Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxlvi, no. 115

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Two top posts to be named in spring

Since 1891

With shift, hospital fees pegged to quality, not length of stay

By Kat Thornton Senior Staff Writer

By Jordan Hendricks Senior Staff Writer

news....................2-5 editorial.............6 Opinions.............7

Alpert Medical School was only approved after extensive campus-wide discussion.

The same questions are relevant today, but the accompanying discourse is far more subdued.

Unlike the 1972 establishment of the Med School, the 2010 approval of the School of Engineering went largely uncontested, and the forthcoming school of public health appears to face an equally smooth path to formation.

“If you’re going to have an engineering school and the school of public health, you’re departing from the university-college idea,” Erwin Hargrove, a professor of political sci-

A shift in health insurance compensation to incentivize higher quality care is occurring at many of Rhode Island’s top hospitals, some of which are partnered with Alpert Medical School.

In what advocates are calling a progressive move in line with national health care reform, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island — the state’s largest health insurance provider — announced in mid-November that health care compensation will be based on quality metrics, rather than the length of a patient’s stay or medical services performed.

The move represents a shift from a per-day payment system to a “global payment rate,” where the insurance provider covers a set fee for a certain illness. For example, a patient would be charged a set fee for pneumonia, with no regard for the hospital or length of stay, said Gus Manocchia MD ’86, chief medical officer at Blue Cross and Blue Shield. In this system, hospitals will have incentives to discharge patients as soon as possible, he said.

Because the new system will

continued on page 3

continued on page 2

Dave Deckey / Herald

Compared to the discourse on campus before the Med School was established in 1972, there was a notable lack of discussion leading up to the University’s approval of the School of Engineering in 2010.

Dialogue falters, expansion grinds ahead

By David Chung and Shefali Luthra Senior Staff Writers

Mission drift?

Part 2 of a 4-part series

One professor said he was scared — “scared of the University’s being asked to bear another financial risk.”

A few months earlier, Mark Spilka, then chair of the Department

of English, had said he was worried the University seemed to be drifting away from the humanities, establishing itself as a “science-oriented campus.”

It was the 1971-72 school year, and the subject of debate was a proposed medical school, an institution that would be fully separate from the College.

Nearly 30 years earlier, thenPresident Henry Wriston had defined Brown’s identity as a university-college, an institution “which puts primary emphasis upon the liberal arts,” differentiating it from the nation’s growing universities. Concerns were widespread that establishing a medical school was contrary to Brown’s identity and mission, and

For holiday gifts, new outdoor market beckons By tonya riley Staff Writer

In contrast to the frenzied Black Friday rush that kicks off the holiday gift-buying season for most shoppers, the inaugural Downcity Providence Holiday Market offered residents a more leisurely experience Saturday.

The outdoor market — which will be open every Saturday until Dec. 17 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Westminster Street — aims to serve local artisan and farmed goods along with a dash of holiday cheer.

“A lot of the bigger cities have outdoor markets, so we asked, ‘Why not Providence?’” said Mike Hutchison, a vendor at the market and one of its founders. Hutchison and his wife, Polly, who led a wreath-making demonstration Saturday afternoon, are the owners of Robin Hollow Farm

in Saunderstown, R.I. The market’s location is ideal because of the heavy traffic brought in from the other businesses on the street, said Joanna Leavitt, who is an organizer for In Downcity, the business coalition that sponsors the market, and also works for Cornish Associates, which owns the Westminster Street property.

The crowd at the market started out small on Saturday morning.

Most of the shoppers seemed to have stumbled upon it while out enjoying the unseasonably warm weather or shopping at the nearby downtown businesses.

Hutchison said he and his wife expect more shoppers in coming weeks and attributed the low numbers to people’s travel plans over the

Emily Gilbert / Herald

continued on page 5

Hordes of students enjoyed an array of Willy Wonka-worthy treats at the Special Event Committee’s annual Candyland in Sayles Hall yesterday.

Protest Point Homesick Was Occupy ‘doomed to its end from the beginning’?

Opinions, 7

A FORTUNE IN FUDGE

Some students fall ill while studying abroad Campus news, 8

On Track

MBTA increases service to airport

Campus News, 8

weather

inside

The University hopes to announce both the inaugural director for the planned center for the study of slavery and justice and a replacement director for the Office of Institutional Diversity by the end of the academic year, administrators said at the Brown University Community Council meeting yesterday.

Members of the council also presented a report from the University Resources Committee and an update on relations between the University and the city of Providence.

Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P’12 told The Herald in September that the University was in contact with a final candidate for the director of the slavery and justice center and that the director would be announced within four to six weeks. At yesterday’s meeting, he reported that the search committee had found two candidates, one in 2009 and another this year, who were both unable to take the position due to personal reasons. But the University hopes to hire someone by the end of this academic year, McLaughlin said.

