Friday, March 2, 2012

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxxii, no. 26

Friday, March 2, 2012

Since 1891

Palestinian journalist advocates one-state solution Proposed fee

By Gadi Cohen Staff Writer

Emily Gilbert / Herald

A kibbutz in the West Bank is surrounded and fortified by a barbed wire fence.

The best solution to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a onestate solution, said Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist and author, during a sparsely attended lecture in Salomon 001 Thursday night. The lecture was organized

by Brown Students for Justice in Palestine as part of its third annual Israeli Apartheid Week that began Wednesday.

“This is not an ethnic, religious or tribal struggle,” Abunimah said.

“It’s a struggle to find human rights.

That people of every background are attracted to this cause is striking to me because it shows that this is a global movement that has to be won on behalf of humanity.”

His talk, titled “One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the IsraeliPalestinian Impasse,” examined the

controversial and ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians in the contested holy land. During the lecture, Abunimah mainly scrutinized what he described as the Israeli government’s injustices toward the Palestinian population.

Abunimah outlined past and present examples of injustice, making comparisons between Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and other historical instances of rights violations, like the South African apartheid. He criticized the notion that Israel is a democratic country, instead calling it an “ethnocracy.”

Though he was born in Washington, D.C., both of Abunimah’s parents hail from Palestine, he said.

His mother became a refugee when she was eight years old after leaving her home village of Lifta in the 1948 Palestinian exodus. During the

2010, and “We Can Rebuild Him” was one of two finalists chosen for staging in a workshop last May, according to Andy Hertz ’04, adjunct lecturer in theater arts and performance studies and the Brownbrokers’ musical director and faculty adviser.

“Everyone was captivated by how moving the story was even though it was so grotesque and so science-fictiony,” he said. “Everycontinued on page 5

continued on page 2

continued on page 7

Professor of Mathematics Jeremy Kahn won the 2012 Clay Research Award — one of the most prestigious awards in mathematics — for his work on hyperbolic geometry. Kahn and his collaborator Vladimir Markovic published two papers in 2009 and 2011 containing “major breakthroughs in mathematical research,” according to the award’s website.

Hyperbolic geometry studies

science the properties of a hyperbolically curved space. Think the surface of a saddle, where there is more distance between any two points than on a flat plane. In hyperbolic space, the sum of angles in a triangle can be less than 180 degrees.

Kahn’s proof of the Ehrenpreis Conjecture, one of the two recognized papers, reveals that if you take a two-dimensional hyperbolic space — the saddle surface — and you put it in a three-dimensional hyperbolic space, it is impossible to completely flatten it. But it is possible for it to sit in the space so that it is only very slightly curved. Properties of the space correlate with properties of

inside

continued on page 7

news.....................2-4 arts.......................5-6 science....................7 sports.................8-9 d & c.........................10 forum...................11

The new musical by Deepali Gupta ’12 is this year’s Brownbrokers biennial student-written musical. The selection process for the musical started in December

Over 39 years, Goldberger fostered student-athletes

By Ashley McDonnell Sports Editor

When Michael Goldberger came to Brown as an assistant baseball and football coach in 1973, he had no idea that he would dedicate the next 39 years of his life to the University. After serving for the past seven years as the director of athletics, Goldberger announced that he will retire at the end of the academic year.

sports Goldberger’s retirement comes a year after the athletics department underwent a turbulent review process in the wake of the economic recession. Goldberger served as a member of the Athletics Review Committee, which looked at the current athletics budget and its larger role at the University and then made recommendations on how to better

Noteworthy

support the department. The list of recommendations included eliminating four varsity sports.

President Ruth Simmons later decided, after further review, that this recommendation would not be implemented.

Though the budget crisis was the toughest challenge for Goldberger during his tenure, it does not overshadow all the positive changes — like facilities improvements and salary increases — he oversaw, said Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services.

Both Klawunn and Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president, said they believe Goldberger’s most positive contribution had more to do with the outlook on athletics that guided his decisions, rather than just one tangible action. continued on page 9

David Silverman / Brown University

Goldberger made academics a top priority in his run as director of athletics.

Ca$h problems

Website will allow students to share class notes and tests

Brundage ’15 and Syme GS debate U.’s contributions to Providence

news, 3

opinions, 11

weather

By Sarah Lewin Contributing Writer

“We can rebuild him. … We have the technology,” says a supporting character of the bionic main character in the television series “The Six Million Dollar Man.” But in the new Brownbrokers musical “We Can Rebuild Him,” running in Stuart Theater through March 11, the character being pieced back together is not robotic but human, and the key to his rebirth is his

still-beating heart.

“It’s a really human story disguised in this science fiction exterior and when you peel that away … it’s really beautiful in a way,” said Talya Klein GS, the show’s director.

By Claire Schlessinger Staff Writer

The latest annual University Resources Committee report recommended a new membership fee for faculty and staff who use University athletic facilities. The fee, which has not yet been officially approved, would contribute to the cost of the new aquatic and fitness center slated to open this semester, said Michael Goldberger, director of athletics.

The committee recommended a contribution of $360 per year ­— or $30 per month — for faculty and staff members who opt for a membership. Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 said asking users who benefit from a service to contribute to its cost “is a reasonable thing,” adding that students have an athletics fee included in their tuition. Individual community members currently pay $550 per year for gym membership, and faculty and staff who wish to use the fitness centers during the summer must pay $85.

Every Ivy League university charges faculty and staff to use its athletic facilities, Goldberger said.

Ricardo Smith, network manager at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, said he oppos-

Campy sci-fi musical explores family drama Professor awarded for geometric proof arts & Culture

By Tonya Riley Staff Writer

frustrates faculty, staff

t o d ay

tomorrow

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2 Campus News calendar Today

March 2

3 P.m.

ToMORROW

March 3

8 p.m.

Got Linsanity?

We Can Rebuild Him,

Third World Center Lounge 1

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7 p.m.

9 p.m. imPulse Dance Spring Show,

Brown Stand Up Comics: Lent,

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menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Vegan Lentil Stew, Hot Pastrami Sandwich, Zucchini Frittata, Curried Tofu with Coconut Ginger Rice

Breaded Chicken Fingers, Vegan Nuggets, Lemony Orzo Salad, Raspberry Swirl Cookies

DINNER Herb Crusted Salmon, Manicotti Piedmontese, Roasted Butternut Squash with Sage and Shallots

Tortellini Italiano, Cheesy Zucchini Casserole, Baked Stuffed Pollock, Sugar Snap Peas

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The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

Granoff Cafe closed due to low traffic

By Sandra Yan Staff Writer

The cafe cart at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts closed after seven months due to low usage. The future use of the space is currently unclear.

The Granoff cafe cart — similar to those in the Sciences and Rockefeller libraries — was originally intended to serve Asian food, such as sushi, seaweed salad, spring rolls and soybeans, according to Clay Thibodeaux ’12, a former student supervisor at the cafe.

It opened in April 2011 and closed right before Thanksgiving break.

“The workers there would report two to three customers per shift,” Thibodeaux said. He said he thinks the location was inconvenient and that the cafe might have gotten more use in “an established place where people would go regularly.”

Dining Services evaluated the cafe’s usage and “it became clear that it was slower than originally anticipated,” wrote Ann Hoffman, director of administration for Brown Dining Services, in an email to The Herald.

“At the time we closed the cafe, Dining Services was discussing several alternative options for that space,” she wrote.

“Vending was considered a tem-

Paige Gilley / Herald

Vending machines will stay open though the cafe cart has closed.

porary solution until we had time to fully evaluate all the options,” Hoffman wrote. But “vending has been well-received so it will stay in place until something better comes along.”

Many students report not knowing the cafe existed. Mary Tarantino ’15 said even if she had known about the cafe, she probably would not have gone because she “would have no reason to be there.”

Dining Services is currently considering the possibility of reopening the cafe and discussing ways to increase its visibility, said Connie Wu ’12.5, the current BuDS unit

manager for cafe carts.

“At present, we have no plans to bring back the cafe,” wrote Chira DelSesto, assistant director of the Creative Arts Council, in an email to The Herald. “I know that Dining Services is thinking about a possible proposal for some sort of food service on Level 1 of the Center, but at this point, we have not seen a proposal.”

The former cafe space is currently being used to display some final projects from last semester’s HIAA 0850: “Modern Architecture” course.

Proposed gym fee faces opposition continued from page 1

Crossword

es the proposed fee. After reading about the plan in the committee’s report, he immediately started to rally his colleagues to petition it and received overwhelming support, he said.

Gyms in Smith’s neighborhood charge about $10 per month for membership, meaning $120 per year, he said. “We know what the market value is — (Brown’s fee) is way above the market value. That is just greedy,” he said.

“I don’t mind giving back for all the years that it was accessible for free,” said Michael Houllahan, morphology technician for gross anatomy in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology.

But he said the steep rate might be prohibitive for some employees.

Calling the ability to work out for free “one of the few bragging rights you get” as a University employee, Smith said the elimination

Daily

the Brown

Paige Gilley / Herald

The proposed faculty gym fee of $360 is triple the price of local private gyms.

of one of his “consolation prizes” means he has little incentive to work at Brown over any other employer. “What’s my upside?” he asked.

“Free access to its gym is something a university can and usually should offer to its community,” wrote Marc Redfield, professor of English and comparative literature, in an email to The Herald.

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Both Smith and Redfield said the quality of University gyms currently does not merit the proposed fee. Redfield, who joined a private gym after using the University’s facilities for his first few months at Brown, said it would make sense to charge tenured faculty and senior staff to use the gym if it “were competitive with private gyms in the area.”

“You’re not giving backrubs and therapy sessions,” Smith said.

“What are you giving me?”

Houllahan said working out can help staff and faculty “manage any psychological hurdles” they face, and Smith wrote in an email that exercising boosts his personal health and happiness, which in turn benefits the Brown community.

Smith stressed that he would join another gym before paying the committee’s recommended rate. While Houllahan said the University neglected staff by not making the issue open for discussion, he added that the facilities are “such an important place to so many.”

Campus News 3

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

RISD president’s Students pilot note-sharing site contract renewed By david rosen Staff Writer

By alison silver Senior Staff Writer

The Rhode Island School of Design’s Board of Trustees renewed President John Maeda’s contract through June 30, 2015 last weekend. The renewal comes almost a year after the faculty voted “no confidence” in Maeda and former Provost Jessie Shefrin, who resigned last May. Interim Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Patricia Phillips, interim Dean of Graduate Studies Brian Goldberg and acting Dean of Fine Arts Anais Missakian will also continue their roles for the 2012-13 academic year, allowing “significant consistency in our administrative ranks” as the search for a new permanent provost and dean of architecture and design continues, wrote Director of Media Relations Jaime Marland in an email to The Herald.

