Friday, November 16, 2007

The Brown Daily Herald F riday, N ovember 16, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 112

Students win gold for glowing mold By Chaz Firestone Senior Staff Writer

This summer, as some Brown students traveled the globe, relaxed out in the sun or otherwise enjoyed their time off College Hill, a small, passionate group of students elected to remain at Brown, indoors and playing with Legos — complex, microscopic, living Legos, that is. Members of Brown’s entry in the International Genetically Engineered Machines Competition, hosted annually by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spent their summer designing and building tiny living gadgets with highly specialized functions. The Brown delegation earned gold medals for their project — bacteria that glow bright green in the presence of lead. “Certain bacteria have a sensor built into them specifically for lead, so what we did was to take the lead sensor out of that bacteria, put it into E. coli and have it send out a signal,” said Deepa Galaiya ’08, a member of Brown’s iGEM team. “Once the cells received the message, they all started to glow green.” The competition, which promotes undergraduate research, is built around BioBricks — highly specialized pieces of DNA catalogued by MIT researchers — that promise to influence the emerging interdisciplinary field of synthetic biology. “When you build a bridge, you have standard parts — nails, screws, screwdrivers — and you can buy them at a hardware store,” said iGEM team member Glen Scheinberg ’08, drawing an analogy to genetic engineering. “Imagine if every time you wanted to design a bridge you had to figure out how continued on page 4

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Students struggle to keep up with the rising cost of college By Irene Chen Senior Staff Writer

Last year, Julie Pridham ’10 took out an outside loan to cover the $41,700 cost of attending Brown. For economic reasons, Pridham had to ask her parents to sign as co-borrowers on the loan, but she felt uncomfortable with the decision. As a first-generation college student

on financial aid, Pridham wanted to pay for her own education. Pridham doesn’t take issue with rising tuition costs. She says it’s understandable and that as Brown’s fees increase, so do its financial aid awards. “They will help you to figure out something,” she said. “But the school can only do so much. I think just the general economic situation has really made it more

difficult to get by on my own.” Looking to pay off her debt, Pridham is mindful of accumulating loans as she considers a postgraduation path. She is interested in grad school, but a program like AmeriCorps would help her pay off her loans. “For the most part, I figure I’ll be young, so I can work two jobs if I need to and still go to school,”

By Michael Bechek Senior Staff Writer

Courtesy of Amy Chang ’08

Professors T.Y. Wang of Illinois State University (left to right), Alan Wachman of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and Sujian Guo of San Francisco State University sat on a panel Wednesday as part of the Strait Talk Symposium.

‘Strait talk’ on China-Taiwan relations By Lily Szajnberg Contributing Writer

Can you be both Chinese and Taiwanese? Does identity grant you a right to a nation? These are the major issues surrounding the third annual Strait Talk Symposium, now called the Dialogue Project, a weeklong conference that concludes today. The conference, named for the 100-mile Taiwan Strait that separates China and Taiwan, has

facilitated dialogue about U.S.China relations among academics, students and diplomacy experts since 2005. This year, organizers included another key global conflict, Indian-Pakistani relations, in the discussion. In addition to hosting accomplished academics and diplomacy experts, the student-run event steering committee selects five student delegates from each of the respective countries to attend Strait Talk. Under the guidance of

internationally-renowned conflict resolution specialist Tatsushi Arai, the 15 delegates meet for four to eight hours every day during the week-long event to discuss the conflict in a safe space, “letting both sides share very privately and intimately what they feel, and ultimately finding a compromise,” said Matthew Reichel ’09, head coordinator of the Dialogue Project. continued on page 4

FEATURE

Last month, the Corporation announced that the University will make room for the Mind Brain Behavior building by moving or demolishing the house located at 129 Angell St. — a house that its former owner, Helen Pierpont, never wanted Brown to have in the first place. Pierpont, a Providence native born in 1892, grew up in a house on George Street that was eventually destroyed in the University’s efforts to remodel the campus and build Wriston Quadrangle. Years later, Pierpont wrote in her will that she did not want the University to gain ownership of her property at 129 Angell St. The house at 129 Angell St. was built in the mid-19th century, according to a University report — and as Brown expanded, the property

INSIDE:

gradually became surrounded by campus buildings. When Pierpont died in 1980, she left the house to her close friend and neighbor Margaret Howe. Howe had lived next door at 127 Angell St. in a first-floor apartment she rented from Brown for several years, according to Gail Medbury, director of University auxiliary housing. Pierpont’s generosity was not without strings. “I request that Margaret Howe not sell my real estate to Brown University,” she wrote in her will. But Brown did get the house. Howe was elderly and needed money to move to a house that had only one story, according to her niece, Marcia Sewall ’57. Howe had taught at the continued on page 6

YEOMEN AT THE GATES Brown University Gilbert & Sullivan will present ARTS & CULTURE “Yeomen of the Guard” this weekend.

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www.browndailyherald.com

continued on page 6

Students perfect the ‘elevator pitch’

Former 129 Angell St. owner mistrusted University By Chaz Kelsh Staff Writer

she said. Pridham’s situation is becoming increasingly common as tuition fees rise nationally and students struggle to keep up. A decade ago, only 6 percent of loans used to fund higher education were private, with most funds coming from federal loans and college grants. But last year, nearly

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CAMPUS NEWS

Chaz Kelsh / Herald

The former owner of 129 Angell St., owned by the University since 1980 and slated to be moved or demolished to make way for the Mind Brain Behavior Building, insisted in her will that the house never be sold to Brown.

STOP JAEGERBOMBS A new study shows that mixing liquor and energy drinks can be hazardous to your health

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OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

CHANGING DEBATE Nicholas Swisher ‘08 reflects on the changing discourse in Congress over torture.

It isn’t every day that a budding entrepreneur ends up standing in an elevator with the major CEO who could help turn his or her fledgling idea into a profitable business venture. Almost certainly, the fortuitous meeting will last less than a minute or two — every second must be used effectively to pitch an idea quickly and concisely. That’s the idea behind “elevator pitch” competitions, in which two Brown students took home top prizes at separate events this month, one state-wide and another hosted by the Brown Entrepreneurship Program. The elevator pitch competition invites anyone with a burgeoning business idea to make a brief pitch for it, getting immediate feedback from a panel of business leaders and experts and the chance to win cash prizes. Presenters have no more resources than they would in an elevator — 90 seconds (sometimes less) and no fancy visual aids or PowerPoint slides. Robert Neville ’08 was named the winner of the Nov. 7 state-wide elevator pitch competition held at Johnson and Wales University and sponsored by the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition. He pitched a cardiac rehabilitation monitoring system that he and five other students are developing for DigiTRx, an incorporated venture started by students taking an entrepreneurship class in Spring 2006. Amy Seibel ’09 won the Entrepreneurship Program’s pitch-off on Nov. 10 at Brown, taking home an $800 prize for her 45-second pitch for a television program that would teach English to adults. The product being developed by DigiTRx, which Neville said already owns patents on some of its technologies, would allow patients recovering from a heart attack to avoid the hassle of commuting to medical facilities for super vised exercise and instead allow them to work out at home. With DigiTRx’s system, the patient would wear a vest which measures his or her vital signs while exercising. After exercising, the patient would upload the data from the vest to a computer, at which continued on page 4

12 SPORTS

READY FOR WINTEr The Herald’s sports staff gives its take on the winter varsity sports teams and their prospects.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Friday, november 16, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

We a t h e r

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

Today

TOMORROW

partly cloudy 48 / 30

partly cloudy 46 / 32

Menu

Octopus on Hallucinogens | Toni Liu and Stephanie Le Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — BLT Sandwich, Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Sandwich, Creamy Cappellini with Broccoli, Clam Bisque, Vegetarian Liz’s Vegetable Soup

Lunch — Chicken Fingers, Vegetarian Grinder, Sticky Rice, Summer Squash, S’mores Bars

Dinner — Coconut Crusted Tilapia, Vegetable Stuffed Peppers, Basmati Rice Pilaf, Strawberry Jello, Pumpkin Pie

Dinner — Salmon Quiche, Grilled Chicken, Cheese Raviolis with Sauce, Roasted Herb Potatoes, Zucchini, Carrot and Garlicy Medley, Fresh Asparagus Spears, Pumpkin Pie

Sudoku

Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins

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

Aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer

RELEASE DATE– Friday, November 16,by2007 © Puzzles Pappocom

Los Angeles Times Daily oCrossword Puzzle C r o ssw rd Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Clash 5 Belief 10 Big party 14 Get sore 15 One-up 16 It’s part of the eight original “Public Ivy” schs., per author Richard Moll 17 Start of a quip 19 Air 20 Made better 21 Emotionally unsettled, with “up” 22 Quip, part 2 25 Bloopers 29 Hardly gush 30 Success symbol 31 He tricked a blind god into killing Balder 33 Yonder 37 Touched 38 Quip, part 3 39 Type of boots 40 Beginner’s sax, usually 41 Actress Tushingham 42 Continental capital 43 Tough 45 Antsy 46 Quip, part 4 51 One may be complete 52 Studs, e.g. 57 Fare that needs to be assembled 58 End of the quip 60 China defect 61 Try 62 Quarter, for one 63 Intense attraction, with “the” 64 Dress smartly 65 Singer Murray DOWN 1 Steve’s costar in “The Thomas Crown Affair” 2 Bus. course 3 “Nope” 4 Geometric prefix 5 Sea snails 6 100 cents, in Sri Lanka

7 Challenging exercise 8 Mag wheels? 9 Cartoon “How dumb can I be!” 10 Mediocre 11 Allergic reaction 12 Single-masted ship 13 “Gattaca” costar 18 Got into the game 21 Talks in slang? 23 Finland-based communications company 24 Developer of the first air-pumped rubber ball 25 Big party 26 Missing from Ft. Dix, maybe 27 Bit of truth 28 Toucan Sam’s cereal 31 “Super Mario” brother 32 Giant Mel 34 Shallow crossing 35 Very excited 36 Valentine’s Day gift 38 Very dry

42 When el Año Nuevo occurs 44 Marshall Plan pres. 45 “Late Night” host 46 First speaker in “Macbeth” 47 The Vandals of the Western Athletic Conference 48 Allowed by law

49 Flat-rate agreement? 50 Cappuccino cousin 53 Cuzco builder 54 Vegas sign 55 Mild reaction to a joke 56 New Year’s word 58 Auto maintenance letters 59 Mariner

Classic Deep-Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbon

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Classic Deo | Daniel Perez

xwordeditor@aol.com

11/16/07

T he B rown D aily H erald Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 Business Phone: 401.351.3260

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Mary-Catherine Lader, Vice President Mandeep Gill, Treasurer Dan DeNorch, Secretary By Paul Guttormsson (c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

11/16/07

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A RTS & C ulture Friday, november 16, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Gilbert and Sullivan’s convoluted ‘Yeomen’ blends sad and silly By Ben Hyman Contributing Writer

All Brown students who are feeling a significant absence of plummy British accents in their lives should take heart: Brown University Gilbert & Sullivan’s fall production of “The Yeomen of the Guard” has arrived. “Yeomen,” with direction by Rachel Weiler ’10 and Melissa Kagen ’09 and musical direction by Josh Feintuch ’08, runs Friday and Saturday in Alumnae Hall. The fourteen operettas by writer W.S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan have been theatrical staples since their premieres in late-19thcentury London. “Yeomen,” which first appeared in 1888, was their eleventh collaboration. It is less frequently performed than works like “The Mikado” — BUGS’s project for next semester — so any production is an event in itself. The plot of “Yeomen,” which takes place in the 16th-century at the Tower of London, is even more convoluted than the usual Gilbert & Sullivan show. Phoebe Meryll — Sarah Hersman ’10 — daughter of one of the Yeomen who guard the Tower, is in love with Colonel Fair-

REVIEW fax — Finn Yarbrough ’09 — who has been sentenced to execution for sorcery and is being held prisoner. His jailer and “Assistant Tormenter,” Wilfred Shadbolt, played by David Deull ’09, loves Phoebe, who rejects him out of a general discomfort with torture as a profession. Along with her father, Sergeant Meryll, played by Nick Leiserson ’09, and her brother, Leonard, played by Jeremy Kuhn ’10, Phoebe devises a scheme to save Fairfax by disguising him as Leonard — who is also a yeoman — and vice-versa. Meanwhile, Fairfax, wanting to make sure his inheritance doesn’t fall into the hands of the very cousin who accused him of sorcery, secretly marries Elsie, a poor singer, played by Juliana Friend ’11, despite the objections of Jack Point — Peter Goldstein ’08 — the jester who loves her. And this is where things get really confusing. Though “Yeoman” features mistaken identities, an overload of oneliners and general topsy-turviness, it is also darker and more complex than most of the other Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. “It’s the only

Robin Steele / Herald

The cast of Brown University Gilbert & Sullivan aims to have heads rolling in the aisles this weekend at “Yeomen of the Guard.”

