the system at all different types of places,” she said, and the board wants the input of students to know what does and doesn’t work.
Andersen ’97 bets on bra business continued from page 1 Andersen worked in the IT industry for five years before she decided to switch careers and develop her business model. She enrolled in the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College, where she met Ohly. “The more he heard about Zyrra, the more excited he got,” Andersen said. The pair named the company Zyrra after the nickname for brassieres that Ohly said his friend’s grandmother used. Andersen heads sales and marketing, while Ohly handles the manufacturing side of the business. Aided by her background in computer science, Andersen spent the last three years developing software for Zyrra. The company is currently testing out its sales system. Though getting the business off the ground has been challenging, people are already taking notice of the idea. This September, Babson named Zyrra one of three “Most Fascinating Alumni Businesses of 2007.” Andersen said the recognition was “very rewarding” and has proved her doubters wrong. “We talked to a lot of
people in the industry who said this just couldn’t be done,” she said. For $98, customers can experience the style, comfort and support of a Zyrra bra. While the cost is higher than that of most other bras, Andersen said the higher quality is worth the price tag. “Instead of buying three bras from Victoria’s Secret that don’t fit as well, why not buy one bra and actually get to wear it and get some use out of it?” she said. She said Zyrra’s intended demographic is women who are 30 or older and “who have made a little money and have less patience in finding this stuff.” “From what I’ve seen, people are willing to pay that much,” she said. She and Ohly have chosen to sell their product through “bra parties,” similar to Tupperware parties, where a “comfort consultant” measures women for the custom-made bras. Zyrra recently started selling bras in the Boston area, and Andersen said the reaction has been positive so far. “There’s been great reception — we’ve had a lot of people interested all over the country,” she said. Andersen thinks the importance of a good bra for a woman will ac-
count for Zyrra’s success. “If you have a poor-fitting bra, no matter how beautiful your outfit is, you won’t look good,” she said. Andersen said her time at Brown led her in the direction of entrepreneurship. She has fond memories of her time as an undergraduate, saying she spent “a lot of time” at the CIT. Andersen said the problem-solving mindset of a computer science education and her experience at Brown helped her find a solution to ill-fitting bras and take the risk of starting her own company. “What attracted me to Brown was the open curriculum and how Brown encourages you to figure out things for yourself and not to accept the status quo. To me that was very helpful in entrepreneurship in general,” she said. Those were the lessons Andersen applied when founding Zyrra. “It made me look at bras and bra sizes that can’t be found and say, ‘Why can’t this be fixed?’ ” she said. No longer encamped at the CIT, nowadays Andersen juggles looking after her one-month-old baby and expanding the business. “We’re hoping to expand nationwide and developing new styles as we speak,” she said.
C ampus n ews Thursday, October 11, 2007
News
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
i n
Grad student assaulted on North Main St.
Brief
UCS elects webmaster, changes code At the general body meeting of the Undergraduate Council of Students Wednesday night, the council voted in Wudan Yan ’11, a new member, to fill the position of webmaster. The webmaster is in charge of the UCS Web site and is also a voting member of the council. The webmaster can, but does not need to, sit on a committee. Yan is also a design staffer for The Herald. At the meeting last night, UCS also approved a special elections code change to set specific procedures for voting on special elections. The new code contains direction on, after a position becomes vacant, how UCS must vote for a new member, how the elections will be conducted and who is allowed to vote. Student Activities Chair Drew Madden ’10 proposed the change. In other UCS news, Michael Miller ’10 has resigned from his post as alumni liaison. An election will be held at the next meeting to fill that spot. Miller is still a member of UCS but is no longer on the executive board. — Franklin Kanin
by kristina kelleher Senior Staff Writer
The following summary includes all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Sept. 20 and Oct. 3. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents occurring both on and 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. Thursday, Sept. 20: 3:10 p.m. Officers were dispatched to the Brown Office Building in reference to a person or persons writing on the building. Upon arrival, there was no one in the immediate area. There were several different unintelligible markings in various different mediums in red. Facilities Management was notified of the graffiti.
Min Wu / Herald
Caitlin Whelan ‘07.5 has founded a music school in India.
Whelan ’07.5 founds Merasi School in India’s Rajasthan By Christian Martell Staff Writer
Some students spend their summers loafing about, conducting an independent study in television watching and soap opera culture. Caitlin Whelan ’07.5 started a communitybased school in India to preserve the music of one of the country’s lower castes. Whelan, a Truman Scholar, started the Merasi School in January after spending a summer archiving traditional Merasi music for Folk Arts Rajasthan, a New York-based nonprofit that promotes cultural, economic and educational empowerment for the Merasi community. Rajasthan’s 15,000 Merasi — which literally means “musician” — are part of one of the lower castes in India. During her summer archiving music, Whelan would go by the elders’ homes with a tape recorder in hand, where she had the opportunity to talk about the biggest challenges facing the community. Such issues include “marginalized citizen status, crippling poverty and no access to political representation, sustained employment or education,” she said. Whelan and Karen Lukas, director of Folk Arts Rajasthan, knew they wanted a better way to help people socially while preserving their culture. “Modernization is blazing its way through India, and traditional music is rapidly losing its popularity. But their music is the only thing that others respect of the Merasi,” Whelan said. “Yet the younger generations
are put to work and do not have the time to learn the old ways of the Merasi.” “In searching for a way of merging cultural preservation with social mobility, we came to the idea of creating a music school, which would also have a scholastic component,” she said. “But it was important to make the school community-based. ... The people of that community want to make their own decisions. They don’t want some white kid to come in and tell them what to do, then leave them with nothing as soon as they go home.” With this in mind, Whelan found two members of the community to teach at the school, one for the academic portion and one for the music portion. The students range from five to seven years old for the “little group” and eight to 11 years old for the “big group.” Class is two hours a day, six days a week. “We realized quickly that we could not take the kids away from their families for much more than that because of the economic conditions they live in,” Whelan said. The Merasi community in Rajasthan is composed of about 15,000 people, and the school currently reaches 18 boys and girls. In the future, Whelan said she hopes to contract another teacher — preferably a woman from the area — buy a taxi to transport the children safely and secure a building to house the school. “There are few things less powercontinued on page 8
10:22 p.m. Officers were dispatched in reference to a noise complaint in Andrews Hall. Upon arrival at the location, there was loud music, the smell of alcohol in the air and empty beer cans piled on furniture. Information was gathered from all occupants and they were dispersed. RISD Security was also notified as there were many RISD students in attendance. Alcohol found at the scene was disposed of. Friday, Sept. 21: 11:40 p.m. Officer was dispatched to Leung Gallery in Faunce House where a student reported that a rock was thrown through a window. No one in the area could identify who was responsible. Facilities Management was notified and there are no suspects at this time. Sunday, Sept. 23: 2:25 p.m. Student reported that someone had stolen a flag that was hanging out of his room window in Poland House. The incident occurred between 2 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Sept. 23. There was no sign of forced entry or damage. Also, the same student reported vandalism to his whiteboard. Unknown person(s) had written inappropriate comments on his whiteboard. Wednesday, Sept. 26: 3:40 a.m. Of ficer was dispatched and met with a student who stated that she was running the party happening in Buxton House’s lounge area. She stated that the music would be turned off and the partiers inside would disperse immediately. The officer cleared the scene, but after walking through the area several more times found that the loud music and yelling from Buxton House continued. Two officers then dispersed a group of 27 students. Upon the second arrival, a student was smoking a cigarette inside the lounge. After speaking with the student about the rules of no smoking inside buildings on campus, the officer discovered 16 empty bottles of champagne inside the lounge. The students inside the party disposed of the empty containers and dispersed.
