Friday, November 4, 2011

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxlvi, no. 101

Friday, November 4, 2011

Since 1891

Gender gap in coaches’ salaries scrutinized Bears look Compensation for women’s coaches fell further behind that of men’s last year

By AShley McDonnell Sports Editor

Herald file photo

Salaries for women’s coaches, including Diane Short (above), who has been at the helm of the women’s volleyball team since 1993, fall below those of men’s.

A few years ago, women’s volleyball Head Coach Diane Short was talking with a male friend who had recently taken a coaching position at another school. Expecting their salaries to be comparable, he asked her how much money she made.

“I answered him, and his mouth dropped,” she said.

“We’re not really supposed to talk about that sort of thing,” Short said. “That was my only real sign of the disparity.”

In a bold admission, President Ruth Simmons owned up to the gap between men’s and women’s coaches last month in her response to the Athletics Review Committee’s recommendations. Simmons recommended diminishing the disparity in the next fiscal year.

The University has been heading in the opposite direction recently, according to figures compiled by the Office of Postsecondary Education. In the fiscal year that ended in June 2010, head coaches of men’s teams made an average $74,207 a year, while head coaches of women’s teams made an average $54,794. Last year, the gap widened further. Head coaches of men’s teams made an average $81,151 — an increase of almost $7,000 — while head coaches of women’s teams made an average of $55,977 — a $1,184 increase.

Assistant coaches of women’s teams also take home significantly lower salaries than do their male counterparts. A men’s team assistant coach earns an average $34,671, while a women’s team

Tashyana Thompson ’12 has only one word to say about the BrownTougaloo exchange program: “Go.” Since 1964, over 200 students have participated in the program, which allows students from Brown and Tougaloo College, a historically black liberal arts college in Jackson, Miss., to switch schools for a semester or year. Despite the partnership’s long history, the program remains a little-known secret among Brown students, though it has expanded to include faculty and graduate students.

“I think there’s a question of how much students know about the application,” said Maitrayee Bhattacharyya, associate dean for diversity programs and the Brown coordinator for the program. In recent years, about one or two students per semester have studied on the exchange program.

“The program has seen some fluctuations,” Bhattacharyya said.

When the program was established, there was high participation, but

inside

continued on page 2

news....................2-4 Arts..........................5 SCIENCE...............6-7 D&C........................10 Opinions.............11 SPORTS..................12

After blanking two-time defending Ivy League champion Penn at home in the freezing rain Saturday, the football team will look to keep riding its wave of momentum against Yale on the road.

Football

across the curriculum,” according to the task force’s report.

The College Curriculum Council is reviewing eight concentrations this academic year, Bergeron said.

Neuroscience, marine biology, human biology, computer science, anthropology, economics, political science and sociology are the concentrations under review this continued on page 3

continued on page 8

continued on page 4

Clay points the way in search for life on Mars

By David Rosen Contributing Writer

The search for life on Mars took a surprising downward turn yesterday. If life existed, it likely existed underground, reported Professor

Science of Geological Sciences John Mustard in a study published in the journal Nature.

For the past five years, Mustard and lead author Bethany Ehlmann ScM’08 PhD’10 have been working with a group of scientists to determine how and where Martian clay was formed.

Their findings could help explain what the Red Planet looked like billions of years ago and

X-Factor

Study points to root of Fragile X syndrome Science, 7

where life would have had the best chance of thriving.

The presence of clay on Mars is significant in itself. Clay forms in wet environments, so its presence “is clear evidence that water stayed around long enough to do work,” Mustard said. Clay formation also requires at least a moderate to high temperature — hinting at conditions suitable for life.

Yet an important question remained: Was this clay formed by water on Mars’ surface or was it formed underground?

Many scientists thought the clay was formed in lakes on the surface of the planet. Evidence of lake basins and river deltas suggest that liquid surface water was once present.

SPFree

Fast ’12 criticizes SPG media coverage Opinions, 11

Angel Mojarro / Herald

Professor John Mustard found evidence for warm, wet conditions in subsurface Martian environments — conditions that may have been conducive to life.

But Mustard disagreed. “This wasn’t where the action was,” he said. Instead, much of the clay was

D&C

The football team gets a diamond — find out why Diamonds & coal, 10

weather

By Elizabeth Koh Contributing Writer

With 68 concentrations left to consider, the College Curriculum Council is far behind the Task Force on Undergraduate Education’s 2008 goal of reviewing the standards and usefulness of all academic concentrations by 2011.

But slow and steady wins the race, according to Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron.

“It has been very valuable to do this in this slow manner oneon-one because you really have meaningful conversations as opposed to putting out a broad assignment,” she said.

“It’s going to be a while,” she added, but the review’s slow pace does not put it outside the norm for academia. “In university time, that’s not that bad,” she said.

The purpose of the review is to “ensure integrity and consistency

By Ashley mcdonnell Sports Editor

Since 2001, Bruno (6-1, 3-1 Ivy) has had more success against the Bulldogs (4-3, 3-1) on the road than at Brown Stadium. Four of the Bears’ past five victories against Yale have come at the Yale Bowl.

“I think the players do enjoy the atmosphere of the bowl, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why,” said Head Coach Phil Estes. “I think any time that you play on the road, you try to find a comfort level.”

The Bulldogs have established a rhythm on their turf and are a perfect 3-0 at home this year. Their lone away victory came last weekend at Columbia (0-7, 0-4), where they successfully battled through the snow to eke out a 16-13 win.

But the Bears are also on a roll with five wins in a row and two shutouts in their last three games.

No Brown team has blanked two

Concentration reviews behind schedule Uneven Tougaloo exchange finds favor

By Joseph Rosales Senior Staff Writer

to continue win streak at Yale

formed in the planet’s subsurface. continued on page 6

t o d ay

tomorrow

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51 / 32

2 Campus News calendar Today

November 4

5:30 P.m.

ToMORROW

News in brief November 5

6 p.m.

“Rhode Island Begins” Exhibit,

PROOV hip-hop jam,

Salomon 001

Alumnae Hall

8 p.m.

10 p.m.

“Lady Windermere’s Fan”,

Sex Power God,

Stuart Theatre

Andrews Dining Hall

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Rosemary Portobello Sub Sandwich, Mediterranean Orzo, Clam Bisque, Butterscotch Cookies

Chicken Fingers, Vegan Nuggets, Sticky Rice, Summer Squash, Hot Dogs, Baked Beans

DINNER Vegetable Stuffed Peppers, Chicken Tikka, Mediterranean Orzo, Arabian Spinach, Vegetable Melange

Grilled Caesar Chicken, Cheese Raviolis with Pink Vodka Sauce, Sweet and Sour Pork Saute

Sudoku

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

Driver sentenced for death of Tran GS The man charged with killing 27-year-old Tam Tran GS in a May 2010 two-car accident was sentenced to a 5 1/2-year prison term this week, according to the Associated Press.

Jon Dow of Hampden, Maine, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and driving under the influence.

The collision also killed Cinthya Nathalie Felix Perez, 26, who was a graduate student at Columbia.

While at Brown, Tran advocated for immigration reform and undocumented students’ rights, helping to found the Brown Immigrant Rights Coalition. She also testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement in 2007 in support of the DREAM Act, The Herald reported in May 2010. The act, which would have allowed undocumented children of immigrants a path to citizenship, was defeated last fall.

The Tam Tran Scholarship for Undocumented Youth was established in her honor a few months after her death to help undocumented high school seniors in Rhode Island attend four-year colleges.

— Natalie Villacorta

Crossword

Daily

the Brown

Courtesy of Jenny Li

Jenny Li ’14 (right), who is currently studying at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., poses with Miss Tougaloo, Janae Roberts.

Exchange program aims to attract more students continued from page 1 it has declined in recent years, she added. “We want to raise awareness,” she said.

But at Tougaloo, interest in the program has been rising. The exchange program reserves seven spots per semester for Tougaloo students interested in studying at Brown — five for regular semester exchange spots and two for the Early Identification Program in Medicine, which offers early admission to Alpert Medical School to underrepresented minority students in medicine and requires that they spend a semester studying at Brown in their junior or senior years. In the past two years, all seven spots have been completely filled.

“There’s been a significant increase in applications” from Tougaloo, Bhattacharyya said.

For Brown students, studying at Tougaloo has been an eye-opening experience.

“Being in the deep South for a semester is really a different world.

We are in the Bible Belt. There are a lot of conservative people here,” said Jenny Li ’14, who is studying at Tougaloo this semester. “You learn a lot more about life than anything else.”

Li attributes some of the experience to the different pace of life.

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“At Brown, life was very rush here, rush there, this meeting, that meeting,” she said. “Here, things naturally slow down. There’s not as much to do, but it gives you time to get things in perspective. It’s a different way of looking.”

