Wednesday, September 5, 2012

daily herald the Brown

vol. cxxii, no. 60

INSIDE

Wednesday, september 05, 2012

The Martian Chronicles

Page 3

Fresh Faces

New UCS and UFB leaders detail their plans for the year

U. to pilot online courses this summer

By ELI OKUN Senior staff writer

Page 11

Less Lecture Hudson ’14 promotes cutting lecture classes Page 12

Shopping Spree The Herald looks back on the history of shopping period today

tomorrow

78 / 65

81 / 65

Courtesy of Ralph Milliken / Mars Science Laboratory

Ralph Milliken, assistant professor of geological sciences, is a part of the science team working on the Mars Science Laboratory Rover Mission. See page 12

since 1891

The University takes its first step into the realm of online undergraduate education today with the announcement that Brown will join the online course platform Coursera and will also offer some introductory summer classes online for credit. The classes will begin next year.

These pilot programs will be publicly announced to the Brown community today in an email from Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, who informed faculty members of the changes at last night’s faculty meeting.

The decision stemmed from a June report by the Ad Hoc Committee on Online Education that included both programs in a list of six recommendations. Bergeron chaired the seven-member committee, which was convened by Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 in January to investigate a wide range of topics related

to learning and instruction in the digital age. Schlissel made the final decision to move forward with the programs, Bergeron said in an interview.

The projects are only pilots, Bergerson said, that will determine how and whether expanded use of the technologies would benefit students at the University and beyond its gates. “In some cases, the best way to try to figure out what you should be doing is by trying to do it,” Bergeron said. An important philosophy at Brown, she added, is that “you need to remain open, open to new things.”

In joining Coursera, Brown adds its name to a list of universities including Princeton, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania and the California Institute of Technology, which currently offer free, not-for-credit courses to thousands of students across the globe. The platform combines broadcast lectures with on/ / Courses page 2 line activities,

U. reevaluates Paterno’s legacy after scandal BrainGate seeks to empower disabled

By Adam Toobin

Senior Staff Writer

HERALD FILE PHOTO

The University renamed the Joseph V. Paterno ‘50 award in July after a Penn State report linked the football coach to the Sandusky cover-up.

On the heels of a report commissioned by Penn State that implicates Penn State’s former head football coach Joe Paterno ’50 in the cover-up of a sexual abuse scandal involving assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, the University decided in July to rename the Joseph V. Paterno ’50 award, which had been awarded for nearly two decades.

The University presented the award without Paterno’s name in May this year and confirmed in a press release that the award will revert to its original title — “the first-year male athlete award” — citing the report’s findings as the reason for the change.

From 1993 to 2011, the Department of Athletics and Physical Education bestowed the Paterno award to the year’s “outstanding male freshman athlete.” The University will notify previous award recipients that the name has been changed, according to a University press release.

The report, led by former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Louis Freeh, revealed that Paterno knew about possible inappropriate behavior as early

as 1998. It also concluded that Paterno — along with Penn State’s former President Graham Spanier, former Vice President Gary Schultz and former Athletic Director Timothy Curley— actively colluded to shield the football program from bad publicity. Curley and Schultz are facing charges of perjury and failing to report the abuse.

Paterno died in January before he was able to speak to investigators, but the details of the report have broad implications for how his time at Penn State will be remembered.

The Freeh report included a description of an incident in February 2001, during which Paterno convinced Tim Curley, then Penn State’s athletic director, not to report Sandusky to the authorities after Curley expressed an intention to do so. The report concluded that “the failure to protect the February 9, 2001 child victim, or make attempts to identify him, created a dangerous situation for other unknown, unsuspecting young boys who were lured to the Penn State campus and football games by Sandusky and victimized repeatedly by him.” / / Penn page 4 The scandal

Princeton administrator named assistant to the president By kate desimone senior staff writer

President Christina Paxson announced the selection of Kimberly Roskiewicz, former associate dean for operations at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, as assistant to the president in a news release Aug. 10.

Roskiewicz, who worked closely with Paxson at Princeton, began her new role Aug. 27. Her responsibilities as Paxson’s assistant will involve advising Paxson, handling many of her communications, standing in for

the president at University functions, coordinating with senior University officials to implement high-level decisions and overseeing Paxson’s office staff and schedule, according to the release.

Roskiewicz said she played a similar role with Paxson “on a smaller scale” while at Princeton and knew Paxson throughout the almost 10 years Roskiewicz spent there. She called her new position at Brown “a tremendous opportunity,” adding that it is currently “an exciting time” to be at Brown.

Roskiewicz said her responsibilities at Princeton were “more operation-

ally focused,” but at Brown, she will be more involved in “bigger picture” aspects of the University, including serving as a liaison between Paxson and the Brown community. “I had limited interaction with students,” she said of her role at Princeton. “I’m looking forward to that aspect of the president’s office.”

Roskiewicz graduated from the University of Rochester in 1993 and earned master’s degrees in public health and business administration from Boston University. During the decade she spent at the Woodrow Wilson School, Roskiewicz oversaw adminis-

trative functions of the school, such as facilities, finance, human resources and information technology. Her husband, Ed, was an associate head coach of Princeton’s cross country and track and field teams. They have two daughters and are moving to Barrington, according to the news release.

Paxson was formerly the dean of Princeton’s renowned Woodrow Wilson School, where she ended selective admission and overhauled the school’s curriculum.

An earlier version of this article appeared online Aug. 9.

By Kate Nussenbaum Senior Staff Writer

In April 2011, 58-year-old Cathy Hutchinson served herself coffee. The action would have been unremarkable, except that Hutchinson served herself using a robotic arm that she controlled with her thoughts. Hutchinson suffered a brainstem stroke almost 15 years earlier that left her unable to move any of her limbs.

Such a feat was made possible by the BrainGate research team ­— a group of scientists and engineers at Brown, Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford University and Providence VA Medical Center. The team is working to restore independence to paralyzed individuals through interfaces that translate neural signals into commands that control external devices, like computer cursors and robotic arms. The team’s most recent paper, which described Hutchinson’s coffee drinking, was published in the journal Nature in May. Opening the gates One of the project’s first major milestones occurred in 2005 when the researchers heard the sounds of neurons firing from the motor cortex of a paralyzed patient for the first time. Stroke and spinal injury damages the connections between the brain and muscles, but what the researchers discovered was that the brain was still capable of firing signals to initiate movement.

