Thursday, March 5, 2015

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015

VOLUME CL, ISSUE 30

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

Campus reacts to new Gourmet details in Phi Psi case Heaven Students express concerns over University’s lack of transparency, attention to two complainants

By SHAVON BELL AND ALEKSANDRA LIFSHITS SENIOR STAFF WRITERS

SADIE HOPE-GUND / HERALD

Julia Gillard, former Australian prime minister, addressed Australia’s attention to developing markets in Asia during her lecture Wednesday.

Gillard talks Australia’s relationship with Asia

Former prime minister lectures on Australia’s adaptation to Asia’s increasing global impact

By KATE TALERICO SENIOR STAFF WRITER

“Asia’s rise is the opportunity of this century,” said Julia Gillard, Australian prime minister from 2010 to 2013,

during the 90th Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs Wednesday. Attendees of the talk nearly filled the DeCiccio Family Auditorium in the Salomon Center, a venue capable of seating about 600 people.

Gillard deemed China’s growth “industrialization at warp speed,” noting that China’s economy has expanded 20-fold over the past 25 years. » See GILLARD, page 4

As new details surrounding the Phi Kappa Psi case broke across campus Wednesday, many students reacted with frustration at what they perceived as the University’s lack of transparency.

Others stressed the importance of respecting the two female students who reported being served a drink containing the date-rape drug GHB at an October party held by the fraternity.

The University will not move forward with a hearing for the Phi Psi member charged in December with serving a drink spiked with GHB after hair and urine tests were deemed inconclusive, The Herald reported Wednesday.

The laboratory and toxicologist on which the University relied for the flawed hair test have both faced prior accusations of inaccurate and misleading test reporting, The Herald also reported Wednesday.

Many students expressed

disillusionment with the way the University handled its campus-wide announcements about developments in the case, emphasizing the need for transparency in future cases.

“What Brown should be thinking about is when they release information and how they release it,” said Lucrezia Sanes ’17. The University should not publicize information before it is proven legitimate, she said in reference to the urine test.

Elodie Freymann ’18 characterized community-wide emails from administrators regarding the case as “extremely shady.”

On Nov. 8, Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Margaret Klawunn and Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 notified the Brown community that one of the two women had tested positive for GHB. In a Jan. 19 community-wide email, Klawunn and Carey announced that Phi Psi would be sanctioned with loss of University recognition and housing for four years.

But in a Feb. 21 community-wide email announcing that the drug test was in fact inconclusive, the administrators wrote that the University had modified these sanctions to allow the fraternity » See PHI PSI, page 5

South Street construction to start in April U. to lease space for administrative offices in renovated South Street Power Station

By BAYLOR KNOBLOCH SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The South Street Landing Project — a Jewelry District development plan that involves renovating the district’s historic South Street Power Station as well as building two apartment complexes and a parking garage — is “barreling rapidly towards construction,” said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, executive vice president for planning and policy.

The power station, adjacent to the I-195 redevelopment land, will house administrative offices for the University and nursing facilities for the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College, Carey said.

Commonwealth Ventures Properties, the developer that owns the land being used for the project, proposed a $215 million plan that has received federal and state approval.

METRO

INSIDE

“Sometime starting in April we’re going to start mobilizing the site and start doing some demolition and internal cleanup for the power plant,” said Richard Galvin ’79, president of CV Properties.

Because the state will be a tenant of the power station through URI and RIC, the collaboration is “described as a public-private partnership,” Carey said.

Since the power station is nationally recognized as a historic building, the developer will receive tax credits.

The top floors of the building, two of which will be constructed during the project, will be leased to Brown as administrative offices. “There will be roughly 450 people who will move there in early 2017,” Carey said.

Various administrative offices, including admission, development and computer information services, have moved to buildings in the Jewelry District over the last decade — an effort outlined in President Christina Paxson’s P’19 strategic plan.

“When we move a lot of the administrative offices to the South Street Landing in the Jewelry District, it will » See RENOVATION, page 4

POST- MAGAZINE

Former employees accuse owner Chung Cho of wage theft, denial of overtime pay

By DUNCAN GALLAGHER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Chung Cho, owner of the Gourmet Heaven grocery chain with locations in Providence and New Haven, must respond by Thursday to a summons, or he will lose a federal wage theft suit.

Three former Gourmet Heaven employees from the Providence locations at Meeting Street and Weybosset Street filed the suit Feb. 18.

They and five others, who subsequently joined the case, demand a total of $140,000 in compensation for unpaid wages.

The suit is being pursued in federal court due to legal overlap between state and federal law, said Peter Skwirz, the plaintiffs’ local counsel.

The plaintiffs allege that Cho violated both the Rhode Island Minimum Wage Act by paying low wages and the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act by denying overtime wages.

The Meeting Street store on College Hill closed its doors Dec. 4, while the Weybosset Street store downtown remains open. The Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training opened an investigation in response to the same allegations last December after the store closed, the Providence Journal reported Dec. 19.

Cho faced charges for wage theft at the store’s two New Haven locations as a result of a Connecticut Department of Labor investigation. He was placed on a two-year probation and ordered to pay $140,000 to the Connecticut employees, said John Lugo, an organizer for Unidad Latina en Accion, the New Haven-based workers’ rights organization that was involved in the actions against the Connecticut stores. A similar civil suit to the one in Rhode Island is underway there, Lugo added.

The two New Haven stores are slated to close June 30, the Yale Daily News reported.

In the wake of the New Haven controversy, employees at the Providence locations contacted Lugo, he said.

The employees claim to have » See GOURMET, page 5

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WEATHER

THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH “Forks over Knives” examines role of diet in preventing and reversing disease.

PAGE 8

COURTESY OF TIM HIEBERT

The South Street Power Station, a national historic building in the Jewelry District, will house various administrative offices after renovations.

owner faces wage lawsuit

COMMENTARY Secondo ’16: It is important to pursue one’s dreams in the real world after graduation.

COMMENTARY Kenyon GS: Jeb Bush may be a Republican candidate who supports legalizing marijuana.

