Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The Brown Daily Herald T uesday, O ctober 16, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 89

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

As IRB debate grows, profs push for reform

By Ross Frazier News Editor

Though for some time there has been debate among faculty — especially in the social sciences — over procedures governing ethical oversight for research involving human subjects, there has been little institutional movement toward reform.

But the volume of debate, both at the University and around the country, is on the rise, and faculty are yet again pushing for change.

At Brown, the Faculty Executive Committee, a governance body comprising 10 professors, will meet with members of the Research Advisory Board and concerned professors later this month to discuss possible

reforms of Brown’s Institutional Review Board, one of the 5,564 federally mandated ethical review panels that must approve their institutions’ human-subject research, including everything from medical studies to sociology questionnaires and oral history interviews.

The FEC has heard from professors in the past, particularly

those in the social sciences, who were concerned that the IRB’s approval process is too slow to allow undergraduates to submit thesis proposals to complete their work before graduation, said FEC Chair Ruth Colwill, associate professor of psychology. Others, she said, are

Holbrooke ’62 criticizes U.S. foreign policy Former U.N. ambassador calls for more student involvement in politics

continued on page 8

By Scott Lowenstein Senior Staff Writer

Remembering swearer

UCS struggles to retain upperclassmen

calculate how fast the head is moving at the point of impact. “(They are) basically the sensors that set off the airbags in your car during a collision,” Crisco said.

In addition to head acceleration, the sensors measure the location and direction of a collision — factors Crisco said can also contribute

Sharply critical of President Bush’s foreign policy, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke ’62 spoke to a half-full Salomon 101 Monday afternoon about the need for student involvement in politics to help change the way things are going in the United States.

Holbrooke, a former Herald editor-in-chief and currently a professorat-large based in the Watson Institute for International Studies, laid out a sometimes grim, sometimes hopeful view of the future in global affairs.

Holbrooke spent most of the lecture focusing on global problems that have emerged since the end of the Cold War. He said the title of his lecture, “The World Crisis,” was misleading, because instead there are two distinct crises — one, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is significant only for Americans, he said, while the “crisis for the planet as a whole” includes issues like the HIV/ AIDS epidemic and global climate change.

“Our wars should be distinguished from other crises that affect the whole planet,” Holbrooke said. “If you go somewhere else, you won’t hear extensive debate on Iraq or Afghanistan. Let’s not confuse them for a global crisis.”

But Holbrooke, who is advising Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in her 2008 presidential campaign said Bush’s foreign policy has ensured that the next president of the United States will be faced with unprecedented difficult tasks.

“No president has inherited two wars ... one going pretty badly, in Afghanistan, and one going really

continued on page 7

continued on page 7

By Franklin Kanin Senior Staff Writer

Due to high member turnover from year to year, the Undergraduate Council of Students has a disproportionately large number of underclassmen. This year, there are only two seniors and five juniors among the council’s 28 voting members.

UCS President Michael Glassman ’09 attributed the low retention rate for juniors and seniors to the often busy schedules of upperclassmen. “It’s such a big time commitment, and people either graduate, go abroad or have a thesis they want to work on,” Glassman said. “That’s a big one — people really want to write a thesis senior year and can’t do it,” he added.

Many UCS members have ambitions for moving up to executive board positions, and once they either obtain the position they wanted or are denied, they leave UCS, Glassman said. “There’s sort of a culture of moving up very quickly, and people who have been on UCS for multiple years want to move up higher and higher.”

The poster children for that theory could be former UCS Academic and Administrative Affairs Chair Sara Damiano ’08 and former UCS Vice President Zachary Townsend ’09, both of whom are no longer on the council after having major influence on policy during their tenure.

Damiano said she needed more time to focus on her thesis and that chairing the Academic and Administrative Affairs committee was the position she had truly aspired to hold. “Having held that position, I felt I had accomplished what I really wanted to on UCS,” she said.

Townsend, now a Herald opinions columnist, rose through the UCS ranks but lost the Spring 2006 presidential election to John Gillis ’07. He said it would have been difficult to sit on UCS in a non-executive board role after that.

“If you run for president and lose, either you come back to run again or don’t come back,” Townsend said.

“It’s difficult, after being on the executive board, to come back.”

Townsend also said he could accomplish a lot of the projects he wanted to as an independent student working with council members and school administrators. “UCS is really continued on page 6

INSIDE:

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METRO

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Chris Bennett / Herald

An exhibition in the Watson Institute for International Studies commemorates the presidency of Howard Swearer, who led the University through a period of ambitious growth. The display marks the 20th anniversary of the Swearer Center for Public Service.

Football helmet sensors measure concussions

By Olivia Hoffman Staff Writer

There is no better place on campus to study concussions than the football field, said Professor of Orthopaedics Joseph Crisco.

This fall, 63 members of the football team are using helmets fitted with sensors that measure the impact of collisions in order to help

researchers across the country learn more about concussions.

The new equipment was introduced this season as part of a fiveyear, $3.6-million Bioengineering Research Partnership awarded by the National Institute of Health to Simbex, a research and product development company.

The system uses electronic sensors called accelerometers to

With new plans, $50m Nelson Fitness Center to be completed in 2010

By Isabel Gottlieb Senior Staf f Writer

In the 30 years Athletic Director Michael Goldberger has worked at Brown, “we’ve never had adequate fitness facilities,” he said. But University officials hope that will change with the construction of the $50-million, 80,000-square foot Nelson Fitness Center, now scheduled for completion in 2010.

The building, which will be located in what is currently the main parking lot of the Erickson Athletic Complex, will include a three-court gymnasium, five fitness and dance studios and 11,900 square feet for free weights and cardiovascular equipment, according to a March 2007 University press release. The building

Endangered list The Providence Preservation Society has identified the most endangered buildings in the city.

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CAMPUS NEWS

will also house more communal spaces, including a lobby-atrium, a quadrangle and a cafe.

The facilities will be for general recreational use, easing the strain on facilities that are currently shared by varsity athletes and the general community. Both the amount of space for fitness classes — currently housed in one general-purpose room in the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center — and the space dedicated to free weights will increase five-fold, and the space for cardiovascular equipment will be quadrupled, according to the University’s development office.

University officials have already raised $27 million toward continued on page 6 breaking into law The job market for recent law school graduates is lucrative, but only if you excel in law school.

Chris Bennett / Herald File Photo

Expected to open in 2010, the Nelson Fitness Center will provide a significant increase in athletic space on campus, supplementing current facilities such as the satellite gym in Bigelow Lounge (above).

11

OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

public opinion David Richardson ’08 and Camilla Hawthorne ’09 look at mayoral takeover of public school districts.

12 SPORTS

two and out The field hockey team lost two games over the weekend to fall to 0-12 overall on the season.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

We a t h e r Today

TOMORROW

sunny 63 / 43

partly cloudy 65 / 53

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Butternut Apple Bake, Couscous, Mufeletta Calzone, Chicken Mulligatawny Soup, Vegetarian Fagioli Soup, Tuna Noodle Casserole

Lunch — Beef Tacos, Vegan Burritos, Vegan Refried Beans, Mexican Salad Bar, Peanut Butter and Jelly Bar

Dinner — Vegan Chana Masala, Basmati Rice Pilaf, Baked Sweet Potatoes, Onion and Dill Rolls, Curry Chicken and Coconut, Italian Meatballs, Lasagna, New York Style Cheesecake

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim

Dinner — Roast Beef au Jus, Vegan Vegetable Couscous, Italian Vegetable Saute, Onion and Dill Rolls, Stir Fry Station, Chicken Broccoli Pasta Alfredo, Vegetarian Roasted Butternut Soup with Apples

Sudoku Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

Octopus on Hallucinogens | Toni Liu and Stephanie Le

Gratis | Nate Carlson

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, October 16,by2007 © Puzzles Pappocom

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle C r o ssw o r d Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 Construction zone sign 5 Marine reef builder 10 Presidential power 14 Laughing syllables 15 Honda luxury brand 16 Mount Rushmore’s state: Abbr.

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2 Hawaiian porch 3 Scarlett of Tara 4 School tool for Harry Potter 5 Chewy ingredient in a Twix candy bar 6 Earthy colour 7 They have regrets 8 Spuriously cultural 9 Queen with a Grammy 10 Churchillian symbol 11 Old name for Tokyo 12 Sigma follower 13 Approves 21 Dear, to Donizetti 22 Emperor during the Great Fire of Rome 26 Bruce who played Dr. Watson 27 Merman of Broadway 28 Riga denizens 29 Mrs. Lincoln’s maiden name 30 Carve with acid 32 Bus depot posting: Abbr.

33 Oreo filling 34 Microwaves, as leftovers

35 NHL’s Bobby et al.

36 Suitable 37 Operating system on many Internet servers 42 Friend of Rover?

43 Single occurrences, at Oxford 44 Scholarly 45 Parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme 50 Neat display

51 Seine city, in song 52 Git-go 53 Mongolia’s Ulan __ 54 Hush money 55 PC storage medium 57 Timbuktu’s land 58 Capital on a fjord 59 __-cone 60 Pub faucet 61 Actual credit cost, briefly

Classic How To Get Down | Nate Saunders

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Classic Deo | Daniel Perez

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M etro Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Group lists city’s most endangered buildings

By Patrick Corey Staff Writer

Providence’s 11 most endangered properties will have their time in the spotlight when the Providence Preservation Society unveils its Most Endangered Properties Photography Exhibit on Thursday.

Five public schools are featured on this year’s list, as well as two buildings on College Hill. The PPS has produced a Most Endangered Properties list every year since 1994, but this is only the second time since 2003 that it has included an artistic element, such as the photography exhibit.

