Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxlv, no. 55 | Monday, April 26, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Snoop and sun fill Spring Weekend with fun MGMT spreads psychedelic energy on Main Green By Suzannah Weiss Ar ts & Culture Editor
Students piled in front of the stage on a bustling Main Green to catch a glimpse of a gorilla — or rather, a dancer in deceptive anthropoid attire — performing alongside DJ duo Major Lazer, which opened for MGMT at Friday night’s Spring Weekend concert.
Arts & Culture
Max Monn / Herald
Fans enjoyed the concerts behind barricades and amid strict security at Spring Weekend.
The swaying, yelling crowd, mostly students from Brown — which Diplo of Major Lazer called the world’s “coolest university” — got so out of hand that security had to push the audience away from the stage. Hector Ramirez ’12 said “Major
Lazer was a lot of fun” even though “there was a lot of pushing.” “I honestly felt like I had to take the people around me out for dinner because I was so close and intimate with them,” said Kimanh Duong ’12, adding that she hoped Saturday’s performances by Wale, the Black Keys and Snoop Dogg would be “more chill.” Midway through Major Lazer’s act, somebody was hurt and Brown Concert Agency representatives had to pause the concert. “People were pressing up against the barrier (from the front of the stage to the sound board) and it was collapsing, and we had to stop Major Lazer and take it out,” said Alex Spoto ’11, the agency’s administrative chair. “Some people were getting
Spring Weekend in full color: inside, pages 6–7 crushed up in the front,” he added. “One person passed out from the pressure.” To avoid future injuries, Spoto said, BCA changed the audience area’s setup for Saturday’s performance. The management of the crowd got easier, though, as the night went on and indie electronic pop band MGMT took over the stage, starting with songs from their latest album, “Congratulations.” The energy picked up as the psychecontinued on page 5
Students soak up the sights and sounds of Spring Weekend By Sara Luxenberg Senior Staf f Writer
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of frattiness” –– that’s how some students defined this weekend’s atmosphere,
Fifty Years of Spring Fourth in a four-part series according to Sami Horneff ’12. Students danced, drank and were merry as great weather and popular musicians arrived on College Hill. The campus came alive with activity — whether it was spontaneous congregations on grassy greens or
the slip-and-slide on Wriston Quadrangle — for Spring Weekend’s 50th anniversary. “Weekend” proved to be a loose term, as festivities took place throughout the week preceding the concerts sponsored by Brown Concert Agency. Last Wednesday, the 2011 Class Board organized the Mr. and Ms. Brown competition as a start to Spring Weekend, said Class Board Secretary Salsabil Ahmed ’11. After eight competitors battled it out for the title of Mr. and Ms. Brown, Thursday’s events had to be altered Max Monn and Jonathan Bateman / Herald
continued on page 6
MGMT and Snoop Dogg, who wore a Brown hockey jersey, headlined the Friday and Saturday concerts, respectively.
Gate to end lunch service in the fall Mokoro ’11, Farber ’12 to head UCS next year
By Sarah Mancone Senior Staff Writer
inside
The Gate will be closing during lunch hours starting in the upcoming fall semester following a recommendation to that effect in the Organizational Review Committee’s Feb. 2 report. According to the report, members of the committee — which was charged last spring with identifying $14 million in savings in the University budget for the next fiscal year — recommended this change after examining the student traffic throughout the University’s various dining facilities and “looking at the overall program of Dining Services,” said Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential and dining services, who led the
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ORC team that made the recommendation. The decision was made to have a “minimal impact on students,” Bova said. He added that an important consideration was “not to disrupt late-night” eating. Students tend to attach more importance to latenight eating than they do on eating during the day, he said. There are “200 folks who eat at the Gate during lunchtime,” Bova said, while other dining facilities are used by many more students during these hours. In addition to closing the Gate for lunch, the offerings at the Ivy Room will be reduced during lunch hours, Bova said. According to the report, the Ivy Room will only offer hot lunch and grab-and-go items starting in the fall semester.
But not all lunch facilities’ operations are being reduced. In September 2010, a “new and expanded Blue Room” will be opening, Bova said. The Blue Room will have the “capacity to feed people faster and in greater number,” he said, adding that it will be approximately twice the size of the current one with more seating throughout the Blue Room and Faunce House. Overall, the changes at the Gate and Ivy Room will save the University about $100,000, Bova said. The change will “displace between eight and 13 Johnson and Wales University students” who are temporary employees at the Gate, accounting for most of the anticipated savings, he said. continued on page 2
By Nicole Boucher Senior Staff Writer
Diane Mokoro ’11 will serve as president of the Undergraduate Council of Students next year after winning 67.9 percent of the vote in last week’s student government elections, the council announced Friday. “I think there is a lot of work to do,” Mokoro said, adding that she is “very excited to jump into it and get things done.” Mokoro defeated Arthur Matuszewski ’11, a former Post- editor-in-chief. Adam Kiki-Charles ’11 won 57.4 percent of the vote to become chair of the Undergraduate Finance Board, defeating Salsabil Ahmed ’11.
“I’m very grateful for all the support I’ve received,” Kiki-Charles said, adding that he feels “really lucky to have won” after Ahmed ran such a good campaign. The results were announced at 3:30 p.m. Friday on the steps of Manning Hall. The announcement was originally scheduled for midnight on Thursday, but had to be pushed back after voting was extended for freshmen who were blocked by a computer glitch from accessing the ballot on the first day of voting. A total of 1,564 students voted in this year’s election, down from 2,279 votes last year. A number of students continued on page 2
Arts, 5
Sports, 9
Opinions, 11
The blog today
College Olympians BTV debuts show based on the gods of Mount Olympus
Men’s LAcrosse The bears beat No. 8 Cornell 13-10 Saturday
forgetting the art David Sheffield ’11 suggests overlooking mainstream music
Blog daily herald Eating free, wasting time and more Spring Weekend recap!
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
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Monday, April 26, 2010
“Competing against the best is what makes you better.” — Alysha Naik ’11, Brown Mock Trial team captain
Mock trial team wins 11th nationally
By Margaret Yi Contributing Writer
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
Union employees who work lunch at the Gate will be reassigned to other shifts.
Ivy Room will pare down offerings in fall continued from page 1 Bova added that there will be a general “preser vation of the workforce,” and that there will be no layoffs for union workers who work during lunch hours. Employees will be “redistributed in the current system,” he said, by bidding for where they want to be reassigned. Union workers have been told that they will be reassigned within Dining Services, but they have not been informed of their hours or locations yet, BuDS worker Sarah
Lewis ’12 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. The Gate’s three main workers are Dining Services employees who have worked there for 12, 15 and 18 years, she wrote. They are all union employees, and they expect to have significant input in their placements because of how long they have been working at Brown, she wrote. Union employees are usually the only workers during lunch unless a student fills in as a substitute, which Lewis wrote that she has done multiple times.
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The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2010 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
Ten members of Brown Mock Trial competed at the American Mock Trial Association National Championship Tournament April 16–18 in Memphis, Tenn., placing 11th in their division. Rhodes College hosted this year’s nationals, which featured the country’s top 48 college mock trial teams out of approximately 650. The teams were separated into two divisions, and each team competed in four rounds, with the top team in each division competing for the national championship title. Brown has qualified for nationals in previous years, including last year and 2007. The road to nationals for the 10 members of Team UV first began in Providence at the mock trial regionals. Team UV won first place with a record of 7-1, qualifying them for the first round of nationals, also called super-regionals, according to team captain Alysha Naik ’11.
