Monday, September 24, 2012

daily herald the Brown

vol. cxxii, no. 72

INSIDE

Page 5

Genetic diversity Prof finds genetic diversity does not equal success

Monday, September 24, 2012

Luxury apartment plan approved for Thayer Plans for a new upscale apartment complex on Thayer Street between Euclid Avenue and Meeting Street are moving forward after the outlines for the complex, set to be built by Gilbane Development, were approved by the Providence City Council Aug. 1.

Construction on the 257 Thayer building is slated to begin in June 2013, said Robert Gilbane ’71 P’02 P’05, chairman and chief executive officer of Gilbane Development. The complex will have a U-shaped layout, with a courtyard opening out onto Brook, as opposed to the previously proposed closed-off rectangle. More definitive plans regarding the development will be released in the next few months, Gilbane said.

To move ahead with development, there needed to be a zoning change for the entire block stretching between Eu-

clid, Thayer and Brook that would reassign the area to “support high-density residential and limited commercial development,” according to the ordinance amending the city’s zoning code. The proposed construction also required a change to the city’s comprehensive plan to re-classify the area as high-density residential instead of the mix of two zoning classifications that had been previously designated.

The City Plan Commission submitted a recommendation in favor of approving the zoning and comprehensive plan changes, and the city council approved the changes with two votes July 30 and Aug. 1.

Both the Providence Preservation Society and the College Hill Neighborhood Association, local groups dedicated to safeguarding the neighborhood’s integrity, supported the Gilbane project with specific stipulations.

The society asked that Gilbane De/ / Building page 2 velopment

Gilbane Development will begin construction on a new apartment complex at 257 Thayer St., replacing Squires Salon and Sahara Hookah.

The event series is modeled after a similar series in California run by the Leonardo Journal, a publication focused on how science and technology can be applied to art. Greg Sewitz ’13 was familiar with the series and decided to create a Brown/RISD branch.

Sewitz started a Group Independent Study Project last semester that focused on the intersection of science and art, where he met other students who were interested in the lecture series. He brought the idea to the Creative Scholars Project — a community of students and professors at Brown and RISD who come together to discuss and refine creative projects.

They secured funding from the Creative Mind Initiative, a Universitywide program “dedicated to exploring

and expanding creative practice across disciplines at Brown and beyond,” according to its Facebook page.

The event on Thursday featured Jim Head, professor of geological sciences, Jenny Brown, curator of the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants at Harvard and Serkan Ozkaya, a New York-based conceptual artist.

Head presented “Postcards from Another Planet,” a short talk in which he described the NASA missions to the moon and to Mars by using stunning photographs of their surfaces.

RISD students often take his course, GEOL 0050: “Mars, Moon and the Earth,” or “moons for goons,” Head joked. When he shows slides depicting the moon or Mars, they often ask him to slow down so they have time

to examine the aesthetics of the images. Their remarks made him better appreciate the beauty of the scenes, Head said.

In his presentation, he clicked through slides depicting images from NASA missions, including some of ice evaporating, unusual patterns in polar caps and beautiful dunes. Mars is “an absolutely stunning place,” he remarked.

Brown spoke of her work as curator of what is commonly referred to as the “Glass Flowers” collection. The collection includes thousands of individual glass models of plants created by two renowned glassblowers in the late 19th century and early 20th century as a tool for botanical instruction at a time when rigorous / / Art page 2

By Mark Valdez Senior Staff Writer

Page 5

Faculty profile Read The Herald’s Q & A with Professor Anderson Page 7

On strike

Lattanzi-Silveus ’14 defends Chicago teachers’ strike today

68 / 47

tomorrow

71 / 55

since 1891

Courtesy of Union Studio Architects (TOP) Greg Jordan-DEtamore / Herald (Bottom)

Scientific art reaches new heights at interdisciplinary talk Bookstore By kate nussenbaum senior staff writer

On the surface, a geology professor, a museum collection manager and a conceptual artist do not seem to have much in common. But last Thursday all three individuals came together to speak about the combination of art and science present in their work, as part of the first Brown Rhode Island School of Design Art Science Evening Rendezvous (BRASER). After each presented for 20 minutes, the three speakers participated in a joint Q & A session with a small but enthusiastic audience in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.

arts & culture

football

Bears fall to Harvard in home opener

By Lindor Qunaj Sports Editor

Jonathan Bateman / Herald

Though the Bears came out strong in Saturday’s homecoming game, Harvard pulled ahead to victory in the second half.

With national television cameras ready to capture every play, bright lights shining on the field and 14,000 fans in the bleachers, the stage was set for a dramatic Ivy League opener Saturday as the Bears went up against their rival neighbors to the north — the Harvard Crimson.

Despite a strong start in Brown Stadium’s third-ever night game, Bruno (1-1, 0-1 Ivy) fell behind in the second half and lost 45-31 to Harvard (2-0, 1-0 Ivy).

We need to give “credit where credit is due,” said Head Coach Phil Estes after the homecoming game. “Harvard is a very good football team.”

The relentless Crimson defense limited the Bears to 91 rushing yards — fewer than the 120 running back Spiro Theodhosi ’12.5 single-handedly accumulated in last week’s win over the

Holy Cross Crusaders.

“We couldn’t run the ball like we thought we could, we didn’t tackle very well, and we didn’t finish very well,” Estes said. “We can play better.”

The Bears came out hot on the first drive of the game, moving the ball efficiently and going 75 yards for a touchdown in eight plays. The drive was highlighted by quarterback Patrick Donnelly’s ’13 43-yard rocket to wide receiver Jonah Fay ’12.5. The game’s longest completion set the Bears up on the Harvard 27-yard line.

Theodhosi — who was selected for the New England Football Writers Golden Helmet Award after last week’s star performance — followed up with a pair of runs, punctuating the 3-minute, 59-second drive with a one-yard rush into the end zone.

