Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxxii, no. 43

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Clinics of change

Faculty approves health Study to care master’s program assess

By Alexandra Macfarlane Senior Staff Writer

Courtesy of Nikilesh Eswarapu

A clinic in the rural Indian district of Medak is run by the Milana Foundation, which was started in 2009 by Nikilesh Eswarapu ’12. For the full story see page 4.

Since 1891

Faculty members voted unanimously at Tuesday’s faculty meeting to establish an executive master’s degree program in health care leadership. The proposal, which passed with little debate, will be voted on by the Corporation in May, The Herald reported last month.

Faculty members also heard updates on negotiations with the city, the presidential transition, the School of Engineering and the University’s compliance with federal guidelines for recruiting minority employees.

President Ruth Simmons reported that she hopes to finish negotiations with the city before the end of the year. “I think we are

getting closer,” she said.

Simmons also said she is satisfied with the ongoing presidential transition. Simmons and President-elect Christina Paxson are conferring on decisions that span both terms. “I am pushing more and more in her direction,” she said of the process of shifting responsibility to the incoming president.

The executive master’s degree program was first discussed 18 months ago with former Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98, who partnered with the Office of Continuing Education to develop a model of executive education specific to Brown, said Rod Beresford, associate provost and professor of engineering. Since the program was proposed, it has been the sub-

Vanes Ibric ’13 was among the undergraduates awarded the fellowship this year. Ibric said the award would allow him to travel to and live in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, for two months this summer and conduct research at the Institute for Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law at the University of Sarajevo.

“I will be working with professors from the institute and lookcontinued on page 2

continued on page 3

continued on page 3

Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse spoke about the current turbulent political landscape and his hopes for both the country and the state he represents in an event hosted by the Brown Democrats last night in Wilson 101.

Whitehouse touched on topics including transportation issues and health care.

Whitehouse spoke about bills he has supported that have met Republican opposition. When asked about the likelihood of Democrats uniting consistently to support legislation backed by Republicans, Whitehouse stressed that Democrats will fight for their ideals. “It depends on how extreme (the Republicans) want to be,” Whitehouse said. Despite Republican resistance, Whitehouse has continued to push for his major legislative objectives, such as the reauthorization of transportation funding, which he believes could provide more than 10,000 jobs for Rhode Island.

Whitehouse also supports legislation to improve air quality. Radio stations warn Rhode Islanders to stay indoors due to bad air days, Whitehouse said,

inside

continued on page 4

news....................2-3 Features........4-5 editorial............6 Opinions.............7

Ratty gourmet: U. chefs teach secrets of the kitchen

By GREG JORDAN-DETAMORE News Editor

Something’s cooking in the Sharpe Refectory, and it’s not dinner.

A group of 20 lucky undergraduates — randomly selected from a pool of about 90 — ­­ are participating in a series of cooking classes taught by several of Brown’s chefs. For the cost of three meal credits, these students receive hands-on instruction from Aaron Fitzsenry, culinary manager for retail operations, and Dave Chabot, executive chef at the Faculty Club.

Feature The classes aim to inspire students to try cooking on their own and give them the skills to improve. The Feb. 25 class focused on soups, the March 10 class explored pasta and sauce and the third — ­ planned for April 14 — will delve into desserts.

“These are basic things that it’s

Fine dining Ratty alcove undergoes renovation during break

CAMPUS News, 2

good for people to know how to make,” said Anna Rotman ’14, an intern for Brown Dining Services.

The class is held in a part of the Ratty kitchen known as the Bakeshop, “a crazy cool thing that many students don’t know about,” said Lillian Mirviss ’12, a sustainability intern for Dining Services who originally proposed the idea for the classes.

“Some students don’t know how to saute an onion,” she said. “The hardest thing about cooking is starting.”

Red, white and ravioli

At the second class, under Chabot’s guidance, participants combined eggs and flour to create fresh pasta dough, which they rolled out and cut into thin strips. “The rough recipe is one cup of flour to one egg makes one portion,” he told the class.

Meanwhile, Fitzsenry showed ancontinued on page 5

Fifth world

Brown students rethink health care in rural India CAMPUS News, 4

Lydia Yamaguchi / Herald

Soups, fresh ravioli and meatballs are among students’ creations.

Farmville

Clarkson ’12 favors aiding small farms

opinions, 7

weather

By Brittany Nieves Contributing Writer

Sixteen undergraduates, selected through a competitive process to become Brown International Scholars Program Fellows, will receive $5,000 to conduct independent research projects with an international focus this coming summer. The University recognized the fellows in a ceremony at the Hope Club March 19.

The fellowship program, housed in the Swearer Center for Public

Service and funded by the Office of International Affairs, is intended for “students thinking about the connection between their academic interest and its value to a public audience,” said Kerrissa Heffernan, director of the Brown International Scholars Program.

“This allows us to consider a broad range of disciplines, from engineers designing ways to pump water in India to art historians entertaining questions about cultural heritage,” Heffernan added.

By Emily Hartman Contributing Writer

The Council of Graduate Schools selected the University to participate in a study that will assess how institutional policies affect attrition rates for underrepresented minority graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. The study, called the Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion, comes with a $30,000 grant for each participating university and is supported by a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

The race disparity in higher education is an ongoing national concern, said Medeva Ghee, executive director of the Leadership Alliance and project director for the study. Attracting minority students to graduate programs and ensuring that they graduate will be essential to maintaining a competitive workforce and economic productivity, Ghee added in an email to The Herald. Underrepresented minorities currently make up 15.6 percent of enrolled

R.I. Senator Students receive funding for global research discusses health care, pollution

By HANNAH ABELOW Senior Staff Writer

minority grad student attrition

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2 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, April 4, 2012

calendar wednesday

april 4

5 P.m.

thursday

april 5

4 p.m.

Republican Conservatism Lecture

Annual Appleton Science Lecture

Salomon 001

MacMillan 117

8 p.m.

6 p.m.

