Monday, November 28, 2011

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxlvi, no. 113

Monday, November 28, 2011

Since 1891

After 375 years, Providence still rocking

Heartbreaker in OT knocks Bears from tournament

By Sam rubinroit Assistant Sports Editor

By Emma Wohl Contributing Writer

The men’s soccer team saw its NCAA tournament run come to an end last night, falling to St. Mary’s College in overtime 3-2 at Stevenson Field.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras may disagree with a number of people on a variety of issues — public school teachers on their contracts, city drivers on the cost of parking.

m. soccer “The NCAA tournament is a great adventure,” said Head Coach Patrick Laughlin. “For every team in the country, your season ends on a loss unless you are the champion. Unfortunately for us, our season ended tonight.”

The Bears were a dark horse team, having entered the tourna-

city & state

to the United States.

In China, employees often must work late into the night, but the long hours do not necessarily

But as he demonstrated Nov. 22 with the event Hey Providence, It’s Your Birthday! Celebrate 375 Years, held at Providence Performing Arts Center, the mayor understands there are some things everyone can get behind: music, fireworks and free cake.

For the city’s 375th birthday celebration — a fundraiser for the Providence Community Library — the mayor’s office presented in one night some of the city’s best artists, performers, pastry chefs and food on the go. It also brought together on stage all five of Providence’s living mayors — Taveras, Joseph Paolino Jr., Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, John Lombardi and Rep. David Cicilline ’83 D-R.I. “This city began as a lively experiment that’s still going,” Taveras said. No matter the difficulties the city faces, “somehow we always emerge,” he said.

continued on page 4

continued on page 2

Emily Gilbert / Herald

T.J. Popolizio ‘12 celebrates Bruno’s first goal against St. Mary’s College, but the Gaels eventually prevailed in OT.

ment as an at-large bid. The squad defeated Fairfield at home 3-2 before traveling to New York, where the Bears upset St. John’s 1-0 and earned a spot in the Sweet 16 for

the second consecutive year.

St. Mary’s dictated the pace early in the game, drawing first blood on a goal from Trevor Newquist in the 29th minute. The Bears ap-

peared flat-footed in the opening half, and though the Gaels only outshot the Bears 7-6, the visitcontinued on page 3

Occupy calls Int’l grad students struggle to acculturate Brown’s 1,984 graduate students, toral research associate in molecufor campus according to Jabbar Bennett, as- lar pharmacology, physiology and sistant dean for recruiting and biotechnology, said funding opporstrike to More than one-third of interna- professional development for the tunities, treatment of lab employtional graduate students are from Graduate School. But with cultural ees, availability of lab materials and And this year’s 228 Chinese differences, restrictive work sched- assistance offered by professors, start today China. students dramatically outnumber ules and language difficulties, Chi- advisers and students all drew him

By Meia Geddes Contributing Writer

By jordan hendricks Senior Staff Writer

In solidarity with more than 40 college campuses nationwide, members of Occupy College Hill planned a general strike to begin at 10 a.m. today, asking members of the Brown community to “refuse to attend class, go to work and conduct business of any kind,” according to a statement released by the group.

The strike is to support students from the University of California at Davis, who called for a general strike in response to a proposed 81 percent tuition increase and a highly publicized incident in which campus police used pepper spray on protesters at Occupy UC Davis last week.

Occupy College Hill aims to support UC Davis and also “to show that Brown students are not sheltered from these same conditions that hinder students across the country,” said Ian Georgianna ’15, one of the event’s organiz-

inside

continued on page 4

news....................2-4 SPORTS....................5 editorial...............6 Opinions................7 ARTS..........................8

nese graduate students sometimes have a hard time acculturating to life at Brown.

Enticed by opportunity

Michael Cao ’11 GS, a postdoc-

Increased satisfaction reflects advising changes By hannah Kerman Contributing Writer

Many students are drawn to Brown by the freedom and independence the New Curriculum offers. But once they arrive on campus, some

the herald poll struggle to find a thread of continuity to hold together their many academic interests.

“At a place where there is so much choice, advising is paramount,” said Ann Gaylin, associate dean of the College for first-year and sophomore studies.

According to a recent Herald poll, 72 percent of students say they are satisfied with advising, a significant jump from the 49 percent who

Go Global

New initiative inspires international collaboration Campus news, 3

Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your academic advising experience at Brown?

indicated they were satisfied in the spring of 2008. Gaylin said the Office of the Dean of the College has been working hard in recent years to earn those percentage points.

“Every facet of advising has gone through improvement,” she said.

These improvements include new developments such as the electronic Advising Sidekick, expansion of programs like the Meiklejohn system and the transformation of the Center for Career Development into the CareerLAB. Though poll results may reflect these new programs, advising is still evolving.

Juniors and seniors are much less satisfied with advising than underclassmen — 83 percent of continued on page 2

Race Pace

Lowry ’12 races to AllAmerican honor sports, 5

Anna Migliaccio / Herald

Got Ideas?

Cao ’13 discusses social media and studying

Opinions, 7

weather

the next-most represented country, Korea.

Six-hundred forty-four international doctoral and master’s students, representing 72 countries, make up about 30 percent of

Comes in response to police brutality at UC Davis protests

t o d ay

tomorrow

60 / 51

62 / 50

2 Campus News calendar Today

November 28

4 P.m.

ToMORROW

november 29

5:30 p.m.

Occult Economics of Aid in Haiti,

Immigrant Voices in Greek Fiction,

Watson Institute, Jakowski Forum

Maddock Alumni Center

5:30 p.m.

8 p.m.

Zhen Zhang Lecture,

SPEC’s Candy Land,

Granoff Center for the Creative Arts

Sayles Hall

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH Bacon Ranch Chicken Sandwich, Baked Macaroni & Cheese, Green Beans

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Italian Meatballs with Pasta, Pizza Rustica, Italian Couscous, Italian Vegetable Saute

Sudoku

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 28, 2011

With sweets and songs, a city feted continued from page 1 He called his success story “testimony not just to our great city but to our nation.”

A 10-minute barrage of fireworks over the roofs of Johnson and Wales University, best viewed from the line of food trucks stationed outside the event, followed Taveras’ remarks.

The action then shifted scenes.

The lobby of the Providence Performing Arts Center abounded with cakes of all shapes and sizes.

Competing to win their creators the title of Official Providence 375 Bakery, some paid tribute to city landmarks — WaterFire, the statue of Roger Williams, the Haven Bros. food truck and the dome of the State House — with three-dimensional representations in batter and frosting.

Few of the more than 2,000 guests made it through the lobby and into the performance hall for the first few acts, but those who did were well-rewarded. The Barr Brothers, an alternative rock outfit whose founding members hail from the Ocean State, played an hour-long set. The songs ranged from soothing bluegrass to blaring punk rock.

