Wednesday, February 26, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD vol. cxlix, no. 24

since 1891

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

Community mourns French lecturer Shoggy Waryn Performing Students remember arts to grow Waryn, who died last week, for dynamic under new personality and charisma initiative

By MAGGIE LIVINGSTONE FEATURES EDITOR

Colleagues and students remembered Shoggy Waryn as an engaging teacher, avid cinema lover and pioneer of integrating instructional technology into the classroom.

Waryn, who was 53 when he died last week after a prolonged illness, was a senior lecturer in French studies and served as director of Providence’s French Film Festival for nearly 10 years.

Students recalled Waryn’s passion for combining French with other aspects of education, whether cinema, technology or science.

Niesha Voigt ’14, a French studies concentrator, met Waryn during

the fall of her sophomore year, when she was considering concentrating but had reservations because of her science and pre-medical background.

“I had reached out (to) him because I heard great things about him,” Voigt said. “He basically showed me how I could do both science and French.”

Aileen Frotten ’16, a student in Waryn’s accelerated French course last spring, FREN 0200: “Basic French,” said Waryn’s charisma helped animate the class, which met six times a week.

“He was very, very lively and made learning a really fun and rewarding experience,” Frotten said. She added that Waryn was one of the “most accessible and friendly teachers,” corresponding with her last summer about a French reading list.

“He was an extremely energetic and dynamic person in and out of the classroom,” said Lewis Seifert, professor of French studies and chair » See WARYN, page 2

U. hires consulting firm to expand arts opportunities and physical spaces as part of strategic plan

By ASHWINI NATARAJAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Students described Shoggy Waryn, late senior lecturer in French studies, as “lively” and “engaging” in the classroom.

Alum analyzes barnacle ecosystems Panel Emily Lamb ’11 to publish discusses findings on barnacles’ growth and behavior in governor’s changing temperatures race

By CORINNE SEJOURNE STAFF WRITER

By ALEXANDER BLUM SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The trajectory of the Rhode Island gubernatorial race remains uncertain amid the entrance of new candidates in recent months, said the three members of a panel hosted Tuesday night by the Brown Democrats.

The discussion came nearly two weeks after WPRI released a poll Feb. 12 that showed Mayor Angel Taveras with a four-point lead over General Treasurer Gina Raimondo, The Herald reported at the time.

The panel consisted of WPRI political correspondent Ted Nesi, Rhode Island Public Radio writer Ian Donnis and Ed Fitzpatrick, a Providence Journal columnist. Todd Giroux, a perennial candidate for the governorship, was in attendance as an audience member.

Though the gubernatorial race was the featured topic, Nesi said the Sept.

9 primary is so far away that it is difficult to make accurate predictions at this point. » See GOVERNOR, page 2

inside

METRO

This April, the senior thesis-turned-research paper of Emily Lamb ’11 — which investigates barnacle behavior as influenced by temperature — will be published in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology.

Lamb began her research several years ago when she studied abroad in Chile and interned in a lab, she said.

Always interested in climate change,

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

everywhere, so it’s important not to over-generalize the role of climate in different species’ behaviors, Lamb said.

To conduct her study, she changed the amount of shade covering two barnacle species’ habitats to determine how they would respond to different temperatures. She found that lower temperatures influenced the barnacle species’ growth but not their interactions with each other.

Where intertidal organisms live on shorelines is influenced by temperature, Leslie said. This is “conventional wisdom” that has been shown time and again, she added, but what makes Lamb’s work interesting is that it suggests something different.

While a change in temperature will usually “tip the balance of a competitive » See BARNACLES, page 4

Science writer emphasizes storytelling, human connection Bestselling author Alan Lightman offers advice for making science writing clear and engaging

By MEGHAN FRIEDMANN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“Science can be a subject of beautiful writing, just like description of a landscape or memories of a love affair,” said Alan Lightman to nearly 100 students and faculty members Tuesday night.

Community members filled a meeting room on the second floor of Brown/RISD Hillel to listen to him

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

speak about nonfiction science writing — its importance, its challenges and even its emotions.

Lightman, a visiting professor in the department of English, holds dual appointments as a faculty member in both humanities and science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In addition to being a physicist, he is a published writer — his work of fiction, “Einstein’s Dreams,” is an international bestseller that has been translated into 30 different languages, said Elizabeth Taylor, senior lecturer in English, when she introduced Lightman.

“Science is part of our cultural inheritance,” Lightman said as he answered the question, “Why write about science?” People who do not learn » See NONFICTION, page 4

ARJUN NARAYEN / HERALD

Alan Lightman, visiting professor in English, stressed the importance of making scientific ideas understandable in a lecture Tuesday night.

Science & Research

Commentary Sindhu MD’17: U. should not burden students with tuition increases

Grapengeter-Rudnick ’17: The U. should have more than a week of eating disorder awareness

SciComm Exchange presentation teaches participants to effectively communicate scientific findings

Study finds Internet weight loss game to be effective, especially when played in groups

PAGE 7

PAGE 7

PAGE 8

PAGE 8

weather

Fate of September primary elections remains up in the air, panel members say

Lamb said she originally planned to work with barnacles in Providence and was hoping to do a field-based ecology project with her thesis adviser, Heather Leslie, assistant professor of environmental studies and biology. But when the possibility of pursuing her interest in intertidal ecology in Chile arose, she “jumped on the opportunity,” Lamb said.

The findings of the study were unexpected, said Leslie, who co-authored the paper. Barnacles are “very sensitive to temperature,” she said, and findings typically illustrate a relationship between temperature shifts and changes in barnacles’ interactions with other nearby barnacle species. But the findings of Lamb’s research in Chile did not point to such results, Leslie said.

What happens in one ecosystem is not the same as what happens

A new strategic planning initiative to expand performing arts at Brown could yield increased performance space, greater collaboration with the Trinity Repertory Company and the hiring of new faculty members and artists, said President Christina Paxson.

The initiative was originally developed by the strategic planning Committee on Reimagining the Brown Campus and Community, which identified increased support and physical space for the performing arts as a campus priority, said Russell Carey, executive vice president for planning and policy, who chaired the committee.

Paxson said the student body needs greater outlets and provisions for its expansive participation and talent in the performing arts. “Our students are so creative, and there’s a large demand for support for their activities,” she said.

The University wants to build on its existing creative strengths in order to make the Brown campus a more appealing environment for students wanting an education that encompasses both the liberal and the performing arts, Paxson said.

