Friday, January 26, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD F RIDAY, J ANUAR Y 26, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 3

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Bookstore improvements planned by new director

Students fill Friedman Study Center for grand opening

BY STEPHANIE BERNHARD FEATURES EDITOR

The Friedman Study Center felt more like a nightclub than a library last night at the celebration that officially marked its opening.

Hundreds of students filled the 27,000-square-foot space nearly to capacity, ignoring the signs prescribing decibel levels for the center’s quiet study areas. A dance music soundtrack blasted from the reference desk as students enjoyed free pizza, cake and hot chocolate amid computer clusters and bright new furniture.

University Librarian Harriette Hemmasi, Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 and Undergraduate Council of Students President John Gillis ’07 all spoke briefly at the 11:30 p.m. ceremony about the significance of continued on page 3

BY SARA MOLINARO METRO EDITOR

dition, an increased financial aid budget has allowed the University to provide adequate financial aid packages to more students.

But Allen said other factors play a role in the gap between graduation rates of white and black students.

“Money will continue to be one of the pressing factors, but it’s not the only reason for the difference in graduation rates,” Allen said.

“How do students adjust to college? Do we have advising programs that help people with varying levels of knowledge? These are some of the questions we need to ask ourselves as an institution as we think about why we

The Brown Bookstore will undergo major operational and physical upgrades over the next year and a half, according to Manuel Cunard, who became director of the bookstore last month. Cunard replaced Lawrence Carr, who submitted his resignation last summer.

Last spring, a University committee charged with examining the bookstore issued a strong recommendation that the bookstore be outsourced to an external vendor, such as Barnes and Noble College Booksellers. In response, faculty members, students, bookstore employees and local politicians formed a coalition to oppose the outsourcing effort. Eventually, University administrators decided to keep the bookstore independent with an intention to improve its operations and structure.

Cunard’s appointment as the bookstore’s new director is a catalyst for the implementation of major changes. Previously director of auxiliary operations and campus services at Wesleyan University, he has also worked at Wake Forest, Loyola and Colorado State universities “We’re really fortunate to have somebody with Manny’s depth and breadth of knowledge and experience,” said Vice President for Administration Walter Hunter, who oversees the Brown Bookstore.

Hunter said in addition to recommending improvements to the store, Cunard will suggest ways

continued on page 6

continued on page 6

Tai Ho Shin / Herald

Students sign a banner at the grand opening celebration for the Friedman Study Center in the Sciences Library.

U.’s black grad rate ranked high among peers

BY DEBBIE LEHMANN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Brown has one of the highest graduation rates for black students among top universities, which University officials say is a result of their efforts to provide a supportive environment for students of color. But the inherent challenges of adjusting to a mostly white institution remain, many students say.

The University has one of the top 10 black student graduation rates among major colleges and universities, the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education reported in a recent study. In 2006, Brown’s black student graduation rate was 92 percent, up from 89 percent in 1998. The graduation rate for

white students at the College was 96 percent.

The study found that Harvard University had the highest black graduation rate, at 95 percent.

Amherst, Wellesley and Williams colleges and Princeton University also ranked high on the list, with graduation rates of 94 percent.

Despite a four-percentagepoint increase over the past three years, the national black college graduation rate is only 43 percent, while the figure for white students is 63 percent. The report concluded that “little or no progress has been achieved in bridging the divide.”

According to Bruce Slater, the managing editor of the journal, the four-point increase is largely due to better financial aid and reten-

tion programs that provide help for students at risk of dropping out. But he added that financial differences still account for much of the gap between the graduation rates of white and black students.

“The main difference is money,” Slater wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “Most black students who drop out do so because they cannot afford the cost and do not want to accumulate debt.”

Associate Provost and Director of Institutional Diversity Brenda Allen said Brown has worked in the past five years to make financial aid packages more competitive. The Sidney Frank Scholars program has allowed the University to provide students from the neediest families with comprehensive financial aid packages. In ad-

U. orchestra greeted ‘like rock stars’ during tour in China

BY MICHAEL SKOCPOL SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Courtesy of Jason Smoller ‘09

The Brown University Orchestra in front of the Great Wall of China outside Beijing on Jan. 5. The Orchestra played eight concerts on tour throughout the country.

INSIDE:

3 CAMPUS NEWS

REALITY TV AUDITIONS A producer for a reality television show held auditions at Johnny Rockets Thursday to recruit the “indie” and “creative” crowd on campus

www.browndailyherald.com

5 CAMPUS NEWS

SPAMALOT Computing and Information Services adopts new ways to deal with an increasing amount of spam flooding Brown inboxes

The Brown University Orchestra toured China over winter break, playing eight concerts throughout the country, in cities including Beijing and Shanghai. The 11-day, sixcity tour was highly unusual for an American university orchestra and a memorable first for the Brown ensemble.

The tour kicked off Dec. 26 with a concert in Dalian — a city in northeast China — followed by two performances in Shanghai at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, a brandnew facility and one of China’s premier concert venues. The orchestra also performed in Ningbo, Suzhou and Changzhou, where fireworks accompanied the Brown musicians’ New Year’s Eve concert. After several days of travel and sightseeing, the

11 OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

POINT COUNTER-POINT Nick Swisher ‘08 and Don Trella ‘07.5 face off on the merits of former Vice President Al Gore as a Democratic presidential candidate for 2008

tour concluded Jan. 5 with a concert at Beijing’s Poly Plaza International Theater, another renowned performance space.

Brown’s orchestra is only the second American college orchestra to tour China, according to a University press release. A group from Oberlin College did a similar tour last year, but the Brown orchestra is the first unaffiliated with a conservatory or music school to make such a trip.

In recent years, the orchestra’s only international foray had been a 2002 bus trip to Montreal. “This sort of blew that out of the water,” said Jonathan Schwartz ’07, a violinist and the orchestra’s tour manager.

“This tour puts us on the map as one of the best non-conservatory college orchestras in the U.S. In that sense, it was pretty impressive.” continued on page 4

12 SPORTS

BURCH SETTLES SUIT Asst. Wrestling Coach Michael Burch was awarded $725,000 af after winning his case against UC-Davis over Title IX discrimination

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

TODAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 2

WE A

T H E R

TODAY

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

WBF | Matt Vascellaro TOMORROW

partly cloudy 33 / 28

partly cloudy 15 / 9

MEN

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SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — BLT Sandwich, Italian Roasted Potatoes, Creamy Cappellini with Broccoli, Oregon Blend Vegetables, Clam Bisque, S’mores Bars

LUNCH — Vegetarian Chick Pea Soup, New England Clam Chowder Chowder, Chicken Fingers with Sticky Rice, Spinach Pie Casserole,, Sugar Snap Peas, S’mores Bars

DINNER — Batter Fried Fish, Rice à la Lemon, Steamed Vegetable Melange, Vegetable Stuffed Peppers, Focaccia with Rosemary, Pumpkin Pie

DINNER — Fisherman’s Pie in Puff Pastry Grilled Chicken, Cheese Ravioli Pastry, with Sauce, Wild and White Rice Pilaf, laf laf, Focaccia with Rosemary, Pumpkin Pie

SU

How to Get Down | Nate Saunders

D O K U

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

Deo | Daniel Perez

12 Pictures | Wesley Allsbrook

CR ACROSS 1 Traveler’s disruption 7 Tilak wearer’s garment 11 It’s a cinch in Japan 14 Anatomical ring 15 Rube’s word of opposition 16 Title for Angelico 17 Dog TV producer?

19 Cured serving 20 Way cool 21 Predicament 22 Telepathy term 24 Sommer cooler 25 Kon-Tiki material 26 Linen vestments 28 Round, hairy toy dog?

32 Land east of St. George’s Channel 34 Anticipate 35 Really cheap dog?

40 Wheel position that improves steering 41 Basketball Hall of Famer McHale 43 Dog for a dowager?

48 Got down, in a way 49 Falconine relative of Isis 50 “It __ I”: 1959 hit 52 Cheering sound 53 Miner’s approach 54 It may be limited 58 Recline 59 Act affectedly, and what this puzzle’s theme entries do?

62 “The Nanny” parts?

63 Natural emollient 64 Kind 65 Defeat, in bridge 66 Facial treatment 67 Theseus, vis-àvis the Minotaur DOWN 1 Situation with honking 2 First word of Swinburne’s “March: An Ode” 3 Like some twos 4 Object of affection 5 Bottom-of-thefood-chain organisms

O S S W O R D

6 Scampi ingredient 7 Palms-down gesture 8 Belgium-based imaging company 9 Scream 10 Boar’s Head, for one 11 Useful 12 Popular metal polish 13 2001 Sean Penn movie 18 Words before many words 21 Apostle believed to be a tax collector 22 Where Fido has a pad 23 Kind of shot 25 Century for travelers?

