Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Daily

Herald

the Brown

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

vol. cxlvi, no. 33

Panelists address Middle East conflict

Since 1891

No plans for Simmons to step down

E d u c at i o n i n c r i s i s

By Shefali Luthra Senior Staff Writer

By Aparna Bansal Senior Staff Writer

Seven panelists debated challenges to Israeli-Palestinian relations last night in the final event of a twoday conference titled “Israelis and Palestinians: Working Together for a Better Future.” The conference also included “Neighbors,” a theater production Sunday night by the Galilee Multicultural Theater, and information sessions on various organizations working toward peace in the Middle East.

David Jacobson, professor of Judaic studies, organized the conference and moderated the panel.

He asked the panelists to talk about the “most likely scenario to unfold” in Israeli-Palestinian relations and whether events are moving toward a one- or two-state solution.

Eyal Naveh, co-director of the continued on page 3

Lydia Yamaguchi / Herald

Local students (above) participate in a program run by CityArts, a community organization dedicated to supplementing art education in public schools.

Prov. schools’ art budget dwindles

By Emma Wohl Senior Staff Writer

On a Friday morning at Trinity Repertory Company in downtown Providence, the professional theater troupe performed a matinee of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.” Its audience consisted of over 500 high school students from public schools around the city. Many of the students had already studied the play in workshops put on in their classrooms by

Trinity Rep’s education program.

But this program, one of a number of education initiatives run through Trinity Rep and other or-

unclear how areas like the arts — whose success cannot be measured through standardized tests — will fare in the next round of cuts.

Requirements and reality

Putting Rhode Island’s public schools to the test Fourth in a five-part series ganizations in the city, may be in danger. With funding reduced across all disciplines in public schools, it is

The Providence Public School District requires all its schools to offer art classes, wrote Earnest Cox, administrator of fine arts for the Providence School Department, in continued on page 4

Mayor announces four elementary school closings Mayor Angel Taveras and Providence Public School District Superintendent Tom Brady announced their recommendations to close four elementary schools in a press conference Monday afternoon. The school board must approve the recommended closings before they can

be finalized.

The recommendations follow Taveras’ decision to issue dismissal notices to all 1,926 Providence teachers.

city & state The mayor recommended closing four elementary schools — Flynn Elementary School, Windmill Street

Elementary School, Asa Messer Elementary School and the Asa Messer Annex — and converting Bridgham Middle School into an elementary school.

“This is sort of the beginning of the pain,” Taveras said at the press conference. “This is the first of the many difficult days. No one likes closing schools. It has to be done.”

The schools recommended for

By Lindor Qunaj Senior Staff Writer

Stephanie London / Herald

inside

The University hosted early-admitted students Monday for a panel and lunch.

See full coverage on page 3.

news...................2-3 Arts.........................4 Letters..................5 Opinions...............7 SPORTS....................8

tions that Al-Khawaja and her family were extremists or even “Iranian terrorists,” she said. The event was held as scheduled.

Al-Khawaja received a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants Program grant to study at the University last year and served as an Arabic teaching assistant. She began her talk by providing historical context for the ongoing uprising in Bahrain, which began Feb. 14, and then gave her firsthand account of the events. Though protesters originally intended to force the government to create a new constitution, they shifted their demand to total continued on page 3

continued on page 2

closing were chosen on the basis of physical quality of facilities, student performance, potential costs of school renovations and ease of transferring students, Brady said.

If the school board approves the recommendations, 40 to 70 teachers are expected to lose their jobs, school officials told the Providence Journal continued on page 4

Former TA recounts Bahraini protests

E a r ly b i r d s

ED Day

Early decision students welcomed to College Hill

Campus news, 3

Two armed guards stood near the door of a packed Smith-Buonanno Hall 201 last night as Maryam AlKhawaja, a prominent Bahraini human rights activist, approached the podium to speak. Melani Cammett, associate professor of political science and director of the Middle East Studies program, received “tons of e-mails” in the days leading up to the talk urging her to cancel, she said when introducing Al-Khawaja.

The messages Cammett received included concerns that the community would receive a biased view of the situation in Bahrain and allega-

Ski free

Editors’ Note

Ski team struggles at national competition

Yesterday’s full-page advertisement

sports, 8

Selecting a successor

In February 2010, Simmons announced she would remain as president at least through the 2011-12 academic year. Though Simmons has not publicly discussed her plans for subsequent years, Chanceller Emeritus Stephen Robert ’62 P’91, who served on the committee that selected her in 2000, said she would ideally announce any intentions to retire about a year before she plans to officially step down. With a year’s notice, the Corporation could have sufficient time to find a new president.

Simmons declined to comment on when she plans to step down but wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that she will continue to discuss plans for her succession with the Corporation leadership. A small group within the Corporation is responsible for presidential succession plans, according to Maria Zuber MA’83 PhD’86 P’11, a member of the Corporation’s Board of Fellows.

Zuber herself is not a member of that group.

“Any outstanding institution always has a succession plan at all levels,” Zuber said.

Though Tisch said there were too many “hypothetical characterizations” in discussing what the search process would be like for finding Simmons’ successor, he commended the University’s precedent of seeking “broad-based” community input in

editors’ note, 6

weather

By Morgan Johnson Staff Writer

Though the $1.61 billion Campaign for Academic Enrichment concluded in December and this May will mark President Ruth Simmons’ 10th year in office, Corporation members expect her to stay with the University “for the foreseeable future,” said Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76 P’07.

The average tenure for Ivy League presidents falls somewhere around 10 years, according to Stephen Nelson, associate professor of educational leadership at Bridgewater State University and a scholar at Brown’s Leadership Alliance. But Tisch said numbers of years are not as important as contextual factors, such as the vigor and enthusiasm the president brings to the position.

“For some presidents, two weeks is too long. For some presidents, 20 years might be too short,” he said.

“The principle is not one of time — it is one of energy, freshness, vision and perspective.”

t o d ay

tomorrow

46 / 32

50 / 38

2 Campus News

Simmons not expected to step down in near future

calendar Today

march 15

5 p.m.

ToMORROW

March 16

7 p.m.

Visiting Guest Chef Demonstration,

Lecture by Holocaust Refugee Hedy

Brown Faculty Club

Epstein, Smith-Buonanno 106

5:30 p.m.

8 p.m.