Gilbert & Sullivan show I know of that ends tragically,” Kagen said, to which Feintuch added, “The music is more somber and closer to serious opera.” The contrast of sadness and silliness in “Yeomen” posed an interesting challenge to the directors, who wanted to stay true to its more serious mood without sacrificing Gilbert & Sullivan’s trademark humor. “I

think we wound up mostly going in the silly direction,” Weiler said. As part of BUGS tradition, the “Yeomen” cast and pit orchestra put together a “Gag Show,” which will be performed on Sunday afternoon. Publicity materials warn that the Gag Show is “not suitable for children” or “G&S purists.” According to the group’s Web site, BUGS was started in fall 2004

by Dan Grollman MS’05 GS and Jonathan Ichikawa MA’05 “two Brown grad students who thought it was lame that there was no G&S at Brown.” All BUGS shows are entirely student-produced and offered free of charge. And in case anyone needs another reason to see “Yeomen,” Weiler would like to add one thing: “There’s a lot of torture.”

PW show features family drama, video games By Catherine Straut Contributing Writer

Debuting tonight, Production Workshop’s final major play of the semester, “Stone Cold Dead Serious,” explores the struggle for autonomy and hope within the confines of a broken and crumbling lower-middleclass family. The play, written by Adam Rapp and directed by Adam Mazer ’08, manipulates the familiar tropes of the family drama genre in a plot that is both tragically realistic and yet hilariously fantastical. The result is a dark comedy that keeps the audience on their toes. “Stone Cold Dead Serious” follows 16-year-old video game genius Wynne Ledbetter, played by Aubie Merrylees ’10, in his attempts to hold together his shattered family living in the northern suburbs of Chicago while journeying to compete in a national video game competition in New York City. Wynne’s father, Cliff, played by Michael Hammond ’08, has been rendered childlike and barely functional after sustaining a back injury and consequently abusing his painkillers while watching TV. Wynne takes care of Cliff while his scatterbrained and overworked mother Linda, played by Alexandra Panzer ’08, works double shifts at a diner. Wynne also tries to help his runaway older sister Shaylee, played fiercely by Jessie Hopkins ’08, a prostitute and drug addict who surreptitiously visits the house to steal money from her parents. Merrylees truly captures the spirit of Wynne, whose obsession with video games seems to be his only distraction from the demands placed upon him to hold together his family members. The inversion of familial relationships is apparent as Cliff, Linda and Shaylee simultaneously depend upon and neglect or abuse Wynne. Hopkins, Hammond and Panzer all take on second roles in the show. Hopkins plays Wynne’s mute girlfriend, Sharice, another finalist in the

video-game competition. The colorful figures Wynne meets during his journey to New York include Jack Gam, a traveling salesman played by Hammond, and Snake Lady, Wynne and Sharice’s loony neighbor in their New York hotel, played by Panzer. Panzer shines as Snake Lady, delivering a memorably hilarious performance.

REVIEW Each of the characters is depicted as both sad and funny, capturing the unusual yet compelling attitude of the play itself. The combination of ordinary sets in the foreground and colorful lighting in the background reinforced the realistic and surreal duality apparent in the plot at the show’s Wednesday dress rehearsal. The music selection also reinforces the ironic nature of the play by adding a humorous yet sometimes unsettling compliment to the scenes. The presence of three lit screens facing the audience incorporates the viewer into the dominant activity in the lives of the characters — watch-

ing television. “The show revolves around TV and things happening on screens,” Mazer said, adding, “we thought that it would look cool ... (and be) symbolically relevant.” The almost unbearably crude dialogue facilitates rapid shifts from amusement to shock and from tragedy to humor. These shifts keep the audience alert and transfixed by the overwhelmingly tragic yet seemingly realistic events of the play. Although the second act lacks some of the pacing and continuity of the first, partly due to gaps in time and place between scenes, the show successfully chronicles the unique process of reconciliation and healing of the Ledbetter family. An April 2003 New York Times review called “Stone Cold Dead Serious” a play “aimed to shock an audience with depictions of familial depravity and youthful nihilism ... (without) the familiar mixture of pity and disgust. Rather ... (there is) a flicker of something else, an acknowledgment that love and caring do exist and that these people live in a world that is not devoid of these things.”

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Friday, november 16, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Brown students bring home the iGEM gold for glowing mold continued from page 1 to thread the screw and build the screwdriver.” The ground-up approach usually used to create genetically engineered microscopic machines such as the glowing lead detector consists of tedious and expensive processes with complicated steps. But BioBricks — and the MIT registry that houses and classifies them — may prove to be synthetic biology’s great “hardware store.” “Each (BioBrick) is like a piece of Lego,” Scheinberg said. “They can stack onto each other, and each piece fits with another.” “Ever y time anyone makes something, they break up their project into BioBricks that are put into the Registry of Standardized Biological Parts at MIT,” said Tito Jankowski ’08, a team member and self-described “iGEM evangelist.” “Now, anyone can go to the Registry and get a part that will say, ‘If

you include this part in your system, it will make your cells glow,’ ” Jankowski said. A biomedical engineering major with eyes for entrepreneurship, Jankowski praised the competition for its ingenuity and the research experience it provides to undergraduates. “Most people, when they do research, have a professor who tells them, ‘You should do this, you should do that,’ ” he said. “iGEM isn’t that at all. Not only did we have our own lab, we figured out exactly how to do everything ourselves.” Galaiya, a biophysics and international relations double-concentrator who came up with the glowing-leaddetector idea, said the team entered the 10-week competition with very little knowledge of how to run a lab, let alone the specific protocol for cutting and pasting DNA from one cell to another. “My job over the summer was to make sure we had ordered all the

chemicals and reagents,” Galaiya said. “I’m used to working in a lab where all the reagents are just there — I don’t think about where they come from.” After weeks of preparation, a steep learning curve and a $25,000 sponsorship from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the team joined over 50 other delegations in early November at MIT’s “iGEM Jamboree” for two days of project presentations. Scheinberg and Jankowski recounted some of the more clever projects presented at the Jamboree. “One of them was called BactoBlood,” Scheinberg said of the project from the University of California at Berkeley. “It was using bacteria as red blood cells. They were able to genetically engineer them so that they wouldn’t be attacked by the immune system, but were able to carry oxygen like red blood cells. And that’s important, because there’s a blood shortage right now.”

“MIT had a similar project to ours, but with mercury,” Jankowski said. “They created a sheet of paper that was covered with cells, and these cells would pick up mercury in water. It’s a revolutionary way because it’s so cheap.” Though the Brown team missed out on the grand prize — a BioBrickshaped trophy won by Peking University for their UV-light-sensitive biological circuit — they returned to campus with gold medals awarded to the top third of competitors. “They’re typical gung-ho undergraduates wanting to change the world,” said John Cumbers GS, the team’s graduate student advisor. “They really see that they’re into something that’s going to be huge in the future.” Cumbers is currently a TA for BIOL 1940: “Synthetic Biological Systems,” a new multidisciplinary class that introduces students to the “cutting edge field of biological engineering.”

“Synthetic biology is still a very new field — in its infancy, really — and iGem is five years old,” he said. “In another five years, what we’re doing now will seem primitive.” “I think iGEM epitomizes Brown,” said Professor of Biology Gary Wessel, who teaches BIOL 1940. “Some of the iGEM teams in the world are driven by faculty. What’s special about the Brown team is that it’s completely driven by students.” Wessel, a faculty adviser for Brown’s iGEM team, said the new wave of outside-the-box thinking characteristic of students like Galaiya, Jankowski and Scheinberg has changed the way he thinks about his own biological research. “My job has always been to break a cell apart and get it down to something I can control,” Wessel said. “iGem and synthetic biology is just the opposite. You start off with almost nothing and create something that you can then make use of.”

This year’s Strait Talk Students perfect their ‘elevator pitches’ conference concludes continued from page 1

continued from page 1 Strait Talk looks to break longstanding cultural antagonisms by bringing “the next generation to the table,” said Maha Atal ’08, program coordinator of the Round Table Conference. “The way to develop solutions vertically is by establishing cross-cultural connections,” said Atal, a Herald opinions columnist. Each conference produces a written compilation, or “Final Consensus Recommendation,” of the delegates’ discussions. The report, which will soon be made available on Dialogue Project’s Web site, is intended to “build a consensus that everyone is happy about,” said Strait Talk founder Johnny Lin ’08. But this consensus does not mean overall agreement, Reichel said. The document is a way to “highlight similarities, points of contention and practical goals,” he added. Lin founded Strait Talk his sophomore year after a summer spent lobbying in Washington, D.C. Lin said he was concerned that “even in an enlightened political circle, people are entrenched in their political beliefs without understanding what is going on.” Lin said the conference uses young people to help motivate policymakers. “We are building relationships between Brown students and the delegates who come here,” Lin said. “This is one of the most contentious issues in the world today, where dialogue can really make a huge difference.” “The primary goal of the program is to get around the political deadlock and make an entrance into the debate by working with counterparts in China,” he added. Tensions elevated this year when Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bien started a campaign to win United Nations membership using the name Taiwan rather than its official title of the Republic of China, an ambitious move after 60 years of entrenched political beliefs. But the consensus at Wednesday’s Strait Talk panel, “Dialogue or Deadlock: Power Transitions in Washington, Beijing and Taipei,” indicated that high tensions are not necessarily spurring action. Even with major elections just around the corner for both the U.S. and Taipei, “policy analysts are sens-

ing a period of entrenchment with all sides clinging ever more tightly to their views,” said panelist Alan Wachman, an associate professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. “The mainland policy is ‘No independence, no war.’ Unless either side makes ridiculous moves, things will remain as is,” Reichel told The Herald. This year, the Dialogue Project brought to campus U.S. International Trade Commissioner Irving Williamson, India’s youngest Member of Parliament Sachin Pilot, Foreign Affairs Assistant Editor Basharat Peer, Director of the China Initiative at the University of California at Berkeley Thomas Gold and Jing-dong Yuan, director of the East Asian Non-Proliferation Program at the Monterey Institute for International Studies. “The turnout was incredible,” Atal said. Despite three consecutive years of successful dialogue, Strait Talk still receives little University support. “So far it has been completely student-run, which has been quite successful, but also a source of many challenges. It would be great for the University to step up,” Lin said. Because the University encourages student groups to find faculty advisors, the Dialogue Project has had limited access to certain resources due to the lack of faculty doing political science research in relevant regions. “We want to be engaged with Brown, not just use Brown to do our own thing,” Atal said. Students like Atal are not the only ones who are passionate about the program. At Wednesday’s panel Lin said “one of the speakers almost forgot to pick up his kids until his wife called because he was so excited about the event.” Brown should be proud of the work students have done to establish these cross-cultural connections through the conference, Lin said. These connections are particularly important as China emerges as a leading global power. “For the United States, thinking about the issue of China is one of the most paramount issues that we as students and scholars need to think about as well,” Lin said. “In some subtle way, we’re hoping that this will create a shift in thinking.”