Grammy-winner Jeffrey Osborne, who got his start playing at Providence clubs, came down into the audience for help with his second song. Upon asking, “Does anybody out there want to woo-woo-

Emma Wohl / Herald

Throngs gather to enjoy live music and celebrate the city’s 375th birthday.

woo?” he got plenty of volunteers.

After receiving support mainly from black audience members, Osborne, a black soul singer, asked specifically for white volunteers and got the best-received cameo of the night from State Sen. Frank Ciccone, DProvidence and North Providence.

The highlight of the night was the performance by alt-rock group and 2009 Spring Weekend performers Deer Tick, who originally hail from the city and last month released the album “Divine Providence.” While the band noted that they were more accustomed to badly lit bars than to an enormous concert hall, their enthusiasm and raw noise easily carried to all corners of the Providence Performing Arts Center.

Songs like “Main Street” and “Baltimore Blues No. 1” were received enthusiastically by a crowd that was many years older than the band’s typical audience.

The most memorable parts of the act were goofy one-liners delivered between songs. “I can’t believe this guy Providence is 375 years old,” said John McCauley, the band’s lead singer. “He must be some kind of dinosaur turtle or something.”

But the end of Deer Tick’s performance offered a reminder of the disconnect between the band and its venue. To the sounds of feedback, McCauley hurled his guitar at an amp and closed out his band’s set with the punk anthem, “Let’s all go to the bar.”

Upperclassmen get advising upgrades Crossword

continued from page 1 first-years indicated that they were either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with advising, while 61 percent of seniors said the same thing.

“First-years are always happier,” Gaylin said. “We see the same dissatisfaction across peer institutions.”

Besenia Rodriguez, associate dean of the College for research and upperclass studies, noted the same trend but believes the Office of the Dean of the College is moving advising for upperclassmen in the right direction.

“We started by placing a huge initiative on first-years and sophomores,” she said. “Now we are looking at concentration advisers.”

University Hall is taking a twopronged approach to improving advising for upperclassmen. The peer-advising system has expanded

Daily

the Brown

with Departmental Undergraduate Groups — 25 new DUGS have been created in the past two years. And Rodriguez said there has been an effort to increase support for concentration advisers to provide them with the same resources available for first-year advisers.

“We’re trying to use concentration advisers as a vehicle for careerplanning, a way to demystify life after Brown,” Rodriguez said. With the expansion of the CareerLAB and a recent project involving a compilation of alumni testimony that provides students with a sense of the “diverse job opportunities” available to them, Rodriguez and her colleagues are attempting to give upperclassmen advice and mentoring that fits their stage of education.

“We want to help students identify what their direction could or should be,” she said.

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“Because the open curriculum is so individualistic, it seems that the point of the advisers is not to tell me what to do — it’s to let me tell them what I want to do,” said Kristy Choi ’15. “It’s worked out pretty well. My professor has been good, but I love my Meik.”

Jane Hu ’15 said support from both professors and Meiklejohn advisers creates an effective system.

“I’m interested in neuro and French, and my Meik is in neuro and my adviser is a French professor, so it worked out. They can guide me in different ways,” she said.

“Advising was much more formal freshman year. Now it’s more like mentoring,” said Susie Ahn ’13, who described her adviser as a “sounding board” for her ideas.

While student testimonial on advising is generally positive, there is still room for improvement and effective changes.

According to Gaylin and Rodriguez, the system will keep evolving, and the University will continue its efforts to provide students with guidance during their time at Brown.

Methodology

Written questionnaires were administered to 851 undergraduates Nov. 2-3. The poll has a 3.1 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. The margin of error is 6.4 percent for seniors, 3.6 percent for non-seniors, 6.3 percent for first-year students and 3.6 percent for nonfirst-years.

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

Campus News 3

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 28, 2011

Program sparks global collaboration

By Viktoria Belberova Contributing Writer

John Bodel, chair of the classics department, is one of only a few scholars in the world working to digitize ancient manuscripts.

On the other side of the Atlantic ocean, Michele Brunet, professor of Greek epigraphy at University of Lyon 2 in France, is working on a similar project, looking at ancient documents housed in Paris’ Louvre Museum. Now, thanks to a new global exchange program launched by the University, professors like Bodel and Brunet will be able to share expertise in all disciplines by traveling to far-flung campuses to learn from their international colleagues.

Brown Global Forums, a new initiative administered by the Office of International Affairs and aimed at establishing research collaborations between faculty in partner institutions from around the world, is in its formative stages.

“International collaborations are quite important,” especially because the field needs scholars who are skilled in digital encod-

ing and speak Latin, Greek and modern European languages, Bodel said.

Going forward, Brown will invite professors from partner institutions and will in turn send its own faculty to foreign universities for about a week. The forums could lead to collaborative research and projects bringing together Brown professors with their colleagues around the world, said Matthew Gutmann, vice president for international affairs.

The forums will aim to foster collaboration between professors and institutions through lectures, seminars, workshops and meals between faculty, according to the Office of International Affairs website.

They will be open to faculty members from all disciplines, Gutmann said. Though the University is still negotiating partnerships with foreign institutions, early plans include exchanges with the University of Sao Paulo, State University of Campinas, Nanjing University, Zhejiang University, University of Science and Technology, Ifaki-Ekiti, the University of Hong Kong, Peking University,

University of Lyon 2, Bogazici University, Koc University, University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand.

Brunet, the French epigraphy professor, was invited by the classics department to participate in the initiative last month. She lectured in a graduate student seminar and gave a public lecture on the significance of water in the construction of ancient Delos.

The visit also helped spark dialogue between scholars at Brown and their European colleagues.

Bodel said Brown Global Forums “planted the further connection” between two members of a “small but growing international consortium” of scholars, who are trying to develop standards for the digitalization of ancient inscriptions.

Brown was once an early pioneer in digital humanities, and the new collaboration will help “invigorate” the University’s reputation as a leader in the field, Bodel said. Global Forums is planning the second part of the exchange, which will send a Brown professor or graduate student to the University of Lyon 2 to continue the collaboration.

Series of bicycle thefts plague campus The following summary includes a selection of major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Oct. 17 and Nov. 3. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents oc-

crime log curring off campus. DPS does not divulge information on cases that are currently under investigation by the department, PPD or the Office of Student Life. DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls, which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters at 75 Charlesfield St.

Oct. 20 12:59 p.m. A student reported that on Oct. 19 at 3 a.m. he locked his bike with a cable lock to a railing at Lot 5. When he returned Oct. 20 at 10 a.m. the bike was missing.