Poetry Slam with Anis Mojgani

Biomed Shark Attack

Salomon 001

Wilson 101

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Polynesian Chicken Wings, Stir Fried Rice, Vegan Stir Fry Vegetables with Tofu, Lemon Cookies

Falafel, BBQ Chicken Sandwich, Caesar Salad Pizza, Vegan Gumbo Casserole, Lemon Cookies

DINNER Sustainable Baked and Breaded Pollock, Cheese Quesadillas, Vegan Brown Rice, Macaroon Bars

Salt and Pepa Jerk Chicken, Egg Foo Young, Sticky Rice, Thai Basil Pork Stir Fry, Thai Basil Tempeh Stir Fry

Sudoku

Rachel Kaplan / Herald

Students approve of the new “intimate” design of the Sharpe Refectory’s front alcove.

New furniture adds class to Ratty dining

By HANNAH ABELOW Senior Staff Writer

Students returning to the Sharpe Refectory after spring break were pleasantly surprised to find that one of two alcoves had been redesigned, complete with a new color scheme, furniture and layout.

“The previous seating in the alcove had been in need of replacement for some time,” wrote Peter Rossi, director of Brown Dining Services, in an email to The Herald. He added that he felt the new

“seating selection and design would complement the space.”

Students’ reactions to the changes were positive across the board, varying from enthusiastic to relieved.

“It’s almost intimate,” said Natasha Blackadar ’15, as she enjoyed lunch with a friend in one of the newly-added booths. “It makes going on a Ratty date finally acceptable.”

“It looked like it was falling apart before the break, so this is a welcome change,” said Jenna Ditto ’15.

“It’s pretty classy now,” Ditto

added.

Criticisms of the redesign, which were few and far between, focused on the style and color choices. “The coloring is not ideal,” said Rachel Sarnoff ’14. “I don’t know why they chose this weird navy color with accents.”

The changes were facilitated by Brown Dining Services, with help from Facilities Management and the Purchasing Department, Rossi wrote.

He added that no further redesigns are planned at this time.

BISP fellows to study in Bosnia, Korea continued from page 1

Cr ossword

ing at the international criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia and whether or not it results in reconciling the three ethnic groups,” Ibric said.

Ibric, who designed his project after learning about the fellowship and brainstorming possible topics to fit the criteria, said he hopes to eventually attend graduate school in order to study “the influence of international law and international criminal institutions” and analyze whether it is “an efficient tool for bringing justice” to his home country of Bosnia.

Last winter, inspired by a history seminar about the Vietnam War, Eun Seo Jo ’13 began research at the National Archive in Seoul, South Korea, on a project titled “Korea’s Forgotten War.” The history seminar had been taught from the American perspective, and Jo,

Daily

the Brown

who is Korean, wished to shine light on how it impacted the rest of Asia, Jo said.

Jo was awarded one of the coveted BISP 2012 fellowships in order to continue his research this coming summer in Korea, which he said he hopes to eventually use toward a senior thesis on the topic.

“The objective is to get a bottom-up narrative about veterans’ experiences, including the story of the rise of Koreatown in Saigon and the massive influx of labor into that area during the war,” Jo said.

“It led to racial tensions and increased Orientalism because it was a mix of Americans, Koreans and Vietnamese.”

In order to complete his project, Jo said he must return to Korea to interview more veterans and revisit useful documents. The fellowship award will cover the cost of his flights to and from Korea.

Though she characterized the

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fellowship award as “generous,” Heffernan also said, “with most students staying between 10 to 12 weeks, $5,000 won’t go very far.”

“If a student is flying to Africa, that’s going to chew up about half their award right there,” she added.

She also expressed concern about the fellowship awards’ adequacy in meeting the financial needs of two students planning to conduct research in London during the Summer Olympics.

The fellows’ work will continue upon their return to Brown in the fall, when they will each continue work on their projects with a faculty member.

“As part of the award, you agree to participate in a community of fellows that meets every other week throughout the year,” Heffernan said. “Part of the challenge in the application process is constructing this community. We don’t want to take 10 people in public health and nobody in comparative literature.”

She added that she hoped the fellows would continue to “talk to each other throughout the year and hopefully for much longer.”

This year, the number of applicants for the fellowship was significantly higher than in the two previous years that the fellowship has been offered.

“The BISP is young, and students don’t know about it so I invested a lot of energy into PR campaigns, and it did increase the pool of applicants specifically,” Heffernan said.

Last year, Heffernan said, “there were fewer applications but the winners were just as strong.”

Campus News 3

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Nat’l survey to evaluate U.’s resources for minority grad students continued from page 1 graduate students at Brown.

Many universities, including Brown, offer resources for minorities to both increase enrollment and reduce dropout rates in STEM graduate programs. But these resources can vary widely among universities. The purpose of the study is to identify which policies are most effective at helping minority STEM graduate students successfully complete doctorate programs, according to the Council of Graduate Schools’ request for proposals.

“We anticipate that if the study is able to make the link between the disparate institutional programming and different student outcomes, that will be an important contribution to our understanding of the positive and the negative factors that impact STEM graduate education, particularly for underrepresented minorities,” said Jessie DeAro, PhD program

director for Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate at the NSF. “And then that will be the basis for working to mitigate the negative factors and also enhancing the positive factors.”

The University will collect data over the next year on completion and attrition rates of underrepresented minority graduate students in STEM fields from 1992 through 2012. This data could identify variables such as gender or academic discipline that correlate with lower graduation rates.

Brown will also hold focus groups and distribute an electronic survey to receive direct student feedback on mentoring programs and other support systems for minority graduate students.

Ghee said she looks forward to hearing the comments that arise in the focus groups.

“What’s really impactful is hearing the impressions of the students and also the faculty,” Ghee said. “I think it will help us under-

stand how we can improve on the various practices and programs that are currently being provided for graduate students of color.”

Ghee said she believes the University was selected because of its strong commitment to mentoring underrepresented minority graduate students.

“I think that’s what made us super competitive because when we put the proposal together we were actually able to identify a number of mentoring activities that Brown already had in place to support students of color,” Ghee said.

One mentoring program at Brown is the Leadership Alliance program, which brings minority undergraduates to Brown for a summer research program. The program works to expose minority students to “the graduate student experience” before enrolling in a doctoral program, said Erika Alexander GS, a graduate student in cognitive, linguistic and psy-

chological sciences. Alexander, who participated in the program in 2005, said the Leadership Alliance teaches minority students how to write grants, network and apply to graduate school, among other things.

“I think that the study is going to show that there’s more work that needs to be done,” Ghee said.

