Wednesday, February 22, 2012

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

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Schaefer ’13 conference offers perspective on Middle East Early By eli okun Senior Staff Writer

Courtesy of the Avi Schaefer Fund

Students gathered at an event this weekend hosted by the Avi Schaefer Fund.

A small group of Ivy League students convened this weekend at the Hope Club for an intimate conference that brought together people of all perspectives to engage in a meaningful dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Student Leadership Colloquium, which included three or four students from each Ivy League school, was organized and funded by the Avi Schaefer Fund. Following Avi Schaefer’s ’13 death in February 2010, his family created the fund to promote the ideals Schaefer worked toward during his life, particularly the goal of starting dialogue about the conflict and striving for its peaceful resolution. The idea for the colloquium originated from conversations Schaefer’s family

and friends had about how best to continue his efforts.

At the colloquium this weekend, those initial planners joined forces with students, whose views were challenged through a series of workshops, lectures, organized discussions and spontaneous conversations — all within “a real atmosphere of respect, tolerance and understanding,” said Talia Xefos ’15, one of the Brown student participants.

Xefos, who is half-Saudi and said she “grew up hearing mostly the Palestinian narrative of things,” learned about the colloquium through JUDS 0650: “History of Zionism and the Birth of the State of Israel,” a class she took last semester. Encouraged by the welcoming atmosphere the Schaefer family brought to the colloquium, she said she opened up

on examples from Narragansett Bay. “(This) is quite a big shift in terms of the science and also in terms of how we use the science to inform policy and management.”

In his talk, Miller suggested strategies for teaching students who have reservations regarding the intersection of faith and science. This is an important topic, since about 75 percent of college students say they believe in God, he said. Every year, he has a couple of students ask him if they have to believe in continued on page 3

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Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Onondaga Turtle Clan and an inductee to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, addressed a crowded Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts Friday and detailed the history and culture of guh jee gawah hai — known colloquially as lacrosse. The renowned Native American leader spoke prior to Saturday’s lacrosse game between the men’s varsity lacrosse team and the U19 Iroquois National Team, which the Bears won 11-7 at MeisterKavan Field. The Iroquois Nationals represents the six nations of the Iroquois League and are the only remaining Native American sporting team sanctioned to play in official international competition.

Lyons discussed a wide range of topics, including the history of lacrosse and global warming. Perhaps a testament to the physical prowess of lacrosse players, Lyons — now in his 80s — did not slow down for a moment of his two-hour lecture.

Though the lecture sometimes became somber — usually over reflections on the historic trials of Native Americans — Lyons kept

inside

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

From PLME to Med School: Moving off the Hill

By AParaajit Sriram Senior Staff Writer

Pre-med students enrolled in the University’s Program in Liberal Medical Education are not afraid of obligations. They have committed to a profession at the fresh-faced age of 18 or 19 years old, something most students are unwilling to do. They have committed to a place — a school

feature and a city — where they will study for eight sometimes grueling years.

And they have committed to a high level of stress, the neurological and physiological effects of which they will experience firsthand, on top of reading about them in textbooks.

“What sets PLME students apart is their commitment to a field so early on,” said Philip Gruppuso, associate dean for medical education.

When their undergraduate class-

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mates leave campus after convocation, PLME students who continue on to the Warren Alpert Medical School make the half-mile trek down College Hill to the newly transformed Med School building in the Jewelry District. For them, after-college life was never shrouded in ambiguity.

Convocation is their commencement.

New and greater demands

The workload medical students take on is without parallel in the undergraduate years, and this disparity is especially clear during the first year, Gruppuso said. From day one, the difficulty of the subjects and the pace of testing is striking.

“Med school is organized differently from undergrad, with a final (exam) every three to four weeks instead of at the end of a semester ...

It’s more of a marathon than a sprint. continued on page 2

Stephanie Vasquez / Herald

PLMEs commit to Brown for eight years before they even arrive as first years.

Go Dogg

Husted ’13 disputes BCA’s choice of bands opinions, 7

weather

By adam toobin Senior Staff Writer

University faculty and students traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia last weekend for the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Annual Meeting. Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology Heather Leslie participated in a symposium on marine conservation and management and Professor of Biology Ken Miller ’70 spoke about the intersection of religion and science education. Emily Hartman ’12 presented her research

on pollen grain germination at the student poster session Saturday.

“It’s a really fun and interdisciplinary meeting and great for students to attend,” Leslie said, adding that next year the meeting will be in Boston.

Leslie spoke about drawing on different “knowledge bases” — from anthropology to economics to geography — to better understand how humans are connected to marine systems.

The focus of the symposium was “recognizing that people are part of ocean systems,” Leslie said, drawing

By Katherine Long Senior Staff Writer

“Turn off all your cell phones, or we’ll rescind your admission,” announced Admission Officer Matt Price to the roughly 250 representatives of the class of 2016 who assembled Monday for the Early Decision Admitted Students Day. Despite the chuckles, nearly every student in Sayles Hall reached for his or her pocket.

“Better safe than sorry,” said Ben Silverman ’16 a little sheepishly.

Almost twice as many students attended this year’s event for early decision applicants as last year’s inaugural event. Representatives from the Office of Admission and the Bruin Club said the increase was due to better planning and more foresight.

“Last year, it was kind of thrown together at the last minute,” said Rebekah Stein, a Bruin Club executive board member. Invitations to last year’s mid-March event were sent a few weeks before the event took place.

“This year, we sent out invitations in (accepted students’) admissions packets,” Price said. “We also used Facebook to publicize

Iroquois U. scientists present at nat’l conference laxers face Bruno in exhibition

By Natalie Villacorta Senior Editor

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2 Campus News

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You have to have endurance,” said Grace Chow ’11, a PLME student now in her first year of medical school.

