Wednesday, April 5, 2006 by The Brown Daily Herald

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006

Volume CXLI, No. 43

www.browndailyherald.com

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891 SHORT BUT SWEET This weekend’s Ivy Film Festival showcases several Sundance pictures and 36 student-produced shorts ARTS & CULTURE 5

ALL THE NEWS U.’S SEE FIT TO PRINT ? The Supreme Court refused to hear a case concerning universities censoring school-funded student newspapers CAMPUS WATCH 3

UNDERGRAD UPRISING Jill McCormack ’06 calls for undergraduates to help save the Brown Bookstore from being outsourced OPINIONS 11

TODAY

TOMORROW

wintry mix 47 / 33

cloudy/windy 51 / 37

Online ticket system spells end of Main Green campouts BY SARA WALTER STAFF WRITER

Courtesy of Chioke Harris

Almost 80 percent of New Orleans suffered severe storm damage, including this car near the 17th Street Canal.

New Orleans: seven months later BY ROSS FRAZIER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

NEW ORLEANS — More than 80 Brown students, traveling either in student groups or independently, joined hundreds of others here for their spring breaks, helping to rebuild a city that is still struggling to return to some sense of normalcy more than seven months after Hurricane Katrina. Residents and visitors alike here complain about the media’s coverage of the storm. They charge that the media extensively covers New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, which was the most heavily damaged area during the storm, but neglects other neighborhoods that, though having a greater chance of recovering, were also significantly flooded. The Lower Ninth Ward does indeed make for great TV footage — the area is like a ghost town. Every house is significantly damaged, many are destroyed and quite a few were washed completely off their foundations. Images of the primarily poor, black population of the Ninth Ward, contrasted with those of

the undamaged mansions of the Garden District, present a sobering picture of racial and socioeconomic inequity. But several residents were quick to point out that 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded. Large sections of the city have a “bathtub ring” that indicates how high floodwaters rose, and trash and debris abound. Residents said if the media showed more images of New Orleans East, a heavily damaged upper-middle class black suburb, or of the Lakeview neighborhood, a mixed-race, mixed-class area that was flooded when the levees broke, people would share their view that, as several residents and volunteers put it, Katrina was “an equal-opportunity storm.” Kevin Lander, a Tulane University student, told an audience at a March 27 panel of students and residents affected by Katrina that misperceptions about New Orleans’ condition are particularly problematic because of the potential electoral effects. A mayoral election is scheduled for

The fabulous life of Brown professors? How tuition breaks, airline tickets and research money stack up BY SIMMI AUJLA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Transatlantic ﬂights can clock in at a pricey $1,400 round-trip, but the University will foot the bill the next FEATURE time Professor of History Tim Harris travels to England for academic research or a speech at the University of Cambridge. Harris, who specializes in 16th- and 17th-century British history and has published several books on the period, said the Faculty Travel Fund provides professors with one trip a year for academic or professional purposes. The Ofﬁce of the see PERKS, page 9 Editorial: 401.351.3372 Business: 401.351.3260

see NEW ORLEANS, page 8

It is not for lack of tickets that Ray Serrano ’07 won’t be attending Saturday’s lecture by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Rather, following the implementation of a new online ticket distribution system, Serrano said he feels deprived of a “great bonding experience” — camping out on the Main Green like he did last year to see former President Bill Clinton. “I was disappointed when I saw that it was online ticketing and not camping out again,” Serrano said. “If I thought we were going to have to wait for tickets, I probably would have done it again.” A new online system — accessible through a ticket reservation Web site — was developed by a team including members from Computing and Information Services and the Ofﬁce of Public Affairs and University Relations, said Cynthia Schwartz, director of University events.

The new method was put in place to prevent a repeat of the long lines — which included tents pitched on the Main Green — prior to the distribution of tickets to Bill Clinton’s lecture last year, said Michael Chapman, vice president for public affairs and University relations. “Last year when President Clinton came here, we handed out tickets in sort of the old-fashioned way,” Chapman said. “There were some frustrations about that ticket distribution system.” Following the Bill Clinton lecture, the Office of the President asked the public affairs office to explore more efficient ways to distribute tickets to large events on campus, Chapman said. Schwartz and her staff wanted to develop a way of reserving tickets online, an idea that led them to work with members of the Office of Web Communications and CIS, Chapman added. see TICKETING, page 7

Paper course bulletin will eventually become obsolete, registrar says BY SIMMI AUJLA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Although Course Announcement Bulletins have been printed and were distributed this week, the CAB’s days are numbered. “Both the course announcement and the University catalog will eventually disappear in the present state,” said University Registrar Michael Pesta in reference to the CAB and the University Bulletin, which provides a more extensive listing of offered courses and is printed every three years. The implementation of Banner, a comprehensive program that will replace systems and databases used for admissions, ﬁnancial aid and course registration, will eliminate the need for both the

Next provost to be hired internally

CAB and the Brown Online Course Announcement, since students will register for courses directly from Banner’s online catalog, Pesta explained. Still, printing some form of the CAB for the next few years will help the University make a smooth transition from paper to online technology, Pesta said. “I don’t necessarily want to make too many changes at the same time,” he said. “Even though paper technology is aging, I think there are good reasons to keep it to help support people as they become accustomed to the new system.” He suggested printing a shorter summary of courses once Banner is implemented. Pesta said he hopes students will be able to register for courses online in April see CAB, page 7

TASTY PI

Decision on bookstore will likely be made before summer, Huidekoper says BY ERIC BECK NEWS EDITOR

The University’s next provost will come from within Brown, President Ruth Simmons told the faculty at its monthly meeting Tuesday. In order to provide for administrative continuity and ensure the University maintains momentum, Simmons said she intends to appoint a new provost by the end of June, when Provost Robert Zimmer will leave Brown to become president of the University of Chicago. Such a quick search only allows for serious consideration of internal candidates. Simmons said though some professors have encouraged her to consider bringing an outsider to the University as provost, she does not intend to conduct a lengthy national search. Simmons said she has been accepting nominations and consulting with department chairs, multidisciplinary center directors, senior administrators and mem-

bers of the Brown Corporation to identify current Brown professors who are wellsuited for the post. Simmons also updated the faculty on the other current searches to fill senior administrative posts. Both the dean of the college and the vice president for research posts will be vacated this summer. The dean of the college search committee has been accepting nominations for a search that will be primarily internal but will also consider candidates from outside the University, Simmons said. The search committee for a new vice president for research has completed its work and submitted its recommendation, Simmons said, adding that she will act on the recommendation “in the very near future” and expects to announce the new appointment by the end of the month. In other business, Executive Vice Pressee FACULTY MTG, page 6

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

Kam Sripada / Herald

The Department of the History of Mathematics held its annual “Cuneiform Cuisine” dinner Monday at the Annmary Brown Memorial. It featured food prepared from ancient recipe tablets.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

THIS MORNING THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006 · PAGE 2 Jero Matt Vascellaro

TO D AY ’ S E V E N TS ”SUGGESTION REDUCES CONFLICT IN THE HUMAN BRAIN: CONVERGING NEUROIMAGING ACCOUNTS” 4 p.m. , (Hunter Lab 206)— Amir Raz of Columbia University will deliver the The Michael S. Goodman ‘74 Memorial Lecture. READING AND BOOK SIGNING WITH MICHELLE TEA 4 p.m., (Brown Bookstore) — Michelle Tea will promote her ﬁrst novel, titled “Rose of No Man’s Land.”

SPRING ARTS FESTIVAL MEETING 6 p.m., (Lower Blue Room) — Come join the Student Creative Arts Council to help plan the second annual Spring Arts Festival. “WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER” 8 p.m. , (Salomon 001) — Come see the screening of this popular movie starring Michael Showalter ’92 and presented by BTV and the Ivy Film Festival.

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

MENU Deo Daniel Perez SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Hot Corned Beef on Rye, Barley Pilaf, Cauliﬂower, Green Beans and Peppers, Red Potatoes with Shallots, Turkey, Whipped Cream Strawberry Torte, Frosted Cookie Squares

LUNCH — Vegetarian Cheese Soup, Ham and Bean Soup, Fried Fish Sandwich, Bruscetta Mozzarella, Broccoli Cuts, Frosted Cookie Squares

DINNER — Baked Stuffed Pollock, Red Rice, Savory Spinach, Zucchini, Carrot and Garlic Medley, Hearth Bread, Strawberry Jello, Black and White Pudding Cake

DINNER —Vegetarian Cheese Soup, Ham and Bean Soup, BBQ Chicken, Foot Long Hot Dogs in Beer, Tofu Pups, Steak Fries, Corn Bread, Fresh Corn on the Cob, Brussels Sprouts with Horseradish, Hearth Bread, Watermelon, Black and White Pudding Cake

Homebodies Mirele Davis

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Los Angeles Puzzle C Times R O SDaily S W Crossword ORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 Improvisational tunes 6 Gomer Pyle’s org. 10 Part of many a dash 14 Heep of literature 15 Friend of Piglet 16 “Typee” sequel 17 Ballpark vendor’s call #1 20 Herbert Marx, on stage 21 Sephia automaker 22 Asian occasion 23 1970 and ’72 Conn Smythe Trophy winner 25 Fictional Alley 27 “Fawlty Towers” star 29 Ballpark vendor’s call #2 33 Unwaveringly true 34 Atlanta network: Abbr. 35 Hit signs 36 Builder’s map 39 Westernmost Aleutian island 41 __ spumante 44 Dessert with a crust 46 Egg holders 50 Ballpark vendor’s call #3 54 Megaera, Tisiphone, and Alecto, collectively 55 “__ me with a spoon!” 56 “Picked” picayune point 57 Mus. reorchestration 58 Old Pontiac muscle car 60 Calvin of design 63 Ballpark vendor’s call #4 68 Tear 69 Land of leprechauns 70 Tryst spot 71 Educ. guesses 72 Line of apparel? 73 Lhasa __: small dogs DOWN 1 Hair apparent? 2 Foul temper

