Friday, October 29, 2010

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxlv, no. 101 | Friday, October 29, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Pain and prayer in new play

NYC education head: U.S. schools ‘in crisis’

By Kat Thornton Contributing Writer

Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, is not quite sure how he got his job, or how he has kept it for eight years. The nontraditional education reformer spoke Thursday about the problems in the American education system, and the difficult, but necessary, task of improvement.

Klein’s speech, delivered to a crowded Salomon 101, was the latest installment of the Noah Krieger ’93 Lecture Series. Marion Orr, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy, introduced Klein as the guy who has the “tough job” of overseeing 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees and a $21 billion budget.

Klein opened his speech by tell-

ing the audience he would speak “candidly and controversially.”

“When I stop doing controversial things, you ought to get yourself a new chancellor,” Klein said he once told Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City.

According to Klein, the “America we are” needs controversial action, and Klein said he is not a “Chicken Little kind of guy” in this respect.

He cited America’s 70 percent high school graduation rate and low standing in international tests as evidence that “we are in crisis,” especially compared to the rest of the world. “The rest of the world is not going to wait for us to catch up” if we continue to undereducate, Klein said.

Despite increases in the educacontinued on page 2

By Kristina Fazzalaro Senior Staff Writer

For Sarkozy, it is a crucial reform to ensure fiscal stability.

For many French citizens, it is an alarming encroachment on the national social welfare system. For the 24 Brown students studying in France, it is, at times, fascinating, irritating and confusing. Metro delays, cancelled classes and shouting high school students ser ving as alarm clocks have all become at least somewhat normal.

“En Las Manos De La Muerte,” a new play exploring narco culture along the U.S.-Mexico border, opened Thursday night at Rites and Reason Theatre.

Written by Alexandra Bernson ’12, the play focuses on the role of Santa Muerte — a venerated reconfiguration of the Virgin Mary as Death — in the lives of many Mexicans, not just those involved with narco culture.

The play tells the stor y of Benecio (Joseph Rosales ’14, a Herald contributing writer) and his attempt to rise in the ranks of his local drug cartel.

Benecio relies heavily on the power and love of Santa Muerte (Miranda Pool ’11) to protect him and guide him on his path of ascension.

Santa Muerte herself is constantly present throughout the play. The set, subtly built to resemble a skull, is arranged around Santa Muerte’s shrine from which she hears the prayers of her faithful, passes judgments and plans for Mexico’s future. “Mexico is mine,” she says as she schemes to change its current situation.

continued on page 2

continued on page 5

Hilary Rosenthal / Herald

Joel Klein oversees over 1 million students as chancellor of the New York City Department of Education.

‘Spirited’ French strikes: au revoir to class? sightings are all around

By Talia Kagan Staff Writer

By Suzannah Weiss Arts & Culture Editor

Brown’s campus is home to thousands of students and faculty — and even beings of another kind: the supernatural. Don’t buy it? Some have seen them in front of their very eyes.

FEATURE Prospects and meetings Providence Ghost Tour’s owner Courtney Edge-Mattos said she “wholehear tedly” believes the tales she tells on her tours. “There’s something to trusting your instincts and believing in things you can’t explain,” she said.

“When people go away, their energy doesn’t,” Edge-Mattos said.

Such is the case for Edgar Allen Poe, who would rendezvous with his lover at the Providence Athenaeum on Benefit Street— then known as Back Street.

Though his body resides in Mar yland, “we lay claim to his spirit,” she said.

And the intersection commonly known for its eponymous dating website also holds the prospect of meeting the undead. An unidentified apparition, which may be H.P. Lovecraft’s, has been glimpsed out-

inside

continued on page 4

News.....1–4 Section.....5–6 Sports.....7–9 Editorial....10 Opinion.....11 Today........12

www.browndailyherald.com

PARIS — On Oct. 19, Brent Lunghino ’12 arrived 20 minutes early for his “Sociology of Social Movements” class. He soon realized he would not be able to make it into the building.

The problem? Stacked desks and poster-waving strikers were blocking all entrances.

Lunghino is studying abroad in France.

Despite days of national pro-

test and various public-sector union strikes, the French legislature finally passed controversial retirement reform this week. On Thursday, for the seventh time in the past two months, unions called for a national day of demonstration against the contentious bill. A far lower rate of participation already has some newspapers calling for a victor y for President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, which has pushed the reform, though the bill still awaits approval from another council.

B r u no on the m o v e

Contract for library workers expires today

By ALEX BELL Senior Staff Writer

Jesse Morgan / Herald file photo

Quarterback Joe Springer ’11 and the Bears will look to stay undefeated in the league on Saturday at Penn. See sports, page 3.

Nearly a month after its original Sept. 30 expiration date, the twiceextended contract between the University and the library workers union is set to expire today.

Union members will meet at 10 a.m. today in the staff lounge at the Rockefeller Library, said Karen McAninch ’74, the union’s bargaining agent. At noon, what may be the final round of negotiations will begin in the Rock’s administrative area, to the left of the main lobby.

McAninch said negotiations broke Thursday afternoon, when bargainers decided not to drag into the night because it did not appear a compromise would be reached then.

University Librarian Harriette Hemmasi met with union bargainers yesterday morning to reassure them of Brown’s commitment to preserve union work to a reasonable extent, McAninch said.

McAninch said she hopes both sides can agree on a way to write language into the contract that would not bind the University.

“That’s not resolved yet, but maybe we’re moving in the right direction,” McAninch said.

Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Beppie Huidekoper also met with McAninch about wages and employee contributions to health insurance yesterday afternoon, McAninch said, though she added that a wide gap still remained between the two sides’ positions.

Eager study

Small impact

Revised role

Global study projects grow in popularity

Jewish vote doesn’t impact elections, scholar finds

Simon Liebling ’12 discusses Brown’s move to research

News, 3

SPORTS, 4

Opinions, 11

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

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Page 2

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Friday, October 29, 2010

“Demographics are not important. It is about education.”

— Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Dept. of Education

GLISPs more popular in 2nd year NYC schools chancellor talks education reform

By Rebecca Ballhaus Senior Staff Writer

Global Independent Study Projects — GLISPs — are entering their second year with more students than ever. This fall, 19 students embarked on the projects, compared to the 14 students who participated in the pilot program last fall, and 11 last spring.

GLISPs are essentially independent study projects conducted by a student while on a study abroad program. “The goal is really to tie study abroad to the Brown curriculum,” said Kendall Brostuen, the director of international programs and associate dean of the College.

“It allows students to continue at Brown even when far away.”

Andrew Newton ’11 did a GLISP on the origins of Italian humor while abroad in Bologna, Italy, last fall.

Working with both a professor in Brown’s Department of Italian Studies and a professor of literature at the University of Bologna, he studied general comedic theory, Italian culture and the works of Stefano Benni, an Italian satirist and comedian.

“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “It was really cool to work one-on-one with a professor in this foreign university… This is an area that usually isn’t available to Brown students.”

Brianna Williamson ’11, who is currently a peer adviser for GLISPs and studied abroad in Ecuador last spring, pointed to the process of constructing her curriculum as an interesting aspect of the program.

“It was neat to be able to design all the readings I did and then go out and do work,” she said. Williamson is currently applying for a

Fulbright scholarship to continue her research in Ecuador.

Geoffrey Kirkman, the deputy director of the Watson Institute for International Studies, is advising a junior abroad in Argentina this semester. Kirkman and the student set up her curriculum last semester, corresponded over the summer and have since kept in touch through e-mail and blogging on the Watson Institute’s website, Global Conversation.

“In the same way that every Brown student needs to chart his or her education while at Brown, there are similar challenges with a GLISP,” Kirkman said. “You have to put in the work to make it successful.”

Brostuen added that the independent projects give students the opportunity to build off the work they do abroad when they return, through either a senior capstone project or thesis. Studying abroad gives them the chance to conduct a research project that “could never be duplicated here,” he said.

Furthermore, Brostuen said, GLISPs “immerse students in their local context” and promote “crosscultural communication skills.”

Challenges with the program seem to arise simply because of practical issues, like e-mail communication. “When students are abroad, they have very full lives — studying abroad is about academics but also about being abroad,” said Maud Mandel, associate professor of history and Judaic studies. “So (the projects) are really asking for an exceptionally motivated student.

If you’re working independently and there are no deadlines or weekly meetings you have to be prepared

sudoku

for, there is room to fall behind.”

For the project Mandel advised last year, she and the student decided to communicate by weekly e-mails. Ultimately, both realized weekly Skype meetings might have made things run “more smoothly,” Mandel added.

“I think it’s a good program where individual professors should probably be cautious about making sure there’s real structure in place when they do this so as to make it easier for the student to succeed,” Mandel said.

Newton said self-motivation is an element of “the nature of independent research.” But, he said, “I was very interested in the topic, so I did the work.”

Williamson said that there was almost too much work she wanted to do. “I had really high hopes of all the things I would learn,” she said.

“I learned a lot, but I had to let go of a sort of X-Y-Z checklist… It ended up being a lot more of my personal experience because I didn’t have the data or statistics.”

Brostuen also pointed to the challenge for students of finding an adviser. The Brown Research Directory, he said, allows students to see which faculty are doing research in places the student might be interested in studying. “The biggest challenge is establishing that connection,” he said.

In coming years, Brostuen added, the program is working on “trying to tap into partner schools’ (resources),” though students would continue to work with a faculty adviser from Brown.

“We’re hopeful it’s going to take on a life of its own,” Brostuen said.