point the company’s patented software would send the information to the patient’s physician, wait for approval and then generate a recommended exercise program for the next day. “The goal of this group, and what we’ve created, is remote cardiac rehab,” Neville said, though he emphasized that the technology is not designed to be a “stand-alone project.” The remote system would only target low-risk patients, he said, since direct medical supervision is still important for many weeks immediately after a patient suffers a heart attack. Originally founded to tackle a problem presented to the students by Peter Tilkemeier, associate professor of medicine and director of cardiac rehabilitation at Miriam Hospital, the company has remained entirely student-run — though it receives consulting and advising from Brown faculty. Currently, the company is actively working to grow its business. Neville said that in December the students will apply for a $20,000 grant with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. The company is also working on writing a grant proposal for $120,000 from the National Institutes of Health. The students are also reconsidering their business model, focusing on “partnering with traditional rehab centers as opposed to competing with them.” The students are also constantly learning about the field their product plans to enter, Neville said. “A big thing of what we’re doing right now is learning about the industry standards we have to meet,” he said, adding that some students had been at Miriam Hospital on Wednesday doing just that. Seibel, who won the Brown pitch-off for her idea for a television program to teach English to adults, said she had “been thinking about it for a long time, in various forms” before deciding to enter the competition. “It’s very hard to survive in this country if you don’t speak the language,” she said. She added that adults who needed English training would find programming that was not directed at children to be “helpful.”

Seibel, who described herself as “very interested in languages” — having studied Spanish, French and “a tiny bit of Catalan” at Brown — said she planned to take a business class next semester and would like to do something with her idea after she graduates. “Right now, it’s still in the planning stages,” she said, “so I don’t know exactly how it would work.” Jake Rosenberg ’08, who was the runner-up to Seibel in the Brown pitch-off, took home a $600 prize after entering “on a whim” when he read an announcement for the competition in a Morning Mail. He pitched the use of 3-D cell culture technology to grow liver cells for transplant into patients with Type 1 diabetes. Currently, Rosenberg said, transplanted liver cells are taken from cadavers, but there aren’t nearly enough cells to go around. He suggests using a 3-D cell culture to grow a larger number of cells — possibly even “better” ones. A biology concentrator, Rosenberg said he was inspired by his experience this semester in BIOL 2130: “Techniques in Molecular and Cell Science,” taught by Associate Professor of Medical Science Jeffrey Morgan. Morgan and a team of biomedical engineers, Anthony Napolitano GS, Peter Chai ’06 MMS’07 MD’10 and Dylan Dean ’00 MD’07 GS, an M.D./Ph.D. student, invented a 3-D Petri dish that allows cells to make normal cell-to-cell contacts and form “microtissues.” Their results were published in the August issue of the journal Tissue Engineering. “In your body, cells don’t grow flat on a plate,” Rosenberg said. “Very important for cell growth and differentiation is the stuff they’re up against,” he added. Though he placed well in the Brown competition, Rosenberg said he doesn’t plan to pursue his idea any further in the immediate future. “Right now, I don’t have the time to pursue that, specifically,” he said, adding that he plans to take a year off after graduating. Jesse Maddox ’08 and Matt Prewitt ’08, a Herald opinions columnist, earned two fourth-place finishes in both the Brown pitch-off and the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition’s event at Johnson and Wales for their pitch to help students purchase textbooks online.

“Savings and convenience are the two things we’re selling here,” Maddox said. Currently, students find it inconvenient to buy textbooks online, he said, though doing so could save them “20 percent off normal book prices.” While he said he couldn’t go into details about the idea because he and Prewitt are “still working on it,” he said they hope to launch their Web site at “a northeastern school” in time for the spring semester. Maddox said he and Prewitt hadn’t actually been selected to pitch for the state-wide competition they placed fourth in — too many entrants had registered and some were turned away — but they went anyway and convinced the organizers to allow them to make their pitch. “We won’t disappoint,” Maddox said he told those in charge. He said he and Prewitt used their $150 prize to throw a party for students in their class, ENGN 1010: “The Entrepreneurial Process: Innovation in Practice.” Neville, who won that competition, was also not selected to pitch, but he attended anyway to support another group he was involved with, he said. When some entrants didn’t show up, he was able to get himself back into the program. Giving the pitch was a challenging experience, Neville said. “There’s a lot of pressure to be able to consolidate something that you’ve been working a year and half on into a minute in a half,” he said. Maddox agreed. “You have to be able to break down your idea and give someone a pitch within a limited time frame,” he said. “You’re supposed to leave them a little bit hanging and make them want to talk to you more,” he added. Seibel said she found “it was a little bit nerve-wracking — getting up in front of people.” Rosenberg said he was glad to have had a business encounter that was outside his normal experience. “It kind of put me in a crowd of entrepreneurs and business people that I probably wouldn’t have contacted, as a biology person,” he said. He added, though, that if he were to do it all again, he would change one thing. “I don’t have a suit,” he said, “and I think it would have been better if I had a suit.”

C ampus N ews Friday, november 16, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Alums help local youth navigate college admissions By Sophia Lambertsen Staff Writer

Jacob Melrose / Herald File Phot

A new study suggests that combining alcohol and energy drinks may cause adverse health effects.

Mixing energy drinks and booze? Beware, study says By Cameron Lee Staff Writer

Students may want to think twice the next time they mix a Jaeger Bomb. Students who mix energy drinks with alcohol are putting themselves in twice as much physical danger and doubling the likelihood they might be involved in a sexual assault as those who drink only alcohol, according to a recent study at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Mary Claire O’Brien, associate professor of emergency medicine and public health sciences at Wake Forest, led the team of researchers in studying the risks of combining alcohol and energy drinks. According to a Nov. 1 Newswise article, O’Brien and her team discovered that students who drink alcohol with energy drinks rather than just alcohol were twice as likely to be injured, twice as likely to require medical attention and twice as likely either to take advantage of someone sexually or to be taken advantage of sexually. The study was conducted by polling 4,271 college students from 10 schools via the Internet, according to the Newswise article. Of the students polled, 2,886 had consumed alcohol within the past 30 days, and of those, 24 percent had also consumed alcohol with energy drinks, O’Brien told The Herald. “I think people (drink alcohol with energy drinks) because it allows them to drink longer without feeling the effects of the alcohol,” O’Brien said. She said that when people drink alcohol in conjunction with energy drinks, all of the normal changes associated with drinking alcohol — such as an increased blood alcohol content level — occur, but people are able to drink more alcohol without realizing the extent of their intoxication. Adam Robbins ’09, a campus representative for Rockstar energy drinks, agreed with O’Brien’s description. “The body’s defense

against alcohol is for it to get tired so you can’t drink any more,” said Robbins, a Herald comic artist. “If your body’s being stimulated (while drinking alcohol) ... it’s not healthy.” As a campus representative for Rockstar, Robbins said he is supplied by the company with energy drinks. Robbins, a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, often brings drinks to fraternity parties and other events. Though some partygoers will use the energy drinks to mix with their alcohol, others will drink the energy drinks as an alternative to alcohol, he said. “It’s an alternative to alcohol or smoking which is still socially acceptable or cool,” he said. O’Brien said she was prompted to perform the study while treating a comatose student who said he had been drinking alcohol and energy drinks. “I found out it’s a huge trend. It’s not just in the U.S. — it’s all over the world,” she said. Robbins said he first heard about mixing alcohol and energy drinks together about four or five years ago. He attributes the growing popularity of mixing energy drinks with alcohol to the rising popularity of energy drinks themselves. “Five or six years ago you might be able to find an energy drink at a convenience store. Now it seems like you can find it at a bookstore,” Robbins said. Some students said they were skeptical of parts of the study. “If anything, you get the best of both worlds” when drinking Jaeger Bombs, a mix of Jaegermeister and an energy drink, such as Red Bull, said Jeff Wardyga ’08. “You get the traditional alcohol buzz, but you also get the sports drink which also pumps a little more into you. But ... alcohol (by itself) can be dangerous.” Wardyga said he had not experienced any mishaps as a result of drinking Jaeger Bombs that he would not have experienced as a result of drinking alcohol alone.

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As current students brace themselves for end-of-semester exams, Hannah Lewis ’07 is dealing with college applications all over again. She and six other college guides have spent the past two months guiding underprivileged Rhode Island high school students through the arduous college admission process as the debut class of Brown’s College Advising Corps. “I was so grateful for my college experience,” Lewis said. “I realize I am lucky to have had it, and I realize that a college experience should be available to everyone regardless of socioeconomic class.” Initiated last spring thanks to a $1-million grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the College Advising Corps began this fall, placing Lewis and the six other full-time guides in high schools in Providence, Central Falls and West Warwick. The guides commit to work 35 hours per week for one year after their graduation and are employed by the AmeriCorps Foundation, though the program is administrated by the Swearer Center for Public Service and supported by the Cooke gift. Five of the seven guides are Brown alums — two graduated from the University of Rhode Island. The program focuses on lowincome, first-generation high school students who are “college qualified,” said Roger Nozaki MAT’89, director of the Swearer Center and associate dean of the College. The biggest problem is getting these students to consider college in the first place and then motivating them to actively pursue higher education,

he added. “Part of the challenge is the balance between being aggressive and respectful,” Nozaki said. Already this year, the seven volunteers have conducted approximately 295 one-on-one meetings, helped work on 125 college essays and registered 215 students for the SATs, said program coordinator Rosanna Castro ’05. The guides have also taken high school students on visits to nine colleges in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. But the College Advising Corps does not seek to replace or overshadow the work done by existing guidance counselors, Castro said. Instead, Nozaki said, the guides are intended to supplement the overworked guidance counselors in these low-income schools. “The last thing that I want to imply is that anyone is not doing their job,” Nozaki said. “Everyone is trying hard. It’s just that the resources aren’t there.” The average student-to-guidance counselor ratio is 250-to-1 in Providence schools, Castro said. Before school started, the college guides received two weeks of training at the Swearer Center. To help the guides fully understand the needs of the communities they would be serving, they met with students and teachers from their future schools during training and created a strategic plan, Castro said. Collaboration with the community was a priority, Nozaki said. Since the College Advising Corps has no set curriculum, none of the guides are working with the exact same program and work closely with their assigned school and community. Lewis said the hardest part of the advising role has been working

with students who have taken English as a Second Language classes throughout high school and haven’t been able to take the courses necessary to get into college. “There’s so much to be done. It’s difficult being just one person,” Lewis said. Jesse Cohen ’07, another College Guide, said working for a brand new program has also been a challenge. “The Swearer Center has experience with college guidance work, but nothing on this scale,” he said. “We’re learning as we go.” Though the program is new to Brown, it’s among ten College Advising Corps programs nationwide funded last spring by the Cooke Foundation and modeled after a two-year-old program at the University of Virginia. The Swearer Center hopes to expand next year to include 13 to 16 full-time College Guides in current schools as well as schools in other Providence neighborhoods, Woonsocket and Pawtucket. The Center is currently accepting help from undergraduate volunteers willing to donate two or three hours a week, Castro said. Executive Director of the National College Advising Corps Nicole Hurd, with whom Nozaki said Brown’s College Advising Corps communicates daily, said the program’s success is measured not simply by the number of students who enter college, but also by how many are able to stay enrolled and ultimately graduate. The college guides emphasize the importance of finding the perfect match for each student, she said. “We’re not just hoping people will go to college, but we’re hoping they will go to college and finish,” Hurd said. “It’s not just access, but success.”

