Wednesday, October 26, 2011

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Herald

the Brown

vol. cxlvi, no. 94

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Since 1891

U. makes inroads on green goals

News in brief Bennett named to diversity posts

debate topic in light of the recent political controversy over Obama’s jobs bill, which the president is trying to pass in pieces after an initial congressional rejection.

Schiller and Murdock took radically different approaches to their presentations. Schiller, seated at a table and quoting from a copy of the Federalist Papers, consistently referred to the positions Hamilton might have staked on contemporary issues. Murdock, who spoke from a lectern, used a PowerPoint filled with charts and statistics and focused on the specific economic

Jabbar Bennett, assistant dean for recruiting and professional development for the Graduate School, will take over as director of the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at Alpert Medical School Nov. 1. Bennett has also been named associate dean for diversity in the Division of Biology and Medicine.

Bennett will “coordinate diversity efforts and professional development for medical and graduate students” in his new roles, according to a joint email from Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences Edward Wing and Dean of the Graduate School Peter Weber P’12. Bennett will also provide support for minority faculty members.

Before joining the Grad School in 2009, Bennett worked at Harvard Medical School and served as director of the Office for Multicultural Faculty Careers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also held the position of research and science specialist in the Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity and Community Partnership.

continued on page 3

— Tony Bakshi

By David Chung Senior Staff Writer

Gyowon Cha / Herald

Wendy Schiller and Deroy Murdock debated the American Jobs Act and Obama’s policies last night in Salomon 001.

Experts debate Obama policies

By Eli Okun Contributing Writer

In the current economy, nearly everything except the national deficit is shrinking. But to hear Deroy Murdock tell it, the nation’s capital is still living large. “It’s happy hour on the Potomac,” declared Murdock, a nationally syndicated columnist, “while the rest of us tighten our belts, fill out job applications and pray.”

In last night’s debate on President Obama’s recent American Jobs Act, hosted by the Alexander Hamilton Society in conjunction with the Republican Club of Brown, Murdock lobbed several such accusations at

How does the level of student activism today compare to that when you were in college?

inside

Profs see declining student activism

By Neelkiran Yalamarthy Contributing Writer

continued on page 2

news....................2-4 editorial...............6 Opinions................7

Washington. But the tenor of his discourse with Wendy Schiller, associate professor of political science and public policy, remained grounded in compromise and pragmatism.

The debate, held in Salomon 001 in front of about 40 students and community members, was the inaugural event of the Alexander Hamilton Society’s new University chapter.

The society is a national nonpartisan organization that seeks to foster “constructive debate on contemporary issues and basic principles,” said Terrence George ’13, president of both the Alexander Hamilton Society and the Republican Club of Brown. George said he chose the

Katie Wilson / Herald

Travel Log

Researchers put “Guns, Germs and Steel” to the test campus news, 8

TEAM Spirit Advising group receives $100,000 for expansion

campus news, 8

Fifty-seven percent of faculty members think student activism is lower or much lower today than when they attended college, according to a faculty poll conducted by The Herald this fall.

Only about 15 percent indicated activism is higher or much higher.

Of faculty who have worked at Brown for more than 20 years, 82.6 percent reported student activism is lower or much lower.

The faculty poll was conducted online from Sept. 25 to Oct. 8 and has a 6.6 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence.

Robert Self, associate professor of history and instructor of HIST 1760: “Political Movements in Twentieth-Century America,” said he is not sure there has been a drop in student activism but

Frankly

Open discussions on Israel are necessary opinions, 7

weather

The Brown University Community Council heard the latest update on the 2011 Sustainability Progress Report in a nearly empty Kasper Multipurpose Room Tuesday afternoon. Approximately 10 community members were in attendance for the meeting, which also featured a recap of the Corporation’s affirmations of President Ruth Simmons’ recommendations on athletics and the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps released last week.

Stephen Maiorisi, vice president for facilities management, presented this year’s Sustainability Progress Report, which was released Oct. 18. He underscored the progress the University has made in recent years toward its sustainability goals. On Jan. 24, 2008, Simmons set greenhouse gas reduction goals for the University. She called for a cut in greenhouse gas emissions of between 15 and 30 percent in acquired buildings and a reduction to 42 percent below 2007 levels by 2020 in existing buildings. She also recommended new buildings operate at levels between 25 and 50 percent below the energy code and attain a minimum silver rating from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification system, which evaluates buildings on a variety of sustainability factors.

The University has reduced its greenhouse gas emission by 26 percent since 2007 and bottled waters purchased by 83 percent since 2008, according to the report. It has also identified $27 million worth of conservation projects which will eventually allow the University to save $4 million each year. Currently, eight buildings have either obtained or are on track to receive LEED certification, Maiorisi said. The University was presented with the Sustainable Campus Excellence Award from the International Sustainable Campus Network in 2011 and was among only eight institutions to receive an A grade from the Sustainable Endowments Institute in its most recent assessment.