“I want Brown to be known as an incredibly attractive place for students » See ARTS, page 2

t o d ay

tomorrow

30 / 11

32 / 10

2 university news » ARTS, from page 1 and for scholars who are artists, who understand the value of a liberal education and want to integrate those two things,” she said. “But there’s a lot of building we can do to make that more so.”

To that end, the University has hired AMS Planning and Research, a consulting firm that works with academic institutions and community organizations to help identify and establish ventures for arts and entertainment, Carey said.

The company’s background and operational approach led the University to choose AMS to help create a plan for the performing arts expansion project, Carey said.

Administrators and AMS will discuss broad goals and academic needs throughout the semester, with implementation of projects coming at a later stage, Carey said. “We’re really trying to figure out the programmatic vision and academic priorities and goals first, and then what the right space needs are,” he said.

A number of different departments will contribute to the initiative, such as the Departments of Africana Studies, Modern Culture and Media, Music and Theater Arts and Performance Studies.

Paxson said the Creative Arts Council, the Perry and Marty Granoff Center

for the Creative Arts and numerous student performance groups will also be involved.

A new performance venue is possible, but it is still too early to confirm any new construction plans, Paxson said.

The University aims to have a plan for expansion set in place by the end of the semester, Paxson said, adding that the summer will be a vital time for the administration to determine funding and strategic details required to implement the plan.

This planning process will likely lead to a recommendation for a performance venue, whether as a renovation of an existing structure or as the construction of a new building, Paxson said.

“I’m excited about the idea of having a really first-class visiting artists and residents program,” Paxson said.

The University will also bring in visiting professors and new faculty members in the performing arts, she added.

Artistic Director for Trinity Rep Curt Columbus said the theater company will expand its ties with the University, building on the current joint MFA programs in acting, directing and writing for performance.

“The goal is to become one big program, which is theater at Brown, and to make it have this rich range of aesthetic and intellectual manifestation,”

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

CAMILLA BRANDFIELD-HARVEY / HERALD

The University will create more spaces for student artists under a new strategic planning initiative aimed at expanding performing arts resources. The University will also hire more faculty members in the performing arts.

Columbus said.

More emphasis will be placed on creating spaces for increased student interaction and experimentation, Columbus said. The expansion will build upon projects such as Romp of Otters, a graduate student collaboration with the Providence community arts institution AS220. Students already present work they have created, directed or produced in AS220’s rented space.

Several students voiced enthusiasm

for the new initiative’s focus on performing arts spaces and programs.

Lauren Behgam ’15, a member of Fusion Dance Company, said she is excited about the possible space additions for student group use.

“There’s a lot of student dance companies but not a lot of space to perform,” Behgam said. “And there’s always a really big competition to see who’s going to get space, (so) it’s very much needed.”

Hannah Lee ’14 said she has always appreciated the arts’ key role in campus culture, but added that student groups are already able to find performance venues.

“There have been great venues in the past, and I don’t think there’s necessarily a strong need for a permanent venue because we’ve done a great job without it so far, but I think it would be cool if we actually did invest in it,” she said.

» WARYN, from page 1

a movie,” Voigt said.

“He wanted to make you feel the same passion he felt,” she added.

Waryn was also a large contributor to the Brown-in-France study abroad program, serving as resident director in Paris during three different years, said Kendall Brostuen, director of international programs and associate dean of the College. Even when Waryn was not on site in France, he was involved in Providence by preparing students for the program, Brostuen added.

“Some of the things that come to mind when I think about Shoggy is how dedicated he was to the program and to the students,” Brostuen said.

Waryn helped strengthen the program’s curriculum and partnerships with local universities, Brostuen said, adding that Waryn’s “contribution to

cultivating our contacts in Paris and Lyon (is) immeasurable.”

Seifert underscored Waryn’s “instrumental” role in bringing web software to campus — successively, WebCT, MyCourses and Canvas — making the software “accessible for professors and students alike.” Waryn was also a member of the Computing Advisory Board and the Technology Committee for the Center for Language Studies, according to the press release.

Waryn asked for a traditional Irish wake for family and friends instead of a campus-wide memorial service, Seifert said. His family has requested that the nature of his illness not be released.

“His untimely passing leaves a huge hole in our department and for Brown as well,” Seifert said.

between Cranston Mayor Allan Fung and Ken Block is becoming more interesting, Nesi said. “Ken Block seems to be making waves,” he added, noting that because Republicans are such a small faction in the Ocean State, it is difficult to capture a statistically significant sample, much less to make poll predictions.

The panel’s discussion also focused on Rhode Island’s general political landscape, which the panelists agreed is a relatively small and intimate environment.

“Covering the Rhode Island Democratic Party is like covering the Chinese Communist Party,” Nesi said, describing how being a Democrat in Rhode Island does not necessarily indicate a lot about the candidate’s agenda or position on key issues. “The ‘D’ after the name means very little,” he said. This reality makes it difficult for voters to understand how candidates are aligned on key issues, he added.

“There are like five Democratic Parties in the General Assembly,” Donnis said, adding that it is unlikely the General Assembly will pass any

potentially controversial legislation given that it is an election year and members are not interested in isolating voters. Donnis said he thinks that a marijuana legalization bill is “a little too hot to handle right now,” and that it is unlikely any action will be taken on the bill this year.

“If you’re looking for bold proposals, they are likely going to come from the candidates,” Fitzpatrick said.

Nesi agreed, adding that General Assembly legislators “don’t want to do much” as they face upcoming elections.

Democrats control 101 of the 113 General Assembly seats and can therefore easily overcome any veto by a governor of either party, Nesi said.

“The General Assembly matters maybe more than any governor,” especially considering that all the candidates would likely experience a similar start to their governorships, he added.

Politics frequently centers on messaging, Donnis said. The 2014 campaign for governor “is becoming a more interesting story than we thought it would be.”

of the department.

In addition to serving as director of the film festival — which is currently underway — ­ since 2005, Waryn brought more French cinema to the University. He helped grow Brown’s collection of French films to one of the largest of any university nationwide, according to a press release from the French studies department.

Waryn taught a number of French language courses and FREN 1150C: “French Cinema: The First Fifty Years,” in which Voigt was enrolled during the spring 2012 semester.

Waryn encouraged his students to watch the course films, for weekly assignments, both online and on a large screen so they could “understand the concept of sitting down and watching

» GOVERNOR, from page 1 “It is a pretty wide-open race,” Nesi said, adding that the poll results from earlier this month showed close competition between Taveras and Raimondo. Nesi noted that the four-point difference between the two candidates could be statistically insignificant when accounting for the margin of error. Perhaps more importantly, the poll found that 25 percent of voters were undecided between all gubernatorial candidates, he said.