3 Robert __, captain of the HMS Beagle on which Darwin sailed 4 Bonnie’s portrayer 5 Browse eBay 6 Pull from the ground 7 Political payoff 8 Robin Williams role 9 Best of the best 10 Rocky point 11 Olympian, before 1976 12 Regains consciousness 13 Maker of Ding Dongs 18 Lying atop 19 Oscar afterparty, e.g. 23 Friend of 15Across 24 Sigma preceder 26 Cal. clock setting 28 Came next 30 Elk 31 The works 32 Cops’ gp. 37 Peter and Philip 38 Sn, on the periodic table 40 Blast cause 41 __ d’honneur: duel

42 Footnote data 43 Violent stream 45 “Which came first?” option 47 They may be Elizabethan 48 __ Friday’s: restaurant 49 Former JFK lander 51 Big name in blocks 52 Olajuwon who is the NBA career leader in blocked shots

53 Eye unsubtly 59 Cartoon drooler 61 “Family: The Ties That Bind...and Gag!” author Bombeck 62 Short stack server, for short 64 IRA options 65 Support provider 66 Rock’s __ Speedwagon 67 Raised trains

Freeze Dried Puppies Cara Fitzgibbons

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Silentpenny Soundbite Brian Elig

xwordeditor@aol.com

4/5/06

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CAMPUS WATCH THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006 · PAGE 3

Changes to UMassAmherst’s ‘legacy ﬂoors’ spark student concern BY SARA WALTER STAFF WRITER

Some students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst currently living in the university’s system of “legacy floors” have voiced concerns about impending changes to the system, though university officials maintain that these changes have been misrepresented. Though a March 12 Boston Globe article reported UMass-Amherst is “seeking to eliminate” legacy floors, officials from the university told The Herald they are merely adding an educational aspect to the program. Legacy floors are designated for students wishing to live in programs that emphasize an exploration of black, Asian-American, multicultural, international or Native American cultures, according to a statement from Michael Gargano, vice chancellor for student affairs and campus life, sent to The Herald March 20. Instead of eliminating the floors, as the Globe reported, administrators “are enhancing this option by adding a learning component,” Gargano’s statement reads. According to officials at the university, the article omitted key points regarding the restructuring of its legacy floors. Currently, if a student is interested in a specific culture, they indicate their interest in living on a corresponding floor, according to Patrick Callahan, a spokesman for UMass-Amherst. In the future, the legacy floors will be part of a new program for freshmen. “That program is rather similar, so all of those students will live together in residence halls and there will be, again, a sort of academic and cultural see AMHERST, page 4

Supreme Court declines to hear college censorship case BY OLIVER BOWERS STAFF WRITER

The Supreme Court declined February 21 to hear an appeal by three former college journalists at Governors State University in Illinois that would have decided the legality of university censorship of its student newspaper. The case hinged on whether the First and 14th Amendments were violated when a university dean imposed restraints on publication of the newspaper, the Innovator. The case began in 2001 when three staff members at the Innovator, Margaret Hosty, Jeni Porche and Steven Barba, sued the university after Dean Patricia Carter told the newspaper’s printer to hold all future issues until she had read and approved them in advance. Carter did this after the Innovator had published articles critical of the administration. The move came despite the university’s policy that the Innovator’s staff would determine the

content of the paper “without censorship or advance approval.” The Innovator, now named the Phoenix, receives the majority of its funding from the university. Carter threatened to withhold payment unless the printer complied. The student plaintiffs ﬁled their petition to the Supreme Court after an 11-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the university in June 2005. The court ruled that a 1988 Supreme Court decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, which says faculty may supervise and determine the content of a student newspaper in public high schools, applies to college newspapers as well. “There is no sharp difference between high school and college papers,” the court wrote in its decision. The court also cited the fact that the paper was ﬁnancially backed by see CENSORSHIP, page 4

College Roundup Vigil held for student allegedly raped by Duke lacrosse players Students at North Carolina Central University held a vigil Monday for an N.C. Central student who was allegedly raped by three members of the Duke University lacrosse team. According to Associated Press reports, the student, who works as an exotic dancer, told police that she was choked, restrained and raped by three men while working at a March 13 party in Durham, N.C., where both N.C. Central and Duke are located. Since the accusations, Duke President Richard Brodhead has indeﬁnitely suspended the lacrosse team from play until the school learns more about the incident. No one has been charged in the case. A North Carolina crime lab is expected to complete analysis of DNA samples from 46 of the 47 players on the lacrosse team this week. The team’s only black player did not have to submit a sample because the dancer, who is black, said her assailants were white. If a case can be made, the players could face 16 to 20 years if convicted. The allegations have rocked the Duke and N.C. Cen-

tral campuses. At Duke, which is four miles away from the historically black N.C. Central, students have rallied almost daily since the accusations became public, and the university’s student newspaper, the Chronicle, reported that racial tensions were high. “This is a matter of white privilege,” Duke senior Tiana Mack said of the allegations in a March 28 Chronicle of Higher Education article. “When I read what was going on, it made me think about Jim Crow. … If these three culprits get away with it, it will prove to me that Duke does not honor the black woman’s body.” About 250 students attended Monday’s N.C. Central rally, which was the ﬁrst large public gathering at the university concerning the alleged rape. Facebook potentially up for sale, according to rumors Facebook.com, the popular online network for college and high school students, is reportedly on the sales block, according to a March 28 report in BusinessWeek Online. see ROUNDUP, page 4

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006

Roundup continued from page 3 According to the online magazine, Facebook owners turned down a $750 million offer in hopes of fetching as much as $2 billion. But a source close to the Facebook told TheDeal.com, an online business and finance site, on March 29 that the report was untrue. The source did note that Facebook owners had been approached by prospective buyers. Last year, another social networking site, MySpace. com, was purchased for $580 million by News Corporation, a Rupert Murdoch-owned media conglomerate. Facebook officials declined to comment to various media sources on the matter. Since its creation two years ago by a group of sophomores at Harvard University, Facebook.com has become the seventh-most heavily trafficked site on the Internet, according to market researcher comScore Media Metrix.

Harvard expands ﬁnancial aid program Starting this fall, parents from families with annual incomes of $60,000 or less will not have to contribute to the cost of their child’s education at Harvard University. In addition, families with incomes between $60,000 and $80,000 will have to contribute less, according to the Associated Press. “There is no more important mission for Harvard and higher education than promoting equality of opportunity for all,” Harvard President Lawrence Summers said in a statement. “These increases … send a clear signal to middle-class families who have all too often felt that Harvard and other leading universities are out of reach.” The previous income threshold, set two years ago, for complete fee waivers at Harvard was $40,000. Two-thirds of the university’s students currently receive ﬁnancial aid, and the average grant for the next academic year is expected to be $33,000. It costs about $42,000 to attend Harvard for the current academic year. —Stu Woo

Gymnastics continued from page 12 The only Bear in the all-around competition, she finished with a 37.825. Smith felt Anderson’s contributions were particularly impressive considering that this was her rookie season. “Brittany really did well. She hit all four events,” Smith said. “She is such a solid competitor. (First-years) are generally more hit-and-miss, but Brittany has been rock-solid. We’ve been able to count on her throughout the entire season.” Jess Pouchet ’06 also had a strong meet, tying with Anderson for the top Brown finish in the floor exercise. Jessica McNell ’06 and Sarah Durning ’08 each posted a 9.525 in the vault to lead Brown.

Amherst continued from page 3 component that comes into the residence halls,” Callahan said. Students choosing to participate in the new program will “learn about” academic and career planning, transitioning to college life, acquiring leadership skills, interacting with faculty and staff and becoming involved in the surrounding community, according to Gargano’s e-mail statement. Following completion of their first year, students participating in the program will move into the school’s traditional housing system. “The vice chancellor wants students to come together by interest groups and not by other factors,” Callahan said. The new program is focused on emphasizing academic, cultural and social interest groups, he added. Some students wary of changes Bianca Wynn and Nisha Mungroo, a junior and sophomore, respectively, both live on UMassAmherst’s Harambee floor, which Wynn said is considered the “minority floor.” Neither student chose to live on the floor, but now both girls consider the other residents a permanent part of their lives. “We’re so upset that they’re trying to take the floor away,” Wynn said. Mungroo said she was placed

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

Censorship continued from page 3

Solution, tips and computer program at www.sudoku.com.

the university. Richard Fallon, professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, said the Supreme Court’s denial of a writ of certiorari, which a losing party ﬁles to the Supreme Court after a lower court decision, does not imply that the lower court decision — which afﬁrmed the university’s right to censor student publications — was correct, nor does it dictate the future of the issue raised by the case. “(Denial of a writ of certiorari) doesn’t have any precedential effect binding any other court,” Fallon said. As is its usual practice, the Supreme Court did not issue a written opinion explaining why it did not accept the case.