The lock was cut and lying on the ground. His bike was not registered with DPS. Oct. 21 1:18 p.m. A student reported he left his bike unlocked and unattended outside Young Orchard 2 Oct. 20 at 1 p.m. When he returned Oct. 21 at 9:30 a.m. it was missing.

His bike was not registered with DPS. 4:12 p.m. A student stated that on Oct. 19 at approximately 6 p.m. he secured his bike on the railing outside Young Orchard 10 and when he returned Oct. 20 at 9 a.m.

it was missing.

7:17 p.m. A student stated he chained his bike to the fence on the terrace level outside Graduate Center, Tower C. While he was on his way to dinner at 6 p.m. Oct 21, he noticed the bike missing and the lock cut.

Oct. 23 7:45 p.m. A student left the desk area where he was studying at the Rockefeller Library to use the restroom. When he returned his laptop was missing. A witness observed two individuals rushing out of the area. The case is under investigation

by University detectives.

Oct. 27 5:49 p.m. A student stated that at approximately 9 a.m. he locked his mountain bike to the bike rack outside Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sciences with a standard cable lock.

Upon returning at approximately 5:45 p.m. the bike was missing and the cable lock was lying on the bike rack. The cable appeared to have been cut.

Oct. 29 11:41 p.m. A student stated that while hosting a party at his house on Benevolent Street someone was giving his friend, who was working the door, a hard time. He then approached the individual to tell him to leave the property and the individual punched the student in the face. The student was transported to the hospital for a cut on his lip.

He did not wish to pursue criminal charges. The case was turned over to the Office of Student Life.

Oct. 31 1:13 p.m. A student stated his bike was taken from the rack outside Perkins Hall sometime between 8:40 a.m. and noon. The cable lock that had been used to secure it was cut and found on the ground.

1:41 p.m. A student stated that on Oct. 25 he locked his bike to the rack on the Main Green. When he returned Oct. 31 at 10:45 a.m. the bike was missing. It had been locked with a cable lock.

Nov. 3 1:19 p.m. A student reported that sometime between 8 p.m. on Oct. 31 and 1 p.m. on Nov. 3, His bicycle, which had been locked to a portable stand near the patio of Goddard House, was taken.

4:49 p.m. An employee reported that she had parked her vehicle at 10 a.m. on Power Street. When she arrived at her vehicle at 4:45 p.m. she observed that her vehicle’s passenger window was smashed out and the GPS that she had left in view in the vehicle was missing.

PPD also took a report.

9:47 p.m. A student stated he left his bike secured with a cable lock to the bike rack at Graduate Center, Tower C at 12:30 p.m. At 9:30 p.m. he found the bike missing and the cable cut and on the ground.

Follow Sports! twitter.com/bdh_sports

Emily Gilbert / Herald

Ben Maurey ’14 fends off a Gael defender in the throes of a physical matchup.

Bears bow out of NCAA tournament in overtime continued from page 1 ing team held a 5-0 advantage in corner kicks. It was not until the closing seconds of the half that the Bears produced a spark, as forward Ben Maurey ’15 put a shot on goal that was just turned away

by Gaels’ goalkeeper Doug Herrick on a fingertip save.

The Bears burst out of the gate after halftime — Dylan Remick ’13 tied the game just five minutes into the half by knocking in a set piece free kick from Jay Hayward ’12.

With the Gaels still reeling, the Bears struck again in the 62nd minute when Sean Rosa ’12 finished a cross from Taylor Gorman ’12 from close range to give Brown a 2-1 advantage.

While many fans continued to celebrate the Bears’ goal, the Gaels answered right back. In the 64th minute, Tom Mohoric was on the finishing end of a Jose Cabeza free kick and glanced a header past Brown goalkeeper Sam KernanSchloss ’13.

The two teams battled for the remainder of the second half, but neither was able to find the back of the net and the game was sent into overtime.

Again the Bears emerged with vigor, and the crowd released a collective sigh as Rosa put a leftfooted shot from point blank range just wide early on.

But in the end, St. Mary’s came away with the golden goal. In the 97th minute, Newquist netted his second tally of the night, bringing the Bears’ improbable tournament run to a close.

“Our team showed a lot of resilience and a lot of character,” said St. Mary’s head coach Adam Cooper. “There were spurts in the second half, and certainly in that first overtime, when they had the

momentum and they were the better team at the time. But we found a way to weather that storm and come back and take advantage of our opportunities.”

St. Mary’s NCAA journey will continue in the program’s secondever tournament appearance. The Gaels earned their first-ever postseason win against Cal-State Bakersfield and defeated UC Irvine in double overtime to reach the Sweet 16. Sunday’s win propels the Gaels into the quarterfinals, where they will face off against No. 1 seed North Carolina.

The two squads prided themselves on their defense throughout the season, with the Gaels earning 10 shut-outs and the Bears earning 11. Both teams were surprised by the high-scoring thriller.

“You look at the two teams, and you probably wouldn’t expect that,” Laughlin said. “But in the tournament, a lot of things change because you’re in a situation where you win and advance, or lose and not advance. When they got the first goal, we knew we needed to get a goal. When we got up 2-1, they knew they needed to get a goal, so it creates that pressure.”

Laughlin said it was difficult for his squad to see its season come to a close, especially given the numerous opportunities they had to clinch the victory.

Nonetheless, Ryan McDuff ’13 said he was proud of his team’s ability to fight for a spot in the Sweet 16 after narrowly entering the tournament with an at-large bid for the second consecutive year.

“If you asked most of the teams in the country if they’d be happy with a Sweet 16 berth, especially two in a row, they’d be happy,” McDuff said. “I think that it’s a testament to this team that we weren’t satisfied.”

4 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 28, 2011

Chinese grad students face cultural challenges continued from page 1 translate into greater productivity or more income, Cao said. A student in China would perhaps make only $30 a month, he said.

The dormitories in China are also less comfortable, with four or five people to a room, he added.

Despite what Cao sees as a better system in the United States, he said it is sometimes difficult for graduate students to adjust to Brown and American culture.

“You have to get used to the culture and not the culture used to you,” Cao said.

Cao is involved with Brown’s Chinese Scholarship and Student Association and a soccer club, where he met most of his close Chinese friends at Brown. Cao said his friendships are mainly with Chinese students. He sees Americans as more independent — Chinese people tend to stick together in groups whenever possible, he said.

He also said Chinese grad students work more than their American peers. “Chinese students work very hard — the international students tend to be working harder than the American students,” he said.

Yuanyuan Zhang GS, a secondyear graduate student in the chemistry department, said she usually spends time with other Chinese students because they attended the same university in China as she did or are now in the same department at Brown. Bennett said many Chinese students are in physical sciences programs such as chemistry.