“That was a really big deal because / / Neuro page 2 many of us

2 campus news c alendar Today

SEPT 5

12 P.m.

ToMORROW

SEPT 6

6 p.m.

John Carter Brown Fellows Lunch

Interfaith Supper

Hillel

Kasper Multipurpose Room

4 p.m.

7 p.m.

249th Opening Convocation

Activities Night 2012

Main Green

Olney-Margolies Athletic Center

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH BBQ Chicken Sandwich, Mild Buffalo Wings, Sundried Tomato Calzone, Grilled Citrus Herb Chicken

Bacon Ranch Chicken Sandwich, Macaroni and Cheese

DINNER Polynesian Chicken Wings, Swiss Broccoli Pasta, Grilled Boneless Pork Chop with Applesauce

Mexican Cornbread Casserole, Grilled Chicken Cilantro, Herb Rice, Stirfry Vegetable Medley, Stewed Tomatoes

Sudoku

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Crossword

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Home to the Ibsen Museum 5 Online auction payment, say 10 Animation 14 Part of a Clue guess 15 Salsa holder 16 Political pal 17 *Saw 19 1997 Peter Fonda role 20 Like some stadiums 21 Drove (on) 22 *Head 26 Like prison windows 30 Doesn’t mention 31 Toe the line 32 Peach pit 33 Close, as a windbreaker 36 *Come 40 Glamour VIPs 41 Denmark’s __ Islands 42 Suffix with tip or trick 43 Erin of “Happy Days” 44 Mathematician Pascal 46 *Board 49 Decree 50 Tummy soother 55 One in a fourpart harmony 56 *Do 59 Gubernatorial turndown 60 Cassette half 61 Prefix missing from the starred clues 62 Composer Satie 63 __ once in a while 64 Like Broadway’s Yankees DOWN 1 Inexact words 2 Gazpacho, e.g.

3 Easy run 4 Hint of things to come 5 Begrudged 6 Meaningful pile of stones

7 Bldg. coolers 8 “Steady as __ goes” 9 Mason’s tray 10 Comic’s rewards 11 “Any volunteers?” reply 12 Sails force?

13 Scrutinized 18 Award two stars to, say 21 Glyceride, for one 23 Improper 24 Start of a parliamentary proposal 25 Math ratio 26 Hint of things to come 27 Not yet stirring 28 Game callers 29 Caraway-seeded bread, often 32 Comic Silverman 33 Tubular pasta 34 Urban addition 35 Ceremonial pile 37 In progress, to Sherlock 38 Causing puckers

39 Fed. benefits agency 43 N. Zealand’s highest peak 44 “Deep penetrating pain relief” brand 45 Subject to a penalty fee, maybe 46 Thumb twiddler 47 Capone henchman

48 More wise 49 Roof overhang 51 2007 A.L. MVP 52 Vena __ 53 Gossip column couple 54 “Coming Home” actor 56 Language suffix 57 Letters for Louis Quatorze 58 Lemony quencher

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

xwordeditor@aol.com

09/05/12

the brown daily herald Wednesday, september 5, 2012

/ /Courses page 2

tests and peerreviewed written assignments.

The classes on Coursera — as well as on competing platform edX, which Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology use — are commonly referred to as massive open online courses, or MOOCs. They have often been portrayed by admirers as a way to democratize education and spread knowledge on a grand scale, while others have criticized the platform as an ineffectual mode of instruction and grading.

Brown’s partnership with Coursera, which first approached the University in April, will be announced publicly later this month, Bergeron said. The first three University professors slated to offer courses on the platform are Professor of Classics Susan Alcock, Professor of Computer Science Philip Klein and Professor of Comparative Literature Arnold Weinstein. Bergeron said their classes will bring a fresh perspective to Coursera, which has often been used more for databased math and science classes. “There is something, I think, very exciting about just having some excellent Brown faculty who don’t do things by the book represented on the platform,” she said.

The University chose Coursera because the platform “already had a number of institutional partners” when it approached Brown, Bergeron added in an email to The Herald. EdX, one of Coursera’s competitors, only operated at MIT and Harvard last spring, though the platform added the University of Cali-

fornia at Berkeley this summer. Unlike Coursera, edX is nonprofit.

The committee’s report also noted the opportunity for such a platform to promote the University’s brand internationally.

The pilot project to offer online introductory courses to Brown undergraduates for credit constitutes a less common and more extensive adoption of new technology by the University. In 2013, some summer classes will be offered wholly online, marking the first time the University will award non-transfer credit for courses taken outside the traditional classroom.

The committee’s report made clear that the project is the initial step on a path that has the potential to revolutionize the college experience. The report drew parallels between today’s educational landscape and that of the Morrill Act, which established the United States’ system of land-grant colleges and expanded access to education. “It ultimately transformed the nature and style of education in the United States,” the committee wrote in the report. “There are good reasons to look back to this time in considering our current historical moment.”

The move is, in part, designed to address the issue of large introductory courses, which many students take only as prerequisites, Bergeron said.

But there is some indication the decision will disappoint many on campus.

The committee’s recommendation came on the heels of a survey sent out to stu-

dents last spring, in which 59 percent of respondents said the University should not conduct for-credit online courses, while 24 percent said it should. The committee also got student input from focus groups it conducted in May with 15 undergraduates, Bergeron said.

The committee noted and understood students’ preference for in-person classes, Bergeron said. But members wondered if courses like introductory lectures might be more effectively conducted online. “Students (in the focus groups) said, ‘There are a lot of courses that we take that aren’t really ‘Brown’ courses,’” Bergeron added. “Interestingly, there was a kind of funny consensus that seemed to grow up around the idea that … maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have some alternative modes of instruction for those kinds of classes.”

The committee’s report outlined four additional recommendations beyond those addressed by the pilot projects.

These are introducing “flipped” large introductory classes in which students watch lectures online at home and collaborate on problems during class, improved and streamlined technology help for faculty, upper-level seminars allowing Brown students to design online courses and a greater use of technology in language courses, including online courses for more obscure languages that are offered in conjunction with other universities. Those recommendations will be discussed and considered over the academic year, Bergeron added.

// Neuro page 1 thought, including me, that it might just shut down altogether,” said John Donoghue PhD’79 P’09 P’12, a professor of neuroscience, director of the Brown Institute of Brain Science and co-leader on the second phase of the BrainGate clinical trials, BrainGate2.