Democratic candidate Clay Pell’s recent entrance into the campaign was also a subject of the panel’s discussion.

“I think (Pell) does the most damage to Taveras,” Fitzpatrick said, adding that Pell’s personal financial assets and his campaign’s sophisticated digital media strategy are helping him gain popularity. Pell enjoys almost instant name recognition in Rhode Island because of his grandfather, Claiborne Pell, who served as a U.S. senator from Rhode Island from 1961 to 1997, Fitzpatrick said.

The Republican primary race

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

THIS WEEK IN HIGHER ED

BY TONYA RILEY, UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

Department of Ed. investigates U. Michigan sexual assault response The Office for Civil Rights, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education, is currently investigating an alleged mishandling of a sexual misconduct case at the University of Michigan, multiple news outlets reported.

Former professor Doug Smith filed a complaint with the OCR, in which he wrote that “the University failed to promptly and equitably respond to complaints, reports and/or incidents of sexual violence of which it had notice, and, as a result, students were subjected to a sexually hostile environment,” the Michigan Daily reported.

Former football player Brendan Gibbons was accused of sexually assaulting a student at a fraternity party in 2009, according to an article in the Detroit Free Press. But he remained at the university until 2013, at which point he was expelled due to his violation of the university’s sexual misconduct policy.

The Education Department announced plans this week to investigate how the school handled the sexual misconduct accusation and whether it followed Title IX requirements, the Daily reported.

“We’re very proud of our student sexual misconduct policy, our prevention efforts and our programs to support survivors of sexual misconduct,” University of Michigan Associate Director of Public Affairs Rick Fitzgerald said in a statement, according to the Daily. “We will fully cooperate with the Department of Education and we believe that a review of our policy, programs and investigations will conclude that the University of Michigan is doing what it should in this important area.”

The Student Union of Michigan organized a protest against the university’s handling of the incident Tuesday that drew dozens of students, according to WXYZ Detroit.

Harvard receives record gift Last week billionaire Kenneth Griffin announced his donation of $150 million to Harvard College — the largest gift ever received by the school, the New York Times’ DealBook reported.

Griffin graduated from Harvard in 1989.

The majority of the gift will go toward financial aid at Harvard, where it will be used to create named scholarships, the Harvard Crimson reported. Financial aid is one of the top priorities of Harvard’s capital campaign, launched last year, which seeks to raise $6.5 billion by 2018, the Crimson previously reported.

About $10 million will go toward an endowed professorship at Harvard Business School, the Times reported.

“This was an opportunity to make a statement about Harvard as one of the most important higher education institutions in the world,” Griffin told the Times.

Though Griffin’s donation is the largest in Harvard’s history, it is not the largest gift to a school from a single donor. Last year former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a recordbreaking donation of $350 million to John Hopkins University.

Obama announces industry-higher ed partnership President Obama announced Tuesday that the Department of Defense will provide $140 million in funding to form two new industrial institutes in Detroit and Chicago, according to a White House press release. The institutes will partner with 32 universities in the Detroit and Chicago area, Inside Higher Ed reported.

“They’re partnerships —­­­­­­­­­ they bring together companies and universities to develop cutting-edge technology, train workers to use that technology, and make sure research is turned into realworld products made by American workers,” Obama said in his announcement.

The institutes will be funded by a combination of federal, state and private funding.

“We … look forward to joining with other university and industry partners in creating an opportunity for our faculty to contribute their expertise to advanced manufacturing and the revitalization of the regional economy,” said Robert Easter, president of the University of Illinois — one of the partner schools — in a press release.

The announcement of the funding for the new partnerships follows Obama’s January announcement of the first industrial institute of this kind in Raleigh, N.C., which will include a consortium of universities in states including North Carolina, Virginia and Arkansas.

www.browndailyherald.com

university news 3 IN CONVERSATION

Undergrad work integral to prof ’s new book Ross Cheit will talk Thursday on ‘love letter’ to student researchers who helped with book

By GABRIELLE DEE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Ross Cheit, professor of public policy and political science, will discuss the 15-year process of compiling his new book, “The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology and the Sexual Abuse of Children” in a talk Thursday at the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions.

Cheit sat down with The Herald to discuss the release of his book, the methods and challenges of trial court research and how the collective efforts of Brown undergraduates helped him compile his publication.

The Herald: What will you be covering during your talk on Thursday?

Cheit: It’s really not about the book, it’s about researching and writing the book. And I know this may seem overdone, but this book did take 15 or 16 years to write. I’m doing two events in the spring, and the event on Thursday is about the process and on April 1 there’s going to be a book launch. This really is like my love letter to a generation of Brown students who did extraordinary things on this book. And I do think it’s an amazing story, and the best possible place to tell it is at Brown.

The title of the talk is “The Amazing True Story of How 81 Brown Undergraduates Helped Give ‘Extreme Research’ Its Name.” What exactly do you mean by extreme research?

What my book involves is original court trial research. So we are trying to go to trial courts and get documents, often transcripts, but a whole range of documents connected to criminal trials that were in the 1980s and early 1990s. And the cases are all highly contested child sexual abuse cases. So it turns out that because these are not in the computer era, and because they are child sexual abuse

cases, in many cases protective orders and statutory protections on identity make these cases sealed. The cases were also enormous. It turns out the ability to just go find and copy the record in these cases takes enormous effort. In some instances, it’s almost heroic, what it takes to put together, this many years later, all the materials. And so at some point, we started calling it extreme research, when a student would work for six months to get a document that becomes one footnote in the book.

Where did you get the students to help you with your research?

The students were spread out over all the years that I worked on the book. There’s a point at which I realized I can use the Brown electronic directory to identify people by their hometown. There really are some courts that literally do not respond to inquiries like the kind that I want to make in writing or over the telephone. You have to walk into the court and then ask the court clerk.

And so one of the things that I did over and over again (is) identify all the students from Brown from (a specific town). And I’d write them.

And this is Brown, like uniformly they would all say yes. I’ve never had trouble finding someone when I was trying to cover a certain location. I could always just find people from that location. Because Brown is so national, this always worked for me.

The research ultimately covered dozens of cases all around the country. And I couldn’t have done it if I didn’t have a national school filled with the kinds of students who would go, “Oh, I’d love to do that while I’m home over break!”

What do you mean by “WitchHunt” in the title of your book?