“It’s a conversation that we need to continue to have.”

Alexander said she believes she sees the national trend of higher attrition rates for underrepresented minority graduate students reflected at the University.

“There are some mentoring programs for students of color (at Brown), but not as many as I would like,” Alexander said. “A lot of time is spent recruiting students of color and just making the pool as big as you possibly can, but not a lot of time is spent supporting them and making sure that they aren’t dropping out for reasons that are varied. There’s no point

in bringing in this huge amount of students if nobody stays.”

Minority graduate students at Brown face the added pressure of trying to “fit into the puzzle” as a minority on top of the other academic, emotional and physical stresses of graduate school, Alexander said.

“I think that people nowadays are starting to realize the importance of making sure that the students are supported and have a place to go, and I think Brown is actually doing a really great job of trying to assess what it is that students need to complete their programs,” Alexander said.

But she added that the University could offer more resources.

“If that moment never comes of, ‘I do fit here, I belong here, I contribute to this place,’ then I think that people have a lot greater chance of them just saying, ‘you know what, I don’t belong here, so I’m just going to quit,’” Alexander said.

Executive master’s program will emphasize online learning continued from page 1

ject of discussion at several faculty forums and meetings. If approved by the Corporation, the master’s program will teach mid-career professionals about the ongoing changes in the American health care system.

The motion for the executive master’s program was presented

by Beresford, who emphasized the program’s potential for increasing revenue — a key component of the Plan for Academic Enrichment, he said.

The program will go up for an external review after three years, since it is unlike any other program currently offered at Brown, Beresford said. “This is an experiment for Brown,” he said. “We should move forward in that spirit.”

The original proposal said the review would be conducted internally, but after a motion from the Faculty Executive Committee, the review will be conducted by an external group instead, said Peter Shank, chair of the FEC and professor of medical science.

After consulting with many committees, including the Department of Public Health, the Academic Priorities Committee, the Graduate Council and various campus committees, the provost’s office has set a curriculum and selected instructors from the current undergraduate and clinical faculty pool and newly hired adjuncts, Beresford said.

The initial class will have a target size of 15 students and will aim to double that size after three years, the motion reported. In the first year, the University hopes to break even with the initial investment and then increase revenue in the following years, Beresford said.

The name of the program is distinct from other University programs and from similar programs at peer institutions, Beresford said.

The program has the designation as executive master’s to distinguish

the degree from regular master’s degrees, he said.

By adding executive to the name, the University has designated the program a learning format for professionals who will simultaneously be engaged in pursuits outside the academic sphere, Beresford said. The program aims to build leadership, which is different from other programs in public health, he said.

A faculty member raised questions about comparisons to other similar programs of executive master’s education at peer institutions. The proposed program at Brown will have both online and residential components, like similar programs at Dartmouth, he said, adding that the University’s program will have a heavier emphasis on online learning so that professionals can maintain their careers in major cities. Seventy percent of each course in the proposed executive master’s program will be taught from online learning modules, the motion reported.

The proposed program does not yet have a set tuition, Beresford said. The Corporation will make a recommendation for tuition for the program, the revenue from which will fund existing departments on campus, particularly those supporting the executive master’s program, according to the motion.

After several questions but without much debate, faculty members voted unanimously to approve the program. The approval came after faculty members largely expressed either indecision or support of the program, The Herald reported in March.

Faculty members also heard an update on the School of Engineering from Lawrence Larson, dean of the school, who reported on the growth of the school since its approval two years ago and the goals for its future.

Since 2010, the school has focused on developing an improved undergraduate curriculum, grow-

ing graduate programs, expanding the faculty and fundraising to raise revenue for new engineering facilities, Larson said.

Applications to the school have increased due to national trends and as “a reflection of the quality and esteem our program is held in,” he said. For current students, the School of Engineering has focused on making introductory courses more engaging and working heavily with concentrators at both the beginning and final stages of their academic careers, Larson said.

The University has a higher retention rate of concentrators from freshmen to upperclassmen than the national average, he said, adding that the national average retention rate is around 50 percent, while Brown has a rate of 60 percent.

Larson added that the school is also a leader in bringing women and minorities into the student and faculty community of engineers.

Around 40 percent of engineering students are women and around 10 percent are underrepresented minorities, he said, adding that

both rates are above the national averages.

The School of Engineering is increasing both its graduate students and faculty, Larson said, adding that the planned additions have created another goal of expanding spaces for learning and working.

Larson said the School of Engineering is thinking about the “best way to educate” future engineers.

The school hopes to broadly educate students, while giving them an opportunity to specialize deeply, he said. In the future, the school hopes to have a curriculum that can engage the entire community, giving non-engineers the chance to take courses in the department, he said.

Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P’12 reported the issues with the lack of compliance on minority reporting in faculty recruitment. The Office of the Dean of the Faculty has incorporated an online method for candidates to report in the recruiting process, and data will go straight to the Office of Institutional Diversity, he said, rather than going through a third party.

Faculty members heard updated reports on the state of campus safety efforts in light of the recent surge in crime on campus. Paul Shanley, deputy chief and executive officer of the Department of Public Safety, said the most important aspect of recent efforts is the many partnerships with the Providence Police and offices on campus. “We want to be prepared,” he said, adding that these partnerships help to make all members of the community more aware.

Shank said he has been meeting with faculty members to consider the issue of promotion from associate professor to full professor, which was raised after recent debates of promotion to tenured professor. The rules for promotion to full professor “need to be codified and quantified,” Shank said, adding that though departments have set criteria, the faculty rules need to include specific procedures for the promotion process. The lack of definite process “is a glaring deficit in our rules,” he said.

Memorial minutes were presented for Robert Accola, professor emeritus of mathematics.

4 Feature

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Student-run foundation tackles health education in India

By Caroline Flanagan Senior Staff Writer

Nikilesh Eswarapu ’12 arrived at Brown with big ambitions. Inspired by a community service trip to Mexico during winter break, Eswarapu spent the summer of 2009 in India, laying the groundwork for his own nonprofit organization, the Milana Foundation. Today, a handful of Brown students work for the organization, spending the academic year discussing plans to improve health care in India and using their sum-

mers to implement their projects.

