Thursday, October 13, 2011

Daily

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vol. cxlvi, no. 85

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Brook St. may see new hotel

Since 1891

Occupy teach-in draws full house in Salomon

By Sophia Seawell Staff Writer

By Claire Peracchio City & State Editor

A proposal for a $35 million luxury hotel near campus was shot down in 2004 and 2008, but real estate developer Ed Bishop ’54 P’86 P’91 thinks his latest bid for the hotel will fare differently.

Bishop, who owns many properties on Providence’s East Side and has strong family ties to the University, first went public in 2004 with his idea to build the hotel on property he owns on Brook Street, between Meeting and Cushing streets.

At that time, neighborhood opposition sidelined the plan. When Bish-

David Deckey / Herald

A Providence developer hopes to convert his Brook Street property into a hotel.

op again tried to move forward on the proposed hotel in 2008, tepid support from then-Mayor David Cicilline ’83 and vocal opposition at a hearing in April that year tabled the proposal.

But Providence’s struggling economy and increased support from city administrators mean plans for the hotel are now more viable. continued on page 5

When Gandhi began his 100-mile march to the sea at Jalalpur, only 74 people set out with him. But when he reached his destination and broke the salt tax law, he stood with 60,000. “With this I am shaking the foundation of the British empire,” he said.

At Occupy Providence’s TeachIn on the Occupy Movement last night, Vazira Zamindar, associate professor of history, compared Gandhi’s march to this historical moment, noting that students were the first people to join Gandhi.

“Numbers matter for non-violent civil disobedience movements to work,” she said. “As a historian, let me tell you that it’s been done

before, and you can do it, too.”

The organizers sought to bring faculty into the discussion through the event, which filled Solomon 101 with students, community members and Occupy Providence protestors.

“Professor Zamindar and I received emails from two separate students talking about Occupy Providence and asking ‘Where are all the professors in all this?

What do they have to say about it?’” Naoko Shibusawa, also an associate professor of history, told The Herald before the event.

“There is amazing synergy between students who reached out and faculty who came forward,” said Zamindar before the event. continued on page 4

UCS hears athletics updates, condemns housing Facilities

By Katrina Phillips Senior Staff Writer

Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger addressed the Undergraduate Council of Students last night regarding plans for new fitness facilities and President Ruth Simmons’ upcoming recommendation to the Corporation on whether to eliminate three varsity programs.

Goldberger guessed Simmons would announce her recommendation regarding athletic cuts to the Brown community in the next week,

before the meeting of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, Oct. 20-22.

He announced that seven new machines should be in the Bears Lair tomorrow, and the University has received a gift for three or four more soon. “We’ll fast track the other ones as well,” he said.

Goldberger said the satellite facilities were established on a one-time gift from a parent, so they had no long-term budget. In the early discussions about fitness budget cuts, there were recommendations to shut down

these facilities, which led to the establishment of the student recreation fee, he said.

Goldberger also said he plans to request a $700,000 annual budget for the new athletics facilities slated to open in the spring — the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center and the Jonathan Nelson ’77 Fitness Center. The budget would cover costs of staff, supplies and maintenance in the new facilities.

He said the request will probably not be approved in full, and he added that the athletics department will

likely be asked to raise more money to offset the new costs.

He said the department could bring in additional revenue by renting out facilities to different groups and community members or charging faculty and staff to use the facilities.

He said these rentals would not stop students from using the fitness facilities, though they might become busier. But renting out the pool could limit the number of hours a day stucontinued on page 3

Smith remembers Simmons’ tenure In President Ruth Simmons’ living room hangs a painting of Paradise Pond, a lake in the center of the Smith College campus. Simmons

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inside

said it reminds her of a house where she once lived — a great white structure that looked out over the lake.

“There were beautiful gardens,” she said, “and lovely places to walk in.”

Elsewhere in her home hangs an artistic rendering of a campus center whose conception she initiated at Smith. Today, the center’s steps are inscribed with the

news....................2-5 editorial...............6 Opinions................7 City & State............8

words, “To Ruth Simmons, who built bridges of understanding.”

She still has scrapbooks brimming with photos and mementos of special events that occurred on campus, including a barbecue held in her honor.

The objects were all parting gifts from faculty, administrators and students at the college she once called home. Before Simmons arrived on College Hill in 2001, she was president of Smith — the largest women’s college in the country — for six years.

When she accepted her position as president of Smith, Simmons became the first black woman to lead a major college or university. While there, she doubled the endowment continued on page 2

No Post- Today Our Family Weekend Issue comes out Friday!

By Jordan Hendricks Senior Staff Writer

After more than five weeks of deliberation, University Hall and Facilities Management workers agreed on a new five-year contract Wednesday.

The contract enjoyed “overwhelming” support from both sides of the table, Karen McAninch ’74, the workers’ representative and business agent for the United Service and Allied Workers, wrote in an email to The Herald.

Support from the Student Labor Alliance, which presented a petition of more than 600 signatures to the University during the final stages of negotiations, was an “important factor” in finalizing “key money issues,” she wrote.

Under the new contract, Facilities Management workers will receive a 2.25 percent wage increase per year for the next five years.

Health care costs will not increase for four years for any employees, but higher-level employees, such as lead custodians and tradespeople, will face a 2 percent increase for health care costs beginning Jan. 1, 2016.

The contract includes language that allows the University to change health care providers offered to employees as long as benefits are “substantially comparable.” The contract

Courtesy of Jim Gipe

continued on page 3

President Ruth Simmons at Smith College, her home before Brown.

