THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, F EBR UAR Y 21, 2007
Volume CXLII, No. 19
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Brown students protest Iraq war at Kennedy’s office
5-year doctoral support program raises concerns
BY ALEX ROEHRKASSE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
BY OLIVER BOWERS SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The five-year doctoral support plan to be introduced by the Graduate School next semester is causing some uncertainty among graduate students about whether funding will be available to students who study for longer than five years. A number of grad students, particularly in the history department, are concerned that if their tenure at the University extends into a sixth or even seventh year, they will be unable to secure the funding necessary to complete their studies. Beginning in the fall, the new plan will guarantee a support package to all incoming doctoral students and all students already on campus in years one to five, according to Sheila Bonde, dean of the Graduate School. The package will guarantee a stipend of $18,000 for doctoral students who become teaching assistants, research assistants or enter into fellowships. It will also guarantee health insurance and tuition remission, Bonde said. The new policy expands and formalizes the support program already at Brown, in many cases extending the amount of time that students are funded, Bonde said. “Most students at Brown don’t have a letter guaranteeing them five years of aid, so this is an add-on — it’s a good thing,” Bonde said. The plan for doctoral support makes the University competitive with its peer institutions, Bonde said. “Five years (of support) is pretty extraordinary,” she said. Among schools such as the University of Chicago and the other continued on page 4
PAWTUCKET — Military families and other demonstrators — including members of Brown’s anti-war group, Operation Iraqi Freedom — Tuesday called on Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to help end the Iraq war by voting to defund it, holding a vigil in and around his office in Pawtucket. The vigil is slated to continue through Thursday and will be paired with a smaller demonstration at the office of Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., tomorrow. Kennedy’s district includes Brown’s campus. The protest is intended to en-
Chris Bennett/ Herald A group of demonstrators visited the Pawtucket office of Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., in order to encourage him to vote against additional funding for the war in Iraq.
Williams ’72 avoids jail time after source admits leak BY PETER CIPPARONE SPORTS EDITOR
SPORTS
Colorado attorney Troy Ellerman admitted Feb. 14 to leaking grand jury transcripts to Lance Williams ’72 and Mark FainaruWada, co-authors of the book “Game of Shadows.” In response to Ellerman’s plea, federal prosecutors dropped the subpoena that threatened to put the writers in jail for failing to identify the source of the sealed testimony on which they based much of their book. Williams and Fainaru-Wada were sentenced to 18 months in prison for contempt of court last September and were appeal-
ing the decision when Ellerman admitted to the leak and pled guilty to obstructing justice last week. Williams and Fainaru-Wada, investigative reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle, refused to comply with the Justice Department’s demand that they reveal their source for documents that included testimonies of steroid use from baseball players Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield and sprinter Tim Montgomery. Williams and Fainaru-Wada’s book, continued on page 4
continued on page 8
UCS code change would standardize student activities fee debates BY MICHAEL BECHEK SENIOR STAFF WRITER
A proposed change to the code of the Undergraduate Council of Students, if approved, would make it the responsibility of the chair of the UCS student activities committee to decide whether to petition for an increase in the student activities fee at the start of each fall semester. The measure, on which UCS is expected to vote at its general body meeting tonight, is an attempt to simplify discussions about raising the student activities fee. The topic has sparked furious debate on campus in the past, most recently
this November, when a UCS resolution to petition the University Resources Committee for a $13 increase in the fee failed by a narrow margin. Student Activities Committee Chair Hugh Livengood ’07 wrote the code change and will present it at tonight’s meeting. He said a regular evaluation of fee raises is necessary because costs for student clubs are consistently increasing due to inflation. “The worry that I had is that it would fall by the wayside,” he said. Livengood added that he was not concerned about getting the code continued on page 8
MURAL NO MORE
U. recruiting former Duke lacrosse player BY ZACHARY CHAPMAN SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Reade Seligmann, one of three former Duke University lacrosse players facing sexual offense and kidnapping charges stemming from conduct at a party last spring, is being recruited as a transfer student by the men’s lacrosse team. Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90 confirmed that Brown is recruiting Seligmann. “Yes, he is interested in Brown University, and we are recruiting him,” Tiffany said. Due to NCAA recruiting regulations, Tiffany said he could not provide any further comment. Seligmann is a 2004 graduate of the Delbarton School, a private preparatory school in New Jersey. Three former Delbarton lacrosse players currently play for Brown. Seligmann and teammates Collin Finnerty and David Evans were
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initially charged with raping an exotic dancer last March. That charge has since been dropped, and all three have consistently denied all charges in the case. “It’s impossible. It’s impossible for it to have happened,” Seligmann told CBS’ Ed Bradley on “60 Minutes” in an Oct. 15, 2006 interview. Seligmann’s lawyer, J. Kirk Osborn, told the New York Times in April that he had “irrefutable, independent evidence” — including records of cell phone calls, an ATM transaction and a time-coded dormitory entry card — that Seligmann was not at the party when the incident allegedly occurred, the Times reported on Apr. 20, 2006. Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, who has come under heavy criticism for his handling of the case, dropped the rape charge in December after the accuser changed key details of her story.
UCHICAGO WON’T DIVEST The University of Chicago will not divest from Sudan, according to former Brown provost and new UChicago President Robert Zimmer
www.browndailyherald.com
7 CAMPUS NEWS
The North Carolina State Bar filed charges of professional misconduct against Nifong last month for his role in prosecuting the case. Nifong has been accused of withholding DNA evidence from the defense as well as other ethical violations. Nifong asked to be removed from the case, which is now in the hands of special prosecutors in the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office. Seligmann and Finnerty were placed on interim suspension by Duke for the Spring 2006 semester following their indictment and were put on administrative leave for the fall semester. Duke President Richard Brodhead reinstated both Seligmann and Finnerty last month, making it possible for them to return to class and the lacrosse team for this semester. At this time, neither student has returned to Duke. Seligmann could not be reached for comment.
FISTFIGHT TOPS LOG A fistfight between friends resulted in a call to DPS last Friday, but neither individual was injured
11 OPINIONS
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
Chris Bennett / Herald Two signs mark the stretch of hallway in Faunce House that formerly displayed a colorful mural.
DIS-ORIENTATION Paul Monnes ’08 chimes in from the Netherlands and laments the many changes the University has planned for Orientation
12 SPORTS
GRAPPLERS STUN LIONS The wrestling team posted the maximum number of points in its two final matches against Columbia to pull out the victory
News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com
TODAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
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WE A
T H E R
TODAY
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
Chocolate Covered Cotton | Mark Brinker TOMORROW
rain / snow 40 / 23
partly cloudy 41 / 27
MEN SHARPE REFECTORY
U
VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL
LUNCH — Falafel in a Pita, Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Sandwich, Cauliflower, Black and White Pudding Cake, Frosted Cookie Squares
LUNCH — Beef Pot Pie, Vegetarian Cheese Soup, Ham and Bean Soup, Vegan Roasted Vegetable Burritos, Mexican Corn, Frosted Cookie Squares
DINNER — Sweet and Sour Vegetable Stir Fry, Baked Stuffed Pollock, Vegan Lentil Chili, Savory Spinach, Zucchini, Carrot and Garlic Medley, Strawberry Jello, Whipped Cream Strawberry Torte
DINNER — Turkey Pie with Cornbread, Stir Fry Vegetables with Tofu, Smashed Sweet Potatoes, Whole Green Beans, Stewed Tomatoes, Hearth Bread, Whipped Cream Strawberry Torte
SU
WBF | Matt Vascellaro
D O K U
Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. How to Get Down | Nate Saunders
Deo | Daniel Perez
CR
O S S W O R D
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 “Return of the Jedi” creature 5 Its symbol is Fe 9 Bonzo, for one 14 Zoologist Fossey 15 Diamond of song 16 Navel formation 17 Speak frankly about 20 2002 skating gold medalist Yagudin 21 The Green Hornet’s sidekick 22 Word after miny 23 Hwys., e.g. 24 Less-nutritious juice alternative 26 Like arias 28 Borrower investigator 33 Pro wrestling move 36 Hint of color 37 Monomaniacal captain 38 Brainy 41 Load of dough 42 Hubbubs 44 Made an error 46 Dapper Dan 49 Gaiety 50 ABA member 51 Answer to a minister 54 Intention 57 Electrically flexible 59 Play charades 61 1970s cop show 64 Knot that’s easily loosened 65 Island off Tuscany 66 Make off with 67 Op-ed column, e.g. 68 “Buenos __” 69 Warsaw Treaty Org. member DOWN 1 Tarzan creator __ Rice Burroughs 2 Brandish 3 Hall’s music partner
4 Fort with lots of bars 5 Nonbelievers 6 Olds classic 7 Swine squeal 8 Braves’ div. 9 Macaroon flavoring 10 “Whazzat?” 11 Agenda entry 12 Japanese soybean paste 13 Folk singer Seeger 18 Phobias 19 Broadway souvenir 25 Relatively odorless cheese 27 Beef producer? 28 Mechanically enhanced person 29 Likeness 30 Geraint’s love 31 Scopes Trial gp. 32 State Sch. of Mines and Metallurgy, now 33 Upside-down sleepers 34 “Yikes!”
