Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxlv, no. 103 | Tuesday, November 2, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Governor seat up for grabs

After five years, provost to step down in June

By Alex Bell Senior Staff Writer

Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 will step down from his office at the end of this school year, President Ruth Simmons announced in an e-mail to faculty and staff Friday morning.

When Kertzer accepted Simmons’ offer to serve as the University’s chief academic officer in July of 2006, she said he accepted for a five-year term, which ends this year.

“It was certainly my intention that after my term as provost, I would go back to my teaching and research,” Kertzer said.

Though Kertzer was able to publish one book while serving as provost in 2008 about an illiterate Italian woman, he plans to take a oneyear sabbatical next year to conduct research in Italy. He said he is already overdue to his publisher for the

manuscript of his next book, which is about the relationship between Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini.

“I admire the people who devote longer stretches of time to this kind of administrative work, but there comes a point when it gets difficult to return to their scholarly work if they are away from it for too long,” Kertzer said. “I love my scholarly work and I wouldn’t want to give that up.”

As the University’s academic head, Kertzer has been involved with several projects, ranging from new building projects to the continuous strengthening of financial aid.

“I can’t take full credit for anything,” Kertzer said. “But I think we’ve directed the University through an economic crisis without the quality of the University suffering.”

Kertzer said he hopes to tie up

Alex Bell / Herald

continued on page 4

Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 answers a parent’s question at the Hour with the President event during Family Weekend.

By Ben Schreckinger Metro Editor

Ocean State voters will go to the polls today to choose a successor to Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 and determine the outcome of one of the most unconventional political races in the country this year.

METRO

First congressional district race shows signs of narrowing

By Claire Peracchio Senior Staff Writer

In the First District Congressional Race being decided Tuesday, Democrat David Cicilline ’83 and Republican John Loughlin are locked in a competitive race to replace retiring Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I. Though the district they are vying to represent leans Democratic, poll numbers show a narrowing of Cicilline’s initial lead and the possibility of Republican inroads in Rhode Island in an election cycle which is expected to bring significant GOP

gains nationally.

Bolstered by a decisive fundraising advantage and high visibility as one of the state’s top politicians, Cicilline has been the clear frontrunner for most of the race. But Loughlin’s eleventh-hour surge in

High-profile support floods in The race took a positive turn for Loughlin, a former state house minority whip from Tiverton and the owner of a Rhode Island media firm, when two polls late last week found him running nearly neckand-neck against an opponent he had long trailed by double digits.

The WPRI-Channel 12 poll Friday gave Cicilline a six-point lead among likely voters, a sharp dip compared to his 19-point lead in the station’s poll taken one month prior, and found 10 percent undecided. A WJAR-Channel 10 survey showed

ELECTION 2010 the polls suggests that voter dissatisfaction with a Democrat-controlled federal government and the state’s continuing economic woes could turn the tide in a district once considered safe for the party.

an even closer race, with Cicilline’s lead falling within the poll’s margin of error.

A third poll, commissioned by the National Republican Congressional Committee and released Oct. 22, showed Loughlin with a four-point lead among likely voters. Polling conducted on behalf of partisan organizations tend to overstate support for the organization’s agenda.

Political heavyweights on both sides have lent their support to

Crossing party lines The contest is “possibly the strangest race I’ve ever seen,” said M. Charles Bakst ’66, who covered politics for the Providence Journal for almost four decades. “You have a guy who was a Republican who gets more support from Democrats,” he said of Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14, an independent candidate in the race.

Chafee, a former mayor of Warwick and U.S. senator, left the Republican Party after losing his Senate seat to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in 2006. Since then,

continued on page 5

continued on page 6

U. organist spooks in annual organ recital

‘ W ith this g reed, i thee wed ’

By Sarah Mancone Senior Staff Writer

A dark figure appeared wearing a long black cape, and as the red spotlight flashed on him, the people gathered saw a face that appeared

ARTS & CULTURE

Katie Green / Herald

inside

The Student Labour Alliance performed a marriage on the Main Green between the Brown Investment Office and HEI Corporate Greed as part of a protest against Brown’s investment in HEI.

News.......1–4 Elections.......2 Metro.......5–6 Arts.........7–9 Editorial....10 Opinion.....11 Today........12

www.browndailyherald.com

Even before the Democratic nominee for governor told the president of the United States and leader of his party to “shove it” last Monday, this year’s gubernatorial race had departed from the standard narrative of liberal Democrat versus conservative Republican and the national political trends driving this election cycle.

to be that of the undead. When the audience informed the figure that it was midnight on Halloween, all he could say was, “Oh I must play, I must play…”

This is how University Organist, Instrument Curator and Lecturer in Music Mark Steinbach began his 45-minute annual Midnight Organ

Musical mix

Not so sane

Classical pianist Christopher O’Riley plays new and old

Lorraine Nicholson ’12.5 doesn’t believe sanity is restored

arts, 7

Opinions, 11

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

Recital to a packed Sayles Hall on Sunday.

At many universities, when large groups of students gather after midnight, it is not usually to listen to classical music. But at Brown, it has become an annual tradition. Every year on Halloween there is an organ recital in Sayles Hall where undergraduate students — and some graduate students — gather with blankets and pillows and listen to Steinbach play eerie classical music. Most students come in regular clothes, some in pajamas and others in Halloween costumes. This year featured a penguin, Where’s Waldo, continued on page 8

Students who are 18 years of age or older and were registered to vote by Oct. 2 are eligible to vote in today’s midterm elections. There are a total of 537 polling places, most of which open at 7 a.m. All polls close at 9 p.m., and any voter that is in line at 9 p.m. may cast a ballot. herald@browndailyherald.com

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

E lection 2010

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Keep up with all the Election Day news at browndailyherald.com/election-2010

Tight races, new faces: R.I. voters hit the polls

By Claire Peracchio Senior Staff Writer

Amid a national mood of voter frustration predicted to swing today’s midterm elections in Republicans’ favor, Rhode Island voters will cast ballots for key federal and state offices. As Democrats brace for heavy Election Day losses nationwide, the question of whether voters dissatisfied with the party in power in Washington will impact the outcome of races in the historically blue Ocean State looms large over the Nov. 2 vote.

Roiled by a still-sluggish economy and frustrated with a federal government that seems out of touch, voters are expected to hand Republicans control of

the House of Representatives and leave Democrats struggling to cling to a majority in the Senate.

A Gallup poll taken on the eve of the election shows Republicans with a 15-point advantage over their Democratic rivals, an “unprecedented” lead, according to the polling firm.

In Rhode Island, narrowing polling gaps between Democrats and Republicans, particularly in the First Congressional District, have been attributed to the national political climate. While Democrats are heavily favored to win in many state races, turnout remains crucial in an election cycle where an “enthusiasm gap” between Democrats and Republicans could affect margins of victory.

Mayor of Providence Angel Taveras garnered nearly 50 percent of the vote in a tough four-way Democratic primary to emerge as the clear frontrunner against independent Jonathan Scott in the Providence mayoral race.

Taveras, a lawyer and former Providence Housing Court judge, would be the first Latino mayor of Providence if elected. On the campaign trail, Taveras has stressed his “Head Start to Harvard” life story, which took the son of a single mother from Providence’s Classical High School to the Ivy League.

Scott is the president of a political consulting and public relations firm and a former Republican candidate for Congress. He de-

scribed himself as a “fiscal conservative, social moderate with a strong libertarian streak” in an interview with The Herald.

Both candidates agree on the need to reduce the city’s debt burden and to formulate a sustainable plan for financing its massive unfunded pension liability. They also have both proposed plans to jumpstart Providence’s economy. Taveras advocates creating a small loan revolving fund to provide small businesses access to capital as well as streamlining the regulatory process to make the city a more appealing place to do business. Scott supports investing in a transportation system to bring economic development to the city’s neighborhoods.

Second Congressional District State Senate, D-3 Twenty-year state Senate veteran Rhoda Perr y P ’91, DProvidence, will face Republican Morris Markovitz and independent Miriam Ross in the District 3 contest. Perry is favored to maintain control of the seat.

Perry, whose signature legislative issues are health care and civil liberties, has spearheaded legislation combating human trafficking, ensuring women have access to contraceptives under health insurance plans and expanding the rights of gays and lesbians. She currently serves as chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Ser vices and as a

member of the Senate Committee on Judiciary.

