Wednesday, October 24, 2012

daily herald the Brown

vol. cxxii, no. 91

INSIDE

Page 3

wednesday, october 24, 2012

Presidency balances peer influence with unique vision

Check the box

By Kate Desimone and joseph rosales

Candidates spar in final debates as vote approaches

Senior Staff Writer and Arts & Culture Editor

Page 5

Art and money RISD ranks seventh for highest Parent PLUS loans Page 12

Review session Third World Center conducts yearlong evaluation

today

tomorrow

Herald file photo

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since 1891

Like President Christina Paxson, many past University presidents and leaders of peer institutions served first as administrators at other schools.

President Christina Paxson stepped into the top administrative role at Brown earlier this year with a background shaped by the three institutions of her past — Swarthmore College, where she studied as an undergraduate, Columbia, where she earned her doctoral degree, and most recently, Princeton, where she filled teaching, research and Shaping the Presidency administrative Part two of three roles. These experiences, presenting her with perspectives on university governance, will likely inform her tenure at Brown.

In the University’s recent history, many presidents have assumed the position after filling leadership roles at other institutions of higher education.

Former presidents Henry Wriston,

Howard Swearer and Ruth Simmons led Lawrence University, Carleton College and Smith College, respectively, before coming to Brown. Others, like Paxson, arrived as first-time presidents, having served as deans or provosts at other institutions.

This pattern is also characteristic of leadership at Brown’s peer institutions. Penn President Amy Gutmann was provost of Princeton before taking up her current position in 2004, while Columbia President Lee Bollinger left his post as president of the University of Michigan to move to the Ivy League.

Cornell President David Skorton led the University of Iowa for three years before moving to Ithaca.

Presidents who have been leaders at other universities “generally do better as a result,” said George Borts, professor of economics, who has been with the University since 1950 and seen nine administrations.

Such experience can give presidents insight into how to lead an institution of higher education, but presidents must de/ /Presidencies page 6

U. student loan default rate below nat’l average Panelists discuss role of religion in elections

By ALexa Pugh

Senior Staff Writer

Only 1.5 percent of Brown students default on their loans within three years of entering repayment, compared to 13.4 percent nationwide, according to reports recently released by the Department of Education.

This is the first time the Department of Education has released an official report of the three-year cohort default rates, which measures the number of borrowers who entered repayment between October 2008 and September 2009 and defaulted by the end of September 2011.

The national default rates include both Federal Family Education Loan Program loans and William Ford Federal Direct Loan Program loans.

Of the loans calculated in this rate, Brown only uses direct loans, said

Wynette Richardson, director of financial services at Brown.

Within two years of starting repayment, 9.1 percent of students nationwide defaulted, according to this year’s report. This is up from last year’s 8.8 percent two-year cohort default rate, which measured the number of students who defaulted on their loans by the end of the fiscal year 2009. By comparison, 1.2 percent of borrowers at Brown, including master’s and doctoral students, defaulted within two years, up from last year’s 0.5 percent.

Though this year’s rate is more than double that of last year’s, the jump does not represent a significant change in the number of borrowers who default, Richardson said. Brown’s current two-year rate represents 10 defaulting students out of 772 borrowers. Five students out of 839 bor-

rowers were in default in 2010, according to last year’s released figures.

While the national two-year cohort default rates have climbed steadily since 2005, Brown’s rates have remained at around 1 percent over the past few years.

“I would say that a lot of it is to do with some of the education that we do with students, ensuring that borrowing is kept at a minimum,” Richardson said.

Educating students early about their options is key, Richardson said.

The loan office has introduced a new program this year called Get Your Bearings, which promotes financial literacy among students. A series of workshops over the course of the semester will instruct on matters such as budgeting and saving, how to manage credit and loan repayment options. Sessions will be offered to

students ranging from sophomores to seniors in hopes that students will better understand their financial responsibilities by the time they graduate, Richardson said.

The loan office does not encourage students to change their intended career path based on the level of expected debt, but students should take into account their earning potential when making decisions about their future, Richardson said.

“I think when students are graduating with $20,000 in loan debt, that’s not a thing to ask and still expect all of their future prospects to be intact,” said Alex Mechanick ’15, president of Brown for Financial Aid. Education is an investment, and having no loans is not necessarily the goal, he said. But Brown for Financial Aid does want to see certain policy / / Default page 5 changes at the

Rebirth centered on Westminster Street

By Claire schlessinger Staff writer

Where Manhattan meets Providence, teenaged boys wearing beanies steer their skateboards between suit-clad businessmen talking on cellphones and hipster couples chain-smoking cigarettes. Just a block away from Kennedy Plaza, Westminster Street is home to an eclectic spread of small businesses specializing in clothes and accessories.

This recent revitalization has earned it the description as “the hippest street in the hippest ’hood in the hippest city,” by a user of the customer-based review website Yelp.

Wonderland of colors and crafts Walking into Craftland is a little like walking into a kaleidoscopic candy store — if the candies were handcrafted goods made by individual artisans.

A rainbow of bright colors in the windows beckons customers to check out postcards featuring artistic maps of Rhode Island, zipper necklaces with stunning glass pendants and dozens of other goodies. / / Westminster page 9

merson tadesse / Herald

Westminster Street is home to a number of boutiques, such as Craftland and Modern Core, with a focus on local and artisan goods.

By Mathias Heller Senior Staff Writer

A panel of academics highlighted the past and present impact of religion on U.S. politics during a discussion last night about the potential effects of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith on the 2012 presidential election. The forum was held in Rhode Island Hall and was moderated by Nathaniel Berman, professor of international affairs, law and modern culture.

“Probably since 1960, there’s been no election in which the religious background of both candidates has generated so much controversy as this one,” said Berman, citing Romney’s Mormon faith and false rumors that President Obama is a Muslim as examples. In 1960, President John F. Kennedy’s Catholic faith was considered a possible barrier to gaining the presidency.

But Berman said national media has recently seemed unconcerned about the impact of the candidates’ religious views on politics. “Today, just two weeks before the election, there’s almost no talk about it,” he said.

Mark Cladis, professor of religious studies and one of the three panelists, said the question of religion and politics has a deep and complicated history in the United States, especially during presidential election years.

“I think there should be a generous role and place for religions in democratic politics,” said Cladis, / / Faith page 2 adding that

2 campus news

the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

c alendar Today

Oct. 24

6:45 P.m.

ToMORROW

oct. 25

5 p.m.

Screening: The House I Live In

Leona Christie, Visiting Artist Talk

Granoff Center

List Art 120

7 p.m.

5 p.m.

An Evening with Julie Bowen

IMP Pumpkin Carving

Salomon 101

Campus Center, The Underground

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH Chicken Fingers with Dipping Sauces, Spinach Feta Pie, Chicken Pesto Salad, Vegan Brownies

Meatballs with Sauce, Italian Marinated Chicken, Beef and Broccoli Szechuan, Vegan Brownies

DINNER Pork Chow Mein, Korean-Style Beef, Vegan Stir Fried Noodles with Tofu, Chocolate Macaroon Cupcakes

BBQ Chicken Quarters, Macaroni and Cheese with Avocado and Tomato, Chocolate Macaroon Cupcakes

Sudoku

Tom sullivan / herald

Professors discussed the role candidates’ religion has played in past and present presidential races last night.

/ / Faith page 1

Crossword

religion should be just one of several factors that shape voter perception of politicians. “There’s nothing exceptional about religious belief and politics,” he said.

When listening to politicians who offer religious reasons for a particular position, voters should evaluate the merits of the issue at hand rather than make global judgments about a candidate’s religion, Cladis said.

“While I acknowledge our justified fears about religion in politics, I maintain that attempts to exclude religion from the political sphere are misguided,” Cladis said. “In the ballot booth, we want to see the self-reliant citizen who doesn’t disqualify candidates based on religious beliefs.”

Voters can sometimes be too exclusionary when assuming that all religion is irrational, superstitious and undeserving of a place in U.S. politics, Cladis said. He cited continuing anti-Muslim and anti-Mormon sentiments among Americans as proof that religious bias remains a political problem.

Voter treatment of Roman Catholics provides a striking example of progress toward religious tolerance in presidential politics, Cladis noted.

The country has come a long way from the 1960 election, when Ken-

nedy had to overcome widespread anti-Catholic bias to win the White House, he added.