“Brown students are exceptional, and that’s what allows us to do this.”

continued from page 1 tion budget, the system has not improved, Klein said, due to its stagnancy. He argued that radical changes need to be made, and this will be controversial and difficult.

Klein outlined his vision for improvement in “three big ideas.”

His first idea was to make teaching “the most valued and exciting profession.” He said this will not happen by maintaining tenure, lockstep pay — a provision in teacher union contracts mandating teachers receive the same compensation across subjects — and seniority.

According to Klein, the teachers in the world’s best educated countries come from the top 30 or even 10 percent of their college classes, while in the United States, teachers generally come from the bottom third of their classes.

Not everyone that wants to teach will be good at it, Klein said. The effectiveness of a teacher is the most important feature of the education system, and programs like Teach for America are working to answer this problem.

The second idea Klein raised was to create more choices in the educational system — “we need schools to compete for their students.” Competition can drive the system forward, and Klein said he wants schools always to have to improve.

Klein’s third idea is to bring new technology into schools. Klein said that schools have been ignoring the technical revolution, and thereby denying themselves of new resources that will enhance teaching.

Klein argued that individual-

ized education, something that technology can help to provide, would greatly improve the school system. With this goal in mind, Klein has broken up several large high schools in New York City into smaller schools, so that students cannot be anonymous.

Demographics, Klein said, have been believed to be a major factor in education. Klein, on the other hand, argued that they are not. He said students at public school in Harlem are performing as well as students in gifted and talented programs in the rest of New York. While some argue that education cannot be fixed until poverty is repaired, Klein believes the reverse — that good schools can solve poverty.

“Demographics are not important. It is about education,” Klein said.

Audience members at the event ranged from Brown students attending for a class requirement to octogenarian education activists. Klein engaged with the audience and took questions at the end of his speech.

He answered queries about some of the more controversial actions he has taken, like breaking up large schools and the competition he advocated among teachers.

Klein said he placed such importance on the value of education because of its economic and social benefits. “If it weren’t for the American dream, I wouldn’t be here today.” But he said it has been said that the American dream may be becoming the American memory.

“The answer to that,” Klein concluded, “depends on whether or not we can transform K-12 education.”

Studying in Paris: revolution or academics? continued from page 1

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The kids are all right “I think my parents do think I walk out my front door and put my head down and there are bullets ricocheting and burning cars and then I head into the Metro,” said John Hammond ’12.

Yet the dramatized uproar and violence covered by the international press is not necessarily representative of the lives of many Brown students studying here.

Has he seen any burning cars?

No. While he has witnessed large protests, “on a daily basis, the strikes really aren’t apparent,” Hammond said.

Students who witnessed protests in Paris said, though they are sometimes large and raucous, they found them to be generally controlled, with a strong police presence.

Initial days of transport strikes caused Metro delays, but for the past two weeks, the system has been running mostly normally. Continued disruptions to air and rail systems have impacted some students’ travel plans, but mostly only those involving transport outside the capital, and only

on certain days. The well-publicized fuel crisis, due to blockaded refineries, has had a less apparent effect on the car-less Brown students.

For the six Brown students participating in the placed-internship program — Internships in Francophone Europe — the once-weekly night class run through the program has continued.

Unlike in past striking years, there has not been a national strike or a general university strike. But on several protest days, including Oct. 19, groups of French students and other protesters have blockaded various universities, causing some class cancellations. Students often don’t know about a cancellation until they show up, though.

“I’ve had a snow day, but I’ve never had a blockade day,” Hammond noted.

While barricaded schools might cause culture shock for American students, the strikes themselves are certainly not shocking.

“Every other year, more or less, there are some strikes,” said Youenn Kervennic, professor and resident director for Brown-in-France.

In past years, the Brown program

has been forced to privately hire professors due to class disruption from social movements, according to Kervennic. He is currently monitoring the number of cancelled courses and is ready to call in professorial troops if necessary to ensure successful credit completion. But for the most part, students have been able to attend their classes, and he does not anticipate there will be an issue this semester.

“This is almost like nothing compared to what it can be,” he said.

Pandemonium outside Paris The majority of Brown program participants take at least one class at the University of Paris VIII in the suburb of Saint-Denis, which serves a more diverse population than the universities within the city and has a reputation for radical student action.

But for many students, it appears that only a handful of classes have been cancelled. Even on the days of action, a path through the strewn desks and protest literature generally appeared by noon.

The situation in the French city continued on page 3

Friday, October 29, 2010

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Page 3

“We live in a democracy.”

— Andrea Dillon ’11.5

Football looks to stay Political scientist: Jewish vote not crucial undefeated in Philly

By Katherine Sola Contributing Writer

By Ethan McCoy Sports Staff Writer

The remaining unbeatens in Ivy League football will square off Saturday when Brown (4-2, 3-0) and No. 21 Penn (5-1, 3-0) meet at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. The two sides are tied atop the league standings, and Saturday’s winner will claim the outright lead in the conference with only three games left on the schedule.

SPORTS “Every year, it seems we get into this game and it’s a big game,” said Head Coach Phil Estes. “Penn’s a team that plays very hard, very fast — they’re always well-coached.”

Penn is coming off a 27-20 victory over Yale (4-2, 2-1) and has now won 11 straight Ivy League games, dating back to last season, when the Quakers took home the league title. The defending champions have continued their success this year behind a strong and physical defense known for making big plays and forcing turnovers.

“They’re not afraid to blitz on all downs (and) players buy into their aggressive mentality,” said Brown quarterback Joe Springer ’11 about the defense he’ll be facing Saturday.

“They hit really good, but you have to hit them right back.”

On the other side of the ball, the Brown defense will have to be ready to stop a run-heavy Quaker attack that has outrushed its opponents 1,215-375 yards this season.

“Watching them offensively, they grind it out,” Estes said. “Not only are the backs really big and physical and can run at you, but they also have a quarterback that you have to contain and keep in the pocket.”

That quarterback, sophomore Billy Ragone, alternates with freshman Ryan Becker, more of a dropback passer, to create a dangerous two-quarterback system that presents multiple looks.

“All you can do is know what you’re going to get with each,” said linebacker Chimso Okoji ’11. “(We have to) know when they come into the game and what they like to do and what their tendencies are.”

In all facets of the game, the physicality is expected to be high, as both teams pride themselves on hitting hard and winning the battles in the trenches.

“As it always is for us, the Penn game is a very physical football game,” Estes said. “They seem to bring out the very best in us, as far as being physical goes. That’s their style, and we like that.”

The Brown offense has made significant strides in the past two games, and Springer’s play at quarterback has made a great difference in getting the team back on track after two straight non-conference losses following the Harvard game.

In last week’s win over Cornell, Springer totaled 287 yards in the air to lead a balanced offense that did not turn the ball over once.

“We’ve been getting a good mix of run and pass. Early in the year, it was one or the other,” Springer said about the offense’s improved consistency. “We’re going to definitely have to run and throw the ball well against tough opponents the rest of the way.”

Despite Penn’s record, the team’s status as defending champion and its winning streak in league play, the Bears are approaching the game with the same mindset they do every game — “one Ivy League championship game at a time,” as Springer calls it.

“There’s so much parity in the league,” the senior quarterback added. “Every game is a must-win.

If you’re trying to win the title outright, you have to win every game.”

Okoji echoed Springer’s sentiment. “Right now this is a four-game season,” he said. “And every game you have to win to control your own destiny.”

As Bruno prepares to set out for Philadelphia, the team is ready for a hard-fought game — the result of which will have vital implications for the outlook of the Ivy League.

“We always try to go in and play our game no matter who the opponent is and not let any exterior rankings or defending titles make a difference,” Springer said. “It only matters who’s better for that 60 minutes on Saturday.”

Kickoff at Franklin Field is set for 1:30 p.m.

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The Jewish vote “doesn’t seem to matter” in determining the outcome of U.S. presidential elections, political scientist Bryan Daves argued Thursday evening. The Yeshiva University professor presented his study of election data to about 15 students and faculty at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

In a talk heavy on numbers and graphs, Daves framed his theories against those presented by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their 2006 work “The Israel Lobby.”

Mearsheimer and Walt argued that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, is able to affect U.S. presidential elections and policymaking.

In response, Daves said his research shows that, despite the high concentration of Jewish voters in crucial swing states, the Jewish vote does not impact presidential elections or policymaking decisions.

For example, the polling data

Daves studied showed that about 60 percent of American Jews support the dismantlement of settlements in the West Bank. In addition, the portion of American Jews who support the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state is roughly equal to the overall percentage of Americans who hold that view, Daves said.

Daves’ argument against the importance of American Jewish voting relied in part on an experiment using voting records. He took voting data from the past 40 years and, counterfactually, gave 25 percent of the Jewish vote to the losing candidate. This changed the winner of the election only once, in 1976. Daves attributed this to the diversity of opinion in the American Jewish community.

In 2008, there were about 2.7 million Jews in the United States, according to a sur vey taken that year.

Daves also said the Obama administration “overpromised” on what it could achieve in the Middle East. Obama became a “vessel into

which a number of people poured their hopes,” leading inevitably to disappointment, though “the guy’s doing what he said he was going to do.” As a result, Obama now has the “distinct privilege” of “terrible ratings” in both Israel and the Arab world, Daves said.

Daves said his research raises the question of what the actual “causal factor” in American-Israeli relations is. Melani Cammett, associate professor of political science and director of Middle East Studies, described this as the “million-dollar question.”

The talk was part of the Middle Eastern Seminar series, run through the Watson Institute.

Students said they appreciated Daves’ focus on facts and figures.

David Gordon ’13 said it was “great because he talked about facts and not political opinions.”