35 Bit of baby talk 39 Artist Bonheur 40 Mexican munchies 43 Flamboyant 45 Return with 47 Blackjack need 48 Made redder, maybe 51 Smidgens 52 Avoids a blow, in a way
53 Different 54 Stadium in Queens 55 “How sweet __!” 56 Dojo accessories 58 City SW of Bogotá 60 “Giselle” garb 62 HDTV maker 63 Sports org. since 6/6/1946
Deep Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbon
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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 WATCH WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
CAMPUS WATCH
IN
BRIEF
UChicago won’t divest from Sudan, seeks alternatives
Media giant Gannett buys 2nd student newspaper
BY HANNAH LEVINTOVA STAFF WRITER
Gannett Co. purchased the University of Central Florida’s independent student newspaper last Tuesday in the publishing conglomerate’s second purchase of a Florida student newspaper in as many years. The Central Florida Future, which publishes three times a week with a circulation of 15,000, became financially independent of the university in 1992 and was bought in 2001 by two Florida businessmen, who turned the student newspaper into a for-profit business. Gannett — which owns the USA Today, the newspaper with the nation’s largest circulation, as well as almost 1,000 other newspapers — bought the Future for an undisclosed amount, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Along with its purchase of UCF’s student newspaper, Gannett bought two other small central Florida publications owned by the same men. Last year, Gannett bought Florida State University’s independent student newspaper, FSView & Florida Flambeau, in the first purchase of an independent student newspaper by a major media company. Despite concerns about how corporate control of a student newspaper might affect editorial decisions, media experts told Inside Higher Ed, an online higher education news source, and the Sentinel that the purchases likely don’t reflect a trend because, unlike most student newspapers, FSU and UCF’s newspapers were previously bought by local businessmen and turned into for-profit enterprises.
Bucking a recent trend among wealthy American universities, the University of Chicago has decided not to divest its endowment from companies with business in Sudan, its new president, ex-Brown provost Robert Zimmer, announced Feb. 2. UChicago also announced the establishment of a $200,000 fund to finance faculty and student initiatives that seek other solutions to the Darfur conflict and similar international crises that may arise in the future. This decision comes after a series of announcements by nearly 35 other universities in the past several years — among them the eight Ivy League schools and Stanford — pledging to eliminate any financial ties to the Sudanese regime because of its involvement with the ongoing genocide in the country’s Darfur region. UChicago’s board of trustees ultimately decided not to divest, after discussing the issue in four separate meetings, according to a memo from Zimmer to student advocates and university officials. “On the one hand, there is some sympathy for the divestment position, although those in favor of this direction comprise a clear minority of those involved in discussions,” the memo read. UChicago’s chapter of Students Take Action Now: Darfur has been actively working to convince the university to divest, drafting a petition signed by more than 1,500 students and 110 faculty members and organizing protests, said Michael Pareles, the STAND cochair. Pareles, a UChicago senior, told The Herald that students protested on the steps of the administration building to pressure the administration to set a timeline for a conclusive decision on divestment. Their motto was “Nobody does nothing like the University of Chicago.” “I’m making my speech into a bull-horn, and President Zimmer walks out,” Pareles said. “He announced, ‘You’ll have a decision
— Ross Frazier
U. Missouri newspaper to sue over funding cuts The weekly student newspaper at the University of Missouri-Rolla will sue the university after its budget was cut by about one-third last November. The school’s student council, which controls funding for student activities, cut the Missouri Miner’s budget by more than $10,000, claiming the paper’s quality had been hindered by grammatically incorrect and biased content. Campus administrators later approved the student council’s entire student activities budget. Editors at the Miner set a Feb. 19 deadline for administrators to restore funding in order to avoid a lawsuit. Christopher Stryker, editor in chief of the Miner, told The Herald that administrators refused to restore the funding and that the paper would go forward with the suit. According to a news release from the Student Press Law Center, an advocacy group helping the paper litigate its case, the paper’s issues have been cut down to between 14 and 16 pages instead of the previous 22, and it can no longer afford to run as many color pages. “We have been trying to work with the administration to resolve things, but it has begun to feel like we’re negotiating with a gun to our head,” Stryker told the Miner last week. “It doesn’t seem like we’re going to get anything resolved with the processes we have been going through. We’ve tried to avoid it, but legal action is the only recourse we see left.” — Ross Frazier
Dow Jones opens summer programs to white students after lawsuit The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund will admit white students to its summer journalism programs — previously offered only to minority students — as part of a settlement last week with an anti-affirmative action group. The fund is the non-profit arm of Dow Jones & Company, which owns the Wall Street Journal, among other newspapers. It has run “summer minority workshops” at more than a dozen colleges for nearly 40 years in order to draw minority students into journalism. The federal lawsuit was filed by the Center for Individual Rights last September on behalf of a 15-year-old Caucasian girl who was rejected from one of the programs because of her race. The suit claimed Dow Jones, Media General and Virginia Commonwealth University went beyond normal, legal affirmative-action practices by prohibiting admission of white students. Originally, Dow Jones’ rules for the program stated, “each participant must be a minority (defined as U.S. citizens who are black, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaskan Native).” According to the CIR, Dow Jones once considered and apparently rejected a proposal to admit a limited number of non-minority students to “improve multi-cultural understanding.” As part of the settlement, Dow Jones must continue to fund the journalism programs for at least three more years, the student named in the lawsuit must be admitted to the program next summer and the three parties to the suit must pay CIR’s $25,000 in legal fees. Terence Pell, CIR’s president, commended the parties for quickly settling.“The settlement saves the taxpayers significant legal expense and ensures that this summer’s programs will be open to all, regardless of race,” he said in a news release. — Ross Frazier
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within a week.’ A week turned into the next day.” Brown divested its endowment from Sudan while Zimmer was provost. In February 2006, the Brown University Community Council, of which Zimmer was a member, unanimously voted in favor of divestment. The final decision to divest was made by the Brown Corporation, of which the provost is not a member. Then-Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene, who is now UChicago’s vice president for strategic initiatives, also voted in favor of divestment while on the BUCC. “We sent Zimmer a letter saying ‘we know you voted for divestment at Brown, we hope you’ll do the same here,’” Pareles said. “The first thing he said to us was ‘UChicago is not Brown.’ ” A policy of neutrality Zimmer justified UChicago’s decision by invoking a long-standing policy of university abstention from all social and political action in the name of maintaining free and open discourse. The neutrality policy originates from the Kalven Report, which was published by a 1967 faculty committee as a response to the Vietnam War. It stipulates that UChicago must remain neutral in all social and political conflict in order to ensure that students and faculty can openly “sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry.” In deliberations regarding divestment from Sudan, UChicago’s chapter of STAND argued that the genocide in Darfur falls under the report’s “exceptional instance” clause, which specifies that certain situations require the university to take a stance and act. “In the exceptional instance,” the report says, “corporate activities of the university may appear so incompatible with paramount social values as to require careful assessment of the consequences.” The Kalven Report’s last living signatory, Duke history professor John Hope Franklin, issued a statement last November in support of STAND, saying that “the desper-
Courtesy of Inside Brown University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer, formerly Brown’s provost