“If I am not familiar with his or her life, and he is not familiar with mine, it’s hard to talk to each other,” Zhang said.

But Shumin Yao GS, president of the Chinese Scholarship and Student Association and a student in the chemistry department, said she would like to see more interaction between Chinese students and other students on campus.

Chinese students do not tend to make a strong appearance at Graduate Student Council events, said Matteo Riondato GS, the council’s president.

“I wonder if the events are not appealing to them, or if (the Chinese Scholarship and Student Association) already takes care of the social aspect of their graduate student life,” Riondato said.

The association hosts many traditional activities like the celebration of the Chinese New Year but hopes to cooperate more with the Graduate Student Council and the Year of China initiative.

“We want more meetings with American students here — in that way we can make friends with the Americans,” Yao said. “I am thinking we can have parties together with them.” She said she thinks it is difficult for Chinese graduate students to socialize because they “do not love social networking” and are busy with their research and studies.

Though some departments hold events to welcome new students at the start of the fall semester, students should not rely on the University to support their social life, Bennett said. “We do things to support (international students’) interests and to respect their culture and backgrounds, but I think it’s up to the student at that stage in their lives and their careers to take more ownership and sort of navigate,” he said.

Acculturation, not assimilation, is key, Bennett said. Assimilation speaks to encouraging people to possibly forget who or what they are, Bennett said, whereas acculturation is about helping students become acclimated to the environment at Brown.

The University has a program for international teaching assistants, which includes a language component, instruction on how to navigate Providence and assistance with setting up cell phones, bank accounts and housing, Bennett said.

But the University currently lacks many resources provided to international students at other schools, including a devoted space on campus to find advising, social opportunities and assistance with legal issues, said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron. “We need to develop our advising programs to address the particular needs international students have,” she said.

Learning English

The University requires all international students in the physical sciences to take a two-week summer Seminar for English Language and Acculturation.

Zhang said she had never stepped foot in the United States before coming to Brown and found

it difficult at first to communicate in English. She now speaks English regularly with her adviser and peers. “Speaking in research language is not quite a big problem for me now,” she said. But speaking “out of the circle of my study” can be difficult.

“If you want to improve your English, it’s better to take social activities with American people here than taking class,” Yao said.

She said she now has trouble recalling the material she learned in an English for Internationals course.

Cao also said he found communication difficult at first. He said he came to the country in 2005 to attend Providence College as a visiting scholar for about two years before applying to the PhD program at Brown.

“When you are nervous, especially at the beginning first year, you’ll find it’s very hard to organize what you want to say in English,” he said. He said he tries to keep his presentations simple. At conferences, he said he replaces spoken explanation with lots of information on slides. But he said he has gained confidence.

“I think the biggest support goes back to people,” said Barbara Gourlay, coordinator for the English for international teaching assistants program. She emphasized the importance of “creating environments and structures in the University that encourage and promote communicating with all people using English.”

As a component of their English for internationals courses, firstyear international students are paired with undergraduate native English-speaking consultants to converse for one hour each week during the semester.

Yao said she found her consultant very helpful, both for learning English and for familiarizing herself with American culture. Yao also has a host family through the International House, with whom she has spent Thanksgiving and other American holidays. “We have a very good relationship — it really helps you to learn about American culture,” she said.

Teaching to learn

In the classroom, Chinese graduate students also face challenges. During her first semester as a TA, Zhang said she worried about understanding and answer-

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ing students’ questions. “I think the students would like to communicate with me, and if they ask questions, I want to feel like I’m helpful,” Zhang said.

Gourlay said the University tries to work with the departments to find a good match between students’ individual communication skills and the departments’ needs.

“It’s not a one-size fits all,” Gourlay said. In one case, a student did not have the necessary certification, so they worked with the department to find appropriate duties and responsibilities that would allow the student to meet departmental requirements.

“Sometimes people have good English skills, but they don’t necessarily have the necessary teaching skills,” Gourlay said.

Gourlay said departments are invited to participate in the final TA evaluation process each year.

An English as a second language professional and undergraduates also attend evaluations. “At all points in our program, we really value the input that undergraduates give us in terms of, ‘Is this person a successful communicator in English for classroom purposes?’”

Gourlay said.

“In general, once students exit our program with the certification status that they need, it really is the department’s responsibility to oversee what happens in their particular classrooms,” Gourlay said.

Being a TA brings challenges for both undergrads and graduate students. Graduate students are not necessarily placed as TAs in classes they are familiar with, Cao said. Students may ask some very detailed questions that TAs may not be prepared to answer, Cao said.

Yao pointed out that being a TA is time-consuming on top of all the other work graduate students have.

A full-time TA position, which consumes 20 hours per week, takes up too much time, she said.

Occasionally a department will come back asking for more help with certain students, Gourlay said. But Bennett said he had never heard a program come back to say the graduate student TA was not prepared after going through the training.

Post-graduation

The departments tend to know where their students go after

Brown better than the Graduate School, Bennett said. “That’s data we actually want to capture and understand better in the Graduate School,” he said. “We’re working more closely now with Alumni Relations to begin to collect that data for all graduate students,” he said.

Gourlay spoke of how graduate students seem to have “very specific ideas of what they want to do,” but exposure to the possibilities at Brown opens up their worlds.

Yao said during her first semester as a graduate student, it was difficult to think about the future.

“You come here, and you see so many things different from your own country, and you begin to feel that your own country needs some change, and you begin to consider what you are going to do,” Yao said.

“For a month I was thinking, ‘What I am going to do? I’m so worried about my future.’ But then I concluded I’ll spend my five years to learn and get opportunities I can get, and then I’ll know about what I’ll do in the future.”

With four more years to complete her PhD, Yao said she is unsure of her future plans. “America is a better place for research,” she said. “It’s a developed country.

There is a better working atmosphere.” But some graduate students choose to return to their home countries because they want to help their own countries develop, Yao said.

Cao, who is finishing papers and looking to publish them, said he hopes to complete his thesis this year and look for a position as a professor in China. Nowadays, some Chinese students would rather stay in China if they can find a decent job, Cao said. He mentioned his twin brother, who stayed with a Chinese company and makes more money than Cao does now, and his wife’s brother, who decided not to go to graduate school in America in favor of a position at a bank in China. But “if I go back to China I will miss lots of things here,” he said.

Zhang said she would prefer to return to China and would like to become a professor, though it depends on what type of job she can find. But she does have four more years at Brown. Though she suffered anxiety during her first semester at Brown, she said she feels now that “everything is settled down.”

Campus-wide strike planned for today continued from page 1 ers. After the initial walk-out, the protesters plan to assemble on the Main Green and then march to the Rhode Island State House to present their views against privatizing public education.