The Mock Trial Association also awarded several honors to individual team members. At nationals, Gaurie Tilak ’11, a member of The Herald’s editorial page board, won the AllAmerican Witness Award. Rachel Shur ’12 received an Outstanding Witness Award, while Naik and Andrew Nizamian ’12 were both named Outstanding Attorneys at super-regionals. At regionals, Shur and Tilak received Outstanding Witness Awards, and Nizamian received an award for Outstanding Attorney. Other team members are Jared Bellot ’12, Bianca Figueroa-Santana ’10.5, Jamison Kinnane ’12, Katya Potkin ’13, Stephen Rickli ’13 and Jeffrey Wilke ’13. Another team from Brown placed second at Providence, qualifying them for super-regionals as well. At the Worcester Regionals, the third Brown team placed 10th, but did not qualify for the opening round of nationals, according to Naik. At the super-regionals in Boston, Team UV placed in the top four and
was the only Brown team to earn themselves a place in the national competition. In Memphis, Team UV faced off against teams from Duke, the University of Iowa, Dickinson College and St. Olaf College, Naik said. In addition to receiving individual accolades, doing well at nationals also means that Brown gets invited to the best college tournaments, such as those at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Miami and Columbia, Naik said. “Competing against the best is what makes you better,” she said. Unlike many other teams at nationals, Brown is student-run and does not have a professional coach. “What defines Brown mock trial is the dynamic of our organization as a whole,” Naik said. “The fact that we’re completely student-run … we’re teaching ourselves the material, we’re not getting any outside help from attorneys or anything. I think it’s pretty commendable that we can do so well,” she added.
UFB vice chair to be chosen in runoff continued from page 1 did not vote for every position, UCS President Clay Wertheimer ’10 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, so the percentage of the vote received by candidates is based on the votes cast for each particular race. Ben Farber ’12 was elected UCS vice president with 57.9 percent of the vote, defeating Reed Frye ’11 and Evan Holownia ’11. Jason Lee ’12, a Herald sales associate, and Tyler Rosenbaum ’11, a Herald opinions columnist, will vie for the position of UFB vice chair in a runoff election to be held beginning Monday. Neither candidate garnered the 50 percent of the vote necessary to capture the board position. “I’ve been told that the runoff was caused by a large number of writeins, like Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama,” Rosenbaum said, adding that the high number of endorsements he received shows the support he has from the student body. Lee encouraged students to vote in the second round, saying, “Every vote counts.” The polls will reopen for the runoff
at noon Monday and close at noon Wednesday. The winner will be announced at 9 p.m. Wednesday, according to elections board chair Kening Tan ’12. This will be the last year a runoff of this kind will occur. The referendum on this year’s ballot to include instant runoff procedures in the UCS constitution passed handily with 81.7 percent of the vote. Under the new system, beginning next year, students will “rank candidates by preference,” as stated by the passed referendum. If no winner emerges, the votes for the candidate with the least number of first-choice votes will be “redistributed based on the second choice of those ballots.” This process will be repeated as needed until a winner can be declared. Needing a second election to determine vice chair “is just another example of why instant runoff makes sense,” Wertheimer said. Wertheimer’s own race for president last year was forced into a runoff. Mokoro, who introduced the referendum, said that even though voters may not care about the referendum passing right now, “students will ap-
preciate that they don’t have to do a runoff” next year. In other election news, Eden Castro ’12 was elected chair of the UCS Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee, Chris Collins ’11 was elected chair of the Admissions and Student Services Committee, and Ralanda Nelson ’12 rounds out the newly elected UCS executive board as chair of the Student Activities Committee. No student ran for chair of the Campus Life Committee and write-ins for any one individual did not reach the 5 percent needed to capture a spot, according to Wertheimer. Ilyas Khimani ’13 will be next year’s UCS treasurer, winning the spot in an unopposed race. The candidates for the six UFB at-large representative spots also ran unopposed races and all six received the 5 percent necessary to garner a spot. The at-large representatives will be David Chanin ’12, Devin Finzer ’13, Zachary Fischer ’13, Herald Copy Editor Raaj Parekh ’13, Michael Perchonok ’12 and Herald Sales Director Kelly Wess ’11. “I think we have a really great team to run UCS next year,” Farber said.
Monday, April 26, 2010
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
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“I felt it was an offer that was too good to refuse.” — Jane Donnelly, on an early retirement package
English dept. coordinator to retire URI, Brown plan more By Emily Rosen Staff Writer
For years, the first person people have seen at 70 Brown St. is Jane Donnelly. But after this academic year, the Department of English will be losing someone who has dedicated over two decades to the University. Donnelly, the academic operations coordinator for the Department of English, will be retiring at the end of May after 21 years of working at Brown. She is among 139 staff members who have accepted an early retirement package, The Herald reported in February. The University announced in November that eligible employees would receive one year’s salary in addition to an extra $15,000 if they retired. “I felt it was an offer that was too good to refuse,” Donnelly said. Originally planning to retire a few years from now, she said she decided to retire at the end of this year because she thinks this is a one-time offer with a “significant financial incentive.” This May, Donnelly will have completed her 12th year working in the department, where she moved after working part-time for nine years in the Department of Geological Sciences. “I have really loved working at Brown for so many reasons,” she said, adding that she enjoys the fact that her job has given her the opportunity to work with a variety of people at Brown, including students, faculty and staff. “I find it a very pleasant place to work. I feel like I have been respected by the kids and the faculty,” Donnelly said. A major component of Donnelly’s current job as academic operations coordinator is curriculum planning and development, and she is a member of the English Curriculum Committee. Since the Department of English offers such a large number of courses each year, “it’s a very comprehensive planning process,” she said. Donnelly also mentioned that she
particularly enjoys “database design and management,” and she has been able to incorporate this interest into her job over the years. She operates a large database containing information about all English courses, including teaching assignments, scheduling, course history and particular concentration requirements that courses satisfy. “She is a real advocate for the undergraduates,” said Kevin McLaughlin, professor of English and chair of the department, who noted that he thinks Donnelly has the most contact with undergraduates out of anyone in the department. He said Donnelly keeps the undergraduates in mind when planning the curriculum. As the staff member in charge of assisting with faculty recruitment, Donnelly’s duties include cataloguing applications and completely organizing candidate visits to Brown, McLaughlin said. All aspects of Donnelly’s job are “really essential to the academic mission of the department,” he added. A few years ago, Donnelly took the initiative to start a project in which recent Brown English alumni were asked about how their English degrees had influenced their lives after graduation, McLaughlin said. Receiving over 100 replies, Donnelly organized the responses and posted them on the department Web site as a resource for undergraduates. In addition, Donnelly has been active in helping bring panels of English alumni to campus to discuss career paths with undergraduates. Donnelly also handles concentration filing for the Department of English and often gives informal advice to students choosing courses in order to make sure they are on track for their concentration. Undergraduate Council of Students President Clay Wertheimer ’10 — an English concentrator who has worked with Donnelly in coordinating the English Departmental Undergraduate Group — said
that when he filed his concentration forms, Donnelly enthusiastically said, “Welcome to English.” “I think Jane is fantastic,” Wertheimer said. “Jane is a wonderful member of the English Department and the Brown community.” Jennifer Tan ’11, an English concentrator who is one of many students Donnelly has gotten to know personally over the years, said, “She’s such an integral part of the English Department at Brown.” Former Herald Sales Director Ellen DaSilva ’10, an English concentrator who sometimes drops in and talks to Donnelly during her lunch, added that “she is just so giving of her time and energy.” “She really does everything,” DaSilva said. “I think she will be sorely missed.” In her retirement, Donnelly said she plans to do volunteer work, frequently visit her children out of state and expand her garden. She also said she was looking forward to having the opportunity to be spontaneous in deciding what she wants to do. According to McLaughlin, the Department of English will begin looking for a replacement soon. He said the position of academic operations coordinator will be somewhat redesigned once Donnelly leaves. Donnelly “has been the glue to the undergraduate part of the program,” McLaughlin said.