Although the Bears did not pick up much hardware at the ECAC championships, upon the conclusion of the meet numerous gymnasts were honored for their efforts throughout the season. Hannah Goldstein ’08 was named an ECAC Scholar Athlete of the Year, and 12 of Brown’s 15 gymnasts were named ECAC Scholar Athletes. While the ECAC championships wrapped up, the team portion of the Bears schedule, the season is not quite over. A select group of gymnasts will head to the USAG Collegiate National Championships held at Cornell on April 13-15. Six gymnasts will represent Brown at the meet, up from two last year. Smith and Anderson both qualiﬁed in the allaround. Pouchet will compete on the ﬂoor exercise, McNell and Durning will perform on the vault and Sarah Cavett ’06 will tackle

the uneven bars. According to Smith, the increase in Bruno’s qualifiers for the 2006 national event and the fact that Brown missed a team berth by one spot in the season rankings attests to the great progress the team has made over the past year. Baughman expressed similar sentiments in regard to the team’s general improvement over the course of the season. “Regardless of our place at Ivies, we came so much further than last year,” Baughman said. “We challenged each other and really pushed ourselves to improve. That really set us up to succeed this season. Seeing our teammates motivate each other, persevere and ﬁnd success has to be the best memory for Amber and me. It’s deﬁnitely been a privilege to be part of Brown gymnastics.”

on the floor arbitrarily. “Last year I was placed on the floor because I guess there was limited housing and I was a freshman,” Mungroo said. “When I moved on the floor, I fell in love with everyone and had to live there again.” According to Wynn, the Harambee floor provides many opportunities for interaction among its members. In addition to holding ice cream and cupcake socials, residents are also considering a trip to New York City to see “The Color Purple.” Mungroo said everyone who visits the floor enjoys the atmosphere created by its residents. “Our floor is the only floor that people can come to 24/7 and just feel comfortable,” she said. “Other floors (have socials), but they’re not like us. You can go on any random floor and if you walk around, no one knows their next-door neighbor. But when you come to Harambee, we all hang out together. We’re together 24/7. We’re inseparable. We are family,” Wynn said. Wynn said she does not believe a learning component will contribute positively to the residential experience. “Classes are a break from the floor,” she said. “Classes with friends are not good. It’s a bad combination.”

houses are not typically occupied by students of a single race or ethnicity. Jorge Garcia ’07, president of Machado House, a Spanish-speaking program house, said, “Not everyone here is Hispanic. People from so many different backgrounds come together at Machado. Language is just a thing that brings people together.” Alexander Richardson ’07, president of Buxton International House, agrees that living in program housing creates a tightly knit community among members. Richardson grew up in Toronto, which he describes as a multiethnic city, and he said Buxton is a continuation of that diverse atmosphere. “I realize that it’s small. We can only house 60 people and obviously there are some 500 international undergrads. What I like about the house is that it’s halfAmerican. It represents a decision of the students to engage in a very intimate international experience,” Richardson said. Both Garcia and Richardson see very few disadvantages to living in this sort of housing. “It would be a real misopportunity” if programs like this were ended at Brown, Richardson said. “It brings people together and it brings up more diversity, actually, because people are coming together for an interest. You’re not limiting people who are joining the house. You’re taking a different perspective and it actually enriches the community,” Garcia said.

Similar options at Brown Students on Brown’s campus are also afforded the opportunity to live in on-campus residences that center around a shared cultural interest. These

Attorneys for the student plaintiffs said the ruling conflicts with decisions by other appeals courts that university officials cannot censor student newspapers, according to Reuters reports. They also noted that it violates the historic commitment to free expression on college campuses. The 7th Circuit’s decision is only binding in three states and is in direct conflict with decisions of other state and federal courts around the country. The university declined to comment to The Herald on the case. No censorship at Brown Christi Laquer ’07, managing editor of the University-funded College Hill Independent, said though the paper has not “tested the limits” of what Brown would allow, the Indy has never encountered problems with censorship

by University administrators. She added she disagrees with the censorship imposed on the Innovator. “I think that our reaction would be as violent as theirs was” if Brown ever censored the Indy, she said. Dorothy Tegeler ’08 and Anna Duncan ’08, editors-in-chief of Issues magazine, said they also disapprove of the actions taken by Governors State University administrators. “I think that’s clearly a violation of the freedom of the press,” Tegeler said, adding that if a campus publication were censored at Brown, “the whole student body would be up in arms.” “We’d deﬁnitely ﬁght it (if we were censored),” Duncan said, “But I think Brown’s a much more liberal campus.” Issues magazine, which is also funded by the University, has never had problems with censorship, Tegeler and Duncan said.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5 , 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 5

‘Wet Hot American Summer’ star Showalter ’92 to speak at Ivy Film Festival

W. track

BY ILA TYAGI STAFF WRITER

third-fastest time in Brown’s history. Another stand out was Anna Willard ’06, who broke a school record in the 5,000-meter run, clocking in at 16:35, nine seconds better than the previous mark. Willard’s performance qualified her for the NCAA Regional meet, an amazing feat considering it was her first time running the event in the spring season. Michol Monaghan ’07 competed in the same event, though in a different heat, and ran a 16:49, placing her third all-time in the event at Brown. Naja Ferjan ’07 ran a personal best in 4:27.84 in the 1,500-meter run, placing her third all-time at Brown, and then came back to run a 2:10.70 in the 800-meter event. Smita Gupta ’08 also ran the 1,500, clocking in at a 4:33.56, a personal best by seven seconds, while Powell ran the 800, finishing in 2:13.84. In the ﬁeld events, Sarah Groothuis ’08 threw the discus a 141-9, placing her sixth on the Brown all-time list. The performances over the break gave Director of Track and Field Craig Lake a reason to keep pushing her team to reach for the top. “It was our ﬁrst big competition of the season, but one that we were training through. The goal of the trip was to get into a big meet with top national competition,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Top schools compete out there … and a

This year’s Ivy Film Festival promises to showcase some of the most impressive and diverse student films seen since the festival’s inception, according to the festival’s publicity coordinator, Victoria Hoen ’06. The festival will be held at Brown from April 5-9. Thirty-six student films on subjects ranging from a soldier’s struggle upon returning home from the horrors of Iraq, to a man imprisoned within multiple layers of photographic illusion to premature midlife crises will be ARTS & screened at various locaCULTURE tions on or near campus. These films were culled from a total of 150 submissions. “This is the strongest submission pool we’ve ever had,” Hoen said. She added that the publicity coordinators made an extra effort this year to spread the word about the festival and to reach out to a large number of schools. Fellow publicity coordinator Nicholas Axelrod ’06 echoed Hoen, saying narrowing down the “amazing” applicant pool was a lengthy process. He said the festival coordinators have tried hard to break the stereotype of the festival as being limited to Ivy League schools now that “we’ve gone national and international.” The publicity coordinators were also in charge of ensuring local and national media are aware of the event. This year’s festival will also be screening seven soon-to-be released feature films, beginning Wednesday with the film “Iraq in Fragments,” which won three awards at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The film, directed by James Longley, attempts to create a picture of a country divided along religious and ethnic lines by looking in turn at the Sunnis, Shiites

msn.com

This year’s Ivy Film Festival celebrity speaker will be writer, director and actor Michael Showalter ’92.

and Kurds. The festival will close Saturday, April 8 with a screening of “Half Nelson,” directed by Ryan Fleck, which was an official selection at this year’s Sundance. The film examines the friendship between an inner-city junior high school teacher with a drug habit and one of his students. Both screenings also include question-and-answer sessions with the films’ creators. Other feature films being premiered include Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s “Water,” a controversial drama set in colonial India. The film examines the plight of a group of destitute widows at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi. Another highlight includes the 2006 Sundance see IVY FILM, page 6

continued from page 12

number of professional athletes as well. Being exposed to top competition hopefully opens our eyes that there is more to accomplish, and hopefully gets us to raise our game.” A promising aspect to the week was that many of the standout performances came from underclassmen. “We need everyone to step it up, and seeing a lot of freshmen and sophomores making an impact, especially Akilah, Nicole, Smita and Sarah, bodes well for the team,” Powell said. “Performing well at Heps needs a team effort from every class and it is amazing to see underclassmen doing their part.” Burns, one of the top performing newcomers during the indoor season, is equally excited about what the youth in the team will mean for the rest of the spring. “I am happy to see that so many of us are stepping up to the plate early. It only means great success for the future,” Burns said. To improve upon its third-place finish at the indoor championships earlier this year, and with just over a month until the Heptagonal Championships, the team will need to build on its spring break performance in the next few weeks. Brown will bring its full squad to its next competition at the University of Connecticut this weekend. “This break was full of great races,” Powell said. “Personal records were set by (a lot of the team), which is an awesome start to this outdoor season. We are going to roll with this momentum and hopefully make some big noise at Heps in May.”

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PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006

Ivy Film continued from page 5 selection “Black Gold,” a documentary about the desperate conditions of people, some of whom are near starvation, in regions that produce the world’s finest coffee beans. The hit British film “Kinky Boots,” a comedy about a cheeky, cabaret-singing transvestite named Lola and a shoe-factory owner named Charlie who strike up an unlikely friendship to save Charlie’s ailing family business from financial ruin, will also be screened. Daniel Brown ’06, the festival’s executive director, attended this year’s Sundance Film Festival and spoke to directors, expressing interest in bringing their films to campus. As a result, this year’s program includes the largest number of Sundance award-winning movies ever shown at the Ivy Film Festival. This year’s celebrity speaker is Michael Showalter ’92. Showalter got his start in show business by writing and perform-

ing on MTV’s mid-1990s sketch comedy show “The State.” In 2001 Showalter co-wrote and starred in the cult classic “Wet Hot American Summer,” an inspired send-up of 1980s teen comedies. Showalter is also one-third of the comedy trio “Stella,” which airs on Comedy Central, and he wrote, directed and starred in “The Baxter,” a romantic comedy released last summer. The festival strives to facilitate interaction between aspiring student filmmakers and industry professionals, and with this end in mind, festival coordinators have arranged a series of panels and workshops throughout the five-day long festival, where industry insiders will share their advice and experience. Panel titles this year include “Doing Business in Hollywood” and “Breaking In: An Alumni Panel,” in which Showalter will be participating. Showalter is also slated to judge the student ﬁlms, along with director of “Black Gold” Marc Francis, director of “Children of Chabannes” Lisa Gossels and other industry professionals.

