Daily
Herald
the Brown
vol. cxlvi, no. 23
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Grants fuel economic growth
Since 1891
U. to phase out course catalogs By Caitlin Trujillo Senior Staff Writer
By Natalie Villacorta Senior Staff Writer
A staple of living rooms and libraries alike, fluorescent lamps continue to replace traditional incandescent bulbs. But what many consumers do not know is that these energy-efficient lamps contain mercury. If bulbs break, the mercury poses a risk to the brain development of fetuses, newborns and children. That’s where Banyan Environmental Inc. will come in, said Love Sarin ’05 PhD’10. The company is developing clean-up kits and recycling sleeves for proper fluorescent lamp disposal. Sarin’s team is one of four teams working with Brown that received funding in February from the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council. STAC is funding projects that are “poised and ready … to take knowledge and turn it into something that is commercially relevant,” said Christine Smith, executive director and innovation program manager for STAC. The council receives $1.5 million annually from the state to support collaborative research. Collaboration is the key to continued on page 3
Together, co-founders Bodinger and Shusterman have roughly two decades of aerial arts experience. Every week they share this experience — with the help of a few guide books — with Brown Aerial Arts Society’s enthusiastic members. The skill level in the club ranges from students who have never touched a trapeze before to those trained professionally by trapeze schools. As a visitor to the club, I fit into the first category and found myself warmly welcomed. “If you just look, you can see who has experience,” Harmony Lu ’12 said as I watched the class. A beginner herself, she added that even those who just started last semester have already seen marked improvement.
Following the lead of peer institutions, the University announced yesterday it will stop distributing the Course Announcement Bulletin to students. The catalogs — formerly distributed to returning students in the spring and to incoming students during the summer — will now only be made available to faculty members, academic advisers and Meiklejohn peer advisers, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron wrote in an email to the Brown community yesterday afternoon. The move will cut down on environmental waste, as most students eschew the printed catalog in favor of online course information, she wrote. “In the past, it was not uncommon to find recycling bins filled with CABs on the same afternoon they were distributed to mailboxes,” Bergeron wrote. “By ending this wasteful practice, we hope to refocus resources and energies toward improving the ways we transmit course information to every constituency on campus.” The change will probably not result in significant financial savings for the University, Registrar Robert Fitzgerald said, because publication of the catalogs costs less than $10,000 a year. Instead, the new policy is “an effort to go green” and follow the lead of peer schools like Harvard and Penn, which have also ceased publishing printed course catalogs, he said. The course catalog was inefficient because it “was outdated once it was published,” Fitzgerald said. To make up for the loss, Banner’s Course Scheduler will display both fall and spring semester courses for the 2011-12 academic year leading up to pre-registration in April, Fitzgerald said. The Office of the Registrar will also keep a downloadable PDF on its website, he said. The University did not distribute catalogs to first-year students last summer, and Fitzgerald said his office received no complaints. But Alex Rieckhoff ’14 said a printed catalog could be helpful to new students and a better option than Banner. “I found it really hard to go through online” to find classes to take, she said, adding that she eventually consulted a junior friend’s catalog to make the process easier. The catalog is more straightforward than Banner’s Course Sched-
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Stephanie London / Herald
In addition to firing all Providence teachers, the city plans to close some district schools to ease the budget crunch.
School board dismisses district’s 1,926 teachers By SHEFAli luthra Senior Staff Writer
The Providence School Board voted 4-3 to terminate the contracts of all 1,926 teachers in the district at its Feb. 18 meeting. The proposal, which originated from Providence Mayor Angel Taveras’ office, was created to provide “flexibility” in addressing the city’s deficit, Taveras wrote in a statement. The city also plans to close some schools in the district as it finalizes its budget. Projections for the Providence Public School District deficit currently approach $40 million. Taveras wrote that the decision was a “last resort,” adding that
most dismissals will be rescinded in coming weeks as the city budget is finalized. In a press conference following the Feb. 18 meeting, Steve Smith, president of the Providence
city & state Teachers Union, called the decision “shocking,” comparing Taveras to a robber baron. “This is a political decision to take control and silence workers,” Smith said, adding that Taveras is “waging a war on workers.” But Taveras wrote in the statement that he intends to work with unions and organized labor to resolve the dispute. “I support the
democratic right to organize and have been participating regularly in meetings with our city unions to strengthen our partnerships and find common ground in solving our financial problems,” Taveras wrote. Smith also criticized the city’s decision to terminate teachers as opposed to laying them off. Teachers who are laid off are still eligible for certain benefits, and decisions are influenced by seniority. But with termination, the district does not need to address seniority, and a teacher who is let go can be completely cut off from benefits. In particular, Smith addressed continued on page 4
With the greatest of ease: Aerial club learns to fly
inside
“Show me what you can do,” requests an inexperienced aerial artist of the more knowledgeable Alexis Shusterman ’13. And Shusterman complies — pulling herself smoothly onto the static trapeze, the bar becomes a natural addition to her body as she twists and turns with ease. She is like a pretzel flying gracefully. The impressive stunts are easy, she claims, insisting that the new member will be able to mimic them in weeks. Meanwhile, Zack Bodinger ’13 hangs from the double static trapeze, acting as “base” while another aerialist hangs upside-down from his ankles. And Doug McDonald ’14 — legs in the splits — swings five feet from the ground with only silk rope wrapped around his feet to support him. It is a typical night of practice Katrina Phillips / Herald The Brown Aerial Arts Society teaches the art of trapeze at weekly practices. for one of the University’s youngest
news...................2-3 CITY & State.........4 editorial..............6 Opinions...............7 SPORTS...................8
performing arts groups, the Brown Aerial Arts Society. Learning to fly
Nothing but net
Right track
The women’s lacrosse team beats Sacred Heart 21-8
IR changes will simplify concentration
Sports, 8
Opinions, 7
weather
By Katrina Phillips Contributing Writer
t o d ay
tomorrow
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