Thursday, September 13, 2007

The Brown Daily Herald T hursday, S eptember 13, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 67

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Grad School cuts enrollment after $2.5m budget deficit

By Matthew Varley Staff Writer

The Graduate School faced a $2.5 million budget shortfall last academic year, resulting in a reduction in the number of graduate students entering the University this fall.

Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde told The Herald that 23 fewer grad students matriculated at the University this year compared to last year. Bonde called the number a “relatively modest reduction” that was the product of a “predicted but unplanned shortfall” resulting from the University guaranteeing

five years of funding to most doctoral candidates, a policy which starts this fall.

The reduction in the number of students coincides with an increase in applications to the Grad School.

For the 2007-2008 academic year, applications were up 9 percent — an increase of 570 applicants — from the previous year.

“What we did was to restrict slightly the allowable offers of admission that departments were making so that we had a slightly smaller incoming class in some departments. But that did not touch the amount of support for

continuing students,” Bonde said.

She added that the Grad School budget was boosted by $2 million “on account of the predicted pressures on it” and was “balanced in the final analysis ... at the end of the year.”

P. Terrence Hopmann, professor of political science, chair of the department and coordinator of its Ph.D. program, said the effects of the budget shortfall were felt in his department.

“We feel basically that we had to turn down some quality applicants last year ... because we just didn’t have the resources to offer them

fellowships and teaching assistantships,” Hopmann said. “Ideally, we’d like to take advantage of the fact that we see ourselves as a department on the rise ... to be a little bit more aggressive and generous in recruiting some of the best graduate students,” he added, citing an increase in yield among admitted political science graduate students in recent years.

Joseph Bush GS, a doctoral candidate in chemistry and president of the Graduate Student Council, said the move to five-year guaranteed continued on page 6

r e - op e n i n g t h e g a t e

MIT’s Sloan names alum as dean

By Joy Chua Staf f Writer

Three decades ago, David Schmittlein ’77 spent his days on College Hill reading on the Main Green, working in two of Providence’s costume jewelry factories and fishing for bluefish off the coast. Just last month, Schmittlein returned to New England as the dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management — the first dean Sloan has hired from outside the school.

FEATURE Gabriel Bitran, a professor of management at Sloan and co-chair of the faculty committee in selecting the new dean, told The Herald the school is starting to focus on establishing the connection between Sloan and the outside world, and it wanted its new dean to lead this initiative.

“We looked for a person with a lot of experience in that domain, and (who) has outstanding academic values and recognition,” Bitran said.

“David was the one who fit the recipe.” Bitran said he hopes Schmittlein’s experience in academia will benefit Sloan.

“I think he will bring much greater recognition and visibility to the Sloan School, because he has a clear perspective of the stage in which business schools find themselves,” Bitran said.

Bitran said Schmittlein’s academic background made him stand out on the shortlist of possible appointees.

“His coming from Brown certainly means he’s smart,” Bitran said. “There are few schools that turn out people who learn how to adapt in the situations they face.”

Prior to his appointment at Sloan, Schmittlein was a professor of marketing and vice dean of global initiatives and brand development at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Wharton faculty in 1980 and has continued on page 4

INSIDE:

3

METRO

www.browndailyherald.com

Chris Bennett / Herald

The newly renovated Gate, located in Alumnae Hall, features a refreshed retail space and new food and drink offerings.

See Campus News, Page 5

U. aims to use Fox Point land to ease parking crunch

By Simmi Aujla Metro Editor

Tall coffee at Starbucks: $1.65.

Books for classes: $300. East Side parking spot: priceless.

Brown may have made rides on the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority free, but University officials are still looking for a place to put the hundreds of cars that come onto campus every morning.

Administrators told residents of the Fox Point neighborhood, just south of Brown’s campus, that they are seeking developers to create up to 300 parking spaces on University-owned land now occupied by two little-used warehouses near India Point Park.

University officials sent formal requests for proposals in late July to six area developers, said John Luipold, Brown’s new director of real estate, speaking Monday night at a board meeting

OBAMA DRAMA Hillary Clinton trounces Obama in a Brown survey of Rhode Island voters.

3

CAMPUS NEWS

of the Fox Point Neighborhood Association. A committee of administrators, including Luipold and Brown’s director of strategic growth, Rebecca Barnes, will review applications received by Sept.

18 and make recommendations to the Corporation this fall on how to use the land, Luipold said.

METRO Though Brown mandates that developers create some parking spaces for University use, a developer could also use the land in other ways, Barnes said. Luipold and Barnes suggested at the neighborhood association meeting that the property could be used for housing, but they were vague about who might live there.

The University doesn’t often request that developers lease Brown-owned land, Barnes told The Herald, but the two warehouses — at 271 to 275 Tockwotten MPCS NEAR YOU After splitting from the Residential Peer Leader program, MPCs are back in most freshman units.

St. — don’t fit into the University’s long-term plans for growth in the Jewelry District and on College Hill. Giving developers autonomy to tear down the buildings and undertake a project largely independent of the University — as long as they provide some parking space — may make the property an asset to the Fox Point neighborhood, Barnes said.

Professor of Visual Art Richard Fishman and his students use one warehouse as studio space. The other warehouse is vacant.

Deborah Dinerman, community and government relations liaison, told the neighborhood association board that University officials are aware of Brown’s previous attempt about six years ago to turn the property into a parking garage, which was stymied after Fox Point residents strongly opposed the plan.

15

OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

continued on page 6 the pick-up artist Kevin Roose ’09.5 considers the “neg,” a subversive way to pick up women by insulting them.

IR changes to ease concentration woes

By Olivia Hoffman Staff Writer

Insufficient advising and limited senior seminar offerings were among complaints raised by international relations concentrators in a survey conducted by the IR Department Undergraduate Group last spring.

The program’s new director said IR’s interdisciplinary status makes increasing course offerings and hiring new faculty difficult but that the sole concentration adviser’s new appointment as a full-time assistant director should relieve pressure on advising.

Peter Andreas, an associate professor of political science with a joint appointment at the Watson Institute for International Studies, is now director of the program, replacing Melani Cammett ’91, who served as director for one year but is currently pursuing a fellowship at Harvard University. Claudia Elliott PhD’99, the only general concentration adviser for the several hundred IR concentrators, will now serve full-time as faculty lecturer and assistant director of the undergraduate program.

IR concentrators expressed their frustrations with advising in an IR DUG report that compiled feedback from 115 junior and senior IR concentrators in an effort to “generate more accurate information about the state of IR at Brown.”

Only 10 percent of the survey’s respondents said they considered the guidance they received from concentration advisers “very useful,” while 32 percent described it as “somewhat useful” and another 28 percent said it was “occasionally useful.”

Elliott said she was devoting “well beyond” the time she was compensated for as an adviser and was holding weekly open office hours to see as many students as possible. “This wasn’t reflected in the DUG report,” she said.

But this year, Elliott said her new continued on page 4

Courtesy of brown.edu

Associate Professor of Political Science Peter Andreas is now the director of the international relations program.

16 SPORTS

Game time Coming off two stunning victories, the men’s soccer team will host Maine this afternoon.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer and Jonathan Cannon

We a t h e r

sunny 72 / 56

sunny 74 / 58

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

LUNCH — Chicken Fingers with Dipping Sauces, Baked Vegan Nuggets, Cheddar Mashed Potatoes, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Pumpkin Bars

LUNCH — BBQ Beef Sandwich, Pasta

DINNER — Vegetarian Tamale Pie, Chicken in the Rough, Cajun Potatoes, Creole Eggplant, Strawberry Jello, Vanilla Pudding Cake

DINNER — Spiced Rub Pork Chops,

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

Primavera, Grilled Santa Fe Chicken, Zucchini and Summer Squash, Chocolate Chip Cookies

Vegan Paella, Baked Sweet Potatoes, Apple Fritters, Chocolate Vanilla Pudding Cake

Sudoku

Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins

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

Disambiguation | Daniel Byers

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, September 2007 © Puzzles by13, Pappocom

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

C

o ssw or d Lewis Edited by RichrNorris and Joyce Nichols

ACROSS 1 Genealogical abbr.

5 Learning ctr.

9 Make sense 14 Jazz club site 15 Inflict on 16 Soprano Mitchell 17 HANG TOUGH 20 One who ran a Mickey Mouse operation?

21 Part of SUV, briefly 22 Lighter handle 23 HANG TOUGH 27 Web site info source 30 ESP and such 31 Fourth of eight, now 32 “ER” areas 34 Pond growth 37 Costa __ 40 HANG TOUGH 43 Interviewer, often 44 Novice 45 She played Ginger on “Gilligan’s Island” 46 Calla lily family 48 Suburban suffix 50 Drug in Shatner novels 51 HANG TOUGH 56 Mtge. payment component 57 Mazatlán Mrs. 58 Rise in defiance 62 HANG TOUGH 66 Cabinet member under Dubya 67 Rani’s garb 68 Garage sale sign 69 One of four in Wagner’s Ring cycle 70 Shirt opponent, in a pickup game 71 Communicate via PDA DOWN 1 Suck in 2 Special case 3 Coll. admissions requirements

4 Much more than a speck 5 “It seems to me ...”

6 Holiday quaff 7 Pub quaff 8 Crown location 9 E.T. from Melmac 10 Agnus __ 11 Treat for a trick, maybe 12 Missed, as a pitch 13 Elbow __ 18 It’s barely audible 19 Determine 24 Flier 25 “M*A*S*H” actor 26 “That’s __!”: “Funny!”

27 Sneakily probe (for) 28 Broadway opening 29 Involuntary isolation 33 Hägar the Horrible’s dog 35 Chap 36 Secret competitor

38 Last Stuart queen 39 Mont. neighbor 41 Whomp 42 Fall apart completely 47 It may be rigged 49 Decorative pitcher 51 Hustler’s genre 52 Ahead of the rest

53 Betray 54 Whitewater craft 55 Continually find fault with 59 Deception 60 System developed at Bell Labs 61 Furtive “Yo!” 63 USN officer 64 Rio automaker 65 “Do it, __ will!”

100 Years of Solipsism | Adrienne Langlois

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

join the herald. xwordeditor@aol.com

9/13/07

our last fall info session: monday, sept. 17, 9 p.m.

195 angell street.

T he B rown D aily H erald Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 Business Phone: 401.351.3260

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

Eric Beck, President

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

Mary-Catherine Lader, Vice President Mandeep Gill, Treasurer Dan DeNorch, Secretary

By Dan Naddor (c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

9/13/07

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.

M etro Thursday, September 13, 2007

page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Rhode Islanders would choose Hillary Nathan Bishop Middle School closer to re-opening

By Sara Molinaro Metro Editor

If the Democratic presidential primary were held today, 35 percent of Rhode Islanders would vote for Sen. Hillar y Clinton, D-N.Y., 16 percent would vote for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. and 7 percent would vote for former Senator John Edwards, according to a new public opinion survey released Monday, and conducted by Darrell West, professor of political science at the Taubman Center for Public Policy.

