Thursday, February 2, 2012

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxxii, no. 7

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Since 1891

MLK lecturer addresses stereotype threat U. to house

By Ju Myoung kim Staff Writer

Rachel A. Kaplan / Herald

Stanford professor Claude Steele speaks about the harmful effects of stereotypes.

By Margaret nickens Senior Staff Writer

The Rhode Island General Assembly approved a bill last night that would redraw the boundaries of the voting districts for elections

city & state to Congress and the General Assembly following an estimated 4,000-person population increase in the state over the past decade.

Redistricting happens every ten years to account for demographic changes recorded in the census.

The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Deputy Majority Leader Stephen Ucci, D-Cranston and Johnston.

Prior to the vote, he said the redistricting committee met 21 times in various parts of Rhode Island before proposing the legislation.

Ucci said 80 percent of people would not be moved from their original districts, and 69 districts would see a population change of up to 25 percent. Only five districts would be altered by 30 to 37 percent. Opponents of the bill have said the shifts would move more Republican voters into the district of Rep. Jim Langevin, DR.I., while supporters have said

inside

continued on page 5

By Alison Silver Senior Staff Writer

Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services, said the statement caught the University’s attention, and beginning this summer, a number of dorms in Keeney Quadrangle and Pembroke campus will undergo renovations.

The interiors of Miller and Metcalf Halls will be completely redesigned, and Andrews, Emory-Woolley and Morriss-Champlin residence halls will receive smaller repairs.

In the upcoming semester, the council plans to work with Richard Bova, senior associate dean of resicontinued on page 4

continued on page 3

continued on page 3

Seminar aims to trace history behind Occupy

By David Chung News Editor

The Occupy movement returned to College Hill Monday afternoon, but neither protesters nor banners were in sight. Instead, about 20 students could be found in Wilson 101 discussing the social and economic grievances that sparked the movement last September.

This semester, Derek Seidman AM’05 PhD’10 , visiting assistant professor of history, is teaching HIST1977O: “The Occupy Movement in Historical Context,” a seminar that will examine the Occupy movement’s place in the international community and American history and trace its roots as far back as the New Deal

Good fellows Past Arnold fellows reflect on research experiences

Campus News, 4

of the 1930s.

In light of the social, economic and political developments of the past year — from the Arab Spring to the economic crises in southern Europe to Occupy Wall Street itself, all of which contributed to Time magazine deeming “the protester” the person of the year — Seidman called this a crucial moment in history, as the economic and political tensions that have built up over decades are taking visible form. It is unclear if and how the concerns will be addressed and the problems dealt with, he told The Herald.

“What’s a liberal arts education for if not for trying to tackle continued on page 2

Emily Gilbert / Herald

Occupy Providence protesters hold a general assembly meeting in Burnside Park.

Post -

dodges taxes,

lights stuff on fire

POST-, INSIDE

weather

By Kat Thornton City & State Editor

Ralanda Nelson ’12 has called serving as president of the Undergraduate Council of Students among the hardest things she has ever done, and one semester into her term, Nelson has achieved notable progress.

She has pushed the University to seriously consider the dire state of undergraduate housing on campus, an issue she touted as her highest priority during her presidential campaign last year. And though the student activities endowment has stalled and is far from reaching

its $17 million goal, UCS members and faculty have expressed support for Nelson’s accomplishments this past semester.

In October 2011, UCS passed a statement criticizing the “embarrassingly substandard” University dorms and urging the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, to allocate more money toward dorm renovations. Residence halls “need to go up to the level of our competitors because it’s reached a point that … prospective students know that Brown has terrible housing,” said Michael Schneider ’13, UCS campus life chair.

new center on modern India

The University will soon become the second American institution with a center devoted entirely to social sciences in India, due to an anonymous parent donation of $6 million made last year. The Brown-India Research Initiative will promote academic research and teaching on contemporary political, economic and social issues in India, according to an overview document prepared

by Ashutosh Varshney, the initiative’s leader and professor of international studies and the social sciences. The program will be housed by the Watson Institute for International Studies and was approved by the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, in May. The initiative evolved through a series of conversations among the anonymous donors, the Office of Advancement and Varshney, who will be the program’s director until 2016. Its founding follows the University’s Year of India in the 2009-10 academic year, an event that brought major literary figures, intellectuals and artists of the featured country to campus.

The Year of India served in part as a “springboard for a serious

At midpoint, Nelson ’12 reflects on term

R.I. General Assembly redraws voting lines

news....................2-4 editorial............6 Opinions.............7 City & State.........8

Stanford professor and author Claude Steele knows first-hand the pressures of being an underrepresented minority on a college campus. At the 15th annual Martin Luther King Jr. lecture Wednesday afternoon, Steele discussed the influence of negative stereotypes on minority academic performance and urged a packed audience of students, faculty members and local teachers to embrace their identities rather than succumb to preconceptions.