After the no confidence vote last spring, “students were left conflicted and confused,” wrote junior Carly Ayres, president of the Undergraduate Student Alliance, in an email to The Herald.

Since then, there have been “a lot of substantial changes” to the structure of the administration, said RISD Professor of Architecture Anne Tate.

These changes include new deans, the reorganization of mid-level academic administration and more collaboration among deans, faculty and the provost’s office.

“This year is an enormously improved climate from last year,” Tate said.

Part of the improvement stems from Maeda’s decision to charge deans and the associate provost with leading the strategic planning process, according to Phillips, the interim associate provost. Their elevated involvement has contributed to higher levels of communication and consultation with students and has increased the role of deans in academic councils.

“In what should be a period of chaos and upheaval, it’s been extremely stable,” Tate said, adding that “people have been very happy” with Maeda’s and the interim deans’ performances. A vote last fall reflected the faculty’s enthusiastic satisfaction with the interim deans and Interim Provost Rosanne Somerson, she added.

Maeda has made the conscious choice to let the provost work with the academic sector as its advocate, Tate said, adding that this is how the faculty has always perceived the role of the provost. She said Maeda has opted not to be involved in certain issues, letting the faculty have more control over some areas of the cur-

riculum.

To assist the process of finding a new provost, the search committee is working with Sage Search Partners, a search firm that serves educational institutions and nonprofit organizations. Phillips, who is the chair of the search committee, said the firm visits campus frequently to meet with different leadership groups and called the process “open and consultative.”

The committee will start looking more closely at specific candidates at its next meeting March 14, she said.

The committee is seeking an intellectual and innovative leader who will “embrace the goals and objectives of the strategic plan,” Phillips said. She added that the new provost should understand the potential and power of collaboration. “None of us do this work alone,” she said.

At its meeting last weekend, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to endorse RISD’s five-year strategic plan, which the faculty strongly supported in a December vote. The plan is a “living document that’s going to help us guide our decisions and the way we work together and establish our priorities,” Phillips said. It focuses on issues of hiring new faculty, supporting new departmental and divisional structures to develop new areas of strength, improving graduate student research and increasing research opportunities in the undergraduate program.

One of the plan’s central goals is engagement, on both the local and global scale, Phillips said, and it aims to address how “RISD can be an even more active and consequential institution.”

This year has already seen a major influx of student involvement on campus, Ayres said. Students have formed more new clubs this year than in the past two years combined, taking on leadership roles within their academic departments as well as in the Providence community. Ayres attributes this “surge in involvement” to a “reinvigorated student body,” resulting in part from Maeda’s recent approach to reaching out to the community.

Despite discord among faculty and administration last year, Maeda’s leadership has contributed to several unequaled achievements. During his presidency, RISD has received more six-figure scholarships from individual donors than ever before in its 130-year history, and its rate of tuition increase is the lowest in decades, Marland wrote. In a letter accepting his contract renewal, Maeda wrote that he will “continue to strive to make a RISD education more accessible” and that fundraising efforts will “remain an ongoing priority.”

Students, take note — or rather, don’t.

Amory Bennett ’14 and Clark Craddock-Willis ’14 are working to create a website that will allow students to share notes from their classes. This fall, they will launch a pilot version of the site, called the Brown Scholars Club, that will include notes from a few classes across different departments. The complete website will eventually feature notes from all classes as well as past problem sets, essays and tests, given professors’ permission, Bennett said.

“I think it could change the way people absorb lectures,” Bennett said.

With the information the website will offer, students will no longer have to worry about recording every detail, he explained. Instead, they will be able to absorb what is said in the classroom.

“We hope to eventually become the Facebook of schoolwork,” Bennett said. “Brown students are very smart, but I don’t get to hear what they say very much,” he said.

“Whereas with Facebook we can all see pictures of each other drinking beer on the weekend, with this I will be able to see Clark’s essay on globalization and development.”

Bennett said he envisions the complete site allowing students to build a portfolio that will show potential employers their course work.

Bennett and Craddock-Willis will determine whether they want to charge students for using the site after the pilot has been released, but Bennett said that they are leaning towards funding the site through advertising.

Currently, they are working to obtain money from investors to pay students who submit their notes and to build the website. So far, they have received a verbal commitment to provide some funding from one investor, whose name they did not disclose.

Bennett and Craddock-Willis have placed flyers around campus advertising the opportunity for students to receive between $20 and $50 for one course’s notes.

So far, 20 students have emailed them in response to the flyers, Bennett said. He and Craddock-Willis have met with 10 students to review their notes, he added.

But some students are not comfortable with the idea of selling their notes.

“It’s my work. If I am making effort to go to class and take diligent notes, I’m not going to sell out and

help people who are too lazy to come to class,” said Jackie Katz ’14.

Supriya Das ’15 said she would sell her notes at the end of the semester, but she would not pay for the note-sharing service because she could not trust the accuracy of the notes.

Bennett and Craddock-Willis recognize this concern and are working on setting standards for the notes they will accept. But Bennett added that defining standards for notes in subjects they are less familiar with is difficult. For example, “we’re not really math guys,” he said.

Sharing notes in this manner does not violate any Academic Code rules, said Thomas Doeppner, associate professor of computer science and former co-chair of the Standing Committee on the Academic Code.

But sharing problem sets and exams may constitute code violations, he said.

Sharing notes is “a gray area for intellectual property,” Doeppner added. “The question becomes, ‘Are they profiting off the professor’s course?’”

“The way I see it is when I pay for a class at Brown and am taught something, that knowledge is now mine to do with it what I will,” Bennett said.

www.browndailyherald.com

4 Campus News Enrollment fee absorbed into doctoral tuition

By JAMES RATTNER Senior Staff Writer

The Corporation approved a recommendation by the University Resources Committee to eliminate the enrollment fee for doctoral students during its February meeting.

In addition to tuition, doctoral candidates are currently required to pay an enrollment fee after their third year of study, which is calculated at 6.25 percent of the tuition price, according to the URC’s budget report.

Through this change, which is slated to come into effect for the next fiscal year, the enrollment fee will now be included in the price of tuition starting after the third year, said Matteo Riondato GS, president of the Graduate Student Council.

The distinction between tuition and the enrollment fee is largely titular and “mostly a formal change,” Riondato said.

The use of an enrollment fee is part of an older system, wrote Peter Weber, dean of the Graduate School, in an email to The Herald.

He added that the Grad School is now well placed to eliminate it because of recent changes to the tuition scholarship applications for graduate students in their sixth year or later.

With this change, the burden will be shifted from the students to their sponsors. For most doctoral students, an external sponsor arranged by the University for students in their first five years paid the tuition, while the students paid the enrollment fee themselves. Sponsors will now pay the combined cost, Riondato said.

The URC does not expect the change to hurt students since students either have fellowships covering their entire tuition or pay for it through work as teaching or research assistants, according to the report.

“This is done to make sure that we get the most out of the money that (sponsor) institutions give,” said Riondato, adding students should not have a problem asking for more money from their sponsors. The URC expects the change to generate $258,000 more in revenue next year, according to its report.

“Since there is no adverse impact of the change from the enrollment fee, there has not been any negative sentiment,” Weber wrote.

This change will not stop students from pursuing a degree at Brown and “a well-defined path to fund the completion of doctoral studies is probably a plus,” he wrote.

Many institutions do not have a comparable system, Weber wrote.

The Corporation also approved URC recommendations to increase doctoral student stipends by $1,000.

This increase will cost the University $757,000. “Even with this increase, Brown’s graduate stipends will be at or near the bottom of those at peer institutions,” according to the report.

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

Debate targets limits of commercial speech

By Mathias Heller Senior Staff Writer

Prominent Northwestern University professors Andrew Koppelman and Martin Redish discussed whether the government has a right to regulate commercial speech to protect public health and safety during the annual Meiklejohn Debate Thursday night.

Koppelman, professor of law and political science, presented his perspective first, making the case that the federal government has the right to regulate advertising from private companies because of the potential to mislead

the public in pursuit of private profit. Koppelman called commercial speech — advertising by companies to promote their products — a special case not protected by the First Amendment.

When his time to speak came, Redish, professor of law and public policy, poked fun at his colleague, his friend of many years.

“I would never suggest your kneejerk left-wing views would inform your opinion on this,” Redish said, provoking laughter from Koppelman and audience members.

“The government cannot selectively suppress expression out of

fear that the audience will make the wrong choices,” Redish said, calling free speech restrictions an abuse of power.

Koppelman said he believed government intervention was valid, citing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s requirement that food companies support their advertising claims with scientific data.

“If the speech can harm our autonomy, then it deserves regulation,” Koppelman said.

In response, Redish turned once again to humor, saying all expressions of free speech — ­ com-

mercial or not — were aimed at advancing private interests.

“The First Amendment is not the preserve of Mother Theresa,” he said.

Jointly sponsored by the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions and the Janus Forum, the Meiklejohn Debate annually features distinguished scholars on controversial legal issues related to the First Amendment. The forum is named in honor of 1893 graduate Alexander Meiklejohn, a former dean of the University who also served as president of Amherst College.

Unconventional Buddhist makes meditation relatable

By Meia Geddes Staff Writer

Dressed in a suit and purple tie, atypical Buddhist practitioner and teacher Lodro Rinzler came to Winnick Chapel at Brown/RISD Hillel Thursday evening as part of a 24-city tour for his new book, “The Buddha Walks Into a Bar: A Guide to Life for a New Generation.”

“I actually haven’t read it myself, but I hear it’s good,” Rinzler joked. He received many laughs throughout the presentation, which was hosted by the Brown Meditation Community.

The 29-year-old Rinzler, who comes from the tradition of Shambhala Buddhism, began meditating at age 11 and lived in a monastery at age 17. In college, he created Wesleyan University’s Buddhist House, a dorm for 18 students who practice meditation. He now writes and teaches two meditation classes a week in New York City.

Rinzler’s book is about “how to integrate Buddhism into a college student’s life” and life in general, said Noah Elbot ’14, one of the nine BMC leaders. College is a time for “figuring out who you are,” he said, and “meditation can give another perspective to that.”

