Thursday, April 2, 2015

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015

VOLUME CL, ISSUE 45

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Abroad but not alone: United World College at Brown

BY ALEKSANDRA LIFSHITS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

F

or every five international students at Brown, one most likely attended a high school part of the United World College program.

Approximately 15 percent of Brown students hailed from abroad this academic year, representing a total of 115 countries. One hundred fortyseven out of the 794 international undergraduates participated in the UWC program, said Lisa Donham, the University’s liaison to the Davis United World College Scholars Program.

The Davis Scholars Program is a scholarship fund that supports UWC alums who attend U.S. colleges and universities by providing up to $20,000 in need-based financial aid for each academic year of undergraduate study.

UWC is a system of 14 schools and colleges located on five continents.

The program was created in 1962 to bring together students from different sides of the Iron Curtain, so that they could later collaborate and improve international relations. Today, UWC has expanded its mission beyond the Cold War context and aims to foster peace through “positive social action to build a more equitable and fairer world,” according to the UWC website.

Brown has one of the highest concentrations of UWC alums — in 2008, 2011 and 2012 the University won the Davis Cup, an award given to the American university with the most UWC alums matriculating that

year, Donham said.

Interviewed UWC alums praised their high school experiences, highlighting the friendships and the learning that took place inside and outside the classroom.

UWC “was the best period of my life,” said Anna Pierobon ’16, who hails from Italy and attended UWC South East Asia in Singapore.

The

program allows students to simultaneously retain their cultures and change through diverse interactions with peers, Pierobon said. The school “becomes a second home, a second family,” she added.

Being surrounded by students from all over the world “fosters a great sense of international awareness” and creates lifelong friendships, said Michelle Kwok ’15, who grew up

in Australia and matriculated at Li Po Chun UWC in Hong Kong, adding that she easily identifies with the other UWC alums she meets.

Chezev Matthew ’15 of Trinidad and Tobago, who attended Pearson College UWC in Canada, s a i d UWC

s tu dents have a deep interest in different cultures that extends beyond superficial interests in “the food you eat at home.” While Matthew is concentrating in biomedical

engineering, she has noted a growing trend in which UWC alums major in the humanities, particularly in international relations.

being one of the only Americans at UWC Atlantic College in Wales, Michael Manning ’17 said, “It forced a lot of perspective really quickly.” He described the people he met there as open-minded and ambitious — both about their travel plans and fostering world peace. While many refer to college as a time of expansion, for Manning the “explosion” happened when he attended UWC. By surrounding themselves with peers from around the world, UWC students learn how to make the world a more peaceful place, said Horocio Ferrandiz Solis ’15.5, who hails from Spain and attended Pearson College UWC in Canada.

UWC does not only teach students about different cultures, but it also has the potential to integrate people in conflict areas, said Stefan Minic ’17, referring to his experience at UWC Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the effects of the Bosnian War of 19921995 are still felt.

While many alums expressed satisfaction with their social and cultural A N G E L IA WA N G / H E R A L D experiences with UWC, admission experts highlighted the program’s fiUWC inspires students nancial benefits for both applicants to make an impact, “since in- and institutions. ternational problems were affecting Like most of its peer institutions, your close friends,” said Thomas Yim the University is not need-blind for ’15, adding that his roommate was a international applicants, though it refugee from Afghanistan.

Reflecting on the experience of » See UWC, page 2

Heading University, Paxson Students call for greater U. searches navigates alumni interests mental health resources for Writing

While many alums grow distant after leaving the Hill, initiatives, donations keep some involved

Open forum attendees suggest expanding dialogue on mental health, supporting peers

By ELANA JAFFE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

This series will explore the first 1,000 days of Christina Paxson’s presidency.

This story, the final of three, will look at how Paxson interacts and contends with alums.

As the public face of the University, President Christina Paxson P’19 must appeal to a number of varied interests.

One major group she must court is alums, who provide much of the financial

1,000 DAYS: PAXSON’S PATH

support that makes a president’s goals possible.

“The president is really committed to listening and engaging alums,” Provost Vicki Colvin said, adding that Paxson

INSIDE

By SUSANNAH HOWE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

ARJUN NARAYEN / HERALD

Each year, President Christina Paxson P’19 visits over 200 alums. incorporates alumni comments into existing and developing program plans.

While many alums disengage with the University post-graduation, some remain passionate about individual issues and continue to engage in campus » See ALUMS, page 4

POST- MAGAZINE

Center director

Committee seeks candidate who will expand program, fit in with center’s culture

By KATE TALERICO SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The search for a new director of the Writing Center recommenced March 20 following an unsuccessful search effort in the fall. The University hopes to place the director by the start of next academic year, said Kathleen McSharry, associate dean of the College for writing and curriculum.

The position has been vacant since the May 2014 departure of former director Douglas Brown. Since then, the » See WRITING, page 5

WEATHER

THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015

SCIENCE & RESEARCH Yoga could be an effective intervention for pregnant women with depression, U. study says PAGE 7

Students suggested expanding the University’s mental health resources in the wake of the death of Hyoun Ju Sohn GS Tuesday at an open forum Wednesday hosted by the Undergraduate Council of Students. Student representatives from the Mental Health Community Council attended the forum to discuss the council’s efforts and gather recommendations from community members.

MHCC members Dolma Ombadykow ’17 and Maggie Jordan ’16 began the meeting by reviewing issues MHCC has discussed, including coordination of different support services — such as Counseling and Psychological Services,

Student and Employee Accessibility Services and support deans — overhauling the CAPS website, Residential Peer Leader and Meiklejohn training on mental health issues, leave-taking, alcohol and drug use and response to mental health emergencies.

Increasing the available number of CAPS sessions, which currently stands at seven per year, is a priority, Ombadykow said. “We know the seven-session limit is a huge problem.”

Peer institutions, some of which do not even have formal session limits in place, average about 12 sessions per student, Ombadykow said. The current limit has emerged as a major issue in this year’s UCS elections, with all three presidential candidates supporting an increase.

Following the MHCC representatives’ statement, UCS President Maahika Srinivasan ’15 solicited suggestions for what should be done in the short term » See UCS, page 4

METRO Shark Bar and Grille will maintain its liquor license for now with temporary receivership status

COMMENTARY Grapengeter-Rudnick ’17: Stress is pervading and destroying our lives, necessitating intervention

PAGE 6

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TODAY

TOMORROW

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UNIVERSITY NEWS PAGE 2 • THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015

» UWC, from page 1 strives to implement universal needblind admissions as a long-term goal.

Despite taking international applicants’ financial need into account, the University strives to attract a diverse student body from around the world, said Panetha Ott, director of international admission at the University. If as an international student “you do not need financial aid, it can help you.

If you do need it and are among the very best applicants, we will take you nonetheless,” Ott said.

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entire campuses by adding a different set of life experiences and perspectives, said Richard Kahlenberg, admission expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a think tank that analyzes economic, political and social institutions. But since most of the world is less economically advanced than the U.S. and most universities are not need-blind for international applicants, the international student cohort often lacks diversity and is not representative of the world population, he said.

“UWC is essentially a low-hanging

ASHLEY SO / HERALD

Anna Pierobon ’16 hails from Italy and attended UWC South East Asia in Singapore.

“When we look at the international student body, we look at people who are interested in helping the world in some way,” she said. Like many Brown students, UWC alums are excellent students and are involved in many activities outside of the classroom, she added.

UWC provides a financial solution for its alums in the form of the Davis Scholars Program. “Need for financial aid is determined in accordance with Brown’s financial aid policy,” Donham said, adding that if the University decides a student is eligible for less than $20,000 in aid, the program will provide funds up to the determined amount.

“Since admissions are not needblind, having UWC subsidize financial aid definitely has an effect,” Matthew said.

