Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxlv, no. 120 | Wednesday, December 1, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Simmons, students speak at DREAM Act rally One Hill, two degrees: the Brown/RISD experience

By Greg Jordan-Detamore Contributing Writer

A group of students and professors, joined by President Ruth Simmons, rallied on the steps of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center at noon Tuesday, urging U.S. senators to pass the DREAM Act. Two undocumented immigrant students spoke about their struggles, and Simmons and two professors expressed their support for the legislation.

The rally was organized by the Brown Immigrant Rights Coalition, a group of students, faculty and community members engaging in advocacy work around immigration issues.

Under the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, young people who have been in the countr y for at least five years and hold a high school degree would be given provisional immigrant status. They would then

By Rebecca Ballhaus Senior Staff Writer

years, he added. The goal is to make Brown’s campus a place where people do not come to commit crimes, he said.

The Department of Public Safety has focused its efforts on making students, faculty and staff informed about issues of campus safety and making them “a true partner” in keeping the campus safe, said Paul

Beth Soucy ’13 had always loved both art and academics, but when she started applying to colleges, her parents advised her to view art as more of a hobby. When she found out about the dual degree program at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design, which allows students to live, take classes at and earn a degree from both institutions, “it just made too much sense,” she said.

The highly selective program, now in its third year, is flourishing as more and more students join its ranks each year, looking for an outlet for both their creative and academic energy.

The idea for the program is not a new one. “Faculty at RISD and Brown have been supporting interdisciplinary work for years,” said Stephen Lassonde, deputy dean of the College and co-chair of the program. Before the program’s creation in 2008, four students actually transferred back and forth between the two schools over five years and ultimately earned a degree from each — precisely what students in the dual degree program achieve.

One of these students, Sarah Faux ’08, attended the design school for two years. During her second year,

continued on page 2

continued on page 3

Lydia Yamaguchi / Herald

President Ruth Simmons signed a letter to Rhode Island’s senators in support of the DREAM Act at Tuesday’s rally.

have six years to attain a two- or four-year college degree or complete two years of military service, after which they would be able to

apply for citizenship.

A group of about 50 students sat on the Faunce House steps behind the speakers. They held

signs with phrases such as “Immigrant rights are human rights” continued on page 2

Survey finds students are not afraid of the dark

By Anne Simons Staff Writer

Brown, like any urban campus, is vulnerable to the dangers of the city. But students seem to feel fairly confident about their safety, according to last month’s Herald poll.

Only about 10 percent of students surveyed said they felt unsafe on campus, while about 90 percent said they felt safe on campus at night. Of

those surveyed, 96.7 percent of men and 84.3 percent of women said they felt safe on campus at night.

her native city, Istanbul.

“We feel quite good about” the poll results, said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, senior vice president for Corporation affairs and governance and a member of a University committee formed to examine pedestrian safety on campus.

The fact that most students feel safe reflects the improvements and expansions the University has made to campus safety measures in recent

THE HERALD POLL Natali Senocak ’13 also told The Herald she felt safe on campus. While other parts of Providence might be less safe than the East Side, she said the city in general “feels small and safe,” especially when compared with

Men’s basketball splits two on the week

By Sam Rubinroit Sports Staff Writer

After getting off to its best start in 10 years, the men’s basketball team played two tough games last week, defeating St. Francis 67-63 and falling to New Hampshire 70-66.

Sam Rubinroit / Herald

inside

Forward Peter Sullivan ’11 helped the Bears to victory against St. Francis last Wednesday.

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Brown 67, St. Francis 63 Entering last Wednesday’s game against St. Francis, Bruno had a record of 2-1, its best start since the 2000-01 season when the team earned an NIT berth. Bruno pulled ahead early in the game, and by halftime led by 15 points. Nonetheless, the Terriers (1-3) were resilient and pulled within one point with just over a minute left. Bruno was able to fend off the advances, and clutch free throws in the last minute preserved the victory.

“They kind of sped up the speed of the game and they started press-

ing, and when they picked up the pressure it kind of forced us to play faster than we would have liked,” said for ward Peter Sullivan ’11.

“In the first half, we played at our own pace, but in the second half we played at their pace so that allowed them to come back into the game.

Thankfully, we were able to hold out at the end and make free throws and big plays down the stretch.”

SPORTS Forward Tucker Halpern ’13 led the Bears with 15 points and added three rebounds and two assists.

Guard Garrett Leffelman ’11 was Bruno’s second leading scorer with 13 points, and guard Sean McGonagill ’14 contributed 11 points and a team-high four assists. Forward Andrew McCarthy ’13 led the team with seven rebounds in addition to eight points.

“It was a great win,” said Head Coach Jesse Agel. “We played very well out of the gate, and we had another real good first half, defensively and offensively. We had a great lift off the bench from a couple guys and then made plays down the stretch, enough to win the game.”

UNH 70, Brown 66 Despite trailing by 10 points at the half on Saturday, Bruno clawed its way back to take a one-point lead with just under two minutes remaining. But with the score tied at 66-66, New Hampshire (4-2) center Dane DiLiegro scored a layup with under three seconds remaining to clinch the win.

“We should have won that game,” Sullivan said. “In the first half we got down by 10 points and continued on page 4

(Com)passion

Strong start

Sports’ harms

Physician brings poetry and passion to campus talk

Fencing teams sport winning records at conference

Being part of Brown’s sports teams may not be as fun as it seems

Campus news, 2

SPORTS, 6

Opinions, 11

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

“By no fault of my own I am being denied basic human rights.”— Christian ’11, undocumented student

Most students feel safe on campus Simmons, students, profs continued from page 1 Shanley, deputy chief of the department. Reducing the number of targets of crimes out on streets late at night is a very important component of reducing crime in the area, he said.

Recent years have seen expansions of safety-related services on campus and in the number of Brown police officers, Shanley said.

In addition to the commonly known services including SafeWalk and SafeRide, the University also provides a mobile alert system and self-defense classes, among other programs, Carey said. Though the University gets good feedback on is SafeRide service, administrators would like to see more community members taking advantage of all the services offered, he said.

DPS tracks its own success at campus safety largely by the number of crimes that occur on or around the campus, Carey said. The number of violent street crimes has been cut in half over the last five years, he said.

The department also did its own survey through the Office of Institutional Research about campus safety as part of the University’s 2009 reaccreditation process. It found that 95.1 percent of respondents felt at least generally safe at Brown, a figure even higher than that found by The Herald’s poll.

The Undergraduate Council of Students works on behalf of students to improve campus safety, and makes it a priority, as a student government and as students concerned about their own safety, said Diane Mokoro ’11, the council’s president.

The council has been “making advances” in negotiating with the University to develop an alternate

How safe or unsafe do you feel walking on campus at night?

Julien Ouellet and Rebecca Ballhaus / Herald

SafeRide route that would run the opposite direction from the current one, Mokoro said. But the vans might have to decrease their frequency as a result, she said.

UCS has also been advocating for an expanded SafeWalk program to make walkers available at earlier and later times or on more days, Mokoro said.

Even if many students do not actually take advantage of the walking services, SafeWalk student workers also serve the function of being around on campus after dark, providing more people on the ground whose concern is safety and who have direct access to DPS to report incidents, Mokoro said.

Senocak has been escorted by SafeWalk, but more because the student workers are fun to talk to than because she felt unsafe, she said. One of her roommates took the self-defense

sudoku

class but has never had to use what she learned, she said.

