Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxlv, no. 48 | Wednesday, April 14, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891

First lottery night sparks elation, disappointment

Faculty debate recommended tenure changes

By Sara Luxenberg Senior Staf f Writer

By Goda Thangada Senior Staff Writer

Faculty members and administrators engaged in a heated discussion at Tuesday afternoon’s faculty forum about the changes to the tenure review process recommended last month in a report by the ad hoc Committee to Review Tenure and Faculty Development.

To accommodate a large crowd, the forum was held in Salomon 101.

The March 25 report’s major recommendations included extending to eight years the maximum period before a faculty member is either awarded tenure or dismissed, bolstering support for junior faculty and restructuring the Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee, a permanent body tasked with deciding the outcomes of tenure cases.

The Committee to Review Tenure and Faculty Development — which consisted of three administrators and nine tenured faculty members — undertook its review in response to feedback from a New England Association of Schools and Colleges review committee that pointed out the unusually high rate at which the University grants tenure, said Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 in his introductory remarks.

The recommendations are decontinued on page 2

Max Monn / Herald

Hundreds of students watch and wait as numbers are called in the first night of the housing lottery Tuesday in Sayles Hall.

Students crowded Sayles Hall Tuesday evening for the first night of the housing lottery — three-and-ahalf hours of tension, anxiety and excitement as the lottery’s first 469 numbers were called.

“You gotta go in with a game plan,” said Jason Beckman ’11, a Herald senior finance associate, as he glanced back and forth between the overhead projector that displayed the remaining rooms and his own notes of ranked choices and last resorts.

Many students brought laptops to study floor plans, scrutinize the sizes of remaining groups and track online which rooms remained. As Jillian Robbins ’11, the chair of the Residential Council’s Housing Lotter y Committee, announced each

By Suzannah Weiss Ar ts & Culture Editor

Despite the numerical impossibility, the average Brown undergraduate is self-proclaimed to be above average — as far as looks go, at least — according to last month’s Herald poll. Over 72 percent of sur veyed students classified themselves as somewhat or very physically attractive in relation to their peers, com-

pared to just over 10 percent who said they were somewhat or ver y unattractive in comparison. These results were statistically similar across class years and genders.

The Herald Poll “This is not a freak result.

This is a ver y typical result,” said Professor of Psychology Joachim Krueger. “Almost anything you

By Tony Bakshi Spor ts Staf f Writer

After an offensive explosion over the weekend, the Bears’ bats went quiet on the road against the Marist Red Foxes. The Bears (9-19) lost two one-run decisions to Marist (19-11), failing to get the offense going in the cavernous confines

Sports of McCann Baseball Field, which Head Coach Marek Drabinski called a “huge ballpark.” Brown lost the opener 1-0 on a walk-off single and dropped the second game of the doubleheader, 3-2.

Jonathan Bateman / Herald

inside

The baseball team lost both games of a doubleheader against Marist, which walked off with a win in game one and came from behind in game two.

www.browndailyherald.com

continued on page 4

Looking good? Yeah, so is everyone else Swearer ask people to rate themselves on, you get this kind of distribution, where most people think they are somewhat above average.”

The human tendency to overestimate one’s positive attributes is so well-known among psychologists and sociologists that it has several names. One of them, Krueger said, is the Lake Wobegon effect — referring to a town in the radio

plans cuts to budget

By Sarah Mancone Senior Staf f Writer

header was an absolute pitchers’ duel. No runs were scored until the bottom of the seventh inning, when the Red Foxes finally broke through. Marist first baseman Mike Orefice singled through the left side of the infield with one out, bringing home Jon Schwind as the game’s decisive — and only — run.

Before those late-game heroics, both offenses were ineffective. Neither side got a hit until the sixth inning, when Red Fox infielder John Prano singled to center field. In the top of the seventh, Ryan Zrenda ’11 picked up Brown’s only hit of the afternoon, also with a base hit to center.

Despite the disappointing re-

The Swearer Center for Public Ser vice will be making a number of budget cuts as part of an overall budgeting policy unveiled by the University in memos released Sept. 29 and Feb. 2.

The exact amount of money to be cut from the Swearer Center’s budget has not been decided yet, said Roger Nozaki MAT’89, associate dean of the college and director of the Swearer Center.

“Our budget is part of the overall University budgeting process, so the overall figures are set by the University, and all our decisions are part of the overall University process and timeline,” Nozaki wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

“Unfortunately, the decrease in the University’s endowment payout means we must reduce our expenses, both operating expenses and staff positions,” Nozaki wrote.

A Swearer Center committee will decide what will eventually be cut. “We’re putting together that committee right now,” No-

continued on page 6

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Bats go quiet, baseball loses two pitchers’ duels

News.....1–5 Sports.....6–7 Nation.....8–9 Editorial....10 Opinion.....11 Today........12

selection from the podium at the front of the room, disappointed students crossed more choices off their lists.

Beckman, who had lottery number 147, was vying for a triple in Vartan Gregorian Quad. Only two remained when several numbers separated him from the podium.

“I was just waiting for it to get taken off the screen right before I got there,” Beckman said.

Fortunately for him, he and his future roommates secured the last available triple in the quad. “I got lucky,” he said.

Other students were less successful.

“Being a group of three severely limits your choices if you’re looking for three singles” in a suite, said Tim Dingman ’11. “It wasn’t

Marist 1, Brown 0 The first game of the double-

News, 3

Sports, 6

Opinions, 11

due friday The census wants your forms back to dining halls and libraries by Friday

Track stars Both the men’s and women’s track teams placed first in Brown Invitational

urine producers Will Wray ’10 gives his reasoning for opposing welfare drug tests

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

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C ampus N EWS Grad student’s program aims to map regulatory genome

By Amy Chen Contributing Writer

A new breakthrough software system, designed by Ryan Tarpine GS, is allowing biologists to find their way through the genomic DNA sequence. The program, called the CYRENE cisGRN Browser, determines the regions of new genomes that scientists do not understand well or do not know yet.

The Browser is “like a GPS Google Earth map of the regulatory genome,” Sorin Istrail, director of the Center for Computational Molecular Biology and professor of computer science, who collaborated with Tarpine on the program, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

The program looks at millions of pieces of DNA sequence of a species and pinpoints their location in the genome of a related species by finding where the DNA pieces match, wrote Tarpine, a doctoral candidate in computer science.

For example, experimenting on two species of sea urchins that share a common ancestor, the program attempts to find “for each piece, whether four or fewer mutations occurred during its evolution as the two species developed. If, during millions of years of evolution, four or fewer mutations occurred, then that piece is most likely part of sequence that has a function,” Tarpine wrote.

By analyzing the experiment’s final results, biologists can then focus on areas of functions and regions of new genomes they do not understand well, Tarpine wrote.

Sequencing the genome of a new species is expensive and requires a lot of time, Tarpine wrote, and new technologies such as “high-throughput sequencing” — while not costly and able to quickly produce some of the DNA sequence of a genome — only give a small amount of DNA pieces.

The new software program is significant in “utilizing these inexpensive technologies in combination with the whole genomes already known,” Tarpine wrote.

The result of three years of collaboration and research, the software program was operated in the lab of Eric Davidson, a worldrenowned experimental biologist and current professor of cell biology at the California Institute of Technology, Istrail wrote.

Biologists at the lab have been using Tarpine’s Browser, which serves as an analytical instrument, to conduct wet-lab experiments, Istrail wrote.

The National Science Foundation funded the program and all its research, he wrote.

Istrail also wrote that the combined effort of both Brown and Caltech would increase the speed of scientific discoveries.

“It used to be ... five years of research was needed to reveal the circuitry of one cis-module gene’s regulatory region. Now we can do in a few months 100 cis-modules of 50 genes,” Istrail wrote.

Tarpine wrote he agreed on the importance of increasing the program’s speed in the future.

“I will always be trying to make it faster,” he wrote.

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

“I think TPAC is the most influential committee at Brown.”

— Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98

Recs on tenure lead to heated debate continued from page 1 signed to make the tenure review process more systematic and rigorous, according to Kertzer, who chaired the ad hoc committee.

“We’re eager to get feedback on the report before finalizing these recommendations,” he said. But many faculty members said they felt that the faculty’s autonomy was at stake and the administration’s increasing authority in the tenure review process was unwarranted.

One recommendation would allow the provost to determine the candidates for election to the Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee in consultation with the Nominating Committee, which names candidates to fill vacancies in the Corporation’s standing committees and offices.

Harold Roth, professor of religious studies, who served on the Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee, said the faculty’s independence would be undermined by the recommendations. In the year he served on the committee, the provost disagreed with it “half a dozen times,” he said.

Andrea Simmons, professor of psychology and chair of the Nominating Committee, agreed that it was important for the committee to be independent. The department chair is “very often the source of bias” in a tenure review process, she said.

Serving on the committee is “often a thankless job,” Kertzer said, adding that seats on the committee are often difficult to fill. Kertzer said he hopes to select faculty who can serve as models as candidates for the committee.

“I think TPAC is the most influential committee at Brown and the most important one,” Kertzer said.

These statements prompted an impassioned response from Profes-

sor of American Civilization Susan Smulyan, who balked at the idea that faculty are not eager to serve on the committee.

