Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, O ctober 31, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 100

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Prof.’s essay alleges threat to academic freedom

By Matthew Varley Staff Writer

Herald File Photo (top), brown.edu

Brown Hillel Rabbi Serena Eisenberg ’87 (top) and Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Elliott Colla

In the current issue of the American Association of University Professors’ publication “Academe,” Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Elliott Colla makes public a previously private dispute over academic freedom on Brown’s campus. In his essay, Colla alleges that Rabbi Serena Eisenberg ’87, executive director of Brown Hillel and an associate University chaplain, attempted to “send students to dis-

Two years after Katrina

rupt a forum on academic freedom at Brown” that he co-hosted at the Watson Institute for International Studies on May 3. Colla’s heated essay casts the supposed “attacks” on his conference as part of a larger trend of opposition nationwide to Middle East studies.

In response to Colla’s article, which was titled “Academic Freedom and Middle East Studies,” four Brown faculty members have written a letter to the publication refuting Colla’s claims, and President Ruth Simmons has personally

expressed her support for Eisenberg in the dispute.

Eisenberg, Colla and Br yant University Professor of Histor y and Social Sciences Marsha Posusney, who co-coordinated the conference with Colla, all declined to comment to The Herald for this article.

Concern about the May conference In his essay, Colla alleges he became aware of “organized efforts” continued on page 9

Halloween horror

Displaced students recall times at Brown and returning to New Orleans

By Irene Chen Senior Staff Writer

Two years later, there are still vacant stretches of land in New Orleans, hundreds of acres with nothing except a few dozen rebuilt homes and trailers, say students who studied in New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region on Aug. 29, 2005, devastating parts of the Mississippi and Alabama coasts and Louisiana, shutting down universities and forcing students to seek other places to study. Brown hosted 59 undergraduate students and 27 graduate students from the Gulf Coast in the fall of 2005 as part of the University’s hurricane response efforts.

Though many of the students who later returned to Tulane University, Dillard University and Xavier University have since graduated or transferred to other schools, they all recall a fragmented college experience transformed by Katrina.

Things left behind Providence native Cori Oliver, who graduated from Tulane this spring, said she felt removed from Brown’s student body as a visiting student. Oliver was entering her junior year at Tulane and had moved into a new apartment when she was told to evacuate. Her house was boarded up, and her then-boyfriend had to break in to retrieve some of her belongings for her. She returned to Providence, where she first spent a semester at Brown and then some time at the University of Rhode Island before returning to Tulane.

Meredith Evans, now a junior at the University of Rochester, was a rising freshman at Tulane in the fall of 2005. The week before Katrina hit, she had driven down with her father from her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. After Evans had finished moving into her dorm room, Tulane issued an evacuation warning, canceling orientation and classes. Students were told to either go home with their parents or take school shuttles to Alacontinued on page 6

INSIDE:

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CAMPUS WATCH

www.browndailyherald.com

Al Franken’s campaign hits Thayer Street

By Patrick Corey and Franklin Kanin Staff Writer and Senior Staff Writer

Students who ventured into Blue State Coffee for their caffeine fix yesterday were treated to more than just cream with their coffee. Minnesota Senate hopeful and comedian Al Franken came to the coffee shop Tuesday afternoon to mingle, deliver remarks and — of course — raise money.

Franken, standing at the center of the packed venue, immediately told the crowd why he was running for the U.S. Senate. America was once a great country, he said, and it could be great again.

“I’m running in Minnesota because I want to change the country,” Franken, a Democrat, said. “I know our best days are ahead of us.”

The crowd at the aptly named coffeehouse was appreciative of the satirist-turned-politician. They booed at the mention of his potential opponent, Republican incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, and applauded when Franken assured them that he would win the seat.

Franken criticized Coleman’s backing from special interest groups and large corporations, and declared his support for campaign finance reform. He proudly announced that, despite relying on contributions from individual supporters, he raised more money than Coleman in the first two quarters. “We need to break the stranglehold of big money,” he said.

Franken had been in Boston to raise money for his campaign, but stopped in at Blue State for “something of a fundraiser” hosted by one of the shop’s founders (and Franken’s Harvard College roommate), Tom Clark.

“We’re just doing a little pit stop for a little campaign cash,” Franken told The Herald.

When asked for his thoughts on fellow comedian Stephen Colbert’s presidential bid, Franken said satirists, like himself, are highly qualified for politics.

“What a satirist does,” Franken said, “is look at a situation and find out all the inconsistencies and hy-

Kim Perley / Herald This memorable entry in the student pumpkin-carving competition, held Monday at the Sharpe Refectory, rekindles the Ratty-V-Dub rivalry.

continued on page 4

Ratty dishes inspired San Francisco’s Firefly chef

By Stephanie Bernhard Features Editor

Like many students, Brad Levy ’81 first toyed with future career ideas while in college. But unlike many students, he didn’t get his ideas from great professors or intense internships — he found his niche in a tiny kitchen on Wickenden Street.

While at Brown, Levy started working as a dishwasher at the nowclosed Cafe at Brook at the corner of Brook and Wickenden streets. He

RACISM AND GENETICS James Watson, who codiscovered the structure of DNA, has retired in the wake of controversial comments.

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CAMPUS NEWS

was quickly promoted and within a amount of credits for,” Levy said. year became the restaurant’s chef. Levy also concentrated in educaHe said he would scour cookbooks tion, but he said he enjoyed cooking for recipes and call his mother in St. too much to consider teaching as a Louis for more ideas. career. While studying at Brown, “I found cookthough, he knew most of his peers ing by accident,” FEATURE Levy said. had more traditional Levy liked his paths in mind.

“I liked to cook, but I never conjob so much that, by the time he graduated, he could only consider sidered it as a profession,” Levy said, pursuing one profession. explaining that he went to college “I only majored in philosophy be- “before the days when (cooking) cause that’s what I needed the least was an honorable pursuit.”

SCHOOL SPIRIT LIVES The cheerleading team is back at Brown sporting events this year after losing its coach in 2006.

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OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

WHO’s YOUR DADDY? Patrick Harrison ‘08 on why protecting the New Curriculum is students’ responsibility.

According to the 2003 Outcome Report conducted by the Career Development Center, cooking still is not a top career choice among Brown graduates. The report, which tracked the activities of 2003 grads a year after their Commencement and is the most recent version of such a survey currently available on the CDC Web site, showed that none of the 754 respondents had gone on to culinary school. Food continued on page 4

12 SPORTS

FARNHAM the fourth The football team’s Buddy Farnham ‘10 carries on a gridiron family tradition every Saturday.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

We a t h e r Today

T O M ORRO W

sunny 64 / 50

partly cloudy 64 / 42

Menu

Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Spinach Strudel, Sticky Rice, Eggplant Parmesan Grinder, Beef and Broccoli Szechuan, Halloween Cookies and Cupcakes

Lunch — Pulled Pork Sandwich, Grecian Zucchini Bake, Fresh Sliced Carrots, Halloween Cookies and Cupcakes

Dinner — Macaroni and Cheese with Avocados and Tomatoes, Pork Chops, Cheese Ravioli, Candy and Caramel Apples, Halloween Candy

Dinner — Sesame Chicken Strips, Egg Foo Young, Sticky Rice, Vegetables in Honey Ginger Sauce, Jamaican Stir Fry, Candy and Caramel Apples

Aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer

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

Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, October 31, 2007 © Puzzles by Pappocom

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

C

o s and s wo d Lewis Edited by RichrNorris Joyce r Nichols

ACROSS 1 Stones star Jagger 5 One pulling in a pusher 9 Cath. prelate 13 Chew on a bone 14 Millennium opener 16 Subtle emanation 17 Espionage name 18 *Blood-drinking mammal 20 Less promising of two songs 22 “Return of the Jedi” dancing girl 23 Subside, with “down” 24 Online address ending 25 *Be the buffoon 28 Do garden work 29 Worldwide workers gp.

30 Mother with a Nobel prize 31 Tiny particle 33 Most plentiful 36 “Amazing!”

38 Stew morsel 39 Units of time?

43 Corsage flowers 46 Doze, with “out” 47 Not as original, as jokes 50 Confused comments 52 “By the way ...”

53 *Illegal audio broadcasts, collectively 56 Decorates with Charmin, briefly?

57 Stand buy 58 E-mailed a dupe to 59 Stocking shades 61 *Astringent lotion 64 Apple with an electronic core 66 “M*A*S*H” quaff 67 Correct, as text 68 Eat like a bird 69 Span. ladies 70 Fliers grounded in ’03, for short 71 Gets inquisitive DOWN 1 Leo is its logo

47 Gives rise to 37 Deplorable sort 2 Where diner patrons may 48 More organized 40 The starts of prefer to sit 49 Franklin of soul answers to 3 *Something asterisked clues 51 Part of SDS: outstanding Abbr. are the most 4 “The Bridge on 54 Paper orders popular adult the River __”: Halloween ones 55 Carpentry tools 1957 film 60 Philbin’s co-host 41 Hiker’s burden 5 “Animal Farm,” 42 “The __ the limit!” 62 USSR successor for one 63 Suffix with 44 Christmas 6 Santa __ winds absorb display 7 Cut again, as a 65 They may be 45 Riot squad lawn certified: Abbr. defenses 8 Food fowl 9 Fannie __ ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 10 Quash 11 Sand bits 12 Like some bonds 15 Make wider 19 Hardest to come by 21 Early seventhcentury date 24 Bush’s secretary of labor Elaine 26 Pizazz 27 Red Sox star David “Big Papi” __ 32 Green stuff 34 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame architect 35 Stored cargo 10/31/07 xwordeditor@aol.com

Octopus on Hallucinogens | Toni Liu and Stephanie Le

Classic How To Get Down | Nate Saunders

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10/31/07

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown demic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Page 3

Dillard ranks 9th among historically black colleges

James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA structure, resigns after racist remarks

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

By Oliver Bowers Campus Watch Editor

Dillard University, the New Orleans institution with which Brown established a partnership of support following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the alma mater of President Ruth Simmons, was recently ranked ninth on a U.S. News and World Report list of the top 81 historically black colleges and universities. Spelman College in Georgia earned the top spot in the poll, which was released earlier this month.

