The Brown Daily Herald M onday, S eptember 24, 2007
Volume CXLII, No. 74
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
All study abroad programs will now require full tuition By Rachel Arndt Senior Staf f Writer
Chris Bennett / Herald
RISD President Roger Mandle and President Ruth Simmons signed an agreement Friday to launch a dual degree program.
Brown, RISD presidents ‘consummate’ union By Michael Skocpol Senior Staff Writer
With the trappings of an international peace conference and the jovial atmosphere of a wedding reception, President Ruth Simmons and Rhode Island School of Design President Roger Mandle officially signed an agreement Friday afternoon to launch the new Brown/RISD dual degree program. The two presidents met at the University Club on Benefit Street — neutral territory, of course — to swap friendly words and affix their signatures to an official memorandum of understanding at a brief ceremony attended by roughly 30 people from both universities. The program — slated to bring its first students to campus in Fall 2008
— will enable a select group of up to 20 students per year to earn both a bachelor of fine arts from RISD and a bachelor’s degree from Brown. Their studies will be split evenly between the two campuses over the course of five years, with students taking all of their classes in a given semester on one campus in order to avoid conflict between the two schools’ differing calendars. After an introduction by RISD Provost Jay Coogan, Simmons and Mandle, seated side-by-side beneath a painted cityscape of College Hill, signed three copies of the binding legal document — one for each president and one for the lawyers — then punctuated the signing with a handshake and a kiss on the cheek as the cluster of onlookers — faculty and administrators involved in plan-
ning the program and three students who provided inspiration for it — applauded. “Brown and RISD are both known for both independent thought and multidisciplinary inquiry,” Simmons said in her remarks. “I think this program will ... harness the strengths of both RISD and Brown to provide students with a wider knowledge base and a wider campus for exploration.” “We can’t wait to see what exciting results this marriage will produce,” Simmons added, broaching a theme that would become an extended metaphor — and a source of banter between the two presidents — throughout the ceremony. “ Marriage is about a lot of things,
continued on page 4
Christie Hunter ’06 was selected as Bermuda’s Rhodes Scholar for 2007 and will soon be headed to Keble College at Oxford University. Hunter, who came to Brown from Bermuda in 2002, decided to go back to the small island nation after her graduation and worked as a human capital consultant at Deloitte Bermuda, an advising, tax and consulting organization. Hunter did not decide to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship until after she graduated from Brown. Ever y year, Bermuda selects one Rhodes Scholar in a process that is independent from the Rhodes Scholarship for U.S. applicants. Applicants submit an application that includes essays and recommendations and attend an interview consisting of a round-table discussion with eight Rhodes representa-
INSIDE:
3
ARTS & CULTURE
www.browndailyherald.com
tives. “You go in there blindly and you don’t know anyone in there,” Hunter said. “It’s really intense. They really examine your reasons for study.” The round table asks questions mainly on politics, including both domestic issues in Bermuda and international issues. “They really want people who are aware of their surroundings and the world,” Hunter said. In order to prepare for the interview, Hunter came back to the United States to receive interview training at Brown’s Career Development Center. The Rhodes Scholarship is among the many awards and recognitions that Hunter has won over the years, including the 2001 Bermuda Institute of Chartered Accountants’ Outstanding Student continued on page 4
“BRUSHSTROKES” OUT The beloved Roy Lichtenstein sculpture in Sciences Park will be departing College Hill on Nov. 6.
7
continued on page 4
Persian instruction awaits permanent funding, faculty By Gaurie Tilak Contributing Writer
Ten students are studying Persian this fall in a Group Independent Study Project while the University looks for money to fund a permanent program in the Middle Eastern language, which is spoken in Iran. Last year, a group of students filed a request to start a course in Persian, but the University was unable to secure enough funding to hire a permanent faculty member to teach the language. “Adding a faculty spot is both a political and an economic de-
cision,” said Merle Krueger, associate director of the Center for Language Studies and the faculty sponsor for the GISP. New positions are typically created only when there is strong and consistent student interest, Krueger said. He said the provost’s office searched for a donor to fund the program but was unable to find one. When that initial plan fell through, the students submitted a proposal for a GISP that was approved by the College Curriculum Council last spring. continued on page 4
br o w n o u t
Hunter ’06 wins Rhodes By Aditya Voleti Contributing Writer
The class of 2010 will be the first students required to pay Brown’s full tuition while studying abroad, regardless of the host university’s fees, boosting costs to students and putting Brown among a growing number of universities charging home-school tuition for study abroad programs. The University made the switch to the new fee structure to avoid running a deficit, said Kendall Brostuen, director of international programs and an associate dean of the College. Last year, 572 students studied abroad, with about half participating in University-sponsored programs. Other private colleges, such as Brandeis University, Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania, have already
instituted similar policies. Under the previous policy, students studying abroad had to pay the University’s higher tuition only if they were attending Brown programs. Now, students attending both Brown programs and approved alternative programs will automatically pay the regular Brown tuition. The change, which is par t of a formal shift in University study-abroad tuition policy made in March 2006, replaces the fee that students paid to Brown in addition to the foreign tuition. For instance, under the old system, students studying in a Brown-approved program in Argentina for the academic year would pay the $1,913 fee to Brown plus $20,400 for the program itself. But under the new policy, students must pay Brown tuition, increasing the cost
CAMPUS NEWS
Ashley Hess / Herald
Hundreds of Brunonians made the trip to Cambridge on Saturday evening to see the football team take on Harvard in the first night game in the history of Harvard Stadium. The Crimson beat the Bears 24-17. see sports page 12
T-SHIRTS FOR ALL The East Asian Studies department had free T-shirts made for its concentrators and professors.
11
OPINIONS
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
BIN LADEN AT BROWN? Jacob Schuman ’08 and Nicholas Swisher ‘08 say bin Laden and Lex Luthor should speak on campus.
12 SPORTS
CRIMSON POWER The football team falls to Harvard, 24-17, but Brown’s fans showed spirit and a willingness to travel.
News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com
T oday Page 2
MonDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow
We a t h e r Today
T O M O R R OW
sunny 78 / 57
sunny 83 / 62
Menu
Sharpe Refectory
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
Lunch — Pasta Bean Bake, Comino Chicken Sandwich, Pulled Pork Sandwich, Italian Vegetable Saute, Snickerdoodles, Chocolate Brownies
Lunch — Fried Clam Roll, Manicotti with Tomato Basil Cream Sauce, Mediterranean Bar, Snickerdoodle Cookies
Dinner — Grits Souffle, Lemon Rice, Vegan Moroccan Beans with Raisins, Roasted Honey-Glazed Chicken, Belgian Carrots, Ambrosia Cake
Dinner — Roast Honey and Chili Chicken, Fetuccini with Baby Greens, Creamy Polenta with Rosemary, Stir Fry Station, Ambrosia Cake
Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim
Sudoku Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.
Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins
Battle Tactics | Robyn Ng
RELEASE DATE– Monday, September 24, 2007 © Puzzles by Pappocom
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
C
o ssw or d Lewis Edited by RichrNorris and Joyce Nichols
ACROSS 1 Future blade of grass 5 Sobbed 10 Divas have delicate ones 14 Mountain lion 15 Soup utensil 16 Grimace 17 Bearded bloom 18 Koran religion 19 Greek “i” 20 “Forget it!” 23 Singer Orbison 24 Clear the board 28 Nonstick coating 32 Nonsense 35 Creeping plants 36 Yawn-inducing speaker, say 37 Get __ of: throw out 38 “Forget it!” 42 Kind 43 Chichi 44 Firefighting equipment 45 Dusky times 48 Lucky musical group? 49 Family auto 50 __ chi: martial art 51 “Forget it!” 59 Hoosegow 62 Got tripped up 63 Alka-Seltzer sound 64 Medicinal plant 65 Sounding like a cold sufferer 66 Sea key 67 Stretch, as the rules 68 Political ticket 69 Emotionless DOWN 1 Casual car ride 2 Cash on the Continent 3 Exude 4 Recipe pinch 5 Tie you don’t have to tie 6 Grating, as a voice 7 Gathering dust, so to speak
41 Jump on one 54 Heavenly bear 8 Panache foot 55 Larger-than-life 9 Actress Moore 56 In addition 10 Political fugitive 46 Caught in the act 57 Gangster’s gal 11 Sticky stuff 47 Overnight 58 Went over the 12 Tagged before lodging limit reaching the 48 Seat for a 59 Boxer’s setup base cowboy punch 13 Red or Coral 50 Halloween 60 Tankard 21 Became an handout contents issue 52 Hankerings 61 Charged 22 Beatty of film 53 Taken by mouth particle 25 Take into custody 26 After-dinner ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: party 27 Firstborn sibling 28 Gets shipshape, with “up” 29 Develop gradually 30 Ratted (on) 31 Rent 32 Arial and Courier 33 Sexy party 34 August baby, often 36 Titanic’s undoing 39 Moving truck 40 “A League of __ Own” 9/24/07 xwordeditor@aol.com
Crusader Confessionals | Daniel Byers
Classic How To Get Down | Nate Saunders
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 Diane C. Baldwin (c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
9/24/07
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.
