Thursday, February 19, 2009

Page 1

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 20 | Thursday, February 19, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

R.I. voters hold out hope for stimulus By Lauren Fedor Senior Staff Writer

Kim Perley / Herald

UCS members were briefed on the University’s budget by Executive Vice President Beppie Huidekoper last night.

New Faunce, arts center going forward Pool project boosted by multi-million-dollar gift

By Ben Schreckinger Senior Staff Writer

The University is preparing to build the new Creative Arts Center and proceed with planned renovations of Faunce House despite financial woes, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Beppie Huidekoper told the Undergraduate Council of Students at its meeting last night. A donor has also bequeathed funds for a new swim center, most of which are expected to be in hand by June, she said. All told, the bequest will cover more than half the cost of the proposed pool, Huidekoper told The Herald after the meeting.

The new arts building and the revamping of Faunce into an expanded campus center will be subject to the Corporation’s final approval at its meeting this weekend, she said. She did not indicate when construction might begin on the swim center. Huidekoper disclosed the new construction details in a briefing at the UCS general body meeting that included a broad overview of the University’s current financial situation. University administrators have said they expect to delay some capital projects and scale back others as part of efforts to tighten budgets in coming years. But those projects that have enough earmarked donor funding will probably proceed, without auxiliary funding from the general budget, Huidekoper said at the meeting. The new

Engineers to design drinking water solutions for India By Alicia Chen Contributing Writer

inside

In the summer of 2007, Christina Tang ’09 traveled to Kuttanad, Kerala in southwest India with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation to help conduct a water quality and management study. The environmental studies concentrator found the water system there in desperate need of repair. The canals where most people in Kuttanad gathered their water were contaminated, tap water flowed only sporadically and the well water was too acidic. Of all the sources analyzed, rainwater had the lowest E. coli counts. Now, two years later, Tang is the initiator of Rainwater for Humanity, a project meant to provide sustainable, clean drinking water by harvesting rainwater for over 700,000 people in Kerala. Peter Boyer ’09, a civil engineering

News.....1-4 Metro.....5-6 Spor ts...7-9 Editorial..10 Opinion...11 Today........12

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Rhode Island voters who say... a friend or family member recently lost a job:

66 percent

the federal stimulus package will help the economy:

74 percent

R.I.’s economy is “poor”:

82 percent

Source: Taubman Center poll, Feb. 7-10. Margin of error: +/– 4.6 pts.

headed on the “wrong track.” More than half of voters, 66 percent, said they knew a friend or family member who recently lost a job. A strong majority, however, said it believed the stimulus package would have a positive effect on the nation’s economy. Of 451 registered voters surveyed, 74 percent said the stimulus will make the economy “a little better” or “a lot better.” In a press conference on Tuesday, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who voted in favor of the bill,­­called the continued on page 6

Look out below: Skydiving club seeks money By Caitlin Trujillo Contributing Writer

concentrator and international projects coordinator for Brown’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders, is in charge of the technical aspects of the project, while Tang works directly with community groups both in the United States and India. A diverse group in Providence, including industrial design and architecture students from the Rhode Island School of Design and civil engineering and biomedical engineering students from Brown, is also involved in the collaboration, Boyer said. Improving the water supply is important to keep up with the growing population in Kerala and to ensure its continued development, Boyer said. “The project is a combination of a design issue and a sustainable implementation problem,”

Drew Smith ’10 has never skydived or started an official student group. But if he has his way this semester, he’ll do both in one fell swoop. Smith’s Brown Skydiving Club is hoping to be granted official student group status and receive funding to facilitate jumps for interested students. Smith, who said he has wanted to try skydiving for some time, conceived the idea after learning of a similar group at Brandeis University from a friend. Because the Brandeis group only served Brandeis students, Smith contemplated a similar club for Brown over winter break. A month later, he has drafted and revised a constitution for the club and is currently in the process of gauging interest in the group. The Undergraduate Council of Student’s Student Activities Committee requires a minimum of 15 member signatures for a club to receive

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post-

arts center fits that profile, as does the improved campus center, which was boosted by a $5 million gift from former Chancellor Stephen Robert ’62 P ’91 and will be named for him. Huidekoper also provided more details on plans to pare projected budgets by a combined $60 million over the next five years, suggesting at one point that job cuts were a possibility. And she gave some hints of the University’s investment strategy going forward. Faced with market tumult, she said, the University has begun to withdraw some endowment funds from alternative investment vehicles such as hedge funds, in order to reduce its exposure to risk. Continuing to carry out the Plan

The $787 billion economic stimulus package passed by Congress this week appears to have come as a welcome relief to Rhode Island. The bill, signed into law Tuesday by President Obama, includes $1.1 billion in federal aid to ease Rhode Island’s budget shortfall and is expected to create 12,000 new jobs in a state where the unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent, second-highest in the nation. The recovery plan includes financial assistance for the state’s Medicaid system, highway and transit projects, education system, welfare programs, energy initiatives and housing investments. The stimulus is also set to extend unemployment insurance and provide tax relief for families and small businesses. The major spending bill, which came after weeks of haggling between Democrats and Republicans, promises to offer a lifeline to a state that his been hit hard by the current recession. A poll conducted earlier this month by the Taubman Center for Public Policy found that 82 percent of Rhode Island voters rated the state’s economy as poor, and about the same number said the state was

Rhody residents on the economy

Courtesy of Aaron Mazel-Gee

A new club may help more students join Aaron Mazel-Gee ’09 in the sky.

University funding, but Smith said he has so far collected the signatures of 242 students who have expressed interest in the group. He has also created the “Brown Skydiving Initiative” group on Facebook, which boasted 60 members Wednesday night.

Smith said he plans to bring a handful of supporters with him to pitch the club to the Committee on Monday, adding that he expects them to grant the group Category continued on page 3

Inside

Sports, 7

Opinions, 11

has a five letter word for baller and gets mighty saucy, wink wink.

one and two The women’s hockey team beat last-place Union but dropped two more games.

cool aid Nick Hagerty ’10 says expanding financial aid beats a tuition freeze.

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

herald@browndailyherald.com


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Thursday, February 19, 2009 by The Brown Daily Herald - Issuu