Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxlv, no. 121 | Thursday, December 2, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Students update handicap map By Chip Lebovitz Staff Writer
Five students have spearheaded a project to update the handicap access map at Brown. The map, a tool that helps disabled individuals navigate around campus, had last been updated in 2003. The new map is the culmination of the students’ final project for PHP 1680I: “Pathology to Power: Disability, Health and Community.” The course is taught by Bruce Becker, professor of emergency medicine, and Sarah Skeels, teaching associate in community health. The project’s aim is to have a map available online and handed out to visitors and students with disabilities on campus, said Joshua Deshaies ’12, one of the project’s leaders. The project was completely student-driven, Skeels said. “I wanted them to take ownership of this,” she said. The team of five tried to keep expectations of their final results realistic, said Deshaies, who noted the complexity of the process. The team tried to factor in disabilities, such as color-blindness, which are less commonly thought of, he said. Skeels said she hopes that the University may use the map as a continued on page 3
Food for thought: 60 percent violate BDS rules
Which have you done at Dining Services eateries this semester?
By Greg Jordan-Detamore Staff Writer
Taken food to-go from the Sharpe Refectory or Verney-Woolley Dining Hall after eating there
A large portion of the student body has violated a Brown Dining Services policy this semester, according to the Herald’s fall poll.
22.7% 16.3%
THE HERALD POLL At the time of the poll, about 60 percent of survey respondents said they had engaged in some violation of the rules, while 38 percent said they had not and 2 percent said they did not know or did not answer. The most common activity, carried out by 47 percent of polltakers, was taking food to go from the Sharpe Refector y or VerneyWoolley Dining Hall after already continued on page 2
14.4%
Taken something from a Brown Dining Services eatery (not including the Sharpe Refectory or Verney-Woolley Dining Hall) without paying
Eaten at the Sharpe Refectory or Verney-Woolley Dining Hall without swiping in
0
inside
The men’s soccer team was ranked No. 22 in the country at the end of the regular season and finished in the top 16 in the postseason tournament. But with a regular-season record of 11-3-3 (3-3-1 Ivy League), the Bears had no guarantee they would be invited to the 48-team NCAA tournament at the end of the year. The Ivy League currently has no automatic bid for the conference winner in soccer. The conference held end-of-season tournaments for men’s and women’s lacrosse for the first time last year, but it currently has no plans to introduce championship tournaments in other team sports, according to Scottie Rodgers, associate director for communications at the Ivy League.
News.....1–3 Metro......4–5 Sports.....6–9 Editorial....10 Opinion.....11 Today........12
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None of the above
Don’t know / no answer
10
20
30
40
50
Adds up to over 100% because some people chose multiple answers
Leor Shtull-Leber / Herald
About 60 percent of those polled said they had violated one of the above rules this semester.
City advised against changing U. tax agreement By Caitlin Trujillo Senior Staff Writer
A report commissioned by the city council has advised that body against renegotiating a 2003 agreement under which the University and other tax-exempt institutions collectively pay the city millions of dollars annually in lieu of property taxes. The Commission to Study TaxExempt Institutions presented its report — which takes into account testimony from the city’s four taxexempt colleges as well as the Women and Infants Hospital and the Hospital Association of Rhode Island — to the city council Nov. 18 after a year of study. Citing the positive economic
impact of tax-exempt institutions, it urges the city council not to reevaluate the current agreement until it expires in 2023. Beppie Huidekoper, Brown’s executive vice president for finance and administration, wrote in an email to The Herald that she con-
METRO siders the commission’s report “a balanced and thoughtful review of a complex issue.” The 2003 agreement was negotiated by Mayor David Cicilline ’83. Under the terms of the agreement, Providence’s four private colleges and universities — Brown, Rhode Island College, the Rhode Island
School of Design and Johnson and Wales University — make payments to the city to make up for revenue lost from their property-tax exemptions. The agreement also stipulates that these institutions make regular tax payments on new parcels of land for 15 years after they are purchased. Between 2005 and 2009, the University has made annual payments between $291,000 and $400,000, according to a Dec. 2009 study appended to the report. It also pays taxes on properties, such as vacant lots, that are not used for the University’s core purposes as a nonprofit. The report recommended that the city ensure all such properties — such as those used for faculty housing —
No Ivy soccer tourney on horizon By David Chung Staff Writer
Removed silverwear or other non-food items from a Dining Service eatery
38.0% 2.0%
46.7%
“Traditionally, the Ivy League has not had any conference tournaments in any team sports,” Rodgers said. “It’s been a long-standing tradition of the Ivy League that the Ivy League champion should be determined through regular-season play.”
SPORTS Individual sports, such as cross country and swimming, have had postseason tournaments to allow all the teams within the conference to compete within the same arena at the same time, he said. And baseball and softball are exceptions to the overall team sport trend of deciding the champion within the regular season. Because these teams play within divisions, division winners play in a three-game championship series at the end of the season to
determine the Ivy League champion, who receives an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. A set number of schools in the country are selected for the NCAA championships through at-large bids based on the Ratings Percentage Index, a mathematical ranking system determined by the record of a team and the competitiveness of its schedule. Automatic bids are given to champions of conference tournaments or the winners of the regular season in their leagues. Three years ago, lacrosse coaches from Ivy League institutions proposed the implementation of a conference tournament after examining their situation and determining what would be beneficial to the sport, Rodgers said. continued on page 6
are properly taxed. According to the report, the revenue impact of private, tax-exempt institutions is greater in Providence than in other cities because of its reliance on property taxes and the significant proportion of land occupied by such institutions — 15 percent. The commission also recommended that the city and state form partnerships with these institutions to create new jobs and stimulate the local economy, a plan the commission refers to as the “Capital City Partnership for Economic Growth.” That partnership, in turn, should work with the state government continued on page 5
let them eat cak e
Charlie Fischl / Herald
Students who stopped by Alumnae Hall yesterday left Candy Land with a sugar high, sponsored by the Brown Special Events Committee.