Friday, Sept. 28: 3:54 a.m. Officer was dispatched to meet with a Brown student living at an off-campus residence on Meeting Street, who stated that at approximately 3 a.m. she heard a noise in the kitchen of the first floor apartment. Upon walking into the kitchen, she observed a broom which had been extended into the room through an open window on the south side of the house. It seemed the broom was being used to push a chair closer to the window. She also noticed that the south exterior entry door had been opened. The interior entry door leading into the main house was locked. She did not see any suspects in the area. Providence Police was dispatched to the scene and took a report.
CRIME LOG 10:33 a.m. An officer was dispatched to New Pembroke #3, where the officer spoke with a student who stated that at about 2 a.m. she and her roommate were asleep in their dorm room. She stated she is a light sleeper and at that time she heard her dorm-room door click but saw no one come in the room. A few seconds later she heard a second click and still saw no one come into the room. After a few more seconds she opened her eyes again and there was a large white male standing in the room looking in the direction of the beds. She said that the male turned around to her roommate’s desk and was doing something to the laptop. She stated that she got out of bed and confronted the male, asking him what he was doing. The male said, “I live here, don’t worry,” and left the room. She then locked the room door and went back to bed. 6:51 p.m. Student stated that at approximately 5:30 p.m. he left his black wallet and Nokia cell phone in the southeast corner of the practice field next to the soccer goals. He stated that at approximately 6:45 p.m. he returned for his belongings, and they were gone. Sunday, Sept. 30: 7:46 p.m. A Brown student stated that at about 5 p.m. she left her laptop unsecured in a book bag in an unsecured classroom in the Sciences Library. She returned at approximately 7:25 p.m., and the laptop had been taken from the book bag. There are no suspects at this time. Tuesday, Oct. 2: 1:19 a.m. A Brown police officer was on patrol and monitoring radio traffic when he heard the
Sterling Security post at Thayer and Cushing streets request police assistance. The Sterling Security officer stated that a subject was sitting in his car at Thayer and Cushing streets and was in possession of a firearm. While en route to the location, the Brown police officer observed a Providence Police officer in the parking lot at Thayer Street and Fones Alley and requested assistance. The officers responded to the location and approached the vehicle and ordered the subject to place his hands on the steering wheel. Officers asked if he had a gun and he stated yes. The officers approached the subject and took him out of the car. He was ordered to the ground and was thoroughly searched for weapons. None were found. At this time, another Brown police officer searched the car and located a plastic toy gun in the car. After further inquiry into the incident, the toy gun was seized by Brown police, and the Providence Police stated that they would not be arresting the subject. 3:02 p.m. At approximately 3 p.m. an officer was dispatched to the Rockefeller Library for a report of an attempted robbery. The victim, who is a Brown graduate student, stated that at approximately 2:25 p.m. she was crossing North Main Street, across from the RIPTA bus tunnel, when she was attacked from behind by an unknown black female. The suspect demanded her MP3 player and then struck her approximately 4 or 5 times in the back of the head. The suspect then fled on foot east up Waterman Street with four or five other black females approximately 15 to 16 years of age. While at the Rockefeller Library, the victim was complaining of head pain and was taken by a Brown detective to Health Services and was then transported to Rhode Island Hospital. DPS and Providence Police are investigating. 10:25 p.m. Officer was dispatched to the area of Hope and Power streets for a report of a handbag snatch. The victim, a Brown student, stated that she was talking on her cell phone while walking southbound on Hope Street when she heard someone running behind her. As the person(s) ran by, they bumped into her. She described them as two adolescent black males between 12 and 16 years of age. They ran past her eastbound on Power Street toward Governor Street. After they ran past, she realized that they had stolen her handbag. The victim was not injured during the incident. The area was searched to no avail. DPS and Providence Police are investigating.
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Whelan ’07.5 founds music school in India continued from page 7 ful than a physical presence,” Whelan said. “I want the kids to pass by the building and be able to say, ‘This is where I go to school.’ ” Classes are currently being taught in a building belonging to another local nonprofit. In order to go through with her plans, Whelan needs $15,000 in funds — $10,000 more than the original amount needed to start the school. She said the first 100 people to donate $150 will be named part of the “visionary core,” and their names will be featured on a plaque in the new school building. Whelan stumbled upon the community and the project by accident. She took a year and a half off from college after completing her freshman year at Sarah Lawrence College in the outskirts of New York City. Floating from a documentary writing project to an urban arts education program in Maine, she eventually ended up working on an Italian farm for three months. “I remember being in a sunflower field in Italy when I received a fax from Brown telling me my transfer
had gone through,” she said, “but I was accepted for January 2005 and that left me with no real plans for the next few months.” Whelan’s mother told her she would have to get out of the house soon and got her in touch with Lukas. “She’s a one-woman show,” Whelan said, referring to how Lukas ran Folk Arts Rajasthan before she joined. “I remember I had no interest in India whatsoever — not the music, not the food, not anything. South Portland only has two Indian restaurants, and I didn’t really like going to either,” she said. “But getting involved with (FAR and the Merasi) took my world and flipped it on its head,” she said. While her work started with a focus on preserving Merasi culture, she added that the school has another purpose. “This is so that the children can see that there is someone out there that believes in their potential to grow through education,” she said. “Not a day goes by that I don’t walk through the Brown campus and I am not aware of how privileged we are to have this, an education. All I want is to make that accessible to others.”