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As the cost of college rises, students are forced to adjust continued from page 1 24 percent of total education loans were private, as students’ financial aid packages are increasingly falling short of their needs. This past year the costs of attending college have risen at a rate more than double that of inflation. According to a College Board report released last month, tuition and fees in the 2007-2008 academic year for private, four-year, nonprofit institutions averaged a 6.3 percent increase from the previous year, while average total fees (which include room and board) rose 5.9 percent higher than last year. The average total cost of attending a public institution of higher education rose by the same percentage as private universities’ fees, but tuition increases were slightly higher at public schools. But only a fraction of students can afford to pay full tuition. The College Board reported that in 2006-2007, three-quarters of fulltime undergraduates received some form of financial aid. Financial aid to undergrads nationally totalled $97.1 billion last year, with 40 percent coming from federal loans and 21 percent from college and university grants. At Brown, where tuition has risen roughly 5 percent each year, the need-based financial aid budget increased 9.4 percent between the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years, from $52 million last year to $56.9 million this year, according to Director of Financial Aid James Tilton. Elizabeth Huidekoper, executive vice president for finance and administration, said tuition costs are outpacing inflation because, with the explosion of knowledge and information, staying current and competitive in teaching and research is increasingly expensive. “The (fact that costs have) increased slightly more than inflation is pretty much the history of higher education,” Huidekoper said. The University’s priorities, she said, are reflected in an emphasis on investing in faculty growth and need-blind admission. Among other goals, Huidekoper expects that with the Plan for Academic Enrichment, Brown will become less dependent on tuition and more dependent on endowment income. The Plan for Academic Enrichment, a comprehensive blueprint for strengthening Brown’s academic profile, will largely be supported by the five-year, $1.4 billion capital campaign launched in 2005. To date, the campaign has raised over $1 billion. If the campaign is successful, it will boost the University’s endowment, which has historically been smaller than those of its peers. The relatively small endowment has forced the University to rely more on tuition to finance its operations, Huidekoper said. In comparison to peer institutions, Huidekoper said, Brown ranks ver y low in terms of en-

dowment per student. Princeton University, according to last year’s numbers, had close to $2 million in endowment per student, while Brown’s endowment per student in 2006 was close to $300,000. The financial aid policy at Princeton eliminated parental contribution for families making less than $53,500 a year and replaced student loans with grants. 15 percent of Princeton’s class of 2011 come from families with incomes under this amount. Yale and Stanford universities set their qualifying income level for complete financial aid at $45,000, and Harvard University sets the cap at $60,000. Despite the University’s broad slate of priorities, Tilton said financial aid is high on the list. “I think we’re very aware of the impact of tuition increases” he said. “As tuition increases, so will then the financial aid budget.” Jim Miller ’73, dean of admission, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that Brown has been committed to making education accessible regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds since adopting a need-blind admission policy in 2002. “The lass of 2011 has the highest percentage of students receiving aid, the highest percentage of students of color and perhaps the highest percentage of students who are the first in their families to go to college in Brown’s history,” Miller wrote. But need-blind admission do not apply to every student at Brown. International students, Resumed Undergraduate Education and transfer students are all subject to “need-aware” policies. Thirty-eight-year-old Scott Ewing ’09 applied to Brown as a RUE student in 2003. He had completed two years at Indiana University before joining a band in the early 1990s and spent about a decade working in various capacities. But one year into his time at Brown, Ewing ran out of funds. In the summer of 2004, he decided to enlist in the Army. Ewing joined a month before he turned 35, the cutoff age for enlisting. He started training in September 2004 and left for Iraq at the end of March 2005. Ewing served in Iraq for about a year and finished his military service in September. Duty in Iraq may be an unusual way to pay off loans, but Ewing said for him, the decision was clear. “I’m not 18 or 19, so going to my parents for help was not something I really wanted to do, and I’m not independently wealthy,” he said. “I didn’t have the resources to take out private loans.” In the summer of 2004, the Army was offering high sign-up bonuses, and Ewing enlisted as a calvary scout, a combat position. The army offered Ewing a student loan repayment program, which would pay up to $65,000 in loans. When he enlisted, Ewing had $46,000 in loans. Now that his debts have been paid, Ewing is facing payment for

another two semesters’ worth of tuition. “I’ve had to ask myself at times if it’s worth it. I’ve had other people ask that question as well. And I’m not sure what the answer is,” Ewing said. “I literally risked my life for this.” Ewing has two more semesters at Brown before he can receive a degree, and he plans on resuming his study here in the spring. He is worried about whether he might have to discontinue his studies before his anticipated graduation in May 2009. Though she’s nearly 20 years younger than Ewing, Courtney Byrne-Mitchell ’09 is also paying for her own education. Due to extenuating personal circumstances, Byrne-Mitchell said she has technically been “financially abandoned” by her family. Brown considers her to be financially independent from her family. Tilton said cases of independent students are relatively rare — 99 percent of undergraduate students are considered dependent on family members. Byrne-Mitchell said her experience has kept her very aware of her own financial aid package. Byrne-Mitchell is a Sidney Frank Scholar, part of an aid program for the neediest students that was created by a $100-million gift from the late liquor magnate Sidney Frank ’42, the largest single gift in Brown’s history. First offered in 2005, the scholarships replace the loan portion of a student’s financial aid package with grants. In the program’s inaugural year, 2005-2006, 60 first-years received the scholarship. Byrne-Mitchell’s scholarship covered her full freshman year costs and even left her with money left over. That has changed over the years. Her sophomore year, ByrneMitchell needed $3,000 to make up the gap between her scholarship and the cost of her education. Now, she thinks she will graduate with $12,000 to $15,000 in loans. Still, Byrne-Mitchell’s estimated debt is slightly lower than what Tilton estimates are average loan debts for undergraduates after four years. “In general, ever yone’s concerned about borrowing,” Tilton said. “The average student in 2007 graduated with approximately $17,000 worth in loans, and based on repayment schedules, I think the repayment is about $155 a month.” Repayment of her loan debt worries Byrne-Mitchell, who must pay off her loans as well as fully support herself. She will consider these factors as she explores potential career paths and relocating after graduation. “I don’t have parents that I can just fall back on for the money,” she said. “I would love to go travel for a while, but I can’t,” Byrne-Mitchell said. “I’m going to definitely have to get a job that’s going to provide me with money to support myself.” While individual students struggle with financing their education, campus advocacy group Students for a Democratic Society has tried to spark a campus-wide discussion advocating for fewer student loans in financial aid packages to reduce student debt. Last spring, SDS proposed a temporary tuition freeze for the current 2007-2008 academic year and created a long-term goal to shift from financial aid loans to grants. Neither of these proposals met with success. “The importance of it is obvious — everyone has a right to edu-

cation,” said SDS member Molly McLaughlin ’10. “You hear people complaining about their financial aid and how expensive it is. It definitely seems like a reasonable campaign.” When asked about the possibility of a tuition freeze at Brown, Huidekoper said the University could not feasibly do that at this point. “If we were to freeze tuition with the resources we have, the quality of the education, the quality of the faculty, the quality of the financial aid, the quality of the graduate students ... (and) the quality of facilities would suffer,” Huidekoper said. “Within not too long a period of time, you would see Brown not being a viable institution.” The increasing cost of a Brown education brings up other issues that may not be part of the campus conversation, Byrne-Mitchell said. “I feel like socioeconomic issues are kind of looked over, and a lot of things like sexuality is looked at a lot, or gender is looked at a lot; race is looked at a lot,” she said. Her differing socioeconomic background isn’t an external, material difference, but it’s significant, she said. “I didn’t go to a prep school, so maybe academically my background isn’t as strong, and I just haven’t had the same traveling or life experiences,” Byrne-Mitchell said. “The community I come from is not an intellectual community. The common goal of my high school was ‘okay, graduate and get a job’ versus graduate and go to college.” Pridham also pointed out that increases in tuition costs don’t always affect only students who come from poorer families. “There are certainly students whose parents fall into that certain bracket which is above the financial aid target, but it’s still a struggle for their families to pay,” Pridham said. “I definitely still consider myself fortunate to be on financial aid and to have the opportunity not to have to carry full loans for my academic career.” But the cost of college education isn’t just tuition. The living expense can also cause a student to take out loans, explained Shane Reil ’09, another Sidney Frank Scholar and Herald sports columnist. “When determining the cost of attendance for a student’s financial aid budget, we know what tuition and fees are, we try to estimate what books will cost the average student, we try to determine if we have enough money in the budget for miscellaneous expenses,” Tilton said. “We’ve learned a lot from our conversations with students in the last year and have a better understanding of the kinds of challenges students face when arriving on campus.” Reil said because of his scholarship, rising costs don’t concern him very much. It is additional costs — buying books, going out to dinner, buying a new pair of sneakers he needed — that have forced him to take out some loans to cover his costs. Reil acknowledges that his circumstances may be a special case and that rising tuition costs often affect a larger, middle-class group of students. “I think that rising tuition affects the middle class a lot more than it affects the lower class, at least from my experience,” Reil said. “I don’t really notice the rise in tuition, and I feel that some of my friends who are middle class, when tuition goes up, it’s bigger chunk coming out of their pocket.”

A house not intended for Brown to own continued from page 1 Wheeler School for many years and did not have much savings. Within a month of receiving the house, she sold it to Brown for $100,000. “They were good friends and neighbors. I can’t help but think that Mrs. Pierpont would have wanted my aunt to do what was best for her,” Sewall said. “I just feel that. (Pierpont) was a very nice person. I always liked her a lot. They were nice people, all of them,” she said. After selling the house to Brown, Howe moved to a residence on nearby Medway Street, according to Sewall. The story of Pierpont’s mistrust of Brown began long before she lived at 129 Angell St. In the early 20th century, the house belonged to Edith Fletcher, Pierpont’s mother, according to her cousin William Fletcher III ’55. Before she moved to Angell Street, Edith had rented a house on George Street from Brown — the house in which Pierpont grew up. Edith was known locally as the “first lady” of the Players, an amateur theater company on Benefit Street. As she grew older, she lost her sight and eventually fell off the stage at the Players, leading to her confinement to bed. Edith’s illness could not have come at a worse time for the family. William Fletcher III, who was a Herald staffer when he was a Brown student, said the University wanted to evict her from the George Street house in order to demolish it and build a new quadrangle on its site — today’s Wriston Quad. Blind and bedridden, Edith refused to leave her house. According to William Fletcher III, the University was forced to send firemen into her house to forcibly remove her. Her brother, William Fletcher Sr., then intervened, although the siblings had been estranged since their parents divorced in their childhood. The divorce had been “quite a scandal” in the 1890s, according to William Fletcher III, forcing the children to side with one parent. William Fletcher Sr. bought Edith the house at 129 Angell St., where she lived until her death. At her death, the house passed to her daughter, Helen Pierpont. Pierpont lived in the house until her death in 1980, when she left the house to Howe, requesting that the property not be sold to Brown. “I was kind of surprised that she had done that,” William Fletcher III said. “The whole family was kind of willful.” Although he did not know for sure, William Fletcher III said he guesses she did so because of what happened to her mother on George Street. “It just sort of makes sense,” he said. “Logically, why else would she have said such a thing?” After acquiring the house, the University renovated it in 1984, according to Medbury. It was used as housing for visiting scholars until 2000, when Brown began renting it to undergraduates and grad students. It currently is occupied by four medical students, Medbury said. The University now plans either to move or to demolish the house to make way for the new Mind Brain Behavior building, the Corporation announced at a meeting last month. According to Medbury, the first choice would be to preserve the historic house and move it, as the University has done with other houses in the area when undertaking new construction.