Niguiar Ahmedli ’11, another PLME student in her first year, has found the transition demanding but not impossible.

“In undergrad, I didn’t study everyday. A few days before an exam was plenty of time to prepare, except for maybe biochemistry,” she said.

In medical school, “the quantity of material is so great that it will be overwhelming if postponed to the last minute.”

A fresh crop of talent

This year, first-year students did better than most previous first-year classes, according to a performance analysis of the fall semester.

“Every first-year student made it to the second semester. Exam scores averaged in the high 80s. A passing grade in medical school is 70, and these exams have something like 125 questions on them,” Gruppuso said.

“They are more mentally prepared and less taken aback by the magnitude of the workload.”

PLME and standard med school admits alike are coming better armed to tackle tough challenges. This may be because more of them are studying subjects like biology or biochemistry as undergraduates, Gruppuso said.

But according to Chow, a human biology concentrator who “took mostly bio classes” as an undergrad, medicine-related material studied at the undergraduate level can only go so far in easing the transition.

“I don’t think I could have prepared more for medical school without being in medical school,” Chow said. “I wish I took more non-bio classes and really took advantage of the ‘liberal’ aspect of PLME.” Students also now have access to the new Med School, which is “very open and light-filled and provides a calming atmosphere,” Ahmedli said.

The Med School — which relocated last fall from the BioMed Center, Smith-Buonnano Hall and a piecemeal fabric of other buildings and classrooms to a transformed jewelry factory — was designed with students in mind.

“I think it is facilitating better interactions between students,” said Isha Parulkar, a first-year medical student who received her undergraduate degree from Columbia. “Everybody’s there all the time. People kind of just end up staying there rather than dispersing.”

Ahmedli said she knew what she signed up for prior to matriculating to the Med School. “My older PLME friends prepared me for what was to come,” Ahmedli said.

Forming relationships with older med students is one of the benefits PLME provides, and this idea of

mentorship continues through student academies at the Med School.

Academies are self-contained units in which students from all four years come together, along with advisers and a director, so that they can have a more personal community within the Med School.

“Students talking to one another is probably the most important support system. … Just talking to each other about how to study is so important,” said Gruppuso.

Four plus four

PLME students at the Med School stay in Providence for eight years until they graduate with medical degrees. For some students, that seems like an intolerably long time in one place, and some PLME students take a period of time off between undergraduate and medical school.

“Eight years is a long time, but going into PLME, you know this,” Ahmeldi said. “I think the two fouryear time periods are so different that it doesn’t feel like a continuous eight years.”

And for some, more time in Providence means more time to engage with the city. With the Med School located down the hill, the program may help facilitate this engagement.

“In undergrad, you’re really in a bubble on College Hill,” Chow said.

“Since the Med School is in a different location, I don’t even feel like I go to the same school.”

Lacrosse legend discusses sport’s history continued from page 1

Crossword

the audience engrossed with stories from his childhood and his lacrosse career. In one anecdote, he told of his experience playing goalie against a man whose shot was so hard it had killed two previous goalies — a problem unique to an era when players took the field without helmets. Luckily, Lyons said when the shot came his way, it only broke two of his ribs.

Lyons spoke about how lacrosse games in his community transcend the physical, becoming more than just a sport. The games are traditionally played for someone or something in particular — to honor or help them, he said.

“We can play it for the nation, or we can play it for the world. We can play it for the buffalos, or we can play for the birds,” Lyons said.

The speech focused on lacrosse and the Iroquois Nationals but also touched on a number of social is-

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sues. Lyons highlighted a traditional winter Iroquois game called Snow Snake to make a point about the changing climate. This winter is the first in his memory where it has not snowed enough to allow for a game of Snow Snake, he said.

Environmental issues seemed to be at the core of Lyons’ political consciousness. In addition to the warnings about climate change, he criticized the historical attacks on the native flora and fauna of North America by European settlers. When settlers struck out West, there were “over 70 million buffalos,” Lyons said. But that number fell to as low as 36 at one point, he added.

Despite the occasional reality check, Lyons’ endless collection of anecdotes about lacrosse and the Iroquois Nationals kept the mood light and the crowd laughing. He said he was upset he had forgotten to bring his wooden stick, which would have been a better demonstration of what real lacrosse is like

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than the “tupperware” today’s players use.

Lyons also talked about Native American contributions to American history. He mentioned that Native Americans fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War and displayed a flag originally commissioned by George Washington that the Iroquois Nationals took as its official flag when it first entered international competition.

The game between Brown and the Iroquois Nationals the following afternoon was a competitive battle. Though Brown controlled the majority of the game, the Iroquois came out of the gate strong, jumping out to a 2-0 lead early. Brown Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90 said the Iroquois team deserves a lot of credit for how it played. In addition to not being able to practice as often as the Brown team can, most of the Iroquois players are two to three years younger than their opponents on Brown’s team, Tiffany said.

Only players 19 years old and younger can play on the U19 Iroquois national team. The official Iroquois National team has successfully competed on the international level since 1987 — the team currently holds the fourth position in international lacrosse rankings, behind only Canada, the U.S. and Australia.

But as a team that does not have the full rights of a sovereign nation behind them, the Iroquois Nationals faces distinct disadvantages that other teams do not. After the 9/11 attacks, officials at the European Union decided to stop recognizing Iroquois passports, and the team was unable to attend the 2010 World Lacrosse Championship in England.

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Campus News 3

Fundraising to expand Science conference draws students, faculty brain science faculty continued from page 1

By Sarah Mancone Arts & Culture Editor

The University will fundraise $50 million over the next five years as part of a new initiative to expand the Brown Institute for Brain Science. A large portion of these funds will be used to pay for seven new positions in the institute, said John Donoghue PhD ’79 P’09 P’12, director of the institute and professor of neuroscience.

