The Brown Daily Herald M onday, M arch 3, 2008
Volume CXLIII, No. 27
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Following Clintons, Obama draws thousands at RIC rally Senator hits R.I. before Tuesday primaries By Nandini Jayakrishna Senior Staf f Writer
Though Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., might not make a “perfect president,” he will spend ever y day of his presidency thinking about the problems of average Americans, the candidate told a thundering crowd of thousands at the Rhode Island College Recreation Center Saturday afternoon. Obama was in Providence to campaign before the state’s primar y on Tuesday, following the visit of Sen. Hillar y Clinton, DN.Y., who attended a rally at the same venue last Sunday. About 5,000 people were allowed inside the recreational center, and several thousand attended the rally outside the center. Before entering the building, Obama briefly addressed those who couldn’t enter but had waited all morning despite the cold and rainy weather.
Rahul Keerthi / Herald
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of of about 5,000 people at Rhode Island College on Saturday.
Responding to some critics’ assertions that he is running for president because of a long-held ambition, Obama said he is running because of “the fierce urgency
First-gen. students help peers By Colin Chazen Contributing Writer
As the first student in her family to attend college, Ashley Anderson ’10 didn’t have anyone at home to tell her what a registrar does or to help her fill out a grant application. After dealing with the bureaucracy of the Office of Financial Aid and making it through the application process, Anderson and a core group of five other first-generation college students are forming a student organization to help support future first-generation students. The students met last year at a panel discussion for first-generation students organized by Linda Dunleavy, associate dean of the College for fellowships and prelaw advising. “I’d always felt that my experience was very unique,” said Anderson, who said she was surprised to meet so many other first-generation students. “We had remarkably similar experiences.” The most common challenge they faced was navigating the financial aid process and understanding its terminology, said Anderson and Julie Pridham ’10, another member of the group. The first-generation group plans to create tip sheets about financial aid to distribute to students at A Day on College Hill and during Orientation. Anderson also said she had difficulty relating to family members who’d never experienced college. continued on page 6
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ARTS & CULTURE
Rites and reason Two upcoming student plays explore the Cuban and Iranian revolutions
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of now” — a phrase he borrowed from Dr. Martin Luther King. “I believe in such a thing as being too late,” he said of his decision to run in this presidency rather
than wait until he is older. While the crowd chanted his campaign’s popular refrain, “Yes, we can,” Obama emphasized that real change comes from the grassroots — not from the highest level of administration. Real change, he said, requires that divisions of race, region and religion be forgotten. The senator delineated his position on several foreign and domestic issues. Ending the war in Iraq, fighting global warming and reforming health care and education demand immediate action, he said. Obama criticized Clinton for voting in favor of the war and lauded former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75 for opposing it despite being a Republican. Chafee, who is currently a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, left the Republican Party this summer and endorsed Obama in early February. continued on page 6
Chelsea stumps for mom on Thayer By Scott Lowenstein Metro Editor
Viva Bar was packed last Friday night with the usual mix of students and 20-somethings, along with a few unexpected guests — some children, several senior citizens and Chelsea Clinton, who was in the bar to stump for her mother, presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Clinton, poised but losing her voice after a day-long tour through the Ocean State, took questions from the audience for about 45 minutes, touting her mother’s legislative experience and efforts at bipartisanship in the Senate. Chelsea Clinton’s visit comes in advance of the state’s primary contest this Tuesday. In Rhode Is-
land, Hillary Clinton has a 15-point advantage over her rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., according to a University poll released last Monday. Clinton answered most questions with detailed explanations of what her mother has accomplished or would accomplish in
METRO office. She also said Hillary Clinton is “the only candidate running who will tell you how she’s paying for everything.” Clinton highlighted President Bush’s budget deficit, which she said “affects our ability to do everything and anything.” When asked about “a woman’s right to choose,” Clinton replied
her mother wants abortion to “be safe, legal and rare,” and added that other issues like unequal pay across race and gender would also be an important priority under her mother’s presidency. Clinton also explained her mother’s commitment to “ending the war yesterday,” “green-collar jobs” — jobs in environmental initiatives such as alternative energy — and involving the United States in multilateral agreements like the Kyoto Protocol. She pointedly compared her mother’s plan for universal health care to that of rival Obama, only referring to him as “the man she is running against.” Obama’s plan mandates health-care coverage continued on page 4
Shutkin ’87 tells students to enjoy being ‘unsettled’ By Emmy Liss Senior Staf f Writer
After Bill Shutkin ’87 broke up with his high-school girlfriend during his junior year at Brown, he enrolled in a tap-dancing class. He fell in love with the woman teaching the class, a sophomore fiction writer. “She totally rocked my world and completely unsettled me,” he said. But in unner ving him, she expanded his horizons and opened his eyes, he said. That experience characterizes his time at Brown, Shutkin said in the keynote address of the Career Development Center’s “Career Week” on Saturday. Shutkin told a nearly full
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CAMPUS NEWS
Andrews Dining Hall that he arrived at the University clueless. “I had no sense, not only of who I was, but also of my place in the world.” Growing up in odd, uninspiring 1960s and ’70s suburban Connecticut, Shutkin “longed for a sense of inspiration and vision,” he said. Brown woke him up from his “deluded and soporific state,” he said. “In unsettling me, it involved me. It was an unfolding. That was the power of Brown for me then.” Shutkin retur ned to the source of his inspiration to deliver the opening remarks of the Career Conference Roundtable, Saturday’s all-afternoon event, continued on page 4
curbing cutting Nawal Nour ’88 approaches the tough intersection of culture and health
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OPINIONS
Courtesy of brown.edu
After four years, Plan re-examined Academic Enrichment plan gets new focuses By George Miller Senior Staff Writer
At the fourth anniversary of its adoption, the Plan for Academic Enrichment — a comprehensive statement of the University’s goals — is being reexamined on every level. A review of the Plan, the first full evaluation since its inception, was released last month after a meeting of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body. The study calls on the University to improve on initiatives included in the original plan, such as providing support for faculty. It also recommends that the University add new focuses to the plan, such as encouraging growth in the Graduate School, raising Brown’s global profile and continuing fundraising to support all the initiatives. Titled “Phase II,” the review was almost a year in the making. It includes input from the faculty, staff, graduate students, the Undergraduate Council of Students and “anybody who had thoughts,” said Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president. Spies and Assistant to the President Marisa Quinn wrote the review, which includes a statement from President Ruth Simmons, who has made the plan a cornerstone of her presidency. Simmons and the Corporation called for the review last spring. The Corporation endorsed the document at its meeting last month. “Any time when an institution is growing rapidly, there’s always a reassessment process that has to go on,” Secretary of the University Albert Dahlberg said last month. Supporting faculty The University is nearing the original Plan’s goal of creating 100 new faculty positions, which would increase faculty size nearly 20 percent from 2001. But the infusion of new faculty has not been matched by support for graduate programs, research and departmental budgets, faculty members said in a report included in the review. “Absorbing this expanding faculty has placed considerable pressure on stagnant departmental budgets, static or declining staff and graduate student pools, and in some areas physical facilities,” the Faculty Executive Committee said in its report, which was included in the Plan’s revision. “There is a genuine unease that if this situation is not corrected soon, the tremendous advances made to date will evaporate and the investments will fail.” Spies acknowledged that infrastructure has not kept pace with hiring new faculty.
Bill Shutkin ’87
contessa endorses Kevin Roose ‘09.5 visits a Thayer Street psychic for some election clairvoyance
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
continued on page 4
tomorrow’s weather More rain, as relentless as presidential stumps, and certainly as tiresome
showers, 49 / 38 News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com