Talk by Columbia Prof. Elizabeth

Wind Symphony Concert,

Povinelli, Brown-RISD Hillel

Grant Recital Hall

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Green Chili Chicken Enchilada, Black Bean and Spinach Soft Taco, Corn and Sweet Pepper Saute

French Bread Pepperoni Pizza, Artichoke and Red Pepper Frittata, Cranberry and White Chip Cookies

DINNER Grilled Turkey Burger with Bulkie Roll, Acorn Squash with Curried Rice and Chickpeas, Raspberry Bars

Meatloaf with Mushroom Sauce, Cheese and Corn Strata, Curry Chicken Saute, Oatmeal Bread

Sudoku

Crossword

The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 15, 2011

continued from page 1 presidential selections. When the University last held a search for a president, candidates were identified and interviewed by two committees — the Corporation search committee and a campus committee composed of faculty members, staff and undergraduate, graduate and medical students. Robert said he found the process useful because the incoming president already had support from several constituencies on campus when she arrived.

‘Your face on a T-shirt’

Nelson, whose research focuses on university presidents, said there are three main factors for determining when presidents will step down — age, success in the eyes of their constituents and how much they enjoy the job. In terms of age, Nelson emphasized health and energy rather than a specific cut-off.

Simmons, who is 65, has a 74 percent approval rating from the student body, according to a poll conducted by The Herald last fall.

Brown students have a remarkable relationship with Simmons in comparison to students at other schools, said Michael Stewart ’13.

“We go to a school where kids sell T-shirts with just Ruth Simmons on it,” he said. “We mean it in a ‘We love you, we want to have your face on a T-shirt’ way.”

Barrett Hazeltine, professor emeritus of engineering, added that faculty members also approve of Simmons, saying he would be “surprised” if many members of the faculty “really don’t like her.”

“I’ve been at Brown 52 years, and this is really the first president where I haven’t heard a lot of grumbling,” Hazeltine said. “Anything I hear is ‘Gee, we’re lucky to have her — she’s sensitive and fair.’”

A long tenure

But Hazeltine said though he likes Simmons and it would be “a real loss” if she left the University, he does worry that leaders of educational institutions can stay in positions for too long. Twenty years is “clearly too long,” while 15 is “probably stretching it,” he said.

Nelson, on the other hand, said his research indicates longer terms can often be better.

“If you’ve done reasonably successfully, you can say to your campus constituencies, ‘Trust me,’ and they trust you, because they know that in analogous previous situations, you have led them well,” Nelson said.

Daily

the Brown

Richard Levin, president of Yale, echoed Nelson’s statements.

Levin, who is currently serving his 18th year as Yale’s president, is the longest-serving president in the Association of American Universities. “It takes a long time to make a mark on great institutions like Yale, Harvard and Brown,” Levin wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “Most presidents with a major impact serve 15 years or more.”

Levin wrote that he believes Simmons has done an “outstanding” job at the University, and it will benefit from her continued service.

Vartan Gregorian, who served as president from 1989 to 1997, said he finds it hard to generalize the appropriate term length for a university president. Every president, he said, has a goal to accomplish during his or her tenure — some goals simply take longer than others.

But Roger Brown P’13, president of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, warned against staying too long in office. Brown cited the possibility of a generation gap between students and presidents, as well as a constant need for “fresh ideas and new thinking.”

‘She loves what she’s doing’

Robert, who has been affiliated with the University for over 50 years, said he has never seen growth comparable to that during Simmons’ tenure. Robert called Simmons’ presidency “extraordinary” and said though she has earned the right to leave, he hopes she stays for a while.

He added that objectives like the Plan for Academic Enrichment can be cited as reasons to stay, but there will “always” be important issues a university has to deal with.

“There’s all these reasons you could give why it’s not a good time for a president to leave,” he said. “But I think that the real reason she is staying is that she’s accomplishing a lot, and she loves what she’s doing.”

Tisch also mentioned Simmons’ enthusiasm for the University and academia. “I think she sees the combination of curriculum and community in glorious terms that are worthy of celebration and constant nurturing,” he said. “And that is something that has been, and continues to be, an extraordinary gift for Brown.”

Though Stewart said he had initially thought Simmons would serve through his undergraduate years, he has lately begun to think “it wouldn’t be totally unexpected” if she were to leave.

“She began giving this speech

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Brown presidents by the numbers Number of presidents: 18 Average term length: 13.4 years Longest term: 30 years (William Herbert Perry Faunce, 1899–1929) Shortest term: 2 years (Gordon Gee, 1998– 2000) Number of presidencies longer than 20 years: 4 on the Main Green during Parents’ Weekend,” Stewart said. “And she started talking about how she wanted to spend more time with her grandchildren. And I remember looking over at my father and giving him a look and being like, ‘Oh, geez, here it comes. She’s going to announce it.’”

Even though Simmons did not announce any intention to step down, Stewart said that moment sparked the idea in his head that she may leave in the next few years.

“I don’t want to see her go, but I understand,” he said. “It’s her decision.”

Future plans

In 2002, Simmons introduced the Plan for Academic Enrichment, a sweeping agenda for achieving “excellence in research, education and public leadership” at the University. Though many of its goals have been reached, the plan outlines what students should expect from her office in coming years, Simmons wrote in her e-mail.

The Campaign for Academic Enrichment, a fundraising initiative aligned with the plan, concluded Dec. 31 after raising $1.61 billion for the University — $200 million more than its original goal. The University is now planning the next steps for fundraising.

Looking forward, the plan specifically targets undergraduate issues such as independent learning opportunities, financial aid, housing and resources for curricular development, particularly in multidisciplinary and scientific concentrations.

To increase the University’s global reach, the plan itself recommends bringing in more international scholars, supporting research on international issues, expanding existing programs and resources and hosting dialogues among “the world’s leading thinkers.”

The plan also calls for strengthening academic departments by adding to postdoctoral programs, attracting funding for research-oriented departments and increasing resources for departments based on their ability to “achieve academic excellence.”

But Simmons wrote that “many things” will be added to the plan, such as increased emphasis on housing, in light of “new needs and opportunities” for the University.

Campus News 3

The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Panel addresses Israeli-Palestinian outcome continued from page 1 Peace Research Institute in the Middle East, suggested the term “solution” be avoided. “There is no solution to the human condition,” he said, explaining that people, states and regions exist in conflict all over the world. “The issue is how to manage this conflict — to move from a paradigm of conflict solution to conflict management.”

But Hanna Siniora, co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, rejected this terminology. “What we have now is management and not a resolution,” he said.

Gershon Baskin, co-director and founder of Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, said the recent uprisings in the Middle East made him realize how difficult it is to make predictions. “People are going out on the street and making changes,” he said. “If anyone believes this will stop at West Bank and Gaza, they are greatly mistaken.”