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w orld & n ation THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
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Defense secretary pleas for Army funding
Solar plants in space could be a viable option
Thursday, October 11, 2007
By Julian E. Barnes Los Angeles T imes
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said the Army needs more money, not just to make up for the losses suffered in Iraq but also for chronic underfunding since the end of the Cold War. But Gates suggested that rather than using additional money to rebuild conventional war capability, the Army should ensure that it does not again forget the painful lessons it was forced to relearn in Iraq about fighting against an insurgency. Gates argued in a speech Wednesday that after the Vietnam War, the Army “relegated unconventional war to the margins” of its training and spending priorities. The decision seemed wise after the first Gulf war but has not looked as good in the years since, he said. “It left the service unprepared to deal with the operations that followed: Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans and more recently Afghanistan and Iraq -- the consequences and costs of which we are still struggling with today,” Gates said in his address to the annual meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army. Gates said that the Army should regain its “traditional edge” in fighting conventional wars. But he emphasized that low-intensity conflicts, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are far more likely to reoccur. America’s rivals have learned, Gates said, that the U.S. military can use its technology to crush standing armies but is vulnerable to “asymmetric” threats, such as roadside bombs.
“We can expect that asymmetric warfare will remain the mainstay of the contemporary battlefield for some time,” Gates said. From 1990 to 2003, the Army was underfunded by about $50 billion -- money that should have gone to new equipment, Gates said. He also suggested that it was a mistake to allocate only about 15 percent of the overall defense budget to the Army. Because of extra funding for the Iraq war, the amount of money going to the Army has increased dramatically in the p ast five years. But Army officers are worried that the money could dry up as the U.S. begins to draw down its forces in Iraq. Gates said the Army needs more to make up for past shortfalls but warned the service to spend wisely. “How those resources are used, and where those investments are made today, will shape the Army for decades to come,” he said. “We do not get the dollars or the opportunity to reset very often. So its vital that we get it right.” Gates comments appeared to signal that he is willing to prioritize the needs of the Army, which historically has received a smaller share of defense budgets than the Navy or Air Force, whose fighter plane programs and aircraft carriers cost billions. Gates appeared willing to spend billions to enlarge the Army and to commit resources to retain the best young soldiers. But at the same time, the service might have to work to justify the relevance of new weapons systems that critics have said are better suited to conventional battles than low-intensity fights.
In his speech, Gates said the Army must also make sure it does not forget about the “human and cultural dimensions” of the battlefield, even as it develops newer and better technology. As an example, he said the best defenses against roadside bombs are not new technologies but better ways to win over locals, so they can help soldiers find the bombs before they explode. He also called on the Army to develop new capabilities, such as foreign language skills, and suggested that the militar y will continue to be asked to take part in nation-building, an activity that soldiers once expected civilians to handle. “Army soldiers can expect to be tasked with reviving public services, rebuilding infrastructure and promoting good governance,” Gates said. “All these so-called `nontraditional’ capabilities have moved into the mainstream of militar y thinking, planning and strategy, where they must stay.” In the years to come, the Army would continue to have to spend much of its efforts training the militaries of other nations, as it is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gates said. Some officers in the Army want the service to create a special Advisor Corps that would focus on such training, while others want all soldiers to be able to help with training. Gates did not take sides in the debate but seemed to encourage the discussion to continue. “How the Army should be organized and prepared for this advisor y role remains and open question,” he said, “and will require innovative and for ward thinking.”
Black professor says noose won’t silence her By Rocco Parascandola Newsday
NEW YORK — Columbia University professor Madonna Constantine made it perfectly clear Wednesday she won’t compromise who she is just because someone hung a noose on her office door. “I want the perpetrator to know I will not be silenced,” the black professor of psychology said as tears welled in her eyes. “I will not be silenced.” Her public proclamation during an afternoon rally on the steps of the university’s Teachers College, with about 100 students cheering her on, capped a day of high emotions and denunciations — but no arrest. A colleague had found a 4-foot long twine rope that had been hand-fashioned into a hangman’s noose hanging on Constantine’s office door. Word of the find — a symbol of racial hatred from the South — sent shockwaves through the Columbia community and prompted an investigation by the New York Police Department’s Hate Crime Task Force. “Our mission as a university includes addressing the most important and searing issues of our time, and we have a particular obligation to respond forcefully to events that affront our values,” Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger said in a statement.
Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood, commander of the task force, said Wednesday that a suspect has yet to be identified and that investigators are hoping the suspect left behind DNA evidence while making the noose. Police sources said detectives are reviewing videotape from surveillance cameras outside the building. Detectives are also interviewing Constantine’s students and colleagues, including a woman who recently had complained about losing a faculty spot in the psychology department to Constantine, sources said. Court records show what appears to be pending civil litigation, with Constantine, 44, in May filing a suit against the other professor. No further details were available. Osgood would not address that issue. Constantine, author of “Addressing Racism,” a book about racism in educational and mental health settings, spoke only briefly Wednesday, saying at the rally that she had fielded phone calls of support from professors here and abroad, and blasting the suspect as a coward. “I’m upset that our community has been exposed to such an unbelievably vile incident and I would like us to stay strong in the face of such a blatant act of racism,” she said. “Hanging a noose on my door reeks of cowardice and fear
on many, many levels.” The noose was likely hung sometime after 11:30 p.m. Monday, four hours after Constantine left her office, Osgood said. The rally supporting Constantine was followed by a closed-door meeting in which several hundred students met with Teachers College President Susan Fuhrman. The meeting morphed into a broader discussion about campus security and race, with a number of black students calling for more minority professors and decrying the sense of isolation they feel on campus. “I have a class right now with more than 60 students and I’m the only African-American in class,” student Annice Kpana said afterward. “And that’s a problem.” Other students and faculty members on campus, however, were focused on Constantine, whom they described in glowing terms. Alyson Vogel said Constantine helped form diversity discussions among professors, an initiative that fostered frank, honest discussions about racism. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the noose, regardless of motive, “is despicable.” And state Sen. Bill Perkins, interviewed on campus, said the incident shows “this ivory tower is not immune to racism.” Peter Holley, Maria Alvarez and Karla Schuster contributed to this report.