Clinical trials

Eswarapu brought Milana, which only originally comprised him and Susan Kuruvilla, a friend from New York University, to Brown when he transferred in his sophomore year. His first project with the organization was to build a health care clinic in the Medak district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh that provides free service and medication to patients. Before Milana’s clinic was built, the closest clinic with

a doctor was 17-20 kilometers away from the group of villages, Eswarapu said, adding that the majority of trained medical professionals in India practice only in urban areas.

While 70 percent of India’s population live in rural areas, only 30 percent of trained medical practitioners work in rural areas, said Karishma Bhatia ’15, who started working as an intern for the foundation this year.

Though the clinic has been very successful, serving 80 to 85 patients each day, Eswarapu said the group does not plan on establishing more clinics. The clinic in Medak is self-sustaining and no longer demands much of the group’s attention, but it works well as a way to learn about the area, he said. Now, Milana will devote its time primarily to education and research.

Fifth world problems

“Rather than being a health care provider, we want Milana to be a health care educator,” Eswarapu said. “We think that a more effective way to improve the outcome on a large scale is to focus on existing practitioners

rather than on bringing in new practitioners.”

Most health care in rural areas is performed by Registered Medical Practitioners — health care workers who are largely untrained and unregulated. They are often more a liability than an asset to their patients, said Nihaal Mehta ’14, another intern. The misuse of needles by these medical practitioners has led to a rise in HIV cases, he said.

The group spent this year planning a program focused on providing health education to practitioners. Bhatia and Mehta will implement the program in India this summer and have received a C.V. Starr Fellowship from the Swearer Center for Public Service for their project.

“Nothing like this has been done before in India, and the model itself is robust enough to work in any rural area,” Mehta said, adding that if the project is successful, they will expand it to other areas within India.

“India’s got the health problems of a fifth world country, but it’s trying to be a first world country,” he said. “You can create a health care system from scratch.”

Examining dynamics and metrics

Eswarapu said he is also proud of the success of the group’s research projects that examine the economic cost of health care in rural India. The research shows the positive impact of their clinic in the area. The group has also implemented health education programs in primary schools and performed ethnographic research to understand the dynamics between the clinic and the village.

“It’s not just about doing something but having good metrics and constantly improving and measuring yourself to make sure what you’re doing is still effective,” Eswarapu said.

One of the group’s biggest challenges has been simply communicating between its two branches, located on opposite ends of the world. Since the organization is so young, a lot of its recent work has focused on outlining its goals and mission statement.

“The mission changes a lot,” said Laura Ucik ’13, who works for the foundation. “What we’re really trying to do is create change in a community rather than just provide a service.”

Sen. denounces gridlock, party rivalries continued from page 1 which are caused by increasing ozone contamination. He warned of rising sea levels that will force future dislocation. “People are going to say that all of this is preventable,” Whitehouse said, and environmental problems will be the “biggest mark in history against us.”

Whitehouse criticized congressional inaction on other issues.

“There is plenty to do, and we’re

not really measuring up right now,” Whitehouse said, pointing to the current health care debate and transportation funding. Due to the prevalence of the filibuster, Republicans demand a high price for cooperation. Whitehouse said Republicans used to filibuster things they were against, while now they filibuster legislation they support, adding that these tactics mean major issues are often never addressed.

During the question and an-

swer period, Whitehouse spoke about the current debate on women’s issues. “It’s a war,” Whitehouse said, quoting House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA. Whitehouse touched on what he views as a shift in the judiciary to more conservative views, and in response to questions regarding the Trayvon Martin case, said he believed it is not fitting to pass judgment without knowing all the facts.

Shawn Patterson ’12, president of the Brown Democrats, called the event a success. Whitehouse’s responses were often comical, and he was amenable to all questions directed to him. “I feel like it went well and covered a wide array of topics,” Patterson said.

“It’s an opportunity for students to meet elected officials and get a gut feeling on who you want representing you.”

Follow The Herald on Twitter @the_herald

Feature 5

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Students enjoy cooking classes that combine ‘college life and pasta’ continued from page 1 other group of students how to make a tomato sauce. He told them the thickness of a sauce should depend on the size of the pasta. “A thinner pasta, like an angel hair, is going to be great for a light, delicate sauce.”

Chabot explained that fresh pasta only takes one to two minutes to cook, while dry pasta takes up to 10 minutes. When the pasta was finished cooking, Chabot instructed the students to “serve it immediately.”

After straining the pasta, Fitzsenry cooked it for a minute in the pan with the sauce. “That way, if you bite into the pasta, it’ll taste like the sauce.”

“Everybody taste something,” he told students. “Each sauce was cooked a little differently.”

Students needed little prompting, as they quickly grabbed forks and tasted their creations.

Fitzsenry then showed a group how to make a white sauce. “It’s not a science — it’s about what you like,” he told the group.

“This is how easy it is to cook from scratch,” Fitzsenry said. “If you

get a jar of alfredo sauce from the grocery store, it’s not going to have that same effect.”

Using leftover onions, eggs, flour, garlic, parsley and oregano — as well as five pounds of meat and a big pinch of salt and pepper — Fitzsenry showed students how to make meatballs by hand.

And what were the students to do with the leftover pasta dough? Make ravioli, of course.

Fitzsenry demonstrated the technique: cut two hexagonal pasta shapes, put cheese between them and pinch the pieces together. Then, moisten the edges with water or egg, use a knife to cut hashes into the sides and flash boil.

Intersecting interests

The original menu for the classes was modified after the instructors surveyed the participants about their dietary needs and preferences. After identifying students’ dietary restrictions, the soups class was revised to make two nearly identical soups that accommodated everyone’s needs.

At the end of the class, Fitzsenry

Track and field teams open season at UConn

By James Blum Sports Staff Writer

The track and field teams began their outdoor seasons Saturday as the men competed at the Spring Invite and the women at the All-Connecticut meet, both of which were hosted by the University of Connecticut. Though neither meet was scored, both teams turned in strong performances.

“It was very cold, and the women actually dealt with snow, so the running times were not awesome,” said Michelle Eisenreich, director of men’s and women’s track and field. “But they did compete really well, so I was really excited about that.”