ate situation in Darfur is so tragic that it qualifies as the exceptional instance where I have no difficulty in concluding that divestment is consistent with the core values of our report and the mission of the university.” Pareles told The Herald that STAND held a rally announcing Franklin’s endorsement, but there was little administrative response. “What were they going to say? It wasn’t about putting pressure on the university. At that point it was still a debate about the values of the university,” Pareles said. “We were still in an ideological dialogue. The purpose of the campaign was to win the argument ideologically, which we did ... reaching the threshold of the Kalven Report doesn’t just give the university the option to act but creates the moral imperative to do so.” The Kalven Report was also invoked in the 1980s when UChicago was one of a few colleges and universities to reject divestment from the South African apartheid regime. However, according to university administrators, UChicago’s refusal to divest is not a complete refusal to act in support of ending the genocide in Darfur. Greene said UChicago’s board continued on page 5
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New funding policy causes concern among grad students continued from page 1 Ivy League universities, five years of support has become standard, Bonde said. She said no peer institution guarantees support beyond five years. The plan makes Brown more attractive to the best students and may be partially responsible for an increase in Grad School applicants this year, she said. Paige Meltzer GS, a doctoral candidate in the history department who has expressed concerns about the program, agreed that it was a step forward for the University. “(The program) is huge, it’s really fantastic for the Graduate School, fantastic for students and it’s really good for Brown overall,” Meltzer said. Some students are not greatly affected by the existence of Grad School funding because they can more easily apply for external grants from organizations such as the National Science Foundation or the National Institute of Health, said Joseph Bush GS, president of the Graduate Student Council. “In applied fields such as engineering and the sciences, I think people are very satisfied because they are funded primarily due to the inherent value of their work towards industry,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Some students, though, have concerns about the program. In a Feb. 7 letter to the editor printed in The Herald, a number of students from the history department argued that the average time to complete a degree in the department is six years and that “forcing a long and arduous process into merely
five years would leave even less time for teaching assistants to devote their attentions to their undergraduate sections.” A resolution passed by the Graduate Student Council earlier this month noted that the median total time to a degree for doctoral students is 7.9 years in the physical sciences and 10 years in the social sciences and that the University “expect(s) its graduate students to defy the national average by completing all of their requirements within a five-year period.” wit Eight doctoral candidates in the history department will be in their sixth year in the fall, and four of them have been unable to find external funding in the form of grants, Meltzer said. She added that students in the American civilization, English and anthropology departments will also experience problems. “Those are just some of the departments I’ve spoken with one-on-one,” Meltzer said. Bonde said the research done by departments on their grad students in a recent census tracking each student’s year level, academic progress and amount of funding requested for the upcoming semester has found that “there are relatively few sixth-year students out there … and a miniscule proportion in their seventh year,” Bonde said. Once the new plan is implemented, some funds should also be available from the University to students after their fi fth year. Bonde said after the fi fth year departments can make a case for students who are in good standing and need to continue into their sixth year. Meltzer expressed concern with students in their sixth year com-
peting with their peers for limited funding. But Bonde said the census has enabled the Grad School to predict exactly how many sixth-year students there will be and to set aside appropriate resources to fund them all. Because of the small number of sixth- and seventh-year students, “this isn’t a crushing, pressing problem,” Bonde said. Bonde added that during the transition period when the new program is implemented, students who were expecting funding after their fi fth year will receive it. “We’re quite aware that students who have been at Brown for some time may have formed some other expectations based on what they’ve heard from departments, and so we’re trying to take care of those students,” Bonde said. Meltzer also expressed concern that students could not defer their five-year support if they received a grant during their time at Brown. She said this policy gives students no incentive to apply for external funding. “Finding and applying for external funding is a really timeconsuming process. It could take a good two months out of the academic year, so why would you do it if you were going to lose funding for it anyway?” Meltzer said. Though there is no official policy, students who gain external funding during their first five years will be at “the very top of the list” for funding in their sixth year, and the Grad School wants to ensure that students have incentives to apply for grants, Bonde said. She added that the ability to attract external funding is a skill students will need throughout their professional careers.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
Williams ’72 avoids jail time in grand jury leak continued from page 1 “Game of Shadows,” sparked Major League Baseball’s investigation into steroid use in the sport. “It’s definitely a load off my mind not to figure I’m going to federal prison,” Williams told The Herald. “It was really a bigger burden on my wife and kids because they worried and on my newspaper because they paid so much money in the legal battle.” Ellerman was deeply embroiled in the conflict surrounding the Bay Area Laboratory CoOperative, a nutritional supplement lab that supplied Bonds and other professional athletes with designer steroids. At different times during the controversy, Ellerman represented BALCO’s founder Victor Conte and vice president James Valente. Conte served jail time, and Valente is on probation for his role in the steroid scandal. After pleading guilty, Ellerman was fined $250,000 and sentenced to up to two years in prison. Despite Ellerman’s admission, Williams still refuses to refer to his source by name, saying he and Fainaru-Wada “promised we would not betray them, and we’re sticking to that.” Almost six months after being sentenced to jail, Williams unexpectedly found himself off the hook. “It was Valentine’s Day, and I was out getting my wife a bouquet,” he said. “Then I got a call on my cell phone asking how it felt to have the charges dropped. I said ‘Well, if that’s true, it’s great.’ ” Williams was especially relieved to have the charges dropped because he believed he was “at the mercy” of the court system. The writers were scheduled to appear March 7 in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel in Pasadena, Calif. If Williams and FainaruWada had lost the decision, they likely would have continued the appeals process. The resolution not only keeps Williams from prison — it allows him to resume his career. “My work has certainly been interrupted,” Williams said. “Since May, I’ve spent two days a week working on this. It’s been a big distraction for me and (Fainaru-Wada).” Williams and Fainaru-Wada’s legal battle attracted attention across the country. Television networks and newspapers pub-
Courtesy of Brad Mangin Lance Williams ’72
lished features and columns addressing whether writers should be protected from revealing their confidential sources, and groups have formed to argue for the protection of writers’ confidentiality, Williams said. Lawmakers have also paid attention to the plight of the two reporters. Fainaru-Wada told the Chicago Sports Review that he and Williams met Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who wrote a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on behalf of the two writers last December. “I thought the attention from the press and lawmakers really changed the momentum of the case,” Williams said. “There was a fair amount of pressure brought by the national media and TV shows, so Mark (and I) were hopeful about the verdict.” “I really think we need a shield law because the press doesn’t have any protection,” Williams said. “The Justice Department has no hesitation about prosecuting journalists like us. If people you are interviewing think they can be identified, they’re not going to talk to you, so we have to get some confidentiality.” A shield law would protect members of the press from having to reveal the identities of their anonymous sources during legal proceedings. Williams has become famous for his work in exposing the steroid scandal, but in the coming months he is looking forward to returning to his roots in investigative journalism. “We still have to cover the whole Bonds steroids ordeal. And I hope to get back to it, but I’m not really a sports reporter, and I’d love to get back to writing some other things too,” he said.
C AMPUS N EWS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
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Chris Bennett / Herald Facilities Management will start a new phase of campus utility upgrades.