“I find it very difficult to conceive of a tenured faculty member whom the provost would find not fitting to serve on TPAC,” she said in response to Kertzer’s statement that he would choose the most qualified candidates. “There’s not a problem with any member of the faculty who’s willing to serve.”

“No one should be under the impression that any individuals are making the decision on their own,” said Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P’07, who was a member of the ad hoc committee, on the recommended expansion of the provost’s role in appointing members to the Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee.

Other recommendations of the ad hoc committee included changes to a provision for the dean of the faculty to solicit letters from a list of sources for faculty members whose tenure is under review. The ad hoc committee suggested increasing the minimum number of letters from five to 10 and making the final list of letter-writers closed to the faculty member under review — a recommendation that prompted concerns about transparency and attention from several professors at the forum.

“The expectation is that TPAC will be responsible,” said Professor of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Sheila Blumstein, who served on the ad hoc committee, in response to questions about how closely each letter would be read if the minimum number were raised. The committee “has been reading all letters and will continue to do so. That will never change,” she said.

Professor of Physics James Valles said keeping the letters confidential would allow more honest opinions to

emerge but individuals should have the opportunity to review the full list of letter-writers.

“The goal here is not to reduce the tenure rate, but to improve the faculty,” said Anita Zimmerman, professor of medical science.

But to improve the faculty, each department should reevaluate its own criteria, she said. Otherwise, the process is “ruled by people who really have no clue in the subject area,” she said.

“The report doesn’t say that the aim is to reduce the tenure rate,” Vohra said. “The rigor of the process isn’t about achieving a certain magic number.”

Vohra also said that current rules already allow the committee to get additional information about tenure candidates and that soliciting external letters is rare but not new. The practice “is more systematically going to be seen as part of the process rather than something that happens only in certain cases and not in others,” he said.

Several faculty members were worried that members outside of a candidate’s field would have too much say in the tenure process, without having the expertise to judge the candidate’s work. “I don’t know how a member of the administration can have a full range of expertise in the full range of departments,” said Professor of Comparative Literature Arnold Weinstein.

Another, less contentious, recommendation was to refer cases in which tenure is denied to the Committee on Faculty Equity and Diversity only when grievances are raised. Currently, tenure denials go to the committee automatically.

A final consensus on the list of recommendations was not reached, and Kertzer suggested that some recommendations be voted on separately May 4.

Twice during the forum, Professor of Physics and Chair of the Faculty Executive Committee Chung-I Tan P’95 P’03 ejected Daniel Van Lunen ’11, Reed Frye ’11, Matthew Balatbat ’11 and Frank Rinaldi ’12, four students who attended without permission.

Rinaldi said he attended because he was concerned about “the culture of academic freedom” among students and faculty at the University.

Corey Walker, associate professor of Africana studies, noted the “level of distrust” apparent in the faculty’s concerns. “This is about the core issue of the governance of this university,” he said. “The issue becomes, ‘What are we here for?’ ” Walker also asked why the date for voting on recommendations had already been set for May 4, the date of the next faculty meeting. “We were assured that nothing had been decided,” he said. “We’re not having a full and robust conversation.” A round of applause followed his comments.

Walker said later that the recommendations had the potential to “change the very character of this university.”

The tenure review committee’s report “tries to strengthen our system of review,” Kertzer said. “We can’t think of any better way to do it than the way we suggested.”

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

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“You do not want them knocking on your door.”

— Kendalle Bennett ’10, on the census

Swearer committee to decide budget cuts continued from page 1

Freddy Lu/ Herald

Completed census forms may be returned to a number of boxes on campus.

Census wants students’ forms back by Friday

By Jamie Brew Contributing Writer

This Friday is the deadline for students to fill out and submit their forms for the 2010 U.S. Census.

The census, a sur vey conducted by the U.S. government ever y 10 years to determine how many people are in the U.S. and where they reside, aims to “count people at their usual residence, which is the place where they live and sleep most of the time,” according to the 2010 Census Web site.

Mar yLou McMillan, senior director for planning and projects and one of three census coordinators at Brown, said that ever y college with residence halls is required to give the census to its students, though not all colleges handle census distribution in the same way. Brown students from other states or countries are counted as Providence residents, McMillan said. Meanwhile, U.S. residents who are studying abroad are not counted because they were living outside the U.S. on April 1, the census’ reference point.

Brown, unlike many other colleges, did not ask its residence hall staff to distribute and collect census forms because it was not a responsibility the University wanted to impose on residential counselors, McMillan said.

Instead, students received census forms at their campus mailboxes and are supposed to deposit them in bins located at the Sciences Librar y, Rockefeller Library, Sharpe Refectory, VerneyWoolley Dining Hall and the lobby of J. Walter Wilson.

Students who live in Providence but off-campus must complete one census form per residence, she said. If they fail to return it on time, they can expect to be visited in the next few weeks by census workers.

Juliana Friend ’11, a former Her-

ald staff writer, said she had not yet filled out her census form.

“You want to fill that out soon,” Kendalle Bennett ’10 advised Friend. “You do not want them knocking on your door.”

Though it is legally mandated, census completion is more difficult to enforce for students who live oncampus in dorms, McMillan said.

What happens if an on-campus student does not return the form?

“We’re missing some data, that’s what happens,” McMillan said.

Still, McMillan said she expected that most students would complete the sur vey. In just one afternoon, over 160 students returned their completed forms to the deposit bin in J. Walter Wilson.

The census form is shorter than it was 10 years ago, which may help increase response rates. In 2000, approximately one in six households received a “long form” containing more than 100 questions as well as a “short form,” which was sent to ever y house, according to the Population Reference Bureau’s Web site. For the first time since 1940, the Census Bureau is only sending a “short form” to all of its citizens this year. In place of the long form, the Census Bureau conducts a separate comprehensive survey, the American Community Survey, on about three million people ever y year, according to the Web site.

The census — which has created hundreds of thousands of jobs nationwide, but is run by only a handful of people at Brown — provides valuable sociological data that is used frequently in research and politics, McMillan said.

“It’s stunning how much of the information I use comes from previous census efforts,” McMillan said. “I really hope people will fill out their census, so we have complete information.”

zaki said.

The committee will consist of Swearer Center staff, students, community partners and “other folks around campus,” he said, adding that the center is currently sending out invitations.

“We don’t want this to be a closed process,” Nozaki said.

As a par t of the budgeting process, all of the student groups that are supported by the Swearer Center have had to submit yearend evaluations.

“All programs are potentially on the chopping block,” said Meghna Philip ’11, student coordinator of Housing Opportunities for People Ever ywhere (HOPE).

In addition, each student coordinator received an e-mail from the Swearer Center March 26 stating that the center will be “restructuring some of their programs,” said Elizabeth Caldwell ’12, another student coordinator of HOPE. The Swearer Center will be “reviewing the areas where they have clusters of programs” and “assessing if they can still stay,” said Matt Grimes ’10, who works for the Rhode Island Urban Debate League.

The debate league will be finding “a new home outside of the Swearer Center,” Grimes said, and has to fundraise on its own.

Members were informed of this in early March, but the Swearer

Center will continue to support the program for the next couple of years because it is “still ver y dependent,” Grimes said. But the move is “probably good for us in the long run,” he added.

There has also been a “pretty significant reduction in (the center’s) overall staffing capacity,” Grimes said, adding that the center cannot hire new student coordinators next year because those positions may not still be available.

“Ever ything is way up in the air,” he said.

“I understand that budget cuts have to happen,” Caldwell said, but added that she is “definitely concerned about the future of the Swearer Center.”

There is a constant struggle in the Providence community and Rhode Island, Philip said, because “the ser vice programs and ser vice sector is often the first place to feel the effects of budget crunches.” It is a “tragic thing we always encounter,” she added.

It is important that students participate in “community-driven action,” Caldwell said. It allows them to develop a “long-term relationship with people in the city,” she added.

The Swearer Center is a “ver y impor tant par t of the Brown University community at large,” Philip said, because it “encourages connections to the greater Providence community and Rhode

Island that can often be forgotten and ignored in the bubble of social and academic life on campus.”

It is an important experience and opportunity for students to show that they are not isolated and have an impact on the community, she added.

“We want to make sure that we can do as much as possible for the community,” Nozaki said.

The Swearer Center supports “a range of efforts” including student research, courses related to community issues, “social entrepreneurship” and the College Advising Corps, which works in state public schools, he wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

“It is really important to keep as much of the work of the Swearer Center as possible,” Grimes said, adding that it makes a difference to the people of the Providence community as well as the students themselves.

During the budgeting process, the Swearer Center will attempt to ensure as much continuity as possible in its programs and students, Nozaki wrote.

“Ever yone recognizes that it’s a challenging time,” Nozaki said, but the Swearer Center plans to “move forward with as much sensitivity as possible” and “keep an eye on the future.”

“Throughout this process, two things will remain constant in our work — student leadership and long-term community relationships,” he wrote.

Attention student groups See this blank space?

Your ad could be here!

Prices as low as $15 — for more information, contact studentgroups@browndailyherald.com

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

“If you knew exactly where you really stood, it might be discouraging.” — Mark Alicke, Ohio University professor

With prime rooms flying ‘Self-enhancement effect’ typifies poll results Compared to your peers at Brown, how fast, cheers for no-shows continued from page 1

continued from page 1 hard to prioritize which suites we wanted. It’s just stressful because there are so few good ones,” he said.