“We ran things to perfection,” Estes said of the first drive.

Harvard quickly retaliated, bringing the ball to / / Football page 3

offers RISD courses’ textbooks By jasmine bala contributing writer

The Brown Bookstore has expanded its textbook selection to include Rhode Island School of Design course books this semester and will also expand its rental program to include books not designated for courses, said Steven Souza, director of the bookstore.

RISD books currently take up almost 20 percent of the total number of books available in the store since the policy was implemented, Souza said. He added that some RISD faculty still have not sent in their book lists, and when they do, the bookstore will add them to its current selection.

RISD students could previously only buy their books online or at the RISD store downtown on North Main Street.

“It was so convenient. … Instead of having to go downtown to buy my course material, I just went to the Brown Bookstore,” said Rhea Belani, a first-year at RISD. The bookstore will profit from selling books for RISD courses, Souza said.

“We’re up thousands of dollars every day thanks to the RISD books.”

RISD students have the option of purchasing their books in person or ordering them from the bookstore online, Souza said, adding, “We ship van loads of books to RISD mailboxes.”

The bookstore’s policy regarding RISD books differs from current policy for Brown books. Students cannot currently rent books for RISD courses, and the store has a limited selection of used RISD books, Souza said.

“With RISD students, things are a / / Books page 2 little different,”

2 campus news / / Books page 1

c alendar Today

SEPT. 24

1:30 P.m.

ToMORROW

SEPT. 25

5:30 p.m.

Intro to Research Computing

Local Authors Night

CIT, Room 219

Brown Bookstore

7 p.m.

6 p.m.

State Department Info. Session

Science Center Trivia Showdown

CareerLAB

Sciences Library , 3rd floor

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH Gnocchi alla Sorrentina, Spicy Black Bean Veggie Patties, Chicken Smoked Calzone, Sauteed Mushrooms

Vegetarian Washington Chowder, French Bread Pepperoni Pizza, White Chocolate Chip Cookies

DINNER Mediterranean Eggplant Saute, Cheese Stuffed Tomatoes, Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Baked Scrod

Grilled Boneless Porkchops, Toasted Ravioli with Italian Salsa, Butternut Squash with Sage

Sudoku

the brown daily herald Monday, September 24, 2012

Souza said. “We have no access to their accounts, and so that makes renting the books out to them difficult. They pay a little more for the books initially, but they recover some of their money in the buyback” at the end of the semester.

The store is also currently trying to expand its number of used RISD textbooks, but Souza said he expects the bulk of these will come from buyback at the end of the semester. He added that the bookstore will follow the same policy for RISD used books as for Brown ones, offering the books at almost 75 percent of the original price.

Though the bookstore offers guaranteed buyback for RISD books, some students found their course books to be overpriced.

“My only complaint regarding the bookstore is that their RISD books are quite expensive,” said Grace Yoon ’16, a dual degree student. “I ended up spending more on my RISD books than on my Brown course textbooks.”

The bookstore plans to expand its

/ / Building page 1

Crossword

move some of the nine houses slated for destruction to another location a few blocks north and that developers document the houses that are demolished for the historical record, said James Hall, the preservation society’s executive director. Gilbane Development has proposed allocating $200,000 to move one house, provided that the Providence Preservation Society pays for the relocation of another house at the same cost, Hall said Over the summer, Gilbane hired a new architecture company — the Providence-based Union Studio Architects — to design the complex after the Providence Preservation Society and the College Hill Neighborhood Association requested the changes. Hall said he thinks the current design is an improvement and better conforms to the architecture of the surrounding area.

Squires Salon and Sahara Hookah are among the buildings to be destroyed to make way for the new development.

Richard Schwaery, owner of Squires, could not be reached for comment about the future of either business.

Allison Spooner, president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association, said the organization does not have a position regarding the current developments, as it needs time to see if Gilbane honors more of the recommendations the group submitted. The association offered eight recommendations in response to Gilbane’s proposal, including that local stakeholders form a committee dedicated to overseeing Thayer’s future development, Spooner said.

rental program beyond course books in coming months.

“We’re going to be renting out a broad spectrum of books,” Souza said. By next semester, the bookstore will offer a large number of books for rent that are not for courses including those in the classics and early literature sections, Souza said.

Students looking to supplement their course reading in these departments with other related materials will greatly benefit from such a program. “Students will be able to read the book and just drop it off at the counter,” Souza said.

Novels that usually cost $10 to $15 in paperback will be rented out at the bookstore for not more than $3 to $4, he added. “It may not be cheaper than ordering books off Amazon, but it is certainly more convenient. With our new policies in place, the price margin between ordering the books on Amazon and buying them at the bookstore is very little,” he said.

“It’s hard to say how much the bookstore will profit from such a venture,” Souza said. “It usually takes three to four rentals before we recover the cost.” .

Responding to concerns, Gilbane submitted a letter of intent July 25 stating that the company will not seek a tax abatement and will participate in a study of the greater Thayer area, according to the website of Providence City Councilman Sam Zurier, whose ward includes the area of the proposed development.

The University will participate in the committee, said Marisa Quinn, vice president of public affairs and University relations. “The development prompted an interest in the coming together of (the College Hill Neighborhood Association), (the Providence Preservation Society) and Brown to consider a shared agenda for the future of Thayer Street … including safety and security and economic development,” Quinn said.

Providence real estate mogul Ed Bishop ’54 P’86 P’91 has also proposed construction on Brook — he has been attempting to rally support to build a $35 million luxury hotel intermittently since 2004. Bishop currently needs to get approval from the City Plan Commission and the city council for similar changes to zoning and the comprehensive plan. He said he will begin pursuing these changes in November.

The Gilbane development plans will go back to the City Plan Commission for further approval and review, Zurier said. There are two stages of review — the master plan and the preliminary plan. The master plan involves all conceptual ideas for development and has been approved, said Robert Azar, acting director of planning and development for the City Plan Commission. The preliminary plan “is much more detailed, with fleshed-out building plans,” he said.

