Wednesday, September 19, 2007

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, S eptember 19, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 71

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

After uncertainty, EMS is stabilized under new leadership

By Scott Lowenstein Senior Staff Writer

David Pagliaccio / Herald

After a semester of tumult, EMS is under new leadership with150 student volunteers taking on the aftermath of parties on Wriston Quad (pictured).

Kids, creatures and cameras from Salazar ’09

By Nicole Dungca Staff Writer

Gabby Salazar ’09 has always found a way to combine her love of photography with business. In high school, the aspiring nature photographer started selling portraits in her hometown of Pleasant Garden, N.C., to earn the money necessary to pursue her hobby.

FEATURE Now, Salazar is entering yet another business venture spurred by her interest in photography ­— she is the editor of the new Nature’s Best Photography for Kids, a nature photography magazine.

The magazine is a student edition of Nature’s Best Photography, a quarterly publication that prints wildlife photography from around the globe.

Salazar, who was recognized in 2004 as the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year, conceived the plan for the magazine when she was interning at Nature’s Best Photography this summer.

Salazar said she mentioned the idea for a children’s magazine during a meeting this summer with Steve Freligh, editor-in-chief and publisher of Nature’s Best Photography — and he immediately hopped on board.

Not only that, he told a surprised Salazar that she could be editor.

Salazar wants to use this position to help young people recognize their power and their talents.

“I knew how many stories kids have to tell and I really wanted to give them a platform,” she said. “I wanted to make them realize that they can change the world.”

Freligh said he thinks Salazar will continued on page 7

INSIDE:

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CAMPUS WATCH

www.browndailyherald.com

After a tumultuous period of uncertainty, Brown Emergency Medical Services is back on track with new leadership, University officials and student emergency medical technicians told The Herald.

Early last semester, EMS manager Richard Lapierre and supervisor Anthony Fusco abruptly departed, leaving the program short-staffed, with only a temporary manager responsible for its coordination.

Student EMTs last semester reported a tense environment created by poor communication from University officials about the staff changes and the decision to sell the University’s second ambulance. “A lot of the problems this semester have come from student EMTs feeling like

they are being left out of the loop,” Beth Hoffman ’07, then a senior EMT, told The Herald in March.

Still, the program successfully received accreditation in a surprise audit last spring and now has a new manager and two new professional EMT supervisors, said Edward Wheeler, director of Health Services.

Amy Sanderson-Roderick is now the manager of safety and EMS, which has a staff of four paid EMT supervisors and over 150 volunteers.

Sanderson-Roderick, who has worked at the University as an EMT supervisor for five years, characterized EMS as “a program undergoing change,” adding that the program is “full of positive energy and ready to move forward.”

Now that she has been appointed continued on page 4

Revived newspaper hits the streets

By Stefanie Angstadt Contributing Writer

Since Rhode Island’s largest homeless shelter closed its doors in March, Brown students and local advocates have collaborated to revive Street Sights, a street newspaper that addresses homelessness in the state.

Street Sights seeks to provide a forum for students, advocates, state officials and homeless individuals to “bring light on the subject not often addressed, and to some degree, ignored,” according to its vision statement.

Street Sights’ current model — a newsletter that is distributed by staff members to various homeless shelters and service organizations within Rhode Island ­— is designed to serve as a creative outlet for homeless people, who are invited to submit artwork and writings to the newsletter, according to organizer Elizabeth Ochs ’07.5.

The most recent Street Sights issue, published in July, features poetry written by homeless people.

In addition, Street Sights aims to help homeless people feel more secure by providing them with information they need on a daily

basis, Ochs said. The newsletter features updates on current and future shelter openings and discusses how people can gain access to those shelters.

The goal of developing better communication infrastructure within the homeless community prompted Street Sights’ revival in March.

Earlier that month, Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 shut down Cranston’s Welcome Arnold, the largest homeless shelter in the state.

Street Sights organizers used the Courtesy of Matthew Silva

continued on page 9

Bob Pangborn, formerly homeless himself, now works with the Street Sights paper.

Prof. Ken Miller ’70: life as science’s media darling

By Chaz Firestone Senior Staff Writer

Ken Miller ’70 P’02 is a professor of biology at Brown and a nationallyrecognized expert on evolution, having testified in the controversial 2005 trial, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, involving the teaching of intelligent design in public schools in Pennsylvania.

He has written numerous scientific articles on plant cells, a bestselling high school textbook and is the author of “Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.” He is currently on sabbatical and plans to release a new book entitled “Devil in the Details: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul.”

Chris Bennett / Herald Professor of Biology Ken Miller ’70 P’02 testified in landmark evolution court cases and wrote a textbook used by millions, but he said his “Colbert Report” appearance most impresses students.

HMC’s EL-ERIAN OUT Mohamed El-Erian, who managed Harvard’s massive endowment for two years, is quitting his job.

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CAMPUS NEWS

’11 ELECTION RESULTS Five members of the class of 2011 were elected Tuesday to sit on the Undergraduate Council of Students.

Herald: You recently spoke about science, religion and evolution at Wake Forest University’s opening convocation.

What did you tell the incoming freshmen?

Miller: At the present time in the United States, the teaching of

11

OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

CLASS CAP MADNESS Alison Schouten ‘08 says seniors should get first pick of upper-level courses when using Banner.

biology, incredibly, has become a controversial subject. Political science, history — I understand that, but I don’t think of science as being controversial.

I gave the students some of the backdrop to that controversy. About two years ago, there was a federal trial on this issue in the small town of Dover, Pa. The Dover school board had instructed the teachers to prepare a curriculum on intelligent design, but the teachers — at the risk of being fired — had refused.

So, the school board drafted a fourparagraph intelligent design lesson and had the superintendent go into the classroom and read this to the students while the teachers stood outside in the hallway. Eleven parents in that district filed a lawsuit, and I was the lead witness at the trial.

What I did was to basically explain to the students at Wake Forest what was involved in the trial, what the issue was. One of the things that happened was that the scientific continued on page 6

12 SPORTS

SOCCER WINS AGAIN The men’s soccer team beat St. Francis, 1-0, Tuesday night, continuing its undefeated streak.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

We a t h e r

Aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer and Jonathan Cannon

TODAY

Tomorrow

sunny 73 / 56

sunny 79 / 63

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Sweet and Sour Tofu, Vegetable Egg Rolls with Duck Sauce, Vegetarian Cannellini Bean and Tomato Soup, Meatball Ginder, Castle Hill Chocolate Chip Cookies

Lunch — Italian Sausage and Peppers Sandwich, Vegetable Strudel, Peas, Chocolate Frosted Eclairs

Dinner — Salmon Provensal, Greek Style Asparagus, Mushroom Risotto, Oatmeal Bread, Lime Jello

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

Dinner — Macaroni Salad, Fresh Corn on the Cob, Apricot Beef with Sesame Noodles, Egg Drop and Chicken Soup, BBQ Chicken, Whipped Cream Peach 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.

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday,©September 19, 2007 Puzzles by Pappocom

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

C r o ssw o r d

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 Like a witch’s hat 6 Pan’s opposite 10 Not very much 14 Port WNW of Sapporo 15 Genesis setting 16 Movie trailer?

17 Simple homemade radio 19 Latin being 20 Treaty gp. formed in Bogotá 21 Ring master 22 Virgil epic 24 Birthday arrival 27 He played Neo in “The Matrix” 30 Hoarse 31 “Knock it off!”

33 Belt maker’s tools 34 Key letter 37 Parts of ranges: Abbr.

38 Forearm bones 40 Slapstick props 41 Suffix with malt 42 Blowgun ammo 43 Pay a visit 45 Support group that deals with codependence 47 Like argon 48 Bills 52 Wiped the slate clean 53 Fishing stick 54 Due tripled 57 Frizzy style 58 Globe-shaped firecracker 62 Cauterize, e.g.

63 Sari wearer 64 “Embraced by the Light” author Betty 65 Pyramid, sometimes 66 Pro words 67 Word that can precede the last word of 17-, 24-, 48- and 58Across DOWN 1 First name in fashion 2 Other, to Ortega

3 Anti words 4 Govt. agency that gets lots of returns 5 Dance 6 Kind of pitcher 7 Classified info?

8 Winning sign 9 Intertwines 10 Bureau 11 Put __: sail 12 Pantheon of Norse gods 13 “Judge __”: Stallone film 18 Pub order 23 Early birds?