In the 2012 election, voters have taken note of the ideological differences between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan despite their shared Catholic faith. “Citizens are not dismissing these candidates simply because they’re Catholics,” Cladis said. “That’s a sign of democratic politics.”

Linford Fisher, assistant professor of history, provided historical context for the role of religion in U.S. politics, tracing battles over religious influence back to the colonial period.

He noted that colonial societies were organized around Protestant dogma, especially in Puritan New England, but the U.S. Constitution changed this dynamic.

“I think we forget how radical this was in the context of the 18th century,” Fisher said, referring to the Constitution’s ban on religious qualifications for federal office and the First Amendment’s support for the freedom of religion. But he added that religious biases against non-Protestant candidates continued through American history.

“These issues didn’t go away,” Fisher said. “From the colonial period to the present, in many ways, religion

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has always figured in our elections.”

Fisher added that in addition to featuring the first Mormon nominee of a major party, the 2012 election marks the first time there is no Protestant on the Republican Party’s ticket. According to Fisher, this development coincides with another major milestone for a country where Protestants long held a large advantage in winning elected office. This year, the number of Americans who identify as Protestant dropped below 50 percent.

Melissa Proctor, a PhD candidate in religious studies who has also been a visiting lecturer on Mormonism at Harvard Divinity School, followed Cladis and Fisher with a discussion of how Romney’s Mormon faith affects the Republican contender’s quest for the presidency.

“Romney wants to stake his character and values on his religious beliefs while wanting nobody to ask what those beliefs are,” Proctor said, explaining that Romney has shied away from publicly discussing the details of his Mormon faith for fear of alienating anti-Mormon voters.

Proctor attributed an increase in the proportion of voters with fears about a Mormon president to the national media’s relentless coverage of whether Mormonism would hurt Romney’s candidacy.

“It puts the issue center stage,” Proctor said, adding that the media’s narrative of deep anti-Mormonism among conservative southern Baptists was challenged by the significant number of evangelicals who have endorsed Romney this year, as well as during his bid for the Republican nomination in the 2008 presidential race.

Proctor also discussed the growth of another key demographic group — the “nones,”or religiously unaffiliated voters, who she said account for 32 percent of all Americans under the age of 30. “If you aren’t religiously affiliated, you actually are less likely to be against certain religions,” Proctor said.

city & state 3

the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

Higher ed ne ws r oundup

by Elizabe th Koh senior staff writer

Average student loan debt increasing, report says Average student loan debt increased 5 percent between the classes of 2010 and 2011, according to an annual report released Oct. 18 by the Institute for College Access and Success. The average amount of debt for 2011 college graduates is now $26,600 compared to $25,250 for 2010 graduates.

According to the report, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates dropped 0.3 percent to 8.8 percent in 2011. The rate is significantly lower than the 19.1 percent unemployment rate for high school graduates without a college degree.

The report included only data from public and private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, but noted that students at forprofit four-year colleges were more likely to take on more debt than their peers at public and private nonprofit schools.

Yale considers grade deflation policy Yale has formed an ad hoc committee to investigate current grading policies, the Daily Princetonian reported Friday. In the process of gathering data, the committee will also analyze Princeton’s grade deflation policy, enacted in 2004.

According to the article, it is unlikely the committee will suggest implementing a formal deflation policy for grades, though the Yale Daily News reported that the GPA floor for summa cum laude status at Yale has reached an all-time high in recent years.

Grade inflation has been debated at other Ivy League schools, including Dartmouth and Penn. The current grading policy at Princeton limits A’s to the top 35 percent of students in a class.

University of California seeks increased donations as public funding dips The University of California has launched a new fundraising campaign to draw in private donations as public funding dwindles, the Daily Californian reported. The campaign, called “Onward California,” primarily seeks to connect state residents with their university system, but also focuses on building support, both financial and otherwise.

The University of California has seen major budget cuts in recent years, with a $1.5 billion, or 13.5 percent, decrease in public support last year. At the University of California at Berkeley, the system’s oldest campus, state funding currently represents only 11 percent of its budget.

The new campaign is being launched as Californians consider even more significant cuts to the system under Proposition 30, which would raise income and sales taxes and add money to the fund for K-12 and higher education if passed. But if the proposition fails, the University of California would lose an additional $250 million in already scheduled cuts.

Thanks for reading!

Election roundup: Candidates debate policy

By Adam Toobin Senior staff writer

Election day is Nov. 6. All Brown students who are not yet registered may do so on Election Day, but they will only be able to vote in the presidential race — state races are closed to new registrants.

R.I. Senate Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., met Republican challenger Barry Hinckley Jr. last night in their first of two debates. They will face off again next Saturday. The discussion covered unemployment, for which

Whitehouse blamed former President George W. Bush. Hinckley attributed joblessness to the stifling effect of high taxes on the economy. The debate also touched on health care, the deficit and a number of other social topics. Both candidates are prochoice and support marriage equality. But the two drew sharp contrasts on their initiatives for job creation.

Whitehouse promoted investments in infrastructure and manufacturing, and Hinckley advocated significant tax cuts along the lines of former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, which would lower the personal, corporate and capital gains tax to 9 percent. The two also disagreed on Obama’s health care reform legislation — Whitehouse said he supports the law, but Hinckley said the law was unconstitutional, and he would vote to repeal much of it if elected.

R.I. House of Representatives The race to represent the first congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives saw its third debate last night between Democrat Rep. David Cicilline ’83, Republican Brendan Doherty and Independent David Vogel, who made his first appearance in the debates. Doherty’s campaign accused Cicilline Tuesday of accepting around $12,000 from individuals involved in “strip clubs, topless bars and houses of prostitution that exploit women for profit,” the Providence Journal reported. In a statement, Doherty contrasted his record fighting the loophole in state law that allowed prostitution to continue legally with Cicilline’s acceptance of money from the sex industry, according to the Journal. The incumbent had his first public chance to respond to the Doherty campaign’s allegations in the debate, calling the topic a “distraction.”

Cicilline, who held a six-point lead in two recent polls, will face Doherty in their final debate next Thursday.

4 campus news

the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

RISD ranks seventh in highest average Parent PLUS loans

By Margaret Nickens STaff Writer

The Rhode Island School of Design ranked seventh on a recent national list of colleges whose students’ families took out the highest average federal Parent PLUS Loans. The average Parent PLUS Loan for RISD students is $29,255, double the average loan size

of RISD students in 2000, according to the list published by the Chronicle of Higher Education and ProPublica.

This compares to a national average of nearly $12,000.

The federal Parent PLUS Loan is an unsubsidized loan that allows families to borrow up to the cost of attending a school minus any financial aid the student has already received, ac-

cording to the loan program’s website.

The loan amount is not determined by income. A family will only be turned away if members exhibit an “adverse credit history,” such as being 90 days late on any debt, defaulting on Title IV debt within the past five years or undergoing a recent foreclosure or bankruptcy. Those who have been sent to a collection agency because of un-

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paid debt are also no longer eligible for the PLUS loan due to changes made to the program last year, according to the website.

Due to the relative ease with which parents can acquire a PLUS loan, the program allows parents to potentially bury themselves in loan debt, said Simon Moore, the executive director of College Visions, an organization that provides college advice to low-income students in Rhode Island.

“Our general rule of thumb is we encourage families to avoid taking out the PLUS loan,” Moore said. He noted that parents can borrow more than their Expected Family Contribution, suggesting that they may not be able to afford loan repayments.

But Anthony Gallonio, the director of financial aid at RISD, said that while RISD topped the list due to the

way to bring in the best and brightest students in the class,” he said.

By comparison, 412 Brown students, or about 6.5 percent of the undergraduate population, used the Parent PLUS Loan in 2011 with an average loan amount of $23,215. Similar to RISD, the number of loan recipients has decreased at Brown from 513 in 2005 while the average loan amount has increased 67 percent since 2000, the Chronicle reported.

Susan Farnum, associate director of financial aid at Brown, said she considers the PLUS Loan a good option because it allows parents to repay the debt over longer periods of time compared to other loan programs and because parents can choose to defer payments until after their child has graduated.

But Farnum said she will not ad-

“I feel like it’s not our role in the office to tell a family how to finance their contribution.”

Susan Farnum Associate Director of Financial Aid

average size of the PLUS Loan taken out by families, a small percentage of the undergraduate population actually used the loan. Eleven percent of undergraduates, or 219 students, used the loan in 2011.