A rts & C ulture MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
As Lichtenstein departs, new art planned By Anita Tasavanh Contributing Writer
On Nov. 6, the University will say goodbye to “Brushstrokes,” a Roy Lichtenstein sculpture that has stood outside MacMillan Hall for nearly four years. As the Lichtenstein sculpture heads to Florida, the Public Art Committee is selecting new pieces to bring to College Hill, primarily through the Percent-for-Art program, which dedicates one percent of each new building’s budget to funding art for the space. A subcommittee of the Campus Planning and Design Board, the Public Art Committee includes David Winton Bell Galler y Director Jo-Ann Conklin, President Ruth Simmons, University Curator Robert Emlen, Professor of Visual Art Richard Fishman, Professor of History of Art and Architecture Dietrich Neumann and Chancellor Emeritus Artemis Joukowsky ’55 P’87. The committee aims to enrich the campus with “intellectual art,” Conklin said. In December 2003, the committee brought “Brushstrokes” to campus for an intended stay of two years, but a renewed loan from the Estate of Roy Lichtenstein has allowed it to stay for close to four years. Currently, the committee has no upcoming public art projects. “We’re looking to get some other stuff but we don’t have any okays,” Conklin said. “We’re still in a fundraising phase.” The committee receives some funding from the University, but private donations make up for most of a project’s cost. “We wanted to have works by very significant artists on campus, and by borrowing art we get more breadth for our dollar,” Conklin said. For public art, the committee works mostly with artists’ estates or private foundations that have an extensive collection of an artist’s work. Working with foundations of artists who have passed away is often most successful, Conklin said, because living artists often prefer to show their work in multiple locations to gain greater exposure. “We look towards things that would surprise people and get their attention. Things that we think that would appeal to the students,” Conklin said of the committee’s selection process. “We want to bring more things that the students would get excited about.” As the University’s capital campaign fuels hundreds of millions of dollars of new construction around campus, the committee’s focus has now shifted to the Percent-for-Art program. Approximately one percent of the construction cost for each renovation or new building is allocated to commission art for the building — an amount that ranges from $50,000 to several hundred thousand dollars.
page 3
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Ritchie ’10 enters family trade with major acting ‘debut’ By Matthew Varley Staf f Writer
Meara Sharma / Herald
Roy Lichtenstein’s “Brushstrokes” stands outside MacMillan Hall, but only until Nov. 6, when it will depart campus after almost four years.
Each piece will correlate to its location. The art, Conklin said, will “hook in with the curriculum.” Most recently, the committee used the Percent-for-Art program to commission the “Lines of Sight” sky-bridge by Diane Samuels in the Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sciences. The two-story permanent glass installation includes 140 windows and tinted glass reminiscent of microscope slides. Future plans include the commissioning of new pieces for the renovation of Churchill House, home of the Rites and Reason Theater, and the recently planned Creative Arts Center and the Jonathan Nelson Fitness Center. The committee has already chosen a piece for the Walk: A two-part bronze bench, created by committee member Fishman as part of the Elm Tree Project. The Elm Tree Project, a collaboration between Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design, utilizes a fallen elm tree, which once stood in front of the Watson Institute for International Relations, as an art medium. Fishman used a cross-section of the tree to cast his sculptures. The committee is still in the
process of scouting artists, and has not yet officially invited anyone to create a piece for other parts of the campus. Finding the right fit for the right building requires much time and thought, said Joukowsky, who chairs the committee. “We’re seeking an artist or sculptor to provide us with an attractive and interesting addition to the building that will be consistent with what’s going to be happening there. However, we do have sculptors in mind,” Joukowsky said. In addition to the Percent-forArt Program, the committee is looking into creating a sculpture garden as a tribute to Brown’s former women’s college, Pembroke College. The garden will also have a plaque that identifies each of the historic buildings on Pembroke campus, Joukowsky said. For now, students can continue to enjoy the sapling sculpture constructed by Patrick Dougherty on the Quiet Green last fall. Most famously, the committee presented Paola Pivi’s “Untitled (Donkey),” a 33-by-40 foot mural of a donkey in a rowboat that sat on the facade of the Sciences Library for several months starting in April 2004.
Two generations of Brown actors appeared in an acclaimed performance of “The Corn is Green” at the Williamstown Theater Festival this summer in Williamstown, Mass. Morgan Ritchie ’10, the son of Broadway actress and “Grey’s Anatomy” star Kate Burton ’79, joined his mother onstage in what Ritchie described as his debut performance. In the play, Burton starred as an Englishwoman named Miss Moffat who inherits a house in Wales and opens a school for boys working in the local mines. On the verge of disillusionment, she discovers a spark of intellect in Ritchie’s character, Morgan Evans, and devotes herself to his education. According to Ritchie, sharing the bill with his mom was comforting. “I was very, very nervous about doing this ... I don’t have a lot of formal training, and Williamstown is a pretty well-known regional theater” with “incredibly talented people,” Ritchie said. “I would sort of get a little bit overwhelmed, but having her there was what could bring me back from the brink. She could calm me down.” Though Ritchie and Burton both appeared in the 1996 film “August” with Anthony Hopkins, as well as in a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 2004, Ritchie said “The Corn is Green” marked a turning point his relationship with his mother. “This was the first time we played opposite each other and had to
develop a relationship onstage,” Ritchie said. “My mom and I are actually very different actors,” he added, saying Burton’s formal training leads to a consistent approach. “I’m everywhere,” Ritchie said. “I’m all over the place and then I sort of pull it together.” Ritchie described “The Corn is Green,” a 1938 play by Emlyn Williams, as a “lost classic” and “a whirlwind of action,” with numerous entrances and exits, and “very few moments of great tension.” “It’s a comedy in the sort of traditional sense of that it has a happy ending,” Ritchie said. “But it is also a comedy in a modern sense ... even though there are many dramatic elements it’s geared towards laughter,” Ritchie said. He said his character is the least humorous in the cast, but the one that develops the most. “When he first comes onstage, (Morgan Evans) speaks very broken English with a very heavy Welsh accent ... which is a bizarre accent. My family’s Welsh and still I think it’s a crazy sounding accent,” Ritchie said. Two years elapse over the course of the play, and Morgan “develops his ability to speak throughout the show,” which culminates in a monologue in the third act. “The challenge was sort of demonstrating his intellectual growth,” Ritchie said. He said the “The Corn is Green” maintains its relevance today, though the play is staged infrequently. “There is a real emotional undercontinued on page 6
Film and fantasy on Sparta Historical inaccuracies, Orientalism and violence by Marisa Calleja Contributing Writer
“300,” the tremendously violent film that smashed box-office records this spring, was shown Thursday night in a packed Salomon 001 to an audience that included both students and other members of the Brown community. The film, based upon a graphic novel by Frank Miller, fictionalizes the Battle of Thermopylae during the Persian War. The screening was followed by a series of discussions by Brown professors, which included selected readings of poetr y on the events at Thermopylae. Following the movie and an introduction from Professor of Classics Susan Alcock, scholars from a range of fields — classics, archaeology, religious studies, anthropology and international studies — weighed in on its historical validity, cultural assumptions and violent nature. Deborah Boedeker, professor of classics, compared the film to the authoritative text on the Persian War, “Histories of Herodotus.” The “Histories” are “many times removed from what is portrayed here,” she said. Boedeker argued that many of the film’s inaccuracies stem from
the need to tell a stor y based on modern notions of what comprises a narrative — with a beginning, middle and end. Additionally, the film, according to Boedeker, unfairly “draws a line between Spartan rationalism and Persian mysticism.” “(‘300’) exhibited blatant tropes in Orientalism,” said Ian Straughn, postdoctoral fellow in Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World. Like Boedeker, Straughn discussed the divisions the film draws between the Greek and Persian cultures and added that the creation of the Persians as a distinct other is rooted in Western conceptions of Eastern culture’s “immense decadence.” Many of the scholars drew comparison between Spartan rhetoric against the Persians and that of leaders in the post-9/11 world. Lina Fruzzetti, professor of anthropology, noted the symbolism of glorifying Western society as good and noble, while pitting them against a vilified, evil East. Keith Brown, associate professor of international studies, also likened the Spartan army to a facet of contemporary military culture: the U.S. Marine Corps. Both forces distinguish themselves from regular armies based on a set of values and beliefs emphasizing their exclusivity and discipline, Brown argued. The event was co-sponsored by the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, the Archaeology Department Undergraduate Group, the Department of Classics and the Department of Modern Culture and Media.
Page 4
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Students to pay full Brown tuition for all study abroad continued from page 1
Chris Bennett / Herald
RISD President Roger Mandle, Brown President Ruth Simmons, Brown Provost David Kertzer and RISD Provost Jay Coogan.
Brown, RISD ‘consummate marriage’ with joint degree and official signing continued from page 1 and we want to make sure that this is a well-consummated marriage,” Simmons said. Mandle spoke next — “don’t read anything into it,” Simmons joked about the order, assuring it had been determined alphabetically by school name — and struck a similarly warm tone. As Simmons finished introducing Mandle, the two greeted each other warmly and kissed again. Mandle noted that RISD’s creation grew out of an idea initiated at Brown and joked that the two schools have been “engaged” for “nearly 100 years.” “We were out of the rib of Adam or Eve or however you would depict it during that time,” Mandle said. “Eve,” Simmons cut in, drawing the loudest laughs of the afternoon. Mandle also spoke optimistically about the possibility of further collaboration. “Here we are today ... at a new threshold of a relationship which I see growing and developing in the future beyond what we’ve already established today,” he said. Remarks from Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 concluded the ceremony, which he jokingly likened to the historic summit of the Allied leaders at Yalta during World War II. He reiterated the thanks extended earlier by Kougan and emphasized the challenges that
marked the process of establishing the program. “We all had the will, we wanted to do it, but it turned out to be incredibly complicated,” Kertzer said. “For example, things we never thought of: How about all those Brown/RISD football players?” The details of the program and each school’s commitments to it, laid out in the memorandum, represent the culmination of years of work, most recently conducted by a joint working group between the two schools. The program approved by that working group, which was appointed in 2006, began making its way through the approval process at both schools last spring. The process was “not as easy as it appears,” Simmons told The Herald before the ceremony, but the two schools “settled those nettlesome issues that could have stopped the negotiations.” “I think it’s very hard for people who have not participated in the years of planning and debate and so forth to understand why this is such a phenomenal event and why we’re all so happy about it,” Simmons said in her remarks. “I hope you get a sense of that today.” “What made this happen is not so much what administratively Brown and RISD wanted to do but the very central aim of both institutions, and that is to serve its students well. This is about making something possible for our students,” Simmons said.