Adam Thongsavat, president of the Associated Students of UC Davis, said it is important that stu-

dents outside of his school recognize “the gravity of what happened” last week when campus police pepper sprayed Occupiers.

“It’s incredibly encouraging,” Thongsavat said, “to get all these emails and phone calls from literally across the nation and to know that other students are paying attention to what’s going on on our campus.”

Sports Monday 5

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 28, 2011

w. hockey

Bears retake Mayor’s Cup from PC Bruno already guaranteed better record than last year’s By sam wickham Sports Staff Writer

The women’s hockey team won only two of 29 games last season, but what a difference a year makes.

After getting a new coach and a fresh set of recruits in the offseason, the Bears (3-3-5, 1-2-3 ECAC) have already won and tied more games this season than they

PC Brown

Courtesy of Tony DeSabato

Dan Lowry ‘12 passes Syracuse’s Pat Dupont en route to a 28th-place finish.

cross country

Lowry ’12 runs his way to All-American honors By james blum Sports Staff Writer

“Coming into Brown, I wanted to be All-American by the time I graduated,” said Dan Lowry ’12.

It took him four years, but last Monday Lowry achieved his goal, placing 28th out of 252 runners at the 2011 NCAA Division I National Cross Country Championship in Terre Haute, Ind. By finishing the 10-kilometer course in 29 minutes and 57.2 seconds, he placed among the race’s first 40 finishers, qualifying him for All-American status.

“He ran really, really well,” said Tim Springfield, head coach of the men’s cross country team. “I couldn’t have been happier with his race overall.”

The field was led by Lawi Lalang of the University of Arizona, who finished the course in 28:44.1, averaging a pace of 4:37 per mile. The University of Wisconsin won the team competition with 97 points, beating secondplace Oklahoma State University by 42 points.

Lowry said he started the race next to Lalang and had a fast start, but settled into a manageable pace for the first two kilometers of the race. Lowry said he was motivated when Ethan Shaw of Dartmouth passed him at five kilometers — at the 2011 Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, Shaw finished first, only 11 seconds ahead of Lowry.

“He put himself in the right spot and moved at the right time,” Springfield said. “He also pushed when it got really hard.”

At the two-kilometer mark, Lowry was in 55th place. From there, he worked his way up through the field.

“I focused on keeping the race in front of me and picking off the next person,” Lowry said. “The last 1,000 meters, I was hanging on by a thread. Two people got me on the last straightaway, but other than that, I was moving up the entire race.”

Springfield said Lowry did a good job of staying relaxed and focused, while at the same time maintaining a fast pace.

“He passed 30 people, and to do that when you’re tired requires a lot of concentration and a lot of determination,” Springfield said.

“The last 1,000 meters was just a matter of being tough and finishing what he started, holding onto that spot.”

Lowry said he fed off the energy of the race’s large crowd — something he had never before experienced.

“The entire course was completely lined with spectators, and I’ve never seen that before,” Lowry said. “Once I cracked the top 30, there was so much support from the spectators. It was really motivating.”

Before the starting gun, Springfield said he told Lowry to be prepared for the race to feel different because of the competitive field.

“I reminded him that he was well-prepared and ready to do what he did because of the hard work that he put in,” Springfield said.

Lowry’s finish was the highest at the national championship in 23 years for a member of Brown men’s cross country — in 1988, Greg Whiteley ’89 finished 23rd for Bruno.

“I couldn’t think of a better way to end my last season here,” Lowry said.

browndailyherald.com/sports

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did all of last year. Their latest victory, a 2-1 win over cross-town rival Providence College (6-8-3), came in the Mayor’s Cup Friday.

The Bears got out to an early lead against the Friars with goals from first-year forwards Janice Yang ’15 and Brittany Moorehead ’15. Goaltender Aubree Moore ’14 shut down the net late in the game to seal the win for the Bears, stretching Bruno’s unbeaten streak to six games. A 3-1 loss to No. 4 Boston College (10-4-1) Sunday was the squad’s first defeat this month.

First-year Head Coach Amy Bourbeau said her team defended well against Providence. “I was happy with how we killed (the Friars’) power plays. We battled for 60 hard minutes. From the drop of the puck on, we never gave up, we never let down for a second.”

Bruno’s penalty kill weathered two infractions in the first 10 minutes, but the Bears still managed to get on the scoreboard first 13 minutes after the puck dropped.

Co-captain Katelyn Landry ’12 sent a lofted pass in front of the net toward Yang, who swiped the puck out of the air and into the goal to give her team a 1-0 advantage.

The Bears smelled blood and scored again just two minutes later. On the power play, Moorehead finished off a nice build-up to stretch Bruno’s lead to 2-0 with five minutes remaining in the period.

“All of the freshmen are excellent and have all contributed from the start,” Bourbeau said.

“They work hard, they’re quick, and they’re feisty around the net.”

The Friars poured on the pres-

sure in the second period, creating scoring chances during two power plays in the first 13 minutes of the frame. But big saves from Moore and strong play from the penalty kill unit kept the frustrated Friars off the board.

“We definitely made adjustments,” Bourbeau said. “We tried to keep our defensive unit back a little bit and tried to keep the puck out of the middle of the ice and to keep them to the outside. We tried to let them have outside shots.”

The Friars kept pushing for goals deep in the third period and finally notched one 15 minutes in, bringing the score to 2-1. But the Friars could not beat Bruno’s defense again for the equalizer — even after pulling their goalie — and Bruno managed to hang on for the win.

Despite following up the win with a tight loss to the Eagles, Bourbeau remained positive.

“Mentally, our kids have competed in every game, against every opponent,” Bourbeau said. “I think they’re beginning to feel confident about their abilities and confident that they can play with anyone.”

comics Dreadful Cosmology | Oirad Macmit

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

The Unicomic | Eva Chen and Dan Sack

6 Editorial & Letter Editorial

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 28, 2011

Editorial cartoon

by a l e x y u ly

Toward a better Herald When The Herald’s 121st Editorial Board departs after this semester, it will leave behind an impressive legacy. When The 122nd Editorial Board takes over in January, the new board should continue this momentum by creating an ombudsman position, a change that should make for a more critical and responsive paper.

Newspapers hire ombudsmen to serve two main purposes. First, the ombudsman serves as a conciliator between the publication and the community it serves. Second, the ombudsman scrutinizes the paper and writes a regular column — perhaps twice a month — expressing feedback from the community and assessing certain parts of the paper’s coverage. Ombudsmen must be otherwise unaffiliated with the newspaper for which they consult.

