Friday, February 10, 2012

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxxii, no. 13

Friday, February 10, 2012

Since 1891

Student uncovers Malcolm X legacy in Hay archives

By Adam Asher Contributing Writer

Alex Tin / Herald

Malcolm Burnley ’12 (right) unearthed a rare recording of a Malcolm X speech from a 1961 visit to Brown in response to an essay by Katharine Pierce (left).

By David Chung News Editor

A proposed amendment to the Undergraduate Council of Students’ constitution has been met with mixed response, though many student group leaders have expressed concern that the amendment would place additional power in the council’s hands at the expense of other groups.

The council’s funds are currently distributed by the Undergraduate Finance Board, which oversees funding allocations for Category II and III student groups. The amendment would put decisions about UCS funding under the authority of council members instead of the board. UFB would still allocate the remaining funds to other Category III groups.

In light of rising conflict between the two bodies over the last few years, the council introduced the amendment Wednesday to secure the funds necessary for its initiatives, clarify its relationship with UFB and render UFB budgeting processes more transparent, said UCS President Ralanda Nelson ’12.

But UFB representatives and student leaders are not certain the

inside

continued on page 2

news....................2-4 Arts & Culture.5-6 Science............7 Sports.............8-9 Editorial............10 Opinions...........11

addicts to use and get help. In the course of his work at the site, his life intersects with those of his staff, his patients and their drug dealer.

The direction of “Trigger Hand” immediately forces the audience members into this world by having them enter around the stage under scaffolding into the supervised injection facility. The set, never a static place or time, juxtaposes a junkie’s grungy room with a sad, continued on page 6

continued on page 3

continued on page 3

“Trigger Hand” puts new spin on addiction

By Tonya Riley Staff Writer

The best theater forces us not just to confront life’s ugliness, but to empathize with it. “Trigger Hand,” running at Production Workshop as part of the “Writing is Live” festival Feb. 10-13, does both. By using the politically charged setting of a supervised injection facility in Vancouver, the play examines questions of addiction in the context of the relationships it insidiously

poisons and strangely manifests.

“Addiction needs to be seen as a family issue and a community issue, not the individual’s problem,” said playwright Samuel Barasch ’12 of the play’s theme.

The action of the play revolves

Arts & Culture around doctor George Pull (Gordon Sayre ’12) and his work at the supervised drug injection site, which provides a safe place for

By Kristina Klara Staff Writer

“Who is more meshuga?” Newark Mayor Cory Booker asked a packed Metcalf Auditorium last night, using the Hebrew word for “crazy.”

The question began a dialogue sponsored by Hillel between Booker and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on positive social change. Booker is currently serving his second term as mayor, and Boteach has written 27 best-selling books on topics ranging from relationships to spirituality.

Booker encouraged the crowd to ask any questions, whether they be about Booker’s “time at Yeshiva” or “Shmuley’s football career in college” — in reality, Booker played football at Stanford University while Boteach studied at the Jewish institution.

“If you had asked me when I was 22 years old, ‘Would I ever in my life not only be sitting up here with an Orthodox Hasidic

First-years discover viruses, analyze DNA

By Kate Nussenbaum Senior Staff Writer

Sixteen first-years watched with excitement as their screens loaded the sequence of 59,625 nucleic acids that comprise the DNA of “Job42,” the virus a student in their class had discovered, isolated and named during the fall semester.

“Each of them codes for something,” said Jordan Rego, a student in the “Phage Hunters” class at Providence College, referring to the letters on his screen. “It’s pretty amazing. I honestly can’t wait to start” analyzing the DNA, he said.

Rego and his classmates are the first group of Providence College students to take Phage Hunters, a new introductory biology course that is entirely hands-on.

The course is part of a national program designed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and this year both Providence College and

Brown joined the fourth cohort of schools to offer the class, taught at forty schools nationwide.

Over the course of the first semester, the students each found and isolated their own unknown phage, a virus that infects bacteria. Then they selected one to be sequenced. Throughout the second semester, students will work together to find and label the phage’s genes using a computer program that helps analyze DNA. If they succeed in completely annotating the DNA, the class will be able to submit their work to an online database of known phages, allowing their discovery to be accessed and used by everyone in the scientific community.

“It’s not like you’re replicating what someone has done fifty years ago,” said David Targan, Brown’s associate dean of the college for continued on page 7

Mike Cohea / Brown University

Alex Hadik ’15 isolated his own virus in the “Phage Hunters” first-year seminar.

ProTeam

Vote ‘no’

Researchers see new protein in 3-D

Parekh ’13 urges students to reject UCS amendment

SCIENCE, 7

opinions, 11

weather

UCS plan receives lukewarm response

It all started when Malcolm Burnley ’12 went digging in the John Hay Library archives for a historical narrative assignment in his creative nonfiction class. What he found catapulted him into the national spotlight — a tape of a speech given by then-Nation of Islam Minister Malcolm X in Sayles Hall May 11, 1961. In a presentation hosted by the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society at the Hay last night, the tape’s contents were heard by an audience for the first time in 50 years.

Burnley, who was enrolled in ENGL 1180J: “Tales of the Real World,” said he wanted to write about a relatively recent topic so he could interview living people, rather than relying completely on “old, dusty materials,” like he said many of his classmates were doing.

While looking through The Herald’s archives from 1961, he came across a photo of Malcolm X in Sayles Hall.

While he found little coverage of the actual event, the photo led him to an essay titled “The Amazing Story of the Black Muslims,” which was published in February 1961 in The Herald. He contacted Katharine Pierce, Pembroke College Class of 1962, and the author of the essay, which provoked Malcolm X to come to Brown.

In the essay, Pierce repeatedly refers to the Black Muslims as a “cult,” draws distinctions between the Black Muslims and “true Moslems” and characterizes the movement as destructive and anti-intellectual.

While speaking with Pierce over the phone, Burnley learned she had sent the Hay a tape the previous year containing a recording of Mal-

Unlikely friends talk of promised land

t o d ay

tomorrow

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2 Campus News calendar Today

February 10

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Sudoku

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

Corporation convenes to set budget

By DavID Chung News Editor

The Corporation will announce the University’s budget as well as tuition and fees for the next fiscal year at its meeting this weekend.

Members of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, will cast votes following a review of President Ruth Simmons’ recommendations, which stem from a budgetary report by the University Resources Committee.

The report will be made public following the meeting.

Though tensions between the University and the city of Providence have arisen in the last month over Brown’s financial contributions to the city, no action is expected to result from the meeting, said Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations. The University is continuing talks with Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, and there is no proposal on the

table for the Corporation to review, Quinn added in an email to The Herald.

While the budget remains the main focus at the Corporation’s annual February meeting, the Corporation will also discuss pressing issues such as housing and athletics. The Corporation will review plans for dormitory renovation, including general facility improvement, said Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services. It will also discuss plans to establish first-year housing communities on Pembroke campus and Keeney Quadrangle and to allocate more suites and apartments to juniors and seniors.

With Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger stepping down at the end of this academic year, the Corporation will discuss the search for a new athletic director, Klawunn said. It will also receive an update on the progress of implementing recommendations from Simmons’ response to the

Athletics Review Committee’s report released last April.

The Corporation will be updated on the state of the Office for Student Veterans and Commissioning Programs, which was established this semester to support veterans and students participating in military programs.

The Corporation plans to oversee the re-dedication of the Metcalf Research Laboratory Friday evening, said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, senior vice president for Corporation affairs and governance. It expects to receive a number of gifts this weekend, as they are a “routine activity” at the Corporation’s business meeting, he said.

Carey declined to comment on the progress of the presidential search.

“The search is ongoing,” he said, but no shortlist of candidates is available. He declined to comment on when more information would be made public.

Students debate UCS budget changes continued from page 1

RELEASE DATE– Friday, February 10, 2012

Los AngelesCrossword Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

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ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

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02/10/12

amendment would be a positive change for the campus.

Though Kaz Wesley ’14.5, president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, said he understands the council’s intention of clarifying its relationship with UFB, he added that the amendment could bring about a “very harmful change” by giving additional power to UCS at the cost of student groups. Because the amendment does not place a limit on the council’s control over funds, he said its approval could bring about “dangerous” changes.

Nelson acknowledged that some groups have responded with concern but added that the council’s intention was “never malicious.” UCS will not employ “underhanded” measures to allocate additional funds for itself, she said, and with its open membership policy, students opposed to the council’s decisions may join and vote against the measures.

“Students wanted to see this,” she said. “It’s not about taking funds away, it’s equipping the student government to do its job.”

Students have until Sunday to vote on the proposed change via MyCourses.

“It’s ridiculous that we have

Daily

the Brown

this little time after they have announced the proposal to vote,” Wesley said.

Joseph Rosner ’12, president of the Brown Debating Union, also expressed concern. “Even the best of intentions could lead to unfair consequences for equally important groups on campus,” he wrote in an email to The Herald.

Rosner instead called on UCS to explore alternative channels in settling its conflict with UFB. “There is no logical basis for the amendment because it seems to center on in-fighting,” Rosner wrote. “Other options, like reorganizing the communication channels or settling the political problems that exist between the two groups, should come first.”

The council can appeal UFB’s budget decisions through the administration or seek funding through other means, he wrote.

“That is exactly the same deal given to all student groups, and UCS should be no exception,” he added.

The relationship between the two bodies has been an issue in the past, said UFB Chair Jason Lee ’12.