C ampus N ews Friday, november 16, 2007

Number of students separated due to ‘U. action’ jumps 50 percent By Matthew Varley Staff Writer

The number of undergraduates separated from the University due to “University action” — a non-disciplinar y response to students who fail to register for classes, who have a large outstanding balance of payment or who fail to complete degree requirements — reached a 10-year high of 74 in the 2006-2007 academic year, marking a 50 percent increase from the previous year, according to data from the Office of Institutional Research. In an e-mail to The Herald, University Registrar Michael Pesta wrote that the rise in last year’s figure was due primarily to an increase in students who failed to complete the requirements for their degrees. The figure includes a number of students who, according to Pesta, “complete their studies in December and still have work to do to finish their courses, usually a thesis. Although no longer actively enrolled, they will often stay in Providence, use the library, etc. and hand in their final paper in the spring, thereby completing the degree and graduating in May.” Pesta called the separation “mostly procedural and not disciplinary” and noted that 39 of the 74 students separated by University action last year actually graduated in the spring. Pesta wrote that University action separations are “a function of student decisions” as opposed to University initiatives. Deputy Dean of the College Stephen Lassonde described the separations as “a conjunction of a series of individual decisions by students.” “There hasn’t been any change in policy by the University or in the implementation or enforcement of any policy,” Lassonde said, adding that Brown’s graduation rate within six years is among the best in the country. Lassonde said the University’s “fairly lenient policy ... about taking time off” might be a factor in the number of students who do not graduate in eight semesters. Nevertheless, he described leaves of absence as “really good” in the right circumstances. “If students feel like they need a break ... I think it’s a healthy thing,” Lassonde said. “Of course it’s always something you want to monitor and make sure this is a privilege that’s available to all our students” regardless of their economic backgrounds, he added. Lassonde said he sees a trend in students taking longer to complete their degrees in American universities, and though he expressed no immediate concern, he said universities should keep a close eye on the trend. According to a 2004 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, “Trends in Undergraduate Persistence and Completion,” the number of undergraduate students enrolled in college after five years without completing a degree has increased nationally,

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though overall bachelor’s degree completion rates have remained largely static. The repor t’s conclusion, based on studies conducted over a 30-year span, says the likelihood of being enrolled after five years “increased for students at all income levels, for both men and women, and for White students” although a “similar apparent increase for other racial/ ethnic groups could not be confirmed statistically.” Though the University action category also includes students who are separated for failing to meet financial obligations, “ver y, ver y few actually get to that point,” Director of Business and Financial Services Elizabeth Gentry told The Herald. The office works with parents, the Office of Financial Aid, academic deans and students themselves to collect money throughout the semester, Gentry said, adding that separations only occur if there is still an outstanding balance of $5,000 or more that cannot be met by the end of the semester. On average, “maybe one to two (students) a semester” will be separated from the University for financial reasons, Gentry said. No significant change in the numbers occurred last year, she added, noting that some separated students do return to the University following a readmission process. Though all separated students wishing to return must be formally readmitted to the University, Senior Associate Registrar Robert Fitzgerald told The Herald that the process varies according to the type of leave a student has taken. The process to readmit students who have already completed eight semesters is more complicated than for those who return to the University in fewer, Fitzgerald said. Students must obtain special permission from a dean for the ninth semester and from the Committee on Academic Standing for a 10th semester or more. “Typically ... you’re expected to complete all of your degree requirements in eight semesters, and if you need to go beyond that, you need explicit permission from either the dean of the College or the Committee on Academic Standing,” Fitzgerald said. When a student is separated with incomplete coursework, Fitzgerald said, the notation “Enrollment Terminated, Degree Requirements Pending” is placed on his or her academic record. This status would be changed if the student completes coursework independently, re-enrolls at the University or is permitted to transfers credit toward his or her Brown degree from another institution. Numbers of undergraduate separations for reasons other than University action — including leaves of absence, study abroad, early completion and academic dismissal — remained largely stagnant in the OIR data, which begins with the 1997-1998 academic year.

melanch o ly playwright

Min Wu / Herald

Playwright Sarah Ruhl ‘97 MFA‘01 discussed her career Thursday night in Leeds Theatre. Ruhl’s “Melancholy Play” runs through Sunday.

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Friday, November 16, 2007

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Winter sports preview: Feds indict Bonds in BALCO case Squash looks to improve continued from page 12

continued from page 12 Bill Cowher. Women’s ice hockey Last season, the Bears struggled to a 6-15-1 league record, but their offense should improve this winter, as the team lost just one player from last year. Leading the way for Brown is captain Hayley Moore ’08, who was the frontrunner on the team in goals with 20 and points with 36. She was named Honorable Mention All-Ivy League. The rest of the Brown offense will have to step up its game as well to protect a young defense that lost four key players from last season and retains just Jenny Cedorchuk ’10 along with four freshmen. Luckily, Bruno has assistant captain Nicole Stock ’09 in goal to anchor its green defense. Though the early going has been rough — the Bears have dropped four of their first five — the team hopes that as its young players get more experience the team will progress and be ready for the heart of its ECAC schedule. Men’s squash After losing just two seniors from last year’s squad, the men’s squash team hopes to improve on its 3-9 record this winter. The going will be tough, as it always is in the hyper-competitive Ivy League — especially since the team lost its No. 1 player on the ladder, captain Dan Petrie ’07. Ed Cerullo ’08 will try to fill Petrie’s shoes as captain as well as his No. 1 spot. Supporting Cerullo at the top of the ladder is No. 2 Adam Greenberg ’10, who looks to improve on a solid freshman season. The rest of the Bears are shooting for a strong season that will land them higher than a No. 13 rank, where they finished last season. Bruno will get this season in swing starting today at the Pizzitola Sports Center against Harvard at 5 p.m. Women’s squash Last season’s 5-7 record did not do justice to the women’s squash team. The squad finished ranked eighth nationally, and its regular season record was only hurt by the stiff competition it played on a consistent basis. Despite losing No. 1 Erin Andrews ’07 and five other seniors to graduation, the team has high hopes for the season. Megan Cerullo ’08 will, like her brother, step into the role of captain and the No. 1 spot. Bruno opens up this winter’s campaign Friday against Harvard at the Pizzitola Sports Center at 6:30 p.m. Fencing The fencing team started the 2007-2008 season off strong, bringing home 11 medals from The Big One tournament at Mt. Holyoke College on Nov. 3. Francesca Bartholomew ’11 starred in her col-

legiate debut in women’s foil and was one of just four competitors to go undefeated in the tournament. With strong men’s foil and women’s saber squads, the team hopes to capture the NFC title and improve its Ivy record in the spring. Next up for fencing is the first NFC competition at Boston University on Saturday. Track and field The track team opens its season at home on Dec. 1 in the Alden Invitational. The team will feature Paul Raymond ’08 and Thelma Breezeatl ’10, the reigning Ivy League champions in the 60-meter dash. Other standouts include distance runner Smita Gupta ’08, who qualified for the cross country NCAA Championships this weekend, and Jamil McClintock ’08, who was second-team All-Ivy in the 100-meter hurdles last season. Men’s swimming and diving Unlike the men’s water polo team, the men’s swimming and diving team will have a home pool this season — in the “Bubble” behind the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center. The Bears will need every edge they can get, as they’ll face very tough Harvard and Yale squads that will be returning several first-team All-Ivy swimmers and divers. The Bears will be led by Brian Kelly ’08, who finished fourth in the 100-yard freestyle in the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League Championships in March. Women’s swimming and diving The women’s swimming and diving team will open their season with a “home” meet against Dartmouth at Roger Williams University, in Bristol, on Saturday. But the Bears, led by Dillon Delaney ’08 and Bailey Langner ’10, will find out how good they really are in their second meet of the season at Princeton. The Tigers ran away with the EISL Championships last year, and with several returning All-Ivy swimmers and divers, appear to be the team to beat again. Wrestling The wrestling team had a tough start to their season, finishing eighth out of nine teams at the Brockport-Oklahoma Gold Classic in New York. But the team did show flashes of brilliance; for instance, co-captain Jeff Schell ’08 placed second in the 133-pounds division, and four others placed as well. The Ivy League looks more wide open this year, with several All-Ivy wrestlers graduating. Look for Schell and co-captain Levon Mock ’08 to lead the Bears into contention this season.

— Peter Cipparone, Jason Harris and Stu Woo

formance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other athletes,” the indictment read, before detailing parts of Bonds’ testimony in December 2003, with the allegedly perjured statements underlined. Bonds’ legal status had been hanging over professional baseball for nearly four years, providing a public face to a controversy involving the use of performanceenhancing drugs by elite athletes and creating a murky backdrop to Bonds’ pursuit this summer of Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record. With Thursday’s indictment, one key question was answered — until the indictment was unsealed, Bonds never had been revealed to have failed a drug test — but others were posed, such as what to do with Bonds’ records and legacy if he is convicted. Michael Rains, Bonds’ attorney, criticized prosecutors for not providing Bonds’ defense with a copy of the indictment, saying in a statement, “Now that their biased allegations must finally be presented openly in a court of law, they won’t be able to hide their unethical misconduct from the public any longer.” Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig released a statement saying, “While ever yone in America is considered innocent until proven guilty, I take this indictment very seriously and will follow its progress closely.” President Bush, the former owner of the Texas Rangers, also reacted to the news. “The president is very disappointed to hear this,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. “As this case is now in the criminal justice system, we will refrain from any further specific comments about it. But clearly this is a sad day for baseball.” That Bonds, baseball’s all-time home run king and its most polarizing figure, would be accused of using steroids is hardly surprising. His transformation from a lithe leadoff hitter in the 1990s to the hulk-

ing slugger who destroyed many of the most sacred records in baseball during this decade has long drawn scrutiny, and it was widely known that the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California had been pursuing perjury charges against Bonds. However, the timing of the indictment stunned the baseball world, which until Thursday was more concerned with where Bonds, a free agent after the San Francisco Giants cut him loose after this season, would be playing in 2008. It came nearly four years since Bonds’ original grand jury testimony in the investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, a San Francisco area nutritional supplements lab known as Balco, and after months in which there had been no visible evidence of progress in the government’s case. Hours after the indictment was handed down, a federal judge ordered Greg Anderson, Bonds’ personal trainer and a central figure in the Balco case, released from prison, where he had been ser ving for much of the past year for refusing to testify against Bonds. Anderson’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, said his client did not change his mind about testifying. “Not only has he not changed his mind, he’s more incensed than ever,” Geragos said in a telephone inter view. “He was misled. The only reason he went into custody was because the government said it could not make its case without his cooperation.” Still, the government’s case against Bonds “looks pretty strong,” said Wayne Cohen, an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School and past president of the Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington D.C. “The standard (for guilt) on perjury and obstruction cases is easier to prove than it would be on the underlying steroids case, and all they need are documents and a witness, and the government will be able to make its case.”