Earlier in the meeting, Simmons spoke about the Corporation’s response to her recommen-

would attribute such a decline to the lack of a “unifying issue” like the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s. But he said it is difficult to establish if activism has decreased or increased without a set time period for comparison.

In contrast, Vazira Zamindar, associate professor of history, said she is impressed with the level of student activism on campus. In comparison to the lack of activism of her own classmates in college, Zamindar lauds her students’ “concern for the world” and cited the 2008 presidential election as an example of high student energy. She called for everyone to be more engaged and increase visible protests as has been done in countries like France, India and Brazil. Students should be innovacontinued on page 2

t o d ay

tomorrow

58 / 45

49 / 33

2 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, October 26, 2011

keyed up

calendar Today

october 26

4:30 P.m.

ToMORROW

october 27

4 p.m.

Checking the Pulse on Women’s

Computational Physics: “Riding the

Advancement, Alpert Lecture Hall 160

Tiger,” CIT 168

7 p.m.

7 p.m.

Preview Performance: Sortilegio,

“Palestine’s UN Bid: Implications

Churchill Hall

and Responses,” Salomon 001

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Pepperoni, Spinach and Feta Calzone, Bruschetta Mozarella, Pumpkin and White Chip Cookies

Beef and Broccoli Szechwan, Sweet and Sour Tofu, Pumpkin and White Chip Cookies

DINNER Chicken, Artichoke and Pasta Medley, Vegetable Cajun Pasta, Vegetable Strudel

BBQ Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese with Avocado and Tomato, Frosted Brownies

Sudoku

Angel Mojarro / Herald

At a teach-in held yesterday in Wilson 102, Professor Jack Mustard of Geological Sciences spoke about the environmental consequences of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

BUCC recaps athletics, ROTC continued from page 1

Cr ossword

dations regarding the athletics program. The Corporation approved her suggestions against cutting the men’s and women’s fencing, women’s ski and men’s wrestling programs this year. But in response to the “rather serious gaps” in funding, the Corporation determined the teams must present a budget to allow the University to make “sensible” decisions on which teams would be able to meet their goals, Simmons said.

The Corporation also determined administrators will be responsible for setting academic standards for athletes and ensuring athletes are “at least being representative of the student body,” Simmons said. Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron will work with Jim Miller ’73, dean of ad-

mission, and Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services, to determine the appropriate academic standards and admissions policy to “keep in spirit with the Ivy League,” said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15.

Twenty admission slots for athletes will eventually be cut, Simmons said, and the University will monitor the effects of this change on the competitiveness of the athletics program. Klawunn and Michael Goldberger, director of athletics, are developing a three-year plan to reach the goal of 205 spots for athlete recruits, reduced from 225, Schlissel said.

Simmons also discussed the Corporation’s response to her recommendations on ROTC, highlighting the various opinions on the issue.

She said Corporation mem-

bers agreed that ROTC programs discriminate against transgender individuals. But members questioned how to balance the University’s role in educating leaders, including those for the military, with its commitment to the antidiscrimination policy, she said.

While some supported the establishment of a ROTC program on campus, others were willing to back student participation through other means. “The bottom line is we ought to expand the opportunities,” Simmons said.

The University is seeking to broaden the options available to students by looking into naval and air force ROTC programs at nearby campuses, and the Corporation called on the University to open an office on campus to assist veterans and students participating in ROTC programs.

Poll points to drop in student activism continued from page 1 tive in addressing the “growing inequalities in the world” in years to come, she said.

Beth Caldwell ’12, a member of the Student Labor Alliance and Providence Fair Food, said she thinks there has been a general decline in student activism. It is frustrating that more students and faculty are not activists, she said, but the decline can be deceptive because there are more issues now for students to support.

Daily

the Brown

Alejo Stark ’13, a member of the Brown Immigrant Rights Coalition, said the group has fewer members than it did last year.

Stark said this problem could be a result of BIRC not pursuing specific legislation this year.

Last year, the group lobbied for the Dream Act, which Stark said inspired many students actively participate in rallies. College Hill is not fully exposed to race and class issues prevalent elsewhere, he said.

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Methodology

Online questionnaires were sent to personal accounts of 902 faculty Sept. 25 and advertised on the faculty Morning Mail Sept. 27, Oct. 4 and Oct. 7. The poll closed Oct. 8. Only faculty that “teach, advise or interact with undergraduate students” were invited to respond, and 174 responses were recorded.

The poll has a 6.6 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence.