But he said the amendment is not the appropriate way to change the relationship structurally because it removes a checks and balances system for UCS funds and proj-

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ects. Since the amendment would provide the council unlimited control over its finances, it would make UCS a “priority” over other groups, Lee said.

Nelson told The Herald that she has also received positive feedback from some student group leaders who recognized the effort to improve the relationship between the two organizations and increase the funding board’s transparency. Group leaders have expressed that the amendment is an “interesting idea,” Nelson said, adding that students want to hold UFB accountable for its budget allocation decisions.

The main goal behind the amendment is to make UFB more transparent and not necessarily to increase available funds for the council, she said. Groups are currently underfunded, and there are issues to address within UFB. “They operate in the green, not in the red,” said Nelson, a former member of UFB. But many students expressed confusion over the conflict between the two organizations. Some were suspicious of the council’s intentions, while some said they were not well-informed.

“They’re getting all totalitarian,” said Elizabeth Perez ’13.

“Give us our money.”

Others were more open to the idea of the amendment. “I think it makes sense for UCS to control their own funds,” said Adwoa Hinson ’14. “I mean, they’re supposed to be the student government, right?” ­— With additional reporting by Phoebe Draper

Thanks for reading!

Campus News 3

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

Newark mayor and rabbi team up Senior unveils lost

Malcolm X speech

continued from page 1 rabbi’” or be “the first in the history of humanity to be the black goy president of a chabad house, I would’ve thought that you were really crazy,” Booker said.

But that is just what happened.

In 1992 at Oxford University, a woman invited Booker to the L’Chaim Society for dinner.

“Is there something caught in your throat?” he said he thought when she invited him. But meeting women at the time “was like the Holy Grail,” he added, so he accepted the offer. The house resembled a scene from “Yentl,” with men wearing black hats and clothed by “terrible tailors,” he said. All of a sudden, everyone at the party turned to look at him. He said he could tell they were thinking, “What is this large black man doing here?” He said he thought the same thing.

Though out of his comfort zone, Booker decided to stay for dinner and was seated next to Rabbi Boteach. After having a long conversation, the two began to exchange books to learn about each other’s cultures. Booker recommended “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” while Boteach suggested “Night” by Elie Wiesel.

Soon, Boteach asked Booker to be the co-president of the Oxford L’Chaim Society.

“Now I see you are downright meshuga,” Booker said to the Rabbi. But Booker agreed and became one of the first non-Jewish presidents of a Jewish student organization.

Booker and Boteach bonded immediately over a conversation on tolerance, Booker said.

“Tolerance is the floor, but love is the ceiling,” he added. “If we keep dividing each other along racial, religious (and) political lines, we will never manifest the strength necessary to advance this nation to its calling.”

Booker described a recent trip to the Israeli desert, where he

continued from page 1

Emily Gilbert / Herald

Booker (left) recalled embarassing stories about Rabbi Boteach (right).

saw the top of Mount Nebo, the place where Moses came to see the promised land, even though he knew he could not enter. This generation, Booker said, will go further than Moses did.

“On this college campus is the Joshua generation,” said Booker.

“The generation of my parents did not get this nation to the promised land. They got it to the mountaintop.”

Boteach began his section of the talk by discussing Martin Luther King, “someone who took the ancient Jewish tradition and made it a modern manifesto of freedom,” he said. “He gave pride to my people, the likes of which we had never experienced before.”

Boteach was so influenced by King that he took his children on a road trip to Mason Temple in Memphis, Tenn., to see the place where King gave his famous “Mountaintop” speech.

“If you ever want to know what purgatory is,” Boteach said, “shove nine kids in a tin can called an RV.”

The Rabbi called King a prophet, and he emphasized “the ability of people to go beyond tolerance, to go beyond putting up with difference and actually feeling enriched by difference.”

Boteach said the problem in America is that we despise the other side more than we love who we are. He said the message of one political party is often that the other is destroying America.

The population is “sick and tired of partisanship for partisanship’s sake,” Booker said. “I believe no side of our political spectrum has a monopoly on good ideas.”

“I am now a believer that there is nothing we cannot do as a people in this country. It is no longer a matter of can we. It is a matter of, ‘Do we have the collective will?’”

Booker added.

“The idea that we can all work together for higher goals — how can we make that message sexier?”

Boteach asked.

“You and I shouldn’t be giving it,” Booker replied.

s h aw t y f i r e b u r n i n ’ i n t h e r at t y

Rachel Kaplan / Herald

Executive Chef John O’Shea wowed students while preparing a strawberry treat for the Ratty’s special dessert night.

colm X’s speech. With the help of Senior Library Specialists Raymond Butti and Gayle Lynch, Burnley located the tape, which was at the time shelved and uncatalogued, and the library sent it away to be digitized.

“I thought it was one of many recordings that had been made,” Pierce said of the tape, adding that she had taken it from The Herald’s office as a “souvenir.”

Malcolm X’s 1961 speech contains a defense of the religion and lifestyle led by Black Muslims. Following an introduction by former Herald editor-in-chief and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke ’62, Malcolm X spoke about the need for racial segregation.

President Barnaby Keeney was initially opposed to the speech, viewing Malcolm X’s ideas as too radical. He only relented when Holbrooke threatened to move The Herald off campus and out of its location in Faunce House and sever ties with the University.

Former Rhode Island Black Heritage Society President Ray Rickman said Malcolm X gave the speech when he was “on the cusp of fame,” in a society still heavily segregated. Brown was no exception. Though the University had matriculated black students since 1877, Brown was still an almost completely white institution in 1961, admitting only a very small number of black applicants, Rickman said. Students rarely ventured far from campus, Burnley said, avoiding the largely black neighborhood around Hope High School in East Providence.

Media outlets around the world, ranging from the Wall Street Journal to the BBC, have reported on Burnley’s find. Both Burnley and Pierce said they were caught offguard by the extent of the media’s interest.

“I’m a very understated person who’s not used to getting any sort of attention, so it’s strange,” Burnley said.

Pierce also found the attention overwhelming, calling the past week “a wild ride that most people go through their lives never experiencing.” Since the story has caught fire, Burnley and Pierce have become a “joint package” of sorts, in Burn-

ley’s words, as they have appeared together in numerous interviews, including one on National Public Radio’s “The Takeaway.”

The tape may be the earliest existing recording of a complete Malcolm X speech and, at the very least, one of the oldest recordings of any of the speeches he gave on his 1961 tour of American universities, Rickman said. Still, even Rickman has been surprised by the flurry of media attention, relating how he was offered $50 for a seat at Thursday’s event.

Elizabeth Taylor, senior lecturer in English who teaches “Tales of the Real World,” said such media attention was “rare” for her class and called Burnley “the ideal student” in terms of how he used investigative journalism techniques to find out more about Malcolm X’s speech.

Burnley spoke Thursday following introductions by University Archivist Jennifer Betts, Rickman and Black Heritage Society President Joyce Stevos, who referred to members of the Society as “keepers of the story” of African-Americans in Rhode Island. His presentation was interspersed with questions and comments from members of the audience, which included former and current members of the Nation of Islam and concluded with a more formal question and answer session.

Some moments in the recording prompted noises of approval, laughter and even a few “amens” from attendees.

Burnley received multiple rounds of applause, and attendees spoke highly of the presentation.

Elayne Walker-Cabral, director of the Community School at the Met School in Providence, said she would like Burnley to come speak to high school students because it would be “an opportunity for him to inspire our kids” and said the presentation made her want to “delve even deeper” into the history of the Civil Rights Movement.

The only official record of Malcolm X’s speech exists in the audio recording and Herald articles.

“There are stories waiting to be found,” Burnley said. Pierce added that students need to “take (their) eyes off the screen sometimes” and look through archives for valuable information.

There will be an encore of Thursday’s presentation Feb. 27 at the John Hay Library.

4 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

U. aims to recruit Native American students, faculty

By Joseph Rosales Senior Staff Writer

In its annual report released last November, the Diversity Advisory Board announced that it will seek to recruit more Native American students, faculty and staff. The report noted that the board has not actively worked to increase this group’s presence on campus in the past.

Currently, Elizabeth Hoover MA’03 PhD’10, visiting assistant professor of ethnic studies and American studies, is the only Native American faculty member at Brown and will be the first full-time Native professor in nearly a decade.

Lina Fruzzetti, chair of the advisory board and professor of anthropology, said she sees a problem with this statistic, and the student population does not fare any better.

“This is not enough obviously,” Fruzzetti said. “We need to really increase the numbers.”

Faculty diversity

Fruzzetti, who is also interim provost and director of institutional diversity, said she immediately noticed the lack of Native American faculty when she assumed the position.

Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin said that in recent years the administration has attempted to hire more Native American faculty, but the searches rarely succeed because of the small pool of qualified candidates and the high demand for those professors.

“It’s simply a difficult market,” McLaughlin said.

Robert Lee, chair and associate professor of American Civilization, said his department also has “a real commitment to having as many voices represented at the University.”

But other more secure options available to strong candidates make recruiting them difficult, he said.

“There are already well-established Native American studies programs in other universities, and one of the issues is getting someone that’s courageous enough to really be committed to create a community here,” Lee said.

Fruzzetti said hiring Hoover represents a big step toward building this community. She said she hopes the University continues to search for more Native American hires in order to foster the greater Native community.

“We need to be focused on a momentum that’s ongoing and really build on that,” she said.

A small student population

Last year, the University had 26 undergraduate students who selfidentified as Native American, making up .43 percent of the total undergraduate population, according to data from the Office of Institutional Research.