Sunk

Golf team places last in tournament sports, 5

T(Ruth)

Simmons served undergrads well

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By APARNA BANSAL Senior Staff Writer

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Simmons’ departure left Smith ‘all blue’ continued from page 1 and helped create the first engineering school at a women’s college .

The launching of an engineering school presented its difficulties.

“Initially, there was no space, so we put up a temporary building — a trailer,” Simmons said. Over time, she convinced more donors to fund her “radical idea” for an engineering school, and the Picker Engineering Program was born.

Simmons has fond memories of Smith’s campus traditions and culture, several of which involved nude student processions around campus, she said. She was once entertaining a donor at her house when the doorbell rang. She opened the door to find a group of naked women. Though Simmons was concerned about her guest’s response, she said the donor, an elderly woman, actually found it “hilarious” and proceeded to pledge money to the college.

Another time, students who were Christmas caroling brought a horse into her house.

Smith students are “great practical jokers with incredible traditions that are usually noisy,” she said with a laugh. Despite Smith’s close proximity to Providence — its campus lies about 100 miles to the northwest — Simmons said she has not been able to visit often during her tenure at Brown because of her busy schedule. She also expressed a desire to avoid “lurking around” or “hovering” over the president who succeeded her. But she has maintained contact with many friends there, she said.

Fearless leadership

Faculty members and administrators at Smith remember Simmons as an innovative leader.

“Ruth always stood out as someone who was thinking very carefully, clearly, freshly,” said Elizabeth Spelman, chair of the philosophy department at Smith and member of the search committee that brought Simmons to the school.

“I’m not suggesting she walked on water,” she said. “I’m sure people had disappointments and frustrations.” But overall, Spelman said, “there was an overwhelming enthusiasm about her.”

John Connolly, professor of philosophy and provost at Smith during Simmons’ presidency, said she achieved a lot in a short space of time. She responded to the need for a non-residence-oriented social

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meeting place with the construction of the campus center and encouraged women to pursue the sciences with the engineering program, he said.

Simmons had “a rejuvenating effect on the college,” he said. Though she started her presidency at a time of budgetary problems, “she didn’t want to tighten belts. She wanted to see Smith excelling in its historical way, marching off into new directions,” he said.

Simmons was “a very demanding boss,” he added. “She pushed us all very hard — and I don’t imagine that stopped when she went to Brown.”

Connolly said Simmons’ presidency was a time of “living high” and great expenditures on new proposals, but after she left, the recession of 2001 and the events of Sept. 11 left the college struggling with its endowment.

“There was some grumbling about how she had great ideas, but now she leaves, and we’re stuck with the bill,” he said. Though Simmons had held discussions about cuts to make in the event of a stock market decline, she was not available to lead the college through the “painful task of contracting again,” he said, “People were grumbling about that.”

Karl Donfried, professor emeritus of religion at Smith, said Simmons ranks among the institution’s best presidents. He remembers her as an effective fundraiser. “She never said that we can’t do something because of money — if it seemed like a good idea, she’d get the contracts,” he said.

Paula Giddings, professor of Afro-American studies at Smith, lauded Simmons’ establishment of the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute, a program that brings together faculty, students and specialists for interdisciplinary seminars. Simmons also introduced a peer review journal by and about women of color and initiated programs that allowed poorer students to attend Smith, Giddings said.

Giddings also pointed to Simmons’ inspirational presence.

“People have faith that she will do something good for the institution and something good for you, too,” she said.

‘Rockstar’ presence

To Smith students, Simmons was a mentor, an adviser and a friend.

Laura Crimaldi, who graduated from Smith in 2001, became acquainted with the president when

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Simmons’ daughter’s cat found its way into her backyard. As a thankyou gesture for returning the cat, Crimaldi and her housemates were invited to dine at Simmons’ home.

She said she still remembers sitting in Simmons’ living room, drinking cranberry juice and looking through a coffee table book with an inscription from Oprah Winfrey.

On the day before her final commencement at Smith in 2001, Simmons broke down crying during a speech to students, Crimaldi said.

“Everyone was yelling out, ‘We love you, Ruth!’”

“But no one made T-shirts — that’s just a Brown thing,” she added.

“It was like being on campus with a rockstar,” said Jennifer Daigle-Matos, who graduated from Smith in 1996.

At the same time, students appreciated the casual way they could interact with Simmons.

Matos said she was once at a candlelight vigil against racist comments on campus when she turned around and saw Simmons standing behind her with a candle. Simmons was also known to call students by their first names across the quad and dance with seniors at the ball, she said.

Students once rioted outside Simmons’ house calling for a Mountain Day, a Smith tradition in which the president cancels classes for the day so students can enjoy the weather.

Simmons came outside in her pajamas, smiled, waved and politely asked students to be quiet for her guests, said Jessica Mele, a member of the Smith class of 2001. “There was a collective ‘Sorry!’ from about 700 students gathered in her driveway,” Mele wrote in an email to The Herald.

“She was transformative,” said Ileana Jimenez, a 1997 Smith graduate who spoke to Simmons about career advice. “I feel bad for anyone coming after her.”

A breadth of experiences

Simmons said she has enjoyed every college and university where she has worked.

Before Simmons arrived at Smith, she was an administrator at Princeton. She said it was administrators there who first gave her the idea of becoming a college president.

“I’ve seen a little bit of everything,” she said, pointing out that she has worked at women’s colleges, historically black colleges and Ivy League universities.

“Her biggest legacy is her devotion to excellence and education and faculty,” said Peter Rose, professor of sociology and anthropology emeritus at Smith.

When Simmons left Smith, Rose said he wrote her a poem which ended with the line, “She’s gone to Brown and now we’re all blue.”