Originally started as a program in brain sciences 12 years ago, the initiative became a fullfledged institute three years ago, Donoghue said. The collaboration unites faculty and undergraduates from 10 different departments at the University, including neuroscience, biology, computer science, physics and cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences. The institute provides Undergraduate Teaching and Research Awards, supports graduate students, funds faculty pilot projects and sponsors talks and seminars all within the realm of brain science.

“Brown has a very large and very distinguished faculty studying the brain,” Donoghue said.

Donoghue recently brought forward a plan to expand the institute by hiring faculty in specialized areas, said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15.

The University then brought in outside reviewers with knowledge of neuroscience to advise Schlissel and President Ruth Simmons on the decision to further invest in the institute, which Schlissel said went “spectacularly.” The reviewers told him and Simmons that “Brown is as good as anybody in brain science,” Schlissel said, and that it is an important area of research in which the University should invest.

This investment will mainly fund the creation of seven new tenure-track positions in the institute, Donoghue said. The institute is already in the process of searching for a molecular neuroscientist and a computational neuroscientist to add to the faculty, said Barry Connors, professor of neuroscience.

Hiring a new faculty member is extremely expensive, Connors said, adding that it requires negotiating laboratory space, resources, equipment, technicians, graduate students and often postdoctoral students.

“Where people used to get $100,000, now they get $1 million,” Donoghue said of funding startups for faculty-run laboratories.

All 10 departments involved in the institute will meet as a group to discuss how these positions are going to be filled, Donoghue said.

The increase in faculty will benefit the institute as well as the Department of Neuroscience by “adding substantially to the diversity and quality of neuroscience on campus,” Connors said.

There will be more professors to teach interesting undergraduate courses, as well as more opportunities for undergraduate research in brain science, Schlissel added.

To find qualified candidates, the institute has advertised in professional journals, Schlissel said. Members of the Brown community can also apply if they are not already faculty members since faculty already have the ability to work with the institute, he said. .

With a constrained budget and a commitment to not diverting funds from other University projects, the institute’s expansion is largely being funded by individual donors who support brain science initiatives, Schlissel said.

A modest amount of money has been raised already, he said.

The Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, formally accepted $3 million donated to fund a computational neuroscience professorship at its February meeting, as well as another $1 million to support research in neuroscience, according to a Feb. 11 University press release.

In addition, a gift of $1.5 million was recently given to fund work on neurodegenerative diseases, which will eventually lead to the establishment of a center for synaptic and neurodegenerative diseases, Donoghue said Other sources of funding include external federal grants and corporation and foundation partnerships, Donoghue said.

This initiative provides a step forward in the institute’s expansion. Members of the institute are beginning to think about the creation of a new building, which will be highly interdisciplinary and “represent the flavor of Brown,” Donoghue said.

As it expands, the institute will continue its approach of focusing research on fundamental understanding of brain function, maintenance of brain health and development of neurotechnology.

“There are important levels of scientific understanding we would like to achieve,” Schlissel said.

Donoghue added that he wants to incorporate into the institute research on “smart technology” — the elements of human thought that are currently outside the abilities of computers such as making generalizations and connections in real life situations.

“There is something we can do that computers can’t,” Donoghue said. “The future will be very exciting.”

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evolution in order to get an A in his class, he told a group of alums Saturday night at a Brown Club of Vancouver event.

Miller himself is Catholic and explained how he has reconciled his religious beliefs with the concept of evolution. “If properly presented, science need not be compromised or soft-pedaled to accommodate religious concerns,” he wrote in the description of his AAAS lecture.

Hartman presented her research on pollen grain germination and

the resulting elongation of pollen tubes after pollen lands on a flower.

The research has potential applications for biofuels, she said.

The student poster session “was a really great way to talk about my research and get used to speaking about it with people who aren’t necessarily from a plant biology background,” Hartman added. More than 150 students participated in the session, a majority of whom were from the University of British Columbia or schools on the West Coast. Hartman was able to attend through a research fellowship from

the American Chemical Society, the academic portion of which she spent attending the AAAS meeting because she wanted to learn more about how to communicate science, she said.

Barry Connors, professor and chair of the Department of Neuroscience, Diane Lipscombe, professor of neuroscience and David Rand, professor of biology, were named AAAS fellows this past November for their contributions to science but were unable to attend the awards ceremony Saturday due to prior commitments.

4 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Nearly half of early decision admits visit campus continued from page 1 the event and scheduled it on a holiday, so most of the students have the day off from school.”

The University admitted 556 early decision applicants to the class of 2016, meaning that nearly half of the admitted early applicants attended Monday’s event.

Those present were overwhelmingly from New England and the mid-Atlantic region, though close to a dozen hailed from the West Coast or Midwest. Roughly five

students traveled from foreign countries, according to event organizers.

The best part of the day — which included a tour of the campus, lunch in the Sharpe Refectory and a discussion with a panel of current University students — was hearing from a faculty advising panel, said Peter Enriquez ’16 of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Calling Professor of Geological Sciences Jan Tullis “really inspirational,” he added, “It’s a little cliched, but she ended her speech

saying, ‘Be bold.’ I thought that was the best advice of the day. Opportunities aren’t going to make themselves. You have to be bold, and seek them out.”

While at Brown, Enriquez hopes to expand on a nonprofit he began while in high school called Young Musicians Healing Haiti, which raises money in support of a music school in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

While members of the Bruin Club and Admission Office called the event “A Lunch on College

Hill,” or ALOCH, among themselves, they have no plans to turn the Early Decision Admitted Students Day into an A Day On College Hill-type event, Stein said.

“It’s going to continue to be a lunch, at least for a while,” she said.

