Daily
THE BROWN
vol. cxlviii, no. 87
Herald
since 1891
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013
BUS OnCall expands service in light of campus crime
A committee may recommend making the expansion permanent if the semester-long pilot is successful By MAGGIE LIVINGSTONE SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Brown University Shuttle temporarily expanded its OnCall service to all students and faculty and staff members living within a designated coverage area beginning Wednesday, wrote Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, executive vice president for planning, and Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services, in a community-wide email. University Shuttle System, the company responsible for BUS, will contract three new vehicles for use during the experimental expansion, which will last through the semester, said Elizabeth Gentry, assistant vice president for financial and administrative services. Before Wednesday, BUS OnCall serviced only community members living
off campus who had registered through the transportation office, Gentry said. Students and faculty members will no longer have to register for the service and can now call the OnCall hotline or send a pickup request online, Gentry added. The OnCall coverage area, which will remain the same as before the expansion, spans College Hill between North and South Main streets and Chase Avenue, as well as the path between main campus and the Alpert Medical School in the Jewelry District. The shuttles’ hours of operation will be from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. every day until Daylight Savings begins Nov. 3, when the service will be available starting at 5 p.m. Some students objected to the decision not to expand the coverage area, which excludes all residences on the
fixed BUS route. Waiting outside at night for a shuttle to arrive is problematic, said Ria Vaidya ’16, who lives in Perkins Hall and said she often studies late in the Center for Information Technology — at times until 1 a.m. She said that once after text messaging the BUS phone number, she received a text that no vehicles were en route. But she was not allowed to request a pickup with OnCall because she lives on the fixed route. “I had to wait for 15 minutes not knowing if anyone was going to pick me up,” Vaidya said. “They better let us use OnCall.” The pilot expansion is occurring in light of student, parental and community concerns related to campus crime, Gentry said. “The number of robberies is down from 2012, but there has been concern with the level of violence associated with that number,” Carey said, adding that a
recent incident in which a student was seriously injured during a robbery was part of the motivation for expansion. Tenzin Lama ’16 is currently taking an architecture class at the Rhode Island School of Design that demands “out of the class studio time,” sometimes requiring her to work in a RISD building on South Main Street until 2 a.m. Though she said she often feels “uncomfortable” walking home alone at night, she has previously been unable to use the OnCall service because she lives on campus, in Keeney Quadrangle. She added that she will “definitely” use the service to commute. Julia Harvey ’14, who lives off campus on Benefit Street, said she has been frustrated with OnCall, namely because of its “inefficiency.” Harvey is a member of two dance companies that rehearse on Pembroke Campus until midnight four nights a week. » See SHUTTLE, page 3
Approvals to ‘split’ eighth semester decrease Admins aim to lower the number of students taking half courseloads over their last two semesters By MOLLY SCHULSON SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Following a steep increase in the number of seniors splitting their final semesters, the Committee on Academic Standing has increased the difficulty for applicants to gain approval. A “split eighth” — an option to take two courses in both an eighth and ninth semester and paying by the course instead of the term — is a “rarely used administrative mechanism to enable an extraordinary opportunity for a student that can’t be done in any other way,” wrote Chris Dennis, deputy dean of the college and chair of the CAS, in an email
to The Herald. He added that medical issues might also lead students to split their final semesters. Last academic year, 29 students split their eighth semesters, compared to 33 total over the years between 2008 and 2011. There was a “considerable spike in last year’s figures,” Dennis wrote, adding that he does not know what caused the increase. The approval rate for students applying to split their eighth semesters for the current academic year is projected to be lower than last year’s, Dennis wrote. “The bar is high,” he wrote. “To delay taking one’s degree is a matter for the most serious consideration.” “It’s very rare for splitting to be allowed at this point,” said Andrew Simmons, director of the Center for Careers and Life After Brown. The CAS plans to discuss “exceptions » See SPLIT, page 4
DAVID DECKEY / HERALD
Compared to the 33 students who split their eighth semesters between 2008 and 2011, 29 students did so in the last academic year alone.
