Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxlv, no. 14 | Monday, February 15, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Death devastates community D A N C in g T H E N I G H T A W AY
Schaefer ’13 left his mark Charges filed By Brian Mastroianni Features Editor
Soldier, student, leader — these are some of the words that define the life of Avi Schaefer ’13. The son of Rabbi Arthur GrossSchaefer and Laurie Gross-Schaefer, of Santa Barbara, Calif., Schaefer and his twin brother, Yoav, served in the Israeli Defense Forces. After three years of service, Schaefer came to Brown, where he planned to pursue concentrations in international relations and Middle Eastern studies. Before coming to Brown and while on campus, Schaefer was dedicated to promoting peace and understanding in the Middle East. A leader among his peers, Schaefer had a vision for the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations, a vision embodied in his academic work and participation in College Hill’s Jewish community. “Avi didn’t wait. He knew that Brown would go by quickly,” said University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson. “I just love the fact that even in the short time he was with us, how much of an impact he made.” A promising peacemaker For Sami Jarbawi ’12, Schaefer was an unexpected friend. Schaefer allowed Jarbawi, a Palestinian student who grew up in the West Bank, “to break so many cultural constraints,” he said. “He was a catalyst — now he’s gone.” Jarbawi met Schaefer early last
fall on less-than-friendly terms. The two both attended the year’s first meeting of Common Ground, an organization for students to discuss the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At that first meeting, Jarbawi got into an argument with Schaefer. Though the two saw one another at the group’s subsequent meetings, they did not become friendly until Jarbawi was a teaching assistant for an introductory Arabic course that Schaefer took. “One day he came up to me and said, ‘Sami, I want to have coffee with you.’ That was the beginning point,” Jarbawi said. Their friendship grew when Professor of Judaic Studies David Jacobson invited the pair to his office, Jarbawi said. Jacobson was interested in pursuing an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award with the two students that would examine narratives from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “There’s just a uniqueness about having an Israeli and a Palestinian citizen working together — they come from two groups that have a problematic relationship,” Jacobson said. “I was delighted that the two of them had this open mind, and they really became friends,” he said. “It was quite a thing to see.” Though it has yet to be approved, both Jarbawi and Jacobson want to continue the project continued on page 5
against driver after crash By Sydney Ember News Editor
Avi Schaefer ’13 was struck and killed by a vehicle at approximately 1:40 a.m. Friday at the intersection of Thayer and Hope streets, according to Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations Marisa Quinn. The driver of the vehicle, Daniel Gilcreast, was charged Friday with driving under the influence, death resulting and driving under the influence, serious bodily injury resulting, according to a press release from the Rhode Island Attorney General’s press office. Quinn said there were two other students walking with Schaefer at the time, one of whom was also struck by the vehicle. Marika Baltscheffsky ’13 suffered injuries during the continued on page 5
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
Assistant Professor of Sociology Nancy Luke and Daniel Hackney ’12 jive away at “Dancing With the Profs.” See page 6.
SAO Director O’Hara ’55 to take early retirement By Goda Thangada Senior Staff Writer
Phil O’Hara ’55, director of student activities, is one of over 100 experienced staff members who have decided to accept early retirement packages offered by the
University. Active at Brown during four different decades, O’Hara received an excellence award on Feb. 5 at Brown Employee Appreciation and Recognition Day. O’Hara said he was planning to retire in 2011, but decided to
inside
The Organizational Review Committee, a body created last spring to seek $14 million in savings for the fiscal year beginning in July 2010, issued a report earlier this month that included recommendations to discontinue overnight inpatient care at Health Services. Members of the ORC’s Student Services team, which made the recommendation, said students will not lose access to any important medical aid if the measure is approved by the Corporation — the University’s top governing body — at its meeting later this month. The Student Services team was charged with finding $500,000 in savings, either through “identifying budget reductions” or through new
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Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
The Organizational Review Committee proposed terminating overnight inpatient service during the weekdays.
sources of revenue, said team leader Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services.
Klawunn would not say how much money the University could save by dropping inpatient care. “It was a huge portion of our
By Alex Bell Senior Staff Writer
cuts,” said Chelsea Waite ’11, one of the student representatives on the team, though she said she did not know the exact figure. According to Klawunn, the team was not allowed to raise fees, so they had to look for cuts that would not “reduce the quality of student experience,” Klawunn said. Klawunn also said an external consultant examined Health Services in 2007 and recommended that Brown close the inpatient clinic in order to save money and reduce liabilities. When students spend the night at Health Services, one nurse cares for all of the patients, none of whom are deemed ill enough to warrant treatment from a doctor, she said.
Goldman Sachs announced in a press release Thursday that President Ruth Simmons has decided not to stand for re-election to its Board of Directors at its annual shareholder meeting later this year. The date of the meeting has not yet been announced, according to a Goldman spokesperson. The release cited “increasing time requirements associated with her position as President of Brown University” as the reason for Simmons’ departure. Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations Marisa Quinn declined to comment further. According to the release, Simmons will continue to chair the advisor y board of the company’s “10,000 Women” initiative, a Goldman program that seeks to educate and empower female entrepreneurs around the world. Simmons told The Herald in an inter view earlier this month that she did not expect negative publicity about Goldman’s practices to
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ORC recommends ending overnight inpatient care By Sarah Forman Contributing Writer
Simmons leaving Goldman
Arts, 6
Sports, 8
Opinions, 11
sections to salsa Professors show of their moves in dance competition
senior day loss W. hockey drops tough losses to Cornell and Colgate
first-year blues Nida Abdulla ’11.5 says freshman year at Brown not all fun and games
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“It’s been such a great partnership” — Michael Ward, floor manager at Jo’s, on JWU and Brown
ORC proposes JWU student job cuts proposed new recreation fee By Ben Schreckinger Metro Editor
By Fei Cai Contributing Writer
In a report released Feb. 2, the athletics subcommittee of the Organizational Review Committee proposed a new $65 recreation fee that would be implemented for the 2010-11 school year and would apply to all undergraduate and medical school students. The money will go toward the Department of Athletics and the upkeep of University gyms, said Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student ser vices. “The way the committee was thinking about this was in terms of the opportunities available to all students to par ticipate in a recreational activity,” Klawunn said. “We were looking at what other schools charged, and others are charging considerably more than this.” The athletics subcommittee was one of 12 teams charged last spring with finding ways to eliminate $14 million from the University budget — and the only one that did not meet its savings goal, according to the ORC report. The subcommittee dedicated to reviewing the Department of Athletics called its current varsity program unsustainable and recommended a closer look at the program “to determine the proper size and scope” that would “provide a stronger experience
for student athletes.” In addition to reducing operating expenses and administration and staff expenditures, the team recommended increasing revenue by introducing a recreation fee for students beginning next year and annual recreation fees for faculty and staff after the new aquatics and fitness centers open in 2012. “The athletics team reviewed the depar tment, and they saw that the varsity situation was problematic,” said Sarah Rutherford ’12, the only undergraduate representative on the committee. “We have the third-largest number of varsity teams amongst our peers, with the smallest budget for staff and other things.” “But the fee is not just supposed to be a Band-Aid to cover the over-extension of varsity sports,” Rutherford said. The ORC intends to revisit the question, in hopes of coming to a more permanent decision about the athletics department. “The fee was better than a rash decision,” Rutherford said, “though we will need to make tough decisions in the future.” Despite the University’s financial situation, Klawunn confirmed there would not be any other new fees for the next school year. “We tried really hard to make sure that the student experience was not impacted,” Rutherford said.
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The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each members of the community. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2010 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
The vast majority of Johnson and Wales University students working for Brown Dining Ser vices will lose their jobs if, in its Februar y meeting, the Corporation approves a budget-cutting measure recommended by the Organizational Review Committee. The recommendation was issued by the ORC’s Auxilar y Service Units team — whose pur view includes Dining Ser vices and the Faculty Club — as par t of the ORC’s larger effort to reduce the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. If approved, the measure would close the Gate during lunch hours and reduce the Ivy Room’s midday offerings. Union workers displaced by the changes would receive shifts currently filled by JWU students. The University currently has a partnership with JWU to bring two students in the fall and two in the spring to work at Brown’s dining facilities as part of JWU’s co-op program, which requires students to take time of f from classes and work in an industr y related to their field of study. This program would not be affected by the change, but all other positions
held by JWU students would be terminated at the end of this academic year, said Michael Ward, a senior at JWU and floor manager at Josiah’s. Ward said he was “completely devastated” by the change. “I understand that financially it’s a smar t decision … but it’s been such a great partnership.” “I’ve made so many close friends at Brown,” he added. Jo’s and other dining facilities could save money by focusing on student theft, efficiency and waste, Ward said, adding that cutting jobs should be a last resor t. He predicted a “major decline in the quality of ser vice” at Jo’s. JWU students in Dining Ser vices were notified of the recommendation in a letter from Gretchen Willis, director of dining ser vices, on Feb. 4, two days after the ORC released an executive summar y of its report, Ward said. Jo’s manager Sean DeBobes informed JWU students that Dining Ser vices would tr y to find positions for them in catering, Ward said, but nothing concrete has been offered. “It was determined that these two modest changes (to Gate and Ivy Room lunch) would have the smallest impact comparatively to the closing and/or restr uctur-
ing of any other unit in Dining Ser vices,” the Auxiliar y Ser vice team — which was charged with cutting the $59.2 million combined auxiliar y ser vices budget by $1.5 million — wrote in its report. In an e-mail to The Herald, Richard Bova, senior associate dean for residential and dining ser vices and leader of the ORC’s Auxiliar y Ser vice Units team, declined to comment on the recommendation until it is reviewed by the Corporation at its meeting Feb. 25 through 27. Ward, a nutrition major with an associate’s degree in culinar y ar ts, said workplace experience in food preparation is “extremely important” for getting a job after graduation. “Anyone can have a degree,” he said. In an e-mail to The Herald, Lisa Pelosi, director of communications and media relations at JWU’s Providence campus, wrote, “We have many students who work part time and have found part-time jobs in Providence and other locations so if our students aren’t being hired by Brown, they will find employment elsewhere.” But “it’s not easy to find a job in Providence” in the restaurant industr y, Ward said.