Each year, the PPS sends out a call for nominations for the list.

Members of both the society and the general public can nominate properties, said Sara Emmenecker ’04, director of preservation services at the PPS. After the PPS researches and verifies each nomination, they are submitted to the PPS Planning and Architectural Review Committee, a group of professional architects and urban planners, who make the final decisions.

Emmenecker said the PPS hopes the list will generate enough interest to “help property owners gain the resources necessary to save historic buildings.”

Including a photography exhibit should attract an artistic crowd that is not solely interested in preservation, which could help widen the scope of the PPS’s efforts, she added.

A $250,000 gift by an anonymous donor has boosted University efforts to raise $10 million to support local public schools in a permanent Fund for the Education of the Children of Providence. The fund’s committee, along with Providence public school department officials, will determine distribution of the endowment funds, President Ruth Simmons announced in a campus-wide e-mail Saturday.

The fund is a response, announced in February, to recommendations made last fall in a report from the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. The anonymous donor requested that funds be used in Providence schools as soon as possible, said Marisa Quinn, assistant to Simmons.

Chancellor Tom Tisch ’76 announced that Trustee Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar ’87 MA’90, Chancellor Emeritus Artemis Joukowsky ’55 P’87 and Vice Chancellor Emeritus Marie Langlois ’64 have agreed to serve on the committee overseeing the fund. The committee members were appointed by Tisch partly because they all reside in Providence, Quinn said.

The fund is different from past University attempts to bolster city schools, Rodriguez-Farrar said.

Though institutions such as Columbia University have opened private schools in their cities, such projects are “limited in scope” and do not aid all city students, Rodriguez-Farrar said. “Those kids are lucky,” she said.

Even Harvard University, which has worked with Boston public schools, is uncoordinated in its efforts, she

After veto, voting registration bill may get second chance

By George Miller Contributing Writer

Alex DePaoli / Herald

The Cathedral of St. John on North Main Street.

Most years, the list features 10 properties — but this year, the PPS made an exception, listing an extra property in response to educational planning company DeJONG’s renovation plan for the Providence Public Schools system,

Anonymous donor gives $250,000 to public education fund

By Marielle Segarra Staff Writer

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said.

“The Brown model is looking to do something for the entire school system. It may start out small but we’re expecting scalability across the school system,” Rodriguez-Farrar said. “That’s where we stand out.”

Because Providence is a smaller city, Brown is able to make a larger impact on schools, she said.

University officials are hoping to have a “palpable impact” on the urban community, she said. “Very few places could potentially do this.”

Rodriguez-Farrar, who has a doctorate in education and focuses on K-12 education policy, said she has personal, research and intellectual interests in Providence schools.

“Literally what I do, all day, is think about education,” she said.

The fund will grow from a wide range of donations from alums, philanthropists and Providence citizens interested in education, RodriguezFarrar said. Gifts can be made as small as $5, she said.

Education is “on a lot of people’s minds,” she said, because it has a direct impact on quality of life in the city.

“Without an educated work force, what kind of economy would you have?” she said.

The endowment will also provide Brown students further opportunities to become involved in local schools through research, volunteering, education and public policy. Students will be able to “assess the quality of what is working,” Rodriguez-Farrar said.

“The beauty of this is that it feeds into the notion of the reciprocal relationship,” Rodriguez-Farrar said.

“Students will get insight into the application of their ideas.”

Emmenecker said.

Because of DeJONG’s general strategy to demolish the old school buildings rather than renovate them, the PPS made space on the continued on page 4

A bill aiming to increase voter participation in Rhode Island by allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote was vetoed by Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 in July, but may have a second chance if legislative leaders convene a special session later this month.

If introduced, House Bill 6215 would be identical to a bill passed by the General Assembly and vetoed

by Carcieri earlier this year. The bill would not lower the voting age in Rhode Island, but instead would allow young people to register to vote earlier. Early participation makes subsequent voting more likely, said Fair Vote Rhode Island director Ari Savitzky ’06, a former Herald opinions editor.

“That first election, when you’re 18 or 19, is the most important ... in terms of setting that pattern for becoming a lifelong participant,” Savitzky said. Minnesota, Maine, Oregon, Hawaii and Florida have similar laws on the books.

Currently, residents of Rhode Island can register to vote if they will be 18 by the next election day.

Under HR 6215, Rhode Island residents as young as 16 would be able to pre-register early and be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18.

The bill would make it harder

for the state to keep accurate voter registration rolls and prevent voter fraud, Carcieri said in a July press release upon vetoeing the bill. He added that yearly registration efforts at high schools and the ability to register to vote at the Department of Motor Vehicles have already made it easy for young voters to register.

Rep. Edwin Pacheco, D-Dist. 47, the bill’s primary sponsor, said HR 6215 is Rhode Island’s chance to be an example for the rest of the nation in terms of voter participation. Though Pacheco said he understands the governor’s concerns, he called them “small excuses” for vetoing the bill.

Pacheco said he hopes the veto will be overridden. He said he has met with legislative leaders to discuss the prospect of a vote at a special session this fall, but said there has been no definitive answer on whether that session will take place.

Over 50 other vetoed bills will vie for second chances to become laws if a special session is called.

Under Rhode Island’s constitution, it takes three-fifths of the members of the General Assembly present to override the governor’s veto.

Savitzky called Carcieri’s veto message “a good sound bite” but said it has nothing to do with registering new voters.

Fair Vote, a national non-partisan continued on page 4

Artists’ hideaway in Providence mall exposed

By Nandini Jayakrishna Senior Staff Writer

Picture yourself entering a room.

You hang your coat on the hanger to the right and sink into the cozy pillows and blankets spread on the couch. A white antique loveseat sits beside the couch and a low coffee table with a small TV is in front of you. A large brown rug feels warm under your feet and framed artwork decorates the walls.

Though you might not find anything extraordinary about the room, this 750-square foot space — located above an unused storage room in the Providence Place Mall’s parking garage — was the perfect hideout for eight Providence artists for four years. That is, until one of them was charged with misdemeanor trespassing and arrested by mall security earlier this month.

Local artist Michael Townsend was showing the “apartment” to an artist visiting from Hong Kong when he heard “a walkie-talkie outside.”

“I could’ve disappeared without being seen,” Townsend told The Herald. “But in that moment it was like, if they’d figured it out, the gig was done.”

The security of ficials, who Townsend said were “professional” but “not amused,” let the visiting artist go. Townsend ended up in a holding cell for the night and is now on a six-month probation.

Townsend said he used to run past the mall every other day during its construction from 1997 to 1999. That’s when he noticed the space, which workers were using as a platform to raise construction material to higher levels. Townsend

said he wanted to experience the mall as a resident, not just as an “ad hoc visitor.”

So he, his wife, Adriana Yoto, and six other Providence artists decided to furnish the space and make it into “the most real home,” said Townsend, who creates murals out of tape for a living and is a Rhode Island School of Design graduate.

“I could assess that that space would ser ve no purpose in the future (when the mall was completed),” he said.

In October 2003, Townsend and his friends decided to spend a week at the mall, living in the same space that Townsend had noticed a few years earlier.

“It was a lighthearted way of getting to know your neighbor,” said Townsend, who lives near the mall in the city’s Promenade district.

Townsend said the moment he and his friends entered the space through a dark passage they knew

that “no one had set foot there.”

“I felt very happy (there), very present, very sort of enthused and full of life,” he said. Living at the mall for a week in that space was the best vacation he has ever had, he added, like being at a beach in Jamaica.

Soon, Townsend and the other artists decided to “microdevelop” the space into a home and to think of the mall as its own city.

“I wanted to spend a lot of time (at the mall),” he said. “I wanted to understand the people going there, the architecture, the environment, the attitude ... the gravitational pull that is the mall.”

The artists bought over two tons of construction material to build a cinderblock wall. They installed a door to make the space into a room. By 2004, they had begun moving pieces of furniture into the space, noticed but unquestioned by mall security and mall-goers, continued on page 4

Page 4

Fair Vote and other student groups support voter pre-registration bill continued from page 3 organization working on voting reform issues, is currently undertaking a campaign to urge the General Assembly to pass the bill by encouraging voters to write letters and call their representatives. Savitzky, the sole staffer of Fair Vote’s Rhode Island bureau, has no office and often works at coffee shops with free wireless Internet access, he said.

The Brown College Republicans were among 19 organizations signed on as supporters of the bill in a letter Savitzky recently sent to the State House urging leaders to override the governor’s veto.

Pratik Chougule ’08, vice president of the College Republicans, said Savitzky approached the group about supporting the bill and “made a pretty good case” for it. The group’s

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

members knew it would hurt their cause, since young voters tend to be more liberal, but voted for it anyway, Chougule said, .

“Democracy is a worthwhile cause even if it may hurt our political agenda in the short term,” he said.

Though he generally supports Carcieri, a Republican, and agrees that voter fraud is a problem, Chougule said he does not support Carcieri’s reasons for vetoing the bill.

Democracy Matters, a group Savitzky was a member of during his time at Brown, also signed the letter he sent to legislative leaders.

Although the group focuses on campaign finance reform, all election reform movements work together toward the common goal of a better democracy, said Jon Bogard ’09, a member of the group.

Providence’s endangered properties continued from page 3 list this year for the four school properties that are slated to be demolished first: The Nathan Bishop Middle School, the Asa Messer Elementary School, the Mount Pleasant High School and the George J. West Elementary School.

The PPS has already had success saving one school building that made the list this year. Nathan Bishop Middle School, located at 101 Sessions St. on the East Side, was slated for demolition at the time of the list’s compilation. The three-story Georgian Revival style building, built in 1929, officially made the list due to “Poor Public Policy” — the same reason given for the inclusion of each other school affected by the new construction plans.