Dillard — with just over 1,100 students and an endowment of $40.8 million, according to the university’s Web site — was awarded 63 points in a scoring system that considered SAT/ACT scores, student-to-faculty ratio and graduation rates, among other factors. Spelman finished with 100 points.

Some of the more impressive numbers reported by U.S. News included Dillard’s student-to-faculty ratio — 11 to one — and the fact that 92 percent of its faculty members are full-time.

Rankings were also based on sur veys distributed to administrators at peer institutions asking them to compare their universities with others in their peer groups.

“Our peer institutions, people who were in a position to know what we do, thought we did well,” Dillard Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Emily Moore told The Herald. Dillard achieved a peer

assessment score of 3.5 out of 5.

Moore said the university was not surprised by the favorable ranking, though she did not expect to see a ranking system of historically black colleges — this is the first year U.S. News has ranked historically black colleges.

“We were surprised about the ranking itself, but not being in a ranking,” Moore said. She stressed that Dillard had scored high in rankings among Southern comprehensive colleges in 2006 and 2007.

Moore said Dillard works to provide a quality education to its students, not to earn high marks on rankings. “We do what we do to provide the kind of education (that Dillard students value),” Moore said.

In order to qualify as a historically black college, a school must be entered in the U.S. Depar tment of Education’s “Historically Black Colleges and Universities” registr y, which was established by the Higher Education Act of 1965, according to the U.S. News Web site. In order to qualify, a school must have been established prior to 1964 and its principal mission must have always been the education of black Americans.

Two strengths for which Dillard has received acclaim in the past are its National Center for Black-Jewish Relations and its Institute of Jazz Culture, according to an Oct. 8 article in the Louisiana Weekly. Moore acknowledged the

strengths of these programs when asked what contributed to Dillard’s lofty ranking, but she said the university had other strengths to offer as well, mentioning the university’s partnership with the Melton Foundation, an international foundation that addresses global issues.

Dillard has been the beneficiary of a Brown assistance program established to help the university recover from Hurricane Katrina.

According to a Brown press release, the school suffered more than $350 million in damage from the storm.

Moore said the disaster has not affected the school’s quality of education. “I don’t think Katrina had much of an impact” on the U.S. News and World Report ranking, Moore said, though she added that the storm has affected the Dillard community and the university is “concerned with our whole community coming back.”

Most of the assistance Brown has provided to Dillard has been in-kind. University Librarian Harriette Hemmasi flew to Dillard and helped the New Orleans university restore and repair books damaged by the hurricane, and Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president, has traveled to Dillard at least four times to help its administration with long-term financial planning.

In September, Simmons announced that Brown would continue to provide assistance to Dillard for the foreseeable future.

Yale Law loses court battle over controversial Solomon Amendment

By Hristo Atanasov Contributing Writer

Yale Law School is now required to allow military recruiters to participate in its career fair, following a decision last month by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a suit filed by 44 Yale Law School faculty members. The ruling upholds a federal law that requires institutions that receive federal funding to grant military recruiters access to their career fairs.

Since 1972, the New Haven, Conn., law school has required employers who wished to take part in its career fairs to sign a pledge that ensures that they abide by the school’s policy against prejudice. In 1978, the school adopted a non-discrimination policy that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. When its nondiscrimination policy was extended to include sexual orientation, the pledge was no longer consistent with the militar y’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prohibits openly gay or lesbian individuals from serving in the armed forces, effectively shutting the recruiters off from Yale Law School’s placement services.

Since the spring of 2002, the Bush administration has begun to enforce a 1996 federal law known

as the Solomon Amendment, which provides for the suspension of federal funding for schools that do not offer military recruiters full access to their career fairs.

In 2003, prompted by the possibility of losing about $350 million in federal funding and eager to defend Yale’s homosexual students, Yale Law School professor Robert Burt, along with 43 other law school faculty members, filed suit against the Department of Defense in Connecticut’s District Court.

Burt, a lead plaintiff in the suit, told The Herald that the main argument against the amendment is that, as applied, it infringes on the school’s First Amendment rights to expression and academic freedom. In January 2005, U.S. District Judge Janet Hall ruled in favor of the law school, allowing it once again to bar militar y recruiters from its career fairs, according to a Dec. 6, 2005, Yale Law School press release.

The Department of Defense appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. By the time the case was heard and decided, however, another lawsuit concerning the Solomon Amendment had reached the Supreme Court, where the constitutionality of the law was upheld, according to a Sept. 20, 2007, article in the New Haven Register.

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On Sept. 17, the appeals court overturned the lower court’s ruling, forcing Yale Law School to suspend its non-discrimination policy and allow military recruiters back to its career fairs in order to preserve federal funding. “The judge wasn’t persuaded by the First Amendment argument as was the one in the district court,” Burt said.

Asked whether any further action can be taken to battle the Solomon Amendment, Burt said that after the Supreme Court decision, “the courts have shut the door to further litigation.” However, he added, there is a challenge to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy currently being considered by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In a statement regarding the decision, Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh said he was “disappointed by this outcome” but was “proud that we defended our right to academic freedom and spoke up for the equal opportunity of all of our students to work for our military services.”

Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations Michael Chapman said that Brown has not taken any action against the militar y’s discrimination policy.

“Brown complies with the Solomon Amendment because it is the law of the land,” Chapman said.

By Hari Tyagi Contributing Writer

Nobel laureate James Watson, a geneticist credited with co-discovering the structure of DNA, resigned from his position as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island last week after making controversial comments earlier this month about the relative intelligence of blacks and whites.

Watson announced his retirement from the laboratory, where he has worked since 1968, last Thursday, and also resigned from its board of trustees.

“To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly,” Watson said in a statement to the Associated Press.

“That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief. I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said.”

The former Harvard University researcher created instant controversy when he commented on the intelligence of Africans in a Oct. 14 article in the Sunday Times Magazine of London.

Watson told the newspaper that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa. ... All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really. ...There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically.”

Watson also said that while he hoped all people are equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.”

As a result of his comments, Watson was immediately suspended by the lab.

“The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are

not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired,” Watson said in a statement regarding his resignation.

The 79-year-old Watson is no stranger to making controversial comments. In the past, he said that people of color have greater sex drives and that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests determined the child would be homosexual, according to an Oct. 19 Newsday article.

“He has gotten increasingly eccentric over the last 10 to 15 years,” said Richard Losick, a professor of biology at Harvard and former coworker of Watson’s. “It seems like he enjoys to shock people, but he went way too far this time.”

Likewise, Harvard biology professor Andrew Berry, who co-wrote “DNA: The Secret of Life” with Watson in 2003, said, “He always has edgy views, and he prides himself on jousting at political correctness.”

Berry said Watson “has done a lot of important work for the scientific community and arguably for humanity.”

Watson previously ser ved as director and president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which conducts research projects on cancer, neurobiology and plant genetics. He received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1962 along with researchers Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for their published discover y of the double-helical structure of DNA. Despite the recent negative publicity, some scientists said they hope the public respects Watson’s legacy and impact on genetics.

A press release from Watson’s former laboratory stated Watson had transformed the laboratory from “a small facility into one of the world’s great education and research institutions.” Eduardo Mestre, chairman of the laboratory’s board, said in the same statement that Watson had made “immeasurable contributions” to the establishment.

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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Levy ’81: from Wickenden to culinary stardom continued from page 1 services was not listed among the 18 primary job categories for grads who were employed at the time of the survey.

But when a recently graduated Levy returned to St. Louis to discuss career options with his family, he kept coming back to the idea of being a chef.

“Nothing else seemed possible to me,” Levy said. “I was a novelty among my family and friends. They kept calling me up for cooking advice after that.”

Levy said all he knew was that he “didn’t want to be a lawyer or a doctor” — two of the most popular careers for Brown grads, according to the CDC report.

So he packed his car and set off for California, where he spent two years in culinary school.

“I’d done the Midwest, done the East Coast — it made sense,” Levy said. “What better place is there to go?”

He knew that San Francisco was one of the country’s culinary capitals and liked the area enough that, after taking an extra year to study cooking in France, he returned to work in the city.

After several years in the trade, Levy thought he had enough experience to open a restaurant of his own.

Along with partner Veva Edelson, a line cook at the restaurant where he was working, Levy opened Firefly, an upscale restaurant serving American cuisine, in 1993.

“I didn’t understand all that was

involved in running a restaurant,” Levy said, saying he and Edelson were always “putting out fires, both physically and metaphorically.” He said he wanted to create a homey atmosphere where he could cook good food and greet all his customers. He learned that most of the work happened outside the kitchen: hiring and maintaining a good staff, filling in when employees were scarce and managing the budget for the entire project.

“We’ve gotten a lot more professional, but we maintain that atmosphere of being real people,” Levy said. “We’re still learning how to run a restaurant after 14 years.” But Levy has grown accustomed to the demands of balancing time as a chef and an owner.

“I think it’s a great job,” Levy said.

“You’re doing something creative, and it’s athletic, and it’s demanding, and you have to do a lot of things at once, and you’re dealing with people and you’re making a staff of very different and unusual people work well together,” he said. “It’s nothing like sitting behind a desk.”

He said his education degree from Brown has helped him train his staff effectively. Brown influences other aspects of Firefly, too: Levy said dishes he ate at the Sharpe Refectory have inspired many creations over the years.