Simmons steps down from Goldman Sachs continued from page 1 mar the University’s image. The company has received harsh criticism internationally for doling out high bonuses to its executives after receiving money from the federal bailout program. “I don’t see how it could funnel into the University,” she said of the negative publicity. “It could funnel to me, but not to the University.” During the interview, conducted a week before the announcement from Goldman, Simmons made no mention of plans to leave the company. “What I’d like my students to understand is that we all make decisions about what we are going to commit to doing,” she said. “In making that decision, and a commitment, our obligation is to do the best we can and to do it ethically, but not to be buffeted about. I try very hard to be motivated by what I see and by my own judgment, which has been honed over years of experiences like this, and to make decisions based on what I think is right, not on what somebody else thinks.” She continued: “But I am, like anybody else, very concerned not to put Brown in a difficult position. If I ever thought that my actions did, I would certainly be very concerned about that.” At the time of the interview, Simmons indicated that were she to leave Goldman’s board, she most likely would not join any other corporate boards.
“At this juncture, I sort of think I would like to devote most of my time to Brown. My guess is that if I leave boards, I’m not going to replace them,” she said. In the same interview, Simmons said she originally joined Goldman’s board in 2000, while president of Smith College, at the urging of Smith’s Board of Trustees. “I think we had a good discussion about whether or not the time allocation and the involvement with corporate boards would do anything for my position as president of Smith,” she said. “They were persuaded that it would, and so with some reluctance I acceded to that.” Simmons said she joined the board around the time Smith started a center for financial literacy on campus. She called the work she does on Goldman’s board related to women and minorities “meaningful to me in a way that probably a lot of people won’t understand.” “I think that tr ying to have an impact on the future of women and minorities in that industry — I think that’s a good thing for me to do,” Simmons said. “It is consistent with the things that I’ve tried to do generally throughout my career. I wouldn’t say that I’ve had the impact that I would have wanted, but I would say that about my presidency at Brown, too.” Simmons credited her “mental toughness about financial decisions” to her service on Goldman’s board.
When asked what is left for her to learn from Goldman’s board, Simmons responded: “I don’t know. That’s a good question. And that’s a question I’ll have to think about. Maybe I’ll learn as much as I need to learn from the experience.” “I feel very strongly that I don’t know enough as an individual — a sole individual — to make that decision alone,” she said of when to make the decision to call it quits with Goldman. “I do go back to the Corporation to have this discussion periodically.” Simmons left her position as a member of Pfizer’s Board of Directors in 2007, citing time constraints as the reason for her departure. “I left Pfizer because I wanted to have more time as president of Brown,” Simmons said in the inter view earlier this month. “But I did say to the Corporation when they invited me to come to Brown, ‘What do you think about the boards that I’m on?’ I always ask, should I continue with what I’m doing or not?” According to a 2000 inter view with Directors and Boards magazine after she accepted the Goldman position, Simmons was hesitant to join the board. “It’s a wonderful company, but I simply don’t have the time,” the magazine quoted her as initially saying to Goldman. “Besides, I have absolutely nothing to offer you.” Simmons remains a director on the board of Texas Instruments, on which she has served since 1999.
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“That’s part of the value of what Brown is.” — Justin Traxler ’90 on the helpful alumni network
Seniors donate in record numbers
By Crys Guerra Contributing Writer
Freddy Lu / Herald More snow sculptures mysteriously appear on campus.
Online network helps alums find jobs By Caitlin Trujillo Senior Staff Writer
Justin Traxler ’90 was laid off in 2008. After months of hunting for employment, Traxler secured a position with Sapient Consulting in May 2009 — thanks to the other Brown alumni he contacted during his search. The firm, which according to its Web site offers business and technology consulting, was coincidentally a client of Traxler’s previous company. He already knew some of the people at his new job, but he still credits Brown’s alumni network with helping him in his search. “I guess this whole experience taught me that — wow — I wish someone had taught me this 20 years ago,” Traxler said. Traxler is not the only alum taking advantage of Brown’s services and connections in the tough economic climate — and in the months since Traxler’s own search, the University’s Alumni Relations staff has launched more initiatives to help alums search for new jobs. In June 2009, Eve Ornstedt, the director of alumni services and career programs, and her team debuted the “Career Navigator” Web site. Thousands of alumni, from a range of graduation years, have used the site since then, she said. According to numbers provided by Ornstedt, as of last month, use of the site has more than doubled since July. The Career Navigator site has four major components: a self-assessment that lets users evaluate their work interests, personalities and skills; an industry research tool; a job board for alumni to post positions for other Brown alumni; and BRUnet, which helps users network with alumni volunteers. Ornstedt said the site also features an online seminar, which she and her colleagues are looking to extend into a series, she said. In addition to Alumni Relations’ efforts, individual alumni themselves have extended a helping hand to other Brown graduates in need of
jobs. Jay Candelmo ’99 participated in a “career week” and several sessions and panels designed to help alumni and seniors find jobs. Candelmo, who is also on the Alumni Association’s Board of Governors, said he understands the importance of networking from personal experience — he got his current job with Lincoln Financial Group in 2008 after connecting with a Brown grad from the class of 1973. “I benefited from the informal alumni network in a very tangible way,” Candelmo said. “You can be helpful with each other,” Ornstedt said. “That’s part of the value of what Brown is.” Candelmo said he was impressed with Brown’s efforts to help alumni connect and find jobs by creating the Career Navigator site, holding panels and informational sessions and promoting Web sites that facilitate networking, like LinkedIn and Facebook. When Traxler secured his new job, he also planted a seed for helping other Brown graduates looking for employment. He told his employer about Brown’s Career Navigator so they could post their own job listings to the site. Traxler also said Sapient Consulting now has a recruiter who collaborates with Brown’s Alumni Relations to help alums looking for jobs. “What better way to help my alma mater and employer at the same time?” Traxler said. In the future, Ornstedt said Alumni Relations will maintain the Career Navigator site and is considering offering counseling for alumni who have been unable to find jobs, though she noted that Alumni Relations is not staffed for one-on-one counseling. They also continue to track what job search and networking services other Ivy League schools offer to their alumni. “There’s just so much energy going on that we’re just trying to be as proactive as possible,” Ornstedt said.
Among red and black balloons, Hershey’s Kisses and mozzarella sticks, the class of 2010 held its Senior Gift Kick-Off in Sayles Hall last Friday. With special appearances by the Jabberwocks and President Ruth Simmons, the kick-off was organized by a 12-person committee headed by co-chairs Joan Wernig Sorensen ’72 and Ralph Rosenberg ’86. Every year, the kick-off aims to break the previous year’s money raising achievement and tries to “inspire giving that will become a life-long habit,” Simmons said in her address to the class. Fundraising may not follow the traditional idea of senior gift giving, but since the establishment of the Brown Annual Fund in 1914, senior gifts have taken this form. The annual fund uses challenges as a key strategy for fundraising. According to Sorensen, this year’s challenge is a dollar-per-dollar match up to $25,000, provided by an anonymous parent donor. In addition, Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76,
through the fund’s Chancellor’s Participation Challenge, has agreed to give $200,000 for every 6,500 donors up to $1 million. The money raised by the fund is “unrestricted,” Sorensen said. The Corporation, of which she is also a member, decides in advance how the money will be divided, she said. Under the current guidelines, 40 percent of what is raised goes to financial aid, 40 percent to supporting faculty and 20 percent to improving student living, Sorensen said. According to the fund’s Web site, this year’s goals are to raise $36 million — up from last year’s $35 million goal — from 32,839 donors. Another goal is for senior class participation to reach 75 percent. Although student donations may seem rare, Class Campaign Associate Stephanie Boyce, who worked at the kick-off, said that this year “there has been record participation. (Students) get it, what they donate now will help the kids in the future. There are a ton of students who stand behind the staff and help out.” Sheela Krishnan ’10 agreed, add-
ing that “participation in the class gift is important, regardless of the size. I’m not in a place to be a big donor, but making a contribution before I leave would be nice.” Other seniors said they would wait to give money. “I would love to donate to Brown, after I earn some money,” Lawrence Chan ’10 said. Donating right now would be like trying to squeeze orange juice from “the last few pieces of pulp,” he said. The importance of donations for future generations and the challenge to break last year’s records were the focus of the Senior Gift Kick-Off. “The generosity of others made your experience at Brown possible,” Simmons said. While the amount of money raised at the kick-off has not yet been announced, the mood among the organizers was optimistic. As the event ended, Christian Martell ’10, senior gift committee co-chair with Ellie Cutler ’10, noticed that “someone just made a $1,000 gift. I think that puts us up from (the kick-off event in) 2009.”
Cuts proposed to health services continued from page 1 But at the time, Brown’s finances were more stable and it was not necessary to immediately cut the program, she said. Instead, the University decided to begin reducing inpatient care, and since September the unit has been closed Monday through Thursday nights. Sarah Rutherford ’12, another member of the ORC’s student services team, said she supported eliminating the program because Health Services had reported to the committee that the reductions in inpatient care this fall had not left students without access to good health care. “The most convincing factor for me was that they’d already closed it Monday through Thursday, and they didn’t feel like that had factored in,” she said. Most people using inpatient care could just as safely spend the night in their rooms, she added. “My impression is that if Health Services were seriously concerned with a student, they would send them to the hospital anyway,” she said. The ability to stay overnight at Health Services is “a convenience service,” Waite said. “A part of me definitely realizes that the convenience of having Health Services right here with beds if you don’t want to stay in your room is really nice,” Waite said, adding that the overnight care provided
students with the assurance and supervision they might receive from parents at home. But it is “not cost-effective.” “The staff at Inpatient Services is not trained to do a lot of what people would need,” she said. “It’s a huge liability to have people staying overnight when they’re not in a hospital.” Brown’s infirmary-style overnight care is “an outmoded model,” Klawunn said. The ORC report detailed several existing alternative services — including physicians, psychotherapists and nurses on call, expanded Health Services hours on evenings and weekends and a new overnight nursing triage service — that will continue to serve students if the team’s recommendation is approved by the Corporation. Emergency Medical Services First Responder Connor Barnhart ’13 said he thought the proposed cuts might negatively impact students’ ability to seek out care and could perhaps make them more reluctant to call EMS. “Generally we only respond to E.R. emergencies, but very often we’ll forward people to Health Services if we don’t think it warrants an E.R. visit,” Barnhart said of the patients he sees through EMS. Because hospital visits are so expensive, EMS prefers not to send people to the emergency room, he said. Without Health Services available at night, he predicted more students would need to go to the hospital.