Steele opened the lecture, delivered in the Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts auditorium, by pointing out a problem — the “academic underperformance” of individuals belonging to certain minority groups distinguished by race, gender or

religion. Highlighting topics in his book, “Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us,” Steele pointed out that even highly motivated and capable individuals can be discouraged by negative influences, and their performance suffers as a result. He talked about his own experience, specifically the pressure and anxiety of being the only black graduate student studying psychology at Ohio State University.

Steele, a social psychologist, said stereotypes can be combatted on two levels.

On an institutional level, “diversity of perspectives always makes it better,” he said. Steele added that interracial exchange between students at the beginning of their college experiences helps

t o d ay

tomorrow

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2 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 2, 2012

calendar Today

February 2

5:30 P.m.

ToMORROW

February 3

4 p.m.

“In the Stacks of the Livebrary” Talk,

Writing is Live Festival,

John Hay Library, Lownes Room

Leeds Theatre

8 p.m.

10:30 p.m.

“Speed the Plow,”

Funk Nite,

T.F. Green Hall

The Underground at Faunce

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Edamame Beans with Tri Colored Peppers, Chinese Fried Rice, Bruschetta Bar, Vegan Nuggets

Macaroni Salad, Vegan Eggplant Soup, Chicken Mulligatawny Soup, Chicken and Broccoli Salad

DINNER Vegan Red Beans Creole, Creamy Parmesan Primavera, Stir Fried Chicken with Noodles

Macaroni Salad, Vegan Paella, Granola Bread, French Pear Pie, Belgian Carrots

Sudoku

New class studies Occupy movement continued from page 1

Crossword

Tom Sullivan / Herald

Visiting Assistant Professor Derek Seidman AM’05 PhD’10 bridges sociology and philosophy in his class on the Occupy movement.

the burning issues of your day?” he added.

Occupy Wall Street and the movements it has spawned in cities across the globe are notable because they reflect widespread dissatisfaction among the public, Seidman told The Herald. But due to its sheer size and spread, the Occupy movement as a whole is “very messy.” It has no singular set of demands, and the strategies Occupiers adopt in tackling issues vary by location. The seminar will provide students an opportunity to take a “sober look” at the movement from an academic perspective, he said, letting them “unpack it and analyze it.”

The course will not only explore history but also draw from sociology, political economy and political and moral philosophy to foster a debate on “what kind of world we should live in,” Seidman said during the seminar’s first meeting Monday. Students will examine the tactics of 20th century social movements in the United States, including the labor and civil rights

movements and that of wealthy businessmen against the New Deal. The seminar will also focus on more recent developments such as the recession of 2008, searching for answers behind the growing debt, foreclosures and inequality in the U.S. Seidman and students will place the Occupy movement within this historical framework and then dive in further to explore its debates internally.

Seidman’s expertise lies in the history of social and political movements. He is also currently teaching HIST1754: “Democracy and Inequality in the United States Since the New Deal,” and as a doctoral student at Brown, he wrote his dissertation on the history of active-duty protest during the war in Vietnam.

Ovidia Stanoi ’15, who is enrolled in the class, said that after meeting a homeless man with “very intellectual thoughts” as Occupy Providence was starting up last year, she became interested in learning more about the movement. Stanoi, who hails from Romania, an ex-communist country, told The Herald protests in her

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country had previously been rare.

But with the spread of the movement across Europe, Occupy protests hit the country during winter break. “What led to the changes?” she asked.

Jessica Papalia ’13 is also interested in viewing the Occupy movement in an academic setting.

Papalia attended Occupy Providence’s general assemblies and demonstrations and participated in workshops with students from local colleges to discuss the ways in which they could contribute.

But she said she is looking forward to examining aspects of the movement she had questioned in an academic and historical context.

Seidman’s class is not the only one to focus on the Occupy movement. The Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University is also offering a course on Occupy Wall Street this semester, and Adam Sacks AM’09 will teach a course this summer for the University’s Pre-College Program that will chart the history of counterculture in the nation from the 1950s to the present day.

Campus News 3

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 2, 2012

Steele encourages positive perceptions continued from page 1 them gain an understanding of different backgrounds and fight their preconceived notions.

On an individual level, minorities can overcome the influence of stereotypes by creating a “positive narrative” about their identities. Steele described an experiment with black students at Yale in which participants viewed a video of another black student explaining how he overcame the initial alienation and distress stemming from his minority status at the college. The academic performances of many students improved after viewing the video.

At the end of his lecture, Steele suggested several simple ways to help students embrace their identities.

“Simple things can have profound effects,” Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron said after the lecture.

Steele covered the subject in a manner that was accessible to people of many different backgrounds, Lina Fruzzetti, professor of anthropology and interim provost and director of institutional diversity, said after the lecture.

Valeria Lopez, a master’s student in urban education, said Steele identified important practical implications for schools, where these issues are very relevant.

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture commemorates Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy by inviting scholars whose work examines how race and other social identifiers continue to affect our society, said Maitrayee Bhattacharyya, associate dean of the College for Diversity Programs.

The lecture was intended to enhance the work of faculty advisers, Bergeron said. Advisers read Steele’s book and learned about circumstances that prevent students from succeeding.

