Thursday, October 20, 2011

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxlvi, no. 90

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Since 1891

Simmons: No change to campus ROTC ban

Corporation to review athletics, ROTC

By Tony Bakshi News Editor

By Mark Raymond Senior Staff Writer

President Ruth Simmons recommended the University not change its academic policies toward the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, according to a letter released to the community yesterday. Current policies do not permit ROTC’s presence on campus.

Though Simmons did not recommend changing University policy on the program, she did agree with the Committee on ROTC’s recom-

News in brief

mendation that the University reach out to the Department of Defense to determine whether Brown students could participate in Naval and Air Force ROTC programs at nearby

By dan jeon staff writer

campuses.

Currently, no institutions in Rhode Island provide Naval or Air Force ROTC programs, but Simmons said there is a nearby college

continued on page 3

currently exploring these options.

Should one of these programs be approved, Brown could then pursue continued on page 4

For most Rhode Islanders, colder winter temperatures are a seasonal inconvenience. But for the state’s

city & state homeless ­— a group that has grown due to the ongoing economic downturn — winter adds a new urgency to the daily struggle to find shelter.

Yesterday morning, the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless joined other homelessness prevention groups to formally announce the opening of Emmanuel House, the first emergency winter shelter

to open its doors this season. The new shelter, formerly the Carter Day Care Center, is now open to provide shelter, food and community for many homeless Rhode Islanders.

About 50 people attended the press conference, including news media, volunteer organizations and the homeless residents of Emmanuel House. Seven speakers, including Bishop Thomas Tobin and Mike Carreiro, who was formerly homeless, discussed the challenges of homelessness and affordable housing in the state.

A winter shelter assessment conducted Sept. 28 revealed a deficit of 273 shelter spaces. Though Rhode Island’s homeless population totals

Initiative provides free food to Occupiers

By Max Ernst Staff Writer

Through a combination of volunteer efforts and food donations, Providence People’s Kitchen is providing three meals per day to

members of the Occupy Providence movement, who have been residing in Burnside Park since Saturday evening.

The initiative, which gives food free of charge to the park’s residents, primarily collects do— Lucy Feldman nated food from local farmers and

No PostPost- Magazine is taking a post-magazine vacation

individuals. Volunteers involved with the group collect food, cook and raise awareness by putting up posters soliciting donations throughout the city, according to the group’s Facebook page.

“Providing meals to the people of Burnside Park is part of the utopian mindset of Occupy Providence,” said Arthur Schechter ’15, a volunteer for Providence People’s Kitchen and an Occupy Providence participant.

So far, the group has had a steady flow of donations and volunteers, Schechter said. There is never a need to have more than two people working at a time, he added.

Though Providence People’s Kitchen plays a distinct role, it is a participatory group operating under the Occupy Providence

Med Ed Medical School professors to teach first-year seminars Campus News, 3

Rebecca Ballhaus / Herald

Burnside Park Occupiers eat for free thanks to donations from local farmers.

general assembly, which meets every day at 5 p.m. in Burnside Park.

“What’s wonderful is the way in

Immortal

David Hefer ’12 on post-mortem legacies Opinions, 7

weather

College Hill’s public masturbation spree continued with yet another incident Tuesday night.

Mica Fidler ’12 was studying at her kitchen table on Euclid Avenue at 9:45 p.m. when she noticed a man masturbating on the back porch of the building that houses Zenobia hookah lounge. He was not looking into her window, but to the southeast, possibly toward the house next door to hers, she said.

Fidler’s description of the man did not match that of the man previously spotted masturbating several times on John Street.

Fidler described him as short, with dark skin and a round face.

His hair was short — he may have been balding — and he was wearing a zip-up jacket with a dark T-shirt and jeans, she said. Fidler said she was unable to determine the man’s race with certainty, but he may have been black.

The man seen masturbating on John Street is white.

Another incident of public masturbation took place Sunday at the corner of Brook and Angell streets, less than two blocks from the Euclid sighting. The man seen masturbating there was also white, though it is unclear if he is the same man who has been masturbating on John Street.

Fidler’s roommate called the Department of Public Safety immediately after seeing the man.

While she was on the phone, the man disappeared, Fidler said.

inside

continued on page 5

Herald file photo

Students protest the military’s transgender discrimination, a major issue in the campus debate on reinstating ROTC.