Since that catalyzing discovery, researchers have been working to create sensors to implant in the brain to pick up the neural signals, algorithms to translate the complicated patterns of firing neurons and external devices for the algorithms to control.

Ultimately, the researchers hope to remove the external devices altogether and reconnect the brain to paralyzed muscles using the Functional Electrical Stimulation technology being developed at Case Western University. Doing so would involve surgically implanting wires in patients’ limbs that would replace their damaged connections in order to directly stimulate their own muscles.

Donoghue said early simulations suggest such a system is possible but is likely years away.

searchers ask participants to first imagine doing a specific action. For example, a participant may watch a computer cursor move around the screen and then imagine that he is moving it himself.

Such a thought will stimulate neurons in his motor cortex, and researchers can then pick up and record that sequence using the sensor implanted in his brain.

They then calibrate the algorithm so that the cursor’s movement will align with the way the participant imagines it moving.

But the method does not work perfectly. Two participants — Hutchinson and a 66-year-old tetraplegic man — controlled robotic arms and attempted to reach, touch and grasp small foam balls, according to the May 2012 paper.

Hutchinson tried out both a robotic prosthetic arm and an arm mounted on a table, while the other participant only worked with the prosthetic arm.

Both arms came from outside companies.

Hutchinson was able to touch the ball in about 60 percent of her trials. With the mounted arm, she was able to grasp the target around 20 percent of the time and with the prosthetic, around 45 percent of the time. She performed almost 160 trials in total. The other participant was able to touch the ball in over 95 percent of his 45 trials and grasp it in around 60 percent.

One of the reasons that the partici-

pants were unable to control the arms perfectly is that neural signals vary in ways the researchers do not completely understand.

“Even if you repeat the same action every time, the neurons don’t do the exact same thing,” Donoghue said. To program the arms, the team uses a statistical framework that takes into account the neural firings of past trials to determine a subject’s probable intention.

“You sort of take a guess,” Donoghue said. “It’s a well-established mathematical framework that comes from computer science.”

Mixed signals Though the premise is simple, translating neural signals into usable commands is a difficult endeavor in practice.

In order to calibrate their interfaces, re-

daily herald the Brown

www.browndailyherald.com 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I.

Claire Peracchio, President Rebecca Ballhaus, Vice President

Danielle Marshak, Treasurer Siena DeLisser, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement and once during Orientation by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community.

POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906.

Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily.

Copyright 2011 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved. editorial

By Mel Rosen (c)2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

09/05/12

(401) 351-3372 herald@browndailyherald.com

Business

(401) 351-3260 gm@browndailyherald.com

Motor learning One limitation of the study is that the researchers did not address motor learning — changes in individuals’ response abilities as they practice, wrote Jose Contreras-Vidal, the director of the Laboratory for Noninvasive Brain-Machine Interface Systems and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston who was not involved in the study, in an email to The Herald.

“That’s one of the things we’re embarking on now,” Donoghue said. “If you practice, if you’re trained in some specific way, can you learn to get better? … Does learning matter? It would be almost unimaginable that it wouldn’t.”

One of the issues in studying motor learning is that it requires participants to live with the brain implant for many years. Hutchinson had her implant for over five years, but it had to be plugged in to a power source by someone else.

The goal is to develop a completely wireless, long-lasting system. Such a system would require a new type of longlasting battery or a way to harness energy from the body for power. They also need to develop materials that can survive the “hostile environment” of the body, Donoghue said.

Donoghue said picking up neural signals from outside of the scalp would be ideal, but that doing so may be impos/ / Neuro page 5 sible.

the brown daily herald Wednesday, september 5, 2012

campus news 3

UCS proposes new initiatives

By Katherine Cusumano Senior Staff Writer

The newly elected executive board of the Undergraduate Council of Students will serve in a year of transition as members work with President Christina Paxson in her first year as the University’s leader while also seeking to implement projects that have a direct impact on student experience.

“Every year is a fresh start,” said UCS treasurer Sam Gilman ’15, citing strong leadership and the opportunity to redefine the role of the governing body as the council’s strengths this semester.

A significant year The council hopes to ease Paxson’s transition to the Brown community and ensure communication between students and administrators.

Paxson, whom UCS President Anthony White ’13 described as willing to learn, has encouraged dialogue between her office and the council.

“I like to think we’re friends,” White said.

White has additional meetings set up with Paxson in the upcoming weeks to further clarify the role of UCS, said Alexander Kaplan ’14, chair of the Student Activities Committee and a Herald staff writer.

Paxson has stated that if the University is going to be competitive, it must improve its capacity to fund all student needs, White said. Financial aid is a “salient issue on campus,” making it a priority for UCS and administration, said White, who cofounded the student group Brown for Financial Aid last semester. Aid ensures diversity and comfortable living for Brown students, he said.

The council also hopes to increase funding for the student activities endowment, Kaplan said. The council created the endowment several years ago with the intent to help reduce the student activities fee.

Increasing funding for student activities involves outreach to alums and a positive student relationship with University advancement, White said.

There is currently no opportunity for Category S student groups to receive funding, Gilman said. With just a small amount of funding, student ingenuity can make a larger difference in the Providence community, he said.

White said students who want to provide for the greater Providence community should have the ability to do so.

“Students should be the main focus on campus,” Kaplan said, adding that groups must receive more funding to carry out programs and events.

What is a Brown education?

White also cited establishing a student advocate program as a goal for his presidency. The program educates students about their rights as students and includes counsel about disciplinary action, codes of conduct and navigating the University bureaucracy.

Abby Braiman ’15, chair of the Admissions and Student Services Committee, said the program marks renewed focus on student rights, privileges and capabilities.

The program would be modeled after advocacy programs already es-

tablished at the University of California at Los Angeles and University of California at Berkeley, White said.

Their programs have been in effect for about 30 years, and White said they have reached an “expert level” — with training and experience, students can represent one another in discipline.

“Brown would have to evolve to that system,” White said, adding that it would take two to three years before a “truly solid program” could be built.

Within their respective committees, each of the five chairs on the UCS executive board has different priorities all intended to improve overall student experience.

Manya-Jean Gitter ’14, chair of the Academics and Administrative Affairs Committee, said her committee plans to work with the Swearer Center for Public Service to integrate social justice into the curriculum through seminars and service in the wider Providence community.