“What I’m most excited about is how getting here has actually created a catalyst for more discussions of what Brown and RISD can do together,” Mandle told The Herald after the signing, adding that this sort of collaboration is what both schools need in order to maintain their “competitive edge.” Students played a pioneering role in bringing about the collaboration, both schools’ leaders emphasized. As a freshman, Gamaal Wilson ’06.5 approached Richard Fishman, professor of visual art and chair of the department, about pursuing a joint degree and gained administrators’ attention in the process. Eleven semesters and one summer session later, he graduated with a degree in film from RISD and a degree in English from Brown. Two other students — Alice Costas ‘09, who recently transferred from RISD to Brown and Andrew Bearnot, currently in RISD’s glass program — are now pursuing individual paths to a joint degree as well. All three were in attendance and were individually acknowledged at the ceremony, and Bearnot and Costas posed for photographs with Simmons, Mandle, Coogan, and Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 afterward. Refreshments — including ham, turkey and tuna sandwiches and a dessert spread of assorted chocolates, fruit tarts and cookies — accompanied the ceremony.
Hunter ’06 wins Bermuda’s Rhodes continued from page 1 Award, Bermuda’s National Teen Leadership Award and the Fessenden Trot Academic Scholarship. Hunter graduated from Brown with a bachelor’s degree in political science. At Oxford, Hunter plans to either study management, in which case she plans to write her thesis on gender and communication in the workplace, or law, where she plans to focus on women’s rights. “Brown’s great because you can take courses in other academic areas, which is where (I found) a passion for women’s studies,” Hunter said, explaining why she plans on relating her path of study
back to gender issues. “It really contributed to who I am right now, to (my) personal and academic development.” Her senior year, Hunter took ENGN 1930F: “Entrepreneurship and Good Work: Engineering Dreams,” a senior seminar. Josef Mittlemann, adjunct professor in engineering, taught the class and wrote one of Hunter’s eight recommendations for her application. “She always moved the action along in class,” Mittlemann said. “She was very insightful. She was an active participant.” On examinations, Hunter always chose to answer the most challenging question option, Mittlemann said in the recommenda-
tion. It was also in one of his class papers that Hunter expressed her wishes to combine her international relations background with her passion for women’s rights. Hunter has a passion for debate that she has been nursing since the age of 12. Since 2000, Hunter has represented Bermuda in the World Schools Debating Championships in the United States as well as internationally in countries such as South Africa and Singapore. After her graduation, she participated as a judge in the championships in Wales. Keriann Backus ’07 won an American Rhodes scholarship this year and will also join Hunter at Oxford this fall.
by about 60 percent based on the current cost of a year at Brown, $35,584. “If you’re going to be receiving Brown credit, you’re going to be paying Brown tuition,” Brostuen explained. He emphasized that the new policy is fair to students since they will receive Brown credit for programs approved or sponsored by Brown. “We want to be as clear and as transparent about (the change) as possible,” especially in communications with Brown applicants, Brostuen said. “Before coming to Brown I didn’t realize that I would have to pay full tuition when studying in foreign countries,” said Dennis Kozee ’10. Though on-site costs for study abroad locations are increasing, most study abroad programs still cost less than Brown’s tuition. Brown will reinvest the discrepancy in tuition paid by students and that received by the host school in the University, Brostuen said. He could not name any specific programs that may be costlier than a semester at Brown. The old system, where students paid a fee in addition to foreign tuition, is “no longer financially viable,” Brostuen said, adding that Brown wasn’t making up the costs of administering study abroad programs. He attributed the change in part to the weakening value of the dollar and to rising tuitions for international students at foreign universities like Oxford. Brostuen would not disclose the OIP’s budget, but wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, “The budget covers costs associated with the management and administration of all OIP programs.” Students are wary of the policy change. Such a large difference between Brown tuition and the tuition required to attend some foreign institutions participating in study abroad programs is “ridiculous,” said Carly Sieff ’09. “Now you’re basically paying a $30,000 fee.” Brostuen believes the new tuition policy benefits Brown students by allowing students to find programs based on academic fit
rather than cost. Because students typically study abroad in their junior year, the new policy has not yet affected many students. Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said he thought the new policy was a good thing. For study abroad programs to be successful, there must be “all kinds of back and forth” in terms of transferring credits, “and that costs money,” he said. “You’re going as a Brown student,” Nassirian said, so there’s “nothing particularly stunning” about Brown’s new tuition policy. Home-school tuition “would be problematic if institutions discriminate” against coursework done abroad, by not providing credit, for example, Nassirian said. But according to Brostuen, this won’t be an issue. According to an Aug. 13 article in the New York Times, private universities are increasingly charging at-home tuition for students studying abroad, and some universities compel students to only attend certain programs by “denying financial aid or credit to students taking alternate routes.” Brostuen responded to the article in an e-mail to The Herald. “Students … always have the option to petition programs that are not on our list, provided they can provide a strong academic rationale why those particular programs are a better academic fit for them,” he wrote. However, only 10 percent of Brown students participate in programs not sponsored or approved by the University. Financial aid for students studying abroad will function as it did in the past, according to Ana Bonilla, assistant director of financial aid. “Students are basically going to get the same amount of aid they receive at Brown,” she said. The “goal is to not put any more financial burden” on the student, she added. But Brostuen does not expect the Office of Financial Aid to respond to a possible higher costof-living abroad. If students aren’t receiving aid while at Brown, it’s likely they won’t receive it during their time abroad either.
Future of Persian at U. hazy continued from page 1 Belinda Navi ’09, the student coordinator for the GISP, said she helped develop the class’ curriculum by researching the curricula of reputable universities that offer Persian language programs. She was directed to a professor at New York University, Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami, who helped her work through the logistics of the course. Khorrami also authored the textbook that is being used in the class. Pardis Minuchehr, a Persian instructor at the University of Pennsylvania, is serving as the outside evaluator for the GISP. She is in charge of writing the midterm and final examinations for the class. Having an outside evaluator is necessary for the students to receive credit for the course, Kruger said. Ten of the original 18 students who expressed interest in the course are currently enrolled. “It’s the largest language GISP that we’ve had for a long time,” Krueger said.
Of the 10 students enrolled in the course, one is a graduate student from the Department of Egyptology. The others are undergraduates, three of whom are of Persian descent, Navi said — herself included. Navi said there was a lot of administrative support from Brown for Persian language instruction. The provost’s office is still working to secure a donation to fund Persian courses on a more stable basis. Navi said she is hoping for an intermediate level course by next year. The future of Persian language instruction at the University depends on whether a donor comes forward with the funds to make Persian a permanent offering, said Assistant Provost Shelley Stephenson. “We happen to have donors who have expressed interest in funding this particular language,” she said. “The GISP this year is really a way for us and for the students involved to demonstrate that there is strong interest in continuing the study of Persian,” she added.
c ampus n ews MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
Ne
ws
page 5
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
i n
Br
5 fellowship winners tackle diverse projects
i e f
By Jenna Stark Contributing Writer
Chris Bennett / Herald
Over 800 wireless Internet hotspots now blanket the campus.
