Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 93 | Tuesday, October 27, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Brown top Ivy in Fulbrights this year

hunt for red o c tober

By Sydney Ember Senior Staff Writer

By Kate Monks Contributing Writer

Just another workday for Robert Kaufman ’08 is, well, not just another workday — his office is a classroom in Norway.

Kaufman is a participant in the Fulbright Program, a government sponsored fellowship that gives college graduates grants to pursue research and teaching projects abroad. This year Brown ranked first in the Ivy League and third in the nation in the number of Fulbright scholarships received by its graduates, falling behind only Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.

According to the Institute of International Education, Brown has 29 Fulbright recipients pursuing projects during the 2009-10 year, the highest number in its history. Brown enjoyed a 27.4 percent admittance rate into the program this past year. The national acceptance rate hovers around 20 percent, according to Linda Dunleavy, associate dean of the college for fellowships and pre-law.

Kaufman, who is currently a TA at the University of Oslo in Norway, described his Fulbright experience as “too good to be true.” An English and Religious Studies concentrator while at Brown, Kaufman now teaches “American Civics and Politics” and is learning Norwegian.

Kaufman was one of 106 applicants from Brown last year. The other Fulbright recipients are scattered over 23 countries, including India, Peru and New Zealand.

Congress established the Fulbright Program, which is sponsored by the Department of the State, in 1946 to “enable the government of the United States to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” The program offers grants to more than 1,500 American students each year to travel, research and work in more than 140 countries.

Renee Ahlers ’09 is participating in the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship program in Toluca, Mexico.

She was inspired to apply by a friend who postponed going to law school and spent a year in Israel with the program.

Ahlers taught English as a Second Language for four years at Brown and decided to continue her work through the Fulbright Program by conducting workshops with students at a language facility in Toluca.

“I get to talk to them about the U.S. culture and they get to tell me about the Mexican culture,” Ahlers said of

inside

continued on page 2

News.....1-4 Metro........5 Editorial.....6 Opinion.....7 Today........8

www.browndailyherald.com

Influential education reformer Sizer dies at 77 Theodore Sizer, the founding director of Brown’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform and one of the foremost advocates for national education reform, died of cancer Oct. 21, leaving behind a legacy characterized by his innovative and provocative approaches to American education. He was 77.

Best known as the founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools — a national reform effort headquartered at Brown and intended to personalize the American educational experience — Sizer, along with former President Vartan Gregorian, played an extensive role in the formation of the Annenberg Challenge grant, a $500 million gift from the Annenberg Foundation to reform education at schools nationwide.

Kim Perley / Herald

Sayles Hall was shaded by a reddening maple tree Monday.

‘Spike’ in laptop thefts seen over Fall Weekend

By Ben Schreckinger Senior Staff Writer

Nine laptops were stolen from eight different residence halls over Fall Weekend — an unusually high number — according to Mark Porter, chief of police and director of public safety.

“No question, this was a spike for weekend activity,” Porter said.

Long weekends tend to bring “a lot of activity on campus” with many students hosting guests from outside the University, he said.

Porter said there is no indication that the thefts were connected.

“The one common theme,” he added, is that all of the laptops continued on page 3

John Foraste / University Archives

Theodore Sizer founded Brown’s Annenberg Institute.

The gift funded the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a reform initiative directed by then-lawyer Barack Obama near the beginning of his political career. continued on page 2

No different from the rest: BioMed budget challenged

By Brigitta Greene Senior Staff Writer

A large hit to the Divison of Biology and Medicine’s endowment has been offset by an increase in research grants, but the sour economy has complicated some initiatives, such as a drive to increase financial aid for medical students, according to BioMed officials.

BioMed has proposed a budget of approximately $138 million for the fiscal year beginning in July 2010, according to Lindsay Graham, the division’s executive dean for administration.

About 58 percent of that budget would

be covered by sponsored research funding.

BioMed — which includes the Alpert Medical School, the Program in Public Health and the University’s five life sciences departments — expects an approximately 11 percent increase in research funding, thanks mostly to a new round of federal funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. BioMed’s endowment and budgeting are managed separately from the rest of the University.

Though enrollment levels are expected to remain roughly constant, the continued on page 4

‘Toastmasters’ brave life’s little ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ Students practice public speaking

By Matthew Klebanoff Staff Writer

“This club is not just about getting your speech right,” said Tan Nguyen ’10, the Brown Noise’s Every week, Barus and Holley 190 president. “You learn leadership bears witness to a series of unusual skills. You learn to build your conlectures — on topics that have in- fidence. You learn how to interact cluded toys, childhood crushes with people, and I think that is very and a search for racial important.” identity.

The concept of a FEATURE But the lectures Toastmasters club is not aren’t part of any University-offered a new one. According to Toastmascourse in Modern Culture and Me- ters International’s Web site, the ordia or American Civilization. They’re ganization was founded more than just part of a typical Wednesday 80 years ago by Ralph Smedley, the night for the Brown Noise Toastmas- educational director at a California ters, a newly formed club that helps YMCA. Smedley noticed that many its members improve their public continued on page 4 speaking and leadership skills.

Alex DePaoli / Herald

Tan Nguyen ’10, president of the Brown Noise Toastmasters.