Find results of previous polls at thebdh.org/poll.

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The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Campus News 3

Obama’s stimulus plan up for debate continued from page 1 ramifications of Obama’s policies and plans.

Schiller argued that Hamilton, famously a proponent of federal intervention in the economy, would have believed in the responsibility of the government to establish economic stability “in defense of the common good.” Though she conceded that Obama’s first stimulus included needless waste, Schiller said the exigency of the crisis would have propelled Hamilton to action.

“Hamilton would have not supported simply doing nothing,” she said, which she noted is the stance of House Republicans.

Murdock chose to focus on what he deemed the failure of Obama’s first stimulus to jump-start the economy, pointing to graphs that showed the federal government’s increased hiring since the economic crisis and the burgeoning debt under both former President George W. Bush and Obama. He also attacked Obama’s health care reform for its complexity, citing its 2,800 pages and inscrutability. “It’s like ‘War and Peace’ without that warm, happy feeling,” he said.

“Take that entire law, throw it off the books, start from scratch.”

Though the debaters sparred over the best way to aid the unemployed and insure the impoverished, they agreed that the deficit is too high and that entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security need major reform. Schiller also attempted to historicize the roots of the crisis. In response to Murdock’s charges that Reagan lifted the country out of high unemployment more quickly than Obama, she said shifts in the job landscape have made the contrast irrelevant. “Our economy cannot even be compared to the economy of 1982 and Reagan,” she said. “Technology has supplanted a lot of the jobs that people used to be able to get.”

Murdock responded with a plan for the future: the “Tax-Free Patent Act of 2011,” his theoretical idea to encourage innovation and manufacturing without straining taxpayers’ wallets. “Those two words — economic growth — need to be reintroduced into the American political lexicon,” he said.

After an hour of debate, the session opened to questions from the audience, and the conversation

turned to the role of the Federal Reserve, health care and the relationship between inflation and monetary policy. Tina McKendall, 58, a former nurse practitioner from North Kingstown, punctuated Murdock’s speeches with applause and occasional shouts of “Exactly!” and “Thank you!”

“I saw since 1975 medicine and the whole health care industry driven away from taking care of the patients,” she said, citing the growth of lawsuits and paperwork and the intrusion of insurance companies.

She said Murdock’s use of statistics illuminated the changes over the past several decades. “Numbers make sense to me,” she said. “I didn’t know it was as bad as it was. That kind of made my hair stand on end.”

Murdock and Schiller agreed that political leaders need to search for more compromise and greater respect. Campbell Housh ’15 said the debate itself went a long way toward attaining that goal. “Getting people from opposite ideological sides of the table to agree on fundamental problems that have developed in American society has opened my eyes to the real issues,” he said.

t h e r m o dy n a m i c s

Dave Deckey / Herald

Barus and Holley was evacuated after a fire alarm sounded yesterday.

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4 Campus News Advising TEAM expands support continued from page 8 Smith said, the initial TEAM group was enthusiastic about the program’s results. Its participants wanted to share their knowledge and experience with a greater contingent of the faculty, as they agreed there was “something intense about this experience,” Smith said.

Learning to lead

TEAM expanded to two groups of advisers in 2010, comprising 28 members. It has now tripled in size since its inception, Bhattacharyya said.

In addition to discussions about specific challenges faced by underrepresented students, TEAM meetings address topics relating to life at Brown and difficulties of the transition to college for all students, from those who grew up in inner-city poverty to others who have never known life without maids and butlers, said Jason Sello, assistant professor of chemistry and one of last year’s group discussion leaders.

Participants read “A Hope in the Unseen,” a non-fiction book

by Ron Suskind that chronicles an inner-city high school student’s experience at Brown, said Kathleen Hess, lecturer in chemistry.

Other members of the community have been invited to TEAM meetings to familiarize advisers

with the resources available to students, such as Psychological Services and the Office of Student Life.

While most of the invited speakers have been Brown faculty and staff, an expert from Smith College gave a seminar about how unintended acts of racism and stereotyping can manifest on college campuses, Bhattacharyya said. The recent grant could help to bring in more outside speakers to the program, she said.

James Tilton, director of financial aid, gave a presentation last year about Brown’s support systems for financial needs. Now a TEAM member himself, he has been an academic adviser for more than three years. He initially had many questions about concentrations and other aspects of student life, he said, but he feels more supported after joining TEAM at Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron’s invitation, he added. Tilton said he finds the group to be a useful forum for fielding questions and hearing how others have dealt with particular advising situations.

A commitment to advising

The identities of individual advisees are “immaterial” to TEAM, which only impacts students indirectly, Sello said.

TEAM allows Hess to make connections with faculty and

administrators in other departments, which in turn makes her better able to connect her advisees with the right resources, she said.