Andrea Dillon ’11.5 said that “if electoral politics are not the determining factor in the relationship,” it’s important to know what is, since “we live in a democracy.”

French strikes spur ‘mini-apocalypse’ continued from page 2 of Lyon has been much more chaotic, according to Sadie Kurzban ’12, one of two Brown-in-France students studying there.

Or, not studying, as the case may be. Four days of university classes were cancelled last week, she said.

Lyon “was almost like a miniapocalypse,” she said. The Metro didn’t run for days, and protesting crowds overran streets patrolled by helicopters. A friend was teargassed by mistake while coming to visit Kurzban’s apartment, she said. And one day, she didn’t leave her Lyon apartment because of the crowds and violence.

Kurzban has been in Paris for the past week — her school had a non-strike-related vacation — and has seen less evidence of social mobilization there. She has since heard that Lyon “has calmed down,” and she expects to resume classes on Tuesday, she said.

University students are not the

only ones affected. French high school students have been among the most vocal protesters. Many blockaded schools with garbage bins last week, but these young activists have drawn criticism from many who do not believe they could possibly be thinking about retirement yet.

“I think it’s this generation that wants to relive the glory lives of their parents in ’68,” said Anna Baran ’12.

“There’s this sense of revolution that the French want to hold on to.”

Program director Kervennic was one such French high school student during the late sixties, when students would close the schools down every year, he said.

Today, “for high school students, it’s almost a rite of passage,” he said.

The writing’s on the wall Now, as a Brown professor, Kervennic only works in France one out of every three years. “I’m not on strike because I’m working for the U.S., not France. It’s not my retirement,” he said.

Kervennic also acknowledged that while the strikes are specifically about the pension reform, they are also about a larger dissatisfaction with the current government.

It is an insight that provides a little clarity to Americans mystified by all the fuss. The legislation, which must still be approved by another council, would raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, as well as raise the full pension age to 67 — ages that sound normal, even low, to Americans.

It is unclear how the strikes will continue to affect the nation, though many unions say they are determined not to let President “Sarko” win this one. The next national day of protest is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 6, and is thus unlikely to affect many classes, which is a relief for some.

“Since when does shutting down a university help solve sociopolitical problems?” asked one grumpy bathroom stall graffiti writer at Paris VIII. The scrawled response: “Since Sarko.”

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F eatures

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Friday, October 29, 2010

“I think a lot of people have paranormal experiences.”

— Keith Johnson, founder of paranormal activities research team

Gen. Washington’s horses in U. Hall, and other local haunts continued from page 1 side the horror fiction writer’s 65 Prospect St. former home.

Providence’s East Side also boasts the spirits of George Washington’s horses, whose hooves echo through the University Hall basement where they resided during the Revolutionary War. “We’ve rerouted the tours a few times, but we can’t tear ourselves away from Brown. It’s too good,” Edge-Mattos said.

A ‘natural human ability’ Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages Robert Mathiesen, who has researched and taught courses on historical occult practices, said he has dabbled in the realm of the supernatural as well.

Mathiesen said parapsychology usually explains accounts of ghostly encounters. When people are in environments that seem out of balance — even just a building with an abnormal floor plan — they grow uncomfortable and are “primed to see spookiness,” he said.

Still, one house near a cemetery on James Street seems genuinely haunted, he said. Multiple witnesses have reported seeing ghosts there, and Mathiesen once witnessed a framed picture tilt off the wall on its own accord. “There was no trick — at least no trick I knew about,”

he said.

The tenant never minded, he added. “That guy really liked ghosts,” he said, even though “his girlfriends did not.”

Mathiesen added that Brunonians with supernatural observations are far from rare. Based on discussions with students in his classes on occultism and magic, he estimated that 10 students per year have shared memories of “strong mystical experiences.”

“I certainly have run into a great number of students in my more than 40 years at Brown who have seen spirits or ghosts — or demons in a few cases,” he said. He added that most students with such encounters don’t feel comfortable talking about them, so there may be more around than meets the eye.

“I think a lot of people have paranormal experiences, but they’re afraid to talk about it,” said Keith Johnson, founder of the New England Anomalies Research investigation team.

Mathiesen’s students have also experimented with gazing cr ystals, which are used for catching a glimpse of the beyond –– by staring into these objects, one is supposed to experience visions.

His students have also tested his Scientific Planchette, a Ouija-like automatic writing instrument made in the 1860s.

Mathiesen, who also occasionally casts spells for people in need, added that “there’s no reason to be afraid of magic. If it exists, it’s a perfectly natural human ability. If it doesn’t exist, why be afraid of it?”

A ghostly gallery Bernie Larivee, who worked as a heating, ventilation and air conditioning specialist for Facilities Management and a guide for Providence Ghost Tours several years ago, expressed similarly measured agnosticism. “I’ve had some experiences that have really made me wonder,” he said.

While visiting the Rhode Island School of Design’s Woods-Gerry House, built in the 1860s as a private residence, ghost tourists — including Larivee himself — find that their cameras lose battery and turn off when they try to take pictures, only to repower once they have left the premises, Larivee said.

On her tour, Edge-Mattos also discussed RISD security guards’ sightings of Woods’ ghost in the Woods-Gerry Gallery.

Larivee also had an eerie experience working in the Woods-Gerry basement.

“I heard something pounding down the basement stairs,” he said, “and it sounded like someone who didn’t weigh much … bouncing down the stairs like a kid.” When

he went to alert the child of his presence, nobody was there.

When the house was a private residence, little girls commonly played a game that involved looking in a mirror and hopping down the stairs backwards, Edge-Mattos said on a tour. This perilous practice was supposed to reveal their future husbands’ identities.

Despite this piece of history’s remarkable coincidence with Larivee’s scare, he had never heard of the practice or connected the two.

He had heard, though, about the pile of blood that regularly pools and disappears at the bottom of the home’s staircase.

College Hill hauntings RISD is rich in such ghostly lore, according to Edge-Mattos. In a dorm called Nightingale House, mysterious bony hands have pushed students down stairs. And one studio’s sinks were once embalming basins.

But Brown is not without its legends. A ghost story is scrawled in the boiler room of the admissions office, Edge-Mattos said. “Demons fly out of it from time to time.”

In addition, someone on a Halloween 2006 ghost tour spotted a revolutionar y war soldier by the Van Wickel gates. She thought he was a student in an elaborate and strikingly accurate costume — until he vanished into thin air.

The Main Green in fact was once, and perhaps is still, home to such soldiers, Edge-Mattos said, because University Hall was an army hospital during the late 18th century.

Perhaps the most famous unearthly presence on campus resides in the Annmary Brown Memorial.

In the early 20th century, Brown’s husband, General Rush C. Hawkins, devastated by his wife’s death, commissioned the building where both of their sarcophagi rest.

Mathiesen knew the late professor Margaret Stillwell, who frequently spoke with Hawkins.

Though the widower did not believe in an afterlife, he threatened that if there turned out to be one, anyone who messed with his wife’s tomb would regret it.

In the 1970s, some of the memorial’s mementos were stolen, and the books were transferred to the Hay in the ’90s. Mathiesen, whose former student saw Annmary Brown walking about in her own memorial, said “Hawkins would’ve been livid if he could come back now,” Mathiesen said.

Perhaps he already has. According to Edge-Mattos, whose tours linger at the memorial for some time, employees sometimes leave early because of the overwhelming re-

sidual energy in the building. Brown and Hawkins, she hypothesized, may be “anxious to mingle.”

Supernatural stakes Johnson has a lot of experience with the otherworldly. He is a former member of the Atlantic Paranormal Society, known for its appearances on the TV show “Ghost Hunters,” and leads ghost tours in Pawtucket. According to Johnson, there are two main motives for ethereal entities to haunt the living.

“Residual hauntings” occur when a person gets so absorbed in an action that he or she ends up repeating it after death, Johnson said. It is impossible to interact with such spirits because they are too caught up in their cyclic activities, he added. Edge-Mattos said these spirits often don’t even know they’re dead.

The other type is an intelligent haunting. Johnson said these are the ghosts that will provide messages, such as the recordings he collects.

Sometimes, “something traumatic has happened that causes a spirit to be attracted to that spot.” In other cases, the spirit is simply attached to its surroundings, he said. H.P. Lovecraft, for example, was “obsessed with Providence,” and his shadow often lurks around Benefit Street.

Johnson also pointed out that there are many types of paranormal beings other than ghosts, including angels and demons. He added that many vampire stories revolve around Rhode Island settings.

“Providence has interesting histor y,” local resident Eric Barney said on a ghost tour. For Barney, the tour was convincing.

Christian Talavera ’12, who was on the same tour as Barney, echoed that he wouldn’t be surprised if the spirits Edge-Mattos talked about exist. After all, “it’s an old place,” he said.

Providence’s age makes it predisposed to spiritual presences, Johnson said.

Johnson said seeing ghosts is “a matter of being in the right place at the right time.” He added that spirits come out on Halloween because they known people expect them.

Still, he added, “I would advise people to be very cautious about contact with spirits because, just like there are deceptive people, there are deceptive spirits.”

Deceptive or not, Larivee would just like to see one for himself.

Larivee has heard accounts from other Facilities Management workers, but he looks forward to his first specter sighting. “It would settle a lot of philosophical issues with me — because if you actually see a ghost, there’s obviously some sort of afterlife.”

Arts & Culture The Brown Daily Herald

Friday, October 29, 2010 | Page 5

Substance over style in student play readings at PW

By Natalie Villacorta Contributing Writer

It’s hard to imagine a play without a stage, a set, costumes and props, without lighting and sound, without the excitement of the curtain opening.