Markovitz, a commodity trader and analyst who worked on NASA’s Apollo Project, has been endorsed by Rhode Island Clean Slate, a Republican-sponsored initiative aimed at ending “one-party” rule in the state and supporting candidates committed to a platform of job creation, education and lower taxes.

Ross, a corporate attorney and adjunct professor at Roger Williams School of Law, advocates measures to reduce the regulator y and tax burdens for small businesses.

sudoku

Five-term incumbent Jim Langevin, D-RI, is up for re-election against North Kingston businessman and former town councilman Mark Zaccaria in the second Congressional district. Zaccaria also challenged Langevin in 2008, when the sitting congressman handily defeated the Republican with a resounding 70 percent of the vote.

This election cycle, Langevin has benefited from a nearly 10-to-one fundraising advantage.

Polling shows Langevin with a commanding lead over Zaccaria — 55 to 32 percent.

Langevin has been forced to defend his votes for the $787 billion stimulus and health care reform, both of which Zaccaria says he would have opposed. Langevin, a pro-life Democrat, riled

R.I. progressives by voting for the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, a proposed amendment to health care legislation that banned the use of federal money to fund abortions. Zaccaria supports repealing the health care law and favors financing health care through lifetime health savings accounts, which would be funded through contributions by individuals and their employers.

Langevin, who was paralyzed from the waist down in an accidental shooting, has been a vocal advocate for people with disabilities and for stem cell research. The Warwick native was a leading advocate for amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act, legislation that reaffirmed the protections for people with disabilities included in the original act.

State House of Representatives, D-2 Democrat Chris Blazejewski and independent Richard Rodi will square off to replace Rep. David Segal, D-Providence, who is barred from running for re-election after an unsuccessful campaign for the First Congressional District House seat.

Blazejewski, a community activist and Har vard Law School graduate, promises to continue to support Segal’s progressive agenda. According to Blazejewski’s website, he advocates “the creation a modern public transit system connecting Providence and East

Providence with the rest of Rhode Island” and advocates tax reform to change how the state funds its public education system.

Rodi, who lost to Segal in the 2008 Democratic primar y and is now running without a party affiliation, is active in numerous Providence-based commumity organizations. His campaign focuses on fiscal responsibility to curb the state’s budget deficit and tax code reform to make Rhode Island more businessfriendly. Rodi has also been endorsed by Clean Slate.

State House of Representatives, D-3

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Nine-term incumbent Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, faces repeat challenger Republican Daniel Harrop ‘76 MD’79, a Providence psychiatrist and former clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatr y and Human Behavior, in the race for the District 3 state House seat.

Ajello, the Deputy Majority Leader of the House, defeated Harrop by a large margin in 2002 and 2004. But Harrop’s third bid comes amidst a favorable climate for Republicans nationwide and with the support of the Clean Slate initiative, which aims to end decades of Democratic dominance in the General Assembly.

As a state legislator, Ajello led efforts to

pass an education funding formula for the state. Rhode Island was previously the only state in the nation without such a formula.

Ajello was instrumental in adding a provision to the formula to raise the total amount the state spends on education. The veteran state representative has also been a key supporter of legislation to grant sexual assault victims extra protection against their attackers and to provide women greater access to contraceptive drugs.

Harrop is the chair of the financing committee for the Republican par ty in Rhode Island. He also ran against Mayor David Cicilline ’83 as the Republican candidate for mayor in 2006.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

“We wanted to make it open for everyone.”

— Samantha Powell ’13, on the R.I. Student Political Boot Camp

‘Boot camp’ to train student infantry

By Ben Kutner Contributing Writer

Boot camp is coming to Brown — but without the barbed wire and ropes course.

Later this month, the Rhode Island Student Political Boot Camp will offer three days of speakers and training sessions about campaign organization, “progressive networking” and other political topics for all interested college students in the state.

The event, “structured around building connections and sharing knowledge between Rhode Island college students to advance the progressive agenda,” is scheduled for Nov. 19-21, and will feature political speakers and trainers who will discuss ways to enter the world of progressive politics, according to its website.

Though hosted at Brown, the event is open to students of all Rhode Island colleges. “We’ve been e-mailing student leaders on other campuses,” said Samantha Powell ’13.

“We have a liaison on each campus.”

Powell is a Brown liaison from the Rhode Island Youth Empowerment campaign, an organization that is working with Brown student group Democracy Matters to organize the boot camp.

“It has two goals essentially,” said Daniel Goldberg, ’13, a member of Democracy Matters. The first goal is “to unite, bring together lots of Rhode Island students.” The second is “to give everyone who comes a really solid set of activism skills,”

Goldberg said.

Mayor of Providence David Cicilline ’83, R.I. General Treasurer candidate Gina Raimondo, R.I. Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, Providence mayoral candidate Angel Taveras and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse will all bring extensive Ocean State political experience to the conference.

Events featuring the speakers include a kick-off dinner, a keynote panel and a Casual Networking with RI Leaders session. These sessions will offer students an inside and intimate view of politics, activism and advice on how to become involved.

In addition to the speeches, boot camp participants will attend training sessions led by professionals in a wide variety of political fields, such as campaign management and online political organizing. Matt Blizek, the national Field Director at Democracy for America, and Professor Barbara Tannenbaum, who teaches courses in public speaking and persuasive communication in the Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance, will lead workshops during the conference. Xay Khamsyvoravong, Frank Caprio’s gubernatorial campaign manager, will also be a trainer at the event.

“We went and found (the trainers) ourselves,” said Caroline Dean, ’11, also a Brown liaison from the Rhode Island Youth Empowerment Campaign, adding that all of the trainers are unpaid participants.

Conference attendees will gain insight into topics ranging from “Start Your Local Campaign Now!” to “Messaging, Presentation & Public

Speaking: How to develop a message or frame issues for campaigns or organizations,” according to the website. Roberts and Cicilline will participate in a panel on diversity in Rhode Island politics.

The concept of a progressive political boot camp is not unique to Brown. Similar training camps have been provided for the general public across the country by an organization called Democracy For America. “We provide campaign training, organizing resources, and media exposure so our members have the power to support progressive issues and candidates up and down the ballot,” according to the organization’s website. The Brown student-group Democracy Matters is not affiliated with Democracy For America, Dean said.

The Democracy For America training sessions are not free though. The Rhode Island Student Political Bootcamp offers many of the same features as the Democracy for America conference without cost.

In addition to free registration, online registration is available for students interested in participating in the boot camp — “just name and e-mail address,” Goldberg said.

“We don’t intend for it to be capped,” said Goldberg, noting that the event has the capacity for 1,000 students.

“We wanted to make it open to everyone, ” Powell said. “I don’t think it’s ever been done for students for free where you don’t have to apply.” continued on page 8

CIS gathers feedback to replace MyCourses

By Sahil Luthra Contributing Writer

Computing and Information Services is currently collecting feedback from students and faculty to help identify an online learning management system that would replace MyCourses.

CIS decided to launch the Learning Management System Project this fall because Blackboard Learn System 8.2, the software behind MyCourses, will not be supported after October 2012. Updating to Blackboard Learn 9, which is a “significantly different system,” could be “tantamount to moving the campus to a new learning management system,” according to the Learning Management System Project website.

As part of the IT Strategic Plan and the Plan for Academic Enrichment, CIS had been planning to assess and update the course management system at some point before 2013, said Pat Zudeck, manager of instructional technology and a member of the project team.

While Blackboard’s announcement would not mean the University would have to stop using MyCourses, having an unsupported system might cause difficulty in upgrading related systems, said Catherine Zabriskie, director of academic technology services and

another member of the team.

“It’s a great opportunity to assess the needs of the campus,” Zabriskie said. “It’s kind of an exciting time to look and consider what we can deliver in the learning management system solution environment.”

Zabriskie added that CIS had been looking at possible systems for some time prior to formally launching this project.

The project team is collecting responses to an online survey and holding focus groups with both students and faculty. Zabriskie added that the team has received close to 500 survey responses since releasing its survey last week. While Zudeck and Zabriskie said they have not yet had the opportunity to process the surveys, they said they sense that students like being able to access all their coursework in one place.

The team has also been getting feedback from peer institutions on their learning management systems, Zudeck and Zabriskie said.

The project team aims to evaluate the solutions over the winter, to have its recommendation signed in April and to start planning the implementation in the summer, according to the project website.

Zudeck and Zabriskie said they do not yet have a targeted launch date for the new system because they do

Page 3

not know how long implementation will take.