One component of campus safety students may not think of first is the safety of pedestrian traffic. Following a few tragic incidents that raised questions about pedestrian safety on campus, Carey announced the creation of a committee to examine the issue. The committee has focused on improving both physical aspects of pedestrian safety, like crosswalk paint and appropriate signage, and on educating pedestrians and drivers alike about their rights and responsibilities, Carey said.

Going forward, the University will continue to work to improve its safety programs and patrol operations, to raise awareness of the services available and to advise community members on how they can be safer, Carey said. “There’s always room for improvement,” he said.

The Herald poll was conducted Nov. 1–2 and has a 3.0 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence.

For the subset of men, the margin of error is 4.2 percent. For the subset of women, the margin of error is 4.1 percent. A total of 915 students completed the poll, which The Herald distributed as a written questionnaire in the University Mail Room in J. Walter Wilson and the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center during the day and the Sciences Library at night.

rally for DREAM Act continued from page 1

and “We are ALL immigrants.”

“By law, I am illegal,” Steve ’12 told the crowd. “Driver’s licenses and jobs have always been impossibilities.”

Steve, who declined to give his last name, came to this country at the age of one, he said. When he was a child, his mother told him that they did not have Permanent Resident Cards, or green cards.

When Steve was applying for college, he faced a challenge because applications asked for a social security number, something he did not have.

“I learned and mastered the English language,” he said. “I immersed myself in the American culture.”

Steve said that he fears what will happen to him after he graduates from Brown and has to tr y to get a job.

Christian ’11, another undocumented student who declined to give his last name, echoed Steve’s remarks. “I can’t help but feel sad about my uncertain future,” he said.

He also said that he and others like him came to this countr y as a result of their parents’ choice.

“By no fault of my own, I am being denied basic human rights,” he said.

Christian said that he wants to be able to live a productive life.

“I want to work for this country,” he said.

Simmons came to the rally to express her support for the DREAM Act. “The passage of this bill would provide access to higher education for thousands of students,” she said.

“We have to lift our voices, we have to make them heard,” she said. She added that the act’s supporters “cannot afford to be discouraged.”

Students seemed to appreciate Simmons’ support for this issue. “It’s really helpful that she’s taking a public role in this,” said Lucy Boltz ’12.5, a BIRC member and one of the event organizers.

At the end of the rally, Simmons and more than a dozen faculty members signed a letter that BIRC members are sending to Rhode Island’s two senators.

The DREAM Act “has the power to strengthen our country in ways both measurable and immeasurable,” the letter reads.

“I think it is important to organize to gather support for a piece of legislation that will open opportunity to a group of young people who have no way of fulfilling their dreams without the opportunity to gain a path to citizenship,” said Professor of Sociology Jose Itzigsohn, who attended the event and signed the letter.

“The kids have grown here, they are part of our society,” said Professor of Education Cynthia Garcia Coll, also a signator y to the letter. “They work, and they go against any obstacle.”

Before and after the event, several BIRC members were stationed at a table in the lobby of J. Walter Wilson, informing students about the DREAM Act and urging them to call key senators in support of the bill, said Alejo Stark ’12, one of the students staffing the table.

Christian told The Herald the event was conceived several days before Thanksgiving break.

Because of the upcoming vote, groups across the countr y have been organizing events in support of the bill. “We want to do our own part here in Rhode Island,” he said.

“I thought it was amazing,” said VyVy Trinh ’11, a BIRC member. “It’s really cool to see people from all backgrounds out here.”

Juan Martinez-Hill ’12, a BIRC member who attended the event, said that he thinks the DREAM Act needs to be passed as soon as possible, but that it is just a first step in more comprehensive immigration legislation.

BIRC has done previous work in support of the DREAM Act. In September, they organized a similar rally in support of the bill, The Herald reported.

Arts, medicine align for poet physician

By Joseph Rosales Staff Writer

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Introducing his talk as a “poetry reading,” physician Jack Coulehan explored the intersection between creativity and the practice of medicine in a Tuesday lecture titled “Passion, Poetry, and Medicine.”

Coulehan spent the majority of his lecture telling stories of his days as a doctor in Pittsburgh and reciting poetry inspired from those experiences. He stressed that though he is not a professional poet, his creative work helped give him a refreshing take on his profession.

“For me, poetry is a natural extension,” Coulehan said. He later joked that “it’s probably kind of a genetic thing.”

In one story, Coulehan — professor emeritus of preventive medicine and senior fellow of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at Stony Brook University — told the audience of a poem he wrote for a patient who was stereotyped as an alcoholic by his physicians based solely on his looks and lack of an education. It was appropriately titled “I’m Gonna Slap Those Doctors.”

The poem allowed him to “give voice to the feelings” his patient had, Coulehan said. “That was the most therapeutic thing I did for the patient,” he added.

Coulehan read all his poems with strength and vigor, always taking the time to explain the stories behind the words. His themes included a curi-

osity as to what the world is about, feelings of fraudulence and fears of losing control.

These themes are not limited to medicine, Coulehan added.

During the question-and-answer session after the talk, the audience, made up mostly of medical students, expressed enthusiasm for the lecture.

His talk helped show that the humanities can give insights that science cannot, said Kevin Liou ’10 MD’14. “It’s about starting a dialogue,” he added.

The lecture was the first in a new series titled the Creative Physician Series. It was co-sponsored by the Cogut Center for the Humanities, the Creative Arts Council and the Department of Emergency Medicine.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Page 3

“I love the combination of art and academics.”

— Beth Soucy ’13, a dual degree student

Double the College Hill fun: the Brown/RISD dual degree program continued from page 1 she chose to take her elective liberal arts classes at Brown. “I liked the whole liberal-arts education thing so much that I transferred to Brown for junior year,” Faux wrote in an email to The Herald. “But, of course I missed RISD painting classes, which have a unique intensity. So I continued taking my studio art classes at RISD and liberal arts at Brown.”

When Faux graduated from Brown with a history of art and architecture degree, her painting professor suggested she stay one more semester at RISD to earn a second degree there. Faux re-applied to RISD, was admitted and received her degree a semester later. “Basically, I loved what both educations had to offer, and I couldn’t get enough of either,” Faux wrote. “Studying literature and art at Brown fueled my painting practice at RISD and vice versa.”

Mixing disciplines This is precisely the idea behind the dual degree program and the reason why it is so popular with students.

Lizzie Kripke ’14 knew she wanted to study “some sort of visual art” as well as “math and science things,” so she applied to a number of interdisciplinary programs. “This program is really the ideal. Each school is so

strong in its respective areas, and you get two degrees, whereas some schools just offer double degrees,” she said. Kripke is now concentrating in neuroscience at Brown and painting at RISD. For Stephanie Swart ’13, it was a defined interest in the “synthesis of ideas across disciplines” that drove her to apply, she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. She is currently concentrating in film/animation/video and cognitive science.

The program receives 500 to 600 applications each year, Lassonde said, and 15 to 18 students are ultimately accepted into the program. The applications are considered by two different admissions committees, one at RISD and one at Brown. Applicants accepted by both universities are then reviewed again.

When the program first started, the plan was to expand it to 20 students per year, Lassonde said. But just as the program was beginning, both Brown and RISD experienced significant financial losses. The program requires “a lot of administrative time and attention” since students have “pretty big obstacles to surmount,” Lassonde said, and so administrators chose not to expand yet, though they have not ruled out future expansion.