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UNIVERSITY NEWS PAGE 2 • THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

UCS responds to newly surfaced information concerning Phi Kappa Psi case Council members offer opinions but no consensus on developments at general body meeting

By NATALIE FONDRIEST SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Undergraduate Council of Students decided not to adopt a formal position on the new details surrounding the Phi Kappa Psi case revealed in The Herald this week, said UCS President Maahika Srinivasan ’15 at the UCS general body meeting Wednesday.

Following extensive discussion amongst the UCS Executive Board Monday about “whether or not as a council we should take a stance … in an official UCS capacity,” Srinivasan said she does not believe the council could reach a consensus yet.

“The inherent problem is that to comment on the nature of the case is very difficult and kind of nebulous for us to do” due to a lack of some “concrete facts,” Srinivasan said, adding that individual reactions from general body members are still important and encouraged.

“The Sexual Assault Task Force is not being utilized in the way it should be utilized in this situation, and I think

RYAN WALSH / HERALD

Undergraduate Council of Students President Maahika Srinivasan ’15 discussed the details surrounding the Phi Kappa Psi case recently published in The Herald at the UCS general body meeting Wednesday night. that needs to be clearer that that can’t be a scapegoat for the mishandling of this case,” said Justice Gaines ’16, a member of the task force and a UCS general body member. It seems the University is not basing its approach on any precedent for dealing with cases involving

tests for date-rape drugs, he added.

Sazzy Gourley ’16, UCS vice president and chair of the UCS Outreach and Advocacy Committee, presented suggestions generated at Tuesday’s OAC meeting for improving the council’s structure and purpose. Next week, three OAC subgroups will form to examine the council’s current model and history, as well as student government models at peer institutions, Gourley said.

The subgroups will reconvene before spring break at a “tipping point,” when the council will reassess the timeline for its initiatives and decide whether to “present some concrete recommendations to the general body,” he added.

“A lot of these ideas are contradictory,” Srinivasan said, since the OAC’s efforts remain in the brainstorming phase. Suggestions include making council meetings distinct from open

forums and decreasing the size of the UCS general body.

Srinivasan also gave a general overview and fielded questions about the Winter Term Working Group, the launch of which Provost Vicki Colvin announced in a Feb. 20 email. The group is considering an optional term in January, in which students could take one or two for-credit classes that would meet daily, Srinivasan said, adding that the term would allow for accelerated graduation and alignment with Rhode Island School of Design’s academic calendar.

Srinivasan told the general body to save any “editorializing” for next week’s meeting, when the council will break into smaller discussion groups in order to “have a definitive thing to say about whether or not we should have a winter term.”

The council should aim to generate “a document to parse through the range of opinions … about all of the implications a winter term would have on the undergraduate student body,” Srinivasan said. The working group will host a forum for undergraduates March 18.

During committee updates, Srinivasan announced that the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center will offer a designated wellness space to bring together mental and physical health resources on campus, including Yoga and Mindfulness, Brown University Relaxation Project and Brown University Mediation Project.

UNIVERSITY NEWS

THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

U. seeks new dean of students Newly-formed nineperson search committee looks for candidate who prioritizes student needs

By BAYLOR KNOBLOCH SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The University has assembled a search committee charged with hiring a dean of students for the next academic year, said Ricky Gresh, director of campus life projects and committee chair. The committee convened for the first time in late January and will meet again Tuesday, Gresh said.

The position of dean of students, formerly titled the senior associate dean of student life, was vacated when J. Allen Ward assumed the role of assistant vice president for student affairs at Clayton State University in January.

Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services and hiring manager for the position, reshaped the job by expanding its purview and modifying the title.

In renaming the position, Klawunn said she hopes that the person selected

“will have a high profile on the campus as being an advocate and a visible position for students.” The position’s domain now includes student activities and the campus center, she added.

The ideal candidate is “somebody who’s really going to do a great job for the diversity of the student population we have here at Brown, and somebody who … can be a good spokesperson for students and a good advocate for student issues,” Klawunn said.

The search committee includes nine members — five administrators, one professor, two undergraduate students and one graduate student — as well as Gale Batchelder, founder and principal of the New Leadership Group, a hiring firm based in Cambridge, Massachussetts.

“We’re looking for someone who really has an articulated, fleshed out vision for student support services,” said Maahika Srinivasan ’15, president of the Undergraduate Council of Students and a committee member. The committee is also seeking someone who will “take a look at the recommendations that the Sexual Assault Task Force is making and really envision how to support the students going through the process,” she

added.

“People are on the committee because they represent an important constituency or an important perspective,” Gresh said. “We’re absolutely committed as a committee to diverse hiring and ensuring a diverse and strong applicant pool.”

The January and March committee meetings will culminate in a third and final meeting in April, when the committee will identify roughly a dozen applicants for screening interviews, Gresh said.

After interviewing the selected applicants, the committee will invite three or four to visit campus. “Our aim is to bring candidates to campus before the spring semester is over so that they’re here when students are on campus,” Klawunn said.

The committee will then submit to Klawunn “at least two candidates we would recommend with strengths and weaknesses so that she can make a final hiring decision,” Gresh said.

“A search of this nature will typically receive 50 to 100 applications,” he said.

“The number one thing I’m looking for is someone who is smart, somebody who can figure it out.”

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY WEBSITE

Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services, played a key role in reshaping the purview of the dean of students.

www.browndailyherald.com

UNIVERSITY NEWS PAGE 4 • THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015

» GILLARD, from page 1 China is not the only country that is growing — so are Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea, Japan and India, she said. “In combination, the rapid changes across Asia mean that in a few years’ time, (the Eastern Pacific) will be home to the world’s most sizable middle class, bigger than that of the rest of the world combined — North America and Europe included.”

“When I was growing up, Asia was viewed as a place of poverty,” Gillard said, adding that Australia has historically looked past Asia to its traditional markets in Europe and America.

But as Asia has grown, Australia’s attention has shifted to developing markets and cities on the nearby continent, she said.

“You don’t build cities without commodities. Australia’s iron ore and coking coal are essential to the construction of Chinese apartments, rail lines and factories,” she said.

Australia’s top two exports are just that — coal and iron — but the country will continue its recent efforts to diversify its economy, Gillard told The Herald in an interview before the talk.

“The third biggest export from Australia is international education.