While the average size of the loan has been increasing for the past decade, the number of PLUS Loan recipients at RISD is down from 366 in 2005.

When advising families on their financial aid options, RISD financial aid officers will present all of the available loan and aid options, Gallonio said. But “it’s the family that needs to decide which loans are going to be best for them,” he said, noting that recently more families are finding lower interest rates with private loans compared to the Parent PLUS loan.

Prior to 2011, the PLUS Loan’s fixed 7.9 percent interest rate was often lower than that offered by private education loans, pushing some families to opt for the federal loan, Gallonio said. But as the trend has reversed, some families with good credit and a higher income are finding that private loans may be a better option, he said.

Despite the decrease in loan recipients at RISD and recent efforts to make it more difficult to obtain the loan, Moore said the system remains flawed.

“The PLUS loan program right now offers an out for schools. It allows schools not to take responsibility for not generously funding students through financial aid programs,” he said. The problem begins, according to Moore, with the overestimation of the Expected Family Contribution.

“EFCs for low-income families are much too high,” he said, adding that colleges end up “asking (families) to pay much more than they reasonably can through a loan that they may not be able to pay off.”

Gallonio said RISD does not depend on PLUS loans to avoid increasing financial aid, noting that such a move would hurt enrollment. “For a school who is concerned about overall recruitment and bringing in the best and brightest students, relying on student loans is not an effective

vise parents either way. “I feel like it’s not our role in the office to tell a family how to finance their contribution,” she said. “It’s to provide information about their options.”

RISD is not the only small art school that topped the list. The Chronicle of Higher Education noted that a third of the top 25 schools with the highest PLUS Loan awards were art and music schools.

Deborah Obalil, executive director of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design, said this may be due to the higher cost of education at these schools. “They have very specialized buildings and studio equipment and other things that can’t be used for multiple purposes,” she said. Whereas most schools can use a classroom for many different subjects, art studios are generally specialized for one subject.

She also noted that many of these schools are younger and have smaller endowments. Brown’s endowment, which has hovered around $2.5 billion in recent years, is around eight times the size of RISD’s endowment, which has fluctuated around $300 million for the past few years according to information on Brown and RISD’s websites.

“For students that are committed and serious about doing an art and design higher ed degree, they often have to look at options to make that possible, and Federal PLUS loans are one of those options,” she said.

But Moore said many colleges in the U.S. have small endowments but are still able to provide generous financial aid. “It’s really a question of what institutional priorities are,” he said.

Gallonio said RISD will not use the program as a crutch even as tuition costs rise in the future.

“I think for an institution like RISD, and I would hope many other institutions, the reliance on student loans, and/or parent loans, is a big concern,” he said. “Increasing costs to push onto educational loan financing is certainly not in our vision in terms of helping families finance their education.”

campus news 5

the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

Crime Log

by Amy R asmussen Cit y & State Editor

The following summary includes a selection of major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Sept. 16 and Oct. 8. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents occurring off campus.

DPS does not divulge information on cases that are currently under investigation by the department, PPD or the Office of Student Life. DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls, which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters, located at 75 Charlesfield St. Sept. 16 1:03 p.m. A Providence College student reported his bicycle was stolen from the bike rack behind Dyer House while he was attending chorus practice in Steinert Hall. The 21-speed red Schwinn was taken Sept. 15 between 9 a.m. and 3:40 p.m.

/ / Default page 1 University, he said, such as more advanced notice when a student will be laid off from an on-campus job.

Default can happen when students exhaust the safety net options — such as forbearance, unemployment deferral and income-based repayment — that come with federal loans. But in some cases, students do not maintain communication with their loan servicers, leading them to address repayment issues too late, Richardson said.

For students who do default, repercussions can be devastating, she said. Being registered with delinquent loans with the Credit Bureau will negatively affect a borrower’s credit

rating, and the extra fees associated with repaying delinquent loans become increasingly burdensome, she said. The outstanding principle, crude interest, late fees and collection fees can even double the balance owed, she said.

Nationally, rates tend to be highest among proprietary institutions, private two-year colleges and public two-to-three-year programs. High rates of default are also common with students who do not complete their degree, Richardson said.

Rates among other Ivy League institutions have been consistently similar to Brown’s, and generally remain within a 0.5 percent margin of difference. Though default rates may

be similar, the average debt burden for Brown graduates remains among the highest in the Ivy League, Mechanick said.

This year’s two-year default rate for student borrowers at the University of Rhode Island was 3.9 percent, reflecting the national pattern of higher rates of default at public versus private institutions.

Overall, borrowers are becoming more educated about their options as servicers come out with new programs to address their needs, both Richardson and Connors said. The loan office predicts the default rate will remain stagnant or decrease in the coming years despite continuing turmoil with the nation’s finances.

9:45 p.m. A student reported that his backpack, left unattended in the basement of Sharpe Refectory, was stolen. The bag contained ballroom dancing shoes and a MacBook Air. Sept. 17 11:38 p.m. A student at the Rhode Island School of Design reported being approached by an unidentified male while talking on her cellphone near the Watson Institute for International Studies.

The man, wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans, forcefully grabbed the phone from her hand and fled on foot. Providence and Brown police searched the area but were not able to locate the suspect.

Sept. 18 7:35 p.m. A student reported that $73 was stolen from his wallet while he was at club ice hockey practice. He said at least three other players also had items stolen.

Sept. 19 1:38 p.m. An employee reported her bicycle was stolen from a bike rack between the Jonathan Nelson ’77 Fitness Center and the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center. The cable lock was also taken.

Sept. 27 10:33 a.m. A Rockefeller Library employee reported that a card reader for copy machines had been stolen.

Sept. 30 4:08 a.m. A student reported that at a party in Sears House she was told she could place her coat in the basement women’s bathroom around 2:30 a.m. She stated her cell phone was in the coat’s pocket.

When she went to retrieve the coat at 4 a.m., the student said the pocket was unzipped, and the phone was gone.

Oct. 8 1:20 p.m. A swim coach reported that his bicycle was taken from the rack on the north side of the Nelson Fitness Center sometime between 10:40 a.m. Oct. 6 and 7:40 p.m. Oct. 7. The cable lock on the bicycle had been cut.

Today in U. History: Oc t. 24

by mark valdez senior staff writer

Rockefeller library houses erotic literature and art in off-limits section In 1975, The Herald reported on the Rockefeller Library’s “Starred Rock Collection,” which included “anatomy texts, erotica and anything else that attracts theft, scissors and cute little comments written in the margins.” Then located in the off-limits Level C section of the Rock, the collection also included art books, such as anatomy diagrams by Leonardo Da Vinci. Esquire was located in the sealed repository as it was popular with collectors and protected from theft. The Herald noted that “to read a little Playboy, you have to go over to the John Hay.”

National anthrax scares hit universities In 2001, anthrax scares sprouted up around Ivy League schools, including Brown. The campus center at Princeton was evacuated Oct. 21 after a student noticed a white powder around a computer, as reported by the Daily Princetonian. A Harvard employee encountered a white powder when opening a package, prompting an evacuation and testing of the substance, the Harvard Crimson reported. Michelle Nuey, assistant manager of Brown Police and Security, detailed multiple instances of “suspicious or unusual circumstances” reported by anxious students at Brown.

Graduate School – Special Advertising Section

6 shaping the presidency / / Presidencies page 1 velop agendas forged by Brown’s particular set of demands and resources — a crucial aspect of the presidency highlighted by many senior administrators.

Paxson, who will be officially inaugurated this weekend, is the fourth out of the last five Brown presidents to come directly from another university, arriving after serving as the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Paxson now takes on the challenge of making her mark on an institution striving to maintain a university-college identity in an increasingly interconnected and competitive global landscape.

University exchange Appointing presidents with experience at other institutions is “very healthy” in helping universities maintain an outward perspective, said Hunter Rawlings III, president of Cornell from 1995 to 2003 and current president of the Association of American Universities. “It’s valuable sometimes to bring in fresh ideas that are influenced by situations elsewhere,” he said.

“Coming from Princeton may be an advantage” for Paxson, said David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98, professor of anthropology and former provost under Simmons. Princeton is the Ivy League

eton are very different places, the basic skills needed for this work are transferable,” Paxson wrote in an email to The Herald. “Already, I can see how my experience building consensus around curricular change will be useful in the strategic planning process we have launched at Brown.”