27 Shipped 29 Oscar winner who took his stage name from a WWII Navy film 30 Rent to __: purchasing option 31 Bahamas airport code 33 Blows away 36 Twenty Questions answer

37 Deck symbol 38 Quotidian 39 “Hope & Faith” actress Kelly 42 Utmost 43 They’re seen in pods 44 Staining antiseptic 45 Least sweet 46 Nancy who played Suzie Wong 47 Brownish hues

51 Bar mitzvah site: Var. 54 Grand Canyon sight 55 Chiwere speaker 56 “The First __” 57 Prefix meaning “blood” 59 Balderdash 60 “... the two shall be as __”: “The Wedding Song” 61 1939 Pol. invader

Jellyfish, Jellyfish | Adam Hunter Peck

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Homefries | Yifan Luo

xwordeditor@aol.com

1/26/07

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University community since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the aca-

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once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER please send corrections to

Mary-Catherine Lader, Vice President Ally Ouh, Treasurer Mandeep Gill, Secretary

By Joy M. Andrews (c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

1/26/07

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown demic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

CAMPUS NEWS FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

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NEW

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Younger alums spark new interest in Brown Clubs

I E F

BY CHAZ FIRESTONE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Eunice Hong / Herald

Bunim/Murray Productions invited passers-by to audition at Johnny Rockets on Thayer Street for a planned reality television show.

Reality show recruits students on Thayer Several students walking outside the Johnny Rockets restaurant on Thayer Street last night were flagged down by a man on the roof of a car that featured a large white sign with an alluring message: “MTV Casting Inside!”

The man, Pete Taylor, is working on an untitled reality show that will be shot in Los Angeles this March. With Bunim/Murray Productions — producers of “The Real World” and “The Simple Life” — on-board, Taylor’s show will take 12 “singer/actor/model/entertainers” and pair them up with celebrities, who will show the aspiring stars how to make it big in Hollywood.

“We’re looking at Brown students because they’re diligent, smart, and most of all, creative — very indie, which is a hot word right now,” Taylor said. “We love the indie crowd.”

Rachel Isaacs ’10 and Alexander Hutter ’10 were both drawn in by Taylor’s hand waving and stepped inside Johnny Rockets to take the young producer up on his casting offer. They filled out a questionnaire that asked for their best and worst traits — Isaacs listed her bust as her best and bad temper as worst, while Hutter described himself as “metro” and “judgmental.” After submitting the questionnaire with their contact info and an indication of when they would be available for shooting, the two students reflected on their experience.

“I didn’t really know what was going on,” Hutter said of the casting call.

“I just came in because I was yelled at.”

Isaacs joked about what might happen if she were chosen for Taylor’s show.

“I was kind of hoping they’d send us to Hawaii or someplace like that,” she said. “L.A. will have to do.”

— Chaz Firestone

Four previously inactive and nine newly formed Brown Clubs sprang to life, ushering in an era of remarkable growth, according to Todd Andrews ’83, vice president for alumni relations. The clubs, which unite Brown alums with other alums in their region, are established throughout the United States and other parts of the world. They have recently been the focus of increased attention and funding from Alumni Relations.

“We at the Office of Alumni Relations realize that regional efforts to connect with Brown alumni are important, both for the alumni themselves and for the University,” Andrews said.

University officials and faculty, such as James Campbell, associate professor of history and chair of the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, and President Ruth Simmons, have recently been traveling the globe spreading Brown’s name as part of an initiative to expand Brown’s presence domestically and internationally. These efforts that have in part led to the formation of Brown Clubs in Berlin, Las Vegas and even Iowa City.

“President Simmons is a very important reason for the recent boom in Brown Club activity,” Andrews said. “When Ruth Simmons goes to a community and talks about what’s going on at Brown to graduates whom she has invited to meet with her, interest in clubs surges.”

Kathleen Skestos ’88 of Columbus, Ohio, is one Brown alum who has seen the fruits of these increased efforts, but she said she remembers a time when getting involved in a Brown Club wasn’t so easy.

“I wanted to get a club going right

when I graduated, but the Alumni Relations office said there weren’t enough alumni in Columbus to form a club,” she said. “The attitude of the Alumni Relations office has changed significantly.”

Skestos bided her time by interviewing admission applicants in the Columbus area before she was approached early last year by Alumni Relations and was asked to start a club in Columbus. Since then, the Brown Club of Columbus has been popular among alums in the area.

“We had our kickoff party in June of 2006 and had seven decades of alumni represented there,” Skestos said. “It’s so popular because people have been waiting all this time and now have a chance to join a club.”

The formation of new clubs is not motivated only by University efforts. Lawrence Kerson ’64 P’10 is president of the Brown Club of Philadelphia, which has been around for over three decades. But it has only recently become highly active, mainly due to a surge of interest from younger alumni.

“In the ’70s and ’80s our club had varying degrees of activity, but recent grads have shown a lot of interest,” Kerson said. “Most of the interest and energy seems to be coming from the younger alumni.”

Once the Brown Club of Philadelphia started to become more active, it was able to take advantage of a funding increase from Alumni Relations and has hosted a number of events, including happy hours, family events such as ice skating and an upcoming talk with Campbell about the slavery and justice committee. The club even has an endowed scholarship for Brown students from the Philadelphia area. “(Andrews) doubled the amount of per capita funding, which we use

toward our events and also as a sort of investment into activities that could grow,” Kerson said. The funding increased to $1 per alum from 50 cents per alum, Andrews said.

Brown students are also playing a large part in expanding interest in clubs. A cappella groups such as the Brown Derbies and the Jabberwocks have been making appearances at clubs on both coasts, including the Brown Club of Southern California.

“We had a happy hour with the Brown Derbies just last Thursday (Jan. 18),” said Elena Gerli ’90, who serves as co-president of the Southern California club. “There seems to be a lot more interest across the board in having these clubs supported.”

Gerli said she credits Simmons with the recent revival of the Brown Club program.

“Many alums felt disconnected from the mothership,” Gerli said.

“But since Ruth came to the University, there’s a much stronger ‘Go Brown!’ sentiment toward the school.”

Gerli added that this strong attitude also extends inward, and members see the club as a very important part of their lives as alums.

“What I see in the club that is the most inspiring to me is community. Southern California is such a widespread area that it’s easy to feel isolated, but the Brown Club gives people that sense of community that they might be missing,” she said.

“We have a lot of people who come out and thank us.”

Kerson agreed, pointing out that the club is a great way for alums to reconnect with their college experiences. continued on page 4

Free food, iPod raffle mark grand opening of Friedman Study Center continued from page 1 the new space.

Gillis said the Center was “filling a void we had at Brown” for a central 24-hour gathering place for students. Jackie Friedman ’08, whose parents Susan Pilch Friedman ’77 and Richard Friedman ’79 gave $4 million to create the center, cut a ceremonial red ribbon to mark the center’s completion. President Ruth Simmons and

many other University officials attended the celebration.

Though many students said they attended the event for the party atmosphere and themed giveaways, they also noticed the changes that had transformed the basement of the Sciences Library into a colorful, open study space.

“I approve,” Chris Duffy ’09 said. Though Duffy said he rarely studies in the SciLi, he chose to attend the celebration for its offer of

free food and took the opportunity to explore the center.

“There’s a couch that looks like a lima bean,” he said.

“It’s very modern,” Margaret Pletkinoff GS said of the new decor. The iPod raffle drew her to the celebration and convinced her to set foot in the SciLi for the first time. But after seeing the space, she said that her first visit would not be her last.

“It’s a nice environment for

www.browndailyherald.com

studying,” Pletkinoff said.

Erin Donohue ’07, who also stopped by in hopes of winning the iPod, expressed a similar sentiment. She said that the center would be “great if you want to meet up with people.” Donohue said she had often studied at the SciLi before and now finds the space “much more accessible.”

Allison Kantor ’08, who attended the celebration to “support the Friedmans,” also said she appreci-

ated the center’s newfound sense of warmth.

“It’s much more friendly, much less intimidating,” Kantor said. “I like the social aspect.”

Most of the crowd in the Friedman Center dispersed by midnight, though over a hundred students lingered in the space to chat and socialize. A few even settled down in the quieter parts of the room, opened their books and studied.

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

Brown Clubs keep alums active continued from page 3 “There is an enormous amount of customer satisfaction at Brown, but people might leave thinking, ‘What’s next?’” he said. “Unfortunately, the world is not as fun as Brown, so it’s nice to have a place to experience some of what was such a great time in people’s lives.”

Neil Steinberg ’75, vice president for development and director of the Campaign for Academic Enrichment, sees all of the positive reaction from club presidents and members as an indication of the fundraising campaign’s success.

“If you take a look at the goals of the campaign, they fit perfectly with the idea of what a Brown Club is,” he said, citing fundraising and increased awareness of Brown’s activity as examples. “All of the goals are enhanced

by a vibrant and active effort from Brown Clubs.”

Steinberg added that interest in clubs is as high as it has ever been and the clubs are only becoming more popular.

“We just came back from events in L.A., San Francisco, Seattle and Dallas and had record crowds at each event,” he said.

Both Steinberg and Andrews said they feel the key to the continued success of the Brown Club program lies in the younger generation.

“I’ve met with the leadership of 24 clubs around the world, and what I’m seeing is a greater commitment by younger alumni to get the clubs up and running and holding great events,” Andrews said. “This interest from young alumni is critical to the future success of the Brown Clubs program.”

Orchestra trip to China coincides with int’l push continued from page 1 For the 71 musicians who made the trip, it was a unique experience.

“We got to feel like a professional orchestra,” Schwartz said. “All of our concerts were amazing in the sense that not only were we playing halfway around the world to an audience that didn’t speak our language, but at every concert the audience pretty much loved us.”

Paul Phillips, the orchestra’s conductor and a senior lecturer in music, said the orchestra enjoyed a positive response from the Chinese audiences, receiving standing ovations “in almost every location” and playing three or four encores every night. A typical audience for the concerts was around 800 or 900 spectators, Schwartz said.