In addition to addressing the needs that surface from the surveys and focus groups, the team is also trying to find a system that could easily integrate features such as Banner and Google Apps, Zudeck and Zabriskie said.

They added it is important to have the flexibility to integrate emerging systems such as Focal Point, a concentration tool that was released Monday. The best system would also be poised to address future needs — which could include integration of media, online courses or global collaboration — as they are identified, they said.

“Ideally, as new tools evolve, it would be easy for students and faculty to find them and integrate them with the work they’re doing,” Zabriskie said.

While no potential replacement systems have yet been eliminated, the current shortlist includes Blackboard 9, Moodle, Sakai and Google Apps for Education, Zudeck and Zabriskie said.

“It is an important project, and it’s going to touch the campus in a lot of ways,” Zudeck said.

Brown began using WebCT as its online learning management system in 2002. WebCT was renamed MyCourses when it was acquired

by Blackboard in 2006.

higher ed news roundup by sarah forman senior staff writer

GAGA 0100: new course at USC A professor at the University of South Carolina at Columbia is offering an upper-level course this spring devoted to studying the societal factors that led to Lady Gaga’s popularity.

SOCY 398D: “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of the Fame” will look at everything from the “life and times” of Lady Gaga to contemporary gay culture, according to a course introduction on the school’s website.

The University of Virginia offered an English course this semester that used Lady Gaga as a framework for critical analysis of “Sex, Gender and Identity,” the Cavalier Daily reported Sept. 8.

$80 million donated for Cornell sustainability research Last week, a Cornell graduate and his wife donated $80 million to build a “research center focusing on challenges in the global energy, environmental and economic development arenas,” according to a Cornell press release.

According to the release, the donation represents the largest gift ever to a university for sustainability research.

U.S. Education Dept. to take tougher stance on anti-Semitism The Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to schools and colleges on Tuesday about harassment and bullying at schools. In the letter, she wrote that antiSemitic discrimination could be characterized as “race, color or national origin harassment.”

As the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on Thursday, that means reclassifying anti-Jewish behavior as ethnically based, and not just religious. Higher education officials are unsure whether anti-Zionist speech and behavior will be punishable under the stricter rules against anti-Semitism.

blog daily herald dot com

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

“I think I’ve devoted enough time to the tenure issue, and I’ll let someone else worry about it.” — Provost David Kertzer

Provost to resign in June Number of history concentrators falls after five years in job

By David Chung Contributing Writer

continued from page 1 loose ends the rest of this year — picking a founding dean for the engineering school and setting a new center for slavery and justice in motion.

Another of Kertzer’s endeavors stems from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges report on the University released in 2009, which spurred what Simmons called an “intense and challenging” discussion led by Kertzer’s ad hoc Committee to Review Tenure and Faculty Development Policies.

“In some ways, there’s nothing more important for the University than the tenure issue,” Kertzer said, when asked how his departure would shape the discussion among faculty and administrators. He added that any changes to the tenure process would ultimately need to be approved by the Corporation, Brown’s highest governing body, not by the provost.

“I think I’ve devoted enough time to the tenure issue, and I’ll let someone else worry about it,” he said. “I don’t think it would be particularly appropriate for a former provost to be involved in that kind of way.”

After his sabbatical, Kertzer, a professor of anthropology and Italian studies, said he will return to Brown

to teach.

He said he “reminded” Simmons around March that this year would be his last because it seemed like an appropriate time for her to launch a search for his successor.

“It didn’t surprise me,” Simmons told The Herald. “When I asked him to be provost, he had a number of other projects in the works.”

Simmons said a search committee will soon be formed with the goal of confirming a replacement by June 30, when Kertzer’s term runs out.

Members have not yet been named.

She said a roughly five-year term is typical for provosts to allow enough time make a significant impact and also to justify changing one’s lifestyle.

She said she hopes Kertzer’s successor will agree to a term of at least five years.

Simmons also said provosts, who oversee a university’s academic functions, are commonly former department chairs. Kertzer was the chair of Brown’s anthropology department, though Simmons said the search would not be confined to Brown.

Kertzer said he will not be involved in the search process, and though he will be available for advice, would “have some distance” from his new successor next year while he is in Italy.

The number of students concentrating in history has sharply declined over the past few years, according to Nancy Jacobs, director of undergraduate studies in the Department of History.

The general enrollment in history courses has also fallen, she said.

Eighty-four students graduated this past June with a concentration in histor y, according to the Office of Institutional Research, down from a high of 166 in 2003.

In addition, while there were 3,445 course enrollments in the department in 2005, there were 2,106 last year.

“I think we view it as a challenge,” Jacobs said. “It’s something we would ver y much like to address.”

In the past, people thought it was necessar y to learn about history to gain “cultural literacy” and avoid similar mistakes in the future, she said. Students today are more concerned about their careers and do not instinctively believe that a history concentration would provide them with the necessar y skills to succeed, she said.

“I think, as historians, per-

haps, we haven’t been as good as conveying what our analytical skills are,” she said. “We haven’t conveyed that we can really help students think about generalization, think about pattern recognition with qualitative information, think about processes, think about comparing different parts of the world in different time periods.”

The department is looking for ways to advertise how a histor y concentration can provide these useful skills to students and lead them to successful careers in a variety of fields. Building a strong network between students and alums is a step in the right direction, she said.

In September, four alums — two journalists, a doctor and an entrepreneur — returned to campus for Brown Degree Days to talk about how their history concentrations led to their various career choices. The event demonstrated how history courses provide the necessary skills to enter a number of different career paths, Jacobs said.

The Histor y Undergraduate Group also provides a place for students to get more involved in the department, meeting other students and faculty members, she said.

“We’re hoping it can also be-

come an oppor tunity to learn about alumni and what they’re doing and to get a better idea of the models of possible careers of people who studied history,” she said.

After studying abroad last year at the University of Cambridge, Max Straus ’11 said he realized how impor tant camaraderie among students studying the same subject is. Straus, a histor y concentrator, is in charge of organizing the undergraduate group and said he hopes it will allow students to establish connections.

“It’s a nice opportunity for history students to get together,” he said.

The department is also planning to introduce a few courses to their curriculum, said Omer Bartov, chair of the histor y department. The faculty hopes to stimulate interest in history by offering courses aimed at attracting large numbers of students without compromising their quality.

“So not have just sexy courses,” he said. “Important courses but courses that will attract students who won’t necessarily want to study history in the future but will think that they need to know some history.” continued on page 6

Metro The Brown Daily Herald

“Is he part of the problem or is he part of the solution?”

— Maureen Moakley, URI political science department chair, on Cicilline Tuesday, November 2, 2010 | Page 5

Republican surges in eleventh hour of first congressional district race continued from page 1 the candidates, a clear sign of the contest’s importance as Democrats struggle to maintain control of the House of Representatives amidst a slow economic recovery and avoid losing a Kennedy-held seat for the second time in two years. In 2009, Republican Scott Brown won the senate seat long-held by Patrick Kennedy’s father, Edward Kennedy, in a surprise upset over Democrat Martha Coakley, landing a symbolic blow to the Democratic party.

The contest made headlines last Monday when President Obama visited the Ocean State to shore up support for Cicilline, the current mayor of Providence and a former state legislator.

Loughlin has also benefited from high-profile endorsements.

The day of Obama’s visit, Loughlin campaigned with Brown, underscoring the symbolic importance of the race. Loughlin hopes to capitalize on the voter dissatisfaction that swept Brown into office this January.

Last Friday, Sen. John McCain endorsed Loughlin in a video, saying he would be “proud to serve” with the retired U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel. Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and potential presidential candidate in 2012, also announced his support for Loughlin and headlined a rally for him Monday in East Providence.

The Loughlin campaign has seen a positive response from Rhode Islanders to its message of “less spending, lower taxes and smaller government,” according to Loughlin campaign manager Cara Cromwell.

Cromwell said Loughlin is focused on “jobs and the economy” and would focus on creating a climate more favorable to business growth if elected. She said Loughlin favors a plan to “repeal and replace” the health care reform law with legislation that cuts costs through tort reform and “allowing plans to compete across state lines.”

Cicilline supports the creation of a $2 billion grant program to help Rhode Island manufacturers “retool existing factories, retrain their workers and buy new equipment,” according to campaign spokesman Rich Luchette.

He also has proposed an infrastructure investment “on the scale of the” Works Progress Administration to rebuild transit and technology infrastructure and “regional guarantee funds administered through local small business administration offices” to provide small businesses access to capital, Luchette said.