research collaboration By Qian Yin Staf f Writer
Brown and the University of Rhode Island hope to expand research collaborations in the future, according to the vice presidents for research at both universities. In his April 8 inauguration speech, URI President David Dooley also said he wants to strengthen research opportunities between URI and Brown. “I believe we both feel that it is important to bring our faculty together and let them develop strong research programs,” Brown’s Vice President for Research Clyde Briant wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “Because of our geographic proximity and because of strong programs at URI in a number of fields, it is natural for us to collaborate.” Strengthening research collaborations enables both universities to take part in a greater number of research projects while bringing down overall costs, said Peter Alfonso, URI’s vice president for research and economic development. Various research projects require different sets of skills, specialists and infrastructure, so it is difficult for a university to support projects in a lot of dif-
ferent areas, Alfonso said. The two universities’ provosts convened a meeting on research opportunities last month, according to Briant. Brown’s representatives included Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron and Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde, he wrote. Brown is working with URI to form a Rhode Island consortium in nanoscience technology, Briant wrote. The establishment of such a state-wide consortium is set to happen in a few months and will enhance research in this field at both universities by bringing together “complementar y exper tise” to work as a team, said Robert Hurt, professor of engineering and director of the Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation. Beyond that, it will also help draw federal grants to the state and create start-up companies and job opportunities, Hurt said. The state government is supportive of the project, he said. Brown and URI started collaborative work in nanoscience in fall 2008, at a workshop between faculty members from both continued on page 4
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
C ampus N EWS
Monday, April 26, 2010
“What’s needed right now is cash.” — Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations Marisa Quinn, on flood relief
BUCC discusses flooding, food and tenure Brown, URI By Alex Bell Senior Staf f Writer
The Brown University Community Council met Thursday afternoon in Brown/RISD Hillel to discuss Rhode Island flooding, faculty tenure and a number of student initiatives on campus. Over 50 students from a course about sustainability attended to hear the council’s perspective on Real Food at Brown, and the Student Labor Alliance brought issues to the council’s attention during the meeting’s community time. University updates Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations Marisa Quinn told the council that the University has been in contact with United Way of Rhode Island, which has established a fund for flood relief. “We let them know that we wanted to be an early founding partner on that,” she said. “What’s needed right now is cash.” Quinn also said she and Senior Vice President for Corporation Affairs and Governance Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 have met with state officials to discuss ways for establishing and funding “UTRAlike projects” for students wishing to provide relief work over the summer. Carey said the University’s emergency grant program for employees has made 21 grants since the flooding, most of which have been at the maximum level of $5,000. Senior Associate Dean of the Faculty Elizabeth Doherty pre-
sented on last month’s report of the Committee to Review Tenure and Faculty Development. She said likely modifications to the University’s tenure policy will include extending the length of the probationary period for junior faculty from seven to eight years and bolstering the mentorship system for junior faculty. Another recommendation also proposes dividing the Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee in two — one for the sciences and one for humanities and social sciences — while increasing total membership from 12 to 14. The recommendations drew some criticism from council members, including Professor of Chemistr y James Baird, who raised concerns over many of the proposals, such as splitting the committee into two sub-groups. Though the tenure review process began in light of concerns raised last year by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges about Brown’s abnormally high rate of tenure, Doherty said this was not a concern for the committee. Doher ty said the dif ference “raises questions, but not answers,” because there are too many dif ferent factors among schools to say what a dif fering rate of tenure means. Though there is “inevitably a risk in any tenure appointment,” Doherty said she hopes many of the recommendations will help the University gather better information on which to base tenure appointments. “The purpose of academic ten-
ure is to protect freedom of inquir y and research,” Doherty said. “When we grant someone tenure, we’re granting them free inquir y for the next 30 to 40 years.” Student initiatives Jason Harris ’10.5, a member of the Beyond the Bottle student group, reported a 160,000-bottle — or 49.5 percent — reduction in the number of disposable water bottles sold by Brown Dining Services in the past two years. Harris said the group has been successful in encouraging the use of fruit-infused water dispensers of fered by Dining Ser vices at events and is pleased to see eateries selling reusable bottles. Thus far, the group’s only obstacle to eliminating bottled water completely, according to Harris, is the University’s need to have some bottled water on stock for emergencies. Emily Viggiano ’12, who is employed by Dining Ser vices as a Real Food Initiative progress coordinator, said “real” food is considered local, fair to workers, ecologically sound and humane to animals. According to Viggiano, 15 percent of Dining Ser vices’ food purchases meet at least one of these four criteria. Kyle Lemle ’11, the Real Food Initiative’s public relations and education coordinator, said Brown is “at the forefront” of the movement for real food, citing courses formed at Brown to meet growing interest, such as ENVS 1560: “Sustenance and Sustainability: Exploring the Nexus of Agro-Food Systems, Society, the Environ-
ment.” Most students in Sustenance and Sustainability — a course of 80 students that was meeting during the council meeting — slipped away during the class’s break to show their support for the initiative by attending the presentation. Lemle said he hopes to see the Blue Room soon become the “pilot real food cafe” on campus, serving only food that meets at least one of the real food criteria. During the time allocated for community members at the end of the BUCC meeting, Student Labor Alliance members Rebecca Rast ’13 and Haley Kossek ’13 called for the council to develop new policies for handling labor disputes. The request was made in light of the April 17 Gala, which was scheduled to be at the Westin Providence Hotel and moved to Andrews Terrace after SLA members informed the event’s organizers of a labor dispute at the hotel. The snafu could still cost the event’s organizers as much as $20,000 in contractual obligations to the Westin. “We’re thankful to ever yone who helped in that process (of moving Gala), but we want to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” Rast said, asking the council to pass a resolution directing student groups not to patronize a hotel under boycott. Rast said if Gala had been held at the Westin, workers would have picketed outside to detract from students’ experience, and “it wouldn’t have been good for anyone.”
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partner for nanoscience research continued from page 3 universities, Hurt said. There has been one workshop in nanoscience per semester between the two universities since then, Hurt said. The Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation was founded three years ago to promote multidisciplinar y research and education in molecular science and nanoscience at Brown. The 60 faculty members at the institute span seven departments including physics, chemistr y, engineering and biology, Hurt said. While URI does not have a formal organization in nanosciences, there are currently 24 URI faculty members collaborating with the institute, he added. This program distinguishes itself from others in nanosciences because it is dedicated to both developing nanotechnology and nanomaterials and examining the ef fects of their interaction with biological systems, he said. Hur t said nanoscience is “a practical area for technology.” Nanoscience research utilizes mostly modern tools and is often targeted at developing practical devices and materials, which are potentially applicable to all kinds of industries, and can generate values outside of nanoscience research. “Research universities are often called engines for regional economic development,” Alfonso said, and “Brown and URI are two major players” in fueling the economic development of Rhode Island. Currently, URI and Brown are also collaborating on research through Rhode Island’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research grant. This National Science Foundation grant helped establish three core facilities — one in marine sciences at URI, one in genomics at URI and one in proteomics at Brown, Briant wrote. “These central core facilities, along with shared facilities such as (Brown’s newly installed) supercomputer, help bring our researchers together,” Briant wrote. Building on the existent collaborations, Brown and URI expect to collaborate more in life sciences and oceanography, he wrote. The two universities also plan to make the processes of filing proposals for external grants more similar so that it is easier for faculty members to collaborate on research projects, Alfonso said.