Pensions in peril
That’s baller
Sportin’ support
Pensions for public employees in jeopardy statewide
B-ball point guard McGonagill ’14 named athlete of the week
Alexa Caldwell ’11 defends the merits of sports at Brown
Metro, 4
SPORTS, 8
Opinions, 11
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
herald@browndailyherald.com
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
C ampus N EWS
Thursday, December 2, 2010
“Brown is heavily represented in the hall of fame.” — Patrick Conley, president of the R.I. Heritage Hall of Fame
Stealing food raises meal plan prices Former president added to hall of fame continued from page 1
By Jeffrey Handler Staff Writer
Elisha Benjamin Andrews 1870, who ser ved as the University’s president from 1889 to 1898, was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame Nov. 12 at the 14th Annual Historical Induction Convocation. Andrews was “a highly successful president of a major college,” said Patrick Conley, president of the hall of fame and 1995 inductee. He was also a noteworthy author and economist, a leader of other schools, and an ordained member of the clergy — “a tremendously versatile individual” marked by “great energy and great pertinence,” Conley said. “He was an innovator at Brown in several ways as well,” Conley said. “He had a great rapport with the student body.” In addition to founding Pembroke College, he was ver y focused on Brown becoming a “true University” as opposed to simply a college, according to his biography on the website of the Office of the President. Other former presidents who have been inducted to the hall of fame include James Manning, Francis Wayland, Barnaby Keeney and William Faunce 1880. “Brown is heavily represented in the hall of fame,” Conley said. “I would say that there are more Brown University graduates in
the hall of fame than any other five colleges or universities combined.” Andrews was inducted along with 10 other Rhode Islanders who lived between 1800 and 1920, Conley said. “We’ve been inducting historical personages by generation,” said Conley, who is also the chairman of the Historians’ Committee. “It’s ver y complete for all the modern period, from the time of the hall of fame’s founding in 1965 to the present.” But, he said, the hall of fame lacked “historical balance.” Adding people of “great significance” from earlier periods such as Andrews helped add such balance, he said.
“Dear, gallant, stalwart, splendid Bennie Andrews. The zest of life was in him to the brim. He loved the things a man might be. Oh, what a gallant fight he made, and what a hard one! I cannot mourn that he is gone; I am too glad that he has been and is. He was a man. Yes, take him all in all, we shall not see his like again.” — eulogy by Alexander Meiklejohn 1893 (Source: Encyclopedia Brunoniana)
sudoku
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Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | Business Phone: 401.351.3260 George Miller, President Claire Kiely, Vice President
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The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2010 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
eating there. Other violations included in the poll were removing silverware or other non-food items from a Dining Services eatery (23 percent of those polled), taking something from a retail eater y such as the Gate or Josiah’s without paying for it (16 percent) and eating at the Ratty or V-Dub without swiping in (14 percent). The percentage of self-reported violators decreased from first-year students to seniors, correlating to the increase in the number of students living off campus by class year. Though about 70 percent of freshmen and sophomores combined chose at least one of the options, only about half of juniors and seniors combined reported the same. Ann Hoffman, Dining Services director of administration, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that this results in higher prices and meal plan rates because “unfortunately those costs must be passed on to our paying customers.” Hoffman wrote that Dining Services cannot calculate the exact cost because not all violations are detected. “I have personally met with students who have been caught stealing and some have said they take things because ‘everyone does it’ and others have said that they’ve purchased a meal plan and didn’t use all their meals, so they felt like they’d already paid for these items,” Hoffman wrote. Prevention strategies BuDS student cashiers are expected to confront people who appear to be attempting to take an item out of a retail eatery, said David Hefer ’12, a cashier at the Ivy Room and the Friedman Cafe. The only exception is that the cashiers are told not to risk their personal safety if a person appears likely to become violent if confronted, he said. The Department of Public Safety stations police officers at Jo’s on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights, said Deputy Chief of Police
Paul Shanley. In addition to working on the busy nights at Jo’s, DPS officers have also served at the Gate in the past. “Generally, it gets ver y busy around 1 in the morning,” he said. “There’s quite a crowd of people in there.” He said the officers make sure the crowd is orderly and they act as a deterrent for students considering taking food without paying for it. Officers sometimes see students gather items, then realize the officer’s presence and place the items back, Shanley said. “The officer does work with the (eatery) manager to identify people who look like they are not going to pay,” he said. Usually, the manager will approach students who appear to have left without paying properly, Shanley said. Shanley said situations are usually worked out “fairly easily” and resolved on the spot. Situations rarely involve violence or other extreme reactions, he said. “Only every now and then would there be a situation that (the officer) would characterize as difficult,” he said. A ‘crime of opportunity’ These policy violations have an impact on Dining Services and on students, according to Hoffman. “Our managers have to spend a lot of time watching for these issues and it takes their focus away from more constructive activities,” Hoffman wrote. “There are also significant financial implications that affect our prices and our program offerings, and decisions about new menu items and/or services always must take into account these kinds of behaviors.” Students offered a variety of reasons for why these actions might occur. “I think people don’t want to pay for things,” Hefer said. He also said that because students think they can get away with stealing, it is a “crime of opportunity.” Michael Sweet ’11, a BuDS cashier, said a large problem is that students run into problems because
they do not know how their meal plans work. For example, he said, some students are bad at keeping track of their Flex Points, so they find themselves eventually unable to pay for items. Though nearly half of the polltakers acknowledged that they had eaten at the Ratty or V-Dub then taken food to-go, Hoffman stated that the rule is clear. “The policy is that students on meal plan may either eat in or take out a meal; they can’t do both,” Hoffman wrote. “These rules haven’t changed recently but are continually under review.” Some students said they thought that taking food to-go after eating at the Ratty or V-Dub was not as big of a deal as engaging in more blatant violations of the dining rules. I think a lot of people want to have food in their rooms, so they take extra stuff with them when they leave,” said James Stefano ’11. “I think people do perceive a difference between … eating without a meal credit versus eating and then taking food to go,” said Katharine Mead ’12. “You see someone who’s eating six plates of food and you eat two and then might take a take-out container, and that’s a little easier to justify than walking out past a cashier that you know you’re deceiving.” Taking food from a retail eatery without paying for it is a moral issue and students should be more sincere, said Nics Theerakarn ’12. But taking food to-go from the Ratty or V-Dub after eating in is more justifiable, if in limited quantities, 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 freshmen and sophomores combined, the margin of error is 4.3 percent. For the subset of juniors and seniors combined, the margin of error is 4.2 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.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
C ampus N EWS
Class takes lead on new campus map
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“I’m very excited about the project.” — Prof. Bruce Becker, on a new handicap access map
R e - gifting
continued from page 1 basis to build a more accessible campus in the future. “What I’m personally hoping is, down the road, the University can look at it and use it as a marker when they have time, and money, and all the things they don’t have now,” she said. Becker said he was proud of the team’s results. “I’m very excited about the project. It demonstrates to me that the goals of the course … are being carried forward by the students,” he said. The idea was born from a meeting last spring between Skeels and Cathie Axe, director of Disability Support Services. Axe brought up the need to recreate the map, Skeels said. “The overall plan of the project was to contribute something to the University from a disability perspective,” Skeels said. “Instead of pointing out the problem, we wanted to be a part of the solution.” Skeels had students apply to become apart of the team, she said. Five students were selected from 15 applications. Other classmates helped with the project for course credit. Selections were based on ability to make the necessary time commitment for the project and diversity of academic interests. Deshaies, Julia Duch ’12, Daniel Patterson ’12.5, Heather Bennett ’11 and Jennifer Stone ’11 were chosen to lead the effort. Deshaies registered for the class to augment his engineering concentration with an understanding of the “human side of buildings,” he said. “In the (School of Engineering), you get all of the building codes … the structural stuff, but you don’t get what people actually need,” Deshais said. The project was broken down into small steps. The students worked on finding the most navigable pathways throughout campus, Skeels said. Other measures included rating buildings on their accessibility to handicapped students, she said. Currently, the students are working with Axe to finalize the details of the their project, and are presenting their findings at the Campus Disability Committee meeting on Thursday, Skeels said. The students are hoping to get the committee’s approval to help push for the University to adopt the map.