News, 3

Metro, 5

Opinions, 7

Empty Laps A rash of laptop thefts struck campus over Fall Weekend

All Wound Up Environmentalists are astir over a potential wind turbine site in Narragansett

Power of the Purse Will Wray ’10 thinks you can spend your money better than UFB can

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

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Campus remembers reform pioneer Sizer continued from page 1

“Sizer was a wonderful man with a great sense of humor who loved his students,” Gregorian told The Herald.

“All his students across the nation are mourning him now.”

Sizer joined Brown’s faculty in 1984 after holding positions as the dean of Harvard’s School of Education and as headmaster at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.

After Gregorian was inaugurated as Brown’s president in 1989, he and Sizer forged a lasting relationship centered on national school reform, the former president said.

Their joint focus, which culminated in the formation of the Annenberg Institute in 1993, sparked reforms to American high school education involving radical approaches to learning and student-teacher collaboration.

“Sizer was one of the first major prominent educators to advocate for educational reform,” Gregorian said, adding it was “an act of war” against mediocre and inadequate American education.

Invigorated by the enthusiasm for reform that Sizer was generating, Gregorian said he turned to his friend when the billionaire publisher Walter Annenberg asked Gregorian for advice about an unprecedented national gift he was considering to support school reform.

“I always consulted Sizer,” Gregorian said. “We were very good personal friends.”

Annenberg Institute In 1993, an anonymous donor gave $5 million to the University to start an institute dedicated to school reform.

Several months later, the institute received a $50 million gift from the Annenberg Challenge grant — the largest gift to the University at the time — to further develop the center.

Gregorian appointed Sizer the first director, a decision Gregorian said was meant “to highlight the importance of educational reform.”

“Democracy depends upon devoted and informed citizens,” Sizer wrote in a statement after the University received the gift. “The secure future of a decent America depends upon schools which prepare such citizens.”

The Annenberg Institute has contributed to initiatives involving arts and rural education and helped provide a platform for creating “strong partnerships” and “design principles” to improve the quality of education, said Warren Simmons, the executive director of the Annenberg Institute, located on Benefit Street. The Institute also houses many of the archived files from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, including a correspondence between Annenberg and Gregorian and letters addressed to Sizer.

“Ted has left a powerful legacy that has really fueled the work and innovation for education reform,” Simmons said, adding that Sizer “was a powerful force locally and nationally.”

“He wasn’t the kind of leader who said ‘follow me.’ He was the kind of leader who brought people together,” Simmons said.

Sweeping reforms In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report on American education called “A Nation at Risk.” The report decried the failure of American institutions

sudoku

to uphold national standards in commerce, industry, science and education and stressed the “rising tide of mediocrity” threatening the future of educational prominence. In response, Sizer founded Essential Schools, a movement based on a model for American high schools outlined in his 1984 book “Horace’s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School.”

“Ted wanted change to come from the schools within the schools,” said Luther Spoehr, a senior lecturer in the Department of Education. “The distinct feature of Ted’s approach is the confidence he has with people at the grassroots.”

Sizer emphasized the concept of a student as a worker in charge of his own education, with teachers acting as coaches, Spoehr said, adding that Sizer was “taking on the given, conventional models of conventional schools.” Sizer also advocated smaller classes, Spoehr said, along with helping “kids who fall through the cracks.”

But Spoehr said Sizer never alienated people who did not agree with his proposed reforms.

“He would stand his ground in a way that invited further conversation,” Spoehr said. “Ted was an old-fashioned Ivy-League liberal with a real sense of duty to society.”

Despite Sizer’s continued efforts — he worked for the Coalition even after he retired from Brown in 1996 — Spoehr said the nation’s educational system is still focused on “top-down” accountability — a structure augmented by the No Child Left Behind Act introduced in 2001 by President George W. Bush.

The act emphasizes standardized test scores and the “factory-model school” rather than following Sizer’s approach toward student-centered learning for learning’s sake, Spoehr said.

“We haven’t gotten the traction we hoped for,” said Lewis Cohen, executive director of the Coalition of Essential Schools. “We have got a ways to go.”

Even if Sizer’s reforms haven’t taken hold, Cohen said Sizer changed the national conversation about schooling.

“He really got everyone thinking about the difference between thinking and learning,” Cohen said. “This man was a giant.”

higher ed news round-up by ellen cushing and sarah husk

|senior staff writers

Anti-cross-dressing policy draws criticism at Morehouse Morehouse College — a small, all-male, historically black school outside Atlanta — has faced controversy in recent weeks after administrators implemented a student dress code that bans cross-dressing. Some students and critics outside the college say the policy unfairly targets queer students.

In addition to “clothing normally associated with women’s garb,” the code — which was adopted earlier this month and can result in academic suspension if violated — also bans caps, do-rags and sunglasses in class, as well as pajamas and clothing with “derogatory, offensive and/or lewd messages.”

William Bynum, Morehouse’s vice president for student services, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the new policy is an attempt to “get back to the legacy” of the college’s founders.

Students have generally responded positively to the new rules, Bynum told Inside Higher Ed. The ban on women’s clothing in particular has garnered controversy both on and off campus, according to various reports.

Though the school’s administration met with campus gay groups prior to unveiling the dress code, and many students — gay and straight — have voiced support for the policy, some have criticized Morehouse for what they argue is an unfair attack on queer students.