Four women brought home individual titles and the women’s team gave a solid effort overall, Eisenreich said. Coming off a dominant indoor season where she earned Second Team All-Ivy honors, Susan Scavone ’12 won the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 15.19 seconds. In a sweep of the hurdling events, Alex Stanton ’15 won the 400-meter hurdles in 1 minute, 2 seconds.

The women were also strong off the track as Niina Al-Hassan ’14 captured first place in the javelin throw with a heave of 137 feet, 10 inches.

Jara Crear ’12 leaped 18-2 1/2 in the long jump to win the event. Due to

asked the students what they were interested in learning how to cook in the second class. Students in the class indicated an interest in pasta.

“College life and pasta — it seems like a no brainer,” Fitzsenry said.

The final class next weekend will focus on desserts. Originally, the plan was to cook a complete meal ­— including protein, starches and vegetables. But when the instructors asked participants what their favorite foods were, many said chocolate, Fitzsenry said.

One dish will be a chocolate lava cake, which is “easy to teach, but really cool to do for somebody else,” he said.

Fitzsenry also plans to show students how to make “tuxedo-dipped strawberries,” which are dipped in white and dark chocolate. “Anywhere you bring chocolate and strawberries, you’re going to make friends.”

Students in the class have given enthusiastic feedback.

“I think this is one of the coolest things I’ve found at Brown,” said Kim Clifton ’14, a former Herald contributing writer.

“Dave and Aaron have so many cool tricks that even if you do know about cooking, you’re still learning,” Rotman said. “They have great chemistry.”

Fitzsenry and Chabot taught students about proper sanitation, knife handling and oven use, Mirviss said.

At the pasta station, Chabot told students that salmonella can be avoided by cracking eggs on the table instead of on the side of a pan.

Fitzsenry reminded students that when adding wine to a sauce, it is important to take the saucepan away from the stove. “Alcohol has vapors that are highly flammable,” he said.

“Always bring the pan to the liquor, not the liquor to the pan.”

‘Something fun to do’

The idea for the cooking classes was raised by Mirviss in the fall of 2010, about a month after Fitzsenry began working at Brown, he said. But the push to make the class a reality did not happen until fall 2011, when Mirviss brought up the idea again.

A cooking class program previously existed, Rotman said, which

made it easy to convince Dining Services to have a class again.

Mirviss made a survey for people interested in the classes, which were advertised on the Dining Services website and in Morning Mail. They received about 90 responses — many more than Fitzsenry expected. But there were only 20 spaces in the class, so participants were chosen by lottery.

Though he and Chabot lead the classes, Mirviss and Rotman are the ones who deserve the credit, Fitzsenry said.

Mirviss said she hopes these classes are a project that another intern can take over after she graduates this May. Others at Dining Services have been “very, very supportive,” of the classes, Fitzsenry said.

Fitzsenry is enthusiastic about teaching students how to cook. “I feel like I should be thanking them because I get to break up my day with something fun.”

Making time for the classes is “a piece of cake,” he said. Next week’s chocolate lava cake, that is.

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

weather, the jumps were held inside.

The men did not claim any top spots at the meet.

“The men competed later, and it had stopped snowing by then,” Eisenreich said. “But it was very cold for a track meet.”

John Spooney ’14, another recipient of indoor Second Team All-Ivy honors, finished third in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.89 seconds.

Also on the track, Colin Savage ’14 completed the 800-meter run in 1:54, earning third place overall. In the 400 hurdles, Zach Keefer ’13 captured a second-place finish in 55.39 seconds.

Overall, Eisenrich said she was pleased with both teams’ performances considering the unfavorable conditions.

“I think it’s very easy in those circumstances not to compete well because you have a ton of excuses to not perform well,” she said.

Competing apart from the team over break, Evan Weinstock ’14 finished twelfth in the decathlon at the Texas Relays hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. The decathlon combines 10 separate track and field events that range from the 100-to the 1500-meter run to the javelin. Weinstock earned 6,832 points, a personal best and the highest score.

The Brown Daily Herald Presents

UCS/UFB Candidate Debate Thursday, April 12 Metcalf Auditorium

Submit questions for the candidates to UCSdebate@browndailyherald.com or tweet @the_herald.

6 Editorial & Letter Editorial

Addressing misogyny at Spring Weekend Planning Spring Weekend, the job of the Brown Concert Agency, is a tough responsibility. The agency is tasked with satisfying thousands of undergraduates with diverse musical tastes and living up to the hype of Brown’s biggest weekend. It must do this on a limited budget and, for the past two years, while competing for acts with one of the largest music festivals in the country, Coachella. Amid these constraints, BCA continues to do an admirable job and has put on good shows in recent years.

That said, we worry that BCA sometimes too easily overlooks the misogynistic lyrics featured in the songs of many past and upcoming performers. The Herald printed a letter two years ago from two students decrying 2010 performer Snoop Dogg’s lyrics, some of which seem to “advocate violence against women.” Two of the acts for this year’s lineup — headliner Childish Gambino and supporting act Cam’ron — both have considerable lyrical content that is offensive and degrading to women.

We do not mean to throw a wet blanket over one of Brown’s best traditions, or suggest that it is wrong to listen to Childish Gambino or Cam’ron. To be honest, a few of us on this board are fans of Killa Season and are really excited to see these artists in action. At the same time, it is important that Spring Weekend does not become an event that alienates members of our community. We believe it is important to think critically about the content that Brown amplifies from the Main Green.

More to the point, we wonder if paying a musical act to perform sends the implicit message that the Brown community sanctions the lyrics.

Brown and other universities invite speakers with imperfect views to speak all the time — for instance, Brown Lecture Board paid a handsome sum to host former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2009.

However, lectures are environments of intellectual deliberation, where opposing and abhorrent viewpoints are challenged and considered.

Concerts, where students are encouraged to sing along and cheer on the musical act, are different. At the very least, it seems reasonable that many members of the Brown community would feel uncomfortable paying people to perform songs that portray women as inferior, sexual objects.

We urge BCA to take this issue into consideration when planning future concerts, and open up more dialogue about the one taking place this year. BCA needs to entertain more feedback and respond to students who are concerned with the messages that performers are expressing at Brown. Since so many students are excited about Spring Weekend, it can be particularly daunting or intimidating for members of our community to express their discomfort regarding offensive lyrics. It is then even more important that BCA takes a proactive approach.