Rachel Kaplan / Herald
Students gathered at Sayles Hall to browse the Sustainable Gift Fair.
Metro The Brown Daily Herald
$4.8 billion The unfunded liability of the R.I. pension system Thursday, December 2, 2010 | Page 4
Rhode Island politicians face a pension system in peril By Claire Peracchio Senior Staff Writer
Candidates in Rhode Island this election cycle offered a common refrain — the state’s pension system for public employees is broken. Perennial underfunding, unsustainable obligations and rosy forecasts for investment returns that cratered amid economic collapse have put Rhode Island’s pension plans in jeopardy. The state’s main pension plan faces an unfunded liability — the gap between its current assets and its commitments to pensioners — of almost $5 billion, placing it among the least solvent in the nation. Its cities and towns, already burdened with debt, also confront the reality that their employees may never see the pension benefits they were promised in better times. Now its politicians — many elected with the suppor t of the unions whose members find their retirement security threatened — must make the decision their predecessors avoided: submit the pension system to painful reform or face dire consequences for the state’s finances. A system on the brink “It’s a huge issue for the state
and for a lot of municipalities,” said Ashley Denault, policy analyst at the nonpartisan Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. The state pension system — known as the Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island — has an unfunded liability of $4.8 billion, Dave Layman, communications director for the Office of the General Treasurer of Rhode Island, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. The current value of the pension fund is $7.2 billion, according to Layman. The state administers five separate pension plans, which “provide retirement, disability, survivor and death benefits” to state employees, judges, police officers and teachers as well as nearly 80 percent of municipal employees, Layman wrote. The remaining municipal workers are covered in independent plans administered by cities and towns. But like the state system, municipal pension plans face massive funding gaps. According to a March 2010 report released by the state auditor general, 23 out of 36 municipal pension plans are “at risk.” Lower-thanexpected investment returns and municipal bureaucrats’ failure to fully fund the government’s share of the plans have created a total
unfunded liability of $1.9 billion for these plans. Currently they are projected to meet only 43 percent of expected pension obligations, the report found. Providence, which has the largest net pension obligation, has an unfunded liability of more than $800 million, according to the report. “We have assumptions built into our pensions that might not be realistic right now,” Denault said. For the state’s pension system, actuaries assume an 8.25 percent rate of return on the fund’s investments, which is used to finance the gap between contributions and obligations. But the state’s investments grew at an average rate of 5.2 percent over the past decade, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council found. Due to the state pension’s “huge reliance on investments,” Layman wrote, lower-than-expected returns and increased demands by aging pensioners mean growing pressure on an already over-extended system. While 25,000 retirees are now receiving benefits, the state system has also promised future benefits to 35,000 current employees, Layman wrote. As this demographic shift occurs, a growing por tion of the
state’s budget will have to go to making up the shortfall. “The state has to continue paying down the unfunded liability by 2030,” Denault said. “What the state has to pay is going to grow over time, and that’s what’s actually going to be unsustainable.” One prospect for reform is reamortization, a strategy similar to refinancing a home mortgage. This would extend the time during which Rhode Island can fund its pension liability, but would result in a projected $2.2 billion additional cost to the state. Other options include switching to a hybrid pension plan — which would transfer more costs to employees — or simply reducing benefits while raising employee contributions. Pension politics Unions have long been a political force in Rhode Island, a state perennially dominated by Democrats, and the recent midterm election was no different. Endorsements from major unions representing the state’s teachers and health care workers gave governor-elect Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 a crucial volunteer and fundraising advantage that allowed the independent to reach voters without the help of major-party backing.
Under new campaign finance rules, unions created the Working Families Coalition, a political action committee that raised $27,230 in an effort to defeat five incumbent state legislators and support five contenders for the Pawtucket School Committee in the September Democratic primaries. Four of five targeted state legislators lost their primaries, while all five school committee candidates won. And in the General Assembly, a post-election leadership shuffle gave top union official Dominick Ruggerio, D-Nor th Providence, the No. 2 post of Senate majority leader in the heavily Democratic state Senate. “The unions are the Democratic Party in this state,” said Giovanni Cicione, Rhode Island Republican Party chairman. Unions raised more than $600,000 to fund campaigns in the 2010 election cycle, according to the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, a nonprofit backed by taxpayers and businesses. Public employee unions directed funds to almost 75 percent of candidates for the General Assembly, said Donna Perry, the coalition’s communications adviser. “Obviously, when legislation and votes come up that would diminish or retool the compensation packages for public sector employees, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the legislature takes baby steps to address that compensation structure,” she said. John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, cautioned that union power should not be overestimated. The largest contributions this election cycle came from Chafee in the form of loans to his own campaign and from the Democratic Governors Association to support state Treasurer Frank Caprio in the state’s gubernatorial contest, not from unions, Marion said. Both contributions exceeded $1 million. Unions may not be the political kingmakers their opponents claim they are, Marion added, citing recent losses by union-backed candidates like state legislator Chris Fierro, D-Woonsocket, who was defeated in his Democratic primary. To the extent that unions do exert influence in the state, the recipients of their electoral support are among those responsible for the current state of the pension system meant to secure their retirements. “Of course the unions are close to the Democrats, but if you ask the unions, they have mixed views about how they’ve been treated,” said Jay Goodman PhD’66, professor of political science at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and the author of “Democrats and Labor in Rhode Island, 1952-1962.” ‘For the next politician’ Mismanagement by past policymakers is a major cause of the continued on page 5
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
M etro
Thursday, December 2, 2010
“You can’t retroactively take away something that has been given or promised.” — Chafee spokesman Michael Trainor
Pensions in deep trouble statewide Report: no new taxes for state nonprofits continued from page 4
current pension problems, according to Scott Molloy, University of Rhode Island professor of labor and industrial relations. “By and large the problem was that on the administrative side and the political side they put things off for the next politician, for the next election, for the next generation,” Molloy said. Governor-elect Chafee faces higher stakes for similar inaction. Chafee spokesman Michael Trainor said Chafee is looking into the pension issue and will issue a definitive proposal this December. Chafee supports moving new state employees to a hybrid plan based on the federal government’s model, but believes benefit packages for current employees should be left untouched due to his “strong sense that you can’t retroactively take away something that has been given or promised,” according to Trainor. Chafee also favors moving independent local plans into the state-administered pension plan for municipal employees, Trainor said. For those who think unions’ recent support of Chafee will make
it difficult for him to reform the pension system, Trainor pointed to Chafee’s record as Warwick mayor. “He worked ver y closely with the unions and got union concessions on the pension system as mayor,” Trainor said. “He did that by maintaining a mutual level of respect and communication and hopes to do the same as governor.” Chafee’s proposals, if he chooses to enact them, would be but the latest in recent reforms to the state’s pension system. In 2009, Rhode Island increased the retirement age for new state workers to 62, reduced benefits for current employees and toughened requirements for receiving disability benefits. Providence has also changed its pension plan, according to Mayor David Cicilline ’83, who was recently elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. “There’s no easy answer to it, but you’ve got to continue to at the negotiating table tr y to make the costs more sustainable by looking at issues like raising the retirement age or minimum years of ser vice or increasing employee contributions,” he said.
