The Brown Daily Herald S aturday, A ugust 30, 2008
Volume CXLIII, No. 61
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Brown slips in national rankings
U. now planning to move UEL Some neighbors unhappy with potential site
By Colin Chazen Staff Writer
First-years arriving on campus may be horrified to learn that instead of receiving the 14th-best education in the country, they will be getting the 16th best. Brown fell two places in the latest edition of U.S. News & World Report’s annual college and university rankings, released on its Web site Aug. 21. Despite the drop in this overall ranking, Brown retained its spot as the school with U.S. News and the secondWorld Report happiest students in 14. Cornell the nation, 15. Johns Hopkins b e h i n d 16. Brown Clemson 17. Rice Univer18. Emory sity, in the 18. Notre Dame Princeton Review’s annual college rankings, Princeton released in Review July. ‘Happiest The test Students’ prep company also 1. Clemson ranked the 2. Brown University 3. Princeton as having the 7th-best college radio station and the 15thbest college theatre. When told about Brown’s fall in the rankings, many students shrugged their shoulders and expressed mild displeasure. “In the top 20, they’re all pretty good,” Lingke Wang ’12 said. continued on page 6
By Chaz Firestone Features Editor
Paolino ’06 MA’07 said jokingly, noting the placement of the American Samoa and Virgin Islands delegations closer to the stage. But York, who has been to the DNC three times before this, was not surprised about the location. “In the four conventions I’ve been to we’ve never had great seats.” The party leaders’ confidence that Rhode Island’s few electoral votes will go to Obama come November might contribute to its lessthan-premium seating, according to York. “You can notice the bigger or uncertain states have seats closer to the front and center,” York said. Nevertheless Paolino, a Clinton delegate and daughter of former Providence mayor Joe Paolino, ,
The Urban Environmental Lab, a converted carriage house that is home to the Center for Environmental Studies, will likely be relocated to a nearby lot on Brown or Olive Street to make room for the Mind Brain Behavior Building, the future home of the merging departments of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences and Psychology, according to University officials. But community members that supported saving the UEL and the College Hill Neighborhood Association, which encouraged the University to park its bulldozer in favor of a flatbed truck, may now prove an obstacle blocking the UEL’s journey from its current Angell Street home. The University has had its eye on the UEL since 2003, when plans to “consolidate the core” of campus were presented as part of the Strategic Framework for Physical Planning, a master plan for expansion adopted by the Corporation. With ground set to break on the proposed Mind Brain Behavior Building next summer, the UEL seemed all but destined for demolition. In May, the Providence Preservation Society named the building and two other Angell Street buildings the city’s most endangered properties. After months of meetings between administrators and community members and students fighting to save the beloved building, a park at 99 Brown St. and a lot on Olive Street next to the recently moved Peter Green House emerged as two of the leading candidates for the UEL’s relocation, which will likely begin next spring. “The interesting opportunity with the UEL is that you’re actually preserving three buildings in one,” said Kurt Teichert, CES’s environmental stewardship initiatives manager. Originally built in 1884 as a carriage house, the UEL was renovated in 1981 for use by CES. Just two years later it was retrofitted to become Brown’s most energy-efficient building, a distinction it still holds today. In order to be moved, the building will have to be disassembled and transported to its new home in three parts, then tinkered with before it is put back together, according to Assistant Vice President for Planning, Design and Construction Michael McCormick. But in a twist that community members call “ironic” in a petition to save the park, the UEL would have to displace a treasured patch of grass
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Meara Sharma / Herald
Among the first to arrive on campus are the approximately 250 first-years participating in the Third World Transition Program, which ran from Tuesday to Friday. More first-years will arrive today.
More first-years at tweaked TWTP By Sophia Li Senior Staff Writer
Nearly 250 incoming first-years participated in this year’s Third World Transition Program — more than ever have before. The rise in participants was not the only change in TWTP, a pre-orientation program to familiarize incoming first-years with the campus resources that address issues of race and other aspects of identity. The roles of the students running the program have expanded, according to TWTP coordinators Soyoung Park ’09 and Kristin Jordan ’09. For the first time, Minority Peer Counselors and MPC Friends took on the responsibility of developing and facilitating TWTP’s workshops, Jordan said.
Chenelle Chin ’12 decided to come to TWTP, which began Tuesday Aug. 26 and went until Friday, precisely because she wanted to hear other students’ stories and perspectives. TWTP delivered, she said. “I was moved to tears by MPCs’ stories of their experiences,” Chin said about the workshop on sexism. “My eyes and my heart have really opened up.” MPCs and MPC Friends also worked over the summer with faculty from the depar tments of Africana Studies and history, and with Gail Cohee, the director of the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center. Jordan said the inclusion of faculty has built upon the knowledge and experiences of the workshops’ facilitators and made
clearer the connections between some of the different “-isms” — racism, sexism, heterosexism and homophobia, imperialism and classism. Previously, the workshops were led by Jamie Washington, president of the Washington Consulting Group of Baltimore, who has worked with TWTP for the past 20 years. Washington, whom Park said was a professional in leading workshops throughout the country, trained the student facilitators this year. Park said having student facilitators had a positive impact on the workshops’ discussions. “It’s easier to open up, be personal, be trusting with a fellow student,” she said. Arianna Ahiagbe ’12 said she continued on page 4
Li’l Rhody delegates watch DNC — from a distance By Franklin Kanin News Editor
Michael Skocpol / Herald
The Rhode Island delegation of 33 cheers at the DNC from their far-flung seats, which were farther from the stage than the delegates from American Samoa.
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CAMPUS NEWS
REALISTIC IN RED College Republicans focus on local elections more than the presidential contest
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ORIENTATION
DENVER — Myrth York, a threetime candidate for governor in Rhode Island, is one of the Clinton delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Denver who has switched her support to Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Despite a few remaining devotees of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the convention succeeded in giving the Democratic party a sense of community necessary for it to see victory this November, she said. But Rhode Island’s delegation of 33 was on the outskirts of this community as they were stationed high on the far left of the floor. “At first I thought maybe Rhode Island was a territory,” Jennifer
BROWNSPEAK Want to get magic bars at the Ratty after being sexiled? Learn the Brown vocab not in your SAT books
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OPINION
BROWN GUIDEBOOK Ariel Hudes ’11 has some advice on what to write about Brown in your letters home
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