DeJONG’s plans called for Nathan Bishop be renovated in their original recommendation, but a group of local parents and resi-

dents demanded that the building be torn down and rebuilt, according to the PPS Web site. However, the city hired an architect to assess the situation, who ultimately recommended renovation rather than demolition. Those renovations are scheduled for completion by the 2009-2010 school year.

The fate of most endangered properties is not as secure. One College Hill building on this year’s list, the Earl P. Mason Carriage House, was built in 1857 and neglected over the last century, leading to its current deteriorated condition.

The Carriage House, which is located behind an apartment building at 296 Benefit St., looks its age.

Its small size, discolored bricks and warped, occasionally missing windows recall its original purpose — stabling horses. The Rhode Island School of Design once owned the apartment building, carriage house and parking lot, but has since sold

the property to a private owner.

Another College Hill property on this year’s Most Endangered Properties list is the Cathedral of St. John, which is located at 271 North Main St. A few properties are veterans on the list. According to Emmenecker, this year marks the third appearance for Grove Street Elementary School, the second for the Carriage House, the fourth for the Providence Produce Warehouse and the seventh for the What Cheer laundry building, Louttit Laundry, which is located at 93 Cranston St. Emmenecker praised local artists for capturing the “monumentality” and “beauty” of the buildings in their photographs, but also the “severe neglect and disrepair” that put the buildings on the list.

The exhibit will run in the atrium of the Peerless Building, a renovated building itself located downtown at 150 Union St., from Oct. 18 to Nov. 10.

Providence artists furnish mall living space continued from page 3 Townsend said.

The unheated “apar tment” lacked running water and its four bulbs were lit with the help of an 80-foot long extension chord that ran to nearby unused sockets. But the apartment did have a PlayStation for the artists’ entertainment.

The artists had purchased a hardwood floor and planned to build a second room and a bathroom, Townsend said.

Colin Bliss, another tape artist who spent many nights at the apartment with Townsend, said though he often felt cold in the room, he had the “thrill of the whole thing to keep (him) warm.”

James Mercer, one of the artists who helped construct the apartment, said he was “sorry” that they were discovered before their plans came to fruition. Mercer said he now misses decorating a dingy storage area with very sophisticated furniture.

“Like bringing a really nice china hutch into a parking garage,”

he said, referring to a piece of furniture the artists had moved into the room.

Townsend admitted that he had wanted to furnish the “apartment” better, as it began annoying him to wake up in a room where the “furniture didn’t match.”

He said he and Yoto would never experiment with decorating their actual home in a converted mill in the Promenade district in the way they experimented with their mall home.

At the apartment, for example, he would have seriously considered a “cloth runner, maybe with Ukrainian stitches, down the middle of the dining table,” Townsend said.

“At home? Hell no!” he said.

Townsend said the project was “definitely cut (off) at the beginning of its prime.” Bliss said he and Townsend were planning to make the room their permanent home for an entire year. “We were trying to make it liveable ... so we wouldn’t have to go home to anywhere,” Bliss said.

Since his arrest, Townsend said he has received hundreds of

e-mails from people thanking him for making them laugh and helping them realize that “behind this door there’s a secret, crazy world I don’t know about.” Many told him they were reminded of the thrill of pretending to have their own secret spaces as children.

“It’s fascinating,” Townsend said.

“It can’t be age-specific that you feel the thrill of having a fort.”

Townsend said he knows what he did was illegal, but he thinks mall owners could have used the discovery of the “apartment” as a publicity stunt to attract more customers to the mall.

“They could’ve said, ‘You can’t live here, but we appreciate your enthusiasm and we’d like to capitalize on your efforts,’ ” Townsend said.

Townsend has been barred from entering the mall’s premises, but said he wants to go back. “I need to buy a pair of pants,” he said. “I’m going to send an e-mail to Nordstrom, Filene’s, maybe Banana Republic saying, ‘I’m sorry I’m banned (from coming to your store) but you’re on top of my list.’ They should know they’ve lost a loyal patron.”

thanks for reading

C ampus n ews Tuesday, October 16, 2007

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Law school grads shouldn’t expect lucrative job market

i e f

By Emmy Liss Contributing Writer

Emmy Liss / Herald

Ridership on safeRIDE has increased every year since the service launched in 2003.

Transportation dept. considers expansion of campus shuttle service Brown’s transportation department — which includes the campus shuttle service safeRIDE — is in the process of planning an expansion of its services. Recent developments include the purchase of an additional vehicle for onCall, a transportation dispatch service and the South Main Street Shuttle, which serves people working in the public health program’s downtown facilities.

No short-term plans for safeRIDE shuttle expansion currently exist because the University expects students and others to take advantage of Brown’s participation in a service providing free rides on RIPTA, said Elizabeth Gentry, director of business and financial services, who oversees several departments, including transportation.

Ridership on safeRIDE has increased every year since the service began in 2003, Gentry said. Gentry began overseeing the transportation department in the spring, and she said she wants to find ways to alleviate parking congestion and be environmentally friendly by reducing the number of cars on campus. “Finding ways to make that happen is in the University and community’s best interests,” Gentry said.

Students interviewed by The Herald said they were generally satisfied with safeRIDE, though they had some suggestions for the service’s improvement.

“Larger vehicles would definitely be better,” said Quinn Savit ’11.

Currently, the safeRIDE shuttle operates on a one-way loop down Thayer Street. According to Transportation Manager Carleia Lighty, the route was planned with consideration to safety, utility and traffic.

The transportation department is planning on keeping the route as it is, Lighty said.

— Tanmay Misra

Standley ’07 GS named Student Innovator Adam Standley ’07 GS was one of 12 people recognized at the Rhode Island Innovation Awards and Tech Laureates Night last month.

Standley received the Student Innovator award for his collaboration in developing a material that offers no resistance to electricity and a production process that makes the commercialization of that material possible.

Over the course of two years, Standley worked with Professor of Engineering Eric Chason and Jae Wook Shin GS to develop the process that produces EpiFoil, a material is used to make superconductors.

Standley and Chason, who holds the patent on EpiFoil, plan to start a company as early as January 2008 to produce their material for superconductor companies.

Standley, currently a candidate for a master’s degree in entrepreneurship and innovation, said he took advantage of research opportunities throughout college. “Seeing your research commercialized is very rewarding because you see that your research has significance in the real world,” he said.

Standley explained that the new material and processing machine will make it possible to design smaller, more efficient motors and generators.

— Erin Schikowski

The job market for law school graduates has never been better in terms of the number of available jobs, but high-paying jobs are not as plentiful as many graduates anticipate.

Many students go to law school as a “default,” because they are unsure of what to do after graduation, according to Andrew Simmons, associate dean of the College for health and law careers. However, many students underestimate the amount of debt they might accumulate from attending law school and are uninformed about what to expect after graduating.

“As with any career, people need to go in with eyes open, (but) the stakes are higher because the cost is higher,” Simmons said.

The problem is that “the majority of law-school graduates are suffering from a supply-and-demand imbalance that’s suppressing pay and job growth,” the Wall Street Journal reported last month.

James Leipold ’84, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement, said his organization’s goal is to “try to educate people” that while “the market is the strongest it has been in a long time,” undergraduate students need to be

aware of what life after law school is really like. Though 14 percent of students make upwards of $135,000 their first year out, the median starting salary for the law school class of 2006 nationwide was $62,000.

“Despite the fact that students make all different amounts of money, everyone graduates with the same debt,” Leipold added.

Simmons said he hopes these statistics will “prompt people to think more analytically” as to whether law school is what they really want. In many cases, he said, he thinks that taking a year off gives students time to think about their decision and gain “a much better sense of what they’re getting into.”

“Experience informs choice,” he said, stressing the importance of working in the real world, making contacts and putting oneself in a better position to handle debt.

Thea Cohen ’08 said she is considering law school, but she may take a year off “just to be sure” that law school is “not a default.”

Another factor to consider is what law school to attend. Both Simmons and Leipold stress that while “the reputation of law school matters,” as Simmons said, it is not everything.

When hiring, law firms are looking at a wider range of universities to fill their spots, but regardless of the

school, they generally focus on the highest-ranking students, Simmons and Leipold said.

“The best law school decision is to go somewhere where you will be at the top of your class, and sometimes that is not the most prestigious school on your list,” Leipold said. “For the bottom half, no matter where you go, the employment market is tougher.” He said he encourages students to choose the school that is best for them and will, most realistically, give them a chance to be at the higher end of their class — and therefore in a position to get better jobs post-graduation.

Simmons said students need to be aware that high costs and precarious job markets are an “issue in higher education across the board,” something that should motivate students to think about why they are heading to any graduate program, rather than just going without specific goals.

Though the high costs of law school and the chance of a low salary upon graduating are deterring factors, the long-term benefits outweigh the challenges for many.

“Carrying a law degree opens up so many doors and is a great investment for the future,” said Pratik Chougule ’08, who is currently applying to law school.

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$50m fitness center slated for 2010 opening continued from page 1 the building’s cost, Ronald Vanden Dorpel MA’71, senior vice president for University advancement, told The Herald last month, adding that the development office hopes to finish fundraising in the next 12 to 18 months. The $50 million fundraising target includes $35 million in construction costs and at least $15 million toward an endowment for the building’s maintenance. The fitness center is “right at the top of the agenda because the sooner we get money raised, the sooner we’ll begin (construction),” Vanden Dorpel said.

The University currently hopes to start construction by the summer of 2008, according to Associate Provost Pamela O’Neil.