“All the concerts went really well,” said Lisa Arias ’07, a violinist and the orchestra’s president. “It was amazing to be in a completely different country and still be received like that.”

The tour came only months after President Ruth Simmons set internationalization at the top of the administration’s agenda. No country is more important to that effort than China, an emerging world power that President Ruth Simmons has visited twice in the past year.

Although the timing of the trip was coincidental — planning began before the administration had announced its focus on internationalization — Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron said she believes the trip was welltimed.

“There was a kind of harmonic convergence that bodes well for the development of new relations,” Bergeron said. “What better way to bolster an internationalization effort?”

Consideration of such a trip began last spring when Phillips was invited by a performance company in China to spend a week there researching the possibility of bringing Brown musicians on tour. The expense and difficulty prohibited immediate action, and it initially seemed that a tour would not happen in the near future.

In August, another company, the Dalian Yilong Performance Company, offered to pay the orchestra’s expenses for accommodation, dining and travel within China.

The expense to the orchestra totaled “a little under $200,000,” Phillips said. The majority of that expense came from airfare arrangement to China for 71 students, Phillips, his wife Kathryne Jennings, a vocalist and a teaching associate in music who performed with the orchestra and other support staff.

Student members of the orchestra were asked to pay $1,400 each, slight-

ly less than the cost of a plane ticket.

The remaining cost — which included money for visas, support staff, instrument rental, bus transport to and from the airport in Providence and other expenses — was covered by donations and four benefit concerts the orchestra played this fall. The Office of the President also provided $20,000, Arias said.

The cost to the orchestra, according to Phillips, was “less than half of what a youth orchestra usually pays to go on a trip like that.”

The offer from Dalian Yilong left Phillips and the student organizers with only five months to coordinate the logistics of sending a symphony orchestra halfway around the world.

“It made last semester very, very crazy,” Arias said. “But it paid off.”

The tour provided many memorable experiences for orchestra members. Despite the tiring concert schedule — they played seven concerts in five different cities in the first seven days of the trip — the orchestra still had time to sightsee, visiting the Great Wall of China, Beijing’s Forbidden City and other famous landmarks.

The concerts were also memorable, orchestra members said. Several mentioned the New Year’s Eve concert in Changzhou as particularly enjoyable for its festive atmosphere, autograph-seeking spectators and fireworks that exploded on stage as the orchestra wrapped up its last note.

Amos Lichtman ’10, a cellist who made the trip, said he felt like a rock star. “We played in a rather large gym that was pretty filled,” Lichtman said.

“It was really carnival-like and very different from the rest of the concerts we played.”

“Every piece we played we felt like we were movie stars,” Schwartz said.

“After the concert people would ask for autographs and pictures. That’s something we weren’t used to playing in Sayles for a Brown audience.”

For Phillips, the concert in Beijing provided one of the tour’s most significant moments. Officials from China’s Ministry of Culture attended the concert, and when the orchestra performed “Stars and Stripes Forever,” Phillips encouraged the audience to clap along, and according to Phillips, the ministers joined in.

The orchestra’s program for the concerts included traditional classical pieces, movie themes and other mainstream popular tunes and some traditional Chinese music. Western orchestral music has recently gained popularity in China, orchestra members say, and the time around New Year’s is especially popular for attending concerts.

CAMPUS N EWS FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

Spam tripled in 2006, causing headache for CIS

BY THI HO STAFF WRITER

Technology managers are longing for the days when spam was simply an awful lunchmeat. Recently, the e-mail form of spam has been wreaking havoc on inboxes across the countr y, and Brown’s are no exception. The number of spam messages filtered by the University’s antispam engine more than tripled in 2006.

At the beginning of last year, Proofpoint, the spam filter used

by Computing and Information Ser vices, filtered about 6 million spam messages per month.

The number of filtered messages increased to more than 9 million per month in September, and the number jumped to more than 19 million in December.

CIS has taken measures to combat the increasing amount of spam on the Internet. Last Januar y, CIS replaced SpamAssassin, which had been the University’s main anti-spam engine, with Proofpoint. “SpamAssassin was an open-source product, which meant spammers found out how to write around

it. Proofpoint is proprietar y, which means spammers don’t know how it works,” said John Spadaro, system and ser vices director at CIS. Due to the rapid rise in spam, CIS has had to reduce the amount of time it keeps messages in quarantine from four to three weeks. “It just didn’t make any sense to keep spam mail around for that long,” Spadaro said. “The question is: Should we reduce (that time] further?”

Spadaro said CIS also added another e-mail ser ver because of the increased load of spam.

But Spadaro said he does not foresee a change in anti-spam engines. “Proofpoint is doing a pretty good job. It is constantly tr ying to capture spam. We get updates ever y hour to keep spam definitions in line,” he said.

The increase in spam activity is not a phenomenon specific to Brown’s e-mail system. The New York Times reported last month that worldwide spam volume has doubled in the past two years, with 9 out of 10 messages now classified as unsolicited

# of e-mails tagged as “deleted spam” by CIS # of e-mals in millions

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

junk mail.

John Duksta, lead information technology security engineer, said although the increase in spam is not particular to the University, much of the spam students receive at Brown is a focused attempt by companies to target students. “These companies will send to any address ending in edu,” Duksta said.

Technology to fight spam is improving, but spammers are fighting back. “There is a lot of work done by spammers to tr y to trick anti-spam engines,” Spadaro said. One way spammers have been able to work around anti-spam engines is by encoding their message in images, which makes it harder for such e-mails to be detected as spam.

Duksta said another way spammers get around anti-spam engines is through “drive-by downloads.” In a drive-by download, spammers send e-mails to tr y to get the recipient to click on a link. Spammers can then exploit the recipient’s browser to send more spam.

Students can take several simple steps to tr y to prevent spam mail. The most important is to not respond to spam, Spadaro said. Students should also be careful of where they post their e-mail addresses, especially when signing privacy statements.

Despite the growth in the volume of spam, students interviewed by The Herald said they didn’t notice a large change in their e-mail accounts.

Kirsten Howard ’09 said she did see a small increase in her spam quarantine digest but believed Proofpoint was doing an efficient job. “Having (all the spam messages) in one e-mail is helpful because it doesn’t involve a lot of deleting,” she said.

Student entrepreneurship gets $2 million boost

BY MARIELLE SEGARRA CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The University’s entrepreneurship education programs gained some pocket change over winter break when the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation awarded a $2 million grant to finance an “entrepreneurship engine” that will match students with business ideas and alumni advisers, among other initiatives.

The grant, awarded in December as part of the $25.5 million Kauffman Campuses Initiative designed to promote entrepreneurship education in universities, will be used “to stimulate entrepreneurship at large at Brown,” said Maria Carkovic, administrative director of the Commerce, Organizations and Entrepreneurship program.

The grant will be paid out over five years — the first installment is set to arrive next month — and funds will be used to create new courses and support student and faculty research, said Dean of Engineering Gregory Crawford.

Funds will also be used for a “social entrepreneurship” program that will allow student groups to act as consultants to a local government institution or nonprofit organization and propose solutions to community problems, Carkovic said.

Crawford said the Kauffman grant will also be used to create a book explaining the role of entrepreneurship on Brown’s campus and across all concentrations as well as an “entrepreneurship engine” that will pair students with alumni mentors. This networking tool will be developed with Rite Solutions, an engineering consulting company, such that it “sets up a student with a great idea with an alum who has a vast

amount of experience,” Crawford added.

These initiatives will be coordinated by the COE program and related departments, but the benefits are not just for COE concentrators. “The grant will definitely help more than the business students,” said Judith Kone, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation. She noted that most people who start their own businesses study other subjects in college.

In order to receive the grant, the University had to demonstrate its commitment to the long-term financial health of entrepreneurship education by matching the Kauffman donation five-to-one, Kone said. The University will count the COE program’s endowment as the matching funds.

Brown is the first Ivy League school to receive a Kauffman Campus Intitiative grant. The University’s reputation proved attractive to the foundation.

“Brown’s reputation as an Ivy was an interesting element,” Kone said. She added that the University employs several “really dynamic champions of entrepreneurship,” including Crawford.

“The open curriculum is very entrepreneurial in itself,” Crawford said, adding that Brown’s self-directed approach to learning lets students design their own educations in the same way that entrepreneurs make business decisions.

In addition to the COE program, the grant will be used to assist the graduate student Program in Innovation, Management and Entrepreneurship Engineering, the Brown Technology Partnerships, the Swearer Center for Public Service and the undergraduate student-led Entrepreneurship Program.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 6

Bookstore improvements planned by new director continued from page 1 to generate money to pay for them. But he said it was “early to talk about” funding.

Working with what he called the “best collective staff” he’s ever worked with, Cunard said he is in the process of drafting recommendations for logistical improvements and physical renovations to the store. Bookstore staffers are currently participating in a series of focus groups, facilitated by bookstore management, to solicit feedback and identify priorities for reform.

A fact sheet given to employees mentions “creating a welcoming and academic store feel” and “customer service in the store, organization and design” as themes of the meetings. According to notes from an early focus group, employees have suggested ideas that include an area for children’s books and clothing, as well as a “student cooperative” for sales of products made by students.

In addition, Cunard noted, “the building is in need of serious renovation.” He said a “serious

reorganization” of the bookstore layout is needed to make it more accessible for shoppers and to make better use of its space. The store should be “aesthetically pleasing,” he said.