Hotspots multiply as Wi-Fi spreads Expanding the wireless network on the University campus remains a top priority for Computing and Information Services officials, who plan to extend the network to the Main Green, more areas in campus libraries and other new locations. Michael Pickett, vice president for computing and information services and the University’s chief information officer, said the goal of the project is “ubiquitous coverage” of the University’s most populated areas, including the Green, classrooms, conference rooms, quads and libraries. Pickett estimates that approximately 20 percent of classrooms currently have wireless access, and roughly 50 conference rooms are now covered. The campus now has 834 hotspots. The final timeline and the budget for the project are uncertain, Pickett said, though he added that the cost will “run well into the millions.” CIS officials expect to complete wireless coverage of libraries in this academic year. The wireless expansion project has progressed smoothly so far this academic year. In a September e-mail to all CIS staff members, Alan Usas, assistant vice president for academic and network systems and services, wrote, “I’m delighted and proud to report that CIS has completed the installation of wireless network service in all of the University’s 49 residence halls.” Despite the progress made in increasing the availability of wireless around campus, some students say there are still some issues with the system. One commonly cited problem is an inability to stay consistently connected to the network. “Whenever I use the Brown-Secure network connection, it kicks me off every six seconds. In the end I just end up using the insecure connection because it works so much better,” said Betty Wu ’11. Pickett told The Herald the project intends to correct these connectivity issues by adding more access points in heavy user areas. “It’s not science as much as it is art,” Pickett said of the project’s goal of making the network usable and convenient across campus. — Noura Choudhury
thanks for reading
Last spring, five students were awarded the inaugural Royce Fellowship for Sports and Society, which recognizes undergraduates who excel in both athletics and academics. The recipients — Hillary Anderson ’08, Whitney Brown ’08.5, Kirsten Harvey ’09, Ben Sieff ’10 and Javier Zapata ’09 — each received $4,000 to help implement a project integrating sports and society, buy schoolbooks and pay for other necessities. The fellowship was awarded to proposals that “embark on innovative research or applied projects, exploring the intersection of sport and human rights within a particular context,” according to a Swearer Center for Public Ser vice press release. The fellowship is funded by Corporation member Charles Royce ’61 P’92 P’94 P’08, the donor for the 12-year-old Royce Fellowship, and is a partnership between the Swearer Center, the Department of Athletics and Northeastern University’s Center for Sports and Society. The applicants wrote a narrative articulating an idea for their project and a personal statement explaining why they wanted to undertake their projects, said Kerrissa Heffernan, senior associate director of the Swearer Center and Royce Fellowship director. “(This) fellowship is taking
students from different disciplines and different sports and saying, tell me about these differences,” she said. Brown, a member of the women’s rugby team, used the grant money to travel to Hong Kong and mainland China to speak with athletes with disabilities, such as paralympians. “I inquired how they reached this professional level. ... I asked them how people in society treat them — did they feel any discrimination?” she said. Brown is doubleconcentrating in East Asian studies and development studies and is writing her thesis on disabilities. Anderson, a lacrosse player, traveled to South Africa to work with a medical council preventing HIV transmission and volunteer for the Sports Coaches’ OutReach program, known as SCORE. “Seeing the lifestyle and the poverty definitely affected me. ... You realize you take certain things for granted,” said Anderson, a community health concentrator. “And I think, from being in Cape Town, what I valued and appreciated the most is the feeling of community — despite their living conditions and their lack of resources, people still have the spirit that is contagious.” Zapata, an intramural athlete and referee, returned to his hometown in Miami Lakes, Fla., to implement and finance a free flag football league for children of low-income families. “I
thought my project was a little bit unique because I actually went back to my hometown. It was nice for me to be able to revitalize the program with kids,” he said. “A huge portion of the thinking of this scholarship is that play is a fundamental human right. How do we protect that right?” Heffernan said. Other projects included Sieff’s after-school program in Uganda and Harvey’s study of the effects of including a fitness routine in a kidney transplant patient’s recovery program. The recipients continue to meet throughout the year to discuss their experiences. “I came back inspired. I think we all did,” Anderson said. “Everyone has all this energy and all these ideas and how do we make something of them? How do we create change?” “The neat part was being able to come back this year and be able to reflect on our experiences together,” Zapata said. “It was nice to be able to see what other people were doing in other parts of the world. That was the coolest part.” The University decided to continue the fellowship and encourage undergraduates to come forward with their “crazy, weird ideas,” Heffernan said. With enough funding, the fellowship could be expanded to include up to eight recipients.
Alum changes schools with ‘thinking computers’ By Anna Millman Staf f Writer
Computers can come in handy when learning math, but they usually aren’t the main teaching source. Steve Ritter ’85, however, is relying on computers and using cognitive science to develop educational programs to help middle school students learn math, starting with pre-algebra and up. The program Cognitive Tutor, which Ritter has worked on for 15 years, is now incorporated into the curriculums of more than 1,300 schools around the country. “I think the (Cognitive Tutor) program has been really successful for a couple reasons, partly because of the technological aspect, but also because of a growing awareness that the schools need to be better,” Ritter said. Ritter graduated from Brown with a degree in cognitive science before getting a doctorate in cognitive psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. He initially studied computer science with a pragmatic aim in mind, he said. “I first took computer science freshman year,
and I ended up taking another class second semester because I’d heard that you could get a good summer job if you had two computer science classes.” At Carnegie Mellon, Ritter studied and worked with John Anderson, a professor of psychology and computer science, on the ACT-R project using the ACT-R computer language to create a computer model of human cognition. In order to make the findings on how people learn more applicable to everyday life, Ritter helped devise what would become Cognitive Tutor. “The primary origin of the Cognitive Tutor approach was building a model of the way students think,” Ritter said. The original research group working on the program was composed of researchers with backgrounds in cognitive science and computer science. None of them had any formal background in education, Ritter said, but the group was focused on applying cognitive science, in particular, to solve problems in education.
The research group started its work in 1992 at Carnegie Mellon. The opening of the project required research into schools as systems, how students are impacted by their school environment and the teacher-student dynamic. “To create the program we did a lot of intensive research. We were looking to understanding what types of things teachers and students had issues with — also the whole social and political environment at schools,” Ritter said. Based on the results of this research, the group decided to focus on individual student-oriented software that tailored itself to the student’s level of understanding, Ritter said. During the development phase, Cognitive Tutor garnered interest from schools around the country. Word of the program got out through research papers and conferences, and schools asked to try the program, Ritter explained. During the development phase there were 75 schools around the country testcontinued on page 6
Page 6
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
In family’s footsteps, Ritchie ’10 takes the stage continued from page 3 current to the play and we wanted to find where that emotion was,” Ritchie said. The performance ran Aug. 1-12 at Williamstown and attracted the attention of the New York Times, which published a positive review on Aug. 7. “There is a chance — fingers crossed, looking to God, hoping — that we may actually move to Broadway,” Ritchie said. Ritchie’s famous family sparked his interest in theater at an early age. He said his mother — the daughter of legendary Welsh actor Richard Burton — gave him a “real sense of artistry about the theater and the art form and the technique.” His father, who is currently artistic director of the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles, helped him appreciate the “practical side of the theater.” “My dad ran Williamstown for a few years, so that’s where I spent my summers,” Ritchie said. He was cast in his first play, “The Rivals” at Williamstown at age eight. “I’m always so nervous and hesitant about seeming like a crazy actor because of the, like, horror stories my dad tells me about people he’s had to deal with,” he said. His parents met during the 1982 Broadway production of “Present
Laughter,” where his father was stage manager and his mother starred alongside George C. Scott. Ritchie said his family provided “a real sense of love and respect for the theater” but no formal training. “I have an advantage in that I sort of know the vocabulary of theater and how a rehearsal room works,” he said. When he made the decision to pursue a career in acting, Ritchie said he realized “if I was going to do it, I was really going to have to make my own name.” “My mom made a concerted effort ... not to dissuade me from doing theater, but not to surround me with theater all the time,” Ritchie said. He said she was hesitant when he told her, at 14, that he wanted to be an actor. “We stayed up literally almost all night arguing about it.” With a role in Bertolt Brecht’s “Caucasian Chalk Circle” at age 17, Ritchie reaffirmed both his commitment to acting professionally and his mother’s confidence in his ability. “She saw how much I loved acting and remembered what it was like for her to realize how much she loved acting,” Ritchie said, explaining that Burton “ran into trouble with her father when she wanted to act.” “I had to kind of fight her on that, but she let me do it,” Ritchie
joked. “I’m real stubborn.” After the excitement of the summer, Ritchie said returning to Brown was “a great relief.” “Brown has a fabulous undergrad theater program,” Ritchie said. He is enrolled in an acting and playwriting class this semester. Though he has not yet committed to a concentration in theater, Ritchie said the opportunity to “study theater a lot” while exploring a variety of fields through Brown’s open curriculum influenced his decision to attend the University. Ritchie has not yet appeared in a play on campus, but said “the goal for this year is to get a little more involved in the production stuff.” Either way, Ritchie praised the emphasis on “figuring out who you are as an actor” in the Brown theater community, which he described as “filled with good people, good teachers, good opportunities.” “People here are really talented and can surprise you with what they can do,” Ritchie said. “So even with this little thing I have, I’m still intimidated by some of the others actors here and still feel like I need to rise up to their bar. I definitely don’t think that because I did this show it’s going to be easy for me to do stuff here.”
www.browndailyherald.com
‘Thinking computers’ spark new teaching methods, thanks to Ritter ’85 continued from page 5 ing the program, he said. In 1998, the research group was spun off from Carnegie Mellon and was incorporated to form Carnegie Learning Inc. The research group faced challenges as it moved out of the laboratory. “Starting a company was far harder than we had thought for all the reasons you hear about but don’t believe,” Ritter said. “We had a good product and knew that, but there were a whole bunch of aspects of business that we didn’t understand.” Though there had been interest in the group’s research throughout its existence, schools were still wary of computer-based curricula, Ritter said. Even during the late 1990s, schools were often unwilling to incorporate such a technologically dependent program, though recently, schools have become more accepting of such programs, Ritter said. “The schools are catching up, even though it’s still unusual to have tech-focused curriculum like this, it’s not unheard of, and teachers don’t fear it anymore,” he said. Though implementation of a software-based curriculum is a recent phenomenon, schools have been relying on educational software to supplement traditional curricular education since the early 1980s, said Walter Domeika, a teacher and math coach at the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering, a magnet school in Stamford, Conn. Domeika’s school has been testing the Cognitive Tutor program for two years. “We had a math program
in the 1980’s but it was a straight ‘drill-and-kill’ program, whereas this uses real-life problems and is a lot more advanced technologically,” Domeika said. The Cognitive Tutor program is used by many different kinds of schools, from high-end private schools to low-end public schools, Ritter said. “As a whole, we focus on schools that need the most help. Our biggest customers are large inner-city districts such as Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles.” The Cognitive Tutor program has distinct benefits for students, Domeika said. “Most of the time, teachers can’t give feedback to all the students, but the computer rewards them quickly for getting the problems right. It gives them individuality,” he said. Domeika added that using the software “takes away a lot of the fear in asking questions.” The company is still developing the software and looking at expansion into other educational fields, Ritter said. “The key unique aspect of what we’re doing is looking at problem solving, and there are aspects in all courses that can be structured like problem solving,” he added. There are still obstacles, however, for the type of computer-based learning that Ritter champions. The program is effective for some students, Domeika said, but “is it the answer to ever ything? Probably not. But it does give certain types of students a step up from where they were before.”