That is predominantly students from our region of the world coming and studying in Australian universities,” she told The Herald.

While Australia was once a largescale manufacturer, the comparative wage rates of surrounding countries have forced it to scale down its plants, Gillard told The Herald. But Australia has recently seen the rise of “very elite, elaborately transformed” manufacturers, particularly in the mining industry,

she added.

Asia’s emerging middle class will also look to Australia for healthcare, elderly care and innovations in science and medicine, Gillard said.

“Australia therefore is no longer an old economy and no longer subject to the ‘tyranny of distance’ either,” she added. The Economist has reported that Australia benefits from “the advantage of adjacency” in its push to be considered in conjunction with Asia, Gillard said.

Yet it can be hard to picture Australia as an Asian nation given that its culture, rules and social organization reflect Western values, said Richard Boucher, diplomat in residence at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

Gillard told The Herald she believes that now, more than ever before, Australians are accepting their place as an Asian nation.

“Whilst it’s true we’ve got the Westminster system of government that is speaking to our United Kingdom roots, we have an incredibly multicultural society,” Gillard told The Herald. “The two biggest migrant intake groups (to Australia) now are people from China and people from India,” she added.

As Asia grows, Americans must consider their position in the global marketplace, Gillard said. “How depressed should Americans be about being future total GDP second placegetters?” Gillard quipped.

Not at all depressed, she said in response. “Asia’s rise means the innovative, resilient, entrepreneurial U.S. economy can be a beneficiary of resulting economic growth,” she said.

“There’s a lot of policy dialogue in Australia that our relationships with

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD the U.S. and China are a zero-sum game — you can’t strengthen one without weakening the other,” Gillard told The Herald. “I don’t believe that to be true, and I’ve never believed that to be true. When I was prime minister, we took a step forward in our alliance with the U.S. … At the same time we secured new diplomatic architecture with China.”

Gillard said the Obama administration has understood the importance of engaging in conversation about Asia ever since September 2013, when the president was forced to remain in Washington to focus on the gridlock in Congress rather than attend the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

“Has the entire American political system learned from this event that the cost of hyper partisanship at home can be measured in lost prestige abroad?” she asked.

“Winning in Asia has to be fought for — not lethargically assumed,” she said, but “it can be done by many nations and businesses around our planet.”

Nations will only come out winners in this race if they are their most productive, which can only happen if they educate the masses to be “Asia-capable, Asia-literate and Asia-oriented,” she said.

“For the first time in human history, it is in our grasp to ensure every child of the world is educated,” she said.

“I am a big supporter of education with its potential to improve developing parts of the world and the conditions of the people who live there,” Sarah Novicoff ’18, a Herald staff writer said during the question-and-answer

session. “The problem I see is there seems to be a trade-off of the shortterm need for emergency aid and the long-term need of education, which will ultimately do more. In the short term it’s very hard to ignore those conflicts,” she added.

“I thought she gave valuable insight into what it means to have the Asian economy growing in the way it is,” said Andrew Vann ’17. “As an international student, my experience so far has been very U.S.-centric. But still, it was nice to have a look at what development in other parts of the world meant and particularly in the framework of education.”

Education can also inspire social transformation toward a more “genderjust” culture, Gillard said. As Australia’s first woman Prime Minister, Gillard has experienced discrimination within the country’s political system, she told The Herald.

Gillard told The Herald that people are more likely to give her elaborate consideration because of her status as a woman. “People say to you things like, ‘It must be so hard for you to be prime minister and to make these big decisions.’ It’s meant with goodwill but is ultimately quite patronizing of our capabilities,” she added. Her gender identity has also been used as a “weapon in political conflict.”

“Dreadfully sexist things are said and done to demean your status as a leader. I still think that all around the world we’re still striving for the time that women leaders are just accepted and judged solely on the basis of their leadership capacity rather than anything to do with their gender or family status or appearance,” she told The Herald.

» RENOVATION, from page 1 open up space for department centers and programs that are now just packed in” on College Hill, Paxson said. “We recognize that we’re really short on space here, so we need the Jewelry District as we grow.”

The strategic plan also cites cultivating “the economic and cultural vitality of Providence and Rhode Island” as motivation for development in the area.

In addition to Brown’s administrative offices and the joint nursing facility, the renovated power station will also include a cafe and lobby on the first floor in order to attract pedestrian traffic, Carey said.

The power station appeared on the Providence Preservation Society’s Most Endangered Properties list in 2011 and 2012 after various plans for renovation had fallen through.

“We’ve been tracking the development of the project,” said Paul Wackrow, director of preservation services at the Providence Preservation Society. “The fact that these three institutions and a private developer and the city and state are working together to make this happen is really exciting.”

Construction on the apartments and parking garage, the other two major components of the project, will begin this summer, Galvin said.

The two apartment buildings — which will collectively house 266 beds marketed to medical, nursing and graduate students — will be built on what is now a vacant parking lot, and the new parking garage will serve residents of the apartment buildings as well as people working in the renovated power station, Carey said.

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THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015 • PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

SPOTLIGHT ON THE STATEHOUSE

BY ALEX BLUM, METRO EDITOR

Alum tapped as DOH director

Nicole Alexander-Scott MPH’11, assistant professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Alpert Medical School, was nominated Tuesday by Gov. Gina Raimondo to serve as the next director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, multiple news outlets reported. Her nomination is pending confirmation by the State Senate.

Michael Fine announced his resignation as director of the DOH Feb. 25 and is set to conclude his four-year tenure March 27, WPRI reported.

Alexander-Scott is slated to assume her role April 1.

“It is a privilege to have this opportunity to work with so many talented health care and public health professionals to strengthen our care system across the state,” Alexander-Scott said.

Raimondo said she appreciated Fine’s work to help contain the recent meningitis outbreak at Providence College.

Fine said “the governor has made an excellent choice for our state” in nominating Alexander-Scott, WPRI reported.

Winter weather will not abate

As snow, sleet and rain continue to fall this week, the Providence public school system is grappling with how to account for missed school days. The city is weathering the fifth snowiest winter on record, with more than 64 inches of precipitation.