“It is our hope that his insights will inspire further thinking about actions each of us can take to improve ourselves, our campus cultures and larger society for the common good,” Bhattacharyya said.

Program to study contemporary India continued from page 1 initiative,” Varshney said.

President Ruth Simmons’ 2010 visit to India was also related to the “rising Brown interest in India, off of which the Year of India was sparked, and the India Initiative was an outgrowth,” he said.

The program will emphasize contemporary India, primarily through the social science lens, Varshney said, though subjects like comparative literature and history will play a complementary role. The initiative will engage students in fellowships and exchanges with partner institutions in India, including the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi and the Center for Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Varshney said.

The Watson Institute has allocated four rooms to the program in its office and has also secured work space in Delhi. While several activities will occur this spring, the initiative “will be in full swing” beginning next fall, Varshney said.

The program will focus on research pertaining to five major themes. The primary project, entitled Urban India: Governance,

Politics and Political Economy, examines India’s rising cities and governance problems in collaboration with the Center for Public Policy and Janaagraha, a non-profit organization that seeks to improve the quality of urban life in India. Co-led by Varshney and Professor of Sociology Patrick Heller, the project is already underway as a result of a seed grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research, according to the document.

Other themes include pluralism and diversities; democracy and development and security; conflict and political order; and regional economic inequalities.

The initiative’s spring schedule includes a joint seminar on South Asian politics with Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an event with Professor Siddharth Swaminathan from the Institute of Social Economic Change in Bangalore, who will be in residence for several weeks starting mid-February.

A conference entitled Two Decades of India’s Economic Reform: Politics, Economics, Society is estimated to take place early next fall to kick off the Initiative, Varshney said.

4 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 2, 2012

Arnold Fellowship leaves lasting legacy

By Gadi Cohen Staff Writer

Since the program’s inception in 1964, recipients of the Arnold Fellowship — established in honor of Samuel Arnold, who graduated in 1913 — have immersed themselves in foreign countries for months at a time, gleaning experiences they could share with the University community upon their return. Over the years, fellows have studied the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, become embedded in Egypt’s Bedouin society and embarked on a nine-month pilgrimage to Tibet.

The University last awarded the Arnold Fellowship in 2010 to Daria Marinelli ’10, who used her $18,000 stipend to study tango in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This was the last time the Arnold Fellowship will ever be offered, said Linda Dunleavy, associate dean of the College for fellowships and

pre-law.

“It just ran out of funding,” Dunleavy said. “It was a one-time, large gift that just got used up year after year. It never converted into an endowment.”

The fellowship was first offered in 1964, when Thomas J. Watson Jr. ’37 presented the University with a gift that supplied annual fellowships named after Arnold, the University’s first provost. Now that the funds from Watson’s gift have been drained, the University has stopped offering the fellowship.

“There have been efforts to reach out to the Watson Foundation,” Dunleavy said. “We wanted to see if they still had an interest in contributing to the fellowship.

They’ve just shifted their focus — it’s no longer a priority for them to fund it.”

Today, all that is left of the fellowship is a legacy of research and the experiences that its winners have amassed over the years.

“I think it’s a wonderful institution that Brown had,” said Jeffrey Yoskowitz ’07, who received the fellowship in 2007. “It was very ‘Brown,’ rewarding students who were seeking transformative experiences.”

Yoskowitz traveled to Israel to research the pork industry, inserting himself into the taboo underbelly of the country’s food culture.

While there, Yoskowitz moved to a pig farm that operated under the guise of a research institute, where he conducted research that demonstrated how even food can serve as a political metaphor that affects Israeli daily life.

“Arnold fellows went off on their own,” Yoskowitz said. “Everything I had to do, I had to do on my own. That was the most challenging part of my experience.

But because of that, the fellowship allowed you the freedom to discover other worlds and to discover yourself.”

Rachel A. Kaplan / Herald UCS president Ralanda Nelson ’12 plans to address student housing this semester.

Thanks Fellow UCS members for reading! praise Nelson ’12 continued from page 1

dential and dining services, to review program housing, and its members want to look into adding communal lounges to individual residence halls, said David Rattner ’13, UCS vice president.

Nelson has also been working to increase the council’s presence on campus by planning dorm rounds, during which council representatives will go door-to-door in residence halls to keep students updated on UCS activities. Though the council has tried dorm rounds under previous presidents, it has for the last few years focused more on reaching out to students in dining halls.

During her campaign, Nelson also expressed a desire to increase funding for the student activities endowment. But in the past semester, she said there have been no donations to the endowment. Though Nelson said the council has reached out to possible donors, the conversations have not “progressed beyond meetings and phone calls.”

She said she hopes to encourage more prospective donors to visit Brown’s campus in the upcoming semester to see how it would benefit various student groups on campus.

In the past semester, Nelson also oversaw the January Career Laboratory, a project that began under the previous UCS administration.

The four-day event, which took place during the final days of winter break, featured discussions with Brown alums about “how to leverage your Brown education in this job and economic market,” Nelson said.

Panelists also offered advice on networking as well as writing resumes and cover letters.