But the stripping away of these theatrical elements is precisely what “Three Days of Plays” is all about: the playwright, the script, the story, the lines and the characters — things a play absolutely cannot exist without.

“Three Days of Plays,” a festival of original undergraduate works, began on Tuesday and runs through Sunday in Production Workshop’s Upspace in T. F. Green Hall. The festival features works by Justin Kurtizkes ’12, Francesca Montanile ’11, Sam Alper ’11, Ned Riseley ’12, Michelle Meyers ’12 and Deepali Gupta ’12. Meyers and Gupta organized the event after a meeting

at the beginning of the semester during which undergraduate playwrights expressed a desire for more opportunities to hear their work.

Meyers told The Herald it is difficult for undergraduate students to get a production off the ground because of all the things it requires, including a director, actors, a set and lighting — not to mention hours of rehearsal. She said playwrights wanted to be able to hear their work, without all the work.

“We were able to present five fulllength pieces and six short pieces all by undergraduate playwrights, all new work. Lots of people got to be involved and hear their work in a short time with minimal time commitment,” Meyers said.

Hearing their plays aloud allows writers to see what works and what doesn’t — which jokes people laugh at and if conversations seem natural, among other things, Meyers explained. Meyers’ plays, “Waltz

for Rosemary” and “GPS,” will be read on Sunday.

Gupta said that hearing her play “Dull Bulbs” aloud was strange.

“You realize how well you know the words, and also how little you know them,” she said.

She said she knew exactly what was going to come next, but not how it was going to sound. Hearing the words of her play enabled Gupta to evaluate parts she was unsure about, she said.

In contrast to most performances, “Three Days of Plays” is less about the audience and more about the playwright. “(The audience’s) experience is ultimately for the playwright to gauge what went on and how to move forward,” Gupta said.

Prior to the festival, the actors had not read the plays together.

Playwrights did not toil over selecting the perfect actors, but rather asked friends and whoever else was

willing to lend their time. For this reason, the readings were not about the quality of the acting, but the quality of the writing.

Without the glitter and excitement that comes with a full production, the audience has to focus and work harder to follow the events of the plays. This was especially true of Kuritzkes’ “Growth,” which has over a dozen characters — including housekeepers, drug dealers and Hollywood directors — with some actors playing two different people.

The play had a lot going on, exploring several complex relationships including mother-son, husband-wife and the blurry line between friends and friends-with-benefits.

“Growth” was loaded with pop culture and political references, many of which elicited laughter from the audience as well as the actors. Plot twists abound — a girl loses her virginity, her father has cancer, her brother dies in a car

accident with her father’s drug dealer and her family’s Fourth of July beach party is ruined when a boat catches fire.

Despite the fact that they had not rehearsed, the actors did an excellent job delivering their lines and developing their characters.

But some things they couldn’t act out, which the audience understood through stage directions. It was hilarious to hear the descriptions of the actors kissing and having sex and then watch them give each other an awkward glance and not follow through.

The work-in-progress atmosphere, with the actors often breaking character and the playwright making the occasional interruption, enhanced the experience.

“Three Days of Plays” proves that you don’t need costumes, sets or lighting to entertain an audience.

The language alone makes a performance.

Drug cartels and emotional turmoil take center stage continued from page 1 Santa Muerte is upset with the way the cartels are running the countr y and plans to over turn them by having Benecio rise in the ranks. But she does not take into consideration that what she asks him to give up in return may be too much. “I’m either going up in the cartel or down into my grave,” Benecio says.

“She is this all-loving figure, but she has her own agenda,” Bernson said of Santa Muerte. “She doesn’t think she’s evil.”

The play presents this paradox well. Santa Muer te may laugh scornfully when she sends her devotees to cause pain, but in the next scene she hears the prayers of others on the outskirts of society who see her as the only mother figure who will accept them. Among these are a young gay man who feels his father’s resentment, a prostitute who thanks Santa Muerte for sending her clients and a mother who wants Santa Muerte to keep her son safe after he joins the lower ranks of the drug cartel.

As one character proclaims, Santa Muer te accepts outcasts when no one else will. Benecio begs the saint to let his young friend, Incenio (Nick Donias ’12), who has just joined the car tel,

leave her and return to his prayers to the Virgin Mar y. Santa Muerte retorts that the Virgin probably would not take Incenio back. “He is a murderer, after all,” she says.

“En Las Manos” also shows the relationship between Benecio and his girlfriend Maria (Alejandra Flavia ’13). Maria does not want to believe that Santa Muerte is real but cannot help herself from recognizing the power of this saint.

“You pray to a skeleton… I don’t know how she keeps her white robes clean… Her lovers are in prisons all across the countr y,” Maria says scornfully. Later, however, she says, “At least she can keep you safe. All I can do is sit and pray.” The question is, what is Maria praying to, if not the deity she claims to hate?

Director Patricia Ybarra, an assistant professor of theatre, speech and dance, said she hopes audiences will see that characters in the play are in the lower rungs of the drug cartels — they are not the ones making the big bucks but are struggling to get by. She said she also aimed to portray how families are restructured in the face of narco culture.

“What isn’t shown in the news is the people in the lower rungs,” Ybarra said. “It’s ver y easy to demonize people in the trade and

label it as a Mexican problem.”

Ybarra said she hopes the play shows the wider spectrum of the situation. She said the financial instability of these communities strengthens the belief that rising in the drug cartels is a real possibility.

The trans-national spread of narco culture is also an issue Ybarra wanted to explore. Tourists and migrants alike, passing through Mexico on their way to work in the U.S., have felt the strain of the drug war. “If it’s worth it to kill someone for $100, it’s a dire situation,” Ybarra said, citing forces of globalization and the rise of free markets as reinforcing the stresses of narco culture. “They are caught up in a global network of trade that they have no control over.”

Bernson said she wanted to write the play to shed light on the drug war in Mexico since “nobody really knew what was happening.”

She said she wanted to bring the play to Brown to get people thinking about illegal drugs and “how it’s getting into their hands.”

When Bernson first heard of Santa Muerte, she knew she had found her central theme. “I was completely fascinated by her,” she said.

In response to the evolving narco culture and other societal problems, many people, especial-

Got tips? herald@browndailyherald.com

ly criminals and prisoners, have turned to Santa Muerte for guidance and protection in Mexico, Ybarra said. “She emerges in the 80s, 90s and today as a saint for people not finding comfort from the traditional Catholic Church,” she said. Sermons to Santa Muerte are often radically inclusive in a way most mainstream religions are not, Ybarra added, contributing to her role as a controversial figure.

In order to understand this culture better, Ybarra said, the cast spent the first week of rehearsal doing dramaturgical research.

They watched several films about narco culture and had political discussions. The culmination of this process was the cast’s writing original prayers to Santa Muerte themselves.

“En Las Manos De La Muerte” leaves audience members thinking about a situation not well known and touches them with its honest, emotional portrayal of a troubling situation.

“En Las Manos De La Muerte” is playing at Rites and Reason Theatre Oct. 29-Nov. 1, Fri., Sat. and Mon. at 7 p.m. and Sun. at 3 p.m.

Page 6

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

friday, october 29, 2010

w orld & Nation Students urged to ditch insensitive costumes

By Stacy St. Clair Chicago Tribune

Despite their lofty SAT scores and sterling academic credentials, some Northwestern University students apparently need remedial instruction when it comes to selecting appropriate Halloween costumes.

In an e-mail sent to the campus late Monday, Dean of Students Burgwell Howard warned against wearing racially or culturally insensitive costumes this weekend. He also discouraged “ghetto,” “pimps and hos” and “gangsta” parties at the esteemed Evanston, Ill., university.

“Halloween is unfortunately a time when the normal thoughtfulness and sensitivity of most NU students can be forgotten and some poor decisions are made,” Howard wrote.

The directive follows a 2009 incident in which two students attended a Halloween party in black face and pictures of their costumes appeared on Facebook.

The photos sparked outrage at the university and prompted a public forum to discuss racism on

the predominately white campus.

“In many cases the student wearing the costume has not intended to offend, but their actions or lack of forethought have sent a far greater message than any apology could after the fact,” Howard wrote.

And lest there be any confusion, Howard provided a list of questions to ask before selecting one’s Halloween attire: Is the costume based on making fun of real people or cultures? Does the costume promote cultural myths?

Could someone take offense?

Students who answered “yes” to any of these questions were urged to rethink their choices.

Kellyn Lewis, a junior who organized the campus for um after last year’s incident, said the e-mail sends an impor tant message about the university’s commitment to inclusivity.

“It shows a sense of renewed awareness of cultural and racial sensitivity,” he said. “It needed to go out.”

Lewis added that he’s not dressing up for Halloween this year because he has class papers that are due.

Deputies’ jobs turn smoky in Calif.

By Sam Quinones Los Angeles Times

Fantasy often mixes with reality in the work life of Deputy Sheriff Robert Hamilton of Humboldt County, the center of California’s marijuana outback.

It happened again a few months ago in the isolated coastal resort of Shelter Cove, where Hamilton lives and patrols. The deputy came upon nine young men tending a marijuana plantation.

They said they’d come from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Washington and Ohio. They’d rented a few apartments, then bought a halfacre of hillside. They clear-cut the land, put in “No Trespassing” signs and a couple of greenhouses, and terraced the rest of the property for farming.

They were raising 200 marijuana plants, each of which could produce 2 to 4 pounds of weed.

One of the young men, Jake Berlingeri, said the pot was for their own medicinal use. He recited the ailments afflicting these strapping men in their 20s.

“Well, Matt, he’s got insomnia.

