Monday, November 14, 2011

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxlvi, no. 107

Monday, November 14, 2011

Since 1891

More space On Veterans Day, a needed for call for conversation long-term growth in sciences

By Phoebe Draper Contributing Writer

By mark raymond and Kat thornton Senior Staff Writers

Administrators across the sciences are eyeing expansion of facilities and faculty following the recent establishment of the School of Engineering and growth at the Institute for Brain Science. While no concrete plans are in place, discussions have emphasized a greater support of collaboration across disciplines.

The engineering program is “bursting out” of its space limitations in Barus and Holley, and the recently announced Hunter Laboratory renovation will provide only a short-term solution, said Lawrence Larson, dean of engineering. As the School of Engineering grows, it will require more faculty and physical space, he said.

“Right now we are trying to take our existing space and utilize it more efficiently,” Larson said. “In the long run, some kind of new space needs to be created.”

The brain science institute also continues to expand — an external review this fall found the brain sciences to be a key target area for University growth, said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15. The institute added six new positions under President Ruth Simmons, said continued on page 3

“Honor is understanding,” said Chaney Harrison ’11.5 at the University’s Veterans Day ceremony Friday, when about 150 community members gathered by the flagpole and marched from the Main Green to Lincoln Field. Though the majority of campus bustled through its everyday routine, those that gathered for the ceremony came to demonstrate their appreciation for our nation’s servicemen and -women.

“I think veterans deserve respect every day of the year, especially this day when we remember them,” said Luisa Garcia ’13.

The ceremony featured several distinguished guests, including U.S. Senators Jack Reed, D-R.I.,

and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. Harrison, president of the Student Veterans Society and the event’s main organizer, spoke about the University’s rich military history and the concept of honor.

He challenged the audience to resist merely paying “lip service” to the sacrifices of servicemen and -women and to seek to truly understand them.

“The greatest honor that you can show a veteran, or truly anyone you care for, is taking time to understand who they are and what their experiences are,” he said.

Paul Lipsitt ’50 described his time as a member of the Veterans College, a University initiative to enroll servicemen, as “transformative.” continued on page 5

Corrine Szczesny / Herald

Community members honored veterans in an on-campus ceremony Friday.

Visas vex internationals in job search At secret

By David Chung Senior Staff Writer

Securing a job out of college is no easy feat in this economic climate, but holding a foreign passport can make it even harder. While the federal government allows foreign students to work in the country for up to a year after graduation, they must find an employer willing to sponsor a work visa if they wish to remain in the United States beyond that period. And some Brown international students have found that not all firms, especially not small ones, are able or willing to go through the process of securing

a visa for foreign employees.

Foreign students holding F-1 student visas are permitted to work for up to a year in jobs related to their field of study. At the end of the year, the American employer must sponsor the student for a long-term H-1B visa to allow them to stay in the country.

The federal government grants a maximum of 65,000 H-1B visas each year, and not all companies will sponsor H-1B visas for foreign citizens.

“Obtaining a license to sponsor work visas is a lengthy process with lots of legal hoops to jump through, so usually only bigger

firms can afford it,” Carlo Coppetti ’10.5, a Swiss citizen, wrote in an email to The Herald. Coppetti pointed to consulting, finance, academia and engineering as sectors in which foreign graduates are likely to find sponsorship.

Work status woes

Timing, previous experience and the size of a firm play major roles in the job application process for international students, according to Petros Perselis ’10.

Perselis, an electrical engineering concentrator from Athens, Greece, continued on page 4

With tie, Bears share Ivy title with Dartmouth The men’s soccer team was crowned Ivy League co-champion Saturday after battling Dartmouth to a 0-0 draw.

M. Soccer Dartmouth 0 Brown 0

Sam Rubinroit / Herald

inside

Austin Mandel ’12 and the Bears could not break the 0-0 tie against Dartmouth, possibly costing them a spot in the NCAA tournament.

news....................2-5 SPORTS...............6-7 Feature..................8 Editorial............10 Opinions..............11 Arts.......................12

Art Mill

The Bears (10-4-3, 4-1-2 Ivy) and the Big Green (8-5-3, 4-1-2) entered the weekend tied for first place in the league, making the match a de facto championship

Feature, 4

While a good portion of the student body was sipping Natty Lights and munching on spicies with, a select group gathered Saturday night at an undisclosed location to graze on

fEature

game. The winner would walk away with the Ivy League title outright and an automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.

The two teams squared off in front of a packed house of over 2,000 fans at Stevenson Field.

The Bears set the tempo in the first half, firing off eight shots, twice as many as Dartmouth.

The teams were neck-and-neck after halftime, with the Big Green getting off eight shots to Bruno’s seven. Nonetheless, neither defense yielded a goal by the end of 90 minutes. continued on page 6

continued on page 8

Free to Be

Artists create village community in old mill

By Maddie Berg Contributing Writer

considerably more gourmet fare.

Personal pizzas with caramelized onions, roasted squash and kale and three-layer Nutella, peanut butter and mocha cheesecake with a pretzel crust were among the tasty offerings. The cozy, dimly lit room, with bottles of wine and glowing candles, created an atmosphere worlds away from the fluorescent lights of Josiah’s.

The 60 to 70 diners — all of whom are on or are friends with someone on an email listserv announcing the date of the next bakery — had Anna Jones ’12 and Sarah Marion ’12.5 to thank for the delicious treats. One Saturday each

Rosenbloom ’13 defends due process OPINIONS, 11

weather

By Sam rubinroit Assistant Sports Editor

bakery, Danishes on the down low

t o d ay

tomorrow

62 / 55

66 / 51

2 Campus News calendar Today

November 14

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ToMORROW

November 15

10 A.m.

“Is this abuse?”,

Celebrate America Recycles Day,

LGBTQ Resource Center

Wriston Quad

6:30 p.m.

7 p.m.

“Islamic Pacifism,”

Political Jobs in 2012,

Salomon 101

CareerLAB Library

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VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Cajun Pasta with Chicken, Tortellini Provencale, Cauliflower, Green Beans and Peppers

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DINNER Texas BBQ Beef Brisket, Jumbo Couscous, Vegan Roasted Veggie Stew, Vegan Chana Masala

Roast Pork Calypso, Coconut Rice, Stir Fry Carrots with Lemon and Dill, Broccoli Cuts

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The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

Lit arts gives voice to oppressed poet

By Brielle Friedman Staff Writer

Iranian poet Pegah Ahmadi spent six years under censorship in her native Iran before fleeing that country’s post-election turmoil in 2009. Now, she is the latest fellow of the International Writers Project, a program run by the Department of Literary Arts and the Watson Institute for International Studies that grants a year-long fellowship and safe haven to persecuted artists.

During the fellowship, Ahmadi will translate her work into English, give readings and participate in an annual campus festival on freedom of expression March 12-15.

Ahmadi’s long journey to College Hill began a world away under an oppressive theocracy in Iran.

Around 2003, Ahmadi’s work came to the attention of government censors. Later, they prevented the publication of Ahmadi’s most recent volume of poetry.

Ahmadi said she constantly felt unsafe. “You could be arrested at any moment,” she said. “There were no rules.”

In 2009, Ahmadi left Iran with the help of the International Cities of Refuge Network, an association dedicated to freedom of expression.

She spent two years living and writing in Frankfurt, where she said she was finally able to publish her last volume of poems in both Farsi and German. “That was a dream,” she said.

But Ahmadi said adjusting to life in Germany was difficult. At first, the calm and peaceful atmosphere felt foreign to her. “I didn’t know how to live or write about normal things because I belonged to a soci-

ety full of suffering,” she said.

“I could have been silent in Germany. I could have just published my poems and returned to my country after two years,” Ahmadi said. “But I felt that I had a duty to speak up and explain the situation and repression that I couldn’t talk about in my country,” she said.

Though Ahmadi misses Iran, she said she is happy to be at Brown and to have the opportunity to continue her writing.

Robert Coover, visiting professor of literary arts, said many of the project fellows experience an initial feeling of loss when they first arrive on campus. “And then something clicks,” he said, adding that almost all the fellows have written substantial texts during their fellowships.

Ahmadi said she hopes to publish a book of her poems in English.

Coover was the catalyst behind the creation of the International Writers Project, which began indirectly in 1989. Following the events of Tiananmen Square, Coover and then-President Vartan Gregorian extended invitations to three politically endangered Chinese writers who Coover said would have been arrested had they remained in the country.

Since then, the University has continued to bring persecuted writers to campus, pulling funding from a variety of sources, including a grant from the Donner Foundation and support from the Watson Institute.

While candidates are encouraged to submit applications, about twothirds of fellows are chosen through nominations. The project maintains strong relationships with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Interna-

tional as well as other organizations and individuals attuned to the needs of persecuted intellectuals. “We rely a lot on their judgments,” he said, adding that the committee became aware of Ahmadi’s case through one such relationship.

Coover said he was especially interested in Ahmadi, who was born in 1974, because of her youth. “I wanted to focus this year’s festival on her generation as well as her country” he said, adding that the upcoming festival will aim to incorporate younger Syrian, Jordanian and Palestinian artist.

“The whole region is so alive right now” he said of the Middle East.

A lot of that life comes from new technology — handheld mobile devices and social networking sites — that allows people to stay constantly in touch with each other, Coover said. “It’s the same thing that’s driving the Occupy movement here in the States.”

Ahmadi cannot return to Iran and must secure another position abroad when the fellowship ends.