“I think this borders on discrimination,” Kevin Webb, co-president of Safe Space at Morehouse, a gay-straight student alliance, told Inside Higher Ed. Bynum told CNN that the policy was aimed at the small portion of the school’s students who do wear women’s clothing.

“We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men,” Bynum said.

Brandeis puts museum sale on hold, facing suit Facing a lawsuit from several benefactors of the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University has agreed to temporarily halt plans to sell the museum’s art collection pending its resolution, the Boston Globe reported earlier this month.

Brandeis drew protests in January with an announcement that it would close the Rose and auction off the museum’s contents, citing a need to ameliorate the university’s budget crisis.

The lawsuit was filed in July by three members of the Rose’s board of overseers — one of whom is a member of the Rose family, whose donations established the Rose Museum.

The plaintiffs contest the legality of the university’s actions and have argued that donations of art to Brandeis are made with the assurance that they will remain in the Rose’s collection permanently, the New York Times reported in July.

After rejecting Brandeis’ request to dismiss the lawsuit, a Massachusetts court sanctioned the Attorney General’s office to examine whether the university’s actions constitute a breach of intentions and has scheduled a trial for next year.

The judge did not issue an official injunction, which would prohibit the university from selling any of its art collection, but Brandeis has agreed to allow the Attorney General to review any future decisions to sell donated pieces, the Globe reported.

The museum’s modern and contemporary art collection — the largest in New England — contains over 7,000 pieces of art, including a number of works by well-known artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns, and is worth an estimated $350 million, according to the Globe.

Brown tops Ivies in Fulbright scholars with 29 continued from page 1

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her teaching experiences.

She said when she decided to apply for the program the summer before her senior year, Dunleavy office was “really great” in helping her prepare her application.

Dunleavy said the application process starts in the spring when Brown holds a “Fulbright fair,” in which alumni who have recently returned from the program speak to students about their experiences abroad. In the following weeks, Dunleavy said she also offers examples of successful Fulbright applications and begins to meet with potential applicants.

“I talk with students about their ideas with projects and kind of brainstorm with them,” she said.

When students return to Brown

the following fall, graduate students at the Writing Center help students with their personal statements and project proposals. Kaufman said he was especially appreciative of this aspect of the University’s fellowship advising as he submitted 27 drafts of his personal statement to the center.

At Brown, students are asked to submit their applications a month before the mid-October deadline to allow Brown’s Fulbright Committee to assess each application. The committee then interviews applicants and offers them feedback before sending the applications on to the Fulbright Program.

The University submitted earlier this month 96 applications for next year’s program, according to a Brown press release.

Dunleavy said she encourages students considering the Fulbright pro-

gram to “start early and really look into the program and specific country.”

Kaufman said he believes his years at the University prepared him for the Fulbright Program, adding that while many American students may be hesitant about going abroad and living on their own in another country, Brown students have learned “to be self-reliant.”

Dunleavy agreed that there is something about Brown students that made them especially successful in the Fulbright program.

“I think our students are self-starters and independent learners and risk takers,” Dunleavy said. “Our students are quirky enough that they feel like they don’t always need to go on to the next step (immediately).”

“It’s a perfect match for Brown’s approach to education,” she said.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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“Over the last two years we’ve probably recovered five laptops.”

— Mark Porter, chief of police and director of public safety

Rash of thefts over Fall Weekend snares laptops, projector and a bike The following summary includes all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Oct. 8 and Oct. 12. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents oc-

CRIME LOG curring of f campus. DPS does not divulge information on cases that are currently under investigation by the department, PPD or the Office of Student Life. DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters, located at 75 Charlesfield St. Oct. 8 12:29 p.m. Media Ser vices employees reported that a pair of speakers were stolen from a classroom in Barus and Holley sometime between 10 p.m. on Oct. 6 and 10 p.m. on Oct. 7. The speakers were bolted to a bracket on the wall in the room.

Oct. 9 10:05 a.m. An employee reported that a data projector was stolen from a classroom in Alumnae Hall.

Video and alarm wires were found hanging from the ceiling where the projector was mounted. The

reporting person stated that the missing projector was last checked

by Media Ser vices on the week of Sept. 4. Nothing else was reported stolen or damaged and there were no signs of forced entr y.

9:08 p.m. A student stated that he left his room in Andrews Hall at 8:30 p.m. When he returned at 9:07 p.m. his laptop had been stolen.

He originally told the officers the door was locked when he returned, then later said it was ajar. Officers inspected the door and found no visible signs of forced entr y, yet the student said he was positive he left his door locked.

11:40 p.m. Student stated that at approximately 11:35 p.m. she was in her room alone and left for about five minutes to go to the restroom. Upon leaving, she left the door unlocked and slightly open.

She stated that when she returned she noticed that her laptop and her roommate’s laptop were missing from their desks. She stated that she checked her room and found nothing else missing.

from the restroom he noticed that their laptops were missing, along with a set of headphones.

2:27 a.m. A student reported that sometime between 12:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. an unknown person entered her unlocked room in Wayland House and removed her laptop from her bed. Her roommate was sleeping in the room during this time period but did not see or hear anything.

10:59 p.m. A student stated that at approximately 10:30 p.m. she was headed downstairs to cook when an unknown subject entered the building. She let the subject in as he stated that he had lost his swipe card. She asked the unknown subject where he lived and he stated “three.” She continued heading downstairs and the unknown subject ran upstairs.