Through TEAM, Hess acts as an ambassador for the chemistry department to advisers in other disciplines whose advisees may take chemistry classes as a concentration requirement. Sello was able to connect one of his advisees who was interested in anthropology to a TEAM colleague in the anthropology department, he said.

Sello found TEAM very helpful in familiarizing himself with the many resources available at Brown, he said. Though advisers attend an information session before the start of each academic year, he said it is often too short to provide a full sense of the support networks the University offers. The training is comparable to “trying to drink from a fire hose,” he added.

The advisee’s and adviser’s combined knowledge of resources at the University is seldom comprehensive, said Matthew Rutz, assistant professor of Egyptology and ancient Western Asian studies, who is currently in his first year as a TEAM adviser.

TEAM fosters a sense of community among “faculty highly committed to advising who had expertise to share with each other,” Bhattacharyya said.

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Pressure washer, laptops stolen The following summary includes a selection of major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Sept. 16 and Oct. 16. It does not include general service and alarm calls.

The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents

Crime Log occurring off campus. DPS does not divulge information on cases that are currently under investigation by the department, PPD or the Office of Student Life. DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls, which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters at 75 Charlesfield St. Sept. 18 2:40 a.m. A student reported he was walking north on Thayer Street when a silver-colored vehicle, possibly a four-door, passed him traveling south. A few minutes later, he said he was pushed down from behind and then lightly kicked in the stomach before the unknown suspects fled. He received a small scrape on his elbow and declined medical attention. The case is under investigation.

Sept. 21 7:48 p.m. A student stated he left his backpack on the bleacher seats while he went out to the athletic field with his friends. He said sometime between 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., someone removed a computer tablet and cell phone

from his backpack.

Sept. 28 10:15 a.m. An employee reported the oil spill shed at the University’s Central Heating Plant was broken into and a pressure washer valued at $1,500 was taken. The pressure washer was last seen two weeks before the incident. The case is under investigation.

Oct. 3 3:14 p.m. A student reported a large picture of Sigma Chi Fraternity was stolen from the activity room in the basement of Olney House. The lock on the door was found damaged.

Oct. 5 10 p.m. A student said he was sitting by the window at Starbucks. He placed his silver laptop computer into his backpack and went to buy a drink. When he returned, he found that his backpack was open and his computer was missing. PPD responded to take a report. The department’s detectives reviewed the security video and have a possible suspect.

The case is under investigation.

Oct. 9 1:31 a.m. A student stated his roommate notified him that his laptop was stolen from his apartment. The roommate said he saw a male in his 20s running from the room with the laptop in hand.

He attempted to run after the suspect but was unable to catch him.

PPD took a report.

Higher Ed 5

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Higher ed news r oundup

by Lucy Feldman, K at Thornton and katherine long

Smith College loco about locavores A rumor that Smith College’s dining services would begin serving only vegetarian and locally grown options had the campus in an uproar last week, the Boston Globe reported. Students railed against the dining services manager, chalked graffiti onto sidewalks and participated in both protests and counter-protests. But the rumor was false — it was hatched by two logic professors as a way to teach rhetoric and argument to their classes.

The professors, Jay Garfield and Jim Henle, assigned half of their students to convince the campus that the rumor was true and the other half to argue against the rumor.

“We’re just brilliant and slightly weird,” Garfield told the Globe.

New York City seeks high-tech edge Roosevelt Island in New York City may soon see a satellite campus for Cornell or Stanford University. The city will open 10 acres of land for the development of a graduate school of applied sciences, according to the New York Times. Though Columbia, New York University and many other schools have submitted expansion proposals, Cornell and Stanford are the top contenders due to their reputations as leaders in science and technology, the Times reported.

New York City lacks competitive engineering students for employers to recruit, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. A graduate school for applied sciences could “turn New York into the world’s next great high-tech hub,” according to the Times.

UNM orders (Un)Occupy out The University of New Mexico told (Un)Occupy Albuquerque protesters Monday to leave the park where they have camped for four weeks. The request followed the arrest of a man who threatened protesters with a knife.

(Un)Occupy takes its name in response to “negative connotations of the word occupy in a city with a large Native American population,” according to KOB-TV. As of Tuesday afternoon, the movement had not decided whether it will comply with orders to leave by Tuesday night, according to KOB-TV. The university said it was concerned with the heightened homeless population and increasingly dangerous conditions in the park, according to the Huffington Post. Protesters maintained it is “the capitalist system in this country that has brought” the conditions, not the protesters, the Huffington Post reports.