The sur vey, which was conducted by telephone on Sept. 8 and 9, polled a random selection of 571 registered voters in Rhode Island, West told the Herald. The poll had an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, according to a press release.

The last such survey was conducted by the Taubman Center in January of this year and indicated that 33 percent of Rhode Islanders would vote in a primary for Clinton, 15 percent for Obama and 8 percent for Edwards. In the January survey, 36 percent of respondents said they did not know who they would vote for, compared to 35 percent in last week’s survey.

Rhode Island’s Democratic presidential primary will be held on March 4, 2008 — significantly later than the “Super-Duper Tuesday” primary date on Feb. 5, 2008, when 20 states will cast primary votes. At the moment, residents of 33 states and Washington, D.C., will cast their primary votes before Rhode Island residents.

West told The Herald he was not surprised that Clinton did so well in the survey.

“Senator Clinton is very popular in Rhode Island,” he said, attributing her popularity to the fact that she has been endorsed by several state-elected officials and that she has visited Rhode Island “a number of times.”

Craig Auster ’08, a member of the Brown-based group Students for Hillary, said he was similarly unsurprised by the poll’s results.

“She has a strong base of support (in Rhode Island),” he said.

Like West, Auster also attributed Clinton’s early success to the endorsements she has received from elected officials in the state, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Providence Mayor David Cicilline ’83.

But Max Chaiken ’09, coordinator for the Brown chapter of Students for Obama, said West’s data might not be representative of true Rhode Island voting patterns.

“Most students registered (to vote) in Rhode Island don’t have land (telephone) lines,” he said. “A lot of students who are entering Rhode Island as freshmen might not be registered yet.”

Chaiken said Clinton’s endorsements were important, but that there is “still a lot of time left, and still a lot of ways for Senator Obama to turn it around.” Students for Obama is officially affiliated with the Obama campaign.

In addition to sur vey questions about the presidential primary race, Rhode Islanders were polled on their approval of several elected officials and their opinions on specific issues.

West said the biggest surprise of the survey was the drop in job approval for Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 — in Januar y, 59 percent of those polled said he was doing an “excellent” or “good” job, while in the recent poll, only 44 percent gave the same answers.

West called this “a huge drop in a

short period of time.”

“The state budget is out of control, the economy is softening,” West said. Rhode Islanders are “disenchanted with the future of the state,” he added. Only 31 percent polled believe that the state is headed in the right direction, while 57 percent believe it is headed in the wrong direction.

In January, 50 percent believed the state was on the right track, and 34 percent on the wrong track.

Cicilline’s job approval rating stands at 64 percent, slightly down from 67 percent in January. West said he believes the mayor’s job approval rating has remained high because of continued economic development in Providence and the fact that “nobody in the city government has gone to jail.”

One of the issue questions on the sur vey, inspired by recent public debate over whether a convicted felon should be on the radio, asked respondents if they felt that former Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci’s new radio talk show, which debuts next week, was a good idea.

The majority of respondents, 57 percent, felt that Cianci’s radio show was a good idea, and just 23 percent thought it was a bad idea.

“People think it’s a good thing,” West said. “They feel he has paid his debt to society, and they want to hear what he has to say.”

metro — every tuesday and thursday

By Nandini Jayakrishna Senior Staff Writer

Across the street from Brown Stadium stands a lonely school building that once housed the East Side’s only middle school. In the Spring of 2006, Nathan Bishop Middle School failed to meet academic goals, saw decreasing enrollment because of its poor reputation and was subsequently closed. “It was a disaster,” East Side resident Thomas Schmeling told The Herald in March. “Students were roaming the halls and cursing at teachers.”

Since then, however, East Side residents have petitioned for its reopening. Approval of a plan to renovate the school as opposed to razing it was granted over the summer from key players — such as Mayor David Cicilline ’83 — and has brought the school closer to a proposed reopening in September 2009.

The Providence Public School District’s School Board also approved plans for re-opening over the summer. In June, the East Side Public Education Coalition — a group of parents and residents on Providence’s East Side — chose a $40 million renovation plan over proposals for partial or complete demolition and reconstruction of the building, said Schmeling, a coalition member. In July, the City Council’s Finance Committee agreed to finance the school’s renovation.

An architecture firm hired by the city reported to East Side residents that the renovation plan will use the building’s space more efficiently than other plans, said Sam Zurier, a member of a steering committee appointed by the superintendent of the school district.

Zurier said the plan also preserves the school’s “beautiful” auditorium, which would be difficult to rebuild with limited funds.

Choosing renovation over new construction avoids conflict with historic preservationists — such as the Providence Preservation Society — which could have delayed the school’s reopening.

“We want to preserve the building for its architectural integrity, history in the neighborhood,” said Sara Emmenecker ’04, director of preservation services at the society.

“The building is in pretty good shape considering not much has been invested into it since 1929,” she added.

The next step is to submit the funding application and final architectural plan to the Rhode Island Department of Education for approval.

Michael Kenney, an East Side parent who had previously supported new construction, said he is happy with the renovation plan.

“The overall building is well-designed and open,” he said, adding that he hopes to send his third- grader to Nathan Bishop when it re-opens.

Page 4

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

IR changes to ease concentration woes continued from page 1 position will allow her to see many more students and to offer more office hours.

“We needed someone who was here with more consistency to deal with a growing student body interested in the study of international relations,” she said, noting that the number of concentrators has nearly doubled over the last 10 years.

Andreas said that while he sympathized with the IR DUG’s concern, the “sheer size” of the program makes the advising load “a challenge, to say the least.”

But Andreas said he thinks IR concentrators’ concerns are true of advising at Brown in general.

“By Brown standards, I think the IR program does a reasonably good job with advising. The next step would be to look comparatively,” Andreas said.

The DUG report does compare IR advising to two of the University’s other largest undergraduate concentrations — biology and history — and highlights IR’s comparatively higher student-to-adviser ratio and the limited availability of advisers in the program.

“One of the main frustrations that students had with the advising process was that it was very impersonal,” said Michael Boyce ’08, a member of the IR DUG executive board. Boyce suggested the program match students with advisers who have similar research interests.

Andreas said this is partially the case with the current system, which assigns students to advisers whose work broadly relates to their selected concentration “track.”

Boyce said that while this is a start, it’s not sufficient because the four tracks are so wide-ranging. “It doesn’t go all the way to ensuring that student-faculty interests are properly matched,” he said.

Boyce recommended that the program take steps to “incentivize” advising for faculty, but both Andreas and Elliott said resources for interdisciplinary programs, like the IR concentration, are limited. “We’re completely dependent on the rest of the University in terms of providing faculty and courses,” Andreas said.

Concentrators surveyed in the DUG report also expressed dissatisfaction with the limited number of senior seminars, urging the program to encourage professors to teach multiple seminar sections and offer research assistants to reduce time demands on professors.

This is easier said than done, Andreas and Elliott said.

Because of the University’s departmental system, the graduate school allocates teaching assistants based on the needs of each department — not the needs of interdisciplinary programs like IR. “As a program, sometimes we find ourselves going from department to department, knocking on doors,” Elliott said.

Hiring new professors to reduce teaching loads and offer more courses depends on departmental

needs, Andreas said, adding that “We don’t have any budget to hire new faculty.”

Elliot said the heavy teaching load and limited number of courses are “a reality that’s on our hands,” adding that most seminars are led by visiting scholars.

Andreas said Brown’s recent internationalization initiative may bring new faculty and courses. “(It) creates a real opportunity for the IR program,” he said.

Boyce said he hopes these efforts will increase the status of Brown’s IR program among its peer institutions, and that IR concentrators will be on the “leading edge” of the initiative.

“They are, in a lot of ways, the face of Brown in the international community, so in that way they are tremendously important to Brown’s international relations efforts,” Boyce said of the program’s concentrators.

Students can benefit from the University’s internationalization initiative through events held at the Watson Institute, Elliott said.

“Whatever plans are implemented through the internationalization of Brown are going to filter through the Watson Institute for sure.”

Nearly 45 percent of the IR DUG survey respondents reported attending Watson Institute events only once a month, and roughly 30 percent said they rarely or never attend events.

Andreas said he was surprised by these numbers and encouraged concentrators to take advantage of what he called an “under-utilized resource.”

Alum named dean of MIT Sloan continued from page 1 taught there for the past 27 years.

“My background at Wharton helped me gain an appreciation for how the world at large sees business schools,” Schmittlein said, explaining that he thinks people expect business schools to do more than provide degrees in management to further their careers. “They expect schools to be able to reach out to the world with the knowledge they create, provide insights on timely business issues and opportunities.”

Schmittlein also said people look to business schools to provide fair and open forums and that leading schools like Sloan need to rise to these challenges both in creating knowledge and reaching out to the world.

A math concentrator at Brown, Schmittlein said he has vivid memories of his years in Providence. “It gave me both freedom to explore but also an incredible depth of knowledge that you had access to in various areas.”

Besides math and engineering, Schmittlein dabbled in poetry, literature and other fields. “(It’s) stuff that Brown students tend to put together as a broad and thoughtful exploration,” he said.

Off-campus, Schmittlein remembers jogging through the East Side and fishing on the weekends. “I lived off campus in the Portuguese neighborhood, which introduced me to Portuguese sweet bread,” he said. “It’s not the same anywhere else.” But Schmittlein stressed that he valued the people most, saying the relationships he formed were the “things that were important and the things that stay with you longer,” he said.

“I’ve also had great experience with Brown alums through my years at Wharton,” Schmittlein said.

“Each year I would typically have one to three Brown students, and they would always mention their association with the school.”

Though his deanship will not begin for another month, Brown alums have already reached out to him.

“The day after I was named dean of MIT Sloan, I got an e-mail from about 20 students at MIT Sloan who were all Brown alums,” he said. “It was so great that they collectively decided to get in touch with me.”

Barrett Hazeltine, professor emeritus of engineering and one of Schmittlein’s favorite Brown professors, remembers him as a very serious and well-directed student.

“He was curious in a nice way. He wanted to understand how things worked instead of just doing the work and running off,” Hazeltine said.

Hazeltine, who has taught at Brown since 1959, said Schmittlein gave valuable input when the Brown Entrepreneurship Program was created. “It was very important that we had advice and support outside the University, and Dave gave credibility when it was needed,” Hazeltine said. “He knew how to deal with students and was helpful without being dominating.”

“MIT is stereotyped as being a quantitative school,” Hazeltine said. “It’s brave of them to go for someone like Dave whose focus is more on marketing.”