“What I’m here to report to you this afternoon is that we’re in a very good position to make this a real success story for Brown, and I’m very confident that we will,” he said.

The recruitment process for highlevel positions can typically take at least three years, McLaughlin said.

The search committee for a new institutional diversity director received 36 applications and will conduct interviews over winter break, said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15.

The committee will present finalists to Schlissel and President Ruth Simmons in the spring, he said.

In his presentation of a report from the URC, Schlissel noted that while tuition has increased, financial aid has increased at a similar rate. Tuition has stayed at about the same percentage of the University’s total revenue, even as revenue has increased, he said.

Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations, presented to the council on University-city relations.

“I think we are often seen, in Rhode Island, as a very resourced institution,” Quinn said. “We loom large in this little state.”

t o d ay

tomorrow

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2 Campus News c alendar Today

November 30

7 P.m.

ToMORROW

December 1

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Insurance system to encourage quality continued from page 1

5:30 P.m.

Dinner date with Professor Bungiro,

Internship and Research Fair,

Science Center

Sayles Hall

8 p.m.

8 p.m.

Sex and the MTV Culture,

“Dead City,”

Wilson 101

Leeds Theatre

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Buffalo Chicken Wings, Vegan Nuggets with Dipping Sauces, M&M Cookies

Saturday Night Jambalaya, Spinach Strudel, Mixed Vegetables, M&M Cookies

DINNER Spinach Strudel, Pasta with Eggplant, Shaved Steak with Mushrooms, Birthday Cake

Roast Turkey with Gravy, Shells with Broccoli, Butternut Squash with Shallots and Sage, Birthday Cake

Sudoku

put an emphasis on primary care and discourage doctors from performing unnecessary tests, it is in line with federal health care reform mandates coming down the pipeline. “We’re actually a little bit ahead of the game,” he said.

“This can only be good for the patients,” said Christopher Koller, health insurance commissioner for the state. Patients should not see any increases in out-of-pocket costs as a result of the shift, Manocchia said.

For the past several years, there has been a “quality component” in health insurance compensation contracts, but quality standards varied from one hospital to another, he

Daily

the Brown

said. One goal of the new program is to create a universal standard in contract with the insurance provider, Manocchia added.

The program is divided into three components — metrics based on medical care, patient surveys and success of discharge transitions.

The shift in health insurance compensation has implications for medical training. “We have to teach our med students that the system is changing,” said Glenn Tung, associate dean for clinical affairs.

“In the future, physicians will be paid more on the basis of the quality of the work they perform and the outcomes of that work for their patients rather than on strictly the procedures that they perform,” Tung said.

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Manocchia said as a medical student at Brown in the 1980s, he did not learn about “quality insurance.”

But the idea of putting more emphasis on patient safety in hospitals and exposing medical students to new expectations in residencies is “critically important,” he said.

“There’s so much of health care reform that affects the students as potential patients, but also students as members of society,” Tung said.

Knowledge of reform teaches students “how we can more responsibly create a health care system that can be sustained by the country.”

A spokesperson for Lifespan, one of the state’s largest health systems and a partner with several Rhode Island hospitals, declined to comment for this story.

Mission Drift? 3

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, November 30, 2011

As engineering became a school, a calmer campus looked on continued from page 1 ence in the 1970s, said in September.

“That doesn’t mean I’m opposed to big universities, but they’re different.”

To expand its science and research profile under the leadership of President Ruth Simmons this decade, the University has grown its science faculty, allocated more resources to research, expanded brain sciences and transitioned the division of engineering into a fullfledged school.

Though such efforts have increased the University’s prestige, some faculty members and students are questioning whether the University is drifting from its mission by moving away from its identity as a university-college.

Student and faculty reactions to the School of Engineering and the proposed school of public health have been tamer compared to the debate preceding the opening of the Med School in the 1970s.

There is no consensus on whether the schools of engineering and public health indicate a drift from the University’s mission, and it remains unanswered if and how the shift in focus away from the central College affects Brown’s undergraduate experience.

The debate over the Medical School

The University first established a medical program in 1811, but it closed after 16 years and graduated only 87 students due to disputes with clinical faculty and the program’s general decline.

“Brown has experimented with a medical school, with agriculture, with forestry and with business administration. Each was dropped because it proved fundamentally incompatible with the University’s major obligation,” Wriston wrote in a 1946 letter to the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

In the 1950s, Brown opened an Institute for Research in the Health Sciences. The Corporation approved a medical program in 1962 and inaugurated a six-year master’s program in medical science the following year.

Within 10 years, talks began concerning the granting of full medical degrees. Increasingly, federal funding for medicine was directed to institutions with medical schools, and Rhode Island hospitals were pressuring the University to expand its program.

