Tuesday, October 21, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD vol. cxlix, no. 92

since 1891

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014

Horror flicks spook at film festival U.’s student loan default rate drops 35 percent

Festival will include sci-fi titles, fantasy films and psychological thrillers to explore genre’s diversity

At 1.3 percent, U. ties with Penn for second-lowest rate among Ivies behind Yale

By KERRI COLFER STAFF WRITER

By LINDSAY GANTZ SENIOR STAFF WRITER

ARTS & CULTURE

COURTESY OF RHODE ISLAND INTERNATIONAL HORROR FILM FESTIVAL

The Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival features an H.P. Lovecraft-inspired walking tour that will “give Providence a new dimension.”

Language classes see drop in enrollment Students’ academic interests in STEM fields may affect decisions to study foreign languages

By MARINA RENTON SENIOR STAFF WRITER

inside

Neel Virdy ’17 didn’t tell his parents when he decided to take Hindi during his first semester at Brown. Both his parents were born in India, and his mother speaks the language, so they were both delighted when Virdy came home for break and surprised them by stringing together sentences in the language.

“They were happy I was taking (Hindi),” said Virdy, a member of The Herald’s web staff. “And that’s more motivation to keep taking it.”

But while some students revel in their new language skills, many others are choosing not to take language classes. Around 200 fewer students enrolled in foreign language courses at Brown this year than last, said Elissavet Amanatidou, senior lecturer in language studies and classics and

director of the Center for Language Studies. This decline follows several years of fairly steady enrollment.

“Enrollments in languages have always been subject to the vicissitudes of financial considerations (and) trends in academic interests,” she said, adding that this year’s language enrollment drop may not reflect a decline in interest in foreign languages, but rather an increase in interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This expanded interest in STEM fields is evidenced by the top three indicated concentrations for the class of 2018, which were engineering, biology and computer science, The Herald previously reported.

“Many of our students who embark on a STEM concentration, they have a very, very heavy schedule,” she said, “and that leaves them with very little room to take any language in their four years here.”

Another factor contributing to the decline may be the University’s arrangement to provide community members with free access to Rosetta Stone language learning software for » See LANGUAGES, page 2

The University’s three-year cohort default rate on federal direct student loans for students who began repaying their loans in 2011 decreased by about 35 percent from the previous year according to data released Sept. 22 by the U.S. Department of Education.

During fiscal year 2011, 1.3 percent of borrowers who entered loan repayment defaulted on their loans by Sept. 30, 2013, down from 2 percent the previous year.

Other than Yale, which has a 0.9 percent default rate, Penn and Brown have the second lowest default rates among the Ivy League institutions.

“We changed our financial aid programs in 2008 and 2009,” said James Tilton, director of the Office of Financial Aid, adding that “students are borrowing more wisely.”

After the required entrance and exit interviews became an electronic process in 2009, the University piloted Get Your Bearings, a financial literacy program, to “provide more

Unplugged: Students opt out of social media Undergrads off Facebook, Twitter could face obstacles as hiring process taps social media

By CARI BONILLA CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In high school, Shane Fischbach ’15 checked his Facebook incessantly.

Like the vast majority of his peers, he consistently liked statuses, posted photos and received updates on the college acceptances of “friends” he hardly knew.

“At a superficial level, (Facebook) didn’t make me any happier,” Fischbach recalled. “I would go on and sort of satisfy this addiction for snooping into other people’s lives, and what would happen is I would get systemically less happy because, by definition, people are performing on Facebook.”

Disenchanted with the superficiality of the site, Fischbach decided to terminate his relationship with Facebook and unplugged in March of his senior year of high school.

Fischbach’s decision places him in a small minority of undergraduates who abstain from using social media.

In an age when efficient communication and widespread connectivity are

Metro

ELI WHITE / HERALD

Many students rely on social media for job networking and entrepreneurial efforts, but the addictive nature of the sites has led others to deactivate. increasingly emphasized in students’ lives, the move to digitally disentangle stands in stark contrast to mainstream trends. Fostering relationships today involves more than a mere exchange of telephone numbers or emails addresses, with the Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and Instagram feeds taking a prime role. To many, social networking has exploded into an art of self-advertisement, and the use of and participation in social networks

Commentary

Community health center advocates explain the state of primary care in Rhode Island

Rhode Island ranks low in national highway condition report

Blake ’17: The NCAA must remember dual value of academics and athletics

Feldman ’15: Academic calendar pressures students to sacrifice commitment to their religion

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weather

Parking his carriage in a suburban driveway, a vampire crashes a family’s Christmas celebration with hilarious results.

At the peak of the Cold War, the decades-old secrets a farmer thought he had buried along with the evidence of a UFO crash landing site resurface. These are just some of the plot twists in store for viewers at “Flickers: Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival,” which opened its 15th season Monday. The festival will run through Oct. 26, is slated to screen 69 films from 19 countries and will also include childrens’ films, walking tours and forums, according to the festival’s website.

“It was originally an offshoot from the (Rhode Island International Film Festival), and it was created by one of our interns because he was an avid horror fan, so he took it upon himself to create a separate festival,” said Shawn Quirk, programming director for the Rhode Island International Film Festival. » See HORROR, page 4

detailed, comprehensive information to students,” said Wynette Richardson, director of financial services. The program now includes topics ranging from loan repayment options to information about credit and credit scores, she said.

Tilton said they try to steer students toward the lowest interest loans and that the Financial Aid Office continues to provide support to alums after graduation.

“We haven’t seen a lot of movement in the past 10 years,” said Joel Carstens, Penn’s director of financial aid. Penn has seen a decreased number of students borrowing since the Great Recession, he said. He added that due to an all-grant loan program, Penn students who qualify for financial aid are able to graduate debt-free.

Though 2011 Princeton graduates had an average debt per borrower of $5,225, the university had the highest default rate among the Ivies for fiscal year 2011 at 2.3 percent.

The University’s default rate is lower than the national rate of 13.7 percent and the statewide rate of 10.4 percent. Rhode Island has the tenth lowest three-year default rate in the nation, according to Noel Simpson, deputy director and chief financial and compliance officer at the Rhode » See LOANS, page 2

seems inevitable.

Within this increasingly ‘plugged in’ landscape, Fischbach and other Brown students are intentionally opting out.

“I think it’s natural to want to be connected to people you care about,” said Reem Rayef ’15, who recently deactivated from Facebook. “But I don’t think it’s natural to be so in (tune) with so many people that are so marginally » See SOCIAL MEDIA, page 3 t o d ay

tomorrow

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014

Fellowship applies humanist perspective to social, cultural issues Public Humanities Fellowship includes $1,500 research fund, graduate student assistant

By ALEKSANDRA LIFSHITS STAFF WRITER

Four professors and two Providence community members will receive support for research tied to public engagement as the inaugural recipients of the Public Humanities Fellowship for the 2014-2015 academic year, according to a University press release this month.