First winter shelter opens to homeless

Masturbator sighted Tuesday

news...............2-4 editorial.............6 Opinions..............7 CIty & State..........8

657, shelters in the state have a yearround capacity of only 384 beds.

More than 191 homeless Rhode Islanders sleep outside.

One of the speakers, Eric Hirsch, a sociology professor at Providence College and chair of the Homeless Management Information System Committee, said he believes these numbers do not account for every homeless person. The number of homeless sleeping outside is “probably 250, instead of 191,” he said.

“But even one is one too many.”

“Inequality drives the problem of homelessness, and few very rich people directly cause homelessness,”

The Corporation will review President Ruth Simmons’ recently released recommendations on the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and Department of Athletics at its meeting this weekend.

Simmons released her recommendations on both contentious issues this week. “She clearly wanted to release both of these reports in response to the community in advance, given all the keen interest,” said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, senior vice president for Corporation affairs and governance.

Members of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, will also discuss the early steps of the presidential transition, Carey said. The members of the presidential selection and advisory committees were announced Tuesday.

The Corporation will host a dedication of the new Medical Education Building Friday evening, and Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76 will formally accept the building on behalf of the Corporation. Herbert Kaplan, head of the Warren Alpert Foundation, will receive an honorary degree, and Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 and Mayor Angel Taveras will speak at the event, said Marisa

which people are coming together and contributing within their own ability,” Schechter said.

t o d ay

tomorrow

70 / 53

64 / 47

2 Campus News calendar Today

October 20

7 P.m.

ToMORROW

October 21

3 p.m.

“Miss Representation” Screening,

Stress Management Workshop,

MacMillan 117

J. Walter Wilson 310

8 p.m.

8 p.m.

Love Your Body Open Mic,

“Visions of Liszt” Orchestra Concert,

List 120

Sayles Hall

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Grilled Ham and Swiss Sandwich, Vegan Tofu Ravioli, Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

Hot Turkey Sandwich with Gravy, Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

DINNER Roast Turkey with Gravy, Cheese and Corn Strata, Raspberry Satin Fudge Cake

Pot Roast Gardiniera, Manicotti with Meatless Sauce, Butternut Squash, Rapsberry Satin Fudge Cake

Sudoku

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 20, 2011

Med faculty to teach first-year seminars

By Gadi Cohen Contributing Writer

Until recently, first-years interested in face time with the University’s top doctors would have to resort to hour-long keg stands or December dips in the Narragansett River.

But thanks to a new University initiative, freshmen will soon be able to take first-year seminars with Alpert Medical School professors, according to the September update of the Plan for Academic Enrichment.

Med School faculty interested in teaching undergraduate courses are currently encouraged to work with the College to develop seminars.

Daily

the Brown

“We know there are some medical school faculty who are interested in offering courses for undergraduates,” said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron. The University has been working “to determine the best ways for this to happen.”

The only Med School faculty member who has taught a firstyear seminar thus far is Sarah Fox ’89, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. Though she is a practicing gynecologist, Fox also teaches the seminar GNSS 0090C: “Reproductive Health: Science and Politics.” She said the class offers her the opportunity to explore her work from a fresh perspective.

“This is a completely different

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experience,” Fox said. “It’s an opportunity to really talk about the politics, the culture, the media, the religion that has to do with medicine. In medical school and in residency, we don’t really get to talk about these social sides of the medical issues.”

She said teaching a first-year seminar rewards her in ways that her clinical practice cannot.

“It’s been so refreshing, really, to see a group of young adults who are really able to have a meaningful conversation about such complex, hot-button issues,” Fox said. “It’s different than a hardcore science class — it’s multidisciplinary, and it offers students just a very rich approach to health care problems.”

Bergeron said the new initiative is part of a larger effort to build ties between the College and the Med School — an effort that includes the Program in Liberal Medical Education. According to Fox, the joint project by the first-year seminar program and the Med School could encourage that same type of ground-breaking education.

“You never know where things could go when you get people collaborating in an interdisciplinary fashion,” Fox said. “It could really foster a lot of innovation within both disciplines. I think that’s where the strength of the program lies.”