Currently, students are responsible for financing their own hospital care, which means that students on their parents’ insurance generally need to inform their parents of hospital care. Under Rhode Island law, EMS cannot bring dangerously inebriated students to Health Services, but must send them to the hospital even when University inpatient care is available, Klawunn said. But students can currently bypass EMS and instead walk their friends to Health Services on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights if they worry their friends have consumed too much alcohol, Klawunn said. Although inpatient caregivers will send students to the hospital if they need intensive treatment, under current guidelines some less-critical students are able to stay the night and avoid the cost of a hospital visit and the parental notification it usually entails, she said. Costs for hospital visits vary widely by procedure and insurance, but the Brown University Student Health Insurance Plan demands a $100 co-payment for emergency room visits, according to its Web site. There is no such cost associated with Health Services. Most colleges and universities have dropped inpatient health care services and depend mainly on area hospitals to care for students at night, Rutherford said. “All of our peers have shifted to a different model, and they did that for a reason,” she said.
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“I help students learn to fish, not just give them the fish.”
Early retirement popular choice for longtime staff After being offered an early retirement package in November, 139 longtime staff members have made the decision to retire later this year. The package was only made available to those who would be 60 years old by June 30, 2010, and had worked at Brown 10 years or longer. Beppie Huidekoper, executive vice president for administration and finance, said the University’s expectation was that those who took the package would take it “voluntarily and positively.” The package was comparable to those offered by peer institutions, Huidekoper said, adding that over 50 percent of those who were offered the package last year accepted it. “The individuals who chose to take it are really quite pleased,” Huidekoper said. She suggested that many of those who decided to retire had already paid for their children’s educations and did not have much demand on their income. The package included continued health insurance benefits if retirees were under 65.
Not all the positions vacated by early retirees can be filled because budgetary considerations played a significant part in last year’s offer of the package. At the moment, there are 100 vacant positions at the University in addition to the positions that will be vacated by retirees at the end of the year. If departments seek to fill a position, University protocol requires that they submit the request to the Organizational Review Committee, which reviews whether the position is needed and recommends how the position description can be modified. Huidekoper, who sits on the committee, added that the ORC has typically assented to requests to fill positions in the Department of Public Safety and departments that handle research funding. The ORC released a report on Feb. 2 that included $14 million in suggested cuts that President Ruth Simmons could recommend to the Corporation later this month. The group proposed that at least $1.15 million of the proposed savings come from unfilled vacancies. But the committee is not
strictly driven by budgetary concerns, she said. Vacancy reviews provide an opportunity for departments to reorganize in order to be more efficient and flexible, Huidekoper said. “We shouldn’t be static,” she said, “The work is changing and the organization has to change.” The benefits of this dynamism are mitigated by the loss of many employees who have become part of the University’s culture. “We need to ensure that we don’t lose all that knowledge when they go,” Huidekoper said. But Huidekoper said new employees are still able to adapt to the University’s environment. “I think this place acculturates quite quickly,” she said. “Most people who aren’t Brown alums wish they were.” The coming months may feature special efforts to recognize the staff who are leaving. “We want to celebrate those who want to go,” Huidekoper said. — Goda Thangada
Advising Central hosts more events By Ashley Aydin C ontributing Writer
It’s not ever y day that you can walk into the Sharpe Refector y, eat with professors and talk to them about whatever you want. But as the University continues to expand and improve its advising ef for ts, events such as these dinners provide students and faculty with a chance to interact in a more casual way than the typical advising appointment allows. Advising Central, which opened in September and is located on the second floor of J. Walter Wilson, is the central clearinghouse for these and other advising events. According to Yolanda Rome, director of co-curricular advising and tutoring programs, Advising Central is a place where students can get to know faculty, talk about future plans, connect with academic advisors and receive general advice. “Advising is an essential component in suppor ting students as they seek to make the ver y most of their experience at Brown,” Rome wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Rome wrote that the Of fice of the Dean of the College and the Of fice of Student Life aim to provide a range of entr y points and opportunities so that students can seek advising in ways that are most supportive, relevant and convenient. The Faculty Advising
Fellows program, which began putting on the lunches and dinners at the Ratty in September, is “one example of this,” she added. The Faculty Advising Fellows program invites par ticipating professors to focus lunches and dinners on the topics that are relevant to their field and interests — making for a wide range of offerings for students. Rome wrote that the program also allows for guest speakers, along with the Faculty Advising Fellows, to have a meal with students. Last year, the program included study breaks and some dinners with the Faculty Advising Fellows. However, this year Advising Central is expanding the program even more, Rome wrote. The program coordinated about 30 events last term, and has about 40 planned for this term. “We decided to expand by offering more dinners this year and adding in lunches,” Rome wrote. She explained that almost all events have been full, with a capacity of twenty students. Gregor y Elliott, professor of sociology, par ticipated in an event held Feb. 9 at the President’s Dining Room at the Ratty about sophomore concentration declarations. Elliott said the fact that faculty members speak about topics related to their field makes for a good discussion. “Faculty members are present
Monday, February 15, 2010
from all different fields. We tr y to encourage a mix for ever yone’s interests,” he said. He said many students who came to the event had impor tant concerns about their concentrations, asking questions such as “Should I double concentrate?” and “Am I making the right move?” “It’s a social occasion to see faculty and a chance to get quick advice,” he said. Kayla Urquidi ’11 par ticipated in a Faculty Fellows event over dinner at the Ratty for students who had just returned from studying abroad. She said it was a nice transition back to Brown and she had the opportunity to speak with faculty from all fields. “I heard about people’s experiences abroad,” she said. “There was no set agenda. It was really informal.” Urquidi said she thinks Advising Central is doing a better job this year of encouraging faculty and student communication. “I think it’s impor tant to have as many opportunities as possible to get to know faculty at a more personal level, and I think faculty should get to know students on a more personal level too,” she said. Spots at faculty fellow events are available on a first-come, firstser ved basis through the Dean of the College’s Web site. The events’ topics include all aspects of academic life.
— Phil O’Hara, director of student activities
O’Hara served student activities for 22 years continued from page 1 retire early when the University administration introduced the package in November as part of its efforts to cut costs. Looking back at his time as an undergraduate, O’Hara said he chose his concentration in international relations not because he wanted to be a professional in that field, but because he wanted to learn “how people interacted with each other.” “Compromise is essential for us to get along as different peoples,” he said. It was in this spirit that O’Hara began Brown University Mediation Project decades after he graduated. “I help students learn to fish, not just give them the fish,” he said. O’Hara remembers the University that he attended as a very dif ferent place from what it is today, most of all because the New Curriculum did not exist when he was an undergraduate. “I think Brown is, from my point of view, a wonderful place now in terms of diversity, not just ethnically or religiously, but in terms of the interests of students,” he said. But what has been consistent is an environment that instilled the value of civility in students. “I was raised in the era when we really lived by the Golden Rule,” he said. “We have to give something back to our society.” O’Hara worked in the book publishing industr y for 30 years, but grew disillusioned by increasing commercialization. O’Hara said he had volunteered in youth centers and decided to embark on a new career path. “My life has always been committed to working with young people,” O’Hara said. In par ticular, he wanted to give back to his alma mater and returned to the University in 1987. After spending his first year in the Department of Athletics, O’Hara joined the Student Activities Office, where he has remained. Despite his willingness to work with students, he was uncertain about his ability to perform well at the SAO. “I was really unsure whether a man of my age could really connect with young people.” O’Hara said he decided he would just tr y. “I realized if I just listened to the students, this could be a second career for me,” he said. “I’ve been listening ever since.” O’Hara said many people call him blunt or transparent, but he takes the comment in a positive light. “What you see is what you get,” he said. When O’Hara became director in March 2009, he did not take it “for the long-term future,” though he said he intended to support the long-term goals of the office. “It was something I could do
with distinction and vigor. If I could not do the job, I would not have accepted it.” Neil Parikh ’11, president of the 2011 Class Board, has worked with O’Hara in his role as faculty adviser to the class boards. “He’s one of those incredibly inspiring people,” Parikh said. “He really, really cares about the students.” Parikh said O’Hara was instrumental in the board’s successful effort to bring Swedish musician Gunther to campus in 2008, an attempt that did not seem possible to many students. The event was the first collaboration between class boards at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design, O’Hara said. The New Curriculum lets students construct their academic careers, but “in the Student Activities Office, the field isn’t quite so open,” he said. Finance and logistics can prevent student groups from realizing their visions. “I really tr y to listen to what you want to do,” O’Hara said. “I may have a lot of doubts in my mind, but I’m not going to dismiss you.” Parikh said the incoming director will have to be fully dedicated to maintaining good relationships with students. “A lot of what Phil does is probably not in his job description.” Ricky Gresh, who oversees the SAO as senior director for student engagement, said he was confident that the position will be filled, but that he expected the Organizational Review Committee to reevaluate the position’s description. Gresh, who was O’Hara’s predecessor, said O’Hara will leave his stamp on the office. O’Hara has mentored many current staff members, including Gresh, who has been at the University for over five years. Gresh said O’Hara influenced many in the SAO. “Phil has a lot of institutional knowledge and we can carr y that for ward,” Gresh said. “When a new director comes in, there’s people who know how to do that work.” O’Hara had a personal commitment to Brown students that was inspiring to his peers, Gresh said. “If he wasn’t sure that students could be ser ved at a high level, he wouldn’t retire,” Gresh said. “He’s put a lot of his life into this.” O’Hara said he understands the budget constraints that have led to some “sad” outcomes, but he personally feels “blessed” to have the oppor tunity to retire early. “On June 30th, I’m gone, but I’m not gone to questions,” said O’Hara, who plans to continue living near campus. “My leaving is bittersweet, but aging is bittersweet,” he said, “I’ll be out of sight, but not out of mind.”
