Thursday, February 25, 2010

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxlv, no. 20 | Thursday, February 25, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Health Services aims to improve trans inclusivity

High hopes in West End

P o l ar b ear

By Sarah Forman Contributing Writer

By Ana Alvarez Senior Staf f Writer

In early February, Health Services hired a consultant to examine how the office could improve its training, forms, environment and advertising to be more transgender-inclusive, according to Francie Mantak, its director of health education.

The hire came immediately after two members of GenderAction, a subgroup of Queer Alliance that focuses on issues of gender identity and expression, met with Mantak about expanding the office’s transgender inclusivity.

GenderAction defines transgender as “someone who expresses their gender differently from the way people would traditionally expect someone of their biological sex,” said Julia Dahlin ’12, a member of the group. She added that the organization also deals with gender variants, which “can be an umbrella for transsexual and a variety of other identifications.”

Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services, met with Dahlin and Elizabeth Duthinh ’12, also a member of GenderAction, in November to discuss GenderAction’s planned projects, including improving transgender inclusivity in Health and Psychological Services.

“We talked about how services (for transgender students) are presented at both Health Services and Psychological Services,” Klawuun continued on page 3

Trinity United Methodist Church sits on Broad Street, across from the Salvation Army, a jewelry store declaring, “WE BUY GOLD, MONEY TO LOAN” and a corner store alerting patrons they can pay with cash and food stamps, but not credit cards.

FEATURE

Courtesy of Dow Travers

Dow Travers ’12, representing the Cayman Islands at the Olympic Games, placed 69th out of the 81 skiers in men’s giant slalom, ahead of the disqualified Bode Miller.

inside

Professor of Africana Studies and Sociology Paget Henry gave students some academic career advice last night — work in Caribbean universities — as he made his plea for intellectual leaders in the region.

“We need you to forget about Har vard, to forget about Yale,” Henry told about 40 students in List 120 last night at the convocation for Caribbean Heritage Week. He urged students to instead consider future work and study at Caribbean universities like the University of Antigua or the University of Barbados.

For the past century, he said,

News.....1–4 Metro.......5 Sports...6–7 Editorial....10 Opinion.....11 Today........12

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continued on page 4

For some athletes, twice the play, twice the fun

By Azar Kheraj C ontributing Writer

It’s a brisk Saturday morning on College Hill. All around campus, trash cans are over flowing with red cups and beer cans, hinting at the shenanigans that took place the night before. The typical Brunonian is likely either sleeping of f the ill ef fects of said shenanigans or just waking up, ready to take on a new day. But Sean Connauton ’11 is not your typical Brunonian.

As an intercollegiate athlete who plays both hockey and golf, he’s already well into his first practice and shows no sign of

At Heritage Week kickoff, a plea for work in Caribbean

By Talia Kagan Senior Staf f Writer

As she makes her way to the church’s back entrance every day, Deanna Brown passes these and the dozens of other markers of poverty in the community, giving her all the

intellectual power has alternated between the Caribbean and people of Caribbean heritage that no longer live in the region, a community known as the Diaspora. But now “the intellectual baton has passed once again to the Diasporan community,” he said. He attributed this shift to the region’s crisis in political and economic projects, as well as its inability to meet the demand for higher education.

New universities being founded in the region do not have enough local graduate students to staff them, he said, mentioning the University of Antigua, for which he is on the development committee.

Tracing the history of the Ca-

slowing down.

With the increase in specialization that has come to define the modern spor ting world, the multiple-spor t athlete is a dying breed. Long ago, it was fairly common for individuals like Jim Thorpe — who played baseball,

SPORTS basketball, football and track and field — to play multiple spor ts not only at the varsity level, but also professionally.

Today, however, a combination of rigorous practice schedules and an increase in intercollegiate competitiveness has

made it more difficult for athletes to excel without devoting all of their time to a single athletic endeavor.

“Playing soccer definitely hinders my abilities in swimming,” said Bridget Ballard ’10, a member of the swimming and soccer teams. “I know I’m not as good as I could be.”

So why do multiple-spor t athletes do it?

The answer to that is simple enough: they love both spor ts too much to pick between them.

Connauton, originally recruited just to play hockey at Brown, “couldn’t help but feel that something was missing without

golf.”

“Hockey and golf have been such a huge part of my life for so long that I can’t choose between them,” he added. “They’re both just too impor tant to me, and I didn’t want to regret not doing both the spor ts I loved.”

Ballard, a recr uited soccer player — who upon completing her freshman year at Brown decided to swim again — felt the same way.

“I’m an athlete, and I’ve been an athlete forever,” she said. “Ever y season was always spent doing something competitive, and continued on page 6

Moderate party jumps in on governor’s race

By Caitlin Trujillo Senior Staf f Writer

The newly-formed Moderate Party of Rhode Island joined the campaign fray Sunday when it announced its candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general at its kickoff party, held at the Everyman Bistro in Providence.

METRO Party founder Kenneth Block, a software engineer and business owner, announced his candidacy for governor along with Jean Ann Guliano, who will be running for lieutenant governor, and Christopher Little, the party’s candidate for attorney general.

Kim Perley / Herald file photo

continued on page 2

continued on page 5

The newly formed Moderate Party kicked off its run for the Statehouse.

Metro, 5

Sports, 7

Opinions, 11

field trip Grant money encourages local schools to get out of the classroom

bye bunny slopes The ski team gets ready to head to Nationals

TUTOR ME David Sheffield ’11 doesn’t want to wake up early for science lectures

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

herald@browndailyherald.com

Page 2

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Thursday, February 25, 2010

“It’s not anyone’s fault if no one gets hurt.” — Nancy Berlinger, deputy director and research scholar of Hastings Center

Med School hosts lecture on forgiveness Seniors share capstone projects in new forum

By Leonardo Moauro Contributing Writer

The key to understanding the shock that the patient-doctor relationship receives after medical malpractice is understanding what it means to forgive, said Nancy Berlinger, deputy director and research scholar of the Hastings Center, to a small audience in Salomon 101.

The lecture, hosted by the Alpert Medical School’s Ethics Night, was followed by a brief signing of Berlinger’s book, “After Harm: Medical Error and the Ethics of Forgiveness.”

Berlinger diagrammed two fundamentally distinct and contrasting views of forgiveness prevalent in Western culture: reconciliation and detachment. While the former mostly occurs in small arguments among family or friends, the second implies the cancellation of a debt owed and arises out of a very old Judeo-Christian tradition, Berlinger said. Because of the nature of the doctor-patient relationship, detachment is the form of forgiveness most prevalent in cases of medical malpractice, she added.

“It’s important to understand the extent to which our concept of forgiveness is grounded in Western culture and Western tradition,” Berlinger said, especially considering that one in five practitioners in the United States is Asian-born, she added.

Forgiveness in cases of harmful mistakes comes out of a very clear ethical process that requires both the apology and atonement of the perpetrator, Berlinger said. What is different in cases of harm resulting from medical mistakes is that the apology and the atonement often

By Zung Nguyen Vu Contributing Writer

Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald

Medical malpractice is traumatic for both patient and doctor, said Nancy Berlinger, deputy director and research scholar of the Hastings Center.

don’t come from the same person, she added. While it is usually the physician who discloses the medical error to the patient who has suffered it, the hospital as an institution is responsible for the compensation of the injured party, Berlinger said.

“Harming the person you’re trying to help is traumatic, no matter how experienced a physician is,” Berlinger said, but trusting that the institution can make sufficient amends to an injured patient is of topical importance for physicians dealing with personal guilt, she added.

Detachment is “what will help someone to be free from the burden of the case in which you or a loved one gets hurt,” Berlinger said. The process of detachment for patients is greatly facilitated when physicians and hospitals show that they take the incident of medical harm seriously,

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she added. This could comprise changes in hospital programs, or even training sessions for physicians and residents alike, Berlinger said.