Early decision students from previous years have voiced their disappointment that they were not invited to ADOCH, The Herald reported last March.

But Obi Onwuamaegbu ’15, who attended last year’s early decision admitted students day, said

the event “answered my questions and answered them honestly.”

“I was pretty skeptical, because I’d never been to campus before being accepted ED,” he said. Going to the admitted students day “was a huge relief. The event told me about a lot of things that I was looking forward to doing and reassured me that I’d made the right choice.”

Still, he said, once he came to school and heard about ADOCH, “I was pretty bummed that I wasn’t invited.”

News in brief 37 juniors elected to Phi Beta Kappa Thirty-seven juniors were elected to the Rhode Island Alpha of Phi Beta Kappa Feb. 8. The honor society, founded in Williamsburg, Va., in 1776, is the oldest and most prestigious academic honor organization in the nation. Of the more than 3,500 institutions of higher learning in the United States, only 270 have been authorized to house chapters of Phi Beta Kappa. The Brown chapter, the Rhode Island Alpha, was founded in 1830. It is the seventh oldest chapter in the country.

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The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Campus News 5

Schaefer’s ’13 legacy inspires conference continued from page 1 to other participants and found unexpected common ground, connecting in particular with a Middle Eastern Jewish male student from Cornell.

“One of the most profound things for me was I made friends, to be honest with you,” Xefos said.

“And that is just not something I would have ever imagined happening.”

Schaefer, who served in the Israeli army for three years before starting at Brown in 2009, had a significant impact on campus discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his time at the University, sparking friendships and dialogue with Jonah Fisher ’12, Rahel Dette ’13 and Sami Jarbawi ’12, his Arabic teaching assistant, among others, Fisher said. Two years later, those three friends served as principal organizers and facilitators of the colloquium that Schaefer and Dette had first dreamed of, Fisher added.

“I was in somewhat of a state of shock for a lot of the weekend … to see that coming to fruition,” Fisher said. “It’s hard to know how to memorialize a friend or a family member. … This colloquium feels like it was a part or an extension of the conversations I had with Avi.” When the idea for the colloquium first arose, all the planners had to guide them was their imagination. They were inspired by the example the Schaefer family put forth of moving forward from their grief productively.

“At the services for Avi, this phrase, ‘Seek peace and pursue it,’ kept being spoken,” said University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson.

After Schaefer’s death, his family met with President Ruth Simmons, who then spread the idea of the colloquium to other Ivy League presidents, Fisher said.

Cooper Nelson also communicated with her chaplain peers at universities last year to encourage the idea.

Led by Schaefer’s brother Yoav, a team of 15 planned extensively for the weekend over the past year and a half, and Cooper Nelson helped search for a location. The Hope Club was eventually chosen for its mixture of comfort, practicality and formality.

The application process for Brown students looking to join the colloquium included an essay and an interview, though each university’s process differed. Cooper Nelson said in future years she hopes to tweak the process in some small ways.

“One thing that we would do differently was we didn’t create a waiting list,” she said, which became a problem when a student delegate from Yale dropped out at the last minute.

The students who came were mostly Muslim and Jewish with varied backgrounds, and their interactions were pivotal to the colloquium’s success, Fisher said.

“The real work of the weekend,

in my opinion, was the encounter of the students,” he said, especially given that many students lead groups with opposing missions on their campuses. Though much of the weekend was intense and emotional, the students also made time for fun, Fisher said, making use of a game room and having an ice cream party.

That atmosphere was enhanced by the familial nature of the conference, with Schaefer’s parents intimately involved throughout the weekend, Cooper Nelson said. She cited in particular “the specificity of their care” in choosing ice cream sundae toppings and turning down some beds themselves.

“The energy of this family, in their sorrow, to work on this project, I think, left all of us breathless,” Nelson said.

As the students maneuvered through packed schedules, the concept of narrative — in understanding others and expressing themselves — was a recurrent theme. Adam Waters ’15, another Brown representative, said he learned, “rather than continue to escalate the conversation, to step in and to try to show the person that you understand what they’re saying.”

“It seems pretty intuitive and kind of obvious, but I think it’s something that doesn’t really happen a lot” in the Israeli-Palestinian discourse, Waters added.

Nizar Farsakh, a leadership consultant and former teaching fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, led a session for the students on re-framing and re-understanding narratives that Fisher called one of the weekend’s “most powerful” moments. “We oftentimes resort to speaking in platitudes,” Fisher said. He said he learned in the session when it is more important to ask, “Who are you, what have your experiences been and how have they been?”

Xefos said participants called it “the interrogation session,” because Farsakh asked students probing questions to force them to re-evaluate the way they communicate. Xefos added that the techniques and skills she learned will be useful in how she approaches not just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but any argument she encounters.

Farsakh said these ideas have powerful applications in the real world.

“It’s basically about the art of inspiring action, so how do you get people to do an activity — and that’s different from convincing people that something is important,” he said. “It’s basically that you need to tell a narrative and not just give a strategy or just unfold a platform.”

After absorbing so many ideas and stories, the individual university delegations convened on Saturday night to discuss ways to bring what they had learned back to campus. Waters said the colloquium gave him renewed momentum to approach the issue.

“I had already kind of become

a little disillusioned in terms of what could be done (at Brown),” he said. “It was really nice and inspiring and refreshing to see … they were still willing to work with each other and they were still willing to talk to each other, and not a single person raised their voice the entire weekend.”

Xefos said the group hopes to meet with Simmons to discuss future action on campus, and some of their ideas include “creating a neutral space not affiliated with anything, where people can come together to openly discuss and try to understand one another,” like that at the Hope Club.

Waters said such changes were imperative for the campus community, where he said the conversation has become so polarized that many students choose not to get involved if they have moderate views.