Coover said the project committee and the Program in Literary Arts assist fellows in this process.

Shahriar Mandanipour, the 2006 fellow, currently holds a temporary appointment in the program.

Kho Tararith of Cambodia, last year’s fellow, is now participating in Harvard’s Scholars at Risk program.

“Lack of freedom of expression is the biggest problem for all artists,” Ahmadi said. “As an artist, your identity depends on your creation.

When you are prevented from that creation, you change into a useless person, and you feel like you have no purpose.”

Support added for ailing undergrads

By Mark VAldez Contributing Writer

An academic warning once meant near-certain suspension, but a new academic standing level added two years ago now means struggling students are less likely to get the boot.

The University decided two years ago to add a category to its levels of academic standing, which had previously included good standing, academic warning and suspension. The Committee on Academic Standing added a fourth level called “serious warning

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in lieu of suspension,” an intermediate stage between warning and suspension.

With this change in the level of academic standing, the committee added a component of academic and advising support for students.

Students on serious warning in lieu of suspension are now required to earn only three credits the following semester and attend workshops held by the committee, said Stephen Lassonde, deputy dean of the College and chair of the Committee on Academic Standing.

The workshops — which are limited to 20 students and are open

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to all undergraduates — focus on topics such as “study skills, notetaking and how to speak to professors,” Lassonde said.

Before the new level was created, students were allowed to continue their education on warning but would be suspended if they did not earn four credits the following semester.

With the new level of academic standing, students are less likely to be suspended because they are not responsible for as many credits and receive greater academic support, Lassonde said.

“We put the student on pause,” Lassonde said. “We ask how can we help and if it is an advising issue.”

Sometimes, deans find that time away from Brown might be best for students, Lassonde said.

Meiklejohn Daniel Aaron ’12 said he was trained to assist struggling advisees. “We’re supposed to refer them to the resource they need, like the dean of the College, (the Third World Center) and writing fellows,” Aaron said.

Ultimately, it takes a collaborative effort to turn around the academic careers of struggling students, Lassonde said. “It is a combination of getting the student to find the problem, support, monitoring and advising.”

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

Campus News 3

Simmons, Tisch reflect on ROTC office will open this spring enduring economic storm Brown is not reluctant to support she said.

By Tony Bakshi News Editor

Three years ago, President Ruth Simmons found herself at the helm of a University navigating a stormy financial climate unlike any since the Great Depression.

As Simmons prepares to step down at the end of the academic year, she said she is proud of the University’s handling of the $740 million hit to its endowment and its weathering of the economic downturn, a defining chapter of her presidency.

“First of all, I’m proudest of the fact that we didn’t panic,” Simmons said.

She cited several areas in which University Hall focused on maintaining current levels of operation despite the 25 percent drop in the endowment during the 2009 fiscal year. “We understood our role in the community here and decided that we did not want to see drastic cuts in the number of employees,” she said.

Simmons also said she was proud of the decision not to cut financial aid, a choice she said “would have been easy in many respects … because people would have understood it.”

“But precisely because families were going to be challenged to reap the costs of education, we thought it was the last time in the world to cut financial aid, and we didn’t,” Simmons said.

Beppie Huidekoper, executive vice president for finance and administration, said Simmons’ calming influence and experience proved vital in the University’s immediate response. “(Simmons) set the tone in saying, ‘We’re not going to make changes that are going to hurt the student experience or negatively impact our faculty’s ability to teach and do research,’” she said.

Huidekoper also credited Simmons with “a general sensitivity toward preparedness” that influenced the “day-to-day management” of the University’s finances.

“I think we had been a little ahead of our peer institutions in having a good sensitivity to risk management,” Huidekoper said.

“We were probably a little better prepared in facing some of the challenges because we had done the ‘what ifs’ earlier.”

“What most people are shocked by” is the decision to carry on with the University’s capital projects, Simmons said.

“Most places sidelined projects.

But at the worst possible time, we made the decision to move ahead with all of those projects,” she said. “And now, we see the benefit of them.”

Thomas Tisch ’76, chancellor of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, agreed that the handling of construction projects was a major part of the successful management of the downturn. “We were very lucky at Brown that when the convulsions hit … we only

had one building — Rhode Island Hall — under construction,” Tisch said.

Five other buildings — the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, the Medical Education Building, the cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences building and the new fitness and aquatics center— were in the planning stages at the time.

“We looked at all our projects in the pipeline and thought about which ones we could abandon and which ones we should not,” Simmons said. She said the administration “agreed that only projects that were funded should continue.”

Construction of the Granoff Center and the Campus Center proceeded as planned, and the other buildings “were reconceived to fit our funding capacity and became in every case better projects at a substantially lower cost to the University,” Tisch said.

To make these decisions, the University approached the campus community for advice. Simmons said she was “very pleased” with the process, which allowed the community “to help us decide what we could live without.”

Decisions were made “in a very thoughtful way,” Huidekoper said.

“We didn’t bring in outside consultants — we did it ourselves, thinking about how we could reorganize and find savings in our operations,” she said.

The University’s smaller endowment forced administrators to quickly formulate a plan and stick with it, Simmons said. “We knew we didn’t have the luxury of waste that so many other institutions had … every dollar counted, every goal needed to be met with the most stringent conditions.”

Though the University was forced to trim down — cutting a combined $60 million from its 2010 and 2011 budgets and about 240 staff — Tisch said it came out of the downturn in a stronger position than some of its competitors.

“The history of the world has been that when the very endowment-rich institutions caught a cold, the relatively less wealthy schools would catch pneumonia,” he said. “In this case, what they caught was certainly much worse than a cold, and we did not catch pneumonia.”

Simmons, meanwhile, credited the team of administrators around her for steering the University through the crisis.

“Some presidents are economists — they’re not all French professors. But I would say no single individual, certainly not a president, has the ability to deal with the complexity of a very significant shock to the system,” Simmons said. “We had this incredible array of people who were very smart and dedicated to Brown who took the time to get us through that period.”

By Max Ernst Staff Writer

The University will establish an office to coordinate support on campus for veterans and students pursuing military studies this spring, according to Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services.

The Corporation directed President Ruth Simmons to create the office in response to her recommendations to uphold the extracurricular status of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program and expand cross-curricular officer training programs with other universities.

“When the Corporation discussed the president’s response, they decided that adding an office would be a powerful signal that

ROTC students or veterans on campus,” Klawunn said.

Klawunn and Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron are working to develop a final proposal for the office by examining other offices’ models of service delivery.

The two will submit a formal proposal to Simmons by the end of this semester, which will result in an operational office next semester, Klawunn said.

Though the resource center will formally be called an office, the emphasis will be less on the physical space and more on establishing a central hub for ROTC and veteran resources, said Bergeron. The office will not have full-time staff and its main component could simply be a web page providing resources.

The final form is still in the works,

“We’re still working it out and looking at models from other schools,” Klawunn said.

The University will not hire new staff members for the office, Bergeron said.“It will likely be a piece of somebody’s job responsibility, because we make staffing decisions in proportion to need.”

By coordinating and enhancing existing resources, the office will give the University a way to show support for students who participate in ROTC through cross-curricular programs with other schools and for the educational experience of veterans, Klawunn said. “Establishing this office gives visibility to our support,” she added. “No one could read Brown’s response as keeping the military at arm’s length.”

Engineering, brain science look to grow continued from page 1 John Donoghue, director of the Institute for Brain Science. It will be “doing some extra recruiting in the years ahead,” Schlissel said.

Expansion in brain science will likely occur in two phases, he added. An expansion of faculty and resources will precede a possible new building.

“Yes, we are talking about space but there’s nothing concrete,” Donoghue said. When departments talk about expansion, “you put everything on the table,” he said. “All those things are pieces of puzzles and that’s what administrators need to jockey.”

“I feel very comfortable saying that Brown has a unique environment,” Donoghue said. The University’s collaborative approach to the sciences — embodied in the interdisciplinary nature of the brain sciences program — has been particularly successful, he said. Physical expansion of cross-departmental research

Lydia Yamaguchi / Herald

The School of Engineering is outgrowing its home at Barus and Holley.

space would continue to foster these efforts.

A central location for researchers across the brain sciences would encourage collaboration, said Michael Frank, associate professor

of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences. “I can’t see any downside to that,” Frank said.

Administrators declined to comment on possible locations for new facilities.

4 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

Historic mill houses art community For int’l students, small

firms fail to support visas

By AMY Rasmussen Assistant Features Editor

continued from page 1

Gangly weeds and graffiti have long ago overrun parts of the enormous brick complex. Tattered tarp flutters from the dozens of boarded-up windows of the former Hope Webbing Company, once one of the largest mills of its kind.

From a distance, the building, tucked into historic Pawtucket, gives

Feature off a vague air of abandonment — the drone of highway traffic occasionally punctuated by the scream of the commuter rail.

But step inside the chain-link fence ringing Hope Artiste Village, and an eclectic community of painters, writers, designers and even accountants is steadily humming along. The complex, built in pieces from 1889 to 1914, is home to live-in tenants, artist studios, a bi-weekly farmers’ market and retail shops including a restaurant and cafe.

Art in ruins

Eighty-one tenants and over 250 employees occupy the complex, said Susana Cullina, property manager of Hope Artiste Village, a 10-minute bus ride from Kennedy Plaza. Eleven live-work apartments are available, though the group plans to expand to 135 residential units.

