Daily
Herald
the Brown
vol. cxlvi, no. 91
Friday, October 21, 2011
Since 1891
Occupy pitches a big tent
Main Green To the beat of drums, a campout to night at Burnside Park Ours was not one of them. greet the Tibedo, our neighbor, lived about two feet away, though he Corporation graciously moved one foot further By Rebecca Ballhaus, Talia Kagan and Claire Peracchio City & State Editor, Features Editor and City & State Editor
Occupy College Hill, a campusbased offshoot of Occupy Providence, will host a “One Night Stand” campout on the Main Green tonight
to kick off discussion about how to improve the University. The event is scheduled to immediately precede the meeting of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, in University Hall Saturday. “Many people — including myself — have grievances with the Corporation,” said Julie Pittman ’12, one of the event’s organizers. “We’re trying to bring everyone together to start talking about those grievances.” The group has not yet come to a clear consensus about what its continued on page 2
“Your tent’s weird,” Chris Tibedo told us. About 20 minutes into our attempt to Occupy Providence, we were having problems. The basic two-person tent we had borrowed was proving not so basic after all. We looked around. There were more than 70 well-pitched tents Wednesday night at Burnside Park, the home of “People’s Park,” an encampment supporting the Occupy movement since Saturday.
once we settled in, to comply with the city’s stipulation that three feet separate tents. We were also warned to pitch our tent at least 10 feet from the park’s fence. Though Occupiers declined to file for a city permit to avoid setting an end date, they try to obey city rules. Saturday was the first day of the park’s Occupation, but Occupy Providence considers its start date continued on page 2
SEC again probing Corporation trustee Endowment The investigation is aimed at the quisition of MedImmune by Astrajumps to fund’s trading patterns before John- Zeneca. As of yet, no charges have son & Johnson’s 2009 acquisition of arisen from that investigation. As the Corporation descends on Cougar Biotechnology. According The Justice Department is also $2.5 billion campus — and the Occupy move- to the Wall Street Journal, the firm currently conducting a criminal inment prepares to protest its arrival increased its position in Cougar vestigation of SAC activity overseen in year of — one of its trustees is finding him- Biotechnology by about 8,000 per- by Cohen personally. self under renewed legal scrutiny. cent in a three-month span between Cohen was elected to the CorThe Wall Street Journal reported the end of 2008 to March 2009, two poration, the University’s highest high returns By tony bakshi News Editor
yesterday that SAC Capital Advisors, founded by billionaire Trustee Steven Cohen P’08, is again under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for insider trading.
months before the acquisition was publicly announced. The Wall Street Journal reported a separate SEC probe into Cohen’s fund in June regarding possible insider trading before the 2007 ac-
governing body, in 2008. A gallery in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts bears his name. Representatives from SAC and the SEC were unavailable for comment late Thursday.
By Caitlin Trujillo Senior Staff Writer
Courtesy of Lynn Rothschild
inside
Julius Ho ’12 (left) and Jovian Yu ’12 approach space exploration with synthetic biology for the iGEM competition. See full coverage on page 5.
The Residential Council will begin accepting applications today for a new program house, which will fill the void left when Interfaith House closed its doors last semester. The application will become available at 8 a.m. on ResCouncil’s website. Any non-seniors with an idea for a residential program are eligible to apply so long as they can sign up at least 10 supporters by the Nov. 18 deadline, said Travis Spangler ’13, chair of ResCouncil’s Program and Greek House Committee. The application is also open to proposals for new Greek houses. The opening follows ResCouncil’s decision to deny Interfaith House — formerly located in Di-
man House — program house status due to low enrollment numbers, Spangler said. Program houses must maintain a minimum of 22 members to remain in good standing, he said. Interfaith House was twice put on probation in the last two years for low enrollment, losing exclusive access to Diman’s lounge, kitchen and library. Former residents of Interfaith House did not respond to requests for comment. ResCouncil will select representatives from the top applicant groups to interview by Nov. 28, Spangler said. Administrators will look for proposals with the potential to contribute to the Brown community. Applications must make a case that a program continued on page 3
continued on page 3
D&C
Hay disarray QB clash
Renovation plans rankle library staff
CamPus news, 3
The football team battles Cornell this weekend sports, 6
By Mark Raymond Senior Staff Writer
The University posted an 18.5 percent return on its endowment for the fiscal year that ended in June, bringing the total endowment figure to $2.5 billion. The unusually high gains were largely due to success in the market, said Beppie Huidekoper, executive vice president for finance and administration. Last year’s 6.9 percent return left the endowment at $2.1 billion. The average return over the past 10 years is about 7.7 percent. Huidekoper said she was “really pleased” with this year’s uptick. The endowment peaked in value at $2.8 billion before falling 27 percent in the economic downturn of 2008. The rest of the Ivy League posted similar returns this year. Columbia enjoyed the greatest rate of growth, with a return of 23.6 percent in the 2011 fiscal year, bringing its endowment to $7.8 billion. Harvard’s endowment grew by 21.4 percent to $32 billion, while Princeton and Yale each saw their endowments grow by 21.9 percent, bringing their totals to $17.1 billion and $19.4 billion, respectively.
New program house space up for grabs
S pac e j a m
news....................2-4 Science...................5 Sports................6-7 editorial............10 Opinions.............11 Arts.......................12
Rebecca Ballhaus / Herald
225 protesters slept in Burnside Park at Kennedy Plaza Wednesday night.
The naked masturbator gets coal — twice Diamonds & coal, 10
weather
By Elizabeth Carr Senior Staff Writer
t o d ay
tomorrow
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