The fellowship provides recipients with a $1,500 research fund and research assistance from a graduate student. Over the course of the year, the fellows will come together as a community to engage in discussions, luncheons and presentations.

The fellows will focus on their own projects, with topics including remembrance of violence against MexicanAmericans in southern Texas and development of an app that allows users to take a virtual tour of Brown architecture.

The professors in the inaugural class of fellows are Professor of English Jim Egan, Assistant Professor of History Jo Guldi, Assistant Professor of American Studies Monica Martinez and Professor of the History of Art and Architecture Dietrich Neumann.

Though the professors’ projects are very different, they all use the humanities to make important statements on societal and cultural issues, said Susan

» LOANS, from page 1 Island Student Loan Authority, a nonprofit state organization.

The three-year cohort default rate at Johnson and Wales University was the highest in the state for fiscal year 2011 at 11 percent.

Lynn Robinson, executive director of student services at JWU, said they are “working towards a 3 percent reduction” in the three-year cohort default rate for fiscal year 2012.

“If you have a low default rate, it doesn’t necessarily mean everything is perfect,” said Ben Miller ’07, senior policy analyst at New America — a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that clarifies complex policy ideas and trends. A borrower can make occasional payments and avoid defaulting and still not be on track to pay back a loan in the appropriate amount of time, he said.

Miller said the default rate has a stronger correlation with graduation rates than the average amount of debt per borrower.

“It’s less about the absolute amount of money you owe and more about how much money you owe relative to how much money you’re making,” Miller said, adding that “someone who graduates college owing $25,000 but makes $35,000 is probably in better shape than someone who borrows $10,000 and goes into a job where they make $15,000 a year.”

According to the most recently released national data, of students who matriculated in fall of 2003 and defaulted by 2009, 63 percent had dropped out without finishing a program, Miller said.

“The schools that we perceive as

Smulyan, professor of American studies and director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage. These projects are interesting both to students studying these topics and to broader audiences outside of the classroom, she added.

Though the center has offered past fellowship programs and initiatives involving faculty members, there has never been a program that brought the two together, Smulyan said. “My goal for my first year as director was to integrate faculty and their research into the life of the center,” she said.

Guldi is using the fellowship to develop a walking tour of foreclosures in Providence. While much of history is taught “top from bottom,” walking tours allow for an interactive, non-hierarchal discussion of history, she said.

For Egan, a mutual exchange of information with other fellows is the most exciting aspect of the fellowship.

He is in the process of writing a book on the history of American literature before 1783. “Since my past work has been generally pitched to an almost entirely scholarly community, I was hoping to get help from the other fellows on how to pitch that work to a broader community,” he said.

Recipients of the fellowship expressed mixed reactions over the $1,500 research fund.

The sum is not substantial and is not a key part of the fellowship, Egan said.

But Christina Bevilacqua, director of program and public engagement

the best and most elite tend to have very low default rates,” he said.

The overall graduation rate for Brown students who began their studies in the fall of 2007 was 95 percent, according to data released by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The graduation rate for JWU students during that same year was 58 percent.

Overall graduation rates for Penn were 96 percent for the class of 2011.

This year, the Financial Aid Office is expanding to provide students with better resources, Tilton said. “We’ve been trying to get more and more students involved,” he said, citing new information sessions available to student groups and organizations.

Both the Financial Aid Office and the Office for Student Loans have added one student to their staff, Tilton said. In cooperation with these student representatives, Tilton said he hopes to improve the financial aid website to make it more accessible to students.

Munashe Shumba ’11 said that he is grateful for his “very positive experience” with the Financial Aid Office, but he also said that “as far as managing my own finances, I think I got a lot more out of another course I took after I graduated.”

There are three Rhode Island Student Loan Authority college centers that provide financial literacy classes to students and parents statewide, said Simpson.

“We really pride ourselves in our ability to save parents and students money from borrowing, if they have to borrow,” he said. JWU has worked with RISLA since 2009 on counseling students on repayment and financial literacy, Robinson said.

COURTESY OF SUSAN SMULYAN

The inaugural class of recipients of the Public Humanities Fellowship includes four professors and two Providence community members. The fellowship includes a $1,500 research fund. at the Providence Athenaeum and a recipient of the fellowship, said the research fund will be extremely helpful to the Athenaeum, given its status as a small nonprofit that is constantly fundraising.

Bevilacqua said she was thrilled when she found out she would have access to a graduate student who had experience in media and different platforms of communication, because the Athenaeum is creating an online archive of its reading and research.

“Having a research assistant was something I would never have the budget

for,” she said.

The research funds come from the center’s budget, Smulyan said. “We would like to make the budget greater, but that is something we are still working out.”

One of the main challenges of the fellowship is the busy schedules of the recipients, Smulyan said. “Public humanities projects tend to become secondary to research papers or article writing,” she said. “We want to give them enough support, so that they feel like they have the time to finish these projects.”

Since this was the first year the fellowship was offered, the application process was informal and not competitive — everyone who applied won a spot in the inaugural class of fellows, Smulyan said.

Looking ahead, the application process will likely become more formal next year, Smulyan said. “I want to play the role of a salesman rather than a doorkeeper,” she said, adding that the goal of the fellowship is to support the faculty and their projects, not to burden them with a long application process.

» LANGUAGES, from page 1

the declining enrollment may lie in the daily classroom commitment required by introductory language courses, which may dissuade students from launching study of a new language in college, Amanatidou said, adding that “foreign language classes at the lower level require daily engagement and daily commitment, and sometimes our classes really cut through the schedule.”

The introductory Hindi course, for example, meets five days a week for an hour per session and requires a yearlong commitment.

“You have to commit to a full year of it, and you know you won’t learn enough in one year to just stop,” Virdy said of Hindi. “I think that’s true in a

lot of languages here.”

The inverse of this holds true for more commonly taught languages, with enrollment holding steady because many students “already come with language skills” and can place into higher levels that require less of an in-class commitment, Amanatidou said. For example, students with prior experience can test into FREN 0600: “Writing and Speaking French II,” which only meets for three hours a week.

Vibrant study abroad programs also incentivize students to take advanced courses in these more common languages, Amanatidou said, as many of these programs require French and Spanish.

the first time this year, Amanatidou said, though she added that there in no conclusive evidence to support this linkage.

But Rosetta Stone cannot promise the educational quality of language courses:“With the exception of immersion in the society of the target language, there is no substitute for the classroom,” Amanatidou wrote in a follow-up email.