College newspapers build pay walls Two organizations have offered to cover the start-up costs for college newspapers looking to establish digital pay walls. Press+, a digitalsubscription company, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will sponsor the first 50 newspapers that apply, according to an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The effort follows those made by national and local newspapers, including the New York Times and the Providence Journal, which have recently added pay walls to their websites. Participating newspapers can choose to charge readers for access to articles or collect donations on a voluntary basis, according to the Chronicle.

Oklahoma State University’s Daily O’Collegian became the first campus publication to experiment with a pay wall when it began charging non-local, regular readers for access in January, the Chronicle reports. Syracuse, Boston and Tufts universities are among the other colleges whose campus newspapers are participating in the Press+ pay wall program, according to paidContent.

University of California nixes SAT subject tests The University of California system is no longer requiring SAT subject tests as part of its undergraduate application process. According to the Los Angeles Times, the change is intended to reduce stress caused by the application process and expand the range of students who can apply. But some students and college counselors are confused as to how to respond.

The university system says poor or absent scores will not hurt a student’s chances of admission, according to the Times. But UC officials told the Times that high scores will be seen as a “plus factor,” similar to how extracurricular activities are viewed. This has made some students believe that taking the tests and scoring well will increase their chances of admission.

Alan Radoncic told the University of Southern California’s Annenberg TV News that he will be taking the tests, as he also plans to apply to schools that require the subject exams. “The subject tests are designed to gauge one’s ability in that certain subject, making the process more selective,” he told the Annenberg TV News. “But now this is raising the bar competition-wise for all of us.”

comics Unicomic | Eva Chen and Dan Sack

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

6 Editorial & Letters Editorial Making research accessible

Editorial cartoon

Will Brown join the ranks of some 135 institutions with openaccess research mandates? As University officials investigate this possibility, we direct their attention to Brown’s mission: “To serve the community, the nation and the world by discovering, communicating and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry.” Open-access research policies are in line with our mission, and we can better serve the community, nation and world by making research findings available to everyone.

The chief rationale for open-access policies is to make research freely accessible. The policies, which often include permission of distribution rights to the university, provisions for waiving this requirement and the deposition research in an institutional depository, can also encourage better tracking of research outputs by universities. Freely accessible research is more widely read, and therefore has a larger potential impact. Open-access policies also support inclusion by ensuring that research is made available to all people.

With increasing gaps between academic materials available at public libraries and private institutions like Brown, this is one way to combat the exclusion of non-affiliated individuals from scholarly knowledge.

Some express worry about what open-access policies could mean for scholars’ publication options and, by extension, their careers. These concerns tend to be overstated. Institutions adopting open-access research policies can educate their researchers on how to negotiate with journals, and institutional commitments to open access may help to increase researchers’ bargaining power. In cases in which a journal will not consider publication without exclusive rights, policies that allow researchers to apply for a waiver of the open access requirement enable them to pursue publication in the venues of their choice. This “opt-out” option protects researchers’ interests in a time of transition, while still making a strong and influential stand in favor of open access.

We respect the complexity of the implementation and the implications of open-access policies. We are fortunate to be able to draw on a wealth of support resources and the experiences of many peer institutions as we consider the best move for our University. But in keeping with our mission, we maintain that the question is not whether Brown should support open access to research, but how.

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

Letters, please! letters@browndailyherald.com

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by sam rosenfeld

letters to the editor The changing reasons for banning ROTC To the Editor: By continuing to ban Reserve Officers’ Training Corp programs, Brown again shows its lack of leadership and its unfettered obedience to radical liberalism. First, it was “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that kept the military off campus. Now, the issue is transgendered individuals.

What will be next? The military’s use of firearms or that uniforms unfairly minimalize individual expression?

I doubt that those whining and complaining about the military recognize the bitter irony in that their right to do so is protected by the very military that offends them so.

Jonathan Bastian ’89

Agencies should use powers properly To the Editor: There is much to laud in Ian Trupin’s ’13 article in The Herald (“A case for community investment,” Oct. 25) about the Oct. 12 Occupy teach-in at Brown, but it would be nice if his representation of my views were reality-based. He writes, “The entire room listened with rapt attention as Levine advised more regulation.”

But this is exactly the opposite of what I said — and what I have been arguing for years. Indeed, my remarks have been posted online since the teach-in, as I have informed several Herald reporters. Here is what I said: “But, the problem is not too few regulations. The

problem is not too few regulators. And, the problem is not too little regulatory power. The problem is that existing regulatory agencies do not use their ample powers properly. The problem is that our institutions do not adequately compel financial regulators to work for us.”

Trupin’s well-written, impassioned article makes excellent points, and it is of course appropriate for him to criticize how I chose to spend my five minutes and the arguments that I made — many people do. But it is inappropriate to misrepresent my views so starkly.