Increasing the fitness space available on campus was always part of the President Ruth Simmons’ Plan for Academic Enrichment. The issue was first addressed by the addition of satellite fitness facilities, when new gyms in Emery-Woolley and Keeney Quadrangle joined the Bear’s Lair in the Graduate Center as alternatives to the OMAC. Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 said even with the satellite facilities, “there is still a greater demand then we are able to meet.”

“The primary advantage of (the Nelson Fitness Center) is that it is only used for recreation and fitness,” Carey said, so the rest of the campus community will not have to compete with varsity athletes for use of the space.

The new fitness center was announced in 2004 when the University received $20 million in gifts from three donors: an anonymous trustee, trustee emeritus Fredric Garonzik ’64 and Jonathon Nelson ’77 P’07 P’09, who provided the lead gift for the center.

The University then planned a $30 million, 50,000-square foot facility that was to be completed in 2008.

The Corporation, the University’s top governing body, selected the

architecture firm SHoP, or Sharples Holden Pasquarelli, to design the building. SHoP’s design called for a glass-fronted building attached to the OMAC with zigzagging ramps running to the roof. The initial plans also included the possibility of underground parking.

In 2006, the project changed course. After deciding that 50,000 square feet was too small, President Ruth Simmons boosted the proposed center’s size to 65,000 square feet, and University officials hired Robert A.M. Stern Architects to replace SHoP. Gary Brewer, an associate partner at that firm, has been leading the fitness center project.

Brewer’s past work for universities includes the Darden School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the Spangler Campus Center at Harvard Business School.

“It would be foolish to spend large amounts of money on a building that would be too small the day it opened,” Goldberger said. The biggest change to the plans in 2006 was the addition of the three-court gymnasium, which will be for recreational and intramural sports. The plan may also entail a 1,500-person speaking venue.

The scope of the building expanded again in the spring of 2007 — this time to include a 15,000-square-foot strength and conditioning space for varsity athletes on the lower level of the building.

This addition will triple the amount of training space available to varsity athletes. “The president saw this as an opportunity to address that need now as well,” Carey said of the planned increased varsity training facilities.

The Robert A.M. Stern plans also call for a very different style of building than SHoP had designed. Vanden Dorpel described the Nelson Fitness Center’s newest incarnation as “beautiful ... Georgian-looking, with red brick and Palladian windows.”

In other words, it won’t look like the OMAC.

“We’d all like that part of campus to look and feel more like the rest of campus,” O’Neil said, referring to the buildings in the Athletic Complex. “Some of those buildings are ver y utilitarian. It’s not the most attractive part of campus.”

“The idea of putting the fitness center where there is currently parking is that it will make that part of campus feel more like campus, with green space and plantings between the fitness center and existing buildings,” O’Neil added.

The new building and green spaces may be more aesthetically pleasing than a parking lot, but they leave the University to solve the problem of where to relocate the parking spaces lost to the new facility.

City law mandates that the University have a certain number of parking spots, and the elimination of the lot in front of the OMAC would leave the campus far short of that requirement.

The University lost even more parking facilities when construction began on the temporary swimming pool on the lot behind the OMAC. Recreational tennis courts on Lloyd Avenue were turned into parking spots to make up for the spots lost to the pool.

Both the SHoP proposal for an underground parking facility and another University plan to construct a parking garage on Lloyd Avenue have been rejected by area residents and officials at Moses Brown School, who expressed concerns about increased traffic in the area.

No major plans have been put forth yet to remedy the parking crunch around the Athletic Complex. “When the conversation starts to include landscaping, then it will expand to include parking as well,” Goldberger said.

Goldberger said the new fitness center would allow the athletic department to expand its physical education offerings to more than 100 classes, as well as create new jobs within the department — everything from teaching PE classes to checking IDs at the front desk.

UCS power in underclassman hands continued from page 1 actually pretty useful to the student body, but you don’t need to be on UCS to do these things,” he said.

The council was not always so underclassmen-dominated, Townsend said. “A lot of e-board members were seniors. A lot of the people who would be on it as juniors went abroad, and these people don’t usually go back to UCS.” Sara Gentile ’09, formerly UCS’s activities and student services chair, said one of the reasons she did not return to UCS this fall was because she is going abroad in the spring.

“I felt it was sort of unethical to run if I would have to resign halfway through the year,” she said.

Gentile also said it can be difficult to be on UCS because the student body does not always appreciate the work done there. “It can be a little disheartening that people don’t really understand what you’re doing and view it negatively,” she said.

Glassman echoed that, saying, “People put so much into UCS and get very little out of it. They don’t really get acknowledged for it or get anything personal out of it.”

Other former UCS members said their reason for leaving UCS did not have to do with external factors, but instead with UCS itself.

Lisa Gomi ’10, who served as UCS secretary last fall and a representative in the spring, said she felt UCS was too disorganized. “I didn’t really enjoy my experience that much ...

(UCS is) largely student-run. That can mean very unorganized meetings. If it’s every week, that can be very demanding and not so fun,” Gomi said.

Gomi said she thinks UCS could retain members better if the meetings were more efficient. She said that would make it “less of a hassle for the members on UCS as well as more inviting and more accessible to Brown students.”

“I definitely wish there were more seniors,” Glassman said. “I think it’s always — since I’ve been here — been a challenge, that there aren’t enough seniors.”

UCS Vice President Lauren Kolodny ’08, one of the two seniors on UCS this year, said she wishes membership on the council could be more evenly distributed among class years, but that having a lot of freshmen can be beneficial to UCS, too. “It’s good in the sense that underclassmen tend to have a lot of ideas and energy,” she said.

Kolodny said she and Glassman tried to reach out to more upperclassmen this year, and a good number of them did run for at-large positions.

Only two juniors were elected to at-large positions.

Glassman said more seniors might participate in UCS if the terms in office ran from January until December, not spring-to-spring. That way, seniors could serve on UCS and still have their senior spring free.

“Senior spring, people don’t really want to be committed to all these regular meetings when they want to graduate and are ready to move on,” Glassman said.

Koldony agreed that might be helpful in retaining seniors. Another benefit would be that freshmen could run after they had been at Brown for a few months, she said. “It would make a lot of sense, because a lot of seniors don’t want to spend their entire year on UCS,” she said. “And then incoming freshmen could run after they’ve had some experience at Brown.”

But Halley Wuertz ’08, a former chair of the Admissions and Student Services Committee, said she doesn’t think changing the terms would have much effect. “I think the problem is much more internal than that,” Wuertz said. She said if UCS is not a productive body, people will not join.

“It’s also not the coolest thing,” Wuertz said. “I’m sure a lot of people leave because it’s not that cool.”

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Football’s helmets helping Holbrooke ’62 criticizes Bush’s foreign policy prevent, study concussions continued from page 1

continued from page 1 to concussions. After an on-field collision, this data is transmitted to a computer server, where it is graphed with Head Impact Telemetry software.

Athletic trainers and medical technicians can then use this information to determine the likelihood that a player sustained a concussion.

Currently, the study is in the data collection phase, but its aim over the next five years is to allow researchers to better understand when a player is at-risk for a concussion by building up a wealth of data about on-field impacts.

“For the first time we are able to measure head acceleration on the field in real-time,” said Crisco, who invented the mathematical algorithm used by the accelerometers to compute head acceleration. According to Crisco, little research exists concerning concussions, and he hopes this study will provide conclusive evidence about how and why they occur.

The system is being used in conjunction with the NIH grant by the football teams at Brown, Dartmouth College and Virginia Tech University.

Since the study is still in its early stages, trainers and coaches using the system must use their own judgment about how best to use the information in helping players, said Head Athletic Trainer Russ Fiore.

“It’s not going to diagnose a concussion,” Fiore said of the system.

Currently, Brown athletes with suspected concussions are evaluated based on a standardized procedure that includes a series of memory and reasoning tests. “We have a complete concussion protocol that we follow rigidly,” Fiore said.

Nevertheless, Fiore said the athletic training staff is using the new system to identify when a player has taken a potentially dangerous hit, which in turn helps to ensure that players avoid subsequent head injuries.

Fiore said the system’s graphs provide useful information to which he can refer if a player approaches him with possible symptoms of a concussion. In the case of linebacker Eric Brewer ’08, the system allowed the training staff to analyze the possible causes of his concussion.

Brewer, who suffered his first career concussion a few weeks ago and did not play against the University

of Rhode Island last month, said he couldn’t tell he had been concussed when it occurred, but he felt the effects when he awoke the following morning.

“I was really dizzy and felt like I was in a haze,” he said. “I waited a couple of days, thinking maybe I was just dehydrated. I didn’t say anything to the trainers.” However, when his symptoms did not dissipate, Brewer sought help from Fiore.

“I was able to go back and see how hard he got hit in the game,” Fiore said. The graphs showed that the concussion was most likely a cumulative result of several moderately hard hits, since no single hit stood out as dangerously hard. However, it is hard to determine how to treat each player because thresholds of head acceleration are likely to vary across individuals, Fiore said.

Brewer said that for a “vague injury” like a concussion, the system is very useful. “It’s another way of narrowing things down,” he said. “If you do take a really hard hit, it makes it that much more obvious that you really do have a concussion.”

Crisco said the system “provides an extra set of eyes for the trainer,” which is particularly important given the tendency of many players to ignore their symptoms or try to avoid being detected in an effort to stay in the game.

Fiore agreed, saying, “I feel like I’m making it safer for our athletes.”

In the future, the helmet sensor technology could be utilized in other high contact sports as well, with men’s and women’s ice hockey as likely recipients.

Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger said Brown’s participation in this type of research study has important benefits for the University.