Faculty and students contested the idea. Including letters to the editor, editorials and opinion columns, The Herald published more than 40 pieces pertaining to the medical school debate.

According to a Feb. 18, 1972 Herald article, a forum to debate the proposed medical school drew “about 125 people, mainly students.”

But Barrett Hazeltine, professor emeritus of engineering, did not recall a considerable student reaction — just a few meetings on the Main Green that attracted “very excited people.” Faculty members were more concerned, he said.

As the Corporation analyzed the financial effect a medical school would have on University affairs, faculty members were left on the side-

lines to discuss curricular matters, Hargrove said. The vice president for administration had told the faculty not to concern themselves with financial matters, Hargrove said, but “the great anxiety was about money.”

The Corporation’s deliberations were “sealed off ” from the community, and the consensus among faculty members was that the school’s approval was “fatalistic,” he said.

“The deck was stacked.”

But other faculty members were open to the idea of a four-year medical school.

Henry Randall, professor of medical science and surgeon-in-chief at Rhode Island Hospital, wrote an article in the The Herald’s Medical School Supplement on March 7, 1972 in support of the school’s development on the condition that the University integrate the school’s administration and curriculum with the undergraduate College.

The students in the Master of Medical Science program supported establishing a four-year medical school, said Pardon Kenney ’72 MMS’75 MD’75 P’03, a member of the Medical School’s first graduating class.

But to undergraduates, “it was a big deal,” said Steven Rattner ’74 P’10 P’13 P’15, a former fellow of the Corporation and a former Herald editor-in-chief who reported on the medical school developments.

“There were a lot of us who felt it would change the character of campus, change the nature of the school.”

“We viewed Brown as a place that was not going to do professional education — that was going to focus on undergraduates,” he said.

The University’s limited financial resources also raised concerns that the medical school would be developed and maintained at the expense of undergraduate education.

A lack of interest

Though Brown has the oldest un-

dergraduate engineering program in the Ivy League, it became the last among its peers to establish a school of engineering in May 2010.

The administrative shift — turning a program into a full-fledged school — was similar to the one involving the Med School in 1972.

But unlike the Medical School debate, the approval process for the engineering school generated comparatively little opposition from either the faculty or student body.

Rod Clifton, then-interim dean of the division of engineering, told The Herald in February 2010 that the change in nomenclature and size would increase the program’s national visibility and attract more students, faculty and research grants.

Clifton, who joined the University in 1964, said “historical” reasons kept the University from expanding its engineering program earlier. With the New Curriculum’s focus on a liberal education, the University may have deemed engineering uncharacteristically pre-professional, he said.

But as peer institutions established engineering schools, the University became more open to the idea, he said in the 2010 article.

Engineering can be compatible with a liberal arts education, Clifton said, if students take advantage of the one-third of their courses that are not concentration requirements.

Funding for the engineering school was also less of an issue than it was for the Med School. Engineering alums, parents and companies were interested in contributing to the school, Clifton said But some faculty members thought a school of engineering could compromise Brown’s uniqueness. An increased focus on engineering might steer the University from its university-college identity, William Simmons ’60, professor of anthropology and former vice president and provost, told The Herald in April 2010.

Still, “nobody was very worked up about it,” Hazeltine said, because it was “basically just changing the name.”

The Med School generated “a lot of hoopla” in a way the School of Engineering did not, said Jason Becker ’09 MA’10, who served on the Task Force on Undergraduate Education in 2007 and 2008.

Rattner offered few answers for the comparatively low level of student debate over the School of Engineering. Brown is “much calmer” than when he was a student, he said.

“President Simmons has made a very compelling case for why Brown needs to have a school of engineering,” he said.

Students should care about major academic changes at the University, Kenney said. But the short-term goal of getting through school often pushes those changes out of mind.

“Should they take an interest?” he said. “Absolutely. Do they? I don’t know.”

Student apathy

The shift under President Simmons’ tenure toward research and science has run parallel to a striking lack of discussion among students on campus. Whether due to inherent support, high levels of trust in the administration or simple apathy, the period stands in contrast to the years preceding the formation of the Med School in 1972.

The fears underlying the Med School debate proved unfounded, said Professor of Medical Science Terrie Wetle.

Many feared a medical school would not be financially solvent unless the University cut investments in existing undergraduate and graduate programs. But the Med School has succeeded, allaying fears that specialized schools negatively impact the undergraduate experience, Wetle said.

Also, the University in the 1970s

was simply a different place from campus today. “It was a period of enormous activism,” Rattner said.

The all-female Pembroke College officially merged with Brown in 1971, and the New Curriculum had been instated two years before. Brown was “on fire” when President Richard Nixon ordered a military invasion of Cambodia, Hargrove recalled.