Approximately 30 minutes later she and her roommate returned to their room and noticed that a laptop, iPhone and debit cards were missing. The door to the room was left unlocked and open.

Oct. 11 1:46 a.m. A student stated that at approximately 1:30 a.m. he left his dorm room in Everett House and went to the restroom nearest to the room. His roommate then left the room to visit a friend and left the room open. When he returned

Oct. 12 11:06 a.m. Student stated that she locked her bike to the bike rack outside the Sharpe Refector y with a U-lock on Oct. 1 at 6:30 p.m.

On Oct. 8 at 9:30 a.m., when she returned to the bike rack to get her bike, it was not there.

Open doors invite laptop thefts continued from page 1 were taken from unlocked rooms.

“That’s why we’re always urging students to lock their doors.”

The Department of Public Safety originally sent out a campus-wide notification the Friday following Fall Weekend, indicating that an unspecified number of laptops had been stolen from six different residence halls.

Emily Doyle ’13, one of the victims of the recent laptop thefts, said she returned to her room after a night out to find her laptop missing.

Her roommate had returned earlier in the night and gone to sleep without locking the door. Both Doyle’s roommate and other residents on her hall reported that one or more males had entered their rooms that night but left immediately after opening the door, she said.

DPS arrived at Doyle’s room after

she reported the theft and told her that reports of theft were rare in her dormitory, North Wayland House, Doyle said. She told the officers she had bought antitheft software but it had not been installed on the laptop at the time it was stolen.

“There’s no way that you’re going to get it back,” Doyle recalled being told by one of the officers.

DPS is continuing to investigate the thefts, but such cases are rarely solved, Porter said. “Over the last two years we’ve probably recovered five laptops,” he said.

Porter recommended that students have their laptops engraved — making them physically identifiable — and purchase antitheft tracking software.

In its community notification e-mail, DPS counseled students to report suspicious individuals and to always lock their doors before going to bed.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

“I use silence more effectively and create more of an impression.”

— Tan Nguyen ’10, on the benefits of participating in a public speaking club

BioMed pieces together $138m budget Improving speech continued from page 1 medical school hopes to allocate an additional $1.2 million to financial aid, Graham said. Maintaining a strong financial aid program is a major goal of the Med School as it seeks to remain competitive with larger and higherprofile competitors, he added.

But the financial aid budget has posed a significant challenge to administrators because it is closely tied to the division’s endowment — which lost 20 percent of its value last year.

Overall payout from the BioMed endowment will fall approximately $2 million next year, Graham said.

“It’s a big problem,” Graham said.

“At a time when we’re looking to get

more competitive, we want to be able to make incremental increases in financial aid.”

But administrators are confident that endowment losses will not translate to a lower level of student support.

“It’s hard, but we’re in a good place to break even,” Graham said.

Administrators are taking a close look at staffing and efficiency levels across the division in order to identify areas where funding could be scaled back.

“That doesn’t mean it’s easy or we’re not making compromises,” said Philip Grupposo, associate dean of medicine.

Though increased research fund-

ing has offset endowment losses in the short term, many grants under federal stimulus legislation do not extend beyond two years. At that point, BioMed researchers may have to scramble to maintain revenue streams.

A $100 million gift by the late business mogul Warren Alpert to the Med School in 2007 earmarked $25 million to create an endowed fund for financial aid, but that part of the pledge is not slated to come in until 2016, Graham said.

Though Graham said this will “no doubt” help with financial aid, “the key question is with the growth in student body — does the endowment fully take care of the need?”

skills, one ‘um’ at a time continued from page 1

of the young men who frequented the Y would benefit from training in speech. At the time, a “toastmaster” was the person who proposed toasts and introduced speakers at parties and banquets, so Smedley chose it as the organization’s name.

Anyone over the age of 18 is welcome to join Toastmasters groups, which are based in universities, companies and local communities, and the nonprofit organization now has almost 250,000 members worldwide. It includes among its successful alums governors, astronauts and an Olympic gold medalist. Especially well-known former Toastmasters include Chris Matthews, Leonard Nimoy, Debbie Fields and Tim Allen.

Before each meeting, all of the club’s members receive an agenda — with activities scheduled down to the minute — outlining the evening’s events.

Each Brown Noise meeting starts the same way: From 8 p.m. to 8:04, the Toastmaster of the evening, who acts as an emcee, welcomes the club’s members and outlines the night’s activities. Last Wednesday, Nguyen acted as the club’s Toastmaster and introduced the evening’s theme: childhood.

“Fellow Toastmasters, great to see you all back,” Nguyen said at last week’s meeting. “I always like to start with a quote, a really inspiring quote I like. This quote is actually from Tom Robbins. He said, ‘It’s never too late to enjoy childhood.’”

After Nguyen’s introduction, a few members launched into speeches — some prepared, some unrehearsed — about their pasts.

In the first type, “you actually have time to think about your topic, to think about how you want to deliver it, and then you deliver it in four to six or five to seven minutes,” Nguyen said. In “impromptu speech, or Table Topics … a Table Topic master will give you a topic. Then you will have one to two minutes to hold your own stage.”