Besides housing tenants, the village also has two large highceilinged rooms for events. A Lollipop-Palooza held to benefit a family bereavement group recently took over the light-filled Solarium. Neon lollipops festooned cement walls and gleeful screams quickly gave way to chocolate-smeared contentment as children sampled lollipops with apple pie and Oreo fillings.

The event was particularly apt — the complex was once home to a candy company.

The student-organized sustainability conference A Better World

by Design also chose to hold their 2011 gala in the space. The village’s conversion of a site that previously would have been unused or destroyed played a decisive role in the choice to host the event there, said Joanna Zhang ’13, a representative

Amy Rasmussen / Herald

Lollipop-Palooza recently took over Hope Artiste Village, a former candy factory.

of the Better World group.

“All this life has started up again,” Zhang said of the mill’s renaissance.

“It’s almost like a decomposing animal where all of these new art forms are like different biospheres.”

Urban Smart Growth, a Los Angeles-based development company, acquired the property, which occupies an area of about four city blocks, in 2005. The $1 million renovation project was made feasible by a historic site tax credit offered by the state, said Michael Gazdacko, a representative of the company.

The company was attracted to Rhode Island by the ongoing art movement and strong educational presence, Gazdacko said. Seven Stars Bakery, which currently does all of its baking in the village, was the first tenant.

But the fate of the historic mill was not always so certain — another group, with a slightly different goal,

sought to purchase the property in 2005, Gazdacko said. Had that group won, the mill and its 100-plus years of history would have been razed to the ground, and a Lowe’s Hardware store put in its place.

Strings and things

Dennis McCarten is the owner of the village’s much-lauded violin repair shop, filled with gleaming instruments and smelling faintly of wood-shavings. One of only several in Rhode Island, the shop is a point of pride for Urban Smart Growth.

Initially self-taught out of a love for fiddle music, McCarten attended an intensive three-year training at one of the three violin-making and repair programs in the country. For McCarten, violin-making is a second hobby—he used to be a trial lawyer. continued on page 9

said he was initially unsure if he wanted to pursue graduate study or work after graduation. When he finally decided on the latter, he found he had missed many firms’ recruiting cycles. Though he was interested in positions at big finance firms, which generally have the resources to sponsor visas for international candidates, he said he had to resort to applying for jobs at smaller firms.

But because firms must go through a long process to sponsor work visas for foreign citizens, Perselis said he felt he was at a disadvantage. Some firms could not even consider his application because they did not have the resources to obtain visas for foreign employees. When he applied for a position at M&T Bank, Perselis said he was rejected on that basis.

He eventually took an internship in London and now studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

A representative of M&T Bank did not respond to requests for comment.

Adem Dugalic ’12, who interned at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago this summer, learned after his internship ended that he would not be able to apply for a full-time job at the bank because it is no longer willing to sponsor visas for foreign citizens.

Dugalic, an applied mathematics and economics concentrator from Bosnia and Herzegovina, said international students have a difficult time finding jobs not only because a number of firms do not have the capacity to support visas, but also because they prefer to hire U.S. citizens. “They don’t officially discriminate,” he said, but “it’s harder for international students.”

Tanika Panyarachun ’10, a visual arts and history of art and architecture concentrator from Bangkok, described the job-seeking process for foreign students as “very hard,” especially for humanities and arts students. Panyarachun, who sought jobs in graphic design, said the small firms she was looking at were unsure if they would be able to sponsor her for a work visa.

She landed an unpaid full-time internship at Tibet House, a New York City-based organization dedicated to preserving Tibetan culture, where she designed catalogs and exhibits. Panyarachun said she had been hoping the internship would give way to paid employment, but Tibet House did not have sufficient resources to sponsor a visa. Unable to afford living in New York without an income, she returned to Bangkok after five months at the organization. “It’s just really hard if you’re not in a structured company, a big company like J.P. Morgan or Morgan Stanley,” she said.

Though Panyarachun said the CareerLAB was a useful resource when searching for jobs, she said the office did not have the specialized knowledge to help international students deal with such obstacles. Andrew Simmons, director of CareerLAB, declined to comment for this story.

How to make it in America

Despite these obstacles, many foreign graduates do succeed in securing long-term employment in the United States.

“I haven’t had pretty much any trouble,” said Angela Santin ’12, a computer science concentrator from Bilbao, Spain. When technology firms visited Brown to recruit, they told Santin they had the resources to hire foreign citizens.

She has been offered a position at Microsoft, and though she had to fill out extra paperwork, she said she did not encounter any problems during the process.

Elke Breker, director of the Office of International Student and Scholar Services, said she has not heard of international students having difficulties obtaining jobs because firms are unable or unwilling to sponsor H-1B work visas.

But she added that the success of international students, like that of domestic students, in finding jobs depends in part on their field of study.

Many international students choose concentrations that tend to lead directly to employment, such as computer science, economics or international relations, said Coppetti, the Swiss graduate.

Coppetti double-concentrated in mathematical economics and architectural studies.

According to Coppetti, international students may decide to work abroad following graduation for reasons other than being unable to find a job in the United States.

He was offered a research assistant position at Columbia but opted to return home to Switzerland because of its stronger economy and to be closer to family.

Though Anna Matejcek ’12 has not yet applied for a job, she has a number of concerns based on what she has heard from other students.

Matejcek, who holds Czech and Canadian citizenships, said she is worried about “employers not wanting to put in the extra work to hire you.” Other international students have told her that a number of firms hire foreigners only after they determine there are no Americans qualified to perform the jobs in question. Because foreign students cannot stay in the country to “hang around and work in a coffee shop” while applying for other jobs, Matejcek said they have to plan further in advance than other students.

But acknowledging the value of a Brown degree, Matejcek said she is optimistic. “I think it’ll work out.”

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Campus News 5

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

College Hill ceremony honors veterans on ‘auspicious day’ continued from page 1 “We’re here to remember the big picture,” said Peter Weber, dean of the Graduate School. “We’re here to honor the big thinkers, the veterans who put their own concerns behind the concerns of the community.”

The ceremony was well received — Dick Carolan ’58 deemed it “most fitting and appropriate.”

Ed Rundquist ’60 said he was pleased to see diversity in the audience, which consisted of students, faculty, staff, alums and veterans.

Students in attendance agreed that the ceremony was a way for them to recognize and appreciate something larger than themselves.

“Up here on College Hill, it’s so easy to be isolated and forget the sacrifice that kids our own age are making every day,” said Rebecca Mendelsohn ’14.

“I’m here because of someone else’s sacrifice. I figured I could sacrifice an hour of my time today.

It’s the least I can do,” said Ade Oyalowo ’14.

A growing tradition

A few years ago, the University Veterans Day ceremony drew only a few people “who got up by the flag pole and said a prayer,” Harrison said. This year’s audience of 150 denotes remarkable growth.

This growth is largely attributable to the Student Veterans Society, founded in 2008, Harrison said.

Four student veterans came together to form what Harrison described as an “ad hoc student group.” Since its founding, the Student Veterans Society has worked to fill the “white space” that exists when it comes to Veterans Day at the University and what Harrison called the “complete void” of support for veterans.

An Honor Wall was added to the Veterans Day ceremony last year. The Honor Wall functions as a place where students, faculty and staff can post acknowledgement of a veteran with whom they are personally associated. The tradition is meant to visually demonstrate the connections between University members and military personnel, bringing Veterans Day closer to home.

The Veterans Society hosted a set of three lectures preceding Veterans Day as part of a new initiative this year. Lecturers included Staff Sergeant Harrison, Tyson Smith, a postdoctoral fellow in sociology, and Kevin Bell, a veteran and graduate student at Princeton.

But these lectures each met with extremely low turnout. Audiences ranged from five to 10 students, and most who attended were veterans themselves.

The widening gap

Such low attendance at the lectures hints at a larger problem: a growing gap between the military and civilians.

“Few people have either the willingness or the stomach to hear (veterans’) stories. In this way, it

Paige Gilley / Herald

The Veterans Day ceremony Friday drew a crowd of about 150 students, faculty and alums.

is commendable that you are here tonight,” said Smith to an audience of eight students Nov. 9.

“The connection between Brown University and the military is not as clear as it once was,” Harrison said. “The idea that this community — students, staff and faculty alike — could be so thoroughly dedicated to national service through the military is a hard one to grasp today.”

In the class that entered Brown in 1946, nearly 60 percent of the undergraduate student body were veterans, Harrison said. Today, there are only six veterans in the entire undergraduate body — .09 percent of students.

With so few veterans on campus, it is no wonder civilian and veteran encounters are limited.

“When you can’t have a conversation, there will be no understanding,” Harrison said.

Though the number of veterans on campus is small, Harrison said he is frustrated that the University has failed to address their concerns. “Why aren’t veterans on the list?” he asked. “Why are they not even part of the discussion?”

“I feel like Veterans Day goes largely unnoticed here,” said Patrice Groomes ’15.

Assimilation challenges

The growing disconnect is partly due to a change in the socioeconomic background of military servicemen and -women, according to Smith. “It’s not that conscription was ever egalitarian, but it used to have a more leveling effect,” he said.

More and more military personnel come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, while fewer students at top-tier institutions are making the decision to enter the military, Smith said. He worries the gap will only grow larger as students graduate and enter toptier professions, having limited-tono contact with veterans.

“There is less veteran representation today in places where voices are heard,” Smith said. “The burden of serving should be (borne) by the entire U.S. population. Wars are much harder to sell when they

affect all communities.”