Only three months ago, Bonds became baseball’s all-time home run king, hitting career home run No. 756 off Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik to break Aaron’s cherished record. Although Bonds, his family and teammates, and much of San Francisco reacted to the moment with all the emotion one would typically expect from such a momentous occasion, much of the rest of the country — including Selig, who wavered for months on whether to attend the record-breaking game — reacted with ambivalence or worse, owing largely to Bonds’ attachment to the steroids scandal. “This is ugly,” former commissioner Fay Vincent said of Thursday’s news. “But the lesson of history is that baseball can take more severe shots than this. I think the public has pretty well digested that this could happen.” Bonds, who has won an unprecedented seven most valuable player awards, is the third athlete and fourth sports figure to face perjury charges in connection with the Balco probe. Last month, fivetime Olympic medal winner Marion Jones pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about her steroid use before and after the 2000 Summer Games. Track cyclist Tammy Thomas and Jones’s former coach, Trevor Graham, were indicted last year on perjury charges; both cases could go to trial next month. “All those who value clean sport commend the federal investigators for their vigilant pursuit of the truth in order to hold those involved in the Balco doping conspiracy responsible,” Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. AntiDoping Agency, said in a telephone interview. Six people, including Jones, have been convicted in the Balco probe. The others are Balco founder Victor Conte; Balco vice president Jim Valente; Anderson; Balco chemist Patrick Arnold; and track and field coach Remi Korchemny. None went to trial — all accepted plea bargains.

Sewall ’10 is Athlete of the Week continued from page 12 week. What do you do in a game like that? Did you just keep calling for the ball or were the coaches designing plays to you? That’s all the coach. The coaches up top (in the press box) see the coverage, and Dartmouth hadn’t changed anything, and we were just going with the couple of plays that were doing well. Why do you think you were able to do so well? It’s the coaches’ scheme. The coach does a good job of putting us in a position to make plays, and as

I said, Dartmouth was giving us the underneath stuff, and we were just taking what they were giving and marching down the field. Do you have any special pregame routine? No. You show up at the game, you stretch out and you’re prepared at that point. You have a pretty decorated receiving corps with Buddy Farnham ’10 and Paul Raymond ’08. How do you like playing alongside them? We have a great team, a real good team camaraderie. Everyone picks up the other guy, everyone’s real unselfish and everyone has a goal for the victory each week.

What’s it like to have Michael Dougherty throw to you? Mike Dougherty is a great quarterback, and he does a great job of getting the ball out of his hands quickly and finding the receiver. He’s shown that every week. You come from Portsmouth, R.I., which is not very far from here. What’s it like going to school so close to home? I’m always half an hour away, and I get to see my family every week, once a week. They’re always here to see games. I enjoy the fact that my grandmother gets to see a few games, and my dad is always there after the game.

New York: Jeter must pay back state taxes thanks for reading and enjoy the weekend

By Karla Schuster Newsday

NEW YORK — The Yankees shortstop known for squiring starlets to the city’s hot spots is on the hot seat with New York state, which says Derek Jeter owes millions of dollars in back taxes because he claimed he lived in Florida when he actually was a resident of the Big Apple.

The dispute centers on the years 2001 to 2003, when Jeter, who owns an apartment at Trump World Plaza in Manhattan, claimed his primary residence was in Tampa, where he also owns a home, according to documents from the state Division of Tax Appeals. Florida has no personal income tax, while both New York state and New York City do. The state claims that Jeter “keeps certain personal items near and dear”

in his $12.7 million New York City apartment, and that “he has immersed himself in the New York community,” according to an administrative law judge’s ruling in the case. The case is pending. As much a fixture in the Manhattan nightlife scene as he is as shortstop in the Bronx, Jeter at the very least has immersed himself in the New York community of celebrity eye candy, being linked with the likes of songbird Mariah Carey and actress Jessica Biel.

W orld & N ation Friday, november 16, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Darfur doc Gates: Pentagon must slash spending if war funding blocked to receive RFK award By Julian E. Barnes and Noam N. Levey Los Angeles Times

By Nora Boustany Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Mohammed Ahmed Abdallah, a Sudanese physician, will receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award on Friday for his assiduous work in Darfur, where he provides medical care and assists survivors of torture and violence. As head of a center for the treatment, documentation and counseling of victims of torture and rape in Sudan, Abdallah, from the majority ethnic Fur tribe, became a target for government scrutiny. He was the first physician from his region in Jabal Marra, and later built a network of doctors in Darfur to help document rapes and other abuses that victims were too afraid to report to local police. Though officially appointed to represent his region in formal commissions and forums with the government, Abdallah said in an interview this week that he is not immune to harassment or the occasional reminder, delivered sometimes by the most courteous of ministers, that he actually is at the head of a list of wanted men. “This prize will offer some form of protection. ... They keep reminding me to watch myself,” he said with a smile. Speaking in interviews Monday and Tuesday, Abdallah predicted that failure by an expanded U.N. force of 26,000 peacekeepers to deploy by Dec. 31 would probably lead to more suffering and starvation, especially if humanitarian groups are not protected. The Kennedy award comes with a cash prize of $30,000, coupled with a partnership over five to six years for comprehensive support, human rights projects and advocacy with the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights organization. At 54, Abdallah has a receding gray hairline and crooked teeth, more a reflection of a hardscrabble life than his years. As a child, he walked for three days to reach his middle school, where he was a boarding student. As a teenager, he walked for five days to reach his high school. His pursuit of a medical career took him to the only university available then, in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. He is now medical director of the Amel Center for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture in Sudan, a leading human rights group registered with the Khartoum government. Abdallah said he fears the worst is coming to war-torn western Darfur. He said delays in the deployment of the beefed-up African peacekeeping force — including recent announcements by State Department and U.N. officials that 24 badly needed helicopters still have not been pledged — will spell disaster. “It is time to resume negotiations, but without the protection of civilians in the camps, nothing will happen,” he said, explaining that the government of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir “had succeeded in fragmenting rebel factions” fighting against the Khartoum-backed militia and Sudanese forces attacking their villages.

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that he will have to lay off 200,000 civilian employees and contractors, terminate military contracts and partially shut down U.S. military bases unless Congress acts quickly to approve additional funding for the Iraq war. Echoing similar warnings from past funding battles, Gates said the Army and Marine Corps will develop plans for sharp spending cuts unless Congress moves to provide $196 billion that President Bush has requested. On Tuesday, Bush signed a separate $471-billion defense appropriation bill. But that spending measure includes little of the money needed to keep the wars going in Iraq and Afghanistan. The House has offered the president $50 billion as a bridge fund for the wars but would require most combat troops to leave Iraq by December 2008. The White House has vowed to veto the bill if it passes the Senate

in a vote planned for Friday. Gates said he has little ability to move money within the defense budget to pay for war expenses, despite new authority contained in the bill signed by Bush this week. Gates said the department was authorized to move only $3.7 billion, which would fund the wars for about a week. “There is a misperception that this department can continue funding our troops in the field for an indefinite period of time through accounting maneuvers, that we can shuffle money around the department,” Gates said. “This is a serious misconception.” But congressional Democrats, who remember similar warnings from Gates earlier this year, reacted skeptically. Defense officials complained in February about drastic consequences if a funding bill was not passed then; the bleak scenarios did not come to pass, even though the bill was not passed until May. “We have determined that both peacetime and war operations can be sustained, with no impact to troop readiness, until at least March 2008,” said Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., who

Obama spars with Clinton in heated Las Vegas debate By Anne E. Kornblut and Dan Balz Washington Post

LAS VEGAS — Sen. Barack Obama accused Sen. Hillar y Rodham Clinton of being duplicitous in her presidential campaign in one of several sharp exchanges that marked the Democratic debate Thursday night as one of the most heated to date. With less than 50 days until the first primary voting begins, the Democratic contenders showed off newly polished answers to familiar questions. Clinton, D-N.Y., under fire for sounding evasive during the last debate more than two weeks ago, made a noticeable effort to sound definitive and concise. But at a critical moment in the race — when voters in the earlyvoting states are beginning to pay full attention — Clinton, Obama and former Sen. John Edwards spent the opening moments of the debate on the attack. Obama, D-Ill., described Clinton as “a capable politician,” then added: “But what the American people are looking for right now is straight answers to tough questions. And that is not what we’ve seen out of Senator Clinton on a host of issues.” Clinton fired back swiftly, citing Obama’s health-care proposal as a sign of his weaknesses as a leader. “Well, I hear what Senator Obama is saying, and he talks a lot about stepping up and taking responsibility and taking strong positions,” Clinton said. “But when it came time to step up and decide whether or not he would support universal health-care coverage, he chose not to do that.” Clinton accused Obama of omitting about 15 million Americans from his health-care proposal. He interrupted her a few moments later, triggering an intense backand-forth.

Edwards, of North Carolina, who in past debates was the most aggressive candidate onstage, continued his criticism of Clinton. “The issue is whether we can have a president that can restore trust for the American people in the president of the United States,” Edwards said, drawing applause. “Because I think this president has destroyed that trust, and I think there are fair questions to be asked of all of us, including Senator Clinton.” Thursday’s debate, the fifth of six forums sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee, was held on the campus of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and was aired nationally on CNN. Anchor Wolf Blitzer was moderator. Seven Democrats participated: Clinton, Obama, Edwards, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. Clinton arrived here under pressure to rebound from what even she conceded was a weak performance in the Democrats’ last debate, Oct. 30 in Philadelphia. Asked that night whether she supported a proposal by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, she appeared to endorse the idea and then pulled back. Dodd, Edwards and Obama all sharply rebuked her. Clinton’s campaign later accused the others of piling on and suggested that she was attacked in part because she is a woman. But Edwards and Obama kept up the criticism on the license issue as well as others, and Clinton was clearly thrown on the defensive for the first time in the campaign. The controversy over illegal immigrants and driver’s licenses continued this week. When Spitzer pulled down his proposal on Wednesday, Clinton issued a statement applauding him and noting that, as president, she would oppose such an idea.

chairs the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee. At a Senate hearing Thursday, top Army leaders also tried to ratchet up the pressure on lawmakers to pass the supplemental funding. Failing to approve the money, said Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, “sends the wrong message to soldiers.” Army Secretary Pete Geren said that furloughs of Army civilians would have to begin by February. “This will fall most heavily on ... home-based troops and their families,” Geren said. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said the Congress was “nickeling and diming” the military by not passing the supplemental funding. “Those troops are entitled to absolute support,” Sessions said. But Democratic Sen. James Webb of Virginia dismissed suggestions that his party was “reluctant to fund people on the battlefield.” Some Democrats appeared ready for a major confrontation with the White House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that House Democrats would refuse to send the president a funding bill free of conditions if

the measure passed by House lawmakers is blocked by Republicans in the Senate. “We’re not going to be taking it up any more over here,” she told reporters. In addition to voting on the House’s partial funding measure, the Senate also is likely to vote on a Republican alternative to provide $70 billion without requiring a troop withdrawal. Even as partisan conflict over the Iraq war began to heat up again, Gates argued Thursday that the administration had moved to address Democratic demands for a drawdown, a timetable for shrinking the size of the force and a change in the mission. Gates said the main debate in Congress was over the pace of troop reductions and the change in the mission. On those points, Gates said, lawmakers should defer to military commanders. “It seems to me that there ought to be some deference to those who are running the war, the generals, in terms ... the pace at which this drawdown should take place, “ Gates said.