The number of applicants over the years has been increasing steadily,

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though not by a lot, Lassonde added.

“We don’t need thousands applying.

It’s a small, selective group,” he said.

The students in the program are all doing “really well academically,” Lassonde said, with no drop-outs to date.

Two social worlds The dynamic of the program, it seems, varies widely from year to year, Kripke explained. “It’s such a small group, so it depends on the individuals.”

“The current first years are all very close-knit. It’s like one big friend conglomerate,” she said. In her class year, “we’re all definitely cordial but there are more friend groups — some identify more with RISD and some more with Brown.”

She added, “I’m surprised at how diverse the attitudes are in the program — you might expect everyone to be a type-A personality, but we have a mix of really cool people. … It’s interesting to see everybody interact, to see different interests colliding.”

Swart said her year has mostly remained friends. “Now that we are juniors, everyone pretty much has their own group of friends. But we will still come back together often … it’s somewhat necessary as a ‘support system,’ ” she wrote.

Jon Hills ’13 said it’s largely dependent on where students take the

majority of their classes. “Last year, I had just about all of my classes at Brown, so I was here all the time,” he said. “When classes are pretty evenly split in junior year, I find myself dividing my time pretty evenly between the Brown and RISD communities.”

Students in the program live at RISD in their first year and then at Brown in their second year. For their third year, they get to choose where they want to live. “Students have actually split right down the middle” in choosing a campus, Lassonde said.

“Belonging to both campuses is a real concern of ours,” he added. “We want them to feel at home in both.” In this spirit, the program’s administrators are in the process of working out how to encourage students to develop a relationship with both campuses.

Evolving and reviewing Indeed, the program has evolved in the three years since its start. For example, RISD had originally mandated that students not take any Brown courses in their first year. “But we negotiated with them and persuaded them that (taking first-year classes at Brown) was a good idea,” Lassonde said. “This initial compromise set the tone for negotiations.”

The only issues students have found with the program thus far are logistical ones, arising from the program’s youth — for example, it

can be difficult to schedule Brown classes simultaneously with RISD’s Wintersession class schedule, and there are sometimes problems with the dual degree meal plan. But, Hills said, “You deal with it. … It’s nothing too serious.”

In fact, many students enjoy the fact that the program is still in its beginning stages. “Because it’s so new, they … really listen to students in structuring the program,” Kripke said. “We have a very close relationship with all our administrators and advisors. It’s really a community of peers as opposed to people just trying to struggle and grapple their way through.”

Swar t expressed a similar opinion.“The program has come a long way with improvements since I was a freshman,” she said.

As the program’s first class of students approach graduation, administrators are working on defining the capstone experience for seniors.

“We want it to be a project that expresses that interaction (between campuses),” Lassonde said.

“I love the combination of art and academics and the way that my courses sound off one another and enhance my educational experience,” Soucy said. “Everyone always asks me which school I like better but, at this point, I can’t imagine going to just one.”

SportsWednesday The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 | Page 4

w. ice hockey

After tough weekend losses, women’s hockey looks ahead

By Sudarshan Sriraman Contributing Writer

The women’s ice hockey team (2-6-2, 1-3-2 ECAC) conceded the Mayor’s Cup to Providence College (11-5-1) on Friday, losing 3-2 to its city rivals in the last game of a six-game homestead. The Bears then fell 2-1 to Northeastern University (9-3-4) on Sunday as they began a grueling series of games on the road. Forward Laurie Jolin ’13 was one of the highlights of the weekend, scoring all three goals for the team.

Jonathan Bateman / Herald

Forward Jessica Hoyle ’14 kept her eyes on the action over the weekend.

Providence College 3, Brown 2 With four minutes left to play in the first period, Brown’s everimproving offense took the lead courtesy of Jolin, who used the opportunity offered by defender Paige Pyett ’12 and tri-captain for ward Erica Kromm ’11 to find the back of the net. Seven minutes into the second period, Bruno found itself in a penalty kill situation and goalie Katie Jamieson ’13 was called on to make a number of saves against the circling Friar offense, who maintained relentless pressure. But moments after the power play ended, PC defender Jennifer Friedman fired a shot through a screen to beat Jamieson and even the score.

The Friars surged to take a 2-1 lead four minutes later when forward Kate Bacon slapped a loose puck past Jamieson at close range.

Stung into action, Brown launched an immediate counterattack and equalized less than a minute later, as Jolin notched her second goal of the game, this time assisted by defender Jennifer Nedow ’14. Both teams fought hard defensively, and the second period ended in a deadlock.

Both teams came out fired up for the third period, with rapid advances up the ice and precise passing as well as continued excellent defensive play. As the clock ticked down, it looked like the evenly-matched teams would continue their contest into overtime.

But with just 59 seconds on the clock, PC forward Ashley Cottrell received a clean pass from co-captain Alyse Ruff, who had just won the faceoff. Cottrell hammered the puck toward the Brown goal, only to see Jamieson block it with her pad.

Jamieson was unable to cover the loose puck, which Cottrell slapped over Jamieson’s outstretched leg to give PC a 3-2 lead.

Though Bruno pulled the goalie and maintained great pressure on the Friar goal in the dying moments of the match, the team was unable to find the equalizer to take the game to overtime.

“It was kind of unlucky,” Kromm said of the loss. “But then, the last minute is always the most important — a lot of mistakes happened that led to that faceoff,” referring to the pivotal matchup that led to the third goal.

Northeastern 2, Brown 1 Brown’s first game on the road after six straight games on home ice ended in defeat against the Northeastern Huskies, though not without encouraging signs for the Bears.

A characteristically strong Brown defense ensured a scoreless first period before Rachel Llanes finally found a way past goalie Aubree Moore ’14 with 12 minutes to go in the second period.

Despite Moore’s strong performance, which saw her record 44 saves, the Huskies’ offense proved unstoppable when Siena Falino found the back of the net early in the third period. Though Brown rallied late in the period as Jolin recorded her third goal of the weekend with two minutes to go, ultimately Bruno’s desperate final assault proved insufficient to score the tying goal.

The Bears came heartbreakingly close, though, with 30 seconds left in the game. A shot by Jacquie Pierri ’12 found the back of the net, but the apparent goal was negated by the officials, who ruled that Pierri’s glove had knocked the puck out before crossing the goal line.

After a few disappointing losses in the last few games, Brown will look ahead to tough conference away games at Quinnipiac and Princeton next week.

“The next two games are really big for us in the league standings,” Kromm said. “We will need to improve in all areas — both defense and offense need to be on the same page. We need to bring that desperation we are showing when we are down right from the minute the game starts in the first period.”

M. basketball

M. basketball wins against St. Francis, falls to UNH continued from page 1 it was really that slow start that ended up losing us that game. …

It was a true test for our team and luckily we were able to battle back.

We had the opportunity to win, but unfortunately they made a play at the last second that edged them over us.”

Sullivan led the team with 20 points and 8 rebounds, propelling him to 18th place on the Brown all-time scoring list. Halpern was the second-leading scorer with 15 points, and tied forward Tyler Ponticelli ’13 with 5 rebounds.

“Every loss is hard, no matter whether it’s a last shot,” Agel said.

“We really battled and it was a heck of a game. They just made one more play than us at the end of the game.”

The Bears return to action on

Thursday when they travel to Connecticut to face Hartford in a difficult match-up.