“Right now, we’re on the edge of our seats,” he added as he waited for his group’s number to be called.

Dingman and his roommates — Phil McCoy ’11 and Bar t Johnsen-Harris ’12 — watched several of their ideal suites vanish from the screen.

“We might abandon our plan and go for three Hope College singles,” McCoy said as suites of three continued to dwindle. “We can train the freshmen to be like us,” Dingman added.

“I think I’d rather go for Hegeman (Hall),” Johnsen-Har ris said.

McCoy’s cries of agony were audible when Beckman took the last triple in New Dorm, but Johnsen-Harris got his wish when McCoy chose a suite in Hegeman.

Tuesday night’s lottery proved that even students with high numbers had to have backup plans.

“I think 39 is a ver y good number,” said Cherilyn Tran ’11, who, along with Connie Trieu ’11, hoped to secure singles in Slater Hall with their promising number.

“Slater might be harder because they had renovations to the bathrooms this year, so a lot of people might go for it,” Tran said before the lotter y began.

Whatever the reason, Tran was right — all of Slater’s singles were gone after the 19th pick, and she and Trieu instead chose singles in New Dorm A. As the ideal rooms grew scarcer, the crowd grew rowdier. While fewer people filled Sayles as the night continued, the cheers for students who did not show up or dropped to lower numbers be-

came even louder. Students tried to strategize by merging with other groups or bargaining with the students in front of them.

But some students left the lotter y stress-free. Kelly Newton ’10.5 said she knew she would get her pick of singles in Minden Hall with the night’s third number, and told The Herald that she was glad she did not have to go through the stress that comes with having

“I think we had good crowd control this year.”

Jillian Robbins ’11 chair of Residential Council’s Housing Lottery Committee

a lower number.

“It’s just kind of a waste of time to come here” and track the room selection, she said.

While Newton and hundreds of students after her had no problem picking singles, several students who entered alone did not have that option. After number 439, when the last single was chosen, several students passed, putting their names on the summer waitlist for housing, while others merged and selected suites in Graduate Center.

“I found it surprising that the singles disappeared so quickly, that so many people had to pass,” said Ben Lowell ’10, chair of the Residential Council and last year’s housing lotter y committee chair.

Overall, both Robbins and Lowell said they thought the lotter y went ver y well.

“I think we had good crowd control this year,” Robbins added.

show “A Prairie Home Companion” called Lake Wobegon, where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.”

Such a community is, of course, fictional. After all, how could the average Brown student be better looking than the average Brown student? “They can’t all be more attractive than the others. That’s just not possible,” Krueger said.

Nevertheless, the widespread phenomenon in which the majority claims above-average abilities, also known as the self-enhancement effect, has been obser ved repeatedly in psychology experiments.

For example, “over 90 percent of college professors think they’re better than the average college professor,” said Mark Alicke, a psychology professor at Ohio University, whose research focuses on self-conceptions and social judgments. This is especially true when subjects evaluate themselves based on criteria that are hard to quantify, such as sociability, he added.

Michael Perchonok ’12 said he intuited the results of the Herald poll’s question because “people always want to think they’re more attractive than they are.” A myth that Brown lacks attractive students may have “set the bar lower” and caused individual respondents to feel better-looking in comparison, he added.

Dana Eldridge ’10 said the results made sense to her as well, but for the opposite reason. “Brown students have this conception of themselves as a ver y attractive, ver y fashionable campus,” she said.

There are a few exceptions to the self-enhancement effect, Krueger said. People rate themselves as below average on skills that are difficult and objectively testable, such as computer programming or juggling, he said.

In addition, adults over the age of 50 show less of a self-enhance-

physically attractive or unattractive do you consider yourself?

Very unattractive

1.5%

Somewhat unattractive

Somewhat attractive

57.1%

8.8%

Don’t know/ No answer

17.4%

Very attractive

15.1%

Marlee Bruning and Katie Wilson / Herald

Of those who answered “attractive” or “unattractive,” seven out of eight students think they are more physically attractive than their Brown peers, according to the recent Herald poll.

ment effect when considering characteristics like attractiveness and health status, Alicke added.

Though this phenomenon is evident in the Herald poll “at the group level,” Krueger said that attributing an individual’s self-rating to the Lake Wobegon effect is valid only if others also have rated this person.

“Let’s say there’s a true number. Somehow, God has spoken (or) Simon Cowell and a panel of four” have made a decision, he said. “Self-enhancement would be if the rating of myself is higher than my true rating.” Though this is the general pattern, he said, some people view themselves as less attractive than others view them. Furthermore, there is no correlation between self-ratings and others’ evaluations, he said.

Krueger said he was not surprised by the lack of gender difference in self-perception. “Some people speculate that women are more self-critical with their appearance,” he said, but this idea comes from “worries I hear in folklore from individual people” rather than experimentally proven discrepancies.

“You might think stereotypically that males might be more egotistic than females,” Alicke said, but these data show that, in some ways, “males are just as concerned about their physical appearance as females.”

University Nutritionist Heather Bell wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that she would not have expected the relative uniformity across genders. “The historic gap between men and women’s levels of

www.browndailyherald.com

body dissatisfaction is narrowing, but … I am surprised to hear that no gender differences at all were found,” she wrote. Bell added that she was “delighted” that students seem to feel good about their appearances.

“I’m glad people here have such healthy self-esteem,” said Sarah Denaci ’12. “I would be sad if ever yone thought they were below average.”

But psychologists are not in agreement over the value of selfenhancement, according to Krueger.

“Is it better to have a realistic assessment of yourself or to overestimate yourself?” The answer, he said, probably lies somewhere in between the two poles. High confidence can amount to self-deception — for instance, in the case of attractiveness, “you can approach people who are really out of your league, and it can humiliate you,” he said.

Still, overconfidence can be pragmatic, Alicke said. “If you knew exactly where you really stood, it might be discouraging, so people might give up,” he said.

“You have to like yourself in order to keep going,” said Adison Lax ’11. “It’s inherent narcissism, as part of self-preser vation.”

The Herald poll was conducted on March 22 and 23 and has a 3.5 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. A total of 714 Brown undergraduates completed the poll, which The Herald administered as a written questionnaire to students in the lobby of J. Walter Wilson during the day and in the Sciences Library at night.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

“We’re trying to make some sustainable change.”

— Cara Smith ’11, AIDS Relief International co-founder

Juniors’ AIDS relief organization to launch pilot program in Mumbai

By Brielle Friedman Staf f Writer

AIDS Relief International, a nonprofit organization started by seven Brown juniors that seeks to support people living with HIV and AIDS, is currently developing a pilot program in Mumbai, India. Led

by Harish Pathak, the director of the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society, the pilot program will bring nutritional supplements to children currently undergoing antiretroviral therapy to fight HIV. Antiretroviral therapy “is really important, but people tend to overlook malnutrition and how it affects the efficacy of the drugs,” said Cara Smith ’11, one of the organization’s co-founders.

Though Pathak “controls all money into and out of Mumbai related to AIDS, which is millions of dollars,” said Lauren Krumeich ’11, a co-founder and current CFO, he is not permitted to use any of the money for transportation or nutrition. This means many of the children who need the medication do not receive it, and those who do are unable to process it because they are so malnourished, she said.

“There are plenty of nonprofits and corporations geared toward the HIV/AIDS crisis, but I’ve found that the majority of them just send in medications and are so large-scale that their effectiveness is not properly evaluated,” Allison Glasgow ’11, a co-founder, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

“We interact with the people we want to help; our aim is to work together with the community to find solutions.”

Over spring break, co-founder and current CEO Gaurie Tilak ’11, a member of The Herald’s editorial page board, traveled to Mumbai to launch the official beginning of the organization’s pilot program. The event took place at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital named after Gaurie’s ancestor, she said, and included parents and guardians of children for whom the program will provide nutritional supplements.

Other guests included Pathak, Vice President for International Af fairs Matthew Gutmann and Medha Somaiya, the general secretar y of Yuvak Pratishthan, an NGO in India and a supporter of the program, Krumeich wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Smith and Tilak will both spend the summer in Mumbai working in the clinics to get the program off the ground, she said. The trip will be funded by a C.V. Starr Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship, she added.

“You can’t really start anything until you get there and see the environment,” Smith said, adding that “we know that the parents will be receptive, but how feasible is it to give educational and financial support to these families is something we can’t be sure of yet.”

Smith said the organization will probably hire people in India to work in the clinics eventually, but that is not something that will happen for at least a couple of years.

Smith said she feels it is ver y important to continue and expand the organization’s relationship with those involved in India. She said members of the organization want to make sure there is not a discon-

nect between the creators of the program and those living in the midst of the problem.

“We’re tr ying to make some sustainable change,” she said.

Members of AIDS Relief International hope to make several trips to India in the future to ensure positive development. In addition, Krumeich said the organization began a Brown chapter this semester and may expand to high schools.

Smith said she is really excited, despite the difficulty of balancing the project with her other commitments. “For the first two years at Brown, I struggled with the question ‘why am I here?’” — a question she said she finally began to answer when Tilak approached her with the idea of AIDS Relief International.