But not all of Paxson’s past experience will necessarily be applicable to Brown. She spearheaded some notable changes while at Princeton — including the creation of the Center for Health and Wellbeing, which conducts research on public health and development-related issues, and curricular reform in the economics department — but told The Herald last March that she does not know if similar initiatives are right for Brown.

Her top priority, she said, will be to maintain Brown’s “very distinctive feeling and set of values.”

“What develops here has to come from here, and importing things from elsewhere is usually not a very good idea,” she said at the time.

In framing an agenda, a president must keep the University’s unique mission in mind, Kertzer said.

But opportunities for transferring ideas go beyond previous job expertise.

Paxson will be in communication with other university presidents through the AAU’s semi-annual sessions for university leaders to meet and discuss issues facing administrators in higher education. The AAU’s members in-

discuss a wide range of issues, from online learning, to controlling the costs of college, to federal support of research. They also discuss issues that, while very important, may not be as much in the public eye,” Paxson wrote in an email to The Herald.

Nan Keohane, who served as president of Wellesley College and later Duke University, said she occasionally contacted colleagues she met at AAU meetings for advice in situations that were new to her early in her tenure as president. By the end of her presidency at Wellesley, she said she was the one giving advice.

“It’s a nice kind of reciprocity,” Keohane said.

Paxson also wrote that she finds value in consulting other universities’ presidents. “As a new president, it is great to compare notes with people who hold the same job and are dealing with similar issues,” Paxson wrote.

She will also meet with other Ivy League presidents, who gather regularly to discuss both topics related to academics and the Ivy League. For instance, Paxson wrote, presidents of Ivy League universities have been discussing ways to prevent concussions in student athletes — a subject she said she is drawn to because of her own work as a health economist.

Paxson has already started forming relationships with other university presidents in Rhode Island, she wrote.

Such collaboration follows the lead of

This series examines the University’s top post by looking back at past presidents, outward to Brown’s peers and forward to the role President Christina Paxson has inherited. Check it out online at thebdh.org/presidents.

Shaping the Presidency

A three-part series

Yesterday: The nature of the Brown presidency has changed significantly since its creation. Presidents originally served as autocratic managers, but now they focus on fundraising and elevating the University’s global standing.

Tomorrow: Paxson and former president Ruth Simmons inherited Brown under vastly different circumstances, a discrepancy that highlights how context shapes the timeline and content of a presidential agenda.

school most aligned with Brown in terms of striving to be a top research university while simultaneously fostering a strong undergraduate experience, he said.

“Even through Brown and Princ-

clude 61 research universities in North America and all Ivy League institutions excluding Dartmouth.

“Although I have not attended any of these meetings yet, I understand that they provide opportunities to

past University presidents who also reached out to their fellow presidents within the state. During Simmons’ presidency, the University worked with the Rhode Island School of Design to create a dual-degree program in 2008 at the urging of the faculty.

“Brown and RISD have reached this historic moment when we are actually weaving together our academic programs for some great students,” Roger Mandle, former president of RISD, told The Herald in September 2007.

Peer influence When universities undertake unique initiatives, peer institutions

the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

are often prompted to consider doing the same. Kertzer pointed to Harvard’s move to eliminate its early action admission program in 2006, after which Princeton and the University of Virginia also eliminated their early admission programs.

Harvard’s former Interim President Derek Bok said “somebody had to take the lead” in discontinuing the early admissions program, the Harvard

Brown did not formally become co-ed until the fall of 1971, though by the time the Brown and Pembroke College administrations merged, co-ed housing and dining halls were already present on campus. Interim President Merton Stoltz had also formed a committee to discuss the future of Pembroke College as a separate institution in 1969.

Dartmouth became co-ed in 1972,

“Even through Brown and Princeton are very different places, the basic skills needed for this work are transferable.”

Christina Paxson President

Crimson reported in 2006. After the announcement, Bok said he hoped that this decision would create a larger trend in higher education and that other universities would also reshape their admissions policies.

When Princeton administrators decided to end early action, they also anticipated that peers would follow suit — an expectation that would prove incorrect.

“We hoped other colleges and universities would do the same and they haven’t,” Princeton President Shirley Tilghman said in a 2011 press release announcing the program’s reinstatement.

But institutions must still consider their individual circumstances when determining policy directions. Brown and several other top institutions did not change their early admission processes after peers discontinued the programs. This decision “turned out to be right,” Kertzer said, given that other schools reinstated early action by 2011.

Miller explained Brown’s decision to retain the program in an email to The Herald in March 2011. An early admissions program provides, he wrote, “more certainty for the college in terms of constructing an incoming class, while giving students the chance to declare and commit themselves to a very clear first choice institution.”

One of the most striking examples of peer institution influence on policy was the shift to coeducation, said Gaddis Smith, a professor emeritus of history, who wrote a book on the history of Yale.

Yale “was kind of fiddling around” with the transition until the fall of 1968 when Princeton announced it would accept women. “So Yale immediately said, ‘Ok, we’ll do it,’” Smith said.

and Harvard and Columbia followed suit in 1977 and 1983, respectively.

Students themselves have called upon presidents to follow the lead of other universities. In February 1969, students demanded that the administration question the status of Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs as part of the community.

“I would urge the Faculty to vote down the Ad Hoc Committee proposal and to follow Yale University and Harvard University in recognizing the incompatibility of military training with the proper functioning of the University,” Kertzer said as an undergraduate in 1969, in reference to the committee responsible for evaluating the presence of ROTC on campus.

From his more recent viewpoint as a former administrator, Kertzer pointed to the discussions of tenure guidelines, which started in 2009, as an instance in which the University looked to the practices of its peers to shape the major decisions affecting the faculty. Most professors and administrators cited practices at other universities in their arguments, Kertzer said, adding that only a few faculty members took an “ostrich approach” in not wanting Brown to be compared to another school.

“We make our own decisions of what we think is right, but we take advantage of what is going on at other universities to learn about how it works,” Kertzer said.

While some University changes are prompted by internal agendas, presidents and administrators are acutely aware of broader trends in higher education and the policies of peer institutions.

Understanding undergraduates With responsibilities to the faculty, trustees / / Presidencies page 7

the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

shaping the presidency 7 In the past, these videos have featured Simmons and Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron.

Herald file photo

While at Brown, President Ruth Simmons achieved a cult-like status among undergraduates, but such celebrity is not common to all presidencies.

/ / Presidencies page 6 and higher education in general, presidents at different universities vary in the extent of their interaction with the student body.

At her inauguration in 2001, Simmons’ newly emerging celebrity-like status inspired students to take pictures with a life-size cutout of her, which she called “one of the most embarrassing moments of my life” during an interview in 2006.

In a fall 2011 Herald poll, 81 percent of Brown undergraduates surveyed said Simmons had positively contributed to their Brown experience, validating the unique campus popularity she enjoyed.

During her tenure, students showed their admiration for Simmons through shirts, posters and even Halloween costumes.

“Most presidents feel they want to be as engaged as possible with the undergraduate student community because that’s the heart of the campus,” Rawlings said.

Princeton president Tilghman also has a popular presence on campus.

“Most people I talked to really like her,” said Suchana Costa, a sophomore who took a freshman seminar on genetics with Tilghman. Costa said when she struggled in the class, Tilghman made time one Sunday evening to meet with her — notable considering that some of her other professors weren’t as willing to meet, Costa said.

A joke among Princeton undergraduates is that Tilghman “controls the Princeton weather machine” because the weather stays good every time the campus hosts an important event, Costa said.

Cornell president David Skorton and his wife stay in a freshman dorm during orientation every year, according to Adam Gitlin, president of the Cornell student assembly, and Skorton has a reputation for being very approachable.

But not all university presidents have such a strong presence on their campuses. Though Yale undergraduates have a “tremendous amount of respect” for President Richard Levin and are aware of the notable initiatives that characterize his tenure, “it’s not

like he’s interacting with undergraduates every single day,” said Brandon Levin, a student counselor to the Yale presidential search committee who is of no relation to the president.

Undergraduate familiarity with Columbia President Lee Bollinger mirrors the situation at Yale. “He really is kind of aloof when it comes to undergraduate life,” said Jared Odessky, vice president of communications on the Columbia College Student Council.