Efforts to facilitate the process of detachment can have very profound effects on the nation’s medical system, such as decreasing the amount of lawsuits, Berlinger said.

Patients often file lawsuits when there is no satisfying mechanism of compensation within the hospital system, Berlinger said. But if physicians and hospitals “treat people with compassion and fairness, it greatly reduces the possibility of a lawsuit,” she added.

The possibility of a lawsuit also increases when patients are compelled to forgive when they in fact still resent their physician or their hospital, Berlinger said. In order to avoid this scenario, physicians and hospital administrators must offer the conditions that will allow for the injured party to forgive, she said.

When asked by an audience member exactly what she meant by an adverse event, Berlinger replied that it must always involve patient harm.

“It’s not anyone’s fault if nobody gets hurt,” she said.

But Chief of Medicine Sharon Rounds, who attended the lecture, said she did not agree with this definition. “We see a lot of inconveniences” in hospitals that cause both inpatients and outpatients to “suffer anxiety,” she added.

The event will “spearhead a larger quarterly medical ethics seminar,” said Jay Baruch, assistant professor of emergency medicine. The seminar will be held by the Continuing Medical Education Office, Baruch said, and will seek to explore different angles to ethical questions such as “how do we treat pain effectively in an age of rampant misuse of narcotics,” he added.

The Med School chose Berlinger as the key speaker because of the relevance of her work to the issue of medical malpractice and the repercussions it has on physicians, patients and hospitals as a whole, Baruch said. What is particularly important about her books is the insight they provide to the question of what conditions physicians must satisfy to facilitate the progress of forgiveness, he added.

The first Theories in Action conference, a new forum for seniors to share their capstone projects with the community, will be held on campus on April 30 and May 1. The two-day conference will be an opportunity for seniors who worked in groups or as individuals to showcase their work and engage in discussions with students and faculty in different departments, according to the conference’s organizers.

Student coordinators Amanda Machado ’10 and Nikkisha Smith ’10 said activities during the two days will include a combination of presentations, poster displays and roundtable discussions.

A maximum of 30 senior capstone projects will be chosen to participate in the conference, Machado said. She said the coordinators want the chosen projects to represent the diversity of academic interests at Brown. These projects could take a variety of forms such as a research paper, a group independent study project, a fellowship, an art installation or a community service project related to or independent from Brown, she said. The roundtable discussions will be composed of students and professors working on related projects in different fields.

The idea for this conference was initiated by Dean of the College

Katherine Bergeron and taken on by the Curricular Resource Center, Machado said. “Presentations and projects at Brown usually circulate around specific enclaves,” she said.

But this academic conference will bring separate efforts “to the whole community,” she added.

Smith said the conference aims to give participants the opportunity to reflect publicly on their work done at Brown and discuss its social relevance. Through the conference and follow-up dinner, participants will have a chance to network, learn from people with various interests and form relationships that might lead to post-graduation partnership, she added.

As seniors themselves, Smith and Machado said they feel the necessity for an event like this. “I know that many of my friends are involved in cool things. I see them go to meetings, but I don’t know exactly about what,” Machado said.

“This conference is a chance for seniors to look back at their time at Brown, to see their friends in action, sharing their fields of interest.”

Smith and Machado said seniors can apply to share their projects by submitting an application, which is due by March 8. Smith added that the project proposal does not have to be fully complete or in-depth, as long as it is “an interesting piece of work that can inspire and engage the Brown and Providence community.”

Caribbean, not just Haiti, needs students, prof says continued from page 1 ribbean Diaspora, Henry spoke of the “liminal state” of the immigrant experience, where the migrant experiences a “period of social death” as part of the “American race-ethnic ritual.”

Henry spoke familiarly to the group of students, invoking their personal Caribbean heritage.

The talk, titled “Caribbean Intellectuals in the Diaspora,” was the opening convocation for Caribbean Heritage Week at Brown.

While Haiti has garnered much international attention after last month’s earthquake, Henry’s talk did not focus on any one country in the Caribbean.

“I thought that on an occasion like this, it’s better to speak to kids about their own intellectual lives and how they can relate to the entire region,” Henry said, noting that he had chosen his topic before the earthquake.

Yanely Espinal ’11 and Yahellah Best ’11 are the two organizers for this year’s Caribbean Heritage Week, which is centered around the theme of the Caribbean Diaspora.

Espinal and Best expect a larger turnout for this year’s events as a result of heightened awareness of the Caribbean region due to

the recent tragedy in Haiti, they said.

About half of last year’s events were about Haiti, but there was not much interest, Best said. “It was good, but people didn’t show up,” she added.

The recent earthquake “definitely” impacted planning for this year’s program, Espinal said.

There will be a charity showcase to raise money for Haitian relief efforts, as well as a film presentation on the Haitian Revolution, she said.

A keynote speaker that the organizers originally considered could not attend because she was organizing relief in Haiti, Best said.

Some other events include the annual Ebony Soiree, which will feature a fashion show by a Guyanese designer this year, and a discussion panel on accents and self-identity, Best said. This weekend will be Cape Verdean Heritage Weekend, which will include events like a presentation on the Fox Point neighborhood.

When some think of the Caribbean, they immediately think of beach vacations in Jamaica, Espinal said. But she hopes that people will view the region as “more than just this touristy place where you can go for spring break.”

Thursday, February 25, 2010

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

“Brown really took initiative.”

— Julia Dahlin, member of Queer Alliance

Health Services works on inclusivity continued from page 1 said.

She referred Duthinh and Dahlin to the directors of each office they wished to work with, including Mantak.

After Mantak met with Duthinh and Dahlin, Health Services outlined several areas for improvement and hired Sarah Bowman ’06 as a consultant. Mantak said that while at Brown, Bowman — who is currently earning her master’s in public health at Yale — worked to make University housing policies transgender-inclusive.

Bowman said she hopes to “give perspective on different strategies that have been used” to improve transgender inclusivity.

One of Health Ser vices’ first priorities is training its personnel on different transgender issues, beginning with primar y caregivers and extending to office staff.

Mantak said she hopes to eventually have a Health Services staff member who specializes in transgender issues and plans to advertise the specialist to Brown’s transgender community.

Bowman said she hopes that the “education they do with their providers is backed up by looking at some of the bigger questions that come up,” such as the office’s forms, signs, educational materials and advertising campaigns.

The office plans to revise its forms to give transgender students the opportunity to state a preferred name or pronoun that is different from the one listed in their medical files or insurance information, Mantak said.

Bowman said the office would also investigate what flexibility there is in electronic medical records for filling in people’s names and gender preferences.

“Forms have always been an issue,” said Alex Kravitz ’13, a gender-queer student who identifies as male.

Health Services also intends to revise any signage around the building that might be discriminatory, Mantak said.

Beyond the office, Mantak is looking to expand information on transgender issues on the Health Services Web site and in its printed material. For example, Mantak said, Health Services’ recent poster campaign on gynecological visits would be revised to encourage females

Sushant Wagley / Herald

Queer Alliance students want Health Services to be more inclusive of the transgendered community.

of all gender identities to schedule an exam. The office also plans to release a poster addressing the negative impacts of transphobia in health care settings.

Kravitz said he hopes to see improvements in Health Services’ educational materials, including changing pamphlets on safe sex to be more inclusive of transgender students.

Once improvements have been made, advertising the changes to the transgender community will be key, Mantak said.

The office will work to see what information needs to be available so that students perceive Health Ser vices as a place where, “as a trans-student, as a trans-patient,” they will receive “responsible” care, Bowman said.

So far, Duthinh and Dahlin are pleased with how well the issue was received at Health Services.

“It is so much better for this to have happened in a preventive way,” Dahlin said. “Brown really took initiative.”

Page 3

Duthinh and Dahlin are “a good example of students who have come with clear aims,” Klawuun said. “We are excited about the possibilities, so it represents a good collaboration.”