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 20, 2011

Campus News 3

UCS proposes raising student activities fee by $10

By Katrina Phillips Senior Staff Writer

The Undergraduate Council of Students introduced a resolution to increase next year’s student activities fee by $10 last night. The council also spoke with Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 and Lauren Kolodny ’08, former UCS vice president and current member of the Corporation.

The resolution, sponsored

by Student Activities Chair Mae Cadao ’13, a Herald senior finance associate, cited the expected increase in student activities costs of more than $66,000 as the reason for raising the fee. Cadao said the $10 increase will fall short of meeting this amount by more than $3,000, but she chose to err on the conservative side.

Deliberation and voting on the resolution was tabled for next week’s meeting, and Cadao said

the specific amount of the increase could be changed.

In his address, Schlissel spoke extensively about the University’s tenure process. He explained that the current tenure ratio — the percentage of regular faculty on campus who have tenure — is around 75 percent, significantly higher than the ratios of peer institutions.

Meanwhile, the cohort tenure ratio, the percentage of tenure-track faculty hired who eventually receive tenure, is approaching 80 percent.

After Schlissel left the meeting, Evan Schwartz ’13, who sits on the University Resources Committee, told the council these figures could be misleading because lecturers, senior lecturers and adjunct and visiting faculty members are not counted.

Schlissel also spoke about his current search for a new director for the Watson Institute for International Studies, who he said

Corporation to convene this weekend continued from page 1 Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations.

Corporation committees will convene for their regular meetings. Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 and Dean of Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P’12 will present a report on faculty tenure to the

Academic Affairs Committee, Carey said.

The October meeting, the first of the academic year, frequently sees the Corporation formally approving large gifts. Details of these contributions will be announced to the community Saturday, following the Corporation’s business meeting that morning.

should have experience in academia and should also have done something significant on the world stage to bring a new perspective to the institute. He said he is also searching for a replacement for the institutional diversity officer, who also serves as associate provost.

Kolodny spoke after Schlissel, focusing on her work with CareerLAB. She said she wants to fill the gap in career guidance that she experienced during her time at Brown and provide opportunities for students planning nontraditional career paths.

The January Career Laboratory, scheduled for the last few days of winter break, will concentrate on networking opportunities with

alums — both recent and older — and provide a number of informal settings, such as young alum panels and a speed-networking event, for students to interact with them.

It will be open to all students, she said, but with only 150 spots available this year, the focus will be on upperclassmen. “I hope we have a ton of enthusiasm” to push CareerLAB to broaden the program next year, she said. Though there will be a small fee, she said financial aid will be available, and the majority of the program will be funded through donations. Alums will fund their own visits.

Later in the meeting, Michael Lin ’14, chair of the Admissions and Student Services Committee,

told the council about the postponement of plans to replace laundry machines until the end of this year so the change can coincide with the complete overhaul of the University’s Card Value Center system, which is currently under discussion.

Todd Harris ’14, chair of the Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee, sought feedback on the planned improvements for the Advising Sidekick software. He said this software has an advantage over the University’s other online resources because it is the only one completely created and controlled by the University, so the changes can be catered entirely to student needs.

4 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 20, 2011

Simmons recommends against lifting campus ban on ROTC continued from page 1 a partnership, Simmons said. The University currently has a partnership with Providence College that allows Brown students to participate in its Army ROTC program.

The Committee on ROTC, formed by Simmons in February to examine the University’s policy on ROTC, issued its report June 30. The report was made available to the community in September.

Simmons’ response will go before the Corporation, the University’s

highest governing body, at its meeting this week.

The University resolved to ban ROTC’s presence on campus in 1969 during the height of the Vietnam War. Since the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, there has been much debate as to whether ROTC should be allowed back. Other Ivy League institutions such as Harvard and Yale have announced plans to reinstate ROTC programs on their campuses.

Simmons also recommended that exploration of off-campus

ROTC partnerships coincide with vocal opposition from the Brown community to the military’s discrimination against transgender individuals.

“We must do all in our power as an institution to carry the message to Congress, the executive branch and the military establishment that the policy barring transgender individuals from military service must be changed,” she wrote.

There was no consensus among members of the Committee on ROTC on how the University should

respond to the issue of discrimination, said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron.