Upgrades to campus heating system planned Facilities Management hopes to replace the entire high temperature hot water distribution system north of Faunce House by September this year as part of a $30 million project to upgrade the campus hot and chilled water networks and electrical duct banks. “Facilities Management staff spends a lot of time fixing things as they break,” said Courtney McCracken, project manager for Facilities Management. “You want to be fixing things before they break. For the number of buildings at Brown, Facilities Management is actually very small. Fixing the infrastructure should mean more time spent on preventative maintenance.” The insulation on the heating system piping has begun to crack, McCracken said, leading to costly repairs. The leak last winter on the Main Green cost the University $300,000 to $350,000, The Herald reported last February. The replacement piping will be of a nearly identical design but built with stronger materials, McCracken said. “It will be more modern and more durable and could last as long as 75 to 100 years if it isn’t damaged,” he said. Work on the system will not start until after Memorial Day, so most residence halls will be unoccupied while the changes are taking place. But students living on Pembroke campus over the summer may notice the construction work — the piping at Alumnae, Smith-Buonanno and Pembroke halls will be among the first to be replaced. The heating system includes three large boilers at the Central Heat Plant on Lloyd Avenue, where water is heated under pressure to approximately 300 degrees Fahrenheit. The water is then carried through a series of 12-inch tubes to local heating centers around the campus, which convert the water to 180 degrees Fahrenheit and channel it into various campus buildings. The water tubes, which were originally laid in the 1960s, are insulated within larger, 24-inch shells and buried under eight feet of earth. —Andrew Kurtzman
Students briefly lose Internet access Monday All Internet connections in campus residence halls timed out Monday night due to a traffic overload of unknown origin, according to Computing and Information Services officials. Traffic on the CPU that acts as the University’s Internet firewall peaked at 7:33 p.m. on Monday, causing all dormitory networks to operate at a much slower rate. Actions requiring Internet connections were processed so slowly that Internet browsers and file sharing programs timed out, effectively disabling Internet access. The connection was restored at 8:08 p.m., but CIS officials said they have not yet identified the source of the problem. Student use was not the cause of the overload, said Tim Thorp, manager of training and communications at CIS. He said possibilities include spam, hackers or a virus. “Our network has the capacity to handle way more traffic than we can produce as people,” Thorp said, adding that the incident is “under investigation.” Junghyun Kim ’10 was using MSN Messenger to chat with his mother in South Korea at the time of the overload. “Suddenly, the text was transferring really slowly,” he said. “I was completely logged out within seconds.” Kim placed a call to the CIS Help Desk to report the Internet failure, but when he was connected to an automated message about the network’s status, he got a surprising response: “All mainframe and network services are stable.” Thorp said the Help Desk might not have been notified at the time of Kim’s call or may have decided not to update the message since the downtime was so short. Such incidents are rare, Thorp said, noting that Internet outages have been occurring less frequently over recent months than they have in the past. —Chaz Firestone
Thirty-nine juniors elected to Phi Beta Kappa Thirty-nine juniors were elected earlier this month to membership in the Rhode Island Alpha chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honors organization. To be considered for membership, juniors must have attended the University for five semesters and received at least 17 A’s. The selection process is anonymous and based on students’ transcripts, and it takes into account the rigor of students’ academic programs. Students elected to the society the previous year serve as electors for the next class. Students may also be considered for membership in their senior year by a similar selection process that takes place in April. Last year, 35 juniors were elected to the society. — Debbie Lehmann
NEW MEMBERS Catherine Louise Auriemma Zachary Michael Beiley Isaac Chaim Belfer Jonathan Joseph Cannon Joseph Edward Carpenter Sanghoon Cha Christine Eunjung Cho Pratik Jain Chougule Sara Tabak Damiano Alexander Westby Dean Larson Alan Di Fiori Jordan Michael Elkind Michael August Ennis Benjamin Harris Ewing Alan Ira Gabel Julia Rebecca Green Stephen John Greene Alexandra Lavinia Heredea Angela Hua Andrew David Jacobs
Dale Jun Yusuf Sami Kazi Christopher Ryan Keys Melissa Elizabeth Kline David Raymond Zengo Kobayashi Lily Shan-Shan Luo Nadia Fishman Maccabee Adam Benjamin Merberg Pamela Marie Pelizzari Jason Henry Portenoy Jessica Alison Ratner Amelia Magnani Rosenman Kayleigh Marie Scalzo Alexander Schrobenhauser-Clonan Aaron Michael Stanton Elizabeth Hannah Giencke Stern Hope Rebecca Turner Christopher Michael Wildenhain Cynthia Ellen Wise
UChicago won’t divest but seeks other alternatives continued from page 3 of trustees debated the efficacy of divestment in comparison to other possible solutions that could be facilitated with the new $200,000 fund. “The students came up with one solution — divestment. But is this the only thing to do? Is this the right thing?” Greene said. “The university can have a great impact, but it has that impact through the individual work of its faculty and students.” Even considering the broadest list of companies from which UChicago might divest, only several hundred thousand dollars of the school’s nearly $5 billion endowment would be affected, Greene said. “The amount the university has invested in Sudan is minimal.” Greene said he is expecting the first round of proposals that utilize the fund to be proposed this month. “We hope the fund will generate some very creative ideas that might, in fact, have an impact on a situation like this,” Greene said. “I hope we end up putting more money into this fund because demand is so high.”
happy birthday w. h. auden
“I know the students decided some time ago that they would tell universities that the only acceptable response was divestment ... but their demand does not make other responses less legitimate,” wrote Larry Arbeiter, UChicago director of university communications, in an e-mail to The Herald. “It could be argued that concrete support that allows some of our brightest minds to search for solutions to human rights abuses may actually be more effective over time than divesting of very small investments,” Arbeiter wrote. But many students believe the action taken by UChicago is insuf-
ficient. Scott Warren ’09, senior national field organizer for the Sudan Divestment Task Force and leader of the Brown chapter of STAND, said divestment is still the primary way universities can impede Sudanese genocide. “There are people dying every day, and to put $200,000 dollars to the side and say ‘this is our share’ is doing nothing,” Warren said. Pareles said UChicago’s chapter of STAND plans to continue its efforts. “Since the university refuses to be convinced through reason, we are going to have to try to convince them through force, shame or other means,” he said.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
M. hockey ties Harvard continued from page 12 entertained Harvard in front of a large home crowd on Senior Night. The first period of the game saw lots of scoring from both teams as Brown and Harvard traded goals three separate times in the first 20 minutes to leave the score locked at 3-3 going into the intermission. The second period was less exciting in terms of scoring, but Brown did manage to earn a temporary lead on an even-strength situation, when McMonagle beat the Harvard goalie with a backhander. With 1:21 left before the break, however, Harvard evened up the score on yet another power-play goal. The Crimson notched two consecutive goals within 52 seconds of one another tther — one on a power-play and the second at even strength — to build a 6-4 lead with 9:03 left in the game. Even though time was running out on them, the Bears charged back in front of the home crowd. Robertson took matters into his own hands, scoring a power-play goal from the point with less than five minutes left. Vokes and Poli both earned assists on the tally. Rosen, who recorded 25 saves in the contest, was then pulled from the net, and Brown was awarded another power play. With time quickly slipping away, captain and forward Sean Dersch ’07 won an offensive zone face off and slid the puck back to Robertson at the point. Robertson passed the puck laterally to Hurley, and he blasted a slap shot through the Crimson goal-
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
ie with only 12 seconds left in the period to even the score at 6-6, where it stayed through the overtime period. “I really want to thank our fans,” Poli said. “They have been great all this year and were huge on Saturday. They stuck around until the end of the game and were loud and encouraging. They gave us a great atmosphere to play in, and their support resonated on the bench and in the locker room and kept us motivated and inspired. They were a big part of our tying the game, actually.” After Saturday’s game, the team’s three seniors, Dersch, Ihnacak and assistant captain Antonin Roux ’07 were honored for their leadership and positive contributions throughout their careers. “I know I speak for the whole team when I say that we really appreciate all that Tony, Sean and Inner have done this year,” Poli said. “They were great leaders and great teammates both on and off the ice.” The team will hit the road next weekend, rounding out its season to face Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Friday night and Union College on Saturday night. If everything breaks right for the Bears in the final regular season series, they still have an outside shot to host the first round of the ECACHL playoffs. “I think we all really want to do enough to get back at home for the playoffs,” Poli said. “Our fans are great, and with them, Brown would be a tough place to play the first-round of a tournament for almost any team in our league.”
Planned fistfight on Patriots Court among incidents reported last week BY DEBBIE LEHMANN SENIOR STAF F WRITER
The following summary includes all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Feb. 9 and Feb. 15. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents occurring off campus. DPS does not divulge information on open cases that are currently under investigation by the department, the PPD or the Office of Student Life. DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters, located at 75 Charlesfield St. Friday, Feb. 9: 4:50 p.m. DPS officers responded to a report of a vehicle with a smashed window on Williams and Thayer streets. Complainant reported that unknown persons smashed the passenger rear window and stole the stereo from the car. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time. 11:46 p.m. A DPS officer intervened in a fistfight between two male subjects at Patriots Court. It was found the two students had willingly arranged the altercation and were still friends. Both students were evaluated by Emergency Medical Services due to minor injuries. The officer cleared the scene without further incident. Saturday, Feb. 10: 12:16 a.m. A DPS officer responded to a noise complaint at
we must love one another or die
Graduate Center. Upon arrival, the officer spoke with the occupant of a room who was having a small birthday party. The students were cooperative, and the officer cleared the scene without issue. 12:32 a.m. DPS officers responded to a report of a stolen purse at Minden Hall. Complainant reported that she placed her purse under her coat while attending a small party and said unknown persons removed her purse, which contained $25. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time.
CRIME LOG 1:25 a.m. DPS officers were requested to assist the PPD with an incident allegedly involving a student exhibiting disorderly conduct at a restaurant on Thayer Street. Sunday, Feb. 11: 2:27 a.m. A DPS officer responded to a noise complaint at Buxton House. Upon arrival, the officer found a small party with loud music playing. The party was dispersed without incident, and all were cooperative. 3:43 a.m. A DPS officer responded to a report of loud music in Minden Hall. Upon arrival,
the officer found a student playing electric guitar. The student was cooperative and stopped playing the instrument without issue. 11:03 a.m. Reporting persons stated that students damaged a bathroom in Poland House, leaving pieces of a stall in the hallway. 6:59 p.m. Complainant reported that a known subject threw a beverage at her while she was sitting with friends in a restaurant on Thayer Street. The matter is being handled by the Office of Student Life. 3:00 p.m. Complainant reported awakening in her room in Emery Hall at approximately 2 a.m. to find an unknown male subject who smelled of an alcoholic substance kneeling near her bed. The subject then left the area in an unknown direction. The complainant was not threatened or harmed during this incident. DPS detectives are following up on the incident. Monday, Feb 12: 9:15 p.m. Complainant reported that he parked his vehicle on the street at about 1:30 p.m., and upon returning at about 9:15 p.m. he found the front passenger window smashed. There are no witnesses or suspects.
