Monday, November 10, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald M onday, N ovember 10, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 109

King House frosh move on and away

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

In keynote, sustainability meets design

ISLANDS OF CALM

By Kyla Wilkes Staff Writer

By Sydney Ember Staff Writer

At 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning early last month, movers knocked on William Trinh ’12 and Greg Bergeron’s ’12 dorm room in King House. They were there to move Trinh and Bergeron, two of the eight freshmen who were placed in King House due to a shortage in housing, to a traditional freshman unit in Bronson House.

The Office of Residential Life was forced this year to find temporary housing for freshmen due to overenrollment. Most of these first-years were housed in lounges and kitchens in freshman dorms, but the eight freshmen in King House were placed completely outside of freshman units, said Richard Bova, senior associate dean and director of Residential Life.

All eight have now been moved to traditional freshman housing.

ResLife has moved a total of 27 students, including upperclassmen and the eight freshmen in King House, from temporary housing into permanent assignments. These permanent rooms have opened up because of students who take leaves of absence halfway through the semester, Bova said. ResLife is hoping to have almost all students currently living in unconventional dorm situations in permanent housing by mid-year, he added.

Trinh said he and a few of the other eight freshmen living in King House were happy to move to freshman dorms. Keeney Quadrangle provides a social atmosphere more accommodating to first-years, he said.

In fact, he added, the only downside of the move to Keeney was the fact that their kitchen and laundry room were now farther away.

But a few of the eight, including Bergeron, would have preferred to stay in King House. “It’s like going from a nice little house to something that is analogous to a big hotel. ... It doesn’t have any kind of homey feel to it,” he said.

“I had nicer bathrooms and I didn’t have to hear partying,” said Bergeron, whose room in King House had a fireplace and was much more spacious than a Keeney double.

Bergeron said that at the beginning of the year he was a little concerned about being housed outside traditional freshman socializing areas, but he quickly grew to like King House. The permanent King House upperclassmen were welcoming and always willing to answer questions, he added.

Moving into freshman units halfway through the semester hasn’t been a breeze for the eight freshmen. At the beginning of the year it’s easy, Bergeron said, because everyone is trying to make new friends, but “it’s a slightly different situation when you’re trying to worm your way into cliques” after they’ve already formed.

now what?’ ” Delehanty said.

Andrew Morans ’06.5, who worked as an organizer in North Carolina, plans to return to Brooklyn, N.Y., and continue working as a freelance writer. But for many participants, the campaign has sparked a lasting interest in political work. Karp, who never considered working for the government before, said he’s now more open to the idea of government or civil service and is seriously considering trying to get a job in Washington.

“I think every staffer wants to work for the administration,” said Delehanty, who has applied for a job with the campaign’s transition team. “It’s going to be an exciting

“The moment you put something on this planet, you’re making a political statement about what you want to do,” Cameron Sinclair told an audience of students and members of the local design community in Sayles Hall Friday afternoon. “This is where architects and designers are working together to make a difference.”

Sinclair’s keynote lecture, called “Design for Life: When Sustainability is a Matter Of Survival,” was part of the three-day “A Better World by Design” conference, a joint effort between Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design that brought together professionals from design disciplines to discuss design solutions for global problems. The lecture addressed issues ranging from the role of designers in developing countries to promoting sustainability to the importance of local input during the design process.

The lecture was one of two keynote speeches that Steve Daniels ’09, one of the co-coordinators of the conference, said focused on the “more creative forces” of the design process.

Sinclair, co-founder and executive director of Architecture for Humanity, showed slides of his projects in places such as the Ivory Coast, Southeast Asia and New Orleans, emphasizing the importance of local community input in order to combine functionality with aesthetic appeal. Since clients in developing areas often have difficulty understanding the importance of innovative engineering designs by commercialized architecture firms, he said that his firm’s objective is to incorporate new technology into designs familiar to the community for which he builds.

The group’s approach, Sinclair said, is much more humanitarian than that of many NGOs and government agencies, which often subcontract jobs and ignore local customs in their effort to provide sustainable, easily-created buildings in developing

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Justin Coleman / Herald

Nicholas Thorburn, lead singer of Islands, plays during Brown Concert Agency’s fall concert Friday night.

SEE ARTS & CULTURE, PAGE 3

Alums on Obama campaign: Now what?

By Colin Chazen Senior Staff Writer

When Nathan Karp ’07.5 visited Adam Delehanty ’07.5 and Will Bowling ’07.5 in Colorado this summer, they took him straight from the airport to a voter registration drive. Delehanty and Bowling were so busy working on President-elect Obama’s campaign, Karp had to join them in order to spend time together. He got caught up in the energy of the campaign and after his vacation ended, he returned to California, quit his job and went back to Denver to join his friends.

Like many alumni working for the Obama campaign, Karp worked 17 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

“You can’t do anything else.

Things like exercise and eating well — these things all become second,” Karp said.

“You get campaign fever,” said Delehanty, who joined the campaign in January and traveled to Alabama, Texas, Indiana and Pennsylvania during the primaries before taking a position in Colorado.

The payoff for their hard work came Nov. 4, when Obama won the election, and Colorado, by wide margins. But as the thrill of victory begins to wear off, many staffers — who were too focused and busy for thoughts beyond election day during the campaign — are starting to look hesitantly towards the future.

“It’s almost like ‘OK, we won,

Brown, military’s research connections up for debate Broad range of faculty stances

By Alex Roehrkasse Higher Ed Editor

Courtesy U.S. Army

continued on page 6

3

ARTS & CULTURE

A Human Terrain System soldier conducting interviews in Afghanistan. Brown professors have both participated in and criticized the program.

Man Oh Man! BCA fall concert featuring Man Man and Islands impresses soldout audience

www.browndailyherald.com

5

CAMPUS NEWS

left stranded The GSC requests greater support from the University for travel to conferences

11

OPINIONS

The question of the militar y’s support for university research has been a sticking point in ethical discourse among academics at least since World War II. Then, researchers in the physical sciences engaged in intense debates over the ethical implications of their work in developing the atomic bomb.

Now, with the recent inception of a handful of new militar y pro-

Grade options get nc Jared Lafer ‘11 argues to extend the deadline to change a grade option in a class

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

12 SPORTS

grams for research funding and the growth of available military research money despite dwindling financial awards from other government agencies, the debate has once again flared up. As both participants in and critics of military-supported research programs, some Brown faculty have placed themselves at the center of this debate.

On the one hand, Professor of Anthropology Catherine Lutz has been an outspoken opponent of the military’s efforts to draw from university expertise, having published extensively on the subject. continued on page 4

Seniors shine in vball Volleyball splits the weekend but wins the last home game of the season on Senior Night

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Page 3

Manic Man Man energizes at BCA

Novelists talk identity, life

Monday, November 10, 2008

By Caroline Sedano Senior Staff Writer

From tranquil to rowdy, Brown Concert Agency’s fall concert offered a thoroughly enjoyable show featuring Canadian indie-scenesters Islands and eclectic, manic rockers Man Man to a sold-out audience in Alumnae Hall on Friday night.

“Both acts were fantastic,” said BCA Booking Chair Dan Ain ’09, who explained that both bands, especially Man Man, were picked because of their reputation for putting on great live shows.

“It’s great when you bring in bands who are not really mainstream but can sell out a venue,” Ain said.

Administrative Chair Stephen Hazeltine ’09 noted that this was the first time in a couple of years that the fall concert had two completely live bands. Last year’s BCA concert featured a solo DJ and producer, RJD2.

“So it was fun to get a different vibe and probably appeal to a slightly different demographic,” he said.

The night started off slowly with a good but low-energy performance by calypso-inspired indie-rockers Islands. Dressed mostly in black, the band wasted little time with talk and played a clean set of songs ranging from infectious, breezy pop to dull, monotonous numbers.

“I liked their energy a lot, and it made them really enjoyable to listen to,” David Manning ’12 said.

The calm, almost indifferent energy of the band allowed the audience to stand quietly and bob their heads in enjoyment and approval.

However, for those who may not have known all the words or appreciated the nuances of eight-minute songs, the performance felt a bit lackluster and the band didn’t seem to be having that much fun.

Rarely looking up from their instruments or smiling, they took quick breaks only to switch instruments — from guitar to bass clarinet, violin to teal plastic xylophone — or to give the lead singer time to put on white, opaque Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses.