Ross Levine Professor of Economics

quote of the day

“It’s happy hour on the Potomac, while the rest of us tighten our belts, fill out job applications and pray.”

— Deroy Murdock See obama on page 1.

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Opinions 7

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Injustice and soup kitchens

By Daniel Moraff Opinions Columnist Garret Johnson ’14 makes a case for why the Occupy movement is misguided and stupid (“Give back, vote, but don’t Occupy,” Oct. 24). I think his reasons are mostly bad ones.

Here’s why.

His main thrust is that we should stop trying to change society and instead start “volunteering at local free clinics and soup kitchens.” I think volunteering at soup kitchens is great. But saying we should do that instead of protesting is like saying we should drink water every day instead of pooping in toilets. They both matter, and they are both pretty much unrelated.

This is like the people who volunteer on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. King was an activist. He spent his life fighting against racist systems, fighting for workers and justice and generally being an awesome antiwar socialist. Like every antipoverty activist, he knew that while helping out at soup kitchens is great, a society that forces its citizens into soup kitchens while dropping milliondollar bombs on foreigners is fundamentally deranged. That is what being a radical is all about — looking at a problem and finding its true roots.

There was this time called the 18th century when private charities in America administered poorhouses and made feeding and housing the poor one of their primary

missions. That was great. What was not so great was that America was a hideously, horrifically unequal society where a few white men with terrific accents owned everything. Over the next 200 years, it got better, not because enough people volunteered at soup kitchens, but because enough people said to themselves, “Selves, maybe it’s a little messed up that a few people own all of the land as well as the darker-skinned people on it. Maybe factory owners should not be able to pay workers one cent a week or employ

Shifting gears, Johnson notes the “much talked about relationship between Wall Street and the University. … Brown’s connections to Wall Street are neither bad nor good, but they must be acknowledged.” Actually, people do acknowledge them, and yes, they are bad. They are bad because Wall Street has spent the last few decades buying up Washington and then causing an economic collapse fueled by short-sightedness and good old cliched-but-true corporate greed — a collapse that hurt a whole lot of

Wall Street CEOs would be tickled pink if Occupiers turned Zuccotti Park into one big non-ideological homeless shelter. small children. Maybe — just maybe — society should respect the value inherent in every human life, and I can take a few hours off from the soup kitchen to work on that.”

The robber barons and slaveholders and factory owners would have loved if everyone who tried to break their stranglehold on society had spent all their time inoffensively volunteering and left well enough alone.

Wall Street CEOs would be tickled pink if Occupiers turned Zuccotti Park into one big non-ideological homeless shelter. When Johnson tells us to volunteer, he has a decent point, but maybe we can also try to change the conditions that make such dismal volunteering necessary in the first place.

people. I personally am not totally thrilled about a mindset that extols dollars above all else, and I do not want to see it exported to Brown. Anyone who glances around our noproperty-tax-paying, Wall-Street-investing, increasingly STEM-loving University and is not a little concerned needs to glance harder.

So yes, we can “gripe and moan with integrity about the huge wealth present on Wall Street and corporate America when some of this University was built on that wealth” because that is what people who care about things do. They try to change the way things are to make them just a little bit less indecent.

Finally, we have Johnson’s prescription

for making everything better — voting! Apparently, “every American student at the University will have a chance to vote against politicians owned by Wall Street.” Actually, we will not have that chance, not really, because every single major candidate for president is “owned by Wall Street.” His solution?

“For many Brunonians, this may even mean voting for the dreaded Republicans.” Yes! Let’s vote for the candidate who is still owned

by Wall Street, but maybe by a slightly lesser degree! That’ll show them.

So where does that leave us? Totally hosed is where that leaves us. The reason people are out there in the streets is because voting on its own is not working. Our political system is so completely dominated by corporate money that expecting any successful national candidate to seriously oppose Wall Street at this point is ridiculously optimistic.

The only way to change this is to make a serious dent in the local and national conversation. Maybe Occupy will fail. Most things fail. Maybe it won’t. We had over a thousand people in downtown Providence chanting about restoring democracy and ending wars.

Tens of thousands more across the country.

Every day, thousands of people are talking and listening and figuring out what to do about things.

It’s a start, and it is certainly better than Johnson’s prescription of voting plus soup kitchens plus nothing.

Daniel Moraff ’14 thinks that soup is usually kinda gross and that email is the devil’s medium.

A Frank conversation about Israel on Capitol Hill

By Harry Samuels and Harpo Jaeger Guest Columnists In the summer of 2009, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., wrote in a letter to President Obama: “I believe it is very important for the Israeli public to know that there is strong disagreement within the United States — ­ not just within our government ­— over exactly how to deal with the question of settlements in the West Bank … I think it would be a denial of an important principle of democracy for the Israeli electorate not to know what the state of American opinion is regarding the settlements.” Frank echoed this sentiment in his Oct. 18 lecture, calling for an open and honest discussion of Israel and Israeli policy on Capitol Hill.