Smith also attributed the growing gap to a change in the nature of war. War is not as clear as it once was, he said — recent wars are unpopular and have ambiguous missions. “It’s hard for the public to understand what’s going on there,” he said.

The distance between military personnel and civilians has made the process of reintegration especially difficult for veterans. “War

is moral chaos. If a soldier experiences that, it’s hard to put into words, and it’s hard to listen to,” Smith said.

“It’s ironic that these people survive warfare and then come back and find that they face a bigger battle trying to relate and reincorporate into the civilian world,” he said.

Bridging the gap

When Veterans Day rolls

around, it can be easy to say “thank you.” But when the thanks are simply a response to the holiday, what are they really for? According to Smith, society tends to lionize soldiers’ actions and the idea of military service, but it does not interact with the concept in a real and meaningful way.

“When you’re talking to servicemen and -women, it’s good to thank them for their service, but it is better to understand what they did and what they do,” said Bell at his lecture Nov. 10.

Back on campus, it is important to recognize the host of experiences that veterans bring with them, said David Salsone ’12.5. “We, as veterans, add to classroom discussion. We bring a different perspective,” he said. “To see the way that other people, such as veterans, have chosen to live their lives, is always an enriching experience.”

As Harrison spoke on what he deemed “an auspicious day,” he urged his audience to bridge the gap between the civilian and the veteran.

“Honor veterans by knowing them,” he said. “Honor veterans by welcoming them back into your communities. Honor them by understanding not only the difficulties they might have in making the transition back to the civilian world, but by understanding the incredible value in experience that they bring to the table.”

6 Sports Monday

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

Football

Loss to Dartmouth ends title hopes

By Ethan mccoy Sports Editor

Bruno’s 21-16 loss to Dartmouth at Brown Stadium and a Harvard win over Penn Saturday spelled the end of the Bears’ chance at gaining a share of the Ivy League Championship in 2011.

Dartmouth 21 Brown 16 “We needed to win the next two,” said Head Coach Phil Estes.

“That’s been that way since we lost to Harvard,” he added. “We lose one of these, and we’re in the situation we’re in right now. We’re working now for second place.”

The day’s results leave Brown (7-2, 4-2 Ivy) in a three-way tie for second place with Yale (5-4, 4-2) and Penn (5-4, 4-2). The Crimson (8-1, 6-0) clinched the title outright with one game remaining on the schedule. The championship is Harvard’s 14th in Ivy history and sixth under Head Coach Tim Murphy.

The Big Green (4-5, 3-3) controlled the clock with a devastating rushing attack led by running back Nick Schwieger, Dartmouth’s all-time leading rusher. Schwieger picked up 137 yards on 37 carries, including a number of key thirdand fourth-down conversions late in the game. In the second half, Dartmouth held the ball for 20:34 to Brown’s 9:26.

“They really did a great job of controlling the game,” Estes said.

“There was nothing flashy, and it was a grind.”

“They did a great job of even keel and moved the football and did exactly what they had to do to

win this football game,” he added.

“Brown’s got a stifling defense,” Schwieger said. “We knew it was going to be a real big fight in the trenches, and I thought that our offensive line did a great job. I thought we converted some third downs when we had to and we went to our bread and butter to do it.”

Brown quarterback Kyle Newhall-Caballero ’11.5 threw for 252 yards and a touchdown, but also threw an interception in the end zone late in the fourth quarter.

The Dartmouth defense was able to keep the Brown rushing attack in check, holding Mark Kachmer ’13 to 23 yards rushing on eight carries and John Spooney ’14 to 12 yards on five carries.

The Bears opened up the scoring in the second quarter on a nine-yard touchdown pass from Newhall-Caballero to Alex Tounkara-Kone ’11.5 with 6:04 left in the half. Tounkara-Kone, who finished with six catches for 71 yards, caught a pass at the fiveyard line before shaking a tackle and diving into the end zone.

But Dartmouth answered right back. With only 18 seconds remaining before halftime, quarterback Conner Kempe connected with Garrett Babb on a perfectly lofted 32-yard touchdown pass, dashing any Brown momentum and tying the game 7-7 as the teams headed into the locker rooms.

On the opening drive of the second half, Brown moved the ball, but a third-down pass was batted down at the line, forcing Bruno to settle for a field goal by Alex Norocea ’14.

The Big Green answered and took its first lead of the game. On

the drive, which culminated in a one-yard touchdown rush by Kempe, Dartmouth was 3-4 on third downs. On the one attempt they were stopped short, Kempe picked up the first on a quarterback sneak on the fourth down try.

But the lead only lasted 13 seconds. On the ensuing kickoff, Brown cornerback A.J. Cruz ’13 brought the stadium to life with an 83-yard touchdown return to put Brown back on top. Cruz sprinted through the first wave of tacklers and took off down the left sideline.

At the Dartmouth 15-yard line, he cut back inside and crossed the goal line just out of the reach of the final Big Green defenders.

Norocea pushed the extra point attempt wide right, leaving Brown’s lead at 16-14.

But again, Dartmouth answered by methodically moving the ball down the field for a score.

On the drive, the Big Green were 4-4 on third down, including a conversion on third-and-10 where Schwieger caught a short pass in the flat, broke one tackle, then powered his way past the sticks with three Brown tacklers on his back. With just over 11 minutes left to play, Schwieger fittingly capped the drive with what would prove to be the game-winning touchdown on a one-yard rush on third-and-goal.

The Bears looked poised to regain the lead as they mounted an impressive drive that started at their own eight-yard line. But on first down from the Dartmouth 25-yard line, Newhall-Caballero’s pass — intended for Tellef Lundevall ’13 — was overthrown and picked off by J.B. Andreassi.

“We knew what we were going up against this week,” Andreassi said. “After watching tape, I think they were the best offense in the league — definitely have the best quarterback in the league, I would say.”

“We knew it was going to be a challenge, but we knew what we had in us. We knew the potential, and it all came together today,” he added.

The Bears had one more shot, but went three-and-out with six minutes left in the game. Behind two more third down conversions, Dartmouth then ran the clock down to 18 seconds, and the Bears’ final play of laterals was unable to produce a miracle.

“It’s the biggest win of my career,” Schwieger said. “It’s one of those wins that can really put the program in the right direction. To go on the road and beat a legitimate Ivy League contender speaks volumes of this football team right now.”

The loss snapped Bruno’s sixgame winning streak, but there is still much to play for next week against Columbia (0-9, 0-6). Since 1955, only nine other Brown teams have won more than seven games.

The roster’s 28 seniors will look to end a strong season and their careers on a high note and secure a second-place finish for the second consecutive year.

Sam Rubinroit / Herald

The Bears and Big Green tied 0-0, and both were named Ivy co-champions.

M. Soccer ends in dissapointing draw continued from page 1 “Both teams had everything to play for tonight, and everybody just left it out on the field,” said Ryan McDuff ’13. “Emotions were running extremely high, and I’m proud of our guys for keeping control under the pressure.”

With the scoreboard reading 0-0 at the end of regulation, the game went into extra time. Both teams knew they needed the golden goal to clinch the Ivy title, and neither held anything back.

“Coach was just yelling at us, ‘Go get it on any free kicks or corners. Don’t leave any big guys back — just go for it and try to get the goal,’” McDuff said. “That was kind of the mind-set we had to have. We had to find a way to close this big game at the end.”

Both squads knew allowing a goal would end not only the game, but also their season.

“There were talks about getting the win, but at the same time you don’t want to concede a goal there,” said T.J. Popolizio ’12. “A loss would be devastating. There’s more to play for than just the title.

There’s an NCAA tournament on the line.”

As the final whistle blew and the scoreboard remained blank, a hushed sense of foreboding spread across the field. Without a victor, the teams were forced to await the result of that evening’s game between Cornell and Columbia. In the event of a Columbia victory, the Lions would jump the Bears and the Big Green for sole possession of the league title.

A Cornell victory would result in Brown, Dartmouth and Cornell splitting the title three ways.

A tie would leave the standings unchanged, and the Bears and Big Green would become cochampions.

“It’s probably the longest three hours of our lives,” McDuff said.

In the end, Columbia and Cornell played to a draw. But because the Bears lost to third-place Columbia and the Big Green defeated the Lions, Dartmouth earned the automatic bid in the NCAA tournament. The Bears will now have to wait once again — until 4:30 p.m. today — for the 2011 NCAA Selection show to find out if they have earned an at-large bid in the tournament.

For the players, it is difficult having the fate of their season beyond their control.

“It’s really an empty feeling right now,” Popolizio said. “I guess we just hope and pray that we see our name on Monday.”

The selection committee will weigh a number of factors in deciding which teams earn atlarge bids, among them a team’s strength of schedule and performance leading into the post-season. This season, the Bears have faced a number of perennial powerhouses, including No. 7 Boston College, No. 17 South Carolina and Kentucky. In addition, the squad has gone undefeated in its last eight match-ups.

“We lost to Columbia Oct. 1, so it’s been six weeks since we’ve been beat,” said Head Coach Patrick Laughlin. “I think whatever happens in the NCAA, we deserve a bid.”

The Bears earned an at-large bid last season, and went on to defeat No. 25 Boston College and No. 9 University of Connecticut before falling in the Sweet 16 to No. 6 University of California at Berkeley. With the future of their season uncertain, the players will continue to train and be ready for whatever Monday brings.