Duthinh and Dahlin also hope to enact similar changes in Psychological Services, especially improvements in referral services for students with gender identity issues.

Dahlin said they have not yet met with anyone from Psychological Services, but that she and Duthinh “look forward to working with them.”

In order to improve transgender inclusivity on campus beyond Health and Psychological Services, “education is just key,” Kravitz said.

“I’m going about every day as a gender-variant person, and sometimes I’ll be reminded that not everyone knows about being gendervariant,” Kravitz added. “No matter how informed someone considers themselves, there’s always something they can learn, things even I can learn.”

news in brief

UCS to institute instant runoff for internal elections The Undergraduate Council of Students voted to approve a number of changes to the elections section in its Code of Operations. The proposed alterations would allow the UCS president to nominate members of the elections board, create an ad hoc appeals board to hear complaints filed against the elections board and institute an instant runoff voting system for the Council’s internal elections.

The changes were proposed by UCS Vice President Diane Mokoro ’11.

In an instant runoff system, voters rank their preferences among candidates. If no one person receives a majority of the votes, votes for the least popular candidates are redistributed to those voters’ second choices. This redistribution continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes.

“Instant runoff is a more complicated system, but it is considered more equitable and fair,” UCS President Clay Wertheimer ’10 told The Herald last week.

Though the new voting system will initially be used only for the council’s internal elections, Wertheimer said he hopes it will eventually be used for campus-wide elections as well.

Lauren Kolodny ’08, a Corporation trustee, was also in attendance at Wednesday’s general body meeting and participated in a question-and-answer session with the Council. Kolodny is the first graduate to hold the Corporation position created last year for a young alum.

“I want, more than anything else, to come here and just have a conversation with you all,” she told the Council.

Kolodny discussed a number of issues with the Council including the proposed athletics fee, dorm renovations and investment transparency.

— Max Godnick

Page 4

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS Keys, computers and cash stolen on campus

The following summar y includes all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Jan. 28 and Feb. 3. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents occurring of f campus.

DPS does not divulge information on cases that are currently under investigation by the department, PPD or the Of fice of Student Life.

DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters, located at 75 Charlesfield St.

CRIME LOG Jan. 28 10:33 a.m. A facilities employee repor ted that she and many other University custodians were picking up their keys for work duty. She reported that she plugged her iPod in while she waited to get her keys. After she received her keys from the custodial super visor she noticed that her iPod was missing.

3:21 p.m. A Brown student reported he left for the winter

break on Dec. 12 and returned on Jan. 23. Upon arriving home, he noticed that his video recorder and case and a box of change was stolen from his bedroom. There were no signs of forced entr y.

Feb. 3 4:02 p.m. An employee stated he parked his vehicle at 7:30 a.m. and when he returned to it at approximately 3:30 p.m. he observed the passenger side window smashed and his back-up camera screen had been stolen.

Providence Police responded to take a report.

6:44 p.m. A student reported that she was at a lecture located at MacMillan Hall and decided to meet her friend at the Sciences Librar y. She stated that she left her bag inside the lecture hall in the back of the room. When she returned, her bag was there but the laptop inside was missing.

9:05 p.m. Student stated that his belongings were stolen. He was in the weight room and he had his backpack against the wall by the front door. His backpack contained his sweat clothes, sneakers, wallet and keys.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

“We had a fire to do something.”

— Deanna Brown, creative director for People’s School

In the West End, art and hope continued from page 1

motivation she needs to continue devoting herself to People’s School.

Brown works as the creative director for People’s School, an organization based out of Trinity United that provides artistic training for Providence adults and which was founded by two Brown students, Adam Reich ’03 and Marshall Clement ’03.

“What the hope is, is that we’ll have a place where we can teach people art skills … different outlets within the arts,” Brown said. She explained that people can use the skills they learn through People’s School in direct ways — by finding jobs within theater, painting or other artistic fields — and also by applying a newfound sense of selfconfidence and social skills to their current work.

Deanna Brown is one of the prime beneficiaries of the school.

Sonja Lee, Brown’s “homegirl,” introduced her to the organization in 2004, when Brown was a student in the fashion merchandising program at Johnson and Wales University.

Brown was unemployed and realized that she “wasn’t going to be able to get a job in (her) field.” She said she had always wanted to be a singer and fashion designer, but felt that after a childhood spent in Providence’s West End projects, she did not have

the skill set and encouragement she needed to follow her dreams.

“I am a whole other generation of single mothers,” Brown said, explaining that neither she nor her mother married before starting a family. By the time she finished her education at the University of Rhode Island, Brown had three children, and she was still “dealing with lots of issues” stemming from episodes of abuse. Without the skill set or money to start her own business, but understanding the historical and sociological basis for her position in life, Brown said she “became just angry,” and that she needed an outlet for that anger.

“I was so inspired by the energy I found in that room,” Brown said of her first People’s School meeting of spoken-word artists, playwrights, actors and painters.

Brown’s eyes lit up as she spoke about her first interactions with the school. A loud, emphatic person, she raised her voice and started to gesticulate even more, spreading her arms out fully and waving her hands.

“I got involved any way I could,” she said.

After transferring from Johnson and Wales to URI, she took up a work-study program with People’s School.

“We didn’t really have much supervision,” Brown said. “We just stumbled through it.”

Lack of oversight continued to plague People’s School for years after Brown became involved. Despite a series of grants and continued community support, the school bounced between homes, and only found its current location in Trinity United in 2009. Last year also marked the first People’s School program in three years.

In December, the school put on “Breaking the Chains,” a theatrical workshop Lee initiated that tried to teach adults to “translate their emotions and stories into a play,” Brown said. She participated in it herself, because she “just needed to be inspired.”

People’s School also participated in a benefit concert on Saturday at Rosinha’s Restaurant in Pawtucket, and helped raise almost $2,000 for Haiti relief efforts.

But though People’s School has touched 300 to 400 people, according to Brown’s estimate, it still has not achieved its full potential over the decade that has passed since Reich

and Clement started the project as part of their work with the Swearer Center for Public Service.

By the time Brown had started with People’s School, Reich and Clement had turned over the leadership of the organization to the residents it was supposed to serve.

When they left, the organization lost a lot of its funding. Because most of the current administrators are lowincome community members without access to anyone with enough money to support public initiatives, Brown said, the organization has not been able to do as much as she would like.

She wants to start a full theater company that could train members in lighting, technology, directing, videography and costume design. A few floors up from the school’s offices, Trinity Repertory Company’s old theater sits stagnant and unused.

It has completely fallen apart in the 37 years since Trinity Rep left the church, but Brown said she dreams of new curtains, cutting-edge lighting systems and empowered actors someday filling the space.

“It’s a big vision, but we’re starting one person at a time,” she said.

People’s School has gotten closer to this eventual goal, particularly over the last few years. After receiving a grant in 2008, the school was told by an outside evaluator that they needed a board and an official program. After receiving more direction and super vision from the Board of Directors, a group of six that includes past school participants, Brown secured space in Trinity United and started putting on programs.

She has been diligent about making these programs as successful as possible, by keeping costs low and providing activities for children during events.

Brown said she wants to address the issues that would prevent people from coming. Each of the school’s programs will offer childcare, she said.

But even if it takes a few more years for People’s School to expand and offer more consistent programs, Trinity United will continue to act as a community center for the West End of Providence, despite its limited funds.

“If I could articulate what happened in that building,” Brown said, her voice trailing off. “We had a fire to do something.”

Metro The Brown Daily Herald

Grant funds bus loads to the arts

By Brian Mastroianni Features Editor

Rhode Island educators now have help paying transportation expenses for field trips to state arts venues, thanks to a new grant program sponsored by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. The Big Yellow School Bus Grant Program, put into effect this January, has so far enabled 25 schools to pay bus fare for field trips in the arts.