Kr umeich echoes a similar sentiment. “I’m ver y interested in connecting with other cultures — as a doctor, that’s something I want to do,” she said, adding that such a connection is something that’s always been reinforced at Brown.

She said the organization is something she really cares about.

“I don’t think I necessarily want to go into AIDS work,” she said, “but the more I can learn about issues that affect populations, the better doctor I can be.”

Courtesy of AIDS Relief International

An event in Mumbai, India, over spring break marked the official launch of AIDS Relief International’s pilot program. The nonprofit, which was founded by seven Brown juniors, aims to connect HIV-positive children to nutritional supplements.

SportsWednesday The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 | Page 6

Track

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

the 1500, former Herald Staff Writer Lauren Pischel ’11 in the 3000, Anja Hergrueter ’10 in the high jump, Rachel Biblo ’11 in the long jump and past NCAA qualifier Brynn Smith ’11 in the hammer throw.

Biblo, Gabriela Baiter ’13 and Shannon Stone ’10 swept the triple jump, and Grunloh was followed by Lacey Craker ’13 and Victoria Buhr ’13 in the discus.

The elite throwing squad of Grunloh, Powlen and Smith will be traveling to the University of Florida this weekend to compete against top athletes from around the nation. They will be joined by All-American Craig Kinsley ’11, who placed third at last year’s NCAA Championship in the javelin.

The rest of the Bears will be competing at Princeton, where top distance runners Ariel Wright ’10 on the women’s team and Christian Escareno ’11 of the men’s team will join recent men’s indoor 5000 Ivy League champion Duriel Hardy ’10 in making season debuts.

The teams have just under a month to prepare for the Heptagonal Championships at Princeton.

The men’s golf team finished ninth out of 12 teams in the New England Division I Championship at Triggs Memorial Golf Club in Providence over the weekend.

Connecticut won the event easily with a final team score of 586. Despite a stronger showing on Sunday, the Bears finished the event with a disappointing score of 624.

“We just didn’t play well. We played in a tougher course (two weekends ago) in Indiana with a tougher field, and for whatever reason, we just didn’t play well, and I take responsibility for it,” said Head Coach Michael Hughes.

The Bears were led by Michael Amato ’11, who placed 19th individually at the event with a tworound score of 153, including a 74 on day two. JD Ardell ’13 finished just behind Amato and placed 23rd individually with a 154. Herald Contributing Writer Chris Williams ’13 was not far behind, shooting a 159 to finish 41st individually.

Rounding out the team were Jack Mylott ’13, who shot a 161, and captain John Giannuzzi ’10, who shot a 163.

The Bears will seek a better showing at the Yale Invitational at Caves Valley Country Club in Owings Mills, Md. “We are shooting to be in the top half of the event. It’s a better field, and that would be a good outcome for us,” Hughes said.

men

Event

Result

Mike Mazerik ’10

100m

11.03

Men’s and women’s teams each place first in home meet

Anthony Schurz ’12

1500m

3:54.06

By Ben Noble Staf f Writer

Brian Schilder ’10

3000m

8:41.98

Bryan Powlen ’10

shot put

16.69m

women

discus

52.32m

Kesley Ramsey ’11

1500m

4:31.75

Lauren Pischel ’11

3000m

10:14.96

Adelberg, Beaudette, Chukwueke & Higgins

4x400m relay

3:53.05

Anja Hergrueter ’10

high jump

1.60m

Rachel Biblo ’11

long jump

5.51m

Rachel Biblo ’11, Gabriela Baiter ’11 & Shannon Stone ’10

triple jump

12.05m

Danielle Grunloh ’10

shot put

15.55m

Danielle Grunloh ’10

discus

52.71m

Brynn Smith ’11

hammer throw

58.18m

Natasha Smith ’11

javelin

40.54m

Track Winners

Thrower Danielle Grunloh ’10 was the star of Saturday’s Brown Invitational on a day when the men’s and women’s track teams both were victorious. She won the discus and shot put in personal bests of 52.71 and 15.55 meters, respectively, the ninth- and 23rd-farthest throws in the nation this year.

“The performance of the day goes to Danielle,” said Interim Head Coach Michelle Eisenreich. “She’s been throwing really well in practice, and it finally came together in a meet.”

The men’s distance runners also ran well in what was their outdoor debut. Anthony Schurz ’12, Matt Duffy ’12 and Michael Stumpf ’13 swept the 1500, and Brian Schilder ’10 and Conor Grogan ’13 went 1-2 in the 3000.

All-American Bryan Powlen ’10, who is ranked 32nd in the nation this year in discus, won that event as well as the shot put.

Victories on the women’s side came from Kesley Ramsey ’11 in

Marist baseball team doubles down on Brown continued from page 1 sults at the plate, Bruno did receive a dominating pitching performance from a key starter coming off an injur y. In his first appearance of the season — due to recovery from both arm surgery and arthroscopic knee surger y — Conor Burke ’11 was impressive. He shut down the

Marist lineup, not allowing any hits during his three innings of work.

“He was ver y good,” Drabinski said. “He was throwing a lot of strikes, and his fastball and changeup were good. Hopefully, he can step right into the rotation for us starting next weekend.”

On the other side, right-hander Brendan Chapin baffled the Bruno

batters. He threw five innings of no-hit ball and cooled the previously red-hot bats in the Brown lineup.

Despite the limited of fense, Drabinski said he was not disappointed by his team’s effort at the plate.

“I thought we swung the bats better than they did,” he said. “We hit eight to 10 hard-hit balls. Their field is huge, 420 (feet) to center without wind. If we’re playing at home, it’s a different game.”

Marist 3, Brown 2 The Bears fell in the second game as well, despite outhitting the Red Foxes, 8-4. Bruno grabbed a 2-1 lead in the second inning, after an RBI double by Graham Tyler ’12 and a sacrifice fly by Mike

DiBiase ’12.

But an RBI single by Prano in the fourth gave Marist a one-run lead, 3-2, that the team would not relinquish.

Three innings later, Prano came up big on defense, too. With Brown attempting to mount a comeback in the final frame, the second baseman made a nice play to grab a hard-hit ball by Pete Greskoff ’11 and threw him out at first, preserving his team’s slim lead and sealing the victor y.

“I know we lost both games, but I thought we pitched very well and hit well, too,” Drabinski said.

“It’s one of those weird days when you go, ‘Didn’t we hit the ball better than they did? How’d that just happen?’ But that’s baseball, and it’s part of the game.”

M. golf takes 9th in division play

— Chan Hee Chu

Page 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S ports W ednesday

w. Lacrosse

Win streak at three after 17-9 victory

By Katie DeAngelis Contributing Writer

The women’s lacrosse team extended its winning streak to three, longest of the season, with a 17-9 victory over Manhattan on Sunday.

Kaela McGilloway ’12 led the offense with a career-high 10 points — five goals and five assists.

With goals from Paris Waterman ’11, Alexa Caldwell ’11 and McGilloway, the Bears (7-4) went up three in the opening five minutes. Manhattan (2-10) responded with two goals within eight seconds of each other. But McGilloway and Tara Rooke ’13 rebutted for Brown with two goals just 21 seconds apar t, bringing the score to 5-2.

The Bears continued to pull away from the Jaspers, outscoring them 6-3 in the remainder of the first half with two goals from McGilloway and one goal each from Rooke, Caldwell, Bethany Buzzell ’10 and Lindsey Minges ’13. The Bears finished the first half ahead 11-5.

Brown started the second half with a goal from Julia Keller ’12. Eight minutes later, Manhattan scored its sixth goal of the game.

All four of Manhattan’s penalties took place in the second half.

“In the second half, Manhattan got frustrated and started swinging their sticks, but it didn’t really af fect our play,” said Lily Ricci ’13.

Brown had zero penalties in the game.

Even with the goal from Manhattan, the momentum was already too much in Brown’s favor for Manhattan to battle back, and the Bears pulled away with goals from Katie DeLuca ’13, McGilloway and Waterman.

The Bears stretched their lead to 17-7, but in the final minutes Manhattan scored twice, ending the game, 17-9.

Julianne Bishop ’12 and Minges each had two assists.

Buzzell, Keller and Waterman each had one.

The Bears had 24 shots on goal to Manhattan’s 17. Goalkeeper Isabel Har vey ’12 had eight saves.

“The game went exactly as planned,” Ricci said. “We had a solid game plan, and we stuck to it.”

The Bears play Cornell at home on Friday at 4 p.m.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

“The game went exactly as planned.”

— Lily Ricci ’13

Softball

Brown splits Princeton series, cries mercy against Cornell

By Ashley McDonnell Sports Staff Writer

to focus no matter how many games you have to play in a day.”

The softball team (13-14, 2-6 Ivy League) won its first home game of the season Saturday against Princeton (7-25, 1-7), but then lost the second game of the day to the Tigers. In their doubleheader against Cornell (21-8, 7-1) Sunday, the Bears were outscored, 23-4, and mercy-ruled in both games.

Cornell 8, Brown 0 After a scoreless first inning for both teams, Cornell scored three runs in the second off two home runs and a double. Though Chin managed to hold Cornell until the sixth inning, the Bears could not score.