“It’ll be another tough game,” Agel said. “We’re on the road and the home team wins almost 70 percent of the time in college basketball, so we’ll have to play well for 40 minutes. But we’re defending well, we’re rebounding well, and doing a lot of good things.”

After earning the best start in ten years, the team is prepared for what is still to come.

“It’s exciting,” Sullivan said “We know we have a good team this year, and to be off to the best start in ten years, that’s pretty special. I think it’s giving us a lot of motivation to keep working hard in practice and every single day so that we can getting these wins and see where it takes us this season.”

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wednesdsay, december 1, 2010

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S ports W ednesday

Page 5

“It was a bit of a wake-up call.” — Coach Peter Brown, on the swim team’s disappointing loss

research abroad

Jonathan Bateman / Herald

Conor Carlucci ’11 won three races at Brown’s first meet at home this season against Dartmouth.

swimming

Teams look to improve after losses at home

By Ashley McDonnell Assistant Sports Editor

Max Monn / Herald

The Leadership Alliance sponsored a talk Tuesday in the Science Center on possible student summer research away from Brown.

w. basketball

Squad played hard, but fell in Thanksgiving tourney

By Madeleine Wenstrup Sports Staff Writer

While most Brown students headed home for food and family reunions, the women’s basketball team set off to New Rochelle, N.Y., for the Iona Thanksgiving Tournament.

The Bears (2-4) put up a tough fight, challenging Iona College (1-4) and UMBC (2-5), but were defeated in both games, falling 73-67 and 75-55, respectively.

The Bears went into the Thanksgiving tournament fresh from a victory in their home opener against Bryant University (0-5) last Tuesday.

In the fight against the host Iona, Bruno held an advantage for over half the game, but a final surge by the Gaels proved to be too much.

The Bears held a seven-point advantage, 41-34, midway through the second half, but Iona’s came back to grab a delicate lead with eight minutes left in the game. They increased their lead to 12 and Brown started to fight back, but their efforts came too late and the Gaels eked out a win, 73-67.

“Even when Iona went on their runs we were able to fight our way back and regain our lead,” said guard Lindsay Steele ’12. “In the end, it was a tough battle that didn’t go our way.”

The Bears never held a large advantage, but their lead was steady and was consistently supported by shots from leading scorers Lindsay Nickel ’13 and Sheila Dixon ’13. The sophomore duo put up 20 points apiece for Bruno in the first game.

For her total of 26 points over the weekend, Nickel was named to the

All-Tournament Team.

In the game against UMBC, the Bears played gritty defense to try and stop UMBC’s three highscorers that drained two-thirds of the Retriever’s field goals.

“As a team, we really stepped up our defense,” Steele said, “We were continued on page 6

In their first home meet of the year, the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams lost close matches to Dartmouth, 151-149 and 156144, respectively, the weekend of Nov. 20.

Men’s and women’s Head Coach Peter Brown said he had higher hopes for both teams.

“I was disappointed,” he said.

“Individually, we had good performances, but as a team we didn’t do well. It was a bit of a wake-up call.”

On the men’s side, tri-captain Conor Carlucci ’11 led the team, winning both the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke and the 100 butterfly. In the 100 breaststroke, teammate Michael McVicker ’13 came in second, and in the 100 butterfly, Thomas Glenn ’14 trailed only a second behind Carlucci.

The only other race in which the men took the top two spots was the 100 freestyle. James Hunter ’12 came in first with a time of 52.63 seconds, with teammate Timothy Juhn ’12 following less than a second later. Hunter also won the 200 freestyle.

The last race, the 400 freestyle relay, decided the winner. It was a prime example of what Brown said was the team’s failure to work well together, since the team’s showing allowed the Big Green to take first and third in the event and win the meet by two points.

“It’s been a while since we’ve lost to them,” said Brown. “We’re a much better team than what we showed — we didn’t show up. Dartmouth showed up, and that’s why they won.”

The women took the top three spots in three events — the 100 and 200 breaststroke and the 50

freestyle. Though the women never allowed Dartmouth to win all top three spots, the Big Green came in first in 10 of the 17 events and performed well in diving. Dartmouth diver Katy Feng broke the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth pool records in both the one-meter and three-meter diving events.

“The team that I had been seeing at other meets was not the team I saw this past time,” Brown said.

“But the silver lining is, as they say, that sometimes when you win, you’re never as good as you think you are, and when you lose, you’re never as bad as you think you are.”

The next meet for both teams will be at the Princeton Invitational, starting Friday. Brown said he hopes both teams will be “more together” at the invitational.

“When we are together, we’re going to be pretty darn good,” he said.

Page 6

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S ports W ednesday message in the d u st

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

W. basketball falls twice in tournament play continued from page 5

Max Monn / Herald

Chalk writing appeared all over campus this week bearing the markings “AKA, 1908, 12/4/10.”

able to cut into their lead several times.”

UMBC’s lead was immediate and unwavering and several jump shots put the Bears behind early. A group of talented shooters, UMBC shot 45 percent from the field and 60 percent from behind the threepoint line.

With five minutes remaining in the first half, a layup and free throw

by Nickel brought Bruno’s deficit down to ten. UMBC’s high scorer, guard Michelle Kurowski, scored eight points in the final minutes of the half and the Retrievers went into halftime with a 16-point lead.

Kurowski ended the game with 25 points and with the help of her other high-scoring teammates — ­ Erin Brown with 14 and Meghan

Colabella with 10 — Brown never came close in the second half.

“They controlled the tempo,” said Head Coach Jean Burr. “We scored well with our half-court execution, but we weren’t able to use pressure on them.”

Despite the losses over the weekend, Burr was impressed by the offensive efforts overall last week.

“We scored the most points we have yet this season,” she said. “We are starting to gel offensively and this week we had 3-4 double digit scorers, which really shows unselfish play.”

The Bears return home this weekend to host the Brown BEAR Basketball Classic at the Pizzitola Sports Center. They face in-state rival Providence College on Friday at 7 p.m. and the University of Florida on Saturday at 2 p.m.

fencing

Men’s, women’s teams come out strong in MIT fencing tournament

By Alex Mittman Contributing Writer

The women’s fencing team went a perfect 5-0, and the men posted a 3-2 record in the first half of the

Northeast Fencing Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Nov. 20.

The women’s team dominated all their opponents, defeating Boston University 21-6 , Sacred Heart

University 21-6, University of New Hampshire 19-8 and Wellesley 18-9.

Men’s fencing demolished BU and University of Massachusetts at Amherst by an impressive score of 24-3 and took down UNH 22-5. The male fencers were narrowly defeated by Boston College and SHU, dropping 14-13 decisions in each case.

In the standard group tournament, squads of three in each weapon compete against another school’s trio. Each member fences in three bouts, resulting in nine bouts per weapon and 27 total bouts against the opposing school. Each bout is short­— the first to five touches on the opponent wins.

“There’s no room for mistake,” Head Coach Atilio Tass said. “You have to have the right moment.”

Cory Abbe ’13, one of the strongest fencers on the women’s epee squad, won 17 out of her 18 bouts ­— the most bouts by any single fencer on the Brown team. Overall, the squad won 44 bouts out of 54, led by Abbe and Laney Caldwell ’14, who went 15-2 on the day.

“We fenced our best,” Abbe said.

“I was hoping we’d win them all.”