“I loved the food at the Ratty — it’s one of my biggest influences as a chef,” Levy said, adding that he still remembers the taste of “certain flavor combinations” like a fish sandwich with coleslaw and cheese.

“I put on a lot of weight eating there,” Levy said. “I spent a lot of time eating at the Ratty.”

Though Firefly has a reputation for upscale food, Levy said he likes to incorporate home-style elements into his dishes. The most popular item on the menu, he said, is the fried chicken served with mashed potatoes, gravy and a biscuit. Levy changes the menu every season but usually keeps the fried chicken and always offers two vegetarian options — one is even suitable for vegans.

Levy said San Francisco, with its large vegetarian population, needs restaurants that cater to everyone.

“We’re the kind of place where (diners) all feel like they’re getting well taken care of,” Levy said.

These days, Levy doesn’t just care for customers. His second daughter, Elisha, was born two and a half weeks ago. His eldest daughter, Essie, is 23 months old.

“I can allow the restaurant to be a little less than perfect if it means having a valuable life with a family in it,” Levy said, adding that he does cook for his family, though the dishes he makes at home are much simpler than those he serves at Firefly.

When it comes time for his own children to choose their careers, Levy said he wants them to follow their passions, not the established trajectory.

“The first thing you have to do is get over the idea that you’re wasting your parents’ money,” Levy said. “I think any parents worth a thought would just want them to be happy.”

Franken hits Thayer Street continued from page 1 pocrisy and absurdities and cuts through all the baloney and gets the truth.”

“I think it’s really great training for the U.S. Senate,” he said.

If elected, Franken said he would focus on health care, the Iraq war and global warming.

Franken said the most important domestic issue facing America today is the country’s lack of universal health care. “We have a system that is out of whack completely,” he said.

“We have to get to universal.” He called President Bush’s recent veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan “crazy.”

On global warming, Franken called for conser vation and the development of renewable energy sources, including wind, tidal and solar energy technologies. “We’re America, we can do this, we just got to get our stuff together,” he said.

Upon reaching the Senate, Franken would have to address the Iraq War, for which he said there are no good solutions. “We can’t stay there forever, and there’s nothing that says that all the bad stuff that’s going to happen if we leave isn’t going to happen if we leave two years from now,” he said.

Franken urged the crowd to get involved in any upcoming congressional races and stressed the importance of several in helping the Democrats secure a larger majority in both chambers and make the Senate “filibuster-proof,” he said.

Acknowledging Rhode Island’s fully Democratic congressional delegation and probable support for a Democrat in the 2008 presidential race, Franken joked that Rhode Islanders should “raise money and send it to other states.”

C ampus n ews Wednesday, October 31, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Independent study projects allow students to be architects of their own courses

By George Miller Contributing Writer

As the deadline to submit proposals for Independent Study Projects approaches, administrators are preparing to review proposals for the spring semester.

ISPs and Group Independent Study Projects, or GISPs, are designed to allow students to create their own courses to fill gaps in the University’s formal offerings. With a faculty sponsor and a custom-made syllabus, a single student or group of students can get college credit for courses of their own design.

But frequently, ISP proposals are “more appropriate to an evening adult education class than to a university,” said J. William Suggs, associate professor of chemistr y and biochemistr y and a member of the independent concentrations subcommittee of the College Curriculum Council. He emphasized that ISPs and GISPs must include strong academic content and oppor tunities for evaluation by a professor.

The CCC has discussed taking steps to ensure the quality of proposals, including having depart-

mental rubrics for ISPs, according to minutes from a meeting last May. But Suggs said formal changes are unlikely, noting that the other two members of the CCC’s independent studies subcommittee have since left the council.

James Valles, associate dean of the College for curriculum and professor of physics, said the CCC has no concern about the quality of proposals. Though he said a discussion about the procedure for creating proposals might come up at a future meeting, he said he doubted formal changes would be made.

Few ISP proposals are rejected outright, Suggs said. Rather, the committee frequently suggests that a proposal be revised and resubmitted. One of the most common complaints, Suggs said, is an incomplete bibliography that does not cover all the source material used for the course.

But Suggs said he remains a strong supporter of ISPs and GISPs. “I think it’s a wonderful thing. I think students should do more of them,” he said, adding that the projects give students an idea of how continued on page 6

Janine Kwoh / Herald

Professor of Economics Ivo Welch’s textbook-in-progress on investments is used in his and Assistant Professor of Economics Xiaoli Qiu’s courses.

For some courses, profs write the book

By Evan Pelz Contributing Writer

Some students like to complain about course textbooks, whether because they are overpriced, confusing or just plain ineffective. But occasionally, students need to be extra careful about complaining too loudly about their textbook — because it was written by their professor.

For example, students in ECON 1170: “Welfare Economics” use a textbook written by Allan Feldman, professor of economics and the course’s instructor. His book, “Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory,” is the main textbook for the class — the first edition was published in 1980, and a second edition, which he currently uses for the class, was published two years ago. For that edition, Feldman col-

laborated with another professor of economics at Brown, Roberto Serrano.

Feldman said the reason he decided to use his own book was that welfare economics is a “small, theoretical area” and that there weren’t many options for textbooks. After reviewing current books on the topic, Feldman came to the conclusion that he could explain the material on his own better than any of the existing books could, so he wrote his book, which was published by Kluwer Nijhoff Publishing.

Feldman said most professors don’t necessarily hire an agent to hawk their textbooks — some will just write one and send it to publishers.

Since Feldman’s book was originally published in 1980, he continued on page 6

Herald File Photo

Revamped and with a new professional coach, the cheerleading team is back on the field this fall.

Cheerleading back on solid ground

By Amanda Bauer Staff Writer

After almost a year on the sidelines, the cheerleading team has returned to the field this fall. Last year, the team was thrown into turmoil when its former coach left and the University hired a student replacement — rather than a professional — to lead the team, resulting in many members leaving the squad. This year a revamped cheerleading team, led by a professional coach and including many new members, appears to have overcome last year’s challenges.

Shirley Corio, who also coaches a competitive professional cheerleading team, was hired as the cheerleading coordinator this semester. Attempts to find a new coach began in August 2006, after the former coach left the squad and moved to Boston. “I found (Corio) that summer online,” said captain Jasmine Plummer ’08. “I searched cheerleading teams in Rhode Island, and her name came up. I e-mailed her saying, ‘We have no coach and we could really use somebody to help us out.’ ” Corio, who worked as a volunteer for the squad starting in the spring, is officially considered an independent contractor of the University and is not a University employee, according to Rick Merriam, assistant athletic director for marketing.

“She gets paid to perform the duties that we have outlined as the cheerleading coordinator, but she does not get University benefits.

She does not keep regular office hours, but she is paid by the University,” Merriam said.

Veronica Lowe ’09, who rejoined the squad this semester after not cheering last fall and taking a leave of absence from Brown in the spring, said she is enthusiastic about the change in coaching. “I felt as if the whole coaching situation just held me back a little from being more involved” in the squad last year, Lowe said. “She is a wonderful coach. ... We couldn’t ask for better.”

Though the squad had only between six and 10 members last year, the team has recovered to its former strength of 20 cheerleaders, consisting mostly of freshmen and sophomores with one junior and one senior.

Though some of the new members have little or no experience in cheerleading, they are all excited

to learn, Lowe said. “For the most part we have people on the team who are into athletics, who have done gymnastics,” she said, adding that a few were cheerleaders in middle school or high school.

Lowe and Plummer both voiced high hopes for the team’s future.

“When I was a freshman, we were Ivy League champs, and it was really exciting, and now we’re back to the way it was,” Lowe said, adding that the squad is now traveling with varsity teams to road games.

“It’s really nice that teams are saying ‘can you be here for us’ again,” she added.

The squad performed its first halftime show this year at the football team’s game against the University of Pennsylvania on Saturday, and it will perform another at the home game Nov. 10 against Dartmouth, according to Plummer. The squad may also go to cheerleading competitions in the future.

The need for a new coach arose more than a year and a half ago after former coach Kristin Capasso left in the spring of 2006. The University originally asked the team’s three captains at the time to become coaches, but they declined because they felt they did not have enough experience. Athletics officials then tapped Cindy Vuittonet

’07 as the new coach.

“The athletics department hired a student to be the coach last year, which was problematic because you need certain certifications to be a cheerleading coach, and she didn’t have any,” Plummer said.

According to Merriam, the change in coaching was due to a change in classification by the University’s human resources department. “It was determined early last fall that the classification of that cheerleading coordinator position had to change from what it had been previously and that we could only either hire a volunteer or hire a student, which is what we ended up doing last year, when we hired Cindy,” he said.

After Vuittonet was hired as coach, several members left the squad and the captains handed out flyers at a football game protesting the change in coaching. Two of the captains involved were later asked to leave the squad. “Some members didn’t want to be a part of the team when they felt so disrespected by the University,” Plummer said.

Both Lowe and Plummer said that the team is moving on from the difficulties of last year, however.

“The team works hard and is bigger and better,” Lowe wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Page 6

Students reflect on postKatrina collegiate New Orleans continued from page 1 bama to wait out the hurricane.

Evans had been given a substantial financial aid package at Tulane and was worried that she would not be able to get a similar education with her financial constraints.

Because she had applied to Brown the year before, the University still had all her financial records on file.

She was told she could start right away.

“Basically within a week, after driving back home, I was moving all my things to a second university,” Evans said. “All my stuff was in Tulane — I had evacuated with the idea that we were going to go back. All I had was my computer and a backpack.”

Returning to a changed city “Going back to Tulane — that was kind of an emotional rollercoaster,” said Kunal Verma, who graduated from Tulane in 2006 after spending a semester at Brown.