The Native American community is the only minority student population not to increase in size over the last 10 years, according to the Office of Institutional Research.

Hoover said the experiences of current Native American students at Brown depend on their background.

“I know it’s different for some students who come from much more homogenous communities like in the Southwest or some of the Navajo,” she said. “Whereas for other people like myself, when you come from a mixed community, it’s not as shocking.”

Loyola Rankin ’11.5 said coming from a reservation made attending Brown a little difficult, but the student group Natives at Brown helped her find a community.

Together with Kim Kummer ’11, Rankin brought guest speakers and artists to campus to discuss Native American issues along with continuing Hoover’s tradition of the yearly powwow, an event that has become “a landmark” in the local Native community, she said.

But outside of Natives at Brown, both Rankin and Kummer have struggled with being part of such a small population among the greater undergraduate community.

“Brown’s big thing is diversity, but people really don’t understand what it means to be Native,” Kummer said. “But as far as welcoming and being part of the student body, I think Brown is really accepting.”

Rankin said she has taken classes where she was not able to discuss Native American issues in depth because of her professors’ lack of knowledge in that department.

“It’s been very taxing that you have to go through a history lesson with your own professor,” she said.

Upping recruitment

The University participates in a variety of programs dedicated to attracting Native American applicants as well as underrepresented students to Brown and other peer institutions, said Elizabeth Hart, associate director of the Office of Admission and director of minority recruitment.

The College Horizons program, which partners with 50 colleges and universities across the country, is dedicated to recruiting Native American students to their campuses, according to its website.

Hart said the University sends two representatives to the College Horizons summer program, where they provide mentoring and assistance in the application process.

But the University does not provide on-campus visiting programs or other Brown-specific programs to potential Native American applicants, Hart said.

Dartmouth, which boasts a nearly 4 percent Native American undergraduate population, has run a robust reservation visitation program for a number of years, said Phil Gover, senior assistant director of admissions and the coordinator of Native American recruitment at Dartmouth. Gover and other admission officers travel to states with a high Native American population in order to recruit applicants.

Dartmouth also runs a Native Fly-in Program each year that brings 50 Native American students to the college for four days, where they participate in workshops on the application process and college life, Gover said.

“It’s a mini-Native Dartmouth experience,” he said.

Hart said one of the biggest challenges in recruiting Native students is the lack of a strong educational

Emily Polk / Herald The University hopes to increase its Native American student population.

system in some regions with large Native populations. Some parents also hesitate to send their children so far away from home due to the risk of losing culture and community, she said. Rival peer institutions also pose a challenge to recruitment.

“One of the real benefits Dartmouth has had is its history,” Hart said. “It has had the reputation of being the only Ivy League that was recruiting Native American students. They have a long history and a very large infrastructure. I’m envious of that.”

Fruzzetti said hiring more Native faculty would do well to attract more Native students.

“If we want to attract Native American students, we should have one or two representatives here,” she said. “Having a community would encourage undergraduate and graduate students to come because they have mentors and people to talk to.”

“It’s good for people to see people who they want to be,” Hoover said.

Hoover said she has talked with administrators about potential strategies. Having current undergraduates discuss Brown with potential applicants would also go a long way, she said, adding that Natives at Brown is putting together

literature about both the student group and the University’s Native community in general to send to applicants through current undergraduate students.

Future steps

No matter the strategy, Fruzzetti said she believes the University needs to be persistent in its recruitment process.

“The thing is to take that initiative and really pursue it,” she said.

“It’s a lot of work, and you have to have your mind and heart in it and follow it through. None of these issues are easy, but that doesn’t mean we give up and do nothing.”

McLaughlin said he finds it important to try and develop a stronger Native community but is wary of the difficulty ahead.

“Getting that community started, taking that first step, is always in some ways the hardest step, and it’s a lot of work,” Lee said.

But Rankin said she believes the current students are the key to securing the next generation of Native undergraduate students.

“We need to go back to our communities,” Rankin said. “It really depends on us.”

Alum reflects on education reform efforts in Haiti

By Mathias Heller Senior Staff Writer

After graduating from Brown with a degree in Classics and Sanskrit, Deacon Patrick Moynihan ’87 planned to travel to Uganda. But when his mother opposed his plans, he set his sights on Haiti instead. Moynihan related his experiences working in Haiti to an audience of alums, students and faculty at the Maddock Alumni Center last night in a

lecture entitled “Why Real Change Takes Real Involvement: The Impact a Brown Education Can Make.”

When Moynihan arrived in Haiti, he helped build schools and assisted in bringing social services to Haitian children. Moynihan said his experience as head of the Louverture Cleary School, a tuition-free Catholic boarding school in Haiti, gave him a broad view of the country’s political, social and economic developments. His brother Brian

Moynihan ’81 P’14, who is currently CEO of Bank of America, provided aid in growing the Cleary School, he said. At the time, Brian Moynihan was a young associate at a law firm, but he still decided to assist his brother with the school’s financial development, Moynihan said.

“The school has been very successful,” he said, despite the 2010 earthquake that damaged many areas of the country. He served as the school’s head from 1996 to 2006 and then returned to the position in March 2009.

In his role as president of the Haitian Project, a Providencebased Catholic charity organization, Moynihan directs efforts aimed at boosting the quality of education in Haiti, and developing the Cleary School. The school has more than doubled in size since it was founded in 1987, and Moynihan said there are now 343 alums, 90 percent of

whom go on to attend universities in Haiti.

“We are social people and we need to live in social institutions,” Moynihan said, adding that the main challenge in Haiti is building sustainable social services to support the long-term growth of the country.

“We need to strengthen the capacity of the Haitian people through building the infrastructure,” he added.

Addressing the question of whether emergency relief organizations are best equipped to deal with the issue of building social services, Moynihan said he found it “appalling” that United States media consistently focuses on the necessity of non-governmental organizations in supporting the country.

“As much as people care and are involved, they’re not living in the community long enough to make meaningful changes,” Moynihan

said. In order to make a real difference in Haiti, new non-governmental organizations are not the best way to funnel money into sustainable, long-term projects because they prioritize temporary relief instead of structural development, he said.

“There’s a lack of truth” about the role Western governments played in the earthquake relief process, Moynihan said. By impeding the autonomy of the Haitian government, international powers interfere with the Haitian people’s homegrown efforts to improve their situation, he said. Those interested in development efforts must “invest in the right things” to help Haitians build a sustainable future.

Moynihan said education is a critical area for investment. He pointed to the Cleary School as an example of the type of long-term change that Haitians need for a better future.

Arts & Culture 5

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

Prof’s debut novel tells of music and memory

By Caitlin trujillo Staff Writer

On the eve of World War I, tap dancer Lizzie Winrow and her accompanying jazz musician Osceola Turner live in Charleston, S.C., with dreams of making it big. Their journey to success proves difficult when they lose the money they have been saving and Ossie enlists to fight in Europe, where he thinks jazz musicians have more opportunity to be heard.

The stories of these two friends are part of “Some Sing, Some Cry,” a novel written by Ifa Bayeza, visiting artist in residence of the department of Africana Studies. Bayeza discussed this story and more in the Brown Bookstore Tuesday for an audience of about 20 people. Some audience members are enrolled in Bayeza’s class AFRI 1050Q: “New Narratives in African American History: The Art and Craft of Poetic and Creative Non-Fiction.”

Bayeza co-wrote the novel with her sister, the noted poet, novelist and playwright Ntozake Shange.

The stories of these two friends make up only 60 pages of “Some Sing, Some Cry.” The novel, which focuses on one family over the span of many generations, runs over 500 pages, contains eight parts and documents nearly 200 years of AfricanAmerican history.

Bayeza wrote a large swath of the novel about events that take place

between the 1890s — after the family’s matriarch Bette leaves her island plantation — and World War II. Shange wrote much of the book’s beginning and end. But some sections overlap and include Shange’s writing to make the work more fluid, Bayeza said.

“Some Sing, Some Cry” marks Bayeza’s debut as a novelist. She has been writing plays since sixth grade and has written works such as “The Ballad of Emmett Till,” which premiered in 2008 and won an Edgar Award for best play.

Bayeza chose to read from a section focused on young Lizzie, whose firecracker personality was in part inspired by Bayeza’s great-aunt, Bayeza told the audience.

The selection — much like the rest of the book — is focused on the role music has played in AfricanAmerican history. The book begins in the 1800s and ends with a quick snapshot in the present day, Bayeza told The Herald. She and Shange might write a sequel in the future that focuses on the 21st century, she said.

Bayeza, who also writes musical theater, wrote her own lyrics for some of the songs that appear in her novel. When the audio book came out, she also composed the “scratch track,” a rough soundtrack, as a guideline for the songs’ melodies, she said.

A question-and-answer session

Corrine Szczesny / Herald

Ifa Bayeza shared stories Tuesday from her debut novel, “Some Sing, Some Cry.”

followed the reading. Referencing the link between music and memory in the story, Bayeza said music represents the “brilliance the people of the African diaspora brought to the modern world.”

Vincent Tomasino ’14, an audience member enrolled in Bayeza’s class, said he enjoyed how animated Bayeza was while she read. The bookstore space, tucked away in a corner by the windows facing Thayer Street, made the event seem “much more like a story circle than a reading,” he said.

Tomasino also said he found the story funny and quick-paced, but

was shocked by the last lines of the reading — where Ossie is nearly blown up by an attack on the WWI front.