She said she thought that Wellesley, BC and SHU were the strongest teams in the competition, other than Brandeis, who won the women’s NFC overall last season.

Abbe also noted the difference in performance between the saber team and the foil and epee squads.

The saber team won just 26 out of its 52 bouts.

“We might not be getting in as many victories with saber, so foil and epee tried to make up for it,” she said.

Four of the six members of the women’s saber team are walk-ons with little fencing experience.

But Andrea Sassenrath ’14 of the saber squad maintained a positive outlook. She said that she was “getting the hang of it” and that, though the squad was two-thirds freshmen, the other school’s squads “couldn’t really tell, I hope.” Sassenrath compiled a 2-5 record at the event.

“That’s our one area to ... build it up,” Coach Tass said. For now, he said “the one holding up the flag” is Caitlin Taylor ’13. Taylor went 14-1 in the tournament.

Women’s foil achieved the same score as women’s epee, 44-10. Avery Nackman ’13 went undefeated in 14 bouts, Kathryn Hawrot ’14 won 13 of 14 and captain Yukiko Kunitomo ’12 took 10 of 13 bouts.

Men’s foil did well last weekend as well, winning 36 of 45 bouts. Men’s saber went 33 out of 45 in another impressive showing. The saber squad included Brandon Tomasso ’13, a promising newcomer who started fencing last year and who said he was “very impressed” by his new teammates’ performances. Tomasso finished with a record of 3-2.

Clarence Ho ’14, a newcomer on the epee squad that took 27 of their 45 bouts, cited the strong epee teams at SHU and BC as reasons for the team’s uneven results.

“We could’ve done better,” he said, but noted that he still thought Brown’s epee lineup was strong.

When asked if this was a good start to the team season, Coach Tass had no direct reply. But he did point to the first-place trophy from last year’s NFC, which now stands prominently in his office.

World & Nation The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 | Page 8

Some find their GEDs aren’t what they paid for

By Laurel Walker Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE — Becky Ploense’s job was eliminated in 2002, so she figured it was a good time to raise her chances of re-employment and get the high school diploma she never finished.

As the mother of a teenager, she liked the convenience of an online program that allowed her to work from her Hartland, Wis., home. She enrolled with her credit card, was assessed monthly payments totaling about $500, was sent study materials by mail and completed her work online. It took her about four months to finish the courses in math, reading, social studies, science and English.

But she did not get what she thought she had paid for — her GED, or General Educational Development credential.

She went back to work for another seven years but, last December, lost her job as a team leader when Maysteel LLC in Menomonee Falls, Wis., closed.

Ploense, now 44, approached Anthem College, formerly HighTech Institute, in Brookfield, Wis., with hopes of studying massage therapy.

That’s when she got the bad news. Her “GED” wasn’t recognized as a legitimate high school education credential. She couldn’t enroll.

It’s a story that state and national education officials say is all too common at a time when the many unemployed need a high school diploma or GED for their job search or expect to use it as a basis for getting advanced education.

An estimated 39 million Americans, 18 percent of the population, do not have a high school diploma.

“It’s a huge issue nationally,” said CT Turner of the American Council on Education’s GED Testing Ser vice. GEDs are issued through nationally standardized test administered at test sites — never online — around the country.

In Wisconsin, every technical college offers the preparation and testing for about $75.

The program has issued repeated reports and warnings on consumers who find themselves in the same situation that Ploense Robert Enghagen, Wisconsin’s GED testing program administrator in the Department of Public Instruction, said he hears about dubious and uncredentialed online programs all the time. In some cases, there’s a fine print, or a line several clicks removed on the websites, stating that their diploma isn’t a GED.

The online programs are convenient, which is a selling point to many.

Enghagen named John Adams Virtual School as an example of an uncredentialed program. In September, its website update included a section titled, “You Can Get You (sic) High School Equivalency Diploma Online.”

It stated: “Looking for a way to take a high school equivalency test online? You cannot take the GED test online but have to go to a testing center. This usually entails a high fee and a day off of work. ... If you are looking for a way to get your high school education online, you should look into getting a high school equivalency diploma.

A high school equivalency diploma is just like a GED.” Another is Stratford Career Institute _ where Ploense got her diploma. Its website outlines its high school diploma course work in social studies, American history, American government, science, math, English and electives.

In fine print at the bottom of the web page, it states: “Although this program offers a comprehensive range of subject matter, please note that it is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for state-sponsored High School and GED programs. ... Stratford’s program is intended for career advancement purposes.”

Judy King, lead instructor of basic skills who works with many GED students at Waukesha County Technical College, said Ploense’s case was only one of a cluster she’s encountered recently.

One woman had spent two years of work and $2,000 on the mail-order diploma, only to find out it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.

“It seems like such a scam to prey on people who are vulnerable,” King said.

Last year 422 students at the Waukesha college obtained their GED, a more advanced high school diploma or an adult high school diploma through the last high school they attended, combined with courses at the technical school.

Having found her online degree useless, Ploense enrolled in the Waukesha college GED preparation program in September. She finally earned it this month and has decided to work toward a higher level of high school diploma through extra classes there.

Next stop after that, she said, is to finish her enrollment in the Anthem College massage therapy program.

“A whole weight has been lifted off my shoulders now,” she said.

“The easiest route isn’t always the best one.”

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Colleges pressed to give course credit for work experience

By Jon Marcus The Hechinger Report

SEATTLE — Laid off at the start of the recession as the marketing director for a regional homebuilder, Leah Schedin quickly realized she lacked something essential for a new job: a university degree.

Schedin had completed courses here and there at a community college, but never enough for a bachelor’s degree. Without one, she found, her 18 years of experience didn’t matter.

“These days, you’re applying online, and you’re filtered out as soon as you get to the question about whether you have a degree,” said the 46-year-old, who’s married and has a teenage daughter.

So Schedin put her talents to work finding a university where she could get academic credit for her work experience. She found one: City University of Seattle, a private, nonprofit institution that’s at the vanguard of a movement catering to the growing numbers of adult learners and military veterans who are changing careers in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. At the end of next semester, she’ll head back into the churning job market with a four-year degree in marketing after just 18 months.

Universities and colleges are being pressed to increase graduation rates and speed up the time it takes for students to complete degrees by awarding college credit for their life and work experience. A national campaign that starts Friday will promote the sometimes-derided practice with a program to help adults prepare online portfolios of their job experience that independent faculty will evaluate for academic credit.

One hundred institutions in 30 states are on board. Top highereducation associations back the coalition, and major foundations are bankrolling it. It hopes to reach tens of thousands of people within five years.

The push coincides with President Barack Obama’s goal of boosting the number of college graduates by 5 million before the end of the decade, and it comes as states and higher education institutions are moving away from strict demands for seat time and credit hours.

There’s a growing awareness that Obama’s goal can’t be reached without encouraging older students such as Schedin.

“My goal is to be back in my career,” Schedin said as she enjoyed some rare downtime in a corner of the CityU cafeteria. “I wanted to get through fast, and I wanted some credit for those years I’ve put in.”

Only a handful of people take advantage of the opportunity to cash in on work experience: Just two dozen out of CityU’s 2,500 American students have sought such credits, a ratio that’s similar to what other schools report.

“It’s just not happening at the pace or scale it should be, given all

these people out there with learning that has occurred in other venues,” said Pamela Tate, the president and CEO of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, which is behind the new campaign.