By Theo Milonopoulos Los Angeles Times
Beam it down, Scotty. A new federal study released Wednesday concluded that continued increases in oil prices finally might make the generation of solar power in orbit economically competitive. The report urged the government to sponsor a demonstration of the technology to spur private investment in the concept. The orbiting power plants would reduce the nation’s dependence on imported oil and help reduce the production of carbon dioxide that is contributing to global warming, according to the report led by the National Security Space Office, part of the Department of Defense. “This is a solution for all mankind,” said former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, now chairman of the spaceflight advocacy group ShareSpace Foundation. Aldrin joined with a group of other space advocacy organizations to unveil the report in Washington. Since the advent of the space age 50 years ago, scientists have dreamed of launching acres of photovoltaic cells into orbit and beaming the electricity electromagnetically to Earth’s surface but have stumbled over the cost of the project and the technical difficulties. The report estimated that in a single year, satellites in a continuously sunlit orbit could generate an amount of energy nearly equivalent
to the energy available in all of the world’s oil reserves. Mark Hopkins, senior vice president of the National Space Society, said space-based solar energy could generate so much power that it could transform the United States from an energy-importing into an energy-exporting nation. “It is the largest energy option which is available to us today in the sense that it would derive more power potentially than all of the other power sources combined,” Hopkins said. NASA and the Department of Energy have spent $80 million over the past three decades to study spacebased solar energy, but the effort petered out in the mid-1990s. Critics have charged that groundbased solar energy is more economical. But putting the solar factories in space would allow them to operate 24 hours a day and would eliminate interference by clouds and adverse weather, said Charles Miller, director of the Space Frontier Foundation. Miller conceded that, even if implementation started immediately, it would take at least 10 years before energy could be produced in significant quantities, and it would take several generations of satellites to reduce the cost of the technology to a reasonably low level. But, he added: “Our energy dependence and potential global warming problems are long-term problems. ... So on a time scale, this solution matches up if we start investing now.”
Thursday, October 11, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Erik Ornitz / Herald File Photo
A temporary swimming pool is currently under construction behind the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center.
U.: pool isn’t a tradeoff for new dorm continued from page 1 when the Smith Swim Center closed, the administration devoted all its planning and investigation resources to solve that immediate problem.” McDonald said he was never explicitly told that plans for the new dorm had been tabled, but he said this was clear from interactions with administrators and “from what the communications have been.” Since the closure of the Smith Swim Center, the University has sought an adequate and affordable facility for the University’s swimming, diving and water polo teams. In May, the Corporation approved the construction of a temporar y pool to open in Januar y, costing between $3.7 million and $4.2 million. Members also approved the construction of a permanent pool that will cost between $32 million and $34 million. Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 told The Herald last week that the new swim center was not a “one-for-one tradeoff” for a new dorm and that construction of a new facility does not mean the new dorm will automatically be pushed aside. He and another University official said concrete plans have not been made for either the construction or postponement of a new dorm. “No decisions have been made at this point, and there is still a lot of
concern about housing,” Carey said. He added in an e-mail to The Herald that the University’s capital plan “is constantly under review and priorities are adjusted as needed based on the University’s highest needs and available resources.” Elizabeth Huidekoper, executive vice president for finance and administration, told The Herald last week, “No decisions have been made on how to accommodate the swim center in the University’s budget.” Huidekoper said the Corporation will resolve this issue at its meeting this weekend. Still, student leaders said it became clear early in discussions last spring that the University would postpone the new dorm project to make room for the swim center in its budget, even though the project had received a great deal of support from the Corporation, which “wanted the timeline sped up” and formed an ad hoc committee to examine the issue. Though plans for a new dorm had not been finalized, the Corporation gave approval at its October 2006 meeting for administrators to begin planning a new undergraduate housing facility. Carey told The Herald last October that building new housing had “definitely emerged as a higher priority.” Carey told The Herald last week that there had been “early discussions” about a new dorm but that
“no proposals have gone forward to take it to the next level.” But according to minutes from the October 2006 Corporation meeting, campus life officials had identified and evaluated several building sites for a new dorm, developed a financial model for the project and solicited student opinion. Now the project has stopped moving forward, as Carey told students in September that the construction of a new dorm would not happen in the next few years as planned, one of the student leaders said. But Simmons’ call at last week’s faculty meeting for a reassessment of the Plan for Academic Enrichment could put the dorm back on the table as Brown’s priorities and capital projects are re-evaluated. One student present in meetings where the re-evaluation was discussed, said several University projects have effectively been put on hold until February, when the new priorities will be established. New housing captured greater attention last year as part of an effort to increase the number of students living on campus from 80 percent to 90 percent, Carey said. As more seniors choose to live in dorms, an increasing number of juniors are choosing to live off campus, he said, adding that it is “discouraging that we don’t have enough housing to have both juniors and seniors on campus.”
Rochelson: Yanks’ prospects not all gloomy continued from page 16 is 38 and fading fast. A simple acquisition could patch this hole up, and potential free agent lefthander Randy Wolf looks like a solution I could stomach. His 4.73 ERA doesn’t blow you away, but his age (31) and his ability to keep the ball in the park would be a significant upgrade over Moose. What about A-Rod? Can New York really replace a .314 batting average, 54 home runs and stellar defense at third base? Of course not, but it may not need to. As much as I struggle to accept Boston-to-New-York conver-
sions, Mike Lowell would make a serviceable replacement for A-Rod. Of course, we shouldn’t expect a repeat of his numbers in 2007, when he hit .373 at Fenway Park and .276 away from home. But Lowell, who started his career as a Yankee, would bring a steady average and consistent power to a streaky team. The media is causing a lot of fuss about the imminent departure of Torre, but a change of leadership is exactly what the Yankees need. This team has been treading water for seven years, leaving New York fans frustrated, sullen and bored. Any new manager, even the Torre-
groomed Don Mattingly, is likely to have a little more fire in his belly than Poker Face Joe. The past few postseasons, the Yankees have lacked that ever-elusive spark and intensity. A new manager, hopefully the patient-yet-excitable Joe Girardi, is exactly what the doctor ordered. Derek Jeter has four World Series rings, and I know his pinky feels left out. A re-mastered 2008 team may be just what the Captain needs.
Ellis Rochelson ’09 thinks Robby Cano should double as the team’s hitting coach.
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Thursday, October 11, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
RISD glass dept. small but dynamic continued from page 1 students are required to take technical glass work classes, such as glassblowing, cold-working or casting and mold making, paired with yearlong studio courses. The studio courses allow students to use and develop the skills they learn though problemsolving assignments, critiques and lectures. Though small, the glass department is growing. Last year, there were no seniors in the program, but this year 11 sophomores have joined. Still, only six students can blow glass at one time — a relatively large number in terms of glass-working facilities, but also a limiting one in terms of the program’s capacity for growth.