Schmittlein said he sees a slight parallel between Brown’s academic freedom and the path he would like business schools to follow, but he said most business schools have rigid curricula for first-year students — MIT’s was recently redesigned

to provide more flexibility.

“A willingness to just get out of the classroom that has a chalkboard — that certainly is part of the way the schools of management are changing,” Schmittlein said.

“For me, that kind of experience — learning by dialogue, or peerto-peer, started with the Modes of Thought classes at Brown,” Schmittlein said.

“One of the interesting things about Brown is that you have a sense that you’re throwing a pebble in a pond, and it’s hard to predict where the waves will go,” Schmittlein said.

“I feel Brown is a school that makes it less about jumping through particular hoops and more about challenging you to find things that are most meaningful to you,” he said. “That had a specific effect on me, and I hope (Brown) doesn’t change in that way.”

Hazeltine said Schmittlein’s appointment at MIT demonstrates that a Brown education can lead to responsible positions in business — an encouragement to students studying business at Brown. “It also shows that a concentration in mathematics doesn’t mean the only thing you can do is become a professional mathematician, which I think a lot of people think,” he said.

“It also reflects an age where marketing as a field has become a field science,” Hazeltine said. “Dave could have done all sorts of management but recognizes the importance of marketing.”

While scrolling through Internet profiles of Schmittlein, Hazeltine came across a photo of him and laughed. “That’s him!” he said. “The same smile and all that.

Someone who doesn’t take himself too seriously.”

c ampus n ews Thursday, September 13, 2007

Ne

ws

page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

i n

Br

i e f

Physics prof wins Sloan fellowship Vesna Mitrovic, assistant professor of physics, is about to embark on a $45,000 research project on quantum physics.

Last spring, Mitrovic received a Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in physics. The fellowships, established in 1955 and designed to support scientists and scholars early in their careers, provide $45,000 for a two-year period to fund any project of the recipient’s choosing.

“It allows us to do a lot of risky exploratory research,” Mitrovic told The Herald.

Mitrovic studies the quantum properties of materials at low temperatures and high magnetic fields. She also works with Courtesy of brown.edu superconductivity — the ability Assistant Professor of Physics Vesna of a substance to conduct elec- Mitrovic tricity with zero resistance. She said she intends to use the grant money to further research these phenomena.

Mitrovic’s research employs a technique called nuclear magnetic resonance. MRI scans are based on the same principle, but the word “nuclear” is omitted from the name commonly used in hospitals because it tends to scare people, she explained.

Mitrovic said she intends to start on the project within the next six months. She is currently working on two other projects about similar topics.

The length of the research project is currently open-ended. “If you’re lucky, instead of concluding something, you discover something new, so the whole project can go on for years,” Mitrovic said.

“What is going to come out of this, it is really hard to predict,” Mitrovic said about her field of study. “Our main goal is to understand how things work and why.”

— Gaurie Tilak

MPCs to return to most first-year dorms

By Irene Chen Senior Staff Writer

After splitting last year from the Residential Peer Leader program, Minority Peer Counselors have moved back into freshmen units, allowing for more coverage in predominately freshmen dorms, where they can work with first-year students more closely.

Twenty-two MPCs are living in the units, which means that most — though not all — freshmen dorms now have one MPC per unit. Last year, the program experimented with locating MPCs on a regional basis throughout campus, rather than placing them only in freshman units.

Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, interim vice president for campus life and student services, and Karen McLaurin ’74, associate dean of the College and director of the Third World Center, assessed last year’s program and decided to increase the number of MPCs and the amount of funding available for MPC programming.

“My sense from meeting the students last year — they felt that the changes they had made last year were positive,” Carey said. “They were trying to expand their scope beyond the first-year class, extending their audience attendance at various convocations and cultural events and interacting with TWC programmers.

They felt stretched with a smaller number of people, and we’ve been able to increase their numbers.”

An increase in the number of MPCs hired allowed the program to expand, McLaurin said, adding that MPCs will continue to work with RPLs.

Chris Bennett / Herald

The Third World Center and the Division of Campus Life and Student Services increased funding for the Minority Peer Counselor program this year.

“The RPLs and MPCs have one common interest — to assist firstyears in building a stronger sense of community and a safe environment,” McLaurin said.

Neeta Pal ’09, a Minority Peer Counselor coordinator who was an MPC last year, told The Herald,

“The strength of the program comes from the wide range of people and personalities in the program. They bring a lot of energy and a lot of sensitivity.”

Pal said she is hesitant to say that continued on page 6

After renovation, Gate no longer fenced in by layout

By Amanda Bauer Staff Writer

thanks for reading

After occupying a small, enclosed space the past few years, the Gate has been opened up — in more ways than one — for the academic year.

This fall, students will find a newly renovated retail space with more food and drink options at the Gate.

The renovations, which began last spring and were completed over the summer, included the removal of the two large columns in the middle of the food area and the consolidation of the pizza, deli and panini stations to the far corner near the pizza ovens.

“We decided to create more space to make sure that people could access and enjoy it better,” said Jacques Larue, director of retail dining operations. “It was the only way to make more space because there was a big counter in the middle of the room.”

As part of Dining Services’ Community Harvest Program, the Gate is now serving local soups and using more local ingredients.

“A goal of Dining Services is to develop this program which is using local farmers,” Larue said. The

program has already been in place at the Sharpe Refectory and the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall, but it was not in any retail areas until this year. For example, the new “community harvest pizza” uses only local ingredients.

Also new this year, the Gate will host movie nights and open-mic nights. “I think we could create an atmosphere here,” said Larue, who encourages student feedback about the renovations by making a suggestion box available.

In addition to the relocated pizza, panini and deli stations, new menu items are now available. “(Retail dining) wanted to create more and more options for the students … so this year we have the soup station,” Larue said.

There are four soup selections that change daily along with an increased selection of pizza, including wheat crusts, more vegetarian choices and more kinds of calzones, according to Larue.

The two smaller refrigerators that housed beverages were replaced with one large panel built into the back wall where the food preparation area used to be.

The two cashier stations were also moved from inside the food area to just inside the seating area. “It’s a lot nicer for the cashiers because before we were enclosed in a small counter and it was a really tight squeeze,” said Shatara Francisco ’08, who has worked as both a cashier supervisor and food preparer at the Gate in her years at Brown. “There were all these really hot lights that made it really uncomfortable to work in there.”

According to Francisco, the new

setup should also make the cashiers’ job of helping to prevent theft easier because patrons cannot hide items in their bags and clothing from behind the large columns.

So far, students seem to find the new setup a success, lauding both the bigger space and the new food.

“The place to get pizza and sandwiches is in a much better location to the side. There’s a lot more open area to walk around, so it’s not as clustered in there during mealtimes,” Corlis Gross ’10 said. “I like it a lot better. … It’s easier to navigate, less crowded and less congested.”

For the food preparers, however, the renovations may not be an improvement overall.

“I think it’s awesome for the customers, but not so much for the workers,” said Hadiza Mohammed ’10. “It’s so tight in the (cooking) area and it’s kind of hot, so they still have some things they need to fix back there.”

Joanne Marsella, who has worked at the Gate for about ten years, said the new design was easier for the workers to clean.

“Like any new (venue) we now have to work out the bugs,” Larue said. “There are a lot of lines right now … the line for the pizza, and the line for the deli station, and the line for the paninis, and people are still confused about how it works. … We’re trying to make sure that it works best for the flow in the room.”

According to Marsella, there is also room for improvements to the setup for workers. “Maybe the paninis should have their own little area over (in the corner) like the soup,” she said.

Page 6

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

U. seeks to develop Fox Point land continued from page 1 Some residents at the meeting said they thought the University’s effort was similar to its previous plans for the same property and that the neighborhood would get better use out of the properties if they weren’t converted into parking spaces.

Fox Point resident Ethan Ris ’05, who called the University’s plans “a little nefarious,” said he thought the University was attempting the same plan residents shot down earlier, but in a more roundabout way.

Also at Monday’s meeting, Fox Point residents discussed overnight permit parking for residents. Providence currently bans parking overnight on streets, but a pilot program in one Providence neighborhood, Washington Park,

allows residents to pay $25 a year for an overnight-parking permit.

Fox Point residents heard Patrick Ward, president of Citizens for Resident Permit Parking, detail the specifics of a permit parking program.

But residents were skeptical, saying that Providence police had a bad track record of enforcing the overnight ban in their area.

The neighborhood association’s executive secretary, John Rousseau, of Fremont Street, noted that one of his acquaintances only receives tickets for overnight parking about 3 percent of the time. Still, Rousseau said he would circulate a petition for the permit program on his street.

“I’ve never lived anywhere where you can’t park on the street,” he said. “It seems like the street

should belong to the people.”

Once a petitioner gains support in his neighborhood, he can take the petition to the city clerk, Ward said. The city council will then consider the petition for a pilot program.

But fears that student cars would overrun the neighborhood will fuel opposition to the program, according to Ris. Brown students living in Fox Point wouldn’t pose a nuisance to residents, Ris said, because a permit program would require car-owners to have a Rhode Island license plate registered to a Rhode Island address — a hassle for out-of-state students living offcampus for only a year. Trading out-of-state tags for Rhode Island tags costs about $50.

— With additional reporting by Zachary Chapman

Grad School reduces size of incoming class continued from page 1 funding is “a healthy thing for the University,” despite the strain it put on the budget this year.

“There are some people who certainly will get the short end of the stick on this, and it may stifle some works that are very hard to fund other wise, but I think there’s a broader picture than just the shortfall,” Bush said. Though fewer graduate students are enrolling in chemistry this fall than in some previous years, Bush said “taking on fewer students ... means you have more faculty attention on those students.”

Hopmann also expressed concern over potential repercussions that the shortfall may have in other spheres of the University, including undergraduate education.

“Even cutting back one additional graduate student ... carried out over three, four or five years has an impact on the number of TAs that we have available,” Hopmann said. “This year we had to put some enrollment limits on courses that have previously not had enrollment limits.”

But Bonde told The Herald that the University has “exactly the same number of TAs that we’ve had in the past and, in some cases, slightly more.”

recycle

“There was a separate process of capping the courses in response to predicted enrollment, available faculty and available TA resources,” Bond said. “So it’s a much larger, systemic thing.”

While Bonde acknowledged that “certain concentrations have historically experienced pressures in enrollments,” she said she did not observe any unusual patterns this year.

“It’s not so much available funding for TAs as it is available students to TA,” Bonde said, adding that some graduate programs — including international relations and chemistry — are particularly small in relationship to the size of undergraduate concentration.

Though Bonde said the Task Force on Undergraduate Education and her own working group on graduate education will continue to examine “staffing challenges ... and the graduate student contribution to undergraduate education,” she emphasized that University officials evaluate the size of the Grad School population with a long-term perspective. “So if a particular class is small, we try to compensate the next year and have a larger class, and vice-versa,” she explained.