Arts & Culture The Brown Daily Herald
Monday, April 26, 2010 | Page 5
New BTV series transforms College Hill into ‘Mt. Olympus’ By Brielle Friedman Staf f Writer
“Mt. Olympus,” the new Brown Television series that follows the 12 Olympian gods as they encounter college life for the first time and try to regain their lost powers, aired its pilot episode Wednesday. Arik Beatty ’10, a director and executive producer for the series, said the idea for the show grew out of a long-running joke within the creative staff’s group of friends. The show’s creators, Beatty, Lyla Fujiwara ’10, Jeremy Kuhn ’10, Rich Ellis ’10 and Alice Huang ’10, lived in
two Vartan Gregorian Quad suites last year. “We decided one of the suites was Athens and the other was Sparta,” Beatty said. When the group moved to a 12-person house offcampus, the inside joke grew: Each person became one of the Olympian gods. Always interested in creating a television series, the group of friends eventually realized their dream — creating a show based off the Olympian gods — was “actually a really cool idea,” Kuhn said. Over winter break, the creative team began planning what would happen in the series and writing a
plot outline. Huang said the group met many times to discuss the script. “A lot of ideas and even bits of dialogue came from those meetings,” she said. This collaborative process has been both the best and the most challenging aspect of working on the show, Huang said. “For me, writing has always been a ver y individual process,” she said, adding that working with a group has helped her grow as a writer. Figuring out how to light each scene has also been challenging, Kuhn said. Creating natural-looking light often involves many different
light sources positioned at various angles and directions, he said. “It’s actually really difficult to create shadows” that don’t reveal the lighting equipment, he added. Nicola Ryan ’13, the actor who plays Zeus, said he has been involved with a lot of theater productions but had not worked in television before auditioning for “Mt. Olympus.” “It’s weird seeing yourself and hearing your voice,” he said, adding that television acting involves a lot of quick memorization that isn’t necessary for a play. The staff plans to post the pilot episode on its Web site within the
next week, finish shooting the series by the end of the semester and edit all the episodes over the summer. Kuhn said their impending graduation gives them more incentive to finish the project, even if it often means staying up until 4 or 5 a.m. The commitment of the production staff and cast also helps drive the process, Beatty said, adding that the group is always a lot of fun to work with. “There are moments when we are so invested in the process and in the entire thing, and we’re just laughing because we’re so happy and so exhausted,” he said.
Spring Weekend sideshows steal the spotlight from headliners continued from page 1 delia duo transitioned to betterknown songs like “Electric Feel,” which got the audience jumping and shouting along to the chorus — “Ooh girl, shock me like an electric eel!” Audience members tossed giant beach balls and glowsticks in the air, contributing to the electric feel on the green. Band members Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser ensured that the students didn’t leave without their daily dose of cliches. “We envy your position,” VanWyngarden said. “Enjoy college.” VanWyngarden also told the swarm of students to remember that “life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away,” quoting playwright George Bernard Shaw. When the band left the stage, though, the crowd wasn’t satisfied. After several minutes of chanting “Kids” — the title of MGMT’s 2008 hit single, which the band refused to play for frustrated fans at last week’s Coachella Festival in California — the band returned for an encore. “I thought there was going to be a riot when MGMT didn’t play ‘Kids,’” Kat Reardon ’12 said. “But then it was really great when they did play it,” Lee Stevens ’12 said. Johnson and Wales University junior Ariah Dawson, who was selling food at the show, said Major Lazer “outdid” the night’s headliner. Still, Adam Greenberg ’10 said he “thought MGMT was great,” adding, “No one seems to like their new music. It was fine. They played enough of their old music to appease me.” Brown’s concerts tend to fall “a little bit too much on the side of rap,” Greenberg added. “It’s always
rappers, rappers, rappers.” Saturday’s attendance was a mixture of avid hip-hop listeners and blues-rock aficionados like Providence local Ben Welles and Plymouth, Mass., resident Jill Leonard. “I’m a huge Black Keys fan,” Welles said. And as for Snoop Dogg, he added, “He’s a legend. You can’t really turn that down.” Shannon Parker ’12 said the Saturday show’s atmosphere was “more relaxed” than the previous night’s. The afternoon’s lineup began with student band Last Good Tooth, whose music combined folk, countr y and rock influences. The crowd thickened as Wale entered the stage, per forming “Mama Told Me” and then “Mirror, Mirror,” whose chorus the energetic attendees enhanced by echoing, “On the wall!” Wale’s eclectic selection included covers of Kings of Leon and Kelly Clarkson, as well as “Pretty Girls” — a performance that sparked some controversy. Wale repeated the lyrics, “Ugly girls be quiet, quiet, pretty girls clap,” calling on the audience to chant along with him and perform the song’s instructions, which left some audience members unsettled. “It is interesting that Wale claimed to be celebrating women” in the song’s introduction, considering that his lyrics were “objectifying them just based on appearance,” said Ben Bonyhadi ’11. “To put the judgment in such a celebrator y atmosphere really put me off,” he added. Alex Kua ’13 said he “thought Wale was pretty entertaining” but was most excited to see Snoop Dogg. Blues-rock duo the Black Keys put on a soulful, contagious and seamless show that included dance-inciting tunes like “10 A.M. Automatic” and even inspired many to crowd-surf. As students on the green recovered from this mosh pit-like segment of the show and
the evening began to set in, the crowd anxiously awaited Snoop Dogg’s arrival. Cupcake connoisseur Jessica Becker, owner of Wickenden Street cafe The Duck and Bunny, set up a booth on the green to sell treats, like the pastr y chef’s special lime juice-topped “snoop-cake.” Becker said she was “psyched to see Snoop Dogg,” adding that the occasionappropriate cupcake was “going on the ‘Gin and Juice’ song and all its elements.” On the other hand, Jara Crear ’12 and Samantha Carter ’12 came mainly to see Wale, they said. “I’m just not a big Snoop fan,” said Crear, adding that the sheer amount of hysteria over the rapper’s performance was probably due to Snoop’s “Smoke weed ever y day,” which provided students with “the perfect opportunity to smoke.” And Snoop Dogg didn’t disappoint these excuse-seeking students, who trampled one another to get a view of him. As the hiphop star pulled up in a white van, exited and immediately stepped onstage in a Brown hockey jersey, the crowd screamed “Snoop!” “Is anyone smoking weed out there?” he asked the crowd, evoking a resounding reply in the affirmative. Alanna Kwoka ’10 said she found this question unnecessar y and confusing, considering the smell and the “cloud emanating from the audience.” Spectators were spread around the vicinity of the Main Green to listen in on the concert without charge. Richie Walnutte, who eavesdropped Saturday evening, said he and the Brown friends he came to visit from Washtington, D.C., were “very happy with (their) experience.” Still, “I wish we could get in. They should sell more tickets,” he said from the edge of Lincoln Field during Snoop Dogg’s performance. The raging crowd rapped along with Snoop to “Gin and Juice,” a
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song whose lyrics, “I don’t love you hos, I’m out the door,” like Wale’s, did not go without criticism. “He’s misogynistic, as most rappers tend to be,” said Kwoka, who added that she “found him ver y narcissistic with ‘Snoop Dogg’ in ever y song ... I wasn’t really sure what he was rapping about besides himself.” Snoop also asked the audience to “give me some of that gangsta love” and, before performing “F— You” — a song about a pole dancer which he originally recorded in collaboration with Akon — gave a shout-out to “good girls,” “bad girls” and “good girls who want to go bad.” Vice President for Campus Life and Student Ser vices Margaret Klawunn said the weekend overall was a success. “What I’ve heard about the concerts has all been good,” she said Sunday evening, adding that she hasn’t “heard anything having to do
with neighbor complaints.” Friday and Saturday night each saw four students taken to the hospital by Emergency Medical Ser vices for alcohol-related reasons. Among students, faculty and staff, “there was a lot of good work together and I think that helped to make the weekend successful,” she said. Spoto agreed that the annual event “went extremely smoothly,” adding, “It was really beautiful outside. We got to have both shows outdoors.” He thought the “only bad thing was having to stop Major Lazer and having the crowd depressed,” he said. Especially with BCA’s extra hiring budget for Spring Weekend’s 50th anniversary, “everything was extra special,” he added. “We were really excited about all the talent. Ever yone delivered in their own way.” — With additional reporting by Ashley Aydin
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
pring S
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
weekend 2010
Performers rock, roll a continued from page 1
when thunderstorms canceled most of the Special Events Committee carnival’s activities, though the student group still provided popcorn, cookies and other food and refreshments in the Blue Room. By Friday, the weather had cleared, and the sun beamed down on campus for a fun-filled weekend. Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
From left to right, page 6: In case anyone was in doubts regarding the hip-hop headliner’s identity, his bling says it all. The students photographed Saturday enjoyed a more relaxed atmosphere that afternoon. The Main Green absorbed the “electric feel” of experimental indie pop group MGMT, who took over the stage following two-part DJ team Major Lazer and several unidentified primates (one pictured on page 7) Friday night. The weekend’s first concert lasted until 10:30 p.m., but the jumping, shouting students in the audience didn’t lose energy as MGMT played hits like “Time To Pretend” and “Weekend Wars.” Some even refused to leave until, by popular and aggressive demand, the psychedelic duo’s hit single “Kids” reverberated through the frenzied crowd.