Extending the school year from June 26 to June 29, holding school on Saturdays, lengthening each school day and reducing April vacation have all been considered as measures for making up missed class time, NBC 10 News reported Monday. To help with the decision, the school district is soliciting feedback from families through a survey.

“We don’t want to hold school in name only,” said Christina O’Reilly, spokesperson for the Providence Public Schools. “We want to be sure that if we hold a school day we are appropriately staffing and educating kids in our classrooms.”

R.I. gas prices tick upward

Rhode Island gas prices have climbed nearly 30 cents over the past month, WPRI reported Monday, reversing the trend of falling prices that consumers have enjoyed in recent months. Though the average price per gallon of gas is still $1.18 less than it was a year ago, the incremental hikes of five to 10 cents per week are expected to continue this spring, WPRI reported.

While local residents may feel their wallets getting lighter as prices increase, the University’s energy costs do not tend to fluctuate as fluidly.

Along with gas prices, the costs of heating facilities, plowing the roads and keeping sidewalks clear of snow and ice are also on the rise, as a result of below-average temperatures and above-average snowfalls.

TIMOTHY MUELLER-HARDER / HERALD

Chung Cho, owner of Gourmet Heaven, faces allegations of denying more than $140,000 in wages. Cho must respond to a summons from the court Thursday or he will lose the case.

» GOURMET, from page 1 received between $350 and $400 for working as many as 72 hours per week — ­ a rate that falls short of Rhode Island’s $9-per-hour minimum wage by as much as $4 per hour.

Lugo said he initially dealt with about 10 Rhode Island-based workers, though the suit was filed by only three. One of the reasons for investigating the Rhode Island locations was that they opened after Cho stole “millions of dollars” of wages from workers in New Haven, Lugo said.

» PHI PSI, from page 1 to petition for recognition starting in May 2017.

Jessica Brown ’16 cast what she saw as a mishandled University communication effort as contradictory to the administration’s commitment to clarity regarding its decision-making.“The communication has been said to be very transparent, yet everybody’s very confused,” she said.

Klawunn told The Herald Tuesday evening that the University cannot discuss individual cases because of “federal guidelines,” suggesting limits on how transparent the University is legally allowed to be.

Several students also said the University’s handling of the case demonstrates a lack of concern for the complainants, noting that the administration seems more concentrated on public relations than on the two women.

The district court issued Cho a summons Feb. 19, and he was allotted two weeks to respond. Cho had not responded to the summons as of press time, and neither he nor his lawyers could be reached for comment.

The Rhode Island campaign is now being spearheaded by Fuerza Laboral and Rhode Island Jobs with Justice, though Fuerza Laboral did not initially accept the case because the workers did not contact the organization directly, Lugo said.

Phoebe Gardener, a community organizer for Fuerza Laboral, said the

organization, along with Rhode Island Jobs with Justice, connected the employees with legal counsel for the case. Fuerza Laboral also organized two separate public protests at the DownCity location, which involved picketing outside and protestors entering the store to publicly demand that stolen wages be awarded.

The first protest occurred in December and the most recent one was on Feb. 18, the day the complaint was filed, Gardener said. They drew around 60 and 30 attendees, respectively, she added.

“It’s really showing that there’s not so much of a focus on those girls, but more on the relationship between Brown and the public, Brown and Phi Psi, Phi Psi and the public,” Brown said. “It makes it a lot harder for (the complainants) to reach out” to the University for support, she added.

Sam Jones ’18 said that “outsiders have the luxury” of viewing sexual misconduct cases and critiquing University decisions from a distance, while the two women’s daily lives are directly affected.

Some spoke out against the University’s decision not to hold a hearing for the fraternity member.

“This is an obstruction of justice,” said Jacinta Lomba ’17.

Ezra Kagan ’17 said, “The priority has to be doing whatever makes women and survivors of sexual assault feel safe on this campus … even if that means erring on the side of heavy punishment.”

Looking ahead, many predicted students will organize in opposition to the University’s handling of the case. “This is not what we stand for, at least as a student community,” Lomba said. If the University wants the support of its students, “then something needs to happen.”

Emily Schell ’16, the founder of Stand Up! Brown, an organization working to prevent sexual assault on campus, said she expects “direct action” from student groups in the coming weeks. She envisions the action taking shape as a grassroots movement, with sexual assault prevention organizations fueling the engine for more widespread student efforts.

It is important “to get members of the student body that are not normally involved in these conversations involved,” Schell said. High engagement would signal to the University that the entire campus takes sexual assault very seriously, she added.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

PAGE 6 • THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015, 2015

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Professor discusses career as archaeologist in Italy Peter van Dommelen has explored Sardinian grain supply, Carthaginian colonialism

By STEVEN MICHAEL SCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITOR

RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT This profile is part of a series focused on Brown faculty and students engaged in science and research, with the purpose of highlighting and making more accessible the work being pursued at all levels across disciplines.

When Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology Peter van Dommelen was in high school, he helped excavate a medieval abbey in his native Netherlands. From then on he was hooked on archaeology.

One thing led to another, and van Dommelen found himself researching colonialism in the ancient world for his PhD on the island of Sardinia, located off the western coast of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea. He has returned to the island every summer since 1991 to continue his research.

Though Sardinia is part of Italy, van Dommelen said it is actually closer to

Algeria and has “very much a character of its own.”

“It’s either at the center of things or away from everywhere,” he said, referring to its place throughout history.

Van Dommelen recently received a grant from National Geographic to study agricultural methods during the Punic period, an era defined by a series of three wars between Rome and Carthage between 264 BC and 146 BC — in order to understand the effects of Carthaginian colonialism.

Sardinia produced a grain supply for the Carthaginian army. By digging at various sites, the researchers hope to understand what Sardinians were eating

and producing at the time. Evidence can be gathered from both food growing and food processing sites.

In a previous excavation, van Dommelen’s team found evidence of a vegetable plot and wine growing in a wetlands area that had sandy soil.

For this project, the team plans to excavate around a nuraghe, a large prehistoric castle that dates from the Bronze Age, a time period which spanned from about 3300 BC to 1200 BC. While van Dommelen is interested in the more recent Punic history, people continued to live near the nuraghe after the Bronze Age and well into the Punic period.