For his part, Bush suggested that placing more responsibilities on the shoulders of existing

graduate students is not necessarily negative.

“Learning how to teach is one of the skills that you are supposed to gain in graduate school. ... To learn to teach is probably one of the greatest things you could learn how to do,” Bush said. “So if it creates more TA shifts, and more people have to TA, is that a bad thing? I don’t think so.”

“If it forces people to finish their dissertations in shorter amounts of time, I also don’t think that’s a bad idea,” Bush continued. “Whether or not it will squeeze some people who are stuck in a bind ... maybe.

But in the end it’s still up to the departments to decide who to fund and who not to fund.”

And the five-year funding guarantee will not necessarily exclude students who take longer to finish their doctoral research, according to Bonde.

“We recognize that some programs take longer ... and there’s no expectation that everyone will (complete a doctorate) at the end of five years,” Bonde said.

“Last spring ... we asked departments to identify any students who were going to be entering their sixth or seventh year (whom) they felt were meritorious for support ... and we funded all of those students,” she said.

Expanded MPC program receives more funding continued from page 5 the MPCs are really back in first-year units and thinks that there is more to be done. “We’re definitely a part of the first-year residential life,” she said. “Our underlying goal isn’t to say that MPCs are back in the unit.

We’re trying to increase the number, and hopefully next year we can get a couple more to cover more areas, like in Perkins.”

Rosario Navarro, associate director of residential life, said having an MPC presence and facilitating conversation between the MPCs and the RPLs will provide cohesiveness in the dorms. MPCs will also attend monthly meetings with Community Directors, who oversee RPLs, to become a greater part of that RPL community and understand the issues within their units and areas, she said.

RPLs will help MPCs host an “-isms” workshop covering race, gender and sexuality, and MPCs will in turn help RPLs host other social programs. Navarro said she hopes that first-year students can see their counselors involved and working together.

Tatiana Gellein ’10 said she knew who her MPC was last year as a freshman but often felt that she was not as familiar with her MPC because he didn’t live in her unit.

“We told our first-years we’re all peer counselors, we just happen to have specialized training in different areas,” Gellein said. “It’s like a Venn diagram — we all specialize in something, but we also cover similar things. We are trained to be resources for the students.”

“With any form of counseling, whether it be (with an) RPL or MPC, you need that person to be there every day, you need to see them,” Gabriel Doss ’10, a current MPC, said.

“In the past, I can speak for myself ...

I think there was a bit of a visual division in the RPL and MPC program.

It was very clear that the programs were separated.”

Despite their specializations, Doss said, they all work together as peer counselors.

Gellein said the MPC program is also trying to break the mold of being what she calls the “-isms” police on campus. She said that MPCs are not strictly for students of color but rather a support system for the larger Brown community.

“The MPC programmers have heard that we are the eyes and ears of everything PC on campus,” Gellein said. “We’re trying to create a safe environment for everyone coming from different backgrounds on campus, by celebrating who they are and getting the most out of that. Part of the Brown experience is what you learn outside of the classrooms from your peers.”

“We are focusing on creating a cohesive unity of color and a more comfortable Brown community,” Doss said. “Our focus is on students of color, but everyone in the Brown community is in this together.”

Even though she is an MPC, Gellein said many of the issues she has been approached with are related to first-years settling in on campus. She has given advice on a range of topics, including where to get haircuts or which classes to shop.

Despite their specializations, Doss said, they all share the end of their title — “peer counselor.”

W orld & N ation ThurSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2007

page 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Senate leader vows to block Olson Early childhood deaths if he’s tapped as Attorney General are waning worldwide

By Dan Eggen Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The Senate majority leader said Wednesday that Democrats would block former Solicitor General Theodore Olson from becoming attorney general, kicking off a spirited nomination debate even before the White House has named a candidate.

“Ted Olson will not be confirmed,” Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement. “I intend to do everything I can to prevent him from being confirmed as the next attorney general.”

The sharp remarks by Reid and other Democrats about Olson in recent days underscore the political challenges the White House faces in finding a replacement for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who will leave office Friday after months of confrontations with Congress over the firings of U.S. attorneys and other issues.

White House officials said Wednesday that President Bush has not yet chosen a nominee to replace Gonzales. A candidate will not be named until next week at the earliest, officials said. “The president will send up an exceptionally qualified nominee,” spokesman Tony Fratto said in a statement. “We hope the Senate will set aside partisan politics long enough to confirm a nominee.”

Olson is the latest in an array

of potential candidates, including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who have drawn early objections from Democrats.

The Washington Post reported last week that Olson had emerged as a leading contender, but many Democrats view him as a sharply partisan figure with alleged ties to a conservative magazine’s investigation of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 1990s.

He was opposed by most Democrats in 2001 when he was confirmed as solicitor general by a Republicancontrolled Senate.

Several other candidates are also under serious consideration for the job, including former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger and Michael Mukasey, former chief federal judge in the Southern District of New York, sources familiar with White House deliberations said this week.

Another potential candidate with support in Congress and within conservative circles is William Wilkins of Greenville, S.C., who is a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, in Richmond, Va. Two other widely mentioned candidates, former deputy attorney general Larry Thompson and D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman, have indicated they are not interested in the job, officials said this week.

Three of the potential candidates have ties to the GOP presidential

campaign of Rudy Giuliani: Olson is chairman of the former New York mayor’s Justice Advisory Committee, while Mukasey and Thompson are members of that committee.

In series of interviews with Judiciary Republicans this week, Olson’s name repeatedly emerged at the top of their preferred list of potential nominees. “My belief is that if they had their choice, they’d take Ted,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, former chairman of the Judiciary panel, whose name has also been floated

by Republicans as a good attorney general candidate.

Mukasey’s candidacy is particularly notable because of his potential to draw support from both Republicans and Democrats. A conservative jurist who was appointed to the bench during the Reagan administration, Mukasey has also received high marks from Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who is a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and has criticized Olson as a divisive choice.

Mukasey, who returned to private practice in September 2006, presided over numerous high-profile cases as a federal judge, including the trials of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot. Mukasey also worked as a federal prosecutor under Giuliani in the 1970s. He did not return a message left at his law office Wednesday.

By Jia-Rui Chong Los Angeles T imes

Worldwide deaths for children under 5 dropped to an estimated 9.7 million last year, the lowest worldwide levels since record-keeping began in 1960, the United Nations Children’s Fund announced Wednesday.

Even as the world population has grown, the number of early childhood deaths has shrunk to less than half its modern peak in 1960, the agency found. At that time, an estimated 20 million children died before reaching their fifth birthday.

“You could say quite conclusively there are fewer children dying today than ever recorded in modern times,” said Dr. Peter Salama, chief of global health for UNICEF in New York.

Salama attributed some of the decline to broad social changes, such as decreasing poverty levels, better sanitation and higher education levels among women.

He also attributed part of the decline to wider adoption of several specific health programs advocated

by UNICEF, and international and local health authorities. More children, for example, are receiving vaccinations for childhood diseases such as measles. Breast feeding is more widely practiced, and the use of vitamin A supplements has helped improve children’s immune systems,

Salama said.

“We firmly believe this could be a tipping point ... where we may expect a real acceleration in child death declines over the coming years,” he said.

Some of the most dramatic regional declines over the last 15 years have occurred in East Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics. Over that period, early child deaths have declined by between 50 percent to 55 percent.

Some countries, such as the African island countries of Madagascar and Sao Tome and Principe, have been able to reduce their death rates by more than 40 percent since 1999, according to the agency.

The rate in industrialized countries, including the U.S., has held steady over the last 15 years.

The number of early childhood deaths remained disproportionately high in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in 2006, Salama said. Those places accounted for 7.9 million of the 9.7 million deaths worldwide.

Salama attributed the high mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa to “the twin problems of conflict and HIV/AIDS.” In India, which accounts for most of the South Asian deaths, many poor people still struggle with poor sanitation, diarrhea and malnutrition, he said.

President Bush plans to back Petraeus’ report in TV speech

By James Gerstenzang Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — One speech was famously delivered on an aircraft carrier in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner. In another, he acknowledged the previous year in Iraq had not turned out well. Frequently, he has stressed the theme that the United States must fight terrorists in Iraq, or “they will not leave us alone.”

In more than a half-dozen speeches to the nation about Iraq, President Bush has presented his case for the now more than four-year-old war. His emphasis has shifted as conditions have changed. He has grudgingly recognized mistakes — and even that some of the intelligence on Iraq turned out to be faulty.

But, always, he has held out the prospect for success.

Seeking to build on the testimony this week by Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Bush is planning to deliver another prime-time address to the nation Thursday night, on the eve of his delivery to Congress of a major report assessing progress in the war.

Bush is expected to indicate his support for Petraeus’ plan to slowly

draw down the 30,000 troops in the so-called surge but leave a force of 130,000 into next summer.

The speech, delivered from the White House at 9:01 p.m., will be Bush’s most visible effort to answer congressional pressure to begin a major withdrawal of troops. With Congress back from its summer recess, key decisions are looming on the administration’s latest requests to pay for the war.

By midday Wednesday, White House speechwriters had gone through more than 20 drafts, White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

Bush is planning to follow Thursday night’s speech with another Friday at the U.S. Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va. Vice President Dick Cheney is also scheduled to speak Friday before a military audience, at the Tampa, Fla., headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations across the Middle East.

Whether speaking from an intimate but august setting in the White House or before symbolic, photogenic backdrops provided by uniformed troops, Bush has sought to use his addresses to the nation to mark key moments.

On the deck of the returning air-

craft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, for example, barely six weeks after U.S. troops first crossed into Iraq, he declared an end to major combat operations after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

But he has also used them to try to mobilize support, pressure Congress and sway the views of a public that has gone from supportive to wavering to opposed to the war.

On a Sunday night six days before Christmas in 2005, with the war nearing the end of its second year and support sagging, Bush, speaking from the Oval Office, called for patience — and acknowledged that his decision to launch the war was based in part on faulty intelligence about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It was a major concession on Bush’s part, and he coupled it with a declaration that the

United States was on the road to victory, saying, “Not only can we win the war in Iraq, we are winning the war in Iraq.”

Speaking from the White House library last Jan. 10, Bush presented his argument that averting defeat in Iraq required at least an additional 20,000 troops — the number turned out to be closer to 30,000 when support troops were added — as he acknowledged for the first time that his previous strategy had failed.

He did not say how long the surge would last, but military strategists said at the time that anything less than 18 months would probably be ineffective.

Petraeus’ testimony to Congress this week echoed those assessments.

The general indicated it would be next summer before the troop levels could be brought back down to 130,000 —

prompting critics to point out that one year from now the troop levels will be just where they were a year ago.