“We left too many pitches up in the first game,” Enabenter-Omidiji said. “But Chin did settle in. Even the Cornell coach said she did a great job making adjustments.”

The Big Red rallied again in the sixth and scored five runs — and should have had six runs, but the last run was retracted because the player never touched home plate.

“We were not ready to play and there were no adjustments at the plate,” Enabenter-Omidiji said. “But Cornell has decent batters. I tip my hat to good hitting.”

Brown 5, Princeton 0 Pitcher Kristie Chin ’11 set the tone of the game, striking out three Tigers in the first inning. Shortstop Katie Rothamel ’10 started the Bears’ offense off with a single straight up the middle, and then was brought home by a double from third baseman Stephanie Thompson ’13. Kate Strobel’s ’12 home run brought home Thompson.

Princeton’s freshman pitcher Liza Kuhn went on to walk two batters and hit Chin with a pitch in the inning. Buoyed by two singles, the Bears racked up a 5-0 lead and went through their entire batting order before Princeton could stop them.

Despite being hit by a pitch, Chin did not allow the Tigers to score the entire game and gave up only four hits. But the Bears, likewise, were unable to score throughout the rest of the game.

“We were aggressive from the start. We had more focus in the beginning of the game,” said Head Coach DeeDee Enabenter-Omidiji. “But sometimes we have a tendency to get too comfortable with the lead.”

Princeton 6, Brown 5 But the Bears could not keep their focus in their second game against the Tigers and were unable to hold on to their lead late in the game.

Both Brown and Princeton scored a run early in the game, and it remained tied until the fourth inning, when catcher Amanda Asay ’10 hit a home run. With two runners in scoring position and two outs, Rothamel doubled to center field for two RBI, giving the Bears had a solid 4-1 lead.

The Tigers leaped right back into the game with three runs of their own in the top of the fifth. Princeton loaded the bases off of two walks and a single, and Chin stepped in for pitcher Liz DiMascio ’13. But Chin could not stop the Tigers like she did in the first game — a double brought in two of the runners and a follow-up single brought in another, tying the game, 4-4.

“We knew they’d come back and battle,” Enabenter-Omidiji said. “It went back and forth, and we had a few opportunities to score, but we didn’t cash in on those opportunities.”

The Bears tacked on one more run at the bottom of the fifth, but allowed the Tigers to score one in both the sixth and seventh.

The team had trouble focusing in the second game because they had to play two games back-to-back, according to Enabenter-Omidiji. “Part of becoming a better team is the ability

Cornell 15, Brown 4 Unlike the first game, the Bears managed to score in the second, but Cornell capitalized on Brown’s six errors. In addition to the errors, DiMascio threw a wild pitch and Asay allowed three passed balls in the second inning, which helped Big Red score six runs.

“When your pitcher gives up lots

Hilary Rosenthal / Herald

The softball team lost three games and won one against Ivy opponents this weekend.

of hits, the defense tends to be a spectator,” Enabenter-Omidiji said. “It’s like you’re sitting in cement.”

Losing 15-4, Brown again cried mercy to Cornell, this time after only five innings.

World & Nation The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 | Page 8

Interests diverge in an Alaskan wood Details of Palin’s speech at Cal State begin to emerge

By Kim Murphy Los Angeles Times

THORNE BAY, Alaska — Decades after many of America’s national forests have been tamed into tree farms and campgrounds, the Tongass National Forest stands as a reminder of what wilderness once was. Beneath its 800-year-old stands of Sitka spruce and Western hemlock lurks a mossy hush, a thick, verdant silence.

But even the 17-million-acre crown jewel of the national forest system has not been immune to the demands of the dollar. Years of heavy logging laid bare large swaths of the forest, especially on Prince of Wales Island, where entire hillsides were shaved by clear cuts.

The end of the logging heyday saved the forest but crushed the rest of southeast Alaska, turning massive lumber mills into rusting hulks and leaving timber towns struggling to keep their schools open.

Now, Alaska’s congressional delegation is sponsoring legislation to hand over prized sections of the Tongass to a private Alaska Native corporation that has engaged in some of the region’s most aggressive clearcutting campaigns.

Legislation written by Alaska Republicans Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young would transfer up to 85,000 acres to the Sealaska Corp., an enterprise owned by 20,000 Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian shareholders.

The land exchange would allow Sealaska to complete the settlement it never finalized after the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, opening the way for timber harvesting, tourist lodges and alternative energy projects in a region of rushing salmon streams, azure bays and glacial fjords that many here have come to see as part of the public trust.

Opponents say the legislation is an ill-disguised attempt to evade years of environmental lawsuits and efforts by Democratic administrations to limit logging by privatizing parts of America’s first and largest national forest.

“This is corporate welfare,”

longtime resident Leonard Lein complained at a recent community hearing on the land exchange in the former logging camp of Thorne Bay. “They say they can’t make it with the lands they have. Too bad.”

Under existing law, Sealaska is required to select its final land settlement out of 327,000 acres previously designated by the federal government. Hardly anyone opposes that.

But corporation officials say much of that land is locked away in roadless areas or too near existing communities.

The new proposal would give Sealaska not only prime forest lands on northern Prince of Wales Island — much of it already designated for timber harvest by the U.S. Forest Service — but $60 million worth of roads the Forest Service built over the years to open up the region for logging.

The proposal has drawn fire in a way hardly seen since the early settler days, pitting many of the nonNative homesteaders, fishermen and eco-tourism operators against Native leaders, who say that after decades of outside companies exploiting the Tongass, it is time for Alaska Natives to get more than the leftover lands nobody else wanted.

The debate is over not just the future of the forest, but the ability of Alaska Natives to fully capitalize on the unique land claims settlement that handed over $962.5 million and 44 million acres of land to indigenous people.

“We have a right. Out of the 22 million acres (of our historic lands), we are only asking for 3 percent. We are asking for a sliver,” Sarah Dybdahl, cultural projects coordinator for the Sealaska Heritage Institute, declared at a public hearing last month. “When can we have something good? When can Natives have prime land?”

Sealaska Chief Executive Chris McNeil Jr., a Tlingit who holds a law degree from Stanford University and a master’s in political science from Yale University, often points to the 1907 presidential decree that created the Tongass — with no mention of compensation to those who had in-

habited it for thousands of years.

“Those were our lands,” McNeil said.

In fact, nearly everyone, including Alaska Natives, has cashed in on the Tongass over the years.

The biggest and best old-growth trees started falling to the chain saw in the 1960s, when a pair of pulp mills in Sitka and Ketchikan — armed with lucrative federal contracts — began chewing through millions of board feet a year.

Then came the historic 1971 settlement with Alaska’s Native tribes.

Unrestrained by many of the federal environmental regulations that govern public land, the new tribal corporations began mowing down hillsides, often from ridge top to the water’s edge. Most of the Native-cut trees bypassed local mills and were exported to Asia, where they would fetch a higher price.

Alarmed at the speed with which the rain forest was being brought to its knees, Congress canceled the pulp company contracts in the 1990s.

Environmental lawsuits, wilderness protections and economics have hampered the Forest Service’s attempts to keep even a limited logging program going in the years since.

The shift has been dramatic. In 1997, 495 million board feet of timber was cut out of the forest. In recent years, less than 34 million board feet a year has made it to the mills.

Wilderness advocates say the region is beginning to come into its own in a new way with tourism, fishing and small woodworking enterprises — businesses that thrive on a healthy forest. Gradually, the mills are being retooled for smaller, replenishable trees to wean them from their dependence on the massive, old-growth giants.

Yet nothing so far has been able to overcome the loss of the big chainsaw jobs. Over the last 10 years, logging industry employment has shrunk from 4,000 jobs to barely 450. Towns like Thorne Bay and Craig have lost nearly 20 percent of their populations. Unemployment in some Native villages approaches 30 percent.

By Steven Harmon Contra Costa T imes

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — From bendable straws to Lear Jets, the list of Sarah Palin’s demands for her speaking engagement at California State University, Stanislaus, is a striking portrait of the rock-star perks and comforts a celebrity speaker can command.

But it was how some details of Palin’s contract with the Cal State Stanislaus Foundation came to light that had state Sen. Leland Yee outraged Tuesday. A pair of Cal State Stanislaus students said they recovered from a trash bin parts of the very contract that Yee had sought in a public records request, along with bags of other shredded documents.

“When we have individuals that are deceiving people and obfuscating, we are in deep trouble — our democracy is in trouble,” said Yee, the author of a bill that would require public university foundations to be subject to the same scrutiny as schools. “It is truly shocking and a gross violation of the public trust that such documents would be thrown away and destroyed during a pending investigation.”

The students, Alicia Lewis and Ashli Briggs, submitted the documents to the attorney general’s office Tuesday to buttress an investigation already under way into whether Cal State Stanislaus violated the California Public Records Act. Repeated calls to Cal State Stanislaus were not returned.

Lewis, 26, and Briggs, 23, both political science majors, said they have been active in pushing the administration to be more open about such issues as student funding, but became more actively involved once the story about Palin’s speaking engagement at a June black-tie fundraiser became a campus sensation.

They said other students told them they saw employees enter the campus administration building on a furlough Friday, and watched as they emerged from the building with boxes of documents and deposit them into a Dumpster.