“I think that would do a tremendous amount for inspiring people to become re-interested in this issue,” he said.

Rabbi Melissa Weintraub, a facilitator, trainer and consultant in conflict resolution who led a session at the colloquium, said she emphasized the need to move past polarization by teaching students specific communication skills. “For many of them, that really struck home when they got into the heated conversations and realized that they were having them in a new way, and as a result they were listening to each other and actually understanding each other,” she said.

Plans are already in the works to make the colloquium an annual event. Cooper Nelson said she envisions generations of participants forming communities on each campus over the years.

“While it’s not firm, we are already picturing next year’s project,” she said, especially because it has the backing of many top administration officials.

Xefos said she walked away from the conference with a new perspective. “I’ve been too judgmental,” she said. “Yes, they may fall on the opposite end of the political spectrum, (but) on sort of a human level, it’s really nice to be able to connect with people.”

Fisher said he was happy the colloquium materialized and actually achieved its goals. “The energy was palpable, and people really said enormous things,” he said. “All of us involved in the planning were just hoping that it didn’t flop … and it was actually a phenomenal success.”

Higher ed news roundup

by alison silver senior staff writer

Supreme Court considers affirmative action case The United States Supreme Court agreed to review the legality of the affirmative action policy at the University of Texas at Austin yesterday. In 2003, the court affirmed the right of colleges to consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions in a case involving the University of Michigan.

The state of Texas currently operates under a “10 percent” policy that automatically admits the students in the top 10 percent of their high school classes to their first-choice public college in the state. The plaintiffs claim that this plan eliminates the need to consider race in achieving a diverse student population. Affirmative action supporters argue that the university should be allowed to look at applicants’ race and ethnicity to further enhance its degree of diversity, even if it can achieve some level of diversity without considering those factors. “I hope the court will decide that all future UT applicants will be allowed to compete for admission without their race or ethnicity being a factor,” said Abigail Fisher, for whom the Supreme Court lawsuit was filed, according to an Inside Higher Ed article.

Bill Powers, the president of the University of Texas at Austin, issued a statement defending the importance of having the flexibility to consider students’ many unique backgrounds and experiences when admitting new classes. Civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. expressed in a statement that as long as there are disparities among races, race should continue to be a factor considered in the admissions process, along with gender, class and “ability to think and pay tuition,” according to the Inside Higher Ed article.

The federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected the university’s case before the Supreme Court agreed to consider Texas’ system for review.

Harvard students stage library sit-in In protest against a university announcement about staff reductions through its Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program, Harvard students refused to leave the library’s Lamont Cafe despite multiple warnings from police officers.

“Losing library privileges is tantamount to expulsion,” said Andrew Pope, a doctoral student, according to a Harvard Crimson article. Nonetheless, students responded to the “coercive” and “ineffective” policy by sleeping in the library overnight to broadcast their objections. Students hung signs and a banner that read “No Layoffs” and “No Cuts,” which Harvard administrators removed the next morning.

Undergraduates and graduate students defended their protest as a permissible form of free speech, ignoring warnings from security officers that revocation of library privileges, disciplinary action and legal prosecution were possible consequences.

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

6 Editorial Editorial

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Editorial cartoon

by sam rosenfeld

Shedding light on election spending Last Thursday, Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 stood with the leadership of the Rhode Island Senate and House of Representatives to introduce the Transparency in Political Spending Act. In a post-Citizens United world of potentially limitless, unregulated and undisclosed donations to so-called SuperPACs, the bill would make Rhode Island a leader in the fight for fairer and more transparent elections. Specifically, it would require outside groups campaigning on behalf of referenda to disclose the individual donors supporting them.

While introducing the bill, Chafee argued that it would “(make) those individuals and organizations trying to influence the outcome of an election accountable to the people of Rhode Island.” While we applaud Chafee’s strong stance against undisclosed independent expenditures — and welcome the way in which this bill will bring much-needed transparency to the state’s political landscape — we are troubled by the bill’s limited scope, applying beefed-up disclosure regulations only to groups advocating for ballot measures. We urge the governor to extend disclosure requirements to all independent expenditures, including those on behalf of individual candidates.

Although much of the concern about Super PACs has been focused on the national presidential race, the forces of big money are blowing at Rhode Island’s door as well. This past winter, while the legislature debated how to reform state employees’ pensions, a group called Engage Rhode Island spent $617,000 promoting the bill.

If EngageRI started electioneering — as it has publicly acknowledged it plans to do — its major donors may remain unknown until after Election Day. In this past election cycle, over $1.9 million was spent by outside groups trying to influence state elections in Rhode Island. Under the Transparency in Political Spending Act, Rhode Islanders would be able to access electioneering groups’ financial reports in a timely fashion, and groups would have to publicly state their largest donors in every print, television, radio or internet advertisement.

Financial disclosure is not a perfect solution — outside groups can still saturate the airwaves with election advertising. But even while enshrining the right to this unlimited spending in Citizens United, the Supreme Court reiterated the importance of financial disclosure, noting that “prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations … accountable for their positions and supporters.”

Armed with knowledge about what interests are behind groups with pleasant-sounding names — like “And For the Sake of the Kids,” a group in West Virginia whose major donors were coal company executives — citizens will be empowered to make a more informed decision on Election Day. We commend Chafee for taking a public stand against the invidious influence of outside spending in state referenda and supporting legislation that would make Rhode Island a national leader in campaign disclosure.

In the words of Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, “Campaign finance disclosure is absolutely vital to the health of our representative democracy.

This is no less true in the case of individual races than in that of ballot measures. We hope that this act is only the first step towards a campaign finance system that would apply to all groups, no matter what candidates or causes they support.