The Herald is, of course, a paper of which any campus would be proud. Ultimately, any paper that employs an ombudsman allows itself more interaction with and feedback from the community for which it reports. Further, by opening itself up to more feedback, and giving the ombudsman a regular column, the paper creates another accountability device. By increasing scrutiny of its own coverage, the publication can learn from its mistakes, improve its reporting and earn even more legitimacy.

In an email to the Editorial Page Board, the New York Times’ Public Editor Arthur Brisbane, their moniker for ombudsman, echoed this sentiment. Brisbane stated that an ombudsman has a “salutary effect” on any publication and is essential to create a “formal approach to receiving outside complaints and investigating them.”

The ombudsman can help The Herald in many ways. First, the paper’s correction section and occasional battles in the “Letters” section show that problems of misinformation and misreporting are inevitable. An ombudsman is essential to provide clarifications where appropriate. Second, an ombudsman can serve as an archivist, examining how previous edit boards tackled certain issues and how we can learn from the past. Third, an ombudsman can provide fresh eyes to the mainstays of Herald coverage. It might be difficult for editors to see possible improvements to the status quo given their institutionalized roles in the paper, and an outsider might have better perspective to evaluate some of the paper’s basic elements. Fourth, an ombudsman can best relay feedback from the Brown community on specific policies or articles.

What’s more, people are sometimes confused as to where they should lodge complaints, questions or suggestions. Given that the ombudsman would act as a liaison between The Herald and the greater Brown community, he or she would be able to synthesize and express more concerns from the College Hill community.

Ultimately, both The Herald and our University community can only benefit from increasing dialogue and providing a greater scrutinizing force for the paper. We hope that the incoming editorial board seriously considers adding an ombudsman position to The Herald.

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

letter to the editor Dean lends too much weight to Rhodes wins To the Editor: I think it great that Brown won four Rhodes Scholarships, and seemingly, the process of applying has been greatly improved.

Still, Linda Dunleavy’s several quoted remarks seem silly even, like, winning proves Brown has “arrived.”

Well, I thought the place arrived around 1775 — and everyone is now embarrassed even on whose back it arrived on — but whatever.

Brown, this year, fell a spot, I think, in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. Does this prove Brown

fell in some dark hole and is dead? I think, too, the number of Fulbrights was down this year. Did Brown check into Butler Hospital and get electroconvulsive therapy with bad memory loss? What is true is that schools toot their horns very loudly and often grossly.

And generally Brown is not so bad mostly, since it seems more silly.

And, hey, I am thrilled the school arrived. I always was afraid graduating long ago that I hallucinated the place entirely.

Richard Steingesser ’72

quote of the day

“I can’t believe this guy Providence is 375 years old.

He must be some kind of dinosaur turtle.”

— John McCauley See sweets on page 2.

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

Managing Editors

Senior Editors

Sydney Ember Ben Schreckinger

Brigitta Greene Anne Speyer

Dan Alexander Nicole Friedman Julien Ouellet

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

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

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

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

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

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

Business General Managers Matthew Burrows Isha Gulati

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Directors Aditi Bhatia Danielle Marshak Margot Grinberg Lisa Berlin

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Managers Justin Lee Collections Collections Sam Plotner Nicky Robbins Invoice Staff Kevin Lynch Daniel Slutsky Analytics Jared Davis Sales and Communications Alumni Engagement Nikita Khadloya Emily Simmons Ad Relations Human Relations James Eng Angel Lee Business Development Owen Millard Business Development Gregory Chatzinoff Web Relations Post- magazine Editor-in-Chief Sam Knowles Editor-in-Chief Amelia Stanton BLOG DAILY HERALD David Winer Editor-in-Chief Matt Klimerman Managing Editor

Corrections An article in last Monday’s Herald (“Bears Stampede into Sweet 16,” Nov. 21) incorrectly stated that the men’s soccer team would travel to the West Coast to play its next game in the NCAA tournament. In fact, the game was held at Stevenson Field Sunday at 5 p.m. The Herald regrets the error.

Due to an editing error, an article in last Monday’s Herald (“Brown officials join trade mission,” Nov. 21) quoted Katherine Gordon, managing director of Brown’s Technology Ventures Office, as saying she believed Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s ’75 P’14 absence detracted from the success of the trade mission. In fact, Gordon stated she thought the absence did not negatively affect the trip. The Herald regrets the error.

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

C ommentary P O L I C Y The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

L etters to the E ditor P olicy Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

Opinions 7

The Brown Daily Herald Monday, November 28, 2011

Justice for Haitian workers

By Ian Trupin Opinions Columnist

When Johnny Joseph went to work at his factory, Genesis S.A., Friday, Sept. 23, he had only been the treasurer of Sendika Ouvriye Takstil ak Abiman — a newly recognized union of Haitian garment workers — for a week. That day at work, he began to feel sick and asked his boss for leave to return home. His boss refused, so Joseph continued working, though he felt steadily worse throughout the day. His boss then told him that he had to work overtime, and that if he returned home, he would have to give up his employee badge and resign on the way out. When he felt that he could not endure working any longer, Joseph signed his resignation and went home to rest.

He was only the first. In the following days, six of seven leading members of the union were fired or forced to resign from their factory jobs.

This attack on workers advocating for their own rights is particularly disturbing in Haiti, which is widely recognized as one of the worst places in the world to be a garment industry worker, with the lowest wages in the western hemisphere. In the Portau-Prince factories where Joseph’s union formed, sweatshop abuses like forced overtime are the norm.

The Haitian workers showed inspiring courage when they organized, but the loss of their coworkers has understandably demoralized them. The efforts they had already begun in the few short days before their leaders were taken down, which included negotiating for fairer wages and better working conditions, have been seriously stalled. But all the damage could be reversed if the six union leaders are simply reinstated to their positions.

value their image among consumers. From the prominent and elaborate corporate social responsibility pages on their websites, it is evident that they want the general public to think of them at least as friendly giants. When consumers are unhappy with the way workers are treated in their supply chain, the giants take notice. They have a lot of power over these factories, and if they so much as lift a finger, these workers will be rehired.

Now is the time to once again defend our values and our written policies by asking these brands to behave responsibly and ethically.

Targeting and firing union leaders is illegal under international and Haitian labor law, but the factory managers and the brands they work for, Gildan and Hanes, evidently think they are above the law. And they might be, unless advocates can stand with the Haitian workers and tell them they are not.

This is where the international community, including Brown, comes in. Hanes and Gildan are major global corporations that

Brown could wield major influence in bringing this about. Our administration could write letters to the CEOs of Hanes and Gildan, as the Canadian Federation of Students did just last week, asking them to ensure that the six workers are reinstated.