Connolly, who served as Smith’s interim president after Simmons’ departure, said he understood Brown students’ sorrow over Ruth stepping down. “We went through it, too,” he said.

— With additional reporting by Mathias Heller

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 13, 2011

Ne ws in brief

Latin conference kicks off today Scholars and academics from four continents have arrived in Providence for the second half of “The Classics Renewed: The Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity.” Part two of the two-part conference begins today and runs through Saturday.

This is the first event held at Brown in the field and among the first worldwide. Conference organizer Joseph Pucci, associate professor of classics and comparative literature and lecturer for the program in medieval studies, said the conference is something he and Scott McGill of Rice University have been planning since 2009.

Though the conference will be the largest to specifically target late Latin scholarship, it is preceded by a 2006 German colloquium on Latin antiquity of Rome and the Danube provinces, as well as the first half of this weekend’s conference, which took place at Rice in March.

The 12 speakers from the March portion of the conference will participate as audience members at this week’s leg of the conference, which will feature 19 speakers.

The size and diversity of the conference are due to the University’s history of strength in classics and the recent emergence of late Latin poetry as “the sexy field” in classical scholarship, Pucci said.

The first day of the conference will begin at 4 p.m. at the Annmary Brown Memorial.

— Erin Kilduff See Monday’s Herald for full coverage.

UCS passes housing, athletics statements continued from page 1 dents have access to it.

“Each time you do one of these things, it’s going to disenfranchise someone,” he said. He added that the essential goal is to find a balance between making sacrifices to generate revenue or reducing open hours to bring down maintenance costs.

He also explained his goal to set aside a block in the day without classes so athletes could take seminars, which are now typically held the same time as most teams’ practices.

Goldberger said University Hall had not showed much support for this goal.

“If it were a student issue that

went beyond athletics, it would have a lot of traction,” he said, adding that it could also benefit students who need to attend other rehearsals and group meetings.

But he conceded that not all teams would be able to practice during a reserved block because some teams — like volleyball and basketball — share facilities.

Following Goldberger’s visit, UCS passed statements condemning the state of campus housing and opposing the elimination of varsity athletics teams. UCS President Ralanda Nelson ’12 said she plans to begin distributing the housing statement tomorrow in preparation for next week’s Corporation meeting.

Campus News 3 Contract increases Facilities wages continued from page 1 is the last of the University’s four labor contracts with unionized staff members to pass with this language.

Consequently, the University can now change health plans for all unionized staff members — not just Facilities Management workers.

The University clarified in the final days of negotiations that, if it limited employees from two providers to one, the single provider would have “benefits and provider networks equivalent to those of the eliminated provider,” so employees would not have to change doctors, McAninch wrote.

As the University expands beyond College Hill, it has promised a “good-faith effort” in staffing offcampus buildings fully used by the

University with Facilities Management workers. Such buildings include the new Medical Education Building at 222 Richmond St. and 200 Dyer St., which will be staffed

by Facilities Management workers when it comes to be fully occupied by the University in December.

University Hall is “pleased” with the negotiation process and its outcome, wrote Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations, in an email to The Herald.

“We strive to remain an employer of choice, offering competitive wages and benefits — particularly during these economically challenging times,” she wrote.

Other changes in the contract include a 0.75 percent increase in pension benefits and a 0.5 percent

increase in the shift differential for the overnight shift. The bereavement period for the death of an immediate family member changed from five calendar days to five working days.

The Student Labor Alliance campaigned in support of workers throughout the negotiations process, distributing fliers and posters for students to hang on their doors in support of workers and asking students to sign a petition. Their efforts culminated in a presentation of 400 written signatures and 200 online signatures to the University Monday.

“The school is happy,” said Andres Villada ’13.5, a member of SLA. “The workers are very happy. Everybody walks away feeling like they got something out of it.”

The contract will remain in effect until Oct. 12, 2016.

4

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 13, 2011

Science startups look Teach-in analyzes Occupy movement to jumpstart economy continued from page 1

continued from page 8 a way to improve the economic climate and use the resources in the Knowledge District.

Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts ’78 gave the introductory remarks for panel discussions about medical device and pharmaceutical innovation.

Following an interview with Robert Wassman, the chief genomics officer at Generation Health, 13 Rhode Island startup companies pitched their products. Each presentation combined explanations of both the science behind the product and its marketability. Companies ranged from NeuPlay, which produces remote control toys for special needs children in physical therapy, to Lucidux, which created a real-

time three-dimensional video for surgeons. Representatives of these companies, like Cicione, tried to sell their innovations to the venture capitalists in the audience.

At the day’s final event, attendees converged on the new Med School building, where all three floors featured research posters from local hospitals and universities. Ed Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences, welcomed them to the new building. Wing worked at the University of Pittsburgh for more than 20 years and suggested that Brown imitate that university’s investment in startup companies. Wing said he hopes that, like Pittsburgh, Providence can profit from these companies, while elevating the status of the city’s universities and pulling it out of an economic slump.

Professors from departments including economics, history, sociology and political science spoke at the event, each lending their own expertise to contextualize the movement. After each set of speakers, there was a questionand-answer session.

Mark Blyth, professor of political science, asked “What do the riots in London, the uprising in the Middle East, the financial crisis in Greece and the Occupy movement have in common? They’re all the same thing.”

Blyth went on to explain, “The banks are too big to fail and they know it — and they know I’m there to bail them out.”

This system prevents the proper handling of financial downturns, he said. “It’s good to fail. That’s how we learn.”

Francoise Hamlin, professor

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of Africana studies and history, said her “head was spinning at the correlation between this and the civil rights movement.”