The audience and band’s energy picked up on a couple of their more upbeat songs, “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby,” “Rough Gem” and “Creeper.” One of the violinists drew laughs by periodically unbuttoning his shirt and folding into impressive backbends while managing to continue playing his violin. Several times, he stopped playing and turned a “Blue Steel”-inspired gaze onto the audience, performing a series of sensual shoulder rolls.

But Islands’ general sense of seriousness, serenity and calm exploded in a fury of screams, sparkles and mayhem when Man Man took the stage.

Suspense built for the headliners as BCA and band members filled the stage with unusual props and instruments, including drums decorated

with colorful tape, a feather headdress, a pink Furby, a plastic duck and cowbells.

The Furby, according to Hazeltine, was requested by the band in their contract.

“Usually bands just request water and Diet Coke. I think Man Man was just trying to be funny and give us a hard time,” Hazeltine said, seeming amused by the whole thing.

Clad in their usual disheveled white clothing and war paint, Man Man entered the stage as if ready for battle and immediately delivered with an opening number that sounded both vaudeville and tribal.

Band members amped up the energy as they led the audience in clapping along, dissolved into wild shrieks and pounded ferociously on their instruments. And the audience responded with a tumult of screams, unruly dancing and one attempt at crowd surfing.

Ain was thrilled with the audience’s response to Man Man, describing the show as “perfect.”

“I think Man Man put on a better show,” Jessica Man ’11 said. “They were more outrageous and interacted a lot more with the audience, so the crowd was a lot more energetic and wild.”

With almost no pauses between songs and a sort of hysterical energy, Man Man’s performance felt like a kind of circus. Beyond the raucous yelling, they boosted the energy with a wide variety of instruments, some

By Stephanie Pottinger Contributing Writer

at the base of a wooden thumb alone can take more than a day to perfect.

One figure can take three years to complete. The exhibit does a good job of showing the artist’s taxing process, with one display case showing the many stages of thumb-making, and another filled just with glass eyes of varied sizes and colors.

King works hard to push her figures beyond being mere dolls or puppets. Her sculptures’ hands are created not just to look like hands, but also to physically behave like hands in their gestural properties.

The artist said that her objects go beyond aesthetics and were created to be “elegantly moveable.”

The fluidity of her work is highlighted in the various video installations in the exhibit. King first began using stop frame animation

Last Friday, renowned novelists Ngugi wa Thiong’o of Kenya and George Lamming of Barbados spoke to an audience of around one hundred in Salomon 101 about the politicized uses of literature in postcolonial Africa and the Anglophone Caribbean. This event was the third installment since 2004 in the Department of Africana Studies’ Conversations in Africana Writing series.

Department Chair Barrymore Bogues introduced the two writers and jumped in only a few times over the course of the hour-and-a-half talk.

Lamming and Ngugi read aloud from and discussed each other’s work.

Their deep engagement with each other’s writings and thinking steered the conversation on its own.

Lamming, who is one of the Anglophone Caribbean’s most distinguished novelists and cultural critics, inquired early in the talk about Ngugi’s statement that — despite his prior formal education in Uganda and professorship at University of Nairobi — his 1977 political imprisonment was the real beginning of his education.

Ngugi explained that his time in prison among working class Kenyans revealed just how estranged from the working class experience he had become. He attributed this split from his countrymen to his adoption of English over the indigenous languages spoken in Kenya.

Shortly after his imprisonment, wanting to rekindle his ties to the public and challenge dominant English language-centered conceptions of knowledge and history, Ngugi vowed to write in his native Gikuyu.

Though he supports the translation of his novels, which depict the modern Kenyan political situation, into English and other languages, he said that writing these novels in English would be “harvesting from (Kenyan) cultural production, then packaging it” in a language unintelligible to most of his countrymen.

To the question of the function of language in his own novels, Lamming explained that the average Barbadian has mastered two or three languages, among these “the language of feeling” — creolized English — and “the language of statement” — standard English.

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Justin Coleman / Herald

Christopher Powell (stage name Pow Pow) plays during Man Man’s set.

looking like they came from a junkyard and others from a preschool.

As band members switched and swapped instruments they also traded places around the stage, sometimes sneaking up on other band members or just wandering back and forth.

The lead singer, Honus Honus, who periodically changed headbands from silver and sparkly to what looked like a belt, was the most rambunctious. Dripping with sweat, he paraded across the stage with gyrating dance moves and occasionally threw water or feathers continued on page 7

Sculptures of ‘uncanny value’ on display at Bell Gallery

By Ibiayi Briggs Contributing Writer

“The Sizes of Things in the Mind’s Eye,” an exhibition of work by artist Elizabeth King, opened Friday at the David Winton Bell Gallery. The show, which runs until Dec. 21, was brought to Brown by the gallery’s Director, Jo-Ann Conklin, who said she was first intrigued by the artist’s work when she saw a show of hers in Cambridge, Mass., 10 years ago.

Since then, she has wanted to bring King’s work here. Those hopes have come to fruition with this mid-career retrospective of the more than 20 years of King’s work.

King’s well-crafted figures, which resemble mannequins, blur the line between real and artificial life. One of her first forays in small-scale sculpture while she was a graduate student at the San Francisco Art Insti-

tute was a miniature theater-in-a-box that closed around the viewer’s head, she said in a lecture at the opening.

Her fascination with artificial human forms was enhanced during her time as a freelance mannequin restorer. King uses traditional and modern sculptural techniques to create her work, combining mechanical technology with the modeling and carving of wood, porcelain, wax and bronze to create objects that strike a balance between shockingly realistic and obviously machinelike.

The exhibition in the Bell Gallery investigates what happens inside the head. In a lecture at the exhibition opening, King said that she hopes to explore “the mystery of what goes on in there. Somewhere in there is us.

We are all inside looking out.” This introspective theory runs throughout her sculpture. The facial expressions and poses of her mannequins are

not superficial, but seem to express some inner thought.

The intimate nature of her work is emphasized by its small scale and subject matter. The faces portrayed are either those of her grandmother, her mother or King herself. The artist said that the many self-portraits allowed her to be more “invasive” in her study of the human form. For example, King told The Herald that she shaved her head to accurately depict all the grooves and bumps of the cranium. King’s extremely lifelike figures were influenced by stories in literature and film of inanimate dolls and objects coming to life.

The machinelike quality of her work stems from her interest in how early clocks functioned.

The sculptures on display are not only stunning in their detail but also mind-blowing in the intense labor that went into their creation. A joint

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Monday, November 10, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Physical science profs. more comfortable accepting military funds continued from page 1 On the other hand, former Watson Institute fellow Michael Bhatia ’99, who was killed this May while participating in a military research program in Afghanistan, was a strong supporter of such efforts. Another perspective on the merits and pitfalls of such collaboration is held by Brown researchers in the physical sciences, who have been less present in public debates on the ethics of military work but have received approximately $8.6 million — six percent of Brown’s research budget — in fiscal year 2008 from the Department of Defense, according to University records.

An anthropological quandary The most noticeable upsurge in the discourse on the ethics of collaboration with the military has been among anthropologists. With two ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the militar y has been exploring new ways to bring ethnographers into the fold of security research and operations.

As early as 2003, the Department of Defense began hiring anthropologists to find ways to ameliorate U.S. troops’ unfamiliarity with Iraqi culture and society. With a substantial monetary infusion into the program in 2007, the Human Terrain System began to reach out more broadly to American academics willing to be embedded with combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Through the program, participating scholars who do research in these places have the opportunity to conduct their work with the protection of U.S. security forces.

In exchange, these specialists help soldiers navigate unfamiliar and un-

certain terrain, serving as linguistic and cultural liaisons.

“The use of social science is necessary to and legitimate in military operations,” the program’s Web site states.

The Human Terrain System program sparked an intense and ongoing debate within the anthropological discipline. Many anthropologists took issue with the dangers of sharing their specialized knowledge with an organization that could endanger the people they study.

“Anthropologists are in an absolutely unique position,” said William Beeman, adjunct professor of anthropology. “We’re the people who really know the situation on the ground. We know the languages. We know the culture. So you really walk a fine line deciding to what degree you’re going to advise people.”

Beeman said he has done extensive consulting with the Department of Defense and other government agencies, and called the idea that social science researchers can and should abstain completely from military work both “unreasonable” and “unethical.”

Last year, the American Anthropological Association denounced the program on the grounds that researchers could not obtain informed consent from their subjects in a combat environment and could endanger them by providing information to the military. The association also formed a commission to reevaluate the ethics of anthropologists’ engagement with the military and intelligence communities.