An ‘electric feel’ on campus “Everybody’s just really energetic,” said Melissa Chin ’13 about the atmosphere on campus Friday. “You can tell that there’s a lot of energy they want to release.” “Ever ybody’s smiling. Nobody’s thinking about tests right now,” said Lisa Cheung ’13. Many students anticipated the weekend’s concerts eagerly. “It’s always exciting to have performers come to campus and have everyone come together for something,” said Alexandra Keegan ’12. Major Lazer kicked off Friday night’s sold-out show, bringing students toward the Main Green stage to dance and adorn themselves with glow-stick necklaces. More students congregated in front of the stage for MGMT, who headlined Friday’s concert. “It was a really great show,” said
Molly Chambers ’11.5. “People were really feeling it.” At the end of the concert, the crowd chanted for the band’s biggest single until their demands were met. After an enthusiastic sing-along to “Kids,” students headed off to enjoy the rest of Friday night. Many students attended the Foam Party, an event sponsored by the 2011 Class Board and held on Lincoln Field immediately following the concert. The party consisted of techno remixes of current hits on a dance floor that was covered by a perpetual spray of foam. About 400 students purchased tickets online for the party, Ahmed said, adding that “probably around 300 or 400” students bought tickets at the event. “It was packed the entire night.” ‘Trying to get it all out’ More was in store Saturday for the Brown community at the second sold-out concert on the Main Green. Students turned out for the event in a variety of unusual attire, including American Indian headdresses, homemade flower garlands and chicken and “green man” suits. “It’s a nice combination of different kinds of music,” Chambers said of Saturday’s lineup, which included opening acts Last Good Tooth, the Black Keys and Wale. While several students told The Her-
Hilary Rosenthal / Herald
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
Max Monn / Herald
and rap on Main Green ald they were most looking for ward to seeing Saturday’s headliner, Snoop Dogg, some disagreed. “I feel like people are more disappointed in general this year,” said Kirstin Purtich ’12 of the lineup. “I feel like they were like, ‘Why Snoop Dogg?’ ” But the vibe on the Main Green at 6 p.m. Saturday was anything but apathetic when Snoop, wearing a Brown hockey jersey, burst onto the stage –– amid fog and dramatic music –– and started rapping into his diamond-encrusted microphone. With the sun setting over University Hall, the green was alive with students dancing, singing along and hanging onto Snoop’s every word. Those who were not able to witness Snoop’s performance still had opportunities to have fun over the course of the weekend. Many students who did not secure tickets to the sold-out concert spent Saturday on the Quiet Green or Lincoln Field, eating picnic lunches, listening to the music nearby and playing Frisbee or whiffle ball. Students who missed the two days of concerts had one last chance for live music Sunday. “I’m most looking forward to Sunday,” said Jesse Zannino ’13 earlier in the weekend, referring to Dave Binder’s annual performance on Wriston Quad. He described Binder’s show as “one last chance” for everyone to have “as much fun as they can, trying to get it
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
all out.” A College Hill community But whether students preferred Binder, Snoop or picnicking, most said Spring Weekend created a feeling of community at Brown. “Everybody’s just brought together by all this excitement,” Chin said. “It’s really nice that everyone comes together and is in such a good mood,” Chambers said. “It really makes you feel like you go to Brown.” Ian Ratner, a Cornell junior who visited College Hill for Spring Weekend, said he was impressed with the vibe on campus and the length of the celebration. “It’s very much embodying what I imagine Brown to be like,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt that this is the most beautiful weekend ever,” said Elisabeth Stancioff ’12 of Friday’s and Saturday’s weather — though Sunday began with rain-filled skies. “I think the whole campus is just so excited,” Zannino said. “Everyone is having fun, no matter what.” Whatever event brought students out of the woodwork, it appeared their main objective was to have a good time and make the most out of what the weekend had to offer. After all, as Saturday’s headliner reminded the audience during his set, “It’s not every day that Snoop Dogg is in your backyard.”
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
Max Monn / Herald
From left to right, page 7: Major Lazer DJ Diplo put on his robot voice, and the audience threw a dance party in front of and on top of the stage. The crowd got so rowdy that the Brown Concert Agency momentarily halted the performance so that security could carry a passed-out student away from the scene. The next day, Wale entertained exuberant students, one of whom shouted “I love you!” at the rapper. “I love you too!” he reciprocated. The Black Keys’ performance was simultaneously finger-snapping, heel-tapping and head-banging. The foam party on Lincoln Field, in which students waded in a tub of bubbles, closed Friday night with a pop. The next day, Brown and RISD student band Last Good Tooth resumed the weekend’s vibrations with fiddleaccompanied songs inspiring audience members to do-si-do. The Black Keys jammed with heavy yet bluesy rock before Snoop Dogg rapped up the show.
SportsMonday The Brown Daily Herald
Monday, April 26, 2010 | Page 8
Symposium to discuss athletes and concussions Injuries hit Brown athletes hard, end seasons early By Tory Elmore Sports Staff Writer
“I don’t remember anything… just coming to and wondering what had happened.” Three quarters into one of his first games last fall, tight end Bradley Griffith ’12 walked off the field with a season-ending concussion. He received his first concussion 10 days prior to football camp last summer. Then, he got another — less than a month later — in a junior varsity game. “After the hit I continued to play,” Griffith wrote in an e-mail to the Herald. “I remember thinking that I almost definitely had a concussion, but I wanted to play another set of downs since it would certainly be the end of my season.” Griffith is one of a few Brown football players contending with a serious head injury, and his reluctance to speak openly about his symptoms is not uncommon. The culture of “playing hurt” has long existed in competitive sports. The question is, when it comes to matters of the brain, how dangerous can playing with an injury really be? This question is central to ongoing study by Ann McKee, a
neurological researcher at Boston University, which highlights the serious nature of repeated concussions in football players. McKee has received a dozen brains donated by former high school, college and NFL players. All show brown splotches that represent tau protein buildup, evidence of an incapacitating disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Symptoms of the disease include memory loss, paranoia and depression in middle age, and all CTE victims have suffered some kind of head trauma, often repeated concussions. Studies such as McKee’s reveal an unsettling connection between CTE — once overwhelmingly predominant in boxers — and football. Even the threat of debilitating disease will not put an end to Griffith’s college football career in the foreseeable future. Though he was forced to take medical leave for the fall semester — citing excruciating headaches, dizziness, nausea and difficulty concentrating on schoolwork — Griffith is still “optimistic about returning to football in the fall,” he said. He is not alone. Defensive back Chris Perkins ’10, who received a blow to the head
during a well-attended Brown-Harvard game, shares Griffith’s commitment to football, perhaps at the risk of his personal well-being. “In football, concussions are probably the most frustrating injury. No one wants to be concussed because it takes you out of practice and possibly games,” Perkins wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “It’s a tough situation with the competitiveness of football — no one wants to lose their ‘spot’ while recovering from an injury.” After he was hit, Perkins, like Griffith, continued to play. Also like Griffith, he can barely remember a thing from the time he was injured to the time he came off the field. “It really wasn’t too difficult to play after I was concussed,” Perkins said. “Because we practice specific plays so often, they become second nature — there is no need to think about what you are doing.” Griffith added, to keep playing “was not a conscious decision, it was more instinct. I just continued doing what I was doing.” Research on concussions continues, including work here at Brown on how to make helmets safer. And the Brown athletic department has stepped up its efforts to educate athletes about concussion awareness.