Some of Cunard’s ideas include moving the textbooks section to the downstairs space, currently occupied by the computer shop, and installing a cafe area, perhaps with its own entrance.

Cunard said upgrades to lighting, carpeting and ceilings are also planned. In addition, some windows will be uncovered to make better use of natural light and more seating areas will be added.

In the past, bookstore employees have frequently complained about their troubled internal software system.

But Cunard said software upgrades have already been implemented, and he described the new system as effective and responsive.

A committee will be established in Februar y to discuss the bookstore staff’s recommendations. Cunard said that

the committee will comprise undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and administrators, among others.

In terms of product mix, Cunard said that one of his priorities is to ensure that the bookstore has “the best value (for) textbooks, both used and new.”

He also said he would like to increase the variety of clothing and soft goods as well as the trade books section, which he called “our connection with the larger community.”

Cunard will soon be meeting with a contractor and an architect — the beginning of “fasttrack” renovations. He said architectural renderings of the new store design will be presented to students and other community members.

The first phase of renovations will begin in the summer shortly after Commencement, according to a draft version of the renovation timeline. Cunard said that all changes are scheduled to be in place by the spring or summer of 2008.

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

Report ranks University’s black grad rate in top ten continued from page 1 still have this gap.”

Allen stressed that Brown offers a range of programs designed to promote diversity, many of which help retain minority students. The Third World Center, diverse student groups and programs that link students and faculty have created a campus “where students of different backgrounds and walks of life are able to coexist in a supportive and positive way,” Allen said.

Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron said programs such as the University’s African, Latino, Asian and Native American Mentoring Program — or ALANA — which pairs students with faculty, reach far beyond mere advising.

“It’s also the sense of community that’s created,” Bergeron said.

“I think that can be very important in academic success.”

But these programs are not panaceas to the gap in graduation rates, Allen said.

“Not all students find these structures and environments optimal,” she said. “Not all students find what they need to thrive.”

Daliso Leslie ’09, the Black History Month coordinator for the TWC, said he adjusted to Brown smoothly, but he added that several of his black friends had a more difficult time.

“Just from talking to people, much of the black population has trouble adjusting, and many people feel alienated by the larger community,” Leslie said.

Matt Jasmin ’09, a minority peer counselor, said minority students at Brown have “a strong community to fall back on.” But regardless of Brown’s programs aimed at promoting diversity and helping minorities, Jasmin said some students have trouble adjusting to a community that is predominantly white.

“I really don’t know how much Brown could do other than remaking the student population,” Jasmin said. “Sometimes you grow up in a community that’s mostly African-American. Then you get to a place like Brown, and the amount of whites is just hard to get used to.”

Though he said he did not have great difficulty adjusting to college, Jasmin said minority students often feel the need to prove themselves, adding additional strain to the transition.

“You feel like you’re a representative of your whole population, so you put a lot of stress on yourself,” Jasmin said. “Then you might feel like you can’t succeed in that situation.”

Jasmin recalled an Africana studies class he took last year with a white professor and only a few other black students.

“When certain things came up, there was pressure on me to say something to defend my whole race,” Jasmin said. “Sometimes the majority that wasn’t African-American was thinking the other way.”

But Jasmin added that these situations are not specific to Brown and will continue to come up “until you have a 50-50 representation in a class.”

According to Associate Dean of the College Karen McLaurin ’74, the director of the TWC, Brown has a unique “third world” philosophy that encourages communication across racial lines. Other schools like Cornell, Princeton and

Columbia dropped this philosophy, instead opting for separate houses for each minority group, she said.

Leslie said the TWC is underfunded but “does what it can” with programs like the Third World Transition Program, which aims to build bonds not just among black students, but among all minority students.

Jasmin said the TWTP allows minority students to form a circle of friends from various ethnic backgrounds.

“That helps them adjust, especially if they came from a school that had mostly minority students,” Jasmin said.

Still, Leslie said continuing to strengthen these bonds can be difficult, especially for students who are unable to attend TWTP. He also said he would like to see more minority mentoring programs that link students to faculty.

According to Bergeron, several academic deans convened a committee on mentoring this past fall and are now looking into expanding outreach. She also said deans undertook an advising survey in November and that they are in “a good position to make some judgments about how we might change things to reach a broader constituency.”

“You can always get better at advising,” Bergeron said. “There are so many different types of people who interact in different ways.

You need to have many different programs available.”

Bergeron also said the University is currently searching for an associate dean of diversity programs, a position created at the end of last semester. The dean would be in charge of a number of constituencies, including transfer students and international students, and would look at diversity “in a broad spectrum.”

“If you actually have a dedicated person, you can get follow through on some of these efforts,” Bergeron said, adding that she hopes the new dean will implement the suggestions from the mentoring committee.

In addition, Allen said part of the University’s diversity action plan focuses on reviewing rates of dismissal, graduation and probation across different groups with the aim of “alleviating any discrepancy that might be found.”

“We would tr y to address those issues once we know what the reasons are,” Allen said. “But you can find reasons ever ywhere, and our job is to figure out whether some of these things are contributing more to certain groups than just not having a good fit (at Brown).”

Allen called the gap in graduation rates of white and black students “a ver y important issue in higher education” and said Brown continues to make policies with the diversity of the campus in mind.

“It’s been a long movement,” she said. “First we opened up access so more people from different backgrounds are able to attend college, and now we want people from all different backgrounds to be able to get the most out of that education. That means we have to be very critical and vigilant in looking at what we have in place to support students and willing to make changes when we see aspects of programs that aren’t doing what we want them to do.”

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Judge blocks 2 executions in lethal injection (Los Angeles Times) — A judge Thursday blocked two executions in North Carolina, creating a de facto moratorium on capital punishment in the state until it changes its lethal injection procedure.

The ruling by Superior Court Judge Donald W. Stephens in Raleigh means that 11 states have now halted executions stemming from challenges to lethal injection.

Thursday’s decision is perhaps the strongest example yet of the complications that have arisen from attempts by prison officials around the country to “medicalize” the execution procedure, said Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno. North Carolina, like 36 other states, uses a three-drug cocktail to execute condemned inmates who are strapped to a gurney.

Peace protests are on tap WASHINGTON (Los Angeles Times) — Emboldened by the Democratic takeover of Congress and shrinking public support for the Iraq war, antiwar groups are planning what they hope will be a massive protest Saturday on the National Mall.

Similar events are planned in dozens of cities around the United States, with some of the largest expected in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Organizers said they aim to put pressure on both the White House and Congress to end the war.

“We’re predicting this will be one of the largest demonstrations since the war began,” said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, the umbrella group organizing the Washington protest.

Berkeley students protest anti-drug aid provision (Los Angeles Times) — Some University of California, Berkeley students who are denied federal financial aid because of a drug conviction will be eligible for a new scholarship funded by the student government, the organization decided this week. Though the stipends are only $400, supporters say they are a symbolic protest against an unjust law that restricts federal funds being given to students convicted of a drug offense.

“It’s a very poor way for the government to fight the war on drugs,” said David Israel Wasserman, a senior political science major and the senator in the Associated Students of the University of California who wrote the resolution. “I don’t think that the government should find more and more ways to deprive students of a means to an education.”

David Murray, chief scientist with the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy called the Berkeley effort “misguided,” saying federal aid is a privilege, and that the government has an obligation to use whatever means necessary to dissuade young people from using drugs.

Maine legislature rejects compliance with Real ID Act WASHINGTON (Los Angeles Times) — Maine on Thursday became the first state in the nation to officially decline to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005, the federal law that critics say lays the foundation for creation of a national identity card.

Both houses of the state legislature — unanimously in the Senate, 137-4 in the House — approved a resolution rejecting compliance with the act, which requires states to replace their current drivers’ licenses by May 2008 with forgery-proof cards embedded with private information, and urging Congress to repeal it.

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Troops authorized to kill Iranian operatives in Iraq

BY DAFNA LINZER THE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran’s influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.

For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The “catch and release” policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries.

U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.

Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran’s regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing. The country’s nuclear work was advancing, U.S. allies were resisting robust sanctions against the Tehran government, and Iran was aggravating sectarian violence in Iraq.

“There were no costs for the Iranians,” said one senior administration official. “They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were

bending over backwards not to fight back.”

Three officials said that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. There is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, intelligence officials said.

But, for three years, the Iranians have operated an embedding program there, offering operational training, intelligence and weaponry to several Shiite militias connected to the Iraqi government, to the insurgency and to the violence against Sunni factions. Gen. Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq “has been quite striking.”

“Iran seems to be conducting a foreign policy with a sense of dangerous triumphalism,” Hayden said.

The new “kill or capture” program was authorized by President Bush in a meeting of his most senior advisers last fall, along with other measures meant to curtail Iranian influence from Kabul to Beirut and, ultimately, to shake Iran’s commitment to its nuclear efforts. Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, but the United states and other nations say it is aimed at developing weapons.

The administration’s plans contain five “theaters of interest,” as one senior official put it, with military, intelligence, political and

diplomatic strategies designed to target Iranian interests across the Middle East.

The White House has authorized a widening of what is known inside the intelligence community as the “Blue Game Matrix” — a list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranianbacked Hezbollah in Lebanon. And U.S. officials are preparing international sanctions against Tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaida fighters who fled across the Afghan border in late 2001. They plan more aggressive moves to disrupt Tehran’s funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and to undermine Iranian interests among Shiites in western Afghanistan.