“We do not recommend non-engagement, but instead emphasize differences in kinds of engagement and accompanying ethical considerations,” the commission said in

its November 2007 report.

In September, the association approved amendments to its code of ethics.

“In relation with his or her own government, host governments, or sponsors of research, an anthropologist should be honest and candid. Anthropologists must not compromise their professional responsibilities and ethics and should not agree to conditions which inappropriately change the purpose, focus or intended outcomes of their research,” the revision stated.

Brown faculty enter the debate At Brown, debates about the Human Terrain System took a more solemn turn after Bhatia’s death in May. Bhatia was a graduate student at Oxford in the department of politics and international relations.

He had been preparing a dissertation on combatant motives of the Mujahideen, a militant group in Afghanistan.

“The program has a real chance of reducing both the Afghan and American lives lost, as well as ensuring that the US/NATO/(International Security Assistance Force) strategy becomes better attuned to the population’s concerns, views, criticisms and interests and better supports the Government of Afghanistan,” Bhatia wrote about the Human Terrain System in November 2007.

The American Anthropological Association is now undertaking a much more sweeping revision to its ethics guidelines to be concluded in late 2010. Those revisions will have to tackle not only the question of the Human Terrain System program, but also a host of other issues revolving around the rising

amount of proprietary research being conducted by anthropologists, Beeman said. Beeman participated in the last major revision to the anthropological association’s code of ethics in the late nineties.

Beeman, a Middle East expert who has briefed both military personnel and policy makers, recalled being contacted by Army representatives for consultation before the invasion of Iraq. He said he told them the United States shouldn’t do it.

“They say ‘Well, that doesn’t help us much because we’re about to.’

Then you say ‘All right, look. I’ll come and talk to you and I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t do it.’ I can’t refuse those sorts of invitations because it wouldn’t be ethical,” Beeman recounted. “We can’t pass up those opportunities if we’re serious academics.”

The newest militar y program to draw on the expertise of social scientists in academia is the Miner va Initiative, a $50 million program announced by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in April. The initiative aims to channel military funds toward research on issues such as terrorist organization and ideologies, Chinese military technology and the strategic impact of cultural and religious change in the Islamic world. The first round of grants is expected to be announced this year.

“This is the first significant effort in 30 or 40 years to engage social sciences on a large scale by the Department of Defense,” said Thomas Mahnken, a deputy assistant defense secretar y for policy planning, according to a Washington Post article published Aug. 3.

“There was an effort during (the Vietnam era) that ended up being ill-conceived and burned bridges on both sides, and, unfortunately, these attitudes have persisted,” Mahnken told the Post. “This effort is about rebuilding those bridges.”

Like the Human Terrain System, the Miner va Initiative — named after the virgin Roman goddess of both wisdom and warriors — has sparked a new wave of controversy within the anthropological discipline.

In a guest editorial titled “Selling Ourselves?” featured in the most recent edition of the journal Anthropology Today, Professor of Anthropology Catherine Lutz argued that the program will distract the research of anthropologists, who should avoid military funding. “(The Minerva Initiative) represents an important attempt to garner ideological acceptance among anthropologists for doing military research,” Lutz wrote in the editorial. “This money could shape and distort our field in significant ways, as has happened with other disciplines that have been the recipients of Pentagon largesse.”

The journal edition that featured the editorial was devoted to a discussion of a number of different ways in which anthropologists and the military have recently come into contact and often collaboration.

“The militar y as a funding source often portrays itself as an un-self-interested or a national interest centered organization, but in fact has institutional interests in getting certain kinds of research results,” Lutz said.

Less concern in physical sciences In contrast to anthropologists’ sharp sensitivity to the ethical quandaries of military collaboration, researchers in other disciplines do not seem to have the same degree

of concern. Beemen said that political scientists have a long tradition of collaborating in intelligence and security efforts. He added that political scientists frequently contest anthropologists’ objections to such work — and even question their patriotism.

In the physical sciences, academics also seem to be more comfortable doing research with the militar y. This may be due to the generally detached and often exclusively financial relationship that most science researchers have with military agencies, as most military grants to universities are for elementary research that may or may not underpin future developments in militar y laboratories or in the private sector. On the other hand, it could be the result of the Department of Defense’s strong — in certain fields almost ubiquitous — presence as a source of significant and reliable funding.

“The most successful groups in my area have military funding,” said Pascal Van Hentenryck, a professor of computer science whose research focuses on optimization — a field he said the military had been funding for at least 60 years — which includes designing emergency response systems. He and other science researchers and administrators inter viewed by The Heraldall echoed the idea that at least in some fields, the militar y was a necessary source of funding for scientific research.

Public debates on the ethics of research in Van Hentenryck’s field are not common, he said. But Van Hentenryck recalled ethical debates in computer science from his days as a graduate student, when he and his colleagues contemplated among themselves whether or not cooperative decisions to refrain from developing missile systems would halt their development.

Van Hentenr yck said that his graduate students frequently raise the same questions, and that a responsive instructor should answer them.

He also stressed the fact that his research, like that of most other scientists, is useful in myriad fields, not just military matters, and that university researchers usually have little idea about how their ideas are eventually put into practice.

Vice President for Research Clyde Briant said that there is no ethical discourse about the sources of research funding at the university level, and that such debates would be personal ones among professors.

He said that professors at Brown tend to exhibit a high demand for knowledge about military funding opportunities, especially as other federal funding resources dry up.

Brown’s principal criteria for accepting research funding are that research can be neither proprietary — there can be no restrictions on publication rights — nor classified, according to Briant.

Director of Government Affairs and Community Relations Tim Leshan lobbies on behalf of Brown with the Department of Defense to ensure that policy makers in Washington know about the University’s research capabilities and that Brown professors are aware of the militar y funding available to them.

“While funding at the (National Institutes of Health) and the (National Science Foundation) has not kept up with inflation in the last five years,” Leshan said, “Department of Defense research funding has grown.”

C ampus N ews Monday, November 10, 2008

Grad students want more travel funding for conferences

By Anne Simons Senior Staff Writer

The Graduate Student Council unanimously passed a referendum last week to request greater support from the University for travel to conferences.

James Doyle GS, the GSC’s president, emphasized the importance of having graduate students attend conferences, which he said are crucial for the students’ academic and professional growth. It also helps by “putting Brown’s name out there” and raising Brown’s standing as a research university, he added. Even if students are not presenting at a conference, they can still benefit from the ability to network, he said.

The University currently provides up to $500 reimbursement for travel expenses per year to Ph.D. students in their second to fifth years if they are presenting a paper at the conference, Doyle said. The GSC would like to see support extended to Master’s students, doctoral students in their first year of study, those studying beyond their fifth year and those not presenting a paper.

“The bottom line is more,” he said.

Brown’s compensation is “up there” with peer institutions, Doyle said. It is difficult to compare Brown’s support to other schools’ support because of the differences between the programs, he said, but there are other schools that offer larger sums of money.

Doyle said he appreciated that the “responsive administration” in the Graduate School took the GSC referendum seriously.

“We recognize that conference travel support is a very important issue for graduate students, and it is part of the Graduate School’s ...

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

budget request,” Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

The requests of this referendum are included in the proposed budget that Bonde will submit to the University Resources Committee, Doyle said.

The URC will then submit a final report to President Ruth Simmons in January. The subject will be reviewed and decided upon at the February meeting of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

Given the current economic troubles, Doyle said that he didn’t expect things “to change overnight.” But he thinks people will be happy that something is being done, he said.

The GSC also passed the first draft of a proposal to temporarily fund travel for students who are excluded from University reimbursements, Doyle said. He hoped this measure would not discourage the University from making changes to its policy, he said.

The measure was well supported by the council’s members and the final draft will be voted on at the next GSC general body meeting, he said.

“In tough times, we have to look out for each other,” Doyle said.

The GSC chose to focus on this issue as an important goal for the semester because it is a concern to students across academic disciplines, Doyle said.

Leah Nahmias GS wrote in an e-mail that attending conferences is “extremely important” for Master’s students, citing networking opportunities and the honor of presenting research. Master’s students share needs with Ph.D. students, including conference travel, she said. She added that the University’s distinction between Master’s and doctoral students in terms of funding “seems unfair.”