His main engagement with undergraduates comes from the “fireside chats” he hosts at his home a few times a year — students enter a lottery for a chance to attend the chats and personally ask him questions.

The Undergraduate Council of Students is planning to hold similar chats with Paxson this semester, announced Kyra Mungia ’13, communications chair, at a UCS meeting last month.

‘Natural rhythm’ As Paxson assumes the role of the University’s 19th president, she will navigate both the responsibilities and expectations specific to Brown and those common across university presidencies at a time of presidential turnover at peer institutions.

“There is a natural rhythm to university presidencies,” Tilghman wrote in an email this fall to the Princeton community in which she announced her decision to step down at the end of this academic year. Both Tilghman and Richard Levin declared their intentions to step down last month. Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Susan Hockfield announced in February she would leave the school as soon as a successor was found, while former Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim ’82 resigned this summer to become president of the World Bank after serving for less than three years.

Last year, Simmons said she felt she was stepping down at the right time because of the University’s financial stability, The Herald reported in September 2011.

“The time to make the transition is when you’re strong,” she said then.

Rawlings said private university presidents often stay between eight and 15 years. Presidents should stay long enough to effectively implement their agendas, but staying too long may identify the university too strongly with a president’s individual interests, he said.

“In the beginning, you can be critical of everything because none of it is your responsibility. After 12 years, you’re inevitably more defensive, less critical, because a lot of what you should be looking at really critically is your work,” Tilghman told the Daily Princetonian.

When the University is in need of a new leader, the search committee looks for a person whose personality and prior experiences match with the

unique qualities of Brown, Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76 said.

“Brown is somewhat unusual in being this combination of a school that puts a huge emphasis on the quality of its undergraduate experience, but has the potential to be one of the great research universities of the world,”

’55 P’87.

“It’s such a multi-faceted job,” Keohane said. “You’re everything from the mayor of a small town or a city-sized town, to a scholar-in-chief, to a fundraiser extraordinaire, to a friend of students and a colleague of the faculty.”

Leaders of universities and col-

“It’s such a multi-faceted job. … You’re everything from the mayor of a small town or a citysized town, to a scholar-in-chief, to a fundraiser extraordinaire, to a friend of students and a colleague of the faculty.”

Nan Keohane Former president of Wellesley College and Duke University

Kertzer said.

As the presidential search committee convened last year to find a successor for Simmons, members found Paxson “seemed to us just to be a completely natural, comfortable and perfect fit,” Tisch said.

“It was the combination of her skills, her experience, her temperament, her sensibility and her love of the values of Brown,” he added.

But in addition to an understanding of the uniqueness of the institution itself, one important aspect to any successful presidency is personality, said former Chancellor Artemis Joukowsky

leges may collaborate or enact new initiatives that prompt action by other schools. Brown at times has followed these larger trends, though each new decision is predicated on the University’s distinctive mission.

But trends and the University mission are not the only factors to shape a presidency. The next article in this series will investigate how the specific conditions surrounding a presidential transition can influence the agenda that defines a president’s tenure.

- With additional reporting by Alexandra Macfarlane.

8 feature / / Lawyer page 12 years ago when he was “dragooned” into signing on by someone he had known during his time as an undergraduate at Brown, he said. But, he added, switching to a more serious

tone, he genuinely enjoys consulting with students.

“The topics are different and broader and cause me to think about things and also talk to folks of a type I don’t get to generally talk to when I’m working, so it’s fun,” he said.

the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

O’Brien consults with an average of four to six students a week between in-person and phone consultations over the course of the year, a group composed of more undergraduate and graduate students than medical students, he said.

“It’s a crazy-good resource,” said Kiana Ward ’13, who was referred to O’Brien for help with her thesis. As an environmental studies concentrator, Ward is examining legal issues surrounding pollution from the Chevron refinery.

“I don’t have any background in law. … He gave me a lot of tangential evidence from around the country,” she said. “He was really good about bringing in case studies and things to help me with my point.”

O’Brien said the issues he typically advises on range from disputes with landlords, divorce, intellectual property rights and student-founded nonprofits. He added that he has yet to deal with a felony defense.

But O’Brien has certain restrictions in the nature of services he is allowed to offer, he said. Under the Rules of Professional Conduct, O’Brien cannot consult with students if they already have representation unless given specific permission to discuss the issue by the representing lawyer.

Additionally, O’Brien cannot consult with students about visa or immigration questions or any issue relating to the University or a Brown community member.

“If you have something where you’ve backed your car up into anoth-

Caroline granoff / herald

Attorney Len O’Brien consults four to six students a week but he does not usually represent students in court. er Brown student’s car, you wouldn’t want someone who’s associated with the student government and student activities advising them on how they could best sue you,” he said.

O’Brien will mediate disputes over leases, but only with the presence of all of the students involved, he said. In all other cases, he will refer students to another lawyer, as he does with any student requiring representation for legal defense rather than just advice.

“My job is to consult, not to represent,” he said. But O’Brien said he

has made certain exceptions when bullying landlords have tried to take advantage of students in small dispute court hearings. Landlords don’t often anticipate that students will contest a security deposit charge, but they shouldn’t back down, he said.

He added that the service is constructive for students, benefitting both those looking for educational instruction and help with personal quandaries.

“All of us, even lawyers, value someone (we) can turn to,” he said.

feature 9

the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

/ / Westminster page 1 Craftland appeared in 2002 as an itinerant pop-up store for the holiday season. The store, which relied on donated spaces, opened the day after Thanksgiving and closed the day before Christmas. In return for complimentary spaces, the owners would contribute to art-related nonprofits.

“It was never a ‘business’ business,” said Margaret Carleton, one of the three current owners. Rather, Craftland grew out of a desire to bring together talented local artists in order to sell their goods.

They kept this model going until 2010, when the store’s current landlord — then just a benefactor — gave the owners a deal for the space they had been using for the past eight seasons. Their landlord saw it as part of an ongoing effort to resuscitate the abandoned storefronts.

The store appears to eschew massmanufactured wares and instead opts to supply distinctive and unusual merchandise. Carleton estimates that about half the stock comes from local artists. Jewelry in particular is a popular draw.

Kayla Stormont ’13 said she appreciated the fact that most of the goods have a local theme. But though they are nice for gifts, “they’re not super practical just for daily use,” which is why she has not yet purchased anything at the store, she added.

Every month, the store has a rotating gallery show that consistently attracts reviewers’ acclaim. The owners originally thought the gallery would attract shoppers, but in fact, funds from the store are used to subsidize the gallery.

The holidays are still a special time for Craftland when the store area spills over into the gallery area to feature artists from Australia and Indonesia.

“It’s not the easiest climate, but it’s a great community,” Carleton said.

A flush of the heart Karen Beebe started Queen of Hearts on Union Street six years ago, with a partner who has since left the venture after being unable to commit to the struggling small business. Beebe worked odd jobs to support herself during the rough beginning and still has a bartending job on the side.

Queen of Hearts moved into its current Westminster spot in 2009 and Beebe took over the adjacent venue for another store, Modern Love, in 2010.

Before starting up the two shops, Beebe ran pop-up shops in empty retail spaces. She started the businesses to sell her own clothing line, which has been displayed in shows from Los Angeles to London. She still keeps her sewing machines in the back for when she has spare time — rare occasions, she said, as the growth of the stores has meant an increase in her managerial responsibilities.

Like Craftland down the street, Queen of Hearts supports local artists and also offers one-of-a-kind clothing. At its inception, the store sold exclusively handmade items, but as it expanded its stock, it became more difficult to carry items in enough sizes and it expanded to sell more wholesale products as well.

Meanwhile, Modern Love focuses on shoes and accessories. The aesthetic was originally “very clean lines, and everything was white tables,” but it was renovated last January to suit Beebe’s personal aesthetic, which she said is

not sleek and modern. Given the huge inventory and investment shoe stores require, Beebe said, she figured “we might as well have the most creative space and the most fun space.”

“We’re kind of known for having statement shoes and not always functional shoes,” she added. That said, quality is important, and employees have to wear their merchandise all day.

There is a doorway between the two stores to allow customers to drift between them to mix and match clothing and shoes, and they both have the common theme of love in their names.

Most of the employees shift between both locations.

Beebe said the stores draw everyone from people staying in nearby hotels to women who work in the area to college students. The store appeals to college girls who are going for a unique look, Beebe said. She noted that because the universities in the area each attract a different demographic, it isn’t too hard for her to identify what college a customer is from. RISD students, for example, “might have a little more personal style.” But she said she believes the store has something for everyone.