Rinzler may be more “relatable” to students than the “more traditional Zen master,” Elbot said. He is also a living example of someone who has made a living through Buddhism — college students typically do not consider a career in religion, Elbot said.

BMC thought that Rinzler might appeal to younger people who are seeking to take up meditation without changing their whole lifestyle, said Evan Winget ’12, another BMC leader.

Rinzler led a brief session of meditation, read aloud from his book and briefly spoke about himself and his thoughts on meditation. At one point, he asked the audience, “What do you guys want to talk about tonight?”

Audience members asked questions ranging from meditation technique to the relationship between meditation and drugs, drinking and sex.

Rinzler said he believes it is

the intention behind one’s actions that is most important. Engaging in behaviors such as drinking, then looking to see if these acts are “escapes” or “ways to connect with others” allows one to see which to “cultivate” or “cut out” of one’s life, he said.

“Any meditation is good meditation,” he said.

Buddha was able to recognize the “potency of the moment” through meditation just as other people can do, Rinzler said.

He said that one must interpret Buddhist teachings in a way that “meshes with our reality.” For him, especially during college, Buddhism was a “gradual process” of finding a balance in engaging with the atmosphere around him, he said.

For those facing a difficult time meditating or suffering laziness, Rinzler recommended reminding oneself of the intention behind meditation. He urged students to consider practicing with a group and to “just sit” and practice discipline. Discipline is “often perceived in a negative way” but actually has a “sense of virtue,” he said.

This generation has been raised to think in terms of being “whatever you want to be,” yet this thinking pattern needs to be changed to “who,” not “what” one wants to be, Rinzler said.

Understanding the “who” part of the question is better than approaching life mindlessly, he said.

“Mindfulness is bringing yourself fully to something,” he said.

Rizler has learned about Buddhism and life from previous teachers and trial and error.

“Mistakes are very valuable on this path,” he said.

“It’s great to have someone closer to our age” to address college students, said Halsey Niles ’12.

But Winget, who comes from the more traditional Theravada school of Buddhism, wanted to raise his hand to disagree with Rinzler several times during the discussion, he told The Herald. “I don’t think you can as mindfully take a shot as you can follow a breath,” he said.

There are two “complementary movements” in America related

Dan Fethke / Herald Lodro Rinzler’s Shambhala Buddism emphasizes reflection on the intent behind one’s acts.

to Buddhism, said Willoughby Britton, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior.

One movement — which includes Rinzler — favors “popularizing” Buddhism, while the more “conservative” movement focuses on more traditional Buddhism, Britton said.

Britton does research on meditation and studies traditional Buddhist texts, she said.

As someone heavily involved in contemplative studies at the University, Britton was “amazed” at the turnout of about 50 people, about 70 percent of whom she did not recognize, she said.

“I’m just here to learn something about something I know

nothing about,” said Sarah Parker ’15.

Audience members, whom Rinzler addressed as “broke college students,” were welcome to pay $10, not the normal $15, for the book.

BMC gathers Monday through Saturday in Manning Chapel to meditate. The nondenominational community is primarily made up of graduate and undergraduate students and sometimes staff and faculty. BMC also awards scholarships to students for meditation retreats, organizes potlucks, has worked once with the women’s squash team on visualization and meditation and arranges for guests like Rinzler to come speak.

Arts & Culture 5

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

Musical explores family’s Baritone portrays loneliness of lost poet ritualized healing process

By Ben kutner Senior Staff Writer

continued from page 1 one bought the story.”

Opening with a musical number and explanation of Sam’s (Lance Jabr ’12, Alexis Shusterman ’13 and Elias Spector-Zabusky ’15) death by dissection, the musical introduces the audience to the Whitman family on the 71st of 75 days in the “Sam Whitman Family Reconstruction Project.” Grace (Abby Colella ’12), Sam’s mother, reconstructs Sam with the hopes of bringing him back to life — and consequently getting her husband, who abandoned the family after Sam’s death, to return.

The Whitman family is consumed by the project, and its members have ritualized their lives around Sam’s beating heart, the key to his reconstruction. But their desperate attempts to bring back the Sam they once knew raises questions about their ability to move on and to stop making excuses about their lives.

Gupta said she crafted “We Can Rebuild Him” from the concept of a 10-minute, farcical play she wrote in high school.

“Almost everybody hated that awful little play, including me, but there was something in the premise that stuck with me,” she said.

Gupta said the musical reflects her fascination with mental illness in theater, classically portrayed on stage as a stated characteristic or internal struggle of a single character. The musical focuses on “a person as a unit and a family as a unit that could go through a collective emotional journey,” she said.

Unlike the original play, the genre of musical theater allowed Gupta to explore the more “campy, grotesque” facets of the idea without conflicting with the emotional core of the play, she said.

“Working on a new musical is three times as much work as working on a new play,” Klein said. Her job was less to impose her own vision and more to make sure that the production reflected Gupta’s concept, she said.

The most elusive character is Sam, intriguingly portrayed by three actors at the same time. He

helps narrate the musical, but does not interact with the other characters, leaving them alone to deal with their conflicting ideas of him.

The three actors represent different facets of Sam’s personality from before he died. “We just all are Sam and try to make sense of what the family is doing, coming from our own version of Sam,” Shusterman said of the triplicate portrayal.

The set, a packrat garage overhauled into a medical workroom with a juxtaposition of cereal boxes and operating tables, reinforces to the audience that behind the automated team of surgeons the Whitmans have become lingers a normal, grieving family. Green lighting used to portray the forest around the house is especially effective in expanding the world of the play’s action.

The score moves the plot forward while still magnifying the emotions of the characters, but some of the characters’ angst feels misplaced. Their intense emotional tensions are never matched by twists or conflicts in the plot itself.

A strong focus on thematic elements leaves some aspects of the story underdeveloped. Uncle Bill (Brady Waibel ’12), whose unrequited love for his sister-in-law Grace is clear to the whole family, shines when singing about being a “shy guy,” but his character remains largely unexplored.

The campier scenes, such as when Jenny sings to her mother about teenage girls that “eat like birds” and “f— like birds,” give excellent depth to the relationships but did not fit smoothly into the story. Upping the grotesqueness and campiness would better balance the heavy angst of the musical.

Musicals can take years to perfect, but even with a relatively short development process, Gupta’s debut exudes the essence of modern musical theatre. “We Can Rebuild Him” captures hearts, hands and whatever else can be found in a body bag and is a must-see in Brown theater this year.

“This is only the first step in the life of the piece,” said Klein, and audiences can only hope she’s right.

Baritone Wolfgang Holzmair delivered a convincing performance as a wandering poet who had lost his way in a concert of Franz Schubert’s legendary song cycle “Winterreise” Wednesday night in the Martinos Auditorium of the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.

In a feat of great endurance and nuanced musicality, Holzmair performed all 24 movements from “Winterreise.” The performance lasted around an hour and a half, and Holzmair took virtually no pauses between the songs.

“Winterreise” depicts the journey of a poet whose beloved has chosen another man. Over the course of the song cycle, the poet meanders through the wintry countryside, viewing traces of his love in all of his surroundings.

The piece is a staple of romantic vocal repertoire.

Holzmair’s preparation for the role starts hours before the concert, he said. The baritone has performed the song cycle on other occasions. The character and his journey are not the same every time, Holzmair said.

Though Holzmair said he felt under the weather, his performance did not show any traces of vocal obstacles. “Given the circumstances, I could tell my story,” he said.

“You will not hear this done again like this,” said David Josephson, professor of music. “This man is beyond words to get into that (character’s) soul.”

Dan Fethke / Herald

Wolfgang Holzmair’s performed an ode to lost love for 90 minutes without pause.

“Winterreise,” like many classical song cycles, requires a duality on the part of the vocalist, who serves as both musician and actor.

But the acting is extremely different from the kind one encounters in a play or a musical. Holzmair used no props or costumes and allowed the natural emotion of his voice to add a plot beneath the German lyrics.

His voice acquires a different character depending on how much power he chooses to use to support it. His quieter moments displayed a smooth and dark color, while he often used a louder sound as his register climbed in pitch.

In several of the songs, such as “Erstarrung” (Numbness), Holzmair flaunted an operatic sheen to his voice not often found in

performances of Schubert’s song cycles — but effective nonetheless.

Holzmair’s voice was accompanied by the precise and understated piano playing of Russell Ryan.

Ryan managed to provide strong musical enforcement while, at the same time, successfully taking a back seat to the soloist. “Winterreise” has a complex and effective piano part which contributes to the plot as much as the vocals.

Holzmair was the wayward poet and Ryan was the wintry scenery.

If Holzmair felt any signs of fatigue in his voice in the final few songs, it was hard to tell. By the end, the wandering poet had completely lost his way, and Holzmair’s voice revealed a loneliness that seemed too great even for the massive hall in the Granoff Center.

Production revels in silence By brette Ragland Contributing Writer

With “The Artist” scooping an Academy Award for Best Picture Sunday, silent entertainment is all the rage in American performance art these days. “Guests,” Production Workshop’s newest production, follows that trend. The show, described as a “devised movement piece” designed through collaboration between the performers and director, runs from March 2 through March 5 at T.F. Green Hall.

Entering the PW Downspace, performers ask the audience to “take a vow of silence with us.” By sacrificing spoken language, the performance becomes all about body language.

“The body is a site of pleasure in more ways than just the sexual way,” said Ari Rodriguez ’13, the show’s director. “It has a kind of expression that is as unbounded as natural language.”

For the next hour and 10 minutes, the audience watches the actors explore their bodies and discover the different meanings they create through movement. The seven actors create an arsenal of seven gestures, which are repeated over and over and are used to communicate the relationships and narratives of the piece.

“For me, one of the first big tenets of the show is that performing and dance and social etiquette are one in the same,” Rodriguez said.

While this message is certainly communicated, it is the visual beauty of the show that leaves a lasting impression. The actors contort their bodies to create spectacular poses in front of an ornately designed set complete with a tree chandelier.

The lights, subtle yet meticulous, enhance the beauty of the show’s overall image.

“A lot of this show is just about ‘aren’t images pretty?’” Rodriguez said. “What if we took it slower and we just said, ‘Sit with this image for a while.’”

While visually stunning, the show intentionally lacks narrative depth. Never formally acting, the actors play with each other, dance — to music and without it — and sometimes just stand still. The constant repetition of their seven gestures eventually seems redundant, and the energy of the performance starts to drag. At times, a single movement is repeated for minutes on end.