I got shoulder problems, a torn rotator cuff,” Berlingeri said. “Those two, they’re not patients. But my boy Trav, he’s got ...”

Behind sunglasses, Hamilton smiled wr yly and looked at the

plants, labeled for their varieties: Headband, Mr. Nice, L.A. Confidential, Blue Dream, Amnesia, Purple Diesel, Ice Queen, Grapefruit, Blueberry and Sour Diesel.

He spent 13 years as a cop in Fresno, Calif., where mere possession of marijuana could lead to a felony arrest. But on this day, he made no arrests. Instead, he accepted a root beer from the growers and told them to display their medical marijuana prescriptions where he could see them. That way they’d have no problems with him.

“I’m a realist,” Hamilton said as he drove away. “I know how this is working. It does no good to rip all these plants out or nitpick on fine details when nothing’s going to happen.”

In a region where marijuana is not merely tolerated but is a pillar of the economy, there isn’t much a deputy can do but play along with the fantasies that surround semi-legal weed: that unemployed 20-somethings who buy $50,000 trucks earned the money legally; that supply shops for marijuana farmers are innocent homeand-garden centers; that growers who flash medical marijuana cards are not producing for sale but solely for their own medical needs.

“Cheech and Chong cannot smoke that much dope,” Hamilton said.

To work in law enforcement in California pot country is to come face to face every day with the state’s conflicted attitudes toward cannabis.

Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos supports legalization of pot, and law enforcement officials say the office rarely prosecutes small-scale growers, who form a large and active political base here.

Nor can Hamilton or his fellow deputies do much about the thou-

sands of unpermitted structures, essential to hiding indoor marijuana plants, that dot Humboldt County like buckshot.

A proposition on the Nov. 2 ballot would make it legal for people 21 and older to grow and use small amounts of marijuana, and it would allow California cities and counties to regulate and tax commercial cultivation. The boundary between legal and illegal weed would depend to a large degree on policies set by local governments.

A promise by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to enforce federal laws against recreational marijuana, even if the proposition passes, further complicates the picture.

So most likely Hamilton, 48, will continue to work in a gray zone.

A year into his assignment as Shelter Cove’s live-in deputy, he is fed up with the ambiguity: “I wish they would totally ban it — zero tolerance — or just make it totally legal.”

The resort was established in 1964 as a place for vacationers and retirees to build second homes on breathtaking coastline accessible by a single, winding two-lane road.

Over the years, marijuana farming came to Humboldt, first as a countercultural statement, then as a business. Shelter Cove was isolated, with minimal police presence, which made it attractive to growers.

By the time Hamilton arrived in the fall of 2009, the place had become a concentrate of California’s weird weed world.

Pot growers occupied about half of the nearly 600 houses. Young growers hung Scarface posters, drew the blinds and raised marijuana beneath 1,000-watt lights. Others put in greenhouses on denuded patches of continued on page 8

Page 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

friday, october 29, 2010

w orld & Nation

Mexican narcos gain foothold in Guatemalan jungle

By Tim Johnson McClatchy Newspapers

The Peten jungle, once known for its jaguars and Mayan ruins, has fallen prey to a notorious Mexican drug gang that operates from remote jungle ranches and has begun openly challenging Guatemalan security forces for control of the roads.

The struggle that’s under way in this remote region could help determine the fate of Guatemala, a fragile democracy south of Mexico that’s already under enormous pressure from narcotics gangs. It’s certain to affect Mexico, which is struggling to maintain order against powerful armed gangs on its northern borders.

In a fierce clash that began south of the famous Tikal ruins, the drug gang known as Los Zetas, based in Mexico’s northeastern border area and the Yucatan Peninsula, was able to outgun local police by deploying armored vehicles, bigger guns and far more ammunition. Then it fought a large army patrol to a draw, losing vehicles and taking wounded but apparently getting away with a stash of cocaine.

The transformation of the oncepristine jungle into a no man’s land is the latest calamity to befall Guatemala, which has had a history of military domination, a 36-year civil war and a genocide conducted by the Guatemalan army against Mayan Indians some three decades ago.

Although the CIA helped overthrow a government in 1952, Guatemala’s newest drama is getting little highlevel attention in Washington.

The recent confrontation between

Los Zetas and the authorities began with a shouted warning from a bullhorn and a wrong turn.

Around midday on Oct. 5, when police stopped a convoy of 16 or so big double-cabin pickups and other vehicles a short drive south of the Tikal National Park, an amplified voice from one vehicle barked a warning: “We are Los Zetas! Let us pass.

We don’t want problems.”

To make their point, several men carrying assault rifles got out of the vehicles and fired hundreds of rounds into the air in a deafening display of firepower.

To describe the police as alarmed is an understatement.

“If you have an M16 rifle, and all I have is a 9 mm pistol, and you have 10 other guys behind you, I won’t mess with you,” said local police SubInspector Oscar Bertruin, who was at the scene.

The police let the convoy pass, then called for help from the army, according to the accounts of several officers, nearly all of whom declined to give their names for fear of retaliation.

Los Zetas, a mercenary group founded by Mexican former special forces troops who broke off early this year from the Gulf Cartel in northeast Mexico, is at the top of the criminal heap. As the two groups wage a turf war in their home region, the Zetas have continued pushing into the eastern side of Central America, strengthening a cocaine pipeline from Colombia.

A larger rival Mexican cartel, the Sinaloa Federation, reportedly focuses on a corridor along Central

America’s Pacific coast.

The State Department’s international narcotics and law enforcement chief, David T. Johnson, said in a speech Oct. 5 that 275 tons of cocaine transited Guatemala each year, nearly all of it destined for the United States.

Mexico is wary of the growing trouble on its southern frontier.

“If Guatemala goes down the drink, then Mexico is dealing with its northern and its southern borders. A major failure of democracy in Guatemala is going to directly impact Mexico City — resources, political capital, time, energy, human resources, everything — and that negatively affects the United States,” said Samuel Logan, the regional manager for the Americas at iJet Intelligent Risk Systems, a consultancy on risk management based in Annapolis, Md. From a stronghold in the Guatemalan city of Coban, the mountain capital of Alto Verapaz a little to the south, the Zetas have been pushing into the Peten, appearing sometimes in sizable numbers, maneuvering at ease and with military discipline.

“They circulate with numerous forces and carry the latest weaponry. When they use violence, no authority exists here that can control them,” said Hector Rosada-Granados, a sociologist who helped negotiate the end to a 36-year guerrilla war in Guatemala in the 1990s.

The Zetas, striking up alliances with local drug clans, use a string of “narco-ranches” scattered deep in the Peten that are home to hundreds of dirt landing strips. In the remote

Laguna del Tigre region, U.S. drug agents have spotted a “cemetery” where narcos abandon and torch aircraft after unloading cocaine from the Andes.

Sometimes rival gangs battle for the cocaine or underlings steal from their bosses. A 43-year-old ranch owner, Giovanni Espana, reportedly stung the Zetas that way back in June.

A commando squad executed him June 26, but the missing shipment never turned up.

In early October, a Zetas contingent of some 80 to 90 heavily armed men arrived at the Espana ranch near El Naranjo, where the slain rancher’s widow still resided, and used earth-moving machinery to dig for the dope. Later events indicate they might have found it.

The Zetas convoy started traveling west toward Mexico on Oct. 5, when it bullied its way past the police.

Then bad luck hit. The Mexicans got lost. At the eastern end of Peten Itza Lake, they turned up a road toward the Mayan ruins of Tikal. It was after nightfall. They turned around, and were heading down a hill at the hamlet of El Capulinar when they ran into military units backed up by police, who’d been lent army assault rifles. For 10 to 15 minutes, a full-bore battle unfolded.

Some Zetas gunmen sprayed heavy fire at the soldiers, while others launched grenades. Still others shot flares into the sky so the Zetas could see soldiers using their vehicles as parapets. As the firefight ebbed, the Zetas caravan broke through the roadblock, with vehicles peeling off two by two, some of them with tires

shot out, to leave passage for key vehicles in the middle.

At least five Zetas vehicles, all apparently armored, pierced the roadblock. Police now suspect that the vehicles transported the recovered cocaine.

The soldiers managed to immobilize 11 of the Zeta vehicles. Three people are known to have died. A soldier was among the wounded. Most of the gunmen melted into the jungle.

The intensity of the battle jolted even the soldiers.

“A lot of the soldiers who were in the firefight asked to be discharged later because they were frightened,” said Bertruin, the police official.

Migrant workers who clear land by slashing down forest, who’ve flooded to the Peten, also have found themselves dealing with criminal pressure.

“The narcos arrive at the farms and pay cash for whatever price the owner asks. If he refuses to sell, they threaten him,” said Edgar Gutierrez, a former Guatemalan foreign minister. “The state (is) absent. Police, prosecutors and judges have been co-opted by the drug traffickers.”

The Peten has only five legal border crossings with Mexico, Gutierrez said, but more than 100 unsanctioned crossings have opened up.

Along those dirt tracks, workers move cocaine toward Mexico on the backs of four-wheeled all-terrain buggies. Then they return to ranch jobs.

“Half the time they work as ranch hands, and half the time they offload airplanes and light torches along the sides of clandestine landing strips,” Logan said.

Page 8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

friday, october 29, 2010

w orld & Nation

In Humboldt County, law enforcement’s job can get hazy continued from page 6 hillside. Some installed sensors and hidden cameras to detect intruders.

When they raided large indoor operations, deputies often found photographs of the growers vacationing in places like Costa Rica and Bali.