She read a passage from “Warriors Don’t Cry,” a memoir written by one of the “Little Rock Nine,” the first group of black students to attend Little Rock Central High School in 1957.

“Their Goliath was white supremacy,” she said. “We have the opportunity to take down our own.”

There were also speakers who brought a different kind of expertise. Kevin Barry GS, a former police officer, discussed police brutality. “Above anything else, the primary mission (of the police) is reaffirmation of social order through force,” he said.

Though police have a continuum dictating what level of force is appropriate, “an officer does whatever it takes to overcome resistance and uses the continuum after the fact as justification,” Barry said. He added that police officers often skip levels, escalating from “verbal commands to lethal force.”

Community members — such as a member of the Rhode Island Anti-Sexism League and representatives from Occupy Providence — spoke last at the event, which lasted over three hours. By the end of the event, the auditorium was half-full.

Other speakers at the event included Professor of Africana Studies Barrymore Bogues, Professor of Economics Ross Levine, Associate Professor of History Robert Self, Associate Professor of Africana Studies Corey Walker, Associate Professor of Modern Culture and Media Lynne Joyrich, Professor of Sociology Michael Kennedy, Assistant Professor of Theater Arts and Performance Studies Eng-Beng Lim and Professor of Sociology Patrick Heller.

“I think it’s awesome that teachers are involved, but I got the most out of the community members,” said Emily Doyle ’13.

“They’re the ones who have seen what’s happening in Providence and are motivated to change it.”

She said she thought it was a mistake to schedule community members to speak last.

Wendy Holmes, a retired professor from the University of Rhode Island who was in the audience, said she was “very encouraged to see young people taking the lead.”

“I’m sick of being one of the 20 white-haired people in the crowd with a sign,” she said. “My friends and I are very hopeful about this movement. We won’t camp out, but we’re willing to provide support.”

Occupy College Hill will hold a meeting today at noon on the Main Green.

5

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 13, 2011

Developer aims to build College Hill hotel continued from page 1 Bishop said he is not sure whether to lease the property’s houses, which sit on the land slated for the hotel, to students for next year.

“If anyone doesn’t want a $35 million investment in jobs and the tax base, then they haven’t figured out where Providence is,” Bishop said. He added he believes many College Hill residents who were adamantly opposed to the hotel in 2004 and 2008 have since moved out of the neighborhood.

The project’s backers are currently conducting a market study to determine the demand for hotel accommodation and estimate appropriate room rates. The study — being overseen by the Pinnacle Advisory Group, a large hospitality consulting firm based in Boston — will be completed by the end of October. Bishop said he will use the study’s findings to line up investors for the venture and then plans to seek neighborhood input on the proposal.

The hotel would feature 100 to 150 rooms at rates of $159 to $179 per night, retail space on its first floor and a parking facility.

“There’s no place to stay on College Hill,” Bishop said. He hopes the hotel will cater both to parents seeking to stay near their children and to Brown’s academic departments, which lack sufficient space on campus to hold conferences.

While the University conditionally supports the hotel, the plan still requires a zoning change and must overcome a history of neighborhood opposition.

“If this could be done in a way that makes sense to the community and makes sense to developers, we would certainly be in favor of it,” said Dick Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president.

In order to permit commercial development on the land, Bishop must have the change approved by either the Providence Zoning Board or the City Council.

The land is currently zoned for residential use, according to Robert Azar, director of current planning for Providence. Hotel developers would either have to obtain a variance from the Zoning Board stating the land has been deprived of value due to its current zoning classification or would have to gain the City Council’s approval to grant the land the same commercial zoning that exists on Thayer Street. The City Council resolution would require the mayor’s signature.

Bishop has yet to formally initiate either of these processes, but he said he plans to submit a resolution to the City Council. “There has been support from the city,” Bishop said, adding that he met to discuss the subject with Providence Mayor Angel Taveras in January and with President Ruth Simmons when he began formally planning the hotel two years ago.

A spokesman for Taveras declined to comment.

The planned hotel faces a history of neighborhood opposition.

Bishop said roughly 100 people turned out to oppose the hotel when a public hearing was held on the issue in April 2008. In 2004, the College Hill Neighborhood Association, of which Bishop has been a member for two decades, voted 6-2 to oppose a similar plan. At a Providence Planning Department meeting in August of that year, Bishop received little support from residents, who argued that the hotel would push college students currently living on the property into surrounding neighborhoods and attract unwanted traffic.

A representative from the College Hill Neighborhood Association

declined to comment on the issue until additional progress has been made on plans for the hotel and a public hearing has been scheduled.

Bishop has also approached Providence City Councilman Sam Zurier about the hotel, which would be located in his ward. When they spoke six months ago, Zurier told Bishop that he would only vote for the zoning change if the neighborhood supported the hotel. Though Zurier said he is unsure whether Bishop has the votes to pass the measure, the change could be enacted in as little as a month.

Bishop said the hotel’s developers are looking to the Study at Yale, a hotel near the New Haven university’s campus, as a model for the Providence hotel. Paul McGowan, a managing member at the Study, is a prospective partner in the East Side hotel venture, Bishop said.

Bishop was inspired to build a hotel near Brown’s campus when he visited Dartmouth nearly 50 years ago. “I saw the Hanover Inn at Dartmouth and said ‘Brown needs that,’” Bishop said. “But it took me an extra 50 years of working to make enough money to do it.”

Bishop said the hotel’s name is still undecided. Calling it Bishop’s Inn is an option, but Bishop said he does not want to make himself the focus of public scrutiny. “The Study at Brown is a possible name,” he said.