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/ / Art page 1 observation of the natural world characterized much of science education.

The flowers were constructed with an “extraordinarily high degree of scientific accuracy,” Brown said. “They are often described as ‘artistic marvels in the field of science and scientific marvels in the field of art.’”

Ozkaya was the third and final presenter. He discussed two of his projects in which he utilized computer modeling to create his artwork.

The first project he described was his effort to create a version of Michelangelo’s David twice the size of the original by utilizing a 3D model that a computer scientist created. Ozkaya doubled its size and then imitated a three-dimensional printer by dividing the statue into 900 layers and printing outlines of each layer that he later cut out in Styrofoam. He and his team then put the layers together and painted the product gold. They then attempted to install the statue in Istanbul, a city that “doesn’t have that kind of aesthetic,” Ozkaya said, referring to the statue’s renaissance vibe.

Unfortunately, during its installation, the statue toppled to the ground and broke. So Ozkaya tried to replicate the same out-of-place feeling the statue would have invoked in Turkey by putting it back together and parking it sideways on a flat-bed truck in the middle of New York City. The statue was then installed in Louisville, Kentucky, where it now resides.

His second project also involved computer modeling. For “One and Three Pasta,” Ozkaya collaborated with a mathematician to create computer models of popular pasta shapes. The final exhibit will display a real piece of pasta next to a sculpture created by the computer model, in front of an image of the pasta’s equation.

Elizabeth Wolfson, a graduate student and co-facilitator of the Creative Scholars Project, said she enjoyed the event.

“What was most interesting to me were the points of overlap between the three conversations where it was evident that people working in different fields had to develop new skills and new ways of working and new ways of thinking in order to realize the projects that they were aiming to complete,” she said.

To find participants, Sewitz said he looks through websites recommended to him by the people who run the California branch of the series, in addition to reaching out to professors and friends, or friends of friends.

Sewitz said to find lecturers, it was important to bring in people from beyond the Brown and RISD communities.

“In these sort of art and science conversations, it’s typically the same professors that are willing to blur the lines. … I wanted to get an influx of new blood in to stimulate some more discussion.”

The response so far has been “really great,” he said. “People are just excited to embrace and encourage this idea of interdisciplinary collaboration.”

Next month’s event will be held in the RISD Museum Oct. 18, and will feature Casey Dunn, the Brown biology professor who created “CreatureCast,” Neal Overstrom, the director of the RISD Nature Lab and Andrea Grover, the curator of the touring “Intimate Science” exhibit.

the brown daily herald Monday, September 24, 2012

Bruno maintains undefeated streak

By Maria Acabado SPORTS STAFF WRITER

The men’s water polo team continued its undefeated start to the inaugural home campaign at the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center, defeating Connecticut College (1-6) 15-7 and St. Francis (6-4) 14-9 this weekend.

The Bears (15-2) had little trouble against the Camels on Friday. Captain Svetozar Stefanovic ’13 scored the most for Bruno with five goals and one steal. James McNamara ’14 turned in a similarly strong performance with four goals, three assists and three steals. The Bears established themselves early in the game and remained in control until the final buzzer.

The team was able to “practice different line-ups and perfect our team defense” against Connecticut College, McNamara said.

The Saturday game against St. Francis proved to be a closer competition. The Bears and the Terriers took turns holding the lead for the first three quarters, with the Bears outscoring the Terriers late in the game and entering the fourth on top, 11-9. The intense final quarter saw players from both squads exchanging goals, until the teams were tied 13-13 heading into the final minute.

Surrounded by Terriers, Stefanovic scored the winning goal with a backwards throw with 42 seconds left on the clock.

But as most of the crowd dispersed with victory seemingly guaranteed, the St. Francis head coach filed an official protest for a misapplication of the rules in the third quarter. The protest then resulted in a replaying of the game from the midway point in the third quarter. The Bears finished play in the absence of McNamara, the team’s third-leading scorer, who was injured on the original protested play.

Unfazed, the Bears outscored the Terriers 6-1 in the new half, leading to the official winning score of 14-9.

“The protest was not typical,” McNamara said. “Replaying the second half was stressful after we thought we had won. But it all worked out, and it’s a big league win for us.”

The Bears’ defense also remained strong, with Walker Shockley ’14 saving 12 shot attempts.

“As frustrating as it was, we proved once again that we are a team with a big heart,” Stefanovic said. “Only great teams have this kind of group strength to improve towards the end of the game and be victorious.”

The Bears are now preparing to face Iona and Fordham in New York next weekend.

campus news 3 / / Football page 1 the one-yard line with a series of solid passes by senior quarterback Colton Chapple, who threw for an impressive 351 yards and a touchdown during the weekend showdown. The drive seemed to be over when the Crimson fumbled the ball, but Chapple recovered, and kicker David Mothander nailed the 22-yard field goal to put his team on the board. The first quarter ended with Brown in the lead 7-3.

Bruno could not push through the Harvard defense on the next drive, but a long punt by Nate Meyer ’13 pinned the Crimson deep in its own territory. Despite the poor field position, Chapple’s offense was able to advance the ball 98 yards, capping the game’s longest drive with a touchdown by running back Treavor Scales.

The Crimson scored again before the half came to a close. After the team recovered a Theodhosi fumble, Chapple completed a 30-yard pass to freshman Seitu Smith II on the very next play to put Harvard up by 10. Though the Bears got as far as the Harvard 16 in the closing minutes of the second quarter, Donnelly was sacked on a critical third down and the Bears were forced to go for the field goal. Alex Norocea ’14 connected on the 42-yard attempt, narrowing the halftime Crimson lead to 17-10.

“We had a game at halftime,” Estes said. “We just couldn’t make the stops we needed to in the second half.”

The Crimson poured it on in the second half, scoring one touchdown in the third and another three in the

final quarter.