Verma first returned apprehensively to New Orleans in January 2006. When he returned, Verma realized that the areas in and around Tulane’s campus had been more damaged than he had expected.

Verma had been sending checks to his landlord for his house near campus, but he returned to find it without a roof. Along with other displaced Tulane students, he ended up living on a cruise ship docked in the Mississippi River that the university leased to house displaced off-campus students.

“Everyone had meals at the same time, and there was only Internet access in two areas,” Verma said. “We all got to be a very closeknit group.”

Despite further housing issues on-campus, Verma said students were generally positive and were grateful to be back. Michael Strecker, director of public relations at Tulane, said that close to 90 percent of Tulane students, who were displaced returned to school for the spring semester. The university has been fully functional since January 2006.

“I think everyone had the same idea: I’d rather live in a windowless ship cabin than be anywhere other than in Tulane or New Orleans,” Verma said. There was an immediate sense of pride in the school and the neighborhood.”

Tulane students now help with the recovery efforts as part of their freshman curriculum. Through a “service learning project,” students apply what they learn in the classrooms to their volunteer efforts.

Tulane psychology students work with storm evacuees, while sociology students conduct tests and collect census data and business students help local entrepreneurs rebuild their businesses.

Immediately after the hurricane, Tulane offered what it called a “lagniappe” term, which is Creole for “a little something extra,” for students who had been studying at other universities and colleges to catch up on their course load free

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

of charge.

Despite Tulane’s efforts to help students catch up academically, one of Oliver’s former roommates could not graduate with the rest of her class because she was lacking one course for an engineering degree.

Luckily Oliver, a women’s studies major, felt at home with Brown’s liberal course offerings, and with the support of her department at Tulane was able to graduate on time.

Despite transferring schools multiple times, Evans said she plans to graduate on time, though it will be a “tight squeeze.” She returned to Tulane in the spring of 2006, but had to reconsider her major after realizing Tulane had eliminated the mechanical engineering degree she was previously considering.

Though Evans did eventually transfer from Tulane, many students stayed at their original institutions after campuses reopened. Dillard spokeswoman Karen Celestan said, for Dillard students, “there was no place like home.”

“I think our students are much more cohesive, even the alumni who have graduated in 2006 and even in 2007,” she said. “They have a heightened sense of Dillard, they know how close we came to losing it.”

In September Brown pledged to continue giving aid to Dillard, President Ruth Simmons’ alma mater, in addition to the University’s previous in-kind efforts and $1.1 million in aid.

“We have a very special and warm relationship with Brown and with Dr. Simmons,” Celestan said.

“It is another flame that has been lit under us to move forward.”

Joelle Nixon, who graduated from Dillard in 2007, looked to Simmons as a role model when applying to study at Brown for a semester.

Nixon thought Simmons’ path from Dillard to the presidency of an Ivy League university made anything seem possible. Nixon, who spent a semester at Brown, attended Dillard partly because of family tradition — her mother also attended the University.

Picking up the pieces Verma said the two-year anniversary of residents’ return to New Orleans is a reminder of how much remains to be done in the city. Lifeless neighborhoods like the lower 9th Ward — which, after the storm, was deluged with water that turned homes upside down and moved cars and trucks for miles — are still empty today.

“Some people are still in trailers on their front lawns,” Verma said.

“200,000 people have not come back to New Orleans since the storm, and New Orleans is now 60 percent of its original size.”

After graduating from Tulane, Verma spent a year with the state recover y authority managing a grant program, working 20-hour days to get money to homeowners affected by the storm. He is now in a master’s program at Tulane and still lives in New Orleans.

“There’s been a steady rush of people trying to get back. The

majority are still somewhere else against their will. They are trapped by circumstance,” he said. “There are some who are just happy where they are, or traumatized by images and their city going underwater.

There are some who came back and got frustrated, and left.”

Oliver’s parents did not want her to return to Tulane after the hurricane, and when they visited two years later for her graduation, they were shocked by the flimsy levee protecting New Orleans from future storms and by how much has stayed the same.

Even though she has left Tulane, Evans has gone back to New Orleans many times to visit friends in the city.

“People who try to help don’t really understand why people want to go back there,” Oliver said. “I think it’s hard to come in as an outsider and not understand why people don’t want to leave.”

Oliver said she thinks the city is cautiously rebuilding in part to preserve New Orleans’ culture. “They don’t want condos — the architecture of the city, it’s different from anywhere else,” she said.

Warren Bell, spokesman for Xavier University in New Orleans, said the university wants to be sure that its own efforts to rebuild have a positive impact on the surrounding neighborhoods and nearby residents.

“We understand that we’re a neighbor,” Bell said. “Our president has made it clear that we want to be a partner and be a part of the dialogue on revival of the commercial and residential areas surrounding Xavier.”

Evans said the public doesn’t focus on what can be done to fix New Orleans now. “It’s complicated, but what is most upsetting is that most of the country doesn’t know what kind of a state it is in right now,” she said. “I think people in certain areas are recovering well if they are personally motivated, (but) as far as government-motivated efforts, those are slower.”

Verma wonders if the city’s slow progress is also due, in part, to the culture of New Orleans itself, where of the three major street car lines, two are still shutdown.

“The people here in New Orleans are very spirited and very motivated and so things have been moving forward, but like everything in New Orleans — it’s an unfortunate fact — everything moves very slowly,” he said.

Now that she too has graduated from Dillard, as her mother did a generation ago, Nixon said her father and grandmother, who live in New Orleans, are working to rebuild their homes. Her grandmother is anxious to get back to the city and return to the days when she used to sit on her porch and chat with people passing by.

But Nixon says her grandmother doesn’t understand that New Orleans is a different place now.

“Things aren’t the same, people don’t just walk by and stop and talk,” she said.

happy halloween

Profs integrate own textbooks in coursework, discussion continued from page 5 has always used it to teach the class, and other professors have used it to teach the course as well, because there are “only a couple of other competing” resources available in the field. Though Feldman said he assumes other professors around the country use his book, he was unaware of any schools in particular.

Feldman said one of the benefits of using his own book in class is simply that he knows it well. Also, by using his own textbook, Feldman avoids the problems of having to keep track of new editions published by other authors. It’s easy, Feldman said, to adapt the curriculum to the textbook each year.

Nancy Jacobs, associate professor of histor y and Africana studies, is in the middle of compiling her own book. “Send Down the Rain: African Records and Remembrance” is a compilation of primary sources dealing with Africa in the 20th century.

While teaching AFRI 0160: “Twentieth-Centur y Africa,” her students “showed interest in primar y sources,” Jacobs said. As she started to gather some for the class, and eventually it grew to the point Jacobs thought she might have enough material for a book.

Jacobs said the project was

originally “for Brown students” but was transformed “by Brown students.” She compiled the documents with the assistance of five Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistants and various other students — including six this semester as a part of an independent study group. She hopes the work will be finished within the next year and a half.

Even though the volume is not yet ready to be published, Jacobs has been introducing the work into her AFRI 0160 class. Students download PDF files of the working copy chapter-by-chapter and use the primar y documents in both essays and section discussions.

Part of the motivation for writing the book was to improve her teaching, because using primary sources is “a different way to tell history,” Jacobs said.

One of Jacobs’ goals in publishing the collection is to have it be used not just by Brown students, but to make it available to the world, ultimately making the collection available to African students. At the University, Jacobs has access to resources to compile the volume that aren’t available in Africa, and she wants to find a publisher that can make her vision a reality.

Though Jacobs said her book could always become available to students internationally thanks to the Internet, “no one wants to curl up in the evening with a laptop.”

From spatial representations to cinema: GISPs and ISPs continued from page 5 to design a course and offers the University an idea of what students are interested in.

“I really love the fact that you can do it,” said Stephen Salisbury ’09, who participated in a GISP last semester. The class, which he said was basically an exercise in making a movie, was called “Cinematic Storytelling.”

“We called it something pretentious to sell the committee on it,” he said.

Though his group of eight students had to resubmit their proposal before it was approved, Salisbury said they needed to make only minor changes. The class was less regimented than traditional courses, providing flexibility in terms of attendance and effectively transforming an extracurricular endeavor into a for-credit course, he said.

Claire Harlan Orsi ’07 created a GISP titled “Mapping Communities,” in which she and a friend studied ways of representing space and mapping projects in Providence.

Though crafting the proposal was a long process — constructing a detailed bibliography was a particular problem — she said they had no trouble getting it approved.

The course did have a “vague” direction at times, but weekly

meetings with the faculty sponsor helped give it substance, Harlan Orsi said.

In addition to a faculty sponsor, the student-staffed Curriculum Resource Center offers guidance in drafting proposals.

“I think there’s always going to be an interest in independent scholarship” among both students and faculty, said Gretchen Peterson, manager of the Curricular Resource and Academic Support Centers.

Popular topics include languages, environmentalism and even, Peterson recalled, a past course on the biology of wine-making.

The center works with students on GISP proposals made through the office of the dean of the College, but independent study projects can be approved by individual departments. The departmental ISPs don’t require a formal syllabus, and the deadline is much later than the Nov. 8 deadline for proposals through the CCC. But CCC-approved GISPs and ISPs, which average about 30 to 35 per semester, will have their names appear on transcripts, even if that name is “Socialization of Dinosaurs in Prehistoric Africa,” Peterson said. Departmental ISPs are more of a partnership between a student and professor, she said, and only a generic title will appear on transcripts.

W orld & n ation Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Page 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

‘Presidentas’ redefine South American politics

Blackwater investigation continues after immunity scandal

By Monte Reel Washington Post

BAGHDAD, Iraq — FBI agents investigating the September shooting incident involving security contractor Blackwater USA appear focused on whether anyone fired first on the American convoy and have been aggressively gathering ballistics evidence, according to witnesses interviewed by the agents.

