The Brown Daily Herald T uesday, O ctober 30, 2007
Volume CXLII, No. 99
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Protesters greet Colombian Ambassador Barco P’10 By Leslie Primack Contributing Writer
As a band of Brown students picketed outside the Salomon Center last night, Colombian ambassador to the United States Carolina Barco Isakson P’10 spoke about U.S.-Colombian relations and answered students’ frank questions about her country’s cocaine production, paramilitary violence and the controversial free trade agreement being discussed by Colombia and the United States. Barco urged the audience to look past Colombia’s problems and focus on the country as one of “creative, compassionate people.” “Many Americans have seen Colombia from one prism, and especially your generation,” she said. She described how Colombia was once known for coffee, then for marijuana in the 1960’s, and now for cocaine. “And yes, we’ll talk about human rights and we’ll talk about democracy and what it means,” she said, ad-
By Michael Skocpol Senior Staff Writer
As parents flocked to College Hill Friday for Parents Weekend, President Ruth Simmons sat down with The Herald to discuss a reassessment of her Plan for Academic Enrichment, recent changes in the dean of the College’s office, the University’s position on climate change and the state of academic freedom on college campuses.
Oona Curley / Herald
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Protesters filled the back rows as Colombia’s Ambassador to the United States, Carolina Barco P’10, addressed a Salomon 001 crowd.
Dead air on BTV may lead to station’s extinction
Stressed out? Visits to Psych Services on the rise
By Dana Teppert Contributing Writer
The static students see when they tune into Brown Television may become a permanent feature of the channel, as the student group that runs the station faces extinction. BTV has not been on the air since last semester, when sound quality was a problem and there were often long gaps between programs. Now, if the station’s student organizers do not resume at least showing movies on the channel, it will not receive any funding for the spring semester, said Undergraduate Finance Board Chair Ryan Mott ’09. BTV “has the potential to go extinct,” said Liz Backup ’08, one of only four students currently involved with the station. The others are Kevin Volk ’08, David Notis ’10 and Jad Joseph ’10. Last year, UFB awarded BTV $12,496 in funding for this semester, for the purpose of showing commercially released movies — usually the staple of the channel’s programming, along with student-produced shows. But the group was not budgeted for the spring, Mott said, because the station had been unable to show movies without difficulties. BTV has run into trouble this fall because it was “inherited as a dead organization,” Volk said, as last semester’s only staffers — Pascale Georges ’07 and Matt Listro ’07 — both graduated. Notis said he and the other current members became involved with
By Rachel Arndt Senior Staf f Writer
Brown students are supposedly among the happiest in the country, but almost one in five students visits Psychological Services each year. Moreover, that number has risen by 31 percent over the last decade, according to University officials. That percentage may also be higher than at other Ivy League schools. About 15 percent of Princeton University’s students went to the university’s counseling services in 2001, according to a March 2002 article in the Yale Daily News. About 14 to 18 percent of Yale students see the school’s Department of Mental Hygiene each year, and Harvard University’s counseling service sees between 12 and 14 percent
of the student body each year, according to the same article. The growing use of Psych Services at Brown may reflect a more stressful academic environment than Brown’s laid-back reputation suggests, some students say. But Brown officials say the numbers
CHECK-UP Third in a series on the state of health at Brown are high because the University provides easy and convenient access to services. Psych Services is “the place where students can get fairly immediate and also knowledgeable help,” said Director of Psychological Services Belinda Johnson.
G r ee k o r T r eat
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METRO
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Students never have to wait longer than a week to get an appointment, Johnson said, and there is also always a “crisis clinician” on call. Though students see Psych Services for test anxiety and psychoses, the most common issue is depression — both short- and long-term. Each Brown student can have five free sessions with a psychotherapist at Psych Services per semester. If a student needs more treatment, Psych Services provides a referral to a nearby doctor or therapist. Visits to Psych Service’s staff psychiatrist, Jonathan Bolton, are unlimited. Caroline Kersten ’07 went to Psych Services in 2004 for bipolar disorder and was later referred to an outside therapist, she told
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CAMPUS NEWS
peta grades U. ‘a’ Brown ranks highly in a PETA survey of vegetarianfriendly universities, thanks in part to spicy dal.
Has the University been adequately prepared to deal with contingencies such as the closing of the Smith Swim Center, and how prepared is continued on page 8
First-generation college students adjust to Brown
Rahul Keerthi / Herald Greek Council held its annual ‘Halloween on Wriston’ carnival for schoolchildren Monday.
Off-campus rush The off-campus housing application became available yesterday, and juniors are already scouring for deals.
The Herald: At a faculty meeting earlier this month, you said it was time to pause and reassess the Plan for Academic Enrichment, noting that “no budget can bear a limitless succession of good ideas.” Overall, how disciplined do you think the University has been in aggressively pursuing the goals of the Plan for Academic Enrichment? Simmons: Well, I would say amazingly disciplined, given the fact that when you look at the plan, responsibility for different areas is dispersed across so many people, so many different offices, and one of the real concerns that I had when we started this was how to make that level of effort consistent. I’ve been very gratified to see the focus, and I think one of the reasons that occurred is because we set real timelines, we gave visible responsibility to certain offices for following up on some of the recommendations. There are hundreds — if not thousands — of moving parts in the plan. So one way of showing accountability to the community was to make sure everybody knew who was doing what and could legitimately question how it was going and whether or not we were following the plan. So overall, I think pretty well.
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By Irene Chen Senior Staff Writer
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INSIDE:
A conversation with the president
Karen Pridham P’10 had no qualms about her daughter Julie’s decision to go to college, but helping her daughter through a process she was unfamiliar with was overwhelming. Julie Pridham ’10 came to Brown last year as a first-generation college student. “As a parent, we don’t have words of wisdom to encourage our students to feel free to talk to professors openly ... because we don’t have anything to relate to,” Karen Pridham said. “We can’t guide them in their first adventures out in the college world.” Julie Pridham thought she had adjusted well her freshman year, until
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OPINIONS
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
halloween ho’s Alison Schouten ’08 ponders the origin and meaning of students’ smutty Halloween costumes.
she met with a group of first-generation students and realized she needed this community of support. “I never knew there were other people who felt the same way that I do,” Julie Pridham said. “It was amazing to me, thinking that I had it all figured out and I can do it on my own, and then realizing that there are really people who are in a similar boat who I can relate to on this level.” Because of her experiences adjusting to life at Brown, Julie is now helping to organize the First Generation Mentoring Group, or First-Gen, which hosted a reception for firstgeneration college students and their families during Parents Weekend. continued on page 4
12 SPORTS
w. soccer wins one In double-overtime, the women’s soccer team takes charge to beat out Penn’s Quakers.
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