Schneider said he believes Nelson has been a very effective UCS president due to her likability and creativity, citing her ability to gen-

erate new project ideas, like this semester’s goal of building a UCS iPhone application.

Hannelore Rodriguez-Farrar ’87 MA’90 PhD’09, assistant to the president, also said Nelson seems to “engage students across a lot of different groups.”

“She’s just fun and funny and very straight-up — she will tell it like it is, and there’s no politics involved,” Rodriguez-Farrar said. “She really cares about … the things that matter to the students.”

Inside the council, Rattner said Nelson has brought the UCS members closer together. “I have never seen a council that got as close to each other as they did this year, and I think that was because of Ralanda’s leadership,” he said.

“People, I can tell, look up to her in a way they didn’t look up to in the last president,” Rattner also said.

Nelson said many students emailed her during the fall semester when they took issue with the council’s actions, noting some students were displeased that UCS did not issue a statement about the Occupy movement. Others, she said, were “unnerved” by how quickly the council appointed a presidential search committee.

“It’s just nice to be able to sit down and talk to them and explain to people where we are coming from, even if we don’t agree,” Nelson said.

In the upcoming semester, she said she looks forward to “tangible results” in many of the council’s current projects and hopes to continue promoting its work.

“Now, I have ownership over the success of the entire machine and how it operates, and so I’m excited for people to get invested in projects that I’ve spent my time doing here.” she said. “I’m excited to see how (our work) inspires other people to think about participating in UCS.”

City & State 5

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 2, 2012

Cit y & State news roundup

by Elizabeth C arr Cit y & state Editor

City faces dire financial outlook Mayor Angel Taveras is holding a press conference today to discuss the city’s budget woes. In the past year, Taveras has faced the task of closing a $110 million structural budget deficit, according to WPRI.com. Recent developments have set back efforts to rein in the deficit. State pension legislation that passed last year did not include a provision to allow for the suspension of rising cost-ofliving adjustments for employees enrolled in the city’s pension plan.

The University refused to make additional payments of $4 million to the city last year, and Superior Court Associate Justice Sarah Taft-Carter ruled that the city could not force retired firefighters and police officers to sign up for Medicare, a move that would have saved the city $6 million. Considering Providence’s looming $22.5 million budget shortfall, some have predicted that it will soon file for bankruptcy and put itself under state receivership. According to GoLocalProv, former mayors have suggested that the city should look into borrowing money or cutting spending before it resorts to bankruptcy, but the press conference today may suggest that such options are not available. The city is slated to run out of money in June, according to a memo obtained by GoLocalProv, though city officials have not commented on this allegation.

Bills address chronic homelessness Sen. John Tassoni Jr., D-Smithfield and North Smithfield, and Rep. Scott Slater, D- Providence, have introduced legislation to increase funding to the Neighborhood Opportunities Program to combat the city’s chronic homelessness problem, according to a press release.

NOP was created in 2001 and is now prominent in combating homelessness. It focuses its funding in three areas — providing lowrent housing for families earning wages near the state minimum, offering support services and housing to disabled individuals and revitalizing local communities through grants encouraging home ownership. The funding level for the program has declined from $7.5 million to $1.5 million over the past decade, but legislators note that this has not corresponded with a drop in homelessness, which has in fact become more prevalent in the past few years. The proposed legislation — which is currently under consideration in the House and Senate Committees on Finance — would increase funding for NOP to $12.5 million for the next fiscal year, according to the press release.

Bank to abandon downtown office Bank of America has announced that it will end operations in its iconic building located at 111 Westminster Street by April 2013, according to the Providence Journal. Leaving a vital building in the downtown area unoccupied could have negative implications for an already suffering real estate market. The issue is compounded by the building’s deterioration — it is estimated that it would require $25 million to $35 million worth of renovations before it could be leased to another business, according to the Journal. The bank’s desertion of the building also represents lost revenue in the form of property taxes for a city facing a severe budget crisis.

Kat Thornton / Herald

The General Assembly last night approved a redistricting bill that would shift voting district populations by up to 37 percent.

Transparency concerns plague legislation continued from page 1 the new boundaries will give minority communities more political clout.

Several House leaders proposed amendments. House Minority Leader Brian Newberry, R-North Smithfield and Burrillville, urged the chamber to keep villages in districts 47 and 48 intact. None of the proposed amendments passed.

Newberry said there would be legal repercussions to the passage of the legislation without his amendment.

Other representatives complained the process behind the legislation was opaque. “This whole process has been very closed,” said state Rep. Karen Macbeth, D-Cumberland, displaying a sign that formerly hung on the door of the Reapportionment Office,

which was tasked with overseeing the redistricting process. The sign read, “Knock first.”

After an hour and a half of debate, the House voted overwhelmingly in support of the legislation.

The Senate voted 34-2 in favor of the companion bill. The legislation will next go to Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14, who has not taken a public stance on the proposed plans.