“What it comes down to is that Harvard’s a good team,” Donnelly said. “And when you play a team that good, you’ve got to bring everything you’ve got.”

A big part of Harvard’s success can be attributed to Scales, who ran for a career-high 173 yards in the Crimson’s season opener against the University of San Diego and once again demonstrated his offensive prowess by running the ball into the end zone four times this weekend.

“People say he’s among the five best running backs in the league,” Harvard Head Coach Tim Murphy said of Scales.

“But in my mind, he’s among the five best players at any position.”

As Scales and the offense continued to overpower the Bruno defense, the Bears’ offense did a good job of keeping the game within reach down the stretch.

Donnelly coordinated a sharp 53yard drive late in the third, finishing off with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Fay to make it 24-17 Harvard. Fay led the Bears with 77 receiving yards.

After the Crimson promptly responded with seven points, Bruno led an even more explosive attack, taking the ball 58 yards in just four plays and 1:52. A 16-yard pass to tight end Alex Viox ’15 again brought the game back within one possession, 31-24, with nearly a full quarter to go.

But a few minutes later, on a critical third-and-nine — with the home fans riled up in support of the defense — the Bears failed to read the Harvard attack and Scales broke through the line for an uncontested 41-yard run down the

middle of the field. The touchdown put the Crimson back up by two possessions, 38-24, and markedly shifted the momentum away from the Bears.

The fourth-quarter “slugfest,” as Harvard senior linebacker Bobby Schneider called it during the postgame press conference, continued with another Crimson touchdown that virtually put the game out of reach for the Bears.

Throughout the afternoon and into a chillier second half played under the lights, the Bruno defense was unable to stop the dominant Crimson offense.

“We never put enough pressure on the QB to make bad throws,” Estes said.

The Crimson “definitely tightened up against the run in the second half,” Donnelly said, which contributed to the shift to a pass-heavy offense in the third and fourth quarters.

The clock was also a factor in setting the offensive strategy as the game wore on, and the Crimson maintained their lead. “When you’re playing from behind, you’ve got to throw the ball,” Estes said.

Donnelly threw his third touchdown pass of the night late in the fourth quarter to wide receiver Stian Romberg ’15, to cut the Crimson lead to 14, but the time for a comeback had vanished.

As the lights dimmed on the fans and field, the final result was vibrantly displayed on the brand-new scoreboard, which had been used to display live coverage, instant replays and entertainment throughout the game: Harvard 45, Brown 31.

Donnelly said that after coming out “really fired / / Football page 4

4 higher ed / / Football page 3 up” in the first quarter, the team unfortunately kept making a “mistake here and a mistake there” after a promising first drive.

Murphy said the Ivy clash was “not the kind of game (he) expected,” noting that he thought the Bears would keep the game even closer.

Brown “hit us in the mouth a couple of times, but we persevered,” Chapple said.

Despite the loss, Bruno remains confident about the season. “If we played (Harvard) again, we could beat them,” Donnelly said. “We’re not lacking in confidence.”

Though that opportunity will not come until next fall, the Bears have already begun gearing up for their next opponent: the Georgetown University Hoyas.

“We need to clean up any mistakes we made on Saturday and focus on how we can beat Georgetown,” Donnelly said.

“The biggest thing we need to remember is that this was just one game,” Estes said.

The Bears will spend three weeks on the road before returning for another key Ivy bout against Cornell Oct. 20.

the brown daily herald Monday, September 24, 2012

Prof honored at ‘Writing Sex’ literary conference By emily boney contributing writer

The “Writing Sex and Other Matters” conference held this weekend gathered together scholars from across the United States and Canada to honor Jonathan Goldberg, professor, mentor and leader in the field of English literature and sexuality studies. The conference, held at the Annmary Brown Memorial, included many speakers who had worked directly with Goldberg as students or colleagues. The talks focused upon Renaissance writers, who were divided into the categories Shakespeare and non-Shakespeare.

On Friday, the scholars discussed their perspectives on nonShakespeare authors and the experience of having Goldberg as a teacher. On Saturday, they discussed Shakespeare, Goldberg’s work and the broader idea of sexuality. Goldberg has studied the roles of gender and sexuality across a wide variety of authors and encourages his students to do the same, said one of the presenters Richard Rambuss, professor of English at Brown.

The conference consisted of presentations of essays on numerous Renaissance poets, playwrights and novelists and essays regarding sexuality within other literature.

Professors’ areas of study included comparative literature, English and modern culture and media — among others — and came from a wide variety of universities.

After 15 years at Emory University, Rambuss said he came to Brown

for its “strength in Renaissance literature and gender and sexuality studies.” Rambuss studied under Goldberg at Johns Hopkins University while writing his dissertation.

One of the key reasons the conference was held was to bring together groups of scholars who admire Goldberg’s work and have been inspired by him, Rambuss said.

Another goal of “Writing Sex,” he said, was to “bring together international scholars to talk about one of the most important literary critics in gender and sexuality studies … and not just the work of Jonathan, but the work of his students.”

As Goldberg approaches retirement, many of his students from previous years wanted to show their appreciation for his dedication to the field and his teaching, said Karen Newman, professor of comparative literature and English at Brown. All lectures were “very well attended,” she said, despite their proximity to the Brown-Harvard football game.

Rambuss’ presentation at the conference focused on his recent paper about Milton’s devotional poetry. Rambuss said he wrote about Spencer in his dissertation under Goldberg, but had originally planned to write about Milton. “This paper was to finally deliver something on Milton that I had promised (Goldberg) as a student,” Rambuss said.

Goldberg taught at Brown for a year before moving to Johns Hopkins. “It’s a shame,” Newman said.

“He was a great intellectual presence.”

Higher ed roundup Princeton president will step down Princeton President Shirley Tilghman will end her term at the end of the academic year after holding the position since 2001, according to the New York Times.