“We knew something was not right,” said Lewis. “Who knew we’d find Sarah Palin’s contract?”

Missing in the recovered documents — the final six pages of a ninepage contract under the Washington Speakers Bureau letterhead — were details of Palin’s pay, which Yee estimated to be in the range of $100,000, given the speaker fees she has previously commanded.

Yee asserted that the documents were shredded “presumably” by university personnel on public property, and that thousands of pages of financial statements and foundation documents also found in the Dumpster showed the two to overlap.

“The linkage is absolutely intertwined,” he said. “It’s like having a fundraising operation in my Capitol office.”

Yee denied he was targeting Cal State Stanislaus because its choice of speakers happened to be the darling of the right wing and foil for the left. He pointed out that former President Bill Clinton did not charge for his appearance at the University of California, Berkeley; nor did first lady Michelle Obama at her address at UC Merced.

“The issue is not about who it is, it’s merely about openness and accountability and transparency,” he said. “It just so happened that Palin is the invitee. If there were any others, we’d be going after them for the same purpose: to get them to give us information.”

In addition to the bendable straw and Lear Jet that Palin required, the contract also stipulated that she be picked up at the airport by SUV or black town car; that her name be registered at a “delux” hotel under an alias, that autographs not be allowed, that all photographs be taken by a professional photographer; and that personal cameras, cell-phone cameras and any other recording devices are to be turned off wherever Palin is.

The Washington Speakers Bureau also asked for an advance list of those who intended to attend the reception with her.

The contract also stipulated that the Cal State Foundation provide a “tall, wooden lectern” with backlighting focused on her notes. Two unopened bottles of still water and bendable straws “are to be placed in or near the wood lectern. A representative of WSB (Washington Speakers Bureau) or the Speaker’s party will open the water at an appropriate time prior to the Speaker’s participation in the program.”

Her particular needs aren’t so different from most celebrity speakers or politicians on the speaker’s circuit. For instance, according to documents obtained by SmokingGun.com, John Kerry P’02, during the presidential campaign, let his handlers know that he “will not be eating spicy food or anything containing tomato, citrus or chocolate; bottled water must be everyplace that JK is. Always have a Boost shake on hand — vanilla, strawberry.”

Cal State officials have asserted that foundations are separate private entities not subject to the same accountability requirements as public universities. They have said a confidentiality term in their contract with Palin forbids them from releasing details of her pay.

Indeed, that agreement was spelled out in the final pages of the recovered document.

“The Parties further acknowledge that disclosure of any confidential information would cause irreparable harm to WSB (Washington Speakers Bureau) and to the Speaker (Palin); the Customer shall therefore exercise its best efforts to avoid any disclosure of any confidential information.”

Page 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

World & Nation

Space shuttle Discovery embarks on 13-day mission

By Robert Block The Orlando Sentinel

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Discovery with its crew of seven astronauts roared into orbit Monday, arcing over the horizon just before sunrise as it headed out on one of NASA’s final orbiter missions to the International Space Station.

The successful liftoff reduces the number of remaining launches to three as the agency races to stock the space station with spares, supplies and scientific gear before the shuttle fleet is retired later this year.

Discovery is carrying eight tons of cargo and science equipment for the station’s laboratories. The 13-day mission, dubbed the “Experiment Express,” has three planned spacewalks to install a fresh ammonia tank assembly for the lab’s coolant system and retrieve a Japanese experiment from the station’s exterior.

Commanded by Navy Capt. Alan Poindexter, the crew includes rookie pilot James Dutton, flight engineer Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson, Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki and veteran spacewalkers Richard Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson.

It is the last shuttle flight to have a crew of seven. And with three female crew members on board Discovery, and with NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson already onboard the station, the mission marks the first time that four women will be in space at once.

At one point shortly before Discovery blasted off of launchpad 39A, the space station could be seen moving across the pre-dawn skies above Kennedy Space Center like a shimmering

Red Huber / Orlando Sentinel

Space shuttle Discovery STS-131 astronauts Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Naoko Yamazaki, commander Alan Poindexter and Stephanie Wilson leave crew quarters on Monday to launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. It’s the first time that three women astronauts have flown together on a shuttle flight.

star tracking across the horizon.

“It sure was a spectacular launch and picture perfect countdown,” Mike Moses, NASA shuttle integration manager, told a post-launch news conference. He said that during ascent there were a few glitches with some of Discovery’s monitors but nothing that indicated problems with any of the shuttle’s systems.

The primary goal of Discovery is to deliver supplies that will keep the station operating long after shuttles have been sent to become museum attractions.

Although the spacewalks are complex and involve lots of choreography with giant robotic arms, most of the work during the mission will be unpacking “Leonardo,” an Italian-made orbital moving van the size of a small bus. Also known as a Multi-Purpose Logistic Module, or MPLM, Leonardo

is loaded with science experiments and precious cargo, including a new crew sleep station and a lab freezer.

It’s so densely and precisely packed that it will take 100 hours for the joint shuttle and station crews to unload the carrier.

“We have to unload it in a certain order in order to get things out,” said Ron Spencer, NASA’s lead space station flight director for the mission.

Adding to the challenge is the fact that space on the station is tight and that every piece of hardware has to find its place, Spencer said. In the days before Discovery’s arrival, station crew members will be busy moving gear around on the orbiting complex to make room for the new arrivals.

“And remember,” Spencer added, “the station crew is going to need know where these things are when the shuttle crew leaves. So we have

to be very deliberate about where we put things and record where it is so different people ... still know where things are after the shuttle crew is gone.”

While the astronauts are busy overhead, the attention of space boosters is likely to be on Kennedy Space Center.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to make a speech on Thursday at the space center while Discovery is in orbit, outlining his plans for spaceflight after the shuttles are retired.

Obama created a furor in the aerospace community in February when he proposed killing NASA’s Constellation program, which had been aimed at returning astronauts to the moon. The end of the shuttle program and NASA’s planned replacement program means thousands of looming job losses at the space center and other NASA centers.

The White House maintains that its plan to outsource crew and cargo flights to private space companies and replace Constellation with a rocket technology development program will put the agency on a more sustainable footing and will ultimately provide a more a diversified space sector that will lead to more aerospace jobs over the long term.

NASA officials say that they do not think that the president’s visit will be a distraction for the astronauts or Mission Control in Houston.

“As far as a presidential visit, you know, to me that is nothing but an absolute positive,” said Space Shuttle program manager John Shannon.

“Whether we have a shuttle up or not, to have the president of the United States actually visit the space center down in Florida and talk about his vision for space is at least unprecedented in my NASA career. So I nothing but applaud that.”

With no clear successor to the shuttle, several lawmakers are pushing to keep the orbiters flying until a new vehicle is developed that can take over. But NASA managers Monday discounted the idea, despite the fact that they said the shuttle was flying with fewer issues than at any time in its nearly 30-year history.

“Now that the station is assembled and built we can then go to a simpler vehicle that ... (does not) require all the components and all the care and feeding,” NASA associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters.

“It is tough that we’re shutting down the shuttle but it’s really served its purpose. Now it’s time to move to that next generation of vehicles ... building off of what we learned here on shuttle.”

Defense Sec’y Gates criticizes leaks group for war video

By Julian E. Barnes Tribune Washington Bureau

LIMA, Peru – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Tuesday took a swipe at the Web site that released secret military video footage of a 2007 incident in which civilians were killed.

Gates said the videos released by the group WikiLeaks were out of context and provided an incomplete picture of the battlefield, comparing it to war as seen “through a soda straw.”

“These people can put out whatever they want and are never held accountable for it,” said Gates, speaking to reporters while in route to Lima.

“There is no before and no after. It is only the present.”

The Web site last week released classified video of a 2007 incident in Iraq in which two Reuters news agency employees and several other civilians were killed or wounded by an Apache helicopter whose crew mistook them for insurgent fighters.

The video ignited international outrage for showing the helicopter crew praising one another’s shooting and seeking more human “targets.” The incident was investigated previously by the military and crew members

were found innocent of any wrongdoing. Reuters had been turned down in prior efforts to obtain the video.

Nonetheless, Gates told reporters that the videos were akin to looking at war through a narrow lens and said that millions who have viewed it on YouTube and elsewhere could not understand what was going on before or after the airstrikes incidents.

“That is the problem with these videos,” Gates said. “You are looking at the war through a soda straw and you have no context or perspective.”

U.S. officials have said that the journalists were walking with or near people who were armed and in the proximity of a firefight.

A WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, said in an interview that a Web site set up to host the video, CollateralMurder.com, provides ample context for the Apache attack and shows what was happening in the area before and after the shootings. Assange said the military should reopen an investigation.

“We are extremely disappointed with this spinning coming out of the U.S. military representatives,” he said.

WikiLeaks said this week it may soon release another video, of a 2009 U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed

nearly 100 civilians.

The Los Angeles Times and several other media companies and public interest organizations intervened in a 2008 court case in which a U.S. judge ordered the U.S. version of the Web site shut down for publishing confidential business documents from Switzerland. The judge lifted that order two weeks later.

Despite his criticism for the leaks, Gates also emphasized that he takes the issue of civilian casualties seriously. He said he supports restrictions on airstrikes and other tactics that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has put in place in Afghanistan to reduce civilian casualties there.