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

Dreadful Cosmology | Oirad Macmit

6 Editorial & Letter Editorial

Editorial cartoon

A taxing dilemma

While students were enjoying their holidays, tensions flared between the city of Providence and Brown. Most notably, there was a disagreement between Mayor Angel Taveras and President Ruth Simmons over the University’s voluntary payments to the city. Since the beginning of the semester, Providence has passed a resolution that proposes removing Brown’s blanket property tax exemption, and Occupy Providence has set its sights on the issue as well. While we sympathize with Providence’s economic situation, we feel the city cannot ask students, families and faculty members to bail it out.

Under Rhode Island law, private non-profit colleges and universities are exempt from taxes on most property used for educational purposes.

But Brown voluntarily pays taxes on some of its properties and makes additional contributions to the city, totaling approximately $2.5 million.

We recognize that Providence is in dire financial straits. The city currently faces a $22.5 million budget deficit, and taxing Brown’s vast holdings of untaxed property may seem like an obvious solution. If the Providence City Council gets its way, the University could pay more than $4.6 million to the city in additional taxes. If Brown were to pay taxes on all of its property, as many in Occupy Providence have requested, the total bill would be more than $30 million.

We hope Taveras realizes that Providence will suffer if Brown’s resources are depleted. As Simmons put it in a conversation with the editorial page board, “Brown is one of the few assets” Providence has to improve its economic standing. Brown is the second-biggest employer in Providence and fosters economic activity in the city. Further increasing Brown’s financial burden would hamper the city’s ability to alleviate its economic hardship.

Supporters of dramatically increasing Brown’s property taxes or voluntary payments should ask themselves this fundamental question: Where will this money come from? With a tight budget and high expenditures on financial aid, Brown has limited financial leeway. Giving more money to the city would likely mean much of the following: increasing already expensive tuition, higher student loan bills that would limit students’ occupational freedom after graduation, lower faculty salaries that would make recruiting and retaining high-level talent more difficult and much more.

We cannot support this resolution because the financial consequences to the University and its inhabitants are simply too damaging.

Protestors justify their claims by pointing to lucrative administration salaries — but these very same people have noted the administration’s tendency to look outside the walls of University Hall when faced with budgetary challenges. Brown has also been criticized by these movements for paying a smaller amount in voluntary donations than other private universities pay to their cities, but when one controls for size of endowment and annual budget, the University in fact pays comparable rates. While Occupiers and the Providence City Council imagine themselves taking on a wealthy private university rolling in spare cash, we urge them to bear in mind that Brown is populated not just by administrators with six-figure salaries, but also by students already struggling to pay tuition and staff already asked to make significant sacrifices. While we support Brown in increasing its voluntary payments slightly, we cannot support any dramatic change that would financially jeopardize our institution.

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

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The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 2, 2012

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by a n d r e w a n ta r

letters to the editor

Humanities are not the only way to humanity To the Editor: Jared Moffat ’13 talks about the dangers of shunning the humanities in favor of fields like science, biology and engineering, etc. that equip students with better prospects after graduation (“A disturbing trend,” Jan. 31). Moffat points out that education should involve “developing communication skills, maturing into a well-rounded adult and becoming a creative and critical thinker.”

While these are certainly desirable qualities, are they only attainable through humanities courses? When groups of students congregate in the Sciences Library working on that organic chemistry quiz, debugging code for a computer science project or thinking through that unsolvable math problem, they are communicating efficiently, helping their peers and furiously exercising their brains, all at the same time. Is not the whole point

of scientific research to facilitate communication, collaboration and the discovery of new knowledge through creative and original thinking?

Humanities courses may be useful for a number of reasons, but it is rather dangerous to declare that “the aim of studying humanities is to produce a better human being.” Should we depend upon college courses to teach us how to be better human beings?

People learn to be good human beings from their parents, through interactions with their peers, professors and people around them. I would argue that in college, who your friends are, whether you get to know your professors and what you do outside of class is much more relevant to making you a good human being than exactly what subject you are taking.

Koushiki Bose ’13

Sciences stimulate creative thought, too To the Editor: At a time when humanities funding is getting harder and harder to come by, I was happy to see Jared Moffat’s ’13 stirring defense of the liberal arts (“A disturbing trend,” Jan. 31). However, he errs in dividing academics into two categories: the sciences, which are career-focused and ruled by “principles of market logic and commodification,” and the humanities, which love learning for its own sake. In reality, much of the scientific research

done at Brown is undertaken purely to learn about the universe and our world, and the researchers who pursue it are motivated more by a love of natural beauty than by practical concerns. There is as much “creative and critical thinking” in biology as in history, and the inner workings of an atom are as beautiful as any poem. If Moffat were to take a theoretical physics course, he would see that it has far more in common with philosophy than he presumes.

Alexander Berg ’13

quote of the day

“Simple things can have profound effects.”

— Katherine Bergeron, Dean of the College See speaker on page 3 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.

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Opinions 7

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 2, 2012

Transit cuts, fare increasing: two extra-dumb ideas

By Daniel Moraff Opinions Columnist

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority — the agency that runs those Boston-Providence trains we like — is proposing to raise fares and cut services a lot and a lot, respectively. This is stupid. Public transit is great for a big bundle of reasons, but quickly: Transit reduces congestion and makes cities more compact, more walkable, more livable and less environmentally destructive. People without cars or the money to buy cars still get to have lives. Everybody wins. In a heavily urbanized area like Eastern Massachusetts, having people all buy their own little metal boxes and drive them around is a silly way to do things.