“I would like to be controversial tonight,” Siniora said, eliciting a few laughs from the audience and other panelists, “but also constructive.” He pointed to the example of the Swiss Confederation, where French, German and Italian people live together in a “viable, productive and prosperous” way and proposed the idea of a three-state solution with a future Palestinian state, an Israeli state and a separate state for Palestinian Arabs that are Israeli citizens.

“It is the first time that I have brought such an idea out into the open,” Siniora said, “because I’m frustrated. I’ve been working on this for almost 40 years, and we’re going backward instead of forward.”

Galia Golan, a professor in the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center, an Israeli college, said though there is a sense that the option of a two-state solution is disappearing, Israeli national polls indicate there has been no decline in support.

“The only thing in the way is action by the Israeli government,” she said. She added recent events in the Arab world will strengthen the resolve to settle the conflict.

“What I see happening is an awakening of youth — in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt,” said Maysa BaransiSiniora, co-director of All for Peace Radio. “I would like to see that happen in Israel — for the youth to say, ‘Enough, I’ve had it with this occupation.’ The power of the people will eventually come and it’s going to be very soon.” She added she hopes Israeli youth vote for a leader who is committed to solving this conflict.

The U.S. can play a large role in pressuring the Israeli government to reach a two-state solution, Golan said. She added during the questionand-answer session following the panel that the Israeli government is ideologically opposed to such an idea, though they pay it lip service.

But, Siniora said, “We can’t ex-

pect the U.N. or U.S. to do it for us.”

Gorshon said he was disappointed President Barack Obama has not done more about Israeli-Palestinian issues, but he hopes the Palestinian people will rise to the occasion.

“When they protest nonviolently, they will be shut down by the Israeli army, which will respond violently,” he said. “We have to be on the front line with them. Instead of just pushing the ‘like’ button on Facebook, we need to be on the streets.”

Though the discussion was serious, it had lighthearted moments — Siniora conceded he was intentionally being “provocative” so the discussion would be less “boring,” the other panelists finished for him.

Jacobson said the conference and panel were held to “challenge the polarized discourse” regarding Israeli-Palestinian relations on campus, because “Brown students take extreme positions.”

He said he wished more students had attended the conference, adding he hopes to have similar events in the future.

The conference was partly inspired by Avi Schaefer ’13, who died last year and had suggested the idea.

“Avi understood the importance of bringing people on different sides of the conflict together,” said Yoav Schaefer, Avi’s twin brother, who attended the event. “This conference is the kind of thing he was working towards creating at Brown — an event that provides for acceptance and mutual recognition of the other.”

Controversy surrounds Bahraini speaker continued from page 1 regime change after a demonstrator was killed by riot police, according to Al-Khawaja.

“Of course, there’s a lot of inspiration that came from the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia,” Al-Khawaja said. “But the way I see it is that the movement in Bahrain is very old,” she added, citing long-standing tension between the Sunni royal family and the country’s Shiite majority.

Before other Middle Eastern demonstrations gave the Bahrainis hope, there had been “a wave of depression … where people felt that change wasn’t something that could actually happen.”

Al-Khawaja said the initial growth of the movement was “amazing to see.” Demands to put the king on trial and remove the regime were particularly stunning in Bahrain, she said, where public opposition against the royal family is often met with serious discipline. “In Bahrain, that usually doesn’t happen,” she said.

“They broke the barrier of fear that had been there before.”

Although Al-Khawaja witnessed the beginnings of the uprising, she was forced to leave the country after receiving death threats through Twitter, which she referred to as “hate tweets.” These threats first came from the royal family itself and then from users on the website. According to Al-Khawaja, she now receives at least

150 such tweets every day.

Al-Khawaja has been cited in recent media coverage of the Bahrain uprising by news outlets including the New York Times and the Austrialian Broadcasting Corporation.

While in the U.S., Al-Khawaja has met with officials at the Department of State to present reports on the situation in Bahrain and push for a stronger commitment of American support and involvement.

At Monday’s talk, Al-Khawaja spoke extensively about the recently increasing perception among Bahraini protesters that the U.S. is involved in the conflict. “The Bahrainis are convinced that their government will not do anything unless there is a green light — or lack of a red light — from the U.S.,” Al-Khawaja said. This opinion was fueled by a resurgence in violence against the protesters that began immediately after U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ visit to the island nation last week, she said.

For that notion to change, AlKhawaja said the U.S. must take a stronger stance in the conflict.

American students in particular “have the capacity to have an influence in the Middle East” through outreach to elected officials, she said.

Al-Khawaja was critical of students at the University and called it “unfortunate” that students “would rather sit in a classroom and discuss an issue than take real steps.”

First-ever admit event for early decision lures students to U.

By Kyle McNamara Contributing Writer

Approximately 140 members of the class of 2015 arrived on College Hill yesterday for the first-ever admitted students event geared toward early decision applicants. Admitted students attended panels, toured a first-year residence hall and ate lunch with admissions officers and Bruin Club members at the oneday event sponsored by the Office of Admission and hosted by the Bruin Club.

Chris Belcher ’11, president of the Bruin Club, said the club decided to plan the event after the University released early admission decisions in December. The club sent invitations to the students “a few weeks ago via e-mail,” he said.

Students accepted by early decision are not allowed to attend A Day on College Hill and are required to matriculate, so it was less of a priority to hold an event catering to these students. But the Bruin Club thought such an event would maintain excitement for early decision students after their December admittance, he said.

Though the event is modeled after ADOCH — which is held while regular decision students are still making college decisions — it began in the morning and lasted only through the afternoon. Students attended a panel on academic life at Brown with Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience John Stein, Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology Bianca Dahl and Associate

Dean of the College for First Year and Sophomore Studies Ann Gaylin. In lieu of an overnight stay, one of ADOCH’s hallmarks, students were taken on a tour of a first-year residence hall.

Other events included a panel on student life at Brown and a lunch in Alumnae Hall during which Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73 gave a welcoming address. In his speech, Miller said he was “very excited about this class,” adding that this class not only has the “opportunity to be one of the best classes of this institution,” but it also has the “single best group of students I’ve ever seen in my life.” Miller also said the admissions office is currently choosing from about 30,000 applicants to fill the additional spots comprising the class of 2015. Miller said his office will probably continue this event in the future.

Students at the event were predominantly from northeastern states. Leila Blatt ’15, who attends Natick High School in Massachusetts, said she was attracted to the New Curriculum and hopes to explore both the neuroscience and Af-

ricana studies departments over the next four years. Abby Bunting ’15, who goes to Wellesley High School in Massachusetts, will be playing on the women’s lacrosse team.