Within communities and constituencies across the U.S. — ­ both Jewish and otherwise — there exists a huge diversity of opinion on Israel. The same is true here, where students and faculty come from over 100 different countries and from all 50 U.S. states. Among the hundreds of student groups, four deal explicitly and exclusively with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As members of Puzzle Peace, Brown’s Hillel-affiliated J Street U group, we seek to de-polarize the discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly within the Jewish community, and to advance a vision of a peaceful future where Israelis and Palestinians live side-by-side in two sovereign, indepen-

dent states. To this end, we often disagree with and criticize the policies of the Israeli government. We firmly believe that this makes us no more or less Jewish or pro-Israel than any established Jewish institutions.

But the sad truth is that U.S. political discourse about Israel rarely lives up to the standard of open debate that Frank calls for. American elected officials have foregone fair and open discussion in fa-

government is quickly branded as antiIsrael and anti-Jewish, despite the obvious falsity of these labels — especially given a long Jewish history of open debate on difficult issues. A quick Google search reveals that Frank himself has been called a “self-hating Jew” for criticism of Israel’s 2010 raid on the Gaza Aid Flotilla. Such labels can effectively blacklist politicians, academics and clergy in many U.S. Jewish institutions. What’s

Peace cannot be achieved through unconditional support of any and all of Israel’s policies, but only through open dialogue and strong diplomatic engagement. This will not be possible until we can change the current close-minded approach to the U.S.Israel relationship in our political discourse.

vor of a competition to show the most unwavering support for Israel. Take the recent special election in New York’s ninth district, in which a Republican and Democrat basically attempted to out-Zionist each other in order to secure the support of the district’s Jewish constituency. In such a political context, anyone who questions the actions of the Israeli

more, they contribute to a stifled discourse on Capitol Hill and to a politics of intimidation that undermines the democratic value of open discussion.

J Street, an emerging pro-Israel Political Action Committee in the U.S., has shown itself capable of opening up a difficult conversation even in the context of the occasionally cutthroat political pro-

cess. As an affiliate group of J Street’s college campus arm, J Street U, we realize that we can only be pro-Israel activists if we also seek out a strong and lasting peace in the region. Such a peace cannot be achieved through unconditional support of any and all of Israel’s policies, but only through open dialogue and strong diplomatic engagement. This will not be possible until we can change the current close-minded approach to the U.S.-Israel relationship in our political discourse.

We must be open to a new conversation, and we must be open to a peaceful resolution.

We applaud Frank’s courage in speaking out against Israeli settlements, but this is just one of many steps needed to help the dialogue in Congress better reflect the diversity of opinions across the U.S. If we treat that diversity as an opportunity for mutual growth and learning, rather than as a threat, we can work together to produce real change for those involved in the conflict, be it Israelis living with the daily threat of terror and violence or Palestinians living under a seemingly endless occupation. It’s time for our politicians to truly represent the diversity of their constituents’ opinions.

The magnitude of this conflict demands nothing less.

Harpo Jaeger ’14 and Harry Samuels ’13 can be found on J Street, which is code for Wilson 303, every Tuesday at 8 p.m. They thank other members of Puzzle Peace for their brilliant — and always nuanced — insights.

Daily Herald Campus News the Brown

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Research bolsters migration theory

a d r e a m Ac t d e f e r r e d

By Sandra Yan Contributing Writer

Jared Diamond’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Guns, Germs and Steel” introduced the notion that the axial orientation of the continents significantly affected the course of human history. Now, a Brown researcher has put that hypothesis to the test — and found

Science

Glenn Lutzky / Herald

Students on the Main Green joined a nationwide protest yesterday against the deportation of Florida resident Shamir Ali.

TEAM initiative fosters camaraderie

By Kate DeSimone Contributing Writer

First-years are assigned advisers before they even set foot on campus in the fall. But who advises the advisers?

Team Enhanced Advising and Mentoring, now in its third year, is an “advising collective” of 45 faculty and administrators who advise first-years and sophomores, said Maitrayee Bhattacharyya, associate dean of the College for diversity programs and director of TEAM. The participants are divided into three groups that meet for monthly discussions about the best advising practices.

TEAM received a $100,000 grant for its expansion, according to the September update to the Plan for Academic Enrichment.

TEAM’s beginnings

The Office of the Dean of the College recruited the first group of TEAM members in September 2009. The office sought out advisers who had indicated interest

in advising first-generation, underrepresented minority or lowincome students or graduates of low-achieving high schools, according to the 2009 annual report from the Committee on Academic Standing.