“To me, it’s a great opportunity for us to play a role in the long-range health and safety of athletes,” he said. “We are a research institution.

Oftentimes, people look at athletics as outside of the mainstream of what this university is all about, and this is an example where we can be right in the middle of it.”

Currently, Riddell markets a helmet called Revolution IQ that features accelerometer technology. Each helmet costs $999. Still, Brewer thinks the helmets are worth their cost.

“You can’t really put a price tag on using your brain for the rest of your life,” he said.

Singer: Mayan athletes took losses on the chin continued from page 12 Ball Game and sports today. Enormous stadiums were built just for spectators to watch the game. Gambling on the outcome of games was rampant as well. The game even created its own star players: Whenever someone got the ball through the hoop, spectators in the crowd were required to give him their clothing and jewelry.

Still, as I watched Rome and his guests debate “dirty tackles” and pitching injuries, I couldn’t help but think that today’s athletes are taking their lives of luxury for granted.

When a pitcher burns his index finger grilling chicken, a team of doctors and medical professionals assist him to ensure he makes a quick and successful recovery before his next start. When players in

the Ball Game suffered contusions from getting hit by the ball, they would have to be cut open (lanced) and have their blood squeezed out.

And the idea that players would get upset over such a thing as dirty tackles? Something tells me that sportsmanship is a moot point when you’re playing for your life.

I’m not saying we’d be better off if we sacrificed Eric Gagne after Game 2 of the ALCS. I think the Ball Game highlights where a lot of improvements could be made in the sanity and health of our sports culture. Players today wax dramatic on the vital importance of winning and whine over ever y call that doesn’t go their way, but instead they should look at the games the Mayans played. If they did, I bet one thought would come to mind.

Oh.

badly, in Iraq,” Holbrooke said. He added that the next president’s job will be made more difficult by the increasing influence of a hostile — and potentially nuclear — Iran, the rising economic clout of China and India, an increasingly unyielding Vladimir Putin in Russia and the complexities of disease and war in Africa.

Holbrooke was relentless in his criticism of Bush, calling his remaining days in office “stumbling to a tragic conclusion” and — quoting former Texas Gov. Ann Richards on the first President Bush — saying, “he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.”

He also discussed how U.S. policy might have been different if former Vice President Al Gore had won the 2000 presidential election, saying that Gore would have focused on Afghanistan, stayed out of Iraq and taken environmental issues more seriously than Bush has. Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with a UN climate panel, last week for his efforts on global climate change.

Despite his pessimistic view of the current state of U.S. policy, Holbrooke warned students in the crowd, “You mustn’t despair.”

“There is one way to deal with this, and that is to express your views in elections,” he said. “The people of this country are much better than the government ... We have the strength. We don’t have the leadership.”

Holbrooke reminisced about his time at Brown, when “students were more engaged in international affairs and domestic affairs.”

“I hope you all get engaged,” he said, speaking to the students

Chris Bennett / Herald

Richard Holbrooke ’62 signed copies of his book, “To End a War,” prior to his Monday afternoon lecture.

in attendance. “I urge you to get involved, whoever your candidate is, because it really, truly matters.”

Holbrooke was asked questions on a number of topics after his talk, including questions about America’s responsibility to intervene in world affairs and the treatment of Kurds in Turkey.

When asked about potential solutions for post-war Iraq, Holbrooke recommended that the country be run under “loose federalism” with some Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish autonomy.

Referring to a question on positive steps the next president must take, Holbrooke said, “The longterm goal of the next president must be to restore America’s leadership in the world. When we take the lead, we really can do good.”

Holbrooke also called the current situation in Myanmar “an immense tragedy” that cannot be solved through military efforts.

He said that economic sanctions, though controversial, were a good first step in resolving the crisis.

“There is very little we can do unless we can mobilize other countries,” he said.

Barbara Stallings, director of the Watson Institute, said after the speech that Holbrooke “has had a tremendous amount of experience and influence in foreign affairs ... and is particularly interested in making students interested in public service.”

“Brown is lucky to have him here to share his experience,” she said.

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Calls for IRB reform among professors grow stronger continued from page 1 worried the July 2006 decision to prohibit undergraduates from taking primary ethical responsibility for their research places an unfair liability on faculty, some of whom fear they will wind up responsible for research often conducted far away from their supervision.

“We have to take this seriously, or we really will have an impediment to undergrad research,” Colwill said.

In an e-mail to The Herald, RAB Vice Chair Robert Hurt, professor of engineering, wrote that the committee has not undertaken any review yet and that its work is so far isolated to informal discussions, though he expects to be better informed by the spring.

“The topic that I was thinking of talking to some people about was not ‘research ethics’ per se, but rather how the IRB operates now and if it is working well and efficiently for the faculty and students,” he wrote.

This is not the first time a committee has reviewed IRB policy.

In the spring and summer of 2006, a faculty working group of the College Curriculum Council met six times to discuss reforms for research ethics at Brown, but according to minutes from the CCC’s Oct. 10, 2006, meeting, that group was dissolved before any recommendations could be issued. The minutes indicate that Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron declined to include any discussion of the IRB on

the CCC’s agenda.

At that time, some CCC members told Bergeron they were afraid the issue would be forgotten, and she responded that she would continue speaking with officials in the Office of the Vice President for Research to address how to make the IRB’s procedures easier to navigate.

Both the CCC minutes and an e-mail Bergeron sent to The Herald Monday indicate she met with research administrators several times over the course of the semester to discuss the IRB and that the CCC itself engaged in another discussion in December 2006.

The Herald reported Oct. 4, 2006, that by the time the CCC working group’s mandate was withdrawn, faculty were already growing concerned that a new policy keeping undergrads from taking primary ethical responsibility for their work — in a role known as the principal investigator — would burden professors with extra work and unfair liability. Some faculty predicted that the policy change, which brings Brown into line with the other Ivy League colleges, would cause declines in undergrad research and colleagues refusing to advise undergrad projects.

Research on the decrease?

Whether that’s happened is unclear. In the 2005-2006 academic year, the IRB approved 135 proposals, of which about 35 came from undergrads, Dorinda Williams, di-

rector of the University’s Research Protections Office, told The Herald in October 2006. Last year 167 proposals were approved, of which about 26 came from undergrads, according to Senior IRB Manager Susan Toppin. (Though the total number of proposals approved last year is definitive, the number that came from undergrads is only approximate.)

Thus, last year 23.7 percent more research proposals were approved than the previous year, but the number of undergrad proposals approved dropped by an approximate 25.7 percent.

It’s not entirely clear what to make of the data because it’s only approximate and a trend isn’t apparent since the data only represents two years. And the numbers don’t necessarily mean students are shying away from independent research altogether — they may just be avoiding work with human subjects. In addition, many faculty and students have suggested that some thesis advisers may urge their pupils to practice a sort of willful negligence by not going to the IRB, which means those students wouldn’t be counted in the data.

Williams was unavailable for comment last week, but Bergeron wrote in her e-mail to The Herald that evidence from her office does not suggest waning interest in undergrad research. “We have actually seen an increase in excellent student proposals for UTRA projects,

for example, and last year had to turn down many good proposals simply for lack of funds. We are working to increase the budget for this year and next,” she wrote.

But Professor of Education Cynthia Garcia Coll said the numbers are “not at all” surprising to her. “That’s been my experience with honors theses, independent studies, summer research. Students are doing less research — part of the issue is definitely the IRB,” she said.

“I suspect it’s a combination of two things,” said IRB Chair Ron Seifer, professor of psychiatry and human behavior and director of the Center for the Study of Human Development. “There is a sentiment — something in the ether — that it’s harder for students to do research, and they’re opting out. Number two, many faculty ... had the idea that there was a fundamental change in policy, which was not intended.”

A complex system Whatever the case, as the RAB undertakes a review of IRB policies at Brown, it will encounter a complex and often vague regulatory scheme that must accommodate a wide array of constituencies, including professors, students, research subjects, administrators and federal regulators. Concerned professors told The Herald that one of the best ways to improve the IRB would be for it to treat research differently depending on the discipline involved.

Associate Professor of Public Policy Ross Cheit, perhaps the most vocal critic of the IRB, told The Herald that ineffective outcomes arise because the panel judges social science research using the same standards applied to natural science research. “All the regulations come out of medicine,” he said.

Cheit said that because laboratory faculty are responsible for the conduct of students researching in their lab, it might make sense for professors to take on ethical responsibility. In his case, Cheit said he works with students who conduct research in real-world settings, often far away from College Hill.

Colwill agreed that a better system would treat proposals differently depending on the discipline. “I sent to RAB the IRB policies being developed by the hospitals,” she said.

“The point I made to RAB is that I don’t think we want all our research ethics to be guided by hospitals.”

“It’s draconian the way it is now,” Colwill added. “This is not a good guide for how we want to be dealing with research issues.”

Cheit said that the IRB can also be more consistent by releasing data on its activities at regular intervals and issuing written decisions that explain the logic behind its actions.

Over time this would allow for a system of precedents to develop, he said, which would give researchers and IRB members more guidance.

Under the current system, “the IRB is essentially making its own law,” he added.

Garcia Coll said another possibility is to remove entirely from the IRB’s jurisdiction undergrad research that isn’t going to be published, letting individual departments create “mini-IRBs” for their students. The idea goes back to some professors’ complaints that

the IRB is overreaching its influence by defining “research” too broadly.

The law says research is “a systematic investigation ... designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.”

Concerned professors argue that because honors theses are for a class and a “capstone experience” in their education, they don’t contribute to generalizable knowledge. Garcia Coll said if a student doesn’t plan to publish his work, it’s hard to understand how it falls under the federal definition of research.