Students don’t complain, though — most enjoy the closeness fostered by the department’s size. “I don’t want to be in a big department,” said Emily Segal, a RISD sophomore. In the glass department, “everyone knows each other,” she added. “Relationships between people are much more intense than in other departments,” said Yuka Otani, a third-year graduate student at RISD. When asked what she plans to do after RISD, Otani said, “I am very interested in teaching. I have some background in working for a museum, so that is a possible place I could fit into.” As part of its robust visiting artists program, the department hosts
up to six artists each year to lecture, host workshops and participate in studio critiques. This year, one of the department’s visiting artists is RISD alum Bohyun Yoon, who will stay on campus for the entire academic year to teach two courses. “I try to break away from the conventional view of glass as something beautiful, fragile and delicate. I try to see glass from a different angle,” Yoon told glass students in a lecture last week. Yoon has done many projects that involve the unique characteristics of glass, such as its acoustic properties. He also explores body image and how it is shaped and affected by culture and media, a theme that is apparent in his use of glass, mirrors and the nude figure in many of his pieces.
Club tennis hosts tourney this weekend continued from page 16 the other talent in club tennis at other schools.” The women got a big boost from the men, who, after being moved to the Athletics Department, decided to join the USTA last year. The USTA requires member teams to be co-ed, so the men’s and women’s teams united. Both teams have greatly benefitted from joining the association. Before, the club teams had to schedule their own matches and tournaments. Now, the USTA helps out with scheduling and logistics, allowing teams to focus more on playing and having fun. “We have a lot of high-caliber players,” said men’s co-captain Alex Baker ’09. “We have guys who were either just cut from the varsity team or could be playing Division III.” Not ever ything is peachy for the two teams, though. While the move to the athletics department has brought the teams more fund-
ing, access to facilities remains a major problem. Brown already had a shortage of tennis courts even before eight recreational courts behind the Pizzitola Center were paved over this summer to make way for new parking lots and a new temporary pool for the swimming and diving teams. To make matters worse, Brown varsity teams have priority over the varsity courts, the Moses Brown School charges for court usage and Hope High School must attend to its own teams before scheduling time for Brown students. “Court time is impossible,” Herrero said. In the winter, with only four indoor courts at the Pizzitola Center, playing time is even harder to come by. “In the winter, club teams have no priority over faculty, students or local Providence residents on the indoor courts,” Baker said. Despite the obstacles the programs face, both the men’s and women’s teams are optimistic about
the future. They are looking forward to the spring, when they are aiming to send four players from each squad to a national tournament in South Carolina that includes 74 other schools. They will likely need to apply for extra funding to do so, because, as Baker explained, “It is expensive to send four guys and four girls to South Carolina. We are hoping to get additional assistance when the time comes.” In addition to the club opponents against whom Brown has been playing almost every Saturday, Baker hopes to be able to schedule matches with Division III varsity opponents through the USTA. With the upcoming home tournament this weekend, club tennis will take a major step toward its newfound ambitious goals, and Baker is happy with the progress so far. “Two years ago this program basically didn’t exist,” he said. “Now we are hosting our first tournament ever. It is pretty exciting.”
midterms are almost over
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Courtesy of Max Schoening
Stephen Salisbury ’09, Max Schoening ’09, Justine McGowan ’08, Tihtina Zenebe Gebre ’09, Colin Chazen ’09 and Ryan Heath ’05 traveled to Africa last spring to document success stories of microfinance in Kenya.
Students and alum film in W. Kenya continued from page 5 three businesses, which helped her begin to provide for her children. One business centered around selling produce, and another involved scrap metal. “People feel isolated (without the loans), but once they start getting loans, they become uplifted,” Schoening said. Another memorable Kenyan was an entrepreneur whose brother had died. He took on the responsibility of providing for his brother’s family, with about 20 dependents, Schoening said. But through microfinance, the entrepreneur started a general
store in order to support his family and his brother’s family. The students estimate that they spent about $9,000 on the trip to Kenya, most of which was raised during the spring semester of last year. Departments at the University provided about half of the $9,000, and the other half was provided by private donors. “(Fundraising) was very difficult, but we ended up doing it. Brown ended up being really supportive,” Salisbury said. The students said the trip was entirely worth the difficulties posed by fundraising. “To be able to see ever ybody (on the trip) going through the lifestyle transition and
the emotional toll … reminded me that traveling in a group was really powerful,” McGowan said. In addition to compiling footage, the students took advantage of the experience in other ways as well. Schoening, for example, took photographs that are now featured on Kiva’s Web site. Schoening also hopes to use his photographs in an independent study this semester, in which he will explore how Africa is portrayed by the Western traveler. The Brown chapter of Students of the World is currently planning a third trip to Africa to film another documentary.
Bears beat BC’s Eagles, 1-0, in OT continued from page 16 In the second half, BC leveled the play in the early going. In the first 15 minutes of the half, goalkeeper Paul Grandstrand ’11 came off his line multiple times to corral crosses, loose balls and even make a diving save where he tipped a shot wide of the cage. Brown had opportunities too, but the BC defense, anchored by its goalie, bent but never broke. Down the stretch, Brown regained some of its lost momentum, pressuring BC down to the final whistle of regulation. Noonan said it was the small details which pushed Brown over the top in the end in last night’s showdown.
“When you get two teams that are evenly matched, its the little things that matter,” he said. “We were five percent better on the little things.” Brown’s hard work and attention to detail finally paid off in the first overtime. After surviving BC’s two free kick opportunities late in regulation, Bruno pulled out its second straight overtime triumph when, in the third minute of overtime, Okafor received a ball out wide from the midfield on a counterattack. Just as he neared the sideline, he was fouled and a quick restart yielded a cross from Walls into the center for forward Dylan Sheehan ’09. With his back to the goal just inside the 18-yard box, Sheehan laid the ball
back for midfielder Laurent Manuel ’08 who charged onto the ball and blasted a laser at knee level into the right corner of the goal. “I just struck it well,” Manuel said. “I kept it low and followed through.” The goal was Manuel’s first in his collegiate career. “I had no clue what to do after,” he said. With two important overtime wins under its belt, the team will travel to No. 7 Harvard on Saturday at noon for a showdown between two Ivy League contenders. “Harvard ... there is really nothing you can say (to do justice to) that game,” an exhausted but ecstatic Manuel said.