The witch-hunt narrative is a really popular story that goes like this: Lots of people were falsely convicted of child sexual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s. And they were all victims of a witch-hunt. It just doesn’t happen to line up with the facts when you actually look at the cases themselves in detail. But it’s a really popular narrative — I think it’s absolutely fair to say

that’s the conventional wisdom. It’s what most people now think is the uncontested truth, and those cases had no basis in fact. And what 15 years of painstaking trial court research (says) is that that’s not a very fair description of those cases, and in fact many of those cases had substantial evidence of abuse. The witch-hunt narrative is that these were all gross injustices to the defendant. In fact, what it looks like in retrospect is the injustices were much more often to children.

What applications to real-life law do you think research like this has?

The students that worked with me got a research experience better than many students get in law school. I know what paralegals do at lots of law firms. At the high end, they do some thinking and a lot of filing. At the low end they mostly just do filing. A lot of students that worked on my book did more meaningful work than paralegals do at a lot of law firms. They really use their brains. The part I’ve emphasized so far is much more the difficulty of finding doucuments, but there were students that spent a year reading a transcript and analyzing it with the sort of fine-grained detail that you would in a comp lit paper.

We’ve acquired and analyzed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. Without lots of people to help me get them and adjust them, I couldn’t have done a fraction of this on my own. So the amazing thing is that I used undergraduate (research assistants) in a really serious way, in a way that maybe would much more likely happen at a graduate level. And to me that is just a tribute to what Brown is.

Anything else you’d like to add?

You look at what (participant students are) doing now in life and it is related to what they worked on (for) this book. So I think the process of working on it for some students was really important in who they became. You can’t do better than that as a professor. It’s really rewarding and wonderful.

This interview has been condensed for clarity and length.

4 science & research » BARNACLES, from page 1

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Emily Lamb ’11 will soon publish her research findings on barnacle systems in Chile, which refute the claim that changes in temperature affect competition between barnacle species.

» NONFICTION, from page 1 about mankind’s great accomplishments in science are “missing out,” just like people who have not read the works of Shakespeare, he added.

People also need to learn about science because of how much it influences society, Lightman said. For the public to make decisions in a democratic society, it must be wellinformed, he added, citing climate change as one science-related issue about which people should be educated.

Lightman went on to identify some of the challenges in writing about science. For one, many readers are not familiar with scientific jargon and may even have a “fear” of science because they view it as difficult to understand, he said.

Lightman also described a “challenge in connecting.” Writing connects with people, and the author of a work about science must connect not only to people, or to “human psychology,” but also to the physical world, Lightman said. But “modern science is about a world we cannot touch or feel or hear,” he added.

Keeping these challenges in mind,

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

hierarchy between the two barnacle species,” the study showed temperature did not differentially affect the two species, wrote Jennifer Shinen, professor of biological sciences at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and another co-author of the paper, in an email to The Herald.

“It’s important to understand the exceptions if we’re to predict how ecosystems are going to change with climate change,” Leslie said.

The “growth result is really interesting,” since the data suggests barnacles grow faster in cooler areas, wrote Christopher Harley ’94, an associate professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the study, in an email to The Herald.

“It would be very interesting to extend the experiment into periods of hotter weather … to see if higher temperatures have a stronger effect on the barnacle that was expected to be wimpier,” Harley wrote. He added that he would also be interested in seeing the variability of temperatures from year to year to better understand how weather variation over a barnacle’s lifespan influences its overall behavior.

“These findings inspire new questions and motivate more extensive studies,” Shinen wrote.

Harley called Lamb’s manipulation of temperatures in the field “great,” adding that a lesser reliance on correlational studies helps to explain “why species live the way they do.”

“I didn’t really have many expectations going in,” Lamb said. Though she initially thought the process would be more straightforward, the analysis of the data was more intensive than she predicted, she said, adding that she learned a lot about where to focus her findings given her unexpected results.

Additionally, the paper-writing process following her thesis work and graduation from Brown was much more painstaking than she had predicted, she said. Writing to be published in a peer-reviewed journal is much more “nitpicky” than thesis work, she said.

Despite challenges coordinating between the United States and Chile, “it’s been great,” Lamb said. She noted that she particularly enjoyed getting to spend time in and near the water. Lamb is currently working on a new project with barnacles that seeks to answer different questions.

“It’s fantastic,” said Leslie, who worked with Lamb through the entire process. Lamb’s experience provides a “nice example of how Brown undergraduates can take their research and turn it into an even greater opportunity,” she said.

Lightman gave the audience advice on how to approach science writing.

Science writers are often not scientists, so they should build up a network of science experts whom they can ask for explanations about their subjects, Lightman said. “If you don’t understand it, your reader won’t understand it,” he added.

A good piece of writing should “tell a good story,” Lightman said, referencing a piece of advice he said he was once given.

It is also important to use metaphors and analogies, as they help people understand the topic, Lightman said. He gave one example: If an atom were the size of Fenway Park, its nucleus would be equivalent to a poppy seed at the center of the stadium. “You can see that in your mind,” he said.

In a final piece of advice, Lightman said the writer should rotate between different aspects of a work, such as “personal commentary,” “biography” and “history.” He described his “150word rule” — “You don’t have more than 150 words straight of pure science,” he said.

Lightman finished his lecture by reading excerpts from several works

of science writing. An excerpt from Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” shows that “even science writing can have an emotional impact,” he said.

Audience members laughed at Lightman’s jokes and gave him a hearty round of applause at the end.

Linda Heuman, a visiting scholar in religious studies, said the lecture “was very inspiring for me in particular because I’m a journalist and an essayist.”

With respect to Lightman’s work, Heuman said she was “taken by it,” adding, “I used to be a science writer so I know how difficult it is.”

Claire Chin Foo ’17 read one of Lightman’s works in class. “It’s difficult to write about sciences in general. …

He does it very well,” she said. “I really like his way of explaining everything.

You can understand everything he’s trying to tell you,” she added, referring to both Lightman’s lecture and his writing.

Heuman also described the “very unusual and very important” interdisciplinary nature of Lightman’s work.