At the end of every meeting, speakers receive feedback on their speeches from other Toastmasters.

They also learn how many times they used filler words such as “um” or “ah” during the course of the night from the “Wizard of Ah’s” — a Toastmaster who keeps track of extraneous words during each person’s speech.

“Before I joined this, I didn’t talk much, and when I heard people say, ‘Um,’ I thought, I’m not one of those people that use filler words,” said Mandana Ali ’13, last week’s Wizard of Ah’s. “But now that I’ve joined this, and now that I do talk more, I do use filler words. And this should really help me to not use them myself.”

The night’s speakers included Taylor Daily ’13, who delivered a speech about the role Toastmasters has played in his life up to this point — while Daily was growing up, his father was elected president of Toastmasters International.

Though Daily recalls being a bored child suffering through Toastmaster conventions and stuffing en-

velopes for hours to aid in his father’s presidential campaign, he said he couldn’t help but attend the group’s first meeting after he read about it in Morning Mail.

“I thought if that many people direct their energy to an organization with that much enthusiasm, there has to be something good about it,” Daily said.

The Toastmasters didn’t get their start on College Hill until early last academic year, according to Megan Lemmerman ’12, the Noise’s vice president of education. Jimmy Tasso ’09 and Jeff Wardyga ’08 decided to start a chapter at Brown after they completed a summer internship at the defense contractor Raytheon, where they participated in the company’s Toastmaster club.

“I brought Toastmasters to Brown because we had realized the benefits of the program when we were interns at Raytheon,” Wardyga said.

“Whether it’s speaking with your family or speaking with a co-worker or at a meeting or in front of hundreds of people, our oral communication skills are very important.”

Only about seven students showed up to the first few meetings of the Brown Noise, which borrows its name from a South Park episode about flatulence, said Alec Brownridge ’12, the group’s secretary. It wasn’t until the spring that the club drew enough members to be recognized as an official organization by the Undergraduate Council of Students.

Though the club doesn’t have any faculty advisers, it does have two adult mentors: Barry Bainton ’63 and Tom Nyzio, both members of community Toastmaster clubs.

“As mentors, we don’t get in the way of what they do,” Nyzio said. “We just attend the meetings and help out as necessary.”

Right now, one of the Noise’s main goals is to attract new members in order to maintain its official status at the University, Lemmerman said.

Club officers also would like to balance the male-female ratio, which is heavily skewed at the moment — only a handful of Brown’s Toastmasters are female.

Several of the club’s members said they have noticed a marked improvement in their oral communication skills since joining the Brown Noise.

“I’ve been doing interviews for jobs since I came to Brown, and I’m so much more confident now,” Nguyen said. “I use silence more effectively and create more of an impression on interviewers.”

Many involved in the organization believe Toastmaster clubs provide an especially valuable opportunity for college students to improve the skills they’ll need to land a job after graduation.

“The people in these clubs are about to enter the workforce,” said Paul Sterman, an associate editor for Toastmaster Magazine. “And I think when they learn leadership and communication skills, it really gives them a head start in the real world as well as in their studies.”

Metro The Brown Daily Herald

New program aims to shelter abused elders

By Nicole Boucher Contributing Writer

Rhode Island’s first program for elderly abuse victims was launched last week by the Saint Elizabeth Community, an elder care organization.

The program, known as the Saint Elizabeth Haven, will utilize the community’s existing nursing homes and apartment complexes in East Greenwich, Providence and Bristol to house elderly individuals in need of immediate services, said Mary Rossetti, the director of community outreach for the organization.

“It’s not a facility in itself, it’s a program,” Rossetti said.

In order to be considered for placement in the transitional, 30day program, an individual must be over 60, a victim of abuse and willing to leave home, she said.

Residents must also be referred to the haven by a partner agency, such as the Rhode Island Department of Elderly Affairs.

The referring agency remains involved throughout the victim’s stay, Rossetti said.

“The day they come into the safe haven, we are working to resolve the issue,” whether it be physical, financial or emotional abuse, she added.

The Saint Elizabeth Haven “adds a level of credibility to the

whole protective ser vice work that we are doing on behalf of older people,” said Corinne Russo, director of the Rhode Island Department of Elderly Affairs, one of the agencies collaborating with the organization.

The Saint Elizabeth Community modeled the program after the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Center for Elder Abuse Prevention in Riverdale, N.Y. Saint Elizabeth Community Chief Executive Officer Stephen Horowitz attended a national conference in which he heard about the innovative center and brought the concept back to Rhode Island, Rossetti said.

Horowitz then contacted several local agencies, including the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Department of Elderly Affairs, which verified the need for greater support for the state’s elderly abuse victims, Rossetti said.

“This becomes a greater need as our population grows” and the economy worsens, Russo said.

Rossetti said the Saint Elizabeth Haven fills the gap left by general safe havens that do not provide elder-specific support, such as handicap accessibility.

The program is just “one little, tiny piece of the puzzle,” in ensuring safety for the elderly, Rossetti said.

“If you build a wind turbine, what’s next? ... A cell phone tower?”

— Rupert Friday, director, Rhode Island Land Trust Council Tuesday, October 27, 2009 | Page 5

Groups challenge local wind project

By Thomas Jarus Contributing Writer

Six local environmental groups have voiced concerns about a plan to construct a wind turbine at Black Point, a coastal site in Narragansett that is protected for public use.