In Washington, State and Justice Department officials said the investigation would not be derailed by a reported offer of immunity to the guards. But it remained unclear whether they could be prosecuted under U.S. law for the shooting that killed 17 people.

As anger continued to simmer, the Iraqi government introduced legislation Tuesday stripping contractors of the immunity from Iraqi law they were granted in 2004 by the U.S.-led agency set up to run Iraq immediately after the war.

When its investigation is complete, the FBI will submit its evidence to Justice Department officials, who will determine whether to prosecute, a U.S. official familiar with

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Here in the land of machismo, where leaders were long supposed to conform to the standard of the strong-armed militar y man in epaulettes, a rising wave of leaders is working on a new 21st-centur y cliche: la presidenta.

The movement started at South America’s southern tip, where Chile elected Michelle Bachelet president last year. Argentina followed this week, choosing first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as its first elected female president.

“Permit me to specifically address my sisters in gender, to call out to all of them who have remained alone in the home, to the female factor y workers and students, the professionals and business women,” Kirchner said during her first speech as president-elect. “I know we can all do great work.”

The gender-specific rallying cry now seems poised to spread north.

In Paraguay, outgoing President Nicanor Duarte is backing former education minister Blanca Ovelar as his replacement in next year’s presidential election. And in Brazil, many political obser vers say that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva seems to be grooming his chief of staff and former energy minister — a woman named Dilma Rousseff — to carr y his party’s torch when his term ends in 2010.

“This term is only 10 months old,” Rousseff reminded listeners during a forum at the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper this month, seeking to douse some of the rampant speculation about a possible campaign. “I’m not a candidate.”

But the possibility that she could become one has South Americans confronting a prospect that just a few years ago would have seemed utterly impossible: a continent where the majority of the population is led by women.

At the same time that American voters are considering the possibility of a female front-runner in Hillar y Rodham Clinton, people here have been tr ying to explain the recent surge in women candidates. The feminine political touch is tricky to define, even among the women who suggest it might be just what South America needs to confront lingering social ills such as pover ty and income inequality.

Fernandez de Kirchner briefly danced around the subject during her acceptance speech, obliquely referring to a woman’s “special aptitudes — not better, just special.”

Similarly, Ovelar has pointed out the advantages of “a woman’s vision” in solving the social problems that voters in South America customarily list as their most pressing concerns.

“I think people generally just want a change,” said Ana Esposito, a 55-year-old social worker in Buenos Aires province. “I also think that a woman might have a wider vision than a man, because generally women do more things simultaneously than men do — but that’s just my opinion.”

“Why not?” she said. “Another woman wouldn’t be bad.”

By Christian Berthelsen and Raheem Salman Los Angeles T imes

the investigation said.

Whether the convoy was fired upon or threatened in some way before guards began shooting in Nisoor Square on Sept. 16 is likely to be key to that decision, said Scott Silliman, a former military lawyer who is now executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University.

“I think what they’re trying to do is build a case showing the use of force by Blackwater was not justified, and they can do that through witness statements to show that Blackwater and the convoy were not fired upon,” Silliman said.

A U.S. source said the FBI team left Baghdad on Sunday after interviewing dozens of witnesses.

The FBI declined to comment on the case, as did a spokeswoman for Blackwater. Blackwater previously has said the guards were responding to what they believed to be enemy fire.

The shooting prompted intense debate about the role that private armed security contractors have played in the Iraq war and the ambiguous legal environment surrounding them.

If the Justice Department de-

cides to prosecute, experts say it would face serious legal hurdles.

The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act permits contractors to be prosecuted for actions in foreign lands if they are working in support of a Defense Department mission.

But prosecutors would have to convince a judge that the act also applies to contractors working for the civilian-led State Department.

Since the shooting, the U.S. Congress has passed legislation making all security contractors accountable in U.S. courts, and the State Department has issued new restrictions that will subject their operations to more oversight.

The FBI investigation, undertaken at the request of the State Department, is one of four under way into the shooting incident, which also wounded 24 people.

Iraqi police, the Pentagon and a joint committee of the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government also have undertaken inquiries. In a preliminary report, the Iraqi government concluded that the Blackwater guards began firing when a vehicle advanced on the convoy, believing it to be a suicide bomber.

Three witnesses who agreed to

speak with the Los Angeles Times after their debriefings with the FBI said the investigators emphasized the importance of whether the security team was fired upon first.

Witnesses said the interviews lasted about two hours. They said agents referred them to a large aerial image of Nisoor Square and asked them to explain how they arrived at the scene, what their vantage point was when the shooting occurred, their detailed recollection of events and what the shooters looked like.

“They were focusing mainly on one thing,” said Mohammed Hafidh Abdul-Razzaq, 37, whose 10-year-old son Ali was shot and killed as he sat in the back seat of their car. “They asked me several times in each interview whether (the guards) were shot at or not.”

Baraa Sadoon Ismail, 29, who still has two bullets and 60 bullet fragments in his abdomen from the shooting, agreed that the agents focused on whether the Blackwater guards shot first.

All the witnesses interviewed by the Times said they told investigators they did not see anyone fire on the private security guards.

NASA extends ‘exploratory surgery’ mission on space station

By John Johnson Jr. Los Angeles T imes

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has extended the mission of space shuttle Discovery by a day so that the orbiting astronauts can take a closer look at a problem discovered over the weekend with the solar arrays powering the International Space Station.

The decision Monday to perform what the space agency is calling “exploratory surgery” was made after spacewalking astronauts from Discovery spotted what appeared to be metal shavings inside

a rotational joint that allows the solar panels to track the motion of the sun.

“When I opened the panel I saw black dust, like metallic shavings,” astronaut Daniel Tani said during an interview from space. “It was unmistakable that it should not be there.”

The joint is on the right, or starboard, side of the station. Mike Suffredini, the NASA space station program manager, said the steel shavings could be from the bearings inside the joint.

Discovery had been scheduled to return to Earth on Nov. 6. The joint inspection is scheduled to take

place Thursday and add one day to the mission, NASA officials said after a meeting of mission planners Monday.

To prepare for the detailed inspection of the starboard arrays, astronaut Scott Parazynski will use part of Tuesday’s spacewalk to peek inside the left-side rotary joint. Seeing a properly functioning joint perhaps would help him spot problems with the right-side joint, officials said.

The starboard joint worked well when it was installed four months ago. Recently, however, it began vibrating and produced power spikes.

It’s now “parked,” NASA said, and

is available only for limited use.

The station generates enough power without the right-side arrays, officials said, but it eventually will need them with the delivery in the future of power-draining station segments, including European and Japanese laboratories.

The main goal of Tuesday’s spacewalk will be to attach a part of the station’s backbone to a set of solar arrays being installed on the left side of the space station. The problem with the starboard solar arrays increases the importance of getting the new arrays hooked up and in operating shape, NASA said.

Page 8

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

In first “home” game of the season, Brown downs Mercyhurst continued from page 12 Brown went scoreless in the two regulation overtime periods, but blanked the Crimson to preser ve the deadlock.

Harvard first gained possession in the third overtime period, but Brown double-teamed a Har vard player and stole the ball. Mike Gartner ’09, who led the team with three goals in the game, drew an ejection to put the Bears on the 6-on-5 power play, and Brown settled into its offense. After working the ball around, Hank Weintraub

’09 found Schwartz, who slammed the shot home for the win.

“I see the play developing and I’m like, ‘we’re gonna win the game,’ and Hank made a great pass to win it,” Mercado said.

“There was no panic button after we gave up all those goals in the second half. I have a lot of confidence in the team and they made the play.”

Against Mercyhurst, Brown was buoyed by a home crowd for the first time this season, but the excitement of the game hurt the team’s execution early on. Playing

at Wheaton’s Balfour Natatorium, where Brown practices, the Bears missed early oppor tunities and ended the first half down 4-3.

“It was a nice environment, but the guys got caught up in it,” Mercado said. “Ever yone tried to do everything perfectly, like shooting for posts and corners too much. We dictated that game, but we didn’t convert the shots.”

In the second half Brown pulled away by using a balanced offensive attack. For the game, Schwar tz and Gordon Hood ’11 led the team with two goals apiece and four play-

ers chipped in with tallies of their own.

Besides securing a win, the best part of the game for the players was the raucous home atmosphere.

“It was awesome to be able to play in front of Brown fans,” Adams said. “They were loud and supportive. I’ve played in front of Brown fans for three years, but it was nice for freshmen to see what Brown fans are like.”

The team hopes the wins will give it a boost in the postseason.

Brown will play in the Northern Division Championships this week-

end, which could include a rematch against Har vard. The Bears will compete in the Eastern Championships 12 days later, where they will face powerhouses No. 11 Navy and No. 12 St. Francis College. But the team’s close loss to Navy earlier in the season gives it hope that it can take home the Eastern Championship, Adams said.

“We’re looking to win ever y game in the postseason,” Mercado said. “I told the guys at the beginning of the year that we had a chance. We’re still the darkhorse, but we feel we can win it all.”

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Page 9

Prof.’s essay alleges threat to academic freedom

Without A-Rod, Yanks staring at mediocrity

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

continued from page 1 to disrupt “The Study of the Middle East and Islam: Challenges after 9/11,” a conference he coordinated last spring with Posusney. Colla writes that these efforts involved “at least one member of the Brown staff,” whom he later identifies as Eisenberg. Colla states that at an April meeting of Brown Students for Israel and the pro-Israel advocacy group David Project, Eisenberg “encouraged students to intervene ‘confrontationally’ at the workshop and to record clandistinely the presentations of the speakers.”

A Brown student who attended the meeting sent an e-mail criticizing Colla’s conference to Omri Ceren, a doctoral student at the University of Southern California and editor of the pro-Israel blog “Mere Rhetoric.”