The Council designated $20,000 from a federal grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund this pilot program. So far, $8,344 of the program’s initial funding has been used by schools throughout the state. The grant is designed to cover the cost of school bus fares for students, teachers and staff.

“Our hope is that we’ll have the resources to continue supporting this program in the foreseeable future,” said Randall Rosenbaum, the council’s executive director. “It is important for kids to experience art in the community, and not just in the classroom,” he added.

Schools are allowed to apply for only one $400 grant, and each field trip has to comply with Rhode Island Grade Span Expectations — statemandated curricular benchmarks.

“We like to see how these field trips provide educational benefits for the students. So we ask questions that include ‘how do you plan to follow up this trip in the classroom?’

And we also like to see how the trips will benefit the arts organizations,” Rosenbaum said.

Without the grant program, students “might not be exposed to the arts and might not get that spark to stay interested in school,” said Principal Linda Succi of Emma G. Whiteknact Elementary School in East Providence.

Succi applied for a grant of $390 to pay for the bus fare of roughly 300 people including the entire student body and staff members from the school. As a result of the grant, the school’s students will now attend the May 12 performance of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra.

Succi said the rising cost of school bus transportation that sometimes makes field trips “cost-prohibitive” reflects the larger challenges that face arts education in Rhode Island schools.

“Arts and sports always go first.

With budget cuts, children are not being exposed enough to the arts,” she said.

The grant program also exposes students outside of the traditional public school system to arts education. The Beautiful Beginnings Child Care Center in Providence was recently awarded a $335 grant for its students to attend a production of “Seussical the Musical” at the Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket on May 10.

The center offers a Department of Education–certified program to preschool and kindergarten students in Providence. Despite the fact that the school would only take 30 students on the trip, the school bus fee would have totaled about $300, said Elayne Terranova, the center’s assistant director.

“The staff is looking for ward to this — to build the curriculum around Dr. Seuss’s children’s books,” Terranova said.

Terranova said exposing children to the arts ensures the development of the artists of the future.

Through exposure to the arts, she said, children “see how much is out there in the world and can develop their own creative skills. The budget in the schools is so slim that it is important to find funding.”

“With budget cuts, children are not being exposed to the arts.”

— Linda Succi, principal of Emma G. Whiteknact Elementary School Thursday, February 25, 2010 | Page 5

Moderate party announces slate continued from page 1 Though the lieutenant governor in Rhode Island typically does not run on the same ticket as the governor, Guliano said she and Block will be campaigning together.

The candidates each showed a video before taking the stage.

Their speeches framed their platforms based on the Moderate Party’s four-part focus on the economy, ethics reform, education and the environment.

Block, in his video, said the idea for the party began when he became convinced that Rhode Island citizens needed a centrist party.

The party will focus on amending the way government runs, in part by giving more power to the office of the lieutenant governor.

In his speech, Block said the Rhode Island government was “beset with the worst form of political gridlock.” Though not a professional politician, he said he knows from personal experience as a business owner how the economy has impacted Rhode Island citizens.

Block said his objectives as governor will include using federal stimulus and state bond funds to build jobs, reducing costs to keep businesses in Rhode Island and creating special economic zones in the state.

He implored the audience to not only vote for him, Guliano and Little, but also candidates in local elections.

“You must vote for change, and the Moderate Party of Rhode Island will bring that change,” Block said in his speech.

Guliano, who is the chair of the East Greenwich School Committee, said in her video that she intends to act as an information channel between the people, the General Assembly and other offices. She emphasized the importance of education and addressing the federal stimulus funds, which she said will run out in 2012. The government should remain “capable stewards of the taxpayers’ money,” she said, referencing a previous statement from State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist.

Continuing the focus on education, Guliano said she would work to lift the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in the state.

In his speech, Little criticized Attorney General Patrick Lynch ’87 for failing to act as an effective advocate for the people. Little, who has been an attorney for over thirty years and served on community organizations such as Save the Bay, said he would work to fulfill the duty of the attorney general in addition to acting as the state’s chief law enforcer. He also pledged to leave his office doors open for people to confidentially air their grievances.

After the candidates spoke, Party Chairman Robert Corrente took the stage and encouraged the audience members not only to vote, but also to donate to the party and campaign for its candidates. Capitalizing on the momentum they had, he said, would help ensure the party’s success.

“You don’t have to run as part of the monolith,” Corrente said.

“You have a choice.”

Courtesy of R.I. Moderate Party

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Christopher Little, candidate for attorney general

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Kenneth Block, candidate for governor

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SportsThursday The Brown Daily Herald

Thursday, February 25, 2010 | Page 6

Two sports are better than one, say some continued from page 1 having the time of f freshman year where I wasn’t competing just wasn’t fun. I didn’t enjoy life as much.”

Both Ballard and Connauton also mentioned that adding their second spor t actually helped them with their primar y spor t in some ways.

“I definitely think there are lots of similarities between golf and hockey that I can draw upon to help with my hockey,” Connauton said. “I would say that just learning to hit a golf ball helped me with my slap shot a lot technique-wise. Also, the mental aspect of golf — taking the game one hole at a time — helped me approach hockey with a similar mentality so that bad shifts wouldn’t af fect my game.”

Ballard said she felt swimming’s low-impact cardio training helped keep her in shape for soccer without forcing her to “endure the pounding associated with running and playing soccer.”

Still, the commitment and difficulty associated with doing two such time-intensive activities on top of a full class schedule does take its toll, the athletes said.

“It’s a lot of work,” Connau-

ton said, “And I’m always pretty busy with practices, games, homework and classes. It can be a lot to have on one plate.”

Meghan Earley ’13, a member of the swimming and water polo teams, also found the commitment-juggling aspect of playing sports difficult at first, but found that it got much easier once the competitive season star ted.

“When I’m in season, I find that I manage my time much better even though I have less of it because I’m just so much more focused,” she said.

But despite the struggles of playing two spor ts, the athletes said they can always count on the support of their coaches and teammates.

“They’re definitely ver y supportive of me,” Connauton said.

“They know that when I’m at the rink, I’m giving 100 percent to hockey, and when I’m at the golf course, I’m giving 100 percent to golf. They appreciate my devotion.”

After hockey practice finishes up that brisk Saturday morning, Connauton packs up and heads to the librar y to crank out work before hitting some balls at the range. There’s no rest for the wear y, but Sean Connauton wouldn’t have it any other way.

Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald

Brown lost two Ivy League duel matches over the weekend.

wrestling

Cornell dominates Ivy wrestling

By Han Cui Assistant Sports Editor

No. 3 Cornell has not lost more than two matches in any Ivy League duel this season. Harvard won two matches against the Big Red, but no other Ivy League team has won more than one match against Cornell. The Bears could not break out against Cornell last Friday in Ithaca and fell 46-4, winning only one match. The next day, the Bears faced off against Columbia and lost the second duel, 25-12.

Cornell 46, Brown 4 “We did not wrestle well against a good team and we lost badly,” said Head Coach Dave Amato. “We didn’t come ready to wrestle.”

The Big Red stacked up team points by winning four of the eight matches by pins.

Jeff Lemmer ’12 earned the lone victory for the Bears at the 165-pound weight class. Lemmer took charge of the match early in the first period and closed out strong with two takedowns and a near fall, good for a major decision, 18-4.

Twelve out of the 46 points Cornell earned resulted from Brown forfeits. The Bears are still struggling with some team members out due to injury and others wrestling with injury.

Columbia 25, Brown 12 The duel against Columbia was much more competitive, especially

in the middle weight classes. The Bears gained an early 9-3 lead after the third bout. But the Lions edged out the Bears to win two matches at 165 and 197 pounds by one point each, helping to seal the Lions victory.

“It was the same thing as the duel against Princeton,” Amato said. “We didn’t win close matches.”

The Bears have a week off to prepare for the upcoming Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Tournament at Lehigh.