24 Safari sights 25 Crosspiece above a door 26 Davenport’s home 27 __ Sabe 28 Tonsillitis-treating MDs 29 Primo 32 Public uproar 34 Smoking choice 35 Will beneficiary 36 “Small world, __ it?”

39 Superboy’s girlfriend Lana

40 Pay (up) 42 Ballet bend 44 Colorful tees 45 Condense on a surface 46 NHL’s __ Trophy for top defenseman 48 Spread on the table 49 Lover of Euridice, in Monteverdi’s opera

50 Deacon Jones was one from 1961-’71 51 Scand. land 54 Coke, e.g.

55 Kuwaiti bigwig 56 “Oh, sure!”

59 Possess, to Burns 60 Bambi’s aunt 61 Emeril catchword

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9/19/07

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By Fred Jackson III (c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

9/19/07

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.

C ampus W atch WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

Harvard Management Company president leaves unexpectedly after two years

By Phillip Gara Contributing Writer

On Sept. 11, Mohamed El-Erian, president and CEO of the Harvard Management Company, announced that he will leave Harvard to rejoin the Pacific Investment Management Company, citing family reasons for his decision.

After a highly successful but short-lived two-year tenure as the head of Harvard’s endowment, ElErian will return to PIMCO in January 2008 as managing director and the company’s first co-CEO and coCIO, a position that has been created for him, the California-based investment firm said in a Sept. 11 press release.

“Everybody feels that we would have preferred that he stayed longer, but he left HMC in great shape,” Har vard spokesperson John Longbrake said.

El-Erian replaced Jack Meyer at HMC after Meyer left Harvard to start a new hedge fund, Convexity Capital Management, amid public outcry over his and other managers’ compensation packages.

During his 15 years at the helm of HMC, Meyer was responsible for growing the endowment from $4.7 billion to $22.6 billion, and in his departure, he took over 30 people — mostly bond managers — with him to Convexity Capital.

Along with Meyer’s legacy, ElErian had to replace nearly onethird of HMC’s team when he was hired by then-Harvard President Lawrence Summers in September 2005.

“Jack Meyer took 30-plus people with him, and Mohamed was able to rebuild after him and had very strong returns,” Longbrake said.

As a managing director at PIM-

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

CO before joining HMC, El-Erian oversaw $28 billion in bonds held by developing nations and their companies.

While president of HMC, ElErian diversified the university’s portfolio, which invested heavily in bonds under Meyer.

According to a Barrons report, El-Erian’s strategy was to draw upon the pool of talent already existing in Harvard’s economics and statistics departments.

“By reaching out, we can be smarter investors,” El-Erian said at a June seminar organized by Harvard’s statistics department.

During his tenure at HMC, ElErian saw record-breaking success.

Harvard’s endowment grew from Courtesy of Harvard News Office approximately $23 billion to $34.9 Harvard Management Company President billion, according to the university’s and CEO Mohamed El-Erian July fiscal year reports.

In the 2007 fiscal year, HMC ing to CEO Bill Thompson, “neither produced “its best overall perfor- (Managing Director) Bill Gross mance in seven years” with an in- nor I at this time have any plans vestment return of 23 percent as to step down, and in fact, have just the endowment grew from $29.2 been elected by PIMCO’s managbillion to $34.9 billion, according ing directors for 5-year terms in our to the Sept. 11 Harvard Gazette respective roles,” according to the statement.

PIMCO press release.

Nevertheless, since the end of El-Erian will continue to help the fiscal year and the onset of the Harvard in the interim period while credit crunch later in the summer, HMC looks for a new president. there have been some concerns “I plan on remaining in touch about the recent performance of with the Harvard community, esthe endowment. In August, the en- pecially with HMC colleagues and dowment lost $350 million when with President Faust. … I will do Sowood Capital Management, a all I can to contribute to the best hedge fund founded by former possible transition at HMC during HMC manager Jeffrey Larson, these next few months,” El-Erian collapsed. said in the Gazette release.

No names have been officially When El-Erian returns to PIMCO in January he will be re- mentioned to succeed El-Erian, but sponsible for $693 billion in assets according to Longbrake, “We’re under management compared with launching a search immediately.”

Harvard’s $34.9 billion.

“I suspect down the road we will He is also expected to become make an announcement about a PIMCO’s CEO, although, accord- search committee,” he said.

UC-Berkeley gets $113m gift to grow endowment and fund profs

By Oliver Bowers Campus Watch Editor

Last Monday, the University of California at Berkeley received a pledge for a $113 million gift, the largest single gift in the school’s history, according to a university statement.

The gift comes from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and is designed to help the public university to stay competitive with elite private schools.

The gift comes in the form of a challenge grant that will match other private donations dollar-for-dollar, resulting in $220 million once the challenge is met, Forbes magazine reported Sept. 10. The university will use the money to create 100 new endowed faculty positions backed by permanent funds intended to keep UC-Berkeley professors’ salaries competitive with those at top private schools.

An additional $3 million will be used to support an enhanced infrastructure for managing those endowed funds, Forbes reported.

The gift comes at a time when funding for public universities from state governments has not matched the 20 percent per annum top private universities have achieved on their endowments, the university statement said.

“Private institutions are at an advantage, having traditionally built up large endowments,” said UC-Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau in the release. “With only a third of our annual budget coming from state funds, increasing the size of Berkeley’s endowment is the only way to sustain a stable financial foundation for the future.”

UC-Berkeley’s endowment is $2.5 billion. Har vard University has a $35 billion endowment, and

Stanford University’s is $15 billion.

Brown has a $2.8 billion endowment.

Between 2000 and 2006, 236 UCBerkeley professors received job offers from other universities, most of them elite private schools. The school was able to keep 162 professors, but only through cost-cutting efforts that could not be sustained in the long-term, Birgeneau said.

Despite Berkeley’s efforts, 30 percent of the faculty members who received offers left the university.

The funding will be distributed across the institution and, once matched, will make up a nearly 50 percent increase in UC-Berkeley’s current $468 million in endowed faculty chair funding. Following the gift, each endowed professorship will be funded at $2 million, and professors will receive $25,000 per year in a scholarly allowance from the income, according to remarks by the chancellor. The university currently has 351 endowed chairs.

“This gift ... is a recognition that public universities can and must compete with the best private universities and can only do so through a partnership between public funding and private philanthropy,” Birgeneau said.

Walter Hewlett, chairman of the board of the Hewlett Foundation, agreed in his address at the unveiling ceremony.

“Berkeley is the crown jewel of public higher education — not just in California, but in the countr y,” Hewlett said. “UC-Berkeley is a special case in that we are not only supporting great work, we are supporting an important social concept — the importance of public education and universal access for our best and brightest students, irrespective of their ability to pay.”

In Illinois, Digital Citizen Project will track illegal student downloads

By Madeleine Rosenberg Contributing Writer

Illinois State University’s introduction of a file-transfer tracking system, known as the Digital Citizen Project, is the latest step in the struggle of entertainment industry groups and colleges to stem the flow of illegal downloading on campuses. The initiative was undertaken amid debate over the increasingly thorny question of how much responsibility colleges and universities have to stem illegal downloading.

The Digital Citizen Project is a program designed to “research, discover, and establish best practices for shifting consumption of media on university campuses from pirated content to legitimately licensed content,” according to the project’s Web site. The project employs a variety of tactics to try to curb illegal downloading, including educating students through an awareness campaign, increasing university self-monitoring and enforcement, providing free and legal music services and rewarding students who don’t download illegally.

The project was launched in response to a “sharp uptick in the number of violation notices that (Illinois State) got from the Recording Industry Association of America,” said Mark Walbert, Illinois State’s associate vice president for academic information technology.

Cheryl Elzy, the dean of university libraries, conceived the project as a way to gather data about student downloading. The real turning point for the decision to go forward with the project, Walbert said, occurred when four Illinois State students were subpoenaed. “That really galvanized our attention on the issue,” he said.

In late 2006, Illinois State officials approached the entertainment industry with their offer of cooperation.