In Iraq, U.S. troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias. The policy does not extend to Iranian civilians or diplomats. Though U.S. forces are not known to have used lethal force against any Iranian to date, Bush administration officials have been urging top military commanders to exercise the authority.

The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war. continued on page 9

Cheney directed effort to discredit Wilson, aide testifies

BY CAROL D. LEONNIG AND AMY GOLDSTEIN THE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — Vice President Cheney personally orchestrated his office’s 2003 efforts to rebut claims that the administration used flawed intelligence to justify the war in Iraq and discredit a critic who he believed was making him look foolish, according to testimony and evidence Thursday in the criminal trial of his former chief of staff.

Cheney dictated talking points for a White House briefing in the midst of the controversy that summer, his former press aide, Cathie Martin, testified, stressing that the CIA never told him that a CIA-sponsored mission had found no real evidence that Iraq was tr ying to buy nuclear materials in Africa.

Aboard Air Force 2, on a trip back from the launch of a battleship in Norfolk, Va., Cheney instructed his chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, about responding to a Time magazine reporter who questioned how the faulty intelligence on Iraq had become one of the Bush administration’s central arguments for going to war.

In the dramatic replay of events that summer that unfolded Thursday in Libby’s federal court trial, Cheney was portrayed as a general on a political battlefield — enmeshed in tactics, but also deputizing his chief of staff to handle the dirty job of persuading journalists that his war critic

was all wrong.

Previously described in court filings and by the media, Cheney’s role was brought to life Thursday by Martin’s account. She is the first witness in the case who worked closely with Cheney and Libby as they tried to refute former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent to Niger by the CIA to determine whether Iraq had sought uranium for a weapons program.

Her testimony was buttressed by previously unreleased documents provided as evidence Thursday, including handwritten notes and margin scribblings Cheney’s staff hastily jotted at their boss’ instruction.

Lea Anne McBride, Cheney’s current spokesperson, said Thursday evening that the vice president’s office could not comment on the case or evidence introduced in the trial.

Libby, 56, is charged with lying to investigators and a grand jur y about how the identity of Wilson’s wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame, was leaked to the media days after Wilson went public with his claims that the administration had twisted his findings to justify the war in Iraq. Libby has pleaded not guilty, contending he misspoke and forgot about conversations he had with journalists amid the crush of his duties. He is not charged with the leak itself.

Martin recalled telling Cheney and Libby information from CIA spokesman William Harlow that Wilson was the person sent to

Niger “and his wife works for the CIA.” Martin is the fourth witness from the administration to contest Libby’s claim that he learned Plame’s name from NBC’s Tim Russert.

Also Thursday, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, told the judge he was concerned that Libby’s defense team was tr ying to improperly introduce elements of its “bad memor y” defense without putting Libby on the stand, by questioning each witness about details no reasonable person could remember.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton warned the defense that Libby would have to take the stand if he wanted to tr y to persuade the jur y that his own memor y was flawed.

Martin’s testimony Thursday also illustrated how doggedly Cheney insisted that the administration had significant evidence that Iraq was tr ying to acquire weapons of mass destruction — even after the White House had backed off that claim and admitted it was not solid enough for the president to have cited it in his Januar y 2003 State of the Union address.

Cheney told Martin to alert the media that a highly classified and recent National Intelligence Estimate indicated no doubts about Iraq’s efforts to buy uranium. The NIE actually mentioned several doubts.

On college rule paper, in blue ink, Martin scribbled what continued on page 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

Burch wrestles M. and w. track ram way to 2nd and 4th, respectively, at URI settlement from UC-Davis continued from page 12

continued from page 12 in dual meets than any other coach had before and coached Afsoon Roshanzamir to several national titles and a silver medal at the world championship.

With the case behind him, Burch is planning on making proposals to schools to encourage them to sponsor women’s wrestling programs.

He will target schools in the Pac10, Big 12, Big 10 and Ivy League conferences in the next two years to gain that support. According to Burch, UC-Davis claimed a women’s wrestling team could not be started at the school because there was not enough interest in the sport. However, Burch believes that women’s wrestling is on the rise.

“How can (UC-Davis) measure ‘interest’ when (female wrestlers) are calling me? It’s not very expensive to have a women’s program, all of the schools have good reasons to consider starting a program,” Burch said. “Texas has more high school girls’ wrestling programs than any other state, it’s one of the fastest growing female sports among girls in the state, so I feel the University of Texas-Austin would have good reason to start a program.”

Women’s wrestling debuted in Athens in 2004 as an Olympic sport and is increasing in popularity on the collegiate level. Only a few American schools maintain programs, though it is popular in Canada.

finished first in both the 55-meter dash with a time of 7.16 and in the 200-meter dash with a 25.97.

In the 400-meter dash, classmate Jasmine Chukwueke ’10 ran to a second-place finish with a time of 59.72, with Brooke Giuffre ’10 and Lindsay Kahn ’09 following in third and fourth place, respectively. In the 800-meter run, Emily Bourdeau ’10 made it to the finish line first with a stellar time of 2:17.56.

In perhaps the most exciting race of the day, teammates Ferjan and Smita Gupta ’08 battled to a 1-2 finish in the 1,000-meter race.

Ferjan blazed her way to the finish line with a time of 2:50.43, almost a full seven seconds ahead of the rest of the field. Ferjan’s time broke the school record of two-time All-American Anna Willard ’06, making her the fastest woman in Brown history in the 1,000-meter.

“I think it’s great to see that so (soon) after returning from winter break. The women are fit even after working out alone for about a month,” Gupta said. “Everyone is so excited to be competing and heading towards our goal of placing well at (the Heptagonal Championships). People really saw the meet as a good opportunity to compete, with no real pressure. For many freshmen, this was their first or second time competing in college, and they seem to be adjusting very well to college training.”

Natasha Barrett ’10, Nicole

Burns ’09, Akilah King ’08 and Chukwueke made up the winning 4x400-meter relay team with a time of 3:45.40.

The field events proved to be huge point-producers for the Bears. In the pole vault, Keely Marsh ’08, Cassie Wong ’10 and Allison Brager ’07 strung together a 1-2-3 finish. Marsh cleared at 10 feet, 11.75 inches, almost a full six inches ahead of her teammates. Not to be outdone, in the shot put, Alex Hartley ’10 and Danielle Grunloh ’10 posted a 12 finish.

“We had a lot of really promising performances,” said Director of Track and Field Craig Lake. “Our women’s sprinters are off to a good start, and we are looking for big things to come from Nikki Burns, Akilah King (who is recovering from mono), Natasha Barrett, freshman Thelma Breezeatl — who is a phenomenal addition for us in the short sprints — and Jasmine Chukwueke … We didn’t even run our distance runners in their real events, as they were just using the meet as a tune-up and workout … and the shot put seems to be a great event for our team.”

The women’s outstanding team performance will hopefully carry over to their next competition in Cambridge on Jan. 27, where they will face Harvard and Cornell.

“The meet on Saturday will be the real test of our ability, as most people will compete in their strongest events,” Ferjan

said. “Cornell is definitely the strongest team in the Ivy League at the moment, so they will be hard to beat, but we’ll try to be as close to them as possible. We should be able to beat Harvard.”

On the men’s side of the track, where Lake noted the competition was stronger than in the women’s field, the performances were not as dominating.

Yet the meet proved to be good training for meets to come.

“Our entire team went into the meet having trained very hard,” Lake said. “We were not looking to peak at the URI Invitational. The sprinters especially had a really heavy week and were probably tired … The distance runners as well did 70-90 miles per week before competing. A lot of athletes competed in off events, either under distance or over distance, for a workout more than a race. Each competition, though, is a learning experience.”

Jamil McClintock ’08 snagged a second-place finish in the 55meter hurdles with a time of 7.51.

In the 1,000-meter run, Sean O’Brien ’09 put up a third-place finish, while Brian Schmidt ’09 finished the mile in 4:16.99 for third place with Christian Escareno ’10 following in fourth place at a personal best of 4:17.11.

“Basically we expect to be competitive with everyone we race, so in that case [the meet] was important,” McClintock said. “It was also an important meet to set the tone for the season and see exactly where we

stand in the Ivy League at the present time. Every opportunity to run is important, since Ivy League championships are only five weeks away, and we only race once a week.”

In the shot put, the Bears captured four of the top nine spots, led by second-place finisher David Howard ’09 with a 15.15-meter throw and fourth-place finisher Bryan Powlen ’10 with a 14.61meter throw.

The 3,200-meter relay proved to be a big event for Brown.

Ozzie Myers ’08 combined with Nick Sarro ’08, Neil Hamel ’07 and Schmidt to put up a secondplace finish of 7:55.96.

“We did not have a first-place finisher,” McClintock said. “But that wasn’t frustrating for the team. It was the first meet for a lot of us, so the idea was to be competitive. Honestly we have enough talent on this team to produce first places, but things just didn’t fall into place in our first meet. We will be in more dominant form come the following weeks.”

The Bears will need to find those first-place finishes this weekend when they head to Cambridge to compete against Harvard and Cornell. The Big Red is the reigning indoor and outdoor Ivy League Champions.

“Last year the men upset Cornell … by one point,” McClintock said. “In this meet we need to improve upon our intensity. The good performances will come as long as we maintain our intensity.”