c ampus n ews MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
Ne
ws
page 7
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
i n
Br
i e f
Black History Month goes yearlong The Third World Center will extend its annual Black History Month programming this year into a yearlong series of events that will seek to comprehensively address questions of black history and identity. The series, titled “What Lies Beneath Black: Strength and Solidarity in Pluralism,” will focus on key issues linking the African continent with diasporic communities, with an increased focus on issues of class, gender and sexuality, co-programmers Darnell Fine ’08 and Nungari Mwangi ’10 told The Herald. Fine and Mwangi said that because the series will span an entire year instead of the usual one month, there will be a greater opportunity for cultural programming to catalyze campus dialogue, bringing more perspectives to bear on the issues. Mwangi, a Kenyan by birth, said it seemed “unfair to try and lump the issues that concern all black people everywhere” into a single month of events. Fine added that in exploring “the complexities of blackness” and the “pluralism of blackness,” the series would aim to dispel “essentialist” ways of thinking about black identity. In line with their intentions for the series, Fine and Mwangi said that in addition to working with black student groups, they would collaborate with a variety of other culturally-oriented student groups on campus. One collaborative event under consideration is a day of poetry workshops and performances to be held in conjunction with this year’s Asian and Asian American History Month programming. In addition, some series events may take the form of discussion sessions that will complement and expand upon relevant events already scheduled by various departments and student groups, such as October’s Africana Film Festival. As it stands now, funding for the series comes entirely from the Undergraduate Finance Board. Although this year’s UFB contribution is greater than in years past, Fine and Mwangi said they will soon begin approaching departments and other campus centers usually affiliated with Black History Month programming. “This year we’re looking more at partnership, more of an exchange than in the past,” Mwangi said. When asked if the programming for the month of February, the traditional Black History Month, would be affected in any way, Mwangi said the programming may be “a little lighter,” but he added that she and Fine expect that month will see a increase in “the intensity of debate” on campus. — Tristan Humble
The Times comes to you — times two By Charles Kesh Contributing Writer
More copies of the New York Times will be available at the Sharpe Refectory and other campus locations this year than in the past, according to Gretchen Willis, director of Dining Services. For the first time, newspapers will also be available in the Friedman Study Center, as well as at the Ratty, the Verney-Woolley dining hall and the Campus Market. Each day, Dining Services distributes 100 copies of the Times in the Ratty, 50 in the V-Dub, 45 in the Campus Market and 20 in the Friedman Study Center. Copies of the Providence Journal are also distributed to various campus locations. The increase, long advocated by the Undergraduate Council of Students, comes after discussion last year between UCS, Dining Services and the Division of Campus Life and Student Services. UCS members drafted and submitted a proposal to increase the availability of the Times at various locations on campus. Dining Services and Campus Life were then able to jointly fund the increase, though they did not provide the required funds for the number of papers requested by UCS members, Willis said. “We’re pretty committed to the
Chris Bennett / Herald
More copies of the New York Times are available on campus this year.
program, and I think students enjoy it a lot,” Willis said. Traditionally, the Times has provided colleges and universities with free access to its TimesSelect exclusive online content. That privilege is no longer necessary, following the Times’ discontinuation of the service on Sept. 19. In the past, newspaper availability has suffered as students took papers with them when leaving dining halls rather than leaving them to be reused,
according to Director of Student Activities Ricky Gresh. To satisfy those students, Gresh said, University officials are considering a reduced subscription rate for students who want their own copy each day. For most students, though, communal papers in the dining hall are good enough. “I’m used to having it every morning on the kitchen table to look at, so I was happy to see it here,” said Sylvia Linsteadt ’11, as she ate breakfast at the Ratty.
East Asian Studies concentrators and profs get shirts By George Miller Contributing Writer
The Department of East Asian Studies has printed T-shirts for the first time, providing them free of charge to concentrators and faculty. The move is expected to foster community among concentrators, faculty and staff in the EAS, officials in the department said. Associate Professor of Histor y and East Asian Studies Kerr y Smith, chair of EAS, unveiled the shirts as a surprise at a meeting for senior concentrators at the beginning of the academic year. “I sort of expected there would be a muted reaction, but people seemed to react ver y positively,” Smith said. Melina Packer, departmental computing coordinator and administrative assistant for EAS, designed the shirts at Smith’s request. They feature the silhouettes of the Van Wickle Gates and University Hall behind the flags of China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
“I think (the students) are pleased, especially since they’re free,” Packer said. Smith said he got the idea from the Department of Anthropology after seeing a student presented with a T-shirt after filing his concentration. “Of course, I think our T-shirts are much cooler than anthropology’s,” he said. “Part of it was to create a better sense of community in concentrators,” especially since EAS is not one of the most visible concentrations on campus, he added. Although EAS is one of the smaller departments at Brown — with only 29 concentrators and no graduate program, Packer said — it is unique in the degree of closeness among faculty and students, both Packer and Smith said. That’s in part because of the language requirement — concentrators must complete three years of either Chinese or Japanese, and therefore see their classmates five days a week. Advisers also
get to know the concentrators well because they must pursue a capstone project or senior thesis, Smith said. Many of the EAS courses are in the histor y, religious studies and comparative literature departments, and concentrators are split into either the China or Japan track of study. “Just because you major in something, you might not know who else is concentrating (in the same field),” Packer said. Fostering this sense of camaraderie was the most important reason for the shirts, she said, as well as advertising the department. The depar tment ordered 80 shirts and paid $885. The department ordered 80 shirts so that future concentrators could receive the T-shirts as well. Packer said the depar tment may have new shir ts in the future, depending on the success of the current batch, perhaps with a design contest among the concentrators.
www.browndailyherald.com
Page 8
monDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Volleyball suffers three losses at home invitational continued from page 12
read share recycle
until Brown pulled ahead 19-16 on a block and kill from Julie MandoliniTrummel ’08 and a huge cross-court kill from outside hitter Lyndse Yess ’09, who finished with one of the team’s two double-doubles of the weekend, in notching 10 kills and 14 digs. Brown also had some help from four Seawolf errors to close out the game 30-26. In the third and fourth games, Stony Brook put together a string of four- and five-point runs to hold off Brown 30-28 and 30-25, despite
great hitting from Lillie Cohn ’09 and Megan Toman ’11 and the usual blocking expertise from MandoliniTrummel and Danielle Vaughan ’11 in the middle. Vaughan finished with four solo blocks and assisted on another four to help Brown outblock the Seawolves 12-8. “We played pretty well, it’s just all mental now,” Vaughan said. “We are trying to finish games by doing it in small increments.” The Bears had to work extra hard to try and keep in check Stony Brook outside hitters Jackie Ahlers and Morgan Sweany, who combined for 35 points in kills alone. Katie Lapinski ’08 anchored the back row with 19 digs, and Rachel Lipman ’08 added 11. Toman lead the team in kills with 17, and setter Natalie Meyers ’09 finished with 46 assists. “We need to start off (well) from the beginning because we just get stuck in rotations,” Meyers said. “We need to work on our ser vereceive so they don’t go on these little runs.” On Saturday, Head Coach Diane Short switched out players to try and find a combination for a win. Against CCSU, outside hitters Kiana Alzate ’10 and Brianna Williamson ’11 did some damage coming off the bench for the Bears in their first five-game match. In the first game, Bruno was down 22-12 before putting together a 17-7 run to close the game to 2929. Tips from Mandolini-Trummel and Meyers dropped easily into the holes of the Blue Devils’ defense as well a pair of aces from Lipman.
But Brown lost the final two points on a knuckle serve from CCSU’s five-footer Venny Van and a couple blocks that went wide. In the second game, Brown bolted to a 9-4 lead causing the Blue Devils to call a timeout. Alzate earned the next four points on three kills and a tip. The Bears cruised on Alzate’s and Williamson’s hitting and Vaughan’s defense at the net to win, 30-18. On the lineup changes, Short commented that the two underclassmen had really good weeks of practice, so she wanted to “reward them for having really good energy.” “We are strong in all positions and if (a lineup’s) working, we’ll stick to it,” Williamson said. CCSU returned the favor in the third game, beating Bruno 30-17, before Brown again came back in the fourth for a 30-26 victory. That set the stage for game five. Brown had a couple quick hits before falling behind 5-2, its final margin of defeat (15-12). “We came out tight and nervous, and I think we just have to get our mental game tougher,” said Vaughan, who finished with 13 kills and five blocks. Alzate dug up the team’s other double-double for the weekend with 11 kills and 15 digs. Mandolini-Trummel and Toman chipped in 10 and 15 kills respectively, and Meyers had a seasonhigh 61 assists along with 18 digs. Four hours later, the Bears faced Por tland, who had been resting since its morning loss to Stony Brook. The Pilots came out
firing, blasting Brown in the first game 30-15. Portland kept them at a four-point distance until the end of the second game, when Williamson and Toman put together a pair of kills to put Brown up 28-27. Maria Clemens, Portland’s hitting leader, responded quickly though with a couple of kills of her own to win the game, 30-28. “We had a lot of momentum shifts, which can be very emotionally draining,” Short said. “Our endurance is getting better though.” The third game saw some long rallies that Brown controlled with good back row hitting on some deep roll shots from Lizzie Laundy ’08 and Alzate, but the Bears couldn’t muster a comeback, losing 25-30. Alzate finished with 19 digs to go with a team-high nine kills, which was matched by Williamson. “We want to win, but we have little lapses,” Williamson said. “We are pretty young and still growing and learning to be intense all the time.” Coach Short was happy overall with the Bears’ effort in one of their final tune-ups before their first Ivy game against Yale next Saturday. “In the second and third games (of the Portland match) we played much better, only one or two unforced errors,” Short said. “If we can do this in Ivies, we’ll be fine because we won’t see girls (this big) in Ivies.” The Bears go on the road against the University of Rhode Island on Wednesday in their final non-conference matchup.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
page 9
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Football falls to Harvard in night game continued from page 12
Ashley Hess / Herald
Paul Raymond ’08 caught a 63-yard touchdown pass for the Bears’ first score of the game.