“Hopefully we will perform better at Easterns than our seedings,” Amato said. “I am confident. We are close, but we are not doing the little things right. Hopefully this week off will let the injured guys get well.”

Page 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S ports T hursday

Thursday, February 25, 2010

“We can be as aggressive as we want.”

— Mike LeBlanc, head ski coach

s p o rt s i n b r i e f

Dartmouth well-represented in Olympics Andrew Weibrecht, who graduated from Dartmouth last spring, added a bronze medal to his resume Feb. 19. The 24-year-old placed third in Super-G alpine skiing, just behind silver medalist Bode Miller.

Dartmouth sent seven alums and two current students to Vancouver for the Olympics.

Big Green sophomore Tommy Ford finished 26th in the giant slalom, ahead of Brown’s Dow Travers ’12, who finished 69th in the event.

But Dartmouth’s Olympic ties go beyond the athletes. U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun and former Vancouver mayor Gordon Campbell, who helped bring the Olympics to Vancouver, graduated from Dartmouth in 1979 and 1969, respectively, according to USA Today.

Princeton women’s basketball team on a roll There are five women’s college basketball teams in the nation with two or fewer losses, the top four teams in the polls and one more — Princeton.

The Tigers are on the brink of cracking the rankings in both the ESPN/USA Today and the AP Top 25 Poll, and they have won 16 consecutive games — the most recent of which was a 64-38 trouncing of Brown on Saturday.

Next weekend will decide if men’s hockey team gets home ice in ECAC Tournament The men’s hockey team will have to finish in the top eight teams in the ECAC standings after this weekend in order to earn a best-of-three game series for the first round of the ECAC Tournament.

The Bears will face off against seventh-place Quinnipiac and Princeton, which is tied with Brown for ninth, this weekend. Quinnipiac and Princeton will also have to face ECAC leader and No. 4 Yale this weekend.

Here are the teams who will battle it out this weekend for the eighth home ice slot. Wins are worth two points and ties are worth one.

7. Quinnipiac (18 points), 8. Harvard (17), 9. Princeton (16), 9. Brown (16), 11. Dartmouth (14) — Dan Alexander

Bateman / Herald

The Bears defeated Penn this weekend before losing to Princeton.

w. basketball

Bruno beats Penn, falls to Princeton at home

By Zack Bahr Spor ts Staf f Writer

Courtesy of dspics.com

The ski team is headed to the USCSA National Championships.

Fifth-place finish at Regionals moves skiers to Nationals The ski team finished in fifth place overall at the USCSA ECSC Regional Championships Feb. 20 and 21 at Waterville Valley Resort in New Hampshire. With the fifth-place finish, the team qualified for the USCSA National Championships.

In slalom on Saturday, though Krista Consiglio ’11 and Elisa Handbury ’10 finished in the top ten, another one of the fastest skiers crashed, causing Brown to fall to fourth place.

It was much the same in giant slalom on Sunday, when another crash put the Bears in fifth place, even though Emily Simmons ’12 and Kia Mosenthal ’12 finished in the top 15.

Just like at the races earlier this season at Waterville Valley Resort, snow conditions contributed to the team’s difficulties.

Head Coach Mike LeBlanc said the snow was “really, really grippy,” causing the skiers to lose control and crash. After the initial crashes, the later Bears skied more conservatively.

“We definitely could’ve skied better,” LeBlanc said. “But the important thing is to qualify (for Nationals) which we did.”

In preparation for the USCSA National Championships, the team plans to work on both skiing aggressively and finishing, LeBlanc said.

“We can be as aggressive as we want” since the team is already at Nationals, LeBlanc said. “We’re going to give it our best shot to get the best results.”

— Ashley McDonnell

This weekend marked the second time that the women’s basketball team faced Penn and Princeton this season. This time, Bruno had home court advantage, but the outcomes were the same, as the Bears picked up a big win against the Quakers and were mauled by the Tigers.

Brown 54, Penn 42 Penn came in to the game with nothing to lose. Winless in Ivy play and with only one win on the season, the Quakers were “playing for the upset,” said Penn Head Coach Mike McLaughlin.

For the first half, it looked like the Quakers might get it. Bruno came out sluggish, shooting only 10 percent from three-point range compared to Penn’s 80 percent. Bruno led by only four at the half.

Leading scorer Hannah Passafuime ’12 made no shots the first half and tallied just three points the whole game.

“We just need to force more turnovers and contest the threes,” said Brown Head Coach Jean Marie Burr at halftime.

The ladies stepped it up the second half with three players in the

double digits for the game. Christina Johnson ’10 and Sheila Dixon ’13 were electric on the court with their strong ability to drive the ball to the hoop. Johnson wore her heart on her sleeve all evening, at one point showing frustration in her face when a fouled lay-up wouldn’t fall with the Bears up by 12.

Brown earned 23 points off of turnovers while Penn earned just 11. The Bears held Penn to just 14 percent from behind the arc in the second half en route to a 12-point victory over the Quakers.

Princeton 64, Brown 38 There was no good news for the Bears Saturday, when they played host to the Tigers of Princeton.

The only player to reach double digits was Johnson with 10 points.

Bruno shot just 6 percent from three-point range and 24 percent from the field, well below its season averages of 24 and 33 percent, respectively.

Princeton improved to 21-2 overall and 9-0 in Ivy League play.

Brown hosts their final home games of the season this weekend against Harvard on Friday and Dartmouth on Saturday. Both games tip off at 7 p.m.

World & Nation The Brown Daily Herald

Thursday, February 25, 2010 | Page 8

SeaWorld Orlando trainer is killed in whale attack

By Jason Garcia, Susan Jacobson, Bianca Prieto and Amy L. Edwards The Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. — A SeaWorld Orlando animal trainer was killed Wednesday during an accident at SeaWorld’s Shamu Stadium, park and law enforcement officials said.

Dawn Brancheau, a 40-year-old with extensive training experience, drowned following a popular Dine with Shamu show as at least two dozen tourists looked on from above a whale tank and from an underwater viewing area.

SeaWorld executive Chuck Tompkins confirmed what witnesses saw, that Brancheau was pulled into the water by Tilikum, a 12,000-pound male killer whale.

Brancheau was finishing up a session with Tilikum, the largest whale in SeaWorld’s collection and its only mature male.

“We’re in the process of investigating all of the people and the animals,” Tompkins said.

Witnesses told The Orlando Sentinel that one of the park’s whales grabbed the trainer by the upper arm, disappeared underwater and swam to the other side of the tank.

Tilikum thrashed Brancheau around in the water as he swam rapidly around in the whale pool.

Brazilian tourist Joao Lucio DeCosta Sobrinho, 28, and girlfriend Talita Oliveira, 20, were at an underwater viewing area when they suddenly saw a whale with someone in its mouth.

The couple said they watched the whale show at the park two days earlier and came back to take pictures. But Wednesday afternoon the

Julie Fletcher / Orlando Sentinel

Dawn Brancheau, a whale trainer at SeaWorld Adventure Park, was killed in an accident with a killer whale at the SeaWorld Shamu Stadium in Orlando, Fla. Feb. 24.

whales appeared agitated before the incident occurred.

“It was terrible. It’s very difficult to see the image,” Sobrinho said.

Brancheau was bleeding from the face or mouth, they said, and the whale turned her over and over as it swam.

Within minutes, an alarm in the viewing area sounded and security personnel arrived to escort tourists out.

“No panic, no panic” is what they said, Oliveira said in broken English.

About 20 visitors also were escorted out of the dining area, several diners told The Sentinel.

Dine with Shamu is held twice a

day, according to the park. The early show is at 12:30 p.m. The second show is held at 6:30 p.m.

“It is with great sadness that I report that one of our most experienced animal trainers drowned in an incident with one of our killer whales this afternoon,” SeaWorld President Dan Brown said in a brief statement to reporters. “We’ve initiated an investigation to determine, to the extent possible, what occurred.”