“I was upset to read that the president is expanding our involvement in ROTC despite the fact that the military and ROTC discriminate against transgender individuals, which goes against Brown’s code of conduct and our community values,” said Meredith Eptstein ’12, a member of the Coalition Against Special Privileges for ROTC. Still, Simmons’ letter “recognized that Brown has a commitment to its anti-discrimination policy,” said Madeleine Jennewein ’14, copresident of transgender advocacy group GenderAction. “I personally really like the recommendations she made.”

Simmons wrote the discrimination was not the driving force behind her decision but rather a “separate issue” that needs to be addressed. The University is involved with many other institutions that do not share Brown’s policies, she said, adding that the University already partners with the military, which provides funding for research.

While Joshua Posner ’71 supported the University’s 1969 ban on ROTC when he was an undergradu-

ate, he said he now thinks Brown is isolating itself by not allowing the program on campus. “I think it is harmful to the students because it keeps that important element of our society further away,” he said.

But Simmons said the University’s main goal should be to offer opportunities for students interested in military service rather than establish a unit just for the sake of having one.

“At this particular time, there isn’t much of a demand for a unit on campus,” she said.

Simmons’ letter may not entirely put the debate over ROTC to rest for those who ardently support or oppose the program, as it neither rejects nor embraces military involvement in higher education. Her recommendations simply uphold the 1969 resolution that ROTC remain an extracurricular activity while calling for new off-campus opportunities beyond the Providence College program.

“I think it’s always good to have a point of closure, and I think the president’s letter helps bring, to some punctuation, the long conversation,” Bergeron said. “And that is important for the discourse on campus.”

www.browndailyherald.com

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 20, 2011

City & State 5

Grants fund med students Homeless speak out at press conference housing as a long-term solution.

“Homelessness is a problem that continued from page 1 pursuing primary care Speakers stressed that foreclo- can be solved,” she told The Herald. continued from page 8

said Philip Gruppuso, the associate dean for medical education at the Med School and the principle investigator for the Rhode Island Foundation grant. He said the school knew the foundation was interested in primary care and decided to apply for a grant to fund its mentorship program.

“Students make career decisions based on their interactions with physicians who become role models for them,” Gruppuso said.

Since the program’s establishment in May, recruiting primary care physicians to teach students has been significantly easier due to the additional funds they now receive.

Gruppuso said he is also currently acting as the principal investigator for a curriculum development grant from the National Institutes of Health in partnership with the Albert Einstein Medical School in New York. The grant, he said, will allow the Med School and

Albert Einstein to develop a “comprehensive four-year population health curriculum.”

“This is another part of the equation,” he said. “Population health is at the core of primary care.”

Although the grant was awarded last spring, faculty members from the two schools are still in the midst of designing the curriculum.

Some aspects of the new curriculum — specifically related to epidemiology for second-year medical students — have already been implemented this year.

Mendez and Gruppuso both said it is too early to determine what effect these programs will have, though they added they hope the programs will prove effective in encouraging more medical students to enter primary care careers.

“It’s a challenge everybody needs to come at from multiple angles,” Gruppuso said. “Everything that makes a primary care career more attractive and more feasible for our students is going to have a beneficial effect.”

English concentrators’ advisers switched continued from page 8 bachelor of science program, who was reassigned.

“You want to have continuity in advising, and that’s important,” Reichman said.

McCarthy said finding out she had a new adviser was a little upsetting, but she “didn’t feel a huge loss.” She said she sometimes just bypasses the advising system and gets advice from other professors.

Reichman said she tells students who want a specific adviser that they should seek advice from them informally. “People who aren’t official advisers are still advising students,” she said.

Reichman said students have

come to her because they were confused about why their advisers were changed, but no one requested to return to their old adviser.

Even without the switch to the new system, some students would have needed to change advisers.

There is a group of professors in the department who serve as concentration advisers, but that list changes each year as some faculty go on sabbatical and others serve on time-consuming committees.

This means that each year, some students have to be reassigned advisers, Reichman said.

“We do our best to try to create continuity at the same time as we’re able to absorb some of these changes,” she said.

Hirsch added. He explained that affluent residents distort the housing market to make housing unaffordable for low-income people.

“They don’t care, and they have no clue,” Hirsch said.