render Knight ineffective and the co-captain missed the rest of the game. When asked whether Knight’s injur y hurt his team’s chances, Head Coach Phil Estes said, “Absolutely. I mean, he ran for 208 yards last week. We didn’t think we were going to have to run, run, run the football, but it certainly makes a difference when you have your big back out of the game.” As the first quarter progressed, the Bears began to receive big contributions from other performers. On a 3rd-and-10 for Har vard midway through he first quarter, defensive end Wale Adedokun ’09 sacked O’Hagan for a 5-yard loss. After receiving the ball back, starting quarterback Michael Dougherty ’09 found Raymond on a slant over the middle. Raymond made a move to elude a tackler, got to the outside, sprinted down the sideline and dove into the end zone. The score, which came with 4:12 left in the first quarter, was Raymond’s second receiving touchdown this season — both were longer than 25 yards. Brown allowed a Harvard touchdown drive in the second quarter, but Dougherty led another impressive drive to answer. Dougherty, who finished with 249 passing yards and two touchdowns, found receivers Bobby Sewall ’10 and Buddy Farnham ’10 four times to lead the Bears down the field. On 4th-and-1 from the Crimson 10-yard line, Estes rolled the dice and elected to go for the first down conversion. Backup running back Jonathan Edwards ’09 plowed forwards for two yards and the first down, and
two plays later Dougherty found Farnham at the 5-yard-line. Farnham spun away from two Harvard defenders and scampered into the end zone to tie the score at 14. Estes said after ward that the game plan called for getting the ball into the hands of the receivers and letting them run after the catch. “We tried to create some matchups and we got them at a certain point there,” he said. “We had some good runs after the catch, but we didn’t have any consistency in it. In the first half we had some offensive flow, in the second half it was more hodgepodge.” The Bears got the ball back later in the second quarter and drove to the Harvard 15. On 2nd-and-5, Dougherty’s pass to Raymond was disrupted by an early hit from a Har vard defensive back for what appeared to be blatant pass interference and a 1st-and-goal. But the referee ruled that the ball had been tipped, making the early contact legal. “I did not see that ball get tipped,” Estes said. “The ball had a clear window and the referee saw that the ball was tipped. I don’t think there was another official that saw it. I’m not criticizing, it might get me in trouble, but I didn’t see it and I don’t know what he saw there.” After Brown settled for a field goal, Harvard returned the kickoff to the Brown 46-yard line and threw a long pass to the Bears’ 5. A few plays later Harvard went into the end zone to take a 21-17 lead into halftime. The second half was a completely different game. In contrast with the wide-open offense of the first half, both defenses clamped down. When O’Hagan scrambled out of
the pocket on the Crimson’s first possession of the second half, he was crushed by three hits from the Bears defense leaving him woozy and knocking him out of the game. When backup quarterback Chris Pizzotti came in on the next series, Darrell Harrison ’09 picked off his first pass and returned it 19 yards to midfield. After that the Crimson relied on the run, but it had little success as the Bears’ run defense, spearheaded by Kai Brown ’08 and co-captain Eric Brewer ’08, held the hosts to less than three yards-percarry on the day. “We watched a lot of film this week, we knew what they were gonna come with on the run,” Brewer said. “We shut them down and made them pretty one-dimensional, we made them go up top on the pass. We let up on too many big plays, but we stopped the run all night.” After a scoreless third quarter, the Bears recovered a fumble on the Harvard 24-yard line. But after three straight incompletions, Steve Morgan ’08 pushed a 41-yard field goal wide left. The Crimson then marched down the field and earned a first-and-goal at the Bears’ 8-yard line. When the defense held fast to hold the hosts to a field goal, Brown received the ball on its 20 with just over three minutes to go, needing a touchdown to tie the game. But Dougherty threw an interception and later threw his third pick of the game to ice the Harvard victory. “It was a great football game,” Estes said. “There was a lot of hitting going on out there. It was very typical of a Harvard-Brown football game. I admire (the players), we played hard. I don’t walk out of this thinking it’s the end of the world ... we’re going to get better.”
Notes from the Brown-Harvard game continued from page 12 existent rushing attack, the Bears’ offense was able to move the ball effectively against Harvard’s defense in the first half, racking up 236 yards of total offense. Brown played resiliently in the first two quarters, twice recovering from potentially demoralizing Harvard drives to even the score. But in the second half, Bruno’s offense was stagnant and seemed unable to establish any kind of rhythm. Brown totaled only 62 yards of total offense and after an impressive first two quarters, quarterback Michael Dougherty ’09 was 5-for-17 with three interceptions in the second half. Brown’s defense was stout, holding Harvard to three points and forcing a big fourth-quarter fumble, but the Bears couldn’t convert the turnover into points. The ensuing three-and-out possession, followed by a missed 41-yard field goal from normally reliable kicker Steve Morgan ’08 was a major turning point in the game and emblematic of Brown’s performance in the second half. Running game a source of concern, receivers shine Brown’s rushing offense struggled in the absence of tri-captain Dereck Knight ’08, who pounded Duquesne University for 208 yards last week. Knight came out in the first quarter after injuring his foot. Backup tailback Jonathan Edwards ’09 showed a quick burst on a few runs to the outside and plowed up the middle for a clutch conversion on a gutsy fourth-and-one play call from the Harvard 8-yard line in the
second quarter, but for much of the rest of the game Brown couldn’t get anything going on the ground. With Knight’s status uncertain — he was on crutches during the third and fourth quarters — Brown’s running game remains a big question mark heading into this Saturday. If the running game is a concern, Head Coach Phil Estes had to have been pleased with the play of the receiving corps. Paul Raymond ’08 had five catches for 106 yards and showed the speed that makes him the fastest sprinter in the Ivy League. He flew past the Harvard defense on a 63-yard pitch-and-catch for a touchdown in the first quarter. Raymond also had some nice blocks on the outside freeing up Brown receivers for more yards after the catch. Buddy Farnham ’10 was also impressive with eight catches for 102 yards. After a breakout performance last week, it was a disappointing second game for Colin Cloherty ’09, who had two drops and no catches. Secondary struggles Defensively, the Bears looked strong up the middle led by linebackers Frank Nuzzo ’09 (13 tackles, five unassisted) and tri-captain Eric Brewer ’08 (10 tackles). Defensive end Kai Brown ’08 was a force from the outside and provided the game’s biggest hit, laying out a Harvard receiver in the four th quar ter. Brown’s secondary was porous at times giving up over 300 passing yards. Even after knocking out Harvard’s starting quarterback Liam O’Hagan, Brown had trouble with backup Chris Pizzotti, who completed 10-of-16 attempts coming off
the bench. Bruno fanatics hit Cambridge A sizeable contingent of Brown partisans made the short trip north, providing some vocal (and occasionally vulgar) support for Bruno behind the Bears’ sideline. The Brown crowd did thin during the fourth quarter, but Bruno supporters made a lot of noise on Harvard third-downs and gave Brown a hearty ovation as the Bears headed into the locker room for halftime. A few fans were ejected from the game because of their rowdy behavior. The boisterous tailgating scene in the parking lots outside the stadium prior to kickoff and the big crowd gave this Ancient-Eight clash a Big Ten feel. A large collection of recent Brown football alums, including former Ivy League Player of the Year Nick Hartigan ’06, performed a pregame toast to their fraternity. There was no sign of New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick, who was spotted at last year’s BrownHarvard game. The traditional yuckfest competition between the Brown and Harvard bands was decidedly a backand-forth affair. Bruno scored some early creativity points by forming a dreidel (the game, originally scheduled for Friday night, was moved to Saturday because of Yom Kippur) and staging a mass faint when Harvard ran onto the field, but the Harvard band hit back with some clever gags poking fun at a few of the stereotypes of Brown students. The Crimson now lead the alltime series against the Bears 7728-3.
www.browndailyherald.com
E ditorial & L etters Page 10
MonDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Staf f Editorial
Deserving a debate
Excited rhetoric on both sides may obscure the issue, but the debate over gender-neutral facilities at Brown has a fairly straightforward problem at its core: Transgender students, who are among those in our community most vulnerable to abuse and discrimination, are not well-served by gendersegregated housing and other facilities. Greater flexibility for first-year housing and gender-neutral housing for upperclassmen deserve serious campus debate and consideration. Taking the issue of gender-neutral housing and bathrooms seriously is difficult because, quite simply, we do not live in a gender-neutral society. Our language isn’t equipped to deal with people who do not fit into the so-called “gender binary.” Our society recognizes important and real differences between men and women. Allowing male and female students to live together is not the purpose of these changes. But the implications of that — and the potential that male and female students would be uncomfortable sharing a bathroom — are legitimate concerns. Yet ultimately, as Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 points out, the purpose of gender-neutral facilities is “to provide choice and options so all students feel comfortable and safe in their living environment.” The Human Rights Campaign notes that one expert estimates that transgender individuals in the United States have a one-in-12 chance of being murdered, compared with a one-in-18,000 chance for the general population. Brown is and should be a space of tolerance and respect. But between 2003 and 2005, there were 52 hate crimes on campus ranging from assault (reportable) to vandalism (non-reportable), according to Department of Public Safety data. We shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking that discrimination is a problem for other people. roxanne palmer
Welcoming the fall schedule In the next few days, we’ll see some familiar faces we haven’t seen in a while: Michael and Dwight, Homer and Marge, Meredith and George. The fall television season kicks off this week. While some of us are entirely oblivious, others couldn’t be more excited — and not just because they really want to find out how Dr. House is doing without his minions. Even aloft on College Hill and with piles of unending schoolwork and a constant stream of stimulating activity, we’re still part of a community of young media consumers, all watching TV. We may have grown up with Mister Rogers and a supposedly well-intentioned spate of educational programming, but let’s face it — even watching Planet Earth is about entertainment and, dare we say it, escapism, more than education. Sure, we get the NASA channel, but aside from a few space buffs who really like watching footage from the International Space Station, it’s not exactly drawing the kind of viewers that Fox and NBC sitcoms are. Television binds us and our culture together to an alarming extent, given its overall poor quality and the variety of our modern-day media buffet. Yes, good shows stand out and provide cultural reference posts for us. When we make a reference to “The Simpsons” or ‘The Office,” chances are that the student standing next to us gets the joke. Social networking Web sites, instant messaging, cell phones and Internet memes have made it easy for us to keep in contact with friends around the world and share content, but a lone YouTube clip is still easy to miss and rarely original — without television, we’d have a lot less to talk about. On that note, don’t tell us how Jim and Pam’s first date went until we have a chance to see it ourselves.