Tilghman, who became the second woman to serve as an Ivy League president after Penn’s Judith Rodin, announced her decision Saturday in an email to Princeton students, faculty, staff and alums, according to the Times.

Tilghman, a molecular biologist, will remain a member of the Princeton faculty, according to a statement made by Kathryn Hall, chairwoman of Princeton’s board of trustees. Hall will lead a search committee for Tilghman’s successor, according to Philly.com.

Tilghman’s announcement comes right on the heels of three other Ivy League presidential step-downs — Brown’s former President Ruth Simmons was replaced

by Christina Paxson in July, Yale President Richard Levin announced his plans to retire after 20 years in the position in August and Dartmouth College’s Jim Yong Kim stepped down to lead the World Bank this summer.

College campuses ban smoking The University of Oklahoma, the University of Oregon and Montana State University are the latest to implement campus-wide smoking bans, and the University of California will ban the use and sale of tobacco on all of its campuses by 2014, according to USA Today.

They will join the 774 college campuses that already had smoking bans in place as of July 1, according to the advocacy group Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights. This figure is up from 131 colleges in 2008.

Howard Koh, the U.S. assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, recently announced the White House’s initiative to make all college campuses tobacco-free.

No criminal charges pressed against UC Davis police No criminal charges will be filed against the two University of California at Davis police officers who pepper-sprayed students protesting tuition increases last November, the Yolo County district attorney’s office announced Sept. 19.

Video of Lt. John Pike spraying two seated protesters at close range drew widespread criticism amid the controversy surrounding police action against anti-Wall Street protests, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Pike, who was later relieved of duty, said the use of pepper spray was necessary to allow the officers to leave the area safely. A report by the internal affairs committee concluded that the officers in question acted in line with the demands of the situation, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The University of California recently came to a settlement with 21 student plaintiffs affected by the incident and is pending approval by the court, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Coursera expands reach The online education company Coursera has more than doubled its university partners who will be offering classes for the program, the New York Times reported, with 33 universities now participating. Brown announced earlier this month that it would be joining Coursera and offering online courses this summer.

Among the other new partners are Columbia, Wesleyan University, the University of Florida, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Participating colleges include a wide range of institutions including a liberal arts college, public research universities and international schools, according to the New York Times.

Coursera’s popularity has grown extensively since its debut five months ago — the online start-up enrolled its millionth student Aug. 9. Followed by Brazil and India, the United States is the most represented continent among students enrolled in the program, though students hail from 196 countries in total.

The New York Times reports that the high caliber of universities participating in Coursera’s program has bolstered its credibility within the higher education community, increasing pressure for other institutions to become involved.

— Lucy Feldman, Alexa Pugh and Caroline Saine

the brown daily herald Monday, September 24, 2012

science & research 5

Faculty profiles: Q & A with English professor Amanda Anderson

By Phoebe Draper Senior Staff Writer

Amanda Anderson, a new professor of English, will be speaking at the TEDxBrown event this October on the value of a liberal arts education. Anderson, a literary scholar who received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on research into liberal philosophy in America, served as the chair of the English department at John Hopkins University before coming to Brown. As part of a new series highlighting faculty members at the University, The Herald sat down with Anderson to discuss her plans to speak at TEDx, her transition to Brown and her area of research.

The Herald: You are set to speak at TEDxBrown this October. What do you plan to discuss at the talk?

Anderson: In process. No previews. I will say that I will address the topic of the conference, which is to talk about the value of a liberal arts education, and I will address it from the perspective of a humanities professor.

What drew you to Brown?

I would say the dynamism of the institution, the commitment and energy of the undergraduates and the dedication and quality of the faculty.

What are you looking forward to most at Brown?

I’m most looking forward to teaching such a famously committed group of undergraduates and to the intellectual culture, more generally. I

think Brown has managed to combine research and teaching, graduate and undergraduate, in a really unusually balanced and energized way. And also the restaurants in Providence. That’s a big draw.

How would you explain your research to those who aren’t literary scholars?

The kind of literature I work on tends to be a pretty ambitious reflection on society, and it often aims to give as complete a portrayal as it can of society in its full complexity while at the same time trying to render vivid different kinds of individual characters. So in the period I work on, which is largely 19th century — also some 20th century — many novelists were, in very interesting ways, trying to combine different perspectives — sociological, moral, psychological, historical … this was also the era when a number of social science disciplines were developing, so the novel is sort of borrowing from some of those ways of looking at the world and also competing with them — saying, “You know what, I can do this and I can one-up you, and show you the inside of peoples minds in this complex world.”

For what work did you receive your Guggenheim Fellowship?

The Guggenheim Fellowship, which I held in 2009-2010, was for a project on the history of liberalism as a political philosophy and also as a body of ideas that various literary writers were engaging in interesting ways. The project works between po-

litical philosophy and literature. One of its main arguments is that liberals, and liberalism in general, are not as optimistic as it is taken to be. Many liberals were — frankly, they were very aspirational, they had ideals they wanted to enact, but they were also often clear-eyed and sober about all of the difficulties and challenges there would be trying to realize their ideals.

As a literary scholar and theorist who has written on 19th-century literature and culture, how do you explain the intersection of literature and politics? How is that relationship played out?

One of the things I’m most interested in exploring is the plurality of ways that writers engage the question of politics. … Some writers are interested, very broadly, in power dynamics and how power inheres in every social interaction, and they’re good at diagnosing that. One author who’s really good at that is Charlotte Bronte — she’s a very modern thinker when it comes to the ubiquity of power in interpersonal dynamics. Other authors are interested in political argument or debate or how ideas get worked through and fleshed out. Other authors are interested in politics as an institution. Someone like Anthony Trollope is interested in how people behave in parliament. So the key thing is to take a look at different writers and see ‘now what do they think political life is?’