Jim Ryczek, the coalition’s executive director and the event’s master of ceremonies, said homeless shelters are a moral imperative, but they are only a temporary solution to a critical social problem. He proposed setting aside funding for affordable

sures, unemployment and evictions are key drivers of homelessness. By providing permanent, affordable housing for affected individuals and families, homelessness in Rhode Island could be eradicated, they said.

“Shelters perpetuate homelessness — it doesn’t end homelessness,” Hirsch said to thunderous applause.

Natacha Clavell ’12, a coalition intern who helped organize the press conference, also stressed the need for affordable housing.

“There is not enough focus on the long-term solutions of affordable housing.”

Of the roughly 10 homeless at the event, nearly all expressed appreciation for their temporary homes.

“I had lost a home that was signed to me by my mother,” said Joseph Gomes, a Providence local who now stays at Emmanuel House, in an interview with The Herald. “I was outside in two-feet- to fourfeet-deep snow.”

comics Chester Crabson | Tess Carroll

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

6 Editorial & Letter Editorial

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 20, 2011

Editorial cartoon

by a n d r e w a n ta r

A plea for ROTC’s reinstatement Yesterday, President Ruth Simmons recommended Brown not remove its campus ban on the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and instead pursue more cross-institutional avenues for participation. Though we are satisfied that this proposal was the product of a deliberative and inclusive process, we disagree with the result.

We support the reinstatement of ROTC at Brown as at least an officially recognized extracurricular activity. Freedom of choice and engaging with and respecting people from different backgrounds are ideals utterly integral to Brown’s identity as a liberal institution. Denying students the option to participate in and interact with the individuals and pursuits of their choosing is contrary to our core values.

There is another important issue that Simmons failed to mention.

While bringing ROTC back would support a discriminatory institution, we feel that Brown’s lack of engagement with the military encourages other discriminatory feelings on campus. First, it reinforces the military’s stark and increasing representative geographic and socioeconomic gap.

It is irresponsible to ignore the fact that our military is disproportionately composed of poor and southern young Americans. Banning ROTC also serves to produce a gross anti-military ideology. It is inappropriate to dismiss our military and its brave soldiers because we disagree with the wars that politicians order them to fight. Opposition to recent wars, or pacifism altogether, is an inappropriate and intellectually dissonant reason to reject a ROTC program that requires participation from no one. It is absurd to assert that making students ride a 6 a.m. bus and participate in ROTC at Providence College or other neighboring institutions, outside of the sight and minds of the Brown community, is a fair compromise.

The country and the LGBTQ community are ultimately best served by a military led by a plural, liberally educated officer corps. Though a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering is excellent preparation for a nuclear submarine commander, it is not the ideal background for top brass faced with complex geo-strategic concerns. Further, a more liberal rank and file makes for an environment more conducive to the ultimate acceptance of transgender members, thereby undercutting a key argument of opponents to full integration: that service members will not accept transgender people.

The military’s transgender discrimination policy, which runs counter to basic principles of equality, gives us pause. What’s more, accepting ROTC back onto campus would be a clear violation of Brown’s nondiscrimination policy. But as Simmons said in her report, we already have “partnerships” with many programs that “fall far short of our anti-discrimination policy” — namely, study abroad programs in countries with poor human rights records. Canceling all of these programs, which would also mean losing considerable funding from the federal government, which supports research and financial aid, would be a tremendous blow to the University. Furthermore, Simmons invokes the civil rights movement, noting that individuals must engage with “discriminatory institutions” in order to properly understand and change said institutions to produce a more just world. Simply boycotting the military is counterproductive.

For these reasons, we urge the Corporation and Simmons to pursue a policy of reinstating ROTC on Brown’s campus.

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

letter to the editor Simmons misses opportunity on ROTC To the Editor: In your online coverage of President Ruth Simmons’ recommendation that Brown explore off-campus Reserve Officers’ Training Corps partnerships (“Simmons recommends against lifting campus ban on ROTC,” Oct. 19), you neglect to mention a critical fact: There are no Navy or Air Force ROTC programs in the state of Rhode Island.

Should students really be forced to travel two hours

round trip to MIT’s campus for training? It’s safe to say that even Demi Moore’s character in “GI Jane” would hesitate to make that commute.

By worrying about being a follower and opening its doors to ROTC as all the other Ivies have done, Brown is missing an opportunity to be a leader in improving civil-military relations in the state of Rhode Island and nationwide.