one
Yet the contentious relationship between Cicilline and the Providence firefighters union underscores the challenges facing pension reform. “We’d been at war with Mayor Cicilline for the prior eight years,” said Paul Doughty, president of Local 799 of the International Association of Firefighters, of the union’s long-running feud with the mayor. The union endorsed Cicilline when he first ran for mayor in 2002 but later cut ties amid bitter contract negotiations. When a city auditor’s report released in late October found that Providence failed to make roughly $24.7 million in monthly payments to its pension system, the firefighters union sued Cicilline. Since the lawsuit, the city has made the required payments, Doughty said. Doughty added that while the city’s current pension system may need changes, failing to meet pension obligations is simply not an option. “You have retirees out there who have a constitutional right to this pension, so the city is on the hook for this one way or another,” he said.
continued from page 1 to ensure the voluntary payment program is fully funded, the report says. The commission further suggests that the city receive some of the anticipated revenue to these institutions from so-called knowledge economy industries as well
as the properties made newly available by the relocation of Interstate 195. “Brown has long been a partner in the progress of Providence and Rhode Island, and we look forward to continuing to do so,” wrote Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations, in an e-mail to The Herald.
SportsThursday The Brown Daily Herald
Thursday, December 2, 2010 | Page 6
Ivy League shies from tournaments continued from page 1 Because the Ivy League is one of the strongest conferences in both men’s and women’s lacrosse, and its teams are highly ranked in terms of the RPI, league coaches concluded that playing games against Ivy League teams in a postseason tournament would help the profiles of those trying to qualify for the NCAA championships, Rodgers said. The proposal went through the league’s legislative process and was approved with a two-year testing period, during which the league would monitor the tournament’s success. The tournament determines the recipient of the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, but not the Ivy League champion, he said. There are no talks about introducing conference tournaments for other team sports — at least, not until the lacrosse tournaments are thoroughly evaluated by the league’s athletic directors, he added. Men’s soccer goalie and cocaptain Paul Grandstrand ’11 said that even if there were a proposal to create a tournament, he would most likely not support it. “I don’t think there’s a big push for it,” he said. “Being in the Ivy League, we like being different, and it’s been like this forever. I don’t see it changing.” Each regular season game currently has a “dual meaning,” he said, because teams are playing not only for the conference title, based currently on wins and losses, but also for a place in the NCAA tournament. If there were an end-of-season tournament, the scenario would change, and the team that won the tournament would receive an automatic bid to the national championships. While consistency throughout the season is
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
Men’s soccer defender Ryan McDuff ’13 said an Ivy League tournament would benefit teams that lost games early in the regular season.
important within the current system, a conference tournament would favor teams that perform better at the end of the season, he said. Members of the team have occasionally mentioned the lack of a postseason competition, Grandstrand said, but he added that he does not consider it an issue. “Being a senior, it’s been like this for four years,” he said. “There’s no real need to change it.” Head Coach Pat Laughlin agreed. “I think one of the great things about the Ivy League is that every
regular season game counts so much,” he said. “It makes every game very difficult and also very important. And I think if you have a tournament at the end of the year, you’ll lose some of that.” But defender Ryan McDuff ’13 said he would welcome a tournament. “It’s tough in the current system where you just play regular season, because once you drop or lose or tie one game, you’re kind of chasing for the rest of the season,” he said. McDuff said he understands that the logistics behind organizing a tournament might be complicated since there is only a short period of time between the end of the Ivy League season and the start of the NCAA tournament. Allowing four teams to compete, instead of eight, in a competition consisting of two semifinals and a final could be a solution, he said. The Ivy League would also have to make sure that an end-of-season tournament would not overshadow the rest of the season, McDuff said. “The competitiveness may drop off if teams know that there is an Ivy League tournament to be played at the end of the year,” he said. But McDuff said he believes that such a tournament might allow an additional Ivy League team to qualify for the NCAA championships. If a lower-ranked team were to have an unexpected win at the conference tournament, in which its competitors already have at-large bids, the Ivy League would be able to send an additional team to the national championships, he said. This season, four Ivy League programs — Brown, Dartmouth, Penn and Princeton — qualified for the 48-team NCAA tournament. “If there’s an opportunity to play more games especially against talented teams, then you would like to be given that opportunity,” he said.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
S ports T HURSDAY
Thursday, December 2, 2010
“It’s always been my dad.” — basketball’s Sean McGonagill ’14, on his role model
athlete of the week
McGonagill ’14 ready to play ball By Sam Rubinroit Sports Staff Writer
For incoming freshmen, the transition to college can be difficult. For student athletes, it can be hard to balance their new lives with the commitments they must uphold to their team. It can be even harder for a freshman to start on the team, as the athlete is burdened with even greater responsibility. Sean McGonagill ’14 has not only earned a starting spot on the men’s basketball team, but has become a major part of the team’s early success. The first-year point guard from Brookfield, Ill., has taken the transition to college in stride, and through the first five games has averaged 9.4 points, 4.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists. He was named the Ivy League rookie of the week after helping the team open its season at 2-1, the best start to a season in 10 years, and the team now stands at 3-2. “He’s the most humble kid,” said Head Coach Jesse Agel last month. “So for a kid to come in and play that many minutes right out of the gate, there’s no jealousy. All he cares about is winning and doing the right thing, and if something doesn’t go right he takes responsibility for everyone else.” For his strong performance on the court in his first year as a Bear, McGonagill has been named the Herald
athlete of the week.
new, but it’s a different environment.