Though overall language enrollment numbers are down this year, certain languages — such as Arabic and Chinese — have seen rising interest over the last several years, Amanatidou said.

Senior Lecturer in East Asian Studies Yang Wang, who has taught Chinese at Brown since 2005, said enrollment in the program is in line with national trends in Chinese learning. From 2005 to 2010, enrollment in Chinese courses rose “steadily,” she said, and after dropping slightly, it seems to have leveled off.

A combination of factors influences enrollment trends in a particular language, Amanatidou said.

For example, many students “study Chinese because they think it’s good for their career,” Wang said.

While languages commonly taught in high schools, like French and Spanish, have maintained relatively steady enrollments, those that “do not seem to be tied to a more general program of study” have not attracted many students recently, Amanatidou said, adding that Catalan, for example, is not being offered this year due to a lack of interest.

Another potential explanation for

metro 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014

Community health center expansion brings savings, challenges R.I. centers provided $184 million in savings in 2013 through cost avoidance, primary care integration

By EMMA JERZYK SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Alpert Medical School hosted a lecture Monday on Rhode Island’s community health centers presented

by David Bourassa, chief medical officer of Thundermist Health Center, and Jane Hayward, president and chief executive officer of the Rhode Island Health Center Association.

The lecture opened with a video of Jack Geiger, “the founding father of the community health center movement in the United States,” who also spoke at the Med School last year, Bourassa said.

“Every time I see him, I get excited,” Hayward said. “He is a tremendously inspirational man.”

Community health centers provide low-income areas with a variety of medical specialties as well as social work services, food pantries and educational programs, Hayward said.

“We always think about community health centers as a project of Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty,” but the concept actually originated in South Africa in the 1940s, she said.

“In 1948, this experiment of community health centers came to a screeching halt because of the passage of apartheid laws in South Africa.”

Geiger brought the concept of community health centers back to the

» SOCIAL MEDIA, from page 1 important to your life.”

The inauthenticity and prevalence of online presentation and communication similarly motivated Pia Brar ’15.5 to deactivate her Twitter account.

But as a visual arts concentrator with a focus in photography, Brar retains her Instagram account to “stay in the creative process” and uses the platform to post her photos regularly, she said.

Though Brar is a heavy Instagram user, she said she remains skeptical of the superficiality of modern social networking sites.

These sites are “playing on the vanity of … humankind,” Brar said.

“It’s saying, ‘We’re allowing you to present this version of yourself right here in the picture you look best in (and) brag to everybody where you worked this summer,’” she added. “It’s not living life for yourself. It’s living life so that other people can judge you.”

Into the wild The omnipresence of social media in undergrad life makes it difficult for some students to imagine an alternative lifestyle. But a drastic shift in setting last summer spurred Michael Markell ’18 to reassess his relationship with these digital platforms.

Markell traveled to Alaska on a wilderness trip with Outward Bound, a nonprofit wilderness education organization. He spent 15 days in the wild, two of them completely alone, and none of them connected to social networks. Heading into the wilderness allowed Markell to disrupt his reliance on social media, he said.

United States after his work in South Africa, and the idea spread through “tremendous bipartisan support,” she said.

But the funding that was allocated for community health center expansion in the Affordable Care Act was largely removed by Republican legislators, Hayward said, adding that “there have been some dollars put on the table recently to help community health centers” despite the cuts.

More so than in other states, these centers have a big impact on primary care in Rhode Island, Hayward said.

All the federally qualified health centers in the state offer dental care. “We really provide the backbone of dental care in the state for people who don’t have dental insurance,” she added.

Rhode Island’s community health centers are also equipped to manage electronic health records, which allows other providers to view patients’ medical history. Additionally, the state has no municipal- or county-level health departments, so the department of health has no “boots on the ground,” she said.

The R.I. Department of Health must fund health care reform ventures because it has no clinical capacity itself, she added.

“We’re not small change in this business anymore,” Hayward said, pointing to the $184 million in savings that community health centers provided in 2013.

“People think that NGOs don’t pay taxes. But our employees pay taxes.

There are lots of other ways that tax revenue is generated,” she said.

Re-entering society after the trip, Markell said he was “shell-shock(ed)” by the pace of modern life.

“Social media and the reactions we get used to every day are really sensory-overwhelming,” he said.

After Markell returned from Alaska, his sense of over-stimulation eventually faded, he said. “But first, coming and reintroducing yourself, it’s not an attractive thing.”

“As an idea, I think (social media) becomes addictive,” Markell said, adding that students seek retweets, likes and assurance that they are a “good person.”

“I think social media is a relatively easy way of getting tangible evidence of your own power as an individual,” he said.

Missing out?

In a world where making connections — social as well as professional — relies so heavily on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, some have raised concern about the professional ramifications of students unplugging.

Ron Foreman, a career adviser at CareerLAB, said he advises students to be on social media sites to gain access to career opportunities.

Using social media now tops email as the most common reason people go on the Internet, Business Insider reported last year. This trend has encouraged everyone from celebrities to corporate CEOs to tweet, like and follow.

“We are being inundated by organizations in all industries that tell us, ‘Tell your students to be on Twitter because we are going to be promoting

RYAN WALSH / HERALD

Jane Hayward, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Health Center Association speaks about the importance of community health centers in Rhode Island in a lecture Monday.

But acquiring funding from the state government continues to be a challenge, Hayward said. While community health centers focus on decreasing long-run costs through efforts to reduce the risk of chronic diseases, she said, policymakers focus on a one-year budget.

The lecture was presented in association with BIOL 6504: “Health Care in America,” a pre-clinical elective

that serves as “an enrichment to the curriculum that we have in medical school,” said Sanchita Singal MD’17, one of the student leaders of the course. Singal leads the course with Sachin Santhakumar MD’17, Allan Joseph MD’17 and Ali Rae MD’17, and the course is advised by Eli Adashi, former dean of medicine and biological sciences and professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Arthur Frazzano,

associate professor of family medicine, and Michael Lee, assistant professor of emergency medicine.

“We invite speakers from all over different parts of the nation to come and talk about important topics in health policy,” Singal said, adding that these issues “are really important for future physicians to know about as they venture into the world of health care.”

opportunities on Twitter,’” Foreman said. “Certainly you can find jobs in other ways, but there’s a whole category and possibility that you are missing out on.”

In its annual Social Recruiting Survey, recruiting technology website Jobvite announced that 94 percent of companies used social media — with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter as the most popular platforms — to recruit potential employees in 2013.