“Often, we see topics in the humanities through a scientific lens, and here we see it through the lens of stories,” she said.

today 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

brown dems VERNEY-WOOLLEY

LUNCH Popcorn Chicken, Broccoli in Cheese Sauce, Meatball Grinder, Vegetarian Gnocchi Alla Sorrentina

Beef and Broccoli Szechuan, Rice and Red Bean Tortilla, Corn and Sweet Pepper Saute, Bean Casserole

DINNER Macaroni and Cheese, Southern Fried Chicken, Kareem’s Catfish, Braised Red Cabbage, Vegan Black-Eyed Peas

Roast Beef Au Jus, Vegan Lentils with Vegetables, Mashed Potatoes, Fresh Whole Green Beans

JOSIAH’S

THREE BURNERS

QUESADILLA OR GRILLED CHEESE

Stuffed French Toast

Grilled Cheese

BLUE ROOM

SOUPS

DINNER ENTREES

Chicken and Wild Rice, Butternut Squash and Apple, Baked Potato Soup

Naked Burritos

sudoku

ASHLEY SO / HERALD

The Brown Democrats host a panel Tuesday with WPRI political correspondent Ted Nesi, Rhode Island Public Radio writer Ian Donnis and Providence Journal columnist Ed Fitzpatrick to discuss the gubernatorial race.

comics Eric & Eliot | Willa Tracy ‘17

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle crossword Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 McCarthy’s dummy friend 6 Baltic, e.g.

9 Cougar 13 Canadian dollar coin nickname 14 “I threw away my golf shoes when I got a hole in one” e.g.

15 Computer operating system 16 “Blackadder” network 17 Hosp. heart exam 18 Medicinal dose 19 Cutie pie 20 Impressionist whom Mel Blanc labeled “The Man of a Thousand Voices” 23 Baltic feeder 25 “... a __ / By any other name ...”

26 Head honcho 30 Tolkien’s talking trees 33 Equal: Pref.

34 “The Mod Squad” cop 35 Show shame, perhaps 37 Smudge 39 ’60s jacket style 41 UFO-tracking org.

42 Unsavory sort 44 Respectful address 46 From, in some European names 47 Star witnesses?

48 Driving with abandon 50 Hispaniola, por ejemplo 52 Poet __ St. Vincent Millay 53 Borzois, e.g.

57 Gratify 61 Put out 62 Low numero 63 Prominent Ore. peak 65 Wither in the sun 66 Porter’s “__ DeLovely” 67 B beater 68 Raised 69 Look at 70 Super Bowl XLVII player

DOWN 1 Area below Greenwich Village 2 Sleigh ride song 3 As a whole 4 Kid 5 Making pronouncements 6 A writer may work on it 7 Trick-taking card game 8 Prefix meaning “English” 9 Portable shelters 10 Curriculum part 11 Grain grinder 12 Rod in a hot rod 13 Letters on some Brit. letterheads 21 Dancer Castle 22 Oracle’s opening 24 UPS competitor 26 Lettuce variety 27 Imam’s faith 28 Fondue choice 29 Knucklehead 31 “Three Coins ...” fountain 32 Resolute about 35 Reserve soldier 36 Minor dent

38 Put a bad present to good use 40 Like daisies 43 Lillian of the silver screen 45 Musical key abbr.

48 Smart-looking 49 Enter quickly 51 Character in “Donald’s Nephews” (1938 cartoon)

53 5’7” Spud who won the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk contest 54 “Rubáiyát” poet 55 Enjoy 56 Bouquet 58 Top-of-the-line 59 Visit with a guide 60 Money mgrs.?

64 Texter’s “I didn’t need to know that!”

Against the Fence | Lauren Stone ‘17

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

calendar xwordeditor@aol.com

02/26/14

TODAY

FEBRUARY 26

4 P.M. MUSICAL TALK WITH MOHSEN NAMJOO

Iranian-born musician Mohsen Namjoo presents a talk called, “Iranian Rhythms.” Namjoo has released several albums.

Grant Recital Hall 7 P.M. “FRUITVALE STATION” SCREENING

Amnesty International at Brown presents this critically acclaimed 2013 film about Oscar Grant, a black man who was shot by a police officer in 2009. Smith-Buonanno 106

TOMORROW

FEBRUARY 27

4 P.M. AFTER OSLO: CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS ON PALESTINE AND ISRAEL

Rashid Khalidi, professor of Arab studies at Columbia, initiates a conversation with Brown professors about the relationship between Palestine and Israel. Watson Institute, Joukowsky Forum

By Bryan W. Young and Jeff Chen (c)2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

02/26/14

7:30 P.M. DEMOCRATIC AND JEWISH? RELIGION AND STATE IN ISRAEL TODAY

Yale professor Yuval Sinai gives a lecture sponsored by the Department of Judaic Studies. Wilson 103

6 commentary

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

EDITORIAL

Behind the walls of academia This week, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof penned a column that has already created a great deal of controversy. Kristof called out modern academics for being too insular, incomprehensible and inaccessible to the general public, contending that the culture of academia has evolved to become exclusive and self-perpetuating. Kristof ’s ideal voice is that of the public intellectual, the professor who can reach out to a mainstream audience and communicate often dense and abstract ideas in an understandable way. While he does correctly note an alarming trend in academia and makes several valid points in his argument, Kristof ultimately errs in pointing the finger at professors, rather than at American culture at large.

First, it must be noted that Kristof has pinpointed a real problem for academia. Professors are pushed to write as many academic articles as possible, filled with discipline-specific jargon, and encouraged to stay away from more mainstream avenues such as blogs and magazine articles that might reach a wider audience. In addition, the tenure system is fraught with complications; the halls of academia often do seem removed from the “real” world, opting for theories and ideas that might never hold water in an actual situation. These are real problems that need to be addressed.

But Kristof also ignores the positive qualities of academia’s current situation. Greater isolation for professors allows them to be more daring and experimental in their research. We should desire for professors to push the boundaries and to explore options that might not necessarily appeal to a wider public. It is the realm of more public figures — politicians, business leaders and advocates — to take the ideas developed by professors and present them in a more palatable way. Otherwise, we would have the philosopher king-dominated society advocated by Plato, a society that, fittingly, works well only in theory.

Kristof also disregards general trends in journalism and education when he complains of professors not being more actively engaged with the public. He cites the increase in social media tools, asking why more professors aren’t taking advantage of Twitter accounts to relay their ideas more broadly — though Brown professors may be an exception, with many professors adapting rather well. To some extent, he’s right; the world would benefit from more professors seeking to relate with a mainstream audience. But to blame them for academia’s marginalization, as he does, is simply naive. Those same social media tools he refers to have changed journalism into an activity that is more immediate and responsive, adjectives that directly conflict with the deliberative and empirical nature of academia. And when he complains of unintelligible jargon in academic journals, that has to fall on our education system to some extent for not ensuring our familiarity with the language that professors use.

All these criticisms are not to deny the merit of Kristof ’s argument.

Academia has become less directly responsive and engaged with the public.

But it’s wrong to force professors to shoulder all the blame without noting other general trends that have led to this increased insularity of professors.