Jonathan Hillman ’09

quote of the day

“They don’t care, and they have no clue.”

— Eric Hirsch, sociology professor at Providence College See HOMELESS on page 1.

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Opinions 7

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, October 20, 2011

WPCs are worth having around

By Lucy Stephenson Guest Columnist

As a Women Peer Counselor, last year was a struggle. The program needed to assert itself. We needed to find, develop or craft a WPC identity. Somewhere in this honorable mission to revitalize the WPC program, shoring up our collective worth was supposed to come through broadcasting ourselves in an unattainable role: We were to be specialists on a sprawling network of deep issues, from sexism to eating concerns to sexual assault.

This year, we look to honor this story of last year’s collective WPC experience, appreciating all the work that went into defining and addressing the different challenges the program faces. This year, we look to take the morals of this story, hold them tight and use the momentum and productive connections its actors and writers worked so hard to forge. We get our own story going this way, in terms that allow us to be the best WPCs — the best supporters, liaisons, community builders, peers and counselors — that we can be here and now.

We do not claim to be specialists — however that is calibrated — in the issues

of gender, sexuality, sexism, safer sex, eating concerns, relationships, assertiveness and sexual harassment and assault. This is not in the mission statement as cited in the report last year’s two WPC representatives sent to the Office of Residential Life.

The goal of the WPC program is to incorporate into its mission special, critical attention to and engagement of sexism, gender issues and the different manifesta-

into such a project, but even the greatest messages lose their power if no one hears them. Here our strength as peer counselors lies in our connections to the residential communities we help build. We use our place in the residence halls to nurture important conversations. We flow toward developing dynamic, supportive residential units. We humanize the University’s resources, tailor support networks and en-

This year, we look to take the morals of this story, hold them tight and use the momentum and productive connections its actors and writers worked so hard to forge.

tions of these issues. They are big issues, and we cannot do it all ourselves. We could do lots of things differently, and we are doing lots of things differently than we did last year. We could train for years, move away from the ResLife and work toward making a core corps of women with a stunning depth and breadth of knowledge and training on these issues.

We could theoretically throw ourselves

deavor to be the best WPCs we can be. We are women, yes, but we are here to work with everybody.

So yes, we need to be to be informed and aware, but we also need to be studentpeople. If you have friends who are both specialists in the eight issues above and healthily engaged undergraduate students, please let us know. We would love to learn with them.

To reflect the continuity of the WPC program — trials and successes included — it seems fitting to close with a note from the report that last year’s two WPC representatives presented to ResLife: “We ask our readers to remember one of the Ws’ favorite ground rules: ‘Trust intent.’”

Trusting the intent of ResLife allows us to develop relationships and invest our energy efficiently as we navigate the challenges of developing as WPCs and individuals. Each of us works to be a great WPC, generally knowledgeable and specifically attuned to the issues we address. Each of us also works to be a full student-person, generally involved and specifically in tune with the communities we are so integrally a part of. Both individually and organizationally we wrestle all kinds of challenges.

We could bicker internally, whine publicly and hold our breaths until things change.

Or we could critically work from within our parent organization as we endeavor to grow up and assert our identity as a group of Residential Peer Leaders especially engaged in issues of gender, sexuality, sexism, safer sex, eating concerns, relationships, assertiveness and sexual harassment and assault.

Lucy Stephenson ’13 is a current WPC student leader and a WPC in Little-wut?

Littlefield. She can be reached at lucy_stephenson@brown.edu.

Human value as monetary value

By David Hefer Opinions Columnist

The second Steve Jobs died, a dam burst somewhere. Gallons of elegies and eulogies spilled forth, flooding the surrounding low-lying areas with a lot of sentimental goop. People praised Jobs as if he were a real-life John Galt.

Naturally, this invited a backlash. Jobs is no hero! He was a rank industrialist, furthering consumer culture and making the world that much more materialistic.

He does not deserve to be memorialized any more than any other person on this earth because he is no more valuable.

This leads to some very important questions. What determines the value of a human life, and what effect should this have on us?

Before we can answer these questions, we need to know exactly what we are asking. What is the nature of human value? This notion is used as the grounds for praise. We frequently give the highest praise to people who have done great good, such as Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa. However, this is not required. It is not immediately clear that Leonardo da Vinci and other great artists accomplished feats of high moral worth.