Briefs continued from page 12 their West Coast trip, on April 1, the Bears headed to the ECAC Championships at College Park, Md., looking to improve upon their 11th place ﬁnish from last year. An 8-5 loss to Wagner knocked them from the winners’ bracket and prevented a potential top-three ﬁnish. “We had a lot of opportunities to score in the Wagner game, and we made a couple of key defensive errors,” Gall said. “We played really well in both of the wins though, and it was good for our kids off the bench to get playing time.” After the Wagner disappointment, however, Brown rebounded with three consecutive victories to capture fifth place. Bruno blasted Gannon, 11-5, and Villanova, 11-3, before taking care of Harvard in Sunday’s fifth-place game, 6-5. The string of wins should generate some momentum heading into an important home stand this weekend — featuring games against Harvard in addition to the University of Michigan and Hartwick College — before the Northern Championships April 22 and 23.

Faculty Mtg continued from page 1 ident for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Huidekoper updated the faculty on the review of the Brown Bookstore in what she called an effort to clarify misconceptions that have arisen. Huidekoper stressed that important concerns have been raised for both operating models under consideration — outsourcing the bookstore to an external vendor such as Barnes and Noble College Booksellers and keeping it independent under University management. The Bookstore Review Committee, which Huidekoper chairs, released a report March 3 recommending that the bookstore be outsourced to an external vendor. The committee’s report sparked the creation of the Save the Bookstore Coalition, which has rallied to keep the bookstore independent. Huidekoper said the committee will host two open forums in late April to solicit more feedback, construct a preliminary plan for the self-operation model and reconsider its ﬁndings before

Equestrian squad whips Connecticut in fourth straight match The equestrian team closed out its up-and-down season on several high notes with a thirdplace team ﬁnish at the March 26 Connecticut College meet. Even more impressive, the Bears sent 12 riders to the regional competition, and two more advanced from the regional competition to the Zone Championships this Saturday. At the Connecticut College meet over break, Bruno finished just four points behind firstplace Johnson and Wales and one under second-place Roger Williams. The Bears edged out University of Connecticut by one point in their final faceoff of the season. Unfortunately, the Huskies still won the region by 25 team points, but Brown fared well against their main rival, Connecticut, down the stretch — Brown bested its main rival for the fourth-consecutive meet with the win in the finale. In the novice fences division, Mallory Kass ’06 and Katie Goetz ’08 finished 1-2. Alexis Gilbard ’06, Whitney Keefe ’08 and Jamie Peddy ’06 secured firstplace spots in the three classes of open flat, and Cody Auer ’09 placed second in that event in addition to taking third in the

second class of open fences. Marissa Geoffroy ’07 placed third in the first class and Peddy took third in the fourth class. Brown’s point rider in intermediate flat, Jade Palomino ’07, also took third. Rounding out the top-three placements on the day was Courtney Pope ’07 with a first-place finish in novice flat. Second and third-place finishes came in walk-trot-canter from Hayley Goldbach ’09 and Rosalind Bogan ’08 along with another second-place finish from Lucia Corso ’08 in walk-trot point. Keefe was the main attraction at both the team competition and at Regionals. She clinched the high point rider award and an automatic bid for the Cacchione Cup at Nationals in the first weekend in May, as well as a Zone bid in open fences after taking second at Regionals. The other standout for the Bears was Gilbard, who qualified for Zones in open flat with Brown’s only first-place finish at Regionals. A solid core of seniors also wrapped up their College Hill careers at Regionals, as Jenny John ’06, Mallory Kass ’06, Jamie Peddy ’06 and Rachel Roemer ’06 all failed to qualify for Zones. —Amy Ehrhart

making a final recommendation to the president’s cabinet. The cabinet, which comprises about a dozen top University administrators, will likely make the final decision before students leave campus at the end of the academic year. If administrators are not ready to act at that time, they will wait until the fall to make a decision so that a decision is not made over the summer when students are away from campus, Huidekoper said. Peter Sprake ’07, a customer service clerk at the bookstore and Save the Bookstore Coalition member who originally enrolled in 1966, left Brown before graduating and re-enrolled in 2001, and two other opponents of outsourcing distributed informational flyers to faculty members as they entered the Salomon Center to attend the meeting. Two professors raised concerns about outsourcing at the meeting. One professor stressed the high quality of service and loyalty to the institution provided by employees of the independent bookstore. “We can’t just let these people go off into the sunset,” the professor said, referring to the current bookstore employees.

Huidekoper agreed that the bookstore’s employees are valuable and would play a key role in the future of the bookstore under either operating scenario. Another professor, who worked at Rutgers University when that institution’s bookstore was outsourced, said the results at Rutgers were “disastrous,” especially in terms of academic service and personnel issues. The only other person to speak about the bookstore at the meeting, University Registrar Michael Pesta, stressed that textbook sales ought to be the “central issue” in the review. “If there is any threat to textbooks” under one of the operating models, “everything else must be swept off the table,” Pesta said. Huidekoper agreed and pointed out that the impact of outsourcing on textbook sales is a key component of the committee’s report. In other business, Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P’07 told the faculty that the University has hired 30 new professors to start next semester and about 20 additional searches are still ongoing. Fifteen of the 30 new hires are women, and six of the 12 new professors in the physical sciences are women, Vohra said. Also Tuesday, Dean of the College Paul Armstrong announced that Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Esther Whitfield is the recipient of the 2006-2007 Henry Merritt Wriston Fellowship, which is awarded annually to junior, non-tenured members of the faculty. The fellowship recipient is awarded one semester of leave, with full compensation, to pursue a research project or prepare new contributions to the College curriculum. In addition to serving as a thesis adviser and academic adviser for ﬁrst-years and sophomores, Whitﬁeld has developed nine new courses at Brown, primarily involving Caribbean and Latin American literature, Armstrong said.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5 , 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 7

Ticketing continued from page 1 “A lot of people really wanted (the tickets) and we just wanted to bring our ticket distribution into the 21st century for big events,” Chapman said. The new distribution system was also designed to ensure a fair process for all members of the Brown community, Schwartz said. Last year, graduate students and medical students were not all able to acquire Bill Clinton tickets due to family obligations, jobs or hospital shifts during the time tickets were being distributed. “One of the things that we were trying to do was make the ticket system fair to the entire Brown family, and that was another incentive for putting it online,” Schwartz said. “We had a very good turnout from the Graduate School and the Medical School (this year).” Administrators said they have not encountered any opposition to the changes, nor have they received any negative feedback regarding the new ticket distribution method. “From everything we have heard, the online system worked incredibly well,” said Darrell West, professor of political science and director of the Taubman Center, one of the co-sponsors of the Hillary Clinton lecture. At 6 a.m. on Friday, March 17, when ticket reservations could first be made, no technological troubles were experienced or reported. “I don’t think people were seeing bad performance,” said John Spadaro, director of systems and services for CIS. “We load-tested it to make sure that we could serve out hundreds of tickets in a small time and that’s, in fact, what happened.” He added CIS staff members were available throughout the reservation process to correct any problems that may have occurred. Two web communications officials designed the front page and frequently-asked-questions section of the ticket reservation Web site, Schwartz said. The site was created with “a relatively small application that used a lot of infrastructure that we already have in place,” Spadaro said. For example, he said, there are already applications created to confirm that individuals logging onto the system are either faculty, staff or students, and this application can differ-

entiate among the three groups to make sure the appropriate emails are sent out to individuals reserving tickets. “It was pretty simple,” Spadaro said. “We authorize to make sure that you are in a group that could get a ticket, then put you into a database so you couldn’t get two tickets and then printed a letter.” Chapman and Schwartz said the process was tested rigorously before launching, making sure that community members could choose to pick up tickets or have them sent via campus mail. Originally, only 2,500 tickets were available for reservation, Chapman said. However, because of the great demand to see Hillary Clinton, “we decided to reconﬁgure the stage set-up in Meehan (Auditorium) and that freed up an additional 1,000 tickets,” he added. Out of 3,500 tickets reserved, 1,077 have been sent through campus mail, while the majority of those reserving tickets opted to pick them up at Sayles Hall. Ticket pick-up in Sayles began at 11 a.m. on Monday, April 3rd, and there had been no lines for pick-up as of Monday afternoon, Schwartz said, adding that tickets being delivered by campus mail were sent out in bright yellow envelopes on Monday afternoon. The decision to distribute the tickets via campus mail later in the day was intended to lower the chances of the tickets becoming lost, Chapman said. Several undergraduate students voiced their support for the new ticket system. Vance Monet ’08 said he found the process for the Bill Clinton lecture last year to be very frustrating. Monet had woken up especially early to ensure that he would receive a ticket and was annoyed to see fellow students cutting the line after he had waited for hours. “You get over it, obviously, but, just for that time period, it’s nothing but frustration when you see people act as if they don’t know what’s going on or they just take advantage of the fact that there is such a long line,” Monet said. Gabe Prestol ’07 also waited for several hours for his ticket to the Bill Clinton lecture last year. Though he had fun camping out with his friends, he believes it is much more convenient to go online and decide the means of ticket delivery. “I think this is a much more effective method, deﬁnitely, of giving out tickets,” Prestol said.

www.browndailyherald.com

M. track continued from page 12 taking the win in the 10-kilometer and being a threat to score in the 5k at Heps,” Burke said. Nick Neely ’07, who competed in a different heat of the 5,000-meter event, also set a personal best, crossing in 14:25. “Neely is running consistently well,” Lake said. “Unfortunately, his race went out a little too fast, (and) learning pace is an important part of distance running. … I am conﬁdent before the end of the year, Nick will go under 14:20.” While the cool weather aided the distance runners in their pursuit of fast times, “the rain made the throwing surfaces really slippery, as David Howard (’09) actually fell on one of his warm-up attempts,” Lake said. “The throws squad got in good experience and is working on technique right now, and will be ready to go when it counts.” Despite the rain, a pair of throwers hit solid marks on the ﬁrst day in Palo Alto. Kent Walls ’06 threw for 174-1 in the hammer, and Paul Rosiak ’07 marked 184-6 in the javelin. Walls won the discus the week prior at the Dick Shea Invite, throwing for