Cicilline is “looking to fight hard for those specific, pragmatic, innovative proposals that will really help to put our economy back on the right track,” Luchette said.

Ponzi schemes and pay raises The tone of the campaign has grown increasingly hostile in recent weeks, with each candidate attempting to exploit his opponent’s perceived weaknesses.

Cicilline charged Loughlin early

in the campaign with seeking to privatize Social Security. Loughlin has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and has stated that he supports offering individuals the choice to invest part of their earnings in order to maintain the program’s solvency.

During the candidates’ final debate last Friday, Cicilline called Loughlin’s plan “exactly what President Bush talked about when he tried to privatize Social Security.”

The Providence mayor’s pledge that he will protect Social Security in its current form is likely to resonate with senior citizens, a key demographic group whose support he needs to win, according to Wendy Schiller, associate professor of political science.

Loughlin has criticized Cicilline for accepting erroneous pay raises at taxpayer expense, even filling a wheelbarrow with $20,000 to draw attention to the unauthorized money the mayor accepted from 2006 to 2009.

Cicilline, though, did not notice the pay raise because his “take-home pay” actually decreased due to a 20 percent health insurance co-pay that went into effect at the time the raises began, according to Cicilline campaign manager Eric Hyers.

The mayor has also come under fire after a city auditor’s report released last week found that under Cicilline’s tenure, the city failed to make monthly payments to its pension system and that its reserve accounts have fallen from $36.6 million to $4.6 million.

Hyers called the report “a political hit job by someone who is a member of the old guard of folks who have resisted the reform and change that David’s brought to City Hall over the past eight years.” He also pointed to the “suspicious” timing of the findings, released on the eve of the election.

Last Tuesday, the Providence firefighters union sued the mayor for a “breach of fiduciary duty” by neglecting to fund the city pension system in the last fiscal year, according to the Oct. 28 Providence Journal. The lawsuit is the latest development in a rocky relationship between the mayor and city firefighters, who reached a contract agreement in early October.

The problem or the solution?

Negative press may be contributing to Cicilline’s declining lead in the polls, according to Victor Profughi, Rhode Island College professor emeritus of political science and director of the polling firm Quest Research. Another reason is Loughlin’s increased visibility, Profughi said.

“Loughlin, because he was underfunded and not particularly well known across the entire district, had to establish himself and gain recognition,” Profughi said. He added that endorsements from Democrats in the district’s Blackstone Valley, where nearly 40 percent of likely voters reside, have also boosted Loughlin.

The race has become “more

Min Wu / Herald

In the First Congressional District race to replace retiring Rep. Patrick Kennedy, Cicilline’s lead over Loughin is beginning to narrow.

competitive,” according to Maureen Moakley, chair of the University of Rhode Island department of political science.

The outcome of the contest will depend on whether voters can view Cicilline, widely regarded an effective mayor, as an agent of change in Congress, according to Moakley.

“It’s a question of how they take to Cicilline’s idea that Washington is broken, and he’s going down there to fix it,” Moakley said. “Is he part

of the problem or is he part of the solution?”

The performance of other Democrats, particularly in the governor’s race, may have an impact on Cicilline’s Election Day prospects, according to Schiller, the political science professor. A weaker showing by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Frank Caprio could hurt Cicilline, while a strong turnout for Democratic mayoral candidate Angel Taveras could help him, Schiller

added.

Flagging enthusiasm among the district’s Democrats could also influence the race, according to Schiller.

“You talk to a lot of people, and they’re not all as staunch Democrats as they were a couple years ago, and many of them are very disappointed in Obama,” Schiller said. “You could say the district has been very strongly Democratic, but I don’t know if it continues to be very strongly Democratic.”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

“Even if it is not the most trendy thing at the moment, so what?” — Omer Bartov, chair of the history department

Governor race defies tradition, moves away from typical political lines continued from page 1

he has enthusiastically endorsed gay marriage and proposed to levy a 1 percent sales tax on currently exempt goods if elected — highly unpopular positions with his former party.

Meanwhile, Treasurer Frank Caprio is “a Democratic nominee who is really in many ways seen as a Republican,” Bakst said.

The Republican National Com-

mittee has alleged that Caprio courted its support in Februar y, and Republican candidate John Robitaille has claimed that Caprio, through an intermediar y, asked him to withdraw from the race.

Caprio has denied both allegations of seeking Republican support.

In August, a Rasmussen poll found that 39 percent of Rhode Islanders consider Chafee liberal, compared to 29 percent who applied the same label to Caprio.

More respondents considered Caprio conservative than they did Chafee.

The Republican candidate, John Robitaille, is moderately conservative. He champions the twin Republican pillars of lower taxes and lower spending. But he opposes proposed economic projects that he considers environmentally unfriendly and writes of government welfare programs on his campaign website, “I believe we should strengthen the safety net.”

Wendy Schiller, associate professor of political science, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that this year’s gubernatorial hopefuls are “closer to each other than they are to other candidates in the same parties elsewhere.”

“Caprio is a conservative Democrat who is probably closest to Robitaille, and Chafee and (Moderate Party candidate Ken) Block are similar to moderate Democrats in other states. We do not have any ultra-conser vative or ultra-liberal candidates,” she wrote.

Aside from ideology, the distinguishing factors in the race are “individual personality, name recognition, perception of character, political family legacies or ties to other politicians,” Schiller wrote.

The other guy The comparatively small ideological gap between these three may explain the poor showing of the fourth candidate, Moderate Party founder Ken Block.

Separate polls released last week show Block with 2 and 4 percent support, respectively, despite what should be a favorable political climate for third parties. Driven in part by a slow economic recovery and the furor over health care

reform, an anti-incumbent mood has taken hold of voters across the country. The rise of the right-wing Tea Party has demonstrated the appeal for some voters of a political movement that does not embrace either major party.

In Washington, the Democratic majority is expected to narrow in the Senate and disappear in the House.

In Rhode Island, which has long had one of the highest unemployment rates in the countr y, voters seem to follow the national trend.

A Februar y poll by the Taubman Center for Public Policy found that more than two-thirds of Rhode Islanders thought the state was heading in the wrong direction, while less than 13 percent had a “great deal” or a “good amount” of confidence in elected state officials’ ability to steer it in the right direction.

But Block — a political newcomer who told The Herald he considers himself a “pragmatist” — does not appear to have made significant inroads against Chafee or Caprio, who have both held multiple elected positions in the state, or Robitaille, who was an adviser to Carcieri before running to replace him.

While the crowded, relatively moderate field makes it more difficult for the Moderate Party candidate to find an electoral niche, Bakst cited a more practical obstacle to Block’s candidacy.

“He doesn’t have the organization or the money,” Bakst, who is a former Herald editor-in-chief, said of Block. “You’ve got to spend a real good amount of money when you don’t have a traditional organization just to get in the game.”

According to both Bakst and

Schiller, Block will siphon off more votes from Chafee than from the other candidates.

‘A legitimate three-way race’ Whether Block plays the roll of spoiler or not, the other three candidates all have a legitimate shot at capturing governor’s mansion today.

Throughout the race, polls have shown Caprio and Chafee trading the lead, with Robitaille consistently relegated to third place.

But Caprio may have shifted the dynamic of the race last Monday, when he told a radio station President Barack Obama could “take his endorsement and really shove it.”

The comment, directed at the leader of Caprio’s own party on the day he swung through Rhode Island on a fundraising trip, sent shockwaves through the state and made headlines in the national press a week before election day.

Obama, who was endorsed by Chafee early in his presidential bid, declined to endorse Caprio as a courtesy to the independent candidate.

Though Caprio initially defended his comments, a poll last week found that the comment made fives times as many Rhode Islanders less likely to vote for Caprio than more likely to vote for him, and over the weekend Caprio said he regrets the phrasing of the statement.

The same poll found that Robitaille — who was quick to condemn the “shove it” comment — had overtaken Caprio for second place, seven points behind Chafee.

Caprio was 10 points back from the frontrunner.

But “it’s a legitimate three-way race,” Bakst said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Caprio finished first.”

Fewer students choosing history continued from page 4 A recent change in the history concentration requirements may have caused the number of concentrators to drop, Jacobs said. Ten courses have been required for the concentration from the 2005-2006 academic year, an increase from the previous requirement of eight courses.