Employers today assume undergrads are social media-savvy, Foreman said. “From an organization’s point of view, the function of recruiting people is very time-consuming and can be costly. As an organization, I can just send out a tweet to people, … (and) from that, I can generate a pool of applicants. It didn’t cost me anything to do that, and it probably took me a minute and a half.”

business made turning to social media for marketing a natural move, Bui said, referring to the business’s use of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

“It was through social media that mainly gained us access to a broader community,” Bui said. While “Antoinette’s Boutique” partnered with nonprofit groups, the business also had to find ways to collaborate with photographers and fashion bloggers throughout Southern California. “We were just reaching out to everybody and anybody we could, and the only way we could do that, as a small ecommerce trying to survive, was through social media,” she said.

Social networking sites boosted the profile of Bui’s newly launched business, which caught the eye of media outlets such as Seventeen Magazine, Teen Vogue and Audrey Magazine and resulted in photo shoots and featured articles.

For young entrepreneurs like Bui, it’s hard to imagine the unplugged lifestyle of students like Fischbach and Markell.

“We were already an online e-commerce, so it was only natural that we expanded onto social media and used it to our advantage,” Bui said. “The 21st century is technology-based, and we’re moving toward a super advanced age where people, businesses, the economy, everything is based on running on a technology-based forum.”

have found their detachment to be constructive.

Facebook is “a great way to contact people (and) to reach out to a larger network,” Brar said.

But the authenticity and depth of intimate human relationships are under fire by social media, she said.

“For me, personally, I don’t really have a need for (social media) because the people that actually care about me, the people that love me will take that time to write an email to me.”

For Fischbach, leaving Facebook and Twitter forced him “to reconsider the relationships that I did want to maintain and enhance and also consider the ones that I didn’t.”

In addition to leading to the reevaluation of relationships, Fischbach’s move to unplug has also helped him reassess how he spends his time, he said.

Time is “really your biggest asset,” Fischbach said. “If (you) want to spend five minutes on Facebook, that’s fine, that’s great. I do stupid things for five minutes that are probably much less important than Facebook, but I want to make the decision about it.”

Though outside the mainstream, the decision to unplug can be fulfilling for some.

“One thing that people assume about not being in the modern, hyped, energetic world is that you’re not stimulated enough and that you’re going to be bored,” Markell said. “But I think, actually, that I’m more bored in a world of such shallow and constant communication compared to just being outside.”

“I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, it’s been solely good,” he said.

Business sense Social media can also contribute to the entrepreneurial success of students with a foot in the professional world.

In 2011, Jenny Bui ’18 launched “Antoinette’s Boutique,” a small jewelry business based in Los Angeles.

The business’s website, which ceased sales this year, sold inventory that included jewelry made by artisans in impoverished regions of Africa and Latin America, handmade pieces by Bui and her business partner and carefully selected vintage items, Bui said.

Over four years, Bui and her business partner and friend, Elaine, relied heavily on social networks to promote their passion for jewelry and mission to help others.

The inherent global scope of the

A more intimate network While a widespread move away from social media now seems unrealistic given the popularity of these sites, some students who deactivated accounts on these platforms said they

4 arts & culture

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014

» HORROR, from page 1 Quirk said he looks for unconventional horror films that “play with the genre a bit,” adding that he also chooses films with expressed “director’s intent.”

In “The Landing,” a seemingly science-fiction storyline about aliens in a rural farm setting takes an unexpected turn when “you find out three-quarters into the movie that the alien is a Soviet cosmonaut,” Quirk said, describing the film’s atypical narrative. “It ends up becoming a film about racism and American McCarthyism.” The film will be shown Oct. 24 at the Bell Street Chapel Theatre.

Quirk chose “Subterranneo,” a Spanish short film, for its experimental direction. “It plays off the classic horror genre where there’s a group of thieves that have kidnapped someone in a car garage,” he said. “The film is shot from the perspective of people who are in another car witnessing this. The people in the film are, in a way, the audience.”

“Subterranneo” — which will screen on Oct. 24 at the Paff Theatre at the University of Rhode Island’s Feinstein Providence campus — is part of an overall trend in which filmmakers break away from traditional methods used in the horror genre, Quirk said.

“Filmmakers are getting much more savvy. They’re manipulating the audience and using the genre to say something else.”

One of these ways that horror films manipulate the audience is through bodily responses, said Richard Rambuss, professor of English, who taught ENGL 1762A: “Perverse Cinema” last fall.

“Horror film has designs on our bodies. It might make us want to break out in a sweat or make the hairs on the back of our neck stand up,” Rambuss said, adding that horror has the power

COURTESY OF RHODE ISLAND INTERNATIONAL HORROR FILM FESTIVAL

Many recent psychological thrillers explore social issues, such as homoeroticism, doubly-gendered bodies and relationships between parents and children, serving as a “supercharged ground for thinking about sexuality and gender,” said Richard Rambuss, professor of English. to intensely construe the human body’s vulnerability.

“It spectacularizes the body in extreme, perverse conditions,” he said.

“Certain horror films have a kind of clinical or scientific understanding of the body, particularly in extreme circumstances.”

In recent years, the festival has expanded to include science fiction and fantasy in addition to strictly horror films, Quirk said. “A lot of the films merged with the horror genre anyway.

It seemed only natural that they fall under the same umbrella.”

Many horror films have moved in the direction of psychological thrillers as opposed to the traditional “slasher” films, Quirk said. “(Fewer) films are showing gore, and a lot of the action is happening off-screen,” he added, as these newer films often follow the principle that “less is more.”

The psychological focus of recent horror films allows filmmakers to “turn the camera back on the audience,” situating these films as a medium for discussing underlying social issues, he said.

“Homoeroticism, parent-child

CCB culture fair sparks conversations Fair’s intentionally chaotic atmosphere encourages exploration of ethnically diverse tables

By SOPHIE YAN STAFF WRITER

Music from the around the world resounded Friday in Alumnae Hall, where dancers’ festive choreography mingled with aromas of international dishes at Class Coordinating Board’s culture fair, “Around the World in 180 Minutes.”

The fair featured free food and performances from student groups, such as the Hellenic Students’ Association and the South Asian Students’ Association, said Orlando Rodriguez ’17, president of the Class Coordinating Board of 2017.

“What would be better than to get together over the different cultures and ethnicities on campus?” Rodriguez asked.

The loose structure of the event was intentionally “chaotic” and designed to encourage people to roam freely and explore different tables, Rodriguez said. This helped create a social climate that Lily George ’18 said she enjoyed. The informality also provided the opportunity to sample

different dishes.

Jon Ang ’16, cultural co-chair of the Filipino Alliance, said the members of the FA executive board believed the culture fair was a great opportunity to spread the word about their lesser-known organization, as many larger cultural groups — such as the Hong Kong Students’ Association and the Korean American Students’ Association — chose not to participate because they already plan many events throughout the semester.