I VA N A L C A N TA R A

C L A R I F I C AT I O N An article in Tuesday’s Herald (“Prosecutors sue company owned by Corp. fellow,” Feb. 25) mistakenly cited Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis as among the people whose cases are part of a Department of Justice lawsuit against background check company USIS. In fact, their cases were handled by the company but were not cited in the lawsuit. The article also neglected to state that tax fraud investigations into Providence Equity Partners, which owns USIS, in 2012 were later dropped.

Q U O T E O F T H E D AY

“Scientists are real people, too.”

— Sunshine Menezes, SciComm Exchange organizer

See scicomm on page 8.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editors, Matt Brundage ’15 and Rachel Occhiogrosso ’14, and its members, Hannah Loewentheil ’14 and Thomas Nath ’16. Send comments to editorials@ browndailyherald.com.

Thanks for reading!

Editorial Leadership

Sections

Visuals & Production

Business

Editor-in-Chief Eli Okun

Arts & Culture Editors Katherine Cusumano Andrew Smyth

Design Editors Brisa Bodell Einat Brenner Assistant: Loren Dowd Assistant: Carlie Peters Assistant: Taylor Schwartz Assistant: Sean Simonson

General Managers Jennifer Aitken Nicole Shimer

Managing Editors Mathias Heller Sona Mkrttchian Adam Toobin Senior Editors Maddie Berg Kate Nussenbaum BLOG DAILY HERALD Editor-in-Chief William Janover Managing Editors David Oyer Georgia Tollin POST- MAGAZINE Editor-in-Chief Ben Resnik COMMENTARY Editorial Page Editors Matt Brundage Rachel Occhiogrosso Opinions Editors Gabbie Corvese Sarah Rubin Maggie Tennis

Enterprise Editor Elizabeth Koh Features Editors Sabrina Imbler Maggie Livingstone Metro Editors Kate Kiernan Katherine Lamb Science & Research Editors Isobel Heck Sarah Perelman Sports Editors Caleb Miller Dante O’Connell University News Editors Kiki Barnes Michael Dubin Maxine Joselow Tonya Riley

Photo Editors Head: Tom Sullivan Brittany Comunale David Deckey Emily Gilbert Samuel Kase Sydney Mondry Video Editor Henry Chaisson Graphics Editors Andersen Chen Avery Crits-Cristoph Greg Jordan-Detamore Jillian Lanney Web Producer Joseph Stein Copy Desk Chief Claire Postman Assistant: Sara Palasits Illustrations Editor Angelia Wang

Directors Sales: Winnie Shao Finance: Sarah Levine Finance: Sameer Sarkar Alumni Relations: Alison Pruzan Business Dev.: Melody Cao

facebook.com/browndailyherald

Location: 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. www.browndailyherald.com

@the_herald

Editorial contact: 401-351-3372 herald@browndailyherald.com

browndailyherald.com

Business contact: 401-351-3260 gm@browndailyherald.com

Office Manager Shawn Reilly

Corrections: The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

Sales Managers Regional: Edward Clifford Regional: Sarah Pariser Regional: Ananya Shukla Regional: Jessica Urrutia Student Group: Moniyka Sachar

Commentary: The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

Finance Managers Collections: Jacqueline Finkelsztein Collections: Joshua Tartell Operations: Jessica O’Dell Alumni Relations Manager Engagement: Sarah Park Business Dev. Manager Project Leader: Kaden Lee

Letters to the Editor: Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed.

Advertising: The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement and once during Orientation by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily.

Copyright 2014 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Postmaster: Please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906.

commentary 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

Spreading self-love every week MEGAN GRAPENGETERRUDNICK opinions columnist

This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. The National Eating Disorders Association sponsors this week and endeavors to rally support from all citizens. This group aims to prevent eating disorders and body image issues by ridding them of their negative associations while improving access to treatment. Though there is a week devoted to the matter, eating disorders in general are widely under-recognized in university life.

Brown, for one, does not adequately talk about the issue or simply raise awareness in the community enough throughout the year.

NEDA has dedicated this week to spreading awareness of its cause. The group asks everyone — volunteers, professionals, educators, social workers, students or simply any individual — to “do just one thing” to help raise awareness. People can do this by using social media, distributing flyers, hanging up posters, hosting a speaker for the cause or holding activities like panel discussions.

According to NEDA, any help is productive.

How are we observing this week at Brown, and is it enough? Can the problems surrounding eating disorders be adequately highlighted in just one week? Is eating disorder awareness properly publicized at Brown in general?

Brown is in fact honoring Eating Disorders Awareness Week by holding Celebrate Every Body Week. This week is implemented to do just as NEDA asks. Free buttons and bracelets will be offered in recognition of the week in the Sharpe

Refectory, free yoga classes will be available and an open panel discussion will be held. There is even an additional Brown twist: Mirrors will be covered up in select locations “as a reminder that who you are is more important than what you look like,” according to the week’s official webpage.

Suffice it to say, Brown is doing its due diligence in spreading awareness during the selected week. But what about all the other weeks? Eating disorders do not simply occupy one week — so short a time that they cannot be resolved or even easily admitted. While it may be possible to diagnose someone with such a disorder this week, it

orders.

There are a few variables that our institution has no control over that affect eating disorders.

I wish to focus on techniques that do not make students’ attendance at Brown contingent on “losing” their disorder. No direct involvement in specific cases is necessary, but advertising and encouraging a better and more healthful environment is essential.

One factor of eating disorders that is impossible to control is the amount of sleep students are getting or not getting. Sleeping schedules that are disrupted or lacking are very unhealthful — for the body itself and the self-esteem of its owner.

Brown does not adequately talk about the issue of eating disorders or simply raise awareness in the community enough throughout the year. takes far longer for a victim to grasp the reality before him or her. It takes just as long for bystanders and members of society to comprehend that this is not an issue to be taken lightly or to be trifled with. And it takes far longer still for the societal idiosyncrasies feeding this issue to be resolved.

One week is simply not adequate. Seeing as a Princeton study found that 53 percent of Princeton students with eating disorders developed them in college, Brown needs to take stronger action simply by discussing the issue better. I am not suggesting that Brown take direct action by imposing medical leave on troubled students — the student body’s overall awareness is a separate matter. Brown and universities in general need to promote a more healthful environment by proactively communicating the realities of eating dis-

This is something that needs to be independently monitored by individuals, rather than controlled by the school. Increasing awareness of self-love may be helpful in producing healthier bodies and minds in college students.

Another variable is the psyches of students as they enter the University population. Brown cannot be responsible for the body image attitudes with which students have been previously plagued. Nonetheless, it is our obligation as a community to try and efface these harmful notions.