Page 5
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
C ampus N EWS
Monday, February 15, 2010
“Avi was not just a dreamer, but a doer.” — Rabbi Mordechai Rackover, associate University chaplain
Brown reels at sudden death of student on Thayer Street continued from page 1 collision, Keith Tucker, commanding officer in the Providence Police Department’s Homeland Security Division, confirmed in an e-mail to The Herald. Schaefer and the second student were taken to Rhode Island Hospital after the accident by Providence rescue, according to Quinn. Schaefer was pronounced dead around 2 a.m. from injuries he sustained during the accident. The second student was released from the hospital on Friday, Quinn said. PPD is investigating the circumstances surrounding the accident, Quinn said. PPD officers declined to comment on the specifics of the accident because a fatality was involved. According to the attorney general’s press release, Gilcreast was released on $25,000 bail with the provision that he abstain from alcohol consumption and not drive. He will appear in Providence District Court on Feb. 26. According to the release, Gilcreast, who has no prior convictions, refused a Breathalyzer test at the police department and was given a
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
The corner of Thayer and Hope streets, where two students were hit by a drunk driver.
blood test to determine his blood alcohol level. The administration of the blood test was mandated by a new law, which was enacted in November by the General Assembly, allowing police officers to mandate a blood or breath sample for accidents resulting in death or serious injury.
The University has been in touch with Schaefer’s family, Quinn said, adding that the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life offered support services at Brown/RISD Hillel Friday and Saturday. A memorial is being planned for later this spring. “At this point, we’re really just try-
ing to offer support for students who knew and loved Avi,” Quinn said. “In his very short time, he knew and touched so many people.” Quinn said there had been incidents involving pedestrians on campus before, but none had been fatal.
According to a campus-wide email sent by President Ruth Simmons late Friday morning, Schaefer had excelled in courses on religion, politics and Arabic. “A young man of inordinate strength and integrity, Avi had already begun to have an impact on the Brown community,” Simmons wrote. “By all early signs, he was a student who was going to make the most of his time at Brown and his mark on the world after Brown.” Schaefer came to Brown after serving for three years in the Israeli Defense Forces, she wrote, adding that he was an influential member of the Hillel community and was working with a professor to develop a class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “All the officers of the Providence Police Department who worked with him will miss him,” said PPD Chief Dean Esserman, who met Schaefer when he approached the chief about helping the department’s SWAT team after returning from Israel. “I will miss my friend, who, over this past year, I’ve gotten to know,” Esserman said. “It’s a great loss for the Brown community and the community of Providence.”
Schaefer ’13 hoped to work on Israeli-Palestinian relations continued from page 1 in Schaefer’s memory. “I spoke to his father on the phone, and he told me to continue what Avi did — to continue on working on peace on this dialogue. I gave my word to continue with this project. I don’t think there’s any leaving — I’ll do whatever it takes,” Jarbawi said. Schaefer first came to Jacobson’s attention in November when Schaefer wrote an opinions column in The Herald titled, “To those interested in creating peace in the Middle East.” “I am here, ready and anxiously waiting for you to work with me, not against me,” Schaefer wrote at the end of his column. “Do not give me another reason to lose hope, because my patience is sadly running out.” He ended by quoting Isaiah 2:4, “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” The column echoed many of Jacobson’s own long-held beliefs. “All the time I’ve been part of the faculty at Brown, I’ve been concerned about the way we talk about the IsraeliPalestinian conflict,” he said. The debate on campus is one that involves students and faculty members “choosing sides, and not listening to one another — arguing for one side, and not hearing the other side,” Jacobson said. “With Avi I thought, ‘Here’s an undergraduate who shares a lot of the concerns that I do.’ ” An inspiring idealist Nir Knoller, a soldier who served with Schaefer in the Israeli army, observed his friend’s maturity, leadership and sense of purpose first-
hand. Schaefer was the first person to greet Knoller when he arrived in Israel and made him feel “at home in a group that had already been together for about 3 months,” wrote Knoller, who is currently in Israel, in instant messages to The Herald. Schaefer’s gifts as a leader made him a role model for the other soldiers. “We all sort of looked to Avi for answers to everything, and he always had something important and wise to answer you,” Knoller wrote. Three years later, as a 21-yearold freshman living in Keeney Quadrangle, Schaefer “had a way of getting people to follow him,” said Joshua Deshais ’12, his residential counselor. Since his death, students have hung Israeli flags around Keeney, Deshaies said, demonstrating the level of respect Schaefer’s peers had for him. “It’s a perfect example of the community coming together,” he said. One member of Deshaies’ freshman unit, Gabi Lewis ’13, is helping Schaefer’s family compile a book called “Letters to Avi.” Reminiscences and thoughts on Schaefer’s life can be e-mailed to Lewis, he said. Knoller, along with fellow soldier Stuart Oden, created a Facebook group called “RIP Avi Schaefer” to honor his friend. The group currently has about 2,600 members. The page is a way to commemorate Schaefer’s vision for peace in the Middle East, Knoller wrote. “It’s sad to know that Avi was taken from us, but in his life, he has laid down the foundation for peace in the future.” Building bridges
Respect for Schaefer as a student leader is evident throughout the Brown community. In honor of Schaefer’s death, the opening of the student-run Israeli Film Festival has been postponed until later this week, said Danya Chudacoff ’11, one of the festival’s directors. “He was able to accomplish in a short time here more than most people can achieve in a lifetime,” Chudacoff said. Schaefer was a person who inspired others to cause change, collaborating with other student leaders to prove that “he wasn’t a one-man show. He was working with people at all times,” she said. “He was moving people from the moment he got here,” she added. Just last weekend, Schaefer organized a benefit party for Haiti. “It’s people like Avi who can bring a community together and get things accomplished,” said Troy Shapiro ’10, another of the party’s planners. The people Schaefer brought together were often those “who would be perceived as opposite, and enemies,” said Rabbi Mordechai Rackover, associate University chaplain for the Jewish community. At the memorial service held for Schaefer at Brown/RISD Hillel on Friday night, Cooper Nelson saw “a bond of Brown family members across lines,” she said. Schaefer’s gift for bridging the gap between two sides of a conflict also helped Knoller, Schaefer’s fellow soldier, look at his opposition differently. “When I first came to Israel to volunteer in the army, it was to protect my country from ‘the enemy,’ ” Knoller wrote. “I learned from Avi
and his father that ‘an enemy is just someone (whose) story you haven’t heard yet.’ ” “It’s very difficult to have been able to cross bridges and cross to the other side,” Rackover said. “Avi was not just a dreamer, but a doer.” Knoller wrote that he and Schaefer’s other companions from the army “will definitely work toward building that future he so wanted. That better world.” A never-ending debate Jarbawi was with Schaefer 11 minutes before he died. Heading back to College Hill together from downtown Providence, Jarbawi said he had no idea that the next day, life at Brown would be so different. Jarbawi received a call at 9:30 a.m. from an acquaintance who also knew Schaefer. “I didn’t believe it,” he said. “It didn’t hit me all day until the 6 p.m. memorial service at Hillel” on Friday. The sophomore planned to live with Schaefer this summer as they worked on their research with Jacobson — a project that promised Jarbawi a chance to learn more about his unlikely friend. “He was mysterious. He had a bright smile and could charm anyone, but there was a lot underneath. There’s a lot I wanted to learn,” said Jarwabi, who is currently in California for the funeral services. The friends’ last e-mail exchange ended the same way their first meeting began — with a debate. Schaefer sent Jarbawi an editorial from the Jerusalem Post about a recent speech by Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. “I told Avi I needed to see
the speech itself before I made a response. The Jerusalem Post is not the most credible source for this,” he said. Schaefer did not reveal his own opinion on the speech to his friend. “Dialogue is a two-way speech,” Jarbawi said. “I told him, ‘I want your point of view.’ ” Schaefer “rarely shared his point of view — that’s part of his mystery,” Jarbawi said. “But he wanted to learn — to put his feet in the Palestinian man’s shoes and understand the Palestinian person,” he said. “People like him are necessary.” A simulcast of Avi Schaefer’s ’13 funeral in Los Angeles will be broadcast at Brown/RISD Hillel, 80 Brown St., at 2 p.m. today, preceded by opening remarks at 1:45 p.m. A few words and a short candle-lighting ceremony will follow the simulcast.
In memory of Avi Schaefer ’13 The Herald is accepting submissions from friends, family and other loved ones for a memorial to Avi Schaefer ‘13, who was struck by a car and died Friday morning. The Herald will publish all submissions on BlogDailyHerald.com and print a selection in this week’s paper. Please send messages, photographs or artwork to memorial@ browndailyherald.com.