“When we went to Washington and asked (the RIAA) what we could do, they literally — literally — sat at the table and said nothing. ... And later on, as there got to be more talking, they realized, ‘Nobody’s ever asked us that before,’ ” Walbert said. Ultimately, the university received funding for the project from the music industry.

The findings of the Digital Citizen Project — though incomplete — have served to “get enough data to put numbers behind what we just had

as ideas before,” Walbert said. The project discovered that a “startling” 60,000 “original transfers” occurred in April at Illinois State, according to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

One finding that Walbert described as a “surprise” was that the majority of the file transfers did not carry signatures or meta-data that could mark them as indisputably illegal. “We have discovered that there’s a great deal of material that’s being shared that we have no idea what it is,” Walbert said. “The industry needs to find a way to watermark these songs so those transfers can be tagged.”

Walbert said university officials will conduct a more detailed analysis of the data this summer.

The project was not a simple clampdown on illegal downloading or an end of peer-to-peer software, Walbert said. “I really hope what it does is broaden the conversation

away from just saying, ‘find a technology solution that just kills it.’ We can block peer-to-peer transfers in different ways — and Illinois State has for years — but there are a lot of legitimate uses, and those are growing. So we find that tool to be a little too blunt.”

Walbert said another problem is that the market is always slow to adapt to technology changes, and the music industry is no exception. “I would like them, too, to spend more time on how to educate students

about what the issues are, really,” he said.

“My big thing has always been the underlying behavioral issue is what matters. ... We need to do a lot better job of educating students and others that, actually, you are stealing from people and that’s something you should be aware of.”

Connie Sadler, director of information technology security at Brown’s Computing and Information Services, continued on page 9

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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

After uncertainty, EMS on track continued from page 1 head of EMS, Sanderson-Roderick said she plans to oversee several changes this semester, including better coordination with the Department of Public Safety and other University offices.

Wheeler said Sanderson-Roderick will “tighten up the ship a bit” by updating logs and personnel files more frequently and keeping more complete records.

Sanderson-Roderick and Wheeler both stressed that they want EMS to be seen as more of an educational program.

“We want to recommit to a few principles that are important to EMS,” Wheeler said. “It was started by students, and students contribute a huge amount to the functioning of EMS, so we are trying to reestablish our commitment to them in terms of teaching.”

The program has long hosted

monthly seminars on topics ranging from clearing airways to emergency gynecology and obstetrics, but EMT supervisors will now also have a master list of topics to teach student EMTs during their shifts, SandersonRoderick said.

“There is now an expectation that there will be teaching on every shift,” Sanderson-Roderick said.

Jeffrey Devine, a trained paramedic and registered nurse who is one of the two new EMT supervisors, will coordinate the program’s educational efforts, Sanderson-Roderick said.

The other new supervisor, Brendan McStay, will take responsibility for keeping equipment up-to-date and operational. “(Devine) has a number of years of EMT experience, working as a paramedic in Boston … and training to be a registered nurse,” Sanderson-Roderick said, adding that his commitment and excitement level about teaching is in line with EMS’s

emphasis on education.

Student EMTs interviewed by The Herald had only positive things to say about the upcoming year at EMS. EMS will “focus on education (and) getting involved with the community,” said Alex Neusner ’08, a senior EMT who has been involved in the program since his freshmen year.

Neusner had strong praise for Sanderson-Roderick, who he said “really cares about the student and is really compassionate … and is trying really hard.” There is rarely a night that she is not working, he said.

Though he was abroad for EMS’s tumultuous spring semester, Neusner said this semester will be a positive step forward, if not a “rebuilding year.”

“I am really excited for this semester. It will be different … but we hope to maintain a high quality of services while trying some new things,” he said.

M. soccer continues unbeaten streak continued from page 12 five touches — really, two headers and three tap-ins. The guys put me in the right position to score.”

Almost more impressive than Sheehan’s offense was his defense. He was constantly in pursuit, pressuring the Terriers defenders and causing them to make poor passes that his teammates were able to intercept.

“That’s part of Dylan’s package,” Noonan said of Sheehan’s defense.

“Kevin Davies (’08) up front has complemented that part of his game.

Together they put a lot of pressure on the other team.”

The entire team’s defense was strong, holding St. Francis’ leading scorer, John Salhag, who has four goals on the season, in check for the night.

Noonan was particularly pleased with the play of goalkeeper Paul

Grandstrand ’11.

“It was very positive to get Paul Grandstrand his first shutout,” Noonan said. “It was also good to go two straight games without being scored upon.”

Grandstrand has been splitting time in the net with Jarrett Leech ’09 this season, and both have played well.

Grandstrand had one problem early in the first half, when he was indecisive about whether to come out to meet Salhag on a breakaway. But Grandstrand recovered by fouling Salhag outside the 18-yard box, giving the Bears’ defense a chance to recover.

The strong backline allowed Brown to maintain the 1-0 halftime lead. The second half was much of the same early on: Brown in control but still unable to finish its chances. Noonan said the team played its best during the middle 30 minutes of the second half, though the team was unable to

increase its lead.

Desperate in the last 15 minutes, St. Francis turned up the heat, pushing numbers forward. The Terriers controlled the match down the stretch, but were unable to penetrate Bruno’s defense to get the equalizer.

“We panicked a little bit late in the game,” Noonan said. “We got a little tight.”

The Bears bent, but did not break, and held on for the 1-0 win to maintain their undefeated start.

Brown, which is ranked 21st by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America and ninth by Soccer America’s Top 25 poll, will travel away from Stevenson Field for the first time this season for their next game, making a cross-country trek to California this weekend, where it will take on the University of San Diego on Friday night and the University of California at Irvine on Sunday.

c ampus n ews WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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Library catalog gets makeover The University library’s online catalog, Josiah, will be upgraded over the course of the year to increase its user friendliness.

Additions to the catalog system will include new calendar functions, a spell checker and integrated search features. Students using Josiah will be able to search for videos, browse new books, check past inquiries and look at their reading history.

Simplification is a major goal of the renovations and additions to Josiah, said Brent Lang ’04, communications and marketing specialist for the library. Students are “going to see more of Josiah as the goto place,” Lang said, citing easier interlibrary loan processes as one positive result of the upgrades.

A new method for searching the library database is also in the works.

Librarians said they look forward to search pages that emulate search engines like Google, to which more students are accustomed.

“We are going to consolidate searches onto a single screen,” Lang said.

“These are ideas that libraries have been talking about for a few years,” said Bonnie Buzzell ’72, senior knowledge systems librarian.

“We are not behind, but we certainly are not ahead.”

Buzzell anticipates that features such as a viewable reading history will help students with bibliographies. Students would be able to sign in to view their search history, and they could sign out or clear the history at any time, she said.

Librarians are considering additional upgrades, including book jacket image displays accompanied by links to reviews and a feature that would enable students to narrow a general search into categories, as they can on Amazon.com.

“What’s happening in the field is spurring us to improve our own services,” Lang said, adding that some of the ideas came from undergraduates themselves in focus groups held last year.

“There is no additional cost” to implement the upgrades, Buzzell said. “It is mostly staff time.”

Buzzell encouraged students to contact the library with feedback, comments and suggestions as the upgrades are implemented.

— Aditya Voleti

Five Brown researchers win fellowships Four faculty members and one graduate student have won fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies.

Among this year’s recipients are Professor of Modern Culture and Media Mary Doane, Associate Professor of Anthropology Matthew Gutmann, Professor of Religious Studies Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Associate Professor of History Robert Self and Daniel Schensul MA’04 GS, a doctoral candidate in sociology.

The ACLS is a nonprofit organization that encourages advancement in the humanities and social sciences and supports institutions dedicated to those subjects. This support is given primarily through its many fellowship programs.

Self was one of 11 scholars awarded the Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars for his project “The Politics of Gender and Sexuality in the United States from Watts to Reagan.” His studies will investigate questions of manhood and masculinity, second wave feminism, the politics of public and private and other issues of gender and sexuality from the past few decades and their effect on politics, Self told The Herald.

To supplement Self’s nationwide archival research, the fellowship grants him access to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University to research and write his book on the subject. This will be Self’s second book — his first, “American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland,” published in 2005, is a case study of urban politics in Oakland, Calif.