Felix Biver ’18 expressed concern that the Davis Scholars Program incentivizes institutions to accept UWC alums over other international applicants seeking financial aid who may be just as qualified.

“Money matters,” said Biver, who hails from Luxembourg and attended UWC-USA in New Mexico, adding that “universities do not say it that way.”

Steven Goodman, an educational consultant for Top Colleges, echoed Biver’s concern. Though the program offers some clear benefits to UWC alums, “the real question (is) who is not benefitting from the Davis Scholars Program,” Goodman said. Accepting UWC students through the Davis Scholars Program leaves fewer spots for other international students, he added.

International students benefit

footholds in countries they are not typically able to reach, such as Sierra Leone, said Brian Taylor, admission expert at The Ivy Coach.

Visiting local schools — where students are instructed in the local language, rather than English — around the globe is expensive and structurally difficult. Though the University’s admission officers try to visit local schools abroad, it is often much simpler to make appearances at Englishspeaking international schools, Ott said. A lot of the local schools “don’t have the tradition of admission officers visiting,” so they don’t have systems established to welcome these officers, she added.

Brown admission officers often visited the Li Po Chun UWC in Hong Kong, Kwok said.

UWC “automatically makes it easier for you to get in touch with colleges,” said Victor Brechenmacher ’18, a native German who matriculated at UWC Mahindra College in India, noting that a level of prestige is associated with the program.

Though universities face obstacles in recruiting students from far corners of the globe, they should take advantage of opportunities to attract a more representative student body, such as by encouraging students with high scores on exams to apply, Kahlenberg said. Universities have improved on the domestic front by attracting students from all over the country, but “it is time for them to be proactive internationally, too,” he said.

Beyond facilitating admission officer visits, the UWC program also helps alums write better applications by challenging them academically, supporting them and giving them more opportunities, several interviewees said.

“It was a big opening gate,” Biver said. Guidance counselors at his school advised him during the application process, and the program also provided him with many chances to get involved in extracurricular activities, he said.

Some students said UWC signals to institutions a certain standard of academics and open-mindedness.

“By having UWC on my app, it was clear that I had ideals that inherently aligned with those of Brown,” Manning said.

Other students said UWC pushed

them to even consider applying to college in the U.S. “It is not common for people from a developing country to apply to an elite school in America,” Minic said.

“I dreamed of going to college in America,” Ferrandiz Solis said. Attending college in the United States did not seem possible when he was studying in Spain because he did not know English well and went to a public Spanish school, Ferrandiz said, adding that UWC prepared him well for the rigors of Brown classes.

Standardized assessments such as

they encountered at the University.

The IB program consists of seven classes in different subject fields, requires students to take a foreign language and features a service component and a final research paper. “IB forces you to be a lot broader,” Kwok said.

“IB was a lot better than the public school curriculum I was in earlier,” Manning said, though he noted that it gave him less freedom when choosing classes.

But before participating in the demanding IB program, students must

ASHLEY SO / HERALD

Victor Brechenmacher ’18 hails from Germany and matriculated to UWC Mahindra College in India.

fruit for Brown,” Goodman said. The the International Baccalaureate, which program enables the University to UWC implements, can often play a increase international representation large role for international students in the student body without paying hoping to matriculate at U.S. colleges as much for international recruiting and universities. While admission ofefforts, he said. ficers said the Advanced Placement Many UWC alums at the Univerprogram can enhance students’ apsity said they would not have been plications more than IB, several UWC able to attend an American college alums said they thought IB prepared without the financial help from the them well.

Davis Scholars Program.

Admission officers inherently trust “When I was in Italy, my perspecthe AP system more than the IB, Taylor tives for the future were limited,” said. “If a student gets a five on the Pierobon said. UWC helped her beAP, this signals to the admin that the come fluent in English and provided student can succeed in the Univerher with $20,000 for each year of unsity,” he said. Since the IB exams occur dergraduate study through the Davis in May after traditional college acScholars Program. ceptance dates and In addition to predicted IB scores subsidizing finanare often overly opcial aid for UWC timistic, it is hard alums, the Davis to gauge how sucScholar Program cessful students will also spares admisbe through the IB sion officers trips diploma, he added. to multiple high AP exams can be schools overseas taken before the and saves “a lot student’s senior money on recruityear. ing costs,” GoodBut the high man said. Underconcentration of graduate admission UWC alums at the frequently relies on University demonthis economically strates that “Brown feasible model on is starting to have a smaller scale nafaith” in the IB tionally — feeder schooling system high schools prothat UWC employs, vide large pools Taylor said. of high academic Most UWC alachievers, he added. ums interviewed UWC is attracpraised the IB systive to universities ASHLEY SO / HERALD tem for introducing because it allows Stefan Minic ’17 attended UWC Mostar in his home country of Bosnia- them to the difficult them to establish Herzegovina. academic load that

gain acceptance to the UWC program — not an easy feat, according to some.

Some alums pointed out that the application process to UWC schools is flawed, in that committees in each country design their own application processes and allocate their own financial support. This system creates a disparity in which developing countries do not have the resources to send students representative of their nations’ socioeconomic levels, Kwok said.

“This gives some students who went through more difficult application procedures a sense of injustice,” Brechenmacher said. Developed nations have larger financial aid budgets than developing countries, whose applicants may need more support, he said, adding that “This asymmetry needs to be addressed.”

With 147 alums on campus, the UWC community at the University remains very vibrant.

Though some elements of international life at the University may seem exclusive, such as Buxton House, the community understands and “supports itself quite well,” Pierobon said. The international cohort is full of constant activities and is open to everyone, she added.

UWC alums on campus share a strong connection, since they all went through similar transitions before coming to College Hill, Minic said.

This connection can serve students when networking with the hopes of obtaining internships or jobs.

While UWC alums may be tempted to exclusively form friendships solely with each other, some stressed the necessity of greater engagement. “It is very important to step outside of the UWC bubble,” Minic said.

UNIVERSITY NEWS

THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

U. announces six Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship recipients Grants, community support to facilitate minority students’ undergraduate research endeavors

By SHAVON BELL SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship board announced Wednesday that this year’s awards will go to Zoila Bergeron ’17, Danii Carrasco ’17, Aditya Kumar ’17, Lovinia Reynolds ’17, Hassani Scott ’17 and Phoebe Young ’17.

The MMUF program provides community support networks and grants for minority students who seek to conduct research and obtain higher academic degrees, said Associate Dean of the College and MMUF Campus Coordinator Besenia Rodriguez.

The program’s long-term goal is to increase the racial diversity of university professors, she added. Since joining the Mellon consortium in 1992, the University is now one of 40 institutions with a grant from the Mellon Foundation to implement the

program, Rodriguez said.

Grants allow students to pursue travel-based research, attend academic conferences or have more time to commit to their research projects. The program was designed to consider resources “holistically” so the recipients “can really treat research like it’s their job,” Rodriguez said.

As the program places unique emphasis on the benefits of mentorship, students are matched with a faculty member in their discipline, Rodriguez said. This focus on guidance also extends to community-oriented networks of academic support.

In addition to being placed in contact with a graduate student within the same field and a faculty advisory board, the six recipients will meet together at least twice a month. “We think about mentoring in a broad way so that students feel like they have

a support system moving through what’s unknown for a lot of them,” she said.

While the program is meant to create systems of support for underrepresented minorities, Rodriguez said “these are support structures that are integral to anyone’s success in pursuing” academia. Success in the field necessitates knowledge of “invisible rules” that are “passed on through mentoring,” she said.

It is not enough to simply increase the numbers of underrepresented minorities, Rodriguez said. “The next layer is really making sure that they … are in conversation with other people … who perhaps have navigated similar challenges as people of color in the academy,” she said.

Several recipients, such as Kumar and Bergeron, cited current faculty mentors as the catalysts for their pursuit of the fellowship.

Associate Professor of History and American Studies Naoko Shibusawa’s prominence “as an Asian-American

activist professor in academia really inspired me” to pursue scholarship, Kumar said. Kumar concentrates in history and political science, and his research focuses on the power of reclaimed histories to redefine “traditional, Eurocentric, heteronormative, patriarchal models of learning history,” he said.

Bergeron said she first heard of the fellowship through a University dean.

A Hispanic studies and literary arts concentrator, Bergeron will pursue research focusing on “the intersection of literary works and the civil war in Spain,” specifically works during the Franco dictatorship, she said.

Reynolds looks forward to conducting research alongside “a cohort of kids of color” with whom to “move through this academic career process,” she said.

As a geology and biology concentrator, Reynolds will research the reforestation of the Mata Atlantica in Brazil. While the project will depend on insight from the social sciences,

Reynolds will work primarily from a scientific viewpoint, she said.

Young, who identifies as Ojibwe Native American, seeks to give voice to minority narratives in her Mellon research project. “A lot of things that have affected my family that … there’s not a national consciousness for,” she said.

Like Kumar, Young seeks to break “intentional historical silences” by researching the ways in which the indentured servitude of Native American populations and the enslavement of African individuals reinforced and affected one another at the University.

She will use the recent Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice report on University involvement in the slave trade to better understand Brown’s role in the displacement and enslavement of Native Americans, she said.

Young framed the importance of minority voices in academia as explicitly tied to a broader consciousness of minority narratives. “It’s important to fight for their recognition,” she said.

COURTESY OF THE RECIPIENTS

Six undergraduates — Danii Carrasco ’17, Aditya Kumar ’17, Lovinia Reynolds ’17, Zoila Bergeron ’17, Hassani Scott ’17 and Phoebe Young ’17 — ­ received Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowships. The program connects minority students with grants and mentors as they pursue research and academia.

UNIVERSITY NEWS PAGE 4 • THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015

» UCS, from page 1 to help the community heal following Sohn’s death Tuesday. “We are a community in crisis. We are a community in shambles right now,” Srinivasan said.

She hoped the discussion would help ensure that “we’re all safe, supported and feel like we really are a part of this community,” she added.

Students offered a variety of ways to increase support, such as guiding professors on how to address the incident, increasing the availability of peer support systems and clarifying what types of resources best suit different needs.

Discomfort in using the Sciences Library and the Center for Information Technology also emerged as an issue, particularly for students who need resources such as late-night computer access. UCS will investigate short-term ways to make the SciLi and the CIT’s resources available elsewhere, possibly through an extension in the Rockefeller Library’s hours, Srinivasan said.

The discussion then turned to potential long-term changes.

Some recommendations focused on the importance of more effective

» ALUMS, from page 1

dialogue. Those who do keep in tune with College Hill can both provide support to or cause major road blocks for a presidency.

Calling all alums Increased alumni outreach constitutes a major initiative of Paxson’s administration.

Paxson has made efforts to reach alums by speaking at alumni events around the country, and she has bolstered their involvement in the University by launching initatives like BrownConnect — the CareerLAB’s online platform for students to network with alums and find internship opportunities that alums provide.

BrownConnect is one of the most visible ways Paxson has sought to increase alumni involvement in the University.

There are currently over 40,000 alums listed on BrownConnect and 491 opportunities posted, said Donna Curry, director of alumni leadership programs.

“Her actions with regard to creating the BrownConnect program have been incredibly well received,” said Todd Andrews ’83, vice president of alumni relations.

Davies Bisset ’85, Brown Sports Foundation executive director, said Paxson “has done a great job on articulating (BrownConnect) and bringing it to fruition.”

Under Paxson’s tenure, the University has also seen an increase in subscriptions to “Brown in the News,” the e-mail newsletter, and in “Alumni Monthly,” the alumni magazine.

Presidents may reach out to alums to keep them informed and invested or to create opportunities for current undergraduates, as in the case of BrownConnect. But, for many alums, the most apparent way the University connects is economic.

Building a base One of Paxson’s major responsibilities involves growing the University’s endowment and increasing donations.

A recent strategy to broaden the donation base entailed changing the interface of the annual fund website

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

dissemination of information. Students are often unaware of all of the available services, such as support groups and academic accommodations, said UCS Chair of Academics and Administrative Affairs Elena Saltzman ’16.

Students may also feel unsure about where to turn for help late at night or during emergency situations, said UCS general body member Sam Rubenstein ’17. Orientation for incoming students should incorporate this information, said UCS general body member Kevin Garcia ’18.

International students face unique challenges, as they may lack support from far-away family members or have been raised in a cultural environment in which seeking help for mental illness is highly stigmatized, said UCS Chair of Student Activities E-Soo Kim ’15.

Sohn was an international student from South Korea.

The MHCC has discussed these issues and may consider changing the international orientation program, Ombadykow said.

Several students stressed the importance of increasing the availability of mental health resources. In addition

to raising the seven-session limit, students suggested hiring additional CAPS staff to reduce appointment wait times, which can often be two weeks or more, as well as making more student-run support programs available.

A student proposal for a 24/7 student-run support line has also been discussed, but the idea of a student-run help line is “scary” for administrators and raises liability issues, Srinivasan said. Administrators want students to “prioritize being a student” before shouldering others’ burdens, she added.

The MHCC has also explored the possibility of a help line staffed by psychiatry students at Alpert Medical School, but a medical student on the MHCC said medical students themselves lack support resources and would have little time to staff a help line, Jordan said.

Residential Peer Leaders, Meiklejohns and other student leaders need particular support, since they bear the responsibility of supporting others, Srinivasan said.

UCS general body member and UCS presidential candidate Justice Gaines ’16 expressed uncertainty about what

actions to take if a friend were experiencing suicidal thoughts. The MHCC has discussed the idea of holding an open training session, similar to the training RPLs undergo, to teach students strategies about what to do in this situation, Jordan said. UCS will pursue this possibility along the lines of bystander training for sexual assault, Srinivasan said.

But several students pointed out that there are significant structural barriers to consider in Brown’s treatment of mental health issues. CAPS operates based on a short-term treatment model, and Brown may not be the appropriate setting for long-term therapy, Ombadykow said. UCS general body member John Brewer ’17 also discussed the possibility of fundraising targeted toward supporting mental health.

Many discussion participants advocated fostering campus dialogue about suicide and mental health issues. Mental illness should be destigmatized so that students are more comfortable seeking help, Gaines said.

Several pointed out that Sohn’s is not the first suicide to have happened at Brown this year, but that it has received

far more attention due to its public nature.

“The only reason we’re talking about this is because of where it happened and how it happened,” Gaines said. Had Sohn’s death happened in a different way, students probably would not be talking about it publicly, Gaines added.

The difficulty of balancing a family’s wishes for privacy against the need to undertake conversations about mental health emerged as another topic of discussion at the forum. Several students said dialogue should focus on the overall problems of suicide and mental illness rather than any particular individual.

UCS members aim to put pressure on the administration to change mental health policies in a letter about the perceived campus culture of silence surrounding the issue. “There’s no dichotomy between working with the administration and embarrassing them,” Gaines said. “You often do need to go there.”

Going forward, the community cannot “let this conversation trickle out in any way,” Srinivasan said. “That is in some ways an existential crisis for Brown — to say, shit needs to change.”

— alums can now specify where their gift will be allocated, Paxson said. “I can say that every gift has an impact, and it does, but people like to know specifically what their gifts have an impact on,” she added.

The Corporation accepted about $63 million in gifts at its February meeting, nearly a 150 percent increase from last year’s February total, The Herald previously reported.

Brown ranks among the top five universities with the highest alumni donation rate, Colvin said, adding, “we are really good” at soliciting donations.

Slightly over one-third of Brown’s undergraduate alums donate to the University. “Comparatively, that’s a very good number” when measured against peer institutions, said Patricia Watson, senior vice president for advancement.

As president, Paxson plays a major role in that success.

Alums respond to Paxson’s “visible, accessible and approachable” demeanor, Watson said. Excluding large public events, Paxson visits over 200 alums annually, Watson said.

Bisset also praised Paxson, saying she “has a really low-key, warm, gentle way about her, but you can tell she’s also equally brilliant.”

“She seems to understand what she’s doing and is clear about it,” said Stephen Schwartz ’91. He added that a profile of Paxson in “Alumni Monthly” conveyed that she is a “fast decider” with a “direct style.”

Though a president’s personality and outreach play a major role in shaping the direction of the University, some alums feel a connection primarily with the campus and the institution and are neutral about the president.

William Dunbar ’76 , who has previously donated to the University, said he has not followed Paxson as an individual policy-maker.

Schwartz has not heard strong opinions on Paxson. “The people I know that always kvetch about any time that Brown wants to build or change are still kvetching, and the people who are understanding about that are not kvetching.” Even the detractors do not seem to target Paxson or her policies, Schwartz said.

Christopher Norris-LeBlanc ’14 said

he did not have a personal sense of Paxson, as “the way people in her position have to interact with the community at large is so carefully created.” He added that presidents of large universities are “very much politicians.”

“It’s hard to feel much of a personal sense of a connection to the organization,” said Harpo Jaeger ’14.5.

done but by what some students had done,” she added.

Though he did not attend, Schwartz said he appreciated the way Paxson handled the community meeting following the Ray Kelly incident which occurred in October 2013. “She said right away that she did not want a podium. She wanted people standing around in a circle.”

The University’s handling of recent allegations of or related to sexual misconduct as well as efforts to revise relevant policy have generated fewer alumni communications, Paxson said, and the concerns are of a “different dynamic.”

Bisset said he believes Paxson is “taking a very thorough approach to try to straighten out some policies that maybe were not very well defined the past few years.”

But some alums have criticized Paxson’s passive response to certain pressing issues, particularly campus sexual assault. One major response to this was the formation of Brown Alumni to Stop Assault, an organization created to keep alums involved in efforts to curtail campus sexual assault.

Charlie Hartwell ’85, a member of BASTA, wrote an email to the administration urging the University to do more to increase safety on campus and “become a national leader in the current sexual assault crisis being exposed on our college campuses.”

“There are many survivors, students, alumni and activists who will assist you in taking the lead,” he added.

Paxson generally refrains from taking a strong stance on an issue until it attracts public attention, NorrisLeBlanc said. “It seems like they did a lot of truth-trickling with their public statements, only releasing information about the cases when they felt like it would be a publicity nightmare not to,” he wrote in an email to The Herald. He added that this approach “is egregious because it shows they are prioritizing their image over their students.”

“More measured responses that are more indicative of stronger leadership would have been better,” NorrisLeBlanc said, adding that it seems like many alums are unhappy with Paxson’s “flat-footed” responses to controversial campus events.

In Simmons’ shadow Any president must contend with the legacy of their predecessor, both in terms of policy and persona.

Throughout her presidency, Paxson has faced comparisons to former President Ruth Simmons, particularly from young alums who attended the University under Simmons’ leadership.

Norris-LeBlanc said he thought Paxson was “an academic technocrat” while Simmons “wore many hats.” He added that Simmons often came across as more involved in social issues, though he does not believe she actually had significant involvement advancing social justice on campus.

“Ruth had cult status,” Jaeger said, adding that Paxson is often judged in contrast to Ruth.

Simmons “was truly impressive, every ounce of her,” Bisset said, adding, “Paxson is so different from Ruth, but she’s exactly what we need at this time.”

Many of Paxson’s policies are essentially a continuation of former President Ruth Simmons’, outlined in her “Plan for Academic Enrichment.”

As a part of Paxson’s strategic plan, “Building on Distinction,” Brown is moving in the direction of a researchoriented university. Though this trend pre-dates Paxson’s presidency, she was “hand chosen as a sort of technocrat as someone who would continue this mission,” Norris-LeBlanc said.

“In general, if Brown wants to continue to be the Ivy that allows people to explore (within) academics, doesn’t care about rankings and keep an open curriculum, she is not the right person for the job,” Norris-LeBlanc said.

“There’s probably a correlation between the people to whom she’s reaching out” in creating policy and soliciting donations and those that are invested and interested in seeing Brown develop into a major research institution, he said.

“The prioritization of undergraduate education is going to continue to slip.”

But Bisset disagreed, saying, “I just love that she brings a breath of fresh air, everything about her, I just like her style, the low-key leadership that she’s bringing to Brown.” He added, “She’s the right person at the right time for what we need.”

Getting back in touch Though some alums are distant from campus happenings most of the time, certain controversial events during Paxson’s presidency have elicited increased alumni response. These events place Paxson in the spotlight as the University’s major spokeswoman.

“I have appreciated her statements

Paxson is so different from Ruth, but she’s exactly what we need at this time.

Davies Bisset CLASS OF 1985

over the last few years to the Brown community and to the wider public on various current (and sometimes difficult) matters,” Priscilla May Drucker ’64 wrote in an email to The Herald.

Brown alums are “incredibly informed” about campus events, said Colvin. “It’s like they still feel a part of the campus, and they own it and they want it to be a certain way.”

“The incident that has probably generated the most response is the Ray Kelly incident,” Paxson said. The situation was “unusual,” and the primary feedback she received was that “the alumni were upset, not by what the University had

UNIVERSITY NEWS THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015 • PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» WRITING, from page 1 Writing Center’s programming has continued efficiently and without disturbance, said Rachel Toncelli, director of English language learning. McSharry has unofficially taken over as director since Brown’s departure.

The University narrowed down the search to four candidates in September 2014. Chosen from a pool of 45 applicants, these candidates were invited to campus for interviews in the fall, but two applicants to whom the University eventually offered the position decided to “remain where they were,” McSharry said.

The earlier job listing described the post as “Director of Writing Support Programs and Assistant Dean of the College,” but after applicants expressed confusion about the position’s responsibilities, the University decided to remove the assistant dean title, McSharry said. The search committee originally included the title with the hopes that it would make the position more attractive, “but it seemed to work in the opposite way,” she added.

The current search committee

— which comprises a Department of English faculty member, a graduate student writing associate, an undergraduate writing fellow, Program Coordinator for the Writing Center Janet Peters, Deputy Dean of the College Christopher Dennis, McSharry and Toncelli — will rely on student feedback and on-campus visits with University personnel to determine whether a candidate is an appropriate fit for Brown, McSharry said.

The University will use candidate feedback gathered from the first trial to optimize the ongoing search, McSharry said.

“The candidates in whom we were most interested were able to secure more attractive packages at other schools, which meant we needed to look at our criteria,” McSharry said. This time around, the University has scaled back the years of experience required for the position.

“Quite a few centers use people in a director-type role who are just a year or two out of graduate school,” McSharry said. The preferred candidate will need to have earned a PhD, managed a writing center and taught composition at

the college level, she added.

The director will play a critical role in shaping the future of the Writing Center, McSharry said.

Over the course of this academic year, the Writing Center has expanded to include two sixth-year doctoral students from the Graduate School to develop Writing Center resources for graduate students, McSharry wrote in a follow-up email to The Herald.

Because most of the current Writing Center programming is targeted at undergraduates, graduate students tend to be “under-supported in terms of their writing needs,” she added.

But the University is “not forgetting about the undergraduates,” McSharry added. The Writing Center’s proposed programming will offer workshops to students writing their senior thesis proposals in the spring and will provide “touch points” for students to further develop their ideas in the fall.

The new director will interact closely with undergraduates when teaching a section of English 1110: “On Writing,” a course required for all undergraduate writing fellows intended to sharpen their skills as critical editors

of peers’ writing, McSharry said. This fall, McSharry taught both sections of the course.

McSharry stressed the importance of the candidates’ understanding of a liberal arts education. The candidates need “to be able to communicate effectively with faculty across the curriculum about what writing looks like in their departments, how to embed it into their curriculum and how to assess it.”

The search committee will also evaluate the candidates on their personal characteristics in order to select someone who will work well within the program.

“One of the things that’s really special about the Writing Center is that we have a really terrific culture and welcoming feel,” Toncelli said. “We’re looking for a candidate who can jump right in and fit right into that culture … someone who is not only a great writer but also a great teacher — someone with vision.”

Toncelli said she is confident that candidates will not need much convincing that Brown students are especially exciting to work with. Students “want to come to the Writing Center not just

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because they want to make their paper better but because they want to be better writers,” she said. “We want someone with the energy and enthusiasm to approach that.”

Sienna Zeilinger ’15, a student assistant director of the Writing Fellows program, said the fellows hope the new director will feed into the Writing Center’s “culture of love.”

“The fellows will talk about what we expect from a leader, but it also follows a lot of what we expect from ourselves,” she said. “We want someone who is honest about what our job entails … someone who is committed to the program and able to make hesitant or reluctant writers feel comfortable about their writing.”

It is possible that timing will have an effect on the number of applicants, McSharry added. “Some people at this time of year aren’t able to move because of family or other commitments,” she said, adding that she originally thought the search committee should wait until the fall to garner a stronger applicant pool.

The committee will begin to review applications May 15, she added.

METRO

PAGE 6 • THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015

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DAVID DECKEY / HERALD

Shark Bar and Grille, a popular restaurant on Thayer Street, allegedly obtained its liquor license by bribing Gordon Fox, former Rhode Island Speaker of the House for the General Assembly.

Shark Bar and Grille retains operating licenses for now

Mayor Jorge Elorza investigates restaurant’s case, aims to nullify licenses obtained through bribery

By AGNES CHAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A Superior Court decision Monday granted Shark Bar and Grille temporary receivership status — putting the establishment in the hands of a designated lawyer — which allows the Thayer Street business to keep its liquor license for now. In a statement after the ruling, Mayor Jorge Elorza declared his intention to “aggressively” pursue the matter until the restaurant’s licenses are void.

Gordon Fox, former Speaker of the House for the General Assembly, accepted a bribe of $52,500 from Shark Bar in exchange for a liquor license in 2008, when he was vice chair of the Providence Board of Licenses.

“We believe that … the licenses were obtained under illicit and likely illegal conditions and therefore are not valid,” said Evan England, Elorza’s press secretary. Elorza maintains that the board should make clear that the licenses were never legally valid, so rather than revoking the licenses, the board should declare them void.

A meeting Monday to discuss the city administration’s petition was cut short when lawyers for the bar’s owners — Raymond Hugh and Bahij Buotros — requested the appointment of a court receiver. Associate Justice Michael Silverstein granted this request, appointing lawyer Stephen Del Sesto as the receiver. By temporarily placing Del Sesto in control of the bar, the Superior Court effectively paused

all efforts to pursue the nullification of its permits.

The lawyers representing the bar’s owners both stated that the board has no basis to declare the licenses void.

Anthony Traini, Boutros’ lawyer, said the city administration’s approach is “speculative” and argued that because a five-year statute of limitations on bribery expired in 2013, it would not be possible for the board to revoke Shark Bar’s licenses, the Providence Journal reported Monday. Neither owner has faced charges along with Fox, who pled guilty March 3 to federal charges of accepting bribes, wire fraud and filing a false tax return and now faces at least three years in federal prison.

After Fox admitted his guilt, Elorza filed a petition calling on the board to void all of Shark Bar’s licenses. These include the liquor license, a food

license, a license to stay open until 2 a.m. on certain days, a holiday sales license and a tobacco sales license, the Providence Journal reported.

Despite the Superior Court’s decision, Elorza is determined that punitive measures must be taken against those involved in the bribery. “Public corruption at any level of government is unacceptable, and I want to send a strong signal that there will be no tolerance for it,” he said in a March 30 press release. “I hope that the Superior Court will grant relief from today’s decision and allow the License Board to decide on the petition to void the Shark Bar’s licenses.”

The city administration intends to ensure that the board takes action, England said. “Right now, as a condition of the receivership status, all actions against the business are stayed.

The solicitor’s office will petition the

court for relief from the stay so that it can proceed with hearing the petition to void,” he said.

Mili Mitra ’18 said she believes Elorza is justified in pursuing the voiding of all of Shark Bar’s licenses.

“I don’t think it’s fair that the bar is keeping its license when it was acquired through bribery,” said Mitra, a Herald opinions columnist. “Frankly, I agree with Mayor Elorza — the license should be made void.”

But Namgyal Gyaltshen ’18 said he fears that letting Shark Bar off the hook might pave the way for more corruption on Thayer Street. “I think Mayor Elorza has a point,” he said.

“Ultimately what you want to do here is to discourage other businesses that might try to do the same. If you don’t void Shark Bar’s license, it just sets the precedent for similar cases … in the future.”

SCIENCE & RESEARCH THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015 • PAGE 7

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Study examines yoga as depression therapy during, after pregnancy U. researchers look to yoga as potential alternative intervention for pregnant women with depression

By GABRIELLA REYES SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Results from an open trial studying the effect yoga has on pregnant women with depression indicates that yoga could serve as therapy to reduce the symptoms of the illness. The nonrandomized pilot study, led by a team of University researchers, was detailed in a paper published in the MarchApril issue of the journal Women’s Health Issues.

“The main motivation behind the current study, focused on prenatal yoga, was ultimately a desire to develop a wider range of acceptable treatment options for women with depression during pregnancy,” wrote Cynthia Battle, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior and a co-author of the paper, in an email to The Herald. “We learned from our prior studies that a central factor leading some women to not seek care is lack of comfort with existing depression treatments,” she wrote, adding that many women do not want to take antidepressant medication or pursue psychotherapy.

“I was really interested in studying

how yoga might be helpful for people with depression,” said Lisa Uebelacker, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior and a co-author of the paper. Uebelacker and Battle merged their interests in yoga research and depression during pregnancy and submitted a grant to fund the research.

Depression is common among women during and after pregnancy, Uebelacker said, adding that the illness is overall more prevalent among women than men.

Yoga can help pregnant women struggling with depression practice mindful attention to the present moment, Uebelacker said. Mindfulness involves “learning and practicing, not judging, your experiences in the present moment — observing them without judging them,” Uebelacker said. “So when you observe sad moods or various feelings that go along with depression, you’ll also notice that they wax and wane over time. You’ll learn how to not be so worried about the past, to decrease self-criticism and decrease worry about the future.”

Learning this type of mindfulness can be beneficial to other facets of mental health as well, Uebelacker said.

For example, yoga is also very relaxing, so it can help to reduce anxiety, she said. A community-based prenatal yoga program also allows participants to feel supported by their teacher and the other women in the class, she added.

The classes are designed to be gentle for the pregnant participants, Uebelacker said. Instructors are trained to adapt the practices for different women’s bodies and trimesters of pregnancy, she said.

Participants in the initial prenatal yoga program indicated that their depression decreased over time, but it is still uncertain if the yoga caused this decrease because the trial was not randomized, Uebelacker said. The researchers plan to include randomized trials in the next phase of the research, she said.

“We didn’t have any problems with the yoga class, and when we asked (participants) about it, a number of women told us that they experienced it as very helpful,” Uebelacker said.

B. Grace Bullock, contributing editor for science and research at Yoga U Online and former editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy, agreed that future studies using randomized controlled trials are necessary for better understanding of how yoga interventions can best serve

SOYOON KIM / HERALD

this population.

“In any studies of this nature it would be interesting to investigate

the effects of yoga practice on mothers’ depressive symptoms over time,” Bullock said.

BWell addresses feedback on contraception Talk examines political, Students call for more societal consequences of oil info on contraceptive choices, Brown insurance coverage, confidentiality

By CLARISSA CLEMM STAFF WRITER

In response to student feedback on sexual health resources provided last month, BWell Health Promotion will launch an outreach campaign aiming to improve informational materials on health insurance and increase student awareness about the sexual health services and contraception offered on campus.

Members of the Sexual Health Education and Empowerment Council sent BWell Health Promotion — a branch of Health Services designed to support individual and community well-being — student feedback from a March 17 Sex Week discussion on access to contraception at Brown. Feedback from the event, entitled “Plan A, B or C: Do YOU Have an Option? (Access to Contraceptives),” was intended to inform Health Promotion of student concerns over sexual health resources, availability of particular contraceptives and patient confidentiality.

The event was one of several latenight confidential workshops that brought together a small group of

students to discuss socioeconomic background and different students’ access to contraception and sexual health services, said SHEEC co-chair Alexandra Sepolen ’16.

“It was a dialogue about what happens specifically at Brown, and it was mainly for students who may not be readily considered for conversations about sexual health, since aspects of identity, such as gender and socioeconomic position, do impact sexual identity,” Sepolen said.

The student feedback included concerns that results from testing services would be sent home, uncertainty about which services Brown student health insurance covers and which contraceptive methods Health Services offers and recommendations to provide more comprehensive sexual health and consent workshops.

Health Services and Health Promotion have addressed each recommendation, responding to SHEEC with new initiatives, such as a plan to create a brochure on insurance coverage and confidentiality, a campaign to promote the contraceptive methods Student Health offers and improved orientation programming.

“There is a student-written brochure called the ‘Little Brown Book’ on STIs and safer sex, and we want to create a companion booklet that would address the issue of contraceptives with

(the Sexual Health Awareness Group’s) help,” said BWell Health Educator Naomi Ninneman. Health Promotion is partnering with SHAG to convey the information from a student’s perspective and in a student’s voice, Ninneman said.

Other ideas to help inform students about available resources include adding or revising presentations given during orientation and ensuring that residential peer leaders are well-informed on these issues. In its response to SHEEC, Health Promotion suggested making available more information about the University’s student health insurance policies at Sex@Brown, a preexisting orientation event led by Alexis Saccoman ’04.

Cindy Capra, a nurse practitioner at Health Services, said Health Services faces the challenges of both distributing information to students who are new to campus and continually providing information to all students.

“It’s a work in progress,” Capra said.

“We always want to make things improve.”

Ninneman said Health Services can be a valuable resource for navigating major concerns over what services Brown health insurance covers and student confidentiality.

“The insurance piece can be complicated, but coming to see us doesn’t need to be,” she said. “We can help you out with the complicated part.”

Lecture stresses complex role of U.S. government in oil trade, countries’ economic disparities

By FRANCES CHEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

For the problems caused by oil, “We can’t just blame African countries and oil companies, we must also examine the actions of our own government and lifestyles,” said Kairn Klieman, associate professor of history at the University of Houston in a lecture entitled “The Politics of Oil Dependence.”

Addressing a small group gathered in the Science Center, Klieman’s talk — the last in the six-part “Carbon Nations” series — presented her research on how America’s dependence on oil has caused political corruption. The lecture was sponsored by the Department of History, the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society.

Klieman opened the lecture by describing the “oil curse” — the concept that the discovery of oil in a country leads to poverty, turmoil and government corruption. Though oil revenues bring wealth to a country, the money usually only goes to the few in power, instead of to average citizens, she said. Nigeria is one country that has been plagued by this “curse” and has been led by 15 different governments since 1960.

The percentage of Nigerians living under the poverty line, defined as making $1.25 U.S. dollars per day, has risen from 27 percent in 1981

to 70 percent in 2010, Klieman said.

Most historians cast blame on these problems using the “evil oil company trope,” Klieman said. But this approach oversimplifies the situation, as it is also necessary to examine the U.S. government’s actions in relation to the oil industry, she added. During World War II, a plan for a trans-African resupply route was created due to a need for oil. President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the plan even though U.S. involvement in this route violated the 1939 Neutrality Act. Since this involvement was illegal, Roosevelt did not seek Congress’ approval and instead used emergency presidential funds to finance the project.

Klieman then described Equatorial Guinea’s “oil curse.” With just 700,000 inhabitants, Guinea is one of the wealthiest nations. But instead of being distributed among all citizens, this wealth remains concentrated within the family in power. This money is currently in the hands of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, known as Obiang, who rose to power by murdering his uncle. The president’s son, known as Teodorin, spends millions of dollars on mansions in foreign countries while more than 70 percent of the country’s population earns less than $1 a day, Klieman said.

Klieman said she once attended a lecture in Houston, Texas during which the Texas secretary of state declared an “Equatorial Guinea Day,” shocking her and inspiring her to complete her research. Klieman showed the audience a photo of the Obamas meeting Obiang and his wife, which she said went against Obama’s 2008 promises.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH PAGE 8 • THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015

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Brown-Carnegie Mellon study explores evidence of dark matter Research team looks at gamma radiation, mass of dwarf galaxies to further investigate matter’s existence

By ANICA GREEN STAFF WRITER

“Right now, as we speak, there are 10,000 dark matter particles going through your body per second,” said Savvas Koushiappas, assistant professor of physics, referring to the substance that comprises around 80 percent of our universe, yet one we know very little about.

Koushiappas, in collaboration with a team of physicists, recently published findings that are poised to open the doorway to a greater understanding of this mysterious yet ubiquitous substance. The team was led by Koushiappas’ former student, Alex Geringer-Sameth PhD ’13, now a postdoctoral research associate at Carnegie Mellon University, and their associate Matthew Walker, assistant professor of physics at Carnegie Mellon.

The team found evidence of gamma radiation emanating from the nearby dwarf galaxy Reticulum II. A dwarf galaxy is a small collection of stars that orbits a larger galaxy, according to a press release from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the

research institution that collected the telescopic data. Dwarf galaxies may comprise fewer than 100 billion stars but are typically composed of a few billion stars. In comparison, averagesized galaxies such as the Milky Way are made up of hundreds of billions of stars. In searching for evidence of dark matter, dwarf galaxies are an ideal target because they consist primarily of dark matter.

The structure and properties of dark matter cannot be explained by the Standard Model of particle physics. Dark matter cannot be observed with standard tools such as a telescope. A summary of Walker’s research explains that the existence of dark matter typically has been measured by the discrepancy between two standard indexes of mass. The first method involves multiplying the mass of a typical star by the number of stars in the system. In the second method, one must measure “the orbital positions and speeds of those same stars, plug the numbers into the law of gravity (which relates mass to position and speed) and solve for mass,” the report states. The trouble arises because these two calculations yield vastly different

results.

“For nearly every galaxy that has been observed, the ‘luminous mass’ obtained by counting visible objects is smaller than the dynamical mass inferred by applying (Newtonian) gravity to the motions of visible objects,” according to Walker’s website.

This discrepancy in mass is what is understood to be dark matter, and the problem that results has persisted for more than 80 years. Today, there are many other different experimental observations that all point to the presence of dark matter.

The mystery of dark matter is analogous to the previous mystery of atomic particles, said Dan Hooper, an associate scientist at Fermilab and assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the study.

“We are familiar with water as a substance, but it’s really composed of microscopic particles,” Hooper said.

“And people have only known that since I think the 19th century.”

Similarly, the current understanding of dark matter is in the same position as matter made up of atomic particles — scientists have observed its existence, but “right now it’s just a thing, like water used to be just a thing,” he added.

Until recently, only around 25 dwarf galaxies had been identified.

About a month ago, nine of these new systems were discovered, GeringerSameth said.

“A lot of them have been found in the Northern sky. A new telescope has found a whole bunch more in the Southern sky,” said John Beacom, professor of physics at Ohio State University, who was not involved in the study.

These newly discovered galaxies provided the Brown-Carnegie Mellon

team with the opportunity to run a new model — one constructed by Geringer-Sameth while he was completing his PhD work with Koushiappas. Geringer-Sameth developed a novel statistical way to combine large data sets from many different sources, allowing for more sensitive detection of dark matter signals.

The difficulty in observing dwarf galaxies stems from their size and distance. “Finding these dwarf galaxies is really hard,” Beacon said. “It’s sort of like, imagine you’re in a lamp store at night, and you are looking out the window past all the lamps and you’re trying to see a cloud of fireflies.

We’re in the disc of the galaxy, and any direction we look we see Milky Way stars.”

Tools sensitive enough for this research have only recently been developed, Beacom said. “Because we’re right on the threshold where the most sensitive existing measurements ever made are barely detecting hints, nature could be tricking us,” he added.

Gamma rays are emitted when dark matter undergoes a process called annihilation. “The idea is that dark matter is distributed in huge amounts over large scales but is actually composed of individual particles … when they get close together, their mass is converted into normal particles, elementary particles that we know about,” Geringer-Sameth said.

These particles then lead to the emission of gamma rays, which have the shortest wavelengths of all forms of light, he said. This means that they are the highest energy form of light.

Gamma rays can be emitted from not only dark matter interactions, but other kinds of particle interactions as well.

The type of interaction that generates a gamma ray can be determined

by measuring the number of photons per energy interval, a measurement that is referred to as a spectrum.

Different processes generate different spectral shapes. The results of the Brown-Carnegie Mellon study align closely with expectations for what dark matter gamma radiation spectrum might look like.

But these findings are by no means conclusive. Rather, they set the stage for further investigation.

The study provides the first evidence of gamma rays coming from dwarf galaxies, Beacom said, but it is “not a bulletproof case,” and though the results are “very suggestive,” there is a chance they that other explanations could exist.

Though the Brown-Carnegie Mellon group is the first to “talk about it in detail,” two other groups have also followed up on the results and found the same results.

Beacom’s group has examined similar phenomena in its own research, which he has conducted with his collaborator Tim Linden, a postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. The findings are “very similar,” Beacom said, adding that though addressing different questions, both groups “detect a fairly significant excess of gamma rays with similar characteristics and … discuss different possible interpretations, including the possibility that dark matter might be responsible.”

Koushiappas said he expects his research is only at the beginning of what will likely be 30 additional years of experimentation in the field. For example, the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research will restart soon, with an aim to look for signatures of dark matter, Beacom said.

TODAY

THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015 • PAGE 9

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menu

in memoriam

SATELLITE DINING JOSIAH’S Mashed Potato Bowl, Gourmet Grilled Cheese BLUE ROOM Soups: Chicken Artichoke Florentine, Fire Roasted Vegetable, Turkey Chili ANDREWS COMMONS Pizzas: Nacho, Okie Dokie Artichokie, Pepperoni and Sausage

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Fettuccine with Baby Greens, Grilled Cheese, Braised Cauliflower, Lemon Squares

Beef and Broccoli Szechuan, Vegetarian Sweet and Sour Tofu, Stir-fried Carrots

VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH

DINNER

Saturday Night Jambalaya, Vegetarian Vegetable Stuffed Red Peppers, Frosted Eclair

Roast Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Bread Stuffing, Green Peas, Vegan Roasted Veggie Stew

sudoku

crossword ASHLEY SO / HERALD

A bouquet of flowers was placed at the Sciences Library to commemorate Hyoun Ju Sohn GS, who died Tuesday morning after falling through a 12th floor window of the building.

comic A Horse of Any Other Name | Zach Silberberg ‘18

calendar TODAY

TOMORROW

8:15 A.M. COFFEE WITH A COP

3:00 P.M. URBAN STUDIES BUS TOUR

Students will be able to voice their questions, comments and concerns to members of the Department of Public Safety while enjoying complimentary coffee and breakfast snacks.

This bus tour, entitled “Can Urban and Agriculture Coexist?”, will explore the urban agriculture locations in Providence’s South Side. 29 Manning Street

Brown Bookstore, College Hill Cafe 5:30 P.M. SCREENING OF “WADJDA” 2:30 P.M. READING BY NOVELIST PETER ROCK

Peter Rock, author of “The Shelter Cycle” and “My Abandonment,” among others, will read a sampling of his work as part of the Writers on Writing series.

McCormack Family Theater

The first movie in the film series “Dreaming of Tomorrow: Youth Culture in the Middle East” will be screened.

“Wadjda,” which follows a young Saudi girl’s attempt to obtain a bicycle, was the first film Saudi Arabia submitted for an Academy Award. Watson Institute, Joukowsky Forum

5:30 P.M. “RESPONDING TO MISHANDLED CASES”

Colby Bruno, who specializes in university sexual assault policy and Title IX law, will give this year’s Masha Dexter Memorial Lecture. Faculty Club

8:00 P.M. 410[GONE]

Sock and Buskin and the department of theatre arts and performance studies will put on a play about Chinese American siblings. Leeds Theatre

COMMENTARY PAGE 10 • THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL

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

Revamp the UCS/UFB voting process Now that spring break is over, everyone’s favorite time at Brown is right around the corner: the annual elections for leadership positions on the Undergraduate Council of Students and the Undergraduate Finance Board.

Readers who chortled or scoffed at the previous sentence would be forgiven for doing so — for many students, the UCS and UFB election season seems like a tedious time of encountering silly posters in dining halls and getting inundated with vote-soliciting emails. Though last year’s UCS presidential election featured a 49 percent increase in voter participation, recent years have seen less than 50 percent of undergraduates cast ballots for the presidential candidates. And while the UCS presidential race often gets more attention, many students overlook campaigns for other executive board posts as well as for UFB chair, despite the sway that these office-holders possess over student group funding, relations with University Hall and a host of other critical issues.

Too many Brown students seem to adopt the default response to UCS/UFB election season of either tuning out or just randomly picking candidates whose names they recognize. Such misplaced apathy and low turnout highlights the need for rethinking the elections process.

At a public event last month, President Obama gave a nod to the mandatory voting system in place in Australia and other countries by saying “it would be transformative if everybody voted,” multiple news outlets reported. The president’s remarks sent ripples through the American political scene, given that the United States has no mandatory voting system and has historically faced low voter turnout rates. In fact, in each presidential election since 1972, over 40 percent of the voting-age population has not voted, while midterm elections have seen even worse turnout figures. Amid such dismal numbers, boosting voters’ participation in elections serves to broaden the number of voices candidates must listen to, increasing engagement and accountability.

We’ll refrain from commenting on the wisdom of a national mandatory voting system. But we believe in seriously examining ways to boost turnout in UCS and UFB elections. One solution could be to tie pre-registration for next semester’s courses to a link to an online ballot so that in each electoral category, students would have to either select a candidate or mark “none of the above.” This option would preserve students’ rights to refrain from voting for any candidate while likely boosting turnout.

The University already requires students to fill out course evaluation forms — or opt out of doing so — in order to view final grades, so why should evaluating student leaders be any different? Another proposal worth exploring is allowing those who have already accepted offers of admission to the University’s incoming class to vote, given that as of now, first-years have no choice in picking the UCS and UFB leaders who preside over one-fourth of their time at Brown.

The UCS and UFB election season should not just be a time for goofy slogans and tuning out. Opening the doors to greater participation in picking the leaders who ostensibly represent the whole student body — and control the purse strings for student groups — should be a paramount concern for everyone.

“Public corruption at any level of government is unacceptable, and I want to send a strong signal that

”

there will be no tolerance for it.

— Mayor Jorge Elorza

See shark on page 6.

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, Mathias Heller ’15 and Aranshi Kumar ’17. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

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COMMENTARY THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015 • PAGE 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

A reinforcement of today’s pressures MEGAN GRAPENGETERRUDNICK opinions editor

On Tuesday, Brown extended invitations to 1,970 students to join the class of 2019. Admitted students probably flocked to Brown’s website, its Facebook page and The Herald website to relish in their excitement and immerse themselves in the chatter of the school they might soon call home. But what they found, I’m sure, did not put them at the edge of their seats to get here. In fact, it likely caused them to slink back in their chairs, as this news did to most of us here on College Hill and to the Brown community at large.

The tragedy that shook Brown’s campus on Tuesday when a graduate student fell to his death from the 12th floor of the Sciences Library is horrific simply because of its nature — the proximity is agonizing and the reality is deafening. But for many of us, once the initial stinging shock wears off and we resume our routines, a different realization will come from this cataclysm. Though we cannot speculate as to the exact causes of Tuesday’s event, we can realize that similar situations are not unique to Brown but are the product of how our generation has evolved.

This is nothing novel. It is a fact that national newspapers have plastered across their op-ed sections for a number of years. But Tuesday’s events serve to reinforce the problems that stem from an excessively

strenuous culture. The pressures of today’s society have gotten out of hand. We’re forgetting how to live.

Things start in high school, though the exact grade at which students and their parents begin the talk — the college talk — is creeping further and further into childhood.

High school is meant to prepare students for college, but it has morphed into a race track, fiscal arms flexed, testing students’ stress tolerance to the brink. The sheer number of extracurriculars with which high

thing they can’t put on a resume.”

Meanwhile, Barry Schwartz wrote in a New York Times op-ed Tuesday, “The intense competition for admission to highly selective colleges and universities is destroying our kids.”

The college search has evolved to become not about attending college to learn how to think, but about attending college to line oneself up for a job to make the maximum amount of money possible. This is plucking us off one by one, encouraging us to disregard life education in favor of

to work in its absence. Stress is the new norm, the new control — until it implodes.

A study reported in Psychology Today supports this ingrained mental state. It investigates the affluent and reveals that “maintaining the mantle of success is a special imperative for the well-off, for whom expectations are especially high” in order to “meet the standards of living they are used to.” The standard of living for college prospects has been raised; the standard of living

We’ve become too accustomed to abnormal amounts of stress and mental strain — we’re losing ourselves and we’re losing each other to these tendencies; we’re losing touch.

school students smother themselves is unprecedented.

Ann Brenoff wrote in a Huffington Post piece Sunday, “The academic pressure has built to the point that (high school students) implode.”

Dwight Garner commented on this increasing pressure in a New York Times review of William Deresiewicz’s controversial book “Excellent Sheep.” Garner notes that Deresiewicz points out the problem that students are “blinkered overachievers” who “throughout their high school years are unable to do any-

job priming. And this is just the application process.

And then we get here. The stress typified by the 1,970 students that were accepted this week will not subside with their arrival on campus. It will only grow. This may not be because our classes are slapping us with unbearable pressure or because we did not get an offer from our first-choice job. Rather, it may be the result of our being conditioned during our high school years to function this way. In order to get where we are, we’ve experienced such stress that we don’t know how

for college students has been raised even higher.

We’ve become too accustomed to abnormal amounts of stress and mental strain — we’re losing ourselves and we’re losing each other to these tendencies; we’re losing touch.

We shouldn’t be led to believe that failure in a class means sacrificing a job, which means sacrificing a financial tier and social prestige — and all for what? More and more students are feeling this way because our generation is beginning to know nothing else.

I do not know why Hyoun Ju

Sohn GS took his life on Tuesday.

I have no place to speculate on his mental state. But I do know that school pressures were a popular initial assumption as to the cause and have been sources of distress, and this is the heart of the problem. We all expect someone to crack — it’s not why, just a matter of when.

Some students have mitigated the pressure by taking time off.

Others decided to split semesters, though this policy is no longer in place and students are forced to finish in four years or less should they decide to study at Brown continuously. Psychological services and support groups are much needed, but the problem is much deeper and self-perpetuating.

We cannot go on like this. We cannot continue welcoming students into an environment with too much pressure and too few release valves. How can we take the blinders away from this competitive, tunnel-visioned environment and prevent people from living lives that may lead them to the feeling that there is no way out?

In the wake of Tuesday’s tragedy, a friend turned to me and said, “I don’t care if I fail my exam tomorrow. Life and sanity are more important.” I wish more people reached this conclusion. I wish our school and our society made it easier for us to put ourselves and our health before our studies and our successes.

Megan Grapengeter-Rudnick ‘17 is a Herald opinions editor.

SPORTS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015

Kenneally ’90 named new women’s hockey head coach Current executive associate director of athletics called upon after Bruno’s rough season

By MATT BROWNSWORD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Robert Kenneally ’90, executive associate director of athletics, was named the head coach of the women’s hockey team Wednesday. His appointment concludes a nationwide search for the successor of Amy Bourbeau, who stepped down following a season in which Brown went 5-23-1 and an abysmal 2-19-1 in the ECAC. “I am honored to be selected to head the women’s ice hockey team at Brown and look forward to returning the program to a national level of success that our women’s ice hockey program has experienced,” Kenneally said in a Brown Athletics press release.

Kenneally “has been a valuable member of the Brown Athletic Department for over 20 years, and I’m pleased that he has accepted the head women’s ice hockey coach position at Brown,” said Athletic Director Jack Hayes in the press release. “His background in

coaching and extensive hockey experience makes him a natural choice to lead this program,” Hayes said.

Kenneally has been a jack of all trades for the Athletic Department, taking on several roles for a variety of teams. He has served as the supervisor for Brown football, baseball, women’s basketball, gymnastics, men’s ice hockey and men’s soccer. He also led the men’s and women’s golf teams as head coach from 1998-2002.

His specialty has always been hockey — he has served on ECAC hockey committees and currently serves as a committee member for College Hockey, Inc. As an undergraduate at Brown, Kenneally had a stellar career on the men’s hockey team, leading the team in scoring in the 1987-88 season. He was honored with the Charles A. Lanigan Memorial Trophy, an award given to the senior who best exemplifies improvement and leadership throughout his career.

Kenneally has his work cut out for him — Brown has not won doubledigit games since 2006-07, when it finished the season 10-17-2. Despite the poor record, last year’s team showed a lot of promise. Sam Donovan ’18 led

the team in goals in her first year for Brown, while Monica Elvin ’17 had a .904 save percentage. Unfortunately for Kenneally and the Bears moving forward, three of the team’s top four point scorers will graduate this year.

Elvin said she looks forward to Kenneally’s leadership. “We were able to meet with coach Kenneally (Wednesday) as a team, and I am very encouraged by what he had to say about what he will bring to this program,” she said.

“I believe coach Kenneally to be very driven, and I am confident that his demeanor will influence our team atmosphere,” she added.

“My intricate knowledge of admission, financial aid and the Brown curriculum, along with my experience overseeing the men’s ice hockey program for 20 years and extreme passion to coach, have prepared me to be a successful head coach in the ECAC and Ivy League,” Kenneally said in the press release.

“We have not had much interaction with coach Kenneally thus far, but the consensus on the team seems to me to be very positive and excited about the upcoming season with coach,” Elvin said. “We are always looking to improve, individually and as a unit.”

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Robert Kenneally ’90, who has worked in Brown athletics for over 20 years, played ice hockey for Brown as an undergraduate during the late 80s.

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