CAB continued from page 1 of 2007. “But we’ve already experienced setbacks,” he added. “It’s hard to anticipate the problems you could run into along the way,” he said. In an interview with The Herald in March, Associate Provost Nancy Dunbar and Ellen WaiteFranzen, vice president for Computing and Information Services, did not posit a launch date for online registration, saying the sheer magnitude of the project makes it difﬁcult to predict when students will be able to use Banner to register for courses. If online course registration is not available by April 2007,

164-6. “A lot of (the throwers) did well considering conditions, and some like Paul Rosiak are starting well ahead of where they began last year at this time,” Lake said. “Paul threw 20 feet farther at this time compared to last year.” Back on the track, Jamil McClintock ’08 qualified for the elite 110-meter hurdle finals with a preliminary time of 14.62. While McClintock already ranks in the top 10 for Bruno, the time was a significantly faster season-opener than in 2005. At West Point, two hurdlers made season debuts in the longer hurdles event, as Christian Tabib ’07 and Will Bernitsky ’07 were timed at 55.25 and 55.78, respectively. Mike Pruzinsky ’07 turned out a strong performance in the 200-meters in his outdoor opener in Palo Alto, clocking 21.77 in the half-lap event. Dallas Dissmore ’06, the indoor Heptagonal champion in the 500-meters, opened his ﬁnal outdoor campaign by posting 48.29 in the 400-meters. The performances of Bowen, Achilihu, Burke, Neely, Walls, McClintock and Dissmore were Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America qualifying marks.

Back in Providence, captain Jake Golenor ’06 was recently released from the hospital after battling ulcerative colitis and mononucleosis for the past month. Though the senior thrower has returned to classes, the Heptagonal champion in the indoor shot put and outdoor discus will not likely be able to return to competition for the Bears. “With Jake out, the distance men hope to step it up to fill the obvious loss of points,” Burke said. “We only managed two points indoors, but look to secure a much larger number outdoors.” With less than five weeks until the Heptagonal Championships, the Bears will “continue to train hard for the next three to four weeks before tapering,” Lake said. “We have a lot of talent and a lot of people who are willing to work hard and make the necessary sacrifices, which are all the right ingredients for a potential Ivy League Championship team. A little luck cannot hurt either, of course.” The Bears will ﬁeld a full roster for the ﬁrst time this season this weekend against the University of Connecticut at the Huskies’ Greer Field House in Storrs, Conn.

the program will be used in April 2008, Pesta said. Implementing the system when students begin to register for a new school year rather than in the middle of the school year will reduce confusion, he added. Pesta would not disclose how much printing the CAB costs the University each year. In a November interview with The Herald, he said the cost of printing the CAB will not factor in the University’s decision to continue producing it. Pesta said he does not know how students will access crucial information currently found in the front and back of the CAB, such as academic regulations and concentration requirements, once the CAB is no longer printed. He added that it will be

the University’s responsibility to make the information easily accessible online. Students offered varying opinions on the CAB. “I never looked at (it),” said Kevin Chang ’06. A print form of course listings should be available to students, but “it’s probably a waste of paper,” Chang added. Cindy Swain ’09 said the CAB is more useful than BOCA because students can view several courses on the same page at once, instead of one course for each page of BOCA. “I’m more inclined to look at departments I wouldn’t normally look at,” she said. Both said BOCA is necessary, however, because it provides the most up-to-date information.

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006

New Orleans continued from page 1 April 22, but many of the voters are living away from the city and will have to vote as absentees. Misleading coverage, Lander said, could cause voters to choose candidates based on inaccurate information. Residents are also extremely angry at their government. “Katrina didn’t flood New Orleans — government failure did,” said John McCusker, a photographer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune walking along the London Avenue Canal last week. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which built the faulty levees, is a frequent target for residents’ irritation. Touring neighborhoods adjacent to the levees, it is clear that almost no houses suffered significant hurricane damage, but almost all had significant flood damage. People here are also angry about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s slow response to the disaster, and they remain frustrated over what they see as bureaucracy run amok. “Imagine going to the driver’s license office every day,” McCusker said. Residents charge that because of the media’s focus on the Lower Ninth Ward, people around the country believe the rest of the city is fine. Clearly, it is not. The city faces a health crisis, with hospitals treating huge numbers of uninsured patients, sometimes cutting into their endowments to do so. Charity Hos-

pital, New Orleans’ only Level 1 trauma center, is closed permanently, with trauma patients being treated at a converted shopping mall. The city faces an education crisis, with Dillard University operating out of rented space in a downtown hotel and Tulane and Loyola universities making drastic budget cuts. The University of New Orleans has some of its faculty living in a trailer park outside its Lakeview campus. The city’s infamously troubled public school system has been quietly replaced by a charter system that has enjoyed some success, but as one resident said, “Schools in Orleans Parish were so bad before, I think they only could have gotten better.” The city also faces a housing crisis, with thousands of former residents living across Louisiana and the United States as well as in a tent city called the Emergency Community, located in neighboring St. Bernard Parish. With so many houses being gutted, rent is skyrocketing. According to McCusker, a two-bedroom house in the city costs him nearly $1,500 per month. And yet, for all of the Big Easy’s problems, it retains much of its unique ﬂavor. The city’s famous French Quarter was undamaged, and people still dance in the streets to some of the world’s best jazz and blues. Po’boy sandwiches, boiled crawﬁsh, benets and other Crescent City fare is still available, though one must take note of operating hours — many businesses cannot stay open late because of a shortage of lowwage laborers. “You know what I miss? Guys playing dominoes on the neu-

tral ground,” said local electrician Brian Deubler, referring to the city’s wide, grassy medians. “Those guys were so set-up that they had BBQ pits out there.” Moving forward “New Orleans remains a terrible knot of indecision,” Lander said, pointing out the disagreements over when, where, how and if to rebuild. Besides an impending election, people are hesitant to move back into their neighborhoods because they don’t know if their community will be revitalized. Several residents said they keep in touch with neighbors, who are spread across the country, via email, and most are hopeful that they can rebuild. “It’s not any more irrational to rebuild here than to rebuild after an earthquake in San Francisco or a wildﬁre in California,” McCusker said. However, in the Lower Ninth Ward, fresh signs that read “Don’t bulldoze” adorn destroyed houses as part of a campaign by the volunteer group Common Ground to help residents keep their houses. However, many residents and volunteers who toured the Ninth Ward, including some working for Common Ground, expressed the sentiment that houses will almost certainly have to be demolished. In the meantime, many residents have taken it upon themselves to bring their city back. Partly out of a lasting distrust of government and a frustration at navigating bureaucracy, a culture of individualism appears to be emerging in the Big Easy.

“I think we will definitely end up with more of an entrepreneurial culture,” Lander said. “When things got done, it was because of individuals,” Deubler said. McCusker also spoke of forsaking the top-down governance to which residents might have become accustomed before Katrina. After the storm, physicians and police officers commandeered Wal-Mart stores and drug stores for supplies. Now, neighbors are helping to gut each other’s houses and are jumpstarting their children’s education by starting charter schools, he said. The latent distrust, government indecision and emerging spirit of individualism have provided an opportunity for dozens of volunteer organizations to assist in the city’s reconstruction. One ubiquitous group is Common Ground, which has garnered a reputation among residents as an exemplar of the rising spirit of individualism. Started by three residents with $50, this grassroots effort was providing aid to victims in some areas days before the government did. It has started clinics, opened the Emergency Community and campaigned for rebuilding heavily damaged areas. “The Emergency Community is sort of run by hippies. It happens quite a lot that hippies come and save the day,” Jay Alcazar, a Loyola student, told the panel audience. The group has lately become somewhat controversial for flouting local authorities’ reconstruction ideas and government disaster relief procedures, but there is little doubt that, on the whole, people here appreciate its assistance. While he thinks Common Ground has been an extraordinary help in the short-term, Lander said the group will eventually have to work alongside the government as New Orleans plans for the future. Brown’s contribution From Brown, the Swearer Center for Public Service sent 20 students to gut houses and learn about the city through various cultural and educational events. The Bear Necessities, Brown Habitat for Hu-

manity, Hillel, College Hill for Christ and others also traveled to New Orleans for the break, some with the assistance of a $5 million donation from the late Sidney Frank ’42 for Brown’s Katrina relief efforts. Additionally, at least five students traveled independently, looking to help out where needed. Students slept on church floors, in tents and in warehouses. “The work was hard and fulfilling, but also very frustrating because, as much as we did, there was still so much left to be done,” said Juli Thorstenn ’09, who worked with Habitat. While an exact number of student volunteers was not available, Brown students were so abundant that on at least three occasions one volunteer group reported running into another on the streets. People here are extremely appreciative of the huge numbers of students in New Orleans for their spring breaks. Police ofﬁcers stopped a van full of Brown volunteers for running a red light, but let them off without even a warning after discovering why they were in New Orleans. One cab driver refused to be paid for his services after ferrying a group of Habitat for Humanity volunteers across the city. As New Orleans residents slowly rebuild their city, they have adopted a dark sense of humor about their numerous plights. T-shirts that read, “Want hurricane relief? Go FEMA yourself!” and “Make levees, not war!” attempt to disguise the growing concern about this year’s hurricane season, which begins June 1. As much as residents rail against their government, they also acknowledge that they need federal and state authorities to work quickly to reconstruct the levees that keep water from ﬂooding into the Crescent City. To what extent the levees will be repaired by summer remains unclear. Meanwhile, New Orleans residents are working, hoping and waiting. Deubler, the electrician, quietly put it best: “I used to coach sports, but now most of the ball parks are trailer parks. I’ve had to downsize my business — I’m just watching the time go by.”