But the most intriguing aspect of the show is the connection between the actors. To convincingly communicate in such an unconventional manner, there has to be a level of trust that persists through-

out the performance.

“I think it all boils down to honesty,” said actor Chris Fitzsimmons ’13.5. “You just have to trust (the process), trust yourself and just put a lot of faith in the audience.”

By the end of the show, the actors are left completely exposed, figuratively and literally baring all to their audience. This gutsy conclusion will surely, and unfortunately, define the performance.

When asked about creating an original piece, Fitzsimmons reiterated the need for sincerity. “(With) this kind of process you have to be so honest with yourself and so honest with everyone else that you’re working with to be able to create something from scratch,” he said.

“We made it up,” Rodriguez said.

“We were just following the fun.

Mostly we’d come in every day and say, ‘What would be fun to do?’ within the confines of some of the ideas we had.”

Unapologetically pretentious, “Guests” is part Charlie Chaplin film and part avant-garde theater experiment, but ultimately riveting to watch.

“It’s just so fun to watch how things that are really, really simple are still incredible to watch just because you’ve never seen them before,” Rodriguez said.

6 Arts & Culture

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

Novelist explores toxic language By caroline saine Contributing Writer

Wonnie Sim / Herald

Swinging on the fake swings featured in a dual degree exhibit may land students in the emergency room.

Dual Degree show indulges disarray By katherine long Senior Staff Writer

If Basket|Case is anything like the Brown-RISD Dual Degree Program, it calls into question the sanity of whomever thought allowing students to earn degrees from both schools at the same time was a good idea.

In short — the show is great.

It is more than great. I have gone six times.

Basket|Case — which runs in the Hillel Gallery until March 4 — paints an unsettling picture of life straddling the divide between liberal arts and art school. The energy in the gallery is frayed, with sculptures seeming to balance precariously, a touch away from total collapse. Repeated themes that stop abruptly are a common motif. There is a tangible tension evident in the works, a feeling that this group of students is barely — just, just barely — keeping things together.

“Swingset,” by Lukas Bentel ’15 and Jian Shen Tan ’15, consists of three plastic swings suspended from a stainless steel bar with ultra-sleek rope. The only place those swings can possibly exist is in a gallery. One selfrespecting gust of wind would send them to playground Hades.

Across the hall — Hillel Social Hall, nerve-wrackingly filled with vegetables and zumba dancers during the majority of the week — is “Column,” a perilously tilted stack of plastic cases pilfered from an abandoned factory in the Jewelry District, by Josephine Devanbu ’15.

“Column” teeters and arcs all the way to the ceiling.

Again, this hall is packed with Zumba dancers on weeknights.

But perhaps the most compelling

balancing act in the exhibit is the contrast between “Survey of Lists Created Fall 2010-Winter 2011” and “Redaction,” both by Rachel Himes ’15. “Survey” is a collation of dozens of Himes’ to-do lists quilted together into a five foot-tall monstrosity. They are crumpled and stained; question marks abound. It is scattered and frenetic. In one corner is simply the word “MORE!” Also: “Buy knives.”

This is a piece capable of inducing anxiety attacks.

“Redaction” is not. It is not scattered or frenetic. A layered charcoal sketch of a cathedral’s bones, it is arguably one of the most purely beautiful pieces in the show.

This dichotomy between an impeccable exterior and the disarray behind the scenes governs Basket|Case.

The title “Double Burden” attached to a collage featuring Saddam Hussein’s face leering behind a grinning female discus thrower is made all the more telling by the fact that artist Kseniya Konovalova ’14 is earning degrees in international relations and painting.

(Is that really a discus, or maybe — a palette?)

A few lighthearted pieces hold their own amid the general mania — in particular, “Lunch Blows,” a picture book illustrated with ironic tenderness in gouache by Alison Rutsch ’13. The book is a compilation of the everyday disasters of the elementary school cafeteria: sickly green cafeteria ladies hoarding trays of jello, kids being teased about their lunchboxes, spills, garbage and lunch monitors.

But on the whole, Basket|Case celebrates exactly what its name advertises: ideas just crazy enough that they might actually work.

“You’re about to hear language as it has not been spoken before,” said Robert Coover, visiting professor of literary arts, as he introduced novelist Ben Marcus to a packed audience at the McCormack Family Theater Thursday.

Marcus is the author of several novels, including “The Age of Wire and String” and “Notable American Women,” and he has received three Pushcart Prizes for the best of small presses.

His reading was part of the Writers on Writing Reading Series sponsored by the Department of Literary Arts.

Marcus read from his most recent book, “The Flame Alphabet,” which contemplates family, communication and the end of language. The novel, Marcus said, is “about a toxic language that comes from children and makes adults sick.”

The story revolves around a family. “The last thing they want to believe,” Marcus says of parents Sam and Claire, is that their daughter is part of the language disease. Nevertheless, as the adults begin to deteriorate, they must come to terms with the poison “in the child’s mouth.”

Marcus read selected excerpts from throughout the novel, speaking with a commanding — and occasionally derisive — deadpan tone.

The post-apocalyptic undertones of the work surfaced in descriptions of parents abandoning their children, maps being shown for child evacuations and desolate men standing in the middle of the street.

Corrine Szczesny / Herald Ben Marcus, author of “The Flame Alphabet,” speaks to the power of language.

“You’d see one of the sad fathers standing alone in the road, examining one of these maps, which depicted a future that did not include him,” Marcus read.

“The Flame Alphabet” questions our societal ties to language, our relationships to our children and the nature of a world in which communication may be lost forever.

“An autopsy,” Marcus read, “was called on the whole living planet.”

The reading was followed by a question-and-answer forum in which Marcus addressed the nature of his writing, inspiration for “The Flame Alphabet” and his general distaste for naming characters.

“I don’t just feel like I’m in a factory producing strangeness,” Marcus said of his work. He noted that his novels must explore some kind of uncomfortable territory in

order for him to “still care about writing.”

Pushing into family interactions and domestic scenes like those depicted in “The Flame Alphabet,” helps to ensure that Marcus’ work is more than just “conceptually driven,” he said.

Students of LITR0210A: “Fiction Writing II,” who read “The Flame Alphabet” in the course, noted Marcus’s words of wisdom on the subject of writing. “If you read enough, you’ll find that you haven’t made anything up,” Marcus said, eliciting laughter from the audience.

The Writers on Writing Reading Series is a chance for undergraduates in the course LITR1200: “Writers on Writing” to hear from — and interact with — authors whose work they have read in class. Marcus is the fourth writer to participate in the spring 2012 series.

Frightening Fur

Lydia Yamaguchi / Herald

Vegan fashion blogger Joshua Katcher supplements his “Fashion and Animals” lecture with footage from Ghostbusters 2.

Science Friday 7

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

Prof awarded for work on spatial theorem continued from page 1 the surface, allowing them to apply ideas from one space to the other.

“It’s an unusually simple theorem,” said Kahn. “That’s part of the attraction.”

Kahn, who came to Brown this past fall, first became interested in exploring these spaces when he was working at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2007.

Though Kahn had not been working on hyperbolic space at the time, his adviser encouraged him to attend a talk by another student — Vladimir Markovic. After the lecture, he presented Markovic with a possible approach to solving a problem, and thus, the partnership was born.

“I loved working with (Kahn),” said Markovic. “We’re good friends of a similar age and have other things in common besides math.”

But he added that when they get together, “it’s mainly just hard work.”

Along with the Ehrenpreis conjecture, Kahn and Markovic explored the patterns that could “tile” a hyperbolic surface. In their second award-winning paper, the duo showed that it is possible to approximate the same cover using differently shaped tiles.

“You can take a pattern that’s repeating and find a larger repeating unit and think of that larger thing as what’s repeating,” Kahn said. “And then you could replace it with a different repeating pattern so it would only repeat on this larger scale.”

This form of discovery was nothing new to Kahn, who said math-

ematics was “a significant part of (his) identity, even at age three or four.” Back then, he played with differently-sized rods, forming them into squares and cubes. Years later, he went to Harvard as an undergraduate and the University of California at Berkeley for graduate school.

But then he hit a snag. “I could imagine everything,” he said. “But I couldn’t write it down on a piece of paper.”

It took meeting collaborators like Markovic to jump-start his publishing career. He would visit Markovic, who was in England at the time, for chunks of two to four weeks’ length.

“When we proved the first theorem, I visited him for 10 days in June, and all we did was talk about things,” Kahn said. “Maybe write a little bit on the board or something, but we had essentially no record of what we had done.”

He came home knowing he had solved a big problem, but he had no proof. It took another month of correspondence to hammer out the Ehrenpreis Conjecture paper.

Kahn and Markovic wrote their other paper just as quickly.

“It’s very unusual to prove a major theorem, of course, and it’s extraordinarily unusual to work it out essentially in two weeks over the summer,” Kahn said. “And it’s practically unheard-of to do it twice in a row.”

But Kahn and Markovic are currently shooting for a hat trick and have already set out to prove another major theorem.

Prenatal test identifies chromosomal defects

By Sandra Yan Staff Writer

Most people do not think of fetuses as tumors. But it was this idea that revolutionized how scientists approach prenatal tests.

When Dennis Lo, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, attended a lecture on cancer in 1997, he realized that the unborn child can be thought of as a foreign entity in much the same way that tumors involve the presence of foreign DNA. It was this idea that led Sequenom, Inc. to develop a test to identify certain chromosomal abnormalities — specifically Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome and Patau syndrome, all of which involve an extra copy of a non-sex chromosome. If carried to term, children with these syndromes often show impaired mental and physical development.

A study published last month in the journal Genetics in Medicine determined that the test could reliably identify these syndromes in utero.

The researchers — ­ some of whom are affiliated with Alpert Medical School — studied pregnant women at 27 different clinical sites around the world.

The study got off to a less-thanauspicious start when Sequenom, who funded the study, came under fire after one of its lead researchers was convicted of faking data, said Glenn Palomaki, an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the Med School, who led the study. Then there was the costly matter of transporting samples from around the world.

The samples had to be shipped in dry ice and processed by customs,

Amy Blustein / Herald

Blood tests offer lower false-positives for fetal abnormalities than current tests.

said Jacob Canick, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the Med School and one of the study’s authors. “So we learned a lot about companies that expedite movement through customs,” he said.