GOLF

Bears falter at Philly in ‘embarrassing’ weekend

By Connor grealy Contributing Writer

In a season filled with ups and downs, the men’s golf team fell apart at the Philadelphia Big 5 Invitational last weekend in Plymouth Meeting, Pa. The squad carded a 36-hole 648 at the Plymouth Country Club, leaving it last in a field filled with 22 regional and Ivy League opponents.

“The big thing I take from last weekend was that it was embarrassing,” said captain J.D. Ardell ’13.

“We all got off to a bad start and picked a bad weekend to all play collectively poorly,” wrote Head Coach Michael Hughes in an email to The Herald.

Hughes said his team overplayed the course and compounded mistakes. The performance was especially underwhelming coming off a successful showing at the team’s last tournament, a ninthplace finish at the Hartford Hawk Invitational.

“I think we’ll get better with time,” Hughes wrote. “But the event in Philly was extremely disappointing by any standards.”

The tournament’s results did

not bode well for the team’s prospects against Ivy opponents. Cornell and Yale, the teams finishing closest to Brown, tied and outshot the Bears by 44 strokes.

“When we play well, it’s contagious — and when we play poorly, it’s contagious as well,” Ardell said.

Ardell’s score of 154 led the team, but even he acknowledged the need to perform better.

“It starts at the top and trickles down,” Ardell said. “It’s a domino effect.”

Justin Miller ’15 shot a 161, a small hitch in what has been an otherwise impressive fall campaign for the first-year. John Greb ’15 finished the weekend with a 164, followed by Jack Mylott’s ’13 172 and Ryan Hoskins’ ’12.5 173.

The team finishes its fall campaign with the Northeast Invitational this weekend at Shelter Harbor Country Club in Westerly.

The field will be composed of most of the Ivy League teams, and Ardell said the Bears’ showing will dictate its morale going into the off-season.

“Last week was a wake-up call,” Ardell said. “We want to perform well in our last tournament of the season — end on a good note.”

comics Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

Fraternity of Evil | Eshan Mitra, Brendan Hainline and Hector Ramirez

Logic Puzzles | Aiden Schore

6 Editorial

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 13, 2011

Editorial cartoon by sam rosenfeld Editorial Among the occupiers Now almost a month since they began, the Occupy Wall Street protests are spreading across the country and finally garnering media attention. Over the weekend, members of the editorial page board visited Zuccotti Park in New York City to observe the protests and speak with young people about their role in them.

We were surprised there was not a more conspicuous, organized mass of college students among the occupiers. There is certainly no shortage of problems for us to protest. Unemployment among college graduates younger than 25 averaged nearly 10 percent during the past year. Some young Brown alums are still having trouble finding work or have been forced to take unpaid internships or jobs that do not even require a college degree. Even those lucky enough to be employed will feel the effects of the recession for years to come in the form of reduced earnings.

These protests present a tremendous opportunity to push for action on issues directly affecting us, like the poor job market and high cost of education. A member of the Occupy Wall Street media team told us, “We are waiting for new movements to come in and give (the protest) a more defined shape.” We should provide that definition. A substantial influx of organized students into the occupation would provide media attention for our issues and help build a coalition of supporters that extends beyond just young people.

Critics of the movement often cite the lack of concrete, comprehensive policy prescriptions as a mark against the protesters. But the protests need not generate ingenious policy proposals to be successful.

Society’s quandaries are not without remedy. The problem is not a lack of solutions, but a lack of political will to implement them. It is this problem that Occupy Wall Street may help solve.

With enough popular support, politicians will eventually be forced to stop jerking from one meaningless partisan spat to the next and actually address our country’s woes. Policymakers in Washington, D.C., are already being forced to take note of the growing movement.

While down on Wall Street, we encountered a group of inspiring students from Kentucky’s Berea College, a school whose entire student body comes from socioeconomically deprived backgrounds and is on full scholarship. Their student government helped raise money and solicited donations from professors, neighboring churches and other donors to secure transportation to and from New York. Berea’s student body president noted that he would like to see more students at Occupy Wall Street, but that it is unrealistic and ultimately not as productive to have students around the country descend on Wall Street.

Instead, students and universities — traditional and powerful vehicles for progressive change — must organize locally to expand the movement across the country. We applaud the initiatives taken

by Occupy College Hill and Occupy Providence and are heartened by last night’s “Occupy Teach-In” with Brown faculty members. It is up to us to institutionalize and solidify the messages from Occupy Wall Street, to give this exciting and far-overdue movement “a more defined shape.”

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

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Dan Alexander Nicole Friedman Julien Ouellet

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quote of the day

“It was like being on campus with a rock star.”

— Jennifer Mantos , Smith College See Simmons on page 1.

Correction An article in yesterday’s Herald (“Canadians give thanks for not-quite-international identity,” Oct. 12) incorrectly spelled the last name of Haakim Nainar ’14. The Herald regrets the error.

Clarification An article in the Sept. 30 Herald (“Facilities bargains for wage increases,” Sept. 30) stated that the new Facilities Management labor contract, at that time still under negotiation, was a three-year contract. The length of the contract was a point of negotiation and was finalized yesterday at five years.

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Opinions 7

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 13, 2011

Be international, be Brown

By Jan Cao Opinions Columnist

It feels strange being international. The stereotype is that large groups of foreign students from a single country tend to stick together rather than blend in with the rest of the student body. I admit that I hang out with other Chinese students a lot — but not exclusively. Some international students even try to avoid these groups and hang out exclusively with domestic students. It is never easy to decide.