On April 24, Ceren quoted the e-mail in a blog post. “We’re determined not to let this conference go by without making it clear to the University that this disregard of academic standards/norms and disrespect for Brown’s Jewish community is not acceptable,” the e-mail said.

Though the conference focused on academic study of the Middle East and not the Arab-Israeli conflict, the student complained in the e-mail, “There are no pro-Israel speakers, and neither Hillel nor Brown Students for Israel were even asked for input on a conference about the future of Middle East studies.”

In a phone interview with The Herald, Ceren said he was not surprised to see Colla’s essay in “Academe.”

“I would have been shocked if the debate hadn’t progressed in that direction,” Ceren said. “(The conference) was such an obvious attempt to push everyone’s buttons.”

“They wanted to claim they were being silenced, so now they get to claim they were silenced after instigating an absurd conference dedicated to open dialogue and debate among people who all agree with each other,” he said.

“Just because they want someone to object to their outrageous conference doesn’t mean that the conference isn’t so outrageous that it shouldn’t be objected to.”

BSI President Zack Beauchamp ’10 attended the April meeting, where he said part of the David Project’s presentation “was critical of Middle East studies at universities as a whole for being biased.”

Brown was not specifically mentioned until the Middle East studies conference came up at the end of the meeting, he said.

Beauchamp, a Herald opinions columnist, said the BSI meeting attendees discussed an “appropriate reaction” to what some perceived as hostility toward Israel among the conference’s speakers. “One of the very first conclusions was that nobody should attempt to shut

it down or do anything — as Colla alleges in the article — confrontational. No one said we should try to disrupt the meeting,” he said, adding that taping the conference “was never a position advocated

by BSI.” Describing Colla’s characterization of BSI in the article as “offensive and incorrect,” Beauchamp said he saw no connection between the meeting he attended and the situation Colla describes in “Academe.”

But one student involved in Hillel, who attended part of the BSI meeting but left before Eisenberg spoke, told The Herald on condition of anonymity that a group of students — not all of whom were present at the David Project meeting — grew very concerned about the comments Eisenberg made at the meeting and in private to cer tain students about Colla’s conference.

“Each of us had different ideas about what should be done in terms of how to treat this issue of academic integrity,” the student told The Herald. “We all agreed that we weren’t comfortable with the way Serena and several other people were talking about this call to action.”

“I was aware of an effort on the part of Serena and others at Hillel to tape the conference in a private way,” the student told The Herald. “There was that effort going on even though it was never fulfilled.”

The student and others met with Eisenberg and with University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson to express their concerns.

In his essay, Colla further alleges that Eisenberg directly expressed to him her concern with what she viewed as some speakers’ bias and complained that he had organized an event on Middle East issues without consulting her. He also suggests Eisenberg may have been responsible for criticism of the conference on Campus Watch, a Web site that has been critical of many Middle East studies programs for perceived anti-Israel bias.

The tensions, he writes, prompted “students from Hillel itself ... to raise complaints to campus administrators” about what they saw as growing tensions. Faculty were also concerned, he wrote, stating that “many colleagues were alarmed that a non-faculty Brown employee had attempted to interfere so brazenly in the content and form of an academic event.”

Despite the controversy, Colla writes that “the workshop went off without a hitch.” He said Eisenberg appeared at the beginning of the event, and “representatives from the David Project attended and announced themselves as they asked prickly questions, but that was all.”

Though he describes the lead up to the conference as “a tempest in a teapot,” Colla speculates,

happy halloween behave.

“it could have had very different consequences had we organizers been untenured faculty.”

Response to “Academe” In response to Colla’s accusations, Eisenberg released a statement in which she claims “the article contains many distortions and untrue insinuations” and commends the “moral leadership” of faculty and administrators who have “publicly and privately repudiated many of the claims Professor Colla made in his article.”

Four Brown faculty members have drafted a letter to the editor of “Academe” in support of Eisenberg — Professor of Sociology Emeritus Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Professor of Pediatrics Edwin Forman, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Steven Hamburg and Professor of Medical Science Arthur Landy. In a copy of the letter Eisenberg provided to The Herald, the professors describe Colla’s article as “full of inaccuracies, mistaken interpretations and malevolent insinuations.”

Rueschemeyer, who drafted the letter, described Colla’s essay as an “intensely hostile piece” that was “on its face problematic.”

“Basically nothing happened, and this personal attack ... is really, for a Hillel rabbi, damaging of her reputation,” Rueschemeyer said.

The faculty letter dismisses Colla’s accusation that Eisenberg instructed students to be confrontational at the workshop, contends that “Rabbi Eisenberg was not involved in any claims made

by Campus Watch,” and praises Eisenberg’s efforts to “facilitate dialogue and cooperation between Jewish and Muslim students.”

Though the University has not officially responded to Colla’s essay, President Ruth Simmons personally thanked Rueschemeyer for his response to Colla’s article in an e-mail provided to The Herald by Eisenberg. In the e-mail, Simmons calls Colla’s article “incorrect as to the facts of what transpired” and expresses support for Eisenberg.

“I agree completely with your comments about Serena,” Simmons wrote. “It is hard to imagine that anyone could have been more supportive of open discourse. I admire her greatly and am grateful for all that she has done for this community.”

Beauchamp said he thinks the two conflicting accounts of what happened last spring illustrate larger issues related to the study of the Middle East on U.S. campuses.

“Like so many issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict, there are basically two narratives and two descriptions of what actually happened,” he said. “Both sides in this issue are claiming that their side is being silenced and that there is something wrong with the academy that means that this discussion cannot be had,” he said.”

continued from page 12 trade for Miguel Cabrera or Aramis Ramirez. People have even suggested moving shortstop Derek Jeter to third base — they’re desperate to fill A-Rod’s void.

These fans must realize that it’s insignificant where that replacement plays on the diamond. Twenty home runs is just as valuable coming from a third baseman as it is from a catcher, outfielder or designated hitter.

New York can pick up an average third baseman like Mike Lamb or Russel Branyan, pay him peanuts and address the offensive drop-off in other ways.

Like by replacing Melky Cabrera in centerfield.

We were all okay with Cabrera joining the ranks of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Bernie Williams as he patrolled the stadium’s hallowed center field. This was only acceptable, however, when the Bombers had A-Rod in the lineup.

It was endearing to have a homegrown youngster with a good arm, a weak bat — .273 and eight home runs this season — and a funny name. But the Yanks lineup suddenly looks less than spectacular, and Melky’s purpose on the team is now unclear.

If New York wants to win in 2008, they’ve got to see Melky for what he really is — a fourth outfielder.

The free agent pool contains several

significantly better centerfielders, notably Aaron Rowand (.309, 27 HR) and Torii Hunter (.287, 28 HR). With one of these mashers replacing the Melkman in the lineup, the Yankees offense won’t miss A-Rod nearly as much.

And while we’re on the subject, defensive specialist Doug Mientkiewicz is no longer a viable option at first base. The Yanks need a powerhitting first baseman to combine with their new centerfielder as a two-player replacement for Rodriguez. The free agent pool is shallow here, but a trade for Mark Teixeira or Jim Thome, who are both entering the last year of their contracts, could provide the necessary pop.

With a real offensive threat at first base, part-time DH Jason Giambi can finally be relegated to the bench ­— a role he earned this season with his .236 average and 14 homers.

The Yankees are starting to look like a normal team, and normalcy is the last thing their hungry fans want. They want a championship. To do so, New York must realize that Mientkiewicz and Cabrera, a Gold Glover and fan favorite respectively, are luxuries that even the Yankees can’t afford.

Ellis Rochelson ’09 thinks the Red Sox earned it. Congratulations.

Comments? Questions? Send them to Ellis_Rochelson@brown.edu.

Football a family affair for receiver Farnham ’10 continued from page 12 26 All-State Team Player in Massachusetts.

Perry said Farnham decided to come to Brown in the end because he was attracted to the coaches and environment here, and he wanted to continue his family’s tradition.

“I’ve always wanted to come here since I was a kid,” Farnham said. “I had a lot of options, but I felt like this was the best fit.”

Quarterback Michael Dougherty ’09 is also glad Farnham decided to come to Brown. Throwing to Farnham and Paul Raymond ’08, Dougherty is currently seventh in all of Division I-AA in passing yards.

“He’s doing a great job,” said Dougherty, who said he thinks Farnham is an All-Ivy caliber player. “He knows how to get open, and he’s been very consistent. He catches everything.”

Perry said he is not surprised

by Farnham’s personal success because he knows how hard he works.

“He’s produced since he came on campus,” Perry said. “He’s one of the best receivers in the nation, and he’s only a sophomore.”

But Farnham says he is more concerned with the success of the team, which is currently 3-4 overall.

“I don’t really feel that successful yet because we haven’t been winning,” he said. “Numbers and catches don’t mean much. The only number that matters is wins.”

Farnham, who arrived at Brown a season after the Bears won the Ivy League title, said he wants to help his current team win a title.

“I just want to be the best I can be,” Farnham said. “I want to help win an Ivy League Championship before I graduate.”

Perr y sees great potential in Farnham as he continues his career at Brown.

“He’s certainly one of those guys who can be a difference maker,” Perry said. “He has to keep setting his goals higher and higher. I know he won’t be satisfied.”

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S t a ff E d i t o r i a l

Internationalization at home Despite the recent buzz about internationalization at Brown, one of the most fundamental needs of “internationalization” is being ignored right here on College Hill: English training for graduate students.

The Herald reported last week that the English for International Teaching Assistants program is filled beyond capacity this semester, and some international grad students are being turned away. For those graduate students who did make it into the program, which only has two full-time staffers, the ratio of students to instructors is sometimes 30-to-1.