The researchers found that the test — which involves taking a few tubes of blood from the pregnant woman — is far more accurate than current screening tests and offers a very low false-positive rate. It is not an invasive procedure, decreasing the risk of harm to the woman and her fetus, Palomaki said. But due to the existence of false-positives, women who get positive results with this test should undergo invasive procedures as well, he added.

Invasive procedures are known to cause miscarriages at a rate of approximately 1 out of every 200 procedures, Canick said.

Since the conclusion of the study, Sequenom has begun to offer the

test clinically, starting with women at an increased risk. Several other companies may soon offer similar tests, Canick said.

There are, however, a few roadblocks before this test can become widely used, Palomaki said, adding that it is very new and its expenses are not yet covered by insurance companies.

The turnaround time is also not as quick as for standard screening tests, Canick said. “In three to five years, the cost will be way down, and it may in fact be something all pregnant women could have if they choose.”

Rossa Chiu, a pathologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said this test means “that technology has the potential to look for abnormalities on other chromosomes” in addition to the three implicated in the chromosomal syndromes the researchers studied.

Coach confident in team’s Laxers face tough strength despite turnover competition from Ivies

Journalist advocates one-state solution

continued from page 12 surgery, and a return to form for Kevin Carlow ’13, who struggled in 2011 (6.42 ERA) after emerging as the team’s ace as a first-year.

He also named Tyler (.576 OPS), outfielders Mike DiBiase ’12 (.805 OPS) and John Sheridan ’13 (.664 OPS) and pitcher Heath Mayo ’13 (3.06 ERA) as upperclassmen from whom he said he expects to see growth this season.

Drabinski is rethinking the team’s approach to pitching, he said.

“We gave up way too many walks” in 2011, he said. Last year, Bears pitchers walked or beaned .67 batters per inning. “You just can’t give up free baserunners like we did,” Drabinski said. “You can’t win that way.”

As Drabinski decides who will be in the starting rotation for conference games — Mayo is the only pitcher who is guaranteed a spot — he will be looking primarily at who can consistently throw strikes, he said.

Seven pitchers started conference games for Bruno in 2011, and Drabinski said his goal this year is to not let that happen again. The best teams he has coached were

the ones in which the rotation was stable, he said. “You knew who was pitching those four games every weekend,” he said.

Outside the rotation, left and right field are “the two biggest spots that are open,” Drabinski said. At this point, Matt DeRenzi ’14 will probably start in left field.

“He’s been playing his butt off,” Drabinski said, adding that Marcal is the favorite to play right field, though neither position is set, he said.

With 15 games against non-Ivy teams scheduled for the next four weeks, the coaches will have the chance to figure out the rotation and lineup before the start of the conference season. Bruno’s preconference schedule is “by far the hardest in our league,” Drabinski said. “It’s a tremendous experience for the kids.”

Expectations for the Bears are not high after they posted a losing record last year and lost a strong class of seniors, but Drabinski said he is confident in his team.

“I think we’re going to surprise people,” he said. “I think our two strengths are pitching and defense, and as long as you pitch and play defense … you’ve got a chance.”

continued from page 12 lon, but at the same time I think it’s more even across the board.”

Parker Brown said the same mantra could go for the offense, as evidenced by the distribution of wealth in the scoring output against Quinnipiac. With Parker Brown, Piroli and O’Brien leading the way, the offense looks to feature an attack built on speed and efficiency around the net.

The midfield is led by Schlesinger, who was recently named to the Tewaaraton Award watch list, college lacrosse’s equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. Returning players George Sherman ’13 and Stephen Chmil ’14 will join Schlesinger in the starting lineup, while Alex Jones ’13 will look to use his coast-tocoast speed to provide a spark in the defensive midfield.

The Bears’ schedule is identical to last season’s, and none of the matchups can afford to be overlooked. Five of the seven Ivy League teams in the schedule ranked in the top 20 in the most recent rankings, with the only exception being Dartmouth.

Defending Ivy champion No. 7

Cornell, who dismantled Brown 18-5 last season and is led by twotime Ivy player of the year Rob Pannell, enters this season yet again as the team to beat.

“They’re all tough,” Tiffany said. “If the first week scores are any indicators, the league looks stronger than ever.”

“Rankings don’t really matter, and anyone can beat anyone, especially in the Ivy League,” Piroli said.

The non-conference schedule does not present any breaks. Over spring vacation, the team will travel to Durham, N.C., to take on perennial powerhouse No. 10 Duke in a rematch of last year’s close 12-7 loss. Tomorrow, the team will renew its rivalry in its 51st all-time meeting with No. 6 Massachusetts in New England’s oldest college lacrosse matchup.

In only a 14-game schedule, every game matters if the Bears hope to make a run in the Ivy League and NCAA tournaments, and the team knows this well.

“We try not to focus on the Ivy League championship now because it’s in May,” Parker Brown said. “For now, I’m just thinking about (UMass).”

continued from page 1 lecture, Abunimah criticized Israel’s modern treatment of Palestinian villages like Lifta.

“We’ve reached the point where a two-state solution will not happen,” Abunimah said. “Separation is a fantasy. … The question on everyone’s mind now is which way we will wander on.”

Abunimah added that he hopes peace will be achieved after the termination of what he termed Israeli occupation of the territories and through equal treatment of Jewish and non-Jewish residents.

“The lecture answered a lot of my questions,” said Eduarda Araujo ’15, a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine. “Part of the experience of being part of Students for Justice in Palestine is educating yourself about those issues, raising questions and challenging yourself.”

Abunimah also plans to present a lecture at the “One-State Conference” at Harvard this weekend.

8 Sports Friday

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

Kohnen ’12 aces end of NBA offers dramatic plot twists Bruno squash career continued from page 12

By nathaniel huether Contributing Writer

The pressure was at its breaking point for women’s squash player Erika Kohnen ’12 in the final match to decide the Kurtz Cup. Put in this do-or-die situation, Kohnen pulled off the win, despite her match lasting five grueling games. For her outstanding play in her final game as a Bear, The Herald has named Kohnen Athlete of the Week.

The Herald: When did you start playing squash?

Kohnen: I was playing squash as a little kid. My parents played, so I would just tag along with them. I have a younger sister, and the two of us would play growing up. I started playing in junior tournaments probably when I was about 12 or 13, and it’s gone on from there.

What is your favorite squash memory?

I don’t know if I would say there’s one specific thing. But probably for me, the best part of playing squash has been being on the team at Brown. Just being able to hang out with that group of people at tournaments, outside of tournaments, just having that great group of friends and teammates has probably the best part for me.

What are some of your favorite hobbies besides squash?

I play other sports for fun. I like biking, running. This year, I’ve started getting into photography. I’m really into drawing and painting.

Do you have any special prematch rituals?

I just try to find a quiet place and think about what I want my strategy to be in the match — taking some time for reflection before the match.

Why did you choose Brown?

First of all, I really loved the coach. At Brown, the squash coach, Stuart leGassick, is amazing. I came and visited and got just a really great vibe from the team. I also really loved the school outside of squash. From the school culture, the open curriculum, I kind of got a feeling and just really loved it here.

What has been your favorite class at Brown?

I’ve loved everything I’ve taken in the history department. I’m an international relations major, but I think my favorite classes have been in history. I’ve tried to take a little bit of everything, stuff from all different regions.

What do you like most about Providence?

I like that it’s kind of a small city, but there’s always a lot of new stuff to kind of explore. I would say the weather is the only downside. It’s kind of a creative city, which I think is pretty cool.

There’s just a lot of up and coming and going on.

As a senior, do you have any plans for post-graduation?

I’m going to be working for Proctor and Gamble in sales and marketing. But I’m not sure where I’ll be yet. I guess I could be anywhere in the continental U.S., so it’s kind of an adventure.

they duck in and out of the narrative of a professional New York basketball team. It’s particularly poignant because of its non-linear storytelling. For example, in the second act, the audience is led to believe that Carmelo Anthony is the main player who will save New York basketball. But this thought is brutally put to rest when Jeremy Lin arrives and promptly murders any credibility that Carmelo may have had with the city. The story ends with a return to the very beginning, with a beautiful and tragic speech

by Anthony’s good friend Amar’e Stoudemire. He reveals that their bloated contracts — once supposed to help New York — may very well be the downfall of the team. “The truth is, Mike Bibby is the weak and the salary cap is the tyranny of evil men. But I’m trying, Tyson Chandler, I’m trying real hard to be a healthy power forward.”

Why it’s better than “Pulp Fiction”: I’ll take Steve Novak shooting three-pointers over John Travolta shooting three dudes.

Eternal Sunshine of the Hopeless Re-sign

Dwight Howard has just gotten out of a bad relationship with his old team and is uneasy about traveling back to Orlando for fear of the retribution he will face from his one-time fans. He is confused to find out the city has forgotten about him. He later discovers that the city has had its memories of him erased. Hurt that the city could simply get rid of the title run they had together, Dwight also has the procedure performed in order to forget about Orlando.

While the procedure is happening, Dwight sees all of the good times that he had in the city. He sees the NBA Finals run that they made and remembers that the Orlando Magic were actually 4-3

against the Miami Heat after they acquired LeBron James and Chris Bosh. He realizes that the team he gave up on was 1-1 against the best team in the NBA and they would have stood a legitimate chance against the Heat in a playoff series because of the matchup problems.

Dwight then tries to cling to his memories of Orlando, but they are all erased.

Later, during his next free-agency period, Dwight finds the clippings of the Magic’s Finals run in 2009 and tearfully reconciles with the city, re-signing a max contract.

Why it’s better than “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”: This story is about what is going to happen versus what has already happened.

Sam Sheehan ’12 tips his cap to Jason Varitek. An all-time Red Sox great. Talk sports with him at sam_sheehan@brown.edu or follow him on Twitter @SamSheehan.

Occupiers protest student burdens

By Dana Reilly Contributing Writer

Braving snow and downtown traffic, Occupy Rhode Island Campuses held their first inter-campus event last night. The organization, which includes students from Brown, the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and Providence College, staged the March to Defend Education and a rally in conjunction with 59 campuses across the country.

The goal of Occupy R.I. Campuses is to raise awareness about the hardships facing students in all levels of education and the flaws in both the private and public education systems.

Cedric de Leon, sociology professor at Providence College, addressed the group of about 60 students, staff and faculty from across the state as the snow continued to fall.