Brown research tries to uncover the mysteries of sports concussions By Azar Kheraj Contributing Writer
As both professional and collegiate athletes continue to get bigger, faster and stronger, the risk of serious and lasting injury also continues to reach new and increasingly dangerous heights. With faster pitching, harder checking and bigger hitting comes even more potential damage — an issue that can have long-term consequences but has remained largely ignored until recently. In the last year, health concerns over concussions in football have been the subject of headlines in newspapers across the country. Concussions in football have long been a common occurrence — just ask Troy Aikman, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback who, after 12 seasons and 10 major concussions, was forced to hang up his cleats. More recently, thanks to new discoveries made at universities and labs around the country, concussions and their links to brain trauma, neurological disorders and Alzheimer’s disease have taken center stage. Nowhere is this more true than at Brown. Since the fall of 2007, the Department of Athletics, in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health, Virginia Tech University and Dartmouth, has participated in a study to help researchers unravel the mysteries surrounding concussions. Spearheaded by Professor of Orthopaedics Joseph Crisco, this 5-year, $3.6 million study looks to concretely determine the
causes of concussions by examining the location and impact magnitude of the blows to the head that athletes receive via sensors in the helmets of football and hockey. “The six sensors we put in players’ helmets are like accelerometers in airbags,” said Crisco. “They measure in real time how hard you get hit — in essence, head acceleration — and where you get hit.” Players who put the new equipment in their helmets generally do not notice the difference, said Head Athletic Trainer Russell Fiore. “Usually what will happen is, the first two or three days, it feels different and then you just get used to it,” Fiore said. “The majority don’t mind having them in, but some people just can’t wear them — their helmets get too snug.” But despite having players wear the sensors in both practice and games for three years now, researchers have not yet discovered a link between biomechanics and concussions, Crisco said. “We just don’t have enough data.” The study’s progress, along with other concussion-related topics such as detection, post-concussion effects and treatment methods, will be thoroughly discussed during a Brown University Athletics Colloquium on the subject scheduled for Monday. Sean Morey ’99, NFL Players Association co-chair of the Mackey-White Traumatic Brain Injury Committee, will be on hand with Crisco and other experts in the field.
W. LACROSSE
Bears’ defense breaks down against Penn By Katie DeAngelis Sports Staff Writer
The women’s lacrosse team fell to No. 6 Penn, 19-5, in an away game Sunday, leaving the Quakers to win their fourth consecutive Ivy championship. Going into the game, the Bears tried not to let Penn’s national ranking and perfect record, 7-0, against other Ivies affect their play. “Our game plan was to play our best,” said Alexa Caldwell ’11. “We’ve played a lot of top-level teams this season, and we were really excited to play Penn.” But Brown started slow and struggled throughout the first half. Penn had the first goal of the game with only a minute off the clock. But Brown retaliated a minute later with a goal from leading scorer Kaela McGilloway ’12 off a free position shot, her 33rd goal of the season. Penn then took off, scoring five goals in a row over the course of nine minutes. The Quakers outscored Brown, 7-2, in the remainder of the half. The Bears finished the first half down, 13-3. “We started the game on our heels,” Caldwell said. “At the end of the half we were able to regroup.” The Bears slowed down Penn’s
momentum in the second half, with stronger defense and a goal each from McGilloway and Caldwell. Though the Quakers outscored Brown by nine in the first half, Penn had just a fourgoal advantage in the second. Of the Quakers’ 19 goals, 12 were assisted. The Bears had zero assists in the game. “We were disconnected on the field,” Caldwell said. “Defensively, we weren’t playing like a cohesive unit like we normally do, and our communication wasn’t as effective.” Despite the disappointing loss, the Bears said they are staying positive and looking to learn from the game. “Coach says we should use every game as a learning tool,” Caldwell said. “Last weekend, from our games against Cornell and Boston College, we learned how important it is to complete the game. From our game against Penn, we’re going to take away that we can’t get psyched out by a good team.” The Bears will face another tough team when they travel to No. 4 Duke May 9. “We’re just going to play fearless against Duke, because we have nothing to lose,” Caldwell said. “We’re going to leave everything on the field for the season.”
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
S ports M onday
M. LACROSSE
Brown defeats Cornell, finally gets marquee win
By Andrew Braca Assistant Sports Editor
The men’s lacrosse team rose up to beat No. 8 Cornell, 13-10, Saturday in Ithaca, N.Y. The Bears outscored the Big Red, 9-2, in the second and third quarters, then survived a furious Cornell rally in the fourth behind stout goaltending from Matt Chriss ’11, giving the program a badly needed statement victory. “We’ve played four or five top-15 programs this year and just, just came up short so many times,” said Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90. “To go to Ithaca to play No. 8 Cornell and to not back down — to compete, really truly compete for 60 minutes is a significant statement that the men and this program have made.” Brown advanced into a threeway tie for second place in the Ivy League with Cornell and Yale, posting a 3-2 conference record and a 7-5 mark overall. A win over Dartmouth (5-6, 2-3 Ivy) on Saturday in the regular season finale would guarantee the Bears a spot in the Ivy League tournament. The Bears came out sharp in Ithaca, where they hadn’t beaten the Big Red (8-4, 3-2) since 2002. Brown won all seven first-quarter faceoffs and as a result controlled much of the action, Tiffany said, but Cornell still led, 4-2, after 15 minutes. “I know in my time we’ve never won seven faceoffs in a quarter,” Tiffany said. “We took more shots. We had the ball more, but their shots went in, and our shots didn’t. They took a couple good shots, but for the most part, it was really that Matt Chriss got off to a slow start.” Chriss made only two of his 13 saves in the first half, while Cornell’s A. J. Fiore posted three of his nine saves in the first quarter, but the Bears recovered from the early deficit on the strength of fundamentals. “We cleared the ball very efficiently,” Tiffany said. “Two years ago when we went to Ithaca, N.Y., it felt like winning the lottery if we cleared the ball. … We did a great job getting the ball off the ground, getting those extra possessions because of our faceoff work and ground ball work.” The shooters heated up quickly. Dan O’Brien ’12 scored his third goal of the season. Parker Brown ’12 added his first of his three goals, and quad-captain Thomas Muldoon ’10 followed with his second of three goals to give Brown a 5-4 lead with 8:43 left. Rob Pannell quickly led the Big Red back with two of his four goals, but David Hawley ’11 answered with two goals 47 seconds apart
to give the Bears a 7-6 halftime lead. “We stepped up, (and) we shot the ball really well on a very good goalie,” Tiffany said. Brown owned the third quarter, getting goals from quad-captain Reade Seligmann ’10, Parker Brown, Muldoon and Johnny DePeters ’13 while Chriss blanked Cornell with four saves to take an 11-6 lead into the fourth quarter. Cornell ramped up its offense to take 20 fourth-quarter shots, scoring three goals over the first 7:59 to cut the deficit to 11-9. Chriss made two saves over the stretch. “He was facing a barrage of shots, and he just held steady,” Tiffany said. “Cornell got a few to make it 11-9 with seven minutes to go, and from there Matt was just — it wasn’t going in, he was going to deny it.” Chriss made five saves over the final seven minutes while Parker Brown and Alex Jones ’13 scored to nail down the victory before Cornell finally beat Chriss with 11 seconds left to produce the 1310 final score. “He made some great saves, he kept the ball out of there, he cleared the ball well,” Tiffany said. “I think it was a really good team effort for about three and a half quarters, and then Matt Chriss came in, almost like a baseball reliever — he came in and saved us.” The Bears will host Dartmouth to close out the regular season Saturday at 1 p.m. on Stevenson Field. Harvard’s (6-5, 2-3) stunning upset of No. 6 Princeton (9-3, 4-1) Saturday set up an exciting final weekend in the Ancient Eight, with five teams competing for the three tournament spots behind the Tigers. Saturday could end with a four-way tie for first place or a five-way tie for second. Brown simply needs to win to gain a spot in the field, though qualifying with a loss and help from other teams is possible. The Bears could earn the No. 1 seed with a victory over Dartmouth, plus a Cornell win over Princeton and a Harvard win over Yale. Saturday’s game is special for other reasons. First-year Big Green coach Andrew Towers ’94 — who played with Tiffany and still holds Brown records for goals in a season and a career — will make a fitting return on Alumni Day. It will also be Senior Day, honoring Collins Carey ’10, Matt Shakespeare ’10 and quad-captains Muldoon, Seligmann, Charlie Kenney ’10 and Jake Westermann ’10. “We have a lot of motivation and drive to continue to play at a high level,” Tiffany said, “to continue to compete for 60 minutes.”