Inaugural ambassadors rove campus, seeing many sides of campus life

By Lauren Pischel Staff Writer

Standing in the bowels of Sharpe Refectory, Susan Rottenberg, the academic coordinator for German studies, was shocked to find out just how much food was down there: three days worth of reserves to feed all faculty, staff and students.

This tour was part of one of twelve sessions of the inaugural Brown University Ambassador Program.

The Staff Advisory Committee recommended the creation of the year-long Ambassador Program as a way to educate staff and faculty about the University’s inner workings and in order to increase contacts and networking among staff members of different departments.

“One of the big things we wanted was to leverage perspective in other areas,” said Judith Nabb, the manager of learning and professional development in human resources and coordinator of the Ambassador Program.

The program also looked to make staff members feel more a part of the University.

Through the program “we have made so many connections across campus,” Rottenberg said. “It is a way to feel like you fit in (within) a short period of time.”

The Ambassador Program “allows you to understand the way the University works from the top down. It brings you up to speed really quickly,” she added.

Kathleen Revotskie, the lead database administrator of Computing and Information Services, said she gained increased access to students

that she would not have had without the program.

The Ambassador Program, which meets on the last Tuesday of every month, looks at a different aspect of Brown each session, from student life and Corporation meetings to Facilities Management and the Medical School. The program’s 25 ambassadors come from a variety of different departments. The current program will conclude this December, and the next session will begin in January.

The University plans to fund this program for two more years.

“I hope it continues in the future,” Revotskie said. “It made me feel even more a part of the University.”

Besides directly benefiting the ambassadors, the program also benefits the different sessions’ presenters, allowing them to get the word out about their projects, according to Chris Harwood, the biosafety officer at Environmental Health and Safety.

The ambassadors themselves fall into two profiles, according to Nabb - new staff members wanting to explore the University and veteran staffers hoping to reconnect with Brown.

In the first session last January, the ambassadors met with members of the Corporation to ask them questions.

“I was awestruck to be with people that have so much power,” Revotskie said.

Some of the other sessions included hearing the a cappella group Shades of Brown, learning about Facilities Management’s plan for the improving the campus, touring

Trinity Repertory Theatre, looking through the John Hay Library’s McLellan Lincoln Collection , exploring the Dining Services butcher shop and playing African drums in Grant Recital Hall.

Brown is “such a big operation that there is so much that I didn’t know,” Harwood said.

In spite of the Ambassador Program’s scope, “we are still just touching the tip of the iceberg,” Nabb said.

The closing of this year’s program fostered reflection among the ambassadors.

“I can see decisions that can trickle down to me,” Rottenberg said, adding that because of the Ambassador Program, even if these decisions adversely affect her, she can now understand why they were made.

The ambassadors saw the program as highly successful, but had a few things they would like to change for next year. “One of the things I suggested to them was to require more feedback from each session,” Revotskie said.

“I’ve been so impressed by everything, I think I would almost make it a little longer because there is so much good information, it’s hard to cram it into a year. I really don’t have anything negative to say about it,” Harwood said.

Some of the session topics may change, but “we kind of hit the mark, not to toot our own horn or anything,” Nabb said.

The program is successful because “people from different divisions are so willing to educate others on what their division does,” Nabb added.

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Monday, November 10, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Obama staff looks forward

Frosh out of King House

continued from page 1

continued from page 1

time to be in DC.” In a campaign-wide conference call last Wednesday, Obama told staffers that he will try to employ anyone that’s interested, said Megan Saggese ’06, who worked in the campaign’s communication department in the state of New Mexico.

“I’m going to apply to work on the transition team,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure nearly everyone in this campaign is going to apply to that.”

Obama is currently putting together a transition team that will help plan the inauguration and handle other logistical concerns that arise between now and Jan. 20. While the transition team will be relatively small, 3,000 full-time posts need to filled in a new administration. Another 7,000 people will be named to different advisory boards and commissions.

Back in Denver, staffers are still “celebrating but also transitioning,” Karp said. In states like Colorado, where the campaign placed considerable resources, dismantling the infrastructure and doing everything from returning borrowed tables to disposing of lawn signs is the immediate task at hand.

Moving away from the campaign can be a difficult transition though. “It’s such a different lifestyle,” Morans said. “I can’t remember what it’s like to read the newspaper or sit down for a meal.”

ResLife has attempted to make the transition smoother by notifying Residential Peer Leaders if they had a new student moving into their unit. “We ask them to introduce themselves, put them on listservs and make introductions where appropriate,” said Natalie Basil, associate director of residential life.

Bergeron and Trinh agreed on one matter: The task of moving all their belongings once again was “very inconvenient.” Basil said students who were being moved were given options for moving times. But Bergeron and Trinh said they don’t remember getting a choice — their moving day was on the morning of one of Bergeron’s midterms.

In addition to scrounging up housing for the 30 extra freshmen, ResLife was also forced to convert lounges and kitchens into rooms for 36 upperclassmen in dorms such as Vartan Gregorian Quad and Buxton, Goddard, Harkness and Marcy Houses, leaving the residents of these dorms without lounges and kitchens.

There haven’t been many complaints from permanent residents of the dorms, according to Bova. The students living in a kitchen in Goddard were recently relocated. Drew Madden ’10, a resident of Goddard, said he hadn’t minded the kitchen being occupied and hasn’t seen many of his neighbors using the newly opened kitchen.

Nevertheless, Bova said ResLife has made it their “top priority” to move students out of kitchens and lounges as soon as possible so that these public spaces can be utilized.

Monday, November 10, 2008

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Vball seniors still impressive Sinclair: Design for what people need continued from page 12 special,” Yess said. “We were all really excited. I just wanted to play well.”

On Saturday, the team played with its best lineup. Besides Meyers, Annika Gliottone ’12 had also returned to action against Cornell after being out for almost a month with a stress fracture. The team wanted to win the game for Meyers and Yess, according to Short.

“They are very popular on the team,” Short said. “Before the game, we had a team meeting and I asked Natalie and Lyndse to talk to the team about their experiences. It was good team bonding.”

The match started with the Lions taking the early lead in the first game at 6-1. The Bears rallied back to tie it at 19-19, but Columbia went on another run to pull away in the first game, 25-21.

The Bears came back and opened the second game with an early lead of their own at 5-0. The Lions pursued tenaciously and tied the game at eight.

At that time, Brown again went into an explosive offensive streak to win seven consecutive points to put themselves comfortably at 15-8. Although the Lions tried to come back again, the Bears held on and won the second game 25-17. The Bears posted their highest hitting percentage of the weekend in this game at .412.

“It was a complete team effort,” Yess said. “We just did our jobs and played the way we always played.”

The third game was a close battle throughout, with the Bears leading by one point at 21-20. In this tight situation, the two seniors, Meyers and Yess, stepped up to lead the team as Meyers set three consecutive assists, the last one of which was to Yess, who put down a kill, and the Bears’ seniors ended the 4-0 run with a textbook play to win it, 25-20.

“Lyndse have clutched so many

times that I know if I set her up, she will put down the kill,” Meyers said of her long-time teammate. “We really have good chemistry on the court.

After Lyndse put down the last kill for the last point of the match, we just went up to each other and gave each other a big hug.”

“In practice we do a lot of drills replicating scenarios like this,” Yess said. “It’s a pressure situation and we just take it one point at a time.”

With the victory one game away, Brown’s offense continued to put down kills on the Lions’ half of the court. The Bears went on a 10-3 run to position themselves at 17-10. Brown’s defense held off any comeback effort from the Lions, as the Bears won the final game 25-18. In the last two games of the match, the Bears clearly edged Columbia in offense, .300 to .171 in the third game and .306 to .143 in the last game.

Meyers showed no signs of rustiness as she recorded 55 assists and 14 digs. Yess recorded her second double-double of the weekend with 12 kills and 15 digs. Also on the offensive end, right side hitter Brianna Williamson ’11 led the team with 14 kills. She also recorded a double-double with 11 digs, along with three blocks. Middle blocker Laurielle Hofer ’12 chipped in 12 kills and Gliottone recorded 17 digs.

“It was unbelievable,” Yess said.

“It’s hard to explain. We were so excited after we won. It was great to finish like that, just leave everything on the court. It was also our first win on a Saturday in the Ivies, so that was also a great accomplishment.”

The two seniors will play their last two collegiate matches this coming weekend on the road. They will first face off against Princeton on Friday night and their last match will be against Penn on Saturday.

“Natalie and Lyndse had their best seasons this year,” Short said.