It seems like a no-brainer that grad students can hardly teach undergraduates — even in certain science or laborator y courses — if they haven’t mastered the basics of English. This isn’t a case of international grad students ignorantly assuming their English, which is often limited to learning in a classroom environment, will match the colloquial intricacies of Brunonians.

Instead, it seems, some grad students are actively seeking English instruction from the University but are being turned away. And in at least one case, a student was re-directed to the Rhode Island International House for English instruction when he was denied space in the course.

The University’s ITA program may only have been founded in 1992, a couple of decades after other universities pursued similar programs, but it’s hardly an excuse for international graduate students to be falling through the cracks today.

That the University only funds 20 student participants for a three-week summer international acculturation program doesn’t seem fair when many more students could benefit from, and would like to participate in, such a program. One of the most frequently cited topics at a recent public forum on internationalization was the need to radically bolster to Brown students’ international experiences — isn’t this an obvious place to start?

Indeed, the clearest solutions seem to be the most appropriate: more University funds should be earmarked for the ITA program. Period.

Expanding undergraduate laborator y space, increasing the size of the faculty in the sciences or fostering diversity in graduate student candidates hardly makes sense when, at the most basic level, graduate students are not comfortable with their spoken English — and any initiative on their part to improve is inadvertently thwarted. A teaching assistant cannot lead an organic chemistr y laborator y section if he or she cannot comfortably explain the material to students.

One of Brown’s greatest strengths is its diversity, embodied in the large numbers of grad students who come to Brown from different international backgrounds. The University mustn’t simply pay lip-ser vice to fostering such diversity in its Plan for Academic Enrichment. Instead, it should support international students by providing more committed and thorough English-language instruction.

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Letters Spencer is not a polemicist To the Editor: In your recent editorial (“Ignoring ‘Islamofascism’ hype,” Oct. 29) you write, “In the continuing wake of the Sept.

11, 2001, terrorist attacks and in the midst of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we know students appreciate that it is more important than ever to try to understand the Islamic world and its troubled relationship with the West.”

Robert Spencer is a man of utmost intellectual integrity who has written some six books on Islam. He documents everything he says about Islam by directly quoting the Quran and the Hadith. He is not a polemicist,

and he does not hate Muslims. He is trying to educate people to the fact that horrendous atrocities in the name of Islam are being justified by actual tents in the Islamic texts. If, as you say, it is important to understand the Islamic world and its troubled relationship with the West, why not have Spencer return to campus at a smaller forum, such as a class or seminar, where differing viewpoints can be exchanged thoughtfully and respectfully, and where you can begin to explore more deeply the texts in light of world events?

Alan Nichols Oct. 30

Boas ’06.5 says Simmons lets Bergeron off easy

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

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To The Editor: As a recent alum, I like to keep up with what’s happening at Brown, and I was very happy to hear President Ruth Simmons’ views on campus issues in your recent interview (“A conversation with the president,” Oct. 30). I found her comments on university presidents and controversy particularly enlightening.

Given how skilled Simmons is with her words, I was somewhat disappointed by her choice of response to the question on the Office of the Dean of the College.

During my time at Brown I thought of the dean of the College’s office as the cornerstone of my undergraduate experience and owe much of my accomplishments at Brown to the deans who helped me along the way.

I have been following The Herald’s coverage of the changes happening in the office and had hoped to see Simmons’s respond to some of the troubling allegations made by former deans and administrators of the office (“Bergeron’s reshuffling fuels more departures, and questions arise,” Oct. 19).

Instead, Simmons chose to answer that question by praising the current dean and defending her from a recent Herald column written by Adam Cambier ’09

(“We’re not on College Hill anymore: Dean Bergeron and the New Curriculum,” Oct. 23).

While it is good to hear that Simmons has confidence in the dean of the College, her reactions to Cambier’s column, although on target, seemed unnecessary and surely could have been replaced with a more pertinent answer. A column that crudely compares the dean of the College to the Wicked Witch of the West does not deserve a response from the president of the University.

Statements such as “All of (the deans of the College) are overworked” and “I’m not sure that everyone who left needed to have left,” made by a former provost and former interim president, respectively, do.

The Herald has done an excellent job in covering the significant changes happening in the core of undergraduate studies at Brown, but I have not seen much in the way of a response to this reporting from the administration. I hope the next time Simmons has the opportunity to address this subject, she will speak to the heart of the matter.

Benjamin Boas ‘06.5 Oct. 30

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O pinions Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Ira Magaziner ’69 P’06 P’07 P’10 is not your daddy

BY PATRICK HARRISON Guest Columnist Adam Cambier’s ’09 column on Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron (“We’re not on College Hill anymore: Dean Bergeron and the New Curriculum,” Oct. 23) was frustrating not only because it was unimaginatively sexist (an ambitious woman is compared to a witch), but also because of his vulgar interpretation of the meaning of the New Curriculum.

Cambier writes about Bergeron that “on (the external review’s) advice, she began to restructure the administration into a more hierarchical form, ultimately going against the free-form spirit of the New Curriculum.” The claim that the New Curriculum had anything to do with the internal organization of the office of the Dean of the College is simply ignorant.

Bergeron’s restructurings have affected the administration far more than the student body, and certainly have nothing to do with the reforms brought about by the New Curriculum, such as the end of the core curriculum, the creation of the S/NC grade option, the abandonment of plusses and minuses in grading.

Cambier’s invocation of “the spirit of the New Curriculum”, in effect, makes no reference to the New Curriculum as a historical student-lead initiative. Rather, he uses the “New Curriculum” as a vacuous ideological buzzword, unrelated to the concrete policy innovations and model of student activism it actually represents.

The New Curriculum was anti-hierarchical in the sense that it conceived of education as a process of individual self-realization against classical philosophies of education which assumed a hierarchical relation of texts and cultures (ie Greek and Roman classics are the foundation of any legitimate education). It was not anti-hierarchical in the sense of how University administration should divide up tasks among employees.

In this respect, Cambier’s article is symptomatic of a larger problem with the way we

students talk about the “New Curriculum” and conceive of our relation to it. At its worst, the phrase “the spirit of the New Curriculum” signifies only a vague, anything-goes mentality which has very little positive content itself and is instead defined merely as being against equally crude and meaningless abstractions like “hierarchy” and “discipline.” To invoke the New Curriculum without any real reference to its history and its specific philosophical innovations is antithetical to the very project of the 1969 GISP, through which a group of students led by Ira Magaziner ’69 P’06 P’07 P’10 and Elliott Maxwell ’68 proposed the New Curriculum in the paper “Draft of a Working Paper for Education

relate to the New Curriculum today is the way in which we are content to wallow in the success of the Generation of 1969. In the minds of modern Brown students, Magaziner is like some benevolent father figure protecting us from pluses and minuses, rather than as an example of bold student leadership that we ourselves should emulate.

Cambier’s article exemplifies this kind of thinking when he writes that “President Ruth Simmons has done nothing to protect the New Curriculum.” Cambier’s mistake is to think that it was ever the role of the administration, rather than that of the students, to protect the New Curriculum. The whole point of the New

The New Curriculum was a revolution for elite education, and the only true way to show fidelity to its innovations is to further revolutionize the New Curriculum. at Brown University.” In the second chapter, they write: “ ‘Liberal education’ once referred to a specific proposal for changing the pattern of electives at Harvard. Today, such phrases as ‘liberal education,’ ‘general education,’ and ‘specialization,’ have acquired broad connotations which obscure their meaning and make their use in discussion more harmful than useful, unless they are carefully defined.” Today, we might want to add “New Curriculum” to this list of abused concepts.

This is not to say, however, that we are supposed turn the New Curriculum into an orthodoxy that cannot be questioned. In fact, the biggest problem with the way we students

Curriculum is that the University should be by and for students. We carry the burden of determining our own education, not just through the curricular freedom, which is now internalized to the existing structure of the university, but also through activism to further transform the University.

The New Curriculum was a revolution for elite education, and the only true way to show fidelity to its innovations is to further revolutionize the New Curriculum. The New Curriculum was essentially concerned with a philosophy of individual self-realization. Against this, we should emphasize the University’s relationship to society. Our goal must be the end of the

University as a machine for reproducing the wealthy ruling class. By giving cultural capital to those who otherwise would not have it, the democratization of the University can greatly empower people from disadvantaged backgrounds and thus help effect meaningful social change along class, racial, and gender lines.

Though Brown makes great strides towards racial and economic diversity, we must not forget that the explicit intention of affirmative action programs when they were introduced in the Johnson administration was to redress issues of social justice, especially with respect to the legacy of slavery. They were not driven by a liberal aesthetic of multiculturalism and diversity for its own sake.

Would we not attract more students to Brown by offering more substantial financial aid programs rather than constructing new buildings? Massive increases in financial aid, rather than new green spaces, should be our first priority. There is no shame in stealing a good idea, even if it is from Harvard, especially their policy of giving free rides to all students from households with incomes less than $60,000 per year. Brown must adopt the Common Application to make application more accessible, and end our Early Decision program, which gives an unfair advantage to affluent students and legacies. Brown must also make submission of standardized test scores, which test for little more than the ability to pay for test study books and services, optional or refuse to recognize existing testing at all. The most radical — and risky — proposal would be the elimination of legacy privileges in the admissions process.

The immense fundraising success of the Plan for Academic Enrichment must be matched by student activism to make sure these funds are used to make Brown a leader in the democratization of elite education. This is just one way that we can continue the true “spirit of the New Curriculum,” the spirit of student-led transformation of the University.

Former Herald Opinions Editor Patrick Harrison ’08 wishes Ira Magaziner were his daddy.