Obi Onwuamaegbu ’15 and Ifeoma Kamalu ’15, both from Massachusetts, said they had only seen Brown’s campus through pictures and were here to view it in person.

Steven Meng ’15, also from Massachusetts, said his main reason for attending was to “meet new people.”

Students who applied early decision in previous years said they would have appreciated a similar event. Many early decision students last year flocked to Facebook group message boards in attempts to create smaller gatherings of early decision students, said Perri Katzman ’14. Exclusion from ADOCH left her feeling as though “Brown doesn’t care as much” about helping the students get to know each other, since they do not have to be “won over,” she said. She said she considered herself lucky because she is from New York City, which had a large concentration of admitted students.

Andrew Kunas ’12 also said he would have attended a similar event if it had occurred his senior year of high school. Although he said he initially did not feel left out, he began to feel excluded upon starting freshman year when “everyone

knew each other” from ADOCH. Both Katzman and Kunas said they would like to see ADOCH opened to early decision students because their input might help regular decision students decide whether or not to matriculate.

4 City & State

The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Community groups lobby for arts funding in schools Teachers continued from page 1 an e-mail to The Herald. Graduation requirements were amended in 2010 to include a baseline arts competency in the school district’s general education standards. The current standards for graduation require one full-year credit under the classification “art and technology.”

But members of the arts community still see a lack of dedication to the arts in schools.

Some schools have arts requirements for grades 9-12 but have cut arts programs for lower grade levels, said Tyler Dobrowsky, former education director and current associate artistic director at Trinity Rep. “In Cranston, a lot of (arts) programs have been cut altogether,” he added.

Trinity Rep provides free tickets to groups from Providence public schools through outside funding sources like Community Development Block Grants, a federal program that provides funding to cities and towns for housing and community needs.

Though students can easily walk to the theater, saving the cost of renting a bus for field trips, Dobrowsky said such trips are becoming increasingly difficult for teachers to organize. Every year has seen a rise in “the amount of red tape teachers have to go through,” said Jordan Butterfield, Trinity Rep education programs manager.

“I think that arts teachers have an incredible ability to do a lot with a little, but the little keeps getting littler,” said Caroline Azano, the company’s education director.

Painting by numbers

Standardized tests have played a major part in decreasing arts funding, Dobrowsky said. “The last couple of years hasn’t been fun,” he said.

Specifically, the No Child Left Behind Act, enacted in 2002, empha-

sizes standardized testing as a way to measure school proficiency. Though President Barack Obama announced the act will soon be replaced, his new Race to the Top initiative also stresses the importance of testing for schools and states to qualify for funding.

Because the benefits of arts education “don’t show up in test scores,” Dobrowsky said, art is not prioritized when schools and districts are allocating funds.

“Innovation can only happen through creativity and imagination … which is where the arts and arts education play a role in nurturing,” wrote Lisa Carnevale, executive director of Rhode Island Citizens for the Arts, a lobbying organization, in an e-mail to The Herald. Race to the Top has a focus on science, technology, engineering and math, so these disciplines tend to get more attention, she added.

But these distinctions can be problematic because they de-emphasize the importance of critical thinking skills that are taught through a variety of subjects, Dobrowsky said.

“If you want to have a nation of creative thinkers … then you have to allow students to be creative.”

A creative pause

“Witness a world devoid of creativity, imagination and thought,” reads the website of Culture Stops, an organized effort to “call attention to the deep and widespread cuts, proposed by Congress and the President to federal funding for the arts and humanities.”

Last Thursday, Culture Stops organized a number of events in which participants — including performers at AS220 and Trinity Rep, as well as the RISD Museum — stopped work, demonstrating what a world without the arts would be, according to the website.

This is just one example of the community-based efforts that have

arisen to combat the decline in arts education and appreciation. While schools struggle to make ends meet, independent programs within and outside of schools are filling in the gaps, Carnevale wrote.

Groups at Brown, arts centers such as Trinity Rep and other community organizations have organized after-school and other independent programs that give school-aged children an outlet for creativity.

Brown Arts Mentoring, a student-led organization run through the Swearer Center for Public Service, offers after-school programs in two Providence elementary schools.

These programs include art, dance, music and theater classes and culminate each year with a showcase of student work.

Providence CityArts for Youth, a community group, is primarily an extended-day program but also operates within the school day, said Barbara Wong, the program’s executive director.

CityArts focuses on professional development as well as on lightening the burden on teachers, Wong said, adding that public school teachers are “stretched a lot.”

Rhode Island Citizens for the Arts lobbies against proposed budget cuts at the state level to the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. “Our position … in terms of moving the needle for arts education has been to support initiatives (such as the funding formula last year) that work to create a healthier environment for education in our state,” Carnevale wrote.

Sidelined

Funding levels in next year’s budget for school arts programs remain uncertain. “It is too early to have a conversation about what will happen in the arts going forward at this point,” Cox wrote. He said he hopes to know more about the budget in

April.

Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 announced his budget in an address to the Rhode Island General Assembly March 8. The budget proposes increasing state aid to schools by $17.1 million, in keeping with the state’s funding formula, according to a March 8 article in the Providence Journal.

Mayor Angel Taveras announced a new plan to combat the city’s twoyear $180 million deficit March 3. It is still unclear whether the budget will target arts education specifically, Carnevale wrote.

“We have had a declining understanding of arts and creativity in our country for some time,” she wrote.

“We may have lost a sense of (art’s) place in our society.”

Because funding for the arts has changed from year to year, teachers have not “had a steady understanding of their allotted funding,” she added. “This makes it very hard for any community to plan and strategize around their goals.”

Though schools have consistently received less funding in the arts over the past several years, non-profit arts organizations continue to receive grants from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and other sources to go into schools and teach arts, Carnevale wrote.

Trinity Rep, for example — which runs after-school and summer programs as well as workshops and field trips during the school day — still hopes to expand its programs through more outside grants, Butterfield said.

Carnevale added that many administrators in the district are distracted by other problems plaguing the education system. “I find superintendents and education leaders wanting arts inside schools,” she wrote, “but they are consumed with working to get the whole system healthy.”

union opposes school closings continued from page 1 yesterday. They added that teachers eligible for retirement will be offered a one-time stipend to leave at the end of the school year to reduce the number of teachers forced to leave involuntarily. The officials expect the closings and layoffs to save the city $12 million.

Six community forums have been scheduled to discuss the closings starting March 22, according to several news sources.

“The Providence Teachers Union is still opposed to the closings as an attempt to address the financial crisis,” Debra Morais, a union representative, told The Herald. The union views collective bargaining agreements and alternative ways to cut spending as better solutions to the city’s budget crisis, Morais said.

