Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxliv, no. 21 | Friday, February 20, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Economy on the docket for Corp.
Budget, long-term planning take center stage this weekend By Chaz Kelsh and Jenna Stark News Editors
With an economic crisis throwing a wrench in the University’s ambitious spending plans, the Corporation will have some major decisions to make when it convenes for a meeting this weekend. Chancellor Thomas T isch ’76, who arrived in Providence Wednesday evening, said the Corporation plans to “review an extraordinar y amount of information” this weekend. “It’s a pretty full schedule,” he said. One month after the University revealed it has likely lost roughly 30 percent of its endowment in less than a year, sacrifice may have become the name of the game for the final years of President Ruth Simmons’ signature capital campaign. Though several major projects — including a new fitness center and a huge brain sciences building — remain on Brown’s
to-do list, administrators have acknowledged that, even if no new building is scrapped, timelines will need to be pushed back. Some ambitious academic initiatives — with tighter budgets ahead — also appear likely to suffer from a decreased availability of funds, though the University has repeatedly expressed its commitment to the goals of the Plan for Academic Enrichment, Simmons’ wide-ranging blueprint to improve the school’s academic standing. The University’s desire to expand the Graduate School to keep up with the growing size of faculty, for example, is likely to go unmet. The Corporation, which gathers three times annually — in Februar y, May and October — will use this meeting to approve a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Simmons is expected to present a balanced budget to the
Qidong Chen / Herald
The Corporation may rule this weekend on the fate of a new swim center, among other things.
U.’s top officers to discuss capital projects By Anne Simons Senior Staf f Writer
When members of the Corporation gather on College Hill this weekend, they will face the sticky reality of an economic recession that threatens to derail or delay a number of planned construc-
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SPOTLIGHT
tion projects on the University’s radar. Brown’s top governing board is likely to have a “tougher standard” for evaluating whether or not to move forward with projects, said Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to President Ruth Simmons. Given
Kim Perley / Herald
Trading ice skates for flippers, underwater hockey players swam for the goal at a practice last night.
They swim, they score
inside
Sure, it’s obscure, but underwater hockey is just like real hockey — well, sort of. News.....1-4 Arts........5-6 Spor ts...7-8 Editorial..10 Opinion...11 Today........12
www.browndailyherald.com
“Underwater WHAT?” The Rhode Island Reds — a team of underwater hockey enthusiasts — often hear this when they tell friends what sport they play. And on the surface, their unusual pastime merits the confused response they receive. On Thursday, the club team’s flippered players lined up along the walls of the Care New England
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Advocate, former Bush admin. lawyer debate human rights By Hannah Moser Senior Staff Writer
By Jyotsna Mullur Staff Writer
the economy, administrators will “almost certainly do less than we otherwise would have,” he said. In recent years, construction has sometimes been given the go-ahead to begin even before all money pledged by donors for the
Wellness Center in Warwick. At a teammate’s signal, the players dove frantically toward the center of the rectangular swimming pool, splashing loudly. Suddenly, the splashing stopped. The surface became deceptively calm while, underwater, eight fin- and snorkel-clad players swam and flicked small, one-foot sticks. They pushed a lead puck around on the pool floor. continued on page 2
Human rights are essential to a fair and just society — though war can complicate things, Larry Cox, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, and University of California, Berkeley Professor of Law John Yoo agreed in a debate at Salomon 101 Thursday afternoon. But the two agreed about little else, with Cox — who has spent his career defending human rights — describing such rights as “self-evident” while Yoo, a former lawyer for George W. Bush’s administration, countered that such rights were sometimes, if not self-evident, self-defeating. At the nearly full Janus Forum lecture, “One World, Many People: Are There Universal Human Rights?” the two speakers took the divergent positions their backgrounds suggested they would. Cox used his initial 25 minutes on the floor to describe the impact of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted in 1948. If governments generally do not like
limits on their power, Cox asked, then why did they agree to such a pact? One reason, he said, was that human rights are hailed as the foundation of peace. But governments do not always follow through with such agreements because they do not believe they can be held to the accord, he said. This is why, Cox said, it is up to people to use “the power of moral pressure” to claim these rights. “The past decade has been one of the most damaging” to human rights, Cox said. Citing detentions, disappearances and the use of torture, Cox said, “human rights violations are carried out in the name of security” everywhere. Yoo, a contributor to the Patriot Act who is known for his advocacy of the legality of torture during wartime, said he did not think he and Cox disagreed about how an ideal world would look. But he said that rights apply differently when a country’s security is threatened. It is generally accepted, for example, that killing does not count as murder during war, he said, adding that detainment keeps soldiers from continued on page 4
News, 7
Arts, 5
Opinions, 11
blue states New Haven, Conn. gets a taste of Brown-born Blue State Coffee.
shall we dance? ‘Waltz with Bashir’ art director David Polonsky spoke at the Avon Cinema
shop till you drop Kate Doyle ’12 offers her advice for a Lit Arts revamp.
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