If you look closely, each international student represents a different level of multiculturalism. There are people like me who lived in the same city in China for 18 years before coming to Brown. Others have lived in more than two countries and speak four languages fluently. Those who attended an international high school or have alums in their family have a totally different experience than people who have signed a work contract with their government to get a scholarship.

Our worries are different from those of American students. One of the first challenges I encountered at Brown was ordering a salad at Josiah’s. It is just tough to remember the names of 36 toppings and 11 dressings, especially when they are lined up

like the periodic table of elements.

Another challenge was being the only foreigner in a group of domestic students.

When excited first-years sit in the Sharpe Refectory together, school is not the only topic of conversation. When people start talking about newly released albums or favorite vampire movies, I do not have anything to say. I sit there and smile awkwardly. I know getting to know local people and talking to them is supposed to be the best

International students were sticking together, but not just because of their limited language ability. First, as excited non-Europeans who suddenly found ourselves in Europe — the traveler’s equivalent of a kid in a candy store — there was little reason for us to stay at school every weekend. Let’s go to Barcelona! Rome! Amsterdam! We would book tickets together, stay there for a whole weekend, come back and start planning for the next trip. Second, the locals could

Despite all the obstacles, we international students are determined to leave home, step out of our comfort zones and explore.

way to learn about a culture, but sometimes I feel that is not really what I want to be doing at the end of a long day.

The stereotype about international students in the U.S. also applies to American students when they go abroad. At the beginning of my semester abroad in Berlin, there were six of us who stayed together, but I thought we would each find our own niche in the social scene. A couple weeks later we did split off, but I noticed that I was still hanging out with English-speaking people most of the time.

be aloof, and we were supposed to actively make friends with them. But simply going to their parties was not enough. It took time, effort and luck.

For students from some countries, staying in an international setting is not even an option. My friend Earth is one of those students who is financially supported by the Thai government and therefore needs to return to Thailand to work when he graduates. Unlike most of us, who are still uncertain about our futures, Earth and other Thai students on government scholarships

know exactly what degree to get, how much they will get paid and even which building they will work in.

Their futures are already mapped out.

The Thai government gives them $1,500 per month for accommodation and meals, which means they have had to live off campus and without a meal plan since their first day of college to minimize costs. They did not have the opportunity to live with a domestic student, hang out with people on their floor or have a Minority Peer Counselor or Resident Counselor to listen to their problems.

You might think it would be wonderful not to worry about grade point average, resumes, cover letters and interviews. You graduate, and there is a job waiting for you.

But at the same time, it is more difficult to blend in and almost impossible to take advantage of all Brown has to offer. You better not fall in love with visual art or archaeology if you should be getting a doctoral degree in chemistry.

Despite all the obstacles, we international students are determined to leave home, step out of our comfort zones and explore. It can feel strange to be international, but it never feels strange to say that we love Brown.

Jan Cao ’13 is a comparative literature and German studies concentrator who wrote “civil engineering” as a potential concentration in her college application.

The not-so-ruthless Simmons legacy

By Reuben Henriques Opinions Columnist

I admit that after reading a recent column

by Simon Liebling ’12 (“The Simmons legacy,” Sept. 29), I had to wonder if Liebling and I go to different schools. Apparently, Liebling attends a university brimming with wealthy elites that churns out top-notch research while leaving undergraduates floundering in massive lectures, embarks on wasteful and unnecessary construction projects and is filled with students who no longer care for anything but their lucrative postgraduate careers. Setting aside the question of why Liebling would have chosen to spend four years and upwards of $200,000 at such a miserable institution, I wanted to describe the much happier University I have been fortunate enough to attend.

Upon applying to my University as a wide-eyed high school senior, I was pleased to note that under the tenure of its president, Ruth Simmons, the school had only a few years earlier moved to need-blind admissions. My University’s commitment to evaluate me without consideration of my financial need — and to meet 100 percent of that need — not only assured me that if admitted, I would be able to attend, but also convinced me of the value that the school placed on socioeconomic diversity.

What’s more, after being accepted by my University, I learned of a new policy that meant that no one with a family income under $100,000 would be expected to take out any student loans. This policy helped me

and countless classmates, and even amid a historic recession, my University’s commitment to financial aid has remained strong and unequivocal. While Liebling’s university has “prospective students priced out of Brown” banging at the gates, mine raised financial aid to offset the strain of its tuition increases: Though the cost of attendance rose by 3.5 percent this year, the financial aid budget increased at more than double that rate to ensure that the added burden was shouldered only by those who could afford it.

Once I set foot on campus, I enrolled in a fantastic first-year seminar, one of 74 offered — up from 23 when Simmons started the program in 2002. While students at

initiatives offering even more ways for undergraduate students to seek and build productive relationships with faculty members.

Other differences abound between Liebling’s school and mine. While Liebling’s University administration “rammed through” changes to the tenure system, mine adopted those changes after a oneand-a-half-year process that reached out to the various relevant stakeholders and culminated with an overwhelming vote of approval by the faculty. While his university set out on a massive construction campaign simply because it liked sparkly new buildings, mine transformed an aging and decrepit Faunce House into a vibrant campus center, centralized previously disparate stu-

If our next president can do as much for undergraduates in the next 10 years as President Simmons has in the last 10, I’ll be the first to put his or her face on a shirt.

Liebling’s university faced an undergraduate education that was “shunted to the sidelines,” first-years at my University enjoyed the many benefits of Simmons’ groundbreaking Plan for Academic Enrichment.

Compared to their pre-Simmons peers, recent undergraduates at my university were showered with more professors and more and smaller courses than ever before. Future generations stand to reap the rewards of the University’s increased attention to undergraduate advising, with Faculty Advising Fellow events, Advising Central and similar

dent resources in a renovated J. Walter Wilson and built a pedestrian walkway to finally unify Pembroke with the main campus.