Afia Kwakwa ’14, chair of the Campus Life Committee, said she has been working over the summer to improve dining and residential life.

Her committee recently oversaw the addition of nutritional information onto campus eatery websites. In the future, she said she hopes to increase hydration in the gymnasiums and release a UCS iPhone application.

The council’s mix of new perspectives and experienced members gives them the ideal balance of institutional knowledge and fresh ideas, White said.

As with any group, there are many perspectives and conflicting ideas, White said, but he added that members have an obligation to serve and “can work it out.”

“Strong ideas and strong views are a strength,” Gilman said.

Restoring order The council has also implemented changes that will go into effect this semester to facilitate its relationship with the Undergraduate Finance Board. A contentious debate arose last semester between the council and UFB after UCS proposed an amendment that would allow the council to

determine its own funding without UFB approval. The proposal, which did not pass when put to a campuswide referendum, revealed larger issues with the relationships between the two bodies.

UCS and UFB set up a joint committee last semester to assess the UCS-UFB relationship. The council will continue to submit a budget to UFB, but the committee clarified that UFB is a subsidiary of UCS, White said.

This clarification was not just a rebranding of the same organizations, said Zak Fischer ’13, chair of UFB. The UFB vice-chair will now be responsible for monitoring UCS finances. Before this change, UCS — which is considered a student government group — was previously treated like a Category III student group and was overseen by a UFB representative, Fischer wrote in an email to The Herald. This system will be more thorough and efficient, he added.

UCS and UFB have also arranged bilateral exchanges of information through emails and meetings. While UCS members were already required to attend UFB meetings, UFB members will now also be required to attend UCS meetings to improve communication.

“Anthony is very committed to creating that alliance with UFB,” Gitter said.

The UCS referendum last semester “kind of came out of nowhere,” Kaplan said, adding that he felt UCS general body members were not consulted in the decision. The council will also prioritize improving communication within UCS itself and ensuring transparency within the council, he said.

Increasing visibility on campus is also a priority for UCS and UFB. Students should understand both what their government does and their stake in it, White said.

“Hand-in-hand with transparency comes student outreach,” Gilman said. Though he acknowledges that students may not have a direct interest in every decision made by UCS, he said they should have access to those decisions.

/ /Faculty page 12

Paxson and Schlissel how they foresee the University responding to the increasing presence of online education. “We need to approach it somewhat cautiously,” Paxson said, describing it as a platform “to enhance what we have.” One idea she described was to use an online course to connect students in different places of the world at the same time. Schlissel added that the University will be joining Coursera, a forprofit online class initiative that includes universities like Stanford University and Princeton.

Schlissel acknowledged the recent controversy around the closing of the Taft Avenue Daycare Center, calling it “a huge disruption” for the families involved. He added that the University “worked hard to mitigate” the consequences of the closure, noting that a committee on the subject was formed during the summer.

The Humanities Initiative, a project started in 2010 to promote the study of humanities, recently allocated over $100,000 in grants, said Kevin

McLaughlin P’12, dean of the faculty.

In addition, two outside professors will come to Brown during the academic year as a part of the initiative — Andrew Laird, professor of classical literature at the University of Warwick, and Jennifer Gonzalez, associate professor of history of art and visual culture at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

In light of the recent changes to tenure regulations, Mary Louise Gill, professor of philosophy and chair of the Faculty Executive Committee, brought up the FEC’s intention to clarify concerns about promotion regulations and the status of lecturers. McLaughlin shared statistics on newly recruited faculty. Of the 80 new faculty members, one-third are lecturers or senior lecturers, and of the tenured or tenure-track hires, one-third are tenured and two-thirds are on the tenure track.

Other areas of focus mentioned were recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty, working with the Graduate Student Council and identifying spaces to renovate.

4 campus news / / Penn page 1 erupted in November 2011 when a grand jury indicted Sandusky for abusing young boys who attended programs run by Second Mile, his charitable organization. As the controversy evolved and entered into public view, it became clear the abuse had oc-

curred for years and that several officials at Penn State had “repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the authorities, the Board of Trustees, Penn State community and the public at large,” the report reads.

Immediately following the scandal,

many fans and observers insisted Paterno, who had a reputation as a coach of integrity, had not been aware of any misconduct. The recent report casts serious doubt on that possibility.

Freeh said the behavior of Paterno and others at Penn State indicated a “cal-

the brown daily herald Wednesday, september 5, 2012 lous and shocking disregard for child victims.”

After a heavily publicized trial, Sandusky was convicted in June on 45 of 48 counts of sexual assault against 10 different boys.

Since Freeh announced the findings

of his report, public opinion has turned decidedly against Paterno. A statue of Paterno located outside of Penn State’s football stadium was taken down in July.

The Howard D. Williams ’17/Joseph V. Paterno ’50 Football Coaching Chair was also renamed in the past year, but for reasons that predate the Penn State scandal.

Paterno was inducted into the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame in 1977, but his status could now also be in jeopardy. The Hall of Fame’s board of directors will meet this month to discuss the matter, the Providence Journal reported in August.

Paterno played football for Brown as an undergraduate and still shares the record for most career interceptions.

An earlier version of this article appeared online July 17.

the brown daily herald Wednesday, september 5, 2012 / / Neuro page 2 But Contreras-Vidal’s lab is working on doing just that, using a technique called EEG. External sensors avoid the surgical risks of internal ones, he wrote. Additionally, they can pick up signals from a wider area of cortex than small internal sensors.

“We believe that the capability of EEG to acquire signals from large portions of the distributed neural networks involved in action production is essential to our success,” he wrote.

Contreras-Vidal wrote that his team does not know the limits of using EEG recordings to decode neural signals, but added that their results seem promising.

They have not yet done any tests on clinical populations, like the BrainGate2 team.

Restoring language Despite the excitement surrounding controlling robotic arms, restoring communication is paramount to restoring movement for many paralyzed people.

Daniel Bacher, a senior researcher

and development engineer on the BrainGate2 team, is focused on this task. His work involves designing new keyboard interfaces that participants can control using neural cursors. He also works to improve the algorithms for cursor control.

Donoghue said traditional keyboards are antithetical to paralyzed patients’ needs. The traditional layout came about in the days of typewriters, the keys of which would often jam. Thus keyboards were purposefully designed so that letters that are often typed next to each other are spaced far apart.