Thompson said she had a similar experience when she studied at Tougaloo last spring.

“I had never been to Mississippi in my life, or that deep in the South,” she said. “The Southern hospitality is real — everyone was sweet and willing to help you and show you around. I got a lot of help, and that was something I really appreciated. I don’t think I would have adjusted so quickly without it.”

Both Li and Thompson attributed their decision to study at Tougaloo to the desire for new experiences.

“I just wanted something different — I wanted new scenery, and I’m so happy it worked out for me,” Thompson said.

“I really wanted to get something from the college experience that was different,” Li said. “Something just really told me I needed to come here, that there was something here that I was looking for at Brown.”

Perhaps the most lasting impact of the exchange program is the “very supportive community,” Bhattacharyya said.

“Whether someone participated 40 years ago or now, students share an understanding.” Students in the program are challenged to “think differently and reflect on who they are,” which she said “shapes the nature of the community.”

“I still have people that I keep in contact with,” Thompson said.

Li, who has just a few weeks left at Tougaloo, shared the sentiment.

“People here call me Jenny from the block. Everybody knows me here, and they don’t treat me like I’m a foreigner just because I’m from Brown,” she said. “(Tougaloo) is almost like my second school now. I feel really at home here.”

Campus News 3

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

Eight concentrations Though plurality approves, nearly under review this year quarter of faculty unfamiliar with FEC continued from page 1 year, according to Barbara Sardy, special assistant to the dean of the College and secretary of the CCC. Each concentration under review will send representatives to meet with the CCC subcommittee and discuss the various components of their program, Bergeron said. According to the CCC’s guidelines for chairs and program directors, the discussions will involve questions regarding student expectations, the concentration’s connections to Brown’s larger liberal learning goals, the strengths and weakness of the department’s advising system and how the program measures concentrators’ successes after graduation.

The committee hopes to use the reviews to highlight the differing features of each concentration, Bergeron said. “We’ve been trying to get departments to try and articulate not just the description of the concentration and not just the requirements, but what are the goals? What are you going to get out of it?” she said.

The CCC has scheduled its reviews to come after the departments’ external reviews, which are run by the provost’s office and conducted by academics from other institutions, Bergeron said.

“We’re trying to do a coordinated review cycle so you’re getting departments to focus on those areas in a timely way, and you’re not administratively working at cross purposes,” she said.

The Department of Neuroscience was the first to go under review this year. It had its first meeting with the CCC’s subcommittee in mid-October, according to Barry Connors, professor of neuroscience and chair of the department.

The two groups have not met since their October meeting, but Connors said the “free-wheeling discussion” brought up a variety of points, including questions about concentrators’ writing experience and requirements as well as potential changes to the website.

“They wanted to know why our

undergraduate website was not as spiffy as our graduate program website, even though they more or less have the same information,” he said.

Connors said he expects the review to be finished by the end of the semester and is not expecting any major recommendations.

“We’re pretty comfortable with our concentration,” he said.

Tom Doeppner, vice chair of the Department of Computer Science, director of undergraduate studies for the department and member of the CCC, said the subcommittee is not scheduled to meet with the CS department until January 2012. When the date gets closer, he and Roberto Tamassia, chair of the department, will get together and select the faculty and students who will participate in the reviews, Doeppner said.

Though the department also does not expect to receive any recommendations, Doeppner said they are always looking to make the concentration better.

“Certainly, we always have continuous, on-going changes to the concentration in terms of the courses, modifying concentration requirements and so forth,” he said. “In that sense, it’s nice to have a deadline.”

David Lindstrom, chair of the Department of Sociology, said he does not expect the concentration to be reviewed until next semester but is looking forward to the review and the opportunities it brings to better the department.

“We want to avoid being static,” Lindstrom said. “The review process is really helpful for us in terms of forcing us to conduct these kinds of self-evaluations and assessments.”

Lindstrom also said the timing of the concentration reviews fits well with discussions the departments have been having about themselves, both internally and externally.

“It makes a lot of sense for this to occur in the years subsequent to the external review,” he said.

“It’s a nice follow-up. We want to be responsive and changing, because everything else is changing.”

By Kate Nussenbaum Staff Writer

Twenty-two percent of faculty members said they were not familiar enough with the Faculty Executive Committee to say whether it was doing its job or not, according to a Herald poll conducted this fall. Sixty percent indicated they approve of the committee’s activity, and nearly 10 percent disapprove.

faculty poll The high percentage of faculty who were unfamiliar with the FEC did not surprise James Dreier, professor of philosophy and chair of the FEC in 2008-09. Many faculty members have little or no involvement in faculty governance, he said. Only about 10 percent of the faculty regularly attend monthly faculty meetings, despite the FEC’s email reminders, he said.

Reid Cooper, professor of geological sciences who is in his second year as a member of the FEC, said most faculty members prioritize teaching and research over University service.

“There are just a massive number of demands on faculty time,” he said.

“If I were a young assistant professor trying to get tenure, I would avoid as much of the service work as I could,” he added.

Rod Beresford, associate provost and professor of engineering, said more communication is always better but does not believe the FEC is at fault for low levels of faculty attendance or the difficulties they sometimes face when trying to fill committees. “It could be that some faculty simply don’t care enough to pay attention to what’s happening in faculty governance.”

The FEC plays three major roles in University governance, Dreier said. The nine-member committee oversees specialized committees that discuss a wide range of issues, including the University’s policies on affirmative action, the status of women in the University and the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps policy.

The FEC also sets the agenda

for faculty meetings and serves as a liaison between the faculty and the administration and student body.

Beresford, Dreier and Cooper all said that when changes to the University’s tenure policy were being discussed last year, attendance at faculty meetings greatly increased.

Over 26 percent of science faculty responded that they were unfamiliar with the FEC, compared to around 17 percent of humanities faculty members. Cooper said the humanities faculty may be more aware of the faculty’s role in governance because they rely more heavily on the University to protect their academic freedoms.

Science faculty depend more on peers outside the University who read and fund research proposals, he said.

William Simmons, professor of anthropology, said adjunct professors, visiting professors and assistant professors may not be aware of the FEC’s work because they do not get called on for faculty governance for a variety of reasons,

including that the University “likes to protect junior faculty members from the stresses of these extra positions.”

Simmons guessed some of the about 10 percent of faculty members who disapprove might feel “slighted” for having never been asked to serve, or they might harbor resentment toward the committee that handles faculty advancement if they were denied a promotion.

But many agreed that faculty input is crucial to University governance.

“A university is healthy when the top-down is strong and the bottom-up is strong,” Simmons said. He said he regards the University’s system in which the administration considers faculty input as a form of bottom-up governance.

Michael Vorenberg, associate professor of history, said that in a consumer-driven world, faculty input is key because “the idea of students as primary consumers continued on page 9

4 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

Lack of regulation leads to coaching salary gap continued from page 1

Men’s versus women’s coaches’ salaries across the Ivies

assistant coach brings in only $26,306.

But Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services, said Simmons’ use of the word “disparity” did not mean inequity. “If there was inequity or discrimination, then that would be a problem,” she said.

The rest of the league also does not pay comparable salaries to the coaches of men’s and women’s teams. Yale is the most egregious offender, paying its women’s teams’ head coaches an average of $46,140 less than their male counterparts.

Title IX

Women’s teams’ coaches salaries are not protected or regulated under Title IX, the law requiring federally funded athletic programs to offer similar opportunities to men and women, Klawunn said.

Cory Abbe ’13, co-chair of University relations on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and captain of the women’s fencing team, agreed. “It’s weird that there’s nothing that regulates how women versus male team coaches are treated,” she said.

But salaries were an issue in the Title IX lawsuit the University lost in 1995, when it tried to cut four varsity sports, including women’s gymnastics and women’s volleyball, said Howard Chudacoff, professor of American history and the University’s faculty representative to the NCAA. The members of the gymnastics and volleyball teams argued that women athletes were not treated fairly at Brown, receiving worse locker rooms and practice times than males.

The teams argued that “coaches were not treated as equally in terms of salaries,” Chudacoff said.

“Brown promised to improve the coaches’ salaries, at least up to market conditions.”

It is unclear whether the University has fulfilled its promise.

The marketplace

“The argument has always been that salaries are determined by the market,” Chudacoff said. “And if male hockey coaches get an average X salary, and female hockey coaches get X-minus-20-percent salaries, then that’s the norm that we should aspire to.”

The University has been looking at coaches’ salaries at Brown’s competitors to determine market levels, Klawunn said. The University will also use an additional $1.1 million to raise coaches’ and administrators’ salaries throughout the Athletics Department next fiscal year if the University Resources Committee approves the proposal.