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
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Brown students protest Iraq war at Kennedy’s office continued from page 1 courage Rhode Island legislators to express their opposition to the war by exercising the power of the purse, said Bucky Rogers ’07. “We’re hoping that both of the congressmen will be willing to make strong public statements in support of voting down the supplementary appropriations bill. That’s goal number one,” he said. About 15 picketers from the Rhode Island chapters of Military Families Speak Out and Declaration of Peace stood in front of Kennedy’s office, holding signs that read “Urge Kennedy to Defund the War” and included his office’s phone number. One sign read, “Bush can ignore you as long as Congress funds him.” Four members of Declaration of Peace entered Kennedy’s office to seek an audience with him. After being told that he was not there, they gave a solemn presentation, reciting the names of Rhode Island soldiers killed in Iraq and reading poems and testimony from U.S. troops.
“These sorts of materials are to help them support their opposition of the war and give them more reasons for coming out and providing strong leadership,” Rogers told The Herald. “If Congress doesn’t appropriate any more money for continuing military operations in Iraq, then Bush has no other choice than to bring (the troops) home.” Stephany Kern of the Rhode Island chapter of Military Families Speak Out told officials from Kennedy’s office that she had to send basic necessities — including toilet paper, first aid supplies and walkie-talkies — to her son in Iraq before he was killed there in 2005. If Congress wants to use its resources wisely, she said, it should send money and troops to New Orleans instead of Iraq. Participants in the vigil at Kennedy’s office received training and preparation in non-violent action at a Feb. 10 meeting run by Direct Action for Rights and Equality in Providence. “We talked a lot about the vision, the theory and the ideals underlying non-violent civil disobedience,” said Ingrid O’Brien
’07. “The belief in non-violence informs ever ything we tr y to do and the standards we hold ourselves to.” The training also included precise planning of the logistics of the Kennedy demonstration, as well as exercises in how to engage people who might be argumentative or combative at the event, she said. Letters sent to both Kennedy and Langevin last week by Jacque Amoureux GS called on both to take responsibility for what they have said. “Congress cannot simultaneously oppose and fund this war,” Amoureux said in a press release. Last week, Kennedy called the current war strategy in Iraq a “failure,” and Langevin stated that Iraq’s problems “no longer require a U.S. militar y solution,” according to press releases from their offices. Kennedy had offered to meet with members of Militar y Families Speak Out and Declaration of Peace at a later date, but the groups declined, said George Zainyeh, Kennedy’s Rhode Island chief of staff. Amoureux, a grad student in political science, said Kennedy’s offer was unacceptable because the vote on the supplementar y appropriations bill would likely come before the proposed meeting date. “The congressman is concerned and sympathetic,” Zainyeh told The Herald, but he maintained that Kennedy could not say how he will vote on the supplementar y appropriations bill because his of-
fice has not yet seen it and does not know when it will come to a vote. Zainyeh added that Kennedy believes “we need to use whichever means are necessar y” to correct the president’s policies in Iraq and that he will take an active role in writing the appropriations bill that will include war funding. Dianne Ritchie MPH’03, clinical assistant professor of family medicine and one of the protestors who entered the office, said their reception in Kennedy’s office was respectful, but she expressed skepticism at their response. “(Kennedy) always talks about how against the war he is … but he’s not talking about defunding the war and stopping it. So, unfortunately, that always leaves a lot of wiggle room,” she said. Preparation for yesterday’s protest was modeled on a training session hosted by the American Friends Ser vice Committee in preparation for a sit-in that was held at the office of Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., last September as part of the national Declaration of Peace movement. Rogers cited that demonstration — in which he, O’Brien and three other Brown students were arrested on charges of trespassing — as having provided momentum for the Kennedy protest. “A lot of us were inspired by what happened and wanted to keep moving forward with it,” he said. “We (were) able to build a lot more momentum and are heartened by that.”
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
UCS code change would standardize activities fee talks continued from page 1 change approved because it was “not a controversial or policy-changing amendment.” Last November’s UCS vote was 13-6 in favor of the increase, falling short of the required two-thirds majority. In addition, Livengood said, several students who supported the resolution were absent from the meeting. “They were surprised that it failed,” he said. Opponents of the resolution were concerned that student input was not adequately considered, Livengood said. At-Large Representative Stefan Smith ’09, who opposed the fee increase, said the attempt to pass the increase last November was “a hasty play” by Livengood, coming at the last general body meeting before Thanksgiving break without enough formal student input. “The problem this year was it wasn’t done until the last minute,” Smith said. He said he would probably support the change to the code so that discussion about changes to the fee would continue, though he said he has not yet read the measure. UCS approved a $10 increase in the student activities fee in October 2005, raising the annual fee to $146. The council originally approved a $54 increase in the fee, but only the smaller increase took effect, largely because funding for club sports was moved out of the purview of the Undergraduate Financial Board and into that of the Department of Athletics at the last minute. Livengood, who is also a member of UFB, said the increase, along with the removal of the burden of funding club sports, had helped clubs’ financial situations. He thought a “modest” increase to keep up with inflation last fall would have been reasonable, he said.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
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Grapplers top Wagner, Columbia, Delaware State, fall to Big Red
M. hoops cruises over Harvard, beats Dartmouth by 20
continued from page 12 led 20-9. The Bears could beat Columbia only if they could earn the maximum of six points for each of the two matches. Josh Serene ’10 got the Bears off to a good start at 197 pounds. Serene took out his more experienced opponent, junior Nick Sommerfeld, by employing a patented move. Serene executed a hold across his opponent’s neck, causing Sommerfeld to call three timeouts. The third time he stopped the match, he exceeded the number of allowed injur y timeouts and was disqualified, giving the Bears half of their required total. “I was really nervous going into the match,” said Serene. “I knew I had to win six points somehow for the team to win.” With Serene’s win, the Bears still trailed the Lions 20-15. For the last match of the dual, Brown sent out its heavyweight veteran and co-captain Levon Mock ’08. With its leader on the mat for the final points, Burch was hopeful heading into the final dual. “It’s very difficult to pin your opponent in college wrestling … but Levon is a great wrestler and I did not think it was impossible for him to win with a fall,”
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Burch said. To the jubilation of the Brown wrestlers and fans, Mock took down his opponent and pinned him in just 46 seconds. This win gave the team another six points, and the Bears stunned Columbia 21-20. “I heard Columbia’s coach telling my opponent not to get pinned, and that gave me more confidence,” Mock said. When asked how he secured the victory for the team, Mock said even though he won the final match for the team, the victory against Columbia was the result of a collective team effort. “The younger guys wrestled very hard on the mat and did not give away extra points,” he said. “Schell, Savino and Serene earned extra points for the team that made the team win possible.” The next day against Cornell, Brown’s top wrestlers had strong showings but Bruno could not pull out a victory. The Big Red ran off four straight wins to start the match, but Schell stopped the deluge at 133 when he defeated his opponent with a 2-1 decision thanks to having an advantage in riding time. Savino earned three more points for the Bears as he won an 8-4 decision at 141.
At 157 pounds, Tom Fazio ’09 earned four points for Brown when he defeated his opponent with a major decision of 12-1. Lenny Maradino ’09 and Chris Musser ’09 dropped decisions to close the match, which finalized the score at 28-10. In the final dual of the season, Brown defeated Delaware State 42-7. The Bears recorded 24 points due to forfeits by the Hornets, and took decisions at 184 and 141, an injury default at 149 and a pin at 157. “The team peaked at the right time,” said Savino, who won all his matches this past weekend. “The younger wrestlers had more confidence and really stepped up. It was a great finish (to the dual season). This positive momentum will definitely help us in the coming Easterns.” The wrestling team will compete at the EIWA Championship at East Stroudsburg University on Mar. 2 and 3. The EIWA is one of the toughest conferences in the country this year with teams like Cornell, Penn and Lehigh University in the rankings this week. According to Burch, the three classmates, Schell, Savino and Mock should all be seeded in the top six to eight spots next week.
continued from page 12 you’re sick,” Robinson said. “Michael Jordan played better when he was sick, I play better when I’m sick and Marcus plays better when he’s sick. … That three (Marcus made) was deep, and then that running shot — I was like ‘no way that is going in.’ ” Then at the 6:55 mark, Aldridge crashed the boards off a Huffman miss, snagged the ball out of the air and threw down a thunderous dunk that elicited a roar from the crowd and gave the Bears a 14point lead. From there the Bears cruised to the 20-point victory. Huffman led the Bears with 14 points, and McAndrew added 11 rebounds to go along with his 13 points. The previous night against Harvard, the Bears claimed an early lead and never relinquished it. The team went on an 8-0 run to take an 18-6 lead with 11:31 to play in the half. The Crimson closed to 32-29 at the start of the second session, but Brown answered with a 13-3 run to restore its doubledigit lead. Harvard inched closer throughout the second half and scored 12 points in the final 4:24 of the game, but Brown made just enough plays to fend off the Harvard charge.