And while the president of my University also took a salary cut that was bound to be, in Liebling’s words, “symbolic” — even working for free, she could hardly make a dent in the University’s $834 million budget — her actions signified, as symbols do, the administration’s seriousness about maintaining the school’s fiscal sustainability in a responsible fashion. That it did. Despite the bleak financial climate, the Boldly Brown

fundraising initiative shattered its $1.4 billion goal. And in deciding how to cut costs, the University did everything in its power to shield students from the effects of the recession. Yes, some employees were laid off — and provided with career counseling and outplacement services. No, this was not an outrageous result of the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

I admit that all is not sunshine and granola at my University. In recent years, we have seen a worrisome trend toward expanded professional, revenue-driven graduate programs. The planned online degrees to debut next fall are particularly troubling in this regard. While an expanded mission need not necessarily come at the cost of our existing strengths, Brown’s role as a primarily undergraduate teaching University is surely threatened whenever more time and resources are directed toward programs outside this core mission. Yet it is important to keep these concerns in perspective: While such changes definitely present a serious challenge for Brown going forward, they come only after tremendous investment in our undergraduate education.

The next president will play a key role in deciding to what extent Brown is able to maintain its institutional integrity in the face of pressing challenges from all fronts.

How well they do this remains to be seen.

But one thing I do know: If our next president can do as much for the school in the next 10 years as Simmons has in the last 10, I’ll be the first to put his or her face on a shirt.

Reuben Henriques ’12 holds this Ruth to be self-evident. He can be reached at Reuben_Henriques@brown.edu.

Daily Herald City & State the Brown

Thursday, October 13, 2011

State economy struggles to recover Event highlights city’s science companies

By Sophia Seawell Staff Writer

Like an unwanted visitor, the recession arrived early and stayed late in Rhode Island. And with national action on job creation currently at a standstill, the state’s jobs problem appears to be sticking around for the foreseeable future.

During the recession, Rhode Island lost 31,000 jobs, of which the state has since regained only about 10 percent. In August, it had the sixth highest unemployment rate in the country.

“Rhode Island right now is at stall speed,” said Leonard Lardaro, professor of economics at the University of Rhode Island. “We had a good time after the recession that ended in February of 2010, and now the rate of growth is slowing and really close to stalling out.”

Lardaro said he believes this slowdown stems from a missed opportunity to address major systematic flaws.

“We missed it — we didn’t reinvent ourselves,” he said. “We need a systematic reinvention of our economy from the top down.”

Lardaro said a proposed federal payroll tax holiday — part of the $447 billion jobs package supported by President Obama — would help Rhode Island by pumping money into its economy.

“It’s been difficult for the population because, unlike other recoveries where you slowly bounce back, it’s a jobless recovery,” said Laura Hart, communications manager at Networkri, an organization that provides employment services throughout the state.

“Businesses are doing better, but

there aren’t necessarily many jobs being created.”

Networkri offers services to match job seekers with employers, such as resume-writing assistance, job search workshops and occupational skills training referrals. The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allowed Networkri to tailor their services to better fit the needs of the community. “It gave us the capacity to add staff and also gave us the ability to train more people,” Hart said.

The additional funds allowed the organization to provide more on-the-job training, which occurs when a business identifies a need for workers in a particular area.

The business agrees to hire the worker, and Networkri pays half of that worker’s training costs.

“They’re considered employed, and the employer is subsidized for that, so it’s financially advantageous for them to hire people,” Hart said.

Networkri also offers WorkShare, a program that permits struggling businesses to reduce their workers’ salaried hours while using unemployment insurance payments, which cover about 60 percent of a normal salary, to cover the remaining hours.

But funds are running out.

“With the (stimulus) money going away, I think there is some anxiety that we still may have a big population that needs to be served and less dollars with which to serve them,” Hart said.

Lifespan, founded in 1994 as Rhode Island’s first health system, is now the “largest health care provider and the largest private employer in Rhode Island,”

wrote Brandon Melton, the system’s senior vice president of human resources, in an email to The Herald.

The company has distinguished itself as a job creator during the recession. From 2000 to 2010, Lifespan added 3,400 jobs, increasing its total workforce by 38 percent. Lifespan has not laid off a significant number of workers in over a decade, Melton wrote.

“The health care industry is not recession-proof, so we feel the effects of the financial challenges that have been facing our state and the nation,” he wrote. “Our approach to these challenges has been to do whatever we can to preserve jobs.”

Melton also described a skills gap that “will only worsen in the coming years as health care providers require even higher levels of skill education.”

Just under half of the available jobs at Lifespan require at least some post-secondary education, and the remaining half require a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Almost 50 percent of Rhode Islanders have achieved only a high school education.

“We have significantly fewer Rhode Islanders educated at these levels,” Melton wrote.

Hart also described the skills gap as an obstacle to locating jobs for the unemployed, particularly because workers trained for manufacturing jobs find it difficult to adjust to an economy demanding highly educated workers.

“Many years ago, particularly in the ’60s and ’70s, four out of 10 jobs were in manufacturing. Now, it is one in 10,” she said.

By Nora Orton Contributing Writer

“Why is this goat smiling?” asked Giovanni Cicione as he pitched his product at yesterday’s Life Sciences Technology Showcase in downtown Providence. Cicione’s company, BioIntraface, patented an anti-microbial coating for orthopedic implants, which expedites healing and prevents infections. Cicione hopes that Billy the Goat will be one of many happy customers, and he asked investors in the audience for a $3.5 million grant over the next two years to turn the startup into a profitable company.