In the last fiscal year, Brown head coaches were paid an average of 17 percent less than their Ivy League competitors.

Short said the amount of funding a team can raise may also play a role in the disparity. Since women’s teams are still relatively young in comparison to men’s, women have a smaller alumni base and thus a

Julia Shube & Anna Migliaccio / Herald

harder time fundraising, she said.

Disparity in salaries also has to do with women’s sports being less marketable in general, said field hockey Head Coach Jill Reeve, but that could be changing with the advent of popular women’s professional sports leagues. “It’s an evolution,” she said. “We have to be patient.”

But because no sport at the University brings in more money than it spends, the marketability of women’s and men’s sports likely has no effect on salaries, said Ryan McDuff ’13, co-president of Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.

Precisely for these reasons, Chudacoff said the salary gap at the University should be diminished.

“At a place like Brown, where no sport earns money ... there should be less disparity between gender and coaches’ salaries than there is at a school where football and men’s basketball, and maybe even women’s basketball, earns a lot of money for the school,” he said.

“I’m in favor of at least narrowing — if not ending — the disparities.”

Factoring in the NCAA

Men’s lacrosse Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90 said he believes the salary disparities nationwide are not caused by women’s sports as a whole being less marketable.

Instead, football and men’s and

women’s basketball are most marketable at the expense of all other sports, he said.

“How much money goes into the football system? How much goes into basketball?” he asked.

“It’s an astronomical contract that they have with the NCAA. I never really thought about it as a maleversus-female marketability. The rest of us don’t garner as much media attention.”

Instead of basing salaries on media attention, Tiffany said salaries should be determined by the quality of the coach.

“It would be nice if it was just based on years of experience, the talent of the coach,” he said. “You could be a bad football coach and still make a lot more money than a field hockey coach.”

Reeve also cited NCAA regulations and media attention as key factors contributing to the salary gap.

“It’s not the fault of the University, it’s a national issue,” she said. “The NCAA has just gotten out of hand. What some schools offer, it’s shocking, it’s alarming. I hope it’s in the NCAA’s vision to start to rein that in.”

She said coaches of men’s teams should take some pay cuts to lessen the disparity, rather than coaches of women’s teams getting a raise.

“I think some men’s coaches are

grossly overpaid,” she said. “If they’re getting paid more than the president of the university, they shouldn’t be.”

Just the way it is

The numbers compiled by the Office of Postsecondary Education detail salary discrepancies between coaches of women’s teams and coaches of men’s teams — not salaries of women coaches versus men coaches. But because most women’s teams are coached by women, female coaches are generally paid less than male coaches. In her recommendations, Simmons admitted “disparities in compensation between men and women in the (Athletics) Department” and recommended diminishing them.

The disparity between salaries of men and women exists not only because of marketability or NCAA regulations, but also because it is a cultural norm, Reeve and Abbe agreed.

Nationwide, women make only 77 cents for every dollar men earn, according to 2009 U.S. Census Bureau statistics. The numbers between women in the workforce and coaches of women’s teams — which may be male — cannot be directly compared. But head coaches of women’s teams — who are predominantly female — are paid an average of 69 cents to every

male team’s head coach’s dollar. Assistant coaches of women’s teams are more in line with the national average, receiving 76 cents for every dollar earned by an assistant coach of a men’s team. Brown employs no female head coaches for any male teams, according to the Office of Postsecondary Education data.

It is difficult for women to fight for equality when society looks down on strong women, Short said. “I just think that the way society looks at women, they expect us to be so passive,” she said.

“And when you have women who speak up, society looks at them like they’re witches and other things. I just think it’s important for women to be able to talk.”

With the attention of the University Resources Committee now focused on better aligning coaches’ salaries at Brown, Tiffany said he hopes the University will adjust salaries based on the experience and quality of coaches, which should lessen the gender gap.

As a new coach, Reeve said she was aware these issues were being addressed before she accepted her position.

Short, who came to Brown 19 years ago, said, “I guess I just always felt, in due time, things would be fixed.” For now, she will keep waiting.

Arts & Culture 5

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

Eiko & Koma transcend dance Twee, emo, tweemo: a

culture of contradiction

By caitlin trujillo Senior Staff Writer

The heap of black feathers stands out among sand and dry reeds. It takes seconds after the lights come on in the studio for the woman, dusted in chalk, to materialize in front of the pile. As a bird’s caw sounds in the room, the woman’s limbs shift and turn over before she finally sits upright, takes handfuls of reeds and feathers and exalts to the sky as drumbeats fill Studio 1 of the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.

The woman — dancer and choreographer Eiko of Eiko & Koma, a duo made up of her and her husband — displays a mix of emotions throughout the piece titled “Raven.”

But in these opening moments, she seems only alarmed and horrified as Koma rains more black feathers down on her. This theatrical dance, part of a performance called “Regeneration” and a larger retrospective project showcasing the dancers’ decades together as partners, is about transformation, in time and body.

The pair visited the University as part of a one-week residency that included leading workshops with students and performing for the Brown community.

International appeal

Eiko & Koma’s performances transcend dance, said Professor of Literary Arts and Comparative Literature Forrest Gander, who first approached the duo about performing at Brown a year ago at a Minnesota stop on their retrospective tour.

Their pieces, which draw inspiration from dance styles like the Japanese Butoh and consist of various distortions of the body, are theatrical and poetic, he said.

Part of Eiko & Koma’s appeal is the “internationality” of their work, Gander said. The pair met in their native Japan as university students about 40 years ago, Eiko told The Herald, but they are also permanent residents of Manhattan. As artists, they incorporate global and cultural issues into their work, Gander said.

Gander has been a fan of the pair for nearly 20 years, starting at the Dance Umbrella in Cambridge, Mass., and continuing through later performances in New York City and at Duke University’s campus, he said. Though Eiko & Koma often conduct workshops for college students, they rarely perform on campuses, so getting them to College Hill proved difficult to arrange. One of the biggest challenges ­— not realized until they arrived on campus Sunday — was that the Granoff auditorium, their original performing space, was too narrow and would restrict movement during their pieces. “That space was not made for performance,” Koma said.

Studio 1 was opened to give Eiko & Koma more floor space for their three pieces. The room seats 100 people, fewer than what they are used to, but Eiko said it allows for more intimacy between them and the audience.

“They cannot hide from us, as much as we cannot hide from them,” she said.

Eiko & Koma performed

By Suzannah Weiss Arts & Culture Columnist

Courtesy of Eiko & Koma

Eiko & Koma performed the piece “White Dance” at the Granoff Center this week.

Wednesday and Thursday nights in the studio. While these were their first shows for the Brown community, each of the three pieces the pair performed — “Raven,” from 2010, “Night Tide,” from 1984 and an excerpt from their 1976 “White Dance” — has been previously shown. The retrospective nature of their performance creates an interesting dichotomy between new and old, Eiko said.

Bodies of movement

The pair’s work is rooted in trauma, drawing from a “primal power to evoke such a range of responses” in viewers, Gander said. Inspirations for their work include the bombing of Hiroshima, the Cambodian genocide and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said.

The nature of “Regeneration” is that it draws on “ancient emotions,” Eiko said.

Themes of death and rebirth are obvious in “Raven,” a haunting 25-minute piece, set in a wasteland of brown sand, reeds, black feathers and scorch marks. When Eiko stirs at the piece’s beginning, her body contorts, her limbs extend and her back hunches before she can right herself. She takes minutes to stand, as if she is learning how to walk or forcing tired limbs to work.

They end the piece huddled on the floor, spent, with feathers dispersed around them, giving the feeling that they have just survived something catastrophic.

They conduct their second piece, the 12-minute-long “Night Tide,” completely in the nude. The performance in its entirety consists of them slowly crawling toward each other, as background music submerges viewers underwater. Slowly, the two distinct bodies merge into one as they meet in the stage’s middle and embrace. Eventually, though, they drift apart and settle once again on the seafloor, still littered with the raven’s feathers.

Their last piece, “White Dance,” is condensed to 25 minutes from the work’s original 55. The most dynamic of the night’s performances, the piece tells a tale of tradition and domestic life through faster movements, cacophonic music and surreal actions — at one point, Koma empties a bag of potatoes across the stage around a kneeling Eiko.

The merging of bodies is present throughout the three pieces. In “Raven,” Eiko climbs onto Koma’s back and embraces him before the pair collapse to the ground. In “Night Tide,” the pair meets, embracing and caressing, at the piece’s climax.

“White Dance” tells the story of two people with a seemingly tumultuous relationship — Koma at one point kicks Eiko to the ground. At the end of the piece, he picks her up and throws her over his shoulder before placing her on the ground and lifting her neck as if handling a puppet. But throughout all three pieces, there is intimacy, comfort and a sense of inseparability.