“FA isn’t as big as some of the other cultural groups on campus. This was a good way for people to get to know us a little better,” Ang said, adding that members of the FA talked to many attendees about what their Filipino culture and background meant to them.

Ang attributed the lack of attendance of larger groups to the fact that they are already fairly established in the Brown community. “We aren’t making money off of it,” he said. “It’s a good amount of work, and (the only benefit) is really just getting yourself out there.”

But for many attendees, the draw was in the free culinary offerings, rather than the opportunity to gain cultural knowledge.

“People ... were really attracted to the free food,” said Brandon Le ’18, freshman representative for the

Vietnamese Students’ Association, whose showcase included traditional Vietnamese spring rolls.

FA made two large trays’ worth of lumpia — egg rolls stuffed with pork, onions and carrots — which ran out within an hour and a half, Ang said.

This occurred at many of the event’s stations. “The culture fair was planned to last for three hours, but about an hour or an hour and a half in, all the cultural organizations pretty much ran out of food, and we all just pretty much packed up and left,” Le said.

As the food disappeared, attendees followed suit, and there were many fewer people watching the performances at the end of the event, Rodriguez said, adding that this “was probably foreseeable — people like food.”

In the future, CCB will look into shortening the event or establishing a ticketing system that restricts the amount of food people can take, Rodriguez said.

But overall, CCB was very happy with the event, and the organization looks forward to expanding it, he said.

“It’s a good experience for everyone just to be able to step out of (their) own boundaries and see what the world has to offer for them,” Le said.

Read online at thebdh.org

relationships and doubly-gendered bodies” are some of the larger issues filmmakers can probe through the horror genre, Rambuss said. “Horror is a very fertile, supercharged ground for thinking about sexuality and gender.”

Another of the festival’s main events is a walking tour focused on H.P. Lovecraft, a local writer whose now-famous work in horror — such as “The Call of Cthulhu” and “At the Mountains of Madness” — did not achieve recognition until after his death in 1937. The tour will be followed by a screening of short films

inspired by the author’s work, Quirk said.

“A lot of people in Rhode Island don’t know about H.P. Lovecraft, so we do everything we can to promote his work and his life,” Quirk said. “It works really well with the festival so we integrate it with the films that we get.”

Many of the houses Lovecraft wrote about are still standing, he added.

“The tour helps to give Providence a new dimension. There’s a lot of culture here that people forget about, and by doing the walking tour, we’re shining a light on it.”

today 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014

menu

man down

SATELLITE DINING JOSIAH’S Gourmet Tacos BLUE ROOM Mango Chicken Curry, Cauliflower and Potatoes Makhani Organic Butternut Squash, Turkey Sausage and Kale, Three Bean Chili ANDREWS COMMONS Pizza: Bacon Chicken

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Cajun Pasta with Chicken, Krinkle Cut Fries, Beet and Kale Vegan Patty, Braised Cabbage

Pork Chops with Apple Sauce, Creamy Smashed Sweet Potatoes, Cider-Glazed Turkey

VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH

DINNER

Chinese Chicken Wings, Onion Rings, Edamame Beans with Tri-Colored Peppers, Sticky Rice

Steak and Pepper Fajitas, Curry Tempeh Saute, Mexican-Infused Rice, Apple Streusel Pie

sudoku

RYAN WALSH / HERALD

A vending machine in Minden Hall toppled over, preventing students from satisfying their late-night cravings.

comic Cat Ears | Najatee’ McNeil ’17

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle c rNorris o s sandwJoyce o rNichols d Lewis Edited by Rich ACROSS 1 Puzzles on kidfriendly place mats 6 1965 Beatles concert stadium 10 FedEx rival 13 Sheeplike 14 Fuse with a torch 15 “Amen to that!”

17 Scout’s motto 19 Nevada city on the Humboldt River 20 Ho-hum 21 Showed penitence 23 Gave permission 24 Indian bread 26 Like a watch with hands 28 Giant slugger Mel 31 Tool-hanging spots 34 Explorer Sir Francis 35 Soap unit 36 Actress who is Dakota’s sister 39 “Just teasing” 41 Organ with a canal 42 “Hooked on Classics” record co.

43 Japanese ritual including an iron pot 48 Dam-building org.

49 By oneself 50 Bela’s “Son of Frankenstein” role 51 Thanksgiving veggie 52 Former Seattle team now in Oklahoma City, familiarly 54 Where Mandela was pres.

56 DOJ division 57 Not-too-bright sort 60 Coarse file 64 Not out 66 Holders of the sandwich homophonically described by the first words of 17-, 36- and 43Across 68 Was aware of 69 __ code

70 Rocker Joplin 71 Dr. of rap 72 Not as much 73 Took a nap

32 TV show about a high school choir 33 Like the sordid side of life 37 Pond croaker 38 Glittery rock music genre 40 Anti-mice brand 44 Oklahoma city 45 Pianist’s concert, e.g.

46 Tulsa-to-Topeka direction

47 Many mos.

53 Campfire treat 55 Kin of Helvetica 56 Request 58 Maladies 59 “Take __ a compliment!”

61 Skin breakout 62 Leave out 63 Hissed “Yo!” 65 Meadow mom 67 Slumber party attire, for short

DOWN 1 Rowdy crowds 2 Chevy hatchback 3 Closes a jacket, with “up” 4 Scandal-plagued energy giant 5 “Get my point?”

6 Whack 7 Wartime honoree 8 Justice Kagan ANSWER TO PREVIOUS 9 Tacked-on sections 10 Turn red, maybe 11 Cartoon character with a red bow and whiskers 12 Body of water on the Swiss/French border 16 Fresh from the oven 18 Group of judges 22 “Phooey!”

25 Big primate 27 Tall and thin 28 “In memoriam” essay, briefly 29 Make one’s position known 30 New-customer xwordeditor@aol.com incentive

By C.C. Burnikel and Steve Marron ©2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

PUZZLE:

calendar TODAY 12 P.M. SUPER HEAVY PETTING

6 P.M. WILL CHINA CONTINUE ITS STRONG GROWTH?

De-stress courtesy of the 2016 Class Board with baby farm animals. Wriston Quad

David Wyss, adjunct professor of economics and international relations, will deliver a lecture on the future of China’s economy and host a discussion session on the topic.

Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, Memorial Lounge

5:30 P.M. 1764 LECTURE

George Marsden, professor of history at University of Notre Dame, will discuss the historical context of education in 1764. This lecture is the third installment of a seven lecture series examining the time period of the University’s founding. John Carter Brown Library, Reading Room 5:30 P.M. WILLIAM CHURCH MEMORIAL LECTURE

Paula Findlen, professor of Italian history at Stanford University, will present “Inventing Medieval Women: History, Memory and Forgery in Early Modern Italy.”