One element of eating disorders that appears to be out of Brown’s institutional reach may very well not be. This is the stigma surrounding eating disorders in the community. Indeed, it is a challenge for a university to conquer standards im-

posed by the rest of society. But it is all Brown can do to try to instill different values in its community members simply by raising awareness of the matter. Rather than intervene, spread knowledge of the issue.

Why not take a stronger approach to defeating such a detrimental, life-threatening dilemma?

Hold frequent panel discussions surrounding the issue, not just one a year. Welcome and encourage — even arrange — engaging events such as fashion shows or art exhibits.

A group promoting eating disorder awareness at Columbia recently hosted a body-positive photo shoot. Its aim was to get more people involved and to publicize NEDA’s week before it occured, in hopes that it would promote more support for the week. The theme was “I Woke Up Like This” to grapple with body image issues and stress natural differences in bodies. Something similar would be an uplifting way to energize the Brown community about the cause and heighten awareness about what individuals can do to help.

In addition to seeing signs reading “what to do if you have been sexually assaulted” on the back of the toilet stalls, I want to see “you are not your weight.” I want to stop dealing with the standard to be thin and squeeze into tiny little clothing in order to look “sexy” to other people.

I want to be inspired through heaps of encouraging posters around campus and motivational events. And I want these events to take place at various times throughout the year, not just in one week.

Megan Grapengeter-Rudnick ’17 can be contacted at megan_grapengeter-rudnick@brown.edu.

Show me the money!

KUNAL SINDHU opinions columnist

The student-university relationship is inherently unequal. As students, to maximize our chances of success in an increasingly competitive global economy, we are dependent upon universities to educate us. However, with an unprecedented number of American students flocking to higher education, universities are no longer reliant upon any of us to fill their student bodies.

In short, students continue to need universities, while universities are no longer dependent on us. Such an unbalanced arrangement between the purchasers and providers of educational services creates the obvious risk that universities will abuse their market position to extract exorbitant fees from students. Tragically, Brown succumbed to this temptation a few weeks ago, and we will all suffer gravely from the University’s carelessness.

On Jan. 30, the University Resources Committee released its recommendations for the fiscal year 2015 budget, which was approved by the Corporation this month. The University plans to generate $937.7 million in revenue to offset its proposed expenses of $941.5 million for the upcoming year.

To close the budget gap, the University will draw approximately $4 million from its reserves.

So far, so good. Yet the URC made a crucial mistake: It chose to balance the budget on the backs of students.

Despite the fact that annual tuition at the University is fast approaching the

country’s per-capita income, the URC voted to further increase undergraduate and medical tuition by roughly 4 percent. As a result, about three-quarters of students enrolled at the University will be assessed approximately $2,000 in higher annual tuition costs.

To save face for its folly, the URC recommended that the financial aid budget be increased by 5.5 percent to $104.1 million, which the Corporation also approved. In itself, such a gesture appears to convey the URC’s “respect” for the financial welfare of the University’s students. In truth, though, this decision will not come close to offsetting the higher tuition costs that it proposes.

ing a strong faculty is essential to maintaining the quality and reputation of the University, it is unjustifiable to dole out excessive pay raises in lean times, especially when professors are teaching far less than they used to. From 1988 to 2004, in fact, the teaching loads of professors fell nationally by 42 percent. Instead of being paid for teaching, professors are incentivized by anachronistic tenure policies to spend ever-increasing amounts of time doing research.

While research can provide societal benefits and some educational opportunities, it is hard to believe that it is a more efficient way of educating students than direct, quality instruction.

trative costs at universities across the country, including at Brown, have been ballooning for decades — between 1993 and 2007, for example, spending on administration per student increased 61 percent while spending on instruction rose by just 39 percent per student at 200 universities nationwide.

With tuition historically expensive, now is a perfect opportunity to cut back on some of these unnecessary expenditures.

How much could streamlining save? A recent case study focusing on Dartmouth suggested that the college is overcharging its students by about $9,000 per year to fund activities not

Some will argue that the URC had no choice but to recommend raising tuition in light of the budget deficit. But such an argument is at best specious and at worst willfully deceptive.

If you, like the majority of Brown students, do not receive financial aid, the URC’s actions will only serve to help make college or medical school even more unaffordable than it already is.

Some will argue that the URC had no choice but to recommend raising tuition in light of the budget deficit.

But such an argument is at best specious and at worst willfully deceptive.

While there are a number of potential avenues the University could have pursued, three particular options exist that collectively would have balanced the University’s budget, maintained the quality of its educational services and not further exacerbated the financial difficulties faced by the student body.

First, the University could have limited faculty wage increases. While hav-

And yet professor salaries continue to skyrocket. Despite a national inflation rate of just 1.5 percent in 2013, for example, Brown chose to award its faculty a roughly 3 percent raise for next year. This was unnecessary and, given the little time many professors devote to instruction, groundless. There is no reason for such a foolish mistake to occur again in the future.

Secondly, as The Herald’s editorial page board recently suggested (“Editorial: National, campus financial models are unsustainable,” Feb. 12), the University could have established a committee to look into potential savings to be gleaned from administrative streamlining. There is ample evidence to suggest that the savings from such an exercise could be large. Adminis-

related to instruction. While some administrative services, such as counseling and financial aid, are unavoidable and can potentially be of great benefit to the student body, there is simply no reason that total administrative costs should represent nearly 40 percent of any student’s net tuition bill, as they do at Dartmouth.

Lastly, Brown should have made better use of its endowment. As The Herald reported, Brown’s endowment achieved a return of 12.6 percent last year, representing about $300 million in profits. While some of this will provide additional financial support to various University departments, the lion’s share could have been used to provide every student with significant financial relief. If only half of the profits

were spent on the 8,619 undergraduate and graduate students at Brown, each student could have received a one-time allowance of over $17,000 to lower tuition.

Of course, the University would never agree to such a proposal. Having a large endowment is a sign of prestige, and prestige is necessary to ascend the college ranking tables. Nor, frankly, would a one-time financial gift be wise, or sustainable, in the long term.

But what about investing just a fraction of those capital gains — say, 10 percent or 20 percent — in students? Not only would the University be able to reverse the 4 percent tuition increase, but it also would be able to cut tuition sustainably. What better way to signal Brown’s commitment to inclusivity and affordability?

By seeking to raise tuition further, Brown has regrettably chosen to forcibly extract money from its students to fund extraneous activities that have minimal educational benefits. Not only is this profoundly unfair, but it also risks pushing talented, less fortunate students away from the University.