Herald: What has been the hardest part of the transition from high school basketball to college? McGonagill: The guys are a lot bigger in college. I’m really small, so the size of guys has been a big difference.
What made you choose Brown? I love this school. Coach Agel and Coach (T.J.) Sorrentine were great recruiting with me, so just going to see the campus and getting the level of education I get along with the basketball helped it a lot. Academics along with athletics were big to me.
What has been the biggest difference off the court? Off the court, it’s managing your time. Being able to get the extra time to get into the gym and also getting into the weight room is really important. What has been the best advice that you have received? The best advice is just to keep your composure. Everyone has their rough days, tough practices, but just move on to the next point. Have a short memory, but keep everything in mind and make sure you are correcting your mistakes. How hard is it coming in as a point guard and having to lead the team? It’s a game that I’ve been playing my entire life, so I don’t see it as a hard thing. It’s just something I need to step in and do, and I knew I wanted to play right off the bat. I have to accomplish my goals and work hard, but I’ve been working hard my entire life. It’s not anything too
What are your predictions for the season? As of right now, we look like we’re doing real well. We started off really strong at 3-1, but we are disappointed about the last loss and, looking ahead, we’re just trying to keep our record up. What would you say is the best part of your game? The way I distribute the ball to the guys and run the floor. I feel like, with the team we have, they run the floor really well and knock down shots, so as long as I can run the floor and get them the ball I will get a few assists. Has there been any point in the season where you have been scared? Before my first game, I was a little nervous. But I called my dad and he gave me a quick talk and was like, “You are playing in front of no one that you know. You are on the road. There
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
The integral role of point guard Sean McGonagill ’14 in the men’s basketball team’s success has made him The Herald’s athlete of the week.
is absolutely no one you know, so just play your game that you’ve played your entire life. There’s no reason to be scared.” Who is your basketball role model? It’s always been my dad. I’ve grown up playing basketball with my dad, and he taught me since I was 3 years old how to dribble a ball and everything
I know. What are your plans for winter break? Basketball. A lot of basketball and a lot of traveling, so just seeing my family is a big thing. I’ve always been close to my family, so being able to see my family for the first time over Christmas break will be nice.
Page 9
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
S ports T HURSDAY
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Keep up to date with Brown sports at any time browndailyherald.com/sports
The mild mild West: a very early preview of the NFL playoffs
By Sam Sheehan Sports Columnist
The stage is set. A Monday-night football game with playoff implications. With time pushing the NFL schedule to the pivotal final third of the season, every game counts. The winner of this matchup will find itself just a game behind the division leader. It has all the makings of a huge game. But it isn’t. Not even close. I would rather Sam Sheehan hammer bamBadly Dressed Irish Sports Fan boo slivers under my fingernails until the pain makes me pass out than watch this game. The contest in question is a matchup of the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals. The teams both sit at 3-7, an abysmal record that would get their coaches fired in any normal division. But this is no normal division. This is the NFC West. The NFC West: where every team has a losing record. The NFC West: where the combined net points of the four teams is -247. The NFC West: where your quarterback giggles on the sideline with a lineman as your team is trounced in the fourth quarter by 21 points. The NFC West: where at the postgame press conference, that same QB throws a temper tantrum in his cute little pink polo when he is called out on not taking the game seriously, and then storms out like a teenager who’s just had her cell phone taken away. Since the league’s formation, the NFL has put teams in the playoffs on a divisional system by conference. The champions in each of the four divisions and the two next-best teams go the playoffs. The system promotes in-conference rivalries and, until recently, has worked quite effectively. Picture this. You have a huge ECON 0110 test coming up. You lock yourself in the SciLi, suck down five Red Bulls and pull an all-nighter. Meanwhile, the four people across the hall lock themselves in a Keeney double, suck down two Four Lokos each and pull a very different kind of all-nighter. You all take the test the next day, and you get yours back with a big fat 76 on the top of it. The four party animals across the hall get a 34, 33, 27 and 10. The professor then curves up those grades 66 points on the logic that “they all did this really hung over, so I’ll just give the best one 100 and the other three however many points they were away from him.” You’d probably be a bit miffed that a guy named T-Dawg, who crushed his empty Loko can on his forehead the night before and put “rubber bands” as an answer about the elasticity of demand, got the same grade as you. That’s who the NFC West is — the dude who thinks he missed his test because he was blacked out for it. The current NFC standings are as such: The Falcons are 9-2; the Bears and Saints are 8-3; and the Giants, Buccaneers, Eagles and Packers are 7-4. All respectable teams that should make the playoffs. Were the six slots
actually distributed by performance, it would only be the Buccaneers who would be left out of the playoff picture if the season ended today. But the reality is that the St. Louis Rams, with a 5-6 record, would make the playoffs instead, leaving the Giants out in the cold. Why should a team that isn’t even in the top half of a conference’s squads make the playoffs? It doesn’t make sense. I feel bad for whichever two of these top seven teams don’t make the playoffs and have to sit at home and watch one of these abysmal NFC West teams get obliterated by whomever they face. Who knows, though? Maybe that San Francisco 49ers team that started the season 0-5 will pull an upset against the Saints or the Packers. Maybe Bristol Palin’s “Dancing With The Stars” final appearance wasn’t a total fix. Maybe Derek Anderson wasn’t laughing and he just has really weird way of being somber. (Things get awkward when he gets jury duty for a homicide case.) At any rate, three-quarters of the way through the season, here are my NFC teams for the playoffs complete with what I thought at the beginning of the year in parentheses: No. 1: Falcons (Saints) Coming into this year, I couldn’t see any way that the Saints lost the NFC South or, for that matter, the whole conference. With no big pieces gone from their Super Bowl-winning team and Drew Brees at the helm, I thought that there was nothing that could stop them. But injuries and offensive woes turned “Who Dat!” into “Oh, Crap,” and now it’s the Dirty Birds of Atlanta on top of the division. Roddy White has looked like an MVP candidate at receiver and these guys look unbeatable at home. The Saints could still get the division with
another game against the Falcons coming up, but the Falcons have a one-game lead and a much easier schedule. I look for them to end the year at 13-3. No. 2: Eagles (Cowboys) The E-Gulls were in my top spot last week, but against a quick Bears pass rush and with no Asante Samuel to hold the secondary together, they dropped an ugly game at Soldier Field. But this offense still has the most firepower in the NFL. Once their secondary gets healthy, these guys are going to be a dangerous team in the playoffs. With a pretty easy schedule from here on out — the exception being a game at Giant Stadium — I think the Eagles should only lose one more. 11-5 for the Philly Birds. We’re going to ignore that I thought the Cowboys would be No. 2. No. 3: Packers (Packers) With a deciding game against the Bears in the last week of the season, I’m looking for the Pack to ride the upcoming Aaron Rodgers hot streak (I’m telling you, it’s coming) and nip Chicago for the division title. The Bears proved they are for real last week, and both teams have brutal schedules remaining. I just think the Packers are about to get hot. 11-5 for the real A-Rod. No. 4: Awful NFC West Team (49ers) Sigh — I guess I’d go with the Rams at this point, just because I like Sam Bradford. This is like picking which M. Night Shyamalan movie of the last six years is your favorite. No. 5: Saints (Giants) With games against the Ravens, Falcons and Buccaneers, the Saints are probably going to drop a couple more games in the last few weeks.