Schensul was awarded the Early Career Fellowship Program Dissertation Completion Fellowship, to be funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for his project “Remaking an Apartheid City: State-Led Spatial Transformation in Durban, South Africa.” Schensul used spatial analysis, Geographical Information Systems and qualitative fieldwork to map cities’ social and geographical data and investigate the effects of infrastructure expansion on economic and racial inequalities in South Africa.

Awarded to 65 scholars out of a total of 1,144 applicants, this fellowship sponsors doctoral candidates’ research expenses for one year under the agreement that the recipients will receive no further funding afterward. This gives the candidates a “hard deadline” to finish their dissertations promptly, said Schensul, who is now in the process of writing his dissertation and applying for jobs.

Doane, Gutmann and Harvey are three of 65 applicants out of a total of 1,016 to win the ACLS Fellowship. Doane’s project, “ ‘Bigger Than Life’: The Close-up and Scale in the Cinema,” investigates how these techniques affect the relationship between the human body and space in modern cinema. Funding from the fellowship and Brown is allowing Doane to take leave this semester to research and work on her project, which will culminate in a book on the subject.

In his project, “Iraq Veterans in Dissent, Masculine Loyalties in Contention: Epiphanies among the Troops,” Gutmann investigates how the Iraq war affects troops stationed there. Gutmann’s project focuses on oral histories from those who joined the army voluntarily, later becoming dissenters of the Iraq war.

Harvey’s project, “Teaching Women: Biblical Women and Women’s Choirs in Syriac Tradition,” examines the place and significance of women’s voice in Syriac Christianity through Christian teachings, rituals and biblical representation.

Doane, Gutmann and Harvey were not available for comment.

—Allison Wentz

Chris Bennett / Herald

“Building Brown” signs surround construction projects throughout campus.

Signage calls attention to construction on campus

By Brian Mastroianni Contributing Writer

Brown students, faculty and visitors may have noticed the proliferation of “Building Brown” signs outside various construction sites on campus in the last few months.

The signs are “Facilities Management’s efforts to coordinate those projects, which did not happen before in past years,” said Michael McCormick, assistant vice president for planning, design and construction for Facilities Management. With six projects in progress out of a total of nine proposed construction sites displayed on the Building Brown Web site, such coordination is necessary, McCormick said.

“This is a completely new effort,” McCormick said. “We are doing so many construction projects at once — typically we did one, maybe two projects at a single time in the

past.”

For McCormick, the effort of conducting multiple projects simultaneously is part of a bigger initiative to improve the appearance of the campus.

McCormick was unable to provide any estimate as to how much it will cost to maintain the signs. He stressed that the phrase “Building Brown” is “not an official slogan” for the construction projects themselves — rather, it refers to the page of the same name on the Facilities Management Web site.

Among the nine construction projects listed on the site are the Artemis A.W. and Martha Sharp Joukowsky Institute for Archeology and the Ancient World, the Walk connecting the Main Green and Pembroke campus, the conversion of J. Walter Wilson, renovations of Pembroke Hall and the Stephen Roberts ’62 Campus Center at Faunce House.

Other construction projects include the Creative Arts Center, the renewal and upgrade of utility systems, the relocation of Peter Green House and the Nelson Fitness Center and University Swim Center.

The construction initiatives are part of President Ruth Simmons’ Plan for Academic Enrichment, which was initially proposed in February 2002.

The signs are highly visible on campus, ensuring public awareness of the University’s new construction initiatives.

“It seems interesting that they cover up what is being constructed,” said Lawrence Stanley, senior lecturer in English. “(The signs) do catch your attention when walking to class — it causes you to notice what’s happening in terms of the campus’ constant renovation,” said Francis Gonzales ’11.

Page 6

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Popular bio prof Miller ’70 on intelligent design, life in the spotlight continued from page 1 case — if there ever was one — for this thing called “intelligent design” just collapsed, literally fell apart. It also became clear that intelligent design is just a re-labeling of what used to be called “creationism” or “creation science.” That was pretty easy to show, because the textbook on intelligent design that the school board had purchased for the students had actually been produced by a publisher that took a textbook on creationism, and wherever the word “creator” or “creationism” appeared, they just pasted the word “design” or “designer” on top of it.

In your book, “Finding Darwin’s God,” you put forth the idea that science and religion are compatible and even complementar y. How so?

Let’s ask a question that people in science don’t generally ask: “Why

does science work? Why can we figure anything out?” Einstein once said the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. It’s a typical Einsteinian statement in that it has many layers of meaning, but why should the universe be organized in a regular way that enables us to do science and allows us to make sense of it? I think one way to look at and understand that is to say that the universe behaves in what we might call a rational way because there is reason behind it. And if you’re a believer, if you’re a theist, the source of that reason ultimately is the creator — it’s God. God is the ultimate explanation for why reality is the way it is, and what makes science possible.

The other thing is there has been a long tradition of scientific inquiry within the Abrahamic religions — Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The notion in all of these religions is that

we were given free will and intelligence to do God’s will, but also to use that intelligence to understand the world around us. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the greatest scientific nations in the world were the states of the Muslim Caliphate in Northern Africa. These are the guys who were inventing algebra, figuring out the biochemistry of fermentation — the word “alcohol” is an Arabic word — and drawing the best astronomical charts in the world. They saw all of this as fitting within a religious context.

How, then, have you arrived at Catholicism, with its specific traditions and beliefs?

The short answer is that I was brought up and raised a Catholic, so I understand Catholicism.

That doesn’t mean I’ve considered myself that way for my whole life. There were a couple times in my life where I just sort of walked away from the Church. But what I find within my particular sect of Roman Catholicism is a respect for the intellectual traditions of science.

What I often have a difficult time explaining to people is why I’m a Catholic and not a Baptist or a Unitarian or a Jew. The first thing I would say is that there is absolutely nothing in science that points me to being a Catholic, or even a Christian.

But what I will say is I think that all people who profess a religious faith have first of all the duty to be modest about their own understanding. Any person who is religious and has really thought seriously about the idea of God has got to be overwhelmed by its incomprehensibility. And if you’re overwhelmed by the incom-

prehensibility of something, then I think you automatically respect the efforts of other people to grasp the same thing, even if they come down with slightly different conclusions.

I practice the faith I do because it makes intellectual and emotional sense to me and because it helps me to order my life and understand the world.

How do you achieve a balance between your national work and what you do at Brown? Do you envision yourself taking a break from one to focus more on the other?

I’ve always been interested in research and teaching. A few years ago, when I started to write textbooks, I began to think of that as an alternate kind of teaching. What I mean by that is when I teach my cell biology class, I might reach 50 students, when I teach the intro bio class I might reach 400 students, but when I write a high school textbook I can — without exaggeration — reach millions of students. So I regard all of this as kind of the same activity.

Travelling, speaking and even doing strange things like appearing on television do take time away from other professional activities.

You have to ask yourself, “Do these things do any good for the scientific enterprise as a whole?” I think the answer to that is really simple: If those of us in the scientific community decide we aren’t going to venture into the public square and make ourselves available for public talks and interviews and going on TV shows, saying that all that is beneath us, that vacuum in the public

square will be filled by people whom most of us regard as the enemies of science. I think everybody in the scientific community has an obligation to bring science to that public square and to make their work understandable to the general public. And I’ve received a tremendous amount of support from my scientific colleagues here at Brown and in the rest of the scientific community for doing exactly what I’m doing.

What projects are you working on right now?

I’m on sabbatical leave this year, so I’m not teaching. If my leave is successful, by a year from now I will have finished three books. When I come back, I’ll go back into my lab and do some research on plant cell walls and plant cell membranes.

As if college students weren’t enamored of you enough, you appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” last year.

How has the “Colbert bump” been for you?

I don’t know if this is a sad commentary on the state of American higher education, but nothing I’ve ever done in my whole scientific career has gained me as much credibility among my students as appearing on “The Colbert Report.” There’s no question that one of the reasons I’ve literally been flooded with lecture and seminar invitations all over the country is because people have seen the segment or heard about it and thought, “Here’s somebody who can go nose-to-nose with Stephen Colbert.”

My phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

Salazar ’09 starts kids’ magazine continued from page 1 be able to take on the challenge, despite her youth. “What I’ve observed with Gabby is that she’s able to take on the responsibilities of many projects with very little experience,” he said. “She has a passion for whatever she’s doing and the intelligence to be able to implement that passion.”