“If we get a shot into the NCAAs, I think we can do some damage,” Popolizio said. “If you’re a team and you get into the tournament, you don’t want to face Brown.”

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

Sports Monday 7

cross country

Lowry ’12 qualifies for NCAA national championship

By James blum Sports Staff Writer

The men’s and women’s cross country teams competed Saturday at the NCAA Northeast Regional championship meet in Buffalo, N.Y., with the men taking fifth in a 33-team field and the women taking 11th in a field of 36. Dan Lowry ’12 earned a slot at the NCAA national championship with his third-place finish in the region. The men scored 178 points and the women scored 241 points at the race.

Last year, the men finished eighth at the regional meet, and the women finished seventh. Syracuse won both the men’s and the women’s races with 54 and 116 points, respectively.

“I was really happy with how we performed,” said Tim Springfield, head coach of the men’s team. “I think they showed a lot of poise

and performed well.”

Lowry, who finished the 10-kilometer race in 31 minutes, 21 seconds, led the men and was followed 30 seconds later by Matt Duffy ’12, who finished 19th overall. The stiff wind throughout the race prompted Lowry and Duffy to stick with a conservative plan when the top group made an aggressive move at seven kilometers, Lowry said.

“The last 2k, I was picking off everyone that fell off the top group,” Lowry said. “The last mile was straight into the wind, and everyone was dying, so you could see the people in front of you slowing down, so that was a motivator.”

“I thought he showed a real veteran’s degree of savvy and poise to place as high as he did,” Springfield said. “He knew when to hold himself in reserve and when to be aggressive.”

The next two runners to finish

for Brown were Nathan Chellman ’12 in 32:33 and Anthony Schurz ’12 in 32:39. Lowry said he was glad the seniors finished their careers with a strong performance.

The women were led by Heidi Caldwell ’14, who finished the 6k race in 21:14, narrowly beating Margaret Connelly ’14 by two seconds. They finished 15th and 16th respectively, just beyond the cutoff to qualify for Nationals.

“Margaret and Heidi finally ran together for the first time during this season,” said Mitchell Baker, head coach of the women’s squad.

“I don’t think Margaret had her best day, but Heidi helped pull her through.”

“I think it was exciting that Margaret and I were close to making it,” Caldwell said. “We’re only sophomores, so that speaks well for the future.”

Baker said he was pleased the

team was able to maintain pack running in such a large field.

“I felt like probably for the first time this season, I was finally able to express to them — and they were finally able to hear — what I wanted them to hear about executing the race plan,” Baker said. “I felt like they did their very best to execute the race plan, so I think from that standpoint it was a big step for us as a team and bodes well for the rest of the year.”

The regional meet brought Baker’s first season at Brown to a close.

He said he has focused on creating depth in the program.

“I think I learned that we have the talent to develop people and have them be competitive,” Baker said. “It’s nice to see un-mined or undeveloped talent.”

Since neither of the teams qualified for Nationals, the 2011 cross country season is over for all of the

runners except Lowry. He qualified individually for NCAA Nationals, which will be held in Terre Haute, Ind., Nov. 21.

The rest of the runners will now begin the interlude between cross country and indoor track. Baker said the women will have a couple weeks of very moderate training to ensure that they are physically and mentally prepared for indoor track.

The men will continue to train at higher intensity because they are relatively injury-free at this time.

“We’re healthy and feeling and looking good, so we’re not going to have a big break,” Springfield said. “We will have a little more flexibility, though.”

“This is the first time in a while that I haven’t been ready for the season to be over,” Caldwell said. “(Baker) has a big plan, and 10 weeks isn’t enough for us to see the whole effect. “

wrestling

Despite recent turmoil, wrestling team soldiers on

By Mathias heller Contributing Writer

The wrestling season officially kicked off Sunday at the Bearcat Open in Binghamton, N.Y. For many team members, the season’s start itself is welcome news.

In the wake of the Athletics Review Committee’s recommendation in April that the University cut the team, players and coaches alike went through a difficult spring, as they rallied to pressure President Ruth Simmons to spare the program from elimination.

Now, after securing a victory last month with the Corporation’s acceptance of Simmons’ recommendation to keep all teams facing potential cuts, the team is hoping its recent good fortune will translate into better performance on the mat.

“Last year was very disappointing,” said Head Coach David Amato, who has led the team since 1983 and holds the record for the most wins of any coach in Brown wrestling history.

Last season, the Bears finished 2-11 overall and 1-4 in Ivy League play to tie Harvard and Princeton

for fourth place. It was the first time the team had not fielded a qualifier for the NCAA National Championship since 1986. But Amato said the wrestlers learned from last season and are now in a better position to pull the team into the top half of the Ivy League.

“This year, we’re all a little wiser and a little bit older,” he said.

The team has a big year ahead and is faced with constantly improving Ivy competitors, said T.J. Popolizio ’12, who is also a member of the men’s soccer team. The Bearcat Open was a chance for first-year wrestlers to show what they have to offer, as well as for the five seniors to demonstrate their leadership. “If we bring a constant effort, the results take care of themselves,” he said.

Though uncertainty over the future of the team was a source of stress for players and coaches alike during the last few months, Amato said the seniors “rallied like crazy” to preserve a sense of unity. “Those were the guys who kept everyone else around,” he said, and the players were approaching this season with “renewed vigor.”

The team was able to rally against the threat of elimination through the Save Brown Wrestling campaign. “When your sport is on the chopping block, you could see that it re-energized us,” Popolizio said. “It was a calling.”

While the wrestling team takes stock of its success in avoiding the budgetary ax, the wrestlers have also been supportive of the skiing and fencing teams, which were also slated for elimination, said Vinny Moita ’14. “There was definitely a rally-around-the-flag effect,” Moita said. “It made us value who we are.”

With the team’s fate hanging in the balance until recently, recruiting efforts this fall took a hit. Even so, all but one of the recruits offered a spot on the team for the class of 2015 decided to matriculate at Brown, while no upperclassmen transferred.

Zachary Tanenbaum ’15 said he decided to accept his recruitment offer based on the friendliness of the student body, his interactions with the coaches and the overall quality of a Brown education. “In the end, I decided that I’d stay at Brown even if wrestling

had been eliminated,” Tanenbaum said. “All the freshmen are really close, and there’s a huge sense of family on the team.”

Assistant Coach Tyler Grayson, another new member of the team who received his job offer at the end of July, said his conversations with Amato and his observations of Brown’s wrestling program convinced him to come on board despite the team’s uncertain survival. The sense of community and the opportunity to coach at a Division I school outweighed the risk of joining a program at risk of elimination, he said.

“It’s a great place for me to be,” Grayson said. “I thought I needed the experience.” He said he hopes the team will send at least five players to the national tournament and that he has high expectations for the wrestlers in their first year. “We have a really young team. I expect at least three freshmen to be in the starting lineup,” he said.

Amato also has an optimistic view, saying he feels the team is headed in the right direction this year. “Things go in cycles in athletics, and I really feel like we’re on an upper trend,” he said.

8 Feature

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

Undergrad bakers tantalize taste buds, stir up success continued from page 1 month, from 8 p.m. to midnight, the pair hosts an underground bakery at a secret location. Customers are seated at tables upon arrival, order off a limited menu of three desserts and one savory item and are professionally served by friends of the hostesses. Guests can donate whatever amount they wish to the cafe — the money is only to cover operating costs.

Jones and Marion came up with the idea for the project while brainstorming how to transform their love of baking and cooking into a plausible business. The bakery was inspired by a secret restaurant in Providence that has since been shut down. “We were hoping to provide a community around food,” Marion said. “Also a social setting for college students on a Saturday night that is not going out to a frat party.”

When the bakery began, the pair hoped it would one day turn into a restaurant with more savory dishes, but, Marion said, “At this point, it seems that a late-night bakery is a good way to attract more of a college crowd.”

Jones agreed, saying that a bakery was also easier from a logistical and financial perspective.

Both students began their culinary ventures at a young age.

“My mom’s parenting philosophy is if you’re not good at something,

your kids will be good at it,” Jones said. “My mom hates to cook, so I guess I just started experimenting in the kitchen because there were no rules.”

From the start, Jones was ambitious. In eighth grade, she cooked a meal with 20 different dishes for her grandmother’s birthday, and this past summer, she worked as a private chef for a professor in Italy.

Marion said her experience “doing weird experiments with food” has also served her well. She hosted three secret bakeries over the summer, which served as preliminaries to the three the pair has hosted during the school year.

Despite their experience, planning and preparing the ambitious menu for the bakery is no easy feat. “We start planning (the next one) as soon as it’s over,” Jones explained. “We are constantly coming up with new ideas.”

Marion and Jones try to have the menu completely set at least a week before each bakery. Though they take inspiration from online recipes and blogs, they said they have never followed a recipe exactly.

“Sarah’s very good at winging things and coming up with a natural sense of proportion,” Jones said, adding that she is especially good at the one recipe critical to any bakery’s success — frosting.

“It’s only because I really like

Maddie Berg / Herald

Anna Jones ’12 (above) prepares sweet treats to serve guests at a secret bakery she hosts with Sarah Marion ’12.5 on one Saturday every month.

to eat it!” Marion laughed, following up the compliment by praising Jones’s ice cream-making skills.

After grocery shopping the previous Sunday and Monday, the

chefs begin prep mid-week, and the baking is in full swing on Friday and Saturday. Finally, on Saturday evening, the fun begins.