For a participant using a neural cursor, such a layout is impractical because it requires moving the cursor back and forth, a slow and tedious process.

Bacher said that though Hutchinson’s coffee-drinking has received a lot of attention from the press, for him, one of the most rewarding moments came a few days later when she tested a new keyboard he had designed for her.

campus news 5 He was explaining how to use this new keyboard, and she suddenly started typing letters. “She very simply typed, ‘Thank you,’” he said, “and just looked so happy with a smile on her face.”

Kathryn Tringale ’12, a former BrainGate2 research assistant who now works at MGH as a fulltime clinical neurotechnology research assistant with the project, said designing communication interfaces is really about designing products that participants enjoy using.

Bacher said that they also work to make their interfaces intuitive, following the philosophy Apple uses to design their products.

Going Forward “There are really two main things

that people want back who are in this state,” Bacher said, referring to those with paralysis. “One is control of their environment, and the second is to express their personality.”

Over the past six to seven years, the BrainGate research team has made considerable progress toward those two goals. They have tested their interfaces ­— ranging from computer cursors to robotic prosthetic arms — on seven different participants, two of whom are currently enrolled in ongoing trials. They have enabled paralyzed people to send emails, chat online, play computer games and drink coffee. And in the process, they have learned a tremendous amount about the basic science behind the brain.

Despite their remarkable progress,

their ultimate goal of completely restoring independence to paralyzed people remains far off.

“Everything is too far behind for me,” Donoghue said, but he added that everyone working on the project is driven by the possibility of restoring independence and dignity to paralyzed patients. “Having someone care for you all the time … it takes away a lot of what we consider our humanity,” he said.

“We’re all optimistic that we’re on the path to help people,” said Leigh Hochberg ’90, a professor of engineering and co-director of the BrainGate2 research effort. “It’s an amazing team.”

— With additional reporting by Shefali Luthra

8 campus news

the brown daily herald Wednesday, september 5, 2012

10 editorial & letter Editorial

First glimpse into November At the Republican National Convention Aug. 30, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney delivered arguably the most important speech of his already distinguished life. In 38 minutes and to chants of “USA!,” Romney unexpectedly presented himself as not just a bottom-line corporate executive — as he has tended to do — but as a vulnerable human being. His speech wasn’t perfect by any means, but over the course of one evening, Romney managed to transform himself in the eyes of many from a corporate scapegoat to a legitimate challenger to the presidency. As we welcome new students and greet old ones back to Brown, we encourage everyone to pay especially close attention to the campaign for the two months leading up to the election, a day that could affect the path of our futures after Brown.

Heavily reputed as a politically and socially literate campus, Brown is an ideal environment for facilitating meaningful discussions and debates about the upcoming election. This is extremely pertinent considering the strong biases currently found in the mainstream media, as well as its continual focus on trivial events instead of the issues at hand. We believe students should critically assess both Romney’s and President Barack Obama’s stances on issues such as student loans, health care and job creation. While many will likely side with Obama on social topics such as abortion, rape, gay rights and marijuana legalization, it is less clear which candidate would better serve college graduates with their accumulated student debt and in their search for desirable employment.

With aggregate student loan debt in the U.S. at $914 billion, both Romney and Obama have offered plans to curb rising college expenses. While Obama would extend Pell Grants and make permanent the American Opportunity Tax Credit — which provides college students with an annual sum of up to $2,500 — Romney would shift the issue of student loans to private lenders, a method consistent with his ideals of free-market and limited government.

During the RNC, Romney also vaguely but confidently promised to create 12 million new jobs if elected president, a statement impressive in delivery, if not in pragmatism. We are not beguiled by rhetoric from either side, but their starkly opposite methods of dealing with rising college expenses begs the question of which method is better.

Of course, popular appeal is an immense factor. While Obama seems like the guy you would want to share a drink with — presumably the White House Honey Ale — Romney is portrayed as stricter and more reserved. (Mormons are discouraged from consuming alcohol, anyway). We Brunonians, however, have to examine this election from a holistic standpoint and critically discern not only which candidate best stands for our ideals and values, but also who can provide the best solution for sound financial and professional futures. This in turn forces the question of what we value more: our ideals or our futures?

We are extremely excited for the months ahead and strongly encourage all students to be active in political discussion and debate, familiarize themselves with each candidate’s platforms and, most importantly, vote for their futures Nov. 6.

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

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

Managing Editors

Senior Editors

Claire Peracchio

Rebecca Ballhaus Nicole Boucher

Tony Bakshi Natalie Villacorta Business

editorial Sarah Mancone Arts & Culture Editor Joe Rosales Arts & Culture Editor Elizabeth Carr City & State Editor Amy Rasmussen City & State Editor Aparna Bansal Features Editor Jordan Hendricks Features Editor Lucy Feldman News Editor Shefali Luthra News Editor Alexandra Macfarlane News Editor Sahil Luthra Science Editor Jake Comer Sports Editor Lindor Qunaj Sports Editor Sam Rubinroit Assistant Sports Editor Dan Jeon Editorial Page Editor Annika Lichtenbaum Editorial Page Editor Lucas Husted Opinions Editor Garret Johnson Opinions Editor Jared Moffat Opinions Editor Greg Jordan-Detamore Special Projects Graphics & Photos Emily Gilbert Photo Editor Sam Kase Photo Editor Tom Sullivan Photo Editor Rachel Kaplan Photo Training Manager Jonathan Bateman Sports Photo Editor Production Olivia Conetta Copy Desk Chief Kyle McNamara Design Editor Julia Shube Design Editor Neal Poole Web Producer

General Managers Siena DeLisser Danielle Marshak

Office Manager Shawn Reilly

Directors Julia Kuwahara Samuel Plotner Nikita Khadloya Angel Lee

Sales Finance Alumni Relations Business Development

the brown daily herald Wednesday, september 5, 2012

Editorial cartoon b y a n d r e w a n ta r

Interested in creating editorial cartoons?

Contact herald.design@gmail.com for more information!

Are you a future business leader?

The Brown Daily Herald Business Staff is looking for motivated, hardworking students to work in ad sales or financial management. No prior experience is needed–just a desire to learn real-world business skills and help produce Brown’s only daily newspaper. We’re financially independent from the university, so it’s up to you to keep the presses running!

Interested? Sign up at thebdh.org/joinbusiness to find out how to apply.