The lesson we learn from these considerations is that human value can be raised

by doing good, but there are other ways to make oneself more valuable. It may prove helpful, then, to make progress along the moral dimension and then try to generalize all value-determining features.

There are two approaches to ethics that enjoy high degrees of popularity. The first is deontology, or duty ethics. This theory holds that an action’s moral status is determined by adherence to some set of rules, given by, for instance, God. The second is consequentialism, usually present-

why all of these people are so great, a natural response is that they all impact the lives of others positively. So, we will take this as the answer. A person has human value in proportion to the positive effect they have had on others.

This moves the question back — which effects are positive? There are two routes here. The first is to appeal to the somewhat abstract notion of an objective good.

This is the way that eating vegetables impacts positively. It is plausible to say that

Your net worth reflects your value as a human being. … Praise the rich!

ed as utilitarianism. As the name implies, consequentialists hold that an action’s moral status is determined by its consequences — for utilitarians, the relevant consequences are the changes in utility.

We can try to adapt these theories to determine human value. Deontology will not help much — we can hardly turn to the dictates of God. On the other hand, consequentialism fits human value very snugly. When asked

freedom is an objective good of the relevant kind. But we would hesitate to praise a person who plunges an unjust society into years of starvation and misery even though the resulting anarchy provided a lot of freedom. This suggestion won’t do.

The other idea about positive impacts places them firmly in our heads. Things impact us positively if they fulfill certain of our desires and fail to violate certain others. This accounts for all cases. Great

artists fulfill our desire for great art. Great leaders bring about much needed — and wanted — social change. The aforementioned revolutionary fulfills her countrymen’s desire for freedom, but violates their desire for safety. To recap, then, a person is valuable in proportion to how much they have impacted others.

Though utilitarians have a hard time keeping track of how much utility an act produces or takes away, impact is much easier to calculate. In the modern world, we pay money for what we desire. Staple or luxury, we buy things because they help us live happily. I will pay more for something that satisfies a more pressing desire or satisfies in a better way — more to fix my car than a bowl of cereal, more for the high quality chocolate.

The more you impact others, the more they will pay you. This suggests that your net worth reflects your value as a human being. One might object, saying that very rich person Paris Hilton receives her money from other very rich people, so Hilton’s monetary worth does not reflect her impact. If each dollar represents one “impact,” then the fact that it is transferred should not matter.

Where does this leave us? We can still praise all the people we wanted to before — Nelson Mandela was not paid for his impact. It does give us an additional commitment, though. Praise the rich!

David Hefer ’12 hopes that his column has made a positive impact on you.

Daily Herald the Brown

city in brief

lo v e t h y s e l f

ProJo establishes pay wall online The Providence Journal established a pay wall and redesigned its website Tuesday. The website now features breaking news briefs for free and provides full stories only to subscribers through an eEdition of the paper.

Online readers can access the eEdition for free for one month, after which they will be required to purchase a subscription if they do not already subscribe to the daily paper. Subscribers who pay for the weekend edition of the paper but do not have a daily subscription will still be required to pay a small fee for the online edition, according to an Oct. 17 Journal article explaining the new website. The various subscription fees have not yet been determined, according to the article.

“Like other major newspapers across the country, we’ve come to the realization that giving away our content free is not a sound business plan,” said Howard Sutton, publisher, president and chief executive officer of the Journal, in the Journal article.

The website also changed its URL from projo.com to providencejournal.com Tuesday.

According to an April 7 article in The Herald, the Journal’s circulation declined 10 percent in the past year and A. H. Belo — the paper’s parent company — suffered revenue losses of $124.2 million.

It has not been decided whether the University Library will be able to provide a subscription to the eEdition of the paper, said Edwin Quist, associate University librarian for research and outreach services.

Though the University subscribes to the Journal and subscribers receive free access to the eEdition, publications tend to treat institutions differently than they do individuals, Quist said.

The New York Times, which erected a pay wall in March, has not yet made institutional subscriptions possible, and Quist said it is unclear whether the Journal will offer them.

“My guess is that they haven’t even considered it yet,” he said. “But they might have looked at the New York Times situation and done a better job.”