Morais said the union is currently focusing on “trying to connect and console teachers.”

The school closings “should allow the retention of the best and brightest among teachers,” said Victor Profughi, Rhode Island College professor emeritus of political science and director of the polling firm Quest Research. Profughi said the smaller number of schools would allow for greater concentration of capable teachers.

Taveras’ actions demonstrate a willingness to make tough decisions to tackle the city’s challenges, Profughi said. “Obviously the city has a tremendous fiscal issue that has to be addressed, and making these rather bold steps and bold initiatives early in the administration sets a tone that this mayor is going to attempt to deal with the fiscal issues facing the city in a serious manner,” he said.

Letters 5

The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Reactions to yesterday’s full-page advertisement To the Editor: The full-page advertisement “Palestinian Wall of Lies” in the March 14 edition of the paper crosses the line from advertisement to full-force hatred.

I understand that The Herald must operate with business interest in mind: Nothing is free and we all appreciate access to the University newspaper. However, that the banner across the top reads “Advertisement” in no way serves to ameliorate the offense I took to this graphic display of anti-Palestinian sentiment. I would not object to an editorial espousing beliefs in the Israeli state, but I cannot stand idly by as such propaganda identifies an entire population as terroristic, as “supporters of Hitler” and inventors of a “refugee ‘issue’” that they use “as a weapon in their war against the Jews.”

To the Editor: I found the advertisement run on page 8 of the March 14 issue of The Herald to be highly offensive,to the point where I believe that The Herald should not have run such an ad. The ad that I am referring to, “Palestinian Wall of Lies,” is worded in an extremely aggressive, confrontational manner and even goes so far as to include an Islamophobic depiction of a shadowy figure brandishing a machine gun in one hand and a Quran in the other. I feel that the ad was intrinsically offensive in nature and that The Herald should not have run it for this reason — not merely because it might offend some individuals. This ad is an affront to every student at Brown who supports peace in the Middle East, regardless of his or

This ad only serves to alienate beloved members of our Brown community and manipulate readers with generalizations and claims backed by zero factual evidence.

I should hope that you hold your advertisements to the same journalistic standards as your writers, let alone moral and ethical standards. Despite the fact that it is an advertisement, its appearance in The Herald implies a level of complicity that reflects very poorly on this University. This form of hatred stands in direct contrast to Brown’s goals of multiculturalism and community. I hope this disturbing incident can serve as the impetus to revisit your policy on advertisements in the future to ensure that such offensive remarks do not continue to appear in our University newspaper.

David Adler ’14 her particular views on the issue.

I fully support The Herald’s First Amendment right to freedom of the press, and I do not dispute that The Herald has the right to run such an ad as this. Still, The Herald remains accountable for everything it decides to publish, including advertisements.

Consider, by analogy, if Fred Phelps of the Wesboro Baptist Church approached The Herald with a request to publish an ad proclaiming that AIDS was God’s way of punishing homosexuality.

Should The Herald accept such an offer? I say no. There needs to be some kind of sanity threshold in place to prevent the paper from becoming a general forum for publishing hate speech and political vitriol.

To the Editor: In response to the “Palestinian Wall of Lies” advertisement, I am struck by three significant untruths in the advertisement.

One, readers are given the impression that Israel is an innocent and powerless victim. This is far from the truth. Israel is a nation with a standing army, powerful allies around the world and 60 years of dominance over Palestinian people. This is not the NCAA basketball tournament, where To the Editor: As a student at Brown who identifies as both Jewish and Zionist, I was both profoundly angered and disappointed at yesterday’s “Palestinian Wall of Lies” advertisement in The Herald. The sponsor’s claims are not only inaccurate and distorted, but inflammatory, incendiary and provocative. It should be clear from the onset that the advertisement does not represent the opinions of the Jewish community at Brown, particularly that of Hillel. The ad was completely sponsored by an independent third party.

Perhaps most egregiously offensive is his characterization of the Muslim Students Association as a hate group and his implicit equation of Palestinian activists with Nazism.

His characterization of the claim

teams are matched according to records and skills.

Two, the ad calls the wall a “security fence built to keep out terrorists, not Arabs.” The implication of this is that Israeli people must be protected from Palestinians, all of whom are believed to be terrorists. Whether this wall is made of concrete or chain link is irrelevant because movement through the wall is tightly controlled by the Israel Defense Forces.

Three, the ad declares that Palestinians are kept in refugee status

by Arab countries “as a weapon in their war against the Jews.” First and foremost, this advertisement equates Israel to all Jews, ignoring Jewish dissent against Israeli occupation and policies. Secondly, the refugee “problem” can be solved by creating a Palestinian state. I look forward to learning more about solutions to problems that face us instead of reading an advertisement like this one which conveniently leaves out crucial aspects of history.

“Israel occupies Arab Palestine” as genocidal is an attempt to conflate criticism of Zionism with those who maliciously plot for the destruction of the Jewish people. This is perhaps equivalent to the claim that Jews who are critical of Israeli policy, like myself, are guilty of self-hatred. This is enormously offensive to Jews and non-Jews, Zionists and non-Zionists and makes a mockery of the Jewish tradition of tolerance and acceptance.

The advertisement has enormous ramifications for the Jewish community at Brown, particularly for students in Hillel who have been working to repair inter- and intracommunity rifts that have resulted from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The advertisement pigeonholes the Jewish community into a rigid political framework — one that is both

aggressive and hateful. He excludes students, like myself, who believe in self-determination for the Jewish people, yet empathize with the legitimate claims of the Palestinian people and the suffering that they have endured in this long-standing conflict. He is as complicit in constructing a flawed binary of oppressor-oppressed as the anti-Zionist activists he claims to disdain.

As a Zionist and humanist, I am embarrassed by the sponsor’s portrayal of the Zionist narrative.

I urge the Brown community, both Zionist and anti-Zionist, to move beyond the categorical demonization of the other and engage in civil discourse that recognizes both the suffering and aspirations of both communities.

Jesse McGleughlin ’14

comics BB & Z | Cole Pruitt, Andrew Seiden, Valerie Hsuing and Dan Ricker

Nicholas Gaya ’14

Cloud Buddies! | David Emanuel

Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

Harry Samuels ’13

6 Editors’ Note Editors’ Note

The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Editorial comic

Yesterday, The Herald ran a full-page advertisement from the David Horowitz Freedom Center about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It came on the 10-year anniversary of another advertisement run by Horowitz in The Herald that opposed the idea of paying reparations for slavery. The advertisement that was published yesterday, like that published in 2001, has been denounced as racist and inflammatory.