(We promise we won’t spam you.)

quote of the day

“As you march up the layers, you effectively march through time.”

— Ralph Milliken, assistant professor of geological sciences See mars on page 12.

Managers Justin Lee Kaivan Shroff Gregory Chatzinoff Luka Ursic Alison Pruzan Elizabeth Gordon David Winer

Human Resources Research & Development Collections Finance Operations Alumni Engagement Fundraising Marketing

Post- magazine Clay Aldern Jenny Carr

Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief

BLOG DAILY HERALD Matt Klimerman Meredith Bilski

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor

facebook.com/browndailyherald

@the_herald

thebdh.org

C ORRE C T I ON S P o licy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

C o mm e n ta r y P O L I C Y The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

L e t t e r s t o t h e Edi t o r P o licy Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. adv e r t isi n g P o licy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

opinions 11

the brown daily herald Wednesday, september 5, 2012

The extinction of the moderate Garret Johnson Opinions Columnist While most coverage of the 2012 election focuses on Barack “You Didn’t Build That” Obama and Mitt “Corporations Are People, Too” Romney, there is a monumental story that is getting almost zero media attention: the extinction of the moderate politician.

This election cycle marks the end of several notable moderate politicians’ careers. Centrist senators Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Jim Webb, D-Va., Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, will all retire in January 2013.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, dozens of centrist candidates are in danger of losing their seats to challengers on the far left and right. U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, said that his decision to leave was fueled by the growing extremism on both sides. “Words like compromise have been like dirty words,” he said upon announcing that he would not seek reelection.

These sad comments from a devoted public servant demonstrate the severity of the problem. Moderates are fleeing Washington because their voices are being drowned out by the screams of the Tea Party and the radical left. And just as our government is becoming more polarized, so, too, are the American people. A recent

study showed that rates of “split-ticket” voting — voting for both Democrats and Republicans on the same ballot — have decreased dramatically since the 1980s.

So what’s the big deal? Who cares that there are more liberals and conservatives in Washington, and less moderates?

The problem is that people on both extremes are unlikely to compromise. With increasing polarization, political parties become less like a gathering place for people with similar views and more like interest groups devoted to ideological purity. Anyone whose views stray from the party platform is in danger of punishment

about bringing our troops home safely, or creating jobs, McConnell was focused on taking down Obama.

Similarly, policies proposed by the opposite party, no matter how well crafted they may be, are automatically dismissed.

There is no greater example of this than the much-maligned individual mandate in Obamacare. While Romney and the GOP lambast the policy as an assault on freedom, it was the conservative Heritage Foundation that came up with the idea for an insurance mandate — not to mention the fact that Obama’s bill is modeled after the legislation that Romney signed into

This reality, where party lines are insurmountable barriers and compromise is vilified, is nothing short of a crisis.

by party elders.

What’s worse is that people from the opposing party are seen as enemies. When President Obama took office in 2009, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., proclaimed that his number one job was to make sure that Obama was a one-term president . Keep in mind that, at the time, the country was just beginning to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and was in the midst of two wars. Rather than thinking

law as governor of Massachusetts. Despite Obamacare’s similarities to reform efforts proposed by Republicans, it was a Democrat who signed the bill. Therefore, to Republicans, it is no longer good policy.

This reality, where party lines are insurmountable barriers and compromise is vilified, is nothing short of a crisis. In fact, George Washington would say it is downright un-American. Both parties like to quote the founders to back up their support for certain policies, but I’ve nev-

er heard House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi or Romney mention this line on political parties from Washington’s farewell address: “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge … is itself a frightful despotism.”

Washington’s words are 216 years old, but they speak to exactly what we are witnessing today. The American government is being hijacked by the extremists of both parties. Today’s “do-nothing” government is exactly the type of frightful despotism against which Washington tried to warn us. The scariest part is what Washington said could come next.

He warned that the misery and dysfunction that result from hyper partisanship “gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction … turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

And while the public liberty may not be on the verge of ruin, Washington’s words should propel us into action. Moderates are the key to compromise in government. They build coalitions and allow government business to get done. I urge Brown students and members of the Brown community to support candidates who will put pragmatism over partisanship and won’t be scared to compromise.

Garret Johnson ’14 is a French civilization concentrator who supports Clint Eastwood’s empty chair for reelection.

Abolish the lecture oliver hudson Opinions Columnist A lecture is a great way to acquire knowledge and a poor way to receive an education. A lecture transmits information to students — a line from “Hamlet,” the properties of the mitochondrion or Newton’s second law, for instance. But education has a different goal. Education is not about the absorption of information.

Education is about learning how to think with information — how might I interpret this line from “Hamlet,” what might be significant about it, how could I build it into my paper’s argument? In any endeavor, someone is successful according to how he or she acts on information, not according to how much information he or she knows. Therefore, to foster better thinking and greater success in students, Brown ought to abolish the lecture.

A lecture is an ineffective form of learning for two main reasons. First, a lecture does not engage the audience. Each of us intuitively grasps this. The last time you were in lecture, you probably divided your attention between copying down what the professor said or wrote, checking Facebook and wondering what the Ratty is serving. Even during the time you paid attention and made some notes, you were just receiving information, rather than thoughtfully mulling it over.

Students do not lose focus during lec-

ture because they lack interest in learning.

Rather, students get little out of lecture because the lecture format forces them into a passive role, requiring that they simply absorb the information floated their way.

The hunch each of us has that lectures do not stimulate our creative faculties is supported by respected scientific research. There is evidence that brains are hardly active during lectures. In 2010, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers published a study concluding that

learning.

The lecture’s second major flaw is that it promotes dependency. A lecture reinforces the notion that learning is about seeking out and relying on an expert’s ­— the professor’s — views, rather than thinking for oneself. A lecture gives us the illusion that by going to class, taking good notes and passing tests, one has engaged in deep thought.

True deep thought, though, is a solitary process of asking probing questions

A lecture gives us the illusion that by going to class, taking good notes, and passing tests, one has engaged in deep thought.

brain activity during lecture resembled brain-dead levels in some students and only TV-watching levels in others. Jere Brophy, a prominent educational psychologist, has presented research throughout his career suggesting that students learn best when teachers frequently employ class participation. Of course, a lecture does just the opposite: It minimizes class participation. By drawing on personal experience and a body of scientific evidence, one can come to grips with the fact that lecture is indeed a suboptimal way of

and struggling to piece together answers.