Rebirth on the stage

Performing the three pieces within the “Regeneration” context degenerates each work, Eiko said, allowing an opportunity for rebirth, or a new take, on the pieces, she said.

After the event, in a discussion with the audience moderated by dance critic Marcia Siegel, Eiko added that there is a new energy in performing a piece at a later date — as they have aged, certain representations of life shift, she told the audience.

The pair choreographs their own dances and does not hire other dancers to perform them, she said.

She also said during the discussion that some specific details and moves are improvised, but the pieces have an overall trajectory.

Eiko & Koma also plan their sets and costumes, Koma said, adding that sometimes the easiest solution to costuming is to perform nude.

St. Anthony Hall is home to several Brown stereotypes taken to their extremes, and thus offers fertile ground for exposing their contradictions. Items I have at one point stumbled upon in the lounge include: a unicorn head above the mantle, a stuffed puppy with a sword stuck in it, children’s books and instruction manuals on sadomasochism. It’s all very confusing.

Or is it?

Think of the last dorm party you went to. Were attendees jumping up and down to that cutesy tune of the “Pumped Up Kicks” remix, singing along to the lyrics, “You’d better run, better run, faster than my gun”?

Welcome to 2011. Never before have the cute and the cuddly been so intermingled with the dark and the depressing.

No doubt members of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations liked cute animals. But our consensus about pets goes beyond liking — though we’ve clicked many a “like” on Facebook in response to videos with titles like “I’m a Stupid Cat” and “Husky Dog Talking.”

This is a generation of Americans unabashedly in touch with our inner children — epitomized by those who showed up to Technology House’s Java Spook party as the My Little Pony cast — but also a generation that grew up too fast. We entered adolescence in the wake of Sept. 11, 2011, spent our teen years bombarded with media coverage of natural disasters, genocides and wars and basically witnessed our economy go to shit.

Instead of being just plain bitter, we have chosen a more flavorful, bittersweet outlook. We are the generation of dead baby jokes, “FML” stories and Uglydolls. We take lemons and make funny faces.

And maybe we need this strategy to avoid making horrified faces instead, as we process all the horrible facts we are bombarded with.

When someone like Sarah Palin has a chance to run our country, what can we really do besides compare her to a Valley girl and laugh at her? As we become increasingly aware that the way our country treats animals seriously sucks, we thank goodness there are so many videos of happy cats and dogs on Youtube to mollify our discomfort. We retreat into childhood because the real world is scary.

Yet we also find creative ways to make the real world accommodate this retreat.

“House on the Run” at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum is Olneyville artist Brian Chippendale’s way of making light of his eviction from his apartment. The walk-in funhouse-like installation contains SpongeBob SquarePants figurines, deformed toys and bitingly drawn-over newspaper clippings. One photo-

graph of former President George W. Bush with a black woman is overlaid with the speech bubble, “You know, I think about taking a shit on people like you all the time.” Such cynical content makes for walls that are brightly colored and fun to explore.

This discrepancy between form and content seems to have become a popular artistic technique. The RISD Museum also displays a plaster relief cast from human bone in the shape of “Chrysanthemum and Dragonfly.” In the accompanying description, artist Virgil Marti calls the piece “decorative grotesque.” Making the beautiful also grotesque may reflect a trend, popularized by feminist film theory of challenging voyeuristic pleasure and considering at whose expense it comes.

As theorist Laura Mulvey wrote in an essay on cinema, “It is said that analyzing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it. That is the intention of this article.”

But this type of irony could also be part of the postmodern turn against dichotomies. If there is one target of liberal arts students’ resentment, it is the binary — the mind-body binary, the naturenurture binary, the male-female binary, you name it. Deconstructing pretty versus ugly and cute versus creepy is one way among many to dismantle dichotomies and let the system implode.

Hence places like the Duck and Bunny snuggery, adorable cupcake shop by day, rowdy bar by night.

Hence the dissonant lineup of an AS220 concert last week: the Finches, with lyrics like “you’re my very favorite bro” and “I’m the same kid I was out in the schoolyard,” followed by Orion Rigel Dommisse, one of whose songs details instructions for how to “Fake Yer Death.”

The latter band demonstrates another possibility for the collapse of the endearing-grotesque dichotomy: the humor found in opposite extremes. Given the lead singer’s part-emo, part-twee — tweemo? — image, hearing her grimly croon, “You can make a body out of plaster soaked in your own blood, then leave the body in your bed. … You can burn your house down and leave some bones” is amusing.

It is a comfort that the gradient of the grim is a circle that twists back around to the light-hearted.

It is a blessing to be able to cry so hard that you laugh. The only peril of this ironic hyperbole is that it can become a trap, a defense mechanism through which we descend into fakery by either theatrically exaggerating our feelings or sugar-coating them. Using only tropes and cliches to express our indignation, we begin to look upon the world through sad puppy faces. Our bizarre culture is a symptom of profound grief and frustration with this historical moment. Let us embrace this as a form of expression, but not confuse it with a solution.

6 Science

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

Scientists must dig deeper Computers may help treat anxiety performed well, it means that they social anxiety disorder, according in search for life on Mars were able to disengage from nega- to Director of Psychological Sercontinued from page 1

Light reflected from the planet allows researchers to infer the mineral composition of various clay deposits. From the composition of clay, scientists can learn a lot about where it was formed.

Clay formed underground, exposed to higher temperatures and less hydrous conditions than at the surface, will contain different minerals than clay formed on the surface.

Satellites detected mineral compositions that pointed to underground formation processes.

Much of the clay is located at the older and deeper portions of the Martian surface, further supporting Mustard’s conclusion.

But the discovery goes far beyond the mineralogy of clays.

Where there is water, there is life — or, at least, there could be.

The findings further indicate that there may be a greater chance

life existed on the planet. Due to its protection from radiation and stability, the subsurface, Mustard explained, “is the more hospitable environment for life.”

Before scientists will be able to venture into Mars’ subsurface and search for life, the upcoming surface landing of the Mars rover — which will actually be able to sample the chemical makeup of the clay — will test Mustard and his team’s hypothesis.

Mustard explained that if a clay deposit has a more uniform composition, the deposit likely came from the same source and can be collectively used to infer where it was formed.

If the compositions are divergent, the clay could have come from many different sources, preventing scientists from determining where clay formation, and thus water and life-bearing conditions, primarily occurred in ancient Mars.

By Caroline Flanagan Arts & Culture Staff Writer

Patients who suffer from social anxiety may benefit from computer programs, according to a recent study conducted at Alpert Medical School.

The researchers attempted to modify subjects’ cognitive bias — a tendency to focus attention on negative social cues — through a computer program that diverts patients’ attention from negative cues, such as an image of an angry face, and instead trains the subjects’ focus on positive social cues.

“Cognitive bias modification helps people get better control over attention so they’re not distracted by irrelevant, threatening or negative cues in their environment,” said Courtney Beard, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior and the lead author of the study, published in the Sept. 2 issue of the journal Depression and Anxiety.

“They have to perform a simple task over and over again. If they

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tive cues and focus on the task.”

The technology needs to be validated by further experimentation, Beard said, but it could eventually serve as an inexpensive, accessible treatment for patients who suffer from social anxiety. Beard said she does not believe the technology would replace medication or therapy, but she thinks patients could benefit from undergoing cognitive bias modification alongside other treatments.

“We’re hoping to be able to do future research to look at matching issues, such as who would benefit from this treatment and examine who the best candidates are,” said Risa Weisberg, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior and co-author of the study along with Nader Amir, a professor at San Diego State University.

Both Beard and Weisberg said they believe the technology could be particularly appealing to college students because it is computerbased, and college students tend to be more comfortable with computerized technology than members of other demographics.

According to Weisberg, many anxiety disorders emerge in patients when they are adolescents, but the stress of college can make them more apparent.

Last year, Psychological Services saw 70 students who suffered from

vices Belinda Johnson. Johnson discusses with students the variety of available treatment options but refers them to off-campus doctors for actual prescription and treatment.

Johnson said she was wary of speculating about the implications of the study.

“I think the results of the study are preliminary, and it’s hard to draw any conclusions about treatment effectiveness based on that study,” she said.

Beard and Weisberg said they hope to examine cognitive bias effects on other forms of anxiety and cater the treatment to specific patients. They recently began a new study examining the effects of cognitive bias modification on patients with panic disorder.

“Ideally we want to conduct a much larger study to confirm that our results are reliable,” Beard said.

“We’re looking to expand and develop a program that will target multiple types of anxiety at the same time and focus on the particular person.”