Though both lamented not having time to socialize more with the guests, they look forward to the final push. “My favorite part is right in the middle, when there is a rush,” Jones said. “It’s really exciting to feel like we are under a time pressure.”

Though the pair was running a bustling cafe, the kitchen was a surprisingly relaxed environment. As hungry crowds waited to be seated, Jones and Marion smiled and joked with friends in the kitchen as they cranked out three flavors of cake balls — pumpkin gingerbread with white chocolate, caramel cake

dipped in dark chocolate with sea salt and maple brown butter cranberry cake coated in white chocolate and toffee — and plated mini apple pies, carefully topping them with homemade tea ice cream.

In the cafe, sounds of delight filled the air as guests had their first tastes. Spencer Fields ’12 said he was so impressed by the “restaurant quality” of the food that he had only a few words for the cheesecake: “indulgent, so good, so good.”

At the next table, Molly Quinn ’12 agreed, complimenting the “great food, great environment.” It was clear from the lack of leftovers that the dishes were a success.

Though it was not served Saturday, Marion’s favorite dessert from the bakery was “a crispy cinnamon waffle” topped with homemade peanut butter and honey ice creams and caramelized bananas.

Jones, who loves “anything with ice cream,” also fondly remembered her favorite dessert — a sweet corn and blueberry ice cream on a peach almond upside-down cake.

The only “mishap” the two reported was a slight difference in imagined portion size from their customers. “Our perception of an amount is more than most people’s,” Jones said, referring to an incident when customers requested “tiny little slivers” of a very rich, dense chocolate torte.

“If I’m going to have a slice of cake, go big!” Marion laughed.

After the success of this bakery, Jones and Marion both see it as more plausible that they might eventually move into the restaurant or bakery business together, which they have wanted to do since they met.

“Now that we are graduating and getting closer and closer, it is becoming more of a strong possibility,” Marion said.

But maybe this next business operation will be a little less clandestine.

Concert attracts crowd, raises awareness continued from page 12 the ground.”

The hands-off approach to health care and assistance was a draw for Maiga, according to Rachel Nguyen, the band’s business manager.

“Sidy’s really happy to support awareness events to help people understand a little bit about the challenges about the health care in Mali,” she said. The project is “really empowering the community itself, so it’s not just a bunch of Americans showing up and telling people how to run their health care.”

Though the concert opened to an almost empty audience, the hall slowly filled as students at the Gate were drawn upstairs by the promise of free food and entertainment.

The music was mostly a vibrant mix of percussion and vocals, with the 21-string kora providing background arpeggios. It was the pounding beat of the djembe that

inspired the crowd to an impromptu dance jam on the floor. Maiga even ventured into the crowd during the performance to play the djembe among them.

“The music was pretty cool, to be honest,” Jordan Mann ’15 said.

“It was a really cool way to spend the night.”

“I thought it was awesome because I’ve never heard traditional African music before,” Nate Harris ’15 said. “It’s really powerful.”

For Maiga, the concert had personal value.

“I think my performance brings joy and happiness, because when you start playing drums, everyone comes out of their shells,” Maiga said.

“It does make people happy, and it can bring more people because more people hear about it.”

The project is “helping the country which I am from,” he said. “I’m very proud and happy to be able to work with them.”

Arts & Culture 9

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

Snippets of operas fall flat continued from page 12

Amy Rasmussen / Herald

A village for artists supplies local food at winter farmers’ market.

’15. The trio’s singing and acting were both entertaining, making the scene enjoyable as a whole.

“Dido and Aeneas” featured powerful vocals by Andrew Brown ’15 (Aeneas) and Ivy AlphonseLeja ’14 (Dido) and nuanced acting by Alexander Sogo ’15.

Arianna Geneson ’14 also shone in “Sull’aria” from Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” as the Countess’s sassy maid.

But for the solo performances, the scenes were less dynamic.

While the singing was on par,

some of the performers looked uncomfortable on stage and appeared too worried about the difficulty of their songs to convey their characters. This awkwardness was magnified at the end of each scene by the strangely slow light transitions — the lights and music continued well past the point at which actors froze and stopped acting.

While it is difficult to portray one moment from a larger opera without other actors to play off of, acting is necessary to help the viewer overcome the barrier of lyrics in a foreign language. The

struggle to read the plot synopsis of some of the scenes in the dark theater just to know what was happening dampened the experience.

Overall, the show packed a lot of opera into about 40 minutes, but the night felt rushed and might have benefitted from a slower pace. If this was a “bitesized” Brown Opera Production, hopefully the spring’s full-length opera will provide a more lasting taste.

stemmed from their experiences growing up as Palestinians in Israel.

But they also had a little fun — one of their newer songs “Mama, I Fell in Love with a Jew” was a parody of the romantic struggles Israelis and Palestinians occasionally face due to their political differences.

The crowd diminished as the concert went on. By the end, only the most ardent DAM fans remained. To finish up the event, the group hosted a short question and answer session, where questions included what songs they like to sample and

why the group is not doing more to advertise their music in Palestine. The group’s responses were thoughtful — group members shared stories of performing in the United States and Israel, and the occasional hypocrisy that comes from organizers on occasion.

DAM finished their session by discussing the balance they hope to achieve with their music. From their experience, sometimes they are asked to perform solely for their music without any attention placed on their message and vice versa.

“It’s very rare to find a place that wants both,” Suhell Nafar said.

At artist village, businesses fill niche Musicians explore overseas tensions continued from page 4 His current patrons include string-instrument aficionados of all ages. A Brown student recently brought in a $10,000 cello damaged from shipping and “smashed into about 20 pieces,” McCarten said.

But after a month’s hard labor, it is almost as good as new, he said.

Hairline cracks are now the only signs of disrepair.

McCarten said he helps clients restore and sell family heirlooms.

One violin currently in his shop, dating from 1925, is priced at $16,000.

He also provides pro bono labor for Community MusicWorks — a group found by Sebastian Ruth ’97 to provide free musical education to West Side children.

McCarten, who opened his doors in 2006, is one of the longer-standing tenants — he said he has seen most retail business here open only to fail months later.

Retail businesses must occupy a specific niche to survive in the village, Cullina said. “This isn’t a heavy retail corridor. The businesses here are the business that have their own clientele.”

Past businesses included painters and craft shops, but stores now often cater to a more specific audience.

“I was forced to come here,” said Erin Whalen, author of three children’s books and owner of the newly opened Story Emporium. Her business is not even a month old, but she is already gaining critical exposure for her writing through school visits, a planned television series and the many children running through the farmers’ market.

A friend handed her a $1,200 check and told her to rent a space in the village, Whalen said. Most of the shop’s whimsical decorations were either donated or left behind by previous tenants, adding to the shop’s grisly circus decor. “Everything just fell into place,” she said.

The store’s offerings are fairly limited. Whalen only plans to sell books whose authors agree to come in for a signing. “This is an authorrun bookstore,” she said.

Her dream guest? Chris Van Allsburg — author of “The Polar Express” and longtime Providence resident. Though Van Allsburg is a known recluse, Whalen said, she plans to keep pestering him until he becomes part of her “author’s

clubhouse.” His picture is posted prominently near the cash register to remind her of her goal.

So fresh so clean

For most of the week, the village’s winding halls are devoid of outsiders. But on late fall and winter Wednesdays and Saturdays, the old mill comes to life once more with Farm Fresh Rhode Island’s wintertime market, an enormous event that makes its Wriston Quadrangle equivalent look like a mere roadside stand.

On a recent Saturday, a gourmet sausage truck run by Chez Pascal chef Matthew Gennuso idled outside the building, surrounded by happy clientele and several lucky canines. Inside, fresh chickens laid in neat rows next to tables piled with autumnal gourds and shining peppers. At a stand across the way, a lobster waved its claws sluggishly from a bed of ice. All of the dozens of vendors sell locally grown or made food.

And for the budget-savvy shopper, free samples abound. It is nearly impossible to pass by tables without friendly encouragement to taste fresh cranberry crumble, locally made granola or bites of artisanal cheese.

For the most part, young professionals and their families populate the market — babies and dogs seem to be the accessories of choice. But even at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning, Brown students are not entirely missing from the equation: Molly Bledsoe ’12 works at the market and is Healthy Seniors coordinator for Farm Fresh Rhode Island.

The market brings much-needed traffic to the building during a New England winter, Gazdacko said, and it is beneficial both for the village and for Farm Fresh, which pays a “nominal fee” to use the space. “It’s a win-win situation,” he said.

Over 2,000 visitors to the market pack into a hall approximately the length of a city block over the course of four hours, McCarten said. The Village’s usual Fed-Ex man cannot stand it — he said it makes delivering packages a nightmare. But McCarten, who spends most of his Saturdays talking to potential customers and explaining violin repairs, loves it.

“It’s the spirit of this place,” he said.

continued from page 12 and Michael Jackson were among the artists sampled in their songs.

DAM also sang a few songs and freestyled in English, when their enthusiasm really shone through.

Tamer Nafar prefaced his English songs with the phrase “I’m so excited,” much to the approval of the audience.

Though the songs sounded mainstream, their lyrics were consistently influenced by the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, and the memories of oppression and corruption that

comics Chester Crabson | Tess Carroll and Marcel Gout

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

Uni the Unicomic | Eva Chen and Dan Sack

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10 Editorial & Letter Editorial

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

Editorial cartoon

by pao l a e i s n e r

SafeRide, safer Our favorite new smartphone application is the “Ride Systems Real Time Shuttle Tracker.”