Virulent new cold virus has killed at least 10 By Jia-Rui Chong Los Angeles T imes

A virulent new form of a common cold virus has killed 10 people and hospitalized at least 53 since May 2006, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. The adenovirus serotype 14 virus has sickened more than 360 people in Texas, Oregon, Washington and New York, the report said. One of the largest outbreaks occurred at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where 106 soldiers were infected and one died. “Adenovir uses have been known to cause severe disease in the very young and the very old and people with medical problems,” said co-author Dr. John Su, a CDC infectious diseases investigator. “What brought this to our attention is that it can cause severe respiratory diseases in otherwise healthy adults.” Researchers did not know what caused the virus to mutate or what sparked the outbreaks. Adenoviruses come in 51 types, causing illnesses that include pink eye, bronchitis and gastrointestinal problems. There is no drug specifically designed for adenovirus infections, but many infections resolve on their own. Adenovirus 14 tends to cause colds or respiratory illnesses and can be spread by contaminated surfaces and through air in a cough or sneeze, Su said. It caused respiratory disease among militar y recruits in the Netherlands in 1955 but has been detected only sporadically since. The strain of adenovirus 14 involved in the recent outbreaks is genetically distinct from the 1955

strain, Su said. The largest outbreaks occurred at four air force bases in Texas. In addition to the cases reported at Lackland, three other bases in Texas reported 220 adenovirus 14 infections between March and September. The outbreaks at the bases “may potentially have to do with crowding,” Su said. Oregon identified 31 cases. Those who fell ill had a median age of 54, which is younger than the typical age for patients with severe disease, Su said. Seven people, with a median age of 64 years, died from severe pneumonia. Washington identified three cases, with one death in a middleaged patient with AIDS. New York reported one death in a 12-day-old infant. The CDC report follows a study in October from the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego that found infections at military bases in Missouri, Illinois, Georgia and California, in addition to Texas, starting in early 2006. At least 37 people at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego got sick with adenovirus 14, the paper said. The paper’s lead author, David Metzgar, a microbiologist, said his group has found evidence the same virus has circulated in civilians in California since 2001. Metzgar, who also contributed to the CDC report, said this new variety of adenovirus 14 might be causing severe outbreaks because people today have not been previously exposed to this type. “My personal feeling is it’s not particularly bad, but it’s just new,” he said. “Its newness is generating a rather wicked epidemiological profile.”

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E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Friday, november 16, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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

Diamonds and coal A diamond to you, undergraduates. More of you dropped acid in the last month than think John McCain should be president, and more use meth than support Rudy Giuliani, according to our recent poll. At least Brown is living up to its reputation. Speaking of fun with numbers, a diamond to the fact that more students claim to have gone to a varsity sports game (52.7 percent) than have had sex (49.8 percent) this semester. Who says we don’t have school spirit? Of course, the latter statistic may have changed after Sex Power God Saturday. A diamond to the fact that students seem to have been able to get their rocks off this year — free lube and all — without passing out in a pool of vomit. Baby steps, people, baby steps. A pre-emptive coal to the Transportation Security Administration, which will soon be patting us down and rifling through our threatening course packets as we trudge through T.F. Green on our way home for Thanksgiving. At least you leave little notes in our luggage when you go through it — our other stalkers aren’t nearly as considerate. OMG! A cubic zurconium to the BUCC for its discussion this week of the UEL, PAE and DSP. Sure, alphabet soup may be confusing, but it is nice on those cold winter days. Coal to the Task Force on Undergraduate Education’s adorably naive call for students to write 1,000-word essays on what aspects of the curriculum mean to us. We’re not sure about you, but when we’re pulling all-nighters in the Frisc to finish our papers for class, writing a deep reflection on the philosophical foundations of crappy advising isn’t at the top of our to-do list. On that thought, coal to whoever’s keeping the Frisc freezing-cold at night. And the vending machines are still broken? Quite the revolutionary study space. A diamond to unsettling front-page photos. Whether it’s a grizzled sculptor or an intense-looking Broadway hopeful, we’re glad The Herald can often substitute for your morning coffee and help pry your eyes open for class. And an anticipatory diamond to tonight’s festivities. A crew of newspaper staffers, an open bar and a pub basement? This is basically everything we love about journalism.

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

Executive Editors Stephen Colelli Allison Kwong Ben Leubsdorf

Senior Editors Jonathan Sidhu Anne Wootton

editorial Lydia Gidwitz Robin Steele Oliver Bowers Stephanie Bernhard Simmi Aujla Sara Molinaro Ross Frazier Karla Bertrand Jacob Schuman Peter Cipparone Erin Frauenhofer Stu Woo Benjy Asher Amy Ehrhart Jason Harris

Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Editor Campus Watch Editor Features Editor Metro Editor Metro Editor News Editor Opinions Editor Opinions Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor

photo Christopher Bennett Rahul Keerthi Ashley Hess

Photo Editor Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

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post- magazine Hillary Dixler Melanie Duch Taryn Martinez Rajiv Jayadevan Sonia Kim Matt Hill Arthur Matuszewski

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Chaz Kelsh, Steve DeLucia, Designer Jacob Frank, Jennifer Grayson, Seth Motel, Elena Weissman, Copy Editors Nandini Jayakrishna, Franklin Kanin, Robin Steele, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Rachel Arndt, Michael Bechek, Irene Chen, Chaz Firestone, Isabel Gottlieb, Nandini Jayakrishna, Franklin Kanin, Kristina Kelleher, Debbie Lehmann, Scott Lowenstein, Michael Skocpol, Nick Werle Staff Writers Stefanie Angstadt, Amanda Bauer, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Caitlin Browne, Sam Byker, Zachary Chapman, Joy Chua, Patrick Corey, Catherine Goldberg, Olivia Hoffman, Chaz Kelsh, Jessica Kerry, Sophia Lambertson, Cameron Lee, Sophia Li, Emmy Liss, Christian Martell, Taryn Martinez, George Miller, Anna Millman, Evan Pelz, Sonia Saraiya, Andrea Savdie, Marielle Segarra, Gaurie Tilak, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Matt Varley, Meha Verghese, Joanna Wohlmuth Sports Staff Writers Andrew Braca, Whitney Clarke, Han Cui, Evan Kantor, Christina Stubbe Business Staff Diogo Alves, Emilie Aries, Beth Berger, Steven Butschi, Timothy Carey, Jilyn Chao, Ellen DaSilva, Pete Drinan, Dana Feuchtbaum, Patrick Free, Sarah Glick, Alexander Hughes, Claire Kiely, Soobin Kim, Katelyn Koh, Darren Kong, Christie Liu, Philip Maynard, Ingrid Pangandoyon, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Viseth San, Paolo Servado, Kaustubh Shah, Saira Shervani, Yelena Shteynberg, Jon Spector, Robert Stefani, Lily Tran, Hari Tyagi, Lindsay Walls, Benjamin Xiong Design Staff Brianna Barzola, Chaz Kelsh,Ting Lawrence, Philip Maynard, Alex Unger, Aditya Voleti, Wudan Yan Photo Staff Oona Curley, Alex DePaoli, Austin Freeman, Emmy Liss, Meara Sharma, Tai Ho Shin, Min Wu Copy Editors Ayelet Brinn, Rafael Chaiken, Erin Cummings, Katie Delaney, Jake Frank, Jennifer Grayson, Ted Lamm, Max Mankin, Alex Mazerov, Ben Mercer, Ezra Miller, Seth Motel, Alexander Rosenberg, Emily Sanford, Sara Slama, Jenna Stark, Laura Straub, Meha Verghese, Elena Weissman

roxanne palmer

Letters Campus is apathetic, not trendily active To the Editor: As I was reading The Herald over my coffee this morning at the Blue Room, ruminating about “the social cause of the day,” I was intrigued by recent Renata Sago’s column (“Stagnant social movements,” Nov. 13). I think there is a lot of validity to what she says, but I question one of the underlying premises that serve as a foundation for her argument. She argues (and I believe does so effectively) that “instead of finding a cause, (we should) try to understand a cause.” Her entire argument, however, logically presumes that students really do find causes often and do so in a socially trendy way. I have trouble believing this, though, because the dominant trend in social activism of any kind that I encounter on campus is apathy. In my experience, limited as it may be, there are a finite number of students who actively engage in the campus groups and campaigns and fundraisers. Many students participate in more than one “socially conscious” campus activity, but many students simply

don’t — many students are rather apathetic. To see this we could look at the number of table slips that are left on the table in the dining halls without being read. We could look at the number students that ignore their peers’ e-mails, Facebook invites, and time spent sitting at tables in the post office. We can even see a specific instance of this in The Herald’s recent poll. While only 16.6 percent of students said they didn’t know which 2008 presidential candidate they support, 93.6 percent said they are not currently involved with a campaign. No, campaigns are not the only “social causes” that Sago is referring to. But the point is this: The trend in social causes, that I’ve seen on campus, is not the “wear-a-different-color-every-day-to-support-the-hotcause-of-the-day” trend but the “I-don’t-care” trend. Let’s start with caring, and then worry about the merits of “finding” versus “supporting” versus “understanding” a cause. Max Chaiken ’09 Nov. 13

Conservatives are minority for a reason To the Editor: I feel obligated to respond to Christopher McAuliffe’s ’05 accusation that “conservative ideas are still alien” to most Brown students (“Conservative voices underrepresented at Brown,” Nov. 14). On the contrary, I believe Brown students on the whole have an excellent conception of contemporary American conservatism. I would argue that it is their intimate knowledge of this ideological force that most influences their liberalness, and not the biases of the professors and the “political hacks” on the reading lists. You needn’t look further than the youngest Brown students to find corroboration for this theory. The overwhelming majority of my fellows in the class of 2011 are liberal, and I can assure you that our two months here have had little effect on our ideological spectrum. No, the cause of conservatism’s under-representation at Brown is not institutional bias, but rather the abject

failure of the conservative movement to capture the hearts and minds of young Americans. To us, it represents a failed policy of preemptive war and curtailed freedoms. It represents the cruel hypocrisy of austerity in the pursuit of social justice and profligacy in the capitulation to the insatiable military-industrial complex. It represents insidious schemes to undermine a cherished, secular Republic through religiously motivated attempts to legislate morality, including the perennial crusades against abortion, homosexuality and science. It is this assessment of modern conservatism that turns so many American students off. Until the movement ditches its stifling social regressivity and violent militarism, you’ll excuse me for shedding few tears for the plight of the conservative minority.

Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 Nov. 14

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication. C ommentary P O L I C Y The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only. L etters to the E ditor P olicy Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

O pinions Friday, November 16, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Overheard on College Hill By Laszlo Syrop and Jacob Izenberg

What are your plans for winter break? I’m going on a trip to Uganda through Engineers Without Borders and Project Assida Foundation, which was started by Lauren Kolodny ’08 last year. She had learned from her cousin that a big problem in refugee camps all over Africa — but particularly in the Darfur region, for example — is that women are generally responsible for the cooking, and they have to leave the camp to go collect firewood, which is the major cooking technology there. Often times, they are subject to attack, rape and other gender-based violence while out collecting firewood. Lauren wanted to look at alternative cooking technologies and one of the things she came up with originally was looking at biogas digesters. So she came to the EWB meeting and asked if any of

Duffy Tilleman ’08

I’m taking a group of 14 undergrads and one pediatrician to the Dominican Republic. It’s a rural clinic between Santiago and Puerto Plata on the north coast. We’ll be doing sustainable community development work. The cool thing about it is that it’s all student initiated. So, if the students have ideas, they have the opportunity to carry them out and to put their academic knowledge into their projects. The project will go for 21 days, from the 1st to the 21st. Because this is our pilot project, we were really looking for candidates with good fluency in Spanish, good background knowledge of sustainable development and good ideas on community development. We were also looking for a wide range of classes, because this is something we want to go on into the future. Right now, we have weekly meetings talk about cultural sensitivity and develop curricula for things the community may want. For example, women’s empowerment is something the community has wanted in the past. I worked in the clinic for a semester my junior year, and that’s kind of how I got involved and connected with the clinic.