McAndrew led the way for the Bears with 19 points on 6-for-9 shooting. Huffman chipped in 14 points, and Mark MacDonald had 13. One of the biggest differences between Friday’s game and the Bears’ 92-88 loss at Cambridge on Jan. 27 was the absence of Brian Cusworth, Harvard’s leading scorer. Cusworth’s eligibility ran out after the fall semester, meaning the 7-foot, 255-pound center’s last game was the victory over Brown. Robinson commented that he “didn’t think we were going to be able to beat Harvard with Cusworth, but we came close, so it was nice to beat those guys here.” On Friday and Saturday the Bears will host Columbia and Cornell. Columbia sports an identical 4-6 record in the conference, so the winner of Friday’s game will jump into the top half of the league standings. On Saturday, the Bears will face the league’s third-place team and the league’s top freshman and three-pointer shooter, Ryan Wittman. “This (weekend) will be another opportunity to come back and play teams that beat you, and we just have to get better, that’s what we’ve been preaching,” Robinson said. “Just get better and we’ll be building something here.”
E DITORIAL & L ETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
STAF F EDITORIAL
A chance victory The resolution of Lance Williams ’72 and Mark Fainaru-Wada’s legal limbo is a huge personal victory for the two investigative reporters and a small triumph for journalists in America. Williams and Fainaru-Wada exposed one of the biggest scandals in the history of professional baseball and did a service to the country in the process. Last fall, Williams told The Herald he was proud of the work he and FainaruWada had done in bringing the BALCO scandal to light. He hoped young athletes reading “Game of Shadows” might realize the dangers posed by steroid use and would think twice before using performance-enhancing drugs. Still, it’s hard to overlook the reality that the two men are free because their source, a former defense lawyer, decided to step forward and admit to leaking sealed grand jury testimonies to the two writers. In all likelihood, Williams would have landed in jail had his source chosen to maintain silence. The legal resolution to this case is only a temporary victory for the American press. It provides no assurance of future protection to journalists, who provide a public service others cannot and will not provide. As Williams hinted in today’s Herald, reporting a sensitive story with meaningful influence in today’s climate is nearly impossibly without promising some sources the confidentiality need to access crucial information. Given the continued importance of confidential sources, lawmakers must consider passing some form of protection for reporters so journalists can continue to do their jobs effectively. Without a shield law, it is already becoming more difficult to imagine a story like the one Williams reported becoming public. Whistleblowers are less likely to step forward if their identities are in danger of being revealed. But it certainly seems as though court pressure on reporters is not going to soften anytime soon. Finding out that you won’t have to serve jail-time would brighten anyone’s day. But beyond the initial relief of the Williams decision, much work remains to be done to ensure the continued freedom of America’s press.
A messy debate A past generation may have taken to the streets to protest the war in Vietnam, but after nearly four years in Iraq, our peers and classmates are protesting a supplementary funding bill outside the office of a congressman opposed to the war in the first place. Though the candlelit vigil students held outside Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s office yesterday evening helped refute accusations of apathy thrown in the general direction of our generation, the convoluted objective of the protest is a sad reminder of the complicated state of debate over the war. Protesting a war by advocating a progressive anti-war congressman to withhold support for a supplementary funding bill that has yet to be drafted is a convoluted response to a convoluted conflict. But as members of Congress opposed to the war fail to offer alternatives, students eager to demonstrate their opposition to the war have limited outlets for expression. Last week’s congressional deliberations on the war — the first since Democrats took both houses in November — signaled that congressional power may complicate, if not halt, the President’s plan. And since cutting off funding for the war seems to be one of the only hopes for ending the conflict before President Bush leaves office in 2009, the protest’s aim was not as arcane as it might seem on first blush. As the direction of dialogue about the war — whether protest or congressional debate — remains cloudy, it is all too easy to simply look away and try to avoid news from the Middle East. So, regardless of students’ own views on the war, we’re glad some of us cared enough to spend part of the long weekend speaking out.
T HE B ROWN D AILY H ERALD Editors-in-Chief Eric Beck Mary-Catherine Lader
Executive Editors Allison Kwong Ben Leubsdorf
Lydia Gidwitz Lindsey Meyers Stephanie Bernhard Stu Woo Simmi Aujla Sara Molinaro Ross Frazier Jacob Schuman Michal Zapendowski Peter Cipparone Justin Goldman Sarah Demers Erin Frauenhofer Madeleine Marecki
Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Editor Features Editor Features Editor Metro Editor Metro Editor News Editor Opinions Editor Opinions Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor
PHOTO Eunice Hong Christopher Bennett Jacob Melrose
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LETTERS Herald insults Guggenheim’s ’86 sleeping ability To the Editor: Unlike most Brown students, I read The Herald on my computer. I could not help but notice when The Herald delivered a coal to Davis Guggenheim ’86 for falling asleep in the Rockefeller Library, The Herald suggested he was hitting the ‘e’ key with his nose while sleeping in the Rock (“Diamonds and coal,” Feb. 16). That implies a very awkward sleeping position, with
the head jutting off the keyboard at a scary angle. Seeing as he is somebody who could “out-sleep” anyone at the Rock, I think The Herald insults the skills of one of our most renowned alumni. Michael Morgenstern ’08 Feb. 20
Won’t somebody please think of the children? Write letters.
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CLARIFICATION An article in The Herald (“Stanford humanities faculty to receive $5,000,” Feb. 7) that reported that Stanford University will provide $5,000 annually in discretionary funding to each of its 220 tenured and tenure-track humanities faculty indicated that the total cost will be approximately $500,000 to $600,000. This amount is additional funding that will supplement $500,000 to $600,000 in existing funds to pay for the grants. CORRECTIONS POLICY The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication. COMMENTAR Y POLICY The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. ADVER TISING POLICY The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.