Brancheau worked at the park since February 1994. An Osceola County Sheriff’s deputy was parked outside her home in St. Cloud and turned away any visitors.

Brown said no SeaWorld park had ever before experienced a simi-

lar incident and pledged a thorough review of all of the park’s standard operating procedures.

“This is an extraordinarily difficult time for the SeaWorld parks and our team members. Nothing is more important than the safety of our employees, guests and the animals entrusted to our care,” Brown said, his voice breaking slightly. “We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the trainer and will do everything possible to assist them in this difficult time.”

Orange County Fire Rescue personnel arrived on the scene within five minutes of receiving a 911 call for an unknown medical condition just prior to 2 p.m., a spokesman

said. Brancheau was dead when rescue officials arrived.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration dispatched an investigator from Tampa to investigate, an OSHA spokesman said.

Tilikum has been involved in two deaths before. Nicknamed Tilly, he was blamed for a 1991 drowning of a trainer while he performed at Sealand of the Pacific in British Columbia.

In 1999, authorities discovered the dead body of a naked man lying across his back. Authorities concluded the man, who had either snuck into SeaWorld after hours or hidden in the park until it closed, most likely drowned after suffering hypothermia in the 55-degree water.

They also said it appeared Tilikum had bit the man and tore off his swimming trunks, likely believing he was a toy to play with.

A former SeaWorld contractor told The Sentinel that Tilikum is typically kept isolated from SeaWorld’s other killer whales and that trainers were not allowed to get in the water with him because of his violent history.

SeaWorld has had incidents with its killer whales in the past. In 2005, a trainer was injured by what park officials called an “overly excited” whale that bumped the trainer during a live performance. The injuries were minor.

Officials at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, long critical of SeaWorld’s practices, again called on the park “to stop confining oceangoing mammals to an area that to them is like the size of a bathtub,” it said in a statement.

“It’s not surprising when these huge, smart animals lash out.”

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Page 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Thursday, February 25, 2010

W orld & N ation

Sea otter donation box Students walk out of UCSD teach-in may be terminated

By Larry Gordon Los Angeles T imes

By Kurtis Alexander Santa Cruz Sentinel

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — The endangered California sea otter, whose recovery is pegged on costly conservation programs, is at risk of losing big money from taxpayers.

Last year, the otter did not draw enough donations through California tax returns to ensure it would remain a contribution option on state tax forms. This year, the California Tax Franchise Board has said the California Sea Otter Fund must raise $258,563 — $17,500 more than what was raised last year —to keep its listing.

“This fund is too important to sea otter conservation to let go,” Jim Curland, an otter expert with

advocacy Defenders of Wildlife, said in a prepared statement. “Even the donation of a single dollar will help give these magnificent animals the shot at a life they deserve.”

The California sea otter population, which is estimated at 2,200, remains vulnerable. In 2009, the three-year average otter count fell for the first time in a decade, Curland said.

The otters live along California’s Central Coast.

The money raised through tax returns is split between the California Coastal Conservancy and the California Department of Fish and Game. The income is spent on otter research, habitat improvements and the enforcement of laws that protect the marine mammal.

Shuttle Endeavour wraps up mission

By Robert Block The Orlando Sentinel

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of six astronauts touched down safely on Sunday night at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, returning from a bigger and definitely brighter International Space Station.

The astronauts completed a twoweek mission that resulted in the virtual completion of the International Space Station and won presidential praise.

“It’s great to be home. It was a great adventure,” said shuttle commander George Zamka after bringing the orbiter to a safe landing on runway 15 at KSC. Over the course of three spacewalks, Endeavour’s crew installed the 16-ton Tranquility module and its cupola, a big dome with seven windows, giving the station a room with a view.

With the new components added, the orbiting laboratory is approximately 90 percent complete by weight and 98 percent complete by volume.

At one point Sunday, flight controllers were doubtful the weather would cooperate because of clouds and possibly rain. But in the end threatening showers moved off shore and the cloud cover broke.

It was reminiscent of Endeavour’s launch. The two-week mission got off to a late start Feb. 8 because of cloudy weather at the launch site.

The mission, one of just five remaining for NASA’s three shuttles before the program ends later this year after a 29-year run, came as the US space agency re-evaluates its future.

President Barack Obama called the astronauts on the station last week to thank them for the job they did. Under Obama’s proposed 2011 budget, the orbiting research station could see its life extended by five years until 2020.

The space station, a joint project involving 16 countries, has cost around $100 billion, mostly funded by the United States.

But the same budget effectively abandoned a US plan to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020.

Constrained by soaring deficits, the Obama White House submitted its 2011 budget to Congress, encouraging NASA to focus instead on developing commercial transport alternatives to ferry astronauts to the space station after the shuttle program ends.

NASA has set the next mission to the space station, by shuttle Discovery, for April 5.

SAN DIEGO — Nine days after an off-campus student party mocked Black History Month, University of California at San Diego went through a day of protests, tumult and self-examination Wednesday, especially concerning the small number of black students enrolled at the beachside campus.

University administrators sponsored a teach-in on racial tolerance that attracted a standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,200 students, faculty and staff to an auditorium in the student center. But halfway through what was to be a two-hour session in response to the offensive racial stereotypes at the Feb. 15 “Compton Cookout” party, most students walked out in protest.

They then held their own noisy but peaceful rally outside the building. Administrators may have thought the teach-in “would make us quiet,” said Fnann Keflezighi, vice chairman of the Black Student Union. But she said minority students don’t believe that UCSD will take significant steps to make them feel more comfortable on campus and increase their numbers.

The controversial party, she and others contended, was just the spark that ignited new activism about long-simmering issues at the university. Many wore special black and white T-shirts that proclaimed: “Real Pain, Real Action, 1.3 percent,” a reference to the percentage of blacks among the campus’ undergraduates, thought to be the lowest in the UC system.

The teach-in moderator, Mentha Hynes-Wilson, a black woman who is dean of students at UCSD’s

Thurgood Marshall College, continued the meeting for several hundred people who remained in the room after the walkout. “I was not necessarily offended or taken aback by their actions,” she said of the student protest. “That’s what they needed to do, and we need to honor that.”

UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox attended the teach-in but did not speak publicly. Administrators said the campus is taking many steps to boost recruitment of black students and to provide more counseling and security on campus.

The university is also investigating whether it can discipline the organizers of the off-campus party, which invited guests to dress like ghetto caricatures from Compton and eat chicken and watermelon.

Several days after the party, racial tensions were raised further when a satire group on campus used a derogator y term about blacks on a student television show; the student station has been temporarily suspended, as has student government funding for some other publications.

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Thursday, February 25, 2010

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

U. providing increased transfer support To the Editor: We were pleased to read your recent editorial about the importance of ongoing support for transfer students at Brown (“Transfixed,” Feb. 19). In the past two years, the College has introduced a number of enhancements to the advising offered to transfer students. Because these changes may not be widely known, we are writing to offer a brief summary for Herald readers.

Incoming transfer students now receive two planning guides before they arrive, “Transfer Guide to Brown” and “Planning Your Liberal Education: A Guide for Transfer Students.” On campus, they undergo a three-day orientation program tailored to their needs. Before, during and after their orientation, they receive individual advising with academic deans, faculty members and a network of peer advisors. Sophomore transfers are paired with a Faculty Advising Fellow, who will serve as a supplemental advisor until the student declares a concentration.

Juniors are immediately put in touch with relevant concentration advisors.

Peer transfer counselors — Brown students who were once transfers themselves — help to mediate these advising relationships, sharing their perspectives on Brown and on adapting to a new environment.

Beyond the orientation, transfer students also enjoy a number of activities that take place throughout the semester. The Brown community has been enriched year after year by the quality, commitment and zeal of its transfer students. We recognize that an increase in transfer enrollment may present additional advising pressures on the College, but we feel certain that the new programs described here should help us to support all new transfers in the way they deserve.