Paul Monnes ’08

us were in interested in helping out with the technology side. I was interested, as were a couple other people. We’ve been working on this project since last semester, and this semester we built a test stove in Massachusetts. It’s a large plastic bag in a trench filled with manure, which is digested by bacteria to produce methane. The methane can be used for cooking. So, we’re going to build 10 of these stoves at an internally displaced persons camp in Uganda in January, and we’re going to see if this form of energy is appropriate for the region and if it can really serve to replace traditional cooking technologies. We’re going to do some documentation and try to spread the knowledge around, if it works, and advocate for this as an alternative.

Since it’s my last winter break, I really want to make the best of it. I really want to do the classic college end-of-the-semester traveling. Beginning of winter break I’ll obviously go home, see some friends and family, relax. But, immediately after I have a friend from Sweden coming to visit me. I’m going to think of all the crazy things I’ve always wanted to do in Florida, ever, and take her to them. There’s this really cool park called Butterfly World — it’s basically a butterfly menagerie. I haven’t been there

Duffy Tilleman ’08

since I was seven, so I’ll probably take her there. The beach of course, maybe Miami, maybe back to Disney, maybe to the west coast of Florida. I’m thinking of maybe traveling around the U.S., maybe visiting friends in California. I also have a friend originally from a little mountain town in Colombia who has a big bullfighting competition in January. He’s doing a trip this year, and I might head down for a week or two with him. Or maybe a road trip. Worst comes to worst, I might just stay in south Florida and enjoy the beach and the weather.

Wrong on torture, but right for America? NICHOLAS SWISHER Opinions Columnist

Last Saturday night, I sat on a couch at my friends’ house on Williams Street, nursing a Honey Brown and watching throngs of seniors dressed in camouflage and combat boots. I was a guest at the ambitiously-themed “Iran War Draught Party,” a ironic celebration of our government’s jingoistic saber-rattling and the increasingly-probable conflict with Iran. What better way to prepare for World War III than to drink myself into a stupor — on the eve of Veterans’ Day, no less? The beer — all American brews, mind you — flowed like the Mississippi, and at least a dozen U.S. flags decorated the house. Even the drinking games seemed like they had been cribbed from Bill Kristol’s Fourth of July barbeque. Beirut was renamed to Tehran. I was drafted to “pin the bomb on bin Laden” — before I put on my blindfold, the host used a Sharpie to draw two shriveled kidneys on the al-Qaeda leader’s abdomen. Since Osama’s on dialysis, we figured a shot to the kidneys would be an instant win for Team America. It might have been John Mellencamp crooning “Our Country.” It might have been the guy in the Rambo costume carrying a shade-too-realistic BB handgun. I don’t know — but for some reason the conversation that night adopted a militaristic tone. “So, uh, what do you think of waterboarding?” I asked the girl sitting next to me. After it escaped my lips, I realized it was an absurd question. Six years ago, if you asked some girl

at a party her opinion on torture, she’d be freaked out to say the least. But now, mired in the War on Terror (how can we defeat an abstract noun, again?), I suppose torture is finally an acceptable topic of discussion. If the trend continues and torture remains en vogue, soon we’ll be debating even freakier methods of interrogating our swarthy malcontents. Instead of waterboarding, how about nailplanking? Or sandleveling? I’m sure the CIA’s dreaming up something similar right

R-Ariz., told Newsweek that waterboarding is no different than holding a pistol to a man’s head and firing a blank. But apparently waterboarding is so vital to the War on Terror that Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused to state the technique is illegal during his confirmation hearings last week. Wearing eyeglasses and reading from a prepared script, Sen. Chuck Schumer. D-N.Y., responded to Mukasey and lambasted him as being “wrong on torture — dead wrong.” Then

Snowboarding ... skateboarding ... waterboarding — let’s just treat waterboarding like an extreme sport! Who can last the longest before breaking down — or drowning? now. By the time we enter Year 15 of the War on Terror, waterboarding will be considered quaint. So yes, waterboarding. The recipient of this medieval technique lays prone on his back while interrogators pour water over his face to “simulate” drowning. (I put quotes around “simulate” because, best I can tell, the technique actually is drowning — just not to the point of total asphyxia.) Sen. John McCain,

something really odd happened. Schumer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, let Mukasey off the hook and approved his nomination. What farce is this? Glenn Greenwald pointed out this absurdity last week on his blog: “Now, ‘torture’ is not only something we openly debate, but it’s something we do,” he wrote. “And the fact that someone is on

the wrong side of the ‘torture debate’ doesn’t prevent them from becoming the Attorney General of the United States.” What’s next? The Gimp from “Pulp Fiction” heading the Justice Department? But then again, maybe I’m not giving a fair shake to this whole torture thing. Maybe I should cut Mukasey — and Schumer — a break. The jury’s still out there on torture, isn’t it? That’s what Fox News tells me, anyway. ABC News joined in on the fun last week, reporting that only three detainees have ever been waterboarded, implying that our dabbles in torture just aren’t that big of a deal. I guess a little torture never hurt anyone. No, wait, that’s completely wrong. It’s a dark time. We read about torture in the newspaper every morning over corn flakes and coffee. Torture is part of the zeitgeist. Case in point: My friend told me a true story about his friend, a student at another east coast college. During Greek rush week, he was waterboarded by his fraternity brothers. After it was all done, he broke down crying for an hour, gasping for air. Six years ago, that same initiation would have involved wooden paddles or a thirty of Budweiser. What happened? By this point, we might as well take this the whole nine yards. Hey, I have an idea. Snowboarding ... skateboarding ... waterboarding — let’s just treat waterboarding like an extreme sport! Who can last the longest before breaking down — or drowning? Maybe we should hold the 2008 X Games at Gitmo. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would probably win a gold medal. Hell, instead of water, let’s use Red Bull. More extreme.

Red Bull is the official sponsor of Nicholas Swisher ’08.

S ports W eekend Page 12

Friday, november 16, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

As mercury drops, winter sports move into the limelight When the men’s soccer team clinched the Ivy League Championship last Saturday, it ensured the Bears would have at least one team playing into late November in the NCAA playoffs. But with most fall sports teams closing their seasons, winter sports will soon grab the spotlight. Here’s a preview for the season.

By Stu Woo Sports Editor

Men’s basketball Men’s basketball was overwhelmed by the University of Rhode Island at home on Wednesday and faces a difficult non-conference schedule that includes games at Nor thwestern University and Notre Dame University. But once the team hits Ivy League play, it should be able to match up with anyone it plays. Tri-captains and All-Ivy guards Mark McAndrew ’08 and Damon Huffman ’08 provide scoring punch and senior leadership, and power forward and tricaptain Mark MacDonald ’08 will anchor the team down low. With neither Princeton nor the University of Pennsylvania favored to win the conference for the first time in 22 years, Brown will look to establish themselves as league championship contenders. Men’s ice hockey This season, the Bears will need to focus on consistency in order to ascend the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference standings. Over last weekend, Brown put forth a spirited effort to beat Colgate University 5-2 last Friday, but Cornell dominated Bruno on the power play to take a 4-1 victory. The team is solid with goaltender Dan Rosen ’10 between the pipes and looks for scoring punch from forward Jeff

Sewall ’10 can pass, rush and catch

Jake Melrose / Herald File Photo

Levon Mock ‘08 is one of many winter-sport senior standouts the Bears will field in the coming months.

Prough ’08 and offensively minded defender Sean Hurley ’08. This Saturday, the Bears face off with No.8 Clarkson University in what appears to be the toughest game so far in the team’s young season. Women’s basketball Just two years removed from an Ivy League Championship, women’s basketball will look to bounce back

from a 1-15 record in the Ivy League last season. The team will battle youth all season, as it has only one senior and two juniors on its roster. Captain Annesley O’Neal ’08 will provide leadership, and Herald Assistant Sports Editor Amy Ehrhart ’09 will look to anchor the team under the basket. The most consistent scorer so far this season has been Shae Fitzpatrick ’10, who

CHAMPS ON THE ROAD

is averaging 15.5 points per game. Some of the team’s most important games will come in mid-February. First, the team travels to defending champion Harvard on Feb. 9, then on Feb. 15 hosts Princeton, a team who features All-Ivy forward Meagan Cowher, the daughter of former Pittsburgh Steelers coach continued on page 8

There are football players who can pass and rush (Vince Young). There are football players who can rush and catch (Reggie Bush). But there are very few players who can pass, rush and catch. Bobby Sewall ’10 is one of them. Sewall had a spectacular, unprecedented game on Saturday, leading the Bears to a 56-35 thrashing of the Dartmouth Big Green. The wide receiver did his job: 18 catches for 141 yards. Then, he did a running back’s job: 15 rushes for 144 yards and four touchdowns. When quarterback Michael Dougherty ’09 took a break from setting a new singlegame completion percentage record, Sewall tossed a perfect 41-yard touchdown pass. For his work, Sewall was named the Ivy League’s Offensive Player of the Week, the College Sporting News National Player of the Week, the New England Football Writers/Boston Globe Gold Helmet Award winner and, now, The Herald’s Athlete of the Week. Herald: You had an amazing, unprecedented game on Saturday. Did you have anything special for breakfast? Sewall: (Laughs) No, it was just another day and the team just wanted to go out and get a victory. So you go out with the same mindset every continued on page 8

Bonds indicted on federal perjury, obstruction counts BY Dave Sheinin and Amy Shipley Washington Post

Barry Bonds, the most prolific slugger in baseball history and holder of the most cherished record in American sports, was indicted Thursday on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, stemming from his testimony to a federal grand jury four years ago that he had not knowingly used steroids. Bonds, 43, faces a maximum of 30 years in prison if convicted on

the four perjury charges and one obstruction of justice charge being brought against him for allegedly lying under oath. An arraignment has been scheduled for Dec. 7 at U.S. District Court in San Francisco, with a trial unlikely to begin until late next spring at the earliest. “During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other percontinued on page 8

sp o rts schedule Friday, november 16

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo Defender Matt Britner ‘07.5 will look to help extend Brown’s shutout stream to five games at Columbia Saturday.

M. water polo vs. George Washington at Eastern Championships (Cambridge, Mass.) W. hockey vs. Dartmouth, Dunkin’ Donuts Center, 1 p.m. M. squash v. Harvard, Pizzitola Sports Center, 5 p.m. W. squash v. Harvard, Pizzitola Sports Center, 6:30p.m. M. ice hockey at St. Lawrence

W. ice hockey at Harvard M. ice hockey at Clarkson M. water polo at Eastern Championships (Cambridge, Mass.) W. crew at Foot of the Charles (Boston, Mass.) Equestrian at Windcrest Farm (Wesleyan) Fencing at NFC #1 (Boston University) M. crew at Tail of the Charles (Boston, Mass.)

Saturday, november 17

Sunday, november 18

Football at Columbia W. basketball vs. Vermont, Vermont Tournament M. soccer at Columbia M. swimming vs. Dartmouth, Navy (at Roger Williams)

W. BASKETBALL at Vermont Tournament WRESTLING at Keystone Classic (Philadelphia, Pa.) M. WATER POLO at Eastern Championships (Cambridge, Mass.)