TEAM advisers meet to talk about real situations they have faced with advisees and the best practices in such scenarios.

Each of these advisers was assigned several first-year advisees whom the committee identified as having similar backgrounds to “students who have, historically, struggled at Brown,” according to the report.

TEAM’s premise was that students of certain backgrounds face particular difficulties in their transition to Brown and stand to benefit from advanced mentoring, said Daniel Smith, associate professor of anthropology and a member of TEAM since its inception.

While the Committee on Academic Standing knew which students were of the TEAM-matched

subset, their advisers often did not, and the students were also unaware, Smith said. The idea was not so much to single out any students, he said, but to make the advisers more aware of the issues that exist for students from underrepresented backgrounds.

For example, students from poor communities on full financial aid often miss out on extracurricular opportunities such as summer internships, research with professors, study abroad programs and Undergraduate Teaching and Research Awards, Smith said.

But Bhattacharyya described TEAM differently. While discussions about how to advise diverse groups of students are integral to TEAM, she said, they are in the context of improving advising for all students. The intent of the initiative is simply to enhance advising, especially for first-years, Bhattacharyya said.

By the end of the first year, continued on page 4

good evidence for its validity.

Diamond hypothesized that Eurasia’s east-west orientation allowed freer movement of people and animals than did the Americas’ north-south orientation because of the greater climate variability when moving north to south. This gave Eurasia an advantage in the spread and development of technology.

In a Sept. 13 article in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Sohini Ramachandran, assistant professor of biology, and Noah Rosenberg, an associate professor of biology at Stanford University, report on data from 678 sites in the human genome exhibiting a high level of genetic variance. These sites provide

information about genetic similarities and differences between populations in the Americas and in Eurasia. The researchers studied how geographical variables, such as latitude and longitude, affected these variations.

Their results show greater genetic differentiation of people in the Americas, indicating a lower rate of migration. “If two populations remain isolated, then they have an opportunity to diverge in their patterns of genetic variation over time,” Rosenberg said.

Assuming migration of human populations is accompanied by the migration of technology, the research provides evidence that the continental axes were factors in the differing rates of technological diffusion in the Americas and Eurasia.

“If people were migrating less frequently from north to south in the Americas compared to east to west in Eurasia, then it’s reasonable to suppose that technologies that people would have been bringing with them also traveled at a slower rate in the Americas,” Rosenberg said.

Ramachandran said she currently has no plans to build on the research.

Sandra Yan / Herald

Sohini Ramachandran, associate professor of biology, published research that confirms links between genetic variance and geographical location.

Global Health Initiative seeks permanent home

By Jake Comer Senior Staff Writer

Faculty leaders of the Global Health Initiative, a Universitywide effort to combat health inequalities locally and internationally, are preparing a proposal to upgrade the initiative to a permanent center.

The September status report for the Plan for Academic Enrichment, President Ruth Simmons’ blueprint for University improvement and expansion, lists the transformation of the Global Health Initiative into the Global Health Center as a priority “to

ensure Brown is a truly global university.”

“We thought being a center would give us more legitimacy, will give us more visibility and give us more resources,” said Susan Cu-Uvin, director of the initiative and professor of obstetrics and gynecology.

Edward Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences, is already on board with the expansion, Cu-Uvin said. The next phase to further the proposal requires the support of Provost Mark Schlissel P’15, she said.

It is unclear when Schlissel will make his decision on the matter.

When Cu-Uvin and Wing met with him in July, he was supportive of the idea, Cu-Uvin said, but he has “so much on his plate” as the new provost that he is not ready to formally entertain the proposal.

The Global Health Initiative oversees global health activities and facilitates communication on global health throughout the University community, Cu-Uvin said.

Because addressing global health is an interdisciplinary pursuit, cooperation among departments, individuals and University-affiliated hospitals is important, she said.

Since its inauguration in 2009,

the Global Health Initiative has attracted visiting scholars, sponsored a lecture series on global health and medicine and attracted grant and fellowship money from organizations like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health. With the NIH funding, the initiative has awarded scholarships to 36 Brown students studying in 19 countries, Cu-Uvin said.

The initiative has also acted as the University’s liaison with the rest of the global health community, Cu-Uvin said. For instance, with the support of the initiative,

the University has signed memoranda of understanding with institutions around the world, she said.

But growing into a center could amplify the initiative’s efforts. “We want to make sure the center encompasses all the different departments of the community,” she said.

Cu-Uvin singled out the Watson Institute for International Studies and the School of Engineering as parts of the community she would like to see more involved in global health.

Cu-Uvin will meet with Wing and Matthew Gutmann, vice president for international affairs, Nov. 4 to discuss the proposal.