That still puts them at 11-5, though, and let’s not forget that they are the Saints. This is still a team that could be in Arlington on Super Sunday. No. 6: Giants (Falcons) At the beginning of the season, everyone, myself included, thought that the Bears’ winning ways were a fluke. I expected them to drop off and become a quaint 8-8 team. Now, in spite of Jay Cutler’s inevitable nine terrible throws per game, the Bears are 8-3. The bad news is the Bears have only beaten two quality teams and now have games against the Packers, Patriots and Jets. I see them ending up 10-6. That leaves
the door open for the Trick-or-Treat Giants to win three of their last five and win the wild card spot on a headto-head tiebreaker. Let’s not forget the Giants were a No. 6 seed in 2007 when they went to the Super Bowl. I’m forgetting what happened once they got there. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go grab an armful of glass ornaments and fall on them. Sam Sheehan ’12 will give Derek Anderson his cell phone back when he overthrows Larry Fitzgerald fewer than seven times in a game. Talk sports with him at sam_sheehan@ brown.edu or follow him on Twitter at @SamSheehan.
Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald
Page 10 | Thursday, December 2, 2010
L oren F ulton
e d i to r i a l
Greatest hits
t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d Editor-in-Chief
Managing Editor
Deputy Managing Editors
Senior Editors
George Miller
Chaz Kelsh
Emmy Liss Joanna Wohlmuth
Ben Hyman Seth Motel
editorial
Business
Arts & Culture Editor Anne Speyer Arts & Culture Editor Suzannah Weiss Features Editor Sara Luxenberg Features Editor Brian Mastroianni Metro Editor Brigitta Greene Metro Editor Ben Schreckinger News Editor Sydney Ember Sports Editor Tony Bakshi Asst. Sports Editor Ashley McDonnell
Production Copy Desk Chief Kelly Mallahan Asst. Copy Desk Chief Joe Milner Asst. Copy Desk Chief Dan Towne Design Editor Julien Ouellet Asst. Design Editor Gili Kliger Asst. Design Editor Leor Shtull-Leber Asst. Design Editor Katie Wilson Web Editor Neal Poole
General Managers Office Manager Claire Kiely Shawn Reilly Katie Koh Directors Sales Kelly Wess Finance Matthew Burrows Asst. Finance Danielle Marshak Client Relations Margaret Watson Christiana Stephenson Alumni Relations Managers Local Sales Isha Gulati Local Sales Arjun Vaidya National Sales Rajiv Iyengar University Sales Aditi Bhatia University Sales Jared Davis Recruiter Sales Trenten Nelson-Rivers Business Operations Lauren Bosso Business Analytics Jilyn Chao Margot Grinberg Credit and Collections Special Projects Alexander Carrere Staff Kathy Bui Opinions Opinions Editor Michael Fitzpatrick Opinions Editor Alyssa Ratledge Editorial Page Editor Matt Aks Tyler Rosenbaum Editorial Page Editor
Post- magazine Editor-in-Chief Sam Carter Editor-in-Chief Kate Doyle Editor-in-Chief Marshall Katheder
BLOG DAILY HERALD Managing Editor Matt Klimerman Managing Editor Anne Simons Managing Editor David Winer
Graphics & Photos Graphics Editor Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor Alex Yuly Photo Editor Stephanie London Photo Editor Max Monn Photo Editor Hilary Rosenthal Jonathan Bateman Sports Photo Editor Jesse Morgan Asst. Sports Photo Editor
Over the course of a semester, the editorial page board sometimes starts to feel like the complaint department. Each day, we try to make a suggestion to improve our school, the surrounding community or higher education broadly. For instance, this fall we’ve called for: — A new center for humanitarian aid and disaster relief that would promote both research and realworld practice — Making the night football game a yearly tradition — A standardized letter of recommendation request form that all students and professors could use — More interdisciplinary courses that involve the hard sciences, like the new class at Harvard on the science of food — A new venture capital fund that would invest a small percentage of the Rhode Island state employees’ pension fund in Rhode Island businesses, as originally proposed by gubernatorial candidate Ken Block — Upkeep in the campus gyms that reflects the $64 recreational facilities fee implemented this year — Vigilance on the part of both students and administrators in keeping Brown bedbug-free — More cooperation between students and neighbors to make sure off-campus parties are minimally disruptive — Improved advising on senior capstone projects
— Passage of the DREAM Act — Repeal of the new property taxes imposed by the Providence City Council on rental houses — Vigilance in maintaining complete anonymity in donations to college senior gift campaigns — Stepped-up enforcement of the academic code in departments other than computer science — An end to political attacks based on opponents’ college writings — Keeping Four Loko legal With all these suggestions, some readers might think that we’re a bunch of complainers or that we have some axe to grind. This couldn’t be further from the truth — we think Brown students are indeed the happiest in the nation, and we consider ourselves among the happiest of the happiest. So in our last editorial of the semester, we’re not going to go out with a bang. Rather, we’d like to give our school a good old pat on the back. Thank you to our fantastic classmates and to the amazing professional staff that make this place special. The level of freedom and opportunity available here is simply incredible, and we’re grateful to be a part of it. We wish everyone a happy, healthy and relaxing winter vacation. Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
Rafael Chaiken, Leor Shtull-Leber, Katie Wilson, Designers David Chung, Shefali Luthra, Carmen Shulman, Copy Editors Nicole Boucher, Sara Luxenberg, Ben Schreckinger, 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 Anne Artley, Anita Badejo, Aparna Bansal, Casey Bleho, Amy Chen, Jacob Comer, Sarah Forman, Miriam Furst, Jeffrey Handler, Thomas Jarus, Abby Kerson, Kristina Klara, Ben Kutner, Chip Lebovitz, Shefali Luthra, Leonardo Moauro, Amy Rasmussen, Emily Rosen, Bradley Silverman, Anne Simons, Katherine Sola, Kat Thornton, Alexandra Ulmer, Natalie Villacorta, Emma Wohl, Margaret Yi, 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 Corinne Cathcart, David Chung, Olivia Conetta, Carrie Craven, Max Ernst, Mrinal Kapoor, Abby Kerson, Juhee Kwon, Claire Luchette, Sahil Luthra, Shefali Luthra, Katie MacDougald, Rajan Mittal, Alexandra Nuttbrown, Elizabeth Orr, Raaj Parekh, Katrina Phillips, Amy Rasmussen, Carmen Shulman, Winnie Wang, Emma Wohl Editorial Page Board Members Anita Mathews, Melissa Shube, Gaurie Tilak
C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication. C ommentary P O L I C Y The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only. L etters to the E ditor P olicy Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.