“It’s a relatively new type of treatment,” Weisberg said. “The research in this area is still quite young. I think this work has mostly implications for future researchers to validate its efficacy. Hopefully, there will be funding available to do that.”

Science 7

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

Massive data answers big questions

By Aparaajit Sriram Contributing Writer

Courtesy of Robert Reenan

The FMR protein’s role in key genetic processes may help explain neurologic disorders such as autism and Fragile X syndrome.

RNA editing linked to brain disorders

By Mark Valdez Contributing Writer

Professor of Biology Robert Reenan has found a surprising connection between two perplexingly different biochemical processes, pushing researchers one step closer in the search for a genetic basis to neurological disease.

Reenan and Thomas Jongens, associate professor of genetics at Penn, found that two seemingly different proteins physically interact to affect a process called RNA editing. Their study was published in Nature Neuroscience Oct. 30.

Previously, Fragile X Mental Retardation protein, FMR protein, was thought to have only two essential functions in the human body.

The protein can associate with ribosomes and determine the speed of protein formation, Reenan said.

It is also involved in the transport of mRNAs from cells to synapses, where electrical signals are sent from neuron to neuron, he said.

Fragile X syndrome results from a loss or a decreased amount of the FMR protein, Reenan said. Autism spectrum disorders may be linked to this protein.

About five years ago, Jongens’ lab discovered that when FMR was removed from the cell, an RNA protein called ADAR — adenosine deaminase acting on RNA — came along with it.

ADAR is an enzyme that chemically modifies RNA through a process known as RNA editing.

“Through some very interesting dynamics, the mRNA actually folds on itself to form a structure that the ADAR enzyme recognizes,” Reenan said.

RNA, like DNA, is made of sequences of four different nucleic acid bases. ADAR effectively changes one of those bases to a form recognized as another. More specifically, adenosine becomes inosine, which is read by the cell as a guanine, one of the four nucleic

acid bases. This results in a change in the genetic code, and an affected gene can thus make many more proteins, Reenan said.

The scientific community has long wondered why humans and fruit flies have a similar number of genes when humans are far more complex organisms. Reenan’s conclusion provides an explanation for this gene number paradox.

The premise of the project was to see if there was a connection between the FMR gene function — that associated with protein formation and the deliverance of mRNA to synapses — and output for RNA editing because of interaction between the proteins, he said.

“Sure enough, we found that if you perturb FMR, then you are actually perturbing RNA editing,” Reenan said. “Now we have a factor that clearly regulates RNA editing.”

When humans and fruit flies have mutations of these RNA binding proteins, neurological and behavioral defects often result, Reenan said. Fruit flies with no ADAR survived until adulthood but were “genetically dead” and lacked much motor control, he said.

Though this study does not give much information as to treatment of diseases associated with ADAR and FMR, it does give researchers a starting point.

“It gives us a direction to look in,” said Reenan. “If we were previously looking where the light is, this at least expands the light — it gives us more places to look.”

The next step is to figure out how the entire process of RNA regulation works. Researchers must identify which mRNA associated with ADAR and FMR are connected to disease symptoms.

“It’s the story that keeps us in business,” said Reenan. “The more carefully we look, the more complicated things get. But eventually, we will have a greater understanding of this very complex set of phenomena.”

Professor of Applied Mathematics Jan Hesthaven is spearheading an educational initiative to increase student fluency of massive data sets — huge sets of data being generated in such disparate fields as biology, psychology and linguistics.

Set to rollout next fall, this massive data initiative will focus on increasing awareness, potentially including a first-year seminar on the topic.

“We’re currently focused on getting a sense of what’s already there on the research side and on the education side,” said Hesthaven, who also holds the position of deputy director of the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics.

“But after some time, we will start seeing more focused activities, like graduate research and maybe an undergraduate-certification program.”

The possibilities for massive

data are limitless, Hesthaven said.

It has the potential to integrate the humanities and the sciences, often seen as a relatively incompatible subjects. “The way we deal with data is becoming ubiquitous in all disciplines,” Hesthaven said. “For the first time, disciplines that have no common language are able to talk to each other in the medium of computation.”

Computers, for instance, can detect commonalities between languages that humans may pass over. “A computer is incredibly patient,” Hesthaven said.

Biology is already at the forefront of this process. This summer, Casey Dunn, assistant professor of biology, published a very large set of data that examined gene function of siphonophores, a group of deep-sea organisms. Dunn, who conducted much of his research aboard ships and submarines, believes massive data can finally take biological inquiry out of the lab.

“Before, we only had data sets for about 20 model species that we

were able to study in the lab, when there are about 10 million species in the world,” he said. “With massive data, we can take functional genomics out of the lab and into the field.”

But researchers handling massive data must also maintain the standards of good science despite changing methods, said Alexandre Fournier-Level, postdoctoral research associate in the ecology and evolutionary biology department, who has experience handling massive data. “With massive data, we can capture everything, run thousands of automated tests and get a probabilistic answer, but we need to know the difference between a direct and indirect link,” he said.

“We used to gather data after we asked the question. Now we gather data, and then ask the questions.”

“Massive data poses very interesting challenges and opportunities,” Hesthaven said. Researchers, he said, can “use this data to answer questions that we care about, big questions.”

8 Sports Friday

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

In baseball, finding Bruno the good in the bad looks continued from page 12 down, I know that’s a lie. I’ll be watching Detroit Pistons-New Jersey Nets games like a hungry shut-in pouring the Cheetos dust from the bottom of the bag into my mouth. I need to see the next big story. I need to see it when guys like David Freese make this world perfect.

If you haven’t heard about the St. Louis Cardinals’ third basemen and what he did in the playoffs this year, you probably aren’t a baseball fan. That’s understandable.

Freese redefined what a clutch postseason performance is. His 21 playoff RBIs are an MLB record, and he was only the sixth player to be named the National League Championship Series and World Series MVP. To only give you these facts and leave it at that would be belittling what he did.

To paint that picture, we have to go to the bottom of the ninth inning during game six of the World Series. Freese stood in the batter’s box with two men on, two outs and two strikes to his name.

He had already pounded the Philadelphia Phillies pitching in game four of the National League Division Series. He had spanked three home runs and hit over .500 in the NLCS. Nobody would have blamed Freese for messing this up. He had done enough. The loss would have been on his teammates and the Cardinals’ pitching. But that wasn’t what Freese was thinking. Instead, only one strike away from losing the World Series, David Freese ripped a triple to send the game into extra innings.

Then he hit a walk-off home

run two innings later to force game seven.

Then he hit a two-run double to tie that game seven in the first inning to bail out pitcher Chris Carpenter. And the Texas Rangers never scored again.

It’s exactly the scenario a young Cardinals fan growing up in the St. Louis area would fantasize about as he drifted to sleep at night. It’s the kind of image that would convince a kid to pick baseball up again if he quit after high school. It’s exactly what happened to David Freese.

Because he was that kid.

In a sports world where disappointment is the norm, it’s pretty easy to take a step back and ask myself, “Why do I care about this?” But to paraphrase a creepy brochure distributor, the bad things make the good stuff that much more important.

A World Series that I couldn’t care less about was the last place I expected to find the reason I still watch sports. But it personified itself in David Freese, and suddenly baseball doesn’t seem so terrible.

It isn’t a perfect world. I don’t think we are going to see Daft Punk, Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga or Kanye West come to Spring Weekend this year. But thanks to Freese, I’ll be quietly nursing my hope for Childish Gambino.

Sam Sheehan ’12 just shamelessly sacrificed his column for a transparent Spring Weekend artist plea.

Talk sports (or music) with him at sam_sheehan@brown.edu or follow him on Twitter @SamSheehan.

for third shutout continued from page 1 opponents in a season since 1985.

One of the winning streaks will be broken tomorrow.

“I think when you win five games in a row, people are definitely aware of that,” said quarterback Kyle Newhall-Caballero ’11.5. “Going into this game, we’re not going to sneak up on Yale.

They’re going to be well-prepared to play us.”

Estes called Elis’ quarterback Patrick Witt a major threat.

Though the snow rendered Witt ineffective against Columbia, the senior holds Yale’s record for most completions. He also has the second-most career passing yards in Bulldogs’ history. This year, he has completed 115 passes for 1,393 yards.

“We’re going to have to try to find ways to disguise our coverages and to break down their protection,” Estes said. “It’s going to be important for us to make him throw the ball and make hot reads.”

Yale has proven to be an offensive powerhouse this year with a balanced aerial and ground attack.

Bulldog running back Mordecai Cargill was named the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week after trucking for 230 yards through the snow Saturday in the win over Columbia. Cargill, who has run for 477 yards and five touchdowns this season, stepped up in the absence of the Bulldogs’ leading rusher, Alex Thomas, who is battling a knee injury.