“There’s this outlaw mentality,” Hamilton said. “They think they’re these drug lords and they’re going to take over southern Humboldt. You see them driving $40,000, $50,000 vehicles and they have no jobs.”

For many years, development at Shelter Cove was limited by lack of electricity. Homeowners depended on generators. In 1983, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. ran an electrical line along the 21-mile road that connects the cove to Highway 101.

The line’s limited capacity was more than adequate for a community where the average household use was a modest 500 to 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per month.

Then growers moved their crops indoors and installed high-intensity lights.

“We maxed out our system very quickly when this started,” said Richard Culp, the resort’s general manager. “We’re seeing 5,000, 6,000, 8,000, 9,000 kilowatt-hours of use a month.”

Hoping to halt the trend, the resort’s utility nearly tripled the hourly rate for usage above 2,000 kilowatthours a month. When that made no difference, the rate for heavy usage was raised to five times the normal charge. Growers simply added more plants and lights to generate income to pay the extra cost.

The cove’s backup generator had to be replaced, at a cost of $500,000.

Last year, PG&E informed Shelter Cove that it would have to kick in $300,000 to expand the capacity of the electrical line.

Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Brian Adams tends to marijuana crops in Shelter Cove, California, where fantasy often mixes with reality in the work life of Deputy Sheriff Robert Hamilton of Humboldt County, the center of California’s marijuana outback.

In all, the resort estimates that indoor pot-growing has cost its residents more than $1 million since 2005.

Residents say indoor growing also brought a lawless feel to the cove: nighttime gunfire; planes landing and taking off in darkness from the resort’s airstrip; late-night parties; trashed rental housing; truck races along Upper and Lower Pacific drives.

“It was the wild, wild West,” said Roger Boedecker, a member of the Shelter Cove Resort Improvement District board of directors. “The D.A.’s office is reputed not to be inclined to prosecute small growers.

You can grow with impunity.”

The indoor marijuana boom split Shelter Cove between younger growers, most of them renters, and older retirees, some of whom desperately hope for pot’s legalization, believing it will drain the profits from illegal cultivation.

This was the situation Hamilton found when he arrived. He began by ticketing people for dilapidated trailers, for growing pot on land where they didn’t live, which is against state law, or for living on land without a septic system. But Hamilton said the county’s building department objected, saying he was doing its job, one he wasn’t trained for.

He asked for guidance from the Sheriff’s Department on what to do about full-grown plants capable of producing more pot than a medical marijuana user could possibly need.

“Some of them are 8 feet tall, for God’s sake,” he wrote in an e-mail.

He was given a formula for calculating whether a grower was exceeding the county-permitted plant canopy of 100 square feet per medical patient.

“The current climate is to (go after) big commercial growers, ignore small grows,” said Humboldt County Sheriff Gary Philp. “But you

see more and more grow houses. If they’re not going to be prosecuted, at a certain point they affect the community. We’ve had home invasions, shootings, homicides.”

Gallegos, who is seeking a third term as district attorney, bridles at the idea that his office has been soft on illegal marijuana farming. He said he cracks down on illegal grow houses when he has the evidence, but also tries to protect patients’ access to pot for legitimate medical needs.

“If someone has a (medical marijuana) recommendation, and they’re within the ordinances, it’s presumed they’re lawful,” Gallegos said. He faulted the county supervisors for enacting weak regulations on medical marijuana that, he said, invite abuse by commercial growers.

Far from these debates, Hamilton navigates the roads, armed with skepticism and a smile. Deputies in other counties may have broad citizen support. In marijuana country,

he finds, it depends.

In May, Hamilton saved the life of a distraught woman who had slit her own throat with a butcher knife.

Comments posted on blogs popular among growers were effusive in their praise of the deputy.

But the grower community also serves as an early-warning system.

The sight of a sheriff’s car activates a phone tree that Hamilton has found can extend to growers who live outside the county but own property there.

Once, when Hamilton was chasing a grower, word apparently spread and numerous slow-moving trucks appeared on the highway, hindering his progress. The suspect got away, he said.

“There’s no community that we can sneak up on,” Hamilton said.

Some Shelter Cove growers have objected to his mere presence.

A service organization known as the Shelter Cove Pioneers met in April to consider whether to renew its $200 monthly subsidy of Hamilton’s rent, which makes it possible for him to live in the community. A few days earlier, several growers had joined the Pioneers, Hamilton said, and they had the votes to end the rent subsidy.

Their attitude seemed to be: “I’m growing marijuana, and I don’t want this guy around,” said Jim Blewett, Pioneer board president.

A group of residents later pooled their money to continue subsidizing Hamilton’s rent. (At a Pioneers meeting this month, with many of the new members absent, the organization voted to resume the subsidy.)

“I knew it was a matter of time before those in the dope-growing community were going to start putting up a fuss. They don’t like the prying eyes,” Hamilton said. “You’ve got half the community that doesn’t want it, and the other half that does.”

Over the summer, Hamilton received tips that the young men he’d found raising marijuana on a hillside, supposedly for medical purposes, had been firing warning shots to scare off people who came near their plot, including two tourists interested in a nearby property for sale.

So he made a return visit in September. Hamilton said the caretaker, Joseph Florence, 20, was armed with a .22-caliber rifle and was wearing a military-style camouflage suit. It turned out he was wanted in Maryland for alleged methamphetamine distribution.

Hamilton saw that the marijuana plants had grown a lot since July. He measured them. The square-footage was three times what county regulations allow for the number of medical-marijuana cards the men had posted. A sheriff’s eradication team uprooted the plants.

Florence was taken into custody, to be returned to Maryland. Hamilton has turned over his case file on the other men to the district attorney’s office. But there are many bigger growers in Humboldt, and county government is spread thin.

“I don’t believe anything will come of it,” Hamilton said.

In Humboldt, the loss of the pot is often the punishment.

Page 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

w orld & Nation

friday, october 29, 2010

Tuition outpaces inflation across nation

By Larry Gordon Los Angeles Times

Charles Mostoller / Miami Herald

Ally Levy, 18, center, holds her broomstick as the players go over the rules of the game before a game of quidditch.

Quidditch flies onto campus fields

By Michael Vasquez McClatchy Newspapers

Quidditch is part soccer, part basketball, part dodgeball, and all fantasy — or at least it used to be. The hybrid game was invented by author J.K. Rowling and, until recently, only played by the imaginary broom-flying wizards of her popular Harry Potter novels.

These days, a version for us lowly humans — or “muggles,” in Potter terms — is popping up at more than a dozen college campuses in Florida alone.

“I can’t tell you if there’s flying or not, that’s a secret,” joked University of Miami quidditch player Ally Levy.

Truth be told, there are brooms, but no gravity-defying co-eds. Instead, students run around with a broom tucked between their legs.

“You have to keep one hand on it at all times because we’re simulating flight,” explained University of Miami quidditch organizer Alex Locust. “If you take both hands off, you ‘fall.’” Potter fans have always been a fervent bunch. Five years ago, students at Vermont’s Middlebury College invented this new brand of quidditch, and the game took off faster than, well, a real flying broomstick. There are now more than 500 active quidditch teams worldwide — including teams in Brazil, New Zealand and Colombia.

In Florida, most of the nearly 30 quidditch teams that have registered with the International Quidditch Association — a “magical nonprofit organization” that governs this fast-growing sport — are colleges.

But there’s also a smattering of high schools — including North Broward Preparator y School in Coconut Creek and Western High School in Davie.

“Now we’re starting to get adult teams who are interested in joining,” said the IQA’s Alicia Radford.

“Whatever age groups want to play quidditch, we will adapt.”

Both the University of Miami and Florida International University have launched quidditch clubs this semester. In the most eagerly anticipated match since Slytherin vs. Gryffindor, UM will take on FIU in December.

Quidditch players typically grew up reading Harry Potter, and relish the experience of playing even a scaled-down version of a game they

dreamt about as children.

“Look at how many books have been sold across America, there’s a lot of kids interested in it,” said Bob Beloff, whose 18-year-old son, Sean, plays quidditch at UM. “They’re all in college now.”

Muggle quidditch might not have any acrobatic broom-flying, but that doesn’t mean it’s for sissies. There’s plenty of bumping and other physical contact. Men and women play side-by side.

“I’ve found the girls are more vicious,” said FIU quidditch organizer Chelsea Klaiber, adding that one team practice featured a snapped broom caused by a female student tackling one of the guys.

Ah, the brooms. This detail is responsible for much of the challenge that comes with playing quidditch: there’s the predictable awkward running, but holding the broom also takes one arm permanently out of play.

“To me, it’s a little bit dangerous with the brooms,” Beloff said after watching his son play. The otherwise proud father speculated that it might be time for quidditch to add protective cups for men.

So far, the list of official “recommended” equipment includes goggles, shin guards, and capes.

How exactly does the game work? For non-Potter fans, try visualizing an oval-shaped, half-sized soccer field where each teams’ net is replaced by three basketballhoop-like spheres. The underlying principle is the same — ball goes in, points get scored (with a goalie-type player standing in the way). In this case, the ball is a partially deflated volleyball known as a “quaffle.”

While teams’ offensive players scurry about on their brooms attempting to score goals, defensive players known as “beaters” work to sabotage any scoring attempt by knocking the quaffle-holder temporarily out of play. This is done through a method closely resembling dodgeball — beaters toss partially deflated dodgeballs at opponents who are “knocked out” for a moment if they get hit.

“In high school, I wasn’t allowed to play dodgeball,” said UM’s Levy.

Back then, she said, dodgeball was frowned upon as “for little kids.”