From 2003 onward, the president has woven into his speeches the theme that Iraq is the “central front” in what he calls the war on terror — a designation that some intelligence experts and political opponents say belongs to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Taliban and al-Qaida forces are rebuilding. And he has frequently delivered warnings that terrorists must be defeated in Iraq “before they can attack us at home.”

The timing of Thursday night’s speech, two days after the nation marked six years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, provides Bush one more opportunity to make that connection as he seeks to create another turning point in the political debate over the war.

Page 9

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Suspect in custody after bizarre murder

By Maria Alvarez Newsday

NEW YORK — A Brooklyn woman was beaten to death by her daughter’s boyfriend in a violent end to weeks of domestic strife that came with a stunning admission: the suspect said he’d had an affair with the 61-year-old victim, police sources said Wednesday.

Joseph Cazeau told police that he killed Marie Tertel because she had put a voodoo hex on him, the sources said. Cazeau, a Haitian immigrant, was charged with seconddegree murder.

Police said the slaying occurred Tuesday afternoon as Cazeau’s girlfriend and mother of their three children, Mary Luzincourt was at court seeking an order of protection against him.

Tertel was found dead in her daughter’s home.

Cazeau called 911 and confessed to killing Tertel, police said. Sources said Cazeau made a written and a videotaped confession and even identified a length of pipe he used to strike Tertel five times.

“He killed my mother,” Marc Tertel said quietly as he left his sister’s home. “He is a terrible man — a very violent man.”

The couple had met 12 years ago and have three children 10, 9 and 2.

Their rocky relationship came to a head two weeks ago when Cazeau

confessed to Luzincourt that he was having an affair with her mother, sources said.

Tertel denied the love triangle allegation to her daughter, but Luzincourt, already fed up with Cazeau’s abusive ways, according to relatives, demanded that he leave their home.

In retaliation, Cazeau filed a complaint with police saying his girlfriend wanted him out and that he did not want to leave, sources said.

“My sister wanted him out of the house,” Marc Tertel said. “It was very difficult. There were other issues, and he was not helping to pay the mortgage or the electric bills.”

“We have family troubles,” Luzincourt said.

Detectives believe Cazeau killed Tertel in the afternoon, then said nothing until about 9 p.m., as his girlfriend was getting the kids ready for bed.

When she told the 10-year-old to go to the bedroom where his father had been sleeping recently, Cazeau confessed, the sources said.

“He can’t come in,” the suspect told his girlfriend, one source quoted him as saying. “I just killed someone. I killed your mother.”

The source said Cazeau picked up a phone, dialed 911 and told the dispatcher, “I did a bad thing — send the cops here.”

read | share | recycle

Petraeus navigates Washington minefield

By Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — He sat absolutely still as members of Congress discussed his credibility and patriotism.

His face did not twitch. He did not nod or frown or smile. Not a single muscle moved. He was as impassive as a boot-camp recruit resisting a drill sergeant’s provocations.

For Gen. David Petraeus, navigating the political shoals of Washington this week has been a challenge unlike any he has faced. When he testified before the Senate for his confirmation hearing in January, Petraeus was widely regarded as the quintessential military professional, a credible, independent voice who stood above the political fray.

But when he returned to Capitol Hill this week for marathon hearings and a media blitz, the general labored to retain that image. Partisans sought to portray him either as a politicized officer carrying water for the White House or as the only possible savior of an increasingly unpopular war.

The war in Iraq has diminished the reputations of many of its generals. As Petraeus returns to Baghdad to continue carrying out President Bush’s strategy, his image has changed as well. Like it or not, he has become a political player, and more than ever before, the U.S. venture in Iraq has become his own.

“Up until this week, it was Rumsfeld’s war,” said retired Army Lt. Col. James Jay Carafano, referring to former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “Now, for better or worse, it’s Dave’s war.”

Petraeus appeared to be adjusting

to his new reality Wednesday. “I’ve tried to spend the last 33 years going around minefields instead of through them,” he said wryly at the National Press Club.

Petraeus’ strategy seemed to be to ignore the explosions all around him and keep plowing through the field. His first order of business in a joint House hearing Monday was to emphasize that his long-awaited congressional testimony had not been vetted by the administration. And publicly, at least, he took no notice of the MoveOn.org newspaper advertisement dubbing him “General Betray Us,” just as he disregarded White House and Republican efforts to paint him as a martyr to left-wing smears.

Without doubt, his testimony bolstered Bush’s position in the debate over the future of the war and provided Republicans a measure of political relief by recommending withdrawal of about 25,000 troops by next summer. Yet he did not toe the White House line completely, resisting efforts to portray Iraq as part of a global struggle against terrorism or predict that al-Qaida will take over if U.S. forces pull out. Asked whether fighting in Iraq makes the United States safer, as Bush argues, he answered, “I don’t know” — a reply that was featured in another antiwar ad Wednesday.

Petraeus, who holds a doctorate from Princeton, is no political naif and he managed to emerge from the experience with even congressional Democrats praising his professionalism. As media savvy as any top officer, he is granting 11 television interviews and 11 print interviews this week. Yet he will return to Bagh-

dad the symbol of a deeply unpopular war and, to critics, his generation’s Gen. William Westmoreland.

“He’s more charismatic, to be sure, but he is exactly in the same position Westy was in 1967 when he tried to make the case to Congress that victory was achievable in Vietnam,” said Michael Desch, director of the Brent Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University’s George Bush School of Government and Public Service.

Petraeus has assumed a higher profile than his predecessors in large part because of the White House. After Bush announced his troop buildup in January, he made Petraeus its public face, continually referring to “the Petraeus plan,” although Petraeus did not develop it.

The reason was simple: The general had more credibility than the president. Although Petraeus had been in charge of training Iraqi troops, a task still not finished, he earned Senate confirmation as Iraq commander without dissent. The White House then had him lobby lawmakers for the “surge.”

Antiwar activists and some Democrats eventually turned on Petraeus.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., questioned the accuracy of the general’s statements in June. But Democrats also made him the man to answer for the war by mandating in legislation that he report to Congress in September.

“We have defaulted to a military man to set the terms of the debate,” said Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., a retired vice admiral. “I just think it’s profoundly against the spirit of the Constitution. ... Congress is as responsible as the president.”

Page 10

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Mark Warner to seek Senate seat, forgoing gubernatorial run

By Tim Craig and Amy Gardner Washington Post

RICHMOND, Va. — Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner will announce Thursday that he is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican John Warner, setting the stage for one of the most competitive races in the country next year, according to sources familiar with his decision.

Warner a self-described moderate Democrat, will make his announcement in an e-mail to supporters Thursday but won’t formally begin his campaign until after the state legislative races in November, according to the sources, who spoke directly with Warner and on condition of anonymity because Warner had not gone public.

Democrats in Virginia and nationally have been courting Warner in the hope that his entry in next year’s race would help them retain their majority in the Senate. If Warner succeeded, Virginia would have two Democratic senators for the first time since 1970.

Republicans say they will fight hard to keep the Virginia seat, and political observers say more than $30 million could be spent on television

and other advertisements as both parties battle in the key race. It will be the first Virginia race for U.S. Senate without an incumbent candidate since 1988.

A Warner victory next year might be demoralizing to Virginia Republicans, who were surprised by James Webb’s win in last year’s U.S. Senate race and Timothy Kaine’s election as governor in 2005 over well-known GOP candidates.

Warner could face Rep. Tom Davis or former Gov. James Gilmore III. Both are likely to seek the Republican nomination, but neither is expected to announce plans until after the Nov. 6 state elections.

Davis declined to comment Wednesday, saying he would make a statement after Warner’s announcement is official. Gilmore said that he is interested in the race and that Warner’s decision would not affect his: “Sending a Democrat to the United States Senate at this very critical time is not the best policy.”

Warner has appeared eager in recent days to run for the Senate. He plans to present himself to voters as a problem solver who would be willing to cross party lines to push bipartisan changes in Washington.

If he won, he would have a national

platform to talk about fiscal responsibility, ending the war in Iraq and reshaping the country’s energy policy.

Rep. James Moran Jr., D-Va., said Warner has been doing his homework, meeting with figures such as Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group and Sept. 11 commission.

“Mark met the challenge of running a state very well,” Moran said.

“I think he’s anxious to take on some new challenges.”

Monica Dixon, a Warner spokeswoman, declined to comment. But the sources said Warner called friends and party activists Wednesday afternoon to inform them of his plans.

Warner decided to formally reveal his decision electronically because he doesn’t want his announcement to upstage the fall campaign for control of the General Assembly.

He plans to campaign heavily for legislative candidates as Democrats try to retake the state Senate and make inroads in the House of Delegates.

Warner, a wealthy venture capitalist who founded Nextel, also plans to start raising the millions of dollars he will need for a competitive race, the sources said. His friends and advisers say he will also will slowly begin as-

sembling a campaign team, too.

Warner stunned supporters last fall when he abruptly ended his exploratory campaign for president, citing the strain on his family. He also has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate next year, but the decision to run for Senate all but eliminates that possibility.

He agonized for weeks over whether to run for Senate or seek his old job in 2009. Virginia governors are barred from succeeding themselves.

A self-described executive, Warner loved being governor and often called it “the best job in America.”

As governor, Warner helped close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit by trimming the size of government and pushing through a $1.5 billion tax increase. He also oversaw the state’s response to Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and its efforts to catch the Washington area sniper in 2002.

But Warner was under tremendous pressure from national Democratic leaders to run for the Senate after John Warner announced two weeks ago that he would not seek reelection.

In recent weeks, Mark Warner has had several conversations with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign

Committee.

In 1996, Warner came within five percentage points of defeating John Warner, in part because he ran surprisingly strong for a Democrat in rural areas.

Uncertainty about Virginia’s political environment in 2009 also played a role in Mark Warner’s decision, his advisers say.

Although Virginia has elected two Democratic governors in a row, it remains relatively conservative. Warner wasn’t convinced that voters would embrace his candidacy in 2009, especially if there is a Democratic president, his advisers say.

Even if he won the governor’s race, some advisers cautioned that he might not enjoy the job as much the second time.

“It’s very hard to have a second act that’s equally successful,” said Robert Holsworth, a political science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. “If he’s interested in contributing to the national debate, this will give him an opportunity.”

Warner’s decision might have come down to what he thought was best for his family. If he were elected to the Senate, his wife and three daughters wouldn’t have to move from suburban Alexandria, Va.

want real business experience? join the herald’s business staff come to an info session

monday, sept. 17 9 p.m. at our office: 195 angell st. (between brook and thayer)

or e-mail: gm@browndailyherald.com

Page 12

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Big Ten struggling in young season

By Chris Dufresne Los Angeles T imes

Five things we know after two weeks of ticks on the Lloyd Carr watch: 1. The Big Ten is stinking fast.