Salazar has applied her passion for photography since age 12, thanks to her father’s eagerness to share his favorite hobby.

Within minutes of picking up a camera, Salazar said, she was hooked.

“She really took to it like a fish to water,” said her father, Paul Salazar.

After discovering her talent in photography, Salazar began entering contests, applying for scholarships and submitting her work to various magazines. Her photographs have appeared in such publications as Wildlife in North Carolina and Chinese National Geographic for Kids.

Salazar also began holding photography workshops at which she taught young children the basics of the camera. Salazar said working with children inspired her to create a magazine showcasing their work.

“It’s amazing how kids light up when they engage in nature and in the environment, when they have a camera in their hands,” she said.

One of the main points Salazar stresses to the children is that a photographer doesn’t need to be a globetrotter to shoot impressive pictures.

“I wasn’t one of those kids that could just travel whenever they wanted,” she said. “I want them to see you can take these pictures in your backyard. I want this to be accessible to all levels of income, to all backgrounds.”

With an interactive Web site, an editorial staff with no one over the age of 23 and content produced exclusively by young adults, NBPK provides a new and innovative resource for young photographers, according to Salazar.

Salazar is eager to keep the magazine fresh, catering to the younger set. Though she plans to take next semester off to work on the magazine, she says she won’t stay on the staff for more than three years.

“I don’t want to get too old to represent the magazine,” she said.

In the meantime, Salazar’s co-workers say her energy has helped make the magazine a success.

“She’s definitely the driving force of this magazine right now,” said Chase Pickering, director of marketing and promotions at NBPK. “She’s doing this in a way that’s successful because she builds these personal connections with people around the world.”

Salazar admits she has, in fact, memorized the names and ages of all the contributors of the current issue. She said she enjoys promoting the art of others but does not plan to print any of her own photographs in the magazine.

“The real story isn’t about me,” she said. “It’s about the kids.”

page 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

An ode to baseball continued from page 12 attending a party where I know everyone there and where they all give me high fives. And that feeling you get as you walk through the tunnel to your seats and see the stadium grass peeking above the concrete ... it’s pretty special.

Then there’s the game itself.

What makes it so riveting? Baseball is a thinking fan’s game. I like that after each pitch, I’ve got about 10 seconds to talk about the pitch, the game or baseball in general.

It’s fun to watch because it doesn’t require focus 100 percent of the time. You can casually watch a game and not miss anything crucial. However, if you want to watch the game and analyze every pitch, you’ll be entranced by the amount of strategy and athleticism that goes into every second of a baseball game. If you’ve never done this — really studied a few minutes of a baseball game, as if it were a Hitchcock film — give it a shot.

Listen to the color commentary, guess what the hitter is trying to do and understand that baseball is just “a lot of standing around” in

the same way that a Monet painting is “just” a bunch of lilies floating in a pond.

Baseball distinguishes itself from other sports through its complexity. In basketball, there’s always one purpose: Put the ball in the hoop, or stop the other team from doing so. In hockey, it’s the same thing … on ice. The different strategies and methods of winning a baseball game give managers a broad and exciting set of options.

Let’s say the offense has a runner on first. What do they do? Bunt him over? Steal? Hit-and-run? Try to force a walk? Hope for a base hit?

The excitement often lies in those frequent pauses, as the pitcher stares down the batter. Baseball always keeps you guessing.

As Woody Allen once said, “I love baseball. You know it doesn’t have to mean anything, it’s just beautiful to watch.” Baseball is my childhood, my hobby and my love. I hope you can learn to love it, too.

Ellis Rochelson ’09 also loves his family.

5 first-years elected to UCS

By Franklin Kanin Senior Staf f Writer

Anxious freshmen gathered in front of the Faunce House steps at midnight Tuesday night to find out who would gain one of the five open spots to represent the class of 2011 on the Undergraduate Council of Students. The Elections Board and UCS President Michael Glassman ’09 stood atop the steps and announced whom among the 17 candidates were elected, which began on MyCourses on Sunday night and ended Tuesday at 5 p.m.

The new UCS members for 2011 are, in the order they were announced, Alex Morse ’11, Ryan Lester ’11, Stacey Park ’11, Harris Li ’11

and Arthur Matuszweski ’11.

Glassman, before announcing the winners, encouraged the 12 other UCS hopefuls to nevertheless ser ve on UCS as associate members. To become an associate member a student must collect 50 signatures and attend two UCS meetings. Associate members can attend all meetings and sit on committees, but cannot vote.

While the official numbers and results will not be announced until UCS certifies the results, UCS Student Activities Chair and Elections board co-chair Drew Madden ‘10 said over 400 freshmen voted in the election.

UCS’s first general body meeting of the year will be held tonight.

Page 8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2007

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

page 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

“Street Sights” newspaper highlights homelessness in RI continued from page 1 newsletter to raise awareness about Welcome Arnold’s closing, according to Ochs.

The closing threw three women and 100 men out on the street, said Bob Pangborn, a formerly homeless individual who joined the Street Sights staff after landing back on his feet.

To Street Sights organizers, “what was most difficult about the closing was not the closing itself but the fact that the people living there at the time were not informed on how their lives were about to change,” Ochs said. “There was a great sense of insecurity, and a lot of that insecurity came from a lack of communication.”

The newspaper also seeks to inform the general public about what it means to be homeless, said organizer Dan Meltzer ’09.

“There’s a common stereotype of what a homeless person is,” Meltzer said. “But it’s important to realize that there are a lot of complex reasons for why homelessness is an issue in Providence.”

High housing prices are currently a major cause of homelessness in Rhode Island, Pangborn said. According to Crossroads Rhode Island, a homeless services organization, housing costs have increased twice as fast as income in the past few years.

“Informing people on the issue is just one aspect of the newsletter, but it’s an important one,” Meltzer said.

Most street newspapers employ homeless individuals, giving them the opportunity to purchase the papers at approximately 50 percent of the cover price, sell them to the public and then keep the profits, according to the International Network of Street Papers’ Web site.

In one of its earlier versions, Street Sights used this vendor model, but had to discontinue the approach because of Providence’s lack of street traffic.

“The vendors were not making a lot of money,” Ochs said.

Street Sights founder Claudia Solari ’99.5 would like to see the newspaper transition toward the vendor model.

“The vendor effort is such an important component because it’s where people who are homeless interact with people who are not,” Solari said. “This is a good way to help them reconnect with the rest of society.”

Solari began developing the paper in the fall of 1999. She was initially inspired by Spare Change, one of Boston’s street newspapers, which she learned about while conducting research on street newspapers during her senior year.

“The model had worked so beautifully in Boston,” Solari said.

“I thought, ‘Why not try it in Providence?’ ” Solari wanted volunteers to help put together the street paper, and she estimated that more than 70 Brown students showed up at the first meeting. Those volunteers visited homeless organizations in Providence, gathering writing samples from homeless individuals. Solari used a $500 writing grant to print the first issue.

Meanwhile, the People to End Homelessness group was leading an effort to demand more emergency

Digital Citizen Project tracks downloading continued from page 3 agreed with Walbert. “One of my concerns is that I still hear from students who seem surprised when there’s a complaint that comes in alleging illegal downloading,” she told The Herald. “I would like to know what we can do to better educate students, particularly around the risk associated with running peer-to-peer applications.”

Brown has received 12 to 15 notices from the RIAA so far this semester — a normal number of notices — and has no plans to introduce antipiracy technology. When a student is the subject of RIAA complaints, University officials activate a process of warnings and dean’s hearings, Sadler said.

“I don’t think that Brown is really planning on changing its policy any time soon,” Sadler said.

Sadler explained that the Internet at Brown is run essentially as two networks. “We manage the Brown campus network, which is reserved for academic applications, and we manage what we call the residential network, and that’s the network that the students are attached to... We really reserve most of our bandwidth for applications that are required for academic work.”

“We see ourselves more as an Internet provider for the residential network. We don’t see ourselves as monitoring what goes on in and out of that network,” Sadler said.

Student attitudes regarding illegal downloading and preventative or punitive measures taken by the University and the entertainment industry vary.

A sophomore, who requested anonymity, admitted to downloading content illegally. “It’s strange how little

I feel guilty about actually stealing music, because I have thousands of dollars worth of it,” the student told The Herald.