The atmosphere affected student attitudes, said Professor of Biology Ken Miller ’70 P’02, who called the 1960s a “turbulent” time at Brown.

Though the medical school debate came after Miller graduated, he said the activist environment encouraged students to question University authority.

Students are more serious about their education today, said Hazeltine, who joined the Brown faculty in 1959. With increasingly selective admission, the nature of the student body has changed. Students are now more focused on finding jobs, Hazeltine said, leading to a decrease in student activism on campus.

“There were at least a few students when I was here who didn’t think that learning for learning’s sake was so corny it was unrealistic,” Miller said. “Students today are more vocationally oriented.”

The level of student trust in the administration — particularly Simmons — may also account for a decline in student debate over curricular changes, Rattner said.

Looking ahead

Next steps for the University involve transitioning the public health program — now four separate departments — into an accredited school.

Wetle, a key force behind the push, said the idea for a public health school dates back to at least 2000, when she joined the University.

Creating a school of public health continued on page 5

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The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Competing for prestige, U. broadens identity continued from page 3 would change the program’s status, allowing it recognition “at a different level” and making it eligible for more external funding, she said. The public health program now brings in more than $40 million in research funds each year.

Those behind a school for public health hope to submit a proposal some time before the end of the semester to reach the Corporation by next fall, Wetle said.

The initiative is “absolutely” in step with Brown’s mission, she said.

But a public health school could pull Brown further away from the university-college model, Hargrove said. “I’d rather have a smaller, more unified university,” he said.

Even with an increased focus on research, Simmons told The Herald she believed Brown would maintain its sense of individuality. “Brown is not Johns Hopkins. … It is not Berkeley. … It’s not MIT,” she said.

“Why is it not? Because its identity is not just a research university.”

Instead of changing its substance, the University has expanded the scope of its mission to include graduate and pre-professional work, Miller said.

“The way Brown has changed is not to change any of that mission but to make that mission broader and broader,” Miller said. “In other words, to extend what the University does to more groups, to more professional categories and frankly to get better and better at it.”

But limited resources restrict the University from indefinitely expanding its mission to encompass all educations for all students.

And while the New Curriculum and university-college model defined how the University has chosen to fulfill its mission in the past halfcentury, the recent shift toward establishing schools of engineering and public health indicates a drift away from that traditional model in favor of the larger research university model favored by the peers with whom Brown competes for students, funding and prestige.

Artisans hawk wares at city’s holiday market continued from page 1 Thanksgiving holiday.

Vendor Steve Demeter, owner of the Coffee Guy in Middletown, was selling gift baskets of his artisan roasted coffee. Demeter had two other markets lined up for the day and heard about the Hutchisons’ venture through the farmers market circuit.

Demeter said the market is a great opportunity for artisans to sell their goods in a city setting to customers

they might not see at some of the state’s other craft markets.

Other booths at the holiday market include Virginia and Spanish Peanut Co., Namaste Designs and Farmacy Herbs.

The family-friendly holiday market also features weekly entertainment, including carolers from the Wheeler School Chorus, Ladies of the Rolling Pin’s Border Morris dancers and weekly visits from Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Campus News 5 comics Dreadful Cosmology | Oirad Macmit

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

The Unicomic | Eva Chen and Dan Sack

6 Editorial & Letters Editorial

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Editorial cartoon

by sam rosenfeld

Hail, Brunonia When we say that we go to Brown, most people do not follow up with questions about our sports teams. Indeed, prioritizing scholarship and valuing a diverse range of student involvement, rather than being a sports-driven institution, is a distinction that brings most Brunonians pride.

Still, more than one-fifth of students are involved in a varsity or club sport at Brown, and the benefits of athletics have been touted more loudly than ever in the past year, as student-athletes rallied for four teams to maintain varsity status following the Athletics Review Committee’s recommendation that they be discontinued.

Some say that the University’s diversity and the unique individual pursuits of our students make for a campus environment that is open but infrequently unified — in other words, that we have no school spirit. We do not claim that there is a net lack of engagement or support at Brown — student performances, lectures, Special Events Committee events, conferences, fundraising initiatives and career information sessions are routinely packed. But there is something about the energy and camaraderie of a sports game that they just do not quite replicate.

Despite our tight schedules and diverse interests, a glimmer of spirit shone this year and last when the Football Association and Department of Athletics teamed up to bring in the lights for night games at the Brown Stadium. The stadium was packed, with attendance estimated to be two to nearly three times higher than average.

In the last few weeks, the men’s soccer team generated excitement with their advancement in the NCAA tournament.

Maybe we non-athlete Brunonians are not so sports-averse after all. It is no secret that games are better for everyone when more fans attend, which is why an occasional push for a key event, like the football night game, is so effective in getting students to turn up — and maybe even to come back.