We are aware that shunning every artist with any questionable material would be disastrous. After all, former Spring Weekend performer Ray Charles had his fair share of misogynistic lyrics. Yet, it is irresponsible to accept unconditionally musicians with problematic content by writing it off as artistic expression. We hope that BCA will work to create a larger, more inclusive campus-wide dialogue specifically tailored to concerns about performers’ lyrical content.

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

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The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Editorial cartoon

by s a m r o s e n f e l d

letter to the editor Herald editorial misses the point To the Editor: I’m not writing to weigh in on the issue of whether Brown should or should not be more financially supportive of the city of Providence. I am relatively agnostic on this issue, though ultimately I stand with my friends in Brown for Providence.

Nonetheless, what is clear to me is that The Herald’s editorial (“Brown is not Goliath,” March 21) in large part misses the point of the column written by Tim Syme GS on the issue. While the editorial page board members claim to be “particularly concerned with the argument … that ‘Brown’s fundraising efforts appear to be focused on high status building projects’ as opposed to ‘prioritizing the regeneration of Providence,’” it is clear from their response they don’t understand the argument.

Repeating the standard University line that “many sizable donations are earmarked for specific projects” is not a response to this argument.

The point is that Brown’s fundraising and all of its operations are based on a set of priorities that are, at the end of the day, established by the 54 members of the University’s Corporation with the cooperation of the Brown administration. Of course “many sizable donations are earmarked for specific projects” — once Brown has decided that it wants to embark on these projects, it goes out looking for donors. That’s what the entire Campaign for Academic Enrichment was about.

The fact that an incredibly small number of people make the decisions about what Brown’s priorities should be is not changed by the fact that students are given token positions on a wide range of University committees. Nor does it change the fact that the University has never made any serious attempt to make greater stu-

dent participation accessible. Consider the fact that the State of Brown address, along with every meeting of the Brown University Community Council, has been held at the same time as the seminar hour. This guarantees that many of the students who have been at Brown the longest — those taking the most seminars — will not be able to participate.

This is but a minor example of many. The question is this: Who should decide what Brown’s priorities are, how should they do so and on what basis? The answer to the last question should be clear: on the basis of the University’s mission. And I quote, “The mission of Brown University is to serve the community, the nation and the world by discovering, communicating and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry and by educating and preparing students to discharge the offices of life with usefulness and reputation.”

The goal of this University is to serve the various communities it is part of, and the means is “discovering, communicating and preserving knowledge and understanding.” Syme’s point, which the Herald editorial misses, is not in tension with this. Indeed, it doesn’t hurt that the editors quoted only in part. Syme asked in his column, “Why ... do Brown’s fundraising efforts appear to be focused on high-status building projects like the 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?”

This question remains to be answered.

Julian Park ’12 Former Herald opinions columnist

quote of the day

“Anywhere you bring chocolate and strawberries, you’re going to make friends.”

— Aaron Fitzsenry, culinary manager for retail operations See cooking on page 1.

Clarification An article in Monday’s Herald, (“Bill seeks to increase U. payments,” April 2) stated Brown for Providence is not in support of proposed state legislation that would require tax-exempt institutions to pay for emergency services, among other changes. In fact, Ben Wofford ’14.5, a member of Brown for Providence, was expressing his personal opinion rather than the group’s position.

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

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Opinions 7

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Putting the farm back into the Farm Bill

By Veronica Clarkson Opinions Columnist Ah, the American farm: red barn, goats and speckled cows munching grass as they bathe in sunlight, rolling green fields of grain in the distance. It’s an image of serenity and sufficiency, of peace and plenty.

Now replace this image with long, low industrial warehouses, dark inside and packed with thousands of chickens trampling one another, cows crowded front to back with no room to move, fields of genetically modified corn doused with chemical fertilizer and the stench of manure for miles. Though we don’t like to admit it, the current Farm Bill, passed in 2008, mostly facilitates the latter image.

But the Farm Bill is up for a rewrite this year, with House, Senate and field hearings currently underway. So what does the newest iteration of this disorganized, unfocused bill need? Well, lots of things. But to start, subsidy structures must be overhauled in order to promote a sustainable economy, society and environment. We cannot continue to focus strictly on the mass production of low-quality foodstuffs.

Luckily, there are still farms that resemble that first idyllic image. While conducting research on artisan cheese producers in the southwestern “Driftless” region of Wisconsin — so called because of the lack of glacial drift during the most recent glaciation period, about 50,000 years ago — I had the chance to visit some of these farms and talk to the cheese producers who continue to resist the

large-scale, consolidated production of lowquality cheese that the United States Department of Agriculture seems to unabashedly encourage.

Right now, the Farm Bill focuses on the creation of cheap commodities. The United States Department of Agriculture doles out subsidies to farmers who produce certain crops, like corn and soy, on a large scale. The result is a surplus of these crops while smaller producers are going out of business because of a complete lack of federal support. The ex-

and the economic impact of this industry on the region. Without adequate attention and incentives from the federal and state governments, however, these producers are in danger of being overtaken by the large-scale dairies that are supported by the USDA and the current Farm Bill.

Shifting the focus of some of our agriculture subsidies away from mass production to reintegrate small-scale production would demonstrate our country’s commitment to preserving rural livelihoods and environ-

Small-scale farmers are in constant fear of co-optation by commodity producers who receive federal agriculture subsidies. It’s time to change the type of farming we support. cess commodity crops are pushed into processed foods in the form of soy lecithin and high fructose corn syrup, or converted into energy-inefficient ethanol or animal feed, among other uses. Meat and dairy production meet a similar fate, though not on quite the same scale because these industries are not as heavily subsidized.

During conversations with the Wisconsin cheese producers, it was quite apparent that the objectives of these farmers are different from those of the USDA. These producers stressed the importance not just of yields, but of flavor and quality, the productive social interactions that result from a supportive network of producers, the positive effects of small-scale production on the environment

mental protection. The three-pronged or “triple-bottom-line” set of objectives for the Farm Bill that I propose — quality of economy, society and environment — are currently being addressed by small-scale producers.

Research like ours is starting to document the factors that help create these triple-bottomline outcomes. Our work suggests that comparable concentrations of small-scale production could be replicated throughout the country with a modest amount of direct state and government support to groups of producers who demonstrate the potential to produce high quality products on smaller scales.