Arts & Culture The Brown Daily Herald
Monday, February 15, 2010 | Page 6
Professors shimmy into spotlight Work of M.F. Husain displayed on campus
By Anne Speyer Arts & Culture Editor
There’s something vaguely disconcerting about seeing the professors you know and respect dressed in fancy suits and spangled dresses, whirling around on the dance floor — for the first 10 minutes, you long for the comfort of chalk-dusted blazers and lecture halls. But at “Dancing With the Profs,” hosted Friday night by the Brown Ballroom Dance Team, Assistant Professor of Sociology Nancy Luke danced an enthusiastic jive that not only won the night, but also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that here at Brown, the professors have got the moves. “That’s what makes it fun. When you first hear the idea of professors dancing, you kind of chuckle a bit,” said Joseph Bahlman GS, a senior member of the Ballroom Team. “But it turns into a great show.” “Dancing With the Profs” takes its inspiration from the ABC television show “Dancing with the Stars,” but instead of pairing celebrities with professional dancers, the Ballroom Team matches six professors with members of the team. “Brown’s stars are the professors,” Bahlman said. After three months of hard rehearsal, the six pairs danced before a panel of three judges in a packed Alumnae Hall. The night was a result of “blood, sweat and sequins,” Chihiro Ikegami ’10 told the crowd. Ikegami acted as master of ceremonies with Eva Kolker ’10. Senior Lecturer in Theatre Arts and Per formance Studies Julie Strandberg and Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience John Stein, who performed in the first “Dancing with the Profs” two years ago, judged the competition along with the team’s coach Russell Monk, who “looks and sounds like the old British guy on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ ” Bahlman said. All three judges said they were looking to see teams having fun, and stressed the importance of coordination and teamwork. The audience certainly had fun, as the dancers seemed determined to keep the judges on their toes. Assistant Professor of Biology Gerwald Jogl began a sedate waltz with Ivana Miao ’11 to the tune of “Moon River,” but stripped off his tailcoat halfway through to finish the dance with a sassy, modern interpretation of a waltz set to Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance.” “If I came into your classroom and I was as good at that as you are at this, I’d be over the moon,” Monk said to Jogl in his evaluation of the pair. “If you were a lightbulb, you’d be 120 watts.”
By Sara Chimene-Weiss Contributing Writer
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
The Dance Alliance of Rhode Island performed at “Dancing with the Profs” on Friday night.
Bahlman and Barbara Tannenbaum, senior lecturer in theatre arts and performance studies, also danced a waltz with a twist. Midway through their elegant dance, Tannenbaum ripped off the skirt of her sequined black ballgown to dance in black pants, while Bahlman removed his suit to reveal a glitzy white dress. Tannenbaum then took the lead as the two waltzed to “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” “Brown is a great place,” Tannenbaum said to the audience after the two finished their dance to whoops and cheers from the audience. “The waltz like I’ve never seen it before,” Monk told Tannenbaum and Bahlman. But these were not the only teams that took delight in surprising the audience with mid-dance costume changes. Professor of Medicine Jody Rich, who danced with Hilary Treadwell ’01, started the night dressed in a doctor’s coat and carrying a stethoscope. As the dance began, he took off the coat to dance a sultry samba in a formfitting black shirt. Treadwell was clearly an experienced dancer, and the two moved together beautifully. “Your solo will be spoken of,” Stein said to Rich when the dance was over. Stein also complimented John
McGear y, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior, on his “suave and sophisticated look” when he danced a jazzy foxtrot with Angela Hua GS. Professor of Computer Science Pascal van Hentenryck, in a fedora and white socks, and Lan Shiow Tsai ’10 danced the cha-cha to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” While Strandberg praised the pair’s “creativity and wonderful sense of humor,” Monk said he would have liked to see “a little more ‘cha.’ ” In the end it was Luke and her partner Daniel Hackney ’12 who stole the show with their spirited jive. Luke looked the part in a flapper dress as Hackney, in a purple blazer, maneuvered her expertly around the floor. The two seemed to be having more fun than anyone else in the room — Luke blew a mid-dance kiss to a wildly applauding audience. Whether it was the kiss or their fancy footwork that put them over the top, when the night came to an end, the audience voted Luke and Hackney the winning couple. After her dance was finished, Luke announced that she had something to say to everyone who had stayed home to watch the Winter Olympics. “Eat your heart out!” she shouted, shimmying in her pinkfringed dress.
If you haven’t checked out the newly renovated Pembroke Hall yet, now there is an extra incentive — an exhibit of the works of Maqbool Fida Husain, considered India’s most famous living painter. Born in 1915 in Pandharpur, India, Husain first rose to prominence in the 1950s. His works now hang in museums and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, and have sold for up to $2 million. The works in Pembroke Hall come from the collection of Indian art expert Amrita Jhaveri ’91, whose company consults on Indian art sales. The exhibit runs until March 26 in Pembroke Hall, and Jhaveri will give a lecture on “M.F. Husain and Indian Modernism” on March 22. The exhibit was curated by Visiting Professor of History of Art and Architecture Mallica Kumbera Landrus and Jo-Ann Conklin, director of the David Winton Bell Gallery, and sponsored by the Year of India, the Cogut Center for Humanities and the Bell Gallery. The idea for the exhibit initially arose in September. Professor of Political Science Ashutosh Varshney, the chair of the Year of India, came to the Cogut Center and the Bell Gallery with the idea of incorporating something artistic into Brown’s year-long celebration of India’s past and present. According to Conklin, it was Professor of Histor y Michael Steinberg, the director of the Cogut Center, who suggested Husain. It seemed like a good fit, Steinberg said, not only because of Husain’s prominence, but also because Husain portrays a “multicultural India,” including ancient and modern themes, secular and religious influences and images of daily life on the street. Jhaveri, whom Conklin has known for several years, shipped the selected works from England to Providence. Pembroke Hall provides an attractive venue and atmosphere for the exhibit, with its white and glass walls and wood floors. The paintings, distributed between the first and second floors, represent Husain’s work from the 1950s to the 1970s, the early years of his prolific career. Many of these paintings display what the exhibit’s introductory plaque, written by Kumbera Landrus, lists as Husain’s favorite subjects: “life on the streets, women and horses (together and apart) and mythological and religious
personages.” These features are well-represented in this exhibit, along with some more atypical works, such as the abstract landscape “Black Hill.” The exhibit’s most striking works include “Chariot of the Sun God,” a large white horizontal canvas with horses painted in shades of gray. That there are seven of them is not immediately apparent, but the description explains that it depicts the seven horses that carry the Sun God across the sky. Husain painted this shortly after his visit to China in 1951, though this painting seems most reminiscent of a large-scale Picasso work, such as the famous “Guernica.” Husain is often compared to the Spanish painter, along with Picasso’s French contemporary Georges Braque, because all three artists emphasize form and color. The exhibit includes the piece “Draupadi,” painted for the Sao Paulo Art Biennal in 1971 — for which only Husain and Picasso were requested to exhibit their paintings. This painting, full of bright colors, browns and female forms, is part of a series depicting the ancient Indian epic “The Maharhabata,” a central Hindu text. Though born Muslim, Husain grew up immersed in Hinduism, and much of his work reflects this. The painting “Durga” depicts the goddess as a brightly colored tiger baring her teeth and hangs on the first floor of the exhibit. Some of Husain’s work has attracted controversy for its depiction of Hindu goddesses, sometimes nude. Steinberg attributed this reaction to the often-tense relationship among Hindus, Muslims and secular culture in India. “Important works on sensitive issues can draw controversy,” Steinberg said. That Husain is Muslim but paints Hindu images is a crossover “welcomed by some, threatening to others,” Steinberg said. Conklin said that though the local reaction has been very positive, she has received some e-mails protesting the show, mostly from people in India. She explained that “folks that don’t like his stuff are very organized” and are likely to have posted the gallery’s contact information on an anti-Husain activist Web site. The somewhat controversial nature of Husain’s art did not dissuade the Cogut Center, Bell Gallery and Year of India from bringing it to Brown. “This university welcomes difficult issues being debated — that is not a problem for us,” Steinberg said.
www.browndailyherald.com
SportsMonday The Brown Daily Herald
ScoreS
Monday, February 15, 2010 | Page 7
M. Track
M. HOCKEY
Wrestling
M. Squash
W. Squash
Brown 3 Cornell 5
Harvard 12 Brown 33
Dartmouth 9 Brown 0
No. 9 Dartmouth 7 No. 10 Brown 2
W. Track
Brown 2 Colgate 6
Lehigh 33 Brown 6
Tufts 2 Brown 7
No. 12 Mt. Holyoke 2 No. 10 Brown 7
Gymnastics
4th out of 11
4th out of nine
2nd out of four
M. Basketball
Leffelman ’11 propels team to split By Erika Mueller Contributing Writer
Heading into this weekend, Garrett Leffelman ’11 had started just three games all season. It didn’t show on Friday and Saturday night. Leffelman scored the men’s basketball team’s first 14 points of the game on Friday against Dar tmouth and had a careerhigh 16 the following night versus Har vard. Behind Leffelman and Peter Sullivan ’11, the night’s leading scorer, the Bears defeated Dartmouth, 75-60, before falling to Har vard the following night, 81-67. Brown 75, Dartmouth 60 Heading into Friday’s matchup, Dartmouth was looking to capture its first Ivy League victor y, and Brown was hoping for its
second. The players ended up spending nearly as much time on the ground as the ball did, making for a very scrappy game. The fouls added up for both teams, and Brown was able to capitalize on the situation, making 33 of 37 free throw attempts. Following the tipoff, Leffelman was hot from the field. Though he was shut down after his initial spurt, the Bears were able to maintain the lead going into the second half, 39-29. Sullivan went 14-16 from the line and totaled 23 points to lead all scorers. He also grabbed a teamhigh 11 rebounds. Dar tmouth crept within 3 points of Brown, 49-46, with 9:54 on the clock, but the Big Green was never able to overtake the Bears.
Matt Muller y ’10 added 17 points and 10 rebounds for Brown. Harvard 81, Brown 67 The Bears took the Pizzitola Center court looking to shut down Harvard’s big star, but the Crimson’s other weapons blindsided Brown. Harvard’s Jeremy Lin, who is averaging 17.3 points per game, was expected to play a starring role for the Crimson on Saturday night. But with the Brown defense double-teaming him early, Lin was held scoreless in the first half. Ever y time that he touched the ball, the Bears’ student section reminded him of his struggles on the night by chanting “overrated.” “I got in foul trouble. That continued on page 8
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
Lindsay Nickel ’13 and the women’s basketball squad were even with Dartmouth at halftime, but the Big Green prevailed by four.