Estes said Yale’s rushing attack is not going to be easy to contain.

“We have to play our responsibilities and make tackles. We have been very good defensively. We’ve stopped teams with good rushing, like Penn,” he said. “I think the defense has done a very good job of containing the run.”

Tom Sullivan / Herald

The Bears are riding a five-game win streak as they take on Yale in a mustwin game.

Brown’s defense leads the Ivy League and is third in the nation in scoring defense, with opponents only managing an average of 14.57 points per game. The defense kept the Quakers off the board to secure Bruno’s slim 6-0 lead that snapped Penn’s 18-game Ivy win streak. Outside linebacker Daniel Smithwick ’12 spearheaded the effort with seven tackles, a tackle for a loss, a forced fumble and an interception, which made him the league leader in interceptions with three. His aggressive play in tough conditions earned Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week honors.

On the other side of the ball, the Bears are dealing with two key injuries. Against Penn (4-3, 3-1), Bruno was without its two top rushers, Mark Kachmer ’13 and John Spooney ’14. Spooney ran for over 150 yards in Brown’s win over Cornell (3-4, 1-3), but suffered a concussion toward the end of the game. Kachmer was also injured in that matchup and is battling turf toe. Estes and NewhallCaballero said the status of both running backs for tomorrow is questionable.

Like Witt, Newhall-Caballero had difficulty throwing the slick ball in the inclement weather last game and completed only 14 of 32 attempts for 140 yards. But the second-semester senior has been

the offensive anchor throughout the season and has had two fourtouchdown days this year. While he prefers making plays through the air, he has proven time and again that he can also be dangerous with his feet.

Estes praised how supportive the defense and offense have been of each other throughout the season.

“I think that we’ve done a very good job of one helping out the other,” he said.

For both teams, this game is vital. Yale, Brown and Penn are all tied for second place, with Harvard (6-1, 4-0) reigning atop the league standings. The Bears’ lone loss came at the hands of the Crimson, but the Bulldogs will not take on Harvard until their final game of the season, which Witt may have to miss because of a Rhodes Scholarship interview scheduled for the same date.

Though Bruno’s hopes of an Ivy title could potentially rest on Yale’s shoulders, Newhall-Caballero said the team is only focusing on things it can control — like beating the Bulldogs.

“They’ve got a lot at stake, and we’ve got a lot at stake,” he said.

“Hopefully we can distinguish ourselves as second place at this point.”

Kickoff is set for noon.

Sports Friday 9

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

Smithwick ’12 on ‘itching’ to play football continued from page 12 Just seeing the guys out there, it’s a physical game. I mean, it’s fun. You run around, you can hit people, just scoring touchdowns and everything.

It just looked like an awesome time.

I was just mesmerized whenever I watched it on TV. I was hooked.

I’m a huge 49ers fan, growing up.

So, seeing guys like Steve Young, Jerry Rice, some of the greats play and just make incredible plays. And that was back when they were still a pretty solid team.

Are there any football players you try to emulate?

That’s tough. It’s kind of a combination. Growing up, I actually played quarterback until my senior year of high school, so I definitely looked at all the quarterbacks out there. I always thought with an offensive mentality. So I always thought kind of that big play-making aspect, trying to be a good athlete and a good leader and everything. But, transitioning to the defensive side, there’s definitely some of the more physical guys, the Ray Lewises out there. Now, I guess there’s guys like Clay Matthews that fly around, and they’re always making plays both sides of the ball and stuff. … (Lewis’) passion for the game is definitely one thing that stands out that I take a lot from. Guys like him, Brett Favre and Steve Young when he was playing. Kind of different positions, but still just their drive and really just the passion. … Their passion and athleticism is just awesome.

What are some of your favorite movies?

I like all kinds. It depends on the situation. “Remember the Titans”

is a classic. It’s one of my favorites — we watch that a lot, the guys on the team. “Remember the Titans,” “Varsity Blues” — those are some good ones. “Step Brothers” is great, “Old School,” “Gladiator” if you’re trying to get a little more serious, a little more dramatic.

What was your Halloween costume this year?

Yeah, not huge on the Halloween costume this year. I didn’t really get around to it. I was too busy thinking about trying to beat Penn, so …

What do you do to prepare before a game?

I try to be relaxed, but just being prepared throughout the week definitely helps with that relaxation. You don’t have to be stressed too much.

You know your jobs. You know your assignments. You’re just ready to play. I’m more anxious than anything, before a game, just kind of itching to get out there and just get it going, just get it started. Because I hate that lull before the game. I hate that idle time. That’s what drives me crazy. I wish I could just wake up and go play, but we have got to do the steps to get there. But I don’t have anything too dramatic, like no chalk flying or anything like that, no jumping through hoops or anything.

Are your siblings also athletes?

My little brother is currently a sophomore in high school. He plays football and baseball as well. … He’s probably my favorite player.

It’s been cool to see him grow up and go through a lot of the same stuff and just step back and watch him.

It’s kind of weird at some times — I feel like I’m watching myself again.

But it’s fun to watch him come up.

Faculty involvement in governance low continued from page 3 is more likely to be obvious” to faculty members.

“This faculty governance thing is a part of the sustenance of the place,” Cooper said. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love the community and have the kind of view that we’re in this together — the students, the faculty, the administration, the Corporation — we’re a living entity and we’re all in it together.”

Methodology

Online questionnaires were sent to personal accounts of 902

Kicking it in for the win

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. The margin of error is 11.3 percent for the subset of faculty focusing in the humanities, 10.5 percent for the subset of faculty focusing in science and 14 percent for the subset of faculty focusing in social science.

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

Courtesy of Adam Toobin

The men’s club soccer team, which has already won the Ivy League Championship, looks to win the New England Collegiate Club Soccer League this weekend.

W. rugby demands status promotion continued from page 12 over the years, and so successful,” he said. “But it’s a combination of things. There is a lack of facilities, locker rooms or office space that is needed for a successful varsity team.”

Currently, no other Ivy League rugby team holds varsity status. Rumors started flying after Harvard won the Division II Championships last April that the team would achieve varsity status as a result of its win.

“As one of the teams going to the (Division I) Championships, it was kind of difficult to see that — that another Ivy was taking their team into consideration,” Vander Ploeg said.

But Harvard’s team will maintain its club status “for the foreseeable future,” according to a Oct. 28 article in the Harvard Crimson.

Vander Ploeg said the team’s online petition caught the attention of women’s rugby teams across the U.S. “Because women’s rugby and rugby in the U.S. is getting a lot bigger, they are trying to help us by signing it to promote women’s rugby across the country,” she said.

The rugby team will continue its push throughout the year.

Goldberger said the issue will be given consideration. “We haven’t received an official request yet,” he said.

“But we will certainly look at what

comics Cloud Buddies | David Emanuel

Uni The Unicomic | Eva Chen and Dan Sack

types of resources we have.”

“I don’t think we will stop at the end of the year,” Vander Ploeg said.

“This team has so many people who are deserving of getting that recognition, that I think it’s something we will be fighting for a long time.”

Heffernan said the team has been patient for some time, but that patience is wearing thin. “I don’t know how long we can exist if we don’t get some support,” she said.

“I think we’ve proven that we are willing to go through a great deal in terms of fundraising,” she added, And we just need some help.”

10

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

diamonds & Coal

Editorial cartoon

by a l e x y u ly

A diamond to the football team, which snapped Penn’s 18-game Ivy League win streak Saturday with a shutout. Following the game, cornerback A.J. Cruz ’13 told The Herald, “We’ve got to put this one to bed after we watch film and get ready for Yale.” Don’t forget to wash your sheets.

Coal to Amy Baumgartel-Singer, director of college counseling at the Wheeler School, who said 99 percent of the school’s graduates go directly on to college, while 1 percent take gap years or post-grad years.

So, when Occupy Wheeler commences, do we go after the 99 percent or the 1 percent, or both?

A cubic zirconium to the 22 percent of female respondents to the Herald faculty poll who are “strongly dissatisfied” with the child care support offered by the University. Just wait until they find out SPG doesn’t stand for “Substitute for Parental Guidance.”

A diamond to CourseKick, the Mocha imitator that integrates the course registration process with Facebook. Finally, students don’t have to wait to be physically in a class to let Facebook distract them from it.

Coal to the woman who ran down former congressional candidate and assistant professor of political science Jennifer Lawless in a parking lot and told her, “Don’t worry. You don’t look nearly as fat in real life as you do on TV.” Don’t worry, you don’t sound nearly as stupid in newsprint as you must have in person.