Transit helps create cities that don’t spew carbon dioxide into the air all willy-nilly.

We should like it, both as college students who don’t have cars and as humans who like not having our stuff underwater. From the president on down, a big chunk of the socalled left — which supposedly dominates Massachusetts — acknowledges that mass transit should be heavily subsidized.

Nevertheless, here we are. The MBTA has laid out two awful scenarios. In one it raises fares and cuts services. In the other it raises fares even more and cuts services

a little less. In both, ridership reductions are projected in the tens of millions of annual trips.

People like to rag on the MBTA. They’ve run up a $5 billion deficit! What a bunch of dunderheads! Turns out, though, we can’t really blame the MBTA for this. But we can blame some other people. Here’s why.

There are two big reasons why the MBTA has no money. Number one: Ten years ago, the Massachusetts state legislature decided, stupidly, that instead of giving the MBTA however much money it actually needed

Number two: When the state decided to do the Big Dig, a dumb project that sunk a highway underground and made some neighborhoods a little more accessible for only $22 billion, it made the MBTA pay for a bunch of “mitigation,” mostly transit expansions that included a commuter rail line through a bunch of rich suburbs along with a couple really nice bus routes. To make matters worse, billions in state and federal funding were tied up in the Big Dig, meaning the MBTA was left with a tab to the tune of $1.8 billion. It will have to pay

We’re talking about how much we should raise fares and how much we should cut service. It’s as if we’ve decided that we’re going to shove razor blades up our nose.

each year, the legislature would just toss it 20 percent of sales tax revenues. If people stopped buying things, reasoned the state legislature, the MBTA could just use its secret stash of pirate gold. Then the sales tax started underperforming, and then 2008 happened, and then people stopped buying things and everything went from bad to really, really bad.

interest on this every year and it is in no way the MBTA’s own fault.

The MBTA has spent the last five years cutting everything it didn’t need and some things it did, and here we are. The debt stands at a tidy $5.5 billion. Annual debt service payments are running, as of fiscal year 2011, at $393 million, or a whopping — whopping! — 88 percent of total fare rev-

enues. So are we talking about how, maybe, as a society, we should spend a little more on mass transit? Nope. We’re talking about how much we should raise fares and how much we should cut service. It’s as if we’ve decided that we’re going to shove razor blades up our noses. We could talk about maybe finding ways to keep razor blades outside of our noses, but no — we’re going to spend the next few months debating how many razor blades we should buy, and whether we should use a twisting motion or a gentle in-and-out cycle once they’re inside.

I wish MBTA leaders were more aggressive in lobbying the state, but they are understandably cautious. Besides, that is not really their job. It’s ours. Groups like the MBTA Riders Union in Boston do really great work on this issue, as do similar groups across the country, and it’s worth getting involved if this actually matters to you. For those who live in Massachusetts, calling legislators never hurts. For those elsewhere, these fights are being played out in almost every city. There is huge momentum behind this proposed fare increase, and it may very well be that it cannot be stopped. We should keep trying, though, because there is nothing else we can do.

Daniel Moraff ’14 attends this University and writes for this newspaper.

Is Sex Power God counterproductive?

By Kevin Carty Opinions Columnist

Before the event itself, Sex Power God was touted to me as a naked party and an environment for students to express their sexuality in whatever way they wished. But, after the party was thrown, the narrative changed significantly. Sex Power God was described to me as a night of hookups and non-monogamous sex acts. And, if that alone is to be the essence and legacy of Sex Power God, then Brown’s biggest party is seriously overlooking something.

Most on this campus would agree that as a society, we need to do a better job of allowing more freedom in terms of sexual expression. There is a culturally-established mainstream storyline of sexuality in America that does not afford adequate respect to those who do not abide by its anachronistic assumptions of heterosexuality. Homosexual Americans — as well as others who do not fit the hetero-homo classification — experience discrimination and significantly less personal sexual freedom than that afforded heterosexuals. As far as I understand its underlying purpose, Sex Power God was created to provide a safe, open space for those thrown aside by this pattern of heteronormativity. According to Sex Power God’s Facebook page, the party “gives everyone the opportunity to do and wear whatever makes them feel sexy.” For one night, attendees can

feel free to perform gender as they wish and act according to whatever sexual orientation with which they are most comfortable. This is a noble goal and something Brown should be proud of.

However, it seems that for the vast majority of students this purpose is not relevant.

Most attendees that spoke to me recounted the number of people with whom they had hooked up and described the sex acts they had witnessed. Not once, in every description given to me, did anyone say that they enjoyed Sex Power God because it was a safe place or because they could express them-

nogamous sex through friends with benefits, one night stands and casual hookups. Few of us want to live in a society that actively constrains our sexual lifestyles, but a movement beyond dating and relationships and into a habit of hookups is something of concern.