— Elizabeth Carr

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Loan forgiveness program receives $250,000 grant

By Kate Nussenbaum Contributing Writer

UnitedHealthcare of New England donated $250,000 to the Rhode Island Foundation’s loan forgiveness program last week as part of a series

city & state

Lydia Yamaguchi / Herald

Students celebrate the annual “Love Your Body Day” under Faunce arch.

of grants from state and national organizations encouraging medical students, including those at Alpert Medical School, to pursue careers in primary care.

The funds are allocated to former Rhode Island medical students who practice primary care in-state to help them repay student loans, said Yvette Mendez, grants programs officer at the Rhode Island Foundation.

The program allows eligible doctors to receive up to $20,000 a year for four years to help pay their loans, said Neil Steinberg ’75, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

Steinberg said the program has been in existence for a couple years.

The $250,000 grant will provide funds for eight physicians enrolled in the program, including two graduates of the Med School.

Loan forgiveness is just one route national and state organizations are taking to provide incentive for students to pursue careers in primary care, a field constantly in need of more doctors.

Last year, the Rhode Island Foundation awarded the Med School an $87,631 grant for a mentorship program, allowing medical students to work with physicians involved in primary care. “Research shows that when a student is out training with a physician, (the physician’s) productivity reduces,” Mendez said. The money, she said, would help to “offset some of these costs.”

The Med School has an ongoing relationship with the foundation, continued on page 5

Adviser changes confuse English concentrators

By Greg Jordan-Detamore Senior Staff Writer

When the Department of English began allotting concentration advisers alphabetically this summer, it left many students surprised to find they had been reassigned to new advisers.

Previously, students could request specific advisers and would be paired with them if the advisers did not already have too many advisees. But Ravit Reichman, associate

professor of English and the department’s director of undergraduate studies, said the number of students requesting advisers “wasn’t actually a huge number.” If students did not request anyone, they would be either assigned based on interests or assigned randomly, Reichman said.

Brian Kelly ’12, an English and political science double concentrator, said when he declared his English concentration, he was assigned the adviser he requested. “I chose him because he was one of

very few professors who I felt I had a good rapport with.”

Students originally declared their concentration using the old system this spring. But over the summer, the department switched to the new process.

Reichman said the switch made assigning students to advisers easier for the department than allowing students to request their advisers.

Jasmyn Samaroo ’13 said when she was given a new adviser this year, the department did not ex-

plain why.

Concentrators were informed they had been reassigned through letters in their mailboxes at the beginning of the semester, though the letters did not explain the reason for the reassignments.

“I wish that I had had the opportunity to have some continuity” with advisers, said Catherine McCarthy ’12, a fifth-year student in the dual bachelor of arts and continued on page 5

Program may lower faculty, staff travel costs

By Nora McDonnell Contributing Writer

A new Commuter Choice Assistance Program will allow employees to create pre-tax debit accounts to lower the costs of public transportation and off-site parking starting Jan. 1.

Currently, all faculty and staff can use the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority free of charge, but those who commute from out of state pay for their own public transportation or parking if they are unable to park on-site.

Through the program, employees will be able to put up to $230 per month from their payrolls into debit accounts for off-site parking and up to $58 per month for a commercial transit account.

Because the accounts enable employees to purchase tickets prior to paying federal and state income taxes, Drew Murphy, director of benefits for human resources, estimated commuters will save between 25 and 30 percent per month in transportation fees on average.

“I think I definitely would use it,” said Chris Kottke, assistant

MBTA.com

The Commuter Choice Assistance Program may decrease interstate public transport fees for commuting faculty and staff.

professor of mathematics, who travels from Somerville, Mass., to Providence three times a week. “I think I spend on average probably about $150 a month on public transportation expenses, so that would definitely save me some money.”

The money in the accounts will

function on a use or lose basis, so unused dollars will return to the University. But reclaimed funds “should be minimal, since employees can start and stop their deductions in any month,” wrote Cynthia Schimelpfenig, benefits manager, in an email to The Herald. If employees are aware of their travel

costs, it is expected they will be able to accurately fund the pre-tax account for their transportation needs.

Though the program will not go into effect until Jan. 1, interested employees can sign up for the program during the open enrollment period from Oct. 31 to Nov. 18.