Dean Maitrayee Bhattacharyya ’91 Dean Besenia Rodriguez ’00 Office of the Dean of the College

Letters, please! letters@browndailyherald.com

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

Managing Editor Chaz Kelsh

editorial Arts & Culture Anne Speyer Suzannah Weiss Arts & Culture Features Brian Mastroianni Features Hannah Moser Metro Brigitta Greene Metro Ben Schreckinger News Sydney Ember News Nicole Friedman Sports Dan Alexander Asst. Sports Andrew Braca Asst. Sports Han Cui

Deputy Managing Editors Sophia Li Emmy Liss

Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor

Graphics & Photos Graphics Editor Stephen Lichenstein Alex Yuly Graphics Editor Nick Sinnott-Armstrong Photo Editor Max Monn Asst. Photo Editor Jonathan Bateman Sports Photo Editor production Copy Desk Chief Kelly Mallahan Jordan Mainzer Asst. Copy Desk Chief Marlee Bruning Design Editor Anna Migliaccio Asst. Design Editor Julien Ouellet Asst. Design Editor Neal Poole Web Editor Post- magazine Editor-in-Chief Marshall Katheder

Senior Editors Ellen Cushing Seth Motel Joanna Wohlmuth

Business General Managers Office Manager Shawn Reilly Claire Kiely Katie Koh Directors Sales Kelly Wess Finance Matthew Burrows Client Relations Margaret Watson Alumni Relations Christiana Stephenson Managers Arjun Vaidya Marco deLeon Aditi Bhatia Jared Davis Trenten Nelson-Rivers Alexander Carrere Kathy Bui

Local Sales National Sales University Sales University Sales Recruiter Sales Special Projects Staff

Opinions Opinions Editor Michael Fitzpatrick Opinions Editor Alyssa Ratledge Editorial Page Board Matt Aks Editorial Page Editor Debbie Lehmann Board member William Martin Board member Melissa Shube Board member Gaurie Tilak Board member Jonathan Topaz Board member

Gili Kliger, Designer Nicole Boucher, Priyanka Chatterjee, Sara Luxenberg, Copy Editors

R ichard stein and paul tran

e d i to r i a l

Book it In recent years, an increasing number of universities have been making electronic textbooks available as an alternative to traditional print books. The Herald reported last year that universities across the country, including the University System of Ohio, have begun to offer students the option to switch from paper textbooks to electronic versions.

In addition to the obvious cost savings and environmental benefits, electronic textbooks make it possible to incorporate extra media content into existing books.

Macmillan Publishers is taking advantage of this potential by launching a system in August that will allow professors to personalize electronic versions of existing textbooks.

The system, called DynamicBooks, allows professors to rewrite portions of the text, add or delete chapters and incorporate videos and problem sets directly into the book. Macmillan joins the ranks of several other publishing companies that have launched electronic textbook platforms with interactive features.

To attract new users, Macmillan will offer professors a $1 per e-book royalty from sales of books that include their customizations. In addition, editors will review online texts every six months and integrate what they consider to be the best revisions into the official version of the textbook.

“Dynamic” textbooks are a novel solution to a familiar problem — the difficulty of selecting books that effectively fit a course. Students frequently pay hundreds of dollars for a textbook only to find that it is underutilized in class.

Giving professors the power to edit textbooks to suit their needs will allow them to create editions that are more relevant and useful for students. It will also help students bypass the usual uncertainty about which edition of the text to buy.

Although DynamicBooks would seem to be an overwhelmingly positive development, it is not entirely free from controversy. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education cited worries that paying professors for their updates amounts to a kind of “kickback” to lure professors into using the system.

These worries strike us as completely unfounded.

Professors deserve to be compensated if they put in the effort to update the book, and one dollar per book is unlikely to be an overwhelming incentive for professors to embrace the system. Even in the largest lecture classes, a professor would make no more than a few hundred dollars. Professors already stand to gain even more in royalties by assigning the print editions of their own books to large classes.

Additionally, to qualify for the payment, revisions must meet a set of criteria established by the publishers, so only professors that make significant contributions to the textbook would receive money. If DynamicBooks develops into a reliable, easy-to-use system, we wouldn’t have any problem with professors being given even more of an incentive to use it.

Professors at Brown should start exploring these innovative new options. A recent Herald story pointed out that electronic books have been slow to catch on at the University. Nevertheless, we still believe that electronic books have the potential to make texts more useful and accessible, especially now that professors can edit the books themselves. In the coming years, we hope to see professors use this new system and others like it to make the books they assign more relevant to the courses they teach.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board.

Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

correction An article in Wednesday’s Herald (“Recent grads seriously injured in hit-and-run,” Feb. 23) stated that Vice President of Public Affairs and University Relations Marisa Quinn wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that a community-wide message was not sent after Sunday’s accident due to “a number of factors, including issues of safety and security; rights, rules and regulations with regard to privacy; the availability of facts; and the interests of students and family members.” In fact, Quinn wrote that these are examples of factors considered when evaluating whether to send a community-wide message. Quinn did not write that these factors all applied in the case described in Wednesday’s article. The Herald regrets the error.

Brigitta Greene, Talia Kagan, Kate Monks, Hannah Moser, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Ana Alvarez, Alexander Bell, Alicia Chen, Max Godnick, Talia Kagan, Sarah Mancone, Heeyoung Min, Kate Monks, Claire Peracchio, Goda Thangada, Caitlin Trujillo Staff Writers Shara Azad, Nicole Boucher, Kristina Fazzalaro, Miriam Furst, Anish Gonchigar, Sarah Julian, Matthew Klebanoff, Sara Luxenberg, Anita Mathews, Luisa Robledo, Emily Rosen, Bradley Silverman, Anne Simons, Sara Sunshine Senior Sales Staff Katie Galvin, Liana Nisimova, Isha Gulati, Alex Neff, Michael Ejike, Samantha Wong Design Staff Caleigh Forbes, Jessica Kirschner, Gili Kliger, Leor Shtull-Leber, Katie Wilson Web Staff Andrew Chen, Warren Jin, Claire Kwong, Michael Marttila, Ethan Richman Photo Staff Qidong Chen, Janine Cheng, Alex DePaoli, Frederic Lu, Quinn Savit Copy Editors Nicole Boucher, Sarah Forman, Claire Gianotti, Christine Joyce, Sara Luxenberg, Abigail Kersen, Alexandra Macfarlane, Joe Milner, Lindor Qunaj, Carmen Shulman, Carolina Veltri

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Thursday, February 25, 2010 | Page 11

Steal this newspaper HUNTER FAST Opinions Columnist In the past, when Brown received complaints from media conglomerates that students were using file-sharing networks for purposes of copyright infringement, the administration would react by sending a simple e-mail to the offender. The e-mail demanded that the student delete the copyrighted material and cease further file-sharing activity. Of course, the offender could simply keep the files and falsely claim to have deleted them, and no authority would be any the wiser.

Although farcical in nature, Brown’s copyright infringement policy was in theory an effective means of protecting itself from legal action, assuming that the recipient of the warning did not neglect to respond. Perhaps because this assumption did not hold up in practice, the University has recently begun sending physical letters to student pirates, thereby making the warning far more difficult to ignore.

While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 compels the University to take this step, this expansion — albeit a minute one — of the administration’s efforts against media piracy prompts an investigation into the supposed merits of the measures that media producers have taken to defend their intellectual property.

For instance, NBC Universal has for several years waged an aggressive campaign against any threat to its intellectual property rights. Aside from its well-known efforts to block its televised content from appearing on YouTube and other video-sharing Web

sites, NBC Universal has recently lobbied the federal government to impose even stricter punishments for copyright infringement than those promulgated by DMCA. Similarly, the Recording Industry Association of America has engaged in notoriously draconian tactics to defend the copyrights of its member record labels, including suing a 12-year-old girl for $2,000 and suing other offenders of copyright law for up to $150,000 per song downloaded.