Why? First of all, sex outside of a relationship means less accountability. A traditional relationship comes with mutual obligations that, to a certain extent, safeguard against maltreatment. Hookups and friends with benefits do not ensure exclusivity or even a minimal amount of emotional stability. Furthermore, sexually transmitted infections as

In the future, while it attempts to challenge heteronormativity, Sex Power God should be careful not to simultaneously validate yet another equally destructive social construct. selves in a way they could not before. Some may have felt this way, enjoying the party for its original, admirable purpose, but it seems that for most attendees this was not the case.

For most, it was little more than a long night of numerous hookups.

This fact is a sad one, precisely because the omnipresent heteronormative narrative that Sex Power God was established to counter is not the only destructive media-induced narrative of sexuality. As our generation stands today, we face a cultural landscape replete with images and examples of sex without meaning. The sexual revolution has, not surprisingly, brought about more non-mo-

well as pregnancy are more likely in situations of non-monogamy, when one partner may not be as concerned with safe sex. Likewise, though a so-called ‘hookup culture’ can inflate anyone’s self-esteem by easily demonstrating how others find them attractive, we should be suspicious of any cultural construct that primarily focuses on physical attraction. Casual hookups, especially at locations like Sex Power God, are often based on sexual attraction rather than personal connection. A hookup culture, at its very core, sexualizes people, and sexualization is not so different from sexual objectification. Lastly, a culture of sex without monogamy squan-

ders the progress made in this country in the last century. The feminist movement, rightly focused on gender equality, can greatly improve our sexual and romantic lives. It inserts equity into relationships, a prerequisite for wholesome love and true intimacy. But if that equality is only taken advantage of to ensure that we have more sex, rather than to ensure that we have more caring relationships and more intimate love-making, then that equality seems wasted. If we believe in one of the core outcomes of the sexual revolution — that sex need not be limited to marriage — justification for this tenet will not come from debased, meaningless sex. Rather, the proof for this philosophy will proceed from evidence that sex outside of marriage can be something positive. Premarital sex will be validated when we can show that, without spreading disease, bringing unwanted pregnancies or causing psychological harm, it can improve closeness and strengthen relationships.

As I have heard it described, Sex Power God stands today as a great and sad example of the culture of non-monogamy about which I’ve written in this piece. I don’t want Sex Power God to stop being held. Its original purpose is far too necessary. But, in the future, while it attempts to challenge heteronormativity, Sex Power God should be careful not to simultaneously validate yet another equally destructive social construct.

Kevin Carty ‘15 is from Washington, D.C. and would love to hear any responses. He can be reached at kevin_carty@brown.edu.

Daily Herald City & State the Brown

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Commission addresses higher ed affordability

By Sona Mkrttchian Senior Staff Writer

Emily Gilbert / Herald

Members of Brown’s ACLU chapter discussed the possibility of a new public defenders program at the UCS meeting Wednesday night.

UCS considers public defenders program

By Margaret Nickens Senior Staff Writer

Three representatives from the University’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union spoke about the possibility of implementing a student public defend-

Campus News ers program at the general body meeting of the Undergraduate Council of Students Wednesday night.

The program, modelled after a similar service offered by the University of California at Berkeley, would train students in University laws and regulations so they can represent their classmates during grade appeals, disciplinary hearings and other interactions with the administration.

Skylar Albertson ’13, one of the

ACLU presenters, said the program would give participants public policy experience that would be helpful for students interested in applying to law school.

The Admissions and Student Services Committee announced that new CVC machines are now running. The new machines allow students to add money to their Bear Bucks account in real time, but students still must use the old machines to add money to their card for vending and laundry.

The committee also discussed broken CVC machines and exercise equipment around campus.

Many council members affirmed that the broken machines did not supply students with a number to call to report the damaged equipment, an oversight President Ralanda Nelson ’12 said they should work toward fixing.

Campus Life Chair Michael

Schneider ’13 said he is meeting with Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential and dining services, to discuss adding water fountains to the satellite gyms.

The Campus Life committee is also looking into making the meal plan system more attractive to students. Under the current system, students on the cheaper meal plans pay more per meal than students on the more expensive meal plan, Schneider said.

The council began sending out a Meiklejohn Tip of the Week in its weekly advising email to assist students with topics such as taking five classes and shopping period. Treasurer Afia Kwakwa ’14 also said UCS will be hosting a leadership conference for Rhode Island high school students April 28. Students from five high schools will participate in the conference.

In a series of public hearings held across the state last month, members of a special commission of the Rhode Island House of Representatives explored the lack of affordability and accessibility plaguing the state’s public higher education system.

The hearings — held at the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island, the three public institutions of higher education in the state — represented an opportunity for students, faculty and the public at large to present issues to the commission.

The forums were organized in an attempt to further the commission’s research and facilitate discussion, said state Rep. Frank Ferri, D-Warwick, who leads the commission.

“You have to look at the whole picture,” he added. “We needed to hear from everybody in the state.”

The cost of tuition was a major issue presented during the community forums, said state Rep. Spencer Dickinson, D-South Kingstown, a member of the commission.