Panel: Language reflects reality continued from page 3 Lamming said that weaving all these variations of English into his books pays tribute to the agency that West Indians have exercised in molding language and thus in shaping their own reality.

Lamming argued that this agency and the complexity of the Caribbean situation are often effaced by the tourist images of the Caribbean as a place

of only picturesque palm trees and beaches, images that foreigners and West Indians alike have internalized.

Though the two guests hailed from countries thousands of miles apart, both were concerned with many of the same issues, namely the loss of indigenous or creole culture to formal education and standard English and the anonymous images of “sand and sex,” as Ngugi put it, that are projected onto Africa and the Caribbean.

continued from page 1 countries, particularly after natural disasters such as the 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami.

“The last thing these people need is someone coming in with their portfolio, since many of them are just trying to find their house in the first place,” he said.

He described using art and music as a way of drawing in members of the community to help with the design process.

Unlike most architecture firms, which force designs onto the local communities, Sinclair’s group demands that everyone taking part in the design process must sign off on

the final drawings before breaking ground. This approach fosters communal pride, he said.

His method, Sinclair said, allows the group to treat members of the local community as equal participants in the design process.

Sinclair also showed a video of the design process in Ipuli, a town in Tanzania that did not have a functional hospital. Sinclair’s organization created a birthing hospital in the area.

The building, which he described as a “hybrid between high-tech and low-tech design,” is an example of how he fuses new technology and a community’s aesthetic into his projects.

“It’s not just about creating a so-

lution for one village,” he said after the video, “you then become the advocate.”

Despite logistical issues involved in this type of design work such as shipping costs and using appropriate materials, architecture can be a vehicle for peace in today’s global community, he said. Sinclair also highlighted the importance of action to stop global issues such as world hunger and sanitation.

“When you get involved, when you put your foot in the mud, other people notice, and they’re not going to let you fall,” Sinclair said. “So I don’t care what realm of the world you’re going to enter in, I just want you to give a damn.”

Bell Gallery’s sculptures mimic reality continued from page 3 in the early 1990s to capture all the intricate movements her sculptures were capable of making. She collaborated with world-class animators, who eventually went on to work with Tim Burton, to produce one of her first videos. The resulting video shows an eerily human mannequin slowly turning its head and fidgeting with its fingers like an infant discovering them for the first

time. In comparison with today’s Pixar dominated world of CGI technology, King describes stop action animation as messier but closer to the artist’s hand. This use of real materials allows for a more real life experience.

As King discussed in her lecture, the artificial intelligence world uses the term “uncanny value” to describe the unease felt when looking at a robot that is real, but not quite real enough. The sculptures certainly

have that disquieting element but are ultimately much less sinister.

“The Size of Things in the Minds Eye” is the culmination of years of hard work investigating and perfecting the art of recreating the human form in appearance and action.

While King describes the feeling of seeing so much of her work at one time as both “daunting and reassuring,” the audience should also leave the exhibit entertained and enlightened.

Man Man goes wild wild at BCA fall show continued from page 3 into the crowd.

As their final song came to a close, band members put down their instruments and tossed Quaker Oats cereal to the audience.

However strange and eccentric

both performances were, Ain felt that anyone who is “into rock” appreciated both artists.

“I think their different styles complemented each other well and balanced out the whole evening,” Manning said.

BCA is now in the early stages of

planning Spring Weekend. Students can request three bands they would like to see through an Undergraduate Council of Students poll available on MyCourses.

Completing the poll will also enter participants into a lottery to win tickets to the concert.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Monday, November 10, 2008

Monday, November 10, 2008

Harrington ’94 looks ahead continued from page 12 defenders, gave a perfect pass to me, and I was able to put it by the goalie.”

Coach Harrington said that the players gained confidence as they found their footing.

“The kids knew that they would (tie the game),” she said. “I think it was just a matter of making the opportunities for ourselves, and they started to do that. It really started to click. We started to move the ball well. We had good awareness when we received the ball to find our upfield attacker.”

Brown controlled play for the remainder of the half, running up a 14-8 advantage in shots, but could not take the lead, thanks to Katie Bolling’s three saves for Yale.

Washburn stopped one shot in the first half. Harrington said the team talked about “simple adjustments” at halftime.

“We went into this game with a couple key points, keeping the ball moving … making sure that we were fronting and making good decisions to intercept, and then really attacking in numbers and with speed,” she said. “We worked really hard all week on our counterattack.”

But the tie-breaking goal for the Bears came not on the counterattack but on a penalty corner. Springmeyer sent the ball in, Michaela Seigo ’10 stopped it and Sacco knocked it into the back of the cage 12:32 into the second half to give her team the lead in the final game of her career.

“It was an amazing feeling,” Sacco said. “Definitely the highlight, finishing off my career on a really good note. It was a great corner play and was executed very well by every member of the team. It gave us that extra boost that we needed to get the win.”

The Bulldogs fought back to earn three penalty corners in a row, but could not get a shot past Washburn.

Finally, on the third penalty corner the Bears picked off the ball and generated a counterattack. Springmeyer found the back of the cage four minutes after Sacco’s goal to double the lead.

“My second goal was kind of that perfect goal that you always imagine in your mind,” Springmeyer said.

“Tacy (Zysk ’11) had two defenders on her and gave me the perfect (pass). I was one-on-one with the goalie, no one around me, and I was able to pull, move her and knock it right in the goal.”

Springmeyer struck again 1:44 later after getting the ball right in front of the goal. Bolling had to dive to stop her first shot, but Springmeyer collected the rebound. The ball dribbled to the left of the sprawled goalie and into the cage for a commanding 4-1 lead with 16:34 left. Yale continued to challenge Brown down the stretch, running up an advantage of 8-2 in penalty corners in the half, but Washburn made eight saves to preserve the big lead and slam the door on the Bulldogs.

“We haven’t had that (big a) lead in any of our games yet, so it’s great to end the season with that,” Springmeyer said. “I think this whole team deserves it.”

After improving by four wins over last year, hope for next season shines brightly for the Bears. Harrington said that she believes success will follow a firm grasp of the fundamentals.

“I know that we will be fit, and I know that we will be strong, and I know that we will be mentally tough, and then the rest will take care of itself,” she said.

Sacco knows the Bears will go far after she graduates.

“It’s an amazing group of girls, and all of them have such great heart and dedication and really are passionate about the sport,” she said. “You’re going to see great things from this team in the future.”

Soccer hopes for Friday win continued from page 12 (4-1-1), the Bears’ next opponent, is tied with Penn (4-1-1) in second place. Harvard (5-1) is sitting in first place and controls its own destiny for the Ivy League championship.

Harvard and Penn battle for the title next weekend, and Brown can play the role of spoiler and knock Dartmouth out of title contention.

Bernstein, Darren Howerton ’09, Will Lee ’09, Leech, captains Stephen Sawyer ’09 and Dylan Sheehan ’09 closed out their home careers at Brown on Saturday night. They will

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

look to bounce back from the home loss and finish out their college careers with a win on the road against Dartmouth on Friday at 8 p.m. The game will be broadcast nationally on the Fox Soccer Channel.

“I was excited to play in the game on Saturday,” Bernstein said.

“I was trying to make the most of it — win, lose or tie. I wanted to enjoy it. Playing in front of our home fans for the last time made it a very emotional game. We’ve had some great memories of playing on our home field.”

Double loss doesn’t damage w. hockey continued from page 12 2-0 lead 7:35 into the period when Melissa Waldie threw a centering pass into traffic in front of the Bears’ net, and the puck was deflected by Danielle Boudreau past Stock. Bruno also continued to struggle with committing too many penalties, as the Bears lost Paige Pyett ’12 for the remainder of the game after she was called for a five minute major for knocking a Golden Knight into the boards behind the net. The Bears were called for 10 penalties totaling 31 minutes, meaning they played over half of the game with at least a woman disadvantage.

“We were in the box way too much, and that’s been a problem for us from day one,” Stock said. “We need to be smarter about how we play the body and need to stay out of the box and play five-on-five hockey, because that’s where we’re at our best.”

With the Bears down 2-0, neither team was able to get much going for the first ten minutes of the period.

With Brown’s frustration rising, the wheels fell off for the Bears late in the period, as they gave up four goals in about five minutes to close out the game. Stock finished with 41 saves on the night.

“We were in the game for 55 minutes, and after the third goal happened I think we all got down on ourselves individually because we know that being down 3-0 with five minutes to go is a lot bigger hole than being down 2-0. After that our systems broke down, and it showed on the scoreboard.”