Bayeza turned a part of the novel into a concert reading piece called “Charleston Olio,” she said.

Her other project at Brown is “Kid Zero,” a musical comedy geared for teaching math to schoolchildren.

The piece has already been produced, but she said she is currently working to upgrade some of its music and will show the piece to Providence public schools when it is completed. She is also writing a “semi-nonfictional” memoir, she said.

6 Arts & Culture

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

PW seeks to cure Hay exhibit rings in Chinese New Year addiction misconceptions continued from page 1 whitewashed hospital facility. In typical PW fashion, platforms add dimension to the space and movement.

Director Leandro Zaneti ’12 said the mix of reality and dream in the play is meant to trigger a sense of remembrance in people.

Like the faded fragments of memory presented to the audience, the shifts in action of the play — sometimes designated by actor movement or role changes — are sometimes barely detectable as they occur. It takes a few moments of uncomfortable uncertainty to realize that instead of Pull being held up by Transportation Security Administration agents, we are now witnessing drug addict Baby’s side-effects, which includes vomiting physically represented by the violent rattling of the fences that surround the stage.

“Trigger Hand” painfully immerses the audience in its world.

The technical manifestations of the characters’ physical and emotional states are especially potent. When Pull is talking fellow traveller Hush (Elexis Williams ’13)down from a panic attack on a plane from behind a large clear curtain, the added dimension of obscurity further shoves us into Hush’s impaired consciousness.

“I read the script and it terrified me, and at that moment I really wanted to work on it,” Zaneti said, adding that working on an original play is both difficult and freeing. He said having Barasch as a “sounding board” for his ideas was very helpful.

Audience members see many of the characters at their lowest points, yet their struggles to push forward resonate. The complex characters

are both the heroes and villains of their own lives. HIV-positive and pregnant Baby, deftly portrayed by Alli Schaaff ’14, both repulses the audience with her self-destructive tendencies and garners sympathy as the victim of her addictions.

What makes Pull — who might otherwise seem flat — dynamic is the contrast between his counseling of his patients and his inability to overcome his own failings.

The most enigmatic character of the play, blind drug lord Hush, serves as both a foil to Pull, whom she calls a “bougie liberal activist,” and a reflection of his inadequacies.

Hush, self-described as “brutal,” slowly develops into a surprisingly well-rounded character as we see her longing to “sell-in.”

Through the characters’ trials, the audience comes to see the addicts as more than their aberrations. Nurse Katie, portrayed in a standout performance by Ava Langford ’14, says her job is not to make the addicts feel “worthwhile” but to make them feel “beautiful” and humane.

“The play has got this theme of starting clean and cleaning up,” Barasch said. “If there’s any argument that the play makes it is that starting clean doesn’t exist and that idea is just driving people crazy.”

Baby reflects this idea when she says, “There’s no starting clean. But maybe I can try to make peace.”

In an almost Dickensian fashion, Barasch’s impressive debut takes a bevy of characters and brings them together into an overarching theme of not just the “wars” of addiction, but also how we treat the casualties. “Trigger Hand” questions the responsibility of a community in an age where we are quick to villainize those who most need our support.

By Hannah loewentheil Staff Writer

The John Hay Library’s steps were lined with Chinese lanterns and its lobby was filled with the smell of dumplings Monday. The phrases “may everything go your way” and “may you be prosperous” were displayed on papier mache Chinese dragons to welcome guests to the Chinese Lantern Festival Gallery Walk, a special celebration of the Chinese New Year at the University. The decorations included this year’s Chinese zodiac sign of the dragon, which is considered the most powerful and wisest animal of ancient China, appreciated for its strength and good luck.

The gallery walk was the result of a collaborative effort by the Hay, the List Art Center and the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

The different exhibits will remain open to the public, but Monday night’s walk was a special showcase.

“It was a nice way to celebrate and connect the Lantern Festival to everything on campus,” said Shana Weinberg, the coordinator of the Year of China initiative.

The gallery walk consisted of a three-stop tour at each of the different venues. The tour began at the Hay with an exhibition called “Divine Land, Civilization and People.” The goal of the first exhibition is “to present China though a touching approach,” said Li Wang, veteran curator of the East Asian Collection. By showcasing books, paintings and artifacts, the exhibit should “bring the visitor in contact with Chinese culture and the people of this divine land,” he said.

Within the exhibit are a handful of Wang’s personal items from when he lived in Beijing. In addi-

Jane Hu / Herald

The gallery walk features three different exhibits dedicated to Chinese New Year.

tion, attendees can view a collection of 100 award-winning books donated by Bing Ling, chairman for the association of Chinese Writers in the United States.

Many unique items in the exhibit serve to establish a connection between China and the University. Beyond books, the exhibit features bamboo slips of Confucian classics, New Year folk paintings, a Qing emperor’s calligraphy scrolls, delicately decorated chopsticks and award-winning paintings by an 11-year-old Chinese girl, a crowd favorite.

The List Art Center is home to the second exhibit, “The Shape of Good Fortune,” which was designed and built by students in a seminar taught by Maggie Bickford, professor of history of art and architecture. The exhibit stresses wishes for abundance, luck and protection, themes that often accompany the Chinese New Year, a time of change and vulnerability.

“The goal of the exhibit was

to make the visual dimensions of the celebration of the New Year in China accessible to anybody,” Bickford said.

The final stop on the Gallery Walk was the Haffenreffer, where participants can view two side-by-side exhibits — “Crafting Origins” and “Taoist Gods from China.” Christy DeLair GS, who curates the exhibits, accumulated the showcased items on a funded trip to Taiwan. The crafts were handmade by indigenous tribes in Taiwan, seeking to tell the stories of their origins through art.

The latter exhibit featured Mien Taoist paintings that aim to give a recognizable face to the Tao, an East Asian metaphysical concept of the mechanism behind everything that exists.

The exhibits in the Haffenreffer will remain up until the end of the semester. “Shape of Good Fortune” runs through Feb. 16 and “Divine Land, Civilization and People” is open in the Hay until March 31.

Trinity Rep adds music to ‘Merchant’

By Ben Kutner Senior Staff Writer

Anti-Semitism and light-hearted love stories are odd themes to share a stage, but the cast of Trinity Repertory Company shows why “The Merchant of Venice” still packs a centuries-old punch.

In the latest production of Shakespeare’s masterpiece, which runs until March 4, a strong cast and minimalist set convey the charm that Trinity Rep can pull off in its best moments.

The highlights of the play come from Shakespeare’s script, which juxtaposes light humor with the dark hue of anti-Semitism. When the rich Venetian merchant Antonio (Joe Wilson Jr.) needs money to lend to his friend, the Jewish money-lender Shylock (Stephen Berenson) is there to provide it — at a tremendous personal cost to Antonio.

The play recounts the hatred that the Christians have for Shy-

lock, which he subsequently has for them. Berenson does a tremendous job, approaching his role with a grace that is usually difficult to portray in such an alienated and castigated character.

“The Merchant of Venice” spans the full range of emotions, and the cast excels in exhibiting this diversity. Wilson’s voice is a study in Shakespearian projection and fills the theater with every syllable.

There was no shortage of laughter when the love stories took the foreground during Wednesday’s performance. Fred Sullivan Jr., always a booming presence on the Trinity Rep stage, had the audience in stitches during his portrayal of a Spanish prince vying for the affection of heiress Portia (Mary Davis). Dressed in bright pink and flaunting a hilarious Spanish accent, Sullivan revealed the Bard’s timeless wit.

Davis is the strongest female role in the production, with a sharp voice and a critical air.

Director Curt Columbus takes advantage of the malleability that the script offers the plot, supplying the production with homoerotic implications.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Columbus’s interpretation is the moments that are not in the script. The production begins with a song-and-dance number, seemingly unrelated to the plot. Several of these incidental moments occur throughout the production, and they do not necessarily enhance the piece. The play’s strongest moments are the ones that have existed for more than four centuries. The recorded musical accompaniment offers little other than kitsch for the majority of its presence.

The cast members take advantage of the aisles in the theatre, occasionally positioning themselves between viewers. The drama is inescapable for surprised audience members who chance to find a member of the Venetian court standing over their shoulder.

www.browndailyherald.com

Science Friday 7

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

First-years get ‘hands-on’ with phages continued from page 1 science education. “You’re doing something that is contributing to new knowledge.”

The laborious hunt

Brian Bao / Brown University

Researchers used novel 3-D technology to view Pannexin 1, a newly discovered protein involved in cell binding. This technology could improve cancer research.

System examines cancer proteins in 3-D

By Sandra Yan Staff Writer

University researchers have employed a novel method to study Pannexin 1, a recently discovered protein that scientists believe may play a role in the spread of cancer. In an article published Jan. 20 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, a team of researchers — consisting of Brian Bao MD’13, associate professor of medical science Jeffrey Morgan and collaborators at the University of British Columbia — used a 3-D system to study cells without their supporting environments.

In previous in vitro studies, scientists could often only observe single flattened-out cells in petri dishes. The 3-D technology allows scientists to observe how multiple cells interact with each other rather than with their environments, giving researchers a more realistic method for simulating the human body.

The team discovered Pannexin 1 was implicated in the process of binding cells together. When cells come into contact with each other, Pannexin 1 channels open and cause the cell to release the energy molecule ATP, which binds to specific receptors on other cells, triggering an increase in calcium

ion concentrations and inducing changes in the cell’s structural proteins. This ultimately causes the cells to bind together even more strongly.