Mixing it up with Muncy ’09 continued from page 12 The crowd is always more enthusiastic at the games.

Do you think home games at Brown are capable of setting up a similar atmosphere?

If we get on a nice winning streak and draw a few more fans in, I think we can get an atmosphere like that.

Tell me about your winter break.

We only had eight days off. We all came back to Brown on Dec. 26 and then left for a tournament in Denver. We were back in Providence for New Year’s and celebrated as a team. Then for the last three weeks, we’ve had away games, which meant we had early morning practices and the rest of the day to perfect our Mario Kart skills.

What’s on your iTunes playlist?

I’m a huge 80’s music fan and I love to listen to Q Lazzarus, the Dire Straights and Pink Floyd.

You represent your hometown very well with posters of the Cardinals, Blues and Rams.

If you’ve ever been to St. Louis, you would know how important sports are to the city. It was amazing when the Cardinals won the World Series. I don’t play baseball, but when I think of my summers at home, I think of the baseball games I attended.

Do you think Mark McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame?

It’s well known that he did Andro, and I may be a little biased, but I do lose some respect for him. Yet he gave such a big boost to baseball, and he gave me a great year in

1998, but he shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame yet. He will eventually get into the Hall of Fame because of his numbers. But his testimony killed him. I feel like the American media usually forgives someone if they are honest, and I think he has to be honest with us and with himself.

Is Albert Pujols the new face of the city?

He certainly is. There are a few billboards in St. Louis that say if Busch Stadium is baseball heaven, then Pujols is God. He could easily run for mayor, even before last year.

How did you celebrate when they won the World Series?

Well, we had a hockey game the next day, so we took it easy. We only woke up about a hundred people while running up and down the halls.

Who did you celebrate with?

My roommate Eric Slais ’09 loves the Cardinals. He lived near me back at home.

Did you ever play hockey with Slais growing up?

Actually, we played on rival high schools but on the same travel team, the Amateur Blues. I didn’t know he was looking at Brown until our official visits.

How is it playing with a former rival?

It’s cool. We’ve been friends throughout. You can’t take high school hockey in St. Louis too seriously.

What do you think of Sidney Crosby?

I think he’s great. He represents the league very well. He’s a respectable character, unlike Terrell Owens.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

Troops authorized to kill Iranian operatives in Iraq continued from page 7 Senior administration officials said the policy is based on the theory that Tehran will back down from its nuclear ambitions if the United States hits it hard in Iraq and elsewhere, creating a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders. But if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Officials said Hayden counseled the president and his advisers to consider a list of potential consequences, including the possibility that the Iranians might seek to retaliate by kidnapping or killing U.S. personnel in Iraq.

Two officials said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though a supporter of the strategy, is concerned about the potential for errors, as well as the ramifications of a military confrontation between U.S. and Iranian troops on the Iraqi battlefield.

In meetings with Bush’s other senior advisers, officials said, Rice insisted the defense secretary appoint a senior official to personally oversee the program to prevent it from expanding into a full-scale conflict. Rice got the oversight guarantees she sought, though it remains unclear whether senior Pentagon officials must approve targets on a case-by-case basis or whether the oversight is more general.

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and State referred all requests for comment on the Iran strategy to the National Security Council, which declined to address specific elements of the plan and would not comment on some intelligence matters.

But in response to questions about the “kill or capture” authorization, Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the NSC, said: “The president has made clear for some time that we will take the steps necessary to protect Americans on the ground in Iraq and disrupt activity that could lead to their harm. Our forces have standing authority, consistent with the mandate of the U.N. Security Council.”

Officials said U.S. and British special forces in Iraq, which will work together in some operations, are developing the program’s rules of engagement to define the exact circumstances for using force. In his last few weeks as the top commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George Casey sought to help coordinate the program on the ground. One official said Casey had planned to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a “hostile entity,” a distinction within the military that would permit offensive action.

Casey’s designated successor, Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, told Congress in writing this week that a top priority will be “countering the threats posed by Iranian and Syrian meddling in Iraq, and the continued mission of dismantling terrorist networks and killing or capturing those who refuse to sup-

port a unified, stable Iraq.”

Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said in an interview in late October that the United States knows that Iran “is providing support to Hezbollah and Hamas and supporting insurgent groups in Iraq that have posed a problem for our military forces.” He added: “In addition to the nuclear issue, Iran’s support for terrorism is high up on our agenda.”

Burns, the top Foreign Service officer in the State Department, has been leading diplomatic efforts to increase international pressure on the Iranians. Over several months, the administration made available five political appointees for interviews, to discuss limited aspects of the policy, on the condition that they not be identified.

Officials who spoke in more detail and without permission — including senior officials, career analysts and policymakers — said their standing with the White House would be at risk if they were quoted by name.

The decision to use lethal force against Iranians inside Iraq began taking shape last summer, when Israel was at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Officials said a group of senior Bush administration officials who regularly attend the highest-level counterterrorism meetings agreed that the conflict provided an opening to portray Iran as a nuclear-ambitious link between al-Qaida, Hezbollah and the death squads in Iraq.

Cheney directed effort to discredit Wilson, aide testifies continued from page 7 Cheney told her the press needed to know about the Niger controversy as they conferred in his Capitol Hill office on July 7, 2003.

“As late as last October, the considered judgment of the intel community was that SH (Saddam Hussein) had indeed undertaken a vigorous effort to acquire uranium from Africa, according to NIE (the National Intelligence Estimate),” she wrote.

Martin, who now works on communication issues for the president, said Libby also directed her to ask the CIA which journalists were preparing stories about Wilson’s Africa trip, then personally telephoned at least one in an attempt to influence the broadcast.

Martin said that Cheney also determined the reply to questions she had received from Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about the role the vice president’s office had played in the Niger trip. While flying back from Norfolk on the vice president’s plane, she mentioned to Libby the e-mailed questions from Cooper.

Libby later came to her seat in the back of the plane, holding a handwritten card with

notes he said were Cheney’s instructions about what to say to Cooper. Libby told her, Martin testified, that Cheney, in a rare move, authorized him to provide a specific quote on the record, with Libby’s name attached.

Martin portrayed both Libby and Cheney as concerned that reporters were not telephoning their office directly to get their side of the stor y about Wilson and his criticism of the administration. She said they directed her and her staff to begin monitoring television reports on the Niger trip and provide daily transcripts along with their usual canvas of printed stories about the vice president’s office.

Attorneys for Libby repeatedly pressed Martin to acknowledge that, though she saw Cheney and Libby working overtime to rebut Wilson’s criticisms, she had no evidence that either tried to leak Plame’s name to the press.

“At no time did Vice President Cheney indicate to you that he considered Valerie Wilson part of the stor y he wanted to get out,” attorney Theodore Wells said to Martin.

“I did not have a conversation with the vice president about that,” Martin responded.

Study links brain region to smoking addiction

BY DENISE GELLENE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Smokers with injuries in a specific part of their brains kick their habits instantly — without the intense cravings that can make it so hard to quit, a new study reports.

Researchers from the University of Southern California and the University of Iowa linked a brain area called the insula to the powerful urges that cause people to continue smoking.

Smokers with damaged insulas were more than 100 times more likely to have their addictions erased than smokers with damage in other parts of their brains, researchers said.

One man who smoked an average of 40 cigarettes a day before a stroke damaged his insula was surprised to suddenly lose all cravings for tobacco. He told researchers his body “forgot the urge to smoke.”

“It was like a switch was turned off,” explained Antoine Bechara, a neuroscientist at USC and senior author of the paper.

The research, published Friday in the journal Science, opens a new front in addiction research and may lead to improved treatments for smokers, experts said.

Although intentionally damaging the insula would be too risky, it might be possible to develop drugs or medical devices that could temporarily disable the region’s circuitry, relieving smokers of the urge long enough to quit, scientists said.

However, Dr. Jed Rose, director of the Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research at Duke University, cautioned against drawing broad conclusions from the research.

Rose said no more than 5 percent of smokers are able to perma-

nently quit on their own.

Most smoking research has focused on the cortex, the brain region involved in reasoning and decisionmaking. Nicotine in tobacco spurs the release of brain chemicals in the cortex that generate pleasurable feelings. Smoking addiction has been largely understood as a drive to feel pleasure, said Henry Lester, a neurobiologist at California Institute of Technology.

Smoking-cessation drugs target the brain’s pleasure circuitry, but are not very effective in helping smokers quit long term, Rose said.

The researchers examined 32 former smokers who had suffered some form of brain damage. The patients were asked how hard it was for them to stop smoking and whether they felt urges to smoke after they quit.

Sixteen of the patients said they quit effortlessly after their brain injuries.

The scientists used brain-imaging equipment to identify the damaged areas of patients’ brains. Of the 16 patients who found it easy to quit smoking, 12 had damaged insulas. The remaining patients showed injuries in other parts of their brains.

Bechara said that in patients with damaged insulas, other brain circuits involved in addiction remained intact. The result shows “if we can knock out this one area, we can disrupt the whole cycle of addiction,” he said.

The insula, about the size an apricot, is believed to integrate emotions with information about certain bodily functions, such as pulse rate or breathing. The information is processed instantaneously. For example, a smoker might become calm when a puff of smoke enters the lungs.

Lester said the insula helps ex-

plain why so many smokers liken their addiction to bodily needs, such as thirst.

