Daily
Herald
the Brown
vol. cxlviii, no. 9
INSIDE
Page 4
Building Brown Nonprofit parternship secured for future projects Page 5
Gluten-tag
BUDS offers a smorgasbord of gluten-free dining options Page 8
M. hockey
Bears tied for sixth place in conference after Saturday win
today
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tomorrow
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Monday, February 04, 2013
since 1891
New Med School program to admit first class in 2015 The 24-student program will combine primary care and public health in a four-year curriculum By Katie Lamb Senior STaff Writer
The Alpert Medical School’s new integrated primary care and public health curriculum will begin admitting 24 students per class starting in 2015, the school announced Jan. 28. The program may allow students to receive both a master’s degree in population health and a medical degree during their four years. Students will be selected for the program through a separate admission process from the annual Med School admission process and participate in a different four-year curriculum, said Edward Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences. Instead of attending large lectures, students in the program will learn some material online before attend-
ing focused small-group sessions, said Ira Wilson, professor of health services, policy and practice and a member of the advisory board that helped develop the program. This format, made possible by the program’s small size, was driven by the notion of the “flipped classroom,” in which students learn basic concepts on their own and then engage with one another to study specific cases and further develop their knowledge, Wilson said. Students will begin studying population health during the first year of medical school, and their clinical years will be formatted differently from those of the majority of medical students in the country, Wilson said. The advisory board, composed of deans and professors of the Med School and Public Health programs as well as representatives from the medical community in Providence and Rhode Island, is led by Professor of Family Medicine Jeffrey Borkan, according to a press release about the / / Medical page 4 program. The
Greg Jordan-Detamore / herald
The integrated Med School program will promote case-based problem solving in small classes and community engagement. Herald file photo.
Consulting conference draws industry reps to campus Festival Undergraduates participated in panels and discussions, gained networking experience By KIKI BARNES SENIOR STAFF WRITER
About 100 college students from around the country gathered on campus for two days of motivational lectures and networking at the second annual Collegiate Consulting Group National Conference. The conference was held this weekend by the Collegiate Consulting Group, an undergraduate-run organization that seeks to give students hands-on experience with the industry by connecting them with consulting companies. The conference aimed to teach students about consulting and provide them with a place to interact with major consulting firms, said Moses Riner ’09 MA’10, founder of the Collegiate Consulting Group. CCG is run by students,
but Riner aids the group by organizing its events and contacting firms. Conference attendees submitted applications online last fall. “The mediums on campus were very one-dimensional,” said Conference Director Francis Suh ’13. “We created a two-day conference for students and companies to have real conversations.” Riner said the CCG based the conference’s structure on the social venture workshop A Better World By Design, which is held at the University each fall. He added that the group tried to invite companies from many different sectors of consulting, like business and economic management, technology and finance. Fidelity Investments, Capital One Bank, The Boston Consulting Group and NERA Economic Consulting were
among the companies that participated in the conference. The conference included a series of panels with industry executives who shared their experiences followed by question-and-answer sessions. Students were also able to discuss career options at a luncheon held at the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center Saturday. “Each company brought at least one (Brown) alum,” Suh said, adding that featuring alums was especially encouraging for Brown students who attended. Most attendees came from New England schools, though some came from as far away as California and Georgia, Suh said. Patrick Lai, a graduate student from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, said his peers “don’t get that much breadth of information” about the consulting industry. The conference provided “a great
overview” of consulting careers, he said. “The experiences Brown students shared were very helpful,” Lai said. “They seemed to know so much more than the others.” Xi Tian, a junior from the Georgia Institute of Technology, said he felt the Brown students at the conference brought a high level of knowledge about the industry. Consulting consistently ranks within the top five most popular career fields for Brown graduates, according to data from the Center for Careers and Life After Brown. “The skill sets you develop through consulting are very diverse,” Suh said. “Brown students are very creative and think critically, which goes well (with the profession).” CCG leaders said they hope to organize another conference for next year and will consider making it a biannual event.
Evolving computers take U. from ‘science fiction’ to reality From mainframe computers to Coursera, Brown’s computing history takes a long road By sandra yan staff writer
In 1967, Brown was home to exactly one computer. This mainframe machine — an IBM System/360 Model 67 — was “used by the entire campus,” said Tom Doeppner, associate professor and vice chair of the department of computer science. Forty-six years later, almost every classroom is lit with a sea of gleaming laptops, the University’s course offerings are extending globally through online platforms such as Coursera and nearly two-thirds of the student body owns a smartphone. “The idea that someday you would
feature
ERIK OLSON / HERALD
With 97.5 percent of Brown students owning laptops, technology has transformed how professors teach and students learn.
walk around with a computer that’s 10,000 times more powerful than those mainframes — well, that was science fiction when I went to school,” said Andy van Dam, professor of computer science. “A smartphone was science fiction.” What used to be considered “science fiction” is now the reality. “Computing has become a fabric of the University,” said Don Stanford, adjunct professor of computer science. But the transition from a single computer — which Doeppner said was “housed in 180 George Street,” today’s Brown Computing Laboratory — to a campus where 97.5 percent of students polled in 2011 own a laptop and the University now tweets its news constituted a crucial step toward technologydriven learning options. At the beginning Computing at Brown began as a few classes / / Computers page 3
exposes playwriting process ‘Writing is Live’ will feature over 10 plays by MFA students and undergrads this month By MAGGIE LIVINGSTONE STAFF WRITER
The evolution of a play from simple words on a page to full staging, costumes, lighting and set is a lengthy process for playwrights. The month-long, fourth annual “Writing is Live” festival, which began Jan. 31, allows students in the MFA Playwriting program and undergraduate playwrights to showcase their works at all levels of development, from bare-bones table reads to largescale productions. All six candidates in the three-year MFA Playwriting program will debut original works over the first two weeks of the festival, said Vanessa Gilbert, producing artistic director of the festival and adjunct Theater and Performing Arts lecturer. The last two weeks of the festival are reserved for undergraduates to experiment with original pieces. Some actors and technical staff members are part of the Brown/ Trinity Repertory MFA program, but others include Brown undergraduates, Rhode Island School of Design students and Providence community members, Gilbert said. First-year MFA students will showcase their works via script-in-hand table reads at the McCormack Family Theater, second-year students will debut more embodied pieces with minimal staging and design elements and thirdyear students / / Festival page 2