Adding to the momentum, Brown Sports Marketing’s new Bruno mail, “This week in Brown Athletics,” is a step forward in keeping the non-athlete student body routinely linked in with what is going on in the world of Brown sports.

Amid the dialogues generated from the Athletics Review Committee’s recommendations, the football night games that packed the Brown Stadium once last year and once this year and the new Bruno mail to keep students in the loop with Brown athletics, the presence of athletics in worlds of non-athletes at Brown has grown.

We do not want Brown to be, and it never will be, a sports-driven institution. But an occasional display of school spirit in support of athletics at Brown is a welcome part of our college experience.

Kudos to all those who worked to bring out the lights for football, to Brown Sports Marketing for keeping up the momentum and to the Brown students who show up in support of our athletes. But let’s also do a better job of celebrating the talent, commitment and accomplishment of our athletes while generating some Brown pride.

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

letters to the editor Drifting mission or baseless nostalgia?

To the Editor: In her article (“Is the University suffering an identity crisis?” Nov. 29), the writer raises some thought provoking questions for the campus community. That said, some of her assertions demonstrate the same weak institutional memory she accuses the wider undergraduate population of having.

The naming of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, for example, can hardly be evidence of a recent “orientation towards money.” The writer is apparently unaware

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SATs do not measure wealth To the Editor: In reference to the sentence in an opinions column (“Changing a cheating culture,” Nov. 29), “Even without cheating, the amount of money families spend on SAT preparatory classes and tutoring — often thousands of dollars — is absurd and distorts the SAT as a means to compare students between different socioeconomic statuses.”

This statement is a little off keel. Are you saying that rich kids do better than others on the SAT because their families can buy them preparatory classes? That’s pure speculation. The SAT can in no way be a means to judge

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

that Faunce House, which houses the campus center, was originally called Rockefeller Hall when it was erected in 1904. The decision to rename it in honour of “beloved” President William Faunce was made at the request of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the donor who paid for the building’s expansion in 1930.

While the current leadership transition does feel like a good moment for campus introspection, it shouldn’t be based on a baseless nostalgia for an era that never was.

a student’s socioeconomic status. I for one never took a preparatory class. My family never spent a dime on college prep, and I went to public school. I did just fine on the SAT without ever opening an SAT prep book or taking an SAT prep class. That’s because the SAT was designed so that no amount of preparation will make a significant difference. Well, it might help on the verbal section if you go around memorizing all kinds of vocab words. The point is, I doubt there is any correlation between wealth and SAT scores. It’s about problem solving skills, and no amount of money is going to buy that.

Aaron Larocque GS

quote of the day

“We viewed Brown as a place that was

not going to do professional education —

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that was going to focus on undergraduates.

— Steven Rattner ’74 P’10 P’13 P’15 See engineering on page 1.

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Opinions 7

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Emigrating back to the center

By Chip Lebovitz Opinions Columnist Global consistency reigns supreme this holiday season. In our current haze of national ennui and deja vu, Republicans still equate tax increases with hari-kari, Italian bond interest rates increase daily like clockwork and Gail Collins never fails to mention that Mitt Romney once tied his dog to the roof of his car on a trip to Canada. It would have been fair to characterize anyone interested in substantial policy change as holiday travelers planning a winter-long vacation, who eschew vitriolic charges of hyper-partisanship and Grover Norquist sound bites for a nice day on the beach. Yet such an extreme stance is pleasantly undermined by small cracks in our echo room of spin and unfairly passes over the smallest steps of progress. Case in point: At the most recent Republican presidential debate, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich forcefully broke from Republican orthodoxy on the matter of illegal immigration.

Gingrich advocated two primarily intriguing policies. First, he supported at least a provision of the DREAM Act, stating that the children of illegal immigrants who serve in the military can have a pathway to citizenship. Second, he recognized the inherent reality that uprooting every illegal immigrant is impossible. According to his campaign website, Gingrich supports “giving local communities the authority to allow those with long

established roots in the neighborhood a legal residency status, but not citizenship.”

Admittedly, both are small steps in the right direction, especially the first one. It seems inimical to the ideals of the country that we would deny citizenship to soldiers who put their lives on the line for our nation. Furthermore, the country would benefit more from the human capital bonus by following the lead of Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75

with some manner of fence — double walled for Bachmann, electrified for Cain — and refuse any form of amnesty for the 25 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the country. Straying away from this basic track was proscribed as political suicide.

Most credit the “Perry Plunge” of Gov. Rick Perry’s poll numbers to his statement arguing that the GOP’s position on immigration was “heartless.”

The autopsy results of the recently failed supercommittee found that there was no deal to be had because there was no common ground to be reached.