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E ditorial & L etters Page 14
Thursday, October 11, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
S t a f f E d i to r i a l
Professional advice, please Following a flurry of deans’ flight from University Hall, pre-law, pre-med and fellowship advising — once the jurisdiction of three separate advisers, — have been consolidated into only two hybrid positions. In the wake of longtime dean Perry Ashley’s departure at the end of last semester, Andrew Simmons and Linda Dunleavy, formerly advisers for health careers and fellowships, respectively, have jointly taken on advising pre-law students, who are, well, virtually all of us who may be undecided about our futures. Though the turmoil has been confusing for seniors eager for guidance, we’re thankful that just a couple of months into the job, Dunleavy and Simmons appear to be well-coordinated, organized and informed. Still, it is difficult to believe that their collective efforts can be as effective as the work of three deans in past years, particularly considering the loss of someone as experienced as Ashley. If the University truly intends to demonstrate support for Brown students seeking to enter professional schools, it should designate a separate adviser — one who is not already tangled up in other advising commitments. Given the vast number of students who consider law school at some point in their self-directed liberal arts education, an informed, engaged pre-law adviser is just as important as a pre-med or fellowship dean. In the void created by Ashley’s departure, the University at least had the opportunity to rethink pre-professional advising at Brown. Instead, it came up with a patchwork solution.
Medicine without borders In just the past few years, the medical school has made significant strides to improve its reputation. In light of the recent $100-million gift and planned creation of a new medical campus, the Warren Alpert Medical School has become much more appealing for applicants. The partnership with Zhejiang University, formalized last night, can only add to that appeal and hopefully foreshadows even more growth and progress for the comparatively new medical school. Rotations and electives abroad will complement an already strong program in global health — the Med School has over 50 faculty with experience in international health and receives “substantial NIH and foundation funding,” according to the Web site for the Med School’s scholarly concentration in global health. Global health is an increasingly popular field, both at Brown and nationally, and expanding the Med School’s offerings abroad is essential for Brown to keep pace with its peer institutions. The formalization of the University’s partnership with China is a landmark for Brown’s internationalization efforts, which have, until now, consisted solely of rhetoric and a report. With the upcoming appointment of Brown’s vice president for international affairs, we look forward to seeing what other new partnerships, programs and possibilities internationalization might offer.
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L e tt e r s ‘Maroon march’ was not in vain To the Editor: I’m sorry Rachel Forman ’09 was misled regarding the Sept. 28 Maroon March in support of the monkled protests in Burma (“Forman ’09 questions impact of ‘red day’ for Burma,” Oct. 4). Let me address her concerns here: “Grassroots organizing that doesn’t reach beyond the grassroots is a terribly ineffective foreign policy tool.” In fact, the Sept. 28 event held at Brown was part of a series of simultaneous international events where over a dozen U.S. campuses held similar “red days,” as well as universities in Chile, Italy and Norway. These events can and do influence foreign policy. Former President of Brazil Fernando Cardoso addressed the Maroon March gathering at Brown, promising to bring attention to Burma before the Club of Madrid, a pro-democracy organization of former world presidents. Professor Paulo Pinheiro, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma, also spoke, saying he would deliver the Brown demonstrators’ message when attending a special U.N. session in Geneva regarding Burma. “I find it pompous and self-important, not to mention delusional, to assume that the governments in Burma or China care about what Brown students think (or what color shirts they wear.)” The rally was not meant to address the governments of Burma or China. The entire purpose of the rally was to add to the collective national attention
concerning Burma (Brown’s event aired on the local NBC affiliate) so that the leaders of our own government could be persuaded toward positive action. That is why we invited former Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who has held a stance against the Burmese regime for the past twenty years, to be the keynote speaker at Brown’s demonstration. Above all else, the goal of the Maroon March was to raise awareness about the atrocities that are still going on in Burma right now. As Forman said, there probably were students at Brown who knew nothing about Burma before the “red day.” Maybe they were embarrassed that they didn’t know more about the issues and felt peer-pressured to wear red. However, I bet many of those people went home that Friday to search for Burma on the web to find out more. If the campus could go from a minority of people knowing that Burma even exists, to nearly everyone on campus at least aware that there are brutal human rights violations in Burma, then I think some progress was made toward improving awareness on the issue. We cannot wait in ignorance until thousands have been murdered and the protests are over, and only then talk about what should have been done. Forman might have taken those fifteen minutes to write to her local congressman, as she recommended in her letter. Andrew Lim ‘08 US Campaign for Burma Brown Chapter Oct. 6
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O pinions Thursday, October 11, 2007
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Schoolhouse Rock, where the cool kids are in class MAHA ATAL Opinions Columnist
This past summer, the New York Times Magazine invited students to write essays responding to an article by author Richard Perlstein. In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I entered the contest and lost. Perlstein’s piece, “What’s the Matter with College,” addressed how the dichotomy between campuses and the mainstream — the driving force for countercultural liberal activism in the 1960’s — has been replaced by a generation of overachieving college students too success-driven to take the risks involved in political protest or social experimentation, too concerned with being “normal” to work for social change. When all the entries appeared online last week, what interested me most wasn’t the content of students’ theories about activism and youth rebellion. It was the fact that those subjects were the defining features of “college” in almost every essay. Accepting the terms of Perlstein’s argument — even where they disagreed with his politics — students, myself included, used the presence of activist causes and alternative fashion to measure the health of college in America. It’s commonplace today to think of college more as a cultural phenomenon, a rite of passage, the “best years of your life,” than as an academic experience. That terminology owes much to the 1960’s radical students Perlstein has in mind: When they protested for social change and allied their cause to that of black civil rights, working class rights or women’s liberation, they had to overcome one contradic-
tion. Women, the poor and black Americans were disenfranchised by circumstance or by birth, while middle-class college students were privileged, attending some of the best universities in the country and electing to join the ranks of the lumpen proletariat on moral grounds. To do so, they rejected their privilege: They cut class, staged sit-ins and protested against the social engineering of bourgeois universities. Instead, they framed college as a cultural institution and claimed their status as a distinct social class defined by fashions, political values and musical tastes, rather than as members
the political ideologies that made him famous has me thinking that maybe science is the new political ideology. The fact that students turned up in large numbers to see the debate suggests that topics of academic research are the new cultural zeitgeist. Think of our continual debates about biotechnology, stem-cell research or global warming. The answers to those debates are being pioneered in labs on college campuses. More convincing for those who see cultural change as paramount is the way educators are using new technologies. For years, we’ve watched academia acclimate to the Internet,