Opinions The Brown Daily Herald
Thursday, December 2, 2010 | Page 11
Grade inflation: not just for students anymore BY Ian Trupin Opinions Columnist This October, many in the Brown community may have been delighted to hear that Brown University tied for first place in the 2011 Green Report Card, a report by the Sustainable Endowments Institute that profiles the environmental and social initiatives of over 300 American colleges and universities. Along with Dickinson College and the University of Minnesota, Brown received all “A” grades in categories ranging from green building to investment priorities. These grades, which are the highest Brown has yet received in the four-year history of the report, might seem a cause for celebration — if only they accurately reflected the realities of Brown’s policies. For criteria involving the endowment, which account for three of the nine grading categories (“Endowment Transparency,” “Investment Priorities” and “Shareholder Engagement”), they do not. For “Shareholder Engagement” and “Endowment Transparency,” the Green Report Card gives schools high marks for implementing advisory committees on investment responsibility. These committees determine how a university should vote on shareholder resolutions related to sustainability, such as whether or not a corporation should conduct environmental impact surveys on its operations, or act in response to their findings. Brown has such a committee, the Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP), but this body has not advised Brown on shareholder resolution voting in two years, as Brown no lon-
ger has the kind of investments that result in votes. The extent to which the Green Report Card emphasizes the institution of the advisory committee model as the single measure of endowment transparency and shareholder engagement is questionable, but even so, the A’s received by Brown in these categories imply a working system where none exists. At the very least, leaving these categories blank would have reflected this reality more honestly. Fortunately, it is possible to see where some of these misleading grades come from, as the questionnaires that were used to deter-
ACCRIP’s 50-page annual reports to see the votes received by the committee. Even then, it is only possible to see ACCRIP’s recommendations on how Brown should vote given its ethical principles, as ACCRIP is only an advisory committee. Furthermore, even during those three years, only a fraction of the shareholder resolutions that Brown voted on were ever submitted to ACCRIP. The rest remain invisible to the school community. Another section of the questionnaire asks if a university has investment policies or managers that consider sustainability factors. Brown’s efforts in the area of “Investment
While the Social Choice Fund is certainly a step in the right direction, it is clearly a baby step and does not make Brown “A” material. mine the grades are included on the Green Report Card website. The answers that Brown submitted neglect to mention the inactivity of ACCRIP on shareholder resolutions — information which could have prevented Brown from receiving an “A” in “Shareholder Engagement.” Similarly, when Brown claimed on the questionnaire that a list of its votes on shareholder resolutions is available online to members of the school community, it did not clarify that this list never was completed or particularly accessible. It is only possible to determine a small portion of Brown’s votes between the years 2006 and 2008. To do so, an intrepid researcher must wade through
Priorities” are tokenistic at best, and center around Brown’s Social Choice Fund, which invests in a “green” mutual fund. As of October 2008, the Social Choice Fund had received a single donation of $1.3 million, which is less than 0.07 percent of the value of Brown’s endowment. More recent information is not readily available, but it has been noted by former ACCRIP member Daniel MacCombie ’09 that the threshold donation level of $25,000 may prevent a majority of potential donors from contributing. While the fund is certainly a step in the right direction, it is clearly a baby step and does not make Brown “A” material. That Brown is a beneficiary of serious grade inflation is perhaps clearest when com-
paring Brown’s results with those of other schools. According to SEI, Wichita State University, just like Brown University, makes a list of all holdings available to trustees and some senior administrators while only asset allocation is made available to the general public. In fact, the only difference between the two schools is that Wichita State does not make its shareholder voting record available to the school community, while Brown supposedly does, though as we have seen this is not really true. Nevertheless, by the inscrutable logic of the Green Report Card, Brown received an “A” to Wichita’s “F” in transparency. Perhaps even more bizarrely, Columbia, which discloses significantly more investment information than Brown, making a list of equity holdings available to school community members in addition to having an advisory committee like ACCRIP, received a “B” in that category. As one of the most widely-known and respected measures of the environmental and social commitment of America’s colleges and universities, the Green Report Card clearly has an important role to play in setting nationwide standards for campus sustainability. Just as the U.S. News and World Report motivates colleges to compete for the lowest acceptance rates, the Green Report Card has the power to make schools take note of how their sustainability initiatives compare with their competitors’. But it is unclear that the “A” grades that Brown received for its investment policies will set a positive standard for Brown’s peers, as Brown’s performance in these areas is anything but exceptional.
Ian Trupin ’13 is concentrating in COE and wishes he were a polyglot.
Why the athletics department is good for Brown BY Alexa Caldwell Guest Columnist I would like to offer an alternative perspective to Susannah Kroeber’s ’11 column (“Why the athletics department is bad for Brown,” Dec. 1). It is understandable why she would have such a negative view of sports, as her feeble attempt to list the benefits of athletics is dismal. Her reasons for playing sports, “to earn the respect of (her) classmates” and to learn “how to fit in” could be a direct correlation to why her athletic career in college did not last, as well as why she seems so critical of the invaluable experiences and lessons that come from athletics. I feel that it is unnecessary to promote athletics. Most athletes here at Brown who are still currently playing know why they play, know the benefits that come from playing. You represent your school; you demonstrate your love for your university and your teammates, and you are on a mission to be the best player and team you can possibly be in four years. The most significant point that needs to be addressed is the warped reasoning in her question, “It is all centered on warfare… isn’t this something our administration stands against in its refusal to allow ROTC on campus?” I have no need to deny that pregame rituals involve a hype and intensity that can be compared to “warfare.” But I also feel no reason to justify this mode of getting in the zone and prepared to play your best. For some
people, this “gearing up for battle” is a way to get their adrenaline pumping and ready. The huge point that she does not seem to get is that, in the end, it is just a game. Sure, I hate, maybe loathe, Princeton, but this lust for competition in no way extends to feelings beyond the athletic field or to actions that could affect the Brown community or the Brown philosophy. Further, what she so drastically misses
Brown. As an opinions columnist, it would be wise to have some (or any) substantial evidence about the horrific “pressure(s) exerted by coaches to keep their athletes playing,” before making such sweeping and dramatic generalizations. Most of what she says is based on her own singular experience or anecdotal evidence. When she claims that “no other extracurricular at Brown absorbs as much money as athletics does,” she fails
I am sorry that Kroeber has felt betrayed or inhibited by Brown athletics.