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5 , 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

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dres and Millar takes up space for the Orioles. From the perspective of Theo Epstein, I can understand the rationale behind this. All three players did what they had to do to contribute to Boston’s success, and once they had served their purpose it was time to say goodbye to them. But the team feels just a little emptier without them. The list of memorable guys from that team doesn’t end with those three. Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez, Johnny Damon, Gabe Kapler, Doug Mirabelli, Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz all captured my admiration, and all have said goodbye to the Ole Town Team. The majority of the key cogs from that championship squad make their addresses elsewhere nowadays, and it’s less than two years later. Of course we still have holdovers like Schill, Ortiz, Varitek, Manny Ramirez and Tim Wakefield serving as daily reminders for those glory days, but they seem to be all who remain. Epstein went out and got some very respectable players to fill the gaps, but the changes have come so suddenly that I’ve been caught off-guard. Part of me still wants to see Mueller holding down the sixth spot in the lineup with his awkward inside-out swing, hear Millar chime in with his idiotic comments on a daily basis, watch Mirabelli behind the plate trying to corral a Tim Wakefield knuckleball and make unending comments concerning Damon’s hirsute appearance. Unfortunately the only way I can do that is by watching “Faith Rewarded” for the 20th time. As the season progresses it won’t matter to me who’s playing for the Red Sox, just as long as those players help the team win 95-100 games and reach the postseason just as I’ve come to expect since 2003. I’m already a fan of Coco Crisp for his name and his jaw-dropping ability in the field, and something tells me new faces like Mike Lowell, Mark Loretta and Josh Beckett will have no trouble winning me over. The mantra of any general manager this day and age is that change is necessary even for a winning ball club. What the GMs never mention — although it is surely implied — is that it’s never easy, especially for the fans.

Vice President for Research also funds travel for research, he said. But the University’s travel fund is not as important to sciences professors, said Professor of Biology Ken Miller ’70 P’02. Most professors in his department use funds from foundations such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to cover traveling expenses, he said. Although employees are reimbursed for costs incurred traveling on University business, Professor of History Gordon Wood said he did not take advantage of that benefit when he drove to Boston last month to speak at the regional launch of the Campaign for Academic Enrichment. “However expensive gas is, it’s not that bad that I need to ask the University to pay,” Wood said. Although travel compensation is a useful benefit for professors, some value the tuition benefits provided even more. Tenured and non-tenured full-time faculty who have worked at Brown for four years receive $10,000 off each child’s undergraduate tuition each year, regardless of where they go to school, said Michael Chapman, vice president for public affairs and University relations. While many institutions provide incentives for faculty to send children to their universities, Brown does not, according to both Miller and Harris. Before 1979, the University gave faculty an amount equivalent to Brown’s tuition to use for their child’s tuition at any university, said Professor Emeritus of Engineering Barrett Hazeltine. Since Brown’s tuition was higher than most schools, children of tenured faculty usually went to college for free. Hazeltine, who has been teaching at the University since 1959, used the old tuition benefit to send his three children to the Stevens Institute of Technology, Tufts University and Swarthmore College. Not paying any tuition was the best perk he received in his 47 years as a professor, he said. Harris, who came to Brown in 1988 and missed out on the old benefit, said the new one is mediocre. “A lot of peer institutions will give more,” he said, but he added that other Ivy League schools, such as Yale University, provide the same financial support that Brown does. Harris said the low tuition benefit was a factor when his children decided where they would attend college. His son is currently enrolled at McGill University in Montreal, which

Due to his Asian bloodlines, Chris Mahr ’07 can never make unending comments about his own hirsute appearance.

has lower tuition than American schools of similar quality, Harris said. Miller came to Brown in 1980 and also received the newer tuition benefit for his daughters. His younger daughter graduated from Brown in 2002, and students assumed Miller did not pay any tuition, though he paid the majority, he said. “Compared to our peer institutions, it’s not a generous benefit,” he added. While Harris said the tuition benefit falls short, Miller said Brown’s contribution to faculty pension funds is “substantial.” Rather than taking the retirement money out of professors’ salaries, the University places an additional amount of roughly 7 to 10 percent of a professor’s salary in a TIAA-CREF pension fund, he said. The University also offers faculty the option of transferring money from their paychecks to the fund, Miller said. The University also provides support for faculty research both monetarily and in the form of sabbaticals. Still, in his 17 years at Brown, Harris said he has taken only two and a half years off from teaching, adding that he spent his time off on campus. Beyond their own retirement and their children’s education, faculty members’ academic livelihoods benefit from the University’s support for their own research, Harris said. Although not completely satisfied with research support and leave-taking policies, Harris said the University has improved these efforts in the past few years. Unlike many other universities, Miller said Brown does not

give professors grant money for research. Instead, Miller said he and his colleagues apply for grants from the NIH and the NSF. Before faculty begin working at Brown, they determine with the University how much they will receive in start-up research money, a figure that usually falls between $50,000 and $300,000, he said. Highly competitive grants of $15,000 to $20,000 are also awarded to new faculty members, he added. “Once you get started, you’re expected to generate your own funds,” Miller said. Vice President for Research Andries van Dam said Brown is not the only institution that expects its faculty to be “self-supporting.” The University does help underwrite the costs of research by giving professors lab space and partially funding expensive equipment. The construction of the Life Sciences Building, van Dam said, reflects the University’s increasing support for researchers. Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistantships also provide faculty with research assistance while giving students an opportunity to gain practical academic experience, van Dam said. Van Dam said his office makes sure professors in the humanities are not forgotten. Humanities researchers have fewer sources of funding for travel, and the University’s aid is often a great help. “A small amount of money makes a big difference for a lot of (humanities professors),” he said. Although faculty in the sciences always wish for more funding, van Dam said he believes most

researchers are not “wildly dissatisfied.” Those faculty who believe they might get a better aid package at another university may choose to leave Brown, he said. Such situations arise at every university, he added. “Naturally, most faculty would like to see their benefits increase,” Miller said. Despite his comments on the shortcomings of some benefits, Harris said he profits from his role as a Faculty Fellow and contact with students in the classroom. Intangible benefits far outweigh any possible financial perks, he said. The Faculty Fellows program fosters interaction between students and faculty by placing faculty in houses near residential halls. Five Faculty Fellows live in University-owned houses rentfree, Harris said. Two non-residential fellows receive a stipend as compensation for their work with students. While Harris said he enjoys living on campus, he said the real benefit comes from building relationships with students outside the academic arena. “We have the privilege of mixing with the brightest people of the next generation — I think that’s exhilarating,” he said. At the same time, Harris said, “one can never leave the job.” Juggling his role as a Faculty Fellow with his duties as a professor and his research can be difficult, he said, “but I enjoy doing it.” “I could have gone elsewhere for more money and better benefits and I chose to stay here because I felt Brown was a better place,” Harris said.

EDITORIAL/LETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006 · PAGE 10

STAFF EDITORIAL

Exploding the modern Though students like Ray Serrano ’07 may reflect fondly on the ticket distribution method employed by the University for last year’s lecture by former President Bill Clinton — in which students pitched tents and camped out overnight on the Main Green — many in the Brown community viewed the ordeal as more of an inconvenience than a “great bonding experience.” Moreover, the process was hardly fair, as many graduate and medical students were unable to sacrifice an entire evening just to get tickets to hear a big-name speaker. The process for obtaining tickets to Saturday’s lecture by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in which members of the Brown community reserved their tickets online and could obtain them later, is much more accommodating. Though perhaps less memorable, the process ensures that all members of the community have the opportunity to attend the lecture and displays the University’s intelligent use of technological resources to improve services. The system has seemingly gone off without a hitch. Other University services could stand to be modernized as well. Brown remains the only Ivy League school without online course registration, and there is no concrete timetable for when Banner — a comprehensive program that will replace current registration mechanisms along with other University databases — will be operational. When Banner is finally put in place, it will seemingly eliminate the need for some tools used by students to survey the University’s course offerings, including the Brown Online Course Announcement and the Course Announcement Bulletin. Before doing away with these, however, the University should consider whether community members view them as anachronistic nuisances or valuable assets. Having a printed form of course offerings encourages students to consider departments they might not otherwise. In addition, students rely on the CAB for other pieces of critical information, such as concentration requirements and academic regulations. Though the University could always make this information available online, as well, we agree with Kevin Chang ’06, who told The Herald he believes some printed version of this information should be available, even if a copy is not distributed to every single student. University Registrar Michael Pesta told The Herald in November that the cost of producing the CAB will not factor in the University’s decision to continue making it available, indicating that it is not particularly prohibitive. If that’s the case, then it seems the University could easily continue to produce at least some copies of the CAB, and we believe many students would appreciate having this tool at their disposal.