While time may be short, the University can still rectify its error. But to do so, Brown will need to actually listen to its students, resist the temptation to gouge them and endure some cutbacks. Unfortunately, given some of the University’s missteps over the past few months, I am not confident it is capable of doing that.

Kunal Sindhu MD’17 can be contacted at kunal_sindhu@brown.edu.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD

science & research SCIENCE & RESEARCH ROUNDUP

BY ISOBEL HECK AND SARAH PERELMAN SCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITORS

Study explores weight loss motivation game A recent study of an online weight loss game found the site to be an effective weight loss tool, according to a Lifespan press release.

DietBet, a gaming website designed to motivate users to lose weight, has players bet money on their own weight loss. Players are given four weeks to lose 4 percent of their starting weight, and all who do so split the pool of money collected at the trial’s outset, according to the release.

The study, conducted by Tricia Leahey, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior, and Jamie Rosen, DietBet founder and CEO, evaluated the effectiveness of the game by looking at the weight loss results of 40,000 DietBet users over seven months.

The results, published this month in the Journal of Medical Internet Research Serious Games, found that the average player lost 4.9 percent of his or her initial body weight and won $59, according to the release.

The results also showed that players who lost the most weight tended to be within the same trial, suggesting that players in the same game influenced each other’s weight loss behavior.

Alcohol may increase smoking urge after periods of short deprivation LILIAN CRUZ / HERALD

Presenters speak with students from Brown and neighboring universities over lunch to teach them how to communicate their research findings effectively in a workshop Tuesday.

Workshop targets science communication Series teaches scientists to elucidate findings through visuals, journalistic techniques

By JASON NADBOY STAFF WRITER

“We are here to solve all of your communication woes,” said Annie Sherman Luke, managing editor for Newport Life Magazine, who spoke about how researchers can improve their communication skills Tuesday in the Science Center.

The event kicked off a series of professional development programs called SciComm Exchange. The discussions — which feature speakers talking with audience members over lunch — are a joint effort between the University’s Superfund Research Program, the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography and the Rhode Island National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.

Scientists should ask themselves what three key features they want people to know about their research, said Meaghan Wims, one of the guest speakers from Duffy and Shanley, Inc. Her company helps scholars and research companies with public relations and communication.

“I think the challenge is when you’re so close to what you’re doing, it’s too hard to whittle it down” to just three main points, Wims said.

When presenting work, researchers

should reflect on the background and significance of the work and their own motivations for pursuing the topic, Sherman Luke said.

“Why do you think it is important?”

Sherman Luke asked the audience, which included faculty members, students and researchers from other universities. “The ways your eyes light up … will inspire and excite others,” she said.

The workshop aims to help researchers think about the answers to all these critical questions, she said.

During the question-and-answer portion of the discussion, an audience member asked what to do if the realworld applications of research will not be seen for a long time.

Wims said researchers can share their passion for their work and inject personality into their communication style, which can make up for the lack of clarity of a study’s immediate implications.

Another audience member asked whether it is worthwhile for scientists to focus on how a general audience might interpret a piece of research writing.

Journalists try to “translate” scientific research into something the general public can understand, so conveying information in an easy-to-interpret manner is often part of the presentation process, Sherman Luke said.

Wims said researchers should use visualizations to get reporters and the general public alike to understand scientific concepts.

“If you have (visual media), share it,” Sherman Luke added.

Reporters usually want to visit the

site where scientists conduct their work, a reality that researchers should be aware of and use to their advantage, Wims said.

“Never sell (the exciting part of work) short,” said Sunshine Menezes, an organizer of the event and executive director of the URI Metcalf Institute.

“Scientists are real people, too,” and have interesting stories to tell the public, she said.

After reporters have published their coverage, researchers should call up the reporter if there are issues with what they wrote, Wims said. “Reporters are not your friends.”

The program ended with Menezes describing the interactive programs the Metcalf Institute runs to help scientists communicate their work.

Audience members said they appreciated the insights the guest speakers provided about communicating research effectively.

“It’s quite often I have to interact with the media,” said Nitin Padture, professor of engineering, who attended the discussion. “I want to make sure I am equipped.”

Paul Roselli said he came from Bryant University“looking for general tips” about how to express his scientific work.

Meredith Haas, from the Rhode Island Sea Grant, an oceanography research and outreach partnership with URI, said she came to “hear (the) roadblocks scientists had” while converting their work.

Sherman Luke told The Herald she appreciated the discussion because “any opportunity to get journalists and scientists together is a good opportunity.”

Smokers report alcohol has a stronger effect on their urge for a cigarette if they have abstained from smoking for several hours rather than overnight, according to a recent study by a team of researchers at the University’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. The study was published online earlier this month in the journal Addictive Behaviors.

The researchers, led by Anne Day, a fellow at the center, used a balanced placebo design in which half the participants received stale tonic water in their drink rather than alcohol. Next, the participants reported whether they experienced a strong desire to smoke.

Participants reported a strong increase in smoking cravings when they drank and had not had a cigarette in three hours, but alcohol did not play a significant role in the desire to smoke for those who abstained overnight.

“The findings of the current study are relevant for methodology of laboratory-based studies of smoking, and provide evidence that a shorter deprivation period prior to experimental manipulation might result in greater effects on smoking urge,” the researchers wrote in the study.

The study builds on previous research led by Christopher Kahler, professor of behavior and social sciences and department chair. Kahler, who also served as one of the coauthors of the new study, conducted previous work that suggests overnight cigarette deprivation may create such a large urge to smoke on its own that alcohol’s effects on craving are masked.

Understanding canopy growth A pair of researchers recently published a model that mathematically predicts the cause of visible growth in forest canopies, according to a University press release.

James Kellner, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Gregory Asner of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif., created the model looking at a forest in Hawaii to analyze and understand what appeared as “unusually large” tree growth in the forest.

The model, published online in the journal Ecology Letters, can predict the probability that a change in the canopy’s size is based on the normal growth of a tree already at the top of the canopy, growth and takeover of a lower tree, or growth of another branch of an incumbent tree at the top, according to the release.

What had appeared as incredible amounts of vertical tree growth was actually due more to horizontal growth of incumbent trees, according to the model’s results.

The model also reveals that for the forest in this study, a tree limb at the top of the canopy will still be at the top of the canopy two years later nearly 98 percent of the time.

Understanding tree height is important for determining how much carbon is taken out of the atmosphere by trees, according to the release.

The model has the potential to apply to many forests, Keller said in the release. “There’s definitely basic ecological interest in understanding what might be called the rules of the game,” he said.