One reason is that many faculty members look down their noses at the practice and discourage their institutions and students from participating. “They still believe that ‘if you weren’t in my class, you couldn’t possibly know it,’ “ Tate said.

The idea of credit for learning from experience also took a hit when Wal-Mart announced in June that it would team with a private, for-profit university to offer employees academic credit for things they did at work.

“People thought employees at Wal-Mart were getting college credit for learning how to use the cash register,” said Marie Cini, the vice provost at the University of Maryland University College, the online branch of the Maryland state university system. “If you use a really rigorous assessment process, that is not the case.”

Credit for work experience can have its downsides. The credits are difficult to transfer if you change universities, and substituting them for introductory requirements can cause problems for students later in their careers, when they can’t keep up with classmates in writing or other basic academic skills.

Experiential learning was first tried after World War I, when returning soldiers who enrolled in college were allowed to skip straight to sophomore year as a reward for their military service. But they proved unprepared for more advanced work, and the practice largely lapsed.

Low U.S. college graduation rates are helping to drive a revival. Less than 60 percent of college students earn bachelor’s degrees within six years, and the U.S. has fallen from first in the world to 10th in the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds with associate’s degrees or higher.

For a variety of reasons, increasing numbers of the nation’s 16 million university and college students are older than traditional high school graduates. Forty percent are 25 and older.

A study of 48 schools by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning found that students who get credit for their experience are more likely to complete degrees.

“All of our institutional frameworks have been created around 18-year-olds coming out of high schools without any experience.

They’re the empty vessels into which we pour knowledge. But when you’re a working adult, you’re hardly an empty vessel,” said Lee Gorsuch, the president of CityU. “You learn by doing,” Gorsuch added. “We’re not anti-intellectual, but can you balance a spreadsheet or can’t you?”

Even more established institutions such as the University of Maryland University College and

Valdosta State University in Georgia are beginning to accept credits from experience.

“It’s coming back now in a big way because there is this national push from the federal government,” Maryland’s Cini said. “We’re looking for new ways to help people realize that, even if they’ve been out in the work force and have three kids and a busy life, there are ways to get a college degree that won’t take 20 years.”

Universities aren’t doing this solely out of altruism. Adult learners increasingly seek schools that give them credit for experience, according to a survey by the higher-education marketing company Stamats.

That means the potential for more tuition and more applicants, which enhances an institution’s reputation.

While no one tracks the number of credits awarded in this way, Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges, a consortium whose members offer academic credit for military experience, reports that 45,892 students earned 805,473 credits last year for their military training and experience. For those military students who are pursuing four-year degrees, that’s an average of about 22 semester credits each out of the 120 to 180 credits that usually are needed.

Navy veteran John McGowan was awarded enough credits for his electronics training and other military experience that he got a bachelor’s degree in half the usual time from Irvine, Calif.-based Brandman University, even while working full time. “I went from zero college to a bachelor’s degree in two years,” McGowan said.

Some universities offer institutional or standardized tests, while others that accept work-experience credits require students to take, and pay for, courses in which they put together autobiographical portfolios for faculty review.

“From the outside, it looks easy, but it takes a lot of work,” said Anthony Boben, 49, who earned credit from his work experience toward a bachelor’s degree in economics at Lehman College in the Bronx, N.Y., after he was laid off from a six-figure accounting job.

“What they’re rating is, ‘Does this person have the equivalent amount of learning I would expect a student to have when they finish a course with me?’ “ Cini said.

Schedin found the process “ridiculously hard.” She prepared a 250page portfolio to apply for credits, and ended up receiving the maximum 45 toward the 180 she needed for a degree.

Her classmate Mark Ball, who also lost his job when the economy crashed, was awarded 25 credits for 22 years as a restaurant manager and music producer. He’ll finish his four-year bachelor’s degree next semester after only 18 months.

“It’s like the game of Life,” said Ball, 41, sitting in an empty classroom in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue. “Except I started life first and went to school second.”

World & Nation The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 | Page 9

For poorly educated under recession’s heel, ‘recovery’ out of reach

By Scott Canon and Diane Stafford McClatchy Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Among the sons and daughters of the suburbs and the country club set, the recession turned good times to bad.

Their less-accomplished peers, who didn’t make it through college or who never even made it to campus, have seen dismal prospects go from bad to awful.

These are the workers for whom the misery of the recession comes in torrents.

In better times “they’d get the worst jobs,” said John Hornbeck of Episcopal Community Services in Kansas City. “Now the barrier is just a flat-out lack of jobs, period.”

Certainly millions of the young and lightly educated find ways to make a living at the menial end of the job market. But the struggles of those who can’t get work pose an extra burden for the rest of us — in the form of fewer people paying taxes, more needing government handouts and, perhaps, a threat of growing crime.

“These people run through their unemployment. ... Then some of them get into legal trouble,” said Christopher Jencks, who studies poverty issues at Harvard University. “Some end up stealing stuff, overdose on drugs.

All kinds of bad stuff.

“Society picks up not all of the broken glass, but some of it. And some of it gets stuck in our feet. We share the cost with the victims.”

At the bottom of the recession in 2009, unemployment swelled to about 10 percent. But for blue-collar folks, the rate was closer to 17 percent.

For a less definable class of young people who merely aspire to blue-collar work, the buzz-kill economy looks especially bleak.

This group lacks both formal training and the so-called soft skills — things like the ability to look a boss in the eye or the understanding that they should show up at 8:50 for a job that starts at 9 a.m., not 9ish.

They make up a disproportionate number of the 6.8 million Americans who aren’t just unemployed but who have been on the hunt for work for a year or longer. The previous high for the long-term unemployed, since the number was first tracked in 1948, was 3 million during the dreary days of the early 1980s.

“The old manufacturing economy honed physical skills such as lifting and manual dexterity,” wrote Richard Florida in “The Great Reset.”

“But two sets of skills matter more now: analytical skills ... and social intelligence skills.”

The long-term jobless rate ignores those who’ve taken unending job rejections as a sign to simply to stop asking.

“We hear they just need to pick themselves up and get a job,” said Dennis Chapman, the development director at City Union Mission in Kansas City. “That’s easier said than done.”

One study in Missouri found that each high school dropout costs the state $4,000 a year in lost taxes and higher Medicaid and prison costs. An-

other estimated that the U.S. economy would miss out on $335 billion in lifetime earnings compared with what it would reap had the high school dropouts of 2009 earned their diplomas.

Jencks, the Harvard poverty scholar, is quick to point out that experts have yet to find a consensus on whether rising joblessness cranks up crime rates. For the most accurately tracked crimes like murder, the correlation is weak. Lesser crimes are tracked less closely, but as Jencks observes, “If you look at people in trouble with the law, an awful lot of them are out of work.”

More critically, Jencks said, is that those at the bottom rungs in an extended recession may be so cut off from a work-a-day existence that they won’t bounce back even when the job market turns around.

Statistics show they tend to delay marriage but not children. So this downturn might amp up the number of single moms who, on average, are more likely to lean on their families and the government to make the rent and stock the pantry.

At a key time in their lives, these would-be workers aren’t developing work habits. And they’re not making the connections to the mainstream of society they’ll need to achieve independence. They risk, Jencks said, slipping into a permanent situation that doesn’t fit with any American sense of success.

“After having been rejected 25 times, it gets hard to make the 26th call,” he said. “They’re the people who would have got factory jobs years ago.