W. Basketball W. hockey
Icers let 3-1 lead slip on Senior Day By Andrew Braca Assistant Spor ts Editor
The women’s hockey team suffered a heartbreaking Senior Day defeat, losing a 3-1 lead to fall to Colgate, 4-3, in the squad’s final home game of the season on Saturday. “It’s always tough to lose on senior night,” said Sasha Van Muyen ’10. “We were really hoping we could pull out a win here, but it is what it is. We played our hearts out. You can’t ask for much more than that.” A day earlier, the Bears were blanked by Cornell, 4-0. With two games left, Brown’s record stands at 2-20-4 overall and 0-17-3 in ECAC Hockey play. Cornell 4, Brown 0 On Friday, the Bears gave the ECAC-leading Big Red (13-8-6, 12-2-6) a first-period fight. Bruno generated its best scoring opportunity four minutes in when a shot by Vika Mykolenko ’12 was deflected and landed on top of the net. Cornell posted only an 11-6 advantage in shots that period, but scored a late goal to go into intermission with a 1-0 lead. Brown lost blueliner Paige Pyett ’12 in the closing seconds of the first period, and Cornell took control of the remainder of the game. The Big Red scored two goals in a one-minute span early
in the second to pull away. “Ever y game — we’re ver y young and we let up those two quick goals that just bury us,” said Head Coach Digit Murphy. “You look at the one that landed on top of the net with Vika, it’s like, you just can’t get a break. All that stuff just adds up.” Cornell tacked on a third-period goal. Katie Jamieson ’13 made 36 saves, but the Bears totaled only 15 shots. “We need to take control of our destiny earlier and make the most of our opportunities,” Murphy said. “I thought our first period was very good, yet we still come out losing 1-0. I think we’ve got to come out strong in the first period and then take it from there. That’s how we win.” Colgate 4, Brown 3 On Saturday, Bruno started strong but could not maintain the lead, as Katie Stewart scored all four of the goals for Colgate (1018-4, 6-10-4). Playing in front of one of their largest crowds of the season and the Brown Band at Meehan Auditorium, the Bears came out energized, scoring twice in a 1:03 span to take a 2-0 lead into the first intermission. With 10:03 left, Alena Polenska ’13 scored on a feed from Laurie Jolin ’13, with each player finishing the game at 10 points on the season, which is
tops on the team. Soon after, Van Muyen doubled Bruno’s lead with her team-leading sixth goal. Nicole Brown ’10 “took a nice shot from that point that hit the post,” Van Muyen said. “I was just trying to get the puck to the net, and there was a big scramble, and I managed to get it over the line just enough for the refs to call it a goal.” The Raiders struck back in the second period, as Stewart notched a hat trick in a 13-minute span. The first goal came on a miscue by the Bears. Jamieson went behind the net to stop the puck, but Colgate’s Beth Rotenberg beat Bruno to the puck and fed Stewart, who put the Raiders on the board five minutes into the period. The Bears appeared to deflate after surrendering the goal, as Colgate roared to 16-9 advantage in shots in the middle frame. The Bears appeared to have stopped the bleeding five minutes after the goal, making quick work of a power play as Jenna Dancewicz ’11 scored off assists by Jolin and Polenska to take a 3-1 lead. But Stewart scored twice more in the second to tie the game, both goals coming after Bruno took penalties to kill power plays. “You don’t take a penalty when you’re on a power play,” Murphy said. “It’s those little things, those continued on page 8
On the road, Bears drop two games in conference play By Zack Bahr Sports Staff Writer
It literally came down to the line Friday night for the women’s basketball team. With the Bears down by two points and just six seconds left, Hannah Passafuime ’12 — Brown’s leading scorer — stepped up to the free throw line with a chance to tie the game at 64 and send it to overtime. But that’s not the way it went. Brown fell to Dartmouth, 67-63, on Friday night and Harvard, 66-51, the next night. Dartmouth 67, Brown 63 Brown got off to a 12-4 lead on Dartmouth’s home court, at one point holding the Big Green scoreless for nine minutes. But the home team stormed back with an offensive attack to gain a one-point advantage over Brown with 2:14 left in the half. Before the halftime buzzer, both teams went basket-for-basket and ended the half in a 26-26 tie. The Bears shot 75 percent from the line but missed all six shots from behind the arc in the first half. The battle for the lead continued through the night with seven ties in the game. Dartmouth held the largest lead of the second half, leading 5245 with 5:53 left on the clock before Brown came back to life. With the game on the line, Passafuime bounced her first free throw off the iron and sunk the second one.
Bruno had no choice but to foul for the remainder of the game. The Big Green made three of four free throws to end the game ahead, 67-63. Leading scorers from the Bears were Passafuime, Aileen Daniels ’12 and Lindsay Steele ’12 with 15, 14 and 10 points, respectively. “Right now, our team is really clicking because we are playing together and utilizing each other’s strengths,” Passafuime said. “We have had leading scorers and rebounders from different players almost every game.” Harvard 66, Brown 51 Saturday night was a tough challenge in Cambridge for the Bears. The Crimson, who are among the top contenders for the Ivy League title this year, came out hot and jumped out to a 16-4 lead in the first eight minutes. Bruno fought back and held Harvard scoreless for nearly three minutes to cut the deficit to just three with 2:27 remaining in the first half. Brown came within one with 1:49 left in the half before the Crimson ran away with the lead. The Bears never came within four for the rest of the night. Bruno shot only 10 percent from three-point range and 29 percent from the field. Passafuime led Brown with 14 points, making her the only Bear in double figures. Harvard placed three players in that category, and the team’s top scorer racked up 27 points.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
S ports M onday
Monday, February 15, 2010
“We played our hearts out.” — Sasha Van Muyen ’10 on Saturday’s game against Colgate
Men’s hoops falls in league play continued from page 7
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
The Bears were stymied in an attempt to net their first conference win.
Tough loss for w. hockey continued from page 7 mental mistakes — we beat ourselves there.” Stewart scored 2:50 into the third period on a nifty wraparound to give the Raiders a 4-3 lead they would not relinquish. “The miscommunication with Jamieson behind the net and not picking up hurt us, but I thought that was the only mistake we made from a coverage perspective,” Murphy said. “They had three individual efforts that beat us. Those two shots that (Stewart) took, you can’t stop that, and then the wraparound.” Brown pulled Jamieson, who finished with 33 saves, for an extra attacker with 2:31 left and generated heavy pressure, but could not notch the equalizer. “That was really tough,” Van Muyen said. “We had a couple re-
ally good chances in front. I wish we could have buried them and gotten the tie or a win out of it, but we played our hearts out, and I can’t ask my teammates to do much more than that.” A ceremony after the game honored the senior class of Erin Connors ’10, Kathleen Surbey ’10, Brown and Van Muyen. The Bears will have two more shots to close out the season with an ECAC win when they hit the road to face Princeton (12-11-4, 10-6-4) on Friday and Quinnipiac (16-8-8, 9-4-7) on Saturday. “I think we just have to work hard,” Van Muyen said. “We need to play a little more soundly defensively, and then just bur y our chances when we get them. And if the other team scores a goal, not deflate, just keep going the way we were going.”
was my fault,” Lin said. “I mean as long as we’re taking good shots it doesn’t matter who’s taking them.” Instead, Harvard’s Kyle Casey — last week’s Ivy Rookie of the Week — netted a game-high 27 points. “I thought Kyle Casey was spectacular,” said Harvard Head Coach Tommy Amaker. “For a freshman to have the kind of weekend he’s had is pretty darn special for us.” The game was tightest in the first half, when there were six lead changes and seven ties. “Give Brown a lot of credit, they took it right at us, and were ef fective and got open shots,” Amaker said. Coming out of the locker room after halftime down by three, the Bears took off on a torrid 9-0 run to regain the lead. But they slowly let the game slip away. Harvard was dominant on the boards, posting a 36-19 advantage for the game. One consistent spot for Brown
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
Men’s hoops defeated Dartmouth, 75-60, for their second Ivy victory.
was Sullivan, who tallied 21 points and six rebounds. “He played like a man all week-
end,” said Brown Head Coach Jesse Agel. “He was really tremendous.”
Mistaken killing of 12 Afghan civilians By Saeed Shah McClatchy Newspapers
KABUL, Afghanistan — Twelve Afghan civilians died Sunday after U.S. rockets mistakenly hit a house during the much-trumpeted offensive to clear the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, a loss of life that is likely to seriously undermine the operation and the renewed American-led mission to win the trust of the population. The use of the rockets has been suspended pending a “thorough review” of the incident, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. An Afghan soldier and a Marine were injured in the firefight that preceded the rocket attack, on the second day of an operation to take control of the town of Marjah and the surrounding district of Nad Ali. Operation Moshtarak, which means “together,” is the biggest assault on the Taliban since the fall of the Islamic extremists’ government in 2001 and the first major test of the new U.S. strategy for quelling the insurgency and stabilizing Afghanistan. A centerpiece to the offensive has been to minimize civilian casualties and the use of force. A combined force of U.S., Afghan and British soldiers continued to come under sporadic fire Sunday, while facing constant danger from Taliban-laid mines, roadside bombs and booby-traps. The large number of civilian deaths in a single incident calls into question the approach to the operation, and provides easy propaganda points to the Taliban enemy. Most of the 80,000 residents of Marjah stayed in their homes, despite weeks of public build-up to the assault.