In the study, damage to the insula did not affect urges necessary to survival, such as appetite. Bechara said the insula’s function probably is confined to learned preferences and behaviors, meaning it may have a role in gambling addictions or obesity.

Dr. Gene-Jack Wang, an addiction researcher at Brookhaven National Laboratory, said a previous study suggested a role for the insula in cocaine addiction. When addicts were shown drug paraphernalia, brain-imaging equipment detected activity in their insulas, he said. Wang said he published that study in 1999 but did not understand the significance of his finding at the time.

The latest study “is very important and will generate a lot of interest in the insula and our future understanding of cravings for food, drugs and addictive behaviors,” Wang said.

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E DITORIAL & L ETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 10

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

STAF F EDITORIAL

Diamonds and coal A diamond to Linc Chafee ’75 for trading in the Senate floor for the Watson Institute break room. If you can’t get approval for a foreign policy class with course credit next semester, we’ll sign up for your seminar on shoeing horses.

A cubic zirconium to President Ruth Simmons. Thanks for saying that you’ll stay on at Brown, but with your coy looks and your non-denial denials, we thought you’d never say how you really felt. You don’t call, you never write … it makes us feel … a little lonely inside.

Coal to Tor Tarantola ’08 and Zack Drew ’07, the only two students on campus who watched the State of the Union address.

Didn’t you guys get the memo? Brown students are apathetic now.

A diamond to Zak DeOssie ’07 for gamely standing around in his underwear while being poked by 250 strangers. We hope it pays off.

Coal to the confusing rhetoric surrounding the Smith Swim Center’s emergency roof repairs. We thought architect Frank Tully made up “hyperbolic paraboloid,” but turns out it’s just a fancy way to describe a saddle. And we’re glad University officials sought to repair the damage, but how exactly does one repair a roof that has mysteriously become “asymmetrical”?

A commemorative coal to the late Watergate conspirator Howard Hunt ’40. If only Nixon’s plumber could have been put to work on the brown water filling Minden’s sinks.

JASON LI

Join The Herald.

Come to an information session.

A diamond to Levi’s model Josie Nash ’10 and the “metro” and “indie” students signing up for a reality show at Johnny Rockets.

Who knew the crumbling sidewalks of Thayer Street led to Hollywood Boulevard?

Coal to the Andrews resident who’s apparently addicted to shopping for classes on Mocha. Someone should tell this kid about Facebook.

A diamond to the Friedman Study Center for being a 24-hour study space that with a caf café and amusing signage provides more opportunity for procrastination than the CIT. But coal to the fact that because we’re always at The Herald, we’ll probably never see the inside of it.

Sunday, January 28 Tuesday, January 30 Wednesday, January 31 7 p.m.

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O PINIONS FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

PAGE 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Al Gore: Robot or Messiah?

Gore-Obama: the strongest Democratic ticket for 2008

Al Gore: The Democrats’ security blanket In the past few weeks, the Democratic field of presidential candidates has ballooned bigger than the cast of “Bobby.” This past Saturday, the presumptive frontrunner, Sen. Hillar y Clinton, D-N.Y., followed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in announcing a presidential explorator y committee; former Sen. John Edwards and a bevy of others have already announced officially.

For various reasons, none of the current Democratic candidates satisfy.

You’ve likely heard the criticisms before — Clinton is too conniving, Obama is too inexperienced — leaving Democrats, like Goldilocks, looking for a candidate who’s just right.

For a primar y season that promises a number of historical breakthroughs, it’s surprising that many Democrats have begun to peer into the past, searching for someone to assuage their doubt in the current crop of candidates. Many prognosticators have turned to former vice president Al Gore who, having won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election, is arguably the most “electable” candidate the Democrats have.

In reality, Gore ’08 is nothing more than a security blanket for anxious Democrats who are afraid they’ll blow the big one yet again. During an election season that offers such electricity and promise, a Gore candidacy would likely prove to be a wet blanket for hopeful Democrats.

Before I criticize him for the next 600 words, I acknowledge that Al Gore would undoubtedly make an excellent president. In terms of experience, Gore towers over ever y potential candidate in both parties. That said, Americans rarely vote for candidates based on their credentials. How else could you explain the election of George W. Bush –— twice? An excellent president and an excellent presidential candidate are two ver y different things. Gore isn’t necessarily the latter, but don’t tell Democrats that.

Though a Gore candidacy might shimmer as a third way between Clinton and Obama, how might his campaign actually play out? Undoubtedly, the issue of global warming would be a keystone. But will this translate to electoral success? A recent poll by CBS News revealed that around 70 percent of Americans agree that global warming has a “serious impact now.” However, in another recent poll by the Los Angeles Times, 53 percent of respondents said that climate change was either “not important” or “not a factor” when they voted in the mid-term elections.

These polls indicate that a growing consensus among the American public about global warming does not necessarily translate into electoral success for the Democrats. For most voters, global warming is an issue at the bottom of the political totem pole. In the face of much more immediate dangers, such as the war in Iraq, terrorism and nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, voters will put global warming on the back burner.

Further, Gore’s inordinate focus on debatable environmental issues leaves him ripe for easy criticism from opponents. After the initial success of “An Inconvenient Truth,” a glut of conservative commentators filled the nation’s

newspapers, air waves and web sites with claims that Gore’s film was rife with inaccuracies and distorted evidence. If Gore runs for the Democratic nomination, expect these critics to increase in volume. Though such claims have been dubious, the louder they get, the more people will believe them.

If Gore’s critics successfully raise the possibility that his environmental agenda has holes, then watch Gore’s credibility melt like the polar ice caps.

Just ask Sen. John Kerr y (D-MA), whose 2004 candidacy was sunk in part by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacking his war record using questionable evidence and half-truths. Further, Gore has yet to show that he can stand up to criticism from such opponents.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Gore recently “chickened out” on an inter view with a Danish skeptic of global warming.

In 1960, the incumbent Vice President, Richard Nixon, lost an election to his opponent John F. Kennedy, the son of a powerful political dynasty, despite the fact that the country had enjoyed eight years of tremendous economic prosperity during his predecessor’s administration. The election was one of the closest in American history.

The election of 1960 and the 2000 election are strikingly similar from a political standpoint. Al Gore hoped to ride on the economic prosperity the country enjoyed under his predecessor but he, too, lost a bitterly close election to the son of a powerful political dynasty.

We know from history that 1960 wasn’t Richard Nixon’s political funeral like all the socalled experts of the time predicted. In 1968, with the country bogged down in an unpopular war, former Vice-President Nixon staged one of the most remarkable political comebacks of all time to win the White House. And there’s reason to believe the political climate might be right for Al Gore to do precisely the same

NICHOLAS SWISHER OPINIONS COLUMNIST

POINT COUNTER-POINT DON TRELLA

OPINIONS COLUMNIST

If he runs, Gore might tr y to avoid such problems by focusing on a theme other than the environment. For example, Scot Lehigh of the Boston Globe opined in a recent column that Gore could run on an “I told you so” platform. The Bush tax cuts would bust the surplus? Gore told you so back in 2000.

Global warming is a legitimate threat?

Gore has focused on climate crisis for decades. The Iraq War would be a monumental mistake? Gore knew it in 2003.

While this reveals that Gore has shown considerable political foresight, such a theme could just as easily come off as preachy and pedantic, as did much of his 2000 campaign.

After his fawning Hollywood contingency rewarded him with two Oscar nominations for “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore might actually consider a run for the White House. But ultimately, Democrats must accept someone new, no matter how scar y it might be. Al Gore is not a safe bet to win the nomination, nor is he guaranteed to win the general election. Returning to Al Gore in 2008 displays the same brand of political timidity that has cost the Democrats elections in the past. It’s time for a fresh face.

thing in 2008.

Why? Well, should he choose to jump in the 2008 race as some have been murmuring, Al Gore has something going for him that other candidates don’t — something I call the “what if” effect. When one party leads the country down an obviously flawed road, such as an unpopular war that costs thousands of American lives and wastes billions of dollars, people wonder what the state of the world might have been if they had made a different choice when they had the chance. Especially in tumultuous times, American voters assign collective responsibility. Nixon knew this and capitalized on his opponents’ failures in order to make a comeback. Al Gore is in now a unique position to do the same.

How is Gore’s position unique? A John Kerry candidacy, for example, would not benefit from this “what if” effect because he has not had an interceding election to take him out of the public sphere long enough to set up a comeback. Kerry’s image is no different now than it was in 2004. In fact, if anything, it’s worse — the only thing the average American remembers from Kerry between November ’04 and today is his horrific gaffe in the days preceding the 2006 midterm elections, when he told a group of elementary school kids that “if they didn’t do their homework, they’d get stuck in Iraq.” This only reinforced his prin-

cipal weakness as a candidate: his vibe of an out-of-touch, limousine-liberal from Massachusetts. Don’t get me wrong, I like Kerry and I know he isn’t what his opponents make him out to be, but in our sound byte culture, facts are often lost while impressions remain.

On the other hand, Gore’s image is hardly the same as it was after his 2000 loss. We may all still remember his sighing and repeated interrupting to request more time to complete his answers in the 2000 presidential debates, or Darrell Hammond telling us precisely who would have a key to “the lockbox” when parodying Gore on SNL the following weekend. But Vice President Al Gore has undergone a major political overhaul since 2000. His film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” has positioned him as a passionate, committed public figure who is working to tackle an issue around which Americans can unify: fighting the threat of global warming. Moreover, his appearances on the late-night TV circuit to promote his movie revealed a far more relaxed, funnier and warmer Al Gore than the stiff, robotic caricature we saw a little more than six years ago.