The organizations last week sent a letter to Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65, questioning the site’s suitability.

According to a press release from the letter’s signatories, then-Gov. Edward DiPrete protected Black Point in 1987 to “prevent a condominium development on important land with recognized rights of public access to the shore.”

The potential construction at the site is part of a renewable energy project that began earlier this year. In February, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, the office in charge of evaluating the Black Point site, was allowed to begin seeking proposals from energy companies to build wind turbines on state-owned land.

According to W. Michael Sullivan, director of the DEM, “Black Point is not separable from the four other sites being evaluated.”

This process is “a joint effort” between the department and Narragansett to assess the potential of five different potential sites in the town.

The words “ ‘assess’ and ‘potential’ have been overlooked in (the environmental groups’) press release,” Sullivan said.

No final decisions have been made

about placement of the turbines, he said.

But the six groups that united to draft the letter to Carcieri take issue with both the potential use of Black Point as a wind turbine site and the lack of transparency and dialogue in the decision-making process.

“We’re asking the government to consider a process whereby the state develops a policy and a set of criteria which would govern how conserved land would be used,” said Jonathan Stone, executive director of Save the Bay, a group dedicated to protecting Narragansett Bay. The organizations worry that placing a wind turbine at Black Point would set a dangerous precedent, said Rupert Friday, director of the Rhode Island Land Trust Council.

“If you build a wind turbine, what’s next?” Friday said. “A cell phone tower?”

Paul Beaudette, president of the Environmental Council of Rhode Island, agreed. “This piece of property was critical enough for the state to condemn it and purchase it,” Beaudette said. “We’re not in opposition to windmills ... We’re just saying that Black Point is not the best choice.”

The Department of Environmental Management is factoring these

concerns into its assessment, Sullivan said.

“Two of the three signatories on the letter were invited to sit on the assessment team and said that they were too busy,” he added. “We’ve invited people to the table.”

The department has surveyed a substantial portion of the Narragansett community about renewable wind energy and the proposed sites, Sullivan said. The surveys found that about 75 percent of residents favored the plans.

“Our conclusion at this point in time is the public has a different perspective,” Sullivan said.

“What (the environmental management department) is being assaulted for is trying to walk the walk,” he added. “There’s no decision yet.”

But the problem perceived by the groups that wrote the letter is larger than the establishment of a few wind turbines, their leaders said.

“We certainly appreciate the efforts of the (department) to develop renewable wind (and) renewable resources,” Stone said. “We think it’s a very admirable intent that the state is pursuing, but it doesn’t give the state a free pass to develop wherever they please.”

Thanks for redding.

Er, reading.

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 6 | Tuesday, October 27, 2009

l e t t e r to t h e e d i to r

Think before you eat To the Editor: In Fatima Aqeel’s ’12 recent article (“For the love of animals, and of meat,” Oct. 15), there were some nuanced insights made about differing views on animal rights, and for that the members of the Brown Animal Rights Club are grateful. There were also some insinuations about BARC which are not accurate.

Aqeel writes, rather indignantly, that “it should be okay if I turn up to a BARC meeting and eat a chicken patty, as long as I am helping the organization in another big way.”

And indeed, it is. As an omnivorous member of BARC, I would like to testify to the fact that BARC is not about reprimanding omnivores or tr ying to proselytize the saving grace of veganism.

It is about equipping members of the Brown community with the knowledge they need to formulate their own conscious views about meat and to alter their lifestyles accordingly.

Aqeel’s sentiment that meat “tastes rather nice” is a common one, and certainly a relevant factor in developing any conscious diet.

But it is only one piece of the puzzle.

In order to arrive at any kind of legitimate decision, one needs to

be informed about multiple, diverse facets of an issue.

BARC was founded because too many people weren’t making any intentional decisions at all about their diets. Rather, they were doing what they had always done without pausing to reflect on the mammoth impact that their dietary choices had on other members of the community: namely, the “meals” themselves.

There is an unacceptable amount of cruelty inherent in the factoryfarmed production of animal products, and Aqeel is correct to point to the philosophically uncontroversial goal of reducing unnecessary suffering.

It is this suffering which we intend to bring to the forefront of the discussion: with almost every chicken product you buy, you become a financial backer of torture.

If you find this acceptable, then it’s your dollar to use as you wish.

What BARC finds unacceptable, and hopes to eliminate, however, is the spending of this dollar without realizing the implications of the purchase.

Allegra Pincus ’11 Oct. 22

Keep ’em comin’. letters@browndailyherald.com

t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d Editor-in-Chief Steve DeLucia

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ale x yuly

e d i to r i a l

The sauce Brown’s athletics department recently partnered with an outside company, Nelligan Sports Marketing, to increase advertising sales and sponsorships. The company has done well for us so far, bringing in corporate sponsorships from Dunkin’ Donuts, AT&T, Domino’s Pizza and Taco Bell. Sponsorship funding for the year has already surpassed the previous fiscal year’s total. These early successes are encouraging, and will hopefully mark the beginning of a profitable partnership (the University has not yet broken even on the five-year deal).

We were somewhat perplexed, however, by the University’s criteria for sponsors. In an inter view with The Herald, Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger said Brown would never partner with alcohol or gambling companies. The restriction on gambling makes sense, given the University’s interest in discouraging betting on sports games. We urge the University to reconsider its stance on sponsorship deals with alcohol vendors.