The conference of Red Grange needs a nonleague pick-me-upper so bad it will happily settle for Ohio State over Washington on Saturday in caffeine-addled Seattle.

Problem: Washington is 2-0, features a budding star in quarterback Jake Locker and runs a version of the spread offense, which has been cutting through Big Ten defenses like Wisconsin Limburger since Florida beat Ohio State in the national title game.

The word is out when you play Big Ten schools: “Spread the field,” one coach recently said, as if it was a secret.

Ohio State couldn’t handle Florida’s speed in last year’s Bowl Championship Series title game.

Appalachian State put opening-day screws to Michigan and some people weren’t even that surprised. “I think they could have done that to an awful lot of Big Ten schools,” one coach said.

Oregon, bigger and faster than Appalachian State, followed with a more impressive tear-down at Michigan in episode II of Flip That (Big) House.

“It’s all about match-ups and that was a good match-up for us,” Oregon Coach Mike Bellotti said of Michigan.

So suddenly at Michigan is a good match-up for Oregon?

Yes. Bellotti switched to the spread offense a few years ago and now it is Oregon’s bread and butter.

“I went to spread because I watched Utah, Bowling Green and Northwestern beat people that had better personal because of their speed,” Bellotti said.

That’s right, this Big Ten infection started as an in-house germ when Northwestern used the openup offense to make its glorious Rose Bowl run in 1995.

That year, Northwestern beat ...

Michigan.

Bellotti took note and said “that’s the future of college football.”

It is amazing how fast you can fall. Big Ten pride was at its chestpumping peak last November when No. 1 Ohio State faced No. 2 Michigan in Columbus.

But it all unraveled when both teams in that “game of the century” were largely discredited after getting rocked in bowl games by teams from other conferences.

Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz says while the Big Ten may be down now, this too shall pass.

He recalls the conference being written off, too, in 2001, when Illinois (11th) and Michigan (20th) were the only Big Ten schools ranked in the final Associated Press poll.

“There was panic in Chicago,” Ferentz said of the mood at Big Ten headquarters. “What’s wrong with the conference?”

The next year, Ohio State won the national title and three Big Ten schools finished in the top 10.

“That’s not ancient history,” Ferentz said. “... Ohio State had some guys that could run. Michigan had some guys that could run. And I promise you they both still do.”

Ferentz said these things go in cycles.

Right now the Big Ten could use “rinse.”

2. Notre Dame third-year coach Charlie Weis is not Notre Dame third-year coach Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine or Lou Holtz, even though Weis’s photo is superimposed at the forefront with those luminaries on the inside back cover of this year’s media guide.

Those other guys went a combined 50-2-1 and all won national titles in their third year.

Weis is 0-2 so far in Year Three, with his defense outscoring his offense, 7-6.

Notre Dame has given up 44, 41, 33 and 31 points in four straight losses dating to the end of last season.

Notre Dame ranks last, nationally, in total offense. Maybe Weis needs Bill Belichick’s spy kit.

3. Rankings this early are a load of Arkansas hog wash — but you already knew that. Five preseason top-25 schools — Michigan, Florida State, Auburn, Texas Christian and Boise State — have already dropped out of the poll. Michigan started at No. 5 and didn’t make it past Sept.

2.

South Florida upset Auburn at Auburn last week but apparently the USA Today coaches didn’t see it because they still have Auburn ranked 26th this week and South Florida ranked 27th.

4. Ohio State and Penn State may be ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the country on defense, but we’re going to step out on a strong limb and say the best gang-tackle unit going is No. 3 Louisiana State, which might be able to win the national title this year kicking nothing but field goals.

Tigers stats through two games: seven sacks, eight forced turnovers and seven points given up. If LSU had Hawaii’s offense, well, you could almost cancel the season.

5. Surprise, surprise. Dennis Erickson is back in the Pacific 10 Conference and his team leads the circuit in penalties. Arizona State is 2-0 but already has been flagged for 18 infractions. The Sun Devils were hit for 12 penalties in last Saturday’s 33-14 win over Colorado, including eight personal fouls, including one on punter Jonathan Johnson.

Strangely, yellow flags don’t keep Erickson teams from winning. In the 2001 Fiesta Bowl, Erickson’s Oregon State Beavers established a team record with 18 penalties for 174 yards.

Somehow, Oregon State squeaked

by Notre Dame, 41-9.

Erickson was visibly upset Saturday night and vowed he was going to sit players for repeated violations.

“That’s taken care of,” Erickson said at his weekly news conference.

We’ll see. continued on page 13

read share recycle

www.browndailyherald.com

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

First half troubles fell field hockey continued from page 16 a loose ball into the cage, notching her first collegiate goal.

“It was pretty much a blur,” Hyland said. “All I remember is that the goalie was down and I had my stick down. Coach Tara always tells us to be ready for the rebound. (The ball) was right there. It was just a little short push and it went right in.”

The Bears had 10 minutes left to tie the game, but time kept slipping away until Mazin fed Eye for the second time with only 2:17 left in the game to give the Pioneers a two-goal cushion they would not relinquish.

“I think that if we had a little bit more time on the clock and we didn’t have that one last defensive breakdown, it could have been a different

story,” Harrington said.

One of the toughest parts of the game was that the Bears had plenty of missed opportunities in the second half. In that period, the Bears drew eight penalty corners and gave up only one to the Pioneers. Brown outshot Sacred Heart by a margin of 14-3 in the second half, but was repeatedly turned away by McIntire, who tallied nine of her 12 saves in the period.

“I’m proud of the kids for the number of corners that they did draw in the match,” Harrington said. “(But) those are advantage situations that we have to capitalize (on) and finish.

We should have been a little bit more successful on that (yesterday), but we will continue to work with that.”

Harrington praised Hyland for doing “a fantastic job” at the critical

center-midfield position. She was also pleased by how well Connard played.

“I’ve shuffled Jackie around a little bit,” Harrington said. “(But) I put her at the center-back spot in the last game, and she distributed the ball well. She’s very smart (and) very coachable.”

The Bears play a pair of home games on Warner Roof this weekend in which they will try to claw their way into the win column. Brown faces the University of Maine on Saturday at 12 p.m. and Georgetown University on Sunday at 12 p.m.

“Obviously it’s hard to take being 0-3,” Harrington said. “We’d much rather be 3-0, but we are young and growing. Our kids are fighters, and we will continue to learn. The (results) will definitely come.”

Still too early to call in ’07 college football continued from page 12 Five Things We Don’t Know: 1. Whether Hawaii can get there from here. It seemed almost a lock that Hawaii, if it kept winning, would matriculate up the polls and ultimately earn a BCS bowl bid by being No. 12 or better the final standings.

Now we’re not so sure. All those years voters ignored Hawaii and now they’re paying attention? Hawaii escaped Saturday night with an overtime victory at Louisiana Tech and dropped four spots to No. 24 in this week’s AP poll. Hawaii, which plays a weak schedule, is going to need a lot of teams above it to lose.

The good news is that a seasonending game against resurgent Washington suddenly looks like a strength-of-schedule booster.

2. Whether Nebraska is ready for its close-up. The Cornhuskers are in Year Four of a transcendental philosophical overhaul, switching from I-formation option to West Coast offense, and appears to be at least a year from becoming what USC already is.

“We’re on the cusp, I would say,” Coach Bill Callahan said during an inter view on campus last month.

Callahan and USC Coach Pete Car-

join the herald info session monday, sept. 17 9 p.m.

195 angell

roll are not close friends but were hatched out of the same Northern California football incubator. “Philosophically, the way practices are organized and run, it all came from coach (Bill) Walsh,” Callahan said.

The Walsh doctrine prepared Callahan for projects such as the one he is undertaking in Lincoln. “It’s not being arrogant,” Callahan said, “just being confident in what you’re doing. Like trying to implement a pro system where it’s never been implemented before.”

Callahan would love to get inside of Carroll’s head. “Because of the natural rivalry, and the competition, I haven’t had the opportunity to sit down and visit with him,” Callahan said. “I would love to at some point when we’re done playing. I’d love to have him come in here and speak to our coaches.”

It won’t be before Saturday.

3. Whether the Big East is underrated or overrated. The conference continues to dazzle with its good looks but we’re not ready yet to order a limo. The Big East went 5-0 in bowls last season but the marquee win was Louisville over Wake Forest in the Orange. The Big East is off to another hot start.

The league is 14-0 in nonconference games not involving 0-2 Syracuse.

South Florida scored a signature win over Auburn, Cincinnati sent

Oregon State packing, but the bulk of Big East wins have been recorded against Murray State, Middle Tennessee, Elon, Buffalo, Grambling, Southeast Missouri State, Duke and Maine.

Mind if we take a reign check?

4. Whether Oregon can finish what it started. See if you detect a pattern. In 2003, Oregon improved to 4-0 after stunning No. 3 Michigan and lost four of its next five games to finish 8-5. Last season, Oregon started 4-0 and finished 7-6. Last week, Oregon beat Michigan and some now think this is the best Ducks team in years.

Oregon plays host to Fresno State this week as Bellotti seeks his 100th career win. He is 5-0 against Fresno State, yet Oregon’s largest margin of victory has been seven points. No one is pretending it will be easy.

5. Whether this is really UCLA’s year or whether it’s last year. After an impressive start against Stanford, UCLA needed all 60 minutes to dispatch pesky Brigham Young.

The same questions persist: Is the offense top-drawer caliber, and is quar terback Ben Olson mobile enough to keep sidestepping oncoming rushers and doubters.

The story ... to be continued ... on Saturday ... in Utah.

page 13

E ditorial & L etters Page 14

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Staf f Editorial

Brown-RISD synergy — now a reality?

University literature for prospective students has long highlighted Brown’s partnership with the Rhode Island School of Design. Such sunny literature boasts that students can cross-register freely between the two schools as long as they have satisfied the simple prerequisite of one Brown introductor y art course. But as anyone who has tried to take advantage of the supposed College Hill synergy knows, enrolling in RISD courses is a logistical nightmare because the two schools have substantially different academic calendars.

Logistical hassles aside, the Brown-RISD partnership will become much more of a reality for students next fall with the launch of a longawaited joint-degree program, which will award participants a bachelor’s degree from Brown and a bachelor of fine arts degree from RISD. The program sidesteps the scheduling problem by making students alternate between spending semesters at Brown and at RISD — students won’t take classes at both schools simultaneously.

Of course, such an arrangement forces students to pack up their lives and move from one campus to another several times during their college careers, possibly leading to an unfulfilling, disjointed college social life. One student, Gamaal Wilson ’06.5, told The Herald last spring that a similar independent program he crafted for himself often made him feel like an outsider to both communities. Short of the two schools enacting radical changes (such as syncing their schedules), this nomadism is a necessar y evil in the arrangement. Administrators — at both institutions — must ensure that such a program does not neglect its students experiences out of the classroom and in their campuses’ communities.