After managing to avoid civilian casualties on the first day of the operation, which was declared a success, Sunday — Day Two — brought disaster. A Marine unit embedded with Afghan soldiers, which came under sustained fire from two directions, called in a strike from heavy-duty munitions known as a Himars, which is a rocket system fired from a truck. Two rockets landed some 300 yards off target, killing the 12 civilians and wounding one. “We deeply regret this tragic loss of life,” said Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. general who leads international forces in Afghanistan. “The current operation in Central Helmand is
WORLD & NATION aimed at restoring security and stability to this vital area of Afghanistan. It’s regrettable that in the course of our joint efforts, innocent lives were lost.” McChrystal telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to apologize for what he called the “unfortunate incident.” The Afghan leader had cautioned the forces, as the operation began, to “exercise absolute caution to avoid harming civilians.” The death of innocent Afghans in the war, often caused by misdirected air strikes, has inflamed public opinion in Afghanistan. At issue is whether the use of the rockets was proportionate to the threat and why the weapon went so far wide of its intended target. The wrong co-ordinates could have been fed into the rocket launcher, or it suffered some technical failure, military officials believe. An ISAF official, who could not be named because of the sensitivity
of the issue, said the rockets were used after enemy fire made it impossible for helicopters to come in to evacuate the two injured soldiers. As evening fell in Afghanistan on Sunday, the Marine and Afghan unit were still under fire, more than 10 hours after the engagement began, he said. “This (Himars) is a heavy thing to use under these circumstances but they used something that is usually very precise,” the NATO official said. “They probably felt this was better than calling in an air attack.” The scale of operation, involving 15,000 soldiers, a large civilian presence, together with hundreds of Taliban fighting desperately against hopeless odds, and a town rigged with booby-traps, make civilian losses inevitable, analysts believe. McChrystal, the pioneer of a new counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, is faced with a delicate balance: the need to safeguard his own forces and the imperative of preventing civilian casualties. He has issued a series of directives to rein in the use of force, in an effort to win over an Afghan population often alienated and terrified by the use of air strikes and raids on homes. But that has brought criticism from within the military and in the U.S. that he was hamstringing soldiers in the field and putting their lives at risk. “Civilian casualties have been one of the big issues that have been troubling the relationship between President Karzai, the Afghan people and international forces,” said John Dempsey, head of the Afghanistan office of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent research organization.
World & Nation The Brown Daily Herald
Sex offender law could go global By Rob Hotakainen McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Megan’s Law soon could go international. The law, named after Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was raped and killed by a neighbor in 1994, requires convicted sex offenders to be registered with the government, making it easier to track their whereabouts. Their names can then be put into databases, allowing the public to do a quick online check to determine where offenders reside. While the law now applies to all states, California Republican Rep. Dan Lungren is proposing a worldwide crackdown on high-risk sex offenders and sex trafficking. Under his bill, convicted sex offenders would have to tell local law enforcement of their travel plans 21 days before leaving their country. That information would then be shared with diplomatic officials in foreign countries, who could keep track of the offenders. Lungren is already working with the Mexican government on the proposal. “The idea is to notify law enforcement officials in those countries that people are traveling,” said Lungren, who called sex trafficking “a plague on our region and our nation.” The American Civil Liberties Union opposes the plan, saying it would be wrong to impose new restrictions on people who already have served their sentences. However, Michael MacleodBall, the ACLU’s chief legislative and policy counsel, said he fears the bill will pass because no one in Congress will want to cast a vote that could be interpreted as supporting sex offenders. “Absolutely, we’re worried about something like this passing because
it’s very easy to get a yes vote,” he said. “Maybe we should say the converse: If you vote against something like this, you sort of stick out like a sore thumb.” Lungren said his bill is an attempt to get tough with U.S. sex offenders who leave the country and then commit similar crimes overseas. Nicholas Sensley, the chief of police in Truckee, a mountain town near the state’s border with Nevada, authored human-trafficking guidelines for the U.S. Justice Department. Sensley said Lungren’s plan is good because it would fight sex offenders who move across borders “undetected, unnoticed and really, in a large part, unconcerned.” “It’s really just another tool, bottom line, to put another clamp on those who are committing this crime,” Sensley said. Sensley is a recognized expert in the field, having established the first human-trafficking task force in New York in 2001 and authoring humantrafficking guidelines adopted by the U.S. Justice Department. If Lungren’s plan is passed, Sensley said, the most significant hurdle would be trying to gain the cooperation of other countries, many of which have different laws and different cultural norms. “What we define in the United States as a sex offender may not necessarily be defined as such in other countries,” Sensley said. Partly because of the success of Megan’s Law, Lungren said, sex offenders increasingly are preying on young victims overseas, where they’re out of reach of U.S. law enforcement agencies. He said child sex tourism has evolved into a multibillion-dollar “industry” involving millions of children around the world, particularly in Mexico, South
America and Southeast Asia. “These cities are global hubs of human sex trafficking, where young children are bought, sold and abused in a manner that defies all human decency,” Lungren said. “Recently, I was shocked to learn that many of these transactions are made with U.S. dollars and U.S.-issued credit cards.” Macleod-Ball, of the ACLU, said that there are always concerns about accuracy in a large database and that there would be lasting repercussions if anyone were mistakenly included. He said countries would have to work closely to make sure there’s consistency about who’s included, particularly since local laws can differ widely. Lungren, who has yet to determine a cost estimate for his legislation, said he expects other countries to cooperate, citing Mexico’s early involvement as an example. However, he said, only time will tell. “We’ll find out,” he said. “I have very little sympathy for them if they think it’s appropriate for 12-year-old kids to be forced to have sex with tourists. That’s not my idea of tourism. I have no sympathy for it, and I think we ought to do everything we can to get rid of it.” Lungren, a member of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, worked to get California’s Megan’s Law passed when he was state attorney general in the 1990s. He often sponsored booths at fairs, where the public could punch in an address or a name to check for sexrelated offenses. He said he often saw good results from making public information more accessible. In one case, he said, “This woman was surprised to see that the man she was with, her boyfriend, was a registered sex offender. “She had no idea.”
Lawmakers fight for payments to farmers By Halimah Abdullah McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Southern lawmakers are pushing back against a proposal in President Barack Obama’s budget that ends compensation to cotton and peanut farmers for storage costs when they hold back on selling crops until they can net better market rates. “The credits allow producers to store their cotton and peanuts at the government’s cost until prices rise. Therefore, storage credits have a negative impact on the amount of commodities on the market,” said a White House Office of Management and Budget analysis released earlier this month. “Because storage is covered by the government, producers may store their commodities for longer than necessary,” according to the analysis. “There is no reason the government should be paying for the storage of cotton or peanuts, particularly since it does not provide
this assistance for other commodities.” Cotton and peanuts — crops that contribute heavily to the Southern economy — are the only commodities that receive such subsidies. Southern lawmakers have long sought to insert the subsidies into federal farm bills, with mixed results. Storage compensation to cotton and peanut farmers was negotiated as part of the 2008 farm bill. “To come back and have to fight that after the cotton and peanut industry took big hits in the farm bill is unconscionable,” said Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., who sits on the House Appropriations agriculture subcommittee. “When you pull the rug out from under farmers at the beginning of a new farm bill, when they’ve made plans based on issues resolved in the farm bill, it’s unfair.” The Obama administration likely will face an uphill battle in trying to maintain the cuts. The administra-
tion made little headway last year on similar attempts, and President George W. Bush was unsuccessful in his attempts to uphold his veto of the 2008 farm bill, which had subsidies — including the cotton and peanut compensation — to which the Bush administration objected. “As with last year, the administration unfairly targets farmers and ranchers to achieve savings and fund Washington-based programs,” said Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee. The Obama administration says that the cotton and peanut storage credit cuts will save $2 million over the next decade, and that broader farm subsidy cuts could net more than $2.3 billion over the next 10 years. The National Cotton Council, which represents cotton growers, says the administration’s proposal to cut the cotton storage credits “is a failure to discern critical differences between commodities.”
Online today: Ask Gail, Jeopardy! fail, and much more! Monday, February 15, 2010 | Page 9
happy new year
Freddy Lu / Herald
Celebrants kicked off the Chinese New Year in Andrews Dining Hall at an event hosted by the Chinese Student and Scholar Association.
Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald
Page 10 | Monday, February 15, 2010
l e t t e r to t h e e d i to r
U. presidents don’t need Goldman association To the Editor: When I saw The Herald’s editorial headline (“President Simmons and Goldman Sachs,” Feb. 12) my heart sort of jumped: The editors were going to do something courageous, such as respectfully suggest that Ruth Simmons resign from Goldman’s board. Alas, the piece is an accommodation. As a working journalist in Washington for nearly three decades I have come to realize that Goldman’s does more than affect public policy here. With their massive campaign contributions and lobbying, they have come to exemplify the wholesale corruption of our government. Their influence in Congress and in the White House, since Bill Clinton named Goldman CEO Bob Rubin head of his economics team in 1993, has contributed to a series of terrible decisions. These
acts have stripped our factories of their machines and our workers of their jobs, and stripped from our laws the New Deal codes that protected ordinary investors and hometown banks from the self-dealing corruption that has helped create a jobless rate of ten percent, and a jobless/discouraged worker rate of 16 percent plus. The Brown presidents of my day, Henry Wriston and Barnaby Keeney, men who rebuilt our University, would never have served on such a board, especially with the controversy now whirling around Goldman’s head. I hope in time the Editorial Board will take another whack at this question and come up with a better answer. A be pressman
Douglas L. Turner ’54 Feb. 12
e d i to r i a l
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In the aftermath of a bloody fight that broke out at the downtown Club Elements in the early hours of New Year’s Day, city officials have been thinking hard about how to address nightclub violence in Providence. They should keep thinking. The proposal floating around right now — banning everybody under age 21 from clubs that serve alcohol — will do little to make the city safer, and will do a lot to harm Providence nightlife. This isn’t the first time the issue of underage club patrons has come up. State legislators introduced a bill in 2001 that would have banned those under 21 from nightclubs, but the legislation was ultimately tailored to be a little more sensible than an outright ban. Since then, clubs with special licenses have been allowed to admit the under-21 crowd as long as they use hand stamps or bracelets to identify legal drinkers. In addition, to prevent patrons from buying drinks and distributing them to underage individuals, clubs are only allowed to serve customers one drink at a time. Advocates of a ban say something needs to be done to curb nightclub violence. We agree — in the past several years, downtown nightclubs have been the sites of murders, stabbings and a number of fights. But banning underage drinkers from clubs may do more harm than good, and we hope the city will think twice before implementing such a policy. City officials must realize that not all clubs are problem clubs. While it might be wise to ban the under-21 crowd from a place like Club Elements, which attracts many youth affiliated with street gangs, an all-out ban on underage drinkers would also affect
establishments like Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel. Rich Lupo, the owner of the concert venue, told the Providence Journal last week that a ban on the under-21 crowd would put him out of business. Even if it didn’t, smaller audiences would mean smaller budgets to bring in bands. A ban on the under-21 crowd could severely cripple the live music scene in Rhode Island, not to mention the range of weekend entertainment options for young adults throughout the state. The good news is that, so far, the ban is only an idea. Legislation has not been introduced, and city officials have been thinking about other approaches as well, such as cracking down on compliance and club management. These solutions are far more suitable, as they spare clubs like Lupo’s that attract large numbers of young patrons and have virtually no problems with alcohol-related violence. If officials are intent on banning underage drinkers from clubs, they should at least follow Boston’s lead and include an exception for clubs with live music or entertainment. Since events are the main draw at these establishments and alcohol is merely accessory, it is not only unfair to ban the under-21 crowd, but also unnecessary. Providence may have lost its nickname of “Renaissance City” — Mayor David Cicilline ’83 replaced it with “Creative Capital” last year — but it still has a lively night scene. We hope the city can eliminate nightclub violence without harming evening entertainment. 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
Monday, February 15, 2010 | Page 11
Freshman frustrations NIDA ABDULLA Opinions Columnist As a freshman, homesick and heartsick, I hated it when people would gush at me, “Don’t you just love Brown?” Er, not really, I would think, while I stretched my facial muscles into a wide grin and nodded enthusiastically. Instead of eliciting my fake enraptures, I should have been viewed as a resource, able to look at Brown with a critical eye. My suggestions should have been sought and my unmet expectations addressed. Instead, our counsels to freshman often involve sympathetic nods and assurances that they’ll get used to things, and that everything works out in the end. As far as advice goes, this is pretty vague and unhelpful. We would do well to consciously remember how difficult freshman year is, in terms of unmet expectations and jarring new experiences that we were expected to take in stride. In the interest of jogging our memories, I will list a few of my most jarring experiences, comments that I extend to Brown freshmen. To begin, our daily interactions with adults are limited to two kinds: the self-assured and successful professors we are trying to impress, and those that are serving and cleaning up after us. The absence of adults with an education between a high school diploma and an advanced degree is disorienting.