Smith-Buonanno 106 10/21/14

10/21/14

TOMORROW

7 P.M. ‘COLD WAR 2.0?’

Sergei Khrushchev, senior fellow at the Watson Institute, and Georgetown University professor Robert Liever will take part in a debate on current U.S.-Russia relations. A question-and-answer session will follow. MacMillan 115 7 P.M. POLISH FILM NIGHT

Watch the 2013 Polish thriller “Jack Strong” and enjoy traditional Polish desserts courtesy of the Slavic Studies Department. International House of Rhode Island, 8 Stimson Ave.

6 commentary

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014

EDITORIAL

SAFE Act not so safe The passage of the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act in 2013 struck a controversial chord in the ongoing battle to reach an effective and lawful balance between gun control and gun rights in the United States.

The SAFE Act requires mental health care professionals to input any information about a patient deemed “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others” into a comprehensive database.

Individuals registered with the database are legally prohibited from possessing or obtaining a firearm permit until their names have been removed, making New York one of the most liberal states in terms of gun control in the United States. The database has grown to over 34,000 names, according to Division of Criminal Justice Services statistics reported this weekend by the New York Times.

It is imperative that gun violence be taken seriously. But the SAFE Act veers from this predominant issue, instead undermining the natural, civil and constitutional rights of New York citizens.

The tragically high number of mass shootings — particularly the 2012 one in Newtown, Connecticut — that have occurred in the past few years has opened a discourse that has the potential to foster constructive legislation on the issue of gun rights. However, the SAFE Act, in its focus on the mentally ill, is misdirected and neither effectively addresses the issue of public safety nor facilitates productive policymaking.

Not only does the SAFE Act deny the constitutional right to bear arms, but it also stigmatizes and infringes upon the rights of mentally ill citizens in New York. Gun control activists insist that the 34,500 names listed in the database establish a wider safety net. But regardless of whether people support or decry firearms in the United States, merely targeting those with mental health issues is an unproductive deviation from the issue of gun politics in general.

In light of the SAFE Act’s passage, Sherri Nelson, director of Brown’s Counseling and Psychological Services, wrote in an email to the editorial page board that it is a common and unfortunate misconception that individuals with mental illness are significantly more prone to violence, adding that there is concern that the SAFE Act could legitimize and perpetuate this perception, reinforcing the stigmas that are so often paired with mental illness.

“People with mental illness are much more likely to be the target of violence than those who are not mentally ill,” she wrote.

With the correct legislation, gun violence can be eliminated. But New York’s SAFE Act attacks the mentally ill, not gun violence. Its focus is misplaced, and it therefore reinforces an unproductive stigma. In order to combat the issue of gun violence, states need to adopt laws that protect all citizens — on all accounts.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: Natasha Bluth ’15, Alexander Kaplan ’15, Manuel Monti-Nussbaum ’15, Katherine Pollock ’16, James Rattner ’15 and Himani Sood ’15. Send comments to editorials@ browndailyherald.com.

A N G E L IA WA N G

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Strengthening ties between Brown and city To the Editor: It was a pleasure to participate in last Wednesday’s Brown University mayoral debate (“Elorza, Harrop target Cianci’s record,” Oct. 16). As an institution that competes to attract the best and brightest students and faculty members in the world to Providence, Brown has a big stake in our city’s future. Like all residents, students want to live in a safe community that provides opportunities to experience great local art, music and food. At the same time, our city benefits when talented and civically engaged students live in our neighborhoods and choose to make Providence their home after graduation.

As mayor, I’ll work to strengthen the relationship between Brown and the city of Providence and to provide more

opportunities for students to become active members of our community. My plan to create full-service community schools will actively seek the participation of Brown students who want to work directly with children in the Providence schools. Because students are more likely to live in the city where they have worked, I will promote broadly accessible internship programs to retain graduates and reverse the “brain drain.” I’ve also introduced a citywide broadband plan to provide the infrastructure for an innovative knowledge economy that will support young entrepreneurs.

There are no shortage of ways for us to work together, and as mayor, I’m committed to doing exactly that.

Jorge Elorza Democratic candidate for mayor

CORRECTION A photo caption accompanying an article in Monday’s Herald (“Corporation backs construction of applied math building,” Oct. 20) incorrectly stated that the Corporation approved plans to take down an applied math building at 182 George St. In fact, the applied math buildings at 37 Manning St. and 333 Brook St. will be replaced. The Herald regrets the error.

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

“People ... were really attracted to the free food.”

— Brandon Le ’18

See ccb on page 4.

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commentary 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014

A chance for a sports hierarchy to grow SEAN BLAKE opinions columnist

The Big Ten, one of the five power conferences of the NCAA, recently announced that all its member institutions would guarantee athletic scholarships for all four years that an athlete attends college. This is a drastic step toward reaffirming the importance of academics in the collegiate model of athletics, and the conference should be applauded for its decision to run with the new degree of autonomy granted to it by the governing forces of the NCAA. The Big Ten is absolutely correct to give these athletes the opportunity to complete their education if they decide to return to school after leaving early for any “bona fide reason,” as Big Ten Associate Commissioner for Compliance Chad Hawley put it, including potential efforts to join the professional ranks of a given sport.

This scholarship reform deserves plaudits, both for the good it does and for highlighting some of the fundamental failings of the NCAA’s current system. These failings are centered on a single reality: How, after more than a century of existence, has a national organization dedicated to the creation of scholar-athletes not considered it

worthwhile to create a scholarship system that actually keeps athletes in college? The recent reform has laid bare this stark reality by highlighting the vast distance between the NCAA’s ideals and the way those ideals have actually been carried out.

In short, by putting some actual bite behind its bark, the Big Ten has illustrated that the NCAA has increasingly done the exact opposite. And that is no longer an acceptable reality.

then the NCAA will demonstrate that it is a body willing and able to institute needed reform. This sort of scholarship reform is not a panacea for all the issues in college sports, but it would solidify the legitimacy of the NCAA as an effective governing body.

And most importantly, these reforms would define the NCAA as a bureaucracy that does not always stoop to its own greed at the expense of the values it holds dear.

themselves.

This incident says volumes about the deliberately out-of-touch behavior in which the NCAA is capable of engaging. But the NCAA has at least made an effort; a week after Napier spoke, it granted athletes unlimited access to meals and snacks.

If the NCAA shows an ability to address its own conduct, maybe it will also look into the issues that pervade some of the professional sports

If it chooses to adopt guaranteed scholarships across all Division I sports, then the NCAA will demonstrate that it is a body willing and able to institute needed reform.