The sophomore said she had once received notification from the University informing her that a movie studio had contacted Brown officials after she attempted to download a recently released movie.

“The e-mail said (the University) was planning to suspend my Internet account until I said I would never do it again, but I don’t think they ever did, so I’m not sure what the point of it was,” she said.

The student said she thought it was the responsibility of the entertainment industry, not the University, to monitor and take action against illegal downloading. She added that the only thing that would convince her to stop downloading illegally would be if she were actually prosecuted.

housing from the city, and Solari saw an opportunity to distribute the newsletter for free to politicians and others surrounding the statehouse.

“We didn’t charge for the paper at the time. Our goal was simply to get our name out there.”

Solari printed her last issue in July 2000, as she left Providence to attend graduate school on the West Coast. Despite student efforts to keep Street Sights in circulation, high leadership turnover prevented the newspaper from sustaining itself in recent years.

Since its first revived issue in March, Street Sights has been distributed monthly to a circulation of about 600, Ochs said. To attract more readers, the group is transitioning from its current newsletter style to newsprint.

Each of the previous issues has been funded by donations from different organizations — most recently, the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless — but the group is establishing a subscription system to ensure the newspaper’s sustainability, Ochs said.

“We hope that Street Sights will

become more like the other street newspapers around the country — with more readers and a wider range of readership,” Meltzer said.

To work toward this goal, Ochs attended the North American Street Newspaper Association’s conference in Portland, Ore., beween July 26 and July 29.

The conference was hosted by Street Roots, a nonprofit, grassroots newspaper based in Portland that seeks to create employment opportunities for homeless individuals.

The conference served as a forum for vendors, editors and directors to share technical skills and collaborate on various homelessness issues, according to Street Roots’ Web site.

For Street Sights organizers who attended the conference, the event served both as a networking tool and a space for street newspapers around the country to get together and motivate one another.

“It was inspiring to us to recognize we are part of the larger movement of people trying to change the lives of individuals who are having to deal with homelessness,” Ochs said.

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Staf f Editorial

Stemming the problem Yesterday’s report on undergraduate science education offers some promising suggestions for curricular improvement, but the reality of the problem in some science fields at Brown is bleak. Over half of the potential physics concentrators in PHYS 0070: “Analytical Mechanics” and PHYS 0080: “Introduction to Relativity and Quantum Physics” are so unhappy with those courses that they never take a physics class again.

One of the repor t’s most ambitious recommendations is a centralized sciences resources center. Such a dedicated campus office would be a valuable resource for students, particularly underclassmen who have yet to declare their concentrations or find research labs.

All of its proposed ser vices, such as tutoring and dispensing advice about concentrations, research oppor tunities and careers, already exist but are scattered around campus. But students in the so-called STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math — would be well-ser ved by a dedicated campus center that centralizes these ser vices.

Not all of the report’s recommendations seem as useful. The committee calls for an expansion of interdisciplinar y offerings, an institutional buzzword that is central to Brown’s educational philosophy but difficult to apply to the sciences. Though special interdisciplinar y science courses might attract some students who would other wise hide behind the New Curriculum’s flexibility and avoid taking a single science course while at Brown, they won’t be of tremendous benefit to prospective science concentrators, who need to grasp the fundamentals of a scientific discipline before deciding whether the subject is a good fit.

Still, more must to be done to address the introductor y lecture courses that seem to scare students away.

As the report makes clear, retention of STEM concentrators depends largely on their experiences in introductor y-level courses. Many foundation courses could be significantly improved with more hands-on experiences, better labs and intelligible teaching assistants.

If University officials hope to attract and retain more STEM students, they should focus on improving the introductor y course experience. As a result of poorly taught foundation courses, STEM concentrators and non-concentrators alike are emerging with a lack of preparation for research, a shaky understanding of the material and a general dissatisfaction with the sciences at Brown.

The committee’s report accurately acknowledges the importance of research in science education, and the proposed increase in UTRA funding is a significant step in the right direction. Research opportunities are meaningful for many STEM students, and they offer valuable hands-on experience, applied learning and faculty and graduate student mentors.

Students in the STEM fields value the opportunity to study science in the context of Brown’s distinctive open curriculum, but they also deser ve to be of fered a science education that is of the same — if not higher — caliber as those offered at the University’s peer institutions.

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 Amy Ehrhart 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 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

A lexander G ard murray

Let

t e r s

Herald headline misrepresented state of biological sciences To the Editor: As associate dean of biology undergraduate education overseeing students in 10 programs offered at Brown, I object strongly to the headline in the Sept. 18 Herald that announced “Sciences losing concentrators at high rate.”

The article goes on to describe trends in the physical, not the biological sciences, wherein we are experiencing tremendous growth and popularity.

Recently, we published and distributed the Annual Report for Biology Undergraduate Affairs, which details trends going back to the 1980s. Several surges in enrollments have occurred since then, with only moderate corrections in an upward trend. Particularly in the past three years, this trend is one of demonstrable growth. For example, in 2003-2004, the total of biological sciences concentrators represented 13.4 percent of University graduates; in 2006-2007, this percentage was 18.7 percent.

The total number graduating in our programs last May was 287 and is projected to be 327 in 2008. This latter figure exceeds the previous peak of 297 that occurred in 1998. The trend is of a steady increase of students, scant attrition and, periodically, dramatic upward surges.

As for courses, enrollments in courses taught by biomed faculty grew from 10.8 percent of total University undergraduate enrollments to 13.1 percent over the past academic year. Previous figures (since 2000) hovered in

post- magazine Managing Editor Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor

Steve DeLucia, Designer Ayelet Brinn, Ted Lamm, Ben Mercer, 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, Amanda Bauer, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Aubry Bracco, Caitlin Browne, Joy Chua, Patrick Corey, Catherine Goldberg, Isabel Gottlieb, Thi Ho, Olivia Hoffman, 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

Marjorie Thompson, PhD Associate Dean, Biological Sciences Sept. 18

Fox Point neighbors appreciate The Herald To the Editor:

Hillary Dixler Melanie Duch Taryn Martinez Rajiv Jayadevan

the 9.6-10.2 percent range.

There are many figures that can be cited here, but the trends apply to all of the ten programs offered in the division, including biology, human biology (which has doubled over the past two years) and neuroscience, with biochemistry/molecular biology, computational biology, biomedical engineering, applied math-biology and biophysics also showing solid and/or increased concentrator figures. It cannot be denied that these groups include programs with strong foundations and themes in the physical sciences and mathematics.

I do not counter the trends described in The Herald.

I only object to the absence of acknowledgement of the true situation in our area when such sweeping pieces are written and displayed. (Another point: our introductory courses are some of the most popular at the University, by both reviews and by the enrollments. Examples: NAUR 0010: “Introduction to Neuroscience” and BIOL 0200: “Foundation of Living Systems.”)

While I applaud efforts to bolster resources, research fellowships, tutoring programs and so forth, it cannot be good for the University or outside community to draw perhaps erroneous conclusions from misleading headlines and sweeping statements.

Your Sept. 18 editorial (“Parking at the Point”) about parking and planning was brought to my attention, and I’m writing to express my surprise and gratification with the writer’s attitude toward our neighborhood. I can’t remember when I’ve read such a considerate, even, thoughtful and mature piece in The Herald. It looks as

though this will be a good year for town-gown relations. I salute your taking this step towards cooperative dialogue with us other residents of the East Side.

Arria Bilodeau Fox Point Neighborhood Association board member Sept. 18

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.

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O pinions WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Who is ‘Our Man’ in Iraq?

BORIS RYVKIN Opinions Columnist On Aug. 28, in the city of Karbala, factional violence between the two largest Shiite militias in Iraq — those led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr — claimed 52 lives and injured more than 200. At first glance, this looks like the same old story of Iraqi tribal conflict, which should not distract from morning coffee. A closer observation, however, reveals something much more significant. In fact, the outcome of this intraShiite feud and its consequences for political developments in Baghdad expose major inconsistencies in official U.S. policy regarding Iraq’s future. If the Bush administration and Congressional leaders are serious about containing Iranian influence in Iraq, they may be backing the wrong horse.

After the fighting, where most of the casualties came from his allies, Sadr declared a six-month truce with American forces. What motivated Sadr, whose popularity stems as much from his family pedigree as from his anti-American record, to make such a move?