Ron Paul: Think before you hate

BY MATT PREWITT Opinions Columnist To my eyes, the pool of 2008 presidential candidates is dismal. I dislike them all for many reasons, but one thing they have in common is that they are all successful politicians. Politicians are people who do not think it is of primary importance to fully believe words as they exit the mouth. The best leaders in our country are undoubtedly bad politicians: the political system is a horribly failed meritocracy, in which sincerity is penalized.

Therefore, I have decided to run a magnifying glass over the worst politician, and in all likelihood the best human being, who is making a semi-credible bid in 2008: Dr. Ron Paul, OB/GYN. Ron Paul is the only candidate whose success hinges on whether voters decide to think.

The other candidates are trying to win by catering to peoples’ preconceived notions of how things are and should be. For example, if everybody in America stopped thinking right now, Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) would win because she knows what we already think.

If you called her on the phone right now, she could tell you exactly what percentage of Ohio’s Democrats favor a single-payer healthcare system. Ron Paul doesn’t care.

He takes positions that no political consultant could possibly have advised him to take. For example, he wants to withdraw from the UN

and pursue a foreign policy of nonintervention. It sure sounds crazy, but I’m not entirely sure that it’s a bad idea. I daresay it’s worth thinking about.

Paul is running as a Republican in order to appear on the debates, but he is way out of step with the party, and it makes more sense to think of him as a libertarian. Accordingly, his domestic platform is pretty straightforward: he would eliminate or reduce the size of most federal agencies, including the IRS and the Federal Reserve. He would probably veto any legislation that encroached upon states’

tional. He wants America to never meddle in the internal affairs of other countries — ever.

He would never start a war. He would pull out of every “entangling alliance” and withdraw from international organizations to ensure that the military would never fight for any reason except to defend Americans. This proposition is such a complete counterfactual that it’s hard to analyze, but it is thoughtprovoking. For contrast, consider that none of the major candidates can promise not to attack Iran, because each and every one of them — really, seriously — might do it.

I wouldn’t vote for him, but I’d certainly think about it. rights, and he believes that federal income tax is unconstitutional. At first, it seems like he would lead us toward a dangerous, unregulated, frontier-like America, but it isn’t quite that simple, because he would try to allow state governments more latitude. Some of them would style themselves as big welfare governments, and others would be unobtrusive. Some would legalize gay marriage, some would ban abortion, and some would levy high taxes. You would be able to move to a different state and experience a very meaningfully different way of life. Interesting, no?

His foreign policy is similarly unconven-

On economics, Paul advocates free trade internationally and free markets domestically.

(Interestingly, he opposes certain international trade agreements like NAFTA and the World Trade Organization because he considers them “managed” trade and believes that they are designed to favor special interests.)

While he would probably not use the federal government as a check on corporate power, he would let states do it if they so chose.

His most radical economic view, however, pertains to monetar y policy: he wants to return to commodity-backed currency and dismantle the Federal Reserve. This position

is frighteningly extreme. But his reasoning is simple and he defends himself astutely: he doesn’t think that the government should be able to print its money wantonly because this devalues everyone’s dollars. Also, since paper dollars are traded like a commodity on international markets, the U.S. economy is subject to currency fluctuations outside of our control, which creates a further need for the Federal Reserve to fix problems by pulling economic levers which are financed by more money-printing. This is very much an academic question. Dismantling the Fed may well send us back to the old days when recessions were deeper and more intractable.

But he also might be right. With a cheap dollar, we’re paying for imprudent monetary policy right now.

What if Ron Paul were actually elected?

The world wouldn’t turn upside down immediately. America would still throw its weight around economically, but its foreign policy would be paper-thin. The dollar would revalue.

State laws would grow in importance, and federal laws would diminish. Lots of things might go wrong, too. Rogue dictators might not know what to do with themselves if they didn’t have us breathing down their neck. The economy might crash. Our image would be totally refashioned. I wouldn’t vote for him, but I’d certainly think about it.

Matt Prewitt ‘08 thinks that if Ron Paul didn’t have a whiny voice people would take him more seriously.

S ports W ednesday Page 12

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Lacking a goalie, m. water polo hangs on to beat Harvard

By Peter Cipparone Spor ts Editor

Between its new coach and lack of a pool, the men’s water polo team has faced a variety of obstacles this season. The team continued this theme in its past two games, as the Bears played through the loss of their only goalie and, as the players said, the expectations of a home crowd.

But the squad continued another theme as well — winning.

The No. 19 Bears (17-8) beat Harvard 8-7 Thursday with a sudden-death overtime goal by Corey Schwartz ’11, then took down Mercyhurst College 10-7 Friday in its only official home game of the season, at Wheaton College, about 30 miles outside Providence.

Immediately following a last-second loss to the U.S. Naval Academy on Oct. 21, goaltender Kent Holland ’10 threw the ball toward the referee, presumably out of frustration. The toss splashed the ref and earned Holland a red card, which automatically barred him from playing in the next game. The team has only one goaltender on its roster, so Brandon Yoshimura ’11, a defender, played goaltender for the first time in his collegiate career.

Har vard immediately tested Brown’s makeshift goalie, firing shots from all parts of the pool.

But the Bears combined strong defense, timely saves from Yoshimura and a potent offense to take a 5-0 lead into halftime. The first session frustrated Harvard so much that after the game Harvard coach Erik Farrar said it was “the worst half of water polo that I have seen a Harvard team play in 25 years,”

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Two games, two shutouts — and now, two awards.

The goalkeepers of the men’s and women’s soccer teams were honored by the Ivy League with weekly awards after their performances this weekend. Steffi Yellin ’10 was named Ivy League Player of the Week after the women’s soccer team upset the University of Pennsylvania 1-0 on Sunday. On the men’s side, Paul Grandstrand ’11 was selected as the league’s Rookie of the Week after blanking Penn 3-0 on Saturday.

This is the second Player of the Week award in three weeks for Yellin, the 5-foot 4-inch goalkeeper who helped lead the Bears to their third straight win. The Bears’ latest victory puts them in a three-way tie for third place in the league.

Grandstrand’s rookie award is also his second of the year. He improved his personal record to 8-0-1 this season after the Penn shutout.

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marily to the Bears’ fatigue.

“Our defense was working harder in the first half; in the second half we just got tired,” Mercado said. “We’re a small team, and we just ran out of gas.”

But the team “got a second wind” in overtime, Mercado said.

As you may have heard during the eighth inning of the final game of the World Series, Alex Rodriguez has decided that he was only kidding when he said, “I love New York” and “I want to be here when the new stadium opens up in 2009.” The likely American League MVP has opted Ben Singer High Notes out of his contract with New York and the $81 million he would have made over the next three years.

The 2007 Yankees were first in the American League in batting average, home runs and RBI. Those numbers, of course, include Alex Rodriguez’s production — .314, 54 homers and 156 RBI. Now let’s assume that instead of A-Rod, the Yankees had a third baseman who performed like the average batter — .272, 10 home runs, 42 RBI. If that were the case, the Yankees would have placed fourth in batting average, ninth in home runs and fourth in RBI. This is the reality of the 2008 Yankees — with A-Rod gone, they are a slightly above-average hitting team.

The Yankees are left with a huge hole in their lineup, and the freeagent pool of third basemen doesn’t look too promising, with Mike Lowell almost certain to stay in Boston. As you read this, Yankee fans are conjuring up crazy schemes to

After coughing up a 5-0 lead, the men’s water polo team downed Harvard in overtime on a Corey Schwartz ’11 goal.

according to Harvard’s sports information Web site.

Gerrit Adams ’08 attributed the success to the team’s hustle.

“We did a great job working on defense in the first half,” Adams said. “And they were taking bad shots. They thought we didn’t have a goalie at all, but (Yoshimura) was a pretty good goalie. In the second

No. 6 Men’s Soccer @ Rutgers 7 p.m. Tonight

half they concentrated on taking better shots.”

The improved scoring opportunities led to a rash of Harvard goals in the second half. The Crimson outscored Brown, 7-2, to tie the game at seven and send it into overtime.

Head Coach Felix Mercado attributed Harvard’s comeback pri-

With A-Rod gone, the Melk has expired

Another Farnham, another All-Ivy wide receiver?

BY JAMAL HILL Contributing Writer

The number 46 should be familiar to Brown football fans. In the past, it has been worn by three members of the Farnham family: Bob ’77, Mark ’80 and Paul ’83. All three Farnhams were All-Ivy wide receivers.

Today, a new family member is sporting number 46. His name is Buddy Farnham ’10, and he’s starting to look like the fourth All-Ivy receiver in the family.

Farnham, the son of Mark and nephew of Bob and Paul, has been a standout on the football team this year, already proving himself to be a star in the Ivy League.

His success began last year, when he finished fourth on the team in receiving with 191 yards, a significant achievement for a freshman.

Farnham was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week after a strong performance against the University of Rhode Island in which he made five catches for 64 yards and had a 19-yard punt return to set up a Brown touchdown.

But this year, Farnham has risen to a new level. As a sophomore, Farnham leads the team in receptions, with 55, and touchdowns, with six. He is first in the Ivy League in receptions, third in receiving yards per game and fifth in both all-purpose yards and touchdown scoring per game.

James Perry, the quarterbacks and wide-receivers coach, said he was thrilled to recruit Farnham.

Perry said he is from the same town

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo

Buddy Farnham ’10 has been the football team’s best receiver this season. Farnham’s father and two uncles also played receiver at Brown.

as Farnham — Andover, Mass. — and has known the player for a long time.

“It was very competitive to get him,” Perry said. “He is very talented and hardworking, and he had a number of scholarship offers.”

Those scholarship offers came

because of Farnham’s impressive high school background — he lettered in football, lacrosse and track.

He was named a National Football Foundation Hall of Fame ScholarAthlete and was named a Super continued on page 9