Responding to a University-wide consensus that a concentration should require more than eight courses, the histor y department conducted a review in 2004 and 2005 that led to the increase.

“We really thought that we could have a concentration that was more rigorous, and we could give better training to our students by having more courses,” she said.

Chronological breadth had always been expected of concentrators with a requirement of at least three courses in both the pre-modern and modern periods, but students must focus in three geographical areas as compared to two previously, she said.

The department was also trying

to broaden its appeal and utilize the resources of the University by allowing students to take a multidisciplinary approach to their studies, she said. The two additional course credits required by the new policy can be received from other departments, while only courses offered by the department were considered before the change.

“We expected that would cause our number of concentrators to decline because we had a lot of double concentrators,” she said.

“We recognize that was the cost but thought it was more important to revise the concentration and improve it even at the cost of the double concentrators.”

But the history department has experienced a number of other changes that may have caused enrollment numbers to dip more than in other humanities and social sciences departments, Jacobs said. Many history professors have recently been off-campus receiving awards and grants, preventing some popular courses from being offered, she said. Professors who return after a few years see a de-

crease in course enrollment, she added.

“I think faculty members have to be in place for three or four years in a row to really build up that following,” she said.

Other popular faculty members have retired, and their courses are either no longer of fered or are taught by new or temporar y professors who are less well-known and do not have a comparable following, she said.

“These are all things that just happen in the life cycle of a department and perhaps even in a department that’s improving its instruction and research,” she said.

For now, Bartov calls on the University to maintain a strong commitment to the humanities in the face of growing investment in the sciences, by funding and supporting professors and attracting scholars through the Brown Humanities Initiative.

“Even if it is not the most trendy thing at the moment, so what?” he said. “I mean, as historians, we should not only look at trends. We should look at the larger picture.”

Arts & Culture The Brown Daily Herald

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 | Page 7

Classical pianist plays Radiohead, Ravel at RISD Advice pours

By Emma Wohl Staff Writer

Listeners of National Public Radio can hear Christopher O’Riley’s informed commentaries on classical music and his classical compositions of Radiohead, Pink Floyd and Elliott Smith on his weekly radio show “From the Top.” But on Saturday night, audience members in the Rhode Island School of Design Auditorium could hear both the radio personality and his music in person, when O’Riley performed “Out of My Hands: Classical Piano Meets Alternative Rock.”

O’Riley, who has played in venues as diverse as the South by Southwest Music Festival, Carnegie Hall and a beach in Saint-Malo, France, tries to achieve a balance between alternative and classical pieces. “I know there are some folks who are here because they’re Radiohead fans, and some who know me from the radio program,” he told The Herald. So, he said, he tries to show “a commensurate devotion to works by (classical composer) Ravel” and more modern pieces.

O’Riley started the night’s program with four Radiohead songs in quick succession. These were not the band’s standard experimental rock — as he told The Herald, even his alternative rock pieces are “informed by the idiosyncracies” of classical music and may have “a Debussyan feel.”

Nevertheless, after a few songs,

he offered a disclaimer. “Those of you who don’t know Radiohead from a hole in the head can be assured of an all-Ravel set in the second half,” he said.

He continued the first half with songs by Nick Drake, a lesser-known British songwriter from the ’70s, as well a two-song arrangement based on songs by Elliott Smith, whom he described as “the most important songwriter this country has produced since Cole Porter.” Though O’Riley described these songs as dark, they were downright cheery compared with the final song of the first half. Playing Nirvana’s “HeartShaped Box,” O’Riley used the full range of the 88 keys and exhibited a much heavier, darker tone.

He opened the second half with the Cocteau Twins’ “Caroline’s Fingers,” the most upbeat song on the program, and continued with a sprawling transposition of Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them.”

Contemporary merged seamlessly with classical as he moved into the promised Ravel suite. He played “Ghosts of the Night,” a set of pieces he said he chose “in honor of Halloween and the release of ‘Paranormal Activity II.’ ” With their abrupt tonal shifts, sudden pauses and minor key, the pieces were fittingly frightening.

He closed the program with two more Radiohead numbers: his favorite, “Letdown,” and the crowdpleasing “Paranoid Android.” After a round of applause, he returned to the stage for a brief encore, Elliott

out from Campus Center walls

By Tiffany Zabludowicz Contributing Writer

the Bell Tolls.”

For Zick, the only undergraduate student composer featured in the concert, the opportunity to have Ensemble Zellig perform his work was especially exciting.

“To have professionals play my music as an undergraduate — it’s the greatest thing. Even if you write bad music, if they’re professionals, it will sound good,” he said.

But Zick’s piece was anything but bad. While it’s true that the caliber of the ensemble was fantastic, the composition could also stand alone.

Zick’s work was the most narrative

Two understated speakers sit to the right of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center welcome desk. The subtlety of the white mesh speakers against the white wall strongly disguises the magnitude of the project they contain — a new permanent sound piece by Brooklyn-based artist Nina Katchadourian ’89. “Advice from a Former Student” contains over 800 bits of advice for Brown students, from Brown alumni.

Katchadourian said in a talk to mark the official opening Friday that she was often confused as a student at Brown and, similarly, remembers her students being “a million miles away” thinking of “any number of things” when she taught at Brown between 2001 and 2004. She said she wished that when she was a student someone were there to advise her.

The alumni range from the class of 1939 to 2010, giving any advice that they felt would be helpful.

Katchadourian has inter viewed somebody from the entire span of graduate classes.

This was no small feat.

Katchadourian said there was “an enormous number of people that made doing this project possible.”

The editing process was enormous, and hours of tape had to be reduced to small clips of advice. Katchadourian said that making the work was “like doing a kind of sociological research.”

Katchadourian was inspired to make “Advice from a Former Student” after randomly posting a status on Facebook that said, “Tell me the best piece of advice you know.”

Eighty responses flooded back in 24 hours, which she cites as the seeds of the piece.

Due to the openness with which Katchadourian framed her interview questions, the responses are extremely diverse. For example, one man warns, “don’t be timid with your

continued on page 9

continued on page 9

Jesse Morgan / Herald

Christopher O’Riley performed classical compositions of songs by bands such as Radiohead and Nirvana as part of the FirstWorks Fesival.

Smith’s appropriately titled “Bye.” Sean Devare, a student at RISD, compared the concert to a performance two years ago by alternative violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain.

“I’m really into anything that revitalizes the genre of classical music or brings that technical skill and classical style and makes it more accessible,” he said.

O’Riley came to RISD as a part of the school’s FirstWorks Festival, a series of performances that display “firsts in the arts,” according to Katherine Pletcher, executive artistic director of FirstWorks.

These firsts can be anything from a world premiere to a performer’s first time in Rhode Island to kids’ first exposure to the arts, she said.

O’Riley’s performance was an opportunity to showcase his groundbreaking solo piano transcriptions for the first time at RISD. “This concert also marks the two-week countdown to our finale,” Pletcher said. The final FirstWorks performance of the season, by the Grammy-winning a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, will be held Nov. 13 at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium.

French chamber group premieres works at Music. Dept. festival

By Anita Badejo Staff Writer

Under the dim lights of Grant Recital Hall, students and faculty were serenaded by world renowned French chamber group Ensemble Zellig and student composers Saturday.

The concert was part of the Department of Music’s “Premieres Residency and Festival” last weekend, which featured a master class with Ensemble Zellig, a colloquium with visiting composers Don Freund and Phillipe Hersant and performances of new French and American works.

The ensemble, which consists of Anne-Cecile Cuniot on flute, Etienne Lamaison on clarinet, Silvia Lenzi on cello and Jonas Vitaud on piano, performed world premieres of works by Freund and Hersant during Friday’s concert. Saturday’s concert consisted of the ensemble’s performances of three world premiere pieces composed by Brown music students and three performances by other music students of their original works.

The internationally acclaimed contemporar y music quartet is visiting as part of a tour of France, Iceland and various U.S. universities this fall.

Saturday’s concert began with Peter Bussigel’s GS “LOGLO.” The piece was named after a term in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction book “Snow Crash,” and refers to the

moving lights and logos of corporate America, Bussigel said.

The piece started with a single, long flute note, which eventually blended into an electronic note that was warped and manipulated. Bussigel described the challenges of writing a piece that incorporates both acoustic instruments and electronic sounds. “You have to kind of struggle to fuse the two,” he said.