A diamond to the Office of Financial Aid, which has increased its budget for international students 133 percent over the past four years. Upon hearing about the increased aid, House Republicans immediately opened an investigation into whether President Obama would qualify for it.

Coal to Mark Thierren, assistant general manager of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, who told community members gathered at the Brown-RISD Hillel Wednesday that RIPTA favors the creation of a $127 million streetcar route over a $15 million bus route because the streetcar route could contribute to economic development. So could an extra $112 million.

Coal to the Presidential Selection Campus Advisory Committee, which includes only a single representative of the humanities.

That makes the humanities as well-represented on the committee as Computing and Information Services. It’s not so much that we’re concerned about the academic focus of the University, we just want to be sure the next president is in fact a human.

A cubic zirconium to journalist Giuseppe Severgnini, who took up the task of explaining Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to the outside world in Smith-Buonanno Hall Wednesday, saying, “Every Italian has a tiny bit of Berlusconi in himself or herself.” That, of course, neatly sums up the problem.

A diamond to the junior who said at Tuesday’s midnight organ recital, “It’s like a giant sleepover for Brown students, except a very short sleepover with very cool music.” That how our parent’s explained orgies to us, too. Have fun at Sex Power God, everyone.

t h e b r ow n da i ly h e r a l d Editors-in-Chief

Managing Editors

Senior Editors

Sydney Ember Ben Schreckinger

Brigitta Greene Anne Speyer

Dan Alexander Nicole Friedman Julien Ouellet

editorial Kristina Fazzalaro Rebecca Ballhaus Claire Peracchio Talia Kagan Amy Rasmussen Tony Bakshi Ethan McCoy Ashley McDonnell Sam Rubinroit Anita Mathews Sam Carter Hunter Fast

Arts & Culture Editor City & State Editor City & State Editor Features Editor Assistant Features Editor News Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Assistant Sports Editor Editorial Page Editor Opinions Editor Opinions Editor

Graphics & Photos Abe Pressman Emily Gilbert Rachel Kaplan Glenn Lutzky Jesse Schwimmer

Graphics Editor Photo Editor Photo Editor Assistant Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

Production Dan Towne Olivia Conetta Anna Migliaccio Katie Wilson Leor Shtull-Leber Neal Poole

Copy Desk Chief Assistant Copy Desk Chief Design Editor Design Editor Design Editor Web Producer

Business General Managers Matthew Burrows Isha Gulati

CorrectionS A photo accompanying an article in Thursday’s Herald (“Local schools combat failing label,” Nov. 3) was incorrectly credited. The photo should have been credited as a Herald file photo. The Herald regrets the error.

An article in Thursday’s Herald (“Advisory committee heavy on hard sciences,” Nov. 3) incorrectly stated that the Campus Advisory Committee has 12 members, including five undergraduates. In fact, the committee has 13 members, and three of those members are undergraduates. The Herald regrets the errors.

Clarification An article in Thursday’s Herald (“RIPTA presents proposed new line,” Nov. 3) indicated that Will Palmer ’15 said faculty and residents would be more likely to use the planned streetcar route. He said University employees, not faculty members, would be more likely to use the new transportation.

quote of the day

“If they’re getting paid more than the president of the university, they shouldn’t be.”

— Jill Reeve, field hockey head coach See disparity on page 1.

Office Manager Shawn Reilly

Directors Aditi Bhatia Danielle Marshak Margot Grinberg Lisa Berlin

Sales Finance Alumni Relations Special Projects Managers

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Opinions 11

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, November 4, 2011

Sodom, Gomorrah and individual liberty Hunter Fast Opinions Editor

Tomorrow, the Queer Alliance will host the famous night of debauchery known as Sex Power God. Though the event has reportedly become much less chaotic since Bill O’Reilly aired his moralistic critique of it on Fox News in 2005, the fact of the matter is that a free and open society demands that such scenes of “pure debauchery” be allowed to exist. If figures in the public sphere that appeal to some subjective moral standard prove capable of curtailing acts of free expression, can we safely say that other demonstrations that violate social norms — debaucherous or not — will be adequately protected in the future?

To be fair, O’Reilly states that “We don’t care … what these kids do in their personal lives.” But his failure to extend this principle to other private actors — namely the University itself and the students who choose not to attend Sex Power God — signals that he is being at least a bit disingenuous.

O’Reilly argues that it is unfair to nonparticipating students that the student activity fee was used to finance Sex Power God, given that many students surely disapprove of the bacchanalia associated with the party. Note that O’Reilly is not actually telling the truth here, since the Queer Alliance actually provided the funds itself (“Fox News airs footage of Sex Power God,” Nov. 15, 2005).

But even if this objection were based

in reality, it ignores the fact that every student reserves the right to cast a vote of referendum on the University’s administration with his or her wallet. If I found that I could not sleep at night knowing that a vanishingly small part of my tuition fees was going to fund Sex Power God, I would have gone to University of Illinois. But even though I am an introvert who would never take part in such a spectacle, I believe that my best interests are served by attending Brown regardless. Therein lies the logic of the free market.

2004 — what distinguishes a drunkard in Sayles Hall or Alumnae Hall from one in the Graduate Center or one in Josiah’s from one roaming the campus of Illinois State University in my hometown?

Rather, our University rightly places a great deal of faith in the ability of Brown students to make informed and responsible decisions regarding their substance use.

As can be expected, a few people use this freedom irresponsibly and end up requiring emergency services. But this is demonstrably true at Spring Weekend and many

So what makes Sex Power God special? Why do conservative pundits not wet their pants when college students anywhere get more wasted than is probably wise?

What, then, of the administration’s role in allowing such acts of delinquency to take place in one of its buildings? O’Reilly asserts that drug and alcohol use before and during Sex Power God become the administration’s responsibility because the resultant inebriation takes place in a University building. But how does this differ from routine drinking and drug use in dormitories? Given that the University has the power to curtail both — indeed, DPS conducted routine patrols of dormitories until

other events Brown facilitates. Moreover, it eclipses the silent evidence: the many inebriated revelers who were well aware of the limitations on their ability to partake.

So what makes Sex Power God special?

Why do conservative pundits not wet their pants when college students anywhere get more wasted than is probably wise? Is it that the idea of free sexual expression makes O’Reilly and his viewers uncomfortable? If so, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and various

court interpretations thereof say that they just have to deal with it.

Indeed, one of the predominant global cultural conflicts today is between open societies that afford their citizens the freedom and responsibility to live by their own ethics and societies that enforce adherence to arbitrary religious and/or political dogmas through fear and violence. What better way to demonstrate which side of that divide we stand on, both as individuals and as an institution, than to support a demonstration of contempt for the strictures that define the oppression of many?

Salman Rushdie, a British author whose controversial works earned him a death sentence from the Iranian theocratic dictatorship, has referred to pornography as a “standard bearer for freedom, even civilization” because of the power of such speech to test the limitations of the right to free expression.

Admittedly, this defense of Sex Power God seems to have come six years too late. But there is no question that O’Reilly’s misguided expose has cast a long shadow over the event. I say, for the sake of testing and strengthening the right to individual self-determination that we all enjoy, do not allow grandstanding conservative pundits to have an effect on the celebration of Sex Power God unless their arguments are based on fact and a demonstration of concrete harm done to non-participants.

O’Reilly’s critique satisfies neither requirement.

Hunter Fast ’12 does not really drink or do orgies, but notes that Minecraft is “one hell of a drug.”

Stacking the deck

By Simon liebling Opinions Columnist

Six professors sit on the Presidential Search Campus Advisory Committee.

Only one of them is a faculty member in the humanities. They are joined by three undergraduates — all studying economics or commerce, organizations and entrepreneurship. The two graduate students study cognitive science and medicine. The two staff representatives work in finance and technology.

Sixteen Corporation members comprise the Presidential Selection Committee. Six of them hail from the Wall Street world. Three are lawyers. One is a professor — of psychology. Precisely none work in the humanities.

So despite the fact that 22 percent of the class of 2010 received humanities degrees, students studying humanities are represented by only one of the committees’ combined 29 members — a lonely professor of religious studies. Susan Harvey P’14, we’re all counting on you.

This utter lack of academic diversity means that for all intents and purposes, the search for President Ruth Simmons’ successor is over before it has even begun.

There could hardly be a better reflection of the last 10 years of changing institutional priorities than the one-dimension-

ality of the committees’ membership, and one would be hard-pressed to assemble a group less likely to question the underlying educational assumptions of the Simmons era.

These committees exclusively represent the side of Brown that has benefited immensely from the University’s singular emphasis on the hard sciences, research and pre-professional education. There is not a member who can attest to the corresponding neglect that the administration never likes to talk about — the deteriorating un-

the scales, to pay institutional attention to the departments that need it most and to help them catch up with the achievements made elsewhere on Simmons’ watch.