First of all, if they have a conception of politics, what is it? What kinds of practices are they focusing on and then what are they saying about them? I

think one of the more limiting ways of thinking about writers is to leap to conclusions about whether they’re conservative or liberal or radical — to label them too quickly or see them as simply adhering to an ideology. Much more interesting is to think about how they think about political life.

In 2006, you published a book called “The Way We Argue Now: A Study in the Cultures of Theory.”

How would you say we argue now, and how has that changed over time?

That title, as you may know, is a play on an Anthony Trollope novel titled, “The Way We Live Now.” So this is one of those instances where you elect to use a title that alludes to another title, and then you realize later that you’re always going to be asked why you titled it that way.

It’s coming back to haunt you now.

I will say this — one of the things that that book is trying to do is analyze the way arguments get played out in particularly academic culture … One of the main reasons I chose that title is because you have the word “live” kind of hovering behind it, and “argue” is replacing that, and I’m very interested in that book and in general in all of my work in trying to analyze the ways in which different arguments or theories or philosophies express a way of life and are also projecting a style of being — even a kind of personality, character. That’s something I’m very interested in exploring when I analyze arguments. It’s not just, “What’s

the formal logic at play here?” — but what kind of stance toward life, way of being, style of enactment is being played out in this argument?

So it’s almost like the argument gets a character of its own.

Exactly. And that’s one of my primary areas of interest. So my work in the 19th century — particularly my second book called “Power of Distance” is about how important the value of character was for the Victorians in an era where traditional value systems, particularly religion, were losing their sway. One site that became highly invested was character.

Character became a way of expressing value and grounding value. So I’ve been fascinated by character in all of my work. So I ended up in my argument book trying to think about the character of argument.

Are you writing a book right now?

The liberalism book. And just so you know the tentative title for that is “Bleak Liberalism.”

What is the best book you’ve ever read?

Oh, that’s easy. “Middlemarch,” by George Eliot. George Eliot is possibly the smartest person in the whole world. She combines extraordinary linguistic fluency with psychological insight and a moral project that is at once aspirational but again, as I was describing liberalism, acutely aware of all of the impediments to actually living the moral life. Great story, great story.

Econ study finds more genetic diversity does not lead to success

By Steven Brownstone Contributing Writer

More genetic diversity does not lead to higher levels of economic development, according to research conducted by Oded Galor, professor of economics. Through the study of the relationship between genetic diversity and economic output, Galor and fellow researchers showed that the effect on developmental outcomes is “hump-shaped,” meaning that societies falling near the middle of the genetic diversity spectrum tend to exhibit the highest levels of growth.

Galor developed and gathered support for his hypothesis about the effect of genetic diversity with former graduate student Quamrul Ashraf MA’04 PhD’09, who is now a Williams College professor.

Galor is known as the father of Unified Growth Theory, which examines human economic growth over the past 10,000 years.

America falls near the middle of the genetic diversity distribution — the top of the hump — with African countries being the most diverse and Latin American ones being the least diverse.

The basic reasoning behind the humpshaped model is that though genetic diversity is important for specialization and innovation, too much diversity has historically led to social instability and a dearth of collaboration.

“Diversity stimulates technological innovation critical for growth, but more diverse countries also tend to be less cooperative and have more civil conflicts,” Galor said. The idea that homogenous societies work more collaboratively is

supported by the data, he added.

A forthcoming paper by Galor and Ashraf — entitled “The ‘Out of Africa’ Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity and Comparative Economic Development” — was selected by the editors of the journal Science as a “highlight of recent literature” across all disciplines in the Sept. 7 issue.

Galor’s research was funded by the National Science Foundation, which is relatively rare for economics research and may also speak to the interdisciplinary nature of the work, Galor said.

For Galor, research that cuts across disciplinary boundaries is perfectly natural. Though he recognizes the modern academic system is designed to create specialists, he said it is important for modern intellectuals to remain informed about all fields. He regularly reads Science and Nature and has “always been intrigued by human evolution and its relationship with economic development,” he said.

This paper focuses on the phenomenon that genetic homogeneity increases with distance from where man first evolved.

South America, whose indigenous population is the most homogenous in the world, was settled only by the very small subset of early man who decided to cross the land bridge to Alaska and then walk down through the entirety of North America.

The theory that the overland distance from Addis Ababa, a location reasonably close to where humans evolved, to a population’s ancestral home is a good estimate of genetic homogeneity is verified by genetic testing. This methodology

for determining genetic diversity allowed Galor and Ashraf to expand their sample to nearly every country and ethnic population in the world.

To account for immigration in modern nations, the researchers analyzed the diversity of a nation’s ethnicities and then

torical time periods over the past two millennia. For the historical dates, Galor and Ashraf used population density instead of Gross Domestic Product per capita to measure economic development. As technology has increased in importance over time, optimum genetic diversity has

“Diversity stimulates technological innovation critical for growth, but more diverse countries also tend to … have more civil conflicts.”

Oded Galor Professor of Economics

factored in how genetically diverse the ethnicities were from each other.

Galor said the data was “strikingly consistent” with what he expected, adding that this is the exception to the norm in research.

Galor and his colleagues subjected the theory to two to three years’ worth of tests, and “every test confirmed the hypothesis.”

The model held up in three different his-

become increasingly heterogeneous — consistent with Galor’s theory.

The hypothesis also holds when the sample is limited to countries with 97 percent indigenous populations, suggesting that genetic effects on growth are independent from immigration.

Examining the endpoints of the modern data also illustrates the theory’s power.

According to Galor and Ashraf’s model, a

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1 percent increase in Bolivia’s genetic diversity would lead to a 41 percent increase in per capita income, while a 1 percent decrease in Ethiopia’s genetic diversity would lead to a 21 percent increase in income. In comparison, a 1 percent increase or decrease in the diversity of the United States would decrease income by about 2 percent.

Going forward, Galor mentioned a similar methodology could be used to analyzed countries’ Olympic performances, where he hypothesized “genetically heterogeneous countries should be better at individual sports, while genetically homogenous countries should be better at team sports.”