The University’s refusal to consider alcohol companies as potential sponsors is misguided for several reasons. First, the policy is hypocritical given the background of Brown’s largest benefactor. Sidney Frank, who contributed over $120 million to the University, made a fortune as a liquor tycoon selling Jagermeister and Grey Goose. The University, and the Office of Financial Aid in particular, benefited tremendously from his largesse.

There is much less money at stake with

corporate sponsorships, but the same principle applies: Brown should not turn down free revenue, even if it comes from alcohol sales. Alcohol is not obviously worse than the products sold by Brown’s other sponsors.

From a health perspective, the obesity caused in part by companies like Dunkin’ Donuts, Domino’s and Taco Bell, is as problematic as alcohol consumption.

We understand that the University may want to discourage underage drinking, but we believe that a ban on alcohol sponsorship is the wrong way to address that concern. In the event of a sponsorship, drinks would still not be sold at sporting events. This makes it all the more unlikely that increased advertising for alcohol would increase student demand for alcohol. At worst, it might help them choose between brands. The University could take a more prudent approach by encouraging moderation. All advertising for alcoholic beverages at Brown events could, for example, carr y warnings to drink responsibly.

The University should make ever y reasonable effort to increase its funding base, even if that involves resorting to untraditional means. In flusher times, the University could be pickier about its athletic sponsors. In the midst of the Great Recession, this is a luxury it can no longer afford.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 | Page 7

A sense of humor no one likes

BY BRIAN JUDGE Opinions Columnist So in case you pizza-eating, Mac-using, lecturegoing bourgeois rabble haven’t heard, there is this really funny blog/book called “Stuff White People Like.” The premise of it is that if some clever guy in horn-rimmed glasses can describe things you like as being cliche, then you aren’t a unique snowflake after all. How many of you like dogs? What about Netflix?

Mos Def? Shorts?

Gotcha, I’m afraid. I just put you in a box.

And if there is one thing that white people hate, it’s being put in boxes. But if there is one thing that white people love, it’s self-loathing.

Let’s see how the shoe fits on the other foot. I hereby present for the consumption of all hypocrites, capitalist/chauvinist pigs, etc.: Stuff that Brown students who write “Stuff that Brown Students Like” like: 1. Being witty: Let’s be honest, who doesn’t like feeling smart? I’m looking at you, Mr. “Leather Attache.”

2. Dramatic monologue: Let us go then, you and I, Mr. Leather Attache, to our mystical land of gratuitous cliches. We can go to the Modern Culture and Media meadow and visit the brook of Hysterical Realism, or go to the Gender Studies grove and take a bite of the apple of hegemony.

3. Allusion: Honey, I shrunk the student body’s dignity!

4. Hedy Lamarr: Because who doesn’t think that “(their) mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives?” I know “my mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of intention.”

5. Hating hipsters: The surest symptom of hipsterdom is a hatred for all things hipster.

Does being counter-counterculture make you cultured? I didn’t think so either.

actually substantive.

So I will try to be substantive. Socrates said, “It would be better for me to have a lyre or a chorus which I was directing in discord and out of tune, better that the mass of mankind should disagree with me and contradict me, than that I, a single individual, should be out of harmony with myself and contradict myself.”

In other words, it’s better to be unpopular than ironic and sarcastic. So in this spirit, I will try to revise the original list of Stuff Brown

I hereby present for the consumption of all hypocrites, capitalist/chauvinist pigs, etc.: Stuff that Brown students who write “Stuff that Brown Students Like” like.

I think you get the idea. Petty and stupid, right? Right. Or maybe left. Like left wing.

Like Brown students. Derp.

Can it be cool to be earnest again? Pretty please? Irony and sarcasm as the only authentic way of being spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Ironic, right? See, you would have expected irony to be spelled I-R-O-N-Y. This is the mess we’re in.

So far in this column I have tried to be ironic about being ironic. Unfortunately, being ironic about being ironic is just annoying, and not

Students Like.

Macs: Because spending a couple hundred dollars more on a better, more reliable computer that you will use for 90 percent of your school work is a sensible economic decision.

Oatmeal: Breakfast food in the Ratty is not very good and you can’t screw up oatmeal.

Saying you’ll go to lectures: Most people are interested in learning, but also have a lot going on.

Ruth Simmons: It is nicer to think that the president of Brown is competent and trustworthy than thinking the man is out to get you, but saying that outright would be uncool.

Saying you’ll explore Providence: You recognize that Brown is a bubble of privileged kids, but it is easier not to think about that fact all the time.

Being disappointed with President Obama: Most Brown students had some kind of investment in getting him elected and are disappointed that more progress toward his campaign promises haven’t been made.

Celebrity children: It is a weird, slightly reassuring feeling that the most recognizable people on the planet are actually real people with kids and are not just very convincing CGI animations.

Let’s try to speak honestly, simply and sincerely in an effort to prevent ourselves from talking about everything sarcastically and denigrating everything we actually value in the process.

Oh, real clever, guy. It’s oh-so-original to criticize something you think is dumb, offer a plausible alternative and close with something you think is meaningful. You know who else liked dialectics? Hegel and Marx. How passe.