Many members of the Brown community have criticized The Herald’s decision to publish it.

The Herald does not endorse the speech contained in the advertisement or the message contained in any advertisement we publish.

But we do support the principle of freedom of expression and do not censor speech in our pages that is not profanity or hate speech.

The Herald would not avoid covering an on-campus speaker because that speaker’s views were abhorrent to some or all members of the community. Nor would we avoid fully and accurately conveying such a speaker’s views in our coverage. Just as we would report ideas that could offend some readers, we do not reject advertisements that could offend readers.

The Herald supports the right of individuals to express words and ideas that are controversial, provocative or highly offensive in the eyes of some or all members of the Brown community. It is our position that a newspaper, especially a newspaper serving a university community, should not censor speech unless it is profanity or hate speech and that the standard for labeling speech as hate speech should be a very high one. We determined that the speech in yesterday’s advertisement did not meet that standard.

After the 2001 advertisement ran, the interim president of the University, Sheila Blumstein, now a professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences, wrote in a statement, “Consistent with its commitment to the free exchange of ideas, the University recognizes and supports The Herald’s right to publish any material it chooses, even if that material is objectionable to members of the campus community.” Though we are independent from the University, we appreciate that it recognized the importance of free expression and believe the principle is as important now as it was 10 years ago.

Support for freedom of expression rests on the faith that good ideas will benefit from exposure and debate and that bad ideas will suffer from exposure and debate.

We welcome letters about the advertisement and The Herald’s decision to publish it.

Thanks for reading.

Editors’ notes are written by the editors-in-chief.

Got something to say?

Leave a comment online!

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by frances choi

letter to the editor Brown-RISD Hillel denounces Horowitz ad To the Editor: The student leadership at Brown-RISD Hillel would like to express its disapproval of an advertisement that ran on page 8 of yesterday’s Herald. The advertisement propagated several Islamophobic, racist and hurtful untruths by linking all modern Arab leadership to Nazi ideology and equating Islam with violence.

Though neither Hillel nor any affiliated students had anything to do with the advertisement, we feel compelled to declare that there should be no place

for these spiteful, bigoted words in the Brown — or any — community, even under the guise of political free speech. We stand staunchly beside any members of our community who feel alienated and attacked by the advertisement.

We trust that the Brown University community will be wise enough to view the “Wall of Lies” advertisement as an unfortunate example of hatred and as unrepresentative of Hillel or the Jewish community.

The Brown-RISD Hillel Student Executive Board

quote of the day

“Arts teachers have an incredible ability to do a lot

”

with a little, but the little keeps getting littler.

editorial content.

— Trinity Repertory Company Education Director Caroline Azano See art on page 1.

t h e b r ow n da i ly h e r a l d

Correction

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An article in Monday’s Herald (“Between the lines: Literary mags serve up variety,” March 14) incorrectly listed Catherine McCarthy as a member of the class of 2011. She is a member of the class of 2012. The Herald regrets the error.

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Opinions 7

The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The money pit

By Mike Johnson Opinions Columnist Minden Hall stands augustly at the corner of Brook and Waterman streets, stoically watching over the enormous potholes in the middle of that intersection. Its large rooms and relatively secluded location on the other side of Thayer Street, away from the hustle and bustle of the main campus, make it a highly desirable lottery pick for rising seniors and the lucky rising junior.

If you can get over the awkward two-andone configuration, the suites are great — residents have their own bathrooms that can remain vomit-free on weekends if they so choose, and there is even an elevator, a rare amenity for the typically “all stairs, all the time” campus of Brown. There is even a pair of three-single suites that can be snatched up without having to spend the apartment rate that accompanies similar arrangements in Young Orchard Apartments or Barbour Hall.

Yet there is no such thing as a free single.

What appears on the outside as a dorm built like a fortress that has weathered the unthinkable and unimaginably awful weather of Providence is on the inside quickly falling apart. The Office of Residential Life would have us believe that the shiny new elevator that has only broken once this year — knock on wood — and the new carpets

in public spaces indicate that Minden Hall has been “renovated” and is ready for another hundred years of service. But this is an obvious, if half-hearted, diversion from the truth.

I admit I only have my own personal experiences on which to base my judgment, but this past year alone has made me more pessimistic about the state of residential life than the past three years combined. Sure, my room in Littlefield Hall was next to the men’s room and thus slightly smaller than

“fixed” and another wall patched with studs and duct tape. We all had radiators that did not turn on for the first month or so of winter, and now we have three radiators that do not stop producing heat even when in the “off ” position. This past week, when it was over 55 degrees in the middle of the day, my suitemate had to flee his sauna of a room because it was unhealthily warm.

These heaters have led indirectly to at least one of the issues with our windows — it was so hot in his room and so cold

We all had radiators that did not turn on for the first month or so of winter, and now we have three radiators that do not stop producing heat even when in the “off” position. the spacious corner rooms. And sure, the mold on the ceiling of my shower in Caswell was disgusting and made me feel like I was showering in Lilliput. But none of these minor complaints made me feel legitimately unsafe.

My suitemates and I have put in work requests for six different projects since we started living in Minden in September. We have had three windows replaced — the repeated interaction has us on a first-name basis with the window repairman — an entire wall gutted and replaced, our faucet

outside that condensation formed on the window and leaked through a bad seal into his wall, dissolving the eons-old insulation within. In my room, the wall that faces the harsh climate of the temperate zone is warped like a fun house mirror. The outlet on that wall tilts upward at a visible angle due to the extreme distortion. The warping is because the insulation in the walls, I was told by an unnamed member of the Department of Facilities Management staff, is so old that it is beginning to crumble into sand and pool at the bottom of the hollow

wall. I witnessed this first-hand when a panel of my wall, under the window, warped so extremely that it detached, spilling insulation onto my floor. I can only wonder exactly how old the insulation in a building almost a century old is, and whether or not it complies with the most recent asbestos regulations.

Amidst all these troubles, and assurances that “the whole building is like this” from the same unnamed Facilities Management worker, the department seems unwilling to solve the overarching issue — Minden is falling down. When our suite’s wall had to be replaced — air whistling through the crack would shift papers on my suitemate’s desk — it took multiple work orders and a serious call from his parents to the school for anything to be done about it. It boggles the mind that student safety does not seem a University priority.

I have written before on the complex ways in which money is donated to and allocated by the University. Some funds are simply allocated for new projects and the University is powerless to override that earmark. But while fancy new buildings rise over our campus in record time, Minden Hall continues to slowly fall down around its residents’ heads, endangering their health at every turn.