Problems with undergrads going through the IRB have been an issue among scholars nationally for some time, with a growing online community, the American Association of University Professors and an increasing amount of press saying IRBs are too restrictive of social sciences research.

Columbia Law School Professor Philip Hamburger spoke on the controversy Monday to a joint session of Cheit’s seminar PPAI 1700T: “Good Government,” Lecturer in Education Luther Spoehr’s course EDUC 1740: “Academic Freedom on Trial: A Century of Campus Controversies,” in addition to interested professors and IRB members. In a class discussion following the lecture, Seifer, the IRB chair, acknowledged the system is “fundamentally flawed and broken,” adding that, “They are being asked to do something they were never intended to do.”

Seifer told the class that the IRBs around the country have expanded their reach because of federal bureaucrats and a community of university research administrators who have created a culture of avoiding risk.

Those factors “all exist within very frightened university environments. They’re afraid of lawsuits, and they are afraid of donors going away,” Seifer said.

Hamburger argues IRBs violate the First Amendment. “They suppress what you say to other people.

You might make that person feel bad — you might hurt their feelings,” Hamburger said in his lecture.

“If you learn something and don’t have permission, you have to destroy the data. If you have permission, you have to destroy it after three years. For scientific purposes, this is frightening. How do you replicate the experiment or discover if there was fraud?”

Garcia Coll said she sees value in having IRBs, even if others believe Brown’s panel is in need of reform. “There is no question we need IRBs,” Garcia Coll said. “Historically they have a very important reason to be around, and we need their scrutiny.”

Cheit said he’d like to see not only a reform of IRBs but increased attention on research ethics for classroom projects — an area where professors get the University’s complete trust in overseeing their students. “As long as you’re doing it for a class project, you can go out on the street and interview a six-year-old, and it’s not within the IRB’s purview,” he said.

“But as soon as you start calling it ‘research,’ there’s no trust.”

“The line should be between protection of human subjects and education of our students,” Garcia Coll said.

www.browndailyherald.com

tuesday, october 16, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Giuliani, Romney and Obama spent more than they collected last quarter

By Matthew Mosk and Sarah Cohen Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Three of the leading presidential contenders spent more than they raised for their bids over the past three months, according to fundraising disclosure reports released Monday, as candidates continued to shatter records in the race for the White House.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, Ill., spent $21.5 million between July and September, while among Republicans, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney spent $21 million — more than twice the amount he raised — and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani spent $13 million.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, DN.Y., spent more than $22 million, just less than she raised in the period, and finished with the most cash in reserve of any of the candidates for the frenetic run to the primaries.

While most candidates concentrated their spending in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission Monday show that Giuliani invested thousands of dollars opening campaign offices in places such as Fargo, N.D., and

Field hockey shut out twice over weekend continued from page 12 sity and better teammate support.

She said three seniors stood out in that respect.

“Sandhya Dhir (’08), Andrea Posa (’08) and Ani Kazarian (’08) played really hard today,” she said.

“I’m proud of their efforts. All three of them in the second half really stepped up the energy (and) intensity level. (They) played with a lot of heart and went after every ball. I think that their efforts sparked the rest of the team to climb on their backs and rise to the occasion and play to that level.”

Brown hoped to carry over the effort from that second half into Sunday’s game against BU, but the 13th-ranked team in the nation proved too powerful in the Bears’ 3-0 loss. The Terriers converted a 24-3 advantage in shots and a 14-1 advantage in penalty corners into a 3-0 win over the Bears.

Sarah Shute opened the scoring for BU with a goal at 21:42, then tallied an assist on Hayley Hamada’s goal 1:42 later that gave the Terriers a 2-0 lead it took into halftime. Shute scored her second goal of the game at 47:29 on a corner with an assist from Hadley Adams to produce the final margin.

Kessler made 10 saves, Victoria Sacco ’09 added a defensive save, and Kazarian led the team with two shots.

“We’re certainly going to work on playing harder in the first half, without getting in a hole, and being confident in what we’re doing,” Harrington said. “And never quitting, never giving up. Just moving forward for 70 minutes.”

After struggling through two tough games over the weekend, the Bears will look to turn things around when they travel to Ithaca, N.Y. to face the Big Red of Cornell (6-5, 3-2 Ivy) on Sunday.

“Our philosophy is that we will play ever y second (and) ever y inch,” Harrington said.

Columbia, Mo. Giuliani’s decision to spend there, as well as in Florida, New Jersey and Illinois — all states that will emerge after the initial burst of primaries and caucuses in early January — signals that he alone among the Republicans is laying the groundwork for a national primary strategy, campaign strategists said.

“It looks a lot like Rudy is banking on a breakout strategy, where he survives early losses and gets to the big states on January 29 and Super Tuesday,” said Scott Reed, a former campaign strategist for Robert J. Dole who is not attached to any presidential campaign this year.

Giuliani raised $11 million during the third quarter of 2007 — more than his Republican counterparts — and reached $13 million in spending without making a significant purchase of television advertising.

Romney, meanwhile, spent almost a third of his $21 million outlay on television and radio ads that have been saturating the airwaves in Iowa and New Hampshire. His $9 million in cash on hand almost matches the $8.5 million he loaned his campaign, marking another quarter in which the candidate essentially lent himself out of debt. When asked about their pace

of spending, Romney campaign officials have pointed to the significant hurdles the former governor faced as a relative unknown in a field of high-profile GOP contenders.

Romney had placed 10,893 television and radio ads through Oct. 10, according to Nielsen Co. That total is higher than the combined ad buys of any two of the other candidates in either party.

“The fact that Gov. Romney, when we announced, was at 4 percent and was practically unknown outside of Utah and Massachusetts was a significant challenge, especially given the fact that we were placed into a fundraising environment that had us competing against candidates who had universal name recognition among Republican donors,” said Kevin Madden, a Romney spokesman.

The latest financial reports, which cover campaign activity between July 1 and Sept. 30 and were due to the Federal Election Commission Monday, show that Giuliani continues to be best positioned to spend money in the run-up to the crucial early contests, although Romney’s willingness to self-fund his bid remains a wild card.

While Giuliani has $16 million

in the bank, Romney has $9.2 million on hand, and former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., has $7.1 million.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., reported finishing September with $3.5 million in the bank, but when factoring in $1.7 million in debts and $1.8 million in funds he can use only if he reaches the general election, McCain finished the third quarter $94,000 in the red.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., had just $95,000 on hand after he spent heavily in an unsuccessful attempt to win the Iowa straw poll.

Those figures were dwarfed by the amounts being banked by the leading Democrats. Obama had more than $32 million on hand and an additional $4 million he can spend if he is the Democratic nominee. Clinton has $35 million in her account for the primary and $15 million she can use only in the general election. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), who has gained some traction in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, reported more than $5 million in cash on hand.

The quarterly financial reports offer an important look inside the gears of the campaigns as they move out of the quiet summer months and into one of the most active phases of the race. Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic

strategist who worked on Richard A. Gephardt’s 2004 White House bid, said it is in the coming weeks that campaigns will start to dump money into television advertising and into organizational efforts that will in large measure determine the outcome of the early contests.

The reports also shed new light on the people who are donating money, and in some cases bundling checks, for the campaigns.

This is the first FEC filing from Thompson’s presidential campaign, for instance, and it shows among other things that Thompson has not yet become a major draw for the financial backers of President Bush. Only 19 of the 631 individuals previously identified as Pioneers or Rangers — designations that George W. Bush’s campaign gave to his top bundlers — have joined the Thompson campaign.

William Strong, a vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, is one of those who signed on with Thompson after seeing little in the initial Republican field that excited him. “There were many positive attributes of the other candidates, but trying to reach a decision about who I thought could best serve this country as president, I felt it would be Fred,” Strong said.

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Staf f Editorial

Fall means ... job hunting As the leaves on College Hill begin to change color, first-years have mostly settled into the next four years of their lives. But another perennial phenomenon marks the change of seasons: the senior scramble for future gainful employment.

This autumn, the Career Development Center has made a more concerted effort to reach out to a student body that had often been lost in the past, flooding seniors’ inboxes with notices for info sessions, panels and career fairs, and most events have been run smoothly and efficiently.

Unfortunately, it often seems that such resources only cater to a select subset of the University community.

At the CDC’s recent career fairs, those students interested in consulting, finance or technology had little to complain about, but there was certainly a dearth of opportunities for those of us uninspired by the pull of Wall Street or Silicon Valley. While largely pre-professional career counseling might make sense at certain universities, at Brown — where the greatest attraction is the flexibility of the curriculum — taking such an institutionalized approach to career development hardly makes sense.

As is typical of Brunonians, students are taking matters into their own hands. This past Sunday, for example, the Department of History of Art and Architecture’s Departmental Undergraduate Group organized “Life After List: An Architecture Career Workshop” for concentrators. And architecture students are not alone. The Herald reported on Monday that Scott Norton ’08 and Chris Ordonez ’07 have spearheaded a series called Startup Dinner — an informal group where student entrepreneurs can share plans for new ventures. And just two weeks ago, job-hungry Herald staffers traveled to Cambridge, Mass., to attend a journalism career fair at the Harvard Crimson in order to meet with media employers the CDC could, we presume, easily lure to this campus.

The list goes on. Brown students are certainly experienced at thinking outside the box, but it often seems like the CDC is not. For an undergraduate student body with over 5,000 students, more than a third of whom are on financial aid, it seems grossly inappropriate that CDC only offers around 30 Brown Internship Awards for low-paying internships.