Didn’t somebody once say the same thing about Harry Potter? So quidditch is… essentially soccer/

basketball/dodgeball, right? Except there’s more. As all that quaffletossing and pseudo-dodgeball takes place on the field, three other players engage in a game of tag/flag football that also has points at stake.

One of those players assumes the role of the “Golden Snitch” featured in Harry Potter’s pages. In the book, the snitch is a small, gold-colored ball with wings — whichever team catches it is rewarded with a healthy amount of points, and the game then concludes.

In the land of Muggles, the snitch is an actual person, dressed in yellow or gold, with an ability to run really fast. The snitch is chased by a representative from each team, with both players attempting to “catch” the snitch by grabbing a tennis ball that hangs from the snitch’s body, housed in a sock.

Nabbing the snitch is harder than it may seem. The snitch is allowed to scamper far off the playing field, in and around campus, and can use whatever he or she finds to aid the escape. If the snitch sees a bicycle, the snitch might just snatch it.

After finally cornering the snitch during a recent practice at UM, quidditch player Sean Beloff returned panting and out of breath.

“He hid in bushes, and then he hid in a family,” Beloff said. “I saw him in the family ... he jumped off a ledge, I followed him, and then I caught up to him a couple seconds later.”

Beloff has played volleyball in both high school and college. Quidditch, he says, seems more “strenuous.”

At FIU, some players who tried out for the quidditch team didn’t make the cut.

“A lot of people who tried out, they thought it was going to be easy and fun, but it’s a legitimate sport,” said Klaiber, the FIU organizer.

While the physical demands of quidditch are very real, players at both UM and FIU acknowledge their new passion can prompt some rolling eyes from classmates. Quidditch has lured some players who have only a passing interest in all things Potter, but it’s clear that the game’s core is made up of die-hard fans.

“You kind of feel like you’re in Harr y Potter world,” said Levy.

“Imagining that you’re in that setting, and actually going for it, it just feels like you’re really there.”

State budget cuts and declines in philanthropy and endowments helped push the cost of college tuition up much higher than general inflation across the country this year, amounting to an increase of 7.9 percent at public campuses and 4.5 percent at private ones, according to a study by the nonprofit College Board.

Tuition and fees for the current school year average $7,605 for state residents at public fouryear colleges and $27,293 at private institutions, according to the report released Thursday. Room and board added an average of $8,535 at public campuses and $9,700 at private schools.

However, significant boosts in federal grant aid and the use of tax credits provided so much relief that many families, particularly low-income households, were shielded from those price increases, the report found.

“That doesn’t mean families aren’t struggling to pay. They are struggling to pay,” Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board, said Thursday. But she noted that “extraordinar y increases” in federal Pell grants for low-income students and education benefits for military veterans allowed many to enroll and stay in school even as unemployment rose.

The average undergraduate last school year received $6,041 in various grants and $4,883 in loans, the study said. About 55 percent of recent graduates at public colleges borrowed some of the cost of college and their debt total averaged $19,800, the College Board said. At private nonprofit colleges, 65 percent of graduates borrowed money, and on average owed $26,100.

With general inflation only 1.2 percent, the cost of college without financial aid sped past other consumer costs as it has for three decades, officials noted. The biggest jump came at state institutions, for which state revenues declined as a result of the recession.

Public universities that offer doctorates now average $8,503 for tuition and fees, up 8.9 percent from last year, the College Board said. The University of California approved a 32 percent increase rise in basic undergraduate fees for this school year, bringing those well above the average to about $11,300, not including living costs, a figure well above the national average.

The report showed that state universities that mainly offer bachelor’s and master’s degrees averaged $6,588 in tuition and fees this year, up 6.5 percent. Undergraduates at California State University pay about $5,100, after a 5 percent increase that still kept them below the national average for this year.

blog daily herald dot com

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Friday, October 29, 2010

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

Chicken fingers for the vaccinated soul To the Editor: When publishing an article about influenza vaccination on campus, does The Herald go out of its way to include misinformed student comments? Of course not, but such comments appearing in a recent article (“1,700 students receive free on-campus flu vaccines,” Oct. 27) suggest something even more troubling — that misinformation about flu vaccines, coupled with apathy, has resulted in over two-thirds of the undergraduate student body not taking advantage of a free, reasonably convenient and highly effective option to protect their health. Let me address these comments with some basic facts.

“I don’t like the idea of not knowing what they are putting into my body. I’m against it.”

Flu vaccines come in two basic forms — the kind you inject in your arm and the kind you inhale up your nose. Each contains the same three carefully chosen types of flu virus that have been killed (the injectable form) or are live but not able to cause disease (the inhaled form). Because the viruses are grown in chicken eggs, there may be a bit of egg protein remaining, and this is why they ask you if you’re allergic to eggs before you get the vaccine. In some injectable vaccines there is also a small amount of preservative intended to keep the vaccine sterile, and if this is a concern you can get the inhaled vaccine which contains no preservative at all.

And that’s pretty much it — I’ll bet that you know less about what they put into those ever-popular chicken fingers!

“I’ve been told that sometimes if you get the flu shot, there are repercussions of getting flu symptoms. I don’t have time to be sick.”

The most common side effect of getting an injectable flu shot is a slightly sore arm for about a day. Less than one in 100 persons getting either type of vaccine may experience mild symptoms like a slight fever for about a day, but you cannot get the flu from a flu shot.

Real flu has a good chance of wiping you out for a week with high fever, muscle pain, coughing and headaches — have you got time for that?

“I was going to do it but I just totally forgot.”

Despite all the e-mails and Morning Mail announcements, this suggests that we — all of us at Brown — aren’t doing as much as we should to get the word out. As students, you can apply some positive peer pressure to your friends.

As faculty, we could be more vocal about the benefits of the vaccine and make sure to set a good example by getting the shot ourselves. Campus administration could try some creative incentives aimed at increasing participation — getting back to those famous chicken fingers, might I suggest increasing each student’s allotment on Fridays if a certain level of vaccination is achieved? Or perhaps a “Brown is Flu-Free” T-shirt with every shot? The possibilities are endless!

In short, flu vaccines are safe, effective and free. They shouldn’t be less popular than chicken fingers.

E rik S tayton & E van D onahue

d i a m o n d s a n d c oa l Coal to the dean who encouraged students not to take ResLife’s commitment to give every student access to a kitchen “literally.” Following his lead, The Brown Daily Herald will now be published only five days a week.

On the flip side, a diamond to the same dean for suggesting that those of us without adequate housing can just “stay with me.” We hope you’re prepared for every resident of New Pembroke and Grad Center to drop by for a slumber party.

Coal to the Brown researchers who found a “permanent shadow” covering part of the moon’s surface.

It’s not polite to talk about the place where the sun don’t shine. Like Grad Center, for example.

Coal to the Rhode Island State Police officer who said of state efforts to enforce alcohol laws, “we’re here and we’re coming to a bar near you.” You stole our line!

Speaking of Grad Center, coal to President Ruth Simmons for telling our parents we don’t live in “chic” housing. Sure, it wasn’t that way in August, but have you stopped by lately? We got Tibetan prayer flags and a Bob Marley poster.

A cone-shaped diamond to Toledo. From bulkie rolls to French taco shells, the Sharpe Refectory has put food in some interesting casings before, but you’ve really taken the cake. (Can you put cake in a cone?)

“Diamonds and Coal” is written by Herald staff. Share your own at diamondsandcoal.com.

Richard Bungiro Lecturer in Biology Oct. 27

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

Managing Editor

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Ben Hyman Seth Motel

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Arts & Culture Editor Anne Speyer Arts & Culture Editor Suzannah Weiss Features Editor Sara Luxenberg Features Editor Brian Mastroianni Metro Editor Brigitta Greene Metro Editor Ben Schreckinger News Editor Sydney Ember Sports Editor Zack Bahr Sports Editor Tony Bakshi Asst. Sports Editor Ashley McDonnell Graphics & Photos Graphics Editor Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor Alex Yuly Photo Editor Stephanie London Photo Editor Max Monn Photo Editor Hilary Rosenthal Jonathan Bateman Sports Photo Editor Jesse Morgan Asst. Sports Photo Editor Production Copy Desk Chief Kelly Mallahan Asst. Copy Desk Chief Joe Milner Asst. Copy Desk Chief Dan Towne Design Editor Julien Ouellet Asst. Design Editor Gili Kliger Asst. Design Editor Leor Shtull-Leber Asst. Design Editor Katie Wilson Web Editor Neal Poole

General Managers Office Manager Claire Kiely Shawn Reilly Katie Koh Directors Sales Kelly Wess Finance Matthew Burrows Asst. Finance Danielle Marshak Client Relations Margaret Watson Christiana Stephenson Alumni Relations Managers Local Sales Isha Gulati Local Sales Arjun Vaidya National Sales Rajiv Iyengar University Sales Aditi Bhatia University Sales Jared Davis Recruiter Sales Trenten Nelson-Rivers Business Operations Lauren Bosso Business Analytics Jilyn Chao Margot Grinberg Credit and Collections Special Projects Alexander Carrere Staff Kathy Bui Opinions Opinions Editor Michael Fitzpatrick Opinions Editor Alyssa Ratledge Editorial Page Editor Matt Aks Tyler Rosenbaum Editorial Page Editor

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Ashley Aydin, Claire Peracchio, Anne Speyer, Night Editors

correction An article in Wednesday’s Herald (“Pop icon speaks about gay Israeli experience,” Oct. 27) incorrectly reported the number of attendees at an event. Over 100 people attended the event.

A photo caption accompanying an article in Thursday’s Herald (“U. speaks on library contract negotiations,” Oct. 28) misspelled Haley Kossek’s ’13 name. The Herald regrets the error.