Before the NCAA can begin to honestly address the litany of other issues that plague it — questions of what amateurism entails in this era and more concrete things like player safety — it needs to rededicate itself to its core values, namely “the pursuit of excellence in both academics and athletics.”

The NCAA is incredibly fortunate that the Big Ten has already laid the groundwork for scholarship reform. If it chooses to adopt guaranteed scholarships across all Division I sports,

While the NCAA could potentially do some good for football and other sports, it must also begin to address issues within its own backyard, especially because they are endemic and systematic. During the University of Connecticut’s run to the NCAA National Championship for men’s basketball in the spring, Shabazz Napier, the team’s star player, publicly decried the fact that he and other teammates had frequently gone to bed hungry, as they were unable to pay for food for

it brings to the collegiate level. And maybe it would not be too much to hope for the NCAA, unlike the NFL before it, to make some actual headway addressing those issues.

Maybe the NCAA can be part of the solution to the culture of violence inherent to football. Maybe it can strive to improve player safety and concussion awareness while also giving some thought to the issues of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) that plague football’s retired

veterans and so significantly shorten their lives.

It is too much to expect that sort of foresight from the NFL itself — Roger Goodell and his cronies are far too reactionary and shortsighted in nature to truthfully offer solutions to the problems of this country’s favorite pastime. In that sense, the Ray Rice debacle was particularly damning of both Goodell and the NFL as a whole.

We bore witness to an uncertain commissioner fumbling over what appeared to be a cut-and-dry disciplinary episode.

There is a hope implicit in the majority of my words about the NCAA. It may be misplaced, but it is my hope that the NCAA recognizes that it is at a crossroads. Between scholarship reforms, as offered up by the Big Ten, and questions of how to deal with potential player compensation following a ruling against it in federal court, the NCAA has come to where the roads diverge. And maybe it will learn from the mistakes made by the NFL. Maybe it will take the road less traveled and in doing so redeem itself. Maybe the NCAA can finally put its money where its mouth is and act as the benevolent bureaucratic body it has spent so long pretending to be.

Sean Blake ’17 can be reached at sean_blake@brown.edu.

Moderate religion a rarity in college ANDREW FELDMAN opinions columnist

Academia and religion have long struggled to coexist because they seem based on mutually exclusive ideals. Academics generally rely on facts and reason, while religion relies on faith. This conflict can be epitomized in theories characterizing creation, such as the theory of evolution and the Big Bang, which have long contradicted fundamental Judeo-Christian beliefs. While it may seem these two sides have found a way to coexist, they are still very much at odds with each other on college campuses.

Students often struggle to find a balance between their religious and secular identities. A large part of this vulnerability derives from being separated from parental guidance. Growing up, kids are usually obligated to maintain their parents’ faith or are at least influenced by their family’s customs and practices. At college, students are forced to make their own decisions without their support group of family, friends and clergy that helped maintain their religious identity thus far. Some students choose to leave their religious practice at home, while others choose to envelop themselves in faith. The problem is that academia makes the area between the two difficult to maintain.

One of the main causes for the difficulty of maintaining one’s religious practices is how overwhelming college can be. The famous adage states that when it comes to sleeping, socializing and schoolwork, students can only adequately maintain two of them. Where does that leave religion? Many people put religion into the social category because of its community aspects. While community is a large part of it, religion is more than just a social activity. Religion encompasses studying how to be a

better person while also valuing rest and happiness. Religion transcends these three classifications because it can be a major facet of an individual’s identity.

When some students enter college, they treat religion as a significant part of their identity by becoming heavily involved in religious organizations. While useful to allow people to practice their religion the way they see fit, these spaces can also provide great ways to make friends and get involved in the community. One prime example with which I am relatively familiar is the Brown/RISD Hillel. Hillel offers free holiday meals, including weekly Sabbath meals after

wrong way to practice a religion. My beliefs are my own, and I invite others to practice religion as they wish. But the problem here is that academics take that choice away from students.

By not fully accommodating students’ religious observances, the academic calendar often pressures students into choosing between religion and academics, which damages one of the facets of their lives.

There are several ways Brown can go about being more sensitive to this issue. The easiest first step is to implement lecture capture in every large class. If students have to miss a class for religious purposes, or really any purpose,

It is important for students to prioritize academics, but it shouldn’t have to come at the price of assimilating one’s religious practice into polarized university standards. which students are invited to Oneg Shabbatot in an intimate social setting. While I have attended numerous Shabbat meals and Onegs and found the community extremely welcoming, I also felt it difficult for students like me — who want religion to be a part of their life but not all-encompassing — to become fully integrated in an environment of relatively devout students.

At the other end of the spectrum, many students treat religion as just another extracurricular activity. This diminishes the time spent observing religious practices. When a student considers something to be an extracurricular, it usually means school comes first. For example, this Yom Kippur, many students with upcoming exams modified the holiday to fit the academic calendar — some students still fasted, but did so while spending the day studying in a library and never partook in any sort of religious ceremony.

I am not trying to suggest there is a right or

having a video of the lecture will minimize the amount of material they miss. I don’t think lecture capture would completely replace the inclass experience, but it’s much better than having to track down a classmate to copy notes without knowing if the notes are sufficient.

Another method would be to create an online survey on either Canvas or Banner that asks students at the start of each semester to list any holidays they observe that could conflict with the course during the semester. This would make it easier for professors to be aware of students’ religious observances, which could potentially help professors plan when important projects or exams occur. If nothing else, this would provide a written record to inform professors to not require students to have any work due on the day of the observance or the following few days.

The easiest fix is not to have class on the same day as a religious holiday. This practice

used to be much more prevalent but has decreased in recent years because of the inability to accommodate every religion. I believe the Brown student body is capable of engaging in dialogue that could reach a compromise to declare a few days each semester religious holidays for the entire school.

The benefit for the students observing the holiday would be immediate. Even when holidays such as Easter and Eid al-Adha occurred during a weekend this year, students living outside of New England were limited in their ability to return home because it would entail missing class.

This could benefit students of different faiths. Sponsoring university-wide dialogue on religious holidays could educate and diversify students in ways that limiting ourselves to a purely secular schedule never could.

Students should not be required to pay to go to a parochial school just for the opportunity to balance their religious beliefs with academics.

Students should neither be charged for wanting to observe their religion nor be compelled to accept an uncompromising religious education. Rather than inhibiting religious practice with inflexible standards, the University should attempt to catalyze the growth of all types of thought, idea and passion — including those of religion. It is important for students to prioritize academics, but it shouldn’t have to come at the price of assimilating one’s practices into polarized university standards.