D A N I E L L AW L O R

LETTERS

No, Mr. Friedman, for the last time, you cannot write for us. Please go home.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD EDITORIAL Robbie Corey-Boulet, Editor-in-Chief Justin Elliott, Executive Editor Ben Miller, Executive Editor Stephanie Clark, Senior Editor Katie Lamm, Senior Editor Jonathan Sidhu, Arts & Culture Editor Jane Tanimura, Arts & Culture Editor Stu Woo, Campus Watch Editor Mary-Catherine Lader, Features Editor Ben Leubsdorf, Metro Editor Anne Wootton, Metro Editor Eric Beck, News Editor Patrick Harrison, Opinions Editor Nicholas Swisher, Opinions Editor Stephen Colelli, Sports Editor Christopher Hatﬁeld, Sports Editor Justin Goldman, Asst. Sports Editor Jilane Rodgers, Asst. Sports Editor Charlie Vallely, Asst. Sports Editor PRODUCTION Allison Kwong, Design Editor Taryn Martinez, Copy Desk Chief Lela Spielberg, Copy Desk Chief Mark Brinker, Graphics Editor Joe Nagle, Graphics Editor

PHOTO Jean Yves Chainon, Photo Editor Jacob Melrose, Photo Editor Ashley Hess, Sports Photo Editor Kori Schulman, Sports Photo Editor BUSINESS Ryan Shewcraft, General Manager Lisa Poon, Executive Manager David Ranken, Executive Manager Mitch Schwartz, Executive Manager Laurie-Ann Paliotti, Sr. Advertising Manager Susan Dansereau, Ofﬁce Manager POST- MAGAZINE Sonia Saraiya, Editor-in-Chief Taryn Martinez, Associate Editor Ben Bernstein, Features Editor Matt Prewitt, Features Editor Elissa Barba, Design Editor Lindsay Harrison, Graphics Editor Constantine Haghighi, Film Editor Paul Levande, Film Editor Jesse Adams, Music Editor Katherine Chan, Music Editor Hillary Dixler, Off-the-Hill Editor Abigail Newman, Theater Editor

Allison Kwong, Night Editor Chessy Brady, Taryn Martinez, Copy Editors Senior Staff Writers Simmi Aujla, Stephanie Bernhard, Melanie Duch, Ross Frazier, Jonathan Herman, Rebecca Jacobson, Chloe Lutts, Caroline Silverman Staff Writers Justin Amoah, Zach Barter, Allison Erich Bernstein, Brenna Carmody, Alissa Cerny, Ashley Chung, Stewart Dearing, Hannah Levintova, Hannah Miller, Aidan Levy, Taryn Martinez, Kyle McGourty, Ari Rockland-Miller, Chelsea Rudman, Kam Sripada, Robin Steele, Spencer Trice, Ila Tyagi, Sara Walter Sports Staff Writers Sarah Demers, Amy Ehrhart, Erin Frauenhofer, Kate Klonick, Madeleine Marecki, George Mesthos, Hugh Murphy, Eric Perlmutter, Marco Santini, Bart Stein, Tom Trudeau, Steele West Account Administrators Alexandra Annuziato, Emilie Aries, Steven Butschi, Dee Gill, Rahul Keerthi, Kate Love, Ally Ouh, Nilay Patel, Ashfia Rahman, Rukesh Samarasekera, Jen Solin, Bonnie Wong Design Staff Adam Kroll, Andrew Kuo, Jason Lee, Gabriela Scarritt Photo Staff CJ Adams, Chris Bennett, Meg Boudreau, Tobias Cohen, Lindsay Harrison, Matthew Lent, Dan Petrie, Christopher Schmitt, Oliver Schulze, Juliana Wu, Min Wu, Copy Editors Chessy Brady, Amy Ehrhart, Natalia Fisher, Jacob Frank, Christopher Gang, Yi-Fen Li, Taryn Martinez, Katie McComas, Sara Molinaro, Heather Peterson, Lela Spielberg

The Brown Daily Herald Opinions Page is looking for columnists. Apply now! Apply to be a columnist. opinions@browndailyherald.com Send a guest column. opinions@browndailyherald.com Send a letter. letters@browndailyherald.com CORRECTIONS POLICY The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication. C O M M E N TA R Y P O L I C Y The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reﬂect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reﬂect the opinions of their authors only. LET TERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. A DV E RT I S I N G P O L I C Y The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

OPINIONS

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006 · PAGE 11

Where are all the undergraduates? Brown undergrads must step up and oppose the outsourcing of the Brown Bookstore BY JILL MCCORMACK GUEST COLUMNIST

The Brown Bookstore has been a part of this University and Thayer Street for 36 years. As a transfer student from Tufts University, I have had the experience of working at a Barnes and Noble College Booksellers, Inc., store for thee years at my previous school. As a current student employee at the Brown Bookstore, I have an inside perspective on just how much we would be sacriﬁcing if our administration chooses to outsource. The decision to outsource would greatly impact the lives of both faculty and students. It will be more difﬁcult for faculty to select hard-to-get titles because Barnes and Noble is more restrictive than the current textbook department in its ordering policies. Furthermore, not only does Barnes and Noble mark up its textbook prices by a higher percentage than does the Brown Bookstore, but the return policies of Barnes and Noble are much more severe than those to which Brown students are accustomed. At the Tufts Bookstore, textbooks are no longer returnable after one week of classes, regardless of when they were purchased. Presently, the Brown Bookstore accepts returns up to 10 days after the date of purchase, even after shopping period has ended. The future of our bookstore doesn’t just concern faculty and students. Our bookstore’s employees consider themselves part of the Brown family and take

great pride in that distinction. They have served students, faculty, staff and local residents eagerly and effectively for some time, and they now stand to lose their connection to this university and, what’s worse, their livelihood. In addition, the city of Providence stands to loose a landmark which has helped the local econo-

of any other Ivy League bookstore (“High textbook prices spark debate as students seek out alternatives,” Feb. 3). The bookstore holds annual sales each September, December and April. Most importantly, bookstore operations such as ordering, accounting, merchandizing, etc. take place right here on the Brown campus,

Yes, improvements can be made to the bookstore, but with the proper resources, they can be carried out under the current system. my by choosing to buy from local vendors in addition to the more common national vendors who are approved by Barnes and Noble. I have read the Bookstore Review Committee’s report, and I am unsure how committee members have come to the conclusion that outsourcing is the best avenue for improving the bookstore. The beneﬁts which the committee anticipates from Barnes and Noble can also be achieved by an independent bookseller, and there are additional beneﬁts which our bookstore already provides. As The Herald reported, used book sales account for a larger percentage of the Brown Bookstore’s total sales than those

not in an office building in New Jersey. The committee champions a “firm that specializes only in college and university bookstores” but forgets that our current bookstore has specialized in serving the Brown community for 36 years. In fact, it appears that outsourcing the bookstore is taking the easy way out. We don’t have to spend money to renovate the structure; Barnes and Noble will spend its own. We no longer have to pay salaries and benefits to Brown employees; Barnes and Noble can release them in one year. We don’t have to expend the time and the resources to improve the bookstore; Barnes and Noble will make those decisions for us. Yes, improvements can

be made to the bookstore, but with the proper resources, they can be carried out under the current system. Is Barnes and Noble’s willingness to ﬁnance a renovation more important to us than maintaining a bookstore which has served the entire community effectively while remaining independent? As undergraduates, we are extremely busy; nonetheless, it is vital that we be well-informed about any decisions that will have an effect on the Brown community. Are we really willing to allow the administration to make such an important decision before we investigate for ourselves how it will affect our lives as students and members of the Brown community? Are we so desensitized to big business that we automatically assume that corporate America does things better, more efficiently and in our best interest? I think it’s time for the undergraduates to get more involved, to question what lies ahead of us. Don’t we want people at Brown deciding what happens in the Brown Bookstore? Regardless of what other schools have done with their stores in the past, we need to determine what’s best for us. We are not Harvard University. We are not Boston University. We are Brown University, and we should take pride in those aspects of our community that make us unique and independent.

Jill McCormack ’06 hugs books, not trees.

The Internet’s bum rap The consequences of the Internet blurring the line between the public and private BY MAHA ATAL

OPINIONS COLUMNIST At 9 a.m. on a Thursday morning, I sat in a stuffy lecture hall and stared bleary-eyed at the ﬁrst question on my American history midterm: “‘The Federalists have been given a bum rap by historians; they were all good republicans.’ Comment.” Instead of thinking about my essay, I found myself considering the essay prompt’s colloquial tone. Perhaps the teaching assistant who wrote the question assumed he’d be endearing himself personally to his young, hip student audience. But by appealing to students as a private individual rather than as a professional and an academic, wasn’t he crossing a public-personal divide? Or has that line been so effaced that it’s no longer discernable? In the era of the Federalists, political discourse belonged to the social elite that was educated enough to access the printed media where political dialogue occurred. When leaders wrote on public matters, they made it clear that their leadership came from their position outside and above the masses, a status that allowed them to confront, critique and lead. In a recent column, Michal Zapendowski ’07 argued that the malaise of our political and artistic world is an inability to confront audiences directly (“This is not a colum,” March 22). He noted that museums are now ﬁlled with objects that might be trash if found on the street. He called today’s political activism “fake confrontation” because it fails to directly engage the groups whose opinions it seeks to change. Students lying on the Main Green to protest deaths in Iraq, he argued, were having

a discourse amongst themselves instead of engaging the public. Perhaps the trends Zapendowski identiﬁes have less to do with a refusal of activists to engage the establishment directly and more to do with the age they live in. To stand outside the political establishment or the artistic world and openly, actively engage with it as an individual seems impossible when private and the

cation takes place in a language even more informal than our everyday speech, where spelling becomes phonetic shorthand and phrases are replaced by acronyms. The printed word, formerly considered distinctive for its public nature, is also accessible over the Internet — what newspaper does not post its stories online? In fact, the Internet is rapidly becoming the only place we turn for writ-

and private discourses, how can we make distinctions between the personal and the social in politics or art? By the logic of our new undivided discourse, their arguments appear valid, but they are troubling for those, like myself, who value a more active and responsible kind of interaction among individuals. Must the effacement of the divide between public and private necessarily condone the kind of “fake confrontation” or “trash-as-art” which Zapendowski rightly identiﬁes as serious challenges that contemporary politics and art must overcome? Though I am an optimistic fan of the Internet and its ability to disseminate information to involve more people in political or artistic debate, I cannot accept political bloggers who include what they ate for breakfast or their personal photos in a post. I side with the many professors from colleges across America who told the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this year that e-mail inspires students to share personal details with professors that should be left out of public, academic life. Our new modes of communication and information, if wielded responsibly, have the power to elevate our discourse above the need for such a divide. Instead of allowing public discourse to become a dumping ground for every private thought, is it possible that we as individuals in an age without privacy can learn to think and speak in a manner worthy of the publicity we now have access to? If we don’t, the Internet, and the public culture of our time, may earn their own “bum raps” in the history books.