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
Letters Shame on Brown for banning ROTC To the Editor: Some students reading this may have been at Brown long enough to recall earlier letters on the subject of ROTC and the military. The issue is not whether you or Brown agree with some of the military’s policies. In any case, protesting the military by any means is never going to change it. The issue is whether or not you understand the significance of leadership. Last year, Brown sent one ROTC graduate — thanks to Providence College’s program — to the military as a new officer. One! That is a horrible comment on Brown’s willingness to help ensure we have the “best and brightest” leading and protecting the thousands of enlisted people who have volunteered. By abdicating the development of new officers to other sources, Brown tacitly supports the problems that develop through the failed leadership of less liberal, less educated, less diverse officers. If Brown wants its influence on future policies and outcomes to be felt and heard, the way to do it is by having ROTC on campus. For those who are interested, they can investigate it directly. For those who oppose military policies, they can question them directly. Brown’s answer to all of this has been that students can go across town to PC’s program. Give me a break.
If you had to go to PC for a course, would you? It takes quite a commitment to make that commute while attending Brown. So, Brown has contributed nothing to the need for better thinking officers, who can rise to the top and give future presidents better advice on military matters. It contributes nothing to decisions in the field to commit enlisted troops to an operation. Its “contribution” consists only of negativism. Whether it is terrorism or gay rights, you can continue to expect the military not to reflect Brown’s values in your lifetime. Does that sound like a good thing? ROTC was banned from campus back in the early 1970’s, as a reaction to the Vietnam War. That action has always puzzled me. What was Brown thinking? “Punishing” the military for Vietnam? Preventing future wars? In any case, the banishment of ROTC is a 40-year-old relic of a conflict and attitudes long past. If you’re going to object to the administration’s policies, the time to do it is now. Trust me, when you become an alum, you have no voice and the school just wants your money. While you’re there is your only chance for change.
Brian Barbata ’67 P’00 P’03 Sept. 19
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
Philip Maynard, Alex Unger, Wudan Yan, Designer Ayelet Brinn, Catherine Cullen , 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 Chaz Kelsh, Philip Maynard, Alex Unger, Aditya Voleti, Wudan Yan 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
have something to say? write a letter letters@browndailyherald.com
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 MonDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
page 11
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Silly rabbit, Facebook is for kids MAHA ATAL Opinions Columnist
I checked my Facebook profile today. I had some wall posts from two or three weeks ago that I’d completely forgotten about. They were the kind of posts that expect a response: “When are you free for coffee?”, “Are you watching the U.S. Open?” or “What time is yoga class?” I used to respond to posts like these. Sometimes my wall would be filled with 5 or 6 posts from one person, all from a single evening when we were both home. Other times posts were only one word or phrase, and the wall post exchange worked something like a replacement for instant messenger. Sometime this summer, those conversations ceased. The few forgotten posts on my wall are relics of a dying practice. The most recent posts, instead, come from my mother, a former boss and a woman I’m trying to bring to Brown for a political science conference. All are over 30. None are people I’m interested in poking or turning into a Facebook Zombie — what are they doing on my social network? It’s not that I don’t appreciate the convenience of Facebook. Nowadays, I never forget birthdays. And with Facebook messages, I no longer have Brown’s e-mail server telling me my inbox is full. But the way I use the site has changed since it opened up to everyone. My friend list now includes potential employers, family members, politicians and most recently, a friend request from the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. If I ever apply there, I’m not sure I want the admissions representative searching my pictures from my freshman year.
Which means to stay on the new Facebook, I might have to censor my profile or my postings. Many of my more career-savvy friends already limit their profiles from November to April because that’s when they apply for summer jobs. Even worse, I’ve suddenly begun receiving messages from complete strangers. At my summer internship at BusinessWeek, sources would send me leads over Facebook. With a fairly common Arabic name, I’m also an easy target for anyone searching for single women of Middle Eastern descent and the number of suggestive friend requests I get from men
a little bit safer, more exclusive and calmer than MySpace or Friendster. That culture is being eroded, first by the expansion of members to the general population, then with an application policy that gives users’ personal data to application creators. Exclusivity finally went out the door this month, when Facebook announced that all our profile pages would be searchable. That means when a future employer or grad school professor Googles you, they’ll have access to data on your profile page. The disclaimer on the Facebook news feed reminds me that I can change my security settings to disable
Between the stalkers and the increasingly frenetic, messy layout of the applications, Facebook is starting to feel just like every other social network. over 35 is growing. Between the stalkers and the increasingly frenetic, messy layout of the applications, Facebook is starting to feel just like every other social network. The company says this is the goal: to make Facebook a platform for all our online activities, from doing business to having a food fight. But the reason I once loved the network was its specificity, a place to talk and share photos with my friends, a site that always felt
the search function anytime. But dumping the responsibility of protecting Facebook’s data on me, rather than asking users if they wanted pages to be searchable, is an alarming policy. Some grown-ups I’ve talked to have a different excuse: Facebook was designed for hip, young things, who don’t care about mixing up public and private. One of my BusinessWeek readers was surprised when I asked him to e-mail me his comments at work. He didn’t
know that “my mates and I hold such a clear line between business and personal.” But young people are as concerned as anyone about our privacy. We have grown up with identity theft and accounting fraud. We understand that personal data is capital and we are eager to protect it. Like generations before us, too, we have multiple identities — professional, social, familial. Just because the Internet allows us to link them all doesn’t mean we want to. Maybe in the early days of Facebook we were overly eager. For a while, we liked the hyper-connectivity of being able to find out all the personal details of the guy in our biology lectures. But that connectivity was confined to our student world. The organizers at Facebook have forgotten that their chief offering was community, not connection. Now I’m using Facebook less to keep in touch with college friends. Last weekend, my housemates and I threw a party for which all the invites went out by email, because we agreed that “Facebook was too public.” For the next generation of college students, Facebook offers even less community. They joined Facebook in high school—it’s no longer a privilege awarded to the campus elect. And they already know that data on Facebook will extend into their professional lives. So as we, the first generation of Facebook users graduate this year, I wonder if the network isn’t about to give way to a new student craze. I’m stumped as to what the next college social medium might be, but while I wait, I’m going to back to “old” technologies like cell phones, e-mail and (refreshingly) face-to-face conversations. Which has me thinking that maybe the demise of Facebook is a good thing after all.
Maha Atal ’08 now corresponds by telegram.
