Daily
Herald
THE BROWN
vol. cxlviii, no. 76
since 1891
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2013
Alums rank among top earners in survey
Questions of U.’s mission emerge at planning forum
Graduates rank as the eighth-highest paid in the country and the thirdhighest among Ivy peers
University expansion, financial aid and absence of detail in President Christina Paxson’s recently released strategic plan dominated discussion at a forum Tuesday hosted by Paxson and Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 to solicit feedback on the plan from students, faculty members and staff. Proposals to expand the University — in terms of numbers of students and faculty, educational scope and physical space — were at the heart of the discussion, which » See FORUM, page 3
STAFF WRITER
inside
How much can a Brown graduate expect to earn? In a tough economy, that question rests on many students’ and parents’ minds. According to an annual survey that PayScale released last week, Brown graduates have the eighth-highest average income after graduating among alums of U.S. colleges. The University ranked 17th in last year’s PayScale rankings. Among its Ivy League peers, only Princeton and Harvard outperformed the University. For its survey, PayScale compared approximately 1,000 American colleges and universities on a complex data set. According to the rankings, the average Brown graduate earns a $52,300 starting salary, and average mid-career salaries stand at $119,000. In response to the survey question, “Does your work make the world a better place?” 51 percent of alumni surveyed answered affirmatively. In contrast to typical college rankings, PayScale aims to calculate the financial outcomes on college education, including earning potential and the 30-year average return on investment. The PayScale rankings are unique in that “it’s the only data we currently have that attempts to find out how much graduates earn,” said Mark Schneider, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of PayScale’s advisory board. “A school like Brown, which is more liberal arts-(oriented), does well because of the quality of its students,” Schneider said, adding that humanities majors at most other schools do not earn similarly high salaries. The PayScale rankings have proven popular, Schneider said, attributing this to students’ angst about the state of economy. But some students expressed skepticism about the importance of the rankings and their significance for the University. “Most thinking adults realize that these ranking studies really are hogwash,” said Sohum Chatterjee ’14. Emma Funk ’16 said the high rankings do not console her. “A statistic like » See INCOME, page 2
By MICHAEL DUBIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER
CORINNE SZCZESNY / HERALD
President Christina Paxson spoke about her strategic plan draft at a forum Tuesday. With expanding professional schools, Brown is no longer a “university-college” as former President Henry Wriston defined it, she said.
As course offerings grow, Critical Review falls behind Faculty disinterest, lack of manpower and funding shortages have caused the website to lose prominence By KHIN SU CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A lack of updates to the Critical Review’s course reviews in recent years has caused the site to experience challenges in retaining prominence as a student resource during shopping period. The Critical Review announced updates for courses conducted in the fall 2012 semester in April on the group’s Facebook page but was unable to meet group leaders’ expectations for writing new reviews for courses offered last semester. Adam Siegel ’14, Critical Review editor-in-chief, said the lack of updates was due to a technical issue with the printers,
which meant survey packets were not delivered to faculty members in time. “We really screwed up,” Siegel said, adding, “It was definitely our fault, and we won’t do it again.” Many classes have reviews that were last updated in 2009 or 2010, with information on faculty members who no longer teach the course. Some students said without more current data, it is difficult to reply upon the Critical Review when selecting courses. Critical Review leaders said they have suffered from a lack of manpower to continue updating course reviews. “We recruit just enough people to survive and stay afloat,” said Rod Hasbun ’15, a Critical Review editor.
The Critical Review has an executive staff team of seven, which includes one technical staffer who maintains the entire Critical Review website, and around 20 to 25 writers and editors, Siegel said. About 1,900 courses are currently offered at the University by over 730 faculty members, said Curricular Resource Center Director Peggy Chang ’91. She added that as the number of courses has consistently risen, and as two-thirds of faculty members have arrived in the past 10 years, keeping up has become more difficult for the site. Chang said when she was an undergraduate in the late 1980s and early 1990s, “the Critical Review ... was supremely central” in students’ decision-making process for courses. But like any older organization, the Critical Review needs to rethink its
approach, she said. “The Critical Review student (staff) may not fully realize the exponential growth that’s taken place” in academic choices at the University, Chang said. “So when there’s that much choice, it’s wonderful, but I think we all need to acknowledge it’s a little overwhelming.” The Critical Review should think more strategically about the number of classes the group targets and should consider shifting the survey completion process online to maximize student responses, Chang said. But she added that she believed the group still has promise as a resource. “I don’t think the Critical Review’s time is over yet,” she said. The Critical Review has also faced budgetary challenges. » See CRITICAL, page 2
Lecturer explains nature with mathematical principles The Harvard professor used examples to show the simplicity in complex scientific questions By ALEX CONSTANTINO STAFF WRITER
Many different processes in nature can be understood through similar mathematical principles, said L. Mahadevan, professor of applied mathematics, biology and physics at Harvard, in a lecture to a mostly full Salomon 101 Tuesday night. His talk is part of a series of lectures around the world, entitled “Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013,”
SCIENCE & RESEARCH
RYAN WALSH / HERALD
Mahadevan confessed the questions he presented are “tiny” but a “cause for hope” for the future of mathematics in biology.
Bear love
Libertarian U.
Celebrate CAAS
Women’s tennis has strong “team chemistry,” said Coach Paul Wardlaw
Zach Ingber ’15 argues the Open Curriculum offers a free market model
The Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies celebrates its 30th anniversary
SPORTS, 4
COMMENTARY, 7
SCIENCE & RESEARCH, 8
weather
By MAX SCHINDLER
The student body may grow by 1 percent per year, President Christina Paxson said
that concern the interactions between mathematics and nature. “A lot of people think of science in terms of big complicated questions, but some of the absolute greatest problems start with very simple questions,” said Peter Jones, professor of mathematics and applied mathematics at Yale, when introducing Mahadevan. Mahadevan answered four such simple questions from his own research about biological forms — how tubes grow, how tendrils coil, how leaves ripple and how guts loop and fold. The first problem Mahadevan addressed was how the tubes of pollen elongate on their journey to fertilize a flower. The mechanism is similar to » See MATH, page 5 t o d ay
tomorrow
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