However, the transition in the first note was seamless. Long, low notes from the cello and clarinet were then set against higher reverberating electronic sounds, punctuated occasionally by purposeful singular piano keystrokes.

“I hope that it’s like a little adventure,” Bussigel said. “I hope that it’s an experience.”

The “science fiction atmosphere” he was trying to evoke was apparent from the beginning. The piece had an overall ominous tone. Moments of shaky vibrato, blended with electronic sounds, felt like an introduction into another world. A frantic and panicked segment beginning with the clarinet and piano eventually encompassed all the instruments as they fervently crescendoed. The breaking point then came as Vitaud became an eerie human pendulum, standing at the piano and slowly moving back and forth from one note to the other, while the rest of the ensemble was silent, save a few random utterings of their instru-

ments. The piece ended in stillness and silence.

The next piece, Jacob Richman’s GS “Momentary Lapse,” began with quick, punchy vignettes played by each member of the ensemble with small lapses in between. The music was whimsical but with a dark side as well. Long, melodious flute and clarinet parts were interchanged with staccato on the cello, and the piece ended with a single flute note.

Lastly, the ensemble played Aaron Zick’s ’11 “III. Batalla al Puente,” the last movement of a piece he’s still composing entitled “This is How you Live A Life in Two Days,” based on Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

A rts &C ulture

Bootcamp to offer campaign organization training continued from page 3 The event has been in the works since the summer, according to Dean, who said Grant Gilles, another liaison from the Empowerment campaign, “formulated some of this over the summer.”

Gilles has been extremely politi-

cally active in his years at Brown, Dean said.

The event is being made possible thanks to several generous donors, Dean explained.

“It’s a really great opportunity,” she said. “(It’s) a one-step place to get the tools a student needs.”

Want to get in on the action?

Join the sports staff of The Brown Daily Herald Info session: Weds. Nov. 3 at 8:30 p.m.

195 Angell St. (between Brook and Thayer) E-mail sports@browndailyherald.com with any questions.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

“It’s a bit more fluid, which makes it easier for kids to pick up.” — Daniel Levine-Spound ’12, on rugby

Better than recess: rugby coaches local kids

By Caroline Flanagan Contributing Writer

Members of the Brown men’s rugby team helped teach rugby workshops to middle school students on Pembroke field at last Wednesday’s final session of a three-week collaboration between Brown rugby players and students at the Wheeler School.

Daniel Levine-Spound ’12 helped organize the program with members of the Wheeler School’s physical education department while volunteering with them earlier this semester.

At Wheeler, students in grades six through eight choose a sport to play for three weeks as part of an elective physical education program.

This year, for the first time, rugby was offered along with basketball, mini tennis and weightlifting.

Levine-Spound and other members of Brown’s team, including head coach David LaFlamme, attended a number of practices to

teach the students the basics of rugby.

Last Tuesday was the fourth time the sixth grade class met to play, and Levine-Spound was joined

by Greg Karwaski ’11 and Michael Wharton ’12.

Levine-Spound, Karwaski and Wharton stressed the value of teaching rugby to younger children. “Rugby has the same physical aspects as many other sports, but it’s a bit more fluid, which makes it easier for kids to pick up,” Levine-Spound said.

Students who start early have a noticeable advantage later on because rugby is offered at very few high schools — let alone middle schools — said Levine-Spound, Karwaski and Wharton.

Team members who have volunteered have enjoyed working with the kids, they said. “It’s great to see them really progressing over only half an hour,” Wharton said.

The program has met great

enthusiasm at Wheeler, said Jean Carlson, head of Wheeler’s physical education department. The sport is “more interactive for the students, so they get much more exercise,” unlike a sport like football which has specific positions so that not every child gets to touch the ball, she said.

Out on the field, students were laughing but listening intently to their coaches’ advice. Many students said the gym class was the best they had ever had and that the Brown students were all “super nice.” Some of the middle schoolers said that they might continue rugby — but only after soccer or football ­— in high school.

Carlson said she and her colleagues are excited to work with the Brown athletes. In the future, she hopes that Wheeler might be able to “tap into Brown athletics a little more” and that the rugby program “may open up new opportunities with the other Brown sports teams.”

Organ concert ‘encapsulated Halloween’ continued from page 1 mustard and various animal ears and hats.

The Halloween recital is a University tradition, which, though not started by Steinbach, was revived by him when he came to Brown in 1993, he said.

“My predecessor did not have midnight recitals,” Steinbach said, but they were performed by the organist that was at Brown during the ’70s.

“I’ve done one ever since,” Steinbach said, adding that he does the concerts “mainly because they’re so much fun.”

Steinbach said the Halloween concert is a great opportunity to attract students to an organ recital and show off the creepy sounds of the organ, because students do not always seem to want to come otherwise. “If it’s at midnight, then it’s packed,” he said.

Overall, the event is “kind of like

hosting a dinner party,” Steinbach said, adding that he has to think “What am I going to serve? What order am I going to serve it in? What am I going to use to cleanse the palate?”

While Steinbach does alternate his piece selection from year to year, he is always sure to play the “Toccata con Fuga in D Minor” by Johann Sebastian Bach, which is the most well-remembered piece by students, he said. “One year I did not (play it) and the audience got furious,” Steinbach said.

“It’s like doing a birthday party without singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ ” he added. This piece was used to conclude the performance, and the audience clapped and shouted when they recognized the familiar beginning.

“I really liked the last piece,” said Jessica Terry ’14, adding that it really “encapsulated Halloween.”

Steinbach said that the piece by

Bach is one that he has played since he was a junior in high school, and he still loves it.

The first piece he played, “Tanz Toccata” by Anton Heiller, is also great, he said, because it is a good “attention-grabbing piece.” The piece also involves very complicated rhythms, which makes it one that needs a lot of practice, Steinbach said.

The large, looming pipes of the organ that extend to near the ceiling added to the Gothic feel of the performance. When the lights turned back on, the audience realized the large size of the organ, said Michael Sweet ’11. “You just realize the magnitude” of the instrument, he added.

“Brown is very privileged to have this organ,” which was given to the University in 1903, Steinbach said.

“The University doesn’t usually make it their priority to put something like this in,” he added.

For example, Steinbach said that he would love to have a new mechanical action organ for Manning Chapel, since “you can’t do anything with” the current one. For now they are just “waiting for a donor to come forward,” he said.

Other pieces Steinbach played included “Marche Funebre d’une Marionnette, Op. 35, no. 2” by Charles Gounod, “Golliwog’s Cake-walk” by Claude Debussy, “Suite Gothique, Op. 25” by Leon Boellman and “Prelude sur une antienne” by Jean Langlais.

The six pieces Steinbach played varied in tempo, dynamics and note range, but each conveyed the Gothic and eerie motif of Halloween. All of the pieces included large amounts of dissonance, rapid changes in tempo and thunderous crescendos. This was not lost on the audience, since after each piece ended the students listening responded with roaring applause and cheers.

“You can feel the vibrations in the floor,” Sweet said. “It was beautiful.”

“It was so good,” said Marguerite Preston ’11. “I closed my eyes and was absorbing it.”

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

a rts & C ulture

Page 9

“Sometimes what you disagree with can be the most helpful.” — artist Nina Katchadourian ’89

Professionals perform students’ music continued from page 7

Freddy Lu / Herald

Two speakers in a wall of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center provide advice for students, a project developed by artist Nina Katchadourian ’89.

Anonymous advice speaks out in Campus Center continued from page 7 hairstyle,” while someone else says, “get out there and be a failure!” The responses are a mix of “very serious and heartfelt,” “very irreverent and funny” and “sometimes very controversial,” Katchadourian said to the crowd. She also said there is “a lot of advice on love.”

Sometimes this diversity in answers is not a positive thing. John Qua ’13 stated, “I hear them every morning that I work at the help desk, and they are kind of silly. A few people talk about and give advice on drugs and sex at Brown in kind of a joking manner, and I don’t think it’s very appropriate for admissions, even though some of the stories are really interesting.”

Still, “advice is an interesting thing. It is not always what you agree with that you remember. Sometimes what you disagree with can be the most helpful,” Katchadourian said in her lecture.

The advice-giver’s name and graduation year is not given to the

listener. Not knowing the adviser’s identity forces the listener not to focus on the speaker as a person, but to only to know the person through the advice. “I found it kind of creepy because there were just random people speaking to me,” said Tina Zhao ’13.

But an inherent problem with the work is that it goes unnoticed by many students who simply march on past it. “I didn’t even realize that they were up there,” said Karynn Ikeda ’10.