Many prehistoric monuments like the nuraghe are only excavated by historians who specialize in the periods during which they were built, though they hold insight about later generations that also lived on the land, van Dommelen said.

Unlike in the previous excavation, the soil at this site is composed of basalt — a black, volcanic rock — and so ancient plants may not be preserved.

Van Dommelen said he hypothesizes that Sardinians may have once grown cereals in that area.

“That’s what’s exciting about archaeology — you don’t know what you’re going to find,” he said.

COURTESY OF PETER VAN DOMMELEN

“It’s either at the center of things or away from everywhere,” said Peter van Dommelen of Sardinia, adding that this part of Italy has “very much a character of its own.” Van Dommelen recently received a National Geographic grant to examine the agricultural history of the region, hypothesizing that the Carthaginians may have used the land to grow cereals.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015, 2015 • PAGE 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

New projects receive funding to study Narragansett Bay Funds awarded to faculty members for three projects to model Narragansett Bay, assess its ecology

By GABRIELLA REYES SENIOR STAFF WRITER

As ecological change affects the world around us, University researchers are looking at its impact close to home.

The Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council announced Feb. 19 that it will award a total of $814,042 in funds to six projects studying various aspects of Narragansett Bay, according to a press release on the council’s website. Two of the six projects involve University researchers.

Bay watch Baylor Fox-Kemper, assistant professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences, is part of a team working to build two computer-generated, numerical models of Narragansett Bay. The first model, the Ocean State Ocean Model, will simulate the entire Narragansett, building on earlier, smaller-scale models.

“The model will help us better understand the processes that lead to hypoxia — lack of oxygen when you don’t get enough mixing of the water to balance out the consumption of oxygen by microbes or fish,” Fox-Kemper said.

Studying hypoxia and weather

conditions may help with future projections, Fox-Kemper said. “We could predict new problem places where hypoxia might arise.”

The model’s tracking of currents and turbulence is useful for ecological analysis, Fox-Kemper said, adding that the model could predict where spills would flow in the bay. Future researchers can also use the model to study how disease propagates between reefs.

The second model, which fits into the first, will generate high-resolution simulations of smaller, more specific regions of the bay. While the first model builds on previous work, the second is truly innovative, Fox-Kemper said.

“My group has been working in an open ocean environment and doing very high-resolution simulations of turbulence caused by the wind and waves and cooling of the surface,” he said. “We are very interested in how those processes can impact the coastal environment.”

The modeling project has significant implications for society because of the interests different groups have in the bay for fisheries, recreation and power, Fox-Kemper said.

Fox-Kemper is working with Associate Professor of Marine Biology

David Taylor and Associate Professor of Biology Dale Leavitt, both of Roger Williams University, as well as Professor of Oceanography Christopher Kincaid, Associate Marine Research Scientist Dave Ullman and Professor of Oceanography Lewis Rothstein, all of the University of Rhode Island.

Delving into diatoms David Murray, senior research associate and facility manager in the department of earth, environmental and planetary sciences, and Warren Prell, professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences, bolster a team that will use diatoms — microscopic phytoplanktons — to measure changes in the Narragansett ecosystem.

“Phytoplankton are basically the bottom of the food chain, so everything else depends on them for sustenance,” Murray said. “They should be sensitive to things like temperature and nutrient levels. They’re not mobile, so as the temperature changes there’s a very rapid turnover.” These properties makes phytoplankton a good research subject, he added.

The researchers have been observing the phytoplankton to examine their response to temperature changes, Murray said, adding that they have identified diatom shells that have been preserved in the sediment of the bay

and plan to look at them more closely.

Prell and Murray are working with Associate Professor of Oceanography Tatiana Rynearson, Associate Professor of Oceanography Rebecca Robinson and Professor of Oceanography Edward Durbin, all of URI. A ‘model organism’ James Clifton, assistant professor of medical science, is involved in a team examining proteins in two varieties of Ciona intestinalis, a common marine invertebrate. His team is studying the species to determine whether it can adapt to temperature and ecological changes in the bay over one generation, or whether adaptation occurs over several generations through genetic change, he said.

Ciona intestinalis is “a model organism for marine biology that has been studied for a very long time,” Clifton said. Since its genome has already been sequenced, it is possible to perform experiments to better understand the organism’s proteins, he said.

Clifton said the invertebrate is a good research subject because it is “a filter feeder, processing liters of sea water per hour — loss of this species would alter the quality of sea water and damage the ecology of the bay.”

The species is found around the world, so his team plans to investigate

it in both the bay and the Gulf of Maine.

Clifton is working with Professor of Biology Thomas Meedel of Rhode Island College as well as Associate Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology Niall Howlett and Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Steven Irvine, both of URI. A fresh environment All of the awarded researchers said Narragansett Bay is a unique environment in which to conduct research.

For example, the bay has features such as islands, necks and inlets that affect the flow of water, Fox-Kemper said. It is also an estuary where salt and fresh water mix, Murray said.

The bay is shallow compared to other bodies of water such as Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound, said Mark Bertness, professor of biology, who is not involved with any of the projects.

He added that it has been affected by industrialization and, in the distant past, glaciers.

“Recent ice ages extirpated many shallow water marine organisms from the Bay, leaving only short-lived weedy species that have managed to survive or recolonize,” Bertness said. “In addition to the heavy pollution during the Industrial Revolution, today this has left a bay with low species diversity of weedy species.”

COURTESY OF CAITLYN LAWRENCE

New funding allows University researchers to study phytoplankton, the process of hypoxia and how diseases spread between reefs in the Narragansett Bay. One team uses diatoms sensitive to temperature and nutrients. to measure changes in the ecosystem.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

PAGE 8 • THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015, 2015

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

“Forks Over Knives” examines dietary changes as cure for disease Documentary looks at role of meat- and plantbased diets in preventing, reversing disease

By FRANCES CHEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The documentary “Forks Over Knives,” which examines how many diseases can be controlled and even reversed by switching to a plant-based diet with fewer processed foods, aired in Wilson 105 Tuesday night. The screening was followed by a questionand-answer session with Alan Darer, education project coordinator for Mercy For Animals, a national nonprofit organization that fights for the fair treatment of animals.