While each of this mechanism’s steps had been studied individually, this study was the first to relate all of them to Pannexin 1, said Bao, the study’s lead author.

These results could potentially impact how researchers study cancer. Cancerous cells are often bound less tightly, which some scientists believe may play a role in how the cancer spreads to other areas of the body.

“Further down the road, this could have serious implications in (studying) tumor genesis,” said Gerhard Dahl, professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Bao’s next steps include looking into how Pannexin 1 affects a cancer tumor’s ability to spread.

While the study represents a positive development, it is just one step in a much larger process that will involve many other researchers, he said. “Cancer is an immensely complex phenomenon that ultimately requires a multi-faceted approach among a community of scientists,” Bao wrote in an email to The Herald.

First, students got their hands dirty, digging up soil samples to analyze in the lab, in hopes of finding their own phages.

“They think there are around 10 to the 31st bacteriophages in the world, so the probability of you finding a new phage is much, much larger than finding one that has been discovered,” said Tina Voelcker ’15.

Though the odds were in the students’ favor, isolating the viruses was a long — and at times, frustrating — process. Alex Hadik ’15 said it was challenging to determine whether his virus was one phage or a combination of several. To do this, he had to plate different strands of the virus and watch how it developed over six- or eight-hour increments, keeping track of his data meticulously.

The trying process ultimately motivated him to name his phage “Dante,” reflecting “the layers of hell it put me through isolating it,” he wrote in a follow-up email to The Herald.

Ultimately, Hadik succeeded in isolating his virus and was able to enter it in the class’ “Phage Olympics.”

“His electrophoresis gel was beautiful,” Voelcker said, referring to one of the steps the students took to analyze the basic genetic structure of their phages. She explained how his sample had an optimal concentration of DNA, and how its genome was most likely very long.

“Dante” proved victorious in the Phage Olympics, and now students are going to analyze and annotate the 59,652 base pairs of its genome.

A similar story

The frustration Hadik described was not unique to Brown students.

Their Providence College counterparts also suffered from sample contamination.

“We had so much trouble,” said Kathleen Cornely, a professor of chemistry at Providence College, who co-teaches the course with Nic Austriaco, a professor of biology.

She said the class had to race to meet their deadline for attaining purified DNA. The night before Thanksgiving vacation, she was giving an exam when the Phage Hunters students came and knocked on her door. Having finally succeeded in isolating phages, they were cheering, thrilled to show her their specimens. “I

just laughed for about 10 minutes,” she said.

Ultimately, their class decided to sequence two of the phages with the most DNA, the first being “Job42.” It was named after its isolator, James O’Brien. Austriaco explained that O’Brien added the 42 in reference to the 42nd chapter of the book of Job, which, he said, is about redemption and “how God restores Job after all his trials and tribulations.”

Viral enthusiasm

Despite these frustrations, student responses to the course have been overwhelmingly positive.

“It was so fantastic to be exposed to this world of actual research,” Voelcker said.

Aisha Ferrazares ’15, another student in the course, said she initially decided to enroll because she wanted to go to medical school and thought the class would give her good research experience. But after the “opportunity to do all this innovative science,” Ferrazares thinks she may want to pursue scientific research and earn a PhD instead.

Voelcker, Ferrazares and Hadik are hoping to pursue research internships this summer. “My work here will really help me get into a program,” Hadik said. His creativity and problem-solving skills have grown immensely through overcoming some of the challenges he faced, he said.

The course is unique because it gives students the opportunity to join “what is essentially an experimental laboratory in (their) first semester,” said Peter Shank, a professor of medical science who teaches the course alongside three other professors.

He said students often struggle to find research positions because most professors and lab directors are only interested in students with research experience — a catch-22, particularly for first-years and sophomores. “If you say you isolated this phage and did restriction mapping, that’s a whole different set of skills,” Shank said.

Excitement about Phage Hunters is not limited to students — faculty enjoy it too. “I’m having a blast,” Shank said.

Everyone involved in the course both at Brown and at Providence College said one of the best parts has been the close-knit feeling that has arisen within the classes. “We became a really big family,” Rego said.

A contagious course

Neither Providence College nor Brown designed the Phage Hunters course — the program was initiated by the Science Education Alliance branch of HHMI.

Lucia Barker, SEA’s program officer, said the Phage Hunters initiative was created six years ago, an expansion of a course designed

by Graham Hatfull, a professor of biotechnology at the University of Pittsburgh.

This is the first time HHMI has provided a curriculum and educational resources directly to professors, Barker said. HHMI also trains professors and provides the materials and supplies to full member colleges, such as Brown.

This support “gives them the opportunity to focus exclusively on how to teach the course and to focus exclusively on the students and the science,” Barker said. “The cherry on top of the ice cream sundae is that these were freshmen.”

In selecting which schools to join the initiative, “the most important thing we were looking for was a dedication to transforming science education to be hands-on,” Barker said.

Brown had already begun to transform its biology offerings before successfully applying to be a part of Phage Hunters, Targan said, citing the new biology lab course offerings for first-years.

Both Barker and Targan spoke of the importance of keeping students interested in science. One way to do that is to have more students involved in hands-on classes.

‘The best way people learn’

HHMI has not yet decided if it will accept new schools to join the Phage Hunters program. “The idea of SEA is that it would be a series of different initiatives,” Barker said.

“We do know that SEA is planning on being involved in innovative science education programming for a long time.”

Because Brown is a member school of the Phage Hunters program, HHMI will continue to provide the supplies for the course for two more years. After that, Targan said the course could potentially be absorbed into the biology program, if the three years prove enough to establish a “campus-based understanding” of how to run the course.

Given the success of the class, Targan said such hands-on experiences would make sense in many different departments, naming archaeology, history and anthropology as three disciplines where he could envision such engaging courses.

“Having that much more visceral experience using all the senses — it’s impossible not to be engaged in it, whereas it’s easy to zone out in a lecture,” Targan said. “There’s just a lot of evidence to show that that’s the best way people learn and the best way to keep people interested.”

8 Sports Friday

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

m. Hockey

Bears look to rebound before heading to playoffs By connor grealy Sports Staff Writer

In a week of extended practices and a return to the fundamentals, men’s ice hockey head coach Brendan Whittet ’94 prepared the team for a trying end of the season after it dropped four consecutive games to fall to the basement of the ECAC standings.

“We can’t worry about the standings right now,” Whittet said.

“My goal is for us to be playing our best hockey going into the playoffs.”

Brown (8-12-3, 5-9-2 ECAC) now sits in 11th after being in sixth less than a month ago. The fall in the standings followed a pair of troubling home losses against Clarkson (13-12-5, 7-6-3) and St. Lawrence (10-15-3, 6-9-1) last weekend.

Looking to rebound from a point-less weekend against Ivy foes Dartmouth (9-10-4, 6-7-3) and Harvard (7-7-9, 6-4-7), the team played host to Clarkson at Meehan Auditorium Feb. 3. But it was the Golden Knights who struck quickly, rushing out to a three-goal lead in the first period.

“We started off very slow and spotted (Clarkson) a 3-0 lead,” Whittet said. “It’s very hard to overcome that deficit. Specifically

for our team — we don’t score goals in bunches.”

The Bears have suffered in the opening frame, conceding six first period goals in its last four matches. Whittet said slow starts force the team to play from behind and commit mistakes.

Though captain Jack Maclellan ’12 was able to put Brown on the scoreboard in the second period, the initial burst of goals from Clarkson was insurmountable and Brown lost 3-1.

“I can’t quite put my finger on why we came out so flat,” Whittet said. “We need to play with an edge each and every game.”

Brown took a page out of Clarkson’s playbook and tallied three goals in the first period against St. Lawrence the following night.

All three goals came during a five minute major penalty against the Saints. Maclellan, who leads the team with 13 goals, lit the lamp twice, while Ryan Jacobson ’15 also put one past the St. Lawrence goalie.

The Bears seemed to have the game locked up, but the Saints clawed their way back through prolonged power-play opportunities. St. Lawrence scored five unanswered goals before the game was up, leaving Bruno with a 5-3 loss

and no even-strength goals.

“Mistakes we made were critical mistakes,” Whittet said. “The loss was disappointing and disheartening. Not because we lost, but the way we lost.”

Following the game against St. Lawrence, Bruno finds itself in the middle of a slump at possibly the most inopportune of times.

Whittet said the team is far from full strength and is still trying to cement its identity.

“We’re missing a lot of pieces.

We had eight freshman in the lineup against St. Lawrence,” he said.

“We’re still young in the Brown way. When we get away from our tenacity and our work ethic, we’re not very good.”

The injury bug has hit the Bears hard, with some key players also hospitalized with a stomach virus.

Matt Wahl ’14 will be shelved for a while after getting hurt in the game against Clarkson. This latest string of injuries leaves the Bears thin in terms of experienced players and has led to many first-years being forced to take the reins, including Jacobson, Matt Lorito ’15 and Massimo Lamacchia ’15.

The road ahead will not get any easier as Bruno looks to climb back up the standings. This weekend the team will face two of the ECAC’s

Emily Gilbert / Herald

Captain Jack Maclellan ’12 led the Bears this season with 13 goals.

and country’s best teams, as it hits the road to face No. 13 Cornell (11-6-6, 8-3-5) and No. 11 Union College (16-6-7, 10-3-4) — the top two seeds in the current ECAC standings.

Whittet said he has been drilling the team and getting back to the basics of Brown hockey in light of the upcoming matches against powerhouse teams.