Additional sources of funding do exist through the Watson Institute for International Studies and the Swearer Center for Public Service, but the total funding sources available to Brunonians seem to be just a fraction of the opportunities offered to our peers at Yale or Harvard. A quick Internet search yields more than 60 internship-related funds for Yale students and more than 50 travel, research and internship grants for Harvard undergrads. Alongside these numbers, Brown’s paltry dozen or so programs seem measly at best.

For students pursuing careers with very institutionalized application processes — like consulting or investment banking — this isn’t a problem.

But for students with goals off the beaten track, these numbers seem like a letdown.

It’s not just the money where the CDC lets us down. Hosting a program on graduate school and the occasional information session on nonprofit work simply is not enough.

dan lawlor

Letters UFB publication policies are inconsistent To the Editor: The Undergraduate Finance Board’s publicly stated No. 1 reason for refusing to fund the print edition of the Critical Review is overproduction (“Amid budget cuts, Critical Review loses print edition,” Oct. 2). Following this reasoning, UFB should also eliminate funding for the College Hill Independent. According to the UFB Web site, the Indy will receive $10,945 this semester for printing costs. Has anyone notices the hundreds of Indy issues sitting in the basement of Faunce? Isn’t this supposed to be where all the unused Critical Reviews are?

To be clear, my purpose is not to argue for Indy budget cuts. I want to use this as a case example to expose UFB’s hypocrisy. The Indy is getting much more money than the Critical Review asked for, yet it is much less read.

For years UFB has had a reputation, fairly or unfairly, for corruption. It is instances like these that contribute to that sentiment. I hope the controversy surrounding the Critical Review budget cuts will prompt a serious re-examination of UFB’s functioning.

Nathan Brower ’08 Oct. 10

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Eric Beck Mary-Catherine Lader

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Correction An article in Monday’s Herald (“RPLs get universal card access to dorms,” Oct. 15) reported that the University plans to extend universal card access to all students eventually. In fact, that measure is currently a proposal.

An opinions column in Monday’s Herald (“Dirty dining: Student leadership served over a bed of arugula,” Oct. 15) incorrectly identified Josh Teitelbaum ’08 as a Herald opinions columnist. He was a guest columnist.

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

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O pinions Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Loss of printed Critical Review hurts academic life DON TRELLA Opinions Columnist

The recent decision to eliminate funding for a printed copy of the Critical Review is both out of line with the University’s academic values and harmful to the quality of academic life for the student body. There is, of course, not an unlimited amount of funding, and the Undergraduate Finance Board has the unenviable job of making these difficult decisions. However, I believe there are two basic questions to keep in mind when making said decisions, varying based on what type of group is being evaluated.

There are two types of student groups at Brown: those that are primarily congregationbased and those that are primarily interestbased. A congregation-based student group is one that exists for the purpose of helping those with similar interests find one another and engage in a mutual exchange of information, ideas and skills, while a function-based group exists specifically for the purpose of accomplishing some concrete objective. Certainly all student groups do not fall neatly into one category or the other, and in theory, all groups are probably a little bit of both.

I happen to think congregation-based groups which, as a consequence of their existence, foment academic discourse or lend themselves to the development of generally important life skills are the more valuable. I believe this because groups with these traits,

in my view, fit in with the two-fold general purpose of the American university system: first, to allow for an intelligent free exchange of ideas; second, to cultivate future generations of innovators and leaders (who will naturally require important life skills in order to eventually become such people).

When a function-based group such as the Critical Review faces a budget cut, however, the question being asked is quite simply: Do we think the function this group performs is important? That is to say, “Would Brown University and the members of the Brown community be worse off if this function were not performed?” Of course all allocated money has opportunity cost, and clearly the function the group performs must be weighed against possible other uses of that money — what other deserving groups could be served with it?

Among function-based groups, it seems that the Critical Review does indeed perform a vital function that is essential to the very idea of what a university is. Disseminating value-free, fact-based information about what students think of their classes is instrumental to promoting more academic dialogue and improving the quality of that dialogue. In a nutshell, that’s the function of the publication.

When more people read it, good classes and good professors attract more interest, and poorly structured classes and disengaging or under-invested professors are induced to improve and compete. While the Critical Review will still continue to exist if a printed version is no longer available, it would fail to perform this function on a scope and scale large enough to exert this positive influence.

Why is this? I can think of several good arguments. One is the most widely circulated

argument: the printed version allows people to “stumble” onto positive reviews about a good class (and become subsequently curious about that class), whereas online, they must be sufficiently interested in the class in the first place to click on the link associated with it. This is a valid argument. In economic terms, this is known as toggling the “push-pull factor” — changing from the status quo to either “push” the information to individuals or providing information in such a way that induces individuals to “pull” the information in for themselves.

Empirically speaking, at some level we want to have some information “pushed” to us. One Brown-specific example of this is tableslipping. Because we are barraged with such a deluge of information via electronic media on a daily basis, we’re less likely to read any one piece of it. That’s why it still makes sense to have tableslips rather than just putting everything in “Morning Mail” — the information is there to be encountered in the dining halls — a place where you’ll necessarily be provided you’re on meal plan, which the vast majority of people are. Objectively speaking, it’s effective, which is precisely why student groups do it.

Another argument to consider in favor of the printed Critical Review: many people just prefer printed information. I prefer reading the copies of the New York Times that are given to us for free in the Ratty over reading the online version. Many students (in fact, probably a majority) use their Paw Prints cards printing out scholarly articles for their classes, even though they could read those same articles on a computer screen.

It is worth pointing out that an online Criti-

cal Review has the potential (potential being the key word here) to be better than a printed version, because if the Web site were dramatically overhauled, you could in theory enhance the “browsing” benefit (which one currently only has in the printed version) by making it a little less random. For example, you don’t have the ability to search by ratings in either the current web format or the printed edition.

That would be a nice tool to have. Even more powerful would be the ability to search along multiple different metrics. (“I want a class that students reported spending around six to eight hours a week on, and a course which received high marks for lectures and for assigned readings — which courses satisfy all three of these criteria?”)

While something like that could be done with a new and improved Critical Review, it would require a lot of software engineering and web design work. Unless UFB has the power to impress the Computer Science students into indentured servitude, it would cost a lot of money. Banner has a very unappealing interface, and the University spent $23 million on that!

Hence, funding a printed version of the Critical Review seems like the best option (at the very least, it is the best option until an online version becomes a more attractive alternative). The obligation we have to the betterment of the academic experience for all students demands that the publication be financially supported.

Don Trella ‘08 would totally sacrifice a printed Critical Review, however, to save funding for a bouncy castle on the Main Green.

Mayoral takeover of public schools

BY DAVID RICHARDSON AND CAMILLA HAWTHORNE Guest Columnists In September 2006, Adrian Fenty won the Washington, D.C. mayoral contest in a landslide victory. Central to his election platform was a strategy for top-down educational reform, which would place considerable power over the school system directly into Fenty’s hands. While Fenty’s plan for governance reform may seem surprising, this pattern of mayoral takeover in troubled school districts is actually a growing phenomenon in the United States. Currently, about a dozen of the 75 largest school districts in the country are under some form of mayoral control.

School boards have traditionally been democratically elected, a system which traces its roots to the Progressive-era reforms of the late nineteenth century. The more recent trend of mayoral takeover marks a significant shift away from both the concept of democratically-elected school boards and decentralized school administration. The manifestation of mayoral takeover varies across school districts — in some cities school boards are appointed directly by the mayor. In Providence, for example, the mayor appoints the nine members of the school board with the city council’s approval.

The main argument in favor of governance reform is that mayors will be held more accountable for the decisions they make with regards to school reform, since only 10 percent of people vote in school board elections, while voter turnout in mayoral elections is closer to 50 percent. In addition, there have been several studies which demonstrate that test scores in cities that have undergone a mayoral takeover are increasing at at least the same rate as those in cities with democratically

elected school boards.

However, as noted in the Harvard Educational Review, mayoral takeover — particularly of school boards — can remove direct public involvement in educational issues. Most citizens do not base their decisions in mayoral elections solely upon the state of the city’s schools. People tend to vote on a variety of issues, from the economy to health care to taxes. Thus this projected increase in accountability for the mayor to improve the city’s school may actually have a null effect. So while school board elections may be increasingly influenced by organized interests such as

In an effort to maintain some democratic principles in this mayoral takeover scenario, the District of Columbia City Council has added a backdoor option to Fenty’s proposal. The new measure gives the council the authority to remove mayoral control over the schools if they do not perform as expected under Fenty’s new plan. Additionally, Fenty has created a system where people from the local districts will be able to congregate and voice their concerns to the mayor and others.

Another problem with the top-down approach to education reform is that not all mayors will necessarily be enthusiastic about

It may be possible to combine the positive aspects of mayoral takeover with the benefits of community involvement in education. businesses and teachers’ unions, the editors of the Harvard Review note, the fact remains that democratically-elected city and neighborhood school boards are the only direct avenue for parents and other citizens to voice their opinions about education to the people who implement education policy. In New York, the situation has become so bad that journalists and public officials must file Freedom of Information demands to obtain even the most basic information about the Department of Education and its decisions.

overseeing educational reform. Jane Hannaway, a research associate with the Urban Institute, expressed similar concerns in a testimony before the D.C. city council. Education is a complicated business, she noted, and it is difficult to foresee the extent to which mayors and city council members will be able to focus on educational reform when they are also responsible for a multitude of other urban issues.

A prime example of how mayors sometimes do not have the educational system’s best

interests in mind is how New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed as chancellor Joel Klein, a man who has had no previous background in education, acording to the New York Times. Additionally, Klein appointed a controversial deputy who failed to include the public when choosing the city’s curriculum.