“The first time I heard them, I was like, ‘Who’s talking?’ So, I just wandered over and there were the voices,” Zhao said. Qua said that “the presentation of it is weird. It is very nondescript — there should be a better description or something of what you are randomly hearing from the side of a wall.”

Though there is certainly something strange about hearing unknown voices speaking, one can never know what effect advice from a stranger can have. Press an ear to the mesh speakers — and see what happens.

of the night’s pieces, with clear rises and falls.

“It’s just sort of an exciting, really fast piece,” he said. “Hopefully it sounds like a battle.”

The incorporation of staccato, forceful strokes and fast, high notes, all contributed to the combative nature of the work. The last third was especially strong, marked by forceful piano playing with sinister, quick notes from the other instruments.

A great deal of tension was built up with crescendoing sound that suddenly cut off to end the piece, leaving the audience hanging in suspense.

After a short interval, Lyn Goeringer GS, Bevin Kelley GS and Kevin Patton GS all gave performances of original compositions.

In “Streetlight Study,” Goeringer amplified the sound of a sodium halide lamp and manipulated it using a soundboard and other equipment. Her piece began by putting

the audience in complete darkness, increasing the light and sound of the lamp gradually throughout the piece and ending by shutting the lights off again. Kelley’s “Solar Rattle” was indeed rattling at times, with crashing symbols and clanging chimes colliding with warped and very highpitched electronic sounds. Patton’s “Pulse Grip” began with a sci-fi-like high-pitched noise and went on to include tingling electronic sounds mixed with rhythmic and pulsating beats.

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Tuesday, November 2, 2010

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

New TA pay policies trouble alum To the Editor: I was troubled to read about the new TA pay policies being imposed on the computer science department (“New TA pay plan sparks protests from CS department,” Oct. 28).

While at Brown, I worked as an undergraduate TA in the CS department for about as long as one can: I started TA’ing CS4 the spring of my freshman year, and I worked as a TA and Head TA all the way through to graduation.

Being a TA was hands down the single most enriching and lasting experience of my Brown education.

The value of the program was in no small part due to the rigor and professionalism it demanded — learning to assume the responsibilities of the real world, with mentorship and guidance, is what college is all about, isn’t it?

I am not sure why the University

feels compelled to get involved in the minutiae of how many hours a TA works weekly and whether he or she is paid on a stipend or hourly. This is, after all, the same University that conscientiously eschews almost all other involvement in its students’ academic lives. I assure you, these TAs are not working against their will. In fact, in my experience the most demanding courses to TA always had the most competitive hiring pools.

At best, I fear this program is bound to be ineffective — the TAs will simply work as they have and report a prescribed number of hours. At worst, it will undermine a valuable program that promotes education, mentorship, collaboration and community in the CS and other departments.

John Goodwin ’04 Oct. 28

alex yuly

e d i to r i a l

Get out the youth vote

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Most of the upperclassmen can remember a chilly but clear November night in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States.

We watched, full of anticipation, as the votes were tallied and the historic win was announced. Many of us celebrated together, cheering on the Main Green and the steps of the Statehouse.

Fast-forward two years to this November’s midterm election. We don’t imagine that so many students will be glued to their television screens Tuesday night. While some students actively keep up with candidates’ progress toward Election Day, the level of awareness among the general student population is nowhere near its peak of a few years ago.

Where there was once enthusiasm, there now seems to be apathy — and not just at Brown. According to a recent Politico article, Rock the Vote was only able to register 280,000 new young voters for this year’s midterm election, down significantly from the 2.5 million that it registered in 2008. Other polling data in the Politico story indicates that youth voter turnout will probably decline significantly this year.

We’ve heard lots of different theories about what has happened. Is it that fierce partisanship over the last two years has replaced our hope with cynicism?

Is it that the sweeping reform we expected has not come to pass, and thus we think the importance of our votes is diminished? Or is it that the celebrity factor surrounding the historic 2008 race is missing in 2010? Without will.i.am directing star-studded music videos promoting candidates, there is less

glamour associated with filling out a ballot. And perhaps students who live in one state and go to school in another feel disconnected from the state and local races occurring this year.

While all these theories might explain the apparent apathy, they don’t justify it. We hope that students at Brown will take time to reflect on the reasons they voted in 2008 and consider the potential impact they could have on this year’s election outcomes. With a polling station in Salomon, inconvenience is certainly not a valid excuse.

We’ve learned a lot over the last two years, but right now one lesson in particular stands out: We can’t expect our greatest hopes and ambitions for this country will be realized as a result of one election.

And if you’re not motivated by a particular issue or candidate or the general call to civic duty, at least consider the stakes. Regardless of your political affiliation, right now is simply too critical of a time to remain on the sidelines. The direction of the country is being shaped, and citizens must do the shaping.

Instead of being jaded by the seeming stalemate in Washington, we must see this round of elections as yet another possible game-changer and actively participate in the political process. Whether voting in Rhode Island or by absentee ballot, let’s defy this year’s predictions about youth voter turnout and prove that the voices of young people will be heard.

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

Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

Caleigh Forbes, Julien Ouellet, Chong Yang, Designers Abby Kerson, Claire Luchette, Sahil Luthra, Copy Editors Rebecca Ballhaus, Britta Greene, Sarah Mancone, Mark Raymond, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Ana Alvarez, Ashley Aydin, Rebecca Ballhaus, Alexander Bell, Nicole Boucher, Fei Cai, Kristina Fazzalaro, Sarah Mancone, Claire Peracchio, Lindor Qunaj, Mark Raymond, Luisa Robledo, Caitlin Trujillo Staff Writers Anna Andreeva, Anne Artley, Anita Badejo, Casey Bleho, Amy Chen, Alicia Dang, Sarah Forman, Miriam Furst, Max Godnick, Thomas Jarus, Julia Kim, Kristina Klara, Leonardo Moauro, Emily Rosen, Bradley Silverman, Anne Simons, Alexandra Ulmer, Qian Yin Senior Sales Executives Katie Galvin, Liana Nisimova, Isha Gulati, Samantha Wong Sales Associates Roshni Assomull, Brady Caspar, Anna Cook, Siena deLisser, Begum Ersan, Tommy Fink, Ryan Fleming, Evan Gill, Debbie Lai, Jason Lee, Katie Lynch, Sean Maroongroge, Zahra Merchant, Edjola Ruci, Webber Xu Senior Finance Associates Jason Beckman, Mae Cadao, Adam Fern, Krystle Onibokun Finance Associates Lisa Berlin, Mahima Chawla, Mark Hu, Jason Lee, Justin Lee, Kevin Lynch, Jennifer Morgan, Sam Plotner, Nicholas Robbins, Dan Seder, Daniel Slutsky, Emily Zheng Design Staff Rebecca Ballhaus, Caleigh Forbes Web Staff Warren Jin, Claire Kwong, Adam Zethraeus Photo Staff Alex DePaoli, Emily Gilbert, Katie Green, Freddy Lu, Glenn Lutzky, Evan Thomas Copy Editors Ted Burke, Corinne Cathcart, David Chung, Olivia Conetta, Carrie Craven, Max Ernst, Nicole Grabel, Jeffrey Handler, Emma Janaskie, Bridget Jeong, Jenny Kaplan, Abby Kerson, Juhee Kwon, Claire Luchette, Sahil Luthra, Shefali Luthra, Katie MacDougald, Alexandra Nuttbrown, Elizabeth Orr, Katrina Phillips, Amy Rasmussen, Winnie Wang, Emma Wohl Editorial Page Board Members Anita Mathews, Melissa Shube, Gaurie Tilak

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 | Page 11

Actually, let’s talk about sex SARAH YU Opinions Columnist I spent my formative adolescent years at an absurdly secular and progressive educational institution. One very important thing that my school’s curriculum did to prepare me for my journey into the real world was provide honest, effective and informative sex education.

Some of my contemporaries may argue that frankness in educating young people on such a sensitive issue as sex will lead to hyper-sexuality and bad decisions made by young people with plenty of hormones. I beg to differ — in fact, after being shown the banana demonstration at least twice a year for six years, the prospect of sex didn’t even seem exciting anymore.

After arriving at Brown, I found myself amongst a group of students from all different educational backgrounds. A conversation with some friends way back in freshman year somehow transformed into a discussion of our experiences with sex education. I was surprised to hear that many of my friends, mostly international students, had never been exposed to the rigorous sex talk that I had taken for granted. Many of them did not even know about the fundamental basics of safe sex.