The film opens by describing the growing number of health problems the United States faces today: Around 40 percent of Americans are obese, and one-fifth of four-year-olds are obese. Additionally, the growth of the fast food industry during the 1960s led to an increase in cancer rates.

Much of the film focuses on the work of T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus of nutritional sciences at Cornell, and Caldwell Esselstyn, a surgeon and former head of the Breast Cancer Task Force at the Cleveland Clinic.

The film details how proteins from meat sources have been found

to increase rates of cancer, whereas proteins from plant sources have not.

In one study, rats were fed a diet of either 5 percent or 20 percent casein — the main protein found in dairy products. Those fed a 20 percent casein diet had much higher rates of early-stage liver cancer.

But in a follow-up study in which the rats were fed a diet with fluctuations in the amount of casein, cancer growth fluctuated in the same pattern. This latter study suggests that diseases can also be reversed by diet.

Campbell notes in the film that these findings are significant but limited in how they could be applied.

He adds that a larger, human-based study would be needed to better understand the effect of diet on disease in humans.

Campbell looked at 65 different counties across China and examined the diet, lifestyle and health of 6,500 adults. His team discovered that all cancers were concentrated in certain hot spots, with up to a 400-fold difference in the rates of single cancer mortality between different counties.

He found more than 8,000 statistically significant associations that led to the single conclusion that populations that eat mostly plant-based foods have lower rates of mortality from cancer, stroke and heart disease, whereas populations that eat more animal-based foods have much higher rates of these chronic diseases.

COURTESY OF YOUTUBE

Documentary presents evidence on how a plant-based diet can lead to lower rates of cancer, stroke and heart disease.

During the Q&A, an audience the environment, Darer said. “Raising also passed around a pledge for aumember asked why individuals animals for food contributes more dience members to sign to participate should become vegetarian when (to pollution) than the entire auto in “meatless Mondays.” For those who humans are biologically omnivores. industry combined,” he added. are not yet ready to become comDarer responded that though this is The screening was hosted as a pletely vegetarian, participating in true, with today’s technology humans collaboration between the Brown the event is a good way to get people no longer need meat to survive.

Vegetarian Society and Mercy For to start eating more vegetables, said Eating vegetables is not only good Animals.

Lauren Pierce ’15, a Mercy for Anifor your health but is also good for The Brown Vegetarian Society mals fellow.

TODAY

THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015 • PAGE 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

menu

fire and ice

SATELLITE DINING JOSIAH’S Made-to-Order Quesadillas, Crepes BLUE ROOM Mediterranean Pocket Soups: Chicken Artichoke Florentine, Fire Roasted Vegetable, Turkey Chili ANDREWS COMMONS Pizzas: Nacho Pizza, Okie Dokie Artichokie, Pepperoni and Sausage

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Tortellini Provencale, Mashed Potatoes with Garlic and Basil Oil, Marinated Asparagus

Ginger Chicken Pasta, Spice Rubbed Pork Chop, Red Pepper Frittata, Fresh Collard Greens

VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH

DINNER

Vegan Mexican Bean Soup, Falafel, Mashed Potato Bar, Coconut Cookies

Roast Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Asian Vegetable and Beef Stir Fry, Bread Stuffing

sudoku

SADIE HOPE-GUND / HERALD

crossword

While passing by melting snow banks on the Main Green Wednesday, three firefighters enjoy hot chocolate distributed by the Branch Christian Ministry, a chapter of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries at Brown and RISD.

comics A Horse of Any Other Name | Zach Silberberg

calendar TODAY 12:00 P.M. “IS IT WRONG TO EAT ANIMALS?”

An Ethical Inquiry conversation will explore the morality of eating animals, especially when vegetarian options are available. Wilson Hall 101

TOMORROW 12:00 P.M. “ARGENTINA AT A CROSSROADS? PERSPECTIVES ON ARGENTINE POLITICS”

This bilingual conference on Argentinian politics will feature professors from various countries.

Watson Institute, Joukowsky Forum

3:30 P.M. “THE LAMPHERE CASE: THE SEX DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT THAT CHANGED BROWN”

2:00 P.M. “BEYOND TRANSLATION: THE STORY OF

An exhibit uncovering an untold part of Brown’s history will celebrate its opening.

HYSTERIA IN INDIA”

Pembroke Hall, First Floor 5:30 P.M. “CRACKING THE GLASS CEILING: WOMEN PRESIDENTS AND THE CHANGING UNIVERSITY”

President Christina Paxson P’19 will host a panel with fellow female university presidents. Salomon 101

Sarah Pinto, associate professor of anthropology at Tufts University, will present a talk hosted by the Brown-India Initiative. Watson Institute, McKinney Conference Room 6:00 P.M. AMONG THE STARS

Brown’s Students of Caribbean Ancestry will celebrate Caribbean culture with the Annual Ebony Soiree.

Sayles Hall

COMMENTARY PAGE 10 • THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Too many academic resources, little organization

Letter: A child left behind

With the myriad of academic and extracurricular resources available at Brown, communication must exist among the various support systems in order to provide coherent, consistent advice. First-years typically receive an adviser — either a faculty member or a dean — along with a Meiklejohn peer adviser; transfer students also receive a similar mix of a faculty adviser along with a peer counselor. As problems or questions arise, these support networks falter when separate advisers offer contradicting recommendations or no one steps in to fill the gaps.

Navigating Brown’s extensive maze of support systems can be stressful and confusing, especially for new students. Both advisers and Meiklejohns have their merits. Yet their perspectives often clash. Because Meiklejohns have first-hand knowledge of the stress caused by schoolwork, they have a better understanding of which classes should not be taken together.

On the other hand, advisers are much more likely to push students to continue with a difficult course load or with classes no longer pertaining to their interests.

The disparity between these two positions can amplify students’ confusion over their concentrations or class selections. In desperate times, new students get advice from every avenue available. They talk to fellow students, Meiklejohns, faculty members and deans. Somewhere along this line of varying support networks, advice starts to get muddled and disorganized. New students, still uncertain of their academic goals and plans, feel the burden of this scattered guidance.