But as students begin to associate the activities of a lecture with learning, they become less inclined to think of learning as a personal pursuit.

We should replace the lecture with both smaller classes and professors who teach by the Socratic method. The Socratic method is a teaching style in which the professor asks his students question after question, usually designed to expose faulty reasoning in the students’ answers. Each student learns to arrive at

logical conclusions by rethinking and reforming his or her conclusions. The process is perhaps the most effective way of giving a student an active role in learning. In short, the active Socratic method is the opposite of the passive lecture. If adopted, the Socratic method of teaching would allow students and professors to understand Socrates’ maxim: “I cannot teach anyone anything. I can only make them think.” This mindset would enhance Brown’s stated mission of being a place of “free inquiry.”

Many will say that abolishing the lecture is impractical. The obvious argument against abolition is that costs would rise to accommodate smaller classes. But there is plenty of room to cut costs in other areas.

Brown’s budget is fit for a different discussion, but it is no secret that classroom-related expenditures ­— professors’ salaries, teaching materials, et cetera — ­ make up only a small fraction of Brown’s overhead costs and that smaller classes would in fact be feasible.

The great achievement of the New Curriculum was that it gave the student an active role in education. We now need to take the spirit of the New Curriculum one step farther. We ought to reconsider not just what people learn, but also how they learn.

Oliver Hudson ’14 can be reached at oliver_hudson@brown.edu. He welcomes your feedback, unless you plan to lecture him.

daily herald Feature the Brown

Wednesday, september 5, 2012

Shopping period tradition thrives among students

By Elizabeth Koh Senior staff writer

“What are you shopping?”

As students settle into the academic year at Brown, they are as likely to be greeted with that line as “Hello” or “How are you?” — and it doesn’t refer to textbooks or dorm supplies.

Shopping period, one of the University’s most esteemed traditions, is a two-week period at the beginning of each semester during which students can freely “shop” courses before choosing which to take. For many students, it involves a complicated schedule of class sorting and juggling crammed into an already stressful first two weeks of the academic semester. Though every student’s approach to Banner’s bottomless cart is different, shopping period has become one of the defining features of a Brown education.

Through the ages Brown isn’t the only university to offer a shopping period — other schools with shopping periods include Harvard, Yale and non-Ivies such as Pennsylvania State University and Brandeis University.

At Brown, shopping period grew out of the process of adding and dropping courses, which existed in the late 1960s. But back then, changing courses required written permission from the teaching professor of the class, said Ken Miller ’70, professor of biology.

“It was kind of a pain,” he said, but

despite the hassle, “there certainly was a fair amount of switching in and out.”

Shopping period in its current form surfaced later as “an ancillary practice of the new curriculum” implemented in 1969, wrote Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron in an email to The Herald.

By the 1980s, the idea of shopping period was “well established,” said Miller, who returned as a faculty member in 1980. The first mention of the term “shopping period” in The Herald’s own archives appears in 1986, listed as an “unofficial Brown tradition” among a selection of “Facts for Frosh.” Though students were still required to use add/ drop forms, they have since disappeared from the course selection process.

Today, shopping period is “an absolutely essential part of the Brown academic experience,” Miller said. “It’s the way we do things here.”

Shop ’til the drop Many students today take full advantage of shopping period’s freedom.

Over the past two years, the University Registrar calculated an average of 25,000 courses added on Banner during shopping period and an average of 51,000 course drops each semester.

The numbers are generally representative of the large amount of shopping that takes place in the first two weeks of the semester, Bergeron wrote in her email.

Melanie Fineman ’14 said Brown’s tradition of shopping courses provides “so many avenues to explore.” Fine-

At inaugural meeting, Paxson outlines goals to faculty

By Kate DeSimone Senior Staff Writer

President Christina Paxson introduced some of her broad goals for the first year of her presidency during Tuesday’s faculty meeting, the first of the academic year. Plans to improve financial aid and strengthen the University’s resources figured prominently in the priorities she outlined.

Making Brown affordable was a central theme to Paxson’s first meeting.

“Financial aid is very important,” Paxson said, adding that it’s “something we need to keep pushing on.”

Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 emphasized that the University should continue to be “accessible to the full breadth of potential students.” He sympathized with student initiatives calling for the end of need-aware admission for transfer, resumed undergraduate and international students, but conceded there is a “tremendous opportunity cost” of making all admissions need-blind.

While Paxson said there are “a lot of exciting things on the table” in her administration’s planning process, calling it an “opportunity to chart the future of Brown for the next decade and beyond,” many of the goals brought up at the meeting focused on expanding existing institutions and initiatives.

Schlissel recounted that when Paxson came to campus for the first time, she told him that the University seemed in “pretty good shape.” As the University is not in the midst of any major crisis, “it’s not a good time for a revolution,” Schlissel said.

Paxson said the three major themes

underlying her administration’s plans for Brown are excellence, innovation and service. One goal is to ensure that faculty have the resources necessary to continue to achieve excellence, she said. Under the Plan for Academic Enrichment, a cornerstone of former President Ruth Simmons’ tenure, and the Campaign for Academic Enrichment fundraising campaign, the University has grown stronger throughout the past decade, Paxson said, but “the resources we need for great research haven’t quite caught up to” the growth of the faculty.

Paxson and Schlissel brought up innovation in the context of the New Curriculum. Now is “a great time to take a hard look at that,” Paxson said, “not overturning it,” but considering ways to build on it and integrate global experiences.

Paxson also addressed the University’s identity and direction, arguing that though many universities “have given up on undergraduate education” in favor of research, Brown has shown it is possible to excel at both. In addition, Paxson said the University wants to develop programs to serve the public good — “that came out very clearly” in conversations with faculty, she said.

A repeated theme was the need to effectively implement technological advances in education. Paxson expressed hope that, as the University becomes more dispersed spatially, technology will maintain the sense of community that she said balances the University’s characteristics of independence and innovation. Bill Warren, professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological / / Faculty page 3 sciences, asked

man, a history concentrator, shopped 13 courses in three days last semester.

“It’s kind of daunting in a way because I’m responsible for getting out of Brown what I want to get out of Brown,” she said of the system. Still, the opportunity to shop for classes is “phenomenal,” she said.

Fineman added that she has a spreadsheet worth of classes to shop this semester.