SafeRide has greatly improved convenience and safety in on-campus transportation, but the occasional 10-minute wait for a shuttle outside at 1:30 in the morning defeats the purpose of the service.

The newly introduced SafeRide tracking technology, available online and as a downloadable application for the iPhone and Android, allows students to see where each SafeRide shuttle and BrownMed/ Downcity Express Shuttle is on its route. If a student does not have access to a computer or smartphone, no problem — he or she can text the stop number to 41411 to receive an estimated time of arrival.

With a relatively compact campus and about four-fifths of students living on it, we appreciate that safe and convenient transportation is still a priority for Brown. What is exciting about the improvements to SafeRide is that they make the service more visible, more accessible and arguably safer than before. Not only do the improvements promote safety through reduced outdoor wait times, but they’re also likely to increase usage of SafeRide services by students who may have found the service unpredictable in the past.

Shuttle-tracking applications are not the only convenience improvements to the SafeRide System. Brown OnCall has also seen changes to become more user-friendly. The service, for which all students living outside of the Brown shuttle route can register, guarantees transport from campus to a registered off-campus residence for anyone calling by 2:45 a.m. Though the lines can get busy during certain hours of the night, arguably too few students living off campus make use of the door-to-door service, important for safety in the areas beyond the reach of campus security patrols. Given the crime alerts sent out to the Brown community, it is surprising that students still choose to walk home alone at 2 a.m. For those who have been doing so out of impatience, it is worth noting that those registered for the onCall service are now able to reserve a ride online as well as by telephone.

Gone are the days of disgruntled decisions to walk home from the Rockefeller Library, only to see a shuttle zip past us, full of the more patient students who had been sitting across from us in the lobby.

Admittedly, most of us like SafeRide not only because it protects us from crime — sometimes we just want to stay out of the cold. And, thankfully, the new tracking technology can make the difference between arriving at the always-chilly Friedman Study Center safe and warm and arriving shivering with our jeans glued to our legs.

Snug and dry, we commend the Brown Transportation Office for the proactive and need-aware improvements to Brown transportation services, and we hope and expect that students will continue to take advantage of them.

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

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

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“You want a job, don’t you?”

le tter to the editor In defense of U.’s handling of McCormick To the Editor: Hunter Fast ’12, in his opinion column related to the alleged William McCormick sexual assault incident at Brown (“It can’t happen here,” Nov. 11), forgets an important issue that supports the University’s management of the unfortunate incident: Women have always been at an extreme disadvantage when faced with sexual aggression. What is rape all about? It is the physical coercion of a man seeking sexual domination over a woman. It is one of the historical tragedies in the history of mankind that has never been resolved.

As such there is no level playing field in sexual relationships. Women who have been raped have to deal with a male-dominated and biased justice system, a male-dominated and biased police force, and yes, even a male-dominated and biased student body that

at one time included McCormick.

The University is to be applauded for its attempt to level this playing field. It has chosen not to expose the female student to the inequality of the justice system.

The message to all males is: “You need to check your behavior carefully before you enter into a relationship with a woman. There will be no due process if you are accused of rape. The woman’s version of what happened will always be accepted over the man’s account.”

If a male student knew that was the policy hopefully this would serve as a check on sexually aggressive behavior. McCormick might have backed away from this relationship, knowing the consequences he might face. He might well have remained a part of the student body, and everyone would be wiser.

Tom Bale ’63

quote of the day

“I felt like I was at a campfire in West Virginia.”

— Alexei Abrahams GS See auto-tune on page 12.

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Opinions 11

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 14, 2011

A renewed commitment to individual rights

By Oliver Rosenbloom Opinions Columnist

As Brown begins the search for its next president, it is important that we choose a candidate who values students’ rights of due process and freedom of speech. Unfortunately, over the last decade, the Brown campus has become hostile to these individual rights. Administrative decisions, student actions and official University policy have all sought to undermine these most basic American rights.

The handling of the William McCormick case proves that the student discipline system is fundamentally flawed and unjust for students accused of heinous behavior.

In 2006, McCormick, a first-year, was accused of rape by another first-year student.

Regardless of McCormick’s guilt or innocence, Brown’s disciplinary system did not treat him with justice or fairness.

Instead of using a fair trial or disciplinary hearing to determine the truth of the claim, Brown kicked McCormick off campus and provided him with a plane ticket home. McCormick has filed suit against the University, the accuser and the accuser’s father, and the University continues to claim it did nothing wrong.

The apparent mishandling of the McCormick case was not due to one minor error of judicial procedure. Instead, the University allegedly violated basic principles of due process and fair justice at every stage

of the investigation. According to McCormick, the University and his accusor are guilty of a handful of serious violations of due process. Among them are withholding evidence, threatening criminal charges to force a confession, failing to contact police about an accusation of sexual assault and tampering by an influential donor that compromised the administration’s neutrality.

This bungling of the McCormick case cannot be blamed solely on the individu-

To guarantee the fair administration of justice at Brown, a new president will have to take two steps: Change current campus policies that undermine due process, and ensure that University officials respect due process as they investigate criminal actions. Unfortunately, this new president will also inherit a campus culture that does not promote another key individual right: free speech.

While senior administrators and official policy are to blame for our campus’s hos-

Selecting a new president gives us an opportunity to re-dedicate ourselves to upholding individual rights on our campus. als who perpetrated these acts of injustice.

Official University policy also contributed to continued disregard for the fair administration of justice.

According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Brown has the lowest standard of protection for students accused of sexual assault among the top 100 colleges and universities in the United States. All it takes for a student at Brown to be convicted of sexual assault is a “reasonable basis.” New federal policy mandates conviction on the grounds of a “preponderance of evidence.” This is a low burden of proof, yet it is still significantly higher than Brown’s. Policies like Brown’s strongly favor the accusers and ensure that the accused will not be given a fair trial.

tility toward due process, students are to blame for creating a campus culture that does not protect free speech. It is a tragic truth that students themselves have become the greatest threat to free expression on Brown’s campus.

No one inspires acts of censorship at Brown more than David Horowitz. Last year, Horowitz ran a controversial ad in The Herald about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The next day, a handful of students wrote letters to the editor that questioned The Herald’s right to run the advertisement.

Criticizing an ad’s content is a noble exercise in free speech, but criticizing a paper’s right to run an ad is a deplorable attempt at censorship. Similarly, in 2001, Brown students undermined free expression when

they stole copies of The Herald in response to another controversial Horowitz ad.

Stifling speech and preventing the free exchange of ideas used to be the province of school administrators and repressive governments. It is therefore tragic that Brown students have begun to embrace this anti-American practice of censorship. Last February, students tore down a banner on Wayland Arch that read, “Corporate criminals run Brown.” Students for a Democratic Society put this banner up, and they claimed that there were other instances in which students tore down their banners rather than resorting to more civil modes of disagreement.

Historically, free inquiry has been one of the defining principles of universities.

Recent history at Brown suggests that we have forgotten this fundamental value. It is vital that our next president not only make a stated commitment to upholding free speech rights on campus, but also take active steps to instill a deeper respect for free expression.

University presidents have the power to shape the culture of their institutions. Selecting a new president gives us an opportunity to re-dedicate ourselves to upholding individual rights on our campus. I urge the Presidential Search Committee members to place a high value on a candidate’s views on individual rights in the evaluation process.

Oliver Rosenbloom ’13 is a history concentrator from Mill Valley, Calif.

He can be contacted at oliver_rosenbloom@brown.edu.

Isms and an epistemic dilemma

By David Hefer Opinions Columnist

Today, let us start with some truisms. Racism is bad. Sexism is bad. Classism is bad.

Any discrimination of this sort is bad.

Identifying instances of these things is important. We cannot effect change if we do not know what we have to change.

To this end, we need a definition of these isms. For simplicity and because it is the area I am most familiar with, I will discuss sexism. But these considerations apply to all of them. So, to start, an act or belief is sexist if it treats a person as a member of a sex rather than as a person.

To illustrate, Anne is good at her job, and Barbara, who works on the other side of town, is barely competent and horribly irresponsible. Anne is passed over for a promotion because her boss thinks that women are not fit to lead. Barbara is passed over because her boss knows she is not fit to lead. Anne’s boss performed a sexist act because his judgment is based on Anne’s being a woman. Barbara’s boss did not because his judgment is based on her personal incompetence.

This gives us clear standards that determine whether an act is sexist. But the story is not as simple as it seems on first blush.

Returning to a fellow we are already familiar with, Otto is your average, every-

day catcaller. Cammy, seeing her friend act this way, tells him that he is a sexist.

Otto defends himself, saying that he is not treating these people this way as women, but as attractive people. He just happens to be attracted to women.

Otto’s defense is misguided. Contra my previous piece (“Objectification for fun and profit,” Sept. 30), there are societal forces that make it inappropriate and unlikely for people to catcall at men. These factors mean that Otto is able to catcall only because his targets are women. De-

ply to the isms? That is, if a person were actually treating someone as a woman, wouldn’t this be apparent to them?

The isms form a class of biases. Biases are subtle and insidious. A big part of what makes them so dangerous is that we do not always know when we are deploying them. Consider Frank, the Islamophobe.

He has a good deal of evidence supporting the idea that Muslims are terrorists — haven’t you seen all the news reports? But he is ignoring all the Muslims who do not commit acts of terror. It will not be appar-

If someone tells you that an act was -ist, you are not in a position to dismiss it out of hand.