On Saturday, the Bears appeared to be an entirely different team. Taking on a very talented St. Lawrence (5-1-2, 2-0-0) squad, Brown made crisper passes, generated more offensive chances and played with intensity throughout the game.

“I think what we need to do is understand that we need to be a learning team, and we took yesterday’s game, which was humiliating, and we learned from it,” Murphy said. “We focused on the fact that it was a new day, and we knew we not only needed to bring energy early, but we had to sustain it for the whole game.”

Despite their improved play, the Bears continued to struggle with taking penalties, and St. Lawrence was able to take advantage when they moved the puck around on the power play and got the puck to a wide-open Alley Bero, who was camped out to Stock’s right, and she one-timed the shot into the net to put the Bears in a 1-0 hole that held up for the remainder of the period.

“There was a mishap on our rotation, and a girl got behind us and we didn’t know she was there,” Stock

said. “The goal was a tough one to swallow because I got a glove on it, and usually when you touch a puck, you feel like you should make the save.”

In the second period, it was the Bears’ turn to take advantage of a power-play opportunity. After two successive Saints’ penalties gave Brown a five-on-three advantage for 1:30, the Bears’ offense came alive as they peppered the Saints’ goaltender with shots. Unable to score on the five on three, Brown kept attacking for the remaining 30 seconds of their power play, and in a scrum for a rebound in front of the net, Saints goalie Brittony Chartier lost her stick, stopped a great chance by Maggie Suprey ’11 but couldn’t prevent Andrea Hunter ’10 from stuffing in the rebound and evening the score, 1-1.

“We had a lot more shots on goal today and got some great chances,” Stock said. “We played with a lot more energy and intensity, and it sparked us on offense.”

The play was back and forth for much of the rest of the period, but the Bears benefited from a few highlightreel saves from Stock, including an incredible kick save on a two-on-one chance for St. Lawrence.

“Stock just flashed her pad and made an unbelievable save,” Murphy said. “She routinely makes incredible saves that there is no way our team should be asking her to make.”

Despite Stock making 22 saves in the period, the Bears eventually gave up another goal and headed into the final period down 2-1.

The Bears came out for the third period with a lot of intensity, but they were unable to even the score before St. Lawrence took advantage of yet another power-play opportunity when Hunter was called for interference 11:00 into the period. St. Lawrence was able to find a wide-open Marianna Locke in the slot, and she beat Stock high to the stick side to give the Saints a 3-1 advantage.

“We had a couple of mental lapses on our penalty kill,” Murphy said.

“We need to learn to minimize our penalties because if you play more five-on-five, you have a much better shot at a victory, especially against a team like St. Lawrence.”

Rather than let the deficit get them

down, as they had the previous night, the Bears refused to give up and kept playing hard and generating offensive chances.

“I was really impressed with how we stayed the course and stuck with our systems, even when we were down,” Murphy said. “That’s where I think it showed that we learned from yesterday, because had we lost 2-0 yesterday I’m not sure we would’ve been as determined to stick with it and keep fighting the way we did today.”

Bruno was rewarded for its determination less than two minutes later, when Nicole Brown ’10 and Jenna Dancewicz ’11 raced down the ice together on a two-on-one rush. Brown carried the puck over the blue line, saw the defender was playing the pass and ripped a shot high off the goalie’s shoulder. Dancewicz then charged in and stuffed the rebound over the goal line to cut the Bears deficit to 3-2 with 4:54 remaining in the game.

“Their goalie bobbled a couple shots and we were able to capitalize,” Stock said.

The Bears pulled Stock with about a minute to go, and with a six-on-five advantage, Brown got off a late flurry of shots but was unable to score and force overtime. Stock had 47 saves in the loss, and the Bears’ offense took 23 shots on goal.

“Today was kind of a moral victory,” Murphy said. “To be playing six on five at the end of the game and be a slap shot away from tying the game against St. Lawrence, a team that has national-team players on it, is a big step for us.”

Brown returns to action next weekend when they take on Cornell (2-2-1, 0-1-1) and Colgate (6-5-0, 1-1-0) on the road on Friday and Saturday.

“I think we really have a special team this year,” Murphy said. “The girls all respect each other and that goes a long way. Now we need to decide what our game is and where we want to be. The players need to decide which team they’re going to be. If we bring the team that played Clarkson on the road next weekend, we’re going to get smoked. But if we bring the team that played against St. Lawrence today, there’s a good chance we come away with two victories.”

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Monday, November 10, 2008

Staf f Editorial

Squandering success Unlike some of its peer institutions, Brown does not stress pre-professional education. We have neither a Wharton School for finance like Penn nor a Medill School of Journalism like Northwestern. Instead, we have an Open Curriculum that beneficially encourages us to find our own academic voice – one that properly teaches us to value education as a good in itself.

However, as course registration ends this week, we are concerned that the national economic meltdown may lead some first-years and sophomores to sacrifice their academic dreams at the altar of this harsh economic reality.

Even though the economy may right itself by the time they graduate, these underclassmen are beginning to feel the pinch of hard times on College Hill.

They see how juniors and seniors face a brave new economic world where finding a coveted internship or job can seem as unlikely and capricious as winning the lottery.

They can also understand how the decrease in investment and banking jobs will have a domino effect extending far beyond those with Gordon Gekko-like dreams of making it rich on Wall Street. Underclassmen deduce that markedly fewer jobs in one sector of the economy increases competition among Brown students for jobs in other sectors of the economy. And with fewer jobs available, they understand that there will be more people competing for fellowships and graduate school admission in the foreseeable future.

As a result, we recognize why first-years and sophomores may feel trepidation. Indeed, seniors experience it even more acutely, since they are closer to graduation. But just as we value our own academic exploration at Brown, we urge them not to forsake the inestimable benefits of the Open Curriculum. In fact, we recommend those with a predilection for the liberal arts to just say no to pre-professionalism.

Of course, no one should eschew all pragmatism. After all, college life — like all good things — inexorably ends. And when it does, we all must make our own way in the world that exists beyond the Van Wickle gate. However, in planning our economic futures, we should draw a fixed dividing line between pragmatic economic concerns and personal academic enrichment.

In short, we should prepare for our future without sacrificing the present benefits only a Brown education can offer us.

Without neo-Gothic eating halls like Yale or a monumental library like Harvard, none of us chose Brown with the Ratty and the Rock in mind. Instead, most of us chose Brown because it uniquely offered us the freedom of charting our own academic future. Thus, while recessions come and go, our education at Brown is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It is a shame to squander it.

F ranny C hoi

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Simmi Aujla Ross Frazier

Executive Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang

Senior Editors Irene Chen Lindsey Meyers

editorial Ben Hyman Hannah Levintova Matthew Varley Alex Roehrkasse Chaz Firestone Nandini Jayakrishna Scott Lowenstein Michael Bechek Isabel Gottlieb Franklin Kanin Michael Skocpol Ben Bernstein James Shapiro Benjy Asher Amy Ehrhart Megan McCahill Andrew Braca Han Cui Katie Wood

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Rachel Isaacs, Julien Ouelet, Designers Frederic Lu, Rachel Starr, Younhun Kim, Rafael Chaiken, Ellen Cushing, Copy Editors Anne Simons, Brian Mastroianni, Colin Chazen, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Mitra Anoushiravani, Colin Chazen, Chaz Kelsh, Emmy Liss, Brian Mastroianni, George Miller, Melissa Shube, Anne Simons, Sara Sunshine, Gaurie Tilak, Caroline Sedano, Jenna Stark, Joanna Wohlmuth, Simon van Zuylen-Wood Staff Writers Zunaira Choudhary, Leslie Primack, Sydney Ember, Connie Zheng, Christian Martell, Alexandra Ulmer, Lauren Pischel, Samuel Byker, Anne Deggelman, Nicole Dungca, Olivia Hoffman, Cameron Lee, Debbie Lehmann, Sophia Li, Hannah Moser, Seth Motel, Kyla Wilkes, Juliana Friend, Sarah Husk, Jyotsna Mullur, Chris Duffy Sports Staff Writers Peter Cipparone, Nicole Stock Business Staff Maximilian Barrows, Thanases Plestis, Agathe Roncey, Allen McGonagill, Ben Xiong, Bonnie Kim, Cathy Li, Christiana Stephenson, Corey Schwartz, Evan Sumortin, Galen Cho, Han Lee, Haydar Taygun, Jackie Goldman, Jilyn Chao, Kathy Bui, Kelly Wess, Kenneth So, Lee Chau, Lyndse Yess, Margaret Watson, Matthew Burrows, Maura Lynch, Misha Desai, Stassia Chyzhykova, Webber Xu, William Schweitzer Design Staff Jessica Calihan, Joanna Lee, Rachel Isaacs, Angela Santin Ceballos, Marlee Bruning, Rachel Wexler, Maxwell Rosero, Katie Silverstein, Shara Azad, Jessica Kirschner, Jee Hyun Choi, Heeyoung Min, Andrea McWilliams Photo Staff Alex DePaoli, Eunice Hong, Kim Perley, Quinn Savit Copy Editors Rafael Chaiken, Ellen Cushing, Younhun Kim, Frederic Lu, Lauren Fedor, Madeleine Rosenberg, Kelly Mallahan, Jennifer Kim, Tarah Knaresboro, Jordan Mainzer, Janine Lopez, Luis Solis, Ayelet Brinn, Rachel Starr, Riva Shah, Jason Yum, Simon Leibling, Rachel Isaacs Web Developers Jihan Chao, Neal Poole