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

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Opinions 7

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The essence of America By kevin carty Opinions Columnist I love capitalism and believe in the profit motive inherent in it. I also love societal progress and believe in the selflessness existing outside of the profit motive that makes that progress sustainable and kind.

In a column last week (“Every entrepreneur is a social entrepreneur,” Feb. 14), Daniel Prada ’12 describes the “social entrepreneur” as one “who utilizes the mentality of the entrepreneur to focus on explicitly social, charitable ends, unlike other methods of entrepreneurship.” In his piece, he defends “the pursuit of profit” and posits its benefits, as he details various entrepreneurs who, following their own self-interest, have improved society by satisfying consumers’ subjective wants. In his final sentence, he encourages aspiring social entrepreneurs to “really help the world” by following their own incentives for profit and becoming “actual entrepreneur(s).”

His point is a valid one. I agree that, among progressives, capitalism is often rebuked more than it is respected, despite its awesome creative potential. However, his point is also simple. It ignores the flaws and nuances of the lauded profit motive, while devaluing the charitable social entrepreneurship that could address these same issues.

For example, rational economics, based

on the assumption that human beings make shrewd, reasonable choices following their own interests, form the basis of Prada’s argument. For the most part, this theory of rational choice holds. It guides good business decisions. But I believe, as do many behavioral economists, that this human rationality is not absolute. We, as imperfect humans, end up making mistakes. Richard Fuld Jr., the Lehman Brothers CEO who believed to the bitter end that his bank was sound, ended up losing

Each one of these people, and countless others involved in the 2008 financial crisis, were, in essence, entrepreneurs. Following the profit motive, they creatively used unprecedented extensions of credit to engineer unprecedented amounts of money. And following the profit motive, they messed up, hurting themselves and other people. But I don’t mean these mistakes to be the focus of my column. Social entrepreneurs, following their own beliefs in social justice, are imperfect, too. In attempt-

I believe, as do many behavioral economists, that this human rationality is not absolute. We, as imperfect humans, end up making mistakes.

— and this is a conservative estimate — around $2.8 billion when he sat atop the largest bankruptcy in American history.

Joe Cassano, the chief financial officer of American International Group’s Financial Products Division, was fired after he oversaw the lending out of $80 billion in insurance on subprime mortgage bonds, $80 billion that AIG couldn’t pay back when the time came. And Stan O’Neal, Merrill Lynch’s CEO until 2007, dutifully watched as his company accumulated $41 billion worth of crappy mortgage bonds and derivatives, actions that led to his eventual firing.

ing to solve the most difficult of issues, they may make overly complex plans and issue burdensome regulations. They may miss their goal entirely. Or they may worsen the situation while trying to address it.

Frankly, all of these mistakes, whether they are driven by profit or charity, matter a great deal. We can’t ignore, forget or wish them away. However, to applaud the profit motive alone, as Prada seems to do, misses the point. Profits can drive bad decisions that may hurt people or leave millions without a home or a job through no fault of their own. On the other hand, to relentlessly condemn the free-market in-

centives that have created our modern economy, as Prada contends many progressives do, is overly simplistic. Capitalism has built the prosperity that allows us to pursue the work of social entrepreneurship in the first place. Its excess wealth fills the coffers of our nonprofits.

So what should we conclude? America and her people, throughout history, have constantly been waging this debate.

Whether it is Franklin Delano Roosevelt vs. Herbert Hoover or Barack Obama vs.

Mitt Romney, it is the same debate. On one pole stands our collective belief in the individual and the great, constructive power of his own self-interest. On the other stands our care for the larger community and our desire to maintain a certain amount of equity and kindness. As I see it, America’s ultimate purpose throughout history is to reconcile these two lines of thought, to realize one without dismissing the other.

As such, when conservatives like Prada endorse the virtues of the profit motive while disparaging the value of social entrepreneurship, or when progressives like myself recount the values of social charity while denigrating capitalistic individualism, they are doing more than establishing a shallow argument. In fact, they are denying a full half of America’s very essence.

Kevin Carty ’15 is a political science concentrator from Washington D.C. He would love to hear any responses and can be reached at kevin_carty@brown.edu.

Lessons for Spring Weekend

By Lucas husted Opinions Columnist Spring Weekend is the largest and most widely attended event occurring on campus before Commencement week. Students eagerly anticipate the bands, agonize over getting tickets and even schedule their work or study abroad plans around the event. Spring Weekend is a time when people gather in large numbers, share new experiences, try new things — wink, wink — and enjoy some of the nicer things college affords us. The concerts are what facilitate all of this. While it is still possible to have fun on Spring Weekend whether you like the music or not, one thing is quite clear: The bands should not suck.

What do I mean by suck? Obviously, everyone has different tastes in music, so it is not possible to please all. Regardless, something about last year did not cut it.

Not to beat an old horse to death, but I want to explore some of the ways last year’s concerts were lacking in order to shed light on what should be done for the coming weekend.

While I have not done a scientific survey of the student body, most people you talk to will gladly say that Snoop Dogg and MGMT in 2010 were amazing. They will also tell you that Diddy and TV on the Radio in 2011 did not compare. In fact I would go one step further and say that last year the concerts were about as fun as having your toenail hair removed by

Rosie O’Donnell — the pleasant surprise of getting to see an insignificant celebrity up close is overshadowed by the sheer pain of having your hair pulled out. So what happened?

One major reason last year was so lackluster was that the Brown Concert Agency tried to do the same thing as 2010 and failed miserably. They were successful two years ago by having one “old-school rapper,” a couple of “hipster bands” and a few other decently big name openers, including Wale and Major Lazer. The problem with trying to copy this lineup is that it

with Flavor Flav and Kings of Leon.

Another reason last year was less successful is that it unfortunately had to be indoors. This was out of the BCA’s control.