“It’s sort of embarrassing how much I’ve gotten (at Queen of Hearts),” Maggie Hire ’15 said. She discovered it as a Summer@Brown student and continued to shop there because of the off-the-beaten-path feel. One of her recent purchases there is a necklace of two fawns kissing. “It’s really ridiculous and over the top, and I love it,” she said.

Drew Weitman ’15 said she liked the accessories and “kitschy jewelry” that is both “awesome and weird.” But she added that she found the store to be prohibitively expensive.

From paved paradise to creative capital “It’s kind of an odd mix” of shops along Westminster Street, Carleton said. The heart of Westminster is concentrated between Dorrance and Union streets, and it spans about a block-and-a-half. Outside the hub are banks and chains such as Au Bon Pain and CVS. Carleton said she thinks the stores all complement each other in an “arty” way with a “nice density of stuff.”

This is a deliberate move on the part of the proprietor, Buff Chace at Cornish Associates, who works with fledgling enterprises to weave affordable residences with work spaces and entertainment “within the same fabric,” said Joanna Levitt, director of retail leasing and marketing for Cornish.

Chace said efforts to successfully reinvigorate the city “had to start in the heart of it,” where Westminster is located. The shops on the block used to be booming department stores in the early 1900s. But by the ’70s, most stores had shuttered their windows, and the area was deserted. For the past 20 years, he has worked to make it a “more community-based, more creative” center in downtown Providence.

“I’ve watched the street go up and down,” said Beebe, whose store has been located on Westminster for six years. She estimates that she is one of its longest current tenants. Breaking down big, department store-sized spaces to be more manageable for small business owners “has also been key” to the success of the district, she added. Modern Love and Queen of Hearts used to be one big store, but

julia shube / Herald

Westminster Street, located in “the heart” of downtown, has been central to Providence’s revitalization as a “more creative and community-based” city, according to Buff Chace, a real estate developer for Cornish Associates.

Meron Tadesse / Herald

Large department stores dominated Westminster Street in the early 1900s, but were deserted in the ’70s and have since been replaced with smaller shops, such as the boutique Queen of Hearts, pictured above. since that store was split in half, it was financially feasible to move in, one store at a time.

When Carleton first brought Craftland here, the riverfront was a parking lot. “They paved — literally paved over the river — and made a parking lot. It was kind of horrifying,” she remembered. The end of the street “was pretty derelict,” and the once-glorious buildings had faded into obsolescence.

Carleton said Rhode Islanders have “a pretty jaded view of downtown.”

Sometimes she reads the comments in the editorial section of the Providence Journal where people denigrate the

area, claiming it offers little more than “junkies and crack,” she said.

“It’s a mindset that’s hard to understand, but it’s very Rhode Island,” Carleton added. She said she is excited about the revitalization efforts, which have been partly aided by the number of education establishments that have moved into the area.

Chace pointed to Manhattan and Philadelphia as models for Providence.

He said New Haven should be a cautionary tale for educational institutions that neglect their surroundings, noting that only once Yale invested in the city did it flourish. Providence has “sort

comic Join the Club | Simon Henriques

of (been) in the same boat,” he said.

Chace is currently developing the Biltmore Garage. Levitt said it was a waste to use the first floor of such a prime commercial space for parking, and so Cornish is converting the lot into six new spaces. So far leases have been signed to open a French bakery by the owners of Gracie’s called Ellie’s and a small, all wood-fire restaurant called Figidini.

Chace said he hopes these expansion projects will keep bringing more jobs and customers to the area.

“It attracts energy,” he said. “People had sort of given up on that.”

10 editorial & letter Editorial

Editorial cartoon b y j acq u e l i n e f e i l e r

Casino reform

The decision between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney won’t be the only important one for Rhode Islanders on the ballot sheet come Nov. 6. Rhode Island’s ongoing efforts to sustain and ultimately grow the state economy have led to two crucial ballot measures, which will be featured on the state ballot this Election Day. According to a recent Herald article, the first two questions on the ballot will address opening “state-operated full-scale casino gambling” in Rhode Island’s two major casinos, Twin River Casino in Lincoln and Newport Grand in Newport. While we think voting yes on these questions is necessary for Rhode Islanders, we endorse this expansion of gambling only with a strong degree of caution.

The facts of the matter make it seem increasingly likely that Rhode Islanders will vote yes on the two casino measures. According to a Brown survey of registered voters likely to vote next month, 57.3 percent plan to support question one while 55.6 percent responded that they would support question two.

In purely economic terms, the expansion of casinos in Rhode Island sounds like a solid argument.

With the casino expansion, assuming that it is a successful one, jobs should be created by the influx of added revenue from the establishment of table games in the two casinos. Presumably, the inclusion of table games in Lincoln and Newport will enable the state to sustain its out-of-state customers, such as those from Massachusetts and Connecticut. Taking into consideration the casino reform Massachusetts is planning to institute in the next few years, we believe it is important for Rhode Island to remain competitive with our northern neighbors.

But while the economic argument is certainly reasonable, it rests on a large number of assumptions. If the measures do not pass, we do not think the casinos will subsequently fail. And we do not believe voting down the measures will seriously devastate casino employment. The Rhode Island Statewide Coalition estimates that in the worst-case scenario, if just question 1 is rejected, only a maximum of 400 jobs will be cut in the next five years. Moreover, Twin River spokeswoman Patti Doyle claimed that with added table games, no jobs would be cut. This statement is not very comforting. One of the primary reasons the questions would be approved in the first place is that they would guarantee job creation and not simply ward off future job cuts.

We also cannot forget from whom these casinos are obtaining money before and even after these questions are voted on. Ideally, these casinos should attract many financially stable, risk-calculated customers from Rhode Island and outside the state, such as those from Massachusetts. However, the “win big” mindset these casinos display will undoubtedly attract problem gamblers who do not have a full grasp of their financial limitations. Ultimately, this will lead to more losses through gambling than these people can afford. The notion that the casinos’ primary means of income is through the losses of its customers is quite a disturbing one. In addition, if these casinos garner their revenue from problem gamblers and the poor, are we not just redistributing income in the state from the ones who need it the most?

Rhode Island is a state. We are not a city that needs to be defined by luxury and a “win big” attitude. We are a small but cohesive state that has much to gain from the approval of questions one and two. Though we think voting yes on both questions is necessary at this point for Rhode Island, we are concerned the state is compromising its identity for increased revenue. It is up to voters to decide what issues matter most to them.

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

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the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor

le t ter to the editor

Lecture Board needs new ticket system To the Editor: I sat in line for 45 minutes Tuesday afternoon to get a ticket to see Julie Bowen speak Wednesday night. When I arrived at 11:15 a.m., there was already a long, snaky line covering the floor of the Kasper Multipurpose Room. I took a spot on the floor next to a student who told me that he was the end of the line. As noon approached more and more people flooded into the ever-shrinking space. Many people who entered did not appear to search for the end of the line but simply stood in different spots all around the room.

When the Lecture Board representatives came in, they asked everyone to stay seated. As if on cue, everyone instead stood up. Then they started passing out tickets. After about two minutes I realized that the line I was in was actually just a long snaky circle in the middle of the room. At a certain point the lines disintegrated entirely and instead a single stream of students, roughly six feet wide, formed along one side of the room. There was much protesting and pushing where I was standing as people suddenly realized that sitting in line for two hours made less difference than where you were seated in the room relative to where the ticket dispensers were standing.

As I stood in this anxious stream, I saw several students passing their ID cards forward to friends standing closer to the front. Other people blatantly cut forward in the line.

Ultimately I and many others who had waited longer left empty-handed. Meanwhile more opportunistic souls, who either arrived later or simply handed off their IDs to others, snatched a ticket. As those of us who did not receive a ticket filed out, several people stopped in front of the two ticket-dispensers to lodge their complaints. I overheard one of the ticket dispensers saying, “I’m sorry, we put up signs,” as an explanation, presumably, for how the Lecture Board had tried to avoid this mess. I wasn’t sure what that meant.

I understand that handing out tickets for an event is not as straightforward a process as it might seem. But the Lecture Board ought to spend more time planning a system of ticket distribution that is actually fair and equitable.