It was interesting and refreshing to read the opinion that Yue Wang ’12 advocates in her column “Let’s talk about love” (Oct. 15).

While I agree with her on the issue of the empty, unconstructive and worrisome na-

ture of casual, rather than meaningful, sex, I think that Wang’s take on the multitude of sex-oriented lectures, discussions and events at Brown is skewed.

It is probably safe to assume that young people between the ages of 18 and 22 have more than just a passing interest in sex, and that social contexts such as fraternity parties, bars and clubs on “college night” do provide the perfect opportunity for students to participate in some liberal experimentation. However, FemSex workshops, Sex Week and Post- magazine columns should

(especially when they are around other curious young people) the importance of safe sex, and bringing everyone up to the same level of education about such issues. Sex education, with its hard facts about health and safety, does not conflict with romance.

Instead, it gives students some vital information and preparation about self-protection and self-awareness in a, as Wang puts it, “young and libidinal population.”

I do believe that Brown has a lot to improve on this front — for an institution that holds diversity so dearly to it heart, there is

For an institution that holds diversity so dearly to heart, there is very little acknowledgement that not every student comes to Brown with the same liberal ideas and same level of safe sex knowledge. not be seen as expressions of Brown students’ overwhelming desire to engage only in casual sex, or that we prioritize sex above emotion. Rather, I welcome the existence of such liberal forums for the discussion of sex as it shows that Brown students, for the most part, are accepting of and comfortable about discussing sex in the first place.

What Wang would like to reform with regards to sex-related events on campus is not sex education; it is sexuality education. Sex education as I see it focuses on the necessary aims of teaching curious young people

very little acknowledgment that not every student comes to Brown with the same liberal ideas and same level of safe sex knowledge. It would be wrong to assume that the more liberal sex-oriented forums on campus cater equally to all Brown students.

Many of the students the FemSex and Post- columns target are those who have already been sex-educated in liberated ways, but not those who still need to learn how to be comfortable with talking about safe sex.

Students who are in most need of safe sex education continue to remain without the

necessary knowledge of the fundamentals.

Perhaps the University can and should play a larger role in ensuring that the gap between students’ levels of sex education is narrowed. While there are resources available to students through Residential Life and Health Services, Brown does not have a college-wide, middle school style compulsory lecture on the fundamentals of safe sex. Every freshmen at Brown goes through compulsory orientation lectures on alcohol use/abuse, slavery and sexual assault, but a safe sex seminar doesn’t exist in any similar capacity. As I mentioned earlier, I identified international students as a group in which students have the largest divergences and differences in sex education prior to arriving at Brown. A safe sex workshop during international students’ orientation can go a long way in ensuring that these students can feel more comfortable if they ever accidentally stumble upon a roommate’s FemSex homework.

It will be difficult to reconcile love, sex and relationships as long as there is a divergence within the student body with regards to the degree of sex education received.

After we all feel comfortable talking about safe sex, we’ll all be on the same page when we’re talking about love, too.

Sarah Yu ’11 enjoys going to the Graduate Center Bar not because of the prospects of casual sex, but because there is good beer, good company, a pool table and a safe atmosphere. She can be reached there in person, or via email at xia_yu@brown.edu.

Is politics a laughing matter?

BY LORRAINE NICHOLSON Opinions Columnist On Saturday, October 30, so-called “rivals” Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Assembled on the National Mall in Washington D.C, the event was intended to gather all sane, moderate humans who are tired of the inflammatory discourse so prevalent in the media today. The rally served as a vehicle for the voice of the masses rising up against the 15-20 percent of Americans who “control the conversation,” as Stewart puts it. In his announcement of the event, Stewart proclaimed, “We are here. We are here, though, only until six, because we have a sitter.”

Crowd estimates, according to one Colbert source, fell somewhere between 10 million and 6 billion. (In reality, the event drew 215,000 to 250,000 people, exceeding all previous Comedy Central estimates.) Clearly, this was not your average rally on the Mall.

Some came in costumes; most came carrying signs. Stewart and Colbert, representing Sanity and Fear, respectively, battled it out on stage through songs about trains. And, while Stewart stood by his claim that the event was “a- political,” he did not hesitate to lampoon the American media. In a heartfelt closing monologue (essentially the only comedyfree moment in the entire event), Stewart proclaims, “The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen, or they can use that magnifying glass

to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous-flaming ant epidemic.”

The rally, above all, asserted the predominant role of the celebrity in the American consciousness. The proceedings were light, never digressing into political debate or rhetoric. Of course, Stewart’s power in political discourse was once again asserted. But what does it all mean? What does it mean when two of the most powerful political pundits hail from Comedy Central? What makes comedians more capable of capturing the voice of the American public than any other cable-television source?

for specific reform or give much needed support to struggling Democratic candidates, the comedic duo chose to make fun of those already in power. Rather than serving as a counterbalance to Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally, the Rally to Restore Sanity lacked political bite.

Stewart’s event was given the opportunity most other rallies on the Mall seldom get.

Sure, Stewart is charismatic, presenting a rallying point that interests people. Most importantly, however, Stewart has a cable network backing him, allowing him to be heard.

This is what separates his rally from that of the labor movement only weeks before

Rather than serve as a counterbalance to Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally, the Rally to Restore Sanity lacked political bite.

In her article for the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum wrote, “I don’t know about you, but my heart sank when I read about Jon Stewart’s Million Moderate March…

My heart sank further when I learned that liberal groups, lacking any better ideas, have decided to take this endeavor seriously.” The liberals of the world took Stewart’s event as a rallying cry. Yet the event itself remained apolitical, jovial, funny. Rather than calling

(which obviously no one heard about). In this sense, mainstream media seems a low apple to grab for a man who momentarily occupied the attention of the American public. Why not be political? The Democrats are sure to suffer major losses in today’s election. Why not beg, “please baby, one more time”?

Instead, Stewart took to mocking those who feel inclined towards political activism.

As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air described, “Basically, this is a celebration of political laziness masquerading as ironic detachment, which is something generations have enjoyed in their early adulthood without making it an industry. Instead of having making actual, serious, and developed political arguments, it’s much easier to make fun of those who do on both sides of the political divide and pretend that one is above it all.” Although obviously not the intent, the rally spit in the face of previous generations who thought of politics as something worthy of their time and passions.

And it isn’t like Stewart doesn’t have the legitimacy to make a statement. After all, President Obama appeared on his show only three days before the event. If that isn’t implicit validation, I don’t know what is. The reality is this: when given the world as a stage, Stewart chose to make us laugh. Sure, laughter is medicine. We all love to laugh. But to me at this moment, politics is no laughing matter. The elections are coming. Stewart should have embraced his role as a liberal leader and yelled for us when he had the chance. Yes, yelling can be “annoying”; We all agree on that. Agreement, however, does not make it a rallying point. Sometimes yelling is the only way to be heard over the yammer Stewart so vehemently attacks. He, of all people, should understand that.

Lorraine Nicholson ’12.5 is a literary arts concentrator from Los Angeles, Calif.

She can be contacted at Lorraine_Nicholson@brown.edu.

Today The Brown Daily Herald

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Men’s rugby team coaches local kids

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Page 12

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

7 c a l e n da r Today

SeptemBER 21

12 p.m.

ToMORROW

SeptemBER 22

5 p.m.

Sex Work: Culture, Politics and

Dinner Date with Professor

Law, Salomon Center 003

Sarah Delaney, Science Center

3 p.m.

1

7 p.m.

Do Swimming Animals Mix the

“Fair Game” Screening/Q&A,

Ocean?, Barus & Holley, Room 190

Salomon Center, Room 101

comics menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

Bat & Gaz | Sofia Ortiz

LUNCH Italian Beef Noodle Casserole, Apricot Beef with Sesame Noodles, Butterscotch Chip Cookies

Hot Ham on a Bulkie Roll, Vegetarian Pot Pie, Spinach with Lemon, Butterscotch Chip Cookies

DINNER Vegan Chana Masala, Curry Chicken with Coconut, Asian Veggie Blend, Raspberry Bars

Roast Beef au Jus, Vegan Vegetable Couscous, Roasted Rosemary Potatoes, Raspberry Bars

crossword The Adventures of Team Vag | Wendy Kwartin

Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

Classic Trust Ben | Ben Leubsdorf