It cannot control the weather. However, whoever did the sound check for Meehan Auditorium should have his hearing checked. Das Racist sounded like someone yelling over a garbage disposal. There must be a way for that space to sound remotely like a concert hall. Furthermore, the concert was poorly set up for people who had to stand in the bleachers.

They paid the same price as those on the

One major reason that last year was so lackluster was that the BCA tried to do the same thing as 2010 and failed miserably.

is not indicative of a successful formula.

The 2010 concerts worked because Snoop Dogg and MGMT are excellent performers, not because one appeals to pop music fans and the other to hipsters. This faulty logic brought the same types of groups to Spring Weekend last year — Diddy for Snoop and TV on the Radio for MGMT. The lineups have shocking similarities.

The BCA should be wary of allowing this to repeat itself yet again, lest we wind up

ground but got much less value. The BCA should have spent an extra effort making the indoor concert worth the money paid to see it.

But acoustics aside, here are my suggestions for this year. First, the BCA shouldn’t try to please absolutely everyone. There is no need to get a TV on the Radio for every Diddy. The groups should be knowable, but not necessarily well known. Diddy came late, played a short

set and used his celebrity as an excuse for not performing to the best of his ability.

We should seek bands that are on the rise and have something to prove.

Second, it is unfortunate that Coachella happens to be the same weekend. This is no excuse for not being able to put together a decent lineup. A quick glance through the bands scheduled to play at that festival will prove that the list is not exhaustive by any means.

Third, the BCA may want to actually read the results of the polls in which students voted on their preferences for Spring Weekend. I would wager a good deal of money — Romney-style — in saying that few to none put Diddy as their choice for a performer. The BCA is lucky — it will sell out the concerts with practically any performances, because people love Spring Weekend. It should not abuse this privilege.

Though I’m being critical of the BCA, we should keep in mind that the concerts are not the only way to enjoy yourself over the weekend. The artists are bought with a limited budget, after all. However, this is no excuse for the BCA to be unoriginal in selecting bands. Since we will likely all die in the coming apocalypse, we should strive to make 2012’s Spring Weekend the best ever. Maybe the BCA should get first access to funds, then the rest of the student groups, then the Undergraduate Council of Students. That seems fair to me — let’s vote on it.

Lucas Husted ’13 can’t wait to get an angry email from the BCA.

Daily Herald Campus News the Brown

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Prof honored as ‘rising Campus leftovers feed R.I. homeless star’ in evolutionary bio

By Alison silver Senior Staff Writer

By Jennifer Kaplan Contributing Writer

Associate Professor of Evolutionary Biology Sohini Ramachandran received the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship for her research in computational and evolutionary molecular biology, according to the foundation’s Feb. 15 press release. The award is granted to young scientists who are “rising stars, the next generation of scientific leaders,” according to the release.

The fellowship includes a grant of $50,000 to advance Ramachandran’s research, which pertains specifically to evolutionary history based on variations in the human genome over time.

“I’m really interested in historical relationships between human populations and the signatures they leave on our genome,” Ramachandran said. Specifically, she studies topics like the mating interaction between Europeans and Latin Americans during early colonization and the modern relevance of the genetic signatures of humans in Africa from 100,000 years ago. Her research is computational and statistical, using data gathered across the globe to mathematically map out aspects of the human genome.

“I feel really honored,” Ramachandran said. “The Sloan Fellowship has this really exciting history of making contributions to young faculty.”

The foundation gives grants in eight scientific areas but only began giving grants in computational and evolutionary molecular biology in 2002, when Ramachandran began graduate school.

Each of the 126 recipients of the 2012 fellowship was nominated by a colleague and then picked by an independent panel of scholars. Ramachandran was nominated by Mark Bertness, chair of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology.

“She’s a spectacular young faculty member working on really interesting problems,” Bertness said. He added that as a promising

female scientist, Ramachandran is a role model for young women in scientific fields.

Ramachandran arrived at the University in summer 2010 after receiving her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University and completing a post-graduate year at Harvard.

At Brown, she said she has been influenced by the supportive and collaborative environment in her department and the opportunity to teach undergraduate students beginning this year.

The grant money she will receive will enable students doing research with her to pursue projects that were previously impossible due to lack of funding, she said.

“I’ve been wanting to generate some data in collaboration with people in Newport to collect genetic data from different breeds of cattle and sheep that humans have domesticated,” Ramachandran said. She plans to use this data to study how variation has changed in domesticated breeds and what traits humans have selected.

“It’s just a nice, prestigious recognition that one of our new junior faculty members has this level of recognition this early in her career,” Bertness said.

Brown usually has one or two winners a year, Ramachandran said. Last year, two faculty members received this fellowship — David Badre, assistant professor in the department of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences, and Anastasia Volovich, associate professor of physics.

“It enabled me to continue research,” Volovich said, who studies wave amplitudes related to the theory of motives in algebraic geometry. The funds from the fellowship enabled the physics department to bring distinguished visitors, she added, and will allow her to travel to some conferences.

Volovich emphasized the unrestrictive nature of the Sloan Foundation grant compared to other grants. “You can use it however you want,” she said.

The Swearer Center for Public Service van carrying over 20 pounds of food donations does not encounter much traffic on its midnight trips down the hill to Kennedy Plaza. While most occupants of the homeless shelter at the Mathewson Street United Methodist Church are sleeping, students from Brown’s Food Recovery Network unload the boxes of leftover muffins, bagels, pastries and packaged produce collected from campus eateries every evening. The operation hardly takes any time at all, but each nightly installment of food donations makes a difference for the local Providence community.