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

C ommentary P O L I C Y The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Friday, October 29, 2010 | Page 11

Sex crimes, complacency and complicity

BY Alyssa Ratledge Opinions Editor “No means yes! Yes means anal!”

Not exactly the sort of sentiment you’d expect from our nation’s top college students, is it? But on Wed., Oct. 13, 2010 — yes, that’s this year, a full decade into the 21st century — it was the mantra of Yale’s Delta Kappa Epsilon.

The fraternity’s entire pledge class marched through campus chanting this and other lovely slogans with great relish. You can watch the video on YouTube; I don’t advise it, but then again, I only made it through the first minute.

There has been an outcry in feminist circles, including from Yale’s Women’s Center, which deemed it “hate speech” and called for serious repercussions on the frat from the university. So far, the Yale administration’s response has been tepid — they of course decry the frat’s words and reaffirm that no does in fact mean no, but haven’t made any move to reprimand the students or the frat beyond ceasing pledge activities.

But don’t worry, women: One administrator reassures us that she “wouldn’t say the question of disciplinary action has disappeared from the conversation.” Isn’t that a relief? It’s possible that some members of a group vocally advocating a felony crime against fellow students might get disciplinary action! They might be put on probation! Doesn’t that reassure you about your safety on campus?

At Brown and other Ivy League schools, there seems to be a sense of relieved pride that such an event would never happen here.

We are far too progressive, too modern; we believe in egalitarian gender roles and sexpositivism; we understand laws regarding sex offenses and consent. But is that true? This month at Columbia, a male a cappella group posted ads around campus featuring member pictures above the words “Rape me.” Apparently they did not realize until being told that such a catchphrase wasn’t totally hilarious.

Columbia’s response to student complaints: none.

Just a few years ago here at Brown, one

the shirts prior to Spring Weekend; nothing happened. No one was particularly surprised.

Sexual assault is rarely taken seriously on college campuses, and unfortunately, neither is its lionization.

Universities’ halfhearted responses to incidents like these are perhaps even more frightening for campus women than the incidents’ existence in the first place. Years of institutionalized sexism do not disappear quickly, especially on Ivy League campuses with a faction of men who feel entitled to everything, including

Rape is a crime. This is not a question and it is not up for debate.

campus fraternity printed Spring Weekend Tshirts reading, “It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” This slogan isn’t specific. It could, technically, be referring to any aspect of Spring Weekend debauchery. But the sexual implication is obvious, and would have been, regardless of how many times I was grabbed, accosted or propositioned that weekend by shirt-wearers on Wriston.

Certainly this is nowhere near the caliber of the Yale incident, but it reflects the same attitude toward women and consent, among both perpetrators and administrators. Two friends of mine complained to a dean about

sex, because of their daddies or trust funds or varsity letters. Couple this with the clear disincentive for universities to investigate and punish perpetrators of sex offenses — every incident must be tallied and publicly reported under the Clery Act — and victims, whether male or female, receive a whole lot of nothing from the people who are supposed to help them.

There are horror stories from across the country of college students, both men and women, who go to school administrators after being raped and are told to keep quiet, not to inform the police, just to have everything be kept nice and neat and internal. Victims are not

offered rape kits or told about their full range of administrative and legal options, much less offered the support they need post-assault.

Brown and other top schools, including Yale, have made strides to improve this in recent years, primarily through increasing psychological support services for victims. But the mystery surrounding “disciplinary hearings” remains, and according to the Justice Department, the vast majority of accused campus rapists do not face any serious sanctions, and often no punishment at all. Yes, even at Brown.

Conversely, there’s the case of William McCormick III, who is currently suing the University because he was removed from campus after being accused of rape. Whether or not the rape allegations have merit, the administration did seem to act in an uncharacteristic way due to the accuser’s father’s status as a fundraiser, casting even more doubt upon the channels in place to deal with sex offenses — and universities’ ambiguous stance on such incidents at all.

Rape is a crime. This is not a question and it is not up for debate. Whether they are furtive or overt, people mocking this in a university campus setting need to face more than superficial chastising. Women cannot feel safe, and therefore cannot be full participants in the campus community, when others gleefully chant about committing violent crimes against them — and when college administrations make it clear they don’t care.

Opinions Editor Alyssa Ratledge ’11 is a public policy concentrator from Mesa, Ariz.

Brown, Inc. and the death of the university-college

BY Simon Liebling Opinions Columnist “Brown University,” our president once wrote, “occupies a unique educational position. It is set apart from all but a very small group of institutions by the fact that it is a university college.” Unlike so many similar institutions, it had avoided the tempting, easy fallacy “that ‘bigger’ and ‘better’ were synonymous.” “Against the tendency to allow the liberal arts to occupy a secondary position,” our president argued, “Brown has been almost uniquely emphatic.”

Such a stirring defense of undergraduate education and Brown’s distinctive identity against homogenizing pressures from without — surely the stuff of 78 percent approval ratings and BET awards, no? Sadly, this president would never know the joy of gracing the T-shirts of adoring students with his caricature. His name was Henry Wriston, and the year was 1946.

Sixty-five years later, the “unique educational position” that drew Wriston and generations of independently minded students to Brown is nowhere in evidence. No longer do Brown’s administrators advertise the university-college as a selling point. Our longstanding, treasured identity becomes, as The Herald reported in April, “scarcer and scarcer in the University’s promotional materials.”

Instead, the language out of University Hall has changed to glorify the sort of institutional assimilation that Wriston was once so proud to avoid. News out of the latest Corpo-

ration meeting, dutifully vetted by President Simmons, speaks of “our goals as an international research university.” Despite Wriston’s warning that pre-professional education was “fundamentally incompatible with the University’s major obligation,” the University pours money into its medical school while establishing a school of engineering and an offshore MBA program in Spain. The administration’s new priorities have so obscured any remaining institutional commitment to our core philosophy that some students have taken to the pages of The Herald to clamor for what would

renown demands that it ditch the universitycollege to emulate its rivals and try to beat them at their own game.

The goal — to transform Brown into Harvard South — gets more transparent every year. “The University has acted on its ambitions to become one of the best in the world and an equal competitor with institutions like Harvard, Yale and Stanford,” reported The Herald, quoting Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 as he acknowledges Brown’s aspiration to be “one of the world’s great universities.” President Simmons, for her part,

As Brown transforms itself into a dime-a-dozen research university, it will attract students who are happy to treat it like one.

be a stake through the heart of the universitycollege — the Brown, Inc. Business School (“Toward the Brown School of Business,” Sept. 29).

Behind the rush to abandon Brown’s uniqueness for the prestige of the pre-professional research university is the consuming competitiveness that is the essence of Brown, Inc. and the corporatized academy. Obsessed with measuring itself against “peer institutions,” Brown’s administration is no longer content to provide a fundamentally different educational experience that defies comparison. The competition for rankings and global

acknowledges a decision made early in her tenure to compete with other elite research universities.

Inevitably, Brown, Inc. will create a student body in its own image, and the same students who call for a business school share the administration’s envious competitiveness. They base their arguments on the fact that “many of Brown’s peers — including Harvard, the University of Chicago, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — have powerful, established business schools.” Any institutional diversity is but an afterthought; Brown’s character and

culture are nothing but handicaps in the rankings game. We exist, it seems, not to differentiate ourselves but to compete, and competition demands that we try to be exactly like everyone else.

Once upon a time, students applied to Brown for what Brown alone could provide: a liberal arts college with the resources and research opportunities of an Ivy League university. But as Brown transforms itself into a dime-a-dozen research university, it will attract students who are happy to treat it like one. Those students have so little to gain from making Brown into Harvard, Chicago, Stanford or MIT; there are hundreds of schools where they can already find exactly the kind of pre-professional research university they wish they attended. But for those of us who were drawn to Brown by the same educational philosophy they want to replace, the death of the university-college leaves us without any adequate substitutes.

The university-college is a scarce and endangered educational resource. Research universities are invasive and overabundant.

But the siren call of prestige drowns out identity, tradition and pride. That pride needs to be reasserted by those of us who came to Brown for the ways it was different from its competitors, for the educational niche filled by it alone. We are not so consumed by rankings that we would mimic our neighbors at the cost of our culture. We defend Brown, the university-college, against Brown, Inc. — Harvard’s safety school.

Simon Liebling ’12 is from New Jersey. He can be reached at simon.liebling@gmail.com

Today

3

Yeshiva professor spotlights Jewish vote

The Brown Daily Herald

Ghostly encounters in Providence

4

1 c a l e n da r october 29

4 p.m.

ToMORROW

october 30

4 p.m.

“Promised Land” Film Screening,

Pius XI and America Conference,

McCormack Family Theater

Watson Institute, Joukowsky Forum

7 p.m.

7 p.m.

Japanese Cultural Association’s

Halloween Masquerade Ball, Sayles

Haunted House, Sayles Hall

Hall

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

3 comics

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Portobello Sub Sandwich, BLT Sandwich, Herb Roasted Potatoes, Halloween Cupcakes and Cookies

The Adventures of Team Vag | Wendy Kwartin

Chicken Fingers, Vegan Nuggets, Summer Squash, Halloween Cupcakes and Cookies

DINNER Chicken Tikka, Vegetable Stuffed Peppers, Grilled Cheese, Candied and Caramel Apples

to m o r r o w

56 / 36

56 / 42

Friday, October 29, 2010

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

Today

to day

Roasted Herb Potatoes, Cheese Raviolis with Sauce, Caramel and Candied Apples

crossword Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

Bat & Gaz | Sofia Ortiz

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