You are probably deploying the very biases the person is accusing you of.

spite the results of his introspection, Otto’s actions are sexist — at least the way the world is now — because they do treat these people as women, rather than people.

It may seem strange that the status of our actions and beliefs is not transparent to introspection. Normally, only I can say what I intended to do or how I feel about something. If I sincerely assert that I am happy, for instance, it is bizarre for you to tell me I am not. Shouldn’t the same ap-

ent to Frank that he is not reasoning well.

Other isms work analogously.

We should take these lessons to heart.

If someone tells you that an act was -ist, you are not in a position to dismiss it out of hand. You are probably deploying the very biases the person is accusing you of.

These considerations give us good reason to defer to the reports of others. Unsurprisingly, things are not as simple as they seem on second blush, either.

How can we know when a person’s re-

port of an –ist act is inaccurate? Some people are oversensitive to these issues.

For example, telling a stranger to smile can sometimes be sexist — certain standards apply to women that make it appropriate to command them to buck up that do not apply to men. But Chris is a cheerful though aggressive person. He tells every sad person to be happier. When he demands that the crying girl on the train be happier, he is being an insensitive ass. The girl may be justified in thinking Chris is sexist, but he is not. We would be misguided to criticize him on grounds of sexism.

This is not an empty intellectual exercise. Whether someone is sexist, racist, homophobic or whatever else is an important practical issue. These are grounds for ostracism or termination. Who wants to spend time with such a person, either in personal or professional settings? Not acting on these situations, when they arise, implicitly condones them.

I have set out a condition that makes an act or belief –ist. My definition is not perfect. It needs refining. I have not described how we can tell that these conditions are met, so that we can determine with certainty whether something is -ist. It is imperative that we complete these projects, especially the second.

David Hefer ’12 urges everyone to pursue this inquiry in a public forum — these very pages. Or there is the private forum of his email address david_hefer@brown.edu.

Daily Herald Arts & Culture the Brown

Monday, November 14, 2011

Operatic highs and lows at ‘bite-sized’ performance By tonya riley Contributing Writer

Notes both high and low filled the McCormack Family Theater this weekend as Brown Opera Productions presented “A Night of Opera Scenes.” The show served as an introduction to opera for both attendees and participants, packing an ambitious combination of three scenes and two arias by composers such as Mozart and Henry Purcell into a performance running less than an hour.

Diego Ramos Rosas ’12, cochair of Brown Opera Productions, said the show aspired to highlight opera as an art form with “many dimensions” and not just “a lot of singing.”

Ariana Gunderson ’14, production manager for the show, said Brown Opera Productions strived to give audiences a “bitesized” taste of opera in an “accessible, but fun” performance.

In addition to working under student directors — often opera newbies from theater or musical theater backgrounds — performers got a chance to work with a professional vocal coach to enhance their classical singing abilities.

While the original intent was to focus on a theme, Brown Opera

Productions ended up choosing scenes that best fit the talent of the performers, Rosas said.

Both Rosas and Gunderson said the scene festival recruits a lot of first-years and helps build interest for the group’s full-length opera in the spring.

The performance also attempts to foster operatic interest among the wider campus community. By showing “a bunch of short scenes that are really dynamic,” Gunderson said the show helps draw audience members unfamiliar with the genre into the world of opera.

The best performances of the night were scenes that incorporated multiple actors — the relationships between characters provided context to the isolated scenes.

Scenes from Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” and Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” stood out. The actors in each scene brought vitality to their roles and looked comfortable on stage.

In “Cosi fan tutte,” Elias Spector-Zabusky ’15 and Zal Shroff ’14 were convincing as two men earnestly defending their lovers’ faithfulness against the cynicism of the wise and humorous Don Alfonso, played by John Brakatselos continued on page 9

Glenn Lutzky / Herald

The Malian band Afri Manding serenaded an enthusiastic crowd with traditional African instruments at a concert benefiting the Mali Health Organizing Project.

Band drums up awareness for Mali By elizabeth koh Contributing Writer

Afri Manding’s soaring harp-like melodies and traditional Malian lyrics filled Alumnae Hall Friday as the Malian band performed a benefit concert sponsored by the Mali Health Organizing Project. The band — composed of band leader Sidy Maiga on djembe (an African hand drum), Yacouba Diabate on kora (a gourd-like string instrument) and Nampe Sadio on vocals — drew an enthusiastic audience by the end of the night, despite an initially poor

showing.

The event, which featured Malian merchandise and food donated by the Late Night Fund, was intended to raise awareness for the project’s work in Mali.

“We’re just trying to get people to recognize what (the project) does,” said Stephanie Saldarriaga ’12, student director of the Brown chapter of the organization. “We’re really just trying to have a presence on campus.”

The Mali Health Organizing Project, an international nonprofit, was founded by Caitlin Cohen ’08 and

Erica Trauba ’07.5 in 2006 to bring attention to the growing health crisis in Mali. Since then, the organization has been working from its base in Sikoro, a slum neighborhood just outside the capital city of Bamako, and through various high school and college student groups in the U.S. “We try to help the slum residents assess their own health needs and help them better address those health needs,” Saldarriaga said. “We just help them brainstorm and we help them get their own projects off continued on page 8

Auto-Tune altar ego charms crowd Palestinian hip-hop

group raps politics

By katherine long Senior Staff Writer

For the majority of the concertgoers who trickled into the Graduate Center Lounge Saturday night, Andrew Rose Gregory was nothing more than a songwriter with a thoughtful bluegrass repertoire and a smooth, Appalachian baritone. But his leonine mane of unkempt dirty-blonde hair and scruffy whiskers mask his alter ego — he is one-fourth of the pop culture powerhouse the Gregory Brothers, the family behind Auto-Tune the News, the Bed Intruder Song and the Double Rainbow Song.

It is hard not to notice that Gregory is a genuinely nice guy.

While most of his songs lie definitively on the blue side of the blues, his concert banter abounded with playful and mildly self-mocking humor.

Gregory paid tribute to Jack Hardy, a renowned folk musician who passed away in March. Hardy, who ran a songwriters’ circle in Greenwich Village to which Gregory belonged, was the father of Saturday’s concert organizer Morgan Hardy GS. Gregory eulogized him with the song “White Shoes,” a soulful melody that he described as “the most kick-butt-est song” he had ever heard Hardy play.

Gregory’s setlist also included two tracks from his new album, “Song of Songs,” which sets the biblical text of Solomon’s Song of Songs to contemporary orchestra-

By joseph rosales Senior Staff Writer

Po Bhattacharyya / Herald

Andrew Rose Gregory showed his quiet side Saturday night.

tion. This record, notable for its bigband sound, blue-eyed soul texture and input from Sufjan Stevens, represents a marked departure from Gregory’s previous rough-aroundthe-edges work.

“It’s full of flugelhorns and flutes,” Gregory said during the concert. This is not an understatement. Taken individually, each song is a brazen hymn polished to an arresting shine. Heard one after another, the songs merge into a treacley cacophony of brass virtuoso. Stevens’ influence is perhaps too strongly felt, especially on “Let Me See You Now,” which could have

been lifted straight from Stevens’ debut album, “Illinoise.”

Gregory was wise to stick largely to his previous works Saturday — the performance was more intimate for it. While the artistic vision of his “Song of Songs” is undoubtedly the grander, his earlier albums have the advantage of more immediate accessibility.

“He’s genuine and simultaneously doesn’t take himself too seriously,” said concertgoer Alexei Abrahams GS. “Those are rare qualities to have in combination.

I felt like I was at a campfire in West Virginia.”

Their sound is as rhythmic and their beats are as catchy as any mainstream U.S. rap group.

Their origins are similar to the rough upbringings referenced in American hip-hop songs and music videos. But where American rap often deals with money and women, Palestinian hip-hop group DAM draws its inspiration from real-life problems in the Middle East — the occupation of the West Bank and tension between Israel and Palestine — creating a powerful message through the art of rap.

DAM treated the crowd at Alumnae Hall to an intimate performance Saturday.

Though the event began 15 minutes late due to sound issues, which persisted throughout the performances, the audience seemed excited to be a part of the group’s second performance at Brown.

Before the group got started, Eric Axelman ’12 introduced Jackie Salloum, a filmmaker who showed the first 15 minutes of her documentary, “Slingshot HipHop,” which delves into the rise of Palestinian hip-hop and its effects on the Middle East at large. For those unfamiliar with the group’s origins, the documentary was a quick introduction to their rise to

prominence.

DAM was founded by two brothers, Suhell Nafar and Tamer Nafar, and their neighbor Mahmoud Jreri. They began rapping out of a love of music and soon found themselves at the head of a new hip-hop movement that originated from the political instability in the Middle East. In the clip shown, DAM described their group as “30 percent hiphop, 30 percent literature and 40 percent” the experiences that came with living in Lyd, the rumored drug capital of Israel.

Once the group came on stage, the atmosphere turned into more of a concert setting. Though the 60-person crowd was dwarfed by the massive hall, DAM quickly made the concert a more intimate setting with their conversational introductions and constant jokes.

When asked, the audience revealed a 50-50 split between Arabic and non-Arabic speakers, but DAM’s beats made everyone dance, regardless of language barriers. The group made sure to check in on the audience between every song, and even taught a few Arabic words to help the crowd better understand their music.

American influences were front and center — Major Lazer continued on page 9