“The only reason why the rest of the college students in the world pay less tuition than you guys is because they fought, and you didn’t,” de Leon said. “They organized, and you took out more student loans.”

De Leon said the Occupy movement represents the first time students have mobilized nationally to fight the increasing cost of education.

URI Professor Helen Mederer, who participated in a teach-in last week, said she believes faculty should play a role in championing students’ rights. Mederer said families are footing the bill for educating and preparing new workers when “corporations should be investing more in the skill acquisition of the next generation.”

The crowd marched toward Shepard Building, which houses the Board of Governors for Higher Education as well as URI’s Providence campus. Marching down the middle of Westminster Street, the organizers chanted, “Tell me what democracy looks like!” while

Dana Reilly / Herald

Occupy R.I. Campuses marched in protest of the rising costs of education.

others responded, “This is what democracy looks like!”

“We have to find a way to fund education fairly. That means rethinking the way we fund everything else,” said Servio Gomez, an RIC student and a member of the Occupy movement.

Mari Miyoshi ’12 was one of about 20 Brown students present at the event. “I’m in a very special place at Brown,” Miyoshi said, adding that it seems “fundamentally unfair” that people in a lower socioeconomic position must pay more than she does to attend a public university.

Gomez said he was happy with the diversity of the turnout and encouraged the high school students in attendance to share what they perceive as the biggest barriers to their higher education.

Giovanni Larracuente, a junior at Times Squared Academy and a member of Youth in Action, spoke about the consequences of new high school graduation requirements. Students must prove proficiency on the New England Common Assessment Program to graduate. Standing outside the offices of the Board of Governors of Higher Education, Larracuente said, “It seems like they’re making it harder and harder for us to graduate, get out of here and move on to something better.”

Gomez and the organizers from the other four campuses are planning an event in solidarity with the international day of action May 1.

Members of the Occupy Brown group hope to organize another teach-in before then.

Sports Friday 9

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

Connector of academics and athletics leaves big cleats to fill continued from page 1 “What Goldie brought to the athletics department was just a deep understanding of the University and the role of athletics, the importance of student-athletes being students as well as athletes and the program supporting them as students as well as athletes,” Spies said.

Athletics, admissions and back again

Goldberger has always understood that athletes are students first and foremost, Spies said.

Goldberger initially landed his job in athletics, and then as director of admission, more by happenstance than anything else, Goldberger said. His football coach at Middlebury College, John Anderson, got offered the head coaching job at Brown and asked Goldberger to come along as an assistant coach.

“I had no big plans, so I said, ‘Sure, that’d be great,’” he said.

“At 22, I had a full-time job at an Ivy League school coaching football at college level, which is pretty rare.”

Eight years later, he also stumbled upon his next job as a liaison between the athletics department and the admission office. Goldberger said he decided he could no longer keep up with all the traveling the assistant coaching job entailed. He wanted to stay closer to home to care for his first son, Kevin, who was born prematurely and is handicapped.

The liaison job was designed to hold Goldberger over for another year before he found a different job, he said.

But the admission office gave Goldberger work to do, and, in 1983, he became its associate director. He remained a liaison between athletics and admissions until he became admission director in 1995, he said.

When David Roach retired in 2004 as director of athletics, Goldberger said he was asked if he would like to take the position, and he turned it down. But after a nationwide search, no suitable candidates were found, and Goldberger decided to step up to the plate, partially for family reasons, he said. At the time, Kevin was employed in the equipment room, Goldberger said, “and the kids here are just fabulous to him.”

“The women’s field hockey team and the men’s lacrosse team had sort of adopted him, let him be on the sidelines for games, took him out for dinner on his birthdays, call him — they were just really nice,” Goldberger said. “And my wife said, ‘You know what, these guys are great. If you have a chance to hang out with people like that all the time, you ought to think about it.’ And it turned out she was right.”

Regulations and recessions

Goldberger’s first big task after becoming athletics director was simply understanding the job, he said.

“I said, ‘I don’t know,’ more

times in the first five, six months at the job than I had said in the previous 30 years at Brown,” he said. “It’s a very big operation in terms of budget, in terms of personnel and rules and regulations.”

Though Goldberger said he eventually learned all the nuances of the job, budget problems plagued the department throughout his tenure, coming to a head after the 2008 economic downturn. By the time the Athletics Review Committee was assembled, the department had already been scrutinized for more than two years by other committees, he said.

Recommendations to cut the men’s and women’s fencing squads, the skiing team and the wrestling team and the elimination of 30 admissions spots reserved for athletes were some of the hardest decisions to make, Goldberger said. But having the dual experience in admission and athletics gave him perspective, he added.

“I didn’t like it — but I understand, too,” Goldberger said.

“Having sat in that office, I know how precious spots are in admission and the competition to get those spots.”

Spies said everyone on the Athletics Review Committee wishes at least one of the recommendations had turned out differently.

“I’m sure there were things that, if (Goldberger) had a magic wand, he would have done differently than the committee, but that wasn’t different from anyone else on the committee,” Spies said. “We all kind of, at various points, made a compromise, because somebody else was really persuasive.”

In the end, none of the teams got cut, and only 20 admissions slots will be eliminated. Goldberger said he believes the outcome was positive in terms of setting concrete plans to improve facilities and coaches’ salaries. Over the next two years, an additional $1.1 million in funds will be dedicated to salary increases, and $52 million will go towards various causes, including facility renovations and an overall increase in the athletics endowment.

Jean Marie Burr, women’s head basketball coach, said the Athletics Review Committee produced “very positive results.” Since the athletics program is so visible, and the review brought so much publicity, it was good for the University to show its support for student-athletes, she said.

Everybody gets schooled

The review also made recommendations about team practices and class schedules to ensure that student-athletes could play the sports they wanted and have the same academic opportunities as their classmates, Klawunn said.

Even before these changes, student-athletes have experienced academic success during Goldberger’s tenure — in 2011, the University was ranked No. 2 in the nation on the NCAA’s Academic Performance Report.

Goldberger said this accolade was

the most rewarding recognition he received as athletics director.

Goldberger has taken many proactive steps to ensure studentathletes excel academically. Goldberger started a program called “One For Me” that encourages first-years to take a class that none of their teammates has taken before, said Lars Tiffany ’90, head coach of the men’s lacrosse team.

The men’s lacrosse team, women’s soccer team and the men’s and women’s swimming and diving squads participate in the program, he said.

“It was one step — to tell a recruit, to say, ‘Hey, make sure you’re reading the course catalog and seeing that there’s a lot of opportunities here. Don’t just follow the crowd,’” Tiffany said. “There are some students who already understand that, they don’t need a program, but I’d say there’s a good percentage — I’d say maybe half — that it did force them to look through the course catalog.”

Goldberger also set out to make sure coaches were aware of all the academic and extracurricular activities available on campus, Klawunn said.

Early on in his tenure, he also started holding staff meetings with coaches in various buildings around campus, she added.

“I remember doing a staff meeting at the John Carter Brown library … and one of the coaches, who had been at Brown for nine years, said, ‘Geez, this is the first time I’ve ever been in this building,’” Goldberger said. He said he also encourages coaches to attend at least one class and go to a nonathletic event once a semester.

Goldberger also started a colloquium series called “Sport in Society,” open to anyone on campus who wanted to learn about various issues in sports, Klawunn said. Past talks have covered concussions, women in sports and the media representation of sports, she said.

Generating enthusiasm

Goldberger said he also hoped getting athletes and coaches more involved outside of the arena would help increase the visibility of athletics on campus. According to a 2009 Herald poll, only about 50 percent of students attended a sporting event each semester, and most who did only went to one or two events.

Though Goldberger said the community has still not been as engaged as he would like, Klawunn and Tiffany pointed out

the success of the annual night football games. The first one took place in 2010 against Harvard and brought in more than 17,000 fans.

The average attendance for the football games is less than 7,000 normally, The Herald reported at the time.

“Both years that we’ve had (the night football game), it’s been amazing how many people have come out to that and how fun students have found that event,” Klawunn said. “But not just students — faculty and staff have been there. It’s been really a good showing of the Brown community.”

One of the most noticeable changes to the physical athletics campus has been the conversion of the parking lot in front of the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center into Ittleson Quadrangle, an additional green space for all community members. In April, the new athletics facility — which includes a pool, a varsity strength and conditioning center and a general fitness center — will open, benefiting both athletes and the general community, Klawunn said. The athletes will have access to facilities they have needed for years, and other University members will have a better space for physical education classes, she said.

“It’s really a transformative project for athletics and really nice that this was something that came to be during Goldie’s time as director,” Klawunn said.

Though this project began and came to fruition during his tenure, Goldberger said he did not play a major leadership role.

“We met forever and talked about what the needs were, but this was an area where I think the Sports Foundation and the leadership there and members of the Corporation just stepped up in such a significant way to say that we really need to improve our facilities,” he said.

More improvements to the athletics infrastructure are being discussed, particularly with regard to women’s sports, Goldberger said.

According to Simmons’ response to the Athletic Review Committee, the department is trying to raise $10 million that will go toward a new field hockey field and other field and locker room improvements.

The department is moving forward with a plan to “create a field hockey field that’s regulation size, to create a softball field that can be used year-round, to make improvements to Stevenson field

comics Cabernet Voltaire! | Abe Pressman

so that it can be used in the early spring, so that the surface doesn’t deteriorate,” Goldberger said.

Around the league

Though Goldberger had a lot on his plate just taking care of his varsity programs, he also has a deep concern for the state of the league overall, said Robin Harris, the Ivy League’s executive director.

“He promotes the interests of Brown, but is concerned with Ivy League as a whole, recognizing that if the league is doing well, Brown is doing well,” she said.

Goldberger said he believes people want to see excellence, and if the league consistently delivers entertaining, high levels of play, people will care more about Ivy athletics. Many league issues have been discussed in the past seven years, such as issuing likely letters to student-athletes and increasing permissible practice times for certain sports, said Thomas Beckett, Yale’s athletic director for the past 18 years. During the discussions, Goldberger has always been a voice of reason, Beckett said.

“I was always impressed with Mike Goldberger as a man, always impressed with his ability to clearly think through issues,” Beckett said. “To maintain focus at all times — this is something I truly respected and admired.”

One of the most recent issues the league addressed was how to cut down on concussions among its football players, Goldberger said. Though the NCAA allows teams to hold five full-contact practices a week, the Ivy League announced in July 2011 that it would reduce full-contact practices to only two a week. The University’s football team had already been limiting the number of practices and should be proud of its leadership role in this rule change, Goldberger said.