And if the government subsidizes this type of production, then high-quality products don’t have to be so expensive either. The Eu-

ropean Union has been experimenting with these types of subsidies since the ’90s, and has expanded their programs year after year because of satisfied producers and consumers.

Of course, the goal of a subsidy overhaul is not to completely remove the support of large-scale agriculture that is quite essential to our national food provision. High-yield commodity production impacts every American — it affects our diets and lifestyles, and even helps ensure our national security by making us less reliant on imported food. By identifying those areas of commodity production where subsidy support is already adequate, or excessive, and channeling those funds instead to subsidize smaller operations with triple-bottom-line objectives, more Americans — both producers and consumers — can be supported and protected by our Farm Bill, while integrating additional values, like environmental quality, into the current systems of production.

So let’s make the 2012 Farm Bill support more farmers. Small-scale producers with intentional, triple-bottom-line production practices should not be in constant fear of absorption by larger operations that focus exclusively on economic gains. Allocating subsidies to these producers will help make them more resilient against co-optation and will support more proud Americans and their quality contributions.

Veronica Clarkson ’12 works with the Brown Agricultural Resilience Initiative on the economic, social and environmental viability of alternative agriculture. She can be reached at veronica_clarkson@brown.edu.

An inspired choice for World Bank president

By Garret Johnson Opinions Columnist Just before Brown students left for spring break, one of our own was selected to lead the World Bank. President Obama nominated Jim Yong Kim ’82, current president of Dartmouth and co-founder of the extremely influential nonprofit Partners In Health, to lead the world’s preeminent development organization.

Though political debates about the usefulness of the World Bank will rage on, Kim is an excellent candidate for the top position. His credentials are unlike those of his predecessors, who have largely come with backgrounds in finance and law. Kim has little experience in those areas, having earned both a medical degree and a doctorate in anthropology from Harvard after graduating from Brown.

The purpose of the World Bank is to provide “financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world.” Unlike the many lawyers and economists that were passed up for the nomination, Kim has hands-on experience working with developing countries.

He helped to create a protocol for treating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in poor countries, and he is still on the board of directors of Partners In Health.

The value of having a physician and development expert to lead the organiza-

tion that is supposed to help poor, latedeveloping nations heal and grow cannot be overstated. Too often we rely on leaders who have studied issues from afar but who have never looked into the eyes of the people whom they hope to serve.

I give tremendous credit to President Obama for daring to look beyond the prescribed list of acceptable candidates for this job. It would have been much easier to interview a small number of the nation’s foremost economists and make a choice that reflected a continuation of the status quo.

But in choosing a physician, President Obama indicated that he views the World

Beyond being a great choice due to his credentials and commitment to serving the world’s poorest, Kim may serve to give a little perspective on America’s current struggles.

While Americans moan about a slow recovery from a deep recession, there are millions of people around the world who are starving, whose medical conditions go untreated due to lack of money or health infrastructure. Kim has been on the ground in these places. He’s seen the xray images of MDR-TB patients. He’s held children with kwashiorkor in his arms.

Perhaps as a Korean-American nominee, Kim will bring attention to the fact

Too often we rely on leaders who have studied issues from afar but who have never looked into the eyes of the people whom they hope to serve.

Bank as a critical player in the treatment of the disease of poverty and stagnation that plagues the developing world. If you’ve read my columns before, you know that I am far from President Obama’s biggest fan (“SuperPACs bring out the worst in politicians, Feb. 23). But I applaud his nomination of Kim and not just because Kim is a Brown graduate.

that, compared with much of the world, Americans have an excellent quality of life. As someone who has spent his entire career fighting for those who don’t have a voice on the world stage, perhaps Kim will lead the world to action.

It seems that Kim’s entire life has prepared him for a position like the presidency of the World Bank. He came to the

United States from South Korea at the age of five, was deeply involved with the Third World Center at Brown and spent his medical school years co-founding Partners In Health, an organization that works in 12 countries to promote better health care for the poor. In short, his life has been devoted to the cause of helping poor people to pull themselves out of poverty and disease.

It remains to be seen what Kim will be able to accomplish with the World Bank’s resources. He will likely emphasize health as a route to social justice and development. Perhaps he will bring the attitude of Partners In Health to the table. This nonprofit stresses the importance of pursuing all means to make people well — they reject the notion that some procedures are too expensive for use in the developing world. These are all bold, ambitious ways to tackle the issues of poverty and disease in the developing world.

Amid the negative publicity surrounding some Brown graduates — notably Joe Paterno ’50 — Kim is a refreshing representative of Brunonia. He represents all that is good about Brown: active citizenship, social awareness and hands-on action rather than abstract preaching. President Obama deserves credit for choosing this worthy leader for the World Bank.

Garret Johnson ’14 is double concentrating in biology and French and has now written two positive columns in a row, which is just weird.

Daily Herald Campus News the Brown

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Rachel Kaplan / Herald

VIVO will allow students and faculty to more easily retrieve information about University researchers and their scholarship.

Alexandra Urban / Herald Helen Shabas shared her experiences and perspectives as a Holocaust survivor.

Holocaust survivor imparts stories of terror and tragedy

By Nora McDonnell Contributing Writer

Helen Shabas, a Holocaust survivor, shared insights and reflections on her life as a Jew in Poland under the Nazi occupation Tuesday evening.

The event was held at the Winnick Chapel of the Brown/RISD Hillel, and the room was completely full, with some audience members standing in the back. The event began with a short documentary, which depicted the experiences of Shabas and her family during and after World War II. The film was directed by Shabas’ grandson, Harrison Heller ’11, and another grandson, Benjamin Heller ’13, introduced her.

Following the documentary, Shabas recalled her memories in a conversation with Adam Teller, associate professor of Judaic studies.

Shabas, who was 11 years old when the war began in 1939, said before the war Jews were treated badly in her small Polish town, but that “life under the Nazis was torturous.”

Under the Nazi regime, Shabas and her family were forced out of their home and into a Jewish ghetto, where they shared one room and a kitchen with 10 others. In the ghetto, they had no electricity and often went without food.

Along with her mother, sister and cousin, Shabas fled the night before the ghetto was liquidated, and the remaining Jews, including her father, were sent to a concentration camp where her father was later “shot to

death,” Shabas said.