Academics have already impeded Andrew Feldman’s ’15 ability to religiously watch football every Sunday, and he can be reached by email at andrew_feldman@brown.edu or by tweet @Amfeldz on ways to preserve genuine religious practices at the University.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014

THE

metro

BROWN DAILY HERALD

Elections Roundup

BY KATE KIERNAN, METRO EDITOR

Gubernatorial debate Gubernatorial candidates Democrat Gina Raimondo, general treasurer, Republican Allan Fung, mayor of Cranston, and Moderate Robert Healey will face off in a debate Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at the Providence Performing Arts Center. The debate will be moderated by Tim White of Eyewitness News, with WPRI political analyst Ted Nesi and Providence Journal political reporter Ed Fitzpatrick on the debate’s panel.

The latest WPRI and Journal poll shows Raimondo ahead with 42 percent of the vote among likely Rhode Island voters, Fung in second place with 36 percent and Healey in third with 8 percent. At the time of the poll, 12 percent of voters remained undecided.

Cianci in the Sunday spotlight

JOSE ROCHA / HERALD

The 21st Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems found that over 50 percent of bridges in the state are deficient and eligible for federally funded repairs.

State infrastructure falls flat Despite large budget, Rhode Island lags behind other states in road and bridge conditions

By AMEER MALIK CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Rhode Island placed 47th in the country in the overall condition of its highway systems in 2012, according to a report out last month from the Reason Foundation.

The 21st Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems, which included data from 1984 to 2012, also ranked Rhode Island last in the percentage of bridges in deficient condition, with over 50 percent of its bridges considered “deficient.”

Deficient bridges are those eligible for federally funded repairs, according to the study.

“That is a remarkable statistic,” said David Hartgen, one of the study’s authors and a senior fellow at the libertarian Reason Foundation.

“If I were a citizen of Rhode Island, I would want to know how it is we have four times as much money as the average state, and yet we are ranked in the 40s and 50s on condition,” Hartgen added.

Representatives from the Rhode Island Department of Transportation were not available to comment on the report’s findings.

During the report’s review process, authors looked at “how each state is doing relative to the size of its budget and the size of its system,” Hartgen said. “Then we look at the results of each system.”

“This study puts a spotlight on each (highway) system,” Hartgen said, adding that the study “usually generates reaction” from both legislatures and governors’ offices.

Rhode Island’s poor infrastructure was also brought to light in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2013 Report Card For America’s Infrastructure.

The report found that there were 156 structurally deficient bridges in Rhode Island, and 70 percent of major roads in Rhode Island were of “poor or mediocre quality” at the time of the report.

But some projects in recent years have aimed at improving the state’s infrastructure, including the Pawtucket River Bridge Replacement Project, which was announced in 2010 and completed during the summer of 2013. The project — which cost over $80 million — involved rehabilitating six small bridges to improve overall infrastructure, the Pawtucket Times

reported at the time.

The bridge replacement project not only built new structures and created multiple jobs, but also transformed into a community-based project, Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien told The Herald.

“The reason it started was because of the deficiencies that the (Transportation Department) found in the bridge itself,” Grebien said. “Once the community realized that this was important for Pawtucket and that Pawtucket could be so much more due to this project, they formed a committee, and people started advocating for more than an average bridge.”

Grebien added that community members believed the Pawtucket bridge could “become a destination” rather than be just “a bridge that everyone drove over.”

The final result became “an iconic structure” of Pawtucket, as it promotes the city’s access off I-95 and highlights Pawtucket’s history with its “art deco” design that matches City Hall, Grebien said.

Though the major portion of the bridge was completed last year, work on some phases of the project continues, Grebien said, adding that the construction of an overlook park is scheduled to be completed by this spring.

Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, Independent mayoral candidate and former mayor of Providence, was featured on an NBC “Meet the Press” special Oct. 19, which focused on three controversial politicians seeking reelection who appear to have a reasonable chance of winning their respective seats. In addition to Cianci, the segment featured Louisiana congressional candidate and former governor Edwin Edwards and Larry Pressler, former U.S. senator from South Dakota.

“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd and correspondent Willie Geist discussed Cianci’s lead in the polls, suggesting Cianci is the most likely of the three politicians highlighted in the show to be reelected, according to the transcript. Geist said there was “affection” for Cianci among some Providence voters — though he added that some had reservations about having a former felon in City Hall.

Bipartisan against Buddy Democratic mayoral candidate Jorge Elorza’s campaign confirmed yesterday that it received a $1,000 donation from Republican mayoral candidate Daniel Harrop ’76 MD’79, WPRI reported. In adherence with Rhode Island’s campaign finance laws, this is the largest amount an individual is allowed to donate to a single candidate. Elorza, a former housing court judge, and Harrop, a psychiatrist, are in a three-way race against Cianci, the Independent candidate and former mayor of Providence. It is possible that Harrop could formally endorse Elorza before the Nov. 4 election in order to encourage Harrop supporters and Republicans to support Elorza over Cianci.

The latest WPRI and Journal poll from Sept. 23 shows Cianci as the race’s frontrunner with 38 percent of the vote, Elorza at 32 percent and Harrop in third with 6 pecent. At the time of the poll, nearly one-fifth of likely voters surveyed remained undecided. Cianci also leads the other two candidates in the amount of cash his campaign has on hand: The latest campaign finance reports show Cianci has $301,539, while Elorza has $160,195 and Harrop has $90,058, WPRI reported.

Attorneys ally against Cianci Three former U.S. attorneys — U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, former governor Lincoln Almond and Robert Clark Corrente — held a joint press conference last week to outline their concerns about Cianci’s criminal record and his candidacy, Rhode Island Public Radio reported.

Corrente said the group of attorneys decided to speak out because Cianci “has relentlessly minimized and even joked about the crimes that he committed while in office,” including an assault in 1983 and a racketeering conspiracy in 2002. Corrente noted he did not believe that Cianci would be incorruptible if reelected, and Whitehouse noted that another Cianci administration could be damaging for the state’s economy and federal programming.

R.I. labor backs Republican lt. gov. candidate The executive board of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO announced last week that the organization was joining other labor unions in supporting Republican candidate for lieutenant governor Catherine Taylor, WPRI reported. This is the first time R.I. AFL-CIO has endorsed a Republican candidate since 1986. Taylor received endorsements from Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest union of state employees, and unions for state teachers, correctional officers and service employees, WPRI reported. The latest WPRI and Journal poll released Oct. 14 shows McKee ahead of Taylor 36 percent to 27 percent, but 31 percent of the likely voters surveyed were undecided.

Though Democratic candidate Dan McKee has not received any endorsements from union groups, poll results showed him leading Taylor by a couple of percentage points in union households, though 28 percent of those households remained undecided.