Forget Ahmadinejad — Let’s bring bin Laden to Brown
JACOB SCHUMAN Opinions Editor
NICHOLAS SWISHER Opinions Columnist
The American media has been ablaze this week with news that Columbia University has invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to their campus tonight to speak and answer questions during his visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting. Many critics consider Columbia’s invitation to Ahmadinejad unpatriotic and perhaps even on par with treason. An outspoken opponent of U.S. foreign policy, Ahmadinejad has publicly denied the Holocaust, repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and is alleged to be providing material support to insurgents in Iraq. For its part, Columbia hasn’t backed down from its controversial decision. Not only has the school refused to cancel the forum, Columbia Dean John Coatsworth even remarked that the university would have invited Adolf Hitler to speak. Damn. The controversy surrounding Columbia’s invitation raises compelling questions regarding the free exchange of ideas and the role of the academy in the modern state. But as Brown students, we’re far more concerned by the fact that an Ivy League rival has once again outdone us. Let’s one-up Columbia and reaffirm our position as the most anti-American, out-of-touch liberal institution on the face of the Earth. Let’s roll out the red carpet for the
only man more hated, more controversial and more evil than the Iranian president. Let’s invite Osama bin Laden to speak at Brown. Horrified? Us too. Granting a podium to the architect of 9/11 would make nearly any American queasy. But consider Columbia’s argument that a simple invitation to speak is not equivalent to an ideological endorsement. It doesn’t matter if the speaker is a radical mass-murderer or a threat to world peace — so long as the honorarium is within reason, the door should be open. We’ll ignore our collective moral compass just this once for the sake of intellectual diversity. Come on guys — let’s hear bin Laden out! Bin Laden has already reached out to Americans in his most recent video tape, so he would surely jump at the chance to speak at one of the country’s most prestigious universi-
in controversy. Heck, we could even hold a seance for the ghost of Saddam Hussein — imagine the Brown community snuggling together in sleeping bags on the floor of Sayles Hall, while a gothic organ sonata summons the specter of the U.S.’s most recently executed adversary. But let’s not restrict ourselves to the Axis of Evil. What other villains might give a good lecture? If Fidel Castro clings to life long enough for our invitation to reach Havana, he would make an engaging (if perhaps long-winded) speaker. Hugo Chavez would be another good choice — with winter approaching, we could use some free oil to help offset the cost of heating the University. Let’s think even bigger. And eviler. Lex Luthor, nemesis of Superman, would not only be happy to lecture, but he’d also probably use his wealth to donate a real student union
Come on guys — let’s hear bin Laden out! ties. The terrorist leader won’t have to worry about his speech being interrupted by strike teams, handcuffs or even a cruise missile — the armed forces haven’t been welcome on Brown’s campus for years. The Kaleidoscope Fund would provide for the terrorist leader’s travel expenses and speaker’s fee. And though the price of a speech by bin Laden would be steep, just imagine the value of a Q&A session with the man. Religious studies concentrators could quiz him about his twisted interpretation of Islam, while MCMers could ask him what it’s like to be constructed as “the Other.” Brown needn’t stop there. Let’s take our devotion to a free exchange of ideas to its logical conclusion by inviting other notorious villains to speak on campus. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, who already posseses a nuke, could potentially surpass Ahmadinejad
building, albeit one constructed entirely of kryptonite. Why not invite Darth Vader, galacticidal Sith Lord, to the Salomon Center? The academy is a place for all ideas — even those of the Dark Side — to receive fair and equal hearings. Lord Voldemort would be another compelling choice; you know all the Slitherins would be in attendance. The Joker, Shredder, Bowser — all very malevolent, very eloquent speakers. The classics department could sponsor Judas Iscariot to deliver a lecture on his unforgivable betrayal of the Son of God. A speech by Cain would provide a fascinating look at humanity’s first murder. Or let’s just invite Lucifer, the Fallen One himself. The rest of the country already thinks that the Ivy League is godless, so Satan would feel right at home. Who knows? A measured, wellreasoned speech from the Prince of Darkness
may even convince us. Imagine! We could paint Manning Chapel black and construct a fire pit on the main green where university officials could sacrifice virgins. Who else can we invite to speak? Lee Harvey Oswald? Brutus? NBC’s “To Catch A Predator” could lure an unsuspecting child predator into the Salomon Center, where he would then deliver an impromptu lecture. Or let’s hear Hurricane Katrina’s side of the story! It’s hard to find a better villain in the contemporary American zeitgeist than Ahmadinejad. Holding a dialogue with the Iranian president may seem as ridiculous as a Fourth of July lecture from Benedict Arnold. Yet to assert that American universities should refrain from intellectual dialogue with “evildoers” simply because they’ve been labeled as such reflects a polarizing and unacademic worldview. Listening to and challenging Ahmadinejad may indeed prove valuable. At the same time, we can’t help but note the irony of Columbia so staunchly defending the perceived intellectual contribution of a leader who has stifled free speech and student movements in his own country. For a university to defend its invitiation of a man who is categorically opposed to the open exchange of ideas — the academy’s most precious value — suggests hypocrisy. The free flow of knowledge seems to be a privilege afforded only to Ivy League schools in New York City and not the citizens of Iran. Columbia’s position reveals an upsetting brand of moral relativism, the notion that all viewpoints, even those of a man who would reject intellectual diversity, should be valued at all costs. Of course, we should still get the Dark Lord Sauron to give a lecture. Frodo be damned.
Columbia should invite Jacob Schuman ’08 and Nicholas Swisher ’08 to speak.
S ports M ONDAY Page 12
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
A missed opportunity: Brown’s fall to Harvard By Zachary Chapman Senior Staff Writer
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A missed opportunity. For Brown fans, that’s the only way to characterize the outcome of Saturday night’s 24-17 loss in the first ever night game at the 103-yearold Harvard Stadium.
FOOTBALL NOTES For much of the night, it looked like an aggressive Brown squad might spoil the debut of Harvard’s new lights and turf field, but ultimately Brown couldn’t build any kind of momentum in the second half or exploit Harvard’s inability to put the game away. As a result, a victory against the Crimson, which remained within reach well into the fourth quarter, eluded Brown for an eighth consecutive year. An upset against the heavilyfavored Crimson would have been a major boost for a Brown program looking to bounce back from a disappointing 3-7 season last year and Saturday night was a football game that, given one more fortuitous bounce or big play, Brown easily could have won. The loss showed the Bears’ potential — a fast-paced passing game and a hard-hitting run-defense were two bright spots — but also revealed that the Bears have a lot of work to do if they want to be an elite team in the Ivy League this year. A Tale of Two Halves A sluggish second half, especially on offense, doomed the Bears Saturday. Harvard’s halftime play was not much better, but the Crimson was able to control the ball and shut down Brown’s passing game in the second half. To defeat the University of Rhode Island in an intra-Ocean State matchup on Saturday, the Bears will have to play a more complete game of football. Even with a virtually noncontinued on page 9
With lights shining, football stumbles 24-17 By Peter Cipparone Spor ts Editor
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — From the tailgating scene outside venerable Har vard Stadium to an electrifying 63-yard touchdown catch and run by Paul Raymond ’08 and bone-crushing hits from the Brown defense, Saturday night’s football game at Harvard was memorable in ever y way except for one — the final result. Brown lost to Har vard 2417 under the lights in the first night game at Harvard. While the Bears offense proved proficient in the first half, the team was shut out in the second after failing to put together any sustained drives. The Bears’ night began on a sour note when Har vard marched straight down the field for a touchdown in its opening drive, capping its eight-play, 80-yard drive with a wide-open 21-yard touchdown pass from quar terback Liam O’Hagan. On the first play of the Bears’ ensuing possession, the Bears’ starting running back Dereck Knight ’08 hobbled off the field with a foot injur y. Knight immediately applied ice to his foot and re-entered the game for a few plays, but it became obvious that his injured foot would continued on page 9
Ashley Hess / Herald
Bobby Farnham ’10 made eight receptions for 102 yards in the Bears’ 24-17 loss to Harvard.
Wake Forest leaves w. soccer behind in 2-0 loss By Evan Kantor Contributing Writer
The women’s soccer team (0-5-1) fell behind early and suffered a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Wake Forest University (4-3-1) Friday night in Winston-Salem, N.C. The Demon Deacons tallied two first-half goals, and the Bears were unable to score despite several second-half chances. Wake Forest took the early lead with a goal by Amy Smerdzinski 5:08 into the contest. Jill Hutchinson added a second goal for the Demon Deacons in the 33rd minute. “In the first half we didn’t come
out as strong (as usual),” said cocaptain Julia Shapira ’08. The Demon Deacons outplayed the Bears in the first half, out-shooting the Bears 12-1, including a 7-1 advantage in shots on goal. Despite struggling in the first half, the Bears came out with more fight and matched Wake Forest’s intensity in the second half. “We had a very strong second half against a very strong team,” said Head Coach Phil Pincince. “We matched up well in the second half.” Brown managed to hold Wake Forest to two shots in the second half and no shots on goal. “We were a lot more confident in the second
half,” Shapira said. The Bears had several secondhalf chances but were limited to one shot. They took three corner kicks and had “a couple of chances on crosses in the box but we didn’t put (them) away,” Pincince said. Lindsay Cunningham ’09 had the Bears’ lone shot on goal, and Steffi Yellin ’10 recorded five saves in goal, all in the first half. Brown has played a tough schedule in preparation for Ivy League play, with two games against top 25 teams. “To be the best you’ve got to play the best,” Pincince said. “When you play teams of that caliber, you’re going to have fewer
chances.” Shapira said that the team has not been discouraged by the results thus far. “We know that we have a really tough schedule. ... I only see things going up from here,” she said. “Morale is good. We’re excited to be back home,” Pincince said. “We’re excited about what’s ahead.” Pincince added that the team needs to “know each other better on the field. ... The goals will come as long as we can continue to take shots.” The Bears host the University of Maine on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. before their Ivy League opener on Friday at Columbia.
Volleyball drops three By Amy Ehrhart Assistant Spor ts Editor
The volleyball team endured a challenging weekend with three consecutive losses at its annual Brown Invitational on Friday and Saturday. Despite the poor results, the Bears, now 1-8 this season, showed some grit in a four-game loss to Stony Brook University on Friday, then pushed Central Connecticut State University to five games on Satur-
day afternoon before losing three straight to the University of Portland in the nightcap. The Bears opened up the weekend with a close, exciting match in front of a big crowd on Friday. After falling behind early in the first game, Brown scrambled against the Seawolves’ balanced offensive attack, but came up short, 30-25. The second game was neck-and-neck continued on page 8
SCOREBOARD FRIDAY, SEP. 21 M. Soccer: Brown 3, San Diego 2 W. Soccer: Wake Forest 2, Brown 0 VOLLEYBALL: Stony Brook 3, Brown 1
Ashley Hess / Herald
Natalie Meyers ’09 (left) and Julie Mandolini-Trummel ’08 go up for a block against Stony Brook on Friday.
SATURDAY, SEP. 22 M. Cross Country: 2nd of 19 at Iona Meet of Champions W. Cross Country: 3rd of 21 at Iona Meet of Champions Equestrian: 1st of 4 at Faith Hill FIELD HOCKEY: Harvard 4, Brown 1
Football: Harvard 24, Brown 17 Volleyball: Central Connecticut State 3, Brown 2; Portland 3, Brown 0 SUNDAY, SEP. 23 W. Golf: 9th of 15 at Princeton Invitational M. Soccer: No. 9 Brown 2, No. 20 UCIrvine 2 M. Water Polo: Brown 16, Penn State Behrend 5; Brown 11, Iona 6