U.S. officials have persistently labeled him a firebrand radical, whose fighters and attacks on Iraq’s Sunnis pose a major obstacle to stability and national reconciliation. Sadr, who denied having sparked the fighting in Karbala, argued that he needed time to root out rogue elements in his militia. In an article for the Asia Times, columnist Sami Moubayed suggests another reason: political reorientation. It turns out that Sadr’s chief rival, Ha-

kim’s Badr Organization, is closely tied to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Once, while searching for support in his drive to consolidate power, Maliki backed Sadr. Now safely in Baghdad, Maliki views the cleric as a liability. More importantly and central to the entire story, Maliki has greatly expanded his links with Iran, something which Sadr opposes almost as much as the American presence. It is possible, according to Mou-

Iraq. Despite the criticism, an alternative to Maliki has not been rigorously sought and administration officials continue to give him public support. This reveals a serious contradiction in U.S. policy. According to the Baghdad correspondent for the Inter Press Service, Ali Al-Fadhily, Maliki’s failures at forging unity largely stem from his intimacy with Iran. Maliki supports Iran’s nuclear pursuits for “peaceful purposes,” and in a meet-

If the administration and Congressional leaders are serious about containing Iranian influence in Iraq, they may be backing the wrong horse. bayed, that Sadr chose the lesser of two immediate evils in disengaging from the Americans.

Why does any of this matter? The Bush administration, U.S. military commanders and many American pundits have repeatedly done two things in recent months: chastise Maliki for “not doing enough” to bring about national unity and underscore the need to prevent Iran from gaining too much clout in

ing with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Aug. 8, he asked Tehran for “real security cooperation,” according to the Guardian. The result has been a political walkout by several Sunni and Shiite factions. It is a stretch to call Maliki an Iranian agent, but there is little doubt that he envisions a far greater role for Tehran in Iraq than many in Washington would care for. In a spectacular twist, the man most keen on expanding Ira-

nian influence in Iraq is the same one Bush continues to embrace.

Meanwhile Sadr, the U.S.-declared “radical,” is interested in a significantly smaller role for Iran. Sadr’s spiritual ties — and the Iranian support for his father’s numerous activities against Saddam Hussein — mean that he is not an enemy of his eastern neighbor.

Nevertheless, his military and political activities, bolstered by his decision to temporarily join the United Iraqi Alliance in 2005 and oppose Maliki’s foreign policy, created the image of an Iraqi nationalist. Sadr opted for a cease-fire with U.S. forces in the past, during a conflict over the city of Najaf three years ago and reneged on his promises when political circumstances changed. There is no reason to regard his current six-month pledge as anything but a temporary respite, and we are not at the point of shifting our support to him and away from the government in Baghdad. This may show, however, that the United States should rethink the way it plays chess with Iraq’s sectarian groups.

The United States has stumbled on one tactical blunder after another in its pacification of Iraq. First there was the lack of action against widespread looting. Then there was the implementation — seemingly in a vacuum — of de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraqi army. Efforts to combat the burgeoning insurgency were exacerbated by a painfully slow acknowledgment of its existence. Now, in its attempt to contain Iranian influence, American policy has reached a new level of self-contradiction.

Boris Ryvkin ’09 hates unity.

Enrollment in capped courses shouldn’t go to the pushiest

BY ALISON SCHOUTEN Opinions Columnist Brown’s open curriculum provides us with unparalleled academic freedom to pursue our interests. This freedom is unfortunately accompanied by a general sense of entitlement. Overall, Brown students feel that they should be allowed to take whatever classes they want. Whether it’s a sophomore stalking a professor to be let into that senior seminar or a junior lying about his or her concentration to be admitted to a popular course, Brown students pride themselves on their ability to get the exact schedules they want at any cost. Professors reinforce this sense of entitlement in the way they select students for their courses.

I support upper-level courses that require sample work or prerequisites, and I believe seniors should get priority, especially within their concentrations. Brown’s commitment to academic diversity is not reflected in how many professors choose students for their seminars, as they often choose the students who look like a good match for the course on paper, or just the pushiest students.

Countless courses begin the semester with the professor handing out index cards for students to fill out. Name. Year. Concentration. And the dreaded: Why do you want to or need to take this class?

Of course, there are some courses that certain people need to take. A future neurosurgeon shouldn’t have trouble getting into upper-level neuroscience seminars. Students who cannot overcome their shyness rightfully receive priority in the popular TSDA 0220: “Persuasive Communication.” But when I was asked to, in a few sentences, describe

why I needed to take an upper-level MCM seminar on an obscure topic, I had to wonder if the professor shouldn’t have just asked me to rate my ability to B.S. on a scale of 1 to 10.

To be fair, I have little to complain about.

I’ve had no problem arguing my case for being admitted to a class. And then doing it again. And again. Until shopping period is over and the professor has no choice. But what about students who aren’t so persistent (read: obnoxious)? Is this the kind of ruthless behavior that should be rewarded? Is ac-

that this is for our own academic good. When I submit writing samples to get into literary arts courses, I feel that the process of selecting my best work to put forward is useful, and certainly every writer needs to learn to handle rejection. Some popular seminars hold interviews or have applications, which are also beneficial to students in teaching real-world skills. When I got into a seminar as a sophomore by not leaving the classroom when all the sophomores were instructed to, all I learned was that I can get what I want

I support upper level courses that require sample work or prerequisites, and I believe seniors should get priority, especially within their concentrations. ademic freedom turning us into people who will go into the world and demand things because we are Brown students and we deserve to get what we want? That just seems so gross and Harvardish.

When a teacher asks for a few sentences about why you want to take a course, he or she is really asking, “Why do you deserve this more than someone else?” While it’s great real-world preparation, it’s an illusion

if I make my own rules. Ah, practical knowledge.

Brown needs some consistency, at least within departments, so that students know how to appropriately go about being selected for a class. Seniority should always be a factor, and in introductory lectures, it should be the main factor. Diversity of opinion and style is also important, as is experience and qualification. Particularly in interdisciplinary

courses, however, past experience should not be the main factor. I remember many of my friends trying to get into senior international relations seminars as sophomores and being rejected at the door. Yet this year, as senior IR concentrators who must take a seminar to graduate, they are losing their spots to sophomores who have yet to declare a concentration. This is because these sophomores have some experience in the specific fields addressed by the seminars and were allowed to argue their case. Fair? Not at all. In the case of concentration requirements, seniority should always win. In general, courses should be designated to have merit-based entry or seniority-based entry.

If methods for getting into classes are clear, students won’t resort to inappropriate tactics. The same students shouldn’t be turned away every semester because they don’t know how to get around the red tape.

If clearing up course admission rules doesn’t work, we can always have a good old lottery.

Or I hear some schools allow athletes to register first. Then there’s a Survivor-style vote of the class-members themselves of who has to leave. Whatever the method, as determined by the professor, it should be clear and consistent.

Why do I want to take this class? Because I saw it on Banner, I thought it looked cool, I think I can handle the workload and I’m a curious Brown student who likes learning stuff.

I’m awesome, and I would add a ton to this class, because I am the smartest. My interests align with this perfectly. Maybe I’ll even double concentrate. But seriously, I am the best.

Just like everybody else.

Alison Schouten ’08 killed a man to get this column.

S ports W ednesday Page 12

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

M. soccer beats St. Francis 1-0 to continue unbeaten streak

The beauty of baseball On Sunday night, I had several loud yelling fits. I had moments of frozen silence when I could hear my own heartbeat. My fingers flew as I texted my loved ones at home in New York, seeing if everything was okay.

Sunday night, the Yankees were in Boston. They faced off against the Red Sox in Ellis Rochelson one of the most MLB Exclusive exciting games of the season. Curt Schilling and Roger Clemens brought the most combined wins to a matchup in the history of Fenway Park, and both spun gems. Yankees captain Derek Jeter launched a towering, two-out, three-run homer in the eighth inning off Schilling to give the Bombers a 4-1 lead. The BoSox crawled back. There were two outs, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, the score 4-3 and the best closer of all time on the mound. David Ortiz, one of the most feared hitters in baseball, was at the plate. My heart is racing just remembering the scene.

And yet, when I ask most Brown students if they follow baseball, they say, “Nah. It’s too boring.”