“It’s really hard for the kids to do the program and pay the tuition and keep a job,” Dickinson said.

“We hear that point — it’s a really valid point.”

House Speaker Gordon Fox, D-Providence, sponsored the creation of the House Commission to Study Public Higher Education Affordability and Accessibility — mandated by legislation passed a year ago — last March. The commission was formed as a “comprehensive study of administrative and academic conditions in the state of Rhode Island,” Ferri said.

The commission is studying ways to prevent students from

incurring massive amounts of debt and to ensure that students graduating from Rhode Island high schools are prepared for higher education, he added.

Many of the issues facing the state are “interrelated and connected,” said Lorne Adrain, chairman of the Board of Governors for Higher Education. He added that a healthy education system is integral to improving the economy and that taxpayers need to view education as an investment in the state’s future.

“If we want a competitive economy, if we want companies moving here to do business … we have to provide them with a ready and able workforce,” Adrain said.

URI Student Senate President David Coates wrote in an email to The Herald that he was disappointed by the commission’s focus on cutting costs at the university level instead of increasing funding from the state.

While “URI is certainly a great value” compared to other universities, Coates wrote, more than 70 percent of students in 2010 graduated with over $20,000 in debt.

Robert Weygand, vice president of administration and finance at URI, said tuition rates for Rhode Island’s only public research university have been steadily rising over the past six years. Tuition at URI currently comes in at just under $13,000, compared to $7,000 six years ago, according to the university’s website.

“With the number of degrees required for jobs outpacing the number of graduates, I believe it’s clear Rhode Island needs to make a massive investment in education,” Coates wrote. “We no longer live in a world where a college education is a luxury. It’s a necessity in order to fulfill the expectation that we will someday earn a competitive wage.”

Rep. proposes ban on smoking in public spaces

By Adam Toobin Senior Staff Writer

In 2005, smokers received some bad news — Rhode Island had joined a number of other states in banning smoking inside bars and enclosed workspaces. Now, state Rep. Richard Morrison, DBristol, wants to take that law a step further and make it illegal to smoke in any outdoor public establishment.

The proposed legislation would keep smokers from lighting up in public parks, beaches and playgrounds. The regulation would only extend to property under the jurisdiction of the state government, preserving students’ rights to smoke on the Main Green and other outdoor areas on campus.

“If you have your kid on a blanket on the beach and someone comes up next to you and starts smoking — that’s not a good

thing,” Morrison said.

Some students said they thought the legislation would unfairly penalize smokers. “I understand why they make it illegal, but then again it is a public space. If someone doesn’t want to be near a smoker, they can get up and leave,” said Erika Manouselis ’15. “Smokers want to be out in a nice day as much as anyone else.”

“People shouldn’t be limited in their rights as long as it doesn’t hurt other people,” said Ben Vila ’15. “Smoking in a public space does not directly affect other people, so they shouldn’t outlaw it.”

But Morrison disagreed with the notion that smoking in a park is a right. “In a public place, it’s a privilege to smoke,” he said.

Morrison cited health concerns over exposure to secondhand smoke as the primary reason for introducing the bill. “Secondhand smoke is more dangerous to the

person breathing than to the person smoking the cigarette,” he said.

“That (assertion) would be an overstatement in terms of empirical evidence,” said Christopher Kahler, chair and professor of behavior and social sciences.

But “more people are exposed to secondhand smoke than smoke themselves.” One smoker can affect multiple people and the overall effect on others may be worse than that on the original smoker, he added.

A general consensus exists among researchers that secondhand smoke — classified as a carcinogen by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency — is dangerous.

Rhode Island would not be the first state to outlaw smoking in public areas. An even broader law outlawing smoking in public passed the New York City Council last year.

The bill is still under debate in

committee, but Morrison said if it makes it to a vote, he does not see any reason why it would not become law. “It’s gotten a lot of interest and a lot of support,” he said. The bill has yet to meet public opposition.

The goal of the bill is not to force people to stop smoking, Morrison said. “But if it makes it more inconvenient to smoke, and so they decide to quit, that’s a great thing, too,” he said.

Lawmakers often consider raising taxes on cigarettes as an alternative method to reduce smoking. But Morrison said he never considered raising taxes because it would not solve the immediate problem of smoke pervading public places. “If you’re waiting for a bus, and you’re allergic or sickened by smoke, you can’t get away from it without missing the bus,” he said.

Though Morrison’s primary in-

terest is not necessarily to reduce smoking, Rhode Island lawmakers have taken a number of steps to reduce the number of smokers in the state. Rhode Island currently has the second-highest rate of taxation per pack of cigarettes, trailing only New York. A pack of cigarettes in Rhode Island is currently taxed $3.46, and Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 proposed a four-cent perpack increase in his State of the State address Tuesday night.

Rhode Island has in the past received poor marks from the American Lung Association for its efforts to curb smoking. The state received a failing grade for its level of funding for programs designed to help people quit smoking. But Rhode Island did receive an A for its “smoke-free air” after banning smoking in workspaces, bars and a number of other places.

The state also received an A rating for its high tax on cigarettes.