For the next five years, Shabas lived alone in the woods of her town, barely scraping by. “How could you describe the fear?” Shabas said. “You can’t explain to people the hunger.”

Shabas said even now, she sees places and thinks, “that would be an excellent place to hide from the Germans.”

Eventually, Shabas joined a Jewish partisan group that fought to protect Jews in her town. When the war ended in 1945, she and her remaining family members lived in a displaced persons camp in Rome until they immigrated to the United States.

“I will never forgive until the day I die. I can’t,” Shabas said. “I didn’t have a youth.”

The event concluded with a question and answer session. Audience members asked how the war impacted Shabas’ faith in God and her outlook on the world.

“I was always proud to be a Jew, even in my worst times,” Shabas said.

The talk “made me realize how important it is to hear from the survivors themselves,” said Ivy Sokol ’15.

“We get a sanitized version of history by people who don’t understand it,” Teller said. But Shabas, Teller said, understands it.

Shabas said the generation that lived through the Holocaust would not be around to tell their own stories for much longer. “Remember that I was here,” she said, “and be watchful that nothing like this ever happens again. Never again.”

New research database to aid collaboration

By Lucas Morduchowicz Contributing Writer

The University will switch research databases to a system called VIVO, an open source web application with powerful search features that allows for easy retrieval of information about academic scholarship.

Implementing VIVO will facilitate information exchange about research at the University while also forging national connections to researchers at other institutions using the system, wrote Clyde Briant, vice president for research, in an email to The Herald.

“Brown is going to use VIVO as a database for researchers at Brown,” Briant wrote. “Our current database has limited and outdated searching capabilities.” The Office of the Vice President of Research, Computing and Information Services and the Library are leading a joint effort to implement VIVO by the end of 2012.

“One of the perennial problems at research institutions is that it’s very difficult to know what people are doing on site,” said Kristi Holmes, the national outreach coordinator for VIVO. “VIVO is making that easier at institutions. It’s easier to find people and resources, and it’s easier to get together and build teams.”

VIVO is not a database of academic documents or research results. Instead, it allows for easy retrieval of relevant information around a topic, said Jon CorsonRikert, head of Information Technology Services at Cornell. For example, if you searched “cancer” on the VIVO website, you would

get information about who is researching cancer, where it is being researched, the names of articles about cancer, but none of the actual research or articles. Professors searching for collaborators, funders searching for researchers with specific skills and students searching for graduate school programs would all benefit from its functionality, according to VIVO’s website.

VIVO was created in 2003 when Cornell faculty realized the many people working in the molecular biology genomics area were scattered across about 30 different departments throughout campus, said Kathy Chiang, head of services for academic programs and the project leader of VIVO at Cornell.

In order to find information about these faculty — such as the classes they teach, their titles and previous and current research projects — someone conducting a search would have to understand the hierarchical structure of the university well enough to know where to look on the website, Chiang said. As a result, many faculty members were frustrated because they could not find people working on related research in their own disciplines, let alone other areas of study, she said.

Cornell faculty created VIVO to address this concern.

VIVO uses innovative methods for storing and searching for information to discover research and scholarship. The application classifies information into categories including people, courses and locations, said Corson-Rikert. VIVO also stores information about the

relationships between data using subject-predicate-object triples that computers can read, according to VIVO’s website. For example, information about an article titled “Paleontology Today” by John Smith would be stored in VIVO as “John Smith-is the author ofPaleontology Today.” “(VIVO) captures relationships among people, organizations, research activities and outcomes in ways that enable searching content within each page but also the connections of each page to others,” Corson-Rikert said.

VIVO also differentiates itself from other similar applications that rely on users to add information, which allows for human error, manipulation of data and the use of unverified sources, Holmes said.

In contrast, VIVO is able to add information automatically to its database using trustworthy sources such as human resource departments of academic institutions and university course listings, she added. While it does allow for user maintenance and input, VIVO does not depend on it nearly as much as other applications, according to its website.

VIVO has grown to considerable size since 2003. It has seven official partner institutions and many unofficial implementations scattered around the world, Holmes said. Because VIVO is open source, anyone can look at the source code for the application and implement it on their own. The VIVO organization is aware of roughly 20 to 30 implementations worldwide, but Holmes said there could be many more quietly using the application.

U. investigates graffiti after employee’s arrest

By Margaret Farris Contributing Writer

The Department of Public Safety arrested and charged an employee March 6 with three counts of malicious injury to property for alleged graffiti. The case is currently pending in a Providence district court, said Darlene Trew Crist, director of news and communications at the University.

Trist declined to comment on the identity of the perpetrator or on the specifics of the crime. The Univer-

sity will not release this information because the case is still pending.

Graffiti is a common occurrence on Brown’s campus, though employees are not typically suspects.

“We deal with graffiti all the time,” said Patrick Vetere, the grounds superintendent. He said graffiti is reported around “three times a week.” The University typically spends about $10,000 annually on graffiti removal, The Herald previously reported.

Graffiti is found all over campus — “on traffic signals, blue light

posts, buildings and in bathrooms” and is created with “permanent marker, tape, scratches, chalk, paint and lipstick,” he said. Some of the more permanent materials must be removed with tough chemicals, high-pressure water and sandblasting.

“Once reported, it is removed immediately,” Vetere said, adding that offensive graffiti is “taken off within the hour.” Otherwise, it is usually removed within a day. The immediacy of removal is essential, “so people don’t think we allow it.”

Last November, the College Hill Neighborhood Association met with the Providence Police Department and DPS about the graffiti issue.

“We are working to restructure our graffiti initiative,” said Allison Spooner, president of CHNA. “It is a large enough issue that we thought it was time to create another initiative.”

The neighborhood association encourages individuals to personally remove graffiti on their property to discourage additional vandalism in a neighborhood, Spooner said. Graf-

fiti removal kits can be purchased to make personal removal easy.

Providence has a graffiti task force, a group run by the city, that helps with graffiti removal. But this group devotes attention mainly to public buildings, and Spooner said it sometimes takes weeks to get to residents’ houses.

Students’ views on graffiti, though, are not entirely negative.

“I like street art,” Lucas Eggers ’13 said, “but I think tagging and senseless spray paint detract from the environment.”