www.browndailyherald.com
Monday, April 26, 2010
“He’s a guy that’s got some rare qualities.” — Tennessee Titans Head Coach Jeff Fisher, on David Howard ’09.5
NFL’s Titans draft Howard ’09.5 and sign Sewall ’10 Develin ’10 and Farnham ’10 also earn NFL tryouts By Dan Alexander Sports Editor
Defensive end David Howard ’09.5 and wide receiver Bobby Sewall ’10 aren’t done playing football together. The Tennessee Titans drafted Howard as the 241st overall pick in the seventh round of the NFL Draft as they were on the phone with Sewall, working out a free-agent contract. The two Brown standouts will report to Titans minicamp Thursday, they said in interviews with The Herald. “We’ve got David Howard, who is an interesting young man that was selected,” Titans Head Coach Jeff Fisher told reporters in a press conference that was filmed and posted on the Titans Web site. “The final pick of the seventh round, and he’s a guy that’s got some rare qualities — very intelligent, athletic, explosive player. So I think he’ll be able to eventually help us.” Brown Head Coach Phil Estes said he was watching the draft all weekend, hoping to hear one of his players’ names called. He said he is “very proud” of Sewall and Howard.
Jonathan Bateman / Herald file photo
Bobby Sewall ’10 signed a free-agent contract with the Tennessee Titans.
“They’ve worked hard to get to this point, and they deserve it,” he said. “It’s kind of neat to think that Bobby and David are going to be going to the Tennessee Titans.” After going through high-intensity training for four months to cap off years spent sweating it out on the football field, Sewall and Howard said they were both elated and relieved to be given a chance in the NFL. “It’s been a dream of mine forever, and certainly it’s a dream come true to have this opportunity,” Sewall said. “It’s definitely an opportunity to do some big things, and I’m definitely going to work my hardest to do that.” After the draft, Sewall signed a two-year contract with the Titans, but he did not disclose terms of the deal. Howard had not yet signed his contract by Sunday night. Two other Brown standouts —
2009 Ivy League Player of the Year wide receiver Buddy Farnham ’10 and 2009 co-captain defensive end James Develin ’10 were invited to NFL tryouts. Farnham has a tryout with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next weekend, he wrote in a text message. Develin will go to the Cleveland Browns’ rookie minicamp from Thursday through Sunday to have a tryout, he wrote in a text message. He is also waiting to hear from the New England Patriots and New York Giants on Monday. “I go to rookie minicamp just like any rookie,” Develin wrote. “I just have to earn my contract. Just the way I like it.” All four of the Brown players will now begin the fight to make their way onto an NFL roster. “It’s time to make the most of this opportunity,” Sewall said. “Time to go to work.”
Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald
Page 10 | Monday, April 26, 2010
l e t t e r to t h e e d i to r
Chomsky’s reception reveals ideological bias To the Editor: From the article I read in The Herald (“Chomsky: U.S. policies hurt Middle East relations,” April 21), it seems as if Noam Chomsky, outspoken ardent critic of Israel, was received quite well in Brown. I want to pose the following question to Brown students: How come when Israeli Colonel Bentzi Gruber spoke on “Ethics in the Field” at Brown, he was harassed to the point
where the police need to remove people and was greeted with posters accusing him of “war crimes,” yet when Chomsky came to Brown and bashed Israel, even members of the pro-Israel community were able to sit and listen, and, if they disagreed, were able to remain in control and not resort to ad hominem attacks? Just think about it. Daniel Atwood April 21
Bringing back ROTC would improve U. rankings To the Editor: Regarding the State of Brown lecture (“Simmons: Dorms, grad school, internationalization on agenda,” March 19): President Simmons is frustrated over Brown’s place in national rankings and feels the rankings do not give Brown credit for the excellence of its standards and
programs. Maybe bringing back ROTC (the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) to Brown would help. Or is helping to provide leaders for the armed forces of the United States beneath the excellence of standards and programs of the University? David Curry ’51 April 20
t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d Editor-in-Chief
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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
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abe pressman
e d i to r i a l
The latest tax idea Last year, Providence Mayor David Cicilline ’83 advocated for imposing a property tax on Rhode Island’s private universities and levying a fee on these schools’ out-of-state students. Now, politicians are once again setting their sights on the tax status of organizations that already make major contributions to the local community. Legislators in the Rhode Island General Assembly are considering a proposal that would require nonprofit organizations to pay the state’s sales tax, the Providence Journal reported March 25. Currently, nonprofits in Rhode Island are exempt from paying sales tax on their purchases. The plan would affect a wide range of groups and institutions, including hospitals and private universities like Brown. Proponents of the tax argue that desperate times call for desperate measures, and both Steven Costantino, Chairman of the House Finance Committee, and Daniel DaPonte, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told the Providence Journal that they are looking at the idea because of concerns about the state’s budget deficit. The New York Times reported February 27 that similar proposals have been put forward in other states and localities. We understand that Rhode Island is facing serious financial concerns, but we do not believe that it is appropriate to place another burden on nonprofits. Hospitals and charities provide essential and valued services to the community. These organizations often supplement the government’s social safety net,
so targeting them for a tax increase seems highly counterproductive. Rhode Island’s 7 percent sales tax would be hugely expensive for organizations that are struggling to cope with the recession. Further, large nonprofits like Brown and the state’s hospitals are major employers. The tax will cause cost increases that may lead to layoffs — just as jobs would be threatened by raising taxes on businesses. The sales-tax idea could appear in a supplemental budget that will be considered before July, the Providence Journal noted. We hope students and the administration will mobilize to ensure that the sales-tax plan meets the same fate as last year’s proposed student tax. Instead of coming up with small stopgap measures, state legislators should think big. Rhode Island’s tax structure ranks 44th in terms of business friendliness, according to a 2009 study issued by the non-partisan Tax Foundation. Unless there are serious reforms, the state’s tax base will remain small for years to come. Moreover, the Pew Center on the States found that the state employees pension fund faces $4 billion in unfunded liabilities. State legislators should work to address these challenges — and do so without trying to extract additional tax revenue from Rhode Island’s universities, hospitals and charities. Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald
Monday, April 26, 2010 | Page 11
Time for the Glorious Recapitulation! David Sheffield Opinions Columnist Once again, Spring Weekend has come and gone, along with its large, drunken concerts. I cannot blame concert-goers for their inebriation. I certainly would not want to listen to such decrepit music without numbing my higher functions first. Music on campus, along with the wider world, has made a long, slow descent over many decades. Now it is little more than a soundtrack for booze-laden parties. But there are those few hold-outs that keep the flame of good music alive. The harm caused by this fall is not borne by consumers of popular music alone. Listeners of serious music (known as “classical” music by the proletariat) still suffer from the bad choices of the masses. Popular music has lost its way. It has given up the artistic element of music. Snoop Dogg, Spring Weekend’s headliner, does not leave one with goose bumps after hearing a song. It does not provide the pure emotion of art. Popular music is now merely entertainment — a beat to which one dances. The ability to dance to a piece of music did not always exclude the possibility of art. Johann Strauss Jr. was aptly nicknamed “The Waltz King” because he wrote the best waltzes of the 19th century. People were able to dance to them, just as they still do. However, they were not just intended as something to keep everyone in rhythm: they were magnificent pieces of music. Strauss’s waltzes are probably
more commonly heard now as independent pieces of music rather than as dances. They are able to stand proudly by themselves. Now, people cannot be bothered with the complexity of pieces like Strauss’s. No longer are there weaving lines of melody and accompaniment. Pieces are just a simple ditty thrown on top of a persistent thumpa-thumpa baseline. Is a little delicacy too much to ask? Those baselines are also a general nuisance. Their low frequency easily travels across many rooms, disturbing the peace of diligent students halfway across dormitories.
etition. Repeating material in music is good, but you can only do it so many times before it should be developed rather than copy-andpasted once again. A letter to the editor last week (“Misogynistic lyrics ignored on campus,” April 22) pointed out Snoop Dogg’s offensive lyrics — something all too common in some types of popular music. If nothing else, you will not easily find art songs with such despicable lyrics. You certainly will not see Schumann writing art songs about slapping his b— (a good composer in her own right) into place.