is that the athletes’ experience on the playing field is, in fact, the best preparation we can get in our future professional lives. What area of life rejects or does not participate in this kind of competition and intense mentality? Professional work in marketing, political campaigns and legal cases all require the skills developed in competitive sports. Attacking sports teams at Brown for engaging in “abhorrent” behavior that is common and promoted in every day life is unfair and unjust. In a way, Kroeber has engaged in warfare on every varsity sports team that exists at
to take into account that the athletics department is one of the largest groups of students at Brown, and that most of their funding comes from alums and donors. Like Kroeber, I can only speak from personal experience, and I have not done exhaustive research on the attitudes of athletes at Brown. But, as a current member of the Brown athletic community, I am certain that my love for Brown’s athletic department and the experiences I have had here is shared and appreciated by most of the student athletes at Brown. Finally, I am sorry that Kroeber has felt
betrayed or inhibited by Brown athletics. Her generalizations of coaches and programs are severe and need to be re-evaluated before she puts them into print. But what is worse, she has taken what seems to be a personal trauma, either quitting her own team or being upset by a friend that refused to quit, and extended those emotions to attack the whole athletics department. People who quit their sports teams at Brown do not need any of the justifications that she is promoting. It is their own personal decision, as teams are very capable of functioning and succeeding without them. But for her to transition from the point that people who quit “should be allowed to leave an activity without losing the respect of their teammates” to “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” is a purely emotional argument that requires no justification or response. She has a right to her opinion, but it would be appreciated that she not make such unfounded, emotional and unintelligent generalizations about a group of people who, according to the Brown University Athletics website, have “the nation’s fourth largest collegiate athletic program (and the first largest program for women), with 900 athletes competing on 37 sports teams.” That’s a big deal.
Alexa Caldwell ’11 is a member of the women’s lacrosse team. She can be contacted at alexa_caldwell@brown.edu
Today The Brown Daily Herald
2
Hall of fame inducts past U. president
9
to day
to m o r r o w
45 / 30
43 / 29
Sheehan ’12 previews NFL playoffs
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Page 12
t h e n e w s i n i m ag e s
3
8
inside the herald
c a l e n da r Today
December 2
7 P.M.
ToMORROW
1
December 3
7 P.M.
The Failure of the American Jewish
Post- magazine, inside today’s paper
Snowflake Ball, Alumnae Hall
Establishment, MacMillan 117 8 P.M.
8 P.M.
Poler Bears Masque Show, Harkness
Evolution Rap Performance,
House, Wriston Quad
Petteruti Lounge
Post- gets creative with fruit, rocks some
menu SHARPE REFECTORY
peacock feathers and
VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL
digs into some food
LUNCH Hot Turkey Sandwich with Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Edamame with Peppers
Pasta Primavera, BBQ Beef Sandwich, Grilled Santa Fe Chicken, Curly Fries
that’s a little bit more comfortable.
DINNER Salt and Pepper Jerk Chicken, Spanish Onion Soup, Pesto Pasta, Baked Sweet Potatoes
Pork Medallions in Portabello Sauce, Au Gratin Potatoes with Fresh Herbs. Belgian Carrots
a c r o s s to b e a r ACROSS diamonds in the Rough by Jonah kagan ’13 1 Furry, ticklish monster 5 Instrument for Modest Mouse or Mumford and Sons 10 Suffix with flex 14 Kick back 15 Stomach woe 16 Word with wet or dry 17 Fad involving rhinestones and wax 19 Bones, anatomically 20 “What was ___ do?” 21 Arms from Israel 22 “___ all you have to say for yourself?” 24 They have couches, stereotypically 26 “The Love ___” (OutKast album) 27 Wii avatar 28 He’s known for 64 “Let’s take ___” 11 Clear a trail, or 47 Macho rolling a stone declaration what one might 31 They’re written in 65 Where the 49 Tasty tapioca have to do in subject of “127 Objective-C for balls the abscence Hours” got his the iPhone 51 Prep, as a of 17- or arm stuck under a 34 The New School turkey 60-Across? bolder and had to endower 52 Doesn’t lie, amputate it with 12 Daughter of 36 Runners’ goals? technically 1-Down his pocket knife in 37 Little: Fr. 53 They’re order to escape 13 State of the 38 Not be able to connected to (European) 66 ___ d’oeuvre sleep the wrist bones Union 67 Less dated 40 Anderson 54 “Sick!” 18 New Mexico Cooper’s channel 68 [Give me your 55 When repeated native attention!] 41 Picture puzzle thrice, a Ke$ha 23 Stallone and 44 “___ Men” (2010 DOWN song others thriller) 1 Oft-impersonated 56 Erotic starter? 25 Gchats or 45 Classic Jags singer 57 Coke Facebooks 46 Like pasties, vis- 2 Reluctant 61 It runs N/S in 26 “Props” á-vis bras 3 Concentration, NY 28 Look from 48 It covers multiple here 62 Any one of Lucius, in the bases: Abbr.? 4 “Hell ___ Life” 99 of the 101 Harry Potter 50 Rhode Island (Kanye West dalmations series cake ingredient song with the lyric 51 Watches the “No more drugs 29 ___ Reader 30 I.R.S. ID’s game with the for me / P*ssy guys, say (with and religion is all I 31 Car ad nos. 32 Defy a blindfold brewskis, of need”) 33 What 17- and course) 5 Downer 60-Across get 55 Tommy ___ 6 “___ Not Lost” rid of 57 Sad-sounding car (OK Go song) 35 Buenos ___ company? 7 CBS military 39 Sebulba or 58 1051, to Caesar drama Solutions and Anakin, notably 59 Lei person’s party 8 Actress Aniston, archive online at 42 Björk and 60 Some guy briefly acrosstobear. Maxïmo Park grooming 9 Threesomes are wordpress.com have them? 63 Going ___ their lower bound Email: brownpuzzles (fighting or 10 Carbon-12, e.g. 43 Stuff to filter @gmail.com 45 Big tees: Abbr. f*cking)
comics BB & Z | Cole Pruitt, Andrew Seiden and Valerie Hsiung
Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline
Classic Deep-Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbon