Commencement Magazine 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Commencement 2007

Brown goes global

Going Global

Commencement 2007 From the editors When members of The Herald’s 116th editorial board sat down with Brown administrators at the beginning of the fall semester, we heard repeated references to a brand new initiative: internationalization. In part designed to bolster the University’s name recognition abroad, the effort was also originally envisioned to accomplish other goals, such as helping prevent “isolationism and xenophobia from taking over this land,” as President Ruth Simmons said at the first faculty meeting of the academic year. As the effort got off the ground, we found our coverage to be somewhat limited, in part because — as is typical of long-term initiatives — the concept was not concretely defined from the outset. Our decision to devote the cover story of this year’s Commencement magazine to internationalization, then, signifies an attempt to provide a somewhat comprehensive picture of an effort that will likely inform the University’s growth and development for years to come.

Robbie Corey-Boulet ’07, Editor-in-Chief Justin Elliott ’07, Executive Editor Ben Miller ’07, Executive Editor Stephanie Clark ’07, Senior Editor Katie Lamm ’07, Senior Editor

Contributors Writers

Designers

Stephen DeLucia Allison Kwong Sonia Saraiya

COMMENCEMENT OVERVIEW

4 Honorary degree recipients

Fr From Chris Berman to Samantha Power

A look back: Commencement 1907 5 2007 schedule of events 6 Senior orators

FEATURES

8 Going it alone

A look at Brown’s much-touted independent concentration program

10 2006-07 in review A rundown of the year’s top news items

14 Eye on the big leagues Three Brown athletes try to break into professional sports

SENIOR PROFILES

Enjoy,

Simmi Aujla Michael Bechek Stephanie Bernhard Zachary Chapman Debbie Lehmann Scott Lowenstein Zachary McCune Michael Skocpol Kam Sripada

Table of contents

Illustrators

Roxanne Palmer Alexander Gard-Murray

Photographer

Chris Bennett

Copy Editors

Chris Gang Ted Lamm

Managers

Laurie-Ann Paliotti Mandeep Gill Ally Ouh

7 Geoff Gusoff 13 Bharati Kalasapudi 18 Christen Decker 19 CJ Hunt 25 In memoriam: Arin Adams

COVER STORY

28 Going Global

An overview of Brown’s new eeffort to internationalize, followed d by a look at the initiative in context and in action

EDITORS’ COLUMNS

48 Corey-Boulet: I don’t want to write a thesis Elliott: Hero worship

49 Miller: Giving back

Clark: In defense of the liberal arts Lamm: All talk and no action

32 Senior survey 54 Comics The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007 | 3

2007 honorary degree recipients BY MICHAEL BECHEK Blues musician B.B. King and the presidents of three New Orleans universities are among those who will receive honorary degrees this year at Commencement. Scott Cowen of Tulane University, Norman Francis of Xavier University and Marvalene Hughes of Dillard University will each receive an honorary degree “in recognition of their determination and leadership following Hurricane Katrina,” according to an April 25 University press release. Other honorary degree recipients include sportscaster Chris Berman ’77 P’08 P’09, actress Kate Burton ’79 P’10, Professor Emeritus of Medical Science Stanley Aronson, Pulitzer Prizewinning author Samantha Power and Nobel Prize-winning researcher Craig Mello ’82, who will give the baccalaureate address May 26. Stanley Aronson Aronson was dean of Brown’s medical school from its founding in 1970 until 1981, when he was named University professor. He has worked to incorporate hospice and palliative care into the medical curriculum. He collaborated with physicians and local clergy to establish the state’s ﬁrst hospice program, Hospice Care Rhode Island, and served as its ﬁrst president from 1989 to 1991. Aronson also served as president of Interfaith Health Care Ministries and is an editor emeritus of the Medicine and Health of Rhode Island Journal. Chris Berman ’77 P’08 P’09 Named National Sportscaster of the Year six times, Berman is one of the most popular and recognizable faces in sports broadcasting as a studio host, anchor and commentator for ESPN. Berman has been a mainstay on ESPN from a month after its

Looking back: Commencement 1907 BY MICHAEL BECHEK If members of the University’s class of 1907 were able to visit their alma mater today, they would no doubt find that much about Brown has changed in the last 100 years. The incorporation of Pembroke College, the increase of diversity on campus and the introduction of the open curriculum (not to mention a farewell to Latin and Greek requirements) have changed Brown as much as two world wars, rock and roll and iPods have changed the world into which it releases its graduates each spring. But it would be difficult for these alums to watch this weekend’s 239th annual Commencement exercises and not be reminded of their own graduation. One hundred and fifty six members of the class of 1907, both men and women, and the recipients of 41 advanced degrees were included in the procession to the Meeting House of the First Baptist Church in America, located at 75 North Main St. Commencement 1907 must have been a raucous affair. The Providence Daily Journal (which sold for two cents) noted, “It was the opinion among the Brown graduates that the annual Commencement Day procession … was one of the largest, if not the largest, in the history of the college.”

A reporter for the Journal wrote: “To many an ‘old fellow’ back for Commencement it will seem as much a pathetic as a joyful occasion. The march of the graduates down the hill is a panorama of the seven ages of man — first come the beardless Freshmen; then, in order, the upperclassmen, the recent graduates, the men in their thirties, the middle-agers, the elderly gentlemen and the veterans. Any youthful participant in this interesting feature of the day may see in spectacular view before him, as the line marches in inverted order at the meetinghouse, his own individual future…” Also that weekend, the school was still celebrating its national championship baseball team, which had finished the season undefeated after a 10-4 victory over the University of Alabama. “Every man was on his mettle,” wrote team captain Harold William Paine in the Liber Brunensis, “determined to show that a man who has played summer baseball is no less a gentleman than any other.” Inside the church, President William Faunce led a prayer, and five selected seniors gave orations. The first, John Cortland Knowles ’07, gave a speech titled “The Problem of the Far East,” likely addressing President Roosevelt’s signing of the Immigration Act of 1907 in February, which prevented the entry of Japanese laborers.

Zechariah Chafee Jr. ’07, a great uncle of former Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75 and a recipient of a degree in English, Greek literature and history, Roman literature and history and mathematics, spoke on “The Future of American Poetry.” Governor James Higgins and the writer Thomas Nelson Page, who received an honorary degree, addressed the graduates during the afternoon exercises in Sayles Hall. They were followed by Faunce, who said: “There is no music that sounds so sweet … as that on Commencement Day. There is no cure for cynicism and pessimism so sure as to listen to those graduates on the Commencement platform, who reverse the gladiatorial cry and say, ‘We who are about to live salute you.’ Here we have an inspiration in the long procession that moved down College Hill, the raw recruits in front and the grizzled veterans in the rear, in accordance with a custom that was inaugurated 140 years ago, and please God will endure for 500 years more.” While 500 years have yet to pass, this weekend, the tradition continues. For a comprehensive history of Commencement, see www.brown. edu/web/Commencement/2007/ history or Martha Mitchell’s Encyclopedia Brunoniana.

quiet inception in 1979 to its current status as the premier 24-hour sports network. Now a nine-time Emmy awardwinner, Berman got his start at WBRU as an undergraduate calling basketball, football, ice hockey and baseball games. Known for his enthusiastic play-by-play and catchphrases, Berman has covered 20 World Series and 24 Super Bowls. Kate Burton ’79 P’10 Best known for her role as Dr. Ellis Grey on ABC’s “Grey’s Anat-

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omy,” Burton has performed on stage, television and ﬁlm for 25 years. Nominated three times for Tony Awards and once for an Emmy Award, Burton has also served as a visiting professor at the Brown University/Trinity Repertory Consortium. Burton began rehearsals for her ﬁrst of 10 Broadway shows, “Present Laughter,” one day after her graduation from Brown. She attended the Yale School of Drama. Scott Cowen The 14th president of Tulane

University, Cowen led the New Orleans university through the crisis of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, when much of the school’s campus was ﬂooded and its students were dispersed across the nation. Under Cowen’s leadership, the campus was repaired, and 87 percent of students returned in January 2006. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appointed Cowen to the city’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission, tasked with rebuilding the public school continued on page 6

Commencement 2007 Schedule of Events Friday, May 25 Check out the Brown Bear Buffet from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Sharpe Refectory Refectory, featuring Brown a cappella groups. The Campus Dance will follow on the Main Green from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Informal singing of the Alma Mater will take place outside Sayles Hall at midnight.

Saturday, May 26 Commencement Forums will run all morning, beginning at 9 a.m. and ending at 2 p.m. Barring heavy rain, the baccalaureate procession will form on the Main Green at 2 p.m. Nobel Prize-winning scientist Craig Mello ’82 will deliver the baccalaureate address in the First Baptist Church in America, beginning at 3 p.m. The ceremony will be broadcast to screens on the Main Green, in Sayles Hall and in the Salomon Center. The ceremony will be audiocast in Manning Chapel.

Sunday, May 27 The Commencement Procession departs from Faunce Arch at 9:45 a.m.

www.browndailyherald.com helping parents live vicariously

The College Ceremony is scheduled to begin in the First Baptist Church in America at 12:05 p.m. and will be broadcast to the Main Green, the Salomon Center Center, Sayles Hall and the Pizzitola Center Center, with audiocast in Manning Chapel, Meehan Auditorium and Wilson Hall 102. The ceremony will move to the Main Green at 12:45 p.m., with broadcasts continuing at all other locations. Emily Underwood ’07 and Justin Fabrikant ’07 will deliver the senior orations, and the University will award nine honorary degrees to a ﬁeld that includes musician B.B. King. The awarding of degrees will take place in departmental ceremonies at various locations immediately following the College Ceremony. The Graduate School Convocation Ceremony will take place on Lincoln Field at 10:30 a.m., and the Medical School Convocation Ceremony will take place at the First Unitarian Church at 11:30 a.m. — Michael Bechek

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Senior orators Emily Underwood ’07 Underwood, from Coloma, Calif., transferred to Brown as a junior in the spring of 2005 after spending a few years working and taking classes at community colleges in her home state. In her address, “Holding Ground,” Underwood will talk about how Brown changed her approach to dealing with what she calls “periods of transition.” “Something that distinguishes Brown for me is the people here and how much of the education is peer-based,” she said. That education “really sticks with you.” Underwood, a science and society concentrator, is the head of her departmental undergraduate group. She has sung with the Brown Madrigals and is a Writing Fellow.

Justin Fabrikant ’07 A biology concentrator who said he has taken classes in 16 different departments, Fabrikant will address the changes that undergraduates go through during their time at Brown. His oration, “The Evolution of a Brown Student,” draws from his personal experience. “I’ve wafﬂed around a little bit,” he said. Fabrikant, a native of Santa Cruz, Calif., and a member of the men’s Ultimate frisbee team, will attempt to break down these changes “from a pseudoscientiﬁc perspective” in an attempt to explain how the Brown undergraduate experience shapes students.

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system. Tulane has since created a K-12 charter school and an Institute for Public Education Initiatives to forward redevelopment efforts. Norman Francis Currently the longest-serving university president in the United States, Francis became president of Xavier University in 1968. In addition to leading the rebuilding of Xavier in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Francis was appointed by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco as chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. In December 2006, Francis was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. Marvalene Hughes The first female president of Dillard University, Hughes is leading the university’s recovery from more than $400 million in damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Before coming to Dillard, which is President Ruth Simmons’ alma mater, Hughes served as president of California State University, Stanislaus for 11 years. Riley “B.B.” King King was named the greatest living guitarist by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003. Since he first began recording in 1947, King has released more than 50 albums and influenced generations of guitarists. A 14-time Grammy winner, he has won for Best Traditional Blues Album nine times, most recently in 2006 at the age of 80. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987.

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Craig Mello ’82 Mello, a Howard Hughes investigator at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Andrew Fire of Stanford University for their discovery of RNA interference, a phenomenon they documented in a landmark 1998 paper that has significantly affected research efforts worldwide. Mello and Fire’s discovery, which revealed “gene silencing,” has allowed researchers to study gene regulation by controlling the expression of specific genes and has therapeutic implications for genetic diseases. Mello, who was a biochemistry concentrator as an undergraduate, is a native of Fairfax, Va., and now lives in Shrewsbury, Mass. He will also deliver the baccalaureate address May 26, the day before Commencement exercises. Samantha Power Power, a human rights activist, is a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Her book, “‘A Problem from Hell:’ America and the Age of Genocide,” won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction as well as other awards. Power won the 2005 National Magazine Award for best reporting for an article in the New Yorker on Darfur. Power, who moved to the United States from Ireland at the age of 9, was the founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. She is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.

Geoff Gusoff ’07

Pursuing spirituality and social justice, both at home and abroad BY ZACHARY MCCUNE Geoff Gusoff ’07 owns three movies. He does not have an iPod. On any given day, you might ﬁnd him playing Nerf basketball with his roommates on a hoop they have hung in their room. He likes Ben Folds and is a fan of improvisational comedy.

Senior Profile Gusoff is also a Truman Scholar, a founding member of Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere and a prominent member of Interfaith House. A devout Catholic, Gusoff traveled to El Salvador his junior year to work with a Jesuit community service organization. His time abroad combined his interest in religion with his dedication to community service. “Being in El Salvador,” Gusoff explained, “you are in the shadow of these incredible martyrs. I identify with a lot of the spirituality that I saw in El Salvador.” These martyrs, including Bish-

op Oscar Romero of San Salvador, represent a movement within the Catholic faith to liberate parishioners socially and economically, not simply in a spiritual sense. This idea, often referred to as “Liberation Theology,” makes up the heart of Gusoff’s senior thesis in religious studies. “We need to liberate people today, not simply in the hereafter,” Gusoff said. “If you want to be a true Catholic, then social justice has to be a part of (your) spirituality.” While abroad, Gusoff received notiﬁcation that he was a ﬁnalist for the prestigious Truman Scholarship, a national grant that awards funding to students interested in public service careers to continue a postgraduate education. “I got this thing in the mail junior year, and I thought, ‘I do a lot of public service, could I do this?’” Gusoff said. “I honestly never expected to go as far as I did.” One of Brown’s four nominees for the scholarship, Gusoff was then selected as Rhode Island’s

only ﬁnalist. He was scheduled to interview for the scholarship in Boston while he was abroad and had little time to prepare for the meeting. Fortunately, Brown arranged a mock interview for him, which helped him feel more relaxed. Later, Gusoff discovered that he was one of the students selected for the scholarship and was awarded $30,000 for graduate school. Now, the only decision left for the Livingston, N.J., native is what to do with the money. “I’m interested in ministry work and considering pursuing a theology degree,” Gusoff said. He is also thinking about studying law and ethics to develop a “morally informed way of advocating

for social justice.” But all that will have to wait. Next year, Gusoff plans to join the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, a faithbased community service organization, to work with underprivileged communities on the West Coast. “I’ll be in California or Arizona doing community organizing or public interest law,” Gusoff said. This year, though, he is just taking it easy. Well, sort of. Apart from ﬁnishing his thesis in religious studies, Gusoff is also completing requirements for a second concentration in public policy and American institucontinued on page 26

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Independent concentrators chart their own paths Though a key feature of the New Curriculum, only a handful of students are involved in the program today BY KAM SRIPADA Though Maribeth Rubin ’07 came to Brown intending to study mechanical engineering, she quickly found herself pondering other options. By her second semester, she realized she “wanted to do something that was art with a technology focus, and there really wasn’t something like that at Brown.” So Rubin used the University’s independent concentration program to combine elements from the visual arts, music and modern culture and media departments into a concentration called “interactive digital media.” Rubin’s academic path culminated in a museum-style exhibit called “Perceptions of Reality” that integrated sculpture and digital media to explore the mythical island of Atlantis. Now, instead of mechanical engineering, Rubin’s dream job is “integrating digital media techniques with exhibit design,” such as “imagineering” at a Disney theme park. This weekend, Rubin will be one of two independent concentrators — who design their own courses of study — to walk through the Van Wickle Gates. Though the independent concentration program was a key feature of Brown’s 1969 New Curriculum, only a dozen or so of the College’s approximately 6,000 undergraduates are currently in stages of the program’s application process. Life experiences, inspirational teachers and intriguing courses can all motivate students to diverge from Brown’s standard concentrations and follow their own academic inclinations. Independent concentrations relate to the sci-

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ences, humanities and social sciences, but “there is always an interdisciplinary element,” said Ariane Helou GS, the graduate proctor who oversees the independent concentration approval process. “Students who apply for independent concentrations tend to be pretty impressive,” Helou said. “They’re highly motivated, passionate, self-directed and committed to their chosen topic.” Occasionally, waves of student interest in a topic not covered by the University’s standard concentrations can provide a convincing argument for the University to add the subject to its ofﬁcial offerings. Years ago, biomedical ethics and science and society became standard concentrations due to student interest, though neither ever became a formal department. But in many cases — often as a result of the University’s decision to suspend previously approved concentrations, such as biomedical ethics and biotechnology — students must devise alternate courses of study to satisfy their academic passions. Most students embark on the approval process late in their sophomore or early junior years, though some wait until as late as the beginning of senior year. They typically spend several months revising and resubmitting proposals to justify their departure from the pool of available concentrations. In addition, they must submit an essay describing their academic goals, a fully designed curriculum and an annotated bibliography. A portion of the proposals, often having been revised two or three times, ﬁnally reach

the Independent Concentrations Committee, which accepts about 50 percent of the applications, Helou said. The committee includes faculty members, deans and students, whom Helou described as “watchdogs for the curriculum.” The committee, Helou said, veriﬁes that the “concentration is not just an idea for a project continued on next page

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or something like a double concentration but is really a unified field with a strong methodological grounding.” She noted that some students’ proposals merely try to skip requirements or avoid undesirable classes. The ideal independent concentration, Helou said, is “not the marriage of two fields of study but the birth of a new one.” From the perspective of independent concentrator Noah Gardiner ’07, the topic must be “specific enough to make an argument but broad enough to make a concentration and not just an independent study project.” Gardiner, who enrolled at Brown through the Resumed Undergraduate Education program after 14 years out of school, decided on a concentration titled “Western esoteric studies,” focusing on magic, alchemy and spiritual trends in Western thought, areas that have been “mostly ignored or suppressed in the past.” Gardiner said magic and esotericism have been lifelong interests of his that emerged as an academic field only in the last

15 years. Another keystone of a successful alternative course of study is finding a willing professor to serve as a guide. These faculty members must dedicate a significant amount of time catering to a single student’s interests and helping make connections across disciplines. Independent concentrators have to “find a handful of faculty that will really back (them) up,” Gardiner said. In his experience, these faculty members have been “instrumental in recommending sources and discussions in general.” “You have to network until you find someone who will help you with it. You have to keep throwing your idea out there,” said Rubin, who worked with Professor Emeritus of Visual Art Roger Mayer after taking an animation class with him. Unlike concentrators in standard departments whose facilities and support systems are clearly organized, independent concentrators often must look in unusual places to uncover materials relevant to their individual curriculum.

The study of magic and esotericism requires an immense amount of literature and rare materials. Brown has “not one but two of the best collections of magical and occult literature” in the world at the John Hay Library, Gardiner said, adding that the Hay’s collections drew him to Brown. But in some cases, independent concentrators ﬁnd resources locked up behind “For Departmental Use Only” signs. One of Rubin’s greatest challenges was gaining access to the animation lab typically reserved for computer science concentrators but necessary for much of her work. Students designing their own courses of study have the added responsibility of integrating diverse academic experiences into a coherent foundation of understanding. “You have to have a core idea of what you’re interested in or it’s easy to get lost,” Rubin said. She added that going through the process has taught her to combine lessons from disparate courses to advance her main focus. “You have to bring everything back to it.”

Gardiner, who drew from the religious studies, history, Judaic studies, Egyptology and anthropology departments, said he “always had to twist around what the class is about, though it’s hard since the teachers have certain ideas about what they want the class to be about. But I’ve found that professors can be really supportive in helping you follow your own interests in the context of the class.” Independent concentration proposals must also contain a clear plan for a senior thesis or capstone project, “which is particularly challenging for ﬁrst- and second-year students thinking about independent concentrations,” Helou said. Rubin, who began writing her proposal in her ﬁrst year at Brown, did not have her capstone project approved until the end of her third year. “I took the time to see how all the ideas and skills I’ve learned (can) combine into something intriguing for people to experience,” she said.

For her ﬁnal project, Rubin transformed Room 221 in List Art Center into the weeklong Atlantis exhibit. It featured display cases of “mimic artifacts” exploring the ﬁne line between reality and illusion. “As people unravel the ‘offness’ of the artifacts, the room reacts to the way they are reacting,” Rubin said. Even after following an individualized course of study, independent concentrators usually have the same range of post-graduation options as standard concentrators, Helou said. Gardiner, for example, plans to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan’s Department of Near Eastern Studies. “It’s such a Brown thing to make your own concentration,” Gardiner said. “I’m surprised more people don’t.” “There will be a lot of rules in your way,” Rubin advised, “but if you think Brown has all the resources but hasn’t put them together, you should go for an independent concentration.”

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YEAR IN REVIEW The Herald looks back on some of the biggest news stories of the 2006-07 academic year SEPTEMBER — Hundreds of students marched through campus chanting phrases like “discrimination does happen” in protest of alleged police brutality at Brown.

SEPTEMBER New book alleges Brown favors celebrity offspring Children of celebrities have an edge when applying to Brown, according to a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden that was released in September. Titled “The Price of Admission,” the book devotes an entire chapter to the University’s admission practices, asserting that “no university in the country has practiced celebrity admissions more assiduously or successfully.” Golden claimed students such as Chris Ovitz, son of Hollywood mogul Michael Ovitz, and John F. Kennedy Jr. ’83, son of former President John F. Kennedy, were accepted because of their high proﬁle names despite mediocre academic records.

SUMMER Robinson becomes new men’s basketball coach Brown ramped up its athletics program as well as its political ties this summer when Craig Robinson, a former Princeton player and businessman, became the 29th head coach of the men’s basketball team in mid-June. Robinson, whose sister is married to 2008 presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., coached at Northwestern University before coming to Brown.

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Campus police controversy In one of two alleged incidents of police misconduct that sparked student protest this fall, Chipalo Street ’06 GS said he was assaulted in a Sept. 10 confrontation with members of the Providence Police Department and Brown’s Department of Public Safety. A University investigation found no misconduct by DPS officers, but Brown officials said the PPD was responsible for investigating the conduct of its officers, who were working on a paid campus detail. DPS later phased out PPD officers from its patrols. The allegations also sparked the creation of the Coalition for Police Accountability and Institutional Transparency, which pushed for accurate crime reporting and worked to address issues of police brutality, negligence and racial profiling. Yurdin takes Ward 1 Seth Yurdin, a Democratic candidate for the Ward 1 City Council seat who received The Herald’s endorsement, defeated Ethan Ris ’05 in the Sept. 12 primary. Ward 1 encompasses the Fox Point neighborhood and parts of College Hill, including most of Brown’s campus. Yurdin went on to win the general election.

A rough-and-tumble year for cheerleaders A new policy depriving the cheerleading squad of a professional coach led to discord among cheerleaders this fall, with several quitting the team and others being asked to leave. After former coach Kristin Capasso left her position last May, the Department of Athletics decided not to recruit a professional replacement because of financial constraints. But the new policy, which calls for a student to coach the squad, led some cheerleaders — including one of the captains — to quit the team. The new student-coach asked the two remaining captains to leave after they distributed flyers protesting the policy change at the first football game of the season. Brown ranks low on sexual health and LGBT-friendliness When it comes to condoms and its “Gay Point Average,” Brown is not exactly leading the pack, according to several studies conducted this year. In September, the University was left off a list of gay-friendly schools published by the Advocate, a gay and lesbian magazine. The magazine profiled 100 schools, assigning each of them a “Gay Point Average” based on their LGBT-inclusive policies, programs and practices. In October, Brown came in at No. 44 out of 100 colleges and universities in a study of sexual health released by the makers of Trojan Condoms, earning a grade of F for “condom advice and availability.”

OCTOBER

U. dedicates life sciences hall The Sidney E. Frank Hall for Life Sciences was dedicated in early October, marking the culmination of a planning, design and construction process that spanned three presidencies and struggled with delays, cost increases and legal challenges. The $95 million building — the most expensive in University history — will house the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry.

history, Brown acquired seven buildings in Providence’s Jewelry District. The buildings are currently used as commercial and retail space, but the property will house a new building for the Alpert Medical School. Director of Strategic Growth Rebecca Barnes ’71 speculated that some of the buildings might be converted into administrative and residential spaces, but she also said using the buildings for science-related initiatives would be in accordance with the Plan for Academic Enrichment.

Slavery and justice report released After nearly three years of work and national media attention, the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice released its ﬁnal report with little advance warning. The committee, which was appointed by President Ruth Simmons in 2003, was tasked with examining the University’s historic connection to slavery. The report laid out a detailed history of Brown’s ties to slavery and involvement in the slave trade, looked at how other institutions confronted similar legacies and reviewed the reparations debate in America. The committee also offered a number of recommendations for future action, such as creating an academic center for the study of slavery and attracting more students from Africa and the West Indies.

Error leads to incorrect reporting of sexual assaults Following a pair of Herald articles on the 2005 crime summary, the Department of Public Safety corrected an error in the summary one month after it was released, acknowledging that four on-campus sexual assaults occurred in 2005. The original crime summary reported zero sexual assaults, a mistake made due to “administrative error on the part of the Ofﬁce of Student Life,” according to Associate Vice President for Campus Life and Dean of Student Life Margaret Klawunn. The OSL compiles data on sexual assaults and drug and alcohol violations from several departments on campus and forwards these numbers to DPS. According to Klawunn, the data on drug, alcohol and weapons violations were forwarded correctly, but the number of sexual assaults was never sent.

U. expands into Jewelry District In one of the largest purchases in University Fewer students require medical attention at Sex Power God Both medical and media attention were muted at this year’s tamer Sex Power God, which saw 14 students requiring emergency medical care for intoxication. Last year, the dance, which was featured on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, was marred by management failures. Twenty-four students required emergency medical attention.

JANUARY

Summer starts ﬁrst year at Brown Summer Roberts of “The OC” began her ﬁrst year at Brown this fall in the fourth season of the Fox drama. Formerly consumed with shopping and gossip, Summer, played by Rachel Bilson, reinvented herself at Brown as an environmental activist. But her time at the University was cut short — Summer was

suspended for the rest of the year after tampering with an animal testing facility. The show was canceled midseason. Whitehouse defeats Chafee ’75 in Senate race Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75 in the November midterm election, in which Democrats took back both the House and the Senate for the ﬁrst time in 12 years. Though Chafee is considered a moderate Republican and was the only member of his party to vote against the 2002 Iraq war resolution, Whitehouse highlighted his opponent’s ties to President George W. Bush during the campaign. The midterm election also saw a 12 percent increase in votes cast in Ward 1’s Salomon precinct, which includes the 75

Brown hosts ﬁrst January@Brown Nineteen students enrolled in a pilot program titled January@Brown, an optional academic program over winter break that allowed students to enroll in one of several notfor-credit, seminar-style courses. The Undergraduate Council of Students, which spearheaded the program, expected to cap enrollment at 100 students. The program’s planners cited the not-for-credit offerings as one of the main reasons for low interest. Three courses were offered: “Caught in the Web: The Internet, Politics and Public Policy,” “From the Iron Age to the Iron Chef: Food, Culture and History” and “Storytelling and Urban Engagement: Providence Narratives.” Professor continues to teach canceled course His course may have been ofﬁcially canceled, but Professor Emeritus of Medical Sciences G.E. Erikson continued to teach “Ventures in the History of Biology, Medicine and Public Health” — formerly UC 102 — to students and community members

NOVEMBER Waterman St. campus address used by many Brown students registering to vote in Rhode Island. Chafee is now a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

this semester. Erikson retired in 1990 but had been teaching a course every semester pro bono. In December, he received a letter from Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron telling him that his two classes had been canceled because they were not affiliated with any department, a violation of University rules. Erikson, who is 87, said it was possible administrators might have wanted to force him into retirement because of his age and a recent heart attack. Alpert gives $100 million to Med School Millionaire entrepreneur Warren Alpert donated $100 million in January to the Medical School. The gift — which is tied with a 2004 donation from Sidney Frank ’42 as the largest in Brown’s history — will be used to fund a new building for the Med School, bolster scientific research and med student financial aid and endow new faculty positions. Alpert died of heart failure on March 3. He was 86. The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007 | 11

FEBRUARY

YEAR IN REVIEW Slavery and justice response to fund Providence schools The University established a $10 million endowment for public education in Providence in late February as part of its response to the slavery and justice report. Crafted by President Ruth Simmons, the initiative also waives tuition for 10 fellows each year in the Urban Education Policy and Master of Arts in Teaching programs who commit to serving Providence-area public schools for a minimum of three years after graduating. In addition, the response calls for the University to undertake a teaching and research initiative related to slavery and justice, strengthen the Department of Africana Studies and investigate the creation of a memorial

to commemorate the slave trade. Corporation approves Faunce renovation, social choice fund In February the Corporation accepted a $15 million donation to fund a renovation of Faunce House designed to turn it into a 24-hour student center and a $10 million donation for a Center for International Economics. Thomas Tisch ’76 P’04 P’07, managing partner of a New York City private investment ﬁrm, was elected Brown’s 20th chancellor. In addition, the Corporation approved the establishment of a social choice fund, which will ensure donors that their gifts will be invested in environmentally responsible companies.

New task force to review undergraduate curriculum The University announced in early March the creation of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education, a committee to review Brown’s general education, teaching and assessment, concentrations and advising programs. The task force, composed of three students and 10 faculty members, will make recommendations in the spring of 2008. Students occupy shelter to prevent closure

Brown students, homeless individuals and their advocates occupied the Welcome Arnold shelter in Cranston for over 24 hours in March to protest its closure by the state. The shelter was due to close March 15 to make way for a new state police barracks. Ten Brown students were involved in the sitin, which was organized by People to End Homelessness. The protest ofﬁcially ended at 7:30 a.m. on March 16, but several homeless individuals and advocates continued to occupy the building.

MARCH U. launches Banner amid student criticism The University implemented a $23 million software project known as Banner, drawing copious student criticism. The most visible and highly anticipated component of Banner is online course registration, which raised concerns about shopping period, enrollment caps and mandatory prerequisites. An online poll in April by the Undergraduate Council of Students found that 91 percent of students were at least “slightly concerned” about Banner. UCS passed a resolution in late March calling Banner’s Catalog and Class Schedule, which replaced the Brown Online Course Announcement, “disruptive and counterintuitive.” The resolution stated that the system

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threatens the success of Brown’s open curriculum and called for the reprinting of the Course Announcement Bulletin, which was replaced by a shorter, newsletter-style course listing. UCS passed another resolution in mid-April calling for an end to enrollment limits in preregistration for the Fall 2007 semester. Glassman ’09 captures UCS presidency By just 81 votes, Michael Glassman ’09 defeated Moses Riner ’08 in a runoff election to become next year’s UCS president. Glassman’s goals include developing a student response to Banner, renovating dorms and expanding January@Brown.

Bharati Kalasapudi ’07 Experiences in India open eyes of PLME student BY ZACHARY MCCUNE Bharati Kalasapudi ’07 didn’t always want to be a doctor, but when she visited India during her senior year of high school to see “what India was really like,” her direction in life shifted dramatically.

Senior Profile “I spent a lot of time in Indian villages,” Kalasapudi said. “I decided that medicine was the best skill set to make changes in the developing world and among under-served populations.” Kalasapudi, whose parents are Indian, spent the first eight years of her life in Visakhapatnam, on the eastern coast of India. She then moved to Paris before spending her high school years in New York. Once Kalasapudi decided to become a doctor, she applied to combined college-medical programs all along the East Coast. Deciding on Brown’s Program in Liberal Medical Education, Kalasapudi felt she was stepping into a world of frightening but exciting opportunities. “Brown was out of my comfort zone,” Kalasapudi said. “I’d never shared a double (room). But the people I met in my first month really made me appreciate stepping out.” In addition to her interest in medicine, Kalasapudi became involved in organizations with an international focus during her time at Brown. These include Brown Model United Nations and the Brown University Simulation of the United Nations, which undergraduates run for visiting high school students. “I did Model U.N. in high school, and wanted to keep going,” Kalasapudi said, “I got very heavily involved with BUSUN.” Kalasapudi also took on a role in the Community Health Advocacy Program beginning her first year. “We teach kids basic health things like wash your hands, eat well, this is how your heart works. ... It’s a lot of fun.” Off campus, Kalasapudi’s dedication to community health and to working with under-served

communities is even more apparent. In the summer after her junior year, she once again traveled to India with the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to do research on cervical cancer. “India has the largest burden of cervical cancer in the world,” Kalasapudi explained. “This is mainly because of a lack of preventive care and cancer screening.” In India, Kalasapudi helped a group of doctors and local staff to test different methods of screening for cervical cancer and their practicality in the field. The project was very demanding, she said, and several times she considered giving up. “It was hot, we worked long hours and it was hard to get in with the local staff,” Kalasapudi said. Fortunately, Kalasapudi’s proficiency in Telegu, an indigenous Indian dialect, allowed her to cross cultural barriers. When she finally returned to the United States at the end of her trip, she realized how much she had gained. “As soon as I got back, I realized how much I got from the experience,” Kalasapudi said. Another internship, this time

assisting the New York University School of Medicine’s Center for Immigrant Health in New York, exposed Kalasapudi to the problems of under-served medical patients living in the United States. “I learned a lot about undocumented immigrants,” Kalasapudi explained. “I was exposed to a whole new side of immigration that I really don’t see.” An immigrant to the United States herself, Kalasapudi was shocked by many immigrants’ urgent need for assistance. “There is a great need for social justice medicine here in the United States,” Kalasapudi said. With four more years left at Brown as a medical student and many of her friends about to grad-

uate, Kalasapudi is of two minds as she approaches Commencement. “I’m not as apprehensive about graduating because I don’t need to ﬁgure out what I’m going to do next year,” she said. “The hardest part for me is knowing that all of my non-PLME friends won’t be here next year.” Kalasapudi is also growing tired of Providence. After four years of studying at the Rockefeller Library, the Center for Information Technology and the Sciences Library, she is trying to ﬁnd new places to work. “I’m not crazy about Providence, but Brown is a great place. ... I’m hoping that I’m so busy I won’t notice I’m in Providence.”

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Brown seniors chase pro-sports dreams BY ZACHARY CHAPMAN For most graduating Brown athletes, Commencement is a bittersweet time, marking what will likely be the end of their athletic careers. The adage of the NCAA’s often-played commercial — “Most of us will be going pro in something other than sports” — rings especially true for Brown’s student-athletes, who know that in choosing to attend the University, they have made academics their first priority. But for a select group of athletes each year, the dream of making it to professional sports lives on. Though it is probably more likely that a Brown graduate will be found in the front office of a professional team or in the announcing booth of a sports network, a number of graduates are making their way onto the playing fields of sports’ professional leagues. This year’s crop of graduating seniors pursuing careers in professional sports immediately after graduation is part of a growing number of Brown grads who are proving that the desires to obtain an Ivy League education and to play sports professionally are not mutually exclusive. Zak DeOssie ’07 is the headliner in what is shaping up to be a banner year for Brown graduates going pro. A three-time first team All-Ivy selection at linebacker and two-time finalist for the Buck Buchanan award as the top defensive player in Division IAA football, DeOssie was drafted by the New York Giants as the 116th pick overall in the NFL Draft. DeOssie is the highest drafted Brown player in 27 years and the first Brown player to be drafted by the NFL since Sean Morey ’99 went to the New England

Patriots as the 241st pick in 1999. While DeOssie’s quest to make it to the NFL has grabbed the most headlines, Andrew Daniels ’07, a star forward for the men’s soccer team during his four years at Brown, has already made his way onto the roster of a professional sports team. Daniels was selected No. 18 overall in the 2007 Major League Soccer SuperDraft by FC Dallas Jan. 12. DeOssie’s ’07 teammate, Justin Amoah, a native of Mississauga, Ontario, tried to make it into the Canadian Football League. He was invited to the combine, but was not selected on draft day and has decided to attend journalism school rather than attempt to join a team as a free agent. Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger said the athletic success of DeOssie and his classmates are “wonderful for Brown.” “A lot of times people don’t quite appreciate the level of play at the I-AA level,” Goldberger said. “Sometimes people don’t quite imagine the level of athletics we have here.” From the Ivy League to the NFL DeOssie, who stands 6’4”, weighs in at 240 pounds and has a wingspan perhaps more ﬁtting for a small forward in the NBA than a linebacker, may be the most highly touted player ever to emerge from Brown. With an impressive performance at the NFL’s scouting combine as well as his strong play in the East-West Shrine Game, a major postseason proving ground for NFL prospects, DeOssie drew the attention of many NFL scouts by proving that he has the athleticism to compete at the next level. DeOssie ran a 4.58 in the 40-meter dash, the eighth-fastest time of

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any linebacker at the combine, and bench-pressed 225 pounds 26 times. Only four of 34 linebackers in the draft put up more reps. DeOssie’s combine preparation paid off on April 29 when he was selected by the Giants in the fourth round of the draft. DeOssie’s father, Steve, spent ﬁve of his 12 years in the NFL with the Giants, winning a Super Bowl title with the team in 1990. DeOssie was playing ping pong in his family’s basement when he got the call from Giants General Manager Jerry Reese on the second day of the draft. “I was just downstairs trying to get away from everything. After I got the call my twin sister, my older sister and my dad all just got in a huddle and broke down,” he said. “It was an incredible feeling.” DeOssie will report to the Giants’ rookie training camp May 11. “I’m just pumped to be playing in the Big Apple. It’s an honor to be playing for a team that my dad played for. My dad is my hero and it just means a lot to me,” he said. Brown head football coach Phil Estes said DeOssie’s success is a boost for the program. “We’re all very proud of Zak and happy for him and his family. To be considered one of the top linebackers in the country and to be taken in the fourth round of the draft is a huge accomplishment,” he said. Along with his sheer athleticism, DeOssie also impressed teams with his ferocious special teams play and skill as a long-snapper. DeOssie learned the art of long-snapping from his father, who, like DeOssie, was a linebacker and longsnapper. “I know my quickest way on to the ﬁeld will be through long-snapping and special teams,” he

Zak DeOssie

said. Reese told the Boston Globe that DeOssie’s combine was outstanding. “Zak has the size and he has the speed,” Reese said. “We helped ourselves at linebacker. He can help us as a long snapper and play on all the core special teams.” In making the jump from the Ivy League to the NFL, DeOssie is in rare company. At the start of the 2006 NFL season, only 15 of the 1,696 players on active rosters were Ivy League graduates. As Penn grad and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers tackle Jeff Hatch once told ESPN.com, “(Being an NFL player) is the only job in America where having an Ivy League degree can actually hurt you.” Though the Ancient Eight was once the premier football conference in the country, dominating college play from 1869 to 1939, the league’s national prominence has diminished since its 1981 move to Division I-AA. Because no schools in the league offer athletic scholarships, it is often difﬁcult for teams to compete for top athletic recruits. DeOssie can take comfort in the fact that a handful of recent Brown football players have gone on

to successful NFL careers. Steve Jordan ’82, a tight end at Brown who was selected to six consecutive Pro Bowls during his 12year career with the Minnesota Vikings, achieved arguably the most NFL success of any Brown alum who has played in the NFL in the modern era. Currently, Morey and Chas Gessner ’03 are the only Brown graduates in the NFL. Gessner, who excelled in both football and lacrosse at Brown, latched on with the New England Patriots in 2003 as an undrafted free agent wide receiver, earning a Super Bowl ring with the team as a practice squad player. Gessner also played for the New York Jets and in NFL Europe before landing his current job with the Buccaneers. Morey earned a Super Bowl ring with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2005 as a special teams player. Though he was a receiver at Brown, Morey has played mostly special teams in the NFL. Nick Hartigan ’06, who helped lead the Bears to the 2005 Ivy League championship and is Brown’s alltime leading rusher, is the most recent Brown graduate to take a stab at the NFL. After going un-drafted, he signed with the Jets

as a free agent in 2006 but was cut by the team. He is now enrolled at Harvard Law School. Regardless of how his first NFL training camp turns out, DeOssie, a public and private sector organizations concentrator, feels his future is secure. “I know I will be able to have a future outside of football because I came to Brown,” he said. No CFL, no problem For much of the year, Justin Amoah was hoping that he would be spending next year deflecting passes and breaking up routs for a team in the Canadian Football League. As a Canadian native, Amoah had a unique opportunity to try to continue his playing career at the professional level. The eight-team CFL requires half of each team’s roster to be composed of “non-imports,” defined as Canadian-born or Canadian-trained players. The league also reserves its college draft for non-import players. The CFL, with its quirky rules and June-November season, is mostly unknown to Americans, but it is an extremely competitive league that attracts a large following in Canada. In the past, the league has attracted former NFL players trying to resurrect their careers as well as younger players who started in the CFL before moving to successful NFL careers, such as Doug Flutie. The 5’10” 175-pound Amoah was a solid if unspectacular player at Brown. He saw little game action until a breakout senior year in which he registered 29 tackles, mostly as a “rover,” a linebacker-type position that Brown employs on defense. Amoah grew up interacting with CFL players who often came to his school to play basketball. He came close to realizing his dream of playing professionally when, in March, he was invited to the CFL TransGlobe Evaluation Camp, the Canadian equivalent to the NFL’s combine. Amoah

posted solid workout numbers at the camp and was hoping to be selected in the later rounds of the draft as a defensive back. On draft day, Amoah was in class, receiving updates from his sister by cell phone. In the end, he was passed over. “It was pretty disappointing not to get drafted but I definitely have no regrets about the process,” he said. “Football is in my blood and I wanted to give it a shot.” Amoah said he was expecting to be drafted and was surprised when many of his friends, whom he thought would be drafted in the high rounds, fell to the end of the draft. “I wasn’t terribly heartbroken because I was hoping for the best and preparing for the worst,” he said. “I had a good backup plan and I’m hoping to stay around the game by becoming a sports reporter.” Amoah chronicled his pre-draft experience on a blog for the CFL’s Web site. In his last blog entry before the draft, titled “On the Clock,” he wrote “Today, I reflect back on where football has taken me and I’m happy. It’s provided me with not only the opportunity to earn a first-class education but to also earn a living while doing something I love. Football has come to define me. I’ve considered myself a football player since the age of 11. It’s who I am. It runs through my veins… On Wednesday, we’ll see if my aspirations bear fruit. As draft day looms my anxiety reaches it’s apex. But whether or not my phone rings on draft day football will stay with me.” Amoah, an English concentrator and former Herald Staff Writer, said he plans to enroll at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in the fall. While Amoah’s playing career is likely over, he said he hopes to stay around the game as much as can. “Becoming a sports writer is how I want to stay connected,” he said. Though

his dream didn’t work out quite as he had hoped, he will be able to carry his experience with him as he transitions away from life as an athlete. “It was a great experience for me,” he said. “I wish it had turned out better, but I’m happy with the work I put in and I think I can learn a lot from it.” Daniels does Dallas Unlike his classmates, Daniels has already established himself on the roster of a professional sports team while completing his senior year at Brown. While most seniors enjoy their last few weeks on College Hill, Daniels has been getting a taste of his postBrown life as a defender for the Major League Soccer team FC Dallas. Daniels, a public and private sector organizations and history concentrator, juggled five courses with his soccer career during his final semester. He flew to Dallas on weekends to be with the team, returning to Providence during the week to complete his course work. “It’s been a little fractured to be in between both,” Daniels said. “I’ve been living out of my suitcase for the past few months.” Daniels says he was focused on pursuing a job in the “real world” until he was invited to the scouting combine, which was held in early January. At the combine, Daniels, who played striker at Brown, turned many heads with his play on defense. “Once people saw him at central defender they started to show a lot of interest. Coaches would grab me after the scrimmages to ask me about him,” said men’s Head Coach Mike Noonan. Daniels performed so well at the combine that FC Dallas picked him in the second round of the draft. Initially, Daniels tried to complete his course work from Dallas, where he shares an apartment with two second-year players on the team. He quick-

ly worked out an arrangement with the organization where he could return to Brown more often. “The coach would like me to be there all the time and he knows I feel the same way, but he also understands that graduating from the Ivy League is a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Daniels said. Daniels said some players tease him about his prolonged absences. “Some of the players pretend they don’t know what Brown is,” he said. “They are always kidding me that I go to a state school.” Aside from the ribbing, Daniels said coming from the Ivy League hasn’t really been a hindrance to his career. “Once you get on the ﬁeld, it’s not about what school you went to — it’s if you are a solid player,” he said. The Ivy League is known as one of the stronger conferences in college soccer. Brown has been highly successful during Noonan’s tenure, sending nine players to the MLS and making the NCAA tournament eight times. “I think its tough initially to get teams attracted to players in the Ivy League, but we have a history of producing players who get drafted. Once you get past that initial hesitation teams start looking pretty hard,” Noonan said. Daniels has been in close contact with Jeff Larentowicz ’05, currently a player with the New England Revolution. “I talk with Jeff about once a week, and he has helped me out with ad-

justing to life in the pros,” Daniels said. Chris Gomez ’05 also played for FC Dallas for a year following graduation, but Daniels said he now has a job in investment banking in California. Daniels had aspirations of playing professionally coming out of high school “but lost that drive because (he) was so focused on my career at Brown,” he said. “But when the opportunity to play professionally presented itself I knew I had to take advantage of it.” Daniels has yet to see game action with FC Dallas. He has been gaining experience with the club’s reserve team, which serves as a training ground for many of its younger players. Daniels is one of four rookies on the team. He said he has been adjusting well to his new position but is familiarizing himself with other differences in life in the pros. “There’s a lot of free time during the day because you have practice from 10 (a.m.) to 11:30 (a.m.) and then the rest of the day off,” he said. “It’s nice because I have schoolwork to do, so I don’t really ﬁnd myself lounging around watching DVDs all day like some of my roommates,” he added. Daniels said he checks in with DeOssie periodically, and that the two have chatted about their different experiences as they have tried to break into the pros. “I always say to Zak ‘I’m going to play you on Madden,’ and he will always say ‘I’ll be playing you on FIFA,’” Daniels said.

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Christen Decker ’07

Middle East studies concentrator heads to Jordan BY STEPHANIE BERNHARD Christen Decker ’07 never would have guessed that the goat herder she met on a trip to Oman while studying abroad in Dubai last spring was a part-time law student. But thanks to her knowledge of Arabic, which she began study-

Senior Profile ing as a sophomore at Brown, Decker was able to have a conversation with the young man. “Experiences like this showed me what a powerful tool Arabic is for making connections with people,” the Middle East studies concentrator said. Decker has spent her time at Brown studying Middle Eastern culture as well as teaching middle school students through programs such as Summerbridge — which is designed to provide support for inner-city youths applying to competitive high schools. After graduation, she will draw from both experiences as a teacher at King’s Academy in Madaba, Jordan, a new coeducational boarding school founded by King Abdullah II. Scheduled to open this fall,

King’s Academy is modeled after Abdullah’s high school alma mater, Deerﬁeld Academy in Massachusetts. Decker will not be the only person afﬁliated with Brown at the school. Eric Widmer, a University faculty member from 1979 to 1994, will serve as the headmaster. “I can’t believe I get to combine teaching and my interest in the Middle East,” Decker said. “It’s like the dream job. I love connecting with people.” Decker’s family is Lebanese on her father’s side, so she had some early exposure to Middle Eastern and Arab culture while growing up in Portsmouth, N.H. But it was not until she came to Brown and began taking classes on the Koran that she realized how much this part of her heritage interested her. Though raised Maronite Catholic — along with Islam, it is a common religion among people of Lebanese descent — Decker said she found reading the Koran in Arabic a “moving experience.” But even more than reading the language, Decker wanted a chance to converse with native Arabic speakers. During her junior year she applied and was selected to be a William Jefferson Clinton Scholar at the American University in Dubai. As one of a handful of students selected, Decker spent a semester in the United Arab Emirates studying economics and Arabic. “It’s an amazing place,” Decker said of Dubai. “It’s become a commercial hub of the (Persian) Gulf, and it’s still growing.” Decker said the city offered her a very cosmopolitan experience, as local Emirates comprise only about 10 percent of the population. “I really love the people I met there,” Decker said, recalling friends she made from Saudi Arabia and Iran. She said she developed a very close relationship with her roommate, who was Iranian. “Jogging and physical education was one of the ways I really connected with women in Dubai, mostly because they thought I was ridiculous for doing it,” Decker said. She will have another opportunity to share her enjoyment of ath-

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letics next year at King’s Academy, where she was “ecstatic” to learn her responsibilities will include coaching girls in sports. Decker will also live in a dormitory with the female students while teaching classes in English, including philosophy of ethics and world religion. Decker’s friend Carey Turnquest ’07 said Decker’s supportive attitude will make her an effective teacher. “I jokingly call her my life coach,” Turnquest said. “I couldn’t ask for a more loyal friend.” Decker said one of her main goals is to foster a positive atmosphere and community for her students — something she learned to value while a student at Phillips Exeter Academy. “You should feel like you’re being thrown into another family,” she said of boarding school life. Decker said she thinks her Lebanese background will make it easier for her to develop close connections with students at King’s Academy. “I’ve had the luxury of experiencing something of both cultures. Hopefully I can act as a bridge for

some of these girls,” Decker said. “Teachers will function truly as mentors,” said Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Meera Viswanathan, who will be taking a two-year leave of absence to design the curriculum for King’s Academy. Viswanathan met Decker during the process of interviewing candidates for positions at the school. “I was impressed by her enthusiasm and her training,” Viswanathan said. “I look forward to learning from her as much as she will learn from the school.” Even though classes will be taught in English, Decker said she is glad the King’s Academy curriculum focuses on Middle Eastern authors and thinkers, which will “instill the students with a sense of pride and identity.” “In an education there should be a strong sense of self,” she said. Turnquest said Decker, if anyone, would be able to encourage such self-conﬁdence. “Heads turn when she walks into the room,” Turnquest said. “She has that sort of charisma about her.”

CJ Hunt ’07 From

sketch comedy dreams to a commitment to education BY STEPHANIE BERNHARD For much of his life, CJ Hunt ’07 planned to be a cast member of “Saturday Night Live.” Hunt, who described himself as “very vocal” and is a member of Brown’s improvisational sketch comedy

Senior Profile group IMPROVidence, wanted to use humor as a form of social commentary. But while at Brown he found a more active method for fostering change: teaching. He now plans to spend the next two years teaching in New Orleans as a Teach For America corps member. “It’s more meaningful than comedy or any other performance,” Hunt said. Growing up in Massachusetts, Hunt was educated at elite private institutions, spending his high school years at Milton Academy. He said coming to Brown led to familiar experiences, as the University has a student body somewhat similar to Milton’s: mostly white, wealthy and academically driven. Hunt’s experiences at Brown soon changed his perspective on race relations, especially with respect to urban education. He began taking classes in the Department of Africana Studies and eventually became a concentrator.

“It’s a way of looking at the world,” Hunt said of Africana studies. “I’m understanding how power works, how inequality works, how people challenge systems of inequality.” The summer after his ﬁrst year, Hunt participated in Summerbridge “on a whim.” Summerbridge is a nationwide academic enrichment program that uses a students-teachingstudents method to “increase educational opportunity for highpotential, low-income middle school students,” according to the program’s Web site. Providence Summerbridge, located at the Wheeler School, provides extra classes and mentoring for students from struggling Providence public schools and helps them gain acceptance to competitive high schools. Hunt, who taught English during the rigorous summer program, said he gained an understanding of urban educational problems by interacting with his students, many of whom came from impoverished backgrounds. “It repositioned education in my mind, because I had a very privileged educational background and that’s what I knew,” he said. Hunt said he used humor to relate to his students. Elkinsette Clinton, student and family services coordinator for Summerbridge, said Hunt and his students often performed skits during rou-

tine morning announcements. “He was hilarious,” Clinton said. “He would have us in stitches — everyone loved CJ.” But Hunt wanted to do more than perform: he wanted to help students learn. “I’d be teaching kids who are 10 times more talented than me, but didn’t have access to the same opportunities,” Hunt said. He used exercises from performance comedy to engage his students, such as staging mini versions of Shakespeare plays and interactive debates. Clinton recalled an occasion when Hunt played recordings of spoken-word artists for the class and then held a poetry slam for which the students wrote their own work. “He was a wonderful teacher, a wonderful advocate for our kids,” Clinton said. She said at one point during the summer, the program directors were considering asking one of Hunt’s students to leave because he had missed so many days of class. But Hunt felt the student was a strong writer who could still beneﬁt from Summerbridge. “He talked so passionately about his accomplishments, and we changed our minds instantly,” Clinton said. “That’s the kind of power CJ has.” The greatest reward, Hunt said, was when students realized they had the potential to succeed despite the many setbacks they faced. “By the end of the summer, you have these kids saying, ‘I never thought I could do this before,’” he said. Experiencing the results of his work made Hunt realize he could have a more tangible effect on racial injustice through teaching even a few students than through performing comedy. “It’s like a light bulb went off,” Hunt said. Most of the Summerbridge volunteers left the program in the fall, but Hunt stayed on because he wanted to get to know his students better and help them achieve their academic goals. At ﬁrst, Hunt focused on helping a small group of students apply to Milton — a process that he said is as rigorous as applying to college. He and four other Brown undergraduates worked with the students for months, but in the end, none of them submitted their applications. Hunt said this

disheartening experience taught him that trying to open the doors of schools like Milton, though important, does not create educational equality. “That’s not the answer,” Hunt said of sending high-performing urban youth to private schools. “Equality would be that schools in their neighborhoods are as good as those like Milton.” After this realization, Hunt decided to devote his career to improving urban schools. To start, he joined Teach For America, an organization that grants two-year contracts in troubled school districts to recent college graduates. Clinton said she was not surprised to learn Hunt was attempting such a difficult job. “He would take on that challenge and just run with it,” Clinton said. “He’s so passionate about what he wants to do, and you can see it.” A week after Commencement, Hunt will fly to Louisiana and spend the summer training for his new position. “I’m pretty scared, but also excited,” he said. “I picked New Orleans because of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In the rebuilding process, schools are really central.” Hunt said he hopes to observe how new schools shape the impoverished, mostly black neighborhoods destroyed by the storm. “How schools are built, where the good ones are located, is going to define the way the neighborhoods look,” Hunt said. After finishing his stint at Teach For America, Hunt plans to pursue a master’s in education, and six years from now he hopes to work with some friends from Brown to found a charter school named after Ella Baker, a civil rights activist who helped start the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Looking even further into the future, Hunt said he would eventually like to be a district superintendent, and, maybe one day, work in education policy. “He doesn’t have to say he loves working with students,” Clinton said. “He would make them laugh, but he would also make them learn.” Hunt said only close relationships with inner-city students would give him the knowledge necessary to improve suffering schools. “And that’s what I would like to do,” Hunt said.

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In memoriam: Arin Adams BY SIMMI AUJLA

one else’s college experience.” Chastang added that Adams was always patient with friends about his gender identity. Adams also made a lasting impression on his professors. ““Arin was always a wonderful seminar student because Arin questioned everything,” said Howard Chudacoff, a professor of history who taught Adams in two courses and was his concentration adviser. Director of the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center Gail Cohee, who taught Adams in GN 10: “Introduction to Feminist Theory” in Fall 2004, remembered him as a passionate student. ““Always in a class there are a few who stand out as really liking to engage in some pretty complicated questions and that’s how Arin stands out to me — as very engaged, and that’s a positive thing,” she said. Adams challenged his writing fellowees to think more broadly as well. “If you thought you had grasped an issue in a certain way she would challenge you to look

at it in another way,” said Madina Agenor ’05, who was Adams’ fellowee in the spring of 2005. When Agenor was working on a midterm paper, Adams “encouraged me to make my statements boldly” and to “get my ideas across in a more straightforward manner,” she said. True to his own advice, Adams offered concise tips for fellowing in his “Complete Idiot’s Guide.” “Consider bringing small candy,” he wrote. “This has no academic value, but it is a good icebreaker and will make (your) fellowees like you.” On the back of the guide, in the upper left hand corner, is its price: “$0.00.” Agenor said Adams’ generous personality set him apart from others. “When she called me it was to ask me how I was doing, not to tell me how she was doing, which I thought was remarkable compared to a lot of other people,” Agenor said. “She’d be concerned about you but wouldn’t expect anything back,” Agenor said.

www.browndailyherald.com

In the fall of 2004, Arin Adams ’07.5 decided not to turn in a traditional essay for the ﬁnal project for EL 195: “Seminar in the Teaching of Writing.” Instead, Adams, a Writing Fellow, created “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fellowing a Group Paper.” Sporting the traditional orange and blue logo of the popular how-to guides on its cover, the document offered pithy advice for fellows: “Be interesting. Be engaging. Be creative. Be a Writing Fellow!” Friends and professors say that Adams was more than interesting, engaging and creative. The “supportive,” “sweet,” “brilliant” and “original” 21-year-old died in October while on leave from the University. Adams was living at home in Detroit and taking classes at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University at the time. He was a high school Monopoly champion always looking for another eager player, said Rebecca Chastang ’07. Chastang met Adams during their ﬁrst year at Brown but got to know him better when both were Minority Peer Counselors in Keeney Quadrangle their sophomore year. ““Arin must have had some kind of ultra patience,” Chastang said,

referring to Adams’ ability to sit through long games of Monopoly. Adams applied that patience to friends as well. He was “extremely supportive” and gave thoughtful advice, he said. When Chastang had problems, Adams helped her think about them in different, more logical ways. Adams taught Chastang to “challenge myself.” Adams pushed the limits of thought of his friends and classmates. ““Arin would debate about anything. She could argue with you how fast the book would fall from the table,” Chastang said. Though biologically female, Adams began to identify as male in his junior year at Brown, Jamal Shipman ’07 told The Herald in October. “He would get upset if someone close to her slipped up and called her a female,” said Shipman, who was an MPC with Adams in Keeney. Adams had two Facebook proﬁles, one for Brown and one for the University of Michigan. In both, Adams identiﬁed as male. But many of those who knew Adams at Brown thought of him as female. And though gender issues were important to Adams, “her three years at Brown was not about her (gender) identity transitioning,” Chastang said. “It was about trying new things and meeting new people, just like any-

The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007 | 25

Gusoff continued from page 7

tions. His commitment to HOPE has continued since his ﬁrst year at Brown. Most recently, Gusoff participated in a demonstration against the closing of the Welcome Arnold housing center in Cranston. “This community (HOPE) has been a lot of fun,” Gusoff said. “While we were occupying the Welcome Arnold center, we were playing Outburst Jr., and there was a debate over whether Sacagawea was an American and could be considered one of the 10 great Americans.” During his free time, Gusoff plays basketball in his room, watches one of his three movies

or catches performances by IMPROVidence, an on-campus improvisational comedy troupe. “I’m a big fan of IMPROVidence,” Gusoff confessed. “I tried out junior year and made the call backs, but didn’t make the ﬁnal cut.” He laughed. “I still go to the performances. Those people are so funny.” A smile formed on Gusoff’s face. For a Truman Scholar with a career of exemplary community service at Brown, Gusoff regrets only a few things. “There’s always a lot of things you wish you had done, classes I wish I had taken, friends I’d made. But then you realize it’s time to move on.” He smiled again. “I’m deﬁnitely grateful.”

A diamond to 19 Euclid Ave. Then, now, forever.

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The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007 | 27

Going Global

Brown seeks its place on the world stage Leader of the pack or following the crowd? Brown’s internationalization effort in context BY MICHAEL SKOCPOL Though new at Brown, a focus on internationalization is far from unique. Many colleges and universities — both in America and abroad — have undertaken similar initiatives in recent years. “It’s absolutely the flavor of the month, probably the flavor of the decade,” said Philip Altbach, director of Boston College’s Center for International Higher Education. “Lots of campuses are trying to internationalize themselves in many different ways.” These efforts include initiatives both on campus and overseas, from setting up satellite campuses in foreign countries — which President Ruth Simmons said Brown will not do — to offering more courses in nontraditional languages, something Brown has already done. Other schools have set up committees similar to Brown’s and have appointed administrators whose focus is international, though often in less senior positions than vice president, Altbach said. “Having a vice-presidential position gives it significant visibility,” he said. “It means that Brown is taking it seriously.” By revving up international programs, “Brown is in tune with the rest of the country,” agreed Madeleine Green, vice president for international initiatives at the American Council on Education. In fact, Altbach said, Brown’s international aspirations are hardly groundbreaking. “Brown, like Harvard and Yale, are a little bit late to the game,” Altbach said. “A lot of other schools have been internationally involved and proactive for a long time.” “The Ivy League generally speaking has not been in a leadership position on all this stuff,” he added. Seeing results It remains unclear where Brown may ultimately have the most tangible success in this effort, as both Green and Altbach said internationalization has meant different things for different colleges and universities. One area of national focus is study abroad. “There’s good news and bad news there,” Green said. “The good news is we’re at an continued on page 31

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BY SCOTT LOWENSTEIN AND MICHAEL SKOCPOL When Ashfia Rahman ’07, a native of Bangladesh, was applying to college, she researched Ivy League schools online and ultimately chose Brown because of its economics offerings. But upon reaching her final decision, she made an interesting discovery: very few people around her had actually heard of Brown University. “In Bangladesh, the only (Western) schools people know about of are Harvard and Oxford,” Rahman said. It was precisely Brown’s lack of presence abroad that President Ruth Simmons had in mind when she and Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 announced the University’s internationalization initiative last fall. They created a committee chaired by Kertzer and called for Brown to hire its first vice president for international affairs. The effort may already be paying off. International applications to the College rose by more than 15 percent for the class of 2011 over the previous year’s numbers. According to a poll conducted by The Herald last fall, over 70 percent of students approve of internationalization as a goal for the University. But what exactly is an international Brown, and how far is the University from that goal? Though international students and study abroad programs have been fixtures of College Hill for years, the formal internationalization initiative is fresh and, according to Simmons, vital to the future of all Brown students. “Brown goes back to its original mission, which is to educate students for a life of usefulness and reputation. There is no such thing as usefulness in the modern world without that international perspective,” Simmons said. “We

are pursuing internationalization … to serve our students better, to bring to their attention the need to focus on international issues (and) to bring to the attention of the world Brown’s seriousness about being involved as a member of the international community.” This potential for increased visibility and involvement is at the heart of internationalization. “This is all about people hearing about Brown around the world, and anything we can do to make that happen, given our resources, we’ve simply got to do,” Simmons said. “Until we are on people’s mind in that way …we are not going to be the international university that we want to be.” Not only is visibility in international circles essential to attracting the best students from abroad, it is a key component of Brown’s larger goal of improving its image among all universities — both in the United States and abroad. “Virtually every major university has a very aggressive effort in international education, and in order for us to be in that peer group and to have legitimacy in that peer group, they have to be aware of what we are doing,” Simmons said. Brown’s internationalization effort will focus on improving Brown’s international image by coordinating resources already at the University and forging new ones through strategic planning and development, according to Kertzer. “Brown already is highly international,” Kertzer said. “Though we have institutional links with many universities around the world, these have tended to be in the province of individual departments or individual faculty members, and hasn’t been part of a larger, university-wide strategy.” By coordinating these existing programs, the University hopes to

take advantage of what is already available to improve its international proﬁle. The challenges ahead Though many speciﬁc goals relating to the internationalization initiative will be tackled in the next few years, administrators are quick to point out that Brown will have to be careful to prioritize. The University’s relatively small endowment and alumni base means it cannot compete dollar for dollar with peer institutions’ large and expensive international programs. “We are not going to have a lot of the things that MIT and Harvard and Cornell and other large universities are doing, and so it is naturally harder for us to gain the kind of traction that they have because we are smaller and we are not going to make the same level of investment in other parts of the world as some might,” Simmons said. So what’s the answer to the money crunch? Taking advantage of existing networks and establishing partnerships across the world will, ideally, help Brown overcome its present shortcomings, Simmons said. One important aspect of ramped-up networking efforts is “a different kind of travel,” as administrators seek out relationships with other universities across the world. “Before, we waited for opportunities to fall into our laps,” Sim-

mons said. Now, “we are saying to people in different parts of the world that Brown is an international university, that there are many opportunities at Brown for international research and scholarship and that Brown students have interest in internships and study in their universities.” These networks may provide Brown students new opportunities in places like China, India, Brazil and Africa. “We also hear the same thing from alums when we go (abroad) and that is ‘you are not doing enough here,’” Simmons said. “If you are an alum in China, it is irritating to see MIT, Yale and Harvard all the time. What you are longing for is for people to know about your university, and how good it is, so when we go to China … and give visibility to the fact that Brown is a part of the international community, it makes a huge difference to the alums there.” She continued: “Our goal is to connect (alums) to us, give them a sense that we are helping them if they try to advance Brown’s interests in their part of the world and to come up with concrete suggestions for what we can do to enliven the effort.”

initiatives. A report from the committee will serve as a blueprint for Brown’s international efforts in the coming years. In late April, members of the committee and its working groups told The Herald that an Africa development center and a new center to coordinate Brown’s global health activities were among projects the committee would consider. (At press time, the committee had been divided into subgroups, including global health; global environment and poverty; and global humanities in curriculum. All subcommittees were to have reported to the full committee by May 10. Assistant Provost Shelley Stephenson told The Herald in late April that the full committee would begin producing its final report on May 22.) One working group on the committee is heading the search for a vice president for international affairs, a new administrative position focused on globally representing Brown and coordinating the University’s international initiatives. Brown received over 300 applications for the position, the duties of which include acting as a liaison between the University and international organizations, such as governments, non-profit organizations and corporations. Not all aspects of the internationalization effort will take place in other countries, as the University can also stimulate international understanding through “fixing

holes in the existing curriculum,” Kertzer said. For example, the East Asian studies department’s strength lies in literature, language and history, but it has major gaps in the study of contemporary East Asia, especially China, according to Kertzer. Patching these holes in the curriculum will strengthen Brown’s international focus academically. Other efforts already underway include supplementing financial aid to international students and increasing the diversity of foreign language offerings, Kertzer said. The creation of the new Rhodes Center for International Economics will facilitate international studies by improving collaboration between the economics department and the Watson Institute for International Studies and funding a high-profile professorship in global trade or finance. Kertzer also pointed to the appointment of former Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke ’62 to the Watson Institute as an important forward step in internationalization. Simmons is working with Ronald Margolin, vice president for international advancement, to create regional advisory counsels, composed of “alumni, parents and friends of Brown” in crucial regions and countries throughout the world. The first of those, in Asia, are already in the works and will be in place by the end of the next academic year, Margolin said.

Speciﬁc initiatives Crucial to laying the foundation of Brown’s international future is the committee on internationalization, which, under Kertzer’s guidance, will recommend areas of focus and possible new The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007 | 29

THEE INTERNATIONAL TH I NTERNATIONAL EFFORT IN ACTION Learning on the job, halff a world away

BY MICHAEL SKOCPOL Last summer, Elisabeth Kruger ’07 left the friendly conﬁnes of College Hill to help build an international convention center halfway around the world. Kruger traveled to India to work for Reliance Industries Ltd., a private sector powerhouse in India in the oil, chemical and textile industries. She and fellow Brunonian Ana Mahony ’06 worked for the Mumbai-based company for over a month, gaining business savvy and a taste for living and working in a different culture. Kruger and Mahony were among 12 Brown seniors and recent graduates who traveled to India last summer to work for companies in Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta. Theirs was the ﬁrst group to take part in an internship program for concentrators in Brown’s new interdisciplinary Commerce, Organizations, and

Entrepreneurship program. Kruger and Mahony were involved in hiring an architect, conducting soil samples and visiting the construction site for the convention center, a central component of the country’s effort to build infrastructure for a “special economic zone” designed to attract international investment. Special economic zones are already common in China, and the concept is now gaining ground in India, Kruger said. The internship also allowed the duo to meet many of the company’s department heads and to spend time working in the company’s retail division, which operates large outlets Kruger likened to Wal-Mart. Her time in India, she said, taught her more about city planning and construction management than she ever thought she’d learn. “It was more responsibility than I’d say I had at any other job before,” Kruger said.

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She added that she found working in a foreign culture less challenging than she expected. “Work is work and schedules are schedules,” Kruger said. “It wasn’t like working with a bunch of Indians was that different from working with a bunch of Americans.” But, she said, never starting a meeting without first having tea took some getting used to. “They always had time for tea,” she noted. COE’s internship program, first conceived by Vice President for Research Clyde Briant during conversations with alums and others during a 2004 trip to India, will send another nine students — rising junior and senior COE concentrators — to work in India this summer. The program benefits from connections with alums and others with ties to Brown who are currently in India, some of whom are leaders of the businesses in-

volved. The companies provide room and board for the students, and a special donor fund set up to foster exchange with India covers travel expenses. Administrators point to the program as a model for the new sort of international initiatives Brown hopes to develop. Maria Carkovic, administrative director of the COE program, said the project is designed to give students a variety of skills. “In a way, it is like any internship, plus the added cultural adjustment,” she said. “I think that immersion is very immediate and full when you’re working as opposed to being on a campus with students from your own country.” For Kruger, the internship provided not only experience, but a new sense of conﬁdence. “I realized I’m comfortable living and working abroad,” Kruger said. “I would deﬁnitely do that in the future.”

continued from page 28

all-time high, the bad news is that’s still a tiny fraction of students in U.S. higher education and most of them are going for short-term programs.” Altbach agreed there is a need to increase not only the number of students going abroad, but also the amount of time they devote to overseas programs. “I talk about it as not the junior year abroad, but the junior two weeks abroad,” he said. “That’s a joke, but it’s true to some extent.” Study abroad is an area where Brown presently excels. For the 2004-05 academic year, the Institute of International Education ranked Brown No. 19 among U.S. universities, with 37.8 percent of undergraduates earning credit abroad that year. Among Ivy League schools, only Dartmouth ranked higher. Still, there is room for improvement, said Kendall Brostuen, director of international programs and associate dean of the College. Brown would like to “get students thinking about going to less traditional destinations,” he said, noting that over 60 percent of Brown students who study overseas do so in Europe. On campus, Green said, the question facing schools is, “Can you ensure that students who don’t study abroad are still literate internationally?” Altbach said promoting foreign language study — which he said has declined in the United States in the last 10 years — has been a key component of internationalization efforts. Study of important languages such as Chinese, Arabic, Hindi and Japanese is “pitifully low” in the United States, he added. “Internationalization of the curriculum has been a major strategy,” Green said. This often entails offering more courses and concentrations with international bents, and it can also involve approaches outside of the classroom, such as bringing more foreign speakers to campus.

Enrolling more international students is another way U.S. colleges and universities are seeking to internationalize, Green said, adding that the numbers of foreign students studying in the United States dropped off because of heightened security efforts following Sept. 11, 2001. A long-term process At the same time, the attacks provided a major impetus for the current wave of internationalization efforts, Green said. “In the short term, September 11 has really intensified the whole national awareness and dialogue about internationalization,” Green said. But, she noted, “there have been international efforts on campuses … since the aftermath of World War II.” According to both Green and Altbach, schools have seen significant results within a few years of formal internationalization efforts, but the overall focus is generally long-term. Bringing more international students to campus and building on existing foreign programs “is not rocket science,” Altbach said, and can be done quickly. Raising foreign language enrollments and building significant new academic collaborations overseas can take longer, he said. “You have to take the long view,” Green said. “The impact is first of all longterm and second of all is cumulative.” As a result, she added, a university looking to internationalize needs to establish and monitor quantifiable measures of progress, such as raising international student enrollment or attendance at foreign speakers’ lectures. Either way, she said, internationalization is a process that will continue far beyond the current wave of activity. “The world has changed. If an institution wants to provide a high-quality education, it has to think of itself as internationally focused,” Green said. “This isn’t going to go away.”

To increase language offerings, Fulbright program brings int’l students to Brown BY SCOTT LOWENSTEIN Mohammed Mgori is on a mission: to teach Brown students and faculty Swahili, the most widely spoken language in sub-Saharan African, as well as elements of Swahili culture. But he sees himself as more than just a ﬁgure standing in the front of a classroom. “Yes, I am a teacher but I am also a cultural ambassador,” he said. Originally from Tanzania, Mgori is at Brown through the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program, which gives scholarships to native speakers of languages not commonly taught in the United States. In exchange for one year of study, these assistants teach their native language to students at their sponsor university, said Merle Krueger, associate director of the Center for Language Studies. Though this is the second year that the course has been offered by an FLTA, the University does not offer academic credit for the course because there is no permanent program in Swahili. Still, interest in the class has been high both years, Krueger said, noting that over 100 students expressed interest in learning Swahili this year and last. Enrollment in Mgori’s introductory Swahili class last semester was up to 30 students, though it has dropped to 10 this semester because of scheduling conﬂicts. The course is demanding, consid-

ering its not-for-credit status, Krueger said. It meets for three hours a week, and students are assigned homework and given exams. Though the workload lightened in the spring semester, commitment to the class is essential for continued improvement, Mgori said. “My goal is to teach my students how to read, write and speak Swahili well … so they can live in Tanzania or other places where (Swahili) is spoken,” Mgori said. “This requires constant interaction and practice.” Along with class meetings, Mgori runs a “Swahili table” at local eateries to encourage the high level of oral communication necessary to be proficient at the language. Swahili is not the only language to benefit from the FLTA Program and other external grants. The University has an FLTA in Arabic and has applied for a third to instruct the Persian language Farsi, Krueger said. Haitian Creole is also being offered for the first time next year, funded with a grant from the Education Department to improve Caribbean studies. “Learning languages is the key to understanding at any level of sophistication the culture and the mentality of other peoples and language groups,” Krueger said. “Brown is expanding its faculty in languages … to meet the demand of Brown students, who are assiduously studying foreign languages.”

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Senior Survey

Members of the class of 2007 reflect on their time at Brown Do you feel smarter today than you were four years ago?

Yes: 79.9%

No: 7.7%

Not sure: 12.4%

About the survey The Herald polled 216 seniors in an online survey about their time at Brown. This survey is not scientiﬁc and reﬂects the opinions only of those seniors who chose to participate. Non-responses were omitted from the results.

www.browndailyherald.com

In your time at Brown, how satisﬁed have you been with...

Housing? Very satisfied: 19.5% Somewhat satisfied: 61.9% Not satisfied: 16.7% No opinion/does not apply: 1.4% Meal plan? Very satisfied: 9.5% Somewhat satisfied: 54.8% Not satisfied: 33.8% No opinion/does not apply: 1.9% Facilities? Very satisfied: 11.9% Somewhat satisfied: 69.5% Not satisfied: 17.1% No opinion/does not apply: 1.4% Financial aid? Very satisfied: 12.9% Somewhat satisfied: 18.6% Not satisfied: 23.3% No opinion/does not apply: 45.2% Your choice of concentration? Very satisfied: 57.6% Somewhat satisfied: 35.2% Not satisfied: 7.1% Your professors? Very satisfied: 48.1% Somewhat satisfied: 47.6% Not satisfied: 4.3% Your overall academic experience? Very satisfied: 62.4% Somewhat satisfied: 32.9% Not satisfied: 4.8% Your fellow students? Very satisfied: 49.3% Somewhat satisfied: 44.5% Not satisfied: 6.2%

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4.8% of seniors have hooked up with a professor or TA.

73.8% of seniors own an iPod.

56.9% of seniors have attended Brown Night at Fish Co.

40.5% have attended SexPowerGod or Starf*ck.

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What do you plan to do directly after graduation?

Do you feel like you are selling out? Yes: 7.7% No: 92.3%

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Where will you be living after graduation? •

New York City: 12.7%

•

A hipster walkup in Brooklyn: 1%

•

Boston: 11.2%

•

Providence: 13.7%

•

Washington, D.C.: 6.8%

•

Chicago: 2.9%

•

Los Angeles: 2.4%

•

San Francisco: 3.4%

•

Elsewhere in the West: 5.8%

•

Elsewhere in the South: 6.8%

•

Elsewhere in the Midwest: 4.4%

•

Canada: 1%

•

Europe: 5.4%

•

East Asia: 2%

•

South Asia: 1%

•

Latin America: 2%

•

Africa: 0.5%

•

Middle East: 3.4%

•

Australia: 0.5%

•

Other: 13.2%

89.5% of seniors would pick Brown

if they had to do it again. Who is your favorite Brown professor?

(Professors receiving the most votes)

Jacob Appel Lundy Braun Mari Jo Buhle Ross Cheit Deborah Cohen Mary Gluck Brian Hayden Barrett Hazeltine Jim Head Ross Levine Michael Lysaght Ken Miller Josef Mittlemann Rachel Morello-Frosch James Morone Dietrich Neumann Ralph Rodriguez Wendy Schiller Roberto Serrano Kerry Smith Luther Spoehr Richard Stratt Jan Tullis Ivo Welch Matthew Zimmt The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007 | 35

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48.4% of

seniors have witnessed the Naked Donut Run — 33.5% because they were studying for ﬁnals, 13.9% because they wanted to see it, and 1% because they were naked and bearing donuts.

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50.7% of seniors have eaten at Loui’s after pulling an all-nighter. -nighter -nighter.

27.9% of seniors have

read some of the slavery and justice report.

3.4% of seniors have read all of it.

44.5% of seniors have had

an on-campus job during their time at Brown.

5.7% of seniors have had an off-campus job.

16.7% of seniors have had both.

The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007 | 39

16.8 % of seniors have done the SciLi challenge. What is your home page?

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•

Google: 23%

•

Other: 15.8%

•

The New York Times: 12.4%

•

Brown.edu: 11%

•

The Jolt: 10.5%

•

E-mail: 8.6%

•

Other news: 7.2%

•

CNN: 4.3%

•

ESPN: 3.8%

•

The BBC: 2.9%

•

The Herald: 0.5%

6.3% of seniors have gotten high in the

sapling structure on the Front Green. What is your favorite memory of college? A sample... Capture the Flag on the Main Green at midnight • Seeing Thete run naked past Wriston. That made me feel like a college student • Long Ratty sit-ins • Coming back after holidays with the family and reuniting with my real “family” • Dancing on a counter in a bowling alley after a basketball game in Dartmouth • Falling in love... •Four-square with gin and tonic in hand • Freshman year year, sitting in the hallway at 4 a.m. talking to my unitmates • Dancing to “Run Around Sue” at the D-Phi Patio Party • Drinking and smoking in an igloo on the quiet green • Hanging out in the Keeney first floor lounge all hours of the day with my unit • Spending summers in Providence working for WBRU • Freshman year, during the first real sno snowstorm, the Main Green was covered with little excited freshmen shmen playing with the sno snow. We took pictures and went sledding with Ratty trays. I will never forget that day • Getting high and stealing Nutella from the V-Dub • Losing mad weight over one of the summers and coming back as one of the hottest people ever to grace this campus! • Melting cheese onto French fries at the V-Dub and then dipping them in ranch dressing • Pulling all-nighters not to do work but to make new friends • My feeling of liberation when I dropped econometrics the day before the final • Midnight organ concert freshman year. And turning in my senior thesis • Playing in the Brown Band at football, basketball and hockey games • TWTP: 4 years in a row. Also, going to the March for Women’s Lives in DC • Playing pranks in the hallowed halls of Harkness • Spring Weekends. Sunny days full of wiffle ball. Epic nights full of drunken tackle wiffle ball • Sitting on the Main

Green for hours with my closest friends drinking iced coffee from the Blue Room and doing the BDH crossword while the magnolia trees bloom. The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007 | 41

19.4% of seniors have had zero sexual partners at Brown, while 2.5% have had more than they can or wish to count. Which of the following best describes your Herald readership?

6.7% of seniors read it every day, cover to cover.

76.9% of seniors

skim the headlines and any important stories.

8.7% of seniors

only pick up the paper for the crossword/ sudoku.

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Editors’ Columns

The Herald’s 116th editorial board weighs in on life at Brown

I don’t want to write a thesis How capstone projects can revive the New Curriculum

BY ROBBIE COREY-BOULET Challenging the merits of Brown’s current curricular offerings is, as they say, pretty hot right now. Accordingly, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron recently began a largescale review of all aspects of the New Curriculum with her Task Force on Undergraduate Education. Even The Herald’s editorial page, a longtime defender of the curriculum in its present condition, recently conceded that “what might have been appropriate for Brown — and for Brown students — in 1969 might not be right in 2007.”

At the root of these challenges lies a concern about whether the curriculum’s self-directed nature and lack of distribution requirements leave Brown students without important, even necessary, skills — knowledge of a foreign language, say, or the ability to multiply and divide. This concern is, perhaps, a bit misguided. What worries me most about the New Curriculum is not the notion that students abuse its self-directed nature to learn impractical things, but rather that too many students — and a large number of seniors — might not be learning much of anything. Senior year at Brown tends to be something of an anticlimax — academically, at least. From the moment we arrive on College Hill, students hear that we alone are the architects of our educations and that we beneﬁt from academic freedom unmatched by other schools. And many of us do our best to meet the challenge inherent in such statements: in an effort to ﬁnd a suitable academic path, we shop courses aggressively, we research departments and we consult friends, professors and Meiklejohns. When sophomore spring rolls around, we pick

a concentration, find an adviser and write two essays (of dubious significance, but that’s another column) about our interest in our chosen field. For too many of us, this is the crowning moment. After we file our concentration forms, the next four semesters entail little beyond meeting basic departmental requirements and completing a set number of courses. The most viable existing option for students looking to expand beyond required coursework is the honors thesis, a lengthy research paper that requires at least a two-semester commitment. The appeal of the thesis is pretty limited, however, in no small part because it is often viewed merely as a way to get an honors designation on a transcript and/or as something that will come in handy when it comes time to apply to graduate school. Accordingly, only 27.8 percent of seniors wrote an honors thesis last year, a figure that has hovered between 26 and 33 percent over the last decade. For those of us not writing theses, concluding academic experiences during senior year continued on page 50

Hero worship

The M McLoughlin maple and the meaning of Meiklejohn BY JUSTIN ELLIOTT “I dare not trust the willing middlemen of life, the men who like arranging other men and their affairs, who ﬁnd manipulation satisfying to their souls. These men if they can have their way will make of life a smooth, well-lubricated meaninglessness.” —Alexander Meiklejohn, class of 1893, on college administrators “It gives you a sense of place, a sense of perspective. And it saves you from hero-worship. The people I consider heroes are the ones who never get into the history books.” —The late professor William McLoughlin, in 1983, on the study of history Historians, a professor of mine commented last year, love nothing more than to tear down a hero. And sure enough, thinking back, my history professors at Brown seemed to relish knocking down conventional narratives every chance they got. Thus I was taught in Civil War history that Lincoln, the “Great Emancipator” himself, proposed in 1862 a compromise whereby the 48 | The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007

South could keep its slaves until the late date of January 1, 1900. In an excellent course on the (highly contested) history of Zionism, David Ben-Gurion did not exactly come off as a hero in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes. And we now know that even the early benefactors of our great northern University were deeply implicated in slavery and the slave trade. The past as presented in Brown history classes was always more complicated — and usually gloomier — than ofﬁcial pieties would have had it. But four years of absorbing critiques, however convincing they are, gets tiresome. Unrelenting negativism in history is unsatisfying. That’s why I’m pleased to submit for your consideration the two men quoted above, my favorite Brown alum and favorite faculty member, respectively. Heroes, happily, need not always be torn down. I ﬁrst encountered William McLoughlin’s name on a wooden plank nailed to a tree in a small park on Waterman Street. Further research revealed that the old tree, next to the American Civilization department at 82 Waterman St., was a storied sycamore maple. So

why was a plank nailed to the maple’s trunk, and what about the odd little birdhouse sitting on a low-lying branch? These curiosities are relics of a ﬁght over the future of the tree in the early 1980s. An effort led by environmental studies professors was underway to convert the Lucian Sharpe Carriage House at 135 Angell St., adjacent to the tree, into an innovative Urban Environmental Laboratory. A key element of the project was solar panels on the south side of the roof, but there was one problem: the sycamore maple, the UEL designers feared, would continued on page 50

Giving back

In defense of the liberal arts

Why I chose to su support Brown

The ramblings of an unrepentant history concentrator BY STEPHANIE CLARK

BY BEN MILLER On my final full day of classes as an undergraduate, I sat down at my computer and did something I never thought I would do: I gave a gift to Brown. Completing the transaction was quick and painless — a few clicks and my gift of $20.07 was accepted and a confirmation e-mail was waiting in my inbox. But getting to that point took me a long time and a lot of thought. For some, the notion of “giving back” to a school that cost roughly $160,000 over four years may seem absurd. But at its most basic level, the argument for donating to Brown goes something like this: Your tuition only covers a fraction of what it costs for you to attend, while the rest was largely financed by generous gifts from those who came before you. Therefore, it is incumbent upon today’s alums to fulfill that role for the generation that follows. Having had the privilege of attending a private high school, I fully understood the logic behind this argument, but still I questioned its applicability to my situation. From my first semester here I had felt let down in one way or another, from the lack of small classes, career advisers who think the only jobs out there are in the tech or consulting fields, a feeling that the school was moving ever closer to a math, science and pre-profes-

sional focus, to the fact that I lost my advisor six weeks into my first year and did not get another one until the end of my sophomore year. As my frustrations piled up I became more and more determined that I would be a lifelong member of the “Not One Penny,” or NOP, club, as my cousin referred to it. Thus, when spring of senior year rolled around and the Office of Development began its big push for 70 percent participation for this year’s senior gift, I was confident that my name would not be one of the roughly 1,084 seniors they would need to meet this goal. I attended the gift kickoff on March 7, took a class photo with President Ruth Simmons and politely listened to her announce that she was contributing $20,007 out of her own pocket. Still, I felt little motivation to take out my credit card. My decision had nothing to do with the amount of money requested. According to Johancontinued on page 51

I am not an economics concentrator. Nor, for that matter, do I concentrate in engineering or computer science. I will not be making a six-figure salary immediately upon receiving my degree. In fact, there is nothing about my education thus far that has provided me with any marketable skills. It’s a good thing I don’t know anything about economics, because if I did, I would realize that the return on the $160,000 investment that was my undergraduate education is pretty much zero. Brown’s charter begins: “Whereas Institutions for liberal Education are highly beneficial to Society, by forming the rising Generation to Virtue Knowledge & useful Literature & thus preserving in the Community a Succession of Men duly qualify’d for discharging the Offices of Life with usefulness and reputation.” The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines “liberal arts” as “the academic course of instruction at a college intended to provide general knowledge and comprising the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences, as opposed to professional or technical subjects.” It also tells me that the term comes from the medieval term “artes liberales,” which translates to “works befitting a free man.” (Bear with the historical interlude – I’m a history

concentrator.) For a long time, education was a luxury. Instead of beginning their lives immediately with work, the privileged few were able to spend a few years just learning. The result of this luxury was an educated elite that knew more than was necessary for their dayto-day survival. Our education today, as Brown students, is just as luxurious and just as much of a privilege. But we don’t see it that way anymore. The democratization of education has begun to even out opportunities and make into a reality the American dream of upward mobility. It has also increased the number of smart, knowledgeable people, and turned the upper echelon of educated society into a much wider ﬁeld — a ﬁeld that we need a special edge to navigate. continued on page 51

All talk and no action Life at a “hotbed of liberal activism” BY KATIE LAMM As a campus tour guide last summer I ﬁelded a variety of awkward questions about Brown, ranging from the somewhat unoriginal (“What did YOU get on the SAT?”) to the vaguely disdainful (“Can’t you major in underwater basket weaving here?”). After a few spins around the campus with large tour groups in tow, however, most of these queries proved easy to manage with a few wellrehearsed words and a big smile. But there was one question that I could never answer comfortably. It usually went something like this: “I heard that Brown is really

liberal. Is that true?” The more conservative tourgoers usually were looking for assurance that they (or their child) would not be ostracized at Brown, while those of a more liberal variety tended to want assurance that they would be welcomed into a left-winger’s paradise of tolerance and social activism. But my discomfort in answering this question had less to do with ﬁguring out who needed which response — that was easy enough — and more with my actual feelings about the University’s political climate. Though Brown is known for being a bastion of liberalism and a hotbed of social ac-

tivism, these descriptions don’t quite match my own experience as a student. As a high-schooler, I had heard that Brown was full of hippies, commies and anarchists, that all of them were militant activists, that political correctness was the rule both in and out of class, and that not a single Republican could be found on campus. Despite being left of center myself, I was somewhat apprehensive about entering a politically homogenous community in which no one would challenge my views. I imagined sweeping campus protests occurring constantly, complete with laughably

obscure, knee-jerk liberal causes and a strict dress code of tie-dye and hemp garb (shoes optional, of course). Fortunately, the campus’ friendly, vibrant atmosphere and self-directed curriculum won continued on page 52

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CoreyBoulet continued from page 48

vary depending on our concentrations, though typically they are far less demanding. Some departments, like international relations, require some form of senior seminar, while others, like economics, require only that seniors pass 10 classes. Enter senior capstone projects — perhaps the most promising potential savior of a curriculum that, by some accounts, is ﬂagging. Ever since assuming her post in University Hall last summer, Bergeron has been pushing to expand these projects, in part because, as she recently told me, large-scale projects undertaken during senior year “get mixed into that kind of idea of things coming to an end” and can help students make sound postgraduate decisions. What’s more, she said, widening the concept of what constitutes “capstone” work — or conceiving of capstones as “the thesis in the broadest sense” — complements Brown’s tradition of valuing a nontraditional approach to higher education. Recent thesis-survivor Natasha Bronn ’07 — who is also a member of the College Curriculum Council, which has addressed the issue of senior capstone projects — told me she believes “a lot of people would be surprisingly happy with a sort of pet project” to work on during senior year. She added that such projects could provide an alternative for students who might not

take kindly to the idea of spending their last semesters holed up in a carrel at the Rockefeller Library. I happen to agree. But what form will capstone projects take, and what sort of credit will students get for taking one on? Bergeron told me she envisions anything from research to internships as falling into the capstone category, adding that the projects will also likely involve close work with a faculty mentor. Regarding the question of credit for capstone work, she said, “You always can explore the idea of how this can become visible on the transcript, but that shouldn’t be the point.” It’s true that students should pursue capstone projects out of an innate desire to enhance their educations, but, realistically, how many students will attempt such projects when tangible incentives aren’t clearly defined? In order to establish capstone projects as a viable alternative to the honors thesis — one that engages more students in more creative ways — they should probably be accompanied by some sort of transcript notation, even if it’s not an honors designation. Clearly, specific details about capstones are not yet outlined. Here’s hoping the Task Force on Undergraduate Education, which is charged with addressing the issue (and first met April 19), can successfully work toward defining requirements and parameters. Once this is accomplished, seniors can realistically consider a culminating academic experience that lies somewhere between finishing a 100-page research paper and waking up in time for that last City Politics section.

Calling all Herald alums... Join us for a cocktail reception to catch up with old colleagues and reminisce about your days (or nights) at the paper.

Saturday, May 26, 4-6 p.m. ,195 Angell St. 50 | The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007

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block light from reaching the panels in the winter months and therefore needed to be felled. But McLoughlin, a popular history professor whose office was next door in the AmCiv building, objected. The AmCiv department stood “to lose the tree and its shade during the summer, as well as a verdant oasis under which they hold classes and their Commencement ceremony,” according to a Brown Alumni Magazine article at the time. So McLoughlin mounted a protest, circulating a petition against the UEL’s plan. Save-the-tree buttons were distributed. An unusual debate ensued, pitting professional environmentalists against an amateur tree-hugger. When the UEL’s architects presented technical data showing why the tree had to go, McLoughlin responded with a crucial anti-corporate observation: “It’s a question of values, not who has the best statistics,” he said. “If you talk in terms of quantifiable utilitarian concerns, you miss the heart of the controversy.” McLoughlin was a dedicated citizen and had served as chairman of the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union. An experienced protester, he would go downtown on Friday afternoons to demonstrate against U.S. military involvement in El Salvador. McLoughlin’s first act of civil disobedience had been at the State House in the 1960s in support of a fair housing law. So it’s not surprising that he didn’t back down in the fight over the tree. In the end, the sycamore maple was saved for future generations and, to this day, the UEL functions perfectly well. The plank and birdhouse were add-

ed later in McLoughlin’s honor. This weekend may be your last chance to enjoy the McLoughlin maple. If current plans are carried out, the grounds of the small park will soon make up the midsection of a 30,000 square foot “Creative Arts Center.” With a $30 million price tag, the four-story building will be a “multidisciplinary space for the arts” complete with galleries and, yes, a caf café. No protester, to my knowledge, has emerged to save the park or the tree (or, for that matter, the handsome Second Empire-style Victorian next door). The new building will be bulky, expensive and no doubt efﬁcient — likely a must-stop on future admissions tours. We can be sure McLoughlin would have despised it. The name of Alexander Meiklejohn, class of 1893, is well known around Brown, not merely nailed to a tree. There is a Meiklejohn advising program, an annual Meiklejohn lecture and a Meiklejohn house. But my ﬁrst real encounter with the First Amendment scholar came while reading a collection by the late, great journalist I.F. Stone. Stone had a touching piece on Meiklejohn’s death in 1964. He wrote: “Few men have combined such deep conviction with such courtesy towards opposing points of view, such foreboding about man’s fate with so sweet a serenity and so ever-fresh a joy. He was a philosopher in the ancient sense; his concerns were the good life and the good society.” My interest was piqued. I read up on Meiklejohn and discovered the brilliant life of a teacher and free-speech absolutist. An occasional contributor to The Herald as an undergraduate, Meiklejohn later took a post in Brown’s philosophy department and

learned the ropes of administration as a dean. In 1912 Meiklejohn became president of Amherst College and made anything but a “meaninglessness” of his time at the small college. He angered the school’s establishment by urging amateur, not professional, coaching of collegiate sports (though he personally excelled at squash and cricket). He established courses, taught by both faculty and students, for workers at local mills. He made it known he wouldn’t mind having a Bolshevik on the faculty, providing that the man could teach. And before America entered World War I, Meiklejohn opposed “preparedness training” on campus. This was a time when college presidents were not mere glorified fundraisers, parachuting onto campus a few times a year to stand before a podium and emit platitudes. Meiklejohn spoke with a distinct moral and political voice. His time at Amherst is fascinating, but Meiklejohn’s inspirational work — work now regaining its former urgency — was on the Constitution. An early critic of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Meiklejohn fiercely defended all forms of speech short of overt incitement of violence. Meiklejohn testified before Congress in 1955 on the meaning of the First Amendment: “To be afraid of any idea is to be unfit for self-government,” he said. “Any such suppression of ideas about the common good, the First Amendment condemns with its absolute disapproval.” Looking back, Meiklejohn and McLoughlin, two principled nonconformists, seem remarkably like kindred spirits. They deserve to be remembered. Here’s to raising up the heroes of Brown’s history.

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Who has time to learn for learning’s sake anymore? We double-concentrate and we head clubs and we take classes that will look good on a transcript. We cram for tests and we regurgitate information so that we get good grades, because who can afford not to these days? Of course, we’re not just achievement-producing robots. We care about things, too. We want to save Darfur and end the war in Iraq and get rid of sweatshop labor. We want to fix the world and make sure we’re qualified for our corporate dream job — all before Commencement. We are more productive college students than ever before, but I’m afraid we’re learning much less. Maybe not in volume (we scan the day’s headlines online while taking notes on our laptops in class), but certainly in depth. Everything that doesn’t directly pertain to our success is ignored and discarded. And can you really blame us? We live in a world where action is rewarded and intellectualism is sneered at. We live in a world where results are produced by shock and awe and missions are accomplished in a matter of weeks. Where the Decider sticks to his guns and those who are swayed by arguments are flip-floppers. Changing your mind is a weakness, being slow a character flaw. Our expensive educations are investments that are expected to reap financial and social benefits down the road. And so our education has turned into a competitive career training ground. We have become grade-grubbers and resume-padders. Even the most optimistic among us are tempered and realistic; we see pure idealism

as the na naïïïve ve purview of our parents’ 1960s. Older generations see our lackluster political involvement as apathy or indifference, but in reality it’s an unfortunate understanding of the world as a universal marketplace, in which good ideas matter very little unless you can turn them into a product. Our most pressing question upon graduation is not “How much did I learn?” but “How marketable am I?” In this whirlwind of young competitors, I feel lucky to stand among the graduates of the University’s class of 2007. Brown students tend to be interesting and interested, and I have met more people at Brown excited about learning for learning’s sake than I have anywhere else. No matter how we spent our four years at Brown, I am sure that every one of us has upheld Brown’s charter goal of becoming qualiﬁed for discharging the ofﬁces of life with usefulness and reputation. But it’s still far too easy to get sucked into the maelstrom of action and achievement. The most important thing that we can remember, as those blessed enough to receive a liberal arts education of the highest quality, is that learning never needs a goal. Education can — and should — be an end in itself. The art of conversation should be valued for more than networking, and the ability to think critically and argue effectively should be skills used for more than board meetings. The world does have real problems, and to solve them we’ll need to know how to think, not just how to beat the competition. Of course, ask me again next year when I’m eating ramen noodles and begging someone to pay me to discuss 19th-century abolitionism. Do any econ concentrators out there have a couch for me to sleep on?

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na Corcoran, the Brown Annual Fund’s assistant director for student programs, gifts from this year’s seniors have ranged from $1 to $1,000. While I could afford something on the lower end of that spectrum, I felt that giving anything would be in some way rewarding an experience that did not merit it. Then came my last Spring Weekend. Sitting on the Main Green, barbequing at a friend’s house, performing the fast food song at Dave Binder, I started to rethink my decision. Looking around and seeing people I had grown to know very well over four years, I ﬁnally realized why I should give a gift to Brown. I had been thinking about giving to Brown from the wrong perspective. I looked at the situation as an economics concentrator. I felt that the price of Brown’s education had adequately reﬂected the academic, residential, recreational and other services I received. But I had failed to

see the externalities that had been around me all along. What I realized after that weekend was that a gift to Brown might help rectify many of the problems I have with the school, but it would also maintain the status quo. Giving back to Brown allows it to keep its reputation for looking beyond the grades and GPAs of applicants to ﬁnd interesting students who also understand the importance of making friends and valuing collaboration over competition. My gift was not about hiring more professors or improving facilities, though that’s likely what it will go to. Instead, it was a positive referendum on the job the admissions ofﬁce has done in picking current and future Brunonians. So, I logged onto my computer and became the 421st person to donate to the senior gift, and now, a few weeks later, I am glad I did. More importantly, I am glad that I did not donate on a whim, or because I felt compelled to by someone else. Instead, I did what Brown teaches us to do. I sat down, thought about

it and then made the decision I felt was right. Now I am not advocating that everyone has to donate, nor am I saying that you are a bad person or don’t care enough about Brown if you don’t. What I am arguing is that making a gift should not be a passive process where you blindly fill out a form online and then move on with your day. Donating at this point, when the goal is to get you accustomed to giving, rather than collecting a specific amount of money, carries with it a certain understanding. My gift is an acknowledgement that there is something about Brown — academically, socially, etc. — that I feel is worth supporting for future generations of students. So, I ultimately did decide to give. But I did not do so because of any specific professor or class. Instead, I’m giving for the friends I have made in four years and for someone else to have the chance to be part of a community that, while far from perfect, does have a lot of positive elements and opportunities. And that’s something I’ll gladly support.

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me over, and I chose to apply anyway. Once at Brown my expectations of extreme liberalism and activism were not met, even though everyone continues to consider this a progressive campus. In my experience, it’s far more common to ﬁnd popped collar-sporting prepsters than patchouli-doused peaceniks. Parties appear more often than protests on most students’ extracurricular schedules. Rather than political correctness, I’ve encountered an array of racial, religious and sexual epithets I’d never heard uttered aloud at my all-girls high school in New York. Our campus is also surprisingly disengaged from contemporary politics considering its reputation. In any given week at Brown, one can ﬁnd a wide range of lectures, meetings and other events focused on sociopolitical issues, often with a left-wing slant. But many of these events are poorly attended. Take, for example, an April lec-

ture by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, a consistent critic of the Bush administration’s claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as well as current U.S. policy in the Middle East. Though one might have expected Ritter to draw a large sampling of Brown’s supposedly liberal, anti-Bush student body, the lecture hall was just one-third full. This is often the case, though larger-name speakers — the kind your friends at home might be impressed by, like the Clintons or Barack Obama — usually bring in a full house. Brown students may call themselves liberal, but most spend little time informing and enriching their political views. Beyond the large portion of Brown students who are simply not engaged in political or social causes, many students here just aren’t that liberal. Campus conservatives often bemoan their status as an oppressed minority, but many of them are more outspoken than their liberal peers in and out of class. Most Brunonians are quick to show their support of hot social causes like gay marriage or abortion rights, but their enthusiasm and conviction

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dies down when it comes to other liberal issues like the minimum wage or the welfare state. In fact, the fantastic Flaming Lips concert at this year’s Spring Weekend offered perhaps the strongest showing of shoeless, peace-loving, pot-smoking hippies I have encountered in the last four years. Along with most other attendees, I cheered the shower of trippy neon confetti and oversized balloons floating from the stage, as well as lead singer Wayne Coyne’s denunciations of the Iraq war and our “retarded” president. I might choose a different word to describe George W. Bush, but these are sentiments with which I — and, apparently, most of my cheering classmates — agree. Around me, however, people became restless and stopped paying attention. A fellow student joked sarcastically, “Well, I’d better cheer or everyone will think I’m a Bush supporter.” This comment highlighted a truism about politics at Brown: much of it is just for show. Most Brunonians will nod in agreement when they hear a standard, easily identifiable liberal position, but a good number of them are rolling their eyes, and the rest aren’t listening at all. Of course, Brown is home to a number of students who have done commendable work on a variety of issues linked with the left (gay rights, homelessness, health care and educational equality, to name a few). The majority of students take part in some form of community service through the Swearer Center for Public Service. These efforts are certainly important contributions to our local and broader communities that should not be ignored. But they are not signs of the radical activism and progressivism for which Brown students are known. The same “student activists” tend to appear in The Herald day after day, either in protest coverage or on the opinions and letters pages. This is symptomatic of a larger trend at Brown: the hardcore few standing for the apathetic, disaffected or otherwise occupied many. I know fewer people taking positions with Teach For America, the Peace Corps and socially conscious non-profits than those joining consulting firms and investment banks. The 2008 presidential race is well under way, but I don’t know of a single acquaintance working for a campaign or political cause after graduation.

There is so much to be proud of at Brown, such as our committed faculty, creative students, distinctive curriculum and beautiful campus. I feel lucky to have spent my undergraduate years here and absolutely would make the same choice to come here if I had to do it over again. But political awareness and activism is one area in which we simply could do better. According to Brown’s Web site, the school’s mission is “to serve the community, the nation, and the world by educating and preparing students to ‘discharge the ofﬁces of life with usefulness and reputation.’” As we stand right now, students are not adequately aware of, engaged in or challenged by the issues that face their community, nation and world to make such a difference. So many here like to consider themselves liberal. But being liberal is not just about nursing one’s liberal guilt by bemoaning the effects of “capitalism” (an oft-misused word around here, by the way — it’s not just a synonym for “injustice”) and laughing at Bush jokes. The superﬁciality of liberalism at Brown, as well as the assumption that we all agree on a few basic issues, prevents us from having legitimate political debates. If students at Brown do care about changing their world — and maybe they don’t, despite the “hotbed of social activism” rep — then they have to be honest about what they believe. Further, if Brown students care to maintain their reputation (and, again, maybe they don’t), they need to become more informed, more engaged and more aware of what they themselves believe. I urge my peers who will be at Brown in the coming years to examine their beliefs. You just might not be that liberal, left, progressive or whatever you like to call it. And that’s OK. Just don’t try to fool yourself (or your classmates, friends and professors, for that matter). The better you know yourself, the better you will be able to challenge your peers, ask questions and see how you can be a “useful” citizen. I’m fairly certain there is a complex array of political beliefs and values beneath the student body’s leftist veneer. If future Brunonians can just bring it to the surface, they will be better able to live up to Brown’s mission. And maybe you’ll spare the tour guides some awkwardness, too.

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COMICS

Chocolate Covered Cotton | Mark Brinker

Deo | Daniel Perez

Freeze-Dried Puppies | Cara FitzGibbon

54 | The Brown Daily Herald | Commencement 2007

How To Get Down | Nate Saunders

WBF | Matt Vascellaro