And the brands would listen. Among other things, Gildan is a major producer of Tshirt blanks for collegiate consumers, while Hanes made a grand entry into the collegiate apparel business only last year when

it purchased Gear for Sports, a major collegiate apparel licensee with which Brown has a significant business relationship.

Given Hanes’ lack of experience with collegiate licensing, they may not be aware that many colleges and universities, including Brown, have codes of conduct requiring respect and fair treatment for workers at the factories where their apparel is made.

In the past, Brown has defended its code, righteously cutting its contract with Nike in the summer of 2010 when that brand refused to pay severance packages to its Honduran workers.

Now is the time to once again defend our values and our written policies by asking these corporations to behave responsibly and ethically. And it would be only fitting, given our institution’s strong bonds with Haiti, and given the level of concern we have shown in the past for the dignity and well-being of Haiti’s people.

The Haitian textile union may be in serious trouble if these workers do not get justice. They have already been out of work for two months, and with each passing day, their employer’s message sinks in more deeply. As one Haitian police officer reportedly said as he escorted a union leader out of his former workplace, “Poor people don’t have any justice.” Time is running short, but we can still prove him wrong.

Ian Trupin ’13 is concentrating in commerce, organizations and entrepreneurship.

A downside of crowdsourcing

By Jan Cao Opinions Columnist

“Studying: the act of texting, watching TV or tweeting while there’s an open book in front of you.”

I read this line on Facebook while I was trying to do some research on John Locke’s “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” I laughed out loud, shared it, tagged two friends, reloaded the page several times afterwards to check if they saw it, read an article shared on Facebook about Occupy Harvard, commented on said article, read some other articles, found something really interesting, tweeted it and reloaded my Facebook again to see if my friends had commented. By then, I had spent too long on the computer, and it was time to turn it off.

And then I realized I had completely forgotten my research topic.

Every time I log on to a social website, I feel like an iPod plugged into a computer, syncing my mind with the Internet.

All the information is updated, but sometimes my original ideas are forever lost during the process. Constantly confronted with the opinions of others, we are inevitably influenced by the crowd. But will all this information improve our beliefs?

Or is it possible that we have been brainwashed by the crowd?

Social websites tend to replace our

own independent ideas with popular ones shared by the crowd. They make everyone an up-to-date social being. But the more we outsource the formation of our beliefs to Facebook friends, the less we think for ourselves. We “share,” “retweet,” “like” or “favorite” other people’s ideas rather than create our own. To agree is much easier than to think. The lure of conformity is hard to resist.

With more easily digestible and seemingly smart information at hand, who wants to spend time reading the babble of

with the people in your life,” as Facebook claims. Social networks make it easier than ever to know what others do and think.

Being recognized by others and sharing opinions with friends makes us confident about ourselves — even if our ideas and beliefs are inherently wrong.

Facebook and Twitter not only limit our ability to judge, they also tend to eliminate the opportunity to ask “How?” and “Why?” We love Twitter because its information comes in short, sharp and easily digestible chunks. The 140-character

But the information explosion has led to a strange effect: People are now, more than ever before, reading the same thing.

an old British guy who has terrible grammar even though he might be one of the best thinkers in the history of human civilization? One can easily glance over more than 10 New York Times articles in an hour and find inspiration. But if that hour is spent reading philosophy, one might be stuck on a single page. To take time and to think hard are the least tempting options.

Why are social networks so popular?

There is definitely something more to it than the ability to “connect and share

limit successfully prevents some potentially pointless babble and forces people to impart something meaningful. But not everything can be said in 140 characters.

Locke repeats many of his ideas over and over again in his “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” making it difficult and sometimes boring to read. But his repetition does offer him the chance to form new and brilliant ideas along the way.

What’s even more important is that,

with only 140 characters, there is not enough room for anything more than short facts and opinions. There is no space for explanation, elaboration, proof or interpretation. The reaction to all questions is reduced to a simple yes or no, and the reaction to all facts becomes a judgment of right or wrong.

We live at a time when everything seems available. But the information explosion has led to a strange effect: People are now, more than ever before, reading the same thing. University of Chicago sociologist James Evans, who analyzed 34 million academic articles published in the last 50 years, found that the digitization of academic journals coincides with a concentration of citations. He suggests that scholars tend to focus on the most cited articles, which are ranked higher by search engines, and neglect more obscure research. Though it seems that everything is available within one click, scholars end up paying attention to the same things, citing what has already been cited.

We need to make sure the excess of communication does not end up silencing our own voices. If the time reserved for independent thinking is shredded by all the sharing, uploading, commenting and liking, how can we preserve the independence of the individual from collective wisdom that might be misguided?

Jan Cao ’13 is a comparative literature concentrator from Nanjing, China.

She can be reached at Jieran_cao@brown.edu.

Daily Herald Arts & Culture the Brown

Monday, November 28, 2011

Senior brings dance to abandoned mall By maggie Finnegan Contributing Writer

Courtesy of Marilyn Busch

Trinity Repertory Company places the Victorian “A Christmas Carol” in the 1950s.

Trinity Rep greets season with seasoned favorite Despite ill-conceived musical additions, “A Christmas Carol” pleases audience

By Ben kutner Senior Staff Writer

The ghosts of Trinity Repertory Company pack a light-hearted punch in the troupe’s 35th annual production of “A Christmas Carol.”

The production is well-rounded and funny, despite a few musical shortcomings.

An all-around strong cast livens this adaptation, set in the 1950s, of the classic Charles Dickens tale. A dynamic Ebenezer Scrooge (Brian McEleney) approaches his part with personality and comic flair.

McEleney navigates the difficult task of bringing something new to a classic role by sticking closely to the stereotype — an interpretation that proved comforting at some moments and familiarly dry at others.

The 1950s flair added a fresh perspective to the tale. The play leads with one of its strongest comedic moments — an over-thetop radio disk jockey announcing Christmas songs followed by a jazzy singer performing various numbers. The pair functions as something of a Greek chorus throughout the performance, supplying audience members with interjections that take the two out of the drama for a moment — an effect the audience seemed to enjoy.

Nearly every seat of Trinity Rep’s sizeable theater was filled for press night. The crowd was middle-aged to silver-haired with a few children sprinkled in. “A Christmas Carol” is a seasonal crowd-pleaser, and the audience left the theater smiling, the payoff for a strong performance of the classic show.

But this rendition included an ill-conceived innovation — the introduction of a few musical numbers, which the performers were unable to pull off successfully.

Their voices generally lacked vibrato, and their performances sug-

gested that they are well-trained in drama, but not musical drama.

The stand-out exception to this was the Ghost of Christmas Present (Ricky Oliver), who entered with a show-stopping performance of “Jingle Bell Rock” — easily the musical high point of the show. Oliver garnered the attention and admiration of the audience with ease. Few actors can fill a great vocal performance with comedy, but Oliver had the tricks to do just that.