But not all students take the same approach. Liz Neu ’14, a math and computer science concentrator, said when she first arrived at Brown, she did not shop many classes.

“I picked out some classes that I knew I wanted to take, and I was set,” she said of her first semester. “The whole idea of shopping was very foreign.”

Now a rising junior, Neu said she wishes she had shopped more.

“I liked my classes, but I think if I’d shopped, I could have found (more) classes that I loved,” she said.

Neu said she finds classes to shop through friends and classmates. This helps her gauge the atmosphere of a class, which is “not included in the course description,” she said. Neu was also involved in testing bestofbrown. com, a website which aims to help students shop by identifying the most popular courses among students.

But some concentrations make shopping more challenging. Abby Plummer ’15, a physics concentrator, said the required sequence of classes within her concentration meant her

shopping period was “very structured.”

“I know that there’s a certain number of classes I have to take, just because a lot of my classes are on a sequence,” she said. “There’s less wiggle room.”

But Plummer can still shop for one or two classes each semester, for which she looks to more far-ranging fields like education and philosophy — “things I don’t know that much about,” she said.

Sitting in on classes is only one aspect of shopping period — students also often seek advice from their Meiklejohn advisers, classmates and faculty members and look through course syllabi on the Brown Course Preview website.

Checks and balance But professors have mixed views on shopping period.

“I love teaching here because almost no student is there because they have to be,” said Luther Spoehr, senior lecturer in education. But some find ways to “game the system.”

Spoehr said some students use registration as a “placeholder” for classes and “expect a seat to be held for them,” which complicates class lists. The constantly shifting attendance, he said, also delays the first few weeks of teaching.

“I can’t do the kinds of things that require continuity,” Spoehr said.

Professor of Engineering Ruth Bahar also questioned the ability of shopping period to provide a full understanding of a course.

“The first two classes carry a lot of weight,” she said. “There’s a lot riding

on just one or two days. It doesn’t give you the full picture.”

In a discipline like engineering, Bahar said, shopping period’s ability to preview classes also had limited benefits.

“If you’re interested in engineering, the first few weeks aren’t going to help you figure it out,” Bahar said. “You really have to go through at least a couple of those semesters.”

Miller said shopping period can complicate classes, especially those with a lab component. Miller, who teaches BIOL 0200: “The Foundation of Living Systems” in the spring, said shopping period “might slow (labs) down by a week.”

Still, professors said that shopping period has its benefits.

In the case of “Living Systems,” Miller said the one-week delay was a “very small price to pay” for the greater flexibility it afforded students.

Bahar said shopping was particularly useful when choosing an elective, especially for students in requirementheavy concentrations like engineering.

“Really make every elective count,” she said. “Shopping is going to help you make that decision.” At the same time, she warned students against shopping too many courses.

“Make sure you can balance (your class schedule) out with an elective you can still manage the workload for,” Bahar said. “You could be juggling six or even seven classes before you decide, and that can really make you crazy.”

Prof adjusts to life on Mars time

By Alexandra Macfarlane News Editor

While most professors and students are adjusting to the schedule of the new year, one professor is adjusting to Mars time, a day 40 minutes longer than our own. Ralph Milliken, assistant professor of geological sciences, is spending most of fall semester as a member of the science team on the NASA Mars Science Laboratory Rover mission.

Living on Mars time “takes some getting used to,” Milliken said, adding that he uses blackout curtains to help him adjust to the constantly shifting schedule of a different planet. Milliken’s team is also learning to manage the nature of a rover mission, he said, where scientists must process new data daily to decide on a plan for the coming day.

“It’s a rapid turnaround,” he said, adding that with only a couple of hours to make tactical decisions for the rover, the science team doesn’t have the same timeline as other scientists. “It’s tricky getting used to that mentality,” Milliken said.

The rover Curiosity landed on Mars in the Gale Crater Aug. 6 as part of a mission to determine whether the planet ever had a climate that could have supported life.

Milliken is spending most of this semester working in the jet propulsion lab for the rover, located in Los Angeles, though the goal is for him to be acquainted with the operation mechanisms enough to work remotely after around 90 days, he said.

From the technical difficulties of landing a rover to daily monitoring of incoming data, there has been no

shortage of tasks for the entire team.

Though the science team will work with other planning and engineering crews throughout the course of the mission, the scientists meet with each other at the end of each day to present what they have found in the newly acquired data, Milliken said. His team is composed of around 400 other scientists who hold a variety of roles.

Because this mission is a oncein-a-lifetime experience that yields fascinating results, the scientists work most days and have a hard time leaving, Milliken said.

Milliken said he is most interested in the images the rover has been able to provide. He has been studying views of the mountainous rover site for five or six years and now has a unique surface vantage point of this area.

With this added view, Milliken said he is gaining “a better sense of the three-dimensional aspect of the rocks.” With three dimensions, the team can understand how the rocks that make up the mountain were actually deposited — an advantage over using two-dimensional images.

One thing the team hopes to learn is whether Mars had a wet climate, Milliken said, adding that the team is using a mountainous study site which could hold records of the drying of the planet in each layer of the mountain.

The bottom rocks may have some evidence of water channels while higher layers do not, Millken said, evidence of climate change over time.

“As you march up the layers, you effectively march through time,” Milliken said.

The site at which the rover landed

in early August was one of the four final possible landing areas, Milliken said. A vast scientific society came together to propose and debate upon the landing sites, he said adding that a list of 50 or 60 was then narrowed down to four.

For other scientists, different sites held more potential to examine habitability than Gale Crater. John Mustard, professor of Geological Sciences, said he would have favored the Mawarth Vallis, a site he said better captures the processes involving water in the early phases of Mars.“If life ever started on Mars, that is where you would have wanted to be,” he said. Despite this potential, this site is “not an easy place to understand,” he said.

Mustard is not part of the rover team, but he has been involved with Mars exploration since 1990 and helped with some initial planning stages of Milliken’s mission.

“I don’t think (Gale Crater) is the place to go” to study habitability, Mustard said, adding that the layers on the mountain might be due to wind and dust, rather than water.

Because the mission was funded

by NASA, the site search committee wanted the mission to inform a larger national community as opposed to a smaller scientific community.

Milliken said he is very enthusiastic about the site, which has fantastic potential for exploring habitability on Mars. The site is also visually stunning ­— the rover inches toward the towering mountain and then climbs up the cliffs to look for signs of life, providing a more compelling story each day, he said.