Gary Walters, Princeton’s athletic director and a friend of Goldberger’s for the past 40 years, said the league will miss Goldberger’s levelheaded input at meetings.

“We’ll miss him for a number of reasons — not only because he’s such a nice guy, but he also always seeks the highest common denominator, if possible, which is rare in a person,” Walters said.

“He commands respect.”

“I think he will be missed in many, many ways,” said Spies, who will be stepping down in December. “Fortunately, he’s not going too far away. So I expect, if nothing else, I’ll see him at games.”

10 Diamonds & Coal Diamonds & coal

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

Editorial cartoon

by lo r e n f u lto n

A diamond to the Trinity Repertory Company playwright who said the United States is “at an interesting place in our democracy/ empire,” adding that “the similarities to classical Greece are really kind of remarkable and available to anyone who will look.” Yes, as Plato once said, “For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.” And as @KimKardashian once tweeted, “Rise and grind!”

Coal to the University’s athletics department for neglecting to maintain the women’s field hockey field so much that other teams have refused to play on it. No one should feel about a field the way we feel about New Haven.

A diamond to the founder of the Providence Alliance of Clinical Educators, a nonprofit that writes short vignettes to help high school students learn science concepts, who said, “Students hate (cellular respiration), and so if we make it about murder, death and chaos, then we’ll have a chance of breaking into that market.”

Maybe we would have paid more attention to photosynthesis in high school if we had learned about it by playing the violent but informative Grand Theft Auto VI: Chloroplast City.

A diamond to the member of the Brown polo team who said, “You’re on a horse, hitting balls with a stick — what more could you want?” Thanks for reminding us that the simple things in life matter most. We’re sure they’re best appreciated decked out in polo gear, atop a horse at the Newport Polo Club.

Coal to the Undergraduate Council of Students and the Undergraduate Finance Board, which are in the process of naming representatives to a joint committee that will examine funding issues and the relationship between the two groups. As the congressional super committee taught us, joint committees are paragons of effectiveness and cooperation — just ask our Chinese creditors.

A diamond to Manvir Singh ’12, whose book “Zoostalgia” features drawings of prehistoric species, for saying of his affinity for animals, “It’s cool that we cohabitate with these things.” That’s what we said about the mouse in our dorm. And our freshman-year roommate.

Coal to the University employee who called the ability to work out for free “one of the few bragging rights you get” for working at Brown. We hear at Harvard they get gym access and bragging rights for free.

Coal to the student from AMCV 1610A: “American Advertising: History and Consequences” who remarked, “It has blown my mind that people have managed to sell cancer sticks to other people.” If you have ever been to Josiah’s after 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, you would know it’s possible to sell just about anything in stick form.

A diamond to Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president, who may write a book with President Ruth Simmons after he steps down from his post at the end of the calendar year. We can only hope that their book will include a chapter about the secret tunnels under Keeney Quadrangle and the underground passage leading to Hogwarts — we mean, University Hall.

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

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editorial

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Editorial examines prejudice To the Editor: Thank you very much for your editorial (“The persistence of prejudice,” March 1) in support of the rights of Muslim students at Yale, Columbia and all colleges and universities in the United States. Unfortunately, we live in a time when the color of one’s skin, the sound of one’s name, one’s country of origin or one’s religious affiliations all become excuses for intelligence organizations to bulldoze the hard-won freedoms from tyranny, which — we hope — define the experience of living in a democracy. I encourage you to continue to explore these concerns and how they relate to the struggle of Latinos to be free

from the fear of anti-immigration hysteria, AfricanAmericans challenging the “new Jim Crow,” Native Americans’ continued fight for acknowledgement of the genocide that accompanied the founding of this nation-state and our LGBTQ brothers and sisters’ campaign to live as equal citizens under the Constitution. All of this is interconnected, and the more we recognize it, the greater power we have to change it, if God so wills.

David Coolidge ’01 Associate University Chaplain for the Muslim Community

quote of the day

“You’re not giving backrubs and therapy sessions.”

— Ricardo Smith on services not offered at the Brown gyms

Directors Julia Kuwahara Samuel Plotner Nikita Khadloya Angel Lee

letter to the editor

See fee on page 2.

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Friday Forum 11

The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 2, 2012

Should Brown give more money to Providence?

Yes

to claim that Brown is the principal cause of Providence’s fiscal crisis, nor that Brown

By Tim syme is the sole answer to its woes. I do, however, think it reasonable to say that the UniGuest Columnist versity can afford to do more without reducing financial aid or firing workers. The University paid its 14 highest-salaried emBrown’s relationship with the people of ployees $7,734,758 in 2009, The Herald reProvidence is deeply unfair. The immedi- ported Feb. 13. If our administrators bring ate unfairness relates to property taxes and home seven-figure salaries every year, then the city’s fiscal crisis. The broader issues in- I think we can afford to help keep local pubvolve the proper role, goals and governance lic schools open. If we control $1 billion of a powerful private educational institution worth of property in Providence, on which like Brown. we would owe $38 million without our exOver the last year, many in Providence emptions, then I think we can afford to pay have been forced to make major sacrifices for significantly more than the $3.5 million we the sake of fiscal stability. Five schools closed currently give. this summer, destabilizing the lives of chilWe can look at this issue solely through dren and their the lens of selffamilies. Clearly, If our administrators bring home interest. GeogProvidence’s sturaphy dictates dents have sac- seven-figure salaries every year, that the fates rificed. Each of then I think we can afford to help of Brown and the city’s municProvidence are ipal unions has keep local public schools open. linked — we are agreed to hisaffected by how toric concessions. Public workers have sac- the rest of the city is doing. The stark and rificed. Property and car taxes were raised disturbing disparity between life on College again, so everyone in the city who rents or Hill and life in the rest of the city is only goowns a home or a car has sacrificed. Sadly, ing to grow if the city continues to suffer. We while the roots of this crisis lie largely in fail- shouldn’t kid ourselves however. We are all ures by previous municipal administrations aware of the Brown “bubble,” and Brown can and the broader economic crisis, the people and does do a pretty good job of building a of Providence are paying the price. self-sufficient, more or less enclosed comIn the face of so much hardship and so munity. Indeed, this bubble of isolation from much willingness to accept personal loss by real life is, as I understand it, part of the atthose who don’t have very much to begin traction of the immersive, liberal-arts college with, how can we, at Brown, one of the most experience. elite and resource-rich institutions in the We must ask ourselves, however, the exworld, not commit to paying our fair share? tent to which this splendid isolation is comOur current financial relationship is un- patible with Brown’s self-conception as the fair to the people of Providence. That’s not social justice leader in the Ivy League.

Syme’s rebuttal We should ask ourselves what the words “community” and “justice” mean for an institution like Brown that, for all its merits, inescapably embodies America’s deeply troubled history of educational inequality and broader injustice, as partially documented in the Committee on Slavery and Justice’s report nine years ago.

The city’s reliance on Brown’s beneficence makes concrete the undemocratic power this institution has. Brown’s tax-exempt status does not reflect the great love the city holds for Brown — rather, it underscores that Brown has been able to play by its own rules because of its close relationship with entrenched socioeconomic elites since its inception.

In the short term, this means we should put our money where our mouth is. Previous agreements were not fair — they represent only a portion of the amount Brown would owe if only its most egregious exemptions were removed. We should not let the formalities of the non-profit designation blind us to the important differences between numerous tiny organizations that would suffer significantly from an increased tax burden, local churches and hospitals whose services go directly to the people of Providence and a hugely wealthy elite institution like Brown. We can and should pay more, as should the wealthy citizens and corporations of Providence.

In the long term, we should ask ourselves and the administration tough questions about how Brown’s priorities and governance relate to those of its home city. Is this really a straight choice between giving more

to Providence and raising tuition or cutting financial aid? Is this really the only place the money could come from? Why, for example, do Brown’s fundraising efforts appear to be focused on high-status building projects like Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, the swimming pool and the Warren Alpert Medical School, rather than prioritizing the integration of Brown’s educational mission with the renewal and regeneration of Providence? Why are Brown’s priorities set by an archaic and unaccountable Corporation, rather than with the empowered input of the wider Brown community and the people of Providence? It’s also worth remembering that there are thousands of graduate students, faculty and staff at this institution, many of whom are far more intimately involved with the life of the city than many undergraduates, if only by dint of not living on campus. Their interests and needs matter here, too.

Brown is a great institution. It provides an education that few in the world can dream of. Yet we should not let our pride in its merits blind us to its flaws. Brown is not the plaything of the millionaires in the Corporation. It belongs to its students, faculty, staff and to the people of Providence. Brown is not an “addition” to the Providence community — it is part of the community, and it’s time it acted like it. We should demand a real voice in ensuring that Brown realizes its incredible potential as a force for good in this city.

Tim Syme GS thinks you work too hard.

No

ey to Providence than Yale does to New Haven. With this in mind, given that tuBy Matt Brundage ition for next year is already increasing by 3.5 percent, I will not stand for more Opinions Columnist increases. Asking for more from Brown translates to asking for more from the students, who I think most people can I get it. I get how it sounds when the elit- agree are not the appropriate resource ist Ivy League university sitting atop the to tap when facing a financial crisis. bankruptcy-bound, poverty-stricken It’s not our families’ job to fund Provcity below will not give what the may- idence. We have a responsibility to our or considers to be a sufficient amount federal, state and local government, and of money to keep the city alive. How- to Brown, but we have no such responsiever, while this tale sounds vaguely like bility to Providence beyond what Brown the beginning of a Dr. Seuss book about has already agreed to pay. It is regressive fairness, equality and caring about your and counterproductive to call upon the neighbors, the story from most stu- resources of local universities to fund a dents’ perspectives would be quite dif- city before calling upon its own wealthy ferent. citizens.

