daily herald the Brown
vol. cxxii, no. 89
INSIDE
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Football
The Bears beat Cornell to grab first Ivy win
Monday, October 22, 2012
TEDx discusses liberal education impact By Caroline Saine Senior Staff Writer
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Moon missions Astronaut David Scott talked space exploration Page 8
E-shop courses Websites allow students to find peer-reviewed classes today
tomorrow
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Katherine Chon ’02 has supported human trafficking victims for more than a decade, and her education at Brown gave her the “skills, confidence and courage” to embrace the unknown in her professional career, she said. Chon gave one of 11 talks at TEDxBrownUniversity Saturday, a series of lectures by alums, faculty and students related to the subject of “life, learning and a liberal education.” TEDxBrown, which originally began as a research project between Vanessa Ryan, assistant professor of English, and Kimberly Takahata ’14, was held in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. The event was coordinated by Ryan, Takahata and PhD candidates in English Jessica Tabak and Joel Simundich. Today is an “interesting and unset-
tling period for higher education in this country,” said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron in her opening remarks at the event. “There has never been a time when we needed this kind of conversation more.” Bergeron said the tough economy has contributed to student concern about how to put their liberal educations to use outside of college. Alums from a variety of disciplines spoke about how their liberal educations enabled them to succeed in their professional lives. Chon, who gave a talk entitled “Reinventing the Underground Railroad,” concentrated in psychology at Brown and is now the co-founder and president emerita of Polaris Project, a nonprofit organization that combats slavery and human trafficking. While at Brown, she said she took classes across many disciplines, which sparked her in/ / TEDx page 2
since 1891
B a n d i n g To g e t h e r
Greg Jordan-Detamore / Herald
The Brown Band came out in full force around 9 a.m. Saturday for a Family Weekend tour of campus.
PW production explores Romney as robot Babies see By maddie berg senior staff writer
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s background has been scrutinized, investigated and discussed on morning talk shows, in newspapers and at campaign events almost ceaselessly since he won the nomination. But “Romney is a Robot,” a musical performed at the Production Workshop Upspace last night, tells a story about Romney that you have not read in a newspaper or seen on CNN. “Romney is a Robot” explored Democrats’ common critique that the candidate is stiff, insincere and apathetic. The show takes the frequent joke about Romney acting like a robot seriously and proceeds to explain
how he became that way and how it has affected him through a series of musical numbers. This is the second musical Race Archibold ’15 has written and directed, the first being a parody of “Jersey Shore” performed last year at Brown. Musicals allow for absurdity more than plays and other performance styles do, Archibold said. “Today, in 2012, a musical is not a common genre, and it is inherently silly,” he said. “It seems good to have a ridiculous genre for a ridiculous story.” And ridiculous the story was. After a brief introduction by Archibold, who also played piano for the show and provided narration, actors playing Romney’s parents appeared on
stage, singing about their inability to conceive. The parents finally reached a solution — they had Mark Zuckerberg, who had invented a time machine, build them a robot son. The son Zuckerberg produced was Romney (Brandon Montell ’15), characterized by his serious personality and love of the stock market. As the play progressed, it followed the story of Romney’s rise in the business and political worlds. One day, Romney heard on the news that the White House had become like a machine, complete with wired rooms and new technology. Upon learning this, Romney fell in love with the Pennsylvania Avenue residence. He breaks into a song-anddance routine full of robotic, politi-
cal and sexual jokes — “You turn my floppy disk into a hard drive” and “I can put the O in Oval Office” — which had the audience laughing with delight. While trying to figure out how he could attain the presidency and begin a love affair with the White House, he was visited by the ghost of Lehman Brothers (Roie Levin ’15), who sang a rendition of “Popular” from “Wicked.” But instead of teaching him how to be popular, the ghost interchanged the word with “conservative,” teaching him how to appeal to the Republican Party. Though “Popular” was the only unoriginal music in the performance, it received enormous applause and laughter / / Romney page 5
m. soccer
No. 18 Bruno top undefeated Big Red By Alexandra Conway Sports Staff Writer
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
Ben Maurey ’15 scored against Cornell in the fifth minute of Saturday’s game, starting the Bears off strong in their victorious match.
The No. 18 men’s soccer team put an end to No. 10 Cornell’s undefeated season and reign atop the Ivy League with a 2-0 victory Saturday afternoon in front of a boisterous crowd at Stevenson Field. With three conference games left in the season, the Bears (11-1-2, 3-0-1 Ivy) have put themselves in prime position to defend their co-league title and keep it out of the hands of the previously dominant Big Red (12-1-0, 3-1-0). “It was a big win playing against an undefeated and outstanding attacking team, and I have to give credit to our team for doing a fantastic job limiting their chances,” said Head Coach Patrick Laughlin. “It was a really intense Ivy League battle.”
“We didn’t play as much soccer as we wanted to, but we finished our chances, played good defense and got a good result,” defender Dylan Remick ’13 said. He explained that keeping the Big Red off the board was a particularly big accomplishment since Cornell has the Ivy’s leading goal scorer, Daniel Haber, leading the attack. Haber has 16 goals on the season, trailing only Elon University’s Chris Thomas for the national lead. The Big Red’s perfect record was anything but daunting to the Bears, who played aggressively from the start. An early goal by Ben Maurey ’15 — his third game-winning score of the season — put Cornell on the back foot less than five minutes into the match. Midfielder Bobby Belair ’13 launched a shot toward the net off a nice cross from the left by Remick / / Soccer page 2
gender constructs, study shows By Kate Nussenbaum Senior Staff Writer
Before babies learn language, they can perceive gender stereotypes. Studies suggest that at 18 months, before they even have the ability to understand their own gender identity, infants will focus longer on images that challenge typical roles — a man putting on lipstick, for example. By age two, they can locate themselves in the gender system and identify pictures of males and females based on external characteristics like hair length and clothing. But they cannot discern a naked person’s sex. These phenomena are examples of ways our social context influences our development, said Anne Fausto-Sterling, professor of biology and gender studies, in a public conversation Friday with Debbie Weinstein ’93, assistant director of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women. Students and their parents filled Pembroke Center 305 to listen to the talk, entitled “An Alternative to Nature v. Nurture: Biology in a Social World.” “These days the nature-nurture debate is a fallback for a lot of people,” Fausto-Sterling said. “But actually the whole contour of that so-called debate is really changing. It’s changing across the board because people are becoming much more aware of the ways in which nature and nurture are integrated phenomena.” She explained a study of London taxi cab drivers that illustrates the profound impact society has on biology. To become certified, cab drivers must memorize more than 20,000 roads and key sites in London. Scientists fou n d t h at / / Biology page 3