If people are going to be asked to stand in line, some for several hours, to get tickets for an event, then the rule ought to be that the person at the front of the line can only get one ticket using the ID card with his or her picture on it. Allowing people who have avoided the line entirely to get tickets before those who have waited for hours seems tacitly unfair.

The Lecture Board also needs to spend more time thinking about how to maintain line integrity. Today’s ticket dispensation favored those who were opportunistic and pushy and disenfranchised lots of people who had followed the rules.

Elisha Anderson ’98 Associate Director of Admission

Correc tion An article in Monday’s Herald (“Astronaut David Scott recalls moon mission,” Oct. 22) incorrectly stated that Professor of Geological Sciences Jim Head accompanied decorated astronaut David Scott on a lunar mission. In fact, Head worked on the Apollo 15 mission from NASA headquarters in Washington. The Herald regrets the error.

quote of the day

“The time to make the transition is when you’re strong.”

— Former president Ruth Simmons

See presidencies on page 12. facebook.com/browndailyherald

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opinions 11

the brown daily herald wednesday, october 24, 2012

Moraff ’s ’14 entitlement is showing By bradley silverman and ethan currens Guest Columnists Daniel Moraff ’14 wrote an op-ed article complaining, essentially, that the Brown Corporation is rich (“The horrifying makeup of the Brown Corporation,” Oct. 17). To be more specific, he is outraged that half of the members of the Corporation come from the financial services industry.

“When the Corporation seems to embody the worst of the corporate world … it shouldn’t surprise us.” No. Stop. Stop right there. This statement alone unmistakably indicates that the author is upper-middle class and white. Moraff literally has absolutely no conception of “the worst of the corporate world.” All he does have is an overpowering sense of liberal guilt, so much so that it has driven his thought process straight off the cliff of sanity.

The Toronto-based gold-mining company Barrick Gold allegedly burned 130 homes near one of its operations in Papua New Guinea, manipulated land titles elsewhere, was complicit in a toxic chemical spill and is associated with operations that led to a 56 percent to 70 percent reduction in the sizes of nearby glaciers. NewsCorp hacked the phones of seemingly everybody in Britain. French oil company Tonal uses slave labor. Those are literally just three companies.

Calm down.

Brown is a private organization, with pri-

vate funding and the right to self-determination. Anyone who thinks that students, faculty and workers — without your demonized 52 wealthy Corporation trustees and fellows — could maintain the operation and quality of conscientious and balanced education that Brown currently provides has departed from the plane of reality.

More importantly, there are procedures governing election to Brown’s boards. If those procedures are followed, then Moraff lacks grounds for complaint. We guess he

ition money is not a gift or charitable donation. It is payment for a product that we willingly purchase. Spending $300 on iPhones does not give us the right to tell Apple how to spend its profits. We are not part of the University — we are its customers. We are sorry if this is not as emotionally satisfying as lofty rhetoric about Brown being a community in which we are all equals. But it is an accurate description.

Focus on the sciences? If Brown were truly profit-minded, it would build a busi-

Moraff might ambiguously disagree with how some of this money is used, but guess what? It’s not his money to spend. is upset that the Corporation does not look like he wants it to look. Hmm. Okay. Moraff is neither an owner nor a shareholder of the Corporation — what makes him think he is owed any say at all in the composition of its boards? His privileged and entitled attitude is as arrogant as it is unwarranted.

Construction of new, modern buildings?

This is an investment in the future of the University. There are no monuments to opulence being built while professors’ pay is cut, no funding to social justice-oriented student groups being slashed while stainless steel is applied to every visible surface. Moraff might ambiguously disagree with how some of this money is used, but guess what? It’s not his money to spend. These decisions belong to the donors who pay for the buildings.

Oh and by the way, his tuition does not buy him a stake in the Corporation. Our tu-

ness school, not renovate our crumbling science buildings. Moraff must be unaware that scientists very rarely become rich alumni — meanwhile, they contribute to the technological progress of our entire society in a concrete fashion. Moraff cannot have spent much time in Barus and Holley. The entire laboratory and office area was built 60 years ago, and the HVAC and electrical systems are practically medieval.

We are not justified in criticizing the backgrounds of the members of the Corporation based on our assumption that they, like many extremely wealthy people in the world, are not sensitive to the needs of historically or currently oppressed minorities.

Those assumptions are biased, prejudiced solely on the basis of peoples’ net worth. Affluence may be correlated with corporate heartlessness, irresponsibility and insensi-

tivity to the needs of others who exist in a different socioeconomic class, but there are many examples otherwise.

In other words, one can criticize the decisions made and priorities set by the Corporation for Brown and its students. One can also interpret a pattern in the above, showing some sort of concrete causation between their extreme affluence and the poor leadership you view them to be exhibiting. One can then criticize their backgrounds, after having logically shown the connection. But one cannot rationally or reasonably criticize their affluence without specific complaints and a mechanism for those complaints to be connected to wealth or corporatism.

If Moraff believes that Brown is “educating a bunch of good corporate employees” and that “the University is run mainly as a tool of corporate America,” he can leave. Really. Moraff enrolled at Brown voluntarily, super-totally-evil corporate structure and all.

What upsets us is that he lacks any appreciation for enjoying the privilege of attending probably the single most liberal, conscientious, tolerant, social justice-oriented institution of higher education in the entire world, and the people he thoughtlessly slanders give hugely of their own time and money — both of which could be used to make more money, were they the plutocrats he smears them as — to allow it to exist.

Ethan Currens ’10 MA’11 and Bradley Silverman ’13 just discovered politics and are, like, super outraged about bankers and corporations and stuff.

Rethinking ‘having it all’ elizabeth fuerbacher Opinions Columnist In September, Marissa Mayer, the exemplary “Employee No. 20” of Google and new CEO of Yahoo!, gave birth to her first son. As a high-profile businesswoman who has ostensibly attained both personal and professional success, Mayer reignited the debate over whether women can truly “have it all.” This discussion over the simultaneous achievement of one’s goals at home and in the office forces us to question if it is truly possible — let alone reasonable — to meet such expectations. By defining “having it all” as the concurrent intersection of thriving in both realms of life, are we marginalizing those who have achieved success in only one area?

The theory that touts a happy family and a generous salary as necessary for success is especially detrimental to women who choose to focus on their careers rather than follow their maternal instincts. I fear this message implies that such women should feel unfulfilled rather than gratified. A person’s judgment as a success story should not be contingent upon societal conventions, but rather upon the realization of one’s own dreams.

From actresses to chefs to bankers, society seems to award a professionally successful woman with the label of “having it all” only once she is happily married with a family. This tendency likely stems from traditional roles in the family that positioned men as

breadwinners while women ruled the household. As ladies have been afforded more opportunities to forge identities outside of their homes, the concept of the “working mother” has become more accepted in society.

Nonetheless, it is safe to assume that most women are expected to desire a family. I want to emphasize that I do not fault these desires. But it is insulting when the media or society suggests that successful female artists, doctors, educators, engineers and entrepreneurs “have it all” only once they have a family rather than once they have accomplished a noteworthy feat in their fields.

was probed in this manner speaks to general expectations that a woman in particular has only achieved ultimate success once she has started a family. Shouldn’t the fact that Ray has built a nationally-recognized brand and a charismatic television identity be substantive enough to satiate one’s feelings of fulfillment?

The same logic applies for celebrities and artists. Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who grew up impoverished but created one of the world’s most prolific fashion houses, never had a spouse or children. Some very eligible men courted her, but she remained unmar-

Celebrating a woman’s self-actualization should not hinge upon her candidacy as a wife or mother. She should feel like she “has it all” once her own wishes come true, not the wishes society expects of her, come true.

Moreover, judgment should be neutral toward economic status. If she is pleased with her place in life, a woman earning $60,000 per year should feel just as content as one taking home $6 million per year.

In a 2009 interview with “Nightline” on ABC News, television chef Rachael Ray was asked by her interviewer, “Do you think you’re missing something?” — a thinlyveiled reference to her lack of children. Ray, who has built an empire around her accessible culinary techniques and bubbly personality, bluntly replied that she felt completely satisfied with her life. The very fact that Ray

ried throughout her life. Nonetheless, Chanel was an iconic entrepreneur and creative visionary who left an indelible mark in her industry. Yet despite her inspirational story, I have never read an article that described her as someone who “had it all.” I would readily argue that Chanel should be granted such a celebratory characterization.