Gingrich’s immigration policy is making steps toward finding that common ground.

P’14 and adopting a federal DREAM Act. We would also be wise to quickly listen to Romney before he changes his mind and staple a green card to every student who graduates with a graduate degree in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

It is Gingrich’s admittance to the basic understanding that America as a society will not be able to deport every illegal immigrant who has unlawfully entered the country. Not only is it an egregious waste of resources, but the nation just has more pressing problems, namely a $15 trillion deficit.

Yet ask every other Republican primary candidate and they would imply that as president they would secure the Mexican border

Let’s expand on the Perry anecdote a bit.

The Texas governor signed into law a bill giving in-state tuition rates to the children of illegal immigrants in Texas. He then defended the bill, an identical copy of legislation found in conservative bastions like Nebraska and Kansas, at a Republican debate. Conservative activists disapproved. Perry’s poll numbers plummeted. Perry has been apologizing ever since.

Gingrich’s position is by no means a safe or particularly smart one for the primary and therefore leads to the question of why he would even take it in the first place. It is possible that Gingrich is pandering to a burgeoning Hispanic electorate that historically

votes Democratic. It is also possible that Gingrich is taking advantage of his recent frontrunner status to look ahead to the general election, where his primary views have to be moderated to appeal to the droves of independent voters who decide presidential elections.

Whatever his reason may be, it does not matter. For the United States to overcome its current malaise, compromise between the two parties will have to be reached. Republican willingness to agree to anything has been suspect. Tying back to the Republican allergy to any form of tax increases, a previous Republican debate notably featured every presidential candidate refusing to support a deficit reduction deal that featured $10 of spending cuts to $1 of tax reform. The autopsy results of the recently failed supercommittee found that there was no deal to be had because there was no common ground to be reached.

Gingrich’s immigration policy is making steps toward finding that common ground.

That may sound highly unsatisfying, and it is. It is unfortunate but true that not every Republican is at heart willing, like Chafee, a former Republican senator, to pass a state DREAM Act or compromise over fiscal issues. But to reach any form of compromise, that common ground will need to be formed.

Gingrich is taking the bold step to steer his party’s discussion back toward the center. It may be a small step, but he should still be applauded for it.

Chip Lebovitz ’14 is still waiting for Chafee to respond to his letter. He can be reached at charles_lebovitz@brown.edu.

What an effective protest movement looks like

By Reuben Henriques Opinions Columnist Was there any doubt that it would someday come to this?

Was anyone really surprised that as the temperatures dropped, the chants lost their edge and the city’s patience wore thin, Occupy Wall Street would begin to sputter towards a less-than-glamorous end? We may not have expected the police violence — or at least may not have wished for it — but we should have expected that at some point the tents would be taken down, the signs put away, the human microphones dismantled.

And as people now rage against the police action in Zuccotti Park, in a kind of meta-protest with Occupiers protesting for their continued right to protest, they ought not ask how the occupation can be allowed to remain in perpetuity, but what that occupation is meant to achieve. Protests, after all, are not an end in and of themselves: They are a means to an end far more important than their own continued existence.

What were the Occupiers waiting for?

What was their endgame? When Mayor Angel Taveras threatened to shut down Occupy Providence, protesters insisted they would “remain in Burnside Park for however long it takes to build a society by, for and of the people.” To which I say: You’d best gear up for the long haul, friends. Maybe trade in your tents for something more permanent — something suitable for raising your children and grandchildren in.

A perfectly just society is a noble and important ideal. The idea of a government that represents and respects everyone regardless of race, creed, gender, sexuality or socioeconomic status rightfully lies at the foundation of our national self-image. But as the last 235 years of American history show, the journey to this society by, for and of the people is neither short nor easy. Indeed, it is one with no end in sight — perhaps no end at all.

And so, without any more specific demands, Occupy was doomed to its end from the beginning. Its short-term tactics were not embedded in any long-term strategy

gry eye of the public seeks new fare. And life goes on largely as before, with the 1 percent eating caviar in their penthouses and the rest of us left to deal with our rightful frustration.

Are all movements doomed to stagnate so? Or can they retain their passion, channeling it toward real, meaningful and attainable milestones on the road to justice? For evidence of the latter, I humbly submit my home state of Wisconsin. After 100,000 protestors swarmed the State Capitol in Madison last February to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting budget repair bill, Walker and his Republican legislative companions

Are all movements doomed to stagnate so?

Or can they retain their passion, channeling it towards real, meaningful and attainable milestones on the road to justice? for reaching its almost comically unattainable goals. How exactly were the occupations supposed to result in a just society? They brought attention to the plight of the 99 percent, yes, and excited participants who were growing ever more disillusioned with American power structures — but then what?