O PINIONS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
Shortening orientation is a bad idea BY PAUL MONNES
“Patriotism”: An army of the misled? MICHAEL RAMOS-LYNCH OPINIONS COLUMNIST
GUEST COL OLUMNIST ABROAD LEIDEN, Netherlands — “Is it flying by yet?” I would ask myself every night of Orientation week two-and-a-half years ago, lying in my new bed in Keeney Quadrangle. “No,” I would assure myself, and then, exhausted from a day full of activities, I would fall asleep. I was catching up on some campus news on The Herald Web site the other day when I read that the faculty had decided to reduce Orientation to three days (“Faculty unanimously approves shorter orientation,” Feb. 7). This shocked me. Orientation week was one of the most informative and exciting times I have ever had here at Brown. There were so many activities to acquaint myself with my new home in such a small amount of time. I remember with each event I attended, I would try to talk to as many people as I could. I would ask myself, “Is this guy going to be my best friend here at college?” or “Could she end up being my girlfriend some day?” I would speculate about the places I was seeing on campus. Would I end up spending my mornings in the Blue Room or sit on the Main Green on sunny afternoons? I wondered how long it would take me to get used to navigating the campus. Even after Orientation, I was still afraid of getting lost. I was so completely immersed in acclimatizing to the University that I did not even have time to think about the start of classes. I remember one afternoon on the third or fourth day of orientation, I was feverishly digging through all the papers and pamphlets I had received throughout the week, trying to find out where they were even starting. All of this may seem inane in retrospect. But it is a major shift in our lives when we go from being high school graduates to college freshmen. And this takes time. Sure, the University could compress the myriad of welcoming activities into three days of fanfare, and certainly many of the activities could be scheduled alongside classes, but this would not allow freshmen the time to truly become acquainted with what life will be like at Brown — before the onset of academic stress. The faculty’s decision is deeply contrary to the student-oriented focus of the University. Brown understands that it is unlike other educational institutions in that, in so many ways, it provides a greater degree of support to its undergraduate students. With the extensive peer and dean academic advising programs, the freedom and respect for students demonstrated by the New Curriculum and the University’s comprehensive funding for student clubs and activities, Brown is unquestionably student-focused. And up until its recent decision, Brown has been exemplary for having an entire week for freshman and international student orientation. Orientation is about much more than talent shows or theatrical lessons about cultural diversity or academic adviser meetings. It is more than merely starting school. Freshmen need a week of Orientation to settle into the Brown campus. They need time to be on campus with a minimum of worries and responsibilities. Orientation, with its scheduled events, as well as its free time, is about nurturing freshmen through a turbulent transition. For the sake of all future matriculating classes, I strongly urge the faculty to reconsider its decision. Paul Monnes ’08 is currently studying abroad in the Netherlands.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
One would expect President George W. Bush, our commander in chief and a strong supporter of “supporting our troops,” to argue that the salaries of people in the military should be raised. While visiting the New York Stock Exchange trading floor recently, he said, “The fact is that income inequality is real. It has been rising for more than 25 years. The earnings gap is now twice as wide as it was in 1980.” He went on to advocate for more education and training in order to lift salaries. Raising the salaries for members of the military would certainly be a very effective way to begin remedying income inequality in the nation. The National Priorities Project think tank found that two-thirds of the nation’s recruits come from communities populated by lower-income families. Nearly half of them come from neighborhoods where the median household income is below the national median of $43,000. The counties with the highest recruitment rates have dramatically lower household incomes. Media Mouse, an independent media company, found that the people recruited from low-income areas are predominantly people of color. One of the methods that the government uses to find these financially disadvantaged people is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This act contains a provision requiring all public high schools to submit the contact
information of their students to military recruiters. A According to a budget breakdown by the War Resisters League, our government currently spends nearly $991 billion on the military while at the same time only spending $73 billion on education. Many people join the military for the promise of opportunities and resources in order to pursue higher education and a career after their training is complete. The army highlights its top G.I. Bill award for college of $70,000 when it recruits. However, the recruiters will probably not mention that 43 percent of veterans never receive the award because it requires $100 of the veteran’s own paycheck each month for the first year in order to qualify. For an army private first class in 2005, the pay was $14,822 a year. Combat pay, for those in Iraq is another $225 a month, and more if one has kids at home. Those in the military are obviously not experiencing great financial success or contributing to President Bush’s hopes of a country with more income equality while they are actively enrolled. After serving in the military, not only do many veterans never receive the money they expected for college, but they earn between 11 and 19 percent less than non-veterans of similar backgrounds. The Department of Veteran Affairs estimates that one-third of homeless people are veterans. Given Bush’s statement at the NYSE, it seems that enlisting is somewhat counterproductive to creating a country with greater financial equality, as the military condemns many people to economic hardship. In addition, the D.C. Anti-War Network found that with the $150 billion spent on the war in Iraq, the United States could have instead funded 7,640,330 four-year scholarships
to public universities or global anti-hunger efforts for six years. Distributing the $150 billion this way could certainly help combat income inequality. I wonder how financially disadvantaged people who are recruited for the military would feel if they knew that, according to Time, Vice President Dick Cheney has helped give government contracts to Halliburton, the company of which he used to be CEO and in which he currently holds stock. How would they feel if they knew Halliburton describes counterterrorism as an “opportunity for growth” in its annual report? Would they feel differently about “defending” their country if they knew, according to The New Yorker Yorker, that Cheney had been looking to “capture new and existing oil and gas fields” in Iraq before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks? The military has become a mechanism to mislead young financially disadvantaged people. Until the national budget is changed to encourage those who live below the national median income to actually seek formal education and financial success as much as it encourages them to join the military, then I think dissent is the only acceptable reaction to military recruitment. I recognize that having armed forces for the purpose of national protection and the pursuit of international human rights is necessary. However, as it stands, I believe military recruitment is unpatriotic, as it perpetuates a system in which some of our nation’s poorest citizens suffer incredibly due to the income inequality in our country.
Michael Ramos-Lynch ’09 is looking for a toy Cheney figure with k arate chop action.
The iPhone BY BART STEIN TECHNOLOGY COLUMNIST Apple’s desire to enter the cell phone market was one of the worst-kept secrets in the technology industry. Yet when Steve Jobs, the company’s iconic CEO, finally unveiled the long awaited iPhone this past month, he somehow managed to shock the world — again. High-profile product launches are not unfamiliar to Jobs and his beloved company. In 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh, which forever changed the entire PC business, and in 2001, he slyly removed an iPod from his pocket to begin a similar revolution in the music business. The question arises: does Steve Jobs really think that he has the capability to powerfully alter a third industry? I haven’t had a chance to personally use an iPhone— very few people in the world have, since it’s still an advanced prototype that won’t be released to the public until June. So this column isn’t a review — it’s my take on the potential of the device to do as Jobs says and change the way we conceive of mobile phones. People often don’t realize that it was Apple who innovated the way we control PCs by introducing the mouse with its 1984 Macintosh computer. So what mouse-like mechanism did Steve Jobs & Co. dream up to innovate the way we control mobile phones? In this case, they used something quite familiar — our fingers. The iPhone is entirely controlled through your bare hands. The face of the device is a 3.5-inch, ultra high-resolution touchscreen that requires no stylus to use. In fact, there are only four physical buttons on the new iPhone: a Home button right beneath the touchscreen, and volume up/down, ringer on/off and sleep/wake buttons on the side. On the bottom of the home screen, there are four virtual touch-buttons: “Phone,” “Mail,” “Web” and “iPod.” A touch of any of these with your finger takes you to that respective specialized section. Press “Phone,”
for instance, and you are transported to a screen filled with your contacts. New virtual buttons appear on the bottom for options such as “Favorites,” “Recents” and “Voicemail.” It’s amazing how the laws of physics don’t apply when all buttons are simply images on a screen. Jobs claimed the iPhone is not only a revolutionary phone but that “it’s the best iPod the company has ever made.” On paper, it’s hard to argue. The touch-screen interface seems well suited for an entirely new iPod experience. Scrolling is accomplished through flicks of your fingers, and snazzy visual effects that make the screen appear to actually respond to the speed of your flick. The video experience also seems superior to Apple’s current iPod offerings. That’s because the iPhone packs an accelerometer that detects when you rotate the phone and automatically switches the screen into a widescreen format, which is better for watching movies. Very cool. The iPhone also sports well-developed Internet capabilities. You can use the device with virtually any e-mail service, and it sports a full-fledged version of Apple’s web browser, Safari, for viewing Web pages. The iPhone can connect to the Internet in two different ways — through an integrated Wi-Fi connection and over Cingular’s EDGE network, the only cell phone network the iPhone will work on. Whoa! Wait, stop the music, and remove the crown from Steve Jobs’ head. That’s right, I just said there was an exclusive network. The iPhone is only available for Cingular customers. Let my criticisms begin… In order to purchase an iPhone, you will pay either $499 for the 4 GB version or $599 for the 8 GB version, after you’ve signed up for a two-year agreement with Cingular. That’s a lot of money to pay and a long commitment to make, even if you’re already a Cingular customer, and you’ll pay a lot more in confusion and frustration if you have to switch carriers. Apple’s choice to go with Cingular’s EDGE as opposed to its faster 3G network is dubious. Technically, this relates to the speed of Internet browsing you’ll experience when using
the iPhone. On the current EDGE network, speeds will feel very similar to old dial-up connections, while 3G offers speeds comparable to broadband. That’s a big difference. Yet my main point of concern with the iPhone is this: whoever said that the masses crave convergence? Is it that hard to carry around an iPod and a phone with you? Doesn’t convergence just mean that you are even more screwed when one device breaks? Not to mention the fact that the perennial concern of battery life must be seriously considered if you’re going to combine your iPod and cell phone. The iPhone is rated at five hours for talking, video watching and web browsing and 16 hours for playing music. Yet, if you listen to music, you are simultaneously draining the battery on your phone. Then there’s the issue of the touch-screen. There’s simply no substitute for tactile feedback. Serious Blackberry users who rely on those plastic keyboards for constant e-mailing will undoubtedly feel awkward tapping a screen, no matter how well Apple implements the system. Despite all these grumblings, I can’t legitimately argue that many of them matter. Twenty-five mobile phones are sold per second in the world today. Apple need only tap into the tiniest fraction of that market to declare its initial foray into the business a success. And most importantly, there exists Steve Jobs’s infamous “reality distortion field.” This is when Mr. Jobs imposes his will and charisma to distort a customer or employee’s perception of reality. It makes you concerned with being stylish and chic as opposed to economical and functional. I have read enough about the man and his company to be fully aware of this, and I’ve analyzed the iPhone enough to conclude that the device has several rational shortcomings. So what’s my final verdict? Reality is overrated.