The network, a new student group affiliated with Rhode Island’s non-profit corporation We Share Hope, aims to reduce waste and increase food donation to local homeless people by collecting and transporting leftovers from Brown’s eateries and cafe carts. The goal is figuring out how to “make more food reach people and not the trash can,” said Shelby Wilson ’15, one of the group’s leaders.

The network was first established by students at the University of Maryland and now has participating chapters at Pomona College, University of California at Berkeley and Brown. During his gap year before starting college, Ben Chesler ’15 was working at Search for Common Ground in Washington when he and several University of Maryland students came up with the idea for the group. After returning from South Africa, where Chesler donated food first-hand, he decided he wanted to bring the program to Brown. Last semester, the national network, which includes all the participating colleges, donated 15,000 meals, according to the network’s website So far this spring, the network has recovered 2,000 meals.

Food delivery dynamos

Brown’s chapter performed its first food recovery and delivery Nov. 11 and has been growing ever since.

In addition to weekly contributions of up to 200 pounds of food from Brown Dining Services, students perform a nightly pickup of leftover

baked goods and packaged produce from the Blue Room, the Sciences Library, the Rockefeller Library and Barus and Holley. With the use of a Swearer Center van, the group delivers each night’s donations directly to the Mathewson Street church.

When Chesler pitched the idea of the club to Dining Services, “there was very little hesitation.”

The group has regular meetings with Associate Director of Dining Services Peter Rossi to work out logistics and add new dining locations. Almost all of the operations take place after midnight, once the food has been compiled at each of the pickup locations. Despite the late hours, the trip is quick and easy, usually taking less than half an hour to complete.

To increase efficiency, Chesler said that the group is implementing a clipboard system to keep track of the number of items collected from each campus eatery. They will also record and report the weight of the daily donations. Any students

feature who have taken a driving course with a Brown insurance agent are authorized to drive the Swearer Center van used to transport food donations.

“We’ve been having student clubs take charge,” Wilson said.

The Brown Democrats, St. Anthony Hall, Brown/RISD Hillel, emPOWER, Athletes in Action and the Delta Tau fraternity are among the groups that have volunteered to deliver food.

The Brown Democrats have been involved with deliveries for the past two weeks. After hearing about the Food Recovery Network from Chesler, one of the board members of the Brown Democrats decided to get the group involved.

“We have decided to help out with Tuesday nights,” said Emily Regier ’14, the group’s civic involvement chair. The group was already looking for various volunteer opportunities, Regier said, and as they have meetings on Tuesday nights anyway, they decided to make it their night for food collection and transport as well.

Wilson said reaching out to fraternities and other student groups

Conference to celebrate history of women on campus By austin cole Staff Writer

The Women’s Leadership Council — which seeks to promote philanthropy and volunteerism and offer mentoring to the University’s female students and alums — has been planning a conference to celebrate 120 years of women’s history at Brown. But after President Ruth Simmons — who created the council in 2004 — announced her resignation, the council has decided to shift the focus of the conference, slated to take place May 3-5, to incorporate bidding farewell to the University’s president of 11 years.

“At the heart of this is an effort

to really celebrate a remarkably long history of women at Brown,” said Nancy Neff ’76 P’06 P’14, council co-chair. “People tend to forget that Brown had women students long before other universities did.”

Though celebrating women’s history at Brown is an important aspect of the conference, Neff said the activities and discussions will be geared more toward celebrating the current role of women in the University community. The council is excited about the prospect of bringing in a “wide range of women in various careers and various locations” to showcase what the “fabulous alumnae of Brown do,”

Neff said.

Though many of the plans for the conference have yet to be finalized, Neff said it will include panels of women discussing topics related to women’s lives, health, finance and more. Also included in the program will be “fun, social pieces” that allow current students and alums to connect with one another, Neff said.

Mary Vascellaro ’74 P’07 said she also hopes the conference will exhibit the council’s increasingly influential role at Brown, which has evolved over the past several years.

Though this fall will mark the council’s first semester without Simmons, the council hopes to

continue to expand, Vascellaro said. It has continued to build on its mentoring and philanthropic programs, including a program called Women’s Launch Pad that matches council mentors with women in the senior class, offering guidance to graduating seniors as they transition to life after college.

The council also helps to foster philanthropy in the Brown community. This year, the council led the Graduates of the Last Decade challenge and raised $1 million for a matching fund that will contribute to the Annual Fund. The matching fund will help display the council’s “philanthropic clout” on campus, Vascellaro said.

is helpful as they often have their own cars.

“We’re still looking for more involvement all the time,” she added.

Chesler said the group’s greatest challenge is that the closing times of the various cafe carts and eateries differ. “We’re really willing to take any food, no matter how small the quantity, but we can’t be running around from 7 to midnight every night” collecting food, he said.

Midnight meals for the homeless

The connection to the Mathewson Street church is in part due to Chesler’s previous work with Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere, a student organization based at the Swearer Center.

“I just knew that (the church) was a place that was open to this idea,” he said. The Mathewson Street church operates one of the emergency winter shelters in downtown Providence and stays open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Because it is overnight, the church does not provide a structured meal to people who use the shelter. The donations from Brown are distributed to the shelter occupants before they leave in the morning.

The network not only seeks to help the homeless, but also to raise awareness about the benefits of food donation in general.

“Legally speaking, it’s a lot easier to donate food than people think,” Wilson said. In fact, the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996, named after former U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, provides that people who donate surplus food are not liable unless they show “gross negligence.” Food donated to an approved agency is eligible for a tax reduction of one half the food’s appreciated value, according to the Food Donation Connection’s website.

Saving food is environmentally advantageous. The network is “green and socially responsible,” Wilson said. In the future, members hope to incorporate reusable bags and containers for shepherding food to the shelter.

Blue State Coffee has also agreed to donate food to the chapter and the group hopes to collect from more businesses on Thayer Street in the coming months, Chesler said.