Where was this energy supposed to go? The protesters never decided.

The problem with a movement that is based on nothing more than staying put is that it tends to lose its vitality relatively quickly. At some point, it fades into the background as its novelty evaporates and the hun-

demonstrated their esteem for “we the people” by ramming the bill through anyway, with senators literally fleeing the Capitol after the vote through an underground tunnel. As the protesters glumly departed, some predicted their anger would fizzle out: a nice display, a fun media circus, but one with no real results.

Instead, after successfully recalling two Republican state senators this summer, organizers have set their sights on Walker himself, launching a statewide recall effort last Tuesday. Their task is not easy: To hold an election, they first need to collect over 540,000

signatures in just 60 days. Even if they accomplish that, the money is already pouring in to help Walker weather what would surely be a tough recall contest.

Wisconsinites remain undaunted, rekindling the fire they lit last spring. As they did in February, they are taking to the streets, this time with petitions in hand — knocking on doors, standing outside basketball games, even setting up drive-through recall stations. In the first two days, the effort collected some 50,000 signatures. A new poll shows that 58 percent of Wisconsin residents want to see Walker go. This is what democracy looks like: raw passion and dedication coupled with a clear strategy for change.

If Wisconsinites show Walker the door next spring, all of Wisconsin’s problems won’t be solved. A society by, for and of the people will still be a distant dream — if an ever closer one. But if the protests that started last spring end, a year later, by removing a governor hostile to the democratic process and intent on forcing a radical conservative agenda on a moderate-left state, they will have achieved more lasting change than the Occupy Wall Street movement has.

New Yorkers like to think of their hometown as the center of the world. But maybe they ought to listen to those nice, unassuming folks out in the Midwest. There is a lot they could stand to learn from them.

Reuben Henriques ’12 has already signed his recall petition and urges his fellow Brown cheeseheads to do the same. He can be reached at reuben_henriques@brown.edu.

Daily Herald the Brown

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Sending out an SOS: getting sick abroad

By Alison Silver Contributing Writer

It’s bad enough catching a cold during midterms week or spraining an ankle in a satellite gym. But when students get sick abroad, they can end up grappling with an administrative headache.

Feature Claire Luchette ’13 was hospitalized for a week in August for Dengue fever while studying abroad in India. “It was rather grim,” she wrote in an email to The Herald. “I was never entirely sure of what I was being medicated with.” Luchette has been hospitalized three times so far during her time in India.

Brown was helpful in coordinating emergency medical assistance by referring her to an emergency room in Delhi where she could receive care, Luchette wrote.

The hospital stay was “scary and fairly lonely,” she wrote, though International SOS — a health care and medical services provider that serves Brown students studying abroad — maintained contact to ensure that her treatments were going smoothly. But she had to deal with insurance information and communicating with her parents on her own, Luchette wrote, “which became a bit stressful.”

Because of the language barrier, it was often difficult to communicate her questions, Luchette wrote, and she “became convinced that the nurses were giggling about me in Hindi.”

Brooke Dalury ’12 had two weeks left of her fall semester in Paris last year when she fell and twisted her ankle while running to catch the Metro. Not wanting to go to the hospital, Dalury said she did not want to make a big deal at first. But her boss, a French citizen and fluent English speaker, drove her to the hospital for an X-ray.

“Luckily, I do speak French, but it’s hard to be thinking in another language when I’m in pain,” Dalury said. “It’s just a little harder when you’re in a stressful situation to be explaining specific circumstances in a different language,” such as distinguishing between twisting or rolling your ankle.

After several hours in the waiting room, she learned that her leg was broken in three places and that she would probably need surgery, Dalury said.

According to the Office of International Programs website, all Brown students who study abroad are covered by a Brown Travel Assistance Plan, administered through International SOS. Coverage applies regardless of whether students attend Brown programs or approved alternative programs. SOS is not an insurer but provides emergency medical evacuation service. Its services include more than 3,500 professionals in medical facilities on five different continents.

Though SOS would have covered Dalury’s surgery, her parents did not want her to have surgery in a foreign country and encouraged her to come home, she said.

She received a cast on her leg so

she could fly home safely and ended her semester in Paris two weeks early. Her program coordinators allowed Dalury to finish her study abroad requirements from the U.S. For students studying in areas where adequate medical facilities are not locally available, International SOS seeks approval from the University and from the students requiring medical care to evacuate them to a capable facility. Evacuations are supervised by physicians and may involve an air ambulance if necessary, according to the Brown-specific section of the SOS website.

Once students have applied and been accepted to study abroad programs, they may choose to fill out a disclosure form about their physical condition, psychological or emotional problems and recent injuries or diseases. For instance, because certain medications are named differently depending on the location, students are encouraged to get a note from a physician with the medication’s generic name to ensure they are able to renew prescriptions if necessary, Brostuen said.