Bart Stein ’09 is The Herald’s technology columnist. If you don’t read his columns, you are likely to be left behind.
S PORTS W EDNESDAY WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Grapplers top Wagner, Columbia, Delaware State, fall to Big Red BY HAN CUI CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The wrestling team finished its dual season on a high note after taking three of four matches at the Pizzitola Center over the long weekend. On Friday, the team faced off against Wagner University and Columbia. After Brown blanked Wagner 46-0, it secured the maximum 12 points over the final two matches to stun the Lions, 21-20 in the second match. The next day, the Bears battled No. 12 Cornell and Delaware State University. The team fell short against the Big Red, losing 28-10. The Bears then beat Delaware Sate 42-7 in their last dual match of the season. The three victories over the weekend improved Brown’s record to 6-12 overall, and 4-7 in the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association. The weekend kicked off with a dual against Wagner. The Bears took control of the meet from the beginning with a pin at the 125pound weight class by Greg Einfrank ’10. Brown proceeded to
Jacob Melrose / Herald The wrestling team (right) celebrates after Levon Mock ‘08 (left) pinned Columbia’s Angelo D’Amico in 43 seconds to complete the Bears’ come-from-behind victory over the Lions on Friday. The win marks the Bears’ first win over Columbia since 2002.
dominate every match, tallying five pins, one major decision, two decisions and a forfeit in the shutout victory With one win under its belt, the team faced Ivy League opponent Columbia. Entering the dual, Columbia was just outside the nation’s Top 25 and second in the Ivy League after upsetting the 16th-ranked University of Pennsylvania. The Quakers defeated Brown 33-4. Earlier this year, the Bears, undaunted, took
M. hoops hangs on against Harvard, stifles Dartmough in blowout BY PETER CIPPARONE SPORTS EDITOR
This weekend, the men’s basketball team had its most successful Friday-Saturday showing in a long time. The Bears beat Harvard 7066, then trounced Dartmouth 53-33 the following night to capture both home games on the weekend. With the wins, the Bears improved to 916 overall and 4-6 in the Ivy League and jumped into a tie for fourth place in the conference. The wins marked the first time the Bears had won two games in a weekend of Ivy play since beating the Crimson and Big Green on Feb. 27 and 28 in 2004. Considering Brown plays two games nearly every weekend of Ivy League play, Head Coach Craig Robinson said the team was glad to finally complete a weekend sweep. “Mark (McAndrew ’08) actually told me that this is the first time the juniors had won two games in a weekend. That’s terrible,” Robinson said. “Hopefully this will be one of many firsts, so I’m really happy for these kids.” The Bears completed the triumphant weekend by crushing Dartmouth, but the beginning of the contest did not look so rosy. The Bears suffered a prolonged scoring drought at the start of the game. They tallied just 11 points in the first 16:24 of the first half, including only two field goals in that span. Robinson thought the slow start could be attributed to the team’s collective butterflies. “I told these guys (before the game) that this was an opportunity to jump over a few teams in the league, so this is a big game for us, and let’s treat it like a big game,” he said. “That creates some nerves. I mean these guys are still young and young at winning, and
they were nervous at first because I injected that.” Damon Huffman ’08 noticed sloppy play from both squads. “It was like nothing was working for both teams. It was like a stalemate, it was just a bad start,” he said. “It was like we were stuck in quicksand,” McAndrew added. But just when it looked like the Bears were going under, their defense turned the tide of the game. Facing a 16-11 deficit with 4:28 to play in the first half, the Bears began to trap aggressively at half court. The pressure forced the Big Green into turnovers on eight of their last 10 possessions of the half. The Bears converted these turnovers into trips to the foul line and easy baskets, triggering a 130 run to close the half leading 2416. McAndrew scored seven of his eventual 13 points during the run. One of the factors in the run and eventual victory was the combined play of guard Marcus Becker ’07 and reserve forward Colin Aldridge ’10. Despite feeling under-the-weather throughout the game, Becker ignited the Bears’ run with two steals. When Aldridge replaced Becker with two minutes to go in the half, Aldridge ably trapped the Dartmouth ballhandler, causing another turnover. Aldridge’s play “got everyone excited,” Robinson said, because “he’s probably the guy at practice … who takes the brunt of it as freshmen go.” Aldridge and Becker continued to spark the Bears in the second half. Becker beat the shot clock on back-to-back possessions with a three-pointer and a floater in the lane to extend the Bears’ lead to 10 with 10:44 to play. “You always play better when continued on page 9
Columbia down in the closest dual of the year. The match was tightly contested from the start. In the opening match, Columbia’s Brandon Kinney defeated Einfrank 5-3 at 125. The win gave the Lions a threepoint lead, but Jeff Schell ’08 immediately tied the score when he defeated his opponent by a score of 2-0 at the 133-pound weight class. The win was an important one for Schell heading into the postseason.
“Schell’s win against Columbia will be very important to him in the seeding for Easterns,” said Assistant Coach Mike Burch. “He beat the same kid who had defeated him earlier this season.” At 141 pounds, Mark Savino ’08 recorded a takedown of his opponent just seconds into the match. Savino increased his commanding lead to 14-3 with only 10 seconds left in the third and final period, but the Bears then
received a boost from the referee who disqualified Columbia’s Jerome Greco for stalling. The decision gave the Bears an extra two points from the match and a 9-3 lead in the team score. But the Bears’ momentum halted there. Starting at 149 pounds, the Lions picked up five wins in a row, three decisions and two major decisions. With two matches remaining, Columbia continued on page 9
M. icers tie Harvard in final home game BY ELIZA LANE SPORTS STAFF WRITER
This weekend, the men’s hockey team (9-12-6 overall, 5-11-4 ECACHL) played at home for the last time during the regular season. The team lost to Dartmouth, 4-3 on Friday night and tied Harvard, 6-6 on Saturday in two important ECACHL contests. Despite finishing with a loss and a tie, the competitiveness of the games was befitting of the Bears’ last home games of the season. Friday’s game began with Brown dominating play, but unnecessary penalties and several costly mistakes helped the Big Green pull out the win. On Saturday, Bruno played in front of a large and energetic crowd at Meehan Auditorium and came back from a two-goal deficit in the final five minutes to tie the Crimson 6-6. “This weekend we did some great things,” said Head Coach Roger Grillo. “The problem is, the weekend before, our penalty kill was great, and our power play was weak. This weekend, it flip-flopped. We have to stop the flip-flopping and be more consistent.” Brown jumped all over the Big Green from the first dropped puck, almost slipping one past the visiting goaltender right off the opening face-off to earn a quick lead. This first offensive opportunity was thwarted, but at 3:56 the Bears tallied their first score when forward Brian Ihnacak ’07 scored a power-play goal off a pass from forward Ryan Garbutt ’09. Forward Sean McMonagle ’10 also earned an assist on the goal.
Jacob Melrose / Herald Sean Hurley ’08 scored with 12 seconds left allowing the Bears to salvage a 6-6 tie versus Harvard on Saturday night. The game was the final appearance at Meehan Auditorium for Sean Dersch ’07, Brian Ihnacak ’07 and Antonin Roux ’07.
But Dartmouth tied the game less than a minute later, taking advantage of a three-on-two rush 4:42 into the period. The rest of the first 20 minutes of play remained scoreless, and the teams headed into their respective locker rooms tied at 1-1. In the second period, Dartmouth’s strong power-play unit then scored two consecutive goals at 6:35 and 8:51 of the period, making the Bears deficit two at 3-1. Rallying back, forward Jeff Prough ’08, Brown’s leading scorer, took advantage of a man-up situation when he received a pass at 11:29 in the high slot from defenseman Sean Hurley ’08 and rifled a low shot past the Big Green goalie. Unfortunately for the Bears, Dartmouth regained its two-goal lead with 45 seconds left in the period, bringing the score to 4-2. Just 31 seconds into the third
period, forward Matt Vokes ’09 tipped Hurley’s shot from the point into the net on a power play, bringing the team to within one goal again. Brown had an opportunity to win the game when Dartmouth took a penalty with 52 seconds left in the game and the Bears pulled goaltender Dan Rosen ’10 for a six-on-four advantage, but Brown was unable to get the equalizer. “I would say that we started out well, but there were just too many little things that we didn’t do, things that are important if you want to win,” said forward Chris Poli ’08. “There was a long period of time when we didn’t play smart, and that’s what killed us. Against a good team like Dartmouth, you can’t afford to do that.” The following night, the Bears continued on page 7