“We’re working on the basics — systems, how we’re supposed to do things (and) winning puck

battles,” Whittet said. “When things go south for us, no one feels sorry for us. We need to play with a chip on our shoulder.”

Despite the losing streak, Whittet said he and his seniors — including Maclellan, assistant captain Bobby Farnham ’12 and goaltender Mike Clemente ’12 — all have the same goal in mind — to hang a banner in Meehan.

“We can definitively turn around what has happened in the last two weeks,” Whittet said.

Sports Friday 9

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

Open heart surgery on a Patriots fan By sam sheehan Sports Columnist

In the days following the Super Bowl, I’ve been watching a lot of Scrubs.

It is one of my favorite shows of all time. The problem with Scrubs was that, for all of its potential, it wasn’t able to maintain the high level of entertainment that it set for itself in the first four or five seasons. I think the best way to picture the show is as a top-of-the-line race car. Scrubs rolled off the conveyor belt as a fantastic piece of machinery. It was a great construction that its engineers could be proud of.

Until the race car driver got ahold of it. Then he drove it into a wall.

And when the car hit that wall, it flipped over seven times, sprayed the crowd with flaming hot pieces of metal they once found comforting and allowed the driver just enough time to get clear before it exploded in a cacophony of great ideas and ill-informed execution.

Is it possible to compare Scrubs to the New England Patriots? I suppose we could. I mean, they both enjoyed the majority of their success in the early 2000s. And despite high expectations, they both fell flat near the end of the decade. And they both featured lead men who had a very high opinion of themselves, which may have been what led to their downfall.

But that’s not why I’m writing this column. I’m writing this column because of one scene from the show that stuck with me and seemed extremely relevant, given the circumstances of the Super Bowl. It came in the second to last episode of the first season.

Dr. Wen is surgeon Chris Turk’s attending physician in the show, and Turk is puzzled as to how womanizing and borderline stupid fellow surgeon Todd is considered the best in his class of peers. Without flinching, Wen delivers the following line.

“When you are working, I can always see your wheels turning. You’re thinking of what you have to do next, what could go wrong. You’re not in the moment. As much as it pains me to say this, The Todd is.”

Is it possible to read those lines and not think of Tom Brady and Eli Manning? Maybe it is, but not for a Pats fan like me.

Tom Brady has always been considered like a surgeon, the best of his class, a guaranteed hall-of-famer who slices and dices opposing defenses with the emotion of your standard rock. I will trust Tom Brady with a football game if my life is on the line.

And yet, here is Tom Brady, the most clutch quarterback in NFL history, allowing safeties on the first play. Throwing the NFL leader in receptions terrible footballs. Airing out prayers to our injured tight end who can barely outrun or outjump the average box tortoise, not to mention an NFL linebacker, let alone an

incredibly average one.

What I saw in that game was an incredibly talented quarterback who was worried about his legacy playing against another talented quarterback who wasn’t. With every pass and decision that Tom Brady made on the field, you could almost see him thinking about where that would put him in the conversation of elite quarterbacks. With Manning, there was none of that — only a blank, unintelligible frown as he decided who to throw the ball to next.

In Scrubs, the scene with Dr. Wen is followed up with Turk thinking to himself in voice-over of all of the reasons that Wen is wrong. Meanwhile, a slow pan to The Todd reveals his thoughts to be, “Bumbadabum Badadbum Badabum shiny scalpel!”

And that is exactly how the Super Bowl played out. Brady sat on his sideline thinking about where he stood next to Joe Montana, and Manning sat on his sideline thinking about which Tonka trucks he would play with once the game was over.

Manning has never had to worry about where he stands in history because he is the little brother of one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game. There is no way that Manning can ever top that, so he doesn’t have to worry about how he performs.

Except he has topped his brother.

In blissful ignorance, Manning has catapulted himself into the conversation with Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and even his older brother as one of the league’s elite quarterbacks. Manning was in the moment. Just like he was four years ago. That’s why the Giants won the game.

I want to be clear. I’m not throwing Brady under the bus like these hack Boston sports writers who are so quick to forget what he has done for us.

Any real Patriots fan knew that it was going to be a tough fight for us to win that game. Vegas and the rest of the world could pretend all they want that the Patriots were favored in that game, but we all knew going into it what it would take to win against the team that beat us in our own house earlier in the year.

In a stadium that was conservatively 80 percent anti-Pats, the team with the worst defense in the league put up a hell of a fight against an offense that everyone seems to agree is one of the best in the NFL. I’m proud of that.

There’s no making excuses about what “might” have happened with a healthy Rob Gronkowski, or if Wes Welker caught that pass. Because at the end of the day, I’m a hell of a lot prouder of my boys this year than I was four years ago.

Keep on slicing, Chris Turk. The Todd will eventually figure out he’s in surgery. And when that day comes, you’ll be our Chief Surgeon.

Sam Sheehan ’12 really hopes the Celtics beat the Lakers. He needs that badly. Talk sports with him at sam_sheehan@brown.edu or follow him on Twitter @SamSheehan.

Undefeated skiers look toward regionals

By Alexander Kaplan Staff Writer

The skiing team finished its regular season this week with a flawless record. The squad rounded out league competition by winning all regular season races, a feat never previously achieved by a women’s team in the MacConnell division.

The team also set a division record twice — first by winning the Brown Carnival by 17 seconds and then widening the margin to 20 seconds at the Clarkson Carnival.

This success comes after skiing was slated to get cut this past spring, along with the wrestling and fencing programs. Last Oc-

tober, after the teams launched fundraising campaigns to save the squads, President Ruth Simmons recommended against eliminating the teams.

After avoiding the axe, six of eight Bears placed in the top 15 skiers in the Eastern Collegiate Ski Conference MacConnell Division, and captain Kia Mosenthal ’12 won the individual division title.

Mosenthal credited off-thehill bonding as the key to the team’s overall success. “The team has come together in a way that I have not seen before,” she said.

“I think our positive interactions outside of skiing have enabled us

to perform so well in races.”

Unlike previous years, the ski team benefitted from a more wellrounded squad, Mosenthal added. “For the first time in my four years, we have depth — any of us can win on any given day,” she said. “Everyone has worked really hard this season to stay positive and encourage one another.”

As a result of strong performances during the regular season, the team will be competing at the ECSC Regionals in Sugarloaf, Maine, Feb. 25-26.

“Pretty good stuff after almost losing the program,” wrote head coach Michael LeBlanc in an email to The Herald.

Athlete of the week

Azargui ’14 leads m. tennis to 6-0 By nate huether Contributing Writer

Last weekend, men’s tennis player Soufiane Azargui ’14 won all four of his matches — two at singles and two at doubles — to help the Bears remain undefeated 6-0 in the winter season. Azargui’s wins came at home against Binghamton, Bryant and Quinnipiac. For his dominating performances to help extend the Bears’ winning streak, The Herald has named Azargui Athlete of the Week.

Do you model your game after a certain player?

No, not really. I’ve just been trying to be more aggressive, take balls a lot earlier and dictate a little bit more.

Do you have a favorite player?

At the moment, I think everybody’s favorite player would be (Novak) Djokovic, just because of the way he’s playing and how he seems to be dominating the tennis game from the baseline.

What is your favorite tennis memory?

It probably came last year. I played against Columbia in the Ivies, and we were 0-3 going into that match. It came down to my match, and seeing how important the team aspect was, with everyone cheering me on, and it was a really dramatic, long match. I ended up pulling it out with all the support of my teammates and coaches. Every time I think about that, I get goose bumps. It was one of my favorite freshman memories, and probably tennis memories, up to this point.

Jesse Schwimmer / Herald Soufiane Azargui’14 went undefeated in the team’s perfect last season (6-0).

Do you have any special prematch rituals?

No, not really. Before, I used to do my own warm-ups. But now we’re in school, all the teammates do the same kind of warm-up before every match. But I really like to listen to some upbeat music to try to get me as pumped-up as possible before my match.

Do you have any favorite songs or artists?

One of my favorite artists right now is J. Cole. Drake is a good one.

I’m from around Toronto, and he’s from Toronto.

Why did you choose Brown?

It was at the top of my list with a few other schools, but I chose Brown because, on my visit, I got along really well with the team. I could tell the general atmosphere of the school and the guys on the team. I thought that I would fit in the best here. And also, I really liked the open curriculum, because I myself didn’t know what

I wanted to study in college. And Brown being the liberal school that it is, it just seemed to me like it was probably the best choice for me to try to find what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

What has been your favorite class at Brown?

I would probably have to go with bio, my introductory bio class with Professor Kenneth Miller. It was a really, really interesting class.

I thought he was a brilliant professor.

What have you liked most about Brown?

The friends I’ve made, probably.

I’ve met a wide variety of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, with interesting lives, some with normal lives, up to this point. The variety in the friends that I’ve made — athletes and nonathletes. It’s just been a really cool atmosphere. I’ve made a lot of very close friends that I hope to keep for many years to come.

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

10 Diamonds & Coal

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

Diamonds and Coal Editorial cartoon

by lo r e n f u lto n

Coal to the Tufts University student who said of her experience studying abroad in Jordan, “We totally lived in a brothel.” Maybe that’s shocking at her posh school, but here “brothel” ranks several seeds above Chapin House in the housing lottery.

Cubic zirconia to the Hope High School students who organized a campaign to replace their cafeteria’s pizza, macaroni and cheeseburgers with salad. Replace? As connoisseurs of the menu at Josiah’s, we would call those essential salad ingredients.