“Every time I talk to Gen. McChrystal, he talks about this,” Gates

said. “His view is the civilian casualty question is a strategic question in Afghanistan he thinks that is one of the greatest risks to the success of our strategy.”

Gates said U.S. and allied forces thoroughly prove incidents involving civilian casualties because they can threaten the success of the overall effort.

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Wednesday, April 14, 2010

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

SLA grateful for Gala change To the Editor: Regarding “Gala moves back onto campus” (April 9): The Student Labor Alliance would like to express our utmost appreciation to our fellow students for taking heed of the concerns raised by SLA and the workers of the Westin.

We are heartened and proud to know that there are Brown students willing to stand in support of workers’ rights and make personal sacrifices for the common good. We would especially like to acknowledge the Class Board and Key Society’s admirable effort to move Gala from the Westin to an on-campus location. We know that moving Gala back to campus has taken a lot of time and energy; we are extremely grateful to those who took it upon themselves to make it happen.

It was not our intention to detract from the Gala or cause any undue conflict between various student groups here on campus. We merely felt it was our responsibility to educate the

Brown community and potential Gala attendees about the ongoing boycott at the Westin. Ultimately, our hope is to ensure that the University continues to have a positive and responsible impact on the local Providence community.

As a result, we are currently formalizing a process that would make sure that this unnecessary, disruptive and uncomfortable situation does not occur again in the future. In the next few weeks, we plan to present before UCS, BUCC and administrators about the possibility of institutionalizing a system to guarantee that Brown events (whether student, departmental or otherwise) are not planned to be held in establishments with existing labor disputes.

Sam Adler-Bell ’12 Beth Caldwell ’12 Lenora Knowles ’11 Haley Kossek ’13 Rebecca Rast ’13 April 13

A caption accompanying a photo in Tuesday’s Herald (“Honoring history,” April 13) incorrectly reported that volunteers read aloud a list of names of Holocaust victims who died at Auschwitz. In fact, the names read included Holocaust victims from places including Auschwitz, other concentration camps and outside the camps. The Herald regrets the error.

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

Managing Editor Chaz Kelsh

Deputy Managing Editors Sophia Li Emmy Liss

editorial Anne Speyer Suzannah Weiss Brian Mastroianni Hannah Moser Brigitta Greene Ben Schreckinger Sydney Ember Nicole Friedman Dan Alexander Zack Bahr Andrew Braca Han Cui

Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Editor Features Editor Features Editor Metro Editor Metro Editor News Editor News Editor Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor

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

e d i to r i a l

Keeping our greens clean

correction

George Miller

A le x Y uly

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 Local Sales Arjun Vaidya National Sales Marco deLeon University Sales Aditi Bhatia University Sales Jared Davis Recruiter Sales Trenten Nelson-Rivers Maximilian Barrows Business Operations Business Analytics Jilyn Chao Credit and Collections Danielle Marshak Special Projects Alexander Carrere Staff Kathy Bui Opinions Opinions Editor Michael Fitzpatrick Opinions Editor Alyssa Ratledge Editorial Page Board Matt Aks Editorial Page Editor William Martin Board member Melissa Shube Board member Gaurie Tilak Board member Jonathan Topaz Board member

Providence has been the fortunate beneficiar y of some beautiful weather this past month, and we have enjoyed sitting on the recently re-opened Faunce steps, playing Frisbee and eating takeout lunches and dinners on Wriston Quad and the Main Green. Unfortunately though, when students spend more time outdoors, they tend to leave trash behind. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen overflowing garbage cans and countless dining hall takeout containers littered across campus.

Students must take personal responsibility for their trash. While the nearest garbage bins may be too full to use at times, this does not excuse littering or leaving items behind to be picked up

by Facilities Management workers. If the nearest receptacle is too full, carr y your trash with you for just a bit until you find an empty bin. Brown has made great strides to become more environmentally friendly, and we must respect our institution, our environment, and the staff who work hard to maintain a clean campus.

Other strategies can help minimize the litter.

In an inter view with the editorial page board, Vice President for Facilities Management Stephen Maiorisi said that the Facilities staff has begun to put out additional receptacles near the Ratty and at other select locations during peak hours.

We encourage Facilities Management and Dining Ser vices to work together to identify the most popular times for outdoor eating and provide additional trash bins on a consistent schedule.

Maiorisi also noted that grounds crews usually only work on weekdays, except when the University is preparing for a special event like Commence-

ment. Students must be especially aware of this and take extra steps to be conscientious on the weekends, when Facilities Management has fewer staff on campus.

In the long run, Facilities Management may want to re-evaluate the design of some of the trash and recycling receptacles. Maiorisi said that the current design is useful because it keeps out rain and encourages people to deposit items in the correct bin. However, the recycling receptacles have particularly small openings, making it ver y difficult to put in large items. And as evidenced by recent troubles with takeout containers, the bins can overflow ver y quickly.

The new BigBelly Solar Compactor recently placed in front of the Ratty could of fer a longterm solution. We applaud Facilities Management and Brown EcoReps for collaborating and experimenting with innovative ideas. Moreover, we look for ward to forthcoming determinations about the compactor’s cost effectiveness and the possibility of adding additional compactors on campus.

With Spring Weekend approaching, many students are hoping that the weather allows the festivities to be held outside. The concerts tend to leave behind a large mess, and students must do their part to minimize the burden on those responsible for cleaning up after wards.

Brown in the spring is a beautiful place. We ask that students be just a bit more considerate and vigilant in order to keep it that way.

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

Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

Marlee Bruning, Katie Wilson, Designers Greg Conyers, Tiffany Hsu, Rajan Mittal, Carmen Shulman, Copy Editors Alex Bell, Sydney Ember, Sarah Mancone, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Ana Alvarez, Ashley Aydin, Alexander Bell, Nicole Boucher, Alicia Chen, Kristina Fazzalaro, Sarah Forman, Talia Kagan, Sara Luxenberg, Sarah Mancone, Heeyoung Min, Claire Peracchio, Goda Thangada, Caitlin Trujillo Staff Writers Anna Andreeva, Shara Azad, Rebecca Ballhaus, Fei Cai, Miriam Furst, Max Godnick, Anish Gonchigar, Thomas Jarus, Sarah Julian, Julia Kim, Anita Mathews, Lindor Qunaj, Mark Raymond, Luisa Robledo, Emily Rosen, Bradley Silverman, Anne Simons, Qian Yin Senior Sales Executives Katie Galvin, Liana Nisimova, Isha Gulati, Samantha Wong Sales Associates Roshni Assomull, Brady Caspar, Anna Cook, Siena deLisser, Begum Ersan, Tommy Fink, Ryan Fleming, Evan Gill, Rajiv Iyengar, Debbie Lai, Jason Lee, Katie Lynch, Sean Maroongroge, Zahra Merchant, Edjola Ruci, Webber Xu Senior Finance Associates Jason Beckman, Lauren Bosso, Mae Cadao, Margot Grinberg, Sajjad Hasan, Adam Fern Finance Associates Lisa Berlin, Mahima Chawla, Mark Hu, Jason Lee, Nicholas Robbins, Daniel Slutsky, Emily Zheng 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, Adam Zethraeus Photo Staff Qidong Chen, Janine Cheng, Alex DePaoli, Frederic Lu, Quinn Savit Copy Editors Nicole Boucher, Zoe Chaves, Greg Conyers, Sarah Forman, Claire Gianotti, Aida Haile-Mariam, Victoria Hartman, Tiffany Hsu, Christine Joyce, Mrinal Kapoor, Abby Kerson, Matthew Lim, Sara Luxenberg, Alexandra McFarlane, Joe Milner, Rajan Mittal, Lindor Qunaj, Kate-Lyn Scott, Carmen Shulman, Rebecca Specking, Dan Towne, Carolina Veltri

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 | Page 11

Rhode Island’s unemployment solution Will Wray Opinions Columnist As the days warm and our outer layers are secreted into closets and left for next November’s chill, it becomes daily more difficult to summon up the sort of righteous indignation that informed past columns. Something about a sunny 70 degrees makes one aware that poring over closely typed editorial pages and watching pairs of talking heads spew vitriol at each other on TV is quite similar to endlessly meditating on an itch that you are only allowed to scratch biennially, at the ballot box.

So blame the weather if I can’t match the passion in the editorial page board’s latest screed against financial responsibility. I can only manage a sort of bemused disbelief.

A recent editorial (“Just say no,” April 6) chided Democratic State Rep. Peter Palumbo for introducing a bill that would require adult welfare recipients to be tested for drugs in order to receive their checks. The editorial board was right to oppose the bill, but their underlying philosophy for doing so is dangerously flawed.

The editorial complains that “monthly cash payments for welfare come entirely from federal funds” and that “Palumbo should keep his focus on programs that actually use state dollars.” The editorial could have, less concisely yet more precisely, used “money taken from American citizens, some of whom are Rhode Islanders, but most of whom are not,” in lieu of the sterile “federal funds,” a term which laugh-

ably implies the government had something to do with making the money in question.

The real problem with the statement is philosophical, not rhetorical. The editorial straightfacedly condemns a state politician for trying to save U.S. taxpayers’ money. Shamelessly advantaging your constituents at the expense of everyone else is still one of those behaviors we condemn in politicians, not actively encourage, right?