It is regressive and It can pretTo Mayor ty safely be Angel Taveras, I counterproductive to call assumed that would like to say upon the resources of local that Brown’s taxany money Brown reexempt status is universities to fund a city ceives from surely much apcurrent stubefore calling upon its own preciated and dents, their reflects the city’s wealthy citizens. families and recognition of alums is exBrown as a wonpected to advance the education of us derful addition to the Providence comstudents. Yes, Brown as a private in- munity, but it is slimy and unfair to use stitution has a responsibility to pay a it is a bargaining chip to try to make the fair share of its revenue to the city that Brown community feel guilty. The povhouses it, but Brown already does so at erty rate in Providence is terrible, and a a previously agreed-upon value. bankrupt city certainly won’t help that, Of course it is reasonable to ask but this is not the problem of students Brown to contribute some of its money from across the country, many of whom to the city, given that its property is al- face their own financial struggles paymost completely tax-exempt, but we are ing for college. The students are not regiving quite enough, if you ask me. As a sponsible for this. percentage of its endowment and annual budget, Brown gives far more mon-

Brundage’s rebuttal We need to stop framing the issue in a way where we treat the University as some arbitrary concentration of wealth.

Stating that Brown can afford to pay more to the city implies that students can afford tuition hikes, which place a burden on the wrong people. On the issue of public schools in Providence sharing the city’s burden, I absolutely criticize that as well. Maybe I’m being too cynical, but I find it hard to believe that we have come to the point where the city cannot balance its budget without seriously burdening both the public education system and now private universities. There are plenty of model cities — why can’t Providence be one?

I acknowledge that there is a symbiotic relationship between Providence and Brown, but when addressing the Brown Democrats Tuesday, Mayor Angel Taveras justified asking for more money from the University by stating, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” I believe the mayor may be overestimating exactly how much Providence gives to Brown. Brown receives a tax-exempt status and basic city services, which is the normal relationship between a private university and the government. I would argue that what Brown adds to Providence far exceeds the average relationship between private universities and cities.

Furthermore, I reject the idea that Brown cannot call itself a social justice leader in the Ivy League if we do not

comply, because the amount we give to the city should not dictate our views on social justice. There are economic conservatives who believe in social justice outside the realm of government, and then there are people like me who hardly believe that taking money away from education is a form of social justice.

The function of a government ought to be to improve society by providing services that cannot be provided privately, and to do so without burdening society more than it would be without the government’s help. The point where the government takes away from public and private educational institutions so that it can continue to function is the point where I question whether the government is really playing an appropriate role.

Far from an anti-government Tea Partier, I believe in a large role for the government in society, but I believe that it should value education above almost anything. Providence should ask absolutely everywhere else first, then find places where we can cut the most marginally unimportant spending and then go back around to everywhere else before taking money away from education.

Matt Brundage ’15 is always up for a lively discussion about budgeting. He can be reached at matthew_brundage@brown.edu.

Daily Herald Sports Friday the Brown

Putting on the NBA on the silver screen By sam sheehan Sports Columnist

Oh, Netflix. You saucy minx. I always see you around my Internet browser. Trying to make me jealous with your “free month trial” or your ability to let me watch so many “How I Met Your Mother” episodes in a row that I feel kind of sick. But it’s over, Netflix. I’ve moved on.

You see, it’s the second half of the NBA season. Yes, your selection of movies may make the movie buff in me want to be more than just friends, but the fact of the matter is that I can get the same drama from the NBA. Any one of the plotlines from your most critically acclaimed movies can be summed up by the many stories that happen in professional basketball every day.

You think I’m playing hard to get?

Well, let me queue up some of the famous movie adaptations this season could produce.

Being Nikola Pekovic

The plot centers around a sad Darko Milicic lamenting the trajectory of his NBA career and wishing that he had never been taken with the second overall pick. Now trapped on the Minnesota Timberwolves, Darko is pondering retirement when he discovers that he can inhabit the mind of teammate Nikola Pekovic. Suddenly free of the pressures and expectations that have hung over him throughout the career, Darko uses the oft-fouling Pekovic’s body to become the dominant center he is supposed to be. His teammates

shower Nikola in accolades, and the Timberwolves — traditionally a horrible team — are suddenly playoff contenders. But Darko has suddenly taken the back seat to Nikola and is in danger of being cut. Darko must ask himself if it’s worth a season of glory to lose the sport he loves forever.

Why it’s better than “Being John Malkovich”: The number of Eastern Europeans involved makes the names 1,000 times cooler.

Lamento

Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge suffers from a rare but serious disease that affects his ability to remember how to build a winning basketball team. The league’s other general managers take advantage of poor Ainge and his condition, which forces him to tattoo certain trades onto his body so he remembers to execute them.

Oklahoma City general manager Sam Presti convinces him that his tattoo “trade = Jeff Green” means that he meant to trade for Jeff Green and that the tattoo is not a leftover notation from the 2007 draft. Ainge also becomes confused when he reads his tattoos from 2005 that say, “Acquire Shaq and Jermaine O’Neal at all costs.” The plot reaches its boiling point when Ainge shops the best and cheapest young player on a team that needs to be rebuilt because one of his tattoos read “Rajon Rondo = capable fourth man,” and he is totally unaware that this will be a huge mistake that will submarine the franchise for a decade.

Why it’s better than “Memento”: Real tragedies are that much more powerful.

Pulp Knick-tion

This quirky, neo-noir story follows several different players as continued on page 8

Friday, March 2, 2012

lacrosse

Laxers’ win spurs hopes for strong season

By Ethan McCoy Sports Editor

While Wednesday’s snow flurries were a reminder that this mild winter is not going anywhere quite yet, the men’s lacrosse team has already kicked off the spring with a 12-7 win last Sunday over Quinnipiac. The season-opening victory is a small step in the right direction for a team with high expectations as it looks to break through in one of collegiate lacrosse’s toughest conferences in 2012. Last year, the team had an up-and-down season, dropping a number of tight games on its way to a 6-8 record and fifth-place finish in the Ivy League.

Against Quinnipiac (0-1), the Bears (1-0) fell behind early, only to gain command of the game thanks to a dominating 6-1 advantage in the second quarter.

With a four-goal cushion at halftime, the Bears kept up the pressure in the second half to see out the 12-7 win. Eight different Bears found the back of the net, which co-captain Parker Brown ’12 said has never happened in his four years with the team.

“It was a really positive first game,” said Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90. “A team effort describes what happened at Quinnipiac.

Eight different men scored goals, and we really passed the ball well and did a great job of sharing the ball and playing unselfish lacrosse.”

Among those scorers, Nick Piroli ’15 had a college debut to remember. The first-year attackman registered a hat trick in his first game as a Bear, earning him Ivy League Co-Rookie of the Week honors.

“Going to the college level is a lot different from high school,” Piroli said. “Not only is the pace a lot faster, but it’s a lot more intense. … I’m glad my first game went well, but that game’s over

Sam Rubinroit / Herald

Men’s lacrosse started out strong after placing fifth in the Ivy League last season. Co-captain Parker Brown ’12, above, had two assists and a goal in the Bears’ season opening win against Quinnipiac.

with now.”

Other Bears to score multiple goals were Sam Hurster ’14 and Dan O’Brien ’12, who also added three assists.

But perhaps the most encouraging individual performance was in net. In the first game without last season’s goalie Matt Chriss ’11, Will Round ’14 played a strong game in his first career start, making 12 saves. Last season, Chriss ranked in the top 10 nationally in save percentage and saves per game, leaving a void at the goalie position that Round hopes to fill this year.

“It’s new for him, but it’s his time now,” Tiffany said. “In practice, his confidence has improved daily, and he proved it yesterday.

He had 10 saves in the first half and was strong as our last line of defense.”

In addition to Chriss, two other members of the class of 2011 whose presence will be missed are All-Ivy players and former captains Peter Fallon ’11 and Andrew Feinberg ’11. Fallon was the anchor of the defense for the past two seasons and earned AllAmerican honors in 2009, while

Feinberg graduated ranked fourth in Brown history with 124 career goals.

Tiffany acknowledged that the skill and production of these players will not be easy to replace, but pointed to his two captains, Parker Brown and Rob Schlesinger ’12, as leading the charge in a team effort to make up for the lost talent.

“We are fortunate this year to have two men who have really established themselves as leaders for this program,” Tiffany said.

“We haven’t had two captains at the same time who are as strong in leadership, devoted to the rest of the team and committed to the ideals and principles of a united program.”

Even without Fallon, the defense may be Bruno’s most experienced and consistent unit, welcoming back a veteran starting line including Roger Ferguson ’13, Sam Ford ’13 and Clay Del Prince ’13.

“It’s more of a core group of guys,” Parker Brown said. “No one really steps out like a Peter Falcontinued on page 7

baseball

Baseball to make first pitch at Florida International By lewis pollis Sports Staff Writer

The baseball team’s 2012 season begins on the road tonight as Bruno starts a three-game weekend series against Florida International. When the Bears take the field, they will look quite different from last year’s squad, in terms of both personnel and strategy.

Head Coach Marek Drabinski said one of the biggest challenges this year is dealing with the loss of last year’s strong group of seniors. “That whole class … you’re talking about guys who, for the most part, made pretty big impacts from the day they arrived at Brown,” he said.

Undoubtedly, the biggest loss from 2011 was starting catcher Matt Colantonio ’11, Drabinski said. Colantonio — who had an .850 on-base plus slugging percentage last year — had been the

starting catcher since his freshman year. Bruno will miss his contributions on both sides of the ball, Drabinski said.

After Colantonio, Drabinski named pitcher Matt Kimball ’11 (3.74 ERA in 2011) as the graduated senior the team will miss the most, adding that the losses of third baseman Ryan Zrenda ’11, first baseman Pete Greskoff ’11 and outfielder and pitcher Josh Feit ’11 were also tough for the team.

But the Bears still think they will be able to put a good team on the field, said co-captain Graham Tyler ’12. “We’ve done a pretty good job of moving in a positive direction,” Tyler said.

A number of rookies have already made good impressions on their coach. Nick Fornaca ’15 is “going to make immediate dividends” at third base, Drabinski said, while Will Marcal ’15 will

probably be the starting right fielder and could even be used as a starting pitcher in conference games. Drabinski also named pitchers David St. Lawrence ’15 and Ed Fitzpatrick ’15 and likely closer Chris Smith ’15 as potential impact players from the freshman class.

Drabinski added he is confident that a number of returning players will improve on their 2011 performances. The Bears had a 13-29 record in 2011, including a 9-11 conference record. “Disappointing seasons from upperclassmen and injuries … really led to our downfall,” Drabinski said.

Drabinski said he is hoping for a healthy season from secondyear senior Mark Gormley ’12, who did not pitch well last year (10.80 ERA in 2011) while recovering from his 2010 Tommy John continued on page 7

Jonathan Bateman / Herald

The baseball team remains optimistic despite losing its strong seniors.