The musical ensemble was small, consisting of piano, percussion, flute and clarinet. It supplied the audience with lush ’50s-era Christmas tunes, which provide an excellent reminder that this is, in fact, a Christmas show.

Though the plot of “A Christmas Carol” does not call for an especially involved staging, the set was well-built and impressively large. Two structures on the sides supported a large overhead walkway, which was used in many of the scenes, and the lighting on the stage was well-coordinated and dazzling.

The special effects used during appearances of ghosts, though hokey, gave the audience a strong sense that something frightening was afoot, and the elevator in the center of the stage floor allowed for many hellish descents and creepy effects.

Trinity Rep offers a generally strong performance and their lowkey-yet-professional atmosphere is well-suited to a Christmas standard such as this. There won’t be a Scrooge left in the audience by the end of the night.

“A Christmas Carol” will run at Trinity Repertory Theater through Dec. 30.

Funny moments, strong acting but musical deficiencies

Though at first glance the five dancers dressed in jeans and fleeces in front of the Providence Arcade last weekend appeared to be random street performers, they were actually debuting “An Arcade Project,” a modern dance concert choreographed and directed by Elise Nuding ’11. The performances took place at the abandoned Arcade Nov. 18 and 19. The five dancers included former and current Brown students as well as local friends of Nuding.

At Brown, Nuding concentrated in archaeology and studied modern dance. The combination of these two disciplines led to her interest in site-specific performance, specifically at forgotten or abandoned spaces such as the Arcade.

“The work that I’m interested in making revolves around spaces that are empty and abandoned because of where I come from in terms of my research in archaeology,” Nuding said. “I tend to focus on things that are used in ways that they maybe aren’t specifically intended for.”

The now-abandoned Arcade, located at 65 Weybosset St., was once the nation’s oldest indoor shopping mall. Designed to resemble a Greek temple, it was built in 1828, became the city’s first monumental busi-

Lydia Yamaguchi / Herald

“An Arcade Project” brings dance to the historic, but derelict, Providence Arcade.

ness building and is now a local landmark.

But because the building failed to be profitable to owners for decades and fell into general disrepair, the Arcade was closed to the public in 2008 for renovations. Because of the economic downturn, these plans were postponed indefinitely. Last year, the Providence Preservation Society listed the Arcade as the city’s single most endangered building.

By holding the performance on site at the Arcade, Nuding said she hoped to draw attention to the abandoned landmark and inhabit the space in a new way.

The performances took place at

mid-morning Nov. 18 and 19 but did not have a formal beginning or end. The audience included people who stayed for the entire show as well as pedestrians and passersby. In a sense, the performances have been going on for the entire duration of rehearsals. “I called the two shows ‘performances’ but it was kind of an arbitrary designation because we’ve been rehearsing on site for a month and a half,” Nuding said.

Nuding said she plans to continue directing on-site performances.

“I’m not disinterested in making work for the stage, but for the time being I’m going to focus my energy on site work.”

Mechanical sculptures inspire reflection

By Margaret Nickens Staff Writer

A glass bottle spins in slow motion toward the wall and shatters into pieces. Then, defying physics, the bottle spins backward and reforms itself, becoming whole once again.

Jonathan Schipper’s piece, “Measuring Angst,” displayed in the “Nostalgia Machines” exhibition at the David Winton Bell Gallery, fulfills the viewer’s desire to travel back in time and change lost moments.

The exhibition — organized by Maya Allison, the gallery’s former curator — attempts to convey the feeling of nostalgia through industrial, almost futuristic sculptures.

Each piece incorporates some element of machinery such as motion detectors or small motors, technologies generally associated with progress and forward thinking. But the sculptures as a whole invite the viewer to look into their past and uncover old memories or emotions.

A piece by audiovisual artist Zimoun features 150 small motors spinning vertical wires in circles to create the sound of rain hitting a tin roof. As the sculpture’s description explains, rain is often used in movies to evoke a sense of loss or longing, and the work mimics this effect. As the wires spin and hit the nearby wall, the familiar sound of rain fills the room, flooding viewers’ heads with associated emotions. The mechanical apparatus contrasts perfectly with the chaotic nature of rain.

Sculptor Gregory Witt designed two pieces for the exhibition — “Packing Tape” and “Light Switch.”

“Packing Tape” is an arm-like ma-

chine miming the ripping of a piece of tape from its roll in time with the sound of tearing tape. The sculpture effectively evokes the contradictory feelings of loss and excitement one feels when moving from one chapter of life to another.

But his other sculpture, “Light Switch,” was a bit too simplistic for the exhibition and almost did not look like art. The piece consisted solely of a screen inside a wooden frame. The framed screen shows a light switch turning on and off, and the sculpture moves up and down in accordance with the light switch.

The mundane activity prevents the sculpture from inducing any real feelings of nostalgia.

Another sculpture, Meridith Pingree’s “Umbrella Torque,” suffered from being overly abstract.

The piece, a series of connected, flat, green objects suspended from the ceiling, uses motion detectors to move when viewers approach or back away from the sculpture. The movement is supposed to “recall either a chandelier or a wind-damaged umbrella, flinching and writhing with each passerby,” according to the accompanying description.

But the piece barely moved when approached, appearing slightly jerky but otherwise relatively stationary.

As a result, the sculpture did not really evoke images of “flinching and writhing” objects, instead seeming more like a twitch.

Pingree’s other sculpture, “Yellow Star,” delivered a much stronger message.

As the piece uses motion detectors that respond confidently to the room’s movements, the circle of yel-

low rectangles recollects the sense of someone cringing away from the viewer. The associated emotions of fear and repulsion bring viewers back to unpleasant moments in their past.

The final piece in the exhibit, Jasper Rigole’s “Outnumbered,” features a black-and-white photograph of a large group of children. As a projector scans the photograph, magnifying faces at random, a narrator tells a short story about the highlighted person. While the sculpture almost seems like a historical documentary, the faces and associated stories are all random. The projector moves around the photograph, arbitrarily highlighting individual people, and the narrator tells stories that have nothing to do with the person chosen. On top of this, the stories told relate to deception. The resulting message is brilliant — showing the bias and dishonesty in historical representations while also evoking viewers’ desires to understand the true stories of the individuals.

Combined, the sculptures in “Nostalgia Machines” create a truly unique exhibit, conveying a common theme through unusual and creative materials. The artists seamlessly incorporate the machinery into their sculptures and create works that come to life and engage the viewers.

“Nostalgia Machines” will be open in the David Winton Bell Gallery Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on weekends from 1-4 p.m.