The editorial says that the testing would “target poor individuals while leaving wealthier

The proposed bill would not do so. Welfare is a social safety net that temporarily provides enough money for basic goods and services while the recipient regains his or her footing — not an opt-in “alternative lifestyle” program, where you get to scrape by on taxpayer money if you so prefer. This has been confirmed by Bill Clinton, welfare guru Frank Field and every major Democratic player. For the insane, the infirm and the helpless, there exist alternative support systems.

Nobody should stigmatize welfare recipi-

Instead of calling it “welfare,” which simply reeks of charity, we should hire those who would qualify for welfare as “urine producers.”

beneficiaries of government programs like tax credits off the hook.” Is it not disingenuous to equate “let-you-keep-slightly-more-money-thatyou-earned benefits” with “let-you-have-otherpeoples’-money benefits”? So long as “wealthier beneficiaries” (and those who receive tax credits are the least wealthy of the 50 percent of Americans who pay the federal income tax) are providing tax revenue rather than consuming it, what should the government care if they smoke weed, or for that matter, inject heroin?

The editorial further criticizes the bill for its potential to stigmatize welfare recipients.

ents, but neither should we take legislative and financial pains to sanitize the program if it drug testing would improve it.

Shouldn’t there be an implicit awareness that the community is charitably supporting welfare recipients while they regain their footing? One hopes that most welfare recipients are aware of this fact and need no reminders.

But for those who receive their welfare checks year after year and lie about their income or use that money to purchase recreational drugs, it is clear that they have forgotten the flip-side of their entitlements.

My quarrel is not with recreational drug use per se. However, there is a wide moral chasm between giving a person the responsibility to control his or her own drug usage and coercing taxpayers into potentially supporting a drug habit. If we could test to see whether welfare recipients are using their benefits to purchase big-screen TVs, I would support that as well.

Those who take advantage of the program cheat not only the taxpayers and the state, but every other welfare beneficiary.

I believe the editorial’s sincere concern is ensuring that welfare beneficiaries do not have their self-esteem damaged in the process of receiving taxpayer money. If you buy into the nouveau “White Man’s Burden” notion that the poor are an underclass who are subject to entirely different standards from everyone else, we should transform welfare.

I owe this idea to economist John Maynard Keynes, who wrote in his magnum opus that paying people to bury money in holes, then cover it in trash, would increase the capital wealth of the nation.

Instead of calling it “welfare,” which simply reeks of charity, we might hire those who would qualify for welfare as “urine producers.”

Employees have no responsibilities other than producing a small cup of their own urine every month. The state only hires drug-free workers, however, so if your cups are found to have been tainted by illegal drugs, you are fired from your urine-production job and must find another.

No charity here.

Will Wray ’10 is still searching for Keynes’ buried treasure. He can be reached at william_wray@brown.edu

Talking about stress WILLIAM TOMASKO Opinions Columnist I recently found out that we go to the 20thmost-stressful college in the country.

Shortly after coming back from spring break, I was up late and avoiding my homework by browsing The Daily Beast. One article, “The 50 Most Stressful Colleges,” caught my attention. I was curious to find out where Brown ranked in their authoritative, definitive calculations. Apparently, Brunonians achieved 20th place and are the least-stressed Ivy League students .

The article’s methodology focused on tuition and “competitiveness” when calculating different campuses’ stress levels. It defined “competitiveness” as academic rigorousness, but also included selectivity, college crime rates and, for some unexplained reason, the difficulty of the schools’ engineering programs.

Using U.S. News and World Report rankings struck me as a flawed way to measure how academically challenging a school is.

Those rankings use factors like endowment size and the rate of alumni donations, both of which are unrelated to students’ workloads.

U.S. News also relies on measuring selectivity and standardized test scores, which relate to students’ stress and work before starting college.

According to The Daily Beast’s U.S. Newsdriven methodology, Stanford is officially the most stressful college in America. Brown ranks just below Georgetown and right above

Tufts.

Regardless of The Daily Beast’s questionable methods, though, I couldn’t be sure what the point of the rankings was. Should I be proud that I’m apparently experiencing less stress than students at Stanford or Har vard are? Should I feel self-conscious about supposedly not working as hard as they are?

Seeing the rankings made me recall a Harvard Magazine article I’d come across last month. The story was called “Nonstop: Today’s superhero undergraduates do ‘3,000 things at 150 percent,’ ” and the rest of the

on anecdotal evidence from individual sources, evoking concern over the students’ wellbeing — while maybe bragging about their productivity along the way. The Daily Beast’s rankings tr y to summarize a universe of college experiences through questionable methodology, turning stress levels into a form of competition in which it isn’t exactly clear who is winning.

I doubt that either approach to generalizing stress, whether supposedly statistical or subjectively anecdotal, is helpful to college students actually experiencing it. Students at schools across the country feel pressure no

Describing and trying to quantify stress is not nearly as useful as attempting to help students deal with it.

article was just as humbling as the title.

According to Har vard Magazine, “Students today routinely sprint through jampacked daily schedules, tackling big ser vings of academic work plus giant helpings of extracurricular activity in a frenetic tizzy of commitments.” The article adopts an awestruck tone as it profiles the hectic daily lives of various Harvard undergrads. It also includes passages that consider the consequences of minimal downtime and persistent sleep-deprivation.

The Harvard story depicts a trend based

matter where they fall in The Daily Beast’s rankings, and highlighting individual workloads leads readers to question their own productivity and make judgments on other people’s choices.

Describing and trying to quantify stress is not nearly as useful as attempting to help students deal with it. A three-part series in The Daily Princetonian included ways to minimize stress and more broadly support mental health. Many of the articles’ findings can easily apply to other campuses. The series refers to using psychological services,

exercising during homework breaks and taking semesters off as ways to lessen academic stress.

Another method can even involve stuffed animals. The Huffington Post recently linked to a stor y in the University Daily Kansan about college students who still proudly sleep with their “childhood bedtime companion(s).”

According to the article, those childhood mementos can “provide comfort in times of stress and insecurity” and, for some people, ease the adjustment to college.

One of the Daily Princetonian articles also discusses how Web sites like PrincetonFML (or our Brown version) can create commiserating communities that diminish stress by reminding students that they aren’t isolated — they aren’t the only ones feeling at times they can barely stand the academic pressure. When Brunonians posted their own “FML” moments during finals season last semester, they weren’t competing over stress levels or describing how impressively productive they were. They were generally demonstrating moments of vulnerability and inviting sympathy.

Making sweeping statements on students’ stress levels may make for compelling copy, and presuming to be able to tell students whether they are more stressed-out than most may attract page views. However, the most useful way to approach the topic of stress is to pursue solutions.

William Tomasko ’13 is from Washington, D.C. and can be reached at william_tomasko@brown.edu.

Today The Brown Daily Herald

3

Students to fill out census forms

W. lacrosse continues win streak

7

c a l e n da r

6:30 p.m. — “The World in 2030: Tomorrow’s Scenarios, Today’s Responsibilities,” MacMillan 117

3:00 P.M. — Brown Degree Days: Slavic Studies, Marston Hall

7:00 p.m. — Brown Lecture Board Presents: Art Spiegelman, List 120

comics

4:00 p.m. — Visual Art Lecture Series: Marisa Olson, List 120

menu Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Beef or Vegetarian Tacos, Spanish Rice, Polynesian Cookies

Lunch — Polynesian Chicken Wings, Mushroom Quiche, Sticky Rice

Dinner — Pork Medallions in Portobello Sauce, Spinach Stuffed Squash, Chocolate Sundae Cake

Dinner — Rotisserie Style Chicken, Pizza Rustica, Chocolate Sundae Cake

58 / 41 Page 12

The Herald then conducted a thorough review of the author’s work. That review turned up two other articles that used facts and language from other sources without proper attribution. A news article (“NSF grant will provide ongoing support for women in sciences,” Dec. 7, 2006) about a National Science Foundation grant contained text from the NSF Web site describing that grant. An editorial (“Getting old,” Feb. 15, 2010) contained material similar to an article in the Providence Journal (“Annaldo: Ban under-21 crowd from clubs,” Feb. 11, 2010).

The Herald trains all its writers in proper reporting and attribution, and expects that the articles they write are their own. We apologize to our readers and the publications from which material was used improperly.

Carbernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman tomorrow, april 15

65 / 41

e d i to r ’ s n ot e The Herald has discovered that two editorials and a news article published between 2006 and 2010 contained opinions, facts and language that previously appeared in other publications. Because The Herald has a zerotolerance policy for plagiarism, the author has been dismissed from The Herald’s staff.

On April 7, The Herald was notified that an editorial in the previous day’s newspaper (“Just say no,” April 6, 2010) may have used the reporting of the Providence Journal without proper attribution. After reviewing the editorial, editors concluded that it did improperly use opinions, facts and language from a Journal article (“Bill would require drug testing for R.I. welfare recipients,” March 26, 2010).

Today, April 14

to m o r r o w

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

t h e n e w s i n i m ag e s

6

to day

crossword Excelsior | Kevin Grubb

Fruitopia | Andy Kim

Hippomaniac| Jintao Huang