Because no one agreed with the deputy’s choices, the state and federal education officials refused to pay for the programs. Thus because the mayor appointed an inexperienced chancellor, the city’s curriculums failed at first to get funding.

Finally, critics of mayoral takeover fear that mayors will implement sweeping changes without paying attention to local, neighborhood-specific realities. For example, in New York, Bloomberg has closed a number of large schools in order to open smaller ones — part of a “small-schools initiative” — a move which has displaced many students, leaving them to cram into nearby schools where classrooms now hold as many as 46 students.

Fortunately, there is a spectrum of possibilities for school governance reform. While Bloomberg’s strategy in New York has been labeled as particularly “autocratic” by newspapers such as the Economist, there are other, less extreme forms of mayoral takeover. For example, in Washington, Mayor Fenty has arranged a series of “town halls” which allow citizens to voice their opinions about his education reforms directly to Fenty and his administrative staff. Therefore, it may ultimately be possible to combine the positive aspects of mayoral takeover — streamlined systems of accountability, a trimming away of needless bureaucracy, and increased corporate sponsorship — with the benefits of democratic control and community involvement in education.

David Richardson ’08 and Camilla Hawthorne ’09 are aspiring actors.

S ports T uesday Page 12

Sunday stumbles costs m. golf at last fall competition

By Peter Cipparone Spor ts Editor

In its final competition of the fall, the men’s golf team placed 13th at the ECAC Championship over the weekend. After two rounds at the Shelter Harbor Countr y Club in Charlestown, the Bears finished with a team total of 625 strokes. St. Bonaventure University took home the title, carding a 596.

Brown per formed admirably on Saturday, finishing the day tied for ninth with Colgate University.

The team’s four-player total of 307 placed it just four strokes out of sixth place. Larr y Haertel ’08, Brown’s first ever New England Intercollegiate Individual Champion, and Michael Amato ’11 led the team, each shooting four-overpar for 75. Chris Hoffman ’09 and John Giannuzzi ’09 also chipped in, shooting 77 and 80, respectively.

“We had a pretty good first day,” Haertel said.

But on Sunday, the team slid down the standings as every player scored higher than the previous day. Haertel and Amato shot 78 to close their season with identical

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

scores of 153. Meanwhile, Hoffman shot a 79 for a 156, and Giannuzzi finished with an 83 and overall score of 163.

Mark Dee ’11 also competed in the tournament and shot 82-91 for a 173, a score that did not contribute to the Bears’ final total.

“I think we kind of faltered a little bit the second day,” Haertel said. “It’s not the way we wanted to end the season.”

The team’s per for mance marked the second week in a row the Bears finished 13th. During the MacDonald Cup at Yale, the Bears were in a similar situation, slipping from sixth place after the first day of competition.

The team now faces a winter layoff during which it will regroup for its longer, more strenuous spring season.

“I think ever ybody’s looking forward to spring season,” Haertel said. “That’s what matters more for us, with the Ivy League Championship.”

Last year, the Bears took second place in the Ivy League Championships for their best finish in Brown histor y.

Real winner

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo Nick Elenz-Martin ’10 was named Ivy League Player of the Week after scoring two overtime game-winning goals in a span of four days.

Twelve games in, field hockey still winless

By Andrew Braca Spor ts Staf f Writer

The field hockey team suffered through the wrong end of two more shutouts this weekend, dropping the team’s record to 0-12 overall (0-4 in the Ivy League). On Saturday, Princeton scored four first-half goals en route to a 5-0 whitewashing of Brown on Warner Roof. Then, the Bears headed north on Sunday to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where they were blanked, 3-0, by No. 13 Boston University.

On Saturday, Princeton quickly put Brown in a hole by opening with two goals just 88 seconds apart. Candice Arner started the scoring at 5:04 by collecting a rebound and firing a shot that kicked

up and over the outstretched leg of starting goaltender Kristen Hodavance ’08, and into the cage. The Tigers struck again to take a 2-0 lead when Katie Kinzer charged down the middle of the field and fed Kaitlin Donovan near the right post.

“We came out a little slow,” said Head Coach Tara Harrington ’94 about the team’s early struggles.

“I think that having them scoring right away, bang-bang, put us back on our heels a little bit. … Princeton is fast and very skillful. We had some breakdowns all over the field, and they capitalized all the way.”

After Princeton took a three-goal lead with Arner’s second goal of the game at 15:45, Lauren Kessler ’11 came on to relieve Hodavance

so m e th i n g to shout a b out

at 20:12. Only 28 seconds later, Christina Bortz took a pass from Kinzer on the left side and beat Kessler with a shot to the center of the cage. Princeton took that 4-0 lead into halftime on the strength of a 13-5 advantage in shots.

After a rough first half, impassioned speeches in the halftime huddle inspire the Bears to step up their play.

“We basically laid it on the line that what we did in the first half was not the type of Brown field hockey that we want to play,” Harrington said. “The tradition of Brown field hockey has always been a lot of passion and a lot of energy and a lot of fight on that field, (but) we were lacking a little bit of that in the first half. The kids understood that (and) rallied behind that. The

continued on page 9

Albany race big success for w. xc

By Elisabeth Avallone Contributing Writer

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo After pitching a shutout in the women’s soccer team’s upset at Harvard Saturday, goalkeeper Steffi Yellin ’10 was named Ivy League Player of the Week.

seniors got the group together and said, ‘We’re better than that. We’re going to play to the end and we’re going to put five goals in.’”

Unfortunately, the Bears were not able to rally back, but they did manage to slow down the Tigers.

In the second half, Brown trimmed Princeton’s advantage in shots to 8-3, and even managed to hold a 4-2 advantage in penalty corners, though it could not convert any of them into goals. Kessler made five second-half saves and surrendered only one goal, when Kinzer scored on a rebound at 41:20 to notch her fourth point of the game.

Harrington attributed the improved level of play in the second half to the team’s increased inten-

The women’s cross country team survived a test of endurance on Saturday, outrunning 26 other teams to claim second place at the 41st annual University of Albany Cross Country Invitational. The Bears trailed first-place finisher Harvard by just 10 points.

Smita Gupta ’08 and Ariel Wright ’10 led the Bears to the finish line by placing second and third overall, respectively, on the 5,000-meter course. Gupta clocked in at 17:22.2 to take second place, while Wright followed right behind with a time of 17:31.1.

Craig Lake, director of the cross country and track and field programs, expressed pride in Gupta and Wright for proving themselves to be at the top of the pack.

“Smita and Ariel ran terrific races!” Lake wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “Their times were extremely fast.”

Lauren Pischel ’11 and Caitlin Clark ’11 also claimed spots in the top 20. Pischel placed 11th after recording a time of 17:56.7, and Clark finished 15th with a time of 18:11.5.

Megan Fitzpatrick ’11, Kesley Ramsey ’11 and Cara Harrison ’11 also gave strong performances, finishing up for the Bears with times of 18:22.5, 18:26.0 and 18:47.9, respectively.

“Our women’s team ran really well this weekend,” Lake wrote, adding that the Bears performed well despite setbacks.

“We held out one of our top runners, Jenna Ridgway (’10), which will make us even stronger,” she wrote.

“We also have some injuries on the women’s side in our top seven, which has hurt us a little depth-wise. We will need our fourth and fifth runners to step it up at Heps.”

The Bears compete next at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships on Oct. 26 in Van Cortlandt Park in New York City.

Singer ’09: Strike three, you’re dead Earlier this week, I was watching “Jim Rome is Burning” on ESPN, as any good American does, and Jim and his panelists were debating whether a recent block made below the knees by Miami Dolphins quarterback Trent Green was a “dirty hit.” If you’ve ever watched Jim Rome Ben Singer speak, you know High Notes that what he has to say isn’t particularly compelling. But at the same time, there’s something hypnotic about his cadence that forces you to keep watching even though you want to change the channel. As I sat in my spellbound stupor, fixated upon Rome’s mesmerizing tone, I realized something: professional athletes today have it easy.

During my spring break trip to Mexico this past year, I was touring some Mayan ruins and came across what looked like very broad, short, stone staircases. I asked our tour guide why the Mayans built stairs that went nowhere. He paused and looked at me blankly as though pondering why he hadn’t yet quit his job, then answered, “Sir, those are bleachers.”

Oh. Turns out your average 16thcentury Mayan citizen was under five feet tall, but they still managed to fill up those stairs. Err, stands.

What were they watching, you ask?

An ancient game that was just as much religious ritual as sport. On a stone, I-shaped court generally 25-feet wide by 75-feet long, two teams consisting of 2 to 11 players would pass a rubber ball 20 inches in diameter between them using only their forearms, hips and thighs. On either long side of the court were stone ramps, each adorned with a vertical stone ring stationed six meters off the ground through which players tried to pass the ball. A typical match ended when one team got the ball through the hoop or failed to return the ball to its opponents after it bounced on the ground once. This bizarre amalgamation of soccer, volleyball and basketball was aptly called the Ball Game.

But whereas teams playing in major league sports today play to win the game, players of the Ball Game played to keep their lives.

Typically, players on the losing team were decapitated or their hearts were torn out as blood sacrifices to appease the Mayan gods. Needless to say, few teams could exist that were not undefeated. However, on occasion, the winning team would be sacrificed instead — if those overseeing the contest wanted to make a better offering to the gods.

During rare instances where teams played extraordinarily well, the team’s captain would receive the rare honor of being beheaded — an envied opportunity that supposedly provided a free ticket to heaven.

Somehow, I can’t see Alex Rodriguez playing hard for the honor of being decapitated. Nor can I see Scott Boras having nearly as many clients in Mayan times. But there are some similarities between the continued on page 7