Furthermore, kids younger than ourselves are wiping down our tables and picking up the fettuccine we spill as we fill our plates. I think about how a family’s income can make the difference between serving food at the cafeteria and eating there. The arbitrariness of success smacks me in the face every time I see them. Where I once just sat down at the dinner table and had my parents to thank for my meal, I suddenly have to thank a faceless chef and countless immigrant workers. Oh, and we hardly ever see young children
Living with a roommate is also one of those jarring freshman experiences. Many freshmen go from living with their families (with whom they share common values, interests and traditions) to living with a randomly assigned stranger, whose values and interests may be completely at odds with their own. It’s an experience that we half-expect and (to the outside observer) seem to take in stride, yet it is a difficult transition to make. As far as support goes, I know we have many avenues for freshmen currently, such
We would do well to consciously remember how difficult freshman year is, in terms of unmet expectations and jarringly new experiences that we were expected to take in stride. unless we get the memo to start volunteering in Providence. Those famous conversations that are supposed to keep us up at night — and that we learn to avoid in subsequent years — just give us a headache, and the next morning we wish we had slept earlier. Personally, I usually walked away in frustration from (or worse, remained stuck in) conversations with people who just talk too much and listen toow little and think they are so open-minded when really their mind is already made up.
as Meiklejohns and advisors for academic matters, and Residential Counselors, Minority Peer Counselors and Women Peer Counselors for all types of crises in the dorms. Also, freshmen will often seek out older students as mentors and friends to talk to about their struggle. However, it’s often not enough. Few young people can open up with strangers (i.e. their residential peer leaders) even if helping them is in the RPL job description. Furthermore, upperclassmen (even the RPLs) are pretty busy and may only have time for one
or two meaningful conversations with struggling freshmen. Here’s a proposition: Why not make an online forum where freshmen can counsel one another and relate to each other’s feeling? It might be that just reading accounts from other freshmen, experiencing the same exact emotions, will alleviate some of their own stresses and anxieties. I imagine there would be a forum for discussing homesickness (with a possible topic being, “What do you miss most about home?”). Others might deal with academics, sexuality and spirituality. Also, forums could be moderated by a few upperclassmen interested in offering limited but helpful advice. This advice could include information about resources freshmen can use and deans to whom they can talk. Why not make digital the kind of graffiti that we see in the bathroom stalls at the Rockefeller Library and the Gate. Anything would be better than the current culture of silence and loneliness. Beyond the personal nature of freshmen problems, we should take seriously their complaints about Brown. Their fresh eyes can see things to which our own have become so accustomed, as we are so blinded by our love and affection for our home away from home.
Nida Abdulla ’11.5 is an English concentrator from New Jersey. She can be contacted at nida_abdulla@brown.edu
Decriminalization is not enough HUNTER FAST Opinions Columnist
On Feb. 2, a bill was introduced in the Rhode Island House of Representatives that would eliminate criminal penalties and prison sentences for small-scale marijuana possession and replace them with a $150 fine. Decriminalization of marijuana at the state level is a good initial step in the overall reform of drug policy, but it does very little to correct the colossal market failure that the current “war on drugs” has wrought. By continuing to treat cannabis production and consumption as punishable offenses at all, the state government forgoes vital tax income and quashes the formation of legitimate sources of employment during a time of fiscal and economic crisis. Decriminalization by itself is likely to yield some savings for the Rhode Island state government. However, even decriminalization proponents admit that these savings would be modest — estimates range from $232,000 to $3 million out of a state budget deficit of over $400 million. Full legalization carries with it the ability to generate state revenue through sin taxes as well as the ability to create jobs and taxable income. If legalized and regulated, cannabis could serve as a desperately needed engine of productive wealth creation. A legal marijuana production sector would put money in the hands of law-abiding citizens and would deprive those who operate within the violent black market of their massive profit margins.
Furthermore, legalization would allow the state government to eliminate expenditures on the enforcement of marijuana laws altogether. In a 2005 paper, noted Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron calculated that complete legalization would save the Rhode Island government over $21 million in enforcement and legal costs, and generate an additional $4.6 million in tax revenue. However, the reduction in enforcement costs only takes into account arrests for charges directly related to cannabis, not the costs attributable to other crimes caused by the existence of the black market. Thus, the real savings would likely be much higher.
The prevalence and influence of this image give rise to a circular rationality wherein the negative consequences of drug prohibition are used to justify its continued existence. The expectation that drug users will engage in delinquency molds the formation of drug policy such that the expectation creates the reality. Indeed, this cycle is salient in the opposition to the current decriminalization bill. The state Attorney General’s office official Matthew Dawson was quoted by the Providence Journal as stating that marijuana users “don’t have the ambition or the desire to contribute to society.”
Decriminalization of marijuana at the state level is a good initial step in the overall reform of drug policy, but it does very little to correct the colossal market failure that the current “war on drugs” has wrought. Obviously, this is a much larger issue than that of Rhode Island’s fiscal woes; if it weren’t, then marijuana legalization would be enacted simply on the merit of being good economic policy. In essence, arguments over marijuana legalization represent not an economic debate, but a conflict between those who see drugs as a matter of personal responsibility, and those who see the image of the abominable drug addict — an image created during the xenophobic tide of the 1930s and enshrined in law by Richard Nixon’s psychotic political paranoia.
This obtuse view is countered by the fact that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Michael Bloomberg and Sarah Palin have all admitted to using cannabis at some point in their lives, and have all — except arguably in the last case — made significant contributions to society. Ironically, Claiborne Pell, the namesake of a federal higher education grant that can be revoked over a drug conviction, also admitted to past cannabis use. An unsettling truth about the nature of the economic consequences of cannabis prohibition follows from this amusing fact. While
prohibitionists often base their views on the rhetoric of rescuing people from themselves, the policies that they implement curtail the ability of drug offenders to develop their own human capital through higher education. Moreover, the criminalization of marijuana and the recording of drug arrests ensure that a single act can become a lifetime flaw in the eyes of potential employers. Thus, offenders are stigmatized and alienated from the overall economic structure, thereby perpetuating their involvement with drugs by encouraging their reliance on the parallel economic structure of the black market. This process is one of many ways in which the federal government, as preeminent economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman put it, “enforces a drug cartel.” The prohibitionist rationale employs the existence of the violent black market as a justification for the massive infringements on personal freedom that the drug war has brought about. But the black market exists only because the current state of drug policy prevents the legitimate private sector from occupying the cannabis industry. Decriminalization solves many — but far from all — of the problems caused by prohibition, but under marijuana legalization, disputes among marijuana producers and sellers would be solved by price wars, not turf wars. While the state of California only toys with the idea of real legalization under the threat of complete fiscal collapse, Rhode Island has the potential to take a revolutionary step through complete legalization.
Hunter Fast ’12 is an economics concentrator who does, in fact, understand the difference between a million and a billion.
Today The Brown Daily Herald
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U. staff accepts early retirement
W. hockey loses on Senior Day
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comics Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman
Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline
c a l e n da r Today, february 15
tomorrow, february 16
8 p.m. — Final Brown Daily Herald Information Session, 195 Angell
5:30 P.M. — “Public Events, Private Lives,” Salman Rushdie, Salomon 101
9 p.m. — Girls’ Night Out, Sarah Doyle’s Women’s Center
5:30 p.M. — Short Term Career Options for Seniors, Career Development Center
menu Sharpe Refectory
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
Lunch — Jamaica Curried Chicken, Nacho Bar, Eggplant Moussaka, Chocolate Krinkle Cookies
Lunch — Chicken Cutlet Sandwich, Spinach & Rice Bake, Italian Marinated Chicken
Dinner — Beef Shish Kabob, Broccoli Spears with Lemon, Raspberry Mousse Torte Cake
Dinner — Country Style Bake Ham, Macaroni Pudding, Cajun Chicken Pasta
to m o r r o w
39 / 26
36 / 23
Monday, February 15, 2010
t h e n e w s i n i m ag e s
6
to day
Fruitopia | Andy Kim
crossword Hippomaniac | Mat Becker
Island Republic | Kevin Grubb
STW | Jingtao Huang
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