The all-day event was held at various local businesses, the Rhode Island Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Alpert Medical School. All of these locations are situated in the Knowledge District, an area that has been billed as the heart of the state’s biomedical and life sciences sectors.

By fusing science and entrepreneurship, BioIntraface exemplified the businesses at the showcase.

The event offered Rhode Island businesses an opportunity to display their products for potential investors. Speakers touted the event as a first step in establishing Rhode Island as a center for life sciences innovation on par with nearby New Haven and Cambridge.

Leigh Kendall, program manager of the Rhode Island Center for Innovation and Entrepreneur-

ship, said one goal of the showcase was to attract out-of-town leaders in venture capital, medical device manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

She called the showcase “the inaugural event of the Life Sciences Innovation Hub.” Brown is just one of many institutions in the hub, which includes other schools like the University of Rhode Island and Bryant University, as well as local hospitals like the Rhode Island Hospital and Women and Infants Hospital. According to the brochure, the showcase was a chance for “science, talent and capital” to work together to promote innovation in Rhode Island life sciences.

The showcase began at 11 a.m. with a walking tour of four life science companies in the Knowledge District. Participants first visited NABsys, which uses electronic detection to make genome DNA sequencing quick and precise.

Epivax, which is developing vaccines and biotherapeutics, was the next stop. Another company, ShapeUp, aims to use social networking and gaming to connect companies’ employees and motivate them to lead healthy lives.

The last business on the tour, Isis Biopolymer, uses electrostimulation to transport molecules across the skin.

Kendall said one goal of the showcase was to “facilitate the connections and the opportunities in the life sciences area” as continued on page 4

Charter school proposal sparks protest, debate

By Sophia seawell Staff Writer

After an application to open a school in Cranston was rejected in early September, the nonprofit Achievement First initiated the application process for a charter school in Providence. Last Friday, more than 100 people attended a rally organized by the Providence Student Labor Action Project to protest the application.

The Rhode Island Department of Education has received about “500 pages of public testimony in support of the application,” said Elliot Krieger, a spokesman for the department. “We look at community support when we review the application.”

Providence is currently home to six charter schools — nearly half of the 15 total in the state — but some residents fear that another charter school will divert funds from the public school system, which has already suffered several rounds of cuts.

“Cranston had the support of their school board, mayor and city council,” said Susan O’Connell, an organizer of the rally and a local mother whose children attend

public school. She added that the Providence City Council “hasn’t spoken up” about the company’s plans and that Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14, who appointed the school board, supports Achievement First.

Before the Board of Regents for Secondary and Elementary Education voted on the charter school — which would have enrolled students from both Cranston and Providence — Chafee wrote to Achievement First and recommended the company focus its energy on Providence, O’Connell said.

Christine Hunsinger, spokeswoman for the governor, told The Herald Sept. 8 that Chafee views charter schools as a tool to improve public education.

Providence public schools have been hit hard in the past year — the city closed four schools in March.

Statistics show that on average, Providence public school students “fall substantially below the state’s average proficiency rate in every grade and every subject,” and one in three high school students do not graduate, according to Chris Lanen, an account executive at True North Communications.

Supporters of charter schools

cite the failing Providence public schools as a reason to establish charter schools, while opponents argue that the public school system should be improved and not abandoned.

A study of charter schools in New York City found that students enrolled in Achievement First schools “were achieving at exactly the same levels as their peers, and after two to three years of being in those schools, they were significantly outperforming those peers,” said Reshma Singh, vice president of external affairs and director of Rhode Island expansion at Achievement First.

But many fear that the creation of another charter school will harm the public school system. Jordan Noble, a junior at Classical High School and an organizer of the event, said a charter school would take money from public schools and confer it to on relatively small group of students. Approximately $16,000 per student would be subtracted from public school funding each year if the charter school were established, Noble said.

But Bill Fischer, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies, said Providence has enough

money to fund charter schools.

“Providence is slated to receive $150 million dollars in funding over the next seven years,” Fischer said. “This school is designed to incrementally build up so that it’s absorbed in a responsible manner.

The fiscal impact will be minimal.”

Protesters also took issue with Achievement First’s “no excuses” policy. This policy dictates that any form of disrespectful or inappropriate behavior can be punished without offering students opportunities to defend themselves.

“It teaches students not to question things,” Noble said.

“Our practices are meant to reward things like demonstrating respect and showing enthusiasm,” Singh explained. “We believe that there should be consequences when scholars behave in ways that disrupt the learning community.”

Chanting, “Achievement first, children last” and “This is what democracy looks like,” protesters marched down the street to the Rhode Island Department of Education to demand a meeting with Education Commissioner Deborah Gist.

Gist “has been trying to bring an Achievement First school to Rhode

Island for two years” due to the success of the school in New York and Connecticut, according to a Sept. 28 Providence Journal article.

The demand for charter schools in the state is strong. “There are literally thousands of people on the waiting list for the 15 existing charter schools,” Krieger said.

Charter schools are “meant to serve as beacons of excellence and examples of innovation,” Kreiger explained. “Part of their charge is to work with schools in the local district to improve education in public schools as well.”

Achievement First schools have no admissions requirements or tuition fees. Instead, students are chosen by a lottery, Singh said.

Despite resistance, Singh said an Achievement First school in Providence would be beneficial to the community.

“We have had high levels of success serving populations that are very similar to the Providence demographic,” Singh said. “In the last two years, 100 percent of our high school seniors have been admitted into four-year colleges and universities. Ultimately, that’s what this work is about — putting students on path to college.”