You certainly will not see Schumann writing art songs about slapping his b— (a good composer in her own right) into place.
The Sayles organ might shake the building with its low notes, but at least it has reason to: it is a many-ton instrument with pipes nearly two stories tall. When a subwoofer rumbles the surrounding area like a 16-foot pipe, it is simply being presumptuous. Even worse is the repetitiveness of popular music. Each time I hear the music in the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall, I want to scream for them to play something different. I do not mean that Brown Dining Services, which plays the same songs over and over again, should put something new on, but that the musicians introduce a little variety during their 10th rep-
Nor would you hear it in the work of the other great art song composers. After all, back then it was simply assumed and did not need to be said. Musical allusions, from Mozart’s rondo “Alla Turca” to Debussy’s “Rondel chinois,” merely stereotyped the music of foreign locations; they did not stereotype the people — that was the job of the directors who staged operas set in foreign countries. Even Wagner had the decency not to disparage Jews ... in his music. (At least, not explicitly.) If the muzak of Dachau could control itself, so should popular music.
This year has truly been an amazing season for serious music on campus. The orchestra spent the year performing five of the greatest fifth symphonies — probably the best number a symphony can have. Brown Opera Productions performed two amazing operas, including Britten’s modern (read: written less than a century ago) masterpiece “The Turn of the Screw.” And the band … skated on ice. But while Spring Weekend tickets sold out, serious music at Brown has had no such luck. At the last orchestra concert, seats were still available in Sayles Hall by the time the concertmistress walked on stage. Similarly, Alumnae Hall was half-full when the overture for “The Turn of the Screw” began. Even if you include those ne’er-do-wells, W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, the situation is hardly improved. But spread out through campus, there are still those of us devoted to quality music: disenfranchised, dejected, isolated but for the occasional sound of some serious music faintly heard from strangers’ windows. (Plus, we have a department.) We hear little glimmers of hope in a desert of thumpa-thumpas. We are not alone. Together, we must stand and take back music. It is time for a revolution of the musical bourgeoisie: the Glorious Recapitulation! But we must act quickly, before the masses get over their collective hangover.
David Sheffield ’11 hopes that Sean Quigley ’10 sympathizes with his musical elitism. He can be contacted at david_sheffield@brown.edu.
White people have a tortured relationship with the Ivy League William Tomasko Opinions Columnist
That’s according to Stuff White People Like, a satirical blog that aims to describe the tastes of upper-class, hipster-y, progressive yuppies (who aren’t, of course, actually all one race). The complete list of stuff they like includes Bob Marley, expensive sandwiches, David Sedaris, “knowing what’s best for poor people” and “self-aware hip-hop references.” The blog says “white” people like the Ivy League because it is “expensive, exclusive, located in the North East and features beautiful old buildings.” However, according the post, the same yuppies simultaneously resent those schools for that same exclusivity. While the blog is mostly trying to be funny, the goal of its satire is also to expose some truth, and the Ivy League can certainly be a target for criticism because of its elite image. In popular consciousness, the eight member schools are often seen as bastions of old money, out of reach for average Americans. Apparently, the Ivy League’s image is even influencing one prominent national commentator’s opinion on who President Barack Obama should pick to fill the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy. Bill Kristol is a writer for The Weekly Standard who graduated from Harvard and now teaches there. He appeared April 11 on Fox News Sunday and explained why he’d like to
see a Supreme Court nominee who did not graduate from an Ivy League law school: “I think it would be good to have a nominee that stood up against powerful interests like the elite law schools, which are a powerful interest in the U.S. and have done a lot of damage.” Soon-to-be-retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is the only member of the high court who didn’t go to an Ivy League law school — he graduated from Northwestern in 1947. All eight of the other justices got their JDs from either Harvard or Yale. Among Obama’s alleged top-three finalists
but before that, she lived in public housing in the Bronx, and her father never got more than a third-grade education. Justice Samuel Alito, another Princeton Tiger and Yale Law grad, is the son of Italian immigrants. In his confirmation hearings, he said his Supreme Court jurisprudence would be influenced by “people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender.” In her confirmation hearings, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Cornell ’54, Columbia Law
The athletic conference our school happened to join centuries before any of us were born may influence how some perceive us, but that doesn’t have to be inevitable. for the nomination, only one, Judge Diane Wood, did not attend an Ivy League law school. She attended the University of Chicago. Kristol’s commentary demonstrates backlash against the perceived elitism of the Ivy League. However, when one more thoroughly considers the current justices’ backgrounds, his example also illuminates the superficiality of assumptions about students and graduates from those eight schools. For example, Justice Sonia Sotomayor may have gotten her JD from Yale Law School after graduating from Princeton University,
School ’59) also recalled her family’s experience with discrimination: “I have memories as a child … of being in a car with my parents and passing a place in (Pennsylvania), a resort with a sign out in front that read, ‘No dogs or Jews allowed’ … One couldn’t help but be sensitive to discrimination living as a Jew in America at the time of World War II.” If Obama is looking for a nominee from a relatively non-privileged background, he is surely considering more than what athletic conference her or his law school belonged to.
As representatives of Brown, we can try to challenge the perception of our institution’s alleged elitism and exclusivity. I know I was attracted to Brown because the students here struck me as un-pretentious and hard-working, confounding any Ivy League stereotype of elitist entitlement. However, the perception of the Ivy League as elitist hasn’t faded in social consciousness. It’s up to our behavior to disprove it. Through policies such as financial aid, Ivy League universities can work to diminish impressions of exclusivity. Brown is encouragingly increasing its financial aid budget during the present economic downturn. Even though accessibility can never be fully assured, measures to broaden it can improve the Ivy image while tangibly helping students. Brown could demonstrate that it doesn’t covet prestige by abstaining from the U.S. News and World Report rankings system — as I’ve argued here before (“Rankings schmankings,” Feb. 8). Doing so — and encouraging peer schools to follow suit — would signal a focus on quality rather than competitive preening. The athletic conference our school happened to join centuries before any of us were born may influence how some perceive us, but that doesn’t have to be inevitable.
William Tomasko ’13 is an undecided concentrator from Washington, D.C. He can be reached at william_tomasko@brown.edu.
Today The Brown Daily Herald
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College Hill becomes ‘Mt. Olympus’
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c a l e n da r tuesday, april 27
6:30 p.m. — “The Impact of Concussions: Protecting Athletes at All Levels,” 2010 Sports and Society Colloquium, Salomon 101
4:00 P.M. — “A Persistent Past: Grappling with Our Troubled Racial History in the Age of Obama,” Sayles Hall
8:00 P.m. — Dinesh D’Souza, “Is God the Problem?”, MacMillan 117
7:00 p.m. — “Why Theater?” Lynn Nottage ’86, Salomon 101
comics Cabernet Voltiare | Abe Pressman
menu Sharpe Refectory
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
Lunch — Spicy Fries, Gnocchi Alla Sorrentina, Rice Krispie Treats
Lunch — Pulled Pork Sandwich, Italian Marinated Chicken, Manicotti with Tomato Basil Cream Sauce
Dinner — Vegetable Strudel with Cream Sauce, Spinach Fettucini, Meatlover’s Pizza
52 / 45
56 / 39
Monday, April 26, 2010
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Monday, April 26
to m o r r o w
More athletes suffer from concussions
t h e n e w s i n i m ag e s
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to day
Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline
Dinner — Roasted Honey Chili Chicken, Spicy Cuban Stir Fry, Pineapple Upside Down Cake
crossword Fruitopia | Andy Kim
Hippomaniac | Mat Becker
Island Republic | Kevin Grubb
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