He also plans to examine how genetics might have played a role in the “reversal of fortune,” where after the colonial period, North America became more developed than South America. Galor intends to show that ­— contrary to mainstream academic thought — genetics, not governmental institutions, played the most important role in this reversal.

6 editorial & letter Editorial

Romneysian class politics: The elite presidency Last week, the popular liberal magazine Mother Jones released online the now infamous videotape of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney speaking at a fundraiser in May. At the private campaign event in Boca Raton, Fla., a confidential source secretly recorded Romney candidly expressing his views on Obama supporters, whom he described as “47 percent of (Americans) … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims … who believe that they are entitled.” Romney’s polarizing remarks were met with outrage from the media and unbridled glee from Democrats. While the comments were “not elegantly stated,” Romney has since announced, they shed light on the importance of socioeconomic perspectives in American politics.

Since both candidates have declined to use the limited funds available through the federal campaign finance system, they are both equally susceptible to the lure of large donors. The effect of money is the true heart of the issue. Romney’s most damning comment was not about vast numbers of Americans, but about himself. After speaking about the “47 percent,” he concluded, “My job is not to worry about those people.”

We strongly rebuke Romney for his comments, which are filled with misleading facts and overgeneralization. Earlier in the semester we strongly advocated for a higher commitment to fact-checking in political campaigns. Luckily, the media has dissected the demographics of the 46.4 percent of American households that did not pay federal income tax in 2011. It turns out that many in this group are not, in fact, people who will “vote for the president no matter what.”

For example, elderly voters as a bloc are less likely to pay income taxes or payroll taxes, but they leaned toward John McCain in 2008 by an eight-point margin. According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, eight of the top 10 states with the lowest income tax liability voted Republican in the previous election.

Romney was merely playing to the opinions of the donors gathered at the fundraiser in Florida, a battleground state that also happens to be one of those top 10 states with the lowest tax liability.

This hearkens back to the heightening of socioeconomic class tensions on the campaign trail. An anonymous online source has provided us another sincere perspective on political victimization in a rather unorthodox manner. In contrast to the Occupy protesters who rail against the 1 percent, Romney has depicted himself as a humanized corporate interest fighting back against America’s parasitic welfare structure. By maligning half of the country as entitled moochers, Romney has unscrupulously turned class warfare on its head and generalized the plight of the poor billionaire against swathes of irresponsible freeloaders.

David Brooks was correct in saying that this video “reinforces every negative view people have about Romney.” If the executives and private equity managers present at this fundraiser convened to manufacture a presidential candidate tailored to their interests, they would create Mitt Romney.

In the aftermath of the video, the overwhelmingly critical backlash has put the Romney campaign on the defensive. But the issue at hand is still dangerous if left alone. It is not really an issue that the elite class in American society contends for the presidency. After all, our nation’s earliest presidents were solely large landowners — George Washington remains the richest president in terms of net worth, at over $500 million in today’s terms. The problem is the manner in which the elite compete for the nation’s highest public office. America will never need a leader who has prematurely decided that almost half of the country should be ignored.

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

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the brown daily herald Monday, September 24, 2012

Editorial cartoon b y a a n c h a l s a r a f

le t ter Paxson should reinstate ROTC on campus To the Editor: Start on the right foot, Mrs. President.

I encourage President Christina Paxson to right one of the few wrongs of former president Ruth Simmons’ tenure: Allow Reserve Officer Training Corps back on campus. The U.S. Military and President Obama have shown remarkable leadership in revoking “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by allowing the military to better reflect our diverse population and our proud national history of

inclusiveness. Harvard has recently shown similar leadership by supporting the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” decision and allowing ROTC back to Cambridge. Paxson should take the opportunity, early in her tenure, to make this educational commitment to the military. In doing so, she will open another chapter in Brown’s own proud history of inclusiveness.

Gordon MacGill ’07

quote of the day

“More diverse countries also tend to … have more civil conflicts.”

— Oded Galor, professor of economics See genetics on page 5.

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the brown daily herald Monday, September 24, 2012

Why college isn’t irrelevant ian eppler Opinions Columnist

Hard times tend to produce radical ideas, and the current economic crisis is no exception. Many observers have noticed the hardships faced by recent college graduates — limited job prospects, crushing student loan burdens — and suggested that the current American educational paradigm of college for all is obsolete. This vision has even reached Brown. Recently The Herald highlighted the case of Dylan Field, formerly ’13.5, who was awarded $100,000 by tech billionaire Peter Thiel in exchange for a commitment to leave college for two years and start a business (“CS undergrad wins tech fellowship,” Sept. 10).

The contemporary argument against college is relatively straightforward. In an era where information is freely available on the Internet and the founder of the next billion-dollar company needs only a wi-fi connection and a good idea, spending tens of thousands of dollars on four years of education is an anachronism. The current challenges of graduates reflect the free market’s assessment of their skills and accomplishments. Famously successful college dropouts such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg represent the ideal.

The only thing separating an unemployed liberal arts graduate from billions in the technology industry is his or her diploma.

It’s a beautiful vision, but it’s almost entirely wrong. It does not account for the true causes of our ills and would devastate institutions that have provided unimaginable

benefits to our society.

Given the benefits of the American university model — the production of knowledge that benefits all, millions lifted into the middle class, a prominent role in our culture and social structures — those who wish to drastically reshape it should face a high burden of proving both that the crisis of the university is real and that their reforms would resolve it. The anti-college advocates fail on both counts.

The unemployment crisis identified by

facts do not bear out that pattern. While times are not good for anyone, achieving a college degree is still one of the best ways to ensure gainful employment.