This situation can be mended in two ways. First, the academic services currently provided could be simplified through retention of only essential resources. Second, advisers and Meiklejohns could meet more frequently and focus on providing uniform advice. Perhaps this could be facilitated with more frequent meetings between Meiklejohns to coordinate counseling for each student.

The administration must decide which resources provide the best source of guidance for new students. Meiklejohns understand academic confusion. As peers, they are able to promote the open curriculum more freely than an adviser who may be looking for a student to hone in on a particular interest. Therefore, the administration could make first-years contact Meiklejohns first; faculty members and deans can be available as a secondary resource.

In the case where new students have to approach academic deans, the advice given should not contradict that doled out by peer Meiklejohns.

This would defeat the purpose of support systems. These networks exist to help students make important decisions, not to confuse or misdirect them.

To provide accurate guidance for students, advisers should be willing to listen to these peer counselors and vice-versa. In the end, a more coherent, organized support network would allow students to make informed decisions about their academic experience. Quality, not quantity, of advice should be the goal.

To the Editor: The recent article “Black R.I. students see high suspension rates” in the “Playground to Prison” series addresses a serious problem that the legislature in this state needs to address now. The writer quotes an ACLU report, “The School-to-Prison Pipeline in Black and White,” which claims that between 2004 and 2012, Rhode Island public schools issued 17,000 suspensions. Seventeen percent of black children were suspended — more than in any other racial category.

In response, Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed, DNewport, and Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello, D-Cranston, were quoted as concerned by “the troubling issues raised by the ACLU report” and the need to “enact policies that treat all persons fairly, equally and without discrimination.” But Chairman of the Council on Elementary and Secondary Education Patrick Guida has cited the lack of evidence and public comment that school suspensions are “not being administered in an equitable way.”

So, what is it? Is racism rampant in the administration of justice in our schools, or is this statistic merely a speed bump in the larger net of Rhode Island’s social ills?

It is clear to me that the link between today’s public school suspensions and the potential of criminality is a lack of options available to Rhode Island parents and their children. While it is not necessarily true that Rhode Island’s troubled students of color are on a “pipeline to

prison,” as the ACLU puts it, these children are being pushed aside and victimized by an entrenched welfare state and a government-run “cookie cutter” school system that doesn’t really care if a disorderly child winds up in prison as a young adult.

Educational choice is the better option for Rhode Island children of all races. If a school is failing a child, an involved parent should have the option of removing the child from the state school and finding a private school that better addresses both the child’s needs and the parent’s values. Unlike the “lose-lose” proposition of disrupting the order of the classroom or warehousing difficult children, a state-funded education savings account is “win-win”; it empowers parents — any parents from any economic class — to make the best choice for their kids, and it challenges public schools to compete fairly with the open market of educational ideas and plans.

The Bright Today Scholarship Bill, which will be sponsored by Rep. Ray Hull, D-Providence, Rep. Mike Chippendale, D-Coventry, Sen. Marc Cote, D-Woonsocket, North Smithfield and Sen. Nicholas Kettle, R-Coventry, Foster, Scituate and West Greenwich, proposes to create in this state the most innovative school choice program in this country. I encourage everyone who wishes to learn more to visit its website for more information.

Scott G. Lloyd Database Administrator

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

“The number one thing I’m looking for is someone who is smart, someone who can figure it out.”

— Ricky Gresh

See u. seeks new dean of students on page 3.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editors, Alexander Kaplan ’15 and James Rattner ’15, and its members, Natasha Bluth ’15, Manuel Contreras ’16, Baxter DiFabrizio ’15 and Aranshi Kumar ’17. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

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COMMENTARY THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015 • PAGE 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Diving in REID SECONDO opinions columnist

Perhaps it’s the time of year when midterms make me introspectively moody, but my outlook has been blue recently. Especially as I navigate the Arctic tundra and gaze upon the undulating ocean of blue Canada Goose jackets occupying College Hill this winter, with the fur hood trims flapping like whitecaps off breaking waves, I sometimes find myself awash in a sea of sameness.

Not that I feel loneliness or socially isolated, but somehow this materialistic homogeny registered something in my head that’s been gnawing at my conscience. As my time at Brown nears the final lap, I feel Brunonia’s enveloping aura slowly unraveling as the reality of the greater world comes into frame.

I am not one to experience an existential conundrum, but it’s an uncomfortable realization when the happy bubble starts to noticeably shrink away, allowing the once-ignored whispers of “what happens next?” to break in and grow into audible provocations. As I write this looking down from the top of Sayles Hall at the bobbing blue sea, I worry the coping mechanism to this

mounting phenomena is conformity.

In a recent focus group meeting, some fellow students and I were asked what was the best thing about Brown. Each person produced a response that contributed to the framework of what we endearingly call the “Brown experience.” For me, the preeminent aspect of Brown is the constant opportunity of discovery. I could not think of a better place that instills the importance of exploration and individualism to

for the coming storm of conventional expectations. The pressures of career, establishment and other preoccupations of once-unworldly adulthood take root inside our heads. Our little insular city upon the hill can no longer hold back the frustrating truths of what is expected of us.

We fight so hard against the labels of “generic,” “expected” and “normal” during our time here. We arrive at Brown only on the verge of understanding our inherent

appears to be lost for the sake of convenience and known security.

Shipping off to consulting and finance careers, grappling with the limitations of academic discovery while tackling pre-professional curricular tracks, considering yourself in marketable terms is rough for a curious mind that wants to keep living in the dream world. With a flip of a switch, the pool becomes flooded by the incoming tides of the sea of sameness roaring in from the real world.

As the sea of sameness continues rise, I hope the Brown aesthetic will keep me afloat and someday help me transform it into my pool of possibilities. create a climate where the possibility of real discovery is a reality.

Unfortunately, it is an isolated one. Beyond the nurturing walls of Brown is a different reality that is built on the pervasive convention of expected conformity. At Brown, we use our intellectual curiosity in one hand and our desire to change the world in the other as tools to create the platform for meaningful existence. But as we get older and supposedly wiser, we slowly wake up from the dream and mentally brace

uniqueness and untapped capabilities. We distinctively percolate in this culture of dreamy abstraction, growing in person and shaping in mind while we soak in Brown’s infinite pool of possibility. But what concerns me is that as the semesters pass, people allow their possibilities to become unwantedly coupled and degraded by repressive pragmatism. “What can I do?” is replaced by “what should I do?”