Coal to the University for the money it spent buying up the domains BrownU.xxx and BrownUniv.xxx. It’s too late — Brown students, in their spirit of openness and magnanimity, are already showcasing their private parts on BrownBares for free. Maybe the University should address the naked dudes chilling in Faunce House before taking other precautions.

Green coal to President Obama for shifting his rhetoric from talking about “climate change” to discussing “clean energy.” We’d ask you to use this resource to fight global warming, but we wouldn’t want to hurt your chances of winning swing votes.

A diamond to Steve Lubar, professor of American civilization and history, who said he looks forward to the day when he can invite students to the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology by saying, “Come and play with this stuff.” Valentine’s Day is coming up — but he has to buy us dinner first.

Cubic zirconia to Sheri Griffin, program director at Farm Fresh Rhode Island who works with Dining Services on the Brown Farmer’s Market, for saying it was unlikely that the Wriston Quadrangle Market would start selling alcohol. We hope organizers realize that market is already thoroughly saturated.

A whole lot of diamonds to the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, which convenes on campus this weekend. How many do we have to give you for a promise not to raise our tuition?

A diamond to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority for potentially limiting student travel between Boston and Providence on weekends. Any way we can keep Harvard students out of Brown — no Whiskey Republic for them.

letter to the editor UCS does not justify amendment To the Editor: I remain unconvinced by the justifications that the Undergraduate Council of Students has provided in its statement (“UCS: Vote ‘yea’ to UCS-UFB role amendment,” Feb. 9) urging students to vote in favor of the constitutional amendment that would allow it to have control over its own funding. First, the statement cites statistics that contrast the funding situation of UCS to equivalent organizations at other Ivy League universities. However, I am not sure that this comparison is the pertinent one to make. Brown students have insufficient knowledge about the responsibilities and scope of student governments at those universities to verify UCS’s contention that it is underfunded. What I am more interested in is how the $3,500 allocated to the UCS for the 2011-12 academic year stands in

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relation to what other student groups at Brown have received. I consider this piece of information to be more relevant, as it can serve to clarify if UCS is truly underfunded vis-a-vis other student groups.

In addition, the statement insinuates that the Undergraduate Finance Board is denying UCS its rightful share of funds as a result of internal politics. This is a serious allegation, and I am disappointed by the lack of a response from UFB — through its own choice or otherwise — within the same issue of The Herald on this matter, before the poll on MyCourses opened.

Some students may have already voted based on just UCS’s account of the situation. I believe this issue deserves a more thorough debate than what is represented in the statement released by UCS.

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Opinions 11

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 10, 2012

The fiction of relationship?

By Cara Dorris Opinions Columnist Most people will tell you that there are two types of relationships at Brown: rigid, Facebook-official romances and hurried, efficient and occasionally chronic hookups. Though there are exceptions, most of us brag that we’re too busy, even too selfish to have time for casual dating. We work hard, so of course we want to play hard.

But is that really what we want, or is it just what we say we want?

Nobody will admit that they’d like to be in a relationship that lasts longer than one night. It sounds weak. It sounds insecure.

It sounds just plain stupid when college is the only time of your life when it is okay to be selfish. But people still want the comfort and familiarity of seeing the same person over and over again, even when they pretend to be too self-assured for that.

So what do they do? They do serial hookups.

Contrary to what most partiers will tell you, a large amount of casual sex isn’t with different people. It’s with one person. It’s that same person you hookup with every Friday night, or Tuesday morning, or after sharing mozzarella sticks at Josiah’s when both of you are too drunk to stand. These relationships are not accidental hookups, they are definitely not Facebook official, and they definitely don’t describe casual

dating.

I recently took the infamous “Sex, Gender and Society” class in the sociology department. Entire discussion periods were dedicated to discussing the definition of rape, whether masturbation counts as sex and if pornography is beneficial to women.

We could study dating and marriage practices all day because they were predictable. In class, we called that a sexual script. Go on a date, first kiss, call back the

pun intended. The couple must either stop hooking up because it becomes too awkward, or they will enter a relationship. But get this — if the couple hooks up four, five or even 10 times, they can continue what they are doing, as long as the hookups don’t occur consecutively. That would seem too much like a relationship.

We all know that chivalry is dead, but let’s face it — dating is, too. Even couples in long-term relationships don’t really go on dates. They meet each other at parties,

Some people will tell you that four consecutive hookups over four consecutive weekends is the point of climax ­— no pun intended. But get this: If the couple hooks up four, five or even 10 times they can continue what they are doing, as long as the hookups don’t occur consecutively. That would seem too much like a relationship. next day, go on a second date and so on.

But there was one topic we could never agree on, so we almost always avoided it. It still bothers me because I’m not sure there is an answer: When does a hookup become a relationship?

It rattled the class because there is no sexual script. Each hookup is entirely different.

Some people will tell you that four consecutive hookups over four consecutive weekends is the point of climax — no

they hang out with each other’s friends, but rarely will they go out to dinner.

We are not like our parents. Marriage may not be the norm anymore for a generation terrified of commitment — even small commitments. So forget about consummating the marriage. Even a mouse click must be consummated before two people decide to become Facebook official. After all, doesn’t it seem a little eerie that a couple’s new relationship status only shows up in your news feed the morning

after they’ve first had sex?

It’s like we have become so accustomed to these ever-changing, sometimes confusing sexual practices that we don’t even bother to question them anymore, even when some of us — or maybe even a lot of us — would like to know a person, or at least their name, when we hook up with them. Why do we always seem to connect physically with our romantic interests before we can connect emotionally?

Is it because we are no longer repressing our Freudian urges and are finally acting human? Is it because we solely want sexual pleasure, prepackaged and formulaic, so mechanical that it’s almost platonic? Or is it because we’re afraid that we might actually like the person we are having sex with?

Sometimes nicknamed “Generation Me,” we are a group of the most confident, ambitious and assertive people that America has ever seen. Yet sometimes we’re too distracted by our own Facebook accounts and Twitter feeds to notice. Coincidently, we are also the most narcissistic. Some people think we’re the most depressed.

In a world where personal image is quickly becoming everything, is invincibility compulsory and any vulnerability unbearable? It must be too risky to commit to a relationship — even a casual one — when the eventual failure will be splashed across the news feeds of everyone you’ve ever spoken to.

Cara Doriss ’15 can be reached at cara_doriss@brown.edu.

UFB: Vote ‘no’ to UCS-UFB role amendment

By Raaj Parekh Guest Columnist The Undergraduate Council of Students announced a proposal and subsequently ran an opinions column in The Herald yesterday (“UCS: Vote ‘yea’ to UCS-UFB role amendment,” Feb. 9) recommending a constitutional change that would give it the right to set its own budget, with the approval of the director of student activities. The Undergraduate Finance Board would like to urge a more reasoned look at the proposal and ask students to consider the true impact the change would have.

The UCS proposal would set UCS apart from every other student group on campus, whose budgets are determined by UFB. It’s not surprising why they would want to do this. As chair of a large student organization myself, I’d relish the opportunity to set my own budget rather than petitioning UFB for funds. I’m sure it’s a sentiment shared by many student leaders on campus. However, giving UCS this power, afforded to no other student organization, would have disastrous consequences for every undergraduate on campus.

The amendment has been put to a vote by all undergraduate students on MyCourses, and a two-thirds majority is necessary to ratify this change when the poll closes on Sunday. On behalf of UFB, and as a member of the student body, I strongly urge Brown students to vote “no” to the UCS proposal.

It’s an unfortunate but eminently true fact

that many groups on campus are underfunded. Theater productions operate on shoestring budgets. The Brown Band can barely travel to away games due to logistical expenses. Club sports scramble to cover their costs.

Almost all students who are members of student groups have been through the experience of emailing dozens of departments asking for funding to cover the gaps that UFB can’t afford to pay. Across the board, worthwhile projects and events go unrealized. This problem boils down to the very simple issue of too many needs and too few funds.

That is why UFB must make difficult de-

the value of the work UCS does, I doubt it is sufficiently crucial to the lives of the student body that it be prioritized above the needs of every other student group, groups to which students actively choose to devote their time and effort.

UCS argues that its mission is to advocate and enact policies for the benefit of every Brown undergraduate. But such reasoning is not sufficient to differentiate UCS — in terms of impact on the student body — from many other groups. Many student groups funded

by UFB reach thousands of students with their events — examples of this include the

Every dollar UCS allocates to itself is a dollar that will not be available for the events and activities students already value.

cisions every week about how to most efficiently allocate the approximately $1.2 million student activity fund, which comprises a $178 fee paid by every undergraduate. The effect of UCS having nearly unchecked access to these funds before every other student group, at the most basic level, is to decrease the funds available for every other student organization. This would make UFB’s already tough decisions even tougher and leave an even greater number of projects and events unfunded. While I do not deny

Special Events Committee’s Candyland and Spring Carnival events and Brown Concert Agency’s Spring Weekend concerts. Mid-size student groups bring countless speakers and academics to campus to address hundreds of students. Smaller groups each impact far fewer students, but few undergraduates can say they have never attended a student group event funded by UFB. These groups collectively impact the day-to-day life of students just as much as, if not more than, UCS. Hence, UCS’s supposed impact on student

lives hardly seems like justification to give it first access to funds from the student activity fee, when every dollar UCS allocates to itself is a dollar that will not be available for the events and activities students already value.