Could Gore succeed in an already crowded field? Edwards is a strong candidate, and a Carter-style dark horse could always emerge (I would love my own state’s Chris Dodd, for example). But we cannot talk about Gore’s prospects without first talking about two other major players who’ve recently announced and enjoyed subsequent waves of media buzz: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But when we do so, it’s important not to let hype cloud our judgment. When I talk to Brown students and other college-age folks about 2008, a great number of people are really excited about Illinois junior Senator Barack Obama. In many ways, I am too. Obama is the rising star of the Democratic Party, and he is probably more able to motivate people to get involved in politics than any other current politician. That’s important, since any successful nominee will need that critical mass of grassroots support to ignite a strong primary campaign in places like Iowa and New Hampshire. However, Obama’s political inexperience (two years in the U.S. Senate and a few years in the Illinois state legislature) would result in a general election slaughter when foreign policy experience will be so critical, especially with the likely alternative of a seasoned statesman like John McCain. Obama would absolutely excite huge Democratic turnout in the general election even if on the ’08 ticket as Vice President.

And win or lose, that sets him up for a winning run in four or eight years — when he’ll have experience.

As for Hillary, she might actually embody the opposite of the potential advantage Gore would possess. People may be nostalgic for the peace and prosperity the nation enjoyed in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was president, but let’s not forget how much people were also railing against Hillary as a cold, calculated political opportunist who only stuck it out with Bill because she had her Senate campaign and future presidential aspirations on the brain. I don’t personally believe that criticism, but once again, in politics it is appearances that matter.

Hillary could win the presidency, but her road is a very difficult one, and Gore would have a far better chance to win. Democrats’ primary goal in 2008 should be to recapture the executive branch.

Here’s to hoping Al Gore reads this, realizes his chance is at hand and jumps in. And for supporters of Barack Obama, ask yourselves the question, what scenario best furthers the possibility of an Obama Presidency – unsuccessfully running for President, or being successfully elected Vice-President alongside Al Gore?

S PORTS W EEKEND FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

PAGE 12

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

M. and w. track ram way to 2nd and 4th, respectively, at URI us were pretty tired after a week of hard training at Brown. A number of people did not compete in their primary events. The goal was just to get out there and compete, to get the competitive juices flowing.”

The women’s squad lost a close battle to URI, falling to the home team 194-180. The next highest score, posted by Wheaton College, was almost 100 points behind.

Although it fell just short of taking the match outright, the women yielded several individual dominating performances and sweeps.

Standout Thelma Breezeatl ’10

BY SARAH DEMERS ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Over winter break, many of the men’s and women’s track-andfield athletes returned to their homes to train at their local tracks for the upcoming season. Yet the break was short-lived for some athletes who returned to College Hill earlier than most to compete in the Sorlein Memorial Indoor Classic on Jan. 20 at the University of Rhode Island. In a field featuring 10 schools, the women’s team managed a second-place finish and the men finished fourth overall, even though both teams suited up depleted squads.

“We were definitely not tapering for this meet,” said Naja Ferjan ’07. “On the contrary, most of

continued on page 8

Mixing it up with Muncy ’09 ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

BY MARCO SANTINI SPORTS STAFF WRITER

Sean Muncy ’09 had a great road trip last weekend for the men’s hockey team, recording two goals and an assist in games against Cornell and Colgate University. It was the first time since 1995 that the Bears secured a point against Colgate on the road. It was also the first time Bruno defeated Cornell in Ithaca since 1995. The Commerce, Organizations and Entrepreneurship concentrator grew up in Missouri and decribes himself as the ultimate St. Louis sports fan.

Herald: How would you summarize the hockey season so far?

Muncy: It’s been a complete 180 from last year. Everyone is having a great time, and everyone gets along. There is a very different, positive emotion in the locker room, which carries our team.

Your last road trip was one of the most impressive ones in recent history. How did the team manage to play so well?

We played very well as a team.

It was the first time we defeated Cornell in Ithaca since 1995. We also tied Colgate, getting our first point there since 1995. I caught some breaks and was very lucky.

How do you like playing at Cornell?

It’s a great experience for sure.

Even though you go in there extremely serious, you can’t help but laugh at some of the ridiculous chants. You’re just always in awe of

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo Sean Muncy ’09 scored two goals and had an assist last weekend in the men’s hockey’s team’s games against Colgate University and Cornell. Muncy’s goal against Cornell sealed the team’s first win over the Big Red in Ithaca, N.Y. since 1995.

the atmosphere.

Did anything stick out in particular?

Well, during the game, they had a sign with our goalie’s (Dan Rosen ’10) cell phone number on it. Then, he had about 300 pokes on his

Facebook account after the game.

That’s pretty funny.

How does it compare to Brown home games?

Games are a lot livelier at Cornell. continued on page 8

Burch wrestles settlement from UC-Davis

BY AMY EHRHART SPORTS STAFF WRITER

Dan Grossman ‘71

Naja Ferjan ’07 (right) finished first in the 1,000-meter run at the Sorlein Memorial Indoor Classic on Jan. 20. Her time of 2:50.43 set a school record in the event.

S

P O R T S

FRIDAY, DAY JAN. 26 DAY, M. BASKETBALL: at Dartmouth W BASKETBALL: vs. Dartmouth, Pizzitola W. Center, 7 p.m.

M. ICE HOCKEY: vs. Union, Meehan Auditorium, 7 p.m.

M. SWIMMING: vs. Harvard, Smith Swim Center, 4 p.m.

S

C H E D U L E M. & W. SQUASH: vs. Bowdoin, Pizzitola Center, 1 p.m.

M. & W. SWIMMING: at Yale M. TENNIS: vs. Binghamton and Boston University, Pizzitola Center, 12 p.m.

M. & W. TRACK: at Harvard with Cornell, Cambridge, Mass.

WRESTLING: at No. 24 Lehigh

SATURDAY, ATURDAY JAN. 27 ATURDAY, M. BASKETBALL: at Harvard W BASKETBALL: vs. Harvard, Pizzitola Center, W. 7 p.m.

M. & W. FENCING: Northeast Fencing Conference #2, Olney-Margolies Athletic Center M. HOCKEY: vs. Rensselaer, Meehan Auditorium, 7 p.m.

SKIING: at Colby Sawyer Carnival, Mt. Sunapee, N.H.

SUNDAY, DAY JAN. 28 DAY, GYMNASTICS: vs. Cornell, Cortland and MIT MIT, Pizzitola Center, 1 p.m.

SKIING: at Colby Sawyer Carnival, Mt. Sunapee, N.H. WRESTLING: at Army

Michael Burch, an assistant wrestling coach at Brown, has agreed to a $725,000 settlement with the University of California school system in a discrimination lawsuit. The settlement brings an end to the lawsuit he filed in 2003.

“The settlement was definitely satisfactory. (Because it was) my first time doing one of these things, I didn’t have a magic number in my head, but justice was served. The bottom line is, though, that I don’t have my job back,” Burch said.

From 1995 until 2001, Burch was the head wrestling coach at the University of California-Davis. But in the spring of that year, UC-Davis fired him for alleged NCAA violations in addition to being “difficult to work with” and exceeding the team’s budget, according to Burch. However, Burch believed his firing was a result of his public support for four female wrestlers he had recruited but whom he alleges the university forced him to remove from the team.

Burch filed a suit under Title IX violations that allows retaliatory lawsuits claiming discrimination. In a press release, UC-Davis

said the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing.

“The decisions made by our intercollegiate athletics leadership in all matters related to former coach Burch and the wrestling program were principled and responsible,” wrote Janet Gong, interim vice chancellor for student affairs at UC-Davis, in a press statement. “While a settlement is prudent, we firmly believe that Mr. Burch’s charges of retaliation are simply not true.”

Prior to the 2000-01 season, Burch claimed that university officials forced him to remove the women wrestlers from the team.

The reasons given to Burch for their removal were in part because the university could not cover the insurance costs for athletes who were not competing in varsity events. Burch believes his subsequent public disagreement with the university’s decision led to his dismissal.

“I was outspoken ... I think their opinions are reflective of the general cultural conspiracy against women for contact sports,” Burch said.

Originally, Burch was seeking to start a female wrestling program at one of the UC schools.

For Burch, a monetary settlement was the next best option.

“I offered to be a head wom-

en’s wrestling coach on another UC campus,” Burch said. “There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind — I could start three or four varsity women’s programs within a year, 25 women on each team, with some of them competing for an Olympic spot in 2008.”

However, the Regents of the University of California turned down Burch’s offer. Now, the school system will pay him $725,000, and Burch agreed to not work at any of the other nine UC schools, according to an American Association of University Women press release.

The AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund helped sponsor his case, and “they’ve been a great asset” to him the last four years.

“AAUW is very pleased with Mike’s settlement,” said AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund Interim Director Lisa Maatz in a Jan. 19 press release. “Mike should be applauded for his courage in standing firm to the very end of this difficult saga. It’s regrettable that the university didn’t do right by him — and the female wrestlers — from the very beginning.”

While at UC-Davis, Burch was a two-time men’s coach of the year, earned more victories continued on page 8