The fact that copyright holders are al-

were heavily exploited by viruses.

Computer games have also been adversely affected by the propagation of digital rights management. Many popular games are distributed with StarForce or SecuROM, two controversial copy-protection schemes that have issues similar to those of Sony’s copyprotection software. StarForce has been known to diminish system performance in a number of ways and cause security vulnerabilities, and SecuROM has an unfortunate tendency to insist that legitimately purchased

Case in point, in 2006, the RIAA sued a Russian music-sharing Web site for $1.65 trillion, despite the fact that this is a value larger than the entire nominal GDP of Russia. lowed by law to sue for such excessive sums has led in part to a plethora of laughable lawsuits. Case in point: in 2006, the RIAA sued a Russian music-sharing Web site for $1.65 trillion, despite the fact that this is a value larger than the entire nominal GDP of Russia.

The anti-piracy strategy employed in 2005

by Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a major member label of the RIAA, was particularly egregious. In order to prevent purchasers of CDs from copying that music to any other format, Sony-produced CDs contained copyprotection software that users were required to install in order to play the CDs’ contents on a computer. Aside from being nigh impossible to remove, this copy-protection software also created a series of security vulnerabilities that

games are pirated and block their operation.

The makers of these programs assert that, despite these problems, their programs succeed in their objective of preventing the unauthorized use of the applications that they defend. However, even a cursory glance at Pirate Bay or other such Web sites demonstrates that this claim is false.

The result, then, is a copy-protection scheme for computer games that in reality does the exact opposite. By punishing legitimate purchasers with inferior software, copy-protection schemes incentivize piracy by increasing the demand for “cracked” versions of games, wherein these security protocols have been bypassed.

Given that anti-piracy tactics discourage

lawful consumption of media products, it is no small wonder that illegal file sharing is such a huge phenomenon. However, by examining the shortfalls of copyright-based industries, the solution to the problem of piracy becomes clear.

Contrary to the views of media executives, the fact that only a small fraction of copyright violators can possibly be prosecuted implies that new government regulation will have little impact, if any at all, on a consumer’s propensity to acquire content illegally. The solution, then, is an effort on the copyright holders’ part to minimize the factors that drive potential customers toward piracy, not additional punishments for a few violators.

Apple, which is one of the largest music distributors in the world despite being a computer manufacturer, accomplishes this by streamlining the processes of purchase and use and by offering fair prices. Steam offers a similar distribution style for computer games. Most media distributors are not keen on this approach, however; our old friends at NBC Universal pulled most of their content from Apple’s iTunes Store after Apple refused to charge higher prices for NBC Universal television shows.

The cessation of litigious bullying and unfair copy-protection protocols on the part of media corporations in favor of a qualitybased approach makes economic sense for artists, distributors, consumers and most of all, Brown students who simply want to watch 30 Rock in peace.

Hunter Fast ’12 is still angry at NBC for getting rid of Conan O’Brien. He can be reached at hunter_fast@brown.edu.

What could Brown do for you?

DAVID SHEFFIELD Opinions Columnist Online universities are growing. They can provide an education cheaply and from any place on the globe. Even brick-and-mortar universities are providing content, courses and degrees over the Internet. Universities like Edinburgh and Oxford are offering graduate degrees online.

Correspondence courses have been around for a long time, so I do not expect Brown to be threatened by the new online universities. But one might still wonder: What do institutions like Brown have to offer as a physical university?

I can answer this ver y quickly. Online universities will never be able to fulfill what I consider the primary goal of a university: research, the discovery of new knowledge.

But that probably won’t satisfy those of you who put the focus of a university on the education of undergraduates. This is important, but I would argue that it should be subordinate to research. But for the sake of argument, I might as well go along with your selfish emphasis and instead ask: How can institutions like Brown provide a better education than online variants?

My class experience is heavily tilted toward the sciences. I usually take one or two classes per semester in the humanities or social sciences, but most of my courses are

in physics and math. I do not think that there would much of a difference between holding a science class online or in person. Of course, laboratories would be a problem, but if we narrow our view so we only look at lectures, there is not much of a difference.

The main components of all science courses I have taken are textbooks, lectures and problem sets. The textbooks for a course cover all of the necessary material. They give over views of the phenomena, provide essential theorems and go through examples

Books can be bought online and they handily contain problems for you to learn the material. The benefit of attending lectures would not appear to justify enrolling in a physical rather than a virtual university. (My opinion is different if you include labs and, more importantly, research in the calculation.)

However, there are those of you interested (for some unknown reason) in the other branches of academia: the social sciences and the humanities. Their material allows these classes to be formatted in a drastically differ-

The benefit of attending lectures would not appear to justify enrolling in a physical rather than virtual university.

to elucidate the topic. Then there are the lectures, which more or less do everything that the textbooks do. They differ from textbooks in that they are more explicit. Unlike a book, they are also easy to change from year to year, so ineffective parts can be reworked.

Lectures also allow students to ask questions as the material is covered. Most important are the problem sets. I include exams in this category, since that is what they really are — just shorter and more important. Students gain real comprehension of the material through the problem sets.

ent way. While I have had lecture classes in both the humanities and the social sciences, most of my classes in those fields have been seminars. This semester, I’m even in a class with one student — me. Originally, the professor intended to give a lecture class, but with only one student enrolled, it turned into a cross between an independent study and an Oxford-style tutorial.

One way to differentiate the learning experience in brick-and-mortar universities from those online would be to incorporate the tutorial system. Oxford and Cambridge

have lecture classes, but they also provide tutorials (also called supervisions), which pair one or a small group of students with an instructor. Brown, like its peer institutions, strongly pushes its low student-to-professor ratio. It also has been expanding seminars in the past decade. Incorporating tutorials would just be a more extreme version of what’s already being done at Brown.

Including tutorials in the curriculum could be unfeasible for many different reasons.

One is that professors only have so much time. I would not want them eating into time normally spent on research to give tutorials.

One possible solution is to become a bit more like online universities. Instead of giving a lecture each year, professors could record a series once and then use them year after year. Such lectures would lose some of the characteristics that differentiate them from textbooks. However, professors could then hold tutorials in the time formerly spent in lecture.

Such a radical shift to tutorials would be impractical any time soon. In the short term, the University is right to get more seminar classes in fields that can benefit the most from them. They can be very effective while making Brown profoundly different from online universities.

David Sheffield ’11 is a math-physics concentrator from New Jersey. He can be reached at david_sheffield@brown. edu.

Today The Brown Daily Herald

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Moderate party reveals candidates

Wrestling squad falls to Cornell

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Thursday, February 25, 2010

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c a l e n da r Today, february 25

tomorrow, February 26

4 P.M. — Janus Forum Lecture: In God We Trust? Religion and Public Life, Salomon Center Room 101

3:30 P.M. — Talk by Professor Sharon Street, NYU, Gerard House, Room 119, 54 College Street

7:30 p.m. — A Reading by Novelist Stanley Crawford, McCormack Family Theater at 70 Brown Street

7 p.m. — Date-A-Doctor, List Art Building, Room 120

inside

Today on BlogDailyHerald Gearing up for Corporation weekend, what do you know about the Corporation? Plus, The Same Ten Questions We Always Ask, Prez Spotting, your daily Timewaster and Cup of (Pro)Jo, Ratty vs. V-Dub and more!

menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Falafel in Pita, Kielbasa, Swiss Fudge Cookie, Lyonnaise Potatoes

Lunch — Cavatini, Creole Mixed Vegetables, Grilled Montreal Chicken

Dinner — Spice Rubbed Pork Chops, Cajun Corn and Tomatoes, Pasta and Sauce

Dinner — BBQ Chicken, Corn Cobbetts, Saffron Rice Pilaf, Cachupa

comics Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

crossword

Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

Fruitopia| Andy Kim

Island Republic | Kevin Grubb