But they may be in danger of falling out of touch with the rest of us.”

Zachary Brame sheepishly grins when asked what he does with his time: Spends it on the computer. Playing games or studying Japanese to better appreciate Japanese animation.

In his parents’ basement.

“It’s such a cliche,” he said.

It’s not where he wants to be or where he plans to be. But the path to escape, to independence, hasn’t shown up yet.

He had decent high school grades and graduated from Sumner Academy in Kansas City, Kan., in 2007. Like so many teenage boys of his generation, he has always been game for computer and video games: first-person shooter games, online fantasy stuff like World of Warcraft, Wii. That took him to Tempe, Ariz., and the University of Advancing Technology to learn how to create games. He did well on general education classes and the beginner courses on fashioning virtual environments.

Then the economy nose-dived, and he calculated his prospects of actually making a salary that could handle the roughly $60,000 in debt he’d have upon graduation. Suddenly, the math didn’t work.

“As the money was going through my hands,” said the 22-year-old Brame, “it was getting more upsetting.”

He returned to Kansas City, Kan., in spring 2008. He worked with his carpenter father framing houses and then laboring in a warehouse. But the work was spotty and not something he could see himself doing for months, much less years.

Brame found he could go to Kansas City Kansas Community College studying the trumpet — something he’d excelled at in high school — on a scholarship. He stuck with that for two semesters, but his heart was never in it.

So he was back pounding the streets. This summer he landed in a monthlong course to certify himself as a computer technician — picking up geeky know-how for plugging

Allison Long / Kansas City Star / MCT

Geoffrey Voss, 27, sews a button on his jacket before leaving for a job interview. The graduate of the University of Missouri at Kansas City has found the sluggish economy an obstacle in landing a job.

in motherboards and keyboarding around viruses.

This is a guy habitually without any cash, dependent on a free bus pass, who had to wait weeks to save up money for the test that would vouch for his computer bona fides. His subsequent certification, he hopes, might mean a steady paycheck.

“It’s just terrible waiting and hoping all the time. It gets old.”

As the executive director of Workforce Partnership — a collection of one-stop career centers in the Kansas City area — Scott Anglemyer sees the frustration.

It’s worst, he says, for those at the bottom.

Think of a McDonald’s. We picture it as the place for people in their teens and early 20s to get a taste of the workplace. Today, though, those jobs increasingly are filled by folks with graying hair.

The entry-level landscape would

be tough for those at the bottom “no matter what,” Anglemyer said.

“Now it’s several orders of magnitude harder.”

Keep in mind that these young folks often were raised by parents or others looking after them who were employed only on the margins of society, if at all. They frequently shifted from one school to the next, passed from mother to uncle to grandmother.

They look for work, not sure where they might sleep tonight. They know their relatives can’t just spring for dinner or a clean shirt.

That makes them all the less prepared to field a phone call from a prospective boss, to scrounge up clean clothes for an interview, to navigate public transit to get to a job site.

Anglemyer said that a few years ago employers would say, “Just send us a warm body.”

“We don’t have anybody asking for warm bodies anymore.”

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Wednesday, December 1, 2010

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

Common sense needed in U. spending debate To the Editor: Simon Liebling’s ’12 polemic against the nefarious motivations of Brown higher-ups moving toward corporatization (“Why we bother,” Nov. 30) ignores one key fact about the University’s fiscal policy: It has to stay afloat. It’s nonsense to advocate that Brown provide better conditions and benefits for workers, improve sorely decrepit buildings on campus, give many worthwhile students substantial financial aid and willfully spurn large sources of funds because they’re biased towards preprofessional subjects which attract wide swaths of students. In times of prosperity, when university endowments swell and successful alums are more than willing to give back, this might be borderline doable; in current conditions, it’s insane. Something (and someone) has to give.

There are numerous solutions to this problem. My personal choice, for example, would be to accept fewer students to alleviate the housing crisis and continue to invest in the sciences — which are more lucrative, likely more expensive to run and attract more students — to ultimately allow the humanities to continue to thrive, at the blatant expense of engineering and its brethren if necessary. Others may have different priorities. Complaining about everything and being willing to compromise on nothing, even practical measures that aren’t particularly odious to begin with, is obnoxious and unproductive. Brown students are known for their activism. We need to be sure to keep common sense in mind as well.

SAm ROSENFELD

Guy Tabachnick ’13 Nov. 30

e d i to r i a l

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Thankful for a break Each semester, there is one time in particular when professors should avoid making assignments due.

During the spring semester, it’s the first few days after Spring Weekend. As we wrote last April, professors who assign work due the following Monday or Tuesday aren’t just being unkind to their students — they’re disrespecting a school-wide tradition that’s been around for 50 years.

But professors who assign work due immediately after Thanksgiving take things even further. For starters, Thanksgiving has been a national tradition for nearly 400 years. And unlike students who find themselves having to work on Spring Weekend, students swamped with work over the Thanksgiving break don’t simply miss something as seemingly trivial as a weekend of partying. Rather, they lose out on their last chance to rest and recharge before final exams. Because Brown only gives students one other day off during the fall semester, the Thanksgiving break is much needed by the time it finally arrives.

And because it precedes the most stressful part of the semester, Thanksgiving is crucial to students’ academic success every fall.

Sadly, based on our personal experiences and anecdotes we’ve heard, many professors don’t see things the same way, and are more concerned with cramming in as much material as possible in the last two weeks of classes.

Some professors give out assignments early so that students have an opportunity to complete work before the break begins. But many other professors sensibly structure their courses so that a large project is due just before Thanksgiving, and students have no work over the break. This means that students are inevitably swamped the week before the holiday, and they simply can’t take advantage of the opportunity to complete another assignment early.

So we merely ask that professors refrain from making work due during the first few days after Thanksgiving break. We see no reason that a paper or problem set due Monday couldn’t be postponed for just a few days. It would give us just one more thing to be thankful for.

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 | Page 11

URIN 0100: Introduction to waste disposal David sheffield Opinions Columnist Etiquette, especially that at universities, has slowly declined over the years. Academic regalia has been confined to commencement rather than required attire year round and people will give you funny looks for showing up for dinner in a dinner jacket rather than for arriving without one. It is generally a good thing to discard these old norms.

Wearing white after Labor Day hurts no one and holding the door for ladies is unnecessary and patronizing.

But some customs deserve to be kept.

It seems that one very nice practice is being discarded far too often. Maybe “discarded” presumes too much. It could be that this wonderful custom was never followed at Brown. However, like many forms of etiquette it does not really matter — pretend it is true and adhere to it. Simply put, don’t piss on the toilet seats.

Yes, college is a time to push boundaries and expand the world we live in, but this is a world best left unexplored. There are certain pillars of society that are best left intact, and not urinating where people sit is undoubtedly one of them. If you want to experiment, try drugs or have orgies, just keep the urine where it belongs.

If this were only about drunks too inebriated to properly use a restroom, things would be much simpler. Those deviants still would be a blight on society, but this is col-

lege and one has to allow for the inebriates now and then. However, being such poorly coordinated people during the middle of the day means one of two things: either we lack simple decency or we have a drinking problem.

Every time I see someone’s golden puddle I cannot help but think of George Costanza’s exclamation, “You know, we’re living in a society!” Fine, civilization may not crumble and Brown’s accreditation may not be revoked, but there is more to a great society than basic necessities. Think of the lessons of Rome and Greece. Good societies thrive on art, science and a good system for dispos-

transcripts as well. Every accepted student should have received at least a satisfactory mark for potty training. I’m sure those who do not make the new cut will feel at home attending Dartmouth.