If we can’t distinguish between public and private discourses, how can we make distinctions between the personal and the social in politics or art? public are intertwined. Remember during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal when apologists for the president protested that he could not be held publicly and professionally accountable for his private life? The argument had a hard time hitting home, mostly because the notion of separating a single individual into private and public seemed out of sync with a world in which private lives are public information and participation in public discourse is increasingly personalized. Political commentators routinely cite the emphasis placed on personal qualities of political leaders in determining electoral success. While this intertwining is a long historical process, the last two decades have seen its rapid acceleration. With the Internet, private information can be publicly accessed, often in dangerous ways. Private communi-

ten words, and on the Internet we can personalize even the news of the external world to suit our private interests. We can access and come to know as true a personally crafted reality. The metaphor of a “web” is often used to describe the Internet technology upon which our new public discourse is based. Rather than inhabiting a world of private individuals for whom the public reality is something external that can be examined,and “confronted” directly, our public reality is itself the intertwining of individuals. Artists or political activists thus justify confrontation only amongst themselves as public action because they are touching some point on the web of our cyberreality. If public and private discourses are disseminated through identical means, how can we distinguish between them? And if we can’t distinguish between public

Maha Atal ’08 is wary of Web cams.

SPORTS WEDNESDAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · APRIL 5, 2006 · PAGE 12

PR’s fall for w. track despite Short squad hangs tough rain on spring break trip out west for m. track BY SARAH DEMERS SPORTS STAFF WRITER

Spring break meant a lot of traveling for a lot of students, but few had an experience like that of the women’s track team. Partial squads began the spring season for the Bears by competing in two meets, one in West Point, N.Y., at the Dick Shea Invitational on March 25, and another across the country in Palo Alto, Calif., at the Stanford Relays on March 31 and April 1. The races proved to be a shining start to what should be a stellar outdoor season for the track team. At West Point, a limited squad kicked off the outdoor season by displaying a range of top performances. Nicole Burns ’09 won

Dan Grossman ’71

Over break, Michol Monaghan ’07 ﬁnished the 5,000-meter event in a career best time of 16:49.

the 400-meter dash with a time of 56.50 seconds in her first outdoor meet for the Bears. Akilah King ’08 blazed to a second-place finish in the 200-meters in a time of 24.92, and Kat D’Auria ’09 sprinted to a fourth-place finish in the 800-meter event. In the field, the Bears received a pair of fifth-place finishes from first-years. Samatha Kuo ’09 threw the shot put 39 feet, 8 3/4 inches, and Daniela Ponte ’09 cleared 10-4 in the pole vault. A week later and across the country, another limited squad laced it up at Stanford, hoping for some beautiful California sun and some strong performances. Though Brown only saw one of its wishes realized, it was easily the more important one. “Our goal was to get the season started in the right direction with some ECAC and Regional qualifiers. We were hoping for good weather conditions and a chance to compete with some of the best track and field teams in the country. Although the weather was not in our favor, we did have some amazing performances,” said cocaptain Kelly Powell ’06. The Bears were forced to battle rainy weather and strong winds in northern California, which affected the competitors, but they refused to let the elements dampen their performances. Highlights from the Stanford meet included Burns besting her impressive mark in the 400 from the West Point competition a few days earlier. She ran a 54.88, the see W.TRACK, page 5

Gymnasts struggle in ﬁnale, but garner individual honors BY MADELEINE MARECKI SPORTS STAFF WRITER

In its last team competition of the season, the gymnastics squad turned in a disappointing eighth place finish at the ECAC Championships, held at the University of Rhode Island on March 25. The tumblers posted 186.050 points, just half a point behind seventh-place finisher Temple University. Towson University won the nine-team meet with 191.275 points. According to co-captain Mandi Baughman ’06, the real frustration for the gymnasts came not from the final team standings, but rather from failing to fulfill two goals set by the team before the meet. “Our goals going into ECACs were to hit all the routines and to get some sort of redemption from Ivies,” where they finished last, she said. “The (ECAC) meet was a little disappointing.” The Bears’ performances were marred by small mistakes, according to co-captain Amber Smith ’06. These errors added up to major deductions from the team’s final scores in each event. Brown trailed its League rivals significantly. The University of Pennsylvania took third with 189.050 points, while Ivy Classic winner Cornell tied for

fourth with Yale, both finishing with 188.800 points. Both Smith and Baughman were unsure why the team performed poorly. “We had a lot of mistakes on every event,” Smith said. “It was very uncharacteristic of us. I don’t know what really happened. … We came into the meet pretty prepared and the warm-up was going well. We weren’t nervous. I guess when we weren’t hitting (the routines), it kind of stopped us from gaining a positive momentum.” Despite the mediocre team finish, the Bears had some strong individual performances. Brittany Anderson ’09 led the way for Brown by breaking into the top three in the balance beam. She posted a 9.575, tying with three other gymnasts for third place. Her finish earned her First-Team All-ECAC honors. “Brittany told me her biggest goal was to hit her beam routine, and she ended up placing in the event,” Baughman said. Anderson was Bruno’s top finisher in both the floor exercise and the uneven bars, scoring 9.575 and 9.4, respectively. see GYMNASTICS, page 4

en ’07 cleared a personal best 15 feet, 7 inches in the pole vault, moving the jumper to third all-time for Brown. Another jumper, Ikenna Achilihu ’08, found early-season success in his forte, the triple jump, hitting 48 - 2-1/2. Despite racing at almost 11 p.m. West Coast time, distance runner Chris Burke ’07 continued his year of breakthrough performances, posting a time of 14:14 in the 5,000-meter run, good for second in his heat and seventh all-time for Bruno. “The meet went really well,” Burke said. “By and large it was a success, making the long trip worth it.” The mark was a personal best by 18 seconds and a mere four seconds off an NCAA Regional qualifying mark. “Chris has a lot of potential and can run even faster,” Lake said. “He is truly talented and is putting in solid training, so I expect he can continue to run faster in the upcoming weeks.” Burke’s time moves the harrier into solid position to once again score at the Heptagonal Championships. “I know with a time like that I need to look at potentially

For those of you that either know me or have read Mahrtian Encounters before, you know that I follow the Red Sox to an unhealthy degree. So yesterday being Opening Day, I naturally wore my Jason Varitek jersey and listened to Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano call the Sox’s 7-3 win CHRIS MAHR over the TexMAHRTIAN as Rangers. ENCOUNTERS It was an ideal start to the season after a rocky spring training, with great pitching from Curt Schilling and the offense I’ve come to expect from David Ortiz and Varitek. Nonetheless, something still nagged me to no end: how much this team has changed from that magical band of idiots of 2004. That year will be forever remembered as the year when the Sox won the World Series and exorcised an 86-year old curse, but some of the moments from that season were so sublime they’re best remembered on their own. Take the ninth inning of Game 4 of the American League Championship Series against the Yankees. Bill Mueller drove a single up the middle to score Dave Roberts, who had stolen second after pinch-running for Kevin Millar, who had drawn a walk against Mariano Rivera moments earlier. It was one of the more memorable sequences in Red Sox history. But there’s something funny when I reminisce about it: none of those three players are in Boston to start this season. Mueller now plays third for the Dodgers, Roberts patrols center ﬁeld for the Pa-

see M.TRACK, page 7

see MAHR, page 9

Dan Grossman ’71

Grant Bowen ’07 cleared a personal best 15 feet, 7 inches in the pole vault at the Stanford Invite over spring break. BY JILANE RODGERS ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

The men’s track and field team kicked off its outdoor season with two meets over spring break. On March 25, a limited squad traveled to West Point, N.Y., to compete at the Dick Shea Invite. This past weekend, the Bears took another partial roster to compete at the highly competitive Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif. While team scores were not tallied at either competition, Bruno posted top marks around the field and on the track, and multiple men qualified for the IC4A Championships in May. “Obviously the goal of the trip was to get some great competition and great conditions so we could have great performances,” said Director of Track and Field Craig Lake. The Stanford Invite took entries not just from the top of the NCAA, but also from elite post-collegiate competitors. The extraordinary quality of the attending athletes led to fast times and personal bests for many of the Bears, despite the unseasonably chilly and wet West Coast weather. On the inﬁeld, Grant Bow-

Sox missing the pieces that made ’04 magic

SPORTS BRIEFS

Strong spring break propels w. water polo to fifth at ECACs Spring break was hardly a break for the women of the water polo team. Brown played eight games in an eight-day span and emerged with a 4-4 record, moving to 9-13 overall. After a rough start in which the Bears dropped two games to the University of California, Davis, 9-3, and the University of California, Berkeley, 18-8, Bruno rebounded for 9-7 and 10-4 wins against Sonoma State University and University of the Pacific, respectively. The West Coast road trip ended with a close 5-2 loss to Santa Clara University. “We got to regroup (after the Berkeley game) and practice and watch some video. We’ve been trying to get more confident with ourselves in scoring and we needed to focus on improving our (defense),” said Head Coach Jason Gall. Paige Lansing ’07 led the team in the first weekend of

the break with six goals in four games, adding to her teamleading total of 33 goals on the season. In the pivotal third quarter of the Sonoma State game, she scored two goals in a row, giving Bruno the lead for good. “It was really frustrating (trailing by three in the ﬁrst quarter) because (Sonoma) was a team we knew we could beat,” Lansing said. “It was so sloppy in the ﬁrst quarter, and I just got really mad and decided to start shooting more.” Lansing then teamed up with Liz Balassone ’07, and the two combined for three more goals in closing out Brown’s scoring. “Paige is our best perimeter shooter. … She has a very strong understanding of the game,” Gall said. Soon after returning from see BRIEFS, page 6

Ashley Hess / Herald

Anne Deggelman ’08 made 19 saves over the Bears’ final three games in helping Brown to a fifth-place finish at ECACs. BROWN SPORTS SCHEDULE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5 BASEBALL: vs. Rhode Island, 2 p.m., Aldrich Dexter Field