Economists across the political spectrum — from noted liberal and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman to Edward Lazear, chairman of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors — agree that current unemployment rates are a “cyclical” phenomenon attributable largely to normal economic fluctuations and economic pol-

Given the benefits of the American university model — the production of knowledge that benefits all, millions lifted into the middle class, a prominent role in our culture and social structures — those who wish to drastically reshape it should face a high burden of proving both that the crisis of the university is real and that their reforms would resolve it. anti-college advocates is not attributable to American universities’ failure to prepare graduates for the job market. When the economic crisis began in 2008, unemployment increased proportionally across all groups, regardless of educational attainment. While unemployment is currently higher among college graduates than it was pre-financial crisis, unemployment rates are still drastically lower for college graduates than those without a college degree. If college were truly a bad investment, unemployment rates would increase for college graduates relative to those with other levels of educational accomplishment, but the

icy, not a “structural” phenomenon resulting from permanent shifts in the composition of the economy and workforce. This distinction suggests that anti-college advocates have fundamentally misplaced their efforts.

Instead of attempting to destroy some of our nation’s most critical institutions, they should be advocating revised monetary policy and increased government stimulus to rejuvenate the economy and improve job prospects for graduates. The fact that they do not suggests they are uninformed about our nation’s challenges.

Anti-college advocates also point to the

crushing student loan burdens faced by many graduates as an example of the failure of the American university system. This criticism does not pass muster. Our student loan system is not a natural law of the universe. It is the result of a set of policy choices. Some of these choices are probably bad ones — such as the fact that private student loans, unlike almost all other types of loans, may not be discharged during bankruptcy — and should be revised. But destroying the university to address the student loan problem is cutting off your nose to spite your face. Arguing that the student loan system, a tangential part of the university model, condemns the university to irrelevance suggests that anti-college advocates have not considered the basic logic of their argument.

It’s certainly possible to make a principled argument against higher education and formal education more broadly.

They’ve been around for decades, and have rightly been soundly rejected by most. Anti-college advocates are doing something different, though. They’re taking advantage of fear to push a radically destructive agenda.

It is unsurprising that the anti-college argument has gained some traction. We’re scared by the world we’ll be entering as graduates, and the anti-college argument offers a path to safety. But the argument doesn’t represent the best information about the causes of our challenges. Brown students should reject it.

Ian Eppler ’13 is a senior with possibly unwarranted confidence in the value of his Brown social science degree. He can be contacted at ian_eppler@brown.edu.

What the Chicago teachers have taught us By luke Lattanzi-silveus Opinions Columnist

Last week, an editorial in The Herald criticized Chicago’s teachers for putting their own interests in front of those of students by striking (“Have your apple and eat it, too?”

Sept. 18). The editorial portrays Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, on the other hand, as “trying to end something that clearly isn’t working.” Versions of these same arguments are being used across the country to justify the privatization of our public schools, cuts in public education spending and concentration of decision-making power into the hands of school management.

These are decisions that, far from improving the public education system, will very much exacerbate its problems. So while I am arguing against the authors of this piece, I believe that our argument is much broader. It is between the working class and the ruling class. Between the right to a job and a livelihood and the drive for profit. Between giving adequate funding our schools and other public institutions and keeping taxes on the rich low and military spending high.

The first problem with their argument is that it calls on teachers to be totally “selfless.”

In other words, the teachers who are looking to improve their living conditions really shouldn’t because the students will miss a

week of school.

But it is not reasonable to ask this pure and total “selflessness” of teachers. They are not volunteer workers. They are making a living off their salaries, putting their own children through high school and hopefully through college, if they can scrape together enough to afford it. Teachers, just like every other worker, are struggling to make ends meet. Just like every other worker, a teacher deserves a well-paid and secure job. And just like for every other worker, this right is under heavy attack in the name of a crisis

dents, to name just a few. But conveniently, the editorial essentially ignored all demands of the strike other than job security and fair compensation.

In fact, even the demands for job security and compensation are about much more than teachers allowing themselves to live this so-called easy life. They fought measures that tie their job security and compensation to test scores, which would force them to teach for a test instead of trying to help a student learn, understand and expand their horizons. Not to mention that a teach-

The teachers struck a blow against job precarity, poor pay, cuts to education funding and high-stakes testing.

They are an example to be emulated, not shunned!

that none of them were in any way responsible for.

But really, the teachers are being pretty “selfless,” even in the strike. Though they are not allowed to strike on issues other than pay and procedural ones, the Chicago teachers were quite explicitly striking for a lot more than that. Their stipulation about wages, in fact, only asked for wage increases that will barely keep up with inflation. Their demands also include more money for school supplies, the hiring of more African-Americans teachers and the hiring of more nurses, counselors and other support staff for stu-

er who is secure in his or her job can afford to try out unconventional things that best suit their teaching styles or their students’ learning styles. The best teachers I’ve had by far were those who were ready to try out different things and fit their teaching method to their personalities and their students instead of doing things by the book. Teachers are in the classroom every day and know a lot better than administrators how to teach their students.

Emanuel, a Democrat, is not looking to improve the system — he’s the one cutting money from services that students need and

trying to make education about testing. As history has shown time and time again, positive change comes not from above, but from below.

And it has come! The strike has won all of the demands above and more. The teachers struck a blow against job precarity, poor pay, cuts to education funding and high-stakes testing. They are an example to be emulated, not shunned.

The students and parents know this. That is why 66 percent of parents of public school children in Chicago supported the strike.

The Herald’s editorial board may think that teachers are setting a bad role model for these children, but their parents don’t.

The Chicago teachers are not poor role models — they are the best role models out there. They are standing up for themselves and the children they teach. They are resisting cuts to education and fighting for a school system that benefits the students, parents and teachers — not the administrators and private school owners. But even more than that, they are fighting for all of us who want the needs of the many to outweigh the profit of the few. It’s about time we stopped criticizing and blaming them and instead joined them in the fight against austerity, privatization and exploitation.

Luke Lattanzi-Silveus ’14 wonders what the editors’ high school teachers would say if they read their editorial and can be reached at luke_lattanzi-silveus@brown.edu.

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