Like using French words. We’re living in a PoMo world now, broski. All right, I’m done.

Brian Judge ’11 hopes he didn’t offend anyone, he was just trying to make a point.

Undergraduate Central Planning Board

BY WILL WRAY Opinions Columnist Clerestory, Issues, Jug, VISIONS, Ziggurat, Catalyst, Journal of World Affairs, Watershed, Contemporar y, Awaaz, African Sun, the Round.

Can you identify more than a few of these student published magazines? You should be able to: You are paying for them.

Ever y year, $170 of your tuition goes towards a “student activities fee.” Many of you won’t see a dime of this money, except in the form of a friend recounting his allexpenses-paid trip to a debate tournament in Thailand, or, as with the above examples, as a glossy literar y arts compilation that entertains you for the 30-foot walk from where you picked up the magazine to the nearest recycling bin.

The million dollars of student activities fees is allocated by the Undergraduate Finance Board, a 12-person council (elected by only a fraction of Brown students) whose blandly bureaucratic name conceals a more controversial purpose: spending your money better than you can. Every week, according to an unpublished policy manual, UFB distributes the student activities fund to groups that present funding requests.

The most obvious problem with this system is that it leads to concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. Many groups receive disproportionate funding for a small group of students. How many students do you know

on the Brown Ballroom Dance team? You should ask them for a thank-you note: Every year, UFB dishes out more than 1 percent of the student activities fund for them to buy costumes, travel to colleges across the countr y for competitions and hire a coach at the cost of more than $8,000 a year to us students.

VISIONS, an Asian literar y arts magazine, doesn’t even bother with the facade of ser ving the entire Brown community: They deliver their magazines directly into the mailboxes of Asian students.

I am not suggesting that we shouldn’t

three groups, then allocate $170 as he or she sees fit. There would not be less money going to student groups; it would simply be more fairly distributed.

I can already imagine the protests from the small but vocal minority of students who receive more than $170 from the student activities fund, from obscure groups and redundant publications insisting that their vital contributions to the community would be eliminated in such a system. “Common good!” would be their rallying cr y.

Is the “common good” invisible? If a group could not find anyone to fund its ini-

Here’s how it could work: At the end of each school year, every student would log into his or her account, see a list of category three groups, then allocate $170 as he or she sees fit. have 17 literar y arts magazines, or that the ballroom dancing team is useless. I cannot tell which group best serves Brown students or boosts our reputation any better than UFB can. All I suggest is that no student group has the right to spend your money unless you give it to them. We could ensure that the greatest number of Brown students is best served by distributing our own student activities fee.

Here’s how it could work: At the end of each school year, ever y student would log into his or her account, see a list of category

tiative voluntarily, then why should it be entitled to take money involuntarily? If we distributed our own student activities fee, the only way to get more funding would be to have more students active and involved in the group, to come up with a better product and to have more people on campus recognize the group’s impact.

This would not signal the death of culture at Brown. Many students who do not write for the Brown Noser would fund it out of appreciation for its laughs; I am not a Janus Forum member but would support it for the

intellectual diversity and interesting conversations it engenders on campus. Admittedly, we may see fewer taekwondo club members dropping hundreds of your dollars on plane tickets to national competitions.

There is little to no accountability in how groups are allowed to spend UFB-allocated money and plenty of incentives to engage in creative accounting — ever wonder how your group’s parties get free alcohol? — and dip deeply and frequently into the common funds.

If we eliminate UFB, we eliminate the tendency of groups to request unnecessar y funding. Each group would be limited to the amount it was allotted by members and appreciative Brown students, and group funds would be spent as wisely and responsibly as possible in order to ensure continued funding the following year.

The principle underlying UFB is that 12 undergraduates and an unpublished policy manual have the “common sense” to fund the right groups at the right time for the right reasons. Is there such a thing as “common sense” at Brown?

To those aggrieved UFB members who are undoubtedly fond of their positions as central planners, I apologize. If your hobby is spending other people’s money in the way that you deem best, with no other reference for the community’s value or investment returns than your own opinion, then may I suggest a run for Congress?

Will Wray ’10 is going to allot all $170 to Brown Ballroom Dancing. Sorry.

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Protecting R.I.’s elderly

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

when is a door not a door ?

Page 8

o c to b e r s k y

1 c a l e n da r Today, OCTOBER 27

tomorrow, october 28

6:15 p.m. — Internships in Journalism with Prof. Tracy Breton, MacMillan 115

12 P.M. — Panel Discussion: “EU Enlargement and European Identity” Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute

7 p.m. — Prof. Wendy Schiller: “Women in Male-Dominated Fields,” List 120

7:30 p.m. — “Bet You Didn’t Know...

Female Health in College,” Arnold Lounge

menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Fried Clam Strips on a Bun with Tartar Sauce, Quinoa and Veggies, Asparagus Spears

Lunch — Buffalo Chicken Wings with Bleu Cheese Dressing, Cauliflower Au Gratin, Coconut Crescent Cookies

Dinner — Vegetable Frittata, Marinated Beef, Pound Cake with Strawberries and Cream

Dinner — Chicken Helene, Curried Couscous, Noodles Alfredo, Chocolate Oatmeal Squares

crossword

Kim Perley / Herald

comics Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

Hippomaniac | Mat Becker