Despite this drawback, the program promises to be popular among students who can now match RISD’s world-class art education with Brown’s famed flexibility to explore. And such an arrangement — that will ensure close communication through official channels — will solidify a long-lasting partnership on College Hill that, presumably, could seep into other endeavors — whether academic or extracurricular.

RISD President Roger Mandle told The Herald that “Someone could major in, for example, industrial design with an emphasis on sciences from Brown. Some students may be preparing themselves to be doctors and could study design elements of the human body and use visual training to become really extraordinar y doctors.”

The program is likely to be especially appealing to aspiring architects eager to study engineering or liberal arts at Brown and gain a professional head start in RISD’s architecture program. For many, the program seems to offer the best of both academic worlds.

We hope strengthening ties between the two schools should prove to be beneficial almost immediately. The agreement could foster increased interaction among both schools’ student bodies, and not just those in the degree program.

While administrators who spearheaded the joint-degree program should be pleased and proud the initiative is at last getting off the ground, we hope University officials will continue to work to make cross-enrollment between Brown and RISD a logistical reality.

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Eric Beck Mary-Catherine Lader

Executive Editors Stephen Colelli Allison Kwong Ben Leubsdorf

Senior Editors Jonathan Sidhu Anne Wootton

editorial Lydia Gidwitz Robin Steele Oliver Bowers Stephanie Bernhard Simmi Aujla Sara Molinaro Ross Frazier Karla Bertrand Jacob Schuman Peter Cipparone Erin Frauenhofer Stu Woo Benjy Asher Jason Harris

Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Editor Campus Watch Editor Features Editor Metro Editor Metro Editor News Editor Opinions Editor Opinions Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor

photo Christopher Bennett Rahul Keerthi Ashley Hess

Photo Editor Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

Business Mandeep Gill General Manager Darren Ball Executive Manager Dan DeNorch Executive Manager Laurie-Ann Paliotti Sr. Advertising Manager Susan Dansereau Office Manager

production Steve DeLucia Catherine Cullen Roxanne Palmer

Design Editor Copy Desk Chief Graphics Editor

post- magazine Hillary Dixler Melanie Duch Taryn Martinez Rajiv Jayadevan

Managing Editor Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor

PETE FALLON

Letters Student turnout appreciated at sporting events To the Editor: On behalf of the men’s soccer team, I would like to thank all of those involved in the First Weekend activities that culminated in our opening season victory over Santa Clara University. The “energy” that was created at the barbecue and corralled in Stevenson Field was the impetus that led the team to the come-from-behind win. Our players are talented soccer players but they were only one of the ingredients that led to such a special night. The Brown Community deserves the credit and we are proud and happy to be a part of it.

As I congratulated the team at practice on Saturday, I mentioned that they will never forget that night for the rest of their lives. You people contributed greatly to that. Thank you!

Unfortunately, once success is achieved in any venue, you want more! Our teams want to play for their peers, more than anyone else. On Friday Brown accomplished its goals because of the students participation; a great night, a great crowd (3,500+), a ton

of fun, Brown pride and a great win. Please don’t let this be a one-off. Let’s make the 2007-2008 year the best year in fan participation ever! On Saturday your football team hosts Duquesne University in its season opener at 12:30 p.m., field hockey hosts the University of Maine at 12 p.m., and Sunday your men’s soccer team hosts rival the University of Rhode Island at 1 p.m. in a huge game. Please continue to come out and watch the games and create those memorable experiences that we were lucky enough to enjoy on Friday night.

Go Bears!

Mike Noonan and the Brown men’s soccer team Sept. 12

No one takes college rankings seriously To the Editor: In his Sept. 11 column, James Shapiro writes that “While U.S. News ranked Northwestern University two places above Brown in 2000, an estimated 85 percent of cross-admits who matriculated at either Brown or Northwestern chose Brown that same year. When 85 percent of students choose the lowerranked school, there is something wrong with the rankings.”

The supposed purpose of college rankings is to help students determine which school to attend.

Maybe the fact that 85 percent of students chose the lower-ranked school means that nobody actually takes college rankings seriously in making that decision. How high would that percentage have to be for us to finally shut up about rankings?

Zachary Rausnitz ’10 Sept. 11

Steve DeLucia, Designer Erin Cummings, Madeleine Rosenberg , Copy Editors Senior Staff Writers Rachel Arndt, Michael Bechek, Zachary Chapman, Irene Chen, Chaz Firestone, Isabel Gottlieb, Nandini Jayakrishna, Franklin Kanin, Kristina Kelleher, Debbie Lehmann, Scott Lowenstein, Michael Skocpol, Nick Werle Staff Writers Susana Aho, Taylor Barnes, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Aubry Bracco, Caitlin Browne, Joy Chua, Patrick Corey, Catherine Goldberg, Isabel Gottlieb, Thi Ho, Andrew Kurtzman, Cameron Lee, Hannah Levintova, Abe Lubetkin, Christian Martell, Taryn Martinez, Anna Millman, Joy Neumeyer, Marielle Segarra, Robin Steele, Allissa Wickham, Meha Verghese Sports Staff Writers Andrew Braca, Han Cui, Amy Ehrhart, Kaitlyn Laabs, Eliza Lane, Kathleen Loughlin, Alex Mazerov, Megan McCahill, Tom Trudeau, Steele West Business Staff Dana Feuchtbaum, Kent Holland, Alexander Hughes, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Viseth San, Kaustubh Shah, Jon Spector, Robert Stefani, Lily Tran, Lindsay Walls Design Staff Brianna Barzola, Jihan Chao, Aurora Durfee, Sophie Elsner, Christian Martell, Matthew McCabe, Ezra Miller Photo Staff Stuart Duncan-Smith, Austin Freeman, Tai Ho Shin Copy Editors Ayelet Brinn, Erin Cummings, Karen Evans, Jacob Frank, Ted Lamm, Lauren Levitz, Cici Matheny, Alex Mazerov, Ezra Miller, Joy Neumeyer, Madeleine Rosenberg, Lucy Stark, Meha Verghese

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

C ommentary P O L I C Y The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

L etters to the E ditor P olicy 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. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

O pinions Thursday, September 13, 2007

page 15

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Ain’t too proud to neg

BY KEVIN ROOSE Opinions Columnist Ladies, I should probably begin this column by insulting you.

It’s nothing personal, I promise. I just want you to like me more.

You see, I’ve been watching the popular VH1 reality show “The Pick-Up Artist.”

The show is about “Mystery,” a self-styled “seduction artist” who teaches a group of nerdy guys how to improve their love lives by using certain psychosocial techniques he’s developed. Viewers get to watch Mystery’s proteges go from insecure milquetoasts to professional pimps in just eight weeks. The methods taught on the show are too complex to explain here, but curious seekers can go online to find huge lists of seduction jargon.

A partial sample: DHV (Demonstration of Higher Value), IOI (Indicator of Interest), and LMR (Last Minute Resistance.)

By far the most fascinating technique in Mystery’s toolkit, and the one attracting the most attention, is the “neg.” A “neg,” or “neghit,” is a small insult cloaked in a compliment, directed toward your female target. As in: “I like your shirt. I’ve seen a lot of girls wearing it tonight.”

The theory of “negging” assumes that by covertly insulting a girl who is accustomed to being flattered by guys, you’ll make her think you aren’t interested, and she’ll begin to seek your approval by pursuing you. It’s the proactive version of playing hard-to-get.

It’s an intriguing idea, if a little obvious.

I’ve even heard rumors that negs work on men, too. I love this, because it lets me imagine that girls have just been negging me all these years. In eighth grade when Megan O’Neill told me my boobs jiggled when I ran, it’s good to know we were probably about to

make out.

Mystery’s methods have inspired a slew of articles in publications like the New York Times and Elle. Many of these reports reach a similar conclusion — the seduction techniques are sketchy at best, even if they work.

I wanted to cut through the hype. So a few weeks ago, I decided to try my hand at negging.

At a late-summer party, in the middle of a conversation with a girl, I tried out my first neg, a Mystery-approved line: “You look nice tonight, but really tired,” I said, and waited

would improve my life, make people show me the respect I deserve.

So last week, I began my negging campaign. I negged my roommate. I negged the lady at Bagel Gourmet by telling her my sunflower bagel was “pretty good, for a bagel made in Providence.” I negged my mom over the phone to see if she’d give me some money and quickly realized it’s hard to provoke insecurity in people who knew you during your skater-boy phase.

Here’s what I found: Yes, negging lends you a certain gravitas. People treat you with

College Hill already has as much sardonic detachment as six or seven Midwestern states combined. Why add more? for her to balk. But she didn’t. In fact, she laughed and told me about her long day at work. She seemed intrigued. We ended up having an interesting conversation.

After my first semi-success, I was hooked.

I felt a morbid fascination with the power, the control, the alpha quality of the whole thing.

I decided to try negs on a wider sampling of people, not just potential lovers. Maybe it

more respect. But it’s a slippery slope. I found that, if I insulted someone once, even if my insult was sufficiently compliment-cloaked, I was more likely to insult them again later without the compliment. Negging has the same effect as wearing aviator sunglasses — it makes you into more of an asshole without your permission.

Mystery has quickly become a bona fide

hero among college guys — sort of the frat boy’s Billy Graham. I’m beginning to hear material from Mystery’s tutorials repeated verbatim almost every time I go out. And I have to say, it makes me nervous.

Here’s why: Many of us Brown students, especially upperclassmen, consider ourselves too cool to be heartfelt. It’s the reason I have to retrain myself at the start of every school year to peel a few layers of sarcasm off my friends’ conversations, or why my former Herald editor used to call my columns “painfully saccharine” when I’d express actual emotion for a paragraph or two. Authentic means vulnerable, and I’m betting many of us would rather not go there.

That’s fine. But inauthenticity shouldn’t become de rigeur. I’m not always right about everything (see: my skater-boy phase), but I think Brown students in particular would benefit from being more real with each other, not less. College Hill already has as much sardonic detachment as six or seven Midwestern states combined. Why add more?

When I negged people, I felt the rush of saying something inappropriate. But even when the initial neg worked, my thrill ultimately gave way to a weird sadness — I felt debased, dehumanized, like I’d just lost something metaphysical by viewing other people as “sets” to be “opened” (more pick-up slang), instead of real, emotive humans.

So, after my little experiment, I decided to stop negging for good. Maybe I’ll miss out on some chances, but I like my self-conscious, authentic interactions more than hubristic douchebaggery. I may never be a pickup artist, but when I go to bed at night, at least I’ll have a soft pillow of dignity to rest my head on. That, or your thunder thighs.

Kevin Roose ’09.5 thinks that shirt you’re wearing really brings out the bags under your eyes.