Mike Johnson ‘11 lives in fear that his doorjamb will finally completely detach from the wall.

Advice from a young fogey

By Stephen Wicken Opinions Columnist It’s that time again. Spring Weekend is coming, hopefully bringing spring with it. And now we know who’s doing the bringing.

My first thought was ‘Doesn’t TV on the Radio play here every year?’ It seems like the quintessential band for College Hill — trendy, pseudo-intellectual and originally from New York. Diddy-Dirty Money is a different proposition altogether. I remember Pong Daddy — or whatever his name is or was — as the bloke who did the really bad rapping on that rubbish cover of the Police song about a fat guy. I should have thought that that alone would have been enough to force him out of the record industry. Now I find that not only has he been around the whole time, but that he has acquired reinforcements.

I have been raging quietly against the dying of the pop-cultural light for the best part of a decade. It is a truth fairly widely acknowledged that men tend to reach a point in their early 20s where their knowledge of pop culture comes to a screeching and particularly embarrassing halt. How else does one explain the enduring success of U2? Surely they can only be selling records to middle-aged men who heard one of their albums, thought that the joke of calling their squawking pixie frontman Bono Vox — which doesn’t mean ‘unlistenable wailing noise’ — was hilarious and are still laughing desperately.

My attention was brought to this point a few weeks ago, when my wife, who is three years younger and 100 percent more American than I, stopped me during our ritual test-reading of one of my columns. My wife almost spat out her coffee, comedy-style.

“Did you just make a Maroon 5 joke?” she asked. “Yes, my sweet pumpkin,” I replied.

“Isn’t that what the kids are listening to?”

“Please tell me you’re kidding me,” she retorted, slapping me with wifely scorn.

“They were popular in 2002!”

“Hang on — what year is it?” I asked, nonplussed.“2011.” At this point, I had to lie down.

occasional sexual partner. I’ve even tweeted, if only to ask if anyone had seen where I left my trousers.

Even so, it’s hard to keep up with the times. For every Vampire Weekend, there’s an Arcade Fire. I’ve spent some time in Montreal — there are a lot of great bands and a lot of very attractive people. Who decided that this braying pack of greasy corpses would be the Next Big Indie-ish Thing? I’ve just about caught up with Taylor Swift — although I’m fairly sure that it’s just Avril Lavigne on stilts — but I have no idea what a Justin Bieber is. Is it a woodland mammal?

It is a truth fairly widely acknowledged that men tend to reach a point in their early 20s where their knowledge of pop culture comes to a screeching and particularly embarrassing halt. How else does one explain the enduring success of U2?

Of course, I haven’t been living in a hole since 2002. Mostly I’ve been living in the extended strip mall that is the NewYork-to-Boston corridor, which is much less pleasant, as I’m sure you’ll agree. I’ve been on Facebook since before they started letting in those non-university types. I’ve been a willing participant in the journey of the iPod from clunky-but-adequate music player to a fancy-but-entirely-inadequate telephone/camera/virtual companion and

As I’ve remarked before, one of the downsides — and there are a few — of being a graduate student at Brown is that we’re not really integrated into the social and cultural life of the University. I get it.

After years of subsisting on Narragansett and tinned soup, we’re not the most appealing creatures. Even so, I think our secondclass status is to everyone’s detriment. Let me give you an example. In days of yore, some friends and I went to see the Flaming

Lips at Spring Weekend. While the band rolled around on top of a delirious crowd in giant balloons, pounding out its psychedelic poptasticness, my friends and I stood to one side, muttering to one another, “Aren’t they the guys who used to sing the song about Vaseline?” Now, any youngsters in the surrounding area, knowing the Flaming Lips as a popular purveyor of lush, dreamy pop, may not have known that once upon a time, the band bashed out hallucinatory punk, occasionally about people blowing their noses on magazines. Thank goodness, then, that we bitter and jaded fogeys were there to remind everyone that things were better way back then, and now everything is too loud and you can’t hear the tune.

Before you cast this column aside, gentle reader, exclaiming, “That’ll never be me — I have the zeitgeist indelibly connected to my spine via wireless connection,” think again. It just happens. One day you’re the cock of the cultural walk, cracking jokes about singers’ peccadilloes through six layers of irony. The next, you’re wondering what ever happened to My Chemical Romance. So enjoy your time in the sun, bask in the warm glow of your cultural relevance and try not to think about the fact that you’re going to be stuck remembering the Jonas Brothers for the rest of your life.

Stephen Wicken GS, a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of History, is pretty happy with the trouser-joke-tosensible-opinion ratio of this column.

He can be contacted at stephen_wicken@brown.edu.

Daily Herald Sports Tuesday the Brown

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

w. fencing

Four fencers qualify for NCAA Championship

By Alex mittman Sports Staff Writer

The Bears traveled to Vassar College for the NCAA Northeast Regional Championship Sunday. The best fencers at regionals qualified for the national NCAA Fencing Championships, which will take place March 24-27 at Ohio State University.

“We have had the best regionals in the last 11 years,” Head Coach Atilio Tass wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Four fencers from the women’s team qualified for nationals — Kathryn Hawrot ’14 and Avery Nackman ’13 from the foil squad, Cory Abbe ’13 from epee and Caitlin Taylor ’13 from sabre. Teddy Weller ’13 of men’s sabre — who came in 12th — could still receive an at-large invitation to the tournament.

Hawrot came in third place, netting a medal finish for the team. The other qualifying women all placed within the top 10.

Tass said qualifying in this competition and moving onto the NCAA championships was “one of our major goals” this season.

“Most of our season has been intense … mostly in preparation for this competition,” Nackman said.

The slew of tournaments “building up to this was really helpful,” Hawrot said, but she “went in with no expectations” for qualifying.

She was “pretty nervous at the start of the day,” Nackman said.

“You had to keep up with the pace of it,” she said. The foil team was on the floor for six hours, and women’s epee fenced for seven hours.

The first round of the tournament consisted of five pools of seven fenc-

ers, which got narrowed down in the second round to three pools of seven fencers. The final round was a single pool of 12.

Despite the long wait, the fencers’ placements in nationals came “down to the last minute,” Nackman said.

The fencers’ results for the whole season, as well as on the day of the qualifiers, factor into their selection for the championships.

“Four women is a school record,” Tass said. In the past, the team has advanced a single female competitor at most.

Both squads collectively have not had more than four fencers advance to the championships in the past six years, Hawrot said.

Regarding Weller’s possible spot, Tass said he is “very anxious to know whether (the bid) will come.”