This is not the only case of disregard for cleanliness on campus. Earlier this year, Deniz Ilgen ’13 discussed garbage and vandalism in residence halls (“Brown: clean campus?” Sept. 8). However, to me at least, libertarian urination is a bit more inconvenient than lazily discarded cans of beer. Vandalized “EXIT” signs and other fixtures actually cost money to remedy, but urine-free fixtures are priceless.

One option is to electrify all of the toilet seats.

ing human waste. You could live in a society without those essentials, but who would choose to?

Leaving restrooms in a state that would not make Miss Manners faint (followed by a formal thank-you letter for catching her) is not a difficult task. I would expect Brown students, so competent and wise, to have figured this out long ago. Perhaps the Office of Admission should dig deeper into applicants’ histories and require next year’s batch of pre-frosh to present their preschool

I am sorry to simply complain without any good solutions. Unfortunately, this problem requires everyone to make an effort.

Nonetheless, there are bad solutions.

One option is to electrify all of the toilet seats. Supply enough voltage and people will think twice about their actions. The drunks might initially be careless, but if lab rats can learn to avoid a shock, so can inebriated college students. Obviously, this presents a bit of a problem for other uses of the toilet seats.

I am sure we could get the School of Engi-

neering to come up with an elegant solution.

This can safely go under the “excellent, so long as they don’t put it in my dorm” folder.

Bathroom attendants could also be effective. Nothing keeps one behaving well like someone standing right by you (albeit behind a partition) during some of your most intimate moments. Unfortunately, this would just embolden those decrying Brown, Inc. Attendants in each restroom would be far too decadent for them — they’d probably want that money going toward educating poor people.

Brown’s ACLU chapter and Brown Students for Liberty might also take issue with this invasion of privacy. But in the war against the uncivilized, we must all make sacrifices. At least the creation of many new unionized restroom attendant jobs would attract the support of the Brown Student Labor Alliance.

I’m afraid the only good advice I have is to lift the seat or to sit down with some spatial awareness. For those of you who are still resistant, there will be plenty of white snow by the end of the winter with no signatures to whom it may be attributed. Get some practice before coming indoors.

Finally, to all of you considerate people, just think: Every time your urine flies straight and true, you are making Brown a better place.

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

Why the athletics department is bad for Brown

BY Susannah Kroeber Opinions Columnist I used to be a believer in the project of “sports.”

Sports bring people together, allowing people to see others as equals on the field, regardless of all the other markers that differentiate us in everyday life. In high school, sports were how I felt I could earn the respect of my classmates, how I found a place among my peers and how I learned how to fit in.

But high level sports teams in the way that they currently operate do not have a place at Brown. The Department of Athletics should be cut, or at the very least be forced to undergo massive reform, if it wants to see continued funding. Sports teams at Brown currently encourage all of the attitudes that the University stands against (or should stand against): On a team, you lose your individuality.

The more you stand out as different, and the less you cohere to the group, the less you are worth and the more you are stigmatized.

On a team, many people acting as a mechanical unit is appreciated far above diversity.

On a team, methods of dictatorship are appreciated far above those of democracy.

On a team, anyone who fails to obey the strictest of rules is punished.

On a team, anyone who doesn’t play for your team is an enemy.

If you learn nothing else from Brown, you should learn that plurality is something to be embraced. Elite athletics teach exactly the opposite. Divergence from the coach’s plan is abhorrent. “Alternate lifestyles” are all but de-

nounced. In attitude and zeitgeist, sports teach disrespect on the basis of arbitrary difference.

Watch a football game, a field hockey game or a soccer match. Before the game you see the two sides gear up for “battle,” ready to “fight” with their teammates for their schools, ready to “beat” the other side into the ground.

Pregame rituals are all about domination; coaches and captains may even talk about brutalizing or killing the other team.

Take a second to think about that terminology. It is all centered on warfare, from its metaphors to its goal of absolute victory over a perhaps somewhat unknown opponent. Isn’t this

least, that is how their teammates viewed their departure. Teams are as tight as units in the military, and they are just as narrow-minded.

Plenty of student-athletes at Brown have legitimate reasons for leaving their teams. Maybe it was a bigger commitment than they had expected, or as they approached senior year, job hunting and thesis writing took up too much time. They should be allowed to leave an activity without losing the respect of their teammates.

Here’s a little secret: Sports, especially at Brown, are not that big of a deal, nor are they anything to sacrifice a friendship over.

Here’s a little secret: sports, especially at Brown, are not that big of a deal, nor are they anything to sacrifice a friendship over.

something our administration stands against in its refusal to allow ROTC on campus? We might talk about the differences between Brown and Harvard, Yale or the University of Pennsylvania, but are those differences really ones that merit the metaphor of war?

Talk to the varsity athletes who have left their teams for any reason. Some might tell you they were scared to leave because of what their teammates might say, or what their coaches might do. Some might tell you that they felt like they were “deserting” — or at

One comment I know I will receive is that left-behind teammates can feel abandoned, especially if a star athlete leaves and thereby diminishes the team’s chances of winning. Most view that decision as selfish. What is horrific is the pressure exerted by coaches to keep their athletes playing, no matter the academic sacrifices, because the coach and the athletics department want winning teams.

What is equally abhorrent is the lavish spending the athletics department dotes on teams, coaches and players alike. At a univer-

sity facing budget cuts, I can only be grateful that athletics haven’t seen an increase in funding (though students, athletes or not, have seen an increase in tuition thanks to the new athletics fee). It is absurd that some teams spend $40 per student each day that they are on the road for food alone. As a student off meal plan, I can tell you that it is easy enough to live on that for days.

The American model is not the only one for student involvement in athletics. In Australia, universities do not have institutionalized athletic departments. Rather, extensive and accessible sports clubs exist for potential athletes of all skill levels. Isn’t this a more efficient and less divisive — and, perhaps, more egalitarian — way to provide high-level athletic opportunities?

Brown has its priorities in the wrong place when it comes to sports. No other extracurricular at Brown absorbs as much money as athletics does, and no other extracurricular is allowed to be as dictatorial and disparaging of all kinds of diversity. The department’s budget could easily be allocated to academic programs desperately in need of funds. Sports, with all their potential social benefits, belong at Brown — but not within the current context of the Department of Athletics.

Susannah Kroeber ’11 is a proud former Brown athlete who wants a lost Econ junior to pick up the thesis topic of long-term punitive remuneration versus short-term athletic participation in Ivy League schools.

Today The Brown Daily Herald

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ToMORROW

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BB & Z | Cole Pruitt, Andrew Seiden and Valerie Hsiung

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Sustainable Gifts Fair, Sayles Hall

Uncommon Schools Information

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Beef Tacos, Vegetarian Tacos, Vegetarian Mori Soba Noodles, Chocolate Krinkle Cookies

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Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

DINNER Castle Hill Inn Pork Spare Ribs, Vegan Ratatouille, White and Wild Rice Pilaf, Fudge Bars

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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

c a l e n da r Today

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to day

Rotisserie Style Chicken, Spinach Quiche, Red Flannel Sliced Root Vegetables, Squash Rolls

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Dr. Bear | Mat Becker

Classic Deo | Daniel Perez

Bonus Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

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