As life beyond Brown materializes, the battle for our unique path

It saddens me when I see my friends and peers, once starry-eyed with the excitement of the infinite choices before them, schlep to interviews for jobs they could not care less about or wallow in coursework that does nothing for their mental exhalation. We tell ourselves that persevering through these undesired obstacles will put us on the right path to achieve our aspirations. But the right path according to whom or what?

Of course, what person would

not want to do what is best for him or her to achieve success, or his or her definition of success? And often times it requires following an established route, where taking in a place, holding position or mustering through the early core curricular program in graduate school is an expected part of the long-term process. But when we take these first steps, we cannot forget what Brown has allowed us to become: individuals.

The paradigm of conformity punishes those who want their life to always have a springboard into the pool of life’s possibilities, not a linear rocket launch into a fixed trajectory of boom or bust. Jumping into the sea of sameness is easy. But when we enter new careers and prepare to jump, we forget what college taught us and what Brown is about: infinite possibility.

As the sea of sameness continues to rise, I hope the Brown aesthetic will keep me afloat and someday help me transform it into my pool of possibilities. As John Lennon once sang, “maybe I’m a dreamer, but I hope I’m not the only one.”

Feel free to share your thoughts with Reid Secondo ’16 at reid_secondo@brown.edu.

Jeb Bush, the doobie brother?

IAN KENYON opinions columnist

Last weekend, I reviewed speeches from the annual Conservative Political Action Conference hosted by the American Conservative Union in Washington, D.C. While the 2016 presidential primaries are still more than a year in the distance, CPAC’s annual pep rally revealed two insights. First, it reinforced the notion that conservatives will always rally around right-leaning and libertarian-leaning icons; and second, it proved that even the more moderate of right-leaning presidential hopefuls still appear at CPAC to garner support. CPAC 2015 was no different, and libertarian firebrand Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, won the straw poll for the third year in a row.

But it was Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida and presumed GOP presidential candidate, who caught my attention when he made an appearance and took his turn in the limelight. Sean Hannity of Fox News, in a speedy round of inquiries, asked Bush his thoughts on the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, Washington and, as of Feb. 24, Alaska. Bush answered, “States ought to have the right to do it.” Interesting. After two Bush presidencies, would a Bush 45 marijuana policy line up with the legacy of his predecessors and family or mark a departure?

The Bush 41 presidency stood tall: George H.W. Bush oversaw the creation of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and brought a close to the experimental federal medical marijuana program. Not cozy to any sort of relaxed policy, Bush 41 told an audience of students in a 1989 speech at the White House, “Some think there won’t be room for (drug

users) in jail. We’ll make room. We’re almost doubling prison space.” The message was clear: drugs will not be accepted in American society, and the White House will lead the charge.

Conversely, Bush 43 — George W. Bush — supported state-level decision-making, stating in 1999, “I believe each state can choose that decision as they so choose.” This statement drew support in the general election in 2000, but it was largely symbolic.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer later explained the President’s allegiance to standing federal law prohibiting marijuana use. “The president,” Fleisher said, “is opposed to the legalization of marijuana, including for

tions, such as marijuana, could be welcomed

by Democrats and Republicans.

Right-leaning states could elect to legalize marijuana depending on debates between free-market libertarians and social conservatives. Left-leaning states could explore legalization with support from social progressives.

Devolving the marijuana debate to state capitols could result in a patchwork of pro- and anti-marijuana states — just as much as it could result in a majority of states choosing to legalize — for entirely different political principles.

Inconsistent marijuana policies across large swaths of the country could prove bur-

In demonstrating a further evolution of social preferences along the Bush lineage, the question of marijuana legalization will undoubtedly remain alive during the 2016 presidential election.

medicinal purposes, and he strongly supports the current federal law that’s in place.”

This forces the question: Is Gov. Bush simply sharing a thought that states ought to determine their own marijuana laws, but he will then submit to standing federal laws, as his brother did? Is his marijuana soundbite simply an election season junket for marijuana supporters?

Gov. Bush’s suggestion of devolving the debate of marijuana to state capitols across the country would not entirely be out of step with right-leaning voters. The notion of selfdetermination amongst states on social ques-

densome in regulation of commerce and behavior patterns. Regulatory problems have already become evident in the wake of Colorado and Washington legalizing marijuana, as adjacent states attribute marijuana-related problems to their marijuana-friendly neighbors.

Bush must clarify his position, should he decide to run for president and explore devolving legalization questions to state capitols. Currently, states must resolve issues of minimizing conflicts between neighboring state capitols and interstate commerce.

Gov. Bush has created an interesting po-

litical scenario. In demonstrating a further evolution of social preferences along the Bush lineage, the question of marijuana legalization will undoubtedly remain alive during the 2016 presidential election. In the Republican primary, this issue could become a source for candidate soundbites and an endless delivery of social conservative platitudes amongst the “true conservatives.” Bush’s stance could open an intriguing contrast between presumed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, former first lady, senator and secretary of state.

In 2014, Clinton reaffirmed her stance on marijuana as friendly toward the use of medical marijuana, but she took a “wait and see” approach on the legalization efforts in Colorado and Washington states. This has the potential to signal brighter days ahead for marijuana enthusiasts. President Obama has not attacked Colorado and Washington — or Alaska for that matter — so is the scenario of a candidate Clinton supporting states self-determining far-fetched? Maybe not.

Until clearer signals come from the Clinton campaign-in-waiting, so far the first shot in the marijuana legalization debate has come from Bush. As recently as last November, a Gallup poll indicated that more than half of Americans favored marijuana legalization.

While both George W. Bush and Jeb Bush have made similar statements that marijuana is best reserved for state-level policymakers, George failed to see through such a devolution in his administration. Jeb, will you be the doobie Bush brother America calls for?

Ian Kenyon GS is a Public Affairs candidate with the Taubman Center for Public Policy, and will always continue his conversations at ian_kenyon@brown.edu.

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THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015