“I am waiting as we speak,” he said.

The women’s foil squad took first overall at the National Squad Championship Feb. 27 at New York University, a presage to the team’s qualifying performances. Women’s epee took third. Weller’s squad — men’s sabre — tied for third place with Yale.

Nackman said she was “excited because (the championship) is a really intense competition.” She said she is looking forward to fencing “the best people” and “hopefully training a lot,” but most of all takes pride in “representing Brown well.”

“We’ve been preparing for this for the whole season,” Tass said, stressing that the team members’ good preparation would carry them through.

“I think we have a good shot,” Hawrot said.

Courtesy of Bob Story

Kia Mosenthal ’12 was one of two skiers to perform well at the national competition, coming in 12th in the giant slalom.

skiing

Skiers fail to repeat last season’s success

By Ashley McDonnell Sports Editor

For the past nine seasons, the skiing team has made it to the United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association national championships.

Last season, the Bears came in third place in the Alpine division — their best finish since 2004-2005. But this winter, the team was unable to repeat its past success and fell to a 17th place finish in a field of 20 schools.

Captain Krista Consiglio ’11 said the Bears struggled because the courses at Sun Valley Resort in Idaho were tougher than the other slopes they had taken on this season.

“They were very demanding courses,” she said. “You had to be really on top of your game. … We might have psyched ourselves out a bit, so we crashed and burned.”

The giant slalom course had the

maximum vertical drop permissible for the event, Consiglio said. Problems in giant slalom have plagued the team throughout the season, and the difficulty of the course only exacerbated these issues for the Bears.

Consiglio said the team was even more frustrated with its performance in slalom. In the last four carnivals of the regular season, Brown had finished in first place in slalom at each race. But the Bears could not dominate the event at nationals and finished 13th.

“Slalom was definitely a shock,” Consiglio said. “Giant slalom was the event we struggled in all year in getting girls down the hill. It was not as much of a shock, but just as disappointing. When push came to shove, we still couldn’t get it together.”

Though the team ended the season on a low note, Consiglio herself posted strong performances. In a field of over 100 skiers, she came

in fifth in slalom and seventh in giant slalom, with times of 1:37.05 and 2:26.98, respectively. After all the skiers’ individual race points were added, she was the third-best skier overall, earning first team AllAmerican honors.

“It was nice to end my skiing career on that note,” she said. “But it was disappointing that the team wasn’t as successful as I was at nationals,” she added.

Kia Mosenthal ’12 also did well in giant slalom, coming in 12th with a time of 2:28.99. But she was unable to complete her second run in slalom.

The team’s results at nationals do not reflect its potential, Consiglio said.

“It was disappointing to see that result, but at the end of the day, it’s just a number on a page,” she said.

“We know that we’re still one of the top teams in the nation.”

State leaders react to Chafee’s budget, tax proposals

By David Chung Senior Staff Writer

One week after Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 unveiled a budget that would impose new taxes and cut services to close the state’s $331 million budget deficit, observers are still trying to sort out what the budget means for Rhode Island.

Though the General Assembly will most likely modify Chafee’s budget, the state legislature and the governor “appear to be on the same page,” said Maureen Moakley, University of Rhode Island professor of political science.

The two-tiered sales tax — which would lower the current 7 percent rate to 6 percent and expand the tax base by imposing a 1 percent tax on some currently exempt goods and services — is similar to the sales tax expansion Chafee proposed during his campaign. “The whole package came as no surprise,” Moakley said.

By recommending the introduction of a broader sales tax, Chafee is “providing political cover” for the General Assembly, so legislators may be more willing to approve the

increases to reduce the deficit, she said. But lawmakers will still likely adjust some of Chafee’s propositions to appeal to the public, Moakley said.

Ashley Denault, policy analyst at the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, called the budget “extremely ambitious.” It clearly sets out Chafee’s priorities and will not only rein in the deficit but also stabilize the economy in the longterm, she said.

The proposed two-tiered tax would be a “modernization of our tax structure” and would provide the state a stable revenue source, Denault said.

But Chafee’s budget does not truly represent a “shared sacrifice,” Donna Perry, spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, a taxpayer advocacy organization, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

“Chafee is proposing new taxes on everyday goods and transactions that will hurt the struggling middle and lower class Rhode Islanders and struggling small businesses the most. We don’t see how putting new taxes on ordinary goods

and services will jumpstart the local economy.”

Chafee’s budget also addresses education. The budget fully funds the state’s education funding formula — which allocates nearly $700 million to schools starting July 1 — and dedicates an additional $10 million to higher education in Rhode Island. While Denault re-

city & state gards additional contributions to higher education as an “important step forward,” she said she wonders if the timing is right given the state’s debt burden.

Even if Chafee’s proposed tax increases are enacted, some of the conditions affecting state finances are out of the governor’s control, according to Rep. Edith Ajello, DProvidence. “It can be balanced today and not balanced tomorrow because of fluctuations in revenue and absolute need for services,” she said.

The budget proposes measures to increase employee contributions to the state’s failing pension

program. With a $5 billion to $10 billion estimated gap between the state’s obligations to pensioners and the money it has set aside to fund them, the governor proposed that all state employees place their July pay increases toward financing the pension program. His budget also calls for government employees to contribute 11.75 percent of their pay to the system.

In his address to lawmakers last Tuesday, Chafee announced that government spending for health and human services must be reduced. As spending on this sector is projected to grow by $96 million between 2008 and 2012 — the highest growth rate for any portion of the state’s expenditures — some services must be cut, he said.

“There will be people who are very unhappy,” Moakley said, particularly if Chafee’s budget results in spending reductions for Medicaid, the public health insurance program which provides aid primarily to low-income individuals and children. But Mike Trainor, Chafee’s communications director, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that the

governor’s budget does not address issues of eligibility or access, but rather seeks to standardize the state’s payments to health care providers.

“The governor did not try to dismantle any of the services in that regard,” said Sen. Rhoda Perry P’91, D-Providence. If cuts are made in the Medicaid program, the resulting reduction in preventive care for the state’s neediest patients will ultimately not save money, she added.

Calling the program “one of the best things in the state,” she said she would oppose any attempt to scale back Medicaid.

But Perry said she thinks the budget is an improvement over past budgets that have sought cuts in the state’s entitlement programs.

“All in all, this is the first budget that I feel has really not touched some of the very, very needy programs,” she said.

Recognizing the enormous task Chafee has to confront, Perry said his proposal succeeds in reconciling the state’s competing interests. “Although it surely will have changes made by the General Assembly, it’s pretty well balanced,” she said.