Banner implementation prizes convenience over usability

BY ZACHARY TOWNSEND Opinions Columnist I can think of few businesses in the world other than our University that could require their customers to go through the flogging that is using the Banner system and not go out of business. I am not merely being rhetorical. I have no idea how the Banner team sat down and decided that all questions of usability were to be ignored. Last year, several students in CG116 (or is that COGS1160?), a course on system design for human use, studied the usability of Banner for their final project. As Ian Spector ’09, one of the students involved, wrote, “Upon viewing the finalized list of initial features to be included on launch, it becomes immediately clear that at no point is there any discussion of user interface modifications.”

According to Don Thibault, a usability consultant for SunGard (the software company that created Banner) and a member of Brown’s implementation team, it was decided from the start to work with the “baseline” or standard-issue implementation whenever possible. If the off-the-shelf Banner code could not be easily modified to meet the University’s needs, it was decided to modify our operational policies to match those of the baseline system. In other words, if the system could not be changed to reflect Brown’s values, then Brown’s values were compromised. As Spector correctly notes, though, “You don’t have to work on Madison Avenue to know that regardless of the project, it’s generally bad practice to be willfully ignorant of the needs and abilities of a system’s users.”

With $23 million in the bank to spend and even more features to implement, the project developers under Associate Provost Nancy

Dunbar’s leadership found that it was necessary at all costs to prioritize system functionality over its usability.

Dunbar has said making changes would require such widespread modifications to the software that it just wouldn’t be possible for our campus team to implement them all by itself in a short time — leading to the question of why over 500 colleges and universities have adopted a system with such a poor end-

ed upon, Dunbar said the following: “There are lots of reasons for this approach, not the least of which pertain to maintaining a schedule and budget. But the more important conceptual rationale is that such an approach requires us to thoroughly learn a new system before we evaluate and change it.” This second sentence is a lie. Dunbar and other members of the implementation team had already stated the primary rationale for the current

Banner made fundamental changes to academic rules ... without any deliberate discussion or decision that Brown wanted that to change — they were changed just because it would have been more “work” to edit the program. user interface. However, the University was completely shown up when a group of computer science students created Mocha over one winter, destroying any faith people had in Brown’s ability to correctly size up programming problems.

Dunbar also wrote a letter to The Herald (“Nancy Dunbar: Approaching Banner,” April 3) in an attempt to provide some sort of hope to the community that rightfully didn’t see all that much in what was offered to them. In regards to going live with the user interface (referred to as “customization”) that was decid-

interface — the decision was not about testing the system but rather about the aforementioned emphasis on pragmatics before institutional values. In her article, Dunbar attempts to deflect the blame from her and her team’s choice to de-emphasize usability.

Let’s start with the most simple problem: course descriptions, meeting times, and instructors’ names aren’t available on one screen. Course listing information is split up in Banner between two databases: Catalog and Schedule. What is a student supposed to do first? Which database should

users rely upon? The sheer amount of crucial information available through Schedule makes it more useful (meeting times, professor, course capacity, restrictions and final exam information). But what if a user does not know which course to take? Browsing through Catalog, which has course descriptions, would be ideal, but it wouldn’t provide the user with the remainder of the course information, which can be of equal or greater importance.

There are many additional problems with Banner. Among other issues, the subject menu shows only four subjects at a time (and could be replaced instead by a dropdown menu to view everything at once). The back button does not work. Cross-listings are placed very obscurely and hence very hard to find. There is no confirmation page to indicate that registration has been successfully completed. There was no transition period wherein students could use either Banner or the old system.

Banner made fundamental changes to academic rules (for example, prioritizing seniority in deciding who gets into limited enrollment classes) without any deliberate discussion or decision that Brown wanted that change — they were changed just because it would have been “more work” to edit the program. The decision to get rid of the printed catalog, especially in light of the awful Banner interface, is ridiculous.

It seems as though the campus could have waited an additional length of time until enhanced usability features were added, developed and properly tested. There may have been plenty of protests to end the Banner project, but it is doubtful that there would have been any to speed it up.

Zachary Townsend ’09 longs not so much to change things as to overturn them.

S ports T hursday Page 16

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

First half troubles fell field hockey

W. soccer can’t stop Wildcats, drop second straight game

By Evan Kantor Contributing Writer

By Andrew Braca Sports Staff Writer

For the third straight game it was a tale of two halves for the field hockey team. Brown (0-3) trailed Sacred Heart University 3-0 at halftime after several defensive breakdowns. The Bears fought their way back into the game in the second 35 minutes of play but ultimately fell to the Pioneers 4-2 in a heartbreaker on Warner Roof on Wednesday.

Sacred Heart came out strong, scoring 4:36 into the game when Melissa Mazin fed Carisa Eye on a breakaway.

“We jumped toward the ball (and) they fed the ball towards the weak side and finished with a great ball to cage,” said Head Coach Tara Harrington ’94. “It was a beautiful goal, and then once again we were crawling out of a hole.”

Just 9:31 later, the Pioneers scored again. Victoria Sacco ’09 made a defensive save on Amy Hendricks’ shot after a penalty corner, but Jenn Howley got the rebound and put the ball in the back of the cage.

The Bears settled down after that, shutting Sacred Heart down until the waning seconds of the first half. The Pioneers earned a penalty corner with 14 seconds left in the half and were able to set their play only as time expired. Hendricks strafed the ball to the far corner of the cage, beating a diving Kristen Hodavance ’08 with no time showing on the clock.

Instead of letting the deficit affect their attitude, the Bears came out swinging in the second half.

“Obviously (being down 3-0) is a tough thing to swallow, but I will credit our kids for the way they came back and fought,” Harrington said.

“Our kids changed gears right away and came out fighting. ... I do feel like (in) the second half of that game there (were) moments that were the best I’ve seen these kids play.”

Brown’s shift of fortune stemmed partly from a crucial strategy adjustment.

“One of the things we changed in the second half was just having more consistent pressure on recovery,” Harrington said. “When we did that, the tempo of the entire game turned.”

Brown dominated most of the second half, but didn’t score during the opening 10 minutes due to missed opportunities. Jackie Connard ’10 put the Bears on the scoreboard at 55:02, slipping the ball past Sacred Heart goaltender Kristen McIntire after she stopped shots by Sacco and Andrea Posa ’08.

After McIntire stopped two consecutive shots by Sacco, Brown closed the score to within a goal 4:30 later when Katie Hyland ’11 poked continued on page 13

SPO R T S SCO R EB OAR D Tuesday, SEP. 11 W. Soccer: New Hampshire 2, Brown 0

Wednesday, SEP. 12 field hockey: Sacred Heart 4, Brown 2

Thursday, SEP. 13 M. soccer: vs. Maine, Stevenson Field, 3 p.m.

Ashley Hess / Herald

Julie Wu ’09 has started both of the women’s soccer team’s games this season.

Brown is off to an 0-2 start after falling to New Hampshire Tuesday.

The women’s soccer team (0-2) battled the University of New Hampshire on Tuesday but couldn’t pull out its first victory of the season, losing 2-0 in Durham, N.H. On a rainy day up north, the Bears played well and held the ball for the better portion of the game, yet were unable to convert opportunities on the offensive end.

“We actually played really well,” said co-captain Julia Shapira ’08. “We strung a lot of passes together.”

“We did a nice job of keeping the ball on UNH’s half for most of the game,” added co-captain Kerrilynn Carney ’08. “We possessed the ball really well.”

After keeping the ball in UNH’s half of the field for much of the first 15 minutes, Brown fell victim to a counterattack by the Wildcats. Michelle Sheehan of UNH scored 14:47 into the contest. Just a couple of minutes later, Sara Hourihan put UNH on top 2-0 at 17:15.

“It was definitely a test for us,” Carney said of responding to the two quick goals. “Our team bounced back really quickly.”

The Bears continued to battle in

the second half and managed to hold UNH without a shot on goal for the half. Carney praised the team’s play, saying, “The last 45 minutes we had a real sense of urgency.”

Brown moved one of its defenders up to midfield for the final 15 minutes and managed to hold the ball on UNH’s side for most of the remainder of the game. But even with this added pressure, the Bears could not find the back of the net.

“A couple of mental lapses cost us,” Shapira said. “We need to test the opposing keeper a little more.”

Brown received important contributions from three freshmen. Kate Scott ’11 started her second straight game at midfield, while Charlotte Rizzi ’11 and Gina Walker ’11 both made their collegiate debuts coming off the bench.

“The freshmen are doing great,” Shapira said. “Each one brings something different to the plate. They play with a lot of composure.”

The Bears will head to the University of Connecticut this weekend to compete in the UConn Classic.

Brown will get a shot at 23rd-ranked UConn (2-2) on Friday night at 7:30.

On Sunday, it faces Central Connecticut State University (1-3) at 12 p.m.

After stirring start, m. soccer trying to keep ball rolling

By Jason Harris Assistant Sports Editor

Coming off two tremendous victories in last weekend’s Adidas-Brown Soccer Classic, the 2-0 men’s soccer team will try to build on its strong start in this afternoon’s game against the University of Maine. Bruno will host Maine at 3 p.m. on Stevenson Field in a battle of bears.

The Black Bears have gotten off to a 1-3 start, but Brown will not be able to relax. Maine’s three losses have come against some of the stiffer competition in the Northeast, including Harvard and Northeastern University. Brown will also have to refocus after such emotional wins in its opening weekend.

Brown has already proven its ability to put big wins in its past.

After knocking of f then-No. 5 Santa Clara University on Friday, the Bears clinched the tournament with a 3-1 victory over Fordham University, less than 48 hours later.

Head Coach Mike Noonan said the turnaround between games last weekend was much harder than the one this week will be, when Brown will also play host to the University of Rhode Island on Sunday afternoon.

“My fear about a letdown was going into Sunday,” Noonan said.

“But the guys did a good job.”

He said the team would definitely be ready for today’s game against Maine once the players got back into their routine. “We just have to keep it business as usual,” Noonan said. “We will train this week and get back into a good rhythm.”

After taking Monday off to recuperate from the weekend, the team was back in action, practicing on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Noonan was most pleased with the attitude of the players. “We were mentally tough,” he said.

“Even when we went down one goal (against Santa Clara), we were resilient.”

Ashley Hess / Herald

Kevin Davies ’08 and the men’s soccer team take an unbeaten record into today’s game against Maine at Stevenson.

Another positive about last weekend’s games was the attendance. The tournament was highly advertised, and a packed house turned out to see Friday’s game.

“The student body support was great,” Noonan said. “I don’t think

the crowd realizes how much of a factor it is.”

Despite the uplifting victories that started the Bears off on the right foot, the team worked hard this week to correct the mistakes of the past weekend. “We were sloppy

defensively at times,” Noonan said.

“We also squandered too many opportunities.”

The team hopes to iron out these kinks against Maine, a team that Brown has not faced in recent history.