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O pinions Monday, November 10, 2008

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Grade options, why hath thou failed me?

BY Jared Lafer Opinions Columnist Grade option flexibility is a celebrated luxury of the New Curriculum. It speaks to Brown’s distinctiveness and emphasis on liberal education, and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t indulged myself by taking a couple of classes S/NC. However, while the advantages of this grading structure are undeniable, its implementation is flawed.

The deadline to change grade options occurs four weeks into each semester. By this time, students generally haven’t received any substantial grades in their classes. Accordingly, students weighing grade options are forced to predict their class performance before there is any meaningful evidence to that end. In light of this defect, the deadline for switching grade options should be extended.

There are many reasons to take a class S/NC, and gauging the favorability of grade options is one of them. For example, if a student wants to take a class without the additional pressure of a letter grade, the S/ NC option would seem favorable. Nevertheless, if that student goes on to find out that she would have received an A on her first midterm, I imagine she might regret her decision. This is a fairly common situation, and if you haven’t been in it, it’s likely that someone you know has.

Of course, why regret taking a class S/NC if an S with distinction (denoted on transcripts as S*) is just as good as an A? Think of it this way: Would you be OK with me going to the registrar and convincing them to change all

of your A’s to S*’s? I presume you wouldn’t.

An A is preferable to an S* because employers and grad schools do not necessarily recognize their equivalence. Consequently, students would benefit from the opportunity to better assess the favorability of their grade options at the beginning of the semester.

Some might argue that students can use homework performance to determine the most suitable grade option before the deadline. But not every class returns graded homework before a midterm, and so stu-

cation that one will be able to manage later material.

Moreover, there is no way to predict how a professor grades her exams — perhaps she grades them more strictly than she grades the homework. On the other hand, there are a number of courses in which teaching assistants grade the homework and the professor grades the exams, once again making it difficult for students to determine their standing in the course based on the homework alone.

There is no way to accurately evaluate grade options by the current, four week deadline, and this severely limits our ability to take advantage of the Brown curriculum. dents often have to assess grade options baselessly.

While there is undoubtedly some correlation between homework and exam scores, success on homework hardly guarantees high grades on exams. For example, class material generally gets harder throughout the semester, and thus the fact that one can manage pre-deadline material is not an indi-

One might argue that students can figure out how hard their courses will be using resources like the Critical Review, and so they should know what they’re getting into before they register for a class. However, there isn’t always information about professors and their exams online, and even then students may disagree with the average ratings posted on the Critical Review.

Bottom line? There is no way to accurately evaluate grade options by the current, four-week deadline, and this severely limits our ability to take advantage of the Brown curriculum.

We can remedy the situation with a small amendment to the current policy: enforce the deadline eight weeks into each semester, rather than four weeks, thus guaranteeing the completion of at least one midterm. Students will accordingly have a strong basis to evaluate how well they are doing in their courses, effectively preempting any regrettable grade option decisions while preserving the integrity of the Brown curriculum.

The only problem with this change is that it would likely increase the average GPA. This is, arguably, not something we want, considering that the average GPA at Brown is an extraordinary 3.6. However, I suspect that the GPA increase will ultimately be minor, and that this is a small price to pay to reduce student anxiety and grade option mistakes.

For instance, it is unlikely that a student will take a course in his area of concentration S/NC, and it is indisputable that concentration GPA is more important than overall GPA. Given that courses in a student’s concentration generally comprise the majority of his courses, the increase in overall GPA will likely be insignificant.

That in mind, it seems extending the deadline is a no-brainer. I leave it up to the University to take action, or at least defend its current policy, but given the facts I imagine the latter is far from plausible.

Jared Lafer ’11 is unsatisfied with satisfactories.

Trade union protests at Brown

BY Boris Ryvkin Opinions Columnist A Herald article about Pembroke contractors a few weeks ago (“Workers protest Pembroke contractor,” Oct. 14) gave me pause.

Members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Sheet Metal Workers International Association lambasted contractor E.W. Burman for regularly using open-shop (nonunionized) subcontractors. To make their point, the protestors handed out flyers and carried posters of a pig with the slogan “notice of E.W. Burman Construction and their piggish practice in Rhode Island.”

What makes nonunionized workers so terrifying? According to the protestors, their lower wages, health benefits and licensing standards.

It is easy to get carried away and accept these reasons prima facie. That apparently was the path taken by the Vice President for Facilities Management Stephen Maiorisi, who was quick to underscore how Brown only hired good, unionized subcontractors for its projects.

What Maiorisi said may be accurate, but why make this particular statement? What crime or ethical lapse would Brown commit by hiring nonunionized workers?

I suggest the University prepare an alternate statement for the next time something like this comes up: “As long as no statutes or business regulations are violated, we will use the most efficient and least expensive labor available in a competitive market to handle

our construction needs. If the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has a problem with this, they are free to take their business elsewhere.”

It is high time the powers that be stopped caving in to the tired litany of union complaints and stand up for economic freedom.

Unions exist to protect workers who cannot effectively compete on a level play-

subcontractors, is a serious problem.

Yet phrasing their aims in terms of power and extracted dues turns people off. Lines like “workers find it harder to support their families” are more effective. This begs the question: what about the families of the nonunionized workers? Are they not also worthy of support? I guess all families are equal, but some are more equal than others.

The issue is not families or benefits, but

It is high time the powers that be stopped caving in to the tired litany of union complaints and stand up for economic freedom. ing field in the open market. Their wages and benefits are artificial. Their leadership seeks dues and political influence, as any rational, self-interested entity would. These dues are to unions what profits are to firms, which makes the protestors’ pig analogy laughable.

We as consumers want the most output at the lowest cost. The union wants the highest return and the largest market for its members. A threat to either of these, coming from the aforementioned nonunionized

the attempt by the union to shelter its market from competition through the use of pressure tactics. What would happen if the University let the IBEW have its way and made a point never to use any contractor with nonunionized subcontractors? The Brown community would lose because of higher production costs, the nonunionized labor would lose because of diminished employment options and the concept of free enterprise would take a hit. Is any of this fair?

There is something to be said about

the licensing disparities mentioned by the IBEW protestors. The union claims its highly skilled workforce, through participation in a four-year apprenticeship program, ought to be trusted above the dubiously qualified nonunionized workers. Why not let the market sort this out? Price signals can tell us just how qualified and reliable they really are. Their low wages seem to indicate lower productivity, but as long as a demand for them exists, they must be doing something right.

If the risks of failure and the costs associated with a given project are sufficiently high, there would be an impact on demand at the margin for a given labor force. These are relatively moot points because I doubt the IBEW cares much about worker qualifications anyway. They are just employing another scare tactic, but one with a precedent all the way back to medieval guilds and their attempts to keep markets closed.

Indeed, licensing became entrenched as a tool of protection during that era.

The IBEW provides an excellent illustration of why trade unions have outlived their usefulness and ought to be phased out. Whether the industr y is education, infrastructure or automobiles, union activity has undermined efforts at policy reform and competitiveness in a volatile global market.

Only a small minority of American labor is unionized, and many emerging industries provide acceptable enough job packages to make unions unnecessar y. In the event of another protest, we would do well to think before we sympathize.

Boris Ryvkin ’09 has never thrown a brick.