UCS argues that Brown’s student government receives less funding than the student governments of other Ivy League schools. It cites the example of Dartmouth’s UCS equivalent, which reportedly receives 21 times as much funding as UCS does. This is galling, not because of the magnitude of the disparity, but because of the degree of UCS’s disingenuousness. The body to which the UCS opinions column refers comprises not only Dartmouth’s UCS equivalent, but also SPEC and the Class Coordinating Board, both of which receive over $50,000 a year from UFB to develop programming for the student body. While I don’t have access to Dartmouth’s funding figures, I imagine when a more accurate comparison is made, the alleged disparity largely evaporates.

UCS wishes to establish itself as superior to all other student groups, but it doesn’t defend why the benefits it provides to students warrant the new funding structure. By thinly veiling a gross expansion of its power, the council disregards the needs of every student who pays into the student activity fee, who will have to wait behind a UCS that will perpetually be in the front of the line for access to funding. This doesn’t seem particularly fair to the rest of us.

Raaj Parekh ’13 is an at-large representative for the UFB. UFB is available to answer any questions about the constitutional change and can be contacted at ufb.submissions@gmail.com.

Daily Herald Science Friday the Brown

Friday, February 10, 2012

Profs’ research dissects Undergrad finds trend in climate rhetoric science of uncertainty

By Kate Nussenbaum Senior Staff Writer

You are standing in line at Mama Kim’s — your mind is racing and your mouth is salivating. Two weeks ago, you had the beef bulgogi rice set, and it was delicious. But tonight you are torn. Do you go with the bulgogi again because you know how much you like it, or do you try the beef galbi and potentially find an even better culinary delight? Should you exploit known rewards or explore, hoping to reap an even better prize?

David Badre and Michael Frank, professors of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences, cannot help you with your Mama Kim’s dilemma. But thanks to their study published in the Feb. 9 issue of the journal Neuron, they can tell you what area of the brain is active when you make decisions based on relative uncertainty — the back part of your frontal lobe, known as the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex.

“This exploration-exploitation trade-off is a very classic problem, both for decisions everybody makes on a day-to-day basis and from an artificial intelligence standpoint,” Frank said. “How do you know how often to go with what you think is best versus to explore?”

To try to answer this question, Badre and Frank used an experiment that Frank helped design and has used in previous studies.

Participants had to stop a clock at a time between one and five seconds, earning a certain number of points depending on when they chose to stop it. The challenge in the game was that participants did not know the point values that corresponded to each time, and those point values were not constant.

Instead, points were assigned based on a probability distribution, meaning, for example, that when participants stopped the clock early they would have a greater chance of receiving points, but the point values would be lower. If they stopped the clock later on, they would have a smaller chance of receiving points, but when they did receive a reward, that reward would be much greater.

Participants who decided to “exploit” a 15-point reward — ­ which they usually received when stopping the clock after one second — would fail to discover that a 350-point reward was occasionally available if they stopped the clock later.

This task involves a number of complex mental processes. To perform well, participants had to keep track of the number of times they received good and bad outcomes for different times and make decisions based on their level of uncertainty about each time, Frank said. Some participants did just that — they “explored,” while others repeatedly stopped the clock at a time they knew from experience was likely

to give them points, never venturing to discover if bigger rewards were available.

Though other studies have employed the clock game, this was the first time participants’ brains were scanned using fMRI machines while playing.

“We already knew that there were explorers and non-explorers,” Frank said. The purpose of their study was to discover what was going on in the brains of the different participants.

Based on his work and the work of others, Badre said, “there’s some suggestion that those type of abstract signals are computed in the more rostral part of the frontal cortex.”

The study confirmed their hypothesis that players who explored would show more activity in their rostrolateral prefrontal cortex than those who did not.

This activity appeared milliseconds before subjects made their decisions.

Badre said questions remain about why some people explored and others didn’t.

“We saw that this region in the frontal cortex only tracked relative uncertainty in the people who used it,” he said. “Why is that?”

He and Frank both said it is unclear if some participants did not explore because they could not keep track of relative uncertainty, or if they simply chose to play the game using a different strategy and thus did not waste energy by computing what Frank called “operations on top of operations.”

Frank said their research could be used in the future to more clearly understand diseases like obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. He said many scientists believe that people with OCD are averse to uncertainty.

Running the clock test on people with OCD could reveal more about the nature of the disorder, he said, though there are no definitive plans to run the experiment with patients at present. The fact that there is a specific brain region associated with making decisions using relative uncertainty could one day help “shed light on potential treatments,” Frank said.

Badre warned that though the menu example is a classic way to explain making decisions that involve uncertainty, “it’s hard to even speculate what this (research) would translate to in everyday behavior,” he said.

Silvia Bunge, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, called Badre and Frank’s study “a sophisticated approach to the study of cognition” in an email to The Herald.

“As Kenny Rogers said, ‘You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away and know when to run,’” she wrote. “Rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, the subject of this study, appears to help us do just that.”

By Phoebe Draper Senior Staff Writer

Last summer, Graciela Kincaid ’12 was digging around for White House budget statistics on climate finance policy as part of her Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award when she stumbled across something that caught her attention.

“I started looking at speeches online and just out of curiosity started doing word searches on them,” she said.

Poring over speeches and press releases of the Obama administration’s top officials, Kincaid compared the number of times officials referred to “climate change” versus the number of times they cited “clean energy.” Intrigued by the possibility of exploring rhetorical trends, Kincaid mentioned the project off-hand to her mentor, J. Timmons Roberts, professor of sociology and environmental studies and director of Brown’s Climate and Development Lab. Roberts encouraged Kincaid to follow through on the project, and Kincaid “was off to the races,” Roberts said.

After examining 1,908 administrative speeches delivered since January 2008, Kincaid uncovered a poignant rhetorical trend in the administration’s climate and energy references. Administrative language involving climate change had been radically swept away by optimistic talk of “clean energy.”

Comparing the number of times the word “energy” was mentioned compared to “climate” during the Obama presidency, she found an average ratio of 7.6:1, meaning for every seven times energy was referred to, climate was mentioned once. The ratio has doubled in magnitude between 2009 and 2011, according to Kincaid’s study.

“Her study is totally new, really, because nobody had tracked how much climate change was being spoken of by the administration,” Roberts said. “We all sort of noticed that he’d stopped talking about it.”

In his 2011 State of the Union address President Obama referred to energy nine times but steered completely clear of the words “climate change.”

What the president says signals his agenda and his priorities and sets the tone of the general debate, Kincaid said.

“It’s like talking the talk and walking the walk,” she added. “If he doesn’t talk about it, there’s just this silence that isn’t going to be filled.”

Obama’s change in rhetoric is largely due to the increasingly polarized political climate, Kincaid said. Climate change was mentioned most frequently in December 2009, when Obama attended the Copenhagen Summit.

But the midterm elections of 2010 resulted in a stronger conservative influence in Congress, and factors such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, negative public opinion

Herald file photo

The phrase “climate change” has virtually disappeared from presidential rhetoric.

surveys and failure of cap-andtrade policies in Congress have struck a huge blow to hopes of domestic climate change policy, Kincaid said.

After analyzing her results, Kincaid offered to sell the study to several blogs but was rejected.

Instead, she decided to publish her findings on the recent startup blog of the Climate and Development Lab. “The study ended up getting a lot more attention than we thought it would,” Kincaid said. Kincaid’s article quickly became the blog’s most viewed link — and important players were noticing.

The New York Times found Kincaid’s study and tipped off several professionals at other universities, said Max Boykoff, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a research fellow at Colorado’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. After checking out the study himself, Boykoff deemed Kincaid’s systematic examination of rhetoric “constructive” and published an opinion piece entitled, “A dangerous shift in Obama’s ‘climate change’ rhetoric,” in the Washington Post Jan. 27.

“The argument I make is supported by the data (Kincaid) had gathered,” Boykoff said. “It’s only when someone systematically looks at these issues that we gain a greater appreciation for the larger patterns taking place.”

Obama’s change in rhetoric is an adaptation to political conditions in Washington D.C., Boykoff said.

“Climate change in the U.S. has become such a politically polarizing issue,” he added. “Other issues such as energy efficiency and switching to renewables actually do appeal to people across the spectrum. Maybe Obama and his staff are attuning to these trends

and are adjusting their language accordingly.”

Rhetorical fine-tuning is especially important as election time nears, said Shawn Patterson ’12, president of the Brown Democrats.

“It’s hard to come out against clean energy,” he added. Obama’s move is a “bipartisan attempt to make progress in the direction he wants to go in addressing climate change,” while taking the Republican majority in the House into account. Obama doesn’t want to waste political capital on projects that aren’t going to get anywhere, Patterson said.

The political flipside is slightly more critical.

“As we get closer and closer to election time, Obama is under pressure to show that he’s actually been doing something in office,” said Terrence George ’13, president of the Republican Club of Brown University. “I think he’s trying to push more popular things closer to election time. Global warming is still a contentious issue, but energy production isn’t quite so much.”

Kincaid said she is disappointed that Obama has never used the bully pulpit when it comes to climate change. But as she spoke with White House staffers during the course of her research, she said she was pleasantly surprised to find that climate change is a personal issue for the president.

“That made me feel good and like I wasn’t just being really idealistic in hoping that my president cared about climate change,” Kincaid said.

Kincaid’s study will be presented at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting in Denver this August. Until then, she will continue to fine-tune her study and said she is hoping to publish in a professional journal in time to “catch the wave” before election time.