When they can be uploaded for the benefit of the general population, events in the classroom can actually be agents of change in the world at large. of the middle class set apart simply by their academic engagement. Perlstein may be right that this brand of political protest is dead on America’s campuses. But I wonder if the inherited focus on the culture and politics of students makes college today seem less like a driver for change than it actually is. Last week, political theorist Francis Fukuyama filled an auditorium here at Brown to debate a Princeton University biologist about genetic engineering. That Fukuyama was discussing science research instead of
version 1.0, with JStor articles, podcasts and course Web sites. Mostly, these are conveniences that improve education for those already inside the academic cloister. But Web 2.0 is all about universality, about content that reaches groups well beyond its intended audience, about the unpredictable ways that items online link people together. In the last week, I’ve seen the first signs of education 2.0, of education gone viral. The University of California-Berkeley announced its own YouTube channel. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton
are fighting over campus space in the virtual world Second Life. Professors from each of these schools interviewed in the press argue that the new technologies are more than cool gadgets for them: they are new ways of thinking about teaching, and they are changing the way students learn. They are changing who does the learning — you don’t have to pay for Princeton to go to Princeton in Second Life. You don’t have to get into Berkeley to simulate biology labs. Education, of the highest caliber, is actually available to everyone, without undermining the experience for the on-campus select — isn’t that a social change, a kind of liberal activism, coming from the campus world? When they can be uploaded for the benefit of the general population, events in the classroom can actually be agents of change in the world at large. Science research, social theory, educational policy — innovations in all these fields have always come from in academia. But solutions proposed by academics have often been received with a social stigma when they entered mainstream politics as advice from on high, from a world that most people could not access. With higher education, version 2.0, accessible to every computer user in America, it’s no longer a privilege that the university activist should have to hide from the public eye. Which is perhaps why today’s college students feel a lot less angst about taking advantage of those privileges, studying for LSATs or preparing for their careers. When your professors are podcasting and their virtual avatars are curing cancer, toeing the line and hitting the books may be a student’s fastest route to the avant-garde.
Maha Atal ’08 goes to Brown, but her avatar just graduated from MIT.
Break the silence surrounding sexual assault at Brown BY LILY SHIELD Opinions Columnist Brunonians may remember last year’s controversy surrounding sexual assault that mildly echoed the then-more salient issue of alleged police brutality and accountability. In the Department of Public Safety’s annual crime report from 2005, the department initially reported that zero instances of sexual assault had occurred on campus. When questioned about this dubious claim, the administration and DPS cited internal mishandling of the statistics and amended the number to four. Four assaults is still not that grave a statistic, you may think. However, the truth is that neither zero nor four comes even close to conveying the truth surrounding this most underreported crime. The facts are grim. One in six American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime, and the number is even worse for college women: one in four annually. According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network) almost 60 percent of all these assaults go unreported. That statistic is likely far higher on college campuses: The “hook-up culture,” coupled with alcohol prevalence and social stigma, succeed fantastically at casting doubt over whether a crime occurred at all, as well as at perpetuating feelings of self-blame and guilt among victims. The estimated 10 to 20 percent of sexual assault victims who are male are even less likely to come forward. But let’s set aside the issue of how prevalent these incidents may or may not be at Brown for a moment, and discuss the larger problem. Regardless of how often rape and other forms of assault happen on Brown’s campus, the reality is that they happen to
people who go to Brown and are committed by people who go to Brown. For the past two years, I have attended the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance’s annual Take Back the Night — a public speak-out for anyone with a story to share about an instance of sexual or domestic violence, with the intention of breaking the silence surrounding these issues and reclaiming spaces we have learned to fear. Both years, Brown students spoke for close to three hours about their personal experiences, which had occurred both on campus and off (needless to say, the number of speakers far exceeded four). Still,
and help — as well as to adequate options to pursue against perpetrators. For a school of our size and with our money, Brown has an appalling lack of resources dedicated to helping sexual assault survivors. If a student calls Psychological Services or Health Services after hours (when the vast majority of sexual assaults occur), their only option is to go to Health Services, where the 24-hour workers are the same people who would assist a student who has had too much to drink or who has broken their leg. There is a psychological clinician on call if requested, but that person is not a specialist. Someone
For a school of our size and with our money, Brown has an appalling lack of resources dedicated to helping sexual assault survivors. even with three hours of stories, the audience and speakers in attendance did not fill even half of Salomon 001. I couldn’t help wondering about the number of stories remaining untold on our campus. Sexual assault is silencing for many reasons. Survivors often face blame from society, friends or family for what happened to them, for any number of irrational reasons. Obviously there is a pressing need for this absurd stigma to be addressed and overcome. Perhaps even more critical in keeping victims from coming forward is a severe lack of access to a comprehensive range of resources
who has just suffered a sexual assault and has had the courage to seek immediate help requires the attention of a trained specialist who knows how to address the issue with sensitivity and expertise. We also have no University-sanctioned support group, no resource center dedicated solely to the issue and only very recently launched a Web site — poorly publicized and ill-received — to advertise the few resources that are available for sexual assault, dating abuse and harassment and discrimination. That Web site tells you to call the general Psychological Services number for “Sexual As-
sault and Harassment Crisis Support,” despite the fact that if you call after hours you receive a message informing you that if you have been sexually assaulted, you must hang up and redial the number for Health Services. I’ll give credit where credit is due: emergency contraception, which is a crucial resource for sexual assault victims that must be administered in a timely manner, is always available at Health Services. We also have an advocates program to help students who want to pursue legal action of any kind. However, based on first-hand accounts I have heard from students who attempted to take action, disciplinary proceedings against perpetrators are often poorly handled, difficult to access and not encouraged as an option for victims. Why? The reason likely falls along the same lines as why we have so few resources in the first place: students and administrators alike at this school are reluctant to acknowledge the sobering reality that sexual assault happens here. We are reluctant to acknowledge that the perpetrators are Brown students. Luckily, a group of students has formed a Sexual Assault Task Force to address the critical need at Brown for comprehensive resources, trained assistance and options for survivors to pursue against assailants. They have already taken the initiative in creating an effective resource center as well as a support group. Though it is long overdue, at least some are finally recognizing the fact that universities need to be places with resources like these, since survivors may be unable to get them at home. Comprehensive and accessible resources are the first steps towards ending the highly destructive silence surrounding sexual assault.
Lily Shield ’09 thinks you should make noise, lots of noise.