S ports M onday Page 12

Monday, November 10, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Bulldogs take down m. soccer

By Katie Wood Assistant Sports Editor

Six players on the men’s soccer team played their last game at Stevenson Field on Saturday night.

Unfortunately, the emotional evening ended in disappointment, as Yale (7-7-2, 3-3 Ivy) handed Brown (9-6-1, 3-3 Ivy) a 2-0 defeat.

“The seniors are the ones who are always the most disappointed, losing their last home game,” said Head Coach Mike Noonan. “My heart goes out to them. They’ve all had great careers here.”

The Bears started off the game with an offensive surge, tallying 4 of their 16 shots in the first 10 minutes of play, while the defense held strong. The back four kept the Bulldogs out of scoring contention until Yale recorded a shot on goal in the 32nd minute. The Bears put the pressure on a minute later when Taylor Gorman ’12 sent the ball high just over the crossbar.

In the 39th minute, Yale’s Aden Farina-Henry drove the ball high and to the right of goalkeeper Jarrett Leech ’09, who came out of the goal to try to stop Farina-Henry.

“We had a mental mistake,” said Rhett Bernstein ’09. “They got a lucky bounce, and they scored the goal. They didn’t create too many chances; we just broke down mentally. It’s us making mistakes, not the other team playing well.”

The Bulldogs continued to push the tempo, and Farina-Henry had another good shot a minute after scoring his first goal. David Walls ’11 had a great look for the Bears at the 42-minute mark, but could not find the back of the net. Brown headed into the half down 1-0.

In the opening minute of the second half, a Brown foul in the box gave Yale a free kick. Sam Post converted on the kick to send the Bears into a 2-0 hole.

Less than three minutes later, the officials called Yale for a push in the box off a corner kick. Bernstein took the kick, but it went high over the crossbar. The Bears outshot the Bulldogs 8-4 in the second half, but could not capitalize on their many opportunities.

“The biggest frustration of the year is that we’re getting the shots and opportunities, we’re just not finishing them,” Noonan said.

Brown failed to convert on anything and fell to Yale, 2-0.

“We had some very good opportunities to score, including myself on the penalty kick,” Bernstein said. “The amount of really good chances we create are minimal to the amount of shots we take.

We need 10-15 good opportunities and transfer a few of those into goals.”

The Bears outshot the Bulldogs, 16-7, for the game and also posted a 9-4 advantage in corner kicks. TJ Thompson ’10 led the team in shots, with five (two on goal) and Bernstein had three shots (none on goal).

Leech (6-2-1) recorded two saves and received the loss in net.

The Bears (3-3) currently sit in fourth place in the conference race, tied with Yale (3-3). Dartmouth, continued on page 9

Springmeyer ’12 shines in final game W. icers fall,

then stumble over weekend

By Andrew Braca Assistant Sports Editor

The field hockey team closed out the season with a 4-1 win over Yale on an emotional Saturday afternoon on Warner Roof. Leslie Springmeyer ’12 recorded a hat trick and Victoria Sacco ’09 scored the go-ahead goal to lead the Bears (5-12, 1-6 Ivy) to their second straight season-ending upset of the Bulldogs (7-10, 2-5) and send the senior class of Sara Eaton ’09, Natalie Harrington ’09, Ann LeClerc ’09, Sacco and Tess Standa ’09 out with a victory.

“It’s great to finish my career with a win,” Sacco said. “It’s definitely a bittersweet feeling, though, having the four years go by so quickly, but it’s definitely finishing on a really good note.”

Springmeyer played a large role, scoring three goals and adding an assist to finish the season as the team’s leading scorer with 21 points.

“All my goals, I took my time, thought them out and really executed them,” Springmeyer said. “I’m glad I could have done that for the team to secure the win for us.”

The game did not start well for Brown. Yale took the lead just 2:25 into the game when Ali Rotondo beat Brown goalkeeper Caroline Washburn ’12 with a shot from the top left of the circle to the right corner of the cage.

“Giving up the goal in the first couple minutes was definitely tough,” Sacco said. “Our coaches warned us that they do come out hard and fast in the first couple minutes of the game.

They did catch us off guard in that one moment but it really didn’t (affect us) for the rest of the game.”

Displeased with organization and communication problems, Head Coach Tara Harrington ’94 called a timeout 8:44 after the goal.

By Megan McCahill Sports Editor

left in the half when Springmeyer converted on a pass from Natalie Harrington, earning her the second assist of her career.

“I got a great pass from Natalie,” Springmeyer said. “She had an amazing game. She eliminated a couple

The women’s hockey team looked like two completely different teams in its first two home games of the season, falling 6-0 to Clarkson on Friday and rebounding to a hardfought 3-2 loss to No. 9 St. Lawrence on Saturday.

“We were talking about it in the locker room, and sometimes with us it’s like we’re Jekyll and Hyde,” said Head Coach Digit Murphy.

Against Clarkson (3-5-2, 1-1-0 ECAC Hockey), the Bears (1-4-1, 1-3-0) struggled throughout the first period against Clarkson’s aggressive forecheck and were often unable to clear their own zone.

This caught up with them 5:23 into the period, when Clarkson kept the puck in the zone and got off a shot from the top of the left circle that was deflected by the traffic in front of the net and beat goalie Nicole Stock ’09 five-hole to give the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead that held up for the rest of the period.

“They were a really big team and we lost a lot of battles for the puck,” said Stock, captain and a Herald sports staff writer. “We had a tough time clearing the zone.”

The second period was very similar to the first, as the Bears continued to struggle offensively, taking only five shots in the period while giving Clarkson too many opportunities. The visitors took a

continued on page 9

continued on page 9

Justin Coleman / Herald

Women’s field hockey ended the season with a 4-1 win over Yale on the Warner Roof.

“We talked about good pressure, good communication, knowing when to kill the play or stop the ball,” Harrington said. “And I think that after we had that timeout we started to sort it out (and) organize more … We were winning the ball back, and then the momentum started to go our way.”

The Bears tied the score with 13:03

Seniors Meyers, Yess win final home volleyball match

By Han Cui Assistant Sports Editor

Justin Coleman / Herald

Natalie Meyers ‘09 and the volleyball team took down Columbia Saturday.

The two seniors on the volleyball team, captain and setter Natalie Meyers ’09 and outside hitter Lyndse Yess ’09, stepped on to the court on Saturday, knowing it was going to be their last time playing in a Brown jersey in the Pizzitola Gymnasium. As the referee blew the whistle, they began their last home match of their collegiate careers.

In front of a large Senior Night crowd, the two veterans led the team to an emphatic 3-1 win over Columbia, 21-25, 25-17, 25-20 and 25-18. With this win and a loss to Cornell on Friday night, the Bears are now tied for fifth place with Harvard in the Ivy League with a 4-8 record and 12-12 overall.

I was very emotional about it,” Meyers said. “Volleyball has been such an important part of my life for so long.

But I think it was more a celebration of my volleyball career.”

The team was eager for a win against Columbia after they fell against Cornell, 3-1, the night before. In that match, the two teams played tightly in the first two games with neither able to gain a significant lead over the other.

The Big Red came out slightly on top in the first game, 25-22, but the Bears had the edge in the second game with the same score. Bruno posted the highest hitting percentage of the match in this game at .314.

Tied at one game apiece, both teams looked to take the lead in the

third game. Cornell came out firing and accumulated a 10-point lead halfway into the game at 14-4. The Bears made up some of the difference with runs of their own and they were only down by four points at game point. But in the end, Cornell was able to hold onto its lead and pick up the one point it needed to take the game, 25-20. The Big Red used the momentum in the fourth and last game, when they again overpowered the Bears in offense to take a 16-6 lead. This time, Cornell was careful not to let the Bears catch up as it won the final game 25-14. Although the Big Red only hit .103 in the final game, their defense was able to hold the Bears to a clip of -.062.

“I think we made errors we shouldn’t have,” Yess said. “Something was just off.”

In this loss, Yess recorded a doubledouble, co-leading the team offensively along with Megan Toman ’11 with 14 kills, and posting 13 digs, the third highest on the team. A big void was left by Meyers, who was not in the lineup due to a concussion from the game against Harvard last week.

Spencer McAndrews ’12 stepped in as setter and tallied 44 assists. But the loss made the team want to win even more on Saturday, especially for the seniors who knew it would be their last home game and Meyers was cleared to play on Saturday.

“You want to make it something continued on page 7