Instead, these committees were selected to paint a Panglossian Pollyanna portrait of the state of Brown, to choose a president who will herald a change in name only upon taking over from Simmons this summer.

The most elegant part of the arrangement is that it allows the administration and Corporation to enjoy the trappings of

How can English concentrators look at these committees and feel like their University cares about them? How can a high school senior interested in history see one humanities representative out of 28 members and think that Brown is a good fit?

dergraduate experience in the humanities, the layoffs, the bullying of staff with everworsening contract terms.

The presidential search could have been an opportunity to profoundly reassess the uncompromising direction in which Brown has now been heading for over a decade. At the very least, it could have been a chance to take a few years to balance

democracy without any of the messiness.

They maintain the pretense of community participation in major decision-making without ever jeopardizing the predominance of their own vision. Anyone who might offer a compelling substantive alternative, it seems, was simply not offered a seat at the table.

The makeup of the two committees puts

the lie to the administration’s hollow contention that there remains an equal place for all of us at Brown, that we are all equal constituents in the University community with an equal say in its governance. How can English concentrators look at these committees and feel like their University cares about them? How can a high school senior interested in history see one humanities representative out of 29 members and think that Brown is a good fit?

When it poses no risk to their plans, the administration is happy to pretend that it doesn’t play favorites with departments.

But when it comes to something as serious as choosing a university president, the truth comes out, and its message to the humanities is laid bare: “You don’t make us money. You don’t bring us prestige. You don’t matter.” What else are we to conclude when one solitary professor is tasked with representing the voices of thousands of undergraduates and 200 faculty members?

Brown owes its humanities students and professors an apology, but beyond that it owes them an honest opportunity to express their needs and concerns. It owes them an administration that treats the humanities as an academic priority rather than a distracting afterthought. The presidential selection process was a chance to settle both debts. Instead, they’re still outstanding — and much, much bigger.

Simon Liebling ’12 is from New Jersey.

He can be reached at simon.liebling@gmail.com.

Daily Herald Sports Friday the Brown

Friday, November 4, 2011

The right Team seeks varsity recognition Freese-on for fans W. rugby

By madeleine wenstrup Sports Staff Writer

Though the women’s rugby team has been quietly pushing for varsity status for the past 10 years, team members recently began appealing to University officials with renewed vigor. Their fight picked up after President Ruth Simmons’ Oct. 17 response to the Athletics Review Committee’s recommendations, which stated no teams would be cut.

The club team launched an online petition and a Facebook event, urging friends, family members and Brown community members for support.

That weekend, team members stood outside the Corporation meeting, handing out flyers to Corporation members that boasted a number of the team’s academic and athletic achievements.

And the team just added another talking point to that list, winning its sixth consecutive Ivy title Oct. 22.

The squad has made three consecutive appearances at the National Final Four and has been ranked in the top five nationally for seven years.

The women’s rugby program began in 1977, five years after the first women’s teams were started at University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado State University at Fort Collins and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

But despite its success, the team is struggling to maintain the funds necessary for high-level play. Through donations and fundraising events,

By sam sheehan Sports Columnist

What inspired you to start playing football?

When I was little, I was always dying to just play. And then finally my parents let me when I was nine years old. Actually, some of my buddies and their older brothers were playing. I went to some of their games, Pop Warner and stuff.

While walking around downtown last month, a man in a trench coat who smelled strongly of rubbing alcohol handed me a brochure.

Typically, a guy in a trench coat is a pretty big red flag for me, and I can’t help but look at those who wear them as flashers, drug dealers or — worst of all — trendy dads. The fact that he handed me a brochure that had nothing to do with Six Flags was strike two. But the Ben & Jerry’s I had just treated myself to had put me in a friendly mood, so I took the brochure and smiled politely.

He then looked at me and said, “The tough stuff makes the great times worth it.”

To call the contents of that brochure radical would be a dramatic undersell, but I felt like there was a pearl of wisdom in those words.

Wouldn’t it be cool to live in a perfect world? You could make everything exactly the way you want it and never be disappointed.

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” would always be in theatres, the Main Green would constantly be full of dogs and the Spring Weekend lineup would be Daft Punk, Childish Gambino, Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga and Kanye West.

But then again, if everything was always perfect all the time, would we really know how wonderful everything is? Would I appreciate the sunny 65-degree November days if the end of October hadn’t been so miserable?

Would I love the Shins as much if I hadn’t been submitted to hours of Nickelback radio exposure on road trips? I think the answer is no.

And that’s exactly what makes David Freese so special.

After watching sports for a while, you hit a point where the cynicism of constant disappointment leaks into everything. The heartfelt storylines of triumph and persistence are rare among the stories of failure, misbehavior and blunder. It’s inherent in the system. Only one team gets to win every year. On top of that, our favorite players may leave, get injured or arrested or even stop playing well.

In spite of this, fans keep coming back. People keep cheering for their teams. I’m frustrated with the NBA lockout and have threatened not to watch a single game if this season happens. Deep

continued on page 9

continued on page 8

Herald file photo

The highly successful women’s rugby team, having won six consecutive Ivy titles, is seeking to become a varsity-level team.

team members are responsible for raising an annual budget of approximately $80,000.

“It’s stressful in terms of trying to be a student and an athlete and fundraising,” said Michelle Vander Ploeg ’12, the team’s president.

The team puts these funds toward paying a trainer, traveling expenses, uniforms, medical care and referees.

Travel outside the Ivy League, which occurs at least three times a year, consumes a large portion of the budget.

The Sweet 16 competition is held either in Florida or Ohio, and the Final

Four is always at Stanford University, said Head Coach Kerrissa Heffernan, the associate director of the Swearer Center for Public Service. “And at the end, students are still coughing up money to go to nationals,” she said.

Unlike other club teams, the rugby team is under the jurisdiction of a national body, USA Rugby, which dictates the schedule of rugby teams across the country. To compete at the highest level, the team must be a member of USA Rugby and compete according to schedule.

“We operate like a varsity sport,”

Heffernan said. “We have a similar budget, the same kinds of travel arrangements and same kinds of leagues.”

Varsity status and University assistance would relieve the students and coaches of the financial burden that accompanies success in the USA Rugby leagues.

But Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger said the team needs more than a winning record to become a varsity sport. “What a fabulous team continued on page 9

Athlete of the Week

Defense of Smithwick ’12 key to football success

By Nikhil parasher Sports Staff Writer

Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week outside linebacker Daniel Smithwick ’12 leads the football team in tackles and has played a pivotal role in Bruno’s two shutouts this season. This past Saturday in the rain, the Bears blanked Penn 6-0, snapping the Quakers’ 18-game Ivy win streak. Smithwick shut down Penn’s offense with seven tackles, a forced fumble and an interception.

His three interceptions now lead the Ivy League. For his staunch play all season, and his performance against two-time defending champion Penn, The Herald has named Smithwick Athlete of the Week.

The Herald: What is your proudest football achievement, either at the individual level or on a team level?

Smithwick: At each stage throughout my career — I’ve been playing ball since I was nine years old — I’ve just been lucky and blessed enough to be part of some great teams. I’ve been part of championship teams at every level, which has been awesome. It’s been a great ride. It seems like at each stop, I’m

just with an awesome group of guys, and that’s what makes football so special. You’re with your brothers out there, and you’re with guys so much. … It’s that camaraderie that makes it different from anything else, from any other sport. In my senior year of high school, we won our section championship, and we were the first team to win our league championship in our school’s history, so we did knock those out. My freshman year (was) when we won the Ivy League. So that was an awesome two-year run, and we’re just trying to recreate that, obviously, this year and just keep winning games. And we’ve had some awesome wins this year and definitely looking to keep it going. So it’s been a fun senior year so far, but we’re definitely not done.

You guys are off to a great season so far this year. What do you attribute that to?

I think it goes back to the camaraderie. We mesh so well together and our team is just really tight. We have some great senior leadership, with a lot of seniors playing key roles. We have a lot of guys who really didn’t have a ton of experience before this year, a lot of guys

Emily Gilbert / Herald

Daniel Smithwick ’12 looks to have a big game against Yale after being named Ivy League Player of the Week.

who played a little bit coming up.

But just the way with our program, a lot of the older guys usually have to step up and step into the roles, and it takes that time to develop, and it speaks to our program. Our coaches do an awesome job just getting us ready, and we’re learning the techniques and the system. And I think having that leadership and having been through so much, we’ve started at the bottom, had to work our way up. We’re clawing and chomping at the bit to get onto the field. And then, once we get out there, we’re

just fired up and just playing with each other out there. We know we can trust each other, which is huge.