S ports T hursday Page 16
Thursday, October 11, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Overtime pay: M. soccer bests No. 11 BC in extra time By Jason Harris Assistant Spor ts Editor
As the second half wound down in last night’s men’s soccer game, the dormant crowd that half-filled Stevenson Field slowly came to life. Brown possessed the ball in Boston College territory, pounding at the door with the score tied 0-0. With each Bears scoring chance, the crowd buzzed with increasing anticipation, certain the next shot would find its way into the back of the net. The game between the two Northeast heavyweights looked destined for overtime, but BC threatened twice in the final two minutes, forcing the stadium to hold its collective breath. But two Eagle free kicks were slightly off target. Overtime once again. After its dramatic 2-1 overtime win on Saturday in its Ivy League opener against Princeton, letdown was not an option for Brown on Wednesday. The 20th-ranked Bears (8-1-1, 1-0 Ivy League) faced off with No. 11 Boston College (7-2-1). Despite coming off an emotional win against the Tigers, Brown was up to the challenge of facing the Eagles and pulled out another thrilling overtime victory, this time by a score of 1-0. The Bears came out strong against BC, controlling the midfield early on despite slipper y conditions. Brown’s midfielders executed a number of one- and two-touch combination plays in the middle of the pitch to generate scoring opportunities despite the wet turf. “We outnumbered them in the midfield,” said Head Coach Mike Noonan. “It was (a strategy) that was successful last year against (Boston College).” One promising chance came in the eighth minute when midfielder Chris Roland ’10 played a ball from the midfield down the right flank for streaking defender David Walls ’11. Walls touched the ball by his defender, who slipped on the wet grass, then found midfielder Jon Okafor ’11 inside the 18-yard box. Okafor took one touch and fired low
said. “We were especially focused because they are one of the best teams around.” Walls in particular had to pay extra close attention to the Eagle attackers. He played the last 30 minutes of the game with a contact lens from teammate Andy D’Avanzo ’11, after his own fell out.
I watched Game 4 with my Yankee cap inside out and my teeth gnawing at my fingernails. The anxiety and frustration grew after every pathetic inning. I saw A-Rod strikeout twice against Paul “Barely a Professional Athlete” Byrd, both times on three pitches. Ellis Rochelson I saw Derek “Captain Clutch” Jeter MLB Exclusive ground into a double play at the worst possible time. And I groaned as Jorge Posada flailed at a Joe Borowski junk ball to eliminate the Yankees from the playoffs. And I thought to myself — something has to change. More than likely, something will change this offseason. A lot of things. The following 2007 Yankees stars may be in a different uniform (or no uniform at all) come next season: Starting pitcher Roger Clemens, starting pitcher Andy Pettitte, manager Joe Torre, Posada, closer Mariano Rivera and likely AL Most Valuable Player Alex Rodriguez. All of these Yanks played major roles in the team’s meteoric rise to the playoffs in 2007. It is likely New York will retain a few of these stars — especially homegrown fanfavorites Posada and Rivera — so let’s imagine they lose all the others. Well, even then, the Bronx could be just fine. The starting rotation in 2008, without Clemens and Pettitte, looks like this: Chien-Ming Wang, 27 years old, Philip Hughes, 21, Mike Mussina, 38, Joba Chamberlain, 22, and Ian Kennedy, 22. This is a beautiful starting rotation, with four homegrown talents and very high ceilings for youngsters Hughes and Chamberlain. Still, this staff has two major flaws. First there are no lefties, and Mussina
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Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo
To keep the men’s soccer team’s overtime record unblemished, the Bears needed a well-placed strike from Laurent Manuel ’08 in the first overtime. The Bears have won two straight overtime games.
to the near post from the right side, but BC goalkeeper Chris Brown cut down the angle and made a sliding save. At 6-foot-5-inches, Brown was a huge thorn in Bruno’s side all night, cutting off crosses and using his extensive reach to make diving saves. “He was a big boy,” Noonan said. “It helped that the referee protected
Sports
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him when he dropped balls.” The BC keeper’s play helped preserve a scoreless tie throughout the first half, though Bruno challenged on a number of occasions in the frame. The Brown defense held its own as well, surrendering its only shot on goal with just 7:50 to play in the half. “We had been conceding freak goals the last few games,” Walls
Brief
M. soccer’s Grandstrand ’11 named rookie of week
Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo
Paul Grandstand ’11 is the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Week. He also picked up another victory with last night’s 1-0 win over Boston College.
Paul Grandstrand ’11 was in the goal for just 23 minutes, but those were moments to remember. For his work in the men’s soccer team’s thrilling, 2-1 overtime victory over Princeton on Saturday, Grandstrand was selected Ivy League Rookie of the Week. With the Bears behind 1-0 with 18 minutes remaining in the second half, Grandstrand took the field, making two saves before Chistopher Roland ’10 tied the game at one goal apiece. Grandstrand continued to guard the goal well, holding the Tigers scoreless in overtime and giving the Bears enough time to build up their attack. Nick ElenzMartin ’10 scored the game-winning goal after only five minutes of overtime play and Grandstand was credited with the victory. With another win under his belt, Grandstrand remains undefeated in 2007, posting a 4-0-1 record. The rookie standout has already recorded 16 saves in his first season with the Bears. — Erin Frauenhofer
The worst-case scenario for Yanks actually isn’t that bad
Club tennis teams to host on-campus tournament By Jason Harris Assistant Spor ts Editor
With the U.S. Open just a speck in the rearview mirror, and the men’s and women’s varsity tennis teams away this weekend, it might seem as though there is nowhere to go on campus to see some quality tennis. But a closer look will reveal another option for eager tennis fans. This Saturday will bring something never before seen at Brown: A club tennis tournament. Both the men’s and women’s club tennis teams will host an array of United States Tennis Association club opponents this weekend. Though it may not seem like a big deal — the men’s club soccer team, for instance, hosted a tournament just two weeks ago — club tennis at Brown has come a long way in a short time. Just two years ago, the members were living off $90 of annual funding, enough to buy balls
for a few months of practice. Now that jurisdiction over club sports has shifted from the Student Activities Office to the Department of Athletics, the program has $1,000 to play with — still small relative to the other club sports, but a start. “We are still paying for our own balls,” said women’s co-captain Tina Herrero ’10. The women’s team has experienced quite the revitalization. Last year it played only two organized matches. “Last year was a joke,” Herrero said. “We had three practices a week, but they weren’t taken very seriously.” This year the women still have fluctuating attendance at practice, but the players are showing more commitment. “We wanted something more structured, more competitive,” said co-captain Laura Sammartino ’10. “We want to see continued on page 12