Even in film and television, it is common to see ladies who have distinguished themselves in their careers still express feelings of invalidation at their lack of a family.

I remember watching “The Real Housewives of NYC” two seasons ago when Bethenny

Frankel, who reportedly sold her Skinnygirl beverages company last year for $100 million, suggested that she would only feel complete once she had a child. While this desire for a family is certainly an individual’s prerogative, the maternal qualification for a woman to feel she “has it all” is disparaging toward thriving ladies who are single or childless by choice. And broadly speaking, this definition of “having it all” probably primes most women early on to feel worthy of this distinction only once they are the best employees and the best caretakers they can be. Unfortunately, this does nothing to enhance the self-esteem of those who do, in fact, seek to achieve success in both respects yet who have only reached their dreams in one area.

As Mayer illustrated, women are demonstrating they can dedicate the same commitment to the office as they do to family life.

By not relinquishing her professional duties in spite of her financial ability to do so, Mayer boldly showed that women are not workplace risks who will ultimately let domestic responsibilities overwhelm their professional ones. More importantly, celebrating a woman’s self-actualization should not hinge upon her candidacy as a wife or mother. She should feel like she “has it all” once her own wishes, not the wishes that society expects of her, come true.

Elizabeth Fuerbacher ’14 believes in controlling one’s own dreams and decisions rather than acceding to someone else’s terms.

She can be reached at elizabeth_fuerbacher@brown.edu.

daily herald campus news the Brown

wednesday, october 24, 2012

Nobel-prize winning prof endorses Obama

By Molly Schulson Contributing Writer

Professor of Physics Leon Cooper joined 67 other Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry and medicine to co-sign a letter publicly endorsing President Barack Obama’s re-election bid. The document, entitled “An Open Letter to the American People,” was sent to the Center for American Progress Action Fund Oct. 17.

Cooper earned the 1972 Nobel Prize in physics alongside John Bardeen and John Robert Schrieffer for their theory of superconductivity.

Cooper pointed to Obama’s vocal advocacy of funding research and his opposition to positions favored by Republican candidate Mitt Romney as reasons to sign the letter.

“Obama has been very supportive of scientific research,” Cooper said.

In Monday night’s presidential de-

bate, Obama and Romney sparred over federal funding for research, with both saying they would invest in university research if elected president. “(Obama’s) opponent supports a budget that ... would devastate a long tradition of support for public research and investment in science at a time when this country’s future depends, as never before, on innovation,” the letter says.

This was the second presidential election in which Nobel prize for science winners released a signed letter of endorsement. In 2008, a similar letter endorsing Obama drew 76 signatures.

This year, the endorsement letter was initiated by this year’s prize winners and circulated around, Cooper said.

“I don’t agree with everything in the letter, but the bottom line is that I think Obama is the better candidate,” he said.

Romney’s health care and tax posi-

Courtesy of Leon Cooper

Nobel Prize winner and Professor of Physics Leon Cooper cited President Obama’s support for scientific research as one of his main motivations for signing a letter authored by Nobel Prize winners endorsing Obama. tions are difficult to understand, and their arithmetic doesn’t add up, he said.

On the issue of foreign policy, “from what he’s said so far, it seems to me that (Romney) doesn’t understand the complexity of the situation,” he said.

Though Cooper publicly endorsed

Obama, his students said he keeps his political opinions out of the classroom.

“I do not think that his political leanings influenced his teaching in any way,” Florian Schalliol ’13.5 wrote in an email to The Herald. Schalliol took PHYS 0100: “Flat Earth to Quantum

Uncertainty: On the Nature and Meaning of Scientific Explanation,” which Cooper taught last spring.

“I think Professor Cooper, and any other professor, has the right to endorse whomever he or she chooses,” he wrote.

TWC undergoes review, seeks to expand campus reach U. lawyer

By Corinne Sejourne Contributing Writer

The University’s Third World Center is undergoing a year-long internal and external review to evaluate its current work and look toward future initiatives.

The review will focus in particular on the TWC’s mission, name, organizational structure, resources and programs, said Mary Grace Almandrez, director of the Third World Center and assistant dean of the College.

The review consists of three parts — the first two parts, which began over the summer and have carried into the first semester, involve conducting an internal evaluation, while the third part involves an external assessment of the program that will be conducted by outside evaluators, Almandrez said.

The last intensive program review took place in 2003 when the center celebrated its 25th anniversary, she added.

External feedback in particular can

guide the center in strategic efforts to devise new initiatives and programs, said Liza Cariaga-Lo, associate provost for academic development and diversity.

The review will consider the center’s “entire portfolio,” wrote Paul Tran ’14, a Minority Peer Counselor Friend and the TWC Student Advisory Board member, in an email to The Herald on behalf of the TWC public relations team. This review will be powerful in crafting a vision for the TWC, he said, especially given recent changes in leadership. Almandrez and Cariaga-Lo have both been hired within the past two years.

The first part of the review is looking at the TWC as a whole — its programs, resources and name — and taking data from discussions, focus groups and surveys to evaluate how the center is doing. This part of the review looks to determine if “what we have is appropriate for students at this time,”

Almandrez said. She added that over 29 conversations have already taken place pertaining to the center’s direction, including open student forums.

In the second part of the review, the University is comparing the TWC to similar programs at peer institutions.

Administrators have already visited Yale and will soon visit Harvard and possibly Dartmouth and Columbia to gain a sense of their respective programs.

After the internal review is completed this January, the TWC will submit a report to the campus and the external review committee.

Almandrez and several administrators from the College and Office of Campus Life will convene a committee of three or four people to conduct the external review, Cariaga-Lo said. The committee members, one of whom will likely be an alum, will be chosen based on their expertise in the field and their theoretical and practical knowledge

Paige Gilley / Herald

The Third World Center is conducting a three-part review of the center’s programs, resources and name in order to broaden its student accessibility.

related to the TWC and its objectives, Almandrez said.

The external review committee will consult with students, staff, faculty, administrators and alums looking to dig beyond the internal review, Almandrez said.

After the external review committee submits its findings, the coordinators of the TWC will respond to the report and decide which recommendations to implement through a five-year plan.

“The TWC encourages students to be aware of issues, participate in conversations, reach out to others and be more open,” said Sabine Williams ’15, an MPC Friend and member of the center’s public relations team. “There is a big emphasis on making people feel comfortable and at home,” she said.

But most students are unaware of what the program is really about and are therefore hesitant to get involved, Williams said. She said she finds it surprising that many think it seems an “uninviting space,” when it is actually such “a safe space, a cozy place,” and suggested that awareness could be a potential area of improvement.

That lack of awareness extends to the name of the Third World Center, Williams said, adding that the name represents the founders’ vision — to create a “Third Way” separate from those of the first and second worlds that would promote community, equality and empowerment among nations.

But the name has drawn criticism for its relation to more negative associations with the term Third World as it relates to underdeveloped nations, as reported by The Herald in the past.

Awareness of the organization and its name will “absolutely” be emphasized in the review, among the many other aspects being evaluated, Almandrez said. “It is a great opportunity for the campus to start talking about what the center is about.”

Almandrez invited students to submit feedback on both the center’s strengths and weaknesses.

offers students legal advice

By Alexa pugh senior staff writer

If a spat with a landlord turns ugly or spring break doesn’t go exactly as planned, stressed-out students sometimes find themselves in need of more than just a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.

When legality becomes an issue, students might want to seek advice from a professional. But good lawyers can be hard to come by, and their fees can be steep.

To address some of these concerns, Brown offers on-campus legal services to any undergraduate, graduate or medical student — for free.

The Graduate Student Council and the Undergraduate Council of Students teamed up with University administrators to begin the program several years ago when UCS decided to apportion funds to pay for a lawyer to offer services part-time, said Yolanda Castillo-Appollonio, the assistant dean in the Office of Student Life in charge of the program.

Brown is currently the only school in the Ivy League that offers free legal aid to students, though Yale was looking to implement a similar program as of October 2011, according to an article in the Yale Daily News.

Attorney Len O’Brien ’68, who has his own firm in Providence and works mainly as a litigator in white-collar criminal defense, is currently the lawyer employed by the University.

He hosts office hours for students on Tuesday afternoons at the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center and offers phone consultations Thursday afternoons.

O’Brien began offering his services / / Lawyer page 8 two and a half

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