Students preparing to go abroad should make health concerns known to coordinators at the outset, he said.

Pre-existing mental health issues can be exacerbated when students are abroad, he added.

“Study abroad can be challenging in the best of circumstances,” said Kendall Brostuen, director of international programs and associate dean of the College.

MBTA increases rail service to T.F. Green

By Lindor Qunaj Senior Staff Writer

Students who took to the skies over Thanksgiving break had new options for getting to T.F. Green Airport. In addition to the usual smattering of taxis and shuttles lined up at Faunce Arch, the Mas-

city & state sachusetts Bay Transportation Authority almost doubled service from the Providence train station to the airport.

Launched Nov. 14, the expanded service on the Providence/ Stoughton commuter rail line includes 10 daily trips to and from the Warwick airport, with the first train arriving at T.F. Green at 4:50

a.m. and the last train departing at 10:15 p.m. The timetable was designed to coincide with flight schedules and is intended to provide more convenient connections for travelers, according to a Rhode Island Department of Transportation press release. The majority of trains leaving the airport continue on to Boston’s South Station.

But despite the additional departures and the relatively cheap $2.25 one-way fare, few students appear to be using the service.

Drew Morrill ’13, from Bellingham, Wash., said he had not used the commuter rail connection in the past because the service was quite limited, and the schedule was not well-timed to catch flights from the airport. Now that he is aware of the increased service, he

said he would consider the rail link for future trips.

MBTA commuter rail service to Rhode Island’s primary airport began Dec. 6, 2010 with trains stopping at T.F. Green’s InterLink hub, a $267 million project stemming from a collaboration between the state Department of Transportation and the Rhode Island Airport Corporation. The InterLink, which serves as a hub for Rhode Island Public Transit Authority buses, also features nearly 700 commuter parking spaces and room for 1,800 rental cars.

Work has already begun to further extend the commuter rail service on the line to Wickford Junction, a station in North Kingstown.

Madeline Schlissel / Herald

Around two-thirds of students own an iPhone, Android or Blackberry, according to a recent Herald poll.

Let’s get digital: Nearly all undergrads own laptops

By Alexander Kaplan Contributing Writer

Thirty years ago, having a portable writing machine meant lugging a typewriter across campus. But today, nearly all students own a laptop, and almost 65 percent own a smartphone.

According to the most recent Herald poll, 97.5 percent of students indicated they own a personal laptop and 64.3 percent reported owning an iPhone, Android or Blackberry. Nearly 99 percent of students who do not receive financial aid own laptops, compared to 96.3 percent of students who receive financial aid. Seventy percent of students who are not on financial aid reported owning an iPhone, Android or Blackberry, compared to 54.5 percent of students on financial aid.

Many students said personal electronics are important in both the academic and social realms.

“I think laptops are a pretty big deal,” said May Siu ’15. “If you don’t have a laptop and have to use the cluster computers in the library, it can be difficult to deal with.”

Emily Chang ’14 also mentioned the academic constraints students face without certain technological devices. “If students are not able to afford a laptop, it will really limit their ability to mobilize and study wherever they want or even take notes in class,” she said.

But Sheyda Bautista-Saeyan ’14 said the University does help the few students who lack their own computer. “I think it might hinder the social environment, but I do think Brown does a good job in having computers readily accessible to students,” Bautista-Saeyan said.

Other newly popular portable devices have not yet permeated campus culture — only 5.5 per-

cent of students reported owning a tablet computer and 6.2 percent an eReader, such as a Kindle.

“In terms of learning, only laptops matter in the classroom,” said Daryl Eng ’15. “Most professors still use the chalkboard during class, which is pretty cool.”

One course offered this semester, COLT 1421Q: “Word and Image: Ekphrasis, the Iconic Narrative and the Graphic Novel,” has experimented with moving beyond the traditional chalkboard setup. The course, taught by Meera Viswanathan, associate professor of comparative literature, provided each student with an iPad to help bridge the gap between text and images in works of literature.

But the novelty of the iPad did not improve the course for everyone. “I feel as though the iPads have been detrimental to the class,” a student enrolled in the course, who did not want her name used, wrote in an email to The Herald.

“We used the iPads as a narrow framework that we had to use all the time as opposed to a supplement that we only used when it was convenient. It negatively impacted the books that we read because we could only read books that were available for the iPad.” Methodology

Written questionnaires were administered to 851 undergraduates November 2–3 in the lobby of J. Walter Wilson and the Stephen Robert ‘62 Campus Center during the day and the Sciences Library at night. The poll has a 3.1 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. The margin of error is approximately 4.7 percent for students receiving financial aid and 4.2 percent for students not receiving financial aid.

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