U. aims to grow faculty research
Should the Corporation approve Paxson’s strategic plan, sabbatical reforms may go into effect By KIKI BARNES SENIOR STAFF WRITER
A post-tenure sabbatical policy, changes to the academic calendar and streamlined research reporting procedures are among possible new endeavors intended to increase support for faculty research, said Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P’12. The projects would come out of President Christina Paxson’s strategic plan, released to the campus Sept. 18. In the draft of the plan, Paxson addressed “building the research environment” as a priority and often referred to Brown as a “research university.” Though the reforms are meant to increase support for faculty research, some questioned whether they would have a significant effect. Should the Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — approve the plan, a proposal for a post-tenure sabbatical is one that the administration would most likely implement, McLaughlin said. There are currently two sabbatical policies for assistant professors and tenured faculty members, McLaughlin said. Assistant professors take a one-semester sabbatical at full pay, usually during their » See RESEARCH, page 2
Engaged and underaged: Brown students find love early By SABRINA IMBLER SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Time passes in full moons for Dylan Felt ’16 when he is away from his fiancee. There was a full moon on their first camping trip together, and it was a blue moon when he proposed. So when his fiancee Danie left for Chile and Argentina for seven months, the two opted to mark the time by friendlier lunar units. “Instead of saying so many months to go, we said it was seven full moons, six full moons and so on,” Felt said. “Because no one has ever said, ‘Boy, I love being far away
inside
FEATURE
from the person I love!’” Felt is one of a small handful of engaged-to-be-married Brown undergraduates whose ‘ever after’ is just a little more certain. A modest proposal In a seventh grade jewelry workshop, Felt made a ring: a simple metal band with a red stone. He said he knew then he wanted to give the ring to the person with whom he would spend the rest of his life. “Apparently I’m a love hipster,” Felt said, ducking his head with a smile. When he proposed to Danie, the ring “fit perfectly.” Alyssa Browning ’15 has been
engaged for three years to her fiance Thomas, whom she met at a hockey game when she was 13. The middle school crush blossomed into a close and beautiful friendship, she said. “College is a fabulous dating algorithm,” said Browning, who imagined meeting her future spouse at a university. “But I don’t think it can’t happen when you’re very young.” Thomas proposed when Browning was 16. The two were standing in a gazebo on a pond with twinkling lights bouncing off the water, Browning remembered. When Thomas got down on one knee, Browning’s first thought was that he had tripped. Though Aamir Imam ’14 met his fiancee Rabia in the sixth grade, they only became close after he graduated high school, when she was a junior at
the University of Mary and Washington, he said. The summer after he graduated high school, the two would meet up and watch the star — that is, the world’s largest freestanding illuminated man-made star — in Roanoke, Va. While he was working in Chicago this summer, Imam decided to propose. When Rabia visited, he told her they were going to eat at Olive Garden. Their real plans were much more elaborate — shopping, dinner on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building and a late-night walk in Millennium Park that ended with a proposal at 10:14 and a few seconds. At 10:15, Rabia said yes. Right on cue, fireworks erupted in the sky. The marriage plot Felt attended the Lester B. Pearson
No post-
Dean discussion
Knowing naked
Check back next week for our special Family Weekend magazine
UCS talked about the ongoing search for a new dean of the College
Stump ’14 critiques the response to Fox coverage of Nudity in the Upspace
UNIVERSITY NEWS, 2
COMMENTARY, 7
weather
Handmade rings and fireworks sealed the deal for engaged undergraduates and their future spouses
United World College of the Pacific IB program in Canada to receive a full college scholarship. The program entailed an extra year of high school, during which he met Danie. They were engaged Aug. 31, 2012, the day before Felt came to Brown. Adjusting as a first-year was difficult due to his age and was made even more complicated by his relationship status, Felt said. “People on my hall would say, ‘Oh yeah, there’s that guy who’s not only a year older than you, but also engaged,’” he said. “No one really got it.” Some other misconceptions surrounded his relationship. Right before coming to campus, Felt had messaged his roommate-to-be about Danie, his fiancee in Canada. But, some time before, » See ENGAGED, page 3 t o d ay
tomorrow
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