BORING?! Seriously? As a lifelong baseball fan, the concept is difficult for me to grasp. So I try to think, objectively … why do I love baseball? What makes it exciting?

What is all the fuss about?

The first thing that comes to mind is the social benefits. When I meet someone from Boston, I’ve got a great ice-breaker right away: “Hey, can you lend me a hand? I can’t hold all my 26 rings...” I have an instant connection with baseball fans from around the country, especially from Boston. Regardless of how much they may despise my team, we’ve got hours of conversation material. Plus, my feverish dedication to the Yanks gives me a community of thousands of friends whom I’ve never met.

Going to Yankee Stadium is like continued on page 7

By Jason Harris Assistant Sports Editor

Ashley Hess / Herald

Rhett Bernstein ‘09 led the Bears’ defense in a strong performance, with a final score of 1-0 in Tuesday’s match against St. Francis College.

The men’s soccer team finished its season-opening five-game homestand with a perfect 5-0 record after defeating St. Francis College, 1-0, Tuesday night at Stevenson Field. The loss dropped the Terriers to 2-4-1 on the season.

Brown had a quick turnaround following an emotional 1-0 win against in-state rival the University of Rhode Island on Sunday.

Brown applied early pressure on the Terriers, controlling the ball for most of the first half, though the back of the net evaded them. Defender Rhett Bernstein ’09 had a header blocked, Darren Howerton ’09 hit the crossbar and forward Dylan Sheehan ’09 — who came into the game with an Ivy League-leading four goals — had several of his shots saved or sail wide of the cage.

Brown finally broke through the Terriers’ defense when Sheehan received a pass from midfielder Chris Roland ’10 with 18 minutes to play in the first half. Sheehan was taken down in the box, and Brown was awarded a penalty kick.

But the penalty shot by co-captain

Matt Brinter ’08 was saved by Terriers goalie Chris Antonino, who dove to his right to deflect the shot.

Head Coach Mike Noonan said the Bears just didn’t get any breaks early on.

“We didn’t have much luck,” Noonan said. “We hit the crossbar. We missed a penalty and the goalkeeper made a few brilliant saves.”

But the Bears stayed aggressive, and their first-to-the-ball mentality finally paid off with 15 minutes to play in the opening half. Howerton, who came into the match leading the Ivy League with three assists, played a free kick from the right side to the 6-yard box.

Both Sheehan and co-captain Stephen Sawyer ’09 appeared to get a piece of the ball, which flew by Antonino and into the net. Sheehan was credited with the goal, giving him a tally in each of the last five games.

“It hit a few people,” Sheehan said.

“I kind of looked around and Rhett said, ‘It’s your goal.’”

Sheehan attributed his hot start mostly to being in the right place at the right time.

“I can’t take too much credit,” Sheehan said. “I have five goals on continued on page 4

Initial loss can’t stop tennis’ Vucetic ’10 at Eastern Championships

By Peter Cipparone Sports Editor

During its fall season, the women’s tennis team competes in far fewer matches than it does in its spring season. But this weekend, the Bears showed that fewer matches doesn’t necessarily precipitate rusty play.

At two competitions this weekend ­— the Eastern Championships in West Point, N.Y., and the Columbia Invitational in New York City — Brown enjoyed a number of standout individual performances.

After finishing with a 4-3 league record last spring and winning its final four Ivy League matches, the team carried its momentum into the season-opening tournaments.

The team split its squad between the two weekend events.

At the Eastern Championships, Brown played Brett Finkelstein ’09, Tanja Vucetic ’10, Marisa Schonfeld ’11 and Ashley Butler ’11. Schonfeld made an immediate impression as she won both her matches in the No. 1 singles flight to reach the quarterfinals of the event.

Schonfeld faced Denise Harijanto from the University of Buffalo for a spot in the semifinals, but after spitting the first two sets she came out on the losing end of a 10-5 tiebreaker. Finkelstein won her first match in the same flight but fell in the round of 32. She played again on Sunday, going 2-1 in the back draw.

Vucetic turned in the most determined effort at the Eastern Championships. The sophomore lost her first match on Friday, 6-2, 6-4, to put her in the No. 2 singles consolation bracket. But with a combination of persistence and skilled play, Vucetic won four straight matches to win the bracket. After bouncing back to take her first-round consolation match on Friday, Vucetic won her quarter and semifinal consolation matches on Saturday by proset scores of 8-5 and 8-4, respectively.

On Sunday, Vucetic put the finishing touches on her run by taking down Colgate University’s Sam Inacker 8-2 in the final.

Brown performed admirably in its competition at Columbia as well,

sending six players to New York to compete against the host Lions on Friday. The Bears won two of the three doubles matches, and split the singles matches 6-6 with Columbia.

Kathrin Sorokko ’10 and Bianca Aboubakare ’11 led the way with two wins each. The next day Brown squared off with the University of Pennsylvania. While the team dropped the doubles competitions and fell in singles 6-5, Brown once again showed the strength of its underclassmen as Aboubakare and Itsuka Kurihara ’11 won both their matches.

The Bears will next play in two weeks when they host the Brown Invitational.

Women’s golf team opens season with sixth-place finish, men finish 13th

By Han Cui Spor ts Staf f Writer

The women’s golf team competed in its first tournament of the fall season last weekend, playing at the Dartmouth Golf Club in Hanover, N.H. Brown was tied for second place at 325 after the first day, but finished the tournament sixth out of 14 with a team score of 666 (325-341).

The women’s golf team has a young lineup this year, highlighted by three freshman additions.

Despite playing in their first collegiate tournament, Sarah Guarascio ’11, Julie Robinson ’11 and Susan Restrepo ’11 all made significant contributions. Guarascio had an especially striking debut with a tworound 164 (79-85), which tied her with captain Blythe Crane ’08 for first on the team and 19th in the tournament. Robinson finished in 27th place at 166 (81-85) and Restrepo shot a 177 (88-89). Veteran Holly Snyder ’09 placed 40th at 172 (84-88).

Crane said she was pleased with this start of the season.

“Both Coach (Danielle Griffith) and I were very proud of the whole team. All three freshmen had solid scores. Of course, we always wish we had scored better, but this is a good start for the season and we are going to work to get better for the future,” Crane said.

In assessing her own performance, Crane was more critical, despite her top score for the Bears.

“Personally, I think I played mediocre this past weekend. But as I play more tournaments, I will pick up again,” she said.

The men’s golf team also saw action in Bolton, Mass., where it competed in the Hartford Invitational. After three rounds of tough competition, the Bears finished 13th with a team total of 946 (310317-319).

In past seasons, the team played mostly in two-day 36-hole tournaments. This year, the team is competing in 54-hole tournaments with

36 holes on the first day and 18 on the second.

Head Coach Mike Harbour stressed this change as imperative to prepare the athletes for the Ivy League Championship in the spring.

“The Ivy League Championship is a 54-hole tournament. In order to be ready both mentally and physically prepared for it, we have to compete in tournaments like it against tougher opponents,” Harbour said.

Larry Haertel ’08, the defending New England champion, led the Bears with a 25th place finish of 228 (79-76-73). Michael Amato ’11 came in second on the team with a 237 (76-81-80).

As a new addition to the team, Amato said his goal was to contribute as much as he could to the team.

“We all feel the team could do a lot better than this past weekend.

No one played to their capability.

We have a solid team with solid

players. Our goal is to win the Ivy League Championship at the end of the year. Right now we are trying to put ourselves in a position to achieve that goal,” Amato said.

Ryan Larsen ’08 finished at 242 (83-79-80), Chris Hoffman ’09 followed at 243 (76-81-86) and John Giannuzzi ’10 shot a 250 (79-8388).

Harbour said some of the athletes might feel intimidated by the bigger tournaments.

“We have to get comfortable with playing long tournaments and against tougher opponents. Last year, we finished second at the Ivies. This year, our long-term goal is to win the Ivies, but in the short run, we have to improve along the way to be ready.”

The women’s team will compete next in the two-day Princeton Invitational in New Jersey this weekend, while the men’s team will compete in the Adams Cup of Rhode Island at Newport on Saturday and Sunday.

DSPics.com

Larry Haertel ‘08 led Brown at the Hartford Invitational with a 25th-place finish.